The difference is arbitrary because we don't play on a cartridge. Why would it matter to Showdown whether a rule change would require hacking an X/Y cartridge or not?
And that is subjective. What is "not Pokemon" to you could be "still Pokemon" to someone else. I've met people (and I'm not one of them) who've insisted that Smogon's clauses, as they are now, makes simulators a totally different game from the cartridge.
Swagger doesn't have priority either, and look at all the people in this thread who want to ban it.
And yet, as you can see, there are people who would remove the freeze part, if given the chance.
Swagger does have priority when used by Pranksters. That's what this entire thread has been about.
I'll refer you to the OP:
Then the moderators should stop the people who are seriously suggesting a Confusion Clause or change the OP.
A complex problem needs a complex ban, no?
This, Confusion wears out when a pokemon switches anyway so this kind of clause would be ineffective unless that little quirk is removed by GameFreak.
You have a point there, but regarding all the other clauses, they don't exist merely because they involve luck. The exist because teams abusing it would be very broken if they didn't. If there was no OHKO clause, I can imagine teams with bulky scarfed pokemon with an OHKO move dominating (and destroying stall as a playstyle). The Evasion clause also got banned because it was too powerful, not just because it was luck reliant (as the brief dominance of sand veil Garchomp, who ended up banned too, showed very well). Moody was actually banned for being too overpowered as well, not just because of the luck aspect. Drizzle + swift swim was banned because rain teams were so good, etc, etc.
If you're really going to argue this point, then I argue that we should remove all bans. Pokemon, by nature, is a non-competitive game. The question here is, is Smogon about making pokemon competitive? If this community truly cares about being competitive, we will ban things that take away interaction between players. Or is evasion clause, sleep clause, and any other clause enforced here somehow outside of the subjective ideas of what pokemon "should be?" In that case, we should stop enforcing these things, and play the game as-is. Any other option is catering to players' (no matter how large the majority) subjective opinions of what pokemon "should be."
You don't understand what "changing the mechanics of the game" means. Banning Swagger would not change the game's mechanics; you can set up a cartridge match and tell people that they're not allowed to bring Pokemon that know the move Swagger. Removing Ice Beam's freeze effect would change the game mechanics; you can't set up a cartridge match and tell people they're allowed to use Ice Beam but it can't freeze anything.
Um, no, it's not arbitrary. Simulators are designed to simulate the in-cartridge experience. Everything we implement on the simulators is based on real in-game mechanics, and we do not implement anything on the simulators unless it is possible in-game. This includes not only game mechanics, but also Dream World abilities, event Pokemon, etc. The only exception to this is the Sleep Clause, which has been around for a long time and was allowed only because of the severity of the case. Even then, such a clause can still be somewhat enforced in cartridge play through an agreement between the two players (i.e. neither player is allowed to sleep more than one opponent, and if they do, they forfeit by default). There is literally no way to enforce a ban on secondary effects in the actual cartridge without banning all moves that have secondary effects (unless you want a rule where a person who gets hax with Ice Beam/Flamethrower/etc. loses by default, which would be unfair since that is out of the player's control, unlike the conscious use of sleep moves).
This. Exactly. I personally think that if people were prepared against them (and I'm not talking about runing crap like Numel, I mean doing things like running 0 Atk IVs on rotom) and did not rage quited so much, we would realize that the prankster strategy is just not reliable enough to get high on the ladder. The problem is that those teams are relatively new, and they do well against this offensive inclined metagame, so it has taken many people by surprise. We should wait a little bit until the metagame stabilizes and then see if they are as broken as it seems.
Just a few posts below the one you quoted, I clearly stated that we're not going to alter inherent in-game mechanics to nerf SwagPlay. I assume people who reference to a confusion clause are asking to ban the moves that induce confusion as their primary effect. That would be feasible, although sub-optimal.
This is the best thing right here. People have forgotten, or are entirely ignoring, that this strategy has always been a thing. People who argue about Prankster making it unable to be revenge killed don't pay attention to the fact that one could use this strategy in Gen III, where on many Pokemon it WAS impossible to revenge kill, and yet did not have the impact people believe Prankster does. Is it because of the difference in the metas? Maybe, but I wouldn't say it was too different(maybe a bit TTar centric, but otherwise similar).
Back in Gen III there was no Prankster though. There's no comparison whatsoever to this suspect right here. The "go play chess" argument also holds no sense, pokemon is no chess but it's no poker either. Swagger reduces a match to pure luck and nothing else. I believe this was already agreed on a while ago. First argument is valid though, but keep in mind that a ban is needed when something makes the metagame unhealthy, which Swagger definitely does. The majority of the counter-arguments toward a Swagger ban I've seen so far are uneducated comments like "go play chess" or "use own tempo".
Wrong. The problem with Prankster Swagger was that its impossible to revenge kill, but without Prankster you could use Choice Scarf. Gen III didn't have CS, so there was impossible to revenge kill Swagger Pokemon. And yet? Swagger was never banned.
This is simply not true. There are right and wrong ways to play prankster. And there are good ways to build a prankster team also (for example, using ditto, hazards, etc). Is not "pure luck".
I have already offered a different argument. Hisorically, smogon has banned thing for being broken (as too powerfull) not just because they are luck based, annoying to play against, or because a lot of people want it banned. Prankster teams are not powerfull enough to derserve a ban. They lose a bunch of games because of pure luck too.
Ah yes, choice scarf ditto and hazards. The epitome of skill and superior play.
