Resource Ubers Old Gens Hub

Im all for banning evasion because you it makes the tier look like a joke (I dont think that but I have a feeling that is the general sentiment). And with the normal BW2 meta being pretty much perfect it might be a good idea to get rid of evasion to remove any doubt that its a joke-tier (On the other hand, this whole evasion thing and the drama it generates might be good for the relevancy of the tier...)

But I feel like a potential ban should be on the basis on tiering philosophy b/c:
1. Evasion was suspect tested and deemed not broken. when looking through his thread it seems like people thinks OHKO and Moody was kept banned b/c off some other reason than that it was broken:
There is no fundamental difference between Evasion clause and all the others BW Ubers has in place. Do you think Moody and 1HKO moves would overtake the metagame if they were unbanned?
Glalie and OHKO were insane and made stall rather unviable with just a small win% loss in other matchup.s (ex just have sheer cold on Kyogre and KO ferro 30% of the time instead of burning).

2. It is to bad for being used in serious tournaments like UPL. When evasion-pass got used in this UPL i thought about peppering for it, but then realized the all my existing teams would probably have a 65-70% win rate. A MU I would take any day.
(I have no idea is if it is a cancer on the ladder, that might be a real problem) When comparing it too smashpass its just a worse option. Im confident I would have a 60%+ win chance with smashpass in a big tournament. Smashpass gets you a lot of 66%+ win chances from team-preview and not really any auto-losses.

I dont get the point of the replays getting posted of evasion pass winning here.
I got outplayed for a majority of the game, but still won. Turn 14, my ninjask which 100% of the time dies to scald dodged it with 1 double team
So you are saying the you had a xWin% of sub-25% at turn14. Seems like an argument for it not being broken to me. Of course if you have a large sample there will be some games where evasion-pass get dirty wins, but just posting those replays are confirmation bias. In the end pokemon is a game of odds and chance and a cant be "solved", its just about maximizing your expected win%.

If I remember correctly steel even posted in the Policy Review thread that worse result were achieved with evasion-pass than when laddering using a "real" team.

TL;DR:
Its just a philosophical question without any real impact on the tournament meta.
For banning: Evasion makes the tier look like a joke, and the meta would not become worse without evasion-pass since its not a viable strategy in the first place.
Against banning: Why ban it if its not broken, just dont miss 4Head.
 

Manaphy

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The problem with all the arguments presented against the evasion ban are that they all say the same thing: Evasion is not broken, therefore it shouldn't be banned. This is a fundamental misread of the pro-ban argument.

The argument is not that Evasion breaks the meta, but that it needlessly adds more luck to the game. Additionally, there are no new interesting strategies that are available when evasion is allowed, as the move is entirely reliant on luck. Other luck-based moves (like Scald) may at least provide coverage options. There is no such thing with Evasion.
Evasion is also extremely easy to ban and legislate. That is why it is nearly universally banned both in Ubers as well as in other tiers. There is no particular reason why Gen 5 Ubers should be an exception to this.

The point of the replays posted isn't that Evasion is a extremely viable strategy, its that it's possible to run evasion in the tier and that it can have an effect on the outcomes of matches. The fact that this makes Gen 5 Ubers look like a "Joke" tier is a side point. In the first place, it should be extremely frustrating for any true competitive player that moves which are entirely dependent on luck are allowed for no particular reason.

The only possible argument one can make to keep Evasion is by hanging on to antiquated Uber's tiering policy.
 
Evasion isn't broken, uncompetitive, nor unhealthy. It is clearly an asset for BW ubers tier. It introduces new niche pokemons and interesting strategies such as chain evasion pass, stand alone evasion sweeper, and even counter-playing the hazards by dodging the phazing strategies. It is entirely BW playerbase's fault for not using anti-evasion strategies such as Unaware, Haze, Aura sphere, Swift, and etc. It's no wonder that the ones who are most fervently pro-ban are the ones who I have never seen appropriately hedged the evasion match up in teambuilder.

Am I supposed take the argument that evasion inject excessive luck seriously when competitive players routinely use Focus blast, Fire blast, Toxic, Hydro pump, and etc. In fact, evasion is inherently worse than using inaccurate moves because you have to trade a turn for a relatively small chance to be not hit with disadvantages such as getting counter-played, positional disadvantage, PP depletion, doing zero potential damage in that turn, inflicting no status, and of course the chance of getting hit.

The feeling about evasion making BW Ubers a joke, ruining games, etc is just a feeling in yourself. It has no bearing for the game. It is not a valid reason to tier.

Once again, the strongest argument for evasion clause is that it enables cute pokemons such as Espeon to roam freely in Ubers.
 

Fc

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Ubers Leader
Evasion isn't broken, uncompetitive, nor unhealthy. It is clearly an asset for BW ubers tier. It introduces new niche pokemons and interesting strategies such as chain evasion pass, stand alone evasion sweeper, and even counter-playing the hazards by dodging the phazing strategies. It is entirely BW playerbase's fault for not using anti-evasion strategies such as Unaware, Haze, Aura sphere, Swift, and etc. It's no wonder that the ones who are most fervently pro-ban are the ones who I have never seen appropriately hedged the evasion match up in teambuilder.

Am I supposed take the argument that evasion inject excessive luck seriously when competitive players routinely use Focus blast, Fire blast, Toxic, Hydro pump, and etc. In fact, evasion is inherently worse than using inaccurate moves because you have to trade a turn for a relatively small chance to be not hit with disadvantages such as getting counter-played, positional disadvantage, PP depletion, doing zero potential damage in that turn, inflicting no status, and of course the chance of getting hit.

The feeling about evasion making BW Ubers a joke, ruining games, etc is just a feeling in yourself. It has no bearing for the game. It is not a valid reason to tier.

Once again, the strongest argument for evasion clause is that it enables cute pokemons such as Espeon to roam freely in Ubers.
I do disagree with a lot of the takes here, but some of these are common anti-ban arguments, so I figured I'd respond with my own take on this. First off,
Evasion isn't broken
This isn't the point of the argument, no one seriously arguing for the ban of evasion supports their points based on this.
uncompetitive, nor unhealthy
This one is more relevant, because this is largely what the discussion is based on, evasion being an uncompetitive aspect of Pokemon. The definition of uncompetitive is important here though.

uncompetitive
[ˌənkəmˈpedədiv]

ADJECTIVE
(with reference to business or commerce) not competitive.
"that would destroy jobs and make industry uncompetitive"
characterized by a desire to avoid fair competition.
"uncompetitive practices"
Evasion I'd say does fall under this definition, because it is directly basing a game plan on avoiding fair competition, forcing the game to remove a portion of player skill in favor of more unfair chances to dodge moves by the evasion user.
It introduces new niche pokemons and interesting strategies such as chain evasion pass, stand alone evasion sweeper, and even counter-playing the hazards by dodging the phazing strategies.
Introducing niche Pokemon and strategies into a metagame is no real reason to keep it, especially with how volatile this specific strategy is. The counterplaying phasing and hazards part does exist, but it's not through competitive means. You say it's through dodging the phasing strategies, but while dragon tail can miss 1/10 times, why should the counterplay to roar and whirlwind which are 100% accurate moves be to add luck into the game and base a strategy around dodging those moves.
It is entirely BW playerbase's fault for not using anti-evasion strategies such as Unaware, Haze, Aura sphere, Swift, and etc. It's no wonder that the ones who are most fervently pro-ban are the ones who I have never seen appropriately hedged the evasion match up in teambuilder.
A lot of these things listed doesn't even reliably counter evasion, and since your focus is on evasion pass I'll mainly just say how it doesn't deal with that. Unaware isn't immune to the boosts of stored power, and the only unaware Pokemon are RU at best. So adding either quagsire or clefable which are the highest tiered ones is putting yourself at an inherent disadvantage to try and counter team something this won't beat. After only 6 speed boosts and nothing else, Phys.def Quagsire takes a ton of damage, and sure it can carry haze, but the fact is that using such a bad mon to check evasion pass still doesn't cover the arceus, just the Espeon likely once, and if there's more boosts it doesn't work.
0 SpA Espeon Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Quagsire: 265-313 (67.2 - 79.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Haze is more widespread, but still very hard to fit and puts the team at a disadvantage against every other mu. The only Ubers to get it are Darkrai and Zekrom, and Darkrai has tons of much more useful moves to run instead of using a slot on haze such as dark pulse, sub, taunt, nasty plot, dark void, focus blast, etc. Zekrom has to give up it's breaking power with moves like bolt strike, focus blast, outrage, dragon claw, volt switch, draco meteor, or even set up with hone claws and sub to try and cteam this, and aside from these there's like tentacruel which has much more useful move slots as a utility Pokemon, and niche picks like xatu and rain sweepers like omastar which also really need their moves to fulfill the role they play.

Moves that bypass the accuracy check are rare, and basically none of them do anything against evasion. The only one with power to actually do damage and that is somewhat used in ubers is aura sphere, but how is that beating an evasion pass team of espeon which resists, ninjask which quad resists, arceus ghost and shedinja which are immune, gliscor which resists, and smeargle which is the only one weak to the move. Swift and aerial ace just can't solve evasion by themselves. Sure there are ways to deal with it in the teambuilder, but to cover the mu extremely well the best option is perish song assuming mr.mime doesn't ever make a comeback, because the haze users are inconsistent at beating espeon and arceus ghost aside from darkrai, which is a great Pokemon it's hard to dedicate to a hazer. This very limited pool of ways to force luck out of the equation are really restricting on building, and even if people rely on pseudo checks like continuous phasing and speed control like in this game that's been brought up before, it won't always work.
Am I supposed take the argument that evasion inject excessive luck seriously when competitive players routinely use Focus blast, Fire blast, Toxic, Hydro pump, and etc. In fact, evasion is inherently worse than using inaccurate moves because you have to trade a turn for a relatively small chance to be not hit with disadvantages such as getting counter-played, positional disadvantage, PP depletion, doing zero potential damage in that turn, inflicting no status, and of course the chance of getting hit.
There's a difference between evasion and low accuracy moves though, the user is actively taking the risk of missing low accuracy moves, while the evasion user is taking away the chance for the opponent to hit moves, even if they choose the less risky route of something like surf over hydro pump. It's the lack of a choice between both players whether or not the move hits which makes evasion uncompetitive, in the builder you can take this advice and use 100% accuracy moves, and still miss.
The feeling about evasion making BW Ubers a joke, ruining games, etc is just a feeling in yourself. It has no bearing for the game. It is not a valid reason to tier.
Fair enough, these small points aren't enough since they lack evidence and reasoning, but the posts so far have mostly had actual reasoning behind them.
Once again, the strongest argument for evasion clause is that it enables cute pokemons such as Espeon to roam freely in Ubers.
Can't tell if this is just a meme or not, but a lot of evasion pass mons like espeon are used on other teams. Espeon plays on sun, Smeargle can smash pass without evasion being used, Arceus ghost is arceus ghost, and gliscor is a solid toxic staller option. The only ones not used are ninjask and shedinja, because their stats and movepool sucks, but evasion makes them used because they don't need to be good mons if they can avoid attempts to be hit.
 
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Cynara

Banned deucer.
Disappointed in the arceus voting, thanks for ruining the tier and returning it to the varianced awful dpgood. There are literally 3 pokemon that are much more meta polarising than arceus in DPP. People just don't like change (that should have been rectified 10 years ago) and giving the better meta a chance.
 

Lasen

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Disappointed in the arceus voting, thanks for ruining the tier and returning it to the varianced awful dpgood. There are literally 3 pokemon that are much more meta polarising than arceus in DPP. People just don't like change (that should have been rectified 10 years ago) and giving the better meta a chance.
Imagine how angry/disappointed Mr.378 needs to be to agree with a Cynara post. We're living in the dark age of Smogon- or maybe it's the beginning of a new era? Who knows.


On a serious note, DPP is now in a more primitive state; FARceus vote being something that's been looming in the back of our minds, combined with the new era of old gen hub lead by steelskitty (which I have to endlessly thank her for) lead to a more direct approach as well as discussion being started as to how Arceus shakes up a metagame which, prior to this year, only saw play in UPL and the DPP Ubers Cup. The ladder would be pestered with samples that were outdated and DPP OU teams and gimmick sets such as Physical Dialga and Choice Scarf Skymin + Jirachi. However, this year we saw some new players come up and show their prowess as well as old great players such as Tomahawk running it back with their friends. On top of the aforementioned, the ladder was actually extremely competitive this time around, with every tournament player that had even the slightest interest in DPP (and wasn't named BKC :psysad:) jumping on it and trying their hardest to get on top. Overall, it helped develop the lead metagame, with Trick Scarf Deoxys-Speed coming out as the top predator of the lead metagame, feasting upon lesser leads such as Colbur Deo-S and Darkrai. The "unviable" leads that were previously very niche as they allowed Sash Deo-S to get two layers up, such as Kyogre saw a resurgence. Toxic Spikes saw a meteoric rise and a later downfall due to the evolution of the metagame. Overall, it felt like DPP was at more or less a healthy state. Now, this doesn't come without a few downsides, such as the fact that the lack of team preview lead to some extremely questionable decision making being needed at all times. Having to guess if the Arceus that had yet to be revealed would be a CM sweeper, the ever-dangerous Extreme Killer or some Supportceus that just so happens to be the exact combination of typing + moveset that you'll never ever break now that you let your opponent kill that Earthquake Giratina-O! Moreso, a lot of niche mons absolutely disappeared off the face of the Earth because the role compression that Arceus provided for teams demanded the tier to get either way bulkier or way more offensive. While I did vote ban at first because I genuinely think that Arceus made the tier a chore to play and build, a sentiment I am sure multiple people shared and the reason why multiple legacy players didn't sign up for it this year, I feel like it was just the fears of someone who didn't play enough of the tier. Moreover, since it is in the game and you can get it on any cartridge, from a legality standpoint, I think we can have it unbanned.
Where am I going with this, you might ask. I think the Ubers community has built a very strong base now that we're working with older generations more actively and we're ever so adaptable. I firmly believe that the community will put effort back into figuring out what's good again, even if the ground is shaky at this exact moment.

Second note: I worked kinda hard on a DPP lead guide that's not perfect nor complete but I am still proud of it. Please take a look and give me feedback!



Oh btw obligatory Oh my GOD just ban Highlord evasion already!
 
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Evasion I'd say does fall under this definition, because it is directly basing a game plan on avoiding fair competition, forcing the game to remove a portion of player skill in favor of more unfair chances to dodge moves by the evasion user. Introducing niche Pokemon and strategies into a metagame is no real reason to keep it, especially with how volatile this specific strategy is.
I suggest that you interrogate why you think that it's unfair to dodge. Dodging and hitting does not have any positive nor negative value. It is merely a game element that changes your probability to win, lose, or tie. As kebabe posted earlier - the game is probability management and evasion is one among all other game mechanics that allows you to manipulate the probability of win. You claim that this strategy is volatile which is true. However, you need to recognize that all strategies are highly volatile, and frequently more volatile than evasion. For example, hyper-offense team is a highly volatile strategy that rely on your opponent not bringing the exact right combination of game elements and executing it in right order to defeat that particular hyper-offense team. Either you have match up or you don't. Isn't that highly volatile and unhealthy by your logic? Should we go ahead and send Deoxys-Speed and Accelgor to AG?

It's my belief that evasion appear to be so volatile because most people don't bother hedging against evasion strategies. Goat heart correctly pointed this out earlier.

a lot of points about that current counters isn't good enough
I'm not interested in discussing about fine details about various game elements and how they interact with baton pass to result into favorable outcomes. Why not? Because the only point to argue about the interactions is to demonstrate how broken this strategy is and how the current game elements are lacking in the current metagame at this time point for whatever reasons. You conceded that evasion is not broken, therefore I will not waste my time restating how much I agree with your premise that evasion is not broken.

There's a difference between evasion and low accuracy moves though, the user is actively taking the risk of missing low accuracy moves, while the evasion user is taking away the chance for the opponent to hit moves, even if they choose the less risky route of something like surf over hydro pump. It's the lack of a choice between both players whether or not the move hits which makes evasion uncompetitive, in the builder you can take this advice and use 100% accuracy moves, and still miss.
Ah now, we're on something where we clearly have differences. I don't agree with your perspective of evasion depriving your opponent of choice.

If you are playing in a game where evasion is agreed to be allowed, then it is merely other move to anticipate. Instead of relying on Surf, you would choose to switch to your hazer for instance. But if you don't have a hazer and you're stuck on relying on the sheer luck because you failed to hedge against evasion on teambuilder, then isn't that solely your own fault as an inadequate teambuilder? It is no different from losing to X threat because you didn't bring YZABC counters/checks.

Fair enough, these small points aren't enough since they lack evidence and reasoning, but the posts so far have mostly had actual reasoning behind them. Can't tell if this is just a meme or not, but a lot of evasion pass mons like espeon are used on other teams. Espeon plays on sun, Smeargle can smash pass without evasion being used, Arceus ghost is arceus ghost, and gliscor is a solid toxic staller option. The only ones not used are ninjask and shedinja, because their stats and movepool sucks, but evasion makes them used because they don't need to be good mons if they can avoid attempts to be hit.
My point is that the biggest reason to be pro-ban evasion clause is that it is for aesthetics. Notice how the pro-ban argument basically boils down to "ewww it's disgusting that I have to be subjected to the existence of this?!"
 
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steelskitty

you deserve so much more than this
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I’m going to preface my response by clarifying a difference in faith between your stance and mine.

You begin your follow-up post with the accusation that my stance is "in bad faith,” yet immediately afterwards you conclude your post with “I ‘haha’ reacted your initial post because there really was nothing of value to engage with.”

I, on the other hand, am open to changing my mind on this if evidence of Evasion-pass meriting a ban is presented.
You misunderstand what I meant when I said your prior post was in bad faith. When I claimed it was in bad faith, what I was referring to was the way you knowingly misrepresented Ubers tiering philosophy and attacked an argument that nobody had actually brought up. You were willfully distorting the truth of things (specifically with your claim, plus everything extending from it, that "[t]he spirit of Ubers is that things are banned only if they are broken"). Though I found your initial argument essentially without value, I actually engaged truthfully, directly, and substantially with every point you made anyway. I was not acting in bad faith — you were, when you pretended the debate was about brokenness.
Let’s not get sidetracked by semantics, you knew exactly what I meant by “broken”; if I ctrl+F “broken” I see Nayrz and Cynara using the term and unfortunately my post wasn’t uniquely addressed to just you.
It's true that your post was not addressed to anyone in particular, but it's also relevant that, at the time of your post, absolutely nobody, in this thread or the Policy Review one, advanced the argument that we should ban Evasionpass because it's broken. If you ctrl+f "broken" you'll actually get five hits. What do they say?
I personally don't see any good reason to keep Baton Pass in the tier, BW Ubers is a old generation tier that is in a uniqiue position of having not only one, but two viable Baton Passing team styles that also happen to be fairly strong (Shell Smash Smeragle Passing and Espeon Evasion Passing). There is also already a strong precedent for banning baton pass in ubers as it was already done twice. Once in the recent SS Ubers Suspect Test, and also banned in USM Ubers. The main argument I've seen for keeping it in this tier is somewhat along the lines of "it's technically not broken and doesn't achieve many tournament wins", which I believe is a poor reason to keep something that is clearly unhealthy and that the tier would be much better off without, as there is no use for baton pass outside of passing chains.
I'm not that great of a BW Ubers player, and therefore will avoid addressing the 'competitiveness' or nuances in the viability, playstyle, or degree of 'broken' that evasion or baton pass supposedly constitutes. I'd prefer to focus on one aspect that Steel touched upon without mentioning in his original post - consistency.
Evasion and Baton Pass are two different things. If the argument is that Evasion further breaks Baton Pass, and Baton Pass is already broken, the topic should probably go around Baton Pass. Evasion may be low hanging fruit in competitive Pokemon, but my next point explains my problem with this...
Its very simple, to preserve competitiveness and player skill, this is literally the reason: simplified, it isn’t about good/broken evasion or OHKO moves are in the metagame, its because we want to preserve the aspect of player skill the best we can and is the objective of smogon philosophy, even when talking in the grounds of Ubers. Evasion clause being removed was literally overturned in 2015 in oras because people were fed up of facing evasion strats and an element that should have never been freed from the get-go.
BP I think is a less black and white case- I never bought the argument that it's uncompetitive, I've always been more of the opinion that it's simply broken.
What do we have here? Respectively: a pro BP-ban post, an abstention from metagame discussion, an invitation to discussion, a pro-Evasion ban post, and another pro-Evasion ban post with an ambivalent take on BP in Ubers. If your argument wasn't addressing my OP, it wasn't addressing anyone else, either.

Now that I've thoroughly reestablished you were attacking a strawman and hadn't engaged with any tangible pro-ban arguments in your initial post, I'm going to start on your reply, where you finally do start to get into the real substance of this discussion.
As it turns out, none of what you said amounts to [evidence that we should ban Evasionpass], and working backwards from your conclusion in which you want to see Evasion-pass banned will not ameliorate your cause in this end.

To illustrate my point, I quote this remark: “The only viable Pokemon that learns Perish Song is Arceus, and Perish Song is on the very fringe of viability — of the many dozens of BW Ubers teams I've built, I've found space for Perish Song Arceus on exactly one and am not even convinced it's optimal there.”

The fact is, if an element warrants a strategy to counterplay it, the correct response is not to adhere to one’s idealized view of the metagame and get ban-happy on things that disturb it, but rather, to adapt to the game state accordingly to nullify the threat that said element poses.

Therefore, in this particular example, the correct conclusion to the observation that Perish Song is effective in counterplaying Evasion-pass is not “Perish Song Arceus only fits on one team and I don’t think it’s optimal,” but rather, “the rise of Evasion-pass as a metagame trend increases the viability of Perish Song Arceus so it is good sense to increase my own usage of it so as to adapt to metagame trends accordingly.”
My observation that support Arceus almost never wants to run Perish Song stems from over seven years' time playing in a metagame where evasion was not an issue that every team needed to prepare for. My opinion that it isn't a move support Arceus wants to run almost ever is a reflection on an ideal metagame without evasion. Since Evasionpass's usage in tournament play has increased lately, I in fact have begun to run Perish Song on my Arceus and Haze on the handful of Pokemon that can. I have adapted to Evasionpass, and to what end? Your post neglects to mention that metagame development goes both ways — you can try to adapt to Evasionpass, but Evasionpass can adapt back. All this talk of Perish Song as a failsafe seems pretty silly when you consider that Evasionpass can just run Mr. Mime to block it, as Highlord has been doing for a while. I have addressed, in my OP and my initial response to you, every single thing in BW that has been proposed so far as a legitimate Evasionpass counter. I have demonstrated why these things cannot, in fact, beat Evasionpass reliably. Fc04 has an underrated post where he addresses a few illegitimate things that have been proposed as Evasionpass counters, and he highlights the inconsistency of those also. It is my carefully considered metagame opinion that the only thing in BW Ubers that will always reliably check Evasionpass is Haze; I feel we've amply addressed everything else.

So let's talk about Haze. If you click the spoiler in my BW Ubers OP, you'll see the tier has eighty-four viable Pokemon. A total of six — approximately 7.1% of these — learn Haze. These Pokemon, in descending order of viability, are Darkrai, Tentacruel, Zekrom, Omastar, Qwilfish, and Xatu. I want to make a few things abundantly clear about this small selection of Pokemon. Only half of them, in a metagame with or without evasion, surpass B- rank viability. Furthermore, In a metagame without evasion and Baton Pass, none of these has any reason to run Haze. Tentacruel, for instance, prefers Toxic to check Calm Mind Arceus, Qwilfish would rather Destiny Bond or set hazards, Xatu has nearly comical 4mss as-is, and so on and so forth. Recognize also that half these Pokemon (Qwilfish, Omastar, and Tentacruel) are Rain-exclusive or strongly prefer Rain. Only half these Pokemon, too, actually possess the firepower to beat Evasionpass after they Haze it — Xatu, Qwilfish, and Tentacruel aren't going to do the job on their own. You have to realize that Evasionpass is only consistently handled in the teambuilder, and your method for doing this is exceptionally poor. Hell, even if you do your due diligence and run a Haze set on one of these six Pokemon on every team, you can still lose if that Pokemon happens to get Spored or takes too much entry hazard damage, or the opponent carries an attack or status move to beat your Hazer. This is coincidentally why orch's argument that the existence of evasion makes BW Ubers a more diverse metagame is fundamentally bullshit. In a world with evasion, you have a few things that can run Double Team or Minimize standalone, in addition to what's meaningfully one new team — the fullpass chain and minor variations thereof. If evasion goes, you don't need to run one of the six Hazers on every team to have a competitive matchup versus Evasionpass; you can use the other 92.9% of the metagame in that slot instead. Building is quantifiably more, rather than less restricted in a tier that allows evasion, and evasion adds nowhere near enough to a tier to make up for that difference. This means that evasion meaningfully brings down the diversity of teambuilding options available in BW Ubers — this is part of why it's a net negative, rather than a net positive, to the health of the metagame.

I was excited when I read the part of your post I dedicated those last two paragraphs to because I was hoping you'd had a change of heart and actually wanted to engage with the substance of what I said. What we get from your next paragraph, however, is a series of additional bad-faith non-sequiturs, the sort that only a person who knows they're on the losing side of an argument would resort to. I will address these individually.
Examples of you working backwards from your conclusion are rampant elsewhere across your several posts. To address a few:
It's first of all relevant that you never demonstrate how any of the things I highlight in my two posts are "working backwards from [my] conclusion" that evasion and Baton Pass are uncompetitive metagame elements, but I'll let that slide since I think that's a pretty minor point. Even if you can find "instances of logical fallacies" in my posts (although you haven't named any), that alone doesn't preclude the possibility that the conclusions I've reached are still valid. Insinuating otherwise is itself a metafallacy.
(1) Fc04 would have won easily had he Fire Punched instead of ESpeed
This is a poor analysis of the replay I linked, which was itself not an argument but rather an example to bolster my point that Evasionpass uncompetitively takes agency out of the opponent's hands. Fire Punch Deoxys-A is a relic; it requires Dark Pulse in that slot in modern BW2 because Deoxys-S has for a long time run sets that Psycho Boost + Extreme Speed fail to 2HKO. Fc04 confirms he didn't have it when he gives you the benefit of the doubt in addressing how "Goat Heart [said] I won if I clicked dark pulse." Regardless of what his Deoxys had, though, clicking a move that isn't Extreme Speed on turn 2 isn't an objectively correct, game-winning play. It's a minor optimization that doesn't relevantly change the gamestate. Regardless of what Fc04 does, he doesn't have a guaranteed way to stop Gliscor coming in off a Baton Pass and threatening PP stall or setup. Not every game that Evasionpass wins is rife with unquestionable misplays on the opponent's side — and there even is still something to learn about Evasionpass's uncompetitiveness from the games that do feature misplays.
(2) an entire paragraph of your post is dedicated to analyzing a ladder which has been up for less than 24 hours
This is a willful misrepresentation of the part of my post that mentions the RoA ladder. Analysis of the ladder itself is barely a relevant component of that paragraph — I don't even devote a full sentence to it, just the first clause of one, where I anecdotally mention how I happened to play against a lot of Evasionpass matchups during one laddering session. What the paragraph actually is is an analysis of myself playing 50 games with Evasionpass. Here is the paragraph you refer to:
Now, does this mean that Evasionpass is totally unbeatable if you only half-check it (with i.e. a Skill Swap Deoxys-S, or a Dual Phazing Giratina-O)? No! I played fifty ladder games using exclusively Evasionpass today and went 39-11. The amount of variance involved with it is absolutely insane — you can beat a player close to the top of the ladder by winning a single 50/50, then lose the next game to a 1000-rated player who's running Rock Blast Cloyster. I couldn't pass 1360 with it, which is over 100 points under the #1 spot. The players who bemoan Evasionpass's inconsistency certainly aren't wrong. Though I still think it does have a lot of autowin matchups in the hands of a capable player, it's not unfair to assess it as a strategy that a better player shouldn't be using versus a worse one. It's also certainly not common in high-level play; I can think of more replays than the two you posted (both of which were lost by blatant misplay on the Evasionpassers' parts), but there's no denying that only a small number of Evasion-oriented teams have cropped up recently in Ubers tournaments. Evasionpass has actually overtaken the BW Ubers ladder (I'd estimate about 20% of the games I played were Evasionpass mirrors), but, sure, it's not common in tournaments, and it probably won't be.
and here is the clause devoted to "ladder analysis:"
Evasionpass has actually overtaken the BW Ubers ladder,
Now, I didn't even write that because I think it makes a strong case to ban Evasionpass. I bring up my laddering to provide some empirical evidence of how Evasionpass does out in the wild, and I bring up the ladder to remind the reader that high-level tournament play isn't the only metric we have to evaluate Evasionpass's metagame impact. If you wanted to engage with that paragraph of my post, you would have addressed what it's actually about: how evasion is a volatile mechanic that itself does not reward skill. There are takes in that paragraph that I think you as a pro-Evasionpass user would agree with, but you didn't engage with those either, so how am I supposed to meaningfully engage you back?
and (3) yet another paragraph is dedicated to computing the odds of the outs that Evasion-pass affords its user but the crux of it is that this out is not much better than a myriad of other game elements. Palkia fails to check to Kyogre if Thunder paralyzes or crits, a 34.375% chance; should we ban Thunder? Espeon complicates getting TSpikes up, yes, but this is just as true for the Magic Sun teams; perhaps that should be suspected as well by your logic?
And this, to me, seems like more refusal to address the substance of what I'm really saying. Your math is first of all wrong — the critical hit chance in BW is 6.25%, not 4.375%, so Kyogre actually has greater odds to render Palkia useless should it predict its switch-in with a Specs Thunder (unboosted Modest Thunder actually has a .4% chance to 2HKO without Stealth Rock, but I can excuse that oversight too because it's also not a big part of your argument). Even giving you all this, your argument here still boils down to two faulty analogies and a refusal to make an important distinction. Kyogre haxing Palkia with Thunder is not analogous to a Pokemon clicking Double Team. When Kyogre breaks through Palkia with Thunder without Palkia damaging it back, that is not something that, all else being equal, wins the game for the Kyogre player. There is opportunity for skillful counterplay post-Thunder hax — some examples of this are setting hazards to limit Kyogre coming in again, switching to a Thunder resistance or immunity and foddering Palkia off later, and revenge killing Kyogre with a faster Pokemon. When Gliscor clicks Double Team and the opponent's 100% accuracy move becomes 75% accurate and misses, leading Gliscor to get a free turn, that is something that the Evasionpass player, all else being equal, takes and runs with and wins the game on. The counterplay to the opponent doing this is intrinsically not skillful — it is just hoping that you hit moves. This applies too to your faulty analogy about Magic Sun: there is relevant counterplay that can still win either side the game, regardless of who wins the Espeon 50/50s, but this is not the case for Evasionpass. Evasionpass takes this one miss and capitalizes on it, turning it into many more by virtue of Substitute stalling, Ingrain healing, and collecting boosts until you can't break their Substitutes even if you hit. This is why Evasionpass is distinctly uncompetitive even among strategies that rely on chance: hypothetically perfect counterplay in-game still almost always loses to one 25% chance. You might say that this chance itself is not that high, but why then do we ban OHKO moves? Don't they, on paper, favor the player not using them, too?

The meaningful distinction you fail to make, furthermore, is that Thunder has uses outside of its Paralysis and critical hit chance — it happens to be Kyogre's best coverage move alongside Ice Beam, so even if it never crit or Paralyzed, people would still use it. Evasion's use is just making the opponent miss. If Double Team did not make the opponent miss, nobody would ever run it. Evasion-raising and Accuracy-lowering moves are, significantly, the only moves that change stat stages to the explicit end of haxing the opponent. How can you call a game environment competitive if it contains an element expressly designed to make the opponent lose to luck?

I'm going to go a bit out of order to address your last two points, because your closing sentence compels me to produce evidence that also helps invalidate your penultimate argument. But first, an aside:
Let’s not talk about “ironic” when your own player literally failed to win with it this past UPL.
I am at a loss as to how this is a clever or even relevant rebuttal to my claim that your initial post was vapid and not conducive to the spirit of free discourse. I will freely acknowledge that I made a managing mistake by putting Endill in this slot week 1, rather than Peli, who understands Evasionpass better. What I will not abide by is the notion that this replay of FLCL beating him invalidates my argument that Evasionpass is uncompetitive. On turn 5, Endill makes a grave misplay: he does not Ingrain with Smeargle. Clicking Ingrain with Smeargle is the optimal move because, even assuming FLCL stays in, he needs to both roll Scald off Sleep Talk and Burn it to take down Smeargle — a 10% chance. The Ingrain is relevant not because Endill need fear the Kyogre's Roar; rather, Ingrain neutralizes the effect of Tentacruel later setting a single layer of Toxic Spikes. This becomes significant when SubCM Arceus-Ghost later dies to Poison before it can finish off FLCL's team, and also has relevance in the hypothetical where Espeon comes in on this single layer and neutralizes its Poison damage with Ingrain+Leftovers recovery. It's not a literal certainty that Endill wins if he Ingrains when he's supposed to, but if he plays the rest competently he should have a very hard time losing. My point here is that all this replay demonstrates is that Evasionpass is not always easy to use. FLCL does not win this game because he plays better; he wins because Endill plays himself.

Now that we've cleared that up, let's get back on track by addressing the more substantial parts of your conclusion:
Instead, I suggest you carefully reconsider from first principles why Evasion-pass has seen essentially 0 usage in tours, why it has a poor win-rate when it does see usage...
The rest of this and my two other posts address these first two points amply, but I'll briefly mention again that Evasionpass's low tour usage and poor winrate don't engage with my thesis: that Evasion, particularly when paired with Baton Pass, is uncompetitive. To successfully contest my central claim, you have to meet me on the metagame level in addition to dismantling my stance on what makes a game competitive. When you cite Evasionpass's low tournament usage and poor winrate, you do neither of these things — in fact, all you're doing is circling back to the conclusion of your first post, that we shouldn't ban Evasion because it "isn't broken," when I already thoroughly debunked that. I am not the one who needs to spend more time thinking about their arguments — that's you.
the true greats of BW2 like Hack and 2x BW cup finalist + Classic winner Sitonaii agree with my stance.
This part of your post is actually intolerable, in part because it ad hominem attacked my friend Cynara for no conceivable reason before a mod very deservedly edited that out, and also in part because it's flatly untrue. Unfortunately, this is another lie you won't be able to get away with — Hack actually disagrees with your stance.
hack.PNG

It's moderately relevant that he fully doesn't agree with my stance either, but I'd love for you to produce some tangible evidence of him explicitly concurring with yours when this flatly contradicts that. I don't think you can.
Recognize that even if Hack did agree with your stance, using his approval as an argument that we should therefore agree with your own perspective constitutes nothing more than an appeal to authority. It's plausible for a good player to agree with a conclusion that is logically unsound. Even if you could name multiple "greats of BW2" who agree with you (you can't), that still wouldn't strengthen the logic of your argument. And, hey, I like Sitonai a lot, but I don't think anyone's ever claimed he's one of the "greats of BW2" besides you, just now. I made finals of the only BW Ubers Cup I ever played — shouldn't this give my perspective at least equal weight to his, according to your logic, even if we disregard my other BW achievements?

I'm actually very willing to engage you anyway regarding which way the Ubers community writ large leans on this, because it makes my side look a hell of a lot better than yours. The only people conclusively in your corner on this one are dream, orch, and apparently Sitonai, based on all the evidence publicly available to me. Now let's look at all the people who consider Evasion and/or Baton Pass unhealthy, citing logs publicly available in the Ubers discord plus screenshots from two POTW threads:
64 Squares:
64 squares.PNG

Aishia:
aishia.PNG

Carl Murray:
carl murray.PNG

CKW:
ckw.PNG

Exiline:
exiline.PNG

Fc04:
fc04.PNG

HailFall:
hailfall.PNG

Highlord:
highlord.PNG

iry:
iry.PNG

Kei Kikuno:
kei.PNG

Manaphy:
manaphy.PNG

Minority:
minority.PNG

Peli (and Cynara):
peli.PNG

Pohjis:
pohjis.PNG

Reje:
reje.PNG

Lasen:
lasen.PNG

Staxi:
staxi.PNG
You can look to Aberforth's underrated post in my Policy Review thread for yet more community opinion on the legality of Evasionpass, just as you can point to the general sentiment of this thread, where orch appears to be authentically the only person making posts that broadly agree with yours. The fact that the BW playerbase is "near unanimous about [evasion]," as per Nayrz's dictum that sparked this thread's discussion, is self-evident. Almost nobody seems keen on preserving it.

I cite all these perspectives not because I think they bolster my own — many of them use arguments I don't, in fact — but rather because the sheer volume of them helps me address what you frame as the point you "want to hone in on the most:"
The point I want to hone in on the most, though, is with regards to the following remark: “Your burden of proof is to demonstrate that BW Ubers as a tier is qualified to handle Evasionpass, that there's something unique about it that makes Evasion competitive here when it's banned from every single other Ubers generation.” No. The allowance of Evasion has been the status quo since its Suspect Test in 2012 (in line with the spirit of Ubers, as it should be); the onus, therefore, is on the pro-ban individuals to articulate a coherent reasoning for their agenda
The status quo can change. It's an immutable fact that almost nobody who participated in the original Evasionpass discussion, old tier leader bojangles included, actively participates in the Ubers community today. You're a 2018 join date; how many of these names do you even recognize, let alone recognize as active participants in modern Ubers in any capacity? I point this out not to denigrate the users in that thread, misinformed though some of them may be. I bring this up rather because it demonstrates that the set of users responsible for the Evasion unban bears almost no similarity to the set of users who would be voting "unban" in an Evasion discussion today, both in a literal sense (almost everyone from then is gone) and a figurative one — we tier Ubers differently nowadays. See the part of Nayrz's post where he mentions the other side of the proverbial coin, quoted below:
As an aside, there are interesting philosophy differences between the suspect test thread in 2012 and the arguments used today. I encourage folks to have a browse through the thread. Back then the question was framed from the other side of the coin - "are there significant enough reasons to ban Evasion" and they answered no. Today, it seems to be "what reason do we have to keep Evasion" and the answer is tbd. I think whichever is right is down to the majority decision
This is the point from which I derive my argument that the burden of proof is on you, representing the viewpoint clearly in the minority here. Nayrz claims that whichever tiering philosophy is correct is down to the majority's decision, and the majority seems to have made its decision very evident: Evasionpass needs to go. To win this argument, you both have to refute my points and provide strong reasoning as to why we should keep Evasionpass around. I think you have a lot of ground to cover here.
 

Cynara

Banned deucer.
I think BW Ubers samples are missing a Latios offense. Latios offense have shown to be somewhat successful over the years and I know steel is a fan of them personally, I feel like BW Samples are also lackluster and outdated in general. w/ Droughtfest and Generic Sand BO being the most successful in terms of play.

I built 2 (3 but ones a remix) Latios offenses that I particulary like playing with, feature whichever you want with any changes, I don't mind much.

Sun:
https://pokepast.es/4e2952f97b67dc37 - Latios Sun with RP Groudon and SR Spookyceus
https://pokepast.es/f57de962273a6d12 - Latios sun with SR groudon and CM Spookyceus

Rain:

https://pokepast.es/e38478d5c88c67b7 - Rain bo
 
That ban was reversed just over a year ago after discussion at the CL level, but it wasn't announced in any particular way. OU councils have no power over Ubers metagames so that ban was a huge overreach.

I'm working on the solution to the BW Evasion situation when I can spare the time. I'm aiming to have it dealt with before the championship at the very worst, apologies for the delays.
 

Exiline

Banned deucer.
is a Past SCL Championis a Two-Time Former Smogon Metagame Tournament Circuit Championis a Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
That ban was reversed just over a year ago after discussion at the CL level, but it wasn't announced in any particular way. OU councils have no power over Ubers metagames so that ban was a huge overreach.

I'm working on the solution to the BW Evasion situation when I can spare the time. I'm aiming to have it dealt with before the championship at the very worst, apologies for the delays.
So you thought it was ok to change a tier without even telling the playerbase ?
 
The impact was minor and when asked, I told them. Whenever it came up in conversation, I mentioned it. My intent wasn't to hide the change, its just I couldn't find the appropriate place to announce such a thing at the time. I opted for spreading it via word of mouth, but that's far from perfect since it seems recent ADV tours still note it as a rule. I'll find a better solution for visibility (like probably this exact thread) if something like this comes up again.
 
So the DPP Viability Rankings are pretty outdated, and I've got some time on my hands today so I figured I'd post my personal Viability Rankings as of now (might update them at a later point). I'm not gonna comment on every single placement, but feel free to ask for a more in-depth comment on any of them.

S
:dialga: :kyogre: :giratina-origin:

Dialga is the best mon in the tier: it has an unmatched amount of utility, soft checks so many things and it is hard to have a solid switchin that isn't your own Dialga. Choice Specs and Scarf are underused with how good Lefties is, but still amazing. Kyogre is also still amazing and the biggest threat, but I think most people are smart enough right now to not build a 6-0d by Kyogre team. Even then it still can sweep. Specs Ogre is kinda in a bad spot though. Gira-O is at 2nd place after Dialga for providing so much utility in one slot.

A+
:darkrai: :deoxys-speed: :latias: :groudon: :mewtwo:

Darkrai is closest to S tier of these, as it is the 2nd biggest threat in the tier that you have to prepare for. Deoxys-S will never not centralized the lead metagame. Other 3 are just good af. Latias is a lot better than Latios cause it can actually switch in on Kyogre in practice.

A
:jirachi: :palkia: :latios: :garchomp: :tyranitar: :rayquaza:

Palkia feels kind of in a disappointing place right now, I wouldn't rely on it as a Kyogre check as it gets worn down very easily. Dialga is both a very good switchin to it as well as a better option for Kyogre soft check usually. It is still an amazing offense threat though, and 4x Water resist will never not be great. I am not a huge fan of Rayquaza but it is good right now, and Air Lock is actually a very useful ability.

A-
:bronzong: :blissey: :skarmory: :forretress: :kabutops:

No Ubers here, just support mons. Kabutops is in my view the best Swimmer at the moment, it's not easy to counter at all except with Groudon. Giratina-O / Dialga are the standard switchins but personally find that very reasonable to take care of with Stone Edge and Low Kick especially as these are always worn down and in 2HKO / OHKO range in my experience. More importantly: it's the best spinner that is not a momentum sink.

B+
:ho-oh: :wobbuffet: :deoxys-attack: :lucario: :tentacruel: :heatran: :kingdra:

Ho-Oh, Wobbuffet and Deoxys-A are all great Pokemon but in my view too limiting on teambuilding to deserve an A or A- rank. Lucario is one of the biggest threats in the current meta and anyone who relies on Giratina-O to check Lucario is playing to lose. I personally love Kingdra and think it's still amazing right now, but I know this is not the standard view anymore.

B
:manaphy: :scizor: :froslass: :shaymin-sky::qwilfish: :giratina: :lugia:

This is the category of good but situational Pokemon. Scizor is great, but I find its lacking special bulky and impossibility to check the 2 best Dragon-types always annoying. Manaphy is amazing in the right team, but I find myself not using it as much because the right team does not come along for it super often. Swift Swimmers just compress the role of cleaner and revenge killer so effectively in general. Skymin is so underrated, especially SubSeed is impossible to deal with but it's frailty makes it kind of unreliable. A wrongly timed Seed, Sub or Attack can make or break it. Qwilfish is great too and have been loving it recently (shoutout to steel? highlord? forgot who popularized it). I hate Giratina but I recognize that the Calm Mind set is good and the RestTalk is still okay on stall. Lugia is not in a great place right now for me, but it has too much potential uses to rank lower than B.

B-
:mew: :metagross: :ludicolo: :quagsire: :cloyster:

These mons are all okay. I specifically want to note Ludicolo and Quagsire, my favourite Pokemon from this tier but both a bit flawed. Ludicolo really relies on not getting statused, which is hard with Toxic Spikes and Thunder everywhere. Quagsire is probably the best Kyogre counter but can otherwise be a bit deadweight in the wrong matchup.

C
:gliscor: :cresselia: :hariyama: :heracross: :infernape: :shiftry: :magnezone: :primeape:

This is just stuff I think is viable but mostly just used for fun.
 
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THIS GOT FIXED AROUND MAY 10TH


Hi, now that Most Wanted is over Zayele and I would like to share the relevance of being the game’s host in some specific DPP lead match-ups.
Indeed, the Deoxys-Speed vs. Deoxys-Speed is the most common lead match-up, and one of the most disliked due to a Taunt speed tie often deciding the game turn 1 in offense matchups. More recently we have seen a huge rise in the usage of Choice Scarf Deoxys-S to eliminate these turn 1 ties and improve consistency; the prevalence of this set currently means that there is rarely an optimal play turn 1, as the matchup essentially comes down to guesswork.

However, it is possible to determine whether your opponent is Scarfed at preview by using Pressure ties. Those “ties” don’t actually have any randomness, and that can be used at your advantage. The fastest Deoxys will always display its Pressure first, but when both have the same speed, it comes down to who is hosting the game, i.e. the player that challenged first. (In case there’s any doubt about who did, you can check who sent out their Deoxys first, that player is the host).

In this case, I am the host, as I'm sending my Deoxys first. By winning the tie, I can know she isn't Scarf, while she can't know whether I'm max Speed as well, or Scarfed.
Knowing this can be used to your advantage by challenging first or requesting to be challenged accordingly. If you’re challenging someone using 252+ Speed Deoxys and win the tie, you can be 100% sure they aren’t scarfed, while they don’t get any information (except you being at least max speed, in case they also have this). The method can be reversed by receiving the challenge to check for slower Deo-S, like the offensive Rash set, but these are significantly less common than Scarfed ones currently.
This is also useful when using Scarf Deoxys-S yourself, since by receiving the challenge, you’ll lose the “tie” to other Scarf Deo-S, and beat non-Scarf ones. Of course, this does not change anything when you queue into a non-Scarf Deo-S, but it gets its relevance when both carry the same.

It should be noted we came up with the fact there are hardly any drawbacks to running 30 Speed IVs on Scarf Deo-S, as the only actual flaw is tying with midgame Rash LO Deoxys-A that creeps for Mewtwo, which is very minor. Being a point slower than other Scarf Deoxys-S lets you consistently tell whether they are scarfed or not regardless of who is hosting, and lets you get a free T-Wave or Spikes layer. In case you both opted for T-Wave turn 1, you even get the “chance” of being fully paralyzed to click Spikes the next turn. Using 29 IVs puts you at 394 speed, making you tie with Mewtwo after you Trick your Scarf away. This is a much more relevant issue than the Deoxys-A one, and should be avoided in my opinion.

This whole tie matter also applies to other lead match-ups where both leads have an ability that is revealed upon switching in, such as Deoxys-A, Tyranitar, Kyogre or Ho-Oh (Pressure and weather inducing abilities also attempt to tie), however, those are much more uncommon, and mostly relevant to the Tyranitar lead mirror. In that case you will want to receive the challenge if you are Sash max speed to check for opposing Lum lead, or challenge with 0 speed IV if you are Lum yourself.

(Random anecdote - when Zayele and I played each other in MW, we used !dice to pick the host randomly).
 
Last edited:

Cynara

Banned deucer.
Hello! ADVPL is over halfway complete, I just wanted to give some thoughts on the games thus far, and provide with combined usage stats up to 0kay's Week 5 Game and I will provide final usage stats at the end of ADVPL and I'll do the same for DPP PL and BW PL (provided they exist) .

ADV Ubers

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Latios             |   34 |  68.00% |  47.06% |
| 2    | Snorlax            |   31 |  62.00% |  48.39% |
| 3    | Deoxys-Attack      |   29 |  58.00% |  51.72% |
| 4    | Groudon            |   28 |  56.00% |  57.14% |
| 5    | Kyogre             |   22 |  44.00% |  50.00% |
| 6    | Metagross          |   20 |  40.00% |  50.00% |
| 7    | Ho-Oh              |   15 |  30.00% |  53.33% |
| 8    | Latias             |   14 |  28.00% |  35.71% |
| 9    | Blissey            |   13 |  26.00% |  46.15% |
| 10   | Forretress         |   12 |  24.00% |  33.33% |
| 11   | Mewtwo             |   11 |  22.00% |  45.45% |
| 12   | Heracross          |    8 |  16.00% |  62.50% |
| 12   | Rayquaza           |    8 |  16.00% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Magneton           |    7 |  14.00% |  42.86% |
| 15   | Deoxys-Defense     |    6 |  12.00% |  16.67% |
| 16   | Skarmory           |    4 |   8.00% |  75.00% |
| 16   | Lugia              |    4 |   8.00% |  50.00% |
| 18   | Omastar            |    3 |   6.00% |  33.33% |
| 19   | Umbreon            |    2 |   4.00% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Dusclops           |    2 |   4.00% |  50.00% |
| 19   | Tyranitar          |    2 |   4.00% |  50.00% |
| 19   | Deoxys-Speed       |    2 |   4.00% |  50.00% |
| 19   | Wobbuffet          |    2 |   4.00% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Mew                |    2 |   4.00% |   0.00% |
| 25   | Smeargle           |    1 |   2.00% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Dugtrio            |    1 |   2.00% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Victreebel         |    1 |   2.00% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Dodrio             |    1 |   2.00% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Qwilfish           |    1 |   2.00% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Lanturn            |    1 |   2.00% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Celebi             |    1 |   2.00% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Jirachi            |    1 |   2.00% |   0.00% |
| 25   | Gengar             |    1 |   2.00% |   0.00% |
| 25   | Slaking            |    1 |   2.00% |   0.00% |
| 25   | Salamence          |    1 |   2.00% |   0.00% |
  • Missing 1 Pokemon from 0KAY.
  • Missing 1 Pokemon from ISMAKHIL*-*.
  • Missing 1 Pokemon from 64 SQUARES.
  • Missing 2 Pokemon from NOITU.
  • Missing 1 Pokemon from ISMAKHIL*-*.
  • Missing 1 Pokemon from LASEN.
  • Missing 1 Pokemon from CHILLSHADOW.

Week 1:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ubers-1292452320 - 0kay vs Mr.378
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-545044 - Jackie vs Holy Ghost
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-545050 - Lasen vs Exiline
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-545600 - Ismakhil vs Bushtush
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-545623 - Noitu vs 64 Squares
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-545680 - Rabbit vs Finchinator

Week 2:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ubers-1298622997 - 0kay vs Holy Ghost
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-546836 - Jackie vs Bushtush
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-546853 - Rabbit vs Exiline
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-547116 - Lasen vs 64 Squares
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-547889 - Mr. 378 vs Ismakhil
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-547902 - Noitu vs Finchinator

Week 3:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-548275 - Mr.378 vs Inspirited
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-548382 - Ara vs Chillshadow
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-548931 - Jackie vs Ismakhil
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-549265 - 0kay vs 64 Squares
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-549461 - Frania vs Exiline
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-549845 - Noitu vs Lasen

Week 4:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-550850 - 0kay vs Lasen
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-551155 - Jackie (with her lucky charms) vs Thorx
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-551426 - Chillshadow vs Finchinator
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-551647 - Noitu vs Exiline
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-551839 - Inspirted vs Ismakhil
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-551881 - 64 Squares vs Mr.378

Week 5:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-552280 - IsonoDneon vs 0kay



| 12 | Rayquaza | 8 | 16.00% | 50.00% |

Want to start off by talking about this, because I honestly feel like its been an upcoming trend in ADV Uber Games ever since the end of Most Wanted 2 and this amount of Rayquaza honestly feels like an outlier compared to previous tours featuring ADV Ubers such as UPL. Traditionally Rayquaza has been considered an "awful" Pokemon to use in ADV among the community, but this appears to be no longer the case and is actually starting to trend. This is probably due to the fact of how ADV Ubers has changed over the years, and now Choice Banded Rayquaza seems like a relatively decent pick. It has a decent winrate for what it is, but its still outshined by Heracross as a premier breaker (will touch more on this later). One of the advantages Rayquaza has, is the positive matchup against generic Sun Offenses and Balances (think Forre + Bliss etc), and able to revenge Deoxys-A, while also being somewhat an emergency offensive answer to Heracross.

One advantage of Rayquaza is its immediate damage output as a breaker and STAB HP Flying which coupled with CB has very limited switch-ins, most ADV Uber Teams aren't really equipped with amazing Flying resists, Skarmory is uncommon, Magneton/Metagross/Jirachi are nailed by EQ.


| 12 | Heracross | 8 | 16.00% | 62.50% |

This mon's winrate is something that doesn't really surprise me, A lot of teams theoretically lose to it in the end game, and some players are still realistically not checking it very well, despite being a ADV breaking staple in recent times. Replay such as this: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-552280 are good examples. Heracross tends to be a more prep specific mon, against players who usually prefer to use fat or offenses that struggle to beat Salac + SD in the end-game, the hugest flaw of Heracross, yes it is powerful but when it win conditions it usually comes down to the player hitting enough Megahorns to win the game or not missing too many to lose. (i.e: Hitting the important ones). It's one of the most terrifying breakers in the gen and was overlooked for a very long time, Heracross caused older builds to change since it basically auto-won vs a lot of old / generic teams from years ago and in my opinion one of the most important breakers to account for right now.

This Pokemon has forced me to understand why stalls have recently been equipped with more Reflect + Whirlwind Lugia, despite my dislike for Lugia overall as a Pokemon, but I'll be honest, and I think Iry stall's such as Groudon / Lugia / Blissey / Forre / Snorlax / CB Deo-a are the most effective stall teams in ADV Ubers right now, due to them checking more of a majority of the modern ADV meta and unlike most stalls offer some kind of offensive winning condition, Exiline's take with Dusclops is also somewhat effective. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-545044 - This is a good example of the stall team I was talking about versus Holy Ghost, whose team can't really handle it, as it enabled it to get max spikes layers with no way of removing them on a team with winning conditions really prone to spikes + whirlwind. It also demonstrates how reliable Lugia is against CB Heracross by utilising Reflect and stalling it out.


16 | Forretress / Blissey | 8 | 16.00% | 37.50% | - Combined usage for combos of 2 mons.

Bunching these together because I really want to talk about a specific building type in general which probably attributes to their low winrates, but this specific combination) and these Pokemon are commonly found in tandem as a solid defensive core. It appears players are really preparing well for generic Sun balances all of a sudden, with the surge of CB Rayquaza, Rock Slide Heracross for Ho-Oh, and more offensive Snorlax variants such as Fire Blast (Scout!!!!!) catching players off guard. All of these factors probably attribute to the low success rate of this team type recently and players are just considering them strongly in their preparation. What I have noticed this ADVPL is that players are moving their approaches to much more offensive teams with not as strong defensive backbones and are starting to take more offensive approaches: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-546836 - Here Jackie demonstrates a really offensive team that I actually really liked, Salac Smeargle lead is actually rather interesting due to the fact it has access to Spikes and Boom. Another interesting twist was the Agility Metagross.

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I don't really have anything major to talk about, I feel like the rest of the usage stats are a really honest reflection of how ADV Ubers is structured and played currently, nothing much else has changed except some small adaptions to the increased amount of HP Ghost on SD Groudon and forcing the Latis to adapt how they approach dealing with Groudon recently and how teams have changed similarly to deal with Latis.

My players to watch this tour so far have been Jackie, 0kay, Ismakhil. I think 0kay and Ismakhil have been doing good prep work this tournament and are performing really well. Noitu is another interesting watch due to their approaches on ADV being a bit more classic, and netted a surprising win with Sub CM Kyogre. I encourage other players to post their thoughts of ADV developments as of recent. :)
 
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Imagine not naming Mr.4(5)-0 64 Squares as a player to watch for. Inspirited also just won a game with fucking Dodrio and has only shown promising results so far.

It's really nice to have the usage stats as well as all the replays in one spot, thanks for doing that work for us.

I think there's a lot more to talk about in terms of sets and team structures but that's a way bigger hassle to put all together in one place.

Off the top of my head, 64's Focus Punch Mewtwo lead and recent Sub Spikes Qwilfish were plenty unorthodox. (my memory is obviously biased towards the players the interest me the most) Sub CM Ogre was a big deal in more than Noitu's game as well. Well actually, there might have been only one other game with it. it could have had a major impact there as well but... Fire Blast Lax has been a breakout darkhorse as you mentioned.

To talk about team structures, it wouldn't be doing justice to Noitu to talk about his successful Sub CM Kyogre pick without also talking about how he put it on dual weather so that his lead Groudon can help force enemy Lati to eat a twave. Also, the number of times I've mentioned Minority's sample rain when talking about structures in this tournament has gotten a bit repetitive.

There's been so many great matchups in this tournament, it's been a real treat to watch these games. Having two adv slots has also been really interesting in terms of analyzing prep and seeing how the duos work together; something that we don't get the luxury of seeing in UPL. Looking forward to the rest of this tournament.
 

Cynara

Banned deucer.
Ya I honestly forgot about 64 writing this up, I was under the impression he lost more games than that, sorry. (He's Def on my highlight list now) I agree inspirited game was a very entertaining watch too since dodrio winning was amusing as fuck . I understand your quarrels with noitus team selection but I did feel the specific kyogre set was a good prep choice it should have been on a different team I agree 100%. noitu is an up and comer so it's great to see him get the extra tournament experience and will hopefully help drastically . Thank you for posting on this thread as you're more of an ADV maven than me, so your opinions are really appreciated. Yeah the 2-slot thing is really great for teamwork in adv Ubers and the uniqueness from UPL is what inspired me to put effort into giving my thoughts.
 
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Sorry, I wrote my post while in a rush to buy a kebab before everything closes for the night. What I meant is that I found Noitu's usage of CM Kyogre to be quite clever. Not just because the set itself was a good choice for the matchup, but also because of how he paired it with lead twave Groudon. Usually, you have to try to play the long game with sd twave gdon if you plan to get over Lati twins. Short-term, Ice Beam is a problem but, eventually, hax will make your para stick. When you have a Sub CM Kyogre in that back, though, you can afford to trade off your Groudon in exchange for denying the Refresh. A healthy Lati is usually the only thing that's gonna stop a Sub CM Kyogre from going ham. I do disagree with Noitu's decision to use HP Ghost on his Gdon instead of Rock Slide. I'd be worried about bird like Ho-Oh eating the twave instead of the Lati. There's a pretty short list of Pokemon, not named Latias or Latios, that are okay with switching into a SD Twave Gdon with Rock Slide.
 

Cynara

Banned deucer.
Yeah. The thing I like about his build style is it isn't really like the more modern approach players take with teams, it's a bit more classical adv structures if that makes sense, he uses sets and mons that more modern adv players don't really consider such as Ttar, so its always interesting to see his takes on the metagame, especially from someone who has only really recently entered the Ubers tournament scene. I agree it should have been Rock Slide Don for sure, but these are optimisations and refinements that come with playing and building experience at higher levels imo, so this tour is a great step in the door for Noitu and he's been holding his own rather well against a rather competitive pool.

Hope you had a nice kebab
 

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