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-   -   Smogon and the Pokemon Metagame (https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=320533)

SparksPKMN March 1st, 2014 2:31 PM

Smogon and the Pokemon Metagame
 
So, some time ago Smogon banned Mega Blaziken (for Speed Boost), Mega Kangaskhan (for unstoppableness involving Power-Up Punch), and Mega Gengar (for general trickery) from their whatever-thing. I don't really care much about their whatever-thing, but this got my attention. Why? Because as a fan of Pokemon and my involvement with its meta. This type of thing has really has gotten on my nerves in the past (the banning of Soul Dew, for example) and I'm fearing an all-out ban of the use of Mega Stones online for X and Y.
Don't worry, this won't be an essay, but an articulation of my opinion (a rant, you could say). The reason this bothers me so much is the fact that other video games let their metas evolve on their own. If Pokemon did this, it would be like this: Someone finds a really powerful Pokemon, and they use it in the meta. Some of the meta copies this person, while the rest look for a counter. As many start using this counter, people can predict that they will be facing this counter, and the meta flows like that accordingly. However, Smogon doesn't seem to want that to happen. What they are doing is trying to ban all Pokemon that take over the meta without letting it flow, thus creating a somewhat broken meta.

I'm sorry if this is in the wrong place, but I was kinda in a hurry in typing this because it's pretty long.

scprepschool March 1st, 2014 2:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8121908)
So, some time ago Smogon banned Mega Blaziken (for Speed Boost), Mega Kangaskhan (for unstoppableness involving Power-Up Punch), and Mega Gengar (for general trickery) from their whatever-thing. I don't really care much about their whatever-thing, but this got my attention. Why? Because as a fan of Pokemon and my involvement with its meta. This type of thing has really has gotten on my nerves in the past (the banning of Soul Dew, for example) and I'm fearing an all-out ban of the use of Mega Stones online for X and Y.
Don't worry, this won't be an essay, but an articulation of my opinion (a rant, you could say). The reason this bothers me so much is the fact that other video games let their metas evolve on their own. If Pokemon did this, it would be like this: Someone finds a really powerful Pokemon, and they use it in the meta. Some of the meta copies this person, while the rest look for a counter. As many start using this counter, people can predict that they will be facing this counter, and the meta flows like that accordingly. However, Smogon doesn't seem to want that to happen. What they are doing is trying to ban all Pokemon that take over the meta without letting it flow, thus creating a somewhat broken meta.

I'm sorry if this is in the wrong place, but I was kinda in a hurry in typing this because it's pretty long.

You dont have to play by smogons rules. However if you ever aspire to perform on a competitive platform then you'll most likely have to let go or your wants for op pkmn

SparksPKMN March 1st, 2014 2:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scprepschool (Post 8121934)
You dont have to play by smogons rules. However if you ever aspire to perform on a competitive platform then you'll most likely have to let go or your wants for op pkmn

I know, I know, but it kinda worries me that the guys running X and Y will ban them from the official...

scprepschool March 1st, 2014 3:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8121943)
I know, I know, but it kinda worries me that the guys running X and Y will ban them from the official...

What do you mean official? Like the world championships or online all together? They won't ever ban anything from online all together if that's what your worried about. I hope I'm not jinxing anything lol

SparksPKMN March 1st, 2014 3:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scprepschool (Post 8121950)
What do you mean official? Like the world championships or online all together? They won't ever ban anything from online all together if that's what your worried about. I hope I'm not jinxing anything lol

Like every online battle. I'm afraid they will ban Mega Stones like they did with Soul Dew

scprepschool March 1st, 2014 3:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8121953)
Like every online battle. I'm afraid they will ban Mega Stones like they did with Soul Dew

Doubt it brah, soul dew is more of an exclusive type of item than the mega stone. If they did that would be lame because most mega evolutions aren't even that great and unlike soul dew the mega stone itself is the only extension to a battle mechanic, so if they ban mega stones they ban the whole m evolution mechanic, which seems silly

NRG March 1st, 2014 4:00 PM

The things you've mentioned have been banned to their ubers tier? They can still be used in smogon ubers battles right? They've been banned from OU tier because they are too powerful for it.

I'm not sure how anyone can complain about mega kangashkan being banned to ubers unless they abuse it's OPness. It has taunt-resistant swords dance that deals damage, breaks focus sash and sturdy, has massive attack, can hit through sub etc.

If you're playing battlespot you have to bring a counter to it every time, and assume they lead with it. I run rock polish, weakness policy rhyperior as it counters mega blaziken too.

Sopheria March 1st, 2014 4:04 PM

Quote:

The things you've mentioned have been banned to their ubers tier? They can still be used in smogon ubers battles right? They've been banned from OU tier because they are too powerful for it.
No, they're banned from play altogether. You're not even allowed to use them in Ubers.

I have to say, I completely agree with Smogon's bans. Smogon is actually very reluctant to ban anything, and they only do it in cases of extremely overpowered Pokemon. The problem with certain Pokemon like Mega Blaziken and Mega Kangaskhan is that there is a very limited number of counters to them. With them in the metagame, players wouldn't get much variety in the teams they could use because they would be forced to make a team that could counter those Pokemon. That ruins the fun of the metagame when you have to tailor your entire team just to counter one threat.

SparksPKMN March 1st, 2014 4:11 PM

Quote:

If you're playing battlespot you have to bring a counter to it every time, and assume they lead with it. I run rock polish, weakness policy rhyperior as it counters mega blaziken too.
This is why I don't think anything should be banned, because everything has a counter.

NRG March 1st, 2014 4:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zomgitscathy (Post 8122030)
No, they're banned from play altogether. You're not even allowed to use them in Ubers.

Have they not updated their tiers information or something?

Everything I'm reading says that Blaziken itself, Gengarite, Kangaskhanite, Lucarionite are all banned from OU but only the following applies to ubers:

Endless Battle Clause
Moody Clause
OHKO Clause
Sleep Clause
Species Clause

SparksPKMN March 1st, 2014 4:20 PM

Quote:

I have to say, I completely agree with Smogon's bans. Smogon is actually very reluctant to ban anything, and they only do it in cases of extremely overpowered Pokemon. The problem with certain Pokemon like Mega Blaziken and Mega Kangaskhan is that there is a very limited number of counters to them. With them in the metagame, players wouldn't get much variety in the teams they could use because they would be forced to make a team that could counter those Pokemon. That ruins the fun of the metagame when you have to tailor your entire team just to counter one threat.
I think that trying to find a counter for that Pokemon would be beneficial and enjoyable as once you find a counter, you reach your incentive: some wins against that Pokemon. And it makes it interesting when two people battle and neither of them have the Pokemon, but two different counter teams.

NRG March 1st, 2014 4:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8122044)
This is why I don't think anything should be banned, because everything has a counter.

That makes the game boring. You have to design your team around countering a pokemon they might not even have, rather than your own strategy.

Cerberus87 March 1st, 2014 4:26 PM

Simply don't play Showdown and tell people to ♥♥♥♥ off if they complain about you using "banned" Pokémon in Battle Spot.

In the pre-Smogon days, Snorlax was the dominant Pokémon but people didn't seem to want to ban it anyway, despite it being the best Pokémon in the game, and as good as the Ubers (maybe even better than things like Ho-Oh).

Sopheria March 1st, 2014 4:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NRG (Post 8122046)
Have they not updated their tiers information or something?

Everything I'm reading says that Blaziken itself, Gengarite, Kangaskhanite, Lucarionite are all banned from OU but only the following applies to ubers:

Endless Battle Clause
Moody Clause
OHKO Clause
Sleep Clause
Species Clause

Wait, you might actually be right. I thought I remembered reading a thread in the forums saying they changed their ban policy in XY, but I can't find it at the moment...

BadassPanda March 1st, 2014 4:29 PM

If smogon wouldn't ban anything we would end up with players playing with the same old pokemons all the time and the ones who don't use them loses the matches until they start using them. It would make the game boring.

Nah March 1st, 2014 4:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zomgitscathy (Post 8122070)
Wait, you might actually be right. I thought I remembered reading a thread in the forums saying they changed their ban policy in XY, but I can't find it at the moment...

"Banned" Pokemon can be used in Ubers. The Uber tier is essentially where you can battle with all the "banned" Pokemon.

Also, Badass Panda hit the nail on the head; the reason why tiers and banlist exist is because if they didn't, everyone would use the same ♥♥♥♥ all the time, making for a very boring metagame.

SparksPKMN March 1st, 2014 4:47 PM

And in that case, why hasn't Game Freak created an official tier system for online play?

Sopheria March 1st, 2014 4:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8122095)
And in that case, why hasn't Game Freak created an official tier system for online play?

No need, really. Battle communities and servers have done a good enough job making their own tier systems.

SparksPKMN March 1st, 2014 4:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zomgitscathy (Post 8122099)
No need, really. Battle communities and servers have done a good enough job making their own tier systems.

But the in-game ranking and straight-up random battle finding system can result in some seriously unfair matches. I don't think they should be replaced, but to have an additional option for tiered battles in X and Y and future generations.

Nah March 1st, 2014 4:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8122108)
But the in-game ranking and straight-up random battle finding system can result in some seriously unfair matches. I don't think they should be replaced, but to have an additional option for tiered battles in X and Y and future generations.

Ranked Battle Spot battles have most Uber pokemon banned from them.

SparksPKMN March 1st, 2014 5:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Chance Without Zekrom (Post 8122113)
Ranked Battle Spot battles have most Uber pokemon banned from them.

I'm talking about the Megas

Howmander March 1st, 2014 5:18 PM

It's interesting how people keep defending the bans by saying it keeps people from using the same pokemon over and over again, but if you look at the tries people ALREADY do that because if they're in this teir, they can't use that, that, that or that, so that ONLY leaves this or this. Even the smogon movesets primarily list moves to counter SPECIFICALLY NAMED pokemon rather than pokemon types and list the counters againas specifically named pokemon rather than types because of the tries, there's only specific pokemon you can use in specific teirs. Not to mention my endless rants against their idiotic bans (yes, idiotic!) Blaziken gets banned because of speed boost? I forgot that the faster it gets, the more moves per turn it gets. Oh wait! It doesn't! If you're slower than Blaziken when the battle starts, Blaziken gets NO benefit whatsoever. Then there's the stupid double team ban. Oh no! A move that has dozens of counter moves, several abilities and even an item that counters it, THERE'S NO DEFENCE AGAINST THIS SUPER MOVE! Better ban it from use! I'm just waiting for them to ban Nuzzle. (A move that damages AND paralyzed?! Holy crap!! Screw Arceus, pichu will destroy everything in existence! ;-) )

There's the lame justification of "evasion makes the game based on luck rather than skill!" Which could be said about EVERY move. If you're prepared, evasion boosts mean nothing. But everyone is smogon apparently loses both bladder and bowel control at the thought of it.

A HUGE thing that the teirs have produced is interchangeable movesets. You look (objectively) at a crap ton of the movesets are totally interchangeable. If it's a special sweeper, it has thunderbolt, flamethrower, ice beam, psychic. If it's a physical sweeper it has earthquake, Rock slide, close combat, flare blitz, annoyed have toxic, substitute, confuse ray, etc, etc. those aren't the actual movesets, but my point has been made that you can defend the tiers by saying that it prevents the same pokemon from being used over and over, but it really doesn't. It in fact not only makes the same pokemon used over and over, it makes the same movesets used over and over. It genuinely won't take you very long looking at smogon movesets to see movesets that don't even take the type consideration of the user into account, let alone ones that make no use of it's natural stat spread or ability. (There's plenty that DO, don't get me wrong, but there's stills significant number that don't)

Basically, everything is an interchangeable physical sweeper, or a special sweeper, or an annoyer, or a wall, or a baton passer, or a healer. The only thing that prevents identical movesets on everything in the same category is that not everything can learn everything. And on top of that, there's the hugely underused class if pokemon that are obviously meant to be evaders. Just because smogon wets themselves in terror at the thought of a surskit with double team, they simply ban the move altogether rather than learning how to combat it. There's many pokemon that have good attacks and speed but terrible HP and defenses. Obviously those ones are not made to fit into the narrow category smogon sets up, but rather their own class where they hit hard and just try not to get hit back in return by slinking into the shadows. But because smogon thinks every battle should be like the British army where everyone just stands there firing at each other no one learns new, unique strategies, no one learns how to use evaders and therefore never learns how to counter them, so the meta game stagnates because no one is trying creative, amazing, wonderful strategies, they just make all the pokemon fit into 1 of 5 categories and try to shoehorn similar movesets onto everything in that category.

I too am a strong believer in everything has a counter battling, because everything does. The teirs make everyone use the same pokemon over and over, but allowing anyone to use anything does quite the opposite. Sure at first people will keep using the most powerful same pokemon over and over, but then people will figure out counters to those, and the. More people will use those and someone else will figure out counters to those and so on and so on. Just because today everyone is using mega kangaskhan, for example, doesn't mean people won't figure out counters to those, have the counter on all their teams then very quickly no one is using kangaskhan but rather the counter, and so on and so on, and the game will evolve from there. Removing the incentive to think for yourself by banning pokemon, moves and strategies doesn't help anyone. It in fact reduces imaginative battlers and makes them unable to function if anyone else tries anything other than the smogon pre approved movesets.

Howmander March 1st, 2014 5:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8122108)
But the in-game ranking and straight-up random battle finding system can result in some seriously unfair matches. I don't think they should be replaced, but to have an additional option for tiered battles in X and Y and future generations.

I don't think their should be a teir system at all. I DO however think that you should have the option to not battle someone when you see their party before the battle starts.

Nah March 1st, 2014 5:21 PM

Howmander, do you have a tl;dr version of that?

Also:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Howmander
I DO however think that you should have the option to not battle someone when you see their party before the battle starts.

So I should only battle teams that I can counter or easily take down? Because that's basically what that sentence says; that I should avoid all challenging battles.

SparksPKMN March 1st, 2014 5:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Howmander (Post 8122153)
I don't think their should be a teir system at all. I DO however think that you should have the option to not battle someone when you see their party before the battle starts.

Then there would hardly be any battles since people can just not battle people they'll lose against, and so no one gets to battle.

Zerrah. March 1st, 2014 5:57 PM

I understand what you guys are saying, but I think your thinking is slightly skewed. The tiers are mostly determined with how often something is used, barring when something is banned for being too powerful. When you're playing in OU for example, you can use basically anything in OU or lower. You are NOT by any means limited to using only OU Pokemon. I personally love to use Quagsire, I don't care if he was considered NU.

I personally agree with most of Smogon's decisions. Blaziken and Lucario were already really good on their own and did not need the extra power from the mega stones, despite the lack of held item. I find it unfortunate that Kangha's mega made it so broken, as it is almost unplayable without it. The tier system allows people to play Pokemon how they want to play it. Want to have a team full of the strongest legendaries? There's a tier for that.

That being said, if you don't like Smogon's tiering, simply don't abide by it when playing in Battle Spot or sanctioned tournaments. But if you want to partake in tournaments through forums and Pokemon Showdown, you will have to abide by their rules, or risk not playing there at all.

Sean March 1st, 2014 6:01 PM

They don't just ban pokemon for the laugh of it from OU.

They ban it because it has such a huge impact on the competitive play aspect of pokemon. If you don't follow bans and so on, then most likely you're a person who plays casually. In that case, go ahead and use any pokemon.

But it really isn't enjoyable at all when any pokemon is allowed, it creates an atmosphere of overpowered and predictable pokemon will be used constantly that have an alarming small amount of counters to them. Banning pokemon is needed in order for the metagame to be balanced and enjoyable to a sense, instead of having a complete dominant factor.

So in the case for megaevolutions, the ones currently banned simply have too strong abilities/too strong bases. Mega Gengar was ridiculous, it's ability enabled it to switch on anything and keep them trapped and there is NOTHING you can do about that whatsoever. The fact it had a huge special attack/speed base too enabled it to outspeed/kill anything. That's why it got banned. Mega Kani got banned because having 2 sucker punches is a bit... over the top coupled with a sword dance set up.

Keiran March 1st, 2014 6:54 PM

What you're asking for, OP, is called Battle Spot.

scprepschool March 1st, 2014 7:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Howmander (Post 8122151)
It's interesting how people keep defending the bans by saying it keeps people from using the same pokemon over and over again, but if you look at the tries people ALREADY do that because if they're in this teir, they can't use that, that, that or that, so that ONLY leaves this or this. Even the smogon movesets primarily list moves to counter SPECIFICALLY NAMED pokemon rather than pokemon types and list the counters againas specifically named pokemon rather than types because of the tries, there's only specific pokemon you can use in specific teirs. Not to mention my endless rants against their idiotic bans (yes, idiotic!) Blaziken gets banned because of speed boost? I forgot that the faster it gets, the more moves per turn it gets. Oh wait! It doesn't! If you're slower than Blaziken when the battle starts, Blaziken gets NO benefit whatsoever. Then there's the stupid double team ban. Oh no! A move that has dozens of counter moves, several abilities and even an item that counters it, THERE'S NO DEFENCE AGAINST THIS SUPER MOVE! Better ban it from use! I'm just waiting for them to ban Nuzzle. (A move that damages AND paralyzed?! Holy crap!! Screw Arceus, pichu will destroy everything in existence! ;-) )

There's the lame justification of "evasion makes the game based on luck rather than skill!" Which could be said about EVERY move. If you're prepared, evasion boosts mean nothing. But everyone is smogon apparently loses both bladder and bowel control at the thought of it.

A HUGE thing that the teirs have produced is interchangeable movesets. You look (objectively) at a crap ton of the movesets are totally interchangeable. If it's a special sweeper, it has thunderbolt, flamethrower, ice beam, psychic. If it's a physical sweeper it has earthquake, Rock slide, close combat, flare blitz, annoyed have toxic, substitute, confuse ray, etc, etc. those aren't the actual movesets, but my point has been made that you can defend the tiers by saying that it prevents the same pokemon from being used over and over, but it really doesn't. It in fact not only makes the same pokemon used over and over, it makes the same movesets used over and over. It genuinely won't take you very long looking at smogon movesets to see movesets that don't even take the type consideration of the user into account, let alone ones that make no use of it's natural stat spread or ability. (There's plenty that DO, don't get me wrong, but there's stills significant number that don't)

Basically, everything is an interchangeable physical sweeper, or a special sweeper, or an annoyer, or a wall, or a baton passer, or a healer. The only thing that prevents identical movesets on everything in the same category is that not everything can learn everything. And on top of that, there's the hugely underused class if pokemon that are obviously meant to be evaders. Just because smogon wets themselves in terror at the thought of a surskit with double team, they simply ban the move altogether rather than learning how to combat it. There's many pokemon that have good attacks and speed but terrible HP and defenses. Obviously those ones are not made to fit into the narrow category smogon sets up, but rather their own class where they hit hard and just try not to get hit back in return by slinking into the shadows. But because smogon thinks every battle should be like the British army where everyone just stands there firing at each other no one learns new, unique strategies, no one learns how to use evaders and therefore never learns how to counter them, so the meta game stagnates because no one is trying creative, amazing, wonderful strategies, they just make all the pokemon fit into 1 of 5 categories and try to shoehorn similar movesets onto everything in that category.

I too am a strong believer in everything has a counter battling, because everything does. The teirs make everyone use the same pokemon over and over, but allowing anyone to use anything does quite the opposite. Sure at first people will keep using the most powerful same pokemon over and over, but then people will figure out counters to those, and the. More people will use those and someone else will figure out counters to those and so on and so on. Just because today everyone is using mega kangaskhan, for example, doesn't mean people won't figure out counters to those, have the counter on all their teams then very quickly no one is using kangaskhan but rather the counter, and so on and so on, and the game will evolve from there. Removing the incentive to think for yourself by banning pokemon, moves and strategies doesn't help anyone. It in fact reduces imaginative battlers and makes them unable to function if anyone else tries anything other than the smogon pre approved movesets.

But pokemon competitive is luck based... what you switch in on, the abilities one your facing might have, the idea you might be facing a sandstorm team and be facing a rapid spin excadrill... baton passers, sub/ dancers.... yeah these are all strategy based... butttt what good is a strategy if I out speed and crit out of luck. There isn't really any skill in pkmn, everyone can have what everyone else has and then its up to speed and crits, because the thing about pkmn is everything can be out sped and every wall can have a hole punched through it... the bans are just there to try to keep ppl who wanna explore their luck and tread dangerously without having to worry about completely being dominated, at which point strategy nor luck play a role... without the tiering system everyone would be using a team like
Mew two, deoxys, rayquaza, w kyurem, xerneas, yveltal
So what then when some guy wants to take his favorite aesthetically pleasing pkmn to battle... he gets wasted and melted through even with his best strategy...

scprepschool March 1st, 2014 7:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zerrah. (Post 8122217)
I understand what you guys are saying, but I think your thinking is slightly skewed. The tiers are mostly determined with how often something is used, barring when something is banned for being too powerful. When you're playing in OU for example, you can use basically anything in OU or lower. You are NOT by any means limited to using only OU Pokemon. I personally love to use Quagsire, I don't care if he was considered NU.

I personally agree with most of Smogon's decisions. Blaziken and Lucario were already really good on their own and did not need the extra power from the mega stones, despite the lack of held item. I find it unfortunate that Kangha's mega made it so broken, as it is almost unplayable without it. The tier system allows people to play Pokemon how they want to play it. Want to have a team full of the strongest legendaries? There's a tier for that.

That being said, if you don't like Smogon's tiering, simply don't abide by it when playing in Battle Spot or sanctioned tournaments. But if you want to partake in tournaments through forums and Pokemon Showdown, you will have to abide by their rules, or risk not playing there at all.

The UBER tier for pkmn who can be set up to be op. Countering any counters for them/ridicolous bst./ boosting to unreal stats ( protect/speed boost )

SparksPKMN March 2nd, 2014 9:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scprepschool (Post 8122364)
But pokemon competitive is luck based... what you switch in on, the abilities one your facing might have, the idea you might be facing a sandstorm team and be facing a rapid spin excadrill... baton passers, sub/ dancers.... yeah these are all strategy based... butttt what good is a strategy if I out speed and crit out of luck. There isn't really any skill in pkmn, everyone can have what everyone else has and then its up to speed and crits, because the thing about pkmn is everything can be out sped and every wall can have a hole punched through it... the bans are just there to try to keep ppl who wanna explore their luck and tread dangerously without having to worry about completely being dominated, at which point strategy nor luck play a role... without the tiering system everyone would be using a team like
Mew two, deoxys, rayquaza, w kyurem, xerneas, yveltal
So what then when some guy wants to take his favorite aesthetically pleasing pkmn to battle... he gets wasted and melted through even with his best strategy...

All those Pokemon are banned for a reason, unlike Mega Blaziken, Kangaskhan and Gengar

Nah March 2nd, 2014 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8123416)
All those Pokemon are banned for a reason, unlike Mega Blaziken, Kangaskhan and Gengar

Mega Kangaskhan and Mega Gengar are banned for a reason. Whatchoo talkin' about?

scprepschool March 2nd, 2014 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8123416)
All those Pokemon are banned for a reason, unlike Mega Blaziken, Kangaskhan and Gengar

did you read my post?
lol
I was saying that people would be using teams of those pkmn left, righ,t and center if it wasn't for the tier system.
I don't even understand how you are trying to reply to it to be honest, no offense.
read the post though, I wasn't saying they shoudnt be banned
lol
EDIT:
I think I get what you are saying. You seen the pkmn names and just went ahead and posted instead of replying to the actual content of my post, I was confused at first.
As far as M gengar and M kangaskhan. There are ways to make them unstoppable. uhmmm Gliscor for example, he could boost M kangaskhan ridiculously, Switch in gliscor on something he can take two or three hits on sworddance and agility then baton pass to M kangaskhan, get off one power up punch from there and, viola, sweep an entire team, full of any pkmn from any tier pretty much.
That's why its banned. It can be set up to be OP.

Pryze March 2nd, 2014 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8121908)
So, some time ago Smogon banned Mega Blaziken (for Speed Boost), Mega Kangaskhan (for unstoppableness involving Power-Up Punch), and Mega Gengar (for general trickery) from their whatever-thing. I don't really care much about their whatever-thing, but this got my attention. Why? Because as a fan of Pokemon and my involvement with its meta. This type of thing has really has gotten on my nerves in the past (the banning of Soul Dew, for example) and I'm fearing an all-out ban of the use of Mega Stones online for X and Y.
Don't worry, this won't be an essay, but an articulation of my opinion (a rant, you could say). The reason this bothers me so much is the fact that other video games let their metas evolve on their own. If Pokemon did this, it would be like this: Someone finds a really powerful Pokemon, and they use it in the meta. Some of the meta copies this person, while the rest look for a counter. As many start using this counter, people can predict that they will be facing this counter, and the meta flows like that accordingly. However, Smogon doesn't seem to want that to happen. What they are doing is trying to ban all Pokemon that take over the meta without letting it flow, thus creating a somewhat broken meta.

I'm sorry if this is in the wrong place, but I was kinda in a hurry in typing this because it's pretty long.

The area in bold happened to catch my eye.

Just curious, have you ever actually played against, say, a mega Blaziken in OU? A Pokemon with not-too-terrible bulk, base 160 attack, two base 120+ STAB moves, fantastic offensive coverage, the inability to get burned, and the ability to get to +1 Speed and +2 attack in one turn in horrifically broken, and doesn't really have an expansive list of counters, does it?

+2 252+ Atk Mega Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 183-216 (46.4 - 54.8%) -- 10.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

(Aside from Giratina, who's in Ubers) Slowbro is the only Pokemon I've seen that isn't outright 2HKO'd or even OHKO'd by a +2 High Jump Kick. Are you honestly going to tell me that if I don't want to get swept by a Mega Blaziken, I have to run a max HP max Def Slowbro on every team I make? When it gets to that point, one would believe it fairly obvious that Blaziken deserves a ban.

Zeffy March 2nd, 2014 7:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Howmander (Post 8122151)
It's interesting how people keep defending the bans by saying it keeps people from using the same pokemon over and over again, but if you look at the tries people ALREADY do that because if they're in this teir, they can't use that, that, that or that, so that ONLY leaves this or this. Even the smogon movesets primarily list moves to counter SPECIFICALLY NAMED pokemon rather than pokemon types and list the counters againas specifically named pokemon rather than types because of the tries, there's only specific pokemon you can use in specific teirs. Not to mention my endless rants against their idiotic bans (yes, idiotic)

I was with you here until...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Howmander (Post 8122151)
Blaziken gets banned because of speed boost? I forgot that the faster it gets, the more moves per turn it gets. Oh wait! It doesn't! If you're slower than Blaziken when the battle starts, Blaziken gets NO benefit whatsoever.

Obviously you have not played against a proper Blaziken. The user above pointed out the very reason why Blaziken has been banned so I'm not going to blab about that any longer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Howmander (Post 8122151)
Then there's the stupid double team ban. Oh no! A move that has dozens of counter moves, several abilities and even an item that counters it, THERE'S NO DEFENCE AGAINST THIS SUPER MOVE! Better ban it from use! I'm just waiting for them to ban Nuzzle. (A move that damages AND paralyzed?! Holy crap!! Screw Arceus, pichu will destroy everything in existence! ;-) )

There's the lame justification of "evasion makes the game based on luck rather than skill!" Which could be said about EVERY move. If you're prepared, evasion boosts mean nothing. But everyone is smogon apparently loses both bladder and bowel control at the thought of it.

Now you're just being silly. Here was me thinking "hey a person who's dissing smogon with a proper argument, I better get me some of that!" but only end up being disappointed. The theory of probability dictates that for a number of random sequence of events, a pattern is eventually going to arise. Since evading is a probability, raising your evasion high enough is surely going to somewhat produce a pattern. While irrelevant in most cases, you actually don't need any prior knowledge of probability to abuse increasing evasion. It is similar to the premise of other stat-boosting moves--the higher the number, the more likelihood of success. Meaning, if you eventually raised your evasion high enough, you almost have direct control of the game, which even a well-prepared cannot come back from. That's no fun now, innit?

You also raised a point about things that counter evasion abuse. I only have one thing to say to that: no. I mean, sure, you could just use moves that ignore evasion like Swift and Shock Wave, which would eventually lead to a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ metagame. Isn't that exactly the opposite of what you want to achieve?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Howmander (Post 8122151)
A HUGE thing that the teirs have produced is interchangeable movesets. You look (objectively) at a crap ton of the movesets are totally interchangeable. If it's a special sweeper, it has thunderbolt, flamethrower, ice beam, psychic. If it's a physical sweeper it has earthquake, Rock slide, close combat, flare blitz, annoyed have toxic, substitute, confuse ray, etc, etc. those aren't the actual movesets, but my point has been made that you can defend the tiers by saying that it prevents the same pokemon from being used over and over, but it really doesn't. It in fact not only makes the same pokemon used over and over, it makes the same movesets used over and over. It genuinely won't take you very long looking at smogon movesets to see movesets that don't even take the type consideration of the user into account, let alone ones that make no use of it's natural stat spread or ability. (There's plenty that DO, don't get me wrong, but there's stills significant number that don't)

Basically, everything is an interchangeable physical sweeper, or a special sweeper, or an annoyer, or a wall, or a baton passer, or a healer. The only thing that prevents identical movesets on everything in the same category is that not everything can learn everything. And on top of that, there's the hugely underused class if pokemon that are obviously meant to be evaders. Just because smogon wets themselves in terror at the thought of a surskit with double team, they simply ban the move altogether rather than learning how to combat it. There's many pokemon that have good attacks and speed but terrible HP and defenses. Obviously those ones are not made to fit into the narrow category smogon sets up, but rather their own class where they hit hard and just try not to get hit back in return by slinking into the shadows. But because smogon thinks every battle should be like the British army where everyone just stands there firing at each other no one learns new, unique strategies, no one learns how to use evaders and therefore never learns how to counter them, so the meta game stagnates because no one is trying creative, amazing, wonderful strategies, they just make all the pokemon fit into 1 of 5 categories and try to shoehorn similar movesets onto everything in that category.

tl;dr version: waa smogon is a big baby waa pro precis writing skills ftw

The "stagnating metagame" is not exactly the fault of Smogon's tiering system. I hope you are still reading this because, surprise surprise, people play Pokemon. No one is discouraging you to use creative movesets--as long as it works. In fact, some of the known movesets right now were considered creative before--right until people started using them team after team. People people people people people. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Howmander (Post 8122151)
I too am a strong believer in everything has a counter battling, because everything does. The teirs make everyone use the same pokemon over and over, but allowing anyone to use anything does quite the opposite. Sure at first people will keep using the most powerful same pokemon over and over, but then people will figure out counters to those, and the. More people will use those and someone else will figure out counters to those and so on and so on. Just because today everyone is using mega kangaskhan, for example, doesn't mean people won't figure out counters to those, have the counter on all their teams then very quickly no one is using kangaskhan but rather the counter, and so on and so on, and the game will evolve from there. Removing the incentive to think for yourself by banning pokemon, moves and strategies doesn't help anyone. It in fact reduces imaginative battlers and makes them unable to function if anyone else tries anything other than the smogon pre approved movesets.

I'm going to go on a limb here and say that you've no proper experience with the Smogon's metagames. Either that or you lack the basic understanding of simple logic. I'm sorry if that is a bit...insulting but I'm only being honest. They have banned most (emphasis on most) of the Pokemon with legitimate reasons. I'm afraid one or two counters are not enough to decry a Pokemon's ban. If a Pokemon is legitimately "broken" then everyone will be forced to use a niche Pokemon to counter something widely used, thereby leaving them with only 5 slots to work with; essentially giving up team synergy just to counter a single Pokemon.

I find it amusing the people keep insisting on dissing Smogon's tiering system. You're entitled to your own opinion, yeah, but at least support your opinions with actions. I have seen a many a people say "screw smogon I play by my own rules *puts on shades*" yet they still battle under Smogon's circumstances or worse (i'm talking about those who don't play competitive Pokemon at all).

Xander Olivieri March 2nd, 2014 7:56 PM

The official standards won't mirror Smogon's standards because the people who run it disagree with the mentality of "this is the only way to use them." That Smogon presents. Smogon has a higher rate of constantly repeating teams than the official tournaments do and a lot of local tournaments give off way better and more unique team formats.

Only things that are banned are event exclusive content, which I believe Soul Dew is event exclusive as well hence the item's ban, and main box art legends.

The only time they have ever banned Pokemon and or moves is if they had really bad effects like Chatter, Gravity and Dark Void.

NRG March 6th, 2014 3:02 PM

Relevent replay:

2WQG-WWWW-WWW6-WZU8

Been trying for ages to get a good kangaskhan vid

Azire March 8th, 2014 7:16 PM

Smogon......I don't play by their rules. I believe a lot of it is stupid. Blaziken is banned why? Blaziken isn't that great and Scolipede is actually 10x the Baton Passer Blaziken is. Being a BP fanatic I have tested this excessively. Blaziken is actually really easy to take down. I've never personally had a problem with it.

Evasion? How do people think this strategy is hard to battle against? Uncompetitive!? That's like saying Trick Room is uncompetitive. There is so much to combat evasion it's ridiculous it's still banned. The evasion argument is like trying to convert a 90 year old Catholic to Atheism. People against it just won't ever seen how blind they really are.

What's really bad? Stealth Rock. Not saying it should be banned but how does it not classify the same as other banned items? You have to put a counter or two on your team, it absolutely destroys certain Pokémon. Look at Rain last Gen. Almost every team you battle was Rain and all teams had like 9 different Pokémon. How was that fun?

Smogon is kind of that love/hate. It gives players something to abide by but it's far from perfect.

EDIT: On the evasion clause and making the game luck based, Focus Blast without evasion is luck based. How many Pokémon still run it for coverage? How many people still use Aura Sphere without evasion? Mega Gengar sometimes uses FB. Mewtwo X sometimes uses Aura Sphere. Evasion is just another strategy you prepare for, it's not even that great. You run Rapid Spin or Defog on almost every team? Why no Haze?

Super Bling March 8th, 2014 8:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iAzire (Post 8134218)
Smogon......I don't play by their rules. I believe a lot of it is stupid. Blaziken is banned why? Blaziken isn't that great and Scolipede is actually 10x the Baton Passer Blaziken is. Being a BP fanatic I have tested this excessively. Blaziken is actually really easy to take down. I've never personally had a problem with it.

Evasion? How do people think this strategy is hard to battle against? Uncompetitive!? That's like saying Trick Room is uncompetitive. There is so much to combat evasion it's ridiculous it's still banned. The evasion argument is like trying to convert a 90 year old Catholic to Atheism. People against it just won't ever seen how blind they really are.

What's really bad? Stealth Rock. Not saying it should be banned but how does it not classify the same as other banned items? You have to put a counter or two on your team, it absolutely destroys certain Pokémon. Look at Rain last Gen. Almost every team you battle was Rain and all teams had like 9 different Pokémon. How was that fun?

Smogon is kind of that love/hate. It gives players something to abide by but it's far from perfect.

EDIT: On the evasion clause and making the game luck based, Focus Blast without evasion is luck based. How many Pokémon still run it for coverage? How many people still use Aura Sphere without evasion? Mega Gengar sometimes uses FB. Mewtwo X sometimes uses Aura Sphere. Evasion is just another strategy you prepare for, it's not even that great. You run Rapid Spin or Defog on almost every team? Why no Haze?

Well I mean...not everyone wants to bring a Taunter just for the attempt to avoid the Double Team/Minimize. Not everyone wants to bring an Aerial Ace or Shock Waver. There are even Pokemon with Prankster that get Double Team. You can't say that isn't annoying. You'll need a Prankster just to counter that Prankster.

Then again, it all comes down to luck. Luck has always played a big part in Pokemon.

But I'm not disagreeing with you or anything, just throwing my opinion out there.

I like Haze as a big **** you to all those Scizors and Cloysters though.

also Toxic Boost Facade max speed 252 attack zangoose is the best thing in the world

Azire March 8th, 2014 10:10 PM

Well it's like you just mentioned, Haze isn't only for Evasion Pokémon/Teams. It actually has use against Pokémon that boost ANYTHING!! So it's not dead weight. One move slot and when is the last time you saw a team without a single booster?

Why isn't evasion allowed? Oh that's right!! It is in my eyes!! Granted I never use it like I never use Mega Kanga or Mega Gar but I don't tend to follow Smogon rules. Just cause I don't follow their rules doesn't mean I go out and make the most Uber hax team ever.

PlatinumDude March 8th, 2014 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iAzire (Post 8134474)
Well it's like you just mentioned, Haze isn't only for Evasion Pokémon/Teams. It actually has use against Pokémon that boost ANYTHING!! So it's not dead weight. One move slot and when is the last time you saw a team without a single booster?

Why isn't evasion allowed? Oh that's right!! It is in my eyes!! Granted I never use it like I never use Mega Kanga or Mega Gar but I don't tend to follow Smogon rules. Just cause I don't follow their rules doesn't mean I go out and make the most Uber hax team ever.

The reason why Blaziken got banned (again) is because it had the raw power to back up its steadily increasing Speed in battle. It forces switches easily and can find opportunities to set up Swords Dance. Once Talonflame and Azumarill were eliminated Blaziken was free to wreak havoc. Its Mega Evolution cranks it up a notch by giving it more Speed and power.

Azire March 9th, 2014 1:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PlatinumDude (Post 8134484)
The reason why Blaziken got banned (again) is because it had the raw power to back up its steadily increasing Speed in battle. It forces switches easily and can find opportunities to set up Swords Dance. Once Talonflame and Azumarill were eliminated Blaziken was free to wreak havoc. Its Mega Evolution cranks it up a notch by giving it more Speed and power.

Blaziken can be beaten. It's weak to common attack types. Off the top of my head it's weak to Flying, Psychic, Water, Ground and neutral to Fairy due the secondary Fighting typing getting rid of the resistance provided by the Fire typing.

I'm curious as to how many people actually played against Blaziken before it's almost immediate ban. I understand how Mega Kangaskhan can cause problems, Mega Gengar is hacked as all hell. With a Kyurem-W SAtk and monstrous Spe. Shadow Tag + Perish Song + Destiny Bond is insane. You add STAB Shadow Ball off 170 SAtk, okay it's completely overpowered. Blaziken? Easy enough to counter. Even on a full Baton Pass team I would much rather use Scolipede.

Nah March 9th, 2014 2:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iAzire (Post 8135511)
Blaziken can be beaten. It's weak to common attack types. Off the top of my head it's weak to Flying, Psychic, Water, Ground and neutral to Fairy due the secondary Fighting typing getting rid of the resistance provided by the Fire typing.

I'm curious as to how many people actually played against Blaziken before it's almost immediate ban. I understand how Mega Kangaskhan can cause problems, Mega Gengar is hacked as all hell. With a Kyurem-W SAtk and monstrous Spe. Shadow Tag + Perish Song + Destiny Bond is insane. You add STAB Shadow Ball off 170 SAtk, okay it's completely overpowered. Blaziken? Easy enough to counter. Even on a full Baton Pass team I would much rather use Scolipede.

Blaziken is banned because it can be incredibly difficult to kill once it has set up. Or at least Mega Blaziken, anyway. Speed Boost makes it impossible to revenge kill it without priority since nothing can outspeed it after a few boosts, and with a Swords Dance boost has the power to crush most OU pokes. The ones that can take a +2 STAB Hi Jump Kick or Flare Blitz are usually either severely damaged or unable to KO it back, with a few exceptions.

Though I'm not sure why people complain when something's banned. There's plenty of other pokes to use, and if you wanna use the banned poke, battle in Ubers.

And Evasion Clause exists to remove another luck-based factor from competitive battles. There's enough luck based crap in Pokemnon already; lets not turn competitive battles into a fancy version of gambling. If I wanna gamble, I'll go to the nearest casino and play craps or roulette or something.

Azire March 9th, 2014 5:54 PM

Another luck based factor? The fact that you have to say ANOTHER is the point. People are lazy and don't feel like dealing with an overall terrible strategy. I probably wouldn't feel so strongly about it if Evasion weren't such a terrible strategy. It is so ridiculously easy to beat it's stupid. It's like banning Pikachu with Light Ball. What would be the point?

Smogon is so blinded by their move sets to counter this Pokémon and that. People don't want the accuracy of the already terribly inaccurate Focus Blast to be put into jeopardy. One evasion boost does what? Turns a regular attack into Focus Blast?

What about attacks that never miss? Haze. I can't keep repeating Haze. It has good distribution and it's just like running Defog. Oh you don't want to get rid of your boosts to combat the opponent?

It is laziness to adapt to a new Meta and fear of having to learn new strategies. People are stuck in their ways.

Why don't we see just how much usage Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Gengar and evasion get in VGC. I'm assuming evasion won't see much use because it's a terrible strategy.

PlatinumDude March 9th, 2014 6:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iAzire (Post 8135897)
Another luck based factor? The fact that you have to say ANOTHER is the point. People are lazy and don't feel like dealing with an overall terrible strategy. I probably wouldn't feel so strongly about it if Evasion weren't such a terrible strategy. It is so ridiculously easy to beat it's stupid. It's like banning Pikachu with Light Ball. What would be the point?

Smogon is so blinded by their move sets to counter this Pokémon and that. People don't want the accuracy of the already terribly inaccurate Focus Blast to be put into jeopardy. One evasion boost does what? Turns a regular attack into Focus Blast?

What about attacks that never miss? Haze. I can't keep repeating Haze. It has good distribution and it's just like running Defog. Oh you don't want to get rid of your boosts to combat the opponent?

It is laziness to adapt to a new Meta and fear of having to learn new strategies. People are stuck in their ways.

Why don't we see just how much usage Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Gengar and evasion get in VGC. I'm assuming evasion won't see much use because it's a terrible strategy.

Attacks that never miss, like Swift, aren't used at all because of their low base powers. The only exceptions are Aura Sphere, which has acceptable base power (at 90 in Gens IV-V, 80 in Gen VI), Aerial Ace (which Mega Aerodactyl can actually get away with thanks to Tough Claws powering up the move), Shadow Punch (which Golurk can use thanks to Iron Fist) and Clear Smog, which is used as an offensive Haze. However, Aura Sphere and Clear Smog aren't learned by a lot of Pokemon.

ToWriteLove March 9th, 2014 7:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iAzire (Post 8135897)
Another luck based factor? The fact that you have to say ANOTHER is the point. People are lazy and don't feel like dealing with an overall terrible strategy. I probably wouldn't feel so strongly about it if Evasion weren't such a terrible strategy. It is so ridiculously easy to beat it's stupid. It's like banning Pikachu with Light Ball. What would be the point?

Smogon is so blinded by their move sets to counter this Pokémon and that. People don't want the accuracy of the already terribly inaccurate Focus Blast to be put into jeopardy. One evasion boost does what? Turns a regular attack into Focus Blast?

What about attacks that never miss? Haze. I can't keep repeating Haze. It has good distribution and it's just like running Defog. Oh you don't want to get rid of your boosts to combat the opponent?

It is laziness to adapt to a new Meta and fear of having to learn new strategies. People are stuck in their ways.

Why don't we see just how much usage Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Gengar and evasion get in VGC. I'm assuming evasion won't see much use because it's a terrible strategy.

Let's examine what you are saying here and put it into perspective. You are wanting to rely on the move Haze to deal with Stat Changes, thus allowing Evasion to be perfectly acceptable in the meta? you say you can just keep spamming Haze? You do have a limit of PP, and what happens in the case that your Haze user is either killed beforehand, or they are faster than you and kill you. What do you do in that situation, invest another Pokemon to have Haze? Okay, so two slots taken up by a Haze User that could've been used as a check. Using as a check as well? What if it's dealt with? then the battle could potentially go out of hand and you are sitting there doing nothing.

Even in a situation without Haze, in which yes, you can kill a Poke' trying to use Evasion to it's advantage, they can be killed easily with the right answer, but what if you don't have the right answer right then? What if they are able to get just two evasive moves off. You can still hit it right? But what if you don't? Yes I am putting the Luck Factor into perspective, but the Luck Factor IS a part of competitive battling.

You say Smogon is so blinded by their ways, when Smogon is an entire community of people, just just a committee. Each banned Poke has been taken into testing by people who move up their ladder battling, and then put to a vote among the community. Sound hard? I was able to ladder in about three to four days to put my vote into say, so therefore you could do the same. How does that show laziness? Have you ever legitimately tested against a tuned team with Blaziken?

And then you are comparing Smogon Singles.... To VGC Doubles? you do realize that these are completely different metas right? The amount of difference between having two Poke' against two Poke' and 1v1 is incredible. Also, if you check out the site Nuggetbridge, you can see reports of Top 16 rankings/teams of recent VGC Tournaments, which have a fair number of Kangaskhan's and Gengar's among them.

Griffinbane March 9th, 2014 9:55 PM

VGC someone said?

Mega Kangaskan is in like half the teams or so seen among the top 16 at tournaments, as ToWriteLove said. A third at the very least. Also, Kangaskan is the third most used Pokemon in Season 2 of Special Battles, which was and is following VGC rules. Evasion moves fall under the set-up move list and like just about every other set up move, it's not used because the meta is too aggressive. You may see a random Sand Veil Garchomp holding Bright Powder, however. That damned thing cost me top 16 two Spring VGCs ago. (How does THREE Ice Beams miss???) Mega Gengar is uncommon but you'll see them on most Perish teams.

I'm not sure why you're comparing VGC to Smogon. It's easier to compare apples to grapes.

Nah March 10th, 2014 4:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iAzire (Post 8135897)
Another luck based factor? The fact that you have to say ANOTHER is the point. People are lazy and don't feel like dealing with an overall terrible strategy. I probably wouldn't feel so strongly about it if Evasion weren't such a terrible strategy. It is so ridiculously easy to beat it's stupid. It's like banning Pikachu with Light Ball. What would be the point?

Smogon is so blinded by their move sets to counter this Pokémon and that. People don't want the accuracy of the already terribly inaccurate Focus Blast to be put into jeopardy. One evasion boost does what? Turns a regular attack into Focus Blast?

What about attacks that never miss? Haze. I can't keep repeating Haze. It has good distribution and it's just like running Defog. Oh you don't want to get rid of your boosts to combat the opponent?

It is laziness to adapt to a new Meta and fear of having to learn new strategies. People are stuck in their ways.

Why don't we see just how much usage Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Gengar and evasion get in VGC. I'm assuming evasion won't see much use because it's a terrible strategy.

I don't think evasio is as terrible strategy as you make it out to be. And apparently you didn't read my last couple of sentences. Evasion requires no skill to use. Evasion is basically a luck based strategy. There is enough of a luck factor in Pokemon already. Evasion is banned so competitive battling stays competitive and doesn't turn into a craps shoot. There's no reason to play Pokemon competitively if its just a gamble.

The thing you need to understand is that human beings are the ones playing Pokemon competitively. Most people are NOT creative and NOT good strategists; therefore you can't expect them to come up with ways to counter new threats or attempt to learn new strategies. People play to win.

Azire March 10th, 2014 1:24 PM

Every team carries counters to other Pokémon. This is my point with Blaziken. You build your team to counter threats. Blaziken is not uncountable, at least not nearly as bad as Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Gengar.

I understand that Singles and Doubles are different play styles but why wouldn't Hail+Snow Cloak+Bright Powder work for an Evasion build? Other Pokémon could use other skills, I don't think the aggressive style means you can't use it. Combine that Evasion with STAB 100% accurate Blizzard? Froslass also has STAB Shadow Ball. It could be done.

My purpose for bringing up VGC and the usage of Pokémon and Evasion is the Pokémon are being used while evasion isn't except in rare cases. Of course anything could pop up in VGC so it's a moot point.

On the point of losing your Haze user, what happens if you lose your spinner/defogger? You can end up severely crippled either way based on your team.

Simply put, if people use moves that increase accuracy, why not decrease? The entire game is luck based, why remove something that is luck based? It doesn't make sense.

Cordova.Erick March 10th, 2014 1:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparksPKMN (Post 8121908)
So, some time ago Smogon banned Mega Blaziken (for Speed Boost), Mega Kangaskhan (for unstoppableness involving Power-Up Punch), and Mega Gengar (for general trickery) from their whatever-thing. I don't really care much about their whatever-thing, but this got my attention. Why? Because as a fan of Pokemon and my involvement with its meta. This type of thing has really has gotten on my nerves in the past (the banning of Soul Dew, for example) and I'm fearing an all-out ban of the use of Mega Stones online for X and Y.
Don't worry, this won't be an essay, but an articulation of my opinion (a rant, you could say). The reason this bothers me so much is the fact that other video games let their metas evolve on their own. If Pokemon did this, it would be like this: Someone finds a really powerful Pokemon, and they use it in the meta. Some of the meta copies this person, while the rest look for a counter. As many start using this counter, people can predict that they will be facing this counter, and the meta flows like that accordingly. However, Smogon doesn't seem to want that to happen. What they are doing is trying to ban all Pokemon that take over the meta without letting it flow, thus creating a somewhat broken meta.

I'm sorry if this is in the wrong place, but I was kinda in a hurry in typing this because it's pretty long.

I Agree With You , But The Thing Is That About Eighty Five Percent Of The People Play By Smogon Rules . When There's A VGC Tournament Hosted By The Creators Of The Pokemon Game , People Will Use All Those "OU" Pokemon In There & Battle With Them . The Thing That They Don't Know Is That In A VGC Battle You Can Use Minimize & Make A Lot Of Your Opponents Pokemon Fall Asleep & Smogon People Get Mad , But What They Don't Realize Is The Rules Of The VGC Competition.

Nah March 10th, 2014 2:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iAzire (Post 8137196)
Every team carries counters to other Pokémon. This is my point with Blaziken. You build your team to counter threats. Blaziken is not uncountable, at least not nearly as bad as Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Gengar.

You can't counter everything.
Quote:

I understand that Singles and Doubles are different play styles but why wouldn't Hail+Snow Cloak+Bright Powder work for an Evasion build? Other Pokémon could use other skills, I don't think the aggressive style means you can't use it. Combine that Evasion with STAB 100% accurate Blizzard? Froslass also has STAB Shadow Ball. It could be done.
I don't understand what you're getting at here. Nobody here is saying that evasion tactics can't work.
Quote:

My purpose for bringing up VGC and the usage of Pokémon and Evasion is the Pokémon are being used while evasion isn't except in rare cases. Of course anything could pop up in VGC so it's a moot point.
Most people understand that evasion is kinda broken, so they refrain from using evasion tactics. That's why evasion isn't that common in VGC.
Quote:

On the point of losing your Haze user, what happens if you lose your spinner/defogger? You can end up severely crippled either way based on your team.
This I can agree with you on. I'm not fond of the way entry hazards (especially Stealth Rock) overcentralize the metagame.
Quote:

Simply put, if people use moves that increase accuracy, why not decrease? The entire game is luck based, why remove something that is luck based? It doesn't make sense.
Competitive battling should be based more on skill than luck. Luck is an unavoidable part of anything, but that doesn't mean we have to turn Pokemon battles into Russian Roulette.

And the thing is, does the evasion clause (and Smogon's other bans) ruin your day? Does it ruin the metagame? Smogon doesn't ban things nilly-willy; a lot of thought and testing is put into their bans. They do post about why they ban things:

Blaziken: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xy-ou-ban-of-blaziken-and-deoxys-n.3492497/
Mega Kangaskhan: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/kangaskhanite-is-now-banned-to-ubers.3495351/

If they did just ban things left and right, Keldeo would've made Ubers a long time ago.

The thing I have never understood about people who complain about Smogon and make it out to be the devil is that nobody is forced to play by Smogon's rules. Everyone who plays by Smogon's rules does so willingly. If you don't like Smogon's rules, then go play in VGC, Battle Spot or with friends/Passerbys or the Battle Maison.

One other thing: Haze is not a cure-all to evasion. Haze only eliminates stat boosts; evasion gained by items and abilities is unaffected by Haze.

Griffinbane March 10th, 2014 2:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8137212)
I Agree With You , But The Thing Is That About Eighty Five Percent Of The People Play By Smogon Rules . When There's A VGC Tournament Hosted By The Creators Of The Pokemon Game , People Will Use All Those "OU" Pokemon In There & Battle With Them . The Thing That They Don't Know Is That In A VGC Battle You Can Use Minimize & Make A Lot Of Your Opponents Pokemon Fall Asleep & Smogon People Get Mad , But What They Don't Realize Is The Rules Of The VGC Competition.

Uhm. Time to clear a misconception. VGC tournaments are not set by the creators of the game. For the most part, once the developers finish the game, they have nothing to do with it unless something breaks and they have to fix it. No, the people who organizes the tournaments are ordinary people with day jobs who do a lot of tournament hosting on their free time. Then it's further organized to include people who makes organize the tournament organizers and help them plan so everything isn't clustered together in one location. Then it's further organized to include people who makes things official and puts it up on the official site and really helps get the word out. And all these people are all part of The Pokemon Company International. Except the tournament organizers are 100% volunteer, and they don't get paid for their work. And all of these guys are certainly not creators of Pokemon.

Derp.

Onicon March 10th, 2014 3:27 PM

One of the few realizations the complainer eventually will or will not make is that Smogon adjust their rules to fit their image of a preferable metagame, which probably differs from the vision the complainer at hand had in mind, and that they don't give a damn about what this one thinks. Complaining about them changing the rules is in our eyes misplaced when the actual force behind them is not Smogon but another party that has chosen to adhere to them. Similarly, an internet-savvy person should not automatically expect Smogon rules on anything but Smogon itself. This kind of assumption is always a big source for drama on sites like GameFAQs who does not have Smogon rules. From our experience, most Smogon regulars actually are well-versed with the concept of having different rulesets, mostly because it is inherent in the whole Smogon idea. They give us a good challenge most time we battle in VGC.

As for the metagame they aspire to create, it comes down to preference. Smogon prefers a well balanced enviroment where many playstyles and Pokemon are viable as possible. The power discrepancy between many mons in the game led to the creation of character tiers.
Now, as said, that is how they prefer a metagame, although there are many(?) people who think that certain powerful and centralizing forces should be allowed to remain in the standard play because it narrows down the number of viable playstyles and tightens the metagame, which is a valid opinion. We personally prefer a decentralized metagame because we think it leads to more varied matchups and more interesting games.

As for the banning of several Megas that seems to upset people: We have saw that as inevitable since the official statement that they are practically lengendaries (read: 'Über'). Even if they are checkable, it may or may not prevent them from being centralizing. A good example is the 4th gen Sand Veil Garchomp in Singles that forced most high level teams to consist of Garchomp, two Garchomp checks, two Garchomp check counters and a filler. As said, it is a valid opinion to like that kind of metagame but we are probably in the minority when we find it slightly monotonous.

Also, we wonder how the misconception about VGC being held by Game Freak come to exist. They are responsible for the game itself while the VGC rules are provided by The Pokémon Company.

Cordova.Erick March 10th, 2014 4:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griffinbane (Post 8137329)
Uhm. Time to clear a misconception. VGC tournaments are not set by the creators of the game. For the most part, once the developers finish the game, they have nothing to do with it unless something breaks and they have to fix it. No, the people who organizes the tournaments are ordinary people with day jobs who do a lot of tournament hosting on their free time. Then it's further organized to include people who makes organize the tournament organizers and help them plan so everything isn't clustered together in one location. Then it's further organized to include people who makes things official and puts it up on the official site and really helps get the word out. And all these people are all part of The Pokemon Company International. Except the tournament organizers are 100% volunteer, and they don't get paid for their work. And all of these guys are certainly not creators of Pokemon.

Derp.

Even Though They're Not The Creators , They Still Play A Role In The Pokemon Game Because The Tournamenta Are In The Game , Except When Someone Else That Is Not Part Of The Company Hosts It Then It Will Be Outside (Local). Anyways , The Thing Is About Smogon , Not The Creators Of The Tournaments & Such .

Griffinbane March 10th, 2014 5:24 PM

Except that Game Freak (the creators) have nothing to do with The Pokemon Company International (the organizers). You're still combining the two into one even though they have zero, zip, zilch, nada to do with each other.

As for Smogon, in the end, every player can play by their rules or choose to play according to another set of rules. I don't really see the point about arguing against what Smogon does when you can just skip their rules altogether and play according to a different set. After all, none of the Battle Spot styles support Smogon.

Don't like Smogon? Play VGC or Battle Spot. Singles Smogon is the dominant battle form on this forum and most tournaments are in that format. If you don't like it, you can always create your own tournament (and see it die without support). Hell, if you play on Showdown, there's like... 4 other formats you can play.

Those guys spend weeks, months even, testing out teams and pushing numbers. All props to them. They're a dedicated community, and they really do strive to make the game as fair as possible.

/shrug

Cordova.Erick March 10th, 2014 7:02 PM

I Agree With You . But The Thing Is , Smogon Make These Tiers To Make The Game Enjoyable & All While Pokémon In VGC Match Tells You , "You Like That Pokémon ? Cool , Use It ?" Smogon Is Not The Correct Way To Play Pokémon . I See Many Twelve Year Old Kids Getting Yelled At For Using Minimize Driblim When They Are Really Playing Under VGC Rules . I Understand We Can Play As For Fun , But When It Comes To World Wide Tournaments , You HAVE To Use Anything You Can To Win Unless The Rules Say So.

Griffinbane March 10th, 2014 7:22 PM

Pffffft. Nowhere does it say anywhere in VGC that Smogon is not the correct way of playing. Fact is, a player should make themselves familiar with the rules before joining any tournament. There's been plenty of players who've been kicked out of a regional for bringing in an illegal team. In fact, it's easier to last-minute convert a team from VGC to singles format. VGC is the OFFICIAL LIVE COMPETITION format. So what? That doesn't mean you're banned from playing singles, or making and agreeing on rules ahead of time.

If a 12-year-old wants to become competitive, he or she had better learn to update themselves with the rules before joining any tournament. Pfft, I know parents who fix their kids' teams so that the kids can compete. Someone has to take responsibility. Sorry, but if a person decides to go into a tournament blind to the rules, they deserve to lose or get DQ'd. Only one situation exists where a person may be given the pass and that's if they literally could not go check the rules. And in that case, shouldn't life take priority anyway?

Necrum March 10th, 2014 7:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8137780)
I Agree With You . But The Thing Is , Smogon Make These Tiers To Make The Game Enjoyable & All While Pokémon In VGC Match Tells You , "You Like That Pokémon ? Cool , Use It ?" Smogon Is Not The Correct Way To Play Pokémon . I See Many Twelve Year Old Kids Getting Yelled At For Using Minimize Driblim When They Are Really Playing Under VGC Rules . I Understand We Can Play As For Fun , But When It Comes To World Wide Tournaments , You HAVE To Use Anything You Can To Win Unless The Rules Say So.

It all comes down to what the players in question agree to. If both players aren't on the same page at the beginning then someone is gonna be mad. Like the other day I went into a battle with a friend but he invited me to doubles when my team is built for singles. I was a little upset and wound up losing because my team wasn't ready for it. Smogon is a self imposed set of rules and in no way pretends to be the official play style.

Also, if we're gonna talk about what VGC rules are, VGC is all doubles only. And if all we did was have double battles life would suck, okay?

Work on typing without caps on every word while you're at it, unless you're trying to annoy the entire forum.

Cordova.Erick March 10th, 2014 8:46 PM

I Am Saying Why Do So Many People Act Like Smogon's Say Is The Ultimate Word . & No, They Do Not Make The Best Decisions, Why Do People Think That? People Are Just Following Them & Thinking They Are The Representative To Pokemon Or Something . Just Say In Proper Battling , Several Legendary's Cannot Be Used. Other Than That, You Need To Use Logic & Decide How To Build A Powerful Team Of Non-Legendary's . You Spend Long Time Training A Pokemon To Level Hundred & Then It's Banned Just Because It Can Sweep Someone's Team ? There Is No Pokemon That Has No Weakness In Now In Gen 6. So If You're Loosing Then It's Because You Don't Have A Balanced Team , Don't Blame It One The Trainer Or The Pokemon That Sweeped You.. Blame It On Yourself . I don't see the real point of this so called "competitive battling"... I mean just say to people go build yourself a team as long you don't use any legendary's then it's fine. If You Build A Team Filled With Weak Pokemon , Then You Should Not Complain If You Get Swept . There Are Some Non-Legendaries With Great Abilities Such As Blaziken But It Can Be Countered If You Have A Proper Balance Team . What You Don't Do Is Turn Around & Ban Blaziken . There Is Nothing Competitive About That .

~ By The Way , This Is The Way I Type , Nobody Is Trying To Annoy Other People . I'm Just Known For Typing The Begginning Every Word With A Capital Letter . ;)

Flushed March 10th, 2014 9:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8137939)
I Am Saying Why Do So Many People Act Like Smogon's Say Is The Ultimate Word . & No, They Do Not Make The Best Decisions, Why Do People Think That? People Are Just Following Them & Thinking They Are The Representative To Pokemon Or Something .

Smogon knows what they're doing. They do extensive testing, and by they I don't mean it's one guy doing the whole thing. It's a community that exists to do this sort of thing. It's been said many times on this thread. Why do people complain about Smogon when you're not forced to abide by their rules? If someone's shoving Smogon down your throat then ignore them. Now saying that is going to make everything I say look incredibly hypocritical but, the second part of this post merely defends Smogon's ban decisions; I'm not forcing you to adhere to them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8137939)
There Is No Pokemon That Has No Weakness In Now In Gen 6. So If You're Loosing Then It's Because You Don't Have A Balanced Team , Don't Blame It One The Trainer Or The Pokemon That Sweeped You.. Blame It On Yourself . I don't see the real point of this so called "competitive battling"... I mean just say to people go build yourself a team as long you don't use any legendary's then it's fine. If You Build A Team Filled With Weak Pokemon , Then You Should Not Complain If You Get Swept . There Are Some Non-Legendaries With Great Abilities Such As Blaziken But It Can Be Countered If You Have A Proper Balance Team . What You Don't Do Is Turn Around & Ban Blaziken . There Is Nothing Competitive About That.

Actual weaknesses are kind of irrelevant to the argument. Type advantage does not make one a counter. Azire, you said Blaziken is weak to common attacking types. But if it High Jump Kicks you to the graveyard, you won't even have time to launch an attack. And the point of bans are these Pokemon are overpowered. A balanced team can easily be swept by Blaziken. Quoted from Zekrom's link: "Blaziken can either sweep a significant portion of the metagame late-game with just a Speed Boost or sweep a significant portion of the metagame at any point in a battle with a Speed Boost and Swords Dance." The whole point is that you won't have to sacrifice a slot and the synergy of your team for an obscure counter. And you can't just prepare yourself for one threat, might as well carry a counter for each banned Pokemon while you're at it. The same thing goes for evasion. Sure you can have a balanced team, but can your team stop Kang, Lucario, Blaziken, Minimize and every other imaginable thing at the same time? No.


For something like singles do I think Smogon is in the right? Yes. Do I think people playing singles should adhere to their rules? Sure. I think it makes things fair and more fun. But no one's making you do anything, if you don't agree with Smogon, then don't play by their rules.

Azire March 10th, 2014 10:05 PM

You can say don't play by their rules but most online battling I've found goes by Smogon rules. It's not as easy to escape as you make it sound.

Perhaps my lack of problems with most Pokémon is the fact I almost always have a Ditto on my team. It's my favorite Pokémon as you can tell from my picture and it just so happens to be great competitively.

Flushed March 10th, 2014 10:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azire (Post 8138003)
You can say don't play by their rules but most online battling I've found goes by Smogon rules. It's not as easy to escape as you make it sound.

Perhaps my lack of problems with most Pokémon is the fact I almost always have a Ditto on my team. It's my favorite Pokémon as you can tell from my picture and it just so happens to be great competitively.

Well just because your opponent plays by Smogon rules doesn't mean you have to. They may chastise you, but it's not really their place to, especially if it's Battle Spot.

Nah March 11th, 2014 6:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azire (Post 8138003)
You can say don't play by their rules but most online battling I've found goes by Smogon rules. It's not as easy to escape as you make it sound.

Perhaps my lack of problems with most Pokémon is the fact I almost always have a Ditto on my team. It's my favorite Pokémon as you can tell from my picture and it just so happens to be great competitively.

The only place that uses and enforces Smogon's rules is Pokemon Showdown (and by extension, PC's battle server). No other place I know of makes you play by Smogon's rules. If you're playing somewhere else and someone gets mad at you for not following Smogon's rules, tell 'em to ♥♥♥♥ off.

Sandslash Fan March 11th, 2014 6:17 AM

I haven't played on a Smogon server yet, but I did have a curiosity about the logic applied. Evasion isn't allowed (Double Team, Minimize.... Sand Veil), since they don't want to pigeon-hole people into needing moves that always hit (Shock Wave, Clear Smog, Swift, etc), but everyone says to have a Pokemon that can Rapid Spin on your team.

Entry hazards are ok, but Heaven forbid that you have a Pokemon with Keen Eye or an auto-hit move; Heck even Roar phazes without fail now :)

Nah March 11th, 2014 6:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superstrength79 (Post 8138332)
I haven't played on a Smogon server yet, but I did have a curiosity about the logic applied. Evasion isn't allowed (Double Team, Minimize.... Sand Veil), since they don't want to pigeon-hole people into needing moves that always hit (Shock Wave, Clear Smog, Swift, etc), but everyone says to have a Pokemon that can Rapid Spin on your team.

Entry hazards are ok, but Heaven forbid that you have a Pokemon with Keen Eye or an auto-hit move; Heck even Roar phazes without fail now :)

Yeah...that's the one main issue I have with the metagame (this gen, anyway): entry hazards. They overcentralize the metagame. I really hope that sometime in the future Game Freak will nerf entry hazards...but that's unlikely. Game Freak doesn't care much about the meta.

Sandslash Fan March 11th, 2014 7:16 AM

They nerfed weather already... maybe that means they'll take a look at entry hazards?

I didn't even know that you could "soak up" Toxic Spikes with a Poison-type Pokemon until I watched a Youtube WIFI battle. Maybe they could do something similar with Stealth Rocks... or at least give it diminishing returns.

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 8:20 AM

My Point Is , People Rage Quit Because "Supposedly" We Don't Follow The "Smogon Rule" In Battle Spot . I Understand Having A Battle With Friends & All That , There's No Competition , & Maybe That's Where Smogon Is Trying To Get , Not In Big Tournaments Like VGC & People Yell At The Host Of The Tournament Only Because His Or Her Opponent Used A Drizzle + Swift Swim Pokemon Or A Move Called "Minimize" Or "Double Team" But What They Don't Realize Is That They're Not Playing By Smogon Rules . Like About Half Of The Megas Are Banned ? What Is That ? They Didn't Banned Kangaskhan In The Past Gens. I Don't Know Why They Would Ban It Now . Yes , Is Powerful Now , But Pokemon Did That For A Reason & They Know They Can Be Countered Not Just By Super Effective Moves , But Also Pokemon Like Gengar Once Kagaskhan Mega Evolves Most Of Kangaskhan Moves Will Be Immune To Gengar & Gengar Can Take Advantage Of That.

Nah March 11th, 2014 8:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8138456)
My Point Is , People Rage Quit Because "Supposedly" We Don't Follow The "Smogon Rule" In Battle Spot . I Understand Having A Battle With Friends & All That , There's No Competition , & Maybe That's Where Smogon Is Trying To Get , Not In Big Tournaments Like VGC & People Yell At The Host Of The Tournament Only Because His Or Her Opponent Used A Drizzle + Swift Swim Pokemon Or A Move Called "Minimize" Or "Double Team" But What They Don't Realize Is That They're Not Playing By Smogon Rules .

Like I said before, if someone gets mad at someone for not following Smogon's rules in a place that does not use Smogon's rules, they should ♥♥♥♥ off.

Quote:

Like About Half Of The Megas Are Banned ? What Is That ?
Only 4 megas are banned: Kangaskhan, Blaziken, Lucario, and Gengar. And they gave reasons as to why they were banned:
Blaziken: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xy-ou-ban-of-blaziken-and-deoxys-n.3492497/
Kangaskhan: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/kangaskhanite-is-now-banned-to-ubers.3495351/
Gengar: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xy-ou-ban-of-gengarite.3494085/

I suggest you read these.

Quote:

They Didn't Banned Kangaskhan In The Past Gens. I Don't Know Why They Would Ban It Now .
Kangaskhan was never banned in past gens becuase there was no reason to ban it. Regular Kangaskhan is not a terribly good Pokemon (and only Mega Kangsakhan is banned, not regular Kanga). Now there is reason to ban it, which the link above explains.

Quote:

Yes , Is Powerful Now , But Pokemon Did That For A Reason & They Know They Can Be Countered Not Just By Super Effective Moves , But Also Pokemon Like Gengar Once Kagaskhan Mega Evolves Most Of Kangaskhan Moves Will Be Immune To Gengar & Gengar Can Take Advantage Of That.
See above Mega Kanga link. Also, Sucker Punch wrecks Gengar.

NRG March 11th, 2014 8:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8138456)
They Didn't Banned Kangaskhan In The Past Gens. I Don't Know Why They Would Ban It Now . Yes , Is Powerful Now , But Pokemon Did That For A Reason & They Know They Can Be Countered Not Just By Super Effective Moves , But Also Pokemon Like Gengar Once Kagaskhan Mega Evolves Most Of Kangaskhan Moves Will Be Immune To Gengar & Gengar Can Take Advantage Of That.

Every mega kangaskhan runs sucker punch. It's probably the most PP up'd move in 6th gen LOL

All you have to do on battlespot is send kang out first, mega and spam sucker punch, unless they spot this OP tactic at the team selection screen and send out a counter first turn.

Griffinbane March 11th, 2014 9:03 AM

If people decide to yell at a tournament host, the tournament host can kick that person out. Did you hear about that 60 year old guy who got expelled by the tournament organizer and picked up by the cops because he was trash talking a kid?

And let me repeat myself again: If you are any kind of a competitive player, you do NOT go into a tournament without checking the rules first. You wanna rage quit? Go for it. A point for your opponent, and none for you.

I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make. Are you trying to convince everyone to play by battle spot or VGC rules just because it's programmed into the game? You do realize that there is a free battle option on battle spot where anything goes, right? Are you trying to convince everyone on PC to play by your (aka not Smogon's) rules? What exactly are you trying to prove? Because all I'm seeing from you is "everyone needs to play battle spot rules because Smogon is unfair" with absolutely nothing to back it up. Your examples are terrible and whoever it is you're describing is not a responsible competitive player in any imagination.

As for casual players, battle spot will very likely put them off, because the rated battles are where competitive players practice while the free battles are chock-full of level 100 legendaries like Mewtwo and company. Too bad for them, go play in maison.

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 9:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Chance Without Zekrom (Post 8138480)
Like I said before, if someone gets mad at someone for not following Smogon's rules in a place that does not use Smogon's rules, they should ♥♥♥♥ off

Well , Yess . I Agree With You On That . The Thing That Bothers Me Is That Everywhere I Go & Battle , People Just Use Smogon Pokemon & Their Rules . I Understand Smogon's Work Trying To Test Out Teams & Such To Make The Game Enjoyable . But Instead , They're Making The Game Too Restricted & A Lot Of People Follow It . People Looking For OU Battles ? Okayy , I Understand That I Can Battle OU Or Whatever Without Minimize & All That . But In A Tournament , I'm On A Different Level . I Just Don't Like People Following & Worshiping Their Rules . Some People Call Themselves "Top Battlers" But What They Don't Realize In Only In Their "Smogon Community" , Not World Wide :/

Onicon March 11th, 2014 10:31 AM

If you use 'level' as a measurement, you will imply that Smogon is less competitive that VGC. We disagree: Despite VGC and Smogon tiers being different formats they are still both competitive in nature. It will helps if you understand the concept of metagaming. In short, you approach a battle in the sense that you can outline the possibilities your opponent has beyond what you see on the screen. This kind of thinking can be applied to multiple formats despite their difference. A good player will understand how the different rules shape the circumstance of the actions, thus a good Smogon palyer will likely do pretty well in VGC, vice versa.

Though not liking people just because they play by different rules is just silly.

Layell March 11th, 2014 11:27 AM

Cordova you're using some flimsy logic here, and not to mention your capitalization of every word doesn't make me want to read more. I'll try to hit some of your arguments.

"When There's A VGC Tournament Hosted By The Creators Of The Pokemon Game , People Will Use All Those "OU" Pokemon In There"

The Pokemon are OU are there because they are good, that is why they are overused, they are versatile, and can respond to a variety of threats. There are however some mons that do not overlap. While the makeup of Pokemon may be similar the strategies and item combinations of OU and VGC couldn't be further apart, because there are different strategies in play that players need to respond to in both formats.

"In VGC Match Tells You , "You Like That Pokémon ? Cool , Use It ?" Smogon Is Not The Correct Way To Play Pokémon ."

Both formats have their own ban lists, this years VGC has a limit on Pokemon only found in Kalos. So no VGC isn't more fair. Smogon is ranked in viability, so that every Pokemon has its own tier. Smogon is more than OU, every tier has its own playerbase.

Banlists are ok, they help keep variety and health in the game, or at least shake things up. Based on current usage stats with 40% of all VGC teams using Rotom-W and Garchomp compared to 27% and 15% in OU you'd be hard pressed to convince me that reasonable bans don't create a more fun game.

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 11:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Onicon (Post 8138594)
If you use 'level' as a measurement, you will imply that Smogon is less competitive that VGC. We disagree: Despite VGC and Smogon tiers being different formats they are still both competitive in nature. It will helps if you understand the concept of metagaming. In short, you approach a battle in the sense that you can outline the possibilities your opponent has beyond what you see on the screen. This kind of thinking can be applied to multiple formats despite their difference. A good player will understand how the different rules shape the circumstance of the actions, thus a good Smogon palyer will likely do pretty well in VGC, vice versa.

Though not liking people just because they play by different rules is just silly.

It's Not That I Really Don't Like Them . It's Just Why Use Smogon Pokemon In VGC Battles ? Smogon & VGC Are Two Different Styles To Play The Game . There's No Need To Bring Pokemon From Smogon To VGC Matches When You See People Getting Mad For Using "Banned" Pokemon . Note That Pokemon Wasn't Made For That Competitive Environment . Smogon Rules Have No Application In VGC . You Can Counter Double Team With Aerial Ace Or Faint Attack , Never Misses .

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Layell (Post 8138659)
Cordova you're using some flimsy logic here, and not to mention your capitalization of every word doesn't make me want to read more. I'll try to hit some of your arguments.

Sorry , I'm Just Used To Capitalize The First Letter Of A Word . :/

Nah March 11th, 2014 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8138680)
It's Not That I Really Don't Like Them . It's Just Why Use Smogon Pokemon In VGC Battles ? Smogon & VGC Are Two Different Styles To Play The Game . There's No Need To Bring Pokemon From Smogon To VGC Matches When You See People Getting Mad For Using "Banned" Pokemon . Note That Pokemon Wasn't Made For That Competitive Environment . Smogon Rules Have No Application In VGC . You Can Counter Double Team With Aerial Ace Or Faint Attack , Never Misses .

I'm not sure what you mean by "Smogon Pokemon", but yes, using Pokemon with movesets for singles in a doubles tournament doesn't make much sense. Also, Pokemon is not made for ANY competitive environment (but that doesn't stop us from trying anyway). And Aerial Ace/Feint Attack/Swift/Shock Wave are not good answers to evasion because they are somewhat weak moves and waste a moveslot that could be used for a move that covers more than just evasion.

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 12:04 PM

We're Getting Nowhere With This Debate . Besides , Those Moves That Never Miss , Their Power Is About 60 & Of Course The Accuracy Is Always Landing . But You Can Also Use Your Abilities To Do More Damage Or Use Moves Like Swords Dance For The Shadow Punch . STAB Moves Work As Well .

tennisace March 11th, 2014 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8138680)
It's Not That I Really Don't Like Them . It's Just Why Use Smogon Pokemon In VGC Battles ? Smogon & VGC Are Two Different Styles To Play The Game . There's No Need To Bring Pokemon From Smogon To VGC Matches When You See People Getting Mad For Using "Banned" Pokemon . Note That Pokemon Wasn't Made For That Competitive Environment . Smogon Rules Have No Application In VGC . You Can Counter Double Team With Aerial Ace Or Faint Attack , Never Misses .

You still seem to have a misunderstanding about what VGC, Smogon OU, and the "power" of Pokemon have to do with each other.

There will always be a Pokemon or a group of Pokemon that are the most effective in any given format, for a variety of reasons. It just so happens that because VGC and Smogon OU currently have roughly similar banlists (with a few notable exceptions on both sides), you see the same common Pokemon in both tiers. This isn't because Smogon is influencing VGC. It's because the Pokemon are excellent in multiple formats.

Take Talonflame for example. In Smogon OU, it excels as a fast revenge killer with the strongest priority move in the game (Gale Wings Brave Bird). In OU, you mostly see it as a Choice Band attacker with Flare Blitz, Brave Bird, U-turn, and a filler move (Will-o-Wisp or Tailwind). When you use Talonflame in VGC, its qualities that make it good in OU (Gale Wings Brave Bird) don't magically go away. The most common set in VGC for Talonflame is a Life Orb supporter, with Flare Blitz, Brave Bird, Quick Guard, and Protect.

If people get mad at you for using "Smogon Pokemon" in other tiers and rage quit, just accept the free win and move on. I can guarantee people won't be rage quitting at an actual VGC competition though, since most people go to those to win prizes.

Anyway in general I'm seeing a lot of misconceptions about what Smogon is / aims to to with its tiers. You should all check out the tiering FAQ on Smogon before passing judgement on the site as a whole. I'd link it but I can't post links until I have 15 posts (which is a shame, it answers a ton of questions people are bringing up).

Vrai March 11th, 2014 12:09 PM

tennisace asked me to post this link for him. I also completely agree with what he is saying. :o

Onicon March 11th, 2014 12:21 PM

You are basing a lot of your arguments on assumptions. Smogon Singles and VGC are entirely different formats and when you see people using Pokemon that 'coincidentally' are also used a lot on Smogon, our first tought would be that these Pokemon simply function well in both enviroments; no magic, no ominious cult followings. It is the same game, after all. Should both of you have agreed on using VGC rules, the one complaining about the opponent infringing rules of Smogon, he is either a scrub or either of you failed to make your point clear.

The statement that Pokemon is not made for competitile play is questionable and just an opinion of yours. Either way, you cannot prevent people from approaching the game in a competitive manner the same way we won't dictate you the way to play. The inistence on the only right way to play is slightly hypocritical of you. Also, your opinion carry the unfortunately implication that VGC is not competitive in nature because you now you have dropped the 'VGC is the way to play' and the 'Pokemon is not competitive' consecutively.
And if you haven't noticed yet: Game Freaks is pretty aware of competitive Pokemon player being a big part of the fanbase and the 6th gen is heavily catered towards them.

Also, we really recommend you to drop the habit of capitalizing every single word. Do not forget: If everything is emphasized, nothing is. That, and it makes our head spin.

Griffinbane March 11th, 2014 1:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8138725)
We're Getting Nowhere With This Debate . Besides , Those Moves That Never Miss , Their Power Is About 60 & Of Course The Accuracy Is Always Landing . But You Can Also Use Your Abilities To Do More Damage Or Use Moves Like Swords Dance For The Shadow Punch . STAB Moves Work As Well .

Sure you can, but if you're using stuff like Swords Dance in battle, wouldn't it be more tempting to go for that +2 Return than that +2 Swift? It's like the ever-debatable decision between Hydro Pump or Surf, power vs accuracy. Smogon banned evasion BECAUSE they don't want a battle to turn into a luckfest. Evasion is almost non-existent in VGC BECAUSE using up a turn on evasion puts you at deadly risk for a preventable KO.

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 1:27 PM

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZSapv3JHbU[/ame]

This is a VGC match. Some people call this "cheap win" or whatever but I personally think this is a good battle. There's nothing wrong with it, others called it "gamey tactic" supposedly doesn't show skill? Well, what do you think? There's no Smogon rules in here, most people that play by Smogon rules are adults like about in their twenties or so. Smogon is different than VGC & that's that. I'm Not Just Talking about Smogon OU Tier but also every tier & their rules. I would stay in Smogon because it shows me some ways to play because I was a begginner, but now that I know & rely on myself, I can do it on my own. Maybe we can play by Smogon rules but don't be copying the samples that Smogon has for the pokemon. USE your imagination, be creative. Otherwise, people will guess your strategy easily & will get by you fast. & I guess i'm trying to write most of the things in lower caps. :P

Griffinbane March 11th, 2014 1:39 PM

Oh, this guy. This guy's the one who set off the last massive VGC versus Smogon firestorm. If this really is at Regionals, I wonder how he placed. Considering his opponent used Umbreon, Archeops, and Luxray, I'd be hesitant to say that his opponent is any good. Anyhow, this strategy would likely fail if it was used in today's meta. This is a 2012 VGC video, if I'm right. The game's changed drastically since then.

Also, one thing. TAUNT ruins his team. Just one move ruins an entire team. One extremely common move.

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 1:58 PM

Ma'am, I understand about the meta-game being different now, but something like that can be done again, just differently. Always expect the unexpected. It's like Pokemon, don't over predict or get over confident, things like can get you off track of your objective.

Keiran March 11th, 2014 2:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griffinbane (Post 8138844)
Anyhow, this strategy would likely fail if it was used in today's meta.

That strategy should always fail, lol. It's awful.

Anyways, I'm failing to understand the point of this argument. D: Sounds like someone just wants people to admit VGC > Smogon? Which is totally not true, by the way. Especially when you consider Smogon has both a Doubles ladder AND a VGC ladder - both of which are filled with people who go to VGC tourneys. 0.o

Isn't Verlisify some huge troll, too? xD The name sounds familiar, and not in a good way.

Onicon March 11th, 2014 2:04 PM

Thanks for reconsidering your styple of writing, it makes your points come across less clunky.

Your arguments still need a bit work, though. Nobody here would call that a 'cheap win'. In fact, there are only two end states in competitive gaming - winning and loosing. If a tactics is proven superior , it simply becomes the center of the metagame and players will act according to that.
The reason why this kind of tactic is not established is because it cannot compete in the current (now past) metagame and we also wouldn't call that a example because the opponent's team is not well constructed. The opponent failed anticipate Drifblim using a status move and instead of using a fast taunt or super-effective snipe the hit it with a payback coming from 65 base attack - in the VGC metagaming you actually would expect Drifblim to either WoW or to use Gem Acrobatics and Thundurus, who is basically everywhere has both priority Taunt and a resistance to Flying, so the result would be the same.

We would be a bit careful with this youtuber because his OPs have a rather mixed competitive value, as they sometimes lack practice value or are stacked towards his favour like this example. Also, he is known to run the bias streamroller over Smogon like similarly to you, just in order to net cheap views. It would at least explain where your mindset came from.

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 2:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Onicon (Post 8138876)
Thanks for reconsidering your styple of writing, it makes your points come across less clunky.

Your arguments still need a bit work, though. Nobody here would call that a 'cheap win'. In fact, there are only two end states in competitive gaming - winning and loosing. If a tactics is proven superior , it simply becomes the center of the metagame and players will act according to that.
The reason why this kind of tactic is not established is because it cannot compete in the current (now past) metagame and we also wouldn't call that a example because the opponent's team is not well constructed. The opponent failed anticipate Drifblim using a status move and instead of using a fast taunt or super-effective snipe the hit it with a payback coming from 65 base attack - in the VGC metagaming you actually would expect Drifblim to either WoW or to use Gem Acrobatics and Thundurus, who is basically everywhere has both priority Taunt and a resistance to Flying, so the result would be the same.

We would be a bit careful with this youtuber because his OPs have a rather mixed competitive value, as they sometimes lack practice value or are stacked towards his favour like this example. Also, he is known to run the bias streamroller over Smogon like similarly to you, just in order to net cheap views. It would at least explain where your mindset came from.

The thing is not that i really hate Smogon; is that Smogon got people battling in a way including in big tournaments world wide where people don't come up with their own ideas, but smogon does. Some players get mad, others argue, etc. I would just use Smogon outside a competition for battling with friends or whatever & not copy the same move sets that smogon have. Maybe come up with my own ideas..

Griffinbane March 11th, 2014 2:18 PM

I don't know about TROLL, but I do know that on NB, any mention of him tends to be singed by sarcasm from experienced players and worshipful by new players. That tells me, at least, that he's doing a good job getting new players into VGC but his strategies and playstyle are iffy at best and downright bad or purposely stacked in his favor at worst. Bit like that video linked. I mean, WHO uses Umbreon, Luxray, and Archeops competitively?

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 2:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griffinbane (Post 8138892)
I don't know about TROLL, but I do know that on NB, any mention of him tends to be singed by sarcasm from experienced players and worshipful by new players. That tells me, at least, that he's doing a good job getting new players into VGC but his strategies and playstyle are iffy at best and downright bad or purposely stacked in his favor at worst. Bit like that video linked. I mean, WHO uses Umbreon, Luxray, and Archeops competitively?

Actually, Luxray is one of my favorite Pokemon & I'm still trying to figure out a way to be with me in a competitive battle. It's hard, but I'm still at it. I just know that there has to be a way to make Luxray stand out in a battle.

Onicon March 11th, 2014 3:00 PM

Now we aren't sure if we understand you correctly anymore, but we'll give it a shot: In other words, did you say that Smogon caused the creativity of the people everywhere but on Smogon to stagnate? Correct us if we are wrong.

We'll let this opinion stay but remember that the primary goal of a competitive gamer, no matter whether Smogon or VGC, is winning, preferably in the most effective fashion possible. For someone who approaches the game with this mindset, creativity has only so much room that makes him winning more easily. Do not forget that there is a limited number of possible Pokemon and movepool combination and an even more limited number of viable options. Just using non-standard Pokemon and movesets and claiming that that is creativity is - to put it in the most brutally honest way - lazy. Real creativity can be subtle, but it is definitely there; creating a non-standard set that can compete with established powerhouses is difficult but beautiful when the hard work comes to fruition.
You might want to take a look that Smogon's Creative / Underrated Sets Thread (yes, they actually support creativity if you can win with it). This one is for Smogon OU, but should give you good insight in what is considered smart. Just watch the approvals in order to sort out the good from the bad.

Off topic: There is not much walling in VGC, so there is less need for a dedicated wallbreaker. Luxrays strengths are Intimidate support and sniping with Quick Attack but then why not using Arcanine with Extreme Speed?

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 3:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Onicon (Post 8138962)
Now we aren't sure if we understand you correctly anymore, but we'll give it a shot: In other words, did you say that Smogon caused the creativity of the people everywhere but on Smogon to stagnate? Correct us if we are wrong.

We'll let this opinion stay but remember that the primary goal of a competitive gamer, no matter whether Smogon or VGC, is winning, preferably in the most effective fashion possible. For someone who approaches the game with this mindset, creativity has only so much room that makes him winning more easily. Do not forget that there is a limited number of possible Pokemon and movepool combination and an even more limited number of viable options. Just using non-standard Pokemon and movesets and claiming that that is creativity is - to put it in the most brutally honest way - lazy. Real creativity can be subtle, but it is definitely there; creating a non-standard set that can compete with established powerhouses is difficult but beautiful when the hard work comes to fruition.
You might want to take a look that Smogon's Creative / Underrated Sets Thread (yes, they actually support creativity if you can win with it). This one is for Smogon OU, but should give you good insight in what is considered smart. Just watch the approvals in order to sort out the good from the bad.

Off topic: There is not much walling in VGC, so there is less need for a dedicated wallbreaker. Luxrays strengths are Intimidate support and sniping with Quick Attack but then why not using Arcanine with Extreme Speed?

The reason I choose Luxray over Arcanine is because Luxray is one of my favs. Pokemon. Yea, I can say Arcanine as well, but not as much. But don't you think is fun battling with your favorite Pokemon instead of those common used Pokemon? You can make any Pokemon play any role you want even if it's not made for that but you can still pull it off without being gimmicky.

Nah March 11th, 2014 3:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8138891)
The thing is not that i really hate Smogon; is that Smogon got people battling in a way including in big tournaments world wide where people don't come up with their own ideas, but smogon does. Some players get mad, others argue, etc. I would just use Smogon outside a competition for battling with friends or whatever & not copy the same move sets that smogon have. Maybe come up with my own ideas..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8138999)
The reason I choose Luxray over Arcanine is because Luxray is one of my favs. Pokemon. Yea, I can say Arcanine as well, but not as much. But don't you think is fun battling with your favorite Pokemon instead of those common used Pokemon? You can make any Pokemon play any role you want even if it's not made for that but you can still pull it off without being gimmicky.

Smogon doesn't force anyone to battle a certain way. They just say that after extensive testing and number-crunching, that these are some of the most effective ways to battle/use a certain Pokemon that they have found. You don't have to use Pokemon how Smogon says or only use certain Pokemon. A Smogonite is not going to come to your house and waterboard you for using Gorebyss in OU or using Staraptor as a tank. People just tend to follow what Smogon says because they almost always have sound reasoning behind their stuff.

And nobody is telling you that you can't use a certain poke or that you can't use one in a certain way; they're telling you that your chances of winning are rather low if you use certain pokes or in a certain way. You can use any Pokemon you want except Funbro, if you use Funbro I will roast you with mah dragon fire however you want, just don't expect amazing results (unless you happen to be the next guy who came up with CroCune).

Azire March 11th, 2014 4:31 PM

Lol you can try to roast Funbro with your dragon fire but he will simply laugh at your tactics to bring him down. Funbro is Pokégod.

Want to have fun in VGC/Doubles? Funbro/Funking. You're welcome. While you're at it, make them Shiny.

Sandslash Fan March 11th, 2014 6:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Onicon (Post 8138962)
Real creativity can be subtle, but it is definitely there; creating a non-standard set that can compete with established powerhouses is difficult but beautiful when the hard work comes to fruition.

I second this. I watched the 2013 championship and saw that the winner was a kid using Machamp with lots of interesting tweaks.

http://youtu.be/0ymFRF83GdM

Cordova.Erick March 11th, 2014 7:53 PM

If you think about it, Smogon does make you battle a certain way if you play by theit rules since most people play in favor for Smogon .

Nah March 12th, 2014 5:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cordova.Erick (Post 8139360)
If you think about it, Smogon does make you battle a certain way if you play by theit rules since most people play in favor for Smogon .

*sigh*
Yes, you have to play by Smogon's rules if you choose to play in places that abide by Smogon's rules. If you choose to live in a certain country, you have to abide by that country's laws. And like I've been saying this whole time, you don't have to choose to play by Smogon's rules. Many people choose to play by Smogon's rules because they feel that Smogon has come up with a rule-set that makes Pokemon battles the most competitive/fun. But no place enforces Smogon's rules besides Showdown and tournaments/battles hosted by Smogon, or unless the 2 players involved agree to use Smogon's rules beforehand. There is zero reason to follow Smogon's rules outside of those things.

NRG March 12th, 2014 7:00 AM

Does this not qualify as trolling yet?

How many times can someone's argument evolve into something different, when the last one breaks down, until the argument is OP and we ban it to the ubers tier of arguments?

Eevee March 12th, 2014 8:09 AM

Playing by Smogon's rules is optional though a lot of people follow them.

These rules are out there to avoid OP Pokemon and cheap ways to win, allowing the game to be fair for everyone.

I personally agree with all of Smogon's rules because to me, Pokemon battling is more about skill and not grabbing a Mewtwo to attack everyone with because unless someone has a counter to said Mewtwo (for example), anyone can win with it or another strong Pokemon. It takes little skill to do so.

Nah March 12th, 2014 9:35 AM

Something we can add to this discussion: Smogon has recently announced that they are going to conduct a suspect test on Swagger+Prankster.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/swagplay-evaluating-potential-bans-basic-definition-of-uncompetitive-in-op.3500620/

What do you all think about this?

Flushed March 12th, 2014 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Chance Without Zekrom (Post 8140003)
Something we can add to this discussion: Smogon has recently announced that they are going to conduct a suspect test on Swagger+Prankster.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/swagplay-evaluating-potential-bans-basic-definition-of-uncompetitive-in-op.3500620/

What do you all think about this?

I'm kinda on the fence about this. What makes something ban-worthy? Personally I think Liepard and Togekiss are annoying as hell for SwagPlay and ParaFlinch, as they do make things luck based. But on the other hand, from what I've seen, they aren't the most used strategies. I think the process of banning things in part starts off with something exceeding "over used". I guess I don't do much in terms of online battling, but I do know these strategies aren't the most consistent, which is why they don't appear on every team.


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