Smogon are hypocrites about their policy (aka why Blaze Blaziken should be unbanned)

KorpiklaaniVodka v2.0 · Jul 9, 2017

Hello, people. I would like today to rant about Smogon's policy when it comes to banning certain Pokemon, where I will be focusing on one particular being, Blaziken.

On the Showdown server, if a Pokemon is overpowered because of one certain ability, the Pokemon itself is banned, which is what happened to Blaziken since Black and White. I accepted it over the years, but lately I'm starting to find this attitude questionable.

Exhibit A: Certain items made and make some Pokemon too strong for the OU metagame. However, in many cases, Smogon does not ban the Pokemon itself; they ban the item.

Such was the case with Latios and Latias' Soul Dew until it got nerfed this generation. Latios @ Soul Dew was clearly overpowered, as little could survive repeated Draco Meteors and Psyshocks over the course of a match, while also becoming near-impossible to OHKO on the special side. Same with Latias. Basically, it was a free Calm Mind boost without drawbacks. Smogon's action, in this case, was to ban the Soul Dew. Not the Pokemon themselves, but the item.

I'd also like to talk about Garchomp. In Black and White, the item BrightPowder was banned because when Pokemon such as Garchomp and Gliscor abused them in combination with Sand Veil, it brought the luck factor in, and Smogon really hates luck-based games (hence the ban on Moody, Double Team, etc.). So they ban the BrightPowder in the same round Blaziken gets banned. The next round sees Garchomp itself getting the axe as well. BTW, I'm going to return to Garchomp later.

Next, Mega Evolutions. Kangaskhan is clearly shit without its Mega Stone. With Kangaskhanite however, it becomes a true killing machine, one that is way too powerful for the OU meta (does this really hold true though? I mean Parental Bond got nerfed, but that's another discussion) and therefore gets the banhammer. However, Mega Stones themselves are also items; they allow the respective Pokemon holding it to go mega. Smogon's action, if the respective Mega Evolution is too powerful, is to ban the Mega Stone, the item. Not the Pokemon.

So basically, when it comes to Pokemon being OP because of an item, they choose to ban the item, not the Pokemon itself. I wonder why doesn't this apply to abilities as well... they can just ban an ability on the respective Pokemon. Smogon doesn't do this because they call it a "complex ban", even though they did "complex bans" in the past. See the Swift Swim + Drizzle ban in Gen 5. Sharpedo @ Speed Boost is clearly not broken and neither is Ninjask. However, Blaziken is. And Smogon decides to use this "complex ban" issue as a reason to justify Blaziken being banned.

Exhibit B: They DID such a thing in the past, although a little different in the grand scheme of things - they banned an ability and unbanned a Pokemon.

Remember Garchomp?

Back in 2012 when BW2 was released, and with it Rough Skin Garchomp, Smogon did a test to see if Garchomp with this ability would be broken, and it turned out to be fine - which led to its unban. However, the SAME suspect test also saw Sand Veil and Snow Cloak getting the boot because they were uncompetitive, even though Garchomp (and partly Gliscor...) was the only real abuser of this ability. They banned the ability and unbanned Garchomp. Basically, they decided that Rough Skin Garchomp was fine and Sand Veil Garchomp was uncompetitive.

Why is this not the case with Blaziken as well? Blaze Blaziken wouldn't even be viable in OU, and would probably go to RU or something, but Speed Boost Blaziken is clearly broken. But NOOOOOOOOOOOO, they ban Blaziken as a whole.

And another thing which makes Smogon look even more stupid, although many people probably don't know about it.

During XY, Smogon went back to Gen 5 and decided to ban the abilities Chlorophyll and Sand Rush in combination with their respective weather. The only broken abuser of Sand Rush was Excadrill, which could simply Swords Dance and sweep with little problems. Guess what Smogon does? Exactly, they UNBAN EXCADRILL AND BAN SAND RUSH SO THEY CAN ALLOW EXCADRILL IN OU NO MATTER WHAT. Sand Force and Mold Breaker Excadrill were fine, but Sand Rush wasn't. Stoutland's viability was also killed as a result of this ban.

Now I know this could set another precedent and make people go "hey unban Torn-T in BW because weather was what made it broken"... and I'd probably be all for it, tbh.

What do you guys think?

Nah · Jul 9, 2017

I mean, I agree that Blaze Blaziken could use to be unbanned and that inconsistencies are annoying, but what can ya do about it?

Melody · Jul 9, 2017

KorpiklaaniVodka v2.0 said:
Hello, people. I would like today to rant about Smogon's policy when it comes to banning certain Pokemon, where I will be focusing on one particular being, Blaziken.

On the Showdown server, if a Pokemon is overpowered because of one certain ability, the Pokemon itself is banned, which is what happened to Blaziken since Black and White. I accepted it over the years, but lately I'm starting to find this attitude questionable.

Exhibit A: Certain items made and make some Pokemon too strong for the OU metagame. However, in many cases, Smogon does not ban the Pokemon itself; they ban the item.

Such was the case with Latios and Latias' Soul Dew until it got nerfed this generation. Latios @ Soul Dew was clearly overpowered, as little could survive repeated Draco Meteors and Psyshocks over the course of a match, while also becoming near-impossible to OHKO on the special side. Same with Latias. Basically, it was a free Calm Mind boost without drawbacks. Smogon's action, in this case, was to ban the Soul Dew. Not the Pokemon themselves, but the item.

I'd also like to talk about Garchomp. In Black and White, the item BrightPowder was banned because when Pokemon such as Garchomp and Gliscor abused them in combination with Sand Veil, it brought the luck factor in, and Smogon really hates luck-based games (hence the ban on Moody, Double Team, etc.). So they ban the BrightPowder in the same round Blaziken gets banned. The next round sees Garchomp itself getting the axe as well. BTW, I'm going to return to Garchomp later.

Next, Mega Evolutions. Kangaskhan is clearly shit without its Mega Stone. With Kangaskhanite however, it becomes a true killing machine, one that is way too powerful for the OU meta (does this really hold true though? I mean Parental Bond got nerfed, but that's another discussion) and therefore gets the banhammer. However, Mega Stones themselves are also items; they allow the respective Pokemon holding it to go mega. Smogon's action, if the respective Mega Evolution is too powerful, is to ban the Mega Stone, the item. Not the Pokemon.

So basically, when it comes to Pokemon being OP because of an item, they choose to ban the item, not the Pokemon itself. I wonder why doesn't this apply to abilities as well... they can just ban an ability on the respective Pokemon. Smogon doesn't do this because they call it a "complex ban", even though they did "complex bans" in the past. See the Swift Swim + Drizzle ban in Gen 5. Sharpedo @ Speed Boost is clearly not broken and neither is Ninjask. However, Blaziken is. And Smogon decides to use this "complex ban" issue as a reason to justify Blaziken being banned.

Exhibit B: They DID such a thing in the past, although a little different in the grand scheme of things - they banned an ability and unbanned a Pokemon.

Remember Garchomp?

Back in 2012 when BW2 was released, and with it Rough Skin Garchomp, Smogon did a test to see if Garchomp with this ability would be broken, and it turned out to be fine - which led to its unban. However, the SAME suspect test also saw Sand Veil and Snow Cloak getting the boot because they were uncompetitive, even though Garchomp (and partly Gliscor...) was the only real abuser of this ability. They banned the ability and unbanned Garchomp. Basically, they decided that Rough Skin Garchomp was fine and Sand Veil Garchomp was uncompetitive.

Why is this not the case with Blaziken as well? Blaze Blaziken wouldn't even be viable in OU, and would probably go to RU or something, but Speed Boost Blaziken is clearly broken. But NOOOOOOOOOOOO, they ban Blaziken as a whole.

And another thing which makes Smogon look even more stupid, although many people probably don't know about it.

During XY, Smogon went back to Gen 5 and decided to ban the abilities Chlorophyll and Sand Rush in combination with their respective weather. The only broken abuser of Sand Rush was Excadrill, which could simply Swords Dance and sweep with little problems. Guess what Smogon does? Exactly, they UNBAN EXCADRILL AND BAN SAND RUSH SO THEY CAN ALLOW EXCADRILL IN OU NO MATTER WHAT. Sand Force and Mold Breaker Excadrill were fine, but Sand Rush wasn't. Stoutland's viability was also killed as a result of this ban.

Now I know this could set another precedent and make people go "hey unban Torn-T in BW because weather was what made it broken"... and I'd probably be all for it, tbh.

What do you guys think?

FINALLY SOMEONE SEES WHAT I DO! Yes, it's absolutely true, that Smogon metagame is full of trashy bans that probably shouldn't have squeaked by in the first place. The problem isn't just the system, but the users of the system as well.

Aaron said:
Wow I'll look more into this later, but you make it sound like Smogon just ban things on a whim, or Zarel just points a finger and goes "I DON'T LIKE IT, BAN IT".

As much as this might be questionable, this doesn't mean that Smogon's entire process and previous choices should just be seen as bad in some way because of it. They go through playtesting and have a council - as well as several top players in said tier - who then deliberate AFTER the testing and decide on what ban will be best. As a whole, they've been pretty good with it so far.

RE Sand Veil/Snow Cloak: Why would you not just ban the Ability? It puts The Luck Factor(tm) into any battle it's used in, whether it's Froslass using it or Garchomp and whether it's OU it's being used in or Gen 4 NU Doubles.

RE Sand Rush: I would say the ban here was to allow Excadrill to be in OU, instead of being in Ubers where its viability is extremely questionable, whereas banning Excadrill from OU means you've killed its potential to be used and Stoutland sits somewhere in UU/RU because let's fact it, it's still not great.

In terms of the Blaziken ban: I'm going to go ahead and assume you mean its ban from OU? I think they've had a look to see where it will be viable with Blaze (I think before it sat in RU?) and perhaps with the additions of things such as Z-Moves and the like, maybe it is just too busted. Again, I imagine playtesting has been implemented or at least it has been discussed to see if its ban can be lifted, as it is every generation. I think perhaps this is a bit of an overreaction - do you by any chance like using Blaziken?

You forget that the very system you're defending is largely run and influenced by very {oftentimes overly} competitive players. The very voting system is flawed, as it allows winners to define what strategy is "acceptable" and "competitive", oftentimes throwing out anything that happens to be too difficult to counter. While on the tin, this sounds fair, it actually isn't. The case in point is in fact Smogon's refusal to employ what they call complex bans, which are often necessary if they "in the name of fairness" want to keep a tier clean and unstale. I don't dispute banning things to a higher tier of play if they really are legitimately broken or overpowered. But some decisions in the last 4 years, especially in OU, have been majorly questionable.

Case in point here is actually the "complex" Moody ban.
Generally as a tactic, Moody is very much double edged. It can not only raise, but lower stats. I'd say that by the time a Moody threat has set up, you should have already eliminated it. If I recall correctly, the BST of most Moody users are not very high. They can be wiped out quickly.

But as Smogon hates a luck based battle, the competitors obviously wanted to eliminate this as a tactic because it would pose a significantly high threat to it's ranking players, who when faced with a challenge, now have a fair chance to lose to someone. So they complex ban Moody.

Deny it all you want, but Smogon and the competitive community it breeds has a serious problem. It's so competitive, it's oftentimes elitist to a fault. This flaw seriously makes for a community wide dislike of anything that could level the playing field between skilled and casual players. While that attitude is fine for finding seriously gamebreaking tactics and builds, it also takes its fair share of innocent hostages as even a crowd of competitive battlers are not better than one if they all share the same damn biases.

ddrox13 · Jul 9, 2017

Oh my. Rant threads are the best.

Smogon's tiering policy used to attempt to avoid "complex bans" whenever possible, which with the removal of BP as a whole (finally), they are getting back to. This means banning...
1. A Pokemon, with any ability or item.
2. An Ability, with any Pokemon or item.
3. An item, usually a Mega Stone, without regard for what Pokémon can use them.
As a general rule, they try not to combine these types of bans. This does result in some unnecessary bans, such as Blaze-iken. However, doing what you have proposed would result in combining all three of those bans, as you would need to ban Blazikenite and Blaziken with Speed Boost.
The Snow Cloak and Sand Veil ban is a different case. There are, as a general rule, two reasons Smogon bans things:
1. They are overpowered (i.e. KFC)
2. They are purely luck-based, making the meta more resultant on things that I wrote about in this article (i.e. Moody, Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, Swagger).

Edit: On Moody:
Moody is in no way a Complex Ban. Moody is just banned, which it should have been anyway under the Evasion clause. The Moody Clause is utterly redundant.

Nah · Jul 9, 2017

They could sometimes stand to use "complex" bans more, and I never understood the council's aversion to them when there's times they are the better solution.

But regarding luck:

Melody said:
But as Smogon hates a luck based battle, the competitors obviously wanted to eliminate this as a tactic because it would pose a significantly high threat to it's ranking players, who when faced with a challenge, now have a fair chance to lose to someone.

People generally want to remove luck-based things from competitive events because people prefer that victories and losses be based on skill. Luck has nothing to do with skill, or anything besides itself really. Literally anyone can get a lucky roll, and there's no effort required. Why bother with competitive anything if it's left up to random chance then? Why would you or anyone be ok with winning or losing because of a dice roll? Wins and losses are meaningless when you allow luck in it. If I wanted to have my wins/losses be luck-based, I might as well just drive on down to Atlantic City or something.

It's not "oh top Smorgen players are dicks who don't wanna be knocked off their thrones" like you seem to be saying.

Mobile Tsk · Jul 9, 2017

The only thing that I agree was silly was going back and making drastic changes to BW OU several years after it had been replaced as standard metagame. That to me is incredibly stupid. However, I can't see anywhere else you've actually pointed out any inconsistencies in the way that Smogon makes tiering decisions, and the simple nature of the bans we have now are much preferable to me than say, having Pokemon X with ability Y in one tier, and then the same Pokemon with a different ability in another tier. Smogon first tries to see if banning a single Pokemon can fix an overcentralizing threat, if not they will move onto Ability or item. I can't think of a single case where this wasn't the most effective way to remove overcentralizing threats from the metagame.

Orange Pylon · Jul 10, 2017

The difference between Blaziken and the Latis, for example, is that "Soul Dew Lati@s" wasn't banned -- Soul Dew was banned. You couldn't run a Soul Dew Pichu even though it'd be useless, much like you can't run a Moody Bidoof. Because Soul Dew only affected the usage of the Latis, its removal wouldn't affect the viability of other mons -- only the mons the ban was intended to nerf.

Garchomp's Sand Veil was banned because once Chomp was out of the picture, Gliscor started getting up to the same shenanigans. It was determined that the ability was the problem, not the mon, so the ability got the axe.

The reason Blaziken needed to be banned entirely is because a Speed Boost ban would affect the usage of Sharpedo, Scolipede, Ninjask, etc., because as you say, they aren't broken. If Blaziken is allowed in OU with the qualifier that it has to run Blaze, then why stop there? Can Aegislash come back down if it only carries non-attacking moves? Can Primal Groudon come down if it's level 30? Can you use Cresselia in Little Cup if it only knows Lunar Dance?

None of those above examples would be broken, but they create the problem of tiering Pokémon based on their sets. This is what makes the bans complex. People only ask for Blaze Blaziken because of Blaziken's popularity and the polarizing difference between it and Speed Boost Blaziken. I, for one, totally agree with Smogon's stance on complex bans.

Smogon are hypocrites about their policy (aka why Blaze Blaziken should be unbanned)

More options

KorpiklaaniVodka v2.0

Nah

Melody

Banned

ddrox13

Anti-Nonsense

Nah

Mobile Tsk

Orange Pylon