Let's talk about notable Taboos in Competitive Pokes

Rajikaru · Post by **Rajikaru** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:08 pm

Namely Swagplay, Minimize, and the now-being-discussed-on-smogon BP team.

What are everybody's opinions on these strategies? Do you agree with Smogon in locking them away in Ubers, or do you feel that they're counterable enough to be allowed in lower tiers as well?

Triert · Post by **Triert** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 2:41 am

They should off Parahax from Jirachi and Togekiss to the ban list.

Let's be honest here, if you have to specifically prepare teams to counter a certain strategy or pokemon they deserve to be in Uber.

Ciao · Post by **Ciao** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 5:03 am

Forgive my ignorance, but what is BP team? You mean, like, Baton Pass?

Rajikaru · Post by **Rajikaru** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 10:46 am

Yes .

EvilPinkamina · Post by **EvilPinkamina** » Mon Jun 09, 2014 10:56 pm

Swagplay and evasiveness need to go to hell. No question. However, I don't know enough about this baton pass team, but wouldn't roar just counter it?

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » Tue Jun 10, 2014 7:53 am

Swagplay: If it outspeeds you, you will basically flip a coin. If you're physical, it would mean you either do double damage to the opponent or yourself. If you're physical, it might even be beneficial, since you can switch out and switch in later and do even MORE damage.

Evasiveness: Annoying, but people are too naggy about running a counter for it. If we're talking about minimize, there's a handful of moves that will always hit it AND do double damage.

BP: You just have to stop it before it's too late. Run evasiveness hitters in case they use minimize.

I think everyone needs to shut the **** up about what has to be banned and what doesn't. The only reason why evasiveness is banned is because no one expects to see it, so they don't bother having a counter for it. You know what? How about banning Togekiss. Paraflinch is a huge ***** but no one is banning that! I guess all you need to do is use an electric type, but that is the same with countering mega khan and lucario, you just need a ghost type. That's it. If you are complaining about running a type to counter a certain pokemon or strategy, might as well ban steel/bug pokemon because I don't want to run a fire pokemon all the time.

Rajikaru · Post by **Rajikaru** » Tue Jun 10, 2014 11:08 am

I think you're over simplifying it a bit, Tobi. Though, I'm just realizing that maybe I shouldn't have posted this in the first place, since I mostly want to respond to everybody with "Sorry, I'm honestly too lazy to argue my stances, just read up on the suspect test".

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » Tue Jun 10, 2014 1:30 pm

No, look, on evasiveness, for example, I can understand it's very frustrating to counter. Why? You have nothing to counter it with, because no one uses evasiveness, because it's banned. If it wasn't banned, it would be used MUCH more often, and people would run counters more often. That's called meta and anti-meta. If the meta runs evasiveness, people would run anti-evasiveness pokemon to counter them standard. At least have one shock wave on your team, or something like that. No strategy is flawless. You can even use taunt, which I'd recommend having on every team, since it shuts down any setup or status pokemon. Taunt even shuts down the Mega Gengar that everyone bans. It also ruins swagplay, if you're faster, as well as safeswag and BP.

Taunt is your lord and savior to everything you want to talk about.

EvilPinkamina · Post by **EvilPinkamina** » Tue Jun 10, 2014 10:49 pm

Swagplay is mainly used on pokemon with the Prankster ability, causing Swagger to have priority over taunt, and Foul Play counts as an offensive move.

Rajikaru · Post by **Rajikaru** » Tue Jun 10, 2014 11:40 pm

Tobi wrote:No, look, on evasiveness, for example, I can understand it's very frustrating to counter. Why? You have nothing to counter it with, because no one uses evasiveness, because it's banned. If it wasn't banned, it would be used MUCH more often, and people would run counters more often. That's called meta and anti-meta. If the meta runs evasiveness, people would run anti-evasiveness pokemon to counter them standard. At least have one shock wave on your team, or something like that. No strategy is flawless. You can even use taunt, which I'd recommend having on every team, since it shuts down any setup or status pokemon. Taunt even shuts down the Mega Gengar that everyone bans. It also ruins swagplay, if you're faster, as well as safeswag and BP.

Taunt is your lord and savior to everything you want to talk about.

The problem is that if you don't have a counter, which many people might not have, given each pokemon has a specific set of moves that make them usable, unlike other strategies which you can adapt around, you can't adapt around these strategies, due to how, for lack of a better term, powerful they are. Swagplay and Evasiveness both focus on making the ability to actually do anything much more of a toss-up, which isn't in the player's control in any way.

You may say "But there are moves and pokemon that counter this", and you're right. However, not everybody can fit these pokemon or moves into their teams - Only two fully evolved pokemon actually have No Guard as an ability, with only one (Golurk) being viable in a big way (Machamp is incredibly frail, even with an Assault Vest, and too slow to even make use of a Choice Scarf set), and building a team isn't as simple as "Get rid of this pokemon for Golurk".

Moves that guarantee hits are few and far inbetween - Mist, Swift, Shadow Punch, Aerial Ace, Magical Leaf, Shock Wave, Aura Sphere, Magnet Bomb, Clear Smog, Disarming Voice, and Fairy Wind (11[!!!]), and all of them, bar Aura Sphere, (possibly) Shadow Punch, and (possibly) Clear Smog, aren't powerful or viable enough to constitute a moveslot, and only 6 pokemon (one of which is Mewtwo, Ubers only) can use Aura Sphere effectively at all, whereas Clear Smog is only viable on Amoonguss (which is already considered a good Support Pokemon for moves such as this and Spore), and Shadow Punch is only usable on Dusknoir and Golurk (aforementioned No Guard user, making it entirely pointless anyway). That's about 10 pokemon that are actually viable with a guaranteed hit move.

To some up, there are a total of 10 (at the most) pokemon that can effectively kill Minimize/Evasion-focused users

Taunt is also not as viable as you think it is, thanks again to how it's up to chance your move actually hits unless you run Prankster Sableye/Meowstic M/M-Banette/Thundurus/Tornadus/Whimsicott, three of which are more gimmicky than usable (Sableye is incredibly frail and can be brought down by just about any gust of wind, Meowstic is almost useless in Singles but a god in Doubles, M-Banette means losing a Mega slot for just a gimmick unless your team already has Banette). Tornadus, Thundurus, and Whimsicott can all use the move effectively, meaning that you have a total of 3 pokemon that can reliably taunt a BP/Minimize opponent, but at the same time there are pokemon that can counter them, and your opponent would be stupid to not have a counter.

The problem with Swagger is that it not only confuses you, it also boosts your attack, which dictates how much damage you do to yourself. It might not be that bad for a pokemon that uses a Lum Berry setup-sweeper attack strategy, such as Scrafty, but on pokemon that specialize in Special Attack, it's basically a coin toss on whether you take away half of your health or hit your enemy, not to mention that they can do it multiple times, meaning even Lum Berry users won't do you all that good if the opponent is using a fairly bulky Swagger user.

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » Wed Jun 11, 2014 4:53 pm

EvilPinkamina wrote:Swagplay is mainly used on pokemon with the Prankster ability, causing Swagger to have priority over taunt, and Foul Play counts as an offensive move.

You could always, oh, idk, get a prankster poke with taunt??

@Nova: But it doesn't stop at the moves you mentioned, there's so much more you can do;
-No guard ability. Doublade, Machamp and Golurk can make use of this.
-Toxic if used by a poison type pokemon to my knowledge.
-A whole bunch of moves with viable power that will always hit Minimize users (not double team) which are Stomp, Steamroller, Body Slam, Dragon Rush, Flying Press and Phantom Force. You might argue that some of these moves aren't the most powerful moves to use, but there's a lot of powerful ones among them. A scrappy Milktank, for example, could do really well against Minimize users, like the famous Drifblim.
-Roar/Whirldwind don't care about evasion.
-Keen Eye ability. There's a ****load of pokemon that learn it, and while you might think it just prevents accuracy loss, it also ignores evasion of the opponent.
-Weather (hail/sandstorm)
-Unaware ability. Ignores any stat changes of the opponent. Not a lot of pokemon get this, and most have better abilities, but that's called surprising your opponent.
-Defog lowers the opponent's evasiveness, though sweet scent does the same, Defog has other competitive uses, and can be used for this at the same time. You don't have aura sphere on Lucario to hit evasion pokemon, do you? But it does work for it. Though I must admit defog is hard to get on the right pokemon.
-Haze. Eliminates any stat changes. Prankster Murkrow gets this, for example, and a lot of other pokemon.
-Compound eyes ability. Increases chance to hit the opponent. Not as effective.
-Hone claws increases accuracy AND attack, though most pokemon would rather run dragon dance or swords dance.
-Taunt prevents them from setting up. Prankster with taunt is recommended.
-Topsy-turvy. Though it IS a signature move.
-Spore. Now they're asleep and can't set up.
-The moves you mentioned. Aerial ace works for technician scyther/scizor, aura sphere works for Lucario and others alone and shadow punch can deal some good damage when used in combination with iron fist. I didn't even think of Amoongus with clear smog.
-Paralysis can shut down the evasion stat raises 25% of the time.
-Confusion 50% of the time. Both not reliable, but it buys SOME time if you got nothing else.

And I might not even be finished at this point. If you don't look beyond not having Shock Wave on your team, or forgetting to bring your special Lucario, then of course you're not going to see the possibilities to counter evasion clauses. Look at that whole list of ways to counter evasion clauses (if all other situations are in favor). You can't tell me that there's no room in your team to at least replace one move or pokemon for the sake of destroying one evasion clause pokemon. Why are you running anything in your team? Why are you running different types of moves? To hit different types of pokemon. Why would you ever run taunt? To prevent status affliction and set ups. Just like how you would have to run any of the above mentioned to counter evasion. And no one does it. Why? Because people banned it because it was annoying and they didn't want to counter it. Smogon is a bunch of scaredy cats that doesn't want something to be run because they don't want to see it. Smogon is popular. This means that no one will run evasion because it's banned. Thanks to this, no one bothers to even think of one, just, ONE SINGLE MOVE, to counter evasion because they won't ever expect it. Evasion isn't the issue. The players are who are too butthurt and too lazy to counter it. Only 10 pokemon at most can effectively kill evasion my ass.

Palmpoa · Post by **Palmpoa** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 12:45 am

あぼーん！

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 4:57 am

Froslass fot booted because it has snow cloak, rising her evasiveness in hail.

Palmpoa · Post by **Palmpoa** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 6:24 am

あぼーん！

Triert · Post by **Triert** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 9:59 am

Here's the thing, even if these counters exist, how much of the time can your team be prepared for it? The reason that teams like these are considered hard is because of that sole reason.

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 3:00 pm

How often do you run a counter for Mega Scizor? Florges? Talonflame? Prankster pokes? I can go on like this, you can never run a counter for every single thing. You can't always win, and what Smogon does is just reduce the amount of things they need to be ready for so they can win more often. A strategy is a strategy. No one complains about the Durant Dugtrio or Terrascott combo.

EvilPinkamina · Post by **EvilPinkamina** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 4:58 pm

You can't counter them, but you can check them

KeatonLabs · Post by **KeatonLabs** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:40 pm

No, i really think Tobi's got you guys on this one. There are counters and you never use them because smogon says dont, we've banned em for you. Game Freak knows their **** and made all moves have some sort of counter or ability. You never know what to expect and not everyone follows smogon either.

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:42 pm

^Exactly. Banning them is a bad thing, since not everyone is bound to listen, and you'd hate the strategies even more.

And gamefreak truly knows their business. Maybe some of the new megas were a bad idea, but they made a counter for everything. They even added so many moves to counter minimize, do you REALLY think they have no idea what they're doing with their own game?

EvilPinkamina · Post by **EvilPinkamina** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:46 pm

Game freak doesn't balance Pokemon for competitive outside of VGC. Which is double/triple battles. Plus checks. And game freak can make balancing errors, just ask blizzard about HotS beta. Also, no one is forcing you into smogons meta unless you join a tournament or battle with smogons meta, and even then the community can be quite leniant.

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:52 pm

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Minimize is mostly used in singles??

Sure, it's not a perfect balance, but neither is Smogon.

And when you're automatically **** and hated for not playing by smogon's rules, I don't think you have the ****ing right to say "Then just don't play by their rules." Smogon wants people to DIE when they don't agree with their rules, so sit the **** down.

EvilPinkamina · Post by **EvilPinkamina** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:57 pm

Not really. There are SOME people like that, I admit, but I've ran into some pretty lenient people o, some people even let me bring an uber team into ou. Just because a loud minority acts like **** doesn't mean that the entire community is ****.

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 6:01 pm

#NotAllSmogonPlayers

Because when talking about a community, we apparently need to always mention they aren't all bad.

KeatonLabs · Post by **KeatonLabs** » Sat Jun 14, 2014 2:59 am

EvilPinkamina wrote:Game freak doesn't balance Pokemon for competitive outside of VGC. Which is double/triple battles. Plus checks. And game freak can make balancing errors, just ask blizzard about HotS beta. Also, no one is forcing you into smogons meta unless you join a tournament or battle with smogons meta, and even then the community can be quite leniant.

Who's to say they dont? Now i know there are some broken things in the pokemon games but its not impossible to overcome.

The point of battling with others is to see how your team would fare on another team. Smogon restricts the combinations for a team and the variety of movesets making this boring. It makes people make this diverse strategy for ONE thing instead of making a well balanced team with your own strategy for avoided everything in general.

EvilPinkamina · Post by **EvilPinkamina** » Sat Jun 14, 2014 3:20 am

The things smogon bans is usually stuff that can be abused or is purely luck based (OHKO moves for example), and even then, most stuff they ban from ou just gets bumped up to users (only exceptions being moody and OHKO moves). Also, what you said is the OPPOSITE of what smogon does. Smogon tries to help prevent a stale meta with its tier system. Pokemon like mega kangaskhan prevented a diversity of teams, because you'd see that being one of the few megas simply because there was no reason not to. That being said, smogon doesn't always do the best thing, and they're not that good at explaining why something was banned outside of the vote. *coughlucarioitecough*. Example, blaziken wasn't banned because speed boost. Blaziken was in ubers before gen 6. He was up there because he had powerful stats and a powerful move pool to go along with it.