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Clauses in the metagame
- Thread starter Toby
- Start date
About Species Clause - some of the concerns about its removal could be alleviated by Nickname Clause - no two Pokemon on a team may have the same nickname. That way you can at least keep track of which enemy Scizor is the CBer and which is the SDer.
I think an Unrestricted ladder would be good. (AKA "StreetPKMN", but I'd prefer a more formal name). On the one hand you might expect it to centralise on one strategy, on the other hand with no restrictions new gimmicks become possible. Gimmicks like Trick Room lead, 3 Choice Band Explosion Lickilicky, ghost counter, and Shedinja. Or 3 Skarmory and 3 Blissey, or imagine 6 Flinchrachi. I can't see it being considered standard, but it could still be popular.
Also, clauses are for the most part chosen for OU. Should the same clauses necessarily be used in Ubers?
I think an Unrestricted ladder would be good. (AKA "StreetPKMN", but I'd prefer a more formal name). On the one hand you might expect it to centralise on one strategy, on the other hand with no restrictions new gimmicks become possible. Gimmicks like Trick Room lead, 3 Choice Band Explosion Lickilicky, ghost counter, and Shedinja. Or 3 Skarmory and 3 Blissey, or imagine 6 Flinchrachi. I can't see it being considered standard, but it could still be popular.
Also, clauses are for the most part chosen for OU. Should the same clauses necessarily be used in Ubers?
I wouldn't use ubers as an example: ubers is a broken metagame, so anything regarding any of these clauses should only pertain to the OU metagame. Who gives a shit if Kyogre can sheer cold Blissey and Latias: it could potentially beat both of them anyway with a more consistent moveset. That's why it's the most used pokemon on the ladder: Sheer Cold causes you to lose coverage in some manner, so you either lose Surf, Ice Beam(Latias beats you 70% of the time now), and Thunder(you really want other Kyogre to come in for free 70% of the time?). Sure you could run all of them + Sheer Cold, but you are either using Leftovers, Scarf, LO, or Specs: leftovers lacks power, Scarf and Specs are stuck in a move, allowing stuff like Forretress in for free. and LO doesn't have the staying power to make the ability to make OHKO's pay off.
To the scarfed Suicune users: if a metagame really got based around that, maybe instead of switching in a counter that will die 30%(or 51% over two turns) of the time, people would stay in and try to attack the Suicune? Or maybe you switch to a Sturdy pokemon: everyone complains that this will make Stall unviable(or less-viable), yet stall is the best type of team to take-on OHKO users. OHKO users also have to get in on a pokemon that it threatens very easily and force them out to take advantage of a 51% chance of OHKOing: if you had enough power to threaten something out, why not just use that same power to hit the switch-in? In the case of "Scarfed" Suicune, if it has the ability to force out Camerupt due to Surf and in came Blissey, why not just Sub? Now CM+Sub and Hydro Pump for an (unlikely) 2HKO.
No one seems to remember that OHKO users and Evasion users have to use up slots on movesets: not many pokemon that get used can just afford a free move somewhere, especially one that is inconsistent like these.
To the scarfed Suicune users: if a metagame really got based around that, maybe instead of switching in a counter that will die 30%(or 51% over two turns) of the time, people would stay in and try to attack the Suicune? Or maybe you switch to a Sturdy pokemon: everyone complains that this will make Stall unviable(or less-viable), yet stall is the best type of team to take-on OHKO users. OHKO users also have to get in on a pokemon that it threatens very easily and force them out to take advantage of a 51% chance of OHKOing: if you had enough power to threaten something out, why not just use that same power to hit the switch-in? In the case of "Scarfed" Suicune, if it has the ability to force out Camerupt due to Surf and in came Blissey, why not just Sub? Now CM+Sub and Hydro Pump for an (unlikely) 2HKO.
No one seems to remember that OHKO users and Evasion users have to use up slots on movesets: not many pokemon that get used can just afford a free move somewhere, especially one that is inconsistent like these.
For those of you that think evasion and OHKO is annoying but not unbalanced:
When are you going to face this? If it sucks, it won't get to or stay at the top of the ladder. The luck is stacked against the user, so winning consistently will be difficult. If you can't beat luck users more often than not, smogon doesn't really care about your opinion because you're at the bottom of the ladder.
When is this alleged terrible player going to battle the #1? Not on the ladder. In a tournament maybe?
We are supposed to maxamize our chances of winning, so the weaker player should push the game toward uncertainty.
This happens in go and chess as well--the weaker player plays more agressively. However, the stronger player has better skills, so he still wins more often than not.
Alternatevly, he can play a safe game and ceede some advantage to the agressive player, relying on his skills to overcome the incurred disadvantage.
Both games are considered competitive, but the best player doesn't have anywhere close to a 100% win rate.
100% only happens when you totally outclass your opponent. In this situation, playing a safe game may give you a better win % than your nompal style. Since this is a competitive game, the stronger player should also try to maxamize his chances of winning.
He should run specs lucario or machamp or stall with sturdy, haze, whirlwind, perish song, toxic spikes and roar.
The strong player gambles that the weak player will take risks. This decreases the viability of his team against other threats, but so what? If his opponent plays straightforward, the strong player should win even with his anti-luck team. Notice how stall, specscario and machamp are perfectly viable.
If the strong player can't adapt his style to fight uncertainty (in pokemon, chess or go), then he doesn't outclass his opponent.
Going for uncertainty disadvantages the weaker player (agression in chess and go, luck in Pokemon and innovation in all 3).
Chess and go are respected stratgy games. The better player maxamizes his chances to win, and he wins more often than not. He doesn't win 100%, so why do you wnat this in pokemon? Do you want ipl to beat everyone 100% because he is the best?
This is competitive pokemon, so our primary goal is winning , not fun.
Reducing the available stratagies decreases competitiveness.
Why not ban agressive play in go or chess?
We all have different skills. As competitive players, we are supposed to use those skills to maxamize our win%. Deciding what stratagey to use or how much uncertainty yoiu want is a competetive decision.
Oh. FYI the hax items increase luck. So do OHKO and double team. I don't understand why people are treating them differently.
All of this should be allowed.
Many people think these are stratagies for weaker players to fight stronger ones. They are. If so, I doubt they are overpowered. If they do win consistently (like stall and offense is menat to do), we can decide if they are overpowered.
If not, good battlers won't have a problem with them.
In tournaments, you can adjust your team. You can also have luck checks on your team and remove them as you climb the ladder.
When are you going to face this? If it sucks, it won't get to or stay at the top of the ladder. The luck is stacked against the user, so winning consistently will be difficult. If you can't beat luck users more often than not, smogon doesn't really care about your opinion because you're at the bottom of the ladder.
When is this alleged terrible player going to battle the #1? Not on the ladder. In a tournament maybe?
We are supposed to maxamize our chances of winning, so the weaker player should push the game toward uncertainty.
This happens in go and chess as well--the weaker player plays more agressively. However, the stronger player has better skills, so he still wins more often than not.
Alternatevly, he can play a safe game and ceede some advantage to the agressive player, relying on his skills to overcome the incurred disadvantage.
Both games are considered competitive, but the best player doesn't have anywhere close to a 100% win rate.
100% only happens when you totally outclass your opponent. In this situation, playing a safe game may give you a better win % than your nompal style. Since this is a competitive game, the stronger player should also try to maxamize his chances of winning.
He should run specs lucario or machamp or stall with sturdy, haze, whirlwind, perish song, toxic spikes and roar.
The strong player gambles that the weak player will take risks. This decreases the viability of his team against other threats, but so what? If his opponent plays straightforward, the strong player should win even with his anti-luck team. Notice how stall, specscario and machamp are perfectly viable.
If the strong player can't adapt his style to fight uncertainty (in pokemon, chess or go), then he doesn't outclass his opponent.
Going for uncertainty disadvantages the weaker player (agression in chess and go, luck in Pokemon and innovation in all 3).
Chess and go are respected stratgy games. The better player maxamizes his chances to win, and he wins more often than not. He doesn't win 100%, so why do you wnat this in pokemon? Do you want ipl to beat everyone 100% because he is the best?
This is competitive pokemon, so our primary goal is winning , not fun.
Reducing the available stratagies decreases competitiveness.
Why not ban agressive play in go or chess?
We all have different skills. As competitive players, we are supposed to use those skills to maxamize our win%. Deciding what stratagey to use or how much uncertainty yoiu want is a competetive decision.
Oh. FYI the hax items increase luck. So do OHKO and double team. I don't understand why people are treating them differently.
All of this should be allowed.
Many people think these are stratagies for weaker players to fight stronger ones. They are. If so, I doubt they are overpowered. If they do win consistently (like stall and offense is menat to do), we can decide if they are overpowered.
If not, good battlers won't have a problem with them.
In tournaments, you can adjust your team. You can also have luck checks on your team and remove them as you climb the ladder.
That's bullshit. Nobody plays to win. They play to have fun by playing in a competitive enviorement. Tell me, why do you want to win? To boost your ego? To win the incredibly huge prizes competitive pokémon has?
People play this game because it's fun. It's that simple.
Not eveyone lives at the top of the ladder. Also, I'm of the opinion that the auto-matching ought to be made a bit "looser".
Assuming that was meant to be sarcastic, it kind of falls flat when you consider what you get for placing in top two in VGC nationals.
What about tournament settings, where success and failure typically hinge on the outcome of a single match?
Then you accept the clauses as they come and prey for Hax.
It's a cool price but it's absurd to think smogoners play this game because they may travel for free. You are better off working to save the money.
If people want these clauses tested thats fine, but I suspect that testing DT/OHKO/etc isn't going to be nearly as straightforward as testing a couple of Mons. It was easy to test Garchomp for instance as people know how Garchomp is played best.
On the other hand for a lot of us its been a long time since we've played with Double Team or Fissure so I would expect that in a test it would take a long time for people to find the best (and any possible broken) way to use these moves. Just like how it took a good while to discover a lot of the strategies & sets that would be considered metagame staples, there would most likely be a similarly long teething period in testing these clauses.
Lets say we only ban Pokemon and not moves from now on, and Double Team proves to be broken. By your logic we have to ban 99% of all Pokemon and well yeah.
Go on and ask a selection of people from the top of the ladder if they'd still be playing if they didn't enjoy it or if they'd have started at all if Pokemon wasn't fun or satisfying to play.
Even if DT/OHKO/etc aren't entirely broken, if they create and overly negative play environment they'll kill competitive Pokemon pretty quickly and tomorrow's #1 player will not appear.
Plus no matter how good you are you can't beat the odds of the luck you face consistently. In a tournament environment you might beat 3-4 DT abusers only to lose to the worst one because they got lucky. Sure this can happen anyway with critical hits, but do we want that to be the exception or the norm?
I'm not sure what the official stance here on banning things is, but I'm going to assume that Smogon isn't in the committing suicide business.
On the other hand for a lot of us its been a long time since we've played with Double Team or Fissure so I would expect that in a test it would take a long time for people to find the best (and any possible broken) way to use these moves. Just like how it took a good while to discover a lot of the strategies & sets that would be considered metagame staples, there would most likely be a similarly long teething period in testing these clauses.
I think part of the reason why things are as they are is because we don't want to ban more than we have to.
Lets say we only ban Pokemon and not moves from now on, and Double Team proves to be broken. By your logic we have to ban 99% of all Pokemon and well yeah.
I cannot believe what I am reading. Pure competition (whatever that is) may be what its about to you, but thats a surefire way to drive away new players and kill any future competition. Other games and sports understand the importance of maintaining a following, and an important part of that is making it worthwhile to newcomers.
Go on and ask a selection of people from the top of the ladder if they'd still be playing if they didn't enjoy it or if they'd have started at all if Pokemon wasn't fun or satisfying to play.
Even if DT/OHKO/etc aren't entirely broken, if they create and overly negative play environment they'll kill competitive Pokemon pretty quickly and tomorrow's #1 player will not appear.
Plus no matter how good you are you can't beat the odds of the luck you face consistently. In a tournament environment you might beat 3-4 DT abusers only to lose to the worst one because they got lucky. Sure this can happen anyway with critical hits, but do we want that to be the exception or the norm?
I'm not sure what the official stance here on banning things is, but I'm going to assume that Smogon isn't in the committing suicide business.
best I can figure, Speed Boost + Double Team + Baton Pass + Swords Dance...all that speed and power being thrown into a single Pokemon? It could probably even forego Protect, assuming it's not a lead...
Yeah, I'm not worried about Evasion or OHKOes since they're statistically poor strategies. Species, however, has gamebreaking results for all tiers. Many offensive teams are based on sacrificing one Pokemon to kill a counter, before sweeping with another Pokemon. Can you imagine how easy it would be with 2 of the same Pokemon?
Ice-eyes
Simper Fi
I think what a lot of people are overlooking about Evasion Clause is that you can't run a Gliscor with 252 EVs in everything, Life Orb, Leftovers, Brightpowder and the moveset Double Team/Substitute/Agility/Swords Dance/Baton Pass/Roost/Taunt/Earthquake/Stone Edge/Toxic.
That's why it's called theorymon, after all.
Seriously, I think we should at least suspect test the clauses.
That's why it's called theorymon, after all.
Seriously, I think we should at least suspect test the clauses.
My first post here, but if species clause was off, couldn't you just spam F.E.A.R. Pokemon?
OHKO would be silly when combined with no sleep+freeze+no evasion.
OHKO would be silly when combined with no sleep+freeze+no evasion.
lol, I just asked this on the wifi battle me thread. Here is my input:
Sleep Clause: Fuck yes, we need this. I don't want to carry Honchkrow or Primeape (Banette lol) in all my teams so that Breloom doesn't sweep my whole team.
Freeze Clause: Like we are really trying to freeze someone... This one is pretty stupid really. Ice Beam or Ice Punch have a max of 16 PP and a 10% chance of freezing something. That means that on an average match where you use these moves 16 times you are still not close to get 2 freeze hax.
Species Clause: Gimme a break, how is this "testable". I don't see how is this even thinkable.
Evasion Clause: It's still a set up move like many others. I can see where it can get "broken" but I think this one might need testing. I don't see how it would change the metagame that much. Sure, all the scrubs and 1100 CRE users are going to run Minimize Blissey or Clefable but they don't matter.
OHKO Clause: This one I really disagree. 30% is not bannable worthy. Specially considering 2 of the OHKO moves don't affect a certain type (Ground and Normal immunities). Yes, it gives a degree of luck just like Hypnosis being 60% is also "lucky" if you hit with it twice in a row. Hell, Dynamic Punch and Zap Cannon are not even used and they have 50%, do you really think that a 30% move is gonna be game breaking?
Like many others said before, better players are good players precisely because they are consistent. Leaderboards don't run gimmicky teams, the win with bread and butter sets that have proven to be solid and consistent. No good player relies on "luck" to counter a pokemon really. That's why Stone Edge is so hated.
I hope the newly created Smogon Council will take a closer look to OHKO clause, Freeze Clause and *maybe* Evasion Clause. Luck items Clause doesn't even apply to standard Shoddy battles.
Sleep Clause: Fuck yes, we need this. I don't want to carry Honchkrow or Primeape (Banette lol) in all my teams so that Breloom doesn't sweep my whole team.
Freeze Clause: Like we are really trying to freeze someone... This one is pretty stupid really. Ice Beam or Ice Punch have a max of 16 PP and a 10% chance of freezing something. That means that on an average match where you use these moves 16 times you are still not close to get 2 freeze hax.
Species Clause: Gimme a break, how is this "testable". I don't see how is this even thinkable.
Evasion Clause: It's still a set up move like many others. I can see where it can get "broken" but I think this one might need testing. I don't see how it would change the metagame that much. Sure, all the scrubs and 1100 CRE users are going to run Minimize Blissey or Clefable but they don't matter.
OHKO Clause: This one I really disagree. 30% is not bannable worthy. Specially considering 2 of the OHKO moves don't affect a certain type (Ground and Normal immunities). Yes, it gives a degree of luck just like Hypnosis being 60% is also "lucky" if you hit with it twice in a row. Hell, Dynamic Punch and Zap Cannon are not even used and they have 50%, do you really think that a 30% move is gonna be game breaking?
Like many others said before, better players are good players precisely because they are consistent. Leaderboards don't run gimmicky teams, the win with bread and butter sets that have proven to be solid and consistent. No good player relies on "luck" to counter a pokemon really. That's why Stone Edge is so hated.
I hope the newly created Smogon Council will take a closer look to OHKO clause, Freeze Clause and *maybe* Evasion Clause. Luck items Clause doesn't even apply to standard Shoddy battles.
The OHKO clause has one motive IMO: Articuno.
I would not like to see Mind Reader+Sheer Cold all over the place.
You could switch out though (but this means you can rack up some damage: it would work with Spikes all over. )
That's only one poke though: we could test the OHKO clause to see how it goes.
I would not like to see Mind Reader+Sheer Cold all over the place.
You could switch out though (but this means you can rack up some damage: it would work with Spikes all over. )
That's only one poke though: we could test the OHKO clause to see how it goes.
Sturdy pokemons say hi. And seriously Articuno needs more than Mind Reader + Sheer Cold to be used. SR and poor coverage limits its play even in UU
If we count Sturdy (which there's really 4 users: everything else has better abilities to use), we should count Aerial Ace/Faint Attack/whatever attack that can't miss for the Evasion Clause too. Does this make Evasion Clause less plausible to you?
Articuno hates SR and has bad typing, it's true. But considering a set of Mind Reader/Sheer Cold/Roost/Substitute and Articuno's bulk+Pressure to stall fire/rock attacks with Sub, i can see it being a royal prick. Even more with Magnezone support since many of those Sturdy pokes are steel typed.
But that's not a reason we shouldn't test the OHKO clause. If Articuno turns out to be just a burden and it proves i'm wrong (and Articuno is the best OHKO move user...), then i agree that there's no need for the OHKO clause. There's no need wasting a turn trying to rely on luck.
Articuno hates SR and has bad typing, it's true. But considering a set of Mind Reader/Sheer Cold/Roost/Substitute and Articuno's bulk+Pressure to stall fire/rock attacks with Sub, i can see it being a royal prick. Even more with Magnezone support since many of those Sturdy pokes are steel typed.
But that's not a reason we shouldn't test the OHKO clause. If Articuno turns out to be just a burden and it proves i'm wrong (and Articuno is the best OHKO move user...), then i agree that there's no need for the OHKO clause. There's no need wasting a turn trying to rely on luck.
Negative Play Environment.
The fact that you replace strategy with luck. It won't matter that my poke totally outclasses yours, or that I have a better designed team. You can just hope to luck into ko's and wins.
People are upset at crits, and random burn/para hax. They have been trying to make an environment where strategy is king. Where good playing and building is rewarded.
There are 11 pokes that get sturdy.
5, maybe 6 of them are good.
3 are ou.
3 are uu
6 are nu
(magneton/magnezone are basically the same hence the 3+3+6=11)
Exactly, keep hoping cause a good player is still going to beat you 8 out of 10 times if you are relying on "luck". That's what my post was about: consistency. That's what good players have other average people. You are not getting better or even win that much by "hoping" on lucky kills. If anything, it might give you 2 battles that you are going to make a warstory about, but nothing else.
Also, Sturdy pokemon may be just a few, but how many good OHKOers are available?
Rhyperior
Gliscor
Tauros
Pinsir
Crawdaunt
Lapras
Nidoking
Khangaskan
Wailord
Camerupt
Snorlax
Wormadan
Bastiodon
Donphan
Dugtrio
Torkoal
Flygon
Whiscash
Dewgong
Abomasnow
Articuno
Froslass
Would you really use Dewgong in OU just to spam Sheer cold?
From the point of view of a novice:
I reckon freeze clause is nonsense. It makes about as much sense as banning critical hits. Freeze is just a low-probability bonus to some moves, and it happens to a very powerful bonus -- but it's no so powerful that people are going to build teams based around freezing everyone. About the only effect this rule has is to cause technical problems when people want to do a wifi battle.
Evasion clause: I'd like to see this claused tested and potentially removed. Teams can bringing haze and no-miss moves to deal with evaders, just like they already bring various moves to deal with entry hazards. To me, adding viable strategies and counter-strategies to the game is usually a good thing. I think it's time to give evasion another chance.
OHKO clause: I don't really have a problem with lucky wins. In fact, I think it's actually good that luck plays some role in this game. Luck is often one of the only things that makes one match different from the next. On the other hand, I don't feel that OHKO moves add a lot of depth to the game anyway.
I reckon freeze clause is nonsense. It makes about as much sense as banning critical hits. Freeze is just a low-probability bonus to some moves, and it happens to a very powerful bonus -- but it's no so powerful that people are going to build teams based around freezing everyone. About the only effect this rule has is to cause technical problems when people want to do a wifi battle.
Evasion clause: I'd like to see this claused tested and potentially removed. Teams can bringing haze and no-miss moves to deal with evaders, just like they already bring various moves to deal with entry hazards. To me, adding viable strategies and counter-strategies to the game is usually a good thing. I think it's time to give evasion another chance.
OHKO clause: I don't really have a problem with lucky wins. In fact, I think it's actually good that luck plays some role in this game. Luck is often one of the only things that makes one match different from the next. On the other hand, I don't feel that OHKO moves add a lot of depth to the game anyway.
So am I right to say you feel there's not enough luck involved in the game already?
IMO with crits, 30% and 10%, flinching and focus blasts flying everywhere there's already enough uncertainty as there is...
I do think there is enough randomness already. I'm just trying to say that randomness isn't intrinsically bad, and so "OHKO moves are bad because they are random" is not a strong enough argument on its own. That's all I meant. I don't think anyone here is really thinking about it so simplistically anyway, so my point is probably not relevant.