also it's my birthday today so anyone looking to complain about smogon bans in tiers they've never played I am politely asking you to wait until tomorrow (:
Snorlax having a 50% winrate makes it sound pretty average. But then you realise it has a 100% usage rate. Making it so that in every battle a Snorlax wins and loses
I mean, 50% IS the average: Snorlax is on every team, therefore, it always wins and loses. It IS average. It is THE average. It is balanced, as all things should be. TLDR: Snorlax always wins.
As someone who's never: looked at a pokemon game's competitive scene, learned what major threats are in each tier, heard of pokemon even a single time in my life, played any video game before, or even learned what the definition of a competition is, Funbro sounds balanced, fun, and should definitely be allowed in all tiers of competitive play
I feel like the reason Funbro is banned in AG is simply that it's a strategy where you're not trying to win. Stall teams intend on making small, incremental progress throughout a match. Funbro just wants to sit on you forever.
FunBro appears to be a meta-stalling tactic. Instead of a competitive Stall where you basically erode a team down like so much water running over a rock formation; you are deliberately wasting the opponents time and eroding their patience to the point where they rage quit and give you a 'free' win.
The way I see Snorlax in Gen 2 is similar to the Queen in chess; an extremely strong and versatile tool everyone gets access to, but also one that can't do everything at once and will REALLY hurt if you lose. I think it's s big thing of what makes GSC so unique.
@@kirbyfazendoummoonwalk9214 You still have 5 entire pokemon and snorlax's moveset for you to unique as much as you feel like, it really isn't that bad.
Its boring, it would make anything goes completely unplayable. Look up Neutralizing gas eternatus from hackmons, it destroyed the banless tier because it was so lame, everyone got bored and left!
people are giving wrong reasons for its ban from ag. while theyre partly true, the biggest reason is that iirc you can slow down the server a huge amount by spamming infinite funbro games via vpns and incognito taps, and im pretty sure before the turn limit it could also crash the server. so yeah
@@nobodybroda3826 Not quite, the banless tier of hackmons is STILL fun, and not everyone left. It’s that the competitive players left it. The casual player base with our shitty rayquazas and sturdy shedinjas are just having fun.
I’ve always found non-bans super interesting. The phrase “smogon loves stall” is often thrown around, but I think it fundamentally misunderstands a major principle of winning at Pokemon - KOing 6 of them. For example, Pex in Gen 7 is arguably top 1, definitely top 5, but it isn’t ban worthy despite its dominant nature because it’s too passive. Lax is like the reverse - it prevents the tier itself from being too passive. I’ve always found that super cool
"Smogon loves stall" is what people who don't play smogon say about smogon. Look at gen 7, people whine about the 5 stall mons in OU while casually ignoring the 30+ offensive threats.
Gen 2 snorlax to me seems kinda like a precursor to mega evolutions, in how it forms somewhat of a centerpiece to your team. You’ve got a lot of options for what to do with it, but none of them are unbeatable by your non-centerpiece team members.
@@gregorymirabella1423 Yeah, of course. I was thinking less in terms of rawpower, and more in how meta centralizing it can be (though in lesser proportion. You can play a team without Landorus and win), and sheer diversity. Now I am absolutely not an expert in Competitive, it's mainly how I interpret it from afar tbh. Feel free to correct if I'm still wrong here
@@gregorymirabella1423 and that was the problem, too weak to be Ubers, but versatile enough that it’s hard to not find a use, leading to a Mon living on a tightrope
As long as they haven't banned Scrunguschu from using the Red Bingus in Generation Fuck I think I'm rather pleased with the state of the meta. Also happy birthday.
With the discovery of big bingus in generation one, red bingus might be remembered and critically analysed for the op mess that it is, resulting in a ban
Yeah but they banned Glup Shitto in that generations bungle sprunkle teir. The move glippity gloop glop isn’t powerful enough to warrant a full on ban.
@@yeet8036 Baton pass can switch out of pursuit without being hit, so it would actually be helpful to mons like Zapdos and Celebi in gen 4 OU for dry passing to be unbanned
Shout outs to Pokemon Fire Red's battle tower thing, where it scales the levels to your highest level Pokemon with no lower bound. As a result, you can make the whole thing into a "Little Cup but with less rules" environment if you only bring low level Pokemon. Most notably, there's a trade of Raichu (who you can get at level 3 because it's a stone evolution of a Pokemon obtainable very early in the game) for Electrode, who has Sonic Boom at that level. Combined with its speed, you can just cruise through the tower with almost nothing slowing you down except the occasional miss. It's very silly.
So, it’s allowed, because it’s so easily rendered completely useless. At the risk of sounding like a goober, that sounds like a handicap at that point, just praying you don’t get your full heal completely wasted. Though, at that point, you could say the same for held items in general, so…yeah, I’m gonna stop talking about things I know nothing about now.
I'll always be baffled by the casual players who always come out of the woodwork to complain about the evasion clause. Have they seriously never experienced the frustration of fighting an evasion abuser in Stadium, Battle Revolution, the Battle Faculties, etc., and not only have the match drag on forever, but lose purely because of RNG deciding none of your moves should hit? Then even if you do you run evasion "counterplay", not only do you weaken yourself for every other team that doesn't run evasion, but it often won't even work when *everything* can learn Double Team; oh you got Shock Wave to counter evasion? Here's a Double Team Garchomp. Or it could be a matchup where your anti-evasion check isn't inherently countered, but you still lose anyway because those moves are shit in base power and that aforementioned Garchomp will just overpower you for trying to beat it with Aerial Ace.
Snorlax in gen 2 is like a snapping turtle in a pond. He dominates the whole place and is unquestionably top of the heap, but taking him away would make the whole place less healthy.
Honestly, as cool as Baton Pass is in concept, it's kind of impossible to balance in a lot of cases, because it is the ultimate munchkin move in the game. I have built a 100% sod off button against Baton Pass exactly once, and it was in Balanced Hackmons so it doesn't count, and utilized Perish Trapping so it's equally annoying even if it did count. The only way to beat the Ultimate Munchkin Move is to be just as much of an evil munchkin yourself.
I think the only way I'd say Baton Pass could be balanced is if it could pass up to three or four buffs total(stacking buffs counts as separate buffs too, so 2 DDances would leave recipients at either +2 attack 1+ speed or +1 attack and +2 speed). Is that still too much?
@@trubb225 It's a term for a TTRPG player whose sole goal is to make themselves as powerful as possible, no matter the cost. They are the person who will whine at their DM when said DM shuts down the Peasant Railgun, because it's technically RAW, never mind the fact that nobody ever intended for it to be a thing. Baton Pass is basically "hey what if the Peasant Railgun was more or less actually intended?" and consequently becomes really difficult to balance.
Gen 2 Snorlax is like the Queen in Chess. Blatantly overpowered compared to other "pieces" due to it's versatility, but not in such a way that it cannot be played around. Overall something that improves the game rather than detracting from it.
@@Ephraim225 True, but that’s part of what makes Pokémon fun: you’re not limited to just a few different kinds of pieces, and they don’t have to fit the exact mold Let me put it this way: the ADV EV system was probably one of the best changes they made to Pokémon for the sake of diversification and customization
I love your comedic style, there's something so funny about a video discussing game meta and balance putting up a fancy graphic that just says "asshole" 8:34
You know what I still think is crazy about gen 1? The most used fighting move is Jolteon's double kick. Heck Jolteon's pin missile is also the most used bug move in the tier also! It is really interesting how crazy unique it is in RBY. Maybe it warrents a video? Edit plague made a video 6 hours ago about their love for Jolteon. Did I somehow learn future sight?
Before I started playing RBY OU, the idea of RBY partial trapping moves really scared me off for some time. I thought it seemed really boring and uncompetitive to just force your opponent to do nothing until they win a stacked RNG war. But since I've gotten into the tier, I've discovered that I actually like it a lot, and it weirdly works. RBY Victreebel has ended up being one of my favorite Pokemon to use in any tier
freddy fazbear should 100% get banned or atleast heavily nerfed, bite for example is guaranteed 1HKO on alot of the mons you see with 87% accuracy which just isnt healthy, actually dont get why it isnt already
His speed stat is horrendous, and even tho his bulk is OK, he doesn’t learn Sucker Punch like Bisharp, and he learns basically nothing aside from Biting moves and Tackle. Nothing to punish fighting types on switch in, no way to shrug off special attacks…
Honestly I think his alternate form Golden Freddy is even worse. Sure, he's incredibly slow, but he's so tanky that he basically never dies, and Night Shade gives him good damage, not to mention his ability meaning you have to get rid of him within a few turns otherwise he just crashes the opponents game, causing a disconnect.
I was thinking more Brawl Meta Knight. Obviously top 1, and clearly the most played character. But banning it would lead to a metagame where Ice Climbers and Olimar run around unchecked. EDIT: Yes, I know that Meta Knight was a problem. I know that he never got banned because MK mains just wouldn't go to tournaments that banned him, which put pressure on TOs. I just made the comparison to him because the way Snorlax kept special attackers in check reminded me of the way Meta Knight kept icies in check.
@@TheDukeOfLukes tbf meta knight was also pretty frustrating to fight and just slightly better than icies, whereas Snorlax is kinda interesting to play with and around and keeps the meta in check without being annoying himself.
@@TheDukeOfLukes Definitely not comparable, Ice Climbers and especially Olimar actually had losing matchups outside of Meta Knight (while Ice Climbers would also suffer when stages that were banned because of MK were brought back), so they wouldn't be running around "unchecked" (and you could have banned Ice Climbers too anyway without much complaint). Really the only reason the Meta Knight ban didn't stick isn't because the Brawl meta really needed MK to function or any nonsense like that, rather than simply you had a bunch of top MK players like M2K that were friends with the biggest TOs like Alex Strife and so said TOs refused to ban MK to keep said top players coming to their tournaments. You then also had the japanese players threatening to not attend any NA major that ban MK, and after Otori won Apex 2012, NA players really wanted them to come back to "get their win back", farther fueling majors to not honor the URC's MK ban. Then when Apex and other majors aren't banning MK, it put immense pressure on every region to not keep MK banned, as otherwise their players would lose out on crucial experience in the most important matchup and thus be ill-prepared for those majors.
@@OmegaTyrant So TLDR A lot of the best players used the most broken character and wouldn't compete unless they could use said broken character thus he wasn't banned due to peer pressure from a bunch of try hards?
I appreciate the explanation for Snorlax in Gen 2, I've had that thought for awhile, and haven't had the chance to figure it out. Now when TF2 will get a spotlight beyond a segment in a video, I still haven't figured that out.
The only argument that Evasion could be okay is that Thunder cannot miss in the rain. If more high damage strategies like this existed, evasion might be okay. However, a 60 base power move against a tank with minimize will never be enough 😅
It's kind of funny that you mentioned the dilemma with people claiming Haze counters Baton Pass, because it reminded of a silly conversation I had with friends about Yu-Gi-Oh! and how oppressive dragons could be, and then one was like, "its okay Konami made effects that exclusively target dragons", it'd be interesting to think about the benefits of trading the ability to win the game faster, for the ability to prevent the opponent from getting into a winning position, or in what creative ways you can still have both.
There was a team that was used in Gen 6 was called SwagPlay, which used groups of Pokemon that uses the ability of Prankster and the move Swagger. People absolutely ran these teams that Smogon eventually had to ban the move Swagger because of it. And funny enough in Gen 7 they nerfed Confusion (Status condition) from being 50% to 33%
I knew Funbro was coming at some point, there was no way you'd **not** talk about it eventually. And, like... as evil as it is, I do have a warped respect for the lengths certain griefers go to just to ruin everyone's fun, there is a certain beauty to dogshit strategies like this that purely exist to test everyone's patience. Is it good that it was banned? OBVIOUSLY. Do I still sort of love that it existed in the first place though? Yeah. Kinda.
yeah honestly i think the bot in national Dex running funbro games was hilarious and was kind of sad to see it go. it was kinda unfortunate that bad players would actually fall for the gimmick but at least good players got free points on Pokemon showdown
I was once somewhat acquainted with two of the three Balanced Hackmons players behind the initial Funbro concept, and for two of them (the guy i never met and the one that turned into a super outspoken alt-righter a few years later) it seemed to be one of the funniest things they'd ever pulled in competitive mons. The third guy claimed to be pushing for consistency among the tiers and also helped advocate for the banning of his creation once it moved from a proof of concept to an actually dangerous strategy. Pretty sure he also tried to help with trying to determine an optimal Endless Battle Clause afterwards but in all honesty it was like 9 years ago and all I remembered without looking stuff up was that I think I saw one of the first funbro attempts live and it nearly crashed Showdown. The system back then really didn't like superlong battles so replays from that era tend to be corrupted past the first 2-300 turns and anything longer than that was likely to lag the entire server almost as bad as a globally-broadcast Random Battle tourney.
The funbro set is so funny to me. I think it was popularized at first on 4chan as a way to troll people. The real reason why it's banned even on AG is because battles that last too long on showdown can start lagging their servers
Where people are upset by bans is... Understandable but honestly it's good that they exist and some people take the fact that Smogon...bans things for granted. I love VGC and will forever but the fact that they VERY RARELY BAN ANYTHING CENTRALIZING is uh...a nightmare. CHALK in 2015 was dominant and made the format actively boring. The fact that they ban mythicals up until the recent season has been pretty arbitrary (most of them aren't even that good so in a format with unlimited restricted Pokemon they are kinda just there) and the only time I can think of they used any sort of clause is related to time and ITEM CLAUSE?? The only time I can think of they banned an item, it was old Soul Dew. It's just... Weird. Sometimes I think Smogon goes too far but at least you have an authority that gives a shit
Mythicals are only banned because they are event exclusive and you can't ask every player to have them all at a competitive level without hacking. VGC being so over-centralising is a prime example of why Smogon has tiers. At least with Smogon, most mons can shine somewhere. VGC? You're either one of the handful of useful mons or not used at all.
@@nousername191 The amusing thing about the reasoning around mythicals is that it makes complete sense, so why are they suddenly NOW allowed? Makes me feel like they should've always been there if now it's suddenly ok. Magearna is the current meta staple mythical and it hasn't been redistributed in a good bit. > You're either one of the handful of useful mons or not used at all. It's funny you say this because despite the problem of CHALK this actually isn't usually true. A lot of Pokemon that are good in singles simply aren't as effective in Doubles but vice versa in some form applies. There are a good chunk of Pokemon that saw play because their niche was crucial to keeping a team style together. It's a more offensive meta though and if a Pokemon is too passive then it will be left by the wayside, but ultimately that's true of Pokemon in general
@@WishMakers Mythicals are allowed now because there're no events between now and Gen 9. It's a have fun send off for gen 8. You misunderstood my second point. When I said handful of mons useful or not used at all, I meant in the context of VGC and in comparison to Smogon. Only a small amount of Pokemon are untiered and have "don't use these mons if you want to win" on their smogon pages. Most mons have some competitive use in some tier. You cannot say the same for VGC.
@@nousername191 That's true. It's a trade off, in a sense - overall more Pokemon tend to be used and get placements in the one tier... but that's just it, it's one tier. A lot of Pokemon come down to niche use but at least they are used... though in Smogon's lower tiers they are actively used for their main strength instead of being one-trick strategies or being locked off from their best potential > there're no events between now and Gen 9. It's a have fun send off for gen 8. That's fair I guess but it *is* an official competitive circuit in the way that other Series X events are, and Mythicals were never allowed prior in events of any kind, no matter the event. I'm hoping Series 13 as a test run allows us to end up using them in future events cuz I think they'd add a bit of spice to the format. Rest in peace Follow Me Jirachi though. Stopped by needing the Battle Ready mark due to event only moves from previous gens never returning...
Bruh the myticals was a stupid example, they are ban becose of distribution not becose of power, the only reason becose series 13 allowed them is becose the absurd amount of events this generation, like gens 6 mitycal year looks like a weenee in comparation
You know, I was gonna ask about why U-Turn/Volt-Switch/Baton Pass couldn't counter Funbro, but then I remembered "oh yeah... This is the generation that introduced team preview... You can scout that stuff out."
Yes, please, I would watch that. I don’t even have any interest in competitive Pokémon myself, but it all just sounds so interesting coming out of Yellow.
Happy Birthday Big Yellow. Plus it's really unique that you made your first Banned Strategies, Smogon was like, "Mmm, this Yellow guy knows what he's talking about. We should relook and update our Tiers & Strategies again." (Yes this is a joke but a compliment at the same time)
Hey, I just wanna say your videos had inspired me to get back into showdown after a couple of years not touching ladder, and also got me to explore gen 1 & 2 OU for the first time. I've been having a lot of fun on showdown recently despite not being too great at the game and kind of struggling with team building in gen 2 specifically. Thank you for giving a bit more insight on the gems ban in gen 5 by the way, I originally thought the only reason they were banned was because of multi-hitting moves. Great video!
So happy for the Gen 1 strat bring banned. My first day on Showdown, this dude had Ninetails with Fire Spin, Cloyster with Clamp, and Dragonite with Wrap. I ended up winning but it took way too long. Fuck that guy.
Reminds me of a similar story. RBY OU, opponent whips out a Dragonite after a bit, I go to Tauros saying "what have I got to lose?". Dragonite misses wrap, my blizzard one hit KOs. No joke, he quit immediately afterwards...
After Light clay was banned in NDUU, there were so many people who never even heard of the format that suddenly just seemed to know exactly how to beat light clay and clearly every single person who played the format had never heard of brick break. Even through light clay was in play the same time Melmetal was the S++ pokemon and on every team. Yea that intro was maybe a bit cathartic. Especially that but about "You decide what is in the tier", as bringing up NDUU again, if it was controlled purely by the people who make the viability rankings, Donphan would have been yeeted out of the tier a year ago, but because it's controlled by the players, Donphan is still *the* premier rapid Spinner and bulky ground tank, with both priority and a downright amazing Z-move pool, since it's not exactly hurting for a specific item. This is a double whammy, as it eats knocks offs like nobody's business too with a crystal and checks the tier's best pokemon, Mega Altaria, with Z-Poison Jab. (Sometimes even counters if it's a DD set, thanks to sturdy)
Stuff like Funbro is absolutely hilarious to me. I love the people who go into a competitive setting just to troll people by exploiting loopholes. It reminds me of the guy who went to a yugioh tournament with something like 2000 cards in his deck before there was a limit of 60 cards per deck.
It’s good to know Slowbro has kept with tradition of being as annoying as possible (I do like using it in single player, especially in a psychic monotype run, but competitively it can be quite annoying)
Evasion and Aerial Ace. I hope you'll recover soon. On more serious note it's interesting to see that even AG puts a foot down when it comes to Funbro.
An interesting ban for ADV OU, albeit less interesting or relevant than Baton Pass, is the banning of Wobuffet and Wynaut to Ubers. I know you touched on Wobbuffet in an older video, but I do like how Wobbuffet vs. Wobbuffet was effectively the FunBro before FunBro.
I had just gotten done listening incessantly to Can't Take It Anymore from Toree Genesis on loop, then watching raocow play Toree Genesis, and now that I'm watching this, you use it as background music at 9:25. I can't handle it, dude. This song is too fire.
I appreciate your monologue in the beginning soooo much lmao. All the people from your last vid shitting on the bans for tiers they’d likely never even heard of until that point have a combined 3 brain cells total.
Snorlax is a fascinating Pokémon, he was probably initially allowed because of grandfather clause, but unlike say, Mewtwo, isn't a Pokémon that instantly deletes anything that isn't tailor made to counter him, is extremely powerful, is definitely the best Pokémon in OU and potentially even the best in Uber alongside Mewtwo himself. But Snorlax has disadvantage taht really don't exist in other "overpower" Pokémon, he's slow, he has a wise selection of moves that Snorlax wants to use, which in one makes him very versatile, but also makes him having to commit to focusing in certain aspects of his playstyle instead of being able to do all the powerful stuff in his move list. And well, Snorlax is slow, this makes having to play his moves in advance, because one wrong move and Snorlax will be forced to switch out to don't get revenged killed.
"FUN" Slowbro being banned from anything goes is like the equivalent of a freaking high school track runner in a cast being banned from the Olympics because he has the ability to give everyone else running migraines. Nobody, least of all their victims, would want this to happen.
Now I wanna see a video on the Slowpoke family tree of tomfoolery. I swear whether their impact is big or small, they always leave a mark. Galar Slowbro I still think is one of the silliest out there. QCQD Slowbro is just fun to throw out when you've had enough and want to ganble if your +2 psychic is going to go first against a pokémon who 100% outspeeds you. I've seen so many people upset or angry about a game which they would of won... losing to a 44% chance to make Slowbro into a Talonflame.
As someone who played a lot of gen 5 back in the days, it pisses me off that so much of the good shit kept getting banned. Sleep moves, gems, Tourndaus-therian, Sand Veil are all great toys to see get hammered. In general, trying to turn a high luck game like Pokemon into a low luck high skill game which is why I don't play much these days outside of random battle mayhem, staff bros, and certain OMs. Because most of those formats gives me the high power broken shit I love to abuse. Still, great video Big Yellow and I agree with your opening statement. This carries over so much to not just Pokemon, but FGC when spectators demand character nerfs or bans even though they don't play the game.
Wasn't rain more busted than half of that stuff and yet it stuck around? Granted I stopped paying much attention to Smog around the time they decided that some Sun strategies needed to be banned yet Rain was perfectly fine to let run wild but it did and does seem to me they just pick and choose what to let be abused out of a hat or something.
@@CryoJnik Non-Smogon player here, but general consensus seems to be that the old runners of the tier were just awful at their jobs. Different people are handling it now.
The whole idea of Funbro being banned from tiers where everything else is allowed is so hilarious to me. Like the ultimate pain of a strategy, so devious and suffering-inducing to those who encur it's wrath, that not even in a tier with evasion is it allowed... F U N B R O T H E F O R B I D D E N O N E
It's basically abusing a glitch. Just, it's a glitch in the overall design, instead of the programming. But the result is the same: you put the game into a state where it can't be played.
Happy birthday!! Great vid. Your monologue at the beginning flashed me back to everyone who was mad garchomp was banned in DP saying Donphan countered it with ice shard lol
First off happy birthday! And second, the Funbro strat reminds me of my Ultimate Playground Ragequit strat, wherein when I was like seven and playing RBY via link cable against others after school, I convinced them of a ‘cool powerful strategy that could beat Mewtwo’ using Metapod or Kakuna. Then we would link battle and I would deliberately send in a Kakuna against theirs and force a pseudo infinite battle. Because we were seven, this lasted like 5 turns until they inevitably ripped out the link cable and forfeited. Was it mean? Yes. Did it work after I transferred schools? No. Did I literally get the idea from the Original Prima Strategy Guide for Red and Blue? Yes. Thanks for the video!
You know you're the best pokemon in the game when you're still the best pokemon in Ubers but nobody can ban you from the tier below because you are the tier.
For an example of Gen 2 without Snorlax, I'd say take a look at the Crystal Clear competitive ruleset, which is literally just gen 2 but a number of pokemon have gained a few moves. But since Snorlax is not sacred ground, the banlist looks like: Banned Pokemon: Starmie Snorlax Zapdos Mewtwo Mew Umbreon Blissey Raikou Suicune Lugia Ho-Oh Celebi Banned Moves: Explosion Selfdestruct Rest Sing Spore Hypnosis Sleep Powder Lovely Kiss Double Team Minimize Mean Look Destiny Bond In an attempt to make a more unique Gen 2 landscape, they had to pave over a lot of what already existed in GSC OU.
There are a few banned strats I furrow my brow totally out of personal reasons but ultimately I know they got banned for a reason, mostly due to being too cheesy Skill Link + Kings Rock is stupid and funny, but is kinda stupid to leave your opponent with a 50% to lose a turn. I think alot of people (myself included) get a bit bummed out when a strat is banned that people use in their own playthroughs. Gem's I still enjoy a lot and I still am a bit sad they got banned from Gen 5 but I totally understand why.
Its actually more like 40% and I honestly really do miss it. Its really hard to build interesting paraflinch teams when their are only 2 Pokemon able to facilitate it. Even worse considering the paralysis nerf. There aren't many gimmicks that are usable without being overpowered and I think Paraflinch does a decent job at toeing that line. The part that pisses me off the most is that this is the gen that Beat Up became a TM, which opens up so many more options for paraflinch and supporters. Durant has an incredibly good speed stat and impressive bulk and typing, so it could get a lot out of Beat Up flinching as an option. Same goes for Alolan Persian who is easily one of the best leads for a paraflinch team due to Parting Shot
@@munchrai6396 yeah but A: paraflinch is annoying and there isn't a soul in the universe who actually likes fighting against it, and B: cloyster is already decent on ho as is, now give it a 40% chance to rng it's way through your check and you see the problem
@@critaquil5011 I can understand if the combination of Cloyster and King's Rock could be potentially problematic. What I disagree with, is banning the item instead of banning it on Cloyster specifically. I really hate that perfectly balanced Pokemon like Cinccino are punished for the sins of a completely unrelated Pokemon
How odd you're the one giving us such a gift today.. Happy birthday, no wonder you're lookin heckin fab today. Hope it's a good one! Big Yellow getting even Bigger, imagine that..
I appreciate the explanation on gen 2 Snorlax. I don't play Smogon at all, nor would I ever want to, considering the fact it's rng dependant in so many ways (damage calc, hit rate, ect) but I find these videos in themselves interesting.
my favorite gen 8 banned strat in BH was spore dubwool because it was bizarre as shit and could, after setting up cotton guard, 1shot kyurem black with body press
bringing up gen 2 snorlax made me think about lando a bit more in newer tiers and gave me more respect for the bastard. I really appreciate your indepth analyst and explanations! Happy birthday my guy. Def subbing for more :D
great video as always! thanks for explaining a lot of things about tiers that i personally never played but i still love learning about. personally the only one of these bans i disagree with is the OU Gen III Baton Pass one as that's the gen i've played most over the years (since NetBattle days...) but I completely understand the rationale. in any case, good stuff
I didn't get the gem ban right until now. When you're taking a hit from something, there's often this moment when their specs or band does way more than half of your health and your counterplay is to switch into something that resists the hit (unless hyperoffense). A gem-powered move would put you in the exact same situation only you can switch up your moves and boost them.
I played a fair bit in gen 6 and 7, and saw baton pass get banned for the first time. It was a mixed feeling; on one hand, I'd been crushed by downright unstoppable baton pass chains abusing ingrain and stuff multiple times (and only beat them once, when the opponent messed up and let me get a move in), but on the other, ninjask and gorebyss were some of my favorite pokemon to use, just to setup a one time baton pass. If it were up to me, I'd just ban chains (so passing to a Mon who knows baton pass is illegal), but I understand it's a dicey situation, and even just ninjask passing swords dance and max speed is pretty messed up. Makes me sad, but it is what it is.
Gen 2 OU Snorlax reminds me of Gen 7 PU Mesprit, obviously Mesprit was on a smaller scale than Snorlax but it had a lot of sets it could run and was on most teams. Not on all teams like Snorlax but some people didn't like it being there. Mesprit in Gen 7 PU held the tier together in a way and if it was removed it would cause so many teams to become worse and not as fun to many. You might be able to see my comparison now.
Oh my god, I lost it so hard at "Hyper Beam Delcatty is the future", especially because that was the thing I did when I played Sapphire when I was like, 12.
I love that Funbro is banned from AG because canonically Slowpoke is this amazingly powerful mon that thinks of so much stuff that can't do anything, and it's not until a Shellder bites its tail that it evolves, and the constant pain grounds it to reality which lets it control its raw power. So it makes perfect sense that Slowbro is the ultimate Pokémon lmao even though arguably Slowking is canonically even stronger because the bites on the head makes it stronger or something but anyway, it's so fitting for Slowbro to have the ultimate ban.
I don't play Pokemon very much at all, but I enjoy watching these videos. I'm studying to become a games designer and one thing that I've struggled with is how to make a player-vs-player environment have many different options and possibilities available to choose from without having any single strategy overpower everything else. Talking about bans and restrictions in Pokemon games helps me get some insight on how such an environment can have a dominant playstyle, which in turn can make me think about how such overpowered and (more importantly) unfair strategies can be avoided or countered in the games I want to plan out. Thank you Big Yellow, for your insight and explanations for these mechanics :D
I haven't played gen 2, but the way snorlax is described makes me think of Gen 9 Great Tusk or Every Gen Landorus-T, they're popular just because of how versatile they are
I'm surprised that gems are banned in OU but not in UU. Really a very unique call that we just don't see very often, but I think it works pretty well in these sorts of item based bans that depend more on the interaction between the Pokemon and the item than the item itself
Not gonna lie, I would be REALLY hyped to play a snorlax-less gen 2 OU meta, even if its not official and it's like "other metagames" or whatever I got the feeling that it could be quite interesting, if anything
People have tried it, it really doesn’t work. Snorlax is a wallbreaker in a tier where everything is a fucking wall, and without it GSC becomes even more of a stallfest
@@chilln0648 high level GSC isn't really a stall fest and hasnt been for the last half a decade but yeah, no snorlax would make GSC into the stall fest that everyone thinks of when they think of GSC
"Who tf do I think I am?" He says with the shit-eatingest grin any human has ever grinned. You know who tf you am, big yellow. Happy birthday you strange beautiful man
The gen 5 gems ban suprised me because back when I was a kid gems were there and helpful but not really overbearing, I think what helped people realize just how strong they were was the way z moves were used in gen 7 but I could be wrong feel free to correct me if so
