I hate it when people argue that a Pokemon isn't broken just because some random niche Pokemon can counter it (there was some tomfoolery about Tera-Rock Vaporeon being a good answer to Iron Bundle on the main Pokemon subreddit). Here's how I like to explain it: Imagine there was a fun and healthy metagame where all was equal and no tiering action was needed. Now, suppose a new Pokemon- let's call it Vacodrish- is added via DLC. Vacodrish combines a mighty attack stat with decent bulk and blistering speed, meaning it can comfortably outrun and OHKO the vast majority of the metagame. Vacodrish is obviously broken beyond belief, and should be banned immediately. BUT! As it turns out, the ability Run Away has been reworked! Run Away now allows a Pokemon to be completely immune to an opposing Vacodrish's moves AND traps the Drish a la Magnet Pull. With most Run Away users being NFE shitmons from the darkest depths of Untiered, the general Pokemon community has something to say. 'This Pokemon is beaten by SNUBBUL,' they laugh. 'It can't even 1v1 KRICKETOT. This thing loses to a goddamn WOOLOO. How could it possibly be broken?'. And of course, they complain about Smogon when Vacodrish is unceremoniously booted to AG the moment Finchinator finishes typing the relevant Smogon post. Let's entertain, for a moment, what the meta would look like if Finch stayed his almighty hammer on this inauspicious and hypothetical situation. With Vacodrish remaining unbanned, the OU playerbase would lose maybe 90% of its number overnight. Of the remaining players, nearly every one of them is running a team that supports a Vacodrish wincon. The meta is, for a brief moment, entirely fucking boring. Then, innovation! A savvy player figures out that, hey, maybe it's worth running Run Away Rapidash in OU as long as it beats opposing Dracovish! Suddenly, a new type of team exists: the anti-Dracovish team! Rather than using a Dracovish of its own, the anti-Vish core consists of a Run Away users to stave off assaults from the opposing Dracovish, and five other Pokemon to prey on the beheaded supporting core that only functions with a Dracovish at the lead (let's pretend that a Vish team needs a lot of dedicated support to ensure its matchup against opposing Vish users is optimal, and thus can't fit a Run Away user). Now the metagame has two main archetypes- the Vish users, who previously reigned the metagame, and the Anti-Vish users, who can effortlessly win against the tier's previous tyrants. With Anti-Vish suddenly being the most dominant strategy, having a 50% winrate against itself and a 100% winrate against Vish, players once again adapt to the new meta. These new squads feature not Vish, but an array of six strong Pokemon that function together well and can answer opposing threats. In other words, this is a normal team. Perhaps a bit different from the ones most common at the very beginning of our silly thought experiment, but a standard OU build just the same. These builds absolutely annihilate Anti-Vish teams, functionally fighting a 6v5, but are absolutely unable to do a single thing to stop an opposing Dracovish's rampage. And thus the meta stabilises at last. Three archetypes- Dracovish, anti-Dracovish, and anti-anti-Dracovish, all who beat one kind of team and lose to the other. This, ladies and gentlemen, is no longer Pokemon. This is Rock Paper Scissors. Are we here to play goddamn ROCK PAPER SCISSORS? Yes, I did just start calling it Dracovish at some point. And I know, there's a lot more nuance to this than I was bothered to outline in some RU-vid comment, and banning Pokemon that AREN'T so obviously metagame warping is a whole different can of worms. I just hope, somewhere, that a lost Smogon hater watching this video will read what I've written, and understand that most of their criticisms are really fucking stupid.
I feel like that's a fundamental issue with having an "Offensive Meta", Just a fancy term to cover up a restriction on team building now days, I'm tempted to say Gen 5 was the only generation that handled it in a healthy way as weather was key and could easily swap back and forth to allow for dynamic matches, That's not to say Stall Pokémon can't be an issue aswell but those are usually not as common since you have more tools to deal with them and only once tools are removed is when issues rise up
The funny thing is when some people say "No you should leave X mon/thing unbanned. As the meta will learn to grow and adapt" in response to bans And when that does happen it just devolves into everyone using said thing repeatedly (see ubers with oh-ko moves) Because of course that's NEVER how a metagame works 💀💀
Metagames do however change and evolve to counter things. The example of Iron Hands and its fall in usage recently is a great example of this. People found new adaptations to the meta and it fell out of favor. However, when someone says a metagame will adapt, it needs to be a point made with consideration and clear and concise justification must be given on how this metagame will likely adapt. When disproving such a point and why the metagame will not adapt, it is important to do the same thing. Which, to come to my point, is something which this comment does not do or really consider in any way, making it just as useless as the comments it criticizes.
@@canasnewell3089 well hes not saying the meta game WONT adapt but more so it will adapt to the point where it is either using the broken tactic or using the very specific counter to the tactic which would quickly become much more boring than the alternative: See the now killed nat dex anything goes ladder or gen 8 pure hackmons
The metagame does adapt but that doesn't mean it expands. If a broken mon can only be countered by two pokemon in the game that are in NU, "letting the metagame adapt" won't change that. Time doesn't magically make more counters appear. It's likely that all that will change is those two counters are used on every single team. I think that restricting team building should be the biggest consideration. The metagame always adapts, but who cares if that adaptation is more restrictive than just banning the pokemon.
People wanted to ban Gholdengo because of this counter argument. I agree most of the time, if a pokemon's raw power is overwhelming, the pokemon must be banned. But if it's due to a certain mechanic, as for gholdengo, aegislash or others, it must be given a chance to see if the meta will adapt
A funny thing about banning overpowered pokemon is that rather than limiting your options for usable pokemon, it actually allows for more options for usable pokemon in practice because pokemon that get destroyed by an overpowered pokemon become more viable, and because you don’t have to worry about the opportunity cost of not using an overpowered pokemon, overall allowing for more freedom in teambuilding
People complaining about Chien Pao ban, but it also makes way for Baxcalibur to come to OU. Bax is a powerful wallbreaker that is much fairer than Chien.
@@blueskyalchemist623 Bax is honestly an insane mon, dragon dancer that can't get burned, 2nd best ice shard currently in Gen 9 OU. But there was so much broken shit running around that it dropped to UU (and was promptly yeeted from there).
I honestly feel that what was said here about banning something allowing for other strategies to see play should be the point of what a ban should ideally try to accomplish, no matter what competitive game we're talking about. I feel that at some point sooner or later, something will be discovered to be blatantly overpowered compared to the other options players have available, and this will lead to them playing this more to get an upper hand, especially if it's dominant against a large portion of what people are commonly playing; this in turn leads to people also playing more counters to that overpowered strategy and eventually warps the metagame around it. This is the sort of thing that I see most banlists strive to correct, as people will lose interest in a game if only a few strategies are actually viable, especially in a game like Pokemon where there is such a huge variety of Pokemon you could potentially be using that are possibly invalidated because they happen to not be very good against whatever the top strategy is. The problem is that people like to complain about bans because it means that it's something that they previously had available as an option for then to play with that they can no longer use, but those kinds of players aren't looking at the bigger picture
But something will ALWAYS be "overpowered" for the meta. It creates a cycle where you ban something, then because its banned something it would've countered becomes prominent, then that gets banned too, and so on. Smogon is a history full of spiraling bans because of that. It would be better if they leave the meta more free, only ban ABSOLUTELY overpowered pokemon, and allow the scene to actually develop by experimenting with what's available
Something important to note: These bans only apply on Smogon. There's nothing stopping you from using your own rules or the Pokémon you like outside of Pokémon Showdown. In terms of official competitive Pokémon tournaments, the only rules you'll have to follow are those set by The Pokémon Company International. No matter how you choose to play, always remember that Pokémon is a game meant to bring joy to your life - so try and have fun! :)
Issue is the timer now, a literal game mechanic that doesn't let you play how you want to. I personally love playing stall and even fighting it but now it's really not an option because you can run out of time.
I never got the "smogon loves stall" comments. Like, smogon themselves are making these tournaments. Why would the tier leaders stack the deck in their own tournament to play against themselves? That's like how one of my third-graders copies her neighbors on kahoot games but then still dances around in celebration when she gets a right answer.
I swear, it mostly stems from people who don't actually play/fully understand Smogon Metagames (or comp pokemon as a whole) I notice that a lot of non-competitive players/casuals have 0 interest in actually playing or trying to understand a competitive scene at even a basic level, but are more than willing to judge/poke and make fun of it whenever they hear news about something happening in a comp scene like a ban. This doesn't apply to just comp pokemon, almost every game with a comp setting has people like this.
Also something to add - Just because someone may disagree with a ban doesn't give you the right as a player to shit on them. This is something that makes the smogon community so toxic and tends to scare people away from it. Like Aim said not everyone is going to agree with said ban so if someone disagrees with a ban and you don't disagree with it don't be a dick to the other player
Simple answer: Pokemon is not a balanced game. Never was and still isn't. PVP was a last minute addition to RBY cuz the devs didn't want it if they could help it and would have sooner made it used autoattacks like DQM and YKW. I agree with plenty of bans because Smogon is a necessary fanmade format to make the game more interesting since the devs don't actually care. 3:38 This is kinda why alot of Pokemon's imbalances come from. So few things seem to have proper counterplay with the way they're designed. No other monster collector or RPG I've played is so limited and awful about dealing with accuracy and evasion strategies like Pokemon is.
I saw someone say that Pokemon balancing was always closer to the "kill-or-be-killed" environment of its mature older brother Shin Megami Tensei than most other competitive games and honestly that's true. RBY battle mechanics are probably broken because the game was intended to be a creature collector first and a complex RPG second, but even as GF began to acknowledge and foster the existence of a competitive format they never completely learned how to balance things.
I do like that despite the fact that Shin Megami Tensei and Pokémon are five years apart and contrasted together a thing in common they have is that neither were meant for competitive and were meant to be random and the mechanics for naturalism purposes (SMT does this to make clear the world you live in sucks, Pokémon does this to illustrate Pokémon are like animals in an ecosystem and there is no inherent balance in nature)
@@iantaakalla8180 _"B-b-b-but strength is an illusion of selfish trainers! Truly skilled trainers try to win with their favorites!"_ , Elite Four Karen tries to bargain after losing and after saying _"Dark Pokemon are SO strong"_
As someone who has worked with bans before, the most annoying attempt at a counterargument is "just run X." Even if it is a good pokemon that already gets great usage, that doesn't mean it's own existence makes an otherwise banworthy pokemon healthy as it's being forced onto every team. I will give two examples, the both Weezings forms in gen 8 pokebilities. Pokebilities is a meta where all pokemon get all their abilities at once, this includes the Weezings, even with them having Neutralizing Gas. The Weezings were often used as an argument against a Conkeldurr ban. However, not only were they the only "counter," but despite being great pokemon otherwise, it still didn't make Conk weaker enough in the meta to not be overbearing. Even with Neutralizing Gas, a Facade with max attack is a 4HKO. This seems great on paper, but in practice, it's a major flaw. The Weezings are reliant on Protect+Black Sludge, Pain Split, and Rest (only for Kanto Weezing) for recovery. Not only this, but while they do avoid Spikes, they're hit by Stealth Rock. They're repeatedly hit by hazards throughout a game and Knock Off makes it to where they will get 3HKOd by a burned Conk Facade. Not only this, but the Weezings, at least at the time, were also used as a check to Phermosa, Dracozolt, Clefable, and Hippowdon. They'd be repeatedly switching in on these pokemon over the course of a game and taking chip damage on top of the already annoying residual damage. They weakened themselves really fast through having to check other pokemon as well. There was nothing else to fully counter Conk, though. Corviknight and Toxapex? Thunder Punch. Fairies? Poison Jab. Hippowdon? Ice Punch. Buzzwole? Fire Punch. You couldn't run all on one set, true, but just the threat of 2HKOing every single pokemon in the metagame with the right move except two specific pokemon that are already used to check several other threats and have no reliable recovery just isn't healthy for a meta. It made Conk overcentralizing, overbearing, and uncompetitive in the pokebilities meta last gen.
This is a very needed video for the younger playerbase (and sometimes people of the older one), as many new players don’t see why bans should be applied, or only want complex bans as an option, which in in of itself is not sustainable on the long run. Thanks again Joey, for educating all those new souls to the Pokémon’s ways 🙂
Yeah, new players need this, many of them just are unaware of why something is broken, or why bans happen, and for them removing pokemon is "people refusing to adapt"
I have a genuine question as a new player. Why would banning a move, in general, not just on certain pokemon considered complex bans? How is that more complex than banning the pokemon. To me, it feels like banning a pokemon as a whole would take away much more from the competitive scene than banning a single move, which leads to less variety in the long run. So I do want to know why you think that it is not sustainable on the long run. Sure, it might take another round of suspect testing if, say, annihilape is truly broken even without rage fist. But then it leads to the same situation where annihilape is banned even when only rage fist is banned at first. How is that not sustainable on the long run when banning a move first leads to the same situation as banning a pokemon first?
@@jkliao6486 because it creates a murky situation of "Where do you draw the line?" its obvious Blaziken isnt good in gens 5-7 w/o speed boost so do you ban speed boost SPECIFICALLY on blaziken? It becomes too much of a mess to have specific rules mix and match and a banlist would be too long each tier. It would be rather daunting for a new player to find out that there's a huge list of combination of pokemon, move, and items they cannot run. "You cannt run dracovish without Fisoush Rend, You cannot Run Blaziken with speed boost, You cannot run Cinderace with Pyro Ball and Heavy Duty Boots" etc etc. just gets too long and most likely scares players into getting into the tier
@@jkliao6486 usually when a pokemon is broken, it centers the meta around it, with flutter mane u had to stack counters and special walls to it otherwise you just lost, scizor had to be ran on every team to even stand a chance and that sometimes would just lose to tera fire. By banning a very very centralizing pokemon you enable the meta to not be forced to build around it, and can have some freedom in doing so, now you dont have to run blissey, scizor, or kingambit on every single team or you just lost 1, 2, or more pokemon.
I find it's a lot easier to explain the bans when you shift the conversation more towards over-centralisation and further away from overpowered. A big part of why smogon works the way it does is because their goal is to make a meta people actually want to participate in. In this sense something doesn't have to actually be broken to be banned. If the majority of the community just randomly decided they wanted to ban Krabby one day, the could and would. Sure it would be silly and unrealisitic but that concept alone sheds light on the whole process and tends to counter the often spammed arguments like "just use always hits moves" or "why don't people just use this hyper-niche counter"
Joey Dw too much about comments on the last community post, you’re doing great. Ik a random person saying this don’t matter much but I just wanted to say this regardless
I've never even viewed it as a ban. I've always loved power and gimmick in a given Pokémon. If the Pokémon is so powerful that it reaches Ubers, or it's a mon that seems as if it wouldn't me too crazy to deal with but has a gimmick move or set that catapults it to new heights, then that's badass. I'll gladly have some fun with it in Ubers. I think people only view it as a "ban" in the first place because OU is the tier with the most Pokémon and is the most consistent.
well, OU is technically the "baseline," for it and the tiers below it are determined by usage rates. Nothing can ever rise to ubers via usage. By default, every pokemon is allowed in OU. Even though pokemon like Weavile were used in Gen 8 ubers at usage rates well over the 4.52% required for a pokemon to move to a tier, Weavile never left OU for Ubers because that's not how being in Ubers works. Whereas a UU pokemon can rise in usage and become OU and not be usable in UU anymore, no pokemon can leave the OU tier in such a way. The only way for a pokemon to leave OU is via a ban.
@@infamousinferno2506 "reaching ubers" would be having enough usage in ubers to rise to ubers like the other tiers, but that's not how ubers work. Great tusk's ubers usage is also off the charts, being able to stuff miraidon's electric moves and threaten it is very valuable. "Reaching Ubers" means "getting banned from OU, because Ubers, by definition, is the "OU banlist." The concept of an Uber's metagame didn't really exist immediately and wasn't set in stone until the release of ORAS, in which Mega Rayquaza was banned to AG. Part of the reason why there was resistance to Mega Ray's ban was because of the absurdity of the idea of an "OU Banlist Banlist." Great Tusk is amazingly consistent, being the single best rapid spinner to ever exist (I think better than gen 5 OU's non-sand rush Excadrill), having phenomenal bulk, typing, and stab moves, as well as having many options for Tera-type without being forced to tera to be useful. It's probably the single best pokemon in OU, followed by a somewhat distant second in Gholdengo. It's basically the Lando-T of gen 9 in that it has the highest usage rate in the tier, it's a ground type, it manages hazard removal, it has tons of sets, is on paper an offensive pokemon but is ran as a defensive pokemon, and that almost no matter what set it runs it's going to be useful. But neither of them were banned because they didn't warp the metagame around them. They weren't necessarily synonymous with the tier they're in. Anyways, that's my two cents
@@infamousinferno2506 Again, there is no such thing as "reaching uber", for the reason mentionned. Things can have busted state distribution and be average or good only. Things can have bad stats and be crazy.
Great video, helped me better understand how and why smogon tiers exist. Also noticed at 1:05 you might have mistakenly put sheer force instead of sheer cold as an OHKO move. Even still, enjoy the content your putting out, you got me into competitive Pokémon so thanks!
Sand Veil Garchamp was very contentious back in B2/W2. I remember discussions on RU-vid, forums, showdown for the reason to ban it/send it to Ubers. It was around this time that I got into pokemon showdown/smogon rules. I actually liked there was a group of players who actually got to decide on it rather than just one person.
I think the only ban I disagreed with was Melmetal in gen 8 and it came back after less than a year. People criticize smogon bans so much but they are very conservative.
The problem is that idiots try to force smogons rules onto people that dont play by smogon rules and bitch at us and call us "uncompetitive" when we just want to use our favorite pokemon on switch battles. Look you can do what you want on your simulator but please control your fans from trying to enforce an unofficial ruleset on the actual games.
@@hattruck8607 if a player expects someone battling on switch to follow an unofficial ruleset they deserve to be dunked on by fluttermane if youre battling on switch youre playing with TPC rules not smogon rules. Japanese players can use iron bundle fluttermane and palafin so ill use them too.
I believe most bans are too quick to be implemented. There plenty of counters to broken stratedgies just these great counters are just less reliable against the normal metagame. For example, every sweeper falls to sash Wobbuffet but with proper counter play Wobbuffet is unreliable. But these off the wall picks can turn the tides and not the same 20 pokemon u see everywhere
I've never had a problem with bans, honestly. Of course Mewtwo and Kyogre don't belong in the same tier as Breloom (those aren't really bans to be fair but still). My problem has always been quick bans, or council votes. Sometimes just 9 people decide on what's a pretty controversial part of the meta and justify it by saying that "The results were obvious" I don't really accept that excuse. Even if "the results were obvious", I don't think it's fair not to allow the other side to have a say (and it usually *is* the other side, council votes are almost always unanimous). And regardless, suspect tasting takes only two weeks, a bit too long if you ask me, since most of the people voting have already made up their mind, so I think it could be reduced to just one. Combined with the fact that multiple Pokemon can be suspect tested at once, is that one week of a potentially unbalanced meta really such a big deal?
The quickbans are in response to community polls where the majority preemptively asked for a ban. Espathra recently had 80% votes wanting to ban it in the Poll asking what to do about it. That's where they avoid a Suspect Test where every relevant player to the tier will inevitably vote to ban. Other cases like Chien had much more opposition to a ban
@@vengefulbale Honestly, I think community polls are even better than suspect testing since, again, most people voting have already made their minds. The problem with community polls is that they're just not shown to most people, they're pretty much exclusively for people checking in on the forums, something most people just don't do. If there just was a small announcement in the news section when you open up Showdown, I think that'd solve most of the problems. I didn't even know Espathra was considered for a ban until it actually hapenned, something true for quite a few other council votes, like Garganacl or Dragonite or Cyclizar
Smogon: You’re banned! Get away from my tournaments! Annihilape: I’m just looking for the bathroom. Smogon: You’re banned from that too! Annihilape: I am banned from the bathroom?! Smogon: *Every bathroom!* Annihilape: NOOOOOOO!!!
I dip into comp pokemon around every year or so, for a few weeks. I don't have any real opinions on specific bans since I don't ever really get enough experience within each meta to see the problem children. That said... Smogon has lost its damn mind. The amount of bans coming out and their frequency, is ridiculous. The mentality I'm seeing is, "Ok we banned Gliscor, now let's look at banning Sneasler. Ok, we banned Sneasler, now let's look at the next ban." Instead of banning something, then waiting for the meta to adjust, we are seeing Smogon just chain bans back to back. I feel for everyone who has to deal with their competitive metagame getting churned up every week by a select few powerful people developing a chronically itchy trigger figure. You can take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I said, I really don't know the intimate details of Smogon's metagames. This is mainly from a point of principle; the current ban system is not fixing the game. It appears as though the Council is attempting to cauterize an arterial wound by applying a bandaid to the skin. Sure, that's the spot where the blood is spilling from, but to actually save the patient's life, you're going to need to go a little deeper and get to the cause.
yeah, recent power creep has been fucking horrible. Blissey being ohkoed by a neutral special attack alone shows that lmao. The traditional system doesnt work this gen, i agree that they should def wait a lil bit before banning
Tbh i still think smogon has gone ban happy. They need to ban rage fist and last respects. The pokemon themselves aren't the problem just the one part of their kit.
@@docxy7331 no you don't get it If they ban rage fist annihlape. Someone or the other is gonna bring up the fact that a legendary Pokemon with no moves above 40BP is fair as well This is chaotic and not something smogon wants to deal with
@@docxy7331 that's actually a fair point. If my memory is correct The council has stated that certain bans(such as banning last respects instead of houndstone) should have occured but didn't due to the preset rules of smogon itself which is moderated by server admins
I like bans a lot. And i find most of them has a good reason to be put in place However I always want as broad of a roster of mons to pick from. And in the limted 400 mons meta of early gen 8 and now 9 I think some bans become rather hard to justify. An exampel are really good moves that makes a pokemon good. Last respect/rage fist and shed tail are moves I much rather see bannef as the mons tyat runs it are not as good without them. Thats my thought about it at least. Great video Joey!
A large part of reason they banned Houndstone, Ape, Cyclizar instead of the moves is because it's very hard to draw a line in the sand with regard to where "broken" is. Sure, none of those mons would be banworthy without the move, but what about cinderace without pyro ball in SS OU? Darm-galar without gorilla tactics? How about Urshifu-SS without wicked blow? You could answer any of those questions pretty easily (or via subject test or w/e), but the fact is if you tried to test aspects individually people would never stop clamoring for X without Y. It's not about whether or not X without Y would be reasonable in the metagame, but that it would be a nightmare to adjudicate without a hard & fast rule saying "no complex bans" or "ban pokemon not moves".
@@rikerwashere Thanks for the reapond Riker, I get why they didnt make that call. But I apprisiate you clearifying it :) I just think with the limited meta that from my point of view its better to have moremons in the tier. And if a signature move is making the mon busted, then i think banning the move is better. That said. Its really just my point of view on a limited meta. And I see how these types of bans would be problematic:)
@@skyrander The issue is that none of those moves are technically signature. Basculegion and Hisuian Basculegion get Last Respects, so they would have to tear through the metagame in order to get the move banned (and they likely will); Rage Fist is signature to the Annihilape line, but Primeape gets it too, and it is not seeing OU play; Orthworm is a threat in OU, but it isn't the monster Cyclizar was when it came to shed tail. With the possible exception of Last Respects, it was the sum of the parts that made them banworthy.
@@kbowman772 thank you for the respond. Like I said, i just wanted a broader meta while its limited. I understand why they got banned, But one could ask. Without their ”signature” move, how viable would it be? And like shed tail. Would oarthworm even be OU without it. Or is it the move thst allows a playstyle to thrive? :)
@@skyrander Well with Orthworm, we already know the answer. The answer is no. In fact, the reason it is seeing OU play in the first place is because Cyclizar got kicked out, and it wasn't about to get kicked out of UU for being broken. But it's not really fair to kneecap other Pokémon for the sins of Ubers. Primeape really likes its new toy in Rage Fist; we all know it really needed a buff. Last respects...we'll get to that later, but if White-Striped Basculin and Basculegion turn out to be banworthy (And they probably will), Last respects will probably get banned and Houndstone can come back. And as for why we can't just ban Rage Fist on Annhilape, it opens a huge can of worms for everyone to try and make their favorite Pokémon that got banned balanced for OU. They might make Flutter Mane have to run non-STAB moves or take away Hydro Pump on Iron Bundle. It's not the normal slippery slope fallacy; if they do it for something like Annihilape or Cyclizar, there is no reason not to do it for any other Uber, i.e. forcing something like Miraidon to only run moves like Thundershock or Dragonbreath.
Feels like the best time to say I've heard something say something to the effect of "smogon would be better without tiers *because that would mean more pokemon get used"*
On the contrary, I'm happy that Terra has *not* been banned. Can it have the potential to be a little gamebreaking? Does a lot of it depend on luck? Sure, but you can just ban a certain terra type on a given Pokemon in that case, but overall having a one use type change can add so much more diversity and strategy to a given game, matchups which seem hopeless become beatable. It's definitely not just the nonsense that was Dynamax for sure.
I believe that banning Pokémon is not the solution. Instead of banning Pokémon, we should consider banning competitors who demand a ban on certain Pokémon or strategies. That kind of behavior needs to be corrected.
I HIGHLY disagree with the houndstone ban and I think this sort of logic they used for banning it instead of last respects is gonna rear its ugly head when basculegion is added into the main series, basculegion is a sick as HELL pokemon and i don’t want to not be able to use it because smogon is so stingy about banning moves, if every pokemon that gets last respects gets banned I think the problem is last reapects and completely removing the option to play these mons outside of ubers is just plain bizarre, hounstone would be RU tops without last respects
I would love the idea of Pokemon actually allowing you to be creative and be able to use more unorthodox monsters in reasonably viable ways. This whole idea isn't even just a pipe dream either. In the monster collector series of Yo-Kai Watch, Yo-Kai Watch 2's online competitive format was dominated by a monster called Slimamander whom could attack all 3 opponents at once in its 3v3 system. So when Yo-Kai Watch 3 came around, ya know what happened? They completely rebalanced it and made a completely new battle system where a ton of creative teambuilding became possible and high ladder matches were full of variety even after more dominant DLC monsters were added to the game. They didn't even need to make any really extreme compromises to the game's vast amount of casual content to do that either. It proves you can make a game full of casual content and still make your competitive meta much more varied and balanced. Game Freak probably won't do that for their own monster collector because they're far more hesitant to any extreme change when what they sell is still making bank regardless and they kinda don't even want to make Pokemon games anymore ever since GSC.
@@DrCoeloCephalo I agree with you completely but the thing with Game Freak is that they want Pokemon competitive Format to also be based on canonical references to the Pokemon lore but they don't realize that people don't care about accurate lore (aside from meme-ing certain inconsistencies) as long as it makes for a good competitive scene
@@843Chadwick Which is also ironic because in YKW games, every monster has a very specialized role that makes them unique from each other in one way or another that still plays off their lore and canon in creative ways and like I said, the metagame is actually balanced and varied. YKW had the advantage of avoiding alot of the inconsistencies and bad game design decisions that plague Pokemon games.
@@DrCoeloCephalo and it's funny because that was the point of Pokemon adding abilities to their Mons, but they make the abilities useless with the TERRIBLE movepools😭😭
@@843Chadwick I'm working on a competitive video essay on my own for comp Pokemon about that and alot of it has to do with the huge amount of overlap that makes so many monsters so easily outclassed with Abilities, stat spreads, moves, etc. Early Bird is worse than Insomnia is worse than Magic Bounce or Good as Gold for example.
The only ban that I don't like is Baton pass bans. Don't get me wrong, I understand that the idea of complex bans is a sore topic, but a move that has so much potential outside of Stat passing being banned ever gen is still strange to me. I get it, but that is my opinion.
Baton Pass has a long history of people trying to keep it by using complex bans to balance it, only for ways to abuse it to keep popping up. It's one of the main reasons why Smogon is so averse to complex bans now, because it never worked for Baton Pass.
@yaytennis I've seen people advocate for pure dry pass, or even defensive passing. Like only defense buffs being passed. Normally, as a single stat pass. Sub pass can also be good on its own. Although the latter could have problems in lower tier metas.
I think Cyclizar should be complex banned in OU. It's a really cool mon with a lot of solid use cases, and it's a shame we lost such a useful, flexible and unique mon so quickly. With Shed Tail, it enables powerful setup sweepers and gives safe switchins in exchange for its own health. With Regenerator and it's insane utility movepool, it's an excellent pivot and role compressor that acts like a diet Tornadus Therian, and also one of only four rapid spinners in OU, which the tier is in desperate need for. With Regenerator and Shed Tail combined, it becomes an immortal menace that can't be taken out by anything and turns it's teammates into extremely bulky menaces for basically ever. If Cyclizar had to pick between one of these great tools, it would be a top tier in OU, but a top tier with much more sensible and manageable counterplay
I think complex bans open up a huge can of worms though. Would Chi Yu be buated without Specs overheat? Would Annihlape be busted without rage fist? Would Houndstone be busted without Last Respects? Way easier to just ban them instead of trying to make every mon usable in some way imo.
My point is im trying to say there is a bit of a slippery slope when it comes to complex bans and i see a lot of avenues for controversy over complex bans
@@alexs5368 easy being the key word.theyre lazy, and selectively create complex bans when it's popular amongst the council members. I know there's private discussions that go on where council members inflate the controversy around particular pokemon.
@@alexs5368 I understand where you're coming from, but I think Cyclizar is a special case. The utility it offers adds so much to so many different teams that should not be overlooked. I agree that complex bans are a slippery slope, and consider Cyclizar an exception rather than the rule. I don't see my proposal as any different from the gen 3 Baton Pass bans. BP has problematic elements, which were restricted in order to preserve the good it brought to the metagame. I see Cyclizar as no different, since it also offers things that are entirely unique to the SV OU metagame; things that I find to make the game significantly more enjoyable and balanced.
People think that Smogon banning pokemon is about making less pokemon useable, but the truth is that they are just making more pokemons useable, but on different tiers.
the issue is not the bans joey its that the smogon council took it upon themselves to make most of the ban decisions for us as if we are too stupid to vote on our own meta. The chi yu, cyclizar and annilape ban was kinda controversial. I would say everyone agreed on chi yu but we don’t even know abythe other 2. Now its too late because of the hive mindset of “it’s already banned”. I disagree with how the smogon council conducts themselves. Who even appointed them? like 10 years ago and they abuse there power to immediately change a generation by banning like 8 mons without community vote. Not cool.
I agree with the dynamax ban in that it's unhealthy for the meta, but I am disappointed that such an interesting mechanic was left to the wayside and that's a big reason why I started getting into doubles
Bans make a meta less centralized and allow for more options. The same people (usually not the best players) who complain about overused Pokemon, are usually the ones who complain about Smogon "restricting" play by banning things. But those are opposite complaints... The dookie mons you want to use become even less viable without bans...
Nice video. I like when you reference that you dint have to like every ban. I hate when i disagree in the forums. My opinion on hating bans comes more with quick bans and some biased opinions coming from the give up top at times. Now can you give some wife battles a chance again 😅😅 maybe aome Ubers and sone UU
Joey please make a video about why "choice" items are so important in pokemon, the average person would think getting locked into one move would be bad when its not l
But it IS bad. That’s the tradeoff. What they don’t get is why a +1 is good enough to warrant locking yourself into just 1 move. Of this person is allergic to switching, it might seem even less of a worthwhile tradeoff than they might already think
Smogon bans stuff because they are terrible at pokemon. They're like the little kid at school tells you don't use Mewtwo but then use a whole team of legendaries and still lose then complain your team is unfair and you lost being your "cheating".
Oh no, my team of azelf and registeel got beaten, you must be cheating! Kid must've been using dogshit if a full legends team lost to mewtwo or any random ou team
its crazy to think people really care about smogonrules to this day, i feel like their comunity cant handle that big amount of information regarding balancing the game specially when i check their page analysis of some pokemon and they are mostly blank with generic moveset, back in the day i think they were relevant, but now who cares honestly
None of this is a good reason to not even try testing houndstone without last respects. The excuse that we don’t know that houndstone is broken or last respects is broken is some bullshit when all we have to do to find out is ban last respects and see if it changes anything. Also, as a person who likes seeing games that are fun, bans almost always are handed out to offensive Pokémon, and defensive Pokémon never face any sanctions. This really encourages stall and I don’t think that’s good for the community.
Most of the reason why offense gets banned over defense is cause it’s a lot easier to answer defensive Pokémon since offense ones will just beat you in a short amount of turns while defensive mons would take a lot longer to (giving more time to outplay). Also I don’t exactly agree with the hound stone ban but it’s understandable why they did it. Since if they decided to just ban the move then you’d invite in the discussion of banning more and more moves and traits just to make a Pokémon useable in ou “what if Mewtwo could only use 60 bp moves” and that would be a much worse situation because at that point bans are only arbitrary and is not a good system. (TLDR: while I don’t like hound stone ban I’ll take it since at least it makes smogon consistent)
@@punkingx2740 It kinda is still inconsistent though. The final Baton Pass ban got rid of the move for all mons instead of just the most prominent user (I think that was Mew), but Houndstone, Cyclizar, and Annihilape were banned despite there being confirmed evidence of those three moves existing in other mons' movepools before the gen even started (Basculegion, Orthworm, and Primeape). Maybe they wanted to be extra harsh on Houndstone b/c Basculegion had to wait in line to go through Paldea customs anyway (quick-banning it from OU is kinda easy to imagine, but I am interested in whether they'll keep both LR mons banned, or finally ban the move instead and bring Houndstone back), but banning the other two moves would have been just as simple of a ban as BP. If ppl still wanted to abuse screens + Shed Tail + any setup sweeper, or Rage Fist + Wish support/Revival Blessing, not much changed for them. But basically, the inconsistency is painfully obvious for those three. The ohko moves mentioned in the vid (which preceded BP) were also consistent w/ banning the move b/c it's available for multiple mons.
The reason they didn't ban Last Respects at present is because it is actually functionally similar to a complex ban (ban X from Y). It is also why they never entertained the idea of bans like "Pyro Ball Cinderace", "Wicked Blow Urshifu", "Secret Sword Keldeo" etc. in past generations of OU. They only even consider the idea of banning moves/abilities if they're broken on ALL of its MULTIPLE users. This is why they banned Moody, Shadow Tag, Arena Trap, and UU Drizzle/Drought (even the NFEs could use the abilities to comparable effect, proving that the ability is absolutely hard carrying and barely even cares about who the user is), but they have never even touched abilities like Speed Boost, Protean/Libero, Adaptability, etc (only certain users were broken with these, so the Pokémon themselves are a contributing factor to their power). Once Pokémon home releases, the addition of other Last Respects users like both Basculegion formes would allow for Last Respects to be banned. HOWEVER, if the remaining Last Respects user, Basculin-White-Striped, ends up not being broken with the move, they would actually lose the criteria they need to ban Last Respects.
As for "offensive Vs defensive Pokémon bans", first you have to address why a Pokémon is broken in the first place. To me, the purest description of why a pokemon is broken is *how it effectively maximises its turns while also diminishing or outright denying the opponent of their turns* . For offensive Pokémon, this can be as simple as "KOing the opponent before they even have a chance to fight back". For support Pokémon like Spikes Deoxys-Defense and Aurora Veil Alolan Ninetales, this can be in the form of their support simply being too efficient and/or difficult to stop, meaning these Pokemon can consistently maximize the value of their turns. For defensive Pokémon, they have to deal with the fact that the opponent will almost ALWAYS be able to do something before the defensive Pokémon can act. This is why Gen 6 Mega Sableye has been the only true defensive Pokémon ban from OU, as its bulk + Magic Bounce does let it effectively deny the opponent of their crucial turns on a consistent basis, though Gen 7 power creep meant that Mega Sableye can no longer achieve that same level of consistency at turn denial. At present, Garganacl is the Pokémon that people are complaining most about. On one hand, Salt Cure is an excellent use of a turn, and its huge bulk + ability to Tera to completely change its weaknesses demands very specific answers, but on the other hand, Garganacl doesn't really deny the opponent of their turns that is to be expected of most broken Pokémon (Gen 7/8 Toxapex was never banned because of this reason). The playerbase is pretty mixed on this front atm.
@@breloommaster12 Ooh, I completely forgot about Basculin-White-Striped, but that's a great counterpoint! It'll only outdamage Houndstone if it Teras to Ghost (for Adaptability), and it also has a lower Spe ceiling if it's Adaptability (486 if Scarf vs. non-Scarf Houndstone's 516 in Sand). And Rattled will simply hit softer, so I feel like that might just be the less popular option. It is still a very high BP attack, but maybe White-Striped could hold onto it if things don't line up that well for it to Tera consistently, or w/e.
Personally, I feel like the Chien-Pao and Annihilape bans could be revoked in the future once HOME comes out, seeing as we’ll have Lando-T, Hisuian Zoroark, Ursaluna, Hisuian Goodra, and many other strong threats Chien-Pao can keep in check with its ice and dark stab and Annihilape can switch into and take out without the need for rage fist. In the meantime, the bans are reasonable, as our best options are things like Destiny Bond focus sash Ceruledge to counter them.
Lando-T and Hisui Goodra definitely won't stop Chien Pao. Chien OHKOes every set of Lando and Hisui Goodra gets shredded by Sword. Also Ursaluna ain't living off a Chien Icicle Crash either They'd be checks but not counters at all and won't keep it in check if something like Bulky Quaquaval couldn't
this might be a controversial opinion but I think banning should be reserved for the most absolutely extreme cases, people justify banning as creating a balanced and competitive meta but they don't think of the fact that a more balanced meta actually hurts a game's longevity. People play the current gen simply because it's the current gen, not because it's a particularly balanced or competitive meta, so when the next gen rolls around everyone will drop it and move onto the next one no matter how competitive it was. Old gens were less balanced, not just because of the lack of bans but also because fewer mons means larger power gaps, and it's specifically this unbalancedness that made stuff like gen 1 and gen 3 classics that people keep coming back to. This is true even in other genres, look at basically every old videogame that people still play competitively: smash melee, mkwii, street fighter 3, mvc2 and 3, guilty gear xx, every single one of these games is an unbalanced mess yet people regard them as classics and still play them at the highest level, often even over the most recent installments. I think Pokemon players need to learn to embrace the chaos rather than try and fix it, but maybe I've just been watching too much marvel 3 recently idk
You say that, yet Gen 3 and Gen 4 are both incredibly popular and incredibly well balanced. Even Gen 5 is pretty well balanced to an extent. Gen 1 OU and Ubers is probably the only over centralized tier I can think of that's still incredibly popular. Also the fighting game thing doesn't really add up. Fighting games are all about matchup knowledge, mind games and technical skill, they are made to be balanced from the start and (usually) feature fair matchups throughout the cast. That doesn't really translate to an rpg with thousands of characters made to be fun rather than competitive. If you really wanted to translate Pokemon to fighting games, it'd be like Guilty Gear Missing link where certain are actually unplayable (potemkin) and others literally have a 9:1 matchup against weaker characters (Justice). In this scenario using Potemkin is such an automatic loss that if you want to have fun playing as him, you'd have to not fight any of the stronger characters. Kakyoin and Petshop in HFTF would also be examples since they literally prevented weaker characters like Rubber soul from playing the game leading to them being banned Even GGXX was more balanced than Chi-Yu in OU This is what smogon prevents. There's also the fact that in games like Smash, rng related like items are usually disabled unless they're directly tied to gameplay like with Hero, because they threaten to turn the game into dumb luck. Smogon also prevents this with mons like Espathra that could win or lose you the game depending on which tera type it chose
Personally I find it ridiculous that we can have a complex ban in Alderans proposal but we can't have a complex ban with serene grace + flinch moves in dpp ou. The fact that you can often win games by just flinching through your checks is ridiculous and removes skill from the game. Banning the combo would only have a positive effect on the metagame and would make games more fun. Luck is fine and adds spice to the game but Jirachi beating Heatran is ridiculous.
I disagree with NOT banning melmetal in gen 8, and at the very least suspect testing tapu lele, gen 8 was pretty stall/balance oriented, and banning them would def make walls harder to break yeah, but they were def way to overbearing for 90% of teams
I actually heavily disagree with the emphasis put on "skill" in this video, to me bans are about meta diversity first and foremost - giving players more options, more strategies to choose from
Gen I Mewtwo has no weakness. Not every Pokémon has a weakness. And in some gens Arceus as a species has no weakness either, instead every specific Arceus set has weaknesses without there being a single weakness that every set shares.
Honestly, I think one of the few bans I disagree with outright is banning Garchomp in Gen IV, not because it wasn't broken, but because it happened immediately before Platinum came out and a metagame shift was going to happen anyway. Sure, we know now that Garchomp still would have been just as powerful in the Platinum meta, but to not even wait and see what Platinum brought was disappointing.
there are bans in singles because it's a fan mode that the stats, moves, and items are not balanced around so the rules must be changed to fit the different format
all fun and games til u realise its only a move or ability that's the only thing making a pokemon banned, so instead of banning said move/ability and let it run its other sets it gets sent to ubers where it mostly remains unused cuz ubers is usually to strong and bulky for it. Complex bans arent as complex as smogon makes them out to be
I've never had an issue with decisions for different bans, I just think Smogon needs to take more time than they are this gen. But it could just be my lessened involvement with competitive Pokémon once gen 8 hit, and even less involvement with gen 9, so I could just be out of touch.
I was watching the video and seeing that a lot of reasonings and examples were very similar to the ones BKC uses in his vids (the quag and ludi countering kyogre and the something not being broken not only because of being too offensively potent perse, but also for it being too restraining in the team builder, specialy the pick your poison remark) and there he is, my favourite artsy b movie in the description
While your initial question is not wrong I don't think you go far enough why do we want competitive pokémon to be competitive? It's because we want to have fun sometimes a pokémon might not be overpowered but it is not fun to play against. While fun can be subjective banning a pokémon like espathra even if it isn't necessarily overpowered goes towards creating a more fun metagame overall.
Pikachu is a box-art Legendary, and should be banned to Ubers along with Charizard and Blastoise (not Venusaur, I deny the original Green, and the remakes)
Me meme answer is because Smogon loves stall. My actual answer is Smogon wants a level playing field for all of its players and since they are an unofficial, fan-run meta game, they can do as they see fit.
