ADV Baton Pass (again)

[Star]

We will be testing Baton Pass (again) in ADV OU. This post will provide context on why, explain the voting structure and outline the qualifications to vote. This thread can also be used to discuss the suspect and advocate for whatever outcomes. Those unable to post in this thread can use the ROA companion thread.

Why test Baton Pass?
Despite limiting Baton Pass to 3 users and banning Mr. Mime in previous tests, Baton Pass has proven it's still an issue in ADV. It has been used successfully in several major tours (ADV Cup, Classic Playoffs, Callous Invitational) over the past few months and remains an uncompetitive strategy.

The most popular style of Baton Pass teams currently revolves around using the move on Zapdos, Vaporeon and Hypno. You can find several replays of how the team functions below. Counterplay to the style is difficult for several reasons. The lead slot is very versatile and the ubiquity of Zapdos (the mon that generally boosts first) makes it hard to identify that you are facing a Baton Pass team. Additionally, Vaporeon and Hypno are able to use Roar and Taunt respectively to get around typical Baton Pass counterplay like Roar/Whirlwind.

We have community support to test Baton Pass again, as evidenced by this survey conducted by McMeghan in the ADV community discord.

Replays:
ADV Cup:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-577063
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-579146
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-580936
Classic Quarterfinals:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-591418
Callous Invitational (BP limited to 2 users in this tour and ABR still needed to win multiple 50/50s):
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-586617
ROA Olympics:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1444020991-vtsdelbls418q5nxvyj1h2trepahuivpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1436492231-wak90oaytjhnx66fju57utfjjb0mf7bpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1428576676-hez8dplpdsfl289dv1eo9a4merfg32qpw

Runoff Voting Structure

There are several possible ways to hinder Baton Pass. The council feels that rather than picking just one ourselves, we would rather hold a runoff vote between several options. We think this is the best option because it maximizes the voters' say in exactly how Baton Pass is dealt with. The options on the table are below (edited from original according to post below):

1. Keep Baton Pass as is (Limited to 3 users on a team)
2. Limit to 2 Baton Pass users on a team and Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Taunt
3. Limit to 1 form of stat-boosting alongside Baton Pass across the whole team
4. Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Speed Boosts
5. Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Any Stat Boosts (Drypass only)

The latter 3 options mean that every individual Pokemon will have that clause applied to them. You could still have Baton Pass on one Pokemon and Taunt on another for example.

Voting Qualifications

The tournament-based qualifications are as follows. For SPL, voters must have played at least six ADV games OR won at least three games. For ADV Cup, we will take the top twelve. For Callous Invitational V, the top 16 finishers qualify. For ADV Circuit Championship 2021, we will take the top five. Under these requirements, the following players qualify:

• SPL: Star, Golden Sun, Gilbert Arenas, thelinearcurve, McMeghan, umbry, Hclat, Endill
• ADV Cup: Star, shiloh, Teclis, umbry, ABR, Aliss, McMeghan, ziloXX, Horodro, Dragon Claw, CyberOdin, Bushtush
• Callous Invitational V: Star, Altina, Endill, Gilbert Arenas, Tricking, ABR, johnnyg2, Hclat, undisputed, mikmer, z0mog, Mana, dice, McMeghan, Tamahome, SoulWind
• ADV Circuit Championship 2021: McMeghan, Fakes, Star, umbry, CyberOdin

Unique Voters (29): Star, Golden Sun, Gilbert Arenas, thelinearcurve, McMeghan, umbry, Hclat, Endill, shiloh, Teclis, ABR, Aliss, ziloXX, Horodro, Dragon Claw, CyberOdin, Bushtush, Altina, Tricking, johnnyg2, Hclat, undisputed, mikmer, z0mog, Mana, dice, Tamahome, SoulWind, Fakes

To qualify via the ladder, players must reach 1500+ ELO and 85% GXE simultaneously. No game cap. Please use the following prefix at the start of your alt: ADVBP2. The ladder window will last for two weeks 11/28 - 12/12 ending at 11:59PM GMT -5. Submit requirements to the ROA companion thread any time you fulfill them.

 

[Gilbert arenas]

A combination of 2/3 is most desirable from a gameplay standpoint... Is this not a possibility under our current system?

 

[vapicuno]

It would probably help for the council to explain to what extent mean look pass is being considered for a separate test in future. Short of that, there might be voters who choose to ban BP + Taunt or only allow drypass not because it is their preferred option to address BP chains but because it also overlaps with a mean look pass ban.

 

[ABR]

Thank you to the council for listening to the community and setting this up. I’ll try to talk about what each of the options mean for the tier and what would probably be best.

1. Keep Baton Pass as is (Limited to 3 users on a team)
2. Limit to 2 Baton Pass users on a team
3. Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Taunt
4. Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Speed Boosts
5. Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Any Stat Boosts (Drypass only)

The latter 3 options mean that every individual Pokemon will have that clause applied to them. You could still have Baton Pass on one Pokemon and Taunt on another for example

1. I’m fairly certain that most people aren’t going to choose this option. BP is currently extremely broken and hard to deal with. Plain and simple.

2. The hclat mawile team is a great example of why this still isn’t enough.

3. This is progress, but roar + bp functions very similarly to taunt + bp at the end of the day.

4. This option addresses full bp teams while having the least collateral. If you have a faster boom, taunt, or strong attack then snowballing is way easier to prevent. There is “collateral” in that ninjask or agilizap to marowak is prevented but I view that as more of a positive than negative. If people want the stallbreaking options then cm / sd pass still exist.

5. This option obviously removes the unbalanced components. It’s different from 4 in that it also removes the ability to pass cm / sd. I personally view this as a good thing but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s absolutely necessary.

4 or 5 are the only real effective options imo, otherwise we are exceedingly likely to see another thread soon.

 

[obi]

I'm sad that "Ban Baton Pass" isn't an option for those of us that prefer simple bans to complex bans. 5 is pretty close -- although it's unclear from your description whether you can Baton Pass Aqua Ring, Substitute, Mean Look, etc. that are not stat boosts, since those aren't "Drypass" either. I'll be honest, I have a hard time keeping track of the BP rules in the various generations, and I've lost a few games because I thought a strategy wasn't allowed and then I realized "Oh that's in Gen X in this gen it has this other special ban".

 

[Hipmonlee]

Here to advocate for the speed + bp ban.

I know you guys dont like it when we bang on about complex bans, but our BP bans situation are the worst bans on the site in terms of complexity. I see ADV ubers are discussing their BP rules, and, honestly, I havent got the faintest idea what their current rule is. As much as this may not be a dire issue that is shattering the core of our community, it would be nicer if this whole thing was simpler, and I think we have an opportunity here.

The speed + bp ban is a complex ban but it is simpler than the current ban, which needs a carveout for Smeargle, and obviously is considering adding even more carveouts.

But, what I really like about it is it's a complex ban that could be applied universally. It introduces so much counterplay to BP chains that it could be dropped in any meta and would basically resolve the baton pass chain issue. It is altogether more restrictive than the BW ban, and could be substituted in there with basically no issues.

And wouldn't it be nice if ubers, OU, and the lower tiers all followed the same rule with BP. Or at least choose between one complex ban, or an outright ban.

Ultimately, I think unless you end up going for something like this, youre gonna end up having to face a BP ban eventually. I think that would be a real pity. Honestly, the only alternative that I could see working would be a limit to one BP per team.

 

[ABR]

So, I've been laddering with assist pass to explore what's still possible after further bp restrictions. I'm not sure if this is fully optimized but it's the best I could come up with for now.

https://pokepast.es/a706f77fe97a0dc3

I wasn't able to get the 85 gxe with solely assist pass but it still did very well for something that's just a roll of the dice.

record

The way assist works is that it calls moves from teammates (regardless of whether or not the teammates have fainted). Some notable exclusions to assist are protect, focus punch, and thief. Therefore, the assist breakdown on this team is as follows:

Substitute - 4/16
Roar/Whirlwind - 4/16
Baton Pass - 3/16
Agility - 1/16
Acid Armor - 1/16
Calm Mind - 1/16
Thunderbolt - 1/16
Ice Punch - 1/16

After you get an agility with zapdos and pass to smeargle (sometimes with acid armor boosts, sometimes not) you start ingraining and trying to assist the bp. Rolling the latter 5 are usually pretty bad. They leave an opening for smeargle to be attacked depending on what it's facing. Ideally you roll bp but getting sub or a phazing move (50% of the time) is usually pretty harmless, as they just buy smeargle another turn. In sand smeargle heals net 1/16 per turn, outside of sand it heals 1/8 per turn. Here are some replays to show how it works.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1464055369-ggag264kl9k223u623io5gb16zkpd08pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1464053952-e8whxlke1o16wyfrnwepwveqes3bgoppw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1464049657-gjgmt14lutd845h8j45d0k3fi6d4yg7pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1464047136-qve5ya10fkh4d41k4na5gzllkpllpdxpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1464025987-9kmw80xz8fogvtyj3rtqglu9lcumuqcpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1464021949-1xelx2m6e4rxavq6p8ydew92yibzjh4pw

In light of this, I still find options 1-3 to be ineffective at dealing with the issue. If someone wants to suggest doing option 3 and banning assist on top of that, here is how our bp-handling would look.

- 3 bp users per team
- cannot use taunt + baton pass
- cannot use baton pass on smeargle
- mr mime is banned
- assist is banned

If we were to ban speed-passing we could make it:

- 3 bp users per team
- cannot pass speed boosts

If we were to ban stat-passing we could make it:

- cannot pass any boosts

These are realistically our options, and I think the latter 2 are both more effective and more concise. I know "hurr complex ban" but 5 different bans to achieve 1 thing is quite excessive. Reminder that mr mime is a uu pokemon that is not able to be used in ou. Again, I prefer options 4 or 5, and subsequently unbanning mime as well as bp on smeargle.

Thanks for reading.

 

[BKC]

The speed + bp ban is a complex ban but it is simpler than the current ban, which needs a carveout for Smeargle, and obviously is considering adding even more carveouts.

But, what I really like about it is it's a complex ban that could be applied universally. It introduces so much counterplay to BP chains that it could be dropped in any meta and would basically resolve the baton pass chain issue. It is altogether more restrictive than the BW ban, and could be substituted in there with basically no issues.

And wouldn't it be nice if ubers, OU, and the lower tiers all followed the same rule with BP. Or at least choose between one complex ban, or an outright ban.

except uu plays without bp entirely, and the proposed cross-tier speedpass ban would do nothing to solve the issue of scyther handing off swords dances to kangaskhan. tiering across metagames is already a dicey, overtly simplistic concept (example: dpp arena trap is banned from ou yet allowed in uu), and I don't think any of these should have to compromise what's best for their ruleset because of some sweeping, nuance-removing attempt to be "neat" (as opposed to finding the most competitive solution for each tier individually). your complaint seems more like a visibility of ruleset issue anyway, and I don't think the existence of one rule across the three metas does anything to solve that.

 

[Hipmonlee]

The important part of my argument here is the observation that the attempts to pussy-foot around and not actually address the core issue directly have not resulted in anything like what is best for the tier in question. Hence our constant need to revist this mess.

A simpler rule that actually prevents chaining BP is going to be better for the metagame and is going to be able to be applied in other metagames that would like to keep BP but have issues with BP chains.

There are alternate ways to formulate such a rule, ABR had a suggestion in the discord server that sounded nice without too much deep thought. The BW rule obviously could just be dumped into ADV and would address the issue, but I think most of you would consider that too much collateral.

And I specifically mentioned the choice between one consistent BP clause and an outright BP ban so not sure what your UU stuff is about.

[Edit] - as an aside, Assist should be banned whatever action is decided on BP, so listing that as an advantage of the latter two rules is misleading IMO.

 

[BKC]

A simpler rule that actually prevents chaining BP is going to be better for the metagame and is going to be able to be applied in other metagames that would like to keep BP but have issues with BP chains.

And I specifically mentioned the choice between one consistent BP clause and an outright BP ban so not sure what your UU stuff is about.

but uu doesn't want to keep bp in any form. the issue is not with chains at all, but the absurdity of single-pokemon passing; neither of scyther/lunatone's passing involves speed, so if ou's ban targets speed passing, that won't solve the issue at all (which is why the bw clause wouldn't work). the only way you'd "fix the issue" in both ou and uu is to ban statpassing outright, but celebi statpassing is almost as integral to ou as bp itself.

I'll just throw some questions out there because I feel like I'm not making myself clear somehow:

why this insistence on one consistent cross-tier bp clause? why should whatever clause we decide for ou be applied to uu as well? why limit ourselves in finding the best solution with this restrictive approach? who are we helping with it?

we're obviously not going to remove bp from ou in its entirety, and nobody wants bp in uu. applying rule uniformity here would be for what competitive purpose, exactly?

 

[Hipmonlee]

Sorry, I didnt make myself very clear. I am saying each meta, individually, chooses whether to run no BP restrictions, the BP clause or a BP ban. UU chooses the ban, OU chooses the clause. Like it would be great if every tier just had exactly the same clauses, but that is obviously unworkable.

What I am saying is that when you have two metagames facing the same problem, namely BP chains, then the two metagames should try to use the same solution, where possible.

I dont see any reason that ADV Ubers, ADV OU, and BW OU couldnt all just use the same rule here. I also feel like DPP OU could have followed the same rule as well, but they just went straight to the ban option...

Secondly, a universal system will be resilient to natural changes in the metagame. Like, imagine that we go with the Taunt ban now, and in the short term it works and people stop running bp chains. And then down the line, roar becomes a bit less common in the metagame, where the majority of teams will just carry roar on skarm or not at all. In such a situation, people might build a BP team where they just mag or houdini skarm and then set up a bp chain. If a rule works in both BW and ADV then it is more likely that if either metagame changes then the rule will still be effective.

Thirdly, lets be honest, we aren't carving out the ideal bespoke solution for every metagame with these rule changes. We are just identifying problems and trying to find something that will fix them without too much hassle. That being the case, you might as well just go for consistency.

As to who this benefits, it benefits casual players, it benefits new players. I guarantee ADV is missing out on new players because of the complexity of these rules. We've talked about this before, and I know you, personally, dont care, but I do.

 

[johnnyg2]

I was wondering if it would be possible to combine options 2/3 to vote for. I feel there's fairly significant community support (see sadly's post in the roa thread + significant discussion on discord) for not only banning taunt + bp, but also limiting to 2 bp mons / team. From building and playing in CI, I felt the 2 bp mons / team was enough to still have the competitive aspects of BP w/o the bad stuff (even though I loaded on haze mons to play hclat). I think this position saves the berry pass vap/sciz/others and agility zap w/o nuking speed pass entirely.

I was originally thinking just nuke speed pass entirely, but i could get behind a combination of 2/3, as this will, as far we know rn, limit bp chains enough that it isnt consistent or strong to bring to a tour match. I personally fear that every time we suspect, the appetite to continually hold another one in this old gen we love wavers. Doing option 3 to just have to do option 2 again 6 months or a year afterward makes just nuking speed pass entirely an attractive option imo.

 

[watermess]

Hi all, now I have finally qualified to vote, I feel I can make a real post about this without being precisely one of the things that I dislike about adv tiering (people who have no stake in the situation making silly points).

First before I state my stance on the topic I have a resource I implore you all to take a look at, below is a quick excel spreadsheet I have whipped up today after I finished laddering. It has each of the ban options ranked against each individual form of baton pass. As a regular ladder player, someone who has built a reasonably effective assist pass team, and someone who has a good win record vs baton pass in tournament games, I feel that (in the least arrogant and most matter of fact way possible) I'm am reasonably qualified to arbitrarily rank the effect each of these bans might have on each individual strategy that uses baton pass and this is what I've done below.

I have listed all of the "unhealthy" baton pass uses in the grey section of this sheet, while the ones that I believe most advers would like ideally to keep the same, I have listed in the light blue. Finally at the right end of the sheet, here you can see a total rank for the unhealthy and healthy sections under each ban option, in theory allowing us to compare how much each option will affect the unhealthy parts of baton pass and the healthy parts. The highest possible total ranks are 16 for unhealthy, and 12 for healthy.

Please take this with a grain of salt it is by no means perfect, a ranking of 0-2 is not the most powerful way of analyzing how big of an effect a ban might have, but I figured it would be better than a simple 0-1 (effects or does not effect baton pass here). I also appreciate that it's difficult to rank the healthier options of baton pass well because sometimes they are combined together into chains of their own - which tend to be widely considered as far as I know to be a healthy thing in the metagame.

You may notice that I have added an option 6 right at the bottom there, and this is not an option that has been given by the council yet, however, I would implore the council to try what I think would be the best option going forwards, combining option 3, to ban baton pass in conjunction with taunt with an additional clause to ban assist. I believe that banning assist as well adds no collateral damage to healthy components and additionally makes sure that as ABR and other players continue to optimalise assist pass teams, it does not become the next mead pass. you can see by the rankings for option 6 that it has the strongest effect overall on unhealthy baton pass without hurting healthy baton pass at all.

My final point is that Baton pass being good is largely a result of top adv players getting their mittens on it and passing gradually more and more optimised versions between them, I want to remind you all that while baton pass and sand veil are both strong things that can be abused, they only became real issues when our best building minds spent vast amounts of time perfecting and optimizing them. Ive watched this slow optimization process myself, as I did infact build the original version of ABRs assist pass team posted above with Hclat around the time of the Mr.mime ban, you can see a replay of us testing it here back in march with the trademark sub focus punch gar. Since passing it onto ABR he has made it way more consistent by adding assist phasing and other components into the mix! All I'm really saying is wait till vapicuno then gets his hands on the ABR team and makes some more edits and then makes a youtube video about it, you'll suddenly start seeing assist pass everywhere just like meadpass. If you dont want to baton pass to be broken and need more banning, then dont build fullpass teams!

So in conclusion, option 3 with the addition of assist ban seems an ideal nerf to baton pass if that would be possible, and secondly as great as it is to see innovation in ADV, can we please just let baton pass be dead this time rather than building new ones that get round the rules, its getting more and more difficult to ban parts of baton pass without hurting competitive adv at the same time.

Thanks for reading.
mess :3

 

[ABR]

I would like to propose an option that...

- Addresses the core problem of Baton Pass teams (what everyone wants)
- Has minimal / no collateral on current ADV (what ADV players want)
- Simplifies the ruleset and can be applied to other generations (inarguably positive if no competitive detriment)

What is this option you might ask?

Baton Pass Clause: Limit teams to one total form of stat boosting alongside Baton Pass

* Ingrain should be included in the ban (it is listed in the green thingies alongside other boosts)
** Possibly ban mean look + bp separately / list as part of the clause
*** Maybe wording can be improved? (considered "teams cannot pass more than one stat" but technically gets rid of cm pass)

To clarify, this would mean that teams could run up to 6 bp'ers. They can only run a stat boosting move/item/ability on 1 pokemon, and that 1 pokemon can only boost stats in 1 way. Zapdos can run agility + bp while Celebi just runs bp. Celebi can run cm + bp while Zapdos just runs bp. Ninjask cannot run sd + bp because it has speed boost also. Zapdos can run agility + bp but not alongside apicot berry. Smeargle can run belly drum + bp but not with salac berry.

Functionally, this would allow for the unban of Mr. Mime, bp on Smeargle, the 3 passers per team restriction (many people are even considering lowering this to 2), and would prevent the need for an assist ban. This is getting rid of 4 separate restrictions in favor of 1. Tiers could opt for either this clause or an outright bp ban. Think of it as analogous to how some tiers have adopted sleep clause and some have outright banned sleep. Maybe ADV and BW adopt this clause, but ORAS onward wants BP banned in its entirety. Either way, once we see a tier has Baton Pass Clause we know exactly what that entails.

With specific regards to ADV, I'll try to use the sheet by watermess above as a reference point.

Meadpass - totally gone
Assist pass - totally gone
Mean pass - totally gone (with added rule)
Raw jask pass - totally gone (can't run sd bp)
Hclat 2pass - totally gone
Marcopass 1 - totally gone
Marcopass 2 - totally gone
Berrypass - not sure exactly what this refers to but now can only use 1 per team so nothing unhealthy left over

CM pass - not impacted (partially if you consider the agility chain component)
SD pass - not impacted
Agilipass - not impacted
Sub pass - not impacted
Drypass - not impacted
Salac Vap - not impacted

In summary, everything commonly seen as unhealthy is wiped out. This shouldn't be a surprise because the issue is baton pass chains and this rule directly addresses the chaining of boosts instead of implementing workarounds like a taunt or mime ban. People can still use one-off passes and as many bp'ers per team as they'd like. We have a simple, unified, and effective rule here. I hope the ADV council and the rest of the community seriously considers this as an option for the current test.

Cheers,
For ADV

 

[vapicuno]

Agilitypass Zapdos (and other forms of speed/salacpass) is an important part of the offense builder's toolkit - it nullifies revenge killing of offense teams by some of the most important threats - Dugtrio, Aerodactyl, Starmie. This is not a mere luxury. If you've ever tried building an offense team, you will know how hard it is to put together teams that deal with the three big revenge killers well.

Yet if we value the diversity that offense teams add to the metagame, and we value teams that are not mere matchup fishes but can hold their own against any threat, then it's important to keep things that make offensive teams diverse and robust against all threats (people like to call this "viable"). Remove speedpass, and you either reduce the pool of viable offense teams, or you turn a fraction of offense into a matchup fishing archetype where one tries to avoid their revenge killer of choice.

Already, offensive teams are thought to be less consistent than Spikes balance or Dugtrio stall. Results speak for themselves: the top performers in recent prestigious ADV tours - SPL 2020 (BKC), SPL 2021 (Star), Callous Invitational 2021 (ABR) mostly relied on such archetypes to achieve what they did. Do we really want to nerf offensive teams even more to the point of turning every game into a Spikes balance or stall mirror?

Speedpass isn't just about "covering threats" by the way. It also takes creativity to make an effective team just because the momentum-maintaining paradigms of playing it are so different from hit-and-run balanced teams; it is a joy to see speedpass built and piloted effectively. For example, speedpass lets offense cheat on good rock resists by reliably getting ahead of Aerodactyl; it's difficult otherwise to break out of the mold of "always have this amount of Rock-resist coverage for a team to be viable". If we'd like to continue seeing such synergistic innovations, we ought to retain speedpass.

I'll leave it to like-minded friends to provide replays/examples.

 

[Altina]

There is a growing camp of ADV players that are growing sick of Baton Pass chains repeatedly coming up as an issue and may want to opt for the option of banning speed pass to deal with the problem once and for all. This is a hasty decision. BPass Teams are heavily crippled by a Taunt Ban/2Pass restriction, to the point where I do not think that they can function with consistency in tournament play. I further want to draw attention to the strategies that ADV is poised to lose this blanket speed passing ban is imposed.

The most prominent of these strategies is AgilityPass Zapdos which vapi elaborates on in the post above. This is also a set that has seen a reasonable amount of usage in high levels of tournament play.

Astamatitos RMT
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/late-game-zapdos-team-analysis.3578828/

Eden vs KG, SPLX
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-420353

Baton Pass Special Chain by McMeghan:
https://pokepast.es/1741df45b0b06d22
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-507523

McMeghan used AgilityPass Zapdos twice in SPL
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-542418
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-543672

Semis vs Roy Team by marcop here:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spl-review.3681089/

Salac Vaporeon, which vapi has outlined in the post is an option on Hyper Offense. This has been explored by a number of players in recent times.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...eral-metagame-discussion.3648620/post-8596647

It is even in one of the sample teams here: https://pokepast.es/aa87ad1b92137b49

There are other strategies that exist on the periphery, such as StatPassing Scizor. These strategies and teams employing a Speed Passer in a synergistic way are collateral damage that cannot simply be swept under the rug.

It might be a tedious process to revisit a suspect, but if the added restrictions are still insufficient there’s still room to change. By making a hasty decision and blanket banning speed pass, there’s no way to revisit the option. I urge every voter to consider the range of collateral strategies that are at stake, and select the option that best preserves the sanctity of the metagame.

Tl;dr don’t vote option 4.

 

[Star]

We've decided on revising the options to the below list after the community feedback. We believe this covers most things that were requested sufficiently. I'd also like to remind voters that the purpose of this thread is to find a way to nerf boost-passing chains. If Baton Pass + Mean Look Umbreon proves itself to be a concern it can always be looked at in the future (basically don't select Option 2 purely for the purpose of removing Umbreon, but rather if you feel it's the best way to deal with passing stat boosts).

1. Keep Baton Pass as is (Limited to 3 users on a team)
2. Limit to 2 Baton Pass users on a team and Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Taunt
3. Limit to 1 form of stat-boosting alongside Baton Pass across the whole team
4. Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Speed Boosts
5. Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Any Stat Boosts (Drypass only)

If any of options 3-5 are selected, pending some further council discussion, it will likely result in also removing the 3 BP limit, the Mr. Mime ban, and the Baton Pass ban on Smeargle.

 

[Star]

Double posting because I don't want to include my personal opinions in the formal council post.

I personally think Option 3 is the most practical solution presented. It removes all the problematic aspects of Baton Pass while hardly affecting any of the non-fullpass uses of Baton Pass you currently see in ADV. The only notable side effect is the ban of having Agility Baton Pass Zapdos alongside Calm Mind Baton Pass Celebi, but that's a very small price to pay for the security of nerfing Baton Pass for good.

My problem with Option 2 is that Roar does function similarly to Taunt once the user has boosted speed. While there isn't necessarily a fullpass team right now that functions within these restrictions, the same was true the last 3 times ADV tried to nerf Baton Pass. I don't believe this option truly closes the door on the possibility of uncompetitive Baton Pass chains and will eventually just lead to another thread down the road. I think all of Options 3-5 remove the uncompetitive aspects of Baton Pass, but Option 3 does so with the least collateral.

 

[McMeghan]

Just posting to say that I will vote option 3 or option 4. I've been opiniated on the matter for a while, but I won't regurgitate all the arguments that have been thrown in the threads already. However, I'd like to link the posts from mikmer and Siglut from the ADV subforum as they do a good job at summarizing the situation.

A brief overview as to why I will vote option 3 or 4:

• Keep Baton Pass as is; I'm pro-ban.
• Limit to 2 Baton Pass users on a team and Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Taunt; not enough to me as BP+Roar does a pretty good job at autowinning enough match-ups. I wanna nuke the current problem completely.
• Limit to 1 form of stat-boosting alongside Baton Pass across the whole team; this should be fine as BP chains thrive because of the speed boost. However I personally still dislike Agility + Marowak / Belly Drummer. This comes down to personal preference so won't bother with this, but that's what would make vote for option 4.
• Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Speed Boosts; there is an argument to be made that SpeedPass is by itself an interesting offensive option in the tier, as explained by vapicuno/Altina. I've been a big fan of AgiPass Zapdos myself on offense.
• Ban the combination of Baton Pass + Any Stat Boosts (Drypass only); pretty drastic option that removes even more offensive options from the tier, as well as Cool Synergy TM.

TL;DR: Please vote option 3 or 4 if you both want to get rid of this and don't want to reopen discussion in 2 weeks. Option 2 is a red herring.

 

[Altina]

Some players believe that BP + Roar on chains will remain a problem if Option 2 is taken. I'd like to ask said players to provide evidence as to why this the case considering how reliant existing and previous chains have been on Taunt Mime/Hypno/Mawile to even get the chain going. Notably some builders who have experimented heavily with baton pass strategies in recent times such as Hclat believe Option 2's set of restrictions is sufficient in nerfing BPass.

 

[Star]

Option 3 was chosen.

 

[Star]

As a follow-up to the above, the ADV OU council has unanimously voted to ban Assist. Assist exists purely to facilitate uncompetitive strategies by hoping the user can randomly call enough boosting moves or Baton Pass from its teammates to win via random luck. While certainly beatable, Assist takes the game completely out of the players' hand and there is no competitive merit to keeping the move in the tier.

Tagging Marty Kris to implement. Thank you!

 

[ABR]

i know standard tiering protocol is to wait x amount of time between votes but there seems to be many people discontent with the option chosen

it was initially suggested and voted on as a middle ground between the bp lovers and haters, except right now both sides are unhappy

so, i propose a revote with the same options or whatever else and i’m pretty sure we’d get a different outcome

trap pass should be gone regardless prob

re: my preference... (ban passing of any stat but that’s unrealistic)

just ban speedpassing. it lets you keep smear mime etc unbanned and probably 6 bpers per team too. if you can go to faster mons to stop the chain via boom taunt or just offense it doesn’t really seem broken. if it still is maybe we can ban statpassing. tldr the ruleset would just be

- cannot pass speed, ingrain, look/spider
(assist stays banned regardless)

peace

 

[eden]

Can we at least kill trap pass, it's hilariously dumb in a lot of games, rather be proactive and remove it now than wait for 3 months

 

[watermess]

i know standard tiering protocol is to wait x amount of time between votes but there seems to be many people discontent with the option chosen

it was initially suggested and voted on as a middle ground between the bp lovers and haters, except right now both sides are unhappy

so, i propose a revote with the same options or whatever else and i’m pretty sure we’d get a different outcome

trap pass should be gone regardless prob

re: my preference... (ban passing of any stat but that’s unrealistic)

just ban speedpassing. it lets you keep smear mime etc unbanned and probably 6 bpers per team too. if you can go to faster mons to stop the chain via boom taunt or just offense it doesn’t really seem broken. if it still is maybe we can ban statpassing. tldr the ruleset would just be

- cannot pass speed, ingrain, look/spider
(assist stays banned regardless)

peace

I kid you not mate, I don't really care anymore LOL, like its half tempting to vote ban it all, just to get people to stop moaning about it, we didn't need another suspect in the first place, people picked the wrong outcome as expected, but regardless of all of this, baton pass is weaker than it was so can we just drop it now and get on with playing adv like its meant to be instead of trying to make good bp teams. Id like to think most of us advers have better things to do with our time than build baton pass teams and ladder for suspect tests.

and to quickly reply to eden, bro if u have problems with trap pass just use a metagross, trap pass is like, the least threatening of all of them