Announcement RBY UU Agility + Partial Trapping (APT) Suspect Test [APT banned]

[Lusch]

Hi,

I have not been around for a while but got notified per E-Mail about phoopes messaging me on smogon about the suspect test.
I cannot read every wall that has been written in both threads, so forgive me if I miss something. This is not gonna be a lenghty post either.

I just kinda wanna say that this seems to me like the suspect we had last year did not have the outcome some people wanted (even though it was a fair vote) and now another suspect is held. This will probably repeat until the result those people want is reached.
We can argue about "uncompetitive" or "broken" all day long. Some people seem puzzled about others bringing arguments akin to the brokenness to that tabe in this thread even though this is solely about uncompetitiveness. Well... you cannot fully seperate those things here and clearly for some people this is not only about the uncompetitiveness (a word that can be bendt to fit any purpose you'd like it to)

Simple words for what is going on:
People really don't like AgiliWrap, but they really like their Dragonite in UU. Banning Dragonite from UU (which could have happened last year) would accomplish exactly what they are trying to because no, Dragonair would not fill its role. Don't forget that people are trying to use Pokemon to WIN games. Run Dragonair all you want. You are compromising yourself because you have something with way less defensive utility and stats just for a way less effective AgiliWrap than Dragonite. Play that 5v6. Of course you can win it (I remember some RBY OU Invitational Troller brought a Magicarp vs someone and won with it), but surely something better than Dragonair would give you better chances and team synergy.
But wait! It would not accomplish the same! "Why, Lusch? It effectively makes APT disappear from UU". Well, because that is not what they are trying to achive. Big part of what they are trying to achieve is keeping Dragonite around while getting rid of their hated AgiliWrap. So we don't accept Dragonite for what it is (a Pokemon that learns the legal moves Agility and Wrap) in the same way we usually do (We accept Snorlax or Chansey for learning all the legal moves they get, right? We don't handpick moves there), but we try to tailor the moveset to keep a Pokemon in the tier. Maybe if we started all tiering from scratch and people liked Mew, a Softboiled-less Mew would not look so bad? ;)

 

[phoopes]

Hey all, the vote happened! APT is now banned from RBY UU

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...apping-apt-voting.3703325/page-2#post-9249504

 

[Sevi 7]

So with this ban, I’m sure there’s going to come some controversy, and from an outsiders perspective, there may be some doubt to the legitimacy of the ban. So, I’m not trying to start anything with this post, but I just want to get my personal pro-ban opinion out there to make sure things are cleared and people are at least somewhat informed about this suspect test and subsequent ban.

Becuase this was done after a DNite suspect, and from an outside perspective this could look bad, I want people to know that APT was always the thing to ban. Even if we had successfully banned DNite before, I and others were still planning to advocate for an APT ban afterwards. (I also think that APT should have been the ban from the beginning, but that’s for later). I don’t want any APT mons, no matter how niche or inconsistent, to be able to cheese wins, because its been proven that they can. If anyone wants to make any arguments against that, that’s fine. I can definitely accept criticism on that point. There are definitely solid arguments that could be made against mine. But after years of thinking about this, and hearing many of those valid points and arguments, I was never swayed enough to change my mind, so regardless of what you may think, I won’t be changing my mind now. I also think that this is one of those things that doesn’t have an objective correct answer. So, if you do disagree with APT’s ban, you’ll just have to have your opinion and I’ll have mine, and we’ll just agree to disagree.

All that said, unless there is a significant change in the meta, this was also the definitive APT for me and others. Even if it hadn’t gotten banned, I and others would have accepted the results, and i personally would have been against rebranding the ban or trying to ban it again. On discord and other chats it was made very clear by those in favor of APT’s ban saw this as the first, only and last attempt at getting rid of APT properly. The reason we had the DNite ban followed by the APT ban to begin with was the trouble of trying to complex ban in the first place. People (not just me) had been advocating for the APT ban over a DNite ban for years now. They also said that they would not be satisfied with just a DNite ban, and were going to keep going for an APT complex ban even if DNite was banned. We wanted the complex ban, but were told complex bans were completely out of the question. So, we were given a DNite ban instead which definitely didn’t satisfy people on both side of the vote. Therefore, it should be made clear that this is the vote people wanted in the first place, and DNite being banned was not going to stop this APT vote later regardless. Again, there’s a lot of different opinions on complex bans, and APT, with no objective truth. So you can @ me, but I’m just going to agree to disagree.

Again, I’m not trying to start drama, I’m just sharing my own personal opinion about this ban, since I was in favor of an APT ban. I don’t want the legitimacy of this ban to be called into question by those not knowing the full picture, becuase to me this is a legitimate ban, even if APT hadn’t been banned. Obviously there‘s more perspectives than just mine, so don’t take my word as the word of god, but if anyone else wants to chime in they can. But you’re not going to change my mind on anything.

 

[Hipmonlee]

able to cheese wins, because its been proven that they can.

Honestly, at this point, I feel like we have all but proven that it cannot.

 

[Ika Ika Musume]

To me personally, APT was never a problem. It is not a problem on Moltres, on Dragonair or on Rapidash. It is not an issue in OU where APT is crap, it is not an issue in NU where APT is crap, it remains to be seen whether it is broken in PU but I suspect it isn't. APT *only* affects Dragonite in any meta relevant context. I think it would be disingenuous of me to propose this ban be upheld in NU where it has no impact on the metagame. If anything APT Dragonair is a cool thing you can do, despite it being clearly bad.

I'm for APT being banned, but how I see it is it's just obnoxious to deal with and that's really all. It makes UU less fun to play and is bad from an optics and promoting the tier context. I would have voted based off that if I was able to vote.

It doesn't heavily warp teambuilding beyond a few pokemon choosing to run toxic, it does not make pokemon that would otherwise be viable become unviable, it does not make otherwise unviable pokemon viable, it does not force you to run a rock/ghost on every team, it doesn't make Dragonite (or any APT pokemon) significantly stronger than it is without Agility and Dragonite is not broken. Many top players I talked to who voted to ban APT simultaneously would not move Dragonite anywhere on their personal tier list once it had lost its defining tool. It also isn't, if you were to condense all the turns into a theoretical calculation and skip to that turn, even that anti-competitive. The main anti-competitive element cited is that players cannot move and the 20+ turns you can basically not attack and its inconsistency which is just common everywhere in RBY and generally understood as a quirk of the metagame (Look at Hypnosis Hypno mirrors in UU, coinflips are everywhere in RBY).

Just say you don't enjoy playing against it and want it gone. That's what I wish had happened personally this suspect because that would be honest.