All Gens Why is Swagger Clause Being Applied to the Older Gens?

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I use Prankster Sableye on my team and as of this week my team is no longer eligible for BW OU. As far as I can tell the Swagger ban goes all the way to Gen 2. Maybe it's just me but Swagger has been a part of all these metagames for the longest time without any issue, maybe it's a problem for Gen 6 but why it is being applied to every previous generation as well? And as far as I can tell there's been no discussion on how or why Swagger is even a problem for any of these metas or the need for a ban.
 
They applied it to Gen 6 but probably didn't pay attention to restrict it to that gen only. Because, as far as I can tell, before X&Y, Swagger has never been a problem.
 
They applied it to Gen 6 but probably didn't pay attention to restrict it to that gen only. Because, as far as I can tell, before X&Y, Swagger has never been a problem.
Haven't been reading up on policy lately, so this is what I'd assume is the case. Probably not hard at all to fix, but dunno if it's a priority. It should be unrestricted though.
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
Recycle + Leppa berry isn't in itself a problem.. I'm sure that within XY the clause does not ban that specific combination, unless you have heal pulse [I think] or something like Fling, so that shouldn't be banned. Either way I'm not sure Swagger really added anything to older generations, but they should be consulted. I guess we used confuse ray in gen 1, so maybe it's considered legitimate in gen 2, I haven't played it so I ought not to comment.
 
The only reason why swagger is so effective in XY OU is because Klefki and his amazing typing as well as decent defensive stats and large movepool, so there's no reason of banning it on older gens since the main user of Swagplay was Liepard and it's easily killed by priority moves and Sableye because it can't learn T-Wave
 

Bedschibaer

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The swagger thing is in fact a mistake on the simulator's side. Swagger has been a ban and not a clause, ergo the move swagger is only banned in generation 6. That is what the announcement of the ban says and i also asked:
15:39Bedschibaerthe swagger ban only applies to xy, right? so swagger should be allowed in bw ou, etc? this is for a sim bug fix
15:39Nachosyeah swagger is only banned in the xy tiers, its free to use in the bw tiers


Endless Battle clause on the other hand is according to the announcement thread applied to all official smogon metagames. I will report that swagger should be allowed on ps in all tiers bar the XY tiers it has been banned from. I guess it is just one of those things they changed in the current gen and it got "accidentally" applied to all gens (who doesn't remember when sleep powder didn't hit Exeggutor in gen 1 and zapdos couldn't be paralyzed).
 
Recycle + Leppa berry isn't in itself a problem.. I'm sure that within XY the clause does not ban that specific combination, unless you have heal pulse [I think] or something like Fling, so that shouldn't be banned. Either way I'm not sure Swagger really added anything to older generations, but they should be consulted. I guess we used confuse ray in gen 1, so maybe it's considered legitimate in gen 2, I haven't played it so I ought not to comment.
No, they banned Recycle + Leppa Berry from all tiers and gens. When I complained about this I was told "GTFO Funbro user". :V
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
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I like how Mr E's use of the mega-broken Swagger Pgon2 this past SPL was actually foretelling of its eventual ban.

Swagger in GSC makes for some fun (if silly) gimmicks like Psych Up abuse, so it is kinda annoying that it's caught in a ban at the moment.
 

Mr.E

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For the record, while Swagger may currently be banned in Gen 6 OU it isn't nor will it ever be a "problem." It's whiny children crying about losing a low number of games to a bad series of coin flips in a competitive game based entirely around probability management. Guess what? Sometimes, against all odds, shit just doesn't go your way. You shrug your shoulders and move on, keeping your chin up for that fact that you're still reliably winning the other >50% of the time. shit might as well fucking ban brightpowder again
Sorry but you are rarely guaranteed success in Pokémon, only a statistically likely chance.

also I will not use Swagger in GSC again after I found out (15 years too late) that it stops confusing at +6, that lost me what I thought was a won game (combined with additional bad luck on top of that) >:( totally ruined ALL my fun

Recycle + Leppa is banned because the more specific Heal Pulse or whatever combo was originally banned, then people kept trying to circumvent the spirit of the Endless Battle Clause using similar moves. It was just easier to blanket ban Recycle + Leppa instead of trying to consider all the possible broken combinations. I'm pretty sure neither Recycle nor Leppa Berry are ever seen on legitimately competitive teams anyway... It could just as well be named the Don't be a Douchebag Clause.
 
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For the record, while Swagger may currently be banned in Gen 6 OU it isn't nor will it ever be a "problem." It's whiny children crying about losing a low number of games to a bad series of coin flips in a competitive game based entirely around probability management. Guess what? Sometimes, against all odds, shit just doesn't go your way. You shrug your shoulders and move on, keeping your chin up for that fact that you're still reliably winning the other >50% of the time. shit might as well fucking ban brightpowder again
Sorry but you are rarely guaranteed success in Pokémon, only a statistically likely chance.
 
Recycle + Leppa is banned because the more specific Heal Pulse or whatever combo was originally banned, then people kept trying to circumvent the spirit of the Endless Battle Clause using similar moves. It was just easier to blanket ban Recycle + Leppa instead of trying to consider all the possible broken combinations. I'm pretty sure neither Recycle nor Leppa Berry are ever seen on legitimately competitive teams anyway... It could just as well be named the Don't be a Douchebag Clause.
Recycle + Leppa Berry + bulky Pokemon with instant recovery + trapping move/entry hazards + Cosmic Power/Stockpile/whatever. Recycle + Leppa Berry allows you to spam your instant recovery move and wait out their entire team to hazard damage/Struggle recoil.

Kinda dickish, but it does not actually circumvent Endless Battle Clause; it wins legitimately by fainting the opponent's entire team. Were I to play any of the newer gens, I'd like to try to make it work. But I can't.

(rest of your post is spot-on btw)
 

Mr.E

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There's usually something on the enemy team that can break your mon's slow recovery loop. That's where the trapping move comes into play, since if the opponent doesn't immediately switch to said mon(s) they're indefinitely trapped. First, a typical stall team wants to force that switch because entry hazards are their primary source of passive damage. Secondly, even if you were to trap a helpless opponent, you only need to outlast them until your attacks wear them down or something like Toxic or Perish Song passively kills.

The only purpose of Recycle/Leppa is to live forever, which isn't necessary if you're actually killing the opponent. It's possibly useful in stall vs. stall (sans trapping) but you're better off using the move and item slot better equipping yourself to "outlast" in a wider range of circumstances, rather than "live forever" in the matchups you already outlast. Maybe the ban should actually be Recycle/Harvest + Leppa + trapping move but I'm not going to nitpick it.

Swagger is just a subset of confusion moves, which are perfectly viable and reasonable means to buying time and encouraging switches. Confusion eats up turns and contributes more passive damage; it's actually not even that good at it. But confusion isn't banned. Regardless of how one feels about Swagger's specific abuse cases, it clearly makes no sense to just blanket ban Swagger which has clear and present fair applications as a confusion move. (It doesn't make sense to ban any combos either but I digress.) This poor policy-making is exactly why I stopped following current-gen OU, not that Gens 2-3 aren't the best competitively anyway but old gens and current-gen aren't mutually exclusive...
 
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Just saying, but a person who openly admits to not even follow the current generation of OU has no place telling anyone that a current generation ban is illegitimate nor insulting the players that made that decision.
 

Bedschibaer

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Endless battle clause isn't even an actual gen 6 clause, it has existed before. There was a Jirachi set in somewhat early BW (balanced) hackmons with something like heal pulse, spider web, softboiled, recycle that could really effectively trap many common sets in hackmons (stallier pranksters, etc) and create an endless battle. The set got banned and endless battles haven't been an issue for a good amount of time. It took till early XY where a couple of guys came up with the infamous funbro. A little backstory on this: there is a place on the internet where one guy steps up (let's just call him champ here), others suggest 6 pokemon to him and he uses those 6 suggestions on the OU ladder on showdown. Everyone watches and makes fun of him and his opponents. This group of people has come up with alot ridiculous sets, good sets to make the champ win in dumb ways, or bad sets to make the champ have a hard time battling. One of those sets was the funbro, a slowbro with Heal Pulse only. A couple of guys then dug up the idea of the endless battle again and applied it to OU. Slowbro is probably the most efficient mon that can use that strategy with Heal Pulse, Block, Recycle and Slack Off. The connection from heal pulse slowbro to that set was drawn quickly and the "new" funbro became a thing. It wasn't anything new at all, it's just that nobody really knew about it. The point of funbro was to get someone insanely mad over losing some ladder points that way. There were people battling a set up funbro for thousands of turns, those battles have been going on for way longer than Conflict vs Karrot in last SPL. And that for practically no reward. So a couple of guys complained about that and endless battles have been banned ultimately from all smogon metagames.
About the ban itself, i think it is justified. Creating an endless battle just to troll your opponent is not really what i would call competitive. Banning Leppa + recycle is just the easiest way to do it, because that are the 2 components you need for every single endless battle set. Banning one of them is pretty stupid and everything else would result in like 5 comples bans rather than 1 a little less complex ban (endless battles are possible with heal pulse, pain split, trapping, last mon, etc, etc) This is in fact the easiest way to get rid of endless battles.

shoutout to user Aggi for the art
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
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Just saying, but a person who openly admits to not even follow the current generation of OU has no place telling anyone that a current generation ban is illegitimate nor insulting the players that made that decision.
Precisely the reason I don't stay current with current-gen OU is because of stupid bans perpetuated by uncompetitive whiny babies. Sirlin would call the collective community a bunch of god damn scrubs for not manning up and utilizing the extent of your existing in-game options to deal with it. Granted he'd say that about more than just Swagger but... it's not like we're talking OHKOs where you just press a button and randomly win with no strings attached (besides making sure a Substitute isn't up or the target is Sturdy), no skill required. Swagger is just a worse Confuse Ray with universal distribution.

Besides, Swagger has existed since Gen 2 and confusion has always been a part of the game. It's only now a problem? I hardly believe that. Not only is the notion ridiculous but Swagger isn't even the best move of its type; it'd be like banning Lovely Kiss but allowing Spore. This isn't an issue that requires current-gen familiarity like deciding how good Mega Lucario is. But as far as the direct topic at hand, Swagger's Gen 6 ban shouldn't apply to past generations anyway and someone just screwed up applying it on PS. ;[
 
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Bedschibaer

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Swagger became more of a problem because it got actually good abusers in XY OU. Thundurus was allowed again, Klefki has a great defensive typing, etc. I think I also saw the first actually good swagger based teams in XY - here is a good demonstration of that http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-3226 . A huge factor i think is that most of the people who voted to ban swagger didn't think it was technically broken, but they had a "might as well ban it" mentality, that doesn't neccessarily make people who voted to ban swagger to ban-happy crybabies. If swagger was really suspect worthy, especially in round 2 of a new meta where alot bigger, more centralizing and more broken threats were/are running around is a completely different question.
 
Swagger became more of a problem because it got actually good abusers in XY OU. Thundurus was allowed again, Klefki has a great defensive typing, etc. I think I also saw the first actually good swagger based teams in XY - here is a good demonstration of that http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-3226 . A huge factor i think is that most of the people who voted to ban swagger didn't think it was technically broken, but they had a "might as well ban it" mentality, that doesn't neccessarily make people who voted to ban swagger to ban-happy crybabies. If swagger was really suspect worthy, especially in round 2 of a new meta where alot bigger, more centralizing and more broken threats were/are running around is a completely different question.
That mentality is a big reason why non-Smogon players dislike Smogon. And it isn't winning any new fans.
 
A huge factor i think is that most of the people who voted to ban swagger didn't think it was technically broken, but they had a "might as well ban it" mentality, that doesn't neccessarily make people who voted to ban swagger to ban-happy crybabies.
Actually, yes, that lower standard for banning is exactly what "ban-happy" means.

And the easiest way to ban "endless battles" is to ban... endless battles. Yes, implementing it as an actual team restriction might take some work, but the ban itself is simple and easy to understand.
 
Precisely the reason I don't stay current with current-gen OU is because of stupid bans perpetuated by uncompetitive whiny babies. Sirlin would call the collective community a bunch of god damn scrubs for not manning up and utilizing the extent of your existing in-game options to deal with it. Granted he'd say that about more than just Swagger but... it's not like we're talking OHKOs where you just press a button and randomly win with no strings attached (besides making sure a Substitute isn't up or the target is Sturdy), no skill required. Swagger is just a worse Confuse Ray with universal distribution.
Simply "manning up" won't solve everything anymore. This isn't GSC OU we're talking about. You can no longer afford to plan a good chunk of your team around beating the various forms of Snorlax. This is XY, a far different metagame. There are far more Pokemon common enough to be considered "Overused," and even more viable lower-tier Pokemon that you have to take into account. The EV/IV system has made it so that even the bulkiest of Pokemon by today's standards are still more frail than they could have been in 2nd Gen. There is an enormous power creep with items such as Choice Band/Specs and Life Orb, stronger moves, powerful abilities with great Pokemon to abuse them, new Mega forms, etc. Players of the current generation have far worse things to worry about as it is without also having to plan extra just to beat strategies based on a move whose main purpose at its core is to reduce the game to a series of coinflips. It's a lot easier to "man up" and adapt to such luck-based garbage in a metagame like ADV OU, where you're dealing with < 30 OU Pokemon and some of the metagame's biggest powerhouses are tossing around 70 BP STAB moves. It's a lot harder in XY when you've got to deal with nearly twice as many OU Pokemon and a slew of less common but also viable ones, most of which enjoy a substantial power creep compared to a few generations ago, not to mention monsters like Mega Charizard X and Landorus that have few solid counters as it is. The current and past OU metagames are so drastically different that you have no basis to ridicule current policy and insult current generation players when all you have to work with is experience in old generations.

Besides, Swagger has existed since Gen 2 and confusion has always been a part of the game. It's only now a problem? I hardly believe that. Not only is the notion ridiculous but Swagger isn't even the best move of its type; it'd be like banning Lovely Kiss but allowing Spore. This isn't an issue that requires current-gen familiarity like deciding how good Mega Lucario is. But as far as the direct topic at hand, Swagger's Gen 6 ban shouldn't apply to past generations anyway and someone just screwed up applying it on PS. ;[
See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Can you honestly not see what makes Swagger more of a problem in XY than in old generations? Prankster didn't exist back then. Klefki didn't exist. Thundurus didn't exist. Foul Play didn't exist. Imposter Ditto didn't exist. Other things used to support Swagger teams such as dual hazards (especially Stealth Rock and Deoxys-D/S to lay those hazards) didn't exist back then either. Not to mention the vast increase in the average power of the metagame and number of viable Pokemon that cause a large enough strain on teambuilding as it is. In addition, the wider distribution and +2 Atk boost both made Swagger much more of a problem then other confusion moves. Saying things like "Swagger isn't even the best confusion move and Confuse Ray deserves to be banned more than Swagger does" is completely ignoring the types of Pokemon and teams that used it and made it such a problem.

Furthermore, this is exactly the kind of issue that requires current generation familiarity. If all you have to work with is experience from the first three generations, then of course this is going to look like a stupid ban by a bunch of whiny kids. You absolutely must have experience in the XY OU metagame in order to see what made Swagger more of a problem than it was before and what kind of teams actually abused it to make it a problem. Even the players that voted against banning Swagger understood that it was a bigger problem now than it was in past generations. The fact that you don't even see how Swagger could be more of a problem now than back then demonstrates to me that you have very little knowledge of the XY metagame, and I'd honestly trust the judgement of those "whiny babies" that participated and voted in the suspect test over yours.

tl;dr: It's one thing to disagree with the Swagger ban based on real metagame experience. It's another thing to question the ban's legitimacy and insult the players that wanted it banned when you don't even play the metagame.

Although, to address the actual topic, I do agree that Swagger shouldn't be banned in past generations. Even in BW, the lack of Pokemon like Klefki and Thundurus to actually use and abuse the move and Deoxys-D/S to set hazards makes it far more manageable.
 

Bedschibaer

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Actually, yes, that lower standard for banning is exactly what "ban-happy" means.
But that makes the ou council ban happy, not neccessarily the players. And i think my post already implyed that i personally think the swagger suspect at that point was a misdecision.
 
But that makes the ou council ban happy, not neccessarily the players. And i think my post already implyed that i personally think the swagger suspect at that point was a misdecision.
There are whiny players in everything ever. The bit that makes the difference is how those in authority deal with them.
 

Monte Cristo

Banned deucer.
Endless battle clause isn't even an actual gen 6 clause, it has existed before. There was a Jirachi set in somewhat early BW (balanced) hackmons with something like heal pulse, spider web, softboiled, recycle that could really effectively trap many common sets in hackmons (stallier pranksters, etc) and create an endless battle. The set got banned and endless battles haven't been an issue for a good amount of time. It took till early XY where a couple of guys came up with the infamous funbro. A little backstory on this: there is a place on the internet where one guy steps up (let's just call him champ here), others suggest 6 pokemon to him and he uses those 6 suggestions on the OU ladder on showdown. Everyone watches and makes fun of him and his opponents. This group of people has come up with alot ridiculous sets, good sets to make the champ win in dumb ways, or bad sets to make the champ have a hard time battling. One of those sets was the funbro, a slowbro with Heal Pulse only. A couple of guys then dug up the idea of the endless battle again and applied it to OU. Slowbro is probably the most efficient mon that can use that strategy with Heal Pulse, Block, Recycle and Slack Off. The connection from heal pulse slowbro to that set was drawn quickly and the "new" funbro became a thing. It wasn't anything new at all, it's just that nobody really knew about it. The point of funbro was to get someone insanely mad over losing some ladder points that way. There were people battling a set up funbro for thousands of turns, those battles have been going on for way longer than Conflict vs Karrot in last SPL. And that for practically no reward. So a couple of guys complained about that and endless battles have been banned ultimately from all smogon metagames.
About the ban itself, i think it is justified. Creating an endless battle just to troll your opponent is not really what i would call competitive. Banning Leppa + recycle is just the easiest way to do it, because that are the 2 components you need for every single endless battle set. Banning one of them is pretty stupid and everything else would result in like 5 comples bans rather than 1 a little less complex ban (endless battles are possible with heal pulse, pain split, trapping, last mon, etc, etc) This is in fact the easiest way to get rid of endless battles.

shoutout to user Aggi for the art
The Jirachi set was never banned iirc, one of my friends was the one who invented it and appealed for the ban but he said he failed at getting it banned.

Also it wasn't pure hackmons at all, they would be too busy spamming their wonder guarders, it was in balanced hackmons. This method of stalling for endless battles was thought of/popularized by user gtfo and cry is god. Some of the balanced hackmons community actually reacted saying "LOL they actually banned gtfoism in OU"

More onto the subject matter, I don't see why should we ban something that could be a legit strat just because it's broken with heal pulse / pain split / whatever. It can also be used as a specific strategy too, lets say the foe had leppa recycle roost mew w/ hazards and will o wisp in BW UU/OU and all the things that could deal with it have been removed, why should they deserve not to use their legitimate strategy just because it's broken in with a certain combo with Heal Pulse / Pain Split? Why don't we choose to ban Pain Split + Recycle + Leppa + Recovery and Heal Pulse + Leppa? Well idk but these are the only ones I know that could also work as a blanket ban.

idk, just some food for thought.
 
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