Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Swagplay currently under scrutiny

And by Swagplay, I mean this. While this is clearly a worst case scenario, it still epitomizes how much luck can influence a Pokémon battle. Swagplay is arguably the best way to turn a game into a game of pure luck, and it's currently being looked at by Smogon, with several possible outcomes, but the only two that are likely at this point are either a combo ban or nothing. While Swagger is pretty much never used outside of this little trick, banning it altogether still seems excessive. Banning individual Pokémon would also be a very stupid move, especially since the likes of Klefki and Sableye can run other sets and still be very effective. These two notions are agreed upon by just about everybody, so that's not happening.

There are still a few questions worth asking, though. If Pokémon can (and usually will) get banned according to their best set, and this is the best set the likes of Klefki have to offer, what's so different in this case that the ban needs to go elsewhere than the species? The obvious answer is that unlike the top sets for Pokémon like Blaziken, Kangaskhan or Genesect, this requires no skill to use, just some luck. However, is that enough to justify combo-banning Swagger with either Prankster or Foul Play (or maybe even both)? Also, if no one has problems with the very luck-based paraflinch, then what's so different about this? Is it even as effective as paraflinch? Questions like that are worth pondering, and show that nothing can be black or white in such a complicated game.

I've always personally been in favor of keeping an element of luck in the game, as long as it doesn't become the big focus. Have we reached that point with Swagplay? You can win a lot by using it, and you can also lose a lot, but the damage you do with it (or lack thereof) is not dictated by skill at all, which is an issue. Let's just say I have less of a problem with a game being turned around with a lucky Fire Blast miss than this, because the former isn't really intentional (not to mention, that's the price of using Fire Blast compared to Flamethrower), and being the beneficiary of such luck happens a lot less often.

12 comments:

  1. I haven't actually played a single OU match this gen... But this strategy was infamous even in the BW metagames. It's probably safe to assume that most competitive players don't like it one bit, but I don't know whether it has enough of a negative aspect on the XY metagames to be worth a ban. SwagPlay probably won't even be listed as a major set for Klefki from the looks of it. Parafusion has been around since forever and hasn't really been taken seriously until now, and I have trouble believing that things have changed all too much. However Klefki looks like the perfect Pokémon to abuse it though, with its nice support movepool, Prankster, and amazing Steel/Fairy typing. It might be interesting to see how this plays out, but so far Smogon has been cautious about luck-based bans that significantly affect the metagame (except perhaps with Evasion Clause). Nothing much came out of those Serene Grace Paraflinch debates, but the feeling was that bans to address that would bring more bad than good. But as for current SwagPlay, there is certainly enough precedent for them to go through with such a 2-moves-used-together ban.

    If it were up to me, I'd probably just leave things the way they are, even though I have a bad memory or two about Liepard tearing my team apart in gen 5 Ubers. If enough people feel really strongly against SwagPlay, then I'd probably rather just have Swagger banned to minimize the casualties. I see no need at all for a complex ban in this case, and Klefki and Liepard still bring some interesting things to the metagame (if not OU, then the lower tiers). Of course, take my opinions on this matter with a grain of salt.

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    1. Yeah, I'd have to say it has a lot to do with Klefki (and maybe Thundurus-I, since it was banned last gen) being the perfect user of such a set.

      I'm definitely not sold on banning Swagger period, though, because it on its own is not at all broken, as is Foul Play and (arguably) Prankster - much like Swift Swim last gen.

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    2. I've definitely seen this on Klefki a lot. Swagger/ThunderWave/Foul Play/Protect or Sub. I experimented with one myself for a little bit before realizing it was pretty much pure luck.

      I might be biased because my team's physical wall is Gliscor--and he walls this particularly strategy pretty hard being immune to Thunder Wave and all. Still, I don't think it's that broken. It can backfire extremely quickly.

      Like you said, if we got rid of too much there wouldn't be any element of luck left in the game. Even if that means you sometimes get swept by a Klefki.

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  2. That battle you posted demonstrated an additional two facts: The opposing player was incredibly bad at the game, even going so far as doing Sludge Bomb against the Klefki TWICE, and Mega Kangaskhan is definitely where it belongs in Ubers. It had a Swagger-boosted attack bonus, sure, but still.

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    1. ...There's no way to know if it had Heat Wave, is there? And even if it did, it would've only broken the sub the first time around.

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  3. I'm against a blanket confusion ban as moves like confuse ray, sweet kiss, and supersonic (lol) can be used as phazing move, similar to yawn. And with out the attack boost it doesn't really make a difference whether you use foul play or seismic toss or dazzling gleam. Its probably going to do about the same.

    A swagger ban instead of a confusion ban I can kind of support to just keep things from being a complex ban but I think that's unfair to unaware + swagger and swagger + psych up sets which aren't really overpowered.

    The ideal ban for me would be Prankster + Swagger ban as the guaranteed confusion makes things a 50/50 coinflip and the odds only get worse if you lose it. This would be the most fair ban and I don't really care if its complex as I don't care what Versilify's or /vp/'s think of smogon (or anything else for that matter) and Without priority, swag play gets crapped on by Lum Garchomp.

    And for the record the reason that paraflinch is less controversial than swag play is because there is only 2 viable users of paraflinch and they both have viable counters that you can probably fit on your team with out even trying too. With Swag play you can make a team of 5 pranksters and ditto and troll until you get tired. The only true counter is Arceus giving you a good RNG seed, everything else is just a check.

    Maybe the real issue is prankster, the only reason that sableye, murkrow, liepard, volbeat, illumise, freaking purlion are OU viable is because of it. Consider this, one prankster swag player is easy to handle and possibly not even viable. But if you are facing 3-5 prankster swag players it because much harder to check with out good luck. Maybe there should be a limit to the amount of pranksters allowed on one team. I would never support a ban like this, but its something to think about

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    1. I think if Swagger should be combo banned with something, it should be Foul Play moreso than Prankster. It's the fact that Swagger doubles your own damage that really puts this strategy into the "total BS" column, and that's only possible with Foul Play.

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  4. Of course its worse case scenario, Crobat used Sludge Bomb at least twice.
    Also I haven't been on Showdown in more than a month so I was a bit surprised when I saw this and noticed they finally brought around X/Y's animations, pleasing.

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    1. Seconded, a battle where the opponent insists that Sludge Bomb TWICE on a Steel type should hardly count.

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  5. I think ANY kind of ban involving Swagger is a bad idea. Not only for the reasons that luck based strategies are completely unreliable. You win some and you lose some with the luck strategies. That's how luck goes.

    The video you showed also highlighted another point. Swagger + Foul Play is a strategy that isn't so reliant on luck, but is also a viable strategy. If they don't switch out, which is a silly thing if they don't switch out, then Foul Play will hit them harder as it will take into account the +2 on their attack. Banning Swagger would completely void a viable strategy like that.

    And I have seen people wanting a FULL BAN on 100% confusion moves such as Swagger and Confuse Ray. I just wonder... why? Almost all of the pokemon that get those moves have better moves that can fill up the slots over a luck based move.

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  6. Off-topic question. Does anyone know how long Serebii.net has had the base stats and movepool of Diancie up on his site?

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    1. I checked a few days ago, and they still weren't there. Thanks for the scoop, though!

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