We're old enough to not necessarily believe in any old Clause, right?

[Jumpman16]

Humbug, et cetera. Just when we were all ready to settle in for the holidays with a finally stable Uber list, the Grinch steals our spirit by reminding us that perhaps the most difficult parts of the Suspect Test were not swept under the rug, but were to be revisited when not a creature was stirring on the Uber list.

This was indeed on this list all along (and yes, I've checked it twice). From My Order of Operations thread:

1. Garchomp (75)
2. Lati@s (116)
3. Evasion Clause (126)
4. Manaphy (127)
5. Species Clause (136)
6. OHKO Clause (150)
7. UU Tiers (158)
8. Mew (159)
9. Arceus (172)

All the pokemon are now addressed, including Mew and Arceus (the latter's relevance having more to do with Nintendo's acknowledgement of it than its own power). UU Tiers have been addressed by Caelum, RB Golbat and company for months now concurrently with the OU tests. So as of today:

1. Evasion Clause (126)
2. Species Clause (136)
3. OHKO Clause (150)

We can now revote as to a new Order of Operations, but I will be firm straight up—any arguments to remove any of these Clauses fom this list need to be airtight or they will (and should) be picked apart by His Grinchiness. We are not going to take the easy way out and "leave well enough alone" with regard to these clauses just because they're harder to tackle—that is a copout and I won't have it.

Tangerine raised the issue of Item Clause in the OoO thread at the beginning of the year (and personally prefers we test OHKOs, Evasion, and Species Clause in that order), citing the possibility that it would promote the use of balanced teams and that it would also limit the effectiveness of Trick, which he felt somewhat broken. I personally don't agree with the former idea since I dont feel people should be "forced" to be creative but he formed a valid argument and it deserves to be seen and debated by more than just one or two people. That said, don't mention Stealth Rock—I hate this move just as much as anyone, but we're not testing it, certainly not before the three original Clauses.

I, as should the rest of you, welcome additional ideas of Clauses or other competitive holdovers we should consider, but mainly ask that we reconsider our order now that most of the orignal line items from the OoO thread have been addressed. But I repeat—if you really feel that Species Clause or Evasion Clause don't deserve to be tested, you had better make a convincing argument.

This is my personal order:

Species Clause
OHKO Clause
Evasion Clause

As Species Clauses is by far the one with the most competitive implications. Please order your preference similarly.

 

[Glen]

species clause
evasion clause
ohko clause

species clause definitely has the most potential for competitive ramifications, and i think evasion ranks higher than ohko. i try to follow the metagame fairly closely without actually playing very much at all, but i just don't see how ohkos could ever be a very viable strategy.

while evasion is potentially a serious force to be reckoned with, ohkos just seem like a waste of a moveslot. if people are foregoing use of hypnosis due to its shaky 60% accuracy, why would a 30% ohko move be worthwhile? obviously you can get lucky and instantly destroy a counter, but are you really going to sacrifice stability to turn the tide of less than 1/3 of games?

furthermore considering how small the pool of mons that actually learn ohko moves is, i don't see it having any real significance. while fissure is the one most likely to be seen in OU, it's also the easiest to avoid by simply using a flier or levitator. rhyperior gets horn drill i guess lol. i guess what i'm saying is if people really want to use dewgong's only remotely viable set, wherein it is useful 30% of the time instead of 0% of the time, they should be able to.

i don't like the idea of losing to ohkos either (that fucking brightpowder walrein, man) but i think banning people from making a bad competitive decision isn't really smogon's job.

edit: my bad it is a lax incense walrein!

 

[Jumpman16]

that is exactly how i feel about it in the long run, and besides my favoritism for people who have actually played against OHKOs and evasion quite a bit (battle frontier/tower), you raise a very valid point that people need to realize applies outside the scope of ingame. only a very select few OHKOers are actually good competitive decisions, and they are dewgong, lapras, tauros and walrein. sure, sheer cold/horn drill/rain dance/rest is probably a lame set to face competitively, as is walrein's new toy with super fang, but besides this, i feel it is long past the time to see just how effective OHKO strategies can really be

this is also the reason i feel species clause should be addressed first, since any stacking of troublesome threats could be tough to deal with. i'd use a few lapras or tauros on my team just to abuse "luck" because at the point it kind of stops being luck much like jirachi's chance of flinching you with iron head isn't "luck".

 

[Glen]

this is also the reason i feel species clause should be addressed first, since any stacking of troublesome threats could be tough to deal with. i'd use a few lapras or tauros on my team just to abuse "luck" because at the point it kind of stops being luck much like jirachi's chance of flinching you with iron head isn't "luck".

i agree that in tandem with the abolition of species clause it could be threatening, but even then, not exactly that threatening.

skarmory and forretress are only 21 and 26, respectively, in terms of usage, but they're still significant enough to dent ohko strategies. if you run a team of tauros hoping to rampage through whatever you can with return and horn drill whenever necessary, both those pokemon kinda put a dent in your strategy. skarm even stops pokemon like lapras who could potentially mix ohkos with special moves, i'm pretty sure it can tank stab surfs with roost. forry would succumb eventually, sadly.

though to be fair this means skarm has to sacrifice keen eye so take my argument with a grain of salt!!!!!

also speaking of mons that stymy ohko strategy, rotom is at number 4 in usage and he seems to counter, uh, everything that could potentially ohko. immune to horn drill, guillotine, and fissure, and is likely to wall the rest of the set of pokemon using those moves. also the only users of sheer cold would get murdered by stab tbolt.

so yeah i would say even in the event of the nullification of species clause, it's just not that good. there are too many viable answers to it. furthermore you could totally trick people with a sturdy magnezone! come on who tries to switch their steel out anyway?

 

[mtr]

Evasion Clause and OHKO Clause deserve testing, but I don't think the metagame will be any different with them. Most likely there will be a collection of lower-quality players trying to abuse such moves at the bottom of the ladder, but no one will ever become Krack or whomever by trying to abuse Horn Drill/Guillotine/Fissure/whatever. Stall won't suffer either, since every stall team has Skarm/Forry and Rotom-A anyways.

Species Clause has the potential to wreck the OU/UU/Ubers metagames as we know them. If it does nothing else, it will promote the use of hyperoffensive teams who, instead of trying to use Salamence or Dragonite, can just use two Salamences or two Lucarios to blow past their counters and sweep. In Ubers, where typing is very similar and not too much of a concern, the weaknesses that having two of the same Pokemon is lessened dramatically. For example, Theorymon successfully used a Rayquaza and Salamence on the same team, but two Rayquazas would be even more powerful, and quite possibly broken.

I'm curious to see the exact criteria you have in mind for testing these Clauses for brokenness or not, but I don't see any really good reasons to oppose their testing.

 

[Articanus]

OHKO Clause
Species Clause
Evasion Clause

I've been looking forward to the OHKO clause test for forever, so of course I'd put that first. Also I think it would be the easiest to dispute, plain and simple.

Species Clause sounds interesting, but is going to take more than just a bit to work over. I think it would be the hardest thing to dispute, take the longest time, so I think that after getting used to the Clause testing from OHKO clause, we can jump straight to this. Not the greatest reasoning, but it's my choice.

Evasion Clause I am NOT looking forward to. I also think it will completely backfire, but whatever. That's simply why I put it last.

 

[reachzero]

Species Clause
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause

I agree that Species Clause has the most impact on the other two, and that it also has the widest impact on competitive Pokemon. I don't see any real harm in testing any of these, though I don't really see the point of testing evasion. What do evasion moves really add positively to competitive Pokemon? OHKO moves should probably be tested last because they are the least likely to have any real impact on competitive Pokemon if they are allowed, and because OHKOs become a more attractive option if evasion moves are allowed.

 

[Elevator Music]

I agree with reachzero on the order:

Species Clause
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause

because I think they effect the competitive metagame from greatest to least in that order. I don't like testing Evasion Clause, but I do see the points that the opponent needs to miss at least twice for them to be effective, they take up a moveslot (which have become even more precious in HGSS), etc. I just see it being a giant pain in the ass when testing comes. But whatever, suck it up I guess...

EDIT- I really don't care about the ordering of the last two though; but I definitely feel that Species should be tested first.

 

[Mr.E]

I feel OHKOs should be tested first because they are the least likely to have any real impact on competitive Pokémon. Baby steps, you know?

And, well, I have absolutely no interest in abolishing Species Clause, so I guess that puts it last by default and Evasion in the middle.

 

[lilyhollow]

Species Clause
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause

Species Clause should be tested first because it has the greatest potential effect on the game as we know it, but I think it's a little odd that we're only saying this now, and not back when the original OoO list was being made. I've always felt that the clauses should have been tested before any of the Pokemon, and I think both the Species and Evasion Clauses will show why waiting until now might have been a mistake. What will people say if just Double Team Manaphy is broken? Do they reinstate the clause because, hey, Manaphy is a totally fair, OU Pokemon as of a couple months ago? I think it's backwards to place blame on Evasion when one individual Pokemon (or even two or three) is the sole reason to ever consider it broken in the first place, but I think that's how things are going to work out when we've already gone through such a long process of legitimizing our Pokemon banlist. I guess it's "too late now," and I never really expected Species Clause to be revoked either way, but it's really going to bother me if, like, two Pokemon are "broken" with Evasion, and somehow that's enough for us to keep Evasion Clause.


As for Tangerine's Item Clause suggestion, I doubt I had PR access back then but remember thinking that it wasn't serious. At the time, Trick was often brought up as a sort of slippery slope counterargument to the suggested Stealth Rock clause (or something like that), and I think his posts on Item Clause were designed to make a "statement" about that. I could be wrong about all of this, but whatever, it doesn't have much to do with Item Clause's actual merit anyway (I am sort of interested in what his actual intentions were though).

There are a lot of objections I have to instating an Item Clause, but most of them have pretty much been articulated in the OoO thread. What makes it particularly unreasonable to consider putting it on the OoO list right here, right now (even if we reinterpret Tangerine's argument as "it thankfully limits the total amount of threats a player has to prepare for," which is probably more relevant to the 4th gen metagame, or many members' perception of it at the moment, than "it makes balanced teams better"), is that whether or not testing it is even necessary is totally dependent on the list we've got right now anyway. Nobody actually thinks that allowing multiple Leftovers/Life Orbs/Choice Scarves is inherently bad for the metagame (at least not in an even remotely broken way), they just recognize the possibility that an Item Clause could improve 4th gen Pokemon in some nonspecific way that probably fixes some facet of the game that irritates them (in this case, "too many options" and whatnot). So what happens when Manaphy, or removing Species Clause ends up satisfying that already? Suddenly Item Clause is just some arbitrary gimmick, and possibly even an arbitrary gimmick that a good portion of the community is excited for and feels good about testing.

Basically, I don't think we should think about adding any new clauses that aren't narrowly tailored to solving specific problems in the metagame (problems that can't otherwise be reasonably solved without similarly complicating our ruleset, so if we can just ban a couple Pokemon, there's no need for a clause), but certainly not before we're done testing other clauses that will each undoubtedly have their own impact, or so soon after we've made a decision as significant as the unbanning of a previously-Uber Pokemon.

edit: Also, I have no idea how big of a deal Trick is these days so I didn't mention it specifically, but everything I said still more or less applies to that as well, regardless of how prevalent it is at the moment.

 

[mtr]

What do evasion moves really add positively to competitive Pokemon?

With all due respect, I would say that this is the wrong question to ask. A better question would be "Do we have a good reason to keep Evasion moves banned?" There's no indication that the moves will have much of an effect in competitive Pokemon, except that Machamp may become slightly more common.

Oh yeah: my order

Species Clause
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause

 

[haunter]

Species Clause
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause

I see really no chance for Evasion and OHKO and I already hate the idea of a hax-based suspect metagame, but yeah, let's test them if we have to.

 

[Veedrock]

1) Evasion Clause
2) OHKO Clause
3) Species Clause

Reasoning is that I feel all applicable battle rules should be present when we test Species Clause. I realize that it can work in reverse (Species affecting the results of Evasion/OHKO), but I feel this order takes priority (if I was around back for OoO I would have stood by doing clauses before suspects as well). I chose Evasion before OHKO because if it passes, it may have a direct effect in the results of an OHKO test.

I'm definitely in support of testing item clause, and I would prefer testing it before these 3 for the same reasons everyone prefers Species first (most ramifications).

I'm leaving out my opinions on the clauses themselves for now.

 

[Glen]

while item clause is interesting, its competitive ramifications are a different animal than those of species clause.

species clause has a huge potential to unbalance the game, this is why i think it should be tested first. item clause doesn't really have that risk, it will just change the game dramatically, which would only really be necessary if the game was currently considered overly unbalanced.

sorry if that's poorly worded, hopefully you guys understand what i'm saying. basically i think species clause has the potential to make things worse, and item clause only really has the potential to make things extremely different, which i think is unnecessary at this stage in the game.

 

[Jumpman16]

Species Clause should be tested first because it has the greatest potential effect on the game as we know it, but I think it's a little odd that we're only saying this now, and not back when the original OoO list was being made. I've always felt that the clauses should have been tested before any of the Pokemon, and I think both the Species and Evasion Clauses will show why waiting until now might have been a mistake. What will people say if just Double Team Manaphy is broken? Do they reinstate the clause because, hey, Manaphy is a totally fair, OU Pokemon as of a couple months ago? I think it's backwards to place blame on Evasion when one individual Pokemon (or even two or three) is the sole reason to ever consider it broken in the first place, but I think that's how things are going to work out when we've already gone through such a long process of legitimizing our Pokemon banlist. I guess it's "too late now," and I never really expected Species Clause to be revoked either way, but it's really going to bother me if, like, two Pokemon are "broken" with Evasion, and somehow that's enough for us to keep Evasion Clause.

This (re)raises an interesting point I think I may only have addressed once, if ever. What people *should* say "if just Double Team Manaphy is broken" is that Manaphy should be banned, not Double Team. The way we should be thinking about Double Team or any of these clauses, if it turns out in theory that only one or two pokemon are able to abuse them to the point where the pokemon are able to meet any of the characteristics, is that these pokemon are broken, not the clauses they abuse.

I've maintained that the reason OHKOs and inarguably Evasion were "correctly" banned in RBY is because proportionally, there were too many pokemon that could abuse either of them (thanks for giving virtually everything DT, Gamefreak). In today's metagame, there a just a few more viable OHKO users, which are much less viable because of the speed of the game and the offensive options available to everyone. (and defensive, thanks to things like Sturdy, Levitate, Focus Sash and many more Ghost pokemon). For this reason I suspect that OHKOs are definitely not as viable as they once were in RBY. Evasion has remained constant in the sense that "lol everything gets it", but the metagame itself can use the same myriad offensive options to keep it in check compared to a decade ago (good luck beating a diamond articuno in rby [ib/dt/sub/rest for the noobs itt]). This is why I feel both are worthy of being tested after years and years of no real reconsideration.

The question of testing Clauses before testing pokemon is a "chicken-egg" phenomenon, when you think about it. If it turns out that in Gen 4 no one pokemon (Suspect or not) can abuse Evasion to the point where said pokemon meets one of the characteristics, then we can rest assured that Evasion was never meant to be claused in competitive Gen 4 play (I won't speak for previous generations for a number of reasons). Then say Garchomp is the only pokemon that can abuse Evasion as such. Surely it's Garchomp's fault, right? To actually determine this, we would have to test Garchomp in a metagame without Double Team.

But what if, in Gen 4, Garchomp has every much as right to be used competitively as does Evasion, if and when they are indeed mutually exclusive in a competitive metagame? What is more deserving of a ban? A Pokemon or a move? Neither was "here first", so which should get the axe? There are 450+ of both—do we remove the one less valuable to competitive pokemon? How do we determine that anyway?

The way we're doing it now (pokemon before clauses) gives us the opportunity to see which pokemon are broken without moves that surely stand to make them more broken. If we tested Evasion first and determined it was broken with one or two pokemon, how indeed *could we* tell with any (greater) certainty that the one of two pokemon weren't really the ones that break competitive Gen 4 play, and not Evasion? We couldn't, and that is perhaps the most important reason we tested pokemon first.

At the end of the day, we had more competitive experience with the Suspect Pokemon and pokemon in general and how they worked to be able to make sense of why they were or were not broken than we did with OHKOs, Evasion and certainly Species Clause. Testing a pokemon definitely enabled us to point to the pokemon itself and not any of the moves it used (unless you want to argue that Draco Meteor and Outrage are more broken than Latios and Garchomp themselves are, which, while not impossible, is a very difficult argument to make). Testing a move does not allow us such certainty, for the same "chicken-egg" reason. A pokemon does not have to use a broken move to be broken. A move still has to be used by a pokemon in order to be broken, meaning that it could still be Garchomp that is the culprit in the "Ban Garchomp or ban Evasion (by way of Double Team, not Sand Veil, mind you)?" question. That is a crucially important distinction to make.

 

[Hipmonlee]

1) Evasion Clause
2) OHKO Clause
3) Species Clause

I think we should do it this way because I think the evasion and ohko tests will be easier. And more likely to be changed..

I am working on an argument to not bother testing species clause, I'm not sure I can make it watertight though..

Continuing on from what you said Jump, it worries me that we may not be able to come to much of a decision on a move or clause based on our characteristics. Or at least it will be very confusing for a lot of voters.. My expectation is that the outcomes will be obvious. I dont see any real reason why only one (or a very small number of) pokemon would be able to abuse these moves. Species clause might be more difficult, but I expect that if it is it will be an easy decision to ban it. However it would be nice for things to be clearer just in case. A lot of my assumptions about how things will transpire have been way off the mark..

Have a nice day.

 

[mtr]

If it turns out that in Gen 4 no one pokemon (Suspect or not) can abuse Evasion to the point where said pokemon meets one of the characteristics, then we can rest assured that Evasion was never meant to be claused in competitive Gen 4 play

This leads me to ask a question: which side will have the burden of proof?

In a Pokemon suspect test, we assume that a Pokemon is OU unless proven Uber, and the burden of proof is on the Uber camp. So what do we assume here? That a Clause is good unless it is proven to be unfair/unnecessary (ie: OHKO Clause is removed because it is unnecessary)? Or that we need to prove that a Clause is necessary for the proper functioning of the metagame in order for the Clause to be implemented (ie: Evasion moves break the metagame)? Judging from the comments, I'm assuming its the latter, but I think that this should be decided as a way to help potential voters make their choices.

 

[lilyhollow]

But what if, in Gen 4, Garchomp has every much as right to be used competitively as does Evasion, if and when they are indeed mutually exclusive in a competitive metagame? What is more deserving of a ban? A Pokemon or a move? Neither was "here first", so which should get the axe? There are 450+ of both—do we remove the one less valuable to competitive pokemon? How do we determine that anyway?

The way we're doing it now (pokemon before clauses) gives us the opportunity to see which pokemon are broken without moves that surely stand to make them more broken. If we tested Evasion first and determined it was broken with one or two pokemon, how indeed *could we* tell with any (greater) certainty that the one of two pokemon weren't really the ones that break competitive Gen 4 play, and not Evasion? We couldn't, and that is perhaps the most important reason we tested pokemon first.

I think it's important to consider Smogon's multiple official tiers of play when asking these sorts of questions. Is it "fair" to ban Evasion moves from all of our official (maybe even unofficial?) tiers, when perhaps none of them besides OU has even one "fair-turned-unfair" Pokemon? Should we even care if Garchomp is certifiably blameworthy in the context of Standard, when the most available alternative is for Evasion to be banned in all tiers, including ones that may not (UU, NU) or even by definition cannot (Ubers) be broken by it?

This doesn't necessarily have to imply that "Pokemon are inherently more blameworthy than moves," not that I've avoided that position in the past. It does imply that, as long as we treat clauses/move bans as "universal" (and given that even the Ubers ladder is subject to all of the clauses Standard is, I think that's accurate), it makes sense to assume a Pokemon's blame, rather than a move's, regardless of its status prior to the test.

I actually think it would be a good idea to just stop treating move bans as "universal," and that that would fix the problem even more effectively than going back in time and testing the clauses first. The extent to which we'd have to start worrying about overcomplicated rulesets and additional testing and whatnot might warrant some concern about that though.

 

[Flashstorm1]

1) OHKO Clause
2) Evasion Clause
3) Species Clause

I feel that species clause should be tested last because it is the most likely to cause an impact in the metagame, as opposed to others saying it should be tested first for that reason. The way I see it, I think we should make a decision on the other clauses first as they have the potential to decide whether species clause should remain implemented or not. Since species clause is arguably the most important of the three clauses, it would make sense to test it once the less important clauses have been tested, as then we can test the species clause in the true environment that results from the testing of the first two clauses. If we tested species clause first, it would be to my understanding that we'd have to retest if if any of the other clauses changed to see if it affects species clause, although I guess it could go either way.

tl;dr: I think we should test species clause last so we can simulate a test where the less important clauses influence the most important clause. If we tested species clause first, it's possible that after testing the other clauses later, we'd have to retest species clause to see if any of the other clauses not being in effect (as they are now) affect it in any way.

 

[Darkmalice]

Species Clause
OHKO Clause
Evasion Clause

Reasons for Species Clause being first is the same as everyone else's aka. most likely to have the strongest impact on the metagame (one Salamence is already very hard to deal with).

I think Evasion Clause should be after OHKO clause. I feel that OHKO moves are more likely to impact the metagame, despite the fact that everyone gets DT, because OHKO moves could be used for scouting purposes. For example, Rhyperior could use Horn Drill to scout for Skarmory, Bronzong, Celebi, Tangrowth and so forth without having to resort to prediction with Stone Edge/Fire Punch/Megahorn/etc or Substitute and possibly wasting 25% HP. Use of OHKO moves in this way is more viable than spamming DT with a very high chance of being unsuccessful (for example, 3 DTs give you a 50% evasion rate at the cost of three turns and a moveslot). Also, a 30% chance of a OHKO is almost always better than a 25% chance of evading an attack.

 

[Jumpman16]

Continuing on from what you said Jump, it worries me that we may not be able to come to much of a decision on a move or clause based on our characteristics. Or at least it will be very confusing for a lot of voters.. My expectation is that the outcomes will be obvious. I dont see any real reason why only one (or a very small number of) pokemon would be able to abuse these moves. Species clause might be more difficult, but I expect that if it is it will be an easy decision to ban it. However it would be nice for things to be clearer just in case. A lot of my assumptions about how things will transpire have been way off the mark..

In my opinion, Species Clause will be the one most likely to be the clause's fault and not the pokemon's, because there are probably more than a small number of pokemon that can abuse the clause if it is indeed abusable. But while that's theorymon, we've actually tried to play with Evasion and OHKOs in tournaments, and it has rarely been more than "Zapdos and Umbreon" that can abuse Double Team effectively in competitive play (and this is 100% because of Baton Pass, which I point out more to show that such pokemon would be uber under the Support Characteristic than anything else [even though it also shows that slapping just DT on any pokemon will very likely not be effective]).

I already mentioned what limited effects I think OHKOs will have on competitive pokemon, but there we start to arrive at your point—many, many players will probably think that if Walrein ohkoes their Starmie in a few battles over the course of the OHKO Suspect Test that it automatically points to Walrein being uber. The way I have envisioned it, our Characteristics of Uber were worded in a way that they can apply to OHKOs and Evasion rather seamlessly, if one thinks about it.


Offensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.

Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep.


Again, for Evasion, I feel that Zapdos and Umbreon are much more likely, because of Baton Pass, to consistently be able to set up situations in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep than Zapdos and Umbreon themselves. For another example, an Ice Body, Surf/Toxic/Hail/Double Team Walrein@Leftovers would be uber under the DC if it is considered to be uber at all, or the OC to a much, much lesser degree (if it's able to kill enough things with Surf and the residual damage of Hail). We are still, though, able to use the characteristics we have to determine uberness.

And for OHKOs, I don't see how "sweeping through a significant portion of teams" is any different when applied to OHKOs. There is less effort expended in sweeping with an OHKO since you only have to use one turn as compared to two with SD and EQ/Outrage, sure. But you still have to actually be able to sweep with the pokemon, meaning that a Surf/Sheer Cold/Rest/Sleep Talk Lapras by definition has to kill more than one pokemon to be considered uber under the OC. If it were able to regularly OHKO, say, Blissey on the switch in one move, and later the Blissey user's team lost to LO Starmie or Sub Petaya Empoleon, then Lapras could start to be considered uber under the SC, since it very easily set up a situation in which it made it substantially easier for another pokemon to sweep. We are still able to use our existing characteristics to address both OHKOs and Evasion, though.

Species Clause is obviously more difficult, but that is something we will probably be able to "play by ear". I think the bigger question is whether we would ban the offending pokemon or retain Species Clause, and I personally would lean towards the latter if only because I do think that "more than a few" pokes will be able to abuse it, if any. We cannot and should not fall into the trap of considering Species Clause inherently broken though, because in link battles, it isn't any more hard coded into the game than are Sleep Clause or Item Clause (which of course is and is not respectively observed competitively). Again, maybe multiple Lucario or Infernape have always had every right to be used, and the pokemon themselves should be banned if they abuse the lack of Species Clause because they are that good in an environment where Species Clause should never have existed.

 

[obi]

My order:

1. Species clause

This is the only one of the four clauses mentioned in this thread that I feel we should test (the others being Evasion, OHKO, and item clauses).

There are really three parts to this argument.

First, why we should test Species clause: There needs to be a very good reason to ban things. The default should be not banned. The arguments for why species clause exist are centered primarily around the potential for certain teams having some sort of general "overpoweredness", usually offensive (a team of 3 Lucario, for instance). All claims of things being "too powerful" should be tested to verify that they are, in fact, too powerful.

Now why we should not test item clause. I'll briefly talk about this one next because it is likely to be far less contentious than Evasion / OHKOs. My main reason for not wanting to test item clause is simply because I haven't seen a reason to test it. The burden of proof rests on people who want to have more rules, not on those who want less. We don't create rules because "Hey, I bet this will make things better in some unspecified way!", we create rules to fix specific issues we have. Only things that cannot exist in a balanced game should be banned.

Now why should we not test OHKOs or evasion? I'll deal with them both here because my objection to both rests on the same premise.

It seems hypocritical for me to now say we should have a rule that has never been tested since I've been a part of competitive Pokemon (the middle of ADV, I think?). My argument is not based on any idea of overpoweredness, however, but rather, a more general competitive argument. Simply put, both moves detract from the competitiveness of the game by making it more luck based.

"But what about the characteristics of an uber?" some say. "Those don't mention anything like that.". It's fairly simple to come up with something that doesn't meet any of the characteristics but should be banned. Cherrim and Castform (or any conditions that create acid weather) should be banned, even though they meet no characteristics. This is because when either Pokemon is brought out during acid weather, they perpetually shift forms, causing the game to hang. Such a situation is clearly opposed to a competitive event, but doesn't fit the offensive, defensive, or support characteristic. Alternatively, consider a move that, when used, has a 50% chance to faint all of the opponent's Pokemon, and a 50% chance to faint all of the user's Pokemon. It would be a bit of a stretch to put that under any of the characteristics, but is clearly the worst thing that would ever have been added to Pokemon. However, it is the definition of a coin flip. There would be no need to test this, it turns the game into a glorified game of rock, paper, scissors. Even a move that had a 40% chance to faint all of the opponent's Pokemon and a 60% chance to faint all of the user's Pokemon should be banned for the same reasons. In fact, the % split doesn't matter (unless it's a 0% opponent, 100% user), in all cases, it's a "bad move", but bad players could benefit from using it. If I'm a bad player, but I come face to face with a top player, my chances of winning might normally be 10%. So I just play around a little bit and hope to get lucky to bring those chances of winning up. If the game continues to go as expected, however, then I just bring out my Pokemon that knows a move that lets me win 30% of the time, and suddenly I've tripled my odds of winning. Put another way, the only time moves that are luck-based and "bad" will be used are by players who are bad and can only win if they get lucky.

Obviously OHKOs and evasion aren't "Use this once and you have a 1/3 chance to win!". However, they move the game toward luck and away from skill, and for this reason, I don't feel they need to be tested for how powerful they are, as any effect is too much of an effect.

 

[X-Act]

I really don't mind the order of the operations at this point as long as Species Clause, OHKO Clause and Evasion Clause are tested. This is why I haven't posted in this thread so far. But now that I read obi's post, I feel that I have to post to support the idea that OHKO and Evasion are at least tested, since he seems to be against such a test.

I'm sure that me and obi won't agree on the point I'm going to make from now onwards, since it challenges the fundamental meaning of what the word 'competitive' means for both of us. For him, 'competitive' means (correct me if I'm wrong) playing a game having the least amount of luck possible. This is not my definition of 'competitive'.

I'm sure I can play a game of competitive, say, Hearts. For those that don't know, Hearts is a four-player card game that has an element of skill and chance. Like Pokemon, then, except that maybe it has a little bit more chance thrown in. What will happen in a game of Hearts is the following: the best player of the four will win in the long run, but is not guaranteed to always win. I mean that if the same players played, say, 15 times against each other, the best player of the four has an almost certainty that he'll win the majority of the games.

So, for me, a 'competitive' player is one that maximizes his chances to win, whether the game is Chess, Pokemon, Hearts, or Crazy Eights. It doesn't matter whether you win or lose as long as you play your best game. If you play your best and you still lose, it's either because your opponent was even better than you, in which case you should strive to improve your game even more, or because your opponent was luckier, in which case you just say "you win some, you lose some".

I'm sure that, in the long run, our current ladder system would still reward the best player with the #1 spot even if we played Crazy Eights, a game which arguably contains more luck than skill. By 'best player' here I'm referring to the player that's maximizing his skill more than his opponents. He will lose some games due to luck that he shouldn't have lost, granted, but, since he's the best player, he'll tend to win more often than not in the long run - more often than his less skilled opponents. His superior skill will tell eventually.

In this context, even if OHKO and Evasion moves result in a luckier game (which we can't confirm if this is true anyway unless we go on and test them), the most skilled player will still be at the top of the ladder in the end. And that is justification enough for me to test both of them.

 

[Philip7086]

I agree with Obi 100% on this. I see no reason to waste time testing something that, if passed, will only deteriorate the competitive aspect of this game. Although X-Act's point about top players always coming out on top in the end is correct with respect to a ladder ranking system, it does not touch on the issue of single elimination tournaments. If you know you have little chance of beating a player through sheer skill alone, you can simply bring in a team of Double Teamers and OHKO move Pokemon to increase your chances of winning. In this scenario, Obi's point about detracting from the competitiveness of the game by making it more luck based holds true, whereas X-Act's point about the better player prevailing in the end does not.

Even if OHKO and evasion moves prove to be underwhelming in the long run, the ramifications in situations where only one match matters is enough of a reason to ban them anyways. Therefore, testing these clauses at all is a complete waste of time.

From what I understand, one of the reasons Stage 3-3 might not be tested is because of the time constraint in achieving the true metagame (tiers and clauses included) before Gen 5 comes out. If this is true, then that is even more of a reason to not waste time and effort on the OHKO and evasion clauses. Testing Manaphy and Latias together in a metagame where no known ubers are present is necessary to fully understand if they, themselves, are uber or not. If doing so means we need to save time by scrapping tests that do not stand to benefit the metagame whatsoever, then so be it. For a stage that we have put so much time and effort into making sure no mistakes were made, I don't understand the reasoning behind rushing the final stretch.

 

[lilyhollow]

Players can abuse the one game, Single Elimination tournament system in all sorts of ways, many of them probably more effective than OHKOs and Evasion. I mean just the fact that you're asking us not to test these moves on the basis that they can be used noncompetitively in an already noncompetitive format is kind of ridiculous on its own, but when there's plenty of other junk people can do to "artificially" improve their chances against better players already, it seems silly to say that these particular moves are somehow special cases. I mean why, because they're "already banned?"

Hipmonlee has already made a pretty strong case that Evasion and OHKO moves will only increase the disparity between skilled and unskilled players in ladder play. Even if "they could ruin our pristine one game, Single Elimination tournament format" was something we could take seriously, I don't think it would justify skipping their tests.