Current Events > It feels like smogon bans basically everything

(+) Yeah! (+)

Gliscor of all things just got banned. Like what.

Stolen from Reddit, sounds ban worthy to me. I haven't been playing very much recently last time I played palafin was still legal.

The issue is the lack of counters:

If you play SVOU at a serious level about the first thing you notice is that the hazard game is just absurd nowadays. Hazards go up too easily and Ghold makes it too hard to get rid of them, especially since our pool of removers is very small and Tusk is getting more pressured with every meta shift. The culprit most people would look at is Gholdengo, but Gliscor is actually a huge part of why it's this bad lately as well.

With insane longevity, a great typing into many stuff, and access to both Spikes and Toxic, Gliscor can come in on many things and Spike a ton of times. Tusk is afraid to Spin on it since it hates getting Toxiced, and to even touch it back it needs to run Ice Spinner which HEAVILY limits what Tusk is capable of doing with its moveset. Corvi can Defog on it, but Corvi has been getting dunked on by Ghold all gen long. Other removers exist but are exceedingly hard to fit and don't even necessarily beat Gliscor.

Since Gliscor is nearly impossible to wear down passively, Spikes on pretty much everything at every stage of the game, and pressures the few removers we have, it together with Ghold is the main reason hazards are so unbearable to vs right now. There's also a notable amount of mons that fell off or have their moveset options greatly limited almost entirely because of Gliscor, and a lot of otherwise good teams (mostly Superman squads) struggle because they lack great switchins to Gliscor or options to force it out... except for their own Gliscor, but Gliscor VS Gliscor matchups are physically painful to play and watch

They don't care to adapt

And to think, in gen 2 Gilgar couldn't even get Earthquake.

Started from the bottom, now it's here.

Gliscor was pretty annoying tho >_>

RIP Garch
Edit: Oh shit RIP Glisc as well.

Volcarona getting banned without a suspect test was fucked up.

Honestly, it has just sounded like this whole Gen has been a terrible mess for 6v6 singles.

I don't mean to stan for Smogon because they do make some baffling choices (Last Respects)

But this is sound. Hazards have been way too dominant and the OU meta is basically 80% HO with webs + Gholdengo + Valiant + filler

Banning Gliscor is a good decision because, in an ideal meta, all playstyles are worth using. With Gliscor around that's just not the case.

I'm a VGC and Draft player so it doesn't effect me much but the banning process is mostly sound and based on the community.

dioxxys posted...

Stolen from Reddit, sounds ban worthy to me. I haven't been playing very much recently last time I played palafin was still legal.

The issue is the lack of counters:

If you play SVOU at a serious level about the first thing you notice is that the hazard game is just absurd nowadays. Hazards go up too easily and Ghold makes it too hard to get rid of them, especially since our pool of removers is very small and Tusk is getting more pressured with every meta shift. The culprit most people would look at is Gholdengo, but Gliscor is actually a huge part of why it's this bad lately as well.

With insane longevity, a great typing into many stuff, and access to both Spikes and Toxic, Gliscor can come in on many things and Spike a ton of times. Tusk is afraid to Spin on it since it hates getting Toxiced, and to even touch it back it needs to run Ice Spinner which HEAVILY limits what Tusk is capable of doing with its moveset. Corvi can Defog on it, but Corvi has been getting dunked on by Ghold all gen long. Other removers exist but are exceedingly hard to fit and don't even necessarily beat Gliscor.

Since Gliscor is nearly impossible to wear down passively, Spikes on pretty much everything at every stage of the game, and pressures the few removers we have, it together with Ghold is the main reason hazards are so unbearable to vs right now. There's also a notable amount of mons that fell off or have their moveset options greatly limited almost entirely because of Gliscor, and a lot of otherwise good teams (mostly Superman squads) struggle because they lack great switchins to Gliscor or options to force it out... except for their own Gliscor, but Gliscor VS Gliscor matchups are physically painful to play and watch

The issue isn't Gliscor, it's Gholdengo. There's limited counters to harzards because Gholdengo removes 99% of options.

I hate hazards so much in Pokemon. Stealth rock is the worst thing to ever happen to pokemon

NeonBoobs posted...

I hate hazards so much in Pokemon. Stealth rock is the worst thing to ever happen to pokemon

Agreed. It's honestly ludicrous that people whined about heavy duty boots being ubiquitous but think Stealth Rock invalidating 30% of all Pokemon in one move was a totally sound design choice.

Leech Seed should be an entry hazard.
Drains any non-grass types until either a grass type comes in or a rapid spinner removes it.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

RIP Garch
Edit: Oh shit RIP Glisc as well.

Garchomp isnt banned in Gen 9, hes in UU.

It's crazy how of all the moves that were cut from the games, Stealth Rock still manages to get through every time.

Do they 'ban' anything, or just move things between fan-made categories?

*Bans everything except terastalization, the underlying cause of every other ban.

ZMythos posted...

*Bans everything except terastalization, the underlying cause of every other ban.

At that point, why are you even playing the new game?

"Competitive" Pokemon is a joke.

Blue_Inigo posted...

At that point, why are you even playing the new game?

The new mons, moves, and other mechanics?

Blue_Inigo posted...

At that point, why are you even playing the new game?

At this point, it's mainly to discover and play with the new Pokemon.

I don't play competitively anymore, and this Gen has almost-killed my interest in making/breeding for battle-ready Pokemon.

Solar_Crimson posted...

I don't play competitively anymore, and this Gen has almost-killed my interest in making/breeding for battle-ready Pokemon.

Which is weird because this generation has made it absurdly easy to do so.

Hacking legal pokemon will never not be the best way to play competitively

ZMythos posted...

Which is weird because this generation has made it absurdly easy to do so.

It's also moreso the lack of a Battle Tower or equivalent. Plus many other, better games out there to play.

Solar_Crimson posted...

It's also moreso the lack of a Battle Tower or equivalent. Plus many other, better games out there to play.

True, I never struggled with an ingame battle in SV. I haven't battled more than 40% of the trainers in Paldea/Kitakami, I'd reckon, since it's completely pointless once you get the items. The experience gains are paltry compared to auto-battles or the metric fuckton of EXP Candy you get just from normal gameplay. The money sucks too.

NeonBoobs posted...

Hacking legal pokemon will never not be the best way to play competitively

It's also the lamest.

Saving time to do other stuff in life aint life. It's awesome

ZMythos posted...

*Bans everything except terastalization, the underlying cause of every other ban.

It's insanely useful but it's not broken.

LordFarquad1312 posted...

"Competitive" Pokemon is a joke.

VGC is fun as fuck, and Smogon does actually serve a useful purpose for 6v6 singles, if they didn't, it wouldn't be as popular as it is now.

Tiers are a decent idea, as is stuff like sleep clause.

2v2 is just the way to go. It seems that's what the devs balance things around. The most OP pokemon aren't nearly as troublesome in that format

Smogon is the Pokmon equivalent of "No items, Fox Only, Final Destination"

Lol

so glad i stopped competitive battling back in gen 4

Cemith posted...

It's insanely useful but it's not broken.

Volcarona is banned because tera-grass
Gliscor is banned because tera-water or steel
Anhillape is banned because tera-water or steel
Regieleki is banned because tera-ice
Espathra is banned because tera-fire

Terastalization introduces too much uncertainty and mitigates what are usually glaring type weaknesses that keep strong pokemon balanced.

ZMythos posted...

Volcarona is banned because tera-grass
Gliscor is banned because tera-water or steel
Anhillape is banned because tera-water or steel
Regieleki is banned because tera-ice
Espathra is banned because tera-fire

Terastalization introduces too much uncertainty and mitigates what are usually glaring type weaknesses that keep strong pokemon balanced.

Don't worry, it'll be gone next gen.

The process is democratic. If you know enough about the meta for your opinion about Gliscor to be properly informed, you were free to participate and get the reqs required for your voice to be heard.

NeonBoobs posted...

I hate hazards so much in Pokemon. Stealth rock is the worst thing to ever happen to pokemon

Yeah, it really needs to go. Many of the types most punished by it already have it bad enough as it is.

ZMythos posted...

*Bans everything except terastalization, the underlying cause of every other ban.

Blue_Inigo posted...

At that point, why are you even playing the new game?

Wasn't Dynamax banned in Gen 8 for being too busted in Singles? GF makes terrible mechanics some times...

ZMythos posted...

Volcarona is banned because tera-grass
Gliscor is banned because tera-water or steel
Anhillape is banned because tera-water or steel
Regieleki is banned because tera-ice
Espathra is banned because tera-fire

Terastalization introduces too much uncertainty and mitigates what are usually glaring type weaknesses that keep strong pokemon balanced.

Those Pokemon are banned because of Terrastillization=/= Tera needs to be banned. If Terastillizing was broken every Pokemon would be able to utilize it and utterly cluck the game up. No one is losing sleep over Tera poison Slowbro or Tera water Gyarados. It serves as a catalyst to make great Pokemon broken, but it itself is not so overcentralizing that any Pokemon can use Tera to be broken.

Annihalape would have been banned anyway for Rage Fist.

Volcarona has been the best bug since Genesect.

Etc.

Besides, banning an entire generations mechanic serves to homogenize the metagame. Dynamax was actually busted and 99% of all Pokemon could use to bust a battle wide open. It had to go, but it also made Gen 8 less interesting. That said, VGC didn't fare much better. Maxing just is a nightmare for balancing.

IceCreamOnStero posted...

The process is democratic. If you know enough about the meta for your opinion about Gliscor to be properly informed, you were free to participate and get the reqs required for your voice to be heard.

This too, not just anyone's voice is heard in banning, you have to meet a certain threshold of gxe and win/loss for your vote to be relevant. Which means the people that actually vote on this are good players whom it'd effect the most and whom in theory have the most skin in the game.

I actually much prefer terastilization to dynamaxing.

Terastalization can give niche pokmon more opportunities to shine.

Tera Dragon Scale Shot Arbok of all things is actually a good sweeper due to it.

It's certainly more interesting than just letting one Pokemon LARP Godzilla for three turns.

ZMythos posted...

Volcarona is banned because tera-grass
Gliscor is banned because tera-water or steel
Anhillape is banned because tera-water or steel
Regieleki is banned because tera-ice
Espathra is banned because tera-fire

Terastalization introduces too much uncertainty and mitigates what are usually glaring type weaknesses that keep strong pokemon balanced.

I do not think Terastalization played a big factor in Gliscor's removal. It's largely down to Gholdengo's presence as a meta threat preventing other counters to hazards from existing. Which allowed Gliscor to come and be a hazard threat.

For some reason nobody on smogon OU wants to remove the core problem and would rather ban around it so they can keep using Gholdengo.

why havent they just banned hazards in general by now

they literally ruin the game

Tera makes for some fun plays, banning it means we just get Gen 8-2. A lot of metagames suspect tested it and allowed it to stay anyway.

Plus it's just really funny to see a ubiquitous Ground/Flying mon get banned and have it not be the obvious pick

refmon posted...

why havent they just banned hazards in general by now

they literally ruin the game

Because heavy duty boots exist. Because then you could just freely switch Pokemon too freely. The problem isn't hazards It's the lack of good rapid spinners and defoggers, also good as gold.

I wonder how the game would be like if hazards expired after 5 or so turn? Like weather or field buffs.

Pokemon has not been evenly remotely balanced for singles since Gen 4/5 and this has only gotten more and more obvious with each passing generation, but I feel Gen 9 has hit a point of no return on that. Which is so confusing since 99% of the actual in-game battling is still singles.

I do applaud Smogon for still trying to make 6v6 singles work. I'm more impressed they're doing that because it seems like Gen 9 is the single most hated/least fun OU ever with the singles playerbase, or at least since Gen 5.

It's crazy that doubles are (have become?) becoming more popular than singles, but they won't give us a third Pokemon Colloseum game.

AbsolutelyNoOne posted...

remotely balanced for singles since Gen 4/5

You think Gen 5 OU was balanced?

ZMythos posted...

You think Gen 5 OU was balanced?

oh god no

I just think you can debate which between 4 and 5 it became incredibly obvious singles were not a priority for competitive. I'd probably say 5 since 4 nowadays somehow turned out kinda balanced.

AbsolutelyNoOne posted...

Pokemon has not been evenly remotely balanced for singles since Gen 4/5 and this has only gotten more and more obvious with each passing generation, but I feel Gen 9 has hit a point of no return on that. Which is so confusing since 99% of the actual in-game battling is still singles.

I do applaud Smogon for still trying to make 6v6 singles work. I'm more impressed they're doing that because it seems like Gen 9 is the single most hated/least fun OU ever with the singles playerbase, or at least since Gen 5.

Let's not pretend that earlier gens didn't have their issues. Baton Pass was a huge strategy that got banned. Before it was banned, they even tried to restrict the boosts being passed.

After Baton Pass there was weather wars in gen 5 which got nerfed by Gamefreak rather than Smogon. But Smogon did add clauses such that you couldn't have drizzle and swift swim on the same team.

Pokemon has never been an easy to balanced competitive game, especially around singles which is why VGC is doubles.

The problem is that this gen in particular, Smogon seems to be ignoring the huge issues and are trying to ban around them.

Think we all remember the genies of "healthy meta".

What's the reason for not banning Gholdengo? Because reading that description makes it sound like it's the bigger problem.

Srk700 posted...

What's the reason for not banning Gholdengo? Because reading that description makes it sound like it's the bigger problem.

Gholdengo and Kingambit seem to be the favorites of OU. Both of them are causing issues yet everything else besides them is getting suspect tested.

Srk700 posted...

What's the reason for not banning Gholdengo? Because reading that description makes it sound like it's the bigger problem.

I hope it goes next tbh.