Approved by TonyFlygon
Since the unbanning of Ingrain + Smeargle sometime in late 2019, Baton Pass has been at its full potential (barring evasion) in ADV Ubers, and this went fairly unnoticed until recently, with Baton Pass becoming a legitimate team threat that is incredibly hard to account for. Ingrain allows some of the more reliable Pokemon against traditional Baton Pass, such as Lugia, Ho-Oh, and Skarmory, to be ineffective generally with how easy it is to speed pass and set up an Ingrain. Teams such as the one featured in this post which has a ton of replays of it in action are the most notable full pass teams, easily MU'ing most common styles with little to no actual play required aside from setting up and passing to Smeargle then winning. A lot of current players have expressed very clear distaste towards Baton Pass for the same fundamental reasons as always, as found in the tiering policy framework and other common arguments about it being uncompetitive. Even things like fast Taunt leads are unable to reliably beat BP due to it only lasting 1 turn and struggle dealing very little recoil in this generation. In the past, Ubers has sometimes left traditionally uncompetitive parts in metagames if they weren't clearly overwhelming or game changing, but Baton Pass teams in ADV are very viable and can easily just get wins on the spot with little player choice. This makes them extremely volatile in any game, with the only reason people aren't using it more likely just being on principal not wanting to win tour games with Baton Pass due to the stigma around it. I have a few examples of them succeeding in tour games from ADV Cup such as myself Vs. Fardin and myself Vs. March Fires, with it clearly just winning on lead even with luck such as multiple Ancient power boosts to try and stop it. This is the same common MU argument about Baton Pass, where nothing in the game was in the players hands, from turn 1 it had already ended.
Baton Pass as a strategy isn't just limited to full pass, however, as even quick pass has seen recent tour usage. Relying on Ninjask, these teams function extremely well by passing stats to mons that normally wouldn't be able to boost those as easily such as an immediate speed boost to Groudon, Heracross, or a speed boost to tanky Latias, among other Pokemon. This is only possible through Baton Pass, effectively adding more options to an entire team's kit that shouldn't be there, making many more Pokemon and matchups more volatile with random stat boosts being thrown into the mix. The fact that there is no team preview also means that you can also just expect full pass or expect quick pass and the other will show up, causing a game to be much harder to decipher and even attempt to outplay. Some recent tour examples include:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-535721- Heysup Vs. Noitu, Ubers MW II
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-536345- Heysup Vs. Melle2402, Ubers MW II
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-555617- Skysolo Vs. Lekstaz, ADV Cup V
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-556798- Skysolo Vs. Staxi, ADV Cup V
After discussing a lot of times in both the official Ubers discord and the ADV Ubers discord with many top players of the tier, a lot of them came to the agreement that something had to be done about Baton Pass, and so this decision is something that has to be approached. The target of the ban has multiple different options, however, so tackling it the right way is important, with a few options available. Ideally we can avoid the complex bans but they can be left up for discussion just as stretch possibilities. Some aren't ideal but technically possible for the most part (stat passing ban may cause troubles for example, as mentioned here). Here are some options, but alternatives if they make sense and have merit over these can be discussed as well:
1. Ban Baton Pass - This is the simplest but highest impact ban, with this blanket ban effecting Pokemon that commonly use drypass or other forms of passing that aren't stat related such as Shedinja for momentum, and Celebi / Umbreon for Leech / Mean Look Pass respectively. This would completley solve the issue of full pass chains, but its effects would be felt outside of those and even Ninjask quick pass teams. Strategies based around Mean Look pass have seen tour usage, and killing off the viability would be unfortunate collateral, but its low usage may make this worth the loss.
2. Complex Bans - Almost every other solution would technically fall under the "complex ban" blanket. ADV Ubers and especially just ADV in general is no stranger to this with regards to Baton Pass, with OU having a ton of clauses implemented for it as well as Ubers previously having the Ingrain + Smeargle ban. Some of these complexities include:
Since the unbanning of Ingrain + Smeargle sometime in late 2019, Baton Pass has been at its full potential (barring evasion) in ADV Ubers, and this went fairly unnoticed until recently, with Baton Pass becoming a legitimate team threat that is incredibly hard to account for. Ingrain allows some of the more reliable Pokemon against traditional Baton Pass, such as Lugia, Ho-Oh, and Skarmory, to be ineffective generally with how easy it is to speed pass and set up an Ingrain. Teams such as the one featured in this post which has a ton of replays of it in action are the most notable full pass teams, easily MU'ing most common styles with little to no actual play required aside from setting up and passing to Smeargle then winning. A lot of current players have expressed very clear distaste towards Baton Pass for the same fundamental reasons as always, as found in the tiering policy framework and other common arguments about it being uncompetitive. Even things like fast Taunt leads are unable to reliably beat BP due to it only lasting 1 turn and struggle dealing very little recoil in this generation. In the past, Ubers has sometimes left traditionally uncompetitive parts in metagames if they weren't clearly overwhelming or game changing, but Baton Pass teams in ADV are very viable and can easily just get wins on the spot with little player choice. This makes them extremely volatile in any game, with the only reason people aren't using it more likely just being on principal not wanting to win tour games with Baton Pass due to the stigma around it. I have a few examples of them succeeding in tour games from ADV Cup such as myself Vs. Fardin and myself Vs. March Fires, with it clearly just winning on lead even with luck such as multiple Ancient power boosts to try and stop it. This is the same common MU argument about Baton Pass, where nothing in the game was in the players hands, from turn 1 it had already ended.
Baton Pass as a strategy isn't just limited to full pass, however, as even quick pass has seen recent tour usage. Relying on Ninjask, these teams function extremely well by passing stats to mons that normally wouldn't be able to boost those as easily such as an immediate speed boost to Groudon, Heracross, or a speed boost to tanky Latias, among other Pokemon. This is only possible through Baton Pass, effectively adding more options to an entire team's kit that shouldn't be there, making many more Pokemon and matchups more volatile with random stat boosts being thrown into the mix. The fact that there is no team preview also means that you can also just expect full pass or expect quick pass and the other will show up, causing a game to be much harder to decipher and even attempt to outplay. Some recent tour examples include:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-535721- Heysup Vs. Noitu, Ubers MW II
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-536345- Heysup Vs. Melle2402, Ubers MW II
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-555617- Skysolo Vs. Lekstaz, ADV Cup V
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-556798- Skysolo Vs. Staxi, ADV Cup V
After discussing a lot of times in both the official Ubers discord and the ADV Ubers discord with many top players of the tier, a lot of them came to the agreement that something had to be done about Baton Pass, and so this decision is something that has to be approached. The target of the ban has multiple different options, however, so tackling it the right way is important, with a few options available. Ideally we can avoid the complex bans but they can be left up for discussion just as stretch possibilities. Some aren't ideal but technically possible for the most part (stat passing ban may cause troubles for example, as mentioned here). Here are some options, but alternatives if they make sense and have merit over these can be discussed as well:
1. Ban Baton Pass - This is the simplest but highest impact ban, with this blanket ban effecting Pokemon that commonly use drypass or other forms of passing that aren't stat related such as Shedinja for momentum, and Celebi / Umbreon for Leech / Mean Look Pass respectively. This would completley solve the issue of full pass chains, but its effects would be felt outside of those and even Ninjask quick pass teams. Strategies based around Mean Look pass have seen tour usage, and killing off the viability would be unfortunate collateral, but its low usage may make this worth the loss.
2. Complex Bans - Almost every other solution would technically fall under the "complex ban" blanket. ADV Ubers and especially just ADV in general is no stranger to this with regards to Baton Pass, with OU having a ton of clauses implemented for it as well as Ubers previously having the Ingrain + Smeargle ban. Some of these complexities include:
- Reinstate the Ingrain + Smeargle Ban - This would not have an impact on quick pass teams and would even leave full pass teams intact with a slight chance of viability with Mr. Mime + Fast Roar Smeargle, but it can't be denied that Ingrain is a huge benefit to full pass teams, with this being the original ban put in place to "nerf" them. That makes it consistent with tiering in the past, but it still might not be the best option to focus on
- Targeting Individual Pokemon / Stats - The idea of banning stat passing is a very sensitive one, but one that has still been brought up. I've recently seen the argument for banning speed passing, given that full pass chains arguably can't function without speed passing at all which I think may be true, as well as this just removing Ninjask quick pass. Banning Ninjask + BP is a slightly less complex ban solution which exists and has a similar effect, given that Ninjask is a crucial part of Baton Pass as an archetype. Banning any other key mon with Baton Pass would also similarly resolve this, but Ninjask is probably the most important part of a lot of these teams and would lower their usability the most. These kinds of limits on Pokemon and number of Baton Pass users has been implemented in ADV OU, and is a very messy but technically effective solution.