Handling Broken Sets with Z-Moves

Imanalt

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Z moves were introduced in Gen7.
All pokemon have access to Z moves, and they are now a part of the "package" that encompasses an entire pokemon.
Porygon learns conversion.
Z-conversion is one of the traits that makes Porygon broken.
Porygon is broken.
Ban Porygon.

If it wasn't clear: we really should not set a bad precedent with complex bans. This is literally identical to King's Shield Aegislash or any other aspect of a pokemon that sums up the brokenness. STOP trying to separate traits from the entire pokemon.
sry but this post is just dumb. Banning a move is not a complex ban. A complex ban is banning multiple things in conjunction with each other. I'm also literally asking for people to set a general precedent that could then be applied to lc, rather than having lc set a bad precedent. Try reading what was said before posting.

Some people in lc would make the case that z-conversion is a generally broken move, similar to eevee's z-move, and so the z-move should be banned rather than the pokemon that just happens to have it. Aegislash might not be broken without king's shield, but king's shield is also not broken without aegislash (literally just read the post above yours), and so aegislash is banned. How we define what makes a move broken is harder, and is probably interesting to discuss, as well as whether z-conversion fits those criteria, but at least the second half of that should be happening in lc with people who actually play lc, not in pr. The reason I made this thread was to discuss A) what makes a z-move (or regular move) "broken" and thus banworthy in a general sense (so, does it have to be broken on everything that gets it, does it have to be hypothetically broken on mons that don't get it, etc), and b) if a z-move is deemed broken, how should we ban it? Because in the case of z-conversion at least, if it were to be deemed broken there is not one aspect of the move that can be banned without some sort of collateral damage in teambuilding. The proposal I would lean towards as being best is Magnemite's suggestion, as it has no collateral damage in any case, regardless of distribution of the move in question, and is not complex, but I can see objections to this style of ban as well. Please stay on the topics I addressed in the OP and discuss one of these two questions, thanks!
 

Bughouse

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Is there a particularly good (policy) reason to ban Eevee's move, not Eevee?

Even if it's signature to Eevee, it's not a forme change - it's a stat boost. It feels like (hypothetically) banning Geomancy rather than Xerneas. It's still Eevee, just using Eevee's new best set.

And I don't think any distinction should be drawn between Eevee and Porygon either.

We've never banned a move that was broken on all users, only ones that were (also) uncompetitive. These two Z moves however are broken, not about confusion or evasion, etc. The only possible exceptions to this statement that we've never banned broken moves are OHKO moves, the pseudo ohko moves Dragon Rage and Sonicboom in LC (which are both broken and uncompetitive) and UU's recent blanket ban of baton pass, which I'm sure plenty of people disagree with from a policy perspective (i.e. Baton pass is most definitely not broken on many users yet was banned)
 

Oglemi

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I'm going to use Z-Belly Drum as an example here since like Conversion we know that regular Belly Drum isn't broken (which makes banning Belly Drum unideal).

If Z-Belly Drum makes Azumarill too good for the metagame, ban Azumarill.

If Z-Belly Drum makes every ("every") Pokemon that learns it too good for the metagame, ban Z-Belly Drum.

How we go about banning Z-Belly Drum is tricky, since to ban it at the teambuilder phase creates an issue in which a Pokemon is able to use Normalium with more than just one move while holding it, meaning they could have Normalium and Belly Drum, but instead use the Z move for Double-Edge rather than Belly Drum.

I think Magnemite's proposal is the best course of action in situations in which the Z move itself is broken due to the issues banning at the teambuilder presents, as well as the fact that banning the Z move is a simpler ban than a complex teambuilder ban. However, if this is determined to be too much work for the coders, simply teambuilder ban Normalium + Belly Drum.

For Porygon, I'd lean toward banning it. However, considering how good Z-Conversion seems, I think they could justify banning it rather than Porygon based on brokeness of the move itself. I would refrain from arguments about "saving" Porygon to keep it in LC tho, since that really defeats the purpose of our tiering philosophy all around.
 

Imanalt

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I'm going to use Z-Belly Drum as an example here since like Conversion we know that regular Belly Drum isn't broken (which makes banning Belly Drum unideal).

If Z-Belly Drum makes Azumarill too good for the metagame, ban Azumarill.

If Z-Belly Drum makes every ("every") Pokemon that learns it too good for the metagame, ban Z-Belly Drum.

How we go about banning Z-Belly Drum is tricky, since to ban it at the teambuilder phase creates an issue in which a Pokemon is able to use Normalium with more than just one move while holding it, meaning they could have Normalium and Belly Drum, but instead use the Z move for Double-Edge rather than Belly Drum.

I think Magnemite's proposal is the best course of action in situations in which the Z move itself is broken due to the issues banning at the teambuilder presents, as well as the fact that banning the Z move is a simpler ban than a complex teambuilder ban. However, if this is determined to be too much work for the coders, simply teambuilder ban Normalium + Belly Drum.

For Porygon, I'd lean toward banning it. However, considering how good Z-Conversion seems, I think they could justify banning it rather than Porygon based on brokeness of the move itself. I would refrain from arguments about "saving" Porygon to keep it in LC tho, since that really defeats the purpose of our tiering philosophy all around.
I think this is really good, but the one case where this is unclear is in cases where moves have very limited distribution. Do you have an opinion on how we decide whether to ban move or pokemon when only 1-2 pokemon get the move? Also how does smeargle fit on here. Does a move have to be broken on smeargle in tiers where smeargle exists?
 

Oglemi

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I think this is really good, but the one case where this is unclear is in cases where moves have very limited distribution. Do you have an opinion on how we decide whether to ban move or pokemon when only 1-2 pokemon get the move? Also how does smeargle fit on here. Does a move have to be broken on smeargle in tiers where smeargle exists?
I think it's going to have to come down to council interpretation of the Z-move. I would think we should keep to our history of doing the simpler ban and banning the Pokemon, which also makes the lives of our coders much easier, but if the Z move is determined to be broken I think there's enough justification to ban it rather than the Pokemon. I don't think it needs to be broken on Smeargle to justify banning the Zmove, but if it /is/ broken on Smeargle, that's probably a very clear indication of its brokeness rather than the unique Pokemon's, considering how objectively shit Smeargle is (insert Moody discussions here).
 

Josh

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For what it's worth, regardless of Eevee being the only one who gets it, Eevium-Z is broken and should be banned anyways imo. A single turn +2 in every stat eclipses just about every setup move, and is ridiculously strong. In this case it doesn't matter that only Eevee gets it because Evoboost is broken and should be banned. Even if it is agreed Porygon should be the ban and not Z-Conversion, Eevium-Z should absolutely remain banned.
 

Zarel

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I think Magnemite's proposal is the best course of action in situations in which the Z move itself is broken due to the issues banning at the teambuilder presents, as well as the fact that banning the Z move is a simpler ban than a complex teambuilder ban. However, if this is determined to be too much work for the coders, simply teambuilder ban Normalium + Belly Drum.
I think I mostly agree completely with the rest of your post, but I disagree with this part.

The Mega Rayquaza ban was widely publicized (leading to the creation of AG) but in general I am strongly opposed to in-battle bans.

The main reason is that I don't want users to get an unpleasant surprise in-battle that they can't do what their strategy was going to be to do. Banning at the teambuilder level has always been better mostly for that reason: you find out ahead of time, rather than during the battle which you're now going to lose because it turns out your strategy is banned.

For that reason, I'd strongly prefer banning the Pokémon (or Normalium + Belly Drum if it's really broken on that many users).
 
I think I mostly agree completely with the rest of your post, but I disagree with this part.

The Mega Rayquaza ban was widely publicized (leading to the creation of AG) but in general I am strongly opposed to in-battle bans.

The main reason is that I don't want users to get an unpleasant surprise in-battle that they can't do what their strategy was going to be to do. Banning at the teambuilder level has always been better mostly for that reason: you find out ahead of time, rather than during the battle which you're now going to lose because it turns out your strategy is banned.

For that reason, I'd strongly prefer banning the Pokémon (or Normalium + Belly Drum if it's really broken on that many users).
What about some way to alert people that their set contains a Z-move that isn't allowed to be used before they try to get a game with their team?
 

Zarel

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What about some way to alert people that their set contains a Z-move that isn't allowed to be used before they try to get a game with their team?
There is not currently a way to alert people about legal team flaws, or else we would already be doing it for things such as EV totals below 508.
 
Regardless, I don't think it should be a complete deal-breaker because it should ultimately be the responsibility of the player to know what the banlist of the tier they're going to play is. (Sleep Clause is basically the same thing and I don't think it ever gets complained about by new players too frequently) What about the possibility of listing Z-move bans when a tier is selected in the teambuilder? Even if that doesn't work, the ban would still be formatted as a clause, so it would show up at the top of the battle log like Sleep Clause currently does.
 

Eo Ut Mortus

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I am opposed to a battle-level ban.

I don't understand what type of collateral damage people seek to avoid by one. How many viable sets are going to involve all three of a Z-crystal, a broken Z-move, and another move of the same type? It's already a stretch to assume we'll be operating the far-flung universe where a Z-move is so broken that it necessitates a ban of the move over the Pokemon abusing it. If a complex ban is the solution, it should be implemented at the teambuilder level.

But I don't think a complex ban is the solution. I highly doubt a case will arise where banning the offending Pokemon won't solve the problem. In the event that one does, a simple ban of the offending move makes the most sense to me given tiering-established precedent. When considering move bans, rarely, if ever, have we attempted to preserve use of the move through complex bans--the notable exception being Baton Pass, whose current implementation few are very happy about. The only reason we are considering the combination of move and item as a single entity is because Gamefreak assigned it a name, but in the context of bans, this distinction is purely cosmetic. "Z-moves" are a move and an item whose ban should be evaluated like any other complex ban.
 

Lord Death Man

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As mentioned earlier, Evasion Clause is about uncompetitive luck factor, not power level. Which is why it's done with complex surgical strikes instead of banning Pokémon (that, and, nearly all Pokémon get access to Double Team).
the current implementation is not a "complex surgical strike", which is why i cited it. it stops you from using sets that aren't necessarily unviable because of the relation to evasion, an uncompetitive aspect. this is a teambuilder-level ban as well.

are bans of this nature only acceptable when dealing with evasion (and gravity + sleep in doubles, and baton pass)? if so, why?
 

M Dragon

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I posted this in another place:

The policy with bans is someting like this:
1) If possible we try to keep bans as simple as possible (aka ban a Pokemon, or an item, or an attack, or an ability, not a combination)
2) We try to minimize collateral damage.
2a) Banning a Pokemon will always have a greater collateral damage than banning an item or an attack or an ability, because if you for example remove an Attack that makes it broken, you only remove the part of that pokemon that makes it broken, while allowing all the other sets that are not broken. Many examples: Banning Lucarionite > banning Lucario, banning Soul Dew > banning Lati@s, banning SmashPass (bw) > banning mons that can Smashpass, banning Moody > banning Moody abusers, banning Swagger > banning Swagger abusers, etc
2b) The ban should not affect things that are not broken (collateral damage that affect other mons). For example: A protean ban would also affect Kecleon, a mon that is not broken, so the ability Protean is not broken. Greninja should be banned in this case.

Some examples:
Hypothetical case where the combination of PZ + Conversion combination is broken in OU. We have 3 options: banning Conversion, banning PZ, banning ZConversion, and banning the combination of mon + item + move
1) The ban should be as simple as possible, so we discard banning the combination of mon + item + move, and probs ZConversion (item + move), although a ban of a Zmove could also be considered as a simple ban.
2a) Banning Conversion would still allow PZ in OU, so it has slightly less collateral damage than banning PZ.
2b) However a Conversion ban would also affect Smeargle, a mon that is not broken with it. Therefore ZConversion is not broken, so PZ should be banned instead of Conversion.
In this case the best option is banning PZ.

In LC case, where Porygon + Conversion is broken. We have the same options.
1) Again, we discard complex bans.
2a) Same logic here. Banning Conversion would have slightly less collateral damage than banning Porygon.
2b) No other mon can learn Conversion, so no collateral damage here.
In my opinion, banning Conversion is the best option here.

The same logic was used with Greninja: Protean + Greninja was broken in Gen 6.
1) Either ban Protean or ban Greninja (simple bans)
2a) A protean ban would allow Torrent Greninja in OU (not broken)
2b) However Protean Kecleon is not broken. Therefore Protean is not broken, so we ban Greninja.

Another example: Moody
1) Either ban the abusers or ban the ability.
2a) There are 4 fully evolved Moody abusers. Banning 4 mons has a greater collateral damage than banning an ability.
2b) The ability is uncompetitive in any mon that has it. Therefore the broken thing is the ability, not the abuser. So we banned Moody.

In the case of Z-Celebrate a similar analysis could be done:
1) No complex bans, so either ban the move or the abuser(s)
2a) Banning a mon will always have a greater collateral damage than banning an ability
2b) Are all the abusers broken in the tier? If yes, ban the move. If not, ban the abuser or abusers that are broken.

The only exception is BP
 

Rowan

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Can I just take a moment to say that I've literally never understood why people get hung up on King's Shield being a potentially broken aspect of Aegislash. Sure, it could cause some random 50/50's, but King's Shield was never an inherently broken move. If anything, Aegislash as an individual Pokémon and King's Shield's interactions with Stance Change granting it an effective 720 BST seemed like a bigger deal than its individual merits as a slightly-different Protect reskin. Throwing King's Shield under the bus as the broken element of Aegislash seems about as arbitrary as saying that we should ban Flare Blitz and High Jump Kick on Blaziken in order to make it balanced for OU. The fact that King's Shield is a signature move and would result in no collateral damage is completely irrelevant, because nothing about that changes the fact that it isn't broken.

If the council wants to say that a move that grants +5 stat boosts in a single turn is overpowered even though only one Pokémon has access to it, I don't really feel inclined to argue with that, it'd be pretty insane on just about anything else in the metagame. If it's an inherently overpowering move then there's no reason to ban Porygon just because it's the only thing that has access to it.

I'm not really interested in addressing the nuances of Z-Moves as a mechanic and the fact that they'd likely require unique complex bans (which are already precedented by extremely justified Mega Rayquaza ban), but I just wanted to express my thoughts on broken moves vs. broken Pokémon and get that out of the way.
I apologise for my limited understanding of Aegislash in OU, but I feel you're strengthening my point; I'm saying we don't isolate aspects of a Pokemon in order to save other sets of the Pokemon, even if they are unique to the Pokemon. I don't feel that Z-Conversion is an inherently broken move, but Porygon has incredible bulk, above-average Special Attack, just enough Speed, an extroardinary movepool (which allows it to take advantage of base Conversion's effects extremely well), and a great ability in Download, which means it can actually get to +2 SpA easily.

Something to consider btw, is that both Pumpkaboo and Phantump get a Z-move which grants +1 to all stats in Forest's Curse and Trick-or-Treat. Neither are broken. You could argue that Z-conversion's effect is different though as it grants Porygon any typing it chooses which changes counters, so if LC went down the route of banning Z-Conversion, they'd have to be admitting that its conversions base-effect that pushes it over the edge. I don't think this is the case personally because even z-conversion Porygons which don't change type are broken
 

atomicllamas

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If z mirror move honchkrow is broken in RU, I'm banning honchkrow not z-mirror move. Obviously this is slightly different because only one mon in the tier gets conversion (like PU banning chatter)(side note I think the move there was to ban chatot, as I'll get to by the end of my post). We shouldn't ban the z move unless it's a signature z move (banning the z stone for eevee is fine for example) because you cant implement it at the team builder level.

The reality is in a parallel situation with a move learned by more than 1 mon, you'd ban the mon. As such my preference would be to ban porygon. That being said I don't necessarily think there is a flaw with banning conversion, as it also addresses the problem at a team builder level. There isn't a great way to ban z-conversion at the team builder so I don't think that's really an option.

If I were IRVing this I would vote:

1) ban porygon
2) ban conversion
3) do nothing
4) ban z-conversion
 
This just came to mind: how much of an option would banning Z-Status as a whole be? Imo its pretty inarguable that Z-Attacks are usually little more than lure sets, so the broken aspects of Z moves all come down to when they are applied to status moves. Its still a simple, blanket ban, but it would allow mon banning to be avoided as a direct result of Z moves. I still think my original post reflects the best option, but I was just wondering if that was a possibility.
 
I posted this in another place:

The policy with bans is someting like this:
1) If possible we try to keep bans as simple as possible (aka ban a Pokemon, or an item, or an attack, or an ability, not a combination)
2) We try to minimize collateral damage.
2a) Banning a Pokemon will always have a greater collateral damage than banning an item or an attack or an ability, because if you for example remove an Attack that makes it broken, you only remove the part of that pokemon that makes it broken, while allowing all the other sets that are not broken. Many examples: Banning Lucarionite > banning Lucario, banning Soul Dew > banning Lati@s, banning SmashPass (bw) > banning mons that can Smashpass, banning Moody > banning Moody abusers, banning Swagger > banning Swagger abusers, etc
2b) The ban should not affect things that are not broken (collateral damage that affect other mons). For example: A protean ban would also affect Kecleon, a mon that is not broken, so the ability Protean is not broken. Greninja should be banned in this case.

In LC case, where Porygon + Conversion is broken. We have the same options.
1) Again, we discard complex bans.
2a) Same logic here. Banning Conversion would have slightly less collateral damage than banning Porygon.
2b) No other mon can learn Conversion, so no collateral damage here.
In my opinion, banning Conversion is the best option here.

The only exception is BP
This mostly my opinion and rather confirms my logic towards banning Z-moves based on OU's mega stone policy (which I see now is a more general policy). I would note that your options always favour banning a unique move on a broken Pokemon if that move is one of the primary reasons. Is that the case?

As a followup, do you equate banning moves on the same level as banning Z-moves?

I ask because we are currently coming to another discussion involving Cutiefly which has a unique move in LC that isn't a Z-move (Quiver Dance). Lets say for the sake of argument, is the reason that the Pokemon is broken is Quiver Dance.

If we ban conversion (ie. due to Z-conversion), do you believe that sets the precedent for us banning Quiver Dance instead of Cutiefly?

(note: the pro-BP ban squad, just let this one slide for now, this is only hypothetical)

In my opinion, Z-moves share obvious similarities with megastones. They are still moves, obviously, but their effects almost mimic megastones in that they both require an item, you can only use one of them per battle, they happen before the attack on a turn, and seem to upgrade an already implemented thing (there are more, but that should suffice for now).

But because of how muddled things are becoming and the frequency of this Pokemon-unique moves, maybe the simpler route is better if it's generally thought that banning Z-moves binds us to ban regular moves.

For reference, here's my original post on the matter in which I'm trying to justify keeping Z-moves but not regular moves (based on my reasoning above) and give a procedure at the bottom:
Conditionally, ban Conversion. I would place this solution with the condition that we follow a certain procedure for Z-moves.

tl;dr, read from the bolded and on.

We do not want to use this as a precedent for banning specific moves or abilities just to "customize" Pokemon to fit the generally accepted constraints of the metagame.

This is why we hate complex bans and why we would need to draw a line. For example, Pure Power Meditite, Unburden Swirlix, Nasty Plot Misdreavus, and to an extreme case, U-turn, Aerial Ace, Roost, Swords Dance, Quick Attack, Knock Off, X-Scissor, the use of EVs, the use of IVs, items in conjunction with Scyther to make Scyther balanced.

Smogon's policy for banning Mega-Pokemon and Soul Dew is consistent with the philosophy that you can ban items instead of the entire Pokemon for purposes of making them usable in the standard metagame if there is NO OTHER COLLATERAL IMPACT. This was only possible for Eevee because there was a specific stone. Though a rather subjective observation, it seems as if the mechanics of Z-moves are somewhere in between individual moves of Pokemon (ie. Nasty Plot Misdreavus) and mega stones.

I think, therefore, the argument can be made that with the proper test that we can apply the mega stone / Soul Dew logic to Z-moves. We cannot ban the items, but we can ban the move without making complex bans, setting a precedent of banning regular competitive moves, or having collateral impact on the metagame. My policy suggestion for banning Z-moves is as follows.

Procedure for banning "Z-" moves:

The council may ban a specific move if:

a) this move, with use of a type Z-item, creates a "Z-" move; and
b) the council is convinced that a Pokemon or a group of Pokemon that have already been deemed to be broken by the council are only broken because of the added effect of the "Z-" move to the regular move; and
c) all Pokemon with access to the move are deemed broken.

With this in mind, I don't see any reason to not ban Conversion. If Porygon shows itself to be broken anyway (which I mean, was talked about last generation, albeit not seriously), we can still ban it.
 
Everyone saying the Pokemon should always just be banned is ignoring the situation where a Z-move is broken / uncompetitive on many different Pokemon because it's an inherently broken move. A theoretical example:

- Z Recover has a side effect where it gives +3 in every stat. Banning Recover is obviously very detrimental, and you can't exactly ban every single remotely usable Pokemon that gets Recover from OU because there are way too many.

This is obviously an extreme example that doesn't currently exist, but there are definitely other cases where a Z move could be broken on a wide variety of Pokemon to the point where banning the move or all of the Pokemon that get it isn't a valid option. In all cases where it's just a single Z-move breaking a single Pokemon, it's probably the correct procedure to just ban the Pokemon. However, we should have a set precedent for when this is not the case, and I believe my proposal is by far the best way to handle these rare situations, if they ever pop up.
 
I'm going to offer a rundown of all the options we have, and why only one of them can be done in this case, and also be the ideal in future cases.

1) Ban Z-Conversion in battle (in-battle ban)
- As stated in Zarel's post, this is a very last resort that we pretty obviously have not yet reached, as there are simpler options that work.

2) Ban Z-Conversion in teambuilder (complex teambuilder ban)
- This is a complex ban, as it requires the ban of "the combination of Conversion + Normalium Z." Again, complex bans are a last resort, and we have simpler options left.

3) Ban Conversion (move ban)
- This is a "simple" ban indeed, but it is still flawed. It is true that Porygon only became broken with Z-conversion, and it is also true that Porygon is the only pokemon that learns Conversion in LC. However, there is nothing inherently broken about Conversion. As a theoretical example, it's pretty obvious that Conversion would not be broken on Wurmple. Additionally, we do have precedent for banning a pokemon when it is only broken by a signature move: Aegislash. Aegislash is absolutely balanced if it lacks King's Shield (99% of OU players would agree with this). Now, this case is similar because we would have 0 collateral damage by banning King's Shield. We get to correct Aegislash and retain its healthy aspects, and we harm nothing else in the process. Even so, we still only Banned Aegislash. In the case of Baton Pass, or any other move like Swagger, we try to ban or limit moves when they break multiple pokemon. If we can hit 2 or 3 or 10 birds with one stone, why wouldn't we? Baton Pass was broken on like 10 different pokemon before our clause, so it clearly made sense to tackle BP and not the pokemon. You see, this is a SECONDARY OPTION to banning pokemon. If a certain move is just broken on one pokemon, and not inherently broken in its own right, then we should definitely just ban the pokemon. No one is going to argue that Porygon's ability to change types is what makes it broken (regular conversion). Like, good ol' type-changing ORAS Porygon that wastes a moveslot isn't broken, you feel me?

4) Ban Porygon (pokemon ban)
- This is the option we do when we can. And yes, we definitely can here.

The general precedence to be set is clear. We go in order of options 4-1 here; as our primary choice (4: banning the pokemon) is unable to be met, then we go to 3, and so on. So, yea, let's do 4 when we can.
 
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3) Ban Conversion
- This is a "simple" ban indeed, but it is still flawed. It is true that Porygon only became broken with Z-conversion, and it is also true that Porygon is the only pokemon that learns Conversion in LC. However, there is nothing inherently broken about Conversion. As a theoretical example, it's pretty obvious that Conversion would not be broken on Wurmple. Additionally, we do have precedent for banning a pokemon when it is only broken by a signature move: Aegislash. Aegislash is absolutely balanced if it lacks King's Shield (99% of OU players would agree with this). Now, this case is similar because we would have 0 collateral damage by banning King's Shield. We get to correct Aegislash and retain its healthy aspects, and we harm nothing else in the process. Even so, we still only Banned Aegislash. In the case of Baton Pass, or any other move like Swagger, we try to ban or limit moves when they break multiple pokemon. If we can hit 2 or 3 or 10 birds with one stone, why wouldn't we? Baton Pass was broken on like 10 different pokemon before our clause, so it clearly made sense to tackle BP and not the pokemon. You see, this is a SECONDARY OPTION to banning pokemon. If a certain move is just broken on one pokemon, and not inherently broken in its own right, then we should definitely just ban the pokemon. No one is going to argue that Porygon's ability to change types is what makes it broken (regular conversion). Like, good ol' type-changing ORAS Porygon that wastes a moveslot isn't broken, you feel me?

4) Ban Porygon
- This is the option we do when we can. And yes, we definitely can here.

The general precedence to be set is clear. We go in order of options 4-1 here; as our primary choice (4) is unable to be met, then we go to 3, and so on. So, yea, let's do 4 when we can.
This somewhat confuses me.

1) When is the primary choice (4) in your example unable to be met? I genuinely cannot think of a situation where that threshold would be "unable" to be met. Yet, OU did that many times. I see exceptions in Baton Pass (because it's broken on a bunch of things) but technically that wasn't unable to be met at all (you could actually ban those Pokemon that broke it) and megastones (in which you could ban the Pokemon instead of the item) for example. It seems that (4) can be set aside if there's just a more preferred option that saves the use of a Pokemon.

2) In regards to the bolded, not to be a nitpicker, but M Dragon said King's Shield was not banned because there actually was collateral in Smeargle. LC doesn't have a Smeargle, so unique moves could always be banned in that case according to his method. Just looking for clarification.
 
This somewhat confuses me.

1) When is the primary choice (4) in your example unable to be met? I genuinely cannot think of a situation where that threshold would be "unable" to be met. Yet, OU did that many times. I see exceptions in Baton Pass (because it's broken on a bunch of things) but technically that wasn't unable to be met at all (you could actually ban those Pokemon that broke it) and megastones (in which you could ban the Pokemon instead of the item) for example. It seems that (4) can be set aside if there's just a more preferred option that saves the use of a Pokemon.

2) In regards to the bolded, not to be a nitpicker, but M Dragon said King's Shield was not banned because there actually was collateral in Smeargle. LC doesn't have a Smeargle, so unique moves could always be banned in that case according to his method. Just looking for clarification.
The exception to banning pokemon is ideally when a few things occur.

1: When it would require way too many bans - I don't think anyone wanted to test Smeargle + Vaporeon + Zapdos + Scoli + Espeon etc. at once. In the same vein, no one was trying to ban Klefki + Liepard + whatever else could use Swagger (prankster too?). Another example of this is our adaptation of sleep clause, as banning every single pokemon that uses sleep is quite unreasonable (again, applies to many pokemon).

2: When it's clear that there is an inherently broken move - Baton Pass, Swagger, OHKO moves, Double Team (this was turned into a clause because of various moves like it, but if there was just one evasion boosting move in the game we would ban the move and not make a clause). In the case of Conversion, there is nothing "inherently" broken about Porygon changing its type. It is just intellectually dishonest to ban Conversion when it's not theoretically broken on every pokemon that could learn it, and we also might have new pokemon learn it in the future.

Also, in regards to the topic of mega stones, I think it was simply too widespread of an issue to just ban the original forms, and form changes are also more drastic than a mere move. Like, we had so many potential broken megas down the line that we'd lose a ton of pokemon from banning the base forms too. But yea, I mostly think it's that form changes are considered more drastic, and thus could reasonably be separated. A similar case of this is OU's recent Power Construct ban, which was only found on Zygarde but was deemed inherently broken and also was a form change, not just an ability.
 
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M Dragon

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I'm going to offer a rundown of all the options we have, and why only one of them can be done in this case.
3) Ban Conversion (move ban)
- Additionally, we do have precedent for banning a pokemon when it is only broken by a signature move: Aegislash. Aegislash is absolutely balanced if it lacks King's Shield (99% of OU players would agree with this). Now, this case is similar because we would have 0 collateral damage by banning King's Shield. We get to correct Aegislash and retain its healthy aspects, and we harm nothing else in the process. Even so, we still only Banned Aegislash.
This is wrong. KS Smeargle is not broken. Therefore KS is not broken. That is why Aegi ban > KS ban.

This mostly my opinion and rather confirms my logic towards banning Z-moves based on OU's mega stone policy (which I see now is a more general policy). I would note that your options always favour banning a unique move on a broken Pokemon if that move is one of the primary reasons. Is that the case?

As a followup, do you equate banning moves on the same level as banning Z-moves?

I ask because we are currently coming to another discussion involving Cutiefly which has a unique move in LC that isn't a Z-move (Quiver Dance). Lets say for the sake of argument, is the reason that the Pokemon is broken is Quiver Dance.

If we ban conversion (ie. due to Z-conversion), do you believe that sets the precedent for us banning Quiver Dance instead of Cutiefly?

(note: the pro-BP ban squad, just let this one slide for now, this is only hypothetical)

In my opinion, Z-moves share obvious similarities with megastones. They are still moves, obviously, but their effects almost mimic megastones in that they both require an item, you can only use one of them per battle, they happen before the attack on a turn, and seem to upgrade an already implemented thing (there are more, but that should suffice for now).

But because of how muddled things are becoming and the frequency of this Pokemon-unique moves, maybe the simpler route is better if it's generally thought that banning Z-moves binds us to ban regular moves.

For reference, here's my original post on the matter in which I'm trying to justify keeping Z-moves but not regular moves (based on my reasoning above) and give a procedure at the bottom:
The goal is minimizing the collateral damage as much as possible with simple bans. If you can fix something by simply banning a move with absolutely no collateral damage, why not?
In the QD Cutiefly example, if a QD ban fixes the issue AND no other mon is affected by that, that looks better than banning a pokemon.

ZConversion Porygon is a combination of Pokemon + Move + Item, and QD Cutiefly is a combination of Pokemon + Move.
In the first case we have 3 options: ban the item, ban the move or ban the mon. The item is not broken because there are a lot of mons that can use that item that are not broken. So that leaves 2 options: ban the mon or ban the move.
In the second case we have 2 options: ban the mon or ban the move.
We can use the same logic.
Can we fix the issue if we ban the move (Conversion and QD in these cases) without affecting other pokemons? If the answer is yes, we have fixed the issue with a simple ban with the minimal possible collateral damage (in those cases no collateral damage at all)

The exception to banning pokemon is when a few things occur.

1: When it would require way too many bans - I don't think anyone wanted to test Smeargle + Vaporeon + Zapdos + Scoli + Espeon etc. at once. In the same vein, no one was trying to ban Klefki + Liepard + whatever else could use Swagger (prankster too?). Another example of this is our adaptation of sleep clause, as banning every single pokemon that uses sleep is quite unreasonable (again, applies to many pokemon).

2: When it's clear that there is an inherently broken move - Baton Pass, Swagger, OHKO moves, Double Team (this was turned into a clause because of various moves like it, but if there was just one evasion boosting move in the game we would ban the move and not make a clause). In the case of Conversion, there is nothing "inherently" broken about Porygon changing its type. It is just intellectually dishonest to ban Conversion when it's not theoretically broken on every pokemon that could learn it, and we also might have new pokemon learn it in the future.
Not really. Following that logic Lati@s would have been Uber because Soul Dew, for example. We banned Soul Dew because its a ban with no collateral damage that fixes the issue. The same logic can be used here, with Conversion Porygon. Also your Wurmple logic is flawed. If Soul Dew raised Wurmple stats +1, would it be broken? Do we ban Lati@s instead of Soul Dew because in that case Wurmple would not be broken with it?
 
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Bughouse

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Can we please not use XYZ isn't broken on Smeargle as an argument? Nothing is broken on it in a singles format except boosting and passing or hazard stacking.

Even BD Espeed Smeargle would be shit even in PU.


And a Quiver Dance ban is just asking for trouble when something else gets Quiver Dance as a move mid-gen. Maybe something shit like Wurmple. Now you've banned the wrong thing.

This is even more true in the standard usage tiers.

Let's say PU bans Storm Throw because it's breaking Throh somehow. Then Pinsir drops into PU and can't use Storm Throw even though it's not broken on Pinsir since it has no STAB or whatever.

It's just not a robust ban list policy.
 
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Eo Ut Mortus

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Everyone saying the Pokemon should always just be banned is ignoring the situation where a Z-move is broken / uncompetitive on many different Pokemon because it's an inherently broken move. A theoretical example:

- Z Recover has a side effect where it gives +3 in every stat. Banning Recover is obviously very detrimental, and you can't exactly ban every single remotely usable Pokemon that gets Recover from OU because there are way too many.

This is obviously an extreme example that doesn't currently exist, but there are definitely other cases where a Z move could be broken on a wide variety of Pokemon to the point where banning the move or all of the Pokemon that get it isn't a valid option. In all cases where it's just a single Z-move breaking a single Pokemon, it's probably the correct procedure to just ban the Pokemon. However, we should have a set precedent for when this is not the case, and I believe my proposal is by far the best way to handle these rare situations, if they ever pop up.
As per my post, ban Recover. There is no basis to call this action "obviously very detrimental" outside of the fact it's the shift of a longstanding metagame paradigm. This is not adequate justification for implementing a complex in-battle ban. If Z-Recover is broken, then ban Recover, and let the metagame adapt. In the just-as-likely hypothetical scenario where Recover became broken on its own, would we not would also insist on banning Recover, rather than try and come up with complex bans that would nerf its power to acceptable levels?

I object to this example, by the way. It's being cherry-picked to make a point: Banning Recover is ridiculous, so this alternative must be considered. Well, breaking Recover is ridiculous to begin with. Such an extreme solution is only being considered because the situation given is so extreme; given the context, such a ban is perfectly sensible.
 
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M Dragon

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Can we please not use XYZ isn't broken on Smeargle as an argument? Nothing is broken on it in a singles format except boosting and passing or hazard stacking.

Even BD Espeed Smeargle would be shit even in PU.
You missed my point.
My point is that KS is only broken in Aegislash. Therefore the problem is NOT KS, but Aegislash.
Another example: Minimize is broken in every abuser, including Smeargle, therefore Minimize is banned (Evasion Clause)

And a Quiver Dance ban is just asking for trouble when something else gets Quiver Dance as a move mid-gen. Maybe something shit like Wurmple. Now you've banned the wrong thing.

This is even more true in the standard usage tiers.

Let's say PU bans Storm Throw because it's breaking Throh somehow. Then Pinsir drops into PU and can't use Storm Throw even though it's not broken on Pinsir since it has no STAB or whatever.

It's just not a robust ban list policy.
LC is different than the rest of the tiers. In LC you know that there will be no new mons introduced by tier shifts.
In that PU example, if PU council considers that a move is broken in any mon that is in the tier or could drop, then they could just ban the move. Otherwise ban the mon (which is what will happen 95% of the times).
 

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