My tiering philosophy is "Ban Pokémon, leave banning moves/items/abilities as a last resort".
I posted a thread about this 2.5 years ago, but it was kind of muddled and people were confused about what I was arguing about (I was mainly complaining about UU banning Drought instead of Ninetales), but I'm going to edit and repost it now that it matters:
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Hello, PR!
Smogon has a tier system. The tier system is supposed to be, approximately, a list of Pokémon sorted from strongest to weakest:
OU, UU, RU, NU (I originally wrote this in gen 5; sorry PU)
Specifically, this roughly approximates a list of Pokémon ordered by how powerful their best set is. Note that we clarify "best set", because a Garchomp with nothing but Confide is clearly not at an OU level of power. Also note that by "powerful", we don't just mean "good at 1v1" but also "good at supporting a team" or "good at sweeping when given the right support".
And then we have banlists, which are Pokémon so powerful they make a tier unfun, but not powerful enough to get >1/60 usage in the next tier up.
Ubers, OU, BL, UU, BL2, RU, BL3, NU
This is still approximately a list of Pokémon from strongest to weakest (ignore NFE/LC for now).
We also have four metagames based on these tiers: OU, UU, RU, NU. Because of the tier system, it's very straightforward to describe the rules of these metagames:
- In all four metagames, we have Species Clause, Sleep Clause, OHKO Clause, Evasion Clause, and Moody Clause. These make up the Standard ruleset.
- In every metagame, any Pokémon in a higher tier than the metagame's name is banned.
- Oh, and every tier has a few other miscellaneous bans.
It's that third part: "Oh, and every tier has a few other miscellaneous bans" that should be a last resort, which brings us to the main point of the day:
Banning items/abilities/moves instead of Pokémon undermines the tier system, especially if you do it in only one tier.
Take Skill Link. Hypothetically, if UU decided Skill Link Cloyster was overpowered and banned Skill Link, Cloyster would fall out of UU and into let's say RU. Isn't that kind of ridiculous? A Pokémon at a BL power level, that falls to RU instead of rising to BL? Especially now that tiers don't inherit bans anymore, then you'd actually be able to use Skill Link, the exact set that made it BL, in RU!
The solution is rather simple: If a move/ability/item isn't broken enough to be globally banned in every tier (except Ubers, they can do their own thing), then it probably shouldn't be banned at all and you should just ban the Pokémon.
There are other advantages to this approach, too: You keep the rules list of every tier shorter, and make it easier for people to learn new tiers. New bans show up in the tier list which you look at at the start of teambuilding, instead of being an unpleasant surprise after teambuilding while trying to ladder. And you're not betraying the tier system (and me personally).
FAQ:
"But, Zarel, what if a move/item/ability is broken on two or three Pokémon?"
Well, then, ban two or three Pokémon.
"But, Zarel, what if a move/item/ability is broken on, like, ten Pokémon? What if it's broken on two or three Pokémon, but that's all Pokémon that get it, and we're pretty much sure all future Pokémon that get it will also be broken? What if it's broken on Smeargle?"
Well, then, ban the move/item/ability. In every tier. Since it's clearly broken as fuck.
"But, Zarel, what if a move/item/ability is broken on like five Pokémon but only in one or two tiers? And the other tiers don't want to ban them?"
Look, if it's broken on that many Pokémon, those Pokémon are bound to move up or down tiers at some point. Just ban the move/item/ability globally. At least ban it in a tier and every tier below it.
"But OU banned Soul Dew!"
Okay, that was an exception, and based on official historical precedent (Soul Dew has been banned in past VGCs). It's not what we usually do.
"But mega stones"
Mega stones are also an exception which we've already spent ages arguing about. We eventually decided the solution would be to pretend they're Pokémon, which allows us to ban them without spitting on the face of the tier system.
In conclusion, this is why there should be one Baton Pass clause and UU can ban Celebi if it's such a problem we should ban Porygon.