np: Doubles OU Stage 4 - Infamous | Jirachi (Stays in DOU) | Swagger is Banned

[Bughouse]

Kami lost that game because he had zero pokemon that could switch in on Volcanion AND threaten it back (your own Volcanion does not count bro lol) and he faced a Sub Volcanion + Redirection.

I don't think he lost it because of terrible plays or because of minor bad luck on the flinches. He lost it in the teambuilder.

 

[kamikaze]

Kami lost that game because he had zero pokemon that could switch in on Volcanion AND threaten it back (your own Volcanion does not count bro lol) and he faced a Sub Volcanion + Redirection.

I don't think he lost it because of terrible plays or because of minor bad luck on the flinches. He lost it in the teambuilder.

I am generally not one to complain or stress about bad luck during my own games other than jokingly since shit happens all the time, but if you are gonna blatantly ignore how it affected the progression of the game I am not gonna stay quiet about it.

Even though I didnt personally build that team, I will still defend it since I dont think it simply lost in the teambuilder. I dont know why you are stressing over the fact that I didnt have a full on Volcanion counter. You dont need dedicated counters in Doubles to have a team function. Otherwise I would be running a Dragon or Rotom-W on almost every team just for Volcanion.

All the members of my team barring Amoonguss have the ability to break Volcanion's sub and half(Gardevoir, Thund, Lando-T) are able to deal heavy damage. Thundurus was offensive to pick up the OHKO. I think its not always easy to judge offensive teams on paper as their functionality is more driven by the player who uses the tools given to them and managing how important certain pokemon are at certain times.

My goal was simple: get rid of the sub if he ever gets it up and have one of my other mons finish the job. While doing this I will be foddering off anything I felt wasnt necessary anymore to win the rest of the game (Offense 101)

I will admit though that Sub Volcanion + Redirection is a slight pain, but it definitely was not something he could do safely. His Earth-Power less Volcanion and Jirachi could do very little back to stop my own Volcanion from threatening him, so he resorted to Flinches not redirection. He eventually did redirect on a good read to get up a Sub that would have been punished with a fainted Volcanion if I clicked Hyper Voice. That was good on him.

All in all though, his Volcanion was able to get away with way more than it should have because of the flinches Jirachi provided. It was able to safely fish for a burn as well as get a substitute up. It also was able to properly stall out my Gardevoir until it burned to death since Jirachi prolonged the stalemate situation with its flinches. I feel confident I could have prevented the game from turning out the same way if at least one thing did not happen, which would have helped by either getting rid of Jirachi earlier or preventing the Sub from going up freely, but shit happens.


Summary of Last two posts: Be careful with commenting on how poorly someone played in a replay especially if you dont stop to think about the game state on each individual turn and potential thought processes going on from each side (Even I sometimes have issues with this, as its generally much easier to see things by being in the player seat or by watching it live rather than through a replay). Dont be so quick to judge offensive teams just because it lacks a counter to a certain threat since they are more player driven. Anyone else want to call out kamikaze for a game he didnt actually play too poorly in?

 

[Pocket]

Regardless of its heavy-offensive nature, the lack of Heat Wave resist on that team is rather problematic imo. You said in PS chat yourself that handful of recent teams are ill-equipped against Charizard Y teams, and this team is one of them, as evidenced by the struggle in disposing Volcanion. You were pretty much forced to keep Mega Gardevoir in the field b/c you had no good switch-ins and lost this win condition prematurely. Flinch-hax from Jirachi & Togekiss is "expected," and I don't know why we are suddenly ill-prepared against such a tactic. I watch that replay and I don't think, "damn, kamikaze got haxed out of a win," but rather, "damn, Miltankmilk has full control of the game."

My intention was not really meant to criticize your gameplay, but I apologize that it turned out that way. Don't take it personally, ily bro. My main point is that whatever support that Jirachi offered in that game could have been accomplished by Togekiss, and therefore it wasn't the best supporting evidence of Jirachi's "super-viability" in the metagame.

 

[kamikaze]

Make the Bisharp an Aegislash and give Volcanion EP imo

Aegislash over Bisharp is something I considered changing and is debatable. Wide Guard support is definitely quite good while still maintaining the ability to check Diancie, but I decided in favor of Bisharp in the end to both better check Hoopa as well as not adding another mon potentialy weak to dark types when Miltankmilk runs 1-2 Dark types on most teams. I had never seen someone with such a love for Dark types other than SPL 7 Memoric.

Volcanion using Earth Power over Sludge Bomb is also debatable. On the one hand Earth Power gives better coverage to dent opposing Volcanion. Meanwhile Sludge Bomb prevents threats like Azumarill or Gardevoir from running too wild. Sludge Bomb also notably will break opposing Volcanion substitute, so I decided to keep Sludge Bomb in favor of that since I didnt want to overly rely on Amoonguss for Azumarill. It can easily be flip flopped though if you dont feel comfortable with maintaining pressure in the Volcanion matchup.

Regardless of its heavy-offensive nature, the lack of Heat Wave resist on that team is rather problematic imo. You said in PS chat yourself that handful of recent teams are ill-equipped against Charizard Y teams, and this team is one of them, as evidenced by the struggle in disposing Volcanion.

Yes the lack of a heat wave resist other than my Volcanion is annoying, I do admit that. I am not gonna argue for how balanced that team was since it was a call to bring it specifically for MiltankMilk, and obviously it could use some global improvements for other matchups. There are multiple things that I myself dont like about the team, but for someone to make a snarky comment like "He lost it in the teambuilder.", I feel is unfair. I felt the team had all the tools to come out with a win in that specific matchup so it was not an issue in the teambuilding phase.

Flinch-hax from Jirachi & Togekiss is "expected," and I don't know why we are suddenly ill-prepared against such a tactic.

My volcanion had no reason not to keep attacking in its position because he could not properly threaten it with his Volcanion and Jirachi. I am well aware 60% is above half so we can say its "expected" for us to flinch. They key thing to note here is the situation present. In a stalemate situation the way for him to come out on top like he did was to get not one, but multiple flinches. If any less flinches happened I would have had much more leeway in that. 2 in a row is a 36% chance, so by the "expected" logic 64% chance of me not flinching at least once is to be expected. I played those odds since it was the only real option, but by the time he got those crucial 2 flinches that was enough of an impact on the boardstate, as he just sacked off Jirachi next turn to a follow me to get a substitute which allowed it to get even more value.

I watch that replay and I don't think, "damn, kamikaze got haxed out of a win," but rather, "damn, Miltankmilk has full control of the game."

This is correct in a manner of speaking you shouldnt be thinking that I got haxed out of a win. It is not like I had a winning position and had a win stolen from me because of it. That stalemate was a relatively neutral state to a degree with him having the ability to outspeed and Flinch as a slight advantage
- 2 Volcanions that couldnt do too much to each other
- each player had a slot threatened by the opposing Volcanion
- MiltankMilk's only thing that would have been willing to switch into Volcanion was his Hydreigon but that was threatened by my Gardevoir
- 60% chance to outspeed and flinch the Volcanion gives him the slight edge on each individual turn
Yes miltankmilk came out on top after each turn, but saying he has complete control is inaccurate as that would imply he basically had a best play every turn that I couldnt punish and that he had extremely high odds to come out on top (which I dont consider 60% to be). He definitely had that control after Volcanion got behind a sub and Gardevoir went down, but not prior

I am not gonna be immature and just guarantee that I would have straight up won the game if the events didnt happen, but I think its unreasonable to deny that it shifted the board state from relatively neutral to one highly negative for me to claw back from.

My main point is that whatever support that Jirachi offered in that game could have been accomplished by Togekiss, and therefore it wasn't the best supporting evidence of Jirachi's "super-viability" in the metagame.

I would have been extremely happy to see a Togekiss in front of me instead of Jirachi. I would have gladly just spammed Hyper Voice or Psychic. Togekiss and Jirachi both have redirection and ability to flinch but the important thing to note about it is Jirachi's Steel typing and outstanding bulk. That steel typing didnt allow me to use Psychic as freely out of risk of it being redirected for minimal damage, and it also allowed Jirachi to setup the stalemate situation that happened since it could sit in on Gardevoir. Even with the fire weakness Jirachi only takes 54-64% from heat wave due to its respectable bulk, which is why I fired off 2 Hyper Voices to get it in range. Its ability to soak in a super effective attack and 2 rounds of one of the strongest spread moves(though resisted) before fainting should be a testament to its strength.


Disclaimer: miltankmilk I am not mad at you for what you did so I hope none of this comes off that way. You are a good guy and even though you didnt bring them to that game, I did say this to my DPL team before I played you

 

[miltankmilk]

Yeah I'm not taking this personally and I agree with Pocket too that Togekiss would have been better suited for that particular matchup but I don't know for the team as a whole. And yeah I got pretty lucky at the beginning of the game with a few flinches, but what I was trying to do was get Volcanion behind a sub and sac Jirachi at a point when I could bring in Thundurus or Hydra to kill Volcanion. Also if the Gardevoir spread wasnt flames and like max speed Trick Room Volc would have put even more work because i had a pretty speedy Volcanion. But basically I got lucky to reach the stalemate, but I'll defend I played late game well and that's where I really won the game

 

[Stratos]

Make the Bisharp an Aegislash and give Volcanion EP imo

milk uses way too much hoopa for this to be an OK idea

ill comment more on the match later maybe. i dont think kami played perfectly but the things you guys are calling mistakes and the things which were mistakes are entirely different things. all of his mistakes came before the flinches.

 

[miltankmilk]

milk uses way too much hoopa for this to be an OK idea

ill comment more on the match later maybe. i dont think kami played perfectly but the things you guys are calling mistakes and the things which were mistakes are entirely different things. all of his mistakes came before the flinches.

I've used more Bisharp and Hydreigon than Hoopa as of late, but yeah for a specific match vs me Bisharp>Aegis was probably a good teambuilding decision

 

[sam-testings]

Ban Swagger

There is literally no reason to keep this around. It makes entire games 50/50s and is just extremely unfun to play against. It is incredibly easy to just click swagger and win off of a couple of confusions. Games literally become luck based. The sole reason its still around after I asked people was "safeguard side swag". This is a horrible reason to keep it around because you can also swagger the enemy and not only your teammate. In SamVGC's dpl game you can see swagger being used to beat checkmater with RNG alone. Theres not much else to say, just ban it.

 

[JoarAddamNessosin]

Ban Swagger

There is literally no reason to keep this around. It makes entire games 50/50s and is just extremely unfun to play against. It is incredibly easy to just click swagger and win off of a couple of confusions. Games literally become luck based. The sole reason its still around after I asked people was "safeguard side swag". This is a horrible reason to keep it around because you can also swagger the enemy and not only your teammate. In SamVGC's dpl game you can see swagger being used to beat checkmater with RNG alone. Theres not much else to say, just ban it.

Im gunna agree, there not a single legit use for swag amd its already banned in all smogon singles oras formats it should just be banned acrossed the board including here in doubles. 50/50 and inheritly uncompetitive and allow unskilled to win games they would normally lose. Swaggaurd is solely a gimmick and i see no legit reason to use it over a standard buffing SINGLE turn move such a sword dance as very few mons that youd even use swaggarud for dont have their own buffing move. Imo just get rid of confusion but that wont happen. Swagger however has happened in other teirs and there no reason to keep it here. It is broken on all mons that use it [yes even sunkern] and has no significant competive value, it relies heavily on rng and takes control out of players hands which last time i check is the exact opposite of what smogon teirs are about.

TL;DR ban swagger, its uncompetitive on every mon that learns it and has no significant competitive value outside of one gimmick that also has no significant competitive value.

 

[Tymano]

Im pretty sure the only reason we haven't banned swagger yet is because Arcticblast doesn't want to ban it.

Then again he thinks that Mega-Salad is a healthy and balanced part of the tier so can we really trust his judgment.

Either way, swagger is an uncompetitive part of the metagame due to how it forces 50/50s and can break favorable matchups.

 

[talkingtree]

If you look at the creative sets thread, you can see that Kyle and check have posted solid, non-RNG related strategies relating to the usage of Swagger. It's not just Safeguard Side-swagger, but also Lum Swagger and SwagPlay, which take advantage of the attack boost as opposed to the confusion chance. In addition, the near necessity of running Protect on every Pokemon leaves most threats hard-pressed to find room for the move without giving up something else super important.

It's not like some new thing has happened recently to all of a sudden make Swagger better or more annoying, we've handled it fairly up until this point. If anyone can come up with a reason to ban it other than "It's annoying and I don't like it" then I'd be happy to listen, but so far I've seen nothing that convinces me that it really needs to go.

 

[Stratos]

swagger is annoying and i dont like it and thats reason enough to ban gay luck shit. zach once beat me w/ double swagger in a game i should have owned him because he got like 8 confusion self hits in a row. its stupid. confusion sucks.

 

[Jibaku]

Swagger is a universal language!

 

[Checkmater]

I would be heavily opposed to a Swagger ban.

Now your first reaction might be something along the lines of "Checkmater you're retarded" or "What the fuck didn't you just get lucked by Swagger" and my answer to both statements would be "yes" but my argument is threefold:

One, that there are legitimate competitive uses for Swagger, outside of swaggering opponents. Take this replay of me swaggering my own Hoopa-U, for example, http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/doublesou-357245670, if you want an example of swagger being used on a teammate for a damage boost. Ban Swagger and you ban selfswag, a little-used but still legitimate strat. Foul Play and Swagger are also both legitimate uses for the move as well.

Two, that Swagger Thundurus is still a very legitimate set. It's a good option that blanket checks a shitload of matchups like Aegislash and other special attackers, while providing a fail-safe option in tough matchups. KyleCole's nifty Amoonguss set is another interesting way of utilizing Swagger to remedy a tough matchup.

Three, that I feel this call for a Swagger ban stems from a poor community attitude towards hax. It's tempting to just say "haxed bg" or some equally salty statement (and look in any seasonal thread, you'll find plenty of it), but that's just a mental block to really looking into your own play and evaluating things like sets and choices that were made. In my last match vs Sam, yeah sure you can say that if I hadn't hit myself with LandoT I would've won but in the same breath I can also say that if I had been tailwind>Fire Blast I would've won, if I had calc'ed the Politoed EVs properly I would've made different plays, if I had brought Bullet Punch I would've won. It's easy to point at chance factors out of your control, but those factors are exactly that: out of the player's control. The only thing you can do is control what you can control, which is your own decision making and your own team-building. There'll never be a way to eliminate hax from the game so trying to ban swagger is stupid. The best attitude you can have is to account for hax but also look to what you can improve as a player in your own decision making and your own team-building.

Is it lame to lose to Swagger? hell yeah...
Does it suck when your opponent just clicks it on every turn? sure I'll admit that.

But in itself, Swagger has legitimate competitive usage, so it shouldn't be banned.

 

[Silverwhiteblue]

saying swagger has use outside of its confusing purpose does not make it a good move. what we are arguing against is the abuse of it in an attempt to compensate skill with luck. i dont get why that isnt a factor to ban it, while its more then enough. using swagger on yourself is like saying defog is good because you can run a serperior as your teammate.
swagger's plain, and yes classical, heard and echoed over a thousand times, is still the fact that it turns a win into a loss by fliping coins. i really dont get why that is not sufficient. saying it isnt a trusted method to win for the user further proves this point, as it litteraly means its a luck game.

 

[Derivatives]

But in itself, Swagger has legitimate competitive usage, so it shouldn't be banned.

So does special mega rayquaza in singles ubers, but that doesn't make mega rayquaza competitive.

 

[JoarAddamNessosin]

Saying self swag makes swagger competitive is like saying self seedflare ing makes skymin competitive because you have serp or Bisharp. Its still uncompetitive when used against anything one else. No matter how many gimmicks you come up with for self use it still stands that creating 50/50s is inherently uncompetitive therefore swagger is still uncompetitive and therefore should be banned. We dont keep things because they check other broken things we ban the first broken thing and then continue until we have a balenced meta. Im not saying swagger unbalances the entire meta but it is uncompetitive and therefore needs to be removed.

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

I
It's not like some new thing has happened recently to all of a sudden make Swagger better or more annoying, we've handled it fairly up until this point. If anyone can come up with a reason to ban it other than "It's annoying and I don't like it" then I'd be happy to listen, but so far I've seen nothing that convinces me that it really needs to go.

Because getting out of a shitty match up or having a win condition based on luck should not be how tour matches get decided.

 

[KyleCole]

There's a council chat of sorts going on talking about Swagger. I gave my thoughts there, and since I think I did a pretty good job summing up my opinion on the whole thing, I figured I'd put them here too. Enjoy the read.
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I think that in order to preserve "our game's integrity" (that's in quotes bc you said it pocket, not bc i'm smarmy) we should only step in and ban things or change the game when it's absolutely necessary. So then you've gotta ask, when is it necessary to ban something? I feel that a ban is only necessary when there is no counter play to whatever you're banning. That is to say, a ban is only necessary when there really is no other option for dealing with it, when that particular strategy is just too powerful to be allowed in play.

The terms "uncompetitive" and "noncompetitive" are thrown around a lot in suspect discussions when people want to communicate that they think using a strategy takes some kind of skill out of the game, but these people are actually using the two terms incorrectly. Something is defined as "competitive" when people are competing, regardless of any RNG involved. Competitive = competition, that's it. The reason that people misuse this term is that the actual phrase they're looking for is "luck based". They want to communicate that Swagger is "luck based" but without acknowledging that 90% of what exists in this game is luck based (or at least influenced by luck and RNG to some degree), so they say "noncompetitive" instead and everyone just sort of goes along with it.

So then where's the line? We've decided that evasion and OHKO moves cross this line because there's some arbitrary percentage of success/failure that they go over/under and that constitutes getting rid of them. I don't know what this arbitrary number is, but when I see someone using Swagger I don't think "Wow lucky sack of shit w/o skill" I think "Yeah it was a good call running swagger on that mon so now they might not lose". I guess it's really as simple as that.

I put a lot of weight into not banning things that were made for competitive play, maybe more than most of smogon, because I think that once you start down that rabbit hole of banning things that you find annoying or involve a touch more randomness than you would prefer, you take away from the integrity of the game. If you want to call it competitive Pokemon and not competitive Pokemon-without-several-things then there needs to be some amount of respect for preserving the game as it was meant to be played. If you don't want any RNG play chess.

Going back to the arbitrary success/failure probability line, if you think Swagger crosses that line then vote to ban it. I don't think that it does, nor do I think clicking Swagger and crossing your fingers is consistently successful enough to say that it cannot be beaten, so I'll always vote no ban.

 

[sam-testings]

So checkmater says that you cant control hax and I agree. The main problem is that Swagger hax is insanely strong and there is no way around it. The way confusion mechanics works for those who dont know is that you deal a 40 BP physical move to yourself, which means that you are effectively hitting yourself pretty hard with a +2 40BP physical move. That means every other turn you are taking from 1/8 to up to 1/2 of your health by hitting yourself. As stated before this forces games into 50/50s and is generally annoying. There are other "haxy moves" such as Twave and scald, but there are definitely ways around both of those by running ground types and things that tank water hits. There is next to no way to get around Swagger though, with the only ways being like Own Tempo(lol) and Lum Berry which wastes an item slot for something you would rather be using. Selfswag is a horrible bloody argument against swagban because you are not limited to swagging your partner. Nothing is stopping you from swaggering your opponent too. Swagger is extremely unhealthy in my opinion and should have been banned a long time ago.

Also im not a samvgc alt stop asking

Ninja edit: in response to kylecoles post, yes i believe swagger crosses the line for reasons above. You force things in 50/50 situations for next to no cost.

Also to the person thats eventually going to "just switch out lmao", that does not solve the problem at all. the swagger user can just keep spamming swagger and the partner can get free damage off of whatever comes in or the mon that doesnt switch out.

 

[Stratos]

thing about swagger is it takes no particular effort to use. anything else in the game is stronger or weaker in certain situations and you try to set up a position where you can use it to your advantage. for the most part, swagger is equally strong vs every pokemon, all the time. You don't have to play intelligently to set up a position where you can win with swagger, you just click it when you're otherwise losing in the hopes that you can luck your way to a win.

 

[JoarAddamNessosin]

There's a council chat of sorts going on talking about Swagger. I gave my thoughts there, and since I think I did a pretty good job summing up my thoughts on the whole thing, I thought I'd put them here too. Enjoy the read.
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I think that in order to preserve "our game's integrity" (that's in quotes bc you said it pocket, not bc i'm smarmy) we should only step in and ban things or change the game when it's absolutely necessary. So then you've gotta ask, when is it necessary to ban something? I feel that a ban is only necessary when there is no counter play to whatever you're banning. That is to say, a ban is only necessary when there really is no other option for dealing with it, when that particular strategy is just too powerful to be allowed in play.

The terms "uncompetitive" and "noncompetitive" are thrown around a lot in suspect discussions when people want to communicate that they think using a strategy takes some kind of skill out of the game, but these people are actually using the two terms incorrectly. Something is defined as "competitive" when people are competing, regardless of any RNG involved. Competitive = competition, that's it. The reason that people misuse this term is that the actual phrase they're looking for is "luck based". They want to communicate that Swagger is "luck based" but without acknowledging that 90% of what exists in this game is luck based (or at least influenced by luck and RNG to some degree), so they say "noncompetitive" instead and everyone just sort of goes along with it.

So then where's the line? We've decided that evasion and OHKO moves cross this line because there's some arbitrary percentage of success/failure that they go over/under and that constitutes getting rid of them. I don't know what this arbitrary number is, but when I see someone using Swagger I don't think "Wow lucky sack of shit w/o skill" I think "Yeah it was a good call running swagger on that mon so now they might not lose". I guess it's really as simple as that.

I put a lot of weight into not banning things that were made for competitive play, maybe more than most of smogon, because I think that once you start down that rabbit hole of banning things that you find annoying or involve a touch more randomness than you would prefer, you take away from the integrity of the game. If you want to call it competitive Pokemon and not competitive Pokemon-without-several-things then there needs to be some amount of respect for preserving the game as it was meant to be played. If you don't want any RNG play chess.

Going back to the arbitrary success/failure probability line, if you think Swagger crosses that line then vote to ban it. I don't think that it does, nor do I think clicking Swagger and crossing your fingers is consistently successful enough to say that it cannot be beaten, so I'll always vote no ban.

I want to thank you for putting this so well but i still have to disagree as, smogon has, at least in single, already agreed that swagger is too luck based to be fair so its really not so big of a jump to agree its also too luck based to use in doubles formats.

Also Ohkos were 30% at lv 100 iirc and 50% to not only not move but also hit yourself is not much more consistant.

 

[Derivatives]

http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-04/moveset/doublesou-1695.txt

| 3 | Thundurus | 19.62809% | 27325 | 7.074% | 0 | 0.000% |
| Swagger 18.179% |

http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-04/moveset/doublesou-1825.txt

| 4 | Thundurus | 27.86108% | 27325 | 7.074% | 0 | 0.000% |
| Swagger 25.005% |

CONCLUSION:
Swagger requires skill

 

[JoarAddamNessosin]

http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-04/moveset/doublesou-1695.txt
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-04/moveset/doublesou-1825.txt

CONCLUSION:
Swagger requires skill

the quantity of use doesnt make the move more or less broken. You wouldnt use swagger on [repeat] sunkern or sunkern for that matter but its still just as luck based as on thundy.

Stats;
1695's 5360:29487 18%ish

1825's 7371:29487 25%ish

it just means more people are abusing free turns due to luck at little cost in a higher teir which souldnt be seen as a positive thing.

 

[ryo yamada2001]

Now I might not be exactly up to date in the metagame anymore but here I go.

I think we should be looking at the term "competitive" as it is stated on Aldaron's OU's tiering policy framework. This thread is obviously still very relevant because the terms mean the same, and the banning processes are the same.

I think that Swagger definitely reduces the effect over player choice and interaction to an extreme degree. When you are unable to move and actually hurt yourself, the more skillful play will be rendered irrelevant. This takes away the competitivity in the game. Swagger relies on the result of RNG, and I don't consider it competitive to rely on RNG to have better particular matchups.