Baton Pass in Anything Goes

By yelawolf and Zangooser. Art by Litra.
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Espeon by Litra

Introduction

With a complete lack of clauses in the Anything Goes metagame besides the Endless Battle Clause, Baton Pass turns into an extremely threatening team archetype. However, what really separates Baton Pass from Ubers and what turns it into such a huge threat in Anything Goes is the lack of the Evasion and Moody Clauses. These factors were banned for their highly uncompetitive nature, so as you can imagine, Baton Pass has a heavy dependency on luck. These flaws are somewhat mitigated with a well-built Baton Pass team, which accounts for bad luck and several mispredictions.

What the Removal of Clauses Changes

The removal of the Evasion Clause is the most important difference between Anything Goes and Ubers. Being able to avoid a large portion of attacks being targeted at your Pokémon is extremely advantageous, because that generates many more opportunities to set up. At +6 evasion, the odds of your opponent landing a 100% accurate attack is 33.3%. This means that after maxing out your Pokémon's, there are, on average, three times the number of chances to set up as you would have normally. It also means that in situations it looks like you're going to lose, there's a 66.7% chance that your Pokémon will evade the opponent's attack and be able to Baton Pass to the appropriate team member and keep setting up.

The removal of the Moody Clause isn't quite as large of a change, but it still greatly impacts Baton Pass as a team archetype. Luckily, there is only one Pokémon that has access to both Moody and Baton Pass: Smeargle. On one hand, it has very poor stats, making it not overwhelmingly good. However, on the other hand, it has access to nearly every move, giving it near-unlimited options and making its set very unpredictable.

Top Threats on Baton Pass Teams

Espeon

Espeon

Espeon is the single most important Pokémon on Baton Pass teams, and it is the only one that is essential for a team to succeed. This is because of a handful of reasons. For one, it has Magic Bounce, which is required on Baton Pass teams thanks to how common phazing and status are, and since Espeon is the only Pokémon commonly seen on Baton Pass teams that has an offensive presence, it staying healthy is vital for your team to win. It also has a very good base Speed and an amazing move in Stored Power, allowing it to take full advantage of all of the stat boosts that have been passed to it, turning it into a move with a Base Power over 300 with no drawbacks, and the Special Attack boosts being stacked onto that means it OHKOes virtually everything besides Dark-types and Lugia (which is 2HKOed and can't do anything back). Espeon also gets Dazzling Gleam to deal with Dark-types. Its combination of an excellent movepool, good stats, and an amazing ability makes Espeon into the best Pokémon Baton Pass teams have at their disposal.

Drifblim

Drifblim

With a typing granting it an immunity to Extreme Speed and Ground-type moves, the ability to boost its evasion by two stages with Minimize, and access to Magic Coat to prevent entry hazards, phazing, and status with good predictions, Drifblim is the best evasion passer in Anything Goes and is a near-necessity on teams. Its great ability Unburden allows it to gain a Speed boost from using Substitute a couple times to utilize a Sitrus Berry, making Drifblim outspeed every relevant threat including common Choice Scarf users such as Kyogre and Xerneas.

Smeargle

Smeargle

Smeargle is a potent threat within the Baton Pass archetype with access to an extremely helpful ability and an extensive array of moves. Being able to use every status move in the game allows Smeargle's usefulness to extend much further, with access to moves such as Ingrain that benefit Baton Pass teams tremendously. Preventing phazing is paramount to the Baton Pass archetype, as having to switch into a Magic Bounce Pokémon like Espeon or spam Magic Coat consistently can be quite detrimental to progressing further with stat boosts. Smeargle may have terrible stats, but this is mitigated by its access to Spore, evasion boosts, and Moody boosts. Moody is extremely useful to the eventual Stored Power utilization, as even "useless" boosts such as accuracy contribute to an increase in the Base Power of Stored Power.

Scolipede

Scolipede

Scolipede is an immensely useful Pokémon to have on Baton Pass teams, with a stellar ability in Speed Boost and access to boosting moves such as Iron Defense and Swords Dance. It is a common lead due to the necessity of Speed, as this can allow the fast utilization of Baton Pass in order to decrease damage from whatever an opponent is attempting to use.

Zapdos

Zapdos

Zapdos is another interesting Speed-boosting Pokémon with access to Agility and an excellent defensive typing to take minimal damage from all of Mega Rayquaza's hits except V-create. After an Agility, it can somewhat counter lead defensive Primal Groudon by Roaring first.

Mr.Mime

Mr.Mime

Mr. Mime is very handy on Baton Pass teams because of its ability Soundproof, which gives it an immunity to Perish Song and Roar, two huge threats to Baton Pass teams. Thanks to its Fairy typing, Mr. Mime also has an immunity to Dragon Tail. In addition, Taunt allows it to prevent its foe from using Perish Song as Mr. Mime Baton Passes out and to prevent Skarmory and Lugia from using Whirlwind.

Vaporeon

Vaporeon

Vaporeon is a notable Pokémon on Baton Pass teams, as it has access to some of the best utility moves and an above-average defensive typing. With access to moves like Acid Armor, Aqua Ring, and Wish, providing support for other team members becomes much more simple. Acid Armor is extremely useful, as most viable Baton Pass Pokémon are lacking in moves that boost Defense and usually have to rely on Scolipede's Iron Defense, Smeargle's Moody boosts, or the extremely uncommon Cosmic Power from Clefable.

Top Threats to Baton Pass Teams

Baton Pass is a great playstyle, but it has some huge weaknesses. Though the move is uncommon, mispredicting a Perish Song from an Arceus and not Baton Passing to Mr. Mime can end the game on the spot. Roar and Whirlwind appear on random Pokémon such as Ho-Oh and Kyogre sometimes, and if you don't predict them and Baton Pass to Mr. Mime or Espeon accordingly, you can lose your setup completely. Haze doesn't have the greatest distribution and is often not worth a moveslot, but whenever you are facing a Darkrai and/or Zekrom, it is important to realize that this may be a possibility. Unlike Perish Song, Haze has no direct stops. Darkrai itself is a huge threat to Baton Pass, as it can cripple anything off the bat with Dark Void, has Dark Pulse to deal with Espeon, Smeargle, and Drifblim before they get boosts, and can simply use Substitute against these Pokémon to avoid the Magic Coat mind games. Kyogre is also annoying for Baton Pass teams, thanks to Thunder bypassing evasion boosts. In general, luck can lose a game for Baton Pass very easily. When you're relying on your opponent missing or on getting certain boosts with Moody, not getting them can really screw you over in the end. Unfortunately, though, luck is something you have to deal with if you wish to utilize Baton Pass in Anything Goes.

Sample Team

espeon smeargle zapdos drifblim mr.mime vaporeon

Conclusion

Baton Pass is an extremely unique and viable playstyle within the Anything Goes metagame. Featuring a wide array of options, this archetype grants easy wins provided that the user doesn't have terrible luck or isn't facing the rare but effective move Haze. Overall, Baton Pass is a great strategy that must be accounted for when constructing any serious Anything Goes team.

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