SwagPlay, evaluating potential bans (basic definition of "uncompetitive" in OP)

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I would go to say the Second one. Banning the Pokemon would be a really bad Idea, as they can be used in different ways outside of SwagPlay. And banning Swagger will still cause this to happen to a lesser extent. And Pokemon like Swagsire won't benefit, a Pokemon who is rarely seen in SwagPlay

And no matter what, DO NOT IMPLEMENT CONFUSION CLAUSE. Chatot and more will get effected unintentionally.
 
TooMuchSugar said:
I'm not sure if Swagger is the kind of thing that necessarily needs a ban. As much as I hate it, it's still a pretty terrible strategy that can be played around in almost all cases. There are perfectly viable pokemon that allow you to not lose to SwagPlay unless you have really terrible luck. I'm not denying that it's no fun to play against, and honestly, I'd rather be in a metagame without it. However, I don't think that just the fact that a lot of people hate it is a good enough reason for a ban, or we probably would have banned Drizzle last gen. I'll be happy if it goes, but I honestly don't think it's broken.

That said, if we are going to do some sort of ban, we absolutely cannot ban individual pokemon because Klefki and Sableye in particular have entirely legitimate uses in OU. If there is a ban, I think a ban of moves that cause confusion without dealing damage would be the best way to go.
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The bigger issue about Swagplay is uncompetitiveness, in that it essentially turns the game into roulette. Manual Double Team is pretty terrible itself too, but the issue stands, that it takes away skill-based control and replaces it with luck, and the list of countermeasures thereto are fairly limited. Moody was also banned because of this same issue, albeit in a more extreme form.
 
I'm just going to lay this out here right now: the only 100% guaranteed way to counter SwagPlay is with Own Tempo Numel. It is the only thing that you can guarantee can't be paralyzed or haxed to death by confusion.

There are ways to play around it - mostly by using Ground/Electric types that can't be paralyzed - but you still have to hope that you get lucky and don't hurt yourself in confusion. If you make a team with Magnezone, Gliscor and Rotom-W and they all die due to confusion damage, are you really going to just happily accept it as part of the game?
 
Banning all non-damaging moves that inflict confusion would probably be the best way to do this. No serious strategy revolves around them and getting rid of those would definitely help to make the meta less luck based.

This would include: Confuse Ray, Flatter, Supersonic, Swagger, Sweet Kiss and Teeter Dance
 
Chillarmy said:
Which Pokemon have access to this? Illumise? Sableye? Murkrow? Without the attack boost, none of the aforementioned will be able to capitalize well on the free turn the confusion may grant them. Moreover, not being able to abuse Foul Play makes their overall damage output negligible; you'd be better off only shooting for Prankster paralysis, and there are certainly much better options for that. I see no reason to unnecessarily ban strategies that are nowhere near as effective as SwagPlay.
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The entire point of banning this is to get rid of a luck based element of the metagame that does not need to be there. I don't think people are talking about this because they think any of this is legitimately overpowered, so how the ban is implemented shouldn't have to do with the effectiveness of Swagger vs Confuse Ray. It makes no sense to introduce a ban to remove a luck based element from the game and then not remove it entirely, allowing people to continue abusing the strategy anyways. It's effectively adding complex bans for no reason to ban only Swagger + Prankster.
 
Just outright ban Confusion moves + Swagger, as it just makes the match a coinflip between winning and losing. It brings nothing competitive to the game. self inflicted confusion and random confuse chanses can stay, it's the same as a burn from scold or lava plume.

Also moves with low accuracy is something you have chosen to use for a reason, having a 50% to hit yourself and do nothing isn't something you prepare for.
 
I agree with most people that the confusion hax bann (only Status Moves). Unlike other status that prevents your opponents attack, this one is dealing damage as well depending to your attack stats. If swagger is banned, confuse ray is a good substitute.
A lot of people are breeding 0 IVs to their special attackers just for this...and foul play.

Sure, one can switch out to free confusion but that always leads to a free turn of set up for the opposing team: Substitute, T-Wave, Spikes (Klefki)
 
finncent1 said:
Chatter is not ruining the game in anyway, and neither are Flatter, Confuse Ray, or Dynamic Punch. Swagger is the only thing that may be worth a ban.
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Ok I can agree with that although we may have to deal with those at a future date.
Just so long as people see that constantly switching doesn't deal with the issue [what if they carry a klefki with spikes over one of its main moves, such as foul play or t-wave, and then the switching is suddenly punished. What if they set up rocks? What if they carry a cleaner? What if they carry something that deals with magic bouncers [espeon/m-absol/xatu]; it can all be done in 2-3 mons and leave a deadly team of pranksters punishing the ways that the strategy can be opposed. Either way with just a hazard or two teams not carrying certain more niche mons (xatu/espeon/thundurus/m-absol/smeargle) which are viable but not needed for most competitive teams this can become a sticky issue. Unless a team carries a defogger/spinner that is immune to all paralysis/hazards/confusion or one of those 5 mons (this group probably doesn't contain more than say 20% of OU teams at most) then swagplay has a high opportunity to cause havoc and punish switching as well as staying in.
 
GMLW said:
Also, I'm laughing so goddamn hard at the person who said "Outside of strategies that use Swagger, is Swagger really a good move?" Well outside of strategies that use Earthquake, Earthquake isn't a good move either. Outside of strategies that use recovery moves, recovery moves aren't good moves either.

tl;dr You're all being whiny idiots and Smogon is too banhappy. Don't ban anything.
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Come on, you're intentionally misinterpreting what I said. I clearly meant that no one uses Swagger outside of the SwagPlay strategy because it's too unreliable without the added paralysis chance + Foul Play abuse. As a result, if we just ban Swagger, it's not like other Pokes will suffer - the only movesets that will no longer be viable are the SwagPlay sets, which is exactly what we're trying to remove.

Confusion is also an absolutely horrible way to counter Swords Dance users because if they don't hit themselves in confusion, you probably just died and you didn't counter anything...
 
Grey Knight said:
No ban needed , troll wave will subside as soon the lower tiers will be created , trolls will resort in the low tiers where they can use their trollish tactics with greater ease and greater success , therefore they will get enough of the much needed lulz to leave ou healthy , prime example the full of cancer NU of the last gen ,
all we need is a smart tier Downgration of key pokemon regardless usage percentages , klefki , sableye and all that cancer mons to UU and then to RU, it will deter people from using it in the upper tiers .
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You know people play in the lower tiers right? Why should they be relegated to this shitstorm? Pretty sure Liepard, or at least the SwagPlay strategy, was banned from NU last gen (correct me if I'm wrong NU players), as well. Not banning it from OU because of thinking that all the SwagPlay users will migrate to lower tiers is, to put it bluntly, an extremely ignorant and terrible argument.

I'm for banning Confusion. Anything that makes the game luck-based deserves to leave, regardless of how "easy" it is to mitigate it. It's in the same boat as the Evasion clause.
 
Ryolain said:
I'm just going to lay this out here right now: the only 100% guaranteed way to counter SwagPlay is with Own Tempo Numel. It is the only thing that you can guarantee can't be paralyzed or haxed to death by confusion.
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This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've read all day.

Nothing in this game is guaranteed. That's the whole point of the RNG. If you think that the criteria for something being broken is "there is only one way to 100% counter it" then everything is broken.
 
Ryolain said:
I'm just going to lay this out here right now: the only 100% guaranteed way to counter SwagPlay is with Own Tempo Numel. It is the only thing that you can guarantee can't be paralyzed or haxed to death by confusion.

There are ways to play around it - mostly by using Ground/Electric types that can't be paralyzed - but you still have to hope that you get lucky and don't hurt yourself in confusion. If you make a team with Magnezone, Gliscor and Rotom-W and they all die due to confusion damage, are you really going to just happily accept it as part of the game?
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What is magic bounce? What is magic coat? Seriously.
 
I'd go with banning Swagger. I wouldn't necessarily ban confusion as a whole, because without the attack-raising quality, confusion becomes much more manageable. Also, The SwagPlay-strategy is only viable because it raises the opponent's attck, otherwise confusion is manageable. Any defensive Electric/Ground-type can come in on confusion-inducing mon, and stall out the effects of confusion. U can also switch between these two to wear out effects of confusion. I agree that confusion-inducing moves have little competitive value, but I don't think we should narrow down options just because it's hard to justify their competitive use. People building teams should be able to make the final, and we should not aim to narrow their options down.
 
I don't think it should be banned. The strategy isn't as OP as people are making it sound, and it DOES have lots of counterplay. Namely Taunt, and Substituting, and Magic Coating. As long as you have any relevant taunter, substituter, magic coater, or any PHYSICAL WALL with sustain on your team, the strat becomes dead.
 
I don't think anything should be banned. Sure, it is annoying, but there are several ways around such "strategies" as SwagPlay. And instead of implementing bans on things we dislike, we should try to find counters first... counters that actually already exist.

Swagger users are heavily affected by taunt, so thus the biggest counter to them is another Prankster Taunt user, which most players don't mind having on a team. Another is utilizing Magic Bounce users, which. As they not only counter Swagger, but also the Thunder Wave that Follows, and sends it back at the opponent, giving them a taste of their own medicine so to speak. Magic Coat is in a similar boat, as it can throw back the confusion afflicting moves in the opponents face. Own Tempo users may also see a rise in usage, which may enable more Pokemon to enter the OU arena, or at least find niches there. So before we outright ban, I think we should attempt to find counters to these strategies, because they must surely exist somewhere.
 
Ryolain said:
Come on, you're intentionally misinterpreting what I said. I clearly meant that no one uses Swagger outside of the SwagPlay strategy because it's too unreliable without the added paralysis chance + Foul Play abuse. As a result, if we just ban Swagger, it's not like other Pokes will suffer - the only movesets that will no longer be viable are the SwagPlay sets, which is exactly what we're trying to remove.
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Untrue, I've seen people use Swagger without Foul Play successfully before. It's a legitimate strategy.
 
i would have to disagree with the banning of this mix [I do not use it myself] i have no problem with this strategy being used on me, there are plenty ways around it.The obvious one would be run a cleric or switch your pokemon if its confused or eletric/ground [if its t wave abuse] pokemon. It's not rocket science. Feel free to disagree with me.In gen 5 the OU was awesome but now Gen 6 is here smogon has gone mad with banning pretty much everything that isn't from a set cookie cutter team.
 
Illuminase said:
I don't think it should be banned. The strategy isn't as OP as people are making it sound, and it DOES have lots of counterplay. Namely Taunt, and Substituting, and Magic Coating. As long as you have any relevant taunter, substituter, magic coater, or any PHYSICAL WALL with sustain on your team, the strat becomes dead.
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How do you intent to outspeed them besides with Magic Coat, Magic Bonds or Prankster User of your own?
 
Here's another repeated statement I'd like to crush right now before it keeps getting brought up: SwagPlay teams ARE common and damaging enough to be successful. I didn't support this ban when the gen started but when we've got people getting up to 1500-1600 on a suspect ladder using a SwagPlay team, it is no longer possible to pretend this is a gimmick strategy that only works once in a blue moon. There are enough users of it now to build a full team around it without resorting to random shit like Illumise, and Klefki is also a lot bulkier with much better typing than any of the previous users.

The SwagPlay strategy was recognized at the beginning of XY and it has not dropped in usage like people have suggested. It's actually only gained momentum as people realize it works better than it ever did before. I do not believe it's going to wither out and become relegated to joke teams in NU like people are suggesting.
 
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