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So I'm not badged. So I can't put this is in Policy Review. Which is why I'm making this thread in the much more important and much more esteemed 1v1 discussion thread.
I think it's no secret that I am of the opinion that dynamax is inherently busted and should be banned outright. But before I get into the details of why dynamax as a mechanic should be banned, I want to make a small argument of why dynamax being swiftly banned, even if it's later tested is important.
Most suspects on smogon follow a general rule: the side that wishes for a change in the status quo is the side that needs to make the argument for change (
see III) For example, during gen 7 1v1, Kyurem-B was suspected twice with the same requirement of having .
The first time it was still allowed in the metagame, and despite having 50% of the votes for a ban it didn't meet the required threshold to change the status quo of being allowed, and was thus
not banned. However after council shenanigans it ended up banned and retested much later on.
This time with 55% of votes in favor of keeping banned, Kyurem-B didn't meet the threshold to change it's status quo of being banned, and was thus
banned. I'm trying to illustrate here is that the mere context around how we initially treat Dynamax can have lasting impacts on the 1v1 metagame.
Part 2 of this argument is that, smogon, generally, and 1v1, typically, believe that a potentially broken element should be allowed in a metagame it's being tested in during that test. This is done so that players can directly play with the broken element, and don't have to theorymon about it. Essentially, no decisions are made from
vague ideas about what the pokemon or metagame could look like. I have no intention on changing this tradition. I think it's smart and important. However, because dynamax is so ubiquitous the very core of the metagame is changed with its presence. From everything to EVing, move choices, item choices, etc on every single pokemon who dynamaxes (which is of course 95% of pokemon in the metagame). Because of this, it would be unfair to the playerbase and the format itself to not be given the opportunity to fully explore a non-dynamax metagame, and no, a single tour doesn't cut it. It doesn't have to last forever. It doesn't even have to last a long time. But we should be allowed to, we need to explore what a no dynamax gen 8 1v1 looks like.
Alright now to the specific argument on why dynamax should be banned. I'm going to try to hit a lot of points here not all of them are going to be directly related to the previous or the next, but I'll do my best to try organize them in a sufficient manner so that it doesn't seem like I'm jumping from one train of thought to a completely different one constantly. These are the points I'm going to try and hit.
1. Dynamax and Gigantamax fundamentally behave completely differently than every single other mechanic competitive pokemon battling has ever seen, can't be adequately compared to them, and how they function is broken.
2. Individual Max Moves and Gigantamax moves are excessively powerful and unable to be reconciled with a brief metagame like 1v1.
3. The lack of Max Status moves aside from Max Guard, among other factors, considerably limits the scope of playstyle viably available.
4. Dynamax's presence in the metagame is not limited to certain pokemon and will occur at the same level of oppression regardless of the best dynamax user being banned.
And finally, a quick disclaimer. My first claim is that Dynamax and Gigantamax can't be adequately compared to other mechanics. However, I will be comparing individual effects of Max Moves to regular moves and other things of that nature. Why I do this will hopefully become apparent throughout my argument, but briefly, while the mechanics themselves aren't comparable, the effects are.
And with that let's jump right in.
There seems to be some ideas that the council holds, that because Dynamax is a core mechanic to the game, it would be preposterous to ban it outright, in a similar vein banning moves or abilities would be. Furthermore, when you ban dynamax you're not disqualifying a specific entity from appearing in a match, but are essentially forcing a gentleman's rule where you both agree never to hit the button that will appear regardless.
These ideas are ridiculous.
First and foremost, Dynamax is nothing like abilities, typing, moves, or anything that is essential to the gameplay of pokemon. You can't ban moves. You can't ignore typings and abilities. That's how the game functions. If they weren't there you wouldn't be playing pokemon. It'd be something similar perhaps with complex damage calculations lacking modifiers that arise from typing or abilities or doing whatever you're doing without moves, but it wouldn't be pokemon. These mechanics aren't bannable. These mechanics aren't touchable. They have to exist. You cannot have pokemon without these mechanics. (I know someone would bring up abilities not being in a thing til generation 3, and so are generations 1 and 2 not pokemon? In this context it's fairly obvious that I'm talking specifically about modern pokemon where the ability is inseparable from the pokemon and has to exist, so shut up.)
Now, there are mechanics that can be upheld by a gentleman's rule. The broadest being, "don't use items". From a very, very far distance, there actually can be comparisons between holding items and dynamax. For example, every pokemon can hold an item (regardless of if the ability prevents it from having an effect, it still holds an item). Some pokemon can use items in general better because of a combination of stats, moves, abilities, etc. However, there are three huge things that differentiate "holding an item" and dynamax, which is why even the idea of "ban pokemon from holding items" sounds absurd. First, items are noticeably limited in scale. They have notoriously minor effects with minor drawbacks or very large effects with very large drawbacks. Wide lens only buffs moves accuracy by 1.1x. Leftovers, one of the most items in 6v6, heals a mere 6.25% per turn. These effects are so minor in comparison to moves and abilities that could have similar effects but take up a turn to utilize or are restricted in distribution. Meanwhile Choice items and Assault Vest limit which moves you can use at all, which means only a select role of pokemon can use them effectively in their tiers. Dynamax does not share this. Their effects are huge, which I'll get to more later. Nearly every pokemon wants to Dynamax and will Dynamax even if it behaves vastly differently from other pokemon. Secondly, items have typically singular effects. They change one aspect of that pokemon and what it does. Choice Scarf just boosts speed. Aguav Berry (the BEST BERRY) just heals the pokemon. Dynamaxing is multi-faceted, it boosts move power, causes secondary effects, becomes immune to flinching, boosts HP etc, etc. This allows a wide variety of use of by a single Dynamax that isn't comparable to the ability to hold items. Finally, Dynamax is turn-limited, meaning the length of the match is directly correlated to the effect Dynamax has, which in 1v1 is a lot.
Anyways, now let's talk about the real mechanics you want to compare Dynamax to: Mega Evolution and Z-Moves. And no, I don't think you can compare Dynamax to them either, at the very least, not in a 1v1 setting. Mega Evolution changed a pokemon's stats, abilities, and typing. Don't get me wrong. That's insane. Mega Evolutions were insanely powerful. But they weren't universal. Mega Stones had to be used by a specific pokemon to get a specific transformation. This limited scope of availability narrowed down Mega Evolution to a manageable way to deal with. Essentially, Mega Evolution just made new pokemon. And if a specific Mega Pokemon was broken you could ban it. And while this dichotomy of creating a different pokemon exists with Gigantamaxing, it behaves too differently to really classify a base pokemon and it's Giganta counterpart like we do with Megas. Now, the reason I spent so long on items, when no one really wanted to make that argument, is that Z-Moves are at their core fancy items. Now some people will want to claim, that Dynamax, because of it ignoring items while in a Dynamax form, acts as a singular fancy item as well. This isn't the case. Z-moves allowed for one time super strong moves to be used on every pokemon. Or in the case of status moves, somewhat buffed existing effects of the status move once. And that was it. Z-moves had a single effect with a drawback, even if the drawback was relatively less potent in a 1v1 setting. Now if you didn't read the item paragraph, I'll re-emphasize it here; Dynamaxing is multi-faceted, meaning the concurrent combination of effects allows it to behave vastly differently than Z-moves did.
And now lets break down the argument, "It's fine if Dynamax happens in 90+% of 1v1 games because Z-moves happened in 90% of the 1v1 games (where mega evolution wasn't first being used)" Z-Moves were used by the vast majority of pokemon in 1v1, not because it was absurdly powerful, but rather because it was the best item available for the 1v1 setting. Consider this
Zeraora Set. Nothing about this set screams, "RUN ELECTRIUM Z". There's no ability that lets Zeraora augment damage akin to Tapu Koko's Electric Surge. There's no guarenteed survive and boost combo akin to Crustle. It's not gaining accuracy akin to Hustle Durant. Sure Fake Out's there, but realistically, it can be dropped. So why is Electrium Z used. It's there, because it's the least worst item available. Choice items would lock you into the move, Life Orb would damage you. Zap Plate isn't as strong. So why not just stick a z-move on it and call it a day. Now don't get me wrong there were plenty of pokemon that sought to use Z moves to their fullest capacity, but the majority of pokemon used them because really there wasn't a better option not because it was the best thing to do. Dynamaxing is not like this. The scenarios where Dynamaxing at one point during the entire game is always the wrong choice is extremely narrow, because the item effect is always necessary, the health gain is never necessary, and/or the base moves effect is better than the Max Moves effect (see: Body Press). This allows for sets like this
Inteleon, where it's built completely absent from the concept of Dynamaxing, yet still will Dynamax every single game.
Now merely occurring in the vast, vast majority of games for no downside and simply because there is a free benefit is just one of the reasons dynamax should be banned. Yea everything above this was point 1. I still have 3 more. But before I can move on, I want to briefly address something of a precedent issue. While no, Dynamax isn't comparable to other mechanics. It is a mechanic. And banning it would mean having a ban in-game rather than one in validator. Which is a pretty big deal. But it has happened.
Once. Now that I've set that bar for myself, I will now be spending the rest of this post trying to make the argument that Dynamax is indeed just as broken and deserves the same kind of action as Mega Rayquaza, at least in a 1v1 setting.
Ok so let's take take a closer look into the Max Moves. There's a couple different approaches to take for Max Moves. First there is power scaling.
Thankfully, the power scaling is relatively tame. For reference the important moves go from 80-100 BP to 130 BP, 110-120 BP to 140 BP, and 150 BP moves cap out at 150 BP. The damage scalar itself is pretty tame, that's not even a 1.3x boost from the most common moves powerful moves. But of course there's more. These moves don't miss. Which while initially pretty meh, is actually a pretty big difference. It is possible to calculate effective BP, of BP*Acc. After playing a thousand games, this would be the calculated average BP. Because Max Moves don't miss, while their base form does, the effective BP increases by more than just the scalar. Fire Blast for an example, has a BP of 110 and an effective BP of a mere 93.5, while flamethrower has a BP of 90 and an effective BP of 90 as well. However despite now similar effective BPs as base moves the effective BP of their max moves still follow get the boost base off a real BP, so the effective scalar BP is a lot larger, especially for lower accuracy moves, which tend to be the more powerful moves. However, even then the effective damage scalar isn't much. It's there and has a noticeable impact, but it's far from the main issue.
Most viable moves do things. Instead of losing accuracy, moves tend to include drawbacks for higher power BPs. For example, Flare Blitz for a nifty 120 BP and 100% accuracy also inflicts recoil damage. Hyper Beam, and variants, have a pricetag of losing the next turn. In 6v6 games, these drawbacks can really hurt. So much so, that these high BP moves are going to actually not be viable. But this is 1v1. A lot of the times these drawbacks are seriously mitigated by the simple fact that only one pokemon needs to faint for a win. Sometimes these drawbacks are significant, particularly against stall-oriented pokemon, but against offense vs offense, they don't tend to matter. Max moves drop these drawbacks entirely. Which again, is no big deal honestly. What is a big deal is what these moves add. For a lower BP move to be viable, it has to do something. Flame Charge raises speed, Electroweb lowers opponents speed etc. etc. Every single max move adds an effect. Most of which are incredibly desirable. All fire type max moves set up Sunny day which not only gets rid of a water weakness but also boosts that very same max moves damage out put. In fact, 9 of the max moves have the potential of increasing their own damage output on the second turn (Fire, Water, Electric, Psychic, Grass, Fighting, Ghost, Poison, and Dark). And those aren't even the best ones. Both Flying and Normal affect speed, and therefore turn order allowing a slower pokemon to suddenly move first on the following turn. Meanwhile Rock, Ground, Steel, Dragon, and Bug all can give some sort of bulk. Truly the only mediocre effects are fairy, who sets up misty terrain that doesn't boost fairy type moves, and ice, who sets up hail which doesn't boost ice type moves. Except because these moves are setting weather and terrain, they're also affecting abilities that interact with weather and terrain like Slush Rush, Swift Swim, Chlorophyll, Solar Power; abilities which are typically really bad in 1v1 because they are difficult to activate. Oh but that's not all of course. Let's not forget G-Max moves, which tend to package in a desirable status moves. G-Max Snooze gives Yawn, G-Max Finale heals. These Max Moves and G-Max moves completely flip the idea on its head that stronger moves bring drawbacks and weaker moves bring bonuses. Max Moves are effectively acting as regular moves that are 2-3x as strong as their base move (if they even have a comparable base damaging move), and I'd argue is the real damage scalar that should be discusses. Hyper beam may get a 1x max move scalar, but rapid spin is getting a 3x damage scalar.
But so what? So these moves make smaller moves much stronger, but so what. They're not Z-moves. They're not Choice Specs Hyper Beam. They're not OHKOing the opponent. But they're not trying to. What these moves do is build up over several turns. Dynamax lasts 3 turns. It's not necessary to OHKO when you can 2HKO consistently. The damage over 2-3 turns from these Max moves are so much more than anything else 1v1 has ever witnessed. For comparison, Tough Claws Mega Charizard X with Flare Blitz had an effective 2 turn BP of 468, now every single fire type has an effective 2 turn BP of 525 with Fire Blast. Dynamax isn't trying to OHKO. It wants to win in two or three turns. That's the game plan, and it's absurdly strong.
And all of the other facets of Dynamax bolster this game plan. Dynamax effectively over doubles base HP (while also boosting Base HP even more for pokemon with lower base HP). In other words, Blissey has the largest base HP at 255. Fully invested Blissey can have a max HP of 714. Vikavolt has a substandard Base HP of 77. While Dynamaxed, Vikavolt has a Max HP of 716. That's an over 3x Base HP modification. Now of course EV investment does have an impact as an uninvested HP stat is comparable to an uninvested 224. Meaning, Dynamax Vikavolt has a BST in the range of 647 - 678 depending on how invested its HP stat is. This is a pretty drastic bulk effect occurring for all pokemon. More than the HP Change for Zygarde > Zygarde Complete. For an idea on some other "DynaBST"
see this chart.
Initially, it's tempting to say, well with this massive HP buff and bulk buff should massively favor defensive play styles and stall-oriented playstyles. This is simply not the case for one reason: Max Guard. Max Guard takes away the possibility for defensive pokemon to simultaneously enjoy dynamax buffs, while also still using their moveset. Defensive pokemon don't want Protect in their moveset. And they certainly don't want 3 Protects in their moveset. Because of this, defensive Pokemon can't Dynamax, or if they do, can't do it well enough. This leaves only the very best and the very strongest defensive pokemon left to represent the entirety of stall as a playstyle. Similarly, hyper offensive pokemon also are hurt by Dynamax. These pokemon like the new Galarian Darmanitan are forced to struggle as they can't Dynamax and get the push they need to get the extra power or speed from Choice items and the power from Dynamax. They are also forced to deal 2x the amount of damage they had initially needed to thanks to the bulk effect. In short, pokemon whose inital strategy was to OHKO in one turn, can't anymore, and the pokemon whose strategy is to survive over many many turns can't either. So what's left?
For the past 6 years, while 1v1 has existed, it's grown away from it's initial beginnings of getting the best thing that hits the hardest as it can as fast as it can. 1v1 has grown to have complex EV spreads, a lot of consideration to bulk requirements, and several turn focus that once eluded the format. Over the years, 1v1 has developed towards a bulky offensive play style. The goal usually remains the same: survive a hit or 2, set up the necessary boosts, and fire back with a strong enough attack to take out the opponent. Recovery wasn't utilized, because the opponent should be dead by the time it's needed. This can be seen in Psychium Z Tapu Lele, that chose to run Z-Reflect and 2HKO with Psychic or Psyshock, Dragonite who'd rely on Multiscale to gain extra turns while attacking, or Mega Charizard X who would hard invest in Defense or Special Defense to give it the bulk necessary to set up Dragon Dance and win with Flare Blitz or Outrage. And now, nearly every single viable pokemon will be doing something like this but better.
The increased HP for offensive pokemon, the additional effects on Max Moves that favor multi-turn power, and the complete utter disregard for Hyper Offensive or Stall-Oriented pokemon to gain pretty much anything, allows for one extremely viable playstyle: Bulky DynaOffense. The plan is simple. Take a Gyarados, survive a hit thanks to huge bulk, use a 120 BP max Airstream once or twice to get some speed, and KO by the end of Gyarados's third attack. Take a Charizard, survive a hit or 2, use a 150 BP max flare to set up sun, and then use it again to guarentee the KO. With Dragapult, survive a hit, use 120 BP Max Phantasm to lower their defense, and do it again or instead survive an extra hit with a Max Wyrmwind by lowering their attack, or do both! It doesn't matter. It's all the same. Dynamax gives so much extra power to Bulky Offense and so little to the other playstyles, that they are nearly invalidated. And that's a problem.
I'd like to share a story from the olden days. From when 1v1 was an Other Metagame, The Immortal led 1v1, Osra went by The Official Glyx, and Perish Song was allowed in 1v1. See back then, two brave users by the name of Dream Eater Gengar and Rumpelstiltskin had a discussion about Perish Song and how it fit into the 1v1 metagame. I won't bore you with
details. But they came to the conclusion and presented the argument that Perish Song was an unhealthy addition to the 1v1 metagame and convinced a large number of users to ban it. They didn't claim it was broken, overpowered, uncompetitive, but rather as aesf puts in his
post, that Perish Song completely invalidates the defensive playstyle. There wasn't a single way, for a defensive or stall pokemon to win, ever, against a simple Perish Song Meloetta. Despite users agreeing that Choice Specs Meloetta was stronger, the ability for Perish Song to stop a playstyle at large was too large.
And this is what Dynamax does as well. It forces a single playstyle and completely invalidates other ones. There is no way to utilize Dynamax stall. There is no way to use dynamax for hyper offense. It's just Bulky DynaOffense. That's all there is. And drastic action needs to take place to allow other playstyle the opportunity to even compete in the metagame.
Now at this point, there is only one real argument to talk about. The user argument. The argument has two parts to it. 1. Any issues with Dynamax or Gigantamax can be solved by identifying the most problematic users, banning those and then moving on. 2. Because bad or mediocre pokemon don't become really good with the addition of Dynamax, then Dynamax as a whole isn't problematic. Both of these arguments are flawed, and I'll try to explain why.
So the first part assumes two things. The first being that there is a fair way to utilize Dynamax and of course an unfair way to utilize Dynamax. This is the Tapu Koko assumption. That being Tapu Koko took Electrium Z to its absolute limits and was an extremely powerful force to be reckoned with. Tapu Koko was
banned for as osra put "Electrium Koko itself is essentially just a blank slate with which you can make particular EV spreads and movesets to beat an insanely large variety of Pokemon, relevant and otherwise." Tapu Koko itself, with its moves, stats, and electric surge, allowed for it to do something with Electrium Z which was absurd. The second assumption is that the second best, but previously overshadowed user of the same strategy isn't good enough to warrant a ban as well. While Zeroara often does similar things to Tapu Koko, with the same Z-Crystal and everything, it is not as good. It's weaker and frailer and can't beat the plethora of things Tapu Koko did. What it has doesn't make up for what it lacks. Neither of these assumptions can be made with Dynamax. Dynamax can optimally be used by a vast swath of pokemon to accomplish the same goal of utilizing max moves to set up and then KOing. The second best user doesn't lack the key feature that the best user had, and that is setting up a powerful Max Move and getting a lot of gains from it.
The second part is a bad argument to make. It comes from the desire to try and isolate the broken element. For example, in the recent Dragonite Suspect Discussion, the possibility of Multiscale being banned was brought up, but as Quote
said, "Trying to determine the "most broken" aspect only leads to mediocre arguments about subjectivity and sends us in circles." There is no most broken aspect of an element. It's the functionality of that element itself. In this case, it's irrelevant if Magikarp, Metapod, or Shedinja are still just as bad as they were before even with Dynamax, because it's the element of Dynamax that is the unbalance. When Baton Pass was banned it wasn't considered, if weaker pokemon also doing baton pass chains were also broken. When Shadow Tag was banned, it wasn't considered how a pokemon with little use from trapping would do with a trapping ability. They were discussed in the manner in which they existed and how they functioned, and in the same manner I believe Dynamaxing should only be discussed in how it functions.
Alright, and I think that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed reading this, or not reading this, whatever floats your boat. I don't really want to make TL;DR for this, because I think it'd miss the whole point of a complete and total argument that I was trying to make. But if you want, just y'know
TL;DR: Ban Dynamax
: Has Thunder but a nasty Dark weakness.
Not enough raw power to OHKO Grimmsnarl. Can be finished by Fighting-type moves into a Dark move.
Same with Ferrothorn.
: Again, same.
Doesn't have the raw power to beat Grimmsnarl. Beaten by Dark-type moves.