This thread is pursuant to the ADV Sand Veil thread in Policy Review. Please post here if you cannot post in PR and do not want to proxy post. The ADV Council will be monitoring both threads.
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Gen 3 ADV Sand Veil
- Thread starter undisputed
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Hey all. As many of you may know I recently hosted Callous Invitational 4 and this topic (whether or not to allow Sand Veil) was a hot button issue in the weeks leading up to the tournament. We ended up taking a vote among the participants on whether or not they’d like it to be allowed and, unsurprisingly, the results were more or less right down the middle. We ended up allowing it and, while it never felt wildly oppressive and was used far more frequently in the earlier stages of the tournament than it was later on, there were at least a handful of games that were, effectively, decided by SV. Iirc SV teams won their first six or seven games before finally dropping one and starting to normalize.
I’ve discussed my personal views on SV multiple times in audio form but if there were ever a place to do it in writing I guess this would be it. First of all, I want to draw a distinction between the two (very different) arguments people make as to why they’d like it to be banned.
1. It’s Too Powerful
2. It’s BS/Uncompetitive/Should Be Banned on Principle
I flat out disagree with the first point. It’s very easy to single out “I missed my 100% accurate Ice Beam on turn 50 because of Sand Veil and if I’d hit that Ice Beam, which I always should, I would have won” and use that to say that SV is too good but in my opinion that is a massive oversimplification and completely ignores all other factors that led up to that point. The reality is that both major SV users require setup in order to be effective so if your opponent has managed to get a +4 Gligar behind a Substitute, don’t you at some point have to start asking yourself if your team is too passive, too frail or in need of a phazer?
There have been numerous tournaments at this point- be it one of my Callous Invitationals, SPL, World Cup, etc- where participants have financial or other incentives to try their hardest to win. One would think if SV really were too powerful the top players would use it, period. Sure, there will always be a group of people who don’t use it on principle no matter what because they think it’s BS, but by and large when you’re playing for hundreds of dollars or the most prestigious title in competitive Pokemon you bring whatever wins, period, and time and time again we’ve seen Cacturne and Gligar have very little usage. Clearly this is not an ability that is oppressive and centralizing in this metagame.
The second argument, however, has a bit more meat on the bone. On principle, should any game come down to whether or not a 100% accurate move randomly misses at a crucial time? Is SV somehow fundamentally different from Double Team and Minimize, which the ADV community long ago deemed fundamentally uncompetitive? For consistency, if evasion moves are banned on principle for being fundamentally uncompetitive, regardless of power level, doesn’t SV fall under the evasion umbrella?
The catch 22 here is that we can ban Double Team and Minimize without removing an actual Pokemon from the field. In banning SV you are outright banning Cacturne and, effectively, Gligar as well. Gligar has no purpose other than SV + Swords Dance + Sub cheesing, but Cacturne has a couple legitimate niches, even if it hypothetically didn’t have SV, such as being a non trappable Spiker, a Spiker that handles specific threats such as RestLax and RestCune and a great non BP Celebi counter. Do we remove that because of SV? Is Cacturne a “problem” in the metagame? I would argue that it is not.
My personal favorite solution is a very simple one- ban Swords Dance from Gligar. I am not 100% adamant that’s even necessary, but for the sake of the criers who have been swept by a Gligar because they missed twice in a row and they just can’t handle it, problem solved. Nothing else needs to be done, and this keeps Cacturne in the metagame.
If we’re banning SV “on principle” or “for consistency” then we need to ban Brightpowder too. For those immediately wanting to respond with “Brightpowder isn’t too powerful and clearly doesn’t need to be banned”, you’re right, but my point is that your argument about principle or consistency is now out the window. We either ban all things that fall under the umbrella of the alleged uncompetitive entity (evasion) or we ban none of them. Otherwise, what we’re really doing is banning or not banning on a case by case basis, which takes “principle” and “consistency” out of the equation.
All in all I vote we either ban Swords Dance on Gligar, do nothing or ban ALL evasion boosts, including Brightpowder. I’m fine with any of those three solutions. Anything else is just handpicking “I like this so let’s keep it but I don’t like that so let’s get rid of it” and that’s not what any policy that an entire player base has to follow should be based off of.
I’ve discussed my personal views on SV multiple times in audio form but if there were ever a place to do it in writing I guess this would be it. First of all, I want to draw a distinction between the two (very different) arguments people make as to why they’d like it to be banned.
1. It’s Too Powerful
2. It’s BS/Uncompetitive/Should Be Banned on Principle
I flat out disagree with the first point. It’s very easy to single out “I missed my 100% accurate Ice Beam on turn 50 because of Sand Veil and if I’d hit that Ice Beam, which I always should, I would have won” and use that to say that SV is too good but in my opinion that is a massive oversimplification and completely ignores all other factors that led up to that point. The reality is that both major SV users require setup in order to be effective so if your opponent has managed to get a +4 Gligar behind a Substitute, don’t you at some point have to start asking yourself if your team is too passive, too frail or in need of a phazer?
There have been numerous tournaments at this point- be it one of my Callous Invitationals, SPL, World Cup, etc- where participants have financial or other incentives to try their hardest to win. One would think if SV really were too powerful the top players would use it, period. Sure, there will always be a group of people who don’t use it on principle no matter what because they think it’s BS, but by and large when you’re playing for hundreds of dollars or the most prestigious title in competitive Pokemon you bring whatever wins, period, and time and time again we’ve seen Cacturne and Gligar have very little usage. Clearly this is not an ability that is oppressive and centralizing in this metagame.
The second argument, however, has a bit more meat on the bone. On principle, should any game come down to whether or not a 100% accurate move randomly misses at a crucial time? Is SV somehow fundamentally different from Double Team and Minimize, which the ADV community long ago deemed fundamentally uncompetitive? For consistency, if evasion moves are banned on principle for being fundamentally uncompetitive, regardless of power level, doesn’t SV fall under the evasion umbrella?
The catch 22 here is that we can ban Double Team and Minimize without removing an actual Pokemon from the field. In banning SV you are outright banning Cacturne and, effectively, Gligar as well. Gligar has no purpose other than SV + Swords Dance + Sub cheesing, but Cacturne has a couple legitimate niches, even if it hypothetically didn’t have SV, such as being a non trappable Spiker, a Spiker that handles specific threats such as RestLax and RestCune and a great non BP Celebi counter. Do we remove that because of SV? Is Cacturne a “problem” in the metagame? I would argue that it is not.
My personal favorite solution is a very simple one- ban Swords Dance from Gligar. I am not 100% adamant that’s even necessary, but for the sake of the criers who have been swept by a Gligar because they missed twice in a row and they just can’t handle it, problem solved. Nothing else needs to be done, and this keeps Cacturne in the metagame.
If we’re banning SV “on principle” or “for consistency” then we need to ban Brightpowder too. For those immediately wanting to respond with “Brightpowder isn’t too powerful and clearly doesn’t need to be banned”, you’re right, but my point is that your argument about principle or consistency is now out the window. We either ban all things that fall under the umbrella of the alleged uncompetitive entity (evasion) or we ban none of them. Otherwise, what we’re really doing is banning or not banning on a case by case basis, which takes “principle” and “consistency” out of the equation.
All in all I vote we either ban Swords Dance on Gligar, do nothing or ban ALL evasion boosts, including Brightpowder. I’m fine with any of those three solutions. Anything else is just handpicking “I like this so let’s keep it but I don’t like that so let’s get rid of it” and that’s not what any policy that an entire player base has to follow should be based off of.
not being an active adv player myself i will not stake out any position on what the proper solution to this scenario is, however i do believe that the above post by callous stakes out a false equivalency that i'd like to adress
in pokemon we allow for some possibility of an "uncompetitive" situation arising. we allow metronome despite its ability to call moves that we've otherwise banned for being uncompetitive or otherwise broken. we allow (as of now!) for certain confusion-based strategies to exist but not others (i.e. swagger in later generations).
more importantly, we recognize that the effect that a move, ability or item may have comes with opportunity cost in relation to its perceived uncompetitive nature, and we recognize that a particular effect may be broken only during certain situations. we allow for moves such as mean look to exist across all generations, despite similarly banning shadow tag. the effect is the same - the opponent may not switch after the effect of shadow tag/mean look comes into play - but there's something different. mean look does not activate upon switching, mean look consumes a move slot. shadow tag activates upon switching in and does not carry any meaningful opportunity cost (especially in adv as there's no alternative ability for the wobbs to choose from, but contrast with competitive gothitelle in future generations). there is execution difference as well as non-trivial opportunity cost when using mean look and shadow tag.
contrast here with sand veil/double team. sand veil effectively kicks into gear as soon as you hit the field similarly to shadow tag and also carries minimal opportunity cost - it is in fact not possible to talk about an opportunity cost in the case of cacturne as it does not carry a different ability. double team is different from sand veil - you don't get to start out with it once you hit the field but you can baton pass the evasion away to a recipient and you can use it more than once for an increased effect. there is also an opportunity cost involved as the moveslot devoted to double team could have been used for another move. the difference between sand veil and double team is in my opinion nontrivial and we should judge them on their own merits.
similarly, brightpowder is different from especially double team but also sand veil. ive not touched on distribution yet, but obviously all pokemon can choose to utilize brightpowder if they so wish. however, the opportunity cost of foregoing an item that allows you to more reliably perform a certain role is large - there is a reason why brightpowder or quick claw, another item with rng-based upside, have never been popular item choices, despite having a very strong effect should it trigger. here, opportunity cost comes at its clearest into play. your tyranitar no longer carries a berry to negate status, or leftovers to negate inevitable damage. the difference is heavily felt. brightpowder has such a big opportunity cost that despite the undeniably uncompetitive nature of the item, it does not (to my knowledge) see any significant use, nor has it in the past.
the summary of all of the above is this: items, abilities and moves are different and it is valid to evaluate them differently even if they have similar effects. it is a valid position to be in favor of banning sand veil but not brightpowder.
in pokemon we allow for some possibility of an "uncompetitive" situation arising. we allow metronome despite its ability to call moves that we've otherwise banned for being uncompetitive or otherwise broken. we allow (as of now!) for certain confusion-based strategies to exist but not others (i.e. swagger in later generations).
more importantly, we recognize that the effect that a move, ability or item may have comes with opportunity cost in relation to its perceived uncompetitive nature, and we recognize that a particular effect may be broken only during certain situations. we allow for moves such as mean look to exist across all generations, despite similarly banning shadow tag. the effect is the same - the opponent may not switch after the effect of shadow tag/mean look comes into play - but there's something different. mean look does not activate upon switching, mean look consumes a move slot. shadow tag activates upon switching in and does not carry any meaningful opportunity cost (especially in adv as there's no alternative ability for the wobbs to choose from, but contrast with competitive gothitelle in future generations). there is execution difference as well as non-trivial opportunity cost when using mean look and shadow tag.
contrast here with sand veil/double team. sand veil effectively kicks into gear as soon as you hit the field similarly to shadow tag and also carries minimal opportunity cost - it is in fact not possible to talk about an opportunity cost in the case of cacturne as it does not carry a different ability. double team is different from sand veil - you don't get to start out with it once you hit the field but you can baton pass the evasion away to a recipient and you can use it more than once for an increased effect. there is also an opportunity cost involved as the moveslot devoted to double team could have been used for another move. the difference between sand veil and double team is in my opinion nontrivial and we should judge them on their own merits.
similarly, brightpowder is different from especially double team but also sand veil. ive not touched on distribution yet, but obviously all pokemon can choose to utilize brightpowder if they so wish. however, the opportunity cost of foregoing an item that allows you to more reliably perform a certain role is large - there is a reason why brightpowder or quick claw, another item with rng-based upside, have never been popular item choices, despite having a very strong effect should it trigger. here, opportunity cost comes at its clearest into play. your tyranitar no longer carries a berry to negate status, or leftovers to negate inevitable damage. the difference is heavily felt. brightpowder has such a big opportunity cost that despite the undeniably uncompetitive nature of the item, it does not (to my knowledge) see any significant use, nor has it in the past.
the summary of all of the above is this: items, abilities and moves are different and it is valid to evaluate them differently even if they have similar effects. it is a valid position to be in favor of banning sand veil but not brightpowder.
Hi guys, It's been a long time i think that we should do something to nerf this technic, i will not do a big message but i just wanted to explain why i think we should nerf Sand Veil
Like CALLOUS said before this technic can be seen like Unfair/BS or to Powerful. I think that theres 2 arguments are pretty solid. Pokémon is a game of skill with a part of luck but with Sand Veil technics, it become a Luck-Based game with a little part of skill (when to put you sand veil abuser), that's my point of view for the unfair/BS argument. Furthermore, when its used with substitute, you can try to get a miss from the oppenent multiple time, that makes the luck part in your advantage because you have 1/4 to evade the attack and you can sub 4-5 times depending if you use leftovers, and if the oppenent is paralysed or confused or anything like that, you have even more chance to evade, and then, you are free to leech seed , sd etc.. The fact that the probability of getting misses is more likely in the favor of the sand veil user when he sub makes that really powerful. Also, i just wanted to say briefly that the fact that this is really random, an average player can beat a good player only by being lucky.
So in summary, you play a luck-based game and the luck is often on the side of the sand veil user. (BS and Powerful arguments)
Finally, I think the best way to go is to make a complex-ban: Substitute + Sand Veil on the same Pokémon. If we do that, Cacturne, Gligar and etc. will stay in their tiers instead of being in Ubers where they cant be used. Theses Pokémons will still being usable but the bullshit will be nerfed a lot, that means that cacturne, for example can still be a rarely-used spiker instead of being a Luck Abuser.
Like CALLOUS said before this technic can be seen like Unfair/BS or to Powerful. I think that theres 2 arguments are pretty solid. Pokémon is a game of skill with a part of luck but with Sand Veil technics, it become a Luck-Based game with a little part of skill (when to put you sand veil abuser), that's my point of view for the unfair/BS argument. Furthermore, when its used with substitute, you can try to get a miss from the oppenent multiple time, that makes the luck part in your advantage because you have 1/4 to evade the attack and you can sub 4-5 times depending if you use leftovers, and if the oppenent is paralysed or confused or anything like that, you have even more chance to evade, and then, you are free to leech seed , sd etc.. The fact that the probability of getting misses is more likely in the favor of the sand veil user when he sub makes that really powerful. Also, i just wanted to say briefly that the fact that this is really random, an average player can beat a good player only by being lucky.
So in summary, you play a luck-based game and the luck is often on the side of the sand veil user. (BS and Powerful arguments)
Finally, I think the best way to go is to make a complex-ban: Substitute + Sand Veil on the same Pokémon. If we do that, Cacturne, Gligar and etc. will stay in their tiers instead of being in Ubers where they cant be used. Theses Pokémons will still being usable but the bullshit will be nerfed a lot, that means that cacturne, for example can still be a rarely-used spiker instead of being a Luck Abuser.
I agree with this, SV+Sub is what gives multiple luck based chances for BS to the point it is statistically relevant; Gligar with Leftovers can set up 5-6 Subs (depending on the EV's and misses) + still can avoid 1 miss raw and steamroll slower teams or 1v1 as last mon like here so phazer is not an option.
I won't repeat previous arguments, just wanna say complex ban that would keep both mons as part of metagame or plain ban of both here would be a step forward.
Hi, this will be my first write up on the forms. I believe that a complex ban is best as well, for boosting moves+sand veil. However since that most likely doesnt happen I think Gligar should be banned instead. Everyone knows what cacturne and gligar do but let me explain why I believe gligar to be the problem here and not cacturne.
Cacturne- this pokemon has more then one set (sub seed hp grass spikes, sub punch, etc) which all can abuse sand veil dodges because of sub, but even without it Cacturne contributes to the metagame as a bulky water switch in and a mon that messes with bulky teams. This brings me to my main point with Cacturne, Cacturne abuses being immune to sand more then the sand veil evasion boost. Without being immune to sand cacturne is way worse, the sand veil boost is just a nice benefit that can be helpful at times. I believe cacturne contributes to the metagame in positive ways as well despite having sand veil.
Gligar-Now this mon is a problem, while cacturne has multiple sets and can have a positive impact on your team without sand veil, Gligar banks on dodges, it always runs the same set, (sub, sd, eq, hpfly/rs) and banks on getting a sub up and sding to win games on the spot if the user is lucky enough. While usually one doesnt lose to Gligar if they play well, the fact that it can be completely out of their control at all, and exclusively rng is why I think Gligar needs to go.
Thank you for reading.
Cacturne- this pokemon has more then one set (sub seed hp grass spikes, sub punch, etc) which all can abuse sand veil dodges because of sub, but even without it Cacturne contributes to the metagame as a bulky water switch in and a mon that messes with bulky teams. This brings me to my main point with Cacturne, Cacturne abuses being immune to sand more then the sand veil evasion boost. Without being immune to sand cacturne is way worse, the sand veil boost is just a nice benefit that can be helpful at times. I believe cacturne contributes to the metagame in positive ways as well despite having sand veil.
Gligar-Now this mon is a problem, while cacturne has multiple sets and can have a positive impact on your team without sand veil, Gligar banks on dodges, it always runs the same set, (sub, sd, eq, hpfly/rs) and banks on getting a sub up and sding to win games on the spot if the user is lucky enough. While usually one doesnt lose to Gligar if they play well, the fact that it can be completely out of their control at all, and exclusively rng is why I think Gligar needs to go.
Thank you for reading.
The premise of my position is that we should reward good team choice and game plans. I don't have strong opinions on this, but I hope to give people my perspective nevertheless. I also want to do some analysis on the probabilities, because half of the people are saying these few battles are one-off and not representative, whereas others are saying these battles are evidence.
Team choice - Sand Veil teams are a great choice against stalls and can have non lucked based outs against offensive teams (just play SkarmBliss or Milo well). However, the set of teams that Sand Veil totally dominates (stalls with spinners and waters without Ice Beam) is small, and beating offense is an uphill battle. Thus, Sand Veil has its uses, isn't matchup-fishy to an extraordinary extent, and is not too unfairly powerful.
Game plans - Plans only make sense if they involve certainties, not on every turn, but across the game, which means aggregated probabilities should be near 0 or 100% for plans to make sense. I will focus on the variance in my analysis. I argue that
1) For Gligar, Sand Veil + paralysis is a consistent strategy in a vacuum with high certainty, but when checks come in, it results in a huge uncertainty relative to ADV "ragequit" standards against both defensive and offensive teams.
2) For Cacturne, Sand Veil + paralysis is a consistent strategy with high certainty facing defensive teams, but its efficacy facing offensive Pokémon has a huge variance
3) The Gligar + Cacturne synergy of overloading on checks enhances several of these uncertainties
Against a slower opponent, these are the probabilities to get n free turns in a 1v1, assuming that the opponent has the ability to OHKO said Sand Veil mon (think Gligar vs any mon with Ice Beam).
(Equations 1)
Probability to get at least 1 free turn before getting OHKOed = 1-0.8^6 = 74%
Probability to get at least 2 free turns before getting OHKOed = 1-0.8^6-7*0.8^6*0.2 = 37%
Probability to get at least 3 free turns before getting OHKOed = 1-0.8^6-7*0.8^6*0.2-28*0.8^6*0.2^2 = 8%
Frequently, Gligar or Cacturne come in at full HP on a paralyzed Pokémon due to Tyranitar/Registeel/Blissey applying Thunder Wave, resulting in the following probabilities
(Equations 2)
Probability to get at least 1 free turn before getting OHKOed = 1-(0.8*0.75)^6 = 95%
Probability to get at least 2 free turns before getting OHKOed = 1-(0.8*0.75)^6-7*(0.8*0.75)^6*0.2 = 89%
Probability to get at least 3 free turns before getting OHKOed = 1-(0.8*0.75)^6-7*(0.8*0.75)^6*0.2-28*(0.8*0.75)^6*0.2^2 = 84%
Since any Sand Veil vs paralyzed mon scenario is almost certain to get free turns vs a paralyzed mon, any competent player will switch to their checks. 1) Let me focus my analysis on Gligar, because its usage is not always, but frequently endgame-related, and it's easier to analyze endgames
- 1a) If the checks are slower, then they become subject to Equations 1, except that they get an additional free turn from the act of switching. It takes 3 free turns for Gligar to OHKO standard Swampert and Bold Suicune (2 with Spikes, but with all the turns healing Leftovers, that might not matter). If you play your bulky water perfectly and leave it unchipped, while ensuring that the endgame scenario happens with no turn advantage, then you are looking at a 8% chance your opponent wins. Very acceptable. But if you have to switch in the endgame, or get your bulky water chipped in order to keep the momentum in your favor, then it becomes a 37% tossup. This scenario is more typical, because Cacturne is likely going to mess up teams that have the truly defensive bulky waters. Typical ADV standards of certainty before people start complaining are <30% (Hydro Pump misses, Rock Slide flinches), so 37% is a number that is going to make lots of people unhappy.
- 1b) If the checks are faster, then it becomes tricky. Consider that most fast mons either OHKO (Gengar, Zapdos, Starmie) or 2HKO (Salamence, Aerodactyl) Gligar (reverse for Cacturne). But these mons are resilient -- Gengar gets 3HKOed, Zapdos 6HKOed, Starmie 2HKOed, Salamence 5HKOed, Aerodactyl 5HKOed. Yet at the same time Sand Veil teams tend to run Pursuit Tyranitar, which chips Salamence, Aerodactyl, and Gengar, and these mons have to share the load of checking both Gligar and Cacturne. With some give and take then, let's suppose Gengar gets chipped down really hard and Salamence and Aerodactyl are at 50%, so Gengar gets OHKOed, Salamence and Aerodactyl are 3HKOed by Gligar and 2HKOed by Cacturne respectively. HP Grass Zapdos is kinda screwed, by the way.
(Equations 3)
Probability of at least 1 miss in 2 turns = 1-0.8^2 = 36%
Probability of at least 1 miss in 3 turns = 1-0.8^3 = 49%
With the appropriate chip, Gligar is conceivably going to beat these fast mons with uncomfortable levels of uncertainty approaching a coin flip. It may not end up sweeping teams because it probably hasn't boosted enough, but the fact that someone lost/gained a relative advantage of 2 mons (loss of check, presence of Gligar vs loss of Gligar, presence of check) might be huge enough to swing a game.
2) Let's move on to Cacturne, which has been talked about a bit above, but I want to emphasize the main differences.
Cacturne, unlike Gligar, is not all-or-nothing; it can afford to take a hit, and it only needs one free turn to wreck havoc. From Equations (1) we see that Cacturne's probability of getting its momentum going is 74%, which is marginally acceptable considering that we rely on Hydro Pump's 80% all the time. And that's if it can't even take the hit (not a concern for the bulky waters or statusless Blisseys). And Thunder Wave makes things even easier. Cacturne will almost always find an opportunity to start its momentum against something slower.
Unfortunately, arguments from 1b) apply against offensive Pokémon for Cacturne too, as I've elaborated earlier.
3) Cacturne + Gligar
This is more a summary; to reiterate, nothing is too much in contention if the probabilities are passably high (like >74%) or low (8%). But Cacturne and Gligar combine in a way that pushes odds near the 50% aka coinflip range.
As I've aluded to in 1a), Cacturne hurts and Spikes on the waters that create some situations where Gligar will rely on a 37% chance to win. And in 1b), I mentioned that due to Cacturne and Gligar sharing fast offensive checks, there will be situations where either relies on a 36% or 49% chance to win.
I remain neutral on this. I do think these mons are an outlet for creativity; new teams with these mons can still be built. But I must admit that there is a non negligible effect of randomness, more so than most ADVers are used to.
Team choice - Sand Veil teams are a great choice against stalls and can have non lucked based outs against offensive teams (just play SkarmBliss or Milo well). However, the set of teams that Sand Veil totally dominates (stalls with spinners and waters without Ice Beam) is small, and beating offense is an uphill battle. Thus, Sand Veil has its uses, isn't matchup-fishy to an extraordinary extent, and is not too unfairly powerful.
Game plans - Plans only make sense if they involve certainties, not on every turn, but across the game, which means aggregated probabilities should be near 0 or 100% for plans to make sense. I will focus on the variance in my analysis. I argue that
1) For Gligar, Sand Veil + paralysis is a consistent strategy in a vacuum with high certainty, but when checks come in, it results in a huge uncertainty relative to ADV "ragequit" standards against both defensive and offensive teams.
2) For Cacturne, Sand Veil + paralysis is a consistent strategy with high certainty facing defensive teams, but its efficacy facing offensive Pokémon has a huge variance
3) The Gligar + Cacturne synergy of overloading on checks enhances several of these uncertainties
Against a slower opponent, these are the probabilities to get n free turns in a 1v1, assuming that the opponent has the ability to OHKO said Sand Veil mon (think Gligar vs any mon with Ice Beam).
(Equations 1)
Probability to get at least 1 free turn before getting OHKOed = 1-0.8^6 = 74%
Probability to get at least 2 free turns before getting OHKOed = 1-0.8^6-7*0.8^6*0.2 = 37%
Probability to get at least 3 free turns before getting OHKOed = 1-0.8^6-7*0.8^6*0.2-28*0.8^6*0.2^2 = 8%
Frequently, Gligar or Cacturne come in at full HP on a paralyzed Pokémon due to Tyranitar/Registeel/Blissey applying Thunder Wave, resulting in the following probabilities
(Equations 2)
Probability to get at least 1 free turn before getting OHKOed = 1-(0.8*0.75)^6 = 95%
Probability to get at least 2 free turns before getting OHKOed = 1-(0.8*0.75)^6-7*(0.8*0.75)^6*0.2 = 89%
Probability to get at least 3 free turns before getting OHKOed = 1-(0.8*0.75)^6-7*(0.8*0.75)^6*0.2-28*(0.8*0.75)^6*0.2^2 = 84%
Since any Sand Veil vs paralyzed mon scenario is almost certain to get free turns vs a paralyzed mon, any competent player will switch to their checks. 1) Let me focus my analysis on Gligar, because its usage is not always, but frequently endgame-related, and it's easier to analyze endgames
- 1a) If the checks are slower, then they become subject to Equations 1, except that they get an additional free turn from the act of switching. It takes 3 free turns for Gligar to OHKO standard Swampert and Bold Suicune (2 with Spikes, but with all the turns healing Leftovers, that might not matter). If you play your bulky water perfectly and leave it unchipped, while ensuring that the endgame scenario happens with no turn advantage, then you are looking at a 8% chance your opponent wins. Very acceptable. But if you have to switch in the endgame, or get your bulky water chipped in order to keep the momentum in your favor, then it becomes a 37% tossup. This scenario is more typical, because Cacturne is likely going to mess up teams that have the truly defensive bulky waters. Typical ADV standards of certainty before people start complaining are <30% (Hydro Pump misses, Rock Slide flinches), so 37% is a number that is going to make lots of people unhappy.
- 1b) If the checks are faster, then it becomes tricky. Consider that most fast mons either OHKO (Gengar, Zapdos, Starmie) or 2HKO (Salamence, Aerodactyl) Gligar (reverse for Cacturne). But these mons are resilient -- Gengar gets 3HKOed, Zapdos 6HKOed, Starmie 2HKOed, Salamence 5HKOed, Aerodactyl 5HKOed. Yet at the same time Sand Veil teams tend to run Pursuit Tyranitar, which chips Salamence, Aerodactyl, and Gengar, and these mons have to share the load of checking both Gligar and Cacturne. With some give and take then, let's suppose Gengar gets chipped down really hard and Salamence and Aerodactyl are at 50%, so Gengar gets OHKOed, Salamence and Aerodactyl are 3HKOed by Gligar and 2HKOed by Cacturne respectively. HP Grass Zapdos is kinda screwed, by the way.
(Equations 3)
Probability of at least 1 miss in 2 turns = 1-0.8^2 = 36%
Probability of at least 1 miss in 3 turns = 1-0.8^3 = 49%
With the appropriate chip, Gligar is conceivably going to beat these fast mons with uncomfortable levels of uncertainty approaching a coin flip. It may not end up sweeping teams because it probably hasn't boosted enough, but the fact that someone lost/gained a relative advantage of 2 mons (loss of check, presence of Gligar vs loss of Gligar, presence of check) might be huge enough to swing a game.
2) Let's move on to Cacturne, which has been talked about a bit above, but I want to emphasize the main differences.
Cacturne, unlike Gligar, is not all-or-nothing; it can afford to take a hit, and it only needs one free turn to wreck havoc. From Equations (1) we see that Cacturne's probability of getting its momentum going is 74%, which is marginally acceptable considering that we rely on Hydro Pump's 80% all the time. And that's if it can't even take the hit (not a concern for the bulky waters or statusless Blisseys). And Thunder Wave makes things even easier. Cacturne will almost always find an opportunity to start its momentum against something slower.
Unfortunately, arguments from 1b) apply against offensive Pokémon for Cacturne too, as I've elaborated earlier.
3) Cacturne + Gligar
This is more a summary; to reiterate, nothing is too much in contention if the probabilities are passably high (like >74%) or low (8%). But Cacturne and Gligar combine in a way that pushes odds near the 50% aka coinflip range.
As I've aluded to in 1a), Cacturne hurts and Spikes on the waters that create some situations where Gligar will rely on a 37% chance to win. And in 1b), I mentioned that due to Cacturne and Gligar sharing fast offensive checks, there will be situations where either relies on a 36% or 49% chance to win.
I remain neutral on this. I do think these mons are an outlet for creativity; new teams with these mons can still be built. But I must admit that there is a non negligible effect of randomness, more so than most ADVers are used to.
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Howdy, all
There are a lot of people talking about how gligar is a bigger problem than cacturne. I do not think that this is necessarily the case. While it is true that gligar's efficacy compounds more than cacturne's does with each sand veil miss, cacturne's much better defensive typing and deceptively decent speed tier make it in my mind a more pressing issue.
Gligar is OHKO'd by just about every water and ice move in the tier. While it can fish for misses by spamming substitute, this will reduce its HP to the point where it starts to be ko'd by almost every move of other types as well. Cacturne, on the other hand, fears fire and bug moves, above all else, as it can live an ice beam from starmie or suicune and threaten them with needle arm in return. The broken thing about cacturne, in my opinion, is sand immunity + leech seed in combination with the free turns it generates. For example, take this game between McMeghan and Starmaster for CI4: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-514327
On turn 14, Starmaster attempts to blow up his Claydol on Cacturne. I am not Starmaster, so I do not know for sure why he made that play, but I think that it is certainly at least defensible. If he goes to Gyarados here, it will lose a quarter of its health (at least) to leech seed, while Cacturne will regain (at least) the amount of HP it invested in its substitute. That's assuming gyarados hits its attack, which as we are all aware, it is only 80% to do. If it misses, it'll either take a big chunk from needle arm and another 12.5% from leech seed, or McMeghan can just choose to spam substitute and Cacturne beats one of its checks 1v1. This cannot be said about something like Celebi, which can do the same subseed trick, because Celebi is a) not sand immune and b) cannot dodge an HP flying. So, due to the fact that Gyarados only has an 80% chance to scare Cacturne out and this same scenario will likely happen again, later, Starmaster explodes, which is obviously the premier way to deny anything a free turn, and he misses. I am wary to make a statement about how the tier 'should' be, as that is obviously hugely subjective. However, I do think that some things ought to be guaranteed. If I miss a Will-o-Wisp and lose, I brought that upon myself for relying on an inaccurate move. The same can be said for hypnosis, or hydro pump, or even rock slide. You cannot say this about explosion, or surf, or ice beam. Pokemon is generally a game where we can choose which risks to take. We don't run Blizzard and (for the most part) Thunder, strictly because they are less reliable than their alternatives.
So, while in that replay Cacturne doesn't even get a move off, the threat of sand veil and the lack of a reliable counter on Starmaster's team (the list of which seems, to me, to consist only of breloom, ludicolo, and maybe venusaur) forced Starmaster to essentially take an 80% gamble, because it was going to happen either that turn or over the rest of the battle with probably worse odds. It obviously did not pay out for him. This is just one game, and even if that explosion had connected then Starmaster's team would still probably get ripped apart by Aero, but the point is that it is extremely difficult to force damage on Cacturne already just due to its sand immunity and subseeding, and a 20% chance to dodge any attack just pushes it over the edge.
I do think that sand veil should be banned. I personally would not be opposed to a complex ban on sub+veil, which is mushi's solution, but I think that boosting moves+veil wouldn't really address the problem. The only reason for a complex ban here is to maintain cacturne's niche as an alternative spiker in the tier, which I think would see next to zero usage and is not a strategy that is necessarily worth preserving (as a side note, when drumpass was banned, a complex ban was enacted in order to preserve Smeargle Spikes HO teams while getting rid of the problematic Smeargle set. That's the precedent I'm going off of here.). I'm also in favor of a brightpowder ban (strict evasion clause) if consistency is an issue, but the opportunity cost of that is obviously much higher than that of an ability that would be good even without the boost it gives to evasion, not to mention the fact that cac+gligar don't really have good alternatives.
There are a lot of things in pokemon that are left up to chance. I've won games by getting a double protect, I've lost games by missing a double protect. Something like astarachi also has a 20% chance to permanently cripple the few things that threaten it as they switch in. I obviously think that banning fire punch on Jirachi is ridiculous. I think there is an important difference here, but I don't know exactly how to articulate it. However, I do believe that sand veil makes the metagame less 'healthy', whatever that means, and less enjoyable. It certainly doesn't add anything worth preserving to the tier. I do think it's more uncompetitive than broken, broken would probably be a stretch, but it certainly forces the player opposing it to take large risks or make a lot of sacrifices in order to play around it, which I think is very undesirable. I see a lot of good reasons to ban sand veil, and almost no good reasons not to. I'd welcome a suspect test on it, but as ABR said in the other thread the council should feel welcome to make a decision on it, as I am sure they are monitoring community discussion.
There are a lot of people talking about how gligar is a bigger problem than cacturne. I do not think that this is necessarily the case. While it is true that gligar's efficacy compounds more than cacturne's does with each sand veil miss, cacturne's much better defensive typing and deceptively decent speed tier make it in my mind a more pressing issue.
Gligar is OHKO'd by just about every water and ice move in the tier. While it can fish for misses by spamming substitute, this will reduce its HP to the point where it starts to be ko'd by almost every move of other types as well. Cacturne, on the other hand, fears fire and bug moves, above all else, as it can live an ice beam from starmie or suicune and threaten them with needle arm in return. The broken thing about cacturne, in my opinion, is sand immunity + leech seed in combination with the free turns it generates. For example, take this game between McMeghan and Starmaster for CI4: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-514327
On turn 14, Starmaster attempts to blow up his Claydol on Cacturne. I am not Starmaster, so I do not know for sure why he made that play, but I think that it is certainly at least defensible. If he goes to Gyarados here, it will lose a quarter of its health (at least) to leech seed, while Cacturne will regain (at least) the amount of HP it invested in its substitute. That's assuming gyarados hits its attack, which as we are all aware, it is only 80% to do. If it misses, it'll either take a big chunk from needle arm and another 12.5% from leech seed, or McMeghan can just choose to spam substitute and Cacturne beats one of its checks 1v1. This cannot be said about something like Celebi, which can do the same subseed trick, because Celebi is a) not sand immune and b) cannot dodge an HP flying. So, due to the fact that Gyarados only has an 80% chance to scare Cacturne out and this same scenario will likely happen again, later, Starmaster explodes, which is obviously the premier way to deny anything a free turn, and he misses. I am wary to make a statement about how the tier 'should' be, as that is obviously hugely subjective. However, I do think that some things ought to be guaranteed. If I miss a Will-o-Wisp and lose, I brought that upon myself for relying on an inaccurate move. The same can be said for hypnosis, or hydro pump, or even rock slide. You cannot say this about explosion, or surf, or ice beam. Pokemon is generally a game where we can choose which risks to take. We don't run Blizzard and (for the most part) Thunder, strictly because they are less reliable than their alternatives.
So, while in that replay Cacturne doesn't even get a move off, the threat of sand veil and the lack of a reliable counter on Starmaster's team (the list of which seems, to me, to consist only of breloom, ludicolo, and maybe venusaur) forced Starmaster to essentially take an 80% gamble, because it was going to happen either that turn or over the rest of the battle with probably worse odds. It obviously did not pay out for him. This is just one game, and even if that explosion had connected then Starmaster's team would still probably get ripped apart by Aero, but the point is that it is extremely difficult to force damage on Cacturne already just due to its sand immunity and subseeding, and a 20% chance to dodge any attack just pushes it over the edge.
I do think that sand veil should be banned. I personally would not be opposed to a complex ban on sub+veil, which is mushi's solution, but I think that boosting moves+veil wouldn't really address the problem. The only reason for a complex ban here is to maintain cacturne's niche as an alternative spiker in the tier, which I think would see next to zero usage and is not a strategy that is necessarily worth preserving (as a side note, when drumpass was banned, a complex ban was enacted in order to preserve Smeargle Spikes HO teams while getting rid of the problematic Smeargle set. That's the precedent I'm going off of here.). I'm also in favor of a brightpowder ban (strict evasion clause) if consistency is an issue, but the opportunity cost of that is obviously much higher than that of an ability that would be good even without the boost it gives to evasion, not to mention the fact that cac+gligar don't really have good alternatives.
There are a lot of things in pokemon that are left up to chance. I've won games by getting a double protect, I've lost games by missing a double protect. Something like astarachi also has a 20% chance to permanently cripple the few things that threaten it as they switch in. I obviously think that banning fire punch on Jirachi is ridiculous. I think there is an important difference here, but I don't know exactly how to articulate it. However, I do believe that sand veil makes the metagame less 'healthy', whatever that means, and less enjoyable. It certainly doesn't add anything worth preserving to the tier. I do think it's more uncompetitive than broken, broken would probably be a stretch, but it certainly forces the player opposing it to take large risks or make a lot of sacrifices in order to play around it, which I think is very undesirable. I see a lot of good reasons to ban sand veil, and almost no good reasons not to. I'd welcome a suspect test on it, but as ABR said in the other thread the council should feel welcome to make a decision on it, as I am sure they are monitoring community discussion.
Pokemon is a game that has variance built into it, perhaps more than we like to acknowledge at times. Appreciate vapi posting the stats regarding the chances to generate free turns, and everyone else trying to pick apart differences between Serene Grace and Sand Veil, Brightpowder and Sand Veil etc.
I am inclined to say that we shouldn't do anything about Sand Veil, or at least we should "test it," whatever that may entail. I think part of what gets to people in situations like this is that they don't want to give credence in the builder to a strategy that they don't see as legitimate. But there are players doing their best to take advantage of Sand Veil as a threat. I wonder how many people are willing/trying to do anything to combat it? These teams don't have great matchups across the board. If you reset the weather, you're just playing against 1-2 non-ou mons, Tyranitar and Magneton.... often a worse version of some other SkarMag TSS or MagDol cores. Weather reset is already a good option against other forms of TSS. MagDol obviously preys on more passive & spikes reliant teams. You're playing against at least 3 Duggy weak Pokemon when you run into these teams, too. Both trapper + weather reset and straightforward rain teams are quite viable and perhaps somewhat underplayed in ADV OU. On a smaller builder decision making scale, maybe you should run Flamethrower over that Fire Blast? Maybe you should consider trying Ice Beam Claydol like your granny used to run?
To add a bit to the comparisons between Sand Veil and some other forms of variance in the game:
Serene Grace, it seems to me, tends to be not that good unless it's on a good Pokemon that has plenty of time to take advantage of it, or a Pokemon that's so good anyway that the status bonuses are just icing on the cake. In other words, Jirachi (in ADV, or Togekiss later. No idea what else gets it in later gens. We obviously don't use Serene Grace Blissey often in ADV and Dunsparce is a Pokemon I think many of us forget even exists, regardless of what tier we're playing). I think if there were no such thing as Freeze Clause, we might not look at Serene Grace the same way. Actually though, Serene Grace is part of what makes Jirachi such a powerful stallbreaker, since it can quickly take down special walls with SpDef drops on bulkier sets. But Jirachi is pretty good anyway as a Sand immune, Rock Resistant, Bulky, Speedy, Wish Passing jack of all trades. There's also the little caveat that you cannot play Jirachi without Serene Grace, so I think many people are fine with the arrangement we have even if their Dugtrio gets frozen/para'd/burned on the switch a good portion of the time that it should otherwise be taking a free kill. You just kind of accept "well, I might lose the game if Jirachi lands that burn or para on my trapper or sweeper. That's the power of Jirachi."
Cacturne and Gligar are not very good Pokemon. They're not worthless or anything, but they fit very comfortably in their respective NU and UU tiers. I recognize that it's not necessarily their Offensive stats or Movepools holding them back, so much as their ability to switch in and take hits, so the free turns can matter. But do they ALWAYS matter, or are the misses rather meaningless a decent portion of the time? Do you keep track of all of the misses that don't affect the outcomes of your games? Does your opponent have to work to generate enough free turns that the chances are high one of them matters? Is there anything you could've reasonably done in the builder or in the game to prevent the game from getting there? I'm not gonna be that mad if my opponent shits on me with Aero flinches or something like Attract Misdreavus (GSC) after half of my team is paralyzed. They set up that situation. Luck and playing for luck are part of the game, and I don't think Sand Veil really stretches the bounds of what's fair TOO much. It's kept in check by the fact that the Pokemon abusing it are not very good, the teambuilding iterations that take advantage of the strategy are relatively limited, and you have options in the builder to prepare your team against it.
It should go without saying that since I don't think Sand Veil should be touched at all, if anything is going to be done about it, it should be some kind of complex ban that affects the Pokemon in a minor way, like the aforementioned Sub+Sand Veil ban.
I am inclined to say that we shouldn't do anything about Sand Veil, or at least we should "test it," whatever that may entail. I think part of what gets to people in situations like this is that they don't want to give credence in the builder to a strategy that they don't see as legitimate. But there are players doing their best to take advantage of Sand Veil as a threat. I wonder how many people are willing/trying to do anything to combat it? These teams don't have great matchups across the board. If you reset the weather, you're just playing against 1-2 non-ou mons, Tyranitar and Magneton.... often a worse version of some other SkarMag TSS or MagDol cores. Weather reset is already a good option against other forms of TSS. MagDol obviously preys on more passive & spikes reliant teams. You're playing against at least 3 Duggy weak Pokemon when you run into these teams, too. Both trapper + weather reset and straightforward rain teams are quite viable and perhaps somewhat underplayed in ADV OU. On a smaller builder decision making scale, maybe you should run Flamethrower over that Fire Blast? Maybe you should consider trying Ice Beam Claydol like your granny used to run?
To add a bit to the comparisons between Sand Veil and some other forms of variance in the game:
Serene Grace, it seems to me, tends to be not that good unless it's on a good Pokemon that has plenty of time to take advantage of it, or a Pokemon that's so good anyway that the status bonuses are just icing on the cake. In other words, Jirachi (in ADV, or Togekiss later. No idea what else gets it in later gens. We obviously don't use Serene Grace Blissey often in ADV and Dunsparce is a Pokemon I think many of us forget even exists, regardless of what tier we're playing). I think if there were no such thing as Freeze Clause, we might not look at Serene Grace the same way. Actually though, Serene Grace is part of what makes Jirachi such a powerful stallbreaker, since it can quickly take down special walls with SpDef drops on bulkier sets. But Jirachi is pretty good anyway as a Sand immune, Rock Resistant, Bulky, Speedy, Wish Passing jack of all trades. There's also the little caveat that you cannot play Jirachi without Serene Grace, so I think many people are fine with the arrangement we have even if their Dugtrio gets frozen/para'd/burned on the switch a good portion of the time that it should otherwise be taking a free kill. You just kind of accept "well, I might lose the game if Jirachi lands that burn or para on my trapper or sweeper. That's the power of Jirachi."
Cacturne and Gligar are not very good Pokemon. They're not worthless or anything, but they fit very comfortably in their respective NU and UU tiers. I recognize that it's not necessarily their Offensive stats or Movepools holding them back, so much as their ability to switch in and take hits, so the free turns can matter. But do they ALWAYS matter, or are the misses rather meaningless a decent portion of the time? Do you keep track of all of the misses that don't affect the outcomes of your games? Does your opponent have to work to generate enough free turns that the chances are high one of them matters? Is there anything you could've reasonably done in the builder or in the game to prevent the game from getting there? I'm not gonna be that mad if my opponent shits on me with Aero flinches or something like Attract Misdreavus (GSC) after half of my team is paralyzed. They set up that situation. Luck and playing for luck are part of the game, and I don't think Sand Veil really stretches the bounds of what's fair TOO much. It's kept in check by the fact that the Pokemon abusing it are not very good, the teambuilding iterations that take advantage of the strategy are relatively limited, and you have options in the builder to prepare your team against it.
It should go without saying that since I don't think Sand Veil should be touched at all, if anything is going to be done about it, it should be some kind of complex ban that affects the Pokemon in a minor way, like the aforementioned Sub+Sand Veil ban.
them fitting in uu/nu has nothing to do w how they are in the context of ou games. And yea flinches/misses from aero/tar can be game ending, but gligar generates those turns far easier for one. Arguably has better snowball potential in a number of relevant matchups especially versus more passive teams. I feel like it definitely gets those game breaking misses often enough to where its a problematic element.
To ignore that is to devils advocate for a problematic element which is fine and is your personal viewpoint; but I'd like to say that i actually believe that when you setup those favorable situations for gligar( which is far easier than say preparing a dd tar sweep, usually you need a single miss which is pretty easy to fish over what 5 chances with sub?), it will reliably just end the game.
talking about how aero/tar do w flinches without going into how gligar does v relevant matchups is strawmanning a bit; i'd say perhaps the most relevant matchups where its dangerous is again the cune/lax sort of mu where a single roar dodge can be game ending; v milo builds to some extent etc, those are matchups where we should really try and flesh out how much mileage gligar gets off of single free turns, there's of course the argument that if you play more offensive builds you give less free turns but should running more passive builds be punished by game ending misses when stuff like focus punch tar/taunt wow gengar/zapdos or molt with a layer down already harass them?
To ignore that is to devils advocate for a problematic element which is fine and is your personal viewpoint; but I'd like to say that i actually believe that when you setup those favorable situations for gligar( which is far easier than say preparing a dd tar sweep, usually you need a single miss which is pretty easy to fish over what 5 chances with sub?), it will reliably just end the game.
talking about how aero/tar do w flinches without going into how gligar does v relevant matchups is strawmanning a bit; i'd say perhaps the most relevant matchups where its dangerous is again the cune/lax sort of mu where a single roar dodge can be game ending; v milo builds to some extent etc, those are matchups where we should really try and flesh out how much mileage gligar gets off of single free turns, there's of course the argument that if you play more offensive builds you give less free turns but should running more passive builds be punished by game ending misses when stuff like focus punch tar/taunt wow gengar/zapdos or molt with a layer down already harass them?
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Just to clarify a few things from my post since I don't specifically disagree with much of what you're saying:
I mentioned that they're UU/NU Pokemon to emphasize that they're dependent on the misses to be effective in OU. Sometimes the misses come at opportune times. Sometimes the misses come when it doesn't matter, and then when you need a miss you don't get one. Additionally, if the weather gets reset, you're left with an UU/NU mon on your team, which is potentially a significant disadvantage.
I was just talking about the Aero flinches and Missy in terms of manipulating luck to generate (potentially huge) advantages off of free turns, since I wasn't making a specific comparison to Gligar or Cacturne or talking about sweeping per se. Didn't intend to be misleading. But I agree, I would be curious to know how often a miss translates into a sweep for Gligar in different types of matchups.
This last point is more about what's fun than what's fair, but I think it's ok for there to be a bunch of things in the meta that bully passive teams, because ultimately I think passive teams will still be used quite effectively and quite often. Sand Veil teams are being used A LOT right now since they're a topic of discussion, but the types of teams that do well in ADV seem to go through changes nonstop, which is one of the cool things about ADV. In any case, I wouldn't want to just rashly implement any kind of ban without at least letting the meta develop in reaction to Sand Veil's popularity. We couldn't agree on how to deal with BP teams in ADV for like 14 years... People are actively making different, novel types of teams around Gligar and Cacturne right now (apparently subseed is op after an agilipass?) so, of course, we only have a cursory idea of what a meta where Sand Veil is taken seriously looks like. I don't want to make any conclusions about how resoundingly unfair it is when we seemingly just decided it's a legitimate threat and that it's worth possibly banning in the same breath. We KNOW it has bad matchups. A month from now it could easily get pushed out of the meta by teams that are better prepared for it and/or have better matchups against it.
I mentioned that they're UU/NU Pokemon to emphasize that they're dependent on the misses to be effective in OU. Sometimes the misses come at opportune times. Sometimes the misses come when it doesn't matter, and then when you need a miss you don't get one. Additionally, if the weather gets reset, you're left with an UU/NU mon on your team, which is potentially a significant disadvantage.
I was just talking about the Aero flinches and Missy in terms of manipulating luck to generate (potentially huge) advantages off of free turns, since I wasn't making a specific comparison to Gligar or Cacturne or talking about sweeping per se. Didn't intend to be misleading. But I agree, I would be curious to know how often a miss translates into a sweep for Gligar in different types of matchups.
This last point is more about what's fun than what's fair, but I think it's ok for there to be a bunch of things in the meta that bully passive teams, because ultimately I think passive teams will still be used quite effectively and quite often. Sand Veil teams are being used A LOT right now since they're a topic of discussion, but the types of teams that do well in ADV seem to go through changes nonstop, which is one of the cool things about ADV. In any case, I wouldn't want to just rashly implement any kind of ban without at least letting the meta develop in reaction to Sand Veil's popularity. We couldn't agree on how to deal with BP teams in ADV for like 14 years... People are actively making different, novel types of teams around Gligar and Cacturne right now (apparently subseed is op after an agilipass?) so, of course, we only have a cursory idea of what a meta where Sand Veil is taken seriously looks like. I don't want to make any conclusions about how resoundingly unfair it is when we seemingly just decided it's a legitimate threat and that it's worth possibly banning in the same breath. We KNOW it has bad matchups. A month from now it could easily get pushed out of the meta by teams that are better prepared for it and/or have better matchups against it.
sand veil actively encourages disengaging from the game, stuff doesn't change day to day or month to month in terms of what's effective in tours; just because flawed decisions led to full bp chains being allowed for 14 years(again with the misguided notion of full bp teams “punishing passive builds” as if people are doing it for that reason , rather than to just cheese themselves to wins) doesn't mean the same should be the case for sand veil. stuff like cheese being optimized/worked on is why its being such an issue now, which wasn't the case before: there is frankly nothing novel about slapping ttar+sand veil abusers on one team.
it's a very basic straightforward synergy that aims to do nothing but remove player interactivity at least in the case of gligar. This is not a cursory glance into the future meta, because stealing free turns to punish passive builds giving them up is not a particularly novel concept, the effect of these teams in the broader sense of the meta is known.
broadly you got magdol/tss builds/varied offense builds interacting in a sort of matchup triangle, sand veil is an extra tool against magdol/passive builds, but i think when built intelligently due to paralysis being a Good Status Effect it enables these teams which "should" be good specifically v passive teams to all of a sudden be quite good versus offenses(barring zapdos i guess, but I think the best built gligar teams are fat builds that spread paralysis to enable you to fish w sub v offense in addition to naturally acting however you'd suspect to versus slow blobby builds)
passive fat teams that can't actually take advantage of their layers aren't proactive and i think they are bad by default except in very skewed matchups, passive cune lax teams already struggle to actually wake their sweepers up in any realistic fashion if the opposing team is able to hold even a single layer effectively, teams in general already punish layering up even once severly; then you have loom which severely pressures the blobby slow builds by virtue of keeping a 1 mon lead via sleep/pursuit allowing the loom player to simplify the game to just clicking its fighting move without too much pressure. there's crocune, cm pass, etc too. I note these as recent stuff that is trending more just to show how passive teams are already severely punished in the meta as is sans sand veil; so to keep it is essentially not changing any notable matchup spreads, with the added downside of introducing losses from situations that are normally pretty fortified. And again yeah rock slide flinches/crits can be brought up, but i think recent tour games will show with a reasonably large sample size that gligar is robbing way more games from lost positions, than even dd tar/aero have been(which are the poster children for nabbing wins via luck).
there's Odds, and there's giving people 5 consecutive die rolls to rob games that they have no business winning.
(edit: this isn't meant to be personal btw, just wanted to use your post as a springboard; this is just me responding to your points from my pov, not meant to be ad hominem)
it's a very basic straightforward synergy that aims to do nothing but remove player interactivity at least in the case of gligar. This is not a cursory glance into the future meta, because stealing free turns to punish passive builds giving them up is not a particularly novel concept, the effect of these teams in the broader sense of the meta is known.
broadly you got magdol/tss builds/varied offense builds interacting in a sort of matchup triangle, sand veil is an extra tool against magdol/passive builds, but i think when built intelligently due to paralysis being a Good Status Effect it enables these teams which "should" be good specifically v passive teams to all of a sudden be quite good versus offenses(barring zapdos i guess, but I think the best built gligar teams are fat builds that spread paralysis to enable you to fish w sub v offense in addition to naturally acting however you'd suspect to versus slow blobby builds)
passive fat teams that can't actually take advantage of their layers aren't proactive and i think they are bad by default except in very skewed matchups, passive cune lax teams already struggle to actually wake their sweepers up in any realistic fashion if the opposing team is able to hold even a single layer effectively, teams in general already punish layering up even once severly; then you have loom which severely pressures the blobby slow builds by virtue of keeping a 1 mon lead via sleep/pursuit allowing the loom player to simplify the game to just clicking its fighting move without too much pressure. there's crocune, cm pass, etc too. I note these as recent stuff that is trending more just to show how passive teams are already severely punished in the meta as is sans sand veil; so to keep it is essentially not changing any notable matchup spreads, with the added downside of introducing losses from situations that are normally pretty fortified. And again yeah rock slide flinches/crits can be brought up, but i think recent tour games will show with a reasonably large sample size that gligar is robbing way more games from lost positions, than even dd tar/aero have been(which are the poster children for nabbing wins via luck).
there's Odds, and there's giving people 5 consecutive die rolls to rob games that they have no business winning.
(edit: this isn't meant to be personal btw, just wanted to use your post as a springboard; this is just me responding to your points from my pov, not meant to be ad hominem)
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Pokemon metagames evolve to deal with popular strategies by definition. Apparently this strategy only just became popular. I don't think it can be said with any certainty how the metagame might change to deal with this if it becomes a dominant strategy. Therefore, I think ideally it would be good to wait and see what happens, like shrapn3l appears to be suggesting.
However, it is very much evident that the community has an intense distaste for this kind of strategy. It's clearly not a pleasant strategy to face and will inevitably result in some games being lost by players who believe they prepared and performed well enough to "deserve" to win. The options that have been come up with for dealing with it reliably so far appear to be pretty limited. So I understand the pro-ban camp's arguments. Given this and recent trends, a vote or decision seems pretty inevitable and knowing the community, the result is probably pretty much predetermined. But I still think it would be worth giving the issue some time to see if it fades away, and if so, maybe the vote could be shelved rather than proceed, since I think even if the strategy has faded away due to metagame adaptation, the result of the vote would probably still end up being the same.
However, it is very much evident that the community has an intense distaste for this kind of strategy. It's clearly not a pleasant strategy to face and will inevitably result in some games being lost by players who believe they prepared and performed well enough to "deserve" to win. The options that have been come up with for dealing with it reliably so far appear to be pretty limited. So I understand the pro-ban camp's arguments. Given this and recent trends, a vote or decision seems pretty inevitable and knowing the community, the result is probably pretty much predetermined. But I still think it would be worth giving the issue some time to see if it fades away, and if so, maybe the vote could be shelved rather than proceed, since I think even if the strategy has faded away due to metagame adaptation, the result of the vote would probably still end up being the same.
my reason for wanting sand veil gone is simple: it does not add anything of competitive value, and only adds a very tangible way for players to bullshit their way to a win. the support for it genuinely baffles me - everyone's been complaining about how stupid it is when it's popped up in tournaments this year, and now that we have the chance to get rid of it, suddenly it is a Positive Metagame Force That Fairly Punishes Passive Teams? this reminds me of the comically bad "you deserve to miss ice beams on garchomp and gliscor for using sand" argument in bw2 (please don't read this as me saying that cac/glig = chomp, that misses the point entirely). I could say full baton pass also punishes passive teams - should we bring that back? christ, no. the idea of cacturne not being a big deal is similarly news to me, but siglut's excellent post covered why that's not the case already.
it has never been harder to coast with a passive team than it is now - we have medicham of all things seeing high level tour usage. plus, cacturne is not exactly exclusive to strangling purely passive teams, because there is a pokemon called swampert that sees heavy use on non-passive defense/balance and of course offense as well, not to mention metagross, who usually tends to rely on even less accurate meteor mashes to hit it, and offensive crocune, and dugtrio who locks into eq a lot...point is, it will get a lot of opportunities on a game to game basis, and so will gligar (who, in addition to its eq immunity, is one of the best answers to heracross and does well against cham + loom). sure, sometimes they'll sub 5 times and not dodge a single blissey stoss/ice beam and wind up doing nothing. nobody's arguing that they are the mega rayquaza of adv ou. however, what they do offer is decent likelihood of beating anyone without skill being much of a factor. from a competitive standpoint, this is entirely a negative.
here's what will happen if sand veil stays: whenever there's a perceived player disadvantage in a big tournament - such as the upcoming spl - the disadvantaged player can and will simply load up sand veil and have a decent shot at winning because their opponent fails to land repeated hp bugs on a cacturne hiding behind subs, leech seeding to creating more and more subs while draining the opponent's health, and spiking to make switching around it even harder. alternatively, they'll have a decent shot at winning because swampert missed a +2 gligar spamming sub once and got destroyed. it will be just like when bp/dug existed in other gens and were used to snatch a win in games where the player probably wasn't going to win by being better. you couldn't just "prep for them better" - their answers are so specific and hard to fit that teambuilding becomes even more difficult. you can't seriously tell me that if I don't want to lose to cacturne I should just slap rain dance on my team, especially when sand is such a driving force of the adv metagame.
bp/dug in other gens (and full bp in adv!) were rightfully banned, and we should take a cue from them - by axing these skill gap-removing aspects, those bans had wholly positive effects on their respective metagames. I don't care one bit that cacturne won't be available anymore - it does not do anything nearly so important that it justifies keeping this sort of anti-skill dynamic in the tier. there is no place for a crutch this powerful in adv ou. sand veil should be banned.
it has never been harder to coast with a passive team than it is now - we have medicham of all things seeing high level tour usage. plus, cacturne is not exactly exclusive to strangling purely passive teams, because there is a pokemon called swampert that sees heavy use on non-passive defense/balance and of course offense as well, not to mention metagross, who usually tends to rely on even less accurate meteor mashes to hit it, and offensive crocune, and dugtrio who locks into eq a lot...point is, it will get a lot of opportunities on a game to game basis, and so will gligar (who, in addition to its eq immunity, is one of the best answers to heracross and does well against cham + loom). sure, sometimes they'll sub 5 times and not dodge a single blissey stoss/ice beam and wind up doing nothing. nobody's arguing that they are the mega rayquaza of adv ou. however, what they do offer is decent likelihood of beating anyone without skill being much of a factor. from a competitive standpoint, this is entirely a negative.
here's what will happen if sand veil stays: whenever there's a perceived player disadvantage in a big tournament - such as the upcoming spl - the disadvantaged player can and will simply load up sand veil and have a decent shot at winning because their opponent fails to land repeated hp bugs on a cacturne hiding behind subs, leech seeding to creating more and more subs while draining the opponent's health, and spiking to make switching around it even harder. alternatively, they'll have a decent shot at winning because swampert missed a +2 gligar spamming sub once and got destroyed. it will be just like when bp/dug existed in other gens and were used to snatch a win in games where the player probably wasn't going to win by being better. you couldn't just "prep for them better" - their answers are so specific and hard to fit that teambuilding becomes even more difficult. you can't seriously tell me that if I don't want to lose to cacturne I should just slap rain dance on my team, especially when sand is such a driving force of the adv metagame.
bp/dug in other gens (and full bp in adv!) were rightfully banned, and we should take a cue from them - by axing these skill gap-removing aspects, those bans had wholly positive effects on their respective metagames. I don't care one bit that cacturne won't be available anymore - it does not do anything nearly so important that it justifies keeping this sort of anti-skill dynamic in the tier. there is no place for a crutch this powerful in adv ou. sand veil should be banned.
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Not that I am pro-ban or anti-ban, but I am hesitant to agree with these arguments, both on principle and on the practicalities.
1) In many instances, it is good to observe the effect of metagame compensation to a recent trend, because trends usually insert themselves in a manner with rather proportionate responses; for example, if the trend is more Gengar-less Spikes teams, then a follow-up trend will include people switching from Skarmory to Forretress as their preferred Spiker, using more physical Tyranitar instead of Pursuit Tyranitar, mostly responding with corresponding tweaks. But Sand Veil sets itself apart from other trends in that it is not only luck based, but also threatens the foundation of our metagame -- sand. I will argue that Sand Veil gives people an ultimatum: either use a restricted archetype to ensure dominance over Sand Veil, or face the prospect of getting RNG'd.
Over half of all common archetypes use sand as part of their strategy. Siglut, BKC, and myself have made arguments against the idea that offense dominates Sand Veil teams, and if we take these arguments to be true, then the only way to circumvent Sand Veil is through weather change. However, weather change teams are rather restrictive. The weather change teams that are well known mostly require Dugtrio, only occasionally use Tyranitar themselves, and use a restricted set of Pokemon that can make up for the advantages of those levels of support. One could say, a cheap way to mitigate trends is usually to have a tech, like slapping Sunny Day or Rain Dance on a random Pokemon, but the Tyranitar on the Sand Veil user's team can be saved repeatedly without anything specific to take it down. Also, given that the majority of ADV teams use Tyranitar, slapping a weather move discourages oneself from sending Tyranitar out again, creating awkward situations like "what do I do against Blissey now that I've cleared sand? Send in my Tyranitar only to nullify my weather change again?" Sand Veil has been present for a long while now, and both theoretically and in practice, so many different sorts of teams, offense or defense, have to experience the coinflip. The only exception I can see right now to reduce the RNG to acceptable levels is, unfortunately, dedicated weather reset teams. I'd like to be proven wrong, but it is an uphill task that I honestly don't think time will resolve; find a way to tweak mixed offense, mag offense, defensive tss, spikes offense, cm spam, awesome synergistic pursuit tar teams, such that they can all stay in the metagame and beat Sand Veil in a relatively RNG-less manner, and I will concede my point; I just don't see it happening.
2) It has been said (by people who play other generations) that one of the beautiful things about ADV is that it is diverse, yet not matchup-fishy. In my first argument, I have implicitly assumed this, and I am making this a separate point because I want to be clear about it. There are some people who think that every tournament match is a matchup fish, and that what matters is not a good team, but the right team against the right person. However, many ADVers truly believe in an objectively good team when they see it; to them it matters not who the opponent is or what the opponent brings; a good team will have outs against every matchup that are dictated not overwhelming by RNG but by astute play. These people are not going to like the idea of using random moves just to beat random trends, like Ice Beam Claydol, HP Rock Tyranitar, Rain Dance on Salamence. One-move replacements are never going to be optimal; you beat Gligar, but now you lose to Gengar or Celebi. Usually, several tweaks have to be made in conjunction to remain functionality, but the more tweaks have to be made, the more restrictive teams are going to be.
3) Because of #2, the ADV community has a strong adherence to the concept of viability of a team as an absolute, not relative entity. Aerodactyl was used 14% of the time in the CALLOUS Invitational 4 tournament, a relatively small number, yet many ADV players will consider a team that loses to Aerodactyl to be unviable. If one stands on the side that Sand Veil should be something to prepare for, then given the threshold of matchup coverage ADV teams are at, it is unlikely that there is room to cover Sand Veil without dropping some other matchups. Yet if one stands on the other side, then one accepts facing the coin flip.
Point 1 is an argument against the proposal that the metagame can evolve naturally to resolve the issue (like market corrections). Points 2 and 3 are arguments concerning the experience of players who are made to wait if action is delayed. For these reasons, I believe delaying a vote or decision will mostly not yield more useful information about Sand Veil, yet make it a worse experience for anyone who believes Sand Veil to be unhealthy to have to wait through all that, should the vote eventually pass. I think it is in the best interest of the community to make a decision as soon as possible.
4) It probably takes a lot of effort to enact change, especially in a metagame where the player base is generally older and has less time for the game. I don't think we need to wait so long to gather more information to make a decision/hold a vote, lest it might never happen. Carpe diem.
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I don't feel so strongly about Sand Veil that I think it is a "Positive Force,"(I don't think I'm really being that dramatic) and I don't think it is good nor bad for there to be more teams that punish passive teams. I just don't think we should be in a hurry to ban anything. I understand the points you are both (BKC and Vapi) making, but I disagree with these assumptions about ADV and about luck in Pokemon. I don't think there are objectively good teams. Clearly, some teams are better than others; some teams beat a wide variety of threats and some are more targeted; but you shouldn't be playing a team from 5 years ago for example without at least updating some of your move choices and EVs. And yes, EVERY move choice (and EV choice) is a trade off in some way. I don't think changing 1-2 moves on your team matters that much though, because you are just making a judgment about what you will face (which is another expression of skill and understanding of the game), and it may be that neither one of the two moves you were picking between turn out to be relevant. Look through replays and you will see that it's pretty rare for any player to click every move in a game. Over the course of a tournament, it's extremely rare to stick to one team for more than a couple games, so what's the big deal about changing 1-2 moves for one tour or one game? In competitive card games, you HAVE to lock in your deck for the whole tournament and you can still win the whole thing even if your tech choices don't matter the whole tournament. In competitive Pokemon, I'm pretty confident it's the same way, but it is fortunate that we get to change moves and change teams between games.
I don't think matchups matter as much in ADV as in other gens, and that a good player can pilot their way to a win in a bad matchup, IF they have SOME kind of gameplan for that bad matchup. But there's a difference between having a gameplan against something and ignoring it exists because you don't think it's competitive and then getting blown out by it.
FWIW I decided to post yesterday after looking at specific set of replays wherein players were getting bopped by Sand Veil teams (mostly Cacturne), and the misses, which were few, didn't decide the outcomes of the games. Yet I still saw players reacting to these games as if Sand Veil was super unfair and a huge problem in each game (Don't want to share the replays without permission and on some level I actually feel a little bad even talking about them : ( ). Granted, Cacturne is sand immune, which inherently makes it more effective in some dimensions than other subseeders, but that's not what we're arguing about is stupid about Sand Veil. In one of the games sand wasn't even up. In another game it may as well have been a subseed Cradily (it had +2 speed and opp couldn't get it off the field) and the result would've ended up the same. This was only 3 games, so I recognize it doesn't account for how lame Sand Veil can be AT TIMES, but I don't think the factor of luck is so substantial that, as you say BKC, shitty players (how many ADV tournaments aren't just the same several dozen participants?) will just jam Sand Veil, hope to luck out and actually succeed. I understand why that is a fear some players have but I don't think there's any evidence that it will really work out that way in practice. This is why I've been stressing the randomness of the times the misses occur, and the fact that you still have to understand the team and DO something to maximize your chances to get a payoff. I have mostly only seen good players who know how to make the most out of Sand Veil vs other good players whose teams matched up poorly for the most part, so again, it's hard to judge what the game looks like when players on both sides of the matchup take it seriously as a threat.
I also don't think we should pretend I want anyone to do something like play a normal big 5 TSS team or something and just sneak rain dance onto the team in case they face Sand Veil.
Anyway, I just wanted to say my piece since I had the sense that a vote was going to come to pass pretty quickly and like Earthworm said, the outcome seems predetermined just because of the nature of the strategy. I don't think you guys are wrong: that is clearly how people see ADV, and I don't presume that they are going to change their minds.
I don't think matchups matter as much in ADV as in other gens, and that a good player can pilot their way to a win in a bad matchup, IF they have SOME kind of gameplan for that bad matchup. But there's a difference between having a gameplan against something and ignoring it exists because you don't think it's competitive and then getting blown out by it.
FWIW I decided to post yesterday after looking at specific set of replays wherein players were getting bopped by Sand Veil teams (mostly Cacturne), and the misses, which were few, didn't decide the outcomes of the games. Yet I still saw players reacting to these games as if Sand Veil was super unfair and a huge problem in each game (Don't want to share the replays without permission and on some level I actually feel a little bad even talking about them : ( ). Granted, Cacturne is sand immune, which inherently makes it more effective in some dimensions than other subseeders, but that's not what we're arguing about is stupid about Sand Veil. In one of the games sand wasn't even up. In another game it may as well have been a subseed Cradily (it had +2 speed and opp couldn't get it off the field) and the result would've ended up the same. This was only 3 games, so I recognize it doesn't account for how lame Sand Veil can be AT TIMES, but I don't think the factor of luck is so substantial that, as you say BKC, shitty players (how many ADV tournaments aren't just the same several dozen participants?) will just jam Sand Veil, hope to luck out and actually succeed. I understand why that is a fear some players have but I don't think there's any evidence that it will really work out that way in practice. This is why I've been stressing the randomness of the times the misses occur, and the fact that you still have to understand the team and DO something to maximize your chances to get a payoff. I have mostly only seen good players who know how to make the most out of Sand Veil vs other good players whose teams matched up poorly for the most part, so again, it's hard to judge what the game looks like when players on both sides of the matchup take it seriously as a threat.
I also don't think we should pretend I want anyone to do something like play a normal big 5 TSS team or something and just sneak rain dance onto the team in case they face Sand Veil.
Anyway, I just wanted to say my piece since I had the sense that a vote was going to come to pass pretty quickly and like Earthworm said, the outcome seems predetermined just because of the nature of the strategy. I don't think you guys are wrong: that is clearly how people see ADV, and I don't presume that they are going to change their minds.
Just want to echo one thing and bring up another point. I don't disagree with a lot of the arguments BKC and vapicuno have posted.
When I watched vapicuno's video on his Sand Veil team, it seemed to me that it was actually not the easiest team to pilot to a victory. I don't think bad players will necessarily be able to gain any more advantage than they would by using some other strategy. edit: This isn't to say that the strategy isn't strong or isn't a problem. Just to clarify that it would probably be strong players that would benefit the most from using it.
Also, while this strategy is particularly challenging to deal with in the teambuilder rather than with the ban hammer, I think it's important to acknowledge that if players are looking to force dice rolls, banning this one element is not going to remove that, it will rather simply just remove one of the currently common variations of it. So I hope the council sees it in this way and doesn't look to ban Agility pass to Swagger SubSeed Viloplume + MagTrio next.
When I watched vapicuno's video on his Sand Veil team, it seemed to me that it was actually not the easiest team to pilot to a victory. I don't think bad players will necessarily be able to gain any more advantage than they would by using some other strategy. edit: This isn't to say that the strategy isn't strong or isn't a problem. Just to clarify that it would probably be strong players that would benefit the most from using it.
Also, while this strategy is particularly challenging to deal with in the teambuilder rather than with the ban hammer, I think it's important to acknowledge that if players are looking to force dice rolls, banning this one element is not going to remove that, it will rather simply just remove one of the currently common variations of it. So I hope the council sees it in this way and doesn't look to ban Agility pass to Swagger SubSeed Viloplume + MagTrio next.
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A few days ago I agreed with many of the points that pasy and watermess made. To briefly reiterate, cacturne can go absolutely buckwild on passive teams (whats dual stab dol, or refresh milo gonna do to stop it even without sand?) Is that a positive thing? Who cares! As a mono offence ladder player, I have an absolute blast when using this thing. It's a highly compressed and surprisingly consistent fuck-you to the team styles that I hate facing, and it's a heatah to boot (sand immune water resist? spikes, leech, fp, spikes, sleep, dbond and spikes on the same mon? My offence spiker switches into waters *and* scares them out? Menacing powerstance?) Granted I am a bit nervous when I face it, since as we all know it really can foil the most well played endgame. But by virtue of the teams I use I received preferential treatment from our prickly friend. And I was sad and the thought of it leaving. I have no such sentiment towards gligar, and if zarel unilaterally deleted it tomorrow I wouldn't bat an eye.
The half measures of no set up (sd, growth lol) and no sub initially seemed like a astute way to mitigate cac's worst tendencies while still letting OU retain the Sonoran Spice. As I'm assuming vap's concrete analysis shows, the probability of denying a subbed cacturne another free turn is a rapidly diminishing exponential matter, and if it gets a single dodge and leeches it will almost certainly win the battle of attrition and force you to switch and give it yet another free turn.
But after all, isn't pokemon is inherently a game of odds? You don't click buttons based on perfect calculation, but on maximizing your expected returns. And there's real competitive merit to this. Despite some of the more harebrained decisions the designers have made there is almost a spooky attention to detail regarding your expected value when comparing moves like surf and hydro (95 vs .80 * 120 = *96*) or sky and bb (.9 * 85 = 76.5 vs 75).
And this is exactly where I think there is a principled reason to get rid of sand viel that's in accordance with RNG already in mons. The distribution of risk and reward that is inherent to your game plan is chosen by you, in the builder. Even if you miss every one of your attacks in game and lose horribly as a result of this freak occurrence, it's still an occurrence that you gave informed consent too. If you get burned or flinched it may sting a bit more because you didn't *know* that on a certain turn you were at stake to eat a freeze, but these are dually an informed part of your opponent's gameplant. This is where sand veil (and all the evasion items) are categorically different from usual misses. The awful feeling of knowing that your careful consideration in and out of game might be invalidated because your opponent brought cac is because you didn't agree to this. Granted, I can imagine a universe where evasion items/abilities are much more distributed in the metagame, and dually there is a broad pool of moves with >100% accuracy that corralle this into the domain of informed decision making. But this is presently not the state of OU. Cacturne is a one, nice mon and you're gonna miss that ice punch.
I'm gonna be sad when it goes. If only it was just immune to sand
The half measures of no set up (sd, growth lol) and no sub initially seemed like a astute way to mitigate cac's worst tendencies while still letting OU retain the Sonoran Spice. As I'm assuming vap's concrete analysis shows, the probability of denying a subbed cacturne another free turn is a rapidly diminishing exponential matter, and if it gets a single dodge and leeches it will almost certainly win the battle of attrition and force you to switch and give it yet another free turn.
But after all, isn't pokemon is inherently a game of odds? You don't click buttons based on perfect calculation, but on maximizing your expected returns. And there's real competitive merit to this. Despite some of the more harebrained decisions the designers have made there is almost a spooky attention to detail regarding your expected value when comparing moves like surf and hydro (95 vs .80 * 120 = *96*) or sky and bb (.9 * 85 = 76.5 vs 75).
And this is exactly where I think there is a principled reason to get rid of sand viel that's in accordance with RNG already in mons. The distribution of risk and reward that is inherent to your game plan is chosen by you, in the builder. Even if you miss every one of your attacks in game and lose horribly as a result of this freak occurrence, it's still an occurrence that you gave informed consent too. If you get burned or flinched it may sting a bit more because you didn't *know* that on a certain turn you were at stake to eat a freeze, but these are dually an informed part of your opponent's gameplant. This is where sand veil (and all the evasion items) are categorically different from usual misses. The awful feeling of knowing that your careful consideration in and out of game might be invalidated because your opponent brought cac is because you didn't agree to this. Granted, I can imagine a universe where evasion items/abilities are much more distributed in the metagame, and dually there is a broad pool of moves with >100% accuracy that corralle this into the domain of informed decision making. But this is presently not the state of OU. Cacturne is a one, nice mon and you're gonna miss that ice punch.
I'm gonna be sad when it goes. If only it was just immune to sand
Why don't we all just start running Aerial Ace to deal with this? Or more generally, swift? These are ostensibly the same arguments as saying we should run weather disruption to handle sand veil abusers... I mean, theoretically I guess you could get away with it with Aerial Ace on mence since you wouldn't be forfeiting too much power.
I'm being facetious of course (mostly, I might actually start running AA on Salamence because of how prevalent SV on ladder right now), but IMO as a more casual ADV player sand veil is probably the least satisfying bs to play against. Even something like BP (or mean look BP) is really frustrating to play against, but at the very least you can bring a team that is prepared to deal with it without completely forfeiting/adjusting the integrity of your team. As sheaf mentioned above, we can deal with a miss at a crucial time because ultimately it means that at some point during building you decided to sacrifice accuracy for power and, to that end, it can win you games you'd otherwise lose.
Besides, a big part of Pokemon and what makes competitive battling enjoyable, at least for me, is how momentum works and how you really can build offensive momentum by playing strategically and learning how your opponent will play certain situations. SV completely nullifies these concepts in a unique way - you can predict and counter-play as much as you want but if Cacturne comes in on mence but then HP flying just misses several times.. well, all your momentum is out the window and your opponent is rewarded for actually making a bad play. Anything that provides free or unchecked momentum is really a poor addition to any metagame. That said, from the looks of it SV won't be sticking around for too much longer anyway but just my two cents.
I'm being facetious of course (mostly, I might actually start running AA on Salamence because of how prevalent SV on ladder right now), but IMO as a more casual ADV player sand veil is probably the least satisfying bs to play against. Even something like BP (or mean look BP) is really frustrating to play against, but at the very least you can bring a team that is prepared to deal with it without completely forfeiting/adjusting the integrity of your team. As sheaf mentioned above, we can deal with a miss at a crucial time because ultimately it means that at some point during building you decided to sacrifice accuracy for power and, to that end, it can win you games you'd otherwise lose.
Besides, a big part of Pokemon and what makes competitive battling enjoyable, at least for me, is how momentum works and how you really can build offensive momentum by playing strategically and learning how your opponent will play certain situations. SV completely nullifies these concepts in a unique way - you can predict and counter-play as much as you want but if Cacturne comes in on mence but then HP flying just misses several times.. well, all your momentum is out the window and your opponent is rewarded for actually making a bad play. Anything that provides free or unchecked momentum is really a poor addition to any metagame. That said, from the looks of it SV won't be sticking around for too much longer anyway but just my two cents.
This argument is rather flawed in my opinion. Salemence, nor any Pokemon that decides to run a never miss move such should definitely not have to weaken its overall power just to avoid missing(this reminds me of that whole “use Wide Lens Slowbro lol” argument that people apparently used to say years ago lol). The overall power decrease from Hidden Power Flying onto Aerial Ace is also huge, especially for Choice Band Mence. Also, Aerial Ace definitely doesn’t solve the idea that Sand Veil as whole is uncompetitive
I know lol, that's my point ("I'm being facetious, of course"). I'm saying that it's in the same vein as "just use a weather move" to stop sand veil. I shouldn't have to adjust the integrity of my team because all my 100% accurate attacks might randomly miss. It's not like lead TTar is niche either...
And to your last point, if evasion moves were as a whole allowed and part of the adv meta I think you'd probably see moves like Aerial Ace and Shock Wave as occupying some role in the meta as well. I was referring mostly to overall counter-play to sand or similar strats.
I would like to give some input as a low-level player who is 99.7% not going to earn the suspect reqs. I believe that Sand Veil has the least amount of strategical integrity of all of the currently legal cheese strats. I spam Quick Claw on the ladder because I like using slow mixed attackers, and I have observed that the item has a surprising amount of nuance with risk management and such. I feel like Sand Veil doesn't live up to this sort of standard, and there should only be so many RNG elements being thrown around in a developed metagame like this one. I would very much like Sand Veil to be banned, as I expect it to be. Please do not ban Quick Claw though, I love melting Ninjasks with my patented Camerupt set. Also this is my first post ever so that's cool I guess
I know i am late to the party with this but i would like to add on some ideas and give my 2 cents.
First off, i am not really a adv player but i do like to listen and keep up with the meta as best i can (shoutouts to BKC's yt channel, good stuff).
i want appologise for any idiotic ramblings if they happen beforehand but i plead that my idea is seen because i belive it may be a good collective solution for similar issues in the future.
I think personally belive the issue with sand veil can extend to other "cheese strats" in later gens such as snow cloak, accupressure evasion raises and contrary pokemon switching into defog to snag an evasion boost (serp)as of gen 6 onwards.
i would like to propose a change to make evasion clause fuction more like sleep clause by having it prompt and remove evasion mid match from stat changes to ability effects that cause evasion such as sand veil.
If it could leave the sandstorm immunity i think that would be nice.
I figure that it may seem invasive to how the game works but since sleep clause can remove a major status despite not being accurate to in-game that it shouldn't be to far fetched.
I think it would also be nice as a catch all to evasion problems in the future for other tiers even if you want to scoff at me for sugesting this because the examples of snow cloak and contrary+defog are not as common, i think you can agree that if someone is trying to use those strategies they are likely not doing so because they want to outplay their opponent with their """massive skill""" of rolling dice.
TLDR: rework evasion clause to do it's job and cut to the chase by stopping evasion cheese rather than testing if it should be banned on a individual case per case because most players agree it's gross.
First off, i am not really a adv player but i do like to listen and keep up with the meta as best i can (shoutouts to BKC's yt channel, good stuff).
i want appologise for any idiotic ramblings if they happen beforehand but i plead that my idea is seen because i belive it may be a good collective solution for similar issues in the future.
I think personally belive the issue with sand veil can extend to other "cheese strats" in later gens such as snow cloak, accupressure evasion raises and contrary pokemon switching into defog to snag an evasion boost (serp)as of gen 6 onwards.
i would like to propose a change to make evasion clause fuction more like sleep clause by having it prompt and remove evasion mid match from stat changes to ability effects that cause evasion such as sand veil.
If it could leave the sandstorm immunity i think that would be nice.
I figure that it may seem invasive to how the game works but since sleep clause can remove a major status despite not being accurate to in-game that it shouldn't be to far fetched.
I think it would also be nice as a catch all to evasion problems in the future for other tiers even if you want to scoff at me for sugesting this because the examples of snow cloak and contrary+defog are not as common, i think you can agree that if someone is trying to use those strategies they are likely not doing so because they want to outplay their opponent with their """massive skill""" of rolling dice.
TLDR: rework evasion clause to do it's job and cut to the chase by stopping evasion cheese rather than testing if it should be banned on a individual case per case because most players agree it's gross.