Implemented Baton Pass in BW OU

[Finchinator]

Baton Pass is uncompetitive in its current state in BW OU.

It is easy to set up optimal conditions (screens and rocks), obtain multiple free turns for set-up with Mew (or Celebi), and proceed to pass this to a sweeper that can either win the game outright or deal irreparable damage to the opponent, leaving them incapable of winning in the long haul.

Recently we saw ADV vote on Baton Pass and further back we have seen other restrictions on Baton Pass across multiple generations. I feel BW should strengthen its restriction on Baton Pass as well. The most direct and least consequential approach would be banning Baton Passing of any stat changes as soon as possible. I am also fine with banning the move outright due to it avoiding the "complex" option, but seeing as we have already had a "complex" option in play and other old generations have employed this to minimize collateral, I imagine the ban of Baton Pass with any stat changes is deemed optimal by the larger community.

Sorry dice

 

[ABR]

Very obvious from the competitive perspective, only question is if u ban the move as a whole or just statpassing. To consider is also ingrain / aqua ring.

Thank you Finchinator

 

[Excal]

With polarizing sweepers that have strong matchups against specific archetypes as a whole + several avenues to freely set up, it's no surprise that bp is problematic in current BW. Ban bp but preserve dry pass as there are perfectly healthy strategies surrounding bp that play well into current meta dynamics. This will also set a strong precedent that can be applied to future/previous generations more seamlessly.

- god burger chan

 

[Eeveeto]

Not entirely on topic, but if the decision of banning Stats Passing goes through (be it moves, abilities or items), could it also be discussed to be implemented in ORAS, SM and SS ( therefore unbanning BP in those gens, but without Stats Passing)? I don't really see a reason for which this meausure would be fine in BW ( and Adv if something like this happens there too) and not in more recent Gens. Giving more options for some Mons to pivot around without cheesing with Stat passing doesn't sound broken to me and would make the respective metas more diverse and potentially better.

That was all I wanted to say on this topic, have a nice eeveening.

 

[peng]

Very much on board with this. The original ABR August Dclaw bpass team (Aero/Azelf/Mew/Dragonite/Metagross/Cloyster) alone is consistent enough to probably justify its removal but the fact now we've seen several iterations (Gyarados, Bisharp and more) that allow it to fish vs its few poor MUs, I think action should be taken now before this sees significant tournament usage.

Preparation for this in the teambuilder is frankly unrealistic as Triple Taunt (inc. the remarkably consistent Taunt MHerb Mew) shuts down a huge portion of regular counterplay - any remotely predictable (p)hazer is a sitting duck here so you're talking about using Roar on unexpected mons as your best way of denying Mew's set-up. BW is a super restrictive metagame to build for considering the restrictions imposed by Scald, Spikes, Volcarona, Keldeo, Thundurus, Latios, Alakazam and so the available teambuilding resources to cover things like Baton Pass, and previously Assist, are pretty slim. Sure, you can use Roar/DTail on your Chople Tyranitar, but you naturally kill your MU into several other more immediate threats in doing so. Tyranitar is a mon that would happily run 10 moves if it could, and Roar is not even in the top 10 things it wants to run.

If you can't deny Mew set-up, then you're largely at the mercy of whatever sweepers and coverage the opponent brings in support - e.g. Taunt Aero to deny hazards + screens + MHerb SDpass into DD/DClaw/EQ/ESpeed Dragonite @ Silk Scarf is a legitimate autowin match-up vs almost all rains, which typically cannot stop Mew outside of maybe Trick Latios. Specific set-ups with Cloyster or Metagross or Bisharp or whatever else make for near autowins into a lot of sands. Finchinator has shown the feasibility of niche passers including Dragon Gem Dual Chop Bisharp to overcome specific MU issues and I'm sure there is a wealth of undiscovered tech that, whilst I'm sure is cool af, I would rather not see its debut as a decider in SPL finals...

On a general point, on the surface BW has banned a lot in the last couple years (sleep, shadow tag, assist, kings rock) but the underlying metagame has remained mostly unaltered, just without most of the bullshit. Massive props to the old gen councils for doing what they do as I'm sure its pretty controversial to be fiddling with a 10 year old (or older) metagames so frequently, but the changes have always been for the better and I feel like BW is in a great place right now once some of the more egregious cheese HO stuff, mostly BP, is tapered back. tyvm

 

[Paulluxx]

Gotta use my badge for something.

I am relatively new to the BW scene, but I spend quite a bit of my free time building for this metagame. And the main thing that baton pass creates an issue within, is the builder. BW is already a highly matchup dependent tier, and the threat baton pass faces to builders and players alike is just exacerbated by Baton Pass buffoonery. I myself would lobby for a full ban(it just doesn’t add enough in drypassing to be worth a complex ban in my opinion).

However I will support anything that prevents me from getting cheesed on ladder

 

[Finchinator]

Hide

With this being allowed here, I’m going to go ahead and allow Shoka to proxy post seeing as he has years as an experienced BW player and has taken a lot of recent interest in the metagame. These are just his words copied over

Shoka wanted to say the following:

Even though the timing is unwelcomed and the way this thread has been posted is not perfect, this ban proposition is still aiming for a better tier. There is legit no reason to not make it happen beside hating on Finch :v

The whole argument of not banning it gravitates around the fact that it was posted a day into SPL. To get things straight, no players will be shaken by the ban. None of the SPL players entered this tournament with Baton Pass teams already built, but it is going to be a thing during those 9 weeks for sure.

I couldn’t have said it better than Peng about the pressure we, the BW players, have to go through while team building. It’s such a mess and the list keeps getting worse. Not only the team building process became a pain but the ingame is now hard to enjoy unless you are a robot. Playing against HOs and BP teams is all about reacting pretty much in autopilot, as they dont give much room for plays.

To stick with the BP subject, I would prefer to have BP+Stats out rather than banning the move directly. The main reason for that is Celebi, as he is already not the most viable mon in the tier, he would get crippled a bit more with the ban. At the end of the day, it’s not that important whether we ban one or the other, as long as we fix it.

I too agree about the tier being close to an enjoyable state but it will probably happen once we get Volc/Gems sorted out. For now, this is probably the easiest ban to carry out, so why not making it happen now for the sake of sanity ?

 

[FNH]

Would like to just post my support of this move. Hopefully things will move fast enough to have baton pass banned prior to week 2 of SPL.

I think peng and others have summarized the issue quite well. While I don't think this will "fix" the tier, it's certainly an excellent start. Big thank you to Finchinator for posting this (only after you waited to play quint).

I wouldn't mind having dry pass saved, which on the surface keeps Celebi somewhat viable. There are other potential options for sub + pass as well, but they largely remain unexplored with unknown viability. Regardless though, I don't feel strong enough to go against a majority should they chose to ban baton pass outright.

 

[erz]

being the person who built the original team with ABR also working on it i'll just throw in that the final version is very non interactive and is pretty much the opposite of what competitiveness looks like. Mostly the games are onesided farmfests, it's consistent beyond what consistency should be achievable for a hyper offense "click setup and win" team and preparing for it very often makes you choose between things you then autolose to.

support banning bp alltogether, drypass imo is essentially just us altering a move to what it's not supposed to work like

 

[Raiza]

Baton Pass needs to go, its presence brings nothing of value to BW and only negatives. It promotes unhealthy gameplay with little to no player interaction, the BP user can stick to the same sequence of moves every game and the opponent has no room of outplay. It adds yet another element to account for in the builder with few and niche reliable answers (Dragon Tail on random Pokémon), that are hard to run considering you already have to tech your teams for the rest of the metagame. The less niche answers (ex. Trick Latios to lock / Roar-WWind to shuffle one of the receivers) help but are still prone to losing long-term.
As a playstyle it's also still largely unexplored, CM / NP / Amnesia+Barrier pass are all possible variations yet to be optimized, and on the SD pass versions we have already seen the use of different receivers to tackle the few neutral mus (ex. Finchinator using Bisharp instead of Cloyster to deal better with Jirachi while still addressing sand). Doesn't matter to me which of full BP / BP+Stat gets banned, as long as this is addressed promptly. BW already has a complex ban in place for BP+Speed+Other Stats to prevent Shell Smash pass, turning that ban from BP+Speed+Other Stats to BP+Any Stat is reasonable, this would preserve drypass for defensive Celebi and other strategies such as subpass.

 

[Finchinator]

Does anyone oppose a prompt restriction on Baton Pass, especially if we were to circle back to it post-SPL? In particular, this is directed at those playing the tier in SPL ( Stareal peng Gilbert arenas crucify elodin GaryTheGengar watashi dice SoulWind )

As it stands, we have strong support in the thread, but we want to hear if anyone is opposed or if people have any other thoughts on the topic!

 

[Finchinator]

After a series of long discussions, the BW OU council has concluded that we will ban the move Baton Pass from BW OU. We will conduct a vote -- including options of Banning Baton Pass, banning the passing of stats, and reverting back to the pre-ban state of Baton Pass -- after the ongoing SPL as well.

This ban is taking place because of unanimous support among the SPL BW players (who voiced an opinion on the matter) and posters of this thread for Baton Pass to receive further restrictions. The council had a supermajority of support as well, but also believed it was proper practice to reinvestigate the topic after the conclusion of the ongoing SPL. In addition, we want to note that it takes exceptional circumstances to implement a ban in the middle of a major tournament such as SPL. We firmly believe that these conditions constituted exceptional circumstances and this ban is approved by Old Generation Council leadership.

As for some quick housekeeping notes,

• We elected to ban the move outright rather than implement a complex ban after discussion with Old Generation Council leadership. Both options had support, but this approach is the most clean and simple for the remainder of SPL.
• We will conduct a formal vote with each option upon the conclusion of SPL.
• This does not mean other potential BW tiering initiatives are going to be ignored after SPL. We still encourage people to share their stances on the tier when appropriate.
• This will go into effect starting with the third week of SPL, not the ongoing second week.
• Tagging Kris and Marty to implement this, thanks.

 

[peng]

Earlier this year the BW OU Council, with support of the SPL playerbase, voted to rapidly ban the move Baton Pass after the first week of the tournament. One particular team had become problematic - utilising HO Screens leads to support Mental Herb Swords Dance + Baton Pass Mew. This team very efficiently abused a loophole in the loose Baton Pass restriction at the time, which limited Baton Passing to offensive stats or speed, by passing Swords Dance and Barrier boosts to bulky speed-boosting sweepers (Metagross, Dragonite, Gyarados, Cloyster, Bisharp) under the support of screens. The Council and SPL Playerbase unanimously voted to implement a full Baton Pass ban in BW OU in order to kerb the strategy, knowingly nerfing other prominent implementations of Baton Pass such as support Celebi, with the intention of revisiting the decision at a suitable time in the future.

Due to tiering action on Gems earlier in the year, followed by the running of Smogon Classic, this decision has been delayed, but we are happy to report that we've now revisited the Baton Pass restriction. The BW OU Council has voted to scale back the reach of the Baton Pass ban, and introduce the following restriction:

Baton Pass is now banned in combination with any Move, Item, or Ability that can raise stats

In other terms, stat-passing will remain banned, but DryPass will make a return to BW OU. Some of the illegal combinations below will look silly, but we have strived to incorporate this restriction in a way that is consistent and that we are confident cannot be abused.

Full list of moveset illegalities with Baton Pass here

Moves:
Acid Armor
Acupressure
Agility
Amnesia
Ancient Power
Autotomize
Barrier
Belly Drum
Bulk Up
Calm Mind
Charge Beam
Coil
Cotton Guard
Cosmic Power
Curse
Defend Order
Dragon Dance
Fiery Dance
Flame Charge
Growth
Harden
Hone Claws
Howl
Iron Defense
Meteor Mash
Meditate
Metal Claw
Nasty Plot
Ominous Wind
Quiver Dance
Rage
Rock Polish
Sharpen
Shell Smash
Shift Gear
Silver Wind
Skull Bash
Steel Wing
Stockpile
Swords Dance
Tail Glow
Withdraw
Work Up

Items:
Absorb Bulb
Apicot Berry
Cell Battery
Ganlon Berry
Liechi Berry
Petaya Berry
Salac Berry
Starf Berry

Abilities:
Anger Point*
Defiant (Farfetch'd)
Download*
Justified (Absol)
Lightningrod*
Motor Drive (Emolga)
Moxie*
Rattled (Ledyba only)
Sap Sipper (Sawsbuck family, Girafarig)
Speed Boost (Ninjask, Combusken family)
Steadfast (Scyther)
Storm Drain*
Weak Armor*
* have no legal Baton Pass users

Tagging Marty to implement