There was a lot of valuable discussion about Jirachi and Spore both here and on the Discord server, so I would like to contribute a bit with my thoughts. DPP OU was always my favorite metagame and I enjoyed seeing different iterations over the last decade.
Breloom / Spore discussion
The problem I see with Breloom is the following: In DPP it has access to Spore, high damage output and Poison Heal and I believe the combination of all three is what makes it problematic. We can see that in ADV in has no Poison Heal and in BW in has no Spore, so in both metagames Breloom is still quite strong but not as oppressive as it can be in DPP. What do those three traits mean?
Spore means you have access to a 100% safe sleep move, which means unless your opponent is faster or has sleep talk or has a Lum Berry (which also only works once!), you are guaranteed to cripple a mon and there is nothing your opponent can do about it. Once you are in that "lock", depending on the set it can get a substitute off, which means even for a one turn sleep you can just press spore again (with again no risk involved), get a new sub and so on. High damage output means that you cannot stall out the sleep turns, because your counter will be dead before it wakes up. Even finding counters is difficult, since Brelooms moves are so strong. Finally, Poison Heal means it is very tough to take down, once activated, you cannot use status, you cannot use knock off, despite Sand/Hail it will still recover Health (the damage you deal does not stick) and so on. It is usually not enough to just chip damage it, you need to actively take it down.
For teambuilding it means the following: For offensive teams you have to construct teams which do not allow Breloom any setup or use one-time strategies like a choiced sleep talk, Lum Berry and so on to quickly swing the momentum. For more defensive teams, you always have to include two Breloom counters, one to absorb sleep and one to actually beat it. Here, it is not enough to be able to take hits, you also have to threaten it. I believe this is extremely restricting for the team building process, as there are not a lot of good options to begin with and then you always have to include two of them. By banning Spore, we would get rid of those restrictions, as not it could be sufficient to include something which beats Breloom 1v1 and that's it.
Also, for the people who will say something like "Well you can just play Crocune to absorb Spore and then go to your counter", I will tell you that good players will not let you get away with that, they will not press blindly spore but maybe force you out again by just attacking and then you are in big trouble. Another argument I heard a lot was that there are other sleep move users as well, but for those there is risk involved. If you use Rose Lead and use Sleep Powder on a threat, you might miss, which will put you in a bad spot, meaning you will lose games on average because you rely on the move hitting.
In conclusion, I would be a strong advocate of banning spore, Breloom will still be fine and team building will be more divers and enjoyable. The only mon which loses something besides Breloom would be Smeargle, which is already a niche playstyle and could still use Dark Void with 80% accuracy.
Jirachi / Iron Head
This one is more complicated. I believe what makes Jirachi problematic is the combination of how flinch chains work and its incredible movepool. The movepool means you always have to be careful when scouting the set, as there are a lot of offensive and defensive variants Jirachi can use and especially mixed versions can be very hard to handle. But the bigger problem is of course with the flinching. So, what exactly is the problem here?
First of all, for flinching or paraflinching there is only a 40% resp. 30% chance that you are allowed to move. The mechanic generates so much freeturns, it is actually incredible. As previously pointed out, every turn is - mathematically speaking - an “independent event”. That means the game does not “owe” you good luck in the future if you got unlucky as before. If you are interested in statistics, read about probability distributions (The relevant ones here are binomial distribution for the attacking player and geometric distribution for the defending one). It is important to see what this actually means for your ingame decision making. Suppose your switch-in is like in the previously example something like Swampert, which can take 6-7 hits. You go for it and get flinched three times in a row. Now you find yourself in a significantly worse situation than before you switched, as your “counter” is now dangerously weakened. Since the game has no “memory” of your luck, the chance to be allowed to move in the next turns still will be 40%, but now only 2-3 more flinches are necessary and you cannot undo your decision, since your “mistake” was three turns ago when you decided to try and go for the 1v1. You can now hope for the best in the remaining turns or send in something else, with the possibility of the same thing happening again.
You would think that since it is only 60/70% to get the freeturn, it is easy to break those chains. But you have to realize most of the times, since Jirachi is so bulky even without investment, you need to hit two or three times in quick succession. Because if you fail to do so, it will heal up any damage with leftovers. Then suddenly, your odds don’t look so good anymore.
Honestly, I do not know a single example that makes in-game planning so difficult and draws so much resources. Oftentimes I’m “scared” to lose even when I have good answers, because as stated by Deepblue, what if the counter gets burned or paraed? What if it actually manages to get a 5 or 6 hit chain where I’m not allowed to move? Freeturns means it literally does not matter what I click, because if I’m not allowed to move, I won't do anything anyways. It makes planning impossible, since your opponent can just get lucky enough to still beat you. Suddenly Jirachi is able to beat bulky waters or Skarm. Don’t forget that there are always still 5 other Pokemon involved. There are so many completely ridiculous replays where Jirachi singlehandedly turned the game around by just getting lucky. It has been around for so long and the complaints are numerous and rightfully so. I don’t think any player has even been really happy by winning or losing to flinch chains compared to how it feels when you actually manage to outplay your opponent.
Finally, there was some discussion if an Iron Head ban solves those issues. Excal stated Headbutt and Zen-Headbutt as alternatives. Here, in both cases there are immunities which block the move completely. Headbutt will be too weak, as you lose your STAB. Zen-Headbutt can miss, which means there is now more risk involved for the attacking player. If you use wide lens, you don’t have leftovers recovery, which means any damage your opponent does sticks. I guarantee you those sets will not be anywhere near as consistently good than if you used Iron Head. Jirachi will still be one of the best mons in the metagame and there are numerous options to stop DD-sweeper and other threats without relying on IH-Jirachi.
In conclusion, I would advocate for an Iron Head ban. It makes the game uncompetitive in a similar way as evasion and as a huge impact on the metagame for both teambuilding and ingame decision making.
On a final note, before deciding anything, a lot in these topics is theory, so my proposal would be: at least try and test the changes and see how they work out in practice. Does it make the metagame more enjoyable? If so, the community should act accordingly. Despite being an old metagame, we have a very active and passionate player base (the ladder right now is way more active and competitive than three years ago), so changes should still be possible.
Breloom / Spore discussion
The problem I see with Breloom is the following: In DPP it has access to Spore, high damage output and Poison Heal and I believe the combination of all three is what makes it problematic. We can see that in ADV in has no Poison Heal and in BW in has no Spore, so in both metagames Breloom is still quite strong but not as oppressive as it can be in DPP. What do those three traits mean?
Spore means you have access to a 100% safe sleep move, which means unless your opponent is faster or has sleep talk or has a Lum Berry (which also only works once!), you are guaranteed to cripple a mon and there is nothing your opponent can do about it. Once you are in that "lock", depending on the set it can get a substitute off, which means even for a one turn sleep you can just press spore again (with again no risk involved), get a new sub and so on. High damage output means that you cannot stall out the sleep turns, because your counter will be dead before it wakes up. Even finding counters is difficult, since Brelooms moves are so strong. Finally, Poison Heal means it is very tough to take down, once activated, you cannot use status, you cannot use knock off, despite Sand/Hail it will still recover Health (the damage you deal does not stick) and so on. It is usually not enough to just chip damage it, you need to actively take it down.
For teambuilding it means the following: For offensive teams you have to construct teams which do not allow Breloom any setup or use one-time strategies like a choiced sleep talk, Lum Berry and so on to quickly swing the momentum. For more defensive teams, you always have to include two Breloom counters, one to absorb sleep and one to actually beat it. Here, it is not enough to be able to take hits, you also have to threaten it. I believe this is extremely restricting for the team building process, as there are not a lot of good options to begin with and then you always have to include two of them. By banning Spore, we would get rid of those restrictions, as not it could be sufficient to include something which beats Breloom 1v1 and that's it.
Also, for the people who will say something like "Well you can just play Crocune to absorb Spore and then go to your counter", I will tell you that good players will not let you get away with that, they will not press blindly spore but maybe force you out again by just attacking and then you are in big trouble. Another argument I heard a lot was that there are other sleep move users as well, but for those there is risk involved. If you use Rose Lead and use Sleep Powder on a threat, you might miss, which will put you in a bad spot, meaning you will lose games on average because you rely on the move hitting.
In conclusion, I would be a strong advocate of banning spore, Breloom will still be fine and team building will be more divers and enjoyable. The only mon which loses something besides Breloom would be Smeargle, which is already a niche playstyle and could still use Dark Void with 80% accuracy.
Jirachi / Iron Head
This one is more complicated. I believe what makes Jirachi problematic is the combination of how flinch chains work and its incredible movepool. The movepool means you always have to be careful when scouting the set, as there are a lot of offensive and defensive variants Jirachi can use and especially mixed versions can be very hard to handle. But the bigger problem is of course with the flinching. So, what exactly is the problem here?
First of all, for flinching or paraflinching there is only a 40% resp. 30% chance that you are allowed to move. The mechanic generates so much freeturns, it is actually incredible. As previously pointed out, every turn is - mathematically speaking - an “independent event”. That means the game does not “owe” you good luck in the future if you got unlucky as before. If you are interested in statistics, read about probability distributions (The relevant ones here are binomial distribution for the attacking player and geometric distribution for the defending one). It is important to see what this actually means for your ingame decision making. Suppose your switch-in is like in the previously example something like Swampert, which can take 6-7 hits. You go for it and get flinched three times in a row. Now you find yourself in a significantly worse situation than before you switched, as your “counter” is now dangerously weakened. Since the game has no “memory” of your luck, the chance to be allowed to move in the next turns still will be 40%, but now only 2-3 more flinches are necessary and you cannot undo your decision, since your “mistake” was three turns ago when you decided to try and go for the 1v1. You can now hope for the best in the remaining turns or send in something else, with the possibility of the same thing happening again.
You would think that since it is only 60/70% to get the freeturn, it is easy to break those chains. But you have to realize most of the times, since Jirachi is so bulky even without investment, you need to hit two or three times in quick succession. Because if you fail to do so, it will heal up any damage with leftovers. Then suddenly, your odds don’t look so good anymore.
Honestly, I do not know a single example that makes in-game planning so difficult and draws so much resources. Oftentimes I’m “scared” to lose even when I have good answers, because as stated by Deepblue, what if the counter gets burned or paraed? What if it actually manages to get a 5 or 6 hit chain where I’m not allowed to move? Freeturns means it literally does not matter what I click, because if I’m not allowed to move, I won't do anything anyways. It makes planning impossible, since your opponent can just get lucky enough to still beat you. Suddenly Jirachi is able to beat bulky waters or Skarm. Don’t forget that there are always still 5 other Pokemon involved. There are so many completely ridiculous replays where Jirachi singlehandedly turned the game around by just getting lucky. It has been around for so long and the complaints are numerous and rightfully so. I don’t think any player has even been really happy by winning or losing to flinch chains compared to how it feels when you actually manage to outplay your opponent.
Finally, there was some discussion if an Iron Head ban solves those issues. Excal stated Headbutt and Zen-Headbutt as alternatives. Here, in both cases there are immunities which block the move completely. Headbutt will be too weak, as you lose your STAB. Zen-Headbutt can miss, which means there is now more risk involved for the attacking player. If you use wide lens, you don’t have leftovers recovery, which means any damage your opponent does sticks. I guarantee you those sets will not be anywhere near as consistently good than if you used Iron Head. Jirachi will still be one of the best mons in the metagame and there are numerous options to stop DD-sweeper and other threats without relying on IH-Jirachi.
In conclusion, I would advocate for an Iron Head ban. It makes the game uncompetitive in a similar way as evasion and as a huge impact on the metagame for both teambuilding and ingame decision making.
On a final note, before deciding anything, a lot in these topics is theory, so my proposal would be: at least try and test the changes and see how they work out in practice. Does it make the metagame more enjoyable? If so, the community should act accordingly. Despite being an old metagame, we have a very active and passionate player base (the ladder right now is way more active and competitive than three years ago), so changes should still be possible.
Last edited:
that nobody asked for
