Proposal Revisiting GSC UU Baton Pass Post Agility Pass Ban

[BeeOrSomething]

Now that my team is out of UUBD, I want to reignite discussion about GSC UU baton pass as a whole. I believe the move to be incredibly problematic in the current tier. Full pass teams stacking Barrier Mime and Amnesia Girafarig passing to one of Growth Politoed, Curse Aerodactyl, Curse Granbull, or Scyther can immediately end games if given a good matchup. Many good matchups for BP are even standard and good teams that don't have room for an offbeat/unoptimal tech for BP but are otherwise heavily incentivized to use.

Some replays:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2uu-779662
The BP user is able to get defense and special boosts passed to Politoed without too much trouble. It would have won the game on the spot if not for getting crit by Electabuzz's Thunder. Girafarig then comes back in and gives special defense boosts to Aerodactyl which then promptly wins the game after using Curse, with the defense boosts allowing it to easily tank the remaining hits it needs to in order to win the game.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2uu-780545
The BP user here sets up defense boosts with Mime in front of Granbull and paralyze it and Ampharos, and then get special defense boosts with Girafarig and pass them to Curse Granbull, which instantly ends the game. I don't believe the opponent using a Haunter or Magneton would have helped either, as Haunter likely gets pp stalled and Magneton can't do enough damage without critting.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2uu-782602
BP did not matter as much in this game since it was essentially over before Girafarig came out, but even without that Girafarig would likely have had an amazing matchup here. Many Aerodactyls do not run phazing, with there being other strong options like Curse Rest, Curse Protect, Curse Toxic, or Toxic Protect in addition to sets with Roar. Girafarig can get in on Blastoise and Nidoqueen force in Hypno or Magneton, then it can pass special defense boosts to Curse Ground Granbull, which is quite likely to end the game right there.

Other forms of BP can also be quite potent; mainly Meditate Mr. Mime or SD Scyther passing attack boosts to threats like HP Rock Quagsire, Dodrio, and Gyarados, but full chain is the most problematic.

Counterplay to BP does exist: Haze Qwilfish, Roar Aerodactyl, Roar Gyarados, Jumpluff, Lead Curse LK Bull, Encore Kadabra, Screech Feraligatr/Gligar, Haze Crobat, Roar Arcanine, and Haze Haunter. However, most of these Pokemon are quite rare and some like Haze Qwilfish and Roar Gyarados are generally unoptimal strategies against teams that don't have Baton Pass. Some of these can also be bypassed; for example, Mime and Girafarig nearly always have Thunder, Curse Granbull (a common pass recipient) often has Lovely Kiss, and Aerodactyl hits most of these Pokemon for heavy damage. BP also isn't always one and done, since Mime and Girafarig have pretty solid bulk and high speed and are boosting their defenses when they attempt to execute a pass.

I would argue BP is a matchup fish that can either completely thud or totally dominate a game without a hope of the opponent winning. I would certainly not say it is healthy or competitive. I want it to be completely banned from the tier and I believe it is debatably overpowered. Do post thoughts below please.

Tagging some GSC UU players that have played in team tournaments this year:
d0nut DAWNBUSTER pp's splash town SANKE CARP BigFatMantis Real FV13 Torchic Lialiabeast crying Mystras Estarossa Celebiii Medeia Concept mkizzy BloodAce

Users without badges can use the post request form https://www.smogon.com/forums/policy-review-access-request/ or make a post in the GSC Lower Tiers Tiering Hub https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gsc-lower-tier-tiering-hub.3748924/post-10235116

 

[Estarossa]

definitely agree that baton pass teams can be an unhealty aspect of the tier still, this is something i did highlight in the original discussion on an agility pass nom as something to watch out for in the future too.

Think one of the key strenghts of these double pass teams in practice (outside of what bee has already mentioned) from my own extensive testing is that they can quite easily bluff standard mime nido qwil sort of structures, not using the key techs off the bat lets you really abuse standard eg mime counterplay later to set up and potentially just free win after bluffing that your mime is just going to be a standard rest talk for instance. its worth highlighting that yea a lot of these phazing / hazing options don't even necessarily do a good job of dealing wtih it, both psychics carry thunder for qwil + gyara and the better recipients like nido and politoed will also carry coverage to stop it phaznig them later in the chain too, while even the stronger stuff like jumpluff can suffer from a thunder para -> making it too slow to encore reliably.

+/

This is one such structure I enjoy for these sort of teams for "bluffing normal teams", using some other things aside from what Bee mentions. Curse Nidoqueen has neat tools for both being a scarily good amnesia recipient but also helping to bluff standard teams initially as mentioned, stuff like bd quag obviously abuses passes really hard too. bubba is a super nice recipient for sure and great growth sweeper on teams like this. this sorta structure can kinda just act alright even when its baton pass tools aren't working at play too well too because its still a lot of good mons + spikes, and the sweepers definitely don't necessarily need to try and grab both boosts either in practic ehalf the time which still presents options for multiple passes in one game.

My key viewpoint on baton pass in this tier is not that its necessarily broken, there is definitely a depth of options to make ur team less vulnerable to it, including things like early sleepers, jumpluff, later attempts at phazing or tanking a hit with aero etc, but its definitely a more unhealthy option in the tier that can really carry away matchups less ideal to it when counterplay definitely does not necessarily fit on a majority of teams that easily beyond the weak ones like gyara especially with the surprise factor element at play, and decreases the number of quality games while doing it, and still not being a necessarily super matchup fishy style because a lot of the structures are still fairly playable cohesive structures outside of the gimmick.

 

[BigFatMantis]

Baton Pass does not need to be banned in GSC UU, and I fail to see what, specifically, about GSC UU makes it much different than any other GSC tier (all of which have Baton Pass). There doesn't seem to be anything "wrong" with the tier at the moment, and Baton Pass does not just auto cheese you wins unless you totally ignore it. In fact, the only "good" baton pass structure currently is passing defensive boosts - this is hardly as threatening as it used to be.

In looking at the 3 replays linked, it's pretty clear that they were either not played well or the team just totally ignored that Baton Pass existed.

G1 https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2uu-779662
Mime was 1% HP away from not being able to BP at all, making the entire Baton Pass strategy irrelevant for that game. Not to mention a bunch of Thunders just missed - these things just happen in GSC. The Baton Pass team was cool and all, and it won, but it would have easily lost if one of the key Thunders hit or Mime did not survive Turn 2 with 1% HP. It's just how it goes sometimes and this is not really any example of how Baton Pass is oppressive in any way. If anything, it's just a GSC UU moment.

G2 https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2uu-780545
SANKE just doesn't have anything for Baton Pass structures at all. If he has Haze Qwilfish or Roar Gyarados, then it's much easier. In addition to losing to Baton pass, SANKE's team also is 6-0d by Mono Bull anyways.

G3 https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2uu-782602
This is a very clever Baton Pass team because you wouldn't really know it from the start. But again, it's relies just on passing Amnesia and that's it. And in fact, it hardly made a difference in this game - Bee's team was probably better off with something else besides Giraffe in that slot, and Celebii was losing that game regardless of anything BP did - the crit Surf on Hypno on Turn 54 was way more relevant than BP. By the time Giraffe even came in Celebii was down to 2 mons and Bee still had all 6. Using a replay to just talk in hypotheticals about how it "could have made a difference" is quite silly. So, this replay doesn't really show anything about BP other than that it's there and kinda cool I guess, but to say this shows anything about how broken or oppressive it is is based on hypothetical scenarios that didn't happen is crazy.

I also take some issue with some of the statements in the OP here, as they are misleading or just a matter of opinion that shouldn't be professed as fact:

Many Aerodactyls do not run phazing

Well, many Aerodactyls do run phazing. I'm not sure if you pulled empirical data to back up this claim, but looking through my own teams I do see quite a bit of Roar on Aero, and looking at replays I see it on a lot of structures EXCEPT for the structures that pass BP to it.

Other forms of BP can also be quite potent; mainly Meditate Mr. Mime

I have never seen a UU Tour Game with a Meditate Mr. Mime doing anything, let's focus on stuff that actually happens.

SD Scyther passing attack boosts to threats like HP Rock Quagsire, Dodrio, and Gyarados

Scyther SD Pass stocks have gone way down since Aero. Same with Dodrio. However if you can manage to get a SD Pass off to Quag it does look pretty good. But I don't think that's a problem? In a tier that's so slow naturally, this is a welcome strategy.

However, most of these Pokemon are quite rare and some like Haze Qwilfish and Roar Gyarados are generally unoptimal strategies against teams that don't have Baton Pass.

Roar Gyarados is still good, despite what the GSC UU Mafia would have you believe. With Spikes up + its coverage moves, it's good at whittling down teams that don't have BP. And, more specifically to BP, it totally shuts down the Politoed BP teams once Politoed enters.


GSC UU has a very long history of being a very slow, difficult to break metagame. Baton Pass does not break the tier and allows for some creative strategies to help speed games along further. It also makes it more interesting to both play and watch. More importantly though, Baton Pass exists in every single GSC tier and unless someone offers me some evidence that UU is significantly worse off than the others because of Baton Pass, I'm not sure why we even need to have this discussion. Banning BP would be bad for the tier and would significantly drop interest in it - lots of people don't want to play the slow paced version of the tier with no outlet for creative BP offense.

Above all else though, it's obviously not broken and everyone seems to agree with that in the above posts.

 

[Mystras]

G1 https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2uu-779662
Mime was 1% HP away from not being able to BP at all, making the entire Baton Pass strategy irrelevant for that game. Not to mention a bunch of Thunders just missed - these things just happen in GSC. The Baton Pass team was cool and all, and it won, but it would have easily lost if one of the key Thunders hit or Mime did not survive Turn 2 with 1% HP. It's just how it goes sometimes and this is not really any example of how Baton Pass is oppressive in any way. If anything, it's just a GSC UU moment.

Electabuzz Ice Punch vs. Mr. Mime: 47-56 (16.6 - 19.7%) -- possible 7HKO after Leftovers recovery
This was never killing mime at that range unless God decided to freeze on that fateful day. I am a little more surprised that while you were talking about what ifs, you ignored the "what if" of mime not getting crit by thunder or even not getting hit at all in that turn or the turn after: getting the pass off even more safely and having a semi to fully healthy mime for later. Even if Lialiabeast saw that ice punch wasn't gonna cut it, they would still have to bank on thunder not missing again; landing a 70 percent twice in a row is not reliable, let's not pretend that it is. All of that being said, I don't like these kinds of arguments at all, we should not be paying attention to "what if" scenarios. What we should be paying attention to is if these kinds of scenarios impact games on a frequent basis, if the plays were just extremely poor and the example should be invalidated, or if the rng made the game shit.

My experience with watching BP and playing BP in GSC UU is that it does happen a concerning amount of times; often, even if you have at least one of the tools, you are left banking on Lovely Kiss, Thunder para, or any meaningful crit to save you or that if the opponent does not land one of their own precautions. It is not engaging, it is a nerve-wracking gamble that something goes off and it is unfavorable for the person playing against BP more often than it is for the person playing it because the reward for the BP player is so much higher and it primarily takes one to two successful passes to secure the game.

The argument here that is a gsc uu moment, this is disingenuous because it ignores that rng is a part of mons in general. It isn't the tier's fault as much as it is these elements like BP that give it this kind of stigma; let's start fixing that by removing it.

More importantly though, Baton Pass exists in every single GSC tier and unless someone offers me some evidence that UU is significantly worse off than the others because of Baton Pass, I'm not sure why we even need to have this discussion. Banning BP would be bad for the tier and would significantly drop interest in it - lots of people don't want to play the slow paced version of the tier with no outlet for creative BP offense.

Not a fan of these kinds of arguments either, you can't really bring up evidence for a change not working if the change hasn't happened yet. It's asking for the results of an experiment when the experiment has literally not been done. You bring up that the tier would be worse off without Baton Pass in the next couple sentences, I would like to see evidence of this actually being the case. That is what I would say if I wanted this kind of debate to be a large part of this discussion but I don't so let's please not go down that rabbit hole.

Every tier, in old gens especially, exists within its own sphere so asking to look at other tiers for a frame of precedent is not helpful for me nor to anyone who is interested in this decision because they do not want to look at OU, Ubers, or any other tier, they want to look at UU.


I did not really want to make my post almost ENTIRELY against someone else's but the above paragraphs and this summarize my thoughts about BP. If there is anything I dislike about it more than anything, it's introducing the reliance on extremely volatile variance when normal play usually involves managing our odds whether it be thunder hits or sleep talk rolls. The playstyle is an all or nothing depends less on outplaying in practice and more on if your tools do not end up being duds.

 

[BigFatMantis]

What we should be paying attention to is if these kinds of scenarios impact games on a frequent basis, if the plays were just extremely poor and the example should be invalidated, or if the rng made the game shit.

If you kept reading my very short analysis, you'd see that I did explain there were other key Thunder misses that mattered quite a bit, and the BP team would not have won if one of them hit. That isn't unique to BP - that's just something that happens sometimes in GSC UU.

often, even if you have at least one of the tools, you are left banking on Lovely Kiss, Thunder para, or any meaningful crit to save you or that if the opponent does not land one of their own precautions.

Or Haze, or Roar, or Encore. The tools are there, I think sometimes people just don't want to bother using them because they just silently hope BP is not brought. That isn't a good strategy, it's just lazy teambuilding.

The argument here that is a gsc uu moment, this is disingenuous because it ignores that rng is a part of mons in general. It isn't the tier's fault as much as it is these elements like BP that give it this kind of stigma; let's start fixing that by removing it.

It is a GSC UU moment when you lose to Thunder misses - that just happens more frequently in GSC than any other tier in mons. I'm not saying it's a big rng fest, I was talking specifically about Thunder missing. I don't quite understand the following sentence though or how it relates to the prior one - why are we fixing something that isn't broken? And, from everything I've seen in how people perceive the tier, there is a far greater stigma on slow gameplay, little breaking, and constant rest loops that give it a far bigger stigma. Baton Pass actually helps with this - removing it will make the tier worse.

 

[BeeOrSomething]

If you kept reading my very short analysis, you'd see that I did explain there were other key Thunder misses that mattered quite a bit, and the BP team would not have won if one of them hit. That isn't unique to BP - that's just something that happens sometimes in GSC UU.

Girafarig had Miracle Berry and is boosting with Amnesia to block Thunders. Only a few Thunders were clicked after the initial sequence and none of them would have mattered unless they got very fortunate crits.

Or Haze, or Roar, or Encore. The tools are there, I think sometimes people just don't want to bother using them because they just silently hope BP is not brought. That isn't a good strategy, it's just lazy teambuilding.

I don’t think most teams should have to fit a niche and sometimes unoptimal strategy to handle another niche strategy. Haze Qwilfish is unable to break Blastoise, Haze Haunter cannot Thief or use Dbond or whatever, Haze Crobat only fits on stall, Roar Gyarados is very often less effective than Double Edge, Roar Aerodactyl cannot heal as easily or hit things like Bellossom, Gligar, and Feraligatr with Toxic, Encore Jumpluff fits on a very small amount of teams, Encore Kadabra is extremely hard to fit on a team, Encore Mime is hard to fit on a team and often not as good as Fire Punch Thief or a BP set, etc. When combined all together in a broad sense looking at every player you will probably see a team with one of these less than 30-40% at most leaving the other numerous situations where a team is unequipped to handle BP because it doesn’t want to constrict itself so much in the builder at the expense of other matchups that are much more common.

 

[BigFatMantis]

Only a few Thunders were clicked after the initial sequence and none of them would have mattered unless they got very fortunate crits.

This isn't true - a lot of Thunders were clicked. Sorry for not being more specific, I can see that created some confusion so let me elaborate:

Turn 24 - Thunder misses Girafarig. Since it isn't Leftovers, that's about 50+ damage that isn't done because of that miss. This allows it to set up another Amnesia later with ease while forcing Hypno to Rest. If this were not to happen, then Aero would have taken enough damage that Nidoqueen + Buzz Thunders would take it out. So, yes, it did matter, if you look at the entire sequence of what occurred after.

I don’t think most teams should have to fit a niche and sometimes unoptimal strategy to handle another niche strategy. Haze Qwilfish is unable to break Blastoise, Haze Haunter cannot Thief or use Dbond or whatever, Haze Crobat only fits on stall, Roar Gyarados is very often less effective than Double Edge, Roar Aerodactyl cannot heal as easily or hit things like Bellossom, Gligar, and Feraligatr with Toxic, Encore Jumpluff fits on a very small amount of teams, Encore Kadabra is extremely hard to fit on a team, Encore Mime is hard to fit on a team and often not as good as Fire Punch Thief or a BP set, etc. When combined all together in a broad sense looking at every player you will probably see a team with one of these less than 30-40% at most leaving the other numerous situations where a team is unequipped to handle BP because it doesn’t want to constrict itself so much in the builder at the expense of other matchups that are much more common.

I don't think BP is a niche strategy. It is brought often enough to warrant a good effort to place counterplay measures in your builder. And, that's a lot of stuff you mentioned that can deal with it. Surely you can have no problems fitting one of those things on your team. If you decide you simply don't want to include any of them because you want to shore up your matchup against everything else, that is your own issue, not BP's issue. It would be like saying you don't want to include Scyther counterplay in your builder, so let's ban Scyther so you don't have to worry about it.

 

[Mystras]

This isn't true - a lot of Thunders were clicked. Sorry for not being more specific, I can see that created some confusion so let me elaborate:

Turn 24 - Thunder misses Girafarig. Since it isn't Leftovers, that's about 50+ damage that isn't done because of that miss. This allows it to set up another Amnesia later with ease while forcing Hypno to Rest. If this were not to happen, then Aero would have taken enough damage that Nidoqueen + Buzz Thunders would take it out. So, yes, it did matter, if you look at the entire sequence of what occurred after.

Are we still ignoring the crits that happened on the other side here? If you looked one turn before this started happening, Electabuzz crit OHKOed the Politoed which only took a quarter of its health prior and buzz would've been OHKOed itself if that didn't happen. If anything, I think it further illustrates the point of games involving BP not being enjoyable because of the reliance on that crit to have a shot at winning only to be met with thunder's notoriously unreliable accuracy. This showcases why I dislike "what if" arguments, if half the events that happened during the game are gonna be ignored to fit an argument then I suggest we stop talking about this replay because there is no solid ground for dismissing it.

Or Haze, or Roar, or Encore. The tools are there, I think sometimes people just don't want to bother using them because they just silently hope BP is not brought. That isn't a good strategy, it's just lazy teambuilding.

Okay, let's look at all the UU Pokemon that have access to those tools and assess them one by one

Access to haze:
non sleep-talk is not known for its long term reliability but if it did want to use another move, it's only HP electric for Qwilfish and Gyara.
Viable user but only fits on stall teams and it doesn't even fit on every stall team because fat featuring Belly Drum Quagsire exists. Also has to haze after the boosts meaning it has to be in front of either Girafarig or Mime which can threaten it or it has to be in front of a mon that has already been boosted, in which case it may also be at risk of taking serious damage.
No haze dodrio has ever been seen to my knowledge. No reason to use it over the rest talk set
As discussed, Haze is an option but only for BP teams, players would much rather have explosion, destiny bond, or thief to expand its utility
Not commonly seen and is a frequent exploder. Explosion is a method to deal with Baton Pass is an option but not a reliable one as Baton Pass teams have two users in waiting and Muk falters against Defense Boosts or Aerodactyl
A user back when it was still relevant but dropped it as time went on and now nobody has seriously used it over the past few years.
A recipient of Baton Pass itself, would much rather be the one using it than going against it
Same as Politoed but also just functions better as a standalone rest talker than as a haze user.
The main mon in the tier that uses haze but haze has been thought of for a very long time to be unoptiomal over Curse for Blastoise or just Hidden Power for other Qwilfish. Handicapping your Qwilfish for the sake of a matchup that is not going to be seen often due to the stigma of Baton Pass as a playstyle is not what most players want to be doing.

Access to Encore
Nobody has used Pikachu seriously in forever
Like the OP said, extremely hard to fit onto teams. Not something to seriously consider as an argument as something to consistently use.
Like the OP said, a good answer but specific in what teams it fits on. Like Kadabra, not something to be considered as a solid counterpoint.
Only Esta has used this to my knowledge and has only ever used Swords Dance sets, has Sleep Powder on there for what it is worth but Victreebel already a niche pick


Access to Roar
An actual roar user though it would like to explore other options like what the OP stated and is still sketchy due to thunder from Mime and Girafarig. It is also a known recipient on these teams, argument can go both ways here.
The one arcanine win pushing LPZ's prophecy that it will become a good mon in GSC UU, but just currently does not have enough results to back it being something people should rely on.
It has lovely kiss and that is a generally more useful option to have than against other teams. As already stated lovely kiss in previous posts, lovely kiss is unreliable and is on a specific bull set.
Same with Granbull but instead of lovely kiss, moonlight is generally more seen nowadays and is more consistent against more styles of teams
No Piloswine with roar has been used and I'm not seeing any chance of it popping up.

Im spending more time on this cause you directly call it out. I understand that you already said Gyara can be a good roar user but I combed through the replays in UUBD and only one out of the 6 games its been in has been Roar and it didn't even win that game. I think both players did fine, probably could be discussed further.
katerina vs choolio

Out of the 14 replays where Gyara has appeared in UUFPL, it only won once by Medeiaa but I do not believe this to be an adequate example because Adrift made poor plays like giving up his qwil before it even set spikes and the team was egregiously weak to gyara to begin with; they only got bailed from losing outright from a freeze by Pilo. Only other time I saw it was Esta's game against Covere where the it had to be used for Granbull and unfortunately got frozen; I did talk with Esta and he said that he knew the Scyther was in the back and wouldn't have given it a set up chance if the gyara didn't get frozen. They believe they would have won had that not happened so I am willing to give it to gyara there as well for the sake of fairness.
Medeiaa vs Adrift
Esta vs Covere

Personally speaking, I do not like roar gyara, I think Double Edge has been more worth using over my time playing but I get that I have not played the tier in a while and other people may have differing opinions on the matter. For the sake of it, let's say that Roar Gyara does have potential. That is only one out of the several examples listed. Even then, whether Roar Gyara is actually good is dependent on your build, it does not magically fix the other problems that people have with BP.

The point I am trying to make is that it is that it is not lazy teambuilding, a lot of these options have been tried but the consensus is that they are either not worth using or that using them makes your team worse against everything else. Fitting it on teammate already proves to be a difficult case of opportunity cost, let alone trying to fit another in prep. Any time I prep with someone and the idea of BP comes up, it usually results in a "this might feel bad if they bring something else". Trying to frame it as people being lazy is simply wrong, prepping with the idea of BP in mind is just an uncomfortable experience.

 

[Lialiabeast]

As someone that has been targeted with Baton Pass in recent tournaments, I wouldn't want to ignore the chance of writing my opinion about it. In these three following points I will try to explain why Baton Pass has an unheatlhy impact on the metagame and should be banned from GSC UU.

• Lack of Reliable Counters: This is an important part, in my opinion, so let's start with this one. Bee has stated, in the op, a few counterplays to it, and Mystras above did the same + pointed out some flaws as well. After reading their posts and taking a look at the builder myself, I only come down to 5 Pokemon that could be considered as viable Baton Pass counters, but I am still not convinced.
  Roar
  
  and
  
  : These two seem like one of the most common arguments when it comes down to counterplay. Personally, I don't think I used more than 1 time Roar Gyarados and I surely never used Roar Aerodactyl, as I prefer other moves on both of them. However, that might just be me and the way I build things. Therefore, as a fan of stats and out of curiosity I wanted to check how common Roar is on these two actually.
  Click me

  + ---- + ----------------------- + ---- +
  | 16 | [Gyarados] | 9 | 14.06% | 55.56% |
  + ---- + ----------------------- + ---- +
  | Rank | Moves | Use | Usage % | Win % |
  + ---- + ----------------------- + ---- +
  | 1 | Hydro Pump | 7 | 77.78% | 71.43% |
  | 2 | Thunder | 6 | 66.67% | 66.67% |
  | 3 | Hidden Power | 5 | 55.56% | 40.00% |
  | 4 | Double-Edge | 3 | 33.33% | 66.67% |
  | 5 | Rest | 1 | 11.11% | 0.00% |
  | 5 | Sleep Talk | 1 | 11.11% | 0.00% |
  | 5 | Roar | 1 | 11.11% | 0.00% |

  and
  Click me

  | Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |
  + ---- + ----------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
  | 7 | [Aerodactyl] | 20 | 31.25% | 45.00% |
  + ---- + ----------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
  | Rank | Moves | Use | Usage % | Win % |
  + ---- + ----------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
  | 1 | Hidden Power | 19 | 95.00% | 47.37% |
  | 2 | Earthquake | 10 | 50.00% | 60.00% |
  | 3 | Curse | 8 | 40.00% | 25.00% |
  | 4 | Protect | 6 | 30.00% | 66.67% |
  | 5 | Roar | 2 | 10.00% | 100.00% |
  | 5 | Toxic | 2 | 10.00% | 100.00% |
  | 5 | Rest | 2 | 10.00% | 0.00% |

  These stats are from the UUBD tournament up to semifinals, so that means a total of 32 games if I am not mistaken. I only posted these stats because it is the tournament that basically sparked the conversation around Baton Pass. If anyone needs more convincing, the stats from UUFPL and UUPL are pretty much the same. My point is that Roar on these two isn't preferred on these two as there are other valuable moves to use.
  Haze
  
  and
  
  : Haze Qwilfish is probably the most common counterplay in the tier. Is it really though? First of all, I barely even see the fourth move on Qwilfish being clicked, and even then it is not Haze. Curse for the Blastoise matchup Qwilfish is way more common as shown in these stats:
  
  Click

  | Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |
  + ---- + ----------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
  | 1 | [Qwilfish] | 43 | 67.19% | 44.19% |
  + ---- + ----------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
  | Rank | Moves | Use | Usage % | Win % |
  + ---- + ----------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
  | 1 | Spikes | 37 | 86.05% | 48.65% |
  | 2 | Sludge Bomb | 31 | 72.09% | 45.16% |
  | 3 | Hydro Pump | 21 | 48.84% | 33.33% |
  | 4 | Curse | 10 | 23.26% | 40.00% |
  | 5 | Haze | 4 | 9.30% | 50.00% |
  | 6 | Hidden Power | 2 | 4.65% | 50.00% |
  | 7 | Rest | 1 | 2.33% | 0.00% |

  Out of these 4 times in the entire tour that we saw Haze Qwilfish, I am pretty sure that at least 2 of them I was the one using it, because I have been nearly traumatized by my game vs Bee which is included in the op above. What's the point of all this again? Nearly nobody is using Haze on Qwilfish as there are, again, other valuable moves to choose. I don't have much to say on Crobat, because even if Haze is always included in its moveset, you only see it in stall teams, so yeah...
  Encore
  
  : Well, I don't really have to show the stats, because I am pretty sure most GSC UU players already know that this mon is not really common (has been brought 2 times the entire tournament). However, this is basically the only Pokemon that I am willing to accept as counterplay to an extend, and of course it is surely not enough.
  The conclusion here is that the traditional counters to Baton Pass are not that common in this tier and for good reasons. Moreover, even teams that attempt to carry phazing moves are often at the mercy of timing. With Baton Pass, the user can easily predict and switch out before the phazing move occurs, wasting the opponent's counter while continuing to build momentum. I think a replay that hasn't been included and could be worth checking out is my game vs SANKE CARP on week 4. Someone could argue that Baton Pass lost here, but this felt like a terrible game where Haze Qwilfish had to stay around in order to even have a chance at winning. That sounds disgusting to me.
  
  
• Team compositions problem: I believe this is the biggest issue that will continue to grow as more games will be played. The existence of Baton Pass in the tier warps team-building around a narrow set of win conditions. Teams will either revolve around setting up Baton Pass combos or over-preparing for them, leading to a metagame that is basically a cowboy showdown. Many battles will become a race to set up unbreakable stat-boosted attackers (like all of the replays included on this thread), cutting other strategies and structures that we all love. I know I might be overreacting here, but can someone really guarantees that this won't become an even bigger issue? Conclusion here, is that Baton Pass could potentionally leads to this- either you’re using Baton Pass or you're building excessively to counter it. That sounds even more disgusting to me.
  
  
• The fun of competitiveness: This is more personal thought, but I want to include this as well, because I hope other players feel the same way. The strategic depth of GSC UU lies in its balance between offensive threats, defensive options, residual damage, and other things that lead to thoughtful interactions between the 2 players. This is the main reason that I got into this tier to begin with. Baton Pass clearly bypasses the need for thoughtful interaction and that's quite noticable. Once the setting up starts that leads to certain combos, the game comes down to a single moment, which is either stop the Baton Pass, or lose in a humiliating way. The conclusion here is that GSC UU should focus on skill-based interactions rather than tossing a coin on whether the Battle Pass combo succeeds. That is the most disgusting part to me.

The conclusion of conclusions: The lack of reliable counters, combined with Baton Pass’s ability to create monsters, leads to a robotic gameplay and ruins team diversity. Banning Baton Pass from GSC UU would keep it balanced and encourage a more enjoyable metagame. It's time for Baton Pass to be banned for the sake of GSC UU players mental health (that's a joke obviously)!

 

[Celebiii]

Hey all, I don't have too much unique to add other than to mention a few quick points:

• Encore Mime is legitimate BP counterplay, but as mentioned is difficult to fit onto teams
• Strong Thunder users can be enough to stop the Amnesia pass to Politoed line, particularly Magneton and Electabuzz since they speed tie and are faster than Politoed respectively, though this relies on Thunder accuracy and possibly Sleep Talk turns for Mag
• Roar Aero can help vs BP stuff but fitting Roar on Aero feels really crappy - it would much rather be running Curse + Rest IMO since without Curse Aero is much less of an offensive threat and without Rest it cannot check Bull long-term or in a last mon scenario
• Destiny Bond on Haunter can be legitimate counterplay but it relies on Politoed attacking into Haunter on the correct turn, which is exploitable given Destiny Bond's low PP
• Running Haze Qwilfish really really sucks. I would not run it personally as Blastoise is much too relevant of a metagame threat to give up the ability to beat it through Curse

All in all while I don't feel super strongly about this particular iteration of BP, given that I played through the Agilitypass to Quagsire era which was much more immediately game-ending and constrictive in the builder, I would still be for a BP ban. Accounting for it in the builder does remove some building freedom and emphasizes otherwise suboptimal move choices on mons. I don't feel its overall impact on the teambuilder is a positive and therefore I would be fine with a ban.