When is a Pokemon "Ban Worthy?"

[DCM]

I know we have a mix of casual and competitive players here, as well as a variety of different metagames we all participate in. As we all know, smogon recently moved aegislash into ubers, and is currently suspect testing mega mawile.

Reactions have been.... Mixed. I've seen a lot of posts talking about how easy mawile is to counter, how it lacks set diversity.

This leads me to my question; at what point is a Pokemon "ban worthy?" Does it have to do with power, versatility, centralization? Let me know what you guys think.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

-Offensive Characteristic
If, in common battle conditions, a Pokémon is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little support, set-up, and risk, then it is Uber.
Examples: Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Lucario, Arceus, Mewtwo, Kyogre, etc

-Defensive Characteristic
If, in common battle conditions, a Pokémon is able to wall and defeat (through passive damage, PP stall, or attacking) a significant portion of the metagame, then it is Uber.
Examples: Lugia, Giratina, Arceus, etc

-Support Characteristic
If, in common battle conditions, a Pokémon is able to consistently and without great opportunity cost create situations that allow a variety of other Pokémon to fulfill the Offensive Characteristic when they would not under normal battle conditions, then it is Uber.
Examples: Deoxys-S, Deoxys-D, Mega Gengar, Baton Pass, etc

Credit to Jumpman16 for the original definitions, I just modified 'em slightly for clarity.

 

[DCM]

-Offensive Characteristic
If, in common battle conditions, a Pokémon is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little support, set-up, and risk, then it is Uber.
Examples: Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Lucario, Arceus, Mewtwo, Kyogre, etc

-Defensive Characteristic
If, in common battle conditions, a Pokémon is able to wall and defeat (through passive damage, PP stall, or attacking) a significant portion of the metagame, then it is Uber.
Examples: Lugia, Giratina, Arceus, etc

-Support Characteristic
If, in common battle conditions, a Pokémon is able to consistently and without great opportunity cost create situations that allow a variety of other Pokémon to fulfill the Offensive Characteristic when they would not under normal battle conditions, then it is Uber.
Examples: Deoxys-S, Deoxys-D, Mega Gengar, Baton Pass, etc

Credit to Jumpman16 for the original definitions, I just modified 'em slightly for clarity.

I know the smogon definition, I'm curious other people's definition :bounce:

 

[TerraTF]

When I consider a Pokemon to be ban worthy the Pokemon must change the meta in such a way that it is not healthy. Something like what Blaziken did early last generation or Excadrill did very early last generation. I've agreed with most of the bans this generation apart from Aegislash. I'm honestly ready for ORAS to come out so we can know what new Mega's are released and if we even get move tutors.

 

[sharkshocker]

I tend to judge something as "ban worthy" from the perspective of centralization: if a Pokemon is causing the meta to either run it or a dedicated counter in order to win then it needs to be suspected for banning. A healthy meta is something that should allow for various Pokemon/strategies to thrive and if there's something that's causing a shift to "run it or counter it, otherwise lose" then battles become more stale.

 

[Solayoh]

I know we have a mix of casual and competitive players here, as well as a variety of different metagames we all participate in. As we all know, smogon recently moved aegislash into ubers, and is currently suspect testing mega mawile.

Reactions have been.... Mixed. I've seen a lot of posts talking about how easy mawile is to counter, how it lacks set diversity.

This leads me to my question; at what point is a Pokemon "ban worthy?" Does it have to do with power, versatility, centralization? Let me know what you guys think.

When enough kids cry that it's too hard for them to beat. That's all there is too it.

Pokemon provides a challenge do you
a) try and beat it
b) cry and ask to ban it

Sadly a lot of people go for b)
if you find something a challenge, don't do it, is the ethos.

 

[TerraTF]

A healthy meta is something that should allow for various Pokemon/strategies to thrive and if there's something that's causing a shift to "run it or counter it, otherwise lose" then battles become more stale.

tbh we haven't really had a healthy meta since mid Gen 4 where everyone was running something different. Gen 5 was constant weather wars with players with lesser skills running Rain and players with higher skills running Sun and Sand. I personally never think Gen 6 will be healthy. Overall we're getting more and more Pokemon meaning that we'll need more and more bans because Pokemon are getting stronger and stronger. Personally I think that we're dealing with more Pokemon than we can handle right now.

 

[Osprey]

Hmm... for banning Pokemon, the baseline is all legendaries, with the exception of minor trios like the beasts or the birds. Then start banning Pokemon that are commonly agreed upon as overpowered or gamebreaking, like Megaskhan. Not sure why Aegislash was banned; mine wasn't that good even for the main story, but I might've just been using it wrong.

... So Gen V metagame was full of weather wars and little else? Maybe that was a little insight on what it would look like if Team Magma and Aqua managed to keep control over their respective legendaries. :-/

 

[Krash]

I don't really see why Megakangaskhan is considered "gamebreaking". Given the proper strategy, anything can be beaten. Chansey using toxic, softboiled for stall, if it gets taken out, megagengar can negate its normal-stab and set up destiny bond, or chip away with Hex/Curse? Also, one could simply not mega evolve to keep levitate to negate earthquake. But oh, we're on the internet. Meaning people all over the world are about to get their panties in a knot because of a minor flaw in what I just said. Keep in mind the luck part of Pokemon, too. Evasion is a possibility.

Well. Now that THAT poorly-written paragraph of mine is over, let me just say that, while I agree with legendaries being a cheap punch, outright banning certain pokemon/moves takes away from the freedom of training and using pokemon the way WE want it. Cheating is obviously a no-no (sorry Wondertomb users), but if someone spends weeks comming up with a strategy for their team that works for them, why ruin that for them? Certain pokemon may be difficult to take out BY CONVENTIONAL methods, but just because a handful of people find it hard to lay the beat on a single mom and her kid, perhaps they should look at how they approached the situation.

I don't see how someone getting into a fit over an Aegislash popping on to the field is any different from a kid who gets pissed and ragequits because I took out three of his all-legend team are any different. Same idea, same reaction, same outcome.

To sum things up, banning, in my opinion, is wasted energy.

 

[TerraTF]

I don't really see why Megakangaskhan is considered "gamebreaking". Given the proper strategy, anything can be beaten. Chansey using toxic, softboiled for stall, if it gets taken out, megagengar can negate its normal-stab and set up destiny bond, or chip away with Hex/Curse? Also, one could simply not mega evolve to keep levitate to negate earthquake. But oh, we're on the internet. Meaning people all over the world are about to get their panties in a knot because of a minor flaw in what I just said. Keep in mind the luck part of Pokemon, too. Evasion is a possibility.

The thing about Mega Khan was that it had few hard counters outside of Sableye and Cofagrigus. Burn just slowed it down essentially taking away the extra 0.5x attacking power that its second hit got. Also it couldn't be attacked because it had Sucker Punch. Aegislash could also slow it down with a few King's Shield's but M-Khan is back up to +2 with a couple of Powerup Punch. Basically if M-Khan could use Powerup Punch once it would decimate every Pokemon in the meta.

EDIT: And to bring VGC into this Aaron "Cybertron" Zheng stated publicly that he wished that M-Khan was not part of the VGC meta in his AMA last Saturday. I'm also willing to bet that the world champion this year will have an M-Khan and Amoongus on his team.

 

[Krash]

I imagine the people who innitiate a ban in the metagame to be the dressed in brown, with a red patch on their arms, a derpy little moustache, trying to get rid of all the pokemon they deem "unfit" for their perfect metagame.

I jest.

If freedom of play is the whole reason why cooperative pokemon battling exists, why bother to undo the hard work the programmers did by putting that mon in the game in the first place? If I were lord and master of the internet, I'd probably just create a new tier for all these pokemon people want to ban.

 

[TerraTF]

If I were lord and master of the internet, I'd probably just create a new tier for all these pokemon people want to ban.

No need to. Its called Ubers. Basically a the "Free-For-All" tier in Smogon. Also known as Battle Spot Singles Free Battle.

Smogon's meta is a meta determined by the community that plays it for the community that plays it. It only seems so big because its the largest English speaking community that plays Pokemon and has been helped balance the meta for almost 10 years, which is why its so trusted with the decisions that are made for the meta. Smogon at this time is the competitive version of Serebii. If I want all of the official Pokemon news I go by Serebii because he's been doing his site since the early 2000s and Smogon has been working their tiers for over 3 generations.

 

[Krash]

If I were lord and master of the internet, I'd probably just create a new tier for all these pokemon people want to ban.

No need to. Its called Ubers. Basically a the "Free-For-All" tier in Smogon. Also known as Battle Spot Singles Free Battle.

Smogon's meta is a meta determined by the community that plays it for the community that plays it. It only seems so big because its the largest English speaking community that plays Pokemon and has been helped balance the meta for almost 10 years, which is why its so trusted with the decisions that are made for the meta. Smogon at this time is the competitive version of Serebii. If I want all of the official Pokemon news I go by Serebii because he's been doing his site since the early 2000s and Smogon has been working their tiers for over 3 generations.

I'm not arguing the success or efficiency of Smogon for those who use it. In fact, the tier system (which I think was actually a Smogon idea originally, i could be mistaken) is great, and if there were a way to implement it into the Battle Spot, I'd be all for that. I just don't agree with outright banning a pokemon. All that it's implying is that the community is so frustrated with comming up with an actual way to balance it, that they see the only solution is essentially pretending it doesn't exist. Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. Instead of a ban, they could plan some re-organization (which is going to be required when ORAS releases). Banning anything at this moment seems redundant when in a few months a brand new mega could very well prove the perfect counter for what's already targeted to be struck from the game. Does a pokemon like Megakangaskhan suddenly become "un-banned"?

Please, do not mistake my debate as hostility, ignorance, or (least of all) the start of a very touchy trollable subject. Just understand that there are redundancies and downfalls to banning, as I understand the balance it brings to the casual metagame crowd. Terra, I fully support the time and effort put into Smogon, and I most definitely comprehend the sheer amount of testing they put into their bans. Likewise, I imagine that they get a decent amount of flak from people (much like I'm giving). In the end, Smogon is the Smogonite's metagame, and all my posts are is a hypothetical debate.

 

[AnybodyAgrees]

Banning is essentially a re-tiering of said poke. And yes, stuff will be possibly allowed back into OU after ORAS came out. Not the stupidly broken stuff like boxart legendaries, but maybe stuff like Aegislash or Deoxys-D.

 

[BlackButterfree]

I think a Pokémon is ban worthy when you need a strategy to defeat it as an individual Pokémon opponent instead of coming up with a strategy around your team to defend against any HUMAN opponents (in other words, entire teams). I'm not into the competitive scene at all, so that might be really naive and stupid to say. Sorry.

 

[Alola]

If I were lord and master of the internet, I'd probably just create a new tier for all these pokemon people want to ban.

No need to. Its called Ubers. Basically a the "Free-For-All" tier in Smogon. Also known as Battle Spot Singles Free Battle.

Smogon's meta is a meta determined by the community that plays it for the community that plays it. It only seems so big because its the largest English speaking community that plays Pokemon and has been helped balance the meta for almost 10 years, which is why its so trusted with the decisions that are made for the meta. Smogon at this time is the competitive version of Serebii. If I want all of the official Pokemon news I go by Serebii because he's been doing his site since the early 2000s and Smogon has been working their tiers for over 3 generations.

More like the "Legends Gone Wild" tier. Whenever I dare to enter Ubers to see my Mega Lucario be able to participate in a 6 vs 6, the opposing team ALWAYS is packed full of Legendaries, ranging from Arceus to Kyogre. I rarely ever get that in Battle Spot, and even then the Legendaries don't have perfect 31 IVs in every stat or dedicated EV spreads. I say they should make a tier that uses official Nintendo rules but uses 6 vs 6 single format rather than 4 vs 4 doubles. That will make everyone happy.

 

[TerraTF]

If I were lord and master of the internet, I'd probably just create a new tier for all these pokemon people want to ban.

No need to. Its called Ubers. Basically a the "Free-For-All" tier in Smogon. Also known as Battle Spot Singles Free Battle.

Smogon's meta is a meta determined by the community that plays it for the community that plays it. It only seems so big because its the largest English speaking community that plays Pokemon and has been helped balance the meta for almost 10 years, which is why its so trusted with the decisions that are made for the meta. Smogon at this time is the competitive version of Serebii. If I want all of the official Pokemon news I go by Serebii because he's been doing his site since the early 2000s and Smogon has been working their tiers for over 3 generations.

More like the "Legends Gone Wild" tier. Whenever I dare to enter Ubers to see my Mega Lucario be able to participate in a 6 vs 6, the opposing team ALWAYS is packed full of Legendaries, ranging from Arceus to Kyogre. I rarely ever get that in Battle Spot, and even then the Legendaries don't have perfect 31 IVs in every stat or dedicated EV spreads. I say they should make a tier that uses official Nintendo rules but uses 6 vs 6 single format rather than 4 vs 4 doubles. That will make everyone happy.

Well I have good news for you. It is on Showdown as Battle Spot Singles.

 

[Alola]

If I were lord and master of the internet, I'd probably just create a new tier for all these pokemon people want to ban.

No need to. Its called Ubers. Basically a the "Free-For-All" tier in Smogon. Also known as Battle Spot Singles Free Battle.

Smogon's meta is a meta determined by the community that plays it for the community that plays it. It only seems so big because its the largest English speaking community that plays Pokemon and has been helped balance the meta for almost 10 years, which is why its so trusted with the decisions that are made for the meta. Smogon at this time is the competitive version of Serebii. If I want all of the official Pokemon news I go by Serebii because he's been doing his site since the early 2000s and Smogon has been working their tiers for over 3 generations.

More like the "Legends Gone Wild" tier. Whenever I dare to enter Ubers to see my Mega Lucario be able to participate in a 6 vs 6, the opposing team ALWAYS is packed full of Legendaries, ranging from Arceus to Kyogre. I rarely ever get that in Battle Spot, and even then the Legendaries don't have perfect 31 IVs in every stat or dedicated EV spreads. I say they should make a tier that uses official Nintendo rules but uses 6 vs 6 single format rather than 4 vs 4 doubles. That will make everyone happy.

Well I have good news for you. It is on Showdown as Battle Spot Singles.

What? no, that is only 3 on 3, not 6 on 6

 

[TerraTF]

If I were lord and master of the internet, I'd probably just create a new tier for all these pokemon people want to ban.

No need to. Its called Ubers. Basically a the "Free-For-All" tier in Smogon. Also known as Battle Spot Singles Free Battle.

Smogon's meta is a meta determined by the community that plays it for the community that plays it. It only seems so big because its the largest English speaking community that plays Pokemon and has been helped balance the meta for almost 10 years, which is why its so trusted with the decisions that are made for the meta. Smogon at this time is the competitive version of Serebii. If I want all of the official Pokemon news I go by Serebii because he's been doing his site since the early 2000s and Smogon has been working their tiers for over 3 generations.

More like the "Legends Gone Wild" tier. Whenever I dare to enter Ubers to see my Mega Lucario be able to participate in a 6 vs 6, the opposing team ALWAYS is packed full of Legendaries, ranging from Arceus to Kyogre. I rarely ever get that in Battle Spot, and even then the Legendaries don't have perfect 31 IVs in every stat or dedicated EV spreads. I say they should make a tier that uses official Nintendo rules but uses 6 vs 6 single format rather than 4 vs 4 doubles. That will make everyone happy.

Well I have good news for you. It is on Showdown as Battle Spot Singles.

What? no, that is only 3 on 3, not 6 on 6

2 Matches with the other 3 Pokemon on the second match. Problem solved.

 

[Alola]

If I were lord and master of the internet, I'd probably just create a new tier for all these pokemon people want to ban.

No need to. Its called Ubers. Basically a the "Free-For-All" tier in Smogon. Also known as Battle Spot Singles Free Battle.

Smogon's meta is a meta determined by the community that plays it for the community that plays it. It only seems so big because its the largest English speaking community that plays Pokemon and has been helped balance the meta for almost 10 years, which is why its so trusted with the decisions that are made for the meta. Smogon at this time is the competitive version of Serebii. If I want all of the official Pokemon news I go by Serebii because he's been doing his site since the early 2000s and Smogon has been working their tiers for over 3 generations.

More like the "Legends Gone Wild" tier. Whenever I dare to enter Ubers to see my Mega Lucario be able to participate in a 6 vs 6, the opposing team ALWAYS is packed full of Legendaries, ranging from Arceus to Kyogre. I rarely ever get that in Battle Spot, and even then the Legendaries don't have perfect 31 IVs in every stat or dedicated EV spreads. I say they should make a tier that uses official Nintendo rules but uses 6 vs 6 single format rather than 4 vs 4 doubles. That will make everyone happy.

Well I have good news for you. It is on Showdown as Battle Spot Singles.

What? no, that is only 3 on 3, not 6 on 6

2 Matches with the other 3 Pokemon on the second match. Problem solved.

If only it were that simple. Like I said earlier, when they allow "Battle Spot" full battles on showdown then everyone will be happy.