Mega Lucario Banned - Smogon Has No Idea What They're Doing

[Jamie]

Blaziken's Speed Boost is easily countered by Talonflame's Gale Wings, as well as Trick Room. A Focus Sashed Cloyster can survive the first hit and use Shell Smash to instantly outspeed him. Mega Aggron's Defense stat alongside Filter laugh off any and all of Blaziken's hits. A Choice Scarfed [insert fast and strong Pokemon here] can end him easily in one hit. Literally anything with Swift Swim will rape him during rain. It's basically impossible for Blaziken to KO a healthy Tentacruel.

Blaziken isn't without counters, especially in this new generation. Smogon just plain and simply refuses to allow Pokemon that can sweep an entire team if given the chance into standard play.

No Pokemon is without counters. Palkia vs Kyogre? But do you want Kyogre to be in OU? And there's only what, 2 Pokemon with Drizzle (and one is in ubers)? By the time you switch into your Pokemon that can use Rain Dance and actually USE Rain Dance, Speed Boost has been used twice.

 

[JuicieJ]

No Pokemon is without counters. Palkia vs Kyogre? But do you want Kyogre to be in OU? And there's only what, 2 Pokemon with Drizzle (and one is in ubers)? By the time you switch into your Pokemon that can use Rain Dance and actually USE Rain Dance, Speed Boost has been used twice.

You're grasping for straws with this by attempting to view a situation with countless potential circumstances in one very specific way -- which, by the way, is the exact kind of mindset Smorons have. You've completely ignored every other example I gave, and focused on one in particular... and even then, you did a pretty poor job of it. What sane person is going to actually waste an entire turn by using Rain Dance to set up rainy weather, much less waste TWO turns just to switch a Pokemon with Rain Dance in? That's suicidal. Anyone attempting to set up a Pokemon with Swift Swim is going to send out a Drizzle Politoed first, most likely as their lead.

And, again, you ignored everything else I listed, which is nothing more than a convenience. I'm not trying to attack you, but you need to know that you're not doing a very good job of making rebuttals.

 

[Jamie]

You're grasping for straws with this by attempting to view a situation with countless potential circumstances in one very specific way -- which, by the way, is the exact kind of mindset Smorons have. You've completely ignored every other example I gave, and focused on one in particular... and even then, you did a pretty poor job of it. What sane person is going to actually waste an entire turn by using Rain Dance to set up rainy weather, much less waste TWO turns just to switch a Pokemon with Rain Dance in? That's suicidal. Anyone attempting to set up a Pokemon with Swift Swim is going to send out a Drizzle Politoed first, most likely as their lead.

And, again, you ignored everything else I listed, which is nothing more than a convenience. I'm not trying to attack you, but you need to know that you're not doing a very good job of making rebuttals.

Firstly, I didn't ignore everything. I stated everything has a counter and then attempted to pick apart one faulty counter. My point in the Rain Dance one was unless you have Politoad, you can't counter with swift swim and rain.

Can you not refute my arguments like a normal person? Let me help you:
"You didn't exactly cover all of my points. The other counters I listed are still always useful. And of course you would never switch out and use Rain Dance. I was only referring to the times where the counter is applicable."
Not only is that shorter, but much nicer and less aggressive.

You say you aren't attacking me, clearly you need to work a bit on your tone. Equating me to a "Smoron" (which I imagine also means you are equating me to a moron, by the way), proceeding to say I'm not very good at making rebuttals, and using an overall condescending tone is not helping your case. I am failing to take you seriously when you can't even respond in a calm and collected manner. So lets discuss this another time when you've calmed down a tad.

 

[Sir Quaffler]

Frankly I don't understand all of what Smogon does. I do agree that they are too closed-minded. I've run across several Blazikens in online fights, and while he does hurt a lot he's far from the supposedly unstoppable force he's made out to be. Not only with conventional competitive strategies they themselves have devised, but also with some... more unorthodox methods. What I like to do is switch up my movesets and upset-punch people who are expecting certain strategies from my 'mons (it doesn't work all the time, more often than not it blows up in my face, but it's still fun when I can pull it off).

 

[Jamie]

Frankly I don't understand all of what Smogon does. I do agree that they are too closed-minded. I've run across several Blazikens in online fights, and while he does hurt a lot he's far from the supposedly unstoppable force he's made out to be. Not only with conventional competitive strategies they themselves have devised, but also with some... more unorthodox methods. What I like to do is switch up my movesets and upset-punch people who are expecting certain strategies from my 'mons (it doesn't work all the time, more often than not it blows up in my face, but it's still fun when I can pull it off).

Well firstly, Smogon provides this definition of an uber:

A Pokemon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other Pokemon to sweep.

Smogon actually has a quite thorough explanation on the Blaziken ban (he was quick-banned, i.e. no voting process):

After extensive play-knowledge and observation, the council agrees on 3 vital points: getting a Speed Boost is trivial (with Protect), getting a Swords Dance is not as trivial but still highly probable, and Blaziken can either sweep a significant portion of the metagame late-game with just a Speed Boost or sweep a significant portion of the metagame at any point in a battle with a Speed Boost and Swords Dance.

The first point hopefully doesn't require too much explanation; simply bring Blaziken in, and choose to either Protect, Substitute, or simply KO various popularly used Pokemon, such as Aegislash, Scizor, Tyranitar, or Ferrothorn.
The second point is more obvious when looking at the current metagame. Aegislash does not OHKO Blaziken, so even if you guess wrong, you still have +1 Speed and +2 Attack. Tyranitar, Scizor, and Ferrothorn are near certain switch-outs in most cases, so that is a strong Swords Dance opportunity. Greninja is faster, but after a Protect, Blaziken is faster, which introduces another opportunity to either KO or Swords Dance. This point is actually important as well. After a Protect boosting Blaziken's Speed, many popular threats that formerly scared it, such as Greninja or Gengar, are now OHKOed, which introduces more chances to safely use Swords Dance. After viewing and playing battles ourselves and confirming with the usage statistics, we determined that, while it wasn't as easy as the free +1 Speed boost, it still was not too difficult to get a Swords Dance in to get +2 Attack with Blaziken.
With those two points in mind (that getting at least a single Speed Boost is trivial and at least a single Swords Dance is usually not an issue) it's clear that it's nearly impossible to stop a +2 Attack and +1 Speed, 339 Attack and 284 Speed, and STAB on both Flare Blitz and High Jump Kick Pokemon from sweeping the majority of the metagame. Blaziken has very niche counters (Slowbro is the closest thing to a counter and, even then, it falls to mixed Blaziken variants) and most of the time players must choose to sacrifice one of their Pokémon in order to bring in their revenge killer (Talonflame/Azumarill are omnipresent in today's metagame even because of Blaziken) and force Blaziken out. For the above reasons, the council determined that it would require enormous over-preparation to deal with Blaziken, so meeting that requirement hinders team building and provides an overall negative presence in the metagame.

Though the council doesn't use previous generation comparisons (at all) in determining a Pokemon's status, it might help to view it in a similar context. Blaziken was banned in Gen 5, and Gen 6 has nerfed potential checks like infinite rain via Drizzle, introduced Pokemon weak to Blaziken, such as Aegislash and Klefki, that are popularly used, and given Blaziken newer tools, such as Mega Evolution and the ability to Baton Pass boosts. The latter tool is particularly significant, as it introduces a whole new archetype of threat to prepare for (Baton Pass) that is often dealt with in a completely different manner than the standard methods to check Blaziken. New checks like Talonflame and Azumarill are certainly viable checks, but we felt that these checks, along with the ones that already existed, like High Jump Kick mindgames and recoil, were not enough to trump the ability to get Speed and Attack boosts relatively easily and subsequently (mindlessly) sweep a majority of the metagame.

It seems he fits Smogon's definition of uber quite well. It also seems like a lot of why they quickbanned Blaziken is because you almost had to modify your team to prepare for a Blaziken, which disrupts team building.

The reason why "sweepers" are being banned is because really, that's the most overpowered a Pokemon can get. What Pokemon would you rather have on your team than a Pokemon that can guarantee you 6KOs? Nothing (not saying Blaziken guarantees it though). The idea behind Blaziken is because of Speed Boost, it's really easy to sweep, because you can set up +1 speed by using a protective move. Then all you need to do is survive one attack for Swords Dance.

Look at how promptly Blaziken was banned. Like 12 days after the release of X and Y. Clearly, there is an issue.

I would also like to add, again, "having counters" isn't exactly a valid argument. I don't believe there's any Pokemon bar Mewtwo with absolutely no counter. Let's just put everything in OU except for Mewtwo.

 

[JuicieJ]

I'm sorry, Repentance, but you don't know what you're talking about. You're following the exact kind of logic that causes me to say Smogon has no idea what they're doing, and that's a huge problem. Smogon in general is too safe of an environment because of all the pointless restrictions they have, and it's because of these restrictions that select Pokemon become "broken" -- but they're only broken in their eyes. I've dealt with many a Blaziken in my time because I understand his metagame. I know what works against him and what doesn't because I don't just look at how hard he is to stop and think, "Oh, he's clearly just way too strong, no way it's that I lack the skill to take him down."

The fact of the matter is that Blaziken has plenty of counters outside of the Ubers tier. Pokemon that are SUPPOSED to be in Ubers are only going to be capable of being reasonably countered by others in the same tier. That's not even remotely how it works for Blaziken. Smogon fails to realize this because they don't know how to think creatively. Their format shuns thinking outside of the box to come up with unique strategies in favor of run-of-the-mill ones that anyone could come up with. I guarantee you that if any of these so-called top-tier Smogon players were to try their hand at the VGC environment, they'd get spanked within the first few turns. Believe it or not, that's an environment where Blaziken and Mega Blaziken aren't as common as you'd expect. Why? Because he's not that difficult to counter. Sure, he can sweep a team if given the chance, but that's literally his entire purpose.

I'll say it again: Smogon is a casually competitive environment that THINKS they know better than Game Freak when they indisputably don't. Rather than making legitimate improvements to the metagame in attempt to make it even more balanced than it already is, they just ban things that are """broken""", creating an UNBALANCE in the process, which leads to them banning more and more things until the game is balanced again. This is such a backwards mentality that it hurts, and I truly can't believe that there are people that think it's the best method of approach.

 

[Jamie]

Firstly, I've played A LOT of Pokemon. I haven't played really in the current meta game but I actually used to be quite good.

Now the argument that Ubers are in Ubers because they only have counters in the Ubers tier is not really a valid one, because the Ubers had to get in the tier to begin with. If all Ubers bar
Mewtwo were in OU, then they'd all have counters in OU. In fact, Pokemon like Ludicolo or even Chansey can counter Kyogre. But the reason why it's banned is because its very easy to sweep with it unless you make a team around stopping it (I remember in Ubers back in gen 4 almost everyone ran Palkia because Kyogre was such a common lead). This ruins team building.

Also, people on Smogon DON'T get spanked in VGC. People in VGC use Pokemon Showdown. I remember back before Pokemon Showdown, when PO was big(filled with many "Smorons"), one of the VGC winners was a very active member. I remember he used Ludicolo + Kyogre in his Ubers team where Ludicolo becomes essentially a second Kyogre. This intelligent use of Ludicolo can now be found as one of the creative builds on Smogons website (now less useful with the weather nerf).

The bottom line is, you may know a lot about Pokemon, but so do the councilmen on Smogon. You can't just assume that because you disagree with them that they are idiots. They may think the same about you. And you definitely can't be mad at Smogon for voted on bans like Lucario because you quite literally could have a say in that if you put in the work on Pokemon Showdown that the eligible voters did.

I would also like to add that there was one year in the VGCs where Kyogre was allowed. Yeah, that's kinda insane. So they don't always get it right.