More Banned Strategies in Competitive Pokémon (Gens 1 - 6)

[@BigYellowSilly]

also it's my birthday today so anyone looking to complain about smogon bans in tiers they've never played I am politely asking you to wait until tomorrow (:

[@thyduke3010]

Happy birthday!

[@astupidquestion]

Happy Birthday! 🥳

[@JB-bc2ry]

Happy Birthday, Big Yellow! Stay awesome 😎

[@melvinencinascabrera4897]

Happy birthday and congrats for making such a good content. Wush the best.

[@knuckl6972]

Happy birthday

[@paddythelegend1671]

Snorlax having a 50% winrate makes it sound pretty average. But then you realise it has a 100% usage rate. Making it so that in every battle a Snorlax wins and loses

[@gator-tater9827]

Right, the real numbers to look at (if they existed) would be win rates of teams that don’t have Lax

[@TheKailashSR]

Lol

[@free_playstation_2]

Is a character truly balanced or truly broken when they reach a 50% win rate?

[@HackedGlitch265]

I mean, 50% IS the average: Snorlax is on every team, therefore, it always wins and loses. It IS average. It is THE average. It is balanced, as all things should be. TLDR: Snorlax always wins.

[@alexavermeulen8847]

in some tournaments it actually has a winrate of less than 50% because sometimes people win without sending out their snorlax and so its not counted

[@theinternetsworst7860]

"There's nothing more attractive than knowing what the fuck you're talking about" is a top 8 quote. Highly viable in this incredibly competitive tier.

[@wadespencer3623]

Big Yellow is underused in youtube tiers but I think he could really be viable in higher tiers.

[@lakilopis7081]

Is oil getting too expensive for you?? Bro just use haze

[@midend]

Ikr ppl act like set up +6 price spike is a big deal or something

[@free_playstation_2]

My favorite banned strategy (gen 4 and gen 5) is whacking the opponent's DS with a hammer

[@nicolask.3825]

The reason this is legal in gens 1-3 is because the older consoles consistently survive the attack

[@Shadrake]

@@nicolask.3825 LOL

[@aegisScale]

@@nicolask.3825 if Hammer isn't a OHKO the resulting followup from Moderator will end you in return and grant your opponent a free win so . . .

[@but_heres_the_homestuck]

my fave is the throw into a full sink ☺️

[@GilroyIronheart]

How CRUSHING was Hammer ACTUALLY?

[@HarveyVolodarskii]

I love the idea of a secret conspiracy of Smogon players as if Smogon users have ever agreed on anything

[@BigYellowSilly]

it would be really funny if this whole time there was just a single smogon goblin behind everything

[@HarveyVolodarskii]

@@BigYellowSilly smogoblin

[@rasmusdegn9690]

@@BigYellowSilly It's just a dog like in that one Silent Hill 2 ending.

[@hangfire5944]

@@HarveyVolodarskii smogoblin loves stall

[@spindash64]

They agreed on banning Shaymin-Sky to Ubers in Generation V

[@zie4570]

man, why’d they ban smoglo bomgle with the shergle berg. really limits the creativity of pokemon

[@summonfish]

I can’t tell if this is a real sentence or not I’m going insane

[@ultimapower6950]

Just use its pre evo smaga board

[@squidguardian1063]

I used to run smoglo bomgle on my shergle berg, trust me it was NOT creative

[@connorpalmer6454]

@@summonfish I read it out loud and produced doves from under my hat

[@Pudcup]

Barlum is great with specs but he's getting investigated in nu right now

[@M3G4T3RR4]

As someone who's never: looked at a pokemon game's competitive scene, learned what major threats are in each tier, heard of pokemon even a single time in my life, played any video game before, or even learned what the definition of a competition is, Funbro sounds balanced, fun, and should definitely be allowed in all tiers of competitive play

[@BigYellowSilly]

Glad someone gets it

[@Red-yt2dk]

The thing I think is interesting about funbro is that it's banned for completely different reasons than everything else. Usually, things get banned for being too good, to the point where they overcentralize the metagame. Pokemon is a game that is won by knocking out six pokemon from the other team, and things that are "too good" are things that can effectively do that at a high trade ratio. Funbro, on the other hand, is unable to knock out even one pokemon. In fact, it exists only to upset the opponent. Arguably, it'd even be terrible in games with a timer, because mashing struggle at max speed is faster than swapping between Funbro's moves, so the funbro should run down its clock faster. Funbro isn't banned for being too good. It's banned for being a dick move, bro.

[@nobodybroda3826]

I play a game for fun, I could be learning football rather then competitive pokemon, I'm not gonna sit an eternity just to watch some funny man make the same tired joke of a strat the 700th time. The reason bans exist, boring shit sucks.

[@isenokami7810]

The main reason why I don’t find myself questioning the bans in either video. Funbro is the only one that goes full “dick move”, but most of these are, as Yellow said for APT, “not overpowered, just really uncompetitive.” To the point where even an outsider like me, who has no intention of ever playing competitive Pokémon, can fully understand why these were ban worthy. Need I remind you of the trend throughout most of the strats in the first video of “if I get lucky for one turn, maybe two, I basically win.” Technically those strats can be countered by the other guy hoping you DON’T get lucky, but at that point you’re not playing competitive Pokémon, you’re just playing the lottery. That’s f$&@ing stupid, and you don’t need to be engaged with those comp scenes to understand why those were banned.

[@eggmug562]

Funbro is the pokemon equivalent of self destruct button stall

[@TechSY730]

Funbro and other infinite game setups are not so much balance breaking, but _format_ breaking. It breaks the nature of a competitive match. It just makes things miserable for everyone involved (except the instigator, maybe), and is not a show of any kind of competitive skill. It should be banned from everything as it breaks what a battle even is.

[@Thyyyyyyyyme]

I feel like the reason Funbro is banned in AG is simply that it's a strategy where you're not trying to win. Stall teams intend on making small, incremental progress throughout a match. Funbro just wants to sit on you forever.

[@andrejg4136]

FunBro appears to be a meta-stalling tactic. Instead of a competitive Stall where you basically erode a team down like so much water running over a rock formation; you are deliberately wasting the opponents time and eroding their patience to the point where they rage quit and give you a 'free' win.

[@nousername191]

@@andrejg4136 Yes, but all the opponent has to do is leave a bot that clicks any move and walk away and the FunBro user will never get a forfeit.

[@WingedFish66]

@@nousername191 But what if the funbro user is also using a bot that clicks moves in a set order? They'll just, keep going, for eternity

[@nousername191]

@@WingedFish66 Or until Showdown crashes.

[@spindash64]

@@WingedFish66 then you leave the bot running until the mods ban that guy’s ass

[@VideosBadIMake]

"number 10, freddy fazbear" you predicted blood moon what the fuck

[@BigTa1k]

As long as they haven't banned Scrunguschu from using the Red Bingus in Generation Fuck I think I'm rather pleased with the state of the meta. Also happy birthday.

[@macewindu5195]

With the discovery of big bingus in generation one, red bingus might be remembered and critically analysed for the op mess that it is, resulting in a ban

[@Darvoth]

Yeah but they banned Glup Shitto in that generations bungle sprunkle teir. The move glippity gloop glop isn’t powerful enough to warrant a full on ban.

[@chrisc9526]

@@Darvoth what if it's in combination with the shitass ability?

[@Darvoth]

@@chrisc9526 THAT should be banned not the whole Pokémon.

[@chrisc9526]

@@Darvoth banning shitass pretty much consigns this pokemon to FU, since its either shitass or live slug reaction, which is purely negative

[@bhizzle64]

Gen 2 snorlax to me seems kinda like a precursor to mega evolutions, in how it forms somewhat of a centerpiece to your team. You’ve got a lot of options for what to do with it, but none of them are unbeatable by your non-centerpiece team members.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

Or Dynamax/Incineroar from VGC? I am no expert, but I guess it is the idea. Landorus also comes to mind.

[@gregorymirabella1423]

@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 landorus is nothing compared to snorlax and megas.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

@@gregorymirabella1423 Yeah, of course. I was thinking less in terms of rawpower, and more in how meta centralizing it can be (though in lesser proportion. You can play a team without Landorus and win), and sheer diversity. Now I am absolutely not an expert in Competitive, it's mainly how I interpret it from afar tbh. Feel free to correct if I'm still wrong here

[@skinnysnorlax1876]

Mega snorlax confirmed

[@dustin202]

@@gregorymirabella1423 and that was the problem, too weak to be Ubers, but versatile enough that it’s hard to not find a use, leading to a Mon living on a tightrope

[@bipolarprobe]

The talk at the beginning about opinions on bans was something I'm glad you talked about. A lot of bans that I've heard about from yours and freezai's videos made me knee jerk upset but when I thought about it. I kept my mouth shut because I haven't consistently played smogon competitive in nearly 10 years. If people feel like there aren't many votes deciding some of these bans, they need to realize that for some past tiers that is the ENTIRE consistent playerbase. Seriously, go browse showdown tiers if you haven't looked in a while. There are fucking dozens of them and everything outside of current gen OU and vgc doubles is extremely niche. The communities that actually stick to their favorite metas should be able to determine the bans by votes, so it makes perfect sense.

[@lkjkhfggd]

Agreed. I played a looot of gen 5 OU back before gen 6 came out. To later find sleep moves banned as well as all gems shocked me. But I don't play that tier anymore, so why does it matter to me?

[@NH-bn8xn]

When you put it that way it's super wholesome that the player base can fine tune their small corner of the competitive community.

[@nousername191]

@@NH-bn8xn Exactly. Smogon ain't perfect and they'll always need fine tuning as they go, but I'll always respect what they're going for. Their tier system allows most Pokemon to shine in some competitive format. That can never happen under The Pokemon Company.

[@noukan42]

The counterpoint is that this attitude is what makes metagames niche in the first place. If you tailor made the metagame to what a small comunity want you are effectively putting an entry barrier on it.

[@sneepsnoop9547]

@@noukan42 That is not at all why these tiers are niche. They're niche because they're old, obsolete, and highly specific. For example, how many people do you know that are super into, say, Gen 4 LC? If the answer to that question is more than even two, I'll be amazed. It has nothing to do with....... bans making older tiers less accessible???

[@WhoWouldIBe]

The way I see Snorlax in Gen 2 is similar to the Queen in chess; an extremely strong and versatile tool everyone gets access to, but also one that can't do everything at once and will REALLY hurt if you lose. I think it's s big thing of what makes GSC so unique.

[@kirbyfazendoummoonwalk9214]

So unique every single team uses the dame Pokemon

[@wadespencer3623]

@@kirbyfazendoummoonwalk9214 At least it's a step up from gen 1 where everybody shares an entire half of a team.

[@codenamec.a.t2480]

@@kirbyfazendoummoonwalk9214 because they’re trying to win, like everyone else lol

[@kirbyfazendoummoonwalk9214]

@@codenamec.a.t2480 yeah that is completely fair but dont act like it is unique

[@An_Entire_Lime]

@@kirbyfazendoummoonwalk9214 You still have 5 entire pokemon and snorlax's moveset for you to unique as much as you feel like, it really isn't that bad.

[@chiko6484]

i think that not only should funbro be unbanned but it should be mandatory in every single tier and gen regardless of legality

[@brunop.8745]

The sheer levels of basedness here are off the charts

[@agentstache135]

I think they should drop the species clause and require every team to have six funbros

[@fletchlingwright1264]

Correct, every match should take until one of the players falls asleep on their keyboard and times out

[@dylldj]

Hello? Hello??? Based Department??? Yeah, we got a live one over here!

[@porygonlover322]

i wish everyone who dies goes to hell no matter what

[@haleyminkus5435]

"You're like fuckin' Avatar, but instead of saving the world, you just kinda like Baton Pass." Lmfao. This is why I subbed

[@kalosianporygon]

Funbro: So illegal, you can't even use it in Anything Goes. That's where they draw the line. I also like the Baton Pass rant.

[@onijester56]

"Anything goes...except for that" *sung to the tune of "I Would do Anything for Love" by Meatloaf*

[@nobodybroda3826]

Its boring, it would make anything goes completely unplayable. Look up Neutralizing gas eternatus from hackmons, it destroyed the banless tier because it was so lame, everyone got bored and left!

[@ClasIsMid]

people are giving wrong reasons for its ban from ag. while theyre partly true, the biggest reason is that iirc you can slow down the server a huge amount by spamming infinite funbro games via vpns and incognito taps, and im pretty sure before the turn limit it could also crash the server. so yeah

[@theskullboy8700]

Mega ray and zacian crown: stand down final warning Funbro: I can do this all day

[@shekkie]

@@nobodybroda3826 Not quite, the banless tier of hackmons is STILL fun, and not everyone left. It’s that the competitive players left it. The casual player base with our shitty rayquazas and sturdy shedinjas are just having fun.

[@KindaKaon]

I’ve always found non-bans super interesting. The phrase “smogon loves stall” is often thrown around, but I think it fundamentally misunderstands a major principle of winning at Pokemon - KOing 6 of them. For example, Pex in Gen 7 is arguably top 1, definitely top 5, but it isn’t ban worthy despite its dominant nature because it’s too passive. Lax is like the reverse - it prevents the tier itself from being too passive. I’ve always found that super cool

[@borby4584]

Pretty sure that Lax also acts as a keystone, because aren’t a ton of strong special attackers kept in line by His presence?

[@KindaKaon]

@beyond your imagination no way it is

[@darienwest4748]

"Smogon loves stall" is what people who don't play smogon say about smogon. Look at gen 7, people whine about the 5 stall mons in OU while casually ignoring the 30+ offensive threats.

[@grassfish01]

Also, in Gen 6, Mega Sableye was banned because it caused stall teams to last basically forever.

[@aalamvirsinghdhaliwal1701]

Gen 7 Pex is definitely NOT top 1. That HAS to be Magearna.

[@NeonWasInUse]

Seeing as banned Pokemon/Strategies are the flavor of the month, I wanna take a sec to talk about a Ban in Gen 8 Ubers that ALMOST Happened, but is still extremely controverisal to this day. Yep, If you've ever played Gen 8 Ubers, you most likely know what I'm talking about. Love them or hate them, it's Calyrex Shadow Rider. So what makes this guy so controversial in the first place? For those uninformed. Well for Starters, Calyrex Shadow is the user of the strongest Ghost Type move in the entire game, that being a STAB Astral Barrage off of a Special Attack Stat of 165. Just to put it in perspective, let's say Blissey was Neutral to this attack (even though its normal, but just for the sake of arguement bare with me.) Well, Calyrex would be able to do *This* 252+ SpA Choice Specs Calyrex-Shadow Astral Barrage vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 297-349 (41.5 - 48.8%) -- 80.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock (This literally does not matter since Calyrex can opt for Psyshock, but again, just for example.) Pretty Ridiculous right? You might be thinking, "Well, is there any Dark Types that can actually take this hit?" and yes! There is!...that Calyrex can adapt itself to win a 1v1 Against. Yveltal while it is the most consistent answer to Calyrex Shadow, it can very easily be overwhelmed if it's using the wrong set to deal with the right set from Calyrex. This all sounds super busted right? So why was there enough people to think it was fine that it *wasn't* banned? Well, it's a bit complicated, but I'll do my best to explain it. Essentially, Ubers, as a tier, is extremely different from any other Tier, and always will be. It's a tier built on the concept of "Broken Checks Broken" so there's a level of absolutely busted you have to just come to expect with the metagame (i.e. Pdon in Gen 6-7, Arceus in BW, Kyogre in Gens 3-4, etc.) There is always going to be so many massive threats that can blow past their checks (sometimes with just sheer strength) in the tier that you can't realistically account for all of them with just 6 Team slots, you can only prepare for the more prevelant ones, and have a general plan VS the rest. Generally speaking, Calyrex does fall under this umbrella, it's an incredibly potent threat that your team must account for in building, and even then it may sometimes snowball out of control anyway. But, the main thing with Calyrex, is that unlike so many other broken breakers like Zacian Crowned/Hero, or Mega Rayquaza it HAS a check, a very good check at that, as Yveltal while it does struggle against *some* sets, it can adapt itself to be able to deal with any of them, and unlike using Quagsire to deal with Zacian, you're not gimping yourself running Yveltal, as even without Calyrex, Yveltal would still cement itself as one of the best Pokemon in the tier, like it has for 2 Generations before. Yveltal isn't the best Calyrex check, but much like Kyogre being "checked" by Eternatus, the fact it has a check *at all* already makes it infinitely more managable than Zacian or Mega Rayquaza, it's one thing to be hard to keep at bay but have at the very least a single check, but to be borderline impossible to keep at bay, and be able to blow past "checks" with sheer strength is what makes Calyrex a different case from the two other AG Pokemon. You'll notice this is a pattern in Ubers 1. Mon is incredibly powerful, so much so it's incredibly difficult to stop from cleaning a game 2. The Pokemon has a "check" 3. The Pokemon begins to adapt to beat its "check" 4. the "check" adapts in its own way 5. Repeat Ad Infititum This is exactly what's happening with Yveltal and Calyrex, and it's what's keeping Calyrex from being banworthy. It's even arguable that it's healthy presence in the tier, as it stops it from being a total HO Matchup-Fish Fest, with its great speed tier, and sheer power that allows it to shut down most set up sweepers. So to wrap up this incredibly long comment, Calyrex came extremely close to being banned, but was ultimately considered fine for the tier because of its check being an already incredibly good Pokemon that would be great regardless of Calyrex's presence, and the fact that this power level is just part of the tier's identity, it's what you expect when you play, regardless of how you feel on Calyrex, I personally feel like Gen 8 Ubers is in a good spot right now, and I really wanted to take this oppertunity to talk about it. Thank you if you were crazy enough to sit through all this and listen to my ramblings lol.

[@limon16025]

I remember someone from gen8 Ubers saying that if Caly got banned, then Yveltal would becone even stronger, since now it can freely run offensive sets to abuse dark aura without the fear of not checking Caly.

[@NeonWasInUse]

@@limon16025 Oh it *absolutely* would, funnily enough, in a way, Calyrex and Yveltal help one another, Yveltal stopping Calyrex from being an unstoppable offensive threat, and Calyrex makes Yveltal run Defensive sets to keep it from *also* being an unstoppable offensive threat. (even though it still can be if you opt for an alternative Caly Check like Tyranitar)

[@zeenoh5811]

Gen 8 Ubers is an awesome tier, I haven't played it but I love watching it

[@NeonWasInUse]

@@zeenoh5811 As someone who frequents the tier I'd highly reccomend it if you like more offensive metagames. It's a fairly restrictive metagame (so is most Ubers tiers tho) but it is still fun to build for with it being very easy to support the more fringe picks.

[@starwarriorterra8373]

This literally reads like a Big Yellow bit, lol. Good show. Hope you don't also mind a long response back, though the tl;dr is that I agree with the decision not to ban Calyrex. Just providing extra context to what it takes for a ban out of Ubers. I agree with what you said regarding the power level expectations of Ubers. It takes an awful lot to ban a Pokemon from Ubers--it's only been done a handful of times--and the situations for each one were extreme. Mega Rayquaza was the best mega evolution in the game and had the freedom of flexibility in using any item it wanted. Dragon Ascent is an amazing breaker move on a solid offensive typing that benefits from STAB (Flying-type Close Combat, basically) and is capable of shredding top threats. Its stats are unbelievably obscene. Its ability, Delta Stream, removes the one downside of Flying as a bad defensive typing by basically nullifying hits that are super-effective on Flying. Combine this with a plethora of flexible sets, and you have a Pokemon that not even Ubers can check. Zacian (both forms) is a war crime crammed into a Pokemon. An obscene stat spread combine with, statistically, the best typing ever in Steel-Fairy to already create a legendary that likely would have no counters. But wait, there's more, because it also comes with a free +1 Attack boost just for existing. Yes, the Pokemon with one of the highest--if not the highest outright--attack stats in the game gets an added 50 percent boost to the very same stat. Further still, it has any move it could possibly ever hope to have. How did this happen. I left Gen 4 Arceus for last because, honestly, I'm not familiar with the state of Gen 4 Ubers other than the meme of lead metagame. However, even as a clueless spectator I can see the level of near-uncheckable flexibility Arceus brings to the tier in that era of Pokemon. Power creep was not quite in full swing, and I'd wager that Arceus was the first true "step-above" legendary in a now growing list of new generation ace legendaries. I don't really think Shadow Rider Calyrex fits any of those examples or even comes close. A lot of Uber tier Pokemon have historically had few checks, some of which were checks that otherwise had very little to do in Ubers to begin with. Calyrex not only has a check, but it has a check that is also one of the best Pokemon in Ubers. Even if that check is not a guarantee, they each have answers to one another depending on the situation, and to me, that's just Ubers, baby.

[@aetherius6221]

To be fair I think "dry" or no stat boost baton passing was actually pretty cool :/

[@BigYellowSilly]

I agree, I'm glad Gen 3 got to keep it

[@yeet8036]

That's the reason why BP wasn't banned entirely from gen 3,it was like u turn but no damage. In later generations there's no reason to keep it

[@aetherius6221]

@@yeet8036 I think it should still be usable up to modern tiers for mons like shedinja

[@enoyna1001]

@@yeet8036 I'd love to have "U-turn" for Pokémon who don't get U-turn/Volt Switch/Flip Turn/Parting Shot/Teleport.

[@bakurasensei]

@@yeet8036 Baton pass can switch out of pursuit without being hit, so it would actually be helpful to mons like Zapdos and Celebi in gen 4 OU for dry passing to be unbanned

[@SuperEljafru]

funbro is just so fucking funny to me because it’s the ultimate, “nobody gets to play the game” powermove. conceptually it’s not even that complex. it’s just a simple oversight that fundamentally breaks the game in half

[@isuckatgaming1873]

I'm glad you talked about snorlax. It always weirded me out that snorlax was top 1 in ubers and OU, yet it was considered fine. Obviously, I understood that it would probably be detrimental to suddenly remove snorlax from OU, but didn't know why it was allowed initially.

[@Celia_Dawn]

As for why it was allowed initially, that's mostly just because the idea of "Banning" a mon to ubers genuinely just didn't happen until Gen 4 Garchomp, which was such an absurdly toxic force on the meta that it kinda invented the whole idea. By the time the idea of banning a mon for being too strong (and not just for being legendary) hit the scene, the Snorlax meta was already established enough and people didn't want to ban it.

[@MusicoftheDamned]

@@Celia_Dawn Yeah. I remember both how the Gen 4 Dragon-dominated OU metagame being before Garchomp (and Salamence) got banned and the irksome reluctance to deal with an obvious unbalanced problem. I mean, for as dominant as Snorlax and Tyranitar in Gens II and III respectively, they are at least slow instead of *also* sitting at the top end of the Speed tiers. It was enough that I basically washed my hands of disgust of that generation and then missed all of Gen V. So I can only imagine how bad Gen II gets at times since I've always heard horror stories about it, even more so than the degenerate stuff in Gen I where they had far more of an excuse for things to be as broken.

[@gregorymirabella1423]

back then, the idea of banning a regular pokemon was unheard of.

[@ENCHANTMEN_]

Out of curiosity, if Snorlax is okay in G2 OU despite being better than the Ubers, how come the Ubers *aren't* okay in OU?

[@ktbmk]

@@ENCHANTMEN_ Snorlax still got fair stats, its just a glue mon. Ubers got 680 BST

[@OmegaTyrant]

I'll always be baffled by the casual players who always come out of the woodwork to complain about the evasion clause. Have they seriously never experienced the frustration of fighting an evasion abuser in Stadium, Battle Revolution, the Battle Faculties, etc., and not only have the match drag on forever, but lose purely because of RNG deciding none of your moves should hit? Then even if you do you run evasion "counterplay", not only do you weaken yourself for every other team that doesn't run evasion, but it often won't even work when *everything* can learn Double Team; oh you got Shock Wave to counter evasion? Here's a Double Team Garchomp. Or it could be a matchup where your anti-evasion check isn't inherently countered, but you still lose anyway because those moves are shit in base power and that aforementioned Garchomp will just overpower you for trying to beat it with Aerial Ace.

[@BigYellowSilly]

I just genuinely don't understand how you can look at evasion boosting moves and think they look fun

[@maxoyew2965]

Well you got me lmao

[@zerozanmato]

They've clearly never faced Justy in Pokemon Colosseum. Makes any decent person LOATHE the evasion strategy.

[@istokipsy6289]

@@zerozanmato Thanks for the flashbacks I hate it!

[@SaltyTreecko]

@@BigYellowSilly because haha funny winning because of luck

[@hoodedman6579]

Shout outs to Pokemon Fire Red's battle tower thing, where it scales the levels to your highest level Pokemon with no lower bound. As a result, you can make the whole thing into a "Little Cup but with less rules" environment if you only bring low level Pokemon. Most notably, there's a trade of Raichu (who you can get at level 3 because it's a stone evolution of a Pokemon obtainable very early in the game) for Electrode, who has Sonic Boom at that level. Combined with its speed, you can just cruise through the tower with almost nothing slowing you down except the occasional miss. It's very silly.

[@lemonadogirl4082]

Honestly, as cool as Baton Pass is in concept, it's kind of impossible to balance in a lot of cases, because it is the ultimate munchkin move in the game. I have built a 100% sod off button against Baton Pass exactly once, and it was in Balanced Hackmons so it doesn't count, and utilized Perish Trapping so it's equally annoying even if it did count. The only way to beat the Ultimate Munchkin Move is to be just as much of an evil munchkin yourself.

[@trubb225]

Munchkin move?

[@jouheikisaragi6075]

I think the only way I'd say Baton Pass could be balanced is if it could pass up to three or four buffs total(stacking buffs counts as separate buffs too, so 2 DDances would leave recipients at either +2 attack 1+ speed or +1 attack and +2 speed). Is that still too much?

[@lemonadogirl4082]

@@trubb225 It's a term for a TTRPG player whose sole goal is to make themselves as powerful as possible, no matter the cost. They are the person who will whine at their DM when said DM shuts down the Peasant Railgun, because it's technically RAW, never mind the fact that nobody ever intended for it to be a thing. Baton Pass is basically "hey what if the Peasant Railgun was more or less actually intended?" and consequently becomes really difficult to balance.

[@lloydbagby8355]

In my batton chain manphy is evil senc got scalled and tail glow

[@Ciggymunch]

I think the Medic-Snorlax comparison actually really helped me understand Snorlax's place in Gen 2 OU. Solid analogy there.

[@ImTheOfficialFox]

freddy fazbear should 100% get banned or atleast heavily nerfed, bite for example is guaranteed 1HKO on alot of the mons you see with 87% accuracy which just isnt healthy, actually dont get why it isnt already

[@spindash64]

His speed stat is horrendous, and even tho his bulk is OK, he doesn’t learn Sucker Punch like Bisharp, and he learns basically nothing aside from Biting moves and Tackle. Nothing to punish fighting types on switch in, no way to shrug off special attacks…

[@pageclayton6850]

Honestly I think his alternate form Golden Freddy is even worse. Sure, he's incredibly slow, but he's so tanky that he basically never dies, and Night Shade gives him good damage, not to mention his ability meaning you have to get rid of him within a few turns otherwise he just crashes the opponents game, causing a disconnect.

[@Iris_Descent]

Still fucked up that you can't summon Sol Badguy onto the field and command grab Breloom in gen 3.

[@zcarlettt]

By the way for anyone unfamiliar with modern LC, Berry Juice is allowed past Gen 6 because of the prevalence of Knock Off

[@isenokami7810]

So, it’s allowed, because it’s so easily rendered completely useless. At the risk of sounding like a goober, that sounds like a handicap at that point, just praying you don’t get your full heal completely wasted. Though, at that point, you could say the same for held items in general, so…yeah, I’m gonna stop talking about things I know nothing about now.

[@flowerinepriv]

and now it isn't in gen 9 lmfao

[@furiouscorgi6614]

​@@flowerineprivthat's not because of a smogon ban

[@griffinburke1755]

what if you did strategies that were put up for banning but survived? keep up the amazing content!

[@isenokami7810]

Yes, please, I would watch that. I don’t even have any interest in competitive Pokémon myself, but it all just sounds so interesting coming out of Yellow.

[@EmaAlvarado_iku]

FINALLY someone was brave enough to talk about how broken freddy fazbear is in Pokémon Rumble UU!

[@bigsammichthoughts]

Snorlax in gen 2 is like a snapping turtle in a pond. He dominates the whole place and is unquestionably top of the heap, but taking him away would make the whole place less healthy.

[@DSaC_]

Gen 2 Snorlax is like the Queen in Chess. Blatantly overpowered compared to other "pieces" due to it's versatility, but not in such a way that it cannot be played around. Overall something that improves the game rather than detracting from it.

[@ChillavaKirby]

Gee I wonder where you might’ve gotten that analogy from 🤔 Nice try bro I’m calling you out I watch more than just this Pokémon themed channel

[@tdimensional6733]

@@ChillavaKirby Dawg, not everyone's gonna get the reference, and it's a good analogy.

[@Ephraim225]

In Chess, both sides have the same loadout and can't make choices about what pieces to play.

[@thecriticalghost4626]

@@ChillavaKirby What

[@spindash64]

@@Ephraim225 True, but that’s part of what makes Pokémon fun: you’re not limited to just a few different kinds of pieces, and they don’t have to fit the exact mold Let me put it this way: the ADV EV system was probably one of the best changes they made to Pokémon for the sake of diversification and customization

[@celerity910]

One key component in Funbro was the ability oblivious, which is why it wasn’t used in Gen 5. The setup on paper has a huge weakness, Taunt, which would force struggles or a switch. But in Gen 6, Oblivious was buffed to grant immunity to Taunt, meaning that unless you can OHKO Funbro it can’t be beaten. Nor can it win.

[@lvl5Vaporeon]

You know what I still think is crazy about gen 1? The most used fighting move is Jolteon's double kick. Heck Jolteon's pin missile is also the most used bug move in the tier also! It is really interesting how crazy unique it is in RBY. Maybe it warrents a video? Edit plague made a video 6 hours ago about their love for Jolteon. Did I somehow learn future sight?

[@brianchan8]

It’s so fast, it goes forwards in time

[@YeetZmeN]

Funbro is wild to me: imagine being not only so overpowered and so unfair, but so critically _unfun_ that you get banned from the one place where EVERYTHING is allowed.

[@demi-femme4821]

It's like if you were so racist that Elon Musk banned you from Twitter.

[@LivingShdw]

I remember when Funbro was first "discovered." It was obvious that it was unfun to play against and makes sense that it was banned. Similar to the reason why Self-Destruct Button was banned in Yugioh. It just leads to a terrible gamestate.

[@omlett6482]

Gen 2 Snorlax is kinda like Melee Fox imo, incredibly versatile and strong but not overbearing and can get blown up if played poorly.

[@TheDukeOfLukes]

I was thinking more Brawl Meta Knight. Obviously top 1, and clearly the most played character. But banning it would lead to a metagame where Ice Climbers and Olimar run around unchecked. EDIT: Yes, I know that Meta Knight was a problem. I know that he never got banned because MK mains just wouldn't go to tournaments that banned him, which put pressure on TOs. I just made the comparison to him because the way Snorlax kept special attackers in check reminded me of the way Meta Knight kept icies in check.

[@eightbitblitz5868]

@@TheDukeOfLukes tbf meta knight was also pretty frustrating to fight and just slightly better than icies, whereas Snorlax is kinda interesting to play with and around and keeps the meta in check without being annoying himself.

[@OmegaTyrant]

@@TheDukeOfLukes Definitely not comparable, Ice Climbers and especially Olimar actually had losing matchups outside of Meta Knight (while Ice Climbers would also suffer when stages that were banned because of MK were brought back), so they wouldn't be running around "unchecked" (and you could have banned Ice Climbers too anyway without much complaint). Really the only reason the Meta Knight ban didn't stick isn't because the Brawl meta really needed MK to function or any nonsense like that, rather than simply you had a bunch of top MK players like M2K that were friends with the biggest TOs like Alex Strife and so said TOs refused to ban MK to keep said top players coming to their tournaments. You then also had the japanese players threatening to not attend any NA major that ban MK, and after Otori won Apex 2012, NA players really wanted them to come back to "get their win back", farther fueling majors to not honor the URC's MK ban. Then when Apex and other majors aren't banning MK, it put immense pressure on every region to not keep MK banned, as otherwise their players would lose out on crucial experience in the most important matchup and thus be ill-prepared for those majors.

[@carldalord]

@@OmegaTyrant Holy fuck, Mr. Smash bros just showed up to school a dude who has minor brawl knowledge besides “meta knight strong.”

[@CryoJnik]

@@OmegaTyrant So TLDR A lot of the best players used the most broken character and wouldn't compete unless they could use said broken character thus he wasn't banned due to peer pressure from a bunch of try hards?

[@SkorpTS]

I always love the Aerial Ace-Evasion argument. Yeah, good luck beating that +6 Evasion Calm Mind Suicune with Aerial Ace. Also, happy birthday!

[@isenokami7810]

I recall Faint Attack being very useful to me last time I played XD, but that isn’t a rebuttal to evasion clause as it was an answer to the AI not caring about evasion clause. Plus, it was on my Trapinch. I had Faint Attack just because Trapinch gets nothing better until it evolves.

[@travisteatime]

I knew Funbro was coming at some point, there was no way you'd **not** talk about it eventually. And, like... as evil as it is, I do have a warped respect for the lengths certain griefers go to just to ruin everyone's fun, there is a certain beauty to dogshit strategies like this that purely exist to test everyone's patience. Is it good that it was banned? OBVIOUSLY. Do I still sort of love that it existed in the first place though? Yeah. Kinda.

[@spinosaurusaegypticus8341]

yeah honestly i think the bot in national Dex running funbro games was hilarious and was kind of sad to see it go. it was kinda unfortunate that bad players would actually fall for the gimmick but at least good players got free points on Pokemon showdown

[@maxmaus4402]

I was once somewhat acquainted with two of the three Balanced Hackmons players behind the initial Funbro concept, and for two of them (the guy i never met and the one that turned into a super outspoken alt-righter a few years later) it seemed to be one of the funniest things they'd ever pulled in competitive mons. The third guy claimed to be pushing for consistency among the tiers and also helped advocate for the banning of his creation once it moved from a proof of concept to an actually dangerous strategy. Pretty sure he also tried to help with trying to determine an optimal Endless Battle Clause afterwards but in all honesty it was like 9 years ago and all I remembered without looking stuff up was that I think I saw one of the first funbro attempts live and it nearly crashed Showdown. The system back then really didn't like superlong battles so replays from that era tend to be corrupted past the first 2-300 turns and anything longer than that was likely to lag the entire server almost as bad as a globally-broadcast Random Battle tourney.

[@kidumby7599]

Oh hey, nice to see you here.

[@renakunisaki]

Sometimes you have to admire how well someone is doing what they're doing, even if it's something shitty.

[@Horystar]

You could say that endless battles are banned from the banlist's banlist... Which is incredible. Also, bappy birthday.

[@thisbox]

I appreciate the explanation for Snorlax in Gen 2, I've had that thought for awhile, and haven't had the chance to figure it out. Now when TF2 will get a spotlight beyond a segment in a video, I still haven't figured that out.

[@sirpikapika1129]

I love your comedic style, there's something so funny about a video discussing game meta and balance putting up a fancy graphic that just says "asshole" 8:34

[@thornrosealex]

FUN fact, Blissey can also run the funbro set! In theory "BlissSis" was better at trapping special attackers, but the pokes it trapped would see "welp i can't do more than 30% to a blissey" and tended to just switch. And some special attackers had enough attack where struggle chip was a genuine problem Funbro didn't induce nearly as many insta-switches, didn't give a shit about struggle chip, and was still well-rounded enough that it could set up on a ton of bulky pivots (even more if it had a non-toxic status effect, thank you scald!)

[@PaddyRoon7]

"you're like the Avatar, but instead of saving the world, you kinda like baton pass" Your similes are second to none lol

[@WishMakers]

Where people are upset by bans is... Understandable but honestly it's good that they exist and some people take the fact that Smogon...bans things for granted. I love VGC and will forever but the fact that they VERY RARELY BAN ANYTHING CENTRALIZING is uh...a nightmare. CHALK in 2015 was dominant and made the format actively boring. The fact that they ban mythicals up until the recent season has been pretty arbitrary (most of them aren't even that good so in a format with unlimited restricted Pokemon they are kinda just there) and the only time I can think of they used any sort of clause is related to time and ITEM CLAUSE?? The only time I can think of they banned an item, it was old Soul Dew. It's just... Weird. Sometimes I think Smogon goes too far but at least you have an authority that gives a shit

[@nousername191]

Mythicals are only banned because they are event exclusive and you can't ask every player to have them all at a competitive level without hacking. VGC being so over-centralising is a prime example of why Smogon has tiers. At least with Smogon, most mons can shine somewhere. VGC? You're either one of the handful of useful mons or not used at all.

[@WishMakers]

@@nousername191 The amusing thing about the reasoning around mythicals is that it makes complete sense, so why are they suddenly NOW allowed? Makes me feel like they should've always been there if now it's suddenly ok. Magearna is the current meta staple mythical and it hasn't been redistributed in a good bit. > You're either one of the handful of useful mons or not used at all. It's funny you say this because despite the problem of CHALK this actually isn't usually true. A lot of Pokemon that are good in singles simply aren't as effective in Doubles but vice versa in some form applies. There are a good chunk of Pokemon that saw play because their niche was crucial to keeping a team style together. It's a more offensive meta though and if a Pokemon is too passive then it will be left by the wayside, but ultimately that's true of Pokemon in general

[@nousername191]

@@WishMakers Mythicals are allowed now because there're no events between now and Gen 9. It's a have fun send off for gen 8. You misunderstood my second point. When I said handful of mons useful or not used at all, I meant in the context of VGC and in comparison to Smogon. Only a small amount of Pokemon are untiered and have "don't use these mons if you want to win" on their smogon pages. Most mons have some competitive use in some tier. You cannot say the same for VGC.

[@WishMakers]

@@nousername191 That's true. It's a trade off, in a sense - overall more Pokemon tend to be used and get placements in the one tier... but that's just it, it's one tier. A lot of Pokemon come down to niche use but at least they are used... though in Smogon's lower tiers they are actively used for their main strength instead of being one-trick strategies or being locked off from their best potential > there're no events between now and Gen 9. It's a have fun send off for gen 8. That's fair I guess but it *is* an official competitive circuit in the way that other Series X events are, and Mythicals were never allowed prior in events of any kind, no matter the event. I'm hoping Series 13 as a test run allows us to end up using them in future events cuz I think they'd add a bit of spice to the format. Rest in peace Follow Me Jirachi though. Stopped by needing the Battle Ready mark due to event only moves from previous gens never returning...

[@robertoalexandermendezmore408]

Bruh the myticals was a stupid example, they are ban becose of distribution not becose of power, the only reason becose series 13 allowed them is becose the absurd amount of events this generation, like gens 6 mitycal year looks like a weenee in comparation

[@Veecy]

Before I started playing RBY OU, the idea of RBY partial trapping moves really scared me off for some time. I thought it seemed really boring and uncompetitive to just force your opponent to do nothing until they win a stacked RNG war. But since I've gotten into the tier, I've discovered that I actually like it a lot, and it weirdly works. RBY Victreebel has ended up being one of my favorite Pokemon to use in any tier

[@Rarest26]

Love how the haha freddy fazbear joke at the end became real like a year after if you think about it.

[@AfroBlackSiren]

It's funny how Big Yello joed bout Freddy fazbear and now we have Bloodmoon Ursaluna playing games in UUber

[@FlemetAeton]

The only argument that Evasion could be okay is that Thunder cannot miss in the rain. If more high damage strategies like this existed, evasion might be okay. However, a 60 base power move against a tank with minimize will never be enough 😅

[@mrman2557]

snorlax is an apex predator getting rid of it would disrupt the ecosystem of gen 2

[@SoulBro12]

I find bans pretty good if kept in check, bans are bad if it destroys a lot of possibilities and opportunities for new stuff but otherwise if it's the opposite, were not having it banned causes it to be super stale then I'll be totally fine with the banhammer.

[@BigYellowSilly]

This is pretty much it, I know some people have the idea that all bans limit creativity, but there's plenty of things that if you don't ban them, every team would just revolve around them

[@cassiopeia_mori]

@@BigYellowSilly yeah, if, say, it was like hackmons, then literally everyone would do the same thing, which is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED, which is why balanced hackmons is now the main tier for that kind of thing. it’s not limiting creativity, it’s letting it flow

[@mattzr1550]

Bw ou...

[@munchrai6396]

I think the most frustrating thing is when a ban unjustly impacts Pokemon in lower tiers despite them not being the problem. Cinccino has been running King's Rock for years and its easily one of its best sets. To see that ripped out from under it because of Cloyster is incredibly frustrating. I was really just not feeling early gen 8 due to the dex cut and when I finally decide to build a team, I find out that I can't run lead paraflinchers anymore because Cloyster was pissing people off in OU

[@StarkMaximum]

@@munchrai6396 "I can't run paraflinchers!" That's a you problem my man lmao, people will be like "bans ruin creativity" and then show they want to play the worst fucking shit ever

[@dogf421]

im generally of the mind that banning things that are fucking annoying is more important than banning things that are strong

[@Taterz.]

So happy for the Gen 1 strat bring banned. My first day on Showdown, this dude had Ninetails with Fire Spin, Cloyster with Clamp, and Dragonite with Wrap. I ended up winning but it took way too long. Fuck that guy.

[@Gold_Gamer_100]

Reminds me of a similar story. RBY OU, opponent whips out a Dragonite after a bit, I go to Tauros saying "what have I got to lose?". Dragonite misses wrap, my blizzard one hit KOs. No joke, he quit immediately afterwards...

[@Hexeren]

There was a team that was used in Gen 6 was called SwagPlay, which used groups of Pokemon that uses the ability of Prankster and the move Swagger. People absolutely ran these teams that Smogon eventually had to ban the move Swagger because of it. And funny enough in Gen 7 they nerfed Confusion (Status condition) from being 50% to 33%

[@rayhatesu]

Nerfed confusion *and* Prankster

[@dragonitezx7376]

It's kind of funny that you mentioned the dilemma with people claiming Haze counters Baton Pass, because it reminded of a silly conversation I had with friends about Yu-Gi-Oh! and how oppressive dragons could be, and then one was like, "its okay Konami made effects that exclusively target dragons", it'd be interesting to think about the benefits of trading the ability to win the game faster, for the ability to prevent the opponent from getting into a winning position, or in what creative ways you can still have both.

[@mrninjapants9008]

You talking about how Funbro is banned in Anything Goes reminded me of something very similar is Magic: the Gathering. Magic has a format called Vintage where you can play any card from any set across all of Magic history with no banned list (excluding cards that require physical dexterity and cards that are literally force players into wagering their cards in real life). There are cards that are limited to one copy per deck, but that's only the really messed up stuff like the Power Nine. A couple years back, Wizards printed a mechanic called "companion" which allowed you to cast a creature with companion from at any point during the game if you built your deck a certain way, and you have the mana to cast it. One of these cards is Lurrus of the Dream Den, which allows you to cast a permanent card from your graveyard with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard once per turn, allowing for shenanigans the likes of which Magic had never seen. Since you always had access to Lurrus from the beginning of the game, restricting the card to one copy would be useless, and so it is the only traditional Magic: the Gathering card banned in Vintage.

[@DatHypnoboi]

I don't get why any of these strategies were banned, literally just KO the Pokémon, and there's nothing they can do, smh

[@appelofdoom8211]

3:49 Aerial ace is a great move in single player pokemon because of it's surprisingly wide distribution and abillity to shut down double team or other evasion boosting or accuracy lowering moves by the AI.

[@marcoasturias8520]

Mostly for gen 3, and 4. Those AIs just spammed the shit out of status moves until you were - 6

[@DubyaDeeEight]

Aerial Ace on Technician Scyther in Platinum

[@gretchling5012]

i always preferred shock wave for this, because IMO the vast majority of pokemon in singleplayer that mess with accuracy and evasion are flying types. my best memory of this is the second battle with barry in pokemon platinum.

[@gator-tater9827]

@@gretchling5012 yeah, a lot of double team users are flying types, but you also get a ton of early-game normals that just want to spam sand-attack, and the occasional ground type using mud slap

[@spindash64]

If accuracy boosting moves like Coil were more distributed, and were available from the START of the franchise, maybe we could have some ways to actually deal with evasion from the get go and it would never get out of hand

[@KEEPEROFT1ME]

I will forever not understand pro-evasion users. What's more fun then you possibly missing every single damn move because of rng being ass.

[@shonmatthew]

That salt right there, thats why, and if not for NaCl, some of us actually enjoy luck strats. Meh.

[@perceverant4552]

Because people who think evasion should be unbanned can’t win with anything else. All they’re doing is exposing their own lack of skill.

[@ZeroKitsune]

@@shonmatthew So you're ADMITTING to being a troll.

[@darianclark3980]

Happy Birthday Big Yellow. Plus it's really unique that you made your first Banned Strategies, Smogon was like, "Mmm, this Yellow guy knows what he's talking about. We should relook and update our Tiers & Strategies again." (Yes this is a joke but a compliment at the same time)

[@entothechesnautknight1762]

After Light clay was banned in NDUU, there were so many people who never even heard of the format that suddenly just seemed to know exactly how to beat light clay and clearly every single person who played the format had never heard of brick break. Even through light clay was in play the same time Melmetal was the S++ pokemon and on every team. Yea that intro was maybe a bit cathartic. Especially that but about "You decide what is in the tier", as bringing up NDUU again, if it was controlled purely by the people who make the viability rankings, Donphan would have been yeeted out of the tier a year ago, but because it's controlled by the players, Donphan is still *the* premier rapid Spinner and bulky ground tank, with both priority and a downright amazing Z-move pool, since it's not exactly hurting for a specific item. This is a double whammy, as it eats knocks offs like nobody's business too with a crystal and checks the tier's best pokemon, Mega Altaria, with Z-Poison Jab. (Sometimes even counters if it's a DD set, thanks to sturdy)

[@jouheikisaragi6075]

What's NDUU?

[@EternumTagerMain]

@@jouheikisaragi6075 NatDex UU.

[@MishKoz]

Pokemon and Smash are two series with massive casual audiences that just, do NOT understand what a ban means. Like I swear people have this idea in their head that, when they see that a certain Pokemon/stage is banned, the United Nations themselves are gonna come into your house and confiscate your console if you play on Pokefloats or use Mega Rayquaza.

[@perceverant4552]

For real LOOOL Nintendo games have the only communities I’ve ever seen with “casual elitists”

[@gabrielveiga305]

@@perceverant4552 Yu-Gi-Oh also has these dudes

[@technicolormischief-maker5683]

@@perceverant4552 It’s actual hell. Do you know how many people think they could beat top smash players in a match with items?

[@maivu4415]

There is literally AG tier that you can bring 6 mega ray, which is basically what they want (no ban, well except funbro) But they have to throw a fit everytime a mon getting banned from like, NU, just go to RU if it's your favorite Pokemon. It's like they can't accept that people have fun different way.

[@noodlearms9385]

Hey, I just wanna say your videos had inspired me to get back into showdown after a couple of years not touching ladder, and also got me to explore gen 1 & 2 OU for the first time. I've been having a lot of fun on showdown recently despite not being too great at the game and kind of struggling with team building in gen 2 specifically. Thank you for giving a bit more insight on the gems ban in gen 5 by the way, I originally thought the only reason they were banned was because of multi-hitting moves. Great video!

[@BillehBobJoe]

Random question? Why don’t more people get their nails done for videos? Love it

[@NukeCaulfield]

Because some people are straight men.

[@foxshinehiyaa3933]

​@@NukeCaulfieldyou know straight male also like getting their nails done and clean

[@sketchydude8431]

​@@NukeCaulfieldI didn't realize having hygiene was non straight exclusive

[@NukeCaulfield]

@@foxshinehiyaa3933 You can have clean, manicured nails without painting them.

[@ThoseOtherJeremysLie]

@@NukeCaulfieldkinda homosexual to shower tbh

[@SinclairLocke]

The funbro set is so funny to me. I think it was popularized at first on 4chan as a way to troll people. The real reason why it's banned even on AG is because battles that last too long on showdown can start lagging their servers

[@shonmatthew]

How much do I need to donate to upgrade those servers? 💀

[@drsherifff]

These thumbnails are S+ tier

[@Musasensei1674]

so good that even freezai tried to steal them

[@yeet8036]

@@Musasensei1674 I thought he took inspiration from blunder?

[@ink3487]

Funbro bypasses the pokemon and inflicts mental damage to the player directly

[@ChickenTeller]

Stuff like Funbro is absolutely hilarious to me. I love the people who go into a competitive setting just to troll people by exploiting loopholes. It reminds me of the guy who went to a yugioh tournament with something like 2000 cards in his deck before there was a limit of 60 cards per deck.

[@Slaking_]

I always find it funny when people complain about shit they never actually had to play against. I've played mons competitively for long enough to remember a dark time when Baton Pass was legal in OU with chain teams still kicking, and it was miserable to play against. Even if I disagree with some bans, I'd rather have one or two stupid bans than deal with aids like Kyurem, Magearna, G-Darm, Baton Pass, King's Rock, Dracovish, Lando-I, and more running free in OU. It's the beauty of Smogon Rules tbh, when something is fucking stupid and unfun it usually gets banned. But Verlis kiddies who've never even played OU (and I'd wager most of them haven't played any sort of competitive Pokemon in general) can't seem to fathom why these things have been banned for very good reason, despite there being plenty of well documented, well thought out, and informative essays written by top players on why these things were broken and how they came to the conclusion of these things being broken over time.

[@starwarriorterra8373]

But you see, your years of competitive experience and paragraphs of intense explanation are no equal to my five minutes of looking at the team builder on Pokemon Showdown and knowing that you can simply avoid King's Rock flinches by using a Pokemon with Inner Focus. Surely you Smogon fun police have ignored this obvious counter to the King's Rock strat just to ban my favorite item!

[@pooppooper9033]

Verlis kiddies. Lol.

[@robertgeorge4602]

I used to run King's Rock Sneasel x Breloom before Sneasel got banned in Cross evoultion. Oh my god that was degenerate but so much fun. Personally thing Kings Rock is fine, my brain says GDarm should be banned but my inner UNGA says no let it rampage, and Ive had experience with full Baton Pass chains and loved them (because it was my main team). Then again, im just a Verils Kiddie who lacks years of competitive experience and Im uneducated because I dont read the paragraphs of intense explanations. Im just a 10 IQ glue guzzling degenerate grappler main who finds "competitive Pokemon" unfun and restrictive. However, screw Dracovish. That thing prevented me from regenerators spam and grinding people to turn 200.

[@KeeganKeegan]

I really like the ATP ban because I think it lowers the skill floor, makes it more approachable as someone who’s not really into RBY.

[@bimblor9858]

An interesting ban for ADV OU, albeit less interesting or relevant than Baton Pass, is the banning of Wobuffet and Wynaut to Ubers. I know you touched on Wobbuffet in an older video, but I do like how Wobbuffet vs. Wobbuffet was effectively the FunBro before FunBro.

[@jaxsomon3333]

Ngl I love the baton pass limitation in gen 3. I hope it spreads to other generations.

[@temmssmdisnas]

honestly id support this for any meta before gen 6 for obvious reasons

[@lillierose3958]

This has nothing to do with the video but every time I see you I get reminded how much I love your style

[@scientificallyaccuratespino]

I agree

[@ktvx.94]

You're the one guy who finally convinced me about Snorlax. Not a single youtuber could argue for Snorlax not being banned in a way that doesn't sound like bs. As for gems, since they're often compared with Z-Moves, wouldn't restricting them to 1 per team work? Happy birthday!

[@yeet8036]

In gen 7 if you lured and knocked out opponents 1 pokemon doesn't mean that you win. Also in gen 7 stall is good,and offensive teams needs tools to handle them In gen 5 there's no such thing,stallis non-existent,and overall there's no defensive counterplay against gems. Also most teams only need 1 gem to destroy entire teams. (I know this cause I used them)

[@troykv96]

Snorlax is a fascinating Pokémon, he was probably initially allowed because of grandfather clause, but unlike say, Mewtwo, isn't a Pokémon that instantly deletes anything that isn't tailor made to counter him, is extremely powerful, is definitely the best Pokémon in OU and potentially even the best in Uber alongside Mewtwo himself. But Snorlax has disadvantage taht really don't exist in other "overpower" Pokémon, he's slow, he has a wise selection of moves that Snorlax wants to use, which in one makes him very versatile, but also makes him having to commit to focusing in certain aspects of his playstyle instead of being able to do all the powerful stuff in his move list. And well, Snorlax is slow, this makes having to play his moves in advance, because one wrong move and Snorlax will be forced to switch out to don't get revenged killed.

[@CambriaBold]

26:00 If only you knew...

[@ENCHANTMEN_]

Bruh 5 minutes ago I was like "I'd like to watch a big yellow pokemon video but I've already seen all of them 5 times" how did you know

[@speedypichu6833]

It’s good to know Slowbro has kept with tradition of being as annoying as possible (I do like using it in single player, especially in a psychic monotype run, but competitively it can be quite annoying)

[@Masahane]

Idk this all seems to have counterplay if you just fight the other player irl

[@BigYellowSilly]

All this time the answer to Baton Pass was to simply hit them with a rock

[@Masahane]

@@BigYellowSilly no stealth required!

[@thorrogers541]

“You look like a fooking goober!” This video has comedy gold “You’re like the fucking avatar, but instead of saving the world you just… sorta like baton pass”

[@necro-esque666]

What does it say about me that my biggest takeaway from this was "I want his nails so bad"

[@technicolormischief-maker5683]

It means you’re epic

[@springster.5254]

You know, I was gonna ask about why U-Turn/Volt-Switch/Baton Pass couldn't counter Funbro, but then I remembered "oh yeah... This is the generation that introduced team preview... You can scout that stuff out."

[@Xertaron.]

Evasion and Aerial Ace. I hope you'll recover soon. On more serious note it's interesting to see that even AG puts a foot down when it comes to Funbro.

[@scientificallyaccuratespino]

Ew, Big Yellow, a content creator? Unheard of

[@connortoale3953]

Disgusting. Abhorrent.

[@mr.boombox5021]

It's off-putting, really. Icky.

[@tdawgmaster1729]

BuT bIg YeLlOw, I wAnT tO pLaY wItH fUnBrO!!1!

[@matthaisstupidus]

The whole idea of Funbro being banned from tiers where everything else is allowed is so hilarious to me. Like the ultimate pain of a strategy, so devious and suffering-inducing to those who encur it's wrath, that not even in a tier with evasion is it allowed... F U N B R O T H E F O R B I D D E N O N E

[@Kali_Krause]

Nice Exodia reference! 😂

[@renakunisaki]

It's basically abusing a glitch. Just, it's a glitch in the overall design, instead of the programming. But the result is the same: you put the game into a state where it can't be played.

[@ZunkleFunkle]

What do you MEAN Smogon bans are decided by a group of high-ladder players in each tier and not by John Smogon himself deciding what he wants to ban & unban?

[@vincentsissom4180]

"FUN" Slowbro being banned from anything goes is like the equivalent of a freaking high school track runner in a cast being banned from the Olympics because he has the ability to give everyone else running migraines. Nobody, least of all their victims, would want this to happen.

[@DoodleWill]

Now I wanna see a video on the Slowpoke family tree of tomfoolery. I swear whether their impact is big or small, they always leave a mark. Galar Slowbro I still think is one of the silliest out there. QCQD Slowbro is just fun to throw out when you've had enough and want to ganble if your +2 psychic is going to go first against a pokémon who 100% outspeeds you. I've seen so many people upset or angry about a game which they would of won... losing to a 44% chance to make Slowbro into a Talonflame.

[@crowhaveninc.2103]

It's kinda fitting that Slowbro is the one who can do this. I don't know why, it just suits the pokemon.

[@BigYellowSilly]

Literally just vibing in a silly manner

[@DoodleWill]

There are a few banned strats I furrow my brow totally out of personal reasons but ultimately I know they got banned for a reason, mostly due to being too cheesy Skill Link + Kings Rock is stupid and funny, but is kinda stupid to leave your opponent with a 50% to lose a turn. I think alot of people (myself included) get a bit bummed out when a strat is banned that people use in their own playthroughs. Gem's I still enjoy a lot and I still am a bit sad they got banned from Gen 5 but I totally understand why.

[@munchrai6396]

Its actually more like 40% and I honestly really do miss it. Its really hard to build interesting paraflinch teams when their are only 2 Pokemon able to facilitate it. Even worse considering the paralysis nerf. There aren't many gimmicks that are usable without being overpowered and I think Paraflinch does a decent job at toeing that line. The part that pisses me off the most is that this is the gen that Beat Up became a TM, which opens up so many more options for paraflinch and supporters. Durant has an incredibly good speed stat and impressive bulk and typing, so it could get a lot out of Beat Up flinching as an option. Same goes for Alolan Persian who is easily one of the best leads for a paraflinch team due to Parting Shot

[@critaquil5011]

@@munchrai6396 yeah but A: paraflinch is annoying and there isn't a soul in the universe who actually likes fighting against it, and B: cloyster is already decent on ho as is, now give it a 40% chance to rng it's way through your check and you see the problem

[@munchrai6396]

@@critaquil5011 I can understand if the combination of Cloyster and King's Rock could be potentially problematic. What I disagree with, is banning the item instead of banning it on Cloyster specifically. I really hate that perfectly balanced Pokemon like Cinccino are punished for the sins of a completely unrelated Pokemon

[@ZeroKitsune]

@@munchrai6396 There's a point where you just have to concede that everyone hates that strategy and maybe even hates you for wanting to play it.

[@terminusest9179]

You know you're the best pokemon in the game when you're still the best pokemon in Ubers but nobody can ban you from the tier below because you are the tier.

[@HewleyxAngel]

First off happy birthday! And second, the Funbro strat reminds me of my Ultimate Playground Ragequit strat, wherein when I was like seven and playing RBY via link cable against others after school, I convinced them of a ‘cool powerful strategy that could beat Mewtwo’ using Metapod or Kakuna. Then we would link battle and I would deliberately send in a Kakuna against theirs and force a pseudo infinite battle. Because we were seven, this lasted like 5 turns until they inevitably ripped out the link cable and forfeited. Was it mean? Yes. Did it work after I transferred schools? No. Did I literally get the idea from the Original Prima Strategy Guide for Red and Blue? Yes. Thanks for the video!

[@vivimannequin]

What was the strat?

[@jimhaverlock9784]

Gonna be honest here….don’t know a damn thing about competitive Pokémon, but damned if these videos aren’t fascinating. Good shit.

[@davidguzman771]

"i have become big brother 1984" - Somogon university, full banning BP on ADV

[@tysondennis1016]

Gen III Wobuffet mirrors: Funbro before it was (un)cool.

[@MrGombaonfire]

The gen 5 gems ban suprised me because back when I was a kid gems were there and helpful but not really overbearing, I think what helped people realize just how strong they were was the way z moves were used in gen 7 but I could be wrong feel free to correct me if so

[@cordeliafrey9950]

Slowbro is the only pokemon capable of inflicting a sysiphean struggle on the opponent and i think thats hilarious and terrifying in equal measure.

[@darthhydreigon820]

"omg smogon is ruining the fun of the tier how dare they ban something of a tier I hve never played, stupid smogon" i am 100% expecting this comment lol