Competitive 'Pokémon' Is In Shambles Because Of A Bunch Of Little Guys
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have only been out for 10 days, but they've already caused chaos in the competitive Pokémon scene. This is not because of Terastallizing, the newly introduced mechanic that allows a Pokémon to completely change its type, but because some of the new cute critters introduced by Game Freak have left trails of Pokéblood in their wake.
Competitive Pokémon is much different than the experience an average player will have on their adventure. While most players can mash through a standard game by spamming Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, Surf and Earthquake, competitive Pokémon is a game of math, eugenics and intense team-building tactics.
At the moment, the kings of the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet competitive meta are four little idiots that seem to bypass all the thorough strategies devised by players and decimate teams in one hit.
Smogon, an independent competitive Pokémon community, has taken action to ban Palafin, Flutter Mane, Iron Bundle and Houndstone from their matches. If you're not aware of the quartet's immense power, it may amuse you to learn what the banes of Pokémon fans' existence look like.
In a pair of posts, Smogon's "council" explained the reasoning behind the bans.
Palafin has perhaps the most unique ability introduced in Pokémon in Zero to Hero. When it enters a battle, it's an extremely weak Pokémon. However, when it's removed from battle and switched back in, it becomes a killing machine with statistics to rival those of legendary Pokémon. Its Attack stat goes from a negligible base 70 to base 160, more than enough to decimate common meta-relevant Pokémon like Tyranitar, Torkoal and Garganacl.
Houndstone, the evolution of fan-favorite Pokémon Greavard, has no such ability, but it does have one particular move that can turn it into a nightmare: Last Respects — a move that gets powered up the more of Houndstone's teammates faint before it's used. If it's the last Pokémon used in a 6v6 battle, the Pokémon essentially becomes an IRL version of this meme.
The bans of Flutter Mane and Iron Bundle are slightly less surprising, since the new Paradox Pokémon are simply too strong — no gimmicks necessary.
Of course, with four meta threats banned, there's plenty of room for other Pokémon to rise into the role of being absolute nightmares. Currently, Annihilape, Cyclizar and Chien-Pao are among the new Pokémon in contention for the banhammer, and there's plenty of time for Smogon and other competitive organizations to see if the new Pokémon are actual, game-breaking problems.
For the moment, the official competitive Pokémon scene, the VGC, has not yet banned any Pokémon from play, so we may soon see matches between two teams of Palafin, Flutter Mane, Iron Bundle and Houndstone on the biggest stage possible. But the average player should remember the wise words of Karen:
"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled Trainers should try to win with the Pokémon they love best."
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lecorbak
those bans are done by a council of only 9 people.
those 9 people have banned the 2 first pokémons (flutter mane and the doggo) after only 3 days.
those 2 pokémons are banned for the next 3-4 years of the whole OU competition of pokémon showdown for the entirety of the playerbase (AKA way more than 9 people lol).
no matter how strong those pokémons are, I feel like those bans were too quick and not tested enough.
9 people playing for 3 days can only do like a few thousands of matches at best.
even if they are really good in pokémon, even if they have strong theorycrafting, this will never beat tens of thousands of players doing like hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of games instead, so that we actually have an assurance that those specific pokémons are actually too strong.
honestly I'm against those bans, at least wait for a few months before doing this kind of bans.
some people haven't played the game yet, also we need time to discover the counterplays, and you never know when someone in a tournament comes with a strat noone even tested before.
we need to do at least a few big tournaments before that kind of bans, instead of letting the choice of the whole generation to 9 random players, no matter how good they are.
anyway, I'm not playing on Uber, despite having played OU for literally the beginning of showdown.
I sicked of seeing bans being faster and faster, not even being able to properly test the new pokémons.
KoimanZX
Way to be a smugly dismissive prick, Adam. By the way, only Iron Bundle can be seen as "little" at 60cm tall. Flutter Mane is 140cm and Palafin goes between 130cm and 180cm, while Houndstone is 200cm (which is the size Big the Cat.)
Of course, only scrubs follow Smogon's suggested movesets and teams to a T. Being a bit unpredictable and making little tweaks can go a long way. Furthermore, one can find people brainstorming creative sets on Smogon's forums all the time.
I will say that Last Respects should have been banned instead of Houndstone, given that the latter's stats are fairly average and its physical STAB options outside of Last Respects are actually pretty lacking.
Adam
look at palafin and tell me he is not just a little guy
KoimanZX
The thing is the size of a man of above-average height in hero mode. Tiers exist to filter out oppressive threats as a means to allow more pokémon a chance to shine. Moreover, lower-tier monsters find niches in higher tiers all the time. Wobbuffet, Wynaut, and Gothitelle have their use in Übers along with Smeargle and Ditto.
Mister Z
If I had a nickel for every time a dolphin ruined the competitive scene of a game, I'd have two: This and May from Guilty Gear (specifically Strive). It's not a lot but it's weird it happened twice.