Council reasoning to ban swagger for LC doubles.

LC Doubles Council Discussion Pad



Swagger:

Should Swagger be banned?
Feel free to vote and discuss swagger in this space, a simple majority (60%) will be required to ban.

dsr: YES. Swagger is unhealthy for the metagame. You can use the move for creative strategies involving your teammate, but the fact remains that you can still use this move on your opponent, and be able to instantly cripple them with a 50% chance that confusion makes them miss their turn while also getting you some free damage because of the +2 Attack it provides. I provide the following replay to showcase this point: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gracidea-lcdoubles-5360. I don't believe a move that puts your opponent's turns on a 50% chance of happening is healthy for a metagame where turns are noticeably less and for this reason, it's harder to bring games back. Swagger can backfire if used on physical attackers, but as shown on the replay, that doesn't matter if luck is on your side. Also, having to prepare your team for a luck-based event like Swagger just doesn't bring anything productive to the metagame.


Rhydon: Swagger could provide a valid way of providing support for support reliant set up sweepers for example Clamperl. Though it does this at a potential cost regard of punishing the user if it were to be utilised against physical oriented attackers. Special attackers wouldn't be able to punish in this regard. Outside of this set up opportunity it could also provide a less supportive more 50/50 RNG based solution to take on a specific threat. Essentially speaking any pokemon could provide this support. The user doesn't need to have Prankster or sky-high defenses to reliably use this utility, it would however improve on the utility the move did have. Though keeping the argument that more common Pokemon like Murkrow/Cottonee can be utilized surprisingly well for this support makes it a more valid reason to utilize the move as an extend to the users already existing utility rather than showing the gravity of the move itself.
Swagger doesn't provide other support reasoning like Thunder wave did provide speed utility rater then it's RNG based side effect. Instead the move is an add-on on it's RNG based risk and reward system. This could only be utilized differently without RNG if you did concider Lum/Own Tempo pokemon as a way of instantly gaining a +2 boost. This is more a trade of stratagy as you did wast a turn using it with your user as well as a potential item slot for a poke that did otherwise need it. Own Tempo pokes are on another subject limited and overall less effective. For this same reason it could be rater unhealthy to build against.
In a competitive metagame I feel minimizing RNG based strategies is preferable if there utility exceeds that of there actual providable use. While I am open for any argument that RNG based moves could form a legitimate strategy. However I don't feel a move that in terms of legitimate use that could be replaced by the likes of Rage Powder or Fake Out support is a healthy move. If the move ends up being utilized more then the above suggested options for it's support utility it did make the argument easily clear. We need to ban the move.
For now I will support the idea of banning it as I generally am in disfavor of RNG based utility over actual predicting because of the gravity it has to out-weight the not RNG based support.


Merr: The main reason to keep swagger is really an "emergency panic" move. Krow can use it on threatening sweepers to stop them from destroying the team with around 83% effectiveness over 4 turns. It's also valid for own tempo or status cure item/ability strategies for a teammate's attack being boosted to +2 as well as being able to attack on the same turn.
The first point destroys itself - it's a luck based strategy that's also lazy due to saying "Oh I can check all these things given a free turn" that's not really skillful. The second point, however, is what needs to be addressed. It's something unique to Swagger, not confusion in general. For example, you could run Meditite with a lum berry and a teammate with Swagger in order to fire off a +2 attack the same turn or next turn after Meditite uses Fake Out. While it does cost an item slot, +2 Meditite is stronger than LO Meditite and has no loss of HP, as well as weakening Knock Off.

Basically, is removing the hax potential of Swagger worth removing legitimate strategies that can only be done with swagger?

I personally lean somewhat towards ban - this isn't really all that different from arguing that a lack of sleep clause can increase diversity as you force teams to adjust to sporespam with safety goggles or massive amounts of offensive pressure and grass types. It's not worth keeping for the downsides, but Swagger as a whole isn't nearly as problematic as sleep spam was. I'm free to be convinced to keep swagger though as long as you're able to provide a good reason for it.


Pump: Although I think Swagger+Lum Berry strategies are a cool and unique concept, is it worth having the ability to confuse, damage, and rely on a coin flip to win games? I say no. Any game played competitively should minimize anything that is based on luck. Worst part is that Annoykrow (copyright dsr 2016) can run this crap with Prankster and spam it. The only thing it adds to the tier is the potential to do the gimmicky strategies with Lum Berry. This is generally obsolete to other strategies (such as LO on Meditite, where the loss of HP is minimal at 19 and then switching out Meditite won't ruin the purpose of the setup) Otherwise, it just makes a competitive game more luck based and less about the better player; more so who can win the coin flip enough times to win a game.

Ya ban it swagger is dumb ~Oma





5/5 reasoning to Ban Swagger.