Banning Blaziken... Was it really the best choice?

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I myself am not a huge fan of banning things other than Pokemon (with the exception of unreleased moves and items), so I'm glad Blazeiken (cwutididthere) is banned, too.
 
I'm just curious (feel free to prove me wrong; I'm just asking), wouldn't an Eccentric Ditto be able to revenge kill it? Just let Blaziken get up to +6 Spe (so your ditto can be super fast, too) and sacrifice one of you pokemon. Then, bring in Ditto which can do some good damage with High Jump Kick. Not even sure if this will work btw. It's just a suggestion.
 
^Never stops those hackers. Aside from the fact it hasn't been released, I'm just curious to know how well it will stop Blaziken theoretically and physically (in the game).
 
THat would not neccessarily work. In order to gurantee you win the speed tie, you would have ot use a choice scarf. Then, your opponent would just switch out to a ghost or something, and you're locked into a fighting move.
 
^Eccentric ditto 90% of the time has Choice Scarf. And if you are scared for High Jump Kick, just use a move like Shadow Claw or Rock Slide or something.
 
JacobeTheElf said:
^Eccentric ditto 90% of the time has Choice Scarf. And if you are scared for High Jump Kick, just use a move like Shadow Claw or Rock Slide or something.
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Why would you use Rock Slide if you're scared about accuracy? If you're specifically worried about the recoil from missing, it's negligible, since it probably won't be taking many hits anyway.
 
^We weren't scared about accuracy, just the possible ghost switch-in with us locked into Hi Jump Kick.

Edit:Though I'm a little glad Blaziken won't be seeing OU (at least not for now) because he's a pretty big threat to my team and everyone elses teams.
 
What if the Blaziken didn't have Rock Slide or Shadow Claw? I only had Hi Jump Kick and Blaze kick as attacking moves, and it still ripped stuff up.
 
There is also no way that Ditto is switching in on Blaziken, especially if against Hi Jump Kick. If you're switching in off of a kill, you've already lost something. Even then, Ditto has no sure fire way of killing Blaziken as Blazekin can just switch out to live another day. Plus he was banned from the OU ladder, where all DW mons are banned, so they argument doesn't apply anyways.
 
Besides guys, I can see in the future that DW Ditto will scrub to the same fate. It is just way to flexible of a revenge killer... [/off topic]

It's pathetic how some idiots that are defending the decision think that Blaziken is just a one-man show. Or that smogon is this bureaucracy that bans anything that it hates, the people that spent their time playing come up with this decision. It went through 3 rounds of suspect testing with many people to come to the decision.

I ran into one on random the other day. It is just way, way, way too stupid. Anything that does not resist this will get one-shot by his SD'd STABs, and anything that does will most likely get 2HKO since the DB is just too huge. Does your Bulky Water enjoy getting hit in the face with a 646 attack? Outside of Regen Slowbro, I don't think so. If sun is part of the equation, you can say bye to anything that resist fire as well.

Sharpedo and Ninjask got nothing on him, Sharpedo's highest base is 120 STAB from a Hydro Pump, but with his SpA at 95, that is just too low. In additionl, he cannot learn anything to pump up his attacks on the switch and can be walled. Ninjask can't sweep or do anything on his own, and that's about it.

If they only haven't gave it Hi Jump Kick this gen, I doubt it would be ban worthy.
 
I think you guys are overestimating Ditto's viability as a revenge killer. You're saying it can just come in at +6, but it seems you fail to realize that it takes turns to get there, which means by the time Blaziken is at +6 Speed, you've already lost 3 or 4 guys unless you spam Protect, in which case your team is probably a failure anyway.

Ditto is not at all menacing because 1) you know they have one so you can prepare for it and 2) only idiots would see a Ditto and recklessly boost their stats.

This is not the Ditto topic so if you're going to continue to post here, keep it on topic please.
 
This is an even choice for me. i always thought that a Hydreigon STAB Dragon Pulse or a Vaporeon could crash it either way. But then again it can still get some major kills with STAB Hi Jump Kick. I don't care though. It isn't on my team anyway so i can't judge it.
 
Speed Boost will have Blaziken faster than Hydreigon after one Speed Boost unless the Hydreigon is scarfed. Hydreigon wouldn't have a chance.
 
I just detest the overall Smogon classification of the Uber tier. Ubers, as defined IN game are those that cannot be used in the battle tower/frontier/subway. As far as I'm concerned, everything else is fair game.

Oh, by the way, Yanmega also has Speed Boost as a standard ability, and nobody argues against it's Air Slash flinch after turn-1 Protect+Speed Boost. I've always wanted the Speed Boost Blaze for Flare Blitz and Brave Bird after a turn-1 Protect+boost.
 
I agree with what dmaster, in that IMO, certain Pokemon+Ability combinations should be banned. Speed Boost Blaziken is indeed uber, but Blaze Blaziken is far from it. Smogon did a complex ban with Drizzle+Swift Swim. Why can't they say that Blaziken+Speed Boost is Uber, but Blaziken+Blaze is allowed in Standard?
 
neophenx said:
I just detest the overall Smogon classification of the Uber tier. Ubers, as defined IN game are those that cannot be used in the battle tower/frontier/subway. As far as I'm concerned, everything else is fair game.

Oh, by the way, Yanmega also has Speed Boost as a standard ability, and nobody argues against it's Air Slash flinch after turn-1 Protect+Speed Boost. I've always wanted the Speed Boost Blaze for Flare Blitz and Brave Bird after a turn-1 Protect+boost.
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Okay, before I do anything, let me explain this: A Pokemon's viability in the standard metagame has absolutely nothing to do with how well it preforms in the Uber tier. A Pokemon in ubers can completely suck, do nothing, and just sit there while the generation ends and a new one starts. Who cares if it's outclassed by every Pokemon there and can't preform well? Pokemon are outclassed in the Uber tier all_the_time. Deoxys-N is just the poor man's Deoxys-A. Wynaut is just a weaker Wobbuffet. If a Pokemon is deemed too broken for the OU tier or overcentralizes it, it'll be banned to Ubers. I think this is the main point people need to get in their heads who keep questioning every ban. The Uber tier isn't made to be playable, it's made to make the OU tier playable.

The Battle Frontier/Battle Tower/Battle Subway is just a banlist in game where they remove Pokemon whom they deem "legendary" in the game. The Pokemon aren't even judged based off stats, just their "legendary" status. The competitive value of that banlist is very, very low. I'm not even sure it should be considered competitive. Nope. No competitive value.

And what do you mean by "fair game"? Could you try to imagine what the fourth generation metagame would have been like if Garchomp, Latios, and Salamence were never banned? It wound not have been a very fair game. Garchomp completely wrecked every Pokemon in the standard metagame last generation with his unresisting STAB (if you don't count Skarmory and Bronzong, who were beaten by Fire Blast or Fire Fang), impressive stats, excellent movepool, having no "true" counter that couldn't be beat by OHKO or 2HKO, and awesome ability that made him harder to counter. Blaziken is pretty much in the same boat as Garchomp was last generation. His excellent STAB of Fire and Fighting provides pretty much unresisting coverage, except for Jellicent who is OHKO'd by a +2 Stone Edge, or OHKO'd by a Shadow Claw. Almost nothing can switch into Blaziken after a Swords Dance without taking some damage. Even Gliscor is OHKO'd by a +2 Flare Blitz, or MixKen's HP Ice. Blaziken also has some really impressive stats that make him no laughing matter. 120 Attack is absolutely frighting after a Swords Dance. When you factor in his high power, STAB moves, Flare Blitz and Hi Jump Kick, you better have something good to switch in. His Sp. Attack of 110 is also really great, epically on MixKen who runs moves like Fire Blast and HP Ice/Grass, which make nothing in the OU tier a safe switch in when you add moves like HJK and SE. His Speed is, well, irrelevant. Nobody really cares about how much speed you have after +3 Speed Boost, as nothing can touch you besides priority after that.

And can people please stop bringing up other Pokemon who have Speed Boost. Please, stop it. I can hardly see how Ninjask is 'threatening' and deserves to be banned. He looses half his health if SR is active, has paper thin defenses, and can barely fight back. The only reason people use him is because of Baton Passing Speed and Attack. That's all. Yanmega also suffers from a bad typing that makes it hard for him to switch into SR. The only way you could use him last gen with Speed Boost was as a attacking lead because of the SR weakness, which he did an okay job at (I never saw any Yanmega leads, so I honestly can't say how well it did). Even though he has Speed Boost, he has no way of boosting his 116 Sp. Atk outside of Choice Specs, which leaves you to be walled and be beaten by any Special Wall. Sharpedo has the same problem as Yanmega; he has no way of boosting his Attack or Sp. Atk. IMO, Sharpedo's 120 Atk isn't very frighting, considering that Ferrothorn, one of the most used Pokemon in the game, exist to resist both your STABs, can pretty mush take your HP Fire all night, while also beating you down with Power Whip. Look, just because a Pokemon has Speed Boost, it doesn't mean that it suffers to be banned like Blaziken was.

Before any more people bring up pointless statements, I'll just answer some of the most common statements now:

1) But Blaziken had counters! He shouldn't be banned for that one reason. IT'S NOT FAIR! :c

Whoa, I think you need to first understand exactly what a counter is:
definition of a counter said:
A counter must be able to both switch into the Pokemon it's supposed to counter, with little to no risk to itself, and also pose an immediate threat to said Pokemon.
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If you've been reading everything, you'll understand that nothing can saftly switch into Blaziken. Nothing. Jellicent can switch into HJK and laugh as Blaziken breaks his foot falling, but Jellicent will suffer a painful Shadow Claw/ +2 Stone Edge afterwords.

I think you have "revenge killer" mixed up with "counter". Yes, Blaziken does have Pokemon that can revenge kill him. IIRC, Pokemon with a base of 130 Speed can outspeed him with a positive nature and 252 investment after two Speed Boosts. Also, CB Azumarril can always kill Blaziken with Aqua Jet. I'm sure that Conkledurr's Mach Punch will beat Blaziken, but I don't remember. That's it in terms of revenge killers.

2) But other Pokemon have Speed Boost. Why not ban them?

I've already answered this.

3) Why does Blaziken with Blaze get banned? It shouldn't be fair that gets banned.

I really don't know how exactly to answer this. My idea is to avoid confusion, but I really do not know. That would certainly be a question you can ask Smogon or someone else here can answer.

4) Smogon sucks. Blaziken shouldn't be banned.

The entire community knows more than you do about competitive battling. If they wanted your opinion, they would've asked. A total of forty-three people (actually) voted in Smogon's OU Round 3 Suspect blind voting. of those forty-three, 72.5% voted to ban Blaziken. That's a pretty good majority if you're bad at math. If you want to view the thread concerning Blaziken's ban, view this.



I wasted an hour typing thiiiiiiiiiisssss. Wow.
 
Blaze Blaziken is banned because Blaziken as a whole is banned, not just SB. All aspects of a Pokemon are considered when talking about bans. Saying Blaziken should be legal with Blaze is like saying Kyogre should be legal with no moves with more than 80 base power or Calm Mind. It would set a dangerous precedent of tweaking a Pokemon to ridiculous measures (such as the Kyogre example I just gave) in order for them to stay OU.

People who are clamoring for Blaze Blaziken to be legal are just butthurt that a starter got banished to ubers, because that is TOTALLY INCONCEIVABLE. ALL STARTERS HAVE TO BE IN UU, THAT'S JUST HOW IT WORKS.
 
Ability /=/ Moves with a certain amount of power/set up move.

lol at all Starters being in UU though.

dmaster out.
 
What about TorTERROR?

Anyway, Smogon stated they would no be doing a complex ban this time around. Complex bans aren't needed, and like PMJ said, it would be like Kyogre being legal with no moves stronger than 80 base power.
 
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