Partially Implemented Freeze Clause

[Ortheore]

As someone who plays RBY I'd like to dissent from the perspective presented by May. The idea of using rby freeze clause as some sort of precedent is imo misguided because it frankly shouldn't be used in rby either, and multiple players have over the years advocated for its removal while others who have experience playing without it have stated that they don't think it's necessary. Obviously, this is still a minority of the playerbase, but I want to make it clear that the persistence of freeze clause is not by consensus.

My reasons for removing rby freeze clause

Here are a few reasons I believe freeze clause in rby can be removed:

• It barely activates. Speaking from anecdotal experience, it is several times less common for freeze clause to activate in a match than it is for a 255 miss
  • I think if there was some sort of data on this that would be cool
• A single freeze is significant enough that it can frequently be the deciding factor in games. Freeze clause does nothing to protect against this
• Freeze-fishing hasn't proven itself to be an unhealthy strategy. As mentioned, a single freeze is decisive enough that you can still build your team around it and you can get a viable team out of it, but these teams aren't remotely close to dominant and come with numerous flaws
• It's rare for freeze-oriented teams to not have to earn freezes. The likelihood of cheesing out an unwarranted second freeze is incredibly low. It takes genuine skill to consistently put yourself in a position where you can safely fish for a freeze

Obviously, this thread isn't about rby freeze clause, but I think it's worth being critical of freeze clause and how it's applied to what the apparent problem is

• Is the problem prolific enough to justify a mod? If it's not a pervasive issue, then I don't really see the point
• Does freeze clause actually resolve the supposed problem? There's a good chance it won't make a difference to the overall viability of freezing
• Do freeze-oriented strategies have enough of an impact to warrant action? Are these teams performing well enough in tournaments and influencing other strategies and teambuilding for this to be significant?
• Are teams that play for freezes actually all that "uncompetitive"?
  • Barring a fluke freeze which can happen to anyone, if you're consistently putting yourself in a position where you're able to fish for a freeze (i.e. use a move that has a measly 10% chance of doing what you want), that in and of itself can demand a high level of skill

I'll acknowledge that some of those questions are basic or implicitly answered, but some I believe may merit additional consideration. Anyway, that's probably not for me to comment on, given that I don't play any form of OU aside from RBY

May this is the first I've heard of people agreeing to rematches due to double freeze, as it seems like an extreme edge case to me. Do you have any records of this being some sort of standard practice?

Also holy hell, the slippery slope with the concept of mods is insane

 

[zioziotrip]

I honestly don’t understand the fuss about modding the game slightly. We already mod in QOL stuff like ignoring the egregiously short timer in fairy gens and changing pixel hp into percentage.

We don’t play the cartridge, why are we hellbent on keeping 100% accurate to it?

There is no reason that implementing Freeze clause had to lead to a cascade of other mods. It’s a small QOL change with no drawbacks.

 

[GoldCat]

My practical concern is whether a Freeze clause will actually achieve the desired effect. More than one freeze a game is rare, even for Jirachi, and is realistically only excepted to happen in longer games, and even in those, how often does the second freeze tip the scales in such a game-changing way that the first one didn't already do? 1 in a 100? 1000? If you're going out of your way to mod the game, what really stops you from tackling the issue directly by preventing Jirachi from causing freezes or freezes as a whole? The freeze clause is simpler? It's a main status? Sure didn't stop the Dynamax ban. Precedence? Sure. Precedence has been brought up a lot and that obviously makes sense, as that's probably the only way to justify it tiering-wise, but there's also precedence for something else, even more so, and that's complex bans. Just look at ADV and DPP themselves. You've got the BP clause in ADV and Snow Cloak + the Swinub line in DPP. A complex ban of Serene Grace + moves with a freeze chance, or Jirachi + Ice Punch if don't want any collateral, is an easy solution to the common problem brought up by the thread; Jirachi freezes uncompetitively tilting the game in favor of the Jirachi user. Is the taboo of complex bans really so strong that we prefer MODDING the game over it? I don't see any concrete reason why complex bans would be any worse than a mod (if both are low impact) and seem like just personal preference to me. After all, we're already stretching the borders of what's allowed in tiering anyways. Mind you, I don't have any issues with the Freeze clause itself, as it doesn't affect gameplay as the Sleep clause does but I don't think it's a good idea to mod the game for a bandaid fix or a quality of life change. Deal with the issue at hand.

 

[Finchinator]

Is the taboo of complex bans really so strong that we prefer MODDING the game over it?

Yes, easily.

 

[peng]

I spoke in support of this when it was proposed to BW council. My stance is - if ADV and DPP accept Freeze Clause then I believe it should also be added to BW.

Firstly, there is for sure a question to be raised about whether Freeze Clause should be rolled out in ADV and DPP because Freeze behaves differently in these generations to the generations where it is currently banned, specifically:

• RBY - lol mechanics
• GSC - 10% thaw chance, Pokemon cannot move on turn it thaws
• ADV and DPP - 20% thaw chance, Pokemon can move on turn it thaws

Although I'm pro-ban, I do understand that freeze works different in RBY/GSC and ADV/DPP. I think the differences in how thawing works in GSC and ADV/DPP is significant enough to require discussion. I personally believe that Freeze is still beyond stupid in ADV and DPP despite changes to the thaw/attack turn interaction and that addition of Freeze Clause is a smart addition to improve those respective metagames within the precedent set by GSC (i.e. pretend there's some judge with a made-up manual freeze clause implementation like they had at some 2002 irl GS tournament lol).

As Meri Berry outlines, since these updates to Freeze status in ADV, the mechanics of the status have not changed significantly since. For this reason, if double Freeze is considered uncompetitive in ADV/DPP then I believe it should also be considered uncompetitive in BW and I would vote for inclusion of the same clause here.

Yes, BW OU is a metagame where freeze status, let alone multiple freeze, is infrequent. This is undeniable. Ice Punch Jirachi is not spammable in our metagame - its near exclusive to Choice Scarf sets but is often ditched for Healing Wish / Trick, and even when present is rarely locked into. Ice Beam is common only on Gastrodon and Starmie, with occasional use on defensive Politoed and Scarf Tyranitar. Bulky waters running Scald are common switch-ins to all of the aforementioned Freeze-move users and as such the impact of freeze on the metagame is quite low.

To me, however, this is irrelevant.

Freeze is fundamentally the same status in BW as it is in ADV and DPP and I don't believe that the lower incidence of Freeze-inducing attacks in BW makes it any less silly of a status. When double freeze occurs in BW, it is game ruining in the same fashion as in previous generations, and the fact that its less likely to happen here is no consolation to the players or teams on the receiving end of this string of bad luck. The addition of Scald does open up the option of thawing to several prominent Pokemon in BW OU including Politoed, Tentacruel, and Gastrodon, but forces the predictable use of Scald on the turn immediately after being frozen, whilst the majority of Pokemon in the tier still cannot thaw themselves.

so long story short, double freeze in BW is quite an obscure gamestate but I would accept Freeze Clause with open arms should it be rolled out in ADV/DPP, where it is mechanistically similar. It improves our metagame by only a fraction of a percent, but is an improvement nonetheless.

 

[R8]

1. Ice Punch Jirachi has a 10% chance to freeze 2 Pokemon and is extremely spammable. This is a competitive burden and needs to be addressed

Sorry for the minor nitpick, but i am unsure how you got this number. The odds for Jirachi to get two freezes with two ice punches is actually equal to 4% (As 0.2*0.2 = 0.04). If i got my maths right, the actual probability for Jirachi to get 2 freezes over the course of a game is equal to something looking like this:

Where P(n) is the probability for Jirachi, in average, to click Ice Punch n times against a frozable opponent - which i'm afraid is something not really possible to compute in practice.

If you want to compute the actual probability for Jirachi to freeze two pokemon, i don't think you have any other choices than gathering a large amount of replays and manually doing the stats - which is something you might have actually done, in which case i apologise, but then please link us the details (like in this post).

Thanks Maomiraeniya for spotting the mistake in the original post
Edit: corrected the formula.

 

[Excal]

Sorry for the minor nitpick, but i am unsure how you got this number. The odds for Jirachi to get two freezes with two ice punches is actually equal to 4% (As 0.2*0.2 = 0.04). If i got my maths right, the actual probability for Jirachi to get 2 freezes over the course of a game is equal to something looking like this:
View attachment 429054
Where P(n) is the probability for Jirachi, in average, to click Ice Punch n times against a frozable opponent - which i'm afraid is something not really possible to compute in practice.

If you want to compute the actual probability for Jirachi to freeze two pokemon, i don't think you have any other choices than gathering a large amount of replays and manually doing the stats - which is something you might have actually done, in which case i apologise, but in this case please link us the details (like in this post).

Thanks Maomiraeniya for spotting the mistake in the original post

Edited this part out, the 4% number isn't relevant anyway bc Jirachi getting two freezes is separate from Jirachi freezing two different Pokemon. The 10% was lazily thrown in there w no basis and made no sense so good catch.

So yes, your point is clear, just asked for more solid examples of why ADV and DPP were so eager about the clause, since instead you decided to send someone to "educate themselves" by posting a non-useful post on an all-gens thread about freeze clause. It really didn't help your case, which as you say, shouldn't be a difficult one to argue for.

I'd also still appreciate this, if you want to share it, because frankly, QoL changes are not worth a modding. RBY freeze is unbearably broken, and GSC is on a different bulk level so defense + freezing + 10% thaw chances can easily be seen as uncompetitive (more below). That being said, I can be behind an ADV+DPP clause addition, I trust the people that know.

Just reminding that this policy thread is called Freeze Clause, not ADV/DPP freeze clause, so you'll have to bear with out-of-old-gens opinions. And that tiering leaders have a communitary role on educating, and policy threads are the best to do that and, furthermore, leave solid precedents.

I appreciate your candor and understanding to defer to the playerbase with more robust, metagame-related issues. Want to clear up again that I sent someone to "educate themselves" not about freeze clause but about the state of the DPP metagame & general perception from qualified players, as the bulk of their post was related to Jirachi's presence in the metagame. That was separate from the main points about freeze clause and was meant to detach DPP Jirachi details outside of Ice Punch from the conversation of freeze clause in ADV/DPP.

I think it's more accurate to say that QoL changes are not usually worth additional modding that hasn't already been done in other tiers, as some changes of this type can have significantly positive benefits without throwing an additional curveball in tiering policy. If you want to look up replays, go watch some DPP games from SPL where defensive team matchups occur and anyone who cares about the metagame should be able to see where there's an issue. The Pokemon I mentioned in my previous post (Milotic, Gliscor, Jirachi, Tyranitar, Latias, Clefable) are very often on the same teams as each other.

I am fine with out-of-old-gens opinions as long as they are not about old gens or that there is an awareness of staying in one's lane. I do not post anything outside of what I have stake in. My role as a tiering leader is to represent old generation metagame councils and subcommunities and make them the best they can be while keeping smogon's already-existing policies in mind. I am not posting because I want to educate people but only because I want to represent what my communities support and make change: freeze clause in gens 3 + 4, and wherever else the councils + communities want it. I believe that the generational ou forums' plentiful resources & tiering policy framework are much more beneficial for educating people than my posts in policy review.

 

[R8]

As Meri Berry outlines, since these updates to Freeze status in ADV, the mechanics of the status have not changed significantly since. For this reason, if double Freeze is considered uncompetitive in ADV/DPP then I believe it should also be considered uncompetitive in BW and I would vote for inclusion of the same clause here.
Yes, BW OU is a metagame where freeze status, let alone multiple freeze, is infrequent. This is undeniable. Ice Punch Jirachi is not spammable in our metagame - its near exclusive to Choice Scarf sets but is often ditched for Healing Wish / Trick, and even when present is rarely locked into. Ice Beam is common only on Gastrodon and Starmie, with occasional use on defensive Politoed and Scarf Tyranitar. Bulky waters running Scald are common switch-ins to all of the aforementioned Freeze-move users and as such the impact of freeze on the metagame is quite low.

To me, however, this is irrelevant.

Freeze is fundamentally the same status in BW as it is in ADV and DPP and I don't believe that the lower incidence of Freeze-inducing attacks in BW makes it any less silly of a status. When double freeze occurs in BW, it is game ruining in the same fashion as in previous generations, and the fact that its less likely to happen here is no consolation to the players or teams on the receiving end of this string of bad luck. The addition of Scald does open up the option of thawing to several prominent Pokemon in BW OU including Politoed, Tentacruel, and Gastrodon, but forces the predictable use of Scald on the turn immediately after being frozen, whilst the majority of Pokemon in the tier still cannot thaw themselves.

so long story short, double freeze in BW is quite an obscure gamestate but I would accept Freeze Clause with open arms should it be rolled out in ADV/DPP, where it is mechanistically similar. It improves our metagame by only a fraction of a percent, but is an improvement nonetheless.

If i understand correctly the point you are trying to make here, freeze clause should be implemented only because it would improve the tier by "only a fraction of percent, but is an improvement nonetheless", by making it more competitive.

However one should mention that decision would directly go against two assumptions of the tiering policy framework (or TPF), which are:

I.) We play, to the best of our simulator's capabilities, with the mechanics given to us on the cartridge.

• Some exceptions exist, such Sleep Clause and Freeze Clause (RBY / GSC), but they are to be avoided as much as possible.
• Suggestions to "remove critical hits" or "make Baton Pass fail in battle" are not valid tiering proposals.

And

IV.) Probability management is a part of the game.

• This means we have to accept that moves have secondary effects, that moves can miss, that moves can critical hit, and that managing all these potential probability points is a part of skill.
• This does NOT mean that we will accept every probability factor introduced to the game. Evasion, OHKO moves, and Moody all affected the outcome "too much", and we removed them.
• "Too much" is if a particular factor has the more skilled player at a disadvantage a considerable amount of the time against a less skilled player, regardless of what they do.

With the current tiering philosophy, the argument of wanting to make the metagame more competitive is far from being enough to justify the implementation of the freeze clause, as haxx is accepted as a part of the game. Freeze also itself does not fall into the "too much" category, as everything banned for this reason (The mentionned Evasion, OHKO moves and Moody, but also Kings Rocks and the evasion abilities) are strategies purposely aiming to induce luck in the game, while freezing moves are not used with this purpose in BW OU, nor does freeze matter much more than other forms of haxx.

That being said, i do believe the implementation of a mod can, in specific circumstances, be necessary. I don't know much about DPP OU, but if their qualified playerbase and council believe freeze is an important enough presence in the metagame to take action, and if there is data to back this up, it's obviously justifiable. Even better if you have stats and replays clearly demonstrating the impact of freeze in the metagame (For example, how often does a freeze happen? In average, how many times does freeze happen during a high-level game?) and how it matters much more than "regular haxx". I believe mods should be only implemented in very extreme circumstences, as stated in the first assumption of the tiering policy framework, but we have to acknowledge that said extreme circumstences still can happen, and might have happened in ADV and DPP. In the end, this is a decision that belongs to the respective councils of these metagames.

On an other note, i am quite concerned that the TPF assumptions were not even mentionned in this thread, and it almost feels like they are just being ignored, despite being highly relevant and, directly refutes some of the arguments brought here. In my opinion, we should stick to the TPF as much as possible, and if you disagree with the TPF, this is something that deserves its own thread. The TPF should define tiering, not the other way around.

TL;DR: We should stick to the tiering policy framework: mods have to be avoided as much as possible. However, extreme circumstances can happen, in which case the decision belong to the councils of their respective tier.

About TPF

I'm putting this in spoilers because this derails a bit from the topic of the thread, but imo this thread - and discussions about luck elements in general - put a spotlight on an issue with the current version of the tiering policy framework: it does not define what "too much" luck is. "too much" is a very vague statement, and everyone might not agree on what "too much" is, which is part of why there was so much fuss around things like the Kings Rock ban. Of course, we don't have to draw a super precise line either, but at least make sure we roughly agree on a clearer definition of "too much". That deserves its own thread, imo.

 

[Neko]

On Freeze:

Freeze Clause doesn't really make much of a difference, as if an Ice-type Pokemon freezes its check, well, the game is already decided. A Freeze ban would be more productive, if ever.

Why a Freeze ban?
1. Contrary to other methods of Hax such as Para Flinch, thawing is much more unlikely than breaking out of a Flinch. Also, the paralyzed Pokemon can act between the turns it is not paralyzed and unparalyze itself, while the Frozen Pokemon is at the mercy of its opponent if it is allowed to have turns to unfreeze itself. Since a Frozen Pokemon has very few options to unthaw itself (distribution of Scald and Lava Plume are rare aside from Bulky Waters and Heatran), the said Pokemon is a dead-weight. This means moves such as Ice Beam pretty much have a 10% chance to OHKO. And well, OHKO moves are banned...

2. Freeze, unlike Paraflinch, is not an actual strategy. You click Ice Beam to OHKO Flygon, Landorus-T, etc., not to fish for freeze, because the odds are too low for it to be a legitimate strategy. If someone were to discreetly remove the FRZ mechanic from the simulator, none of us here would notice or feel at a loss.

But then we mod the game, Isn't that bad?

We already did for the turn counts and Sleep clause. I don't think we really truthfully care about "cartridge mechanics" anymore.

If you really want to keep cartridge mechanics, another option would be banning all moves that induce Freeze.

 

[z0mOG]

50 post thread about a mechanic that shows up 1 in 1000 games

we already play a hyperniche vietnamese underwater basket weaving simulator metagame with 35 competent players. the game has been bastardized since sleep clause so just keep on that path and lets also add full para clause (im not allowed to full para 3x in a row)

 

[Tuthur]

2. Freeze, unlike Paraflinch, is not an actual strategy. You click Ice Beam to OHKO Flygon, Landorus-T, etc., not to fish for freeze, because the odds are too low for it to be a legitimate strategy. If someone were to discreetly remove the FRZ mechanic from the simulator, none of us here would notice or feel at a loss.

Why is it not an actual strategy? Fishing for a freeze is a real strategy in every generation (or at least in several metagames) and sometimes you're best plan is to hope for a freeze, just like sometimes your best plan is to hope for a Special Defense drop or a Flamethrower burn. While nobody likes getting frozen and the chance to get frozen by getting hit once or twice by an Ice-type move are quite low, these are odds you have to play against, especially in longer games where you gotta switch more than once or twice in an Ice-type move.

Also, why is it so hard for people advocating for a Freeze Clause to actually show replays where it mattered? I am confident most of the community trust the ADV and DPP council, but as stated by some it seems awkward to people not playing these tiers to patch something that statistically almost never happens and it seems even more awkward to patch the game when the party asking for a patch never provides replays. R8 explained quite well why you can't do anything because you think it will make the tier better. If people in some years want to confront Freeze Clause in ADV and DPP because they think it unnecessarily differs from cartridge, we need to be able to show them evidence than when it wasn't implemented double freezes ruined these tiers.

 

[R8]

But then we mod the game, Isn't that bad?

We already did for the turn counts and Sleep clause. I don't think we really truthfully care about "cartridge mechanics" anymore.

It still goes against the first assumption of the tiering policy framework. As i argued in the post that precede yours, we should stick as much as possible to the TPF, because this is literally why it exists. If you disagree with it one of the assumptions, that's fine, but this is something that do not belong to this thread: this would be something that deserves its own thread.

To anyone reading this, PLEASE make sure your post is consistent with the TPF, that is literally why it exists. If you disagree with it, then we should change the TPF BEFORE changing the way we tier our metagames. The TPF should define tiering, not the opposite. We shouldn't take decisions that go against our defined philosophy, that just wouldn't make any sense.

 

[Neko]

and sometimes you're best plan is to hope for a freeze

If Freezing is the only way to win, isn't the game lost at that point. If it is a strategy though, why was Kings Rock banned if Cloyster's only way to win is flinching down the Toxapex because that's its best plan. Also, for Freeze, you only have to do it once, while flinching requires you to flinch several times.

It still goes against the first assumption of the tiering policy framework.

But the proposed Freeze clause is already a mod...you can't actually stop a second Freeze in the cartridge...

 

[peng]

Our posts are in line with the TPF, it literally lists freeze clause as an acceptable exception:


“Some exceptions exist, such Sleep Clause and Freeze Clause (RBY / GSC), but they are to be avoided as much as possible.”

avoided as much as possible in this sense clearly refers to new exceptions, where sleep clause and freeze clause are accepted. This is because they have some official competitive history, being hard enforced in stadium games and in the case of Freeze, soft enforced via judge in select cartridge tournaments.

the only questions to be asked are:

• Are rby/gsc and adv/dpp freeze mechanistically similar enough to be considered the same status and therefore covered under a catch-all freeze clause.
• is freeze considered ridiculous enough in ADV and onwards to actually want to add it.

Freeze Clause itself is already considered an accepted exception to the “no mods” reasoning. the time to have this discussion about cart mechanics was when GSC added freeze clause years ago

 

[The Grand Babido]

This is a really great thread with some good arguments and great maths but I personally would oppose this clasue on the grounds that it would worsen the spectator experience

 

[R8]

If Freezing is the only way to win, isn't the game lost at that point. If it is a strategy though, why was Kings Rock banned if Cloyster's only way to win is flinching down the Toxapex because that's its best plan. Also, for Freeze, you only have to do it once, while flinching requires you to flinch several times.

Because

With the current tiering philosophy, the argument of wanting to make the metagame more competitive is far from being enough to justify the implementation of the freeze clause, as haxx is accepted as a part of the game. Freeze also itself does not fall into the "too much" category, as everything banned for this reason (The mentionned Evasion, OHKO moves and Moody, but also Kings Rocks and the evasion abilities) are strategies y purposely aiming to induce luck in the game, while freezing moves are not used with this purpose in BW OU, nor does freeze matter much more than other forms of haxx.

But the proposed Freeze clause is already a mod...you can't actually stop a second Freeze in the cartridge...

I think there is a missunderstanding. Implementing a mod should be avoided whenever it is possible, according the the first TPF assumption. In other words: if the circumstances allows it, we should avoid implementing said mod.

Our posts are in line with the TPF, it literally lists freeze clause as an acceptable exception:


“Some exceptions exist, such Sleep Clause and Freeze Clause (RBY / GSC), but they are to be avoided as much as possible.”

avoided as much as possible in this sense clearly refers to new exceptions, where sleep clause and freeze clause are accepted. This is because they have some official competitive history, being hard enforced in stadium games and in the case of Freeze, soft enforced via judge in select cartridge tournaments.

The way i understand the sentence is: if we can afford to avoid the implementation of a mod, then we should not implement it, which in my opinion makes more sense : the reasons why a mod had to be implemented in a given metagame might not apply at all in an other metagames. If that one given metagame has to provide appropriate and complete justification to implement a mod, then any other metagame that wants to implement said mod should provide the same level of justification as well, and i don't think BW OU can provide arguments as strong as RBY and GSC did.

However, i acknowledge that i might have missunderstood the TPF (English is not my native language), but i would like to have the input of a third party about that (maybe someone that was involved with the TPF in some way?).

the only questions to be asked are:

• Are rby/gsc and adv/dpp freeze mechanistically similar enough to be considered the same status and therefore covered under a catch-all freeze clause.
• is freeze considered ridiculous enough in ADV and onwards to actually want to add it.

I still agree with this, even by going by the aformentionned interpretation of the TPF. If freeze is proven as big enough to fell in the "too much" category defined by the fourth assumption of the TPF, and if there are no other affordable alternatives, a tiering council should feel free to consider implementing a mod in the metagame.(I already expanded my POV about this in post #33.) Regardless of the reasoning we are following, i feel like consensus will be easier to reach with ADV and DPP metagames, because with BW and onwards we can easily fall in a rabbit hole due to how vague the fourth TPF assumption is (is freeze really "too much" for BW?), and also because the difference of interpretations of the first assumption matters much less with ADV and DPP due to the stronger presence of freeze in these metagames. Is there any reason to prevent ADV and DPP councils from taking action if freeze is too much for their respective metagames? At this point i think the answer to this question is already pretty clear.

 

[Charmflash]

I currently don't have a lot of time or interest to invest into competitive Pokemon, but in case my passion for it returns I would hate that I didn't take the time to make my case against this scene-crippling proposal. Smogon was formed to be an avenue where Pokemon enjoyers can battle against fellow humans while using a well (or at least better than nintendo's nothingburger) thought-out ruleset in order to not be forced to use the same 7 clearly unbalanced Pokemon over and over, making for a more enjoyable metagame. This remains it's appeal today, and will remain it's appeal for the foreseeable future.

Pokemon would be a bad game without RNG. It is a big part of it's identity and the majority of current, as well as future players wouldn't enjoy a probability calculator simulator as much. You need the ups and the downs, but in order for it to still be competitively attractive, it needs to be played in a fitting format. If done right the better players will still come out on top, in fact even more commonly so than cutting some RNG here or there.

On the graphic above you can see a few examples of coin toss matches. At the start it looks like one side is winning out big time, but the more coins you toss the closer it gets, virtually inevitably evening out eventually. If you toss a coin 10 times you have a 26% chance of ending with a 4-6 score, and a 10% chance at 3-7. However, if you toss it 100 times the chance of you getting a 40-60 split is actually only 2% now. The longer this keeps going the more ridiculously hard it gets for one side to get consistently lucky or unlucky. Have you ever wondered why casinos are a-ok with giving you 49% odds? It is because of this principle, and for them it doesn't matter if it's 3 people playing 100 games, or 100 people playing 100.

And this brings me to the SPL format (or formats similar to it). It is actually great, even as weekly games are being played Bo1. The reason is that for you to advance to the next round you are actually playing one single Bo9, which when scaling it multiplicatively with the multiple coin-tosses happening within each game is a fantastic sample size of coin tosses. The problem during SPL is mostly cultural, since games are looked upon individually, leading to you wrongly blaming RNG because it is cleaner and doesn't lead to a clash of egos.

The other big format we are seeing everywhere is the root cause of the whole ass problem. Knockout single elimination Bo1/Bo3(a small step in the right direction). I'm talking about individual Slam/Classic Cups, OST, and virtually every single unofficial/semi-official tournament. How come we are still using this neanderthalean structure when it clearly doesn't support the nature of Pokemon? All other competitive RNG-fuelled games are using systems that allow their better players to persevere, why can't we come up with something better? Hearthstone (and some other card games too) uses a point-system over the course a long timespan to determine playoff participants. Teamfight Tactics (and probably other auto-battlers too, although this is pure speculation on my part) lets their 8 players fight a bo6 with the top 4 advancing to the next round keeping the points they earned. I'm not saying that those specific solutions are implementable on smogon, I'm just trying to outline the point that other RNG-heavy games have recognized the importance of throwing the coin as many times as they can to get the best competitive results.

Taking a step back, Freeze Clause in gen 1&2 exists because Freeze would otherwise be overpowered, not because the boomers hated chance. Unlike Sleep, Freeze is not overpowered in newer generations. Aside from the machanic itself getting massively nerfed, we acquired abilities and moves that can deal with it. The way stats, hazards, knock off, setup, and the meta overall evolved doesn't allow for Ice Beam to be spammed as freely anymore. Freeze is not uncompetitive by default because RNG is not uncompetitive. I don't even think the majority of players would hate freeze if it wasn't for the unjust ramifications, such as getting knocked out of a tournament/cup you are great at, receiving blame from your teammates, social circles, shake- I mean sheetwarriors etc... Losing a game out of your control, or even just mostly out of your control should be seen as what it is.

Some of my personal suggestions to combat the problem I've been outlining:
1. Change Knockout tournaments to a Swiss with playoffs format (losers are free to drop out at any time).
2. Stop saying "a win is a win", "did it win, tho?", sheetlooking, or promoting and participating in that sort of culture, it is fueling the misdirected dislike for RNG like nothing else. Look at the games more honestly as a community, and praise good gameplay over results.
3. Freeze, or other RNG mechanics must be overpowered, or at the very least have a strong negative presence in any given metagame for action against them to be considered.
4. Enjoyment of the current playerbase, as well as future-proofness (simple ruleset for new players, preservance of fun gameplay) have priority over nonsensical arbitrary consistency across completely different in nature generations or metagames.

At the end of the day, if players enjoy a Freeze-less meta more (long-term) I would agree with getting rid of Freeze, or other pesky mechanics, using the fun argument over poorly defined competitiveness or the supposed lack thereof.
But I think that isn't the case. I think the blame is being deflected and people are lying to themselves about wanting an RNG-free game, and I think that dealing with, and managing RNG is one of the more uniquely fun features of competitive Pokemon, hence me writing this post. Thanks for reading if you did.

 

[Lalaya]

ngl I don't get how this thread got derailed so much

literally just leave ADV and DPPt choose for themselves if they want Freeze Clause back
technically it's literally the same implementation as Gen2 (the Gen2 variant is harsher but not a straight KO as it's the Gen1 variant) with the same motivations and even rationale (if you wanna throw out the argument that the clause existed in the games)
they had it when PO was the main simulator and they should be able to judge if they want it back in the rules

@ whoever says it's more modding: yes and no, because it literally depends on how you wanna read the TPF and how we'll end up judging the necessity or lack thereof of the Freeze Clause, how it relates to its Gen2 counterpart (since only the Gen1 one is a straight up dead Pokémon) and how it relates to anti-luck or anti-uncompetitive measures already taken (said Gen2 clause, King's Rock, evasion, luck items, etc)

@ whoever wants a different action: this is just to discuss Freeze Clause, not the impact of whatever else, this is just literally "should we implement Freeze Clause or not?"
I have no clue how these kind of threads always end up on at least three pages going on random stuff

and btw if you, person reading this, want to play with or without Freeze Clause in a not-main-tournament setting you can just add/remove the clause with the /chall command anyway

Personally I'm not bothered in the slightest if we add it back to the games, since it already exists and it's not a slippery slope to mod the game entirely, and if you're bothered by the presence of such clauses you should do a separate thread about it (and hope my some miracle people will care about the "issue")

 

[Star]

Given the feedback in this thread as well as internal discussion, we've concluded that there won't be a universal addition of Freeze Clause at this time. Individual tiering councils (ADV/DPP in particular have been discussed extensively here) are still welcome to make their own decisions regarding adding the clause.

 

[Star]

The ADV and DPP councils have both voted unanimously to extend Freeze Clause to gens 3 and 4 for the reasons previously discussed in this thread. Tagging Marty Kris to implement.