Re: King’s Rock (and other “luck items”)

[Colonel M]

why are people devil's advocating for items that can easily be removed?

...

just ban them, tiering precedent shouldn't have to fit in some neat little box: there is basically 0 corollary damage, and implying otherwise is disingenuous

The problem is King's Rock and Quick Claw are unique in terms of why they would be banned.

There is an easy way to remove Brightpower and Lax Incense through Evasion Clause. Since they technically help boost Evasion in some method, it is something that can be tied into the clauses and the items need no real explanation or reasoning behind them.

For Quick Claw and Kings Rock, it gets murky. First:

I mentioned in my post that we really shouldn't be saying words like "broken" when trying to evaluate these items being banned and look more at the cost/benefit. Serene Grace is not an easy thing to just ban because it's directly tied to Pokemon (like Jirachi). It's also just not really that comparable here. In the current dpp metagame people are fine with Jirachi and Togekiss and we would be worse off without them, which is not the same case with King's Rock, Bright Powder, and Quick Claw. Serene Grace is accounted for in the metagame and is a known factor that will be faced. The items can be thrown on anything randomly and are pretty much impossible to predict and play around especially before revealed.

Two things I want to state:

1) I am in agreement that the DPP meta would be worse without Jirachi. I'm going to just say no comment on Togekiss personally, but saying no comment does not mean I agree to its banning.

2) Kings Rock is not really an item that is easy to slap onto a Pokemon. The flinch chance with the move is 1/10 without factoring multi-hit moves, and only Pokemon with Skill Link have really used the item. Quick Claw, I admit, is a different tale. That is potentially an item that can be slapped on slower Pokemon and attempt to bank on a 20% success rate to outspeed the opponent. Dracovish and the other Gen 8 fossils have occasionally used the item, and it has proven itself to be a problem.

Why are we bending our backs trying to keep these items unbanned when their only influence is making games more uncompetitive while providing no benefit whatsoever when we can easily ban them without complexity? These items are much more easy to get rid of at basically no expense.

The problem is not to keep the items unbanned. That misinterprets what I'm arguing here.

The problem is that there has to be a justified and logical approach to banning these items without falling into slippery slopes.

Banning something "because we can with no drawback" is not a solution to the problem. Again, we also could ban Cloyster since it's the only abuser of King's Rock, and the collateral damage is almost nonexistent. That's obviously not what I find personally ideal, but it's important when we want to ban items like these that we define why to ban them.

Otherwise:

just ban them, tiering precedent shouldn't have to fit in some neat little box

You will again have other people create slippery slope arguments that ask why an item is being considered versus other Pokemon's abilities. To compare again - Jirachi has a 60% flinch chance with Iron Head. Cloyster's chance to flinch with Icicle Spear (so no Rock Blast miss taking into account) is 41%. Even if you want to consider something really abusrd - Beat Up doesn't even break 50% with all 6 of its hits (it goes up to 46.8%). Arguing that you don't know if the Cloyster is or isn't carrying King's Rock is rather absurd - there are likely 2 other viable items without including Life Orb or Gems (the latter exclusive to BW) - Focus Sash and White Herb. The latter is instantly revealed after using Shell Smash or if the Cloyster is Intimidated, and the former is null if Cloyster somehow takes any form of entry hazard damage or sand damage in the process. I obviously concede that it is harder to tell with other items like Brightpowder and Quick Claw - which can theoretically be slapped on many different Pokemon to various benefits and combos (Garchomp with Sand Veil, Galar-Slowking with Quick Draw).

Again, whether people like the absurdities of devil's advocate or not - I ask that it is explained why King's Rock and Quick Claw are chosen to be banned versus banning abilities similar to their effects. I don't think what is being asked is unreasonable whatsoever, and if you want to prevent things like slippery slope arguments, then it would be imperative to have a logical explanation on why one is allowed over the other. Remember - apples and oranges may not be the same, but they still have methods that can make them comparable. You can prove an apple is different from an orange logically. All that is being asked is that the same is applied here with King's Rock and Quick Claw.

Wow reacts only please.

As an aside - I think if we're discussing these items, I also agree Focus Band should be removed as well.

 

[Abyssal Ruins]

IMO just ban the Pokemon if it is that offensive. It's not like Cloyster is an essential positive contributor to the metagame even without Kings Rock.

I'll make a quick short and sweet point. I don't believe Cloyster should get banned due to the nature of King's Rock.

This post reminded me of robopoke's CB Cloyster that he had posted during ORAS (click here). In an era where Mega Sableye stalls affected the metagame significantly, robopoke used CB Cloyster to break stall. He also mentioned interactions involving Counter, which I didn't know about before. All this led to CB Cloyster becoming one of my all time favorite creative sets.

Similar to Excal's point about using Ice Gem Cloyster, this example shows how Cloyster can get by without using King's Rock. If KR-less Cloyster does not contribute to ANY metagame, it would fall off and not get used. If Cloyster did get banned hypothetically, it would get banned because of its own attributes (high offenses/difficulty to revenge kill after Shell Smash). King's Rock should not alter the role Cloyster performs normally. Redirect your attention to banning the item instead of banning the Pokemon.

 

[Charmflash]

I fully support a ban on all elements brought up itt, and would like to go a step further and propose a blanket ban on evasion. We discussed this in SS council prior to SPL and sadly didn't end up going through with it, but this seems like the best of times to enact it. Much like King's Rock / Quick Claw / what have you there is no competitive downside to removing evasion as a whole from our formats.

Personally, I am a bit conflicted on this. There is real merit to punishing your opponents further for using 70% accurate moves by putting Bright Powder on your, say, Serperior. I would also say that while this leads to more luck based situations in-game, it still has a very competitive dynamic in the teambuilder begging questions suchs as "is my Torn enough to check Serp?"). Likewise, Wide Lens has been used for similar reasons, and while it alters evasion I don't think anybody would really want that removed.

As for King's Rock / Quck Claw / even Focus Band, I internally suggested their removal while we were discussing the removal of Moody. To me, Moody wasn't a top tier strategy, however, it could randomly win games based off luck alone. I made the argument that the aforementioned items followed the same logic and should be banned based on their lack of competitiveness. That school of thought still holds true today.

 

[Jaajgko]

I think the use of luck items are cancer but there are too many luck-based mechanics in mons to single these out. Why specifically items? Why not ban serene grace and quick draw? Why not ban crits and freezes? At the end of the day, these items are a part of the game of luck we call mons and singling them out is pretty unfair to the mons that abuse them.

To me, the problem with those items is that any mon can carry them, making them unpredictable, as opposed to abilities like quick draw and serene grace, or secondary effects that are fixed. The key question here is wether the player is able to account for them in the teambuilder and in his gameplan or not. You can be prepared against flinches from rachi, quick draw procs from glowbro, crits, spd drops, paras, burns (or at least you can optimize your odds). But I think it's unreasonable to ask someone to account for the scenarios where their 100% accuracy moves have actually 90% accuracy, or when the pokemon they're supposed to be able to revenge kill suddenly outspeeds them, or even when the pokemon they're supposed to kill hangs on with its focus band. Even though those items are inconsistent and most of the time you'd regret using them instead of a better, consistent item, in the cases where they work, they remove the game out of their opponent's hand and this is exactly what smogon tries to prevent. I fully support a ban.

 

[Colonel M]

To help illustrate that I'm not trolling and that I can do more than just play Devil's Advocate, I think where we need to discuss on these ban of items is how the items are uncompetitive and promote being uncompetitive versus their similar abilities.

Finch released a video detailing his opinions on the subject, and I felt that he was being objective in his arguments - especially where slippery slopes come into play. In the case of King's Rock it only benefits one Pokemon, and often we have had scenarios where some items do help push some Pokemon over the edge (Heavy-Duty Boots Cinderace being a good example). Thus, we need to do two things:

* We want to ban the items, but
* We also want to fit them in a scope where a slippery slope is halted

I'm going to talk PvE for a second because King's Rock and other items similar to its nature are often used in these games. In Fire Emblem we have a Silver Sword, which offers raw power. On the other hand is a Killing Edge - an item that sacrifices a bit of power in order to bank on a critical hit to bypass the damage output of a Silver Sword. Statistically, there are advantages to one over the other for both items in their respective situations. One side (Killing Edge) attempts to sometimes push for luck in ORKO situations, but these are also calculated when the player is making that option. There are also always going to be some RNG elements that are almost impossible to control and have to be accepted. Mercenaries and Ice Dragons have high crit chances and can push some units like Sirius into dangerous territories where he can be OHKOed or ORKOed; however, these don't necessarily mean Sirius is a bad unit in principle since he still has more positive contributing factors and there are some methods that can help mitigate the RNG. My point is - RNG always exists, and as competitive players we are always going to try to minimize RNG when playing defensively most of the time and try to maximize RNG when going aggressive or when you're behind in the match-up.

So let's go back to King's Rock. We're taking an opportunity of failing to guarantee KOes on some Pokemon in order to bypass some of its checks and counters via flinching. Though as I've stated before - this is sometimes no different with how Togekiss will sometimes Air Slash flinch through Chansey or Blissey as a last resort or because the statistical odds technically favor them over the opponent. Whether we want to admit it or not - they are technically comparable and that's where the big problem lies. Obviously removing some of these Pokemon in response (Jirachi in particular) creates more headaches for their metagame than them existing. So again we have to outline why we allow one but not the other. If it doesn't fit the criteria to ban, then it isn't exactly a ban we should be pursuing. Yet, the items similar to King's Rock definitely give an "uncompetitive edge" that the opponent cannot really control, either. Then again the same can be argued for moves like Focus Blast missing, Ice Beam freezing, etc. These are calculated risks, though, and the small problem I have overcoming with King's Rock is that technically it is a calculated risk associated with using the item. All the Cloyster player is doing is maximizing its odds of sweeping through teams - just like how Life Orb is used on some Pokemon to favor damage rolls or entry hazards.

So let's loop back to the items. I think there is definitely a majority agreement to banning these items. I also support banning these items in spite of playing Devil's Advocate. The problem is how to approach this has to be done carefully because, as I said before, these elements already exist in the meta and are calculated risks and reward we take daily. We know Jirachi normally cannot beat Heatran, but there are slim odds where consecutive Iron Heads can lock a Heatran down. Obviously in almost every case (unless you're lucky like shake), the Heatran player will almost always overcome this scenario. The same with Blissey or Chansey, usually, with Togekiss since they sometimes have Thunder Wave to maximize the odds of overcoming it. After all as soon as these Pokemon are slower, their chances of flinching are 0.

Now sure we can acknowledge that Cloyster isn't broken - the combination of Skill Link, King's Rock, and Cloyster's efficient setup combination are. All 3 of these are a factor of what makes Cloyster dangerous. This is also why banning Cloyster on that principle isn't absurd at face value. Sure you can argue that it could always use other sets, but other Pokemon like Blaze Cinderace and Blaze Blaziken could as well - the only theoretical limitation boils back to the combination of ability and Pokemon being the problem. The same with Cloyster and King's Rock - individually this item and this Pokemon really aren't broken or even uncompetitive (let's be honest here - in spite of wanting to ban the item only like 2 Pokemon utilize the item and in almost 99% of cases is inferior to other items). The problem is such a combination of factors make Cloyster with King's Rock oppressive in a tier that doesn't have great checks and counters to it. Prankster Thunder Wave may slow it down, but the distribution is very limited as is.

But again it's not Cloyster specifically as the core problem - because other items like Quick Claw and Focus Band theoretically attempt to push odds in favor of the user of the item and the options to prevent this relies on Knock Off. Knock Off being extremely rare in tiers below ORAS alone makes it a problem. Even then in SS this doesn't necessarily stop King's Rock Cloyster as an example. The same with Prankster Thunder Wave and Quick Claw Dracovish.

So let's circle back to the question at hand - how do we argue that the items are the problem, but the abilities equivalent to it are not? You could argue abilities like Serene Grace being a core component to the Pokemon, but I don't think this is a good solution to this. It doesn't encapsulate arguments that favor banning Focus Band or Quick Claw as an example.

So I think the proper method to arguing in favor of banning items like this could be like so:

Any item that attempts to push for RNG-specific factors (barring damage rolls) should be disbarred from all tiers and all generations.

This also helps prevent items like Life Orb or Expert Belt in their extreme circumstances to be bundled with it. Again, pushing for damage rolls increasing is not necessarily uncompetitive within itself. While you're attempting to push the odds in your favor, the items usually have reasonable drawbacks most of the time (Sheer Force and Magic Guard + Life Orb are the niche exceptions). The same for Leftovers and increasing odds of surviving damage rolls for 2-3HKOes against certain Pokemon.

Quick Claw, King's Rock, and Focus Band are attempting to push RNG-specific situations to favor the item holder. While the odds technically go against them, they are items with the only intention to push those odds whereas moves like Ice Beam and Hurricane are doing more than that. Hell, even Swagger to an extreme example. Paralysis through Thunder Wave and Body Slam also have multiple purposes rather than just attempting to favor RNG since it also cuts the opposing Pokemon's Speed.

Again, the problem isn't me playing Devil's Advocate to protect the items. I want them gone as much as everyone else in the thread. The problem is making sure the logical train is airtight to prevent a slippery slope. I'm sure even with arguments you could argue some slippery slopes, but it's also a start to addressing the problem and keeping it within tiering specifics that attempt to follow a logical flow without half-assing the argument as "I just don't like the item and it should go".

Anyway, sad reacts only please.

 

[SparksBlade]

Proxy posting for Ampha

Altho I don't have perms to talk here I completely support the King's rock ban, Cloyster was something you had to watch out for any tier it was in since Pre-DLC meta (which it got into OU placing solely because of how dumb King's rock strats were), this thing is also a huge annoyance on cheese teams on the current SS RU teams.

Also I support the ban of the Evasion boosting items and i'd personally add that to the weather boosting evasion ones as well, ADV recently banned Sand veil(altho im not an ADV Player, I can see how annoying it should be w missing 100% moves due to how dumb evasion shit is), and every evasion boosting item/abil is just annoying in general imo.

Also Quick Claw is something ppl mentioned and i'm also Pro-ban, altho the current gen only has one user for the item (Galar Bro) I think the NP Quick Claw + Draw thing is just something that's annoying to deal, imagine having your full health Ground type or Steel and then suddenly you get bopped bc Slowbro got a Quick Claw/Draw Scald/Fire move and you just lose what would be otherwise a check to the Slowbro, I think ppl also commented about other gens on quick claw, but as a CG mon I think banning Quick Claw would be ideal, it'd also avoid a bigger headache on the future as metas are still developing around

 

[Myzozoa]

From the ban philosophy I follow, which is to ban the fewest number of things possible to maintain a balanced metagame, it should be unnecessary to ban Lax Incense and Bright Powder because they are usually subpar items. I don't know about the rest of everyone else, but I am constantly playing to maximise my chances of inflicting RNG-induced knockouts (critical hits, paralysis, flinches, freezes, misses from inaccurate moves) to the opposing team, whether that means I am using "dirty/uncompetitive" tactics or not. Choosing items that rely on RNG to activate is a competitive choice. RNG is a perfectly competitive part of the game in a vacuum: it generally comes at significant cost to add a chance of things going well for the user, and a lot of means exist to control it in most cases. It is pointless to try to remove all or arbitrary RNG elements that next to nobody uses from this game; you are still going to get "haxed". Banning these only serves to lengthen an already long list of bans. Why shouldn't we also ban Confuse Ray, Attract, and Swagger? We should only be banning things that cause imbalance and overpoweredness. I don't play BW OU so I can't speak for how strong Cloyster is with King's Rock in that metagame, but I doubt Bright Powder is pushing anything over the edge.

I think nearly everyone who supports the King's Rock ban is right there with you, we are all trying to maximize the RNG and we don't mind using 'dirty' tactics as you say. But there is a principle we can apply to the tiering of dirty tactics which we get from the BW sleep move ban: the counterplay has to be at least as good as the thing in question. In the case of Attract, Confuse Ray, and Swagger, even paralysis and freezing, there is perfectly reasonable counterplay at all or at least several stages of a game. It would be too much to list here, and I will go into it if needed for each of this listed mechanics, but I think most of us know from experience how to manage these situations through outplaying. My issue with King's Rock is that it is not acceptable to lose a pokemon to 3+ flinches in a row and then be expected to send in another counter to the King's Rock abuser that can then repeat the ridiculous situation. It is not just that the counterplay is insufficient (inner focus mons are rare and tend to not do well against moves that flinch be they the moves King's Rock abusers use or normal flinch moves), but that the abuse of the mechanic is predicated on a hope to completely ignore counterplay. See the post below:

Put simply, I don't think the number of games where a well-built team loses to constant back-to-back Cloyster flinches is that meaningfully large -- 60% of the time, King's Rock will actively be worse than every other item. 38% of the time, it'll nab one or two flinches and maybe break through one answer but die to the next. And for the 2% of the time that it's unreasonably lucky and manages to win a game that it shouldn't have -- yeah, that sucks. But those games could just have easily been lost to a crucial crit, or triple back to back scald burns, or ridiculous min/max rolls, or any other element of variance present in the game. I don't think King's Rock is a distinct enough case to warrant being singled out.

To me this is unacceptable, you've sent in an answer to a King's Rock abuser and 2-3 flinches later you're supposed to have another one to send in to face the same odds. Many may not agree with me, but I believe many people would not characterize this as sufficient counterplay and I don't know why saccing hard counters is considered acceptable to you. It is not like, for example, swagger, where you can switch out, or Paralysis where in carefully choosing what to get paralyzed you can actually gain an advantage if you anticipate a game being decided on PP.

 

[Colonel M]

I had a couple people PM me in private with some information / suggestions / criticism. I figured I would post here, but for now will keep them anonymous.

Feel free to PM me if you want to be credited.

The way I think about it (which doesn't do a good job at separating King's Rock from Serene Grace so it's not perfect) is that most things that introduce RNG into the game have legitimate uses unrelated to RNG. Iron Head deals physical Steel-type damage, Ice Beam deals special Ice-type damage, Thunder Wave cripples the opponent's Speed. Stuff like that.

Yes, ideally. It gets a little complex with King's Rock because technically you're adding that secondary effect. But it's something that isn't normally constrained to the move, it is something of a separate effect due to King's Rock.

As someone that doesn't really care about the banning of king's rock but doesn't like the reasonings thrown around i appreciate your role as devil's advocate in the thread and i liked your suggestion of "Any item that attempts to push for RNG-specific factors (barring damage rolls) should be disbarred from all tiers and all generations." At least until this morning while i was having breakfast, it came to my mind that this would also ban items that increase accuracy (that i think are very fair ways to push for rng, since they actually reduce the chances of rng screwing the user up while not interfering with the odds of the opponent) and items that increase critical hit chance (legitimate users like focus energy inteleon or drappion exist, as well as the leek item, being the only niche Farfetch'd has while still being a decent option on Sirfetch'd), i think mentioning a banning of those items as a side effect of your suggestion is something important.

This point is pretty fair. When you consider an item that hasn't been discussed at all is also Scope Lens (and Razor Claw), which increases the critical hit rate of a Pokemon and technically it falls in line with the problems with these items, it adds another layer of murkiness. The other thing is that Scope Lens is usually paired with abilities like Super Luck or Focus Energy as you mentioned and abilities like Sniper. Unless you are, say, Honchkrow with Super Luck using Scope Lens Night Slash, your chances to crit are either about a 12.5% chance (if holding Scope Lens or Razor Claw alone) or 50% if you use Focus Energy or have Super Luck alongside the held item. Of course, critical hit moves like Night Slash also need to be considered with this since it also increases the probability of a critical hit.

Wide Lens (and Zoom Lens) are also items that technically increase RNG to a degree in that they attempt to make moves that are otherwise less accurate more accurate.

I think this boils back to where we need to be careful on the precision of choosing what items are clearly an outlier to this and those that are deemed, at least at this time, competitive and / or not necessarily problems. I think we all can agree the following are definitely under the scope of uncompetitive:

* King's Rock / Razor Fang (abusive with Skill Link Pokemon and Pokemon with multi-hit moves)
* Quick Claw (abusive with slower Pokemon and even those that sit in fairly average Speed tiers like ORAS Manaphy)
* Focus Band (abusive in context of a move not guaranteeing a knockout when it otherwise should have (including confusion)). Also dumb fact - Gen V onward it has to trigger separately for each strike of a multi-strike move. It also allows the user to survive Future Sight and Doom Desire. Why? Hell if I know.
* Brightpowder / Lax Incense (abusive generally, but is more noticeable with Pokemon that have Sand Veil or Snow Cloak)
* Stick / Leek (Stick would apply Gens 2-7, Leek is Gen 8. Both are exclusive to Farfetch'd / Sirfetch'd. 50% crit modifier for free is kind of dumb).

I think these items technically push RNG in the user's favor, but are at this time not necessarily items that are agreed upon as uncompetitive - or at least as clear cut as the above items:

* Scope Lens / Razor Claw (general critical hit items)
* Lucky Punch (nobody is using this on Chansey, but it has to be listed for the sake of technically it pushes an RNG element of sorts if the player was dumb enough to use a move outside of Seismic Toss AND decided Eviolite / Leftovers isn't a real item for some reason. And for those wondering, it has the same effect as Stick and Leek for Chansey. I guess Calm Mind exists and it does get Serene Grace so maybe it's sleeper and I haven't heard its prowess)

And finally I think these are items that technically push RNG in favor for the user, but don't necessarily seem uncompetitive at a glance:

* Wide Lens (only boosts accuracy by 10% - often at the cost of power, durability, or Speed control)
* Zoom Lens (See above, but 20% and requires the holder to move second in a battle)

I feel overall, though, we can certainly differentiate those that have negative uncompetitive effects versus those that are rather difficult to abuse or usually require some form of stacking effects to be effective.

Of course if it's better to ban Scope Lens / Leek / Lucky Punch for consistency, so be it. That said, there have been analyses that have acknowledged the usage of these items and it has occasionally been sets that have been used on some Pokemon (Sniper Kingdra).

 

[quziel]

Hey, so under the dichotomy of legitimate (that is, these items/moves add a not solely pure RNG element) vs illegitimate (these items/moves add a solely RNG element), I think that Leek should probably be moved up to the "uncompetitive" grouping. Unlike Scope Lens, which has a history of being used on Focus Energy sets (mainly on Kingdra), Leek, in practice, is used to give Sirfetch'd a Choice Band 50% of the time, is never used (that I've seen) with Focus Energy, rarely used with Leaf Blade, and really just adds an absolute ton of variance to facing Sirfetch'd.

So yeah, basically, ban Leek for being super RNG-heavy and not really adding any legitimate depth to the game.

 

[Colonel M]

Hey, so under the dichotomy of legitimate (that is, these items/moves add a not solely pure RNG element) vs illegitimate (these items/moves add a solely RNG element), I think that Leek should probably be moved up to the "uncompetitive" grouping. Unlike Scope Lens, which has a history of being used on Focus Energy sets (mainly on Kingdra), Leek, in practice, is used to give Sirfetch'd a Choice Band 50% of the time, is never used (that I've seen) with Focus Energy, rarely used with Leaf Blade, and really just adds an absolute ton of variance to facing Sirfetch'd.

So yeah, basically, ban Leek for being super RNG-heavy and not really adding any legitimate depth to the game.

Not opposed. I only put it there since I don't really have knowledge in terms of NU and I know that Galarian fetch'd in LC seems to favor either Eviolite or Choice Scarf - unless that analysis is dated for some reason or another.

 

[roxie]

Hey, so under the dichotomy of legitimate (that is, these items/moves add a not solely pure RNG element) vs illegitimate (these items/moves add a solely RNG element), I think that Leek should probably be moved up to the "uncompetitive" grouping. Unlike Scope Lens, which has a history of being used on Focus Energy sets (mainly on Kingdra), Leek, in practice, is used to give Sirfetch'd a Choice Band 50% of the time, is never used (that I've seen) with Focus Energy, rarely used with Leaf Blade, and really just adds an absolute ton of variance to facing Sirfetch'd.

So yeah, basically, ban Leek for being super RNG-heavy and not really adding any legitimate depth to the game.

I agree with this also and I wanted to make a post from the NU point of view a few days ago but, Sirfetch'd have been a top breaker in NU and even with Choice Band it's very powerful. Leek pretty much allows it to ignore defensive boosts from Pokemon like Mudsdale and ID Bronzong and freely click moves without the penalty of being locked into one move like Choice Band. It's inconsistent on paper but I don't feel like it's positive at all brainlessly relying on a luck-based item to cheese your way through games. I'm not sure whats LC's stance in regards to Leek or Stick doing the same for Galarian Farfetch'd/Farfetch'd. Here is another member expressing themself about Leek in NU also.

Blastoise and Sirfetch'd are the two most uncompetitive Pokemon in the NU metagame at the moment. Both Pokemon have limited checks and noticeably high odds of breaking their checks. Blastoise may only need a single 20% flinch from Dark Pulse to sweep, and Leek''s 50% crit chance may easily devolve games into the fate of 1 or 2 coinflips. Blastoise's potential was outlined really well by roxiee, and while I don't have the time to do an in-depth review on Sirfetch'd, I really believe the 50% crit rate speaks for itself; it's not competitive. I'm a huge fan of risk management and I'm normally really supportive of it in mons, but these odds on a phenomenal breaker just ain't right

 

[Berks]

I'm under the impression that we prefer to ban Pokemon over items unless the items breaks every Pokemon that benefits from it. For example, in SM LC, we banned Eeveeium Z over Eevee because the item fundamentally broke every Pokemon that benefited from it (just Eevee). However, we banned Porygon over Normalium Z because Porygon was broken with Z-Conversion, but not every Pokemon that benefited from it (including Snivy and other wallbreakers with bad coverage) was broken with it. This was also the case with Soul Dew in past gens of OU, where the item made its only beneficiaries, the Latis, broken. You can also apply that argument to banning certain Mega Stones - Kangaskhanite broke the only Pokemon that it benefited.

Under that logic, shouldn't the ban be pointed at Cloyster, and not at King's Rock? You can make an argument that Cloyster is uncompetitive or broken with its combo of Shell Smash, Skill Link, and King's Rock, but you wouldn't reasonably say, I think, that King's Rock breaks Rillaboom. However, King's Rock does situationally benefit Rillaboom if you're lucky. If it is your opinion that such a case breaks Rillaboom and other such Pokemon, I think you have grounds to argue for banning King's Rock; however, I don't think it's a correct assertion.

 

[dice]

I understand the reasoning behind these arguments, but I think they fail to explain how King's Rock specifically is differ than other flinch mechanics -- and until they do so, it seems more of an emotion-based "it feels bad to lose to x" argument than anything else.

King's Rock gives you roughly a 41% to flinch -- that puts it somewhere in the middle of the range of "sweepers who benefit from flinches to break through defensive counterplay". On the extreme end, you have Jirachi / Togekiss / Serene Grace users -- with a 60% flinch chance, it's essentially more "hax" to not get one than it is to get one. On the other end, you have more mild versions, like G-Moltres or past gens Sharpedo, whose main stab has a 20% flinch chance, but has few enough defensive counters that even one flinch can be game-winning. Along with King's Rock, you have other things floating in the middle like non-Serene Grace Iron Head / Air Slash users, King's Rock Cinccino, etc.

I agree with the sentiment that it feels terrible to load up strong defensive answers to one of these threats and lose to a series of flinches -- but I'm having a hard time discerning what makes King's Rock specifically different from the others, and I think that needs to be more rigorously addressed before any ban takes place.

The other point i want to discuss is that other item options Cloyster might bring would be "not RNG" whereas King's Rock is "pure RNG". I think this distinction is a little bit obtuse -- it doesn't really capture what these items do, and how they essentially function as RNG even if the mechanic they're based on isn't directly random. Let's take an example like Lum Berry, or a resist Berry -- in cases where sweepers bring these items, they're essentially rolling the dice on their opponent trying to status them, or trying to hit them with a specific super-effective move. Bringing White Herb is rolling the dice on the opponent having counterplay that can damage them but not kill them but otherwise would have.

I realize that all sounds a little dumb -- and I'm not saying Lum Berry is the same thing as King's Rock -- what i'm saying is that sweepers making item choices that can potentially give them a chance to retain their sweep in the face of a defensive answer is not a case unique to King's Rock, and just because you're breaking through because of a 41% RNG chance rather than preventing a KO with a Chople Berry or whatever doesn't really change the fact that you're playing in the realm of uncertainty.

Finally, I think the conceit that you can have a well built defensive team that just immediately loses to one or two flinches is a little hyperbolic. I'd argue that a team that loses to literally one or two flinches is perhaps not the strongest anyway -- if someone rolled up to a UU tournament with a team that lost to two Jirachi Iron Head flinches, no one would commiserate -- they just brought a shitty team. If we're talking about something like 5 flinches in a row -- sure, that sucks, but that's also astronomically unlikely -- and at that point you may as well institute some sort of weird complex ban on back-to-back crits, because it's equally as likely for that to happen instead.

Put simply, I don't think the number of games where a well-built team loses to constant back-to-back Cloyster flinches is that meaningfully large -- 60% of the time, King's Rock will actively be worse than every other item. 38% of the time, it'll nab one or two flinches and maybe break through one answer but die to the next. And for the 2% of the time that it's unreasonably lucky and manages to win a game that it shouldn't have -- yeah, that sucks. But those games could just have easily been lost to a crucial crit, or triple back to back scald burns, or ridiculous min/max rolls, or any other element of variance present in the game. I don't think King's Rock is a distinct enough case to warrant being singled out.

I find that too much theory when discussing Pokemon often leads to sophistry. While I do believe this thread has brought to light an underrepresented counterargument in the OP, the opportunity cost of giving up your item, your post fails to contextualize the brutality of King's Rock in conjunction with a +2 +2 +2 sweeper.

You're right, no one should really complain about losing to two Iron Head flinches. That's because Steel is one of the worst offensive typings in the game, is on a Pokemon that really lacks an efficient boosting move, and it is incredibly easy to shift momentum against with any defensively leaning team. If we're discussing Cloyster, we're talking about a Pokemon with one of the best offensive typings in the game which gets set-up on Ground-types, one of the most necessary defensive typings in the game. I don't believe we can compare paltry hax like Scald burns or Jirachi flinches to a Pokemon which can almost guarantee a solid sweep with one flinch. While these forms of hax can certainly be gamebreaking (note that new gen mechanics nerf this incredibly), the metagame has shifted to account to mitigate these forms of hax. Suggesting that "I think the conceit that you can have a well built defensive team that just immediately loses to one or two flinches is a little hyperbolic," is ironically hyperbolic in its own premise, because it's nigh-on impossible to be more fortified against Cloyster than teams already are without conceding to other threats. Should we start carrying 2.5 bulky waters on every team?

While I don't have answers regarding the parameters and exact implementation of a ban, I also would like to suggest that we should be cautious in our approach. If we have to return a few weeks later and ban another item, so be it: I'd rather be deliberate and self-reflexive than heavy-handed.

Much like Earthworm suggested, I also am a fan and proponent of hax items if they're employed in a riveting fashion. I believe examples throughout this thread have revealed that "hax" items aren't entirely feckless afterthoughts in attempts to cheese better players. In the case of King's Rock Cloyster, I appreciated Myzo's articulation regarding the interactions with Skill Link fishing, differentiating it from more mild "hax" variants.

We should retain the most resources while removing the broken element. Let's focus on what this means and not engage with bad-faith parallels that collapse very different valences of power into a facile understanding of odds-management.

Also: here's an example of a BW team featuring Cloyster if anyone would like some experience with the mechanic in question. I built it specifically to test the limits of the item/Pokemon: https://pokepast.es/3012451bab9ca4d4

 

[Ruft]

I'm under the impression that we prefer to ban Pokemon over items unless the items breaks every Pokemon that benefits from it. For example, in SM LC, we banned Eeveeium Z over Eevee because the item fundamentally broke every Pokemon that benefited from it (just Eevee). However, we banned Porygon over Normalium Z because Porygon was broken with Z-Conversion, but not every Pokemon that benefited from it (including Snivy and other wallbreakers with bad coverage) was broken with it. This was also the case with Soul Dew in past gens of OU, where the item made its only beneficiaries, the Latis, broken. You can also apply that argument to banning certain Mega Stones - Kangaskhanite broke the only Pokemon that it benefited.

Under that logic, shouldn't the ban be pointed at Cloyster, and not at King's Rock? You can make an argument that Cloyster is uncompetitive or broken with its combo of Shell Smash, Skill Link, and King's Rock, but you wouldn't reasonably say, I think, that King's Rock breaks Rillaboom. However, King's Rock does situationally benefit Rillaboom if you're lucky. If it is your opinion that such a case breaks Rillaboom and other such Pokemon, I think you have grounds to argue for banning King's Rock; however, I don't think it's a correct assertion.

I think this argument pretty much falls apart when you consider that Cloyster is not the only abuser of King's Rock. If you've laddered a good amount in SS OU, there's a good chance that you've also encountered Beat Up Weavile holding King's Rock, as it gives six-hit Beat Up a ~47% chance to flinch. It's hard to argue that this set, among others like it, is fine if you deem King's Rock Cloyster uncompetitive.

(You may even see a team with four different King's Rock users be one flinch away from winning an SPL game, God forbid)

 

[ABR]

less so about kings rock but brightpowder should cleanly fall under evasion clause (alongside sand veil and snow cloak) across all generations

 

[Earthworm]

I think nearly everyone who supports the King's Rock ban is right there with you, we are all trying to maximize the RNG and we don't mind using 'dirty' tactics as you say. But there is a principle we can apply to the tiering of dirty tactics which we get from the BW sleep move ban: the counterplay has to be at least as good as the thing in question. In the case of Attract, Confuse Ray, and Swagger, even paralysis and freezing, there is perfectly reasonable counterplay at all or at least several stages of a game. It would be too much to list here, and I will go into it if needed for each of this listed mechanics, but I think most of us know from experience how to manage these situations through outplaying. My issue with King's Rock is that it is not acceptable to lose a pokemon to 3+ flinches in a row and then be expected to send in another counter to the King's Rock abuser that can then repeat the ridiculous situation. It is not just that the counterplay is insufficient (inner focus mons are rare and tend to not do well against moves that flinch be they the moves King's Rock abusers use or normal flinch moves), but that the abuse of the mechanic is predicated on a hope to completely ignore counterplay.

"Counterplay" does exist for Bright Powder and Lax Incense. It admittedly bestows an advantage of being unknown to the opponent, but it is difficult to take significant advantage of, because the opponent will already be evaluating the risk of attacking with their current Pokemon. For example, if a Zapdos is fighting a Tyranitar, it probably isn't staying in unless it thinks it can deal a KOing blow on that turn. So the Bright Powder Tyranitar would need to be risking getting KOed to induce the opponent to risk attacking anyway. On the other hand, if you know already somehow that they have this item, you may be able to alter your play pattern to a more defensive one and avoid risk; instead of attacking with Zapdos, switch to your Vaporeon--Tyranitar won't gain Leftovers back as you switch.

In many cases the best "counterplay" to any strategy that involves introducing an RNG element is to just roll the dice and hope you don't roll two 1s. My point is that this is a game with a ton of RNG and the best you can hope to do is to do everything in your power to make the situation favourable. Using Bright Powder and Lax Incense is pretty much never the best option since Smogon plays without Item Clause and Leftovers exists (as well as many other items that are actually good these days). Even if your strategy revolves around reducing your foe's chance of hitting you, Leftovers will probably buy you more turns to do that and therefore increase your chances of winning by a greater amount. What I am getting at is that there is no need for counterplay beyond simply playing the game as you would normally (or perhaps adjusting slightly) when the items in question are so weak. We have to accept that in rare cases the worse player might win a game, regardless of whether these items are banned. I'd also argue that these items being allowed is a good thing since they probably increase the opponent of the item user's chances of winning. If the opponent makes the choice of using a weak item and manages to make it somewhat effective, good on them. It is only in cases where the item is actually strong that we should be looking into a ban.

 

[Eternal Spirit]

i wanna add that i run sd sand veil + brightpowder chomp sands in the ladder and never avoided a move

 

[Caetano93]

If we are talking about the fact that "rolling the RNG dice" is the best way to play against Kings Rock / Lax Incense / Quick Claw, then let me remind you that, in BW OU, we banned Sleep moves because games becomes "rolling the RNG dice" with Sleep Talk in almost every tour game.

If there is no reason to keep those items except trolling / let the worst player win by sheer luck, then I really don't see a downside to remove them from Smogon singles.

 

[ABR]

"Counterplay" does exist for Bright Powder and Lax Incense. It admittedly bestows an advantage of being unknown to the opponent, but it is difficult to take significant advantage of, because the opponent will already be evaluating the risk of attacking with their current Pokemon. For example, if a Zapdos is fighting a Tyranitar, it probably isn't staying in unless it thinks it can deal a KOing blow on that turn. So the Bright Powder Tyranitar would need to be risking getting KOed to induce the opponent to risk attacking anyway. On the other hand, if you know already somehow that they have this item, you may be able to alter your play pattern to a more defensive one and avoid risk; instead of attacking with Zapdos, switch to your Vaporeon--Tyranitar won't gain Leftovers back as you switch.

In many cases the best "counterplay" to any strategy that involves introducing an RNG element is to just roll the dice and hope you don't roll two 1s. My point is that this is a game with a ton of RNG and the best you can hope to do is to do everything in your power to make the situation favourable. Using Bright Powder and Lax Incense is pretty much never the best option since Smogon plays without Item Clause and Leftovers exists (as well as many other items that are actually good these days). Even if your strategy revolves around reducing your foe's chance of hitting you, Leftovers will probably buy you more turns to do that and therefore increase your chances of winning by a greater amount. What I am getting at is that there is no need for counterplay beyond simply playing the game as you would normally (or perhaps adjusting slightly) when the items in question are so weak. We have to accept that in rare cases the worse player might win a game, regardless of whether these items are banned. I'd also argue that these items being allowed is a good thing since they probably increase the opponent of the item user's chances of winning. If the opponent makes the choice of using a weak item and manages to make it somewhat effective, good on them. It is only in cases where the item is actually strong that we should be looking into a ban.

the issue with these items is that they often force your opponent to play the odds game. if i want to maximize my overall chances of winning i don’t use cloyster because i don’t wanna rely on 40%s. however, if i face someone who believes said 40%s are either comical or efficient then i have few realistic options other than hoping for my 60%. you can play around scald burns, iron head flinches, and whatever else far more easily. self induced odds (focus blast) are fine because you can avoid use but opponent induced odds uncompetitively force luck based participation (like sleep (which should also be removed from other tiers lol...))

 

[Hipmonlee]

Personally, I am a bit conflicted on this. There is real merit to punishing your opponents further for using 70% accurate moves by putting Bright Powder on your, say, Serperior. I would also say that while this leads to more luck based situations in-game, it still has a very competitive dynamic in the teambuilder begging questions suchs as "is my Torn enough to check Serp?"). Likewise, Wide Lens has been used for similar reasons, and while it alters evasion I don't think anybody would really want that removed.

Just to get back to an old bugbear of mine, brightpowder is less punishing the less accurate an attack is. A 100% accurate attack will miss 10% of the time due to brightpowder, but a 70% accurate move will miss 7% of the time due to brightpowder. This is not a good reason to use brightpowder.

In defence of the luck items, I want to note quick claw in particular is a fun item in a lot of scenarios. It's great against sub stalling, eg. you could basically auto win against classic ADV bp chains trivially by just chucking it on your lead. I also once used it in a tournament where I had to play a 1v1 with Parasect vs a Blaziken or something, and found my best odds of winning were by attempting to get quick claw rolls like 4 turns in a row while using dig. Its a fun item that can be used in a lot of fun ways. It may not be particularly practical in your favourite metagame, but I think its worth hanging on to.

I really think the test is one of brokenness. It seems pretty broken to me to have a mon that you either prepare your sweep and win, or you dont manage to properly prepare your sweep, but you still win 40% of the time, or 16% of the time, or 6.4% of the time depending on how shittily prepared you are. Like, if it's halfway viable, that is obviously bad for the game. Banning kings rock is just the obvious way to address that, it's simple and it has basically no impact on anything else in the tier.

The other luck items, are just not broken... They're not good enough.

 

[Earthworm]

Just to clarify, I'm not going to argue in defense of BW Sleep or King's Rock Shell Smash Cloyster. I support banning things that are unhealthy due to how powerful they are without having adequate counterplay. Despite being forced to roll the dice by your opponent against other RNG-based strategies sometimes, I don't think this is so unhealthy that it needs something as severe as a ban--it's a part of the game, and I would even hesitate to call it unhealthy. I also want to suggest that banning things should be something to do in fairly extreme cases or where there is a very clear benefit that will be felt by players. I don't believe either of those apply to the other "hax items".

 

[Charmflash]

Just to get back to an old bugbear of mine, brightpowder is less punishing the less accurate an attack is. A 100% accurate attack will miss 10% of the time due to brightpowder, but a 70% accurate move will miss 7% of the time due to brightpowder. This is not a good reason to use brightpowder.

Apologies for the short post, but I don't see how Bright Powder being better against fully accurate moves makes it somehow bad in the other scenario. While it's true that the percent reduction is lower, the practical applications of trying to dodge 63% accurate Hurricane (via Sub, or by pairing it with Paralysis) are high enough to warrant it's usecase there, even moreso than randomly trying to dodge 90% accurate moves. However, more importantly, the question shouldn't even be "which is better", it's merely "is usecase 1 good?".

 

[Hipmonlee]

If you have sub, you will dodge more hurricanes with leftovers.

[Edit] - Sorry, baby woke up when I was posting this, so I rushed it.

The reason you would use brightpowder on a set like that is because it gives you a chance to dodge accurate moves. It's misleading to suggest that it is for helping against inaccurate moves---they will miss eventually anyway.

So yeah, the set is fine. But while using brightpowder to get a free turn when you are sub spamming against 100% accurate attacks is a legit strategy, it's also the sort of thing that a lot of people might not really like much. Personally, I am fine with it, I just thought your characterisation of the whole thing was misleading.

 

[Blimax]

Long story Short, get rid of Kings rock, its highly un competitive.
Regarding Sand Veil and other abilities, i think there is counterplay, but Kings Rock flinching is something which is not under your control, even if you try to make 10000000 IQ plays, it wont have any effect as you are gonna get flinched in the end.
Here is a replay, brainless opponent lost all win cons. but who cares, he has a Kings Rock Cloyster which is gonna flinch you every damn time: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1340952944-kqxqe4kpejf6i1mmacu1u0ovopcj3lapw

 

[HailFall]

In my view, items like Kings Rock and Brightpowder detract from the competitiveness of the metagame. Abilities like serene grace and sand veil also do this in some capacity, but these abilities can be on Pokemon that positively contribute to the metagame they are a part of, which justifies their presence somewhat and arguably makes them a net positive. I think this is the crux of the "difference" that was brought up earlier in the thread between kings rock and serene grace.

On the other hand, items like Kings Rock and Brightpowder don't add much of anything to the metagame beyond a way for a player who would otherwise lose to highroll a win. I don't think this is justifiable.

In fact, I would be in favor of a ban on abilities like Serene Grace or Sand Veil under the circumstance that the Pokemon in question has another ability that can be used instead. The reasoning is essentially the same as why I don't think Kings Rock or Brightpowder belong. This doesn't seem likely given Smogon's disdain for complex bans, however.