Aggs

Sylveon Insta'd by 01653678316 through Pro Discord's Silver Trade Channel.

AUCTIONS LAST FOR 72H AFTER 1ST BID Only accept Pokedollars, CC = 420k, IV Reroll = 720k, and Nature Reroll = 360k. Clone Squirtle S.O. 250k Min Raise: 50k Insta: 500k Val Nidoqueen S.O. 350k Min Raise: 75k Insta: 700k

Hello everyone! I'll be selling my non event/shiny Pokes here. ALL POKEMON SELLING HERE ARE AUCTIONED FOR 72 HOURS, UNLESS INSTA IS MET. CC = 420K, IV Reroll = 720K, Nature reroll = 360K. Only the Above items, and Pokedollars, are accepted as bids. All Pokemon will be listed with their S.O., Min Raise, and Insta DIRECTLY BELOW the picture. Please make sure to post any offer or Insta on this thread, or in my In-Game Messages, to confirm the validity of all bids. For Instas or ended auctions, please contact me either through Forum PMs, or my discord Aggs#5274. I am also in PRO Discord as "SMEARGLE DID NOTHING WRONG." Thank you! Potential Megas: Any Pokemon that may obtain a Mega Evolution, whether it is currently available or not, goes in here. PvP Pokes What I considered to be usable in Ranked regardless of viability. Other Pokes Everything else goes into here. This includes Pokemon that could be used in PvP, but recommended that better ones are acquired, or PvE Pokemon.

Auction last for 48h after 1st bid! CC = 420k Only CC or Money Trades! Currently being sold from Silver Server. S.O., Min Raise, and Insta will be listed per auction. Halloween Froakie S.O. 800k Min Raise : 100k Insta : 1.4m

Please say something that actually contributes to discussion and not 1-liner bs ty

Bold + Italics sentences are my responses.

I dont think you understand where I'm coming from. Bottom line, I will abuse this Mon until it's banned, and I'll adapt alright. I guess i tried giving an explanaton on why, but you still don't understand. I can't force you to learn, and if you don't want to learn, be my guest. I gave you a whole book to read, and you read the first line, congrats. Come back when you have something constructive to say.

A quick preface. By "you" I mostly mean as a general sense, and not any particular 1 person for all of these responses to the thread. Well, we just got a handy dandy tool to counteract walls and tanks called Substitute! We've also had Taunt for quite a while now, so I'm here quoting you to inform you about them, so that you may not think of it as a weakness! We do not even have everything from Gen 5 that would possibly be legal in our metagame, it was a mistake period to add Ash-Greninja alone. For starters, we have a pitiful amount of viable Dark resists, which the Tapus, alongside Magearna, were all amazing at. Toxapex is a defensive demon, sure, but it is by far unkillable. It's offensive presence is non existent, making anything that resists water Sub and proceed to abuse the fact that Pex cannot do anything back. Also, if you're gonna suggest something paired with Toxapex, you shoulda thought about the fact that they are both weak to Electric, and Magnezone single handedly beats both 1v1. I think the community needs to understand between the difference between a counter and a check. A COUNTER is something that will 95% of the time ALWAYS come in on said Pokemon, and threaten to kill it immediately. A CHECK is something that can come in more often than not, but under certain circumstances will lose to said Pokemon. Chansey/Blissey - They are a very hard check to Greninja. In a 1v1 scenario, Dark Pulse flinches aside, they will defeat Greninja 1v1. However, every time you want to switch in Chansey or Blissey, Greninja is given the opportunity to Spike. This, in turn, will wear down your mons. Now, every time said Pinky wants to come in on Greninja, it will take 12%. And every time you take this 12%, the opposing Greninja may just attack, or switch out to a partner that threatens Pinky, forcing you to switch out to your check to THAT partner, therefore Pinky has not healed off 12%. This is the case for a lot of these SPDef walls/tanks. These two Pinkies are Walls, as they have reliable recovery to try and stay healthy throughout the game. Goodra/Alolan-Muk - I explained in my post above, and it applies to A-Muk as well. No recovery, easily chipped, exploitable Physical side. These are soft checks at best. If these are your solo Greninja answer, you will lose to any decent Greninja player. Period. Ferrothorn - If we assume that Greninja only clicks the Water Stab, you might as well call Ferrothorn a counter. UNFORTUNATELY, Dark Pulse is the most preferred move to spam, leading Ferro to take way too much, and not having reliable recovery leads to Ferro getting exploited frequently. Losing Ferro's leftovers is essentially spelling the doom, assuming there is a Grass Type on the opposing side. Coupled with the fact that Magnezone has started to rise in usage again (I believe), Ferro is not guaranteed to be around for the long haul. Just a regular check. Mantine - This mon is brought up a lot when talking about BB-Greninja, and it's not without reason. It's got humongous SPDef, reliable recovery in Roost, nice HP. There is, however, a very glaring weakness that causes Mantine to be so easily exploited by BB-Greninja Teams. That weakness is Stealth Rocks. If Heavy Duty Boots were in PRO, I would say without a doubt that Mantine is a hard check to Gren, but that's not the case. You can play as well as you want, but the second you swap in Mantine on a Greninja with Rocks, who in turn swaps out to any Mon with an Electric Move, Mantine is as good as dead. Either you save your Mantine, only to get in range of a potential 2HKO by Specs Dark Pulse (252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Mantine: 94-112 (25.2 - 30%) -- 35.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery, NOT INCLUDING A 30% CHANCE TO FLINCH, leading to be about a 45% to live.) It won't happen every time, but it is about a coin flip every time, and it's already a struggle to hit 90% moves in Pokemon. It's a soft check due to the fact that it is fairly easy to play around. Alomomola - If Substitute wasn't coded still, I could see this mon switching over to a SPDef/Def spread. HOWEVER, if there was one thing that should kill the Fish Overlord's terror on PRO, it was definitely Substitute. This mon cannot do ANYTHING to most Pokemon behind a Sub, as it's offensive presence genuinely doesn't exist. If you cannot abuse this Pokemon's hyper-passive style to generate the most momentum, then no wonder there is a vocal minority that expresses such passionate hate for Stall/FAT. It's a very soft check without running a 1-time-wonder set. Tentacruel - If there was a sorting chart for walls/tanks, Tentacruel would be at the top of "Slow, Unreliable Recovery," right above Heatran. Tentacruel is somewhat similar to Alomomola in passivity, but Tentacruel can force switches with the likes of Acid Spray, Hazes, and Timid sets with Ice Beam. Tentacruel's downsides are that it doesn't have any recovery aside from Black Sludge, and it is usually a hazard remover with its access to Rapid Spin.. With careful play, sure you can get its health back up slowly, but it's very unreliable and cannot bounce off enough damage to last long. It's also a very soft check. Mega-Venusaur - Without going full Calm, Venu cannot reliably even check Greninja, and if mons are forced to run a specific set because of 1 mon, then that is restrictive team building, which is a huge factor in why an unhealthy metagame arises. This is proven by my statement in my last post with the Bold Venu Calc. Venu's low PP count is also an issue in being able to stick around. I would say full Calm is a somewhat soft check but I don't really have anything to back it up. Anything with Mach Punch - Breloom hates other Grass Types, Infernape falls over to Water Shuriken, Conkeldurr is chipped through various means, such as burn, helmet, weather, hazards, and has very very very limited recovery in how much Drain Punch does. I believe the other mach punchers are irrelevant. Scarfers - I explained above, they're unreliable in a 6v6 game. Weather Sweepers - Gren isn't forced to deal with those, but it also takes 2 Mons to even accomplish this, which takes a couple turns AT LEAST to set it up. Many Focus Sash Offensive Mons - Hello, my names are Spikes, Rocks, U-turn, Volt Switch, and Sand, and I'm here to invite you to the Chip Zone! Ah yes, the Dugtrio is the best counter to Chansey/Blissey. Please, let us add back AT Dugtrio. You'll be crying even more about stall, and you'll be looking real mad afterwards. It's nothing official, but I've always said that PRO is a Gen 6 game with Gen 7 Mechanics and a Gen 5 Meta, where rain is up there, people look to balance, and we're scrambling for fighting types. There's a reason Talonflame's Revert was denied by popular vote, and rightfully so. Yeah, it was an almost guaranteed revenge kill for something, but it's also an amazing breaker, which made it near impossible to revenge back with offense. It's role compression was too strong, and therefore nerfed. The current Gen7 Pokes are not causing any notable disturbance in the meta besides Ninetales-Alolan, and Muk-Alolan for a time(Praise Lord Idkup for Muk Stall). Besides those, the Alolan forms are doing almost nothing in the meta, Kommo-o has made a niche for itself as a nice spdef rocker that can take on most defoggers that do not run Brave Bird(looking at Mandi and Skar), and is a fairly decent check to Aegislash, and Ribombee is probably our best Webs setter in terms of Webs-Only, but dedicated webs teams are very far and very few between. So yeah. Is there anything official, or telling that this is based on Smogon? Cause as far as I know there isn't. Yes, they're currently the most popular Competitive Format for 6v6 Singles, but due to coding issues and releases, we cannot directly follow it. For most things, probably, we can look to Smogon and see how they handled the situation, as there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. HOWEVER, as I just said, we cannot directly follow it. Alone, without the Tapus and Magearna, I don't think it's even a possibility that BB-Gren should've been considered for the meta. All you say is "stallers get many things banned" but you have to come to realize that most "stallers" that are being vocal about this are not saying it for the sake of stall. I believe EvilProtag mentioned this before, but Stall only really 6-0's or gets 0-6'd. BB-Greninja doesn't really affect stall in the slightest in terms of raw attacking power. The real losers of this are Balance and Offense, in terms of dealing with BB-Gren. H.O. is also on the fence, but if they move to the team I suggested above, then they'll be able to scoot by, I believe. Slowking. For a Dark Type. You're also thinking very short-term with Conk, in a 1v1 scenario. It's not going to work out, explained above. Honestly, its a pick-your-poison deal. Either no BB-Gren and No Tapus, or both, because the Tapus are the only fairies that have any real shot at handling BB-Gren throughout a game. HOWEVER, Tapu Lele, in PRO's case, is potential no, unless we decide to shift from our Priority-Focused meta. I honestly think people will quit the game because they will have 3 moves on 4 of their pokemon when Psychic Terrain is on the field.

Oh, also, it's not suppose to be use any Hidden Powers except I believe Ghost, due to IV Lock from the In-Game Event. HP Fire is doodoo even if it were real, and you shouldn't even attempt it, please.

Stall is a playstyle. Get over it. This man typed a whole paragraph for you to understand, which gives the rundown on why Ash-Gren is unhealthy for the meta, regardless of whether this meta is "healthy" in general, and you reply with a 1-liner that doesn't pertain to the discussion. If you're argument is "people will use stall regardless," then maybe you should start adapting to the meta I'll get right to the chase. There's only 1 set that BB Gren should ever run, and that one set is the set I will be referencing here. The team style that suffers the most from this is Balance. Greninja excels at exuding offensive pressure, and BB Greninja sets rewards the user with spikes. Spike stacking, in turn, will force X mon to defog or spin, which forces a loss of momentum. Gren and its team starts to take advantage of this by upping the momentum for the user. Key mons in balance cores, such as Heatran, whose only recovery revolves around Leftovers (and in the case of Gen7, Grassy Terrain), despise hazards. It limits how many times they can come in to check the mons they are suppose to. Now, as I'm sure you're aware of, Regen cores that are available to PRO, such as Tangrowth/Amoonguss + Tornadus-T + Slowbro do not contain a sufficient enough of defensive presence to actually handle Dark Pulse spam with any hazard up: 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Amoonguss: 139-165 (32.2 - 38.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Black Sludge recovery (Amoonguss will most likely not run full spdef, but this is a Best Case for Amoonguss.) 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Tangrowth: 120-142 (29.7 - 35.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Tornadus-Therian: 121-144 (33.4 - 39.7%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock 1. The problem is that BB Gren, after getting an eventual kill on any unboosted mon, if not the lead, you will be forced to run at least 2 extreme speed mons just for Ash-Gren. Water Shuriken does too much to any current H.O. team, and Banded Dnite is only as good as what you can hit with it. If you extreme speed the Gren, cool, but will any decent player allow you to do that? Anything after that just becomes a lot of theory which is way too unreliable to fall back on. Scarf Pokes are by no means reliable if you are assuming a 6v6 and not a 1v6. It's really player-dependent, and any loss of momentum, being forced to switch out on a wrong move in the mid-game should transition into a loss. I hear you hate the rain meta. Well, let me tell you, rain will become one of the most dominate teams in the meta, and BB Gren being around just makes it worse. So, you know how Chansey is suppose to sit in front of Greninja? It'd be a shame if it were paired with the best Swift Swimmer Mega Pert, one of the best Knock Off users in Tornadus-T, the demonic Ferrothorn, the catalyst Pelipper, and a 6th mon of your choice, where popular options are Manaphy and Azumarill, while other popular options, such as Magearna and Kartana, are not available. If you want to compare Gen7 OU AT ALL to PRO, you will realize that once Mega Swampert comes out, we will have Gen 7 Z-less Rain. This is a huge problem because PRO is not equipped to deal with this team at all, without the meta becoming a clash between Rain and Rain-Counter teams. There's a reason Rain in Gen 7 had 5 locked slots in the team, and if you want to advocate for that, be my guest, but you're defending one of the things you have stated that you do not like about PRO. 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Water Shuriken (20 BP) (3 hits) vs. 152 HP / 4 SpD Conkeldurr in Rain: 354-423 (91 - 108.7%) -- approx. 50% chance to OHKO 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Water Shuriken (20 BP) (3 hits) vs. 248 HP / 240+ SpD Scizor-Mega in Rain: 183-219 (53.3 - 63.8%) -- approx. 2HKO 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey in Rain: 219-258 (31.1 - 36.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes 2. Goodra doesn't get recovery, needs extensive team support, and its Physically squishy side is easily exploited. There's nothing else to say. 3. How easily is easily, when Bold Venu, which I would argue is the popular set of PRO now, does not appreciate any chip whatsoever, which is kind of a problem if you need it to check other Mons, but require full HP to handle Greninja with 1 spike up: 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 68 SpD Venusaur-Mega: 135-159 (37 - 43.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after 1 layer of Spikes 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Venusaur-Mega: 189-223 (51.9 - 61.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO In a perfect game state, I would agree that Bold Venusaur-Mega defeats Greninja 1v1. But unless you achieve that perfect game stat consistently, Gren will be taking advantage of the fact that Venusaur cannot swap into it, and kill other mons to break for its team. 4. Firstly, you named one of five Priority moves that Greninja resists. I'm going to leave it at that. Secondly, H.O. teams will be forced to change to handle BB Gren variants if you do not want to struggle with it as much. Currently, you can have some variance between your leads, Mega, and mons in the back, as not everyone has access to a usable BB Gren now. By using an example of some pokes that Stavd gave, we can assume Future H.O. will be comprised of about 2 Suicide leads, and about 6 Pokemon to choose from in the back, including Mega: Garchomp, Azelf (Leads) Lucario, Breloom, Azumarill[BD], Dnite[DD], Mega Gyara, Mega Scizor (Setup) Azumarill, Dnite (Choiced) Any other current H.O. lead is weak to Water, and therefore has the potential to die to Water Shuriken, which would leave the H.O. player with no Rocks, an Ash-Gren to deal with, and down a sack: So unless you want to have the meta of H.O. be a guessing game, or a game of Roulette, I would assume these mons as H.O. leads will die. As for the rest of the H.O. Squad, you want to claim as many kills as possible before going to the next mon, or setting up for a late-game mon to clean/sweep, by getting chip with your other mons. Which means you will be trading a lot of pokes, and taking damage in the process. Here is some food for thought on the type of damage Ash Gren does (We'll assume no spikes, as if you setup on BB Gren with anything you are asking to lose the game). Calc Dump: As a closer, all this thing does is eat [butt] and is a boon for players with a somewhat extensive knowledge of the game and its mechanics. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk, and I hope this helps people realize that having Clefable or Conkeldurr as our best Dark Resist makes Ash Gren a ticking time bomb, except it doesn't wait for the time to go down, or for you to cut the wrong wire. It decides when to blow. EDIT: Shoutouts to Cyanirl for being my Calc Bot. I told him what I needed as I thought, and he pumped them out for me

Player name: Aggs Showdown name: Brain Laggs Server: Gold Timezone: GMT -7 Rank on ladder: 3rd Great job Ascen, taking up a lot of ladder spots. Keep it up!

600k

1.2m on the careful sableye

I'll start 1m

Player Name: Aggs SD: Brain Laggs Server: Gold Timzone: GMT -7 Rank: 2

Hello, I do not have Tutor Heaven on the right account. Currently, it is on my Silver account, which happened to be on Gold during the ladder reset, and I missed my opportunity to switch back beforehand. I would like it to be on my Gold, if possible. Thank you!

Player name: Aggs Showdown name: Aggs Server: Gold Timezone: GMT -7 Rank on ladder: 8th(by Winrate)

Player Name: Aggs SD: Wallero Stallero Timezone: GMT-7 Rank on Ladder: Gold 14th

Player Name: Aggs SD: Wallero Stallero Gold Server GMT -8 Rank: 3rd

Username: Aggs Server: Gold Country/Timezone: USA / GMT -8 Good luck to everyone!

Neither Ash Gren nor Protean Gren are banned in Gen7OU, however, in Gen6OU, Greninja was banned in a similar fashion that Lando-I was in Gen6OU. Yeah, Blissey/Chansey get trapped by Dugtrio. But you know what's worse? Your Wallbreaker getting trapped, and you are against stall. A Dugtrio Stall is absolutely choking the metagame it exists in. A response to the old Dugtrio Unban thread: I don't think we can compare Manaphy's ban in BW to PRO, as weather from Abilities was Permanent unless changed otherwise are not exactly available to us in PRO. Pokemon deemed too unhealthy are banned, and ones that are not either stay, or fall off. It's the same with legendaries that are not box-arts. A Pokemon's Legendary or Mythical status hasn't affected its viability, and would have the same impact overall if it were a regular Pokemon. Lando-I, in my eyes, promotes a faster metagame. The shift may be difficult at first, but I assure you that it being difficult in the beginning is normal. I don't believe that Lando-I is going to put a chokehold on the meta, but more of a presence that just can't be forgotten. This faster meta, I assume, wants to revolve around somewhere between 309(Jolly Lando-T) and 328(Base 100, such as Manaphy). Of course, there are going to be the faster mons, and the slower ones, but this is just to give a general idea. Currently, I would say we are fluttering around 259(Ada Dragonite) and 284(Probably Toge's fault entirely), or 302(Jolly Excadrill), but its nothing objective. I just hope that the accessibility of the Kami Trio will shift us enough to the point of balance between as many team archetypes as possible.

Woops, pressed enter while writing this. This text will be deleted when my post is finished c: TL;DR Baton Pass is not overpowered for the meta currently. Free Turns, Free Turns, Free Turns. ASSUME SCOLIPEDE IS THE BATON PASSER UNLESS OTHERWISE MENTIONED Baton Pass as an archetype thrives on attempting to force the opponent into giving you free turns, and turning those free turns into advantage, such as a Speed Boosted Togekiss or Manaphy. The receiver is determined based on both teams, and which is more likely to actually end the game. Togekiss and Manaphy pair well, as they accomplish similar things while also covering for each other. Both are fairly bulky SPATK setup mons that can beat Chansey and Blissey 1v1 due to the nature of their resilience to status, through Heal Bell and Hydration respectively. Manaphy is better for taking on teams that have more Flying resists and good Steel Priority, namely Heatran, Magnezone, and Scizor, whereas Togekiss is better at taking down the bulky Grasses and Water Immunities for Manaphy. Along with a Rocks Setter and good breakers, you get an Offensive team meant to capitalize on passive play, and meant to steamroll through slower games. However, there are quite a few flaws to a Baton Pass team built this way. For starters, if Baton Pass is against a faster-paced team, such as Volt-Turn offense or H.O., then Baton Pass realistically has no opportunity to start the train going, because there are almost never free turns. In PRO, there is no Substitute, which is the beholder of taking advantage of free turns, which forces the Baton Pass user to actually play the game, rather than twiddling their thumbs and pressing buttons in an un-interactive way. Protect is also not coded correctly, in the sense that you cannot Protect again after failing to Protect due to a switch, which gives away the free Speed that Baton Passers just love, although this is more than compensated by the Volt-Turn +1 Speed. Also in PRO, ANY NON-SPEED STAT LOWERING EFFECT WILL EFFECTIVELY SHUT DOWN SPEED PASSING. This is easily accessible, ranging from Intimidate, to Defog, or any drop from moves such as Shadow Ball, Moonblast, Play Rough, Earth Power, the rarer Energy Ball, and so on(These moves were listed first as they were the moves that came to mind if the Baton Passer was forced into a position to be swapped in). These moves, alongside the option of Haze, Roar, Whirlwind, and Dragon Tail, make any time spent getting Speed and Attack/Spatk boosts utterly wasted. Lastly, due to the common weaknesses of Rock and Electric between the main 3-centric baton core of Scoli/Mana/Toge, forcing another member of their team to take unfavorable damage on the Pass will severely hinder their ability to dissemble your own team. Just a little tidbit for other Passers: Espeon tl;dr Just hit it lol Espeon is so frail that attacking it before it can Calm Mind is just imperative. Doing anything else is essentially throwing, there isn't an easier way to put it. Bold Espeon is too slow to the point that slower threats such as Dragonite, Chandelure, and other Pokemon around that speed or faster, never allow it to get free turns. Timid is nearly the embodiment of paper, so if you sneeze on it, it'll surely faint. A Focus Sash cannot save Espeon from the Pursuit Trappers, as it fails to OHKO any of them with realistic moves (HP Fighting for Weavile and Bisharp), and will always be 2HKO regardless (OHKO in Tyranitar Case thanks to Sand). Rotom-Wash using Volt Switch into any Pursuit Trapper is the doom of Espeon. Rotom is almost always top 10 usage at worst, and with the rise of Muk-Alolan or the existing Weavile, this scenario is more than likely to turn the game to 5v6. Potential Offense before a Baton Pass or Calm Mind: [spoiler=Timid SPATK/SPEED Espeon]252 SpA Espeon Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Weavile: 200-236 (71.1 - 83.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252 SpA Espeon Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Greninja: 258-304 (90.5 - 106.6%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO 252 SpA Espeon Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Garchomp: 200-236 (56 - 66.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252 SpA Espeon Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ferrothorn: 172-204 (48.8 - 57.9%) -- 45.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (Running HP Fire means you will always lose to Gengar if you are not running Focus Sash) 252 SpA Espeon Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 232-276 (65.9 - 78.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery [spoiler=Bold HP/DEF Espeon]0 SpA Espeon Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Weavile: 166-196 (59 - 69.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 0 SpA Espeon Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Greninja: 214-252 (75 - 88.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 0 SpA Espeon Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Garchomp: 166-196 (46.4 - 54.9%) -- 64.5% chance to 2HKO Potential Defense before a Baton Pass or Calm Mind: [spoiler=Timid SPATK/SPEED Espeon]252 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja U-turn vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Espeon: 361-429 (133.2 - 158.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Espeon: 208-246 (76.7 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Espeon: 304-359 (112.1 - 132.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO 0 Atk Ferrothorn Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Espeon: 200-236 (73.8 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 0 Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball (143 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Espeon: 220-261 (81.1 - 96.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Espeon: 247-292 (91.1 - 107.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Leftovers recovery 252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Espeon: 278-330 (102.5 - 121.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252 SpA Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Espeon: 272-324 (100.3 - 119.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO [spoiler=Bold HP/DEF Espeon]252 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja U-turn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Espeon: 237-281 (70.9 - 84.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Espeon: 304-359 (91 - 107.4%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Leftovers recovery 252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Espeon: 186-218 (55.6 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 252 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Espeon: 208-247 (62.2 - 73.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 252 SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Espeon: 169-201 (50.5 - 60.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and trapping damage It just gets eaten alive, without enough offensive pressure to always get the kill, without Focus Sash as Timid. I kind of find it depressing that Espeon doesn't even OHKO a Greninja with a -SpDef Nature as Bold, but that's not the point here. What's the counterplay to an Espeon in a match up of the likes of Chansey or MG Clefable, where they are not able to put out that kind of pressure immediately? In the case of Chansey, there's almost nothing you can do, to be honest. Chansey is a Pokemon that gives heaps of free turns more often than not, and setup Pokemon always take advantage of Chansey, Espeon is no different. It's similar to the MG Clef case, due to Magic Bounce blocking status moves targeting the Opponent. MG Clef's best option is to go into a teammate that can pressure the Espeon. This is, however, considering ALL of Espeon's options. An Espeon with Stored Power will beat an Unaware Clef with enough boosts, but early on Espeon will not threaten Chansey or Blissey enough. With a low base HP, Timid Espeon just doesn't have the time to pummel over the SpDef giants: +2 252 SpA Espeon Stored Power (100 BP) vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 208-246 (29.5 - 34.9%) -- 13.6% chance to 3HKO (Alongside +2 Spdef that comes with calm mind) Espeon has to be used towards the end of mid-game to warrant any real threat, if any at all. It's just not good. Literally any other Current Baton Passer: It's pretty much the same as Espeon, whereas if you don't give free turns, they will not get the momentum they need to snowball. Aside from Togekiss and Mew, all of the other passers lack any offense whatsoever on their own. Just hit them with decent moves or taunt them. Please. Don't give them free turns, and you will be in a much better spot. I've pretty much repeated the same thing quite a bit by now: Do not give free turns. What does this exactly mean? Giving away a free turn is doing something that does not apply pressure on the opponent that turn, such as healing, switching, or using a status move, and it going unpunished. Depending on the situation, these moves may go punished. However, these options may allow your opponent to do the same thing. The severity of the punishment is what truly decides whether a turn is free or not. A couple of example situations: [spoiler=Examples]Player 1 - Player 2 Gliscor vs Rotom-Wash - Gliscor is Swapped Out for Ferrothorn, and Rotom-Wash Defogs away Stealth Rocks and Spikes. This situation is essentially a free turn for both players, however, this creates an extra free turn for Player 1, as Rotom-Wash(without HP Fire or Wisp) cannot punish Ferrothorn directly. I would say that Player 1 won out of that exchange. Player 1 - Player 2 Scolipede vs Rotom-Wash(Specs) - Scolipede uses Baton Pass, and switches in Garchomp, and Rotom-Wash Hydro Pumped, landing the hit. This situation just turned sour for Player 1, as they were expecting a Volt Switch from Rotom-Wash. They attempted to make the most of their turn, by trying to get in Garchomp without taking damage. This also wastes the turn or turns spent adding Speed Boosts, as now Garchomp is susceptible to a Priority Attack, if it didn't die to Hydro Pump already. Player 2 won the exchange. And, to top it all off, I will add 3 replays, 2 from the most recent Ladder Tournament, and one from the 24th Ladder Tournament(Started in Sept. 2019), which showcases exactly what happens when Baton Pass is given free turns, with a short analysis of the turns given away for free, and what could've been done to prevent it. Replay 1: Volbeat Baton Pass. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-1095421229 [spoiler=Analysis] Stall vs Baton Pass is a terrible match up for stall no matter how you look at it. Baton needs to run stallbreakers such as Heal Bell Plot Roost Togekiss, or Rain Dance Manaphy, to have a shot at getting through an evenly-skilled player, and these stallbreakers do their jobs well. This game shows why giving away free turns so easily is a loss for stall. Turn 1: Chansey vs Dugtrio - Chansey is Switched to Amoonguss, Dugtrio gets up Rocks. It's Stall vs Baton Pass, and the suicide lead is gonna get up rocks. There isn't much you can do to stop the rocks here. Swapping out was the most poor decision here in my opinion, as at least trading Stealth Rocks means the Stall Player can start racking up damage as the Baton Player switches. Giving any type of offensive team free SR with no contesting is a huge problem already. Baton 1 - 0 Stall Turn 2: Amoonguss vs Dugtrio - Dugtrio uses Earthquake, Amoonguss uses Spore. The Dugtrio has absolutely 0 reason to switch out, as it getting spored is best case scenario, meaning Amoonguss cannot spore anything else. Giga Drain(assuming it has it) would've been the best decision by far, as it would mitigate the Earthquake impact immediately. The turn doesn't have immediate impact, but is crucial for the long-term. Baton 2 - 0 Stall Turn 3: Amoonguss vs Dugtrio - Dugtrio is Switched to Volbeat, Amoonguss uses HP Ice. If the Stall Player had used Giga Drain the previous turn, I would not think that the HP Ice play would not have been as bad, as it does more to the potential Volbeat than Giga Drain would. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Based on the damage, we can assume the Volbeat is some +Spdef nature. Damage on Volbeat is crucial, so if the Baton Pass is thwarted, then Volbeat cannot attempt a huge push again. Baton 3 - 0 Stall Turn 4: Amoonguss vs Volbeat - Amoonguss is Switched to Zapdos, Volbeat uses Tail Glow. NO! No no no no no! You cannot ever do this. This is the most free turn that Volbeat could have gotten. Based on this play, and this play alone, I know the Stall Player is inexperienced with stall. That switch-out means this Amoonguss does not have Clear Smog, which is essential on a team that is weak to MG Clefable with Toxic. The score for the Baton - Stall does not matter, as no amount of points can measure how much momentum is gained here. Turn 5: Zapdos vs Volbeat - Volbeat uses Tail Glow, Zapdos uses Heat Wave. Finally, the Volbeat gets hit for real, but at this point it's too little too late. It's at +6 now, and is ready to Baton Pass. Turn 6: Zapdos vs Volbeat - Zapdos is switched to Chansey, Volbeat Baton Passes to Nidoking. Once again, even at this position, YOU CANNOT SWITCH LIKE THIS, YOU GIVE A FREE TURN AND LOSE HARDER. Going for any damage at all is necessary, or otherwise you will get swept. In 6 turns, the Stall Player has attacked twice. That's 4 turns of freedom within 6 turns, and a team given 4 turns of freedom in that short amount of time should essentially win the game on the spot. And that is what happened. Turn 7: Chansey vs Nidoking - Nidoking uses Focus Blast and misses, Chansey uses Stealth Rocks. Look, I cannot believe that games similar to this are deemed as Baton Pass being broken. Of course a +6 Nidoking is broken, it took 3 turns to setup. But when players, who are suppose to be at the higher end of skill in PRO, cannot deal with a Baton Team in a meaningful way, there really is no one to blame besides the player base's willingness to improve. You can say that at this point, it wouldn't matter what the Chansey goes for, and it may be because of a tilt factor. But this game is just one example of a free win for Baton Pass, because the opponent does not challenge it. Replay 2: Togekiss Baton Pass. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-979595157 To Be Continued

Player name: Aggs Showdown name: Wallero Stallero Server: Gold Timezone: GMT -8 Rank on ladder: 1

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