Hello,

 

Smeargle is still banned from boss fight, would it be possible to unban it ? Or provide a reason why it was banned ? Would be nice to know somewhere what poke are banned in non pvp mode.

 

Thank you, 

 

Baiby

+1

Not a Team member, but I've read arount for a while:

Smeargle is banned because it can have any movepool you want, making it an overpowered option in whatever position you want it in.

So you could habe him as a baton passer (with Coil + QuiverDance (Plus Substitue an Baton Pass), or as a perfect debuffer/Hazzarder or even Sweeper (with or without Setup)

So to encourage varirity (there are meta choises but because of other restrictions most of them have (sometimes small) drawbacks), it was decided to bann him for Bosses. Keep in mind, that at the time it was legal to have each Pokemon more than once so a 6 Smaergle team would have been possible.

And thought that's not the case anymore, I still think he'd reduce variety, so

-1

 

Edit:

To quote from this (https://pokemonrevolution.net/forum/topic/194267-using-baton-pass-to-clear-late-game-bosses/#findComment-1102907) discusion, where my betters put it better😅:

[...] Smeargle was plain broken in bosses, it wasn't just the Sleep + Substitute + Setup + Baton Pass combo, it also had other sets that could be exploited and have a near 100% if not 100% winrate on hard. The nerf still hurt a lot though, many players are currently frustrated due to the most flexible pokemon in existence (but also the easiest to exploit with) being banned.[...]

Edited October 6, 2025Oct 6 by Momot