RBY OU PP should ban Chansey

[Isa]

It is my opinion that Chansey should be banned from RBY OU/1U.

Here's every 1U Pokémon in the game, listed. I'll list Chansey's matchups in a fresh 1v1. Assume that Chansey is using the standard Softboiled/Thunderbolt/Thunder Wave/Ice Beam set.

Chansey - 50/50 decided entirely by RNG, notoriously unhealthy for the metagame by being decidedly random.
Exeggutor - Sleep beats everything, otherwise, Chansey wins. Exeggutor can boom to trade at best.
Snorlax - Chansey cannot get paralyzed and thus wins vs. the standard 4 attacks Snorlax by virtue of Thunder Wave + Softboiled + the 5HKO from Thunderbolt. Rest sets are a wash, Ice Beam allows you to freeze to win.
Tauros - Thunder Wave and then Chansey 4HKOs. Tauros can fish for critical hits but even if he gets two straight BSlam critical hits it'll be gimped. HBeam crit can always bail Tauros out of course.
Alakazam - almost a wash. Neither side wants to attack too much so that it can conserve PPs. Psychic can force our Chansey though and Seismic Toss adds additional attacking PP, so let's call this a win for Alakazam. Seismic Toss Chansey is less troubled by Alakazam and can win with some timely FPs, making it more of a wash.
Starmie - Starmie loses handily.
Lapras - Sing and thus Sleep beats everything, otherwise Chansey wins. Thunderbolt 3HKOs and you're not likely to freeze before that, and because you're a Water type you can't restloop.
Slowbro - Thunderbolt and Thunder Wave are solid threats. Slowbro needs to dodge critical hits and untimely FPs for some 6-7 turns, but wins beyond that. I don't know the math but it's quite even I'd guess, with Chansey being favored?
Zapdos - again, I don't know the math, but I know that I'm not sad if I can paralyze Zapdos and then switch out Chansey safely. Even if not, Chansey has good tools to combat Zapdos with Thunder Wave and Ice Beam. Reflect SToss set makes this even easier.
Gengar - Sleep beats everything, but Explosion doesn't even OHKO with a max roll and otherwise Chansey just slowly wins this matchup.
Golem - Ice Beam 2HKOs and Golem has to boom. Earthquake isn't even a likely 2HKO.
Jolteon - high variance matchup. I don't know the math but if Jolteon is reasonably lucky with DKick/FPs it should be won by Jolteon 75% of the time or so. You pay a steep price though by getting paralyzed.
Jynx - can technically Restloop Thunderbolts, but I've tried to do that too many times only to get an untimely critical hit in my face. Still not bad for Jynx overall.
Cloyster - Clamp/Wrap beats everything slower. A miss means Cloyster's a goner though, TWave and TBolt both cripple Cloyster hardcore. Do ya feel lucky, punk? Explosion can trade.
Dragonite - See above.


The trend in the above list is that there's nothing that clearly beats Chansey and apart from Alakazam, everything that actually does loathes taking Thunder Wave. This is a major part of RBY as it is currently shaped - just the threat of Thunder Wave is enough to make a lot of Pokemon that usually beats Chansey switch out, as their one-turn damage output is just too low.

If you change Chansey to a Seismic Toss/Reflect/Thunder Wave/Softboiled set, you defeat everything relying on physical attacks even easier, at the cost of not defeating Starmie/Rest Lapras(???)/opposing unparalyzed Chanseys as easily. These two sets combined makes Chansey undefeatable "in the teambuilder".

If you accept tanking paralysis with Chansey, you lose versus physical attackers, but they still loathe Thunder Wave so you can cripple them and switch out if need be.

The matter of fact is that Chansey has literally no matchups where you can prepare in the teambuilder and feel like you've always got a way to wear down Chansey, unless you're going to Explode - but all booms that target Chansey are telegraphed. Out of Gengar, Exeggutor, Golem and Cloyster, the only one you'd switch in on Chansey is Exeggutor, and even then its accepting that you're getting 3HKOd. Reflect Chansey also makes it a moot point to explode on it to begin with. A well played Chansey always goes at least one for one as it spreads paralysis, chip damage and even if it in the end takes a boom and dies, it still was the biggest hindrance to your opponents team up until that point.

Meanwhile, Chansey has a distinctively hindering effect on RBY's metagame. Its existance holds back a plethora of Pokémon on the special side and even some on the physical side, as it is bulky to the point of ridiculousness and has no exploitable weaknesses. You always need a combination of Pokémon to beat it and it has no viable hard counters, only temporary stops that makes it switch out for some time.


If Pokémon Perfect is truly serious about testing everything to create healthy metagames, then the assumption that Chansey is healthy in RBY 1U should be challenged more seriously than it currently is.


If I am not tired tomorrow (which I am now), I might add something regarding Reflect SToss Chansey, but I think you've all seen that enough to know how impactful and mindblowingly frustrating/boring it is to face.


ban chansey and make rby fun again.

 

[Roostur]

This reminds me of the Snorlax issue in gsc. At the end of the day you have to just accept the game for better or for worse. We can't forget why we all signed up to pokemon websites to play pokemon tournaments. We did it because we wanted to test our skills against players across the world online in Pokemon rby gsc adv whatever. People aren't coming here to play your version of the game. They just want to play the game as close to the original as possible. I understand the desire for change and more variety but that is not the point of competitive pokemon. The point is to see who is the best in whatever specific pokemon game you like. I and every other gen 2 player have to look at snorlax's fat ass every. single. day. But game freak put him in the game, and it is their game and not mine. I have to deal with it. People want to be good at their pokemon game, not my pokemon game or your pokemon game.

Unless something is just flat out broken, like the legendary pokes who are designed to be broken, it doesn't really warrant a ban.

 

[terpnation]

Chansey belongs in 1U but a "no big 4" (hence no Chansey) tier would be fun.

 

[Disaster Area]

This is super interesting. I will say that I don't want to ban Chansey and that I think that a large part of why I think that is because I'm so used to it. I also think this gives me some perspective on how GSC players feel when people say ban Snorlax. Curiously I did actually have the opinion that we should ban Chansey for a short time during the start of 2015 after the mechanical shift, but then I improved as a player and adapted my play and changed my opinion.

I think it does open up very interesting questions about brokenness. RBY 1U is 'fine' with Chansey and GSC 1U is 'fine' with Snorlax, the metagames themselves are very much playable and are, arguably, very competitive too. At the same time they clearly warp the metagames around them in some way.

I think one aspect of when something feels broken to a player vs when something doesn't is what Pokemon it forces you to use. For example, with Chansey in RBY 1U, the Pokemon you're using to beat it: Snorlax, Alakazam, and so on, are going to be very good Pokemon in the metagame even if you ban Chansey. In GSC 1U, Steelix, Skarmory, Tyranitar, and so on are going to be good Pokemon even if you ban Snorlax (though I think that is less clear). In RBY 2P, Articuno and Moltres forced you to run Pokemon like Dewgong and Omastar which are bad Pokemon when you remove the legendary birds. In RBY 4U, Nidoking doesn't really have any counters or anything either, but the Pokemon you use to handle it: Venomoth, Porygon, Blastoise, and so on, are going to be good Pokemon in the tier anyway.

So maybe what I'm trying to say is that I, personally, only really feel convinced something is broken on top of being extremely powerful, when the Pokemon which you use to handle it are otherwise pretty ineffective choices in the metagame.

That's my personal sense and that's why I personally don't think Chansey is broken. I am however interested in hearing you elaborate on why you think it is broken: I think anyone who thinks there isn't a case to be made for it isn't being honest with themselves.

Also, terpnation we already have that, it's called RBY 1V, and it's playable on the Pokemon Perfect server my friend

 

[Lutra]

I actually like mons like Chansey that can act as walls and set up the challenge of breaking them down, by analysing your opponent's rhythm. I feel biding your time is what makes it fun, rather than contemplating what to sacrifice regularly.

I don't like 2U and tiers that are more offensive at all.

Powerful tanks like Mew and Mewtwo, and to a lesser extent Snorlax, Slowbro is where I feel the defensiveness is unfair because it can rely on critical hits and/or multiple FPs to take them out while they can hit hard back.

 

[Lusch]

That is an interesting topic. I have theorized for myself countless times about how "broken" Chansey is.

I think Disaaster Area said two important things, the first one being that he does not want to ban Chansey but the reason for that probably being that he is just used to it, which realisticlly should not be a real reason imo. The second one being that everyone who rejects the idea of Chansey being broken in RBY at all is fooling themselves.

Just an example, you play a ladder battle vs someone who might not be as invested in the game and uses a non-standard team with a lot of niche mons (He's using Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise for example). You know how I beat that guy? I just park my Chansey in front of him and 6-0 him... Chansey (like Isa explained) just beats everything 1v1. It's bulk on both sides is ridiculous for a Recover user (yes Starmie is more physically bulky and gets Recover, but it a) can get paralyzed by Body Slam and b) has an actual weakness, which Chansey does not [fighting, lol]). Back to my example: Even if my opponent was not a very competitve player, the fact that I can just counter his entire team with my Chansey tells you something, practically no other Pokemon could do that (ignoring the Ubers).
And to be completely honest, that kind of logic can be transfered to a more competitive level (your opponent can now be a "better" player, it won't matter). Chansey just keeps so many theoretically great (or at least decent) Pokemon in RBY from being anywhere near to usable in OU, it is just ridiculous. (at least in theory, cause you know... how should one really know, we have never tried it without Chansey before (at least I have never seen it since I am around)).

Bottomline, I would really be interested in trying out Chansey-less RBY (like seriously, how can anyone who plays this tier competitvely just casually say Chansey is not broken and not even discuss it, that is just ridiculous).
Wether or not this gets seriously considered, I can say that I like the game the way it is but truly believe that I will probably like it more with Chansey banned. Clearly it is playable with Chansey and I believe I am in a position where I can say that I get along with the way things are in RBY right now, so I have not really any personal gain from it other than playing a tier that -probably- leaves more room for innovation than the current one, which I find positive.

 

[Peasounay]

I must say I’m not convinced by your aguments at all. A lot of the examples your give are exaggerated and taken out of the context of a real battle, like when you describe the Snorlax or Tauros match-up, we all know Chansey is almost always paralysed when it faces these two (Reflect Chansey vs Lax is a different story but I’ll come back to it later), and you do as if it’s not the case. The way you describe most of these match-ups are kinda wrong, or at least they’re too theorical and don’t take into account how they really occur in actual games. Honestly if you don’t consider Zapdos, a mon who 3HKOs 75% of the time with Drill Peck and who has a 20% crit rate a good enough tool to beat BeamBolt Chansey I don’t know what to tell you. It usually happens endgame when the opponent doesn’t have much room to do the play you describe (twave switch out, and if it does that you damage more of the opposite team and Chansey is left at a dangerous range).

It’s only one example I don’t want to detail all of them but describing Jynx vs Chansey is irrelevant because the Chansey player will go to a physical attacker when Jynx Rests to pressure it so having Chansey « critting and winning » doesn’t happen in reality, and if this match-up is forced for example in the endgame Jynx wins because of spec falls (again, I expect Chansey to be paralysed at this point because I take into account what mostly happens in battles). You don’t even mention things like Psychic Starmie or Slowbro against Stoss variants (Slowbro is a very good mon to beat chansey in the endgame lol crits aren’t threatening I prefer facing a Chansey trying to crit than a Starmie trying to crit), even other considerable tools Confuse Ray Lapras, Sub Rhydon against Reflect, you have so many ways of pressuring Chansey, it’s passive and isn’t very threatening offensively. It’s annoying to kill (or can be) but as Lutra said, good players know how to take it down, worse player struggle, do you see where I’m going ? It doesn’t brainlessely steamroll an entire team, it even makes the better player win more because it can be difficult to play around sometimes. I’m all for that.

Also just for the record, most chansey wars are not « 50/50 », I assume you’re thinking of freeze wars, I’ve seen all the RBY series this SPL, I’m sure I haven’t seen more than like 3 in total, there’s almost always at least one player who takes the paralysis + Snorlax approach if not both, and when that happens the game state enters a different phase.

Long story short : you modified reality to make your arguments sound stronger.

We can talk about Chansey, sure, it’s the defining pokemon of the metagame after all, more than Tauros.

« You can’t prepare for Chansey in the teambuilder ». You’re right, unlike other gens there isn’t one « miracle solution » about dealing with Chansey, but most teams can be hostile to it, I would consider something like Alakazam + Zapdos a hostile team to chansey, I would consider a team like Psychic Starmie + Rhydon hostile to Chansey, teams like that that have multiple ways of taking it down after it got paralysed.

You can reliabely kill Chansey, the key word is Snorlax. Snorlax murders paralysed BeamBolt Chansey and can deal with Reflect Chansey. Yes. You’ve heard me. Think about it this way : if opposite Chansey switches into a Snorlax Body Slam, it’s 95% of the time Reflect Chansey, 100% of the time he's gonna softboiled, click boom ? It’s never switching lol. Here you go. My point is : Reflect Chansey is usually the source of debate more than BeamBolt, you use Reflect Chansey mainly for it not to be killed by Snorlax (as well as having a better match-up vs Zapdos, and Tauros to a lesser extent because it’s still not THAT comfortable). From the Chansey perspective : you use Reflect to deal with Snorlax but Snorlax can easily trade, the main mon you use Reflect for can reliablly trade with you. Also if you paralyse reflect chansey it can’t switch into Snorlax anymore, and it’s usually forced out by Psychic users, and you don’t kill starmie anymore without Thunderbolt (therefore get forced out by the psychic variant). I know, « b..b..but it can only trade ! », yea well but this is one specific scenario, and can you really do better than trading against snorlax, tauros, and exploders ? Also it’s not the only solution.

Chansey is not overwhelming and isn’t difficult to beat in my opinion. Mons like BlizzBolt Mie or Lapras are walled by it and are still top tier mons, they’re not made unsuable lol, just don’t take lax and tauros dittos because yes if you do they won’t kill chansey, just play differently, a LOT of mons would still be unsuable without Chansey, some mons are better than others, deal with that. This isn’t an argument to ban Chansey, it should be banned if it’s broken, I don’t believe it is, and if players don’t believe it is it shouldn’t be banned. Simple as that. And I believe only top players should have say in debates like this because they know how to play the game well and how to beat Chansey well. Also Isa don’t take this the wrong way I have loads of respect for you but I don’t know why you bring this up when you don’t really play the game anymore. Why didn't you propose this on smogon too ? On the other hand Lusch told me about this a couple times too, so I’m not against talking about it even if my opinion is quite settled.

Now as for testing rby without Chansey why not, I don’t know how it would look, more offensive with jolts or still stally with zam and starmie everywhere. I don’t mind if there’s testing but only if we make a different tier for it, and NOT to ban chansey of 1U (so having it in 1P) and have it as the main RBY 1U tier because I strongly believe Chansey is NOT broken.

Tl ;dr no

 

[Ortheore]

Arghghgh this is one of the few areas that I can think of where I'm inclined to take a conservative approach- I wouldn't want to ban Chansey, but I'm mostly motivated by the fact that I really love RBY as it is and I'm kinda used to Chansey. But whatever, I'll try to set aside the kneejerk reaction.

First, I'll say that I don't think BoltBeam Chansey is anywhere near broken on its own. Once it's paralysed it becomes a doormat for Lax, GolDon (if they can avoid IB) and really any other physical attacker that doesn't mind TWave. Unparalysed can be an issue, but first it's not at an advantage in a freeze war and second, paralysing it is still really easy if necessary, and once paralysed there's no getting around the fact that it's much easier to pressure.
edit that's not really an edit: Peasounay also hit the nail on the head with BoltBeam Chansey and how you play around it.

Reflect sets are another matter entirely, and are the reason I view Chansey as being as threatening as Lax and Tauros, rather than being like Egg where it's insanely useful in a bunch of different ways without dominating. Seismic Toss is the most popular Reflect Chansey, but I've always been partial to Ice Beam. I'll discuss this more later because I'm tired as hell right now and I think it's a really tricky issue because it makes Chansey borderline in my eyes

Also DA I don't really like the argument you present regarding nichemons. It's definitely an indicator, but I don't think it should be treated as a requirement for something to be considered broken. It could be that there are no nichemons that handle the threat in question better than existing staples, or it could be that it heavily restricts usage of otherwise "good" pokemon (GSC Lax is an example, since unless you run a heavily boom-based team you're probably gonna need at least two checks).

============

In my eyes, when it comes to banning there are two perspectives to approach from: "Is the pokemon broken?" and "is the pokemon ruining the metagame?". The former gets into the nitty-gritty, breaks down the pokemon's strengths, weaknesses, how (in)effective various means of counterplay are, etc. The matchup breakdown in the OP is reflective of this. The latter looks at the overall metagame and asks whether or not it's in an acceptable state. GSC OU is a prime example- I don't think anyone would dispute that Lax is broken, but most players would argue that that's totally fine, that the metagame is perfectly good regardless. Normally I consider myself to be one who looks at the metagame as a whole, but I've caught myself arguing from the other side as well. Actually, it'd be a mistake to assume players have one mindset or the other, the OP is an example as it argues from both perspectives.

This dichotomy of mentalities I think is interesting. As a general rule of thumb, if a pokemon is ruining the metagame it's probably broken, but the reverse isn't always true. Nidoking in RBY 4U is a good example, as you could argue that it's technically broken, but when we considered the overall state of the metagame, the suspect was swiftly canned. RBY 5U is again another example, where Gastly is literally required on all teams lest Dragonair run rampant, but imo it's one of our best lower tiers thus far. The issue is that having imbalance in a metagame won't always undermine it. In some cases it can even be more interesting.

Anyway, that's just a thought I had. I think it's pretty significant, but I'm not really leading anywhere with it

 

[Lusch]

Don't get me wrong, of course you can deal with Chansey. (That is what I tried to say in my last paragraph). Still it is THE Pokemon that the tier revolves around. And here is something we differ on, saying you can reliably trade with Chansey (an assumption that I don't even see as a given, since Explosion is NEVER reliable) via Explosion and counting that as a main way to deal with it says it all imo.
In practice yea, those 1v1s the Isa describes them usually don't occur as such. But believe it or not, I think some Pokemon are designed to be broken (Mewtwo obviously, Mew obviously) just by the stats and typing they get. A Pokemon with such ridiculous bulk (as explained in my other post) and access to isntant recovery looks like exactly that to me.
If you don't like the word "broken" if you want we can insert "unhealthy" or something. Like I said, I am not hardcore pro ban but ultimately play this game to have fun (having fun here translates to being "healthy" if you want to use that kind of language). Isa's last sentence of his post was "make RBY fun again", which is pretty accurate. And you know well enough that sometimes the counterplay you praise is also not practical in battle and it sometimes comes to PP stall wars between Chanseys. If that is fun to anyone, I don't know what to say anymore.

 

[Disaster Area]

I can't remember the last time I even had a stally RBY game. With the change in para mechanics I've only been having much shorter games overall. Very rarely do I have to play a Chansey vs Chansey ditto. And the thing is, even if I did have to do PP stalls, that's fine, I actually do find it moderately fun lol... it's a bit time consuming but it is what it is. So my point is, to me RBY 1U with Chansey is still a fun metagame.

To me Chansey also isn't designed to be broken: think about for example in the first RBY tournaments ever, Chansey would be much less seen than it is now because of it not having max or nearly max EVs in Defense meaning stuff like snorlax body slam would easily 2hko and maybe be even close to an ohko, for example. It doesn't scream designed-to-be-broken to me, and even then we've not exactly seen the best in designing to make stuff broken by gamefreak until more recently (like for example, what is the point of Regigigas?).

I'm not even sure I'd entirely say that the tier revolves around it: to me in the game, the early-mid game does revolve around it to some extent but often it's a less important piece in the endgame.

With regard to nichemons, I think of it as an indicator in some ways since to me, looking at decisions we've made on here with regards to borderline-broken things [e.g. snorlax chansey nidoking legendary birds] that's really been the biggest thing, besides to some extent luck reliance (cuno freeze being gamebreaking for example). I'm interested in seeing what else people feel like indicates something is broken: how does something which is broken feel to play with or against? What can you say about something which is broken either on paper or in practice? To me, 'broken' is kind of a buzzword, and I guess there's a lot that goes into it. I think sometimes it's just a huge duh (like Slaking in ADV 2U is far, far too overpowered for example) and sometimes it's a more borderline case and it's really hard to say well, what makes something broken? I do feel like with how Ortheore talked about brokenness e.g. with regards to Snorlax in GSC that Chansey doesn't really reach that level.

I guess this post is a bit nitpicky but a sort of a summary is:
- I don't think Chansey is broken
- I don't think RBY 1U isn't fun, and I don't think it's at all stally virtually ever
- What does it mean for something to be broken? Can we come up with some sort of a definition which we can apply to decide borderline cases?

 

[Lusch]

Yeah, from your point of view that does not surprise me, DA. Yes RBY 1U ist still fun, othwerise I would not still be playing it. Your style of playing this tier does not promote Chansey stall wars cause it is rather agressive (based on my personal experience playing vs you, I do not watch games from others too too often...). And I can imagine,playing it the way you do can totally be fun but (no offense here) you also never really have a say in terms of tournament victories. That means that you (a solid but not top class player (judging from tournament results)) don't encounter Chansey stall wars as often, good for you but not representative enough.
Ask Peasounay if he sometimes (and sometimes means obviously not every game but still a considerable amount of the time, at least when his opponent plays along with it and does not lose patience (which probably happens often enough otherwise it would be even more often)) finds himself in stall wars with his Chansey. The answer will be yes, he does. (Hell, one reason to use Reflect+S-Toss Chansey, and not a small reason either, is to have more PP than boltbeam Chansey).
I chose Peasounay here as amongst the people arguing pro Chansey he meets the criteria of "top class player" (player who has a say in terms of who wins a tournament rather than "just" (respectable achievement still) surviving some rounds) the most and thus is probably the most representative. (well on PP he did not really come close to winning something lately iirc, but his SPL record says it all)

Idk... like I said, of course it is playable (and fun) the way it is.

But I guess it just hurts me to see that in this tier creativity is more punished than it is rewarding. And the main reason for that I make out to be Chansey (and to an extent Snorlax but that is not up for discussion here atm). Maybe I am even wrong with that assumption which is why I definitely want to play the tier without Chansey in a "serious" setting before judging too much (great that Mister Tim decided to host a tour with it soon, people arguing here should participate in it and then we can argue based on experience rather than anything else). Other players might disagree and don't think creativity is a good thing that should be rewarded but I guess that is a matter of attitude.

 

[Lusch]

Double Post
Hypothetically:
A good amount of deserving people (people who have played this tier long enough, you know what I mean...) plays this Spring Break with Chansey banned from 1U. A miracle happens and everyone (or a great majority) have the opinion after that tour that the resulting metagame would be healthier (whatever that may be). What would happen? Would this tier be the new 1U? Or would we just ignore the fact and keep everything the way it is because Tradition? (To be honest, I don't think we'd lose much of the active playerbase cause idk if there is anyone who plays RBY because he loves playing with/against Chansey that much (maybe, I really don't know, but I find that kinda hard to imagine^^)

 

[Peasounay]

And here is something we differ on, saying you can reliably trade with Chansey (an assumption that I don't even see as a given, since Explosion is NEVER reliable) via Explosion and counting that as a main way to deal with it says it all imo.

That wasn't exactly what I meant (granted, I could've phrased it better). What I meant was that Snorlax was able to deal with its own "hard" check (being Reflect Chansey). My thought process was:

1 -> Beambolt Chansey is a wall
2 -> Snorlax smashes paralysed BeamBolt Chansey
3 -> Players pick up on that, and thus decide to use Reflect Chansey because it still walls special attackers while having a tool to deal with Snorlax
4 -> Okay, but Snorlax still has a reliable way of beating Reflect Chansey (a variant originally designed to beat it) because even if it's still Explosion, booming right after Chansey switched into a Body Slam is reliable in the sense that Chansey will Soft-Boiled 99.9% of the time in this spot. It was just an example on how to beat it and why I don't believe Reflect Chansey is unkillable therefore broken or whatever.

I was just saying it was a tool, it has a way, I'm not saying Explosion IN GENERAL is the best way of dealing with it, not at all (see at the part where I talk about Twave + Psychic users but I mean you know how the game is played)

On a different note I'm surprised both you and DA say things like "How is it fun" or "If you think there isn't a case to be made you're dishonest" because that's wrong and just as subjective and opinion-based as saying "Chansey is broken/is not". I don't mind playing Zam dittos, I don't mind PP stalling for 150 turns if it's the right play, I don't mind switching and healing between 2 pokes to stall out a Chansey/Zam/Whatever. I truly don't, and I'm not saying that to make my point stronger (since it's subjective and there's no point debating about this specifically when we talk about the potential brokeness of a mon). It's just how I view the game, my fun is by playing completely optimally and relying on maths and patience, DA wants to win with Flareon, you want to win with Venusaur and Chansey-less teams, all of these are fine (I'm exaggerating but you get the point). How one views the fun in the game shouldn't be the source of bannings discussions, the sole pokemon should be, and I don't think there's a case to be made about Chansey, the metagame has shown to be competitive and to reward the best players in the long run with it. Banning something because it can be boring/gay/zzz/or whatever just doesn't sound very convincing to me, just like people on Smogon who said Wrap should be banned because it's boring (I mean lol). As I said I'm fine with an arbitral weird PP Chansey-less tier for people to play, as long as it's not about directly banning Chansey from 1U.

As for your questions about Reflect Chansey wars, it indeed happens, not everytime of course. It happens to me less than before because I don't spam it as much anymore but when I faced other players who usually spammed it like Alex it sometimes happened. It's big enough that I account for it before the battle for sure, but on the other hand when I use Reflect Chansey it's also a scenario I'm willing to accept playing. If I don't I just play the battle differently. I played some 100+ turn battles this SPL (0 Reflect Chansey PP wars but I didn't use it as much and the sample is small), I don't think it's necessarily an indicator of Chansey alone, a lot of those were finding openings between Zam + Starmie + Chansey in early-game sequences. Chansey wasn't alone in the story.

 

[marcoasd]

I must say I’m not convinced by your aguments at all. A lot of the examples your give are exaggerated and taken out of the context of a real battle, like when you describe the Snorlax or Tauros match-up, we all know Chansey is almost always paralysed when it faces these two (Reflect Chansey vs Lax is a different story but I’ll come back to it later), and you do as if it’s not the case. The way you describe most of these match-ups are kinda wrong, or at least they’re too theorical and don’t take into account how they really occur in actual games. Honestly if you don’t consider Zapdos, a mon who 3HKOs 75% of the time with Drill Peck and who has a 20% crit rate a good enough tool to beat BeamBolt Chansey I don’t know what to tell you.

I don’t know what to tell you.

Idk... like I said, of course it is playable (and fun) the way it is.

Ok, it starts to get reasonable.
Chansey is definitely centralizing and a bore to go against - we all agree on that. Body Slam tragedy made things look stupid at times, and it created stupid mindgames (especially after it switched into Snorlax, that is something pathetic di per se).
I don't think Chansey is overpowered to the point we should enforce a ban and change the tier after 15+ years.
Good luck going against Lapras and Starmie without Chansey. Alakazam dittos anyone? One thing we learned about RBY is that there is always something (more or less) heavily centralizing.
I still have sleep-inducing moves on top of my list of un-fun and broken things - they have their merits, though. RBY OU is what we play today.

On the other hand, there's definitely interest in trying the other way (Chansey being out of the way).
Actually, I think Snorlax to be the best pokemon in RBY 2017: an unparalyzed Snorlax will just wreak havoc (an unparalyzed Chansey is a very good pokemon against a paralyzed Chansey, isn't it?). Chansey can be easily stalled, Snorlax can't be.
Taking Chansey out of the equation should put Snorlax a little bit more under control .

 

[Golden Gyarados]

Just woke up and trying to catch up on this discussion. I'm excited to play the Chansey-less tour and make some more coherent thoughts, but what I *do* want to contribute now is just to say that when I started playing, I really tried to avoid using Chansey (and Snorlax, too) on my teams, because they seemed like boring "easy" buttons and I wanted to use more "interesting" Pokemon. After the mechanics changed, while I still get away with dropping Snorlax every so often, I find I really can't drop Chansey. Chansey went from being ALREADY an uninteresting, easy-t0-use and super successful wall to being indispensable. I think that in itself says a lot that is worth discussing.

There's a lot of talk about how people who play RBY (or GSC, in the Snorlax convos) come here to play the game they're familiar with and used to and changing it would drive players away because they want to play what they know how to play. Well, with GSC and Snorlax I guess I get that. But with RBY, the game changed. Not the trends, not the playerbase, the actual mechanics. We dropped Rhydon out of 1U for the exact same reason, why not reevaluate what else might get bumped out of 1U but in the other direction?

 

[GGFan]

Unlike the rest of you I won't write a book to express my opinion (I only do that when writing about myself), but I'll put in my two cents.

Snorlax is more threatening in RBY than Chansey because of how many different sets are viable. It can go with the classic sweeper set, Amnesia, Reflect, Amnesia AND Reflect, Reflect + Hyper Beam (definitely a viable set that I've won with in tournament play before), etc. I've even used Psychic/Ice Beam Snorlax in tournament play and won. Oh, and Selfdestruct. If any 1U staple should be banned, it should be Snorlax.

Edit: here's an example that illustrates how threatening Snorlax is because of its versatility alone. In my first game against Ortheore in the Vermilion Cup, I got destroyed because I gave him one turn to set up Amnesia and my Chansey was weakened. Likewise, the first game of our World Championship set revolved heavily around me finding the right opportunity to set up Amnesia, which he had no answer to after his Chansey got frozen. Chansey's great, but the only tricks it has up its sleeve besides Boltbeam and Reflect are Counter and Sing.

As annoying as Chansey is, without it you lose the most reliable paralysis spreader in the game. It has great synergy with the Normal sweepers who depend on paralysis to reach their full potential. Not only that, but Starmie becomes borderline broken without it, as the only Pokemon that doesn't have too much fear from it is Alakazam, but I imagine Surf would become a lot more common if Chansey were banned, which actually 2HKOs on average with a crit. Lapras also becomes a much greater threat, who can now fire off Blizzards with little to fear except Alakazam, who doesn't do that well against it if it's paralyzed.

Yeah, Reflect Chansey is way more dangerous than Boltbeam Chansey now and is the best overall set. The main drawbacks are not being able to hax kill Slowbro and not doing as much to Starmie, but Chansey can't reliably beat Bro anyway and Starmie can be PP stalled, especially if it's FriendlyMie (which is still used quite a bit in tournament play). In addition to walling Tauros and Snorlax, what I also really like about Reflect is how it protects you from Exeggutor's Explosion. Overall, Reflect Chansey does well against everything, whereas Boltbeam has a couple of notable holes in it. Most importantly, it's not very good against Snorlax, which matters a lot more than it did in the past because of how versatile Lax has become over the last 2-3 years.

I feel like Chansey actually adds a lot of strategic depth to RBY because of how many things it can reliably check. If it ever got banned, the game would be a lot more fast-paced and more dependent on RNG than it is now, I think.

 

[Disaster Area]

On a different note I'm surprised both you and DA say things like "How is it fun" or "If you think there isn't a case to be made you're dishonest" because that's wrong and just as subjective and opinion-based as saying "Chansey is broken/is not".

To be clear, I don't think it's not fun and I don't think it's broken, but I think it's worth talking about whether it is broken / examining if it is broken. Furthermore the fact that it leads to conversations about what brokenness means anyway I see as something super healthy and necessary.

One thing we learned about RBY is that there is always something (more or less) heavily centralizing.

RBY 3U is a pretty good counterexample but how many bans would it take to get to something with that level of not being centralised?

I find I really can't drop Chansey. Chansey went from being ALREADY an uninteresting, easy-t0-use and super successful wall to being indispensable. I think that in itself says a lot that is worth discussing.

Honestly I think no-Chansey teams peaked in viability in like mid 2015. They were basically almost never a viable thing pre mechs change and they sort of had a brief period of seeing a decent amount of serious play a little while after the mechanics change for whatever reason and now it's sort of faded back into the background: there's a certain kind of super-aggressive play where it can work though I'm sure.

There's a lot of talk about how people who play RBY (or GSC, in the Snorlax convos) come here to play the game they're familiar with and used to and changing it would drive players away because they want to play what they know how to play. Well, with GSC and Snorlax I guess I get that. But with RBY, the game changed. Not the trends, not the playerbase, the actual mechanics. We dropped Rhydon out of 1U for the exact same reason, why not reevaluate what else might get bumped out of 1U but in the other direction?

I 100% agree with this actually. I don't think Chansey is broken but the mechanics change did change how good Chansey was and how the game was played, undeniably. Again that's a part of why I think this is a healthy conversation and I'm glad Isa broached it even though I personally quite strongly disagree with the notion that Chansey is broken.

Reflect + Hyper Beam

I loved this set around the end of 2014 :3 though I wasn't aware of anyone else using it. Raish thought it up and gave it to me to use pretty much but obviously we knew it was possible someone else had used it before.

I've even used Psychic/Ice Beam Snorlax in tournament play and won.

I've witnessed it! ...

Also, I want to say that how the metagame looks like without Chansey is 100% irrelevant to this discussion.

 

[marcoasd]

Reflect Chansey sucks against Rhydon, and that's a part of the reason why Rhydon got a decent usage again.
BeamBolt Chansey and Reflect Chansey are almost two different pokemon (as they have totally different matchups), like it happens with Snorlax. The main difference with Snorlax is the damage output, and it's a relevant one.

Anyway, I think Chansey could be banned without banning Snorlax, but you can't ban Snorlax without banning Chansey as well (and that would result in a party for Starmie and Lapras). Chansey is the only thing that could be possibly up for discussion of being banned.

Yeah, 3U is cool...

Also, I want to say that how the metagame looks like without Chansey is 100% irrelevant to this discussion.

It is irrelevant to this specific discussion, but I'm with Lusch on this one. I think that if you spend time and effort to try the new tier and good part of the playerbase agrees that they prefer the new one, there are going to be consequences.
Chances are that we would give a name to the new tier and play that tier a lot.

 

[Ch01W0n5h1n]

To me, Chansey is like the glue of RBY 1U, it equals Lax in GSC in that way: 1U isn´t 1U without Chansey, it´s what defines the format the most.
The way you play your Chansey is the way you play your Team.

If you take Chansey out of the Format, you make the format unnecessary faster and even more hax reliant.
Not a fan of the Suggestion tbh

 

[GGFan]

Boltbeam Chansey doesn't do that well against Rhydon as well. If Chansey isn't paralyzed it can beat Rhydon reliably, but it's going to take a lot of damage in the process, so much that Tauros, Snorlax, and even Exeggutor can revenge kill it. Reflect Chansey only dies to a crit (has LeerDon become a thing yet?), but you can always just switch after hitting a couple of Seismic Tosses. After two of them, Tauros and Snorlax are guaranteed to kill it with Blizzard (well, Snorlax won't if you get the second lowest roll possible lol).

As for whether or not it's "relevant" to discuss what the metagame would look like without Chansey, I don't like to take these rigid kinds of approaches to discussions, but that's just me. Besides, if you bring up the idea of banning Chansey, speculation as to how that would shape the metagame is not only inevitable, but interesting.