PAX Pokemon League

I mentioned this in a comment on the Rules page as well, but I thought I'd give this its own Forum post to engender better discussion and to elaborate on my point a bit.

I had a lot of fun with the League at PAX East this year and really look forward to the Champion Showcase later today (crossing my fingers for one of those prizes), but while I was preparing my teams for battle, I made a startling realization that the Rules overlooked a particular commonly-forbidden ability: Moody.

For those of you who aren't aware, [url=http://www.smogon.com/bw/abilities/moodyfmn]Moody is the ability that makes Bidoof a broken Pokemon[/urlfmn].

Put simply, if a Pokemon has Moody, at the end of every turn a random stat gets increased by two stages and another random stat gets decreased by one stage.

You might initially say, "That's all? What's the big deal?" And for a few turns, you'd be right. It's not that big a deal. But if you have a Pokemon with Substitute and Protect, this can get pretty hairy pretty fast. Given 10 turns of stalling, your standard Moody Pokemon can be unstoppable.

"OK," you might continue, "But this should be pretty simple to counter right?"

Well, in some cases yes. As with any stat boost, if the Pokemon is withdrawn or sent away, they lose their stat boosts and Substitutes, so there's that. However, there's one particularly notable exception to this counter: Rotation Battles. You see, in a Rotation Battle, if you rotate a Pokemon out, it keeps all of its stat changes and Substitutes. So if someone tries to counter your Moody Pokemon, you can just rotate him/her away until the threat has been dealt with.

As you probably know, one of the Elite Six this year was Charles, the Rotation Master. As a proof of concept, I used an Octillery with Moody in my battle with him. This was the result: [urlfmn]http://www.pokecheck.org/?bid=708633036904[/urlfmn]

I admit, I felt a little guilty winning this way, but I did not break the rules and I didn't use the Octillery for any other battles (and thank goodness for that considering how long this battle took) and I felt that showing how this broken ability could be used to defeat one of the Elite Six would be incentive enough for the League to change this moving forward.

I genuinely think this is probably just an oversight. After all, [url=http://www.smogon.com/bw/banlist/fmn]the Moody Clause has been a part of the Smogon banlist since 2011[/urlfmn], so I wouldn't be surprised if most people don't actually know about it since it's rarely used even in competitive play. Still, I know that the PPL is not Smogon and is meant to be more accessible to players of all difficulty ranges, and so adopting all of the rules would be a bit draconian. But I'm just going to say this: If you have a Pokemon with Moody (which is a Dream World ability) and you intend to use it in the PAX Pokemon League, you are not a beginner.

Banning Moody would only hurt jerks like me.

Thanks for your time, and again, thanks to the whole League. You guys were awesome this year. Particular thanks to Charles who was far more patient with my nonsense than I deserved.

A very detailed and impassioned argument. This same rule change was brought up on my website for inclusion in leagues and tournament, primarily for what it can do for evasion, but your definitely illustrated what it can do at large.

One thing I will say from my experience this weekend, my first as a Gym Leader, is that I came in overestimating how many very competitive players I would be battling. I know one of the other leaders said he had the same experience last year, but seeing it first-hand really drove it home. I do know that not once over the course of the weekend did I encounter a Pokemon with Moody.

I think if it was wide-spread issue that all of the Gym Leaders had to deal with and it was a situation where it really ruined some of the fun for us, there would definitely be a call to ban it. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I'm not sure it's enough of an issue to warrant banning it. Of course, not banning could open up the flood gates, but I don't know, I think by and large, most of the challengers are just as much looking to have fun as they are winning.

I'm sure there are exceptions to that, and I'll let others chime in their thoughts on it.

I agree with both Aurethious and Sandstorm on this one. Of the challengers I took at this East, I never once had a Moody Bidoof thrown out against me despite that a good number of my challengers in the veteran tier were both using and discussing Smogon sets. I do not see it as an issue yet, as we have only had--that we know of to this date--one instance. And it's not something I foresee as becoming trendy, as most of our challengers are here to have fun.

Fair points, I guess I'm just not entirely sure what is gained from [i6l4]not[/i6l4] banning it. Moody isn't really an ability you get by accident, you know? Unless the process of adding something to the rules is complicated and more trouble than it's worth, I don't really see the harm in including it.

That said, I do know that during the Rotation Battle I talked about earlier, when Charles asked the other leaders who were at the lounge about whether or not Moody was banned, Cynthia said something along the lines of how she would never accept a match from a trainer who had a Pokemon with Moody. I guess my feelings are that if this is indeed the case (as well it should be), it ought to be a part of the actual rules, since it's kind of already an unwritten one.

I'm not against the ban. Personally, I just don't see it as needed. Then again, when it comes time to discuss rules for Prime, there could be a flood of people that say it needs to be banned. I think, and I could be wrong, that the general rule is that if there is something that is prevalent and makes a battle not fun, it will probably be banned.

Maybe the reason we didn't see much of it is that it is banned on Smogon and has been for long enough that people are just accustomed to not using it. For me, as a leader, if I came across it, couldn't counter it, and it was making for a completely not enjoyable experience, I would forfeit, congratulate the person, award them a badge, and move on to the next challenger. If it is was very common though, I'd be all for banning it. Just my own personal opinion though. I'm sure there are others, as your story indicates, that feel it should be added.