Why is Swagger banned but Flatter is not?

[rob_thijs]

Everyone know Swagger is banned in the Smogon tiers, but I just realized that Flatter is almost the same move only raising the Sp.Atk stat.
Why is Swagger banned but Flatter isn't? Confusion is annoying, but to ban a move just for that?
So Swagger cause confusion and pokémon will hit them self much harder with the 2+ attack. Flatter on the other hand raises Sp.Atk by 1, but still by an high amount for the pokémon weak on the Sp.Def
Is there an other reason Swagger got banned that I'm not aware of? Cause Flatter seems to be horrible move for the pokémon who relies on Sp.Atk.

 

[Drayton]

Most likely think people use a pokemon with prankster and swagger on their team, thus swagplay was banned

 

[PlatinumDude]

Confusion doesn't take Special Attack into account, which made Swagger a lot more dangerous than Flatter.

 

[rob_thijs]

Confusion doesn't take Special Attack into account, which made Swagger a lot more dangerous than Flatter.

Ah thank you, ofcourse it doesn't, I was thinking that the pokémon with an Sp.Atk that's higher than Atk would be hit by it's own Sp.Atk -.-
Don't know how I came up by that, silly me~_~

 

[Detox]

As someone has already stated, Swagger's ban was mostly due to the popular (and toxic) fad that was SwagPlay. Swagger giving the opposing Pokémon a 2x attack boost in conjunction with Foul Play made it relatively easy to get a nice amount of damage off of most things. Add in the fact that you had a chance to hit yourself in confusion, and you make the game even more luck based. There was also the fact that people ran Thunder Wave with this too, so ParaFusion + Foul Play…yeah not fun for anyone to play against, and I couldn't blame anyone for wanting it gone.

Flatter, while similar to Swagger, gives you a 2x special attack boost, and does not increase the amount of damage taken if you are unfortunate enough to hit yourself in confusion.

 

[rob_thijs]

As someone has already stated, Swagger's ban was mostly due to the popular (and toxic) fad that was SwagPlay. Swagger giving the opposing Pokémon a 2x attack boost in conjunction with Foul Play made it relatively easy to get a nice amount of damage off of most things. Add in the fact that you had a chance to hit yourself in confusion, and you make the game even more luck based. There was also the fact that people ran Thunder Wave with this too, so ParaFusion + Foul Play…yeah not fun for anyone to play against, and I couldn't blame anyone for wanting it gone.

Flatter, while similar to Swagger, gives you a 2x special attack boost, and does not increase the amount of damage taken if you are unfortunate enough to hit yourself in confusion.

Thanks again for the info. Flatter raises only 1 stage.
I personally think swagger is awful, not only cause when unlucky you will hit yourself hard but when lucky and your target doesn't faint it will get a foul play off and that will hit hard.
But I'm not a fan of any confusion moves either. I only don't mind supersonic cause of it's horrible accuracy rate. Maybe it's because I never break trough confusion as Krystia can relate to.
Seeing 3 pokémon faint cause you can't break trough confusion is not funny and that was with regular confuse ray.

 

[Howmander]

This precisely is what makes me (and I'm sure lots of others) roll my eyes at Smogon's bans. Switching out pokemon, one of the most basic strategies ever taught in game by NPC in the very first games, to negate the effects of swagger can't possibly be used because they just don't feel like switching out pokemon so they better ban it completely. Geesh. How long is it going to be before the meta game is just people with calculators using only direct damage dealing moves. What's up next? Nuzzle? Leer? Defense curl? any move that has an accuracy of less than 100? (cause we better always hide behind the "luck based" winning excuse.) It looks like if people want easy wins all they need to do is just use pokemon that have Swagger or Double Team and the other person will always rage quit because these super moves can't possibly be countered.

 

[Zeffy]

-snip-

You weren't there when SwagPlay was a thing--I doubt you'd understand why it was banned in the first place. It was literally hell, you wouldn't go two battles without encountering SwagPlay teams. There's a difference between an advantageous switching out of your Pokemon to giving your enemy a free turn.

But, like I've said before, you weren't there. You didn't experience SwagPlay spam, and I hope to god you never will for your own sake.

 

[srinator]

This precisely is what makes me (and I'm sure lots of others) roll my eyes at Smogon's bans. Switching out pokemon,only for the switch in to be swaggered one of the most basic strategies ever taught in game by NPC in the very first games, to negate the effects of swagger can't possibly be used because they just don't feel like switching out pokemon so they better ban it completely yes people are very lazy to click on-screen buttons. Geesh. How long is it going to be before the meta game is just people with calculators using only direct damage dealing moves still better than people using harden metapod to win. What's up next? Nuzzle? Leer? Defense curl? any move that has an accuracy of less than 100? yeah probably ban struggle too, very op gives you a move when your out of all pp's o.o (cause we better always hide behind the "luck based" winning excuse .) It looks like if people want easy wins all they need to do is just use pokemon that have Swagger or Double Team and the other person will always rage quit because these super moves can't possibly be countered.this is precisely what they, no skill wins etc. if you want a game where you level 100 charizard kills everything i guess fire red is ur best chance, competitive play is about actual competitive skills not about who's mon is shinier

comments in bold.
This precisely is what makes me (and i'm sure lots of others) roll my eyes at anti-smogon-bad-logic haters. First of all you need to understand that smogon is not a group of 4-5 people who ban things according to how they feel, there are something called suspect tests conducted on the ladder where only people who get a rank above a certain minimum get a right to vote, this is so that people who have faulty reasons or have a very non-competitive view don't affect the decision making. It's not like GF makes things any easier, esp with all the power creep in the last few generations. You have all the right to put forward your points as to why a decision made by the community resulting to a nerf or ban is wrong (in your opinion) and people will agree/disagree according to how logically correct you are. Don't you think that is more productive than straight out blaming smogon on being ban happy and sitting in your little bubble while putting down the work that other people actually do.
To the topic however, swagger was insanely broken and was insanely retarded/stupid/no-skill etc, a guy peaked #1 on the ubers ladder with swagplay klef and swagger thundurus in XY Ubers iirc multiple times. It isnt very difficult to see why it got banned esp when klef can potentially beat primal groudon with this shitplay ;/

 

[Hikamaru]

PlatinumDude pretty much summed it up, because confusion damage is determined by the Attack stat and not Sp. Attack which makes Swagger more dangerous than Flatter. Also, Swagger has wide distribution given it can be learned by pretty much almost anything and with nasty Prankster users running around like Thundurus and Klefki it can really cause the game to turn into a coin flip.

And also you have some who can pull off a dreaded SwagPlay (Swagger + Foul Play) with little effort, such as the aforementioned Klefki who can get the Swagger off easily thanks to Prankster. I do kinda sometimes question some of Smogon's bans but yeah we don't want the game to turn into a huge "luck-based mission" that can easily go unfair.

 

[halcyonic]

hmm, i wish something like a dcc or quick question thread existed. now that would be handy!

and hmm is smorgen ruining the metagame?! hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

protip: pls make good aruguments when discussing about a ban or something :/ and not just "yeh fak u smorgen ban teh move liek swarger next they is ban hardun" thx

 

[Zeffy]

Right, well, there is obviously nothing left to discuss. I had intended to merge this with the simple questions thread but seeing as a whole other discussion has popped up I decided not to. Given that, I'm closing this thread not only because it's original purpose has already been fulfilled but also to avoid needless arguing. If anyone wants to pursue a discussion regarding Smogon's system then feel free to make a thread. However, please read Smogon's Tiering FAQ first before making any obnoxious assumptions, thank you!