Things gets banned simply because it creates an unhealthy and overcentralizing metagame if left alone. If certain pokes like Mewtwo or Palkia were allowed in standard, they would be on every single team to the point where people would have to tailor multiple their teams just to counter that one Pokemon. Even during the Garchomp era when it had Sand Veil legal, most teams basically consisted of:
Stealth Rocker (usually T-tar)
Garchomp
Garchomp counter
Backup Garchomp counter
Counter to the opponent’s Garchomp counter
Random sweeper
This makes for a very boring and stale metagame, where people want to play it safe rather than exploring new Pokemon and sets. Smogon (and others like Pokemon Online) go by usage statistics largely, as well as what Pokes are being used with another Poke as teammates etc. It’s not because a small group of people want to control everything, it’s that in actuality, and statistically, “A” Pokemon or strategy is become so prevalent, people are forced to use “B” Pokemon to stay competitive.
As for eliminating randomness, yes, moves Double Team and OHKO moves get removed because ultimately, players want a healthy metagame where games are factored mostly on skill. Yes, there’s the random element to everything (critical hits, misses, secondary effects on moves occurring), but helping a little helps the game from being a literal clusterfuck. People can play the game however they want, whether professionally or just slapping whatever pokes together. It doesn’t matter as long as you’re having fun.
I understand why you would feel that way, but there are counters for it- Typically a Moody mon will use Protect first turn, Substitute on the next and alternate between them… Feint the Protect/Boost your stats/Make a Sub with the free turn, Snatch the Sub/Smack it as hard as possible second turn. Rinse and Repeat.
You could cancel the ability with Worry Seed/Gastro Acid, you could copy the stat changes for yourself with Psych Up or everybody’s favorite, Imposter Ditto. You could use a mon with Unaware(completely ignores stat changes on the opponent)… and a few more options I can’t think of right now.
Cue someone saying that Unaware ‘forces’ you to run one of those counters or lose, ignoring the dozens of other situations and strategies that ‘require’ you having a counter or lose, like Specs Draco Meteor, SD/Sub Garchomp, Bulky Gyarados, not using a team that’s heavily Stealth Rock weak, or etc…
Except those are extremely specialized/unconventional counters most teams can’t even afford to run, not to mention DW Ditto wasn’t released yet. If you have to create extremely specialized counters for something (Focus Sash, Magic Guard, Trick Room Reuniclus to take out Speed Boost Blaziken) or resorting to unconventional moves (Feint lol), it’s broken. It’s worth noting that Moody also gives evasion boosts, which automatically stupid.
I’ll agree on the Specs Draco Meteor part (Chomp can’t get free subs with Sand Veil anymore and gets checked by anything faster once the sub is broken, Gyarados gets checked by Rotom-W and Kyurem-B, and a multitude of other things), all thanks to the power creep, which is why I think this Fairy type will be a good thing. Slapping Specs on a Latios and clicking Draco Meteor offers very little risk (unless the opponent has a Pokemon with Pursuit, which you can scout thanks to Team Preview) and massive reward. It’s the same with Terrakion and Keldeo. Hopefully Choice items will be used more intelligently like they were designed to do. Back in Gen 3, there was only Choice Band, and not a lot of high-powered physical moves outside of Earthquake, which meant prediction was key to making those pokes succeed. Now instead of thinking carefully on what move to choose, it’s just “spam whatever high-power STAB move you have till you overwhelm the opposition”.
Kingdra’s an asshole anyway. Mr. “I’m only weak to my own element”… There’s a reason they didn’t give Gyarados Water/Dragon like they originally planned back in the Red/Green development stage…
It wouldn’t have been that annoying but it had fucking Double Team and Water Pulse on top of Juan having a Hyper Potion/Full Restore (I forget which) on deck.
It’s not even a hard fight, it’s just fucking long and annoying.
Kingdra doesn’t get STAB from Ice Beam. It’s a 2HKO on Sceptile at ~ Lv. 45. Leaf Blade/Giga Drain on the first turn, take Ice Beam into Overgrow range, finish the job with Leaf Blade once more.
