I feel like the item clause interestingly enough buffs poison types viability because if you want two leftover users, one has to be poison type. Its a very small thing, but I've def considered it many times when team building
@@marowakcity3727 Was mainly referring to when it comes back to regular play. It's number 4 in usage in NatDex rn and will have access to spikes if it can transfer from PLA giving it another weapon in its arsenal.
It would be one of the best winners of that clause, because it means that it won't have much competition for it's item, and would be usable in balanced/bo teams.
I love that you didn't just discuss it the concepts on a broad scale, but actually dove in to individual teams and analyzed their structure. That's hugely informative and helps put the thoughts "to practice" so-to-speak.
Other thoughts: - You might see some Sitrus / pinch berries on defensive Pokemon for that bit of healing - Flame and Toxic Orb users become incredibly valuable. Hope you really love Gliscor - Wide Lens could conceivably become viable, maybe on Weavile for a more accurate Triple Axel - Bulky setup sweepers + Weakness Policy might become more common - Scope Lens while using high crit moves like Night Slash or Leaf Blade or a Super Luck user like Togekiss or Honchkrow essentially gives you another Life Orb user on average, and could be valuable vs the crit-me-nots - Any tier with possible Amoonguss / Sleep Powder sees a lot more Safety Goggles - A format like Gen 7 pretty much wouldn't feel the item clause at all, with their Mega Stones and Z-Crystals - I don't think a saw a single example in this video of Focus Sash or Expert Belt, those are moderately useful items depending on the circumstance, and I'm sure you'd see more of them with the item clause - Going itemless for funny Acrobatics, Knock Off resistance, or Poltergeist immunity?
here's a funny thought: would itemless count as an "item" for item clause? there's plenty of reasons why it shouldn't and not one for why it _should_ ( well, except for _technically_ meaning that multiple pokemon have the same item option selected ), but there's just something amusing about the idea of a team with an acrobatics user being illegal because the player forgot to select an item on another mon
@@skinnysnorlax1876 wide lens is awful because of the math. You're essentially playing with no item most of the math unless you're using a mon that can come in multiple times per game and spam inaccurate moves.
@@xjjay554x well, for context, I usually use it on bulkier mons who can afford to fire off a few moves, and need the accurcy to buff up the damage, or on mons that can't afford to miss. It's nice on sleep powder or will o wisp users, for instance, because that extra accuracy changes the game, or triple axel mons
personally, i prefer team preview. its not as bad in singles as it is randbats because you can make a logical guess and arent 100% looking into the void, but it leaves it up to "ok, i need to keep this to beat that" so both sides have to plan rather than guess until everything is revealed.
@@pikminman13 I honestly think Zoroark should disappear from random battles. It's hilarious when you get it, but not so much when the opponent gets it.
I think pivots would be in even higher demand. Because you don't want to reveal your whole team quickly. So alternating between Teleport Clefable and Volt Switch Rotom-W would be fun.
@@Dexuz id honestly make a bunch more restrictions on what comes in where. Some mons need to be banned from lead. Dugtrio and wobbuffet most notably. I’m also not a fan of some sets, salazzle is stupid in most games. Zoroark at least doesn’t win the moment it comes in with a good matchup, enough counters it. Though I wish the calculator gave its actual stats because I never remember its speed.
Another interesting item you didn’t mention is Expert Belt. It can be used to fake out a Choice item if your opponent didn’t know for sure if one of your Pokémon have a Choice item.
For the Weavile examples, that's another case where you may start seeing the value of more niche items. Wide Lens and Protective Pads are both really good items to ease the risks of Triple Axel, for example. There's also the whole world of berries to explore. Lum in particular has some precedent, and Sitrus shows up pretty often on hazard/disruption leads in BSS (though may not be as appealing in 6v6).
i *really* love the point you brought up at the end that item scouting would enhance in-battle strategising, knowing that if one pokémon has a certain item then the other pokémon don't have it. that sounds really fun to me
Something I always wished was that every type had their own "black sludge" like item. Not the exact effect but it would bring in some item diversity if for example there was an item giving status immunity to grass types or preventing stat drops on fighting types
Great Analysis! Video idea: what if generational "vgc-legal" movesets are enforced on Showdown: - no toxic on chansey/blissey - no random event moves like eruption heatran/v-create mega-ray among other things
Not just Chansey/Blissey, pretty much everyone loses Toxic bar poison types. Lots of Knock Off users, Heal Bells, Explosions, Defoggers (can't get on a lot of legends), and various forms of recovery come to mind. Keep in mind that VGC is SW/SH accessible only (battle-ready mark required if from older gen, thus nukes any non SwSh moves), and even if the Pokemon has the ability to learn something in BDSP for example, it means nothing if Home wouldn't allow them to transfer, so any BDSP TM wouldn't count.
Smogon makes choices to make their format impossible to play on cartridge. (Despite the horrible timer that should be fixed). I absolutely think both item clause and verified move sets should absolutely be on. They can still have an anything goes format if they want. Like anyone ever is going to ever ever ever get a softboiled perfect IV + magic guard clefable realistically. You have to import it all the way from Gen 3. It might as well not exist. It’s basically impossible to obtain legally yet has been used in smogon formats for generations. The more time passes the more smogon feels totally disconnected from the actual games. Maybe that’s a hot take, idk. Ive been enjoying VGC a lot more doing gen 8. I used to be a singles only guy too I think next gen they could use some serious updates to how the tiers a run. Also Gamefreak needs to make changes to his multiplayer works on cart as well. They also make it very difficult yo play their game on cart if it’s not vgc.
@@HelloHelloHellobby Like you said, Gamefreak makes it a massive pain in the ass to play Competitive on Cart. Additionally they don't really give any time of day to singles players, so it's not really surprising that a lot of the people playing singles are more content to stick with Showdown.
@@TheWrathAbove Free and instant vs raising it yourself with minimal incentive to do so. Even pro VGC players will hack their own/get someone to do it for them, of course they won't tell you this.
I feel like losing leftovers maybe would be a hard hit specially for mons like Heatran and Ferrothorn that cannot directly heal but want to last long in the battle, also would be a hard nerf to stall teams because most of them rely on multiple heavy duty boots and leftovers
Some Pokémon would also have greater ammounts of usage due to having no conpetition in the item slot usage(Toxapex) while others would probably rise to OU due to their efectiveness at using an specific item like eviolite chansey.
I think that with modern gens we should consider held item clause. Back in earlier gens, there wasn't enough item variety to have such a rule, but we're past that point and it can make team-building more unique.
I would say gen 5 onwards has enough variety in items to work due to the having almost every item we care about: leftovers, black sludge, rocky helmet, eviolite, damage reducing berries, choice items, life orb, expert belt and type boosting items. It was also the time VGC started to have a clear structure and the creation of Pokémon Global Link, so it definitely fits with the time period.
As someone who pretty much exclusively plays VGC, I love watching these types of videos and this channel just to see how different things are! I didn't even realize Singles didn't have Item Clause until the other day and I totally forgot Heavy Duty Boots existed at all
I’ll be honest, I thought Item Clause was always on for singles. I feel like makes sense to have for the Singles format if the VGC has it, but I’ve got no competitive experience, so who knows.
It's mostly a history thing. Singles rulesets started standardizing around 3rd gen, and item clause is much more restrictive there because there's not many good items other than leftovers and choice band. Lum and Salac see some use, but you've still got two more slots to cover, and the type boosting items are only 10% instead of the 20% of later gens. You'd either end up giving team members marginal items or go deep with something like Thick Club or TrickBrace. 4th gen and beyond could realistically have an item clause, but at that point no item clause was already standard.
@@petrie911 item clause in gen 3 would be especially restrictive given how Tyranitar is the best pokemon of the tier and so much of that is just what the passive damage of sand can do. Plus Spikes. The bog standard ADV team is a TSS (Toxic, Sandstorm, Spikes) team which every team has to be able to handle to be at least viable - a lack of lefties would restrict team-building so much more.
@@randaljr.8581 There would be much more stall. Stall is very weak to chip damage forcing them into passivity. Without that they could easily wall the entire meta.
@@randaljr.8581 The fact you dont need 2+ layers of them and that defog users are usually flying type is also a huge deal. If defog had scald distribution every bulky water could clear hazards and we probably wouldnt see multiple heavy duty boots on every team.
During the later parts of Gen 7 (post-Ultra) I was playing the Battle Spot format on Showdown, which (as it's meant to mimic the games' multiplayer more directly) has an item clause, and I enjoyed it. When I went back to just Smogon formats, it felt weird to not have to put any thought into what six items my team was using, and instead just giving each pokemon whatever the most meta item for them was. Balance-wise I don't think it's something that NEEDS to change or anything, but I think the restriction results in more creative team design which I like.
I was really surprised when I found out singles didn't have an item clause. They have clauses for other stuff so I just assumed items would be one of the first things to get regulated but I guess I was wrong. It would allow skillful players to play more strategically too, imo, like adjusting your plays according to which items you were able to identify on each enemy Pokemon.
leftovers on specially defensive landorus is IMO crucial. There have been countless games where I’ve considered their opposing landorus already dead once it’s leftovers has been removed/ neutralized through toxic or burn. And on the other side when using defensive lando there have been games where i’ve been able to prolong landorus’s longevity through double switches and it’s constant 6% recovery throughout a battle
@@hppern3971 yeah i think the item clause would make using defensive landorus very interesting because it would force people to use their leftovers on landorus. it would make it tougher to use spdef lando + spdef heatran too for example and although garchomp is offensive it’s leftovers makes it deceptively bulky vs stuff like volcarona and heatran. so garchomp would be kind of nerfed if used alongside lando
I remember finding it very strange how there wasn't item clause in smogon. I personally like to not have duplicate items, just because. it's fine either way I guess
As someone who plays on cartridge where you usually only get a single Leftovers in-game, I always included a defensive Poison type so I could give it Black Sludge instead of Leftovers
I run a draft league that uses item clause and I think it’s very interesting how it’s affected the draft phase, pokemon that utilize eviolite, assault vest, black sludge, type berries, and of course megas and z crystals are prioritized partially bc you’re not fighting for a leftovers or heavy duty boots slot as bad
I've been campaigning for item clause since the beginning of time. It's been around in every official format including the Stadium games, it incentivices creativity and it's just fair and consistent to restrict both items and pokemon
Odd that even though Smogon doesnt have an Item Clause, I have always played with an Item Clause. It is how my friends and I played back in the DPPt days, so we always just assumed everyone played like that.
Item clause would be interesting to consider in the context of other formats too. Little Cup in particular comes to mind, where almost everything wants to run Eviolite or Berry Juice.
Back in the Gen6/Gen7 days most of the Wi Fi battle tournaments I played had item clouse even though they used Smogon rules, that also applaies to level 50, but that's more understandable since grinding to level 100 is often too much.
It's because double battles are very fast paced (though not as fast as vgc because lvl 100 instead of 50) so if you let the enemy sleep your entire team that's more on you playing bad/having a bad team than sleep being op. Not to mention other factors like good sleep users like amogus or butterfree (probably the only good sleepers tbh) having to balance using other utility like rage powder or pollen puff, a plethora of fire and flying attackers, abundance of fake out, protect and redirects, and lum berry being a very useful item for shrugging off said sleep and burn.
Item clause would be interesting for sure, but I agree there’s not really an issue especially defensively with spin/defog/taunt and I don’t think I’ve ever heard people complain about boots being annoying or broken. Just that it is a really good item that made a lot more Pokémon more fun to use like talon or Volcarona Knock is also a really spammable move vs most teams (even corrosive gas is cool tech)
i feel like item clause would be really detrimental to lower tiers, where there are a lot of pokemon whose alternative sets haven't been explored and, frankly, who are only really good at one thing.
For zerora i run the air balloon as it is a nice substitute for heavy duty boots with its own advantages like being able to switch into ground types more safely and grass knot or knock off the threats as they have to spend 2 turns to kill it
Here's a topic: common competitive items and how their introduction changed the meta, and how the current meta would be without them. For example, if heavy duty boots never existed, or how nobody uses sitrus berry anymore (i noticed)
a potential offensive team item spread could be dual screens koko with light clay, unburden hawlucha with electric seed, and any four of choice band, scarf, specs, hdb, lefties, etc. the terrain offense team style might actually get a lot better due to item clause because of the general rarity of light clay and electric seed.
Idea: If you could give a bad defensive type (like ice for example) 1 additional resistance what would it be? You cannot turn a weakness into a resistance, just turn a neutral type advantage into a resistance or make a weakness neutral.
An obvious answer would be making Ice resist something that Ice is offensively super effective against, like Dragon, Flying, or Ground (or Grass I guess). Another option would be making it resist Water, which makes some sense thematically I think
A lot of defensive teams also use assault vest on regenerator pivots since they conserv very high phasing potential without any status moves Most notable example being scald + future sight slowbros
I wonder if Item Clause would make the item Shell Bell usable? For those who don't remember what it does: whenever you deal direct damage with an attack, you heal for 10% of damage dealt (number may be different in other gens). It normally doesn't see play because Leftovers tends to be more consistent, and often heals more; as well as the fact, to get much out of it you need to be a hard hitting Pokémon that also needs healing, most Pokémon that hit hard either want to hit harder and/or are too fragile for the healing to matter; while more defensive Pokémon generally don't hit that hard, and on some turns might not even be attacking, meaning no healing that turn.
I play like I have item clause. Not only it makes it more interesting for team building but to get more Leftovers, Black Sludge, Heavy Duty Boots, ect. requires to play the game multiple times to get more than one of or to have a Pokemon with Pickup at a high level and “hope” to get another leftovers. And with Pokemon Home not being able to transfer all my battle items over to future games meaning I have to grind for those items again which includes the Battle Tower items such as Life Orb and the Choice items
I personally really like item clause, it adds a layer of strategy, and it feels less random that you don’t have to guess if your opponent is running double scarf in some situations.
I would like a theory episode about what would happen to singles if there were no more entry hazards. No sticky web, spikes, toxic spikes, and stealth rocks allowed.
i just wanna say, i love pokemon but have never considered playing it competitively, and your videos are still fascinating even when its totally irrelevant to me like this one. i love your content man keep it up
i honestly love item clause, my favorite thing about vgc as a format. it restricts teambuilding in a way i really like. i feel like it incentivizes creativity without inhibiting play too much. i would love to add it personally, although i know it would never happen.
I think this would make for an interesting video, what if the was an item that swapped special moves and made them physical and viscera. I just think mons like alakzam getting special elemental punches would be great and even Machamp using fireblast of it's physical attack would be great
I would suggest for bulky pokemon instead of putting a berries for reducing the damage of super effective moves they could use healing berries like sitrus or aguav
In my opinion, while it would not make as big of a change as some may think, I do believe it would change more stuff than you said. For once, being only able to heavy duty boots one mon would make stealth rocks and resistant mons better again, and it would heavily punish switch moves spam teams. Additionally, the restriction on leftovers would mean that a lot of mons that rely on leftovers for recovery would loose a lot of ground to landorus...
Sounds like this would somewhat limit team diversity as this would centralize the meta around Pokemon that are item clause friendly, like Toxic Orb/Flame Orb users. There really isn't a substitute for Leftovers or Heavy-Duty Boots, so this would make a lot of Pokemon that need those items to be viable less useful. Overall this would be a minor effect, but I never understood why Item Clause was a thing in the first place.
Aside from leftovers and maybe thick club there’s basically no viable items lol, everything else would run type boosting items like Black Glasses and Magnets.
I remeber back in early gen 4 when smogon was still becoming the norm at the places I played. Item clause was usually on, and we later labeled it as a joke abitrary ruleset. Fun times
Interesting discussion. Personally I think I'd like this change, I don't think it makes a lot of big differences to the game, other than making niche items usable, and encouraging diversity in teambuilding. But I also get that Smogon singles is for singles players, with how little I play singles I'm actually okay leaving stuff like that up to you guys
What if there was a tier without hax? removing crits and damage rolls, and moves with a chance to miss or status instead did so based on the ammount of times it was used. For example scald always burning on the third use or focus blast always missing on the third use.
The item clause was one of the harder things for me to get used to going from singles to vgc, and I never hear any talk about it outside of brief mentions about its existence and nothing further
While I infrequently play Smogon/Showdown and even then mostly on AG for the sake of my own foolish entertainment, I follow the item clause anyway due to muscle memory. Actually, I'm currently doing a playthrough of the Alpha Sapphire ROM hack Star Sapphire and despite it being probably the first time you could consider my team even remotely competitive due to the hack's high difficulty I STILL stuck with the item clause.
I like item clause.I use it as a self-imposed rule,The only items I don't use item clause for are berries,lefties,HDB & eviolite (eviolite is only LC).
0:43 personally I’d like having to only deal with one sash mon per game, I think it’s cheap to use multiple sash pokemon. but that’s for gen 7 so no heavy duty boots
I feel like the item clause interestingly enough buffs poison types viability because if you want two leftover users, one has to be poison type. Its a very small thing, but I've def considered it many times when team building
And having a poison type in your team lessens the impact of only having one pokemon with Boots as well
So not much different for Toxapex cores
Pretty sure it would mostly just make Toxapex better specifically, though it probably will influence other poison types
so basically toxapex with black sludge and slowking g with assault vest will rein, nothing much changes tbh
@@timothylawrence8929 and slowking g. assault vest gking is great
Also Gliscor toxic orb would be great in an item clause meta
gliscor doesn't exist in gen 8
@Me but even better with clause because it would almost never take another mon's item
@@marowakcity3727 he's probably talking about nat dex
@@marowakcity3727 Was mainly referring to when it comes back to regular play. It's number 4 in usage in NatDex rn and will have access to spikes if it can transfer from PLA giving it another weapon in its arsenal.
It would be one of the best winners of that clause, because it means that it won't have much competition for it's item, and would be usable in balanced/bo teams.
I love that you didn't just discuss it the concepts on a broad scale, but actually dove in to individual teams and analyzed their structure. That's hugely informative and helps put the thoughts "to practice" so-to-speak.
Other thoughts:
- You might see some Sitrus / pinch berries on defensive Pokemon for that bit of healing
- Flame and Toxic Orb users become incredibly valuable. Hope you really love Gliscor
- Wide Lens could conceivably become viable, maybe on Weavile for a more accurate Triple Axel
- Bulky setup sweepers + Weakness Policy might become more common
- Scope Lens while using high crit moves like Night Slash or Leaf Blade or a Super Luck user like Togekiss or Honchkrow essentially gives you another Life Orb user on average, and could be valuable vs the crit-me-nots
- Any tier with possible Amoonguss / Sleep Powder sees a lot more Safety Goggles
- A format like Gen 7 pretty much wouldn't feel the item clause at all, with their Mega Stones and Z-Crystals
- I don't think a saw a single example in this video of Focus Sash or Expert Belt, those are moderately useful items depending on the circumstance, and I'm sure you'd see more of them with the item clause
- Going itemless for funny Acrobatics, Knock Off resistance, or Poltergeist immunity?
here's a funny thought: would itemless count as an "item" for item clause?
there's plenty of reasons why it shouldn't and not one for why it _should_ ( well, except for _technically_ meaning that multiple pokemon have the same item option selected ), but there's just something amusing about the idea of a team with an acrobatics user being illegal because the player forgot to select an item on another mon
Wide lens is honestly underrated.
@@skinnysnorlax1876 wide lens is awful because of the math. You're essentially playing with no item most of the math unless you're using a mon that can come in multiple times per game and spam inaccurate moves.
@@xjjay554x well, for context, I usually use it on bulkier mons who can afford to fire off a few moves, and need the accurcy to buff up the damage, or on mons that can't afford to miss.
It's nice on sleep powder or will o wisp users, for instance, because that extra accuracy changes the game, or triple axel mons
oooh safety googles! good ideas =)
I wonder what modern Competitive Pokémon would look like without team preview. Gen 5 and later would be so different
@@LyricalStarr damnit, you beat me to it
personally, i prefer team preview. its not as bad in singles as it is randbats because you can make a logical guess and arent 100% looking into the void, but it leaves it up to "ok, i need to keep this to beat that" so both sides have to plan rather than guess until everything is revealed.
@@pikminman13 I honestly think Zoroark should disappear from random battles.
It's hilarious when you get it, but not so much when the opponent gets it.
I think pivots would be in even higher demand. Because you don't want to reveal your whole team quickly. So alternating between Teleport Clefable and Volt Switch Rotom-W would be fun.
@@Dexuz id honestly make a bunch more restrictions on what comes in where. Some mons need to be banned from lead. Dugtrio and wobbuffet most notably. I’m also not a fan of some sets, salazzle is stupid in most games. Zoroark at least doesn’t win the moment it comes in with a good matchup, enough counters it. Though I wish the calculator gave its actual stats because I never remember its speed.
This would be a lot harder in low tiers where eviolite is much more common.
Are low tiers gonna become lit like DPP LC?
@@harpot678 🔥🔥🔥
Imagine LC with Item clause, it would lead to so much creativity in teambuilding, Not Just eviolite/Berry juice spam
@@semurobo would be a meta worth playing
@@semurobo So like the Gen 4 LC? That would be awesome
Another interesting item you didn’t mention is Expert Belt. It can be used to fake out a Choice item if your opponent didn’t know for sure if one of your Pokémon have a Choice item.
I've lost count of the number of times somebody has mistaken Modest Expert Belt for Timid Specs and then gotten blown up for it
It's probably even less of a deal in gen 7, since in most teams, you already have two item slots reserved for a Mega Stone and a Z-Crystal.
Item clause OU should be it's own smogon tier, similar to OU Blitz
Yeah it can be like the no scald tier
dividing the playerbase even more is not the wave, item clause isn't a big deal
Item clause would only make teambuilding more interesting and the meta more diverse.
I cant think of a single downside
@@semurobo players leaving due to no longer being able to spam items they rely on
@@cyanideytcuriousseadoggo Sounds Like an upside to me
For the Weavile examples, that's another case where you may start seeing the value of more niche items. Wide Lens and Protective Pads are both really good items to ease the risks of Triple Axel, for example.
There's also the whole world of berries to explore. Lum in particular has some precedent, and Sitrus shows up pretty often on hazard/disruption leads in BSS (though may not be as appealing in 6v6).
i *really* love the point you brought up at the end that item scouting would enhance in-battle strategising, knowing that if one pokémon has a certain item then the other pokémon don't have it. that sounds really fun to me
Something I always wished was that every type had their own "black sludge" like item. Not the exact effect but it would bring in some item diversity if for example there was an item giving status immunity to grass types or preventing stat drops on fighting types
This would be an awesome way to expand the game.
Close combat spam would be funny
Great Analysis!
Video idea: what if generational "vgc-legal" movesets are enforced on Showdown:
- no toxic on chansey/blissey
- no random event moves like eruption heatran/v-create mega-ray among other things
Not just Chansey/Blissey, pretty much everyone loses Toxic bar poison types. Lots of Knock Off users, Heal Bells, Explosions, Defoggers (can't get on a lot of legends), and various forms of recovery come to mind. Keep in mind that VGC is SW/SH accessible only (battle-ready mark required if from older gen, thus nukes any non SwSh moves), and even if the Pokemon has the ability to learn something in BDSP for example, it means nothing if Home wouldn't allow them to transfer, so any BDSP TM wouldn't count.
Smogon makes choices to make their format impossible to play on cartridge. (Despite the horrible timer that should be fixed).
I absolutely think both item clause and verified move sets should absolutely be on. They can still have an anything goes format if they want.
Like anyone ever is going to ever ever ever get a softboiled perfect IV + magic guard clefable realistically. You have to import it all the way from Gen 3. It might as well not exist. It’s basically impossible to obtain legally yet has been used in smogon formats for generations.
The more time passes the more smogon feels totally disconnected from the actual games. Maybe that’s a hot take, idk. Ive been enjoying VGC a lot more doing gen 8. I used to be a singles only guy too I think next gen they could use some serious updates to how the tiers a run. Also Gamefreak needs to make changes to his multiplayer works on cart as well. They also make it very difficult yo play their game on cart if it’s not vgc.
@@HelloHelloHellobby it's not hard now with bottle caps and mints.
Wish Chansey/Blissey on the other hand....
@@HelloHelloHellobby Like you said, Gamefreak makes it a massive pain in the ass to play Competitive on Cart. Additionally they don't really give any time of day to singles players, so it's not really surprising that a lot of the people playing singles are more content to stick with Showdown.
@@TheWrathAbove Free and instant vs raising it yourself with minimal incentive to do so. Even pro VGC players will hack their own/get someone to do it for them, of course they won't tell you this.
I think we could see more weather teams, Guts Pokemon, or Weakness Policy + Stored Power strats emerge with Item Clause.
I'm a VGC player, so whenever I play singles I tend to build like I have an item clause lmao
I feel like losing leftovers maybe would be a hard hit specially for mons like Heatran and Ferrothorn that cannot directly heal but want to last long in the battle, also would be a hard nerf to stall teams because most of them rely on multiple heavy duty boots and leftovers
Well looks like a good thing
Some Pokémon would also have greater ammounts of usage due to having no conpetition in the item slot usage(Toxapex) while others would probably rise to OU due to their efectiveness at using an specific item like eviolite chansey.
I think that with modern gens we should consider held item clause.
Back in earlier gens, there wasn't enough item variety to have such a rule, but we're past that point and it can make team-building more unique.
I would say gen 5 onwards has enough variety in items to work due to the having almost every item we care about: leftovers, black sludge, rocky helmet, eviolite, damage reducing berries, choice items, life orb, expert belt and type boosting items. It was also the time VGC started to have a clear structure and the creation of Pokémon Global Link, so it definitely fits with the time period.
Nothing says fun like restricting your options
@@zartey so we should unrestrict pokemon too, right? Duplicates are cool,
@@zartey I think generally, the small restriction of item clause breeds a lot more creativity
As someone who pretty much exclusively plays VGC, I love watching these types of videos and this channel just to see how different things are! I didn't even realize Singles didn't have Item Clause until the other day and I totally forgot Heavy Duty Boots existed at all
I’ll be honest, I thought Item Clause was always on for singles. I feel like makes sense to have for the Singles format if the VGC has it, but I’ve got no competitive experience, so who knows.
I have to admit believing the same.
It's on for most ofical rulesets (BSS and VGC) but not for smogon
It's mostly a history thing. Singles rulesets started standardizing around 3rd gen, and item clause is much more restrictive there because there's not many good items other than leftovers and choice band. Lum and Salac see some use, but you've still got two more slots to cover, and the type boosting items are only 10% instead of the 20% of later gens. You'd either end up giving team members marginal items or go deep with something like Thick Club or TrickBrace. 4th gen and beyond could realistically have an item clause, but at that point no item clause was already standard.
idk, you can choose to play with or without it so i see it as a win
@@petrie911 item clause in gen 3 would be especially restrictive given how Tyranitar is the best pokemon of the tier and so much of that is just what the passive damage of sand can do. Plus Spikes. The bog standard ADV team is a TSS (Toxic, Sandstorm, Spikes) team which every team has to be able to handle to be at least viable - a lack of lefties would restrict team-building so much more.
It's almost like entry hazards in OU is and has been hyper centralized for generations and defines the meta.
lol yea this needs to be the next topic. what if there were no entry hazards
@@randaljr.8581 Pivoting teams would heavily benefit, even stall teams through Teleport.
@@randaljr.8581 There would be much more stall. Stall is very weak to chip damage forcing them into passivity. Without that they could easily wall the entire meta.
@@swallow_skyla3602 its the typing thing. the fact that it hits for type effectiveness that makes them so strong imo
@@randaljr.8581 The fact you dont need 2+ layers of them and that defog users are usually flying type is also a huge deal. If defog had scald distribution every bulky water could clear hazards and we probably wouldnt see multiple heavy duty boots on every team.
Let's go i love theorymon Thursday! Haven't finished yet but ik it's gonna be great
During the later parts of Gen 7 (post-Ultra) I was playing the Battle Spot format on Showdown, which (as it's meant to mimic the games' multiplayer more directly) has an item clause, and I enjoyed it. When I went back to just Smogon formats, it felt weird to not have to put any thought into what six items my team was using, and instead just giving each pokemon whatever the most meta item for them was. Balance-wise I don't think it's something that NEEDS to change or anything, but I think the restriction results in more creative team design which I like.
I was really surprised when I found out singles didn't have an item clause. They have clauses for other stuff so I just assumed items would be one of the first things to get regulated but I guess I was wrong.
It would allow skillful players to play more strategically too, imo, like adjusting your plays according to which items you were able to identify on each enemy Pokemon.
I played a long time building teams with item clause on mind... Took me a while to notice I was wrong about that
leftovers on specially defensive landorus is IMO crucial. There have been countless games where I’ve considered their opposing landorus already dead once it’s leftovers has been removed/ neutralized through toxic or burn. And on the other side when using defensive lando there have been games where i’ve been able to prolong landorus’s longevity through double switches and it’s constant 6% recovery throughout a battle
Yeah, I honestly think Freezai is underestimating the importance of passive recovery. It makes a massive difference
that's why you spam sneaky pebbles
@@hppern3971 yeah i think the item clause would make using defensive landorus very interesting because it would force people to use their leftovers on landorus. it would make it tougher to use spdef lando + spdef heatran too for example
and although garchomp is offensive it’s leftovers makes it deceptively bulky vs stuff like volcarona and heatran. so garchomp would be kind of nerfed if used alongside lando
@@Ecliptor. lmao yeah that’s why rocks are super important
I remember finding it very strange how there wasn't item clause in smogon. I personally like to not have duplicate items, just because. it's fine either way I guess
As someone who plays on cartridge where you usually only get a single Leftovers in-game, I always included a defensive Poison type so I could give it Black Sludge instead of Leftovers
I run a draft league that uses item clause and I think it’s very interesting how it’s affected the draft phase, pokemon that utilize eviolite, assault vest, black sludge, type berries, and of course megas and z crystals are prioritized partially bc you’re not fighting for a leftovers or heavy duty boots slot as bad
Bringing up resist berries was smart. It makes a lot of sense - you definitely see those in VGC
I've been campaigning for item clause since the beginning of time. It's been around in every official format including the Stadium games, it incentivices creativity and it's just fair and consistent to restrict both items and pokemon
Odd that even though Smogon doesnt have an Item Clause, I have always played with an Item Clause. It is how my friends and I played back in the DPPt days, so we always just assumed everyone played like that.
Item clause would be interesting to consider in the context of other formats too. Little Cup in particular comes to mind, where almost everything wants to run Eviolite or Berry Juice.
Back in the Gen6/Gen7 days most of the Wi Fi battle tournaments I played had item clouse even though they used Smogon rules, that also applaies to level 50, but that's more understandable since grinding to level 100 is often too much.
I used to play in a Pixelmon server where all of the NPC battles used item clause in Nat Dex. It was interesting to team build.
Please make a video on why there's no sleep clause in doubles ou, and spore isn't banned even though it's overpowered without sleep clause.
It's because double battles are very fast paced (though not as fast as vgc because lvl 100 instead of 50) so if you let the enemy sleep your entire team that's more on you playing bad/having a bad team than sleep being op. Not to mention other factors like good sleep users like amogus or butterfree (probably the only good sleepers tbh) having to balance using other utility like rage powder or pollen puff, a plethora of fire and flying attackers, abundance of fake out, protect and redirects, and lum berry being a very useful item for shrugging off said sleep and burn.
Item clause would be interesting for sure, but I agree there’s not really an issue especially defensively with spin/defog/taunt and I don’t think I’ve ever heard people complain about boots being annoying or broken. Just that it is a really good item that made a lot more Pokémon more fun to use like talon or Volcarona
Knock is also a really spammable move vs most teams (even corrosive gas is cool tech)
last gen item clause would be easy to fit bc z-moves an mega stones are 2 singular items on most teams.
I actually didn't realize there was no item clause on Smogon. I barely play Smogon, but when I did, I unconsciously played with items clause
i feel like item clause would be really detrimental to lower tiers, where there are a lot of pokemon whose alternative sets haven't been explored and, frankly, who are only really good at one thing.
i think that the councils of the respective tiers can decide if they don't want the clause
I would love item clause on smogon so mcuh
I actually absolutely love this idea
One item I think would see a lot more usage is Expert Belt. It's a low risk band mixup
For zerora i run the air balloon as it is a nice substitute for heavy duty boots with its own advantages like being able to switch into ground types more safely and grass knot or knock off the threats as they have to spend 2 turns to kill it
Here's a topic: common competitive items and how their introduction changed the meta, and how the current meta would be without them. For example, if heavy duty boots never existed, or how nobody uses sitrus berry anymore (i noticed)
Battle Stadium Singles says hi
a potential offensive team item spread could be dual screens koko with light clay, unburden hawlucha with electric seed, and any four of choice band, scarf, specs, hdb, lefties, etc.
the terrain offense team style might actually get a lot better due to item clause because of the general rarity of light clay and electric seed.
Honestly, I could see this being a fun OM to try out. Not much different, but different enough.
Idea: If you could give a bad defensive type (like ice for example) 1 additional resistance what would it be? You cannot turn a weakness into a resistance, just turn a neutral type advantage into a resistance or make a weakness neutral.
An obvious answer would be making Ice resist something that Ice is offensively super effective against, like Dragon, Flying, or Ground (or Grass I guess). Another option would be making it resist Water, which makes some sense thematically I think
Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
I remember once a kid that got salty on me on a Showdown Tournament just because I was using Double Scarf user .__.
A lot of defensive teams also use assault vest on regenerator pivots since they conserv very high phasing potential without any status moves
Most notable example being scald + future sight slowbros
so what I'm hearing is Item Clause would make Poison types get more use
I see no problem here
Toxapex and Amoongus would be the biggest winners of it since both can make effective use of black sludge.
I think you overstated the importance of toxic spikes in the metagame
I once accidentally played a Gen 2 OU singles tournament (leftovers moment) with an item clause team. My clutch item was bright powder surprisingly
This is a thing over in temtem, and it’s always good to know “ok, I’ve seen a tem with X powerful item, Y tem now cannot have it@
I wonder if Item Clause would make the item Shell Bell usable? For those who don't remember what it does: whenever you deal direct damage with an attack, you heal for 10% of damage dealt (number may be different in other gens).
It normally doesn't see play because Leftovers tends to be more consistent, and often heals more; as well as the fact, to get much out of it you need to be a hard hitting Pokémon that also needs healing, most Pokémon that hit hard either want to hit harder and/or are too fragile for the healing to matter; while more defensive Pokémon generally don't hit that hard, and on some turns might not even be attacking, meaning no healing that turn.
I tryed experimenting with that in a group that used to be apart of but conveniently before every game they forgot about it
I play like I have item clause. Not only it makes it more interesting for team building but to get more Leftovers, Black Sludge, Heavy Duty Boots, ect. requires to play the game multiple times to get more than one of or to have a Pokemon with Pickup at a high level and “hope” to get another leftovers. And with Pokemon Home not being able to transfer all my battle items over to future games meaning I have to grind for those items again which includes the Battle Tower items such as Life Orb and the Choice items
I personally really like item clause, it adds a layer of strategy, and it feels less random that you don’t have to guess if your opponent is running double scarf in some situations.
I would like a theory episode about what would happen to singles if there were no more entry hazards. No sticky web, spikes, toxic spikes, and stealth rocks allowed.
i just wanna say, i love pokemon but have never considered playing it competitively, and your videos are still fascinating even when its totally irrelevant to me like this one. i love your content man keep it up
I think the interesting part of the question lays in the later generations. Gen 3 with item clause would've been "fun"
If gen 3 had item clause, then ttar might have to be banned
Funny thing is, I always give myself an item clause. Makes it more fun to me, and gives a bit more thought to teambuilding.
Actually that would be so cool in monotype, since you're far more likely to use only one resist berry or type boosting item for the whole team
i honestly love item clause, my favorite thing about vgc as a format. it restricts teambuilding in a way i really like. i feel like it incentivizes creativity without inhibiting play too much. i would love to add it personally, although i know it would never happen.
is much as I love stacking several Choice Bands or Specs.... I think item clause would be healthy for the meta overall
This is actually a clause I try to abide by with team building, just because I feel weird using duplicater items.
I think this would make for an interesting video, what if the was an item that swapped special moves and made them physical and viscera.
I just think mons like alakzam getting special elemental punches would be great and even Machamp using fireblast of it's physical attack would be great
I would suggest for bulky pokemon instead of putting a berries for reducing the damage of super effective moves they could use healing berries like sitrus or aguav
In my opinion, while it would not make as big of a change as some may think, I do believe it would change more stuff than you said. For once, being only able to heavy duty boots one mon would make stealth rocks and resistant mons better again, and it would heavily punish switch moves spam teams. Additionally, the restriction on leftovers would mean that a lot of mons that rely on leftovers for recovery would loose a lot of ground to landorus...
Sounds like this would somewhat limit team diversity as this would centralize the meta around Pokemon that are item clause friendly, like Toxic Orb/Flame Orb users. There really isn't a substitute for Leftovers or Heavy-Duty Boots, so this would make a lot of Pokemon that need those items to be viable less useful. Overall this would be a minor effect, but I never understood why Item Clause was a thing in the first place.
Hours of the Battle Tree has made me play smogon rules as if there is an item clause lol
I challenge myself to use Item Clause when I'm team building. It forces creativity, and it's more satisfying to get wins with an extra limitation.
Also, because of how singles vs doubles works, items like safety goggles aren't as common so filling slots is a bit harder
imagine gen 2 (and 3, to a slightly lesser degree) where everything runs lefties lol
Snorlax would basically be the go to Lefties user in Gen 2
Aside from leftovers and maybe thick club there’s basically no viable items lol, everything else would run type boosting items like Black Glasses and Magnets.
item clause gen 2 ou is actually a real side meta
@@long_john i'd imagine people running miracleberry or mint berry for Rest sets, other than that i see no viable items either
I remeber back in early gen 4 when smogon was still becoming the norm at the places I played. Item clause was usually on, and we later labeled it as a joke abitrary ruleset. Fun times
Babe wake up it's theorymon thursday
I've always played online with an item clause because I think Battle Spot has it. Even then, it feels weird having multiple mons with the same thing.
Cool idea, what would a LC vgc meta look like?
Interesting discussion. Personally I think I'd like this change, I don't think it makes a lot of big differences to the game, other than making niche items usable, and encouraging diversity in teambuilding. But I also get that Smogon singles is for singles players, with how little I play singles I'm actually okay leaving stuff like that up to you guys
I'm just here to listen to him say heavy duty boots. Idk when he says it the word has a satisfying sound to it.
What if there was a tier without hax? removing crits and damage rolls, and moves with a chance to miss or status instead did so based on the ammount of times it was used. For example scald always burning on the third use or focus blast always missing on the third use.
The item clause was one of the harder things for me to get used to going from singles to vgc, and I never hear any talk about it outside of brief mentions about its existence and nothing further
Everybody gangsta till a mon gets auto magic room as an ability.
Needs to a sleep clause in doubles UU. I'm tired(pun intended) of having half my team put to sleep.
When you can't run 6 Heavy Duty Boots on teams anymore. *throws invisible rocks*
Scald should be super effective against ice or an item that increases the turns of trickroom
TIL that there is no item clause on smogon,
I kept building teams with an item clause in mind lmao
While I infrequently play Smogon/Showdown and even then mostly on AG for the sake of my own foolish entertainment, I follow the item clause anyway due to muscle memory. Actually, I'm currently doing a playthrough of the Alpha Sapphire ROM hack Star Sapphire and despite it being probably the first time you could consider my team even remotely competitive due to the hack's high difficulty I STILL stuck with the item clause.
I genuinely thought there was an item clause on Smogon and built my team accordingly
I feel like and item clause in little cup would be insane. Only 1 eviolite allowed would probably shake up the meta pretty hard.
I would absolutely love it! More items would appear and not just five of them basically. 😆
I like item clause.I use it as a self-imposed rule,The only items I don't use item clause for are berries,lefties,HDB & eviolite (eviolite is only LC).
so all the good items
Thats like... All the viable items lmao
@@TrulyAtrocious if you're good you dont need good items
@@vaughnrudy8084 If you are good you dont make idiotic arbitrary rules for yourself and you play to win instead lol
@@vaughnrudy8084 hmm yes, my favorite strategy: red card leafeon with false swipe and swords dance
There’s always been a leftovers clause in smogon
items clause would be really interesting in little cup hahah
Cool video. Want to ask, as it wasn't in the outro, would you think the change would lead to a more diverse or less diverse metagame?
Best theorymon yet
0:43 personally I’d like having to only deal with one sash mon per game, I think it’s cheap to use multiple sash pokemon. but that’s for gen 7 so no heavy duty boots
I think a heavy duty boots clause would be a better solution
Honestly. Singles sounds better with item clause. Not a lot better, but an incremental step of betterness.