Hopefully I won't regret making this post

Philosophies Innocent until proven guilty. Not just for being Game Freak's primary intended mechanic for generation 8, but for simply being held Suspect against the tier, I will consider Dynamaxing as healthy and competitive by default, until enough evidence and/or proof is provided that Dynamaxing's counterplay in either resources or actions are too constrictive, if they exist at all, to provide an enjoyable gameplay experience, in short-term, long-term, and teambuilding interactions.



Broken-checking-broken, in scenarios where the Suspect is both the checked and the checker, is a valid argument if there are other available resources or actions to provide counterplay, but is an invalid argument if there are not. Judgement about whether the available resources or actions are sufficient to void invalidity is ultimately subjective.



Long-term interactions are defined not by an arbitrary number of turns that "feel" long, but instead defined by the pursuit of an end goal or goals, and the manipulation of short-term interactions that lead to the stated end goal or goals. Whether this takes 6 turns or 600 does not matter.

I've been mostly avoiding being involved in discussion on this, mainly since I don't enjoy arguments or politics, but know that I would have regrets if I didn't at least post my viewpoint here, so I will be responding to the thoughts of the council with any potential issues I have with their statements, and/or my own personal thoughts and takes on the subject. In the case of similar arguments, I focused on specifics brought up instead, to avoid repeating similar messages.I'll also post some personal philosophies I have below, which will be applied to this post.ABR:-Primarily worried about a lack of impact from long-term focus, believes that any single scenario can be turned on its head and therefore undermine the long-term, notably choicebreaking.*Issues/Thoughts: Implies that stated one-turn scenarios are consistently enough to provide enough advantage to cause damage control and re-draw strategy. While that can certainly be the case, their existences can be recognized beforehand, potentially as far back as team preview, and can be factored into the strategy itself. Preservation of such info can also be chalked up to superior play.Brofist:-Similar worries as ABR, but specifies a perceived lack of counterplay do Dynamaxing due to potential snowballing.*Issues/Thoughts: Implies that snowballing consistently happens after offensive dynamaxing. From personal experience, the only way to confirm snowballing is if the Dynamax was part of a premeditated goal, derived either from team conception or team preview. While it is still possible for shortsighted Dynamaxes to snowball, it is ultimately dependent on the offensive movetypes ran: Fighting, Poison, and Flying for statboosting, which require the user to be capable of utilizing said statboost; Fire, Electric, Water, Psychic, and Grass for typeboosting, usually only relevant for STAB; and Water, Fire, Ice, and Rock for Weather-based speed boosting, which requires Swift Swim, Chlorophyll, Slush Rush, or Sand Rush, respectively, to be relevant. Pokemon can still hold a nontraditional coverage move to provide snowballing potential, doing so disqualifies them from this discussion, as running such a move for the primary purpose of dynamax utilization makes it a premeditated lure; the chances of such a Pokemon being in such a position without being strategized for by their Trainer is extremely low, being the most likely to happen in early stages of the match; this provides an inhibitor, as in such early stages of the match it is unlikely that the opposing Trainer's checks and counters are dealt with.Charmflash:-Takes a different approach, and shows concerns about the variance of strategy styles, worried that Dynamaxing punishes strategies that do not incorporate it.*Issues/Thoughts: I take no issue with the direction taken, and I agree that Dynamaxing, being the intended spotlight mechanic, will be an unignorable one. However, being unignorable does not require it to be the focus of any given strategy, but only requires it to be intrinsically taken into account. The most obvious examples are Weather teams: their core structures do not change with the advent of Dynamaxing, but instead utilizes it by gearing one of their Weather sweepers to be Dynamax-friendly. In this sense, Dynamaxing can increase diversity, rather than decrease it: I personally built a Sun team that ran Leafeon as a Chlorophyll sweeper, who was able to consistently pull its weight because Dynamaxing gave it the ability to bypass the startup turns for Dig and non-sun Solar Blade, as well as increasing the power of Dig, increasing its consistency and giving it the tools it wanted. This same team is also built with the assumption that each Pokemon will need to perform without the availability of Dynamaxing, decentralizing a potential Dynamax focus while increasing my options.Eo Ut Mortus:-States that the range options that the concept of Dynamaxing provides are too impractically wide for any given Trainer to be expected to deal with; Worried that trainers will be forced to operate with insufficient info, and be consistently pressured into high-risk decisions in order to deal with Dynamaxing. Finds issues with how consistently Dynamaxing is used to deal with Dynamaxing.*Issues/Thoghts: The first major statement listed, that there are too many options for any given trainer to practically deal with, is one that I both agree and disagree with. In the context I used in my above summary, where any given trainer should be expected to recognize the necessary options, I agree; the bulk of trainers who play Currentgen OU, who understand the metagame but have no wishes to enter tournaments bar the occasional roomtour, cannot be expected to recognize all available options to both them and the opponent, and unlike previous gens, the punishments have greater potential. In the context of a Trainer's raw potential, I disagree; it is possible to recognize all necessary options, and derive possible sets, coverage moves, hazard carriers, and lures, to the same degree as the previous generations, where pressure and close analysis of the opponent's play in the first few turns will be enough to fill in most major holes, and where deviations from a correct analysis sacrifice enough team effectiveness to allow it to be properly dealt with or played around, and punished. However, doing so requires much greater focus and effort than it has in previous gens, and will likely only be achieved at tournament-level play.*As for the second statement, my personal experience is that Dynamaxing is commonly used to deal with Dynamaxing because it retains the same flexibility of utilization that offensive dynamaxes have; most teams do not intend for counter-dynamaxing to be their only major way of dealing with opposing Dynamaxes, but instead of being forced to focus their play on their answers, they are given the freedom to play the momentum game, to further their own strategy without relinquishing too much control to their opponent. In terms of the 50/50s, I still believe that enough external information can be gathered to weigh them in similar fashion as the other 50/50s that can exist.*One last thing: I wish for a clarification on this quote: "...and the one-time aspect of Dynamaxing means that no information can be gathered within the scope of a single battle to help inform a player's decision." Could there be clarification as to what type or types of info are being referred to? In its current state, the quote seems to claim that it's impossible to gather any relevant information regarding Dynamaxing, which I consider to be straight-out false; I doubt that that was the message you wanted to portray.Finchinator:-Similar to ABR and Brofist, notably brings up worried about forced reactive measures derailing premeditated strategies, potentially to the point of unrecoverability.*Issues/Thoughts: At the risk of sounding rude, not to Finch but to those who fall under the category of people whose strategies can be forced to derail to the point of compromisation, strategies and/or teams that are unable to provide enough flexibility to provide sufficient reactive measures to abstract threats are fundamentally flawed; their scopes needs to be broadened in order to accomodate. I do not believe that accomplishing this without losing sight of the original strategy or making the strategy's implementation too weak is impossible, not by a long shot.KratosMana:-Similar to ABR, Brofist, and Finch, brought up how they percieve Dynamaxing as having little if any risk at any given point in a match.*Issues/Thoughts: This is a statement that I believe to be false. Dynamaxing's potential is extremely high, but it can ultimately only apply once to a team every match; using it defensively prevents you from using it offensively and vice versa, and using it at unexpected times prevents it from being used reactively or in a premeditated manner. This can be compounded further if a team was built with the assumption that a predetermined Pokemon will take the Dynamax, and is given a movepool designed to abuse it, without assuming that it will need to pull its weight without Dynamaxing; being forced to Dynamax any other Pokemon lowers the team's potential significantly, and the team's Trainer must factor that into their strategy, limiting their options. The primary risk of Dynamaxing is that it is a resource, and like other resources, mismanaging it can be punished.TDK:-Focused on the abundance of 50/50s Dynamaxing provides; also brings up the lack of phazing, and choicebreaking.*Issues/Thoughts: A consistent theme that the 50/50 arguments I have seen carry is that they view the 50/50s in a vaccuum, without considering the existence of external info, which is what weighs the given options in any 50/50 scenario, and to quote myself from earlier in this post, "In terms of the 50/50s, I still believe that enough external information can be gathered to weigh them in similar fashion as the other 50/50s that can exist." Expanding on that quote, the aspect of managing it as a one-use resource that I mentioned above is, in my opinion, one of the largest factors of applicable external info. So yes, unless this is a scenario where external info does not apply or does not exist, such as lastmon vs. lastmon scenarios, I do believe that they are determined by a form of skill, where the objectively better player has the advantage.*On the subject of choicebreaking, which ABR also brought up, such a method of Dynamaxing is still ultimately reactive, planned for from team preview or even from the teambuilder, or straight-up random. The latter scenario, Dynamaxing not to further the realization of a goal or pose as a wincon but to simply surprise an opponent, is an extreme mismanagement of Dynamaxing, and will consistently put the offending Trainer at a disadvantage; if it does not, and if it truly was random, then the offending Trainer incorrectly identified their potential options and endgoals, and stumbled onto the "correct" path by happenstance, the path that the opposing trainer would have attempted to recognize from team preview and play from previous turns, meaning that both trainers would need to be at fault for such a scenario to occur.Ultimately, my view on Dynamaxing's impact on long-term interactions are the complete opposite of most opinions I've seen, including the Council's: Dynamaxing does not hinder or nullify long-term interactions; Long-term interactions are what keep Dynamaxing predictable and in check, and Dynamaxing enhances long-term interactions.I understand and respect the worries people have, and why they will vote for a ban, but as it currently stands, I would vote No Ban.