Baton Pass grants these aforementioned Pokemon with free boosts, without requiring they run a Speed boosting move such as Rock Polish or Shift Gear.

Baton Pass teams give the user the choice to send the specific boosts to a certain Pokemon; while a Pokemon could potentially obtain the same boosts, it necessitates they set up on Pokemon that potentially can eliminate them, while the boosts come to them safe of harm.

Baton Pass teams do not require skill to win; one of the biggest points in our Tiering philosophy is that the better player should win more often than not, and Baton Pass severely hurts this idea.

Baton Pass has incredibly limited counterplay. While there are ways to be 100% well prepared for Baton Pass teams, they simply have no practicality outside of being used to beat these teams. While metagame adaptation is not something we shun, having some form of counterplay does not mean a Pokemon shouldn't be banned. Every Pokemon has some surefire counter, even those banished to Ubers, however, even though this specified counterplay may be legal in OU, does not mean the banished Uber would be OK in OU just due to the existence of a counter.

Baton Pass is now

BANNED

from SM OU

In SM, with the introduction of Necrozma and Magearna, Baton Pass practically got the two best Speed Pass recipients seen in Pokemon thus far. In all my time using and playing Baton Pass teams, the only thing to reach anywhere near the same level as efficiency these two is Manaphy in ORAS, which has plenty of all out stops. Nothing else even comes close to the amount of games these two just win after freely receiving speed boosts.With a few speed boosts behind it, Necrozma becomes one of the most potent set up sweepers in the game. While it most surely cannot break past a Dark-type, when paired with a Dugtrio, it becomes incredibly simple to remove every viable Dark-type from the match via a death fodder. Outside of this, Necrozma quickly and surely gathers boosts and is capable of nailing every possible form of counterplay with a boosted Stored Power. Pokemon can attempt to status Necrozma, but 1) they must be able to survive a boosted Stored Power and 2) must force the player to send in Necrozma rather than Espeon somehow. In matchups where there is evidently something carrying Toxic that can trouble Necrozma, Espeon will be passed to instead. Necrozma quickly gathers defense boosts, allowing it to take hits from either side, and, thanks to its ability, is able to shrug off even super effective attacks after a boost or two.The other threatening sweeper, Magearna, is quite different than the previously mentioned Necrozma. While Magearna's ability makes it harder to stop once it gets going, it also takes less to get going than Necrozma does. Thanks to Z Moves, Magearna's base SpA and movepool, it is capable of nabbing a quick kill with a Twinkle Tackle, and then gaining a boost and becoming incredibly troubling to handle afterwards. Magearna also can set up, should it find the opportunity to do so, with Calm Mind. While Magearna is a lot more threatening due to its immediate firepower, it does have hardstops that it cannot get past, unlike Necrozma.Now, what exactly is broken about Baton Pass?Some Replays of Baton Pass in action:I'd like to preface this bit by stating clearly that I think the past editions of the Baton Pass clause were simply mistakes. I was not apart of the Council at the time; in fact everyone on the current Council aside from M Dragon wasn't, and I do not wish to defame them for following through with the decision they made, but I definitely do not agree with it being the right one. Our tiering is meant to be simple, straightforward, and efficient. Our previous clause was none of these things and was only put in place to save collateral damage, which completely goes against past decisions made and is not something I wish to do ourselves. Did we ban Speed Boost off of Blaziken? No. Did we ban Protean off of Greninja? No. Did we ban King's Shield off of Aegislash? No. The list goes on and on. Personally, I do not care in the slightest about what should happen do Pokemon that get effected by the loss of Dry Pass, nor should they be taken into account for this decision. Albeit, loads of people surely disagree with this sentiment and philosophy, however it is the way we've done things in the past and is the way the current OU Council wishes to do things now. We should not create silly and unnecessary clauses to preserve a Pokemon's ability to run a certain set. I previously made a post reiterating what I have inside of this post; nerfing an aspect of a move that inherently has broken aspects is simply foolish. Banning a part of Baton Pass would lead to an ability being banned off of a Pokemon, an item being banned off of a Pokemon, and so forth until we have an absurd amount of ridiculous bans that really don't make sense practically.Baton Pass, as a whole, has very uncompetitive and overpowered aspects that can be abused to similar levels of efficiency regardless of what Pokemon runs it. Meaning, Baton Pass, the move, is broken, in the opinion of the OU Council, a very large portion of the community, and myself. The move itself has issues surrounding it that make it unfit for the metagame. We are not going to restrict the move itself when it in itself is the issue and should be banned. While our most recent variation of the clause did do this, to a lesser extent, we believe it was the wrong philosophy and a mistake. This is a move that certain Pokemon abuse; while not every Pokemon that abuses this move is banworthy while using it, it is not only one Pokemon that can use the move to the extent it will be brought up as banworthy.To make things abundantly clear; Scolipedethe only viable Baton Passer that can lead to unfair strategies. In fact, earlier on in the generation we saw ben gay's Mew Pass team as much as we did Scolipede pass. While it isn't quite as effective as the standard Baton Pass roaming around currently, it still has the same traits as standard, providing players with mindless autowin scenarios, uncompetitive strategies, and simply being flat out broken. This in of itself pretty much negates any discussion of anything beyond Stat Passing, which is not something we shall be doing, not an option. Should this in itself not convince you, I also urge you to consider the lesser Speed Passers than Scolipede. Ninjask, Rock Polish Mew, Rock Polish Gliscor, and even Combusken would see usage in OU should Scolipede find itself banned because of the move Baton Pass. Should Speed Passing as a whole be banned, other means would be abused, such as Defense passing with Mew and the like. Scolipede is not the reason Baton Pass is as effective as it is; the abusers presented to it in Sun and Moon have pushed it over the edge and would continue to be broken even if the extent of stats being passed were changed.Due to the fact the last version of Baton Pass was simply decided amongst the OU Council, I believe it to be fit to follow up this decision with refinement. We do not see a Suspect Test providing unexpected results, and we have heard a large amount of community input, between this thread and the loads of discussion brought up to us about Baton Pass. As such, we simply do not seek to waste time and would rather make a quick decision.With all of the above considered,While tiering with old generations is always an awkward discussion, as there is no active Council for said generation, it is not something we simply have ignored. While discussion on the tiering of Baton Pass in past generations is more than welcome, we will not be making a decision on it at this point in time. While I do believe the current Council should be more than free to make a decision on tiering in ORAS, considering all of our members were active players of this generation and most were apart of the Council towards the tailend of the generation, I do not however see reason to make a hasty decision when there is little unanimity. Simply put, I do not find Baton Pass in ORAS, at this point in time, to be broken or banworthy. While I do entirely disagree with the clause put in place, making a change to it is not necessary considering the effectiveness for current Baton Pass in ORAS OU. The primary sweepers in this generation, Manaphy and Espeon, meet themselves with issues and potential hard stops that are far more difficult to work around than Baton Pass in SM. Their counters are not easily circumvented.While this is mostly my opinion, I'm not going to rule out a potential discussion should one come to be, however I do not agree with any action being taken against BP in ORAS. A sub-optimal clause that functions to an acceptable level does not warrant fixing. Should there be disagreement in regards to this philosophy or the degree of 'brokeness' of Baton Pass in ORAS or BW, feel free to create a discussion on this.