It's still crazy to me how a _Legendary_ got nerfed because of how strong a _regular mon_ was with its signature move. Also, how in the world does Smeargle using Transform even work in lore? That's some biological BSery that I don't even want to begin to try to unravel.
Also the fact Sketch got nerfed to not be able to use said signature the same gen the move got nerfed. Like, what? Let the one meant to have it have a chance to use the intended package by itself before nerfing it!
Smeargle is just a paintbrush "ninja" beagle in my view, so they'd easily full-body transform like any of the transformation based jutsu shown off by other fictional ninja (E.g, Naruto).
Speaking of sketch, I still remember Necturna, one of Smogon's created pokemon during their create a pokemon project. Its gimmick was that it only learns sketch once, instead of over and over like smeargle, so a single one of its moveslots could be anything and the other 3 were defined by its movepool. Then somebody said "but every pokemon game has a move relearner NPC" and the resounding response was "no but shut up tho"
I think the lore was that Sketch was an egg move for Necturna. That way, it couldn't be retaught through any means. There's a ROM hack that gives Grafaiai a one-time Sketch move, which can be pretty fun with Unburden Belly Drum or Prankster Spore.
@oppositeofitself8444 Yeah, I believe the idea was that it was an egg move. That worked back generations ago when they introduced it, but now since move relearners work for egg moves and SWSH began letting mons get their egg moves post capture, that mon should technically be a sketch mon lol.
@andrewrobinson8542 If that were the case, you could still trade the mon over to teach it sketch again on another save file unless it was specifically trade locked like the partner Miraidon/Koraidon (and why would this mon theoretically introduced generations ago be trade locked?). At this point it's really just an imposed rule to only let it get sketch once (and thats fair enough, when it was introduced to CAP it was only supposed to get sketch once as an interesting twist, it never was supposed to become a much better smeargle).
I've never leveled up Smeargle to teach it Sketch. I farmed heart scales with a Covet Linoone back in Emerald when I did this. Only realised it could learn Sketch by level up fairly recently
The thing that i'l always find strange in Smeargle is that the design space it ocuppies (a mon that can do basically everything, but has shit stats to compensate) is something you would expect them to do much later in their life, like it feels like something that could be created in gen 6 or 7, when design was getting a bit more experimental. But no, it came out in the second fucking game
Tbf Smeargle kinda just apes the concept of blue mages from FF. It’s important to note that early Pokémon was very much an RPG first and so it just kinda did a bunch of things JRPGs at the time did or had done
That sounds like something that would come out early on. Like the idea of a Pokémon that can learn every move is not that complicated a concept, and it’s obvious you need to give it low stats to balance it out. Like Ditto is the same thing, the Pokémon that can be any Pokémon. It’s just the crazy potentially powerful idea that was obvious in concept, so they got it out of the way early on.
@@Pandacalifornia if it came out today, it’d probably be some weird half-wall with like 60 HP/75 Atk/80 Def/50 SpA/75 SpD/80 Spe as base stats and a signature ability in pre-nerf Protean Or maybe I’m on something and have too little faith in Game Freak to create reasonably balanced Pokémon
@@tomatogenesisI don’t really think that was a very serious decision though after how well gen 1 sold. No way they would stop all of the plushies, anime, and trading cards just like that
I still find it funny that there’s some crazy strong-looking Pokémon on the battlefield and then there’s just a little dog painter that’s the biggest threat.
I'm pretty sure Hyperspace Fury fails if the user isn't Hoopa-U (or its Impostor, thanks for nothing GameFreak), so Dark Void could've easily used the same mechanic.
@@oppositeofitself8444It does, that's the worst part. Same gen they nerfed dark void because of smeargle, and made smeargle unable to use it anyway. Completely pointless change.
Dark Void should either only have 50% accuracy in doubles (85% otherwise) or be a AoE damaging move with a 50% chance to inflict sleep. Or, I dunno, have like a Pokemon that automatically sets up Gravity exist
I really like the game design of Pokémon like Smeargle. Useless if trained badly, unstoppable if trained well. Of course that all breaks down when you get into competitive Pokémon where players are all pretty darn good at the game and copy each other's homework constantly. But in the context of single player or casual games against friends I think it's much more interesting and fun than "strong because big number".
@@juliancalero8012 Funny enough Judgment is one of the worse moves to give a smeargle. We are looking for hyper specific movesets that were not supposed to go together, not just God's ability to pass judgement upon the world lol.
Not so much he is usually the first kill in a VGC Battle and there are tons of way to block a revival blessing to be used There are also better move that he can use fake out, spore, nuzzle, wide guard, taunt, spiky shield, haze, tailwind, trick room ecc..
Mmmm Assuming Smeargle comes in on something slower than it. Spore Into Sub (We'll say a switch here, but odds could be better if they stay in) Into Revival, Eat Leppa Swap out Smeargle At this point, if the opponent ever wakes up their pokemon, they are subject to another round of spore sub then either RB or Recycle. If an opponent is stubborn and stays in, it's not unreasonable to get an RB, a Recycle, and maybe another RB off.
That was Prankster + Assist shenanigans that lead to practically infinity Revival Blessings. Smeargle doesn't have Prankster and Assist isn't even legal.
I'd argue the opposite- its gimmick really doesn't work in-game until the later generations, as it only learns Sketch once every **10** levels. If you catch a level 10 Smeargle and aren't far enough into the game to access a move relearner, you need to wait until level **31** to have a full moveset.
what are you talking about? smeargle is more useful in competitive battling (because of its huge support movepool) than single player (where what is most useful is whatever kills things fastest, and the game design never pushes you to use complicated strategies)
@@fictitiousalias5849"Designed for a singleplayer rpg" does not mean "useful in a singleplayer rpg". In a singleplayer rpg, balance is much less important than in a competitive game, which means developers don't have to worry as much about the impact of implementing weird gimick options (in this case pokemon/moves). Something like Smeargle can just exist, useless on a surface-level, but potentially really strong if it's gimick is pushed to the limit. But as you said, in a game as easy as Pokemon, the player isn't presented with any challenge that would make them explore Smeargle's potential. Which means the only people that will do so are those that want to push the game to its limits, or that just really like Smeargle. Which is fine, it doesn't really affect anyone else. And this is kinda the reason Pokémon plays so differently in a competitive environment compared to the "regular" game. Gamefreak designed the game with the singleplayer mentality from the beginning, and then just added pvp because they thought it would be fun. They didn't really think about the fact that if/when a competitive scene developed, that environment would push players to explore everything that could give them an advantage, including the potential of all the gimicks in the game, jumping through any hoops necessary. Which turned out to be so impactful that "regular" Pokémon and competitive Pokémon are basically different games. (Woops, guess my thoughts ran away from me there.)
@@Draconich yeah, it's also the reason why for the first 5 generations of Pokemon Dragon was a type which was only weak to other Dragon types. In single player games, there being this super powerful secret type which's only weakness is itself is really cool! In competitive, it just meant it was really wack.
As a card game player, "closed teamsheets" being something comp Pokemon players hate is wild to me. Like why should you have perfect knowledge of all of your opponent's options in advance? Obfuscating that is what leads to actual choices in development, because you need to figure out whether you go with a broadband effort to tech against a lot of decks/teams or have very focused "counters to counters" as techs.
A lot of card game tournaments have open (revealed to opponent) or partially open (names of cards, but not quantity) deck lists during some or all of the tournament. Either way, there's nothing wrong with hidden information games, nor with perfect information games, or anything in between. It just requires different skills to mitigate the risks of hidden information from the skills to analyze and counter what you and your opponent knows is the "correct" move.
I think Tera is the biggest factor. Being able to completely change your typing on the fly is what gets so many Pokemon banned from singles OU, especially with each Mon being able to run any of like four to six completely different Teras for completely different reasons.
Oops you go on stream for one match then your opponent has all the intel about your team yet you have none of theirs. How is that fair? Better to have open team sheets than try to police every single edge case. if you assume no streamed matches what’s stopping someone from using binoculars at the tournament?
@@Xhadp You don't stream tournaments, yes. And there's no "policing every single edge case". To use Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments as an example gaining knowledge about your opponent's cards falls under the "Private Knowledge" clause. If you get caught obtaining or trying to obtain Private Knowledge then you will be disqualified. Period. This isn't really a complicated ruleset, the rule is just "any card that is not currently face up on your opponent's field is Private Knowledge" and cannot be confirmed by you. If you ask your opponent "what cards are in your hand?" they don't have to tell you, you can shuffle through their deck to "confirm if they're lying", etc. And by that same token, Misrepresenting the Gamestate is a disqualifiable offence as well, so it works both ways. These are the kinds of thing Judges are at events for.
Hot Take: All the Smeargle Void Debacle did is reveal how utterly toxic a high-accuracy team-targeting Sleep move is as a design. It's less of an issue in Smogon play, which is both singles and has sleep clause, but just in a vacuum this was never a move that was going to do wholesome competitive things.
^This. Smeargle itself isn't the problem. Smeargle is merely the litmus test that reveals when a move has been balanced so poorly it really shouldn't exist in the game at all.
Smeargle was how I learned about hacked pokemon. Back in the mists of time on the gen 6 online battles I came across a shiny smeargle with Dark Void. Baring in mind at this point the way you'd have to do that is by catching a shiny in Gen 4 using the pokeradar or trade up from gen 3, having access to the event that gave you Darkrai (or a gameshark), tackling the darkrai fight and getting it to learn darkvoid via sketch and then again trading it up through the generations to have it standing across from my team. Wow I thought, that's incredible. After the second and third I smelled a turd and by the fifteenth I realised there's about as many natty pokes in online battles as natty bros in a gymshark catalog!
@@Twoby Whereas Game Freak ONLY considers VGC, at least to the extent that they consider game balance at all (admittedly not very far, or else they simply aren't very good at it)
I find this video perfectly timed, as I got not 1 but 2 shiny Smeargle yesterday in Violet, where I made the first just for catching wild pokemon as efficiently as possible, and have no plans for the 2nd
Smeargle might not see competitive play now, BUT it does make one amazing Shiny pokemon hunter. Give it Spore, Soak, False Swipe and a fourth attack, be it Hypnosis to make sure that if the target has that ability that denies Spore you have another way to put them to sleep, or Thunder wave to paralyze if sleep is not possible at all. That way you have a Pokemon that can hit ANY pokemon to 1 hp (It will take time) and then either put to sleep or paralyzis, making cathing the pokemon much easier. The only thing this does not fix, is the Pokemon that can use explosion or seldfistruct or other self KO moves.
That Smeargle usage in AG (gen 6 & 7) might've been me; I had an alt dedicated to using multiple setup Smeargle + whatever mon I wanted to sweep. I'd say over two thousand battles were had on that alt, and it never went over the 1600s :P
I'm the guy that thinks Smeargle is da best ever. In fact for the New Year as a celebration I'm doing a Team Smeargle run on an alt account with 6 Smeargles. Also my catching team are all Smeargles. Really it's the most customizable pokemon in the whole series.
Anything goes was something else back when you could find batton pass smeargles and stuff, dunno what mon I used back then but taunt roar made quick work of that
I was thinking about giving it a shot, just to be "that guy". But you're kinda right, I couldn't think of any sets that wouldn't be annihilated from orbit. There's infinitely faster Shed Tail users, tankier Spore users (and breloom being one bodes very poorly for the poor painter dog), tranform is a better gimmick on Ditto due to Imposter, Inciberoar/Rillaboom/Iron Hands are infinitely better for fake out support, and it can't get Revival Blessing which was it's last chance (and Pawmot is just a better user of it regardless). One of my 2 last real ideas for it is a gimmicky Imprisoning set. Where you go Spore, Protect, Imprison, and a move your team hates with a passion (or drop spore/protect for 2-3 moves your team hates.). Alternatively, an Endeavor/pain split set utilizing it's abysmal hp and support/status moves to hopelly screw up anyone who underestimates it. (But then, why not Whimsicott? It can already do that and is just better. Set up tailwind, get set to 1hp with focus sash, endeavor with godlike speed, then likely die but doing a good service... assuming nobody fake outed it or you can carry terra ghost to negate that.) My only justification for Smeargle over Whimsicott would be giving it Destiny Bond, but.... I don't trust it to work out, and I don't feel like wasting the time and resources to find out.
I feel this is an issue with the format, not the Pokemon. Smeargle predates VGC doubles by two generations and Smeargle has always been largely irrelevant in singles because there is a meaningful opportunity cost to using a pure utility mon. Though Moody is a badly designed ability no matter how you cut it.
After truly evil Pokémon like toxapex and glowking, smeargle is next on my hate list, as he got darkrai nerfed for a format where darkrai isn’t even legal and then it can’t even use the damn move itself.
I fought smergle in best of 3 gen 9 it was a disaster I barely had any way to eliminate so it kept boosting its stats with moody and I got destroyed by it.
Whenever I see smeargle in team preview I always some fuckery is about to happen. I don't know what fuckery it is, all I know is that it's not gonna be what I expect
While I understand that Smeargle is broken, I do think it's hilarious. I wish they hadn't nerfed it (and let it get Revival Blessing) just to see everyone enraged about it.
Great idea for a video but a few times it was hard to understand what u were sayin cuz u kinda mumbled while speaking too quickly and quietly. Just some friendly constructive criticism, would love to see more vids like this!
The idea that Gamefreak deliberately stepped in to nerf SMEARGLE is insane to me. It's called emergent gameplay, not everyone wants to worship Megarayquaza you dolts.
it would acutally become the best pokemon in VGC lol. Pincurchin would be a mandatory inclusion on every team since its the only thing that can stop smergle from using prankster spore to insta kill all 4 of your mons. Flying types are now unviable unless they are half dark; literally just an entire type cannot be played anymore because prankster spore is one of the absolute most powerful things possible in this game. People probably start running covert cloak smergle because it beats other smergle trying to win a fake out speed tie by just in goring fake out
I will get torn to shreds for saying this but if it wasn't for Moody i'd actually like Smeargle after a good paint of game balancing. The whole idea that there's a pokem with god awful stats that can learn every move in the game is cool once you remove the game breaking moves, the biggest issue with a pokemon like this existing is that Gamefreak is not interested in doing the fine tuning that this pokemon needs to be healthy
Great video, just want to point out some Smeargle Facts that people always miss when they get bent out of shape about it. Smeargle hasn't been relevant outside of high powered formats - in VGC 2015 it was barely a pokemon and the same can be said for VGC 2018. Outside of formats where only 2-3 pokemon on a given team are dealing damage Smeargle doesn't do enough damage to justify itself. It existed in its nerfed state (nerfed moody + Dark Void sketchable but not usable) in 2019 but had less usage compared to its peak in 2016. Still got some important wins (2019 OCIC comes to mind) using Lovely Kiss, but it was far from the metagame defining pain it was in 2016. Can't comment much more on 2019 because it's so long ago though, but I definitely expect Smeargle to be almost irrelevant until we have a GS Cup format.
I remember thinking Smeargle sucked BAD when I was a kid because I thought it only learned Sketch once, and I kept failing to sketch moves so it kept struggling to death. I don’t ever touch Competitive because I ain’t smart enough for it, but it’s funny seeing what I thought was the weakest Pokémon ever being the bane of everyones’ existence.
Gotta love how seeing everything your opponent is using through open team sheets makes it more of an RPS game so you cannot really run unpredictable or creative stuff as reliably. Team sheets are necessitated by the poor game design. See, in monster collectors like Dragon Quest Monsters and Digimon, those games let almost any monster inherit any skill and the game is designed AROUND that immense customization freedom that Pokemon kinda lacks. Not to mention Smeargle proves how little balance goes into Pokemon skill customization to the point they have to restrict its movepool which kinda goes against its gimmick.
I was at a VGC in Germany, and when the finals were going and one of contenders had a Smeargle, I loudly boo'ed. Literally the entire room of salty players immediately roared as well. What made it particularly bullshit, was that the opponent was using a Regigigas and everyone wanted to see what it could do. But nope, Smeargle Dark Void. I'm pretty jaded when it comes to bullshit in competitive games - but Smeargle and Mega Kangaskhan ruined an otherwise fun generation of VGC.
@@nivyan If you're playing to win you're gonna use what is most effective, not what is most fun or inventive. If you're good enough you can win without meta Pokémon. It's not really the guy's fault they made smeargle like this. I see it in the smash community a lot, players that play "OP" or "Lame' characters or even having campy playstiles getting death threats, it's not cool. It's just a game and people abuse how games are made if they want to win.
@@eroedellabrina3851 Not sure how you equate anything I said to sending death threats to people. If you're playing a public tournament and abusing a clearly overpowered character or mechanic, don't expect to receive the same respect as people that don't. It's the steroid argument: You don't see a problem with people abusing the system, so you shouldn't have a problem with people using steroids in sports as long as they don't get caught.
@@nivyan Steroids are not something you can get just by training, it's an outside boost, I would equate it to cheating in videogames. Steroids will give an unfair advantage, cheats give an unfair advantage. Also I brought up the death threats because it starts with crowds booing and it ends up with those. I also think that having a crowd booing kind of kills the passion for every player involved, yeah you might get the guy who used smeargle but the opponent might think that they don't ever want to use a meta team cause they might get hate.
And have it have the opposite of Smeagle's gimmick. High BST, but can only learn one move (let's just say it's a signature move and Smeargle forgets all other moves upon evolution).
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 70 | คู่เอก "โฟกัส vs สเตฟาน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_fVieQ89DRQ/mqdefault.jpg)
This is a prime reason why everyone must carry a double kick terrakion or physical dragapult for protection
Ya watched that vid too?
Whats the phys dragapult one?
I used to run lum berry cloyster in anything goes mainly to deal with lead smeargles
@@falxblade1352dragon darts hits twice and it's physical
@@Wgar1 Cloyster is good at shutting down shenanigans.
He was just a happy lil guy, painting, and then you taught him war.
Smeargle is Hitler confirmed.
Like art academy with that one austrian guy
It's still crazy to me how a _Legendary_ got nerfed because of how strong a _regular mon_ was with its signature move.
Also, how in the world does Smeargle using Transform even work in lore? That's some biological BSery that I don't even want to begin to try to unravel.
He actually just paints a picture of his target and wears it like a mask TF2 Spy style
@@drxavier1870I am a spy
@drxavier1870 that would be zoroark
Also the fact Sketch got nerfed to not be able to use said signature the same gen the move got nerfed. Like, what? Let the one meant to have it have a chance to use the intended package by itself before nerfing it!
Smeargle is just a paintbrush "ninja" beagle in my view, so they'd easily full-body transform like any of the transformation based jutsu shown off by other fictional ninja (E.g, Naruto).
I like the idea of a poodle being able to recreate abilities literal gods of the Pokemon world use to flex their power.
It's a beagle.
it's a sheep
@@Bismarck-S No, its name comes from "smear" and "beagle," as in a beagle that smears paint around.
@trevorpacelli8056 It's actually a Eurasian Speckled Three-Eyed Dachsund-Poodle hybrid.
"God" backwards is "dog", so that checks out.
Speaking of sketch, I still remember Necturna, one of Smogon's created pokemon during their create a pokemon project. Its gimmick was that it only learns sketch once, instead of over and over like smeargle, so a single one of its moveslots could be anything and the other 3 were defined by its movepool.
Then somebody said "but every pokemon game has a move relearner NPC" and the resounding response was "no but shut up tho"
I think the lore was that Sketch was an egg move for Necturna. That way, it couldn't be retaught through any means.
There's a ROM hack that gives Grafaiai a one-time Sketch move, which can be pretty fun with Unburden Belly Drum or Prankster Spore.
@oppositeofitself8444 Yeah, I believe the idea was that it was an egg move. That worked back generations ago when they introduced it, but now since move relearners work for egg moves and SWSH began letting mons get their egg moves post capture, that mon should technically be a sketch mon lol.
The new lore could be that it's a Sketch TM and there's no materials to craft a second one.
@andrewrobinson8542 If that were the case, you could still trade the mon over to teach it sketch again on another save file unless it was specifically trade locked like the partner Miraidon/Koraidon (and why would this mon theoretically introduced generations ago be trade locked?). At this point it's really just an imposed rule to only let it get sketch once (and thats fair enough, when it was introduced to CAP it was only supposed to get sketch once as an interesting twist, it never was supposed to become a much better smeargle).
I've never leveled up Smeargle to teach it Sketch. I farmed heart scales with a Covet Linoone back in Emerald when I did this. Only realised it could learn Sketch by level up fairly recently
smeargle basically shot out darkrai's kneecaps and (basically) got away with it
The thing that i'l always find strange in Smeargle is that the design space it ocuppies (a mon that can do basically everything, but has shit stats to compensate) is something you would expect them to do much later in their life, like it feels like something that could be created in gen 6 or 7, when design was getting a bit more experimental. But no, it came out in the second fucking game
Tbf Smeargle kinda just apes the concept of blue mages from FF. It’s important to note that early Pokémon was very much an RPG first and so it just kinda did a bunch of things JRPGs at the time did or had done
Tbf they did initially plan to end the series with the 2nd gen
That sounds like something that would come out early on. Like the idea of a Pokémon that can learn every move is not that complicated a concept, and it’s obvious you need to give it low stats to balance it out. Like Ditto is the same thing, the Pokémon that can be any Pokémon. It’s just the crazy potentially powerful idea that was obvious in concept, so they got it out of the way early on.
@@Pandacalifornia if it came out today, it’d probably be some weird half-wall with like 60 HP/75 Atk/80 Def/50 SpA/75 SpD/80 Spe as base stats and a signature ability in pre-nerf Protean
Or maybe I’m on something and have too little faith in Game Freak to create reasonably balanced Pokémon
@@tomatogenesisI don’t really think that was a very serious decision though after how well gen 1 sold. No way they would stop all of the plushies, anime, and trading cards just like that
I still find it funny that there’s some crazy strong-looking Pokémon on the battlefield and then there’s just a little dog painter that’s the biggest threat.
I always attend these shows no need to thank us
I will never understand why Darkrai was punished for what Smeargle did. Justice for Darkrai!
I'm pretty sure Hyperspace Fury fails if the user isn't Hoopa-U (or its Impostor, thanks for nothing GameFreak), so Dark Void could've easily used the same mechanic.
It does use the same thing, in the same gen they made Smeargle not be able to use Dark Void, they also nerfed Dark Void@@oppositeofitself8444
@@oppositeofitself8444It does, that's the worst part. Same gen they nerfed dark void because of smeargle, and made smeargle unable to use it anyway. Completely pointless change.
Dark Void should either only have 50% accuracy in doubles (85% otherwise) or be a AoE damaging move with a 50% chance to inflict sleep.
Or, I dunno, have like a Pokemon that automatically sets up Gravity exist
Hydrapple lowers evasiveness of opponents on entry so that qualifies i guess. And yeah, it totally could have had an accuracy drop in doubles-only.
I really like the game design of Pokémon like Smeargle. Useless if trained badly, unstoppable if trained well.
Of course that all breaks down when you get into competitive Pokémon where players are all pretty darn good at the game and copy each other's homework constantly.
But in the context of single player or casual games against friends I think it's much more interesting and fun than "strong because big number".
"Lol, why are you using a weak pokemon, just surrender already"
*smeargal calls upon the wrath of arceus powered with a choice item*
@@juliancalero8012 Funny enough Judgment is one of the worse moves to give a smeargle. We are looking for hyper specific movesets that were not supposed to go together, not just God's ability to pass judgement upon the world lol.
Kind of like when Game Freak tried to balance Breloom by making it so only Shroomish learned spore... at level 54. (It's still worth it by the way)
I'm not personally convinced that Revival Blessing Smeargle would have been all that broken, at least not in Singles. Idk about Doubles.
It could run Leppa Berry + Recycle to get multiple Revival Blessings off, which probably still wouldn't be that broken but would be really annoying.
Not so much he is usually the first kill in a VGC Battle and there are tons of way to block a revival blessing to be used
There are also better move that he can use fake out, spore, nuzzle, wide guard, taunt, spiky shield, haze, tailwind, trick room ecc..
Mmmm
Assuming Smeargle comes in on something slower than it.
Spore
Into Sub (We'll say a switch here, but odds could be better if they stay in)
Into Revival, Eat Leppa
Swap out Smeargle
At this point, if the opponent ever wakes up their pokemon, they are subject to another round of spore sub then either RB or Recycle.
If an opponent is stubborn and stays in, it's not unreasonable to get an RB, a Recycle, and maybe another RB off.
Bro never saw revival cats.
That was Prankster + Assist shenanigans that lead to practically infinity Revival Blessings. Smeargle doesn't have Prankster and Assist isn't even legal.
Gorging fire: brings a new protect
Smeargle: let me sketch that
Gorging fire: NOOOOOOOOO
Never forgiving this creature for what it did to Darkrai.
the fact they haven't rebuffed dark void back to the old version is fucking wild to me
I’ve said that Incineroar was your biggest homie. But for Smeargle? He’s the most wanted war criminal.
Clearly the top pokemon just can't handle his 'wittle guy'™ energy
Smeargle is one of the most "This game is designed as a single player rpg first" pokemon ever, its a cool blue mage, but really janky in a pvp game.
I'd argue the opposite- its gimmick really doesn't work in-game until the later generations, as it only learns Sketch once every **10** levels. If you catch a level 10 Smeargle and aren't far enough into the game to access a move relearner, you need to wait until level **31** to have a full moveset.
what are you talking about? smeargle is more useful in competitive battling (because of its huge support movepool) than single player (where what is most useful is whatever kills things fastest, and the game design never pushes you to use complicated strategies)
@@athath2010move relearners exist. In Emerald I just farmed Heart Scales
@@fictitiousalias5849"Designed for a singleplayer rpg" does not mean "useful in a singleplayer rpg". In a singleplayer rpg, balance is much less important than in a competitive game, which means developers don't have to worry as much about the impact of implementing weird gimick options (in this case pokemon/moves).
Something like Smeargle can just exist, useless on a surface-level, but potentially really strong if it's gimick is pushed to the limit. But as you said, in a game as easy as Pokemon, the player isn't presented with any challenge that would make them explore Smeargle's potential. Which means the only people that will do so are those that want to push the game to its limits, or that just really like Smeargle. Which is fine, it doesn't really affect anyone else.
And this is kinda the reason Pokémon plays so differently in a competitive environment compared to the "regular" game. Gamefreak designed the game with the singleplayer mentality from the beginning, and then just added pvp because they thought it would be fun. They didn't really think about the fact that if/when a competitive scene developed, that environment would push players to explore everything that could give them an advantage, including the potential of all the gimicks in the game, jumping through any hoops necessary. Which turned out to be so impactful that "regular" Pokémon and competitive Pokémon are basically different games.
(Woops, guess my thoughts ran away from me there.)
@@Draconich yeah, it's also the reason why for the first 5 generations of Pokemon Dragon was a type which was only weak to other Dragon types. In single player games, there being this super powerful secret type which's only weakness is itself is really cool! In competitive, it just meant it was really wack.
As a card game player, "closed teamsheets" being something comp Pokemon players hate is wild to me. Like why should you have perfect knowledge of all of your opponent's options in advance? Obfuscating that is what leads to actual choices in development, because you need to figure out whether you go with a broadband effort to tech against a lot of decks/teams or have very focused "counters to counters" as techs.
A lot of card game tournaments have open (revealed to opponent) or partially open (names of cards, but not quantity) deck lists during some or all of the tournament.
Either way, there's nothing wrong with hidden information games, nor with perfect information games, or anything in between. It just requires different skills to mitigate the risks of hidden information from the skills to analyze and counter what you and your opponent knows is the "correct" move.
I think Tera is the biggest factor. Being able to completely change your typing on the fly is what gets so many Pokemon banned from singles OU, especially with each Mon being able to run any of like four to six completely different Teras for completely different reasons.
Oops you go on stream for one match then your opponent has all the intel about your team yet you have none of theirs. How is that fair?
Better to have open team sheets than try to police every single edge case. if you assume no streamed matches what’s stopping someone from using binoculars at the tournament?
@@Xhadp You don't stream tournaments, yes. And there's no "policing every single edge case". To use Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments as an example gaining knowledge about your opponent's cards falls under the "Private Knowledge" clause. If you get caught obtaining or trying to obtain Private Knowledge then you will be disqualified. Period.
This isn't really a complicated ruleset, the rule is just "any card that is not currently face up on your opponent's field is Private Knowledge" and cannot be confirmed by you. If you ask your opponent "what cards are in your hand?" they don't have to tell you, you can shuffle through their deck to "confirm if they're lying", etc.
And by that same token, Misrepresenting the Gamestate is a disqualifiable offence as well, so it works both ways. These are the kinds of thing Judges are at events for.
I thought card games had open decklists simply because they couldn't feasibly stop spectators from helping players cheat
Hot Take: All the Smeargle Void Debacle did is reveal how utterly toxic a high-accuracy team-targeting Sleep move is as a design. It's less of an issue in Smogon play, which is both singles and has sleep clause, but just in a vacuum this was never a move that was going to do wholesome competitive things.
^This. Smeargle itself isn't the problem. Smeargle is merely the litmus test that reveals when a move has been balanced so poorly it really shouldn't exist in the game at all.
i don't think smeargle will ever be bad, or even mid. it's just too useful.
UUbl minimum
While he might be busted, he's at least easier to look at than the genies or iron hands and thus I don't hate him as much
I love Smeargle
Smeargle was how I learned about hacked pokemon. Back in the mists of time on the gen 6 online battles I came across a shiny smeargle with Dark Void. Baring in mind at this point the way you'd have to do that is by catching a shiny in Gen 4 using the pokeradar or trade up from gen 3, having access to the event that gave you Darkrai (or a gameshark), tackling the darkrai fight and getting it to learn darkvoid via sketch and then again trading it up through the generations to have it standing across from my team. Wow I thought, that's incredible. After the second and third I smelled a turd and by the fifteenth I realised there's about as many natty pokes in online battles as natty bros in a gymshark catalog!
Which isn't that difficult in all honesty. Now a Jirachi with Body Slam on the other hand...
Free my man dark void darkrai did nothing wrong
Low-HP CB Magikarp vs. Smeargle is the calc we needed 😂
Darkrai died for Smeargle’s sins
Why they made smeargle unable to use dark void AND nerf it so darkrai gets shafted will always be beyond me
The default official format is Doubles with no Sleep Clause. Darkrai is a lot scarier in that context.
@@HeraldOfOpera fair point. I prefer smogon so I didn’t really consider vgc but I can see it being problematic there
@@Twoby Whereas Game Freak ONLY considers VGC, at least to the extent that they consider game balance at all (admittedly not very far, or else they simply aren't very good at it)
Darkrai is banned in vgc by default since it's event only. So why nerf it
Theoretically, relic song smeargle
I think the ultra beast battle theme is very fitting of this creature
I find this video perfectly timed, as I got not 1 but 2 shiny Smeargle yesterday in Violet, where I made the first just for catching wild pokemon as efficiently as possible, and have no plans for the 2nd
Which university do you lecture at?
Smeargle might not see competitive play now, BUT it does make one amazing Shiny pokemon hunter. Give it Spore, Soak, False Swipe and a fourth attack, be it Hypnosis to make sure that if the target has that ability that denies Spore you have another way to put them to sleep, or Thunder wave to paralyze if sleep is not possible at all. That way you have a Pokemon that can hit ANY pokemon to 1 hp (It will take time) and then either put to sleep or paralyzis, making cathing the pokemon much easier.
The only thing this does not fix, is the Pokemon that can use explosion or seldfistruct or other self KO moves.
Blasphemy, Smeargle is the perfect specimen
On top of all the stuff Smeargle can do in competitive, our sweet boi also paint!
I really love Pokemon Shuffle sprites
god I love this little bastard like you wouldnt believe
same
ok but its really funny so it should get a 100+ buff to every stat
Smeargle was so strong that they had to nerf Darkrai
Burning Bulwark Smeargle on CTS is actually really funny
They need to give it the evolution and increase every stat up to 100.
Lol, no they don't. Then it'd REALLY become broken with it's current kit
That Smeargle usage in AG (gen 6 & 7) might've been me; I had an alt dedicated to using multiple setup Smeargle + whatever mon I wanted to sweep. I'd say over two thousand battles were had on that alt, and it never went over the 1600s :P
i wasnt subscribed so this is a notification to everyone to check
No worries, there's always Double kick Terrakion.
Oh I have a set in mind 😈
I'm the guy that thinks Smeargle is da best ever. In fact for the New Year as a celebration I'm doing a Team Smeargle run on an alt account with 6 Smeargles. Also my catching team are all Smeargles. Really it's the most customizable pokemon in the whole series.
Anything goes was something else back when you could find batton pass smeargles and stuff, dunno what mon I used back then but taunt roar made quick work of that
Imagine they give it a evolution
"Smeargle's balance issues would go away if it couldn't use spore" -Captain Obvious
i want smeargle to be good bc i like the gimmick, and it is in fact sort of cute, i just don't want it to literally be ruining entire metas
As a Smeargle Fan, my Smeargle will be back... eeeeeeeeeheheheheheheee
he's just a friend :)
It doesn’t get the ability trace or the ability pastel veil. A travesty indeed
This sounds like a turbo-encabulator video to someone who isn't plugged into the pokemon meta (me)
Art
And now it can change its type.
Watch him come back like Yuta coming back from Africa (aka "what if Smeargle was a JJK character")
0:45 woah man what past do u have with moody? the raw emotion in that line was crazy
Try fighting a pokemon with Spore and +6 evasion and you'll understand
Smeargle has actually been upgraded from ZU in Sun and Moon to OU in Scarlet and Violet.
Revival blessing would be fun with recycle... just gotta hope tropius gets revival blessing one fateful day... hehe...
I was thinking about giving it a shot, just to be "that guy". But you're kinda right, I couldn't think of any sets that wouldn't be annihilated from orbit. There's infinitely faster Shed Tail users, tankier Spore users (and breloom being one bodes very poorly for the poor painter dog), tranform is a better gimmick on Ditto due to Imposter, Inciberoar/Rillaboom/Iron Hands are infinitely better for fake out support, and it can't get Revival Blessing which was it's last chance (and Pawmot is just a better user of it regardless).
One of my 2 last real ideas for it is a gimmicky Imprisoning set. Where you go Spore, Protect, Imprison, and a move your team hates with a passion (or drop spore/protect for 2-3 moves your team hates.).
Alternatively, an Endeavor/pain split set utilizing it's abysmal hp and support/status moves to hopelly screw up anyone who underestimates it. (But then, why not Whimsicott? It can already do that and is just better. Set up tailwind, get set to 1hp with focus sash, endeavor with godlike speed, then likely die but doing a good service... assuming nobody fake outed it or you can carry terra ghost to negate that.) My only justification for Smeargle over Whimsicott would be giving it Destiny Bond, but.... I don't trust it to work out, and I don't feel like wasting the time and resources to find out.
I feel this is an issue with the format, not the Pokemon. Smeargle predates VGC doubles by two generations and Smeargle has always been largely irrelevant in singles because there is a meaningful opportunity cost to using a pure utility mon. Though Moody is a badly designed ability no matter how you cut it.
Ah yes, the most broken Pokémon,
Painter's Servant.
After truly evil Pokémon like toxapex and glowking, smeargle is next on my hate list, as he got darkrai nerfed for a format where darkrai isn’t even legal and then it can’t even use the damn move itself.
Glowking?
@@robertlupa8273Slowking-Galar, Glowking is apparently the short-hand name for it.
Smeargle is cool keep seething
thank you boingus
what do you need to check while buying a used gaming laptop
I caught a shiny smeargle today :)
i caught eight they're so cute :)
Thank god for OTS for vgc now. Maybe it won't be as awful but still smeargle deserves to burn in hell
You CAN sketch dark void, It just fails when you use it.
True in Generation 7, but changed in Scarlet and Violet.
I found a Shiny Smeargle
Yeah but it's funny
I fought smergle in best of 3 gen 9 it was a disaster I barely had any way to eliminate so it kept boosting its stats with moody and I got destroyed by it.
Whenever I see smeargle in team preview I always some fuckery is about to happen. I don't know what fuckery it is, all I know is that it's not gonna be what I expect
While I understand that Smeargle is broken, I do think it's hilarious. I wish they hadn't nerfed it (and let it get Revival Blessing) just to see everyone enraged about it.
Smeargle isn't the problem: Sketch is the problem.
Smash smeargle
Great idea for a video but a few times it was hard to understand what u were sayin cuz u kinda mumbled while speaking too quickly and quietly. Just some friendly constructive criticism, would love to see more vids like this!
The existence of smeargle singlehandedly turned darkrai into a shitter and to me thats the biggest crume its committed
Oh no
Smeargle is balanced in singles. VGC skill issue.
The idea that Gamefreak deliberately stepped in to nerf SMEARGLE is insane to me. It's called emergent gameplay, not everyone wants to worship Megarayquaza you dolts.
Don’t forget, it technically nerfed darkrai just for existing
I had to slow the video down to 0.75x speed in order to understand you but yeah good points
Can't believe Smergle rizzed up Darkrai's girls and ruined his life because his flow was better.
Ofc they gave this satan spawn Moody
I won't accept this slander to my favorite mon
Except for the Moody part. Gamefreak, please delete this ability
It would be absolutely awful if Gamefreak gave this monster Prankster instead of Moody.
😨
it would acutally become the best pokemon in VGC lol.
Pincurchin would be a mandatory inclusion on every team since its the only thing that can stop smergle from using prankster spore to insta kill all 4 of your mons. Flying types are now unviable unless they are half dark; literally just an entire type cannot be played anymore because prankster spore is one of the absolute most powerful things possible in this game. People probably start running covert cloak smergle because it beats other smergle trying to win a fake out speed tie by just in goring fake out
There's a reason nothing has both Prankster and Spore
Yeah, told ya in the last video
Everyone hates smeargle
This is hard to parse what your saying. Not sure why. Maybe all the words are slurred together
I hate how darkrai was nerfed because of him
I hate Smeargle. Congrats on 10k subs!
Smash
I will get torn to shreds for saying this but if it wasn't for Moody i'd actually like Smeargle after a good paint of game balancing.
The whole idea that there's a pokem with god awful stats that can learn every move in the game is cool once you remove the game breaking moves, the biggest issue with a pokemon like this existing is that Gamefreak is not interested in doing the fine tuning that this pokemon needs to be healthy
Great video, just want to point out some Smeargle Facts that people always miss when they get bent out of shape about it.
Smeargle hasn't been relevant outside of high powered formats - in VGC 2015 it was barely a pokemon and the same can be said for VGC 2018. Outside of formats where only 2-3 pokemon on a given team are dealing damage Smeargle doesn't do enough damage to justify itself.
It existed in its nerfed state (nerfed moody + Dark Void sketchable but not usable) in 2019 but had less usage compared to its peak in 2016. Still got some important wins (2019 OCIC comes to mind) using Lovely Kiss, but it was far from the metagame defining pain it was in 2016.
Can't comment much more on 2019 because it's so long ago though, but I definitely expect Smeargle to be almost irrelevant until we have a GS Cup format.
I remember thinking Smeargle sucked BAD when I was a kid because I thought it only learned Sketch once, and I kept failing to sketch moves so it kept struggling to death.
I don’t ever touch Competitive because I ain’t smart enough for it, but it’s funny seeing what I thought was the weakest Pokémon ever being the bane of everyones’ existence.
It learns it every ten levels but most people use move tutor anyway
I fucking hate him
dragon darts him from the game files.
Ah yes smeargle, the chrollo lucifer of pokemon (hxh fans rise)
Gotta love how seeing everything your opponent is using through open team sheets makes it more of an RPS game so you cannot really run unpredictable or creative stuff as reliably. Team sheets are necessitated by the poor game design.
See, in monster collectors like Dragon Quest Monsters and Digimon, those games let almost any monster inherit any skill and the game is designed AROUND that immense customization freedom that Pokemon kinda lacks. Not to mention Smeargle proves how little balance goes into Pokemon skill customization to the point they have to restrict its movepool which kinda goes against its gimmick.
I was at a VGC in Germany, and when the finals were going and one of contenders had a Smeargle, I loudly boo'ed. Literally the entire room of salty players immediately roared as well. What made it particularly bullshit, was that the opponent was using a Regigigas and everyone wanted to see what it could do. But nope, Smeargle Dark Void. I'm pretty jaded when it comes to bullshit in competitive games - but Smeargle and Mega Kangaskhan ruined an otherwise fun generation of VGC.
Blame the game not the players
@@eroedellabrina3851 Why not both?
@@nivyan If you're playing to win you're gonna use what is most effective, not what is most fun or inventive. If you're good enough you can win without meta Pokémon. It's not really the guy's fault they made smeargle like this. I see it in the smash community a lot, players that play "OP" or "Lame' characters or even having campy playstiles getting death threats, it's not cool. It's just a game and people abuse how games are made if they want to win.
@@eroedellabrina3851 Not sure how you equate anything I said to sending death threats to people.
If you're playing a public tournament and abusing a clearly overpowered character or mechanic, don't expect to receive the same respect as people that don't.
It's the steroid argument: You don't see a problem with people abusing the system, so you shouldn't have a problem with people using steroids in sports as long as they don't get caught.
@@nivyan Steroids are not something you can get just by training, it's an outside boost, I would equate it to cheating in videogames. Steroids will give an unfair advantage, cheats give an unfair advantage. Also I brought up the death threats because it starts with crowds booing and it ends up with those. I also think that having a crowd booing kind of kills the passion for every player involved, yeah you might get the guy who used smeargle but the opponent might think that they don't ever want to use a meta team cause they might get hate.
You know, they should give Smeargle an evolution
And have it have the opposite of Smeagle's gimmick. High BST, but can only learn one move (let's just say it's a signature move and Smeargle forgets all other moves upon evolution).
@@randomsnapperson8008Doubt that's gonna work , you're just get walled and forced out by any ghost type
@@randomsnapperson8008You might as well give it to the pokemon who only knows 1 move (unown)
tbh im more worried that by doing that smeargle will get access to eviolite
The smeag