>>49079011There's at least three answers to that question: one that makes Smogon look good, one that makes Smogon look awful, and one inbetween.
The good: Uncompetitive means that it undermines the player input and feedback system at the root of the challenge in the game. Competitive play is about seeing which moves, teams, plays and strats work and which don't, but features which place the outcomes of these things in the hands of an unaccountable, undeterminable dice roll ("""""random""""" in layman's terms) defeat the point, as hypothetically any strategy could beat any other just by such events going interminably in their favour over the other.
Such surrendered agency may be fine in many contexts, in a "I'm feeling frisky, surprise me" kind of way, or as setup for a novel challenge as per procedurally generated games, but they consitute nothing other than surrendered outcomes and ergo feedback in this one.
The bad: Uncompetitive means that it doesn't suit the purely personal tastes and predelictions of the influential people who control Smogon, and between them and the sheer number of players who, for whatever balance of reasons, respect, defend and hang off of the words of this community, that opinion gains brute clout and can supercede any and all voice to the contrary with impunity. In other words, fuk u because u rn't smogon lolololol play how WE like biotch.
The middle: Certain mons, builds, teams and strategies simply become monodominat to the point that it may be boring or uninteresting to play against them constantly - players feel, or at least claim, that it's all solved problems now so it can be banned to move it out of the way for other playstyles.
Wherein lies the truth? Who knows. I am just a Ducklett.
