>>40983007You're talking to a guy who has done that in every gen since 3 and doesn't play competitive at all. Gen 7 was the first time I even hesitated, though it sounds like I'll have to bring the rest up from X soon if I want to be able to put them in gen 7. Hell, my old Ruby team has my top 5 in it, and 4 of them got cut (only Gardevoir and Milotic are in; Blaziken, Tropius, Absol, and Wigglytuff are out).
If you really want to balance online battles by excluding a large subset of mons, I don't have a problem with that. There are a few that are stupidly overpowered even among other overpowered ones. I don't think the solution is simply cutting them out entirely; rather, I'd suggest different battle formats. As an example, Sword and Shield could have had a "New Pokemon Only" format where only 'mons introduced in Sword or Shield (and their prevos as necessary) are allowed, a "Galar Dex" format where the entire regional Dex is open but the larger national Dex is closed, and a "National Dex" format where you can run anything. "NatDex" format wouldn't be the official one, of course, but it would've at least been an option. Hell, I'd be fine with Home having a stripped-down simulator similar to an official version of Showdown. To have access to those old Pokemon in new games simply taken away, with no real options of any kind, is pretty jarring.
