>>54745387In Gen 3 and 4 Smogon had a mission statement that was roughly "We try to have as few bans and rules as possible because we want to play Pokemon as it is. We don't bugfix or change things because at that point you're not playing Pokemon, you're playing Smogonmon. You should be able to have a battle with someone in game, using Smogon rules, by just saying 'no two of the same Pokemon, no cover legendaries, no evasion or OHKO moves, and no putting two Pokemon to sleep." The last part was important because Gen 4 was before smartphones were really a thing (for kids at least). You couldn't easily lookup the full Smogon rules in real time from anywhere, so they had to be simple enough that they could be remembered manually. Around Gen 5 this started to change. Complex rules and increasingly large ban lists meant that you couldn't easily have an in-game battle with someone. If you wanted to play Smogon you basically had to do it in a simulator, and at that point, if everything was in the simulator, why both trying to keep it simple? It became a positive feedback loop of complex bans chasing some theoretical state of what Smogon thought Pokemon "should be." To make matters worse, starting in gen 5 Game Freak no longer balanced the game around singles, as VGC doubles was the official format. There are a lot of broke and over powered things that, in doubles, are completely fine, because in doubles there's always the threat that even if you boost up and can sweep through a team one Pokemon at a time, your target could Protect and their partner could KO you. Modern Pokmon is a game made and balanced around doubles and team synergy and Smogon is still trying to play Gen 4 style singles in it.
