Most ban discussions end up as this, but a special mention goes to the discussion of SwagPlay, a strategy which consists of confusing the enemy (thus introducing a random chance of inflicting self harm) and increasing his Attack in order to use it against him with Foul Play. The original thread was split between those who wanted all forms of confusion banned and those who felt that banning Swag Play is completely ridiculous and should have never been considered in the first place. In the end, the discussion devolved into such a mess that it was locked. The current consensus seems to be that while it isn't broken and can be beaten out, it's so incrediblyBoring, but Practical to the point where entire official tournaments hinged on the strategy, and people are just sick of seeing it.
Their dedication to 6v6 singles while official tournaments follow doubles format is contentious within the competitive community. It's worth noting that Smogon does have their own doubles format since Gen VI, but it's more niche compared to the more popular VGC or Smogon's singles formats.
Terastallization is a highly contested topic within the community. Some players view Terastallization as a healthy and balanced mechanic by adding variety to both offensive and defensive playstyles, others dislike Terastallization due to its unpredictability as every Pokemon can undergo it on top of having to guess which Tera-type they're going to utilize, and argue that several Pokemon such as Volcarona and Regieleki are banned because of their ability to eliminate their checks with it, believing some form of restrictions or ban needs to be taken on Terastallization.
Character Tiers: Despite having over 1000 Pokémon of varying balance (as well as mons with alternate forms and Mega Evolutions), Smogon has taken to heart to organize all Pokémon into tiers. It is also continuously changing, with Pokémon changing tiers based on usage, and even implementation or removal of clauses. In the most popular format, Overused, or OU, acts as Top Tier and is considered "standard", while Ubers falls under God Tier since it functions as a banlist tier (though it has a metagame in itself). Beneath that, there was initially just Underused for everything not in OU, but as the list of Pokémon grew, more tiers were added to encompass the Pokémon with low usage in UU, and then the Pokémon with low usage in that tier as well. The current metagame as of the seventh generation boasts, in descending order, RU (Rarely Used), NU (Never Used), and PU (no common meaning; the name was a bad pun that ended up sticking). Starting with Gen 7, everything too bad to be commonly used in even PU is regarded as "Untiered", though as that still leaves over a hundred fully-evolved Pokémon, there are communities trying to make a competitive tier out of even that, which generally favor ZU (Zero Used) or occasionally FU (for the pun) as a name. Since the tiers are usage-based, the viability ranking thread does contain quite a number of Pokémon that's residing in a lower tier. Additionally, each tier besides Ubers has their own banlist, which is for Pokémon that are banned from a lower tier, but doesn't have enough usage to rise to a higher tier. In addition to these tiers there is also Anything Goes, a format with absolutely no bans or clauses (bar the endless Battle Clause, but that is only there to keep battles from being endless) that contains Pokémon that not even Ubers can handle. As for Doubles, it has 3 tiers, Doubles Ubers, Doubles OU, and Doubles UU.
The site is infamous for how much they love the entry hazard Stealth Rock, to the point that it's almost memetic; virtually every team carries it regardless of what tier is being played since it's just so darn useful. If you're playing on the actual games' random Wifi and doing a Singles battle, you can probably infer whether or not your opponent is from the site based on whether you see Stealth Rock being used.
The Gen V metagame was widely hated due to the fact that Politoed's permanent rain caused this. Even after Drizzle and Swift Swim were banned from being used together, it was still powerful enough that few people used anything else, and Smogon refused to put any larger of a ban on it, for fear of Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. About half of all teams used had Weather by the time X and Y were announced. It's generally seen now by those outside of Smogon (and some in it) as the greatest failure of their suspecting process, as even after several bans to nerf the play-styles based around it, Rain still remained extremely dominant. Also, since Gen. V, the current banning philosophy has been far more aggressive and has raised concerns that Smogon is now Jumping Off the Slippery Slope they said they were trying to avoid in trying to avoid something like Gen. V weather teams' dominance from happening again.
Gen VII brought The Tapu, which are common in the competitive scene due to being Fairy-type with high overall stats and being able to support its teammates with their ability to summon terrain. With Doubles' heavier demand of overriding another terrain, it's almost impossible not to spot any team without one of the Tapu there.
The old Cloyster AFD sprite depicted the Pokémon in a fleshlight, referencing its Unfortunate Character Design. It was later removed for being inappropiate, however.
A sprite that hasn't been removed (somehow) is Jynx's April Fool's sprite, which resembles an old timey Blackface mascot (albeit purple) as a reference to the infamous controversy surrounding its design.
The Avalugg sprite features the RMS Titanic crashing into the iceberg-like Pokémon, all while it has a goofy smile on its face.
Most Pokémon have alternate names that are usually just shortened versions of normal names ("T-Tar" for Tyranitar, "Chomp" for Garchomp, etc.). A small number have one of their sets named after the user who came up with it, like "Crocune" for a RestTalking Suicune named after user Cromat. A select few have also earned more derisive nicknames due to their High-Tier Scrappy status, most notably "Fat Pink Whore" for Chansey and Blissey due to their utterly loathed omnipresence.
The Assault Vest item is referred to as "Ass Vest" due to the reputation of new players equipping it on random Mons that aren't very good abusers of the item.
Staraptor is often called the "BL Knight" due to having been UUBL (not used enough to be considered OU, but deemed too good to be used in UU) for four straight generations.
"OUBL" is used to refer to Mons who are too good for OU but not good enough for Ubers, hence being stuck in banlist hell due to being unviable in the face of titanic Legendary Pokémon. The theoretical "UUbers" tier has also been thrown around for several years to give said Mons a place by squeezing in a tier between OU and Ubers where Mons banned from OU but with low Ubers usage can hang out. Power creep and the sheer amount of OU bans from Scarlet and Violet eventually pushed enough people (and enough Mons) into making "UUbers" a real unofficial tier, with a custom ladder and community, even becoming recognized by Smogon itself.
When the Gen 9 version of the Almost Any Ability (AAA) metagame launched after Pokémon Home released, all of the default Uber Pokémon were banned... except for Groudon, who somehow managed to slip under the radar. This allowed the Continent Pokémon to briefly wreak havoc on the metagame before the council caught on and promptly had it banned.
Stabmons Mix and Mega is an format combining the metagame formats Stabmons (which allows pokemon to learn moves they share a type with) and Mix and Mega(where any non uber Pokemon is allowed to use mega stones to modify their stats). When the Gen 8 version of the format was made Zacian was supposed to be banned from the format, but not only was it unintentionally allowed, it was also able to use the mega stone mechanic, which allowed it to dominate the format.
One of their joke Flying Press articles, which was full of blatantly fake "leaks" for the then-upcoming Pokémon Sword and Shield Expansion Pass, accurately predicted Galarian Slowbro's Psychic/Poison typing. Additionally, while they got Galarian Slowking's typing wrong (as the article claimed it would be Psychic/Dark instead of Psychic/Poison), it did correctly guess its design, in which the Shellder covers a significant portion of Slowpoke's head.
An article for The Smog in the DDPT metagame (a precursor to the later Flying Press articles) had one section where it criticized the Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs event Heatran for giving it Eruption, but locking it to the Quiet nature only. By the time Generation VIII rolled around, nature mints would be introduced, which would finally negate this issue and allow it to have stats outside of its Speed-reducing nature.
Memetic Badass: Druddigon is commonly referred to by RU players for being the most overpowered Pokémon in existence, a great contrast to how it's treated as the most unmemorable Dragon Type in the series by the rest of the fandom.
Charizard, due to its extreme popularity among the general fandom causing it to be used ridiculously often by noobs despite its crippling flaws (such as its huge Stealth Rock weakness, terrible bulk, and not-that-great base offensive stats), usually leading to said noobs being curb-stomped. This did get fixed to some extent in Gen VI due to the introduction two very strong Mega Evolutions for it, but the base form is still considered this, as well as any versions of it in Ubers. It has since been booted back here after the 8th gen’s removal of Mega Evolution killing any viability it had (and Dynamax being banned from most formats including Ubers, which forbids use of its otherwise excellent Gigantamax form, doesn't help). That said, it still does see usage in higher tiers on weather teams due to its decently high special attack and having Solar Power, which boosts special attack by 50% in sun.
Crowned Zamazenta receives this treatment due to being designed as a defensive-oriented counterpart to Zacian, yet it lacks the tools to excel in Ubers such as Toxic and Stealth Rock, and at one point, is ranked lower than its Hero of Many Battles forme in the viability rankingnote This is no longer case as its Hero forme has been unranked with its Crowned forme finding its niche as a Yveltal check after Zacian's banned to AG. To add insult to injury, Zamazenta receives a Nerf to both its stats and its Dauntless Shield ability despite being nowhere near as overwhelming as Zacian was, and Regidrago's Dragon's Maw remains intact but Regieleki's Transistor got nerfed, showing that exceptions can be made but not for Zamazenta. In spite of its underwhelming performance in Ubers, Crowned Zamazenta ends up being a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond in OU; not receiving enough votes to be unbanned from its Gen VIII's suspect test and Gen IX.
Avalugg's Hisuian form is definitely considered this due to being the only Hisuian form that is considered outright worse than its normal counterpart. To be specific it has similar stats to regular Avalugg but trades off 10 of its special attack for 10 more physical attack and also trades 10 of its already bad Special Defense for Speed. Not only does this additional 10 speed barely help, it also makes it worse in Trick Room. The most notable and mocked part however is its typing. Regular Avalugg was mono ice, which was bad to begin with but Hisuian Avalugg on the other hand is Rock/Ice, which is considered to be arguably the worst type combination possible. While normal Avalugg was able to fight through its weaknesses to have some niches, its Hisuian counterpart is just bad.
Ledian is the go-to example used for a Pokémon completely unviable in every single way. This mostly stems from it having Iron Fist as an ability despite having a pitiful attack stat of 35, meaning that its punches aren't gonna be any meaningful even with the Iron Fist buff. It's often the punchline of many jokes mocking the "win using your favorites" mindset, and all of Smogon's analyses for it spare it no quarter in mockery.
More Popular Spin-Off: Smogon's rules, while not perfect, are widely (but not universally) considered to be superior to the official rules set down by Game Freak/Nintendo.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: In Gen 6, Charizard's Mega Evolutions made it a legitimately solid choice in higher tiers; Mega Charizard X is essentially Salamence with a better typing and a built-in, recoil-free Life Orb for contact moves, while Mega Charizard Y gets Drought and is the hardest-hitting non-Uber weather inducer. Not to mention that it's often hard for the opponent to predict which Mega Evolution Charizard is packing.
Scrappy Mechanic: On Showdown, unregistered accounts cannot chat in battles and other temporary rooms. Additionally, users can only register two alts per hour. While this was implemented to deter spam, it's still supremely annoying if you're trying to ladder for a Suspect Test and are forced to change alts due to a string of losses.
Ironically, evasion was allowed for Ubers after testing the tier and participants deciding that it isn't that bad due to how powerful everything is there (read: the odds are very high that an Evasion user will be wiped out long before it manages to buff itself to nigh-unhittable status). Doesn't stop a few losses turning into wins due to blind luck every now and then, though.
Defending your favorite Pokémon (namely unviable Pokémon and/or starters) against legitimate criticism by invoking Popularity Power will also cause you to be viewed as this. note For reference, this is the reason for Charizard's Scrappy Status in past gens.
Also played straight with casuals who try to adopt Smogon rules and force others to abide by them despite a) not having a single clue what half of them mean and b) not being anywhere near the skill level where those rules start to mean anything.
So Bad, It's Good: The arbitrary forum emotes (such as the sad pirate face) are viewed as this. Many consider them nostalgic, to the point where the forums kept them after the December 2017 redesign and some Smogon Discord servers have them as custom emojis.
Pheromosa's animation still has the Sun/Moon Pokédex background behind its translucent wings.
That One Rule: Speed is calculated at the beginning of the turn and not directly after a change to speed. While this normally does not pose a problem, as it typically takes a turn to use a speed-altering move, a Pokémon that Mega Evolves can suddenly seem too under-speedy against the opponent, because speed on that turn is still determined using pre-Mega Evolution stats. This was changed in Generation 7.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: It’s generally agreed that the new forum layout instituted in December 2017 is vastly inferior to the previous one.
Vindicated by History: Happens every now and again, due to people finding things that actually work better than previously thought. Such examples are Rotom-W in Gen IV (an issue of The Smog even said it goes from being mediocre to "a sub-par Lanturn" when the Rotom form type changes were discovered) and Mega Latios goes from being unviable in Generation VI to being a solid pick in Generation VII. Notably, this can even be applied to older generational play. Clefable is a big beneficiary of this, as Gen VI had Clefable boom in dominance due to gaining the Fairy typing on top of its good-enough Jack of All Stats role, Magic Guard and Unaware, and being one of the few recipients of the typing. This dominance later translated to Gen IV strength when it was uncovered that it still demanded significant respect in OU despite not having Unaware or Fairy-typing.
was split between those who wanted all forms of confusion banned and those who felt that banning Swag Play is completely ridiculous and should have never been considered in the first place. In the end, the discussion devolved into such a mess that it was locked. The current consensus seems to be that while it isn't broken and can be beaten out, it's so incredibly Boring, but Practical to the point where entire official tournaments hinged on the strategy, and people are just sick of seeing it.