VGC's Metagame

[Alex Practice]

How's this?

Shiftry @ Focus Sash
Naive, Early Bird
252 Attack/252 Speed/4 Sp. Atk
-Fake Out
-Leaf Storm
-Explosion
-Protect

Dusknoir @ Lum Berry
Relaxed, Pressure
252 HP/42 Atk/216 Def (1 Speed IV)
-Imprison
-Protect
-Trick Room
-Shadow Punch

Metagross @ Occa Berry
Adamant, Clear Body
252 HP/232 Atk/36 Spe
-Meteor Mash
-Bullet Punch
-Earthquake
-Explosion

Snorlax @ Leftovers
Brave, Thick Fat
204 HP, 252 Attack, 54 Sp. Def
-Fire Punch
-Crunch
-Return
-Selfdestruct



VS Trick Room: Fake Out Smeargle, Imprison.
Leaf Storm to KO Smeargle and Shadow Punch on Dusknoir.
Shiftry uses Explosion and Dusknoir protects or Shadow Punches.
Then everything else comes in and pwns face.

Vs Non-Trick Room: Use Trick Room and Imprison to stop protect and blow shit up.

:D

 

[LightningFusion]

Yea, there is nothing probably that is a flyer that can fake out and taunt.

Just don't use earthquake. You are better off using shadow sneak or punch because it will do more damage to foe dusknoirs, and it will hit bronzong and togekiss, where earthquake wouldn't.

If you run infernape, you can run another priority move to kill sashes besides fake out.

Edit: My post was before seeing your team. It looks very good. I don't know if you need protect on shiftry, but it couldn't hurt having it. Another option is sucker punch, which will do damage to dusknoir, gengar, latias, and is physical so leaf storm is still good.

 

[Alex Practice]

Sucker Punch is a nice idea, but maybe something with a little more raw power? I'll look up Shiftry's learnset and see if it gets anything a bit more reliable (Since Dusknoir doesn't always use an attack, might Will o Wisp instead)

Also, what EVs/IVs should I am for?

I figure, if I'm facing Trick Room, I want all my guys to be faster, obviously, because I'm imprisoning their Trick Room and fighting on my terms. I want to give them -Natures and 0 IVs because that's the standard for regular trick rooms and doing so will make them more valuable for trade, so maybe just give my team EVs to make them outspeed other dusknoir/metagross/snorlax.

But then, I'm not really sure about the IVs/EVs of other things. If I give my guys 1 off from minimum, and my opponent's got good IVs despite having a well built team that puts me at an automatic disadvantage and I'll have to Trick Room to turn the tide in my favor.

Yeah so that's kinda tricky :(


EDIT
Actually, Shiftry lead with explosion is cute, but maybe just running Smeargle would be better, making it able to go "Trick Room" mode easily while still having access to not only Fake Out but Follow Me (stops taunt gengar which would rape me if all i had was fakeout) and Dark Void, too. Basically it could be a Trick Room team but with a faster Dusknoir that Imprisons.

:D

 

[mattj]

The above strategy is not bad at all, but what if you would encounter a sashed Crobat with taunt? Just go for it without TR, or try sucker punch+explosion to definitely KO the crobat?

 

[Alex Practice]

I edited saying Smeargle would probably be superior thanks to follow me and darkvoid.

Plus, Follow Me > Inner Focus Crobat

:3

 

[mattj]

I edited saying Smeargle would probably be superior thanks to follow me and darkvoid.

Plus, Follow Me > Inner Focus Crobat

:3

good boy ;D

 

[Snorlaxe]

Wait, I still never understand why Rotom is banned in VGC?

 

[Witchcraft23]

Wait, I still never understand why Rotom is banned in VGC?

Maybe it is because not everyone could get the alternate forms. Than again, the normal form doesn't have that great of an base stat average. They need to be more clear on that rule.

 

[Alex Practice]

How's this?

Smeargle @ Focus Sash
Jolly, Own Tempo
252 Attack/252 Speed/4 Sp. Atk
-Fake Out
-Follow Me
-Dark Void
-Endeavor

Dusknoir @ Lum Berry
Relaxed, Pressure
252 HP/38 Atk/216 Def/4 Spe
-Imprison
-Protect
-Trick Room
-Shadow Punch

Metagross @ Occa Berry
Adamant, Clear Body
252 HP/232 Atk/36 Spe
-Meteor Mash
-Bullet Punch
-Earthquake
-Explosion

Snorlax @ Leftovers
Brave, Thick Fat
204 HP, 252 Attack, 48 Sp. Def, 4 Spe
-Fire Punch
-Crunch
-Return
-Selfdestruct

The goal is to use Imprison against Trick Room, that way all of your Pokemon will be faster for the duration of the match. (Thanks to a tiny dash of Speed EVs which the opposing TR team won't have.) Plus they wont' be able to protect. Booming isn't as useful against Dusknoir/Spiritomb/Metagross but it's nice to deny them that crucial doubles mechanic.
You can also use Trick Room against everything else while remaining slow enough to operate during your own Trick Room.
Should counter TR and Rain Dance and other random scrub teams by being versatile.
I can't really think of any weaknesses other than dusknoir getting KOd too soon by something stupid like doulbe crit eq/heatwave as I use Follow Me since there's no way to stop Imprison and Trick Room respectively. Maybe really really bulky teams/sleep moves that can stall out Trick Room but other than that...

:D

Edited... any suggestions?

 

[mattj]

Wait, I still never understand why Rotom is banned in VGC?

Europe got Platinum waaaaaaaay later than everybody else. Maybe that's part of it. Still, we can use the move tutors and such :/

 

[LightningFusion]

Europe got Platinum waaaaaaaay later than everybody else. Maybe that's part of it. Still, we can use the move tutors and such :/

I don't think that was the reason since platinum only offered new versions of rotom. Rotom itself is still banned in normal form, so I really don't know why it is banned.

 

[POKEMONBATTLEBRAIN]

My guess is since they were banning the event Rotom(Oven, Mower, etc), they didn't want any controversies if someone was caught using them by "accident". "OHNOES I THOUGHT IT WUS DA OTHER 1, DA NRML FORM SOSOSOSO SRY PLZ DONT DQ MEEEEE", etc.

I think the thinking behind it is if you ban one or two forms because they are events, you might as well ban the other forms to not have any confusion or problems. Just my guess on why that is.

 

[False [old]]

Even though I understand why they did it, it's still a shame. It would have been interesting to see what kind of teams each form ended up on. I can already tell you Fridge Rotom would have been on my Hail team.

 

[mattj]

Visual list of all pokes that can learn TR...

I've already got them all on a Word Document (just how I make all my visual lists :P) and have them set up where I can shift them all around and sort them however I want. I realize that while there are quite a few that can learn TR, in reality the majority of teams will lead with a Dusknoir, Bronzong, or Cresselia.

What would your list of most common TR learning lead pokes be (for doubles)? The order doesn't really matter (Dusk and Zong would take top 2 duh) I'm just looking for basically a handful of the most common TR using leads.

My list starts with...

• Dusknoir
• Bronzong
• Azelf
• Slowking
• Cresselia
• Mespirit
• Uxie
• Gengar
• Porygon Z

I put these at the top of my visual list and just threw the rest in after that. Am I missing anything?

 

[Misdreavus]

Does something like Crobat/Ludicolo/Kingdra/Metagross look decent for a Rain Dance team, or should I throw another Water-type in there? I know that Trick Room teams are very problematic for Rain Dance teams... is there much of anything I can do to improve that matchup?

 

[False [old]]

Metagross would probably be a big help, since he gets Hammer Arm and can lower his speed that way if needed.

A good way of getting around Rain would be a pokemon that uses Priority moves, like Azumarill or Empoleon.

 

[Misdreavus]

Metagross would probably be a big help, since he gets Hammer Arm and can lower his speed that way if needed.

A good way of getting around Rain would be a pokemon that uses Priority moves, like Azumarill or Empoleon.

Yeah, for Metagross, I was thinking of something like:

Meteor Mash
Bullet Punch
Hammer Arm
Explosion

...and possibly even a Brave nature instead of Adamant.

 

[Alex Practice]

I used a Hammer Arm Adamant Metagross at a VGC once. It didn't ever KO Snorlax, even after Belly Drum, and was STILL slower (Or, faster, since it never went first during TR) than everything...so...IMO having hammer arm isn't going to necessarily clinch the match for you.

 

[Pokérob]

As hinted in the box showing a battle for the 2010 World Championship's video game tournament, Pokemon Sunday yesterday confirmed that Legendary Pokemon will be allowed in the tournament: Mewtwo, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Dialga, Palkia and Giratina can be on your team. One of the hosts on Pokemon Sunday stated that he has always had a Kyogre but was never able to use it, which means he caught it in Sapphire. If so, Pokemon Sunday may be implying that players can use the above legendaries from any of your games at next year's tournament, not just the Ho-Oh, Kyogre, Dialga, etc. caught in HeartGold and SoulSilver.

Discuss.

 

[lordkira]

Hmmm....it would be hard not to use only ubers then.
Mmmm....I'd liketo see what people come up with for their teams :X

 

[darkseeker4]

Hmmm....it would be hard not to use only ubers then.
Mmmm....I'd liketo see what people come up with for their teams :X

With the introduction to ubers :
Now that there is auto rain and sun wether teams will play a major role.
Alot of pokemon won't be used as they will end up being an inferior option to an uber pokemon.
I forsee the rise of TR teams to counter all the fast-ass ubers out there!

 

[mtr]

I'm more of a 1v1 player, but it seems that Trick Room wouldn't be too much better off for this. All Trick Room gains are Dialga and Mew, Celebi, and Jirachi as good TR setters (support Palkia is inferior to support Dialga in terms of typing) and Groudon can EQ you. The rain is also very powerful no matter what you do, and Kyogre/Palkia will be difficult to beat. They're already bad enough in 1v1.

But since this is based in the actual game, wouldn't it be difficult to get good natures/IVs on the legendaries?

 

[Sixonesix]

I'm more of a 1v1 player, but it seems that Trick Room wouldn't be too much better off for this. All Trick Room gains are Dialga and Mew, Celebi, and Jirachi as good TR setters (support Palkia is inferior to support Dialga in terms of typing) and Groudon can EQ you. The rain is also very powerful no matter what you do, and Kyogre/Palkia will be difficult to beat. They're already bad enough in 1v1.

But since this is based in the actual game, wouldn't it be difficult to get good natures/IVs on the legendaries?

So then just Dialga, because Mew, Celebi, and Jirachi would still be banned.

Also, it's not that hard to get good legends in Emerald and DPPt with RNG abuse.

 

[ΩDonut]

But since this is based in the actual game, wouldn't it be difficult to get good natures/IVs on the legendaries?

What? No.

Even if HG\SS's RNG is programmed differently than DPP, it will probably be figured out by the time the next VGC rolls around.

 

[mtr]

Never mind...this is why I play on shoddy.