Pokéroulette

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Pokéroulette

What if...You forgot which Pokéball held which Pokémon? What if your Pokéballs all looked alike? What if battles were so fast-paced and dangerous that you didn't have the time to choose which Pokémon you switched in after switching the previous one out?

Welcome to Pokéroulette!

The basic premise of this metagame is to decentralize the metagame from its insistence upon switching out every few turns. In order to do this, one simple special rule will be enacted:
  • Each time a player CHOOSES to switch out his or her Pokémon, a random Pokémon will be switched in.

In other words, if you want to use Volt Switch to send in your Heatran against a Ninetales, you better get lucky, and the chance of sending in the correct Pokémon is smaller the more Pokémon you have left. Besides that simple rule, Pokéroulette follows standard OU rules, although there is a high chance of banning Pokémon in the future which are seen as being too powerful. (I'm looking at you, Shedinja! >.>)

Now, what does this mean for the metagame? How much will this affect the otherwise normal OU metagame?

Abilities
One of the most affected aspects of the game comes from one of the most important aspects of the game: Abilities. Some abilities lose much versatility in this metagame, namely those which are of most use upon the switch in:

Type-immunity Abilities

Abilities such as Water Absorb, Volt Absorb, and Flash Fire lose much of their use when you can't switch them in on a predicted move of that Type.

Magic Bounce

Magic Bounce's most common use is as a threat to the opponent while switched out, as it is a threat that can be switched in to reflect non-damaging moves. Without the choice to switch them in against those moves, they are only useful while already switched in, which cuts their usefulness in half.

Intimidate

Intimidate is hurt the least of these abilities, as it still works whenever switched in. However, the inability to purposefully switch in a Pokémon with Intimidate as a check to physical Pokémon hurts their usefulness, if only slightly.


Moves
Baton Pass/U-Turn/Volt Switch

All three of these moves switch the user out...for a random Pokémon. Baton Pass chains can no longer work, as you never know what it will pass to. U-Turn loses its usefulness, and Technician Bug Bite or any X-Scissor become much better choices (unless you really need to avoid being trapped, but trappers are worse, too, because nobody wants to switch out). Volt Switch becomes much worse than Thunderbolt.

Taunt

Taunt is an amazing move in Pokéroulette because stall teams are much more reliable, since wallbreakers cannot be purposefully switched into.


Items
Choice Items

Switching out sends out a random Pokémon; do you really want to Choice-lock a Pokémon into a move which could be useless against your opponent's switch-in?



Other Notes
I suspect that Shedinja will be very good, as you cannot be certain you will switch into a Pokémon with the right type of move to kill it. I think that if any Pokémon gets banned, it will be Shedinja. Furthermore, the two types of Pokémon which work best in this format are Setup Sweepers and Walls. Pokémon which TRY not to switch out are much better, which also leads to having a variety of Pokémon types on your team to maximize your resistances and immunities (re: Shedinja). Steel-types in general are also great, as they force switch outs easily. Just in general, forcing switch outs is an amazing tactic, and I can't wait to see how this metagame could evolve.


Anyways, I hope you like the concept of Pokéroulete, and I'd love to hear some feedback! :)
 
Suddenly Hydreigon becomes excellent until someone beats its speed tier.
252 SpA Life Orb Latios Dragon Pulse vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Hydreigon: 416-494 (127.6 - 151.53%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Life Orb Infernape Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 0- Def Hydreigon: 530-627 (162.57 - 192.33%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Terrakion Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 0- Def Hydreigon: 474-560 (145.39 - 171.77%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Volcarona Bug Buzz vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Hydreigon: 432-510 (132.51 - 156.44%) -- guaranteed OHKO

All four outspeed and OHKO Hydreigon, and each is fairly good in the tier with mixed attacking sets or just with many good coverage moves. Each has a way to hit Steel hard. Each can hit Ghost neutrally. In fact, I think Jellicent and Heatran are the only Pokémon in OU which can potentially check two of those four, assuming no weather is up, and it all depends on their coverage choices.

However, I will admit, mixed Hydreigon will be a Pokémon to watch. I figure the biggest threats are the faster Pokémon who have coverage moves and can hit every important threat at least neutrally. However, I can see setup sweepers such as Cloyster and Conkeldurr still being good, and fast Moxie Pokémon with coverage could potentially be devastating. SD Garchomp could potentially sweep an entire team with Outrage, a physical Fire attack, and Earthquake.

There are a number of UU Pokémon which could potentially be effective in this metagame which aren't usually. For example, Froslass would work as an effective suicide lead, Taunting any Hazard-setting leads to force a switch to a random Pokémon or even using Destiny Bond for a quick kill after getting a layer of Spikes or two up. It helps that her speed is high enough to outspeed almost anything without a Scarf, and Scarf is less useful in this metagame.

Another example is Mew. Mew learns almost every move. It isn't hard for Mew to find coverage moves. With Swords Dance or Nasty Plot or some other setup move, Mew can serve as an effective sweeper with whatever coverage you need. Likewise, Nidoking and Nidoqueen have amazing coverage with special attacks, and can boost all of their attacks with Life Orb and Sheer Force to inflict massive amounts of damage to anything.

At the other end of the UU speed spectrum, Snorlax's paralysis phazer set may be practical due to the annoyance phazing is to setup sweepers and stall-based Pokémon, as well as paralyzing troublesome speedy Pokémon. Porygon2 continues to serve as an effective wall, although Trace's viability drops greatly without Type-immunity abilities to abuse. Alternatively this largely speed-based metagame could be wrecked by Slowbro and Cofagrigus, both able to use Trick Room and Nasty Plot to outspeed and sweep significantly faster and more orthodox teams.

Perhaps the best UU Pokémon in Pokéroulette would be Sableye, capable of using Prankster to serve almost any need. With Taunt, Sableye shuts down setup sweepers, Hazard-setters, and walls alike. With Recover and a lack of weaknesses, Sableye can stay around a long time, while his diverse movepool allows him to succeed with whatever task you give him. On the topic of Prankster, Tornadus may be of use with his Rain Dance to assure he can Hurricane while shutting down other weather teams who are unable to switch in their weather starter reliably until a Pokémon faints.

Another Prankster Pokémon, and perhaps simply an entire status and the moves which induce it, shines from the depths of NU. Liepard, the notorious Parafusion pussy cat, has the movepool and ability necessary to be a nuisance in Pokéroulette. With Leftovers and Substitute, Liepard can stall for time, allowing Thunder Wave's paralysis and Swagger's confusion to make free turns. However, confusion as a status has one problem: it disappears when the Pokémon switches out. What happens when you don't want to risk switching out into an even less useful Pokémon? Free turns of confusion, paralysis, substitutes, and Foul Play! Only Taunt can stop Liepard, and only the fastest Pokémon can hope to outspeed Liepard with a priority move.

Needless to say, there are clearly many Pokémon which are more useful in this metagame than in normal OU and many other Pokémon which are much less useful. I hope I can talk to Joim about adding it to his server soon, and hopefully it won't be too hard to implement. (Zarel said it could probably be done from formats.js alone. If you don't know what that means, ignore it.)

Anyways, anyone else got any comments, questions, concerns, critiques?
 
Setup seems too damn good in this. For example if you switch out of something like dd mence, and your counter doesn't get randomly picked that means another dd for mence and likely game over. Same with volcarona, terrakion and friends. Also choiced dragons hurt when your steel doesn't come out. Seems like a hyper offense metagame imo.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
'oh shit his DDNite just came in, better go to my phazing skarmory'

'wait fuck that's not a skarmory'

so yeah this meta will not be stall as you predicted, but setup offense
 
This is a very cool metagame idea. Props to you, Menace13!

I have two questions, though

1) Can you choose a pokemon to send in after a previous one faints?

2) Is there Team Preview? (I hope not, would make it more interesting w/o Team Preview)
 
Why would you say Choice items are bad? In my opinion they have become better! Choice Band/Scarf Outrage everywhere! Only resisted by one type.

Practically, anything that has a high attacking stat, some high BP moves (one can be enough) and can deal with speed issues (wether it be by priority, bulk or being superfast) becomes twice as good in this meta.

Rain will really like this with Hurricane & Thunder spam.

Your opponent now cant switch into his counter. Any hard-hitting choice move is now twice as dangerous as you cannot reliably switch into your best counter.

A full team of choice mons is actually viable here. And I think hyper offense will dominate this meta. Put 2-3 choiced mons along with a setup sweeper or 2, maybe a weather starter and 1-2 supporters.
 
Quick Sample Team:

- Focus Sash Alakazam
- DD Lum Berry Dragonite
- Ferrothorn (Hazard Setup, T-Wave support)
- SD Scizor
- Scarf Hydreigon
- MixApe

If your opponent cant switch anything in safely with certainity just take a bunch of hard hitters and add in a hazard-setter. Ferrothorn can switch into a lot of attacks, both physical as special meaning it is one of the best defensive pokes in this meta. T-Wave becomes better as well because normally your t-wave user will always lure in the same pokes. Now it can get anything on the switch.

The pokes in this team can also all take a hit or more. Only Alakazam has shit defenses but it has focus sash to deal with that. No spinner because the team isnt that hazard-weak.

Team has 3 priority users on top of that to pick of weakened threats late game. Since you cannot reliably switch in your counter to a scarf poke I think having 3 priority users is a good idea.

Was wondering about CB Mamoswine as well but decided to go for MixApe to deal better with Sun.
 
Setup sweeper Pokemon (especially the nigh-unbreakable Dragonite, stupidly powerful Cloyster and speedy Volcarona) and specs Latios / Hydreigon become OP as fuck. Roulette needs to ban Dragon Dance, Quiver Dance, Shell Smash and Choice Items if this is gonna be even nearly-balanced.

Permanent Weather is also completely OP now. A rain team with good rain sweepers, especially Keldeo, will have no way of losing to a non-weather team at all. Ban perma-weather.

If that is done, I would enjoy playing it.

Oh and MrOMGness Infernape can't take a hit at all. Its special bulk is lower than alakazam's and its physical bulk isnt much better than Zam's.
 
Setup sweeper Pokemon (especially the nigh-unbreakable Dragonite, stupidly powerful Cloyster and speedy Volcarona) and specs Latios / Hydreigon become OP as fuck. Roulette needs to ban Dragon Dance, Quiver Dance, Shell Smash and Choice Items if this is gonna be even nearly-balanced.

Permanent Weather is also completely OP now. A rain team with good rain sweepers, especially Keldeo, will have no way of losing to a non-weather team at all. Ban perma-weather.

If that is done, I would enjoy playing it.

Oh and MrOMGness Infernape can't take a hit at all. Its special bulk is lower than alakazam's and its physical bulk isnt much better than Zam's.
It has higher HP and has more useful resists tho, but I guess you're right. Prolly should replace it with quiver dance volcarona to check sun teams.
 
This is a very cool metagame idea. Props to you, Menace13!

I have two questions, though

1) Can you choose a pokemon to send in after a previous one faints?

2) Is there Team Preview? (I hope not, would make it more interesting w/o Team Preview)
1) Yes, you can choose what to send in when your Pokémon faints. Just not when you CHOOSE to switch your Pokémon out; if your Pokémon faints you get to send out a counter, and perhaps that will give YOU a free setup turn.

2) To be honest, I'm not sure whether Team Preview or no Team Preview would be better. If anyone else would like to give their opinions on it, I'm kinda leaning towards Team Preview though, because otherwise the first choice might make all the difference. If I start with Blissey, and my opponent starts with Conkeldurr, well, that's game right there. Team Preview would add an entire extra layer to the strategy of the metagame.

Why would you say Choice items are bad? In my opinion they have become better! Choice Band/Scarf Outrage everywhere! Only resisted by one type.

Practically, anything that has a high attacking stat, some high BP moves (one can be enough) and can deal with speed issues (wether it be by priority, bulk or being superfast) becomes twice as good in this meta.

Rain will really like this with Hurricane & Thunder spam.

Your opponent now cant switch into his counter. Any hard-hitting choice move is now twice as dangerous as you cannot reliably switch into your best counter.

A full team of choice mons is actually viable here. And I think hyper offense will dominate this meta. Put 2-3 choiced mons along with a setup sweeper or 2, maybe a weather starter and 1-2 supporters.
The problem with Choice items is that you cannot switch moves; the only way to change moves would be to switch out, allowing a free turn, as well as sending in a random Pokémon which may be even worse against the Pokémon which is out. For example, if my opponent's Kyurem-B wrecks my Pokémon with STAB Outrage with a Scarf, and I send in Scizor, I can Swords Dance, survive the next Outrage, and OHKO in return with Bullet Punch. Alternatively, if he switches out, I get a free Swords Dance. Either way, I just got a Swords Dance on Scizor, which means serious business.

Priority will definitely be important, as setup sweepers feed on slow Pokémon.

The only problem with Rain (and other weathers) is that you can't guarantee the switch to your starter, so if another weather goes up, you have to wait for your Pokémon to faint before you can reliably start weather back up. Alternatively, not being able to guarantee the switch to your starter means you pretty much HAVE to start with the weather starter. In that case, the opponent can prepare appropriately and wreck your starter, starting off 6-5 effectively (with a weather up).

As for a full team of choice mons, and hyper offense, it is quite possible they will be good in this metagame. However, setup sweepers will be best, most likely, if mainly because the opponent can't guarantee the switch into their counter. The main thing this metagame will encourage, most likely, is people to always run a large range of coverage attacks they normally wouldn't as well as neglecting Pokémon with numerous weaknesses for obvious reasons.

Setup seems too damn good in this. For example if you switch out of something like dd mence, and your counter doesn't get randomly picked that means another dd for mence and likely game over. Same with volcarona, terrakion and friends. Also choiced dragons hurt when your steel doesn't come out. Seems like a hyper offense metagame imo.
Setup will be good. However, with priority or simply by not running any Pokémon which will have nothing they can do against various sweepers, setup sweepers can easily be stopped. For example, Mamoswine wrecks almost all of the common Dragon/Flying DDmons, while running extra coverage moves or different support moves on your Pokémon can help ensure the opponent will not be able to get free setup on them. Defensive Politoed can run Haze, Heatran can run Roar, etc. to prevent setup from simply wrecking everything. Any team which prepares itself to stop setup Pokémon and is prepared to leave Pokémon in for a long time (offensively or defensively) will do fine.
 
In the boat of setup sweepers that can switch into quite some attacks (both physical and special), wether it be because of their stats, their ability or their typing: Dragonite, Metagross, Gyarados, Lati@s, Scizor, Jirachi, Cobalion, Virizion, Empoleon, Scrafty come to mind.

I'm not that convinced about walls being that great, atleast I'm talking about the ones that only cover one side of the spectrum. One unlucky switch and your wall is dead in 1 turn if it gets hit on the switch by an attack that it isnt supposed to wall and if it isnt then you'll be forced to switch out again or sac it.

Things like Hippowdon, Forretress, Skarmory and Blissey wont be as good in this meta I think. Luckily for some of them they have other utilities like p.e. hazard-setting so their usage wont be that bad.

Ferrothorn, Jirachi & Jellicent will be a good defensive core tho as they can all take hits from both sides and cover each other's weaknesses; only ground is not covered. On top of that they provide status and entry hazard support which can help the other 3 (offensive) pokes.

I also think Dual Screens will be good in this meta.
 
Setup sweeper Pokemon (especially the nigh-unbreakable Dragonite, stupidly powerful Cloyster and speedy Volcarona) and specs Latios / Hydreigon become OP as fuck. Roulette needs to ban Dragon Dance, Quiver Dance, Shell Smash and Choice Items if this is gonna be even nearly-balanced.

Permanent Weather is also completely OP now. A rain team with good rain sweepers, especially Keldeo.
The answer to life's problems would be Focus Sash Wobbuffet. :D

But no, really, set up moves as mentioned above are really OP here.
 
I can see bulky utility Pokemon like SpD Hippowdon being really good since they can deal a majority of Pokemon 1v1.
 
It seems like Quagsire has loads of potential here. Good defensive/offensive typing + Unaware + good movepool. It could try to stall opponent's sweepers that lacked Grass coverage, or it could use Curse to set up it's own sweep, while brushing off their unboosted attacks.

While Baton Pass chains have been severely weakened, Short Pass may still be viable, as long as you have several 'mons that could receive the pass and use it well. Any sweeper can benefit from passed speed/defense/accuracy boosts.

Something else which might work really well in this meta is using a Para Shuffler like Snorlax or Dnite to wear down and cripple your opponent's sweepers, giving one of your sweepers a much better shot at cleaning up, or possibly a better chance of setting up in the first place.

Just one quick clarification, do you chose your lead, or is that random as well?
 
I can see bulky utility Pokemon like SpD Hippowdon being really good since they can deal a majority of Pokemon 1v1.
I agree. Hippowdon and Skarmory, both bulky and able to phaze out sweepers, have a lot of potential in this tier, especially since Skarmory can wall Dragon-types and Hippowdon has massive physical bulk. That's one reason why I believe stall could work, so long as it is well-prepared for stopping numerous sweepers and hyper-offense teams.

It seems like Quagsire has loads of potential here. Good defensive/offensive typing + Unaware + good movepool. It could try to stall opponent's sweepers that lacked Grass coverage, or it could use Curse to set up it's own sweep, while brushing off their unboosted attacks.

While Baton Pass chains have been severely weakened, Short Pass may still be viable, as long as you have several 'mons that could receive the pass and use it well. Any sweeper can benefit from passed speed/defense/accuracy boosts.

Something else which might work really well in this meta is using a Para Shuffler like Snorlax or Dnite to wear down and cripple your opponent's sweepers, giving one of your sweepers a much better shot at cleaning up, or possibly a better chance of setting up in the first place.

Just one quick clarification, do you chose your lead, or is that random as well?
You choose lead.

And yeah, Quagsire would be good. Unaware will hurt all the sweepers in the tier. Short Pass could be viable if everything the pass could go to will benefit from it and not get OHKO'd on switch, which is not necessarily going to happen, especially with Smash Pass. As for Para Shufflers, they have potential, as they stop setup and weaken sweepers for the rest of the game.
 
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