np: Doubles Stage 2 - Slumber (THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, [SLEEP] FREE AT LAST)

[BLOOD TOTEM]

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoublessuspecttest-90823219

Revised Youngjake's Jumpluff set and quickly threw a team together to face someone from the PS doubles room to prove how much of a threat it could be. I dunno why YJ opted for Leech Seed over Enocre to be honest. I feel like Encore is so much more viable since it allows Jumpluff to use it's 110 base speed to lock targets into moves like Fake Out and Protect which actually buys you free turns without you having to worry about miss chances. The game above is probably the biggest chain of sleeps / disruption I've pulled off and just shows how potent sleep can be when used with correct team support. The team is probably pretty patchy since I just put it together for that one game but I'll probably come back to it and revise it to see how strong sleep can get.

muh jumpluff

Jumpluff @ Wide Lens
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Encore
- Giga Drain
- Protect

Pwne edit: please no replays vs bad players to make arguments
Edit: I played one game with the team and it demonstrated a point, cut me some slack pls :<
also QC cube

 

[youngjake93]

I find that the inclusion of sleep clause has very little impact in regards to higher level matches. When you're up against players who know what they're doing, you won't be able to put more than one Pokemon to sleep at once, which is in stark contrast to what I thought would be the case. When I first tried to ladder, I built a team whose sole purpose is to abuse the effects of sleep. Against less experienced players, it just absolutely dominated them; however, against people who knew what they were doing, it just fell flat on its face. At least from what I've experienced, what sleep does is it punishes poorly built / unprepared teams. Let me just say that this is absolutely fantastic. One of the main problems with doubles ladder is the inherent lack of skill, but with the removal of sleep clause, this forces players to adapt or risking losing to any inadequate team that has a sleep inducer. At one point, those players will get sick of losing and eventually reconstruct their teams. I see the release of sleep clause as a long-term step in the right direction towards improving the quality of the doubles ladder. It's exactly what we need right now to rid the doubles ladder of those poorly built gimmick teams that are so ridiculously pervasive.

I do not agree with most of this. The reason you couldn't put more than one Pokemon to sleep against more experienced players is simply because they are more experienced than you, not because it is any worse in higher level play. Any strategy is going to do amazingly well against players that you are way better than and poorly against players that are better than you. Removing sleep clause will not change the level of skill on the ladder and it will certainly not rid the ladder of the poor gimmicks. It merely creates a new brand of sleep spam gimmicks.

However, the point that sleep only works well on people of your skill level or lower kind of puts it on par with everything else already in the tier. I still have my concerns about sleep clause, but it probably wouldn't take skill to use if it was obscenely broken.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoublessuspecttest-90823219

Revised Youngjake's Jumpluff set and quickly threw a team together to face someone from the PS doubles room to prove how much of a threat it could be. I dunno why YJ opted for Leech Seed over Enocre to be honest. I feel like Encore is so much more viable since it allows Jumpluff to use it's 110 base speed to lock targets into moves like Fake Out and Protect which actually buys you free turns without you having to worry about miss chances. The game above is probably the biggest chain of sleeps / disruption I've pulled off and just shows how potent sleep can be when used with correct team support. The team is probably pretty patchy since I just put it together for that one game but I'll probably come back to it and revise it to see how strong sleep can get.

muh jumpluff

Jumpluff @ Wide Lens
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Encore
- Giga Drain
- Protect

Encore doesn't really do anything for me that I don't achieve through Sleep Powder. On Protects, I can just Sleep Powder the turn after they use it rather than Encore. On Fake Outs, I can just Sleep Powder the turn after they use it rather than Encore. On Earthquakes/Giga Drains, I can just Sleep Powder instead of Encore. I'm not really seeing any point to keeping them awake and locked into a move rather than sleeping.
I like that Jumpluff worked for you though!

 

[Audiosurfer]

1) Sleep makes offense easier to use
2) Sleep increases the overall usable pool of pokemon and strategies in doubles
3) Sleep punishes poorly built teams by requiring less-competitive minded players to adapt or face loss after loss

I don't understand these points. Like really though, none of these except the 2nd one could possibly be construed as something that makes the tier innately better, more competitive, skillful, etc. For starters, what is the point w/ #1 anyways? The fact that offense is made better (as if Doubles isn't offense centric enough as it is) isn't something that's positive, only something that is. This would be like saying that banning double targeting would be a good idea because it makes Stall based strategies more viable. While it might be something that offensive players enjoy, it isn't a reason as to why a metagame without Sleep clause is any better than one with Sleep clause. It's not like offense is unviable right now anyways, in fact it's pretty much the only type in higher level play (HO, bulky offense, etc.).

#3 is just purely subjective as well. With Sleep Clause, it's not like you can make a really lousy team and then be rewarded for it in higher level play (the only time this is true is on the ladder, and that's just a result of the lower quality of players there). I can name a million strategies that would "absolutely dominate" less experienced players simply because they're less experienced and will play worse than their opponents. Besides, the idea that teams are forced to be "better" without Sleep clause is just stupid. I probably have teams currently that are ill-equipped to deal with Sleep spam. Does that make them bad teams? No, it just means that since Sleep spam isn't existent in the metagame right now due to Sleep Clause, it's not something needed on a team beyond a basic answer. Being forced to have answers for potential Sleep spam isn't a sign of a more skillful format or better teambuilding, it's just a response to a shift in the metagame, the same as having an answer to like Giratina-O if we had dropped that or something would be.

edit: also, most of these gimmicks and stuff already take repeated losses against players who know what they're doing. there's no reason that unbanning sleep clause would cause them to suddenly stop using bad teams

#2 is just false really. Doubles has never had a problem with a small amount of viable Pokemon. In fact, it isn't hard to give Pokemon a good niche on a certain team if you're a good teambuilder and are willing to, (used to use a team full of E ranked pokemon in the past and won plenty of games with it) so this is just a nonexistent issue. Just because someone wants to spam Sleep with like a Jumpluff or something, doesn't mean that the "overall usable pool of Pokemon has increased". If anything, it's decreased. The viability of Trick Room-based teams takes a huge hit without Sleep Clause to prevent things like Amoonguss from posing a huge problem to the average Trick Room team, and it's reasonable to expect we'd see alot less of them than we currently do without Sleep clause in place.

as of right now I'm still makin up my mind as to what I think about Sleep Clause, but these points just aren't very legitimate

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

youngjake93 I can see where you're coming from. Encore looks like a deadweight move when you also have Sleep Powder on the set but actually I think it can be more beneficial in some situations. For one, if you are unsure of the item you don't have to worry about the risk of the opposing Pokemon carrying a Lum Berry or Safety Goggles. In addition to this, there is no risk of missing unless they have Bright Powder. Encore can also be favorable in locking Pokemon into a move that damages their own Pokemon as can be seen here.

Encore is actually pretty damn cool since you're actually more likely to force a switch in a lot of scenarios since people are often willing to sit in with sleeping Pokemon where they would not if it was locked into Earthquake.

 

[scene]

I think Amoonguss and Mega Venusaur are probably the biggest threats sleep-wise - Breloom isn't quite as potent, from experience, and much easier to actually get rid of off the field. Jumpluff certainly has its uses regarding sleep spam, but I found it easier to play around than the aforementioned two for the most part and, again, died far more quickly. As for countering sleep, I found some teams I faced were really well prepared for it, with Lum Berry and even Safety Goggles seeing a reasonable amount of used based on random Knock Offs. I didn't find sleep really changed the metagame hugely or particularly affected how I approached games. It wasn't fantastically broken - it's merely another thing to be taken account of and planned for, and it's honestly not that difficult to do this even for a relatively new doubles player like myself. Stuff like Safeguard is a very simple way to comfortably deal with sleep, and it's not like it lacks potential users. The ubiquity of Protect and the fact that trying to sleep something wastes a turn you could be killing stuff or setting up also affects the potential of sleep to win you games easily.

Overall, I feel sleep isn't an overpowering force in the meta and, while it's deadly in the hands of a skilled player (what isn't?) I think that it's healthy for the tier and I'd have no problems keeping it. Prepare for it as a strategy, build a cohesive team that simply deals with sleep as another potential threat and I struggle to see how sleep is broken for the tier.

 

[phantom]

I do not agree with most of this. The reason you couldn't put more than one Pokemon to sleep against more experienced players is simply because they are more experienced than you, not because it is any worse in higher level play.

Errmmm, no that's not what I meant. When you're facing people in higher level play, they're obviously going to be prepared to deal with it as opposed to facing someone at the lower ends of the ladder. The reason why it's so effective at the lower ends of the ladder is because no one prepares for it. That's my point. So I don't want people getting the impression that sleep is so easy to use or something just because they've been beating players who never prepare for it.

#2 is just false really. Doubles has never had a problem with a small amount of viable Pokemon.

Well, I never claimed it did. I always thought it was varied and the introduction of sleep just introduces more possibilities.

The fact that offense is made better (as if Doubles isn't offense centric enough as it is) isn't something that's positive, only something that is. This would be like saying that banning double targeting would be a good idea because it makes Stall based strategies more viable.

I don't understand why making certain play styles easier to use wouldn't be considered a positive?

#3 is just purely subjective as well. With Sleep Clause, it's not like you can make a really lousy team and then be rewarded for it in higher level play (the only time this is true is on the ladder, and that's just a result of the lower quality of players there).

I'm not sure where this came from because I never claimed anything like that.

Being forced to have answers for potential Sleep spam isn't a sign of a more skillful format or better teambuilding, it's just a response to a shift in the metagame, the same as having an answer to like Giratina-O if we had dropped that or something would be.

The difference is that sleep isn't a pokemon. The reason why I think more people will pay attention to it is exactly for that reason. There's a ton of teams at the lower ends of the ladder that are weak to things such as Landorus-T, Kangaskhan, etc. But even when they see their team demolished by these threats, they don't prepare for it nor does a loss seem to phase them. But when you end up putting multiple Pokemon to sleep the first few turns, you have them rage quitting left and right. I get that this is anecdotal, but my point is that they're more likely to prepare for a strategy (if you want to call sleep that) as opposed to a singular entity such as Giratina. This is why the comparison doesn't really stack up.

The viability of Trick Room-based teams takes a huge hit without Sleep Clause to prevent things like Amoonguss from posing a huge problem to the average Trick Room team, and it's reasonable to expect we'd see alot less of them than we currently do without Sleep clause in place.

I never felt it was that difficult to stop Amoonguss. Safety Goggles, Safe guard, Lum Berry, etc could all be used to counteract it. If anything, Amoonguss benefits Trick Room by being an incredibly annoying Sleep inducer. It is fair to say that it might inhibit Trick Room, but it is also fair to say that it helps benefit it as well. I feel like Sleep has a fairly proportionate effect on Trick Room, at least from what I've seen.


I typed that post late a night and there seems to be a misunderstanding towards what I meant... Sorry about that. >.>

 

[jrrrrrrr]

Sleep just hasn't done anything against me. The only preparation I made was adding Sleep Talk to a CB user on my team, thinking that the suspect test would bring sleep users out of hiding. I've only seen a handful of Brelooms and Amoonguss, and they haven't managed to do much. Dark Void being banned makes sleep pretty easy to overcome, even without Sleep Clause. If I make reqs I'm going to vote for No Ban...unless I see a great sleep team that Knock Offs my socks off.

 

[Pocket]

BLOOD TOTEM, Substitute is the bread and butter of that set. If you're not using Substitute, you wont be getting much mileage from Jumpluff, since it's so frail; all it takes is one early wake up for the opponent to land a finishing blow onto your Jumpluff. Substitute protects Jumpluff from low sleep timers. This is why Leech Seed is nice, because Jumpluff can literally keep on setting up Substitute more than four times.

That's not to say Encore is a bad option. Encore is a great way to reduce the risk of using Sleep Powder, since the opponent is now stuck using a move that cannot harm Jumpluff. The opponent is now forced to use a useless move or switch out, either option offering a free turn for Jumpluff to set up a sub, or throw out Sleep Powders with little risk. Fast Encore is a very underrated utility, and I often choose to use Encore instead of Sleep Powder in my games for a more reliable way to set up my other mons. I've actually been using Jumpluff with BOTH Leech Seed and Encore xD The lack of Protect hasn't hurt me too much yet, but I may decide to forego Encore if its antics wore off. Surprisingly my Jumpluff team only has 1 Protect user (Heatran) oO. Props to youngjake93 in discovering this gem.

I agree with Scene that Mega Venusaur is a baller mon to use atm. Unlike Chlorosaur, it fits on non-sun teams, and offers amazing bulk and respectable power. It's deceptively fast, too. I'd say it's even more consistent than Jumpluff, because it can actually offensively threaten the opposing team. Add in Sleep into the equation, and Venusaur is quite a terrible mon to face. I'll share you my Mega Venusaur's moveset:

Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 248 HP / 208 SAtk / 52 Spd
Modest Nature
- Energy Ball
- Sludge Bomb
- Protect
- Sleep Powder

Enough Speed to outrun min Spe Rotom-W (and by extension Cresselia and Togekiss), max odd HP, and rest in SpA. Energy Ball > Giga Drain / Leaf Storm, because the power difference is significant. With Energy Ball Venusaur can actually finish off max HP Assault Vest Rotom-W after it eats my CB Talonflame's Brave Bird and 2HKO Garchomp and Tyranitar (in sand). It easily 3HKOs Bisharp, too. Venusaur actually sticks around for a long time, especially with no Sleep Clause, so I find Energy Ball a lot more consistent than Leaf Storm. Sludge Bomb is great to easily 2-shot fairies like Togekiss. Sleep Powder rounds out the set to make for a very well rounded offensive and supportive mon.

Here are some replays of Venusaur doing its thing:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoublessuspecttest-89570085
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoublessuspecttest-89969316

The replay also shows Darkrai with Gravity support in action (well in the first game at least) :V Darkrai is another mon worth noting, because its ability Bad Dreams makes sleep a much more insidious condition. Darkrai does not even need to be the one putting mons to sleep; it can simply be paired with a sleep inducer like Venusaur to passively damage sleeping mons (as you can see in the second game). Darkrai is somewhat like Jumpluff, where it can whittle down opponent's HP with Bad Dreams, while setting up a Substitute to keep itself from harm's way. There are a few differences, most notably Darkrai's dependence on Gravity and the ability to sleep and drain health from Grass-types, too. Mono Dark is surprisingly effective, doing solid damage to a lot of threats.

Those are just 3 of the sleep abusers I've been trying out. They aren't super-viable to the extent that they break sleep, but they are certainly a lot more relevant now with the removal of Sleep Clause (esp. Jumpluff lol).

 

[Laurel]

I'm really bad at theorymon, but as soon as I started using a team designed to spam sleep there was pretty much nothing my opponent could do... After I got reqs on my main name. Charizard-Y + Chlorophyl Wide Lens Venusaur... Prankster Heat Rock Sunny Day + Chlorophyl Wide Lens Jumpluff.... Pretty much just Taunt Trick Room users (Aromatisse is annoying) and put everything to sleep... since it's under sun every grass type dies to fire moves.

I'm definitely going to vote to keep Sleep Clause and you guys should do. It is much easier to abuse Sleep with more pokemon on a team... I think no Sleep Clause is balanced in VGC, but without it in Doubles is awful.

 

[Laga]

COULD EVERYBODY PLEASE STOP
saying
"abuse sleep"

you do not have success with something if you are misusing an aspect of the metagame ._.

On the other hand, I'll definitely believe that you can base your opinions of of how you "took advantage of" an opposing sleeping mon or "utilized" the sleep-inducing move"


Anyways with that aside, (this is mostly @ Laurel) I believe your point about sleep clause being less balanced in VGC is false, considering it takes less time to put 4 Pokemon asleep than it takes to put 6 Pokemon asleep. I think that your point about "there was pretty much nothing my opponent could do" probably comes from you facing people that are less skilled in teambuilding. Considering the fact that your Pokemon has to spend one turn putting one Pokemon to sleep, then the other Pokemon on your opponent's side is still free to do whatever the fuck it wants.

The second you click Sleep Powder or Spore, while you may be delaying your opponent, but you are delaying yourself as well for that turn.

And to further emphasize my point about lesser skilled teambuilders on the ladder, I doubt you met a single Lum Berry or fast Taunt user. Substitute / Taunt Terrakion destroys venusaur / CharY core. Talonflame single-handedly stops all Sleep-inducers, as well as CharY. Taunt Thundurus stops fast chlorophyll jumpluff (this is an overkill point, you might as well use infiltrator for subs). Grass-types can switch into the Sleep moves to allow your partner a free turn.

In general, I don't believe that Sleep spam is an overpowered strategy; you just have to bring counters to it – most of which will be common and good anyways – such as the ones mentioned above.

 

[Pen Ink]

I really do find teams that only focus on sleep abuse terribly underwhelming. To be totally honest, I'm only finding running 1 - 2 sleepmons good. Everything else is total overkill and is going to screw up your synergy. Besides that, do people really thing that a skilled player is just going to let you Sleep Powder all their Pokemon? If you think a team of Char-Y / Venu / Jumpluff / Breloom / filler / filler is going to dick all over a person that knows what they're doing, you're in for a rough time.

I just never really find myself clicking Spore every turn with Breloom when they're are so many other options. Status is so easy to overcome when you think about it.

Also, there's a difference between "abusing sleep" and "running a team with 3+ sleepmons". Sleeping anything you can with nothing to really benefit from not being attacked at all is a pretty big waste.

tl;dr sleep teams suck and don't abuse sleep effectively.

 

[The Leprechaun]

So recently i've been running my togekiss with a lum berry to great success. As I've been using the fairly common core of Kang+Kiss, the lum berry has been extremely helpful in avoiding unnecessary residual damage on kiss when using follow me but also, STAB air slash hits all grass sleep inducers for great damage and any faster users like Gengar can be dealt with by paraflinch. *sigh* i love kiss so much.


Edit:Something else which i've been experimenting with is Mega Gengar. First of all I tried an offensive set on a quick rain team i made. I gave it HP Rock and Energy Ball to beat potential rain checks. While this was fairly successful and i managed to hit a few rotoms and maybe a couple of charizards, the trapping aspect really wasn't necessary. Also, the team was fairly poor so it didn't get much work done anyway... After that, i opted for something a little unorthodox. With there being plenty of hype around cm tr cress recently, i wanted to try it out. Gengar has the unique ability to trap opponents as well as burn them with will-o. On top of this, it gets taunt to stop any set up sweepers/ utility mons from hampering the cress boosting. As they have to stay on the field in a weakened state thanks to shadow tag. The other mon i've used to support it is Focus Sash Escadrill. as fire types, specifically tran, cockblock cress esca serves as a great lure. Its immunity to both hail and sand thanks to overcoat make it a great candidate for sash.

Any thoughts on on how to improve the EVs/ sets?


Gengar @ Gengarite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 248 HP / 8 SAtk
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Protect
- Shadow Ball
- Taunt

Cresselia (F) @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SDef / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spd
- Calm Mind
- Trick Room
- Moonblast
- Rest

Escavalier @ Focus Sash
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Drill Run
- Megahorn
- Iron Head
- Knock Off

 

[champetero]

I'm really bad at theorymon, but as soon as I started using a team designed to spam sleep there was pretty much nothing my opponent could do... After I got reqs on my main name. Charizard-Y + Chlorophyl Wide Lens Venusaur... Prankster Heat Rock Sunny Day + Chlorophyl Wide Lens Jumpluff.... Pretty much just Taunt Trick Room users (Aromatisse is annoying) and put everything to sleep... since it's under sun every grass type dies to fire moves.

I'm definitely going to vote to keep Sleep Clause and you guys should do. It is much easier to abuse Sleep with more pokemon on a team... I think no Sleep Clause is balanced in VGC, but without it in Doubles is awful.

You most likely faced unprepared teams or bad players.The amount of ways to deal with sleep are huge.A prankster user can safeguard and unless you are liepard they will outspeed you.Sap sipper goodra laughs at Charizard Y and venusaur as it can tank charizard Y forever and kill venusaur with fire blast and charizard with T-bolt.Like others have said talonflame is a great counter to every sleep inducer.Safety googles Rotom-H is also a great check to most sleep inducers and counters Charizard Y + chlorophyl venusaur.Also sleep being balanced in VGC and not in doubles is false.VGC has way more tools to put pokemon to sleep like dark void smeargle which can put both pokemon to sleep and potentially stop both of them from attacking while doubles has dark void banned which means u can't stop both pokemon from attacking and the more pokemon in doubles help check sleep.

 

[Laurel]

You most likely faced unprepared teams or bad players.The amount of ways to deal with sleep are huge.A prankster user can safeguard and unless you are liepard they will outspeed you.Sap sipper goodra laughs at Charizard Y and venusaur as it can tank charizard Y forever and kill venusaur with fire blast and charizard with T-bolt.Like others have said talonflame is a great counter to every sleep inducer.Safety googles Rotom-H is also a great check to most sleep inducers and counters Charizard Y + chlorophyl venusaur.Also sleep being balanced in VGC and not in doubles is false.VGC has way more tools to put pokemon to sleep like dark void smeargle which can put both pokemon to sleep and potentially stop both of them from attacking while doubles has dark void banned which means u can't stop both pokemon from attacking and the more pokemon in doubles help check sleep.

Everything you just said points to how over centralizing Sleep is. If you have to run Sap Sipper Goodra to check Sleep don't you think you are doing too much - what does it do besides that... The same goes for Safety Goggles Rotom-H, why would you ever run that over Charti Berry, Sitrus Berry, or Chesto Berry... Also, nobody good uses Dark Void Smeargle in VGC from what I've seen. ._.

 

[champetero]

Laurel first sap sipper goodra is a special tank.Sap sipper is there to counter sleep if you ever face it but goodra has more uses than just countering sleep.Safety goggles rotom-H is just an example of how to counter sleep if you are that desperate.For your information 2 people that made top 4 in a japannesse tournament(can't remember which) used smeargle.

 

[Pocket]

The Leprechaun, I'd consider Focus Blast on that Gengar (over Taunt) to dispose Dark-types that would fuck up Cresselia (also nice for Heatran).

#2 is just false really. Doubles has never had a problem with a small amount of viable Pokemon. In fact, it isn't hard to give Pokemon a good niche on a certain team if you're a good teambuilder and are willing to, (used to use a team full of E ranked pokemon in the past and won plenty of games with it) so this is just a nonexistent issue. Just because someone wants to spam Sleep with like a Jumpluff or something, doesn't mean that the "overall usable pool of Pokemon has increased". If anything, it's decreased. The viability of Trick Room-based teams takes a huge hit without Sleep Clause to prevent things like Amoonguss from posing a huge problem to the average Trick Room team, and it's reasonable to expect we'd see alot less of them than we currently do without Sleep clause in place.

I actually support Icecream's stance that sleep introduced more variety in our tier. Pokemon like Darkrai is seeing usage now, and obscure threats like Jumpluff and even QD Vivillon were discovered. Pokemon that were criminally underused, such as Breloom, is now seeing an appropriate amount of usage. Mega Venusaur is an absolute beast without SLeep Clause. counter-sleep measures in turn gave some significant niche to Overcoat Escavalier, Overcoat Reuniclus, and Sap Sipper Goodra.

The variety doesn't stop at the level of Pokemon. Underrated items such as Lum Berry, as well as moves like Taunt, Substitute, and Safeguard are currently prevalent. Safety Goggles is actually relevant now, offering Pokemon the Grass-type advantage of ignoring Rage Powder/Spore without being a Grass-type. I think this item would be especially useful on Water- and Electric-type Pokemon that are cock-blocked by Amoonguss, such as Thundurus-T, Rotom-W, and Azumarill. I personally would hesitate to attach Safety Goggles on my mons, but it's certainly a great counter-teaming, game-changing item if your opponent is known to rely on Amoonguss.

Trick Room has plenty of answers to deal with Sleep. Lum Berry Trick Room setters with Safeguard, using Grass-types, such as Amoonguss or Ferrothorn, as well as using Overcoat mons like Reuniclus and Escavalier. Trick Room hasn't lost its viability from what I've seen.

I think Sleep introduces additional niche to the metagame without hampering pre-existing Pokemon or strategies. It does have a side effect of possibly exacerbating the high usage of Charizard Y + Venusaur, Talonflame, and Thundurus, but it also brought a lot of previously underused Pokemon/moves/items into the limelight.

PS: I am also on the fence about Sleep, though. I believe there's a way to break Sleep, but I haven't found it yet. Mega Gengar + Breloom sounds particularly nasty, so I should test that soon.

 

[jas61292]

Everything you just said points to how over centralizing Sleep is. If you have to run Sap Sipper Goodra to check Sleep don't you think you are doing too much - what does it do besides that... The same goes for Safety Goggles Rotom-H, why would you ever run that over Charti Berry, Sitrus Berry, or Chesto Berry... Also, nobody good uses Dark Void Smeargle in VGC from what I've seen. ._.

I think you are really oversimplifying things. You are pretty much saying that preparing for sleep at all is too much preparation, but that just seems absurd to me. If something is a viable strategy, you really do need to prepare for it. If that was all it took to make something overcentralizing, we would have banned half the metagame in every tier we have here. Its true that those items you list, for example are not ideal in a metagame with the Sleep Clause, but the fact that they are viable when such a clause does not exist only points to the meta being different, not that Sleep is overcentralizing.


Personally, in my experience, it didn't change a ton in the metagame, and if anything, the viability of these things only serves to make the metagame more diverse, as Pocket just talked about above. I remember someone mentioning earlier that they felt that Trick Room was less viable in this metagame, but in my personal experience with using Trick Room teams, I never got any such feeling. Amoonguss is probably the biggest reason for this on my end. Yeah, facing Amoonguss could be annoying, but running one myself was incredibly useful. I know I mentioned in my previous post about how useful an unexpected fast spore was for an offensive team. This is not exactly the same as that, but it has a few of the advantages. Obviously, in TR, Amoonguss is quite fast and has that quick Spore, but it is not unexpected, and people can more easily play around it. In general, I found that it didn't play much differently than with Sleep Clause. On the one hand, you have more options, with is always a good thing. However, you do have to worry about opposing Amoonguss, and slow anti-sleep mons like Escavalier. Overall I really do think that the advantages of having a "fast" Sleeper on a TR team are very much counterbalanced by the necessity to prepare for it from your opponent.

 

[Braverius]

Sleep seems very balanced atm and should probably be kept.

Trick Room clause probably needs to be put in place, however. The amount of "wow I don't know anything but lol let me spam Trick Room" that keeps beating me simply because of matchup is asinine. I can't construct a team that both deals with the meta AND the people that spam TR on ladder and gimp wins because of it.

 

[Skore]

Sleep seems very balanced atm and should probably be kept.

Trick Room clause probably needs to be put in place, however. The amount of "wow I don't know anything but lol let me spam Trick Room" that keeps beating me simply because of matchup is asinine. I can't construct a team that both deals with the meta AND the people that spam TR on ladder and gimp wins because of it.

Wow. I don't think there's a nice response to this if you're serious. Trick Room is a viable strategy in doubles, but by no means the only strategy and is not exactly a new thing.....and as someone has stated above, Doubles is all about disruption of your opponents strategy while executing your own. The key is to stop them setting up TR in the first place and TR setters are all known and you can usually judge a TR team right at Team Preview stage and take steps to counter it.

Just because you are unable to doesn't mean that it's impossible, just that you probably need some tips on proper team building.

 

[Braverius]

Wow. I don't think there's a nice response to this if you're serious. Trick Room is a viable strategy in doubles, but by no means the only strategy and is not exactly a new thing.....and as someone has stated above, Doubles is all about disruption of your opponents strategy while executing your own. The key is to stop them setting up TR in the first place and TR setters are all known and you can usually judge a TR team right at Team Preview stage and take steps to counter it.

Just because you are unable to doesn't mean that it's impossible, just that you probably need some tips on proper team building.

I never said it was the only strategy or a new thing. I'm saying it creates a black-and-white meta. I can't find a team that can adequately deal with both TR and the majority of what's out there. Never said it was impossible either, I'm saying that it's a matchup that relies on team archetypes, not good teambuilding or good play. You can get a few wins by playing the prediction game, but you can't reliably beat it, and that's where I have my issues. I dislike ever having to predict against players that don't know what Storm Drain does yet still beat me because I never can handle TR.

I can understand criticism of my personal preference / team styles because again, that's probably what the issue is. Maybe I should have approached it differently and worded it as a question, but either way the goal is to get some discussion on it, because at least for me, it's a more apparent issue than sleep.

 

[Skore]

Well does your own team use any form of speed control, status or disruption to buy you free turns? It could be that a few tweaks to your team's EV spreads or movesets could make all the difference. Also, if you are running a sleep inducer in this very sleep-centric meta it can be very very easy to shut down those teams that just "spam trick room" since you'll likely be faster than their whole team and can potentially stop Trick Room from ever being used.

 

[M2H]

Thundurus (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
- Protect
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Thunder

There really isn't much to say about this Thundurus set, I use protect to scout out the first turn and to give me a better chance to get my opponent to hit themselves. Swagger is used since because of Gengar, the opponent cant switch out so they have to stay in to take their chances.Thunder Wave is useful to slow down a potentially threatening Pokemon. Thundurus is surprisingly bulky with max hp / spdef+ so I decided to do that instead of max speed and spatk since this thundurus fills more of a support role.

Gengar (F) @ Gengarite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Focus Blast
- Protect

Gengar is the more valuable Pokemon of the core due to being able to trap my opponent's Pokemon in which is huge. Gengar keeps my opponent from gaining ANY momentum while it's alive and due to it's typing it can stay alive for longer than you'd suspect. Shadow Ball is a great STAB which pairs well with Focus Blast, Focus Blast hits Tyranitar, and pretty much any steel type that might get in my way except Aegislash. Hidden Power [Ice] is pretty useful for Pokemon that could otherwise beat Gengar such as Landorus, Landorus-T, Garchomp, Gliscor, and most Dragons.

Here is the team I used, anybody can feel free to try it if they need/want to.

Hide

Politoed (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Spd
Calm Nature
- Perish Song
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Protect

Thundurus (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
- Protect
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Thunder

Gengar (F) @ Gengarite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Focus Blast
- Protect

Scrafty (F) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
Impish Nature
- Drain Punch
- Fake Out
- Poison Jab
- Knock Off

Heatran (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Heat Wave
- Flash Cannon
- Protect
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Kingdra (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Muddy Water
- Ice Beam
- Protect
- Draco Meteor

PS: I'll be sure to comment on other stuff later, as well as my general opinion on Sleep and Rain.

 

[LightningLuxray]

I've recently gotten into doubles, so I may not be the most knowledgeable. However, I've noticed that Sleep has been a pretty easy thing for people to use when done correctly. Firstly, Pokemon such as Breloom and Ammoongus are two very dangerous Pokemon atm. Breloom, while it might not be the best overall Pokemon, can seriously hinder the opponents team with Spore, especially if it's more of a slow, bulky offensive team. A set I saw was Choice Scarf Breloom, which while gimmicky, ended up beating my unprepared team. All Breloom has to do was lock itself into Spore, and it already had one of your Pokemon to sleep. The partner Pokemon was usually something powerful, that could damage/weaken the other Pokemon, or something like Togekiss, which could use Follow Me so Breloom could keep spreading sleep. Ammongus is another threatening Pokemon. With it's great natural bulk, Spore, and Rage Powder, it's extremely effective at shutting down teams while also allowing other Pokemon to get a free turn of set-up.

Probably the scariest users of sleep, though, are the Chlorophyll users, like Venusaur and Victreebel. These Pokemon, with a Chlorophyll boost from Mega Charizard Y, have to potential to outright sweep the opponent if they don't have some way to deal with sleep. This is because Pokemon like Venusaur can put one Pokemon to sleep while Charizard Y can fire off a STAb Fire Blast, or a powerful Solarbeam/Focus Blast, to injure/kill the other Pokemon. Not only that, but Venusaur has great natural bulk, meaning it can tank hits from the Pokemon that it doesn't end up putting to sleep. Even if you do have an answer to Sleep, the combination of Charizard Y + Venusaur can usually stop most Pokemon who are there to prevent Sleep (Most Grass types lose to Sludge Bomb + Fire Blast, Overcoat Pokemon like Escavilier lose to Fire Blast.) The only real thing that stops this combination are Safety Goggles/Lum Berry Pokemon and Prankster Safegaurd/Taunt, which basically have to be run in order to counter this strategy. (There may be other Pokemon/way to beat this combination that I don't know about, so sorry if I'm wrong on this!)

Overall, I've found Sleep to be very powerful, and it's something that every teambuilder needs to put a lot of consideration into when teambuilding.

 

[Jaiho]

I think Sleep is extremely good, yet not broken, in this meta. While Sleep is great support to sub users and set-up sweepers, The ubiquity of protect and fake out makes it difficult to to sleep too many pokes, and having multiple sleepers takes away from team synergy, since they all have a grass typing. On top of that, overcoat and grass types, as well as the lum berry are rather common, and not that hard to fit onto a team. Now if Dark Void was allowed, this would be a completely different story, but it isn't. Through counterplay and predictions, the match should really not turn out that different if Sleep Clause was still in effect. Overall, I think a lack of Sleep Clause is healthy for the meta and adds a new dimension to it.

 

[champetero]

I've recently gotten into doubles, so I may not be the most knowledgeable. However, I've noticed that Sleep has been a pretty easy thing for people to use when done correctly. Firstly, Pokemon such as Breloom and Ammoongus are two very dangerous Pokemon atm. Breloom, while it might not be the best overall Pokemon, can seriously hinder the opponents team with Spore, especially if it's more of a slow, bulky offensive team. A set I saw was Choice Scarf Breloom, which while gimmicky, ended up beating my unprepared team. All Breloom has to do was lock itself into Spore, and it already had one of your Pokemon to sleep. The partner Pokemon was usually something powerful, that could damage/weaken the other Pokemon, or something like Togekiss, which could use Follow Me so Breloom could keep spreading sleep.

The reason your team did bad against breloom was because your team was not ready for sleep.Breloom is actually one of the weaker sleep users.

Ammongus is another threatening Pokemon. With it's great natural bulk, Spore, and Rage Powder, it's extremely effective at shutting down teams while also allowing other Pokemon to get a free turn of set-up.

While amoonguss is an awesome sleep user it in now way can shut down teams.Amoonguss is a pokemon made to be a tank with supporting moves like spore or rage powder but the amount of ways to shut down amoonguss are huge and most of them are viable like talonflame,lum berry,etc.

Probably the scariest users of sleep, though, are the Chlorophyll users, like Venusaur and Victreebel. These Pokemon, with a Chlorophyll boost from Mega Charizard Y, have to potential to outright sweep the opponent if they don't have some way to deal with sleep. This is because Pokemon like Venusaur can put one Pokemon to sleep while Charizard Y can fire off a STAb Fire Blast, or a powerful Solarbeam/Focus Blast, to injure/kill the other Pokemon. Not only that, but Venusaur has great natural bulk, meaning it can tank hits from the Pokemon that it doesn't end up putting to sleep. Even if you do have an answer to Sleep, the combination of Charizard Y + Venusaur can usually stop most Pokemon who are there to prevent Sleep (Most Grass types lose to Sludge Bomb + Fire Blast, Overcoat Pokemon like Escavilier lose to Fire Blast.) The only real thing that stops this combination are Safety Goggles/Lum Berry Pokemon and Prankster Safegaurd/Taunt, which basically have to be run in order to counter this strategy. (There may be other Pokemon/way to beat this combination that I don't know about, so sorry if I'm wrong on this!)

first victreebel has no use outside of sleep which many pokemon do better.Also you can always change the weather lol.Again talonflame can kill venusaur before it puts anything to sleep and pokemon like sap sipper goodra can tank both venusaur and charizard Y all day long.