Announcement Sketchmons vs STABmons

Which OM do you prefer?


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The time has come to settle this feud. Here's a little backstory for those unfamiliar about OM history. STABmons is one of the original OM ladders, and a format that is loved by many, if not for its concept then for sentimental reasons. Last generation, however, its activity went on a decline. And so a very tough decision was made to remove its ladder from Pokemon Showdown. That's where Sketchmons came in. It was one of the most successful OMs of the Month and so it had earned to opportunity to have a permanent ladder. It's been almost one year and, unfortunately, Sketchmons hasn't lived up to expectations. Although it has done a bit better than STABmons, the difference is insignificant. That, combined with the outcry from the community for the loss of STABmons, has resulted in this. Rather than the OM mod team picking one over the other, we'll leave it completely up to you - the community.

Cast your vote in the poll for either Sketchmons or STABmons. The only rule is: your Smogon account has to be registered before today. The poll will run until the end of the month.

Feel free to use this thread to argue, in a serious manner, why one concept is better than the other. Any shitposts or one-liners will be deleted.
 
Sketchmons.

Sketchmons gives way more flexibilthy. Every pokémon learning every move, instead
of just their STABs. This means that defensive playstiles are way more viable, and even
some gimmicks now. Sketchmons means that pokémons that dont have any healing ability can get one that it wouldnt get in STABmons, such as Clayol.
 
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Personally I enjoy both metas equally, but overall I'd have to give the vote to Sketchmons. Last time I played STABmons it was full of E Speed spam, but Sketchmons gives you more creativity IMO.
 
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RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
I would like to apologize to every member of Sketchmons council and anyone else who is dedicated to Sketchmons, because I initially had a bias on the meta just because the ladder had low activity; I had tendencies to say "Sketchmons is dead af" or "smfh this takes centuries to queue" in Discord and other places. However, after trying to play couple games via personal challenges in Pokemon Showdown, I realized how interesting the metagame is and how fun is it to try out my so-called-good-teams for Sketchmons against players who were longing for battles just like I was. That was around the time QT has brought up Sketchmons vs STABmons in Suggestions for OM Improvement thread and this really made me think that it is entirely possible for this issue to have risen from biased people like me who kept overgeneralizing exaggerated information about Sketchmons.

So why am I saying this? Well, as much as I personally love STABmons (one of the biggest reasons I started playing OM's) and want it to return to permanent ladder, I want Sketchmons to remain as well no matter how inactive the ladder is. I say, both metagames are very enjoyable, and both of them deserve to stay. Unfortunately, it turned out that the poll has only two options: Sketchmons and STABmons. Now, because now I enjoy both of the metas despite being terrible at both, I will vote abstain by just not using poll at all.

Until the day arrives and both Sketchmons and STABmons remain as permanent ladder and we can jokingly ask UselessCrab how to capitalize STABmons again, unfortunately either one will remain as non-permanent ladder. But conclusively I wanted to say they are both ladder games that went through official approvals from OM auth's and it is not like one meta is inferior to the other just because it loses poll vote. I hope everyone here who votes on the poll makes the best decisions. Thank you and have a good day.
 
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drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
This is a tough choice for me honestly.

I really like both STABmons and Sketchmons, they're probably my two favorite metas. I don't really want to make arguments as for why one is more enjoyable then the other because that would be kind of pointless, as people already know what they enjoy, and if they don't, I'm not sure why they're even voting :x. So instead I'll try to compare the two based on what they bring to the table for OMs as a whole.

Sketchmons died this generation, and died hard. It's even more dead than AAA, which is also supposedly pretty dead (don't play so can't say for sure). While notable player Racool taking over could potentially breath some life into the meta I don't see it coming back strong any time soon, and I assume neither does OM leadership given the fact that this thread exists.

STABmons died last generation, and died even harder than Sketch. It has survived covertly this generation in a supersecretprivateroom(tm) but many of the people on the leadership team are... quite inactive. ~3/5 of the council aren't really around frequently, and I worry that this could causes problems.

Overall however my vote is going to go to STABmons because I believe that Sketchmons is in an intolerable state of decay and while STABmons certainly has the potential to do the same (and has in the past), keeping things the same will not be beneficial. I would have preferred for this to happen a little ways down the road, perhaps when USUM came out, to give Sketchmons a chance to get back on its feet with recent changes and bans, but I understand that other plans probably exist for USUM and that's not my call to make.
 
Honestly, I'm of the opinion that continuing to pit these two metagames against each other as part of a longstanding "feud" is the least healthy outcome possible for OMs going forward. Regardless of which gets chosen, a considerable portion of the playerbase is going to be upset, and it's partially because these metagames have been seen as the only two options in an isolated conflict, separate from the rest of the OM ladders.

I actually like both of the metagames, but if neither has been able to succeed as a ladder, isn't the logical solution to give both a break from being permanent? We wouldn't be bringing back STABmons if it didn't happen to fall into the same "move-based metagame" category as Sketchmons. ("STABmons vs. Inverse," for instance, has never been a debate.) Picking one of these two just encourages animosity between players of the two metagames and perpetuates the idea that it's a two-horse race, which has led to some unpleasant words being exchanged between players of the two OMs over the course of the last year or so.

I realized today that we've only voluntarily added (and then retained) one new permaladder (this excludes AG, which was more imposed on us) since Generation V, that being Mix and Mega. It's been years. I was really happy to see that TI plans on re-instituting the previously scrapped idea of rotational ladders. Why don't we just give each of STABmons and Sketchmons a shot in the rotation come USUM, but more importantly, give opportunities to new OMs to take their permanent spot instead? Clearly, it's very hard to predict what might succeed, but it seems counterproductive at this point to go back and forth between options that have already struggled once.

(And that's why I didn't vote in this poll.)
 

Cam

The Colby Covington Of Smogon
is a Tiering Contributoris a defending SCL Champion
STAB has a lot of FakeSpeed in it but theres plenty of things you can use to make this less of a threat to teams. psychic terrain and queenly majesty (although its only one pokemon) completely stop it. Although it does still stand that FakeSpeed spam is still common and intimidating.
 
STAB has a lot of FakeSpeed in it but theres plenty of things you can use to make this less of a threat to teams. psychic terrain and queenly majesty (although its only one pokemon) completely stop it. Although it does still stand that FakeSpeed spam is still common and intimidating.
Lele was banned from stabmons bro , psycho boost in terrain hurt
 

fanyfan

i once put 42 mcdonalds chicken nuggets in my anus
My vote goes to STABmons. I’ve played both metas some, and I’m not a fan of Scetchmins because there’s just too many possibilities, which makes it really hard to balance, especially with the low player activity. I might be biased because I like STABmons a lot better, but it has room for creativity and has a lot of possibilities without being completely broken. People like to say “It’s just FakeSleed spam.” without actually giving it a chance. STABmons appears to be winning as of this current moment, and I hope it does.
 

EV

Banned deucer.
Lele was banned from stabmons bro , psycho boost in terrain hurt
Set it manually with Mega Alakazam.

Anyway, because I'm sure people are dying to know, I voted STAB, but I'm also of the opinion that Uselesscrab posted above.

Like I said on Discord, I don't want to beat a dead horse for years. STAB will always have its core playerbase (shouts homies you know who you are), and we've come up with quirky little side dishes even when they weren't playable (shouts Bad STAB crew). Clearly, we're going to find a way to play. We've kept up the game for almost a year without a ladder, buuuuuuuuuuuuut at the same time, is it really fair to impose our die hard STABmons fever on the OM community as a whole, which largely does not play it?

Now apply what I just said about STAB to Sketch and you'll understand why I think it's time to find a new, better, more popular replacement.
 
Why not both? Is the rotating ladder that much of an issue? You could really just have STABmons in the first 6 months and Sketchmons in the later 6. This should be an option, alongside a new metagame as EV mentioned. Forcing people to choose from 2 options when there are more and probably better seems pointless.
 
It's no secret that I like STABmons better, even after playing Sketch seriously over the duration of OMPL. I like it better for lots of reasons which don't really matter since this isn't an objective debate.

The reason that I care so much is that it frustrates me to put a lot of effort into a metagame only to have it labeled as "dead". I put a lot into STABmons over the last few years: consistently updating the VR, offering unsolicited teambuilding help to newer players on ladder, compiling a list of viable moves so that people might stop running Night Daze (please stop, it's worse than Dark Pulse), RMT-ing my best team, and contributing to discussion on the metagame whenever it popped up in chat. I think there's a large psychological component to a ladder's activity, in that if people assume they're not going to find a game and meet even slight resistance, then they stop trying and their assumption becomes true. Obviously there are some real interest issues as well (I'm not delusional, I swear).

I'll address what seems to be people's primary complaint about STABmons first. FakeSpeed is very powerful. There's no denying that. However, this gen its checks got significantly better (as evidenced by Diggersby and Porygon-Z still being in the metagame in a reasonably balanced way). Beak Blast, Strength Sap, Shore Up, Celesteela, Toxapex, and Buzzwole are all phenomenal new tools for checking Physical mons in general. If you feel like you "need" to run Defensive Landorus-T on every team to stop FakeSpeeders, then I would encourage you to try out Celesteela, Garchomp, Ferrothorn, Toxapex, M-Venusaur, Buzzwole, Tangrowth, Steelix, Rotom-X, Gyarados, Tapu Fini, M-Scizor, Rhydon, Porygon2, Slowbro, or even something less "traditional", like Zapdos, Celebi, Mew, Mandibuzz, Slowking, Umbreon, Hippowdon, Jirachi, or defensive Bewear. I promise you, as someone who plays (very) Fat Balance and Semistall, that defensive counterplay is massive. Offensive counterplay is obviously a bit harder since we're talking about strong priority, but Excadrill, Alakazam, Aerodactyl, Gengar, M-Lopunny, Magearna, Heatran, Bewear, Mimikyu, Terrakion and a number of others are all fit for the task. As with any blanket strategy you're trying to beat (think rain), there is no one-size-fits-all counter that can tank any hit from +2 Diggs, +2 Lopunny, and mixed Porygon-Z, while OHKO'ing back, so carrying a few pokemon from this long list is pretty important. Luckily the list is extremely long. A longer list can be found in the second post here.

All that said, I would prefer to have OMotM every few months, or a rotational ladder every fewer months, than a permanent one if people's perception is that it would be "dead". I certainly don't want people to resent STABmons.
 

lost heros

Meme Master
Why not both? Is the rotating ladder that much of an issue? You could really just have STABmons in the first 6 months and Sketchmons in the later 6. This should be an option, alongside a new metagame as EV mentioned. Forcing people to choose from 2 options when there are more and probably better seems pointless.
While that seems nice on paper, we also have to consider tournament impact.
Historically, OMGS and OMPL have had 6 metagames (OMPL 3 only had 5 and I can't find any info on OMPL 1.) This year (season?) the metagames were: Monotype, AG, BH, Mix and Mega, AAA, and sketchmons because these also correlated with our official formats. However, Monotype has officially left the OM banner (further challenging the inclusion of it) and if we don't have a permanent for the Sketchmons/STABmoms slot we might not have enough dedicated players to support the slot. This would leave us "short" on metagames and change up our tournament scene significantly
 
Why not both? Is the rotating ladder that much of an issue? You could really just have STABmons in the first 6 months and Sketchmons in the later 6. This should be an option, alongside a new metagame as EV mentioned. Forcing people to choose from 2 options when there are more and probably better seems pointless.
Both ladders lack activity. We're not going to support two dead ladders. This poll is to determine which format has more demand. The alternative is to not support either format on Pokemon Showdown.

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that continuing to pit these two metagames against each other as part of a longstanding "feud" is the least healthy outcome possible for OMs going forward. Regardless of which gets chosen, a considerable portion of the playerbase is going to be upset, and it's partially because these metagames have been seen as the only two options in an isolated conflict, separate from the rest of the OM ladders.

I actually like both of the metagames, but if neither has been able to succeed as a ladder, isn't the logical solution to give both a break from being permanent? We wouldn't be bringing back STABmons if it didn't happen to fall into the same "move-based metagame" category as Sketchmons. ("STABmons vs. Inverse," for instance, has never been a debate.) Picking one of these two just encourages animosity between players of the two metagames and perpetuates the idea that it's a two-horse race, which has led to some unpleasant words being exchanged between players of the two OMs over the course of the last year or so.

I realized today that we've only voluntarily added (and then retained) one new permaladder (this excludes AG, which was more imposed on us) since Generation V, that being Mix and Mega. It's been years. I was really happy to see that TI plans on re-instituting the previously scrapped idea of rotational ladders. Why don't we just give each of STABmons and Sketchmons a shot in the rotation come USUM, but more importantly, give opportunities to new OMs to take their permanent spot instead? Clearly, it's very hard to predict what might succeed, but it seems counterproductive at this point to go back and forth between options that have already struggled once.

(And that's why I didn't vote in this poll.)
Despite their ladders being inactive, Sketchmons and STABmons are still amongst the most popular non-permanent formats. We will be giving new OMs an opportunity, as I mentioned in the suggestions thread. But that doesn't take away from these two formats still being somewhat popular in this forum. I don't think the community would be happy to lose both, as can can be seen from this response.
 
While that seems nice on paper, we also have to consider tournament impact.
Historically, OMGS and OMPL have had 6 metagames (OMPL 3 only had 5 and I can't find any info on OMPL 1.) This year (season?) the metagames were: Monotype, AG, BH, Mix and Mega, AAA, and sketchmons because these also correlated with our official formats. However, Monotype has officially left the OM banner (further challenging the inclusion of it) and if we don't have a permanent for the Sketchmons/STABmoms slot we might not have enough dedicated players to support the slot. This would leave us "short" on metagames and change up our tournament scene significantly
These issues are certainly real, but not unsolvable. For instance, you could include all rotational metas wholesale. You could include them and weigh the games by the percentage of the year they get played. You could ignore them all. You could play BO3 in everything and then play BO1's for rotationals. I'm sure if I sat here for five minutes I could come up with more mediocre ways to "solve" this "problem". Also ladder quality and overall interest in OMs VASTLY outweighs any slight dip in tournament quality.
 
Stabmons. While sketchmons does seem to be getting better with the recent bans, I'm still really not a fan of just how awful it is in terms of reliable plays and lures. Unlike in standard tiers or stabmons, you just have no idea what walls a pokemon, or what can switch in. Kartana, for instance, has no real answers between v-create and SD Fightinium, and just about any offensive pokemon can bypass any answer if it so chooses. Stabmons is both more predictable in what can be done (although it still allows creativity) and gives more options to defensing pokemon, as something like celesteela can afford to run beak blast or kings sheild without having to give up recovery.
 

MZ

And now for something completely different
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Cool posts but can we stop pretending this really comes down to anything other than personal preferences? Every time someone tries to justify why stab or sketch is objectively a better meta, it's been really really bad, and we've rehashed this stuff so much it's not like you're really adding anything to the discourse. Plus actually productive topics were brought up, like the inherent issues in pitting OMs against each other.

e: so this isn't a complete waste, what happens if STABmons also becomes dead? If OMs simply isn't capable of supporting enough active permanent formats, is the response to stick with them out of inertia and try to get them to be more active through tours/suspects/whatever or is it to focus more on rotational metas and getting people active in OMs by constantly having new interesting things cycling around while maybe keeping the few active perma ones like BH and MnM around for some consistency? The latter seems like the natural progression to me, but I could see why not going for more radical differences would appeal to people.
 

Funbot28

Banned deucer.
Unlike before, I have really grown to enjoy both metagames as a whole as of late (especially with the recent Sketch bans), I feel that both metagames offer there own distinct approach in terms of modifying the "learnable move" aspect of competitive mons and I really do not have a specific personal preference to either mechanic change (even though I have been playing STABmons for much longer).

This issue I have (which was perfectly brought up by UC) is this constant back and forth are community is dealing with in terms of cementing "representable" other metagames (ie: oms that have the access to permaladders more specifically). While stuff like BH, 1v1 and MnM rip Mono have been able to sustain a pretty active playerbase, we still deal with metas like AAA and Sketch (you can add STABs onto here as well) which always pale in comparison to the aforementioned popular metas. Knowing this, I would really hope to see the idea of rotational ladders be discussed once more as others have previously brought up. It really doesn't have to be a ladder rotating Sketch or STAB, but maybe one that can touch upon other pretty popular OMs such as Inheritance or Tier Shift. I just feel that we are wasting opportunities here.

But I still voted STABmons because how couldn't I.
 

Fardin

Tournament Banned
Sketch has many creative sets and is actually fun to me personally. Stab has always been boring and its not as diversed as sketch. At the end of the day, it's gonna come down to personal opinions lol. there is no right or wrong answers
 

Jrdn

Not a promise, I'm just gonna call it.
Something that isn't being brought up at all is the human nature aspect. People gravitate towards the "shiny" or the new. If stabmons was a dead meta and sketchmons was the meta that would take over, sketchmons would be winning in the same way stabmons is winning the poll right now. I feel like stabmons is a meta people like more than sketch, but my previous point would still hold true. Anyway, as a player of both metas, I find sketchmons more fun and enabling for creative builders. So, despite the lopsided results already, I'm voting for sketchmons.

Editing my post to build on my point: The ultimate conclusion here is that the poll isn't reliable. Stabmons was never going to lose this poll, so it seems unfortunate to those who put effort into Sketchmons after becoming a staple meta. I don't know what to do by the way of a solution, but I feel like that needs to be said, and understood
 
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