2v2 Ladder

[makiri]

I think for the moment we need to start banning only the obvious ubers, such as Groudon and Kyogre (who would obviously centralize the metagame around their two abilities) and carefully explore the clauses that exist in singles. Sleep clause seems to be the most controversial, but Evasion, OHKO, and Item clauses are also major changes in the VGC rules from our own. Before deciding that we need a Sleep clause we have to realize that double battling is much faster than singles, and thus items such as Leftovers are replaced by Lum Berry, Chesto Berry, Sitrus Berry, etc. Because of this much larger focus on berries Sleep is not always game breaking and sometimes turns out to be a waste of a turn. Additionally I believe a rule-less and ban-less metagame should be used to start, this is an entirely new metagame from singles and it requires entirely new rules and ban lists, nothing should be transferred right away. Centralization should be easy to spot in a doubles metagame and the appropriate action can be taken during the course of testing.

 

[DJ Forte]

Ok, I like that. I'm going to repost my thought on sleep clause. On a 6 v 6 change it to no more than two pokemon asleep at one time. In a way that would be like singles that your opponent can't attack with what he/she has on the field. Also in double battles having two pokemon on the field allows many different ways to avoid things like sleep including follow me(I think).

 

[rory]

Ok, I like that. I'm going to repost my thought on sleep clause. On a 6 v 6 change it to no more than two pokemon asleep at one time. In a way that would be like singles that your opponent can't attack with what he/she has on the field. Also in double battles having two pokemon on the field allows many different ways to avoid things like sleep including follow me(I think).

Sorry, that wasn't on my list of valid options for sleep clause.


I also highly doubt we will limit each team to having one of each item. I never understood why that made the metagame any more enjoyable.

 

[Carl]

I'm really rushing this post since I don't really have the time or energy to get into it right now and there's a lot of months ahead to theorymon and test on wifi before shoddy gets this into full swing.

First, I think in terms of a ban list we start with the traditional ubers. Basically, this means all the pokemon listed as such in the original post. We can leave all the Deoxys forms out too for now. The rest I guess should be fair game until everyone plays it on shoddy, but I'm willing to bet Wobbuffet gets banned fairly quick. It's a starting point we can work from at least.

As for sleep, I think everyone is overreacting in this thread. A whole two pokemon get Dark Void: Darkrai and Smeargle. The former is tentatively banned or proposed to be banned from the start. Anyone who wants to play Ubers can deal with that can of worms on their own for the time being. We're looking at OU right now. So Smeargle is the only pokemon with Dark Void. People have mentioned items to counter it and that's fine. A pokemon with Heal Bell or Aroma is also a decent way of dealing with it I suppose. However, if it were me, I'd be looking to just carry Safeguard on a pokemon faster than Smeargle. And believe me, there's quite a few of them that are OU viable. It's one move that protects any pokemon on your side of the field for 5 turns from status. Not a very viable attack in singles, but definitely worth a look in doubles and easy enough to use to avoid one single pokemon sleeping your two pokemon or any other pokemon with sleep inducing moves for that matter. Doubles are faster paced and while pokemon A is trying to put your pokemon A to sleep, your pokemon B is using attack to beat pokemon A. I'm not so sure it's going to be as big of a threat as it is in singles. For the VGC, yeah people are using preventative measures for Smeargle, why the fuck wouldn't you? "This strategy is pretty good so I'm going to do nothing whatsoever about it"??? Because that would make sense, right? So, I'd propose for the time being no sleep clause until someone can really show that Smeargle (or any other sleep inducer) is going to cripple their team without fail. That's my 2 cents, feel free to disagree and prove me wrong since that would be some progress.

 

[rory]

I'm not sure, you might have missed it, but the first two weeks will be free of any restrictions (including sleep clause). I'm sure we'll be able to tell fairly quickly if sleep clause is needed after that.

 

[Carl]

ah sorry, colin just linked me to a specific post and asked me to respond. that sounds good then.

 

[Stagnant]

In regards to 2vs2 battling, sleep status is very common and thus should be prepared for. Therefore, there shouldn't be a Sleep Clause. Use Chesto, Lum, Taunt, your own form of sleep, Insomnia pokemon (HonchKrow, Hypno) and so on.

Sleep Clause is ridiculous as is in singles.

 

[Gir!]

I don't get why clauses exist.
"Oh sleeping all your opponents pokemon is cheap, lets ban it."
So you need to protect against sleep like you do in the real, non-claused game.
"OHKO moves are cheap because they can kill in one shot."
So? They have a 30% accuracy.
"Double Team is cheap because it makes it hard to hit"
So taunt it.

Honestly. Its pokemon, not "lets play nicely and I can say I win."
I say we don't have a sleep clause.

Do you enjoy when Scarfloom puts your lead to sleep? Multiply that 6x and you´ll see why sleep clause exists

OHKO clause exists because, every time you switch to go for a counter, the Pokemon with the OHKO move has a 30% chance of eliminating his counter for free

Evasion Clause exists to avoid stall wars to become even longer, Garchomp, for example, has an already high chance of avoiding say, Fire Blast with Sandstorm in play, now, imagine if he managed to get 3 or 4 DT

 

[StarmanXL]

Ok, I like that. I'm going to repost my thought on sleep clause. On a 6 v 6 change it to no more than two pokemon asleep at one time. In a way that would be like singles that your opponent can't attack with what he/she has on the field. Also in double battles having two pokemon on the field allows many different ways to avoid things like sleep including follow me(I think).

Two is still a third of your team, and I honestly don't see why having more pokemon on the field at one time is a valid reason for increasing the number of pokemon you can sleep at a time. Also, you do realize that Follow Me is learned by a grand total of four fully evolved pokemon, one of which is a total piece of crap, right?

 

[rory]

Follow me doesn't do crap against dark void and really there's one follow me user that is far better than the rest and will undoubtedly see much more use than the others.

 

[DJ Forte]

I know, I was just pointing out a counter. Point is you can get around it. And yes 2 is a third of your team, but you should have a counter. Maybe it should be auto-lose or baned

 

[cim]

Honestly, both Smeargle and Darkrai may be banned at some point (I actually think Smeargle is more likely to go), so we should cross the Dark Void bridge when we get to it.

Single sleep might not be so bad, keeping in mind there might even only be one Pokémon with a hundred percent sleep move that's worth using. I think there's a very small amount of doubt on sleep clause, but enough to make it worth exploring as we are doing in the two week "what the hell is going on" period.

So what do we do until SB2 comes out? Now that we know what we're doing first, we can... use NB Supremacy or something, or hack + PBR.

 

[scampy]

NB Supremecy is heavily glitched, so if we want to do testing then it definitely shouldn't be on there. I'm all for playing on wifi until SB2 is released (PM for friend code), although as this is a very brief test I'm not going to spend time looking for legit legends and such, just AR hacks. I suggest that those of us who can play wifi start testing this now, the more experience, the better.

Lack of evasion clause could be interesting... psych up has no accuracy as such, it will always copy the targets stat change. The only problem I can see with such a strategy (aside from the obvious taunt) is that it takes too long to set up, without you doing much damage in the meantime. I'm not going to use and abuse this, it's just that nobody has really talked about evasion clause much yet so I thought I would just say something about it.

Darkrai is going to destroy everything.

 

[Yuri]

Why on earth are we even arguing about sleep caluse if we don't have a clue of how the metagame will play? Even though Dark Void is retardedly good, it CAN be countered (Taunt, Insomnia, Sleep Talk, berries) so what do I know?

With that said, I think that all OU ubers save Wobbuffet and Garchomp should be banned from the start, have Sleep Clause OFF and OHKO and Evasion ON. If that doesn't work there's always suspect ladders isn't it?

 

[rory]

EDIT: Yep, I should read more carefully.

 

[StarmanXL]

He just said ban all the ubers EXCEPT Wobb and Chomp.

 

[ungulateman]

....wouldn't simply banning Dark Void, as opposed to its potential users, be more effective? If it does end up getting banned.

ungulateman

 

[KnightoftheWind]

I think we can stretch the Sleep Clause for 2v2, by making it so only two Pokemon can be asleep at one time.

 

[scampy]

We shouldn't debate this any further until the test becomes available, so we can argue with empirical evidense and experience rather than just theorymon. Until those happy two weeks, I suggest we work on how we go about formating articles and similar things.

 

[Death Phenomeno]

PBR has integrated Sleep Clause for Friend Battles. Why don't you just check how Dark Void works there?

IIRC, the faster opponent gets hit and the slower one "dodges" (unless the faster one can stay awake for some reason), but I could be wrong.

 

[Revolution.Z]

Fine List. The issue with Dark Void and sleep clause is not an issue. Darkrai will probably not be available on the ladder as it is uber. If it somehow does get on the ladder sleep clause should probably stretched to 2 pokemon asleep at a time.

 

[Dalevl]

Since the plan is to set up a metagame for a 2vs2 Environment, why not just have two seperate ladders set up when SB2 starts up, an Uber Ladder where anything goes and Second just for VGC Battles. Like the thread on Stark Mountain says, VGC is here to stay, so focusing our attention into that metagame as the standard seems be a very reasonable idea, it's going to be changing every season, plenty of time to practice and so forth. Right now VGC is Sleep Centric but at the same time, it's also been shifting the game to try out other strategies now that there are less of the dreaded Dark Void Smeargles going around and drop of Hypnosis Accuracy. If anything, the entire doubles metagame is going to be Ghost Crazy as they are immune to popular moves such as Fake Out, Explosions and dishing these moves back. To avoid having a similar styled metagame as Singles, which is Stealth Rock Centric :P, promoting 4vs4 would keep up the fast pace of Doubles while keeping permance of the spikes down due to less switching, pokemon and so forth.

The following question seems a bit out of place but will the CAP Server also implement its own Doubles Ladder once SB2 is out?

 

[Revolution.Z]

Since the plan is to set up a metagame for a 2vs2 Environment, why not just have two seperate ladders set up when SB2 starts up, an Uber Ladder where anything goes and Second just for VGC Battles. Like the thread on Stark Mountain says, VGC is here to stay, so focusing our attention into that metagame as the standard seems be a very reasonable idea, it's going to be changing every season, plenty of time to practice and so forth. Right now VGC is Sleep Centric but at the same time, it's also been shifting the game to try out other strategies now that there are less of the dreaded Dark Void Smeargles going around and drop of Hypnosis Accuracy. If anything, the entire doubles metagame is going to be Ghost Crazy as they are immune to popular moves such as Fake Out, Explosions and dishing these moves back. To avoid having a similar styled metagame as Singles, which is Stealth Rock Centric :P, promoting 4vs4 would keep up the fast pace of Doubles while keeping permance of the spikes down due to less switching, pokemon and so forth.

The following question seems a bit out of place but will the CAP Server also implement its own Doubles Ladder once SB2 is out?

Hey Those are some pretty slick ideas of the Ubers/Standard Doubles ladders. I'd certainly like those 2 ladders. I think we should implement them.

 

[scampy]

One thing I don't really get is why we don't have a suspect test for this, using Rory's original list as a starting point. I'm not really too bothered about it (everything is in motion now so I won't pointlessly flame the anything goes idea), just curious why it was never bought up, as smogon uses the system to determine the tier position of ubers in single battles.

 

[Revolution.Z]

A ladder for the 2v2 metagame may be pushing it a bit. But it is viable and could help with testing. Tiering could be easier with this actually and is not a bad idea. I'm certainly up for it only means of course that it's more work for the programmers :P