Singles 3v3 General Discussion

[I dont care]

If there was a tapu top usage list I think now it's:

1- Koko
2- Lele
3- Bulu
4- Fini

Fini is the only one that own terrain does not boost her.
Bulu, I did not see him yet, on Sd. I just started the game yesterday, so i hope to play on console soon.

Lele is really pretty good. Her terrain stops bullet punch and Shadow sneak, i think her usage will be over tapu koko's usage soon.
But I'm wondering what if Tapu koko had wild charge and play rough. Lol

Plus thanks to nature madness, tapus can work as support even if it's not the bss case.

Silvally it's not good as I thought.

 

[Theorymon]

So now that I've had almost 100 in cart singles battles and am now consistently in the top 5 in the US, time to report on how the metagame has seemed to change!

1. Holy shit there are a TON of Mega Gyarados! Unfortunately, the team I'm using on cart is pretty weak to that, so I've had to change things up after going from 1770 to 1720! In fact, from the mega's I've seen so far, usage to me seems something like this: Mega Gyarados, Mega Gengar, Mega Metagross, and Mega Salamence.

I think the big reason why Mega Gyarados usage skyrockted was because of Mimikyu. Disguise is such a bastard ability for sweepers, but with Mold Breaker in fin, Mega Gyarados can crush Mimikyu. Just make sure its set up though, since Mimikyu does a ton of damage with Play Rough! A lot of Mega Gyarados are using Substitute as well, to make a lot of Celesteela total set up bait. I imagine that post bank, Mega Gyarados might be even better with Rotom-W coming back.

2. I'm starting to see more random "lurish" sort of Pokemon. I've seen quite a few mixed Tapu Koko with Brave Bird, who seem to be trying to nail Marowak. Lot's of random Z-crystals too, which can get good surprise KOs obviously.

3. I'm starting to notice more Earthquake Celesteela, which is probably a reaction to all the Magnezone running around. I also saw a few Subseeders that were running Flame Charge, which was very annoying.

4. Been seeing a lot of high rated teams use Arcanine. It seems like a pretty good anti metagame Pokemon due to the lack of Fire-types. Most sets are bulky sets that have Burn Up as a way to deal good damage and get rid of annoying weaknesses. I've been seeing some Choice Band sets as well for the surprise factor. It also speed ties with Tapu Lele, which is rather annoying!

5. Porygon2 is still freaking everywhere, but they have been diversifying. I've been seeing several teams start to run offensive Toxic Porygon2 to beat opposing Porygon2, which is pretty neat. Defensive Porygons are starting to get more use (maybe as a reaction to the speedy Marowaks? I haven't done the calcs so idk lol)

6. Been seeing several Marowak invest heavily in speed instead of bulk. Makes it a bit riskier to play, but outspeeding Porygon2 is HUGE since a lot of teams are relying on that to check Marowak at the moment. Switching Porygon2 in to eat a Flare Blitz means its game over for it!

7. I've started to see more rain teams! All of them have Pelipper and Kingdra on it, and as you would expect, people are using U-turn Pelipper. I get the impression that these Pelipper are more offensive however, since the ones I faced all had Hydro Pump.

8. A few niche mons that I've seen more than once on several high rated teams are: Mudsdale, Incineroar, and Primarina. Mudsdale (whom I've tried out myself, its decent) seem to all be using AV sets to beat non Grass Knot Tapu Koko (though even LO Tapu Koko doesn't OHKO Mudsdale with Grass Knot). I guess the idea is that they want a Tapu Koko check that does better against Pokemon with ground coverage like Mega Metagross. It isn't quite as bulky as you'd think though.

Incineroar seems to be an anti metagame thing, since it beats those Celesteela + Marowak cores, and isn't weak to Fairy like other Dark-types. I haven't tried this yet so I'm not quite sure what to think, but it seems like something that will be usable until Pokebank comes out. The sets are sorta all over the place for it, with the only consistent thing I've seen is Flame Charge and Flare Blitz.

For Primarina, I haven't seen people bring that out much, but the times I did, they always had their Z-moves. Even without that, something neat to note is that Sparking Aria ignores Substitute, which sounds neat against Aegislash and Celesteela. Still not a fan of its physical bulk when compared to Tapu Fini though!

 

[6tennis]

Confirming that random Z-Crystals are performing outstandingly well in all Battle Spot formats, both in-game and on Pokemon Showdown!. It gives a lot of common threats that are already really versatile the ability to just randomly nuke things for no apparent reason. It also beats Protect, so yay lol

Notable users of WHO NEEDS ITEM CLAUSE include: Aegislash (Ghost), Mimikyu (Ghost), Tapu Lele (Psychic), Alola Raichu (signature), Garchomp (Ground), etc.

Speaking of Tapus,
they all lose to Scarf Nihilego :^)
seriously guys use this thing it just wins

 

[CapybaraChu]

Any thoughts on A-Ninetales in the Battle Spot meta?

From my brief experience, I've personally found that there are a few too many speedy physical Pokemon that can threaten to outspeed and OHKO it before a Veil is even set so I haven't brought it out that much. When it is set though, it can really seal a victory with a setup sweeper who can utilize the added protection.

 

[Theorymon]

Any thoughts on A-Ninetales in the Battle Spot meta?

From my brief experience, I've personally found that there are a few too many speedy physical Pokemon that can threaten to outspeed and OHKO it before a Veil is even set so I haven't brought it out that much. When it is set though, it can really seal a victory with a setup sweeper who can utilize before the added protection.

I think it has potential, especially in this pre-bank metagame where Tyranitar and Mega Charizard Y are nowhere to be seen! That being said, most successful teams that have used it seem to use Focus Sash instead of Light Clay, since then you can at least set up a 5 turn dual screen against the likes of Metagross and Scizor (who I forgot to mention, has been pretty common because its mega is so bulky!).

When I tried it on PS though, someties Aurora Veil ran out faster than I had hoped. Still though, it seemed very usable to me. I once almost lost to a Z Hypnosis Ninetales as well, but I think that kind of madness may be better suited to Xurcitree. Outspeeding Taou Koko is really cool though, so I could see some teams faceplanting against it like I almost did!

 

[MagikaripIsOP]

Does anybody know if NiggNogg and Hanamaru (current US top 2) have YouTube / twitch channels?

 

[ProjectTitan313]

So now that I've had almost 100 in cart singles battles and am now consistently in the top 5 in the US, time to report on how the metagame has seemed to change!

1. Holy shit there are a TON of Mega Gyarados! Unfortunately, the team I'm using on cart is pretty weak to that, so I've had to change things up after going from 1770 to 1720! In fact, from the mega's I've seen so far, usage to me seems something like this: Mega Gyarados, Mega Gengar, Mega Metagross, and Mega Salamence.

I think the big reason why Mega Gyarados usage skyrockted was because of Mimikyu. Disguise is such a bastard ability for sweepers, but with Mold Breaker in fin, Mega Gyarados can crush Mimikyu. Just make sure its set up though, since Mimikyu does a ton of damage with Play Rough! A lot of Mega Gyarados are using Substitute as well, to make a lot of Celesteela total set up bait. I imagine that post bank, Mega Gyarados might be even better with Rotom-W coming back.

Mega Gyara is pretty badass, and outspeeds quite a lot after a DD thanks to Alola being so damn slow, I kinda pegged it as one of the best Megas available lol.
MegaGross is a bitch to obtain though, you pretty much have to bottlecap it :/
Mimikyu, especially the auto-win Destiny Bond fuckwads, are reason enough to use MegaGyara imo. Goliospod's First impression is a nightmare but eh.

4. Been seeing a lot of high rated teams use Arcanine. It seems like a pretty good anti metagame Pokemon due to the lack of Fire-types. Most sets are bulky sets that have Burn Up as a way to deal good damage and get rid of annoying weaknesses. I've been seeing some Choice Band sets as well for the surprise factor. It also speed ties with Tapu Lele, which is rather annoying!

Arcanine is fantastic even when it's competing with Entei and Char-Y.
Remove basically all good Fire mons ever and yeah Arcanine is going to be glorious with a huge pile of Bugs and Fairies rolling in :P
And its one of the few things that can really tangle with Tapu Bulu and not get murdered by Wood Hammer.
How are they using Burn Up if its an egg move obtained only through Cyndaquil's line, which doesn't exist yet in pre-bank Alola?

For Primarina, I haven't seen people bring that out much, but the times I did, they always had their Z-moves. Even without that, something neat to note is that Sparking Aria ignores Substitute, which sounds neat against Aegislash and Celesteela. Still not a fan of its physical bulk when compared to Tapu Fini though!

[/quote]

Primarina is pretty cool. Fini is bulkier, and has the same typing / coverage, Fini is also faster; Primarina has the highest Sp. Atk of any non-Uber, non-Mega Water mon and Moonblast isn't exacty a joke either. Gotta watch for Encore and Perish Song too, this thing is like the bastard child of a Dewgong and Azumarill.

 

[Theorymon]

ProjectTitan313 , actually Cyndiquil is an Island Search Pokemon, so its thankfully obtainable :D

 

[I dont care]

Good for inceneroar. Mostly guys, what do you think abou Z-conversion Porygon-Z?
Seems a cool set.

In this generation is possible use others team via qr code, so guys don't be greedy and share teams with who is really bad at breeding. Lol

 

[ProjectTitan313]

Good for inceneroar. Mostly guys, what do you think abou Z-conversion Porygon-Z?
Seems a cool set.

In this generation is possible use others team via qr code, so guys don't be greedy and share teams with who is really bad at breeding. Lol

Looks like a literal blast, haven't heard of anyone who ran it and didn't like it lol. Electric typed conversion with T-bolt is the most common one I know of but Fire might be comical as well. Porygon-Z is pretty fast in the slow-as-balls Alola meta so you could also try Specs or LO and get away with lots of stupid shit :P
Oh there will be many QR codes, I'm just stuck in retail hell atm and breeding a LOT of shit in my decreasing time. The only greed will be "how many fucking QR codes can I fit in one post".

 

[The Squash]

So now that I've had almost 100 in cart singles battles and am now consistently in the top 5 in the US, time to report on how the metagame has seemed to change!

1. Holy shit there are a TON of Mega Gyarados! Unfortunately, the team I'm using on cart is pretty weak to that, so I've had to change things up after going from 1770 to 1720! In fact, from the mega's I've seen so far, usage to me seems something like this: Mega Gyarados, Mega Gengar, Mega Metagross, and Mega Salamence.

I think the big reason why Mega Gyarados usage skyrockted was because of Mimikyu. Disguise is such a bastard ability for sweepers, but with Mold Breaker in fin, Mega Gyarados can crush Mimikyu. Just make sure its set up though, since Mimikyu does a ton of damage with Play Rough! A lot of Mega Gyarados are using Substitute as well, to make a lot of Celesteela total set up bait. I imagine that post bank, Mega Gyarados might be even better with Rotom-W coming back.

While I haven't played on cart (too lazy to breed atm) I've found that Buzzwole works as an amazing check to Mega Gyarados, since after setting up one Bulk Up (or getting a boost from Beast Boost) it can OHKO Mega Gyarados with Leech Life!

+1 252+ Atk Buzzwole Lunge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gyarados-Mega: 422-498 (127.4 - 150.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
(I used Lunge because it has the same base power as Leech Life and Leech Life wasn't showing up on the damage calculator for me)

__________________
cant say says: I removed the mention of the illegal moveset

 

[Psynergy]

The main reason most people haven't been talking about Chandelure is because Infiltrator is actually technically illegal, all Pokemon available through Island Scan mistakenly have their Hidden Abilities allowed which is unfortunately not possible on cart yet. I have heard of Sash Trick Room Chandelure being used with Memento and that's really cool, before the Z-Memento glitch was found out.

That being said I legitimately expect Chandelure to pick up after Bank a little bit more than it did in ORAS for the very purpose of sniping Celesteela behind a Substitute, at least early on. Chandelure was a pretty solid Fire-type in ORAS but typically met a lot of competition and while I don't see its competition going anywhere, being able to hit through Sub is always nice.

 

[mhykah]

I've been playing around with a Rain team I've been making since Day 1 of the Showdown ladder and thought I'd share what I have so far in this mini RMT! There are definitely still some flaws and I'm not particularly high on the ladder (1327 at the time of writing) but hopefully this can generate some discussion of Rain in BSS :) Here's the team:

Pelipper @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 4 Def / 36 SpA / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Hurricane
- U-turn
- Roost​

Pelipper now having Drizzle is by far the biggest and best update to Rain teams this generation. Although I have seen the occasional Politoed I don't see much reason to. Rain boosted Scalds and perfect accuracy Hurricanes coupled with a reliable recovery in Roost and slow U-turns to safely go into sweepers has made Pelipper the ultimate staple for Rain teams. As a bonus, Pelipper can switch into the commonly used Pheromosa with ease and retaliate with Hurricane. 252 SpD for as much bulk as possible, 36 SpA allows you to OHKO Marowak-A, 212 HP gives you an even HP number for maximum Roost healing, 4 Spe to outspeed oppoising 0 Spe Pelipper, and 4 Def because 8 EVs are a waste at Level 50.

Kingdra @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 252 SpA / 228 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Hydro Pump
- Draco Meteor
- Ice Beam​

Until we get M-Swampert back, Kingdra is one of the few pre-bank Swift Swimmers available, the other being Golduck. 252 SpA for maximum damage, 228 Spe to outspeed base 70s out of Rain.

Tapu Koko @ Electrium Z
Ability: Electric Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Dazzling Gleam
- Grass Knot
- Volt Switch​

Special Tapu Koko works great with Pelipper, being able to abuse the Rain for perfect accuracy Thunders. Hidden Power Ice is a good choice over Grass Knot but I don't think Grass Knot is bad either, it takes on Mamoswine and Mudsdale quite nicely. Perhaps this will change in post-bank when Gliscor and Landorus-T comes back.

Pheromosa @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- High Jump Kick
- Ice Beam
- U-turn
- Poison Jab​

Pheromosa counters such as Aegislash, Marowak-A, and Mimikyu are near essential in this format, but once they are taken of Pheromosa has an easy time sweeping teams. Furthermore, Pelipper/Tapu Koko/Pheromosa make a great VoltTurn core, especially with Pheromosa's absurd 151 base Speed which can be used to lead with to scout and U-Turn into an appropriate answer if they aren't immediately destroyed by any of your other attacks. I played around with Focus Sash Pheromosa and I still think that it has its advantages but I found that Life Orb helps to secure knock outs, and makes sense because Pheromosa is going to get KO'd by anything that moves anyway.

Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Roost​

The Intimidate on Salamence has been great for Pokemon such as Mimikyu and M-Kangaskhan. It's also possible to win games off a well-timed Dragon Dance.

Mamoswine @ Focus Sash
Ability: Thick Fat
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Spear
- Stealth Rock
​

I played around with Assault Vest Mudsdale and Marowak-A before settling on Mamoswine but I still think that the former two are still great options for almost any team. What I really liked about Mamoswine on this team however was the Ice-type coverage and the priority in Ice Shard, something this team severely lacks. Mamoswine has been a key Pokemon in taking out common threats such as Tapu Koko, Salamence, and Aegislash.

Again this team isn't quite complete and I'm still a long way from the top of the ladder. I also haven't tried this on the 3DS ladder yet so I don't know how it will fare on cart. In post-bank, Rain will improve even more with the inclusion of M-Swampert, M-Manectric, Ferrothorn, and more Swift Swimmers such as Kabutops. That said, I'd really appreciate any thoughts on the team and ways to improve it! If you use this team or any other Rain team please let me know, I'd like to see how someone else might use Rain!

 

[I dont care]

Psynergy GroudonEmpire on youtube did a video of him using a trick room with chandelure.

Yeah, chandelure looks good to beat down Celesteela and it have a fairy resistance.
Uhm, it's not good as switch-in on Marowak-A as is Incineroar, but well, we can't get everything.

 

[Kietharr]

Started playing battlespot on cart today. I saw almost nothing but GACK (Garchomp, A-Marowak, Celesteela, Koko) cores from 1500 to the low 1700 range. I'd estimate that out of my 20 or so battles at least 70% of teams I faced used these four pokes. Most used M-Gyarados as their mega. M-Alakazam is less powerful than people thought it would be in no small part to Mimikyu being better than people thought, disguise is just too amazing of an ability on something with not-terrible stats. Lele/Zam is still quite good when they're not packing a Mimi in that 6th slot.

I kind of want to try a TR team with Red Card Mimikyu in singles, I've been messing around with one on the showdown VGC ladder and people don't really seem to deal with it well.

Also one thing I've found that just 100% shuts down M-Gyara is Buzzwole. Unless it runs Adamant (and it never does from my experience) there's no way it can break a 252hp/4def adamant Buzzwole at +1 and even with adamant it's a slim range. Buzzwole has a solid chance to OHKO with Lunge, and even if it fails the KO you debuff its attack. You can even negate damage on a predicted switch with roost.

 

[Theorymon]

So from playing more on cart yesterday, I ended up seeing more Substitute Toxic Aegislash than regular Aegislash, and lots of offensive Toxic Portgon2. I guess people really want p2 down!

 

[ArtezzaMagnus]

I was thinking of going for a trio of steel/dragon/fairy types. Haven't gone online at all yet, but I'm going to hazard a guess that a group of Garchomp, Mega Metagross and one of the Tapus is probably not all that original.

Kind of want to build a team with Tapu Lele at some point, but Koko seems like it'd be a better partner for the above two.

 

[Doobzi]

I was thinking of going for a trio of steel/dragon/fairy types. Haven't gone online at all yet, but I'm going to hazard a guess that a group of Garchomp, Mega Metagross and one of the Tapus is probably not all that original.

Kind of want to build a team with Tapu Lele at some point, but Koko seems like it'd be a better partner for the above two.

It seems to me that fini covers the weakness better. I have a jolly gible bred sitting in my box, wondering about moveset. Standard sword dance?

 

[I dont care]

I suppose Marowak will go down with the usage when Rotom-H will be usable.
I mean, rotom-h it's not scared by Brave Bird ( I read now Tapu koko used have bbird to hit hard Marowak-A), has wow as Marowak-A and the immunity to ground.

Well, Marowak has immunity to Fighting that it's cool, but rotom-h can even take an advantage from the electric field in the case Tapu Koko is switched out.

EDIT: I hadn't think about Koko used to run Thunder, Marowak-A is immune, and I don't know how many damage take rotom-heat in the electric field.

 

[ArtezzaMagnus]

It seems to me that fini covers the weakness better. I have a jolly gible bred sitting in my box, wondering about moveset. Standard sword dance?

Doesn't Fini lay down Misty Terrain? It'd be rather inconvenient for enemy Pokémon on the ground to get a resistance to Garchomp's dragon moves.

I've never really given Garchomps Sword Dance set a try since I mostly used it in doubles last gen. Would like to give it a try this time around though.

 

[Doobzi]

Doesn't Fini lay down Misty Terrain? It'd be rather inconvenient for enemy Pokémon on the ground to get a resistance to Garchomp's dragon moves.

I've never really given Garchomps Sword Dance set a try since I mostly used it in doubles last gen. Would like to give it a try this time around though.

yeah, but it counters dragon and ice and fire so hard, I suppose it can be a problem but with a bit of smart play make work better. Ill try it out and get back to you. The idea of Steel/Dragon/Fairy is cool but with water in their seems more desirable.

 

[NOVED]

So PS usage stats have been released for November, it's no PGL but it's way better than nothing until the usage there goes public.

Here's the base stats: http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-11/gen7battlespotsingles-0.txt

And here's the stats of the highest rated players: http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-11/gen7battlespotsingles-1760.txt

Tapu Koko is incredibly high, 44% is really significant. Garchomp still being used a ton as expected too. Pleasantly surprised to see Buzzwole as high as it is in the 1760 stats. I know i've been liking it myself but wasn't sure if it was really getting attention. Overall not much that's too surprising but its nice to get some data of what's going on.

You can go here to check out the movesets as well, just make sure to go to gen 7 battle spot singles.

 

[Kietharr]

Not many surprises in the top 10, GACK casually secures top 3 and 7th. All of the strong stuff from gen 6 remains strong, even M-Kanga despite the nerf (burn nerfs probably helped her as much as the PB nerf hurt her). Checks to Garchomp (Cloyster, Mamoswine and Mimikyu) get a usage bump in proportion to his increased influence in the meta. One exception might be Scizor who, prebank, really suffers from a lack of tutor moves. Both of the Porygons probably sit higher than I'd have expected though, but PG2 is just a good 'glue' pokemon that can be built in quite a few different ways to support a team and Z's gimmick in conversion makes it one of the better special setup sweepers, especially until bank.

I'm not surprised that Buzzwole is higher used by good players than Xurkitree/Pheromosa because frankly Phero isn't as bad to deal with in 3v3 since it's a more matchup based format and picking it into a counter like Maro-A or Aegislash just makes her feel like dead weight. The fact that everyone carries multiple Koko counters really rains on poor Xurkitree's parade. I am surprised that Golisopod is that high. To me, it feels too weak to Tapu Koko and Tapu Lele which are everywhere. I wonder how people are running it, since the only set I really came up was with the priority abuser.

One thing I'm surprised nobody seems to be picking up on in Showdown is Incineroar, which is at like 0.7% usage. Incineroar doesn't have his HA yet but his typing and stats still put him in a basically perfect position against three pokemon that are everywhere: Celesteela, Marowak A and Aegislash. The only Aegislash sets that really burn his balls are the classic physical attacker sets that you don't see much of anymore. Doesn't even need max attack to OHKO with Moonsault and it gets taunt to stop shield shenanigans. I actually don't think he'll go away with bank either just because of how good his matchup against Aegislash is, and it'll get better with intimidate to protect him from sacred sword/EQ.

 

[keener101]

What are people using as a counter to Tapu Koko? My team struggles with him something terrible.

 

[I dont care]

What are people using as a counter to Tapu Koko? My team struggles with him something terrible.

Try Marowak-A (lighting rid of course)