Metagame Shared Power [Under Re-Construction!]

[W0rm]

Honestly I don't think we should be talking about more bans until (1) M-Gyara is out and we can see how that affects things and (2) We make OMotM at some point.

M-Gyara needs to be dealt with now because it's almost unquestionably broken. Not only invalidating stall but also easily confronting opposing offense teams. It's naturally fantastic special bulk combined with team-wide Intimidate makes it way too easy for M-Gyara to garner boosts and lay waste to pretty much every offense mon at +1, and with multiscale it's almost guaranteed to come out on top against at least one of the opponents mons since it can ignore their multiscale if they have it. With Magic Guard, stall has literally no way of dealing with it. Also, it's splashability is off the charts. Dragonite and Clefable are probably equally as splashable, but the difference is that while their splashability comes from the fact that they donate abilities that benefit every team archetype (though aren't very threatening on their own merits) whereas Gyarados benefits FROM nearly every donated ability, and is absolutely terrifying in and of itself.

There are some pretty solid arguments for and against banning MGuard or Multiscale (or both), but I'm interested in seeing what a larger playerbase would have to say about those. I'm pretty confident that even with a larger playerbase, M-Gyara being broken would still be a pretty universal sentiment. Personally I'm against banning either at this point, but I think if one of them needs to go it's MGuard. Offense still has plenty of options for dealing with stall contrary to the post above mine, stuff like Poison Heal/Guts, Sheer Force, Magic Bounce and Scrappy Rapid Spin are all capable of mitigating some of or all of stall's damaging options, and mon's like Tornadus-T and Mienshao are regenerator mons that are still capable of finding a place on offense teams. M-Guard is also a big tool FOR Stall, and losing it isn't exactly a perfect outcome.

 

[Haaku.]

The thing about Multiscale is that it keeps a lot of offensive archetypes in check and allows for far easier revenge killing of otherwise busted Pokemon.

I feel like a good comparison for Dragonite in Shared Power is something like Landorus-Therian in OU- there is somewhat of a case to call for a ban, but a ban of Multiscale would just mean abilities like Beast Boost, Adaptability, etc would just become unstoppable because of it. That’s just my two cents on this though!

 

[Haaku.]

Shared Power Stage 1
U-Rite

Apologies for double posting- but I’d like to conclude the suspect test early since it’s looking very unlikely that the votes will change. 70 votes is enough to gauge the opinion of the metagame, so without further ado, here are the results.

Mega Gyarados

BAN: 41 votes
DNB: 26 votes

With around a 63% of voters voting ban, I’m ecstatic to announce that Mega Gyarados is now BANNED from Shared Power.

Blaziken

BAN: 23
DNB: 34

With only a small 32% of voters voting ban, Blaziken (and Blazikenite) are comfortably UNBANNED from Shared Power.


I’d like to expand on a balanced metagame going into the future, so I’d like to open the discussion about:
- Regenerator
- Multiscale
- Water Bubble
- Contrary

Since OMotM voting for February is up as well, I’d like to address some common thoughts about Shared Power for people who have not played this metagame and feel like it might be too overwhelming. Without further ado, here it goes:

This meta seems a bit broken!
It certainly does! Every Pokemon having 6 abilities seems overwhelming on paper, but every Pokemon being stopped by Multiscale if they attempt to sweep really opens the door for revenge killers that aren’t available in regular play. For example, a Kartana after a Swords Dance may seem incredibly threatening with Adaptability and Tough Claws to boot, but it’s not easy to get many kills when the most influential Pokemon in the tier, Dragonite, is common and usually used alongside a Magic Guard Pokemon in order for revenge killers to effectively have double the defensive stat. This is something that’s better illustrated on paper, so I’d suggest to just play some games on ROM to see some examples of this.

Isn’t stall with Regenerator + Multiscale too good?
While it certainly seems annoying as all hell to face, stall’s main objective is to inflict passive damage to the opponents in order to gradually wear down threats. In Shared Power, this is impossible because Magic Guard invalidates all passive damage, giving stall a hard time. The presence of common offensive threats such as Kyurem-Black really makes stall hard to function as well as it wants to, and it simply lacks the power to just switch into Pokemon when offensive abilities are so stackable. It can live in this metagame, but stall is not good at all.

That’s all for now. Look forward to a new VR update soon! For now, removed Mega Gyarados and added Blaziken to A and Mega Blaziken to C.

 

[Jrsmash9]

Apologies for double posting- but I’d like to conclude the suspect test early since it’s looking very unlikely that the votes will change. 70 votes is enough to gauge the opinion of the metagame, so without further ado, here are the results.

Mega Gyarados

BAN: 41 votes
DNB: 26 votes

With around a 63% of voters voting ban, I’m ecstatic to announce that Mega Gyarados is now BANNED from Shared Power.

Blaziken

BAN: 23
DNB: 34

With only a small 32% of voters voting ban, Blaziken (and Blazikenite) are comfortably UNBANNED from Shared Power.


I’d like to expand on a balanced metagame going into the future, so I’d like to open the discussion about:
- Regenerator
- Multiscale
- Water Bubble
- Contrary

Since OMotM voting for February is up as well, I’d like to address some common thoughts about Shared Power for people who have not played this metagame and feel like it might be too overwhelming. Without further ado, here it goes:

This meta seems a bit broken!
It certainly does! Every Pokemon having 6 abilities seems overwhelming on paper, but every Pokemon being stopped by Multiscale if they attempt to sweep really opens the door for revenge killers that aren’t available in regular play. For example, a Kartana after a Swords Dance may seem incredibly threatening with Adaptability and Tough Claws to boot, but it’s not easy to get many kills when the most influential Pokemon in the tier, Dragonite, is common and usually used alongside a Magic Guard Pokemon in order for revenge killers to effectively have double the defensive stat. This is something that’s better illustrated on paper, so I’d suggest to just play some games on ROM to see some examples of this.

Isn’t stall with Regenerator + Multiscale too good?
While it certainly seems annoying as all hell to face, stall’s main objective is to inflict passive damage to the opponents in order to gradually wear down threats. In Shared Power, this is impossible because Magic Guard invalidates all passive damage, giving stall a hard time. The presence of common offensive threats such as Kyurem-Black really makes stall hard to function as well as it wants to, and it simply lacks the power to just switch into Pokemon when offensive abilities are so stackable. It can live in this metagame, but stall is not good at all.

That’s all for now. Look forward to a new VR update soon! For now, removed Mega Gyarados and added Blaziken to A and Mega Blaziken to C.

Now that mega gyarados is banned, kyurem-black needs to move to S and it should be suspected or mold breaker as a whole should be suspected. We only have a week before this meta will inevitably be omotm so we need to fix this meta and prevent Kyu-black from demolishing playstyles and 1 shotting every pokemon having no switchins. Want to use sturdy, stall, multiscale, or balance? Well all of those playstyles will crumble to kyurem-black, so I believe we should at least suspect it for a week and see what the players think. And the meta is broken, I have played quite a lot on ROM and the game is usally decided to team preview because of how matchup dependant this metagame is. For example you bring Kyurem you win against sturdy teams and stall, if you bring unburden teams you win against kyurem teams, and if you bring stall you win against unburden.

 

[Jrsmash9]

maybe just don’t use stall. it has way more problems than just kyurem.


unburden teams are not prominent or good.

I’d like to see some replays of Kyurem-B “destroying” balances because I might just not see how it can. I’d just let the meta settle at least until the beginning of February. Also forgot to tag urkerab to implement the changes on ROM.

Unburden teams are really good with +2 speed on most mons they can beat most offensive teams, obviously they lose to bulky teams but thats expected in a matchup metagame. Stall is also nice at countering unburden and sturdy teams. Maybe you should play the metagame more because 80% of the games are decided by matchup which is stupid and something should be done to fix that. Kyurem does good in a matchup based meta because it beats annoying playstyles that offense loses too, and honestly should be used on most offense teams because of that.

 

[Chopin Alkaninoff]

Ok let's not hurry to ban things first. And why should Mold Breaker be suspected as a whole? This mentality is what lead to badly managed metas. Haxorus and Excadrill obviously won't be broken with Moldy. What part of uncompetitiveness Moldy has that it needs to be suspected EVEN from the original mons? It does NOT remove any fundamental core aspect of the game (like Shadow Tag) nor make the game luck based (like swagger or evasion). Huge power isn't even being deleted as a whole. Please, be make sense, people.

OK, regarding the 4 things mentioned:

Multiscale: I can see this being an issue tbh. It's an auto-half damage with Magic Guard. This will probably be mandatory in every team, both HO and Stall, as HO really appreciates halved first hits.

Regen: not that broken, but this + Multiscale looks op. Multiscale should be the focus, not this.

Contrary: idk. You have to carry serperior for thia and I don't like it. Also, Unaware is a mandatory if this becomes common.

Water Bubble: no comment yet

 

[Mintly]

I see absolutely NO reason to ban Mold Breaker as a whole. Kyurem-B has many Pokemon that can easily check it, because I've played against teams with Kyub and they were taken out easily. You are trying to validate stall in a meta where stall is fairly weak.

 

[Jrsmash9]

I see absolutely NO reason to ban Mold Breaker as a whole. Kyurem-B has many Pokemon that can easily check it, because I've played against teams with Kyub and they were taken out easily. You are trying to validate stall in a meta where stall is fairly weak.

What easily checks it on balance? As far as I know a +2 speed kyurem in psychic terrain is not the easiest thing to check. And yes I like stall but that has nothing to do with kyurem black other then it just being another play style invalidated. We need to fix the real problem with this meta which is being heavily matchup based. In order to do this many abilities might need to be banned unless we can find another solution.

 

[Shoopz_Whisper]

wow I bet the second news got out Jrsmash9 did a giddy little dance.
Anyways, I'm just here to say that he said what I predicted like 20 posts ago. Pretty much my most recent post.
Now I regret voted Ban Blaziken(ite), because it isn't that good. In the sense it can die fairly easy.

Thoughts:

Regenerator - Not an issue, unless it's a stall team. But who runs those anyway.
Multiscale - Possible issue? I mean it's just one mon that has it and Mold Breakers/ Stat stackers go through it anyways
Contrary - Definitely not an issue. It's hard to keep a good Contrary team, because you can't run as many things. (As I say this, I just thought of a Curse Contrary Special Attacker)
Water Bubble - I say suspect, but Mega Swampert will be everywhere.

 

[Level 1000 Weedle]

Ok let's not hurry to ban things first. And why should Mold Breaker be suspected as a whole? This mentality is what lead to badly managed metas. Haxorus and Excadrill obviously won't be broken with Moldy. What part of uncompetitiveness Moldy has that it needs to be suspected EVEN from the original mons? It does NOT remove any fundamental core aspect of the game (like Shadow Tag) nor make the game luck based (like swagger or evasion). Huge power isn't even being deleted as a whole. Please, be make sense, people.

OK, regarding the 4 things mentioned:

Multiscale: I can see this being an issue tbh. It's an auto-half damage with Magic Guard. This will probably be mandatory in every team, both HO and Stall, as HO really appreciates halved first hits.

Regen: not that broken, but this + Multiscale looks op. Multiscale should be the focus, not this.

Contrary: idk. You have to carry serperior for thia and I don't like it. Also, Unaware is a mandatory if this becomes common.

Water Bubble: no comment yet

Thank you. Rushing to ban things is what leads to paragraph long ban lists that make no sense. Bans are for things that are clearly broken. This meta already has decided on a "no sharing bans" approach, which I find extremely good. Shedinja and M-Gyarados are currently the only bans, and unless it's absolutely necessary we shouldn't ban anything else. There is absolutely no way to fix the match up based design of the metagame without completely destroying it. Ban 1 thing, and another becomes unbalanced while not even solving the original problem. Bans can be like cutting off the Hydra's head, and eventually you either have made the meta horribly unbalanced or just completely boring.

Now, you might not believe me here, but let's look at some matchups. First, Bruxish/Tsareena/Lele can completely invalidate priority teams including Espeeds with "Ate"s, Gale Wings, Triage, Prankster, and more. If we removed them then priority strategies would become much better and dominate. However, they still might lose to Sturdy, which is one of the banes of HO. Now, Sturdy relies on Magic Guard. Ban Magic Guard, and there's no Multiscale or Sturdy. However, you now have more strategies with status and abilities such as Iron Barbs and Rough Skin, which can invalidate physical offense. And while stall currently relies on Multiscale+Mguard, without Mguard it would revert to classic stall, which would not be countered as easily. Well, you might say ban Multiscale. But banning Multiscale only hurts stall, making it worse than it already is and probably invalidating it as a playstyle all together. That may seem good to some, but stall is already necessary to prevent many HO teams. So you might suggest banning Sturdy. But Sturdy also keeps many HO teams in check, and is an essential part of some teams that have frail mons or require being at a low hp. And besides, that greatly improves some HO and just reverses some matchups instead of balancing them out. And that's the big problem. Matchup advantages or disadvantages can be changed by one ability. A team with Bruxish can beat priority HO. Remove the Bruxish, and the HO team wins. Bruxish or no Bruxish, that matchup will always be 1 sided. And at some point you just have to ban everything to balance it out. And when you ban everything, you ruin the metagame. Almost every ban will have large repercussions on the metagame, and that makes it necessary to restrain our bans.

Now, while I was against Mega Gyarados' ban, I don't think it's as bad as banning Mold Breaker entirely because Gyarados was just 1 mon, and there are others you can use. It was just the best user of Mold Breaker. And the reason it was banned was because it could destroy an entire team. Unless Kyurem-Black can 1v6 your team without any setup, I don't think it's going to be as game changing as Gyarados setting up in your face. Sure it breaks Multiscale and Sturdy, but so do Multihit teams, and they hit with higher base power moves (since they're effectively 187.5 power). And even non stall teams can beat it. I have a focus sash counter zam on all my teams for basically this reason.

 

[Haaku.]

My intention is not to jinx things. However, it’s looking like Shared Power will have a solid chance at OMotM for February, so I’d like to make some updates as we head into an exciting month (also a nice birthday gift for me seeing as how it’s on the 2nd).

The VR has changed once again. Here’s that:

Rises

B —> B+

B —> B+

B- —> B

UR —> B

UR —> B

UR —> B

UR —> B-

Drops

B+ —> B-

B —> C

C+ —> UR

C —> C-

C —> UR

C- —> UR

Additionally, new sample teams will be added very soon! Here’s to a fun month and a hopeful win for OMotM!

 

[W0rm]

Could we maybe get little justification blurbs along with the VR changes? It doesn't have to be long, just like a sentence each would be cool. Though most make sense to me regardless, just a little curious about M-Lati

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/rom-gen7sharedpower-227701

So Haxorus is really cool but requires a lot more support than M-Gyara to be functional. It's main claim to fame being a mold breaker who can also bust through Focus Sash. Unfortunately, though the bot doesn't seem to know it, it's bulk is absolutely terrible so priority makes quick work of it if you're not packing Dazzling/QM. It's also not incredibly fast so faster scarf users, M-Blaziken and Unburden teams can sack it pretty hard.

Overall, more of a threat than people give it credit for but not nearly as versatile as M-Gyara even if it can 6-0 all of the bots teams pretty easily. Also has pretty poor coverage and can be hard walled by Celesteela/Skarm unless it runs weird moves that leave it walled by other stuff.

 

[Shoopz_Whisper]

https://pastebin.com/2UbykWgJ

Look, a sample team for once!
I call this Toxic Abuse.
83.3% of the team is purely for status abuse.
Zangoose provides Toxic Boost, which is 1.5 power to physical moves.
Gliscor is obviously Poison heal, 12% health back every turn poisoned.
Heracross is Guts, 1.5 Attack if statused; Ignores Burn Attack drop.
Jolteon is Quick Feet, 1.5 Speed if statused; Ignores Paralysis Speed drop.
Milotic is Marvel Scale, 1.5 Defense if statused.
Porygon-Z is Adaptiblity, *2 STAB boost instead of *1.5 boost.

 

[W0rm]

Any reason for using GonZ over a more physically oriented Adaptability donor like Crawdaunt? Gonz is probably a better mon overall but doesn't benefit from Guts/Toxic Boost as much as others would. I get that you wanna have physical and special attackers but GonZ isn't getting much out of the rest of the team other than a speed and defense boost, meaning it doesn't hit as hard as it wants to especially in this meta.

 

[Haaku.]

- Just wanted to stop by to plug our Discord for those who missed it in the OP. it has a pretty good amount of activity and I’d love for the server to get a little bigger! In it we discuss the meta, viability rankings, etc so it’s a pretty nice resource for a live chat.

 

[Satanic Beast]

https://pastebin.com/2UbykWgJ

View attachment 99532View attachment 99535View attachment 99536View attachment 99537View attachment 99539View attachment 99540

Look, a sample team for once!
I call this Toxic Abuse.
83.3% of the team is purely for status abuse.
Zangoose provides Toxic Boost, which is 1.5 power to physical moves.
Gliscor is obviously Poison heal, 12% health back every turn poisoned.
Heracross is Guts, 1.5 Attack if statused; Ignores Burn Attack drop.
Jolteon is Quick Feet, 1.5 Speed if statused; Ignores Paralysis Speed drop.
Milotic is Marvel Scale, 1.5 Defense if statused.
Porygon-Z is Adaptiblity, *2 STAB boost instead of *1.5 boost.

just as two small suggestions, you could run breloom over gliscor and ursaring over jolteon, with ursaring still abusing quick feet, but also being able to abuse guts, and breloom giving you the option to use spore, and some priority and stuff, which your team lacks at the moment. otherwise, sick team!

 

[Shoopz_Whisper]

just as two small suggestions, you could run breloom over gliscor and ursaring over jolteon, with ursaring still abusing quick feet, but also being able to abuse guts, and breloom giving you the option to use spore, and some priority and stuff, which your team lacks at the moment. otherwise, sick team!

Any reason for using GonZ over a more physically oriented Adaptability donor like Crawdaunt? Gonz is probably a better mon overall but doesn't benefit from Guts/Toxic Boost as much as others would. I get that you wanna have physical and special attackers but GonZ isn't getting much out of the rest of the team other than a speed and defense boost, meaning it doesn't hit as hard as it wants to especially in this meta.

I appreciate the suggestions, but this is a sample team. This is for people to build off of and make their own teams.

 

[aGroove]

Hey guys, a-Groove here with a squad built around a lesser used Pokemon: Mega Aggron!

Importable:

Tangrowth @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Giga Drain
- Knock Off
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Earthquake

Aggron-Mega @ Aggronite
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Heavy Slam
- Curse
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Heatran @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Flash Cannon/Stealth Rock
- Taunt

Latios @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Surf
- Thunderbolt/Trick

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Stored Power
- Calm Mind
- Soft-Boiled

Dragonite @ Choice Band
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Outrage
- Extreme Speed
- Fire Punch
- Earthquake

- Tangrowth was my first choice to provide Regenerator as quick recovery to Mega Aggron. Assault Vest makes Tangrowth a great spDef tank to support Aggron. Knock Off is used to pressure tanks by removing Eviolite or passive recovery, HP Ice is used to pressure Dragonite, and Earthquake is used to lure in Heatran.

- Aggron is the centerpiece of the team - the standard Curse + RestTalk set is used to give the team physical set-up power. Setting up is much easier with the immunities it's teammates provides.

- Heatran provides a valuable fire immunity to Aggron and Tangrowth. Magma Storm + Taunt traps fat pokemon and prevents recovery on notable pokemon such as Toxapex. Earth Power pressures the aforementioned Toxapex and is good coverage. Flash Cannon is an additional coverage move, but can be substituted for Stealth Rock if you are anxious to catch teams that don't pack Magic Guard or Magic Bounce off guard.

- Latios provides a ground immunity to both Aggron and Heatran, making them very hard to break through. Scarf provides speed control, which is a luxury with many common teams that are incredibly speedy.

- Clefable provides Magic Guard to it's teammates, allowing them to not get worn down through status or hazards. Clefable also works in tandem with Dragonite, allowing Multiscale to not be broken through hazards.

- Dragonite rounds out the defensive backbone of the team by providing Multiscale to it's teammates, and a Choice Banded set gives the team a physical wallbreaker and fast priority.

As a balance team, playing aggressively isn't incredibly necessary, outside of Skill Link teams.
I'll try to update with replays later - feel free to post any tips or comments on it!

 

[Billybobman]

Just to throw out an idea:
Prankster Destiny Bond Spam: https://pokepast.es/32f97a00600358e2
It has delibird because of Hustle and Destiny Bond.The strategy is to use Destiny Bond, then underspeed the opposing mon by using an attacking move.
Trick Room is for setting up Kyurem if it's needed.

 

[AquaticPanic]

Here's a sample team I've made from a while back:

Importable

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Pursuit
- Superpower

Stakataka @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Protect
- Rock Blast

Dhelmise @ Assault Vest
Ability: Steelworker
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
- Anchor Shot
- Power Whip
- Shadow Claw
- Knock Off

Crawdaunt @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Aqua Jet
- Crabhammer
- Knock Off

Lycanroc-Dusk @ Focus Sash
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Accelerock
- Stone Edge
- Drill Run

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pursuit
- Knock Off
- Earthquake
- Rock Tomb

The basic idea is to stack abilities with natural boosts rather than ones that give you a stat raise in order to work around Unnaware. Being also a completly offensive oriented team also helps to ignore Magic Guard. Having 3 mons who can use a pretty strong Priority somewhat helps the overall low speed of the team. Onto the more specific roles of each mon:

- Scizor was what I built the team around. I wanted a strong Technician user with good priority, and while Mach Punch Breloom was considered, I decided to stick with Scizor due to better bulk and type. With it's current set, it packs a strong punch with Band. Wether it is to have a slow Pivot with U-Turn, or damage a foe heavly with Pursuit, Scizor does the job well. Bullet Punch is the definitive star tho: It is a priority move with Adaptability STAB and 117 Base Power, thanks to all the abilities that boost it. Technician provides the team some interesting options, but I'll go more in depth of each one later on. Last but not least, it gains a +2 Atk boost every time it knocks an opponent out with it's current stat spread.

- Stakataka's role here is still the same it has on regular plays: Hit really hard with Gyro Ball. However, now Gyro Ball has Steelworker, Tough Claws and Adaptability to boost it. Rock Blast is to get around Multiscale, and is boosted by Technician. Stakataka also provides the team Beast Boost support, which, while isn't the main focus of the team, helps greatly against non-unnaware mons. Other options for the set include Stone Edge instead of Rock Blast, if you want stronger but less reliable hits, and Trick Room instead of protect, so that Scizor, Dhelmise, Crawdaunt and obviously Stakataka itself can be faster than most of it's foes, at the cost of Krookodile and Lycanroc being hindered by it.

- Dhelmise's role is to be a slow, somewhat bulky mon. It is mainly in the team to aid Stakataka and Scizor with Steelworker, but it isn't a dead weight on the team either. Not much will want to be trapped by Anchor Shot, and Power Whip hits like a truck. Other options for the set include Gyro Ball over Shadow Claw. It is also a great option to take care of opposing Ground-Types and Fighting-Types that threaten Stakataka, Krookodile, Crawdaunt and Lycanroc.

- Crawdaunt not only gives the team Adaptability, but also abuses well Tough Claws and Technician. Swords Dance is mostly not needed, specially since you will hardly ever find an opportunity to set up. However, the other moves all speak for themselves: Knock Off makes it hard for things to switch in on it, Aqua Jet is basic priority, and Crabhammer is the stronger STAB. Crawdaunt also helps with Scizor's and Dhelmise's Fire weakness and Stakataka's Ground weakness.

- Dusk Lycanroc is the only one that takes advantage of any kind of set-up. Swords Dance makes it be a respectable offensive threat with a good but disputed Speed Tier at 110. Rock Polish can be used over SD too. Providing the team Tough Claws, it's role is pretty important. I run it over the Megas with the same ability due to wanting the boost straight away. Lycanroc also takes advantage of a boosted Priority move (Although not as strong as Scizor's, still pretty usable) to hit faster threats pretty hard, while Stone Edge can be used against slower opponents, and Drill Run for coverage. It also gains a free Dragon Dance every time an opponent is KOed, helping it's Speed Tier issues.

- Krookodile gives the team not only Moxie, but also helps with the team's relatively slow nature. Pursuit with Technician, Tough Claws and Adaptability makes it so that no foe will want to switch out. Rock Tomb has less power than Stone Edge, but hits way more often and lowers foe's Speed, giving some better Speed Control to the team. And while Pursuit makes nothing want to switch out in front of this thing, Knock Off makes it so not much will want to switch in and lose an item either. An other option is to run a bit less EVs in Attack so that beast Boost gives you Speed (ALthough Scarf already makes you pretty fast)


Things to watch out for:

- The team is pretty slow, making it struggle sometimes against some matchups who are faster than it. While Stakataka, Dhelmise and Scizor have respectable bulk, Crawdaunt won't appreciate it's foes always outspeeding it, and Lycanroc hasn't got a reliable bulk either

- The team is fully Physically oriented. Nothing here has any sort of way to get around Physically Bulky mons other than relying on sheer power to knock them out, which can be risky.

- Crawdaunt being a Water-Type does not like the fact that there's at the least 3 abilities out there that are immune to it.

- Priority Control makes not only one of the strongest hitters of the team not reach it's full potential, but makes Crawdaunt's slow speed and mediocre bulk way too risky. Lycanroc doesn't mind it as much, but like I said earlier, 110 Base Speed has a bunch of things that will either Speed tie or Outspeed it (This, however, can be fixed with Rock Polish over SD)

Replays (More to come later):
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/rom-gen7sharedpower-230228

That's all. The team could still have some items, sets or even mons switched out for other things, but I didn't touch on that due to it being a Sample team. Hope y'all like it!

 

[Haaku.]

I believe that Unburden has been a hot topic in the past few days and it is easy to see why- with the appropiate Seed item, it is effectively a 2x Speed boost to anything that equips it. This is the same issue we had at the beginning of the metagame when we banned the weather Speed doubling abilities like Swift Swim and Sand Rush. It's evident that this might be unhealthy for the offense-driven metagame moving forward, and I see a few solutions to deal with this problem.

• Install a Seed Clause to our ruleset- meaning only one of Psychic Seed, Electric Seed, Misty Seed, or Grassy Seed on any given team. This would retain relevancy to Unburden teams but will contain the Speed dominating nature of this archetype.
• Outright ban sharing Unburden among teams. This would solve the problem completely but also remove an additional playstyle that may otherwise be acceptable in the metagame utilizing the clause above.
• Outright ban all seed items. This would solve the problem, but Unburden wouldn't be as viable and it would be unclear whether Unburden teams will be viable with this change.

I'd really like to know your opinions, because we're going into OMotM stage and I'd like a balanced metagame going into it. A decision will be made by the end of today.

 

[W0rm]

I don't see Unburden as gamebreaking and if anything it's one of the few methods we have of keeping Quick Feet/Guts Spam in check, though if you were to take any of those options I would say that the Seed Clause rule would be for the best. The point you made that banning seed items could make Unburden teams straight up unviable is an equally valid point in regards to just banning Unburden outright. If the intent is to mitigate Unburden's negative impacts while having it maintain some level of viability, seed clause is the only option imo. Gives Unburden teams one ace-in-the-hole while still forcing them to figure out ways to make the most of the archetype.

Also, let me say congrats on making OMotM so quickly, it's well deserved :)

 

[SamHPL]

I don't agree with banning Unburden before the meta gets to OMotM, a lot of things have been banned already, this metagame will hardly ever be balanced, atleast we should be able to explore its possibilities. However, I do think Unburden is broken, but allowing it for one or two days would be nice so we could atleast see how the meta would be with it allowed (however, I would understand if you think that having broken things in the meta would push people away, but that's probably always going to be the case for this meta). I think the Seed Clause is the best option, ban sharing Unburden is the worst one imo.

 

[Akumeoy]

I've never really had any problems with Unburden -- it's good, no doubt, but without weather's damage boost and the lack of damage-boosting items, I always felt it lacked the power to truly threaten bulkier teams (which are a thing, by the way). If anything, the Guts+Quick Feet strat is what needs looking at, because that gives a serious power boost on top of enough of a speed boost to circumvent most offense strats.

Seed clause would leave Unburden mostly intact, so that's what I would prefer if a ban must occur.

 

[Jrsmash9]

I think unburden is broken in its current state, however there is only two days until the meta becomes playable and then we can tell for sure what the dominant playstyle is. I have seen counters for unburden recently in prankster, destinybond, and stall. If we are going to do something right now, then I would say the seed clause would be the best bet to weaken but not invalidate the playstyle.