VGC's Metagame

[acinod]

VGC's metagame is completely different from Smogon's metagame.

Level 50 Double Battle Rules

Banned

150 – Mewtwo
151 – Mew
248 – Tyranitar
249 – Lugia
250 – Ho-Oh
251 – Celebi
382 – Kyogre
383 – Groudon
384 – Rayquaza
385 – Jirachi
386 – Deoxys
479 – Rotom
483 – Dialga
484 – Palkia
487 – Giratina
489 – Phione
490 – Manaphy
491 – Darkrai
492 – Shaymin

Banned Items

Soul Dew

Banned Moves

Judgment

As you can, Garchomp, Wobbufet and Latios/Latias (without Soul Dew) can be used while Tyranitar, Jirachi, Celebi and Rotom are banned. Your team also cannot have more than one of the same item.

How different is this type of metagame? Which Pokemon will be most common. Can stall teams still work with Garchomp present?

 

[MegaKick]

well, if your carrying a latios/latias, it just makes garchomp that much less threatening. I just can't beleive they would ban rotom and not the latis.
You should also mention it's lvl 50 only, which is why tyranitar is illegal. (pupitar evolves at lvl 55, so a lvl 50 t-tar is hacked) This means if you have genderless pokemon like brongzong, you can't have any moves available after lvl 50.

 

[wavedash]

From what I've seen, stall doesn't work very well. Most teams are hyper-offensive or bulky offensive, with maybe a defensive lead or two.

 

[Ming-Ming]

I just can't beleive they would ban rotom and not the latis.

The assumed reason for that is the fact that Rotom gets extra formes that not everyone can get (I.E., Nintendo's worried about the trainers that can't to events), so they banned Rotom itself to be fair.

 

[Gritt]

From what I've seen, stall doesn't work very well. Most teams are hyper-offensive or bulky offensive, with maybe a defensive lead or two.

Yeah, most teams you see (especially from the Japanese players on PBR) mostly put in Gyarados, Zapdos, Arcanine, and other heavy hitting Pokémon that work well together.

I personally like the VGC rules because there is so much more strategy involved than 6v6 Doubles, whereas not as much.

 

[PremiumVerumFatum]

Smogon is singles, VGC is doubles. Why should one ever stall in doubles (except simple stuff like Sub/Detect Zapdos) when there are two foes trolling the staller and nullifying most healing methods? And Garchomp sucks in doubles: EQ got nerfed and Outrage hits a random target. Additionally, Hippo doesn't fit to Garchomp and Tyranitar would suck anyway with that pack of critical weaknesses. Also, Rain Dance teams are still fairly common. Well, the most overused Pokémon: Metagross and Snorlax, by far. Most teams have both of them, few have none in VGC.

 

[MegaKick]

Yeah, I've been testing some cool rain dance teams for VCG. Water absord/dry skin pokes with surf in the rain is so broken IMO.

 

[h0llygh0st]

If T-tar is banned for evolving at lvl 55 than why isnt Dragonite banned? he also evolves at lvl 55...

 

[SMZ]

If T-tar is banned for evolving at lvl 55 than why isnt Dragonite banned? he also evolves at lvl 55...

There was a lv 50 Tru Dragonite a while back I believe.

 

[M4GNITUDE]

If T-tar is banned for evolving at lvl 55 than why isnt Dragonite banned? he also evolves at lvl 55...

There is an event Dragonite that comes at level 50.

 

[Sixonesix]

Smogon is singles, VGC is doubles. Why should one ever stall in doubles (except simple stuff like Sub/Detect Zapdos) when there are two foes trolling the staller and nullifying most healing methods? And Garchomp sucks in doubles: EQ got nerfed and Outrage hits a random target. Additionally, Hippo doesn't fit to Garchomp and Tyranitar would suck anyway with that pack of critical weaknesses. Also, Rain Dance teams are still fairly common. Well, the most overused Pokémon: Metagross and Snorlax, by far. Most teams have both of them, few have none in VGC.

I dunno about Tyranitar though, its main weaknesses are water, ground, and steel (bug, fighting, and grass aren't used as much because they have poor coverage and are unable to hit more than one pokemon at once). But in exchange, it could deal heavy damage to some of VGC's most prominent threats (Zapdos, Togekiss Crobat, Arcanine, and the Hail abusers with its Rock STAB; and Dusknoir, Azelf, Latios, Cresselia, and Gengar with its Dark STAB). And of course thanks to Sand Stream it screws up many delicate Focus Sash users. Basically, every standard team would need to have either Metagross, Garchomp, or Empoleon just to keep Tyranitar in check if it were allowed.

 

[picklesword]

Doubles has to be fasted paced. Compared to a pokemon that normally could take on a physical threat, now it has to face two. Basically twice the number of attackers means twice as likely something is going to crit, burn, flinch, ect. With all these factors, it would be very very hard to stall.

 

[froggy25]

And Garchomp sucks in doubles

lol
It is fast, it has a huge attack stat, it has sand veil, EQ hits both opponents and with some Poke like Zapdos with discharge it makes a great lead.

 

[A.P.]

Interestingly, the VGC organizers chose 4 vs. 4 doubles based on these reasons - more offense, etc. - because it enabled faster games. Then, they'd never have to deal with 2 hour stall wars, like on Shoddy sometimes (it's actually usually only 30 minutes on Shoddy, but then you have to factor in all the animations).

 

[Stagnant]

There is an event Dragonite that comes at level 50.

So the reason to ban Rotom and its forms comes back into question.

 

[drug_duck]

As far as I know, the different forms (Rotoms as well as Skymin and Giratina-O) transform back to normal if used in wifi battles. I don't know how link battles affect transformation, though.

But suppose you could theoretically use a normal Rotom - would you use it? Rotom sucks some serious balls in this metagame...

edit:
@froggy:
Your points are valid and I think Fatum is wrong to say that Garchomp sucks in doubles. However I can follow his reasoning at the background of comparison with the other dragons: it has the worst ability, it is slower than Latios/Latias and Garchomp's overall damage output is inferior to both the Latis and Salamence which both shine with two enormously important abilites in doubles: Intimidate and Levitate.
It depends on what you feel confident for and on your other team members what dragon you use.

 

[PremiumVerumFatum]

froggy: I was just exaggerating a bit. ;D What I really meant to say is that Garchomp won't ever be something near Uber in doubles. In the VGC metagame, it is kind of dead meat against Latios in a metagame where Latios would be banned, there would still be stuff like Scarf Obama, Rain Dance teams etc and the screwed EQ power doesn't help either. And just as said, how are you planning to abuse Sand Veil? Hippo isn't a good partner for Chomp and Tyranitar has too many weaknesses (@Sixonesix: Fighting shouln't be too rare, as it is the only type to hit Laxo super effectively), so it would be often too easily killed. And I know the Garchomp/Zapdos combo, but well, they have their dedicated bad matchups just as anything else.

About Rotom: Platinum was entirely banned from Europe (had to use DP). Though, Europeans are required to use Pt in SD and they Secret Key is distributed via Wi-Fi till Sunday. Besides that, the finals will be played on PBR, which doesn't contain new forms.

 

[Snorlaxe]

When is there going to be a Shoddy Doubles? Because Im totally amazing at doubles, and they're so much fun, because theres so much strategy involved in a good doubles match.

example of first turn in an UU doubles match:
Player1 sent out Nidoqueen!
Player1 sent out Slowbro!
Player2 sent out Linnone!
Player2 sent out Dugtrio!

Linnone used Belly Drum!
Linnone cut its HP and maximized its attack!
Dugtrio used Psych Up and copied Linnone's stat change!
Nidoqueen used Flatter on Slowbro! Slowbrow's special attack was sharply raised!
Slowbro cannot be confused because of its ability, Own Tempo!
Slowbro used Surf!
Linnone Fainted!
Nidoqueen took 89% damage!
Dugtrio took 176% damage!
Dugtrio held on using its Focus Sash!
--------------------------------------
As you can see, there is a lot more strategy involved than in your standard battle. Now Dugtrio and Slowbro are both set to sweep!

 

[TheFourthChaser]

When is there going to be a Shoddy Doubles? Because Im totally amazing at doubles, and they're so much fun, because theres so much strategy involved in a good doubles match.

You'll see doubles in Shoddy Battle 2.

Fatum you said the finals were being played on PBR? Iirc the japanese finals were played on an updated PBR with the Platinum trainers in it but they probably didn't even add the Rotom formes. But the banning of Rotom confuses me, they let in the level 50 Dragonite and if they didn't want to add something people that couldn't access the Secret Key event why have D-nite? Wasn't it easier to get the Secret Key than the Dragonite?

 

[POKEMONBATTLEBRAIN]

I dunno about Tyranitar though, its main weaknesses are water, ground, and steel (bug, fighting, and grass aren't used as much because they have poor coverage and are unable to hit more than one pokemon at once). But in exchange, it could deal heavy damage to some of VGC's most prominent threats (Zapdos, Togekiss Crobat, Arcanine, and the Hail abusers with its Rock STAB; and Dusknoir, Azelf, Latios, Cresselia, and Gengar with its Dark STAB). And of course thanks to Sand Stream it screws up many delicate Focus Sash users. Basically, every standard team would need to have either Metagross, Garchomp, or Empoleon just to keep Tyranitar in check if it were allowed.

I agree. If there was any form of a lv. 50 Tyranitar event, it would quickly become one of the most used pokemon in VGC. It hits a lot of the most common pokemon very hard like you mentioned(Max Attack Crunch can 2KO Bold max HP/Def Cresselia to put it into perspective[44-52%]). Metagross would probably see about the same usage or slightly higher, and if Garchomp was being used to counter Tar I se a mixed version with Ice Beam/Crunch/rock Slide/Protect or something becoming popular among the Tar users.

Either way, a lv. 50 Tyranitar event would definitely have rippled in the VGC.

 

[acinod]

So why are Celebi and Jirachi banned? They are not overly powerful in doubles. Is it because they are rare and they think if you have one then you hack?

 

[Zog]

No, presumably because if they're allowed then it's unfair on people unable to get them. That doesn't explain Rotom though.

 

[Random Pizzaman]

All legendaries that aren't a trio/duo are banned iirc

 

[lati0s]

And Garchomp sucks in doubles:

you have obviously never played with or against a well-played garchomp, garchomp has great stats good typing and can do alot of things.

If you look at some of the winning teams from this years VGC you will see that many of them use garchomp

When is there going to be a Shoddy Doubles? Because Im totally amazing at doubles, and they're so much fun, because theres so much strategy involved in a good doubles match.

example of first turn in an UU doubles match:
Player1 sent out Nidoqueen!
Player1 sent out Slowbro!
Player2 sent out Linnone!
Player2 sent out Dugtrio!

Linnone used Belly Drum!
Linnone cut its HP and maximized its attack!
Dugtrio used Psych Up and copied Linnone's stat change!
Nidoqueen used Flatter on Slowbro! Slowbrow's special attack was sharply raised!
Slowbro cannot be confused because of its ability, Own Tempo!
Slowbro used Surf!
Linnone Fainted!
Nidoqueen took 89% damage!
Dugtrio took 176% damage!
Dugtrio held on using its Focus Sash!
--------------------------------------
As you can see, there is a lot more strategy involved than in your standard battle. Now Dugtrio and Slowbro are both set to sweep!

dugtrio doesn't learn psych up, also until real tiers are made uu doubles is rather dumb imo

 

[mattj]

you have obviously never played with or against a well-played garchomp, garchomp has great stats good typing and can do alot of things.

If you look at some of the winning teams from this years VGC you will see that many of them use garchomp

dugtrio doesn't learn psych up, also until real tiers are made uu doubles is rather dumb imo

I killed a garchomp with Dragon Pulse and Ice fang with 2 pokes that he could have easily swept (at Nationals). That's really what got me in. As long as you're fast and you have at least 1 Ice and or 1 Dragon Move, he's toast. In singles, you really couldn't do that as easily. As long as people keep foolishly using him in Doubles the same way as they use him in singles, he really shouldn't be a threat.