• Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!

The Uber Metagame: a Fun "Change of Pace"

Status
Not open for further replies.
Wobbuffet is an annoyance to stall, not a gamebreaking threat. In fact, I somewhat enjoy it when Wobby comes in, because then I can use my Forretress to set up at least one layer of Spikes or Toxic Spikes, depending on my preference.

On the other hand, stuff like Darkrai can singlehandedly defeat defense-oriented teams if Wobbuffet takes down your revenge killer.

Pure stall is epic fail, as I found out, unlike in OU play. If you want to have any chance of success, you will incorporate offensive tactics into your stall team, like a scarfer or a stat booster or both.
 
This is why uber stall is not very effective, except against players who poorly build teams (IMO).
I wouldn't quite say that. By that you are implying every person I've beaten using my stall "poor", which is an insult to a whole bunch of people, perhaps including yourself as I do recall beating you once with my stall under an alt.

Stall is NOT ineffective. It's just not exactly user friendly, that's all. Stall isn't something you can brand as defensive and treat it as such-you have to predict a lot and play with an offensive mindset or else you'll be controlled entirely by offensive teams. Being able to neuter Deoxys-S leads is certainly quite a bonus (unless they have a ghost, in which you can try to predict by Spiking/TSing). Actually, it's a big bonus-you get entry hazards in, they don't, and they've almost wasted a Pokemon slot.
 
I wouldn't quite say that. By that you are implying every person I've beaten using my stall "poor", which is an insult to a whole bunch of people, perhaps including yourself as I do recall beating you once with my stall under an alt.

Stall is NOT ineffective. It's just not exactly user friendly, that's all. Stall isn't something you can brand as defensive and treat it as such-you have to predict a lot and play with an offensive mindset or else you'll be controlled entirely by offensive teams. Being able to neuter Deoxys-S leads is certainly quite a bonus (unless they have a ghost, in which you can try to predict by Spiking/TSing). Actually, it's a big bonus-you get entry hazards in, they don't, and they've almost wasted a Pokemon slot.


I agree with Jibaku here, because if played correctly, stall can actually beat teams full of mixed attackers, which normally tear stall a new one.
 
I wouldn't quite say that. By that you are implying every person I've beaten using my stall "poor", which is an insult to a whole bunch of people, perhaps including yourself as I do recall beating you once with my stall under an alt.

Stall is NOT ineffective. It's just not exactly user friendly, that's all. Stall isn't something you can brand as defensive and treat it as such-you have to predict a lot and play with an offensive mindset or else you'll be controlled entirely by offensive teams. Being able to neuter Deoxys-S leads is certainly quite a bonus (unless they have a ghost, in which you can try to predict by Spiking/TSing). Actually, it's a big bonus-you get entry hazards in, they don't, and they've almost wasted a Pokemon slot.

well jib, you are a very good battler, and one of the few people who can get away with using stall in ubers. and i do believe you use a quick stall team, while i am refering to full stall, using a predictable team of groudon, forry, blissey, giratina, latias and other. when using a quick stall team it is less predictable and actually effective when facing 'normal' offensive teams.
 
Okay now, IMO we should start calling these "quick stall" teams just plain old Uber stall. "Full stall" is in fact very similar, except it lacks a revenge killer. IMO, the problem here is that people are expecting stall to work the same way in Ubers as it does in OU, which is simply not going to work. On a "true" Uber stall team, you have to make it as flexiable as possible, which means that you will often have to use an offensive Pokemon or sweeper such as Mewtwo (though Mewtwo also works well as a wall). Giratina-O is becoming the Spin blocker of choice on Stall teams from what I am seeing, for a good reason too. Giratina-O can threaten to sweep, in addition to spin blocking as well. Sure, it can't stop Groudon nearly as well as Giratina can, but thats something the rest of the team can handle.
 
I wouldn't quite say that. By that you are implying every person I've beaten using my stall "poor", which is an insult to a whole bunch of people, perhaps including yourself as I do recall beating you once with my stall under an alt.

Stall is NOT ineffective. It's just not exactly user friendly, that's all. Stall isn't something you can brand as defensive and treat it as such-you have to predict a lot and play with an offensive mindset or else you'll be controlled entirely by offensive teams. Being able to neuter Deoxys-S leads is certainly quite a bonus (unless they have a ghost, in which you can try to predict by Spiking/TSing). Actually, it's a big bonus-you get entry hazards in, they don't, and they've almost wasted a Pokemon slot.

Wait: I thought that the advantages of stall were supposed to be consistency and ease of piloting. The disadvantage is that your team is pretty much an open book, as all good stall teams are structurally similar, though they may not have the exact same pokemon (well, Forry, Bliss, and Groudon are givens).

At least those are my impressions. Not that it's saying much, but I've done better with my stall team in Ubers than I have with any other team mainly due to the consistency of play, although I use a Scarfer and a CM Latias (yes, it was modeled after Jibaku's team).
 
Uber stall teams are quite effective,especially with the new Giratina-O.Anyway Ubers are awesome (not the user) and I am very happy to see that a lot of people have started to play Ubers from June (Shoddy Smogon Server statistics are a proof).Lets hope that more battlers will play ubers in the future.
 
Well I've decided to get back into Pokemon in General. Currently at #26 on my Testing Account (XM3k2-Testing) on the leaderboards. I'm climbing the ladders a bit more slowly than I remember, so I'm guessing more people are playing Ubers now since I can't get into the top 20 within 2 hours anymore.
 
you are noticing things correctly. there are more people on the uber ladder nowadays, with 12000 battles being played in July and only 9000 in June, which is a 33% increase (these are rough statistics).
 
The OU of Ubers for July 2009

Speaking of stats, I had a short chat with out our local math guru, X-Act, on how to calculate the "OU of Ubers" (you calculate "OU" by dividing the number of battles by 14.6784, and then the usage of each Pokemon in "OU" is at least equal to that number.). The "OU of Ubers" was quite bigger than I expected. Here is the "OU of Ubers" for July 2009. This list goes from the most used to the least used of the "OU of Ubers". This has been calculated the same way OU and UU would be if it was done every month as far as I know. Something important to note is that Giratina-O and Lugia had the same amount of usage. The "OU of Ubers" this month contains 29 different Pokemon.

HTML:
Kyogre
Palkia
Rayquaza
Groudon
Dialga
Darkrai
Mewtwo
Wobbuffet
Deoxys-S
Giratina-O, Lugia
Garchomp
Scizor
Forretress
Blissey
Deoxys-A
Shaymin-S
Giratina
Latios
Latias
Lucario
Mew
Tyranitar
Jirachi
Kingdra
Metagross
Skarmory
Ho-oh
Manaphy
 
Heres a nice gimmick I've been trying: Passing belly drum to rayquaza. It works like this:
Wobbufet sets up like normal, go to smeargle, sub on the switch, spore the switchin, belly drum on the switch, pass thanks to the salac boost. E-speed stops other priorities.
 
Heres a nice gimmick I've been trying: Passing belly drum to rayquaza. It works like this:
Wobbufet sets up like normal, go to smeargle, sub on the switch, spore the switchin, belly drum on the switch, pass thanks to the salac boost. E-speed stops other priorities.

It's stopped by fast Taunters, not to mention some people are actually carrying +Speed Scarfed Ghosts. Belly Drum passing is a very unreliable strategy in general.
 
it might work once, but once your opponent knows that is your strategy it is very easy to stop.

for example, a guy did that to me with linoone and killed my whole team. I think ive faced him around 10 times since and he hasn't beaten me once
 
Heres a nice gimmick I've been trying: Passing belly drum to rayquaza. It works like this:
Wobbufet sets up like normal, go to smeargle, sub on the switch, spore the switchin, belly drum on the switch, pass thanks to the salac boost. E-speed stops other priorities.
until you reliaze that a taunter came and destroyed your baton pass chain

and speaking of baton pass chains,ive been using a lead mew
mew@leftovers
evs:4 hp/252 speed/252 def
nature:timid
-rock poilsh
-baton pass
-stealth rock
-taunt
this set is obviously simple:taunt slower leads then set up some stealth rocks,rock poilsh then baton pass to a specs kyorge

also did anyone try specs diagla with this?after all no one will enjoy dragon pulses coming from 657 sp attack(modest nature),and with a lot of speed from mew.
 
until you reliaze that a taunter came and destroyed your baton pass chain

and speaking of baton pass chains,ive been using a lead mew
mew@leftovers
evs:4 hp/252 speed/252 def
nature:timid
-rock poilsh
-baton pass
-stealth rock
-taunt
this set is obviously simple:taunt slower leads then set up some stealth rocks,rock poilsh then baton pass to a specs kyorge

also did anyone try specs diagla with this?after all no one will enjoy dragon pulses coming from 657 sp attack(modest nature),and with a lot of speed from mew.

Plenty of Pokemon (Steels and Blissey) still aren't dented by Specs Dragon Pulse.

I've seen Private Piplup use his Lead Mew set with great success it goes.
Mew@Lum Berry
Nature: ?
Evs: ?
-U-Turn
-Taunt
-Stealth Rock
-Explosion

It can set up Stealth Rock and then Explode like your standard Suicide lead. Against Deoxys-E, they usually Taunt you so you can predict the Taunt and U-Turn away, breaking its Focus Sash. Against Darkrai Leads, they usually try to Dark Void right off the bat, which is what the Lum Berry is for, so you can Taunt, forcing them to switch and then set up Stealth Rock on the switch.
 
I just got back in the Uber metagame. Remembered how great it was too. I suppose I'll be on the latter testing team more often then.
 
Plenty of Pokemon (Steels and Blissey) still aren't dented by Specs Dragon Pulse.

I've seen Private Piplup use his Lead Mew set with great success it goes.
Mew@Lum Berry
Nature: ?
Evs: ?
-U-Turn
-Taunt
-Stealth Rock
-Explosion

It can set up Stealth Rock and then Explode like your standard Suicide lead. Against Deoxys-E, they usually Taunt you so you can predict the Taunt and U-Turn away, breaking its Focus Sash. Against Darkrai Leads, they usually try to Dark Void right off the bat, which is what the Lum Berry is for, so you can Taunt, forcing them to switch and then set up Stealth Rock on the switch.
Azelf can run the exact same set with both higher attack and speed.
 
Anachronism's team has Taunt/CM Mewtwo, CM Kyogre, NP Rai, and Wobb. Any stall team will be raped by that no matter how well you play.

PokemonMasterHSA's team uses no stat up sweepers (although it does use mixed attackers), which gives him an advantage against team's such as those employed by Anachronism, though it weakens his matchup against stall, of course.

But if an opponent in ubers attempts to overload walls on the special side (which tends to be easier because of the special power in Ubers), there's not much you can do. Blissey and Latias cannot stall it out forever, especially not if the opponent begins to Calm Mind with multiple sweepers (and gets prior damage on CM Latias with whatever, or uses Mewtwo). Darkrai can singlehandedly destroy a stall team as well unless you use a Primeape (Gen. Empoleon encouraged me to do this).

For the record, I got most of my points by beating PokemonMasterHSA and similar teams multiple times in a row, so my offense team isn't at a disadvantage against his type of offense at least in my experience.

His team is very good though, and is definitely tactically superior to mine. It is much more flexible. He can finesse himself out of a lot of situtions that i have to smash my way out of.

And I totally agree with the second part. Stall has so few answers for some threats. The average stall team is almost forced into using Latias (for Kyogre), Groudon (for Rayquaza), and Giratina or Giratina-O (lack of other good ghosts), all of which are weak to ice. Taunt Mewtwo and Standard NP Darkrai can beat stall by themselves. Mewtwo is usually only held back by Forretress explosions and the rather annoying scarf primeape, while Darkrai has much the same situtation with his Dark STAB, which mangles most uber stalls that don't use scarf Primeape. Even Primeape often isn't enough. I beat Gen. Empoleon (in an admittedly haxy match) by simply using substitute on the switch, forcing his Primeape to Close Combat and Pulsing back as it kills the sub, switching to mewtwo, and then bringing back darkrai later, pulsing again in the same scenario, killing the ape and opening a sweep.

The fact is that uber walls have to deal with a lot more attack, with not much more defense than OU walls. The only real advantage is that there are a lot fewer threats to deal with and you can rely on the fact that you will be able to easily counter half of the opponent's standard uber team due to high usages, but this is mostly mitigated by the number of sets that ubers are able to use. darkrai is ridiculously difficult to deal with. It is capable of beating anything with its various sets. Rayquaza has two setup moves that give it entirely different sets of counters. these kinds of things make uber stall incredibly difficult, while uber offense enjoys a relative ease of use.

There are a lot of threats that all have very specific counters, meaning that you can't double up on counters to most threats like you can in OU.

Offense is also easier to use against new players, something that stall does better in OU. This is because you don't have to worry about random sets. Simply get rid of obvious scarfers and then use your speed to beat what they have. Uber offense is all about speed. It is the only factor you have to worry about.

I would also like to comment on Jibaku's statement that there is so much centralization that seemingly terrible pokes work well simply because they counter a top threat well. There are so many examples of this: Primeape beating Darkrai, Shedinja, Kyogre counters like Quagsire and Parasect, etc.
It is really fun to play in a metagame full of predictability at least in the pokemon usage sense (there is a lot of move unpredictability) where such random things become viable.

I also enjoyed the chess analogy. The pokes are predictable, but the moves they make aren't, and this is great. It in many ways maximizes strategy.
 
For the record, I got most of my points by beating PokemonMasterHSA and similar teams multiple times in a row, so my offense team isn't at a disadvantage against his type of offense at least in my experience.

Sorry about that, then. I was going again by my OU experience. PkmnHSA's team is similar to a standard zero setup offense team, and they tend to have team advantage against other offensive teams, though they suffer against stall.

Another thing is that Scizor is incredibly powerful in Ubers with the bias towards SDef among the walls. Uberstall needs to run both Latias and Blissey, and Scizor can enter in on both of them with impunity...and U-turn. One CB U-turn and 2 Stealth Rocks later and a DDRay can take out Groudon. Scizor is far more potent a stallbreaker in Ubers than in OU for this reason.
 
For the highest peaks of strategy, though, Advance Wars is probably amongst the top in how much strategy it really takes to be good at it *looks at mtr12's avatar*

Good old Mech Flood.

I also caught General Empoleon on YVD playing Yugioh as well. Yugioh is different from Pokemon in that in Pokemon, you have to put a whole lot of thought into your team making and playing, whiel in Yugioh, you put a lot of thought into making the deck, but after that, you relax as you let luck largely take over. Though it is a bit more luck-based, Yugioh's playstyle is a lot more forgiving and less thought-intensive on the turn-by-turn since it literally is a luck of the draw so you don't stress as much. 'course, when you have a potential OTK on your hands, you tend to do a bit more thinking.
 
About that...I know Drake is a lower-tier CO. He's just one of my personal favorites because he's a true "war of attrition" kind of guy. Online on awbw, I used to play Eagle and Hawke more often. For some reason, I could never really dig Sami or Lash.

You bring up a relevant point, though: pokemon involves an "inside game" (battling technique and prediction) quite a lot, unlike YGO. In both games, the "outside game" (team building, team advantage) is quite powerful.

The reason that I'm attracted to stall is that it minimizes the inside game. Although it isn't all gone. We all know about the Hippowdon/Zapdos stall war.
 
Yeah don't worry about it.

I think that my team tends to have an advantage against 0-setup offense because 1 cm from ogre can cause me to win the inevitable Kyogre vs Palkia. Also, most teams tend to use a scarfed revenge killer, which is almost always a free kill. I then use my speed advantage to get a lot more free kills.

Stall (especially in OU) tends to be incredibly easy to play for most of the game, but often requires a lot of thinking (and often guessing) to deal with certain threats. For example, Salamence coming in is nearly always a problem simply because of its unpredictability.

In ubers, almost every threat is like this lol.

I agree that Scizor is quite a problem for Uber stall, especially if Uber stall invests in HP rather than Def to be specially bulkier. A banded Pursuit on Blissey/Latias just totally opens the floodgates for any number of things to sweep.
 
Another thing is that Scizor is incredibly powerful in Ubers with the bias towards SDef among the walls. Uberstall needs to run both Latias and Blissey, and Scizor can enter in on both of them with impunity...and U-turn
II'm going to step in and disagree. the only way Scizor is breaking stall, really, is by Pursuiting Latias and letting Kyogre sweep (which is harder than it seems because Thunder from Latias really hurts Scizor). Scizor simply can't spam U-turn when Forretress takes ~20% and Groudon takes ~30% (this is from CB Scizor). Add in Leftovers recovery and you've got a sad Scizor. Giratina-A takes even more lol damage, while the entry hazards stack up against Scizor and pulling it down. Blissey basically laughs at Choice Banded Pursuit as it often carries Protect and can stay in to lower the damamge while Scizor gets a face full of Seismic Toss.

I am also disagreeing that stall is easy to pilot. Sure, it's easy versus a good amount of people on ladder, but against smarter people it's a lot tougher IMO to pilot than offense. Earlier today I fought a person's (name will not be said) stall breaking team of Deoxys-S/HP Fire Giratina-O/Wobb/Darkrai/SpecsKyogre/TauntCM Mewtwo under an alt and won. However, it was probably one of the toughest matches I've had to face due to my team being at a sheer disadvantage. Throughout the whole match I had to preserve Kyogre and Blissey, and because I couldn't spin his entry hazards away it was even more of a pain.

Also remember that there is more than just "Classic stall" (full stall) and "Modern stall" (offense features on stall). There's Wobbastall, which involves wobbuffett, entry hazards, and Subseeding. Subseed machinegun is only one example of it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top