DoW
formally Death on Wings
Minimize is better. And not using evasion is even better than that.
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Metagame USUM AG Metagame Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Pigeons
- Start date
The only time I've ever seen it seriously used was on Gliscor for BP teams. I don't think there's a use for it outside of that.
mewtwo x is cool but uncommon. There's probably a lot of interesting sets to run.
Yveltal has been getting some interesting development lately...
Yveltal @ Metronome
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Oblivion Wing
- Heat Wave
- Taunt
Replace heat wave with foul play/sucker punch or whatev. This thing is strong, ridiculously surprising and can quickly turn the tides of battle. In 5-6 turns you'll go from doing 30-35% on support arceus forms (with oblivion wings) to 60-65%, which outpaces recover. That's pretty nice, considering it then cripples any switch-in. Having the ability to pick dark pulse when your opponent sends in solg against oblivion wings is invaluable. This thing is fire right now, and I almost don't wanna post about it. Keep coming up with fire sets, AG! This is what makes the metagame so fun!
Yveltal @ Metronome
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Oblivion Wing
- Heat Wave
- Taunt
Replace heat wave with foul play/sucker punch or whatev. This thing is strong, ridiculously surprising and can quickly turn the tides of battle. In 5-6 turns you'll go from doing 30-35% on support arceus forms (with oblivion wings) to 60-65%, which outpaces recover. That's pretty nice, considering it then cripples any switch-in. Having the ability to pick dark pulse when your opponent sends in solg against oblivion wings is invaluable. This thing is fire right now, and I almost don't wanna post about it. Keep coming up with fire sets, AG! This is what makes the metagame so fun!
Glad you like the set I sent you. ;)
Highly underrated and insanely deadly once it hits 3 times with 1 attack.
Credit to you my friend!
Hot core coming in
Shuckle can lead and set up webs, if vivillon can switch in on a slower pokemon it can be scary.
Shuckle also has access to rock tomb so you can make sure that vivi can come in right away.
Shuckle @ Mental Herb
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Def / 96 SpD
Calm Nature
- Sticky Web
- Stealth Rock
- Rock Tomb
- Encore
Vivillon @ Leftovers
Ability: Compound Eyes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Quiver Dance
- Hurricane
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Def / 96 SpD
Calm Nature
- Sticky Web
- Stealth Rock
- Rock Tomb
- Encore
Vivillon @ Leftovers
Ability: Compound Eyes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Quiver Dance
- Hurricane
Shuckle can lead and set up webs, if vivillon can switch in on a slower pokemon it can be scary.
Shuckle also has access to rock tomb so you can make sure that vivi can come in right away.
This core is more or less very well known. Some people do not like shuckle now a days due to dusk mane, so slurpuff (In the case of thimo webs) or smeargle can be used as a better webs setter.
It takes a lot to admit this, but I really think we need to ban Marshadow. I've had this belief ever since it was introduced into the metagame. You have no idea how hard I tried to hide it. Today, I come to you, the AG community, hopeful that you'll hear me out and realise how much I tried to make the impossible possible. How difficult it was to cover it all up and how I tried my hardest to make this metagame the pinnacle of competitive Pokémon it deserves to be.
It all started a week after awful Marshadow was released. I was sick of losing to Sash Swagger painful Marshadow on the ladder. It really made the metagame feel broken and I didn't think it was fair at all. So I had an idea. An idea so clever that eventually I would fool myself into believing my brilliant scheme. I had all the influence I needed to make people believe my adverse opinions, so I sought to shape the metagame for the better. The premise of my idea was if I said that restrictive Marshadow was bad a substantial amount of times, people would start to believe it.
It started off pretty innocently. Thimo and I made a deal to hate on idiotic Marshadow whenever possible to instill this belief. People would join the anything goes room and complain about how their lame Marshadow abusing opponents swept like three of their Pokémon and Thimo and I would reply with "Marshadow sucks" or "Marshadow's bad". Fardin and Purple tried to call us out on this sometimes, but Thimo and I stuck by it and that only made it believable to the majority of users within the room.
This chat warfare continued through the duration of OMPL. We'd use Arceus-Fairy on every team just to counter fking Marshadow. I hated the metagame so much but I struggled through it since I was hopeful my idea would work. Not much happened for a few months. Its usage had died down significantly but I was still very annoyed at what the metagame had become. All because of obnoxious Marshadow and its dumb Spectral Thief and Close Combat and Endeavor and Swagger and WHO AT GAME FREAK THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?!?!? I'M SO SIUC FEDFMKMKDAMSDL<ASL<
Back on track. A few months had passed and we'd made some real progress but it wasn't enough. Thimo had nominated Marshadow for A- and we had Megazard convinced to back us, so it passed. I didn't expect much to come of it other than possibly even less usage, but then a very unfortunate thing happened. Fardin was confident that we made a mistake. I panicked and consulted Thimo which led to this conversation.
Thimo had exams that week so I was forced to bullshit an essay up, and try to convince everyone that oafish Marshadow was actually bad. I thought I did a pretty good job at diverting attention, but apparently not well enough. Fardin called me out on my post and thimo was absolutely no help.
So I had to keep writing essays and dumb posts that I didn't believe in at all. Quantum and Fardin kept responding and I had had enough. I decided on a cheap way to avoid making any more replies by saying this.
I felt betrayed. Thimo my ally in achieving a playable metagame wouldn't help and Megazard my co-roomowner of two years was calling me out over points I didn't even believe in. A lot of competent AG players were calling me out. Fortunately though, the rebuttals did stop. I was left alone with my stupid Marshadow arguments.
Something strange happened soon after however.
Even though Dusk Mane Necrozma had made its way onto every team and Gengar was seeing even more usage. Even though Fairy Arceus usage had dropped substantially due to those two things, people started to agree that numb Marshadow was more of an A- Pokémon. I finally felt as if I had achieved success.
The metagame seemed enjoyable again. I felt like laddering for the first time in months. The popular opinion was that Marshadow just wasn't the Pokémon people hoped it would be. The ladder felt great yet again, all until a week or so later......
This stupid dumb garbage oppressive Marshadow set was on every single mid-ladder team. I HAD FAILED. NO ONE HAD LISTENED TO ME, MY WHOLE STRATEGY FELL APART. The mid-ladder had invented a set, so powerful and flawless. It always took out a Pokémon, nothing was an issue for it. A small piece of me died on the 6th of January 2018. The day that I first saw Sash Endeavor thoughtless Marshadow, and the day that I decided to quit Pokémon.
I spent the next day crying to myself. I was leaving so many friends behind but at the same time, what I was most distraught about was how I had failed in such an extensive mission. I had failed to make the ladder a better place. I spent days just staring at my ceiling, crying my eyes out and eating neapolitan ice cream. My nights weren't much better. I'd have nightmares of all my boosts being stolen, of my gengars being pursuit trapped, of my ho-ohs being technician rock tombed, and of my ekillers being useless. I was in a very bad place. One night after dreaming about Life Orb Close Combats, I woke up beaten and bruised.
I slowly turned to alcoholism. It was so much easier to sleep through the night after downing a bottle of chardonnay. I was in a very very bad place. Marshadow had ruined my life. It was the Wednesday of the following week when I had an epiphany. What if I pretend to be trying out Marshadow, but use it horribly? Won't that convince people that that it's bad? I couldn't give up after so much hard work. I threw the bottle I was drinking against the wall and hopped on my computer.
Rapidly, I typed up my unquit post. I was determined to finish what I had started. After the liquor wore off, I started laddering. Much to my surprise, I was winning even when I was trying to lose. This trend kept continuing and I found myself the highest I'd been in the USUM meta. I needed to test this newfound god-like power I'd discovered, so I created an alt called whirlofdestruction and laddered on it. Surprisingly, I peaked at 2200 Elo with a 96 GXE. My whole bias had prevented me from doing so well in the metagame. I suddenly wished that I had abused it instead of trying to do good. On my main account, I successfully managed to lose versus a few skilled opponents but it took a lot of effort.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-693392240
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-693957276
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-682756251
Otherwise, I couldn't lose. People would accuse these alts I made of boosting since I never revealed my identity. I couldn't let people know it was me though. It would've ruined public perception of Marshadow. It's really difficult to try to lose though. Eventually I just gave up laddering on my main, since I knew I couldn't keep it up.
The problems continue to ensue though. The metagame is way too easy for me now that I've lost interest yet again. I've come to the conclusion that there's no way to save my interest for this metagame other than to ban Marshadow, or at least the more broken sets like Sash Endeavor and Sash Swagger. These sets alone make the metagame so overcentralising for me. Sash Marshadow really should've been considered at Game Freak, who clearly doesn't care about how broken they're making their Pokémon. First Mega Banette, now this? Give me a break, Game Freak. At least Blizzard nerfed cubelock.
It all started a week after awful Marshadow was released. I was sick of losing to Sash Swagger painful Marshadow on the ladder. It really made the metagame feel broken and I didn't think it was fair at all. So I had an idea. An idea so clever that eventually I would fool myself into believing my brilliant scheme. I had all the influence I needed to make people believe my adverse opinions, so I sought to shape the metagame for the better. The premise of my idea was if I said that restrictive Marshadow was bad a substantial amount of times, people would start to believe it.
It started off pretty innocently. Thimo and I made a deal to hate on idiotic Marshadow whenever possible to instill this belief. People would join the anything goes room and complain about how their lame Marshadow abusing opponents swept like three of their Pokémon and Thimo and I would reply with "Marshadow sucks" or "Marshadow's bad". Fardin and Purple tried to call us out on this sometimes, but Thimo and I stuck by it and that only made it believable to the majority of users within the room.
This chat warfare continued through the duration of OMPL. We'd use Arceus-Fairy on every team just to counter fking Marshadow. I hated the metagame so much but I struggled through it since I was hopeful my idea would work. Not much happened for a few months. Its usage had died down significantly but I was still very annoyed at what the metagame had become. All because of obnoxious Marshadow and its dumb Spectral Thief and Close Combat and Endeavor and Swagger and WHO AT GAME FREAK THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?!?!? I'M SO SIUC FEDFMKMKDAMSDL<ASL<
Back on track. A few months had passed and we'd made some real progress but it wasn't enough. Thimo had nominated Marshadow for A- and we had Megazard convinced to back us, so it passed. I didn't expect much to come of it other than possibly even less usage, but then a very unfortunate thing happened. Fardin was confident that we made a mistake. I panicked and consulted Thimo which led to this conversation.
Thimo had exams that week so I was forced to bullshit an essay up, and try to convince everyone that oafish Marshadow was actually bad. I thought I did a pretty good job at diverting attention, but apparently not well enough. Fardin called me out on my post and thimo was absolutely no help.
So I had to keep writing essays and dumb posts that I didn't believe in at all. Quantum and Fardin kept responding and I had had enough. I decided on a cheap way to avoid making any more replies by saying this.
I figured that I had successfully defended such a ludicrous point to the point of no return, but then Megazard, someone who had previously defended our loathsome Marshadow to A- stance called me out on Discord.
I felt betrayed. Thimo my ally in achieving a playable metagame wouldn't help and Megazard my co-roomowner of two years was calling me out over points I didn't even believe in. A lot of competent AG players were calling me out. Fortunately though, the rebuttals did stop. I was left alone with my stupid Marshadow arguments.
Something strange happened soon after however.
Even though Dusk Mane Necrozma had made its way onto every team and Gengar was seeing even more usage. Even though Fairy Arceus usage had dropped substantially due to those two things, people started to agree that numb Marshadow was more of an A- Pokémon. I finally felt as if I had achieved success.
The metagame seemed enjoyable again. I felt like laddering for the first time in months. The popular opinion was that Marshadow just wasn't the Pokémon people hoped it would be. The ladder felt great yet again, all until a week or so later......
This stupid dumb garbage oppressive Marshadow set was on every single mid-ladder team. I HAD FAILED. NO ONE HAD LISTENED TO ME, MY WHOLE STRATEGY FELL APART. The mid-ladder had invented a set, so powerful and flawless. It always took out a Pokémon, nothing was an issue for it. A small piece of me died on the 6th of January 2018. The day that I first saw Sash Endeavor thoughtless Marshadow, and the day that I decided to quit Pokémon.
I spent the next day crying to myself. I was leaving so many friends behind but at the same time, what I was most distraught about was how I had failed in such an extensive mission. I had failed to make the ladder a better place. I spent days just staring at my ceiling, crying my eyes out and eating neapolitan ice cream. My nights weren't much better. I'd have nightmares of all my boosts being stolen, of my gengars being pursuit trapped, of my ho-ohs being technician rock tombed, and of my ekillers being useless. I was in a very bad place. One night after dreaming about Life Orb Close Combats, I woke up beaten and bruised.
I slowly turned to alcoholism. It was so much easier to sleep through the night after downing a bottle of chardonnay. I was in a very very bad place. Marshadow had ruined my life. It was the Wednesday of the following week when I had an epiphany. What if I pretend to be trying out Marshadow, but use it horribly? Won't that convince people that that it's bad? I couldn't give up after so much hard work. I threw the bottle I was drinking against the wall and hopped on my computer.
Rapidly, I typed up my unquit post. I was determined to finish what I had started. After the liquor wore off, I started laddering. Much to my surprise, I was winning even when I was trying to lose. This trend kept continuing and I found myself the highest I'd been in the USUM meta. I needed to test this newfound god-like power I'd discovered, so I created an alt called whirlofdestruction and laddered on it. Surprisingly, I peaked at 2200 Elo with a 96 GXE. My whole bias had prevented me from doing so well in the metagame. I suddenly wished that I had abused it instead of trying to do good. On my main account, I successfully managed to lose versus a few skilled opponents but it took a lot of effort.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-693392240
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-693957276
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-682756251
Otherwise, I couldn't lose. People would accuse these alts I made of boosting since I never revealed my identity. I couldn't let people know it was me though. It would've ruined public perception of Marshadow. It's really difficult to try to lose though. Eventually I just gave up laddering on my main, since I knew I couldn't keep it up.
but can we ban evasionIt takes a lot to admit this, but I really think we need to ban Marshadow. I've had this belief ever since it was introduced into the metagame. You have no idea how hard I tried to hide it. Today, I come to you, the AG community, hopeful that you'll hear me out and realise how much I tried to make the impossible possible. How difficult it was to cover it all up and how I tried my hardest to make this metagame the pinnacle of competitive Pokémon it deserves to be.
It all started a week after awful Marshadow was released. I was sick of losing to Sash Swagger painful Marshadow on the ladder. It really made the metagame feel broken and I didn't think it was fair at all. So I had an idea. An idea so clever that eventually I would fool myself into believing my brilliant scheme. I had all the influence I needed to make people believe my adverse opinions, so I sought to shape the metagame for the better. The premise of my idea was if I said that restrictive Marshadow was bad a substantial amount of times, people would start to believe it.
It started off pretty innocently. Thimo and I made a deal to hate on idiotic Marshadow whenever possible to instill this belief. People would join the anything goes room and complain about how their lame Marshadow abusing opponents swept like three of their Pokémon and Thimo and I would reply with "Marshadow sucks" or "Marshadow's bad". Fardin and Purple tried to call us out on this sometimes, but Thimo and I stuck by it and that only made it believable to the majority of users within the room.
This chat warfare continued through the duration of OMPL. We'd use Arceus-Fairy on every team just to counter fking Marshadow. I hated the metagame so much but I struggled through it since I was hopeful my idea would work. Not much happened for a few months. Its usage had died down significantly but I was still very annoyed at what the metagame had become. All because of obnoxious Marshadow and its dumb Spectral Thief and Close Combat and Endeavor and Swagger and WHO AT GAME FREAK THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?!?!? I'M SO SIUC FEDFMKMKDAMSDL<ASL<
Back on track. A few months had passed and we'd made some real progress but it wasn't enough. Thimo had nominated Marshadow for A- and we had Megazard convinced to back us, so it passed. I didn't expect much to come of it other than possibly even less usage, but then a very unfortunate thing happened. Fardin was confident that we made a mistake. I panicked and consulted Thimo which led to this conversation.
Thimo had exams that week so I was forced to bullshit an essay up, and try to convince everyone that oafish Marshadow was actually bad. I thought I did a pretty good job at diverting attention, but apparently not well enough. Fardin called me out on my post and thimo was absolutely no help.
So I had to keep writing essays and dumb posts that I didn't believe in at all. Quantum and Fardin kept responding and I had had enough. I decided on a cheap way to avoid making any more replies by saying this.
I figured that I had successfully defended such a ludicrous point to the point of no return, but then Megazard, someone who had previously defended our loathsome Marshadow to A- stance called me out on Discord.
I felt betrayed. Thimo my ally in achieving a playable metagame wouldn't help and Megazard my co-roomowner of two years was calling me out over points I didn't even believe in. A lot of competent AG players were calling me out. Fortunately though, the rebuttals did stop. I was left alone with my stupid Marshadow arguments.
Something strange happened soon after however.
Even though Dusk Mane Necrozma had made its way onto every team and Gengar was seeing even more usage. Even though Fairy Arceus usage had dropped substantially due to those two things, people started to agree that numb Marshadow was more of an A- Pokémon. I finally felt as if I had achieved success.
The metagame seemed enjoyable again. I felt like laddering for the first time in months. The popular opinion was that Marshadow just wasn't the Pokémon people hoped it would be. The ladder felt great yet again, all until a week or so later......
This stupid dumb garbage oppressive Marshadow set was on every single mid-ladder team. I HAD FAILED. NO ONE HAD LISTENED TO ME, MY WHOLE STRATEGY FELL APART. The mid-ladder had invented a set, so powerful and flawless. It always took out a Pokémon, nothing was an issue for it. A small piece of me died on the 6th of January 2018. The day that I first saw Sash Endeavor thoughtless Marshadow, and the day that I decided to quit Pokémon.
I spent the next day crying to myself. I was leaving so many friends behind but at the same time, what I was most distraught about was how I had failed in such an extensive mission. I had failed to make the ladder a better place. I spent days just staring at my ceiling, crying my eyes out and eating neapolitan ice cream. My nights weren't much better. I'd have nightmares of all my boosts being stolen, of my gengars being pursuit trapped, of my ho-ohs being technician rock tombed, and of my ekillers being useless. I was in a very bad place. One night after dreaming about Life Orb Close Combats, I woke up beaten and bruised.
I slowly turned to alcoholism. It was so much easier to sleep through the night after downing a bottle of chardonnay. I was in a very very bad place. Marshadow had ruined my life. It was the Wednesday of the following week when I had an epiphany. What if I pretend to be trying out Marshadow, but use it horribly? Won't that convince people that that it's bad? I couldn't give up after so much hard work. I threw the bottle I was drinking against the wall and hopped on my computer.
Rapidly, I typed up my unquit post. I was determined to finish what I had started. After the liquor wore off, I started laddering. Much to my surprise, I was winning even when I was trying to lose. This trend kept continuing and I found myself the highest I'd been in the USUM meta. I needed to test this newfound god-like power I'd discovered, so I created an alt called whirlofdestruction and laddered on it. Surprisingly, I peaked at 2200 Elo with a 96 GXE. My whole bias had prevented me from doing so well in the metagame. I suddenly wished that I had abused it instead of trying to do good. On my main account, I successfully managed to lose versus a few skilled opponents but it took a lot of effort.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-693392240
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-693957276
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-682756251
Otherwise, I couldn't lose. People would accuse these alts I made of boosting since I never revealed my identity. I couldn't let people know it was me though. It would've ruined public perception of Marshadow. It's really difficult to try to lose though. Eventually I just gave up laddering on my main, since I knew I couldn't keep it up.The problems continue to ensue though. The metagame is way too easy for me now that I've lost interest yet again. I've come to the conclusion that there's no way to save my interest for this metagame other than to ban Marshadow, or at least the more broken sets like Sash Endeavor and Sash Swagger. These sets alone make the metagame so overcentralising for me. Sash Marshadow really should've been considered at Game Freak, who clearly doesn't care about how broken they're making their Pokémon. First Mega Banette, now this? Give me a break, Game Freak. At least Blizzard nerfed cubelock.
<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/2XskdWuNUyqElkKe4bm" width="480" height="269" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="
">via GIPHY</a></p>
Now that we are finally banning things in AG, I think it is time to bring attention to another sleeper threat in the Anything Goes metagame.
Behold, the horror that is OHKO MOVES! :shudders:
Obviously, it doesn't strike fear into opponents like Sash Marshadow does, but that is because they don't have time to be scared. In fact, there's no point of being scared anyway because when it hits, you're more or less fucked so you'll feel like this:
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/rdj.gif
Now this is not some random ass ladder game; this is the finals of major tour.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-704171439
☆isotonex: feel bad for ag
☆isotonex: its a shit tier
What should have been a perfectly safe play, going specially defensive Primal Groudon into Primal Kyogre, was skillfully taken advantage of with the ridiculously overpowered move that is Sheer Cold. Literally the only counter is sturdy, but most sturdy Pokemon will get destroyed by Kyogre's water attacks.
So yeah it might not be as good as Marshadow (aka: scarf ditto on crack, ekiller slayer, Chloe's worst nightmare, omnipotent godmon, the meta-game himself, lolwut switches into endeavor + spectral, etc. ), it definitely deserves a mention as we're moving forward.
(/s plz dont kill me fardin)
Behold, the horror that is OHKO MOVES! :shudders:
Obviously, it doesn't strike fear into opponents like Sash Marshadow does, but that is because they don't have time to be scared. In fact, there's no point of being scared anyway because when it hits, you're more or less fucked so you'll feel like this:
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/rdj.gif
Now this is not some random ass ladder game; this is the finals of major tour.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-704171439
☆isotonex: feel bad for ag
☆isotonex: its a shit tier
What should have been a perfectly safe play, going specially defensive Primal Groudon into Primal Kyogre, was skillfully taken advantage of with the ridiculously overpowered move that is Sheer Cold. Literally the only counter is sturdy, but most sturdy Pokemon will get destroyed by Kyogre's water attacks.
So yeah it might not be as good as Marshadow (aka: scarf ditto on crack, ekiller slayer, Chloe's worst nightmare, omnipotent godmon, the meta-game himself, lolwut switches into endeavor + spectral, etc. ), it definitely deserves a mention as we're moving forward.
(/s plz dont kill me fardin)
Last edited:
I’d like to advocate for putting Baton Pass in the Stategy section in the first post in this thread. We even have Moody in there. It’s a perfectly legitimate strategy that just doesn’t get the attention it needs, for the reason that it’s annoying.
[insert several paragraphs here to make this post more impressive]
[insert several paragraphs here to make this post more impressive]
SaturnZelda
formerly TylerWithNumbers
Chloe, the public image for AG is thriving due to this singular post.It takes a lot to admit this, but I really think we need to ban Marshadow. I've had this belief ever since it was introduced into the metagame. You have no idea how hard I tried to hide it. Today, I come to you, the AG community, hopeful that you'll hear me out and realise how much I tried to make the impossible possible. How difficult it was to cover it all up and how I tried my hardest to make this metagame the pinnacle of competitive Pokémon it deserves to be.
It all started a week after awful Marshadow was released. I was sick of losing to Sash Swagger painful Marshadow on the ladder. It really made the metagame feel broken and I didn't think it was fair at all. So I had an idea. An idea so clever that eventually I would fool myself into believing my brilliant scheme. I had all the influence I needed to make people believe my adverse opinions, so I sought to shape the metagame for the better. The premise of my idea was if I said that restrictive Marshadow was bad a substantial amount of times, people would start to believe it.
It started off pretty innocently. Thimo and I made a deal to hate on idiotic Marshadow whenever possible to instill this belief. People would join the anything goes room and complain about how their lame Marshadow abusing opponents swept like three of their Pokémon and Thimo and I would reply with "Marshadow sucks" or "Marshadow's bad". Fardin and Purple tried to call us out on this sometimes, but Thimo and I stuck by it and that only made it believable to the majority of users within the room.
This chat warfare continued through the duration of OMPL. We'd use Arceus-Fairy on every team just to counter fking Marshadow. I hated the metagame so much but I struggled through it since I was hopeful my idea would work. Not much happened for a few months. Its usage had died down significantly but I was still very annoyed at what the metagame had become. All because of obnoxious Marshadow and its dumb Spectral Thief and Close Combat and Endeavor and Swagger and WHO AT GAME FREAK THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?!?!? I'M SO SIUC FEDFMKMKDAMSDL<ASL<
Back on track. A few months had passed and we'd made some real progress but it wasn't enough. Thimo had nominated Marshadow for A- and we had Megazard convinced to back us, so it passed. I didn't expect much to come of it other than possibly even less usage, but then a very unfortunate thing happened. Fardin was confident that we made a mistake. I panicked and consulted Thimo which led to this conversation.
Thimo had exams that week so I was forced to bullshit an essay up, and try to convince everyone that oafish Marshadow was actually bad. I thought I did a pretty good job at diverting attention, but apparently not well enough. Fardin called me out on my post and thimo was absolutely no help.
So I had to keep writing essays and dumb posts that I didn't believe in at all. Quantum and Fardin kept responding and I had had enough. I decided on a cheap way to avoid making any more replies by saying this.
I figured that I had successfully defended such a ludicrous point to the point of no return, but then Megazard, someone who had previously defended our loathsome Marshadow to A- stance called me out on Discord.
I felt betrayed. Thimo my ally in achieving a playable metagame wouldn't help and Megazard my co-roomowner of two years was calling me out over points I didn't even believe in. A lot of competent AG players were calling me out. Fortunately though, the rebuttals did stop. I was left alone with my stupid Marshadow arguments.
Something strange happened soon after however.
Even though Dusk Mane Necrozma had made its way onto every team and Gengar was seeing even more usage. Even though Fairy Arceus usage had dropped substantially due to those two things, people started to agree that numb Marshadow was more of an A- Pokémon. I finally felt as if I had achieved success.
The metagame seemed enjoyable again. I felt like laddering for the first time in months. The popular opinion was that Marshadow just wasn't the Pokémon people hoped it would be. The ladder felt great yet again, all until a week or so later......
This stupid dumb garbage oppressive Marshadow set was on every single mid-ladder team. I HAD FAILED. NO ONE HAD LISTENED TO ME, MY WHOLE STRATEGY FELL APART. The mid-ladder had invented a set, so powerful and flawless. It always took out a Pokémon, nothing was an issue for it. A small piece of me died on the 6th of January 2018. The day that I first saw Sash Endeavor thoughtless Marshadow, and the day that I decided to quit Pokémon.
I spent the next day crying to myself. I was leaving so many friends behind but at the same time, what I was most distraught about was how I had failed in such an extensive mission. I had failed to make the ladder a better place. I spent days just staring at my ceiling, crying my eyes out and eating neapolitan ice cream. My nights weren't much better. I'd have nightmares of all my boosts being stolen, of my gengars being pursuit trapped, of my ho-ohs being technician rock tombed, and of my ekillers being useless. I was in a very bad place. One night after dreaming about Life Orb Close Combats, I woke up beaten and bruised.
I slowly turned to alcoholism. It was so much easier to sleep through the night after downing a bottle of chardonnay. I was in a very very bad place. Marshadow had ruined my life. It was the Wednesday of the following week when I had an epiphany. What if I pretend to be trying out Marshadow, but use it horribly? Won't that convince people that that it's bad? I couldn't give up after so much hard work. I threw the bottle I was drinking against the wall and hopped on my computer.
Rapidly, I typed up my unquit post. I was determined to finish what I had started. After the liquor wore off, I started laddering. Much to my surprise, I was winning even when I was trying to lose. This trend kept continuing and I found myself the highest I'd been in the USUM meta. I needed to test this newfound god-like power I'd discovered, so I created an alt called whirlofdestruction and laddered on it. Surprisingly, I peaked at 2200 Elo with a 96 GXE. My whole bias had prevented me from doing so well in the metagame. I suddenly wished that I had abused it instead of trying to do good. On my main account, I successfully managed to lose versus a few skilled opponents but it took a lot of effort.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-693392240
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-693957276
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-682756251
Otherwise, I couldn't lose. People would accuse these alts I made of boosting since I never revealed my identity. I couldn't let people know it was me though. It would've ruined public perception of Marshadow. It's really difficult to try to lose though. Eventually I just gave up laddering on my main, since I knew I couldn't keep it up.The problems continue to ensue though. The metagame is way too easy for me now that I've lost interest yet again. I've come to the conclusion that there's no way to save my interest for this metagame other than to ban Marshadow, or at least the more broken sets like Sash Endeavor and Sash Swagger. These sets alone make the metagame so overcentralising for me. Sash Marshadow really should've been considered at Game Freak, who clearly doesn't care about how broken they're making their Pokémon. First Mega Banette, now this? Give me a break, Game Freak. At least Blizzard nerfed cubelock.
Mega Ray + Zyg Balance:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/anything-goes-m-ray-zyg-balance-peaked-2100.3631898/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/anything-goes-m-ray-zyg-balance-peaked-2100.3631898/
This is the first time i post in this thread and the first time i try to post a sample team in AG. So i would like to post a team (or 2) as a sample team but i'm not that good at teambuilding so if someone Can help me to improve this, i will be grateful :)
https://pokepast.es/e7c776b3f157995b
https://pokepast.es/14c84c697a7d8f4e
https://pokepast.es/e7c776b3f157995b
https://pokepast.es/14c84c697a7d8f4e
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Hi everyone i found a great semistall offense team that gave me a good ratio of wins in anything goes on pokemon showdown of 5 to 0 so the mega sableye cripples physical attackers that arent immune to fire attacks like fire types and fake out break sashes and counters field setters and taunters lugia is a great switch in to primal groudon with toxic and recover will make you not vulnerable to precipace blades and you can whirlwind toxic cripple your opponents on ones that arent steel and poison types without worrying about taunts thanks to mega sableyes presence in your team and if your opponent use primal kyogre you can use toxapex as toxic spikes setter and thanks to its calm nature can survive the initial thunder and hazing away p kyogre stat boosts and you can periodically switch between toxapex and lugia and keep whirlwinding toxic shuffling your opponents team including p kyogre and p groudon recovering as much as needed and switching clefable for geoxerneas and do moon blast wish protect healbell if any member got burned or poisoned indirectly by attacks etc till clefable wins lots of opponents are catched off guard why xerneas isnt doing boosted damage or ohko unaware clefable XD then once you crippled or dismantled your opponent enough you can safely use recover bulky ekiller arceus to annihilate your opponent and depending on situation fairy arceus on the crippled mega ray and other dragons or dark types that ag metagame is composed alot of heres the record and the team feel free to share your variations or if you have suggestions to improve this semi stall offense team and i will be happy to check and modify this guide thank you all so much ^^
大僧正 (Clefable) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heal Bell
- Wish
- Protect
- Moonblast
永遠の生命 (Lugia) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Whirlwind
- Toxic
- Ice Beam
- Recover
至高神の裁き (Arceus-Fairy) @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Multitype
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 156 HP / 100 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Recover
- Defog
- Will-O-Wisp
闇魔導士 (Sableye-Mega) (F) @ Sablenite
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Careful Nature
- Foul Play
- Fake Out
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
君の悪夢 (Toxapex) (F) @ Wacan Berry
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Recover
- Haze
- Toxic Spikes
光神の裁き (Arceus) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Multitype
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Claw
- Recover
大僧正 (Clefable) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heal Bell
- Wish
- Protect
- Moonblast
永遠の生命 (Lugia) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Whirlwind
- Toxic
- Ice Beam
- Recover
至高神の裁き (Arceus-Fairy) @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Multitype
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 156 HP / 100 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Recover
- Defog
- Will-O-Wisp
闇魔導士 (Sableye-Mega) (F) @ Sablenite
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Careful Nature
- Foul Play
- Fake Out
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
君の悪夢 (Toxapex) (F) @ Wacan Berry
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Recover
- Haze
- Toxic Spikes
光神の裁き (Arceus) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Multitype
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Claw
- Recover
Attachments
How is Primal Groudon "the real prob" when Lugia can adequately check most sets, yet there are no Primal Kyogre checks on the entire team?
Unfortunately, palkia is legit trash. ur team still loses to pdon, except for palkia and lugia, both of which get clapped by mray. Clefable just rly isnt gonna work for u unless uve played AG for a while. I suggest running chansey. And also, not to be mean, but 8-0 isnt all that impressive, especially agaisnt low ladder. Make some changes, though, and u could have a rly hot team!