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I just played my first [Gen 9] Metronome Battle game, and my first impression of Gen 9 moves in practice is that Mortal Spin is actually pretty scary as a 100% accurate 100% poisoning multitarget physical move. Sheesh.
EDIT: Also I just realized Abomasite can be unbanned because of Snow Warning.
Ok Opportunist and Mirror Herb are fixed for real now. In other news, DaWob and I tested random targeting vs. Commanded Dondozo, and it does in fact have a chance to target the untouchable Tatsugiri.
Everybody thank pyuk for being fast af, looks like it's already up?
Next what I want to bring up: what are the thoughts on some of the new Items/Abilities that are a bit wacky, to say the least? This is not at all a "I think this Ability/Item should be banned" post, more just shouting out some new Abilities/Items that I think could be interesting.
Here's what I see immediately that interests me:
Abilities
- Ruin Abilities: Lowers either Atk, Def, SpA, or SpD of ALL other Pokemon on the field (even allies, I'd guess). Definitely worth messing around with for at least a little bit. - Orichalcum Pulse/Hadron Engine: Better Drought/Electric Surge respectively, boosting the user's Atk/SpA by 30% respectively while in that battle condition. This goes nicely with Protosynthesis/Quark Drive, which makes the user's highest stat 1.3x what it normally is, or 1.5x if Speed is the highest stat (worth it!!!) on the respective battle conditions, or when holding Booster Energy. - Good as Gold: Pokemon is immune to Status moves. Yeah, OK. On paper this might warrant a ban, let's find out - Mycelium Might: User's status moves always go last, but the moves are unaffected by Abilities. Wonder how this works with Metronome, but if I had to guess, it won't work how I wish it would. - Opportunist: When an opponent receives stat boosts, the user copies them. The held Item Mirror Herb shares this effect with it, but Mirror Herb is one-use. - Purifying Salt: Pokemon can't be given status effects. Also it takes half damage from Ghost moves because ????? - Thermal Exchange: +1 Atk when it by a Fire move, can't be burned. - Well-Baked Body: +2 Def when hit by a Fire move, immune to Fire moves.
Items - Mirror Herb (see Opportunist) - Clear Amulet: Prevents other Pokemon from lowering the holder's stat stages. Clear Body, the item. - Covert Cloak: Holder doesn't get affected by the secondary effects of other Pokemon's attacks. Shield Dust, the item.
Yup that's it for now, I'll update this post later after I've tested and had my fun. Have fun!
oh yeah, and Commander (Ability): If the ally of this Pokemon is Dondozo, the user (Tatsugiri) cannot use or be hit by moves; it can be targeted by moves selected by Metronome. Dondozo gets a +2 omniboost. (my preferred tatsu set has mirror herb since it can mirror opposing donzo's boosts, please can we get rid of this)
Hey, who wouldn't be a fan of fighting a passive Magic Guard Sturdinja that will dodge all your moves until you beat its 150/115/65 double omniboosted pal? Right? Right?
Some thoughts that might be terribly wrong so feel free to call me out: only counters for it are double Opportunist/Mental Herb or some Unaware shenanigans (maybe a mix of these?), yet you still gotta have enough HP and PPs for Tatsu if you manage to take down Dondozo. The latter, btw, seems to be going for Poison/Ghost teratype, with the first for status and the second for absolute PP stalling. Is it impossible to beat? No, this is metronome after all. Does it seem too centralizing? So far yes, but we are only a few hours into the ladder! While Unaware seems a little more specific, maybe Opportunist stays as a staple choice and after some experimenting Commander gets called out and enters on a less centralized rock-paper-scizors like with Blissposter-Stall-Offense on Gen8. Idk if banning it so fast is the way to go, but seems like it will be one of the heat topics of early ladder days no doubt.
Opportunist doesn't matter too much against an Unaware Dondozo, which already has really solid stats for Metronome. As long as everything on the field has Unaware, it's not feeling too fun.
also i'm realizing that atm a lot of the fun new things i looked at aren't actually THAT good yet lul
Yeah Commander's pretty absurd rn. Unaware lets you beat Mirror Herb, Opportunist, and opposing Dondozo. Poison Tera prevents Poisoning and Leppa makes up for your low damage output vs Unaware, though Ghost/Fire Tera and Covert Cloak are all good options as well. Tatsugiri-Droopy is used over base for the Defense boost on Order Up, though base might be better for non-Leppa.
Some thoughts that might be terribly wrong so feel free to call me out: only counters for it are double Opportunist/Mental Herb or some Unaware shenanigans (maybe a mix of these?), yet you still gotta have enough HP and PPs for Tatsu if you manage to take down Dondozo.
If the Dondozo is Unaware, which it should be, the only way to win semi-consistently is with your own Unaware mons or with some Mold Breaker + Mirror Herb cteam that loses to everything else. Even then, Dondozo's stats aren't bad for Metronome to begin with, and both of your mons are at half firepower because of the 50% chance to target Tatsu, so getting through it and having enough PP to beat Tatsu afterwards is still no easy feat. In other words, even in its worst matchups, Commander still has decent odds to come out on top. Right now, you either run Unaware Dozo to shit on everything not running Unaware, run a pair of stronger Unaware mons to be slightly favoured into Dozo and beat Opportunist/Weakness Policy/Defiant/Competitive, or run other old school staples like Flower Veil or Fluffy to beat dual Unaware but lose horribly to Dozo. It's way too centralizing to be healthy, easy quickban imo.
Once Commander's gone, I think this is going to be the best SV mon in the meta, its stats are MADE for Metronome and its typing gives it STAB against the most common Tera types. The sets here are just standard WP tanks with Unaware to beat Dondozo and Opportunist (Tera whichever gets a WP proc first unless you know you're facing opposing double Unaware, in which case you just Tera either immediately), but once Commander's banned and the format hopefully starts to diversify (though I wouldn't be surprised if the meta post-Commander is just Fluffy/FVeil beats Unaware beats Opportunist), this thing can run just about any set well. Tera adds a lot of cool options to this mon and to Metronome in general, like Tera Grass Ting-Lu on a Flower Veil squad.
Edit: Just peaked ladder as the first to reach 1400 by using these two squads, plus the occasional Unaware Banded MHeras yesterday when I was running into a lot of Unaware Dozo. Please steal them, they're legit (and I want to see more Cup Deer users).
Might be a little too good lol. Allows easy PP stall since Tatsugiri keeps all 16 PP until Dondozo is KO'd and with Clear Amulet+Unaware it's hard to breakthrough/KO Dondozo as well.
Lemme know when it's banned
As for counterplay, basically just Mold Breaker teams to hit through Unaware.
Adding support to banning Tatsugiri x Dondozo (which FTR I think should be done via banning the ability Commander). The Unaware set is unbreakable 90% of the time making it an extremely consistent PP stalling strategy.
Yes, this took only 4 games against Dondozo + Commander Tatsugiri to achieve! Arguably the key is to use only mons that hit hard on both sides in order to waste as few turns as possible - I had similar results last night with Enamorus-T instead of Venusaur-Mega.
Sadly, Mirror Herb + Weakness Policy Unaware is better in the open meta.
I tried a Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Enamorus-T + Choice Band Sword of Ruin Tera Ghost Landorus-T team in the earliest stages of the Gen 9 Metronome ladder - it performs quite well against everyone but Dondozo + Commander Tatsugiri due to having double mostly free Life Orbs on both mons at first that recedes to worse Intrepid Sword + Intrepid Sword parallel instead of receding to nothing (a la double Power Spot) when one of my mons is KOd.
Yes, I also support banning Commander. It invalidates far too many teams, and I feel like I'm stuck running double Unaware right now for the most consistent results. (Opportunist against my omniboost results in both my and the opposing mon no better off than before, while Unaware lets me take advantage of my own omniboost.)
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On another note, I like how Ghost Terastal enables several mons with well-rounded stats but at least one horrific weakness (e.g. the Tyranitar in my replays, Landorus-T, Salamence, Dragonite) and fortuitously-for-the-meta fails to work on Megas (e.g. Camerupt-Mega, Abomasnow-Mega).
Mold Breaker Mirror Herb Dondozo does worse at beating Unaware Leppa Dondozo than Unaware Leppa. It doesn’t stop Unaware from ignoring your defensive boosts, so you’re still getting attacked x2 to x1. Meanwhile, you’re not ignoring defensive boosts yourself so you’re only attacking x3 to x2, or x1.5 to x1. The only anti-ability strat that can actually work in your favor is Dondozo with Wandering Spirit Protective Pads which can steal the opponent’s Unaware and not give it back, and then that loses to Unaware Ability Shield. Speaking of, I checked in-game and Ability Shield actually protects against Mold Breaker too.
On another note, I like how Ghost Terastal enables several mons with well-rounded stats but at least one horrific weakness (e.g. the Tyranitar in my replays, Landorus-T, Salamence, Dragonite) and fortuitously-for-the-meta fails to work on Megas (e.g. Camerupt-Mega, Abomasnow-Mega).
- Mycelium Might: User's status moves always go last, but the moves are unaffected by Abilities. Wonder how this works with Metronome, but if I had to guess, it won't work how I wish it would.
Normally I'd test this out more myself but a brief play session yesterday and the general oversaturation of this strategy indicate that this is pretty nuts. The fact that the other 'mon isn't a waste of space and actually gets to stall and maintain PP the entire time really pushes this over the edge. To keep the early meta hype going, I've submitted a PR to get Commander banned ASAP. pyuk
Normally I'd test this out more myself but a brief play session yesterday and the general oversaturation of this strategy indicate that this is pretty nuts. The fact that the other 'mon isn't a waste of space and actually gets to stall and maintain PP the entire time really pushes this over the edge. To keep the early meta hype going, I've submitted a PR to get Commander banned ASAP. pyuk
it's a meme where he is running trace and ability shield, trace tries to copy an ability, and the item ability shield prevents your ability from changing, so then it tries to copy the other mon, fails, and then tries again the next turn.
FYI what's supposed to happen is that Trace immediately gives up (even if you subsequently lose the Ability Shield, it won't activate until you next switch in). There's a fix in the works.
I didn't realize this at first, but there is actually a way that nerfed Protean and Libero can still be used to turn into a random non-Normal type, and that is to be pure Normal already so that Protean doesn't first activate on Metronome itself, or the Normal moves it calls so you can keep your opponent in suspense. This can give you a big STAB hit if you get lucky and can even become Steel-type in the most ideal scenario, though it didn't really matter much in the end. I tried this with Porygon2 and Type: Null as they have a valuable niche of Eviolite tanking regardless of type.
I've been playing metronome on and off for years and i finally made a smogon account. Anyways i think metro this gen is great but until tatsu+dozo get banned i feel like there's no reason not to run double unaware on everything. From my experience it's the closest thing to consistency in that matchup + it covers random opportunist teams as well. I've had success with double unaware skeledirge and double unaware ting lu (my fav atm) but any decently strong bulky mon w unaware works. In terms of tera i've been experimenting with different types but ghost and fairy are what i use most, tho i tera ghost turn 1 like 95% of the time. Tera poison is also useful to dodge sludge bomb poisons and stuff
