Format Discussion Metronome Battle

Been having a lot of fun on the ladder this gen, abilities like opportunist are really cool but ive been having the most luck with unaware mons. The classic double Ting-Lu strat is probably my favourite so far, getting me to the highest i've been on the ladder.
The player 'Doowadoo' is actually my alt where i test ideas and combos before going on my main of Pharnapus and im very suprised to see it this high up as well lmao, probably speaks to the strongness of unaware in this meta
Other than that, screw mortal spin as a move, shit is busted with its guaranteed double poisoning. at least its not badly poison but still sucks big time when you have to just watch your mons slowly die, so much that ive even started using pecha berry every now and then to combat it
2022-12-01 (2).png
 
I've noticed some funny things in the Gen 9 Metronome meta compared to the Gen 8 one:
  • Due to Opportunist (being pretty darn common), Intrepid Sword, Dauntless Shield, Download, Defiant, and Competitive have gone way down (at least in my experience). Not so coincidentally, Intimidate has gone at least slightly up. The Ruin series of abilities are at least sometimes used as substitutes (I might be the most fond of them).
  • Weakness Policy is/feels too easily exploited by opposing Opportunist mons too often, to the point where I feel that Weakness Policy is viable only on Unaware mons and is risky on all others (e.g. support Venusaur-Mega sets such as Flower Veil, Power Spot, or Friend Guard).
  • As a result of Weakness Policy being exploited too often, I've been having a harder time making Fluffy work. Even double Weakness Policy Unaware had longer win streaks for me. (Granted, maybe I should go back to double Fluffy Hydreigon instead of trying to make Fluffy Skeledirge work.)
 
Happy December! Metronome Battle now has a new home on the right side of the formats menu. What else will the future of Metronome Battles bring? No one truly knows.

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To end off the year of 2022, the final usage stats for Gen 8 and the first usage stats for Gen 9 are out, though both are incomplete in their own ways (Gen 8 lasted until November 25) so I won't really go into detail on those.

For Gen 8, 39935 games were played and for Gen 9, 19980 games were played in the span of a week.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2022-11/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2022-11/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt

1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Heracross (#2) :heracross-mega:
#2: Mega Slowbro (#5) :slowbro-mega:
#3: Mega Venusaur (#1) :venusaur-mega:
#4: Dusclops (#8) :dusclops:
#5: Blissey (#3) :blissey:
#6: Mega Sableye (no change) :sableye-mega:
#7: Necturna (#4) :necturna:
#8: Mew (#12) :mew:
#9: Mega Gengar (no change) :gengar-mega:
#10: Glastrier (no change) :glastrier:

In the end, Mega Venusaur ended up dethroned and overtaken by both Heracross and Slowbro once again, with Slowbro making an upset with 1320 uses in between Heracross's 8328 and Venusaur's 6995. Technically Tatsugiri and Dondozo are here but they only got 40 uses altogether. There are quite a few dark horses with uses in the hundreds among the thousands, but I want to highlight Marowak-Alola in #15 with 458 uses.

The Gen 9 stats are notably tainted by Commander and I don't think it lasted long enough for the 1630 stats to really mean anything other than massively weighting more towards Dondozo and Tatsugiri, so I'll just show raw unweighted stats for now as a preview.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2022-11/gen9metronomebattle-0.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2022-11/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-0.txt

Raw top 10:
#1: Dondozo (7117) :dondozo:
#2: Tatsugiri (6432) :tatsugiri:
#3: Mega Heracross (3780) :heracross-mega:
#4: Mega Venusaur (3445) :venusaur-mega:
#5: Annihilape (1812) :annihilape:
#6: Blissey (1600) :blissey:
#7: Mega Gengar (1554) :gengar-mega:
#8: Mega Sableye (1544) :sableye-mega:
#9: Baxcalibur (1539) :baxcalibur:
#10: Iron Valiant (1537) :iron valiant:

Ting-Lu, Hisuian Zoroark, and Mega Ampharos make up the last of the 1000+ uses club. I feel like Annihilape's placing is partly due to alphabet bias. Dondozo and Tatsugiri have a viability ceiling of 70. For some reason Heracross has --- weight and 0 ceiling, and Opportunist is indeed managing to place as the highest ability on many mons offensive and defensive alike. It might be new toy syndrome but it goes to show just how splashable it is to give you an advantage, and it's even being stacked with Mirror Herb to double up on a one time boost, which isn't that bad as every statboost but speed alone will probably end up in your favour. It really goes up there with Magic Bounce as an ability taking advantage of the opponent's move and using that for momentum, and the fact that both enemies can copy boosts from one mon can quickly lead to a big snowball.

Since it's December, I think it's fitting to go over the new snow weather here for those who weren't aware of its changing in Gen 9.
Snow replaces Hail as the ice weather, affecting the same moves and abilities (Slush Rush, Snow Cloak) but boosts Ice type Defence by 1.5x instead of dealing chip damage. Snow is not callable by any Metronome moves, so the only way to see it is via Snow Warning set at the start of the battle or manually via mega evolving Abomasnow, so you can regenerate Ice Face once if you want. There's not much else to say about Snow, but its defence boost is at least an invisible form of support, which is a niche that can be appreciated in these times of opportunists taking hold of the meta with visible stat boost inflation, which ties into my motivation behind this new team I made that has nothing to do with snow.

way of the future (Ampharos-Mega) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Hadron Engine
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

BIG MODE (Iron Hands) @ Choice Band
Ability: Galvanize
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

The idea and gameplan for this team is to stack various invisible multipliers to do a lot of damage and ideally defeat the Opportunists fast enough before they start opportuning. The way of the future is to set Electric Terrain and boost your own Special Attack with Hadron Engine. Technically this setter doesn't need to be Mega Ampharos or an Electric type, but it works well enough with stats to spare and the potential STAB is nice. On the other hand, Iron Hands notably has the highest HP (154) and Attack (140) of Electric-types and is canonically powered up by Electric Terrain, so it works well enough to take advantage of physical Normal moves with Galvanize. With the 2x Tera super STAB boost and Electric Terrain, Electric moves get a 2.6x damage multiplier and Normal moves get to 3.12x with Galvanize on top of that. It also retains its former Fighting STAB for what it's worth. In practice I was pretty impressed with its ability to take recoil damage and the HP made up for the lower Special Defence, though friendly fire can still be a problem. The low Special Attack is a notable weak point that a more balanced mon like a UFO might be better at, but it can still hit hard with Electric moves. 50 Speed is actually enough to outspeed some of the slower mons in the meta like Mega Ampharos itself. I think for future teams I will put dedicated tera mons in the first slot so it's harder to miss the button, but it hasn't affected me that much so far.

252+ Atk Choice Band Galvanize Tera-Electric Iron Hands Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Mew in Electric Terrain: 374-442 (92.5 - 109.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Tera-Electric Iron Hands Thunder vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Mew in Electric Terrain: 136-162 (33.6 - 40%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

This kind of Galvanize stacking team was possible in Gen 8 with Electric Surge, but Electric resistances were common with not much weaknesses to hit, while I preferred Pixilate to hit the more common Fighting and Dark types super effectively. Now the offensive power of Terastallization can synergize with the -ate abilities, and Electric is the only -ate type that has an extra boost so Electric's resistances will at least get hit harder than a neutral Normal hit now. Fairy Aura and Power Spot are similar powerups but are only as good as long as their user is alive, while both mons can stand on their own here. In practice you still need to roll strong enough moves to win, but now there are more moves you can hope for a kill with. Ground types are still an issue on offense and defense, but there are a lot of neutral targets to hit and Ghosts are more targetable for it. There are also a handful of ways that terrain can go down now, so there are a lot of times it fizzles out but it's pretty funny when it works. With Electric Terrain up this team is also immune to turn loss from both sleep and paralysis, which has pros and some cons.

There are many other possible options for these mons, but this is the team I settled on. The Electric Terrain setter can have Terrain Extender for more uptime, but I opted for Choice items for more raw power and self sufficiency, as without dynamax to stall out passive damage it can be harder to come back from a 1v2. You could also mega evolve Ampharos manually for Mold Breaker to have another ability after Electric Terrain goes down, though it doesn't really affect the Opportunist matchups. Quark Drive is another option to stack raw Attack instead of having more common STAB to take advantage of, and Booster Energy can be used to make it permanent while not losing the ability to use multi turn moves, or even just an Electric boosting item to go all in. Being able to stack boosts and Choice Band applying on all physical moves is part of the power of the set though. Also Electric Seed exists but would probably just make it worse off against Opportunists.

Here are some highlights:
the pachirisu struggle
Thunder and Explosion
Terrain Pulse
Focus Sash Reversal
Explosion
Tera Blast
Galvanize OHKOing Zoroarks
Big Volt Tackle on Dondozo
Heracross just killing me with Tectonic Rage and High Horsepower
vs. Quark Drives
big Opportunist
Breaking Avalugg
Strong burst comeback
Rising Voltage
relevant Tar Shot
recoil and friendly fire
Defog into terrain into terrain
Return of Terrain + Rising Voltage - the close ending

Overall I feel like Gen 9 is starting off pretty differently from Gen 8 with the new common threats of anyone becoming a ghost and/or a bulky statboost archetype, with offense and passive damage also being stronger without the safety net of dynamax, and I'm pretty interested in seeing how it will play out.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1602126343184912385
I don't think this is implemented yet, but I'd like to point out Pickup + Focus Sash Shedinja and Pickup + Jaboca/Rowap Berry in advance so that they don't take over the ladder for a week before they're banned. As far as less broken applications go, Pickup with Kee Berry or WP could be really funny except for the part where ladder is like 50% Opportunist and 20% Unaware rn.
 
Tapler said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1602126343184912385
I don't think this is implemented yet, but I'd like to point out Pickup + Focus Sash Shedinja and Pickup + Jaboca/Rowap Berry in advance so that they don't take over the ladder for a week before they're banned. As far as less broken applications go, Pickup with Kee Berry or WP could be really funny except for the part where ladder is like 50% Opportunist and 20% Unaware rn.
Click to expand...
It seems like Cud Chew keeps getting outclassed. At least Pickup Sash Shedinja has the common downside of being able to die if double targeted since the Sash isn't restored until the end of the turn. Pickup Jaboca/Rowap basically does become a more consistent version of the banned Harvest strategy with both mons being able to sustain it instead of only one being in play at a time, until you pick up something else to break the chain. If Pickup + Jaboca/Rowap is banned then I imagine you could still do the poor man's version by having a Pickup partner without an item to start, which is pretty similar to how it is now but would only end up on one mon instead of going back and forth. This is bringing me back to Symbiosis Harvest and other convoluted strategies of which Pickup once was.

As for stat buffs in this meta, Pickup Terrain Seeds could also give some consistent +5 defense increases in the same vein though not really doing much else with dedicating your whole team to it. I guess you could go Terrain Extender for +6 too.

EDIT: Personally I was fine with Harvest Rowap/Jaboca but again it sounds like Pickup does the most consistent job for it now anyway.
 
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Yeah I don’t think it’s worth using any kind of stat-boosting strat that can’t beat either Unaware or Opportunist. Using both your item and ability slots to slowly build up stat boosts that are getting ignored or copied is just not worth the creativity. In fact, I really think Opportunist deserves a ban. It has single-handedly taken over the entire stat-boosting niche of the meta’s ecosystem and left only scraps for teams that are willing to run things like Mummy. Any and all ideas for ways to build boosts get swallowed up by the Opportunist and Unaware black hole unless they can sacrifice slots for Mummy or Mold Breaker, and O&U can respond with Ability Shields. There are certainly other avenues to explore beyond stat boosting entirely like Plus/Minus, Hadron Engine, and Ruin stacking—except that actually identical Ruin abilities aren’t supposed to stack and PS has had that wrong this whole time. However, I don’t like the absolute death grip that Opportunist has over the right of any team to run Weakness Policy (or any other stat boosting besides Mirror Herb) without Unaware, and I think it needs to step aside and make some room for creativity.
 
I definitely agree that Opportunist is starting to get uncompetitive. It almost completely invalidates the effects of Weakness Policy, and heavily dissuades the usage of any stat-boosting strategy, such as Intrepid Sword, Download, Anger Shell?, and any terrain seeds. If we look at the usage stats from the first couple weeks of Gen 9, all of the top 10 most used Pokemon outside of Tatsugiri and Blissey have Opportunist in their top 2 most used abilities, with 21% usage on Dondozo, 33% usage on Mega-Heracross, 36% usage on Mega-Venusaur, 18% usage on Annihilape, 21% usage on Mega-Gengar, 22% usage on Mega-Sableye, 42%! usage on Baxcalibur, and 35% usage on Iron Valient. This is clearly demonstrative of the restrictiveness of Opportunist, as it is almost always the best and most used ability for any Pokemon. I am 100% in favor of either a suspect test or quickban.
 
jeffdaboss said:
I definitely agree that Opportunist is starting to get uncompetitive. It almost completely invalidates the effects of Weakness Policy, and heavily dissuades the usage of any stat-boosting strategy, such as Intrepid Sword, Download, Anger Shell?, and any terrain seeds. If we look at the usage stats from the first couple weeks of Gen 9, all of the top 10 most used Pokemon outside of Tatsugiri and Blissey have Opportunist in their top 2 most used abilities, with 21% usage on Dondozo, 33% usage on Mega-Heracross, 36% usage on Mega-Venusaur, 18% usage on Annihilape, 21% usage on Mega-Gengar, 22% usage on Mega-Sableye, 42%! usage on Baxcalibur, and 35% usage on Iron Valient. This is clearly demonstrative of the restrictiveness of Opportunist, as it is almost always the best and most used ability for any Pokemon. I am 100% in favor of either a suspect test or quickban.
Click to expand...
At the least the usage from the first week probably revolved around the dominance of Commander, though I would definitely believe that it is a pretty common pick in general even now. Even though the ideal Unaware Dondozo would not care about Opportunist, it still leaves a lasting impression when it activates visually and probably spread around quickly because of that. I do agree personally that it is in a very strong position right now and its impact is on another level, potentially going even beyond Neutralizing Gas in shutting down certain paths to victory by making them neutral and rather power creeping them out of the meta instead by making them a negative.

Unlike Magic Bounce only reflecting the same move debuffs targeted at it, Opportunist can copy boosts from abilities and items on top of moves, which are the major drivers of the bulky statboost archetypes, and can always trigger on both mons, so at best you can't get ahead of the enemy and at worst both your mons are making both of them stronger at the same time while weaker individually. Even Unaware has the tradeoff of debuffs being ignored while Opportunist is a pure positive. The enemy getting momentum from your own buffs gives them a large advantage when your goal is aiming to do enough damage or build up/debuff to that point to win, so Opportunist ends up with multiple win conditions that also take away from the enemy's own goals.

EDIT: Also the Opportunist can also run Clear Amulet so it can't lose its boosts to make both buffing and debuffing harder on the opponent.
 
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I've been using double Volcanion a lot lately to decent success. Volcanion has always been one of my favorite mons in metronome because of it's solid bulk and mixed offenses. There are definitely better mons to use than Volc, but I like him so I use him.

Volcanion @ Choice Specs
Ability: Tinted Lens
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

Volcanion @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

I've experimented with many different abilities and it's really just up to personal preference. I like Specs Tinted Lens + Power Spot so I can potentially fire off unresisted nukes, and with Tera Fire if you roll a Fire move the opposing mon will most likely die or take a stupid amount of damage. The Tera type on Volcanion #2 doesn't matter much but Ghost is the best defensive option if you decide not to Tera the first one. Instead of running Power Spot you can also just run another Volc with Tinted Lens but like I said earlier, it's just personal preference.
 
Ello folks.

I'm trying out a new team of Galarian Corsola and Scream Tail

:Corsola-Galar: :Eviolite:
Ability: Opportunist
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

:Scream Tail: :Choice Band:
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Metronome

I don't terastilize Corsola at all - so I just went with Fire. Opportunist is a way for it to deal meaningful damage and be even more annoying than before. Scream Tail - in spite of having 65 base attacking stats - is stupid with a Choice Band. The damage isn't too noticable, however, with Good as Gold in its arsenal, it can't be statused either. The dual Ghost combo thanks to the tera type of Scream Tail is good in general and doesn't need an explaination.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1755394519 <- funny game

https://pokepast.es/0c0bef92d2bc940d <- team paste

That's all I got for now. See you next time everyone

Edit: Scream Tail has near equal bulk to Eviolite Gorsola wtf
 
Markings 7 said:
Ello folks.

I'm trying out a new team of Galarian Corsola and Scream Tail

:Corsola-Galar: :Eviolite:
Ability: Opportunist
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

:Scream Tail: :Choice Band:
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Metronome

I don't terastilize Corsola at all - so I just went with Fire. Opportunist is a way for it to deal meaningful damage and be even more annoying than before. Scream Tail - in spite of having 65 base attacking stats - is stupid with a Choice Band. The damage isn't too noticable, however, with Good as Gold in its arsenal, it can't be statused either. The dual Ghost combo thanks to the tera type of Scream Tail is good in general and doesn't need an explaination.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1755394519 <- funny game

https://pokepast.es/0c0bef92d2bc940d <- team paste

That's all I got for now. See you next time everyone

Edit: Scream Tail has near equal bulk to Eviolite Gorsola wtf
Click to expand...
252+ Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Eviolite Dusclops: 76-90 (26.7 - 31.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

252+ Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Eviolite Corsola-Galar: 90-106 (27.7 - 32.7%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Dusclops outclasses Corsola-Galar as a bulky Eviolite user. Unless you just really like how it looks or you have some nickname joke that requires it, there’s no reason to use Corsola-Galar over Dusclops. The 5 extra SpA isn’t worth 15 less Atk, and less speed is generally considered preferable for a Pokémon this slow since it improves your chances of winning a Perish Song tiebreaker.

As for Scream Tail, I’m not really sure how it compares to Cresselia, which is better in every single stat except Speed. It’s very hard to determine the value of speed in Metronome Battle. Obviously moving first has the benefit of letting you end battles with attacks before your opponent can which is most important to highly offensive Pokemon that aim to end battles in just a few turns. It also lets you get defensive moves like Charm, Cosmic Power, Worry Seed, and Knock Off sooner, and gives you first crack at potentially making your opponent lose turns to sleep, paralysis, or even flinches. However, being slower also comes with its own advantages besides winning from Perish Song. It lets you take more of your actions while benefiting from buffs gained from your opponent via effects such as Opportunist, Weakness Policy, Magic Bounce, Pickpocket, and Defiant. Of course, your Scream Tail isn’t using any of those, but neither is it making much use of extra turns with those weak offenses. There’s also the extra Fairy STAB, but again Scream Tail doesn’t hit hard enough for that to really matter, and there are barely any Fairy moves to be rolled in Metronome anyway. At least as far as a Tera-using Good As Gold set goes, I consider it a toss-up between Cresselia and Scream Tail.

On that note, it’s worth mentioning that Scream Tail’s pre-Tera type is better than Cresselia’s in case you actually did want to Tera your other Pokémon, and for a Ghost type that you don’t usually intend to Terastallize, I would recommend either Dark, Poison, or Ground in no particular order. Dark gives you immunity to Prankster if you happen to encounter someone on the ladder that you know is using it, Poison does the same for Poison Point, Poison Touch, and Effect Spore which are collectively more common than Flame Body, and Ground can help you beat Hadron Engine + Galvanize.


Markings 7 said:
It could be cuz you reflect something, activate Defaint - and activate Opportunist (which no one likes)
Click to expand...
Reflecting things and activating Defiant would have been a valid concern in Gen 8, but nowadays nobody runs Defiant because Opportunist eats it alive, and in this particular team’s case activating a foe’s Defiant or bouncing a Swagger would activate the ally’s own Opportunist, not the opponent’s, so Magic Bounce definitely seems like the better ability here. That said, Good as Gold does protect against a few moves that Magic Bounce can’t, including Trick, Skill Swap, and importantly Perish Song.
 
Heya, been playing around with several teams on ladder so far and I just wanted to say that I support an Oppertunist suspect at this time. This is a metagame that, in my experience, revolves almost entirely around either inflicting poisoning (regular or severe) and burning the opponent, as well as getting the right boosts and summoning the moves that match to power through opponents. The ability to essentially take away your opponents advatage of having stat boosts is absurd, and in my opinion, should not be legal in the format.
 
I am for a suspect of opportunist. I have seen it played on all types of pokemon, at all elo in about half my games. It restricts creativity because not playing it is a clear disadvantage. It is so good that a lot of players don't bother pairing it with magic bounce but just play double opportunist. It removes the fun of this meta because you know what you are facing and just hope you don't get swept after you boost yourself. Worst thing I faced was opportunist with mirror herb. After one boost on my part I faced 2 overboosted pokemon. Please ban this
 
Happy new year! This marks the first full set of usage stats for Gen 9 Metronome Battles since the Commander ban, so we can see what's going on in the meta by large.

The battle count stacks up to a solid 85280, peaking with a new generation.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2022-12/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2022-12/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt

1630 Top 10 + last positions from Gen 8's final November stats:
#1: Ting-Lu (new) :ting-lu:
#2: Glastrier (#10) :glastrier:
#3: Mega Venusaur (no change) :venusaur-mega:
#4: Iron Hands (new) :iron hands:
#5: Mega Heracross (#1) :heracross-mega:
#6: Mega Ampharos (#11) :ampharos-mega:
#7: Diancie (#130) :diancie:
#8: Mega Gengar (#9) :gengar-mega:
#9: Dusclops (#4) :dusclops:
#10: Hisuian Zoroark (#17)

Overall we're already seeing some pretty large shakeups compared to the end of Gen 8 as the shape of the meta starts to unfold with the typical statboost builds being upended by a new threat. Despite maintaining their top raw usages, Mega Heracross and Venusaur lose out on #1 and #2 to Ting-Lu and Glastrier's bulky stat spreads. Speaking of bulk, Iron Hands sneaks into 4th as another new Gen 9 contender, while Diancie goes from #130 to #7 to make the largest jump into the top 10 ever with an upsurge in both raw usage (3983) and success. Hisuian Zoroark also sneaks back into the top 10 with its sheer raw usage (3rd place and above 10k), though it doesn't have a minisprite for me to put here. Dark horses of the month include Mega Houndoom at #12 (435 uses), Chandelure at #27 (295), Mega Audino at #28 (878), Latias at #30 (175), and Shaymin at #32 (164), while the worst performing mon relative to usage is Sirfetch'd in #811 despite 1231 uses. At this point the ladder might not have the same development as Gen 8 so the 1630 weighting might be going off more sparse data than usual and the raw usage may be more representative of what you'll typically see, but the 1500 stats are also pretty much just arranged by raw usage so I just went with 1630 to be consistent and we'll see how it develops from here.

Over on the moveset side, taking a look at the raw usage (https://www.smogon.com/stats/2022-12/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-0.txt) reveals that Opportunist is among the top picks on almost every pokemon, and Mirror Herb is becoming a common item slot as well. This is a little less visible in the 1630 stats with the high rating weighting leading to things like Poison Touch being in the lead for Heracross, so I wanted to point this out because it's one of the most common abilities you will likely see in a battle. Ting-Lu is managing to stay high with Unaware usage and is one of the few mons that's doing so right now along with Mega Slowbro. Good as Gold also has its fair share of usage even competing with Magic Bounce. Most of the dark horses are just running Opportunist for success, though Shaymin and Audino have Ice Scales and mainly Mirror Herb/Weakness Policy respectively. For some other non-Opportunist picks, 1630 Glastrier has Magic Guard in the lead, Dusclops has Friend Guard and Orichalcum Pulse going on, and Hisuian Zoroark has Mummy. About Diancie, in 1630 usage it has mainly Magic Bounce/Good as Gold usage with its item slot scattered around Scope Lens/Covert Cloak/Bright Powder/Clear Amulet.

The viability ceilings (highest GXE of a player that used the pokemon) for this month are pretty low compared to past stats, which makes sense when having to start building up ladder rating mostly from scratch. Ting-Lu and Chandelure (pure double Specs Opportunist) take the lead at 76, followed by Iron Valiant, Dusclops, Type: Null, and Hisuian Arcanine at 73, and Glastrier, Diancie, Snorlax, and Mega Houndoom at 72.

EDIT: On a final note, I assume Diancie's rise compared to Gen 8 is helped by being able to tera into a less vulnerable type, but tera types aren't marked in these stats, so there's not much to say for now without actually fighting it and seeing what it does.
 
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I'm definitely in favour of an Opportunist suspect, it's just so potent into strategies not built specifically to counter it that the format becomes a rock paper scissors of Opportunist < Unaware < some other formerly top tier abils < Opportunist. While this isn't objectively a bad thing, a format with already-rigid teambuilding like Metronome becomes a lot less interesting when the meta is so centralized.

doipy hooves said:
The viability ceilings (highest GXE of a player that used the pokemon) for this month are pretty low compared to past stats, which makes sense when having to start building up ladder rating mostly from scratch. Ting-Lu and Chandelure (pure double Specs Opportunist) take the lead at 76, followed by Iron Valiant, Dusclops, Type: Null, and Hisuian Arcanine at 73, and Glastrier, Diancie, Snorlax, and Mega Houndoom at 72.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure the Ting-Lu/Chandelure is me, and yeah don't run dual Chandelures it's bad, I just didn't realize Trick House didn't accept Metronome matches at the time lmao. Ting-Lu's popping off though, and deservedly so, it's definitely the best Unaware + WP abuser right now. As a tip for playing double Unaware, you don't have to Tera immediately; It's often optimal to wait to Tera whichever gets its WP proc first, since that leaves you with more weaknesses that can activate it. You can also use it reactively to protect whichever of your mons is getting low first, or to stop a multi-turn move you become immune to via Tera. If you suspect your opponents are Unaware too, or you've gotten a wincon like Perish Song or Mortal Spin off, then you Tera early.
 
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Who the hell was running Mummy on Hisuian Zoroark?! I thought I was the only one using Mummy, and I ran it on Type: Null. Zoroark-Hisui is, like… the exact opposite of the kind of Pokémon you would want to run Mummy on. It has three immunities, so all those Normal, Fighting, and Ghost contact moves (did you know most Ghost attacks make contact? I didn’t) can’t activate Mummy and every other type does massive damage because it has the bulk of a wet noodle. I honestly have to wonder if the stats are even accurate there, or if Mummy’s effect to spread itself around is messing with them somehow.
 
Don't know if it is a timezone problem or what but I can't find any opponent with 1300 elo or more. I am trying to get to 1400 but facing low rated players makes it nearly impossible (-40 for a loss and +10 for a win). The fact I face a lot of opportunist pokemon doesn't help my defant mega-heracross/competitive mega-ampharos team either.
 
BanStallPokemon said:
Don't know if it is a timezone problem or what but I can't find any opponent with 1300 elo or more. I am trying to get to 1400 but facing low rated players makes it nearly impossible (-40 for a loss and +10 for a win). The fact I face a lot of opportunist pokemon doesn't help my defant mega-heracross/competitive mega-ampharos team either.
Click to expand...

Opportunist countermeasure is simple, use Opportunist mons you too.

Let's use Opportunist Mega Heracross and Opportunist Mega Ampharos.
 
I agree that something needs to be done with Opportunist. Not only are the majority of teams using it but I feel like the only real viable ways to deal with it are things like Unaware and Mummy, or your own Opportunist mon. With how common stat boosting moves are it's almost inevitable that Opportunist will activate in any given game. Originally I ran double Unaware Ting-Lu, and while I still think Unaware Ting is one of the best mons to use, it gets boring quicky when you're basically forced to use him or another Unaware/Mummy mon if you want to consistently beat it. If Opportunist wasn't so overcentralizing I wouldn't care so much but when one ability is so good that it basically outclasses most other abilities it removes variance and saps a lot of the fun.
 
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