Format Discussion Metronome Battle

I've been using a silly normalize set with tera normal ursaluna(the hisui one), with the thought that toxic chain will clean up ghost types, and its SUPER inconsistent with winning games. The special attack beatdown set I ran the other times won way more games, and even with tchain machups didn't get poisoned too much
 
How do we feel about being classified as a "Randomized Format" now in the updated Showdown interface? In a sense we are the exact opposite of random battles. You have control of your teambuilding choices, but minimal control of in-battle decisions. In randbats you have no control over teambuilding choices and full control of in-battle decisions.
 
somebodyuknow2 said:
How do we feel about being classified as a "Randomized Format" now in the updated Showdown interface? In a sense we are the exact opposite of random battles. You have control of your teambuilding choices, but minimal control of in-battle decisions. In randbats you have no control over teambuilding choices and full control of in-battle decisions.
Click to expand...
Imo it's better than having its own "Metronome Battle" section lol
 
black cat no hat said:
There is roughly a 3% chance of at least one Pokémon getting freezed in a metronome battle

source: trust me
Click to expand...
1698682357572.png
 
somebodyuknow2 said:
How do we feel about being classified as a "Randomized Format" now in the updated Showdown interface? In a sense we are the exact opposite of random battles. You have control of your teambuilding choices, but minimal control of in-battle decisions. In randbats you have no control over teambuilding choices and full control of in-battle decisions.
Click to expand...

you guys are in the randbats subforum and we get plenty of metronome questions in the rands room as well, it seems alright to me
 
I think Mega Venusaur is the perfect pokemon in this meta.
I wanna experiment more with what I think is a cool concept

Venusaur-Mega @ Leppa Berry
Ability: Friend Guard
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 0 Spe
Quiet Nature

It's kind of the renaissance of the stall sets I've seen sometimes, but good
Like poison typing means you're pretty much free to hard stall cuz burns are way less common
Leppa berry means you win hard the Blisseymorph MU
Double Friend Guard means Mega Heracross 100BP Fighting Stab does 20% max which is ridiculous (Although you can replace it with Chain if you want to be more proactive, which is probably better but makes the mirror/Tera Poison MUs worse, something I think is worth at least exploring)
Tera Ghost is great although you should usually do it only if you know they're not Chain, I see way too many Venusaur on the ladder Tera-ing early and get poisoned
And 0 Speed EV + Quiet Nature means you get outsped by anything invested, which I think is the play when building Stall duos, although it's maybe not necessary if you're running Leppa
 
Jackalope414 said:
I've been using a silly normalize set with tera normal ursaluna(the hisui one), with the thought that toxic chain will clean up ghost types, and its SUPER inconsistent with winning games. The special attack beatdown set I ran the other times won way more games, and even with tchain matchups didn't get poisoned too much
Click to expand...
as an addendum on this, a bulky toxic chainer replaced with the mega gengar i'd been using spiked my winrate, just because of the sheer amount of hits per game going up, and normalize ursaluna hits anything that isn't ghost for almost 100% per physical hit. It's wild how much damage it does tbh
 
Happy November! As the final DLC for SV approaches just next month, things will be shaking up again soon. In this season of remembrance, perhaps we should enjoy this short period of time that this current meta exists in before we proceed into the uncertain future, and someday we may look back on these days with nostalgia of our innocence not knowing what would come, for better or for worse.

First, I'll list out the top 10 for the whole of September compared to August just to be consistent and for comparison with October, since we only covered the time period since the DLC release last time. There were 63941 battles across the whole month, which is an overall rise.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-09/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-09/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt

September 1630 Top 10 + last month (August) positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (#5) :venusaur-mega:
#2: Ting-Lu (#3) :ting-lu:
#3: Mega Heracross (#1) :heracross-mega:
#4: Mega Ampharos (no change) :ampharos-mega:
#5: Blissey (#2) :blissey:
#6: Mega Gengar (#9) :gengar-mega:
#7: Dusclops (no change) :dusclops:
#8: Mega Slowbro (no change) :slowbro-mega:
#9: Type: Null (#6) :type null:
#10: Mega Sableye (#12) :sableye-mega:

This is pretty similar to what we saw with the DLC, but Type: Null and Glastrier at 11 displaced Wishiwashi into 12th this time. Mega Venusaur hit 25274 raw usage.

Now we can get into the stats for October. There were 58334 battles this month, which is lower than overall September but is still rising back up from August and is pretty solid overall.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-10/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-10/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt

October 1630 Top 10 + last month (September) positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change) :venusaur-mega:
#2: Ting-Lu (no change) :ting-lu:
#3: Mega Heracross (no change) :heracross-mega:
#4: Mega Ampharos (no change) :ampharos-mega:
#5: Blissey (no change) :blissey:
#6: Mega Gengar (no change) :gengar-mega:
#7: Mega Sableye (#10) :sableye-mega:
#8: Dusclops (#7) :dusclops:
#9: Mega Slowbro (#8) :slowbro-mega:
#10: Dragapult (#14) :dragapult:

Not much has changed in the top 10 as Venusaur accumulates more raw usage up to 28301 and has a weighted 51% usage rate to assert its dominance over the meta, likely thanks to all the toxic chaining going on. With its moveset stats listing Toxic Chain (listed as Illuminate), Magic Bounce, and Mirror Herb over the classic Flower Veil WP set, it's clear that Venusaur has truly changed its ways and Ting-Lu continues to handle the Flower Veil duties. Blissey, Gengar, Sableye, and Dragapult have gone up in raw usage as well, and Ting-Lu managed a higher weighted usage despite decreased raw usage. Even Sableye has turned to Toxic Chain/Mirror Herb sets just purely working off its type, while Merciless Slowbro continues to see use. Gengar is surprisingly using Good as Gold and Download mostly, without fear of poison, while Dragapult seems to favor Magic Guard these days as its first primary representation in the top 10.

As for dark horses, Wishiwashi-School (#16/663 uses) and Garganacl (#26/764 uses) are still hanging in there from last month continuing their Pickup and Toxic sets respectively, and Iron Hands is approaching back to the top 10 at #13/1617 just below Necturna, also on the Toxic Chain trend. Ogerpon hype has mostly dropped off, but Hearthflame is still hanging on at #48 with 829 uses, putting it below Shuckle at #45 with 2108 uses, which probably says more about Shuckle's performance. I noticed that Ursaluna-Bloodmoon (#29/1978) is actually beating out Ursaluna (#36/1337) with its Mind's Eye mixed potential with Normalium Z/Specs while base Ursaluna has also resorted to Toxic Chain. Also, Roaring Moon (#30/925) and Dipplin (#34/785) make surprisingly high appearances, with Roaring Moon using a raw power Sword/Band set paired with Dragapult while Dipplin is split between Toxic Chain/Flower Veil/Magic Guard but is always taking advantage of Eviolite. I actually forgot to mention Dipplin's debut last month but it definitely made itself noticed.

Looking through the moveset file, we can see that Toxic Chain and Mirror Herb continue to spread around inside and outside the meta, though some mons still hold out with classic strategies like Competitive/Defiant Mew and Aerilate attackers, as well as Pokestar UFO finding main success in being a Pastel Veil user. I also noticed Dondozo now going with the Comatose route to block poison over Magic Guard from last time.

For the top viability ceilings (highest GXE out of players that used that Pokemon), Heracross actually manages to cap this off at 80 with the usual hyper offense set. Following up for 79 are Venusaur, Ting-Lu, Mega Ampharos (also mainly Toxic Chain with some Magic Guard and Slowbro partner), and Guzzlord (mainly Fluffy and Lum Berry, with some notable Magic Bounce/Good as Gold/Weakness Policy usage). We've seen what Guzzlord has been capable of before with the Fur Coat suspect, and it seems it can still perform decently well even in a meta less friendly to bulky statboost. In 78 we have the surprising Normal type picks of Hisuian Zoroark (mainly Good as Gold/Scrappy and a huge mix of items) and Mega Lopunny working with similar Scrappy and Normalize sets, which probably pair with Silk Scarf but there's also significant Lopunnite usage. I guess with the trend of poison types going strong, raw power might be the way to go here.

To round off at 77, we have 7 mons tied here, with Imposter Blissey, Mega Gengar, Glastrier (mainly Delta Stream with Pokestar UFO, but UFO didn't make 77 itself so maybe Defiant/Primordial Sea/Simple took it away), Necturna with Thick Fat and Toxic Chain beating out Flower Veil, Innards Out Chansey now with an ability shield to do extra work, Arghonaut with Defiant/Compound Eyes/Flower Veil/Unaware going around, and Toxapex as another Toxic Chain staller with Bright Powder on top. It goes to show there's still a lot of different ideas going around even if the top appears stagnant. Thanks for your reading.
 
How come assault vest is still banned? Even hustle mhera doesn't really do a lot

252+ Atk Hustle Heracross-Mega Struggle vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Ampharos-Mega: 90-106 (23.4 - 27.6%) -- 75.5% chance to 4HKO
252+ Atk Hustle Heracross-Mega Struggle vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Type: Null: 59-70 (14.9 - 17.7%) -- possible 6HKO
252+ Atk Hustle Heracross-Mega Struggle vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Camerupt-Mega: 93-110 (27 - 31.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252+ Atk Hustle Heracross-Mega Struggle vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ting-Lu: 73-86 (14.2 - 16.7%) -- possible 6HKO
252+ Atk Hustle Heracross-Mega Struggle vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Venusaur-Mega: 73-87 (20 - 23.9%) -- guaranteed 5HKO

This is before abilities and items too
 
Eh I think people should be allowed to use anything if it's not broken but it's not like it makes an impact on the meta so whatever

In other news I wanna talk about a cool item, ability shield. It prevents the enemy from ignoring your ability with anything like mummy, mold breaker, skill swap, worry seed, entrainment etc, this has some nice uses for bulky teams. I made a cool team using this item that I wanna share

:type-null::dondozo:
Type: Null @ Eviolite
Ability: Aroma Veil
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

Dondozo @ Ability Shield
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

This is a stall team that uses ability shield. Dondozo has really high bulk, magic guard makes it immune to indirect damage (the main damage in a lot of games) and aroma veil prevents it from being cheesed by taunt / torment. Ability shield makes dondozo really consistent at its role and really hard to take down except if you're a boosted special attacker.

I'm using dondozo over otherwise better physical walls (:type-null:, :ting-lu:, :slowbro-mega:, :venusaur-mega:) because it has a good typing, some of the highest physical bulk, and doesn't need eviolite so it can hold ability shield. Typing matters because dozo won't always tera, it's better to tera type: null if the other team has strong special attackers. Dondozo is tera fire because it provides the most resistances out of any tera type and also protects from burns, which don't damage but still halve his attack. Tera ghost is more for strong attackers who wanna live longer. That being said type: null is tera ghost because I didn't need anything specific from him. I don't need tera poison on type: null because toxic chain users get answered by dondozo anyways
 
Took this to top 100 on the ladder
Screenshot 2023-11-23 at 11.19.44 AM.png

:Sableye-Mega: :Slowbro-Mega:
stitch (Sableye-Mega) (M) @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Pastel Veil
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
hugs (Slowbro-Mega) (M) @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

I think stall teams like this one have to make a lose-lose trade in the builder: either you use Pastel Veil/other method to not lose to Toxic Chain, or you neglect the toxic chain matchup, using the freed up slots to get even bulkier into the heracross hyper offense that thrives at top ladder. Either way you will have a poor matchup into a common strategy.

As for mon selection, recent meta trends have been great for the ghost type as long as you have some other way to ensure poison immunity. Scrappy/Mind's Eye usage is down, as are the -ate abilities. Ice Scales Tera Ghost Mega Slowbro is one of the bulkiest mons achievable in this format without sacrificing an item slot via eviolite, or metronome PP via imposter :Blissey:. It also has pretty good attacking stats, especially special attack, helping it not be as passive as things like Eviolite :Type Null:. :Sableye-Mega: is the bulkiest natural ghost type, taking into account stats and typing.
Some final notes:
  • Speed. I see many people running slow mons without fully committing to 0 Evs 0 Ivs -Nature. This can backfire spectacularly in battles decided by Perish Song.
  • Clear Amulet. A vital item for bulky teams, as there are many more moves that lower defenses than raise them, and getting hit by one of those moves early almost always spells doom.
  • Male gendered. Some relevant mons like Necturna are gender locked to female, so locking yourself to male increases chances of infatuation in both directions. This is a double edged sword, but in general when running stall, you losing turns is much less harmful to you than your opponent losing turns. This also applies to why the only status this team guards against is poison. Burn is rare and only 6%, while paralysis, sleep, and freeze are actually net neutral to net positive, due to helping win games that come down to PP.​
Would love feedback on any improvements. I'm also interested if anybody has built non-ghost stall, such as with Mega-Venusaur, and how successful that has been.
 
somebodyuknow2 said:
How do we feel about being classified as a "Randomized Format" now in the updated Showdown interface? In a sense we are the exact opposite of random battles. You have control of your teambuilding choices, but minimal control of in-battle decisions. In randbats you have no control over teambuilding choices and full control of in-battle decisions.
Click to expand...
doipy hooves said:
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.

1670440483350.png
Click to expand...
The history of where Metronome has been classified as a format is longer than you may expect. Since its inception in 2018, Metronome Battle used to be grouped with all the Doubles formats like DOU and VGC, though I personally thought of it as more like an OM, but technically its intended discussion room on Showdown was the Random Battles room even back then which you can see some mentions of in the thread. Even this thread itself was in the parent Showdown forum until about 2021 when the Random Battles subforum was made. Only last year it got its own format section, along with [Gen 8] Metronome Battle being challenge only, lasting until recently. I would say there's no perfect solution here because having its own heading is overly specific, while Metronome doesn't completely fit with any other section, so the existing affinity with Randomized Metas is the next best thing and was probably overdue. At least the new star feature to pin formats makes it so you don't really have to mind where it's located now, but there is one ramification to this change which I'll get into soon that might not be obvious to regulars in this thread.

1701463431477.png


It's been a year since the release of Gen 9, and in about two weeks, the Indigo Disk DLC will release with a lot of new/returning moves and abilities/mons to look forward to, and a whole new tera type. I personally don't expect the tera Terapagos to be legal BST-wise but we'll see what happens, and so far the DLC has had a good track record in adding new moves to the Metronome pool.

In other news about new mons, the new CAP 33 Cresceidon has released. It is a Water/Fairy type made to be a high-speed wall, with a unique stat spread of 80 HP / 32 Atk / 111 Def / 88 SpA / 99 SpD / 125 Spe (535 BST) that has Attack as its dump stat.

The battle count for November had 33144 battles which was a large dip, even lower than the end of Gen 8. I don't know if the current state of Toxic Chain is to blame, but I haven't been playing much myself. I imagine things should kick back up in December if it's just loss of interest, but I did end up coming up with another theory while writing this post, and it comes back to the format selector change that happened right before November.

1701466084309.png


This is what you see when opening the format list on a fresh Showdown session, where the Randomized Metas heading is collapsed by default, hiding Metronome Battle from view. I imagine this may be the cause of some visibility loss for new or casual players to add another step to find it, at least compared to when it had its own section. 30k is still a lot of battles but it's important to note any factors at the time affecting these stats.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-11/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-11/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt

November 2023: 1630-weighted Top 10 + last month (October) positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change) :venusaur-mega:
#2: Ting-Lu (no change) :ting-lu:
#3: Mega Heracross (no change) :heracross-mega:
#4: Blissey (#5) :blissey:
#5: Mega Ampharos (#4) :ampharos-mega:
#6: Dragapult (#10) :dragapult:
#7: Mega Slowbro (#9) :slowbro-mega:
#8: Mega Sableye (#7) :sableye-mega:
#9: Necturna (#12) :necturna:
#10: Mega Gengar (#6) :gengar-mega:

Venusaur is still the reigning champion of usage by far with 13945 raw uses, with Heracross in second at 7930. Most of the top picks are still the same, but a fair share of sub-1000 mons are visible in the top 20 like Guzzlord, Altaria, Tyranitar, and Iron Hands, and some dark horses include Wishiwashi-School at #20 with 358 uses, Baxcalibur at #24 with 451 uses, and Marshadow at #25 with 843 uses punching above their weight.

I noticed that compared to last month with 42 mons with >1000 uses, this month only has 24, so I decided to compare some of the common picks' raw usage (0 weighting) between this month and last month to see if my hypothesis about the casual majority dropping off has any bearing to it, even with about almost half the battle count. The same mons still make up most of the top spots of raw usage, but notably Snorlax and Mew fell off the most rank-wise, going from #10 and #14 to #22 and #23, which are the most common picks among casual players for being solid Gen 1 mons who learn the move in vanilla and are commonly used in videos. Otherwise there doesn't seem to be a huge change in raw usage other than numbers going down in general.

Over in the moveset file, we can see Toxic Chain with its true name along with Mirror Herb still going strong on Venusaur, though Flower Veil is in a close second instead of Magic Bounce now. Ting-Lu is still being used as its Flower Veil supporter. Baxcalibur is running Power Spot paired with Wishiwashi-School, while Wishiwashi iteslf has picked up Sword of Ruin over Pickup for synergy. Marshadow seems to be running generalist strategies of Magic Bounce and Intrepid Sword with Choice Band, mainly paired with Deoxys and Banette. I also noted that the posted Ability Shield Dondozo set has made it to the highest weighted usage, while Pastel Veil still maintains steady ground on Sableye and Pokestar UFO.

Looking through the top viability ceilings (highest GXE achieved by a user that used a Pokemon), Mega Venusaur and Ting-Lu take a major lead at 84, and are the only ones even in the 80s. The next highest viability ceilings are from Iron Hands and Mew in 78, with Iron Hands continuing to Toxic Chain while Mew is still split between Competitive and Defiant. Thirdly we have a four-way tie at 77 between Imposter Blissey, Dragapult still favouring Magic Guard and Mirror Herb, Necturna with Toxic Chain overtaking Thick Fat, and Fluffy WP Guzzlord still standing strong with a #14 ranking. Lastly there are 5 mons with 76, including Mega Heracross gaining a bit more Defiant usage, Mega Ampharos still preferring Magic Guard with Mirror Herb, Glastrier split between Intrepid Sword/Simple/Delta Stream/Primordial Sea, and the forementioned Wishiwashi-School and Baxcalibur.

Overall not too much has been changing in the meta at large, but soon the DLC release on December 14th will cause the next major upheaval before the game settles for a while, and as always I will try to cover every relevant change as we know of it. Thanks for your reading.
 
doipy hooves said:
The battle count for November had 33144 battles which was a large dip, even lower than the end of Gen 8. I don't know if the current state of Toxic Chain is to blame, but I haven't been playing much myself. I imagine things should kick back up in December if it's just loss of interest, but I did end up coming up with another theory while writing this post, and it comes back to the format selector change that happened right before November.
Click to expand...

As randbats RO I also was surprised to see the heading uncollapsed, although I also understand why it is like that given its sheer volume. Thanks for bringing the numbers to attention.
What I see in 2023 briefly is:
December 2022: 85280 Post Commander ban, SV hype
January: 71520
February: 58320 Post Opportunist ban
March: 63787
April: 55871
May: 55865
June: 51238
July: 39059 Megas terastallizing
August: 51905
September: 63941 DLC 1 hype
October: 58334
November: 33144 New formats table

As a safety check, I'll run a parallel with SV OU, and SM OU (which was also hidden with the new system)

MetronomeSV OUSM OU
Dec 2022852803385255196739
Jan71520 (-16%)2188410 (-35%)186472
Feb58320 (-18%)1466284 (-33%)150138
Mar63787 (+9%)1511656 (+3%)180558
Apr55871 (-12%)1194529 (-21%)190376
May55865 (-0.01%)1282631 (+7%)182837
Jun51238 (-8%)1999363 (+55%)161905
Jul39059 (-24%)1336974 (-33%)171185
Aug51905 (+33%)1250214 (-6%)174860
Sep63941 (+23%)1912075 (+52%)159189
Oct58334 (-9%)1709112 (-11%)159606
Nov33144 (-43%)1339482 (-22%)143778

Well, after checking all this my first conclusion is... don't try to compare formats like that. SM is clearly its own entity with a stable old gen playerbase that fluctuates too little compared to CG formats. Sadly, randbats formats don't go to smogon.com/stats so can check activity there. Regarding Metronome and SV OU, We can see the logical SV hype drop from Dec 2022 to Feb 2023, then some similar fluctuations probably explained by overall sim activity until June, when SV OU increased by a lot while Metronome didn't change much; I don't really have an explanation for this since there wasn't a particularly big OU suspect or something there, maybe someone else can drop a theory. July's big drop to 30k seems to potentially be explained by overall sim activity for CG, and the same can be said for the DLC hype of September and the logical cool off of October. For some reason we also have an important Metronome increase on August, though. Finally we see both CG formats dropping this month, although it's the first time that Metronome variates more than SV OU besides August's mystery.
So two potential conclusions: (1) ye it's possible that visibility has affected activity more than Toxic Chain, and (b) please someone help me figure out the explosion of activity for June for SV OU and August for Metronome.
 
Wow, it's interesting to see how SV OU and Metronome parallel each other in some ways, but I suppose they are probably the most similar of casual formats to compare. Seeing SV OU having similar drops at the same times as you point out makes me feel better about the impact being from general activity of the playerbase.

Irpachuza said:
So two potential conclusions: (1) ye it's possible that visibility has affected activity more than Toxic Chain, and (b) please someone help me figure out the explosion of activity for June for SV OU and August for Metronome.
Click to expand...
I would say the activity spike for SV OU in June is definitely because of the first HOME update for SV compatibility dropping at the end of May and adding back most of the legendaries to cart play, while nothing changed for Metronome because we already have everything.

As for August, I've noticed that it's usually a rising month in general, and I always thought maybe it was due to summer and/or just normalizing out after July when people spend most of their time off. If anything, I can only think that the news of megas terastallizing affected this month most directly, and this thread was also pretty active during that time which might have brought more attention to the meta, with the mystery of black cat no hat and multiple people posting high ranking teams.
 
Does anyone else think that Good As Gold shutting down a massive chunk of possible moves is a little over-the-top? The Steel type was banned for similar reasons iirc, so I don't see why the same couldn't be applied to GAG.
 
Qaos-System said:
Does anyone else think that Good As Gold shutting down a massive chunk of possible moves is a little over-the-top? The Steel type was banned for similar reasons iirc, so I don't see why the same couldn't be applied to GAG.
Click to expand...
Steel type was banned because the metagame entirely became dual-Melmetal. Good as Gold is used less than 10% of the time on most Pokemon, and is generally outclassed by Magic Bounce and Magic Guard, except for the fact Good as Gold can ignore Perish Song. So while I understand what you're saying about it, most of the moves it is shutting down aren't going to be winning you battles anyways.
 
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