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.
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Format Discussion Metronome Battle
- Thread starter Ivy
- Start date
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.
Good as Gold doesn't prevent the average offensive team from tearing opponents a new one with boosted attacks (unlike Fur Coat or Commander) or greatly punish them for bringing in offence-boosting abilities (unlike Opportunist), so no.
That isn’t why Steel was banned. If dual Melmetal was the whole problem, they would have just banned Melmetal. The problem was that it wasn’t just Melmetal, it was Mega Steelix, Mega Scizor, and Celesteela too; the general consensus among the like, 6 people talking about it on the thread (read backwards from here) was that anything you would conceivably want a non-Steel type to do, some other Steel type could do it better—note that at the time, Magearna, Pokéstar Spirit, and all Steel/Ghost types were already banned. You should also note that Steel types being banned coincided with the ladder being temporarily removed because the format was “never supposed to” have one. I don’t want to see Melmetal back or anything, but it certainly seems to mark the blanket Steel type quick ban as… possibly short sighted and coming from a leadership philosophy that is very far from what we have today. We definitely ought to ban Toxic Chain before we even consider trying to figure out how many Steel types below the BST limit are actually broken, and how many viable ones would be left when all the broken ones were removed.
…We were talking about Good as Gold, right? It would almost certainly have been quickbanned without much thought if it had been released back in those days; when Steel types were blanket banned, Primordial Sea and Desolate Land were already on the banlist for reasons that seem unimaginable in today’s meta.
Btw, we should probably update the sample teams... they are unchanged from gen 8, and the only one that kinda still works is imposter Blisseys.
I've been playing Metronome Battles during my college classes with my friends, and I finally got up to number 1! Team building was super fun in this mode (until toxic chain got added) so I wanted to post some of the teams I used.
Dauntless Shield Ting-Lu, Flower Veil
Simple Ting-Lu, Flower Veil
Magician Venusaur, Flower Veil
All-out Attacking Mega Gengar and Mega Heracross
Soul-Heart Ampharos x Lv. 85 min def innards out Chansey
this is a super fun format and I hope it gets some more activity soon
Dauntless Shield Ting-Lu, Flower Veil
Simple Ting-Lu, Flower Veil
Magician Venusaur, Flower Veil
All-out Attacking Mega Gengar and Mega Heracross
Soul-Heart Ampharos x Lv. 85 min def innards out Chansey
this is a super fun format and I hope it gets some more activity soon
I feel like the Grass is _____ bots are taking over the metagame and should be banned. I think that one or even two bots is perfectly fine but it’s a problem when it looks like this
The other main problem with the Grass-Bots is that they all use the same flower veil team. This leaves the meta with a problem where if your team doesn’t beat mega venusaur and Tera grass ting-lu, it just won’t be viable. Overall, what I’m trying to say is just ban these bots.
The other main problem with the Grass-Bots is that they all use the same flower veil team. This leaves the meta with a problem where if your team doesn’t beat mega venusaur and Tera grass ting-lu, it just won’t be viable. Overall, what I’m trying to say is just ban these bots.
Banning bots isn’t something that Metronome Battle could do by itself, and I actually don’t think they’re a negative presence. That Flower Veil team is already the best one, it was good before and Toxic Chain has only cemented it as the by far best team to use (Venusaur-Mega should be running Toxic Chain itself). Resultantly, having a bot using the meta team is a good way to maintain consistent activity on the ladder. I have no clue who runs those bots though.
I’d like to add support to others in the thread who have advocated for Toxic Chain ban btw. It’s strong enough that you’re nerfing yourself by not running it or a direct counter to it (but really you should be running both i.e. Flower Veil with Toxic Chain).
The final Indigo Disk DLC for SV has released, and there's some interesting new options for the final expansion to the meta. Now the move data sheet isn't out yet, so Showdown is still waiting to update, and I can't go into details about what moves are callable via Metronome or their exact effects or any buffs/returning moves yet, but there's still plenty to discuss, especially with the main new mechanic in the room being understood well enough by now.
New Tera Type
Stellar type maintains your natural type matchups so nothing changes defensively, but it provides the equivalent of a tera boost (EDIT: 1.2x for non-STABs and 2x for original STABs) to each type, but only once, so kind of like old Protean but a bit more limited. I would assume this counts each called type for Metronome separately and not just Metronome as a slot but it's worth confirming ingame, probably by seeing if a Metronome-called move visually removes the type boost on a Normal slot or another slot of the same type afterwards. Overall I would say this would be a natural option for ghosts to take as a rare offensive form of tera.
EDIT: It's an interesting new addition to the mix at least, where unlike Protean you have to consider the tradeoff of forsaking the typical Tera Ghost defensive option and you can only put it on one mon, but other than that it's a free offensive buff that can stack onto any existing mon already. I just realized this gives another multiplier to Mega Heracross to wreak havoc with.
Also, Stellar Tera Blast is (100 BP but you only get the nonSTAB 1.2x boost one time) and super effective against other terastallized mons, but lowers both your Atk and SpA on use. I would say it's a bad trade, but might be a good blowup move if you roll it into the right target.
New Mons
I mentioned Cresceidon last post, but didn't make a comparison. Overall I feel like it's outclassed by Tapu Fini since the only higher stats it has are HP and Speed.
Hydrapple: Grass/Dragon, 106/80/110/120/80/44 (540 BST). Speed as a dump stat is still pretty solid with 496 of its stats not in Speed being comparable to Shaymin, but it can't run Eviolite anymore and it hasn't improved by too much. Still respectable though but the 4x Ice weakness hurts.
Gouging Fire: Fire/Dragon, 105/115/121/65/93/91 (590 BST). Compared to Astrolotl, it wins out in Attack, Defense, and SpD as its main assets while mainly losing out on SpA and Speed. I would say it's a fair trade.
Raging Bolt: Electric/Dragon, 125/73/91/137/89/75 (590 BST). This typing is already in high competition with the minmaxed Mega Ampharos, and Ampharos is kind of just better than this in every way except being slower and having less HP.
Iron Boulder: Rock/Psychic, 90/120/80/68/108/124 (590 BST). Not the most desired typing but I guess you can try to run WP like base Terrakion with your 7 weaknesses.
Terapagos-Normal: The baby turtle form. Normal-type, 90/65/85/65/85/60 (450 BST). Normally you can't even see this thing fight except as an Illusion because its only purpose is to turn into the next form, and there is no reason to play as it anyway.
Terapagos-Terastal: Also Normal-type, with 95/95/110/105/110/85 (600 BST). Mostly dumps speed which puts it a bit above the other members of the 600 BST club. Being pure Normal isn't great in terms of resistances though. Also if you stellar terastallize, you become the 700 BST Terapagos-2 who gets 160 HP, 105 Attack, and 130 SpA, so that's probably going to be banned. I think Terapagos is actually locked to Stellar tera in vanilla but I'm not sure if it similarly crashes the game if you hack another tera type on like Ogerpon did, so we'll see if Terapagos as a whole has to be banned.
Pecharunt: Poison/Ghost, 88/88/160/88/88/88 (600 BST). Mega Gengar shows how solid Poison/Ghost is on a glass cannon, and now this behemoth comes in with probably the highest physical bulk of any Ghost, aside from tera Ghosts. At any rate I'm expecting it to get use just because of its niche and the novelty of it.
Items
I don't think there are any new held items.
Abilities
Tera Shift: Transforms baby Terapagos into the middle Terapagos. Pretty pointless.
Tera Shell: When at 100% HP, damaging moves become not very effective. Powercreeps Multiscale but still not that worthwhile for just one hit.
Teraform Zero: Eliminates effects of weather and terrain only on activation. It's not that great, but technically might have a niche over Air Lock if it permanently removes the primal weathers. I'm not sure if it actually activates normally outside of Terapagos's tera gimmick though.
Poison Puppeteer: Moves that poison will inflict confusion as well when they proc. Not that great to inflict a temporary status on top of a game-ending one, when you can just go for more chances to poison instead as Toxic Chain has demonstrated.
EDIT: Correcting with recent updates from the mechanics thread. Stellar Tera is actually a 1.2x boost for non STAB moves and not 1.5x, so it is weaker than I assumed. It is still 2x for moves that were originally STAB though.
New Tera Type
Stellar type maintains your natural type matchups so nothing changes defensively, but it provides the equivalent of a tera boost (EDIT: 1.2x for non-STABs and 2x for original STABs) to each type, but only once, so kind of like old Protean but a bit more limited. I would assume this counts each called type for Metronome separately and not just Metronome as a slot but it's worth confirming ingame, probably by seeing if a Metronome-called move visually removes the type boost on a Normal slot or another slot of the same type afterwards. Overall I would say this would be a natural option for ghosts to take as a rare offensive form of tera.
EDIT: It's an interesting new addition to the mix at least, where unlike Protean you have to consider the tradeoff of forsaking the typical Tera Ghost defensive option and you can only put it on one mon, but other than that it's a free offensive buff that can stack onto any existing mon already. I just realized this gives another multiplier to Mega Heracross to wreak havoc with.
Also, Stellar Tera Blast is (100 BP but you only get the nonSTAB 1.2x boost one time) and super effective against other terastallized mons, but lowers both your Atk and SpA on use. I would say it's a bad trade, but might be a good blowup move if you roll it into the right target.
New Mons
I mentioned Cresceidon last post, but didn't make a comparison. Overall I feel like it's outclassed by Tapu Fini since the only higher stats it has are HP and Speed.
Hydrapple: Grass/Dragon, 106/80/110/120/80/44 (540 BST). Speed as a dump stat is still pretty solid with 496 of its stats not in Speed being comparable to Shaymin, but it can't run Eviolite anymore and it hasn't improved by too much. Still respectable though but the 4x Ice weakness hurts.
Gouging Fire: Fire/Dragon, 105/115/121/65/93/91 (590 BST). Compared to Astrolotl, it wins out in Attack, Defense, and SpD as its main assets while mainly losing out on SpA and Speed. I would say it's a fair trade.
Raging Bolt: Electric/Dragon, 125/73/91/137/89/75 (590 BST). This typing is already in high competition with the minmaxed Mega Ampharos, and Ampharos is kind of just better than this in every way except being slower and having less HP.
Iron Boulder: Rock/Psychic, 90/120/80/68/108/124 (590 BST). Not the most desired typing but I guess you can try to run WP like base Terrakion with your 7 weaknesses.
Terapagos-Normal: The baby turtle form. Normal-type, 90/65/85/65/85/60 (450 BST). Normally you can't even see this thing fight except as an Illusion because its only purpose is to turn into the next form, and there is no reason to play as it anyway.
Terapagos-Terastal: Also Normal-type, with 95/95/110/105/110/85 (600 BST). Mostly dumps speed which puts it a bit above the other members of the 600 BST club. Being pure Normal isn't great in terms of resistances though. Also if you stellar terastallize, you become the 700 BST Terapagos-2 who gets 160 HP, 105 Attack, and 130 SpA, so that's probably going to be banned. I think Terapagos is actually locked to Stellar tera in vanilla but I'm not sure if it similarly crashes the game if you hack another tera type on like Ogerpon did, so we'll see if Terapagos as a whole has to be banned.
Pecharunt: Poison/Ghost, 88/88/160/88/88/88 (600 BST). Mega Gengar shows how solid Poison/Ghost is on a glass cannon, and now this behemoth comes in with probably the highest physical bulk of any Ghost, aside from tera Ghosts. At any rate I'm expecting it to get use just because of its niche and the novelty of it.
Items
I don't think there are any new held items.
Abilities
Tera Shift: Transforms baby Terapagos into the middle Terapagos. Pretty pointless.
Tera Shell: When at 100% HP, damaging moves become not very effective. Powercreeps Multiscale but still not that worthwhile for just one hit.
Teraform Zero: Eliminates effects of weather and terrain only on activation. It's not that great, but technically might have a niche over Air Lock if it permanently removes the primal weathers. I'm not sure if it actually activates normally outside of Terapagos's tera gimmick though.
Poison Puppeteer: Moves that poison will inflict confusion as well when they proc. Not that great to inflict a temporary status on top of a game-ending one, when you can just go for more chances to poison instead as Toxic Chain has demonstrated.
EDIT: Correcting with recent updates from the mechanics thread. Stellar Tera is actually a 1.2x boost for non STAB moves and not 1.5x, so it is weaker than I assumed. It is still 2x for moves that were originally STAB though.
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So the SV move dump sheet has been updated for 3.0.0, and now we can see what's going on in the Metronome flag.
New Moves
Every new move is callable via Metronome, except Tera Starstorm. Game Freak has been really generous with the DLC moves lately, and I have to wonder the reason for it considering a certain new move that no one would ever expect to be callable.
Electro Shot: 130 BP special Electric charge move that boosts SpA like Meteor Beam and attacks instantly in rain. This will be a huge hitting move, and even Choice users can still get the stat buff.
Fickle Beam: 80 BP special Dragon move with a 30% chance to double its power naturally. The flavour makes this effect seem mon-specific but I imagine it can still proc regardless.
Burning Bulwark: King's Shield but burns on contact... wait, a Protect clone is callable via Metronome? I did not expect to see this since every other Protect move is purposely not callable by most calling moves, including Silk Trap introduced this gen, but it's a potential bonus for faster mons to block damaging attacks.
Thunderclap: A Sucker Punch clone? In Metronome Battle? Well, at least it has some use against multi-turn moves, but otherwise it's a useless roll since everything is clicking a status move.
Mighty Cleave: 95 BP physical Rock move, with 100% accuracy because that's notable for a Rock move. It bypasses protection, which before today I would say is a useless effect, but they just added Burning Bulwark into the pool, so that's something. Also it makes contact.
Tachyon Cutter: 50 BP special Steel move with perfect accuracy that hits twice. I feel like this is honestly one of the better Steel attacks you could roll which isn't saying much.
Hard Press: A physical Steel-type Wring Out/Crush Grip clone (does more damage when the opponent is at high HP). These moves usually feel pretty useless, but I guess opening the battle with a big hit (120 BP if the same formula) might be appreciated. Also it makes contact.
Dragon Cheer: This is an interesting idea for a support move. It boosts your ally's critical hit ratio by 1 stage, but if they are a Dragon type then they get +2 instead. They can't stack this effect with Focus Energy either way. Not too impactful but I like crits.
Alluring Voice: 80 BP special Fairy move that confuses a target if they boosted a stat this turn, like Burning Jealousy. More fairy options are nice.
Supercell Slam: 100 BP, 95% accurate, physical Electric move that works like Hi Jump Kick where you take crash damage if you miss or hit an immunity (Ground). This probably won't be as bad as HJK since it doesn't ruin your game against ghosts, but it's another really strong move for physicals to use.
Psychic Noise: 75 BP special Psychic move that inflicts the effect formerly known as Heal Block for 2 turns, blocking all healing. This is probably not too impactful without any guaranteed healing sources, but it's not a bad side effect when on an attacking move.
Upper Hand: It's an even more specific version of Sucker Punch that only works against someone using an increased priority move. You would need to somehow call the move with a Prankster mon and use it against another Prankster mon that you're faster than or something, or like a mon with Gale Wings using Sky Attack, which should tell you how convoluted it has to be for this move to work.
Malignant Chain: 100BP special Poison move. This has the same Inflict flags as Poison Fang, so I believe it's a 50% chance to badly poison.
EDIT: Somehow I skipped a move.
Temper Flare: 75BP physical Fire Stomping Tantrum clone. It's alright for a potential 150BP move with all the possibilities to fail.
Old Moves
A lot of legendaries returned and brought their sigs with them too, so there will be a lot of high power action back in the mix, but also a few smaller signature moves too. Porygon brings Conversion and Conversion 2 back, so now you can change your type to Normal or something completely different, as long as you don't Tera. Triple Kick is kind of weak, but Aeroblast and Sacred Fire are some of the high power moves I'm talking about that might add a bit more pressure onto Heracross.
Luster Purge and Mist Ball return, and they've also been uniquely buffed from 70 to 95 power, which adds a lot more STAB for psychics on top of Psycho Boost returning. Over in Gen 4, Rock Wrecker is coming back which a lot of physical mons are probably looking forward to, but not so much Crush Grip.
Gen 5 really leads the charge with legendary sigs with Glaciate, Bolt Strike, Blue Flare, Fusion Flare, and Fusion Bolt all returning as huge elemental attacks. Will we ever see the moment of using both fusion moves in one turn? Gen 6 only has but one returning move but it's a major one in Topsy-Turvy, potentially changing the game for any bulky statbooster. Gen 7 features Sparkling Aria, Floral Healing, Dragon Hammer, and Prismatic Laser, since the other Gen 7 legendary moves have still been uncallable since they changed in Gen 8 for whatever reason. Along with Floral Healing, Decorate is also coming back for anyone who enjoys seeing the chaos of mons causing their own downfall.
I think it's going to be interesting seeing some of these old moves back for the first time in a while, and for me Topsy Turvy is probably the most unique effect of them all that can make or break a game. It's a nice side effect of gamefreak having to readd all the legendaries that the Metronome meta still gets to enjoy a return of their moves.
New Moves
Every new move is callable via Metronome, except Tera Starstorm. Game Freak has been really generous with the DLC moves lately, and I have to wonder the reason for it considering a certain new move that no one would ever expect to be callable.
Electro Shot: 130 BP special Electric charge move that boosts SpA like Meteor Beam and attacks instantly in rain. This will be a huge hitting move, and even Choice users can still get the stat buff.
Fickle Beam: 80 BP special Dragon move with a 30% chance to double its power naturally. The flavour makes this effect seem mon-specific but I imagine it can still proc regardless.
Burning Bulwark: King's Shield but burns on contact... wait, a Protect clone is callable via Metronome? I did not expect to see this since every other Protect move is purposely not callable by most calling moves, including Silk Trap introduced this gen, but it's a potential bonus for faster mons to block damaging attacks.
Thunderclap: A Sucker Punch clone? In Metronome Battle? Well, at least it has some use against multi-turn moves, but otherwise it's a useless roll since everything is clicking a status move.
Mighty Cleave: 95 BP physical Rock move, with 100% accuracy because that's notable for a Rock move. It bypasses protection, which before today I would say is a useless effect, but they just added Burning Bulwark into the pool, so that's something. Also it makes contact.
Tachyon Cutter: 50 BP special Steel move with perfect accuracy that hits twice. I feel like this is honestly one of the better Steel attacks you could roll which isn't saying much.
Hard Press: A physical Steel-type Wring Out/Crush Grip clone (does more damage when the opponent is at high HP). These moves usually feel pretty useless, but I guess opening the battle with a big hit (120 BP if the same formula) might be appreciated. Also it makes contact.
Dragon Cheer: This is an interesting idea for a support move. It boosts your ally's critical hit ratio by 1 stage, but if they are a Dragon type then they get +2 instead. They can't stack this effect with Focus Energy either way. Not too impactful but I like crits.
Alluring Voice: 80 BP special Fairy move that confuses a target if they boosted a stat this turn, like Burning Jealousy. More fairy options are nice.
Supercell Slam: 100 BP, 95% accurate, physical Electric move that works like Hi Jump Kick where you take crash damage if you miss or hit an immunity (Ground). This probably won't be as bad as HJK since it doesn't ruin your game against ghosts, but it's another really strong move for physicals to use.
Psychic Noise: 75 BP special Psychic move that inflicts the effect formerly known as Heal Block for 2 turns, blocking all healing. This is probably not too impactful without any guaranteed healing sources, but it's not a bad side effect when on an attacking move.
Upper Hand: It's an even more specific version of Sucker Punch that only works against someone using an increased priority move. You would need to somehow call the move with a Prankster mon and use it against another Prankster mon that you're faster than or something, or like a mon with Gale Wings using Sky Attack, which should tell you how convoluted it has to be for this move to work.
Malignant Chain: 100BP special Poison move. This has the same Inflict flags as Poison Fang, so I believe it's a 50% chance to badly poison.
EDIT: Somehow I skipped a move.
Temper Flare: 75BP physical Fire Stomping Tantrum clone. It's alright for a potential 150BP move with all the possibilities to fail.
Old Moves
A lot of legendaries returned and brought their sigs with them too, so there will be a lot of high power action back in the mix, but also a few smaller signature moves too. Porygon brings Conversion and Conversion 2 back, so now you can change your type to Normal or something completely different, as long as you don't Tera. Triple Kick is kind of weak, but Aeroblast and Sacred Fire are some of the high power moves I'm talking about that might add a bit more pressure onto Heracross.
Luster Purge and Mist Ball return, and they've also been uniquely buffed from 70 to 95 power, which adds a lot more STAB for psychics on top of Psycho Boost returning. Over in Gen 4, Rock Wrecker is coming back which a lot of physical mons are probably looking forward to, but not so much Crush Grip.
Gen 5 really leads the charge with legendary sigs with Glaciate, Bolt Strike, Blue Flare, Fusion Flare, and Fusion Bolt all returning as huge elemental attacks. Will we ever see the moment of using both fusion moves in one turn? Gen 6 only has but one returning move but it's a major one in Topsy-Turvy, potentially changing the game for any bulky statbooster. Gen 7 features Sparkling Aria, Floral Healing, Dragon Hammer, and Prismatic Laser, since the other Gen 7 legendary moves have still been uncallable since they changed in Gen 8 for whatever reason. Along with Floral Healing, Decorate is also coming back for anyone who enjoys seeing the chaos of mons causing their own downfall.
I think it's going to be interesting seeing some of these old moves back for the first time in a while, and for me Topsy Turvy is probably the most unique effect of them all that can make or break a game. It's a nice side effect of gamefreak having to readd all the legendaries that the Metronome meta still gets to enjoy a return of their moves.
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https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012561666
DLC2 is live on Showdown, and the Peach has been pretty good for me against all the meta bot sets. I peaked above 1500 here in a match against Blisseys, whose matchup is pretty passive as you would expect. I imagine the meta will adjust soon enough, but doing pretty well against DLC1 stuff is a good sign.
Pasha (Pecharunt) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome
Because I can just chill against damaging moves as being a high defense ghost, I really don't want to deal with status or debuffs, even if the peach is naturally immune to Toxic Chain, so I put Magic Bounce to hopefully screw over the opponent instead and it works pretty well. Being just average on the special side is kind of an issue especially when weak to Psychic, but just having a tanky ghost (that doesn't need to use Eviolite) is pretty amazing. I saw a banded Mega Pinsir only do 33% to it, off a super effective Assurance. That's something I don't expect from most ghosts. So far I'm a fan, and currently it also brings back memories of late Gen 7 Melmetal not having a sprite.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012547232
For Stellar tera, I like to wait a couple turns to see which of my peaches has higher HP or stat buffs to judge based on momentum so I don't just put the tera on something that gets blown up, but there is also merit in just burning it T1 to avoid type changes and multiplying your damage out early though.
Other highlights:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012531062 - My first DLC2 game vs Heracross
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012557903 - close game vs Venusaur and Ting-Lu bot
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012546639 - Stellar Tera Blast doing 58% to Ting-Lu
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012539976 - Terapagos in action (illegal)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012536168 - A live first reaction to Stellar
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012534834-o5xxo508midf65yhd9su43cod3mt5bdpw - Burning Bulwark used
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Something prob needs to be done about Terapagos-Stellar, with its some 700+ BST being available
As backing up to this, i got no. 1 on ladder with a soul heart team, it really needs to be regined in
Attachments
I got to the top of the ladder.
Used team
Terapagos-Terastal @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Download
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome
Venusaur-Mega @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome
Terapagos-Stellar is very strong.
But why is he not banned despite 700 BST?
The question of tiering Terapagos-Stellar separately from Terapagos-Terastal is a question that even Policy Review has been debating on for over a week and is somewhat relevant to this answer: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-tiering-of-terapagos-stellar.3732775/
To sum it up, there are 3 options to handle Terapagos that I see:
1: Ban all of Terapagos entirely. The 700 BST Stellar form is inherently tied to terastallization even when hacking on an alternate tera type, and there is currently no way to prevent it from being used, unless you just add a new rule to not allow Terapagos to tera. This is currently how Terapagos-Terastal is tiered together with its Stellar form.
2: Ban Terapagos from terastallizing to retain its legal form as a playable option. Personally I think this makes the most sense but would require a new clause specifically. I think this would most likely happen if the result of the above thread ends up allowing for Terapagos-Stellar to be tiered separately and adding this functionality into regular formats first, but maybe Metronome Battle can set the precedent.
3: Do nothing, which is the current state of affairs and also most objectionable because of violating the BST rule.
As a sidenote, Tera Shell and Teraform Zero do nothing on non-Terapagos mons.
On a purely conceptual level, the best solution is to ban terapagos from terastallizing to retain the legal form (doipy hooves' option 2). This may be difficult to implement on Showdown, and something instinctively opposes having a "terapagos clause" like how Ubers had a "mega rayquaza clause." Option 1 (ban terapagos entirely) may be neater in that sense, because, lets be honest, the base form is not a viable pokemon in Metronome, especially locked into the normal type.
The precedent set by OU is that you ban all of Terapagos entirely. Admittedly, this is pretty unpopular and most(?) OU players still want the specific Terapagos Tera Clause.
Metronome Battle setting the precedent seems fine to me, but I'm actually somewhat sure that there is a sneaky workaround to it considering the hacked status of our mons. I figured that Terapagos-Stellar transformation was tied to Terapagos' ability (or, at least, being Tera Type Stellar) and that through hacking we could find a way to easily keep Terapagos-Terastal without Terapagos-Stellar. Maybe we'd have to ban Tera Type Stellar on it if ability doesn't matter, but that's something we can p easily do here.
Prob requires further on-cart research since I don't think these questions are answered yet.
Even if you hack a non-Stellar tera type onto it, Terapagos still eventually becomes Stellar forme with its stats and all. I don't think the base ability matters since it just gets overwritten by Teraform Zero.
alright that's sad, so if desired we would have to trailblaze the "just ban Terapagos from teraing" which I think is certainly my preference. we have a pretty basic "over these stats you're out under these stats you're in" philosophy here and I think breaking that is more controversial / game-changing than Terapagos not being able to Tera is.
Yeah, doing well with Terapagos is a little too easy:
Today's edition of reaching 1500s was on the back on this team (yes, it's inspired by a previous Terapagos team posted here, although I did try Terapagos with other mons for a long while):
Illegal? (Terapagos-Terastal) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Venusaur-Mega @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
I do not expect any decision on Terapagos in this meta to set precedent, but since we managed to ban exclusively Tera Steel, surely we can prevent exclusively Terapagos from Terastallizing since its form change breaks our BST limit and Mega Stones corresponding to BST-breaking Mega forms are similarly banned.
Terapagos-Stellar doesn't feel as crushing as Commander or as restrictive as Opportunist, though - it feels a mere one step above a lot of things, with its automatic 1.2x offence boost, its Adaptability boost instead on Normal-type moves, its additional bulk, its ability change forcing initial abilities like Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield, and its (current) inability to go Tera Ghost or Tera Poison. You can still get stalled out, you can still get ripped up by double Mega Heracross, the double Imposter match-up is surprisingly dicey, etc. Notably, I ended up bouncing between 1300s and 1500s with this team.
Today's edition of reaching 1500s was on the back on this team (yes, it's inspired by a previous Terapagos team posted here, although I did try Terapagos with other mons for a long while):
Illegal? (Terapagos-Terastal) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Venusaur-Mega @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
I do not expect any decision on Terapagos in this meta to set precedent, but since we managed to ban exclusively Tera Steel, surely we can prevent exclusively Terapagos from Terastallizing since its form change breaks our BST limit and Mega Stones corresponding to BST-breaking Mega forms are similarly banned.
Terapagos-Stellar doesn't feel as crushing as Commander or as restrictive as Opportunist, though - it feels a mere one step above a lot of things, with its automatic 1.2x offence boost, its Adaptability boost instead on Normal-type moves, its additional bulk, its ability change forcing initial abilities like Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield, and its (current) inability to go Tera Ghost or Tera Poison. You can still get stalled out, you can still get ripped up by double Mega Heracross, the double Imposter match-up is surprisingly dicey, etc. Notably, I ended up bouncing between 1300s and 1500s with this team.
Happy new year to 2024! The Metronome stats since DLC2's release are about what you expect because of Terapagos shifting the meta when it's not supposed to, so I won't be going too in depth here.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-12-DLC2/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-12-DLC2/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
The battle count is 11887, with the DLC being implemented about halfway through the month, and for me I spent most of that time period playing through it. Unfortunately I did not get to see Metronome call a new DLC move yet.
December 2023 (DLC2): 1630-weighted top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Terapagos (new)
#3: Mega Heracross (no change)
#4: Pecharunt (new)
#5: Blissey (#4)
#6: Ting-Lu (#2)
#7: Mega Gengar (#10)
#8: Mega Ampharos (#5)
#9: Baxcalibur (#24)
#10: Mega Sableye (#8)
Terapagos not making 1st place is probably only because you can only have one Terapagos-Stellar per team, and Venusaur seems to be its most favoured partner by far. Pecharunt manages to make a great debut of its own, and we'll see if it can continue the trend with its defensive ghost niche. Meanwhile, Ting-Lu might have its lowest ranking ever since SV's release (with Commander) as it becomes old news, though the full month of December will probably keep it afloat. The other new additions (Gouging Fire at #32, Hydrapple at #41, Raging Bolt at #47, Iron Boulder at #63, Cresceidon at #145) all hang around the triple digits of usage.
Over in the moveset file, both Power Spot and Toxic Chain overtake Flower Veil on Venusaur now. Terapagos seems to favour Download over Intrepid Sword while mainly running Mirror Herb. On the other hand, Pecharunt slots in Magic Bounce/Ice Scales/Toxic Chain to leverage its defense and stalling, while divided between Mirror Herb/Weakness Policy/Kee Berry to bolster its stats. Despite its advantages, Terapagos's viability ceiling is a mere 78, behind Pecharunt and Mega Slowbro with 79, Mega Heracross's 80, and Ting-Lu and Mega Venusaur still holding strong at 81.
Whenever it ends up resolved, I feel like Terapagos-Terastal will be a pretty solid alternative to Pokestar Giant since it does end up slightly bulkier with 95/110/110 bulk, even if it is stuck as a Normal type. I also want to see if the Stellar tera type is worth using normally, since the state of the meta is probably skewed to burning it on Terapagos. While this may be the last major content addition from SV's DLC, the 3.0.1 patch is still incoming this month, and I really suspect that they might remove Burning Bulwark from the Metronome pool if anything.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-12-DLC2/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-12-DLC2/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
The battle count is 11887, with the DLC being implemented about halfway through the month, and for me I spent most of that time period playing through it. Unfortunately I did not get to see Metronome call a new DLC move yet.
December 2023 (DLC2): 1630-weighted top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Terapagos (new)
#3: Mega Heracross (no change)
#4: Pecharunt (new)
#5: Blissey (#4)
#6: Ting-Lu (#2)
#7: Mega Gengar (#10)
#8: Mega Ampharos (#5)
#9: Baxcalibur (#24)
#10: Mega Sableye (#8)
Terapagos not making 1st place is probably only because you can only have one Terapagos-Stellar per team, and Venusaur seems to be its most favoured partner by far. Pecharunt manages to make a great debut of its own, and we'll see if it can continue the trend with its defensive ghost niche. Meanwhile, Ting-Lu might have its lowest ranking ever since SV's release (with Commander) as it becomes old news, though the full month of December will probably keep it afloat. The other new additions (Gouging Fire at #32, Hydrapple at #41, Raging Bolt at #47, Iron Boulder at #63, Cresceidon at #145) all hang around the triple digits of usage.
Over in the moveset file, both Power Spot and Toxic Chain overtake Flower Veil on Venusaur now. Terapagos seems to favour Download over Intrepid Sword while mainly running Mirror Herb. On the other hand, Pecharunt slots in Magic Bounce/Ice Scales/Toxic Chain to leverage its defense and stalling, while divided between Mirror Herb/Weakness Policy/Kee Berry to bolster its stats. Despite its advantages, Terapagos's viability ceiling is a mere 78, behind Pecharunt and Mega Slowbro with 79, Mega Heracross's 80, and Ting-Lu and Mega Venusaur still holding strong at 81.
Whenever it ends up resolved, I feel like Terapagos-Terastal will be a pretty solid alternative to Pokestar Giant since it does end up slightly bulkier with 95/110/110 bulk, even if it is stuck as a Normal type. I also want to see if the Stellar tera type is worth using normally, since the state of the meta is probably skewed to burning it on Terapagos. While this may be the last major content addition from SV's DLC, the 3.0.1 patch is still incoming this month, and I really suspect that they might remove Burning Bulwark from the Metronome pool if anything.
This may be a very dumb comment, but I figured with your involvement and frequent (excellent!) posts, you were the one in charge of the metagame. Your post seems to indicate that you're waiting for a call on Toxic Chain like the rest of us, so do you happen to know who is supposed to make that call?
That would probably be Ivy who usually organizes any suspects and changes, though the reason is mostly because of user discussion anyway.
The last time I played I hadn't seen any toxic chain users, which was a bit unexpected. I'll keep an eye out, but what really ought to be done is removing Terapagos due to it bypassing the BST rule. Historically we've banned even the weakest of mega stones that bypass the limit, and the low BST legal Terapagos itself doesn't really offer much new to the format, so I don't think this would be too harsh of a move.
Iron Hands is underrated imo, his stat spread makes him probably the best offensive ice scales user, sort of mimicking the unkillability of AV iron hands in VGC. He has taken me above 1500, though not to #1 on the ladder as of yet.
Edit: turns out terapagos got quietly banned before i made this post. Sorry for misunderstanding
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