As loathe as I am to give these players advice, it makes me more mad to see it happen literally every game. Every single lead Smeargle user on ladder sucks shit and here's why: They click spikes turn 1. You are not enlightened. Click Spore. Stop losing immediately to anyone with an offensive Zapdos lead who has faced a Smeargle before. You are not enlightened, you are bad.
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OU ADV OU Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter vapicuno
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It's even funnier when you use banette and they spore you, only for it to do nothing due to insomnia.
It's even funnier that banette is basically the biggest f you to every sleep user, including breloom who it hard walls completely if they use the standard set.
violet river
formerly ImposterOCE
spiking t1 is perfectly fine vs zapdos because you can pivot out and then bring smeargle back in afterwards, arguably spore is objectively worse because of the downside of sporing into substitute
can we stop in this thread with the derision towards strategies like smeargle, jask, etc and to a lesser extent mag and dug - its this like really weird cope everyone seems to engage in that the opp only won because they brought an illegitimate team or whatever
following up with something i do actually want to see discussion on!
Earthquake on swampert is a very droppable move - it lets you greed evs on defpert by running a -atk nature, it only hits meta and jira(of which it checks both quite badly and if you have to use pert for them you're probably losing
and making blissey recover loop
feels very replaceable by roar on garspikes
can we stop in this thread with the derision towards strategies like smeargle, jask, etc and to a lesser extent mag and dug - its this like really weird cope everyone seems to engage in that the opp only won because they brought an illegitimate team or whatever
following up with something i do actually want to see discussion on!
Earthquake on swampert is a very droppable move - it lets you greed evs on defpert by running a -atk nature, it only hits meta and jira(of which it checks both quite badly and if you have to use pert for them you're probably losing
and making blissey recover loop
feels very replaceable by roar on garspikes
hp grass -> thunderbolt kills smeargle without procing salac berry, same sequence against lead vap. if you spore into sub womp womp that's still a free spike. also jask deserves the derision have you ever played against it, sadly I have. also I'm literally giving smeargle users free advice that's not derision
This is valid but EQ is there to also have immediate pressure on bliss/lax and waters so even on those spikes teams it's certainly worth considering. while roar does an incredible job it's more cumulative in nature so it still depends on the defensive backbone of your team to an extent.
A healthier mindset when you see a play you don't understand would perhaps instead of being "this guy is so ass why would they click that I'm so much better" you could instead think for 5 seconds about why they made that move. Try it out maybe you'll learn something! Pokemon is not a game of absolutes, there is as many paths to victory as you can imagine so perhaps try not to immediately rule a play as bad, especially when a significantly more experienced player than you tells you otherwise! In conclusion I expect a list of 3 pros and 3 cons on spiking turn one with smeargle by Monday morning, this will affect your final grade.
Back in the day Fruhdazi sent me a team with refresh + protect + water + ice, which always did well when I ran it. I think you might be onto something with roar, though -- that lets it damage anything on the ground in conjunction with spikes. I also (and I know some others do as well) like punch > EQ on Pert. For some teams, you really dislike the idea of Blissey healing up on your Pert, and running punch gives you an extra way to win games with special spikes against Blissey teams. I think it was Siglut who ran Roar + Protect + Surf + Focus Punch Swampert on one of his classic Gar spikes squads.
A big part of how bad Earthquake is, is the sad fact that your water move probably does about as much to Metagross as EQ does, especially with special investment on the Pert's part. And you can't click EQ freely because it lets Skarmory in, unlike your water move.
Just popping in to say I'm pretty sure this is a McMeghan invention. If I remember correctly kerts and I were building a lot of teams with it on like 2022 salamences. Very solid set.
Dropping eq on pert is alright depending on the team but it's not for every squad, being able to hit starmie can be really huge. Eq is good enough for bliss most of the time and being free entry for rachi kinda sucks. If you're roaring it out with spikes every time that's cool but it becomes much worse if you can't maintain up.
I just wanted to piggyback off of this comment and remind everyone Ninjask isn't the issue. Nor is agility passing Zap, or Scizor or frankly any stat passing mon. The issue really should be pointed towards sand attack and not speed passing. Speed pass can be difficult to play around but it isn't damaging to the core of what makes ADV a greatly balanced and fun tier.
Evasion moves have long been seen as an unfun part of various tiers throughout the years. From double team/minimize, to Snow Cloak Articuno, these things were removed from the game because they were broken and uncompetitive. What does evasion allow you to do? Like sleep, or freeze, it allows free turns. In practice, this can allow any mon to setup and sweep, or at the very least, render an opposing mon useless.
People state that despite this, Ninjask isn't overly centralizing and retains low usage and is therefore not a problem. Ninjask isn't the issue, evasion strategies are. The existence of there being evasion counters does not change that the strategy is a massive hinderance to the health of the game. Again, a mere counter existing to a problem doesn't automatically mean it should stay legal. Smogon has shown a willingness in the past to move away from cart purity.
Sand attack/accuracy dropping and evasion moves are unfun. Having to prep for these strategies does not offer anything positive to the teambuilder. It removes the fun strategy that ADV is known for and allows for luck based plays. Where games come down to missing a now 50% or 75% attack, or switching out to preserve accuracy only to get sand attacked again, or have Ninjask switch to setup sweep. It makes for an unfun loop of gameplay that allows no room for mistakes, and hitting low accuracy moves to stop introducing RNG to the equation.
There are things you can do to limit sand attack and other evasion type strategies. No Accuracy Check moves like swift, phasing moves, and haze. There are other types of counters but these are the one's available in ADV. Haze is not really used, and moves like swift/aerial ace are never seen. And frankly should never be seen.
The main goal should be to keep the metagame healthy and fun. Even if a problem is not widespread, we should still limit things in the tier, for the sake of maintaining what makes the tier fun. And eliminating mechanics or strategies that hinder the competitive integrity to ADV. While majority of the time, sand attack may not make a significant impact on the game, there are situations that it will happen and at that point strategy is up in the air. Being behind a sub, with an evasion boost, and the ability to setup after being speed boosted has no business in ADV, an otherwise near flawless metagame.
I hope a new thread is created to focus in on this mechanic and have something done about it.
Big fan of water + ice + roar + tect for the reasons you outlined. EQ is a very droppable move. That being said, I've recently come to discover max ada pert, which is like a mix between breaker and wall, which is pretty cool.
ninjask pass is an issue independent of normal speed pass (which might be suspect but also I'm a scrub). sand attack also makes these matchups more polarizing and quite frankly should have been banned the moment the first turn 1000 game happened. Good ninjask players will never lead ninjask so those games are never fun, not that ninjask games are fun normally (Sorry celda but ur just wrong). Like agility pass or salac pass (to an extent) can't simultaneously stall toxic damage and has to be vulnerable for the pass to be successful, but ninjask doesn't. That's my problem with it. Ban the combination of Speed Boost (the ability) and Baton Pass so we don't arbitrarily rip something away from UU because of how "good" it is in OU, but get rid of ninjask somehow.
It's kind of got a weird feel to it, but I've been getting a ton of mileage out of lead CB Heracross lately. Previously I had a build that I got to 1600ish with that had Mag and was actually a bit more defensive, but Magneton is possibly the most telegraphed play ever switching out of lead Heracross & people were catching on. The set is a bit unorthodox, but I think it has merit:
Heracross @ Choice Band
Ability: Guts
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Megahorn
- Brick Break
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Sleep Talk
As a lead with this set, you do end up with a pretty interesting matchup spread against other common leads. You're forced out against Mence, Skarmory, Forre, and Zap (though at the very least I find people play around Rock Slide to some degree with Zap). You also probably don't want to stay in against Metagross since CB mash gets you. Otherwise, I think you have a pretty favorable matchup against the rest of the common leads. If you're up against a faster sleep lead like Jynx or Smeargle, I find it very entertaining to click sleep talk turn one. Since you easily threaten to KO both, they usually click the sleep move. If they do, you have a 75% chance to KO the Jynx (as long as lovely kiss hits you OHKO with everything) and a 65ish%? chance to KO the Smeargle (only won't if you get HP ghost or if Megahorn is called and misses). Sometimes it is just better to click an attack though and then talk turn 2 in case your opponent is a psychopath because getting that call wrong can give your opponent a huge early lead.
As for pretty much every other lead, it either wins outright or has very good odds to. Suicune, Gengar, Milotic, Vaporeon, and Celebi all lose the straight 1 v 1 and are generally forced out which can give you some early momentum. Possibly the strongest thing lead hera has going for it though is its matchup against lead Tar. Not only do you force it out 100% of the time, you can also click either Brick Break or Megahorn, which can immediately put your opponent on the back foot. Even though the lead tar matchup means that you will be dealing with sand the entire game (which is the bane of CB hera's existence), the early momentum you get from winning the lead matchup should at least help in the short term to mitigate that issue.
Overall I feel that one of the big strengths of this set specifically is that it allows for more varied opportunities to hit the field than other CB sets. While Swarm can be a devastating ability when proc'd, Guts gives this set a lot more flexibility. Generally speaking most CB sets are absolutely rekt by status, but there can be times where you might take the trade off of being statused because it gives you nearly 800 attack and so even Skarm is ends up taking 70ish from Brick Break.
I paired hera with CB Flygon, DD Taunt Gyara, defensive Rachi, offensive Starmie, and bulky Meta. I went 38-10 with it on ladder and hit as high as 1655 and it felt like a pretty legit team.
*side note* I come back to ADV over the last couple months after a long hiatus to find that we are still discussing Ninjask and speed pass?? In the year of our Lord 2024?
Heracross @ Choice Band
Ability: Guts
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Megahorn
- Brick Break
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Sleep Talk
As a lead with this set, you do end up with a pretty interesting matchup spread against other common leads. You're forced out against Mence, Skarmory, Forre, and Zap (though at the very least I find people play around Rock Slide to some degree with Zap). You also probably don't want to stay in against Metagross since CB mash gets you. Otherwise, I think you have a pretty favorable matchup against the rest of the common leads. If you're up against a faster sleep lead like Jynx or Smeargle, I find it very entertaining to click sleep talk turn one. Since you easily threaten to KO both, they usually click the sleep move. If they do, you have a 75% chance to KO the Jynx (as long as lovely kiss hits you OHKO with everything) and a 65ish%? chance to KO the Smeargle (only won't if you get HP ghost or if Megahorn is called and misses). Sometimes it is just better to click an attack though and then talk turn 2 in case your opponent is a psychopath because getting that call wrong can give your opponent a huge early lead.
As for pretty much every other lead, it either wins outright or has very good odds to. Suicune, Gengar, Milotic, Vaporeon, and Celebi all lose the straight 1 v 1 and are generally forced out which can give you some early momentum. Possibly the strongest thing lead hera has going for it though is its matchup against lead Tar. Not only do you force it out 100% of the time, you can also click either Brick Break or Megahorn, which can immediately put your opponent on the back foot. Even though the lead tar matchup means that you will be dealing with sand the entire game (which is the bane of CB hera's existence), the early momentum you get from winning the lead matchup should at least help in the short term to mitigate that issue.
Overall I feel that one of the big strengths of this set specifically is that it allows for more varied opportunities to hit the field than other CB sets. While Swarm can be a devastating ability when proc'd, Guts gives this set a lot more flexibility. Generally speaking most CB sets are absolutely rekt by status, but there can be times where you might take the trade off of being statused because it gives you nearly 800 attack and so even Skarm is ends up taking 70ish from Brick Break.
I paired hera with CB Flygon, DD Taunt Gyara, defensive Rachi, offensive Starmie, and bulky Meta. I went 38-10 with it on ladder and hit as high as 1655 and it felt like a pretty legit team.
*side note* I come back to ADV over the last couple months after a long hiatus to find that we are still discussing Ninjask and speed pass?? In the year of our Lord 2024?
well when nothing is being done about a problem all we can do is discuss, it's not exactly our fault that smogon is structured in such a way that we can't actually do something about problems
i'm just struggling to see what the end goal is here for these discussions.. are you asking for yet another suspect test related to speed pass/ninjask? iirc there have been several and that's how we got to this point where bp chain teams are extremely neutered and most of the real cheese options are not possible any more. and like what if there is a suspect test and the majority believe that ninjask is fine and doesn't need to be banned? would you accept that result? not to mention the fact that there's honestly a pretty solid chance that you could get voting reqs without even once actually running into a ninjask team since its usage is like 1-2% or something incredibly low like that.
do you think that the council should eschew all voting procedures and simply ban the thing because you don't like it? whether you want to admit it or not, the argument to not ban ninjask has plenty of merit too. the ADV metagame is overall i feel in a really healthy place right now. if we start slapping bans on every mildly annoying or cheesy strat then where does that end exactly?
The chat is mostly or at least SHOULD mostly be in regards to sand attack. Speed pass with Jask is considered very manageable.
Hey zingpop,
You may find my post #327 useful for untangling the motivations and goals of different users in this thread. Here is a link to the post: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/adv-ou-metagame-discussion.3687814/post-10151497
Hope this helps,
Redless
Just dropping a fun metagross tech I've been using
Metagross @ Leftovers
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Reflect/Light Screen
- Explosion
Just standard bulky attacker but with a screen over protect. This is used on a team where metagross blowing up into a bulky water is extremely valuable and common scenario that plays out, but of course players often try to scout the explosion by clicking protect or switching to gengar. Throwing up a screen is a nice way to spend the filler turn when you call out their protect instead of just hitting into it. And if you guess wrong and they just attack, well if you throw up the right screen it just gives you a better chance to live to boom next turn.
I dunno I thought it was cool.
Metagross @ Leftovers
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Reflect/Light Screen
- Explosion
Just standard bulky attacker but with a screen over protect. This is used on a team where metagross blowing up into a bulky water is extremely valuable and common scenario that plays out, but of course players often try to scout the explosion by clicking protect or switching to gengar. Throwing up a screen is a nice way to spend the filler turn when you call out their protect instead of just hitting into it. And if you guess wrong and they just attack, well if you throw up the right screen it just gives you a better chance to live to boom next turn.
I dunno I thought it was cool.
The people complaining about BP in this thread are asking for a suspect test against Ninjask and/or Speed Pass. Previous suspect tests targeted other members of BP chains like Mr.Mime but did not address the issue of Ninjask directly. The most recent BP suspect thread did not list banning Ninjask as one of the voting options which annoyed a lot of people who wanted to see it banned but were not in favor of banning Speed Pass as a whole. The last BP suspect test had around 55% of people in favor of banning Speed Pass and it only avoided being banned by a margin of 5%, so there is a reasonable amount of support for tiering action against Ninjask/Speed Pass and it's plausible for the topic to be revisited down the line.
Most recent BP suspect test thread: Rejected - ADV Baton Pass v184 | Page 2 | Smogon Forums
The line starts and ends at sand attack + ninjask pass. The strategies aren't fun to play against, aren't interesting to play against, and I can't imagine they are fun to play either. The tier loses nothing good by banning these two things and, conversely, gets more diverse because suddenly you don't have to consider one of three phazers on every team.
Fellas, sand attack Ninjask is a problem in the tier. It's severely toxic to the metagame as sand attack creates extremely luck based scenarios where the game revolves around a dice roll. Speed passing is a unique aspect to the tier giving viability to funky mons like Marowak or Scizor, however, there are definitely ways to play around it. But when given to a mon that has the ability to lower the accuracy of the opponent, including phasing moves like roar/whirlwind, that's when things become not ok, especially in a metagame with no stealth rock and Ninjask is immune to spikes chip. Many say that sand attack Ninjask is not a problem at all, however they fail to recognize that historically, ADV OU has had controversial bans or complex bans revolving around accuracy or baton pass. For example, Cacturne and it's pre evolution, Cacnea, are banned due to sand veil and we all know that Cacnea wasn't taking names back when it was allowed. But on the rare occasion it was played on ladder, it usually did absolutely nothing or it completely changed the flow of the game. Ninjask is similar and the ADV Council should do something about it.
For this, I will play ladder games using sand attack Ninjask to simply piss people off and hopefully have them understand the toxicity of this strategy. I apologize to the people who's days I ruin, but I hope more people will be convinced that sand attack Ninjask is a problem and perhaps use the strategy on ladder to spread more awareness of it in hopes of a ban.
For this, I will play ladder games using sand attack Ninjask to simply piss people off and hopefully have them understand the toxicity of this strategy. I apologize to the people who's days I ruin, but I hope more people will be convinced that sand attack Ninjask is a problem and perhaps use the strategy on ladder to spread more awareness of it in hopes of a ban.
so accuracy lowering + speed passing isn't inherently an issue, because with every other speedpasser you have to take a turn to sand or speed, but with ninjask you just get to do both in one turn, while also accruing boosts in a much safer manner, and also having access to toxic and substitute to make the eventual pass even more dangerous. I think that ninjask passing is problematic even without sand attack but with sand attack it's downright toxic and needs to go
I've been recruited by the SandJask hater crew. This might just be the Jane 1500 experience but I find regular JaskPass I find to be relatively manageable; SandJask is dice luck in the worst way, though. Accuracy drop on non-Jask mons is something I've run into really rarely and haven't found it to be a huge problem, but the sheer tempo of JaskPass combined with accuracy drop is just too much.
I had the... misfortune to encounter you on ladder earlier and the game literally came down to a coin flip on turn 13, which I won. That's kinda fuckin ridiculous honestly. Like nobody here thinks sand attack should be legal (except for siggy I guess) but maybe if we convince BKC to use it in tournament starmaster will make the correct choice and ban these moves. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2175268209-1qpei6nmq4bj44kw1fbjrji25p2yl6npw
Ninjask is definitely a ridiculous pokemon. What I want people to observe closely is the level of play Ninjask can artificially bring to the table without much skill involved. Reversal sweeper teams are considered rather low skill due to the matchup fishing nature of them, however, the average reversal sweeper team peaks at about the 1300s due to the presence of Tar or good roar users. Meanwhile, I want people to observe the ratings of some fellow Ninjask users on ladder as many of them have a significantly higher ladder rating than other gimmicky teams. Ninjask, especially sand attack Ninjask, is a pokemon that can consistently win against the average ADV OU player base and when the Ninjask user loses it's usually because of bad RNG on their side rather than their opponent outplaying them.
I would also like to shed light on the differences between sand attack Ninjask teams and regular speed passing Ninjask teams. The latter consists of significant team support to make sure the speed pass is successful with layers of strategy and team support to pull off a safe pass. However, oftentimes sand attack Ninjask can just win on the spot with an unlucky roar miss from the opponent or the opponent missing an attack that would've KOed Ninjask or the baton pass recipient. While regular BP Ninjask is a ridiculous mon to face, sand attack Ninjask turns a pokemon battle into a casino.