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Ladder Balanced Hackmons

Nike of Samothrace said:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/tervari-bhxy-178

This is what Balanced Hackmons is all about people. Great plays, plenty of game-changing hax, 100+ turns, and god dammit not giving up until the end. I thought it was over like 4 times, but no, they kept on going. Take note all you contrary users. This is how you do it.

ps. Stumbled across this while looking at old replays because the server is down.
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Screw that game

+1 252 Atk Regigigas Facade vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Xerneas: 327-385 (71.71 - 84.42%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 Atk Regigigas Facade vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Regigigas: 394-465 (92.92 - 109.66%) -- 56.25% chance to OHKO

(either one of these wouldve meant his gigas was gone meaning no attacks for adrian left at all and I very likely would've won soon after since I only needed Gira dead. But NO, let's double crit you instead)

1st turn Burn

Leech Miss

-_-

Nike of Samothrace said:
plenty of game-changing hax
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pls no moar

E: Also that must've been one of my prototype teams lol
 
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Jeeze, that replay must be from the early days when most of X/Y stuff wasn't implemented and people were still figuring things out about what did exist.
 
OK I AM HERE TO MAKE A STATEMENT Piccolo Daimao
In the kitchen that is the balanced hackmons metagame there is one elephant in the room that we are all aware of STUPID CONTRARY. This can draw many parallels to the recent ban of swagger to ubers. The sheer ability to beat persay the number one player on the ladder (TheCommadore ) with a team of 2 contrary mega mewtwo ys or reshiram or both. You boost up your defenses and speed via v create, then your special attack via draco meteor, leaf storm, overheat, or psycho boost; for physical contrary pokemon it is harder to solidly boost your attack but superpower is the best way and like the special attackers you use v-create. Then you proceed to boost up your stats when bam a lucky punch chansey comes down to ruin your day. However this applies to the ban of swagger again, luck. The luck factor of contrary is outspeeding the opponents imposters which is rather annoying and do you really want to be running scarf blisseys? Then they send out another check to contrary, unaware well to that statement i raise you this
252 SpA Life Orb Mega Mewtwo Y Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Unaware Cresselia: 149-177 (33.5 - 39.8%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 3 layers of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
Now albeit spikes are almost never used in balanced hackmons but for the sake of this argument they are used. The ability to almost always 2hko the best unaware wall is most definetly Ban Worthy. Also unaware is not the giant pinnacle on the mountain of balanced hackmon abilities. Contrary promotes an unhealthy metagame that is enough to make it ban worthy but lets look at other questions to answer.
1) Is contrary broken? Most definetly I do not need to go into detail about this as it is explained above.
2) Is contrary making Balanced hackmons not fun? Yes of course I'd love to see contrary from the viewpoint of stall players such as Adrian Marin and fellow hyper/balanced offense players such as E4 Flint but in my opinion having to ALWAYS run a chansey is a BIG problem (bigger then this wall of text)
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Balanced hackmons? While the other answers are a solid yes this one is no however it is promoting that you can just have a nuke that nothing can stop but imposters and those are checks same with unawares is a good thing. Like using meta knight in ssbb. While it is terrific that balanced hackmons is flowering into the premier other metagame part of it is for the wrong reasons. It's kind of like lets say we unban kyogre and let it into ou (honestly nowadays i dont know whats going through the heads of those guys nowadays so its possible) there are no counters to it like it can run hp grass for gastrodon. This will make more people want to play ou because they are all like ZOMG I CAN HAZ KYOGRE AND KILL EVERYTHING IN MY PATH. While it would be fun for that to happen the meta game would be so unstale unhealthy that it would be banned faster then crocune can make a player rage.
Well i think thats enough for my 2 cents verbatim I'd love to hear your take on this. Peace.
 
Ranger Mike said:
OK I AM HERE TO MAKE A STATEMENT Piccolo Daimao
In the kitchen that is the balanced hackmons metagame there is one elephant in the room that we are all aware of STUPID CONTRARY. This can draw many parallels to the recent ban of swagger to ubers. The sheer ability to beat persay the number one player on the ladder (TheCommadore ) with a team of 2 contrary mega mewtwo ys or reshiram or both. You boost up your defenses and speed via v create, then your special attack via draco meteor, leaf storm, overheat, or psycho boost; for physical contrary pokemon it is harder to solidly boost your attack but superpower is the best way and like the special attackers you use v-create. Then you proceed to boost up your stats when bam a lucky punch chansey comes down to ruin your day. However this applies to the ban of swagger again, luck. The luck factor of contrary is outspeeding the opponents imposters which is rather annoying and do you really want to be running scarf blisseys? Then they send out another check to contrary, unaware well to that statement i raise you this
252 SpA Life Orb Mega Mewtwo Y Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Unaware Cresselia: 149-177 (33.5 - 39.8%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 3 layers of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
Now albeit spikes are almost never used in balanced hackmons but for the sake of this argument they are used. The ability to almost always 2hko the best unaware wall is most definetly Ban Worthy. Also unaware is not the giant pinnacle on the mountain of balanced hackmon abilities. Contrary promotes an unhealthy metagame that is enough to make it ban worthy but lets look at other questions to answer.
1) Is contrary broken? Most definetly I do not need to go into detail about this as it is explained above.
2) Is contrary making Balanced hackmons not fun? Yes of course I'd love to see contrary from the viewpoint of stall players such as Adrian Marin and fellow hyper/balanced offense players such as E4 Flint but in my opinion having to ALWAYS run a chansey is a BIG problem (bigger then this wall of text)
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Balanced hackmons? While the other answers are a solid yes this one is no however it is promoting that you can just have a nuke that nothing can stop but imposters and those are checks same with unawares is a good thing. Like using meta knight in ssbb. While it is terrific that balanced hackmons is flowering into the premier other metagame part of it is for the wrong reasons. It's kind of like lets say we unban kyogre and let it into ou (honestly nowadays i dont know whats going through the heads of those guys nowadays so its possible) there are no counters to it like it can run hp grass for gastrodon. This will make more people want to play ou because they are all like ZOMG I CAN HAZ KYOGRE AND KILL EVERYTHING IN MY PATH. While it would be fun for that to happen the meta game would be so unstale unhealthy that it would be banned faster then crocune can make a player rage.
Well i think thats enough for my 2 cents verbatim I'd love to hear your take on this. Peace.
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Um. Even with rocks and spikes cress can wall. Without spikes there's no way you can get past cress.

In my opinion, contrary isn't op, it's just boring, takes away from skill, and plain annoying.
 
Also, building on what Mike wrote, there is a problem that I've never seen in practice but could easily be abused: Stored Power. So an Arceus/Mewtwo/Reshiram/Blaziken/Jirachi/whatever boosts its stats using V-Create, Psycho Boost, Superpower, etc, and then spams stored power. Stored Power can approach base power levels of around 400 with these moves (IIRC) and that would easily kill Cresselia/whatever unaware wall people use.
 
252 SpA Mega Mewtwo Y Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Cresselia: 93-110 (20.9 - 24.7%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
If you switch cress immediately into contrary, the most they can have is 6 boosts from 2 v-creates. Then just haze or topsy.
 
Contrary is annoying and silly, but as much as I'd like to be rid of it for those reasons, they will never make for valid logic in putting a ban in place. And as someone who almost never runs either Chansey or Shed, I can safely say that they're not hard to check if you're prepared for it, even if you lack an Unaware.

You see, the thing is, Contraries are pretty much like set-up sweepers, except they're boosting at the same time they're doing some damage and they have a rather limited subset of moves to work with to achieve boosts and those same moves also have very low PP. Chansey, Shed, Unaware, and Prankster Dbond are fallbacks in case things go wrong, not first answers. Rather, the best way to handle a Contrary is to deny them momentum. Shuffling them out, Topsying their boosts, forcing them out with offensive pressure, setting up Trick Room, putting them to sleep, switching your FF Aeglislash in, PP stall with Sub/Protect, burning physical contraries, paralyzing any of them, and so forth. Paralysis and burn are particularly potent since, as long as they have the status, you can pretty much deal with them at your leisure*.

Or you can just Heart Swap their boosts, Baton Pass to your Imposter proof Moldy Gengar, and then go to town.

Honestly, I think Contrary is probably less dangerous this generation due to the power drop in moves like Draco Meteor and things like Specs Contrary Reshiram in permanent sun aren't a thing anymore. Cress was hard-pressed to wall Contrary Kyu-W last gen, especially if it had to switch into an attack, whereas it deals with Ytwo pretty well. Not to mention FF Aegislash and FF Togekiss, among others, resist the hell out of most Contrary attacks.

So yeah, as much as I dislike Contrary, I can't support a ban for it until someone demonstrates that it easily breaks the meta. Especially now that we have ability-clause and you don't have to worry about 4-5 Contraries sitting on a team.

*A bit of an overstatement, but those statuses do significantly cut their threat down.
 
So what are the checks to contrary (I'm not saying counters as this is BH; counters don't exist when you can run everything except for a few cases)
Shedinja: If you don't have an anti-shedinja move, Shedinja walls every contrary, and can do whatever from there.
Imposter: Copies your boosts then kills you with them and sweeps your team. Red Card variants are especially deadly in this regard.
Ability nullifying moves: Obvious
Topsy-Turvy: Obvious
Heart Swap: Remember this move? The one that lets you switch stat buffs?
Haze: CLEAR ALL THE BUFFS
Unaware: Obvious
Prankster DBond: Besides chip damage and priority, what is this not a check to?
Flash Fire stuff: Walls Overheat. Aegislash can sponge every other contrary move especially well.

Idk anything else
 
Pikachuun said:
So what are the checks to contrary (I'm not saying counters as this is BH; counters don't exist when you can run everything except for a few cases)
Shedinja: If you don't have an anti-shedinja move, Shedinja walls every contrary, and can do whatever from there.
Imposter: Copies your boosts then kills you with them and sweeps your team. Red Card variants are especially deadly in this regard.
Ability nullifying moves: Obvious
Topsy-Turvy: Obvious
Heart Swap: Remember this move? The one that lets you switch stat buffs?
Haze: CLEAR ALL THE BUFFS
Unaware: Obvious
Prankster DBond: Besides chip damage and priority, what is this not a check to?
Flash Fire stuff: Walls Overheat. Aegislash can sponge every other contrary move especially well.

Idk anything else
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I started using Prankster Azumarill to counter Mega Gyarados and most PH users as well and I found it a great check to most contrary users too. With its nice resistances/immunities to Draco Meteor, Overheat, Superpower and V-create it can wall most stuffs and Encore them and/or use Entrainment to render them useless. With common Prankster steel types and Mega Gyara/Yveltal running around, it's quite hard to see them blindly spam Psycho Boost and in that case yeah, Prankster DBond is the solution.
 
Contrary is pretty simple to stop... the only reason I like it is to abuse holes in my opponents team that other team members create. This isn't broken, its strategy
 
Pikachuun said:
So what are the checks to contrary (I'm not saying counters as this is BH; counters don't exist when you can run everything except for a few cases)
Shedinja: If you don't have an anti-shedinja move, Shedinja walls every contrary, and can do whatever from there.
Imposter: Copies your boosts then kills you with them and sweeps your team. Red Card variants are especially deadly in this regard.
Ability nullifying moves: Obvious
Topsy-Turvy: Obvious
Heart Swap: Remember this move? The one that lets you switch stat buffs?
Haze: CLEAR ALL THE BUFFS
Unaware: Obvious
Prankster DBond: Besides chip damage and priority, what is this not a check to?
Flash Fire stuff: Walls Overheat. Aegislash can sponge every other contrary move especially well.

Idk anything else
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Entrainment/Worry Seed: Burns their limited PP and prevents them from setting up.
Simple Beam: The above on steroids, but riskier against anything else.
Strong Priority: As long as they don't have too many V-Creates under their belt, stuff like Kyu-B and Xern can force a lot of Contraries out or KO them if they try to stay in.
Paralysis: For pretty much the same reason any sweeper hates paralysis.
Sleep: No explanation needed, but this is why a lot of Contraries run Safety Goggles.
Residual damage: Toxic, Leech Seed, Burn etc. Can stall out a Contrary's HP or PP. Especially potent when combined with...
Sub + Protect: 32 PP between the two. That's frequently most of a Contrary's PP.
Perish Song: Prevents them from getting momentum if used early enough.
Shuffling: Again, prevents momentum and makes them wind up wasting PP. Stuff like Gira can do this easily since it doesn't care about Ytwo's initial Draco Meteor, unlike the old (Specs) Contrary Reshis and Kyu-Ws last gen.
Pressure/Spite: Maybe a little gimmicky, but these two, especially if combined, will leave most Contraries struggling pretty quickly.
Swagger: Especially against physical Contraries since you'll be lowering their attack faster than Superpower AND confusing them. You could also use Flatter (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's the special equivalent) to the same effect as well.
FEAR: Not every dickish Endeavor user needs to be Sheddy.
Trick Room: A lot of Contraries abuse V-Create for speed boosts. Trick Room is kind of gimmicky, but it punishes them for boosting their speed.

That's just off the top of my head too.
 
Rumors said:
Entrainment/Worry Seed: Burns their limited PP and prevents them from setting up.
Simple Beam: The above on steroids, but riskier against anything else.
Strong Priority: As long as they don't have too many V-Creates under their belt, stuff like Kyu-B and Xern can force a lot of Contraries out or KO them if they try to stay in.
Paralysis: For pretty much the same reason any sweeper hates paralysis.
Sleep: No explanation needed, but this is why a lot of Contraries run Safety Goggles.
Residual damage: Toxic, Leech Seed, Burn etc. Can stall out a Contrary's HP or PP. Especially potent when combined with...
Sub + Protect: 32 PP between the two. That's frequently most of a Contrary's PP.
Perish Song: Prevents them from getting momentum if used early enough.
Shuffling: Again, prevents momentum and makes them wind up wasting PP. Stuff like Gira can do this easily since it doesn't care about Ytwo's initial Draco Meteor, unlike the old (Specs) Contrary Reshis and Kyu-Ws last gen.
Pressure/Spite: Maybe a little gimmicky, but these two, especially if combined, will leave most Contraries struggling pretty quickly.
Swagger: Especially against physical Contraries since you'll be lowering their attack faster than Superpower AND confusing them. You could also use Flatter (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's the special equivalent) to the same effect as well.
FEAR: Not every dickish Endeavor user needs to be Sheddy.
Trick Room: A lot of Contraries abuse V-Create for speed boosts. Trick Room is kind of gimmicky, but it punishes them for boosting their speed.

That's just off the top of my head too.
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Flash Fire Togekiss: Resists/is immune to every Contrary spam move except Psycho Boost, 2HKOs Mega Mewtwo X with Moonblast.

Keep it Playful
 
Pressure/Spite: Maybe a little gimmicky, but these two, especially if combined, will leave most Contraries struggling pretty quickly.
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Another fun one I use is a unaware spite user.
the struggle becomes very real.
 
i think you guys are looking at this entirely wrong, enless someone has an unaware poke that isnt 2hkoed by any coverage move a good contrary user (mega mewtwo y) has, countering it with ANYTHING is basically a coinflip. blissey/chansey cant take a +6 hit without risking sacrificing itself to a speed tie. meanwile the contrary user can just run cresselia/gimmicy coldstop sets(soundproof yveltal easily stops imposter if you have boomburst, psychoboost, and earth power for example...) and easily neuter your imposter, saving it for later on when chans can no longer handle the onslaught. its not that its hard to counter, or anything, its that any decent user of contrary can EASILY run coverage to stop would be checks...unaware? give it gastro acid. chansey? set up a substitute. (no boomburst user is faster without a scarf, and scarf boomburst is rare from what ive seen) and on top of that, its a "no risk high reward" ability. mega mewtwo y doesnt NEED v-create, and in fact, makes it easier to stop with chansey. but without it? good luck winning a speed tie and dieing. and the even harsher fact, is with 2 ability clause, your opponent can just run 2 sash contrary mega mewtwo y's with spiky sheild. contrary is not only a no risk, high reward scenario in most cases, its also DEADLY when people actually USE it properly.
 
Can I get a tl;dr .-.

Ok I read it and I agree that it's a bit of a low risk high reward ability, but the main problem is that it isnt exactly op enough to ban...
 
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Well, I personally believe a better policy would not be to ban what's broken, and instead ban what negatively contributes to the metagame. BH is here for fun, not to be a metagame with everything that's not broken in it, and once you get past the gimmicky-ness of it, it's NOT.
 
Lcass4919 said:
its not that its hard to counter, or anything, its that any decent user of contrary can EASILY run coverage to stop would be checks...
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Can't the same be said of just about every ability/set though? Like Fridge Kyu-W running Bolt Strike to bypass AV Regen Kyogre, Unaware using Simple Beam to stop the Contrary that just Gastroed them, or PH users Skill Swapping PH onto Entrainment users.

Also, running specific sets to wall yourself limits your sweeper's effectiveness in my experience. EG, the above Boomburst/Psycho/Earth Contrary Ywo would probably run into issues against pretty much any Yveltal, not just Soundproof, and could get checked by stuff like Lugia as long as it's not allowed to set-up.
 
Contrary is way too unreliable to be used competitively in most cases. Currently, there are a lot of things against it such as Pranksters. Contrary is only dangerous because it is a high risk-high reward ability. Overall though, it is not consistent and should not be used in competitive teams atm imo. Its unreliability makes it unworthy for a ban. Poison Heal and other abilities are much more effective, centralising and consistent.
 
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Adrian Marin said:
Contrary is way too unreliable to be used competitively in most cases. Currently, there are a lot of things against it such as Pranksters. Contrary is only dangerous because it is a high risk-high reward ability. Overall though, it is not consistent and should not be used in competitive teams atm imo. Its unreliability makes it unworthy for a ban. Poison Heal and other abilities are much more effective, centralising and consistent.
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I disagree, I use it competitively just fine, high risk high reward yes but not unreliable (small but distinct difference). There are many ways to stop it but also many ways to remove the counters, if you make your team to abuse it it works woderfully. If you just throw it in for shits and giggles that another matter...
 
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