Anyway, I wanna talk about pivoting and option denial. Specifically on the former, slow as molasses pivoting on every thing with a base speed of like... less than 101. I've not done a ton of Pokemon battling in general lately because it's been, well, not very exciting lately. And partly because Real Life™, but that's neither here nor there. It's been to the point I've considered just quitting competitive battling. But on a whim, I opted to stream random battles for friends last night while we tried to decide what to do. It was fun and refreshing and exciting. And I think I nailed it pretty quickly: there were barely any pivots. Except Mega-Pidgeot who I kept getting like... every other battle. But the pivots I did get were fast and offensive, they were escaping and avoiding harm, not ponderously bringing in yet another Terrain Band Adapt Ignore All Abilities One-Shot Everything set that couldn't hope to safely sneak in without good prediction otherwise.
Additionally, my abilities usually worked. I usually had my items. I usually had my boosts. And so did my opponents. Dealing with a boosted sweeper wasn't as simple as yawning and clicking Haze/Spectral Thief. I could rely on my Scarf Revenge Killers to actually be able to keep their role rather than losing it 15 turns into the match because the opponent had Knock Off on 5 of their Pokemon. My defensive abilities functioned rather than getting ignored by an attacker or tickled away by a wall with base 3 Special Attack with Core Enforcer.
Was this a randoms only thing where meaningful, thoughtful switching happened regularly? Was randoms the only meta where I could rely on my set to actually function like it was supposed to for more than a turn?
Conveniently, Smogon's main page Twitter showed off matches for the semi-finals for the Smogon Tour 25. It crossed Gen V, VI, and VII OU and, curious, I watched. For reference, here's
the first replay, here's
the second, and here's
the third. Watching the way they switched and tried to outplay and outmaneuver each other, it was almost like watching a game of chess. I could keep up with most of their decisions, but I quickly realized my switching skills had gotten rusty. Meanwhile, they could play well and win without building most of their team to deny the opponent as many options as possible.
Still though, that was pro level play. Curious more, I dusted off an old X/Y OU team and ran off to modern OU with it and played several matches. It was... more like the random battles. Sets that functioned, thoughtful switching, no convenient one-click cure for a sweeper that was being a bother. It felt more engaging rather than just going through the motions of slow pivoting endlessly until I could get my sweeper in on the right opponent to attack before returning to slow pivoting, only pausing to Haze their set-up user or Core Enforce their Poison Healer.
But why couldn't Balanced Hackmons be this more engaging? Then... I remembered, it used to be. I rewatched some old replays and, while there were some Prankster Parting Shot users, Regenvest Volt Switchers, and one or two others, such as a Volt Switch user to ensure it escaped its own Perish Song, U-Turn was hardly being touched. And there were counterplay to the pivots. Set-up could be made to stick but could also be defeated with actual plays. Abilities worked, period. Items... well, Knock Off was kinda common in the replays, so that was still a thing. But here, have my replays as references...
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/balancedhackmons-70301080 - I have two pivots, the AV Regen and the Perish Song user I mentioned. I use Unaware to stop the Belly Drum, but Giratina could have taken a hit and shuffled him out too.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/balancedhackmons-85041746 - This one is the first iteration of BH UU ever, AFAIK, which was "top 100 Pokemon by usage are banned, plus Imposter" as the only rules. Anyway, another AV Regen pivot on my part. Don't ask why I had Mursharna, I don't remember, I think it was Unaware. Defeat their "loloneshot everything" with priority because, hey, priority actually worked back then!
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/balancedhackmons-123984064 - No pivoting! And I use Prankster Grudge to beat a set-up sweeper.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/balancedhackmons-126414053 - This one is very, very long, you may want to speed up to fast at least by about turn 30 since my strategy was... very patient. And wouldn't work in the current meta because almost literally every team has Spectral Haze. Also, almost no pivoting, denial of abilities, etc.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/balancedhackmons-155016943 - And here I battle who I believe was a Lance alt. Yes, THAT Lance. A lot of (Prankster) Parting Shot, which you can see backfires some, and some ability denial via Normalize (which, at the time, affected Spooky Judgement too, before you ask about that.)
Notice some common themes? Opponents aren't constantly denied their strategies by moves that literally disable core components of Pokemon. Pivoting is uncommon and not always slow, there's a lot of fast, even Prankster fast, pivoting going on combining with some prediction to make sure the new Pokemon can withstand the hit. Otherwise, a lot of calculated (or not so calculated) switching. It's not the constant "lemme sloooowly bring in my wall breaker" nearly every single game on nearly every single team.
What to do about this? I don't friggin' know, I think the stuff to fix my problems would need a lot tinkering with the meta, both more and at a faster rate than I'm betting most would be comfortable with. And probably without the slow, ponderous suspect process that takes a month to do and then months to pass between them. The only thing I can think of would be pet-modding, but I doubt the OM Leaders would permit a BH pet mod.
I mean, there's so much that's forcing the meta into a tiny, role compressed bubble. You can barely set-up because Haze and Spectral Thief are everywhere. Other methods of stopping set-up such because they're outright shut down so easily they're unreliable. Abilities are thrown out the window so easily with Core Enforcer and Mold Breaker moves effectively making sets unreliable after a turn or two or making them just simply irrelevant. Knock Off is... Knock Off still and has a lot of the same issues. And near every wall is a slow pivot now and near every team that's not hyper offense has at least a couple, if not more, pivots. It's super stifling of options and creativity, to the point where it seems "new and original" sets are "Hey guys try using Flashfire on Audino!" instead of like "Hey, here's a set that plays completely different from just about everything else" or "Here's a Pokemon literally nobody considered until now and it actually has function beyond a specific niche." I mean, that stuff happens are on rare occasion, but it's not like the past where the meta would constantly shift and evolve from newly discovered sets.
