Binary Battles

Approved by Eevee General, idea by Snaquaza :)




Binary Battles



The OM where you can play two battles at once!

Binary Battles is inspired by the triples format, where you have three 'mons fighting at once. However, when the central Pokemon is left out, the sides will basically fight two battles at the same time, as long as they don't have any Flying- or Pulse-moves. This OM takes this concept a little further, removing the aspects specific to triples (Flying-moves hitting the other side, Quick Guard, etc.This basically allows two single battles to be played at the same time. The catch is that you still use 1 team, so you have 6 Pokemon to cover both battles. It's a challenge to plan over both of them and keep track of your Pokemon, so that they can keep covering the opponent. For example, you can take advantage of the Pokemon on the other side to make sure it can't cover the other side, or pressure both sides in a way that they would need to send out the same Pokemon on both sides!
 
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EDIT: Oh, I get it, you're doing a doubles battle, but the pokemon aren't on different slots of the same battlefield, they're kind of in different rooms and can only interact with one of your opponent's two pokemon.

Can your two pokemon interact?
 
I bet trapping and phasing are going to be pretty good, since I think team composition is going to be pretty important. OU bans and clauses?
 

AWailOfATail

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Hey, I really like this! I feel like there will be a lot of different strategies for both offense and stall. If both your sweepers are hard walled by only Slowbro, that's okay! Just launch strong attacks on the other side! For stall, it might be a bit tougher, but still interesting.

Clarification: do Stealth Rock and hazards affect both halves of the battle? Assuming they would, but want to be sure. Either way, should be fun.
 
Two questions:

1. If your opponent have one pokemon left, the other side of thebattle is blank. Does ths mean that the pokemon with no battles will be useless?

2. What happens if the battle end up in 1v1 but both pokemon are not on the same side of the field?
 
I'm assuming this uses Triples as a template, so if it ends up 1v1, the field condenses so it's only those two slots.
 
Strategywise, I foresee two major consequences:

1) Spam cores get a lot better. In standard, suppose you have Pokemon A that reliably hard-counters your opponent's Pokemon F and Pokemon G. Normally the situation is in your favor, because Pokemon A only has to deal with one of them at once. In Binary Battles, suppose that the opponent gets F and G on the field at the same time. Pokemon A can only deal with one of them; unless you're carrying a secondary check, something else on your team dies.

You can't just slap Heatran on your team and assume that you have Talonflame handled, because what if you need Heatran to stop Mega Charizard X? Or what if Heatran is over on the other side of the field for whatever reason? I think 2) momentum is going to be incredibly important here, because if you can get it, you can set up these kind of situations and make something faint.

Cores that cover each other's weaknesses should be unaffected, because if A and B are on the field at the same time, the opponent can just send C and D out to kick their asses.

Can't wait to try this out.
 
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EDIT: Oh, I get it, you're doing a doubles battle, but the pokemon aren't on different slots of the same battlefield, they're kind of in different rooms and can only interact with one of your opponent's two pokemon.

Can your two pokemon interact?
no
you play a 6v6 doubles, but they can't target each other or hit each other with spread moves
yes
I bet trapping and phasing are going to be pretty good, since I think team composition is going to be pretty important. OU bans and clauses?
Mostly likely but i cant say that the bans/unbans would be the same
Hey, I really like this! I feel like there will be a lot of different strategies for both offense and stall. If both your sweepers are hard walled by only Slowbro, that's okay! Just launch strong attacks on the other side! For stall, it might be a bit tougher, but still interesting.

Clarification: do Stealth Rock and hazards affect both halves of the battle? Assuming they would, but want to be sure. Either way, should be fun.
unfortunately, no you would have to either set up on one side or both sides
Similar to the sr question, what about weather / terrain moves / screens?
weather, terrain moves and screens will only work on each side of the field.
Two questions:

1. If your opponent have one pokemon left, the other side of thebattle is blank. Does ths mean that the pokemon with no battles will be useless?

2. What happens if the battle end up in 1v1 but both pokemon are not on the same side of the field?
1 and 2 . This situation sounds similar when you are in triples and its 3 v 1 but they wouldnt be a "shift function", not saying the pokemon will be completely useless since if it comes down to a 1v1 it will become a center stage for both of them.
Strategywise, I foresee two major consequences:

1) Spam cores get a lot better. In standard, suppose you have Pokemon A that reliably hard-counters your opponent's Pokemon F and Pokemon G. Normally the situation is in your favor, because Pokemon A only has to deal with one of them at once. In Binary Battles, suppose that the opponent gets F and G on the field at the same time. Pokemon A can only deal with one of them; unless you're carrying a secondary check, something else on your team dies.

You can't just slap Heatran on your team and assume that you have Talonflame handled, because what if you need Heatran to stop Mega Charizard X? Or what if Heatran is over on the other side of the field for whatever reason? I think 2) momentum is going to be incredibly important here, because if you can get it, you can set up these kind of situations and make something faint.

Cores that cover each other's weaknesses should be unaffected, because if A and B are on the field at the same time, the opponent can just send C and D out to kick their asses.

Can't wait to try this out.
indeed momentum would probably shape this meta
 

Martin

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edit: i was wrong there.

An interesting mechanic (i hope lol) is that Shadow Tag, Arena Trap and Magnet Pull trap everything on the field. This means that you could perform a double withdrawal to trap your opponent against a hard counter (e.g. go to Wobbuffet against their Skarmory while you trap their Bisharp in on your Lopunny) and it frees up the HP fire slot on Mag for another move (e.g. HP Ice/Grass etc.)

Finally, TR and Tailwind look to be good in this meta.
 

dhelmise

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What exactly are the clauses (and banlist) for this meta? I'd assume it's similar to the already-existent ORAS Triples banlist, but I also guess you can never know what's exactly OP (bar theorymonning) until you've played the meta. Still, I'd like to know. :o
 
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It's gonna be fun isn't it. Two single battles can make you rethink your team
 
What exactly are the clauses (and banlist) for this meta? I'd assume it's similar to the already-existent ORAS Triples banlist, but I also guess you can never know what's exactly OP (bar theorymonning) until you've played the meta. Still, I'd like to know. :o
yeah the clauses will be the same, but the banlist could be different when we actually play it
 
Instead of hard-coding a new metagame, can we not just start two battles on pokemon showdown with the same team and make sure the pokes sent out cannot overlap? Unless I am missing something?

Either way I don't think I will completely understand the rules until a see a reply lol
 
Instead of hard-coding a new metagame, can we not just start two battles on pokemon showdown with the same team and make sure the pokes sent out cannot overlap? Unless I am missing something?

Either way I don't think I will completely understand the rules until a see a reply lol
the HP totals won't carry over, plus you can't have the same Pokemon on both sides out
 
Instead of hard-coding a new metagame, can we not just start two battles on pokemon showdown with the same team and make sure the pokes sent out cannot overlap? Unless I am missing something?

Either way I don't think I will completely understand the rules until a see a reply lol
The idea of this meta is to play two games at once drawing from the exact same pool of Pokemon. Not the same six Pokemon at the start of the match, the same six Pokemon at every point during the match, with all the damage and status and lost/changed items and PP they incur along the way. This can't actually be accomplished by just running two singles games in tandem.

Plus, with the random nature of phazing moves, you can't actually ensure that overlapping Pokemon will not be sent out.
 
Would this not create a problem when its a 2v1 for setup. Say your pokemon A is battling pokemon B, but pokemon C is alone and can use any amount of setup moves to boost its stats in case your pokemon faints and you'll get an advantage from setting up for free before you finally meet in the middle.
 
Would this not create a problem when its a 2v1 for setup. Say your pokemon A is battling pokemon B, but pokemon C is alone and can use any amount of setup moves to boost its stats in case your pokemon faints and you'll get an advantage from setting up for free before you finally meet in the middle.
I think that if one player cannot send out a mon onto a side of a battle, that side should 'end'. It also make sense if both players have one mon but their on opposite sides the battles should merge. Brilliant meta idea imo
 
I think the 2v1 solution that makes the most sense is withdrawing the Pokemon on the blank side back into the player's party as if it had switched, reducing the battle to a normal singles match on the active side and canceling any hazards/weather on the blank side. Making it into doubles at the last second seems kind of silly and unfair to the other player, as does having the Pokemon attack a blank space.
 

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