Back in Gen 7, I stumbled into a Metronome Battle RMT that got me interested in building for the format. Now, after seven years and waaay too many battles, I'm hoping to pay it forward, and showcase how much thought can be put into even a silly little rng-based joke tier like this one. Building for Metronome is like a more constrained version of building for ladder 1v1, where it's impossible to account for every possibility at once, and so you instead aim to create the best statistical odds possible into as many meta threats as possible, while also matching up well into random ladder shitsquads.
@Ice Scales 
@Ice ScalesThis team started as an experiment to see how well Mirror Herb can work as a form of both scaling and anti-scaling on a tanky structure, rather than the offences I tend to see use Mirror Herb on ladder. This was also my first time trying Silvally-Ghost this gen, a near-unused mon at the time that I'd known was good in theory, but had never quite found the right place for. Scales is here as a pretty standard defensive abil.
@Ice Scales @Ice ScalesSilvally impressed me, and I quite liked the anti-scaling of Mirror Herb, but I found that it was too inconsistent to win on its own. Banded Iron Hands over Ting-Lu creates an alternate wincon, thriving in faster matchups while Mirror Herb covers slower ones. This version is where the team really started to become strong, with at least four people topping ladder with this variant since I posted it to the Metronome thread in June as a Silvally showcase.
@Intimidate @IntimidateThis was a separate experimental team I tried out a couple months later, testing how the combination of Intimidate and Mirror Herb might work as a pseudo-Fur Coat that doesn't autolose to Defiant and Competitive. Much like the Ting-Lu team, it felt good, but double Herb was too inconsistent.
@Intimidate @Ice ScalesTrying to remedy the inconsistency of Intimidate, I hybridized the two above teams, to see how well one Intimidate could be covered by a single Mirror Herb, rather than needing two Herbs to deal with Defiant/Competitive, and it did a surprisingly good job. It also matched up far better than two Ice Scales into both Mega Heracross HO and Imposter Blisseys, two very prominent teams in high ladder. Absolutely the best of both worlds.
(Hybridized? Like- like some kinda Chimera™ or something??)
@Intimidate @Ice ScalesThe more optimized final version, with Glastrier having slightly better stats as an Intimidate user than Iron Hands. This is also where I swapped Silvally from Relaxed to Brave to slightly improve key matchups.
Glastrier @ Choice Band | Ability: Intimidate | Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD | Brave Nature | IVs: 0 Spe
The team's dedicated Tera user, always going Ghost turn 1 unless I'm facing a potential Innards Out Chansey/Blissey, or know I'm against double Mind's Eye/Scrappy. Banded Brave provides a consistent path to victory, and helps win damage races in offensive matchups. Intimidate is the main innovation of this team, neutering physical builds and massively boosting the team's overall bulk. I think most experienced Metronome players have ruled it out as a matchup fish due to the prevalence of several hard counters, and I agree with that for gens 7/8, but this team is designed to offset its typical problem matchups, as I'll discuss with Silvally. Glastrier is used over the comparable Iron Hands here because Intimidate helps mitigate its lower physical bulk, letting its slightly higher stats elsewhere shine through. Min Speed helps with Perish Song, and ensures your Intimidate goes off after Imposter.
Silvally-Ghost @ Mirror Herb | Ability: Ice Scales | Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe | Brave Nature
Ghost Silvally is among the bulkiest non-Tera mons in the meta, thanks to Ghost's immunities to over a quarter of all physical moves. Those immunities make it a great Ice Scales abuser, complimenting Intimidate by tanking special threats. Mirror Herb is the lynchpin of this team. At worst, it almost always goes off in a game, with Silvally's balanced stat spread allowing it to abuse any pull but Speed. The real reason it's here, though, is as an answer to scaling strategies that would typically threaten this sort of balance build. The most obvious case is copying Defiant or Competitive off of Intim, with Defiant giving you +2 while the opponent only gets +1, and Competitive being offset by Ice Scales. If the opposing team gets multiple boosts at once, Mirror Herb will copy all of them, giving +4 against two Defiant mons, for example. Another big one is Weakness Policy, which can easily get out of hand otherwise, and is by far the best item on Intimidate-immune Flower Veil teams. Intrepid Sword, Download, and Simple are also common. Brave is used over Relaxed to help race special HO and Defiant/Competitive without losing much value elsewhere. Stellar is a damage bump in games where Ghost Glastrier isn't needed.
Threatlist:
Special HO is the scariest meta build to face, but between Ice Scales on Silvally and the Plus/Minus boost being lost once one mon dies, the most common form of it is only a somewhat unfavoured matchup. That said, if I run into it a couple times, I'll usually swap to a double Ice Scales build like this one if ladder's kind to it, rather than taking the risk on this team.
Non-Lopunnite Scrappy is by far the worst ability for this team to run into, both blocking Intimidate and bypassing the main benefit of the team's stacked Ghost typing. Thankfully, between it being a matchup fish, and it only being used by people who don't know Mind's Eye exists (which is sadly many people), it's almost never optimized. Scary in theory, fine on ladder in practice.
Glastrier @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Silvally-Ghost @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Silvally-Ghost @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Actual Good Example Game - Pretty Even Luck vs Optimized Defiant Offence
Speedrun
idek what to call this besides a mess
Honse
awful move clutches up
obscene comeback against one of my own best teams (and a friendo)
vs number 1 on ladder immediately after I told them they shouldn't risk another game (friendo part 2)
Speedrun
idek what to call this besides a mess
Honse
awful move clutches up
obscene comeback against one of my own best teams (and a friendo)
vs number 1 on ladder immediately after I told them they shouldn't risk another game (friendo part 2)
So like... at the end of the day, it's still Metronome Battle, right? Even with a team as strong as this one, you'll inevitably get unlucky. You will Explode. You will Memento. You will be Imprisoned, Disabled, Toxicked, Leech Seeded, and Mortal Spun. But the upside of usurping player skill in favour of luck is that, more than any other format on PS, success in Metronome Battle is determined in the builder. For the people who love building for Pokémon but aren't always as excited about actually playing it, I think that tradeoff can be a lot more enticing than it's often made out to be - to me, it certainly has been.
