Other Current Metagame trends

[phantom]

I don't think Baton Pass teams are gaining traction because Espeon counters swag play lol. The reason why they're getting popular is that it's really easy to build a Baton Pass team and get a bunch of easy wins left and right; ergo, they're basically the perfect team to ladder for suspect requirements. I think four major components contributed to Baton Pass being a helluva a lot better than last gen. The first is the addition of Speed Boost Scolipede, which can pass useful defenses boosts and actually has some resists that helps its team such as Fairy (Hyper voice), Fighting, and regardless of how rare, the ability to absorb Toxic Spikes, which otherwise fucks these teams. The second is the addition of the Fairy typing and subsequently Sylveon as a reliable second recipient and solid passer itself and to a lesser extent, Mr. Mime's retyping wasn't a half-bad addition. The third is the lack of weather-boosted attacks, which made breaking subs fairly easy. It's a lot easier to maintain a sub and boost when freaking bulky resists aren't 2HKOed. The fourth is the ever-growing popularity of stall, which if you aren't aware of, automatically loses to Baton Pass should they lack something stupid like haze Quagsire. The general decrease in power creep as well as the addition of two very good members is what makes Baton Pass so much better, and in the the eyes of many, a possible suspect. All the suspect test did was encourage people to ladder with the team that could get them as many wins and as easily as possible. That isn't something new, I recall in late BW2 I used Kyurem-B on all my teams to get requirements. If you pay attention, the suspect tests tend to reveal the next big threat considering people are motivated to ladder with whatever is easier to use, aka the broken shit.

 

[Seth Vilo]

...If you pay attention, the suspect tests tend to reveal the next big threat considering people are motivated to ladder with whatever is easier to use, aka the broken shit.

That may also explain the fact that in my laddering experience, most teams carried Deoxys-D + Defiant (Bisharp/Thundurus). If I remember correctly, there were five battles in a row with DeoSharp, and one after that with DeoThund (or ThunDeo, which sounds better to me). I may be biased because I hate Deoxys-D and Bisharp with a passion, together or on their own.

Slightly on the topic, in regular laddering, I've noticed a huge spike in the move Pursuit. Tyranitar is the primary culprit, followed by Aegislash. Bisharp and Scizor are there too, but carry it far less than the first two; thank Arceus for 4MSS. This rise of Pursuit through DeoSharp strategies, Choice Band TTar being the flavor of the month from my experience, and the re-founding of the lethal Landorus + Keldeo + Turanitar core has led to the perpetual useleness of the Lati@s twins on teams I seem to build. In one battle, I wanted to revenge a Keldeo after I switched Latios in on it, but couldn't do a thing because coming in right after was Tyranitar. Every. Time. Latios was otherwise in the perfect position to revenge several threats, but couldn't because it would be eaten; whether it managed to actually revenge or not, TTar/Pursuiter was coming in right afterwards or on that turn. Pursuit is everywhere. Having a Lati twin on my team - offensive or Defog - basically makes it a 6v5 match until that Pursuit user is tricked into fainting. As a Lati@s fan, it was infuriating because of how common that stinkin' move is right now. My precious Latios had to be traded out for another speedy Dragon revenge killer that will remain nameless just because of this move. I expect a minor boost to Mega Venusaur in a bit, because with Pursuit on the rise, The Lati@s will fall, who are among the biggest threats to Venusaur. Talonflame may also drop because the primary culprit is Tyranitar, and it hates Pursuit as well, only leading to more of an overall Venusaur rise. So we have that to look forward to, all. May the stall rise again.

To all the people who were saying in October that stall and defensive teams are dead..... Boy were you all wrong......

 

[WebBowser]

To all the people who were saying in October that stall and defensive teams are dead..... Boy were you all wrong......

Ok, in our defense mega luca, megagar and mega kahn were still things in OU back in October. Anyone who thought that any of these three couldn't singlehandedly wreck any stall team was rightfully laughed at.

Now that these three particular threats are gone, stall actually has a chance of not auto-losing 70 percent of their battles. Also, as Aj said some time ago, it's difficult to make a well built stall team, because all it took was one threat your team didn't have an answer to and you lost a pokemon. Once you lose one pokemon, it becomes very difficult for you to keep the rest of your core healthy, especially if your team was counting on that one pokemon to check/counter a certain threat on the opponent's team.

Hmmm, I wonder if I could make a BP stall team? That could actually be hilarious.

 

[Mitchhhhhh]

Ok, in our defense mega luca, megagar and mega kahn were still things in OU back in October. Anyone who thought that any of these three couldn't singlehandedly wreck any stall team was rightfully laughed at.

Now that these three particular threats are gone, stall actually has a chance of not auto-losing 70 percent of their battles. Also, as Aj said some time ago, it's difficult to make a well built stall team, because all it took was one threat your team didn't have an answer to and you lost a pokemon. Once you lose one pokemon, it becomes very difficult for you to keep the rest of your core healthy, especially if your team was counting on that one pokemon to check/counter a certain threat on the opponent's team.

Hmmm, I wonder if I could make a BP stall team? That could actually be hilarious.

BP teams are by nature stall teams...

 

[Tressed]

BP teams are by nature stall teams...

Nope. Stall uses residual damage and light attacks to chip away at a team over time. BP is basically a giant, 6 mon setup sweeper that relies on bulk only as a means to set up.

 

[dkkc19]

So many Keldeos and Togekisses. I fucking hate how powerful Keldeo is that fucking shitty pony, it's Hydro Pump can destroy even those who resist it.

As for Togekiss, the Thunderwave + Airslash tactic is probably the most annoying thing I ever faced in my whole life of playing Pokemon. I'd rather face Swag teams than TW + Airslash Togekiss.

 

[Ajwf]

Ok, in our defense mega luca, megagar and mega kahn were still things in OU back in October. Anyone who thought that any of these three couldn't singlehandedly wreck any stall team was rightfully laughed at.

Now that these three particular threats are gone, stall actually has a chance of not auto-losing 70 percent of their battles. Also, as Aj said some time ago, it's difficult to make a well built stall team, because all it took was one threat your team didn't have an answer to and you lost a pokemon. Once you lose one pokemon, it becomes very difficult for you to keep the rest of your core healthy, especially if your team was counting on that one pokemon to check/counter a certain threat on the opponent's team.

Hmmm, I wonder if I could make a BP stall team? That could actually be hilarious.

More importantly, stall/defensive teams were plagued by a lot of 5th gen players not liking the idea of giving up spike support. I don't think anyone factored in Khan when they started claiming stall to be dead, and to be honest it appeared that smogon was going to ban all megas before the generation started and gradually drop them. Defog was the move I remembered people saying would absolutely murder stall and is probably one of the reasons people are so hesitant about using stall. This suspect test proved a nice starting point to see what stall teams were around, although Baton Pass nearly ruined it.

I mentioned this briefly in the stall thread, but stall found a consensus and dropped it again, which is rather odd compared to other generations. Sure, some stall still use the old VenuTran core but to be honest, bulky offense and balanced kind of adapted the core as through this last month we've been able to shift away a little bit. I would go so far as to say as most stall teams being built recently with the VenuTran core are ineffective due to the meta now knowing this stall core and the fact that earlier teams have basically hit on all the points (I believe TFL even dropped the core to prevent edgequake from breaking and then shifted to Krookodile to take Psychic, and I've made numerous unannounced changes on my first stall team as to round out threats like Bisharp...)

I checked on a stall baton pass idea yesterday... it doesn't seem to have any promise without espeon, who isn't exactly a good stall mon. Two issues came up in a few tests: four moveslots is not enough, as stall wants recovery, attack, boost, baton pass but needs support like Wish/HealBell/Sub/Rocks. Even including all of this forces you to have very few attacks or only one or two boosters. Secondly, the pool is more severely limited than a voltturn stall team (still loving that team, it can beat Baton pass which short of stall teams with sableye, makes it a rare team).

 

[Clair]

I honestly can't run stall in this gen without at least one heavily offensive mon, designed to punish Defoggers as well as (obviously) give me the advantage against opposing stall teams. So many teams also run typical offense, but with both Cleric and Defog support, which are often a theoretical guaranteed win with best play against pure stall. But they're inherently more vulnerable to pure force because they have to regularly give up momentum to deal with your more typical stall tactics. Pretty much all of my most successful (top 50) teams in the last few months have used M-Mawile with Knock Off, which I consider the perfect combination of un-wallability (you know what I mean) and defensive utility (its typing and powerful Sucker Punch for revenge killing). I've tried M-Garchomp a bit, as have some other guys high on the PO ladder, and he performs pretty nicely too (though he doesn't synergise as well with the most popular stall cores).

 

[Fiddy]

Here's the current trend and here's how you easily build a 6th gen team:

Step 1:
Use Deoxys-D and bisharp

Step 2:
Choose a mega
Choose from one of the following- Both chars, pinsir, medicham, mawile, garchomp, gyarados, scizor, gardevoir, tyranitar or maybe even heracross. The rest are mostly good (except for banette and alakazam) but they dont fit on this team

Step 3:
Choose a genie
Any of the thundurus, landorus or tornadus and their forms will do

Step 4:
Choose a bulky water type
Azumarill, Manaphy, Keldeo (suicune works too but be cool and use what everyone else uses lol)

Step 5:
Choose a mixed attacker (or something with psyshock)
Garchomp, kyurem-b, lati@s, aegislash

And that's all you have to do.

BTW fuck baton pass

 

[Dovahhkiin64]

So many Keldeos and Togekisses. I fucking hate how powerful Keldeo is that fucking shitty pony, it's Hydro Pump can destroy even those who resist it.

As for Togekiss, the Thunderwave + Airslash tactic is probably the most annoying thing I ever faced in my whole life of playing Pokemon. I'd rather face Swag teams than TW + Airslash Togekiss.

I would recommend dry skin heliolisk for an ou rain counter. It can outspeed keldeo and ko with thunder or thunderbolt.

 

[blizzarddd]

definitely noticing a shift away from Rotom-w and talonflame. People are packing more mandibuzz, as it can take on the ever-present bisharp.

seeing less Deo-D and more Deo-S in terms of hazards.

 

[Delibird is Amazing]

I've been seeing a lot more stone edge conkeldurr recently. I think it is so pinsir can't set up on it before it mega evolves (resists drain/mach punch, knock off is weak as shit against megas, ice punch is neutral)

 

[dkkc19]

I would recommend dry skin heliolisk for an ou rain counter. It can outspeed keldeo and ko with thunder or thunderbolt.

Yeah that seems like a great option. Nowdays I just use my Keldeo whenever I a Keldeo.

 

[doughboy]

I would recommend dry skin heliolisk for an ou rain counter. It can outspeed keldeo and ko with thunder or thunderbolt.

Heliolisk does not counter or even budge OU rain teams, which primarily base themselves on using multiple Swift Swimmers. Kabutops destroys it with Stone Edge, Ludicolo 2HKO's it with Giga Drain even with Dry Skin recovery while gaining health to tank a neutral Thunderbolt, and Kingdra 2HKO's with Dragon Pulse doing 63% min with Life Orb (disregarding Kingdra often runs Specs with Draco Meteor which can OHKO).

 

[Durant]

Here's the current trend and here's how you easily build a 6th gen team:

Step 1:
Use Deoxys-D and bisharp

Step 2:
Choose a mega
Choose from one of the following- Both chars, pinsir, medicham, mawile, garchomp, gyarados, scizor, gardevoir, tyranitar or maybe even heracross. The rest are mostly good (except for banette and alakazam) but they dont fit on this team

Step 3:
Choose a genie
Any of the thundurus, landorus or tornadus and their forms will do

Step 4:
Choose a bulky water type
Azumarill, Manaphy, Keldeo (suicune works too but be cool and use what everyone else uses lol)

Step 5:
Choose a mixed attacker (or something with psyshock)
Garchomp, kyurem-b, lati@s, aegislash

And that's all you have to do.

BTW fuck baton pass

Mega Alakazam isn't awful, it is a high risk high reward pokemon. He does need some support in removing some of it's checks and counters in order to sweep but once you do the payoff is huge since very little can go up against that base 175 special attack with a good movepool to back it up. It's bulk sucks but Alakazam and it's mega aren't built for taking hits.

 

[WebBowser]

About Heliolisk: Sacred Secret sword (I keep getting them mixed up, stupid obscure fighting moves that just happen to be on very good pokemon) is a thing, even on non rain teams, swapping in heliolisk into a keldeo is a very dangerous thing to do. Even in UU, a meta currently dominated by bulky waters, heliolisk receives some stiff competition from megamanec, Raiku and specs jolteon for special elec attackers.

On Paraflinch: Use an electric or ground type (or a volt absorb / lightningrod mon, but those are usually elec type anyway), and the only two paraflinchers that are even remotely viable are screwed. Also, paraflinch only has a 25% chance of working on turn one, and it only gets that 25% if the paraflincher outspeeds (base 80 and base 100 are not particularly notable speeds), swag play has a 50% chance of removing the enemy's turn on setup, has no common immunities, and can only be outsped by faster priority users, which are relatively rare (compared to mons with speed above 80 or 100 at least). Lastly, paraflinch requires the paraflincher to constantly use his flinch move in order to continue removing his opponent's turns, while once swagplayers have a confused and paralyzed mon, they can set up subs (which also have priority), spikes, screens, recover lost health, or just smack the opponent in the face with foul play for massive damage. A +2 base 95 unstabbed dark type move will frequently do more damage then a +0 base 80 STAB move, especially since the two viable paraflinch abusers have relatively lackluster offensive stats when unboosted. This argument has been done to death and I would rather this be the last say on the topic unless can think of something that I had missed or am not taking into proper consideration.

On Megazam: I really am not seeing this one. It has a sky high base spa and base speed, which is great, but it has next to no setup moves outside of maybe subs (nasty plot and/or psycho boost plz GF) and it's STAB moves are really weak. +2 megadoom will easily outdamage megazam with better STAB coverage, megaman works almost as well as a revenge killer / late game cleaner and infinitely better as a hit and run striker, and we have things like specs latios and megazard Y for special threats, both of which have much better STAB coverage and can hit in roughly the same ballpark (IIRC, megazard-Y actually hits harder). The main reason why a lot of folks shy away from it is the loss of magic guard, which many people feel is the main reason to use zam in the first place. Magic guard focus sash pretty much guarentees that zam can take a hit, allowing him two chances to revenge kill a boosted threat as opposed to one, setting him apart from most other revenge killers. Megazam loses this utility, and therefore needs a new niche as a super-fast special threat, which is a niche with a fair bit of competition. Also, dark weakness really, really sucks in a metagame that is flooded with deo-sharp, sucker punch in general and pursuit trappers, all of which put a hard stop to any chance megazam or normal zam have of sweeping baring some pretty nifty disable shenanigans. Good news is that he ohko's most knock off users with his coverage, so there's one less popular dark move that he needs to have nightmares about. pursuit and sucker punch are biggies though.

 

[Eddie2013]

As of right now I am seeing a rise in people using fire blast on slowbro not sure if its standard but I assume its for the ohko on mega scizor which is crazy

 

[Fiddy]

Mega Alakazam isn't awful, it is a high risk high reward pokemon. He does need some support in removing some of it's checks and counters in order to sweep but once you do the payoff is huge since very little can go up against that base 175 special attack with a good movepool to back it up. It's bulk sucks but Alakazam and it's mega aren't built for taking hits.

Yeah its fucking awful. I see no reason why anybody would use that as their mega. If you want a powerful psychic type mega go with gardevoir.

 

[jbtc10]

As of right now I am seeing a rise in people using fire blast on slowbro not sure if its standard but I assume its for the ohko on mega scizor which is crazy

Fire Blast is standard on Assault Vest Slowbro, but the other variants don't usually have it.

 

[Eddie2013]

Fire Blast is standard on Assault Vest Slowbro, but the other variants don't usually have it.

Thanks for the heads up cause honestly it took me by surprise when I first encountered it

 

[Durant]

Yeah its fucking awful. I see no reason why anybody would use that as their mega. If you want a powerful psychic type mega go with gardevoir.

You know if you actually gave some reason why Alakazam isn't that good i would have taken you serious. Also i fail to understand how base 175 special attack a godly speed tier and movepool to back it up is as bad as something with mediocre bulk 3 attacks to abuse it's base 170 attack with and has to mega evolve first turn to do something. Yeah mega Alakazam still has mediocre bulk and it's typing isn't the best but it doesn't completly suck.

Also we should stop this discussion and start talking about what this thread is made for again.

 

[Pyritie]

I think Antar mentioned somewhere it could go OU with the next set of stats (which would kinda suck because then UU would pretty much just have Florges for good fairy types, as omnipresent as she is.)

gardevoirite is BL

 

[WebBowser]

As of right now I am seeing a rise in people using fire blast on slowbro not sure if its standard but I assume its for the ohko on mega scizor which is crazy

I know a few folks who use it as an aeigislash and pinsir lure.

Slowbro actually has relatively few commonly used support options. Scald and Slack Off are staples for defensive sets, but the remaining two slots are actually pretty free. Yawn/toxic is common but by no means necessary (and kind of interferes a bit with scald burning), light screen is a decent option, but isn't phenomenal. Trick room requires a very specific team comp and is never a move one can simply slap on him. Boosting sets are honestly kind of lackluster due to lack of status recovery, and trick is incredibly situational because slowbro kind of really likes lefties.

The point isn't that these aren't viable options, but that slowbro has plenty of room to run fire blast to nail common offensive switch ins (obviously doesn't do jack squat to a decent majority of defensive switch ins, which are normally bulky waters).

 

[sidakarya]

gardevoirite is BL

As of now, but it does have a decent chance of moving up if it gets steady usage.

Assuming, the 1760 stats for the last two months will still be used for determining tiers, Gardevoir would be

(20*3.51510 + 3*2.87119 + 3.07436)/24 = 3.41625%

Which just makes the cutoff.

 

[Sergeant Spooky]

gardevoirite is BL

Normal Gardevoir isn't that bad in UU as a scarfer.