I've been having a bit of a look around the forum that Shuckle Man posted on the last page, and I've found it pretty interesting to be honest. Apart from the obvious Dugtrio being in uber, it's relatively similar to the Smogon metagame. I've also tried to explain to them the reasoning behind the new UU tiering in this thread here, but they seem to be meeting that with a similar scepticism that was shown by a lot of Smogon members initially.
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Foreign metagames
- Thread starter adman2
- Start date
Is Wobbuffet allowed in Japan? Granted, this is PBR, where Ubers are not checked, but I saw one on a Japanese team. Is Wobbuffet frowned upon in the East like he is here?
EDIT: I checked the Friend Pass a few minutes ago, and he has OHKO moves on Walrein and Dugtrio (same guy that had Wobbuffet). Do the East Asians have an OHKO Clause?
EDIT: I checked the Friend Pass a few minutes ago, and he has OHKO moves on Walrein and Dugtrio (same guy that had Wobbuffet). Do the East Asians have an OHKO Clause?
China's a hell of a lot different though. Whereas Japan is very much about keeping the game as similar to its roots as possible, China is content with banning anything that sounds slightly overpowered, even on paper. (To be fair, I here their metagame is actually really fun to play.) I guess the Western metagame is the central point between the other two. When I say Western, I mean North America, parts of Europe, New Zeland, and Australia, in other words smogoners.
It's no surprise, really. Unless there was one dominant community that governs this game, I don't see how you'd expect each community's metagames to look exactly the same.
I can't pinpoint the exact origins of competitive Pokemon, but I'm pretty sure tournaments started in Japan sometime around the introduction of Pokemon Stadium. Rules like Species Clause, Freeze Clause, and the 3 Pokemon only rule were introduced in that game. In the standard cup, there was also a rule that restricted your levels between 50 and 55. In ADV it was just changed to 50. IIRC, they actually used things like level 52 Tyranitar in Japan back in the GSC days.
If Japan was exposed to the tournament scene that early, then it's likely that they'd want to base their "underground" metagame around the official ruleset. Though I've seen a few arbitrary rules like no Latias/Latios/Cresselia, and according to one of skarm's old threads, Heracross was banned in ADV and you could only have 1 Hidden Power user on your team. I'm not too sure if this was ever confirmed though. One thing I've noticed about Japanese casual play is that they tend to use a lot of gimmicks.
Over here, the 3 Pokemon rule and the level restrictions were completely ignored so we could develop our own rules. Preference seems to be heavily based on tradition. The tournaments that have occured had really obscure, abitrary rules anyways. There were no items in the 2005 Seattle tournament, for example. Casual play in North America is almost identical to our tournament style of playing. As a whole, I think we take the game a lot more seriously.
Well, I do admit that Smogon takes things a bit seriously when it comes to pokemon and its competitive battles. The analysises, suspect voting, and strategy tips that are on this site shows that the NA(us) views battles more technically compared to Japanese/Chinese counterparts.
The best thing about this is, I think the way that we handle things in the competitive field is a good thing.
I don't know about the Chinese metagame, but as for the Japanese, I'm gonna hafta disagree. Just check out that Japanese strategy wiki's page on Swampert as an example.
Even without any translation, it's plain to see that there's lots of talk of IVs and EVs and amount of/percent damage. Granted, not all of the sets there come with very technical or even thorough descriptions, but the technical detail for some of the sets easily rivals the technical detail in the Swampert Analysis up on the main Smogon site.
They pay attention to Speed Tiers, too.
And although I can read only about 60% of it, I find their page on Countering and Prediction very interesting, and not too different from some of the stuff I've read here on Smogon.
Sorry if this counts as resurrecting a dead thread, but I've noticed some strange Japanese sets from people that clearly play competitively (a good way to tell is to look at characteristics; if they all have ones matching 31 IVs with good natures, chances are they're competitive). Keep in mind that this is PBR.
Umbreon is strangely popular, though it doesn't have one set that everyone uses (some use Curse + Wish + Sucker Punch, while others prefer Confuse Ray and Toxic).
Some Japanese players have standard sets. For example, Scizor is the typical Swords Dance Platinum variety, and you have Choice Scarf Breloom (oddly, the person I fought chose Sky Uppercut over Spore. . .). Focus Sash suicide leads are common too.
Some weird sets:
Weavile
Leftovers, Jolly Nature
Night Slash
Substitute
Spite
Snatch
Starmie
Life Orb, Modest Nature
Hydro Pump
Power Gem
Camouflage
Grass Knot
Umbreon is strangely popular, though it doesn't have one set that everyone uses (some use Curse + Wish + Sucker Punch, while others prefer Confuse Ray and Toxic).
Some Japanese players have standard sets. For example, Scizor is the typical Swords Dance Platinum variety, and you have Choice Scarf Breloom (oddly, the person I fought chose Sky Uppercut over Spore. . .). Focus Sash suicide leads are common too.
Some weird sets:
Weavile
Leftovers, Jolly Nature
Night Slash
Substitute
Spite
Snatch
Starmie
Life Orb, Modest Nature
Hydro Pump
Power Gem
Camouflage
Grass Knot
Man at one point I could read Japanese, but I didn't keep it up. Anyway on topic does anyone know any Japanese Pokemon sites I would like to browse around there area.
If anything, ours is simply the English-speaking + Quebec rule list.
Yeah, I agree with Polis, Smogon pretty much represents competitive Pokemon in English-speaking countries. It's rules are generally what most English-speaking trainers play under.
By "XYZ" do you mean that they allow or ban some Pokemon differently than Smogon? For example, do they allow Garchomp or ban Latias?
I'm italian, and our metagame uses Smogon's ban list, and tiers (except for the new UU), but our meta is focused a lot on Sandstorm, (Toxic) Spikes and SR, and so almost everyone uses Tyranitar or Hippowdon, ora has a team with 4+ Sandstorm immunities. Other teams employ weather changer such as Rain Dance Electrode just to avoid the storm, without Swift Swimmers (or using DDKingdra with Outrage or Draco Meteor/Surf/DD/Waterfall). Just now we're studying the metagame to create our own metagame, using NetBattle Supremacy as our simulator.
Yer, sometimes they have stuff like Item Clause (which I never understand, tbh) and back then Deo-S was OU, usually there were "No formes of Deoxys are allowed. INCLUDING Speed!". Not very different. I haven't been on in a while, so I'll have to check.
Item Clause is often implemented in the console games, so I suppose that metagame wants to have at least a small link with Game Freak's. . .
If Speed Deoxys was Overused, why did they include a clause against it at the time?
That Weavile set definitely looks interesting. First set I've ever seen that allows Weavile to abuse pressure. I imagine you sub on the switch in, then spite as they break your sub, and then sub again using your speed to waste 2 more PP. Against an attack such as stone edge, that's all of the PP gone.
Camoflauge is an interesting option for Starmie. It removes its pursuit weakness, which should give incoming Ttar a nice surprise. I suppose battle terrain would have to be implemented on shoddy to have it see any use, but the ability to change your weaknesses and STAB is still rather neat.
The one problem with that Weavile set is that it's asking for a Scizor switch-in. Scizor has no problem taking the Night slash and U-turning out, which will break the sub, avoid spite if he uses it, and stop any attempt to trap Scizor with Magnezone.
The one problem with that Weavile set is that it's asking for a Scizor switch-in. Scizor has no problem taking the Night slash and U-turning out, which will break the sub, avoid spite if he uses it, and stop any attempt to trap Scizor with Magnezone.