Gen V 1 vs 1 Metagame

[BLOOD TOTEM]

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/1v1-55483929
Has science gone too far?

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Darm Z will destroy you in the night.

 

[Erza98]

Thanks for your feedback. Sure this has its counters - but who doesn't ? This Set is especially useful vs. slower opponents and most trolls, but it can be handled easily by something fast and very offensive like say - Scarf Haxorus or CB Letarking. But that's simply the game, you can't beat everything with a single set. Scarf Haxorus gets owned by Wobbuffet f.e. while CB King loses to most trolls.
I don't believe Aerodactyl would be a better choice in this department, since it can't do anything vs. Counter/Mirror Coat abusers, and without CB it doesn't even hit remotely hard enough to beat most offensive threads 1on1.

Arcticblast edit: I am dumb and forgot that Mirror Coat doesn't work on Hydreigon lol

Erm... Mirror Coat doesn't work on Hydreigon, sure thing bro but... Have you already seen a special Aerodactyl ? :P

Edit: And BTW, aren't Mirror Coat and Counter some tauntables moves ?

 

[Snaquaza]

Erm... Mirror Coat doesn't work on Hydreigon, sure thing bro but... Have you already seen a special Aerodactyl ? :P

Edit: And BTW, aren't Mirror Coat and Counter some tauntables moves ?

I think Mirror Coat is a special move and Counter a physical move, just in a way like Night Shade and Seismic Toss

 

[Erza98]

Hm, maybe Scarfed or Banded Slaking can be better.

 

[Celever]

I love Jumpluff in this meta. Sleep Powder, Swords Dance and then Flying Gem Acrobatics or Seed Bomb KOs most things. Then you have the common Breloom unable to hurt it too.

 

[Erza98]

I love Jumpluff in this meta. Sleep Powder, Swords Dance and then Flying Gem Acrobatics or Seed Bomb KOs most things. Then you have the common Breloom unable to hurt it too.

Hm, this is a good Pokémon, but really weak. Your Flying Gem is on another item place, and without a focus sash, faster foes can easily OHKO you.
I personnaly use Gliscor. With Poison Heal. I find a pretty good combo: you can poison the foe with Fling: you don't need Toxik 'cause this is an 1v1 battle. Other moves are Earthquake (stabbed), Acrobatics (stabbed + more powerful 'cause he lose its item with Fling), and obviously the last move is Substitute.

 

[Redless]

Your Flying Gem is on another item place, and without a focus sash, faster foes can easily OHKO you.

I apologize or asking this as I have had my head under a rock for a while, but has focus sash been unbanned? If not, are there any plans for it to be unbanned?

 

[doughboy]

I apologize or asking this as I have had my head under a rock for a while, but has focus sash been unbanned? If not, are there any plans for it to be unbanned?

Focus Sash is still banned.

I never really elaborated on keeping it banned, but the strategies that have came about from it have really changed the metagame up from being entirely offensive Pokemon with multi-hit moves / priority / speed ties.

 

[Erza98]

Yeah guys, forgot the Focus Sash ban show how much I am stupid. >.>

I propose we unban this item for the Meta, but only for non full-evolved Pokémon, like Bayleef or Gligar. With this, Cloyster, who can't have a Focus Sash (he is full-evolved, right ?) can be killed by Thunder, Gliscor can be killed by Blizzard and Scizor can be killed by Fire Blast ! But, even with a Focus Sash, I don't really know if a NFE Pokémon can beat a FE Pokémon... Except if it has a colossal base attack and a priority move. Or if it is a Fear Rattata n_n

 

[Redless]

Hmmm.
I think that Erza is proposing an interesting idea, and I could see it working.
But personally, I think that we should just straight unban focus sash, at least for a while. Maybe we could suspect test it or something like that.

 

[Erza98]

Time to ban Xerneas even before the [Gen 6] 1v1 comes

 

[bobbyfissure]

Got to rank 1 on the ladder, with a really simple set. not sure why people don't run it.

Specs Latios

 

[Ibiza]

1v1 ladder only depends on who's online when you're playing 1v1 :|

Can Ditto get banned from 1v1 meta ? The scarfed Ditto is really annoying , this is really, really no fair-play.

Arcticblast edit: Please don't double post.

 

[-NLMRY-]

I've heard of this metagame but never tried it, so today I thought I would. I thought of a Smeargle set that would be fun/trolly, only to find out that Focus Sash is banned. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm sure there are good reasons (can someone tell me or link me to a thread containing the decision please, thank you (Edit: found it on the previous page, sorry should've looked first, but I wasn't sure how long it has been banned and if the answer was in another thread)). So I tried it on the regular OU ladder and randomly found a guy using only one monster. Here's what happened. http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/oubeta-67286997

The set isn't complicated

Smeargle@Focus Sash (level 1)
Leech Seed
Protect
Recycle
Spore

Basically you spore on the first hit, then Leech Seed, which always recovers you to 100%, then Recycle. After that just spam Recycle. Now, as I've already said, I don't know this metagame but obviously anything with status moves, multi-hit moves, Substitute, or the Grass type beats it, but it was fun anyway.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, but it should be obvious, that IV's, EV's, or nature shouldn't matter since you're level one. I think mine has 0 EV's and is Serious.

EDIT:

This post proves that I am wayyy late to the party and that this strategy has been thought of, sorry to waste your time :(

This is a very broad statement and is missing the point of 1 vs 1. First of all your are missing several key Pokemon that are able to beat that set without having multi-hit moves or being a grass-type. These include Tyranitar, any user of Fake Out, Thundurus / Tornadus with Taunt, anything with Taunt makes it a 50/50 guessing game of Taunt vs Leech Seed, Alakazam, etc. Taking all of that + any user of multi-hit moves + any Grass type, that is a hell of Pokemon. So the rock, paper, and scissors is not as centralized as you make it out to be.

Yes 1 vs 1 is very matchup based, but the beauty of 1 vs 1 is that you can never be sure that your Pokemon can be beaten by a matchup you normally win against. When you take this mentality into consideration, you realize that you can garner surprise wins by taking advantage of people's standard course of action against your own Pokemon. Of course, the second aspect of the beauty of 1 vs 1 is that you must balance the aspect of taking advantage of people's standard course of action by using a surprise set with maintaining the strongest matchup with all other Pokemon as a whole.

Anywho I promise myself to take a stronger role in this project and guide it. I am really happy to see this project gain a solid spot on PS!'s "Other Metagames" listing, being up there with Tier Shift and Balance Hackmons.

_________________________________________________________________

There will be no new bans taking forth, except for one: There will be a (temporary ban) on Focus Sash.

Right now, I see Focus Sash as an impediment on the tier for several reasons. First, Focus Sash really devalues both the aspects of bulk and power in 1 vs 1 metagame and puts way too much emphasis on speed. Bulk is a non-factor when considering a Pokemon, since Pokemon are in a vacuum and be assured survival against any move outside of multi-hit moves, no matter how powerful the attack is. Attacking power is also negligible because no matter how powerful the attack, the majority of the metagame will be able to survive the hit and be able to retaliate. There is little point into entering the game with a stellar attacker if the game boils down to 2HKO's which a Pokemon with less power could get, which is the situation Focus Sash creates.This is why Level 1 Pokemon are able to succeed because neither bulk or power do not matter in many situations.

Without bulk or power, the name of the game is speed. The game with Focus Sash is essentially "who can finish the 1 HP first?" This places huge emphasis on attackers with priority: you have enough power to OHKO and have an attack that can not be beaten.

Lastly, Focus Sash stymies many strategies that otherwise would be much more common. Pokemon with Choiced items, CounterCoat, and bulky booosting. Without the ability to OHKO the opposing Pokemon cleanly, Pokemon with Choiced items get exposed to being OHKO'ed themselves in retaliation. CounterCoat users are also unable to cleanly OHKO opposing Pokemon who are holding a Focus Sash, meaning they might have to take 2 hits to potentially get KO'ed and that their initial retaliation was basically useless. Lastly, there is little point to trend towards bulky boosters if the bulk can be made up on another Pokemon with Focus Sash. The boosting would be a waste because the first attack is needed to break that Sash, making boosts negligible. The niche of survival that Focus Sash provides can be replaced by resist berries, but it isn't always survival.

discuss.

edit: In case you haven't noticed I made the ban on focus sash permanent because many more strategies become viable.

 

[Kit Kasai]

Focus sash and weakness policy are two different items and thus can't be comboed.

Latios does the same thing your set does but it's stronger and faster

 

[AOPSUser]

Is there any idea of when Gen 6 1v1 will be available on showdown?

And my particular stance on the focus sash vs. non focus sash 1v1 is towards no focus sash.

Especially with the new items coming in such as Assault vest I don't see the need for it really. As well as the combo of focus sash + weakness policy would get annoying very fast.

I find chandelure is very underrated in the 1v1 metagame. Yes shadow tag its best ability is useless, but flame body works wonders for physical attackers, and infiltrator (When it is released) will be wonderful for substitute stallers.

Seriously after infiltrator is released chandelure is the perfect whimsicott counter. One fire blast from a modest chandelure with no evs vs. a whimsicott with max hp and spd is a ohko. Even then if whimsy hits the leech seed and you miss the fire blast, infiltrator only allows it to spam protect for its life as substitute is useless.

Lumiere (Chandelure) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flame Body
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 240 SAtk / 208 HP / 44 Def / 16 Spd
Modest Nature
- Trick
- Shadow Ball
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Infiltrator is already released.

Chandelure is really sounding very interesting in 1v1. It's just a bit slow compared to stuff like Latios, and if you fail to invest Speed then that problem gets a bit worse.

It is a guaranteed Whimsicott counter though.

 

[AOPSUser]

My bad, I knew I shouldn't post when I was tired. Although I think that will give a cool niche to sturdy users, considering the majority of them are of the rock/ground type you can rock polish on the first turn, the opponent activates the weakness policy. And as long as they lack priority you hit back hard.

One of the large differences though for this generation of 1v1 will be Hidden power, at 60 bp it is really only effective over stab moves if it a x4 effective attack instead of a basic coverage attack. That is unless you have technician.

Which leads to me my next point the only two special attackers with technician are Mr. Mime and Roserade.

Which I mean Mr. Mime is eh at least he is part fairy now, but I find roserade does some great work.

Bouquet (Roserade) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 240 SAtk / 252 Spd / 16 Def
Modest Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Sludge Bomb
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power [Ice]

By far favorite thing about Roserade it counters practically every troll class, this is a class where if you are tired of being pummeled by garbage you give them flowers.

-Whimsicott dies to one sludge bomb with new fairy typing.
-Lvl 1 Aron can't function when it is asleep.
-Lvl 25 Donphan w/endeavor+Ice shard, just use sleep powder.
-Lvl 1 painsplit nosepass, just use sleep powder.
-Smeargle Spore+Imprison set, immune to spore and can easily ohko with life orb leaf storm.
-Immune to all toxic stallers (Including lvl 1 magnemite w/ recycle)
-Even with burn stallers, yes I am looking at you sableye, the attack drop is negligent.

And the combination of stab sludge bomb and base 90 hp ice, allows to work as a great dragon and fairy slayer.

You could always have 60 BP Hidden Power by lowering a couple IVs here and there. For Roserade all this means is that it no longer needs a 29 Special Attack IV to have it, which doesn't really matter.

Roserade beats every troll class, true, but it simply falls to many of the powerful Choiced mons in 1v1 (Latios, Jirachi, Kyurem-B, Haxorus, Hydreigon, etc.) as well as stuff like RestTalk Tyranitar, Mamoswine, etc. I would probably personally prefer a Mold Breaker Choiced mon to screw around with troll FEAR stuff. Haxorus looks interesting for this purpose, especially since it is one of the few Dragons to get Poison Jab.