Project Metagame Workshop

[InkyDarkBird]

The problem is the logistics of the implementation: say a slower Pokemon wants to use the move Protect, how do you make that happen. Do you give the slower Pokemon the choice to act first by using the priority move every time he's moving second, effectively broadcasting that they have a priority move and adding a plethora of empty confirmation turns in each game? Do you make it a "quick time event" by being able to click Protect in your opponent's turn if you're faster than him but making Protect counterplay be "literally just instaclick"?

I would just make priority status moves bypass the mechanic entirely. The person using the status move can only use it when it is their time to perform an action, and the turn order would not be changed unless the Pokemon uses Prankster Tailwind or some other speed-modifying status move that raises the speed high enough.

Choice Items still have their drawbacks: a Choice Band Iron Valiant may click Spirit Break on your Great Tusk, but instead of being forced to go a faster mon that OHKOs, you can now safely go Kingambit, force them to switch out and kill something else entirely. Probably a poor example but you get the idea.
While theorycrafting with a few friends we also thought about negative priority moves like Trick Room and Counter. While technically you can just remove the priority from the moves, they can end up being overly broken as a result, so more discussion has to be done about that.

Doesn't this just essentially turn the meta into a game of a ton of forced 1v1s? You send out a Pokemon to OHKO the Iron Valiant, then what? Your opponent sends out a Pokemon to OHKO or set up on that Pokemon, and so on. I predict the strategy will just be to either setup early and eliminate your opponents with sheer power, or to build a team maximizing coverage moves. With how offense-oriented this metagame is, I propose unbanning Ho-Oh and/or Lugia.

 

[RADU]

I would just make priority status moves bypass the mechanic entirely. The person using the status move can only use it when it is their time to perform an action, and the turn order would not be changed unless the Pokemon uses Prankster Tailwind or some other speed-modifying status move that raises the speed high enough.

I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly. You mean that you would make it so a move with +priority can only be used if you have the first action? Doesn't that actually just nerf the move instead? I also don't understand how using Prankster Tailwind would function logistically, you cannot select the move until it's your action, so how are you gonna modify the turn order retroactively?

Doesn't this just essentially turn the meta into a game of a ton of forced 1v1s? You send out a Pokemon to OHKO the Iron Valiant, then what? Your opponent sends out a Pokemon to OHKO or set up on that Pokemon, and so on. I predict the strategy will just be to either setup early and eliminate your opponents with sheer power, or to build a team maximizing coverage moves. With how offense-oriented this metagame is, I propose unbanning Ho-Oh and/or Lugia.

Valid thought, and we can't really know until we try, so here's something we can use for reference:

My Turn! Replay Showcase

I made this replay by playing against myself using two OU sample teams and pitting them against each other, emulating the My Turn! metagame by going into custom game and using splash to give players the free action. I do have to note that I messed up on Turn 25, because Zapdos used Slow Volt Switch on Turn 24, thus Samurott Hisui should've gone first, and gotten the guaranteed Knock Off on Slowking Galar. I'm not certain whether I made any mistakes elsewhere but I'm pretty sure I got the rest of the turns correct.
I might end up making more, and if you wanna try it out yourself, make note of the fact that AV and Choice Items don't really work with this format. You can bypass AV by using something like Dream Eater, but Choice Items require some annoying double switching, and that can be tedious to keep track + ticks burn/terrain and other effects even more.

So, what does this tell us?
What I noticed is that it's not that easy for someone to get a cheeky guaranteed kill right away, you have to stumble across a position that allows for it, due to the opponent not playing correctly. This may be due to the team compositions since the amount of mons that OHKOd each other was sort of scarce, so I will have to test with more offensive teams, and also with more defensive teams, I encourage you all to try this method if you're interested.

One important consideration is that progress, momentum and positioning are more important than ever, so the onus is on every Pokemon to be worthwhile and do something useful., simply sitting down and walling the opponent is not worthwhile enough, which is why Garganacl ended up being simply dead weight, the moveset of Earthquake, Salt Cure, Curse, Recover was not enough to get immediate pressure.

I might test some games with the mechanics of "slow action switch makes the pokemon go last the turn after" to test how it plays out, but I'm liking the way this metagame is played as of rn. I'm potentially concerned that the meta could become streamlined given that there's a real chance moves can be "forced" and the only skill expression being "don't do something stupid, silly", but there's a plethora of options and lines are a bit too long to calculate, so I don't think this is gonna happen.

Lastly I may have been wrong about Terastal, there's no option for defensive tera, so offensive tera can become too annoying to handle, which is why I didn't use it in my showcase; we'll have to see about that situation too.

 

[Low-Key]

Nohaxmons
Premise:All RNG factors are removed.

Late, but this is actually already a Solomod.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly. You mean that you would make it so a move with +priority can only be used if you have the first action? Doesn't that actually just nerf the move instead? I also don't understand how using Prankster Tailwind would function logistically, you cannot select the move until it's your action, so how are you gonna modify the turn order retroactively?

No? I just said priority status moves completely ignore the mechanic, so they always go first unless the two Pokemon are in the same priority bracket. Also, Prankster Tailwind would only affect the NEXT turn. I really don’t see how this is difficult to understand.

 

[RADU]

No? I just said priority status moves completely ignore the mechanic, so they always go first unless the two Pokemon are in the same priority bracket. Also, Prankster Tailwind would only affect the NEXT turn. I really don’t see how this is difficult to understand.

Okay, I'm still confused so let me present an example: Kyurem vs. Gliscor, kyurem goes first and clicks ice beam on gliscor, which dies right away. Gliscor did have Protect, but you cannot select a move until it's your action, so how do you "ignore the mechanic"? Do you revert the actions that happened in the turn? Does Gliscor get to pick whether he wants to Protect or not before Kyurem's action? How does this logistically function?
Also, if Tailwind only affects the next turn, what's the point of it being Prankster/priority? It would still affect the next turn regardless of when you use it. What I don't understand is how do you ignore the mechanic? Play by play, exactly what happens?

 

[BoingK]

No? I just said priority status moves completely ignore the mechanic, so they always go first unless the two Pokemon are in the same priority bracket. Also, Prankster Tailwind would only affect the NEXT turn. I really don’t see how this is difficult to understand.

Priority works because normally two people take their actions at the same time and the turn resolves after those actions, hence the game can process these at the same time and change action order dynamically - IE prankster tailwind in VGC, or ESpeed Dragonite as an example.

Changing the game where actions are taken at different times, and most importantly resolve at different times means it is literally impossible for the game to account for priority at all and cannot dynamically change action order, since one player has already completed their turn and that effect has already resolved before you try to use prankster grassy surge / insert field condition here with a slower mon - IE priority is defunct. It would be different if you take actions at different times and have them resolve together, IE you get to see what your opponent does if you're going last, but that obviously has its own issues.

 

[RADU]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229890053
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229897258
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229904331

here's three more games I made emulating My Turn!
I'll say it looks like a very interesting format even without many changes. I realized Choice Scarf can be emulated since we already select who moves when using Splash, so you can just make the choice scarf pokemon itemless and make it act first on purpose. Other moves like Encore and Taunt technically do not function because they prohibit the use of Splash, but thats not a huge deal since these moves are nerfed compared to vanilla pokemon.

Looking at it, fast Pokemon are certainly good but not overpowered, since getting OHKOs is not as easy as it seems. Same goes for setup moves, the readability makes them far easier to counter, but good coverage can get you completely owned. I think something like fast Substitute can be really nice to save your Pokemon from being revenged.
A really important thing in this metagame is the lead, since the opponent can easily counterlead its important to have a Pokemon that is hard to OHKO but also doesn't allow the opponent to just get a lot of mileage with setup and such. I'm still playing while knowing both teams in their entirety so I can't really deep dive in how the meta would look like if I didn't know what sets both parties have.

I'm confident enough in this metagame to submit it, so right now I'm looking for council members or at least a secondary leader, so reply to this or dm me on discord (raduology) if you're interested.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

Okay, I'm still confused so let me present an example: Kyurem vs. Gliscor, kyurem goes first and clicks ice beam on gliscor, which dies right away. Gliscor did have Protect, but you cannot select a move until it's your action, so how do you "ignore the mechanic"? Do you revert the actions that happened in the turn? Does Gliscor get to pick whether he wants to Protect or not before Kyurem's action? How does this logistically function?

You redefine the metagame to force trapping on the slower Pokemon every turn. Both Pokemon choose an action at the same time, instead of one by one. If a Pokemon is unable to make an action for whatever reason (KOed, Taunt, Disable, etc), they will get to perform an action immediately as soon as they have a Pokemon on the field. All priority moves lose their priority besides positive priority status moves or Pokemon with Prankster. Priority status moves that immediately deal damage (Prankster Toxic, Will-o-Wisp, etc) do not force the opposing Pokemon to stay in if the opposing Pokemon is faster.

Also, if Tailwind only affects the next turn, what's the point of it being Prankster/priority? It would still affect the next turn regardless of when you use it. What I don't understand is how do you ignore the mechanic? Play by play, exactly what happens?

It doesn’t matter much besides making sure the Prankster Pokemon can actually get up Tailwind instead of being OHKOed. Making Tailwind function like this is just for consistency with my above idea.

 

[RADU]

You redefine the metagame to force trapping on the slower Pokemon every turn. Both Pokemon choose an action at the same time, instead of one by one.

Okay, but this is a completely different metagame to the one I'm presenting. Firstly, in My Turn! the slower Pokemon can still switch out, it just does so after it has taken the damage. Secondly, choosing actions one by one allows you to know exactly what the opponent did removing the prediction element from the game.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

Okay, but this is a completely different metagame to the one I'm presenting. Firstly, in My Turn! the slower Pokemon can still switch out, it just does so after it has taken the damage. Secondly, choosing actions one by one allows you to know exactly what the opponent did removing the prediction element from the game.

Yes, but I still view your metagame as just multiple 1v1s with a lack of defensive counterplay. Setup moves can be predicted, yes, but if the opponent sets up on you on a Pokemon that cannot effectively stop the setup sweeper, they will always get 1 KO, and then you will revenge KO that Pokemon because you cannot risk losing another Pokemon.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

Furthermore, in your metagame, speed is almost useless except for the first turn or after turns where both of the Pokemon don’t move or both get KOed, as the action system takes precedent.

 

[RADU]

Yes, but I still view your metagame as just multiple 1v1s with a lack of defensive counterplay. Setup moves can be predicted, yes, but if the opponent sets up on you on a Pokemon that cannot effectively stop the setup sweeper, they will always get 1 KO, and then you will revenge KO that Pokemon because you cannot risk losing another Pokemon.

I'd invite you to watch the replays I sent and to theorycraft for yourself. While the meta is indeed more trade heavy than usual with actual kill confirmations, that doesn't make it multiple 1v1s, and there's certainly defensive counterplay. I'm gonna be trying stall out later but in my mind it can be really strong given that slow pokemon are buffed in battle (no more predicting what your opponent is going to do if they're faster).
If the opponent sets up on you on a Pokemon that cannot effectively stop the setup sweeper it is hardly different than usual mons mechanics, it is actually easier, because it avoids the typical 5050 of "is it gonna setup or is it gonna attack", meaning you can always use the best counterplay. Also given the deterministic approach of the meta it is easier to make it so you dont find yourself in a position where youre up against a pokemon that will setup sweep you, rewarding players with deeper foresight and better positioning.

Furthermore, in your metagame, speed is almost useless except for the first turn or after turns where both of the Pokemon don’t move or both get KOed, as the action system takes precedent.

the action system recalculates actions order after every two actions / one turn, making speed arguably one of the most important stats.

 

[AquiIo]

My Turn!
​

Are 50/50s the bane of your existence? You think prediction takes away from skill expression? If only there was a way to know your opponent's move before you made your own: In My Turn! the faster Pokemon gets to resolve the entire effect of its move before the opposing Pokemon gets to decide what to do. This turns Pokemon from a predictive metagame into a reactive metagame, where proper planning and sequencing is awarded above all else.

Rules:
Mechanic: True Turn-Based Combat. At the start of the battle, the faster Pokemon goes first, then the opposing Pokemon acts. Turn order gets re-calculated every traditional turn (aka 2 individual turns, which is where terrain/weather/etc. calculation also happens), meaning a player can also act twice in a row, but both players will cumulatively act for the same amount of overall turns.

Clauses: Species Clause, Nickname Clause, OHKO Clause, Evasion Moves Clause, Sleep Moves Clause, Endless Battle Clause
Bans: Annihilape, Arceus-*, Basculegion-Base, Baxcalibur, Calyrex-Ice, Calyrex-Shadow, Chien-Pao, Chi-Yu, Darkrai, Deoxys-Attack, Deoxys-Base, Dialga, Dialga-Origin, Eternatus, Espathra, Iron Bundle, Flutter Mane, Giratina, Giratina-Origin, Gouging Fire, Groudon, Ho-Oh, Landorus, Lugia, Lunala, Koraidon, Kyogre, Kyurem-Black, Kyurem-White, Magearna, Mewtwo, Miraidon, Necrozma-Dawn-Wings, Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, Ogerpon-Hearthflame, Palafin, Palkia, Palkia-Origin, Rayquaza, Regieleki, Reshiram, Sneasler, Spectrier, Terapagos, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, Urshifu, Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Volcarona, Zacian, Zacian-Crowned, Zamazenta, Zamazenta-Crowned, Moody, Shadow Tag


Quirks:

• Priority does not function. I don't think there's any good workaround that would make this not into a Pet Mod, but suggestions are open. Moves like Protect and Endure can still be used but are generally less useful now.
• Speed is important and switching can be dangerous: pivoting moves don't allow you to come in for free, meaning when you switch a Pokemon in, due to turn recalculation, if they switch in a faster Pokemon that OHKOs you they can faint your Pokemon right then and there.
• This is one of the few OMs where the Terastal phenomenon is actually weaker, as it removes the surprise aspect that so often wins games, thus Tera is unbanned.

Council:
none yet! @ me about it if you like the idea

ts sounds fire, wonder if there’s some way to go about pre selecting priority in between turn cycles tho

 

[InkyDarkBird]

My Turn! Replay Showcase

So, what does this tell us?
What I noticed is that it's not that easy for someone to get a cheeky guaranteed kill right away, you have to stumble across a position that allows for it, due to the opponent not playing correctly. This may be due to the team compositions since the amount of mons that OHKOd each other was sort of scarce, so I will have to test with more offensive teams, and also with more defensive teams, I encourage you all to try this method if you're interested.

One important consideration is that progress, momentum and positioning are more important than ever, so the onus is on every Pokemon to be worthwhile and do something useful., simply sitting down and walling the opponent is not worthwhile enough, which is why Garganacl ended up being simply dead weight, the moveset of Earthquake, Salt Cure, Curse, Recover was not enough to get immediate pressure.

I might test some games with the mechanics of "slow action switch makes the pokemon go last the turn after" to test how it plays out, but I'm liking the way this metagame is played as of rn. I'm potentially concerned that the meta could become streamlined given that there's a real chance moves can be "forced" and the only skill expression being "don't do something stupid, silly", but there's a plethora of options and lines are a bit too long to calculate, so I don't think this is gonna happen.

Are the first three custom games not enough evidence that sweepers can still set up and sweep on you, while you have no offensive counterplay whatsoever? Unless you have Encore, I don't think it will be that simple to stop sweepers, especially with Terastalization boosting offense.

Turn 18 of https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229904331 why does the Tinkaton get to move twice in a row against the Glimmora after the Glimmora Splashed?

Does manual switching count as an action or not?
Turn 28 of https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229904331 (manual switch doesn't force user to Splash on slower target)
Samurott-Hisui Splashes because it is slower than Tinkaton, and Hydrapple switches in on turn 26.
Iron Valiant switches in, and Hydrapple Splashes because it is slower than Samurott-Hisui on turn 27.
Iron Valiant uses Moonblast, and Hydrapple Splashes on turn 28?

Turn 2 of https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229800395 (U-Turn forces user to Splash on slower target)
Landorus-Therian uses U-Turn and sends in Ogerpon-Wellspring, and Great Tusk Splashes because it is slower than Landorus-Therian on turn 1.
Ogerpon-Wellspring uses Splash, and Great Tusk switches out to Dragapult on turn 2?
Ogerpon-Wellspring uses Splash again? and Dragapult uses Will-o-Wisp.

Simpler thought:
Pokemon A and C are faster than Pokemon B.

C splashes, B switches in
A switches in, B splashes
A moves, B splashes

C pivots to A, B splashes
A splashes, B moves

Why does Ogerpon-Wellspring have to Splash after a U-Turn when Iron Valiant can use Moonblast after a manual switch?

 

[RADU]

Are the first three custom games not enough evidence that sweepers can still set up and sweep on you, while you have no offensive counterplay whatsoever? Unless you have Encore, I don't think it will be that simple to stop sweepers, especially with Terastalization boosting offense.

Turn 18 of https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229904331 why does the Tinkaton get to move twice in a row against the Glimmora after the Glimmora Splashed?

Does manual switching count as an action or not?
Turn 28 of https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229904331 (manual switch doesn't force user to Splash on slower target)
Samurott-Hisui Splashes because it is slower than Tinkaton, and Hydrapple switches in on turn 26.
Iron Valiant switches in, and Hydrapple Splashes because it is slower than Samurott-Hisui on turn 27.
Iron Valiant uses Moonblast, and Hydrapple Splashes on turn 28?

Turn 2 of https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229800395 (U-Turn forces user to Splash on slower target)
Landorus-Therian uses U-Turn and sends in Ogerpon-Wellspring, and Great Tusk Splashes because it is slower than Landorus-Therian on turn 1.
Ogerpon-Wellspring uses Splash, and Great Tusk switches out to Dragapult on turn 2?
Ogerpon-Wellspring uses Splash again? and Dragapult uses Will-o-Wisp.

Simpler thought:
Pokemon A and C are faster than Pokemon B.

C splashes, B switches in
A switches in, B splashes
A moves, B splashes

C pivots to A, B splashes
A splashes, B moves

Why does Ogerpon-Wellspring have to Splash after a U-Turn when Iron Valiant can use Moonblast after a manual switch?

Firstly I'd like to thank you for the discussion I'm glad people are up and talking about the metagame. I've had a lovely discussion in the smogon discord with a few people and there was also some tinkering about a potential way to implement priority moves in the game, I don't think its the best time to discuss that but I'm glad there's at least a possibility to make that happen.

Firstly, a setup sweeper winning the game is hardly fault of the tier, lets go by order:
1. A CM Booster Iron Crown vs LandoT (which should've been scarf, I changed it to lefties cause I hadn't yet figured out how to make that work), Raging Bolt and Kingambit with no priority (which again, could be implemented one day) and a paralyzed boots Slowking Galar is impossible to stop whichever metagame you're playing.
2. In a regular game the same exact thing would happen, roaring moon clicks dd on samuh sacred, and due to samuh having no priority it clicks 4 moves in a row and wins the game. The problem is the fact that I let the iron valiant and dragonite die, which would've helped to stop it, but also that the team was unprepared to deal with adamant roaring moon after a dd, and had plenty of mons that would allow it to dd for free.
3. The zamazenta didnt even need to click iron defense it could've just spammed body press, id was just safer.

Encore too is indeed buffed by the fact that you know what the opponent did click, so you can safely use it to stop a setup move with any mon that learns it. Also I didn't use Tera because offensive tera could've resulted too broken given the fact that defensive tera cannot be used, so that mechanic would probably get banned. I think you will find that setup moves in this metagame are no better than in regular Pokemon, and you could argue that they are broken in regular formats as well, if anything I give you a better chance at dealing with it because you are not gonna play the 50/50 on whether they will set up or not, and you will not be caught off guard by a set up move when you expected the pokemon to be choice item or some other set.


Now please tell me whether it's an issue on my end, because I believed to have been clear about the mechanics implementation in My Turn!
A turn is made of two actions: the faster player acts first, then the opposing player acts right after; once both players have acted, the turn order is recalculated using the speed of the two pokemon on the field, lets see:

Turn 18 of https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229904331 why does the Tinkaton get to move twice in a row against the Glimmora after the Glimmora Splashed?

Turn 1 (turn 17)
Iron Valiant vs Tinkaton, valiant is faster so it gets to act, and it decides to switch into Glimmora
now that the Valiant has acted, it's tinkaton's action, and it sets up stealth rock

Turn 2
Glimmora vs Tinkaton, tinkaton is faster so it gets to act, and it decides to click gigaton hammer
glimmora dies.

Does manual switching count as an action or not?
Turn 28 of https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229904331 (manual switch doesn't force user to Splash on slower target)
Samurott-Hisui Splashes because it is slower than Tinkaton, and Hydrapple switches in on turn 26.
Iron Valiant switches in, and Hydrapple Splashes because it is slower than Samurott-Hisui on turn 27.
Iron Valiant uses Moonblast, and Hydrapple Splashes on turn 28?

Let's start the action from
Turn 1 (turn 23)
Iron Valiant vs Darkrai, darkrai is faster, it switches out
Valiant's action, it switches out

Turn 2
Tinkaton is faster than SamuH, it switches out
SamuH's action, it switches to valiant

Turn 3
Iron Valiant is faster, it clicks Moonblast
Hydrapple's action, it clicks Leaf Storm

Turn 2 of https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2229800395 (U-Turn forces user to Splash on slower target)
Landorus-Therian uses U-Turn and sends in Ogerpon-Wellspring, and Great Tusk Splashes because it is slower than Landorus-Therian on turn 1.
Ogerpon-Wellspring uses Splash, and Great Tusk switches out to Dragapult on turn 2?
Ogerpon-Wellspring uses Splash again? and Dragapult uses Will-o-Wisp.

same deal here

Turn 1
LandoT is faster than Great Tusk, so it uturns out
great tusk's action, it switches to dragapult

Turn 2
Dragapult is faster than ogerpon, so it clicks wisp
ogerpon's action, it clicks knock off

Turn 3
Dragapult is faster than ogerpon, it uturns out
ogerpon's action, it switches out

and so on..

Let me know if this all makes sense to you or if I can be even more clear

 

[Cuddly]

My Turn!
​

Are 50/50s the bane of your existence? You think prediction takes away from skill expression? If only there was a way to know your opponent's move before you made your own: In My Turn! the faster Pokemon gets to resolve the entire effect of its move before the opposing Pokemon gets to decide what to do. This turns Pokemon from a predictive metagame into a reactive metagame, where proper planning and sequencing is awarded above all else.

Rules:
Mechanic: True Turn-Based Combat. At the start of the battle, the faster Pokemon goes first, then the opposing Pokemon acts. Turn order gets re-calculated every traditional turn (aka 2 individual turns, which is where terrain/weather/etc. calculation also happens), meaning a player can also act twice in a row, but both players will cumulatively act for the same amount of overall turns.

Clauses: Species Clause, Nickname Clause, OHKO Clause, Evasion Moves Clause, Sleep Moves Clause, Endless Battle Clause
Bans: Annihilape, Arceus-*, Basculegion-Base, Baxcalibur, Calyrex-Ice, Calyrex-Shadow, Chien-Pao, Chi-Yu, Darkrai, Deoxys-Attack, Deoxys-Base, Dialga, Dialga-Origin, Eternatus, Espathra, Iron Bundle, Flutter Mane, Giratina, Giratina-Origin, Gouging Fire, Groudon, Ho-Oh, Landorus, Lugia, Lunala, Koraidon, Kyogre, Kyurem-Black, Kyurem-White, Magearna, Mewtwo, Miraidon, Necrozma-Dawn-Wings, Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, Ogerpon-Hearthflame, Palafin, Palkia, Palkia-Origin, Rayquaza, Regieleki, Reshiram, Sneasler, Spectrier, Terapagos, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, Urshifu, Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Volcarona, Zacian, Zacian-Crowned, Zamazenta, Zamazenta-Crowned, Moody, Shadow Tag


Quirks:

• Priority does not function. I don't think there's any good workaround that would make this not into a Pet Mod, but suggestions are open. Moves like Protect and Endure can still be used but are generally less useful now.
• Speed is important and switching can be dangerous: pivoting moves don't allow you to come in for free, meaning when you switch a Pokemon in, due to turn recalculation, if they switch in a faster Pokemon that OHKOs you they can faint your Pokemon right then and there.
• This is one of the few OMs where the Terastal phenomenon is actually weaker, as it removes the surprise aspect that so often wins games, thus Tera is unbanned.

Council:
none yet! @ me about it if you like the idea

A lack of priority is definitely the biggest issue with this metagame.
This ironically massively buffs all fast Pokemon since they can more easily be in a situation where they can’t be touched what so ever. Say X Pokemon with 130+ speed has +2 or +4 Attack verse a weakened team. What are you supposed to do there? You can’t use priority anymore to possible KO it.
OR even worse, what about moves such as Dragon Tail and Whirlwind? Any fast Pokemon can spam these moves because there is no more priority.
Let’s not forget about the other side of switching either.
Sure, if a faster Pokemon switches, the next Pokemon coming in likely won’t be tanking a resisted attack. However, because switching is priority, slower Pokemon are going to always tank hits against faster Pokemon. Your Skeledirge is out against Barraskewda in rain and you used your Tera already? Well tough shit. All moves are now effectively pursuit without the glaring weakness of being 40 BP.

 

[RADU]

Taken from this game, we lead with Landorus-Therian vs Great Tusk

Turn 1 Begins
Faster Action: Landorus-Therian is faster, so it U-Turns out into Ogerpon-Wellspring
Slower Action: Great Tusk is now faced off against Ogerpon-Wellspring, so the opponent decides to switch it out for Dragapult

Turn 2 Begins
Faster Action: Dragapult is faster, so it clicks Will-O-Wisp
Slower Action: Ogerpon-Wellspring is burned and knows it, so the player decides to click Knock Off in return.

Turn 3 Begins
Faster Action: Dragapult is faster, and decides to click U-Turn into Zapdos
Slower Action: Ogerpon-Wellspring is faced against a Zapdos, so the player clicks U-Turn into Slowking-Galar

The game goes on with this repeating pattern, with the faster pokemon acting first and the opposing pokemon acting second, then turn order being recalculated

I've added an example section into the OP, should make it a bit more clear what happens when and how in regards to action order and turns.

A lack of priority is definitely the biggest issue with this metagame.

This is one of my biggest gripes, so here's an idea of how positive priority moves can get implemented:
Having first action in a turn means that priority or not, move gets used as if it was a normal move, with no benefits, just like in regular gameplay, what matters is going second.

If you are going second, once your opponent has selected his move, you will be given a prompt, asking you "do you want to use a priority move?", in this fashion:

The opposing Dragapult is about to use the move Flamethrower, what would you like to do?

[Ice Shard] [Sucker Punch] [Pass]

If you select "Pass", the turn happens like normal, while if you select a priority move, your priority move goes first, then their move automatically goes after it, example:

> [Pass]

Dragapult used Flamethrower!
It is now Chien-Pao's action!

> [Ice Shard]

Chien-Pao used Ice Shard!
Dragapult used Flamethrower!

This implementation also allows multiple levels of priority to function correctly, if the faster Pokemon clicks Ice Shard, then the slower pokemon will not be prompted with the option to use priority unless they have higher priority moves like Extreme Speed and Protect.


While this effectively broadcasts to the opponent that you do have a priority move even if you select to Pass the turn, I feel like this is a fair trade off given the example the priority mover obtains by knowing exactly what move you will be clicking in advance. The other concern is the fact that there will be an extra textbox selection every time the priority mover is on the field and having the second action, but that only takes a little getting used to and is far outweighed by the positive of actually having priority moves in the game.

This type of implementation also follows the core principles of the metagame which is sequencing and determinism, since there is no guesswork to be done on whether you will use a priority move or not, and what move the opponent is going to select.

OR even worse, what about moves such as Dragon Tail and Whirlwind? Any fast Pokemon can spam these moves because there is no more priority.

As brought up by someone else in this thread, while regular phazing moves always make the turn end, we can make it so that using fast dragon tail and fast whirlwind does not end the turn, and the pokemon that is sent in still gets to act.
Negative priority moves are also easier to implement, what you can do is make it so the user of the move broadcasts "I am about to use Roar!", the opponent is then given time to either OHKO the Pokemon, Taunt it, or switch to something undesirable, and then the Roar is successful at the end of the turn.

Say X Pokemon with 130+ speed has +2 or +4 Attack verse a weakened team

A lot of these scenarios you guys present are situations that would be impossibly problematic even in regular play. I understand the point about priority, but if you find yourself in this scenario in the first place, it means you have misplayed somewhere along the way, and the better player would not be making these mistakes.

Your Skeledirge is out against Barraskewda in rain and you used your Tera already? Well tough shit.

I'm ignoring the mention of tera because that idea is up in the air still, but finding yourself with a barraskewda in rain against a skeledirge is literally just tough shit and part of the cores and objectives of the metagame: If you see that rain is up and Barraskewda is on the enemy team, you would not go your skeledirge unless you are 1. forced to, 2. in a position where you can get value out of skeledirge and then revenge kill the barraskewda right after 3. you have some sort of other line that allows you to sack skeledirge for better positioning. It's sort of like chess, "this square is attacked by a bishop so I can't put my rook there", well then? indeed don't put your rook there.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

Firstly, a setup sweeper winning the game is hardly fault of the tier, lets go by order:
1. A CM Booster Iron Crown vs LandoT (which should've been scarf, I changed it to lefties cause I hadn't yet figured out how to make that work), Raging Bolt and Kingambit with no priority (which again, could be implemented one day) and a paralyzed boots Slowking Galar is impossible to stop whichever metagame you're playing.
2. In a regular game the same exact thing would happen, roaring moon clicks dd on samuh sacred, and due to samuh having no priority it clicks 4 moves in a row and wins the game. The problem is the fact that I let the iron valiant and dragonite die, which would've helped to stop it, but also that the team was unprepared to deal with adamant roaring moon after a dd, and had plenty of mons that would allow it to dd for free.
3. The zamazenta didnt even need to click iron defense it could've just spammed body press, id was just safer.

Encore too is indeed buffed by the fact that you know what the opponent did click, so you can safely use it to stop a setup move with any mon that learns it. Also I didn't use Tera because offensive tera could've resulted too broken given the fact that defensive tera cannot be used, so that mechanic would probably get banned. I think you will find that setup moves in this metagame are no better than in regular Pokemon, and you could argue that they are broken in regular formats as well, if anything I give you a better chance at dealing with it because you are not gonna play the 50/50 on whether they will set up or not, and you will not be caught off guard by a set up move when you expected the pokemon to be choice item or some other set.

Encore is only buffed if you somehow manage to position your Encorer to be slower than the setup sweeper, which seems ridiculously difficult given my interpretation below.

Turn 1 (turn 17)
Iron Valiant vs Tinkaton, valiant is faster so it gets to act, and it decides to switch into Glimmora
now that the Valiant has acted, it's tinkaton's action, and it sets up stealth rock

Turn 2
Glimmora vs Tinkaton, tinkaton is faster so it gets to act, and it decides to click gigaton hammer
glimmora dies.

So this means if I switch in a slower Pokemon to replace a fast Pokemon that could outspeed my opponent's Pokemon waiting to move, the slower Pokemon is nearly guaranteed to be KOed because the opponent can perform two actions? I really do not see how this buffs balance/stall at all.

The rest of your post makes sense.

 

[KaenSoul]

I've added an example section into the OP, should make it a bit more clear what happens when and how in regards to action order and turns.


This is one of my biggest gripes, so here's an idea of how positive priority moves can get implemented:
Having first action in a turn means that priority or not, move gets used as if it was a normal move, with no benefits, just like in regular gameplay, what matters is going second.

If you are going second, once your opponent has selected his move, you will be given a prompt, asking you "do you want to use a priority move?", in this fashion:



If you select "Pass", the turn happens like normal, while if you select a priority move, your priority move goes first, then their move automatically goes after it, example:





This implementation also allows multiple levels of priority to function correctly, if the faster Pokemon clicks Ice Shard, then the slower pokemon will not be prompted with the option to use priority unless they have higher priority moves like Extreme Speed and Protect.


While this effectively broadcasts to the opponent that you do have a priority move even if you select to Pass the turn, I feel like this is a fair trade off given the example the priority mover obtains by knowing exactly what move you will be clicking in advance. The other concern is the fact that there will be an extra textbox selection every time the priority mover is on the field and having the second action, but that only takes a little getting used to and is far outweighed by the positive of actually having priority moves in the game.

This type of implementation also follows the core principles of the metagame which is sequencing and determinism, since there is no guesswork to be done on whether you will use a priority move or not, and what move the opponent is going to select.


As brought up by someone else in this thread, while regular phazing moves always make the turn end, we can make it so that using fast dragon tail and fast whirlwind does not end the turn, and the pokemon that is sent in still gets to act.
Negative priority moves are also easier to implement, what you can do is make it so the user of the move broadcasts "I am about to use Roar!", the opponent is then given time to either OHKO the Pokemon, Taunt it, or switch to something undesirable, and then the Roar is successful at the end of the turn.


A lot of these scenarios you guys present are situations that would be impossibly problematic even in regular play. I understand the point about priority, but if you find yourself in this scenario in the first place, it means you have misplayed somewhere along the way, and the better player would not be making these mistakes.


I'm ignoring the mention of tera because that idea is up in the air still, but finding yourself with a barraskewda in rain against a skeledirge is literally just tough shit and part of the cores and objectives of the metagame: If you see that rain is up and Barraskewda is on the enemy team, you would not go your skeledirge unless you are 1. forced to, 2. in a position where you can get value out of skeledirge and then revenge kill the barraskewda right after 3. you have some sort of other line that allows you to sack skeledirge for better positioning. It's sort of like chess, "this square is attacked by a bishop so I can't put my rook there", well then? indeed don't put your rook there.

Don't think you would be allowed to add buttons or commands in the middle of a battle if that's what you are suggesting, and either way, it just makes this too complex.

The format in general doesn't sound that appealing to me, the fact speed tiers have to be recalculated at some points feel like it defeats the whole purpose of the format and so does every possible way to implement priority on this, on top of being weird rules that I wouldn't expect random ladder players to understand, and in general doesn't sound like it changes things in a fun enough way, I imagine a regular person could have a hard time trying to tell what is supposed to be different when playing this until their priority moves don't work the expected way which doesn't sound all that exiting of a discovery.

 

[RADU]

Don't think you would be allowed to add buttons or commands in the middle of a battle if that's what you are suggesting

hi kaen, thank you for your reply I think this is important discussion to have right now. The implementation of My Turn! on showdown would not be too different from what already exists, let me explain:

Imagine both players have Truant on every Pokemon, but on alternating turns. This change would effectively make Pokemon "True Turn-Based": I do my action, then you do yours. This is the most truly basic implementation of the idea, very little coding required but also obviously not ideal.

speed tiers have to be recalculated at some points

This is the second point, and this, also, is no different than how Pokemon already does work.

At the beginning of every turn, both players pick their move, showdown asks "who is faster?", and the faster Pokemon acts first, once the faster Pokemon has finished making their move, the slower Pokemon then acts.

This is the exact same thing that happens in My Turn!, except only the faster Pokemon picks their move, and the slower Pokemon gets to decide what to do once the faster Pokemon has already finished moving.

That's it, it's no more complicated than these two things. The confusion in regards to this stems from the fact that we are theorizing out loud, and even the mocks I was able to create on showdown aren't easy due to the fact that the process is not automated. If this metagame were to be implemented on showdown, I guaranteed it would take no more than one game to get used to the format.

Don't think you would be allowed to add buttons or commands in the middle of a battle if that's what you are suggesting, and either way, it just makes this too complex.

Routing back to this, priority moves are the only thing that can be less intuitive about the implementation, but they are still easy enough that it should not be a headache to add:

The faster Pokemon decides to attack, but the move gets halted, similarly to how it would act if the move were to be Disabled.
The slower Pokemon now gets to act, but it gets limited to its priority moves (and the option to pass), similarly to how you would be limited to your attacking moves if you were Taunted.
If the priority move is selected, the turn goes like you would expect: slow Pokemon uses priority move then fast Pokemon uses regular move.
If Pass is selected, the turn goes like normal: fast Pokemon uses its move, then slow Pokemon gets to decide what to do.

What will Dragapult do? >Flamethrower
What will Chien-Pao do? >Ice Shard
Chien-Pao used Ice Shard!
Dragapult used Flamethrower!

What will Dragapult do? >Flamethrower
What will Chien-Pao do? >Pass
Dragapult used Flamethrower!
What will Chien-Pao do? >Ice Spinner
Chien-Pao used Ice Spinner

Making a comparison with another turn-based game, this functions similarly to a Trap Card in Yu-Gi-Oh!, your opponent activates an effect, do you wanna activate the trap card? Yes/No.
The reason it's confusing is the lack of actual on-screen functionality and the fact that we have to theorize it in our head. I think about metagames like Mix and Mega, Inheritance, Shared Power, Chimera and how those metagames can be confusing to wrap your head around, only to see them in action and be like "ah yeah makes sense".

And this is also just an option for what we could do, it's possible that there's a better way for this to be implemented, and priority moves are not a necessity at all, the tier could just as easily exist without them if they are too big a headache to implement. If any Pokemon ends up being too broken because of the lack of priority moves, I believe said Pokemon would already be banworthy in the first place.

I imagine a regular person could have a hard time trying to tell what is supposed to be different when playing this

I can't tell if it's just my bias or not but I have a really hard time figuring how this could be the case. If you've ever played even a singular battle in any Pokemon format ever you will know that both mons move at the same time, that you have to predict what your opponent will do, that when you're up with Kyurem vs Landorus-Therian your opponent always has the option to switch out. Even at the very complete beginning of the game, when your opponent sends out their Pokemon, and you get to decide how to counterlead, that's drastically different from every metagame you could find on the site.
Using an opposite example, I've played Magic The Gathering before, but like once or twice, I barely know the rules, I am as close as possible to a complete casual you could be; if I were to be put into a game of "Simulatenous Magic" and we both had to play our turns at the same time, I would definitely not have a hard time telling what is supposed to be different about it.

Compare this to a very simple but popular metagame like STABmons: LandoT gets Dragon Ascent, Toxapex gets Flip Turn, Heatran gets Doom Desire, great idea and great metagame, but how is this more appealing to the complete casual player exactly? Showdown movesets are already expanded and complicated given how they account for every move you can get from events, older gens, tms tutors etc. meaning that you would have to be a somewhat knowledgeable player to notice the difference; you don't even have the same shock value with moves like no retreat or geomancy given that most broken moves just get restricted anyway. Hell, I've even seen people run regular ass OU sets with no new moves.
Similar thought can be given to a metagame like AAA, while a bit more obvious since most pokemon can only have 3 abilities, it's not that different at a glance with many Pokemon running abilities that can go unnoticed like Scrappy, Prankster, Volt Absorb, Well-Baked-Body etc.
I could also talk about something like Shared Power which I have a personal experience with, not realizing anything was even different until half-way through the game, but I'm getting sidetracked.
My intent is absolutely not to dunk on the existing popular OMs, I think they are amazingly thought and designed and I admire them all, I am just trying to highlight that you do not need extremely high requirements of shock value like Balanced Hackmons to be a popular OM, and both casual players and competitive players alike will be intrigued by an interesting concept, as has happened already: I've been delightfully told by many people that have read about My Turn! that they are intrigued and that it looks very interesting and they would like to play it.

Still, thank you for the reply, I'm glad I decided to post in the Workshop instead of submitting right away.

 

[KaenSoul]

I guess it wasnt obvious enough, but when I said you wouldn't be able to add buttons or commands, I was referring to this Pass option.
Also from what I'm getting now is that you are supposed to click your move after the first player does? That doesn't sound like something that would work in showdown too well without messing with how the engine works, but I imagine it can be discussed to the coders if this goes anywhere.
It still doesn't sound too interesting, that's just mons without the prediction element, at least I prefer formats that add new things, this mostly just remove mechanics.

 

[RADU]

I guess it wasnt obvious enough, but when I said you wouldn't be able to add buttons or commands, I was referring to this Pass option.
Also from what I'm getting now is that you are supposed to click your move after the first player does? That doesn't sound like something that would work in showdown too well without messing with how the engine works, but I imagine it can be discussed to the coders if this goes anywhere.

I think it's worth contacting someone in the coding department about this, so we can possibly bring this idea into a direction where we know it's feasible.
For a really basic implementation, the option of being restricted to one action already exist, think people being stuck in Outrage, having to Struggle, Truant, Recharge etc, the only thing you have to do is make sure this one singular option is "do nothing" similar to recharge or truant, and make it so that option is automatically selected with no way to cancel. This doesn't seem outlandish to me so far.

That's how you make sure only one person gets to act, the second part is making sure that the person who can act is the correct one.
Turn 1 you check which one is faster, and give them the action. Turn 2 you give the action to the other.
Turn 3 you check for speed again, and turn 4 give action to the other again, and so on. It's a continous loop of simple checks.

The third part is just making sure that all effects that tick at the end of every turn (leftovers, burn, terrain, weather etc.) tick at the end of every second turn. This doesn't seem outlandish either, I just don't know the logistics of how you implement it.

We can put priority discussion on the side for now, given that it's not a necessity for the tier and can be added in later, but it would be implemented the same way as the rest, calculating turn order by considering priority too, adding an "extra turn" for the slower player, and delaying turn-end effects and turn order by one.

Obviously this is all up to the coding team to debate, since I have never touched the codebase and I can only talk about what I think is possible to do, so hopefully they can give some better insight.

It still doesn't sound too interesting, that's just mons without the prediction element, at least I prefer formats that add new things, this mostly just remove mechanics.

It doesn't have to appeal to everyone, and I understand some people can prefer the prediction element, but I personally find it interesting and I've heard that it is so from multiple people I've presented the idea to, so its existence is at the very least justified.

I would also like to advocate for the tier as simply a new way to experience Pokemon, a way that has not been seen before despite being the standard in Turn-Based RPGs. As such, it should not seek to emulate everything about regular Pokemon gameplay, and instead seek to be an entity of its own, allowing its nature to flourish an identity. After all, do OMs not exist for the purpose of offering players a different, unorthodox or non-traditional way of playing Pokemon? Does MT! not fall under the same hat?
I'm sure, not because I theorize it, but because I have been told, that this idea has been thought up by others before, and was brushed off as "probably impossible" or given up on because of the logistical issues that arise with it. I've done exactly the same in the past:

I also know for sure some of the more competitive players would like the game to be more deterministic, and for Pokemon to more efficiently reward the more skilled player, and this does exactly that, by making lines and sequences guaranteed and reducing the amount of guesswork that some can find uncompetitive.

Either way my point is that there is appeal, and we don't necessarily need the metagame to be exactly like current Pokemon, but to appreciate what it becomes, whether its a quick trade-heavy metagame, a strategic tier centralized around winning with your setup mons, or a more positional and technical game where stall is really strong; whatever the outcome might be it can still be enjoyable, and it will be tiered all the same. If shell smashers are broken they will be banned, and if balance demons like Landorus are not as strong we can unban them.

That said I don't wanna come off as a brick wall, I'm listening to every suggestion and figuring out what the best direction is. I was ready to give up on priority until multiple people brought up that it would be really good to still have, so I thought of a way we could feasibly implement it. The fact that slow switch into revenge killer is guaranteed can also be a problem, and I'm planning to test the other option still (which is that slow switching a pokemon in also makes you move second the next turn), but I believe current implementation simply pushes the metagame more strongly towards pokemon that are hard to revenge kill, defensive pokemon that are good at crippling, could buff sticky webs and screens, and who knows what else.

I hope I'm not making too many long posts about this LOL I'm just very invested

 

[InkyDarkBird]

You eliminate priority, eliminate prediction, and restrict free switching.
If you replace your fast Pokemon with a slower Pokemon that doesn't outspeed your opponents' Pokemon, your slower Pokemon is nearly guaranteed to be KOed. Changing this requires making the initial OM statement much more complicated and seems extremely difficult to balance.
If there a surprise Choice Scarf Pokemon that your opponent switches in, you are absolutely helpless. Even if you predict it is Choice Scarf, so what? You cannot do anything and are forced to give up a potentially valuable Pokemon.
This OM idea rewards the skilled player more at the cost of lowering the skill ceiling with the lack of prediction and priority. There is almost no way to receive any immediate punishment for any of your actions because of how easy it is to trade Pokemon, besides letting a sweeper set up.
I still do not understand why you bring up the possibility of stall receiving a buff when being forced to tank an attack instead of switching out is absolutely horrible for Regenerator and causes any KO the stall team inflicts to be immediately countered by one of the opponents' own Pokemon KOing the stall Pokemon in play.

 

[Clas]

You eliminate priority, eliminate prediction, and restrict free switching.
If you replace your fast Pokemon with a slower Pokemon that doesn't outspeed your opponents' Pokemon, your slower Pokemon is nearly guaranteed to be KOed. Changing this requires making the initial OM statement much more complicated and seems extremely difficult to balance.
If there a surprise Choice Scarf Pokemon that your opponent switches in, you are absolutely helpless. Even if you predict it is Choice Scarf, so what? You cannot do anything and are forced to give up a potentially valuable Pokemon.
This OM idea rewards the skilled player more at the cost of lowering the skill ceiling with the lack of prediction and priority. There is almost no way to receive any immediate punishment for any of your actions because of how easy it is to trade Pokemon, besides letting a sweeper set up.
I still do not understand why you bring up the possibility of stall receiving a buff when being forced to tank an attack instead of switching out is absolutely horrible for Regenerator and causes any KO the stall team inflicts to be immediately countered by one of the opponents' own Pokemon KOing the stall Pokemon in play.

1) Not true, thats the point, not true.
2) Again not true, you just play reactionarily.
3) Not really, this only covers priority although I'd probably mention it somewhere myself that isn't buried in the FAQ section.
4) You're helpless for one turn and then immediately know what the Pokemon is rather than having to dance around a billion potential sets for many cases, plus rewards strategic building. Very rarely is it actually going to net a KO, and if somehow Choice Scarf becomes detrimental then it can just be hit.
5) Stall is 100% still viable, just not in the current way that it usually is and probably something closer to Gen 2 or Gen 3 stall. I have already proposed in DMs to RADU that Tera could even be added defensively with the Tera button being a Pass option like priority to help reduce the whole trapping issue for defensive teams, just that it also traps the slower Pokemon for the turn if Tera is used reactionarily.

Now, my own thoughts because I've expressed interest myself. This meta has incredible potential if balanced and implemented right, and is probably the most interesting OM mechanic I've seen ever (including against my own ideas if that somehow adds weight). I think that it's one of those metas that will be played and built fundamentally differently from other OMs just because the base mechanics are just not usual Pokemon, and yet is still very much Pokemon. It's hard to express how uniquely interesting it is without playing it, but if you've ever played chess or Yu-Gi-Oh or any similar trading card game then you'll understand why this is so interesting. While prediction play is really enjoyable, being able to experiment with it gone is the whole point of the metagame and is a good enough mechanic to make me interested plus the numerous others that have apparently shown interest (im using you as an example BoingK). Yes there's still some flaws like priority and yes it's not perfect, but I wouldn't call current Pokemon mechanics perfect either.

 

[RADU]

You eliminate priority

I've been talking about how to feasibly implement priority in the last three posts, detailing how it would work play by play and how it could go by being implemented on showdown, so I'm not sure where this statement comes from.

eliminate prediction

yeah that's concisely the point of the metagame.

restrict free switching

switching is actually never free in regular pokemon because the pokemon you are switching in is going to be taking an attack no matter what, if anything switching is more free in My Turn!, given that slow switching will get the Pokemon in for free, similar to slow pivoting, which is very strong in regular Pokemon.

If you replace your fast Pokemon with a slower Pokemon that doesn't outspeed your opponents' Pokemon, your slower Pokemon is nearly guaranteed to be KOed.

how, exactly, is this different from regular Pokemon formats?
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2231420479
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2231421098
in a regular OU game you will just hope they don't click psyshock on the switchin, but it's the same sequence of turns, the same outcome. It is already an unfavorable position where you are losing a Pokemon, and while technically you can outplay if you have multiple switches, it's just guesswork, which the metagame aims to remove.

This OM idea rewards the skilled player more at the cost of lowering the skill ceiling with the lack of prediction

I'd like to talk about this more in-depth, but it would require the input of more competitive players with a stronger grasp of Pokemon fundamentals. While prediction does add a layer of complexity to the game, it also removes a layer of player agency: at the end of the day predictions are just a 50/50, sure you can be a bit psychological about it, or sometimes the opposing player will not recognize the 50/50, but at the end of the day when you have two strong players face off against each other it's a damn near coin toss. What actually measures the player skill is not players who are really good at getting 50/50s right, but those that are able to find a line of plays that will win the game no matter what, or at least most of the time, and in doing that they avoid having to win 50/50s like the plague, because they are fundamentally no different than luck.
Obviously there is nuance, but I'm speaking generally.

There is almost no way to receive any immediate punishment for any of your actions

This is not a PvE game, if the margin for error is high then it will be so for both players, meaning that players with more finesse who are more carefully positioned to not get their Pokemon traded after a kill will have the upper hand always against player who will greed for a kill whenever the chance is presented. It may be unintuitive but it's similar to how sometimes in Pokemon you don't wanna get a kill with a passive Pokemon because it can allow your opponent to bring in a setup sweeper and win.

I still do not understand why you bring up the possibility of stall receiving a buff

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9customgame-2231400298 mocking stall against myself actually decreases my lifespan so I'm only playing this:
the stall is this sample team https://pokepast.es/d45246a832bd5f05 and the other team is one I made https://pokepast.es/6a13319747b66fcf that all things considered should 100% have a great MU vs stall. Double swords dance, double nasty plot, hazard stack, id zama, mixed valiant. I didn't really take into account the stall team when making it since I picked it after, so there was no bias.
I won't claim I played perfectly from both sides by all means, I actually am certain I misplayed with the stall by sending in toxapex on ogerpon instead of sinistcha, but it's clear that the stall team had a really solid and playable matchup all throughout. I won't sit here and say that stall is unbeatable because it all amounts to better play and proper prep, a life orb fire blast garchomp could've made the MU against corviknight much more playable by letting chomp set up hazards, but I digress. I also had toxic spikes on pex that I never bothered to click and would've made the MU so much more difficult for offense given the lack of removal and boots.
Being consistently slower than the opponent makes it so they never get two turns in a row, and that you always react perfectly to what they will do; it's pretty strong. Regen is also really strong because offense has a hard time stopping stall's perpetual switching without acting and potentially getting punished for it.