Format Discussion Metronome Battle

[sumwun]

Unaware is the best ability. Stat-raising moves should never have been added to the game.

 

[miyako2016]

I agree that something needs to be done with Opportunist. Not only are the majority of teams using it but I feel like the only real viable ways to deal with it are things like Unaware and Mummy, or your own Opportunist mon. With how common stat boosting moves are it's almost inevitable that Opportunist will activate in any given game. Originally I ran double Unaware Ting-Lu, and while I still think Unaware Ting is one of the best mons to use, it gets boring quicky when you're basically forced to use him or another Unaware/Mummy mon if you want to consistently beat it. If Opportunist wasn't so overcentralizing I wouldn't care so much but when one ability is so good that it basically outclasses most other abilities it removes variance and saps a lot of the fun.

 

[BanStallPokemon]

Opportunist is not balanced
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1764423978
Even bad pokemon (around 0% usage) manage to win easily. This is not the only game I won with it but the most one-sided.
I said I would not use opportunist for a good reason, I tried on trash pokemon and did not have a bad win/lose ratio. Please do something fast.

 

[Pharnapus]

Mark my support down for an opportunist suspect, im so tired of wanting to try something new just to get steamrolled by it

 

[Ivy]

I was close to just quickbanning, but we'll have basically the same thing but with a bigger sense of involvement: a suspect with the ability banned for the duration.
Opportunist is being suspected!
To participate in the suspect, use a new account with the prefix MNOME (e.g. mnome Ivy) and get a 67% GXE over 25 or more games. (This is the same prefix we used for the last retest, but the ladder has reset, so it's fine if you use the same account as last time.) You can start whenever you'd like, although it will be a few hours before the ban is live. Once your score is good, post a screenshot here to register to vote. Deadline is end of day January 22nd.
67% was picked by the very rigorous scientific criterion of "it's a bit higher than the 60% we had last time, since the suspect was ridiculously easy last time".
Once again, this is just for fun, with no TC credit.

 

[pyuk]

I accidentally played an extra game, oops. I think Opportunist should be banned.

 

[bonk]

I was close to just quickbanning, but we'll have basically the same thing but with a bigger sense of involvement: a suspect with the ability banned for the duration.
Opportunist is being suspected!
To participate in the suspect, use a new account with the prefix MNOME (e.g. mnome Ivy) and get a 67% GXE over 25 or more games. (This is the same prefix we used for the last retest, but the ladder has reset, so it's fine if you use the same account as last time.) You can start whenever you'd like, although it will be a few hours before the ban is live. Once your score is good, post a screenshot here to register to vote. Deadline is end of day January 22nd.
67% was picked by the very rigorous scientific criterion of "it's a bit higher than the 60% we had last time, since the suspect was ridiculously easy last time".
Once again, this is just for fun, with no TC credit.

I agree quickbanning is a bit much when Unaware will certainly be strong with or without Opportunist in the meta

 

[bonk]

Sorry to double post

I believe Opportunist should be banned.

I echo reasons given here by other's previously. Opportunist in the meta greatly limits the viable Abilities one can select from (at least to reach the goal of top of the ladder). I used double Unaware out of preference, and being probably the only other viable ability in an Opportunist meta.

 

[BanStallPokemon]

Por those who managed to get their 67% GXE done. What team did you use? I tried some but I always start badly with like 3 losses witch greatly compromises the GXE I have after the 25 games (I am more at 55% GXE at that point) I am seriously considering damp+poison pokemon at this point. I lose to much games to poison and explosion/memento/misty explosion...

 

[Pharnapus]

I dont even want to admit how long it took me to get to 67% lmao, but im glad i stuck it out. A lot more games than I would of liked, especially compared to the others so far since there was a lot of disables, explosions and the luck of the draw, also worth mentioning the amount of other opportunist teams I ran into where it became a stacking war on the buffs
But I would like to cast my vote that opportunist should be banned. Its a very overwhelming ability that disregards previous strategies like weakness policy, intrepid sword or even simple users and considering some of the only options to not get steamrolled where either opportunist itself or unaware, I believe the removal will lead to a healthier metagame and team building

 

[Quagman]

I had a trouble at first, and as a result of using various parties, the party below became stable.
https://pokepast.es/3fd34bc6626a27f9
End the battle before the Opportunist mon improve their power.

I think Opportunist should be banned.
Too many Opportunist mon are boring.
Power-up tactics like Weakness Policy and Defiant become unusable and restrict builds.

 

[Lectrys]

Got reqs:

With this team:
https://pokepast.es/dc394c18a60f1160


Wishiwashi-School @ Choice Band
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome


Baxcalibur @ Choice Band
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

Baxcalibur For Top 10 In Metronome Usage! It has a very solid 145 base Attack, a solid 75 base Special Attack so it can actually deal noticeable damage with special attacks (unlike similar mons like Glastrier, Iron Hands, and even Heracross-Mega), pretty good bulk, and no 4x weaknesses (unlike similar mons like Landorus-T, Tyranitar, Dragonite, Salamence, and Garchomp) so it can team up well with dedicated Tera users.

In the meantime, Wishiwashi-School needs the bulk-increase-in-practice that a Ghost Tera provides. Yes, it's the dedicated Tera user of the team. Tera it on Turn 1 and never look back!

You haven't lived until you see just how much damage a Choice Banded, ability-boosted, Power Spot-boosted-further Wishiwashi-School can output. It can even OHKO frail mons with a single attack!

I've tended to bounce to the 1400s, below that, and back fairly consistently with this team with my main.

Shoutout to the double Pickup Mirror Herb Ting-Lu team I crashed into with my main that persuaded me to revert back to the Opportunist-legal meta team above instead of the Choice Band Intrepid Sword Wishiwashi-School + Weakness Policy Power Spot Baxcalibur team I was thinking of using in an Opportunist-banned meta.

...Yeah, I'd rather vote to ban Opportunist. It's squelched out at least 5 abilities (Intrepid Sword, Download, Defiant, Competitive, Dauntless Shield) and forced at least 1 item (Weakness Policy) onto pretty much Unaware mons only. With that being said, double Pickup Mirror Herb might end up simulating Opportunist well enough.

 

[BanStallPokemon]

Opportunist is now banned from metronome battles

 

[bonk]

Por those who managed to get their 67% GXE done. What team did you use? I tried some but I always start badly with like 3 losses witch greatly compromises the GXE I have after the 25 games (I am more at 55% GXE at that point) I am seriously considering damp+poison pokemon at this point. I lose to much games to poison and explosion/memento/misty explosion...

I simply used this https://pokepast.es/0d9e8f9c93cc9ecb

Enjoy! Sorry it's a type of "stall Pokémon"

 

[Pharnapus]

Now the opportunist fiasco is over, I think its only appropriate to return to the king: MEGA CAMERUPT BABY!!!
SLAP A CHOICE SPECS AND ANALYTIC ON AND YOU GOT YOURSELF A BIG BULK KILLING MACHINE!! POWER SPOT, FRIEND GUARD, STORM DRAIN, ALL VIABLE TO HELP THE BIG GUY GET HIS KILLING ON!! YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO MEGA CAMERUPT PROPAGANDA!!


Camerupt-Mega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

 

[BanStallPokemon]

Not sure if I need to say it but opportunist should stay/be banned. I don't know if my vote is still needed but it took me too long to get my 67% GXE not to post it.

 

[BanStallPokemon]

Now the opportunist fiasco is over, I think its only appropriate to return to the king: MEGA CAMERUPT BABY!!!
SLAP A CHOICE SPECS AND ANALYTIC ON AND YOU GOT YOURSELF A BIG BULK KILLING MACHINE!! POWER SPOT, FRIEND GUARD, STORM DRAIN, ALL VIABLE TO HELP THE BIG GUY GET HIS KILLING ON!! YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO MEGA CAMERUPT PROPAGANDA!!


Camerupt-Mega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

He is fun with competitive too, alongside defiant mega-heracross or glastrier

 

[Jackalope414]

I've been using
Ursaluna (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Normalize
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Metronome

Sableye-Mega @ King's Rock
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome
which shreds everything that's not ghost type, but it's hard in a meta chock full of ghosts.
I've been using a nice set of
but not for me (Enamorus-Therian) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Simple
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome

Call an ambulance, (Banette-Mega) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Defiant
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
which usually lets me brute force the ting-lus and other ghost sets, but I was afraid to use it with the opportunist meta
Now though, its good

 

[pyuk]

I've been using
Ursaluna (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Normalize
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Metronome

Sableye-Mega @ King's Rock
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome
which shreds everything that's not ghost type, but it's hard in a meta chock full of ghosts.
I've been using a nice set of
but not for me (Enamorus-Therian) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Simple
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome

Call an ambulance, (Banette-Mega) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Defiant
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
which usually lets me brute force the ting-lus and other ghost sets, but I was afraid to use it with the opportunist meta
Now though, its good

…King’s Rock Mega Sableye? Isn’t it a bit slow for that? You’re even running a minus speed nature.

Now the opportunist fiasco is over, I think its only appropriate to return to the king: MEGA CAMERUPT BABY!!!
SLAP A CHOICE SPECS AND ANALYTIC ON AND YOU GOT YOURSELF A BIG BULK KILLING MACHINE!! POWER SPOT, FRIEND GUARD, STORM DRAIN, ALL VIABLE TO HELP THE BIG GUY GET HIS KILLING ON!! YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO MEGA CAMERUPT PROPAGANDA!!


Camerupt-Mega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

Don’t forget Desolate Land! I’ve been having some mixed success with Flower Gift which is strengthethis gen thanks to Cherrim being able to Terastallize so it’s not weak to Fire. I always wanted to use this because I love Cherrim-Sunshine but couldn’t stand using a grass type in sun. I’m not super sure about the spreads or items just yet, but this is what I have so far.

Cherrim @ Choice Band
Ability: Flower Gift
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

Camerupt-Mega @ Choice Band
Ability: Desolate Land
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

As you may have noticed, I am back on my 248 HP bullshit. These two both have base 70 HP, which means they end up with a max HP that is divisible by 8 with maximum investment, and taking damage that is 1/8, 1/4, or 1/2 the max HP is common enough that I think getting it to round down is worth it more often than not.

Speaking of HP, seeing people using Diancie has got me thinking about bulk and stat distribution. I looked at Pokestar Giant, which has 100/100/100 defenses, and compared it to Regidrago, which has 200/50/50 defenses. Both invest 300 total points of their BST into those stats, and by pitting them against the same opponent, we can see that they have nearly identical bulk.

252 Atk Mew Giga Impact vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Pokestar Giant: 108-128 (26.7 - 31.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
Vs.
252 Atk Mew Giga Impact vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Regidrago: 162-191 (26.8 - 31.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Now, this isn’t because Regidrago has twice as much HP but half as much defense. Actually, Regidrago has 604 HP and 199 Defense vs. Giant’s 404 HP and 299 defense, so it really has a little less than 3/2 as much HP and a little more than 2/3 as much defense. This is because at level 100 with max IVs and EVs, HP is essentially calculated as (2 x base HP) + 204, while other stats (not counting nature) are calculated as (2 x base stat) + 99. I’ll skip over the math here, but basically by estimating bulk as HP x (Def + SpD), I was able to use calculus to figure out the theoretically ideal distribution of BST among defensive stats to be base HP = base Def + base SpD - 1.5 (-1.5 means you can round up or down and still be close enough)

So, to refer back to the previous example of Pokémon with 300 points of BST invested into bulk, the best possible distribution would be 148/76/76. As it happens, Krillowatt has almost exactly this spread, sporting 151/73/74 defenses, and it is the closest of any Metronome-legal Pokémon with 500+ BST to that ideal ratio. Some other notably close Pokémon I’ve spotted are:

• Snorlax (160/175)
• Iron Hands (154/176)
• Dondozo (150/180)
• Colossoil (133/144)
• Basculegion (120/140)

Now, all this is not necessarily assuming that Defense is equally valuable to Special Defense (it probably isn’t). It was assuming that different defensive spreads were equivalent to each other if they added up to the same total, i.e Regirock’s 499/299 vs Diancie’s 399/399. However, I realized that pairs of defenses needed to be compared as sums of inverses, so Regirock’s would be represented by 1/499 + 1/299 ≈ 0.0053, and Diancie’s would be 1/399 + 1/399 ≈ 0.0050. In this form, lower numbers are better as they represent less total damage taken. At this point, though, I am treating Def and SpD as equally valuable, as represented by using 1’s for both fractions. If I thought Def was twice as valuable as SpD, I would value Regirock’s bulk like so: 2/499 + 1/299 ≈ 0.0074, to be compared to Diancie’s 2/399 + 1/399 ≈ 0.0075. With this understanding, I ran the numbers even harder to come up with a formula that could determine optimal distribution between all 3 stats for a given BST for any ratio of physical/special value. The end result, after much double and triple checking, was that if your Def and SpD are allocated properly your HP should be… your Def plus your SpD minus 1.5.

What “allocated properly” looks like

Here, “r” is the ratio of value of Defense to Special Defense, “t” is the total BST allocated to Defense and Special Defense (excluding HP), and “x” is base Defense (base Special Defense would be t - x).

Yup, it’s the same exact formula, regardless of how much you’re hoping to lean into Def or SpD. The new part is that the further your actual physical/special balance is from your ideal balance, the less valuable your Def and SpD become, and thus the more valuable HP becomes. However, this doesn’t apply to Pokemon whose defenses are equal, so Regidrago doesn’t take hits from biased attackers better than Giant does.

With all that said, is Diancie the best choice for a bulky mixed attacker? Its BST distribution certainly leaves something to be desired. A spread of 174/88/88 would be ideal and significantly better; as is, Diancie is only very slightly bulkier than Giant (< 0.5%) and Regidrago (~1.1%) which have identical offenses but higher speed. Its type is decent, sporting a coveted Normal resist without being weak to Ghost or exploitable by Scrappy, but its massive weakness to Steel holds it back. It’s outclassed stat-wise as a slow mixed tank by Guzzlord, but Guzzlord has its own share of typing problems and niche advantages. Ultimately, I think Diancie is probably outdone in some roles by Pokestars like Giant, White Door, and UFO2, and other roles by Guzzlord, Ting Lu, and Iron Hands, but it has enough of a niche as a strong Rock type in a meta with Scrappy Ursaluna to still be acceptably viable.

 

[Ivy]

…King’s Rock Mega Sableye? Isn’t it a bit slow for that? You’re even running a minus speed nature.

Don’t forget Desolate Land! I’ve been having some mixed success with Flower Gift which is strengthethis gen thanks to Cherrim being able to Terastallize so it’s not weak to Fire. I always wanted to use this because I love Cherrim-Sunshine but couldn’t stand using a grass type in sun. I’m not super sure about the spreads or items just yet, but this is what I have so far.

Cherrim @ Choice Band
Ability: Flower Gift
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

Camerupt-Mega @ Choice Band
Ability: Desolate Land
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

As you may have noticed, I am back on my 248 HP bullshit. These two both have base 70 HP, which means they end up with a max HP that is divisible by 8 with maximum investment, and taking damage that is 1/8, 1/4, or 1/2 the max HP is common enough that I think getting it to round down is worth it more often than not.

Speaking of HP, seeing people using Diancie has got me thinking about bulk and stat distribution. I looked at Pokestar Giant, which has 100/100/100 defenses, and compared it to Regidrago, which has 200/50/50 defenses. Both invest 300 total points of their BST into those stats, and by pitting them against the same opponent, we can see that they have nearly identical bulk.

252 Atk Mew Giga Impact vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Pokestar Giant: 108-128 (26.7 - 31.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
Vs.
252 Atk Mew Giga Impact vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Regidrago: 162-191 (26.8 - 31.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Now, this isn’t because Regidrago has twice as much HP but half as much defense. Actually, Regidrago has 604 HP and 199 Defense vs. Giant’s 404 HP and 299 defense, so it really has a little less than 3/2 as much HP and a little more than 2/3 as much defense. This is because at level 100 with max IVs and EVs, HP is essentially calculated as (2 x base HP) + 204, while other stats (not counting nature) are calculated as (2 x base stat) + 99. I’ll skip over the math here, but basically by estimating bulk as HP x (Def + SpD), I was able to use calculus to figure out the theoretically ideal distribution of BST among defensive stats to be base HP = base Def + base SpD - 1.5 (-1.5 means you can round up or down and still be close enough)

So, to refer back to the previous example of Pokémon with 300 points of BST invested into bulk, the best possible distribution would be 148/76/76. As it happens, Krillowatt has almost exactly this spread, sporting 151/73/74 defenses, and it is the closest of any Metronome-legal Pokémon with 500+ BST to that ideal ratio. Some other notably close Pokémon I’ve spotted are:

• Snorlax (160/175)
• Iron Hands (154/176)
• Dondozo (150/180)
• Colossoil (133/144)
• Basculegion (120/140)

Now, all this is not necessarily assuming that Defense is equally valuable to Special Defense (it probably isn’t). It was assuming that different defensive spreads were equivalent to each other if they added up to the same total, i.e Regirock’s 499/299 vs Diancie’s 399/399. However, I realized that pairs of defenses needed to be compared as sums of inverses, so Regirock’s would be represented by 1/499 + 1/299 ≈ 0.0053, and Diancie’s would be 1/399 + 1/399 ≈ 0.0050. In this form, lower numbers are better as they represent less total damage taken. At this point, though, I am treating Def and SpD as equally valuable, as represented by using 1’s for both fractions. If I thought Def was twice as valuable as SpD, I would value Regirock’s bulk like so: 2/499 + 1/299 ≈ 0.0074, to be compared to Diancie’s 2/399 + 1/399 ≈ 0.0075. With this understanding, I ran the numbers even harder to come up with a formula that could determine optimal distribution between all 3 stats for a given BST for any ratio of physical/special value. The end result, after much double and triple checking, was that if your Def and SpD are allocated properly your HP should be… your Def plus your SpD minus 1.5.

What “allocated properly” looks like

Here, “r” is the ratio of value of Defense to Special Defense, “t” is the total BST allocated to Defense and Special Defense (excluding HP), and “x” is base Defense (base Special Defense would be t - x).
View attachment 483561

Yup, it’s the same exact formula, regardless of how much you’re hoping to lean into Def or SpD. The new part is that the further your actual physical/special balance is from your ideal balance, the less valuable your Def and SpD become, and thus the more valuable HP becomes. However, this doesn’t apply to Pokemon whose defenses are equal, so Regidrago doesn’t take hits from biased attackers better than Giant does.

With all that said, is Diancie the best choice for a bulky mixed attacker? Its BST distribution certainly leaves something to be desired. A spread of 174/88/88 would be ideal and significantly better; as is, Diancie is only very slightly bulkier than Giant (< 0.5%) and Regidrago (~1.1%) which have identical offenses but higher speed. Its type is decent, sporting a coveted Normal resist without being weak to Ghost or exploitable by Scrappy, but its massive weakness to Steel holds it back. It’s outclassed stat-wise as a slow mixed tank by Guzzlord, but Guzzlord has its own share of typing problems and niche advantages. Ultimately, I think Diancie is probably outdone in some roles by Pokestars like Giant, White Door, and UFO2, and other roles by Guzzlord, Ting Lu, and Iron Hands, but it has enough of a niche as a strong Rock type in a meta with Scrappy Ursaluna to still be acceptably viable.

Thank you for the imposing mathematical analysis. One thing to note is that with exceptionally high HP comes severe generosity to many foes with respect to leech seed, pain split, and draining moves. (As an avid Guzzlord enjoyer, I can attest to this.) Of course, most of this can be nullified with Good as Gold.

 

[doipy hooves]

I reached the suspect requirements. Despite the 25 games count, this journey took a long time mostly due to stubbornly trying to salvage my first account where I got most of my experience on with teams of varying quality before coming up with the final answer.
Here are some notes on the various teams I used at first.

The Journey

Quest (Dragapult) @ Razor Claw
Ability: Super Luck
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

Bravo (Dragonite) @ Razor Claw
Ability: Super Luck
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

At first I started with the double full crit Dragapult set to try to break through without stat boosts, and later I decided to add tera Ghost Dragonite as a partner instead. In general I was actually kind of disappointed to lose some nice resistances from Dragon by going ghost. Dark Dragapult is a product of figuring that I'm fine being Dragon/Ghost for the most part and living Shadow Force may be worth it, though tera Ghost may still be nice in case you get your type changed and have to manually flip back. Overall I think starting with this team probably sank my rating too much early on to recover from, but I got a lot of experience from it.

Light (Ting-Lu) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Pickup
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome

Dark (Ting-Lu) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Pickup
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

I came up with this aforementioned Pickup Mirror Herb team to mimic Opportunist, though Opportunist was still legal at the time anyway so it may not have been as effective in that meta. It has notable cons compared to Opportunist including only getting one proc per turn, losing its effectiveness when one mon goes down, and possibly randomly losing the Mirror Herb if another item is used. Overall I wasn't really a big fan especially when not benefitting from boosts on either side.

Underworld (Silvally-Ghost) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Magician
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome

Skyscrape (Latias) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Magician
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

A Magician team I've used in the past but haven't posted about, with a modern twist of trying to use up Mirror Herb early. Overall it's not as reliable compared to regular itemless Magician and the enemy has a good chance of using their item first with all the Mirror Herbs going around. Again I also felt like Latias appreciated the resistances from Dragon more than becoming a pure Ghost.

Jörmungandr (Dragonite) @ Choice Band
Ability: Aerilate
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

Resire (Enamorus-Therian) @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Delta Stream
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

Another team with Dragonite, trying Aerilate stacking with some variants of Enamorus-T support including just putting Pixilate at one point instead. Once again despite Delta Stream removing weaknesses, I missed having Dragon's resistances, and the team didn't feel that explosive compared to the Iron Hands set so I didn't really spend as much time on it.

Creation (Cresselia) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome

Negation (Sableye-Mega) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

This is a stall team. I mentioned the Covert Cloak + Magic Bounce combo early on as being immune to most forms of debuffs, and Good as Gold adds onto that by being immune to more things including bounced moves, so I ended up trying both out at the same time. Despite the defensive nerfs, I brought Cresselia to try out with Ghost tera.
Pros:

• Mostly can't be debuffed through status moves or secondary effects
• The team is bulky and immune to many things
• Good as Gold blocks some things that Magic Bounce doesn't like Perish Song (not by the user), Skill Swap, and Pain Split

Cons:

• Not immune to ability debuffs like Mirror Armor
• Not that great at dealing raw damage and appreciates passive damage or boosts which are not guaranteed
• Unlikely to run into turn loss from paralysis/sleep/etc, which may end up losing to Struggle if the fight stalls too long and you don't have enough raw damage
• Good as Gold also blocks some good things that Magic Bounce doesn't like ally Howl, Lunar Blessing, and Memento

Aerosmith (Shaymin-Sky) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Aerilate / Simple
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

vacation (Shaymin) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Flower Veil
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

At this point I felt like the lack of damage was a notable problem with the stall team despite being unstoppable, so I went back to basics and decided to go with Flower Veil now that the Opportunist ban had been implemented. Shaymin has most of the tenets of bulky statboost with somewhat reliable setup, killing power and the speed to make use of it, debuff immunity, and flavour in one package with an alright matchup against everything that doesn't outright kill first.

As for how it's changed in Gen 9, Shaymin-Sky being able to go pure Grass is an arguable sidegrade but getting rid of the 4x Ice weakness is pretty solid and Tera blocking type changes is a nice bonus as well as getting big STAB hits at times with new tricks like Flower Trick, Tera Blast, and Chloroblast. Unfortunately Shaymin-Sky isn't that bulky, so that's a problem when trying to pull off a bulky statboost strategy.

I also tried Simple on Shaymin-Sky for a while as well to take more advantage of common boosts than just Normal moves with Aerilate, though I quickly found out that relying on huge setup is still vulnerable to Mirror Herb. In one instance my Simple boosted +2 Quiver Dance was mirrored by a Simple user to become a +4 Quiver Dance and a random Simple Iron Hands got +6 Evasion in one turn from my using Minimize, not to mention all the free Weakness Policy boosts. So that's something to worry about now.

(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1771830792)

This team broke me out of the 1300s and 62% GXE ceilings initially. Unfortunately, this high would not last and led me into a backslide to 60%, and I ended up admitting defeat and planned to start fresh with a new account. In the long run, I would need to earn about 40-50 more wins than losses to get to 67% with the slow pace of gaining 1 Glicko per game with minimum variance.

At this point, despite ending on a downward spiral of losses, I wanted to continue playing Flower Veil as I had seen its potential, and now I could come up with an answer to some common issues I had run into. I decided on making use of Grass terastallization on a non-grass mon to expand my options. I'd seen double Ting-Lu being used for this purpose on the ladder, but I wanted some more balanced stats to work with.

Tirnanog (Tyranitar) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Dauntless Shield / Intrepid Sword
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

Foresight (Venusaur-Mega) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Flower Veil
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

In the end, Tyranitar was chosen as the terastallizer because of its high 600 BST with low speed and greenness, and Mega Venusaur has the highest BST in the meta with natural Flower Veil compatibility on top of that. Tyranitar's high Attack is also nice, with its other stats not falling far behind and double base STAB is nice for Tera purposes.

Initially I chose Intrepid Sword specifically because of my experiences dealing with random Mirror Herbs on the ladder copying all my Weakness Policy boosts at once. I decided to use its simple stat boost as a countermeasure to bait them out immediately and boost my own high Attack at the same time. However, after this game with double Ting-Lu getting +1 Attack, I decided to go for Dauntless Shield's defense boost instead so that I would have a longer time to live and boost up instead of making it faster for Mirror Herbers to kill me, and I used this variant to the end.

Overall I was pretty satisfied with how efficiently this worked out. For the most part I won some tough games that could have gone either way, lost a few to dying too quickly or other bad luck, and it ended up evening out in the final battle with Rollout's full 5 hits tearing through my team but still surviving long enough to pull off an Imprison call. The account is named after the anemone canadensis.

I'm also on the side of a permanent Opportunist ban to appreciate some more variety. Speaking of Opportunist, I underestimated Mirror Herb's relevance which often cost me and it ended up defining my final team to play around it as a result. I think it has a nice balance to it as an item counterplay to boosters and is worth noting as a random surprise tool that is likely to show up while climbing ladder.

Sidenote about other mechanics that probably aren't implemented yet: apparently the Pickup self buff only worked in wild battles, Protean/Libero is not supposed to always make you Normal type (you just get the type of the move you end up calling), and each Ruin ability makes you immune to its own effect which also applies to allies, so doubling up on Sword of Ruin and such can have a purpose even if it doesn't stack.

 

[pyuk]

View attachment 483725
I reached the suspect requirements. Despite the 25 games count, this journey took a long time mostly due to stubbornly trying to salvage my first account where I got most of my experience on with teams of varying quality before coming up with the final answer.
Here are some notes on the various teams I used at first.

The Journey

Quest (Dragapult) @ Razor Claw
Ability: Super Luck
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

Bravo (Dragonite) @ Razor Claw
Ability: Super Luck
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

At first I started with the double full crit Dragapult set to try to break through without stat boosts, and later I decided to add tera Ghost Dragonite as a partner instead. In general I was actually kind of disappointed to lose some nice resistances from Dragon by going ghost. Dark Dragapult is a product of figuring that I'm fine being Dragon/Ghost for the most part and living Shadow Force may be worth it, though tera Ghost may still be nice in case you get your type changed and have to manually flip back. Overall I think starting with this team probably sank my rating too much early on to recover from, but I got a lot of experience from it.

Light (Ting-Lu) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Pickup
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome

Dark (Ting-Lu) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Pickup
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

I came up with this aforementioned Pickup Mirror Herb team to mimic Opportunist, though Opportunist was still legal at the time anyway so it may not have been as effective in that meta. It has notable cons compared to Opportunist including only getting one proc per turn, losing its effectiveness when one mon goes down, and possibly randomly losing the Mirror Herb if another item is used. Overall I wasn't really a big fan especially when not benefitting from boosts on either side.

Underworld (Silvally-Ghost) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Magician
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome

Skyscrape (Latias) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Magician
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

A Magician team I've used in the past but haven't posted about, with a modern twist of trying to use up Mirror Herb early. Overall it's not as reliable compared to regular itemless Magician and the enemy has a good chance of using their item first with all the Mirror Herbs going around. Again I also felt like Latias appreciated the resistances from Dragon more than becoming a pure Ghost.

Jörmungandr (Dragonite) @ Choice Band
Ability: Aerilate
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

Resire (Enamorus-Therian) @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Delta Stream
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

Another team with Dragonite, trying Aerilate stacking with some variants of Enamorus-T support including just putting Pixilate at one point instead. Once again despite Delta Stream removing weaknesses, I missed having Dragon's resistances, and the team didn't feel that explosive compared to the Iron Hands set so I didn't really spend as much time on it.

Creation (Cresselia) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome

Negation (Sableye-Mega) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

This is a stall team. I mentioned the Covert Cloak + Magic Bounce combo early on as being immune to most forms of debuffs, and Good as Gold adds onto that by being immune to more things including bounced moves, so I ended up trying both out at the same time. Despite the defensive nerfs, I brought Cresselia to try out with Ghost tera.
Pros:

• Mostly can't be debuffed through status moves or secondary effects
• The team is bulky and immune to many things
• Good as Gold blocks some things that Magic Bounce doesn't like Perish Song (not by the user), Skill Swap, and Pain Split

Cons:

• Not immune to ability debuffs like Mirror Armor
• Not that great at dealing raw damage and appreciates passive damage or boosts which are not guaranteed
• Unlikely to run into turn loss from paralysis/sleep/etc, which may end up losing to Struggle if the fight stalls too long and you don't have enough raw damage
• Good as Gold also blocks some good things that Magic Bounce doesn't like ally Howl, Lunar Blessing, and Memento

Aerosmith (Shaymin-Sky) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Aerilate / Simple
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

vacation (Shaymin) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Flower Veil
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

At this point I felt like the lack of damage was a notable problem with the stall team despite being unstoppable, so I went back to basics and decided to go with Flower Veil now that the Opportunist ban had been implemented. Shaymin has most of the tenets of bulky statboost with somewhat reliable setup, killing power and the speed to make use of it, debuff immunity, and flavour in one package with an alright matchup against everything that doesn't outright kill first.

As for how it's changed in Gen 9, Shaymin-Sky being able to go pure Grass is an arguable sidegrade but getting rid of the 4x Ice weakness is pretty solid and Tera blocking type changes is a nice bonus as well as getting big STAB hits at times with new tricks like Flower Trick, Tera Blast, and Chloroblast. Unfortunately Shaymin-Sky isn't that bulky, so that's a problem when trying to pull off a bulky statboost strategy.

I also tried Simple on Shaymin-Sky for a while as well to take more advantage of common boosts than just Normal moves with Aerilate, though I quickly found out that relying on huge setup is still vulnerable to Mirror Herb. In one instance my Simple boosted +2 Quiver Dance was mirrored by a Simple user to become a +4 Quiver Dance and a random Simple Iron Hands got +6 Evasion in one turn from my using Minimize, not to mention all the free Weakness Policy boosts. So that's something to worry about now.

View attachment 483713
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1771830792)

This team broke me out of the 1300s and 62% GXE ceilings initially. Unfortunately, this high would not last and led me into a backslide to 60%, and I ended up admitting defeat and planned to start fresh with a new account. In the long run, I would need to earn about 40-50 more wins than losses to get to 67% with the slow pace of gaining 1 Glicko per game with minimum variance.
View attachment 483719

At this point, despite ending on a downward spiral of losses, I wanted to continue playing Flower Veil as I had seen its potential, and now I could come up with an answer to some common issues I had run into. I decided on making use of Grass terastallization on a non-grass mon to expand my options. I'd seen double Ting-Lu being used for this purpose on the ladder, but I wanted some more balanced stats to work with.

Tirnanog (Tyranitar) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Dauntless Shield / Intrepid Sword
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

Foresight (Venusaur-Mega) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Flower Veil
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

In the end, Tyranitar was chosen as the terastallizer because of its high 600 BST with low speed and greenness, and Mega Venusaur has the highest BST in the meta with natural Flower Veil compatibility on top of that. Tyranitar's high Attack is also nice, with its other stats not falling far behind and double base STAB is nice for Tera purposes.

Initially I chose Intrepid Sword specifically because of my experiences dealing with random Mirror Herbs on the ladder copying all my Weakness Policy boosts at once. I decided to use its simple stat boost as a countermeasure to bait them out immediately and boost my own high Attack at the same time. However, after this game with double Ting-Lu getting +1 Attack, I decided to go for Dauntless Shield's defense boost instead so that I would have a longer time to live and boost up instead of making it faster for Mirror Herbers to kill me, and I used this variant to the end.

Overall I was pretty satisfied with how efficiently this worked out. For the most part I won some tough games that could have gone either way, lost a few to dying too quickly or other bad luck, and it ended up evening out in the final battle with Rollout's full 5 hits tearing through my team but still surviving long enough to pull off an Imprison call. The account is named after the anemone canadensis.

I'm also on the side of a permanent Opportunist ban to appreciate some more variety. Speaking of Opportunist, I underestimated Mirror Herb's relevance which often cost me and it ended up defining my final team to play around it as a result. I think it has a nice balance to it as an item counterplay to boosters and is worth noting as a random surprise tool that is likely to show up while climbing ladder.

Sidenote about other mechanics that probably aren't implemented yet: apparently the Pickup self buff only worked in wild battles, Protean/Libero is not supposed to always make you Normal type (you just get the type of the move you end up calling), and each Ruin ability makes you immune to its own effect which also applies to allies, so doubling up on Sword of Ruin and such can have a purpose even if it doesn't stack.

On the topic of to-be-implemented mechanics, Mirror Herb should actually be substantially stronger than it is. It’s supposed to wait until certain intervals (after almost all switch-in related events, after moves, and probably somewhere in residuals? Needs more research) to actually activate, only then copying all the boosts it’s tallied up. For example, Mirror Herb vs. double Intrepid Sword should copy a total +2 Attack, not just +1. In the silliest case scenario, double Intimidate @ Mirror Herb vs double Defiant should result in each Mirror Herb copying a total +8 (capped at +6) Attack, while the Defiant Pokemon get a measly net +2 each. I’m currently trying to get this right on PS, but it needs more than just research. The event structure to support this kind of behavior isn’t really there, so I pretty much have to fix a bunch of other things at the same time in order for Mirror Herb Intimidate to really scare Defiant back into whatever hole it crawled out of after Opportunist’s de facto ban.

That revelation about Ruin abilities is interesting, but I still wouldn’t double up on the same Ruin ability. I’d rather pair Tablets of Ruin, Fluffy, or Dauntless Shield with Sword of Ruin. Dauntless Shield simply makes up for the Defense loss and then some, and Fluffy makes up for it even more but only vs. contact moves (and don’t forget the Fire weakness). Tablets of Ruin has a sort of unintuitive effect in concert with Sword of Ruin where it effectively swaps the beneficiaries of the abilities; the Sword user gains an effective x4/3 Defense from Tablets, but the effective Attack boost from Sword is cancelled out, and the reverse happens for the Tablets user. The end result is admittedly worse than what Dauntless Shield can do since you get one mon at 4/3 Attack and another at 4/3 defense instead of two mons at 4/3 Attack and one mon at 9/8 Defense, but it has the quirk that when one Ruin user faints, the other’s ability effectively goes back to normal, so if the Tablets user faints first (which they probably will since they aren’t getting the effective Defense boost) the Sword user’s effective stat boost switches from Defense to Attack, so they can potentially pick up the offensive slack if they’ve been amassing boosts in that time. On the special side of things, there’s not much question; Ice Scales is far and away the best option for pairing with Beads of Ruin if you’re looking to compensate for the SpD drop. I’ve been trying a team to that effect using Beads Mega Ampharos and Scales Deoxys-N after my attempt at using Snow Cloak Deoxys-A ended in failure (It actually didn’t do terribly, but Snow Cloak seemed to be a lot less effective than advertised, even when I backed it up with Bright Powder). I’m using Deo-N because I genuinely think that, at least for some applications, it’s better than Deo-A thanks to how the extra bulk goes a longer way than the extra attack; if you pit them against each other, Deo-N actually does a bit more damage with the same moves. I did also try pairing Sword of Ruin and Beads of Ruin on a double Deoxys team. It was bad.

 

[Lectrys]

Speaking of Deoxys-N, I paired Choice Band Intrepid Sword that with Weakness Policy Power Spot Venusaur-Mega last gen, and the team actually didn't perform too badly. The Deoxys-A version fared worse because Deo-A's lack of bulk actually matters. I just found the Wishiwashi-School version more consistent due to Wishiwashi-School's even higher bulk. ...But Deo-N going first (and OHKOing frail mons) patches up surprisingly many problems!

 

[Ivy]

Madre de Dios, it's finally been done.

I did nearly 500 games on my first account before finally acquiescing to making alts (s/o doipy hooves for experiencing the same fallacy). I realize now that 67% GXE literally means winning two battles for every loss. So much for a small increase! This is trivial in regular formats but requires optimal team composition and a good deal of RNG in metronome lol.

Got most wins with a stallish team composed of Clear Amulet Unaware M-Sab and Mirror Herb Good as Gold Tera Ghost Tyranitar. However, when feeling up for some more eventful battles, I also had good success with a specs Hadron Engine M-Gengar and band Galvanize Tera Electric Iron Hands. Iron Hands, when rolling a normal move, was often dealing resisted 2HKOs against Grass-types, not to mention being able to hit Ghost-types.

Some highlights:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1766915314
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1767941192
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1768665548
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1770518901

 

[bonk]

Proud of you guys