Format Discussion Metronome Battle

Hey there! I was playing quite a bunch recently and i hit top 50. Wanted to share my team and see what i can change for the better.

View attachment 338517
Tyranitar @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Simple
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

View attachment 338518
Venusaur-Mega @ Bright Powder
Ability: Friend Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

My idea was to bring up an offensive team with the well known simple + weakness policy combo. Tyranitar is pretty good at this due to its 7 weaknesses, great bulk and even greater mixed offenses. What I tried to do with M-Venu is make sure that Ttar is alive as long as possible. Friend Guard boosting ttar defences by 25% not only makes ttar able to tank super effective moves pretty well and even survive strong fighting moves but also makes ttar pretty healthy so that it can stay in the match as long as possible to dish out damage after taking a super effective hit. Brightpowder makes Venusaur stay around for a bit more time. Without M Venu taking hits and making Ttar Bulkier with Friend Guard, Ttar cant stay in for that many turns.

I choose Venu over a ghost type because of its immunity to poison and Powder moves, but not being able to Dynamax it is a bit annoying sometimes. I also seem to struggle against intrpepid sword + choice band teams, sometimes they bring ttar very low with ease forcing me to D-max or risk it being killed (sometimes i prefeer D-Max since venusaur can handle offensive teams while Ttar sponge hits with Max guard).
Hey, not much to say here, but Mega Venusaur is a really good user of Weakness Policy as well. Try it out, you won't be disappointed.
 
Hey, not much to say here, but Mega Venusaur is a really good user of Weakness Policy as well. Try it out, you won't be disappointed.
Yeah, M Venu is alright too, but in that case i might drop Friend Guard and go for Competitive or something else :)
 
It's nearing the end of June 1st, so may as well get into May's usage stats. Crazy to think it's almost been a year that I've been doing this now.
(EDIT: It actually has been a year since June 1 2020 when we found out that Metronome Battles surpassed the requirement of 10,000 battles for the format to survive, but it didn't pop up in my search because I didn't actually talk about the usage stats in that post. Happy anniversary to Gen 8 Metronome Battle's permanent ranked existence.)

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-05/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-05/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt

The count has dipped a bit with 61698 battles, but honestly it's not a relatively big loss (and probably a rise in human players) and still higher than a lot of the rest of the other well known formats, like Gen 8 CAP 1v1 Camomons or Gen 1 Custom Game or Gen 6 VGC 2016. I have no idea why or how these are in the stats.

1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Mega Heracross (#4)
#3: Mega Sableye (#7)
#4: Necturna (#5)
#5: Glastrier (#12)
#6: Dragapult (#10)
#7: Blissey (#2)
#8: Mega Gengar (#11)
#9: Type: Null (#3)
#10: Dusclops (#6)

Stall has taken a fall with Type Null, Dusclops, and Blissey falling from the limelight. I suppose this is what the meta looks like without the influence of the usual bots; at the least I didn't notice any on ladder. Heracross has returned to #2 for the first time in a while and Sableye, Glastrier, and Dragapult have also made some impressive rebounds. Still, even Mega Venusaur and Heracross have gone from raw uses in the 20ks to the 10ks. New CAP mon Chromera is in a modest 12th with 3747 raw uses. The dark horses of this month are Dhelmise at #20 and Drifblim at #29, both having raw usage in the hundreds among mons in the thousands (473 and 502 respectively).

As for moveset data, you can see just what the bots contributed looking at the differences between the months. Friend Guard on Mega Venusaur falls from 46% to 5%, while Simple actually rises up to 2nd most used. Intrepid Sword on Heracross goes from 83% to 56%, with uprise in Defiant and Simple. Most significantly, Type: Null's highest ability is now Magic Bounce and Unaware falls to 3% from 86%. Dusclops also has Magic Bounce in first place, though Friend Guard is still a contender and Unaware usage wasn't that high to begin with. The viability ceilings are pretty low all around, with only Dusclops ending above 80 with 81.

This month I mostly tried out bonk's Innards Out Chansey strategy, along with some shaymin games. I liked it and actually prepared a draft earlier this month, but unfortunately it has disappeared. Nevertheless here is my version of the Innards Out team:
 “Aaahhh!!! You’re no perfect being! You’re a monster in human form! No mercy! No forgiveness!!!”


The Chansey set is straight out of bonk's post except with one change (aside from nickname). Level 99 Chansey forfeits the ability to land OHKO moves and some damage overall, but in exchange loses 7 HP and most importantly 1 point of Defence, going from 13 to 12. The next defence loss threshold is at level 89 which is too impractical to sacrifice without major performance loss. In hindsight I might have wanted to go +SpD since special moves are kind of a problem, but in the end a lot of the mons I saw on ladder didn't have a high HP stat to begin with and it was funny to see Chansey do 50% with a confusion hit.

I had the exact calc in my draft, but I believe that I chose level 99 after this scenario cost me the game:
252 Atk Sableye-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Chansey: 592-697 (92.3 - 108.7%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Sableye-Mega Bullet Punch vs. Lvl 99 0 HP / 0- Def Chansey: 641-755 (101.1 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The key to this team lies in the partner, Soul-Heart Dragapult. The original strategy does not specify any partner in particular, but this idea was too great on paper to pass up. This is probably the best synergy you can have as Innards Out will usually force a 1v1 situation on activation, and having 2 mons die instantly lands you the maximum +2 SpA boost from Soul-Heart, perfect for cleaning up. I chose Dragapult because it has high stats (specifically Speed is very powerful in a 1v1), decent defensive typing, and most importantly it can dynamax. Dynamaxing on turn 1 allows you to hopefully not take a hit while Chansey dies and start the true battle with a stat advantage. BrightPowder is used because it has an easy activation condition and a reliable effect while not having any drawbacks. I use a Brave nature because I like mixed attackers and you can't always rely on winning via special moves.

Here are some highlights:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1343875754-w6khlqwwvt4jrrhjmplaghn88dfsnzgpw - 2x Chanseys, the first attempt
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1343913816 - ideal clean game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1344254181 - Confused Chansey
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1344265462-xogimyw0z4hzrbfumwqrvkcw3lhorukpw - long close game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1345163904 - The Yanma
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1348751875-l0gezyd92iv9gaz6v0w66mul526qf4kpw - Curse
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1349671620 - clean non-special kill
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1349673052-vi5gotzbkcc00ll7ay80ewp6p8kl4oqpw - whittling down Spiritomb
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1349674566 - dodging dark moves
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1349676960-wy1isw3x342wfhhemkvsx86mujjhywupw - 2 consecutive 3 turn sleeps
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1349680706-858c2pwi4r8egtumdeaiacujdg9hq9gpw - The Speed Boost Hydreigon (I actually do accept his rematch challenge and it's another close game)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1348750601 - Chansey gets a kill

Overall I found this strategy makes for an interesting playstyle and was refreshing to play, even being decent for ladder when I got a win streak going. Dragapult is not a SpA nuker and won't be OHKOing with neutral special moves like Mega Ampharos, but it can handle itself in a 1v1 rather nicely with its solid resistances and stats. This team reached turn 16 more than I was expecting, but in the end it's still metronome battles and anything can happen. You could probably get away with not dynamaxing turn 1 and saving it for stall, but I prefer to stay on the safe side and avoid taking damage early. This team does lose to Magic Guard and there's always the possibility of losing Innards Out, but more likely than not things will usually go as expected. Crazy to think that this was possible since the beginning.

EDIT:
Just for fun I'm going to compare May 2021 1630 usage stats top 10 with May 2020, marking a full year since the beginning of Gen 8 Metronome Battle usage stats.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2020-05/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt

1630 Top 10 from last year:
#1: Mega Venusaur
#2: Mega Heracross
#3: Necturna
#4: Mega Ampharos
#5: Dragapult
#6: Mega Sableye
#7: Gourgeist-Super
#8: Mew
#9: Mega Gengar
#10: Dusclops

First of all, the Flower Veil hype was real for Gourgeist to even be there lol. Second of all, interesting to see that the top has mostly stayed in the top, aside from stall growing stronger, Mew never really breaching top 10 anymore, and Glastrier newly existing since then. It's also funny to see that if you switch tabs between the two stats you can notice things like Dhelmise and Swampert still being #20 and #21. Corsola-Galar was actually relatively high in 2020, still sitting at 87 today. A lot of the generally popular mons have retained their popularity it seems, though not to the degree of success they may have had back then. Raw usage has generally lowered though I'd say percentage has kind of smoothed out among the top.


EDIT 2 (June 2):
Bonus game I just played:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1351953547 - The true fastest game, ended in 1 action via teamkill. First time this happened to me.

Other Chansey will survive the Innards Out because of uninvested HP. Also -6 Dragapult outslows Shuckle.
 
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Today is July 1st, marking Bidoof/Canada Day. Of course, the real event of today isn't the celebrations, but the June usage stats being out. As the day ends, now is the time to take the present to reflect back on the past and look towards the future.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-06/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-06/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt

The battle count continues to drop down to 49737 battles. Honestly it's not bad and I was expecting a big drop from the usual numbers for a while now, since in general I feel like people probably are either busier or freer these days. It was probably thanks to the pandemic that ladder was as consistently active as it was. There's also historical precedence, since on this day last year the format crashed down to about 20k, though it did rise up again afterwards.

1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Mega Heracross (no change)
#3: Necturna (#4)
#4: Mega Sableye (#3)
#5: Mega Gengar (#8)
#6: Blissey (#7)
#7: Glastrier (#5)
#8: Mega Ampharos (#11)
#9: Dragapult (#6)
#10: Dusclops (no change)

On the surface, it looks like the top 10 got pretty shuffled around as usual, with no major changes aside from Type: Null barely falling from top 10 (in 11th) and Mega Ampharos taking back its place. Necturna has made a comeback to #3 (which it hasn't reached since January), and is still an underdog performer with its 3000~ raw usage punching above its weight, though there aren't any other Flower Veilers around. Just from a glance, Heracross seems to have relatively dropped off the most with a 2804 usage loss that takes it below 10000, while fellow top contender Venusaur only loses about 1756 in comparison. In general every mon has understandably dropped a bit in usage, and that puts some mons like Regirock and Tyranitar closer to top 10. Chromera is still sticking it out in #30 with about 2k uses. It's hard to say who the darkest horse is with quite a few mons with lower usage visible, but I'll give it to Volcanion in #23 with 542 uses, since it's highest ranked and I've actually seen some on ladder. I feel like Volcanion is not really talked about a lot, but even just in the usage stats over time, I feel like I've recently seen it in the first page more often despite relatively low uses. Based on the moveset data, a good some are even going with Soul-Heart which is pretty synergestic.

Fun fact: Comparing to last year June's stats, Marowak-Alola has the exact same number of uses (555).

In meta/CAP news, Voodoom got a buff from 105 SpA to 130 SpA (+25), further cementing its place as the best special/mixed and highest BST Dark/Fighting pokemon in the format, and being one of the best special attackers of both types to boot. Dark/Fighting is still not a great defensive typing, but I'm sure it has its fans.

At the beginning of the month I did try a simple but fun strategy with Scope Lens/Super Luck Dragapult to try for raw crit power, potentially rivaling Choice items without the drawbacks. Though more unreliable than Leek strats, this allows the use of strong stats and defensive typing which Sirfetch'd can lack. It got me to #2 on the ladder at its peak, but it was not that consistent against more competent teams, and I didn't really play that much later on the month. Still, I'm counted as 8% on the moveset stats so my streak counts for something. It's weird that 50% crit feels big but is equally likely to not crit, so it can sometimes feel like you barely get any crits and sometimes every move can be a crit and both don't even seem that crazy. Getting lucky does come with the benefit of seeing some funny chat moments though. Sometimes the power of rng can be intimidating enough to win the mental battle. I'm not sure if this is outright better than usual sets for most mons, but if you don't care about a set's item and/or ability that much, it could be worth a shot to fix the dice in your favour a bit.

Moveset-wise, there's not that much to talk about as most of the top choices are set in stone by now. However, there are still some surprises to be found. Magician on Venusaur is a thing now. Thick Fat has overtaken Fveil on Necturna, probably because of the sample team. Highest viability ceiling goes to Blissey with 82, with Spiritomb/Marshadow running up with 81 and Cyclohm/Astrolotl trailing behind with 80. In general these seem to be slightly higher than last month for the top mons I looked at, so I guess there's people having more success laddering and hitting peaks at least. Thanks for your reading.
 

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Meminger21

Lágrimas Ocultas
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
I have a doubt about the move Rollout. So I've already played in two matches (I don't have the replays) where Metronome turned into Rollout, the first time I used Rollout, it was used succesfully, but the second time it didn't work. Although, I've already seen Thrash, which is a similar move, working just fine in 3 turns, or even Geomancy working too.
 
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I have a doubt about the move Rollout. So I've already played in two matches (I don't have the replays) where Metronome turned into Rollout, the first time I used Rollout, it was used succesfully, but the second time it didn't work. Although, I've already seen Thrash, which is a similar move, working just fine in 3 turns, or even Geomancy working too.
This is probably because having a Choice item equipped prevents the (multiple) use of multi-turn moves, and I assume you saw Thrash and Geomancy used by opponents.

FAQ
Why did my metronome fail??
Due to generation 7 and 8 mechanics, one cannot physically use another move while Choice locked into the first. For example, a Choice Band user locked into Metronome calls a two-turn move like Dig: trying to actually use Dig on the next turn results in a failure, because the game expects only another Metronome. Despite this, Choice items are still quite viable.
 
Hi im a newer player to metronome, I was wondering is this team good?
I run the ring IO Chansey with a weakness policy, Soul-Heart Necturna. I basically just swapped the Dragapult with a Necturna, I honestly don't know if its better or not. The boost of WP basically boost the spatk and when the 2spatk Soul-Heart boost is there, it results in 800+ spatk. I don't know if this is better to run, but I picked Necturna to boost the chance of getting hit with a super effective attack with its grass typing, whilst keeping the ghost to take no dmg from normal moves.


Necyrne (Necturna) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Soul-Heart
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Mild Nature
- Metronome

Game of Chanse (Chansey) @ Ring Target
Ability: Innards Out
Level: 99
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 SpA
Lonely Nature
IVs: 0 Def / 0 SpD / 0 Spe

- Metronome

Edit: Generally the team works really well with me but Imposter Blisseys cripple it, and so do status effects.
It also just destroys pokemon aiding another (idk how to say it) teams.
If anyone can give me advice for this team, please give, thank you.

Edit 2: Heres a match I consider good, https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1375923861 Shows off the WP good, and the Heart-Soul.
 
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Hi im a newer player to metronome, I was wondering is this team good?
I run the ring IO Chansey with a weakness policy, Soul-Heart Necturna. I basically just swapped the Dragapult with a Necturna, I honestly don't know if its better or not. The boost of WP basically boost the spatk and when the 2spatk Soul-Heart boost is there, it results in 800+ spatk. I don't know if this is better to run, but I picked Necturna to boost the chance of getting hit with a super effective attack with its grass typing, whilst keeping the ghost to take no dmg from normal moves.


Necyrne (Necturna) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Soul-Heart
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Mild Nature
- Metronome

Game of Chanse (Chansey) @ Ring Target
Ability: Innards Out
Level: 99
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 SpA
Lonely Nature
IVs: 0 Def / 0 SpD / 0 Spe

- Metronome

Edit: Generally the team works really well with me but Imposter Blisseys cripple it, and so do status effects.
It also just destroys pokemon aiding another (idk how to say it) teams.
If anyone can give me advice for this team, please give, thank you.

Edit 2: Heres a match I consider good, https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1375923861 Shows off the WP good, and the Heart-Soul.
The team looks good. Necturna's bulk+typing seems like a good fit for weakness policy on the team.

I just think IO Chansey isn't as consistent as some of the other staples in the meta like Unaware Eviolite Stall or Flower Veil.
 
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Today is not August 1st, but the usage stats for July are out now!

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-07/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-07/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt

The battle count hasn't really risen, staying at a similar count of 47170 battles. Still I won't complain about consistency, and when you put that in perspective that's more than 1000 Metronome Battles per day, though they are pretty fast to play.

1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Mega Heracross (no change)
#3: Blissey (#6)
#4: Dusclops (#10)
#5: Mega Sableye (#4)
#6: Type: Null (#11)
#7: Necturna (#3)
#8: Dragapult (#9)
#9: Mega Ampharos (#8)
#10: Mega Abomasnow (#34)

I almost didn't end up playing at all this month, so these stats are a surprise to me as far as ladder trends go. Stall returns with a vengeance as Blissey, Dusclops, and Type Null rise up once again, though the most shocking placement is the dark horse Mega Abomasnow defying the numbers and making possibly the biggest relative rise ever seen in these usage stats posts, going from #34 to landing in the top 10. In all cases, raw usage didn't even go up by that much (and Dusclops actually went down), so it's less that more people are using these and more that these mons are just doing relatively better and weighted performance reflects that. What are these Abomasnow running? According to the moveset stats, it's more Flash Fire than Primordial Sea apparently, and the rest of the set is typical Flower Veil. Aside from the top 10, there are some other interesting underdog moments here like Pokestar Black Door in #29 with 420 uses and Zarude in #36 with 297 uses. On the other hand, scrolling down reveals some dissonant underperformers like Greninja in #79 with 1963 raw uses and Regieleki only managing a #100 placement despite having 1246 uses.

Fun historical fact: Compared to last year July's stats, Snorlax and Gallade still place in #16 and #17 respectively in the present, though Snorlax is at less than half its original uses while Gallade is actually very close to having the same raw uses (3506 in 2020 vs 3508 in 2021).

As for moveset data, we have quite a few viability ceilings in the 80s. Venusaur, Heracross, and Necturna make it to 82, fitting for their strength. Ampharos hits 81, and Dragapult/Sableye/Marshadow hit 80. It does seem that Dusclops/Type Null stall is performing relatively well, both having viability ceilings of 79. Last month it actually seems like Wandering Spirit and Unaware were the highest abilities for the respective mons, but now Friend Guard is back for sure. I guess MetronomerBot is back or something. I don't have much else to say, but just looking at the page again, apparently 6.555% of Venusaur run "Nothing" in the item slot. I don't remember ever seeing that option before, but it's listed on some other mons too like Mew, Slowbro, and Pajantom. These stats can reveal some interesting things sometimes. Thanks for your reading.

EDIT: This is more like a sidenote and not an actual edit since I haven't posted this yet, but I noticed this after writing all of this out and noticed that Pokestar Black Door did not have 420 uses in the moveset page. It seems that the moveset page's raw usage numbers are different to the main stats page, usually higher but not clear how. Venusaur has 12535/13209, Heracross falls short at 9258 but hits 10071 in the stats, Blissey goes from 6833 to 7316, and so on. The difference seems to vary and for the most part mons with more usage will have a higher difference, but this doesn't seem to apply for every mon (Pokestar Giant has a larger relative change for a mon in the hundreds). I'm not sure what's up with this, so I'll just continue to refer to the stats on the list page for now.
 
Took a bit of a break from metronome, but I'm back for a bit with a "new" team.
Death (Chansey) @ Ring Target
Ability: Innards Out
Level: 99
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Gentle Nature
IVs: 0 HP / 0 Def / 0 Spe
- Metronome

Hades (Darkrai) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Soul-Heart
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome
Basically copying doipy hooves team from June but subbing out Dragapult for a suprisingly underused pokemon, Darkrai. I chose Darkrai over Dragapult due to its higher Special Attack, and higher Defense and Special Defense. It has a slightly worse but still usable typing that grants it that prankster immunity, and still has a fairly high speed. Certainly a pokemon that I will be using more in the future.


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1402203033
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1402207485-0w0i7jk8ffbqjri2zr2egqzpefldkmxpw
 
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On another note I had a very weird interaction in a game where on turn 4 my Deoxys-D hit my own pokemon with Bounce, and I was unable to figure out why, and was wondering if anyone else could figure it out.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1402319605
I don't know anything about the back end of showdown, but my guess is that since Metronome targets it's own slot, and Ally switch placed your Gardevoir in that slot, Showdown's code thought you used Bounce on that slot.

Usually you can't use bounce on yourself, and my bet would be that Showdown checks if a move called by metronome can be used on it's own slot before it selects a random opposing target.
 
As summer (in the Northern Hemisphere) comes to a close, we can still take a look back at the sunset with the usage stats for August.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-08/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-08/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt

The battle count has risen slightly to 53347 battles. I haven't really been playing lately, but it's nice to see that people are still enjoying the format and keeping the ladder lively. I'll shout out the silent majority of Metronome Battle players, however often or serious you are, thank you for being part of the game nonetheless. This ever varying meta is only possible to talk about in these posts because of all the different options that can be and are chosen in the vital process of teambuilding.

1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Mega Heracross (no change)
#3: Type: Null (#6)
#4: Necturna (#7)
#5: Blissey (#3)
#6: Mega Sableye (#5)
#7: Mega Abomasnow (#10)
#8: Dragapult (no change)
#9: Mega Ampharos (no change)
#10: Mega Gengar (#11)

Continuing from last month, Type: Null takes back its top spot with Blissey, Necturna, and Abomasnow rising as well, though not much has changed otherwise. The dark horse Shaymin takes #17 with 682 uses. Something note is that the weighting makes the top 10 end up with a mix of relatively high and lower uses, like you have the general ghosts like Sableye/Dragapult/Gengar in the 6000s while Ampharos, Abomasnow, and Type: Null tend closer to the 3000s. As for actual usage percentages, Heracross has been making a resurgence with 14636 uses/28% weighted usage, which is very close to Venusaur's raw uses (15073) and double the percentage from last month. Type: Null, Necturna, and Blissey are all around 11%, though their order is inverse to their raw usage, so Type: Null is just performing that well to make up for being behind in uses.

As for moveset data, things haven't changed too much either. The highest viability ceiling this month is a round 80, shared by Venusaur, Heracross, Sableye, Ampharos, and Glastrier. I don't know how long this has been happening, but Sablenite has been the most used item on Sableye for a while. On a related note, slightly more Venusaur are running Nothing (3.75%) instead of Venusaurite (2.04%). I assume this is counting Mega Venusaur specifically and not just regular Venusaur with no item, but the thought of someone removing the default Venusaurite and not replacing it is funny to me. 16.7% of Ampharos are Prankster, which is second to Competitive (21.9%), and in theory I guess it fixes its only weakness of going last. At this point here's not much development in the top 10, though other mons can have some interesting changes to see like Poison Point Regirock barely above the typical Ice Scales. Apparently Simple is the ability that's seen success on base Shaymin, which I didn't really expect.

It's interesting to look at Natures and EV spreads as well, as even the obvious choices aren't always reflected in the stats. Quiet Venusaur is top with 44%, but Brave is also a competitor at 22%. Brave Heracross also has competition from Adamant and Naughty, and I'm pretty sure fwqef remarked to me once about how speed actually matters in the mirror match, though I don't have the data at this moment. Type: Null is almost even between Relaxed and Sassy which makes me think the reigning team is probably just one of each nature. Blissey is predominantly Relaxed, but it's split between 252 and 0 Speed EVs, which does technically matter in the mirror match when the faster one will get its Imposter off first and get lowered to 5 PP with no benefit. Sableye mostly takes Naughty as suggested by the teambuilder, but it's getting some healthy competition from Sassy, and both natures aren't even that overwhelming with percentages in the 20s. In general the more surprising EV spreads are the ones with the most raw usage, like Gengar with a close 4-way battle between Rash/Hardy/Modest/Hasty. Thanks for your reading.
 
The usage stats for September are out!

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-09/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-09/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt

The battle count stays pretty consistent, with a slight growth of 54198 battles. I still haven't been playing much personally, but it's good to see this count still going strong.

1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Mega Heracross (no change)
#3: Type: Null (no change)
#4: Blissey (#5)
#5: Dusclops (#11)
#6: Glastrier (#13)
#7: Necturna (#4)
#8: Mega Ampharos (#9)
#9: Dragapult (#8)
#10: Mega Abomasnow (#7)

Overall the top 10 seems to be shifting towards a more "stallier" phase, with bulk and boosters rising up the ranks. While not mentioned above, the most relatively improved of the month is definitely Kommo-o, going from #186 in August to #11 in September. Shaymin has also made it to #12, with the typical megas and meta mons following behind. Even though its place hasn't changed, Type: Null has actually made a huge leap in raw uses from 3421 to 6154. The dark horse of the month by usage is probably Entei, making the most out of weighted usage by reaching #26 with 301 uses and hanging among mons with usage in the thousands, even being a rank above Mega Alakazam's 5044.

Over at the moveset section, the viability ceilings have a different story to tell. The peak is 82 now, shared by Chromera and Spiritomb. Venusaur and Gengar follow in second place with 81, and last for 80 is Heracross/Glastrier/Abomasnow/Mew. Friend Guard Null is making a comeback, which I assume is thanks to MetronomerBot but I could be wrong. Glastrier is finding success with Prism Armor to support Weakness Policy, which is the optimal ability over Filter/Solid Rock due to Mold Breaker immunity. Competitive on Ampharos has made a breakaway with 70% weighted usage compared to the 21.9% from last month, and similarly Intrepid Sword seems to be the winning ability on Dragapult for now. As for Kommo-o and Shaymin, the reigning set is pretty clear to see with Friend Guard and Simple respectively, both with Weakness Policy and coincidentally the same viability ceiling of 74. The team of Shaymin/Venusaur is a classic combination of strong grasses, though double Kommo-o is something I haven't really thought about, but it's clearly gotten results so if it works, it works.

There hasn't been that much new topics to talk about lately like in terms of the ladder and the meta, but that may change in the future, and hopefully there's also new mons from Legends Arceus to look forward to if they're added to PS, and maybe even moves in the off chance SWSH is patched for compatability or something. Thanks for your reading.
 
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Hi, I came back to the ladder recently after around a half year break and claimed rank 3, 4, and 5. Definitely gonna try for another 123 once the rank 1 decays a bit. Here's all the teams I used. I think the ladder is a bit too stale rn, it is clear that most of the dedicated left and it's just the silent majority now. I think something should definitely be done to shake up the metagame, as it is getting boring facing the same bonkstall and fveil over and over again.

Ivy are you still alive? I am personally interested in a 680 BST metagame but even freeing the BST cap to 640 will open up a couple of interesting pokemon. You could argue that if it's not broken there's no need to fix it, but I think this limbo state with no community activity is just as bad. So uhh... maybe consider my proposition?

1633614875270.png
 
Just had a random idea today and it went much quicker than I had originally thought.

If you try (Snom) @ Eviolite
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Metronome

Anything can win (Snom) @ Eviolite
Ability: Primordial Sea
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

I thought that it would be funny to try and see how long it would take for a team of dual snoms to win game of metronome battles. This was an idea I tried months ago, to no avail. With some better teambuilding skills, i threw this together, and low and behold on game 5 I lucked out and got triple max guard to win with perish song.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1437700795-c9g88m8auv1uggu1grk6edk9fwn20r3pw

Also thought I would give my two cents on changing the BST limit. I definitely feel like it is a great idea to help shake up what is becoming a much less active metagame. However, I feel that we need to start slowly with a 640 limit, and then if it is decided that those mons aren't completely broken, we could then move to 670 or even 680.
 

Ivy

resident enigma
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Obviously the vast majority of the community are going to want to move the BST goalpost another increment around now. It is indeed the only method we have other than waiting for Legends to be released. I'd be inclined to wait for a post-Legends metagame for a while and maybe a month or so after that's explored we can finally acquiesce to 640.
The pattern of a desired BST increase every generation is very likely to continue, which does leave the alarming prospect of eventually reaching 680 at which case it will be an entirely ubers metagame...
 
For now I don't really have an opinion either way, but I want to note that Mega Crucibelle is included at 640 BST as well. 680 BST is kind of scary to think about the meta being completely different with so many mons being obsoleted, except Grass types I guess.

So this recently discovered hackmons mechanic/exploit technically allows you to start at 200% HP in battles. I don't know if PS plans to implement this since it kind of defeats the point to practice with a bug that most people can't use/don't want and will probably be dealt with officially, but I decided to theorymon about this for fun.
200% HP means that you start at double your current HP, but retain the same max HP. For example if you had 100 HP normally, you would start at 200/100 HP in battle. Dynamaxing seems to act as normal, doubling to become 400/200 HP and reverting would still leave you at 200/100 HP (assuming no damage is taken). I'm assuming that this can be applied to more than 1 pokemon in a match, healing fails when above max HP, and passive damage is still based on your max HP.

In general, this would make battles more likely to result in Struggle endings as it would take longer to get actual KOs, whether by whittling down the other team with chip damage or going for raw power. On the surface this is a buff to most mons, as even glass cannons will be able to survive more hits, but I picture defensive mons benefiting most by getting even bulkier, especially Weakness Policy users. Blissey is a notable mention with 1400+ HP, but it might be a bad thing if Blissey gets forced to Struggle more often, so maybe even regular defensive teams will run Leppa Berry in that case. Pokemon with minmaxed offenses like Alakazam and Heracross will definitely be worse off in my opinion, as their gameplan is all about getting lucky and hitting hard with their respective stat. It's actually pretty hard to do 200% damage in one shot, so matchups that they could instantly win with an OHKO now require them to get 2 equivalent hits in, 2HKOs need 3/4 hits, and so on. Relying on consistent damaging moves is rough in Metronome, especially when your offstat attacks aren't contributing much damage.
 

Irpachuza

You didn't get this far by giving up, did you?
is a Site Content Manageris a Top Social Media Contributoris an Artistis a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator
Community Leader
Hello Metronome community! There is a new command available on PS!, /sampleteams

Its objective is giving fast and easy sample access for anyone, and on the Rands Room staff, we believe it's a great opportunity to promote this format on the room and the sim!

So, I'll be adding the samples available on the OP, and also some others from this thread (specially post DLC2, or at least post steel ban). I'll priorize diversity and kind-of-proven usefulness/originality.
I'll do a little of mass-tagging now to get confirmation from the players that their teams can be shared on the samples list. Theres is no need to answer the thread if you don't have any further comments, I'll take a reaction on this post as a sign of agreement.

So, besides the ones on the OP, im thinking of adding:
Regirock @ Leppa Berry
Ability: Harvest
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 0 Spe
- Metronome

Regirock @ Leppa Berry
Ability: Truant
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 0 Spe
- Metronome
E (Type: Null) @ Eviolite
Ability: Effect Spore
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

B (Silvally-Ghost) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome
Cramorant-Gulping @ Choice Band
Ability: Gulp Missile
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Neutralizing Gas
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Shaymin-Sky @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

Shaymin-Sky @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
- Metronome
horce 1.0W0 (Glastrier) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Water Bubble
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

Magearna 3.1 (Altaria) (F) @ Altarianite
Ability: Intrepid Sword
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Z (Zarude-Dada) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Simple
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome

V (Venusaur-Mega) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome
Dhelmise @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

Dhelmise @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

-------
yellowsheep (Ampharos-Mega) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Download
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

pinkgiraffe (Ampharos-Mega) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Download
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Tyranitar @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Simple
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

Venusaur-Mega @ Bright Powder
Ability: Friend Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome
Gulpone (Cramorant-Gorging) @ Rowap Berry
Ability: Gulp Missile
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

Gultone (Cramorant-Gorging) @ Rowap Berry
Ability: Gulp Missile
Shiny: Yes
Happiness: 160
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome
Also I will simply tag the great AV Cosmoem since they dropped an astounding ammount of teams here, so if you want to pick some originals that you think the community will appreciate using, that'd be great!

For everyone reading this, feel free to post some teams that people can use to (relative) success, either if it's a new one or something I skipped here! I'm sure that this first selection doesn't cover all strats nor useful mons, so I'll be reading yall and waiting for more fun stuff to add!
 

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