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Format Discussion Metronome Battle
- Thread starter Ivy
- Start date
Oh, that's true. I went by raw HP stat, but the electric immunity hurts it. Both 10 and 20 HP stats will manifest as 5 actual HP at level 1 with 0 EVs or IVs, so Pichu seems better then.
As a frequent Cramorant user I find the two Cramorant teams included here objectionable. The problem with the first one is simply that Neutralizing Gas is banned so the team isn’t usable on ladder. As for the second one, if it’s to be included as a sample team on PS it should use 1 gorging and 1 gulping since I think many players using sample teams from the chat plugin won’t think twice about experimenting with Cramorant-Gulping otherwise. I also just think double gorging is suboptimal since double paralyzing a Pokémon is pretty much always a waste (I know some Pokémon run Lum Berry, but they run it to avoid poison/burn and are usually fine with being paralyzed anyway), and defense drops are preferable against Pokémon like Dusclops as these Pokémon can otherwise be a problem for Cramorant’s relatively low stats and paralysis can actually help the opponent in a game that comes down to Struggle. As for Rowap vs. Jaboca, I think Jaboca Berry is strongly preferable as in Metronome Battle you can expect the first move to hit you to be physical about 50% more often than special, even accounting for spread moves (and counting moves that hit your ally against the totals, while also counting Explosion, Self-Destruct, and Misty Explosion as -3 each since even if they are used by your opponent the berries are wasted anyway).
Looking through this looks very nice, and I'm super excited for these to get added to the site and hopefully boost activity for the metagame as a whole. Other than the change recently stated by pyuk with deleting the one team that uses N-Gas, I would also suggest the addition of another weather team on top of my Delta Stream team. I made this team a little while back based on one of AV Cosmoem's teams with one addition, trading out coalossal for M-Camerupt.
Camerupt-Mega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Cherrim @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Flower Gift
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Mega Camerupt under desolate land is a menace. Super bulky already, and now with only one weakness to ground types, it is certainly going to stick around for a while. Cherrim makes an amazing partner, with flower gift giving a 1.5x buff to camerupts attack and spdef, so with the choice specs it feels like camerupt is holding both a choice band and the choice specs. Weakness Policy allows cherrim to provide some attacking power as well, along with its own flower gift boost.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1444475835
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1444499209
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1444502253
Other than that, thanks for helping out the community Irpachuza , I really appreciate your work.
I highly recommend not adding the team that consists of these 2 Pokemon below to samples:
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
The posts surrounding the post with this team on it, https://www.smogon.com/forums/goto/post?id=8449764, reveal that this team was made for a meta where Metronome always failed.
I left 2 teams in my earlier post here - the Glastrier + Blissey team probably increases sample diversity more, but the Glastrier + Aurumoth team is also reasonably proven.
Glastrier + Aurumoth: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1410275695
Glastrier + Blissey: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1375921836, https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1367826075
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
The posts surrounding the post with this team on it, https://www.smogon.com/forums/goto/post?id=8449764, reveal that this team was made for a meta where Metronome always failed.
I left 2 teams in my earlier post here - the Glastrier + Blissey team probably increases sample diversity more, but the Glastrier + Aurumoth team is also reasonably proven.
Replays:That reminds me, Dynamaxing is also pretty good at getting mons to survive through Perish Song turns, especially if you have the slowest mon (e.g. Brave, 0 Speed IVs, 0 Speed EVs Glastrier) and will therefore win once Perish Song mass KOs mons.
In the meantime, I swear I pushed Aurumoth to 10th place in those last October stats. Here's the Aurumoth team I use:
Aurumoth @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Download
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome
Glastrier @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Glastrier almost has the perfect stats for a Weakness Policy sweeper in Metronome battles except for its low Special Attack. I wanted a Weakness Policy partner with substantially higher Special Attack, so I filtered legal mons on Showdown and soon hit upon Aurumoth. With its 5 (or more?) weaknesses, no 4× weaknesses, great HP, good defenses, and better offenses on both sides than those all-100 mythicals, Aurumoth has definitely pulled its weight on ladder.
This team gets you past low-ladder subpar teams and Flower Veil teams fairly easily (especially since Download and Intrepid Sword let you immediately get the jump on them), but Heracross-Mega is a big problem, Imposter is shockingly dicey for a Weakness Policy team, and Unaware stall is fairly hard to get through.
I've found that this team patches up some of the above weaknesses, and I sometimes play it instead:
Glastrier @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Blissey (F) @ Leppa Berry
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
The aim is for a well-balanced team with enough offense to make the stall match-up more even than double Imposter ever will, while performing better against opposing double Heracross-Mega teams.
Glastrier + Aurumoth: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1410275695
Glastrier + Blissey: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1375921836, https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1367826075
Hey there everybody, Low-Key here! I apologize for not posting a lot in this trying time, but for some reason I have made a team that actually works on my alt wandering ar0und (on showdown ofc.) I used a Primordial Sea Urshifu-Rapid-Strike and a Heracross-Mega to ladder up to 1100..... and I stayed there (around 1100 ~ 1199) for all of the run. I kept falling below that a lot of times, but I'd love to see what you think about the team!
Smack! (Urshifu-Rapid-Strike) @ Choice Band
Ability: Primordial Sea
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Metronome
Ka-Pow! (Heracross-Mega) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Smack! (Urshifu-Rapid-Strike) @ Choice Band
Ability: Primordial Sea
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Metronome
Ka-Pow! (Heracross-Mega) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Thank you Irpachuza for tagging me! I think all those teams are fine for samples, except for Receiver [PoA] Shedinja. It's not really a good strat. If you don't die to the opponent's move, you will die to Struggle damage. The Silvally-Ghost team is also kinda hax reliant, but it's really awesome lol
Here are three teams that I think are good for beginners:
The first team is based around the synergy between two offensive abilities. Plus and Minus interact in a unique way: if a Pokemon has Plus or Minus, and their ally also has Plus or Minus, both Pokemon get a 1.5x boost in SpA. This is a massive power boost, and any special attack used by these two will deal very heavy damage. The first Mega Ampharos uses another Choice Specs to double the power of all of its special attacks, and the second one uses a Weakness Policy to potentially gain even greater boosts, but at the cost of not unlocking them until it gets hit with a super effective move.
The second team is based around Anger Point, which is a very powerful ability on stall. With Anger Point, Type: Null can take a weak crit attack and shoot up to +6 Attack, allowing him to be bulky and also hit very hard. This is the main win condition. In order to improve the odds of reaching this win condition, Friend Guard Dusclops is employed here. Friend Guard will make Type: Null only take 75% of damage from all attacks, which makes it much easier to take non-crit attacks. Being attacked more means you get crit chances more. Dusclops was chosen due to his two common immunities allowing him to stay on the field longer.
The final team is a Flower Veil team equipped with anti-stall measures. Flower Veil is a rare ability in singles, but in Metronome Battle it is one of the strongest abilities, and has a whole team style around it. When a Pokemon has Flower Veil, all Grass-types on its side cannot have their stats lowered and cannot be statused. Mega Venusaur is by far the best Flower Veil setter, due to his great bulk. Necturna is a great abuser of Flower Veil. This is because of its very high Attack after an Intrepid Sword boost, coupled with its low Speed. Necturna's item choice, a Leppa Berry, seems strange, but it's actually a very important item. Necturna's Ghost-typing and Mega Venusaur's bulk and Flower Veil support means they will probably outlast Stall teams. The problem is that neither of these Pokemon are full-out breakers. Necturna's Leppa Berry allows it to easily outlast Stall teams, and any PP they have conserved will not matter. This makes the Stall matchup easy.
Tagging Irpachuza because he's cool w-w
I've added (I think) everything! Thanks for the pointings and the suggestions!
Indeed Regirocks and the NGas team got there because the search for teams was long and I jumped some stuff while reading em all.
So, you can check the sets by using
Feel free to point out anything, from missing strats, mons that could be there (from the top of my head m-abo, m-bro) or even category changes, feel free to tag!
Indeed Regirocks and the NGas team got there because the search for teams was long and I jumped some stuff while reading em all.
So, you can check the sets by using
/sampleteams gen8metronomebattle Feel free to point out anything, from missing strats, mons that could be there (from the top of my head m-abo, m-bro) or even category changes, feel free to tag!
This is cool, hopefully it becomes more accessible from the teambuilder or something in the future. Personally from my teams I think triple Intimidate, 100% crit Sirfetch'd, and maybe Normalize could join the gimmick category since they're unique but not completely optimized/meta, compared to some other abilities like Magician or Poison Point which have some more meta use that I might not be up to date on. I guess people can put their own take on it either way but I figured I may as well post these after some other gimmicks got chosen.
Just thinking about it, Abomasnow is weird in that the mon itself is worth mentioning alone, but I imagine the overall team probably ends up following mostly the same Flower Veil archetype and personal preferences. On the other hand Slowbro apparently has a variety of ability options it can go for, and I don't really have experience with it aside from Swift Swim memes, so I'll leave those open for some more opinions on what works and what doesn't. It goes to show how relatively important teambuilding is here. I kind of want to see a team with Wishiwashi-School in it just because it doesn't show up as legal in the teambuilder right now and it would make it obvious as an option, but again it has options that I haven't personally experimented much with.
In my opinion there is one unrepresented strategy that's been in and out of the top 10 that deserves a sample slot: Magic Bounce Mega Sableye. It's pretty basic and the set honestly doesn't need to be credited as the default teambuilder pretty much generates it, but I noticed there's no Magic Bounce representation among the sample teams for such a powerful ability, and Sableye does well for itself with a great typing. Even though it's commonly used, it's probably worth mentioning as a solid stall starter team. Maybe the partner could be more offensive but eh.
triple intimidate said:
luckforce said:
normalize said:
Sableye said:
On that note of closing out the month, here's the usage stats for October. Better late than never.
The battle count for this month is 46873 battles, a bit lower but it's to be expected when things are getting busier, and this is more short term stuff when it's felt pretty consistent in the long run and overall the important thing is that the Metronome ladder is still going strong over a year later. Average weight per team is lower too (0.057 from 0.101) so maybe there weren't as many high ranked battles contributing this month.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-10/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-10/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Mega Heracross (no change)
#3: Dragapult (#9)
#4: Mega Sableye (#14)
#5: Mega Ampharos (#8)
#6: Dusclops (#5)
#7: Blissey (#4)
#8: Glastrier (#6)
#9: Necturna (#7)
#10: Mega Gengar (#15)
The rankings have been pretty shaken up with Dragapult, Sableye, and Gengar making relatively big moves. Outside of the top 10, Gallade rises up and takes 11th with Chromera and Altaria trailing behind. Interestingly Venusaur has lost almost half its raw usage and percentage (Dec edit: 17924 to 9058, 37% to 19%), yet still remains weighted #1. Heracross stands alone with the only mon above 10k uses. A lot of the mons at the top have usually been there and have thousands of uses, so the most contrasting mon to me in these stats is Gourgeist-Super at #38 with 193 raw uses, hanging out with Pokestar Brycen-Man (1070), Dusknoir (973), Astrolotl (2499), and Deoxys-Attack (2178). I feel like this is really a dark horse mon with its relative success, though maybe the others are just relatively worse performers. Speaking of which, I noticed a weird stat looking down: Psyduck at #475 with 512 raw uses. I still don't know if these count twice if you have 2 of the same mon on your team but godspeed to the Psyduck player(s?) regardless.
On the moveset side of things, Flash Fire and Magic Bounce slightly rise up on Venusaur. Heracross went from 85% Intrepid Sword to 59% with Defiant slowly taking back its former glory from 8% to 26%. Itemwise, Heracross went from 92% Choice Band to 72% with Weakness Policy gunning for second place. In general I'm noticing a lot more alternative options being suggested and the dominant options having less weight, even in the natures when Brave/252x6 goes from 68% to 37%. There's some pretty interesting trends noticeable, like Ampharos preferring Magic Guard and a Gallade teammate. It kind of shows who's specifically finding success like Dusclops showing Ice Scales and Dragapult teammate having about 46% usage on each. Venusaur and Necturna boast the highest viability ceilings at 82.
Overall this file always has some insight on the meta, especially for mons like Dragapult who have so many viable options to mix with, and I apprecitate that it's gotten better over time, like I remember the teammates section barely existed a year ago. Speaking of last year, I just checked and noticed Blissey was #1 with over 20k uses and Banette was in #6, though Heracross and Venusaur have about the same raw usage. Pretty neat.
EDIT: Also there was this Golurk post by lighthouse64 about stacking the maximum type immunities that I just remembered thinking about gimmicks. It's almost 2 years old but I think something like this could be added since there's nothing specifically on Storm Drain or Lightningrod right now which were pretty solid support abilities, though Desolate Land covers water now I guess.
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After seeing all these sample teams in one place and looking at the usage stats, I’m reminded of a question that I don’t think I’ve ever seen answered: is it worth running 248 HP to avoid having a max HP that’s divisible by 2 in order to reduce the impact of effect damage? Out of all the sample teams, mine seem to be the only ones with a 248 HP EV and I’m wondering if this is an oversight on the community’s part or mine.
There's no sneaky pebbles and any trapping effects would be combined with regular damage from the random moves that hit you, so it seems essentially negligible.
To add onto this, most passive damage is based on smaller fractions than 1/2 and rounds down, so a base 100/404 HP mon taking 1/8 poison damage will take 50 HP damage, the same as 407 and 400 HP, so there would only be a difference if your original HP is divisible by 8 or 16 for most common passive damage sources. I haven't really thought about it before, but as said there's less importance without things like Stealth Rock or Leftovers consistently happening and regular hits will usually take you below relevant thresholds so the bulk will usually matter more than these situations, though I guess if you never get hit you could get Disabled, Struggle 4 times, and live on 1 HP or something.
1/4: Struggle, Gulp Missile, Passive Curse
1/8: Poison, Passive trapping, Leech Seed, Rowap/Jaboca
1/10: Life Orb
1/16: Burn, Weather, Toxic*
normalize said:
My take on Normalize is different here, so now I have to share another team...
my normalize said:
I'm not a big fan of double Normalize because it auto loses to any Ghost, and Ghost-types are pretty common on the ladder and in the general meta as well. Dusclops, Necturna, and MSab are all very powerful options, and Mega Gengar and Dragapult are very common on ladder despite their low viability. So Mega Glalie is added to hit the Ghost-types here. Necturna and Dragapult are hit super effectively by Ice STAB, and Mega Glalie can still take a chunk off from the rest. Mega Glalie is chosen here over Mega Altaria because Mega Glalie can threaten Veil teams overall, compared to Mega Altaria whose Fairy STAB is resisted by Mega Venusaur. Since Veil teams are the only types of teams Necturna is seen on, this seemed like the appropriate decision. Mega Kangaskhan was also chosen over Pokestar Humanoid, due to Mega Kangaskhan's increased Attack. This comes at a cost of Special Attack though. If Normalize was going to be submitted at all I would rather it be this.
Yeah overall I would just rather not have Normalize in samples. Also in testing Glalie on its own isn't really enough to beat Ghosts, and Mega Altaria, although it has more bulk and a better defensive typing, has a similar problem and falls to Veil. So I made this instead:
I realized you kind of have to go all in or nothing. There is no Pokemon that can beat every Ghost type. The closest we have to that is Blissey. So instead, I put Type: Null, who is slow, and has more Special Attack so MBro isn't a problem. It's been pretty good so far, though MKang is still appreciated on the team for the extra power.
Not to make a habit of being fashionably late, but the November usage stats are out. Hope everyone is staying well as the year comes to a close. While the recent releases of Pokemon Diamond and Shining Pearl may not have added any new features to play around with in the Metronome meta, hopefully we can look forward to Pokemon Legends Arceus bringing in its new forms like the Normal/Ghost Zoroark.
The battle count steadily rises up again with 51848 battles this month, which makes sense with the recent activity and the sample team talk. Average weight per team is back up to 0.105 as well from the brief dip last month.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-11/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-11/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Mega Heracross (no change)
#3: Type: Null (#14)
#4: Mega Ampharos (#5)
#5: Dusclops (#6)
#6: Mega Sableye (#4)
#7: Glastrier (#8)
#8: Blissey (#7)
#9: Mega Camerupt (#20)
#10: Dragapult (#3)
Overall there's been a bit of a shakeup, but for the most part it seems like the top 10 is tending towards the slow and bulky side of mons. While there's a lot of high placing mons with relatively low usage like Silvally-Ghost, Alolan Marowak, and even Kommo-o making a second major comeback at #12 from #125 in October, I would say the dark horse of the month is definitely Cherrim coming in at #15 with 900 uses. Shoutout to jeffdaboss and his post further up demonstrating Cherrim and its Flower Gift niche on a team with Camerupt; it sounds like it's been successful on the ladder.
I noticed that Shaymin has 944 raw but 90 Real usage which seemed like a big difference. It turns out that according to an old post, doubles is not supported for 'real' stats, but I guess Metronome was never counted as a doubles format to exclude.
EDIT: There's not much solid proof to this but I have an idea that maybe the Real usage being parsed is based off the lead mon in team slot 1 since it's made for singles.
I figured I would look into the main stats a bit more since I haven't have much recent experience to mention. Looking further down, Cryogonal is at #271 with 1 usage, only once ever being used in one teamslot in a battle. Luvdisc has a similar situation but is down at #409. I guess that's to do with stats being weighted on a player's personal performance as well. While looking for 1-usage mons, I noticed something else that shouldn't have been there, hiding in plain sight. Apparently a certain spirit has been technically usable all along since its ban 3 years ago, but nobody has publicly known/mentioned it or has been abusing it like the old days for it to matter. Go figure. Ideally we can all go by the honour code and agree to let it exist peacefully without mutually assured destruction of the ladder, or at least give it another chance in a more mature metagame. I almost did not want to include this in the post because I don't mind it being free, but principle of transparency ended up winning out. Incidentally, as a similar situation Steel Memory Silvally was found out 2 years ago, almost to the date.
On the moveset side, there's a 5-way tie for the highest viability ceiling of 80 between Venusaur, Heracross, Ampharos, Landorus-T, and Mega Manectric. Seems like triple Intimidate can actually go the distance. There's also some interesting secondary trends to be observed like Friend Guard and Prism Armor as alternate options on Venusaur, and Dhelmise going Ice Scales/Analytic with an Alolan Marowak teammate.
A weird Sableye spread I noticed is Hardy:252/252/252/252/0/0 with the second most weighted usage at 27.987%. I'm not sure where this came from but apparently it did well for not having any SpD investment, which goes to show just how powerful Sableye is just based on type alone.
The battle count steadily rises up again with 51848 battles this month, which makes sense with the recent activity and the sample team talk. Average weight per team is back up to 0.105 as well from the brief dip last month.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-11/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-11/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Mega Heracross (no change)
#3: Type: Null (#14)
#4: Mega Ampharos (#5)
#5: Dusclops (#6)
#6: Mega Sableye (#4)
#7: Glastrier (#8)
#8: Blissey (#7)
#9: Mega Camerupt (#20)
#10: Dragapult (#3)
Overall there's been a bit of a shakeup, but for the most part it seems like the top 10 is tending towards the slow and bulky side of mons. While there's a lot of high placing mons with relatively low usage like Silvally-Ghost, Alolan Marowak, and even Kommo-o making a second major comeback at #12 from #125 in October, I would say the dark horse of the month is definitely Cherrim coming in at #15 with 900 uses. Shoutout to jeffdaboss and his post further up demonstrating Cherrim and its Flower Gift niche on a team with Camerupt; it sounds like it's been successful on the ladder.
I noticed that Shaymin has 944 raw but 90 Real usage which seemed like a big difference. It turns out that according to an old post, doubles is not supported for 'real' stats, but I guess Metronome was never counted as a doubles format to exclude.
EDIT: There's not much solid proof to this but I have an idea that maybe the Real usage being parsed is based off the lead mon in team slot 1 since it's made for singles.
I figured I would look into the main stats a bit more since I haven't have much recent experience to mention. Looking further down, Cryogonal is at #271 with 1 usage, only once ever being used in one teamslot in a battle. Luvdisc has a similar situation but is down at #409. I guess that's to do with stats being weighted on a player's personal performance as well. While looking for 1-usage mons, I noticed something else that shouldn't have been there, hiding in plain sight. Apparently a certain spirit has been technically usable all along since its ban 3 years ago, but nobody has publicly known/mentioned it or has been abusing it like the old days for it to matter. Go figure. Ideally we can all go by the honour code and agree to let it exist peacefully without mutually assured destruction of the ladder, or at least give it another chance in a more mature metagame. I almost did not want to include this in the post because I don't mind it being free, but principle of transparency ended up winning out. Incidentally, as a similar situation Steel Memory Silvally was found out 2 years ago, almost to the date.
On the moveset side, there's a 5-way tie for the highest viability ceiling of 80 between Venusaur, Heracross, Ampharos, Landorus-T, and Mega Manectric. Seems like triple Intimidate can actually go the distance. There's also some interesting secondary trends to be observed like Friend Guard and Prism Armor as alternate options on Venusaur, and Dhelmise going Ice Scales/Analytic with an Alolan Marowak teammate.
A weird Sableye spread I noticed is Hardy:252/252/252/252/0/0 with the second most weighted usage at 27.987%. I'm not sure where this came from but apparently it did well for not having any SpD investment, which goes to show just how powerful Sableye is just based on type alone.
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I have plenty of reasons to be opposed to letting Spirit roam free. Back in gen 7 it was so broken it got banned before the blanket steel type ban, and maybe even before Magearna (I don’t remember if Magearna was banned specifically before the steel type ban), and its strong points haven’t really diminished at all. It’s still Mega Sableye with way better stats (unless you’re really into low speed supremacy) and in gen 8 it would even be able to dynamax. That said, I also think that with steels gone, other powerful threats like Mega Heracross and Mega Ampharos have become a lot more viable, abilities such as Pixilate are actually usable, and all in all it’s not the meta it was 3 years ago. I think it could be suspect tested, but I don’t think the meta needs an Ultra Mega Sableye.
It turns out that we would actually get a new addition to the meta as the latest CAP released soon after my last post, the Poison/Flying-type Venomicon and its alternate form Venomicon-Epilogue.
Base Venomicon is more suited for the meta, being slow with balanced stats, while Venomicon-Epilogue is still decently bulky but trades some defences and Special Attack for Attack and Speed. On the Poison side, it joins a number of relatively high BST Poison CAPs, notably competing against Chromera who has similar or better stats in all but speed. The Epilogue form actually has the second highest attack stat among Poison types behind Mega Beedrill.
Comparing to Flying types, the base form is one of the more physically bulkier mons, though there's more pseudo/legendary competition + Pokestar UFO in terms of BST. I think Delta Stream could be a safe pick to neutralize most of its weaknesses and try to survive with its fair share of resistances.
I went around with level 90 Pokestar Spirit to try it out for a bit before it's sealed away, and while it didn't go well for my rating, I think this replay best shows its power by being immune to 6 attacks in a row and making a comeback. Personally I do think it'd be pretty annoying/boring to face regularly again as a staller, but I feel like this meta could be more capable to deal with it with more statboost and other stall strats, because back then Spirit was thriving among steel types because it could keep up and outlast them with immunities, though it's been a while and it probably did do pretty well against most other non-counters. I'm curious if it would be strong enough to dethrone Mega Venusaur in practice.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1466926830
Base Venomicon is more suited for the meta, being slow with balanced stats, while Venomicon-Epilogue is still decently bulky but trades some defences and Special Attack for Attack and Speed. On the Poison side, it joins a number of relatively high BST Poison CAPs, notably competing against Chromera who has similar or better stats in all but speed. The Epilogue form actually has the second highest attack stat among Poison types behind Mega Beedrill.
Comparing to Flying types, the base form is one of the more physically bulkier mons, though there's more pseudo/legendary competition + Pokestar UFO in terms of BST. I think Delta Stream could be a safe pick to neutralize most of its weaknesses and try to survive with its fair share of resistances.
I went around with level 90 Pokestar Spirit to try it out for a bit before it's sealed away, and while it didn't go well for my rating, I think this replay best shows its power by being immune to 6 attacks in a row and making a comeback. Personally I do think it'd be pretty annoying/boring to face regularly again as a staller, but I feel like this meta could be more capable to deal with it with more statboost and other stall strats, because back then Spirit was thriving among steel types because it could keep up and outlast them with immunities, though it's been a while and it probably did do pretty well against most other non-counters. I'm curious if it would be strong enough to dethrone Mega Venusaur in practice.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1466926830
Not letting me ladder either. doipy hooves mentioned that he was able to use it as of yesterday. There was a hotpatch around 2 hours ago but I don't see any revisions on the metronome banlist
e: It's a separate form for pokestar spirit PROP. PR has been sent out
I tried a Venomicon team and my initial impression is that I've been reminded why I don't like Delta Stream (oh, and that Venomicon-base is not good)
Venomicon-Prologue as its dex page calls it seems pretty outclassed by Mega Venusaur as a Poison type with a very similar stat line. The only real niche Venomicon has over Venusaur is Delta Stream, but Delta Stream just really doesn't make up for it in my book. On paper, it's an incredibly powerful ability, but in reality it's just a huge crutch for an otherwise weak type. While the same goes for Flower Veil, Delta Stream comes with some major drawbacks. It severely weakens the mighty Weakness Policy and forces you to run stuff like Bright Powder and Kee Berry, and it also benefits your opponents for free if they happen to bring their own flying type such as Pokestar UFO (which I happen to think outclasses Venomicon as a Delta Stream user anyway). Delta Stream also essentially forces you to run two Flying types which means if anyone rolls a Terrain move you have to sit and watch as only your opponent gets the benefits. Then there's the problem of other primal weather teams overriding your weather because their main setters Glastrier and Mega Camerupt outslow Venomicon. I know this is more a criticism of Delta Stream than Venomicon-Prologue itself, but I just can't see anything else it can do that Mega Venusaur or Venomicon-Epilogue can't do better.
Speaking of, Venomicon-Epilogue seems like it might be kinda neat thanks to its unique item, Vile Vial, which boosts the power of its STABs by 1.2x, and it's really the only reason I made this team at all. Aerilate has a nice matchup against the meta in theory since Flying hits Grass types and Mega Venusaur super-effectively while bypassing Ghost-types' immunity to Normal, though you eventually run into an Electric type like Mega Ampharos. I'd have to try it out some more to see if it's any good with a better Delta Stream partner or with just a stronger teammate in general.
Curse of the Tower (Venomicon) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
The Negative (Venomicon-Epilogue) @ Vile Vial
Ability: Aerilate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
The Negative (Venomicon-Epilogue) @ Vile Vial
Ability: Aerilate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Speaking of, Venomicon-Epilogue seems like it might be kinda neat thanks to its unique item, Vile Vial, which boosts the power of its STABs by 1.2x, and it's really the only reason I made this team at all. Aerilate has a nice matchup against the meta in theory since Flying hits Grass types and Mega Venusaur super-effectively while bypassing Ghost-types' immunity to Normal, though you eventually run into an Electric type like Mega Ampharos. I'd have to try it out some more to see if it's any good with a better Delta Stream partner or with just a stronger teammate in general.
I have been really enjoying using Venomicon-Prologue, and personally feel like this mon is definitely a top contender for the metagame. Let's start with the set.
Venomicon @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Venomicon @ Payapa Berry
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome
I saw Venomicon as a perfect way to use Life Orb Magic Guard, as it is desperate to find a way to boost its attacks without the need of Weakness Policy. Our Delta Stream user is running the Payapa Berry, which halves damage from a super effective Psychic-Type attack, which is Venomicons only weakness while under Delta Stream. Moving on to the typing, Poison-Flying is a terrific and very underexplored type combo for Metronome Battles. With Crobat and Golbat being the only seemingly viable Pokemon with the type, it hasn't been seen much, if ever. Poison-Flying types have four 2x weaknesses to Electric, Ice, Rock, and Psychic. Its resistances is where the type really shines, with 3 4x resistances to Bug, Fighting, and Grass, along with 2x resistances to Fairy and Poison. An immunity to Ground-type moves and Toxic, makes a terrific type combo. When combined with Delta Stream, this becomes only one weakness. This is both a blessing and a curse, as Venomicon will be able to last longer with less weaknesses, but it also is unable to use what is easily the most popular item in the Weakness Policy. Personally I have enjoyed using the Prologue form much more than the Epilogue form, mainly due to the fact that the Epilogues extremely low Special Attack and High Speed make it difficult to use well in Metronome Battles. With the low speed and more balanced attacking stats of the Prologue form, you make it easier for you to win in a Perish Song Situation.
Now to address points made against Venomicon. First off, I think that Delta Stream is an extremely good ability when you take Weakness Policy out of the equation. It greatly improves the longevity of your flying types. The only main drawback is the fact that your opponents also receive the benefits of Delta Stream, but even then, I don't think that's a huge issue in the metagame right now. When we look at the usage stats of the last month, the only flying types in the top 50 are Dragonite(#27), Cramorant-Gorging(#32), Pinsir-Mega(#34), Landorus-Therian(#35), and Togekiss(#48). While these Pokemon can all benefit from Delta Stream, none of them are benefitting as much as Venomicon, who only has one weakness under Delta Stream. These Pokemon will all still have 2 or more weakness barring Cramorant, who has subpar defensive stats anyways. You can make the case that opposing Pokestar-UFO's and Shaymin-Sky's will be able to abuse Venomicon's Delta Stream, however these Pokemon are almost always already running it, or have an ally that is running it for them. The only other issue is the existence of the other primal weathers. Both of the main setters in Glastrier and Mega-Camerupt will both naturally underspeed Venomicon and set up their own weather, so it is something that you have to deal with. However, Primordial Sea doesn't see much usage, as Glastrier runs Primordial Sea on 5.6% of sets. Camerupt is almost a perfect 50-50 split between Storm Drain and Desolate Land, so even then you still have a chance to come out on top. So to conclude, I would also like to say, that Venomicon is not entirely outclassed by Mega-Venusaur. Don't get me wrong, Venu is frickin amazing in Metronome Battles, but at the start of the new year I would not be surprised if Venomicon makes its way into the top 10, or somewhere close. The better defensive typing, when combined with the support of Delta Stream, especially when combined with a partner with a good offensive ability, Venomicon is certainly a contender in my book.
Thank you for actually reading this if you did, I have a decent ability for writing about something that I actually enjoyed, would've been nicer if I could write this well for my English class. I'm also working on another Metronome Battles Project that is involving a lot of typing, hope to have it done by the start of the year but we'll see how fast I can type, and hope that I can remember to save.
TL/DR: Venomicon-Prologue Good, , Venomicon-Epilogue Bad, Delta Stream Good, Weakness Policy Too Good?
Here is also a small replay dump
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1469092920
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1469244527
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1469245910-81sjt6dvx9b7k4t5quf5htzdve0fh2gpw
Venomicon @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Venomicon @ Payapa Berry
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome
I saw Venomicon as a perfect way to use Life Orb Magic Guard, as it is desperate to find a way to boost its attacks without the need of Weakness Policy. Our Delta Stream user is running the Payapa Berry, which halves damage from a super effective Psychic-Type attack, which is Venomicons only weakness while under Delta Stream. Moving on to the typing, Poison-Flying is a terrific and very underexplored type combo for Metronome Battles. With Crobat and Golbat being the only seemingly viable Pokemon with the type, it hasn't been seen much, if ever. Poison-Flying types have four 2x weaknesses to Electric, Ice, Rock, and Psychic. Its resistances is where the type really shines, with 3 4x resistances to Bug, Fighting, and Grass, along with 2x resistances to Fairy and Poison. An immunity to Ground-type moves and Toxic, makes a terrific type combo. When combined with Delta Stream, this becomes only one weakness. This is both a blessing and a curse, as Venomicon will be able to last longer with less weaknesses, but it also is unable to use what is easily the most popular item in the Weakness Policy. Personally I have enjoyed using the Prologue form much more than the Epilogue form, mainly due to the fact that the Epilogues extremely low Special Attack and High Speed make it difficult to use well in Metronome Battles. With the low speed and more balanced attacking stats of the Prologue form, you make it easier for you to win in a Perish Song Situation.
Now to address points made against Venomicon. First off, I think that Delta Stream is an extremely good ability when you take Weakness Policy out of the equation. It greatly improves the longevity of your flying types. The only main drawback is the fact that your opponents also receive the benefits of Delta Stream, but even then, I don't think that's a huge issue in the metagame right now. When we look at the usage stats of the last month, the only flying types in the top 50 are Dragonite(#27), Cramorant-Gorging(#32), Pinsir-Mega(#34), Landorus-Therian(#35), and Togekiss(#48). While these Pokemon can all benefit from Delta Stream, none of them are benefitting as much as Venomicon, who only has one weakness under Delta Stream. These Pokemon will all still have 2 or more weakness barring Cramorant, who has subpar defensive stats anyways. You can make the case that opposing Pokestar-UFO's and Shaymin-Sky's will be able to abuse Venomicon's Delta Stream, however these Pokemon are almost always already running it, or have an ally that is running it for them. The only other issue is the existence of the other primal weathers. Both of the main setters in Glastrier and Mega-Camerupt will both naturally underspeed Venomicon and set up their own weather, so it is something that you have to deal with. However, Primordial Sea doesn't see much usage, as Glastrier runs Primordial Sea on 5.6% of sets. Camerupt is almost a perfect 50-50 split between Storm Drain and Desolate Land, so even then you still have a chance to come out on top. So to conclude, I would also like to say, that Venomicon is not entirely outclassed by Mega-Venusaur. Don't get me wrong, Venu is frickin amazing in Metronome Battles, but at the start of the new year I would not be surprised if Venomicon makes its way into the top 10, or somewhere close. The better defensive typing, when combined with the support of Delta Stream, especially when combined with a partner with a good offensive ability, Venomicon is certainly a contender in my book.
Thank you for actually reading this if you did, I have a decent ability for writing about something that I actually enjoyed, would've been nicer if I could write this well for my English class. I'm also working on another Metronome Battles Project that is involving a lot of typing, hope to have it done by the start of the year but we'll see how fast I can type, and hope that I can remember to save.
TL/DR: Venomicon-Prologue Good, , Venomicon-Epilogue Bad, Delta Stream Good, Weakness Policy Too Good?
Here is also a small replay dump
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1469092920
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1469244527
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1469245910-81sjt6dvx9b7k4t5quf5htzdve0fh2gpw
Happy 2nd day of the new year 2022 and good luck to all in the future. Let's reflect on the past last month of Metronome Battles in 2021.
There is an official ingame battle stadium Metronome competition called Test Your Luck and a relevant thread can be found here. It has noticeable differences to this format, adhering to ingame legality and also being a bring 6 choose 3v3 with switching, healing items, item clause, Pressure, and Cursed Body allowed, making it a much smaller and stallier metagame in general. I tried it out mostly before Pressure was fixed, but in the end I think it's given me more appreciation for these metronome battles for their speed/ease and accessibility/customization options.
EDIT: Over in the other thread, DaWoblefet has made a metronome move usage tracker to track all the moves you see if you want.
The battle count consistently grows with 54233 battles this month, which is probably due to the holiday season and Venomicon discussion. Average weight per team is at a lower 0.054.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-12/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-12/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Heracross (#2)
#2: Mega Venusaur (#1)
#3: Mega Ampharos (#4)
#4: Mega Sableye (#6)
#5: Dusclops (no change)
#6: Dragapult (#10)
#7: Type: Null (#3)
#8: Mega Gengar (#14)
#9: Glastrier (#7)
#10: Blissey (#8)
To close off 2021, Mega Heracross finally reclaims the #1 position from Venusaur, who has had an unbroken #1 streak for exactly a year now from November 2020 to November 2021. Despite Heracross's trough of #5 in February to March, it's still one of the most consistent offensive mons around as Venusaur's usage has dropped to 8902 while Heracross stands strong at 12306, leading in both weighted and raw usage. Time will tell if this is a sign that 2022 will be the year of Heracross, but Legends Arceus has still yet to release and could bring new challengers to the table.
Venomicon has not made as much impact in usage as some of the other CAPs like Chromera and Astrolotl, but those two do have solid stats/typings and are alphabetically pretty high with neat sprites, and Venomicon is doing pretty well to make #54 over Greninja. There may be less hype, but at least its debut performance has been better than present day Zarude, who peaked #11 a year ago but kind of fell off ever since.
Compared to last month, the top 10 has been mostly shuffled with Gengar replacing Mega Camerupt. The dark horse of the month is Guzzlord at #24 with a triple digit 819 uses and doubling its weighted usage % (1.52) compared to the raw (0.755), but there are also some relatively low mons like Galarian Zapdos at #40 with 379, Silvally-Ghost at #41 with 163, and even Mega Ampharos hanging at #3 with 3848 uses right above Sableye's 8641. It seems like the usage percentages are accounting for both teams by dividing by the number of battles times 2, but I'm not sure if it's counting duplicate mons or not since the regular usage stats probably don't count those.
Since we have the data, we can actually compare the meta from last year as well. It's mostly the same mons shuffled still, and December 2020 had Necturna in #3 and Type: Null at #17 while 2021 has Necturna at #11 and Type: Null at #7. The meta hasn't had much reason to change much since then, so it's probably more the people playing and using sample teams. Also comparing to last year's usage stats, Snorlax and Swampert are next to each other again around #19 in both years. I haven't mentioned them much because of not making top 10, but they've been hanging around the top because of raw usage and general goodness, though Swampert has dropped off a bit recently but made it back. Throwback to Jan 2021 when Snorlax and Swampert both made top 10 during the month of bot dominance.
On the moveset side, there's a 5-way tie for the peak viability ceiling of 80 with Venusaur, Sableye, Gengar, Necturna, and Pokestar Giant. I think I noticed this once but the raw counts on the moveset page are slightly different than the stats page for some reason. Adamant barely takes the lead on Heracross natures, beating out the sample Brave that's been widely used for some time now, though Naughty is highest under raw usage with 0 weighting. Maybe speed is the key in these mirror matches and Adamant and Naughty are balancing each other out. Minus is slightly more popular than Plus on Ampharos, and Sablenite has the highest raw usage on Sableye. Speaking of Sableye, Sassy and Hardy are actually overtaking the default Naughty nature suggestion. Also I just noticed that individual mons have average weight on this page too. I think it intuitively corresponds to usage and position, like Type: Null and Ampharos have a relatively high 0.3 average weight and because of that they're at a high placement with lower relative usage. Pretty neat.
EDIT: This thread is at 216k views right now, over 50k higher than the 161k of last year 2021. I started tracking casually in late January 2020 at 108k.
There is an official ingame battle stadium Metronome competition called Test Your Luck and a relevant thread can be found here. It has noticeable differences to this format, adhering to ingame legality and also being a bring 6 choose 3v3 with switching, healing items, item clause, Pressure, and Cursed Body allowed, making it a much smaller and stallier metagame in general. I tried it out mostly before Pressure was fixed, but in the end I think it's given me more appreciation for these metronome battles for their speed/ease and accessibility/customization options.
EDIT: Over in the other thread, DaWoblefet has made a metronome move usage tracker to track all the moves you see if you want.
The battle count consistently grows with 54233 battles this month, which is probably due to the holiday season and Venomicon discussion. Average weight per team is at a lower 0.054.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-12/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-12/moveset/gen8metronomebattle-1630.txt
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Heracross (#2)
#2: Mega Venusaur (#1)
#3: Mega Ampharos (#4)
#4: Mega Sableye (#6)
#5: Dusclops (no change)
#6: Dragapult (#10)
#7: Type: Null (#3)
#8: Mega Gengar (#14)
#9: Glastrier (#7)
#10: Blissey (#8)
To close off 2021, Mega Heracross finally reclaims the #1 position from Venusaur, who has had an unbroken #1 streak for exactly a year now from November 2020 to November 2021. Despite Heracross's trough of #5 in February to March, it's still one of the most consistent offensive mons around as Venusaur's usage has dropped to 8902 while Heracross stands strong at 12306, leading in both weighted and raw usage. Time will tell if this is a sign that 2022 will be the year of Heracross, but Legends Arceus has still yet to release and could bring new challengers to the table.
Venomicon has not made as much impact in usage as some of the other CAPs like Chromera and Astrolotl, but those two do have solid stats/typings and are alphabetically pretty high with neat sprites, and Venomicon is doing pretty well to make #54 over Greninja. There may be less hype, but at least its debut performance has been better than present day Zarude, who peaked #11 a year ago but kind of fell off ever since.
Compared to last month, the top 10 has been mostly shuffled with Gengar replacing Mega Camerupt. The dark horse of the month is Guzzlord at #24 with a triple digit 819 uses and doubling its weighted usage % (1.52) compared to the raw (0.755), but there are also some relatively low mons like Galarian Zapdos at #40 with 379, Silvally-Ghost at #41 with 163, and even Mega Ampharos hanging at #3 with 3848 uses right above Sableye's 8641. It seems like the usage percentages are accounting for both teams by dividing by the number of battles times 2, but I'm not sure if it's counting duplicate mons or not since the regular usage stats probably don't count those.
Since we have the data, we can actually compare the meta from last year as well. It's mostly the same mons shuffled still, and December 2020 had Necturna in #3 and Type: Null at #17 while 2021 has Necturna at #11 and Type: Null at #7. The meta hasn't had much reason to change much since then, so it's probably more the people playing and using sample teams. Also comparing to last year's usage stats, Snorlax and Swampert are next to each other again around #19 in both years. I haven't mentioned them much because of not making top 10, but they've been hanging around the top because of raw usage and general goodness, though Swampert has dropped off a bit recently but made it back. Throwback to Jan 2021 when Snorlax and Swampert both made top 10 during the month of bot dominance.
On the moveset side, there's a 5-way tie for the peak viability ceiling of 80 with Venusaur, Sableye, Gengar, Necturna, and Pokestar Giant. I think I noticed this once but the raw counts on the moveset page are slightly different than the stats page for some reason. Adamant barely takes the lead on Heracross natures, beating out the sample Brave that's been widely used for some time now, though Naughty is highest under raw usage with 0 weighting. Maybe speed is the key in these mirror matches and Adamant and Naughty are balancing each other out. Minus is slightly more popular than Plus on Ampharos, and Sablenite has the highest raw usage on Sableye. Speaking of Sableye, Sassy and Hardy are actually overtaking the default Naughty nature suggestion. Also I just noticed that individual mons have average weight on this page too. I think it intuitively corresponds to usage and position, like Type: Null and Ampharos have a relatively high 0.3 average weight and because of that they're at a high placement with lower relative usage. Pretty neat.
EDIT: This thread is at 216k views right now, over 50k higher than the 161k of last year 2021. I started tracking casually in late January 2020 at 108k.
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