np: Doubles Stage 2 - Slumber (THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, [SLEEP] FREE AT LAST)

[AuraRayquaza]

now ive finally got reqs (4th person iirc), i feel like have a pretty good idea about the metagame with no sleep clause.

firstly, i noticed that trick room has very little viability with no sleep clause. with breloom and amoonguss everywhere, slow pokes trying to set up trick room like reuniclus and cresselia are put to sleep before they can do anything, leaving most of the team vulnerable with their low speeds. Even when trick room is set up, it is very hard to get any momentum going if amoonguss is outslowing the whole team and putting them all to sleep.

While safety goggles may seem like a good idea to protect from sleep moves, the opportunity cost of using it over lum berry or another item is too great. Latios would much rather run a lum berry for the surprise factor or a life orb to take out the brelooms and amoongusses than only protect itself from sleep, thus wasting an item. even protecting from weather is negated by leftovers/sitrus to an extent, and they have much better utility. i did not see one proper safety goggles user throughout me trying to get reqs. (stunfisk doesnt count as proper ok?)

talonflame is really good in this meta as it has priority brave bird which can ohko amoonguss, breloom, chlorosaur and mega zard if banded adamant. all of these pokes are problems with no sleep clause and talonflame beats them all. it also has sleep talk to either u turn out or hurt something with brave bird/flare blitz while asleep, helping further with its use as a sleep beat.

on the note of sleep talk, i feel that sleep talk should be on every choiced poke when there is no sleep clause. it helps massively when lots of sleep inducers are running around, as you can still hit hard or fast while asleep. as ive said, banded talonflame is very good. however, i dont think it can justify taking up a moveslot on most other pokes. maybe a mono attacking cress could run a set of cm/rest/sleep talk/moonblast? it would be interesting to see that in use and how effective it is.

as for team archtypes, i feel hyper offense is the best type at the moment. putting everything to sleep is a great help for strong pokes like mega kangaskhan, terrakion or latios to hit hard and close out games quickly. however, i have also used bulky offense (with my usual team which quite a few of you may know) and i have been very impressed by the results. being able to destroy trick room with amoonguss as well as switch around multiple times to put pokes to sleep throughout the whole game is a great boon to any side.

the big question: which sleep inducer? After having used venusaur (+mega), breloom and amoonguss, the latter two extensively throughout my laddering, i feel amoonguss is the best sleep inducer. being able to almost single-handedly shut down trick room with its useful resistances and low speed, as well as regenerator to keep coming back and haunting the opposing team throughout the whole game, is a great thing. i could definitely see amoonguss going to high A rank in the viability rankings if sleep clause is to be revoked.

finally, i present the team that got me reqs and 4th on the suspect ladder. it is the hyper offense team i used focusing on getting as much to sleep as possible before hitting hard with life orb latios and bisharp.

Importable

Hide

Breloom @ Focus Sash
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Spore
- Mach Punch
- Bullet Seed
- Protect

Togekiss @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 60 Def / 196 SDef
Calm Nature
- Air Slash
- Follow Me
- Heal Bell
- Tailwind

Latios (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Psyshock
- Draco Meteor
- Protect
- Thunderbolt

Bisharp @ Lum Berry
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 4 Def / 252 HP / 252 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Protect

Talonflame @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Sleep Talk

Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def / 30 SDef
- Fake Out
- Return
- Sucker Punch
- Power-Up Punch

this team was made for laddering and so the ev spreads are all standard, but it doesnt really affect the nature of the team. i chose breloom and togekiss becuase togekiss can use follow me to redirect priority attacks and use tailwind to let breloom put as much to sleep as possible. i then added latios to resist fire and also take advantage of the sleep breloom provides. bisharp was then added as an ice resist and for the ability to beat cress and most fairies/ghosts easily. it doesnt miss out on life orb because lum lets it survive an extra turn awake or unburnt, a real help. i then added talonflame as another poke to abuse the sleep as well as beat opposing sleep inducers. finally, i added mega kanga for fake out support and because it is super powerful when backed with sleep support.

while the main core was supposed to be breloom and togekiss, i ended up leading with breloom and mega kanga for most games. their ability to support each other, mega kanga with fake outand breloom with spore was invaluable and would almost always give me a turn 1/2 advantage if i didnt play like a doodoo.
feel free to use this team for laddering if you need to get reqs.

tl;dr (for you lazy politoads)

Hide

-trick room is a lot less viable now
-safety googles are not worth using over other items
-talonflame is really good to beat sleep inducers
-sleep talk is good on choiced pokes, but not worth it on other pokes, resttalk cress is worth a try.
-i think hyper offense is the best archetype without sleep caluse, but bulky offense is very good too.
-i think amoonguss is best as a sleep inducer
-safety googles stunfisk is op

Sorry for rambling on, but hopefully this will spark some discussion

 

[passion]

Well I am not exactly the best dubs player nor do I play it much but I felt I should post for whatever reason so apologies if I say something stupid. Since mostly everything relating to sleep that I wanted to say has been said I would just like to say some of the mons/sets I have been having fun with for the short while I have been playing dubs.

First of all I really like Assault Vest Conkeldurr. Though it is not to common (maybe it is and a sound dumb) it is extremely strong and hard to kill with the proper EVs. Before I go into further detail this is the set I have been using.

Conkeldurr @ Assault Vest
Ability: Guts
EVs: 108 HP / 152 Atk / 104 Def / 144 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Knock Off
- Ice Punch

The purpose of this is basically be extremely hard to kill unless facing off with a strong psychic and/or flying Pokemon while you dish out big damage with Conkeldurr's high attack and pretty decent coverage. Also it actually likes to sponge status due to guts so that is pretty useful. Conkeldurr can handle a lot of common threats such as Tyranitar, Rotom-Wash, Heatran, Scrafty and quite a few more. It can also use Knock Off to cripple a lot of Pokemon who need there item. If this thing gets as little usage as I have seen on the ladder for the games I have played I definitely think it deserves more.

Again I am not very experienced when it comes to doubles so sorry if this post was absolutely terrible, at least I tried. x)​

 

[chimpact]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Grass Terrain yet. It's a move that hasn't really been explored much to be honest, but from what I remember it boosts GRass type attacks, heals grounded pokemon and prevents pokemon from being statused for 5 turns I believe. A pretty decent way to stop sleep. (I could also be completely wrong or be thinking of something different)

I've played VGC for a little bit and a lack of sleep clause is really dumb. I understand that you should prepare for sleep but games should not be won because of one attack alone.

but maybe my testing on the ladder will change my mind.

 

[Mizuhime]

From what I noticed during my brief ( not as brief as it should of been ) time on the ladder,
The lack of sleep clause punishes poor team building.

- This is pretty self explanatory. Doubles is a tier where you have 2 Pokemon to deal with a problem , and there is a lot of factors such as simply just outplaying your opponent, but if your team just has no answer to Amoonguss, Breloom, or anything of the similar, you will lose, and you will lose bad. A simply taunt ( a lot of random Pokemon get taunt ) or something like a Talonflame to power through most sleep inducers can be used to stop it before it even happens. SoYmeone above mentioned that Amoonguss destroys Trick Room, but that can go both ways, Amoonguss can do work while in Trick Room.


You can't just abuse sleep by throwing random Pokemon together in hopes to succeed.

- I was guilt of this at first. The team I started to ladder with consisted of Mega Gengar, Breloom, Gothitelle, and a few others. Despite me going 15-1 with it, it was just a poorly built team and the few times I ran into someone who knew what they were doing (I think it was Dcae), I got absolutely destroyed. So yes, sleep can be used, but you still need to built a very good team that will be able to check many things in the meta, which is very hard to do if sleep is the main strategy on the team.


A lack of Breloom?

- Not quite sure why this was happening. Breloom applies offensive pressure much more than Amoonguss is able to, and still has the ability to sleep opponent. Now I didn't actually build a team with Breloom designed for the Sleep clause test (besides the one mentioned above that was Garbage) I just used my SPL teams, specifically the one I used vs Randy, and Breloom was putting in all sorts of work. I ran into Aura Rayquaza 3 times on the ladder, the first time he wasn't using loom and the next 2 he was, and the latter games were much better than the first. Personally I think Loom gets a boost in this meta for obvious reasons, and I would argue that it's better than Amoonguss.

I've already made reqs, but I will continue to ladder more to see what else I can pick up and what other strategies I can use to pick apart the Meta

 

[finally]

While safety goggles may seem like a good idea to protect from sleep moves, the opportunity cost of using it over lum berry or another item is too great. Latios would much rather run a lum berry for the surprise factor or a life orb to take out the brelooms and amoongusses than only protect itself from sleep, thus wasting an item. even protecting from weather is negated by leftovers/sitrus to an extent, and they have much better utility. i did not see one proper safety goggles user throughout me trying to get reqs. (stunfisk doesnt count as proper ok?) trick room with its useful resistances and low speed, as well as regenerator to keep coming back and haunting the opposing team throughout the whole game, is a great thing. i could definitely see amoonguss going to high A rank in the viability rankings if sleep clause is to be revoked.

One thing that I've noticed from laddering is the use of safety goggles not only to avoid sleep, but also to beat rage powder. As you mentioned, amoonguss is becoming more popular, and if you put safety goggles on a pokemon, it can pretty much totally ignore amoonguss. This could be a real boon to amoonguss weak teams, i.e. trick room. As for negating weather damage, I find this more of a downfall than a boost. By showing that you take no weather damage, you reveal your item to your opponent (assuming that you take weather damage. looking at you steel type safety goggles to be extra sneaky). It will only be a matter of time before players are good enough/experienced enough to notice sand damage's minute details on every pokemon (I feel most doubles players don'y pay attention to sand damage for 4 pokemon every turn). Ultimately, revealing item not worth avoiding 6-18%, but what can you do. It may not even matter that you reveal ;].
I agree though, if you are against a team without either sleep or rage powder, it does feel like a wasted item, I will most likely continue using lum/chesto(-resto) because of their proven reliability.

 

[Hashtag]

i haven't played that much in this metagame because i got mad and was not even having fun.
but from what i have seen, it makes fewer pokemon viable.
i can't check sleep without giving up other checks.
it slows down the metagame. everything takes longer. way more people use taunt or safeguard. the game becomes more about chance. it buffed talonflame.
i am not complaining about how broken the lack of sleep clause is, i am just stating completely objective facts that you can interpret however you want.
just kidding it sucks.

edit: this system of reqs is lame because if i dont play the stupid game a bunch i cant vote to change it.

 

[youngjake93]

If you guys want a true sleep abuser then you have to try out Jumpluff. In my opinion Jumpluff is only viable in this clauseless metagame and I don't even consider it a gimmick.
I posted the replay earlier without much commentary on it. Jumpluff is especially great because it gets Infiltrator and 110 speed. Infiltrator allows you to put even Heatrans hiding behind Substitute AND Safeguard to sleep. Jumpluff can take resisted hits fairly easily while being able to tank even some strong-ish neutral hits or wimpy SE attacks once(which is all you need really).

Jumpluff @ Wide Lens / Leftovers
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 HP / 4 Def
Timid Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Aromatherapy / Protect

Fake Out support can allow you to easily set up a chain of Sleep Powders. In order to get the most mileage out of this set, I paired it with SubTran. Their synergy together is basically flawless, while sleeping foes can provide Heatran set up opportunities. Conveniently, both Jumpluff and Heatran appreciate fast Fake Out support so it makes the teambuilding process pretty straight forward.
Substitute is for predicted(obvious) Protects so that you can stay in and just Sleep Powder next turn. Leech Seed keeps your health up and encourages sleeping Pokemon to switch out so you can put more things to sleep. The last slot and item is up to preference. I chose Aromatherapy since status has been flying around like crazy and a Grass type with Aromatherapy is essentially a full stop to Spore, but Protect can allow you to beat Fake Out+double targeting or stall a turn as you switch out for a Fake Out user or something that kills the opponent. Wide Lens is for more reliability with Sleep Powder in the clutch situations, but Yache or Leftovers could work I suppose.

 

[Torkoals]

I too feel that i havent needed to change much to deal with sleep. I tossed safeguard on cress and added a lum somwhere, but otherwise i changed nothing, and haven't had too much trouble from sleep. While it is abusable, as youngjake93 showed, sleep's inducers are too easy to spot, and a unexpected lum/chesto can leave them open to being knocked out of play. That being said, i still don't like the idea of possibly adding even more hax with sleep turns and hypnosis hits/misses.

 

[BlankZero]

If you guys want a true sleep abuser then you have to try out Jumpluff. In my opinion Jumpluff is only viable in this clauseless metagame and I don't even consider it a gimmick.
I posted the replay earlier without much commentary on it. Jumpluff is especially great because it gets Infiltrator and 110 speed. Infiltrator allows you to put even Heatrans hiding behind Substitute AND Safeguard to sleep. Jumpluff can take resisted hits fairly easily while being able to tank even some strong-ish neutral hits or wimpy SE attacks once(which is all you need really).

Jumpluff @ Wide Lens / Leftovers
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 HP / 4 Def
Timid Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Aromatherapy / Protect

Fake Out support can allow you to easily set up a chain of Sleep Powders. In order to get the most mileage out of this set, I paired it with SubTran. Their synergy together is basically flawless, while sleeping foes can provide Heatran set up opportunities. Conveniently, both Jumpluff and Heatran appreciate fast Fake Out support so it makes the teambuilding process pretty straight forward.
Substitute is for predicted(obvious) Protects so that you can stay in and just Sleep Powder next turn. Leech Seed keeps your health up and encourages sleeping Pokemon to switch out so you can put more things to sleep. The last slot and item is up to preference. I chose Aromatherapy since status has been flying around like crazy and a Grass type with Aromatherapy is essentially a full stop to Spore, but Protect can allow you to beat Fake Out+double targeting or stall a turn as you switch out for a Fake Out user or something that kills the opponent. Wide Lens is for more reliability with Sleep Powder in the clutch situations, but Yache or Leftovers could work I suppose.

All of my yes. I'll be using this set next.

I've literally been spamming TR CM Cress, Lum Scrafty, Standard Amoongus, Curse TTar, LO Bisharp and SD Excadrill. Everything dies to it, although I may trade out the Excadrill because it does almost nothing in my games. The ladder is so weak to Trick Room it isn't funny. Add Amoongus Spore Spam and gg to everything. Even opposing TR teams fall when you reset TR on them and continue the beatdown.

I'm not quite at reqs yet due to time constraints, but as I climb in the ladder, I still haven't run into anything that can get passed the 3-0 on this team.

 

[CactusCacti]

You guys are thinking so little
Sleep powder and spore? Please.

Real men use gravity + hypnosis.
This is where the rage quits start when darkrai and crew spams hypnosis with gravity supporter and cripples special attackers with snarl while they grind their teeth looking at their mons sleep and lose HP each turn.

yeah i pretty much just went that route cause i don't like safety goggles and grass types foiling the other plans.
Crobat, Mew, Darkrai for the key core to setup gravity, tailwind and hypnos, few other fill ins, and sleep introducing health sapping rage introducer team is ready.

 

[BlankZero]

Taunt and Safeguard say hi. But basically, what Mizu said before still stands.

No Sleep Clause punishes badly built teams.

 

[Haruno]

I'd say suspects should be evaluated on terms of how they affect the metagame, not on your ability to get passed the suspect.

 

[hard]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Grass Terrain yet. It's a move that hasn't really been explored much to be honest, but from what I remember it boosts GRass type attacks, heals grounded pokemon and prevents pokemon from being statused for 5 turns I believe. A pretty decent way to stop sleep. (I could also be completely wrong or be thinking of something different)

I've played VGC for a little bit and a lack of sleep clause is really dumb. I understand that you should prepare for sleep but games should not be won because of one attack alone.

but maybe my testing on the ladder will change my mind.

It´s a nice idea to use terrain moves if your team benefits them, but unfortunately you mixed them up.
Electric Terrain prevents sleep for all grounded Pokemon and increases the power of electric type moves from grounded Pokemon, but has awful distribution.
Misty Terrain prevents all status effects for all grounded Pokemon and lowers the power of DragonType moves against all grounded Pokemon. This has a notable abuser in Meowstic-M, which can use it as a replacement for Safeguard.
Grassy Terrain does not influence status moves at all.

From play testing I have to say that defending against sleep is still manageable. Prankster Safeguard prevents sleep quite reliably but carrying a Prankster Pokemon also slows down your own offense.
I also saw an increased number of Trickroom+Amoongus teams but unfortunately the players tend to team Amoongus with Cresselia on the battlefield a lot, so they loose some of the momentum to switch in the sweepers which can be used to wake up a bulky Pokemon. We should remember that sleep is not freeze and can end quite fast.

As CowLaser mentioned Talonflame got even more useful because the standard sleep inducers are week against the combination of Taunt and BraveBird, it´s also very helpful against the aforementioned TrickRoom Teams.
Maybe this will raise the need to make more bulky Talonflame spreads?

The most useful move I tested so far against sleep is Substitute. Quite some player go for the sleep on a Pokemon they cannot harm that well, and they usually don´t target it with an attack on that turn. Maybe the ladder players still need some time to adept to the new logic of using Sleep inducers.

 

[Braverius]

hi i think my rating speaks volumes about how i'm doing, can i be done now pls

I'd say suspects should be evaluated on terms of how they affect the metagame, not on your ability to get passed the suspect.

I sort of agree and disagree with this. I understand the context, but also realize that there are people who for the most part understand how this is going to play out and understand that it's simply going to be a vote on what people prefer rather than what's actually an issue.

Suspect testing, if a concept is balanced enough, is ultimately about preference. What we each believe is "competitively beneficial" or whatever you want to call it might differ quite a bit, and I think suspect testing is just a way to help us make clear opinions. There is really no right or wrong way to go about voting, choose what you'd prefer most based on what you would like to see.

I know this is one of the things that came up when doubles was founded and created a little hostility, but truly, there's no rule or anything on "competitiveness" or anything. People will adapt and learn to play with pretty much anything reasonable. Test away, definitely get the rating, maybe you'll change your mind along the way...but I think most of the people who have experienced a game without sleep clause in a very similar format will understand that this is almost definitely not an issue of balance, but one of preference.

I personally prefer to have as many options available as possible if relatively balanced, but I'm not going to hold anyone to my opinion or preference. Do what floats your boat.

 

[User 468572]

Hello all, I'm new to the doubles community, but I have played doubles for a while.

Sleep Clause

We all know what Sleep Clause is...the meanies at Smogon wouldn't let me destroy my opponents team by not letting me Dark Void everything into oblivion. In all honesty, Sleep Clause is something revolutionary - we, the people who intend to recreate the game on an online simulator, wish to change the game mechanics.

However, I'm not saying that Sleep Clause is bad. It is by far one of the best decisions Smogon has ever made. It saves us from a metagame revolving around Breloom and Jumpluff. It's always been there in singles, and nobody questions it.

In Doubles


Obviously, Doubles is far different from Singles. Everything is available in a greater variety in Doubles. Safeguard becomes a viable move, Trick Room is Standard, Hitmontop is on almost every team, etc. In Doubles, Sleep isn't as overpowered as it seems in Singles. You have two pokemon available at a time, allowing one supporter to Safeguard while allowing the other pokemon to attack. Prankster Safeguard becomes a great counter to sleep, and status in general.

A metagame without Sleep Clause still seems iffy, however. Fake Out immediately stops any Status blockers, and leaves any supporter vulnerable for the rest of the turn (what if they get spored). While putting the whole team to sleep may not be a good player's goal, the currently balanced state of Doubles will be overturned, with Jumpluff/Amoonguss and others trying to abuse their newly buffed status. It would be too drastic of a change, with the metagame revolving around blocking sleep.

At the moment, I am in favor of retaining Sleep Clause, but I've just started laddering (8-1), so I'm out there with an open mind.

 

[Eels Who Try]

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoublessuspecttest-89264470

I was exploring the options that were open to me in doubles with the testing of the sleep clause and brewed up this little gem of a combo. While it appears quite potent on the surface, it gets shut down by taunt and priority. Despite the success of the combo in this battle I think that there number of counters is pretty high. I don't think this really switches the balance of the ban/not ban argument, but it is something to consider.

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

Togekiss @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: X / X / X
X Nature
- Follow Me
- Air Slash / Dazzling Gleam
- Tailwind / Protect
- Encore / Thunder Wave / Helping Hand

Slashes all over but idrc this isn't analyses OK :<

Togekiss is legit. Follow me and Safety Goggles is a really nice combination at the moment since it blocks the most common ways of sleeping a Pokemon; Spore and Sleep Powder. Breloom in particular has no answer to Togekiss unless it is carrying Rock Tomb for some reason whilst Amoongus is not guaranteed to carry Sludge Bomb so Togekiss is once again pretty safe. Togekiss is a neat choice since it can also carry a Flying-type STAB with a 60 percent flinch chance meaning it can effectively deal with common sleep inducers as well as other, slower Pokemon. Outside of these benefits, Togekiss has many viable support options Tailwind allows you to get safe Spores off easily and helps dish out damage whilst Encore ruses Pokemon that go for moves such as Fake Out or Protect.

 

[KyleCole]

Kind of surprised that no one has mentioned this guy yet, but this is the sleep inducer that I've been using and having success with:

Breloom @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Spore
- Bullet Seed
- Safeguard
- Mach Punch

I would usually lead this with [Mega] Kangaskhan but any Fake Out user will do. Just Fake Out opposing users of Fake Out, or anything that would get in the way of Breloom using Spore (priority Safeguard and Talonflame mostly) and then Spore the biggest threat. Mega Kang was usually free to fire off a Power-Up Punch into something when Breloom would sleep the second Poke next turn.
Lead Amoonguss and Chloro Venu were the obvious threats to this strategy so I threw Safeguard on beside the 2 STAB moves to keep Kanga Awake and hitting while I swap Breloom out the next turn.

Here's a replay of this combination absolutely dominating an unprepared team
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoublessuspecttest-89779790

Anways I agree with the idea (I think from Mizu) that Sleep Clause punishes poor teambuilding more than anything, and is probably the reason that those of us seeing success from sleep abusing are seeing that success. :] just wanted to add my 2cents thanks guys!

 

[Electrolyte]

I think jake's set speaks a lot about a new team style that might become a lot more popular with this new change (and one I personally want to try out!)

It seems that a strategy this helps a lot would be Hyper Offense- teams centered around a sleep inducer or two with powerhouses to quickly abuse the free turns. With a lead Fake Out + fast sleeper, Hyper Offensive teams gain a lot of leeway against balanced or bulky teams, and with Sleep, they have to worry less about typical HO counters such as Speed control. Fast, frail cannon might become more active as they gain more chances to destroy without fear of taking as much damage.


Surprisingly, I haven't seen many Sleep abusing teams yet- probably like one or two between my alts, so I haven't been totally affected by this change.

 

[Mizuhime]

Id also like to mention that it is a suspect ladder after all and people just go with the team that will take them to reqs the quickest (HO)

 

[Stratos]

so basically what i learned from this test is not only sleep entirely manageable, it's hard to harness, and it doesn't change the meta much at all.

I decided that I was going to do this laddering system in two parts: 1) I was going to take a team I'd developed long before this test and get reqs with it in the sleep meta, 2) I was going to create the wonkiest sleep team possible and see how much I could break sleep. I have just accomplished Stage I.

Here's (an outdated form of) the team I used to do it. The current version has OTR cress > Gallade but is otherwise identical.

This team had the fortune to already be carrying TR + Amoonguss without having to make any modifications. I fully expected sleep to not be a broken force in the metagame because i'm not a pussy (BAN ME PLEASE), but I was surprised at what I learned:

not only was sleep not broken, virtually nothing was different. It was legitimately difficult to sleep more than one of my opponents' pokemon at the same time, even though I had TR+Amoonguss—did more people stay in on amoonguss? sure. but that's actually an effective way of stopping Amoonguss because it hits like a wet noodle and is threatened by a lot. I found that the same exact things that used to be the biggest threats (mkanga, zard, tran) still were, and sleep never gave me too much trouble; not as much trouble as FUCKing confusion and para anyways. In addition, i had a hard time using amoonguss more than I had before; I think i used him less, just more spore and less rage powder. honestly it almost baited me into being a worse player, having the sleep option consistently available.

As I go into stage II: Break Sleep, I'd like to remind everyone please do not vote based on whether you can crush the ladder easily with a sleep team. If that was how we voted, we'd have banned mkanga, mega-zard, trick room and terracott.


edit @ totem: i still wrecked you :)

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

I think Electrolyte hit the nail on the head better than anything I could have said with this quote

a new team style that might become a lot more popular with this new change, Hyper Offense.

This phrase encapsulates what I believe is sleep's influence on the meta. Pwnemon mentioned how he didn't believe that sleep had made that much of an impact but he had been using a much slower paced team based upon staying one step ahead of the opponent and whittling down their team piece by piece. This meant it was harder for him to effectively spread sleep as he had less opportunities to fire off a Spore safely. I have noticed that sleep spreaders with a more 'do or die' approach can have a much bigger impact in swinging the momentum in the game by essentially rendering key parts of the opposing team useless to buy often a ridiculous amount of free turns in which you can run havoc.

I'll be interested to see the usage stats when they come out for this month, I really want to know if I'm imagining this spike in Special K usage because I swear to God it's been everywhere in the games I've played.

 

[BlankZero]

so basically what i learned from this test is not only sleep entirely manageable, it's hard to harness, and it doesn't change the meta much at all.

sleep never gave me too much trouble; not as much trouble as FUCKing confusion and para anyways.

In addition, i had a hard time using amoonguss more than I had before; I think i used him less, just more spore and less rage powder. honestly it almost baited me into being a worse player, having the sleep option consistently available.

Quoting for truth. Amoongus is still really fragile, even if it can hinder your opponent more now, but it seems less people switch out of sleep now, just on the off chance they can slay your inducer in a turn or two.

Parafusion seems to be everywhere though, with Klefki and thundurus being the chief abusers.

And I agree on the sentiments of feeling like a worse player when I have Amoongus out. that, combined with seeing just how bad the Sub1200 Ladder is STILL, has made me thankful I can play with better people. I hate laddering.

 

[Skore]

I'd like to introduce a mon that has been doing very good work for me in this meta of sleep powder and spore being flung about:

Goodra @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sap Sipper
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Mild Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Muddy Water
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast

Because Goodra has more than one viable ability, it has been fairly trivial so far to predict the incoming grass type sleep move. Muddy Water and EQ give decent coverage for spread moves, Fire Blast is great for roasting those Grass Types that just tried to put you to sleep and Draco Meteor is for when things NEED to die ASAP. Full team is shown in the hide tags for the curious.

Hide

Cresselia (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Reflect
- Skill Swap
- Protect
- Psyshock

Goodra @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sap Sipper
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Mild Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Muddy Water
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast

Charizard @ Charizardite X
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Outrage
- Rock Slide
- Protect

Bisharp @ Expert Belt
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Impish Nature
- Substitute
- Protect
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

Rotom-Wash @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 6 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Protect
- Thunderbolt
- Will-O-Wisp
- Hydro Pump

Aromatisse @ Leftovers
Ability: Aroma Veil
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Aromatherapy
- Moonblast
- Protect
- Wish

 

[Haki]

Following up on what Pwnemon and BLOOD TOTEM said, it seems to me that the absence of Sleep Clause has actually diminished the effectiveness of Sleep. Many Doubles players are now creating many different strategies to counter the dreaded status condition. Based on what I've seen, some players rely on Sleep way too much, causing them to fail miserably if countered. I'm still not seeing the use of Mental Herb in this slightly different metagame; people don't realize how easily I can Taunt you and render your strategy useless.

There's a replay I would like to share below, although not against a Sleep inducer, I just want to show you how crippling Taunt can be:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoublessuspecttest-89505236

I would also like to point out that a Taunted supporter or Sleep inducer will be almost guaranteed to switch out, which gives me the chance to double target without risk.

Btw, I have met the reqs for voting. :D