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

dcae

plaza athénée
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k so having played a shitload of games in this meta as well as facing some of the better players on the ladder, I have developed my opinion on the lack of Sleep Clause and the ensuing metagame. I centered my team around the much hyped Char Y + Venusaur core and then added Taunt and Scarf Tyranitar to deal with the sleep and other top threats. I really expected to fuck up teams solo using the aforementioned core, but surprisingly, despite having come into the test expecting the very worst, I realized Sleep was barely impacting the metagame. It is quite hard and potentially strategically harmful to target single mons with Sleep Powder, esp when a lot of shit runs Protect. Furthermore, the only notable impact it made in my eyes was enable hyper offense to become more effective, as Sleep aids them to make up for their lack of bulk compared to typical bulky offense teams. Also, as has been said several times before, Sleep really punishes poor teambuilding, which I believe is yet another benefit.

This I have noted from playing around on the ladder, and so my final opinion, contrary to what I thought before, is that removing Sleep clause is not a problem; furthermore, it even benefits the metagame by enabling Hyper Offense to become more effective and by punishing poor team building.

Overall, I say free sleep :P

Also noting that Laga is 1000% right, Scarf Ttar is the shit and fucks up so much. An amazing filler mon and it pulls its weight every single game.

Also use Stunfisk!!!!!
 

Haruno

Skadi :)
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
After making reqs I can safely say that we should suspect cresselia er iuno. To be completely fair, we have no basis at the moment on how a sleep clauseless metagame will look like. 5th gen vgc's aren't applicable thanks to gen shifting while the current vgc also isn't applicable thanks to how different the current smogon doubles meta is compared to vgc2014 so previous vgc's aren't a good indicator of the current metagame.

Anyways, just at a glance, it's very hard to base anything as concrete just from this week long period for reasons that pwnemon have stated. The majority of us just want to attain reqs so we just use the playstyle that would allow us to obtain reqs the quickest and even if we weren't, the removal of sleep clause would change the metagame to such an extent that a week long period simply isn't enough to discover all the different ways to abuse/handle sleep.

I'd type up more but eh, tired/doing hw atm so sorry if it's non sensible. Overall I still think we're being far too hasty in determining in deciding if the metagame as a whole is really better off without sleep clause since its effects have yet to be realized. I'll probably type something up later when I finish my essay so mehs.
 

Pocket

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From what I have experienced using a "Break Sleep" team, putting both mons to sleep rarely happens, even without the help of Sleep Clause, and it's usually not the best course of action anyway. Sometimes it's productive to just put one mon to sleep and start throwing out hard hits before the sleep timer runs out. Trying to put Pokemon to sleep consecutively is only burning sleep timer of the first Pokemon that you put to sleep (and this mon is most likely more threatening to you than other mons you put to sleep later).

However, youngjake93 did manage to make a solid Infiltrator Jumpluff team, so maybe my team wasn't super great at abusing sleep @.@

Also easiest way to win: Add Darkrai onto your team, and watch people ragequit during team preview v_v
 
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Darkmalice

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From what I have experienced using a "Break Sleep" team, putting both mons to sleep rarely happens, even without the help of Sleep Clause, and it's usually not the best course of action anyway. Sometimes it's productive to just put one mon to sleep and start throwing out hard hits before the sleep timer runs out. Trying to put Pokemon to sleep consecutively is only burning sleep timer of the first Pokemon that you put to sleep (and this mon is most likely more threatening to you than other mons you put to sleep later).
I would disagree if a dedicated sleep abuser has put the Pokemon to sleep. Like Jumpluff, but Amoonguss qualifies too. They usually have nothing better to do than putting the other Pokemon to sleep; it may also be helpful in case there's a sleep. It sucks for the sleep abuser if both Pokemon wake up after their first turn though, which whilst unlikely, can be gamebreaking - just happened to me and I lost a match because of it, resulting in both of my Pokemon being KOed when otherwise the inverse would have happened.
 
Ok, I haven't seen any SleepAbusers on the ladder yet, so i have no idea what they're like. I'm using TR to test it out in a sleep metagame, and i have no idea whatsoever. However, I can give my own personal opinions about Sleep Clause.

I think that Sleep Clause could be a liability or a asset. However, those use it to great effect basically have a almost certain victory, since it became a great advantage for the sleepabuser. You basically get free turns to attack and almost guarenteed a free KO. Amoongus can do lots of stuff, like setting up rage powder to lure in attacks the pokemon asleep might use if they wake up, while breloom can destroy the opponent with bullet seed/mach punch/ lots of other stuff. Plus your partner can use the oppurtunity to set up or release powerful attacks. However, this might limit teambuilding, and end up being the cause of making horrible teams just to use/abuse sleep.

Again, I didn't battle any sleep teams yet, but this is what i think about sleep.
 
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So I notice a lot of posts saying that just going for the sleep puts you in a bad position sometimes and that very rarely can you get multiple mons to sleep. Having chained a fair number of 3+ sleeps, I'll try to explain how.
Firstly, do not go in guns blazing with your abuser. Anyone that knows their shit is going to try to play around it in SOME way. You shouldn't go in expecting to just click sleep, sleep, sleep and win.
Note: tips are prediction-reliant and will not work if your opponent is ballsy, inside your head, doesn't care or is dumb.
When you see a Pokemon on the field that is about to be put to sleep by Jumpluff, the opponent is probably gonna Protect and if your Fake Out user is also on the field then they could double Protect. That is free game for you to Substitute and switch out Fake Out user for something to directly threaten one of the Pokemon on the field. At THAT point, you have at least one Pokemon that can't use Protect and is sleep fodder and at least one Pokemon that HAS to use Protect or switch if it already Protected because your partner threatens it. THAT is your free turn to Sleep Powder the Pokemon that is defenseless and use any setup move on your partner(subtran works wonders and scares grass types).
Once you successfully have your two Pokemon on the field, hiding behind subs, with one opponent Pokemon asleep, then their is little cost to finally go guns blazing. However, Leech Seeding/targetting a sleeping Pokemon guarantees they can't Protect if you feel it is likely that the partner will.
Oh and having two Pokemon with sub on the field with one Pokemon asleep on the opposing side is 100% guarantee for at least 1 safe sub and is likely to net both subs as the opponent Protects to avoid Sleep Powder and stall a sleep turn for the partner or switch it out. ALSO, having 1 Pokemon on the field asleep and targetting the other with sleep powder guarantees 1 free sub as well if you do want to keep powdering.

So ya basically, use Substitute as the key to sleep abusing... General rule of thumb is that anything with at least 1 powerful spread or a sleep move and is effectve with 2 moveslots+has usable speed and resists can use sub(Terrakion, Kyurem, Landog, Mega-Garde, Heatran, etc). You're not going to have a good time when your opponent uses Protect and there is nothing you can do about it.



Edit: I would also like to say that Mega Venusaur and Ludicolo are pretty great picks to beat sleep because they don't get wrecked by common fire partners and I think they can OHKO Jumpluff.
 
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Fangame10

DOU Master of Snow-based Trick Room teams
is a Tiering Contributor
Although people are proving able to counter these spore teams, I feel that players shouldn't rely on taunt too much, as some spore users carry mental herbs, I feel safe guard to be more reliable.

some sporers I feel are to overwhelming to those without proper counters..like mega venasaur.. which requires either taunt or safeguard, or talonflame and a psychic type...without those it's guaranteed to beat your team after putting them to sleep and using leech seed. a regular spore user wouldn't be a problem at all if you had the right counters. But most problems with spore (mostly my problems) come from the fact the the no.1 user, Amoongus, is too bulky to take out and can spore your first 2 pokemon while a sweeper next to it sweeps. either way it's death or spore. though Amoongus can be stopped by safeguard, it's likely that it will switch out to another team member, and switch in when your anti-spore user has died.

Heatran is another pokemon that makes it hard to deal with most of the spore users, as it's flash fire ability will allow for it to Eliminate fire threats to spore users.

So Imo, the best way to deal with sleep as of now is either safe guard/Taunt(though mental herbs), or a psychic type as most sleep users are weak to it and have not many general counters..unless they had a Dark type. a flying type like talonflame would work as well as it can counter Trick room teams with Amoongus.
 
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finally

how can you swallow so much sleep?
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Although people are proving able to counter these spore teams, I feel that players shouldn't rely on taunt too much, as some spore users carry mental herbs, I feel safe guard to be more reliable.
I feel that you will only find that on the lower part of the ladder. Many sleep inducers prefer other items. Some examples include LO venusaur, LO breloom, sash breloom, coba venusaur, gengarite gengar, LO gengar, etc.
the only notable example of mental herb is amoonguss, and amoonguss usually prefers the reliable recovery of sitrus/black sludge.
Finally, I'd just like to remind that often mental herb amoonguss (sometimes used on higher level hyper offensive teams who need to guarantee the sleep) will sleep your taunter and disallow you the ability to do a second taunt.
 
When you are running something like full trick room, which happens to be weak to slow sporers like Amoonguss, sleep is obviously going to be a problem. Spore is an easy solution to stalling out a team that totally relies on trick room to work. When you aren't running full trick room, you won't find it nearly as much of a problem.
 

Level 51

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easiest reqs ever lol, 2000 coil is like nothing at all (it goes up even when you lose... that says something about it already)
that said, i suppose i should say something about this meta?

i used a team including venu + darkrai for the second half of my ladder run and i must say, this is a pretty cool combo. venu sleep powders everything while being bulky even when it's non-mega:
252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 64 Def Coba Berry Venusaur: 255-300 (84.7 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
meanwhile darkrai hits everything with bad dreams while they're asleep, which not only helps to break down huge walls (cress, dusclops etc, all of which are hit for se by darkrai as well) but also gets to stuff neither venu or darkrai really hits for much (ferro, scrafty et al.). furthermore i used safety goggles on darkrai, which got a lot of surprise hits in on amoonguss' partners which thought they were safe thanks to rage powder!! if you want to try it here's an importable:
Darkrai @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Taunt
- Protect

Venusaur @ Coba Berry
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 64 Def / 192 Spd / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Sleep Powder
- Protect
 
Well no sleep clause can get annoying at times especially when u start to see some cheap tactics paired with it (I.E choice scarf breloom thats only job is to spam spore) but sleep was nerfed with gen six with grass types being immune and having a chance to get the first turn wake ups unlike last gen where sleep was guranteed on the first turn. I find it especially annoying when i am using my trick room team (that has zero sleep counters) and i find a breloom or something. One of the things i found to counter sleep is mega venusaur that is immune to spore and sleep powder and can hit the most common sleep users (grass types) with a super effective move in the form of sludge bomb. And if u really want to be that guy u can run sleep powder on the mega venu and not only check most sleep users but also abuse it yourself :D.

Btw this is the trick room set.

Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 Spa / 252 HP / 4 Spd
Jolly Quiet
- Sleep Powder/Hidden Power Fire
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Protect

And if u dont want to run the trick room set u have this too

Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 HP / 4 Spa
Calm Nature
- Sleep Powder/Hidden Power Fire
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Protect
 

Level 51

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cheap tactics paired with it (I.E choice scarf breloom thats only job is to spam spore)
choice scarf breloom isn't cheap, it's really legit ;~; i used it even out of sleep clause test and it still wrecked lots of stuff with force palm + bullet seed + stone edge (that togekiss didn't see THAT coming huh??)
 


I found an interesting lack of sleep abusers (myself included) during the playtest. I used a few teams, one I made before the playtest, one I made using sleep and taking into consideration dealing with opposing sleep users, and finally one I made that didn't use sleep or consider opposing sleep inducers. The surprising thing is my favorite team was the last one, which didn't have any particular troubles with sleep despite lacking any sleep abuse/countering. The last team also worked the best synergy wise I found despite what should have been a sleep disadvantage. My other team that I made during the playtest did have a sleep inducer which doubled as something to switch into spore/sleep power (M. Venusaur), but for one I found that I was not sleeping very often; I would sleep a threatening Pokemon, and then focus on attacking to make the most of those sleep turns. I also ran into few people abusing the lack of sleep clause, either people didn't go for sleep often like me, or they were using Hypnosis instead of more reliable sleeping moves (though this second example is likely just running into less experienced players on the ladder). This basically meant that most of my measures to make use of sleep and counter it were rather unnecessary since sleep simply wasn't as dominating as was expected. Lack of sleep clause certainly wasn't game-breaking for me, because I hardly even noticed it.

tl:dr I used a team that didn't even try to counter sleep or use it and it was fine so no sleep clause isn't a big deal

Importables for teams
Team I made before playtest

Whimzy (Togekiss) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Dazzling Gleam
- Follow Me
- Thunder Wave
- Protect

George Foreman (Conkeldurr) @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Detect
- Rock Slide

Vladimir (Meloetta) @ Life Orb
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SDef / 252 SAtk
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball

Strongth (Rhyperior) @ Life Orb
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Atk
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Protect
- Megahorn

Shrevident (Banette) @ Banettite
Ability: Insomnia
EVs: 252 HP / 216 SDef / 40 Def
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Destiny Bond

nigga (Greninja) @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 Atk
Hasty Nature
- Mat Block
- Ice Beam
- Surf
- U-turn

First team during

Scrafty (F) @ Chople Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Detect

Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Relaxed Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Earthquake

Jirachi @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 108 Spd
Calm Nature
- Follow Me
- Iron Head
- Protect
- Thunder Wave

Cresselia (F) @ Expert Belt
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 140 HP / 252 SAtk / 116 Spd
Modest Nature
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Icy Wind
- Protect

Garchomp @ Yache Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Protect

Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Naive Nature
- Ice Beam
- Mat Block
- U-turn
- Surf

Second team during (had most fun with this one)

Bisharp @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 80 Spd / 176 HP
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Protect

Garchomp @ Yache Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide
- Protect

Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Protect

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Rock Slide
- Superpower

Gengar @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Sludge Wave
- Shadow Ball
- Dazzling Gleam
- Protect

Gyarados @ Wacan Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 60 Atk / 148 Def / 16 SDef / 36 Spd
Careful Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt
- Waterfall
- Protect
 




Well, I wasn't even aware this was going on until Arcticblast asked me in the sharks channel if I was going to get reqs or not. I figured I would do it if I was bored...Well, I got reqs using my Dark Horse team from last round of Mega Kanga / Sylveon / Hitmontop / Rachi / Mence / Tran. Fake Out core + Choice Specs Sylveon just owns the ladder honestly. Sylveon's bulk makes it difficult to kill, and it can even get surprise kills on Heatran with Hidden Power Ground, which is always a nice treat. Heatran and Mega Kanga are still the gods of the tier, even with sleep being present. Considering I hadn't played doubles since last round and just used a dark horse team, I was pretty surprised to find how effective it was despise not being prepared for sleep at all; I didn't even have a Pokemon with Lum Berry. A lot of the teams I played on the ladder didn't even have a Sleep user, and considering the distribution of the moves, I can see why. When I did play them, however, they were pretty annoying, as even stuff like Jumpluff became a pain to face. I got around it at times using Follow Me Jirachi, which was a huge help, since it could draw in the moves and allow my Heatran or another Pokemon to annihilate their sleep abuser. The concept of putting more than one Pokemon to sleep in a game is pretty broken in general, but I personally feel like it's balanced in this metagame due to the lack of abusers. Regardless, the metagame is basically the same as I remember it being from last round, and nothing has changed really. Hitmontop is still an amazing Pokemon in my opinion, due to the team support it can provide with its bulk and Intimidate, as well as its Fake Out, Feint, and Wide Guard support. The aforementioned Jirachi is also pretty underrated in my opinion, since Follow Me can be useful in a wide variety of situations, and helped my team deal with Trick Room and other threats.

Importable:
Jirachi @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 148 SDef / 108 Spd / 252 HP
Calm Nature
- Icy Wind
- Follow Me
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Helping Hand

Salamence @ Draco Plate
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Heat Wave
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Tailwind

Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Double-Edge
- Fake Out
- Sucker Punch
- Power-Up Punch

Heatran @ Charcoal
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Earth Power
- Protect
- Ancient Power
- Heat Wave

Hitmontop (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 124 HP / 132 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Wide Guard
- Feint
- Fake Out

Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 HP / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Shadow Ball
- Moonblast
- Hidden Power [Ground]


If anyone decides to test this team out, keep in mind that there's probably a better spread for Sylveon. I was just really lazy when I made this team last round, so I just made it Max Special Attack and Max Speed...I don't really know if that outruns any relevant threats, but it works...lol.
 

Darkmalice

Level 3
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When you are running something like full trick room, which happens to be weak to slow sporers like Amoonguss, sleep is obviously going to be a problem. Spore is an easy solution to stalling out a team that totally relies on trick room to work. When you aren't running full trick room, you won't find it nearly as much of a problem.
Full Trick Room teams have methods to deal with Amoonguss. Many full trick room team carry Mega Abomasnow, who easily counters Amoonguss being immune to Spore / Rage Powder, shrugging off Giga Drain and posing a Blizzard threat. Reuniclus also 2HKOes with Psyshock, possible OHKO with LO. The Overcoat sets are even more scary. Overcoat Escavalier works well too but not as well as the aforementioned Pokemon.

Amoonguss is still great against full TR though.
 
choice scarf breloom isn't cheap, it's really legit ;~; i used it even out of sleep clause test and it still wrecked lots of stuff with force palm + bullet seed + stone edge (that togekiss didn't see THAT coming huh??)
Is there a reason for Stone Edge over Rock Tomb? Doing a few calcs it seems like it gets the same KOs that Stone Edge does but it has 95 accuracy and the speed debuff can be useful.
 

Nani Man

__what__ does nani mean
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
throughout my ladder experience i found it difficult to handle Trick Room teams as they are so damn annoying, especially since i was using hyper offensive sets on nearly all pokemon in my team. To my surprise though, they seemed to be the majority that abused the non-existent sleep clause which is possibly another reason why i had a lot of trouble handling those teams. I packed taunt users to handle such things, though it is very predictable and possible to manage with moves/items such as Rage Powder, Mental Herb and Follow Me. Those countermeasures were around quite a lot in TR teams and in other general teams and really puts you in a bad place as it ensures you to put something to sleep. To help with this, making necessary switches, taunt spamming and protect stalling (to also waste TR-active turns) seemed to help enormously to combat sleep abusers and other slow offensive threats. Adding Bisharp was also helpful as this gave me more of a balance against TR teams. Knock Off really saved the day against those pesky psychic types such as Cresselia haha
 
Well, I have obtained reqs now, and to be honest, I didn't see more than 1 or 2 sleep teams. Most people were using regular doubles team, with maybe an added inducer or a Lum somewhere. Sleep Clause doesn't seem to affect the metagame much, and only punishes bad players who don't have anything to stop their team from being overrun by Brelooms and Amoongusses(Amoongi?)
 
Got reqs. Sleep Clause isn't that threatening becuase there are many ways around it. Plus the offensive nature of the meta makes it hard for sleep abusers to put 2 pokemon to sleep. Or maybe becuase I'm using Shaymin-S. Anyways, I find it interesting that there aren't many people abusing sleep on the ladder.
 

Blizzard

@ NeverMeltIce
Of the 70-odd battles that i've done, i've mostly come across teams that were prepared for sleep, and not many sleep-abusing teams. I used youngjake's jumpluff on my team for a majority of the battles, and tbh it was not very easy to abuse sleep powder- it proved to be too risky to use at times, and other times, it just missed. Throughout these battles, i came to be less dependent on it. I was mostly thinking about the other pokemon on my team, and even otherwise, most teams were prepared for sleep. Hence, i was usually switching out or, at worst, saccing jumpluff. The threat of sleep, however, did force many people to target, often double target, it which is where Protect came in handy, and that meant a free turn for my other pokemon. The only times i got a chance to put to sleep almost a majority of the opp's pokemon was on the lower part of the ladder.

Almost every TR team i came across seemed to be most prepared for sleep, and rightly so, because it can shut down TR teams easily. Cresselia with Lum+Safeguard, safety goggles togekiss, lum scrafty, rage powder amoonguss, overcoat reunietc. were quite common. Amoonguss under TR is a huge threat and is very difficult to play around. Of all the sleep inducers, amoonguss is what stands out the most, as with fake out and TR support, it can put a lot of mons to sleep. Grass types rose in usage to counter and induce sleep which is why i dedicated a slot to counter them.

To take care of this problem, i used CB Talonflame with sleep talk. Sleep talk isn't very effective in doubles, esp. on a frail mon like talonflame. I chose it for the fourth slot (flare blitz, brave bird, u-turn) because there isnt anything else that i find useful enough atm (return/frustration hits rotom-w hardest, but i have enough mons to take care of that, aerial ace is weak), and because i had no sleep absorber. I didn't need one, but it wouldn't hurt.

Sleep talk has very little chance to hit the right target, and even less chance to choose the right move. It's a move that's not to be relied on a lot. I feel sleep talk works best late game, with fewer pokemon that are able to switch in properly. I have a replay here that showcases sleep talk working late game. This is the only time i ever used it successfully. It's not much, but this is all i could get:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoublessuspecttest-89980339

Apart from sleep talk and priority BB, i relied on fake out, protect, and outspeeding opposing jumpluff (in the form of scarf landorus-t) to take care of sleep.

Overall, i found talonflame most useful in taking down every sleep inducer brilliantly, and it does much more with its offensive presence. It's a valuable member for any team that lacks a way to counter sleep.

So, to me, sleep clause or no sleep clause doesn't affect the metagame in any significant way. No sleep clause is only going to hurt the unsuspecting players, nobody else. Sleep inducers are easily identified, and can be prepared for accordingly. Taunt, Rage powder, protect, fake out, priority brave bird, etc. Lack of sleep clause easily hinders singles more than doubles due to the fact that in doubles, there's always a chance of the sleep inducer being crippled by the other mon. In my opinion, sleep is more of a novelty than anything to rely on. It isnt anything you can simply put in any team. Its proper use requires decent amount of skill. And it's an optional benefit one can do without to win matches. The only downside to it being the hax which is always looked down upon in competitive play, no matter how rare it might be. I'm pretty sure no one on the receiving end of it is going to enjoy it.

Really sorry for that wall of text. This was the only time i would be able to post, and i had no time to articulate my thoughts properly. But thanks for reading :)
 
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I really just played with my semi-TR team that I always used for laddering, but I must say Escavalier was even more useful then ever, boasting Overcoat to handle sleeping moves.

Escavalier @ Choice Band
Ability: Overcoat
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Megahorn
- Iron Head
- Drill Run
- X-Scissor

Put some sort of Trick Room setter alongside this thing and it will absolutely wreck teams. It doesn't even have to worry about Amoonguss as it completely ignores it.

My view on sleep is that while it is perfectly counterable, it does have a mildly centralizing feel to it.

I think a common misconception people are getting (if I'm wrong; correct me) is that sleep is difficult to abuse since putting two pokes to sleep will burn a sleep turn on one of them, which stalls out the sleep counter, which in turn means opposing Pokemon can wake up before anything big happens. But sleep can be very potent when used for buying time (sometimes just a turn) to do things, such as getting Substitute up (youngjake has this tactic figured out) or using things like Dragon Dance/Quiver Dance/Swords Dance/etc (example of this would be Breloom + Volcarona which had popularity in the VGC metagame last year). The general idea is that once you put a Pokemon to sleep, you've earned yourself a free turn (one Pokemon vs two isn't exactly a free turn, but you get the idea), and without sleep clause this can be done repeatedly since the opponent can't just switch out and activate sleep clause. This means Sleep Powder/Spore can provide a ton of offensive pressure and give you a lot of momentum which can easily turn the tide of a battle in your favor. I didn't run into many teams that really played sleep very well (a heck ton of poorly played Hypnosis spam teams, though x_x), but in my matches with youngjake it was clear that I had to make killing Jumpluff an all-out priority, so much so that I ended up having a very rough time working around his Subbed up Heatran later on.

Additionally, being effective on 17/18 types with some added exceptions (the mighty Escavalier) Sleep can flexibly "remove" counters to whatever you want, so for example putting Landorus-T to sleep so Heatran can remain unchecked for awhile, which can buy it time to Sub up, use Eruption/Heat Wave, and so on (this was a scenario that often came up vs youngjake).

Overall I feel sleep is harder to counter than people give it credit for when played right (for the record there is a difference between subtle sleep abuse (aka well played) and reckless sleep spam (aka not well played)). Safeguard, Taunt, and so on are all certainly options to hold it down, but due to the fact sleep does not pertain to a single threat, certain uses of it could work around these, such as Infiltrator Jumpluff, which breaks through Safeguard. Additionally, if your Safeguard (etc) user has been knocked out (this pertains to many top threats in the metagame, but the point I'm making here is that sleep can be seen as "on par" with things like Heatran and Kangaskhan), sleep can easily do some damage (figuratively, not literally). Now I'm not saying it's broken or anything of the sort, but I think a lot of people are underrating it quite a bit.

As a final note, I'm interested to see how a properly played CharY + Chlorosaur would fare in this meta. On paper Venusaur can just put whatever it wants to sleep while CharYZard spams Heat Wave which can rack up a lot of damage. Additionally, CharYZard will KO the majority of Grass-types that Venusaur wouldn't be able to cripple. Never really bothered trying it out and probably won't, though :s
 
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jas61292

used substitute
is a Community Contributoris a Top CAP Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
So, when I first heard about this test, the first thing that popped to mind was Dark Void. But it took like two second for me to realize that it would obviously still be banned. However, having forgotten for a sec that this was doubles, when that move came to mind, it was Smeargle I was thinking of, and despite obviously not being able to use that move, I for some reason decided to give Smeargle a shot with some other set. Frankly, I have no idea what possessed me to try this, but I ended up running Scarf Smeargle with Spore and Lunar Dance (the other two moves were frankly irrelevant). To be honest, I'm surprised at how well it did. It wasn't incredible or anything, but it was very useful at times.

On my first team, if my opponent didn't have an obvious Fake Out lead, I often paired it up with (Mega) Manectric to start off battles. People didn't expect Scarf, which let it almost always get in a free spore on fast opponents. This led to one of a few predictable situations. If MegaMan could oneshot an opponent then either they were faster and would stay in, or were slower and would switch out. If they were faster, Scarf Smeargle would typically outspeed and Sleep it, allowing MegaMan to OHKO it before it could cause any trouble. If it was slower, I would Sleep the other Pokemon, and typically Volt Switch out of the switch in. Now, if MegaMan could not OHKO anything, it would typically Volt Switch out right away, but with a fast Spore and the Intimidation from Mevo-ing, Smeargle would rarely get KOed turn one, allowing it to Spore a second opponent turn two.

This was incredibly useful, but I will definitely say that my team was probably not the greatest to abuse it. It was clear to me that this type of strategy was best for a heavily offensive team, and mine was much more balanced beyond that lead pair. The ability to essentially make it almost a 1 on 1 battle from the get go, having whatever matchup is more advantageous to you is great, but it only really becomes scary if you have the ability to get an easy and quick KO once you force that matchup.

I also tried a few other things during my ladder run, the most successful one being a Trick Room team. It, of course, had Amoonguss with Spore. Regarding the lack of sleep clause here, I didn't really feel that it was that big of a difference. Occasionally the ability to Spore more than one opponent was nice, but usually, after the first one, it was not really advantageous to me to go for it again. Obviously, having that option is nice, but was generally not a huge difference maker. I also tried a few other sleep related things, but most of them were met with no success.

Outside of the stuff I used, the part of the metagame most notable to me is how much Sun there was, and how it didn't really seem to play different itself without the Sleep Clause. Despite a ton of Chlorophyll things having Sleep Powder, I never really saw any of them using it against me. This was surprising to me, main because there was just so much sun out there. I honestly faced 10 consecutive sun teams at one point while laddering, and yet I can't remember a single one using sleep moves against me. Maybe (beyond the fact that it [and CharY] is just generically awesome) a lot of people are using Sun because the majority of sleep inducers themselves are grass types, and with a lot of people experimenting with sleep, it gives an even greater advantage than normal against these Pokemon. You can't sleep two Pokemon at once, and with Sun boosted fire moves in play, it is quite likely that having a sleep inducer out would end up as a Sleep for KO trade.

One final observation regarding this meta is that Safety Goggles actually seemed to be a very useful item. It is very hard to tell what has it without attempting a Spore, and if you do use it and they do have it, then it is very likely that you just lost a Pokemon for nothing. Its not an incredibly amazing thing to use on most Pokemon, but for a team that specifically has problems against certain common Sleep inducers, it can be a useful choice.
 

finally

how can you swallow so much sleep?
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
I don't think anyone has mentioned the vgc spawned duo of Mega-Kangaskhan + Amoonguss
The potency of this duo lie in the fact that it forces the opponent into an unfavorable position. Amoonguss can rage powder away attacks from kanga (primarily fighting type attacks), while kanga can set up with power up punch. However, the role of support and attack can be switched. Kanga can fake out and allow amoonguss to spore potential threats. And after a potential enemy has been put to sleep, one can still attempt to set up with power up punch. With the revocation of sleep clause, it makes this duo all the more deadly.
tybg (Amoonguss) @ Sitrus Berry/ Coba Berry
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 180 SDef
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spd
- Spore
- Rage Powder
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb/ Protect

nihao kailan (Kangaskhan) (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Power-Up Punch
- Return
- Sucker Punch

sets would be something along these lines. Sludge bomb > protect because spikes in grass pokemon and catch a lot of fairies off guard. Sludge bomb isn't supposed to kill anything, but it can provide a crucial ~20% for kanga to finish something off that was ev'd to survive mega-kanga attacks. also really helps against the popularizing opposing amoongi.
for anyone curious, amoonguss' ev's are meant to survive timid char-y drought heat wave. if you are running sitrus, it can take fake out + return from mega kanga. if you are running coba, you can only take return from mega kanga, however, it offers you a second lease on life to re-route talonflame. I've been using coba berry to stop the rising in popularity talonflame (talon hits a lot of sleep inducers hard) from doing big damage to both amoonguss and kanga. By allowing amoonguss to take 2 brave birds, this gives kanga another turn to to whatever she wants.
A big weakness this core has is against char-y + chlorosaur. They can protect turn 1, and then proceed to sleep mega kanga and roast amoonguss on turn 2. And because sleep clause was removed, this duo is seeing more popularity.
As a countermeasure, I've been thinking of rock polish/sub lum terrakion (lead kanga and terrakion) and rock polish on the opponent's double protect (double protect to stop fake, activate drought, and activate chlorophyll). Haven't been able to test it, but it has "some" potential I suppose.

Besides that, I'm quite surprised at sleep's effect on the metagame. Through the combination of putting gen 4 sleep mechanics back in, to giving grass pokemon that sweet, sweet immunity, I've actually changed my mind on sleep clause being needed (don't think it's needed anymore). With plenty, not too out of the way ways to stop it (lum berry primarily), I feel like sleep is now just like any other strategy in the game- it requires team support to abuse it; prediction to know when to use it rather than to doing something else that turn; and just like any other strategy, can be stopped. Perhaps even to your disadvantage would be trying to put something to sleep rather than using another strategy to incapacitate the opponent(spore a fire pokemon who has lum, and then roasts you). To expect to sleep everything is simply expecting too much out of sleep, and I believe that sleep will evolve to become part of team's strategies to help acquire set up turns for one's team, rather than simply be used to incapacitate whole teams. And although very powerful, sleep is not uncounterable.
 
Abusing sleep is actually not easier without the sleep clause than without.
The most accurate option of inducing sleep has a very slim distribution, so it is often predictable and often even better to not use Spore when your opponent expects it the most (unless they obviously cannot defend against it).
Sleep Powder is not always predictable but can be anticipated. Lovely Kiss is viable on Jynx and sometimes on Smeargle, but both are heavily susceptible to double targeting.

Although I have to say that most of the sleep abusers with more accurate sleep moves get a lot better if they have Speed control support and are not used in the starting duo, but as a revengekiller with the option to sleep if a kill is not likely.
But from using MegaGengar with the same purpose of revenge killing, I have to say that sleep is often just on par with other burn, it was often just another approach at avoiding SuckerPunch and SkillSwap was better than both.

I have seen a lot of players giving free turns because they didn´t anticipate one of the various ways to counter sleep or just not anticipating a wakeup.
And testing a new team, I had the same "mistake" occurring again
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoublessuspecttest-90368243
My opponent made quite some better decisions than me, succeeding in killing my status control Klefki very early.
But as soon as he succeeded in sleeping my Latias (turn 8) he didn´t do anything useful the next turn. Not only did he feel safe about letting Latias sleep, which is understandable, as it is the minor threat on the field, but he also did not abuse the chance to switch one of his defensive Pokemon for a threatening sweeper immediately.
He did not really abuse the opportunity a sleeping foe gives.
That´s why a lot of times you don´t need a distinct countermeasure to sleep.

I was testing a sleep abusing team under the alt haxfree before deciding to actually ladder with my current team.
I wanted to test the viability of Gravity-Hypnosis. It sucks. Strategies that need heavy support are very susceptible to disruption and doubles is full of disruption!
But I have seen that few players are prepared for Infiltrator Pokemon it seems. And Prankster still rules a lot of times :)
 

phantom

Banned deucer.
I find that the inclusion of sleep clause has very little impact in regards to higher level matches. When you're up against players who know what they're doing, you won't be able to put more than one Pokemon to sleep at once, which is in stark contrast to what I thought would be the case. When I first tried to ladder, I built a team whose sole purpose is to abuse the effects of sleep. Against less experienced players, it just absolutely dominated them; however, against people who knew what they were doing, it just fell flat on its face. At least from what I've experienced, what sleep does is it punishes poorly built / unprepared teams. Let me just say that this is absolutely fantastic. One of the main problems with doubles ladder is the inherent lack of skill, but with the removal of sleep clause, this forces players to adapt or risking losing to any inadequate team that has a sleep inducer. At one point, those players will get sick of losing and eventually reconstruct their teams. I see the release of sleep clause as a long-term step in the right direction towards improving the quality of the doubles ladder. It's exactly what we need right now to rid the doubles ladder of those poorly built gimmick teams that are so ridiculously pervasive.

I'd also like to talk about what sleep brings to the table. Sleep possess two very positive attributes: it makes it easier to use Hyper Offense and it increases the general variety of Pokemon and strategies. As others have already stated, the removal of sleep clause gives offense a ton of more breathing room, making it much more feasible for these teams to go toe-to-toe with slower, bulkier teams such as Trick Room. Furthermore, other Pokemon, that would have never been considered for a team (Jumpluff) are now viable as a result. What I also like about sleep clause is that it also increases the viability of Pokemon such as Breloom and Amoonguss, as well as give Pokemon such as Talonflame and Goodra more utility for their capabilities in checking the Charizard-Y + Venusaur core as well as their usefulness in counteracting other sleep related strategies. Overall, this is exactly what doubles needs right now. The removal of sleep clause is such a positive component in more ways than one.

In short, here are the three main positives:

1) Sleep makes offense easier to use
2) Sleep increases the overall usable pool of pokemon and strategies in doubles
3) Sleep punishes poorly built teams by requiring less-competitive minded players to adapt or face loss after loss
 
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