np: Stage 3 - Family Reunion ("This Is Why I Created" Remix)

[Philip7086]

If you're having trouble beating stall, you should really consider a Substitute/Tail Glow Manaphy. I've been using Modest with 404 HP, enough speed to bring me to around 250 to outspeed Celebi, and the rest in Special Attack. At +6, it does 65% to even Calm Blissey with Surf, and Ice Beam takes care of common annoyances like Celebi, Garchomp, and the Latis. If you've got to use it to counter Garchomp it does a good job, only taking 50% from Outrage.

And now I remember why I hate Garchomp. Sand Veil is just plain gay.

Yeah, Banned Deucer is running that set, and it gave me some trouble before. However, that set still loses once Toxic Spikes goes up... which I set up fast w/ my stall. IDK, I'm running full stall, and I haven't really had any trouble w/ anything (except that Manaphy set before I figured it out).

 

[Syberia]

Deoxys hasn't really bothered me, most are leads and with a quick U-Turn to Lucario on the Taunt followed by an Extremespeed, they're gone.

 

[mtr]

Maybe all this offensive one-upmanship is starting to die down a bit: I saw a few mixed DD Latios recently, to my surprise and horror.

I didn't even know it could learn Dragon Dance...but I wonder about the efficacy of the set relative to Salamence.

I predict that quite soon, coinciding with the rise of a new breed of stall teams that I unfortunately have no idea about, people will stop gushing over the suspects and the old standards will see a bit more play, like Mixmence and co. But not Flygon. He's going back to his hole of "BL" now that big bro is back for another go in standard.

 

[Diana]

Maybe all this offensive one-upmanship is starting to die down a bit: I saw a few mixed DD Latios recently, to my surprise and horror.

I didn't even know it could learn Dragon Dance...but I wonder about the efficacy of the set relative to Salamence.

I predict that quite soon, coinciding with the rise of a new breed of stall teams that I unfortunately have no idea about, people will stop gushing over the suspects and the old standards will see a bit more play, like Mixmence and co. But not Flygon. He's going back to his hole of "BL" now that big bro is back for another go in standard.

Yeah, I've seen quite a few more standard Pokemon lately, even a few Flygon. I haven't gone too far in that direction yet, having hit something that works, but it wasn't like 4 of my Pokemon weren't already standard.

 

[wildfire393]

Maybe all this offensive one-upmanship is starting to die down a bit: I saw a few mixed DD Latios recently, to my surprise and horror.

I didn't even know it could learn Dragon Dance...but I wonder about the efficacy of the set relative to Salamence.

I predict that quite soon, coinciding with the rise of a new breed of stall teams that I unfortunately have no idea about, people will stop gushing over the suspects and the old standards will see a bit more play, like Mixmence and co. But not Flygon. He's going back to his hole of "BL" now that big bro is back for another go in standard.

Flygon still has two advantages over Garchomp: Levitate and U-turn, which make him an arguably better choice user, as he can switch in easier (being immune to Spikes and Toxic Spikes means he gets "free" switchins against stall, and he can always come in on earthquakes) and scout much better. And plus, with Scarfchomp eliminating DDmence's effectiveness, there's really no reason for Flygon to run max+ speed, meaning he can pick up a little more bulk and attack.

 

[goofball]

Man I was about to build my new offensive team around DD Latios. I guess somebody beat me to the punch :[

After playing a few matches today, I into a lot of trouble with Manaphys not particularly Syberia's manaphy but it is definitely a bitch. Stall team will have the most problems with the CM/Rest/RainDance/Surf set as I learned first hand. I needed to dragged my opponent into a stall match out lasting him just to win. Manaphy is an amazing pokemon its a shame that the suspect metagame is still basically Scarf suspects trying to beat other scarf suspects. Now, that stall teams are running around maybe those offensive team might slow a bit into something less ridiciolous, teams with 4-5 scarf pokemon lol. How can people enjoy a dumbed down metagame like that is beyond me.

 

[Diana]

Don't worry, I can sense the metagame settling down. Sure, there are some full-out offense teams with lots of Scarves and straight-up stall teams, but a mix is finally starting to become more viable. And panamaxis was right, bulky offense does work, I just had to tinker around for quite a while before I got the hang of it. Since then I've won maybe 60-65% of my matches though, so I'm glad he posted that so I knew that I could aim for that. Stall's still quite annoying though if nothing else..

 

[goofball]

Of course I expect the metagame to settle down, it only been several days. But I'm really shocked by the people who say they actually enjoy a metagame like this. The pace of the battle and the actual thought process going into a battle is even worst than a regular OU match.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

Man I was about to build my new offensive team around DD Latios. I guess somebody beat me to the punch :[

Yeah I saw someone use a DD Latios the other day and it caused a shitload of trouble for my team. The sheer unexpectedness caught me off guard...I went to Blissey as they DD'd, then it DD'd again as I had to go to Hippowdon. I managed to Roar it out but it still crippled my Hippo because it got 2 free DDs :(

its a shame that the suspect metagame is still basically Scarf suspects trying to beat other scarf suspects. Now, that stall teams are running around maybe those offensive team might slow a bit into something less ridiciolous, teams with 4-5 scarf pokemon lol. How can people enjoy a dumbed down metagame like that is beyond me.

I completely agree, people whoring out the suspects is making the metagame shitty. When people get over the initial "omg i can use ubers in ou again", offense will settle down to something that resembles strategy.

IIRC, Banned Deucer is using a really neat Rain Dance team (which I was beating 5-3 when I got disconnected ._.). Right now, if you actually try to make a good team, you will win. People are too focused on speed ties and not focused enough on defense, its really harmful to the metagame. It just makes it dumbed down and less fun to play, like golfball said

 

[Stagnant]

Well, to be honest you cannot pass the level of brainless play that Standard ladder endows. So the current Suspect "Metagame" is no worse or dare I say better since the time it complete a match is much lower than standard. DD Latios?

How about...

Latios @ Life Orb

~Dragon Dance
~DracoMeteor
~Dragon Claw/ Outrage
~EarthQuake

 

[StarmanXL]

Yeah all the scarves are kinda annoying (I seriously hate it when some random thing revenges my Skymin. I've seen CS Mamoswine more than for goodness sake; do people really need CS-freaking-Mamoswine?). Although once you figure out what's scarfed, they're really easy to kill. I'm surprised more people haven't taken to using Expert Belt on things to bluff scarf--so far it's proven to be easy enough, especially when you have something like Skymin which outruns everything anyway. The surprise and the ability to switch attacks has done my own Skymin far more good than a speed boost which still leaves me screwed 50% of the time against other Skymin at best and easily revenge killed. Plus, with that SR weak and shabby defensive typing Skymin doesn't last long switching in and out and whatnot which comes with choice items.

 

[tab]

DD Latios is actually pretty effective, most people go straight to their Blissey/other Specs check when they see one, so you can wreck a lot of teams easily. I think it was Earthworm that was using one with HP Fire over either Dragon Claw or Draco Meteor to beat Scizor. 337 Speed, which is a positive nature and 200 EVs, lets you outspeed max speed Deoxys after one DD, then I'm guessing you'd go with either max Attack or enough to take out Blissey and whatever else you need to, and then dump the rest in Sp. Attack, although you could probably make a more effective spread if you were running Draco Meteor.

But really, stall is the way to go right now. All the people that are running fast teams full of Scarfers due to the Deoxys/Skymin centralisation don't stand a chance against you, and it's pretty easy to make a stall team with 2-3 suspects on it, so you aren't mission out on SEXP. I've thrown together a pretty patchy stall team, and even though I'm far from the best stall player, it's been winning ~80% of the time.

 

[EvilMario]

DD Latios is actually pretty effective, most people go straight to their Blissey/other Specs check when they see one, so you can wreck a lot of teams easily. I think it was Earthworm that was using one with HP Fire over either Dragon Claw or Draco Meteor to beat Scizor. 337 Speed, which is a positive nature and 200 EVs, lets you outspeed max speed Deoxys after one DD, then I'm guessing you'd go with max Attack and dump the rest in Sp. Attack, although you could probably make a more effective spread if you were running Draco Meteor.

But really, stall is the way to go right now. All the people that are running fast teams full of Scarfers due to the Deoxys/Skymin centralisation don't stand a chance against you, and it's pretty easy to make a stall team with 2-3 suspects on it, so you aren't mission out on SEXP. I've thrown together a pretty patchy stall team, and even though I'm far from the best stall player, it's been winning ~80% of the time.

Yeah, Life Orb Latios has been OKAY for me. I find the common switch-in is Scizor, so HP Fire is almost a must.

I've also been working with Life Orb Deoxy-S, waiting until the end of the match. He cleans up like nothing else, really.

Skymin has proven effective for me; Air Slash / Seed Flare / Leech Seed / Substitute.. coverage is not great, but Skymin can basically outstall something like Heatran with Leech Seed and Flinching.

Since the discovery of Bronzong being so effective, I've found Trick Scarf Starmie to be an effective lead. It cripples Deoxy-S and Bronzong with a Scarf. It doesn't fear Gyro Ball, or Hypnosis from Bronzong either, thanks to Natural Cure.

Magnezone is very useful right now as well. Trick Jirachis are pretty common.. but more so, Scizors trying to take out Garchomp with Bullet Punch, and Bronzongs running around. Once Magnezone takes Bronzong and Scizor out, Dragons are very, very scary.

And I've been using Garchomp intandem with Latios. What a fearsome beast it still is. At first I was using the Scarf set, but I've found Sub+Sword Dance is much, much more deadly.

After today, I'll try to toy around with Manaphy a bit more, my neglected Suspect. It's surprising, because I love Rain Dance, but this is a tough road to hoe for Manaphy.

 

[Sapientia]

I startet battling suspect today with a very old dp team and amazingly it worked very well. Subzapdos is one of the best pokemons for me as it always gets a sub against things like bronzong or scarfskymin and people bring latios in who doesn't like hp[ice]. Also Scarfgar worked good, because scizor isn't that common as it was without the suspects and it can kill all this scarfers except skymin.

 

[Altair]

After battling for a while, I've noticed how effective Abomasnow has been. After an SD, it KOs 5/6 of the suspects (Deoxys-E) with Ice Shard and Seed Bomb and takes away the Rain and Hail that help make Manaphy and Chomp so effective.

Other than that, the metagame has been pretty offensive, and I really haven't seen too much stall, despite what they previous pages have said. Tbh, none of the suspcts have really been overwhelming, at least to a bannable extent.

 

[franky]

DD Latios @ Lum Berry is a pretty good set that's been effective for me. It is designed to handle Stall Teams.

 

[pokeboss9]

Here my impressions for the suspects


Deoxys-e:
Does his job as a lead or a late game cleaner, focuses all the other leads on itself. Baiscily like in ubers or in the past when it was OU.
Unlike in ubers Deoxy-e is more than just a lead in suspect, it can 2HKO almost everything, it only depends on its moves. With its godlike speed it should not be problem.
= Uber!

Garchomp:
The king of the suspect ladder, i saw him in almost every match. Amazing stats with SD + Sand Vail make it every hard too counter. Its 102 base speed is the key of its sucess. Impossible too wall. The main reason for all the Latios/Latias in suspect teams. Haban berry is its new prefered item.
= Uber!

Shymin-s:
It is mostly a revenge killer or an annoyer. Scarf-min is great revenge killer while the subseed set is very annoying. You can only beat it when you outspeed it or use a priority move. And don t forget about the 80% SpD def drop/ -60% flinch chance.
= Uber!

Manaphy:
It is just to slow for this metagame. With all the Garchomps, L&L, Scizors and Deoxys-e arround. But we should remember its potential from the last suspect. Tail Glow makes it uber.
= uber !?

Latios:
He has much power, he can use CM or DD, unlike the other suspects he can be played physical and special with offensive power. His 80/80/110 defences are also quite good. Too much offensive power...
= uber


The suspect ladder shows us the importance of speed. Deo-e can revenge kill Shymin-s, who kills Latios, Latios kills Chomp and Chomp destroys Tail Glow Manaphy. Thanks to his priority moves BP and QA Scizor is everywhere, while the other, slower Dragons like Mence and Dragonite are nowhere.
And i think more matches ended in a speed tie, because Garchomp enters usually very late the battlefield.
I miss Ho-oh on this ladder, because it is less uber than Chomp or Deo-e and with its 90 base speed he would not be a key thread on this fast-ladder, the same goes for the defensive form of Deoxys.

 

[Kay [Old]]

Stall is certainly viable - I'm trying out a stall team right now, and I'll admit that at this point I'm only using 1 suspect (Deoxys at the end to clean things up like Mence or Tar). One Pokemon I really haven't seen is Infernape, which for me is currently a pleasant surprise, as it would give my current team fits.
I also went back to using Flame Orb Cressy, which overall is fairly fun to use - really, the only suspect I think is really, completely ridiculous is Deoxys and probably Latios. The entire lead metagame is focused on Deoxys, which is really quite annoying, and as for now even though I haven't tried it, it feels that Latios would be difficult to handle outside of a full stall team due to its speed and general power.

 

[Diana]

Stall is certainly viable - I'm trying out a stall team right now, and I'll admit that at this point I'm only using 1 suspect (Deoxys at the end to clean things up like Mence or Tar). One Pokemon I really haven't seen is Infernape, which for me is currently a pleasant surprise, as it would give my current team fits.
I also went back to using Flame Orb Cressy, which overall is fairly fun to use - really, the only suspect I think is really, completely ridiculous is Deoxys and probably Latios. The entire lead metagame is focused on Deoxys, which is really quite annoying, and as for now even though I haven't tried it, it feels that Latios would be difficult to handle outside of a full stall team due to its speed and general power.

You're getting really lucky.. I just faced three Infernape in nine battles.
If you play it right, you can really make a Metagross lead that beats every lead outside of Bronzong and Scizor that's been popping up lately. Doesn't seem likely, I know, but catches almost everyone by surprise, outside of that Pinsir lead I ran into..
Also, I only had a few matches end on speed ties this whole time and I use Deoxys-Speed... Is this just luck or are speed ties a lot less common than people are saying?

 

[Zach]

Here my impressions for the suspects


Deoxys-e:
Does his job as a lead or a late game cleaner, focuses all the other leads on itself. Baiscily like in ubers or in the past when it was OU.
Unlike in ubers Deoxy-e is more than just a lead in suspect, it can 2HKO almost everything, it only depends on its moves. With its godlike speed it should not be problem.
= Uber!

I doubt that DXS can 2HKO Bronzong with Superpower, factoring in attack drops. And it's not like Bronzong is some sort of obscure, niche, etc., counter focused only on DXS, but it can actually switch-in to every suspect in most situations; a very useful asset to any team.

Garchomp:
The king of the suspect ladder, i saw him in almost every match. Amazing stats with SD + Sand Vail make it every hard too counter. Its 102 base speed is the key of its sucess. Impossible too wall. The main reason for all the Latios/Latias in suspect teams. Haban berry is its new prefered item.
= Uber!

There's really no form of Swords Dance Garchomp that isn't all that difficult to revenge kill. Non-Haban variants fall to easily to Latios's Draco Meteor (or in the event that he is banished to Uber, Laitas), and even if is Haban Berry, than Chomp goes down to any number of other common pokes in this metagame: CB Mamoswine Ice Shard, CB Scizor's Bullet Punch, Shaymin-S's Seed Flare/Air Slash, and aforementioned Bronzong's Gyro Ball.

Shymin-s:
It is mostly a revenge killer or an annoyer. Scarf-min is great revenge killer while the subseed set is very annoying. You can only beat it when you outspeed it or use a priority move. And don t forget about the 80% SpD def drop / -60% flinch chance.
= Uber!

I'm iffy here. Submin can beat it's most common checks:

Shaymin @ Expert Belt (idk item I dreamt this up in the shower this morning)
Modest (+SpA, -Atk)
-Substitute
-Seed Flare
-HP Fire
-Earth Power / Air Slash

Manaphy:
It is just to slow for this metagame. With all the Garchomps, L&L, Scizors and Deoxys-e arround. But we should remember its potential from the last suspect. Tail Glow makes it uber.
= uber !?

To me, Manaphy's uberness depends on other suspects. Right now, Manaphy is checked by the other suspects for the most part.

Latios:
He has much power, he can use CM or DD, unlike the other suspects he can be played physical and special with offensive power. His 80/80/110 defences are also quite good. Too much offensive power...
= uber

I'm not quite sure what to think about Latios right now...

The suspect ladder shows us the importance of speed. Deo-e can revenge kill Shymin-s, who kills Latios, Latios kills Chomp and Chomp destroys Tail Glow Manaphy. Thanks to his priority moves BP and QA Scizor is everywhere, while the other, slower Dragons like Mence and Dragonite are nowhere.
And i think more matches ended in a speed tie, because Garchomp enters usually very late the battlefield.
I miss Ho-oh on this ladder, because it is less uber than Chomp or Deo-e and with its 90 base speed he would not be a key thread on this fast-ladder, the same goes for the defensive form of Deoxys.

You seem to think that speed and offensive prowess are the characteristics of an Uber, but this is simply not true. Ho-oh, even with his poor speed and weakness to stealth rock, has incredible defenses, excellent stall breaking ability, access to a one turn healing move, in addition to his meta-breaking signature move, Sacred Fire, making any physical counter of Ho-oh a bust 50% of the time. He also does Toxic Stall better than just about any other pokemon.

 

[WJC3688]

You're getting really lucky.. I just faced three Infernape in nine battles.
If you play it right, you can really make a Metagross lead that beats every lead outside of Bronzong and Scizor that's been popping up lately. Doesn't seem likely, I know, but catches almost everyone by surprise, outside of that Pinsir lead I ran into..
Also, I only had a few matches end on speed ties this whole time and I use Deoxys-Speed... Is this just luck or are speed ties a lot less common than people are saying?

Well the thing is that people have learned that they must put sweeper DXS on their team and they must save him until end-game. Seriously, atleast half the matches I play the guy's last Pokemon turns out to be Deoxys, getting tired of it. By the time the thing finally comes out, the game is usually near its end and all you have left is your own Deoxys and like a Skymin or Garchomp or weakened Heatran or something random that their Deoxys will kill. So it just comes down to Deoxys vs Deoxys, who ran max Speed EVs, who ran Shadow Ball, or just who gets lucky if both sides did both of those things.

 

[mtr]

It surprises me that so many people are choosing to run cleaner Deo-S sets when it was the Dual Screen set that made it uber. Or it doesn't surprise me. It merely shines a light on the metagame. I can't wait till things die down a bit, as my brain can't handle all the random scarves going around.

 

[Iggeh]

For me, Substitute / Magnet Rise / Thunderbolt / Hidden Power Ice Magnezone is such a godsend in this metgame. A lot of the things that counter Latios, Garchomp, and Shaymin-S (Bullet Punch Scizor, Bronzong, Scarf Dragons) all gives Magnezone a free switch-in and a Substitute up. And the only thing in the current metagame that doesn't get completely fucked up by a Magnezone behind a Substitute is Blissey and the rare HP Fire Magnezones.

Speaking of which, Substitute is such a great move to have right now. Not very useful against stall, but I find that most of the offensive teams rely on being able to switch into NVE moves and get absolutely devastated when they have to take a hit.

As for the suspects... Shaymin is devastating. I wasn't around for its first suspect test, but it is such a great offensive Pokemon. I'm really wondering why there are barely any Heatrans, and even then they are rarely holding a Choice Scarf. Not only that, but it can come in on Garchomp and Manaphy (though the latter I find always subs first, so maybe not Manaphy).

Garchomp just gets shit on by the other suspects. Yachechomp just gets called a slowpoke by about half the metagame right now, ScarfChomp just gets either Levitated or walled by a Steel and owned while Outraging. I haven't seen any Chain Chomps or whatever, but I do think it would fare better than the former two. I personally like Sub+Salac, forcing the opponent to either get swept or bring in their Scarfer / Scizor and get punished on the revenge. I'm thinking even without Salac Subchomp would work wonders.

Latios. I have had very little experience with this one actually. Almost all of the ones I've seen run Scarf's, which is so easy to stop. Any other set, I'm scared of...

Manaphy. I run an offensive team, which absolutely tramples Manphy so I can't really say much about it. Thank you Shaymin-S for your ridiculous speed.

DX-S. A giant thorn in full offense, but otherwise I honestly don't find it Uber. Without a 4x SE attack it does completely shit damage. Lead is just sort of whatever. I don't know. Not very experienced with this one, or at least not experienced in getting screwed by this one.

 

[Amphetamines]

IMO, Specs Skymin works wonders as a lead. I usually run 100 HP / 252 SPA / 156 SPE & Modest to outrun +base 120's, as anything else (without a scarf) will be using Ice Shard, like Weavile. Some more speed EVs could be could, to outrun +Speed ScarfTran, but it hardly is worth it as it can switch into everything other than Earth Power, which is OHKO'd.

Anyways, it works well as Deoxys-S will always think it's scarfed, so a switch in for something that resists Air Slash (Tyranitar is a great pokemon for this; Sand Stream, Nice defences in Sandstorm, Pursuit) is then 2HKO'd by a Specs STAB Seed Flare from a 558 Special Attack stat. Air Slash beats slower leads like Metagross for the flinch. Also, Seed Flare along with Air Slash is a great way to scout your opponents team, the -2 defense drop really can inflict a ton of damage onto your opponents team.

Life Orb sounds like a great replacement for Specs, but you would only benefit from switching moves, and if you wanted to speed tie with other Skymin that aren't scarfed, you would have to run 252 SPA / 252 SPE / 6 DEF, which means that you loose 150-200 stat points in Special Attack just for the freedom to switch moves and useless speed.

 

[Head Smash]

If running a bunch of Scarves on everything is really as brainless as people are claiming (and I think it is), then nobody should really need to wait until the metagame "dies down," because brainless strategies can be easily beaten, right?

Or, if they can't be easily beaten, then maybe they're not so brainless after all? In which case, they shouldn't be expected to die down, since they'd actually be effective styles of play.

Just something to think about. I think that rather than waiting for things to slow down, people should be actively trying to slow things down by using strategy and employing synergistic team-building skills.