Metagame Shared Power

[Pigeons]

Ok now that I've had the chance to play the ladder for a while I can make a more informed post about the state of the metagame. If you've played vs me at all, then I'm sorry. I didn't want me to be born either.

Firstly, Regenerator needs to go. As much as it pains me to say this it is an incredibly unhealthy part of the metagame. While I wouldn't call stall overpowered, Regenerator makes it incredibly polarizing and matchup dependent. Regenerator effectively makes incremental progress impossible against stall, which limits counterplay to teams that can break through it via direct offensive pressure. This means that games with stall are near universally decided at team preview by whether or not the opponent stacked the right offensive abilities and moves to have a remotely winnable matchup. As a stall player myself, every single one of my games has been decided at preview, which is just ridiculously unfun for everyone but psychotic maniacs who get off on 1000 turn games. Regenerator also results in any game involving stall and another team with Regenerator turning into a stalemate of switching back and forth, which again is not a sign of a healthy metagame. While I do think defensive teams should be enabled to some degree, Regenerator makes them too polarizing and results in a metagame largely defined by the two extreme playstyles. To illustrate some of the problems with Regenerator, here is the stall team I've been laddering with:

(Click sprites for team paste)

This team is getting a bit out of date with Skill Link teams ramping up in popularity but the autowin potential is still there against many common archetypes. FluffyScales should need no explanation, and Sableye's Prankster allows Milotic to effectively shut down any setup-based offense with Haze. Regenerator lets everything stay alive without wasting recovery PP and stalemate vs any opposing Regenerator teams without a way of breaking. Pressure is less common on stall builds these days but I really like its ability to limit threats like Heatran that rely on low-PP attacks and win the PP war against hazard teams. Milotic is pretty ridiculously bulky and has few weaknesses so it often walls entire teams by itself. This stall has no hazards or anything to make progress with because as I mentioned, most of the times you're just stalemating anyways. If you want to not lose vs Skill Link teams Mudsdale > Corviknight is an option, just make sure you fit something like Rapid Spin Eldegoss for hazard control.

I doubt there will be much pushback on a Regenerator ban because anyone who's played much knows it isn't healthy. I agree with a lot of the sentiments expressed so far about things like Magearna and Beast Boost / Moxie / Grim Neigh being too strong (I'd add "Skill" Link to that as well) but I wanted to touch on something that is potentially a bit more controversial: Unaware.

To put it mildly, I think if Regenerator goes then balance and stall teams will not have the necessary tools to handle all the hyper offense infesting the metagame. In order to counteract this, a ridiculous number of bans would need to occur before stall or balance could become usable again, which to me defeats the point of Shared Power. I think tiering of this metagame should focus on giving the metagame enough tools where offensive, balanced, and defensive teams are viable without one being excessively dominant over the others. Freeing Unaware in my opinion puts the metagame in that right direction, because unlike the current Regenerator stall and balance teams, there is room for incremental progress even if opposing teams do not outright break. This puts a slightly greater emphasis on player skill rather than pure matchup, though matchup will always be an issue in a metagame like this one. Incremental progress being possible against opposing fat means balance teams now have a reason to exist since there is incentive to be proactive with a breaker so you can limit the opponent's own progress. This won't solve the metagame overnight and Fluffy + Ice Scales have the potential to become problematic if Unaware is freed, but I think it will at least help diversify the metagame in the long run.

TL;DR
Ban Regenerator, click the sprites for a stall team, unban Unaware, other stuff like Magearna should probably go too

 

[Hera]

Seeing a lot more meta posts recently, and since I've been laddering Shared Power pretty much non-stop, I'd like to give my two cents on how the meta can be improved.



I don't think Regenerator by itself is a broken ability. I find it to be a very good, but balanced, ability that all sorts of teams can use and beat. Defensive teams, such as stall, can use trapping mons, such as Heatran or the more uncommon Politoed, to invalidate switching out, while chipping down health with 3 layers of Spikes + Stealth Rocks to negate Regenerator, while offensive teams can activate all of their abilites and pick a good time to completely plow through even a well-built team. However, the combination of Regenerator + Levitate is extremely unhealthy and degenerate. Defensive teams are simply halted from making progress and forced to use one of the above trapping mons, and if they run Flash Fire (which is common), there is basically no way to win. I've had more than a few games decided at team preview where the best possible outcome was drawing, and many more where optimal gameplay devolved into switching constantly. Offensive teams rely on chip via Spikes or TSpikes to deal with defensive teams due to the prevalence of FluffyScales, and without this, offensive teams fold because it becomes much easier for teams to sit on them. While I can understand the want for a Regen ban, I think that the main culprit is Regn + Levitate due to it creating an unhealthy and unfun meta around it. However, I would be fine with a Regen ban if that is the correct tiering move.



Onto the more offensive side of things, I would like to reiterate support for Magearna, but also put two other breakers on the radar: Kartana and Crawdaunt. Mag is dumb for all the reasons stated above and more. It creates degenerate stall/setup teams that are low risk, but high reward, snowballing abilites are extremely powerful in this metagame and having a Grim Neigh clone except one you can't sack too makes teams too powerful, and there are very few mons that can adequately check Magearna without extensive support (Multiscale + Boots + a move that can actually threaten Mag). Kartana provides Beast Boost, an ability that lets you pick and choose how teammates can snowball, has two STABs + Sacred Sword and Koff to give itself perfect coverage and wallbreaking prowess, and has a great Speed tier and Attack stat. Hustle + No Guard + Adaptability is a very popular core, and Kartana is the best recipient of this due to the aforementioned stats it has. Finally, Crawdaunt does the same things Kartana does, but trades Speed for STAB Koff. This may not seem like much, but a lack of viable Dark resists plus the fact that literally every Water Absorber is unviable (Gastrodon might be able to do it, but that means missing out on Sticky Hold) means Crawdaunt has no problem breaking holes in teams. You would need a specific core to handle Crawdaunt since it automatically mandates the usage of 2 or more mons, and that is a premier sign of it being unhealthy to me. And that's not even getting into how it provides Adaptability for teams, making it busted even when it's not the linchpin of a team.

To put it mildly, I think if Regenerator goes then balance and stall teams will not have the necessary tools to handle all the hyper offense infesting the metagame. In order to counteract this, a ridiculous number of bans would need to occur before stall or balance could become usable again, which to me defeats the point of Shared Power. I think tiering of this metagame should focus on giving the metagame enough tools where offensive, balanced, and defensive teams are viable without one being excessively dominant over the others. Freeing Unaware in my opinion puts the metagame in that right direction, because unlike the current Regenerator stall and balance teams, there is room for incremental progress even if opposing teams do not outright break. This puts a slightly greater emphasis on player skill rather than pure matchup, though matchup will always be an issue in a metagame like this one. Incremental progress being possible against opposing fat means balance teams now have a reason to exist since there is incentive to be proactive with a breaker so you can limit the opponent's own progress. This won't solve the metagame overnight and Fluffy + Ice Scales have the potential to become problematic if Unaware is freed, but I think it will at least help diversify the metagame in the long run.

I disagree with this sentiment. Ignoring the fact that I am not in favor of a blanket Regen ban (although I would ultimately be fine with it), I feel that Unaware would not significantly help defensive teams the way you are stating. There are many ability-based or item-based damage multipliers such as Hustle, Adaptability, Skill Link (sort of), Tough Claws, Sheer Force, and Choice Band/Specs that do not care about Unaware, and ultimately defensive teams would fold only a bit slower with its inclusion. I guess with Regenerator banned, Unaware would most likely not be broken and thus be worthy of being unbanned, but this is all just theorymonning anyway so it's not a big issue to me.

At the end of the day though, I do enough this tier, whether I'm playing with or against balls-to-the-wall hyper offense, a semi-stall featuring Magearna and friends, or some sort of gimmicky rain stall (if I can remember the team I might post it here, was kinda boring to play against but I found the team a much needed deviation from standard builds). I just feel there are certain things that need to be looked further into (especially Regen + Levitate) for the tier to become more playable and less matchup fishy.

 

[fratelli bc]

The real problem is that... The meta is really heavy "match depending".

Oh you are using a skill link team? Too bad, they have Stamina.

Your way to deal with Fluffy is fire? Look, they have a heatran.

Nice water spam team! Too bad you're facing Dry Skin.

I just made this team and I'm gonna have some fu... Oh forget it, it's prankster destiny bond.

This stall team seems powe... Is that a Dracovish? What is it doing here?

Imma run rough skin and iron barbs ans be happy. Oh, they have a decidueye, sad.

My point is: you can't really prepare a team for every type of team.

The only thing I just don't like is Quick Draw. Is really dumb.

Edit: when I say "match depending" is like... Your team will lose 95% of the time for a team it is weak against.

 

[dumbbirb]

What you guys think of my curent team?
https://pokepast.es/9d074f5f99752e0f
(this is for fun)

 

[fratelli bc]

What you guys think of my curent team?
https://pokepast.es/9d074f5f99752e0f

It's good, but why Sturdy when you have no hazard removal and only toxtricity with boots?

 

[shnowshner]

Throwing in my hat into looking at Quick Draw. With Shared Power being very matchup-dependent right now, with anti-anti metagame teams currently in the process of being anti-metagame'd, Quick Draw stands out as the one archetype that, quite literally, doesn't seem like it has any real counterplay. This is entirely due to how the mechanics of Quick Draw (and it's Claw partner-in-crime) operate, being a form of "not technically priority" priority, as had been mentioned before, and the way it completely strips control out of the opponents hand. There's matchup fishing and then there's not giving a damn about the matchup because all you have do to is be lucky. Throw a bunch of sweepers and boosters on the same team, and watch things that should otherwise always KO you fall instead, because you happened to get the % chance to go first anyhow. It is the most helpless feeling you can have. Any of the correct plays you can make can be invalidated at any moment. This has no place even in the murky clusterfuck situation Stored Power is in right now. Galarian Slowbro's BDrum Quick Draw shenanigans was already cancerous enough when it was just ONE Pokemon, and now you can have a team of six with their own boosting and nuke button options. You don't even have to specifically build around the ability: just the mere existance of GBro means that you're entire team has a 1-in-5 chance of winning the game sometimes. If I'm gonna lose to some bullshit let it be because my team was ill-equipped or my opponent outplayed me, not because every time I made the correct play I got punished for it instead.

 

[okispokis]

Rillaboom @ Choice Band
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Grassy Glide
- U-turn
- Acrobatics
- Superpower

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Psycho Cut
- Energy Ball
- Ice Beam
- Draco Meteor

This combo has pretty bad synergy. Levitate means you don’t actually get the healing from Grassy Terrain or the boost to Grass moves, as Terrains only affect grounded Pokemon. You’re basically giving your opponent free healing each turn with no benefit to your own team once Latios comes out. I’d advise changing one of these two

 

[DrPumpkinz]

I built a team and I was using Scizor as my technician user and it was not activating. I was going to use it with rillaboom to do massive amounts of damage with grassy glide and for some reason, it was not registering on showdown that technician was activated when I hovered over the move. Can anyone explain this?



Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Dual Wingbeat
- Bug Bite

Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Aromatherapy
- Teleport
- Soft-Boiled

Rillaboom @ Choice Band
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Grassy Glide
- U-turn
- Acrobatics
- Superpower

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Psycho Cut
- Energy Ball
- Ice Beam
- Draco Meteor

Nidoking (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Sludge Wave
- Fire Blast

Buzzwole @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def / 4 SpD
- Close Combat
- Leech Life
- Poison Jab
- Drain Punch

This combo has pretty bad synergy. Levitate means you don’t actually get the healing from Grassy Terrain or the boost to Grass moves, as Terrains only affect grounded Pokemon. You’re basically giving your opponent free healing each turn with no benefit to your own team once Latios comes out. I’d advise changing one of these two

Additionally, Sheer Force cancels out Serene Grace.

 

[Confuzed]

I love this OM, and you'll rarely hear me whine about stall. On occasion I even prefer it. But this is getting ridiculous. It's true that this format is unfortunately very matchup-dependent to an extent where a win is virtually impossible against a losing matchup. But people have quickly realized that a safe way to never lose a battle is with a well-rounded stall team, and that's kind of where the meta is at.

Regenerator. I may be a balance player at heart, but even a balance team can literally win a match by repeatedly switching until the opponent gives up. I've seen people say hazard stacking helps, but that's just not true. Levitate has allowed me to forgo any hazard control whatsoever, and pull the exact same shenanigans. The possible caveat is Frosmoth, but let's be real: it's just as productive repeatedly hitting the field as it is popping up once and rotting in its Pokeball for 999 turns.

I don't want to admit that Regenerator may be too much, because I get a sick kick out of effortlessly healing my whole team as my opponent watches their hard-earned progress disappear, but I've come to terms with the fact that it is under much scrutiny and is likely to be banned pretty soon. And maybe that's for the best. Regenerator with Levitate was fun while it lasted.

But fortunately for me, I actually got the jump on the current meta by slowly adapting my balance team until my Magearna was a Corviknight, my Weavile was a Frosmoth, and my G-Slowking was running Whirlpool with Eerie Spell. The moral of the story is: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

And honestly, I usually could "beat" 'em, but at what cost? Balance is hard to justify in this format, because any offensive mon that isn't on steroids is practically a waste of space. Problems I encountered were either the same 100 turns into /offertie but more stressful, or an outright loss to devastating hitters like Kartana.

And sure I could have gone the opposite direction and built hyper offense, but trying to break through Flash Fluffy with Ice Scales turns the game into a chore. This is especially true with the presence of Battle Armor, Prankster Haze, Levitate, Stamina, Sticky Hold, Natural Cure, Pressure, and Multiscale, a particularly large pain in my neck. I just can't imagine a hyper offense team that can realistically break all the potent variants of stall that are running rampant.

And I'm not even concerned with stall being the dominant strategy. But when it's so dominant that high ladder battles are either a stalemate or a trapping party, it becomes a bit tedious to say the least.

I'm aware that this is a complex problem that should be handled with caution, lest every battle end in 11 turns. So for the sake of offering a solution to back up all my complaining, I'd suggest banning certain combinations like Fluffy + Ice Scales, Multiscale + Regenerator, or (write it!) Regenerator + Levitate. My rationale is that this will reduce the diversity of stall teams to where an offensive team can prepare for them without rendering stall unviable or hyper offense broken.

I wish the meta didn't have to be so polarizing, but I guess it's to be expected from a format where every Pokemon has 6 abilities.

TL;DR stall is a pain and everything is broken

 

[ZGlove]

Why is Toxapex banned?
Is it the sheer bulk from Fluffy and Ice Scales?
Is it the Merciless/Corrosion/Hex shenanigans?
Is it the lack of a 4x weakness?

I ask 'cause Toxapex is my favorite Gen 7 mon.

 

[LatiasDigs]

Regenerator needs to go, it basically allows you to heal all your team for nearly free, especially when stacked with other defensive abilities, and arceus forbid you run into someone else with the same idea and start switch stalling each other until someone forfeits or you agree to tie, or until turn 1000

 

[Skankovich]

Gotta say that right now prankster destiny bond teams feel pretty obnoxious to me. They have an overwhelmingly positive matchup against basically every form of offense (except for Triage spam I guess). Although offenses highly built around priority can supersede the prankster, this all falls flat once the d-bond team starts running its own tsareena. Similarly keeping hazards can help prevent the prankster team from doing much more than going one-for-one on everything, but that is easier said than done when a prankster defog can lurk around every corner. It basically turns into a crapshoot where the only hope of the ofeense player winning is to predict perfectly every turn or run lots of weird techs. The team posted by Skankovich on the last page has been relatively common and very effective at curtailing offense, and it isn't even that much of an anti-offensive team, with basically everything on it besides the prankster Destiny Bond reinforcing its matchup against fat teams, so further refinements can be made to it to crush offense even more. In my personal opinion its very unfun to play against when the counterplay to it is "just don't run offense bro. also you need to predict the destiny bond every time".

Also I totally understand arguments for snowballing abilities and Magearna being broken but I feel like the fact that they need to get kills initially to start snowballing makes them in some ways, less consistent than a straight up damage booster like adaptability, hustle, or sheer force. Getting that initial kill can be fairly tough against fat teams with Frosmoth and such. Against offense being able to get Speed Beast Boosts makes revenge killing outside of priority fairly tough, but thankfully, priority is very viable and in no short supply. Of course, priority can be countered with Queenly Majesty, which brings me to my point that Tsareena, and to a lesser extent Tapu Lele, are extremely overcentralizing and are the common denominator for enabling some arguably broken strategies, like speed-boosting snowballers, Sturdy + Shell Smash offenses, and other stuff like that. Tsareena feels necessary on every offense team to not lose to every other offense team, with Queenly Majesty protecting from standard priority spammers like Crawdaunt, Grassy Glide spam, Triage teams, random Prankster + status users, etc. It's all just a very precarious balance, with anti-priority keeping so much in check right now, and the result being overcentralization.

So basically my point is that this meta feels like (and always has tbh) a sort of "broken checking broken" balance, with Tsareena being necessary on every team to check offenses, prankster Destiny Bond being very devastating against offense, but without these factors the metagame would spiral out of control with more and more insane offenses. Gotta say though that fat stall teams actually feel pretty fair right now though, regen + Multiscale is a bitch but with enough power boosting abilities and hazard pressure + knock off (unless they have sticky hold) that you can slot on offenses without stretching too much it feels manageable. Fur Coat's ban makes it a lot more fair too cause Fluffy has a lot of shortcomings, like stacking on a fire weakness unless you run Heatran, only working on contact moves, and being easily nullified by Decidueye which I've seen more and more of. There's my 2 cents

EDIT: To add to Pigeons' post below I agree that Regenerator is uncompetitive in this metagame since two Regen teams will be forced into an endless pivoting stalemate with zero progress extremely easily (To be fair this can happen in standard play as well quite easily with 2-3 mon Regen cores. Regenerator was honestly a mistake). At the same time, outside of that, stall teams don't feel super unfair, but I agree that they are matchup-based. Personally I do not believe Regenerator is the biggest culprit in the current meta but if we decide that all fat v. fat matchups ending with /offerdraw at turn 100 is something we don't want then ban it for sure

The thing with Destiny Bond spam is that it's not flexible due to the limited pool of dbond users, particularly this gen (last gen we had Mega Banette before it was banned, unrelated to dbond teams fwiw, who could prankster and dbond in one slot which eased building up). It's hard to fit Tsareena or Tapu Lele in, because you need as many Destiny Bond users possible so you have enough bodies to trade with the other team. You can only really afford one non-dbond mon outside of your prankster donor, so if you're dropping Decidueye for Tsareena you're going to be completely toothless vs fat teams etc.

Even then, stuff like Taunt is much easier to fit in for almost any offense team and is brutal with just one correct prediction - the dbond team ends up on the back foot, usually forced to sacrifice a mon without taking an an enemy down with it, which is often enough alone to make sure the team hasn't got enough bodies to trade and win.

I'll also throw my hat in the ban regenerator ring, as always, it's completely unhealthy that it makes the best move in a lot of matchups just to switch between mons indefinitely. Fat teams will need something to compensate though, and I think I'd prefer a Fur Coat unban to an Unaware unban. Unaware won't help that fat teams have few options with regards to Physical defense with Fluffy being quite trivial to bypass.

 

[RichardPepper]

Shared Power is my favorite meta, I've always tried new teams. Here's my best one, I've won 80-90% of tours I made with it. I'll paste it as I use it, but with the last DLC there should be some good changes.

Zeraora @ Life Orb 
Ability: Volt Absorb 
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe 
Jolly Nature 
- Volt Switch 
- Close Combat 
- Plasma Fists 
- Knock Off 

Seismitoad @ Life Orb 
Ability: Water Absorb 
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe 
Modest Nature 
IVs: 0 Atk 
- Toxic 
- Earth Power 
- Hydro Pump 
- Grass Knot 

Corviknight @ Leftovers 
Ability: Pressure 
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD 
Careful Nature 
- Bulk Up 
- Power Trip 
- Body Press 
- Roost 

Centiskorch @ Heavy-Duty Boots 
Ability: Flash Fire 
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD 
Adamant Nature 
- Knock Off 
- Fire Lash 
- Rest 
- Sleep Talk 

Mudsdale @ Leftovers 
Ability: Stamina 
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD 
Impish Nature 
- Endeavor 
- Earthquake 
- Body Press 
- Stealth Rock 

Escavalier @ Leftovers 
Ability: Shell Armor 
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD 
Adamant Nature 
- Swords Dance 
- Iron Head 
- Close Combat 
- Drill Run

Basically the idea of this team is to sweep with Corviknight deleting his 2 weaknesses to fire and electric, and giving him some good boost like Battle Armor and Stamina. The only real counter of this team is Prankster Haze.
There could be some other options:
1 Heatran for Centiskorch. I created the team at the start of Gen8, obviously Heatran is better, but rest talk gave me some victories.
2 Frosmoth for Seismtoad. Basically Seismotad is for scald, the only way to burn flash fire Corv, but Frosmoth gives a good resistance to special moves (not so common, Shared power is 80% physical).
3 Bewear for Mudsdale. This gives more resistance to 2 dangerous moves: Darkest Lariat and Sacred sword. I prefer Mudsdale to have boost for Body Press/Power Trip, but it's also good.

I hope u'll like my team. I'll be back with other my ideas.

 

[fratelli bc]

Unbanning Fur Coar is a bad idea. FurScales is just disgusting, having double defense with no drawback in 6 pokemons is just ridiculous.

Here's my last thoughts:

IMMUNITIES ABILITIES:

Specially Flash Fire and the Water-proof ones. Giving it to a whole team limits team building, since... Well, if you choose one type of coverage, you have a pokemon with only 3 moves available for the rest of the game.

Flash Fire, Water Absorb and Storm Drain should be banned or limited, IMO. Dry Skin has a flaw, and with Flash Fire banned it is exploitable.
I mean, Fluffy teams doesn't even need to run bulky waters, they just stack Heatran and then you must hope they doesn't have Levitate too, or Magearna will just run over everything. Or Corviknight if they have volt absorb.

Speeking of Levitate, I think Gravity teams are really not beeing explored right now. EQ ignores Fluffy, and most levitate teams do not run ground resists because... They don't need it lol.

Been not seeing too much Volt Absorb and electric spam teams too much, but I think it's ok.

Sap Sipper is really not that good.

What I'm saying is: Making an entire team immune to 1 or 2 types is just... Unhealthy. Pokemons end up limited to use just 2 moves for the rest of the game. Combining this with other abilities is just too much dangerous. Like the team posted above this comment. It's not about removing weakness, it's about limiting movepools. This is why I think Flash Fire is ban worthy, or at least limited to not be used with the other abilities above mentioned.

RNG WARS:


This is just too much unhealthy and should be banned. There are teams with both Blissey and Chansey just for this, as well the Draw 'n Claw combo giving a damn about speed controls and enabling really dangerous threats to run through everything.

REGENERATOR:


I don't know if this is broken by itself or is broken by combinations. And if this happens, it is because it's broken anyway haha.

 

[Geyro]

We have to ban somes combination..
It's too difficult for an offense team to deal with somes team.. Some pokemon became monsters (magearna heatran etc ) with good combination
Fluffy flsh fire Levitate Regenerator ice scale a'd wath you want in last... Absurde..

Or ban combination of fluffy/Stamina + Ice scale plz...

 

[zelda333]

Regenerator needs banned ASAP lol in using it I've found it's either PP stall your opponent by switching forever or you both have regenerator and just keep switching till someone forfeits. Matches easily get past 100 turns with little progress in the battle.

Edit: agree on banning serene grace/quick draw as well, but especially quick draw honestly. Leaving every single move up to nearly a 50/50 on who goes first is super uncompetitive.

 

[RichardPepper]

At the moment the only toxic ability is fluffy. The only way to block it is Decidueye.

 

[vibivgc]

question: how does tough claws interact with protective pads? since protective pads says "adverse" contact effects, I'd assume it blocks iron barbs and fluffy (or I'd pray it blocks fluffy as its my main idea for a counterplay to it for my phys offense teams atm) but theres definitely a chance it blocks tough claws

 

[Fishy79]

Additionally, Sheer Force cancels out Serene Grace.

thanks for the feedback. I'll work on fixing it

 

[The Immortal]

Dracovish, Magearna, and Regenerator are now banned.

• Outside of Water immunity abilities, Fishious Rend's wallbreaking potential is too good in this metagame.
• Magearna is quite versatile and takes advantage of many abilities in SP. Not only is it a great Pokemon itself but it's ability, Soul-Heart, can be stacked with others like Beast Boost and Grim Neigh to snowball very easily.
• Regenerator when combined with various defensive abilities, such as Fluffy and Ice Scales, makes teams impossible to break.

 

[Fishy79]

Does technician activate before tough claws?

 

[lilpup800]

Since everything was banned I am going to do a write-up. While I disagree on Regen ban as Fluffy and Ice Scales are the real problem plus the format is rich in wallbreakers(that can break 33% health, but not when all your damage is negated by 50+%) imo, I absolutely 100% support a Mag ban and my team here is why:

Assuming all mons enter the field, everyone will have the abilities: Soul-Heart(1), Beast Boost(2), Flash Fire(3), Regenerator(4), Rough Skin(5), and Levitate(6).

Magearna @ Assault Vest
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Fleur Cannon
- Flash Cannon
- Aura Sphere
- Volt Switch
This Mag set just tanks everything and I mean everything. Unless the opponent has a boosted physical attacker or +4 sp att mon, Magearna will tank attacks with room to spare. In combination with Flash Fire and Levitate, Mag has no weaknesses, 4 immunities, and 9 resistances meaning only a minority of types can hit Magearna effectively. Considering the mon will have acess to Rough Skin, it is risky for physical attackers(the ones that actually do damage to it) to hit Mag without taking it out as with Mag's general Rough Skin, other Rough Skin-Rocky Helmet switch-ins, and Regnerator to make long-term kills more difficult. Once Mag gets a kill, it will essentially recieve a Calm Mind boost, enhancing its special bulk and damage output. This allows the team to always have a fail-safe switch-in and pivot that benefits from regen and a switching move. Giving the ability Soul-Heart is also amazing and might actually make Mag better than many banned legends who only get pressure as viable abilities. Soul-Heart allows teams with Beast Boost or Special Neigh to recieve Nasty Plot boosts for every kill and partially eliminates the lack of boost when taking out opponents with Rough Skin-Rocky Helmet damage. Not to mention Mag just has amazing type coverage, and despite its lack of offensive investment, can still hit hard by exploiting easy weaknesses or Fleur Cannon nuking. The set here is optimized for bulk and all the mosts are staple STABs and coverage in addition to VoltTurn+Regen which is broken on something like this. This mon is broken it deserved to be banned and if I wrote this a couple hours earlier I would be asking for a ban, this doesn't even examine Mag's Shift Gear sets which can just run over teams.

Buzzwole @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 144 Def / 112 Spe
Impish Nature
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
- Roost
- Toxic
Buzzwole is a really cool pivot that heals, has a really nice typing, and donates an amazing ability that should be on every non-stall team in this meta due to its accessibility. Buzzwole's amazing physical bulk and already consistent healing in Drain Punch+Roost+Regen, make it a really great way to completely invalidate multi-hit teams and Shifu-R teams through Rough Skin-Rocky Helmet damage. Toxic helps Buzzwole slowly chip down opponents over the course of the game and deal with its overall low damage output due to its minimal investment. This was also my only way to deal with the people who would bring Shifu-S despite its ban. Buzzwole is meant to be a sponge that can hit Fighting weaknesses hard and provide a strong physical presence to a special-based team. Flash Fire makes Buzzwole a Heatran counter funnily enough which is important considering how prevalent Heatran is in the meta. Overall, a solid pick if you need a physical wall and have yet to add Beast Boost to your team like you should.

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 88 SpA / 168 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
Flash Fire, Heatran doesn't really do too much other than function as a mini-Mag that sets up rocks. Heatran is the best counter to Heatran, as Flash Fire+Levitate makes Heatran pretty useless. However, Heatran is a great way to supress Amoonguss, which is a common blanket Regen mon that was thrown on to teams(I now imagine it will see a lot less use). If the opponent doesn't carry Heatran or any viable Flash Fire user, since opponents love to switch out everything at the beginning of the game Magma Storm trapping is stupid good and taunting a Chansey or Blissey to death and setting up rocks simultameously is hilarious. The EVs are meant to specifically give Heatran the most amount of sp att while still recieving a sp def buff from Beast Boost. Rocks are pretty important in this format due to the prevalence of Multiscale users and general improved strength of switching out to an unused mon.

Slowbro @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Body Press
- Slack Off
- Teleport
Regen, Rough Skin-Rocky Helmet, Healing, Teleport, Soul-Heart Burn Fishing, Beast Boost Body Press, Ground immunity. You hate this and I do too.

Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Atk / 156 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Scale Shot
- Stealth Rock
- Swords Dance
Rough Skin setter, basically invalidates whole teams that either use a lot of contact moves or just lose to a Beast Boost variant of OU Garchomp. This Garchomp is basically a combo between sweeping Chomp and Tank Chomp which works REALLY well especially since people see you throw up rocks and assume you can't sweep them. Rocks are important to this team so I put rocks on Chomp rather than Stone Edge, Swords Dance is pretty obvious, but in tandem with Soul Heart, Fire Blast might be the better option since I really get to set that up. Scale Shot is a pretty cool move against Multiscale Dragonite and Weak Armor teams. A killing Scale Shot is a killing DDance in case you didn't figure that out. Chomp also single-handedly destroyes Electric Terrain teams which never plan for the Ground-type on contingency with anything other than "put energy ball on everything, that will show them!" It is true Levitate is a thing in this format, however Garchomp can fall back on being a rock setting tank or sacrifice itself for Rough Skin-Rocky Helmet damage. It also helps tha the best Levitate users barring maybe Rotom, cannot eat a Scale Shot so you can typically sac Garchomp for a kill if it is invalidated by an opponent's setup. Unfortunately, Garchomp is not as fast as it maybe should be without Scale Shot boosts but that is why the last member of the team exists:

Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- U-turn
This is thing is a fast revenge killer that the team needs and provides an important immunity, gets a Nasty Plot boost everytime it kills things, and works super well as a fast pivot. Draco Meteor not providing a Sp att drop is pretty cool, other than that Dark Pulse can sweep teams in the late game with Dark's amazing coverage, Hydreigon's raw power, rocks, the inevitable chip damage from Rough Skin-Rocky Helmet damage, and Nasty Plot glory kill boosts.

Overall, this team was really well balanced and wouldn't get auto-checkmated by certain teams(although hard rain was tough, but winnable).

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Does technician activate before tough claws?

Technician should activate after Tough Claws. Just ctrl+F "Tough Claws" and it'll bring you right to the relevant section.

 

[urkerab]

Does technician activate before tough claws?

Technician should activate after Tough Claws.

... although it doesn't currently seem to be coded like that...

 

[Dylanronpa]

Everyteam i've faced with quick draw and quick claw has come down to rng. Counterplay is super limited unless you're using stall for example. Most games just come down to rng battles and i believe it should be banned.