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Metagame Sketchmons

my turn

There are like 100000 turbobrokens so council (including ponchlake who just joined) is prepping a large banslate soonish. We hear your complaints and we're getting to them.

:torkoal::walking wake::leafeon::yanmega::kingambit::landorus-therian:

I built this quickly and yeah sun has goodstuffs (this team is half turbobrokens). Dragon Energy Wake with Scarf + Specs is a menace especially with tera and wish support. Leafeon seems ok as chlorophyll with fire coverage is pretty good as a sweeper. It loses pretty hard to dragonite but so do most teams lol.
 
Notagamer said:
Why not fire spin then, the biggest fire immunity (heatran) can’t take salt cure and it can hit flyings
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the fact that its mew or even this specific moveset is completely irrelevant, you just need to naturally learn a trapping move and taunt, and then sketch salt cure. perish song could theoretically work as well at the cost of losing even more utility vs offense since you cant chip them into priority range

this is purely a stallbreaker for cheese setup teams that get shut down by unaware
 
Kingambit @ Leftovers
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpDef
Careful Nature
- Bulk Up
- Sucker Punch
- Kowtow Cleave
- Low Kick

After one or two Bulk Ups, this thing is totally unkillable. Tera Fighting + Low Kick gives you an option vs Tera Normal Dragonite and Ting Lu; it also totally whacks heavier defensive options like Great Tusk after some teammates have died. Tera Ghost or Tera Fairy are more valid defensive Tera options.
 
Peaked at number 18 and I doubt I am going any higher, so I would like to agree with the sentiment banding around that Dragonite and Dondozo are overpowered. If they can get an idiot like me up that high, there's probably something wrong.

But so I can add something new to the conversation, been having fun and surprising success with this set.


Ronin (Samurott-Hisui) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 8 HP / 252 Atk / 248 SpD
Careful Nature
- Ceaseless Edge
- Bitter Blade
- Aqua Jet
- Aqua Cutter

I still believe Assault Vest Hamurott is good, and a Sharpness boosted Bitter Blade further augmented by Tera to cover its normal weaknesses can provide it with the sustain it would otherwise lack. You're probably better off running Ting Lu or Great Tusk if you want a dedicated hazard setter, but this could be a better fit for rain teams, or those that want a backup spikes setter. (Usually ended up putting in more work than the Tusk for me anyway)
 
U Turn Slaking to enable strong pivot plus diamond storm amnesia dudunsparce to mimic Arceus Psychic stored power body press sets

Toxtricity @ Wide Lens
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 216 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Shift Gear
- Wild Charge
- Gunk Shot
- Triple Axel

Slaking @ Choice Band
Ability: Truant
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Body Slam
- Giga Impact
- Earthquake
- U-turn

Breloom @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Seed
- Mach Punch
- Jet Punch

Arcanine-Hisui @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Rock Head
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Head Smash
- Brave Bird
- Extreme Speed

Hydreigon @ Chople Berry
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Flash Cannon

Dudunsparce-Three-Segment @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Diamond Storm
- Amnesia
- Body Press
- Stored Power
 
CigSig said:
U Turn Slaking to enable strong pivot plus diamond storm amnesia dudunsparce to mimic Arceus Psychic stored power body press sets

Toxtricity @ Wide Lens
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 216 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Shift Gear
- Wild Charge
- Gunk Shot
- Triple Axel

Slaking @ Choice Band
Ability: Truant
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Body Slam
- Giga Impact
- Earthquake
- U-turn

Breloom @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Seed
- Mach Punch
- Jet Punch

Arcanine-Hisui @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Rock Head
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Head Smash
- Brave Bird
- Extreme Speed

Hydreigon @ Chople Berry
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Flash Cannon

Dudunsparce-Three-Segment @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Diamond Storm
- Amnesia
- Body Press
- Stored Power
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Maybe nitpicking, might want to run Volt Tackle over Brave Bird on Arcanine. That move really needs better distribution.
 
Hello I am on the council now and we held a vote and these are the results..

:SV/Pelipper: :SV/Dragonite: :SV/Sylveon:
Terastallization, Damp Rock, Lilligant-Hisui, Dragonite, Walking Wake, and Dondozo BANNED from Sketchmons. Jet Punch, Torch Song, and Boomburst are RESTRICTED from Sketchmons​
EggsInstructCareer EndedPonchlakeResult:
TerastallizaionBanBanBanBanBan
Damp RockBanBanAbstainBanBan
Zoroark-HisuiDo Not BanDo Not BanAbstainDo Not BanDo Not Ban
Lilligant-HisuiBanBanAbstainBanBan
DragoniteBanBanAbstainBanBan
YanmegaDo Not BanDo Not BanAbstainBanDo Not Ban
Walking WakeBanBanAbstainBanBan
DondozoBanBanAbstainBanBan
FalinksDo Not BanDo Not BanAbstainDo Not BanDo Not Ban
Jet PunchBan
Ban		AbstainBanBan
Torch SongBanBanAbstainBanBan
BoomburstBanBanAbstainBanBan

Bans:

Terastallization:
This is a bit of a no brainer. You got access to nearly every set up option and offensive move in the game, so being able to use your Tera to gain STAB on one on your sketch allowed for some pretty ridiculous strategies that are almost impossible to check or actually see coming. Aside from that it is the usual Tera shenanigans. We're banning it to hopefully reduce the craziness present in the tier.

Damp Rock:
Rain is one of the strongest offensive playstyles right now with an abundance of abusers like Thunderous-T, Ogerpon-W, Crawdaunt, Basculegion, etc. etc. There isn't a shortage of powerful Water types that can abuse rain to spam powerful attacks like Water Spout or Steam Eruption among many others. This archetype was too powerful for our liking so we're going to hit Damp Rock and go from there. If the problem persists and then we will hit Drizzle instead and unban Damp Rock.

Lilligant-Hisui:
Flower Trick + Victory Dance is obnoxiously powerful, especially with Flower Trick ignoring Hustle's accuracy check. It completely chunks anything that doesn't resist it and even then Lilligant has the coverage to hit those resists with Close Combat and Ice Spinner. Only Skeledirge can fully take on Lilligant-Hisui. Aside from the Flower Trick set, it was a powerful Chlorophyll sweeper that had many options for what it could possibly run.

Dragonite:
Yeah, you don't need me to explain to you why Dragonite is broken even without Tera. Multiscale + Dragon Dance and your choice of STAB in Glaive Rush or Dragon Ascent. Or SD to abuse Extreme Speed or just Tidy Up? It was far too powerful offensively and defensive checks struggled to check it due to its bulk.

Dondozo:
Dondozo did too well of a job blanking physical attackers with its insane bulk and Unaware. It just shut teams down on the spot if you had no way of dealing with it. It also formed incredibly oppressive defensive cores when paired with Blissey and other mons like Skeledirge. Outside of stall it was just too oppressive of a wall that could set up and sweep.

Restrictions:

Jet Punch:
Everything about this move is insane. 60BP with Water typing makes the strongest priority move outside of Extreme Speed. Even with Tera gone there are far too many abusers of this, and Water priority is too powerful of a tool on the abundance of offensive threats we have.

Torch Song:
This will still be legal on Skeledirge, but you can no longer use it as a Sketch. Fire is fantastic offensive coverage for a lot of mons. The added bonus of being able to scale your Special Attack while you do damage made it incredibly difficult to check offensive threats spamming Torch Song without Blissey or an Unaware mon.

Boomburst:
Same deal with Torch Song where it will be usable for native users. A free 140BP move with 0 drawbacks is insane period. Sylveon and Zoroark-Hisui were extremely difficult to check due to the sheer damage from Choice Specs Boomburst. The latter was especially difficult due to Illusion, meaning you had to guess whether or not it was actually Zoroark, potentially leading you to lose something to a Boomburst.

Kris tagging to implement
 
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https://pokepast.es/43abe8c414f498c0

My first attempt at making a team. Covert Cloak corv is good for everyone who's running Salt Cure and toxic is nice and cheesy. Eruption iron moth murders stuff. Tidy up zarude is a nice cleaning mon, good vs status spam too. If someone can suggest something to do with my Chomper that's better than bitter blade I will be pleased, I came up with the set last night and woke up to find Tera banned so no Tera Fire for it. U turn clef is nice and solid, likewise with recover Rothomas.
 
1701729879968.png


Hello everybody! I've been playing on the side as a way to distract from my finals and managed to peak the ladder yesterday and figured I would share some thoughts on the meta.

First, I'm glad Jet Punch, Dondozo, Tera and Dragonite were banned - I think it was completely necessary (especially Dragonite). Currently the metagame is built around hazards stacking and offensive teams. In that regard it's not a whole lot different from OU. I'm not sure if this is a good thing, or what should be done about it. It might be too early to tell, especially with the bans shaking up the metagame. I liked how the SP council handled community feedbacks and would welcome any surveys to assess the state of the metagame. Looking forward to playing more in the coming month.

Anyways, here is the team

I built the team to counter the prevelance of hazard stacking offense in the current metagame, especially webs, while also stacking my own hazards. The strategy is to put your opponent in a position where we either get hazards up or we punch big holes in the opponents team. Electrode-H and Ogerpon are surprisingly efficient at punishing your opponents attempts to play around them. I would usually lead Electrode-H, set up webs/taunt, and then spam Chloroblast (150 BP Baby) until it died. Ogerpon can then be brought out and continue the hammering with Ivy Cudgle & Taunt being quite difficult to play around. The end result is that we've either got hazards up, prevented their hazards from getting up or we've weakened their team.

After which you can bring out one of the four wallbreakers to mop up the rest of their team.

1701778741843.png


Acts as an offensive check to physical threats (King Gambit, other grounds etc) and a backup taunt user to break stall.
After a swords dance there's very little that can handle STAB Ground + Flying coverage.

1701778753022.png


Suicide lead 1

1701778779410.png


Suicide lead 2

1701778770514.png


Good old King Gambit, functions exactly like it down in OU with the added benefit of Knock off.

1701778788823.png


Thank god this thing got banned, absolutely broken. With Multiscale and the potential to tera normal there's pretty much nothing that can stop this thing from getting up a Swords Dance, from there +2 STAB Extreme Speed cleans house.

1701778798062.png


I added Moth on a whim so I had something that could switch into Gholdengo and accidentally stumbled on this amazing set. If your opponent doesn't have priority, Heatran or Blissey then this thing is a massive threat. Boosting your speed and special attack while firing of strong attacks is amazing versus offense and balance teams. Life orb makes it hit like a truck, but Heavy Dute Boots/Assault Vest are also viable options.

That's the team, thanks for sharing.
 

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Imperator Romanum said:
I liked how the SP council handled community feedbacks and would welcome any surveys to assess the state of the metagame.
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You can expect one in sometime a week from now or so. Unless there are any drastic meta changes that require more immediate tiering action, we want to give it time for the meta to develop and for people to play.

Triangles said:
If someone can suggest something to do with my Chomper that's better than bitter blade I will be pleased, I came up with the set last night and woke up to find Tera banned so no Tera Fire for it.
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Strength Sap is an option (aside from keeping Bitter Blade or putting Pyro Ball) that can give you sustainability and allow you to set up on bulky defensive answers like Landorus-T or Corviknight if they lack any real ways of forcing you out. You can swap out Leftovers for Loaded Dice for consistent 4 hits as well too. Icicle Spear is also a neat option for Landorus-T and Great Tusks. It's not as great into Corviknight (3HKO at +2 and 2HKO at +4).

Anyways quick watchlist from me:

:SV/Torkoal: :SV/Pincurchin:
Rain has been nerfed, so maybe we might see these strategies rise in usage. Heat Rock is untouched but Sun did lose two powerful mons in Walking Wake and Hilligant but it's not like they don't have plenty of other options they could explore. Iron Hands, Iron Valiant, and Iron Moth (along with the new Paradox mons we'll get in DLC sometime this month) could make E-Terrain a threat in the meta. Though their options are more limited than Sun I feel, as well as the fact that I feel like Sun is easier to build.

:SV/Iron Valiant: :SV/Iron Moth:
Speaking of which these two are pretty powerful. I don't think you need me to go into all that much detail about it. They're fast and do a lot of damage with high BP moves that they natively have or can Sketch onto their moveset while also being able to Sketch tech options to complement their already near perfect base kits.

:SV/Ogerpon-Wellspring:
Losing Tera means it's more difficult now to check Ogerpon-W defensively given its coverage in tandem with its variety of Sketch moves even post Jet Punch ban. I'm hoping Jet Punch ban is enough to curb how crazy it is, but I'm personally keeping an eye on this. The coverage on this is quite insane really and Water Absorb is a really great ability to have since you can passively check Waters. Flower Trick and Surging Strikes are no brainer on it atp, but I honestly feel like it does have the option to explore other moves like Dragon Dance, Tidy Up, Grav Apple, Headlong Rush for Toxapex, etc. etc.

:SV/Gholdengo:
With how easy it is to get up hazards, Gholdengo is an absolute nuisance due to blocking Defog, Rapid Spin, and Mortal Spin. It is a lot easier to remove hazards in this tier than most others due to Tidy Up being readily available or Mortal/Rapid Spin being an option for powerful threats that can force out Gholdengo like Landorus-T or Iron Moth. Even so Gholdengo hampering hazard removal the way it does and forcing removal on specific mons is annoying without even getting other aspects of it.

:SV/Kingambit:
This feels fine right now, but I have my eyes on it in just about every meta it's in since it can very easily get out of control. Landorus-T and Corviknight are two of most common answers for it, and all it takes is for someone to run Fire coverage or Defiant to just ruin your day. I think this thing is in a good spot as of right now though even if you run into the odd ball Defiant Kingambit that just farms your Lando-T. I think Kingambit wants one too many moves and it just makes it liable to MU's. Bullet Punch, Behemoth Blade (Blade > Bash. Argue with your fridge), Knock Off are all options but we could see people explore other things.

You all are welcome to share your thoughts on things as well (we'd encourage it even).
 
I’m just a tad bit concerned about how there’s no limit to how many recovery moves can be sketched at a time, with multiple team members simply just using something like slack off or shore up instead of recover, should it already be taken
 
Chlorophyll + STAB Eruption + your second STAB blows up Water or Rock-types trying to eat Eruption. Dragons exist, but outside Goodra-K nothing can actually take it except Fire-immunes.
 
I would like to formally apologize to the stall haters of this fun OM but Instruct allowed me to share their amazing team that is doing pretty well on the ladder that got me to top 10 pretty quickly so here's the team, everything's gonna be in spoilers so I don't take up too much space:
:sv/ting-lu: :sv/clefable: :sv/corviknight: :sv/blissey: :sv/toxapex: :sv/skeledirge:
(click duh)
Some primary changes I made from the original paste is just putting boots on everything because hazard spam right now is pretty strong.
:ting-lu: Ting-lu's a great wall in general, annoying volt switch users that annoy stall and just getting up Spikes incredibly easy versus things that it walls and Whirlwind to remove setup sweepers or abuse hazards. Shore up allows it to stay healthy a lot easier than it should ever be.

:clefable: Kind of a glue. Magic Guard lets Clefable absorb knock in this team and bypasses hazards and answers most Garganacl sets, which otherwise run over this team. Sap Sipper lets it heal on some really strong physical attackers and isn't weather dependent and has 16 PP so it's definitely a good move to run.

:corviknight: This is here to block the super common Mortal Spin running around right now, with Body Press to hit normals and Kingambit and Clear Smog to act as a check to certain Calm Mind and sweepers in general that have a way aroundthe rest of the team, but it can also be something like Haze or Cotton Guard with a few changes.

:toxapex: Salt cure is an incredibly strong progress tool, so here's standard Toxapex with no Scald but a more consistent way to get passive damage. This is generally the mon that scouts everything, with boots to keep safe from hazards.

:skeledirge: An interesting set Hizo came up with, though I can't say that I've found a use where it actually sweeps the mon itself is important regardless. The idea here is Take Heart to remove status and abuse Unaware to other Calm Mind mons and potentially sweep or cause an unwanted answer. Also blocks normal rapid spin for the team though a lot of the users tend to beat it.

:blissey: The star of the show perhaps? Infernal Parade is a good shutdown vs ghost setup sweepers, and threatens burn on them along with physical attackers trying to switch into Blissey. With Calm Mind, you can keep up with stuff like Nasty Plot Gholdengo fairly easily and you can pretty much stall special attackers for days.
:Pelipper: :Barraskewda: :Basculegion: Rain spam is pretty difficult to play against because you have to over rely on Toxapex for everything and once thats gone you are pretty much screwed. Luckily Toxapex CAN force progress decently well vs this team, but you will definitely have to make some plays and stack hazards early. Sun could potentially do the same with some fire type spam in Drought or an extremely strong breaker, but is more manageable due to these teams hating Stealth Rock and Spikes a lot more.

:ogerpon-wellspring: :ogerpon-cornerstone: Yeah, so they just come in SD and now the whole team is in trouble, since they can Encore whatever is out into something useless and get a SD for free. The play is usually to try and land hazard damage on them early and then Salt Cure them immediately with Toxapex and maybe sack something (Cornerstone takes less damage from Salt Cure, so it's more likely), otherwise say goodbye to your whole team.

:Hoopa-Unbound: :Great-Tusk: Strong Physical breakers that can setup and beat Skeledirge will usually win vs this team, like the Ogerpon's above but also things like Life Orb Great Tusk or Hoopa-Unbound if it is prepared to hit Ting-Lu. Playing this team makes me actually want to run Swords Dance Hoopa-Unbound, but nobody besides me on the ladder has ran stall so it would probably suck.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sketchmons-2005588134
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sketchmons-2005593188?p2 (over 150 turns)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sketchmons-2005049358?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sketchmons-2005548552?p2 (salt)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sketchmons-2005564471?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sketchmons-2006269277
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sketchmons-2006309481?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sketchmons-2006325383?p2

So thanks again for Instruct Hizo for the team, definitely got a lot of salt on the ladder from it.

top1sketch.jpg


edit: Added a lot more replays and updated peak because why not~
 

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Went over the banlist, one thing made me really confused- why is Scovillain of all things banned? Was eruption chlorophyll just too much?
 
We're back with another ban already..

:SV/Gholdengo:
Gholdengo and Razor Fang are BANNED from Sketchmons ​
EggsInstructPonchlakeCareer EndedResult:
GholdengoBanBanBanAbstainBan

I already touched upon this earlier today in my watchlist post (I wasn't expecting to actually vote on anything today), but the current hazards meta is quite oppressive with anyone gaining the ability to set up any entry hazard of their choice (Spikes, Stealth Rock, Sticky Web, Sticky Web) while native users can bolster their hazard setting abilities by Sketching more hazards (Ribombee and Glimmora come to mind) or by increasing their longevity or utility (Shore Up Ting Lu for instance or Knock Off). And almost on every single one of those teams you're going to see Gholdengo for its ability to shutdown all but a couple forms of hazard removal (Tidy Up and Court Change). Though you do have the luxury of putting on either on any one mon to counteract this, it's not ideal for every team nor should it be required. Tidy Up is essentially just Defog + Dragon Dance, but not every team can easily fit on Tidy Up or wants to run it. Court Change is a short term solution if you can't prevent your opponent from getting up more hazards once you Court Change while also deterring you from setting up your own hazards. Forcing mons to run less optimal Sketchs just to deal with hazard stack is less than ideal and comes across as unbalanced and oppressive to us. This was a problem prior to our first voting slate, but the hazard stack problem only ballooned up post bans. For that we're banning Gholdengo with hopes that it'll create more breathing room for hazard removal going forward.


:SV/Grimmsnarl: :SV/Ninetales-Alola: :SV/Ribombee:
Additionally, we have a quick announcement: We're currently looking at hyper offense playstyles, namely Sticky Web and Screens. With DLC coming out in a week, we're going to be flooded with an influx of new Pokemon as well as new moves that we will need to keep an eye on in addition to what we're currently looking at. The concept of Sketchmons getting allowing you to pick almost any one move for your Pokemon means sweepers are common but unpredictable to face. This is abundantly obvious as is in our current meta only 5 days in, and we're only expecting things to ramp up as people continue to explore the meta and once DLC drops. Screens and Webs bring out the full potential of HO, and for that reason the council is keeping an eye out on the both Sticky Web and Light Clay in the upcoming days and will make a decision on both prior to the DLC drop. Because of this we would like everyone to post their thoughts on this before we take any further action, as well as anything else you think we may need to look at.

Also, I understand we've made a lot of tiering decisions in a very short period of time and it's only the start of the month, but with DLC right around the corner we would like to clean things up sooner rather than later in preparation for the release. The meta will be flipped on its head, but we don't doubt that a lot of the things we've banned would have remained a problem anyways. We plan to release a survey once DLC has released and we've taken sufficient action on the brokens that came with the DLC. This will give you all the chance to guide our tiering going forward, which includes potentially unbanning or unrestricting something.

EDIT: Razor Fang is banned for being a King's Rock clone (which is currently banned).

Kris tagging to implement
 
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