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As many of you know PokéLab generously includes the ability to battle with up to six Pokémon out at a time, among other reasons to make the implementation of Triple Battles easier. DP has nothing but 1v1 and 2v2 though, so anything above those numbers is simply a metagame that does not exist. But I think they can be fun to discuss. This thread will be about the most chaotic of them all, the 6v6 metagame. It's artificial, but just because it isn't real doesn't mean it's not possible!
When PokéLab was first being tested, 6v6 was very popular. Most people didn't play it with any rules at all and so far there hasn't been an official ruleset released. Since there's no Ladder for it either, I prefer to schedule my 6v6 matches with the rule set agreed upon beforehand. So actually, we should be talking about 6v6 metagames, in plural.
The main three rules that upset the balance of 6v6 if removed are Species Clause, Uber Clause and Sleep Clause. Many teams I've seen like to break all three. Personally, I think it would be more balanced to have all three intact. But in this thread, I think it's excusable to go over all possibilities.
The first archetype is probably the obvious Rain abuse. In battles with Ubers allowed, Kyogre is your obvious #1 Pokémon. Otherwise, I think the best choice is to go with Electrode with either Choice Scarf, Focus Sash or Lum Berry to set up Rain Dance.
Obvious partners for the Rain set-up are Kabutops, Ludicolo, Omastar, Toxicroak, and practically any other Swift Swimmer you can think of. It's easy come, easy go: just use your absurdly powerful Water attacks to crush the opposition. Surf hits everything on the field at once, which makes Specs sets really viable on some of these. Kabutops can make great use of Rock Slide, which also hits everything on the field and has a 27% chance of flinching an individual Pokémon (factoring in miss chance). In non-Species Clause games, I can see multiple Kabutops being a good idea. Teams that make use of physical attacks might want to put Haze on Omastar, so they can negate the threat of...
Intimidate teams. Intimidate reduces the Attack of every opponent on the field by one stage, and they stack. This was actually the first team I used and I loved it whenever it worked, even though it was silly. I used Staraptor, Arcanine and Gyarados as my Intimidators, and then Snorlax and Blissey to take advantage of the opponent's lowered Attack and their own high Special Defense. My final Pokémon was what I call a "tech": Azelf. Imprison/Explosion/Protect/Psychic I believe was what I ran, used to stop people from using Explosion and Protect, both of which could be annoying. The great thing about the Intimidators is that they pack moves that can kill Pokémon with Clear Body, most notably Metagross.
Either way, the idea of that team was to set up Curse Snorlax, while using Blissey to paralyze opponents with Thunder Wave and cleaning status with Aromatherapy. It was gimmickish, and possibly less successful than a team with more Intimidate. Keep in mind this team assumed the ban of Salamence, even though sometimes it ended up facing people with Kyogre and Darkrai.
Speaking of Darkrai, obviously without Sleep Clause there's no reason not to abuse Sleep to the maximum extend. Dark Void sleeps everything on the opponent's side, which allows you to do whatever they do not want you to. Choice Scarf Darkrai is a good idea since it will allow you to put enemies to sleep before they exploit Darkrai's relatively low defenses, or anything else on your team.
Another funny archetype is flinch abuse, hinted at with Kabutops in the rain. With Ubers allowed, a good Pokémon for this is Deoxys-S or Deoxys-A. As mentioned, Rock Slide hits all 6 opponents, and for each of them there's a 27% chance to flinch them with one Rock Slide. A single slower Pokémon facing six Rock Slides in a turn has about 15% chance of acting, which is disgustingly good. Of course, each of these Deoxys still has three moveslots remaining, which you can use for whatever you like. Maybe a coverage move such as Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Superpower (White Herb can be used to stop the attack loss) or Grass Knot to OHKO one of the opponents on the field. Personally I only used 5 Deoxys on my version, putting in one Darkrai that I could use in Sleep Clauseless games, plus Haze for against Intimidate teams. In non-Uber games, obviously Kabutops with Swift Swim can be abused for this, or else there's Aerodactyl.
And obviously there's Explosion, which pretty much kills everything on the field. It has some problems, but all of them can be worked around. Stop Protect with Imprison, kill Ghosts with Darkrai or Tyranitar, etc.
This is just the metagame as I perceive it, which might look very close-minded considering how few battles I've done as of yet. So please talk about your experiences!
Please, discuss away! When talking about a strategy, please provide the assumed ruleset to avoid confusion.
As many of you know PokéLab generously includes the ability to battle with up to six Pokémon out at a time, among other reasons to make the implementation of Triple Battles easier. DP has nothing but 1v1 and 2v2 though, so anything above those numbers is simply a metagame that does not exist. But I think they can be fun to discuss. This thread will be about the most chaotic of them all, the 6v6 metagame. It's artificial, but just because it isn't real doesn't mean it's not possible!
When PokéLab was first being tested, 6v6 was very popular. Most people didn't play it with any rules at all and so far there hasn't been an official ruleset released. Since there's no Ladder for it either, I prefer to schedule my 6v6 matches with the rule set agreed upon beforehand. So actually, we should be talking about 6v6 metagames, in plural.
The main three rules that upset the balance of 6v6 if removed are Species Clause, Uber Clause and Sleep Clause. Many teams I've seen like to break all three. Personally, I think it would be more balanced to have all three intact. But in this thread, I think it's excusable to go over all possibilities.
The first archetype is probably the obvious Rain abuse. In battles with Ubers allowed, Kyogre is your obvious #1 Pokémon. Otherwise, I think the best choice is to go with Electrode with either Choice Scarf, Focus Sash or Lum Berry to set up Rain Dance.
Obvious partners for the Rain set-up are Kabutops, Ludicolo, Omastar, Toxicroak, and practically any other Swift Swimmer you can think of. It's easy come, easy go: just use your absurdly powerful Water attacks to crush the opposition. Surf hits everything on the field at once, which makes Specs sets really viable on some of these. Kabutops can make great use of Rock Slide, which also hits everything on the field and has a 27% chance of flinching an individual Pokémon (factoring in miss chance). In non-Species Clause games, I can see multiple Kabutops being a good idea. Teams that make use of physical attacks might want to put Haze on Omastar, so they can negate the threat of...
Intimidate teams. Intimidate reduces the Attack of every opponent on the field by one stage, and they stack. This was actually the first team I used and I loved it whenever it worked, even though it was silly. I used Staraptor, Arcanine and Gyarados as my Intimidators, and then Snorlax and Blissey to take advantage of the opponent's lowered Attack and their own high Special Defense. My final Pokémon was what I call a "tech": Azelf. Imprison/Explosion/Protect/Psychic I believe was what I ran, used to stop people from using Explosion and Protect, both of which could be annoying. The great thing about the Intimidators is that they pack moves that can kill Pokémon with Clear Body, most notably Metagross.
Either way, the idea of that team was to set up Curse Snorlax, while using Blissey to paralyze opponents with Thunder Wave and cleaning status with Aromatherapy. It was gimmickish, and possibly less successful than a team with more Intimidate. Keep in mind this team assumed the ban of Salamence, even though sometimes it ended up facing people with Kyogre and Darkrai.
Speaking of Darkrai, obviously without Sleep Clause there's no reason not to abuse Sleep to the maximum extend. Dark Void sleeps everything on the opponent's side, which allows you to do whatever they do not want you to. Choice Scarf Darkrai is a good idea since it will allow you to put enemies to sleep before they exploit Darkrai's relatively low defenses, or anything else on your team.
Another funny archetype is flinch abuse, hinted at with Kabutops in the rain. With Ubers allowed, a good Pokémon for this is Deoxys-S or Deoxys-A. As mentioned, Rock Slide hits all 6 opponents, and for each of them there's a 27% chance to flinch them with one Rock Slide. A single slower Pokémon facing six Rock Slides in a turn has about 15% chance of acting, which is disgustingly good. Of course, each of these Deoxys still has three moveslots remaining, which you can use for whatever you like. Maybe a coverage move such as Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Superpower (White Herb can be used to stop the attack loss) or Grass Knot to OHKO one of the opponents on the field. Personally I only used 5 Deoxys on my version, putting in one Darkrai that I could use in Sleep Clauseless games, plus Haze for against Intimidate teams. In non-Uber games, obviously Kabutops with Swift Swim can be abused for this, or else there's Aerodactyl.
And obviously there's Explosion, which pretty much kills everything on the field. It has some problems, but all of them can be worked around. Stop Protect with Imprison, kill Ghosts with Darkrai or Tyranitar, etc.
This is just the metagame as I perceive it, which might look very close-minded considering how few battles I've done as of yet. So please talk about your experiences!
Please, discuss away! When talking about a strategy, please provide the assumed ruleset to avoid confusion.
