The Color Change Metagame

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The Color Change Metagame


Now Playable on Joim's Lab!

Hiya, Eagle4 here! So I've been lurking on this part of the forums, posting here and there. I really wanted to contribute a little more to this forum though, so I submitted an idea to Arcticblast (after mentioning the idea on #pokemon, where it recieved praise) and hey, whadd'ya know, it was approved. The idea is simple on paper; each Pokemon will lose their current ability, having it swapped with a more... versatile ability. That ability is Color Change (obviously). Let's take a look at what Smogon says about Color Change:

Smogon University said:
After all hits from a damaging attack by another Pokemon, the wielder's type will change to the type of that move. Moves affected by Sheer Force do not activate Color Change. This ability will not activate if the wielder is behind a Substitute.

Please note that Toxic won't turn the opposing pokemon to a Poison type, Thunder Wave won't turn the opposing pokemon to an electric type, etc. Only damaging moves. So, what will this change cause in the metagame? Well, I'll say the more obvious ones for now, and let you guys theorymon with the rest of it.


1) Pokemon who rely on their ability are now rendered useless, or weakened to a considerable amount.
The main culprit here is Shedinja, but there are also a whole bunch of OU Pokemon which would drop in usage: Scizor,Espeon, Hippowdon, Cloyster and others wouldn't work as well in this environment, simply because their ability is gone in replace of Color Change.


2) Dragons and Ghosts are extremely dangerous.
The answer to why this is the case is obvious; Dragons are weak to Dragons, Ghosts are weak to Ghosts. Stick a Choice Scarf on a Dragon with Outrage would wreck a lot of Pokemon due to the opposing Pokemon turning Dragon type on the second turn. Of course, there are specific ways of countering this so that this technique doesn't become too broken; priority moves would take off the STAB from Outrage, Steel types can come in on the Outrage once one of your pokemon have fainted, and wall it for one turn before dealing damage, taking the STAB off. Furthermore, Protect and Substitute would help in countering the attacks. Which leads to my next point...

3) Substitute...Substitute everywhere...
One of the points of Color Change is that it doesn't activate through a substitute. Therefore, you can retain STAB whilst setting up through a sub. This could lead to sweeps, for example, as having STAB is very important (especially in this metagame where STAB would be non-existent).

4) Hectic, Hyper-Offensive, Hurried (The Three Hs)
This metagame will certainly give no breathing space. Playing with one Kecleon is hectic enough, where you have to predict what move to switch to, try and retain STAB, etc. Why Hyper-Offense? Well, stall won't be effective since you're using your superior typing on the first turn, meaning you could be threatened by the Pokemon you were countering in the space of one turn. Hurried? STAB is extremely important in this metagame, so if you can be the first Pokemon to fire off a STAB attack, it will not only deal more damage, but it will take the STAB off the opposing pokemon. Speed is also vital for setting up a substitute before losing your STAB.

Okay, so now I've talked about some major points of this metagame, let's get down to some of the movesets. Two Pokemon in particular that I want to be talking about:


Heatran @ Expert Belt
Trait: Color Change
4HP/252SpA/252Spe
Modest Nature (+SpA,-Atk)
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power Ice

If Heatran stays in long enough, then it is guaranteed to pull off at least one super-effective move. Aside from Gyarados, not 1 pokemon can resist all 4 of these moves (Rotom-W loses Levitate). Furthermore, this moveset can be used in a chain-like fashion, with Flash Cannon -> Fire Blast -> Earth Power -> HP Ice -> Flash Cannon etc. Expert Belt would be boosting all of these moves throughout.


Hitmonlee @ Expert Belt/Focus Sash
Trait: Color Change
4HP/252Atk/252Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk,-SpA)
- Mach Punch
- Fake Out
- Sucker Punch
- Close Combat/Bullet Punch

Using the power of priority, this Pokemon would serve as a great counter to a fair portion of the metagame. Fake Out (Which is a great move to use in this metagame) would automatically eliminate the Pokemon's STAB (Providing that it's not Normal type, although you can just Mach Punch/Close Combat the normal type in this instance), as well as guaranteeing you to keep your STAB the next turn, unless the opposing pokemon is behind a substitute. Then, once the Pokemon is normal type, you can just Mach Punch/Close Combat. Furthermore, you can Sucker Punch Ghost-types as well as other Pokemon which would not expect the Sucker Punch, and then Mach Punch/Close Combat the next turn. Bullet Punch could also be used in conjunction with your Fighting type move.

List of Banned Pokemon
Regigigas
Slaking

The only reason these two aren't uber is because of their ability letting them down. Take that away, and they're monsters.

List of Unbanned Pokemon
Blaziken
Excadrill
Manaphy

On the other hand, these pokemon are only Uber due to their ability, and so can now be unbanned.

Testable
Kyurem-B
Any Dragon Type + Choice Scarf

Mainly because I feel that Dragons could become a little too strong in this metagame, where Dragons can storm through anything, restricting the versatility of teams. Ghost types aren't as strong due to the lack of a super-strong Ghost type move, as well as a Normal type's immunity to Ghost.

Also I'd like to pose 1 question to you:

Do you think that Ghost and Dragon type Pokemon will be overpowered in this particular environment? What ways are there to stop it?

Okay, that's all from me, I hope you like the idea of this metagame! Theorymon away!
 
Well, I'd like to disagree re Slaking and Regigigas. Kyu-B has higher stats than both but it isn't Uber at all.
As for stopping Dragon-types, one has a simple solution: use Weavile. Weavile is BEAST. It's bad typing suddenly becomes AMAZING because it can sweep every dragon in the tier with a LO Set.
Speaking of which, weather teams are severely nerfed here because of no auto-weather.
I'd like to see a test for Kyurem-W - I think it might make the cut in this tier as OU because of it being heavily nerfed.
 
Well, I'd like to disagree re Slaking and Regigigas. Kyu-B has higher stats than both but it isn't Uber at all....
I'd like to see a test for Kyurem-W - I think it might make the cut in this tier as OU because of it being heavily nerfed.
Kyurem-B is in OU because of it's awful movepool, not because of it's beastly stats. Slaking and Regigigas don't have the same problems. Their much wider movepools, which include things like the E-Punches, Sucker Punch, etc. would serve them extremely well in this meta, if they weren't banned. They could run a similar set to the Heatran in the OP with Earthquake, Ice Punch, Fire Punch, and Return/Slack Off/Rock Polish/whatever. Banning them seems like the right thing to do.

Also, Kyurem-W hasn't been nerfed. It's ability only negated certain effects of other abilities, which don't have any distribution in this metagame. In fact, it could be argued that it got buffed, as Color Change could get rid of it's normal debilitating weaknesses.

Anyway, this meta looks interesting and I'm looking forward to trying it. I expect any 'mon that can get a 3 move cycle of SE coverage, (i.e. Fire->Grass->Water, or Fighting->Rock->Flying, etc) will have a major advantage over its competition in this meta, as they can use E-Belt to it's full potential, while having an extra slot for a filler move.

EDIT: Actually, 3 move cycles may not be as great as I first thought. While those might be effective for those that lack either Ghost/Dragon moves or the stats to use the ones they have, there are far more of those cycles than I originally anticipated, and expect most Pokemon to have at least one of those cycles available to them, so they won't give anything much of an "edge" over their competition. Ghost and Dragon provide the same sort of benefit I was thinking of, but leave 3 open slots instead of one. Those will obviously be the most common types of attacks in this meta.

Do you think that Ghost and Dragon type Pokemon will be overpowered in this particular environment? What ways are there to stop it?
The first way that comes to mind is Disable. The next would be to run lots priority (Shadow Sneak or Bullet Punch+Mach Punch seem like your best options in that regard).

Also, I think that Manaphy, Thundurus-I, and Tornadus-T should also become unbanned. The main thing that made each of these uber, as far as I'm aware, were their abilities and/or great power in perma rain. Now that both of those are gone, they should be allowed back in. Possibly Genesect as well, for the same reasons.
 

EV

Banned deucer.
Fast Subbers and Taunters are gonna be really important methinks.

Attacking cores:
Fighting/Rock/Flying

Close Combat/Sacred Sword//Rock Slide/Stone Edge//Aerial Ace

Drain Punch/Hi Jump Kick//Rock Slide/Stone Edge//Acrobatics/Aerial Ace

Psychic/Fighting/Dark

Psychic//Focus Blast//Foul Play/HP Dark

Extrasensory//Focus Blast//Dark Pulse/Night Daze

Electric/Water/Ground

Thunderbolt//Hydro Pump//HP Ground

ThunderPunch//Aqua Tail//Earthquake

Mean Look on Ghosts could work?


-Mean Look
-Shadow Ball
-Substitute
-Disable
 
DD Lum Berry Dragonite/Salamence should have some fun here. Fire Punch/Fire Blast can be easily followed by Earthquake while Outrage starts hitting SE after 1 hit.
 

Level 51

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I think an important thing to note in this metagame is that in order to take full advantage of Color Change, you need to land two hits. Frail stuff like Alakazam/Archeops/Zoroark isn't gonna be very good for this... I guess you could center a team around one of the offense cores that The_Eevee_General mentioned, those seem kinda good. Furthermore, super-effective hits do not equate KOs; for this reason, really bulky things like Regigigas and Registeel have good advantages. Regigigas OP much??

STAB is also gonna be a major player in this meta. Considering that most Pokemon won't get the benefits of it because their types will be changed, a STAB hit will do (comparatively) a ton of damage.

Can't wait to try this meta out; great job Eagle4 n_n
 
Scarf dragons will be way too good. Scarf kyu-b,garchomp,mence,latios and friends will tear everything a new one with no counters.

Also technitop with fake out.
 
Mienshao is in the same boat as TechniTop, it doesnt have Mach Punch but it has better attacking stats and speed.

U-turn should be good as well. You can use some U-Turners along side a group of strong Fire/Rock/Flying attackers and force a whole lot of switches, especially because both Fire & Flying can be followed up by a Rock attack. A fast U-Turner will most likely take away the STABs of the opposing pokemon and leave it with a mediocre defensive typing.

Volt Switch will be less good because Electric only has one weakness, altho Earthquake is commonly distributed.
 
You need to remember that Hitmontop loses its ability in replace of Color Change! That's why I chose Hitmonlee instead of Hitmontop for the OP: It has a better attacking stat as well as access to all of Hitmontop's most used moves (except Rapid Spin).
I'll unban Manaphy as it too is in Ubers mainly because of its ability (Tail Glow as well, but moreso its ability).

@Level51: Thanks for the compliment! Regarding Regigigas being OP, it's in the list of banned pokemon for this metagame.
 
So this pretty much makes shedinja 100% useless then.
Also, I'm guessing Archeops won't be very op in this metagame, as it can't really switch in on any attacks, and if the enemy has a sub up they could probably do some good damage to him. I doubt he'll be useless, but not necessarily overpowered. Of course, I could be wrong.
 

Joim

Pixels matter
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I implemented this meta in my server, feel free to play it and point out any bugs you see!
 
Kyurem-B is in OU because of it's awful movepool, not because of it's beastly stats. Slaking and Regigigas don't have the same problems. Their much wider movepools, which include things like the E-Punches, Sucker Punch, etc. would serve them extremely well in this meta, if they weren't banned. They could run a similar set to the Heatran in the OP with Earthquake, Ice Punch, Fire Punch, and Return/Slack Off/Rock Polish/whatever. Banning them seems like the right thing to do.
Awful movepool? The fact that I can just slap a Choice Band on Kyurem-B and spam Outrage shows how absurdly good it is in this tier(as is Scarf Garchomp).
Kyurem-B also has Fusion Bolt, another powerful move.
Sure, Slaking has a good movepool but there are more powerful threats out there like Kyurem-B.
 

scorpdestroyer

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I actually think that Kyurem-B is powerful enough to be tested. Absolutely nothing can switch into it because anything that does gets destroyed next turn. Scarf sets would mean that faster scarfers have to be relied on, and Kyu-B's high Attack stay means it can afford to invest in bulk to sponge Mach Punches which probably won't KO due to lack of STAB. You can't use Fake Out because Kyurem-B is unlocked from Outrage and can switch. The possible lack of Stealth Rock in this meta (it's so incredibly offensive that there's hardly time to setup) means that Kyurem-B can switch in and out without fear. Its barren movepool makes no difference here because it can just spam Outrage without repercussions. In fact, Scarf users that aren't dragons are almost nonexistent in this meta because self-locking into a non-dragon or ghost move isn't a good idea here. This means the only way to check it is faster dragons (ScarfChomp, ScarfLati@s) who have to come in after a teammate dies. Thus, something dies when Kyurem-B comes in. We should probably put Kyurem-B on top of our priority list for suspecting because it is buffed considerably in this meta.

Tl;dr:
-Kyurem-B is damn powerful
-Kyurem-B's Scarf set can decimate anything that isn't ScarfChomp or ScarfLati@s
-Kyurem-B is much bulkier due to dwindling popularity of SR and can afford to invest in bulk

Other thoughts:

U-Turn will be very powerful here. With U-Turn, not only are you able to gain momentum, you also instantly turn the opponent into a bug-type which is horrible defensively and is easily exploited.

Ghost-types not only become powerful since ghosts are weak to ghosts, they also check Mienshao and Hitmonlee pretty well if they avoid Sucker Punch with a sub because immunities don't work with Color Change, plus a free sub is the best thing ever in this meta.
 
How will Meloetta work with Relic Song?
Since it's not the ability to make her change the form and typing, will Relic Song "reset" Change Color and thus give her Normal/Fight or will she still have the typing change by the ability?
 
How will Meloetta work with Relic Song?
Since it's not the ability to make her change the form and typing, will Relic Song "reset" Change Color and thus give her Normal/Fight or will she still have the typing change by the ability?
Nice question!
To be honest, I have no clue. What I speculate though is that either:
a) Relic Song will be banned, but instead you can directly start with Meloetta-P instead of having to go through that ANNOYING process where Ghost types wall you.
b) Relic Song will override Color Change and make it a Normal/Fighting, but after that the next move that hits Meloetta-P will change it according to tyoe

Also, I think Weavile will be annoying as hell, changing stuff to Ice type and pummeling them.
 
Okay so I'm putting into testable:

Kyurem-B
Any Dragon + Choice Scarf

Mainly because I feel that Dragons could become a little too strong in this metagame, where Dragons can storm through anything, restricting the versatility of teams. Ghost types aren't as strong due to the lack of a super-strong Ghost type move, as well as a Normal type's immunity to Ghost.

Weavile would be good in this metagame, although its frailness certainly lets it down.

(Archeops has also been removed from testable, since it is too frail for it to work to its full potential in this metagame).
 
Voltturn is gonna wreck in my opinion. Getting initiative with U-turn while giving your opponent a poor defensive typing of Bug and nerfing their STAB is awesome. Volt Switch is still good as well, though to a much lesser extent since Electric typing is only weak to Ground.

I could see it being one of the best playstyles in the meta.
 

Snaquaza

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I think we will can use random bulky (and a high attacking stat) pokemon with good dragon moves, as the type is probably changed whatever before they KO (removing STAB), as the first hit is not SE yet, so maybe something like Heatran can spam Dragon Pulse easily as it is bulky and powerful
 

EV

Banned deucer.
I think we will can use random bulky (and a high attacking stat) pokemon with good dragon moves, as the type is probably changed whatever before they KO (removing STAB), as the first hit is not SE yet, so maybe something like Heatran can spam Dragon Pulse easily as it is bulky and powerful
I was thinking Heatran, too, but it can't switch into Dragon because then next turn it dies to SE Dragon and it's too slow. It can switch in after a teammate faints, though.

In the lab we were theorymonning a bit and thought of a nice Dragon check who should look familiar:

Ice Shard -> Iron Head -> EQ in that order.

E-speed will be a nice move to remove STAB since it always hits first.

I think Luke is the better user since it can absorb a non-STAB NVE Dragon move the best and hit with Ice Punch Close Combat the next turn or something.
 

termi

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I think this meta would spawn a ton of teams with at least two steel-types to simultaneously switch in and out of Outrage/Draco Meteor, stalling them out. Ones with U-Turn or Volt Switch might be useful in that case because they can deal damage while stalling Outrage turns out or making the opponent's SpA drop to minimum and removing STAB + giving the opponent an awful typing (and allowing the user to escape from Magnezone), so that's something to recommend.

However, what if dragons just start using Dragon Claw? Many dragons have so much power that they won't even mind the base power drop from their main STAB, especially considering the next hit will be a supereffective hit unless the opponent switches out. Without STAB, however, Dragon Claw might actually end up being underpowered, especially if the user can't score a supereffective hit due to being VoltTurned.

Basically, I expect a lot of dragmag-teams, a lot of VoltTurn cores and a lot of SubDisable Gengars. That shit's just perfect for this meta, I mean: Gengar outspeeds his opponent in most cases so he can put on a Substitute, Disable the move used by the opponent (something it's probably using to score a supereffective chain, see psychic/dark/fighting-cores) then start throwing Shadow Balls around for supereffective damage coming off a huge base 130 SpA stat and Focus Blasts for normal types to either kill them or make them vulnerable to Shadow Ball. Too bad Gengar's losing Levitate, but I guess you can't have everything.

Another thign to watch out for is Weavile, possibly. When I'm speculating about dragonslaying anyways, I might as well throw that guy in. He has a STAB Ice Shard coming off Base 120 Attack stat will hurt many dragons hard and he doesn't care about Choice Scarfs thanks to that priority. Give Weavile a Choice Band + max Atk EV's + Adamant nature and he OHKO's every dragon/flying dragon/ground after Stealth Rocks save for Yache Berry Garchomp, but that would leave the same Garchomp vulnerable to other dragons with scarf. And if there aren't any rocks on the field, Multiscale Dragonite will survive and kill, but that's about the only notable thing that survives. Hydreigon, Latios and Latias won't be OHKO'd and can OHKO Weavile in return, so that's something we'll have to find a solution for, but luckily they won't use Outrage but Draco Meteor, hich can be stalled out by steel types with ease. Then there's Haxorus, though... Will need a powerful scarfer that can kill Haxorus.

So that's my two cents so far, I'm looking forward to this metagame.
 

termi

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I put Psychic and Shadow Ball on mine.



No Multicale. So Ice Shard still OHKOs.
(I keep forgetting, too)
Ya, I didn't think too well yesterday. Ice Shard coming from Weavile/Mamoswine will instakill Dragonite. Also, I forgot that Magnezone doesn't have Magnet Pull anymore. Magnezone can still function well in this meta due to its steel typing and Volt Switch, though. Psychic could work for SubDisable Gengar, it's got better accuracy than Focus Blast for sure, but it doesn't instantly get a supereffective on a normal type, whereas Focus Blast does. Also, Focus Blast might be nice to use against dark types while you're at it. Not sure what's better as of now.
 
Magnezone and Scizor will be strong because they have a slow U-turn/Volt Switch, meaning your poke can come in without getting it's type changed. With their relatively good defensive typing they can take a big advantage in this meta as they can just VoltTurn all the way not caring at all about colour change. They only lose their STAB but your incoming poke doesnt and can (should) outspeed/force a switch next turn.

Band Scizor & SpecsZone ftw! Zone should still run HP Ice tho because if a ground switch-in comes it wont stay in to take the possible advantage of a HP Ghost/Dragon due to the 4x weakness, so it's better to play the prediction game.

If you have a fast U-Turner or Volt Switcher (like Infernape, Jolteon or Mienshao) your incoming poke will get hit by your opponent's poke, lose it's typing and therefore most likely it's STABs and might get a follow-up move to the face.

Also: Heatran went from being immune to fire to neutral, gotta take that in mind.
 
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