The Uber Metagame: a Fun "Change of Pace"

[ultimifier]

i remember playing him and getting swept by linoone the first game, but the next 3 times i played him he lost badly each time. It can bea surprise one time, but once you know its coming its really the easiest thing in the world to stop

 

[tripe]

Lots of entry hazards, like 2 or 3 layers of spikes, can really ruin the linoone strategy, especially one has a priority user, such as Rayquaza or Scizor on their team. It can put the Linoone's health down to where any priority attack can kill it.

 

[Pirika]

Scizor BP and Rayquaza Extremespeed kills Linoone even without spikes damage. But With Salac activated Linnone Extremespeed wil always hit first.

As ultimifier said it's something quite easy to stop if you know what's coming.


I also tried Smeargle Baton Passing Belly Drum but getting the Belly Drum with Smeargle is almost impossible in ubers.

 

[Ike]

Just like to say that Linoone is not hard to stop, scizor or meta can just Bp while resisting ES and the log was against some noob named Miley Cyrus too.
Besides that I doubt it can KO a Kyogre or various other bulky sweepers.

 

[Random Pizzaman]

Besides that I doubt it can KO a Kyogre or various other bulky sweepers.

a +6 return easily KO's offensive Kyogre, and if you use Seed Bomb you KO defensive ones too. Seed Bomb should also KO offensive Groudon but I'm not so sure.
You know, now that I think about it Belly Drum, Return, Seed Bomb, Shadow Claw is probably best in ubers, because priority really isn't all that common besides Rayquaza, and a +1 ooutruns nearly any Uber.

 

[Jibaku]

You know, now that I think about it Belly Drum, Return, Seed Bomb, Shadow Claw is probably best in ubers, because priority really isn't all that common besides Rayquaza, and a +1 outruns nearly any Uber.

There's Scizor, Lucario, and Metagross too (though ES OHKOes Luke-if you stuck with ES). Deoxys-A too

If you're going by Adamant, +1 won't outrun ScarfDialga, Scarf Palkia, +speed nature Deoxys-A (if using your EVs), and anything faster (Scarfrai, Scarfmin-S, Scarftwo). Since basically every uber team has a revenger of some sort (except stall, which can survive a Linoone rampage), I'm not quite sure if dropping ES is a good idea (especially since Scarf Palkia is pretty common).

Deoxys-f used Extremespeed.
Deoxys-e lost 42% of its health.
Pirika's Deoxys-e fainted.

So the Deoxys-A did have Extremespeed. That would've ended the Linoone sweep.

Also loco if Wobb Encored Shadow Ball it would be a free switch in to Linoone.

 

[Pirika]

The Linoone I was using is max speed adamant. It can outspeed Deoxis-a after the salac boost.

Maybe with spikes and SR support Linoone could sweep even with things like Metagros, Scizor, Dialga or Forestress (37% of residual damage) . But is quite hard setting 3 layers of spikes + SR in ubers. Magnezone could trap steels but cannot do much against Dialga.

 

[Shizzle]

I havent played Ubers in a while, but one pokemon that i found worked was a MixApe [with LO of course]. Under sun, Fire Blast will pretty much kill anything that doesnt resist it, i cant remember too much, but what do you guys think?

Also, now that i think about it, would a Choice Specs/Band Infernape lead work?
~Mach Punch / Vacuum Wave
~Close Combat / Fire Blast / Flamethrower
~Stone Edge? / Grass Knot
~U-Turn / ?

 

[Atticus]

I havent played Ubers in a while, but one pokemon that i found worked was a MixApe [with LO of course]. Under sun, Fire Blast will pretty much kill anything that doesnt resist it, i cant remember too much, but what do you guys think?

Also, now that i think about it, would a Choice Specs/Band Infernape lead work?
~Mach Punch / Vacuum Wave
~Close Combat / Fire Blast / Flamethrower
~Stone Edge? / Grass Knot
~U-Turn / ?

meh, groudon leads aren't to common not to mention deo still gets an ensured SR down, scarfkrai leads can still induce you, imo I wouldn't use it as a lead or sweeper, there's just to much shit that can switch in even in the sun (ie kyogre, palkia) not to mention the dreaded latis who are faster then the orbed variant and shrug off fire moves with relative ease

 

[Taokaka]

really it doesn't matter whether or not linoone can ohko a lot of things. its more about how your going to be setting it up. even with encore support from something like wobb it's shit defences and terrible attack even after +6 isn't going to help. plus whos going to let you set up with a linoone? it's only useable set IS the bd set so it's not like people will find it unexpected.

it seems like ever since platinum changes were upgraded everyone just got this random fetish for gimmicks in ubers. really half of them don't work, and if they do it's because your opponent is retarded and doesn't know what they're doing. a log from someone named miley cyrus doesn't sound very good. just sayin.

 

[Pirika]

Setting up Linoone is not so difficult. Locking some pokes in stat-up moves, status moves(and with safeguard) or ghost attacks with Wobbofet can make Linoone set up. I was able to set up Linoone a lot of times in ubers, unfortunately it doesn't have enough power to sweep all the times. Of couse people prefer to point the nickname of an opponent as an argument.

 

[zzzzzzzzzzz]

Has Arceus been released on July 18? And has anybody tried Haban Berry on Palkia?

I love this:

Palkia @pearl orb
252 atk, 252 spa, 4 hp, 0 spe IV
Brave
- Trick Room
- Aqua Tail
- Spacial Rend
- Thunder

OHKOs Mewtwo in the rain

 

[ultimifier]

haban berry on palkia is decent, but there are so many better items for him. Lustrous orb, expert belt, choice scarf, even choice band help deliver extra damage, the thing that palkia needs most. Haban berry is better on garchomp, as it allows for extra time to use swords dance.

and fuck, how do i get top 5 on the leaderboard. i havent lost since friday, and ive only gone up 100 points. im pissed

 

[mtr]

@Ultimifier: I thought I saw your name in the top 5 once...


Going away from individual sets and back to the topic at hand,

I think that Ubers is a real blast to play. However, the "outside game" matters a lot more than the "inside game" (more so than in any other metagame) from my impressions, meaning that things like team advantage/disadvantage are crucial.

For example, Anachronism's team has Taunt/CM Mewtwo, CM Kyogre, NP Rai, and Wobb. Any stall team will be raped by that no matter how well you play.

PokemonMasterHSA's team uses no stat up sweepers (although it does use mixed attackers), which gives him an advantage against team's such as those employed by Anachronism, though it weakens his matchup against stall, of course.

Of course, if two offensive teams or bulky offense teams are structurally similar, there is no team adv/disadv, but that doesn't appear to be the case quite a bit of the time. Even offensively minded teams can vary greatly.

Now let me bring up a comparison to OU: let's say somebody decides to use TauntGyara, DDMence, Bait Latias, and SDLucario. The opponent has your standard Hippo/Forry/Gyara/Bliss/Cele/Rotom stall team. It is entirely possible for the defensive player to easily fend all of the threats and come away with much of his team intact, though beating DDMence may prove to be a pyrrhic victory.

But if an opponent in ubers attempts to overload walls on the special side (which tends to be easier because of the special power in Ubers), there's not much you can do. Blissey and Latias cannot stall it out forever, especially not if the opponent begins to Calm Mind with multiple sweepers (and gets prior damage on CM Latias with whatever, or uses Mewtwo). Darkrai can singlehandedly destroy a stall team as well unless you use a Primeape (Gen. Empoleon encouraged me to do this).

In short: stall is viable (Jibaku's success proves that), although that's not what I'm talking about. But I found it really jarring that I seemed to regularly win or lose against opponents based on what the teams were to a greater extent than I did in OU play.

I find the relative predictability of Ubers to be one of its strengths. As I've said before, it's rather like chess...

That analogy is good, but it should be modified. It's like chess, but the composition of the chess armies matters, of course.

I think I'll go back to OU, but I'll definitely take the skills I learned in Ubers with me.

 

[Jibaku]

and fuck, how do i get top 5 on the leaderboard. i havent lost since friday, and ive only gone up 100 points. im pissed

The account "Ultimifiertest" has gotten to #5, but I took that as a challenge and bumped my Lagtester account to #4 ^_^
I'll probably stop though

I find the relative predictability of Ubers to be one of its strengths

This is my favorite quotes. The metagame is ridiculously centralized upon certain things that it opens up room for loopholes to discover. Wobbuffet's popularity alone is the result of this. For a more extreme example, Delibird lead actually somewhat works because of this loophole. Don't quote me on this though.

The Uber metagame has traveled through many phases in the past- from the mess of its birth, to the stall age when people found out toxic spikes' viability, then shifting into hyper offense for quite a decent amount of time until the popularization of Wobbuffet by Theorymon, which, very oddly, created a short stall phase and then back to balanced. The return of old faces-Ike, Atticus (he's never been dead though), and a few others I don't remember, appeared to be contributing to the shifting of the metagame, moving back to offense. Or that could've been a mere coincidence, but it's interesting nonetheless.

The more I play the more I realize the importance of control (especially if your type of team is a bad match up against your opponent's, which has happened to me a lot with stall). PokemonMasterHSA's team, for instance, plays control pretty well (and rather quite easy to spot too). The use of the fearsome lead Deoxys-A can force a Scarfer to come out, such as Palkia. Then Wobb (who is a control Pokemon in itself) can revenge Palkia, which opens up Kyogre for free Spouting.

In short: It's a big joyride.

I think I'll go back to OU, but I'll definitely take the skills I learned in Ubers with me.

:(

 

[mtr]

:( and other stuff

I would think that by now, everything that can be discovered has been.

I mean, we've got Jumpluff for "Quick Stall" teams, Wobbuffet to enable sweeps and mess up stall, Lucario, the Swift Swimmers, the Chlorophylls, Quagsire for Kyogre, Primeape for Darkrai, Jirachi, etc. We've hit a point of diminishing marginal returns, really.

The only thing I can think of is that if the metagame goes into a stall phase, Tentacruel could be good. Other than that, there's not much left that can do a job better than an Uber can.

Don't get me wrong, Ubers is still great fun (and you make me feel like staying. grrrrr) even without any more radical changes. I just don't think that there'll be any metagame revolutions until Arceus, HG/SS, or Gen5.

 

[Darkmalice]

I would think that by now, everything that can be discovered has been.

With ubers have such a massive movepool, there's got to be viable sets out there that haven't been discovered yet, or that will become viable as the metagame changes. It took a while for Giratina-O to become popular, and Wobbuffet and Lucario, despite being viable for a long time, were never really used for an extremely long time. And seeing how Ubers is so predictable, this makes the job easier. Same can go for OU to a lesser extent; Grass Knot may become popularised on lead Azelf to OHKO Swampert and Hippowdon. I'm waiting for someone to be the Theorymon for Latios.

 

[mtr]

Grass Knot IS becoming more frequent on Azelf, and I'm even seeing it on a few Metagross (maybe Infernape will use if too).

I have a question: I came to Ubers recently, and so I wasn't around during the age in which stall was in vogue due to the discovery of the value of Toxic Spikes. When this happened, were "Cro" variants of Dialga and Kyogre popular or not?

And I read in the Ubers battling guide that Spiritomb is the good counter to Deo-A (Sucker Punch, Pursuit) provided that you have sun support to deal with Thunder. Is it worth looking into?

 

[Darkmalice]

I have a question: I came to Ubers recently, and so I wasn't around during the age in which stall was in vogue due to the discovery of the value of Toxic Spikes. When this happened, were "Cro" variants of Dialga and Kyogre popular or not?

This was pre-Platinum. Stall was more viable here. Giratina-O wasn't around, and Scizor, Garchomp and Lucario weren't used often. Deoxys-S was still OU, so if you wanted Spikes as well, you had to use a stall team. Most Groudons were supporting Groudon. Some even had Fire Punch over Dragon Claw + 2 supporting moves just for Forry. Blissey was very common, and was more than once in the #3 position for usage. Lugia and Latias were also more common than what they are now.

CroOgre was common. CroDialga wasn't (and CroDialga is technically Bulk Up Dialga, which is more popular now as it gained Outrage in Plat).

And I read in the Ubers battling guide that Spiritomb is the good counter to Deo-A (Sucker Punch, Pursuit) provided that you have sun support to deal with Thunder. Is it worth looking into?

Spiritomb has use in Ubers as a specific counter, like Quagsire and Parasect for Kyogre. The problem is that it's mainly outclassed by Scizor, who also counters what Spiritomb does, and can actually do something else. Scizor has U-turn, more reliable priority, and better typing to make up for bad defenses in Uber terms, but Spiritomb doesn't. Spiritomb would be much better if Sucker Punch could stop Deoxys-S from setting up Spikes, Mewtwo from setting up Substitute, and Mew from Baton Passing. You could try for some surprises with Shadow Sneak, which with Pursuit, can destroy these aforementioned threats. Spiritomb can also upset the opponent with Will-O-Wisp, preventing the opponent from setting up on it, and Pain Split to take a big chunk out of the opposing Pokemon.. hey, Spiritomb can actually work.

 

[Fireburn]

I'm waiting for someone to be the Theorymon for Latios.

I am taking this as a challenge. Latios is quite underrated and can be extremely deadly. :)

 

[IronGross]

One thing that really lets-down the Uber tier IMO is the lack of type variaty; No Rock-types, no Fighting-types, and most sadly-no Ice-types :<...Also, Psychic STAB is redaunt in Ubers, is there any use of Psycho Boost at all? Lugia gets it too...

 

[Fireburn]

Rock-TTar

Ice-Mamoswine

Fighting-Lucario

With the abundance of Psychics and Steels, Psychic-type attacks are resisted by too many other Pokemon to be useful. Psycho Boost is only useful on Deo-A or someone who has enough Sp. Atk to hit crazy hard anyway.

Also, has anyone used Specs Palkia? With Tickle Wobb + Pursuit Scizor killing Bliss almost effortlessly, Stall Teams crumble under powerful Draco Meteors, and Rain boosted Surfs 2HKO most Steels. Standard Lugia is also outsped and 2HKOed, something Dialga can't do. I've been using it for a while and it is amazing, usually getting 2-3 kills per game, and those powerful Draco Meteors punch tons of holes in Offense. Wobb also often comes in only to get OHKOed. :D

 

[Erazor]

Specs Palkia is absurdly powerful. Draco Meteor off of that Special stat hurts nearly everything, and even Blissey takes a bruising. It needs more usage, but unfortunately, Scarfers are dominating the meta today.

 

[ultimifier]

the thing is pretty much any threat in ubers can handle stall teams after one counter is removed.

SD quaza rapes after lugia is removed. Specs Kyogre rapes after latias is weakened. SD groudon rapes after lugia has been removed etc.

This is why uber stall is not very effective, except against players who poorly build teams (IMO).

 

[VKCA]

I've been playing around with a stall team for a little bit, but it just seems kind of... ineffective. Wob always comes in and just rapes my revenge killer, leaving me really prone to setup sweepers. I can stop an sd and dd ray sweep, then wob comes in, rapes my revenge killer up the ass, and a cmoger ko's the rest of the team. The damage output on any dedicated wall just isn't enough to hurt anything before it can set up sweep.
edit:
If wob ever comes in forretress, ya more toxic spikes, unfortunately I can't switch him in, I have to wait for wobbuffet to kill a pokemon, then I can bring in forretress