Upsetting The Metagame

[cantab]

Interesting idea. I can see a few drawbacks though.

One is the removals might unbalance the metagame, by removing a key counter to a threat. However, such an imbalance doesn't last long.

Another, perhaps more serious, is it would simply end up in a cyclicity. As soon as the bans expire, the Pokemon in question are probably going straight back to the top.

A third problem is people might just use slightly inferior alternatives in the same way as they would the banned Pokes. Ban Salamence, and people are just going to switch to Dragonite, using the same sets as they would on Salamence, rather than making use of the advantages Dragonite has.

A thought about this thread. It's titled 'Upsetting The Metagame'. But there isn't 'The' metagame. We have at least 7 - Uber, OU, UU, NU, LC, LC Ubers, and CAP. Should we struggle to find ways to majorly change OU play, or look to innovate in less-explored metagames? That's a personal choice in my view, not one that needs to be taken by the community as a whole.

 

[Orik]

The reason you want to ban diffrent pokemon for diffrent amounts of time is so it doesnt become a cycle...

Also, you would probably want to give the mods power to ban extra pokemon, change the time, or un-ban, so the game doesnt get to messed up

 

[cantab]

I fear you'd end up playing an arbitrary metagame that way.
Also, while we probably don't want stagnation, we don't want excessive flux either. Monthly tier changes might be too often.

 

[Sheshi]

I think maybe every 3 months would be sufficient enough to prevent both stagnation and exessive flux. However, I highly doubt that said banning would actually accomplish anything useful. At most, it might lead to the rise in a few Pokemon (Heracross and Weavile for two), but I don't see it having any startling and major effects on the current metagame.

 

[ultimifier]

A thought about this thread. It's titled 'Upsetting The Metagame'. But there isn't 'The' metagame. We have at least 6 - Uber, OU, UU, NU, LC, LC Ubers (really), and CAP. Should we struggle to find ways to majorly change OU play, or look to innovate in less-explored metagames? That's a personal choice in my view, not one that needs to be taken by the community as a whole.

I personally would just encourage people to play more of these other metagames. If OU becomes repetitive and too stagnant (i love that word) that try a different metagame. I tried cap out a couple days ago and it was a breath of fresh air. The teams were more diverse and stall didnt dominate like it does in OU. There was only 27 people on the server which made it repetitive when i played the same person 4 times in a row, but once more people join it should get more popular.

 

[M BLADE]

After a Dragon Dance, LO Salamence Outrages Rhyperior as it switches in, and Outrages again, killing Rhyperior before it can attack. Earthquake still gets the 2HKO, and IS thus the better choice for Mence. Without an Orb the most defensive Rhyperior has about a 50% chance of survival.

Rhyperior can switch in ON the Dragon Dance, but not after. Of course it can revenge kill, but frankly there are far better revenge killers.

Name something that Rhyperior can OHKO or 2HKO with Stone Edge but not with Rock Slide. Bear in mind that if you're relying on it to 2HKO, it's going to fail 34% of the time, even taking into account the chance of a crit. Rock slide has half the chance of failing to 2HKO, 19% (ignoring flinch because Rhyperior's too slow to flinch anything.)

And why the hell would i switch Rhyperior in after a DD? If Rhyperior is a counter, it will switch in immediately, meaning it can get only one DD. Bringing in a counter after it sets up more than once is just dumb.

About Stone Edge:Defensive Zapdos? Dragonite? Hell, even Scizor. You don't want Dragonite to set up multiple Dragon Dances, do you?

Whatever, this isn't the purpose of the topic.

 

[Acritter]

Maybe a borderline-Uber tier would be in order... or you could just start using Magnezone in every team to counter Scizor, Gyarados, and slightly Salamence.

 

[Calm Pokemaster]

Setting up seperate tiers for threats isn't a good idea.Statistically,there isn't any Pokemon in the standard metagame without a counter.Agreed,Steel types like Scizor and Heatran pose threats in the metagame,but then,every good team SHOULD be having a proper counter to these Pokemon.

 

[cantab]

Maybe a borderline-Uber tier would be in order... or you could just start using Magnezone in every team to counter Scizor, Gyarados, and slightly Salamence.

We don't need a tier between OU and Uber, because we're not trying to maintain a balanced Uber metagame.
'Balanced Ubers' has been suggested. I think many people would like a balanced meta including the likes of Mewtwo, Groudon, Dialga, and so on. But it's probably not possible.
The only other reason for a 'near-Uber' tier would be to implement a quota system; to say your team may not contain more than one near-Uber. But I'm not sure that would really work.

 

[MrBlack]

I believe, in the end, everything comes down to game design.

When this game was created, when every Pokemon game was created, the makers did not have competitive Pokemon in mind. There is no R&D. They don't test each new Pokemon they make to ensure it doesn't break the metagame. They very likely don't even know or care what the metagame is. Probably don't even use the term metagame.

I will agree there are a few quirks which suggest some concept of removing brokenness. For example, you can't Skill Swap Wonderguard. But there is very little, if any, apparent desire to support a versatile, "balanced" competitive environment.

In the end, they consciously make certain Pokemon more powerful than others because of their game's lore; look at those Pokemon we're talking about. Heatran, Latias, Rotom, Salamence, Tyranitar... legendaries or "pseudo-legendaries" (or whatever else you want to call them, you know what I mean).

All they care about is money. In the end, they'll continue to unbalance and break the metagame as they make new things, because they're making money of their awesome cool new Pokemon for the wider audience of their product - the people who don't even know about competitive Pokemon, who play the game for the single player, who's only concept of an environment is the Battle Frontier filled with Double Team where they don't have to worry about Stealth Rock or some combination of Scizor/Latias/Rotom/Salamence etc on every team.

Besides, if they WERE going to try and cater for Competitive Pokemon in the future, they certainly won't anymore. Everyone who plays it just uses Shoddy, that's probably the most obvious fact about Competitive Pokemon I know. No longer any point in buying the cartridge if competitive is what you're interested in.

If you REALLY want to make Pokemon a balanced, versatile game, make your own Pokemon. You can mess with tiers and consider banning moves all you like, it might help a little but it will never be enough to change the staggering fact that OU is stale. Because what you're messing with is way imbalanced in the first place. I don't have a problem with tiers or anything, I believe it's good that people are trying as hard as they can to help the situation, I just believe it'll never be enough.

Create-a-Pokemon was the biggest recognition of this I've seen. It's got the right idea behind it. Although I still believe, for a truly balanced, versatile metagame, you'd need to make it from scratch.


Edit: Removed a paragraph containing a weak example as evidence which may spark unnecessary, off topic debate.

 

[Lite]

Mr. Black is correct, Pokemon are developed without a huge concideration of what new moves or Pokemon can and can not accomplsh on a competetive battle field and more of how they are useful in game. However, Bullet punch on Scizor, I believe was a purposeful additon for competetive game play. Satoshi, creator of Pokemon had a fassenatin wth bugs and quoted his two favorite Pokemon were Scizor and Heracross therefor you could draw conclusions. Think for a minute why would anybod randomly put a STAB move under 60 power for technician fo a Pokemon if they didn't expect it to be used.

 

[cantab]

I think the developers DO know at least something about competitive Pokemon. Obviously they didn't back when developing RBY, but nowadays, they almost certainly do. The fact that there are things like VGC, Pokemon World Championships, etc cannot have escaped the notice of Game Freak, even if they're not the organisers. (I don't know who DOES organise these sort of things). It is, however, not their only, or even major, consideration when developing the games.

And Game Freak is Japanese. We don't know too much about Japanese competitive Pokemon, and it's possible the differences there make some things that appear broken to us not broken to them, and vice versa.

The contention that "Everyone who plays [competitive] just uses Shoddy" is emphatically disproven by the level of activity on the WiFi forum. Sure, most competitive players will use Shoddy, but many won't ONLY use Shoddy. I only got on Shoddy with the aim of testing a team before making it on the cartridge, and I'm sure many others do the same.

Also, don't forget what I might call low-level competitive. People looking to beat their friends, or novices playing PBR random battles. You don't have to be a genius to realise Outrage and Draco Meteor are great moves on Salamence - even if you don't know the first thing about Natures and EVs.

"You can mess with tiers and consider banning moves all you like, it might help a little but it will never be enough to change the staggering fact that OU is stale"
And this is something Game Freak CLEARLY try and change. Every time they release a new game, things get new moves! OU may be slow moving, but long-term it's certainly not stale. Platinum's additions shook things up, HGSS did stuff too.

It's not all that obvious Bullet Punch on Scizor would be that major. I mean, several Pokemon already get Extremespeed. Taking Scizor's STAB and Technician into account, Bullet Punch has only 10 more effective base power.

EDIT: Another thing to bear in mind is that any view about what the metagame 'should' be is ultimately opinion.

 

[MrBlack]

Sorry, I didn't mean to promote a sentiment that competitive Pokemon ONLY exists on Shoddy. But say GameFreak look around these forums, they try and take a strong interest in this side of the game.

Foolishly trying to put myself in their shoes, I'd think this; Hmmm, most of the people here are mainly interested in this Shoddy program. It's where they get all their information and statistics from, it's probably where they do most of their battling then. It'd be a waste of resources trying to cater for them, they're not a big enough audience for our game...

I'm by no means condemning Shoddy OR Wi-fi battling. And I do believe there are fundamental differences between them, so naturally each appeals to different people and thus each have an audience. I just think Shoddy shrinks an already small audience for their game.

True, they do mix things up when they release a new game. But I believe that's to keep things fresh more for the wider audience than us. I mean, they're re-using the same game over and over, they have to make additions where they can...

In the end I don't think what they're adding is trying to achieve a more balanced metagame. It might change, ok, so it might not remain stale, but the imbalance will still exist or in some cases become stronger as a new metagame emerges. I probably should have said imbalanced instead of stale, anyway. That was more my point.

I was only really using Bullet Punch as an example, but you both have a good point against it so I'll withdraw it from my first post. Don't want to start an unncessary debate about Bullet Punch.

 

[Raj]

The big question is really...why care? The metagame has always been heavily centralized, and metagames will always be centralized.

This is competitive pokemon. People want to win. People use the best pokemon since it helps them win.

Isn't the Japanese metagame completely different though? We use each Pokemon differently.

 

[FerrariCUBU]

There seems to be some questions about the Japanese competitive Pokemon metagame. I've had a few battles against Japanese players. From my experience our metagames are very similar. However, the Japanese metagame seems somewhat more advanced. By this I mean that the players a battled against were using sets/strategies that at the time were somewhat foreign to us. It wasn't until later that we came up with/realized how effective some of those sets were. That's just my experience, anyway.

 

[cantab]

That stands to reason I suppose. They've had longer with the games than we have.

 

[WhiteQueen]

This is where creativity comes into play. It's a lot harder to be creative than it sounds though. Even though you don't want to use overexposed pokemon, you'll still find yourself coming back to them since let's face it, those overused pokemon are overused for a reason. They're simply the best at doing what a pokemon of their nature are capable of doing. I can't wait for the next generation of pokemon since I'm getting sick of seeing those "threats" you mentioned over and over and over again. At least with a new batch of pokemon, things will get exciting again for a short period of time before those new threats take over.

 

[draugmoth]

Hmmm.I'm very new to pokemon (heh, I just registered here today) but I can already see it's like a lot of other games.
That having been said, I think the solution lies in the fact that we are using a program (Shoddy Battle or something?) and so we have a computer to help us.
Whereas other people suggested something like:

What if we created a new tier; One where the top 2 pokemon from last month are banned for 2 months, and the top 3rd-6th are banned for one month?

I suggest using an algorithm to randomly generate a banlist every battle.
Using the idea of a BL-Ubers tier, It could go something like this:

Ubers: 90% ban
BL Ubers: 70% ban
OU: 50% ban
UU: 30% ban
NU: 10% ban

This would force players to know threats from all tiers. For example, if the computer randomly decided to allow Wobbuffet, both players would be using wobb and trying to counter it at the same time. It would also prevent players from repeatedly using common pokemon like Scizor or Salamence, which were named earlier.

Of course, the computer doesn't have to be completely random; Shoddy could be coded to send information back to its main server, which the computer process and bans more common pokemon more often. Mods could control the change that the computer is allowed, so as to prevent pokemon from being almost always banned.

The application of an algorithm doesn't have to be just on pokemon either; you could use it to limit moves (eg. Stealth Rock allowed on max 2/1/0 pokemon), items, or whole types (eg. max 2/1/0 steel pokemon). You could even put random modifiers in (eg. Level 1 pokemon are exempted from OHKO clause).

I know it's a long shot from trying to make Shoddy close to Wi-Fi games, but as MrBlack said, Game Freak wasn't thinking entirely about competitive gaming, if it was at all. But since everyone seems to be talking about banning/unbanning different things, I thought that perhaps this would be something of a solution.

 

[cantab]

It's an interesting idea, but the problem is team building is a complex process, and refining a team can take many battles. Thus, you can't be changing the rules every battle, or people would have to make new teams every battle. Then you'll end up with a long wait while people make their teams, before the battle can start.
It would hurt novices more than experts. Many experts can create a solid team in a few minutes - they know all the Pokemon very well. A first effort at a team by a novice will likely have some serious weaknesses, that the novice simply won't recognise until they actually battle.

 

[Aquamentus]

You don't need to change the rules. Why don't you guys just find less-used counters to more-used Pokemon, or sweepers that beat their "superior" counterpart's counters, and force the metagame to adapt to your teams? It'll take some searching and creativity, but I bet you could find what you need without overspecializing or relying on gimmicks too much...

All it would take is a movement of more people using non-OU smartly and not with the "I used NU/UU, I lost, but I'm better than you anyway" attitude I see so often. Finding niches that other Pokemon can't fill, and proving their worth when properly supported.

Example time!

Registeel with Thunder Wave and/or Ice Punch usually beats Salamence and Latias. If you play UU, you probably have an idea of what this thing can survive. The fact that it has an Ubers moveset listed speaks for itself. Back it up with Wish, though.

If you can consistently keep Stealth Rock away, Moltres is an even better counter to Scizor and Metagross than Zapdos is. It's pretty good at SubRoosting against other kinds of opponents, especially with Toxic Spikes out. Seriously though, keep those rocks away or this shouldn't be bothered with, I admit it. In one of Obi's RMT's, he states that one slot of his team was a toss-up between Zapdos and Moltres.

Most bulky Poison Pokemon can counter Lucario, especially Weezing. Nidoqueen even has Roar, Toxic Spikes, and Stealth Rock among her wide list of other moves, and could potentially even fit on a stall team despite only OK defenses.

One my favorites, though I haven't used it in ages: Regirock can lure and beat Infernape, Lucario, Gyarados, Heatran, Salamence, and even Gyarados 1-on-1. I stopped using it because of things like Breloom, Machamp, Hippowdon, and Swampert, but still... With Fire Punch and some speed investment, you can also lure and kill Scizor. And I haven't even mentioned Wish or Dual Screen support yet...

Slowbro, Dusknoir, and Spiritomb are pretty much the only true counters to Machamp because they wall and avoid confusion from Dynamicpunch and can also take Payback well (Slowbro and Dusknoir are slower and get hit for half power, Spiritomb isn't Dark-weak). Slowbro can spread Paralysis with Thunder Wave or attempt a Calm Mind run. though Scizor will usually rain on its parade with U-turn. So, you'll want a Magnezone or something if you want to try that...

And two offensive threats, since I might as well do the whole package...

Mismagius may not be as fast or powerful as Gengar as far as base stats go, but she has Calm Mind, Nasty Plot, and the special defense to survive the setup. She completely owns Blissey with SubCM just like with Chansey in UU, and hits Tyranitar 4x effective with the Hidden Power Fighting she already carries. Scizor is still an issue.

Raikou is stronger and bulkier than Jolteon and still blindingly fast, and its Calm Mind + Life Orb set can really tear many Blissey-less teams a new one while not taking much from Scizor's Bullet Punch or even Lucario's Extremespeed. Only the lack of Volt Absorb and inability to outspeed +1 Adamant Gyarados make Jolteon the more popular choice.



As you can see, none of those examples were outclassed garbage. (Well, that's an opinion I guess) If you want to nerf the currently popular Pokemon, bring their forgotten counters up from the depths. If you want to beat them down with style, show them new sweepers they weren't prepared for. If enough of you do this, the tiers could change. Just a popular OU RMT propelled Roserade to the OU list, it's not impossible to do the same with these Pokemon above if you work at it.

(By the way, I use almost all OUs anyway. I'm just giving some suggestions)

 

[Rook]

Registeel with Thunder Wave and/or Ice Punch usually beats Salamence and Latias. If you play UU, you probably have an idea of what this thing can survive. The fact that it has an Ubers moveset listed speaks for itself. Back it up with Wish, though.

It doesn't counter New MixMence at all. Fire Blast is doing at least 62.6%, which is quite a lot! It counters Latias fine though. If by "beat" you meant Salamence can't switch in, well you could say that about a lot of pokemon (Jirachi, Scizor, Heatran). Regardless, I agree it is a good wall and should be used in OU more.

Regarding your Uber point: Shiftry has a set in Ubers. Registeel simply fills a niche with its steel typing and high defenses.

If you can consistently keep Stealth Rock away, Moltres is an even better counter to Scizor and Metagross than Zapdos is. It's pretty good at SubRoosting against other kinds of opponents, especially with Toxic Spikes out. Seriously though, keep those rocks away or this shouldn't be bothered with, I admit it. In one of Obi's RMT's, he states that one slot of his team was a toss-up between Zapdos and Moltres.

Yeah, it is a pretty good pokemon. Like you said though, it's has that horrible weakness to Stealth Rock. For this reason, pokemon like Zapdos and Rotom-A remain better counters. It's not easy to Rapid Spin on an offensive team without Starmie, and players don't want to dedicate an entire spot on their team for supporting Moltres. Even if the team is based around Moltres, it's still a stretch to do that.

Most bulky Poison Pokemon can counter Lucario, especially Weezing. Nidoqueen even has Roar, Toxic Spikes, and Stealth Rock among her wide list of other moves, and could potentially even fit on a stall team despite only OK defenses.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45814

This is Jabba's team in which he used Nidoqueen. It got into the archive, showing that Nidoqueen must be able to function pretty well. I'll comment on Weezing later in this post.

One my favorites, though I haven't used it in ages: Regirock can lure and beat Infernape, Lucario, Gyarados, Heatran, Salamence, and even Gyarados 1-on-1. I stopped using it because of things like Breloom, Machamp, Hippowdon, and Swampert, but still... With Fire Punch and some speed investment, you can also lure and kill Scizor. And I haven't even mentioned Wish or Dual Screen support yet...

I'm curious... How does Regirock lure in those pokemon? Players aren't stupid, they know it'll be carrying some rock move. I have no idea who would switch in a flying type like Gyarados or Salamence. If I saw a Regirock, I'd also assume it was carrying Earthquake, and switch in those other pokemon (also, why would Heatran ever switch in to Regirock. If you're using Regirock, you should also be using Sandstorm. Heatran can't touch Regirock. Choice Specs Earth Power barely manages to do over 50%, the strongest attack it can use.). I do understand Scizor though. I would never assume Regirock is using Fire Punch, and try to get a free U-turn/Bullet Punch.

Slowbro, Dusknoir, and Spiritomb are pretty much the only true counters to Machamp because they wall and avoid confusion from Dynamicpunch and can also take Payback well (Slowbro and Dusknoir are slower and get hit for half power, Spiritomb isn't Dark-weak). Slowbro can spread Paralysis with Thunder Wave or attempt a Calm Mind run. though Scizor will usually rain on its parade with U-turn. So, you'll want a Magnezone or something if you want to try that...

Spiritomb can fill niches on stall teams - spin-blocker that doesn't get completely destroyed by Tyranitar. I beg to differ about Dusknoir beating Machamp. Once you realize it can't kill you with an unboosted Payback, you then soon realize that you can't do anything back if Machamp can heal. Slowbro also completely stops Gyarados, but the weakness to to Scizor's U-turn hurts its walling potential a lot.

And two offensive threats, since I might as well do the whole package...

Mismagius may not be as fast or powerful as Gengar as far as base stats go, but she has Calm Mind, Nasty Plot, and the special defense to survive the setup. She completely owns Blissey with SubCM just like with Chansey in UU, and hits Tyranitar 4x effective with the Hidden Power Fighting she already carries. Scizor is still an issue.

Actually she can't beat Blissey at all. 32% - 37.8% is how much Missy does at +6 with HP Fighting to standard WishBliss. I don't really agree at all with HP Fighting. Even at +1, Missy can't OHKO CB Tyranitar with HP Fighting. Besides that, Gengar can also use HP Fighting, you make it sound like it's an exclusive move to Missy. However, Gengar prefers to use Focus Blast in hope of an actual chance to OHKO Tyranitar.

Raikou is stronger and bulkier than Jolteon and still blindingly fast, and its Calm Mind + Life Orb set can really tear many Blissey-less teams a new one while not taking much from Scizor's Bullet Punch or even Lucario's Extremespeed. Only the lack of Volt Absorb and inability to outspeed +1 Adamant Gyarados make Jolteon the more popular choice.

Yeah. I seriously do not know why people use Jolteon over Raikou. Unless your team is really weak to Gyrados, or doesn't have an electric immunity (I will say though that this is very useful - offense teams suck if they get paralyzed), Raikou will almost always be the superior option for sweeping. The speed doesn't mean that much. You lose the ability to definitely beat Starmie, and outspeeding Gyarados and Scarf'd Heatran. Heatran and Starmie aren't big deals - remember, you have a Calm Mind (or at least you should). Earth Power from Heatran seriously does under 50% max. I already adressed Gyarados.



I already stated that some of these pokemon could be useful, but other ones not so much. Other pokemon just do these things better. Not in the normal way, like Rotom-H can counter Lucario better than Weezing. It can't. However, Rotom-H also checks and counters other stuff that Weezing can't, making it be more greatly considered for spot on your team. This is a problem that some pokemon face - they can fill a niche, but it's not a very general niche. It can't counter only the top sweepers, it can only counter one or two of them. Unless your team really needs them, it's probably best to stay away from them. Some of the pokemon you suggested (like Raikou and Spiritomb) though I have to say that they are viable in OU.


About Uber Borderline - actually, the name doesn't make sense. Uber pokemon are broken in OU, much the same like Borderline pokemon are broken in UU. I don't know, I guess it could be called like "Uber Used" or something. But anyway, I don't really get the point of banning overused pokemon. Of course if you ban the top six pokemon it's gonna effect the metagame, but no necessarily in a good way. People will take a while to adapt to the new game, and by the time they do the old pokemon will be unbanned and new pokemon will be banned. This basically creates a fast changing metagame, but in a way like if they suddenly banned the top tier characters on Brawl. People will use new stuff, but once the metagame goes back, the creativeness will be gone because the creative pokemon are now banned! It just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Aquamentus]

All right, thanks for showing me those calculations. I think you put more work into your post than I did into mine... I admit that I haven't used some of the Pokemon I listed on Shoddy before, and was going by memory of the analyses/what other players said about them. As for Regirock, I mostly used it in the low-mid rungs of the ladder when I was new, and yes, people were that dumb sometimes. Disregard the word "Lure" against better opponents. I don't use it anymore because its counters have gotten extremely common. I was emphasizing HP Fighting on Missy because it's nice that she doesn't have to adapt that much, but yeah, she needs some help breaking through Tyranitar.

I'll be honest, these Pokemon do have issues that put them in the lower tiers. I was just trying to give better examples than the usual "Shaymin can be a Celebi without a Dark weakness, Recover, or Thunder Wave" and "Luvdisc can sweep if you Baton Pass to it". I was kind of nervous about posting at all...

 

[MetaGross66]

Regirock's counters (mainly bulky waters and some fighters) are not that common. I've been having fun sweeping teams 6-0 with it since its counters are really easily dealt with by things like Gliscor and Celebi. Also, it does counter almost any Salamence set (watch out for specs Hydro Pump and CB EQ, though). It's just hilarious when you can lure out its counters, kill them, and watch the opponent struggle to scratch the rock.

 

[cantab]

As for Regirock, I mostly used it in the low-mid rungs of the ladder when I was new, and yes, people were that dumb sometimes

This does actually bring up something - that there isn't necessarily 'the' OU metagame. Since the ladder pairs people with similar CREs, the metagame around 1200, for example, will be somewhat different to that around 1500. You can't ignore those differences, and to disregard the lower levels as irrelevant seems to me to be wrong. When it comes to recommending things to users, their skill level should be borne in mind - a team that does well in the hands of a 1600 player may not do so when used by a 1200 player, and vice versa.

 

[MrIndigo]

I agree with Cantab, actually. It's one of the side effects of a laddering system (as opposed to a Swiss tournament, or Knockout) that you end up with internal metagames. It's something that could be interesting to theorise and analyse in more detail for academic purposes.