DPP OU General Metagame Discussion

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Question from a new-ish player, why is it that I only see mach punch breloom these days? I remember the subpunch set used to be the standard back in the day
Mach Loom is very good for the very reason that there is a surge in choice frail Pokemon which can be picked off (Choice Ape, Choice Flygon) in addition to Substitute being harder to set up with the increase of Fire Blast Tyranitar who have enough speed to outpace Slow focus punch loom. It basically gives Breloom a way to say "fuck you" to set up sweepers weak to fighting and/or frail fast mons who can potentially sweep late game or prevent a lategame comeback by Breloom. In all honesty subloom is still a beast and no-one would deny that, just that there is more options for Breloom the predator due to an increase in prey. Metagame got faster; Breloom is just trying to keep up by any means.
 
Since no-one is posting here, what do you folk think of Specs Heatran atm and what do you use it with? I've been testing it out quite a bit and for it to ohko ape after sandstorm damage / sr is insane. I've been testing it with scarf celebi, you tend to notice a trend, kill something with heatran then the opposing dragonite comes out/ gyarados out and sets up so hp ice trick celebi is a demon heh
 

Foggi

Banned deucer.
i've been liking alot the bkc specs tran team that he made some time ago and then used it in stour finals. Lead spextran is really strong and can 1hko metagross through occa wich is insane also i think zapdos aswell as loom are great partners, the first one can be really helped by the huge damage that specs epower can do to tyranitar (wich is the main heatran check on most offensive teams) and the second one benefits from the damage that spex overheat can do to mons like dragonite and gyarados but as SOMALIA said, the main thing about spex heatran is that it kinda is a set up bait once you kill something so it is really recommended to run a great revenge killer with that set and i think scarf jirachi is perfect there cause it doesn't get trapped by tyranitar like rotom does and having scarf iron head in the back is never bad.
 
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Oglemi

Borf
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What the heck is with the huge increase in TWave-centric teams, and the increase in Clefable and Nidoqueen usage? Surely they're still pretty niche, it's not like Lucario is exactly on every team to warrant the usage of Queen, and Fable checks a lot but is still so fucking passive apart from Twave. I just don't get it, especially when these teams are getting stomped by anything set up + Lum Berry or Infernape + literally anything
 
What the heck is with the huge increase in TWave-centric teams, and the increase in Clefable and Nidoqueen usage? Surely they're still pretty niche, it's not like Lucario is exactly on every team to warrant the usage of Queen, and Fable checks a lot but is still so fucking passive apart from Twave. I just don't get it, especially when these teams are getting stomped by anything set up + Lum Berry or Infernape + literally anything
nidoqueen is amazing for several reasons beyond lucario. it checks tyranitar, zapdos and rotom without much effort, letting it lay some hazards. it is incredibly hard to ohko (you can choose phys/sdef/a mix depending on your team and it is amazing at all of them) and is one of the closest things you will find to a real infernape switchin, at least early in the game. when cb ape is spamming uturn early in the game queen is one of the best pokes to throw into it not just because of its sr resistance but also because of poison point (this trick also works on flygons uturn as well as ttars crunch and even like gyarados waterfall). spdef protect sets are also really amazing at safely dancing around lo gengar in sand. sdef can also take a hit from starmie who is often a teams best switch so you can already see how that might get awkward for the opponent. hell it can switch into scarftran once. oh yeah if you lead ttar and have a protect nidoqueen with some defense evs then you are annoying lead machamp without much effort and that is huge. setting and absorbing tspikes is HUGE and it gets a lot of opportunities to do so. it gets rocks obviously. with protect it is incredibly annoying for so many offensive teams to deal with; not only do a lot of dangerous wallbreakers not love to switch into it thanks to its coverage, but now they cant even be choiced or theyre useless in most circumstances, not to mention it lets queen gain health pretty reliably while the opposing team succumbs to the residual damage. unlike its fellow grounds swampert and hippowdon, its grass neutrality lets it help its team dance around annoying breloom and shaymin. of course it isnt exactly like them thanks to its earthquake weakness which means you gotta watch for ddtar/lo aero. it also has wide coverage, ice beam and flamethrower are most common but thunderbolt has also seen use, so it really targets just about anything it wants and it pairs amazingly well with hazards. it can even fuck around with roar/super fang/taunt stuff. of course it needs the right teammates because it cant do all the work with passive damage by itself, however it is phenomenal. definitely would be ou these days if tiers werent frozen and it would be more than deserving of it.

as for the other would-be ou, clef (who often appears on teams alongside nido), it is not nearly as passive as youd think because of thunder wave and knock off which is incredible support in defeating both offensive and defensive teams respectively. its inability to get worn down by sr/sand/tspikes like blissey makes a lot of special offensive support for guys like cune/emp/zap useless and can make the teams its on really hard to break (similarly to queen). great sr poke as well. bold sets (best on cm where tbolt makes it surprisingly okay at dealing with gyarados, which is a major threat for the kinds of teams clef usually finds itself on, but can also definitely be used on support variants, youll need backup vs spatkers but being more resistant to ttar pursuit, heatran explosion, breloom seed bomb, all flygons and some dnites among other things can be game-changing) are also good at relieving pressure against iron head jirachi cause max attack (scarf/sometimes ebelt or "ebelt") is a possible 5hko whereas 0 atk (sub and spdef) are possible 6hkos and clef cant full para (whereas a twave zap could potentially buy a free turn or 2 for its teammates vs blissey) so it can really help in that department.

theyre both really good because they can be incredibly hard to break, check a ton of really dangerous pokes, put opposing teams on a very fast-ticking timer and are hard to set up on safely. theyve proven themselves to be among the best dpp pokemon.

definitely not niche picks anymore
 
And t-wave teams have some very strong matchups and some very weak ones.

Which is the perfect strategy for tournament games where you can cherry pick vs your opponent.
 
Man the DPP ladder has improved alot, its really a blast to play and im sure a ton of tour players play on it regularly.

That said, any new strats anyone found or is using to great success?

Been punching niggas lights out with SD End game Scizor supported by Dugtrio and D U S K N O I R. That thing is bloody ridiculous, without a Tyranitar the opponent has to sack their hard hitter in hopes that I die, most of the time that happens to be their Band Ape or Heatran or Zapdos which just basically lets Scizor come in and be like "hey kids, im home" and just fucking set the place ablaze. Dugtrio I use is sashed but doesn't use rocks (weird huh), it has toxic to fuck about bulky waters so that Scizor gets the 1+ on them lol. Band Gyarados has been get a free ride on this team and is a fucking freeloader, I'ma try DD taunt. I honestly think the decline of SD Scizor has given me a slight advantage but goddamn it still is as lethal as ever. Especially when you face that wack CM Rachi / Flygon / Starmie(replace with maybe rotom or gar) end game scenario rofl

Does anyone even use full stall anymore?
So yeah

SR Metagross / Dugtrio / E-Belt Dusknoir (tempted to try sub punch) / Mix Rachi a.k.a the GOAT / Band Gyarados / SD Scizor
 

Foggi

Banned deucer.
Man the DPP ladder has improved alot, its really a blast to play and im sure a ton of tour players play on it regularly.

That said, any new strats anyone found or is using to great success?

Been punching niggas lights out with SD End game Scizor supported by Dugtrio and D U S K N O I R. That thing is bloody ridiculous, without a Tyranitar the opponent has to sack their hard hitter in hopes that I die, most of the time that happens to be their Band Ape or Heatran or Zapdos which just basically lets Scizor come in and be like "hey kids, im home" and just fucking set the place ablaze. Dugtrio I use is sashed but doesn't use rocks (weird huh), it has toxic to fuck about bulky waters so that Scizor gets the 1+ on them lol. Band Gyarados has been get a free ride on this team and is a fucking freeloader, I'ma try DD taunt. I honestly think the decline of SD Scizor has given me a slight advantage but goddamn it still is as lethal as ever. Especially when you face that wack CM Rachi / Flygon / Starmie(replace with maybe rotom or gar) end game scenario rofl

Does anyone even use full stall anymore?
So yeah

SR Metagross / Dugtrio / E-Belt Dusknoir (tempted to try sub punch) / Mix Rachi a.k.a the GOAT / Band Gyarados / SD Scizor
played you bunch of times on ladder and even tho your team looks decent'ish it does the job, band gyara and sd zor surely are doing well in current dpp metagame. I've been playing some dpp ladder with Cbgon team and i must say it is really good antimeta set at the moment because people always think flygons are either scarf or the rare life orb set now so you can catch loads of kills or in general punch big holes in opponents team with that monster, it acts as a really good anti lead aswell.
 
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The DPP ladder has improved MASSIVELY since 2017-2018 and you can find alot of amazing players on the ladder. If you are contemplating to start learning DPP OU, now's the time, even from the ladder you can get a good understanding of the meta and fight loads of experienced veterans

Some things I've noticed:

Sub defensive Rotom is increasing in popularity, really good for screwing with choice scarf ttar and pairing it with another elec like agil zap or raikou at the end phase makes it really good. Bait the tar, wisp it if they wanna stay in, checkmate with your 2nd elec lol, too brutal.

Non-LO gengar is AMAZING, goddamn, wisp has shitty accuracy and same with fblast but its so good at dismantling annoying defensive cores and provides you alot of important information about the opps team, you dont have to be able to guess the opps team in dpp to be great, have mons that lure out common Pokemon and that helps you make a solid plan way before endgame as many players usually leave the thinking till.

Been toying with gliscor quite a bit as of late, (2 fangs eq sd, taunt is an option but limits your fire power and using stone edge sucks lol) yache offensive variant. You can run through nido/clef/skarm especially if you use a fire punch slam rachi to burn alot of stuff beforehand.

Morale of the story, sp.def slam jirachi is too good man, why pass up on something that gives you free wins when its legal lol. I've been the biggest Choice band Infernape diehard fan since 2010 but sadly it just isnt performing the same.

Oh and Metagross is the best lead in dpp, change my mind.
 
Sub defensive Rotom is increasing in popularity, really good for screwing with choice scarf ttar and pairing it with another elec like agil zap or raikou at the end phase makes it really good. Bait the tar, wisp it if they wanna stay in, checkmate with your 2nd elec lol, too brutal.
The charge beam sub Rotom dismantles defensive teams really well. You just need to remove one or two problem Pokemon that are faster than it, then throw up a substitute to win. Most walls can't stay in thanks to charge beam, and after a single boost, most other pokemon cant withstand two hits. This lets you take the game once you have eliminated the opponents faster Pokemon, if the opponent is playing a defensive team.
 
Ugh, Starmie's giving me so much stress lately. What's her checks and counters
Usual special walls like Blissey and Snorlax completely walls it.
While not really the most consistent counter (Starmie can threaten Ice beam on the switch thus 2HKOing), Celebi can switch in on a Surf or a Hydro Pump and threaten Starmie with a Mega-Drain/Grass Knot. Mons' like Ludicolo and Kingdra also like to switch to get a free Rain Dance or Dragon Dance for the latter.

Starmie is a fairly diverse 'mon so the way you play around it may differ (even tough offensive set are the most common currently).

There's more info in the "checks and counters" section at the bottom of Stamie's analysis. The information there is still mostly relevant, even tough the analysis is getting old.
 
My current win streak was cut short by some hax mostly. Bounce missed a lot, and my opponent got some critical hits. I can only assume I made some bad decisions but, argh! I know it sounds like an excuse, but I swear it was hax.
 
any major changes in the last 2 years?
Granted I haven’t been playing for long so I don’t really know what the meta game was like, but from what I understand in the last 2 years Clefable has risen from something of a niche pick that most people thought would be a flavor of the month type of thing to a legitimate top 5 poke in the meta game. Calm mind sets and knock off t-wave are pretty much the central part ofstall and balance builds. Latias seemed kind of underwhelming at first but it has cemented it’s place as another top 5 threat with its specs set being what I consider the best. Calm mind and scarf offer great things to a team as a win con and revenge killer/speed control/dragon dancer check respectively. Dugtrio has really become good and even warranted a bit of discussion. Jirachi is still as good(broken can we plz talk about this thing more) as ever, as well as Tyranitar. Starmie has fallen off a bit but is still pretty good and I personally think offensive sets are amazing at the moment. My personal favorite style at the moment is bulky offense with two offensive water types as there is not really any great defensive water resists in the tier.
 
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