Lol its a joke why would i do that
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Format Discussion Metronome Battle
- Thread starter Ivy
- Start date
I hit the top of the ladder, so I thought I’d share the team that got me here.
Ting-Lu @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Ampharos-Mega @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 19 Spe
- Metronome
This is the same team I’ve posted before, but with a Mega Ampharos in place of Silvally-Ghost. Losing the ghost typing sucks, as I originally started using Silvally because I was tired of watching Ting-Lu Explode at +2 and auto-losing. However, Mega Ampharos has about the same bulk as Silvally, the same Attack, and way higher Special Attack which helps it make more progress against bulkier teams and makes Mirror Herb’s buffs more consistently useful. The main reason for choosing it, however, was it being the best non-Tera mon that can underspeed Blissey (that’s what the 19 Speed IV does). I already had a decent matchup against Imposter, but I realized that Imposter going off after Intimidate was definitely losing me games. Now, not only does my own Intimidate go off after Imposter, but by putting Intimidate in the second slot, the first Imposter’s Intimidate goes off before the second Imposter transforms, so they copy my Ting-Lu already at -1 and then get Intimidated by my own Ampharos and drop to -2 which goes a long way toward winning on PP.
Speaking of Imposter, shoutout to one of the most interesting teams I’ve seen in a while: Tera Grass Imposter Blissey + Flower Veil Mega Venusaur. I’m not sure how effective it is ‘cuz I only saw it once, but it’s still a really cool idea.
I cracked 1600 somehow lol
I used this duo, which looks like the one a couple of posts above, but I put in way less thoughts while I was making it. I just tera ting-lu turn 1 and pray for good luck
Ting-Lu @ Lum Berry
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Lum berry and magic bounce help lessen the chance of ting-lu being worn down by poison or burn so that it could sit there and be bulky
Ampharos-Mega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Competitive
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome
Ampharos just hits hard, not much else in thought process
In the end it was mostly insane luck that got me this far
Edit: I think I just forgot that covert cloak exists
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Yoo Lets go!
I got 67 GXE, and I used this team the whole way:
https://pokepast.es/ddf870a0dac01bc3
504 Defense and a Mediocre SpD stat, but paired with Ice Scales is very bulky, with a pretty average HP stat as well. The tera is for later, and if the Weakness Policy is activated, you can use it. If both 'Bro's are activated at once, tera the one who is in a better condition. If one of the Bro's die immediately, tera the one remaining.
https://pokepast.es/ddf870a0dac01bc3
504 Defense and a Mediocre SpD stat, but paired with Ice Scales is very bulky, with a pretty average HP stat as well. The tera is for later, and if the Weakness Policy is activated, you can use it. If both 'Bro's are activated at once, tera the one who is in a better condition. If one of the Bro's die immediately, tera the one remaining.
I got number 1 with a very interesting team
Dragon (Altaria) (F) @ Altarianite
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
This set revolves around using intimidate and then mega evolving to get pixilate which is a really good ability especially in a meta with tera ghost. This strat could also be used with mega sableye but I personally like a more balanced mon. It is pretty scary when you face a defiant or competitive mon but they aren't too common anyways.
Not Dragon (Tyranitar) (F) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Magic Bounce
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
I'm shocked at how little I see of t-tar as it has strong attacking stats (134/95) and pretty good defenses (100/110/100). Covert cloak + Magic Bounce makes sure that t-tars isn't getting debuffed by any status conditions or stat drops while reflecting them back to the user (as long as they don't have good as gold or flower veil).
Either this team is rlly good or I'm just rlly lucky.
Happy September! Here we can see the effects on the usage stats for August after the discovery of allowing megas to tera. It was also interesting seeing 3 different #1 ladder posts in the span of the month with slight similarities and differences between the teams and I think it shows there's still some meaningful choices to be made.
Recent DLC leaks have revealed some interesting implications for the first wave of DLC coming in 2 weeks, but nothing about exact stats or mechanics yet. I am interested in what Ogerpon has to offer as a legendary with its debated type combinations that will have some great potential regardless even before its tera forme, and the new bloodmoon with its mind's eye could be a nice upgrade if it's not a steel. There is also the potential of new moves and old moves returning to the Metronome pool which is always nice for variety.
On the topic of stats, lighthouse64 recently made a post about flaws in the usage stats, mentioning new players with high deviation and high amounts of losing players are overvalued. I think this is still fine for our unscientific purposes because the Metronome ladder is quite popular and success is inherently luck based, and people will usually play enough games on the same account to lower their deviation enough so that we don't see the common random picks like Mega Alakazam around the top 10 despite their higher raw usage. In his video and paper, he also mentions that the data before April 2023 has most games not counted due to ladder errors and that games in doubles are only counted if they last 2 turns, but I'm not sure to what degree this has affected the stats. His paper also mentions that the raw usage rates in the main stats are wrong and the chaos page is right, which seems to match the number on the moveset page and I've noted the discrepancy before. Overall I don't think there will be too much difference in these posts even when the usage stat scripts are changed (perhaps tera types may be recorded someday), but it's good to keep in mind some perspective on what it all means.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-08/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-08/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
The battle count has risen back up to 51905 from the dip of last month.
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Heracross (no change)
#2: Blissey (no change)
#3: Ting-Lu (no change)
#4: Mega Ampharos (#5)
#5: Mega Venusaur (#4)
#6: Type: Null (#10)
#7: Dusclops (#8)
#8: Mega Slowbro (#18)
#9: Mega Gengar (#7)
#10: Glastrier (#6)
Not much has changed in the top mons except Mega Slowbro's uprising, which was a mon I was thinking would benefit from the new mechanic. However, Heracross's monopoly on raw usage from last month has deflated back down to 18197, which is still almost double that of the next highest mon in raw usage, which is also Blissey with 9567. Some dark horses of the month include Wishiwashi-School at #30 (825 uses) after a few months stuck with 100 uses, which may have been due to the attention it got. Mega Abomasnow was another mon I had thought about while it was brought up as a rival to Wishiwashi on the last page, and it made it up to #13 while also raising its sub-1000 raw uses up to 2446, with the raw power of the posted Intrepid Sword and Choice Band build being the most influential on the stats. Mega Banette (#31/949) and Kangaskhan (#33/596) also see some success potentially from the new change, and Pokestar UFO follows closely behind at #35/752. My efforts with Mega Pinsir yielded about 100 battles on my own time, but over the whole month it made 808 appearances and managed #46 between Silvally-Ghost and Regirock.
Over in the moveset file, we can see that Slowbro is still running the usual Weakness Policy sets divided between Ice Scales/Unaware/Good as Gold/Magic Bounce. While Heracross is still predominantly Intrepid Sword, Scrappy actually beats out Defiant with 11.731% weighted usage. Going down from the top viability ceilings (highest GXE of a player who has used a mon), the top is a tie for 82 between Ting-Lu (mainly WP with some Mirror Herb and Ice Scales/Magic Bounce/Good as Gold/Unaware) and Mega Ampharos with the aforementioned #1 Intimidate set leading over Magic Bounce and Competitive. The next highest viability ceiling is 79, between Heracross, Glastrier (mainly Sword of Ruin/Defiant and Choice Band/Weakness Policy), Tyranitar (Magic Bounce ahead of Intrepid Sword, and a divide between Choice Band/Weakness Policy/Mirror Herb/Covert Cloak), and surprisingly Skeledirge with Magic Bounce/Storm Drain and Weakness Policy/Mirror Herb, who seems to be the partner of the peak Tyranitar. In 78 we have Dragonite alone with Defiant and Magic Bounce leading but Speed Boost ahead of Good as Gold as the numbers fall off, and mainly Choice Band over Mirror Herb. The last group to cover is the 77s with Type: Null (mainly Friend Guard with some Poison Point), Mega Sableye (Sablenite in the lead again but Mirror Herb ahead of Bright Powder), Iron Hands (classic Galvanize), Hisuian Zoroark (mainly Magic Bounce but a large mix of items including Normalium Z), Mega Kangaskhan with 95% Good as Gold and mainly Mirror Herb over Choice Band, and Mega Lopunny who primarily has Scrappy to deal with Ghosts, but that might also be either the default ability or mega evolved from the 39% Lopunnite in first place. I'm not sure if there's a way to differentiate from pre-mega'd abilities in these stats or if they just assume the post-mega ability, but I guess you would prefer to go in as a mega now just to have that tera option. Thanks for your reading.
Recent DLC leaks have revealed some interesting implications for the first wave of DLC coming in 2 weeks, but nothing about exact stats or mechanics yet. I am interested in what Ogerpon has to offer as a legendary with its debated type combinations that will have some great potential regardless even before its tera forme, and the new bloodmoon with its mind's eye could be a nice upgrade if it's not a steel. There is also the potential of new moves and old moves returning to the Metronome pool which is always nice for variety.
On the topic of stats, lighthouse64 recently made a post about flaws in the usage stats, mentioning new players with high deviation and high amounts of losing players are overvalued. I think this is still fine for our unscientific purposes because the Metronome ladder is quite popular and success is inherently luck based, and people will usually play enough games on the same account to lower their deviation enough so that we don't see the common random picks like Mega Alakazam around the top 10 despite their higher raw usage. In his video and paper, he also mentions that the data before April 2023 has most games not counted due to ladder errors and that games in doubles are only counted if they last 2 turns, but I'm not sure to what degree this has affected the stats. His paper also mentions that the raw usage rates in the main stats are wrong and the chaos page is right, which seems to match the number on the moveset page and I've noted the discrepancy before. Overall I don't think there will be too much difference in these posts even when the usage stat scripts are changed (perhaps tera types may be recorded someday), but it's good to keep in mind some perspective on what it all means.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-08/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-08/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
The battle count has risen back up to 51905 from the dip of last month.
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Heracross (no change)
#2: Blissey (no change)
#3: Ting-Lu (no change)
#4: Mega Ampharos (#5)
#5: Mega Venusaur (#4)
#6: Type: Null (#10)
#7: Dusclops (#8)
#8: Mega Slowbro (#18)
#9: Mega Gengar (#7)
#10: Glastrier (#6)
Not much has changed in the top mons except Mega Slowbro's uprising, which was a mon I was thinking would benefit from the new mechanic. However, Heracross's monopoly on raw usage from last month has deflated back down to 18197, which is still almost double that of the next highest mon in raw usage, which is also Blissey with 9567. Some dark horses of the month include Wishiwashi-School at #30 (825 uses) after a few months stuck with 100 uses, which may have been due to the attention it got. Mega Abomasnow was another mon I had thought about while it was brought up as a rival to Wishiwashi on the last page, and it made it up to #13 while also raising its sub-1000 raw uses up to 2446, with the raw power of the posted Intrepid Sword and Choice Band build being the most influential on the stats. Mega Banette (#31/949) and Kangaskhan (#33/596) also see some success potentially from the new change, and Pokestar UFO follows closely behind at #35/752. My efforts with Mega Pinsir yielded about 100 battles on my own time, but over the whole month it made 808 appearances and managed #46 between Silvally-Ghost and Regirock.
Over in the moveset file, we can see that Slowbro is still running the usual Weakness Policy sets divided between Ice Scales/Unaware/Good as Gold/Magic Bounce. While Heracross is still predominantly Intrepid Sword, Scrappy actually beats out Defiant with 11.731% weighted usage. Going down from the top viability ceilings (highest GXE of a player who has used a mon), the top is a tie for 82 between Ting-Lu (mainly WP with some Mirror Herb and Ice Scales/Magic Bounce/Good as Gold/Unaware) and Mega Ampharos with the aforementioned #1 Intimidate set leading over Magic Bounce and Competitive. The next highest viability ceiling is 79, between Heracross, Glastrier (mainly Sword of Ruin/Defiant and Choice Band/Weakness Policy), Tyranitar (Magic Bounce ahead of Intrepid Sword, and a divide between Choice Band/Weakness Policy/Mirror Herb/Covert Cloak), and surprisingly Skeledirge with Magic Bounce/Storm Drain and Weakness Policy/Mirror Herb, who seems to be the partner of the peak Tyranitar. In 78 we have Dragonite alone with Defiant and Magic Bounce leading but Speed Boost ahead of Good as Gold as the numbers fall off, and mainly Choice Band over Mirror Herb. The last group to cover is the 77s with Type: Null (mainly Friend Guard with some Poison Point), Mega Sableye (Sablenite in the lead again but Mirror Herb ahead of Bright Powder), Iron Hands (classic Galvanize), Hisuian Zoroark (mainly Magic Bounce but a large mix of items including Normalium Z), Mega Kangaskhan with 95% Good as Gold and mainly Mirror Herb over Choice Band, and Mega Lopunny who primarily has Scrappy to deal with Ghosts, but that might also be either the default ability or mega evolved from the 39% Lopunnite in first place. I'm not sure if there's a way to differentiate from pre-mega'd abilities in these stats or if they just assume the post-mega ability, but I guess you would prefer to go in as a mega now just to have that tera option. Thanks for your reading.
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With the release of the Teal Mask DLC comes a lot of new tools and changes for Metronome Battles. Let's take a look!
ITEMS
Technically the Fairy Feather now exists to boost Fairy moves, but we already had the Pixie Plate which will probably be better to Fling. There are also some Ogerpon items for form changing.
MOVES
We get some new moves and some returning moves in the pool.
Returning Metronome-eligible moves include Tail Glow, Dark Void, Seed Flare, Forest's Curse, Toxic Thread, Clanging Scales, and Take Heart (Refresh + Calm Mind). There are a lot of pretty impactful moves, and also Dark Void which is still useless to anyone who isn't Darkrai.
In a surprising twist, every new DLC move is callable via Metronome! Blood Moon is a 140 BP special Normal move that can't be used twice in a row (I don't know what would happen if you randomly called this twice in a row), Matcha Gotcha is a 80 BP 90 accuracy special Grass move that restores 50% HP and can burn, Syrup Bomb is a 60 BP 85 accuracy special Grass move that lowers the target's Speed for 3 turns, and Ivy Cudgel is a 100 BP physical Grass move with high crit and changes type for Ogerpon formes.
ABILITIES
We have a few new abilities. Mind's Eye combines Scrappy's ghost hitting with Keen Eye's accuracy protection and evasion ignoring. I don't think this is immune to Intimidate so base Scrappy may still have a niche if you see a lot of Intimidate teams while laddering. Supersweet Syrup lowers enemy evasion on entrance, which is kind of bad compared to Compound Eyes because it will activate Defiants and get blocked by any stat debuff protection. Hospitality heals the ally on entrance which is useless.
Toxic Chain adds a chance of bad poison on any attack. I do not know the exact chance at this point but I expect it to be between 10 and 30% like Poison Touch, and currently on PS they have it as 30% which is pretty scary. As I've discussed earlier this is pretty game changing and could be meta defining, but there are ways around it including being Poison or the Covert Cloak item.
Embody Aspect is largely tied to Ogerpon's gimmick and I don't know if it fully functions on anyone else, but it's basically 4 abilities that boost Speed/SpD/Attack/Defense, so we could have an Intrepid Sword for everything but SpA. On Ogerpon itself it functions rather differently which I'll explain in the Pokemon section. Also this ability technically doesn't have Intrepid Sword's drawback of only activating once per battle but this may only matter for Skill Swap and I don't know if it can be swapped.
POKEMON
Dipplin (Grass/Dragon) is an Applin evolution and so it has a middling 485 BST with a spread of 80/80/110/95/80/40, which is still in the realm of being usable by dumping speed. What's more intriguing is that it can use the Eviolite which has more implications for DLC2.
Sinistcha is yet another Grass/Ghost, this time a clone of Polteageist which shares its exact stats of 71/60/106/121/80/70 (508 BST). It does end up as the Grass/Ghost with the highest SpA stat and decent bulk, but also has the lowest Attack of them all which can be a problem.
Okidogi is a Poison/Fighting type with a 88/128/115/58/86/80 (555 BST) stat spread. It's a fair cut above Toxicroak and Sneasler mostly with its Defense and a fair amount of resistances, but a 4x Psychic weakness is always looming for it and it has a lot of competition trying to be Fighting type or just physical.
Munkidori is a Poison/Psychic type with a 88/75/66/130/90/106 (555 BST) stat spread and ends up rather comparable to Galarian Slowking, who makes up the difference in BST by being weaker but much slower and also bulkier. As a type, Poison/Psychic is arguably worse than regular Poison but still better than Psychic alone, and they end up cancelling out some weaknesses and resistances between them to be left with 3 weaknesses and 4 resistances.
Fezandipiti is a Poison/Fairy type with a balanced 88/91/82/70/125/99 (555 BST) stat spread. Compared to Galarian Weezing it wins in HP, Attack, SpD, and Speed. Poison/Fairy at least has some better synergy with 5 resistances + 1 immunity and double resisting Bug and Fighting but still isn't the best. At the least, all these Poison types are still immune to Toxic Chain.
Ogerpon is a weird mon to theorize about, because there are multiple hardcoded aspects to it that are unclear to know how it will work in this theoretical environment. It has several formes that are either Grass, Grass/Rock, Grass/Fire, or Grass/Water, and the latter 3 may require a hold item to use, but I'm not sure if this will or will not be the case in Metronome which would be a shame. Its base stats are always 80/120/84/60/96/110 though, which is decent for a Grass legendary. Notably, its tera type is locked to match the type of its current forme due to its form change mechanic, and apparently the game softlocks if you try hacking another on it, so that already limits its options, but it gets stranger.
Ogerpon's main gimmick is that it has regular abilities other than Embody Aspect to start, but when you terastallize, you change into the tera form and automatically have the respective Embody Aspect ability to boost a stat. This is basically the modern version of mega evolving to change your ability. I'm not sure if this can still activate if hacked on base Ogerpon, but I guess you could use it in base to double up on a stat boost, or just run Intrepid Sword/Dauntless Shield for a similar effect.
Overall Ogerpon may end up relatively limited in terms of its options in Metronome depending on how things go, since it will be the only mon physically unable to go Tera Ghost, and it may also have to give up its item slot for its formes and also lose the Grass type and have to run a temporary ability if you want to use its tera gimmick on top of that. If not, I guess you have some more physical Grass options to work with, but you could also just tera Abomasnow or something. Things may go differently in practice, but for now I feel like Ogerpon may just be too limited in its options to stand out in a meta where anyone can run anything. It's an unfortunate debut for a Grass legendary headlining the DLC.
EDIT: This may be changed later, but currently all of Ogerpon's formes do lock you into their tera type but you can use them with any item. Here's me stacking all the Attack I can get and still being weaker than Mega Heracross while being forced to tera into a Fire type. Maybe I should just go Intimidate.
EDIT 2: I did realize now that unlike the Mega version, you can actually make use of Magician as your initial ability to steal an item since it's tera-based and not item based. So that's something unique Ogerpon can do, but your second ability is still locked to a raw stat boost.
EDIT 3:
Choosing Ogerpon-Hearthflame-Tera and terastallizing makes you an unmon that has no stats. Don't do this.
Also anything that transforms into Ogerpon apparently is not able to tera themselves for what it's worth.
EDIT 4:
I forgot to talk about Ursaluna-Bloodmoon despite talking about its ability and move. It's Ursaluna, but as a special attacker instead with a 113/70/120/135/65/52 spread (555 BST) that has a still respectable attack stat but sacrifices some HP and SpD as well. This could be an alright mon with its balance and currently is tied for the highest SpA among Normal-types. Physical may be more common and useful as seen by the failings of Darmanitan-Zen using it as a dump stat, but having viable mixed offenses is pretty good too.
ITEMS
Technically the Fairy Feather now exists to boost Fairy moves, but we already had the Pixie Plate which will probably be better to Fling. There are also some Ogerpon items for form changing.
MOVES
We get some new moves and some returning moves in the pool.
Returning Metronome-eligible moves include Tail Glow, Dark Void, Seed Flare, Forest's Curse, Toxic Thread, Clanging Scales, and Take Heart (Refresh + Calm Mind). There are a lot of pretty impactful moves, and also Dark Void which is still useless to anyone who isn't Darkrai.
In a surprising twist, every new DLC move is callable via Metronome! Blood Moon is a 140 BP special Normal move that can't be used twice in a row (I don't know what would happen if you randomly called this twice in a row), Matcha Gotcha is a 80 BP 90 accuracy special Grass move that restores 50% HP and can burn, Syrup Bomb is a 60 BP 85 accuracy special Grass move that lowers the target's Speed for 3 turns, and Ivy Cudgel is a 100 BP physical Grass move with high crit and changes type for Ogerpon formes.
ABILITIES
We have a few new abilities. Mind's Eye combines Scrappy's ghost hitting with Keen Eye's accuracy protection and evasion ignoring. I don't think this is immune to Intimidate so base Scrappy may still have a niche if you see a lot of Intimidate teams while laddering. Supersweet Syrup lowers enemy evasion on entrance, which is kind of bad compared to Compound Eyes because it will activate Defiants and get blocked by any stat debuff protection. Hospitality heals the ally on entrance which is useless.
Toxic Chain adds a chance of bad poison on any attack. I do not know the exact chance at this point but I expect it to be between 10 and 30% like Poison Touch, and currently on PS they have it as 30% which is pretty scary. As I've discussed earlier this is pretty game changing and could be meta defining, but there are ways around it including being Poison or the Covert Cloak item.
Embody Aspect is largely tied to Ogerpon's gimmick and I don't know if it fully functions on anyone else, but it's basically 4 abilities that boost Speed/SpD/Attack/Defense, so we could have an Intrepid Sword for everything but SpA. On Ogerpon itself it functions rather differently which I'll explain in the Pokemon section. Also this ability technically doesn't have Intrepid Sword's drawback of only activating once per battle but this may only matter for Skill Swap and I don't know if it can be swapped.
POKEMON
Dipplin (Grass/Dragon) is an Applin evolution and so it has a middling 485 BST with a spread of 80/80/110/95/80/40, which is still in the realm of being usable by dumping speed. What's more intriguing is that it can use the Eviolite which has more implications for DLC2.
Sinistcha is yet another Grass/Ghost, this time a clone of Polteageist which shares its exact stats of 71/60/106/121/80/70 (508 BST). It does end up as the Grass/Ghost with the highest SpA stat and decent bulk, but also has the lowest Attack of them all which can be a problem.
Okidogi is a Poison/Fighting type with a 88/128/115/58/86/80 (555 BST) stat spread. It's a fair cut above Toxicroak and Sneasler mostly with its Defense and a fair amount of resistances, but a 4x Psychic weakness is always looming for it and it has a lot of competition trying to be Fighting type or just physical.
Munkidori is a Poison/Psychic type with a 88/75/66/130/90/106 (555 BST) stat spread and ends up rather comparable to Galarian Slowking, who makes up the difference in BST by being weaker but much slower and also bulkier. As a type, Poison/Psychic is arguably worse than regular Poison but still better than Psychic alone, and they end up cancelling out some weaknesses and resistances between them to be left with 3 weaknesses and 4 resistances.
Fezandipiti is a Poison/Fairy type with a balanced 88/91/82/70/125/99 (555 BST) stat spread. Compared to Galarian Weezing it wins in HP, Attack, SpD, and Speed. Poison/Fairy at least has some better synergy with 5 resistances + 1 immunity and double resisting Bug and Fighting but still isn't the best. At the least, all these Poison types are still immune to Toxic Chain.
Ogerpon is a weird mon to theorize about, because there are multiple hardcoded aspects to it that are unclear to know how it will work in this theoretical environment. It has several formes that are either Grass, Grass/Rock, Grass/Fire, or Grass/Water, and the latter 3 may require a hold item to use, but I'm not sure if this will or will not be the case in Metronome which would be a shame. Its base stats are always 80/120/84/60/96/110 though, which is decent for a Grass legendary. Notably, its tera type is locked to match the type of its current forme due to its form change mechanic, and apparently the game softlocks if you try hacking another on it, so that already limits its options, but it gets stranger.
Ogerpon's main gimmick is that it has regular abilities other than Embody Aspect to start, but when you terastallize, you change into the tera form and automatically have the respective Embody Aspect ability to boost a stat. This is basically the modern version of mega evolving to change your ability. I'm not sure if this can still activate if hacked on base Ogerpon, but I guess you could use it in base to double up on a stat boost, or just run Intrepid Sword/Dauntless Shield for a similar effect.
Overall Ogerpon may end up relatively limited in terms of its options in Metronome depending on how things go, since it will be the only mon physically unable to go Tera Ghost, and it may also have to give up its item slot for its formes and also lose the Grass type and have to run a temporary ability if you want to use its tera gimmick on top of that. If not, I guess you have some more physical Grass options to work with, but you could also just tera Abomasnow or something. Things may go differently in practice, but for now I feel like Ogerpon may just be too limited in its options to stand out in a meta where anyone can run anything. It's an unfortunate debut for a Grass legendary headlining the DLC.
EDIT: This may be changed later, but currently all of Ogerpon's formes do lock you into their tera type but you can use them with any item. Here's me stacking all the Attack I can get and still being weaker than Mega Heracross while being forced to tera into a Fire type. Maybe I should just go Intimidate.
EDIT 2: I did realize now that unlike the Mega version, you can actually make use of Magician as your initial ability to steal an item since it's tera-based and not item based. So that's something unique Ogerpon can do, but your second ability is still locked to a raw stat boost.
EDIT 3:
Choosing Ogerpon-Hearthflame-Tera and terastallizing makes you an unmon that has no stats. Don't do this.
Also anything that transforms into Ogerpon apparently is not able to tera themselves for what it's worth.
EDIT 4:
I forgot to talk about Ursaluna-Bloodmoon despite talking about its ability and move. It's Ursaluna, but as a special attacker instead with a 113/70/120/135/65/52 spread (555 BST) that has a still respectable attack stat but sacrifices some HP and SpD as well. This could be an alright mon with its balance and currently is tied for the highest SpA among Normal-types. Physical may be more common and useful as seen by the failings of Darmanitan-Zen using it as a dump stat, but having viable mixed offenses is pretty good too.
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Only if it pushes things too strongly in favour of stall. I've been smashed by double Intrepid Sword (Choice Band?) Heracross-Mega too often to assume that people will jump ship to Toxic Chain in droves.
When were megas allowed to tera because I swear they weren't a couple of months ago?
Toxic chains feels really overcentralizing for team design, it's completely unfun and overpowered and has no place in the metagame. Your only options are wasting ability/item slots or tera types, literally removing the whole point of having it be a hackmons tier where you're supposed to express creativity
Maybe the most overcentralizing thing is that it mucks up defensive teams. I don't think my older Intrepid Sword-Sword of Ruin team got much worse or better with Toxic Chain thrown into the mix.
Another nasty anecdote not in Toxic Chain's favour - with double Toxic Chain, I actually Toxiced my own partner about as often as my opponent.
I’ve tried using it, and it doesn’t seem that overpowered. People weren’t really using much Eviolite stall anyway because it was already bad against HO and there are more fun options for beating Imposter. As is the usual case with status based strategies, Flower Veil walks all over Toxic Chain, and since it’s not burn, Magic Guard loooves getting matched up against Toxic Chain. I don’t think it was all that viable before, but Good As Gold and Magic Bounce always had the option to run Covert Cloak since it complements those abilities well and now they have extra incentive to. I also think incentive to run Tera Poison instead of Tera Ghost is good since Ghost is just too easy of a pick for Tera type, although that might be a bit too much incentive to run Poison specifically since there were plenty of reasons to pick other types that always feel worse than just picking Ghost.
Toxic Chain’s matchups are pretty much the same as Mega Heracross’s, except that Mega Heracross doesn’t struggle with Flower Veil. In other words, I think there’s more stuff that beats Toxic Chain than there is stuff that beats Mega Heracross, so I don’t find Toxic Chain to be the most broken thing in the meta. That said, I can see that having both in the meta at the same time might be too much, as the options that balance teams have to try and beat Mega Heracross do little to help against Toxic Chain, and vice versa.
Toxic Chain’s matchups are pretty much the same as Mega Heracross’s, except that Mega Heracross doesn’t struggle with Flower Veil. In other words, I think there’s more stuff that beats Toxic Chain than there is stuff that beats Mega Heracross, so I don’t find Toxic Chain to be the most broken thing in the meta. That said, I can see that having both in the meta at the same time might be too much, as the options that balance teams have to try and beat Mega Heracross do little to help against Toxic Chain, and vice versa.
Has anyone tried guts to counter toxic chain?
Intrepid Sword is better in most cases, also Magic Guard is a thing to actually counter Toxic Chain
To be clear, I don't think Toxic Chain is inherently an overpowered ability for this format. However, I still think it's having an unhealthy impact. Flower Veil was already a great strategy, and now it has immunity to toxic chain without sacrificing any item/ability slots, and can fit toxic chain itself on the non-flower veil mon.
The new attacks from DLC hit either neutrally or resisted into grass, and Syrup Bomb/Matcha Gotcha/Ivy Cudgel are themselves grass type, strengthening Grass's overall defensive and offensive profile, again slightly buffing Flower Veil. In my personal mid-ladder (1300-1400) experience, i see Flower veil teams at around 60%-80% usage depending on the session. This is overcentralizing and unhealthy.
My question here is: if we even agree that Flower veil Ting-Lu Venusaur is slightly too good in the current meta, what should be done about it? One could argue that Toxic Chain pushes it over the edge so Toxic Chain must go, but one could also argue that Flower Veil is the main culprit here, and try banning Veil. I suspect that if Flower Veil was banned, Toxic Chain would immediately become seen as broken, and probably also be banned. Therefore, since Toxic chain would most likely deserve a ban either way, I argue that Toxic Chain is the better first ban than Veil (assuming a ban is necessary).
The new attacks from DLC hit either neutrally or resisted into grass, and Syrup Bomb/Matcha Gotcha/Ivy Cudgel are themselves grass type, strengthening Grass's overall defensive and offensive profile, again slightly buffing Flower Veil. In my personal mid-ladder (1300-1400) experience, i see Flower veil teams at around 60%-80% usage depending on the session. This is overcentralizing and unhealthy.
My question here is: if we even agree that Flower veil Ting-Lu Venusaur is slightly too good in the current meta, what should be done about it? One could argue that Toxic Chain pushes it over the edge so Toxic Chain must go, but one could also argue that Flower Veil is the main culprit here, and try banning Veil. I suspect that if Flower Veil was banned, Toxic Chain would immediately become seen as broken, and probably also be banned. Therefore, since Toxic chain would most likely deserve a ban either way, I argue that Toxic Chain is the better first ban than Veil (assuming a ban is necessary).
I have been using Magic Guard lately, and it increasingly feels significantly worse than Good as Gold. There are a ton of ability changing moves that Good as Gold is immune to. Having to use a worse ability specifically to counter toxic chain (and it doesn't even counter once one of the 8 or so ability changing moves comes out) is another sign of its unhealthiness imo.
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You know, I think Toxic Chain is a bit of an issue. Terastallizing into a Poison type or keeping such a type is just... bad. Like the only relevant(ish) Poison type we have is like Mega Venusaur. You could run covert cloak, but there's like 95 better options. You could run an ability to negate the poison but once again, you still take damage a lot more than you get status inflicted. It might not be so bad -- as on the plus side it makes games not end up on a 1v1 PP war. But I really think a radar is needed for this dastardly ability in this metagame.
Really, getting into the knit and griddy of things, there's 2 things with this ability
1) It makes games faster
2) It makes games a lot less fun and enjoyable (because they're faster)
And as much as it needs to be on a watchlist, maybe let's give it time. After all, calling Perish Song makes the game over in 3 turns. So why can't we have Toxic Chain for the bulky teams?
Really, getting into the knit and griddy of things, there's 2 things with this ability
1) It makes games faster
2) It makes games a lot less fun and enjoyable (because they're faster)
And as much as it needs to be on a watchlist, maybe let's give it time. After all, calling Perish Song makes the game over in 3 turns. So why can't we have Toxic Chain for the bulky teams?
Adding onto this claim, I have a few battles to show you all. I did not peak nor did I flop -- I was simply testing the metagame state.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954463634
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954464158
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954465245
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954467019-exhrxz4442arrekbzobmg6el7pxy99zpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954469499-c3l29kc3nhveaqemjmvsfrb3vr0wpu1pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954470207-hbnxitim014g49eo6o07k9ivxfubn39pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954471942-sqgsqttsgv4aij2vscsa36t762j81erpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954475279-7tf4md0fj9crf94larzzu0ku3kexss2pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954475764-8yoz5lrzak4ufwnzsxbd9dmq98csumgpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954464158
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954465245
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954467019-exhrxz4442arrekbzobmg6el7pxy99zpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954469499-c3l29kc3nhveaqemjmvsfrb3vr0wpu1pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954470207-hbnxitim014g49eo6o07k9ivxfubn39pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954471942-sqgsqttsgv4aij2vscsa36t762j81erpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954475279-7tf4md0fj9crf94larzzu0ku3kexss2pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954475764-8yoz5lrzak4ufwnzsxbd9dmq98csumgpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954466639-0geswe2ijm5kmd01vpwqmrrj6hm3ptupw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954468696-7ea53rhkmykixrbrl5y0267jlfxgybopw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954470732-vvrnrvi5nj1eh0bbmq0zazyim19mkpcpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954471719-3prihy17fgppihuy0wrdu0so3veg3c4pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954474698-ukby4uobi48jgsdv0ffo5ddbs91vs7zpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954473502-8x31u1rzky9vnrb7dwh2lzc9r08p6xrpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954468696-7ea53rhkmykixrbrl5y0267jlfxgybopw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954470732-vvrnrvi5nj1eh0bbmq0zazyim19mkpcpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954471719-3prihy17fgppihuy0wrdu0so3veg3c4pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954474698-ukby4uobi48jgsdv0ffo5ddbs91vs7zpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-1954473502-8x31u1rzky9vnrb7dwh2lzc9r08p6xrpw
From this information, I have learned a few things.
• Every team that's relevant is prepared for Toxic Chain shenanigans. I was using a double poison bulky core with Toxic Chain to see how the metagame state is at the moment.
• Most teams were Mega Venusaur + Ting-Lu Flower Veil teams. Judging from them taking over half the replays, it seems to indicate a stale meta.
• Ghost types are still solid. This isn't shocking to anyone, but Mega Gengar's natural poison immunity is invaluable in the Toxic Chain environment. Not to mention on the special side it has 170 SpAtk and also 130 Speed.
Make what you will of this to judge the ability.
Come on, you can’t call the Metronome meta stale because you played for one day and saw three people using the same team. I got the entire ladder using double Mega Venusaur one day back in gen 8 by spamming it myself. Nobody else laddering at that particular time had a good team so they all just started copying me. That didn’t make the entire metagame turn to nothing but Mega Venusaur overnight.
I still maintain that Mega Heracross is more broken than Toxic Chain, but Toxic Chain is perhaps more of a problem for the meta because it’s an ability so people can just slap it onto any mon they like and have a powerful team. People tend to get bored with Mega Heracross’s one-dimensional playstyle and unremarkable design and just decide to build other teams or outright stop playing, and it has so little counterplay not named Imposter that I tend to just not even try to build around it outside of generic physical bulk optimization which is just generally useful against the meta as a whole. After all, you can’t be immune to physical attacks like you can be immune to Toxic Chain. This is why I think Toxic Chain is so much more centralizing than Mega Heracross: it’s more widely used (for the time being, anyway), not because it’s stronger but because it’s easier and more fun to build with, and it’s having a much more noticeable effect on the meta because it’s actually possible to build around without using generic defense buffing or niche abilities like Aerilate.
Actually, the strongest Flower Veil team in the meta right now isn’t a Toxic Chain team or even a Mega Heracross team. It’s Tera Grass Aerilate Mega Pinsir with double Mirror Herb, a Flower Veil team that not only beats other Flower Veil teams but also Mega Heracross.
People. It has happened.
The big 1K. I am super happy that this has happened to me. This feels just... surreal. Some dude who joined a community a year ago gotten feedback incredibly quickly. Thank you all for this moment. But soon, I will be gone. And I will return a stronger man. Bigger. And better
The big 1K. I am super happy that this has happened to me. This feels just... surreal. Some dude who joined a community a year ago gotten feedback incredibly quickly. Thank you all for this moment. But soon, I will be gone. And I will return a stronger man. Bigger. And better
Attachments
Oh hey! That was me!
I topped the ladder with my Flower Veil M-Venu team next to Imposter Blissey. The idea is simple: Tera Grass your transformed Blissey after to gain all the benefits of Flower Veil and try to win before you have to Struggle. And pray you don't lose your Leppa Berry before eating it!
egg bearer (Blissey) @ Leppa Berry
Ability: Imposter
Level: 99
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Metronome
flower girl (Venusaur-Mega) (F) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Flower Veil
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 248 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
A note on my Blissey set: Blissey is at Level 99 with minimum speed in case it faces another Imposter Blissey. If that happens, my Blissey will be slower and retain all 16 Metronome PP, while the opponent is transformed and only has 5 PP, while hitting like a wet noodle thanks to my 0 Attack IVs. The HP difference between 706 and 714 is negligible when you have that much HP anyways, and your other stats almost never matter.
I Tera my Blissey turn 1 almost every game. I only don't do this if I transform into something with Competitive or Defiant, as Flower Veil would block the stat drops that would turn into boosts. Also, if Blissey transforms into an opponent that's already Grass type, I'll save my Tera for Venusaur in case it loses its ability.
