Format Discussion Metronome Battle

[doipy hooves]

How do we feel about being classified as a "Randomized Format" now in the updated Showdown interface? In a sense we are the exact opposite of random battles. You have control of your teambuilding choices, but minimal control of in-battle decisions. In randbats you have no control over teambuilding choices and full control of in-battle decisions.

Happy December! Metronome Battle now has a new home on the right side of the formats menu. What else will the future of Metronome Battles bring? No one truly knows.

The history of where Metronome has been classified as a format is longer than you may expect. Since its inception in 2018, Metronome Battle used to be grouped with all the Doubles formats like DOU and VGC, though I personally thought of it as more like an OM, but technically its intended discussion room on Showdown was the Random Battles room even back then which you can see some mentions of in the thread. Even this thread itself was in the parent Showdown forum until about 2021 when the Random Battles subforum was made. Only last year it got its own format section, along with [Gen 8] Metronome Battle being challenge only, lasting until recently. I would say there's no perfect solution here because having its own heading is overly specific, while Metronome doesn't completely fit with any other section, so the existing affinity with Randomized Metas is the next best thing and was probably overdue. At least the new star feature to pin formats makes it so you don't really have to mind where it's located now, but there is one ramification to this change which I'll get into soon that might not be obvious to regulars in this thread.

It's been a year since the release of Gen 9, and in about two weeks, the Indigo Disk DLC will release with a lot of new/returning moves and abilities/mons to look forward to, and a whole new tera type. I personally don't expect the tera Terapagos to be legal BST-wise but we'll see what happens, and so far the DLC has had a good track record in adding new moves to the Metronome pool.

In other news about new mons, the new CAP 33 Cresceidon has released. It is a Water/Fairy type made to be a high-speed wall, with a unique stat spread of 80 HP / 32 Atk / 111 Def / 88 SpA / 99 SpD / 125 Spe (535 BST) that has Attack as its dump stat.

The battle count for November had 33144 battles which was a large dip, even lower than the end of Gen 8. I don't know if the current state of Toxic Chain is to blame, but I haven't been playing much myself. I imagine things should kick back up in December if it's just loss of interest, but I did end up coming up with another theory while writing this post, and it comes back to the format selector change that happened right before November.

This is what you see when opening the format list on a fresh Showdown session, where the Randomized Metas heading is collapsed by default, hiding Metronome Battle from view. I imagine this may be the cause of some visibility loss for new or casual players to add another step to find it, at least compared to when it had its own section. 30k is still a lot of battles but it's important to note any factors at the time affecting these stats.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-11/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-11/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt

November 2023: 1630-weighted Top 10 + last month (October) positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Ting-Lu (no change)
#3: Mega Heracross (no change)
#4: Blissey (#5)
#5: Mega Ampharos (#4)
#6: Dragapult (#10)
#7: Mega Slowbro (#9)
#8: Mega Sableye (#7)
#9: Necturna (#12)
#10: Mega Gengar (#6)

Venusaur is still the reigning champion of usage by far with 13945 raw uses, with Heracross in second at 7930. Most of the top picks are still the same, but a fair share of sub-1000 mons are visible in the top 20 like Guzzlord, Altaria, Tyranitar, and Iron Hands, and some dark horses include Wishiwashi-School at #20 with 358 uses, Baxcalibur at #24 with 451 uses, and Marshadow at #25 with 843 uses punching above their weight.

I noticed that compared to last month with 42 mons with >1000 uses, this month only has 24, so I decided to compare some of the common picks' raw usage (0 weighting) between this month and last month to see if my hypothesis about the casual majority dropping off has any bearing to it, even with about almost half the battle count. The same mons still make up most of the top spots of raw usage, but notably Snorlax and Mew fell off the most rank-wise, going from #10 and #14 to #22 and #23, which are the most common picks among casual players for being solid Gen 1 mons who learn the move in vanilla and are commonly used in videos. Otherwise there doesn't seem to be a huge change in raw usage other than numbers going down in general.

Over in the moveset file, we can see Toxic Chain with its true name along with Mirror Herb still going strong on Venusaur, though Flower Veil is in a close second instead of Magic Bounce now. Ting-Lu is still being used as its Flower Veil supporter. Baxcalibur is running Power Spot paired with Wishiwashi-School, while Wishiwashi iteslf has picked up Sword of Ruin over Pickup for synergy. Marshadow seems to be running generalist strategies of Magic Bounce and Intrepid Sword with Choice Band, mainly paired with Deoxys and Banette. I also noted that the posted Ability Shield Dondozo set has made it to the highest weighted usage, while Pastel Veil still maintains steady ground on Sableye and Pokestar UFO.

Looking through the top viability ceilings (highest GXE achieved by a user that used a Pokemon), Mega Venusaur and Ting-Lu take a major lead at 84, and are the only ones even in the 80s. The next highest viability ceilings are from Iron Hands and Mew in 78, with Iron Hands continuing to Toxic Chain while Mew is still split between Competitive and Defiant. Thirdly we have a four-way tie at 77 between Imposter Blissey, Dragapult still favouring Magic Guard and Mirror Herb, Necturna with Toxic Chain overtaking Thick Fat, and Fluffy WP Guzzlord still standing strong with a #14 ranking. Lastly there are 5 mons with 76, including Mega Heracross gaining a bit more Defiant usage, Mega Ampharos still preferring Magic Guard with Mirror Herb, Glastrier split between Intrepid Sword/Simple/Delta Stream/Primordial Sea, and the forementioned Wishiwashi-School and Baxcalibur.

Overall not too much has been changing in the meta at large, but soon the DLC release on December 14th will cause the next major upheaval before the game settles for a while, and as always I will try to cover every relevant change as we know of it. Thanks for your reading.

 

[Irpachuza]

The battle count for November had 33144 battles which was a large dip, even lower than the end of Gen 8. I don't know if the current state of Toxic Chain is to blame, but I haven't been playing much myself. I imagine things should kick back up in December if it's just loss of interest, but I did end up coming up with another theory while writing this post, and it comes back to the format selector change that happened right before November.

As randbats RO I also was surprised to see the heading uncollapsed, although I also understand why it is like that given its sheer volume. Thanks for bringing the numbers to attention.
What I see in 2023 briefly is:
December 2022: 85280 Post Commander ban, SV hype
January: 71520
February: 58320 Post Opportunist ban
March: 63787
April: 55871
May: 55865
June: 51238
July: 39059 Megas terastallizing
August: 51905
September: 63941 DLC 1 hype
October: 58334
November: 33144 New formats table

As a safety check, I'll run a parallel with SV OU, and SM OU (which was also hidden with the new system)

	Metronome	SV OU	SM OU
Dec 2022	85280	3385255	196739
Jan	71520 (-16%)	2188410 (-35%)	186472
Feb	58320 (-18%)	1466284 (-33%)	150138
Mar	63787 (+9%)	1511656 (+3%)	180558
Apr	55871 (-12%)	1194529 (-21%)	190376
May	55865 (-0.01%)	1282631 (+7%)	182837
Jun	51238 (-8%)	1999363 (+55%)	161905
Jul	39059 (-24%)	1336974 (-33%)	171185
Aug	51905 (+33%)	1250214 (-6%)	174860
Sep	63941 (+23%)	1912075 (+52%)	159189
Oct	58334 (-9%)	1709112 (-11%)	159606
Nov	33144 (-43%)	1339482 (-22%)	143778

Well, after checking all this my first conclusion is... don't try to compare formats like that. SM is clearly its own entity with a stable old gen playerbase that fluctuates too little compared to CG formats. Sadly, randbats formats don't go to smogon.com/stats so can check activity there. Regarding Metronome and SV OU, We can see the logical SV hype drop from Dec 2022 to Feb 2023, then some similar fluctuations probably explained by overall sim activity until June, when SV OU increased by a lot while Metronome didn't change much; I don't really have an explanation for this since there wasn't a particularly big OU suspect or something there, maybe someone else can drop a theory. July's big drop to 30k seems to potentially be explained by overall sim activity for CG, and the same can be said for the DLC hype of September and the logical cool off of October. For some reason we also have an important Metronome increase on August, though. Finally we see both CG formats dropping this month, although it's the first time that Metronome variates more than SV OU besides August's mystery.
So two potential conclusions: (1) ye it's possible that visibility has affected activity more than Toxic Chain, and (b) please someone help me figure out the explosion of activity for June for SV OU and August for Metronome.

 

[doipy hooves]

Wow, it's interesting to see how SV OU and Metronome parallel each other in some ways, but I suppose they are probably the most similar of casual formats to compare. Seeing SV OU having similar drops at the same times as you point out makes me feel better about the impact being from general activity of the playerbase.

So two potential conclusions: (1) ye it's possible that visibility has affected activity more than Toxic Chain, and (b) please someone help me figure out the explosion of activity for June for SV OU and August for Metronome.

I would say the activity spike for SV OU in June is definitely because of the first HOME update for SV compatibility dropping at the end of May and adding back most of the legendaries to cart play, while nothing changed for Metronome because we already have everything.

As for August, I've noticed that it's usually a rising month in general, and I always thought maybe it was due to summer and/or just normalizing out after July when people spend most of their time off. If anything, I can only think that the news of megas terastallizing affected this month most directly, and this thread was also pretty active during that time which might have brought more attention to the meta, with the mystery of black cat no hat and multiple people posting high ranking teams.

 

[Qaos-System]

Does anyone else think that Good As Gold shutting down a massive chunk of possible moves is a little over-the-top? The Steel type was banned for similar reasons iirc, so I don't see why the same couldn't be applied to GAG.

 

[jeffdaboss]

Does anyone else think that Good As Gold shutting down a massive chunk of possible moves is a little over-the-top? The Steel type was banned for similar reasons iirc, so I don't see why the same couldn't be applied to GAG.

Steel type was banned because the metagame entirely became dual-Melmetal. Good as Gold is used less than 10% of the time on most Pokemon, and is generally outclassed by Magic Bounce and Magic Guard, except for the fact Good as Gold can ignore Perish Song. So while I understand what you're saying about it, most of the moves it is shutting down aren't going to be winning you battles anyways.

 

[Lectrys]

Does anyone else think that Good As Gold shutting down a massive chunk of possible moves is a little over-the-top? The Steel type was banned for similar reasons iirc, so I don't see why the same couldn't be applied to GAG.

Good as Gold doesn't prevent the average offensive team from tearing opponents a new one with boosted attacks (unlike Fur Coat or Commander) or greatly punish them for bringing in offence-boosting abilities (unlike Opportunist), so no.

 

[pyuk]

Steel type was banned because the metagame entirely became dual-Melmetal. Good as Gold is used less than 10% of the time on most Pokemon, and is generally outclassed by Magic Bounce and Magic Guard, except for the fact Good as Gold can ignore Perish Song. So while I understand what you're saying about it, most of the moves it is shutting down aren't going to be winning you battles anyways.

That isn’t why Steel was banned. If dual Melmetal was the whole problem, they would have just banned Melmetal. The problem was that it wasn’t just Melmetal, it was Mega Steelix, Mega Scizor, and Celesteela too; the general consensus among the like, 6 people talking about it on the thread (read backwards from here) was that anything you would conceivably want a non-Steel type to do, some other Steel type could do it better—note that at the time, Magearna, Pokéstar Spirit, and all Steel/Ghost types were already banned. You should also note that Steel types being banned coincided with the ladder being temporarily removed because the format was “never supposed to” have one. I don’t want to see Melmetal back or anything, but it certainly seems to mark the blanket Steel type quick ban as… possibly short sighted and coming from a leadership philosophy that is very far from what we have today. We definitely ought to ban Toxic Chain before we even consider trying to figure out how many Steel types below the BST limit are actually broken, and how many viable ones would be left when all the broken ones were removed.

…We were talking about Good as Gold, right? It would almost certainly have been quickbanned without much thought if it had been released back in those days; when Steel types were blanket banned, Primordial Sea and Desolate Land were already on the banlist for reasons that seem unimaginable in today’s meta.

 

[somebodyuknow2]

Btw, we should probably update the sample teams... they are unchanged from gen 8, and the only one that kinda still works is imposter Blisseys.

 

[Zoroaster]

I've been playing Metronome Battles during my college classes with my friends, and I finally got up to number 1! Team building was super fun in this mode (until toxic chain got added) so I wanted to post some of the teams I used.
Dauntless Shield Ting-Lu, Flower Veil
Simple Ting-Lu, Flower Veil
Magician Venusaur, Flower Veil
All-out Attacking Mega Gengar and Mega Heracross
Soul-Heart Ampharos x Lv. 85 min def innards out Chansey

this is a super fun format and I hope it gets some more activity soon

 

[ULTRAV01D]

I feel like the Grass is _____ bots are taking over the metagame and should be banned. I think that one or even two bots is perfectly fine but it’s a problem when it looks like this

The other main problem with the Grass-Bots is that they all use the same flower veil team. This leaves the meta with a problem where if your team doesn’t beat mega venusaur and Tera grass ting-lu, it just won’t be viable. Overall, what I’m trying to say is just ban these bots.

 

[Celever]

I feel like the Grass is _____ bots are taking over the metagame and should be banned. I think that one or even two bots is perfectly fine but it’s a problem when it looks like thisView attachment 578615

The other main problem with the Grass-Bots is that they all use the same flower veil team. This leaves the meta with a problem where if your team doesn’t beat mega venusaur and Tera grass ting-lu, it just won’t be viable. Overall, what I’m trying to say is just ban these bots.

Banning bots isn’t something that Metronome Battle could do by itself, and I actually don’t think they’re a negative presence. That Flower Veil team is already the best one, it was good before and Toxic Chain has only cemented it as the by far best team to use (Venusaur-Mega should be running Toxic Chain itself). Resultantly, having a bot using the meta team is a good way to maintain consistent activity on the ladder. I have no clue who runs those bots though.

I’d like to add support to others in the thread who have advocated for Toxic Chain ban btw. It’s strong enough that you’re nerfing yourself by not running it or a direct counter to it (but really you should be running both i.e. Flower Veil with Toxic Chain).

 

[doipy hooves]

The final Indigo Disk DLC for SV has released, and there's some interesting new options for the final expansion to the meta. Now the move data sheet isn't out yet, so Showdown is still waiting to update, and I can't go into details about what moves are callable via Metronome or their exact effects or any buffs/returning moves yet, but there's still plenty to discuss, especially with the main new mechanic in the room being understood well enough by now.

New Tera Type
Stellar type maintains your natural type matchups so nothing changes defensively, but it provides the equivalent of a tera boost (EDIT: 1.2x for non-STABs and 2x for original STABs) to each type, but only once, so kind of like old Protean but a bit more limited. I would assume this counts each called type for Metronome separately and not just Metronome as a slot but it's worth confirming ingame, probably by seeing if a Metronome-called move visually removes the type boost on a Normal slot or another slot of the same type afterwards. Overall I would say this would be a natural option for ghosts to take as a rare offensive form of tera.

EDIT: It's an interesting new addition to the mix at least, where unlike Protean you have to consider the tradeoff of forsaking the typical Tera Ghost defensive option and you can only put it on one mon, but other than that it's a free offensive buff that can stack onto any existing mon already. I just realized this gives another multiplier to Mega Heracross to wreak havoc with.

Also, Stellar Tera Blast is (100 BP but you only get the nonSTAB 1.2x boost one time) and super effective against other terastallized mons, but lowers both your Atk and SpA on use. I would say it's a bad trade, but might be a good blowup move if you roll it into the right target.

New Mons
I mentioned Cresceidon last post, but didn't make a comparison. Overall I feel like it's outclassed by Tapu Fini since the only higher stats it has are HP and Speed.

Hydrapple: Grass/Dragon, 106/80/110/120/80/44 (540 BST). Speed as a dump stat is still pretty solid with 496 of its stats not in Speed being comparable to Shaymin, but it can't run Eviolite anymore and it hasn't improved by too much. Still respectable though but the 4x Ice weakness hurts.

Gouging Fire: Fire/Dragon, 105/115/121/65/93/91 (590 BST). Compared to Astrolotl, it wins out in Attack, Defense, and SpD as its main assets while mainly losing out on SpA and Speed. I would say it's a fair trade.

Raging Bolt: Electric/Dragon, 125/73/91/137/89/75 (590 BST). This typing is already in high competition with the minmaxed Mega Ampharos, and Ampharos is kind of just better than this in every way except being slower and having less HP.

Iron Boulder: Rock/Psychic, 90/120/80/68/108/124 (590 BST). Not the most desired typing but I guess you can try to run WP like base Terrakion with your 7 weaknesses.

Terapagos-Normal: The baby turtle form. Normal-type, 90/65/85/65/85/60 (450 BST). Normally you can't even see this thing fight except as an Illusion because its only purpose is to turn into the next form, and there is no reason to play as it anyway.

Terapagos-Terastal: Also Normal-type, with 95/95/110/105/110/85 (600 BST). Mostly dumps speed which puts it a bit above the other members of the 600 BST club. Being pure Normal isn't great in terms of resistances though. Also if you stellar terastallize, you become the 700 BST Terapagos-2 who gets 160 HP, 105 Attack, and 130 SpA, so that's probably going to be banned. I think Terapagos is actually locked to Stellar tera in vanilla but I'm not sure if it similarly crashes the game if you hack another tera type on like Ogerpon did, so we'll see if Terapagos as a whole has to be banned.

Pecharunt: Poison/Ghost, 88/88/160/88/88/88 (600 BST). Mega Gengar shows how solid Poison/Ghost is on a glass cannon, and now this behemoth comes in with probably the highest physical bulk of any Ghost, aside from tera Ghosts. At any rate I'm expecting it to get use just because of its niche and the novelty of it.

Items
I don't think there are any new held items.

Abilities
Tera Shift: Transforms baby Terapagos into the middle Terapagos. Pretty pointless.

Tera Shell: When at 100% HP, damaging moves become not very effective. Powercreeps Multiscale but still not that worthwhile for just one hit.

Teraform Zero: Eliminates effects of weather and terrain only on activation. It's not that great, but technically might have a niche over Air Lock if it permanently removes the primal weathers. I'm not sure if it actually activates normally outside of Terapagos's tera gimmick though.

Poison Puppeteer: Moves that poison will inflict confusion as well when they proc. Not that great to inflict a temporary status on top of a game-ending one, when you can just go for more chances to poison instead as Toxic Chain has demonstrated.

EDIT: Correcting with recent updates from the mechanics thread. Stellar Tera is actually a 1.2x boost for non STAB moves and not 1.5x, so it is weaker than I assumed. It is still 2x for moves that were originally STAB though.

 

[doipy hooves]

So the SV move dump sheet has been updated for 3.0.0, and now we can see what's going on in the Metronome flag.

New Moves

Every new move is callable via Metronome, except Tera Starstorm. Game Freak has been really generous with the DLC moves lately, and I have to wonder the reason for it considering a certain new move that no one would ever expect to be callable.

Electro Shot: 130 BP special Electric charge move that boosts SpA like Meteor Beam and attacks instantly in rain. This will be a huge hitting move, and even Choice users can still get the stat buff.

Fickle Beam: 80 BP special Dragon move with a 30% chance to double its power naturally. The flavour makes this effect seem mon-specific but I imagine it can still proc regardless.

Burning Bulwark: King's Shield but burns on contact... wait, a Protect clone is callable via Metronome? I did not expect to see this since every other Protect move is purposely not callable by most calling moves, including Silk Trap introduced this gen, but it's a potential bonus for faster mons to block damaging attacks.

Thunderclap: A Sucker Punch clone? In Metronome Battle? Well, at least it has some use against multi-turn moves, but otherwise it's a useless roll since everything is clicking a status move.

Mighty Cleave: 95 BP physical Rock move, with 100% accuracy because that's notable for a Rock move. It bypasses protection, which before today I would say is a useless effect, but they just added Burning Bulwark into the pool, so that's something. Also it makes contact.

Tachyon Cutter: 50 BP special Steel move with perfect accuracy that hits twice. I feel like this is honestly one of the better Steel attacks you could roll which isn't saying much.

Hard Press: A physical Steel-type Wring Out/Crush Grip clone (does more damage when the opponent is at high HP). These moves usually feel pretty useless, but I guess opening the battle with a big hit (120 BP if the same formula) might be appreciated. Also it makes contact.

Dragon Cheer: This is an interesting idea for a support move. It boosts your ally's critical hit ratio by 1 stage, but if they are a Dragon type then they get +2 instead. They can't stack this effect with Focus Energy either way. Not too impactful but I like crits.

Alluring Voice: 80 BP special Fairy move that confuses a target if they boosted a stat this turn, like Burning Jealousy. More fairy options are nice.

Supercell Slam: 100 BP, 95% accurate, physical Electric move that works like Hi Jump Kick where you take crash damage if you miss or hit an immunity (Ground). This probably won't be as bad as HJK since it doesn't ruin your game against ghosts, but it's another really strong move for physicals to use.

Psychic Noise: 75 BP special Psychic move that inflicts the effect formerly known as Heal Block for 2 turns, blocking all healing. This is probably not too impactful without any guaranteed healing sources, but it's not a bad side effect when on an attacking move.

Upper Hand: It's an even more specific version of Sucker Punch that only works against someone using an increased priority move. You would need to somehow call the move with a Prankster mon and use it against another Prankster mon that you're faster than or something, or like a mon with Gale Wings using Sky Attack, which should tell you how convoluted it has to be for this move to work.

Malignant Chain: 100BP special Poison move. This has the same Inflict flags as Poison Fang, so I believe it's a 50% chance to badly poison.

EDIT: Somehow I skipped a move.

Temper Flare: 75BP physical Fire Stomping Tantrum clone. It's alright for a potential 150BP move with all the possibilities to fail.

Old Moves
A lot of legendaries returned and brought their sigs with them too, so there will be a lot of high power action back in the mix, but also a few smaller signature moves too. Porygon brings Conversion and Conversion 2 back, so now you can change your type to Normal or something completely different, as long as you don't Tera. Triple Kick is kind of weak, but Aeroblast and Sacred Fire are some of the high power moves I'm talking about that might add a bit more pressure onto Heracross.

Luster Purge and Mist Ball return, and they've also been uniquely buffed from 70 to 95 power, which adds a lot more STAB for psychics on top of Psycho Boost returning. Over in Gen 4, Rock Wrecker is coming back which a lot of physical mons are probably looking forward to, but not so much Crush Grip.

Gen 5 really leads the charge with legendary sigs with Glaciate, Bolt Strike, Blue Flare, Fusion Flare, and Fusion Bolt all returning as huge elemental attacks. Will we ever see the moment of using both fusion moves in one turn? Gen 6 only has but one returning move but it's a major one in Topsy-Turvy, potentially changing the game for any bulky statbooster. Gen 7 features Sparkling Aria, Floral Healing, Dragon Hammer, and Prismatic Laser, since the other Gen 7 legendary moves have still been uncallable since they changed in Gen 8 for whatever reason. Along with Floral Healing, Decorate is also coming back for anyone who enjoys seeing the chaos of mons causing their own downfall.

I think it's going to be interesting seeing some of these old moves back for the first time in a while, and for me Topsy Turvy is probably the most unique effect of them all that can make or break a game. It's a nice side effect of gamefreak having to readd all the legendaries that the Metronome meta still gets to enjoy a return of their moves.

 

[doipy hooves]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012561666
DLC2 is live on Showdown, and the Peach has been pretty good for me against all the meta bot sets. I peaked above 1500 here in a match against Blisseys, whose matchup is pretty passive as you would expect. I imagine the meta will adjust soon enough, but doing pretty well against DLC1 stuff is a good sign.

Pasha (Pecharunt) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

Because I can just chill against damaging moves as being a high defense ghost, I really don't want to deal with status or debuffs, even if the peach is naturally immune to Toxic Chain, so I put Magic Bounce to hopefully screw over the opponent instead and it works pretty well. Being just average on the special side is kind of an issue especially when weak to Psychic, but just having a tanky ghost (that doesn't need to use Eviolite) is pretty amazing. I saw a banded Mega Pinsir only do 33% to it, off a super effective Assurance. That's something I don't expect from most ghosts. So far I'm a fan, and currently it also brings back memories of late Gen 7 Melmetal not having a sprite.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012547232

For Stellar tera, I like to wait a couple turns to see which of my peaches has higher HP or stat buffs to judge based on momentum so I don't just put the tera on something that gets blown up, but there is also merit in just burning it T1 to avoid type changes and multiplying your damage out early though.

Other highlights:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012531062 - My first DLC2 game vs Heracross
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012557903 - close game vs Venusaur and Ting-Lu bot
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012546639 - Stellar Tera Blast doing 58% to Ting-Lu
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012539976 - Terapagos in action (illegal)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012536168 - A live first reaction to Stellar

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2012534834-o5xxo508midf65yhd9su43cod3mt5bdpw - Burning Bulwark used

 

[Jackalope414]

Something prob needs to be done about Terapagos-Stellar, with its some 700+ BST being available

 

[Jackalope414]

Something prob needs to be done about Terapagos-Stellar, with its some 700+ BST being available

As backing up to this, i got no. 1 on ladder with a soul heart team, it really needs to be regined in

 

[Quagman]

I got to the top of the ladder.

Used team

Terapagos-Terastal @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Download
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome

Venusaur-Mega @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

Terapagos-Stellar is very strong.
But why is he not banned despite 700 BST?

 

[doipy hooves]

Terapagos-Stellar is very strong.
But why is he not banned despite 700 BST?

The question of tiering Terapagos-Stellar separately from Terapagos-Terastal is a question that even Policy Review has been debating on for over a week and is somewhat relevant to this answer: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-tiering-of-terapagos-stellar.3732775/

To sum it up, there are 3 options to handle Terapagos that I see:

1: Ban all of Terapagos entirely. The 700 BST Stellar form is inherently tied to terastallization even when hacking on an alternate tera type, and there is currently no way to prevent it from being used, unless you just add a new rule to not allow Terapagos to tera. This is currently how Terapagos-Terastal is tiered together with its Stellar form.

2: Ban Terapagos from terastallizing to retain its legal form as a playable option. Personally I think this makes the most sense but would require a new clause specifically. I think this would most likely happen if the result of the above thread ends up allowing for Terapagos-Stellar to be tiered separately and adding this functionality into regular formats first, but maybe Metronome Battle can set the precedent.

3: Do nothing, which is the current state of affairs and also most objectionable because of violating the BST rule.

As a sidenote, Tera Shell and Teraform Zero do nothing on non-Terapagos mons.

 

[somebodyuknow2]

On a purely conceptual level, the best solution is to ban terapagos from terastallizing to retain the legal form (doipy hooves' option 2). This may be difficult to implement on Showdown, and something instinctively opposes having a "terapagos clause" like how Ubers had a "mega rayquaza clause." Option 1 (ban terapagos entirely) may be neater in that sense, because, lets be honest, the base form is not a viable pokemon in Metronome, especially locked into the normal type.

 

[Celever]

The question of tiering Terapagos-Stellar separately from Terapagos-Terastal is a question that even Policy Review has been debating on for over a week and is somewhat relevant to this answer: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-tiering-of-terapagos-stellar.3732775/

To sum it up, there are 3 options to handle Terapagos that I see:

1: Ban all of Terapagos entirely. The 700 BST Stellar form is inherently tied to terastallization even when hacking on an alternate tera type, and there is currently no way to prevent it from being used, unless you just add a new rule to not allow Terapagos to tera. This is currently how Terapagos-Terastal is tiered together with its Stellar form.

2: Ban Terapagos from terastallizing to retain its legal form as a playable option. Personally I think this makes the most sense but would require a new clause specifically. I think this would most likely happen if the result of the above thread ends up allowing for Terapagos-Stellar to be tiered separately and adding this functionality into regular formats first, but maybe Metronome Battle can set the precedent.

3: Do nothing, which is the current state of affairs and also most objectionable because of violating the BST rule.

As a sidenote, Tera Shell and Teraform Zero do nothing on non-Terapagos mons.

The precedent set by OU is that you ban all of Terapagos entirely. Admittedly, this is pretty unpopular and most(?) OU players still want the specific Terapagos Tera Clause.

Metronome Battle setting the precedent seems fine to me, but I'm actually somewhat sure that there is a sneaky workaround to it considering the hacked status of our mons. I figured that Terapagos-Stellar transformation was tied to Terapagos' ability (or, at least, being Tera Type Stellar) and that through hacking we could find a way to easily keep Terapagos-Terastal without Terapagos-Stellar. Maybe we'd have to ban Tera Type Stellar on it if ability doesn't matter, but that's something we can p easily do here.

Prob requires further on-cart research since I don't think these questions are answered yet.

 

[doipy hooves]

The precedent set by OU is that you ban all of Terapagos entirely. Admittedly, this is pretty unpopular and most(?) OU players still want the specific Terapagos Tera Clause.

Metronome Battle setting the precedent seems fine to me, but I'm actually somewhat sure that there is a sneaky workaround to it considering the hacked status of our mons. I figured that Terapagos-Stellar transformation was tied to Terapagos' ability (or, at least, being Tera Type Stellar) and that through hacking we could find a way to easily keep Terapagos-Terastal without Terapagos-Stellar. Maybe we'd have to ban Tera Type Stellar on it if ability doesn't matter, but that's something we can p easily do here.

Prob requires further on-cart research since I don't think these questions are answered yet.

Even if you hack a non-Stellar tera type onto it, Terapagos still eventually becomes Stellar forme with its stats and all. I don't think the base ability matters since it just gets overwritten by Teraform Zero.

If Terapagos is hacked to have another Tera Type that is not Stellar, the game stalls somewhat in broken animations upon activating Tera with it, but it does seem to resolve eventually and allow continuing a battle. This is in contrast to Ogerpon, who still softlocks the game seemingly permanently if it Teras into a Type that doesn't match its Mask, as covered by Anubis previously.

The Terapagos does still enter its Stellar form using Tera Ghost, as shown by the HP increase in the footage at various points.

 

[Celever]

Even if you hack a non-Stellar tera type onto it, Terapagos still eventually becomes Stellar forme with its stats and all. I don't think the base ability matters since it just gets overwritten by Teraform Zero.

alright that's sad, so if desired we would have to trailblaze the "just ban Terapagos from teraing" which I think is certainly my preference. we have a pretty basic "over these stats you're out under these stats you're in" philosophy here and I think breaking that is more controversial / game-changing than Terapagos not being able to Tera is.

 

[Lectrys]

Yeah, doing well with Terapagos is a little too easy:

Today's edition of reaching 1500s was on the back on this team (yes, it's inspired by a previous Terapagos team posted here, although I did try Terapagos with other mons for a long while):


Illegal? (Terapagos-Terastal) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome


Venusaur-Mega @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome

I do not expect any decision on Terapagos in this meta to set precedent, but since we managed to ban exclusively Tera Steel, surely we can prevent exclusively Terapagos from Terastallizing since its form change breaks our BST limit and Mega Stones corresponding to BST-breaking Mega forms are similarly banned.

Terapagos-Stellar doesn't feel as crushing as Commander or as restrictive as Opportunist, though - it feels a mere one step above a lot of things, with its automatic 1.2x offence boost, its Adaptability boost instead on Normal-type moves, its additional bulk, its ability change forcing initial abilities like Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield, and its (current) inability to go Tera Ghost or Tera Poison. You can still get stalled out, you can still get ripped up by double Mega Heracross, the double Imposter match-up is surprisingly dicey, etc. Notably, I ended up bouncing between 1300s and 1500s with this team.

 

[doipy hooves]

Happy new year to 2024! The Metronome stats since DLC2's release are about what you expect because of Terapagos shifting the meta when it's not supposed to, so I won't be going too in depth here.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-12-DLC2/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-12-DLC2/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt

The battle count is 11887, with the DLC being implemented about halfway through the month, and for me I spent most of that time period playing through it. Unfortunately I did not get to see Metronome call a new DLC move yet.

December 2023 (DLC2): 1630-weighted top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Terapagos (new)
#3: Mega Heracross (no change)
#4: Pecharunt (new)
#5: Blissey (#4)
#6: Ting-Lu (#2)
#7: Mega Gengar (#10)
#8: Mega Ampharos (#5)
#9: Baxcalibur (#24)
#10: Mega Sableye (#8)

Terapagos not making 1st place is probably only because you can only have one Terapagos-Stellar per team, and Venusaur seems to be its most favoured partner by far. Pecharunt manages to make a great debut of its own, and we'll see if it can continue the trend with its defensive ghost niche. Meanwhile, Ting-Lu might have its lowest ranking ever since SV's release (with Commander) as it becomes old news, though the full month of December will probably keep it afloat. The other new additions (Gouging Fire at #32, Hydrapple at #41, Raging Bolt at #47, Iron Boulder at #63, Cresceidon at #145) all hang around the triple digits of usage.

Over in the moveset file, both Power Spot and Toxic Chain overtake Flower Veil on Venusaur now. Terapagos seems to favour Download over Intrepid Sword while mainly running Mirror Herb. On the other hand, Pecharunt slots in Magic Bounce/Ice Scales/Toxic Chain to leverage its defense and stalling, while divided between Mirror Herb/Weakness Policy/Kee Berry to bolster its stats. Despite its advantages, Terapagos's viability ceiling is a mere 78, behind Pecharunt and Mega Slowbro with 79, Mega Heracross's 80, and Ting-Lu and Mega Venusaur still holding strong at 81.

Whenever it ends up resolved, I feel like Terapagos-Terastal will be a pretty solid alternative to Pokestar Giant since it does end up slightly bulkier with 95/110/110 bulk, even if it is stuck as a Normal type. I also want to see if the Stellar tera type is worth using normally, since the state of the meta is probably skewed to burning it on Terapagos. While this may be the last major content addition from SV's DLC, the 3.0.1 patch is still incoming this month, and I really suspect that they might remove Burning Bulwark from the Metronome pool if anything.

 

[Chains of Markov]

Whenever it ends up resolved,

This may be a very dumb comment, but I figured with your involvement and frequent (excellent!) posts, you were the one in charge of the metagame. Your post seems to indicate that you're waiting for a call on Toxic Chain like the rest of us, so do you happen to know who is supposed to make that call?