Metagame Analyses: Gen VI changes

Antar said:

Elaborate please?

If it's non-permanent sand, then it doesn't get counted (unless you're running multiple sand pokes). If it IS permanent sand, then your team must have some sort of sand synergy or I doubt it's going to work. You'd have more of a case if it were Sun or even Rain.

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I find that sand has few abusers compared to other weathers. I'll list of the effects and pokemon that benefit from it.

1. Non-Rock, Steel, and Ground Pokemon are damaged each turn.- It may damage a lot of Pokemon in the metagame, but it is not that much damage anyway and that doesn't stop people for using pokemon hurt by sandstorm on sand teams.

2.Rock types get their SpD increased by 50%.- This seems very significant, but only 2 OU pokemon are rock types. While that boost does make those two pokemon much better, those two pokemon, Tyranitar and Terrakion, are not even on every team if you look in the RMT forum.

3. Solarbeam power is reduced by 50%.- The fact that sun is gone anyway cripples Solarbeam, adding to the fact that it can be used as a more anti-weather.

4. Synthesis, Morning Sun, & Moonlight get cut to 50%.- Correct me if I am wrong, but this only affects Cresselia, which is very uncommon.

5. Sand Rush, Veil, and Force activate-
Viable Sand Force Pokemon- Landorus
Viable Sand Rush Pokemon- Stoutland, Sandslash
Viable Sand Veil Pokemon- Gliscor(Poison Heal is MUCH more common)

Stoutland and Sandslash can be deadly sweepers, but are only UU and not used often. Landorus with STAB Earthquake and Sand Force is deadly but also doesn't feature on all Pokemon.

I think definition of a sand team should be that it features at least two Pokemon that benefit from one of the above effects, such as featuring Stoutland, Landorus, Sandslash or Terrakion.

I'm sorry, zpattack12, but I'm going to have to say no. You can make similar arguments about rain and sun (especially sun, which is limited in its viable sweppers by the prevalence of Stealth Rock). The bottom line is that if you're choosing to use a perma-sand pokemon, you are--in my opinion--running a sand team.

zpattack12 said:

I find that sand has few abusers compared to other weathers. I'll list of the effects and pokemon that benefit from it.

1. Non-Rock, Steel, and Ground Pokemon are damaged each turn.- It may damage a lot of Pokemon in the metagame, but it is not that much damage anyway and that doesn't stop people for using pokemon hurt by sandstorm on sand teams.

2.Rock types get their SpD increased by 50%.- This seems very significant, but only 2 OU pokemon are rock types. While that boost does make those two pokemon much better, those two pokemon, Tyranitar and Terrakion, are not even on every team if you look in the RMT forum.

3. Solarbeam power is reduced by 50%.- The fact that sun is gone anyway cripples Solarbeam, adding to the fact that it can be used as a more anti-weather.

4. Synthesis, Morning Sun, & Moonlight get cut to 50%.- Correct me if I am wrong, but this only affects Cresselia, which is very uncommon.

5. Sand Rush, Veil, and Force activate-
Viable Sand Force Pokemon- Landorus
Viable Sand Rush Pokemon- Stoutland, Sandslash
Viable Sand Veil Pokemon- Gliscor(Poison Heal is MUCH more common)

Stoutland and Sandslash can be deadly sweepers, but are only UU and not used often. Landorus with STAB Earthquake and Sand Force is deadly but also doesn't feature on all Pokemon.

I think definition of a sand team should be that it features at least two Pokemon that benefit from one of the above effects, such as featuring Stoutland, Landorus, Sandslash or Terrakion.

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I don't think any of this matters and that a team with sand should be called a sand team regardless, even if it primarily uses it as a counter to other weathers. Bascially, that's good sand in a nutshell; it's less to abuse it and more to make life harder on everyone else not using a team that can handle it.

I'd also like to point out that SV Gliscor is a very potent abuser and should be included in your list. Believe me I've had enough debating about SV to know that people take it very seriously.

Also, Moonlight, Synthesis and Morning Sun are also commonly used by Volcarona, Espeon, Umbreon, and Amoongus (there might be others but those are the ones off the top of my head. Note that Amoongus doesn't use it a lot since getting Regenerator). So that has a significantly larger impact than you think. Hell, the omnipresence of sand last generation is what lead to the dive in the usage of those moves in the first place.

What I've seen with Copycat, basically you lay down hazards, then send in something with Prankster, Copycat, and Roar, and proceed to slowly sweep the opponent with hazards and a +1 Roar, thanks to Copycat. Pretty sure only Riolu can pull this off. It's incredibly gimmicky but can work, as seen here (thanks TM13.)

cjrocker said:

What I've seen with Copycat, basically you lay down hazards, then send in something with Prankster, Copycat, and Roar, and proceed to slowly sweep the opponent with hazards and a +1 Roar, thanks to Copycat. Pretty sure only Riolu can pull this off. It's incredibly gimmicky but can work, as seen here (thanks TM13.)

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Yeah, Entry Hazards + Riolu does not a team make. I get that it's a crazy effective strategy (I've seen the Youtube video), but in order for it to qualify as a team, I'm saying it has to involve three-or-more pokemon (or be something that effects the entire team permanently, like permaweather). After all, many, many pokemon can sweep and require teams to be built around them. Surely you can't define them all as team strategies.

I would say a sand team is definitely viable for an entry. While pure sand sweepers are rare, it can be abused in more subtle ways...such as passive damage or having that excellent special defense boost.

I would say a good definition would be one pokemon with the sand stream ability, and two pokemon that have the abilities sand rush, sand force, or sand veil, recieve a 50% special defense boost (excluding tyranitar if used for sand stream), or take no damage from sand.

By this reasoning, I would call a team containing Tyraintar, Jirachi, and Terrakion a sand team. I would also call Hippowdon, Stoutland, and Landorus a sand team.

I'm not so sure about Sand Veil / Sand Rush / Sand Force, Gato. There are plenty of Sand teams that don't use sweepers like that at all, such as Sand Stall teams. However, everything else looks good.

How about the concept of anti weather? It could look like this:
A team with more than two of the following traits-
~a pokemon with Flash Fire
~a pokemon with Water Absorb
~a pokemon with Volt Absorb
~a pokemon with Thick Fat
~a pokemon with Magnet Pull
~a pokemon with Arena Trap
~at least 3 pokemon immune to ground

This is really iffy; though I've seen this strategy a lot it's hard to put it into words. Of course, the description could change, if someone could define it better.

Electrolyte said:

I'm not so sure about Sand Veil / Sand Rush / Sand Force, Gato. There are plenty of Sand teams that don't use sweepers like that at all, such as Sand Stall teams. However, everything else looks good.

How about the concept of anti weather? It could look like this:
A team with more than two of the following traits-
~a pokemon with Flash Fire
~a pokemon with Water Absorb
~a pokemon with Volt Absorb
~a pokemon with Thick Fat
~a pokemon with Magnet Pull
~a pokemon with Arena Trap
~at least 3 pokemon immune to ground

This is really iffy; though I've seen this strategy a lot it's hard to put it into words. Of course, the description could change, if someone could define it better.

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I personally don't see how Magnet Pull qualifies as "anti weather".

Also, should probably put Storm Drain, Lightning Rod, Motordrive and Sap Sipper in there too.

Yeah, anti-weather is pretty hard to define (unless you're making an Air Lock / Cloud Nine team).

I'm feeling pretty good about my definition of weather, and I'm not going to include requirements that weather teams require weather abusers.

So move it along, people.

Theorymon territory:


Status Team: Team that aims to spread paralysis/posion/burns directly and indirectly (move side effects such as scald, body slam and tricking flame/toxic orbs) to aid in a late game sweep or powering special moves like Venoshock and Hex.

Tailwind Team:

F.E.A.R Team:

Cloud Nine Team: Contains 3 or more Cloud Nine users or 2 Cloud Nine users plus 1 pokemon with a weather changing move with explicit aim of removing the current weather as fast as possible (meaning it does not use an weather rock).

I'm feeling pretty good about my definition of weather, and I'm not going to include requirements that weather teams require weather abusers.

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+1. not every good weather team requires good weather "abusers". in and of itself the word abuser is impossible to define certainly some of them are common because they're straight up good mons (tornadus T in rain) but weather has more to do with synergy between mons than it does with straight up abuse through abilities. i've seen plenty of gyarados on sand teams, but gyara isn't rock type (for spdef boost) and it doesn't have any abilities that gain boosts in sand; does this mean it's not an abuser? well i can't imagine it's not taking advantage of the sand in some way; it is on a sand team after all. trying to separate the weather from the team that it's played on is a hopeless cause

x5, those are interesting things, but i don't think you're ever going to see any of them in practice... no team runs status just for the sake of status. i don't feel like this is something that's distinct enough to be given a category of its own. stall teams will spread around toxic and burn to stay alive and wear down the opponent while offense teams might spread paralysis to facilitate easier sweeps but i don't see this as a defining factor in their "strategy".

FEAR could potentially be a strategy but i can't imagine it ever being implemented as one, because that would imply multiple fear users on the same team. i don't think sand streamer + aron is enough to define a team. splashing a FEAR mon onto a team seems much more likely.

likewise i have never seen any team carrying multiple users of cloud nine/air lock. at this point i feel like we're sinking into the mindset that "weather is a strategy that defines a team, therefore anti weather must also be a strategy!" it's not. every single team in the metagame must have some kind of anti weather plan built in, namely anti-all-weather-except-my-own (and in the case of weatherless that means anti-all-weathers lol). a team lacking such a plan loses. i don't think this can be considered a distinct strategy.

i HAVE seen tailwind though. it's very niche. it's rare enough that i'd say two users of tailwind on the same team would be enough to distinguish it (cause if it's only one, it might just be prankster tornadus-I), but i don't see many other defining characteristics

Well the ideas are pretty much done with most used styles so were just now discussing what's viable and what's not so I'm just gonna elaborate further on the things I mentioned in case one of them needs more elaboration:

Status Team can be put into two ideas that share a theme, one is to use a team that has lots of paralysis spreaders and body slammers so in the end a pokemon or two can pick up the pieces or a team that uses status offensively rather than defensively (stall) to power up moves and impair counters with burns and toxic orbs.

The F.E.A.R teams I've seen on youtube and in discussions or basically 2 or more F.E.A.R users and their support cast, mainly spinners, hazard users and supportive weather. Is Flail also a similar type of strategy?

Tailwind has been given a boost in turns so I guess that's why I mentioned it and has ample user and abilities such as prankster. People use Ninjask to boost a certain mon or a SS user with BP so I guess this is "easier".

What else? Cloud Nine, while limited to 3 fully evolved pokemon this gen doesn't mean that's the last of them, and since you mentioned every team has a plan, this could be one. I mean we have a Trapper team and DragonMag team as a type of offense so I guess this is the reason why I thought this up.

I'll leave the viability part for you and the rest to judge upon.

Just posting to ask Antar if he could change the Gravity definition to have at least TWO pokemon with Gravity. Firstly because, if you are actually using Gravity, then having two pokemon to set up Gravity is the bare minimum I would aim for, secondly because Landorus and Landorus-T both have Gravity sets that can be used as 'stand alone" sweepers so prevent them being walled by Skarmory. When you factor in the other criteria, namely hazards, ground type attacks for moves with 80% acc such as SE or Hydro Pump, its really not hard to see a team be incorrectly defined as a Gravity team, when thats not really the goal at all.

Lol theres no need to start making up team structures just to have it. Most of the responses in this thread are either so niche or just flat out don't exist.

I think the list you currently have is fine Antar - what I think we should be doing is refining the definitions of the current team types.

X5Dragon said:

Well the ideas are pretty much done with most used styles so were just now discussing what's viable and what's not so I'm just gonna elaborate further on the things I mentioned in case one of them needs more elaboration:

Status Team can be put into two ideas that share a theme, one is to use a team that has lots of paralysis spreaders and body slammers so in the end a pokemon or two can pick up the pieces or a team that uses status offensively rather than defensively (stall) to power up moves and impair counters with burns and toxic orbs.

The F.E.A.R teams I've seen on youtube and in discussions or basically 2 or more F.E.A.R users and their support cast, mainly spinners, hazard users and supportive weather. Is Flail also a similar type of strategy?

Tailwind has been given a boost in turns so I guess that's why I mentioned it and has ample user and abilities such as prankster. People use Ninjask to boost a certain mon or a SS user with BP so I guess this is "easier".

What else? Cloud Nine, while limited to 3 fully evolved pokemon this gen doesn't mean that's the last of them, and since you mentioned every team has a plan, this could be one. I mean we have a Trapper team and DragonMag team as a type of offense so I guess this is the reason why I thought this up.

I'll leave the viability part for you and the rest to judge upon.

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The only options you mentioned that I would consider a true team strategy are Tailwind and perhaps Status. The other ones seem like either sub categories of other teams or just non-viable. I've never seen people use multiple F.E.A.R pokemon on one team, mainly because the strategy is ruined if the other team gets up and hazards or Hail/Sandstorm. Most teams that use this strategy, usually with Aron, only carry one F.E.A.R pokemon and that seems more like a single pokemon with team support than a team build. I've seen a few people talk about Cloud Nine. Altaria, Golduck, and Licklilicky aren't OU viable, even with heir nice ability. They're next to useless against weatherless teams, and still can't do much against common weather abusers. Carrying three bad pokemon on a team in hopes of stopping weather isn't a strategy, it's suicidal. Cloud Nine isn't viable.

I think Paralysis teams qualify as a viable build, focusing on slowing down enemy sweepers so you can clean up late-game with a slower but powerful threat, such as Haxorus or Nidoking. The other status moves seem more like parts of other strategies, or have clauses (Sleep Clause and to a lesser extent Freeze Clause) that prevent them from being viable as a standalone team build. I guess you could run a bunch of different types of status on the same team, but at that point it's hard to ensure you cripple each threat in an ideal way (I.E. Paralyze a Slowking or Burn a Tornadus-T). I'll admit that last bit is theorymon, since I rarely mix multiple status moves except Poison and Burn. Maybe I'm wrong, but running multiple kinds of status seems too inconsistent to work reliably.

I can see Paralysis teams qualifying as a viable build, focusing on slowing down enemy sweepers so you can clean up late-game with a slower but powerful threat, such as Haxorus or Nidoking. The other status moves seem more like parts of other strategies, or have clauses (Sleep Clause and to a lesser extent Freeze Clause) that prevent them from being viable as a standalone team build. I guess you could run a bunch of different types of status on the same team, but at that point it's hard to ensure you cripple each threat in an ideal way (I.E. Paralyze a Slowking or Burn a Tornadus-T).

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while the concept exists i still don't see how this varies from a typical bulky offense team that happens to use paralysis on one or two of its mons. ultimately when i think strategies for a team, i expect that the strategy summarizes the team in a way that easily comes to mind. do i look at a team and ever say to myself "hmm check out that paralysis team"? the thought has certainly never even slipped through my head. i DO think "volt-turn offense" or occasionally "ahh so this is what a trick room team looks like" (what went through my head when i saw the celestial beings RMT floating around right now). i'm not sure even the term dragmag has ever gone through my head as a way to describe an entire team (but 5drag1mag, now that's another story lol). i think i'm with ggengar. there's no more terms to be defined here; this should be enough.

What about a team where you set up as many entry hazards as you can and simply use phazing moves to rack up damage on your opponent's team. It's a type of Stall team obviously.

antar already indicated that he was addressing stalliness through another metric, and moreover that definition is far too vague on its own to be used. when a human looks at a team with spikestacking and phazers it's clear immediately whether or not a team is stall but all a computer can hope to tell is whether or not there are spikestackers and phazers in the first place, which does not a stall team make - not on its own at least.

Similar to DragMag, but definitely not the same thing, is a playstyle commonly known as Dragon Spam, which does not necessarily use any Magnet Pull Pokemon or trappers of any sort, but simply, hence the name, spams dragons. If I could, I'd like to define this as a team with at least 5 Pokemon that are at least part Dragon-type.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Mono Teams yet.

Defined as: a team where all 6 pokemon share a same type.

^^@Lavos

The only reason why people use 5 dragons instead of 6 (aside from the fact there are still missing dragon types) is to either remove steel which a pokemon like Magnezone, Dugtrio or Chandy can do much better than any Dragon or because there are no Rapid Spin Dragons and pokemon like Starmie would do much better anyway.

Some um yeah, the lesser used variation of Dragmam is Dragon Spam (better yet DragonSpin) would be pretty much 5 dragons + spinner because running 6 dragons is not viable competitively as of this generation.

X5Dragon said:

Status Team can be put into two ideas that share a theme, one is to use a team that has lots of paralysis spreaders and body slammers so in the end a pokemon or two can pick up the pieces or a team that uses status offensively rather than defensively (stall) to power up moves and impair counters with burns and toxic orbs.

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Rejecting. That's more along the lines of synergy.

The F.E.A.R teams I've seen on youtube and in discussions or basically 2 or more F.E.A.R users and their support cast, mainly spinners, hazard users and supportive weather. Is Flail also a similar type of strategy?

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This I'll approve. 2+ FEAR pokemon, 1+ spinner/bouncer

Tailwind has been given a boost in turns so I guess that's why I mentioned it and has ample user and abilities such as prankster. People use Ninjask to boost a certain mon or a SS user with BP so I guess this is "easier".

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Tailwind falls under the same category as Dual Screens--all teams (except TR teams) enjoy Tailwind. Not distinct enough to be a "team type."

What else? Cloud Nine, while limited to 3 fully evolved pokemon this gen doesn't mean that's the last of them, and since you mentioned every team has a plan, this could be one.

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If we had more Cloud Nine pokemon or more of them were viable in tiers with weather, I'd okay this. But as it stands... no, sorry.

ginganinja said:

Just posting to ask Antar if he could change the Gravity definition to have at least TWO pokemon with Gravity.

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I was already debating doing that to be more in line with TR, but having never run or seen a Gravity team myself, I wasn't sure.

Marzbar said:

What about a team where you set up as many entry hazards as you can and simply use phazing moves to rack up damage on your opponent's team. It's a type of Stall team obviously.

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That's just a hallmark of standard stall. Rejecting.

Lavos Spawn said:

Dragon Spam

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Rejecting. That's basically Dragon Monotype, and I'm not going down that road.

I honestly don't mind the idea of having a section for monotype teams (not one category for each type just a single category "monotype") since it's got to be easy as all hell to impliment and unlike most of the other stuff is easily defined.

And btw I only described Assist teams for two reasons: 1) I know they exist in reality, however rare they are 2) Antar asked how they worked. I honestly think it's a really, really stupid strategy that's only good for the lols. At least it is a full team thing though, unlike most of the stuff people have mentioned here. If you're using Assist you basically HAVE to go all out with it or it just plain doesn't work (not that it works even if you do put it together properly but that's another issue).

Couldn't Pursuit fall under the definition for trapper teams as well?

Intimidate: At least 3 Pokemon with the ability Intimidate.