ADV has always been my favourite generation to play for different reasons: the first one is that it was the current gen when I started playing competitive mons and where I learnt to play at the highest level. The second reason is because, in my opinion, ADV is the most balanced metagame, where most playstyles are viable and can win if well played.
Some time ago, I decided to make a thread to show how the GSC OU metagame had changed in the last decade. This time, Im doing the same for ADV, including the Netbattle era, when ADV was the main generation.
The goal of this archive is to showcase some of the teams I consider that were the most relevant at that time or the teams I used to play or like the most while including most playstyles.
Index:
1) The Netbattle Era (2004 - 2008)
2) ADV is back! (2010)
3) Smogon Tour (2011 - 2013)
4) After Smogon Tour (2013 - 2015)
5) New Sleep Talk mechanics. The Skarmory era (2015-2016)
6) Refresh, Magdol and the rise of the phoenix (2017-2019)
1) The Netbattle Era (2004 - 2008)
When Ruby and Shaphire games were released (in 2003 outside of Japan), a lot of things changed compared with GSC, including how the stats worked, and introducing new mechanics such as EVs and Natures.
Sadly, that made GSC games incompatible with RS, and since there were only 200 available mons in RS, only those 200 mons were allowed at the start.
That changed shortly after with the release of new games that included the pokemons that were missing.
This team compilation will NOT include the ADV 200 metagame.
Netbattle was the only pokemon simulator at this time, where everybody used to play competitively. Because of a bug and an unknown mechanic at that time, there are 2 huge mechanic differences between netbattle ADV and current ADV OU.
The first one is that Substitute blocked Rapid Spin, making Spikes strategies much stronger than what they should have been.
The second one is that the move Sleep Talk works like in current gens. Sleep Talk does not reset your sleep counter after switching out.
Also, it is important to note that unlike nowadays, there were different communities and each communities had different rulesets.
Some notes about Netbattle to understand how the metagame evolved:
a) The Smogon Metagame
The metagame was also very different at that time.
Some important things:
This is a compilation of some of the most infuential teams at that time:
Triple Pressure stall team, or one of the most standard stall teams at that time.
The famous SkarmBliss, or Skarmory + Blissey, is probably the most famous, influential and hated (at the time) combination of 2 pokemons. The reason is simple: Skarmory can wall a lot of the physical threats with ease, and Bliss can do the same with most of the special threats, so with only 2 pokemons you could easily cover a lot of threats. But not only that, they can also give a lot of support to the team in the form of Spikes, Wish or Aromatherapy.
Skarmory + Claydol was also a very common defensive combination at that time because, they resisted every physical: Skarmory resists every physical attack but Rock and Fighting, and Claydol resists both types, and at the same time, Claydol can also Rapid Spin to remove Spikes. One important thing to note is that every Skarmory and nearly every Claydol at this time had Rest.
Dusclops was the most common spin blocker at the time being able to easy wall most spinners. The fact that Pursuit was considered gimmick at best and that Offensive Starmie was not a thing, added with Pressure, made Dusclops a stalling machine that was very hard to take down.
To finish the team, the team featured 2 of the best pokemons in the metagame: Zapdos and Suicune.
Restalk Zapdos was a monster, being able to easily wall most of the few things that are able to beat SkarmBliss, such as Tyraniboah and Rest Suicune, together with Pressure to eat PPs.
Sleep Talk Zapdos was probably the most influential pokemon at that time, together with Tyranitar, being able to shut down and / or PP stall a lot of mixed threats, while being a great phazer as well with Roar, being a very effective Spikes abuser.
Suicune is the third PP stalling machine of the team, and the set upper that threatens to sweep the opposing team. Suicune is one of the most dangerous pokemon in the game, with its huge physical bulk preventing CBMence to 3hko it, Calm Mind to boost its special attack and its special defense and Pressure to eat Thunderbolt or Leech Seed PPs. CMCune is also useful so this team does not lose to last pokemon set upper sweep.
Team Superman.
This team was originally built but VIL, and it was spammed by top players such as G80 and Goofball, and it was probably the most famous ADV team, and the first example of what we could call "modern TSS".
Unlike the first team, that was a stall team based on Spikes + Pressure to stall the opponent team, a TSS (Toxic Spikes Sandstorm) team uses passive damage to weaken the other team, so an offensive pokemon can clean in the late game.
This is a formula that is still very common nowadays and works very well.
Additionally, there are 4 pokemons in this team that are immune to spikes, so not having a spinner is not a big handicap against another TSS team.
Tyranitar has always been the best pokemon in ADV, and is probably the most important pokemon of this team, and the reason is Sandstream. Sandstream means that most pokemons will either lose HP every turn or their leftovers will be negated, helping the TSS abusers a lot.
Tyranitar is also a very versatile pokemon, and since this teams has had many different versions and has spammed by different top players, each version had different TTar versions: tyraniboah, DD, physical sub...
Skarmory is the second most important pokemon of the team, because it provides the second layer of the TSS: the Spikes, that are key to help the abusers: Flygon and Aerodactyl.
One thing you might notice when looking at this team is that it has no Blissey. Instead it has the combination of Swampert + Flygon + Zapdos to wall most of the special threats while still beating most mixed threats.
The combination of Flygon + Swampert will wall any electric attacker such as Raikou, since they can't have both Hidden Power Grass and Ice at the same time, and at the same time they wall most physical threats that are annoying for Skarmory, such as Tyranitar or Aerodactyl.
Restalk Zapdos is a really good pokemon that can easily wall bulky waters and a lot of the mixed threats. Most of the versions of this team featured a modest with sp def bulk set with HP Grass, which made Zapdos even more dangerous with Spikes and Sandstorm support, while keeping most of its defensive power.
Another thing you might notice is that this team has no ghost and apparently no way to block spin. However, Substitute blocked Rapid Spin in Netbattle because of a bug. For that reason, this team was even more powerful in that simulator, because pokemons such as Flygon, Tyranitar or even Skarmory could become spin blockers too.
Finally, CB Aerodactyl is probably the best cleaner in the game. Aero is the fastest OU pokemon (tied with Jolteon), is immune to Sandstorm and to Spikes, has Rock Head to avoid recoil from Double-Edge and has access to Rock Slide STAB.
Rock Slide is a move that has a 30% chance to flinch the opposing pokemon but also a 10% chance to miss.
With Spikes support, CB Aerodactyl is one of the biggest threats for any offensive team and for a lot of more defensive teams as well, especially if Aerodactyl manages to get a game changing flinch.
A lot of games have been decided by a RS flinch or by a RS miss.
This was the main team Husk used, and one of the best examples of an agressive TSS at that time.
The idea of the team is simple: set up spikes and pressure the other teams with both physical attackers (Tyranitar and Metagross) and special attackers (Zapdos and Regice).
CB Metagross performs a key role in this team, being able to punish with spikes support the Blissey / Snorlax / Regice trying to wall Zapdos and Regice, while also being able to lure bulky waters, allowing physical Sub Tyranitar to clean in the late game.
Husk TSS also features Regice as the special wall, which was a very strong pokemon at that time, being able to easily wall most special threats while hitting harder than Blissey, making the team even more agressive.
Claydol was the Rapid Spinner of the team.
This is a very good example of another great TSS time that was very solid defensively but also very powerful offensively
The team Loki Used to win the third OST.
As you may notice, the idea of the 3 TSS teams I have posted is very similar: set up spikes, set up sandstorm, weaken the other team with the passive damage and threaten with abusers.
What change between these TSS teams is the synergy between the abusers.
When Loki originally built this team, he went with the boah set, but he changed it to Taunt DD just before OST 3 because of its ability to checkmate many teams in the late game.
Loki's team has Hypnosis + Explosion offensive Gengar as both a fail safe and a big special threat, as well as a more offensive spin blocker than Dusclops.
The reason Loki decided to go with a double water team is that at that time, there were a lot of teams that focused on luring the bulky water to sweep with threats such as DD TTar or DDMence.
Milotic featured Light Screen.
LS + Skarmory is a really good combo (every Skarmory back then was physically defensive), allowing it to get extra layers vs MixLax, MixMetagross or Swampert, as well as not getting KOed by Magneton.
LS + Tyranitar is also a very good combo, allowing it to easily set up on non Swampert bulky waters and on Zapdos.
Flygon actually wasn't very popular in early ADV, but its usage rose quite a bit once people started pairing it with Swampert to wall electrics.
This Flygon has both Substitute (already explained in Superman team, it blocked Rapid Spin back then) and Screech, allowing it to beat most last mon set uppers and forcing switches, which added even more passive damage.
This Flygon was especially effective with LS support, because bulky waters were not able to wall it anymore.
Noobster's OST winning team.
This is a good example of how a succesful anti Skarmory team worked at that time.
Magneton is the most important pokemon on the team, because of its ability to remove Skarmory from the game.
Without a Skarmory, both Curse Snorlax and DD Salamence become huge threats to the opposing team, especially with Spikes support.
In this team, Celebi is a Cleric, being able to wake up Snorlax after it has used Rest.
Other Teams:
-> IPL Stall
-> Fear's Spinless Forry TSS
-> Chaos double screens
-> VIL's Liquid Flame (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/my-favorite-teams-part-1-team-liquid-flame.45741/)
b) The Spanish Metagame
The Spanish metagame was similar to Smogon metagame, but it had a key difference: legendary pokemons were banned.
That means that OU staples such as Zapdos or Suicune were not allowed.
This is the metagame I used to play at that time.
As you will notice, Milotic is in all the teams featured here. This is because the metagame was heavily dominated by Milotic, acting as the glue of a lot of the teams from that time, walling very dangerous mons like Salamence, Metagross or tyraniboah (the most common Tyranitar set at that time)
One important thing to note is that competitive pokemon was very different back then: nearly every tournament game was hidden with no spectators allowed (except the finals), and most players mained a team and used it in most tournament games.
Sadly, because of that reason, there are very few logs from that time.
These are some example teams from that time:
This was my main tournament team during this period of time.
Skarmbliss was the main defensive core of the team, and it was even more powerful in an environment without stalling machines such as Zapdos or Suicune, which were 2 of the most annoying mons to face for skarmbliss, and allowed Blissey to be run more physical bulk, since it doesn't need to 3hko zapdos in the sand anymore.
Skarmory's main role in this team was setting up spikes to help both Skarmory and Heracross, and walling physical threats such as Metagross, Gyarados or Tauros.
Blissey was the special wall of the team, with Ice Beam to hit Sub Focus Punch Gengar (which was everywhere) and Wish to support the team.
Milotic was probably my most used pokemon in Netbattle, and the defensive glue of this team, covering a lot of the things that can beat skarmbliss, such as Tyranitar (boah was by far the most common set) or Salamence (CB, DD and Mixmence were all common), and allowing me to sleep something that could be threatening for my team.
Milotic was also one of the pokemons that benefited the most from Zapdos and Suicune not being allowed.
CB Salamence was my favourite lead at the time. The combination of immediate power + great typing + intimidate allowed to start the game with an advantage, and in the late game there were few things that could stop it with spikes support.
CB Heracross was my stall breaker, with Megahorn destroying Claydol, Focus Punch hitting Skarmory very hard, and Rock Slide 2hkoing standard sets of Gyarados and Salamence, there were few things able to wall this monster.
Spikes were very big in this metagame, and for that reason, I nearly always ran a spinner of magneton to be able to deal with them.
Basically, this was a balanced team with a very solid defensive core (SkarmBliss + Milotic) with a spinner to remove spikes and 2 heavy hitters (Salamence and Heracross) supported with Spikes and Wish.
Siegfried's stall team.
Siegfried was a peruvian player that liked playing with defensive teams, and was probably one of the best stall players I have ever seen in competitive pokemon.
Skarm and Bliss were again the most important pokemons in this team, setting up the spikes (which was the main offense this team had) and removing status with Aromatherapy (which was very useful with 3 or 4 Rest pokemons depending on the version).
Wishmence was the main innovation of this team, walling a lot of physical threats such as Heracross, physical Salamence or Gyarados and supporting the team with Wish.
Donphan was a very common spinner because its ability to break through Dusclops, which was the most common spin blocker at the time, and it also gave the team a rock resist, easily walling threats such as DD Taunt Tyranitar, which are usually a big threat for a stall team.
Dusclops was the most common spin blocker, because of its ability to easily spin block vs Starmie and Claydol (the 2 most common spinners), as well as to completely wall SubPunch Gengar, and to pressure stall in general.
A common Dusclops set was Imprison + Shadow Ball, so a last mon Curselax does not sweep this team.
Make's Magneton Double Special Wall team
If Siegfried was probably the best defensive player, Make was the best offensive player.
This is a team Make used in the final of a tournament and a good example of an offensive team.
The archetype is similar to what you would expect in a modern Magneton team, with Salamence + Metagross offensive combo, and Snorlax + Magneton combo.
Milotic was the most used pokemon in this metagame, as you probably have already noticed, and it acted as the defensive glue of a lot of teams.
Curselax was a very powerful threat that was surprisingly not very common at that time, especially when paired with Magneton to remove the very common Skarmory
Salamence + Metagross is a very solid combination, both offensively and defensively. Metagross can also lure bulky waters that wall Salamence (mainly Milotic). They also both benefit a lot from Skarmory being removed from the game, since most Skarm teams used to rely on Skarmory + Bulky Water (mainly Milotic) to check both Salamence and Metagross, so after Magneton removes Skarm from the game, Metagross + Salamence become very dangerous.
Finally, Blissey was the cleric of the team, allowing Curselax to quickly wake up, and removing status.
Other Teams:
-> Offensive team with Spin Donphan
-> Double Water Magneton DD TTar team
-> TSS
c) The Italian Metagame
Like the hispanic community, the italian community played in their own community and servers outside of smogon and developed their own metagame.
There are 2 main differences. The first difference is that the italian players used the same rules than smogon except in some small periods of time. The second and most important difference is that the italian community kept an archive, so we can know much more about how the italian metagame was and how it evolved.
This is the story of the italian ADV metagame between 2004 and 2010, written by Sharingan:
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The story of italian RSE is the story of a group of italian guys, members of Orpo Team, which was at the time the strongest italian team. Its objective was, much like in the original GBA games, to be “the very best, like no one ever was”.
Let’s start from the beginning, the Netbattle era, back in 2006. The only kinds of teams that were around were probably strongly influenced by the GSC metagame, namely stall teams. However, thanks to Choice Band, offensive teams were also able to carve out a niche for themselves. The most used archetypes were
a) Skarmbliss / Forrebliss + 3 Choice Banders + Bulky water, let’s call these the offensive teams.
Example:
MT offensive team: https://pokepast.es/448f1b81ebee106e
b) Stall teams: Skarmbliss + 4 Pokémon that could best cover the threat list, following the counter system.
Example:
Classic Stall TSS team, aka “Fra Stall team”: https://pokepast.es/f46695be768cf176
These were working models for essentially all of 2006-2007. Offensive teams attempted to deal damage with physical attackers, especially Choice Banders, but generally lost against stall teams which, due to more consistent win rates, were long preferred, thanks to the more elaborate and overall better threat coverage.
In 2006, Bekins created Joltgar 2: http://www.bananastyle.net/forums/index.php?topic=1308.0
It was one of the first offensive teams with a completely different strategy, which at the time worked well: Jolteon was meant to pass Substitutes to Gengar, who would then be free to unleash Focus Punch and threaten the opposing team with the Boltbeam combo.
Since Choice Banders were common, Blissey usually punished them with Counter, and thus she was unable to break Gengar’s Substitute. On the other hand, Blisseys with Flamethrower hits Metagross, who also took Body Slams from the few Snorlax that were around. The team worked and Bekins, already one of the best italian players, introduced a new way of thinking, which however was embraced only by a handful of players, the Orpo Team.
In 2007, a team of Netbattle players challenged Orpo Team, and an actual italian national tournament was organized. The winner, a member of Orpo Team, was g_f, an innovative player who seeked uncommon strategies and usages.
g_f taught a great deal of players how to battle, writing guides, creating movesets and generally producing a vast amount of content about the game, which was used as a blueprint by future players. His style and his ideas influenced lots of players and, consequently, the whole ADV metagame. Among one of his influential teams is the Strategy Team: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,340.0.html
This team used Magneton to kill Skarmory, while Dugtrio took care of Metagross and Tyranitar, so as to favor the Normal offense carried out by Dodrio and Curselax. Meanwhile, Steelix’s Explosion bait-killed Swampert or Suicune, paving the way for the sweep of Aerodactyl or Dugtrio. Along with Bekins’ team, this team was not extremely influential on the short term, but contributed to heavily change the approach that players who were active at the time took.
In ADV CL 2007 one could witness the usage of Baton Pass Jolteon in offensive teams, as in Bekins’ Joltgar, and of Magneton + Normal offense, as in g_f’s Strategy Team. The metagame then went along like this, including also the stall TSS teams used by more defensive players.
In 2008, g_f created La Guerra Perfetta: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,6195.0.html
In a matter of months, this team introduced Sdef Cloyster and Counter Snorlax to the metagame. A few months later, the national tournament was organized once again, and the winner, another member of Orpo Team, was Carlo, whose usages revealed the influence of Bekins and g_f. His team was this https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,6331 and it joined Jolteon with Snorlax’s Normal offense. Carlo also often used Jolteon with Flygon and Metagross, as in many of his “Carl Classic” teams: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,962.0.html https://pokepast.es/26e2635e96472fce
A new kind of offensive team was thus born. Players varied their usages unleashing combos like Magneton + Heracross, and Flygon abruptly entered the mategame, often as a Choice Bander, but also as a Mixed Attacker exploiting Spikes. Players seeked originality, probably due to Bekins and g_f, as a form of skill in addition to the win rate. After all, players winning with original gimmicks in a sea of overused teams is supposed to be better.
The usages of the best players in 2008, Seymour (2nd place and stall TSS player, following Fra’s style) and Sharingan (3rd place, one of the new offensive players at the time), shaped the ensuing metagame.
To this end, Cloyster was pitoval to the change of metagame. It could come in on Spikers and threatening them with STAB moves (no one used to heavily invest in SDef on Skarmory or Forretress), it could come in on Swampert to set up Spikes, it couldn’t be trapped by the obiquitous Magneton and, if necessary it could also work as a Rapid Spinner. It had also access to Explosion, and players realized that it could work well as a bait-killer of Starmie and Blissey. Indeed, Clamp-trapper variants were also used, and Zapdos and Raikou rejoiced.
After ADV CL 2008 many more tournaments were organized, in particular the Porytrophy, which took place each Sunday and had 32 participants. It was the most competitive event at the time, and all the best players in italy faced off without missing any. Many of these tournaments were won, in 2008 and 2009, by Seymour and his signature stall TSS style. With Brave Murder Day: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,8459.0/all.html
, which is one of his best teams, if not the best, Seymour also won the ATQ international tournament in 2010.
Some of his most successful teams are
Terpsychora: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,8834.0/all.html
and Crudelyà: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,8496.0.html https://pokepast.es/d370709346f6d150
The late 2008 and early 2009 are dominated by TSS and Offensive teams: Cloyster, Jolteon, Magneton, Flygon, Heracross, Snorlax, Gengar, Tyranitar, etc.
Then, the Neutral Wall Breaker by g_f, dubbed “banana team”, was created. It manages to connect these two types of teams: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,7944.0.html
Jolteon could pass Substitutes to Tyranitar and Gengar, depending on the switch-ins of Celebi and Blissey/Snorlax, and with Roar it countered opposing SubPass Jolteon, which was widespread. Tyranitar could avoid being Phazed by Skarmory behind the Substitute thanks to Taunt, while Gengar ran Destiny Bond + Focus Punch, a fashionable moveset on NetBattle at the time, due to the negative priority of Focus Punch forcing the opponent to choose between dying with Gengar and receiving damage + Spikes.
Flygon and Cloyster, already a successful pair in 2008 thanks to the great synergy between Spikes and mixed offense, and finally the double Electric type exploited the elimination of the opposing Special Wall (with Cloyster’s Explosion) to set up a lategame sweep.
This was one of the best metagame teams at the time, with the strongest direct influence, and it offered much food for thought to offensive players.
Together with the Neutral Wall Breaker, a defensive Fire-type TSS offense was created:
Revengezard by Sharingan: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=35591889; https://pokepast.es/a1020c590086af16
Tyranitar hit hard against Counters shared with Charizard, who was the Spikes-abusing mixed Sweeper. A single predicted Focus Punch on Blissey impeded its recovery, since if Charizard were to activate Blaze after Seismic Toss it would kill Blissey with an Overheat for about 30% after a single layer of Spikes damage. Dragon Claw made it so Salamence could not wall Charizard, while HP Grass hit Swampert hard.
Due to Revengezard, Destiny-Punch Gengar becomes widespread, and also Raikou, especially Rest Talker becomes used as a Zapdos Counter, since the italian metagame underwent a ban of Calmbeasts and Dugtrio. This ban was subsequently cancelled, since we could not determine that the game had actually become better and, thus, more competitive.
Did ya know RSE aer Fat by g_f: https://pokepast.es/ec23705ddd7f14a1
This team spawned many variants. Moltres found its niche and manages to finally shine in OU after many years: a number of sets were used, from Wisp to Sunny Day to crazy ideas such as Substitute + Sky Attack together with Spikes. Charizard came back with a completely special and dangerous set, PetayaZard. Cloyster remained the main Spiker for a long time, Gengar was everywhere, teams are well-balanced. Battles lasted for less turns. Indeed, many players did not feel the necessity to include a Rapid Spinner anymore, provided their team had the tools to deal with Forretress and Skarmory.
Once Fire types had been found to fit well in a TSS, why not Grass types? Here came Venusaur as a Spikes Abuser, with Leech Seed + Roar, HP Fire and Razor Leaf. Taunt Skarmory soon followed, and quickly became the most used Skarmory set in the italian metagame starting from late 2008: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=34185228 this was one of the very first teams featuring it. Taunt Skarmory stopped other Skarmory and Forretress from Spiking, and could set two layers against Magneton (since it was Max HP / Max Spe+). It could also cause issues to Stall players, Taunting Celebi and blocking Blissey’s recovery, stopping Snorlax from using Curse and Rest while shuffling it on Spikes.
All of this variety meant little to Stall players, which kept using Spikers, Ghost types, Toxic and all their nice Walls. Another important player that has not been mentioned yet is Zetsu91. One of the top Spikes-Stall players, he was the main culprit of the Dusclops usages in the italian metagame, since Gengar was not used with bulky spreads and was considered to be too frail to be a reliable Anti-Spinner.
Zetsu91’s style included a thorough countering of the Threat list, while his opponents struggled to get rid of Spikes.
The diffusion of TSS, Gengar and Dusclops prompted the birth of PursuiTar in 2009. For the first time Tyranitar was rediscovered in a special role instead of the usual physical sets, and this team by g_f was the first team with a special Tyranitar appearing in the italian metagame: https://pokepast.es/bab822d3a6a24816
In that period the eternal war between Stall and Offense was more open, since Taunt Skarmory and PursuiTar were problematic for Stall teams, but the latter were always slightly advantaged. Countering the Threat list and implementing an offensive strategy appears akin to a short blanket, not being able to cover everything at the same time and often leaving Offense players open to some threats, hence their less consistent win-scores. On the other hand, Stall players had some tools to deal with the aforementioned Spikes Offense teams:
- Toxic could win long-lasting battles, especially due to the lack of Clerics.
- The very Spikes abused by the Mixed Sweepers of the Offense players could act as a double-edged sword, since they tended to prolong battles and “wasting” turns to be set up. Offensive teams were not designed to last long and they needed sources of immediate damage.
Therefore, in that period Sharingan, the main Offense player, came up with a way to punish Toxic and eliminate the Spikes-based offensive.
In September 2009 Stall Breaker, a team designed to overpower Stall, was thus born:
Stall Breaker 2009: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=43004431 ; https://pokepast.es/77b9107ec90cdb6f
Machamp had to bait and kill Skarmory, at the time used with no Def Evs, and thus the high CH rate of Cross Chop had a 25% chance of OHKO (a similar scenario presents itself in the modern international metagame). It could also absorb Toxic and Wisp from opposing Gengars, becoming even more dangerous. Gyarados enjoyed the absence of Skarmory while countering important threats. Mixlax would cause panic after Celebi had been Pursuited to death by Houndoom, while baiting Gengar into using Wisp on Machamp. Calmkou could sweep once Blissey had been eliminated by Beat Up (which caused around 70% damage due to the high base ATK of the team members). Last but not least, Regirock countered Tyranitar, Salamence, Aerodactyl and Curselax, and synergized extremely well with Houndoom, since they shared the same counters.
Spikes became less used in favor of a special offense, born with Calmkou in Stall Breaker. The rise of Regirock from the obscure BL tier prompted a similar rise of its brother Regice, this time revisited as an offensive threat.
The italian Regice was indeed used as a baitkiller of Snorlax and Blissey (and, if needed, even Tyranitar). The set was: Ice Beam, Thunder Wave/HP Fire, Explosion, Superpower/Focus Punch with an often Modest Nature. Together with Regice many Calm Minders were thus used, namely Jynx, Espeon, Alakazam, Jirachi with three attacks, Celebi with three attacks and offensive Suicune with Max SAtk / Max Spe+. This was still late 2009 to early 2010, and yet these usages were very common in the italian metagame, contrary to the international one. But let us proceed in order.
Late 2009 – Early 2010
These months are characterized by a generally frail, offensive and special metagame. Stall was almost completely absent, in part due to Stall Breakers, since the cultural shift that ensued and the variants it spawned had a significant influence on the metagame. This was the period of the so-called “Lamer” teams, of which the Team Rating section hosted four or five variants, which spreaded threats such as CBGross and Starmie3 in an explosive fashion. Most importantly, this type of teams lead to the dominant archetype of this period, namely a light-offense based on Ludicolo, the aforementioned Starmie3 and Calmcune, often aided by Exploders like Exeggutor, Gengar, Mixlax and supported by Spikes.
This was not completely new, however. Conceptually, this idea had already been considered by Zetsu in his Ivan Drago, one of the most elegant, strong and acknowledged Explosion teams at the time, whose star was precisely offensive Calmcune: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=41196497 ; https://pokepast.es/fca1f5218e2381eb
From that spark, along with the contributions of some particularly successful players like Dandy (his Puff: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=41798088), that idea exploded to such an extent that it became the paradigm for post-Stall Breaker builders. It is worth noting that in Puff itself it is mentioned that it was not well-suited for Stall. Indeed, this type of Offense, almost useless against a well-designed defensive teams, was frowned upon for long: only after some time it was normalized in the eyes of players, also thanks to more optimization and the experimentation of the great players that followed.
There was actually a kind of misunderstanding: light-offense teams proliferated because of Sharingan, the most influential italian player at the time, but he was not particularly fond of that kind of team. But Stall usages went significantly down regardless. On the one hand, Stall Breaker had proved that Stall was beatable, or at least it could be dealt with, and it sparked the idea that it was somehow obsolete. On the other hand, that team made player want to play offensively. The combination of these two effects lead to offensive teams designed to… beat other offensive teams, and thus the metagame gradually became faster, with battles lasting less and less turns. Consequently, building skills and match-ups became the dominant factors in determining winners.
One must take into account that in that period players were very active, and the trends evolved rapidly. Hence, even if light-offensive teams were the paradigm, there were many efforts to popularize different Pokémon and strategies. It is impossible not to cite the Counterhax: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=42435548, and in particular the vast diffusion of Sceptile, Smeargle (as a dangerous individual threat, not exclusively linked to Baton Pass teams) and Jirachi that ensued. If the former two were a passing trend, Jirachi adamantly dominated the scene for long.
Another successful concept was that of Calm-Mind passing. These teams were born around January and, as we shall see, they contain the seeds of the successive evolution of the special metagame, which involved a lack of Exploders while other ways of weaking counters gained popularity (Wisp, Mixed Attackers). This period did not last long, but it was absolutely dominant at the time, and it contributed to what would have come after it.
This was also the period of soft-bans. Independently of their duration, or the actual adherence to them, soft-bans had a significant cultural impact. Pokémon that were going to come back in OU, such as Dugtrio, were almost nowhere to be seen. The already-invented, but up to then rarely used Drill Peck Zapdos also gained popularity, while usages of Curselax, Suicune and Raikou unsurprisingly did not fall down even slightly, as soon as it was possible to use them again.
The absence of Blissey (due to the general avversion against Stall) and Dugtrio (due to its “cheap” cultural connotation following its ban) led the metagame to shape itself around two main sweepers: Calmkou and Calmchi. This was the state of affairs for a long time, centered around special offense of any kind. Snorlax and Regice, often supported by Tyranitar and Metagross, were the special counters, and thus strategies to deal with these Pokémon were devised: Gardevoir, Gengar and Moltres with Wisp proliferated, alongside the baitkiller Regice set, with its double Ice STAB and an aggressive Evs spread. Here is a great team by Dinozzo featuring it: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=44100092 ; https://pokepast.es/ba64de736ca6e345
The paradigm thus remained more or less the same: Exploders, bait-killers, bait-wispers, special offense (with or without boosts, with or without passing).
Mid 2010 – Late 2010
In this period the most influential team of the entire year was born, namely Nervous System Failure https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=49291485 by Seymour.
It was a return to an atmosphere of defense, and – analogously to what happened with Stall Breaker – it had a long-lasting cultural impact, whereby the player base tended to prefer Stall once again, albeit with a twist compared to its original, intense incarnation. At any rate, this team brought back Dugtrio into play: since a player like Seymour was doing it, its usages skyrocketed. It is plain to understand why this team had so much success: suddenly there were real counters of the then-common offensive beasts, and Dugtrio itself could crush their dreams to an even larger extent.
From this perspective, Seymour’s contribution was paramount. Despite light offense teams did not completely disappear, they had to adapt to the newly-defensive trend of the metagame, gradually evolving. Seymour was for the latter ADVer generation what Sharingan had been for the 2008-2009 generation, what Carlo had been for the 2008 players, and what g_f had been for everyone. Clearly this neat subdivision is rather schematic and does not capture the complex mixing of influences, since everyone cited has was influential across the board. In the case of g_f, one could even argue that his influence was structural, since it also affected other top players.
The metagame thus underwent a gradual transformation from light offense to more solid strategies, in particular Pursuit, trapping by means of Dugtrio, and Sweepers that could complement this kind of support. In the mid 2010s, this type of offense was still implemented by frail Pokémon, due to the previous influences, but by the late 2010s it had almost completely transformed into its definitive form (Curselax, Calmcune).
The history of the italian metagame up to 2010 ends here, and it is but with joy that we remember these moments full of dedication and passion for a game that we have grown up with. In particular, this story is dedicated to all of those old, still active players, including many that we have not mentioned in these few pages, that have lived these last two years of competitive battling as the best period that RSE has ever witnessed.
Some time ago, I decided to make a thread to show how the GSC OU metagame had changed in the last decade. This time, Im doing the same for ADV, including the Netbattle era, when ADV was the main generation.
The goal of this archive is to showcase some of the teams I consider that were the most relevant at that time or the teams I used to play or like the most while including most playstyles.
Index:
1) The Netbattle Era (2004 - 2008)
2) ADV is back! (2010)
3) Smogon Tour (2011 - 2013)
4) After Smogon Tour (2013 - 2015)
5) New Sleep Talk mechanics. The Skarmory era (2015-2016)
6) Refresh, Magdol and the rise of the phoenix (2017-2019)
1) The Netbattle Era (2004 - 2008)
When Ruby and Shaphire games were released (in 2003 outside of Japan), a lot of things changed compared with GSC, including how the stats worked, and introducing new mechanics such as EVs and Natures.
Sadly, that made GSC games incompatible with RS, and since there were only 200 available mons in RS, only those 200 mons were allowed at the start.
That changed shortly after with the release of new games that included the pokemons that were missing.
This team compilation will NOT include the ADV 200 metagame.
Netbattle was the only pokemon simulator at this time, where everybody used to play competitively. Because of a bug and an unknown mechanic at that time, there are 2 huge mechanic differences between netbattle ADV and current ADV OU.
The first one is that Substitute blocked Rapid Spin, making Spikes strategies much stronger than what they should have been.
The second one is that the move Sleep Talk works like in current gens. Sleep Talk does not reset your sleep counter after switching out.
Also, it is important to note that unlike nowadays, there were different communities and each communities had different rulesets.
Some notes about Netbattle to understand how the metagame evolved:
- Netbattle was closed source and not very actively mantained. That's one of the reasons why a huge bug such as Substitute blocking Rapid Spin was never fixed.
- In Netbattle there was no "main server". While Smogon was the most popular server, especially late ADV, there were many big servers that had their own rules and their own communities: for example, a lot of communities had a BP clause (max 2/3 BP users), some had a limitation on the number of legends you could have, others didnt allow legends at all, etc.
- Despite Netbattle being closed source, it allowed the customization of servers via Netbattle Scripting, which was based on events. With these scripts, server owners had complete control over what happened in their server, allowing people to execute commands or to control what people could use in a battle (example: not allowing ubers, or limiting the number of legendary mons, etc). After some time, people started to develop even more complex scripts, such as a tournament script or a RPG script, that simulated a pokemon adventure where people started with a team of level 5 pokemons and battle each other to gain experience and slowly leveling up their pokemon, learning new attacks and being able to evolve them.
- There was no ladder in Netbattle. The only way to get battles was challenging other people.
- Players had an "Extra info" field that a lot of people used for custom rules, such as the famous "no skarmbliss". Obviously these custom rules didn't apply to any serious tournament
a) The Smogon Metagame
The metagame was also very different at that time.
Some important things:
- SubCM Raikou was considered a top-tier threat back then. This was before TSS became the dominant archetype for teams.
- People actually used Medicham and it was considered a solid option.
- Celebi and Jirachi were randomly unbanned sometime early in 386, which obviously wreaked havoc on the metagame for a while. In fact, Celebi was later banned for a while and unbanned shortly after.
- There was a meta shift with pokemon XD coming out. Some of the most notable changes were Snorlax gaining Selfdestruct, Moltres gaining WoW/Morning Sun, and Zapdos gaining Baton Pass. This is a small reason why the early 386 metagame differed significantly from later metagames.
- Dusclops usage was very high in defensive teams, and it was the most used spin blocker.
- Sets with Substitute + Focus Punch were very popular back then, especially Tyranitar (tyraniboah) and Gengar (subpunch + thunderbolt + ice punch)
- Rest + Sleep talk was very common. This was mainly because sleep talk wasnt correctly implemented in the simulator. In Netbattle sleep talk worked like in newer gens. This is something that wasn't actually changed until 2015. For this reason, restalk was the most common set of a lot of pokemons, such as Zapdos, Suicune or Swampert, and it was very common as well in other pokemons such as Skarmory or Heracross.
This is a compilation of some of the most infuential teams at that time:
Triple Pressure stall team, or one of the most standard stall teams at that time.
The famous SkarmBliss, or Skarmory + Blissey, is probably the most famous, influential and hated (at the time) combination of 2 pokemons. The reason is simple: Skarmory can wall a lot of the physical threats with ease, and Bliss can do the same with most of the special threats, so with only 2 pokemons you could easily cover a lot of threats. But not only that, they can also give a lot of support to the team in the form of Spikes, Wish or Aromatherapy.
Skarmory + Claydol was also a very common defensive combination at that time because, they resisted every physical: Skarmory resists every physical attack but Rock and Fighting, and Claydol resists both types, and at the same time, Claydol can also Rapid Spin to remove Spikes. One important thing to note is that every Skarmory and nearly every Claydol at this time had Rest.
Dusclops was the most common spin blocker at the time being able to easy wall most spinners. The fact that Pursuit was considered gimmick at best and that Offensive Starmie was not a thing, added with Pressure, made Dusclops a stalling machine that was very hard to take down.
To finish the team, the team featured 2 of the best pokemons in the metagame: Zapdos and Suicune.
Restalk Zapdos was a monster, being able to easily wall most of the few things that are able to beat SkarmBliss, such as Tyraniboah and Rest Suicune, together with Pressure to eat PPs.
Sleep Talk Zapdos was probably the most influential pokemon at that time, together with Tyranitar, being able to shut down and / or PP stall a lot of mixed threats, while being a great phazer as well with Roar, being a very effective Spikes abuser.
Suicune is the third PP stalling machine of the team, and the set upper that threatens to sweep the opposing team. Suicune is one of the most dangerous pokemon in the game, with its huge physical bulk preventing CBMence to 3hko it, Calm Mind to boost its special attack and its special defense and Pressure to eat Thunderbolt or Leech Seed PPs. CMCune is also useful so this team does not lose to last pokemon set upper sweep.
Team Superman.
This team was originally built but VIL, and it was spammed by top players such as G80 and Goofball, and it was probably the most famous ADV team, and the first example of what we could call "modern TSS".
Unlike the first team, that was a stall team based on Spikes + Pressure to stall the opponent team, a TSS (Toxic Spikes Sandstorm) team uses passive damage to weaken the other team, so an offensive pokemon can clean in the late game.
This is a formula that is still very common nowadays and works very well.
Additionally, there are 4 pokemons in this team that are immune to spikes, so not having a spinner is not a big handicap against another TSS team.
Tyranitar has always been the best pokemon in ADV, and is probably the most important pokemon of this team, and the reason is Sandstream. Sandstream means that most pokemons will either lose HP every turn or their leftovers will be negated, helping the TSS abusers a lot.
Tyranitar is also a very versatile pokemon, and since this teams has had many different versions and has spammed by different top players, each version had different TTar versions: tyraniboah, DD, physical sub...
Skarmory is the second most important pokemon of the team, because it provides the second layer of the TSS: the Spikes, that are key to help the abusers: Flygon and Aerodactyl.
One thing you might notice when looking at this team is that it has no Blissey. Instead it has the combination of Swampert + Flygon + Zapdos to wall most of the special threats while still beating most mixed threats.
The combination of Flygon + Swampert will wall any electric attacker such as Raikou, since they can't have both Hidden Power Grass and Ice at the same time, and at the same time they wall most physical threats that are annoying for Skarmory, such as Tyranitar or Aerodactyl.
Restalk Zapdos is a really good pokemon that can easily wall bulky waters and a lot of the mixed threats. Most of the versions of this team featured a modest with sp def bulk set with HP Grass, which made Zapdos even more dangerous with Spikes and Sandstorm support, while keeping most of its defensive power.
Another thing you might notice is that this team has no ghost and apparently no way to block spin. However, Substitute blocked Rapid Spin in Netbattle because of a bug. For that reason, this team was even more powerful in that simulator, because pokemons such as Flygon, Tyranitar or even Skarmory could become spin blockers too.
Finally, CB Aerodactyl is probably the best cleaner in the game. Aero is the fastest OU pokemon (tied with Jolteon), is immune to Sandstorm and to Spikes, has Rock Head to avoid recoil from Double-Edge and has access to Rock Slide STAB.
Rock Slide is a move that has a 30% chance to flinch the opposing pokemon but also a 10% chance to miss.
With Spikes support, CB Aerodactyl is one of the biggest threats for any offensive team and for a lot of more defensive teams as well, especially if Aerodactyl manages to get a game changing flinch.
A lot of games have been decided by a RS flinch or by a RS miss.
This was the main team Husk used, and one of the best examples of an agressive TSS at that time.
The idea of the team is simple: set up spikes and pressure the other teams with both physical attackers (Tyranitar and Metagross) and special attackers (Zapdos and Regice).
CB Metagross performs a key role in this team, being able to punish with spikes support the Blissey / Snorlax / Regice trying to wall Zapdos and Regice, while also being able to lure bulky waters, allowing physical Sub Tyranitar to clean in the late game.
Husk TSS also features Regice as the special wall, which was a very strong pokemon at that time, being able to easily wall most special threats while hitting harder than Blissey, making the team even more agressive.
Claydol was the Rapid Spinner of the team.
This is a very good example of another great TSS time that was very solid defensively but also very powerful offensively
The team Loki Used to win the third OST.
As you may notice, the idea of the 3 TSS teams I have posted is very similar: set up spikes, set up sandstorm, weaken the other team with the passive damage and threaten with abusers.
What change between these TSS teams is the synergy between the abusers.
When Loki originally built this team, he went with the boah set, but he changed it to Taunt DD just before OST 3 because of its ability to checkmate many teams in the late game.
Loki's team has Hypnosis + Explosion offensive Gengar as both a fail safe and a big special threat, as well as a more offensive spin blocker than Dusclops.
The reason Loki decided to go with a double water team is that at that time, there were a lot of teams that focused on luring the bulky water to sweep with threats such as DD TTar or DDMence.
Milotic featured Light Screen.
LS + Skarmory is a really good combo (every Skarmory back then was physically defensive), allowing it to get extra layers vs MixLax, MixMetagross or Swampert, as well as not getting KOed by Magneton.
LS + Tyranitar is also a very good combo, allowing it to easily set up on non Swampert bulky waters and on Zapdos.
Flygon actually wasn't very popular in early ADV, but its usage rose quite a bit once people started pairing it with Swampert to wall electrics.
This Flygon has both Substitute (already explained in Superman team, it blocked Rapid Spin back then) and Screech, allowing it to beat most last mon set uppers and forcing switches, which added even more passive damage.
This Flygon was especially effective with LS support, because bulky waters were not able to wall it anymore.
Noobster's OST winning team.
This is a good example of how a succesful anti Skarmory team worked at that time.
Magneton is the most important pokemon on the team, because of its ability to remove Skarmory from the game.
Without a Skarmory, both Curse Snorlax and DD Salamence become huge threats to the opposing team, especially with Spikes support.
In this team, Celebi is a Cleric, being able to wake up Snorlax after it has used Rest.
Other Teams:
b) The Spanish Metagame
The Spanish metagame was similar to Smogon metagame, but it had a key difference: legendary pokemons were banned.
That means that OU staples such as Zapdos or Suicune were not allowed.
This is the metagame I used to play at that time.
As you will notice, Milotic is in all the teams featured here. This is because the metagame was heavily dominated by Milotic, acting as the glue of a lot of the teams from that time, walling very dangerous mons like Salamence, Metagross or tyraniboah (the most common Tyranitar set at that time)
One important thing to note is that competitive pokemon was very different back then: nearly every tournament game was hidden with no spectators allowed (except the finals), and most players mained a team and used it in most tournament games.
Sadly, because of that reason, there are very few logs from that time.
These are some example teams from that time:
This was my main tournament team during this period of time.
Skarmbliss was the main defensive core of the team, and it was even more powerful in an environment without stalling machines such as Zapdos or Suicune, which were 2 of the most annoying mons to face for skarmbliss, and allowed Blissey to be run more physical bulk, since it doesn't need to 3hko zapdos in the sand anymore.
Skarmory's main role in this team was setting up spikes to help both Skarmory and Heracross, and walling physical threats such as Metagross, Gyarados or Tauros.
Blissey was the special wall of the team, with Ice Beam to hit Sub Focus Punch Gengar (which was everywhere) and Wish to support the team.
Milotic was probably my most used pokemon in Netbattle, and the defensive glue of this team, covering a lot of the things that can beat skarmbliss, such as Tyranitar (boah was by far the most common set) or Salamence (CB, DD and Mixmence were all common), and allowing me to sleep something that could be threatening for my team.
Milotic was also one of the pokemons that benefited the most from Zapdos and Suicune not being allowed.
CB Salamence was my favourite lead at the time. The combination of immediate power + great typing + intimidate allowed to start the game with an advantage, and in the late game there were few things that could stop it with spikes support.
CB Heracross was my stall breaker, with Megahorn destroying Claydol, Focus Punch hitting Skarmory very hard, and Rock Slide 2hkoing standard sets of Gyarados and Salamence, there were few things able to wall this monster.
Spikes were very big in this metagame, and for that reason, I nearly always ran a spinner of magneton to be able to deal with them.
Basically, this was a balanced team with a very solid defensive core (SkarmBliss + Milotic) with a spinner to remove spikes and 2 heavy hitters (Salamence and Heracross) supported with Spikes and Wish.
Siegfried's stall team.
Siegfried was a peruvian player that liked playing with defensive teams, and was probably one of the best stall players I have ever seen in competitive pokemon.
Skarm and Bliss were again the most important pokemons in this team, setting up the spikes (which was the main offense this team had) and removing status with Aromatherapy (which was very useful with 3 or 4 Rest pokemons depending on the version).
Wishmence was the main innovation of this team, walling a lot of physical threats such as Heracross, physical Salamence or Gyarados and supporting the team with Wish.
Donphan was a very common spinner because its ability to break through Dusclops, which was the most common spin blocker at the time, and it also gave the team a rock resist, easily walling threats such as DD Taunt Tyranitar, which are usually a big threat for a stall team.
Dusclops was the most common spin blocker, because of its ability to easily spin block vs Starmie and Claydol (the 2 most common spinners), as well as to completely wall SubPunch Gengar, and to pressure stall in general.
A common Dusclops set was Imprison + Shadow Ball, so a last mon Curselax does not sweep this team.
Make's Magneton Double Special Wall team
If Siegfried was probably the best defensive player, Make was the best offensive player.
This is a team Make used in the final of a tournament and a good example of an offensive team.
The archetype is similar to what you would expect in a modern Magneton team, with Salamence + Metagross offensive combo, and Snorlax + Magneton combo.
Milotic was the most used pokemon in this metagame, as you probably have already noticed, and it acted as the defensive glue of a lot of teams.
Curselax was a very powerful threat that was surprisingly not very common at that time, especially when paired with Magneton to remove the very common Skarmory
Salamence + Metagross is a very solid combination, both offensively and defensively. Metagross can also lure bulky waters that wall Salamence (mainly Milotic). They also both benefit a lot from Skarmory being removed from the game, since most Skarm teams used to rely on Skarmory + Bulky Water (mainly Milotic) to check both Salamence and Metagross, so after Magneton removes Skarm from the game, Metagross + Salamence become very dangerous.
Finally, Blissey was the cleric of the team, allowing Curselax to quickly wake up, and removing status.
Other Teams:
c) The Italian Metagame
Like the hispanic community, the italian community played in their own community and servers outside of smogon and developed their own metagame.
There are 2 main differences. The first difference is that the italian players used the same rules than smogon except in some small periods of time. The second and most important difference is that the italian community kept an archive, so we can know much more about how the italian metagame was and how it evolved.
This is the story of the italian ADV metagame between 2004 and 2010, written by Sharingan:
--
The story of italian RSE is the story of a group of italian guys, members of Orpo Team, which was at the time the strongest italian team. Its objective was, much like in the original GBA games, to be “the very best, like no one ever was”.
Let’s start from the beginning, the Netbattle era, back in 2006. The only kinds of teams that were around were probably strongly influenced by the GSC metagame, namely stall teams. However, thanks to Choice Band, offensive teams were also able to carve out a niche for themselves. The most used archetypes were
a) Skarmbliss / Forrebliss + 3 Choice Banders + Bulky water, let’s call these the offensive teams.
Example:
MT offensive team: https://pokepast.es/448f1b81ebee106e
b) Stall teams: Skarmbliss + 4 Pokémon that could best cover the threat list, following the counter system.
Example:
Classic Stall TSS team, aka “Fra Stall team”: https://pokepast.es/f46695be768cf176
These were working models for essentially all of 2006-2007. Offensive teams attempted to deal damage with physical attackers, especially Choice Banders, but generally lost against stall teams which, due to more consistent win rates, were long preferred, thanks to the more elaborate and overall better threat coverage.
In 2006, Bekins created Joltgar 2: http://www.bananastyle.net/forums/index.php?topic=1308.0
It was one of the first offensive teams with a completely different strategy, which at the time worked well: Jolteon was meant to pass Substitutes to Gengar, who would then be free to unleash Focus Punch and threaten the opposing team with the Boltbeam combo.
Since Choice Banders were common, Blissey usually punished them with Counter, and thus she was unable to break Gengar’s Substitute. On the other hand, Blisseys with Flamethrower hits Metagross, who also took Body Slams from the few Snorlax that were around. The team worked and Bekins, already one of the best italian players, introduced a new way of thinking, which however was embraced only by a handful of players, the Orpo Team.
In 2007, a team of Netbattle players challenged Orpo Team, and an actual italian national tournament was organized. The winner, a member of Orpo Team, was g_f, an innovative player who seeked uncommon strategies and usages.
g_f taught a great deal of players how to battle, writing guides, creating movesets and generally producing a vast amount of content about the game, which was used as a blueprint by future players. His style and his ideas influenced lots of players and, consequently, the whole ADV metagame. Among one of his influential teams is the Strategy Team: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,340.0.html
This team used Magneton to kill Skarmory, while Dugtrio took care of Metagross and Tyranitar, so as to favor the Normal offense carried out by Dodrio and Curselax. Meanwhile, Steelix’s Explosion bait-killed Swampert or Suicune, paving the way for the sweep of Aerodactyl or Dugtrio. Along with Bekins’ team, this team was not extremely influential on the short term, but contributed to heavily change the approach that players who were active at the time took.
In ADV CL 2007 one could witness the usage of Baton Pass Jolteon in offensive teams, as in Bekins’ Joltgar, and of Magneton + Normal offense, as in g_f’s Strategy Team. The metagame then went along like this, including also the stall TSS teams used by more defensive players.
In 2008, g_f created La Guerra Perfetta: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,6195.0.html
In a matter of months, this team introduced Sdef Cloyster and Counter Snorlax to the metagame. A few months later, the national tournament was organized once again, and the winner, another member of Orpo Team, was Carlo, whose usages revealed the influence of Bekins and g_f. His team was this https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,6331 and it joined Jolteon with Snorlax’s Normal offense. Carlo also often used Jolteon with Flygon and Metagross, as in many of his “Carl Classic” teams: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,962.0.html https://pokepast.es/26e2635e96472fce
A new kind of offensive team was thus born. Players varied their usages unleashing combos like Magneton + Heracross, and Flygon abruptly entered the mategame, often as a Choice Bander, but also as a Mixed Attacker exploiting Spikes. Players seeked originality, probably due to Bekins and g_f, as a form of skill in addition to the win rate. After all, players winning with original gimmicks in a sea of overused teams is supposed to be better.
The usages of the best players in 2008, Seymour (2nd place and stall TSS player, following Fra’s style) and Sharingan (3rd place, one of the new offensive players at the time), shaped the ensuing metagame.
To this end, Cloyster was pitoval to the change of metagame. It could come in on Spikers and threatening them with STAB moves (no one used to heavily invest in SDef on Skarmory or Forretress), it could come in on Swampert to set up Spikes, it couldn’t be trapped by the obiquitous Magneton and, if necessary it could also work as a Rapid Spinner. It had also access to Explosion, and players realized that it could work well as a bait-killer of Starmie and Blissey. Indeed, Clamp-trapper variants were also used, and Zapdos and Raikou rejoiced.
After ADV CL 2008 many more tournaments were organized, in particular the Porytrophy, which took place each Sunday and had 32 participants. It was the most competitive event at the time, and all the best players in italy faced off without missing any. Many of these tournaments were won, in 2008 and 2009, by Seymour and his signature stall TSS style. With Brave Murder Day: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,8459.0/all.html
, which is one of his best teams, if not the best, Seymour also won the ATQ international tournament in 2010.
Some of his most successful teams are
Terpsychora: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,8834.0/all.html
and Crudelyà: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,8496.0.html https://pokepast.es/d370709346f6d150
The late 2008 and early 2009 are dominated by TSS and Offensive teams: Cloyster, Jolteon, Magneton, Flygon, Heracross, Snorlax, Gengar, Tyranitar, etc.
Then, the Neutral Wall Breaker by g_f, dubbed “banana team”, was created. It manages to connect these two types of teams: https://pokestudio.altervista.org/arcticbay/index.php/topic,7944.0.html
Jolteon could pass Substitutes to Tyranitar and Gengar, depending on the switch-ins of Celebi and Blissey/Snorlax, and with Roar it countered opposing SubPass Jolteon, which was widespread. Tyranitar could avoid being Phazed by Skarmory behind the Substitute thanks to Taunt, while Gengar ran Destiny Bond + Focus Punch, a fashionable moveset on NetBattle at the time, due to the negative priority of Focus Punch forcing the opponent to choose between dying with Gengar and receiving damage + Spikes.
Flygon and Cloyster, already a successful pair in 2008 thanks to the great synergy between Spikes and mixed offense, and finally the double Electric type exploited the elimination of the opposing Special Wall (with Cloyster’s Explosion) to set up a lategame sweep.
This was one of the best metagame teams at the time, with the strongest direct influence, and it offered much food for thought to offensive players.
Together with the Neutral Wall Breaker, a defensive Fire-type TSS offense was created:
Revengezard by Sharingan: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=35591889; https://pokepast.es/a1020c590086af16
Tyranitar hit hard against Counters shared with Charizard, who was the Spikes-abusing mixed Sweeper. A single predicted Focus Punch on Blissey impeded its recovery, since if Charizard were to activate Blaze after Seismic Toss it would kill Blissey with an Overheat for about 30% after a single layer of Spikes damage. Dragon Claw made it so Salamence could not wall Charizard, while HP Grass hit Swampert hard.
Due to Revengezard, Destiny-Punch Gengar becomes widespread, and also Raikou, especially Rest Talker becomes used as a Zapdos Counter, since the italian metagame underwent a ban of Calmbeasts and Dugtrio. This ban was subsequently cancelled, since we could not determine that the game had actually become better and, thus, more competitive.
Did ya know RSE aer Fat by g_f: https://pokepast.es/ec23705ddd7f14a1
This team spawned many variants. Moltres found its niche and manages to finally shine in OU after many years: a number of sets were used, from Wisp to Sunny Day to crazy ideas such as Substitute + Sky Attack together with Spikes. Charizard came back with a completely special and dangerous set, PetayaZard. Cloyster remained the main Spiker for a long time, Gengar was everywhere, teams are well-balanced. Battles lasted for less turns. Indeed, many players did not feel the necessity to include a Rapid Spinner anymore, provided their team had the tools to deal with Forretress and Skarmory.
Once Fire types had been found to fit well in a TSS, why not Grass types? Here came Venusaur as a Spikes Abuser, with Leech Seed + Roar, HP Fire and Razor Leaf. Taunt Skarmory soon followed, and quickly became the most used Skarmory set in the italian metagame starting from late 2008: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=34185228 this was one of the very first teams featuring it. Taunt Skarmory stopped other Skarmory and Forretress from Spiking, and could set two layers against Magneton (since it was Max HP / Max Spe+). It could also cause issues to Stall players, Taunting Celebi and blocking Blissey’s recovery, stopping Snorlax from using Curse and Rest while shuffling it on Spikes.
All of this variety meant little to Stall players, which kept using Spikers, Ghost types, Toxic and all their nice Walls. Another important player that has not been mentioned yet is Zetsu91. One of the top Spikes-Stall players, he was the main culprit of the Dusclops usages in the italian metagame, since Gengar was not used with bulky spreads and was considered to be too frail to be a reliable Anti-Spinner.
Zetsu91’s style included a thorough countering of the Threat list, while his opponents struggled to get rid of Spikes.
The diffusion of TSS, Gengar and Dusclops prompted the birth of PursuiTar in 2009. For the first time Tyranitar was rediscovered in a special role instead of the usual physical sets, and this team by g_f was the first team with a special Tyranitar appearing in the italian metagame: https://pokepast.es/bab822d3a6a24816
In that period the eternal war between Stall and Offense was more open, since Taunt Skarmory and PursuiTar were problematic for Stall teams, but the latter were always slightly advantaged. Countering the Threat list and implementing an offensive strategy appears akin to a short blanket, not being able to cover everything at the same time and often leaving Offense players open to some threats, hence their less consistent win-scores. On the other hand, Stall players had some tools to deal with the aforementioned Spikes Offense teams:
- Toxic could win long-lasting battles, especially due to the lack of Clerics.
- The very Spikes abused by the Mixed Sweepers of the Offense players could act as a double-edged sword, since they tended to prolong battles and “wasting” turns to be set up. Offensive teams were not designed to last long and they needed sources of immediate damage.
Therefore, in that period Sharingan, the main Offense player, came up with a way to punish Toxic and eliminate the Spikes-based offensive.
In September 2009 Stall Breaker, a team designed to overpower Stall, was thus born:
Stall Breaker 2009: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=43004431 ; https://pokepast.es/77b9107ec90cdb6f
Machamp had to bait and kill Skarmory, at the time used with no Def Evs, and thus the high CH rate of Cross Chop had a 25% chance of OHKO (a similar scenario presents itself in the modern international metagame). It could also absorb Toxic and Wisp from opposing Gengars, becoming even more dangerous. Gyarados enjoyed the absence of Skarmory while countering important threats. Mixlax would cause panic after Celebi had been Pursuited to death by Houndoom, while baiting Gengar into using Wisp on Machamp. Calmkou could sweep once Blissey had been eliminated by Beat Up (which caused around 70% damage due to the high base ATK of the team members). Last but not least, Regirock countered Tyranitar, Salamence, Aerodactyl and Curselax, and synergized extremely well with Houndoom, since they shared the same counters.
Spikes became less used in favor of a special offense, born with Calmkou in Stall Breaker. The rise of Regirock from the obscure BL tier prompted a similar rise of its brother Regice, this time revisited as an offensive threat.
The italian Regice was indeed used as a baitkiller of Snorlax and Blissey (and, if needed, even Tyranitar). The set was: Ice Beam, Thunder Wave/HP Fire, Explosion, Superpower/Focus Punch with an often Modest Nature. Together with Regice many Calm Minders were thus used, namely Jynx, Espeon, Alakazam, Jirachi with three attacks, Celebi with three attacks and offensive Suicune with Max SAtk / Max Spe+. This was still late 2009 to early 2010, and yet these usages were very common in the italian metagame, contrary to the international one. But let us proceed in order.
Late 2009 – Early 2010
These months are characterized by a generally frail, offensive and special metagame. Stall was almost completely absent, in part due to Stall Breakers, since the cultural shift that ensued and the variants it spawned had a significant influence on the metagame. This was the period of the so-called “Lamer” teams, of which the Team Rating section hosted four or five variants, which spreaded threats such as CBGross and Starmie3 in an explosive fashion. Most importantly, this type of teams lead to the dominant archetype of this period, namely a light-offense based on Ludicolo, the aforementioned Starmie3 and Calmcune, often aided by Exploders like Exeggutor, Gengar, Mixlax and supported by Spikes.
This was not completely new, however. Conceptually, this idea had already been considered by Zetsu in his Ivan Drago, one of the most elegant, strong and acknowledged Explosion teams at the time, whose star was precisely offensive Calmcune: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=41196497 ; https://pokepast.es/fca1f5218e2381eb
From that spark, along with the contributions of some particularly successful players like Dandy (his Puff: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=41798088), that idea exploded to such an extent that it became the paradigm for post-Stall Breaker builders. It is worth noting that in Puff itself it is mentioned that it was not well-suited for Stall. Indeed, this type of Offense, almost useless against a well-designed defensive teams, was frowned upon for long: only after some time it was normalized in the eyes of players, also thanks to more optimization and the experimentation of the great players that followed.
There was actually a kind of misunderstanding: light-offense teams proliferated because of Sharingan, the most influential italian player at the time, but he was not particularly fond of that kind of team. But Stall usages went significantly down regardless. On the one hand, Stall Breaker had proved that Stall was beatable, or at least it could be dealt with, and it sparked the idea that it was somehow obsolete. On the other hand, that team made player want to play offensively. The combination of these two effects lead to offensive teams designed to… beat other offensive teams, and thus the metagame gradually became faster, with battles lasting less and less turns. Consequently, building skills and match-ups became the dominant factors in determining winners.
One must take into account that in that period players were very active, and the trends evolved rapidly. Hence, even if light-offensive teams were the paradigm, there were many efforts to popularize different Pokémon and strategies. It is impossible not to cite the Counterhax: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=42435548, and in particular the vast diffusion of Sceptile, Smeargle (as a dangerous individual threat, not exclusively linked to Baton Pass teams) and Jirachi that ensued. If the former two were a passing trend, Jirachi adamantly dominated the scene for long.
Another successful concept was that of Calm-Mind passing. These teams were born around January and, as we shall see, they contain the seeds of the successive evolution of the special metagame, which involved a lack of Exploders while other ways of weaking counters gained popularity (Wisp, Mixed Attackers). This period did not last long, but it was absolutely dominant at the time, and it contributed to what would have come after it.
This was also the period of soft-bans. Independently of their duration, or the actual adherence to them, soft-bans had a significant cultural impact. Pokémon that were going to come back in OU, such as Dugtrio, were almost nowhere to be seen. The already-invented, but up to then rarely used Drill Peck Zapdos also gained popularity, while usages of Curselax, Suicune and Raikou unsurprisingly did not fall down even slightly, as soon as it was possible to use them again.
The absence of Blissey (due to the general avversion against Stall) and Dugtrio (due to its “cheap” cultural connotation following its ban) led the metagame to shape itself around two main sweepers: Calmkou and Calmchi. This was the state of affairs for a long time, centered around special offense of any kind. Snorlax and Regice, often supported by Tyranitar and Metagross, were the special counters, and thus strategies to deal with these Pokémon were devised: Gardevoir, Gengar and Moltres with Wisp proliferated, alongside the baitkiller Regice set, with its double Ice STAB and an aggressive Evs spread. Here is a great team by Dinozzo featuring it: https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=44100092 ; https://pokepast.es/ba64de736ca6e345
The paradigm thus remained more or less the same: Exploders, bait-killers, bait-wispers, special offense (with or without boosts, with or without passing).
Mid 2010 – Late 2010
In this period the most influential team of the entire year was born, namely Nervous System Failure https://netbattle.forumfree.it/?t=49291485 by Seymour.
It was a return to an atmosphere of defense, and – analogously to what happened with Stall Breaker – it had a long-lasting cultural impact, whereby the player base tended to prefer Stall once again, albeit with a twist compared to its original, intense incarnation. At any rate, this team brought back Dugtrio into play: since a player like Seymour was doing it, its usages skyrocketed. It is plain to understand why this team had so much success: suddenly there were real counters of the then-common offensive beasts, and Dugtrio itself could crush their dreams to an even larger extent.
From this perspective, Seymour’s contribution was paramount. Despite light offense teams did not completely disappear, they had to adapt to the newly-defensive trend of the metagame, gradually evolving. Seymour was for the latter ADVer generation what Sharingan had been for the 2008-2009 generation, what Carlo had been for the 2008 players, and what g_f had been for everyone. Clearly this neat subdivision is rather schematic and does not capture the complex mixing of influences, since everyone cited has was influential across the board. In the case of g_f, one could even argue that his influence was structural, since it also affected other top players.
The metagame thus underwent a gradual transformation from light offense to more solid strategies, in particular Pursuit, trapping by means of Dugtrio, and Sweepers that could complement this kind of support. In the mid 2010s, this type of offense was still implemented by frail Pokémon, due to the previous influences, but by the late 2010s it had almost completely transformed into its definitive form (Curselax, Calmcune).
The history of the italian metagame up to 2010 ends here, and it is but with joy that we remember these moments full of dedication and passion for a game that we have grown up with. In particular, this story is dedicated to all of those old, still active players, including many that we have not mentioned in these few pages, that have lived these last two years of competitive battling as the best period that RSE has ever witnessed.
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kinda want to try it but i guess its well, dead :c
