Resource Other Metagames Rules, General Info, & Announcements

[Isaiah]

Welcome to Other Metagames! This is where you will find lots of interesting and unique formats to play that are outside the bounds of standard tiers. Balanced Hackmons, Almost Any Ability, and STABmons are our flagship OMs. Some of Smogon's most popular metagames, such as Monotype, Doubles OU, and Anything Goes, began as an OM; so who knows, maybe we'll see more official formats down the road!

What is an OM?
An OM is any Smogon metagame that isn't officially recognized by Smogon (this does not include pet mods). They don't have top-level subforums or official Tier Leaders. OMs typically make broad changes off a consistent rule, or small set of rules. For example, introducing a new mechanic (Pokemon have the type(s) of their first two moves - Camomons) or providing access (Pokemon can use any ability - Almost Any Ability). Cartridge-playable OMs often unrestrict (anything that can be hacked is allowed - BH; 6v6 with 3 Pokemon active on the field simultaneously - Triples). Pokemon that become extremely powerful if allowed to have new elements are not granted special accommodation to remain legal by virtue of being exempted from the OM's rules. (i.e. AAA doesn't keep Shedinja legal while denying it the core gimmick of the meta - it just bans the Pokemon). In short, an OM can usually be summarized accurately and completely in a sentence or two.

General Rules
– All global rules apply.
– You need approval before posting a thread.
– Do not make meaningless or one-line posts.
– Be nice to one another!

Forum-Specific Rules

Many of these forum-specific rules boil down to one simple idea: don't mini-mod!
The forum has an active moderation team, so we'll get to problematic posts/threads in a timely manner. Although, if something sits for more than 24 hours, please let us know.

– Don't bump old metagames unless you think you can generate enough discussion to get it going again. If you would like to restart a metagame currently in the OM Archive, post in OM Submissions to let us know.

– It's never okay to "metagame bash," which means don't insult or overly criticize an idea you don't like. You may offer constructive feedback, but generally, if a metagame is approved then it has already received criticism during the submission process. This applies to all OM spaces—forum, discord, and the PS! room. If there is a metagame you don't like, don't play it!

– Don't post in a thread unless you have something constructive to add to the conversation or need to ask a specific question.

- Metagame threads are for discussing exactly that, the metagame. Do not ask for the concept or mechanics of the OM to be changed.

– Please don't post and ask if a metagame is approved. Most of the time it is and they just forgot to indicate who approved it. Leave it to the mods to handle unapproved metagames.

– Don't post in spam threads or unapproved threads in general. Let a mod handle it.

Current Moderator Team
Giagantic - Leader
Isaiah - Leader
KaenSoul - Leader
dhelmise - Moderator
Ransei - Moderator
Tea Guzzler - Moderator
berry - Moderator
kenn - Moderator

 

[Isaiah]

How To Submit a Metagame

General Rules
– All new metagames need to go through the submission process before you can post them. See the steps below on how to do that. Tournaments and projects are approved on a case-by-case basis and should be posted in submissions too.
– You need to have at least 20 posts in the Other Metagames forum before you can submit. Use that time to become familiar with our community!
– Users can submit one new metagame per month regardless of the submission being approved or rejected.
– Users may not host more than 2 metagames at one time. This rule exists to ensure metagame hosts are active and engaged with their community.
– Every metagame needs a secondary leader (or a council). This is a rule that exists to ensure there is someone able to take over should the host become inactive.
– If you wish to drop a metagame you currently host and there is an active community, you must discuss who should take your place with the moderation team.

Submission Process

Step 1) Look in the Index. Does it already exist? Does something similar exist? Has something similar already been denied? If you see it, don't submit it.

Step 2) Use the Metagame Workshop. The workshop allows you to receive feedback so you can tweak your concept before officially submitting it. It is also a good idea to search if similar ideas have been brought up before. If the feedback is mostly positive, and you think this concept can be coded, continue to the next step.

Step 3) Post a thread in the submissions subforum* with the following components:

1. A premise: "This OM makes Pokemon stronger the closer they are to fainting." Generally, if you can summarize your submission in one sentence, you have a strong premise. It also helps to ask it in the form of a question: "What if every Pokemon became stronger as it gets closer to fainting?"
2. Now answer that premise/question. "The lower your Pokemon's HP, the stronger its attacks will be, like the move Reversal. Here's how ..."
3. List any other specific rules and clauses that apply. Are you using standard clauses? Are you creating a new clause? If so, why?
4. Give us an idea of how this metagame will play out. Will stall get buffed? Do you expect offense to be better?
5. Choose a foundation for the metagame. Are you starting with a power level similar to OU or closer to Ubers? Doubles? LC? Also, do you foresee any necessary quickbans? We tend to frown on quickbans during the submission process, but some things are too obvious not to ban.

*This subforum is private. You will only be able to see your own threads.

Step 4) Now comes the wait. The moderation team will review your submission, ask questions for clarification, and provide suggestions to improve it. Please be patient during this stage. We try to get to all submissions within 1 week, but if we forget, you may bump after that. It's not okay to bump before 1 week, nor is it okay to PM/VM us to remind us of your submission. We will get to it when we get to it. As members of OM Submissions, berry, Eli, and Instruct may critique your concept; however, the final decision is in the hands of the moderators.

Step 5) The OM forum moderators will critique your concept, as well as the format of your post, and give approval or rejection. Once your submission has received two approvals and no more than one rejection, it will be tagged as "Approved". You will then be given a specific date to post your OM. Make sure you follow the metagame template below and affix "approved by moderator(s) name" at the top so the community knows you followed the forum rules.

Sample submission by Temporaryanonymous (with components added by the moderation team)

(1) A move's base power generally gives you an idea of how powerful it is, but the actual damage requires a complex formula of adding, multiplying, and dividing. What if moves and damaging were simpler? What if a move's base power decides how much damage it does?

(2) The Main Rule:

• On normal situations, a move's base power decides how much damage it does. (Swift does 60 damage, Flamethrower does 90, High Jump Kick does 130)

(3) Mechanics Interactions:

• STAB is taken into account as a 1.5x boost (A water type using Surf will do 135 damage while a non-water type using Surf will do 90)
• Type effectiveness is taken into account (Ice Beam against a Gliscor will do 360 damage while Ice Beam against a Zapdos will do 180 and Ice Beam against a Cryogonal will do 45)
• Moves with variable base power (Gyro Ball, Water Spout, Seismic Toss, Psywave) do damage based on its base power
• Abilities are also taken into account (Adaptability users get 2x on STAB, Fur Coat cuts physical damage in half, Thick Fat halves Fire and Ice damage, Blaze/Overgrow/Torrent/Swarm will increase the power of Fire/Grass/Water/Bug moves by 50% if the user has 33% HP or less, Technician increases damage done by 50% if the move has 60 base power or less, Strong Jaws boosts biting moves by 50%)
• Stat changes are taken into account (A neutral +1 Dragon Claw will do 120 damage while a neutral +2 Dragon Claw will do 160 damage, defense boosts work likewise)
• Critical hits will increase the damage by 50% and ignore offensive drops and defense boosts
• Type boosting moves boost damage done by that type by 20%. Expert Belt increases Super effective moves by 20%
• Choice Band/Specs increases physical/special damage by 50% but locks you into a move. Choice Scarf works as normal
• Life Orb increases damage done by 30% at the expense of 10% HP loss each attack
• Certain Pokemon-exclusive items like Thick Club or Light Orb or Stick work like they're supposed to (either doubling attack/damage or increase critical chances)
• Moves that heal or do damage based on a % work as normal
• Secondary effects work as normal

(4) In this meta, more Pokemon will be able to make use of both their physical and special movesets, as with almost the removal of atk/def/spA/spD base stats, there is a bigger emphasis on HP and spe. Of course, most Pokemon will be running 252hp 252spe+ sets. Pokemon like Wailord and Drifblim will be able to shine because of their ludicrously high HP, making them extremely hard to take down, while also hitting just as hard as most other Pokemon.

(5) Possible bans:

• Huge Power and Pure Power seem powerful, and thus will have no effect for balance
• Some high HP Pokemon that are too strong

 

[Isaiah]

OP Format
Below is an example of the format you should follow for your OM submission to be successful. It doesn't have to be exact, but close enough to where your OP looks decent:

Approved by E4 Flint and The Immortal

[Source]

Magicmons
​

Have you ever wished you could go back to a time before Leftovers? Before Life Orb? Before Choice Scarf? Nowadays, held items are a crucial part of competitive battling, but there's a way you can negate them: Magic Room! This uncommon move prevents item use, but is rarely seen because it only lasts five turns. In Magicmons, this is no longer the case! Magic Room is permanently active during this game mode, making held items essentially useless. With a mix of Gen 1 and Gen 8 mechanics, anything could happen! It's magical!


Rules:

Mechanic: The move "Magic Room" is permanently active
Clauses: Standard OMs, Sleep Moves Clause
Bans: OU Bans (NOTE: in a real submission, 'OU Bans' is not enough detail to suffice. Give specific Pokemon, Moves, Abilities, and Items you want banned, as almost no metagame should be directly connected to the OU Banlist.)


Strategy:

Without items, offensive Pokemon lose a lot of their damage and defensive Pokemon lose a lot of their longevity.

Increased Viability:
Here are some Pokemon that are especially powerful in Magicmons:

Kommo-o has become a bigger threat against opposing sweepers and tanks thanks to the loss of Focus Sash and recovery items.

Although Toxapex misses out on not having Black Sludge, the lack of choice items and Lum Berry rewards its wide variety of passive-aggressive moves with more opportunities to inflict lasting status on opposing teams.


Decreased Viability:
There are also some Pokemon that lose a lot from the Magicmons meta, either from the lack of items on themselves or on enemy Pokemon:

Hawlucha utilizes Unburden by carrying seeds able to get used up under specific terrain effects. Because these seeds no longer work here, Hawlucha is unable to double its speed by Unburden.

Weavile and other offense Pokemon that rely on Knock Off will be disappointed by their damage output, as few Pokemon will be holding an item unless they're attempting some sort of strategy with Natural Gift or Fling.


Q&A:

Q: What happens if a Pokemon uses Magic Room?
A: The move fails, rather than reversing the permanent Magic Room.

Resources:

Playability: This format currently isn't playable

Council: To apply to the Magicmons council, please send me a PM.

Ransei

E4 Flint

The Immortal

drampa's grandpa

regirock

Ban History:
None Yet

 

[Isaiah]

OM Tiering Guidelines​

These guidelines exist to provide general tiering philosophy for Other Metagames that might not apply to the tiers mainly targeted by Smogon's Tiering Policy Framework. Other than these OM-specific guidelines, we still follow Smogon’s official tiering policy as closely as possible.

I) When it comes to bans and restrictions, we seek to prioritize preserving the concept of a meta over anything else.

• Ability-based formats such as Almost Any Ability (AAA) should look to ban specific users of abilities before banning the abilities themselves.
  • Noivern and Dragonite are both banned from AAA largely because of Aerilate, which remains legal as an option for other users, such as Landorus-Therian, that are not considered banworthy.
  • Wonder Guard is banned in Almost Any Ability because it warps the metagame to an extremely overcentralized extent, depriving teams of creativity and requiring overly demanding and specific countermeasures regardless of what the Wonder Guard Pokemon on an opposing team may be.
• Move-based formats such as STABmons should look to ban or restrict specific users of moves before banning or restricting the moves themselves.
  • Tapu Bulu is banned from STABmons despite being arguably the only noteworthy non-native Grassy Glide user because the combination of Tapu Bulu + Grassy Glide is banworthy, not Grassy Glide on its own.
  • Shell Smash is restricted in STABmons because there are more Pokemon able to utilize it than would be feasible to ban, and in virtually every case Pokemon that gain access to Shell Smash through the STABmons concept become problematic enough to become banworthy in their own right.
• Item-based formats such as Mix and Mega (MnM) should look to ban or restrict specific users of items before banning or restricting the items themselves.
  • Calyrex-Shadow is banned from MnM because even without a Mega Stone, its offensive presence is too overwhelming for the viable defensive options in the metagame.
  • Medichamite is banned from MnM because there are more Pokemon able to utilize it than would be feasible to ban, and in the vast majority of cases Pokemon that gain access to Medichamite through the Mix and Mega concept become problematic enough to become banworthy in their own right.
  • Xerneas is restricted in MnM because it is too powerful when enabled by a mega stone, but there exists enough offensive and defensive counterplay to account for it in its natural form.

II a.) In accordance with preserving the concept of a meta, Pokemon should be banned or restricted over moves or abilities unless there are multiple noteworthy users of said moves or abilities.

• If the justification for banning or restricting a move or ability is limited to just one Pokemon, then the Pokemon should be the target of tiering action instead. This ties back to preserving the concept of each given metagame as much as possible.
• The amount of Pokemon that is acceptable to ban or restrict before looking to take action on a move or ability varies from case to case but is usually 2-4 Pokemon.
• Bans that look to ban something not directly affected by the meta concept should refer to section II b.

II b.) Bans outside of the circumstances listed in point II a. will be reviewed by OM Leadership on a case-by-case basis and will require significant justification.

• OMs only set precedent on bans and restrictions for other OMs within their category. For example, a move restriction in STABmons does not set precedent for restricting moves in Almost Any Ability, and so on.
  • Cases where a ban has to be reviewed by leadership will set no precedent across any OM beyond the metagame where the ban took place.

III) “Complex” bans/unbans are to be avoided wherever applicable.

• There are known exceptions such as banning Regenerator + Emergency Exit in metas that combine abilities, but those are to be avoided wherever possible and should only happen with developer intervention.

IV) Restrictions/restricted lists are to be generally avoided unless necessary for a metagame's playability. These will be reviewed by OM staff on a case by case basis.

• An example of this is Shared Power, which has a restricted list to avoid the collateral damage (many Pokemon bans) that would come with banning specific abilities instead.
• Another example is Godly Gift, which has a restricted list to avoid being tied to the OU council's tiering process and expand the amount of usable options.

Certain formats in Other Metagames do break these guidelines due to having inherently complicated rulesets (e.g. Shared Power, Linked, Revelationmons), but those are evaluated on a case by case basis and do not apply to all formats.

These guidelines are not hard set in stone! If you have any questions regarding current or future tiering action in an OM, please feel free to ask a Forum Moderator.

 

[in the hills]

Art by Kaiju Bunny​

Every day we host tournaments in the Other Metas room on Pokémon Showdown. All are welcome to join the tournament and there is no limit to how many you can participate in per week. The signups are live so you can't sign up ahead of time. Just show up in the room on time and wait for the tournaments to start! Each tour will count towards a leaderboard, so win as many as you can!

At the end of each month, whoever has the most tour wins shall receive a special room rank unique to Other Metas! The Star rank (✩) designates you as OM room's top tournament battler and will group you with our Room Voices (+). You'll also get your name enshrined in the HALL OF FAME to remind others of your accomplishment.

The breakdown
Where: Other Metas room on Pokémon Showdown
When: 21:00 UTC (4 PM US Eastern, 5 PM during DST)
What: Tournaments that count towards leaderboard
Extra info: All regular OM tournaments hosted in the OM room (AKA without special/added rules) count towards the leaderboard; the scheduled tournaments listed below are currently not worth any more points than usual, but are guaranteed to happen every day.

• Monday - Balanced Hackmons
• Tuesday - Mix and Mega
• Wednesday - Almost Any Ability
• Thursday - STABmons
• Friday - Godly Gift
• Saturday - NFE
• Sunday - Partners in Crime

When: 18:00 UTC (2 PM US Eastern, 3 PM during DST)

• Monday - Camomons
• Tuesday - Convergence
• Wednesday - Fortemons
• Thursday - Shared Power
• Friday - Cross Evolution
• Saturday - Revelationmons
• Sunday - Trademarked

Why: Room Star rank (☆) and entry into the Hall of Fame
Who: Anyone who wants to participate

For more information about a metagame, enter "/om " followed by the format name on Pokémon Showdown. (For example: /om bh)

Signups last 6 minutes. The automatic disqualification timer is set to 3 minutes. There is a no scouting rule in the tournaments; if you are still active in the tournament you are not allowed to spectate other matches. If you are on Pokémon Showdown you can PM our room bot (@Secura) the command .nextot for it to show you what is that day's metagame and how long until it begins. You may also pm *Scrappie the command .top Other Metas to see the top players in the month's leaderboard. If you require assistance make sure to PM a staff member (% or @) and not the room bot. Winners will get to keep the Star rank until the end of the next month when it will be transferred to that month's winner. The Room Owners have the right to not award you the Star if your behavior was less than sporting during the month.

Have questions? You may message any member on the Forum Moderation team via Smogon conversation.

Good luck and have fun!

Hall of Fame

HALL OF FAME

November 2022 - ponchlake
December 2022 - astralydia
January 2023 - Gimlaf
February 2023 - Quantum Tesseract
March 2023 - Quantum Tesseract
April 2023 - Hiusi guy
May 2023 - Hiusi guy
June 2023 - Siamato
July 2023 - Gimlaf
August 2023 - Gimlaf
September 2023 - Gimlaf
October 2023 - Gimlaf
November 2023 - jb291
December 2023 - Hiusi guy
January 2024 - AtariAlex
February 2024 - BijouMode
March 2024 -BijouMode
April 2024 - Gimlaf
May 2024 - Gimlaf
August 2024 - pecha nerd​

 

[in the hills]

When: 18:00 UTC (2 PM US Eastern, 3 PM during DST)

• Monday - Camomons
• Tuesday - Convergence
• Wednesday - Fortemons
• Thursday - Shared Power
• Friday - Cross Evolution
• Saturday - Revelationmons
• Sunday - Trademarked

We will be adding a second set of Daily Tournaments featuring some of our monthly metagames! This change will be live in the coming days, so be sure to show up to the OM room for some fun room tours!