perfect metagame

[Yoshikkko]

I think there will always be flaws and things we don't like about the metagame and the tiers. This thread is about the way you would personally change the current metagame/tiers so that they would be (near) perfect to you.

Are there moves, Pokémon or items you'd ban (or even unban), (new) clauses you'd wanna see or new rules, etc? Any other ways you think you could improve the metagame? This goes for any tier! Discuss!

Example, personally I'd probably limit baton pass to 3 Pokémon on one team in LC.

 

[Bidoof FTW]

Uhm, Lando-T clause, no lando-t allowed! ^^

Also I'd like to see a side ladder where u-turn and knock off cannot be used on the same pokemon, that'd be a very interesting way to balance out versatility in pokemon.

Allow hidden abilities pl0x. Voltturnabsorb raikou here I come!

 

[Nah]

Bidoof....Hidden Abilities are allowed. The ones that are legally released for Pokemon anyway.

Personally I think that the metagame would be better if there was a better distribution of Rapid Spin and Defog and/or if Stealth Rock did less damage.

 

[skyburial]

Players only get to use Heatran, the best Pokemon. Variations between offensive and defensive variants are allowed, but discouraged.

I win every battle.

 

[Nah]

Players only get to use Heatran Zekrom, the best Pokemon. Variations between offensive and defensive variants are allowed, but discouraged.

Fixed it for ya

 

[skyburial]

Fixed it for ya

How about Garchomp. Now there's a Pokemon we can believe in.

 

[Bidoof FTW]

Bidoof....Hidden Abilities are allowed. The ones that are legally released for Pokemon anyway.

I meant the ones that aren't legally released, 'tis why I used Raikou as an example :)

 

[Polar Spectrum]

lol Skyberries

I demand a Dunsparce / Stunfisk only tier; where factions can form and rally around both as champions of the isolated metagame that revolves around these two.


but in all seriousness and at great risk of starting interesting converstaion; perfect meta?

I wish Smogon and its followers would move off of singles and up to doubles. Singles is nostalgic more than it is enjoyable for me nowadays, and it just feels outdated. Credible authorities of skill in OU singles meta play even here, have said things like "Stealth Rocks is mandatory on any competitive team", "Sixth generation's metagame is terrible", "There's still more that needs to be banned for the metagame to be healthy yet" and more and more and more, about what's wrong and what needs to be changed and banned in what's considered standard - OU singles.

Meanwhile, things like VGC operate with a noticeably wider variety of pokes involved, less exploitation of singular aspects of battle (hazards, baton pass, stalling) and honestly, just to greater entertainment to watch and play. (imo) As well as Smogon Doubles even, an extensively smaller banlist. Which, I'm curious as to why even they recognize singles as a more veritable or desirable gametype, whilst simultaneously categorizing a laaaarge portion of all things involved in it as ban-worthy, but nigh neglecting doubles - and keeping.... what, out of it - (I actually don't know what's banned in Smogon doubles - like, Dark Void I think?)

But anywho, yeah. My two cents. It's questions and thoughts, not some attack on singles or smogon. If you take it like that I will probably chuckle and respond with a silly gif. don't b 2 srs m8

 

[Anti]

The doubles thing is pretty interesting, but I think you answered your own question a bit. OU will always be the most popular tier because it is the least restrictive singles tier except Ubers and is "standard." You could argue that there is nothing inherently standard about OU and you'd be right, but I think it comes from how people enjoy the cartridges. Most competitive players started from cartridge games. The fun of those is often training OU stalwarts like Tyranitar or Garchomp. In making that transition, it's natural to want to use these Pokemon instead of the things that populate NU, no matter how much "better" a lower tier's metagame might be. I think Ubers has a connotation of "OP legends" which delegitimizes it somewhat, and I don't think that perception is entirely wrong. I think the source of singles/doubles is more or less the same. You play through the whole game in singles. Doubles didn't even exist before ADV and they have always been something of a "gimmick," even in-game. If every cartridge was Pokemon Colosseum/XD (99% of the battles are doubles) then I think the player bases would reverse. I must confess to not wanting to play doubles much myself because that's just not Pokemon to me, haha.

tl;dr I think people just like what "they were raised on" and that's singles, specifically OU.

Anyway, perfect metagame for me could go two ways. Can we tamper with the cartridge or not? If we could, there are a lot of things I would change. (The biggest would probably be the removal of full paralysis.) One thing that I think would be cool, instead of trying to "fix" all of the haxy elements of the game, would be to add a mechanic where, in each game, each player was given one "reroll." Did Gengar crit your +6 CM Clefable and OHKO with Sludge Wave? Force a reroll. Did your opponent's last Pokemon Thundurus PranksterWave your Mega Gyarados, get a full para, and OHKO with Thunderbolt? Force a reroll on the full para. Did your Stone Edge miss at a critical time? Force a reroll! I just think it would be fun.

Given what we have, I would be much more ban-happy in OU on the mega evolutions since they warp team-building a lot. (I'm too lazy to fetch my opus on this I wrote on Smogon, but yolo.) I would ban Metagross, Diancie, Sableye, both Charizards, Gardevoir. I would then want to see how Scizor, Slowbro, Altaria, Venusaur, and Pinsir (yes, Pinsir!) are. I think it would go a long way toward making the metagame less centralized around the dozen or so non-megas that form makeshift defensive cores to handle the mass of overpowered megas (If you're wondering: Lati@s, Landorus-T, Keldeo, Ferrothorn, Heatran, Slowbro, Clefable, Gliscor, Rotom-W are on so many teams for a reason...) I would also consider banning Landorus-I, though I am unsure that it is broken. If the huge banlist of megas was too much for people, I would want a retest of Aegislash. Broken checking broken, eh?

I would at least suspect test low opportunity cost moves like Knock Off and Scald, and I don't need a test to know I would flat-out ban the latter. (If you can't see how it's different than Lava Plume, Discharge, or Body Slam, I'm happy to explain.) I would suspect test Stealth Rock but I am honestly unsure that I would want to ban it even though it is objectively broken.

Lastly, I would ban Gothitelle.

 

[Nah]

Eh, I don't see why we can't have both a good singles meta and a good doubles meta. I've never really thought that one was inherently better than the other, just different. Not everyone's gonna be into both of them, so why not make a larger number of people happy by balancing both metas?

@re-roll thing: Imagine the absolute rage if you re-roll some hax and the hax happens again anyway. It'd happen.

 

[skyburial]

Lemme lead by saying that I agree with a lot of what Polar said, but am not entirely on the same page. Doubles is definitely the superior format for players who like to strategize and really think about each individual turn. Because the format relies more heavily on team synergy than singles, typing and move pool are taken into consideration a lot more than "this thing hits hard and gets stealth rock". The broader use of protection moves, priority, and prediction give Doubles its unique flavor.

Meanwhile, things like VGC operate with a noticeably wider variety of pokes involved, less exploitation of singular aspects of battle (hazards, baton pass, stalling) and honestly, just to greater entertainment to watch and play.

Doubles, especially VGC, definitely has its own set of common offenders. You can expect to battle about approximately 1 million each of Suicune, Zapdos, Mega Kang, Lando-T, Terrakion, Heatran, Mega Mawhile, Arcanine, Sylveon, Amoongus, Breloom, Hydreigon, Aegislash, Clefable, Politoed, Ludicolo, Mega Metagross, Mega Salamence, Zard Y, and Mega Venusaur in a given week. You can also pretty reliably count on speed control, weather wars, Fake Out and Fake out predictions, redirection and deflection, Heat Wave and Rock Slide after Heat Wave and Rock Slide, Pranksters, Perish Trap strategies, Trick Room, etc. Just like any other competitive play, VGC awards innovation as much as it does raw power. Zach Droegkamp (Braverius) and Angel Miranda are two great examples of smart players who innovate, but they both also run the top level threats.

tl;dr I think people just like what "they were raised on" and that's singles, specifically OU.

Naaaaaaah. People were raised on original 150 Gen I in-game play. It's night and day from Singles OU. Remember how hard Brock was to beat because his Geodude would set up Stealth Rock, hang on with Sturdy, and then Self-Destruct? Yeah me neither. Smogon is a flavor. VGC is a flavor. Both are far from perfect and feature broken Pokemon, because gamers aren't necessarily the most creative bunch and like to use powerful stuff.

In all seriousness, I think that a perfect meta, rather than punishing the use of a couple dozen Pokemon and making tiers for a certain generation as a windfall for underused mons, would have a revolving door where the most popular pokemon are periodically rotated into the ban list so that people continue to innovate. I think a quarterly system like the one used in VGC would be ideal. Last quarter's ban list would become legal again, and because at least part of the previous quarter's ban list was integral to their use in teams, it would introduce new team synergies and force players out of the box.

I would also think it would work best in Doubles, which encourages team synergy.

 

[Polar Spectrum]

On anti's singles-doubles response, yeh. I favor doubles and that's why I see what I see, and it makes sense to me. I definitely also see where singles favoring players come from in their preference. I don't think either is 'better' - merely preferential. I, however - was raised on singles, not doubles - but after sampling the competitive scene in both after returning to pokemon in general in gen 5, I stuck to doubles because it seemed much more entertaining for me to play online. I might've just felt really out of touch with singles and where it had gone, given my last experience with any game was gen 3, buuut I still feel exasperated going back and facing the same personal pet peeves as always in singles. Another factor may be the battle pacing - you don't have like 2 or 3 consecutive turns of just switching in doubles, and there's never almost without exception a stand off where neither side makes progress or tries to stall out an opponent, due to the variety of things on the field at any given time. Again though; preferences. I certainly understand someone who likes a longer more drawn out battle.

To Zekrom's reply - oh for sure; I'm not saying either should be neglected. I was only pointing out the quantity of things removed from play in attempts to deem it 'balanced' in singles vs doubles on Smogon alone. Of course I think it should be attempted to bring both to a point where they're good fun and competitive to play at; and I'm not saying either is 'better'. Again, just tastes and questions. I don't understand what needs to be banned in singles, because frankly I don't have the depth of understanding of that format.


Skyberries - dude that's a really good idea :U

Rotate the bans, based on usage or viability. Possibly change what gets banned with what at what time too - that'd keep things from getting stale.

Not for everyone again though; I have no doubt there are people who would be very upset by things not being stale, and would complain that they don't want to play a game where they can't stick to one thing.

 

[Yoshikkko]

actually me and DA thought of something called a crit clause a few years ago, was kind of a joke but i could see it work lol. it's optional and if both parties tick it to be on then it turns on, and well as the name suggest, crits will not happen :p i dont actually know how bad this would turn out LOL

 

[Megan]

Well, to be honest I would consider doubles to be more balanced for the sole reason that it's the official standard and as such there's a lot more official support in terms of balancing coming from GF. Unfortunately a mechanic not being as broken in doubles doesn't guarant the same for singles. E.g. Parential Bond+Earthquake only hitting once, when there's more than one target, while still tearing stuff apart by hitting two times, when only one Pokemon is targeted.
And even before doubles became a thing, official tournaments and even the anime itself where more or less propagating the 3v3 singles format, if I recall correctly, which I'm not particularly a fan of.

Unfortunately, as I'm still a noob, I can't really come up with any good and well thought ideas of a perfect metagame. But I suppose it would help immensely if teambuilding would be less matchup based, as in "choose which Mega's going to tear your team apart".

 

[skyburial]

One thing that I think would be cool, instead of trying to "fix" all of the haxy elements of the game, would be to add a mechanic where, in each game, each player was given one "reroll." Did Gengar crit your +6 CM Clefable and OHKO with Sludge Wave? Force a reroll. Did your opponent's last Pokemon Thundurus PranksterWave your Mega Gyarados, get a full para, and OHKO with Thunderbolt? Force a reroll on the full para. Did your Stone Edge miss at a critical time? Force a reroll! I just think it would be fun.
.

This would be a really neat concept, methinks.

 

[Anti]

Eh, I don't see why we can't have both a good singles meta and a good doubles meta. I've never really thought that one was inherently better than the other, just different. Not everyone's gonna be into both of them, so why not make a larger number of people happy by balancing both metas?

@re-roll thing: Imagine the absolute rage if you re-roll some hax and the hax happens again anyway. It'd happen.

I don't think anyone is saying that both can't be good.

Also, a dual hax circumstance is honestly the greatest appeal of the reroll thing to me. I have been honing a time-tested theory that mean, rude, or otherwise insufferable players get bad RNG rolls. Poor sports getting haxed twice? Sign me up. :) hehe...

Naaaaaaah. People were raised on original 150 Gen I in-game play. It's night and day from Singles OU. Remember how hard Brock was to beat because his Geodude would set up Stealth Rock, hang on with Sturdy, and then Self-Destruct? Yeah me neither. Smogon is a flavor. VGC is a flavor. Both are far from perfect and feature broken Pokemon, because gamers aren't necessarily the most creative bunch and like to use powerful stuff.

You're misunderstanding. It's that we are used to using OU Pokemon in-game, thereby making OU the "natural" tier should you choose to play competitively, not that a competitive metagame exists in the cartridge.

(You could argue that Ubers would then be the natural tier, but there has been a mythology around Ubers as broken since Mewtwo.)

In all seriousness, I think that a perfect meta, rather than punishing the use of a couple dozen Pokemon and making tiers for a certain generation as a windfall for underused mons, would have a revolving door where the most popular pokemon are periodically rotated into the ban list so that people continue to innovate. I think a quarterly system like the one used in VGC would be ideal. Last quarter's ban list would become legal again, and because at least part of the previous quarter's ban list was integral to their use in teams, it would introduce new team synergies and force players out of the box.

I would also think it would work best in Doubles, which encourages team synergy.

This is actually really interesting.

 

[skyburial]

You're misunderstanding. It's that we are used to using OU Pokemon in-game, thereby making OU the "natural" tier should you choose to play competitively, not that a competitive metagame exists in the cartridge.

(You could argue that Ubers would then be the natural tier, but there has been a mythology around Ubers as broken since Mewtwo.)

Yeah? I dunno, how often are you gonna wait until you get to Victory Road or the final route in the game to catch its psuedo-legendary, then spend 5 hours grinding to level it up to the 50/60 range so you can use it on the Elite 4 and possibly one gym? Do I need to mention that 80% of the mega stones in X/Y weren't available until the player was in the Hall of Fame, along with the tutor moves that make some of these Pokemon useful in ORAS? This might have been true in Generation V but VI is a different beast. I could pontificate about it but I'll just say Charizard and we can know what I mean.

And typically the stigma that follows Ubers legendaries follows the Smogon-approved legendaries as well, so while I agree to an extent, the naive model that a lot of followed as kids doesn't really hold up in the meta.

VGC's banlist is more dedicated to an even playing field where anything one player can use is available to another. Hence, title and event-only legendaries and some moves that were specific to a particular generation such as Gengar's Sludge Wave don't see the light of day, and we have the Pentagon rule.

 

[Anti]

you're over-thinking it. it's not that it applies perfectly but that the in-game experience most closely matches up with ou. any lower tier doesn't work because those bans are artificial. there are no bans in-game except for battle tower etc., which only bans legends, which speaks to the stigma of ubers. your qualifier is true but most people correctly perceive that ubers greatly restrict the usage of almost all other pokes.

it's a minor point, not really worth agonizing over too much.

also, to be clear, is the revolving door thing like what uu was running? could you expand on that more? idk shit about vgc.

 

[skyburial]

you're over-thinking it. it's not that it applies perfectly but that the in-game experience most closely matches up with ou. any lower tier doesn't work because those bans are artificial. there are no bans in-game except for battle tower etc., which only bans legends, which speaks to the stigma of ubers. your qualifier is true but most people correctly perceive that ubers greatly restrict the usage of almost all other pokes.

it's a minor point, not really worth agonizing over too much.

also, to be clear, is the revolving door thing like what uu was running? could you expand on that more? idk muk about vgc.

Lol yeah sorry man. I tend to be on guard when talking about OU because of how confrontational the conversations usually are.

And on the revolving door concept, I'll use the mons that you listed as an example.

"I would ban Metagross, Diancie, Sableye, both Charizards, Gardevoir", we'll throw in Lando-T, Latios, Rotom-W and Thundurus Incarnate for good measure.

Aegislash, Mega Lucario, Blaziken and its Mega, Greninja, Mega Mawhile, you get the point... all get rotated back in for a quarter. The usage stats are recalculated at the end of the quarter, a new set of Pokes is banned, and Meta, Diancie, Sableye, Charizards, etc. become kosher again. Probably including Gren and Megawhile lets be honest heh. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

Only thing I want to change in the metagame is expand the number of mons in higher tiers, so that way there will be more diversity in the OU metagame, and there would be less mons in the lower tiers. Pieces of data have hearts you know, at least according to Kingdom Hearts Coded, because they want to be in the big leagues too.