Online Competitive Pokemon Battle Showdown Happy Fun Times

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by KamenAeons

BellyJet + IronDefScoli = Fun times

Admittedly, he let you set up for free far too much. But nonetheless, I don't even think my team is prepped to handle this simple of a combination. Here is hoping that Diancie magically learns either Roar or Whirlwind. I want an excuse to run her and while I hadn't been planning on placing a pHazing move on her it may very well be necessary.

Unless of course Smogon loses their minds and bans Baton Pass.

[KamenAeons]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Admittedly, he let you set up for free far too much. But nonetheless, I don't even think my team is prepped to handle this simple of a combination. Here is hoping that Diancie magically learns either Roar or Whirlwind. I want an excuse to run her and while I hadn't been planning on placing a pHazing move on her it may very well be necessary.

Unless of course Smogon loses their minds and bans Baton Pass.

That is true. I have only shown the first of three matches. He curbstomped me for the next two, lol.

[Heather]

Stupid Life Orb causes Tie.
You killed Serperior? YOU MUST DIE!

[Typhlosion157]

Originally Posted by Myles Fowl II

You know what's dickish? Sturdy/Pain Split Pineco. Bringing a full health Empoleon down to 2% before it finally couldn't sturdy anymore.

Yeah, I've battled one of them too. Super annoying

[Red Panda]

In which I make Quark proud

[Heather]

Spinda just became terrifying.

[Talon87]

(Click for full size)

Source.

[Escalion]

That. Is. Genius.
And, unfortunately, shockingly true.

[Talon87]

To be fair, parts of it are not true and belie that the creator of this picture doesn't have an intimate knowledge of Smogon. (Example: he alleges that "Smogon supports only the current 6th generation games, X and Y," but Smogon in fact supports metas for all six generations.) But yeah.

[Cloneblazer12]

In all honesty, minus the "Smogon is retarded" comments, that looks pretty legit.

[Heather]

I love how they poke fun at them banning evasion, it made me chuckle.

[Talon87]

Wherein brutal prediction results in a swift ragequit. (Random Battle; 5 turns)

Spoiler: show

Turn 1, I decide to Draco Meteor because why not. I doubt he's going to switch out to a Fairy-type. He does in fact switch to my mild surprise, but it's to a Rotom-H. Well this should be fun.

In between turns, I look at my team to see if I have anyone holding a mega stone. Jackpot: Aggron is holding Aggronite.

Turn 2, I send out Aggron. Sure enough, Rotom-H attempts to use Trick -- just as I'd predicted. Now I get a free turn to Mega Evolve and attack while he's forced to switch out.

Turn 3, I mega evolve and opt to use Thunder Wave so that I can hopefully cripple whatever it is that he chooses to send in. With any luck, it'll be Entei. Jackpot: it is Entei.

Turn 4, I count on being able to either 2HKO with Aqua Tail or else, barring that, 2HKO through the combination of Aqua Tail and Head Smash. Aqua Tail connects and sure enough it deals enough damage that I can be comfortably assured of the 2HKO next turn.

Turn 5, I opt to go for a Head Smash since Entei is low(ish) on HP and the odds of my opponent switching in a Water Absorber / Storm Drainer / anything that laughs at Water-type attacks is fairly high. Well, we don't get to see what happens: my opponent ragequits then and there. I have to wait out the 60 seconds for a victory by timeout.

The hardest fought win I have had in a while. (Random Battle; 47 turns but with tons of action-packed switching throughout)

Spoiler: show

There were numerous times throughout the course of this match that I thought about throwing in the towel. Especially when the score was 4-6 or 4-5, his lead, somewhere around the Turn 30s, and I felt like he simply had too good of a defensive core given the makeup of my team. 'Cause man: fuck that Steelix, fuck that Girafarig, fuck that Giratina, and fuck that Delcatty. I knew that the only way I could win was if he slipped up. And because of how expertly he was battling, I did not believe he would slip up.

Yet slip up he did. He got complacent in the 30s and allowed himself to lose his Steelix and his Girafarig. These had been two of his key components -- without these, he no longer had a reliable answer to Zekrom. The only question now was if, despite my abysmally low number of Pokémon remaining, I could tug sente out of my opponent's hands back into my own and dictate the flow of the match. Sure enough, I was able to do this towards the end (hence why it was the end ^^; ) -- and I was able to get up a free Hone Claws against his Giratina. (Even had he left it in, I was confident I would not be OHKOed by its Dragon Pulse attack. Thus, the Hone Claws was free -- and my only concerns were the speed stats on his remaining Pokémon.) Calling Giratina back proved disastrous for him, arguably, as Floatzel would've outsped Zekrom and might have been able to finish off an already-weakened one with a well-placed Ice Punch. Unfortunately for him, he never got to put a scratch in my Zekrom: by calling Giratina back the turn he did, he gave me that free Hone Claws which then allowed me to KO his weakened Delcatty, his weakened Ampharos, and his weakened Giratina all in one hit. Even Floatzel, unless he'd gotten off a critical hit or a lucky freeze with Ice Punch, would not have been able to OHKO me whereas I would have easily been able to OHKO him with Fusion Bolt.

I'm certain that whoever it is that I fought, he has to be an alt of a much better player's. He did not fight like someone you typically find in the 1400s. He probably felt the same exact way of me.

[Jerichi]

I'm sorta surprised Trick Rotom is still such a popular option. Trick has been pretty hard nerfed this gen with Megas being popular and common and most 'mon are better crippled with KO as it is. I know this is Randoms, but I've seen it plenty in other metas and noticed that there's still a good tendency to run it opposed to coverage.

[rotomotorz]

Trick is great because only certain Pokemon can run Megas so if you play your cards right it still can work

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Jerichi

I'm sorta surprised Trick Rotom is still such a popular option. Trick has been pretty hard nerfed this gen with Megas being popular and common and most 'mon are better crippled with KO as it is. I know this is Randoms, but I've seen it plenty in other metas and noticed that there's still a good tendency to run it opposed to coverage.

At the lower levels, players do not expect Trick to be used against them and/or do not expect you to see Trick coming.

At the upper levels, players have typically been around much longer than six months and thus remember well the two-generations-long era of Trick use. You can prey on this deeply-ingrained memory of theirs by feinting use of Trick when in fact you use something else, dictating the flow of the match in such a way that they don't think twice about the fact that you ran away after only using one move, and come back later and Trick them.

A good example of the latter is Blissey crippling in the upper ranks. Players will often have Blissey out. I then send out my Choice Scarf Jirachi. They either know for a fact or else correctly predict that I have Choice Scarf. And so they switch out an anti-Choice Scarf Jirachi like, say, a Scizor holding a Mega Stone. But the joke's on them when I predicted this and use U-Turn to hightail it out of there immediately and send out my own counter to their counter. Fast forward now by ten to twenty turns. It's later in the match and once again Blissey is out and out comes Choice Scarf Jirachi. This time, says my opponent, I'm going to take advantage of his cheek. My opponent decides to leave Blissey out to absorb my U-Turn (surely it won't hurt her that badly!) and set up against whatever is coming out next. So she stands her ground, she prepares for the U-Turn ... and feels a strange sensation in her egg pouch. It feels like something's been lifted out and then dropped back in. What's this? A Choice Scarf!? That's right, Blissey. The joke's on you times two.

tl;dr Trick is by no means obsolete in the Gen 6 meta. It's just prone to backfiring slightly more than it used to be. Before you had to worry about being locked into your own Trick by attempting to trick a Choice Scarf onto a fellow Choice item holder. Now you +1 that list by introducing all of the Mega Stone users. It's honestly not that bad. An annoyance, yes, but every bit as circumnavigable as before.

[Heather]

Did I mention I'm terrified of Talon?

[Talon87]

I wish my PS scores matched your expectations.

[Cloneblazer12]

Out of curiosity, where do you hover around on the OU ladder?

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Cloneblazer12

Out of curiosity, where do you hover around on the OU ladder?

Currently, ~1500 Elo. It used to be 1800 or so before they recalibrated the scale. It's good but it's not great. I think that if I ran a more competitive team I could easily make 1650 and with more effort and a bit of luck make 1750.

Suisho's Elo for OU right now says 1497 but I haven't done an OU match on Suisho in maybe a week or two. The Glicko says 1588 ± 29. This is low by laddering standards (and by own personal standards! ) but reflects how maladapted my team is to the current metagame. Zuisho's Elo for OU says only 1389 but hasn't been touched in weeks, possibly a month or longer. The Glicko says 1647 ± 58. If you put the two Glickos together, then, it suggests something around a score of 1600. Not bad, not great either.

[rotomotorz]

I'm at 1500 but since I stopped doing OU for a while and shifted to VGC I'm sure ladder decay has happened by now

[Cloneblazer12]

Heres my main (which I use to test teams and such)

Spoiler: show

Not exactly the best, but if Im using a good team, sometimes Ill get up to around 1550 or so. I think Ive peaked at around 1650 on one of my alts, before tilt happened.

[Heather]

>1600

Lol if i ever see the light of day over 1100 here it's been a good week.

[Cloneblazer12]

Myles, I can guarantee you that if you were to have a major team overhaul, you could do it.

Import this team and try it out:

Spoiler: show

Charizard @ charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Flamethrower
- Focus Blast
- Roost
- Solar Beam

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Superpower

Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw

Keldeo @ Expert Belt
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Icy Wind
- Secret Sword
- Scald

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Def / 20 Spd
Bold Nature
- Roost
- Thunderbolt
- Heat Wave
- Defog

Deoxys-Speed @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 20 Atk / 252 SAtk / 236 Spd
Naive Nature
- Psycho Boost
- Knock Off
- Superpower
- Ice Beam

[Talon87]

Wherein I give people reason to fear me? (Random Battle; 17 turns)

Spoiler: show

First Metagross cripples his Simple Bibarel with a Choice Scarf. Ruinous.

Then Metagross cripples his Exeggutor by swapping out the Life Orb purloined from Bibarel for the Sitrus Berry that that goddamn Harvesting coconut tree always has. Ruinous x2.

Next up is Sigilyph, a.k.a. Auto-Win. But Sigilyph gets roared out, and so it's up to ...

Finally, Aegislash. Never allow this fucker to get up more than one Swords Dance. I honestly don't think the critical hit at the end mattered: 265 Attack coupled with a 3.5x modifier coupled with STAB on Shadow Sneak ... even though the move only has a base power of 40, you may as well think of it as a move with a base power of 140 coming off of an Attack stat of 265 that furthermore has STAB. Or, put another way, a move without any STAB but one which has a base power of 210 coming off of an Attack stat of 265. Maybe the critical hit mattered? But I don't think it would've mattered much.

Because postscript: I also happened to have a Braviary (meh but strong), a Tyrantrum (oh boy), and a Mismagius (OH BOY) waiting in the wings. To say nothing of Metagross and Sigilyph who still wanted to play.

Obviously this was more a case of very good fortune than anything else -- had our roles been reversed, it could have just as easily been me who was fucked over by the terror of a Metagross + Sigilyph + Aegislash dream team. But yeah. Still. Don't give me three free opportunities to set up Swords Dance.

Hey, look, I'm Xerneas! I make Random Battles a sad affair for both players! (Random Battle; 16 turns)

Spoiler: show

I had this very same outcome happen to me several days ago. (I got 0-5'd by a guy who was able to set up a Geomancy and my randomly-generated team had *nothing* that resisted Fairy or was specially defensive enough to tank +2 special hits.) Now it was my turn to have fun with it feel like a jerk and want to apologize to my opponent but not be able to because that would only make it worse.

To be fair, Xerneas isn't in a league of his own. I would still argue that Sigilyph, Durant, and others are in the same company as Xerneas. All of them are win buttons when deployed correctly. All of them have the potential to be auto-win buttons against teams that lack adequate checks or counters. But Xerneas is perhaps the "LOL WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! " dumbest of them. Sigilyph at least requires some smarts. (Not much, no, but some.) And Durant can still miss despite a Hone Claws boost thanks to the wonders of Hustle. But Xerneas is a bit of a joke. +2 SpA and +2 Spd just from using one move on one turn. Ridiculous. Yes, yes, yes: I realize that Shell Smash does the same exact thing. But at least Shell Smash isn't on any legendaries. Geomancy is. To get Shell Smash onto a legendary, you have to Baton Pass it on over. To get Geomancy onto a Xerneas, you just ... use the Geomancy that's already on that Xerneas. It's not rocket science.

To repeat: I'm not arguing that Xerneas is in a league of his own brokenness-wise -- he isn't -- but I am agreeing that he's an obnoxiously evident win button in the Random Battle format right now. Oh well~

EDIT: I want to make something perfectly clear. I have faced dozens of Xerneases before tonight. I do not need -- nay, I SPECIFICALLY DO NOT WANT -- you to come in here and tell me all about how you already know about Geomancy + White Herb. So have I known. So have I known for months now. I'm just posting this particular battle a) because I thought to and b) because it was a huge sweep. Normally when Xerneas shows up (either yours or theirs), he doesn't show up until late in the fight because he's a clean-up sweeper. You never want to risk losing your win condition to accrued damage throughout the early to mid-match. You save him for the end. It's therefore rare to see a Xerneas show up early and make it all the way to the finish line unscathed. Usually early showings will fall eventually to (or at least be spooked out by) Steel types.

[Red Panda]

Big!Deer saves my sorry hide