Metagame Partners in Crime

I have to agree and disagree a little bit with both of you:

-Disable + Encore is extremely rare in DOU Level 51. I know what I'm talking about, I got in the top 10 of the ladder multiple times and I've been playing it for a long time (I participated in the Marshadow suspect vote for example). So we double players don't think about this strategy when teambuilding in PiC in the first place.

- To deal with the Disable-Encore-Prankster Shadow Tag combo, you need specific counters like Magic Coat or a Dark Type or Tapu Lele. It isn't like dealing with the Boomburst spam for example because Wide Guard is useful in a lot of match-ups, a Steel Type is always a decent choice, Ice moves get Lando-T, Serperior, Whimiscott for example and give good coverage anyway. In the other hand, Dark types don't always offer consistent results when M-Lucario is common, Magic Coat is too specific now since we put a Sleep Clause, and Tapu Lele doesn't fit in every team as Semako said (if you rely on priority moves for example, and those priority moves are usually a little too weak to properly take care of M-Gengar). However, Quick Guard is a great counter because it is useful in a lot of scenarios. You could even play Psychic Terrain as a move somewhere if you're in the need to deal with priority without relying on Tapu Lele. You have to be more creative Semako, that's the thing with this metagame. Nobody would think of Dusclops in this meta for example, however I have yet to see someone telling me my Dusclops is useless in this ladder. See your strategy with Imprison, that's very good against TR. But you still lost to me because you chose Victini to put Imprison instead of Kyu-B, which was a big mistake considering my team packs a M-Camerupt and a Gastrodon. You still have much to think of in order to improve.
 

Level 51

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Responding to both posts together since they overlap a bit
I know what I'm talking about, I got in the top 10 of the ladder multiple times and I've been playing it for a long time (I participated in the Marshadow suspect vote for example). So we double players don't think about this strategy when teambuilding in PiC in the first place.
Love how you say "we double players" as if I'm not a doubles player too lmao
Disable + Encore is extremely rare in DOU Level 51.
You can't really compare DOU with PiC. When I played DOU (was in the high 1600s, so not that bad), I never encountered such a strat, simply because it is not viable there due to Gengar not having access to Prankster.
I never claimed it was extremely common, I claimed it was "a thing". It is a thing, and many teams are innately able to deal with it because it has weaknesses, just like any strategy. It has a different set of weaknesses in PiC, of course, and that's where you build around it.
But of course, criticizing the user who requested a ban is much easier than testing something for its banworthiness...
Well yeah it is, but I'm just advising you to maybe not knee-jerk super hard to a strategy as soon as you discover it. I'll admit I'm guilty of the same thing, posting about Durant super early on, and after playing more games with it I see that it has its own weaknesses (e.g.: moving before Durant with exactly 1 mon on Turn 1 lets you stagger Truant turns and therefore doesn't give the opponent completely free setup). In this case, all I'm saying is that it's really obnoxious to call out a strategy as broken as soon as you meet it in a few battles with a team that doesn't have many tools to deal with it.
Also, neither Dark Types nor Tapu Lele fit on every team - and even when you have them, you can't safely use them against this strategy due to Gengar getting Focus Blast and STAB poison attacks. And Lele's terrain doesn't protect flying types like Salamence - which is one of the best options against Normalize Skill Swap due to Aerilare overwriting Normalize.
I am by far not the only one who requested some bans; and there are things others requested bans for, which I never had problems with due to being prepared for that - like Sleep, I had a Tapu Fini to counter this, until Sleep Clause got introduced.
Tapu Fini is undoubtedly a suboptimal pick - bulky offense and slow setup like the type Tapu Fini typically fronts is largely ineffective in a format as offensive as PiC. So you've used subpar Pokemon before in an attempt to overcome a strategy which you thought was strong, and you found out it wasn't as strong as you thought. Why not try out the same thing? Persian-A, Tyranitar, and potentially Hoopa-U are all good places to start imo, or there's always Tapu Lele too.
- To deal with the Disable-Encore-Prankster Shadow Tag combo, you need specific counters like Magic Coat or a Dark Type or Tapu Lele. It isn't like dealing with the Boomburst spam for example because Wide Guard is useful in a lot of match-ups, a Steel Type is always a decent choice, Ice moves get Lando-T, Serperior, Whimiscott for example and give good coverage anyway.
Don't forget -ate ESpeed too! Not sure why everyone's always so hyped up about it in other formats but seems to have completely forgotten about it here. If Mega Lucario is as common as you seem to imply that should imply it's been used a fair amount, right? There's a few other more niche combinations, like Prankster and Gale Wings and Triage, which also give priority to various moves, and since Volbeat sits at like 85 Base Speed it's definitely workable with the correct pieces. I don't doubt that this strategy is very strong and absolutely requires a good matchup in order to not auto-lose, but there's a bunch of good and relatively non-niche ways to get around this in my opinion.
In the other hand, Dark types don't always offer consistent results when M-Lucario is common, Magic Coat is too specific now since we put a Sleep Clause, and Tapu Lele doesn't fit in every team as Semako said (if you rely on priority moves for example, and those priority moves are usually a little too weak to properly take care of M-Gengar).
I've yet to face a Mega Lucario, but to suspend disbelief for a moment, this doesn't seem like a great argument either. Saying that Dark types don't always offer consistent results because Mega Lucario is like saying that Landorus-T doesn't always offer consistent results because Kyurem-B is common. You have another 5 members of your team for other matchups. Tapu Lele covers more than just Prankster Disable + Encore, too—there's also Gale Wings spam, -ate ESpeed, and (basically every single other Prankster cheese strategy).

Basically, as I'm sure you're both fully aware of, PiC isn't super comparable to DOU, and so it shouldn't be treated as such. Dark-types in PiC may well be the Steel-types of DOU, due to their ability to stand up against all the Prankster strategies. And just like how some DOU teams get around (e.g.) Mega Salamence in ways other than Steel-types, it's possible to get around Prankster with ways other than Dark-types, though perhaps harder.

jasprose asked me what I thought was broken earlier today and I said that nothing really stands out to me at the moment, though I think the closest thing to being bannable is probably Shadow Tag, since banning it would remove about 80% of the currently existing cheese. I get that it seems like nothing is being done about balance, but I think he's right to err on the side of caution rather than to swing a ban axe wildly in a format where pretty much everything could potentially be broken.
 
Oh right I completely forgot about -ate ESpeed spam, my bad. Maybe the fact I'm playing Tapu Lele myself made me forget this kind of tactics since I put it in the "priority stuff" category of my personnal (and bad) classification.

And yeah, with a bit more backview, M-Lucario isn't as common as I tended to say. However, Marshadow is, without a doubt. But Dark types can still do fine, with Greninja for example always being a good choice in a majority of teams. But I have to say that to compare Dark Types' viability with Lando-T's isn't the appropriate thing to do, we all know how good that guy is, Kyu-B being here or not.

About Shadow Tag, I kinda like cheesy stuff being usable. It adds up variety and not always in a bad and unhealthy way. More variety = more fun because we get to fight more kinds of teams. But that's my point of view. I guess some people just want to see the same things over and over and over.
 
But I have to say that to compare Dark Types' viability with Lando-T's isn't the appropriate thing to do, we all know how good that guy is, Kyu-B being here or not.
.
Honestly, I think Lando-T is just decent here. It has trouble v.s. most of the meta and gives actual free set up to a lot of pokemon that carry: contrary, competitive, defiant, and I think there is one more I'm forgetting about but I could be wrong. Lando-T has a lot of trouble against smeargle gimmick, rain teams, hail teams, sun teams, and sometimes trick room teams. I like using Lando-T from time to time as it does handle Dragonite + Mega Pinsir, decent match-up against sand, decent against Stakataka (Levitate plus this thing is borked lol), and it does have U-turn to get out of trapping shenanigans. I will say that Arcanine does do a great job at handling the intimidate job (you only want one intimidate user on your team) as it does have recovery, E-speed, and other cool techs. Now, I'm not saying Lando-T is bad, far from it, I'm just saying that IN MY OPINION, I think it's decent.
 

Level 51

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About Shadow Tag, I kinda like cheesy stuff being usable. It adds up variety and not always in a bad and unhealthy way. More variety = more fun because we get to fight more kinds of teams. But that's my point of view. I guess some people just want to see the same things over and over and over.
Well, I for one wouldn't be completely opposed to Shadow Tag remaining free either, but I think there's still a decent amount of variety without it: setup spam (Geomancy, Shell Smash), Boomburst and other -ate stuffs, weather (esp. Rain), Dancer, and ofc HO / straight offense (Contrary, Adaptability, general high BST), just to name a few archetypes. Shouldn't just be the same thing over and over again, imo. PiC is one of the most diverse formats and I think a lot of stuff could be very good.

Also unrelated but I agree with tmacbalanced that in a format so specially-based + where everything is speed creeping everything else, Lando-T probably isn't as good as it is in DOU
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
At the end of the day, my own Level 1 Team would Counter this Encore+Disable strategy you faced, Mat Block doesn’t stop Status moves on turn of switch.

How would my team win in 5 turns (which also requires a switch on my team on turn 1).
Turn 1: Switch out my Vulpix for Nosepass, as Phantump uses Leech Seed on Greninja as it switches to Gengar. Volbeat uses Mat Block. Gengar is at 87.5% HP.

Turn 2: Gengar uses Protect as Nosepass uses Leech Seed on Volbeat and Volbeat uses Skill Swap, Phantump uses Pain Split on Volbeat to lower it to 50%, then the Leech Seed Drains it to 37.5%, while Gengar is at 75%. Skill Swap likely took away Sturdy, which only means my Pokémon go first next turn thanks to Skill Swappes Prankster... not to worry Ghost types can switch...

Turn 3: Both Pokemon opt for Protect to avoid Encore and then Gengar is drained to 62.5%, and 25% for Volbeat.

Turn 4: They use Encore again as I switch out Phantump, as a Ghost Type, to another Sturdy user, like Magnemite, in case they removed my Sturdy. The Encore is going to affect the Nosepass’ after Prankster allows it to outspeed both foes and uses Pain Split on Gengar, while my Magnemite hasn’t moved yet. Pain Split brings Gengar to 31.25% and then Leech Seed takes it down to 18.75%, while Leech Seed takes Volbeat to 12.5% + 1 HP for Volbeat.

Turn 5: Nosepass was Encored into Pain Split last turn, which with Prankster goes before they use Disable. Now Gengar is at 9.675% HP, in Leech Seed range. Magnemite, free to use any move uses Protect -just in case. Volbeat loses its last HP. Gengar loses its remaining 9.675% HP.
This is considering my team is far from standard, plus any team with a faster Prankster Taunt user, or Magic Bounce, etc. can counter it.


I'm just gonna come out and say it that this thing is imo the best pokemon the meta.

Tapu Koko flourishes so hard in this meta, having next to no bad match ups, and acting as the glue to so many good teams. Koko's speed tier is phenomenal and cannot possibly be understated in this meta where speed is so important.

Marshadow, Greninja, Noivern, Mega Salamence, and Mega Pidgeot are all crucially out sped and muscled past.
Sleep Spam is completely negated by Electric Terrain.
It has one of the fastest Taunts in the game to counter Trick Room.
It out speeds and OHKOs all Oricorio forms (yes, even Pom-pom).
Its Scarf sets are a great check to Weather teams, especially Rain but Sun too.
Primarily runs special movesets meaning it isn't crippled by Intimidate.
Eliminates powerful bulky waters such as Milotic and Tapu Fini.
Removes opposing Terrain, particularly shutting down Psychic Terrain strategies.
Provides boosted Electric coverage to it's team.
Acts as an okay spread attacker with Dazzling Gleam.

So it clearly offers a lot, and there aren't many reasons to not want one on your team, but does Tapu Koko really fit into your team? Yes.
There are honestly so few abilities that Tapu Koko doesn't enjoy having, and it has amazing synergy with a multitude of strong pokemon and even play styles. Tapu Koko offers so much by itself that it doesn't even matter if its teammates aren't really abusing its moves and ability, where as Koko gets a lot of mileage out of almost any ability, and uses its solid mixed offences and epic speed to make great use of any coverage or utility move it picks up.
You've probably heard about the Koko Kyurem core. Terrain boosted Fusion Bolt for both. Bolt Beam coverage. Teravolt Taunt, Electric STAB (Lightning Rod, Volt Absorb, Motor Drive), and Ice moves (Thick Fat). On top of just crazy synergy in general.
Rain teams love having Koko to mash bulky Waters and in return Koko benefits from 100% accurate Thunders.
Hail teams greatly appreciate Koko providing some pseudo STAB on Electric moves for Bolt Beam coverage, while Koko itself sweeps up Ice Beam, and sets Aura Veil extremely fast.
Even Revelation Dance teams are actually sick with Tapu Koko, pair it up with Pom-Pom and go to town with Terrain boosted Revelation Dance spam.
Also Alolan Raichu is a thing. I don't think it's the best, but if you build around it a bit and use it well it can be quite devastating. It is also one of few pokemon that provides Speed Swap, which actually has a lot of clever uses in this meta.

When I get time for more games I'll try sharing some sample teams, but until then try building with Koko more, I promise it won't disappoint.

Lastly here's a replay. Yes there's a Koko in it. But I'm more posting this because this team is taken directly and unedited from the Doubles OU sample teams, and I just find it hilarious how crazy powerful it is here.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7partnersincrime-668357528
Choice Band Dugtrio. Partner can keep it alive, but countered discovered. No fleeing.
 
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I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet but I found a pretty devastating combo.

Milotic @ Adrenaline Orb
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 4 Def/252 Sp.Atk/252 Speed
Timid Nature
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Psych Up
- Protect

Stantler @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP/4 Def/252 Speed
Jolly Nature
- Skill Swap
- Protect
- Calm Mind
- Filler

Noivern @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Telepathy
EVs: 4 Def/252 Sp.Atk/252 Speed
Timid Nature
- Boomburst
- Hurricane
- Draco Meteor
- Roost

Just make Milotic use Protect turn one and have Stantler Skill Swap whichever opposing Pokemon you either want the ability removed from or you think won't use Protect itself. Milotic ends the turn with 897 special attack and 430 speed. Turn 2 you have Stantler use Skill Swap to steal whichever ability is better from the enemy, or swap the ability stolen on turn 1 with Milotic for them to keep. Milotic uses Surf which kills Stantler and very likely both opposing Pokemon. At this point you can bring in Noivern and either have it use Boomburst/Draco to kill whatever Surf won't or have it use Psych Up on Milotic (which works even if Milotic uses Protect to dodge a Fake Out) and have Milotic nuke the enemy again with Surf. The remaining 3 Pokemon on your team can do whatever you want, but unless your opponent wipes out your lead with their own you won't need them anyway.
 
Why not, I've seen this kind of strategy already. If you give enough support to your Milotic it may do fine, but you're playing a 5 mon team as your Stantler doesn't do anything else than Skill Swap.


Alright guys, I think it's time for me to share mah team. Not much to say about it, I got rank 1 in the ladder for a good time now, I managed to be the first one to get over 1700 elo, and I got a maximum of 1745 elo, all thanks to this team. I also like to believe it's thanks to it that Trick Room got the respect it has now. Enough ego boosting, showtime.


Sticc (Gastrodon) @ Life Orb
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Protect
- Surf
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam

Faya-Faya (Camerupt-Mega) @ Cameruptite

Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Earth Power
- Protect
- Heat Wave
- Flash Cannon

Those two bad boys are my main attack force. It's easy to understand that with a water immunity, M-Camerupt is quite hard to take down. You can spam Surf to get powerful boosts even if your opponent uses Protect, or use their coverage options to say hi to your foes. Ice Beam is mandatory to take down the dragons, and Flash Cannon is good against Kyu-B and fairies. But if you wanna cover something else, feel free to change it. I prefer an offensive set on Gastrodon because one boost is all it takes to make it hit incredibly hard. Pre-mega, Solid Rock gives more tankiness to your setter, making it able to survive more easily a double SE targetting.

Bob (Porygon2) @ Eviolite
Ability: Download
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Tri Attack
- Recover
- Ice Beam / Thunderbolt

One of my setters, and I've yet to be disappointed by Porygon2. Fairly bulky, can give a nice SpA boost to my fully special-oriented team, gives Recover to its teammates, deals decent damage... One of the best TR setters in the meta if you ask me. I was using Magic Coat over Recover before the Sleep Clause, it has given me some nice double sleeps turn 1 against Smeargle and co. But now, Recover is far more valuable.

Squid girl (Tapu Lele) @ Psychium Z
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Moonblast
- Psychic / Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Protect

Now this girl is the best idea I got for my team. Psychic Terrain is excellent against a lot of match ups: Comfey, Extreme Speed spam, Prankster get stoppé just by her getting on the field. You can play Assault Vest, Life Orb or Focus Sash on her, but I like Psychium-Z because of the stupid amount of damage you can get in one turn. It helps against Kyu-B for example. You can choose Psychic or Psyshock depending on what you want: more ways against special tanks or that sweet Sheer Force STABed Psychic Terrain boosted Psychic. Another thing with her is she's my best answer against opposite TR teams. She's quite fast, usually outspeeds other TR Pokémon, and puts a good amount of pressure. Finally, all it takes to throw again 5 turn of priority immunity is to switch out her partner when needed.

Bzzzt² (Xurkitree) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Beast Boost
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Energy Ball
- Signal Beam / Dazzling Gleam
- Volt Switch

My team is a little weak against Rain Teams, and I have some troubles to take out enemy Water-typed Pokémon. Xurkitree is here to deal with them. I've tried Vikavolt too, its Speed was more TR-friendly and a Bug STAB is always nice. However, Levitate wasn't good in my team because it was just cancelling Psychic Terrain's benefits. So I opted for this 173 SpA BS dude. And yeah, Beast Boost is very good in this team because you WILL get some kills. Again, the item can be changed for an Air Balloon or a Life Orb or a Focus Sash, however the Assault Vest gives him a little bit of Bulk. Just like Tapu Lele, it's quite fast, so you can use this Speed against TR.

Socks (Dusclops) @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Night Shade
- Haze
- Skill Swap

We finish with the most underrated TR setter. Dusclops, dear Dusclops. This guy is stupidly tanky, it will get those Trick Rooms up as long as flinches don't get in your way. Frisk is great, because knowing the item your opponent gave to its Pokémon is knowing the set they're running 90% of the time. And if you want another ability, just swap it, it won't be a problem if they can see what items you run: M-Camerupt, Gastrodon, Porygon2 and Dusclops have obvious items. And Stealing a Water Absorb or a Levitate is always fun. The other fun trick it got is Haze. Let's be real here, boosting moves are very threatening I this meta. Haze gives you a nice and safe way to get rid of them. Nobody who has never seen me before expected a Haze, because absolutely nobody plays fucking Dusclops in the first place. Night Shade is its best way to deal damage, but if Dusclops gets some Storm Drain boosts, it can hit decently hard using its teammates' movepool.


With this team, you win against every common combo. Aerilate Extreme Speed? Tapu Lele is here. Normalize meme? You have Skill Swap, Volt Switch and a Dusclops who can escape Shadow Tag. Dancers? Your setters are stupidly tanky, they can survive. If the birb kind is the Ghost one, lead with Porygon2. If a M-Lucario is in there, go for Dusclops. Immunity spread spam? Who gives a shit, under TR you kill everything. If it really gets dangerous, you have a Skill Swap. Prankster cheese? Tapu Lele. Geomancy Thundurus? Haze.

This team is great, but it still has some weaknesses. Knock Off shits on both Porygon2 and Dusclops. Marshadow can threaten by itself half of the team. You don't have anything against Taunt (but with enough guessing, you can just fire when your opponent tries to Taunt both of your Pokémon). Otherwise, you can win every matchup.
 
How does that team fight Imprison?
I know it is pretty rare on the ladder, but I don't see how you would beat my Victini, for example. After a Z-Imprison, Camerupt can't OHKO it with Earth Power, and then Gastrodon comes in, which blocks both Earth Power due to Imprison and Surf due to Storm Drain.
 
We fought already. I won.

Well, if your Imprisoner is Victini, I have many ways around him. Haze negates the boost, Skill Swap can steal your Gastrodon's Storm Drain, a nice double-targetting turn 1 can kill or severly damage Victini, I can Z-Trick Room anyway thanks to Tapu Lele...
But against Imprison, I guess it's a skill match-up. If the opponent manages to keep Imprison, I'm fucked. If I can break through, I get the upper hand.
 
Why not, I've seen this kind of strategy already. If you give enough support to your Milotic it may do fine, but you're playing a 5 mon team as your Stantler doesn't do anything else than Skill Swap.
Starting out with both opponents at -2 Attack is pretty good, and it really depends on what your Filler move is. You could also take Protect off of Stantler for an extra filler slot for coverage moves. Personally I keep Protect and Jump Kick on my Stantler because it's useful for other members of my team to be able to use both of those moves if I can't pull off the Milotic shenanigans, and if you can manage setting up with Milotic on turn 1 it really doesn't matter what the rest of your team is most of the time unless you face Extremespeed spam.
 
I have two duos that benefit from each other.

MALAMAR/HITMONTOP:

Malamar @ Focus Sash
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Def
Adamant Nature
- Superpower
- Destiny Bond
- Toxic
- Taunt

Hitmontop @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Fake Out
- Detect
- Wide Guard

I chose Hitmontop over Hitmonlee or Hitmonchan simply because it had higher defenses. Close Combat really benefits Hitmontop, as it gets Contrary from Malamar (which means it gets +1 def and spdef per close combat). Turn one, both can fake out and turn two both can use detect. This setup also cripples other physical sets because of two things: double Intimidate and contrary close combat/superpower. The only real counter to this is Gengar, as it is immune to normal, fighting moves, and toxic, and other ghost types because they can't use Fake Out on them. This set also counters other Intimidate users, as if they get intimidated, Malamar's Contrary allows them to get a technical Swords Dance.


TALONFLAME/PINSIR-M:

Talonflame @ Flying Gem
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 208 HP / 48 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Protect
- Tailwind

Pinsir-Mega @ Pinsirite
Ability: Hyper Cutter (Aerilate after Mega Evolution)
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Facade
- Quick Attack
- Substitute

Both can do turn 1 protect and turn 2 substitutes or swords dance setups. Because Pinsir originally has Hyper Cutter, they can't get intimidated. Of course, Talonflame always needs Brave Bird (what's talonflame without it?) Since they can't get eSpeed, a +2 priority Quick Attack is the closest they can get. A counter for this setup is probably anything that resists flying, and hard counters are Alolan Golem, Aggron, Magneton/Magnezone, or anything of their typings (as they're 4x resistant to Flying.)
 
While it's almost the end of the December, I will say it anyway. Following the DOU clause, Marshadow is now banned from Partners in Crime.

Also, can we do something about Normalize? I have heard numerous players complaining about it. It's like facing off Sturdy Shedinja from anywhere but BH. There are ways to counter it, but they aren't steadily available and if you don't have any other ways to do so, you're screwed.
 
tagging The Immortal to ban normalize on the ladder unless he feels as if it's late enough in the month that there isn't a point
I'm deciding to ban normalize rather than shadow tag because it handles the issue that most people have complained about without impacting the meta too much
 
Why banning the meme? It brings a nice cheesy flavor to the meta. And there are enough ways to counter it: self-switching moves, phazing moves, priority moves, Skill Swap, Explosion, Ghost-types, Taunt for example. And here I'm just listing moves or typing, a good mindgame can also get you out of troubles.
 
Why banning the meme? It brings a nice cheesy flavor to the meta. And there are enough ways to counter it: self-switching moves, phazing moves, priority moves, Skill Swap, Explosion, Ghost-types, Taunt for example. And here I'm just listing moves or typing, a good mindgame can also get you out of troubles.
Because Normalize Skill Swap isn't exactly fun and players keep complaining about it. Even an experienced doubles player fears it.

And like I said before, it can be countered. But they aren't steadily available and if you don't have any way to do so, you're screwed. I faced the team without any method beyond just KO my Pokemon before, so I can understand that feeling.
 
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Knuckstrike

Hi I'm FIREEEE
is a Tiering Contributor
I feel like the option for choiced mons to be able to switch moves after a partner switches who had the move is quite odd. I'd think it's more similar to a move being disabled rather than not having used the move ever at all. Does this have any underlying game mechanic that explains it?
 
I reported this case as a bug and and they explained that this is how it works on cartridge when a mon's moveset changes during battle (due to learning a new move), so that the move it was locked into, is no longer available.

Playing against Normalize was fairly easy. Just delaying a mega evolution, having Revelation Dance, having a phazing move like Whirlwind (which is useful in general, as it also stops stuff like Geomancy Thundurus), or having a strong Z-move was enough to stop that.

Playing against prankster Encore + Disable is much more annoying, as you need a Tapu Lele, which dies to Gengar's STAB sludge wave or a dark type, which dies to Focus Blast.

The best solution would have been banning Shadow Tag, as this is the real problem here and the only thing which makes those two strategies problematic.
 
I reported this case as a bug and and they explained that this is how it works on cartridge when a mon's moveset changes during battle (due to learning a new move), so that the move it was locked into, is no longer available.

Playing against Normalize was fairly easy. Just delaying a mega evolution, having Revelation Dance, having a phazing move like Whirlwind (which is useful in general, as it also stops stuff like Geomancy Thundurus), or having a strong Z-move was enough to stop that.

Playing against prankster Encore + Disable is much more annoying, as you need a Tapu Lele, which dies to Gengar's STAB sludge wave or a dark type, which dies to Focus Blast.

The best solution would have been banning Shadow Tag, as this is the real problem here and the only thing which makes those two strategies problematic.
As a small added point, if for some reasons someone on the team has hidden power, its partner will have access to hidden power dark, unaffected by normalize.
 
This metagame was the best Other Metagame of the Month last year.
A single prediction can win or lose you the game.

Idc about some minor bugs, mostly they make sense but people still complain about them.

Imprision only works if you want to counterteam someone.
There are so many ways of dealing damage and the most effective moves are all rare.

You need to be faster and you need to force the opponent to send out the stuff with the blocked moves.
Kyreum-B, Landorus and Meowstic will mostly block universal moves like;
Substitute, Protect, Calm Mind, Rock Slide, Trick Room, Roost, Ice Beam, Earth Power, Earthquake

Im using Kyreum-B aswell and i did not bother with that move, indicating the metagame is in a good state
and not too centralized.
 
With Partners In Crime being available for nomination again (though it probably will not be OMOTM for May), I decided that it's time for listing some noticeable changes that will impact Partners In Crime for those that are unaware.


As Snorlax is banned in Doubles OU via a suspect test, this means it's also banned in Partners in Crime as PiC follows the Doubles OU clause. With Marshadow departed to Doubles Ubers, Snorlax lost its best check, the Belly Drum variant rose in popularity. Another Pokemon that benefits from the lack of Marshadow is Gothitelle, who traps opponents with Shadow Tag, sets up Trick Room and supports Snorlax with either Helping Hand or Heal Pulse. Needlessly to say, Snorlax ended up being too overwhelming for DOU to handle. The lack of any relevant Fighting-types (except Scrafty and later, Kommo-O) in DOU also plays a huge factor in Snorlax getting the banhammer.

Unbanning Snorlax in Partners In Crime doesn't seem like a good idea as Snorlax could share its Gluttony ability to Gothitelle (which also happens to hold a pinch berry).

As for the good, Incineroar's Intimidate has been released! Incineroar will definitely be a beast in Partners in Crime thanks to its great utility moves in Fake Out, Knock Off and U-turn and Intimidate being ridiculously good in PiC.

That's all for now!
 

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