So after playing probably 20 games of this I have a lot of thoughts, so buckle in.
General thoughts: This meta really is not fun at all but I keep playing it. It's filled with cheese, unfun stalling, players who just want to troll you or lose as quickly as possible, and oftentime you will be punished if one of your opponents makes a bad play, even if you predict it. On top of all of this, it is an unrated ladder which is fair, but leads to it feeling even more uncompetitive because of all the bads, early forfeits, and trolling that goes on. In games where multiple players survive into the endgame it often becomes a game of hoping that one of your opponents chokes and gives you a chance to do something. I think in order to enjoy this meta you need to discount some fundemental things about Pokemon which is that, hax and team matchup not withstanding generally the better player can win. In this you are also at the whims of the other players, some of whom aren't always playing to win, and you can absolutely get fucked over if one player decides to target you specifically for no reason because they are losing. So basically this shit is like inherently unfun for some people probably lol.
Spread moves: Spread moves are okay, but they are really too weak to be used as your main source of damage when cut down to only 50% base power. This is not like doubles where you can punish an opponent for switching in on your weak spread move with your other mon. I'd say they are only really viable if they're on some sort of
extremely powerful attacker (like Specs Eruption Heatran for example), or if you're using them for some sort of utility. Stuff like Discharge and Lava Plume are great for potentially inflicting status which can be a game-changer sometimes, stuff like Bulldoze and Electroweb is generally not because they are generally way too weak and controlling speed isn't always a big thing in this format when everything is stalling. I've only seen it a couple of times, but Corrosive Gas has been very effective in longer games.
Hazards: Hazards are like the opposite of spread moves in that they were even stronger than expected. You get a lot of great value out of hitting three sides at once with hazards. Toxic Spikes are great for stall teams to weaken opponents and I'd recommend that most offenses pack some kind of Toxic Spikes absorber if possible. Spikes are good too because with opponents hazard controlling and being able to set up 3 layers there's generally no real downside to clicking Spikes whenever you can on a free turn. Ferrothorn is probably the best Spiker, and it generally always can find something to do on free turns between Spikes and Leech Seed. I've seen some stalls running Boots on everything which can hurt the luster of hazards a little bit but stuff like Knock Off and Corrosive Gas can help against that. Stealth Rock is good too, and even Sticky Web has some use, although controlling speed usually isn't that much of a big thing since a lot of players are stalling.
Stall: I think stall teams have a lot of purchase but they are a bit overrated and in time we'll see the meta shift to reflect that. I think a team with some sort of core that can keep longevity against opposing stall strategies while keeping a breaker and a speed controller in the back as well as an extra bulky attacker can have the stuff to break through stalls in the endgame. Part of what makes stall strong is that players tend to prioritize the Pokemon on the field that poses the greatest immediate threat to their own Pokemon, meaning that players will often avoid stalling players letting them spam Wish+Protect or whatever they are doing. As players get better at this meta people will get better at prioritizing threats in the long-term, rather than just the short-term, and players will also be better at brokering alliances between the other players. That is something you can't really do with most of the randoms at this stage in the game since I swear most of the people playing this format barely understand how the game works.
The above are all mons that are legal in this and are more than capable of lurking in the back and coming out to destroy an unsuspecting stall team late game. These are all mons that are absolutely insane in singles based formats like OU, which is often what FFA feels like, especially in the endgame. They all paint a big target on their heads but if you use them tactically you can avoid some of the downsides of using such a threat. The format naturally incentivizes passive play, but there are definitely powerful options for punishing that play. It's just a matter of getting to an endgame where they can thrive.
Playerbase: The worst part of this format is probably the players. Especially since it is an unrated format currently, it's virtually impossible to get a game that reflects what a match between four experienced players in this metagame would look like. Most games consist of the following:
- two actual players
- one player who forfeits either immediately or within the first two turns
- one player who trolls the entire game or just fucks around with completely unviable strategies.
At this point it's basically just an OU game with a bunch of mons that are broken in singles legal and one extra 1000-ranked player messing around in the background. Trying to get an actual game in this is hellish. Also, when a player is losing, a lot of the time they tend to favour helping one player over another (if they don't forfeit super early). It's definitely bad sportsmanship, I guess, if you can prove it's happening, but there's not much you can do about it. There's also a severe influx of players running stuff like Decorate Alcremie, mons with dumb stuff like Follow Me, Helping Hand, and other strategies designed to "tactically" help your opponents (although most of the players using stuff like this are just trolling), as well as players using stuff like six explosion mons. Until there is some sort of ranked ladder players will have to deal with this shit but I doubt merely having a ladder will fix some of the other inherent uncompetitiveness of this meta. Basically I'm saying that learning to enjoy this meta might be an exercise.
Banlist: Not sure what to make of the banlist at this point. I feel like starting out with a banlist similar to Doubles doesn't quite seem right with me, especially since this meta feels a lot like singles at times, but at the same time lots of threats that are broken in Singles don't quite feel broken here because they are too frail, or are too exploitable early game, or can be picked off if they hit something that Protects, or they are just too big of a target to accomplish anything while multiple players are left. I think overall it's just too early in the game to say what is broken and what isn't although I'd probably keep an eye on certain ubiquitous stall mons, and maybe also Gothitelle (shit's not fair lol). Also I retract my previous support for unbanning Swagger (not really) because players will definitely use it to troll and just make everything worse.