Online Competition Test Your Luck! (Metronome Battles)

[cant say]

>> https://battle.pokemon-home.com/regulation/000000116/en <<​

Nintendo have brought back Metronome Battles! You can check out the Gen 7 thread HERE. Back then the king was Cursed Body Gengar with only things like Pure Power Medicham, Technician Ambipom, and Jirachi to handle it. Now it's just Gengar....... It's also 3v3 this time instead of 1v1.


RULES:

• Bring 6, pick 3, singles, every Pokemon becomes level 50 in battle
• Species clause + item clause
• Pokemon must have been obtained in Sword or Shield, or have the Battle-Ready mark.
• Must know Metronome and nothing else.
• Eligibility list:
  Hide

  Clefairy, Clefable, Poliwhirl, Poliwrath, Abra, Kadabra, Alakazam, Machop, Machoke, Machamp, Gengar, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Chansey, Mr. Mime, Mr. Mime, Jynx, Snorlax, Cleffa, Togepi, Togetic, Politoed, Smoochum, Miltank, Blissey, Ludicolo, Sableye, Dusclops, Happiny, Munchlax, Togekiss, Dusknoir, Aromatisse, Slurpuff, Inteleon, Sinistea, Polteageist, Impidimp, Morgrem, Grimmsnarl, Mr. Rime, Alcremie, Indeedee

Tagging Lego to get this on PS!

 

[Lectrys]

I don't have an actual copy of SwSh, but I'm looking forward to this!

...OK, someone made Dusclops and Dusknoir legal. Yeah, those Pressure users. Both of them being Ghost-type make them even better at their PP-stalling job.

In fact, I suspect you'd go far with a team of exclusively Ghost-types, thanks to that nifty dual immunity!

Due to the presence of Dark-types in this metagame, Prankster is not recommended. Get that ability off Sableye and Grimmsnarl ASAP.

If you're into clicks and giggles, Alcremie and Aromatisse both have Aroma Veil, which lets them be immune to Taunt, Encore, Torment, and Disable. Imprison is still really nasty to face, though.

Don't forget to use every item and ability Metronome Battles bans! (Might have been smart of Game Freak to ban every Steel-type, though...)

 

[Theorymon]

Gengar was pretty devastating in the gen 7 version with its Cursed Body shenigans, but since this seems to be pick 3, it seems more manageable this time, since now with Cursed Body you can switch your mon out. I think Gengar could still have value in that it can get extra Metronome turns and have a win condition against the last mon, but I do wonder if its bulk problems will be more glaring when it has to face more mons, and it has actual Ghost competition now (mainly Dusknoir / Dusclops). The normal immunity and cursed body ARE still good however, to be clear!

Anyways, here's some stuff that was good last time. I should also note that, I feel like Pokemon generally prefer a lot of bulk investment unless its some sort of heavy hitter like Medicham! Yes, even something like Gengar is probably going to prefer bulk investment!

Clefable's access to Magic Guard is HUGE. Residual damage from status comes up a lot in this format, and being immune to that can really save your ass! It's also a damn good Life Orb user if you want that, but Leftovers and Rocky Helmet are good too!

Snorlax is pretty damn bulky, and is immune to poisoning, so it's usually a pretty good choice in this format! Rocky Helmet and Leftovers are good on it, but note that if you're willing to sacrifice some bulk, Choice Band Snorlax was no joke last time.

Like it's been mentioned before, Gengar was really nasty with Cursed Body. This is likely to be migitated with switching, but it still buys you time and can ruin last mons. Gengar can also actually run Black Sludge to free up Item slots, and the normal immunity is always nice.

I feel like this was overshadowed by Jirachi last time, but with that banned, Togekiss's Serene Grace and good bulk can let it BS some mons to death!

So you'd think Machamp's big thing would be No Guard... which yes, that's good! However, don't forget about Guts: status flies around a lot in Metronome cup, and Guts can let you potentially sweep with that! Just note though, Machamp is rather frail...

Blissey has crazy special bulk, so its always a reasonable choice. Now, you might be thinking "why not Chansey?" Chansey's issue is that it has basically no offensive output, while Blissey at least has a sorta usable Special Attack stat. Since this is 3v3 though, Chansey stalling stuff could hypothetically be useful though....

Since there are three new mons allowed that have potential, I should talk about em a bit!

Dusclops and Dusknoir were banned last time because of Pressure... which seemed silly because Pressure doesn't actually affect Metronome! Turns out we were wrong though, Pressure DOES work if Metronome targets them! So as a result... Dusknoir and Dusclops are likely to be top tier Pokemon!

Woah Prankster Metronome! I mean Sableye had it but that thing sucked! I can't remember if Dark-types are immune to Prankster Metronome or not, so that and the rare Indeedee might mean this thing gets benched a lot, so IDK about this thing yet.

 

[TL The Legend]

Woah Prankster Metronome! I mean Sableye had it but that thing sucked! I can't remember if Dark-types are immune to Prankster Metronome or not, so that and the rare Indeedee might mean this thing gets benched a lot, so IDK about this thing yet.

Dark mons are immune to Prankster Metronome's attacks, yes. Have tested that before and attacks from Prankster Metronome do...nothing to darks.

 

[doipy hooves]

Dusclops and Dusknoir were banned last time because of Pressure... which was silly because Pressure doesn't actually affect Metronome! Because of that, stick to Frisk for these folks! They are the bulkiest Ghost-type options around, which I think gives them an appealing alternative over Gengar.

Pressure does affect Metronome PP if it calls a move that targets the pressurer. Switching to PP stall might be a viable strategy with these ghosts.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1474103548837175296

EDIT: It's a shame the legendaries are banned as I would've liked to play WP Celebi again, but the limited options look pretty interesting and things like Natural Cure can actually come into play now. Theorymon has brought up a lot of the meta mons, so I might see how niches like King's Rock Togekiss or Scrappy Miltank might fare on the PS ladder.

EDIT 2: It seems that Pressure does not work like this on PS currently. Also I played a few games and it seems switching + Leftovers/Black Sludge healing is pretty hard to break through (aside from Spikes) from my first impressions, though I've mainly been playing "stall" myself with Clefable/Gengar/Dusclops so maybe a more offensive mon with choice or Weakness Policy could get an early kill and break the cycle. It feels optimal to stall but it's more fun to duel to the death. Dynamax could come in clutch though I'm not sure when the best time to use it is.

If I had a nickel for every time an ingame Metronome format has a new meta ability and there's a bug related to it that wasn't relevant before because it's banned in PS Metronome Battles, I would have 2 nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it's happened twice.

 

[Lectrys]

Turns out I missed these on first inspection and only realized these later:

Polteageist is essentially Gengar but bulkier, with fewer weaknesses, with fewer resistances, stronger, slower, and with no immunity to Poison or to absorb Toxic Spikes. You read that right: Polteageist also has Cursed Body. Will double Cursed Body actually have a presence in the meta, or will it be just a meme? Cursed Body with bulk support has already been fairly good to me, though, and having fewer weaknesses has already mattered.

Remember how godly Unaware is in regular old Metronome Battles? Turns out it's still good in this meta! From my experience, opponents getting stat boosts is more common than opponents pegging me with passive damage, so I'm currently using Unaware on Clefable instead of Magic Guard. Unaware letting me switch into boosted mons helps. Magic Guard definitely frees up Clefable to use Life Orb, though, although there are a lot of types of pinch berry to use to dodge item clause.

If it matters, Mr. Mime gets Technician. 100 base Special Attack makes good use of Technician, but 45 base Attack and that lopsided 40/65/120 bulk does not.

Grimmsnarl should likely be using Pickpocket in this meta to steal items after it uses its pinch berry.

 

[AuraRayquaza]

I spent a lot of time thinking about this format since its been announced (great use of Christmas break), since this format feels like it should have some kind of optimisation to it. I've never done metronome battles in any form before so open to be refuted in my ideas, that's why I'm posting!

1. My initial thought went to just switching between Dusknoir/Dusclops to run the opp out of PP with Pressure. Then I found out Pressure didn't work on Metronome, then it was shown that it does work... Real rollercoaster. Functionally, Pressure is broken because if the opp uses a non-targeting move the odds of them actually dealing damage is tiny (Ghost type Curse springs to mind but not much else). I hope this gets patched on PS so we can try to test how Pressure stalling works (though lack of a proper timer is gonna hurt that)
2. This really worries me for the tournament itself because I could see a lot of games going to time by 2 players just switching forever, but a couple of matters do arise from this:
   • The 20 minute timer actually makes me think that you won't ever have to run out of Metronome PP so switch stalling actually becomes bad (see the next point)
   • Just switching means you aren't actually doing damage which can start to put you in sticky spots later. While PP is the only matter in battles you can control, you do need to do damage or you will lose on tiebreakers if battles go to time
3. Abilities: Outside of Pressure, everything else seems to have been mentioned: Magic Guard, Poison immunities, Cursed Body, Natural Cure all seem good. Serene Grace feels like a nice idea but I also think that the odds of you getting a move with a realistic chance of making it useful + getting the secondary effect are small. Togekiss does have a few immunities and good BST so probs still worth using. I was interested in Medicham from TMons post but its sadly not legal
4. Item wise: Leftovers, Black Sludge, Eviolite, Rocky Helmet have been my go-to choices - all seem amazing. Leppa Berry was something I thought would be good on Blissey with its huge HP and Spdef, but realistically on cart it won't come up. Life Orb Clef seems like a nice idea and CB Lax/Machamp have looked dangerous when I've faced them
5. EV spreads: It feels completely wasteful to invest in any Atk/Spatk on almost every mon in this format - most damage you'll do is small but taking attacks feels more valuable. I also don't think you want to lower either attacking stat so you can keep some damage output so I have been using -Spe natures on every mon. There is something to be said about the offensive pieces mentioned and also simply moving first, there may be a balance to this

Next, I wondered if there was a strategy you could employ to maximise your odds of winning. Metronome battles are almost completely luck-based, but it is in these luck-based formats where the slight optimisations will show the biggest returns (assuming a relatively balanced luck streak over 45 games). Rocky Helmet is an incredible damage dealer, so I thought that leading with the bulkiest possible pokemon and getting some Rocky Helmet chip would put me further ahead early on. Struggle is also Physical, so you can do around 42% to close endgames. The questions then remained - Who is the 'bulkiest' pokemon? How would you even work that out? Thankfully there are some tools to use:

• There is an old Smogon article (here) which is instructive in giving a good metric for 'bulk' called 'Overall Harm' - the damage taken if you were to receive a Physical and Special attack in succession. This provides some kind of a model for comparing the list of legal pokemon to find the bulkiest
• We need actual stats though to use the formula - this calculator outputs the optimal defensive EV spreads given Base Stats, based on the Overall Harm metric
• There is an important part of the formula that actually is very useful in this format - the Physical/Special bias. This was time-consuming - but interesting nonetheless. I took the list of moves in SwSh, removed the moves that couldn't be called by Metronome, and ended up with there being 571 callable moves. Of these, 227 are Physical and 152 are Special - so now we have a ratio by which to base the bias off!
• It was then a matter of spreadsheet work to compare the list of legal pokemon, with their optimal EV spreads to see which had the lowest Overall Harm value. I pared down the list to just fully evolved mons that weren't totally outclassed BST wise by another mon (Jynx wasn't compared for example) to 10 pokemon
• Snorlax
  
  ended up being the pokemon that performed best, so was given Rocky Helmet and is my go-to lead now

To round out the team, I chose Gengar

to close games with Cursed Body. Clops/Dusknoir

for the option of PP stalling and Clefable

for some offense. Blissey was my last choice but its not been great so far. This is the current team: https://pokepast.es/79bc720c1b54f53e. I am always leading Snorlax and almost always bringing Gengar, the last slot has typically been a choice of Clefable or Dusknoir.

• Very interested in trying out CB Machamp, possibly over Clefable. Its been scary in testing because if it rolls a Physical attack you'd best hope you're immune. I'm still sceptical of 2 turn moves failing and only being able to hit properly with Physical moves though
• May change one of Clops/Dusknoir if full on Pressure stalling doesn't seem to work. Grimmsnarl seems interesting as a Pickpocket mon with Sitrus Berry
• I was unaware that Polteageist was actually bulkier than Gengar, and this makes me want to give it a go. However, being able to use Black Sludge as an item, and the poison immunity really make me unsure which is better

Made it to 1200 on the ladder so far, early days I know but its Metronome battles. Interested to see what optimisations come out of this format!

 

[doipy hooves]

Weakness Policy is a classic strategy in the custom game 2v2 Metronome Battle format, and I wanted to try to make that work with Mr. Rime to combat stall a bit, even though there's less bulk and less chances to be hit in this version. With 6 weaknesses and balanced stats, it has a good chance to set up and/or do some damage trying. I've been using it to lead with Leftovers Snorlax and Gengar in the back, and it has made some surprising wins at times. Overall it has worked out pretty well, though it is all luck in the end, but these mons can all survive staying in for a while. I got the EV spread using the tool posted above with the default 50/50 ratio. I've also seen a WP Poliwrath and it has a fair share of resists while being bulkier, so it might be worth trying out as well. I went for Tangled Feet because I figured it would be more relevant than Ice Body and Screen Cleaner, but the heal might be nice if it happens.

mr meme (Mr. Rime) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Tangled Feet
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 188 Def / 68 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

 

[pokemon4eva]

What do you guys think of Poliwrath? It has Damp so it can prevent your own explosion to blow you up, but also the opponent's

 

[doipy hooves]

What do you guys think of Poliwrath? It has Damp so it can prevent your own explosion to blow you up, but also the opponent's

Personally I prefer Water Absorb for the extra common immunity/healing, but Poliwrath does resist water and Damp does block the most devastating moves to roll so that you regret when you don't have it. I got to 1300 on this first day of the PS ladder, with different teams but ending with a Poliwrath lead and gone 22-6 overall for the night, though it's still to be seen how Pressure and switching will affect the true meta ingame. I haven't tried out Polteageist yet because I enjoy using the Gengar/Snorlax passive healing core that really covers most of my gameplay rather than the lead to be honest. This is my current team, though I only aimed to use the 3 mentioned mons and the rest are filler/copied over sets. Here are some replays and thoughts I had.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1478928968
This was a notable loss to me because the opponent had all of their pinch berries activate. If you don't have a big hit coming through this can really halt momentum.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1478969638
Sometimes Struggle can be all you need to finish the game. I chose to dynamax against Gengar after a Sand Tomb to take half of the passive damage and because I didn't want to be trapped and Cursed Bodied at the same time, but it eventually happened anyway.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1478997652
Another very close ending, healthy Machamp needs to live through and hit all struggles on a yellow HP paralyzed Snorlax. I actually avoided switching a lot here because I didn't want to take big hits from the offenses of Miltank/Dusknoir/Machamp, but generally it seems nice whenever you can switch and heal and it feels more doable against stall, though it leaves them open to getting hit as well.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1479006735
This was the last and pretty intense replay against a triple ghost squad. I had a bad start here with Poliwrath getting bad poisoned and Snorlax flinging away Leftovers, and even in the end the win still wasn't guaranteed with Gengar having to dynamax to avoid damage just in case. Ironically I would've appreciated Damp in this game. I feel like Snorlax is a good switch against ghosts in general as it can tank Gengar pretty well and hit hard neutrally.

EDIT: I didn't mention it but I realized Swift Swim technically has reliable setup with Drizzle Politoed, and then you can have Rain Dish Ludicolo/Dry Skin Jynx too to heal if you really want to meme.

 

[Hera]

Hey, current #1 with the highest GXE on ladder here (1320, 73.8%). This is pretty fun, yeah I've gotten bad luck (like 2 Explosions in a row) but also good luck (like my opponent getting 2 Explosions in a match). While Metronome Battles are mostly luck-based, something I've found overlooked is positioning in the meta. The opponent locking into something like Outrage or Uproar allows you to pivot into an immunity, and that +6% HP gain from Lefties can be the difference between winning and losing, MB is also about incremental gains, i.e even the tiniest amount of damage or healing from a low BP move can be extremely consequential in the long run.



This is the team I've been using. The sets may look weird, and that's because my plan is for this to be my in-game team, and I don't feel like spending hours trying to get an Ability Patch for Grimmsnarl or change Snorlax's EVs; you gotta work with what you have. When PS properly implements Pressure Metronome interactions I'll replace either Grimmsnarl or Machamp with Dusknoir. I'm not finding myself clicking on either of them that much, and when I do they're pretty dissapointing.

 

[Zelda]

fun format

 

[Lectrys]

Anyone who's ever played regular Metronome Battles knows that Imprison is an utter pain to face that almost always results in you losing the game (the Hail Mary that occurs the most often is KOing the Imprisoner with Struggle).

But Imprison can be more easily played around in Test Your Luck! All you need to do is keep switching, preferably between mons that can disrupt the Imprison user or accrue some advantage for you just by being there (e.g. Rocky Helmet users, Cursed Body mons, Pressure mons, even Leftovers/Black Sludge users can do in a pinch). Take advantage of the fact that the Imprison user has to stay in and use PP (or pray for sleep/confusion/parahax) in order to keep Imprison up!

Here is a replay of me successfully using this tactic to fend off an opposing Imprison user:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1478935507

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of Cursed Body (which has been a wonderful finisher for me), I can't fully support Weakness Policy as long as Cursed Body remains popular (note that all the Aroma Veil users, who can dodge Disable, have 2 weaknesses). Cursed Body forces out the Weakness Policy user fairly easily, thus making them lose all their boosts.

 

[pokemon4eva]

I have no Switch Online so I think I'm just going to use Polteageist (cursed body tank), Snorlax (overall beefy tank w/ leppa berry) and Clefable (Life orb Magic Guard), seems reliable. Maybe I'll bring Miltank too, it can hit the many Ghosts of the meta with Scrappy (Banded maybe? since she can hit pretty much anything)

Also I had this one fight in Showdown when my opponent Dyanamaxed his Dusclops to block my Rollout chain.

 

[PSLY PRK]

Jacoba Berry Pickpocket Grimm and Sticky Barb Clefable are in no way competitively viable but it is incredibly satisfying to see fat mons like Dusknoir and Lax slowly die after stealing their item.
I feel like Jacoba/Kee Berry are more consistent on Grimm in this meta than the healing berries are, but that's just my experience

 

[DaWoblefet]

pyuk has fixed the interaction with Pressure and submoves. If Metronome calls a move that targets a Pressure user, it will now appropriately deduct 2 PP from Metronome. Thank you pyuk! Keep in mind that although additional PP really is being deducted for targeted submoves, the visual display will still only deduct 1 PP. So it'll work as expected, but you may have to manually count until the display side of things is updated.

I think that stalling is the most effective strategy in this 3v3 format. Once you get a Pokemon lead, you just never give that up and stall out the 20 minute clock. You have 7 minutes of decision time of the total 20 minutes, which leaves only 13 minutes for actual gameplay. If you're intentionally saving your Pokemon, you can win in the end by having a Pokemon advantage. You also can Dynamax for some reason in this format, which gives you two turns of no damaging RNG, though I find that saving the Max Guard for other situations is more effective, such as stalling for chip damage or blocking a 2-turn attack.

EDIT: Pressure's been super fun to screw around with. Although it wouldn't work on cart due to timer, here's me winning a game without clicking Metronome (I exhausted all my opponent's PP from double switching alone): https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1480533301

 

[diegoyuhhi]

hey, this metagame is super fun, ofc very luck reliant but which metagame isn't
3rd on ladder rn, using this really stupid team i built

team explanation

dusclops is a bulky pressure staller, very useful in general
polteageist is a cursed body user bulkier than gengar, if you bring this mon save it for last since it can win you games
snorlax is very useful to chip down your opponent with rocky helmet, the best mon to lead with in the team
grimm is very situational, really good against the dusks, but DON'T USE IT AGAINST GENGAR FFS IT WILL ALWAYS STEAL HIS SLUDGE
machamp is a pretty weird pick but it can be situationally useful against miltanks, snorlaxes, sometimes the dusks and kazam, ecc
togekiss works pretty well as a weakness policy user thanks to his bulk, works best against stuff without a huge atk/spatk stat

peak proof

pressure is super strong

 

[Pharnapus]

Just from a couple games, I can see how over-bearing Pressure can be during games. I've been trying to deal with pressure mons using cursed body so they most often switch out so they don't struggle to death early on or even using my own pressure mons but man does that just suck the fun out of team building. This is coming from someone who has been on the 2v2 metronome ladder for a while now, playing on and off so I think I might just stick to that format. Fun idea for a format though, needs some fine tuning and then it could be one to stay

 

[bydy]

I wanna put a word in for Ludicolo. I've been using Sludge Gengar, Lefties Politoed and Rain Dish Ludicolo, essentially handing me TRIPLE LEFTOVERS as long as I keep Ludicolo under rain. Make sure to keep ahead on Metronomes, and you can kinda stall opponents out in my experience. I've put max bulk and a negative speed nature for struggle wars.

I did run into a Pressure Dusclups/Dusknoir team where we both ended up switch stalling infinitely until he ditched that and wasted his PP and...yeah, I can kinda see that happening more often.

 

[Lectrys]

Yeah, double Pressure seems pretty broken in this meta, to the point that bringing in Pressure Dusknoir and Pressure Dusclops should be done in every game.

I managed to get to #1 in the Test Your Luck! ladder today:

Here is the team I used for the later half of it, which is teched against the double Pressure mirror, especially Leftovers Dusknoir variants:
https://pokepast.es/d46b8563bcf2ee54

Earlier versions of this team used Rocky Helmet Dusknoir to screw over opponents using contact attacks, including Struggle, but I found that Leftovers mons were quite hard to take down, especially in double Pressure mirrors (and even in opposing single Pressure games). Note that taking your opponent down to 1 mon is essential in the switch-heavy double Pressure mirror, as that lone remaining mon is then eventually forced to Struggle instead of switch.

I always lead with Dusknoir and bring Dusclops. If the opponent has only zero to one of Dusknoir and Dusclops, the 3rd mon I bring is Cursed Body Iapapa Berry Polteageist for its better match-up against special attackers than Gengar's. I'm still looking for tech for the double Pressure mirror, and the 3 other slots are all attempts to beat that. Leppa Berry Snorlax has not been very good in testing (heck, not even Leftovers Snorlax was quite shooting out Struggles like I thought it would): it tends to only barely manage to eat the Leppa Berry and then get KOed several turns before it can Struggle. I thought Pickpocket Jaboca Berry Grimmsnarl would be great for taking Leftovers away from Dusknoir (so I can reduce my opponent to having only one effective Leftovers user at best) until I found that my double Pressure mirror opponents were switching a lot more than they were attacking first and only using up Metronome PP significantly later than I was. My current strategy against the double Pressure mirror is to use Cursed Body Black Sludge Gengar in the 3rd slot in the hopes of having effectively double Leftovers mons so I can better endgame with infinite Struggles every several turns (hopefully all aimed at the opposing Dusclops, who has no reliable recovery thanks to Eviolite).

All the EVs lean towards physical Defence, either because the mon has better base Special Defence or the mon will be tanking physical attacks (especially Struggles) more often than special attacks. Note that Level 50 Dusknoir with full HP EVs and IVs has a maximum HP divisible by 8, so I dropped the maximum HP to one less than that multiple and shored up other stats. The slowest mons on the team have 0 Speed EVs and IVs so they can Struggle last.

Play-wise, it's at the point where I'm praying for Paralysis and Sleep (and maybe even Freeze) on my own mons so I can Struggle later. I also now keep my mons hit by Yawn in so they can sleep.

Here are some replays showcasing how consistently teams can be Pressure stalled out (some of these were done with earlier versions of this team):

Replays

• https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1481140286
• https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1480581631
• https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1481169279
• https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1481143644
• https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1480600991
• https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1480581631
• https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8testyourluck-1480572683

Yeah, I'm worried about the state of the physical cart Test Your Luck! meta.

 

[DaWoblefet]

A few updates PS-side:

• pyuk was once again epic and fixed the display so Metronome vs. Pressure is now properly counted in the visual tooltips when you hover over a Pokemon. If you notice any discrepancies, please post on the bug reports thread!
• I have added Your Time to Test Your Luck on Showdown, as Test Your Luck on cartridge uses the 7 minute Your Time / 20 minute Total Time combination. While not perfect, this is closer to how the format will actually be played.

AuraRayquaza and I did some testing on cartridge and I'm happy to say that hard Pressure stalling (where you just switch back and forth forever) is not viable on cartridge. You may be able to waste all the opponent's Metronome PP, but unless they roll something that KOs them, once you run out of PP, you can just switch out. Since you'll have presumably damaged the opponent at some point, you'll win on total timer win conditions by having a greater percentage of HP after the total time runs out.

What some folks may find disappointing is that while Pressure stalling may be suboptimal, timer stalling is VERY good and I think will be a key part of the metagame for anyone playing this seriously on cart. Once you're up 3-2, I think it's optimal to just switch forever and exhaust all of the time available to reduce the odds of the opponent getting good Metronome rolls. Expect a lot of 20-minute games if you're playing this format seriously!

I plan to stream this tournament on my Twitch when it actually goes live from January 6-9. Remember to sign up on cart if you haven't already!

Oh yea, I also peaked #1 so that was cool

 

[EarthBound Fan]

Hey, current #1 with the highest GXE on ladder here (1320, 73.8%). This is pretty fun, yeah I've gotten bad luck (like 2 Explosions in a row) but also good luck (like my opponent getting 2 Explosions in a match). While Metronome Battles are mostly luck-based, something I've found overlooked is positioning in the meta. The opponent locking into something like Outrage or Uproar allows you to pivot into an immunity, and that +6% HP gain from Lefties can be the difference between winning and losing, MB is also about incremental gains, i.e even the tiniest amount of damage or healing from a low BP move can be extremely consequential in the long run.



This is the team I've been using. The sets may look weird, and that's because my plan is for this to be my in-game team, and I don't feel like spending hours trying to get an Ability Patch for Grimmsnarl or change Snorlax's EVs; you gotta work with what you have. When PS properly implements Pressure Metronome interactions I'll replace either Grimmsnarl or Machamp with Dusknoir. I'm not finding myself clicking on either of them that much, and when I do they're pretty dissapointing.

Will you replace leftovers on clef with leftovers on dusknor because the bug is fixed

Just from a couple games, I can see how over-bearing Pressure can be during games. I've been trying to deal with pressure mons using cursed body so they most often switch out so they don't struggle to death early on or even using my own pressure mons but man does that just suck the fun out of team building. This is coming from someone who has been on the 2v2 metronome ladder for a while now, playing on and off so I think I might just stick to that format. Fun idea for a format though, needs some fine tuning and then it could be one to stay

I wholeheartedly agree with this I feel very pressured to use dusclops and dusknor and a lot of games will be boring stall matches because no one wants to use struggle

 

[rufus drumknott]

Took part in a couple of friendlies on cart over the week and I can't agree with DaWoblefet's above comment enough:

• Pressure is pretty much pointless this format. I've only had 1 battle where I ran out of PP on one Pokemon, and it didn't matter. (Dusclops and Dusknoir are still good for bulk though, imo Dusknoir more so because it can hold an item.)
• Pretty much every battle goes to timer. Only had a few battles where I was lucky or the opponent forfeited where they didn't. Even battles where the opponent and I selected moves almost immediately and our respective 'Your time' didn't touch 4 minutes went to timer.
• Timer stalling is definitely huge, and you don't even need to get to a 3v2. I had a couple of battles where the opponent got some damage on two of my mons, and then timer stalled me for the remaining 15 minutes.
• When you're being timer stalled, 1 turn can last up to 2 minutes each so like, get a snack and put on a video lol.

I still find this format a lot of fun though. I don't do the timer stall thing because, like, that's lame lol and I got 7-2 in the most recent friendly. I imagine timer stalling gets even more prominent high in the rankings when there's an actual ladder, so maybe my W:L rate would even out on the latter days of the actual competition.

Here's the ranking for the most recent friendly I took part in that had about 100 players. Look at rank 3, that's ME! This competition lasted 3 hours and rank 1 didn't reach 1600 probably because of how long these games take. I played against them and they were one of those 'stalled me for 15 minutes' people.

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imo S-tier mons are and maybe . has been kind of underrated in this thread. I find Jaboca Grimm + Sticky Barb Clefable to be less niche than I thought, but you don't need to bring Clefable if you bring Grimmsnarl. I've been able to get Jaboca off and take some annoying item like a Dusknoir's Lefties or Snorlax's Rocky Helmet most games I bring it. imo the only issue with Sticky Barb Clefable specifically is that games don't last long enough for Sticky Barb to do all that much damage, so it mostly just discourages switching back into the Barbed mon. Still worth it against monsters like Blissey though.

My most recent team has been I like it a lot but I'll keep experimenting, I feel there's still some underused mons that could be really good for the day.

 

[Bahamut]

After getting to the 1400s

peak

I can say this meta is really really disgustingly awful. I used to like metronome battles but oh my gosh this is so just insanely bad.
after playing some games and after reading the above post you should be able to immediately see that pressure NEEDS to be banned. also possibly banning leftovers as a lot of times your just sitting there for 50 turns waiting for a burn a toxic or rocks and if you don;t get it then welp ig your stuck in switching mode for another 900 turns or a tie. this is the team I used btw https://pokepast.es/410b7623b5d2841a I eventually went to just using both pressure mons and Gengar in 99% of games. in mirror games, I might use grimm to hopefully steal their lefties and have a shot at not needing to get rocks or a burn or something. the fact is tho most GOOD teams have no reason to not be using these same 3 mons. dual lefties and pressure lets u stall everything easily. extremely easily in fact that I have had an insane number of games and replays (might post some later) that last into the 100's. the stall is insane and the power of pressure makes the game a mess entirely. If we could ban pressure again the meta might be in a decent direction. and or banning lefties/blacksludge. rather continue with regular metronome battles than whatever the heck this madness is.

 

[EarthBound Fan]

There's always metronome battles which are double battles and ban these things but yeah I agree that the meta game is pretty stalley but I don't think it will be changed because this is a format that Nintendo made for Pokemon sword and shield a limited time thing meaning that they probably will not change the rules