What can I do to succeed on the Suspect Ladder? Community Strategies and Discussion

[syrim]

Strategy Adjustments on the Suspect ladder; Teambuilding, Playstyle changes, and Prediction


The removal of a clause that has been fundamental to smogon’s variety of competitive Pokemon was sure to cause at least a little shake up of how we go about the tier we all know and love. By its very absence it opens up an entire new strategy for use, which is sure to impact how players think of and execute every aspect of a competitive ubers match.

So, where do you fit into all of this? As a player of the Ubers tier, and a frequenter of the Ubers sub forum, you can have an active hand in shaping the results of this test, not just through something as cut and dry as receiving voting requirements, but by helping to flesh out the entire community’s understanding of the potential, or lack thereof, OHKO moves hold. Explaining what you have been using, how you’ve been using it, what changes it makes to your playstyle and predictions, and most importantly why it is viable can help the young suspect metagame evolve, and more closely resemble the metagame we would eventually see if the clause were removed permanently.

Have you significantly changed your teambuilding, to either incorporate or prepare for OHKO moves? Have you moved away from a particular way of playing, or adjusted your teams offensive and defensive balance to better handle threats that are common in the new metagame? Perhaps what will be the most difficult to explain, have you changed the predictions throughout a match because of how certain pokemon, playstyles, or threats force you to react, or at least threaten you heavily enough to make you respond?

Posting specific sets, and explaining your reasoning behind them is highly advised, as well as listing out your teambuilding process and the strategy behind it. Without understanding the reasons you chose to use what you did, we can't really suggest changes or fixes, or understand how the metagame is affecting your choices.

What sets this thread apart from the NP threads posted by bojangles is the technical level of discussion it's supposed to hold, so please try to make as few general assumptions and statements as you can to get your point across. Ideally that point will help us see what direction the metagame has inspired you to take, and why. Hopefully through discussion like this we can see how the OHKO users are influencing that same development, and use it to aid us in our tiering decisions!

Through example i’ll try and display kind of what I mean by these categories. Keep in mind that as long as you provide support for your arguments, length doesn't really matter.

Teambuilding

After attempting to ladder with both a standard stall team, and a stall team adapted to OHKO (stories that I will post later on in this thread), I realized it was by far simpler to ladder using offense. With the intent of creating an offensive team that took advantage of OHKO moves by using them to break through common defensive cores, while using the other five members to maintain a great match up versus offensive teams, I set out to find my direction.

In an incredibly short search, I settled on Bulky Sheer Cold Kyogre and Kabutops. It already had the general gist of what I was going for. Kyogre could not only threaten, but switch into defensive pokemon that gave Kabutops trouble like Gira-A, support groudon, and even opposing bulky kyogre. The rain boosted speed and power that kyogre gave kabutops allowed it to match up very well against offensive teams, beating things like Darkrai, Mewtwo, and many other sweepers.

If you’ve never used kabutops, you should know it is extremely reliant on passive damage to successfully sweep, so hazards were a necessity in my thought process. Without a doubt the hazard user that has the best match up against offensive team is Deo-s.

With hazards I needed a spin blocker. CM ghost arceus gives offensive teams huge trouble with its bulk, uncommon weaknesses, and great offensive presence, so it was a shoe in to the team.

Momentum was key to beating offense consistently and taking advantage of my hazards, so I slotted Genesect onto the team to keep a good match up against offense’s threats.

to further take advantage of offense, and the momentum genesect provided, I added a scarfed Kyu-w. With u turn luring in things that were critical to an offensive teams chance at beating me, like Groudon and Gira-o, I could pretty much guarantee picking off a member, or maybe two depending on how hazards and their opponents team looked, by taking advantage of an offensive teams typical inability to switch into kyu-w with a few layers. It also served the purpose of an offensive kyogre check, along with my own kyogre. If kabutops and deo-s did their jobs, and if I kept offensive momentum, I could sometimes bring it in on weakened specs and scarf kyogres, and at least force them out once. Because of the very offensive nature of the team I never really required an actual switch in to a full health Kyogre, bar a bulky one.

All the members contributed meaningfully to the makeup of the team. Kabutops could rapid spin against defensive teams and offensive teams alike, either suicidally to let something like kyu-w go on with its job, or with some prediction, like against offensive teams that carry groudon and gira-o, all while using kyogre and kyu-w to take advantage of its usual counters and pick teams apart.

If you wish to check out the actual team I was using to test out this playstyle feel free to try it out.

Hide

Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Download
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SAtk
Naive Nature
- U-turn
- Iron Head
- Explosion
- Ice Beam

Kyogre @ Leftovers
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 SDef / 244 HP / 12 Spd
Calm Nature
- Rest
- Scald
- Sheer Cold
- Sleep Talk

Kyurem-White @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Turboblaze
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Focus Blast
- Ice Beam
- Dragon Pulse

Arceus @ Spooky Plate
Trait: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Spd / 4 SAtk
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Focus Blast
- Judgment

Kabutops @ Life Orb
Trait: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Stone Edge
- Rapid Spin
- Low Kick

Deoxys-Speed @ Focus Sash
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 HP / 4 DEF
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Fire Punch
- Spikes
- Stealth Rock

Prediction

This team attempts to checkmate the opponent as quickly as possible. The only way my prediction changed from using a typical offensive team was in guessing it they were also taking advantage of OHKO kyogre, and determining whether I could safely use mine as a check, or whether I needed to play it offensively to keep it on the back foot. In most cases, I could essentially ignore the possiblity of a OHKO move being used, as against the majority of my team whether Kyogre had Sheer Cold, or Excadrill had Fissure, changed nothing about the move I made. The lack of switch in chances they had made this even easier.

Besides that I just used offensive synergy and momentum combined with hazards to force in and then break the threats on the opponents team that prevented a sweep, like switching OHKO kyogre into a chansey that is trying to toxic ghostceus, or double switching from Tops to Kyu-w when I think they’ll bring in a counter.

Playstyle

I enjoyed the combination of playstyles that having a OHKO user that contributed meaningfully without its OHKO move, and a momentum based offensive team created. I could safely play stuff like Kabutops and Scarf kyu-w, who can man handle offense, instead of either other sets or pokemon that have less trouble with common defensive cores (like specs kyu-w, who is much better against stall in general) , because of the threat Sheer cold kyogre already posed to such teams.

Because of how difficult it was for OHKO users to meaningfully affect me, I could to an extent ignore them as well, simply because of the offensive nature of my team. This let me focus most of my resources to beating other offensive teams, something that I think this team does very successfully.

So let's get to it!

Post your own successful strategies, and even the ones that weren’t so hot, as we can learn from all of these! Once again, please try to keep from saying things like “I tried stall, it was weak to OHKO”. Instead try to add evidence and simple reasons as to why you don’t think you could do so well with that particular team and playstyle. Maybe there are ways for the metagame to adapt easily to the allowance of OHKO users, the only way we can really find out is by looking at all the strategies we can viably use, and seeing how well they work out in practice not simply in theory. Let's use this as a resource to help us finalize our opinons on the OHKO suspect test!

I and other council members, as well as any member of the ubers community who wants to give input, will help prompt discussion about the viability and possible improvement of everything posted, all in the hopes of seeing how much of an effect OHKO really has on players who desire to be successful in the Ubers metagame. Please be respectful, and take the same attitude towards responding that you would take towards posting your own strategies, and use reasoning and specific sets and changes to address viability instead of just general statements that something is bad.

Happy discussing!

If you want to discuss getting better at all aspects of ubers please enter my humble IRC abode, #saltmines, a quiet place of Ubers improvement labor and tldr rage tutoring.

 

[Matthew]

The inclusion of OHKO moves hasn't really changed my process at all. Considering it is extremely luck based for a OHKO move to hit I'm not very concerned with it at all. I would never give up one of my 24 move slots for anything that might end up completely useless and I've wasted a turn.

 

[syrim]

But is it really that luck reliant in certain scenarios, like Sheer Cold Kyogre versus a CroGre or a Steel Arceus? It's certainly true that you can phaze these pokemon with roar, but that doesn't prevent them from being an issue late game, as last pokemon. You have to have hazards and a way to KO them, which occupies a lot of slots, both moves and mons wise out of your twenty four.

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

Syrim is certainly right, imagine a lategame scenario in which you might as well be going for a crit,

e.g. Scald Kyogre vs SteelCeus - you have a much higher chance of landing an OHKO move rather than getting a crit (which wouldn't even KO).

This is perhaps the simplest way to illustrate that OHKO moves aren't 'useless', however, their use goes far beyond just this. As many others have covered in metagame, np, and the makings of a competitive metagame thread OHKO moves make what are usually reliable defensive checks to Kyogre, such as SDef Giratina-A having to risk at least a 51% chance of getting OHKOed when attempting to check Kyogre (I'd like to see your Choice Scarf, or even your Choice Specs Kyogre do that), moreover, one cannot simply argue with hazards and Choice Specs I can do the same thing!!! Resttalk Kyogre also serves as a Darkrai check, a status absorber, and a CM Arceus check that can function time and time again.

There are more examples - Gliscor can run a set of Fissure, Substitute, Taunt, Toxic; while losing Earthquake might be annoying, Gliscor can still largely function with Taunt + Toxic, and behind a Substitute can fire off Fissures at Steel-types or anything else that might resist it. Keep in mind that Gliscor is equally helpless against Skarmory and Forretress if it were to have Earthquake (less so for Forretress, but it can still Taunt both of them).

Excadrill - bulky Excadrill with a set of Substitute / Fissure / Earthquake / Rapid Spin can still check Dialga and now can actually have a chance to break through physically defensive Giratina formes (Mold Breaker Fissure nullifies Levitate for Giratina-O) and pull off a spin. A Pokemon that can't really be stopped from spinning at all.

These moves might end up as completely useless for a turn, but in the larger picture they allow Pokemon the ability to do what they never would be able to do otherwise.

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

To actually respond to this thread's intent -

As I have voiced in the np thread I, too, have been laddering with offense, but I will not be going into depth regarding that (both playstyle and teambuilding), as Syrim covers most of my thoughts and reasoning (and I have covered them as well in the aforementioned thread).

Regarding Prediction - The threat of OHKO Kyogre and other such 'mons actually provides a severe psychological effect (in my experience, anyway) one is much more hesitant to double switch around it, considering at any one time (outside of Sturdy) there is a potential 30% chance for one of your 'mons to go down. Limiting players options through such a psychological effect is incredibly useful for narrowing down what they might do and playing mindgames, e.g. if you KO their Kyogre check with Sheer Cold, the opponent will be very intent on taking Kyogre down ASAP so one can respond to that accordingly (switch in an obvious resist).