bdt2002
Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs superfan
It's been a little while since I've posted anywhere on this forum, but now that I've gotten my other unrelated posts out of the way in other areas, I can finally ask a question I've been wanting to ask for a while now. I decided to make this a full-scale thread so that way, any other users that may happen to have the same questions as I don't have to waste more time than they need to.
So. Picture this. You haven't been very active in a while, but you feel like you want to get back into playing in Past Gens tiers again. There's no real reason you couldn't just get back into playing the existing metagames, but let's say that for this example, you have your own ideas for how to spice up existing metagames just a little bit more, hoping your advised changes would make the tier more fun to play even if you keep losing games.
This is the kind of situation I am all too familiar with, as my inexperience compared to veteran players with metagames that are more established than "Current Gens" (as I like to call it) leads me to having several losing streaks keeping me from climbing the ladders of Past Gens OU tiers on Pokémon Showdown. I end up feeling like all of the research I can do on the existing metagames doesn't amount to anything when I can never escape the depths of low ladder. Granted I'm far from the most competitive player on Earth, I feel like I've tried everything. I've tried experimenting with my own low ladder cheese at times, I've tried specifically making teams from different archetypes, I've tried making teams consisting of only the best top-tiers in each metagame... but I kid you not, none of it has worked and I'm officially out of ideas for how to improve with the existing metagames.
Which is why nowadays, I wish I had a way to play in those tiers with optional changes. This is what Custom Games can accomplish with great success- custom rulesets being made that can be used in practice apart from the official ladders to test potential changes, bans, or unbans. Just for fun, here's a few of my own ideas I came up with:
So. Picture this. You haven't been very active in a while, but you feel like you want to get back into playing in Past Gens tiers again. There's no real reason you couldn't just get back into playing the existing metagames, but let's say that for this example, you have your own ideas for how to spice up existing metagames just a little bit more, hoping your advised changes would make the tier more fun to play even if you keep losing games.
This is the kind of situation I am all too familiar with, as my inexperience compared to veteran players with metagames that are more established than "Current Gens" (as I like to call it) leads me to having several losing streaks keeping me from climbing the ladders of Past Gens OU tiers on Pokémon Showdown. I end up feeling like all of the research I can do on the existing metagames doesn't amount to anything when I can never escape the depths of low ladder. Granted I'm far from the most competitive player on Earth, I feel like I've tried everything. I've tried experimenting with my own low ladder cheese at times, I've tried specifically making teams from different archetypes, I've tried making teams consisting of only the best top-tiers in each metagame... but I kid you not, none of it has worked and I'm officially out of ideas for how to improve with the existing metagames.
Which is why nowadays, I wish I had a way to play in those tiers with optional changes. This is what Custom Games can accomplish with great success- custom rulesets being made that can be used in practice apart from the official ladders to test potential changes, bans, or unbans. Just for fun, here's a few of my own ideas I came up with:
- Gen 1 (all tiers) but there's actual Dragon-Type STAB in the game (so pretty much just other moves)
- Gen 2 OU but with Ho-Oh and no Celebi (both being unbanned has already been tried, as has just Celebi)
- Gen 5 OU but with Darkrai unbanned (would probably still be busted, but hey, Sleep moves are banned now)
- Gen 6 OU but Mega Evolution is banned entirely
- Same idea as above ^^^ for Gen 7, but let's also ban Z-Moves at the same time