More Obscure Metagames

By Arcticblast and Agent Dell. Art by RitterCat.
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Introduction

The Smog has covered Other Metagames before, but you can only cover so many at once! This article will serve as a followup to the one from Issue 23, and we're going to be covering some more obscure metagames this time around! The difference? The OM forum isn't a cemetery anymore, so you can actually find people willing to battle you! (Well, most of the time.) There's something for everyone in Other Metagames, so just take a look!

CAP

What, you thought Create-A-Pokémon was a one-time deal where as soon as the playtest was over, the most recent CAP was tossed aside? Nonsense! Every CAP Pokémon that has ever been created has a place, and that place would be the CAP ladder! Here, the many Pokémon created by the Smogon community are pitted against each other and the rest of the OU metagame. Unfortunately for many of the more bitter OU players, it is a largely rain-dominated metagame, and Tomohawk is the dominant Pokémon of the metagame—Hurricane, Aura Sphere, and a ton of support moves go a long way. Some CAP Pokémon are pushed to the wayside, such as Pyroak and Voodoom. The ladder isn't the best portrayal of the metagame, however. As shown in the Other Metagames Premier League, the best CAP teams have consisted of only two or three CAP Pokémon and other OU Pokémon, which in a way makes the CAP project look even better than it already does!

Suicide Cup

Have you ever been starting a new alt on Pokémon Showdown and wondered why the opponents at the bottom of the ladder were so bad? There's a decent chance they might have been confusing OU with this metagame. In Suicide Cup, the object of the game is simple—to make all of your Pokémon faint first! What results from this simple idea can be quite confusing to understand at first, although there are a few extra rules in place to make sure the game isn't unfair:
Bans:

Other rules:

Despite these seemingly restrictive rules, this metagame has some surprisingly imaginative aspects. A self-Perish-trapping Smeargle, Prankster Thunder Wave from the likes of Volbeat, and a lot of status orbs are just some of the things you might see in this metagame!

PU

Born out of Antar's mild curiosity, PU is the least "other-y" of all of the Other Metagames. It's simply a tier created beneath NU, determined by the typical tiering cutoff of about 3.41%. It's a rather turbulent metagame, since many of the most dominant PU Pokémon are quite viable in NU, and the border between NU and PU is constantly shifting every tier shift. The fact that PU constantly changes with the rise and fall in usage of different Pokémon sets it apart from other obscure metagames.

Currently, the metagame is generally known as a highly offensive metagame that is primarily centered around the prevalence of setup sweepers, revenge killers, and pivots that have the ability to hit hard or even function as boosting sweepers. Just about any standard offensive team is typically equipped with Pokémon that play a number of these roles, while more defensive teams formulate cores that can keep common threats in check. Because PU is designed as a lower tier than NU, defensive teams are often forced to use NFE Pokémon or some of the same defensive cores to be effective. This also results in a lot of Pokémon playing highly specific roles, giving PU a fairly nice distribution of Eviolite users.

Despite Rotom-F's current #1 spot on the usage stats by a significant margin, Golduck is widely considered to be the single most dominant Pokémon in PU at the moment. Not only is it one of the hardest Pokémon to counter, it is also one of the most versatile Pokémon in the tier, being able to function as an excellent revenge killer or a very dangerous setup sweeper with Calm Mind or Rain Dance. Golduck has two amazing abilities in Cloud Nine and Swift Swim; the former allows Golduck to function as one of the single biggest threats to weather teams, as Golduck negates the effects of all weather conditions while also threatening a majority of the weather sweepers with its bulk, power, and coverage. On the other hand, Swift Swim works allows Golduck to fit on rain teams or even function as a standalone sweeper with Rain Dance. Interestingly enough, it can also fit onto sun teams nicely to check opposing weather with Cloud Nine. All of these attributes allow it to fit on most teams with ease, making a very influential threat that every team must prepare for.

Overall, PU is an intense metagame that features Pokémon occupying a variety of interesting niches. Despite the offensive nature of the metagame, there are many defensive Pokémon that are viable, and many that are able to justify their use over other Pokémon. That said, if you've always want to try your hand at using Pokémon like Relicanth or Golduck that are overlooked in the higher tiers, then this is the tier for you!

The World of Game Mods

So you're looking through the list of challenge options on Pokémon Showdown! and see the option of Gen-NEXT. Interested to discover what this is, you ask on IRC for a Gen-NEXT match and bring your standard OU team... and get smashed by an Unown. Welcome to game mods, where just about anything is possible! These formats have their roots in the old metagame Wonkymons, where every Pokémon received two new abilities, and things like Wonder Guard Volcarona and Drought Hydreigon were released upon the masses! While this can't quite be called a mod in the sense that a game would be a mod now, it definitely set precedent. Zarel created Gen-NEXT, a project where Zarel changes learnsets and mechanics to reflect possible changes that GameFreak could make in a future generation. (This project entirely ignores what we know about X and Y because it's significantly older.) Some things to note in Gen-NEXT are intrinsic levitation—a trait given to all Levitate users to give them a new ability—and Technician's buff to 75 BP moves. Several more have since appeared, including Super Ubers, Joimmons, and NU v2. Some players may write them off as being foolish or unnecessary, but you can't really judge them until you try them!

Micro-Metagames

So you've gone through every metagame you can think of, winning some and losing others, but you can't shake the feeling that you haven't played them all. In the proverbial kitchen of Other Metagames, you've deep cleaned the entire kitchen. But what's this? A tiny spot under the faucet? That spot is about the size of the available Pokémon in some of the smallest metagames around! The three micro-metagames that exist today all consist of a very select group of Pokémon. Bug Catcher Cup is made up entirely of unevolved Bug-type Pokémon who are heavily tiered for balance. Fail Cup is a tiny little thing where the only legal Pokémon can't learn any TM moves. Pretty much everything is broken in this tier, although there are some modifications to the tier planned to make it less ridiculous. Chances are you'll probably still be rd-pressed to switch into basically any move that exists. The last micro-metagame is Fishmons, a #Pokémon favorite with a big dispute. The metagame features only Pokémon that can be identified as fish, and battles are held in a 4x4 format to make up for the lack of Pokémon. The dispute? What should be classified as a fish? There are two possible entries, and the possible points of debate can be seen here. This is a metagame where Electric/Grass has near perfect super effective coverage and Huntail is one of the deadliest sweepers around, and it proves that micro-metagames aren't just for little bugs!

Conclusion

This isn't all Other Metagames has to offer. There are a bunch of other metagames that simply didn't make the cut, be it because they aren't as big as the ones listed or because I'm lazy. These are just some of the options you have. #othermetas on SynIRC has become a fairly active channel in the past months, so if you'd like to play a match in an underplayed format just hop on over!

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