Forgotten Metagames

Introduction

Other Metagames have existed for about three years now, so many players and metagames have come and gone. Previously popular metagames have been left behind, waiting until anyone rediscovers them. Today, we'll cover some of these Other Metagames! Whether they'll be revived or not, it'll at least give an unique look at the history of Other Metagames. Remember, users in the Other Metagames room on Pokémon Showdown! are always willing to help you test an interesting metagame you've seen, so you can at least go there if you want to try a battle.

Wonkymons

Wonkymons was originally made during Gen V, and it was the first OM of the current Other Metagames co-leader, Eevee General. The premise of the metagame is that all current abilities are randomized among the Pokémon so that nearly all Pokémon get new abilities! That being said, each Pokémon keeps the same amount of abilities it originally had, and each ability still occurs as often as it did before. For example, only two Pokémon have Mummy, as only Yamask and Cofagrigus get it normally, and both of them only get one ability in return because they only have one in standard play. Coincidentally, Pokémon can get the same ability as they already had as well. The only abilities that are changed are those which only work on one Pokémon or evolutionary line.

Wonkymons is based off of the Ubers metagame. All of the Uber tier Pokémon are unbanned to give them a fair treatment with the new abilities. While many of them gain a worse or useless ability, they're still great threats. Luckily, a lot of other Pokémon became viable, even between all the massive powerhouses, thanks to their new abilities while other Pokémon that were good because of their abilities have fallen from grace due to others replacing them. In general, Wonkymons is a great example of an Other Metagame that hustles the Ubers metagame, allowing you to test many new threats in an all-new environment! Now for some new threats in this metagame.

Gourgeist-Small @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- Leech Seed
- Will-O-Wisp
- Substitute
- Phantom Force / Shadow Sneak / Pain Split / Protect

You may have noticed it already, but Gourgeist-S gained Shadow Tag in this metagame! As many of you know, Shadow Tag is widely regarded as one of the best abilities in this game, sometimes even regarded as uncompetitive. Gourgeist-S is arguably the best Pokémon to obtain this ability, making it able to shine, even in a metagame filled with Uber tier Pokémon. Other Pokémon with this ability include Omastar, Graveler, Persian, Swinub, and Cherubi. Thanks to this change, Gourgeist-S can now trap and beat many common Pokémon in the Wonkymons metagame. Thanks to its impressive physical bulk, access to Will-O-Wisp, and mediocre Speed, Gourgeist-S can easily stall out physical attackers. Leech Seed helps it to recover health while Substitute protects it against status and lets it stall even more. The last moveslot is mostly filler. You can use an attacking move to give the final blow, with Phantom Force having the advantage of letting foes take 25% more damage because they can't hit Gourgeist-S. Pain Split can be used for recovery; however, Pokémon will usually have less health than Gourgeist-S. Protect causes them to take even more passive damage.

Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Ice Shard
- Bulldoze
- Icicle Spear
- Superpower / Stealth Rock

Mamoswine got two new great abilities Wonkymons — Contrary and Technician. While Contrary may seem great because Mamoswine has Contrary Superpower, I prefer Technician, as Mamoswine is not nearly fast or bulky enough to be able to set up with Contrary Superpower and sweep afterwards. Luckily, its other new ability — Technician — is just as great! It powers up many of Mamoswine's moves, giving it all the tools it needs to function as a good revenge killer or wallbreaker in the metagame! Ice Shard gets a good boost and now allows Mamoswine to revenge kill many common sweepers in this metagame that are weak to Ice. Icicle Spear receives a nice boost too, making it way more reliable. With the Technician boost, its minimum Base Power is 75, while it can range up to 187.5. With a little luck, this allows Mamoswine to break most of the walls that it may face. Its final boosted move is Bulldoze, as, although it's still weaker than Earthquake, the secondary effect more than makes up for it. Namely, Bulldoze lowers the foe's Speed, allowing Mamoswine to catch opposing switch-ins and lower their Speed, making it possible for Mamoswine to outspeed them afterwards. Superpower is just used as coverage, but this slot is for a filler move. Stealth Rock, or other status moves, could be used as well, depending on your team.

Slowmons

Slowmons is another metagame that originated in from Gen V! The creator of the metagame was Erisia, who apparently wanted all his favorite slow Pokémon to rule a single metagame. This is exactly what this metagame is all about; it has permanent Trick Room. This causes the metagame to function similarly, but with all different Pokémon. Additionally, the Slowmons metagame heavily focuses around bulky offense and stall, as they originally had many slower Pokémon, while hyper offense struggles badly here, as it's not nearly as easy to break through all of these slow and bulky Pokémon compared to regular OU. This metagame is based on OU, and there are no additional bans or unbans.

In this metagame, lowering your Speed is the equivalent of raising it normally. This causes moves such as Quiver Dance and Dragon Dance to be quite terrible, but some other moves such as Curse, Hammer Arm, and V-create get a great buff; they make your Pokémon "faster!" For the same reason, two items are popular as well: Iron Ball and Macho Brace. Both of them halve your Pokémon's Speed normally, so, in this metagame, they basically double your Speed. Iron Ball also makes the Pokémon negate their Ground-type immunity, so Macho Brace is better on airborne Pokémon, while Iron Ball is generally better on other Pokémon if it gets Tricked off. These items also cause Knock Off to be even better than in normal battles because it can halve the Speed of Pokémon with this item, as well as Trick + Choice Scarf, which both locks the target into a move and lowers its Speed.

Trapinch @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Earthquake
- Superpower
- Crunch
- Rock Slide

Trapinch is surprisingly useful in Slowmons and is quite possibly the best NFE in the metagame. Even though the metagame is quite defensively oriented, Trapinch carves itself a niche in being one of the best revenge killers in the metagame. This is mostly because it has Arena Trap, which makes sure that a Pokémon can't just switch out to avoid the KO but meets a secured death instead. This, in combination with its good Attack and extremely low Speed, makes it an excellent revenge killer and one of the few that can afford to carry Choice Band for extra power instead of being forced to carry Macho Brace or Iron Ball, as Trapinch is slow enough already to have very few Pokémon be slower than it even with one of those items. The moves are fairly simple, as it has a fairly small movepool. Earthquake is a powerful STAB move, while the other moves are its best coverage options. Other specific moves can be used as well if your team needs it, but these moves cover quite a lot of threats, and Trapinch's other moves are mostly suboptimal special and status moves, which should only be used when you're severely weak to a certain Pokémon, which Trapinch can be beat when using those moves, even with its lackluster Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense.

Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Return
- Curse
- Crunch
- Earthquake

Snorlax is quite possibly the best sweeper in Slowmons. Its main issue in standard is that it's incredibly slow, but now, that disadvantage turns into an advantage. It keeps its formidable bulk and Attack, which makes it quite hard to take out. Additionally, Curse is one of the most dangerous setup moves in Slowmons, as it boosts Attack, Defense, and, technically, Speed. Because Trick Room is up, the Speed drop will actually cause it to move faster. After a few Curse boosts, Snorlax is hard to take out, as it has good Special Defense and Curse boosts its Defense, which it sets up pretty easily thanks to offensive pressure, good bulk, and Thick Fat giving it two additional resistances. It can run Leftovers because it can "boost" its Speed anyway, and this gives it some passive recovery. The rest of the set is used for coverage moves, as Crunch and Earthquake give perfect coverage with Snorlax's STAB Return. You can also run a more defensive spread to ease setting up, but you'd have to forgo the immediate offensive presence it brings. Additionally, a RestTalk set is viable, but it has bad coverage, so you'll need support to get rid of Ghost-types.

Ability Exchange

Like the others, Ability Exchange was created in Gen V by -Sparkbeat-. The idea of the metagame was, "What if you could swap abilities around your team?" This caused an interesting combination of thinking of Pokémon that could benefit from a certain ability, while still having to pay attention to how you build your team, so everything can benefit in some way, instead of being deadweight. You may not pass two abilities of the same Pokémon, so you may not use Conkeldurr to give one teammate Guts and another Sheer Force; however, you may use Conkeldurr to give a teammate Guts and Nidoking to give another teammate Sheer Force. Additionally, some abilities have been banned from being swapped, but the Pokémon can still use them if they keep the ability themselves. Teambuilding is really important in this metagame, and, if you want to be good at it, you have to know how to balance your teams. Whatever playstyle you use, you need to find out what can benefit from which abilities and how to make everything good enough. Otherwise, all playstyles are viable. Offensive playstyles benefit a lot from abilities such as Tough Claws and Protean, while stall loves Regenerator and Poison Heal.

The metagame is based off of the OU Metagame with a few additional bans. A special attribute is that Mega Evolutions can actually keep their old ability because they regain it when they Mega Evolve. This makes for a great "ability fodder" for the worse abilities on your team. To get good teams, abilities can either be switched between two Pokémon or around the entire team. The main thing to watch out for is that you don't use Pokémon just to give a certain ability. While this may work sometimes, you need some way of making it useful or else you'll be playing a match with one Pokémon down, so it's usually better to opt for a bit lesser ability but get a good Pokémon in return. Because this metagame is all around making a team and switching the abilities in a sensible way, I'll put two Pokémon in this example that are supposed to be used together instead. Otherwise, I can just put any example here, but you won't know how to use it.

Archeops @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Head Smash
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- U-turn

Archeops is one of the most metagame-defining Pokémon of Ability Exchange. Without its normally hindering ability, Defeatist, it can finally shine. Besides that, it actually gets an amazing ability in Magic Guard in return, which prevents it from taking recoil damage from both Life Orb and Head Smash. It also allows Archeops to switch into Stealth Rock without taking damage, something it would normally be weak to. While its set is fairly simple, Head Smash does an extremely high amount of damage, 2HKOing everything that doesn't resist it. Otherwise, Earthquake is there because it has great coverage with Head Smash, hitting most Steel-types that resist Head Smash for super effective damage. Knock Off is used to wear down Pokémon, although it doesn't hit many Pokémon harder than the other moves. Finally, U-turn is a great way to gain momentum, as, when the opponent switches something that can take a Head Smash in, which is usually defensive, you can use the opportunity to switch in something that can either set up on or KO the foe.

Alakazam @ Alakazite
Ability: Defeatist
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Encore / Protect / Substitute

Alakazam is possibly the best partner to Archeops. Besides giving it the great Magic Guard, Alakazam doesn't really mind Defeatist because it can Mega Evolve, getting rid of the old ability and replacing it with Trace. While Trace isn't that good of an ability, it does come with the advantage of not having to deal with Defeatist on your team and actually having a great ability to pass on. Additionally, with all the powerful abilities running around, it's quite good to have at times, as chances are that you'll encounter a Swift Swim, Protean, or Sheer Force Pokémon and that Mega Alakazam suddenly turns into a monster. Again, this set is fairly simple. Psyshock is used to get the STAB boost and so that you can hit on a Pokémon's weak Defense in a pinch, while Shadow Ball and Focus Blast are just for coverage, covering many of Alakazam's threats. The fact that Alakazam is a Psychic-type also helps Archeops a lot because, if Archeops lures in a Fighting-type and U-turns out, Alakazam can get in and force them out easily. Finally, the three last options are all ways to set up safely. Encore can be used against setup sweepers, entry hazard setters, and the like to cripple them, while both Protect and Substitute protect Alakazam from an attack. Watch out that if you use Encore or Substitute, faster Pokémon may strike before Alakazam can Mega Evolve. Finally, you can use a Modest nature instead of a Timid one, but it's especially important to run Timid if you don't run Protect because, otherwise, Alakazam may not get a good chance to Mega Evolve.

Stat Exchange

Stat Exchange is a metagame made by Electrolyte during Gen V with a simple premise. The defenses and offenses of a Pokémon get switched. This means that a Pokémon's Attack stat becomes their Defense stat, their Special Attack stat becomes their Special Defense stat, and viceversa. This means that many offensive powerhouses become unbreakable walls and defensive behemoths turn into powerful sweepers. Something notable is that, in standard play, walls usually have really high defensive stats, while sweepers have relatively lower defensive stats. This causes a few Pokémon to have extremely high offenses in this metagame, which makes stall even harder to use because your Pokémon need to be able to endure extremely powerful attacks. For example, Shuckle has base 230 Attack and Special Attack, and, while it's extremely easy to KO, stall teams may be unable to do that easily at times.

Stat Exchange is another metagame based on the normal OU metagame. It doesn't have any additional bans, although some Pokémon are extremely powerful and potentially centralizing. Luckily, many Pokémon remain untested and everything has received an overhaul, so most Pokémon are able to be checked with the right team, especially because most Pokémon with high offenses now have a low Speed stat. Another thing to note is that the base stats switch of a Pokémon, not the actual stats. This means your nature, EVs and IVs still affect the stat you invest in, and they won't get swapped with it. This also means that stat boosts and items work as normal, so Choice items still boost offenses.

Regice @ Life Orb
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Rock Polish
- Focus Blast

Regice is quite possibly the most dangerous special threat in Stat Exchange. It switches its normally monstrous base 200 Special Defense for an even more monstrous base Special Attack stat. This, in combination with its relatively high Base Power moves, makes it a difficult threat to handle. The main downside is that it's still quite slow, so it'll often have to tank a hit first before it can strike. Luckily, Regice can still tank special hits decently with 80 / 100 special bulk; however, its physical bulk is quite mediocre. Rock Polish is a great way of fixing this, though. Once the opponent's team has been weakened, you can try to find a Pokémon that Regice can tank a hit from and set up Rock Polish. Once you manage to set up, the foe will have a hard time tanking the amazing Thunderbolt + Ice Beam coverage of Regice, including Focus Blast and STAB-boosted Ice Beam as coverage. However, be aware not to use Focus Blast if not needed, as it's not worth the chance to miss. Also, the opponent's team has to be weakened sufficiently, as Regice can usually not afford to both tank a hit to set up and to allow the foe to hit it for a second time, especially with Life Orb recoil.

Cobalion @ Choice Band
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Iron Head
- Stone Edge
- Volt Switch

Cobalion is the Terrakion of Stat Exchange. Now that its high Defense stat becomes its Attack stat, it becomes a good pivot and sweeper. It has a great defensive typing, resisting the STAB moves of many powerhouses, such as Smeargle, Regirock and Regice, allowing it to function as a decent pivot. Additionally, it's one of the few Pokémon that is both decently powerful and fast, as most defensive Pokémon were quite slow. This allows it to outspeed and pressure many Pokémon, especially offensive teams. Its Steel / Fighting typing also helps it offensively. Its STAB moves have good coverage in this metagame, with its Steel STAB hitting Fairy-types for super effective damage, so, if it's played well, it can easily KO many Pokémon. Stone Edge is used solely for coverage, as it hits Bug- and Flying-types for super effective damage. Finally, Volt Switch isn't used for the damage, but because the momentum it can give is amazing. If the opponent has one of the limited answers to Cobalion, you can easily wear it down by using Volt Switch as it comes in and switch to an answer to said Pokémon, forcing it out again.

Bluntmons

Bluntmons only existed in Gen V, when it was quite popular. It was created by JayHankEdLyon. The concept of the metagame was that Pokémon can't use any moves that receive a STAB boost. This means that moves of the same type are still allowed as long as they don't get the STAB boost, such as fixed damage moves and status moves. This causes new, and strange, concepts. For example, Tyranitar now counters most Fighting-types because they can't use Fighting-type moves to hit Tyranitar. Similarly, this makes it quite easy to get safe switch-ins, heavily buffing stall. The biggest counteracts against stall are setup Pokémon, as, without STAB attacks, Pokémon such as SubCM Latias can set up much more easily and can still use their decent coverage moves to destroy the opposition. Similarly, Magic Guard Pokémon are really good, as everything is less powerful and they can't be worn down.

Bluntmons is based off of OU without any additional bans or unbans. If you want to run offense in this metagame, it's key to take Pokémon that didn't rely on their STAB moves at all, such as Nidoking or Alakazam. Additionally, it's great to pack a stallbreaker in this metagame. The lack of actual wallbreakers makes it easier to use stall, but luckily, stallbreakers are almost not nerfed. They still keep moves such as Taunt, recovery moves, and, in most cases, Knock Off. However, due to the easier time walling Pokémon and easier time knowing what can wall something, it's usually best to run stall or semi-stall in this metagame, perhaps with a setup win condition.

Reuniclus @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpA
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball

Reuniclus is a major threat for one main reason: Magic Guard. Magic Guard allows it to go against the metagame, being immune to all forms of passive damage, which players rely on. Even with direct attacks, it's hard to break it because the best that can be done against it are non-STAB Dark-, Ghost-, or Bug-type moves, which are usually not strong enough to kill it easily. Moreover, it has perfect coverage itself between Focus Blast and Shadow Ball, so it can usually sweep easily once it has set up. One thing to watch out for is to use Shadow Ball whenever possible. Focus Blast has less PP and is inaccurate, so you should only use it if using Shadow Ball would be much worse, as otherwise you waste its PP. Otherwise, it's an amazing Pokémon in the Bluntmons metagame. Calm Mind allows Reuniclus to set up, and Recover allows it to pretty much beat any Pokémon that can't do more than 50% damage to it. Finally, it's Defense is maximized so that it can survive those attacks more easily — its Special Defense gets boosted anyway. In general, this is one of the most threatening Pokémon in the metagame, and it is extremely hard to handle for unprepared teams.

Sableye @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Night Shade
- Taunt
- Recover
- Will-O-Wisp

Sableye is one of the best true stallbreakers in the game and stays one in this metagame, where they are very appreciated. Sableye is actually one of the few Pokémon that have been directly buffed by this metagame. It loses Knock Off, but it still gets Night Shade, and it benefits massively by the less powerful attacks. Normally, powerful attackers could just blast by it, but now it's much harder to just KO with weaker non-STAB attacks. It's even almost impossible to inflict with status, as it can use Prankster Taunt before your Pokémon can use its move, so your only option is to attack pointlessly while Sableye keeps wearing your Pokémon down with Night Shade and Taunt. It even gets Recover for when it gets on low health! Finally, Will-O-Wisp helps it cripple physical attackers to take their hits more easily, as well as wearing the foe down as well. This is also the reason its EVs are aimed towards special bulk, as it can use Will-O-Wisp for physical attackers anyway.

The Negative Metagame

The Negative Metagame is the last metagame I'm going to discuss and was also made during Gen V. It's original creator was Codraroll, but it was taken over a while ago. This metagame basically inverses the power of all Pokémon: it puts all of the stats of each Pokémon into the formula "150 - Base Stat", with results lower than 5 becoming 5 by default, as the lowest stat right now is 5, excluding Shedinja's HP, which is specifically for its gimmick. For example, all of Arceus's stats become 30 because 150 - 120 = 30, and all of Sunkern's stats become 120 for the same reason. That being said, Sunkern isn't too good because it still has a fairly small movepool!

The Negative Metagame is not based on any tier, as it basically inverses them. Most Ubers are terrible, as their stats become terrible, while most of the viable Pokémon are from LC because they get the highest stats in this metagame. The main problem with having NFE Pokémon be the most powerful in their format is that they usually don't have as many moves as their evolved counterparts have, and they have less complicated type combinations, so there's less diversity in that regard. On top of this, they mostly shine in the offensive stat that they don't normally use, so they generally don't have many moves for that either. Don't be discouraged, though, as there are still many strategies to try out, and maybe smaller movepools encourage more creativity! Smeargle is banned because of its new-found amazing stats and its incredible movepool. Finally, Eviolite is banned because it gives the most powerful Pokémon an even bigger boost, which would almost be unfair. Besides that, other items that boost a stat for a few selected Pokémon, such as Thick Club, got banned as well, as most of these Pokémon became much better in this format. Huge Power and Pure Power also got banned for the same reason.

Shuckle @ Expert Belt
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Shell Smash
- Earth Power
- Stone Edge
- Sludge Wave

Shuckle is one of the few viable fully evolved Pokémon in The Negative Metagame. This is because of its incredibly min-maxed stats in standard play. While it loses its amazing defenses (they go to base 5), it gains amazing Speed and offenses, and its HP becomes quite good as well, even though it doesn't matter much with base 5 Defense and Special Defense. This change makes it quite an incredible sweeper and revenge killer, as it's the fastest viable Pokémon in the metagame, only Speed tying with Munchlax, but Munchlax isn't too viable. Luckily, Shuckle gets Sturdy, so it can always survive a hit, even with its terrible defenses. This also allows it to turn into a terrifying sweeper with Shell Smash. If Shuckle uses Shell Smash when it's brought down to 1 HP, it's usually extremely hard to handle late-game; just make sure that opposing priority users have been removed. Because of this, it's a necessity to have a good way of keeping entry hazards off of the fields if you want to use Shuckle to its fullest effect, as whatever set you use, the inability to get OHKOed is amazing for such a frail Pokémon. However, if its Sturdy does get broken, don't attempt to set up and sweep anymore; just use it as a revenge killer, as it still has powerful moves and incredible offensive stats. Shuckle has a relatively limited attacking movepool, which is why it goes mixed. Luckily, it can afford this because it doesn't need its offenses anyway, and, whichever other move you use, it'll get outdamaged by these anyway. This even has the advantage of deciding on which defense Shuckle wants to prey on, making it harder to counter! Stone Edge is for a powerful STAB move, Earth Power is for good coverage, and Sludge Wave is for hitting Grass- and Fairy-types for super effective damage,which Shuckle may have problems against because of their average bulk, abilities, and resistances. Sludge Wave is chosen over Bug Bite because it's stronger in most cases and Bug's effectiveness is less needed.

Zigzagoon @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Quick Feet
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Belly Drum
- Seed Bomb
- Dig

Zigzagoon is one of the most threatening sweepers in The Negative Metagame. Even though everything has gotten a lot of bulk, Zigzagoon still manages to work well. It works just like it does in standard play, but its Attack stat changes from being below average to being as high as Arceus's. And if you've ever played with Extreme Killer Arceus, you'll remember that it's an incredible threat. Now imagine that, but at +6instead of +2, and you will get an image of Zigzagoon. While Zigzagoon doesn't have a lot of coverage, it doesn't need much. Most Pokémon are hit hard enough by Seed Bomb or Dig as coverage. It doesn't even really need its Speed because Extreme Speed will always hit first anyway. Dig is used because Zigzagoon doesn't learn any better moves, and it can force out Steel-types in a pinch so that Zigzagoon can gradually wear them down. Sitrus Berry is used for easier setup, although it's recommended to support it with Memento or dual screens so that it becomes less risky for it to set up. That said, its newfound bulk assists it immensely in setting up safely, so don't worry too much if you can't fit in the support it might need. Lastly, Quick Feet is chosen because the other two abilities are useless, and this may help your team against Ghost-, Steel- and Rock-types.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many forgotten metagames with loads of potential! Some of them just finished their discussion, and people forgot about them slowly, but they may still be a lot of fun to play, so check out the Other Metas room on Pokémon Showdown! and ask if someone wants to battle you. There will usually be someone willing to play. If you enjoy the metagame, you can post about it in the threads to get it under the attention of others and eventually it may lead a whole new life. Maybe you can even take the thread over if the OM leaders allow it! Besides these, there are always more forgotten metagames, so if you thought these were interesting, it may be a good idea to check the old pages of the Other Metagames Subforum. They may not be as organized, but many old ideas may still be good.

« Previous Article

Home