What are some good tactics and strategies for Metronome Battles?

Question

I just found this stupid option on Showdown

Please leave your ideas on good Pokemon combinations, abilities, items, etc, for Metronome Battles.

Comments

You should go through https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/meta/78264 to suggest these threads per rule 1.7, but just pretend that I approved it.

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One thing about metronome battles is that almost none of the strategy is in the battle, so you can just copy Pokemon, abilities, and items from https://www.smogon.com/stats/ and keep playing until you peak the ladder.

Answer 1

I've been having a lot of fun with this format lately, so I thought it'd be nice to share a few sets using mechanics overlooked by the other answers.

Prankster Scouting
Prankster basically guarantees you move first in this format with +1 priority, but as it doesn't work against Dark types, it renders your Pokémon a sitting duck against them. However, Mega evolving Banette replaces its ability Intrepid Sword with Prankster without getting rid of the stat change, allowing you to initially scout for any Dark types before you Mega evolve. Baxcalibur serves as hard-hitting support for Banette.

Simple Weakness Policy
A simple enough team to understand. Simple, when activating Weakness Policy, raises Attack and Special Attack by 4 stages instead of 2. This leaves you with two Pokémon that hit hard and have enough bulk to profit off their stat changes. Two Glastrier work for this set, but I like having a Special Attacker in the form of Regice.

Opportunist's Revenge
Your average Defiant + Competitive set with a slight twist! With how prevalent stat changes are in this metagame with Weakness Policy, Defiant, Competitive, etc, Mirror Herb finds a lot of use thanks to copying raised stats, though only once. Any Pokémon can make good use of this item, I just settled on the classic Mew duo.

I HATE Normal Moves
Aerilate and Pixilate replace Normal type moves with harder hitting Flying and Fairy moves for Landorus and Gardevoir respectively. This allows you to get by Ghost's immunity to them, while also dealing more damage thanks to more frequent STAB moves. As a bonus, Metronome is a different color too!

Comments

Simple weakness Policy is a great pull

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It was one of Smogon's sample sets that, surprisingly, wasn't already covered here.

Answer 2

I know this was anwered already, but I wanted to add other strats I think work as well

Defiant + Competitive
These abilities sharply boost Atk and SpA respectively if the enemy lowers their stats, which is quite likely to happen considering how many moves can do so. Especially powerful when paired with Choice Band and Specs for extra power

Double Imposter
Blissey is the preffered Pokémon for this since it has a massive HP stat and, unlike Chansey, it can hold a Leppa Berry to compensate for the lower PP on Metronome. You can also use Pikachu-Starter if you want because of the enormous power boost provided by Light Ball, but it is quite risky

Immunities
These are quite valuable in Metronome, and that is what makes Ghost types so great. Zoroark-Hisui is a great example, as it not only has 3 immunities, but also only one weakness against Dark

Comments

Technically Chansey can also hold a Leppa berry, it's just worse at doing that.

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@sumwun true lol, I was thinking about eviolite

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Yeah defiant was the first thing I thought of when trying to create a team.

Hisuian zoroark is broken

Answer 3

Here's some strategies that can work. I'll cover items and abilities, and then give teams that can use them.

Items

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Choice Items:
Choice Band and Choice Specs are viable, as they can give Pokemon an immediate boost to an attacking stat. Some abilities can be used to be used with Choice items to make attacks more deadly, such as Defiant, Competitive, Intrepid Sword, and Download.

Weakness Policy: Weakness Policy is a good option, as Metronome can summon super effective attacks that can let you boost your attack and special attack. This works well on bulky Pokemon.

Eviolite: This item is just for Pokemon who aren't fully evolved, such as Dusclops and Type: Null. This item is used to give the NFE Pokemon a boost for their defense and special defense. This is used with Friend Guard so the NFE Pokemon can take as little damage as possible.

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Abilities

Intrepid Sword: Gives you an attack boost at the start of the battle. Works well with Choice Band, epesically on a Pokemon with a high attack stat such as Mega Heracross.

Flower Veil: This ability really good for Grass-types like Mega Venusaur and Necturna. Flower Veil prevents status moves and stat drops on Grass-types, which is really nice for them.

Friend Guard: This is for the Eviolite users I mentioned. This helps said Pokemon take as little damage as possible.

Primordial Sea/Desolate Land: Primordial Sea/Desolate Land is used to eliminate Fire and Water moves, which is useful for Pokemon such as Mega Camerupt and Mega Abomasnow. Pokemon such as Regirock can use Desolate Land. Pokemon such as Mega Abomasnow and Glastrier can use Primordial Sea.

Simple: This ability is a double edged sword. While Simple lets you get double the positive boosts, you also get double the negative boosts.

Magic Bounce: Useful for bouncing back status moves that could cripple you

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Teams

Double Intrepid Sword

Flower Veil Fun

Bonk's Stall

Desolate Land (For this team you can experiment with Analytic on Mega Camerupt with 0 speed IVs since Mega Camerupt is really slow.)

Primordial Sea

So, yeah. That's all I have to share for now. Good luck and have fun!

Answer 4

I have a few good ideas for metronome battles.

1. Poison touch/Poison point
   Since it does constant set damage, Poison is a reliable way to kill the opponent even if you get bad moves.
2. Magic guard
   Protects you from any indirect damage which is really good since it means you will only die from the opponent hitting you with a strong enough move, which won't happen often. Also, you can use life orb for a free damage boost.
3. Regirock
   Regirock works really well for me. It has very good defenses and good attack stats, and the rock type helps since a lot of common moves are normal type, and ground and steel type moves aren't very common.

For the combination of Pokemon you use, I personally don't think it matters much as long as each Pokemon is good by itself.

The team I usually use has Regirock with Poison touch and Krilowatt with Magic guard and life orb.

That's all I can think of right now.

Comments

Poison touch regirock is cracked omg

Answer 5

Lol gg (Shedinja) @ Focus Sash/Leppa Berry
Ability: Receiver
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Metronome

Garganacl @ Sticky Barb
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 1
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Metronome

Have fun with this set. If Garganacl dies before Shedinja can get hit, Shedinja will Receive Sturdy. Then Shedinja can only be killed if it gets hit by weather, or status, or recoil, or it's stalled out, etc. Yeah... It's not that successful, but it can be pretty fun.

Comments

I might not win all the time, but damn that's a fun strat