OrangeManiac

Yeah personally, I don't think the risks are worth it. These kinds of decisions are incredibly difficult to backtrack. Even hypothetically if we were "just to test it", it would be tiering wise so difficult to determine when was the experimentation such a disaster that Knock Off would have to reverted back to its old self. It's just better not to go there because the moment Knock Off was buffed, it sends such massive shockwaves to all MMO tiers and returning to anything at that point becomes practically impossible.
 
We agreed before that old 20 Power Knock Off is justifiable with no Megas and no Fairies. I don't think we should change now.
 
Also yeah jesus christ Conk would become busted

Yeah personally, I don't think the risks are worth it. These kinds of decisions are incredibly difficult to backtrack. Even hypothetically if we were "just to test it", it would be tiering wise so difficult to determine when was the experimentation such a disaster that Knock Off would have to reverted back to its old self. It's just better not to go there because the moment Knock Off was buffed, it sends such massive shockwaves to all MMO tiers and returning to anything at that point becomes practically impossible.
 
We agreed before that old 20 Power Knock Off is justifiable with no Megas and no Fairies. I don't think we should change now.
 
Also yeah jesus christ Conk would become busted

Yeah personally, I don't think the risks are worth it. These kinds of decisions are incredibly difficult to backtrack. Even hypothetically if we were "just to test it", it would be tiering wise so difficult to determine when was the experimentation such a disaster that Knock Off would have to reverted back to its old self. It's just better not to go there because the moment Knock Off was buffed, it sends such massive shockwaves to all MMO tiers and returning to anything at that point becomes practically impossible.
 
We agreed before that old 20 Power Knock Off is justifiable with no Megas and no Fairies. I don't think we should change now.
 
Also yeah jesus christ Conk would become busted

Yeah personally, I don't think the risks are worth it. These kinds of decisions are incredibly difficult to backtrack. Even hypothetically if we were "just to test it", it would be tiering wise so difficult to determine when was the experimentation such a disaster that Knock Off would have to reverted back to its old self. It's just better not to go there because the moment Knock Off was buffed, it sends such massive shockwaves to all MMO tiers and returning to anything at that point becomes practically impossible.
 
We agreed before that old 20 Power Knock Off is justifiable with no Megas and no Fairies. I don't think we should change now.
 
Also yeah jesus christ Conk would become busted

Yeah personally, I don't think the risks are worth it. These kinds of decisions are incredibly difficult to backtrack. Even hypothetically if we were "just to test it", it would be tiering wise so difficult to determine when was the experimentation such a disaster that Knock Off would have to reverted back to its old self. It's just better not to go there because the moment Knock Off was buffed, it sends such massive shockwaves to all MMO tiers and returning to anything at that point becomes practically impossible.
 
We agreed before that old 20 Power Knock Off is justifiable with no Megas and no Fairies. I don't think we should change now.
 
Also yeah jesus christ Conk would become busted

Yeah personally, I don't think the risks are worth it. These kinds of decisions are incredibly difficult to backtrack. Even hypothetically if we were "just to test it", it would be tiering wise so difficult to determine when was the experimentation such a disaster that Knock Off would have to reverted back to its old self. It's just better not to go there because the moment Knock Off was buffed, it sends such massive shockwaves to all MMO tiers and returning to anything at that point becomes practically impossible.
 
We agreed before that old 20 Power Knock Off is justifiable with no Megas and no Fairies. I don't think we should change now.
 
Also yeah jesus christ Conk would become busted

Yeah personally, I don't think the risks are worth it. These kinds of decisions are incredibly difficult to backtrack. Even hypothetically if we were "just to test it", it would be tiering wise so difficult to determine when was the experimentation such a disaster that Knock Off would have to reverted back to its old self. It's just better not to go there because the moment Knock Off was buffed, it sends such massive shockwaves to all MMO tiers and returning to anything at that point becomes practically impossible.
 
We agreed before that old 20 Power Knock Off is justifiable with no Megas and no Fairies. I don't think we should change now.
 
Also yeah jesus christ Conk would become busted

PokeMMO borrows from multiple gens and innovates with also custom mechanics. Depending on the situation, it can be difficult to find a calculator that works for all situations. Right now, the Showdown Calculator from Gen I to IX is unable to explain how in PokeMMO some damage rolls under Weather or in Little Cup will exceed the range of possible outcomes. Players are often left wondering why they took so little or so much dmg when based on everything they know what happened shouldn't be possible.

Would it be possible for the devs to share what PokeMMO uses as its damage formula. I don't mind if PokeMMO uses its own Damage Formula, but it would be appreciated if that formula was shared with the players.

Congratulations to [VOW] Solemn Promise, who has won the Cup of the Year 2024! Amazing run today, fellas; well done.
Shout out to [AIP] Anything is Possible, who came close to winning. Great work, good luck next time!
And finally, congratulations to [LO] Romantic, who came third!
 
 
 
As always, big thank you to my refs: @Austin @BielMSq @CommanderBlue @Cosmooth @DeusBruno @Elizn @Enzo and @Parke
 
Thank you, AngelGVR, SebastianRVM, Robombol, and Parke, for recording the matches. 
 
 
Bracket:
https://pokemmotournament.challonge.com/CupoftheYear24
 

I know you might be surprised I’m making such a claim but I really think it’s true. The Doubles metagame has stagnated heavily for last couple of years and now I feel like it’s come to a complete halt. I’d hate to ever call a metagame “solved”, especially with a sample size of players this small but it almost really feels that way at this point.
 
So what exactly is the problem? The biggest problem to me is that deviating from some of the staples of the Doubles metagame almost immediately puts you in a disadvantage, so people don’t. There is very limited amount of (good) anti-meta Pokemon and even those can be teched against with a few creative item choices. Instead of innovating with new Pokemon ideas, the main innovation in Doubles currently happens with item selections and movesets at this point. Matches often come down to unexpected item choices at the highest level.
 
In general, it is very difficult to “counter-team” in Doubles in comparison to Singles. No matter how good of a counter-team you would build, it is very difficult to build a team where let’s say opponent’s Metagross/Zapdos/Hitmontop/Garchomp or Hydreigon are completely useless. Because of their notable bulk, it is very difficult to one shot them but also the second Pokemon can provide necessary means to keep those aforementioned Pokemon alive. These Pokemon are being used so much because they are never useless.
 
So, are these Pokemon the problem then? Just get rid of them? Well, if it was that simple. The reason these Pokemon are good is the nature of Double battles and our 6v6 format. In 6v6 format, you always want to bring Pokemon that bring something to the table in every game because you have to use that Pokemon. The key in all competitive play is consistency. If that Pokemon only brought utility in a small number of games, you will replace that with something that will bring value in every game. You might see where I’m going with this.
 
Yeah, I am suggesting that we would really – seriously – consider whether we should give VGC format a chance in our game. "But why exactly VGC-format would be a solution", you may ask? Having to bring all 6 Pokemon is largely the reason the metagame is what it is now. Having able to bring only 4 from 6 (with best of 3 battles), it allows far more nuance and experimentation from your team and being able to try out creative choices without being punished in majority of the games where that Pokemon just got outclassed. The options for usable Pokemon would increase heavily. Yes, there still would be the staples people will fall back on and some of the old reliables will be used just so teams have a standard mode to fall back to, if their “gimmick” didn’t work. But in general, it would open up teambuilding by so much because you are not immediately putting yourself in a disadvantage by trying matchup specific techs rather than falling back on your “old reliable 6”.
 
More proof that our current Doubles metagame is seriously flawed is the lack of many viable archetypes in our metagame. We have one viable weather archetype, which is rain. No other weather really is viable at all. Even Tyranitar, supposedly a “sand setter” is really only used to take away the weather of rain teams. This also applies to the random Vanilluxe/Abomasnow techs you might see running around but it is the same reason. The only viable weather is rain, the others are just trying to do their best to slow it down. In addition, we have a complete lack of archetypes in speed control modes too. Trick Room is barely even a viable team composition anymore, while it used to be a serious contender just years back. Now the only viable speed control mode is a Tailwinder (often Zapdos) in your own team and your occasional Icy Wind, which are mostly just to be pseudo-counters to Garchomp anyways.
 
Before I get shown multiple examples of how someone won an official finals with a sun team or hard Trick Room team, that is not my point. My point isn’t that off-meta choices cannot win. My point is that they just aren't consistent, and the highest level players know that. The problem is that people have discovered the most consistent to win in Doubles and there’s nowhere to be seen that anyone is breaking the status quo. The top 5 most used Pokemon have been exactly the same for half a year now. And it’s not even close – the top 5 most used Doubles Pokemon have at least DOUBLE the usage as anything after them. That is absolutely absurd and insane and screams from stagnation and consistency optimization.
 
Doubles is still fun to play, don’t get me wrong, just not to teambuild in. Teambuilding wise, the metagame is just going nowhere. Not even new legendary additions will change this. There are no upcoming legendaries that would completely punish that core of 5 without being Uberworthy itself. Furthermore, at best some new legendaries might be thrown themselves in the pool of consistent reliable Pokemon. Then we might have 6 Pokemon everyone uses in the high level instead of 5. “Yippee.”
 
I seriously don’t have an answer how to fix Doubles. I really don’t. As I said, even if we would hypothetically ban the “Top 5” (which makes no sense to begin with), it would take people time to find the new Top 5 but they will and the cycle repeats. That’s why I’m suggesting that we would really give VGC a shot because the nature of the format encourages experimentation. Heck, implement it just as a mode you can challenge in-game and able to host automated tournaments with and just try a few ones. It might be a complete fail, who knows. Maybe people will love and it becomes the new standard, maybe they will hate it and we will fall back to what we had. But the Doubles metagame is just not fun really to anyone anymore and I really haven't seen many disagreeing who I've discussed this with.
 
Teambuilding is the spice of Pokemon. In Pokemon, you can use your creativity to design your own team to try to get the upper hand over your opponent with your team selection choices. That’s the fun part, that’s why we play it. Now Doubles is just trying to outplay your opponent with the same 5. It’s just not as fun and it's not why we play competitive Mons over other alternatives. We need to try something. I really hope this game would give a chance to something new when the old one clearly isn't working anymore. And with Doubles, it just isn't anymore. Thanks for reading.
 
 
P.S. Everything I wrote I’m only voicing my own opinions
 

I know you might be surprised I’m making such a claim but I really think it’s true. The Doubles metagame has stagnated heavily for last couple of years and now I feel like it’s come to a complete halt. I’d hate to ever call a metagame “solved”, especially with a sample size of players this small but it almost really feels that way at this point.
 
So what exactly is the problem? The biggest problem to me is that deviating from some of the staples of the Doubles metagame almost immediately puts you in a disadvantage, so people don’t. There is very limited amount of (good) anti-meta Pokemon and even those can be teched against with a few creative item choices. Instead of innovating with new Pokemon ideas, the main innovation in Doubles currently happens with item selections and movesets at this point. Matches often come down to unexpected item choices at the highest level.
 
In general, it is very difficult to “counter-team” in Doubles in comparison to Singles. No matter how good of a counter-team you would build, it is very difficult to build a team where let’s say opponent’s Metagross/Zapdos/Hitmontop/Garchomp or Hydreigon are completely useless. Because of their notable bulk, it is very difficult to one shot them but also the second Pokemon can provide necessary means to keep those aforementioned Pokemon alive. These Pokemon are being used so much because they are never useless.
 
So, are these Pokemon the problem then? Just get rid of them? Well, if it was that simple. The reason these Pokemon are good is the nature of Double battles and our 6v6 format. In 6v6 format, you always want to bring Pokemon that bring something to the table in every game because you have to use that Pokemon. The key in all competitive play is consistency. If that Pokemon only brought utility in a small number of games, you will replace that with something that will bring value in every game. You might see where I’m going with this.
 
Yeah, I am suggesting that we would really – seriously – consider whether we should give VGC format a chance in our game. "But why exactly VGC-format would be a solution", you may ask? Having to bring all 6 Pokemon is largely the reason the metagame is what it is now. Having able to bring only 4 from 6 (with best of 3 battles), it allows far more nuance and experimentation from your team and being able to try out creative choices without being punished in majority of the games where that Pokemon just got outclassed. The options for usable Pokemon would increase heavily. Yes, there still would be the staples people will fall back on and some of the old reliables will be used just so teams have a standard mode to fall back to, if their “gimmick” didn’t work. But in general, it would open up teambuilding by so much because you are not immediately putting yourself in a disadvantage by trying matchup specific techs rather than falling back on your “old reliable 6”.
 
More proof that our current Doubles metagame is seriously flawed is the lack of many viable archetypes in our metagame. We have one viable weather archetype, which is rain. No other weather really is viable at all. Even Tyranitar, supposedly a “sand setter” is really only used to take away the weather of rain teams. This also applies to the random Vanilluxe/Abomasnow techs you might see running around but it is the same reason. The only viable weather is rain, the others are just trying to do their best to slow it down. In addition, we have a complete lack of archetypes in speed control modes too. Trick Room is barely even a viable team composition anymore, while it used to be a serious contender just years back. Now the only viable speed control mode is a Tailwinder (often Zapdos) in your own team and your occasional Icy Wind, which are mostly just to be pseudo-counters to Garchomp anyways.
 
Before I get shown multiple examples of how someone won an official finals with a sun team or hard Trick Room team, that is not my point. My point isn’t that off-meta choices cannot win. My point is that they just aren't consistent, and the highest level players know that. The problem is that people have discovered the most consistent to win in Doubles and there’s nowhere to be seen that anyone is breaking the status quo. The top 5 most used Pokemon have been exactly the same for half a year now. And it’s not even close – the top 5 most used Doubles Pokemon have at least DOUBLE the usage as anything after them. That is absolutely absurd and insane and screams from stagnation and consistency optimization.
 
Doubles is still fun to play, don’t get me wrong, just not to teambuild in. Teambuilding wise, the metagame is just going nowhere. Not even new legendary additions will change this. There are no upcoming legendaries that would completely punish that core of 5 without being Uberworthy itself. Furthermore, at best some new legendaries might be thrown themselves in the pool of consistent reliable Pokemon. Then we might have 6 Pokemon everyone uses in the high level instead of 5. “Yippee.”
 
I seriously don’t have an answer how to fix Doubles. I really don’t. As I said, even if we would hypothetically ban the “Top 5” (which makes no sense to begin with), it would take people time to find the new Top 5 but they will and the cycle repeats. That’s why I’m suggesting that we would really give VGC a shot because the nature of the format encourages experimentation. Heck, implement it just as a mode you can challenge in-game and able to host automated tournaments with and just try a few ones. It might be a complete fail, who knows. Maybe people will love and it becomes the new standard, maybe they will hate it and we will fall back to what we had. But the Doubles metagame is just not fun really to anyone anymore and I really haven't seen many disagreeing who I've discussed this with.
 
Teambuilding is the spice of Pokemon. In Pokemon, you can use your creativity to design your own team to try to get the upper hand over your opponent with your team selection choices. That’s the fun part, that’s why we play it. Now Doubles is just trying to outplay your opponent with the same 5. It’s just not as fun and it's not why we play competitive Mons over other alternatives. We need to try something. I really hope this game would give a chance to something new when the old one clearly isn't working anymore. And with Doubles, it just isn't anymore. Thanks for reading.
 
 
P.S. Everything I wrote I’m only voicing my own opinions
 

The damage Caiox has done to the level of discussion on the forums truly cannot be overstated.
 
People are now conflating personal grievances with how a move functions with actual brokenness... Pursuit, Magma Storm... Icicle Spear? This is legitimately bonkers.
 
I have always believed, in my own opinion, that Scald is a ridiculous move and that we'd be much better off if it were banned. However, this is a personal opinion that is unlikely to be implemented, so I never argue for it. Every player has these thoughts and ideas.  There’s plenty of counterplay to Scald, but I just find it to be overpowered. It's simply a personal grievance with the move. The same applies to the arguments we see above. However, the difference is I don't actually want it banned. 
 
Arena Trap on Diglett allows players to exploit builds centred around trapping Chansey, Tyranitar, and Heatran. Even if the opponent doesn't bring these mons and it doesn’t trap these Pokemon, any decent pilot can essentially use a F.E.A.R. strategy with Arena Trap to guarantee leaving something at 1 HP.
 
I don’t find this conducive to any demonstration of skill, and as someone who enjoys tournaments most, I can confidently say this is ABSOLUTELY an issue in semi-finals and finals. It encourages fishing for 100% wins in the MU screen as Dugtrio did and causes extremely uninteractive gameplay. Very similar to the reason baton pass chains are broken and banned. 
 
I linked examples where it has been used twice already in semis and finals to sound the alarm that this is going to become a bigger problem as people learn to use it more effectively. Even in one of those examples, it managed to remove a Suicune, which could have been exploited further if the player had better positioning.
 
After this, the discussion has degraded into some of the worst points and arguments from players who should know better. For what reason? I truly don’t know. There is zero good faith in this thread anymore.
 
Please bring in some moderators or change the policy to remove nonsensical arguments, because the discussion here has become so bad faith that I no longer even want to respond to certain points as I believe people are legitimately just trolling in some form now; due to the normalisation of nonsense spammed by Caiox changing the overall environment and level of discussion. 
 

I hope we can just get rid of At. Both At and Pursuit aren't even close in comparison, you can build an entire dirty team around At, while pursuit is mostly about revenge kill stuff.

Game Freak probably added this item to shake up playstyles so it wouldn’t always stick to the same thing. Before, battles were mainly resolved around rocks, but with the addition of boots, pokemon with high stats were also added. This way, battles focus more on dealing big damage rather than relying on hazards.
Honestly, the item feels like it’s a bit too ahead of where the current meta is right now, we don't have that power creep yet. It's good that it got banned instantly.

Caio in a nutshell

What have I done to deserve this

We're not going to reduce ELO loss for AFK timeouts or turn 1 forfeits. As others have stated, this would be extremely abusable by players who don't like their matchup. A game where players have different resources to work with which often grant a clear advantage to one player isn't comparable to Chess where the only uneven aspect is the turn order.
 
If you find yourself often wanting to quit games at team preview, a better option may be to adjust your team to better handle the meta.

Bro, you need to read your own posts before posting them. The fact you even suggest any kind of ELO reduction to full on ignoring ELO from these games just show how you completely seem to not understand how abusable this would be.
 
 
Ah, this is another one of your "stall is bad" rants. Thanks for explaining your true motivation behind this. Sorry but this is a "you" problem, not the problem of the game. If you didn't prepare enough for stall, then be ready to get stalled. It's a legitimate playstyle, no matter how much you or anyone complains or makes senseless suggestions to arbitrarily nerf it.

Bro, you need to read your own posts before posting them. The fact you even suggest any kind of ELO reduction to full on ignoring ELO from these games just show how you completely seem to not understand how abusable this would be.
 
 
Ah, this is another one of your "stall is bad" rants. Thanks for explaining your true motivation behind this. Sorry but this is a "you" problem, not the problem of the game. If you didn't prepare enough for stall, then be ready to get stalled. It's a legitimate playstyle, no matter how much you or anyone complains or makes senseless suggestions to arbitrarily nerf it.

How can you even suggest this in a game that is so match-up reliant as Pokemon? "Oh, I have a bad matchup - I'll just do nothing and lose no ELO points."

Bro, you need to read your own posts before posting them. The fact you even suggest any kind of ELO reduction to full on ignoring ELO from these games just show how you completely seem to not understand how abusable this would be.
 
 
Ah, this is another one of your "stall is bad" rants. Thanks for explaining your true motivation behind this. Sorry but this is a "you" problem, not the problem of the game. If you didn't prepare enough for stall, then be ready to get stalled. It's a legitimate playstyle, no matter how much you or anyone complains or makes senseless suggestions to arbitrarily nerf it.

Bro, you need to read your own posts before posting them. The fact you even suggest any kind of ELO reduction to full on ignoring ELO from these games just show how you completely seem to not understand how abusable this would be.
 
 
Ah, this is another one of your "stall is bad" rants. Thanks for explaining your true motivation behind this. Sorry but this is a "you" problem, not the problem of the game. If you didn't prepare enough for stall, then be ready to get stalled. It's a legitimate playstyle, no matter how much you or anyone complains or makes senseless suggestions to arbitrarily nerf it.

Bro, you need to read your own posts before posting them. The fact you even suggest any kind of ELO reduction to full on ignoring ELO from these games just show how you completely seem to not understand how abusable this would be.
 
 
Ah, this is another one of your "stall is bad" rants. Thanks for explaining your true motivation behind this. Sorry but this is a "you" problem, not the problem of the game. If you didn't prepare enough for stall, then be ready to get stalled. It's a legitimate playstyle, no matter how much you or anyone complains or makes senseless suggestions to arbitrarily nerf it.

How can you even suggest this in a game that is so match-up reliant as Pokemon? "Oh, I have a bad matchup - I'll just do nothing and lose no ELO points."

How can you even suggest this in a game that is so match-up reliant as Pokemon? "Oh, I have a bad matchup - I'll just do nothing and lose no ELO points."