Metagame Last Will

Meta would actually be so much more fun if explosion got banned.. with trick room its just stupid and not competitve
why? explosion isnt that good lol. you end up with 3 moveslots since most mons dont like clicking explosion and killing themselves before last will, not to mention youre allowed to stack up normal resists in this meta. i would like to see how explosion is used after a few weeks of ppl adapting to it
 
Infestation could be of some use, since it traps and partially damages the opponent, so I made this accelgor
Accelgor @ Life Orb
Ability: Sticky Hold
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Energy Ball
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Bug Buzz
- Infestation
 

6ft Torbjorn

formerly JoycapJoshST
Random question: who here thinks there should be some kind of 'Suicide clause', similar to the OHKO clause we have on the actual ladders? I think that should be considered.
 
So I think this meta is fun, but not very deep in its current state. Blind switching is way too forgiving, since you can just switch in your porygon Z, comfortable that its Last Will will obliterate anything that kills it. Basically, if you have something that can go more than 1 for 1, i.e. survive an explosion, then you just win by default. Sure there are counterplays to explosion, but I'm not interested in Chilan Berry, the Meta.

IMO, there are a couple of approaches towards fixing this, but obviously it's up to the metagame's leaders.

1. Ban Explosion (and hyper beam and giga impact, etc...)
2. Ban moves with base power greater than 130 from the 4th slot. (or just ban outright)
2. Only allow status moves in the 4th slot.
 

Natan

...
is a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7lastwill-570678199
Can someone please explain how double knockouts work? Because apparently it's not "the slower mon wins" like I thought it was.
The mon who got the KO wins.
So Jirachi used Iron Head and KOed your Golem, the game is over, anything that happens after this won't change it even if your Golem KOed Jirachi with Explosion.

So I think this meta is fun, but not very deep in its current state. Blind switching is way too forgiving, since you can just switch in your porygon Z, comfortable that its Last Will will obliterate anything that kills it. Basically, if you have something that can go more than 1 for 1, i.e. survive an explosion, then you just win by default. Sure there are counterplays to explosion, but I'm not interested in Chilan Berry, the Meta.

IMO, there are a couple of approaches towards fixing this, but obviously it's up to the metagame's leaders.

1. Ban Explosion (and hyper beam and giga impact, etc...)
2. Ban moves with base power greater than 130 from the 4th slot. (or just ban outright)
2. Only allow status moves in the 4th slot.
I think should be banned Explosion (things like Glalie-Mega will get a kill unless you have a bulky Ice resist to prevent it), also Ban Moves with a BP of 150 or higher (obviously, except Eruption and Water Spout), the moves I think should be "banned" from being 4th moves are:
Blast Burn, Explosion, Focus Punch, Frenzy Plant, Giga Impact, Head Smash, Hydro Cannon, Hyper Beam, Prismatic Laser, Roar of Time, Rock Wrecker, Self-Destruct, Shell Trap, V-create
 
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http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7lastwill-570697275
Another bug: My opponent's Latias used Psyshock in Turn 19, and died to its own Life Orb's recoil, which triggered its Last Will, which was another Psyshock. The Last Will simply "failed", although my Metagross was still alive.

Another bug: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7lastwill-570706910
I used Sleep Talk with Suicune, got Scald and killed the opposing Mega-Sableye, which used Metal Burst as its Last Will - Metal Burst failed, altough I attacked it with Scald.
 
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So I think this meta is fun, but not very deep in its current state. Blind switching is way too forgiving, since you can just switch in your porygon Z, comfortable that its Last Will will obliterate anything that kills it. Basically, if you have something that can go more than 1 for 1, i.e. survive an explosion, then you just win by default. Sure there are counterplays to explosion, but I'm not interested in Chilan Berry, the Meta.

IMO, there are a couple of approaches towards fixing this, but obviously it's up to the metagame's leaders.

1. Ban Explosion (and hyper beam and giga impact, etc...)
2. Ban moves with base power greater than 130 from the 4th slot. (or just ban outright)
2. Only allow status moves in the 4th slot.
I think should be banned Explosion (things like Glalie-Mega will get a kill unless you have a bulky Ice resist to prevent it), also Ban Moves with a BP of 150 or higher (obviously, except Eruption and Water Spout), the moves I think should be "banned" from being 4th moves are:
Blast Burn, Explosion, Focus Punch, Frenzy Plant, Giga Impact, Head Smash, Hydro Cannon, Hyper Beam, Prismatic Laser, Roar of Time, Rock Wrecker, Self-Destruct, Shell Trap, V-create
Guys pls let this 1 day old meta settle a bit before calling bans an clauses. Also i still don't get all the fuzz about explosion, what's so broken about it?
 

Natan

...
is a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Clearly some people weren't using anything that resists Normal (or is immune)
Yeah, my bad...I had not a normal resist to counter Glalie-Mega and Golem-Alola...(jk)
The problem is that if you use a 250 move you get a "two hits move" with 250 BP and Glalie/Golem-Alola can make it a STAB that can hit neutral a lot of things and I don't want to run Protect on random mons too
 
as a general rule, high-BP moves being automatically activated on death will almost always result in a scenario where, since everyone is otherwise trading deaths every time one kills the other, the win condition is either:

a) have more pokemon when the sacks begin, so you automatically win by the end,

or

b) have enough speed control (TR, priority, etc) to where your last pokemon will kill the opponent's final pokemon first.

every single game i've played, and every single other one i've spectated, boils down to one or both of these two things.

this is absolutely something that can be played around, sure, but doing so also sucks the fun out of the potential of this metagame. there's a lot of really cool ideas that you could do with this core concept, and all of those ideas are a complete waste in favor of what is effectively just an OM where everyone permanently has destiny bond
 

Natan

...
is a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I use a bulky Mega-Metagross to be able to kill such explosion stuff without dying. Works quite well.
U haven't faced this one yet I guess
252+ Atk Choice Band Galvanize Golem-Alola Explosion vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Metagross-Mega: 411-484 (112.9 - 132.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Anyway the point is that Explosion almost always results in a kill it's a pseudo Destiny Bond that doesn't need any predict
Edit: 2MN said exactly what I wanted
 
A few Last Wills that don't work:

Rock Blast
Rapid Spin
Mirror Coat
Because of Rocky Helmet/Rough Skin/Iron Barbs, multi-hit moves and Rapid Spin stop as soon as you faint, so they're not usable as Last Will moves.

Counter, Metal Burst and Mirror Coat don't work as Last Will moves for the same reason you can't call them with Metronome, Copycat, Assist etc.
 
even though this meta is a mess, i'd like to throw out a set that i think is pretty great right now:


Venusaur-Mega @ Venusaurite
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Protect
- Leech Seed
- Frenzy Plant

one key thing in this metagame is making sure you have more pokemon to spare, before you snowball down the everything-dies part of the match. mega venusaur, in my opinion, is a good check to almost all of the popular explosionspam sets, while still being offensive enough to where its death can pick up a KO. from full, it can survive damn near any single LW attack bar an m-glalie explosion, and with leech seed + giga drain + protect giving you a lot of health fairly safely, you can sit around that area quite a lot.

some fun calcs*:

0 SpA Venusaur-Mega Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Golem-Alola: 272-324 (74.7 - 89%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Galvanize Golem-Alola Explosion vs. 232 HP / 252+ Def Venusaur-Mega: 158-186 (44 - 51.8%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Metagross Explosion vs. 232 HP / 252+ Def Venusaur-Mega: 192-226 (53.4 - 62.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Gigalith Explosion vs. 232 HP / 252+ Def Venusaur-Mega: 192-226 (53.4 - 62.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Slaking Giga Impact vs. 232 HP / 252+ Def Venusaur-Mega: 294-346 (81.8 - 96.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Refrigerate Glalie-Mega Explosion vs. 232 HP / 252+ Def Thick Fat Venusaur-Mega: 318-374 (88.5 - 104.1%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

*keeping in mind that explosion can hit twice, though bringing a ghost type to pivot/scare off potential explosions can somewhat offset the likelihood of that happening
 
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but what about setup focus sash then last will baton pass? I know setup sweepers aren't the best in this meta but idk. Been trying it with espeon for the magic bounce/calm mind

EDIT: this does not work
 

Laxpras

One small yeet for man, one giant yeet for mankind
Can someone try to fix how sleep works? If a mon is asleep it will still use it's last move. To me this seems counter-intuitive.

e: mons can also use status moves when taunted.
In general it seems last will moves are unaffected by typical mechanics, I think this should change.
 
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Take Azelfie

More flags more fun
>When you've only now realized your meta is the metagame of the month

Okay but I feel that I should talk about some of the problems this metagame has and what I personally think about them.

First off there are a lot of complaints that the metagame itself is mainly just, "Click nuke x2 and win." and while that is true is also sort of the original concept of this. So how do I balance it per say? Well there are a couple routes you could take and I think I'll talk about each one specifically. But before I do that I still want to keep the original premise of being able to use that last move to your utmost advantage.

Route 1: Nerfing Last Will's
Now this would make a lot of logical sense, if something is on the brink of death you wouldn't expect to pull out some mary sue type of bullshit move on you. So this route seems plausible. There is only a few problems. 1) how far do we go to nerf it? 50%, 75%, etc. I feel if you nerfed it to much the only thing you'd end up with a metagame where every Pokemon essentially has aftermath. Maybe you guys could come up with a nice benchmark for a nerfed move but I'm kind of clueless right now. The 2'nd issue with nerfing the Last Will would that even if we did nerf it, the metagame would still be using relatively frail attackers. So most of the time it would still be trade offs but to a lesser extent. This second point could even be proven false and move the metagame to a more bulky offense metagame.

Route 2: Banning / Putting a Clause on these OP moves
The answer most people would expect is, "Why not ban x move." Well there are a couple reasons. First off its sloppy I feel because it keeps a certain Pokemon playable but more importantly it ruins the concept of the metagame to a degree in concept everyone wants to use these broken moves and it sheds a new light on these moves which aren't seen in standard competitive play. Although I would be more of a fan of the latter option and putting a clause on Explosion, V-Create (because it'd be unfair to every other Pokemon if Victini could just break this rule essentially letting you have the clause limit +1), and Hyper Beam and friends. This way you still have your broken moves but you have to play just a bit more carefully around them. Tl;dr I am against banning these moves but putting a clause on them I can get behind.

Route 3: Leaving the metagame in its current state
I'm only going to talk about this briefly since its not an option I'd want to take because I want this metagame to be fun. Basically keeping it the same means that you really have to counter prep for the opponent but like I said, people don't enjoy and thus won't want to play this metagame.

Anyways it would be nice if you guys talked about this a little bit so I can come back later (with a potential council) and make a final decision on what to do. One last time thanks for voting for Last Will, its great to see that I've actually done something right for once.
 
I gotta echo the sentiment of slowing the sawsbuck down on calling for nerfs and bans. Maybe Explosions are a part of the metagame's character.

Also, folls, this is definitely the time to consider accuracy-lowering moves. Accuracy *does* apply to Last Will moves. Yes, Smogon hates accuracy stuff with a burning passion, but if you've played any DnD, you'll know exactly how useful it is to be able to go from having to roll a 20 to just having to roll high on a d4 twice in a row.

I'm having good luck adding Mud Slap or Flash to a pokemon with Protect or Substitute and some passive damage.
 

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