Blindmons (revived and on Origin!)

[qtrx]

Approved by Eevee General
By qtrx; Credit to Srn for his idea too, who also came up with this name!
Thanks to the incredibly helpful Slayer95 for technical assistance :) And Sparkychild too for help with debugging and hosting :3

Playable on origin.psim.us!


Ever fancied a bit of the pre-Team Preview unpredictability back? Well that's a topic for another day, but ITT we take the idea a big step further: here comes Blindmons!

Astara you rock :')))

The defining aspect of Blindmons is that you will have absolutely no idea what your opponent's Pokemon is! At a first glance, that is. In order to prevent the game from turning into a pure guessing game, each Pokemon, when entering battle, will have some of its moves shown in the battle chat.

Rules:

- No Team Preview.
- Species and name of opposing Pokemon is invisible (shown as Unown). You could see its species when it faints, though.
- First two moves of each Pokemon are shown instead.
- To preserve the totally blind experience, this is based on OU (no mega) now! n_n

Banlist:
- Standard OU bans
- NEW! Mega evolution not possible
- Trapping abilities (Shadow Tag, Arena Trap; Magnet Pull is currently allowed due to its specificness)
- Abilities and moves that cause forme changes or otherwise interfere with an illusion (Forecast, Flower Gift, Zen Mode, Illusion, Imposter, Transform, Relic Song)

Now onto more detail. What exactly would play in this format be like? Obviously the hidden moveslots are of high importance, and will be what a lot of mindgames will be centered on! Let's just consider a proof-of-concept set here:

'Talonflame'

Braviary @ Leftovers
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 HP \ 252+ Atk \ 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Bulk Up
- Roost
- Superpower

The visible moves indicate a wallbreaking Talonflame set, so theoretically the opponent would be inclined to bring in a Rock-type which you'll proceed to smack with Superpower. However the opponent, after using /dexsearch on the moves shown, is likely to be alert of the possibility. On the other hand they can't afford to completely rule out the possibility that this really a Talonflame after all.
Again, 'tis but a silly example of how the many possibilities for mindgames in this OM could unfold.

Other general trends that we just might see:

- Reduced viability in Pokemon with announced abilities (Tyranitar? Kyurem-Black?) since it would be much easier to figure these out. Might not be a huge reduction though.
- Pokemon that can successfully run sets with two very generic moves (e.g. Toxic + Protect, Sub + Protect) and two other moves that set them apart.
- Since in general you don't know what your opponents are, you would probably be better off playing proactively.

Noticeably, the changes enforced by this metagame are mostly cosmetic! Almost all standard rules apply, which means many staple playstyles and strategies that we all know and love from OU could probably still be carried out to some effect. The real challenge is in hiding, bluffing, scouting and just messing with mindgames in general.

With that said, why not just hop on to origin.psim.us and try it out ! We are still in development so be sure to post or PM about any issues\bugs. Otherwise, have a lot of dexsearch spamming counterintuitive fun!

How it looks on PS

 

[Srn]

Welp this ended up slightly different from what i first anticipated but this is still pretty cool.
Just for reference, i wanna dump what I was first thinking of here:

OG idea

Basic premise is that This OM makes it nearly impossible to scout your opponent.

We've been quite spoiled with team preview and all the details and shit we get from the game, so what happens when we put a cover on all of that?

SO
The basic idea of this Other metagame is that the only thing you see of your opponents pokemon is their team preview AND NOTHING ELSE.

all you have to work off of is how much your opponents hp bar goes down.
Of course, you can see your own moves and their own effects, but not the opponent's
Specific rules:

1. You can see hazards placed, both yours and opponents. You can also see toxic spikes getting removed.
2. You cannot see your opponents moves (only if the attack or not), and if they attack you will not know if its super/not very effective.
3. You can see your own moves, their own effects, but again not the type effectiveness.
4. You can see status moves, on both opponent and yourself.
5. You can see other misc conditions (attract, confusion, etc) on both opponent and yourself.
6. You cannot see opponent's substitute (but it's pretty obvious with -25% hp)
7. You cannot observe the effects of camoflauge, conversion, conversion 2, or reflect type. (Makes for some pretty sweet stealth scouting)
8. You can observe who moves faster.
9. You cannot observe opponent switches, only your own. (you'll see the hp bar change if applicable though)
10. You cannot see opponent stat boosts, but you can see your own.
11. You can see the effects of items which manipulate hp (you can observe life orb, leftovers, etc) on both sides.
12. Critical hits, choice items, life orb, stab bonus, abilities, and anything else manipulating basic damage stays unaffected.
13. Still only 1 mega per team.
14. You will observe status/hazards being bounced back if any pokemon has magic bounce.
15. Abilities which are publicly displayed in text (unnerve, mold breaker) are still shown.
16. Mega evolution is hidden. You will not be able to observe when your opponent mega evolves.
17. All usual clauses and singles format will be used.
18. You can see the item you steal/trade/eliminate with thief or covet/trick or switcheroo/knock off.
19. You will be able to see Rocky Helmet damage, and will be notified that your opponent has rocky helmet.
20. Trick Room/Gravity/Weather/Other conditions are shown, no matter who uses it.

BANS/UNBANS
Transform+imposter ditto is banned (easy scouting), greninja+gensect+aegislash unbanned.
(greninja relies on super effective hits, if it can't do that then its kinda useless. Same logic for genesect)
(aegislash is a dead giveaway with KS (and useless without it), making scouting drastically easier)
stuff like mega mawile, mega kang, mega gar, mega lucario, mega mence, mega chicken have too much raw power to be unbanned.

BASIC BREAKDOWN
early game should just be throwing around attacks to make changes in hp bars to see differences later in the game to keep track of. getting hazards up is also very wise.
Mid-late game should involve a ton of phazing to prevent possible stat boosts into sweeping. Fast taunts also help prevent this. Keeping your pokemon hidden by keeping stuff at full health is smart.
Late game could involve getting a boost and using sweepers with consistent stabs to clean up.

Metagame trend predictions
I predict a lot of phazing+bulky hard hitters like specs slowbro or CB tyranitar are gonna be popular to take damage and deal damage. Strong hits in general are gonna decimate frail stuff so defenses are going to be very important. Hyper offense will be nonexistent almost as you rely on coverage to do damage.

Good attacking types like rock, ground, ice, flying, dark, ghost, and fairy are going to be very common to deal consistent damage. Steels are going to be much more popular to take damage well.
Ex. one possible strategy for offense would be to center a team around gravity+ground spam, practically the only thing you have to worry about is grasses.

since you cannot observe switches directly or stat boosts, baton pass will be incredibly prevalent, making taunt and roar all the more important.
Another cool strat could be to have one of your pokemon at half hp and then belly drum with another; your opponent may think its a switch but you're actually just setting up :O

Abilities like frisk and anticipation are going to be very useful. Moves like copycat and mimic are going to have a real use. Knock off and trick are going to be extremely nice in scouting. Abilities like defiant/competitive and ghost stuff is gonna be nice to spinblock/defog punish because hazards are a veyr important part of scouting. Reflect type is gonna be huge, starmie should be pretty top tier.
Rough skin and iron barbs are actually drawbacks as they easily make you identified as garchomp/ferro.

PHYSICAL CHANGES requiring coding changes:
All opponent sprites will need to be question marks (missingno sprites) after team preview.
the only text regarding opponent will be "Opponent attacks!" or "Opponent does something!"
You will not be able to hold your mouse over sprites and have basic knowledge be displayed.
Nothing changes with hp bar

ADVICE:
bring a fucking notebook. seriously.

Credits to Frostsama and jim995 for helping with me to implement this idea :]

One potential strategy i can really see unfolding with the new idea are running double coverage moves. Something like Close Combat+Eq mega pinsir, or eq+hp fire latios, hp flying+icy wind specs keldeo, etc. The idea is to find pokemon that usually only run one specific coverage move and deliberately hide the other in order to bluff only carrying one of them.
I think that's really gonna be the central idea behind bluffing in the new and improved tier.

Since guessing pokemon is going to be relatively easy from the moveslots, mons like imposter ditto and moves like transform/reflect type become rather useless where they would've been top utility moves in the OG blindmons, the emphasis is on specific moveslots, so scouting is just really gonna be key.

Might as well change the OM name to Bluffmons ;]

 

[qtrx]

I just tried it for a bit with friends and seems like it's still quite predictable what your opponent will do with 3 moves listed. What do you guys think about showing two moves instead? Need more testing :P

 

[Jajoken]

I just tried it for a bit with friends and seems like it's still quite predictable what your opponent will do with 3 moves listed. What do you guys think about showing two moves instead? Need more testing :P

I was thinking the same thing, but 2 moves might be a bit too unpredictable. SubCM mons could just run those two moves in their first slots and you could be dealing with Keldeo, Raikou and any number of other threats. Wish-tect is another combo that makes you virtually invisible. I'd like to see how the meta progresses before big changes start getting made.

Forewarn and Anticipation would be cool here, if they had any relevant users. Frisk is decent, though.

 

[dhelmise]

★qtrx: Pokémon 3's Altarianite is reacting to qtrx's Mega Bracelet!
★Rhythms: OH
★Rhythms: LOL
★Rhythms: still would have liked to seen mega 'unown' turn into a sigilyph
★Rhythms: :(
★qtrx: lol well
★qtrx: when Sigi is used and dies
★qtrx: that would happen
★Rhythms: no i mean
★Rhythms: sigilyph looks like mega unown
★Rhythms: so megas could look like sigilyph
★qtrx: lmao
★Rhythms: even though their items are revealed
★qtrx: that's funny
★Rhythms: it'd still be fun

was told to post this here

thoughts?

 

[MAMP]

this is a really cool concept, and im excited to give this a try! i think it would be better with 2 moves shown though, enough to give the opponent some idea of what your set is, but not enough to make it obvious what the mon is; i feel that with 3 moves shown it is too easy to tell what the pokemon will be.

 

[Chopin Alkaninoff]

Remember Wobbuffet before team preview? Now you can really say "OH NO IT'S WOBBUFFET!"

 

[qtrx]

Remember Wobbuffet before team preview? Now you can really say "OH NO IT'S WOBBUFFET!"

I feel like Shadow Tag might need the boot at some point, not because anything introduced in this meta, but simply because of no Team Preview. Remember how Wobb was Uber and we didn't even have fking Goth back then!

 

[Akumeoy]

I was thinking the same thing, but 2 moves might be a bit too unpredictable. SubCM mons could just run those two moves in their first slots and you could be dealing with Keldeo, Raikou and any number of other threats. Wish-tect is another combo that makes you virtually invisible. I'd like to see how the meta progresses before big changes start getting made.

Forewarn and Anticipation would be cool here, if they had any relevant users. Frisk is decent, though.

Two revealed slots sounds like a great number. I mean, the idea of the meta is that you're working with limited information, no? You'll get an idea of what kind of 'mon you're up against, but leaving the 'mon itself up for grabs.

also yeah get rid of shadow tag, it wasn't here for gen v but it seems like it would be complete cancer

 

[Esprite]

Excuse me, while I use Sitrus Berry Acrobatics-in-1st-slot-and-HJK-in-4th-slot Hawlucha.
Seriously, that would be such a mindfuck.

Edit: If you decide to make only two moves shown, I'd add Stone Edge in the third slot.

 

[qtrx]

We decided to quickban Shadow Tag since it's obviously not competitive in this format. In other news, I'm trying to get this hosted on Aqua so we can gather more people to play!

 

[qtrx]

Update: we're on Aqua now and I've changed the moves shown to two, having taken some feedback and done some testing myself! This is temporary and might be reversed though, and I'd definitely appreciate feedback from testing :)

 

[Jimmy L]

This looks fun. I'll have to have a go later :)

 

[Ramplestilskin]

Update: we're on Aqua now and I've changed the moves shown to two, having taken some feedback and done some testing myself! This is temporary and might be reversed though, and I'd definitely appreciate feedback from testing :)

Does that mean it's not playable on joimslab anymore ? I tried and when my opponent challenged me, nothing happened (it didn't asked me to accept or refuse).

Also I tried on the Aqua server but each time a battle started, it said "The battle crashed" so we were not able to play.

 

[qtrx]

Does that mean it's not playable on joimslab anymore ? I tried and when my opponent challenged me, nothing happened (it didn't asked me to accept or refuse).

Also I tried on the Aqua server but each time a battle started, it said "The battle crashed" so we were not able to play.

It's still on Joim's lab but iirc that server's battles are dead atm. On Aqua I'm working with Snaquaza to fix it asap!

EDIT: We're up and running n_n

 

[qtrx]

So after playtesting with a bunch of people it's obvious that Protect is even better than I expected it to be. Apart from the standard Protect-running mons (like Ferro) you could also hide Protect on many defensive mons and scout your opponent's hidden coverage moves. Stall is looking very good...
But I guess Protect-spamming can be punished in this meta too. Any ideas? thoughts? theorymon?

 

[Akumeoy]

So after playtesting with a bunch of people it's obvious that Protect is even better than I expected it to be. Apart from the standard Protect-running mons (like Ferro) you could also hide Protect on many defensive mons and scout your opponent's hidden coverage moves. Stall is looking very good...
But I guess Protect-spamming can be punished in this meta too. Any ideas? thoughts? theorymon?

Once something reveals Protect (and if you can get some damage onto it to keep it distinguishable), you can punish it by setting up on it much like you would in standard. This is even better if you've not revealed yourself as something that commonly runs a setup move.

 

[Yayz]

A lot of this meta is mind games by bluffing sets of other mons, but at some point you could pull a reverse bluff by just using the standard set. For example:

Krookodile could pack DD + EQ (i think he gets DD, otherwise I'm an idiot. But you get the idea) with intimidate pretending to be Gyarados. Should something like this be common, you could just run standard Gyarados.

These mind games are worse than rotation battles.

 

[qtrx]

A lot of this meta is mind games by bluffing sets of other mons, but at some point you could pull a reverse bluff by just using the standard set. For example:

Krookodile could pack DD + EQ (i think he gets DD, otherwise I'm an idiot. But you get the idea) with intimidate pretending to be Gyarados. Should something like this be common, you could just run standard Gyarados.

These mind games are worse than rotation battles.

Well unfortunately Krook doesn't learn EQ, but I see what you're saying there. Until we get some established patterns going in the metagame I'd say maybe it's still too soon to assume this will happen on a regular basis. But yeah, mindgames! I haven't really tried Rotation Battles but mindgames is what I wanted everything to be about

EDIT ugggh I mean it doesn't learn DD. :(

 

[InfernapeTropius11]

Imo bring a Pokemon with Sucker Punch and Pursuit in the first two slots for ultimate mindgames o3o

 

[Akumeoy]

Well unfortunately Krook doesn't learn EQ, but I see what you're saying there. Until we get some established patterns going in the metagame I'd say maybe it's still too soon to assume this will happen on a regular basis. But yeah, mindgames! I haven't really tried Rotation Battles but mindgames is what I wanted everything to be about

Krookodile actually does learn Earthquake.

Imo bring a Pokemon with Sucker Punch and Pursuit in the first two slots for ultimate mindgames o3o

Spiritomb + Bisharp looks like an infuriating core to play against on that front.

 

[InfernapeTropius11]

Krookodile does learn EQ, but it doesn't get DD
I've only been able to play one battle of this tier so far (against Snaquaza who forcewinned himself like a nerd just before I was about to beat him <.<) but it was really fun! It is a nice refresher from team preview that really gets your brain going, and makes predictions harder, but at the same time you know you're giving your opponent headaches too. It's one of the most fun OMs I've played for sure, and OMs like this one are the reason I love Other Metagames :)

 

[SCF]

This is a very interesting idea. I may have to try to battle with this sometime. I have a feeling that most people will make their first two moves very general attacks though...

 

[Esprite]

Are there any pokemon only dependent on two moves? That pokemon could be nicknamed "Enigma", as whatever it is, the opponent doesn't have a single clue what it could be.

 

[Phione]

Are there any pokemon only dependent on two moves? That pokemon could be nicknamed "Enigma", as whatever it is, the opponent doesn't have a single clue what it could be.

Honestly, Mega Lopunny could conceivably run this.