Battle Center Discussion # 1 - Trick Room and Magic Room

[Synthesis]

Battle Center Discussion #1 - Trick Room and Magic Room

From here on out, the Battle Center will have a discussion thread for different aspects of the Metagame. Two related things will be posted every Wednesday, ranging from Pokemon, to moves, abilities, strategies and more. At the end of the week, the old thread will be unstickied, but people are still free to post in it, and a new one will take its place. If you have any suggestions for future discussion topics, post in the thread or PM a Battle Center Moderator.

This week's discussion topic is two non-damaging Psychic type moves: Trick Room and Magic Room.

Feel free to post your thoughts on the moves, whether you think they're viable in the current Metagame, what you think utilises them best, counters or anything related to the moves.​

 

[Takaki]

I'll just speak about OU as in generation five it is my current tier of preference.

Numerous teams have managed to hit the top one hundred abusing Trick Room, however this is arguable not that difficult and at the very top level of play it appears that Trick Room just can't stand up to the teams of top tournament level players. This is shown by there being very few Trick Room teams who have actually hit the number one spot. It is definitely viable, with Reunculus being an absolute staple for success.

The only viability Magic Room appears to have is in Trick and Iron Ball based strategies but this is just a gimmick that is outclassed at an above average level.

 

[Fabled]

I haven't really seen nor used any Trick Room teams, but I feel like they can be a good team very easily, but don't give enough to be a great team. Trick Room teams let all of the slower Pokemon with higher other stats to really take control, but TR teams are limited to these Pokemon usually. Not to mention the necessity to constantly reactivate TR, wasting that turn, and taking up a moveslot on one or more Pokemon.

Playing with TR and things like Curse is fun, though. :b

 

[Angad]

Trick Room is very anti-metagame, especially with the speed creep. I've not run it in a while as it doesn't get an item to boost its longevity like weather or screens, but I wouldn't be surprised if some were successful with it.

 

[Thundagere]

I actually find that whenever I get Trick Roomed, I just stall around for a while. The issue is that with walls like Foretress and Ferrothorn, it just doesn't last long enough to attempt a sweep.

 

[Affinity]

Trick Room isn't so bad, though like others have said, countering it with stalling isn't hard. Magic Room isn't terrible either, but one would likely find another move more useful than it.

 

[Synthesis]

TRoom has ruined some of my teams a few times. Switching into a stall Pokemon doesn't stop Reuniclus from stating up and then resetting TRoom. Not to mention with Psyshock it can handle special sponges like Blissey and Jellicent and a lot of stall Pokemon can't do much to it thanks to Magic Gaurd. Slowbro takes advantage of it and can reset it when needed. In TRoom a lot of otherwise bad Pokemon like Marowak, Rhyperior and Rampardos can really shine.

I've yet to encounter Magic Room but I see a lot of situations where it could be useful. Stopping lefties recovery, Toxic Orb from activating, choice item sweeps, etc. but no Pokemon comes to mind that should run this over other moves.

 

[Takaki]

Embargo outclasses Magic room in most cases for singles.

 

[Lord Clowncrete]

Nah, most Trick Room Pokemon fall flat against stall. You don't have enough power to muscle through walls like Blissey and Skarmory. On the other hand, Trick Room can devastate fast but frail teams.

One interesting trick room team I encountered was a team consisting of Ninetales, specs-Heatran spamming eruption, harvest exegutor, tr victini, foretress and dugtrio. The idea was to spam really powerful attacks with Heatran and victini while exeggutor and Victini kept tr up. I think the exegutor was holding Lum berry and could pretty much be free of status thanks to harvest.

 

[Iteru]

I tend to run slower teams with a stallish nature and I've never really found Trick Room a problem, especially when it means some of the team can outspeed to heal with their recovery moves.

Personally I think Trick Room should have an auto-inducer. The move itself having -7 (I think anyway) priority always seemed like a bit too much of a nerf in my opinion.

 

[Takaki]

It isn't nullified by other weathers so an auto inducer would be insanely powerful.

 

[Synthesis]

It would only be stopped by having a Pokemon with Trick Room on the opposing team. I guess that could work, but it does seem broken.

 

[Fabled]

I don't think an auto-inducer is necessary, most of the time if you're running TR then it's beneficial to you, so you should take the turn to set it up. However, an item that gives a bit of a longer duration would be nice, which let's you spend more time battling as opposed to setting up TR.

 

[Angad]

An interesting thing about a TR inducer is that every time it switches back in, it cancels the effect.