Vision B was created by Melten shortly after Perfect 35’s inception. It took inspiration from Vision A as well as pet mods such as Hoenn Gaiden as it aimed to emulate an old-gen feeling from back before staples such as Stealth Rock, Voltturn, and buffed Knock Off were introduced while still feeling fresh, interesting, and unique. To achieve this, three sets of changes were made. Firstly, the metagame is played in past generations, with B1 being in Gen 3 while B2 moved to Gen 5, partly due to player feedback and partly due to certain later mechanics not functioning properly in Gen 3 Custom Games. Both of these generations have important mechanics from Gen 9, including permanent weather and moves such as Knock Off, Rapid Spin, Defog, and Teleport being in their original, pre-buff state. However, moves, abilities, and items introduced in later generations are still legal, not just those that existed in those generations. Secondly, a small set of moves and abilities were banned, not for balance reasons but in order to cultivate a specific feel for the metagame. This list includes Stealth Rocks, Voltturn, Heavy-Duty Boots, and Choice Scarf. Finally, each of the 35 Pokemon in the metagame were given a few additions to their movepools or abilities. These could range from small buffs, such as Weezing gaining Body Press, to new tools that could completely change a Pokemon’s niche, like Empoleon and Articuno becoming weather setters of Sand and Hail respectively or Rapidash being given Regenerator and Rapid Spin to transform it from a fast attacker to a staple support Pokemon.
Early on in Vision B1’s lifespan, a lot of experimentation took place, with players trying all sorts of team structures from hyper offense to stall to Sun or Rain teams, weathers which had abusers but no permanent setters, unlike Sand or Hail which were the opposite. Early standouts included Persian-Alola, which used its already good support movepool on top of its new move Ceaseless Edge to be the premier spike setter in the early metagame; Charizard, whose new ability Dragon’s Maw gave it effectively perfect neutral coverage when paired with its pre-existing Fire STAB; and Scrafty, whose Dark-typing complemented its addition, Rapid Spin, making it a natural fit as a spinner while its good bulk and tools such as Dragon Tail made it useful outside of the hazard metagame as well. As time progressed, however, the metagame began to take form into one centered around the unique traits of the format as well as the most generally strong Pokemon.

Firstly, the lack of Voltturn meant that flimsier Pokemon had a hard time hitting the field. Even though Raichu-A, for example, had a very good matchup into many of the most common metagame staples, its inability to reliably come in with the relative lack of pivoting meant that it was largely overlooked. The metagame largely trended towards bulk, with even the fast late-game attackers being naturally bulky, like Nihilego, or carrying healing moves, like Noivern.

Secondly, with no Choice Scarf, speed tiers were much more defined and naturally fast pokemon were less likely to find themselves outsped. This was a small buff to naturally fast Pokemon, especially since priority was lacking in the meta. Perhaps more important, however, was the impact it had on speed-boosters. Only 190 speed at +2 or 254 at +1 was required to ensure you wouldn’t be outsped by any unboosted Pokemon, which was very beneficial to otherwise slow Pokemon that could hit those numbers, including Empoleon or Donphan.

Finally, just like in Gen 3 OU, the metagame used the One Boost Passer Clause. Thus, stat-passing was legal, albeit in a limited form. Only one Pokemon on a team could be able to pass stat boosts, and it could only have one way off boosting its stats. This combined with the previous point to make speed passers like Rapidash or Farigiraf a staple of the meta. Additionally, substitutes could be passed on top of the stats, making Rapidash, who could potentially pass a substitute and gain HP out of it thanks to Regenerator, an amazing enabler of powerful attackers. The most notable beneficiary was Bouffalant, a normally slow attacker that used the buffs it got from its teammates’ Baton Passes on top of its immense power due to the combination of Guts (its addition) and Facade to power through almost anything at the price of significant chip damage from burn and often weather every turn.

The previous observations were specific to Vision B1, as B2 had not come out yet at the time of writing. Vision B2 will likely be quite different from B1, as unlike Visions A and C, which work by slowly building on the previous edition, keeping what worked while replacing what didn’t, the generational shift lead tot B2 starting from scratch, as the introduction of the physical-special split is significant enough to upend the balance of the previous metagame. Additionally, there will be other differences made in response to the developments seen in B1. An emphasis was placed on good priority options to combat the omnipresence of speed-boosting, for example, and Delta Stream was added to the list of weather setting abilities given out to let Weatherless teams be an archetype of their own that can properly interact with Sand or Hail.

Written by Melten

/challenge gen3customgame @@@ Z-Move Clause, -Mega, Terastal Clause, Sleep Clause Mod, Forme Clause, -Last Respects, -Stealth Rock, -U-Turn, -Volt Switch, -Flip Turn, -Teleport, -Choice Scarf, -Heavy-Duty Boots, -Defog, -Electric Terrain, -Psychic Terrain, -Misty Terrain, -Grassy Terrain, -Kings Rock, -Acupressure, -Quick Claw, -Razor Fang, -Moody, Evasion Clause, OHKO Clause, One Boost Passer Clause, -All Pokemon, +Unobtainable, +Past, -ND Uber, -ND AG, -ND OU, -ND UUBL, -ND UU, -ND RUBL, -ND RU, -ND NFE, -ND LC, +Empoleon, +Articuno-Base, +Electivire, +Rapidash-Base, +Klinklang, +Farigiraf, +Seismitoad, +Raichu-Alola, +Noivern, +Altaria-Base, +Claydol, +Armaldo, +Escavalier, +Uxie, +Glalie-Base, +Centiskorch, +Rotom-Base, +Decidueye-Base, +Spiritomb, +Charizard-Base, +Chesnaught, +Weezing-Base, +Wo-Chien, +Lickilicky, +Scrafty, +Seviper, +Bouffalant, +Nihilego, +Persian-Alola, +Probopass, +Donphan, +Vespiquen, +Meganium, +Hakamo-o, +Lapras