Issue #15 Released!

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Normally I just read them, be entertained and informed by them, and go on my merry way.
But this issue was spectacular, I can't help but congratulate the staff for making such a good issue.

So, good stuff, people.
 

Pocket

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Really liked the Jackal vs husk RBY match and Atticus vs Lady Bug DP battle! If husk was able to nail Chansey with Explosion it may have been a much down-to-the-wire game (husk's Chansey & Zapdos vs Jackal's Exeggutor & Tauros) but it was still intense! Can't believe husk left Tauros out (I guess having another defensive bomber makes up for it...). Chansey is such a crutch. It was great to see that standard Lum Ghost-busting Metagross in action! Yanmega sweep was great - Gyarados got haxed, but Atticus would've still won.
 

Chou Toshio

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The Psychic-type article doesn't seem complete. When I personally think of UU Psychic-types, I think Mew. Which happens to be ignored entirely from the article.

The other articles, though, I felt were pretty complete and interesting to read. Thanks to all that contributed!

Also, no featured UU Pokemon? ;_;
There will be one next issue :) (I'm writing it...)
 

Seven Deadly Sins

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The Psychic-type article doesn't seem complete. When I personally think of UU Psychic-types, I think Mew. Which happens to be ignored entirely from the article.
Well, there's a *lot* of Psychic-types in UU that are outstanding in some way or another, but I didn't want the UU section to be a damn mile long. Some unfortunate souls had to be left out, like Azelf, Mew, Uxie, Cresselia, Slowking, and a couple others. Bad luck of the draw, I suppose.
 
Awesome as always. Hopefully now that school's out, the next issue should come out earlier than this one did. I look forward to an article on the new HGSS-On tcg rotation.

But I have one grievance. Team Rocket 5/10 Evil? That's absurd. They killed a Pokemon. They killed it. Alone, that's worth an 8/10
 
Team Snagem/Cipher:

Evil Scale: 6/10
What?

Really? 6?

Cipher is
1:The only team to have been shown to use physical force on humans. In fact, XD strongly implies they killed two people (You don't get thrown overboard and not be found for 3 days while alive) and threatened to kill more (Justy surrenders because they threatened hostages). Team Rocket has the Marowak and none of their rivals have anything else.
2:Shadow Pokemon are made by serial abuse of Pokemon to turn them into emotionless killing machines.
3:Given we are grading leaders and evilness separately, Galatic doesn't deserve a 10, with its members being complete tools. Cyrus wants to destroy everything, but all the grunts are complete tools.
4: Aqua/Magma are doing their things for a misguided beleif on what is good. How do they rank so high? Cipher has its leaders AND grunts fully know what they are doing, and are doing it anyways, THAT is evil.



Also have to disagree with TR's rating for "success".
Team Rocket is graded 10 for success because they have two towns under their control. Cipher has Pyrite and The Under AND their leader controls Phenac. They make pretty good progress in taking over Mt. Battle in Colo . Cipher also comes back to do this AGAIN. Team Rocket has GSC TR stuff counted for them (two regions), while rating their pre-disbandment effectiveness and that's wrong.
 

Deck Knight

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What?

Really? 6?

Cipher is
1:The only team to have been shown to use physical force on humans. In fact, XD strongly implies they killed two people (You don't get thrown overboard and not be found for 3 days while alive) and threatened to kill more (Justy surrenders because they threatened hostages). Team Rocket has the Marowak and none of their rivals have anything else.
2:Shadow Pokemon are made by serial abuse of Pokemon to turn them into emotionless killing machines.
3:Given we are grading leaders and evilness separately, Galatic doesn't deserve a 10, with its members being complete tools. Cyrus wants to destroy everything, but all the grunts are complete tools.
4: Aqua/Magma are doing their things for a misguided beleif on what is good. How do they rank so high? Cipher has its leaders AND grunts fully know what they are doing, and are doing it anyways, THAT is evil.


Also have to disagree with TR's rating for "success".
Team Rocket is graded 10 for success because they have two towns under their control. Cipher has Pyrite and The Under AND their leader controls Phenac. They make pretty good progress in taking over Mt. Battle in Colo . Cipher also comes back to do this AGAIN. Team Rocket has GSC TR stuff counted for them (two regions), while rating their pre-disbandment effectiveness and that's wrong.
Insasmuch as Evil Scale is fairly arbitrary, it looks at the end goal of the organization, not the individual actions of the people in that organization. Of course Cyrus' grunts were morons: Their leader was an apathetic psycho trying to destroy reality! The opinion of grunts doesn't matter because they aren't the ones deciding the goal to be achieved. That's why they are grunts.

Cipher had one of the highest successfulness ratings and only lost out because of decentralization. I sincerely doubt Greevil was "The Man Behind The Man" for Evice so much as they were both very high up Cipher's ladder. Gonzap is a clown but for much of the game he was seen as the main villain. Turned out he was just a mook. Cipher's only common point is their methodology, and yeah, changing the hearts of Pokemon is pretty evil in general. It's not as evil as changing the planet's climate (which could cause impossibly high collateral damage if successful, much more than killing a few people) or destroying reality. Ghetsis is inbetween climate alteration and total reality failure because his action fundamentally changes the entire interaction structure of the planet while simultaneously implementing a fanatical totalitarianism. Ghetsis' own mania is also a proving point that he does not care about human life and sees his own power as an ultimate end.

Going back to Team Rocket, clearly the Mahogany Base was not makeshift, and the Rockets had grunts *everywhere* in Kanto. You first encounter them in Mt. Moon, then Cerulean City, they have a base in Celadon, they own Saffron City, and their leader is a Gym Leader. You can't get more of a region lockdown than that, and what's key here is that they operate covertly AND overtly. Then there were the operations in the Sevii Islands, and of course the Anime strongly implies the Rockets are not just a regional nuisance.
 
some nice articles, unfortunately very short though.

but resttalk palkia? sucks, definitely not its "best" set, not even a good set
 
Liking this so far, with a few complaints about Team Plasma (and a few minor ones about Team Galactic) in Deck's article:

TP:
Evil Scale: 9/10
Leadership: 10/10 Disagreed. While Ghetsis is probably Pokemon's most magnificent bastard ever, N was far less competent (although an interesting villain), despite being Ghetsis's primary tool and the apparent boss. Ghetsis's dialogue at the Plasma castle also indicates hubris was a secondary motive to letting you fight N, something that probably doomed him. While Ghetsis remains a mostly 10/10 villain, as a whole Team Plasma doesn't exactly deserve 10/10 leadership. Definitely 9/10, though.
Successfulness: 3/10 DISAGREED. Again, the Team Plasma Castle. Why can you access your PC box there? They've just hacked the system, and can FORCIBLY steal your mons now. It's only N and Ghetsis that are stopping them, NPC dialogue be damned. Team Plasma certainly came fairly close to achieving their goals, far closer than Team Galatic ever did in Diamond and Pearl (although Platinum is up for debate), and it was only N's desire to fulfill the prophecy and Ghetsis's hubris and desire to placate N that stopped them from doing that. They deserve at least a 5/10, if not a 6/10.

TG:
Evil Scale: 10/10
Leadership: 3/10 Disagreed. Cyrus might have been incompetent, but he WAS creepy. I'd give them a 4/10, but I wouldn't mind them maintaining 3 status for Diamond/Pearl.

In Platinum, however, Team Galactic got a bit of a makeover. Cyrus was smarter, smart enough to use two red chains to thwart Uxie/Mesprit/Azelf. His personality was also expanded in the Distortion World slightly, giving him a somewhat colder aura. In Platinum, Team Galactic deserves more than a 3. Not more than a 6/10-Cyrus's enhanced competence was the only redeeming factor Team Galactic got besides Platinum's expanded dex-but at least a 4 or 5/10.
Successfulness: 3/10 Partial disagreement. While in Diamond and Pearl this is true, in Platinum Cyrus was competent enough to try using a second chain and a second dragon to thwart the legendary pixies. Giratina was the only stop-outside of that deux-ex-machina, Team Galactic came a LOT closer to reaching their goals this time around. Again, they aren't exactly paragons of competence, but they were definitely more threatening in Platinum. They deserve a 5/10 in Platinum.

Otherwise, great magazine and great article (though I REALLY like Ferrothorn...as Chou Toshio said, Ferrothorn is incredibly badass...also, Power Whip.)

EDIT: Also, I am disappointed that Chou did not go into the origins of Zigzagoon.
 

Chou Toshio

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not really

at most team rocket's leader funded the research -- the team as a whole had nothing to do with his creation
Funded, same thing really. If, as an organization, you funded the project, your people made it, and you utilized it (however briefly), you made it.
 

shrang

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The Psychic-type article doesn't seem complete. When I personally think of UU Psychic-types, I think Mew. Which happens to be ignored entirely from the article.

The other articles, though, I felt were pretty complete and interesting to read. Thanks to all that contributed!

Also, no featured UU Pokemon? ;_;
Yeah, it was a good issue, but that article really stuck out like a sore thumb to me. I don't know how you can talk about Psychic-types if you don't talk about the Lati twins (Kind of weird that Latios got a picture and its only mention was on how good Jirachi and Bronzong were), Starmie and Deoxys-S. Instead of a whole paragraph to Reuniclus and Sigilyph (come on, Sigilyph?), it may have been better to just mention the other, more potent Psychic-types in the tier.

I could talk about UU too, but like SDS said, there are just TOO many good Psychics in UU. May have been better to at least mention them, though.
 

Seven Deadly Sins

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I only mentioned Reuniclus and Sigilyph because they're the "new" Generation 5 Psychics. For the most part, we know what the Latis and Starmie do.

At least, that's my reasoning.
 

Pocket

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Loved Kinneas's commentary for Gurdurr, "It looks like an angry lesbian clown."
 
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