Little Cup needs some emergency bans

[ghh]

Wall of text crits you for 9001.

If any of you have been playing Little Cup recently, you'll realise that once you face 1700+ players, you will lose if you don't run at least two of the following pokemon on your team:

Mienfoo
Murkrow
Misdreavus

The triple M's, the pokes who will increase your player rating no matter how well synergised your team is. Need some revenge killing? Ditch your scarfer and scarf those three. Need some bulky attackers? You better run those M's bro. Spread some statuses? Well now, Murkrow has a handy thing called Prankster and T-Wave and Misdreavus has Skill'O'Wisp. You get the picture.

It's reached the point of ban-worthiness, also known as Over-Centralization. It gets worse with the fact that these 3 synergise so well, and pokes like Chinchou patch up electric and flying weakness, and you end up seeing them all the time too.

I can't seem to find a reason why these guys are still around, it's breaking the tier. There's no point running anything else, because the three M's ARE the metagame. Bring some variety, PLEASE. I'm tired of my team getting run over by these 3 dudes.

Of course, some people can build teams to handle these threats, should they foolishly choose not to run them in their own team. But then we come to the issue, where you have no choice but to run a specific team to handle these guys, leaving little to no room for diversity.

I'm not as experienced as many Little Cup players out there, but I've played enough games to see that these M's are too good for Little Cup. I hope you guys can agree with me, and get some Suspect Testing going to bring a breath of fresh air to this once lovely metagame. Thank you if you read this far.

P.S. Drillbur + Sandstorm is also kinda over-centralizing, but I don't see it as often, maybe it needs a look too, but I'm not sure.

 

[Professor Birch]

Wall of text crits you for 9001.

If any of you have been playing Little Cup recently, you'll realise that once you face 1700+ players, you will lose if you don't run at least two of the following pokemon on your team:

Mienfoo
Murkrow
Misdreavus

The triple M's, the pokes who will increase your player rating no matter how well synergised your team is. Need some revenge killing? Ditch your scarfer and scarf those three. Need some bulky attackers? You better run those M's bro. Spread some statuses? Well now, Murkrow has a handy thing called Prankster and T-Wave and Misdreavus has Skill'O'Wisp. You get the picture.

It's reached the point of ban-worthiness, also known as Over-Centralization. It gets worse with the fact that these 3 synergise so well, and pokes like Chinchou patch up electric and flying weakness, and you end up seeing them all the time too.

I can't seem to find a reason why these guys are still around, it's breaking the tier. There's no point running anything else, because the three M's ARE the metagame. Bring some variety, PLEASE. I'm tired of my team getting run over by these 3 dudes.

Of course, some people can build teams to handle these threats, should they foolishly choose not to run them in their own team. But then we come to the issue, where you have no choice but to run a specific team to handle these guys, leaving little to no room for diversity.

I'm not as experienced as many Little Cup players out there, but I've played enough games to see that these M's are too good for Little Cup. I hope you guys can agree with me, and get some Suspect Testing going to bring a breath of fresh air to this once lovely metagame. Thank you if you read this far.

P.S. Drillbur + Sandstorm is also kinda over-centralizing, but I don't see it as often, maybe it needs a look too, but I'm not sure.

Im sorry but I do not agree with you. What you are saying is lets ban these three just because they are good. I have not been having trouble with them although they are on just about every team. Yes they are good and used way to much but they are defeatable. This is like Scizor in OU. Just because it is good and used and every other team I see, that does not mean it should be banned from OU. You also said your tired of getting run over by them. You just need to fix your team because they are so common. Others may agree with you but I just do not see a ban fitting for them.

 

[Shouting]

I agree with you in that those three are used way too much nowadays. Not really agreeing with you on the banning part though.

What I think the problem is that a lot of LC players I've encountered are well....lazy. LC is probably the only tier out there where you can essentially put the top 6 in usage on a team and do pretty well in the ladder. This prevents players from exploring and developing new sets with some overlooked pokemon because they can just use the standard, predictable sets. This is really the problem and it's why I feel that LC has been so stale over the past few months. It's my favorite metagame by far, but I admit it's a little boring.

However, it's possible to not use those big 3 and get far on the ladder. I've done it myself, using really unpopluar but not necessarily bad pokemon such as Aron, Grimer, Lickitung, Vullaby, etc. and peaked really high. When people notice I'm not using these pokemon they are quite surprised, and I ask them why are they were using the standard and the norm sets, they often say they are either relatively new to the tier (which I understand, we all need to start somewhere) or they told me that they had their team for so long they don't feel like changing it.

A big problem is that people jump to conclusions about pokemon that are incredibly similar to the top pokemon and therefore think they are outclassed. For example, the large majority of LC players think Gastly is utterly useless because Missy is here, completely overlooking it's much higher special attack and second STAB move, and access to niche moves like Hypnosis. Again, people aren't using Grass types that are perfectly fine and not bad at all like Turtwig (who actually has an offensive movepool) and Chikorita (even Shroomish I guess) when Foongus and Lileep exist, and people think that those two are really the only grass types you can use in LC when that is just flat out wrong. It's just everyone being lazy and unwilling to try new things.

Instead of banning these pokemon like you said, I think LC needs some sort of project to spur more creativity - maybe even so far as to create some sort of suspect-like ladder in which these pokemon are removed and see what the metagame would be like.

 

[default NNC]

@ghh, Yes, I agree those three are really overused, but just run a couple counters for them and you should be fine. Dunno, maybe they could be suspected? Or else, you could try LC UU out.

@Shouting, yeah, some uncommon stuff can be used pretty well, like Zubat, Grimer etc. I seem to see Vullaby quite a bit though, and Gastly aren't too uncommon.

 

[Electrolyte]

Yeah, Shouting's team is the perfect example of a well made team without the use of Murkrow, Misdreavus, or Mienfoo.

The problem doesn't lie in Murkrow / Missy / Mienfoo; it lies in the structure of the LC metagame in general. Sure, ban those three, but then I'm sure 3 new 'top mons' will step up and make the tier overcentralized again. This will just keep happening in LC- because the range of strength and viability is much greater throughout the LC tier than in other tiers, resulting in the high usage of a few select pokemon that just have it better than those that are not as powerful. I like to think of LC as basically just all of the other usage based tiers- NU, RU, UU, OU etc- just without that tiering. We're mixing the OU LC pokemon with the NU LC pokemon- of course there's going to be widespread overcentralization. For this reason, I do not think overcentralization is as much of a big deal in LC than it is in tiers like OU.

Also, Murkrow / Missy / Foo aren't really broken like many other LC pokemon were in the past (ie Gligar, Scyther) They have quite a few common checks and counters, and they also check each other as well. They are major forces, but they don't require the use of specific pokemon to counter.

I say, keep them in LC.

 

[Professor Birch]

After playing some more LC today, I have an idea. What about we take certain pokemon and call them LC "Ubers" so to speak. These are the pokemon that are starting to be broken in LC but could not survive in NU. Then, you are only allowed to have 1 on of these LC "Ubers" on a team. Not only will this limit the spamming of the good pokemon, it will give others a chance to shine. Opinions on this anyone?

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I agree with the majority of other replies to this. The "three M's" are all very good and overused, but that doesn't mean that they are broken.

Murkrow was suspect tested by the LC council recently, and it wasn't banned. The entire council is very knowledgeable about the LC metagame, and would have banned it if it were truly broken.

Mienfoo is great, but players tend to forget about the plethora of other completely viable Fighting types. I've had great success with Timburr, Croagunk, and Scraggy. They all can play a part if players would use them.

Missy is amazing, but like the others it has competition. Players just don't realize it. As Shouting said, Gastly works very well in the tier, people just don't think it does.

According to my understanding, something is "broken" when it forces extremely specific counters onto every team in order to deal with it. Murkrow/ Missy/ Mienfoo don'y do that. Keep them in LC

After playing some more LC today, I have an idea. What about we take certain pokemon and call them LC "Ubers" so to speak. These are the pokemon that are starting to be broken in LC but could not survive in NU. Then, you are only allowed to have 1 on of these LC "Ubers" on a team. Not only will this limit the spamming of the good pokemon, it will give others a chance to shine. Opinions on this anyone?

LC Ubers technically already exists. Like standard Ubers, it consists of 'mons than were banned. Some of these are Sneasel, Carvanha, and Vulpix.

 

[Electrolyte]

the main problem with this is that we're creating whole new tiers and splitting the already least played tier into even more tiers. I do not think overcentralization is as big of a problem to create the need of new LC tiers.

 

[Good_Luck!]

also known as Over-Centralization

something is "broken" when it forces extremely specific counters onto every team in order to deal with it. Murkrow/ Missy/ Mienfoo don'y do that.

You can run every pokemon you want, people just like to use these three. Like Shouting said, it's all matter of inforce diversity, I haven't run a Mienfoo since BW1, I some times run Misdreavus and I have never used Murkrow, yet I'm able to win matches just by experiencing with some forgotten gems like Shellder, Pawniard, Stunky and even Bulbasaur.

Most new players slap those three on their teams and expect them to win matches everyday. If you prepare your team well you'll find that none of them are threats; it's just matter of getting used to these ladder.

These are the pokemon that are starting to be broken in LC but could not survive in NU. Then, you are only allowed to have 1 on of these LC "Ubers" on a team.

You mean like just allowing one of any of the three? This is just a difficult clause and I don't see the point. I'm not the best player but those three are easily destroyed just knowing the moves they are running. I even used Nosepass as a Murkrow counter and it was very good. Experiment a little bit more and you'll find a lot of viable playstyles and Pokemon. Some of them are good, some of them aren't.

 

[blarajan]

This thread isn't saying open.

edit: it's not staying open, either