[Heysup]

I'm not sure where the other Murkrow thread is, I guess I haven't really searched for it but I have probably 30 posts of reasoning why Murkrow is actually broken.

I kind of laugh every time I see an Eviolite Murkrow. Hippopotas can't even reliably take 2 Life Orb Brave Birds, while it lolstalls Eviolite that tickles. Lileep only takes 43% from non Life Orb variants.

I can almost assure you most people who don't see Eviolite as an equal option as Life Orb will agree that you simply can't safely deal with it. You seriously just spam Brave Bird because everything faster is KOed besides like Magnemite and basically everything slower is 2HKOed by Brave Bird + Return/Heat Wave. If you're relying on Murkrow to counter something, you're simply and factually under utilizing it.

Similar to Gligar, the less effective niche sets (that are still good, obviously) mostly just serve as a huge versatility factor when dealing with Murkrow, for example "oh shit I don't want to let it get a Substitute / Calm Mind / Feather Dance / Roost /etc on me I better attack etc".

To people that say "Life Orb just KOes itself".....I mean I don't need to say much that's an absolutely atrocious argument. But I'll use it at least as a starting point for this specific argument. The major (and obvious, at least to me) flaw with this argument is that it implies incorrectly that something that KOes itself is not possibly broken. Sorry, but then I'll use Pokemon X that KOes itself after KOing 6 of your Pokemon because by that logic my Pokemon X is not broken because it KOes itself. No, I'm sure you see how ridiculous that sounds. Murkrow is clearly not as good as Pokemon X that I made up, but the principle still stands. Just think about this one thing for a second. If Murkrow has done enough HP damage to itself to contribute substantially to KOing itself with Brave Bird, it has done three times that amount of damage to the opponent. What on earth can take a couple attacks from Murkrow? If Murkrow KOes itself from Stealth Rock and 2-3 Brave Birds, that means you've KOed at least two Pokemon with the possibility of 3. Keep in mind, you have access to moves like Heat Wave and Sucker Punch to only take 10% of your HP off and giving you more opportunities to use Brave Bird as your last attack. The fact that Murkrow can't feasibly KO more than 4 Pokemon with Brave Bird does not mean it's not broken. The fact that Murkrow tends to kill itself by doing that much damage only serves to strengthen Murkrow's case for being too good.

In one sentence, Murkrow is the only Pokemon who is fast enough, strong enough, and has a fitting enough move pool to simply run through teams with no set up.