np: LC – Freebird

Aerrow · Mar 3rd, 2012, 2:41:08 PM

After the 7th member of the LC council has been chosen, I’m going to be scheduling ‘discussion sessions’ for the members of the council. Each session will last 2-4 Weeks and allow the council to possibly even vote on a ban or unban in the LC metagame; there will also be a period of 2-4 weeks between each session to allow the new metagame to settle. You may be wondering how these ‘topics’ will be decided upon: every 2-4 weeks, after talking about it with the rest of the council, I’ll be ‘installing’ a topic to discuss, and eventually, vote upon. Below is a step-by-step example of what I mean:

Discussion between the council occurs and the new topic is decided upon
Step 2 lasts 4 weeks (might be more, in some cases); the council playtests and discusses the topic
After the 4 weeks are up, the council votes
The process is repeated (there will probably be a 2-4 week delay before the next topic, though, to let the new metagame settle)

The LC council topic will be publicly posted, but the general LC community will not be allowed to spectate the discussions the LC council members have during the testing period. They will know the outcome of the discussions only when a decision is reached, after the votes have been tallied. If you guys have any questions regarding the scheduled council discussions, feel free to post in this thread.

Current LC Council

Round 1

Round 2

Original OP (For the 7th Council Member)

With one of the members of the LC council quitting, I’ve decided to open up applications again to fill the vacancy left by said user. This will likely be the only time applications for the LC council are open to the LC community for a long while as I intend to make the council permanent after the addition of one more individual; of course, the roster will change if a member becomes inactive, but that’s probably the only event which will cause a change in the council.

Anyone is allowed to send in an application but, obviously, only one of the applicants will be chosen to become a part of the council. You may be wondering how I intend to judge the applications that members of the Little Cup community send in; below is a list of the things I will be basing my judgment on (you’ll have a better chance of getting into the council if you meet the listed ‘requirements’, but even if you don’t, please don’t hesitate to send in an application).

Activity in #littlecup, the LC DST forum, and the LC C&C forum
Success/Activity on the LC ladder
Knowledge of the current LC metagame, as well as previous metagames
Willingness to dedicate time and effort into the council and its various aspects (such as playtesting, discussing ideas in a civil manner, etc)
References/Recommendation provided by LC Moderators, LC Council Members, or anyone well-known in the LC community

The items listed above are pretty straightforward – the only thing that may be confusing is the last point: when I mean ‘references’ I simply mean a few people who would vouch for you (also, please don’t ask me for a recommendation as I’ll be the one judging these applications and I really don’t want to instigate a ‘favoritism’ factor into determining the newest council member). Additionally, when asking someone for the recommendation, PM them, either on the forums or IRC – don’t publicly ask them in #littlecup or something of the sort!

I’ll leave the way you format your application to you; as long as it’s neatly done, and it includes all of your qualifications, I don’t care how you format it.

I will leave applications open for 1 week; this means that applications will be closed on Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 11:59 AM GMT-5. Be sure the PM me your applications before then!

Charmander · Mar 3rd, 2012, 2:45:09 PM

How do we get recommendations? Are people supposed to write them formally or just say "I recommend x"?

Aerrow · Mar 3rd, 2012, 2:47:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Charmander

How do we get recommendations? Are people supopsed to write them formally or just say "I recommend x"?

All you need to do is ask them on IRC or the forums; if they say "yes, I recommend you", then you simply put their name as a reference in your application.

***Vader**** · Mar 5th, 2012, 11:55:43 AM

preemptively saying that im not recommending anyone

prem · Mar 17th, 2012, 1:28:27 PM

hey guys i know you all wanna know who is the next council member, but until then, lets talk pokemon.

what have you guys been using and whats cool? and no i dont mean gligar missy scraggy. we all know how the common pokemon work, i mean the pokemon that arent used much. ive been using hella elekid lately and it kicks ass. 20 speed is great and wild charge was a cool boost making it not weak af. ice punch is really great for beating gligar

quickpassing is probably my favorite thing to do in this meta right now. mienfoo has so many options with swords dance, substitute, calm mind (+1 +1 +2 missy is great) while gligar is also really cool at passing sd and agilities. they both have such great synergy together also, which helps a lot in making it like a minichain. not many things can handle shit like +3 scraggy or +1 Staryu.

murkrow needs more love. i dont care if teambuilding is harder if you use it, its one of the best pokemon in the meta and deserves to be used more than it is now. mixkrow doesnt really need team support you just need to get it in the field and something WILL die. if you are balsy enough to use lo brave bird, literally nothing can live besides bronzor, who is gonna take massive damage from that and heat wave.

Ray Jay · Mar 17th, 2012, 4:47:42 PM

I've found Porygon is insanely good in this metagame. Having the ability to check all 3 of the 3 unbanned and plain counter most Murkrow and Misdreavus sets is incredible. If you Trace Prankster, they now have to start sidestepping just so that you don't get a KO. What's more, you can predict around common switch-ins such as Mienfoo by launching a Tri Attack (it hits harder than one might expect). The last slot can either go to Shadow Ball or Ice Beam, I've found if you have Bronzor on your team you can just use Shadow Ball and you've got yourself a mighty fine core. I think the highlight about Porygon is how it is a defensive Pokemon that punches holes in the opponent's team, very similar to Mienfoo; the difference being that there are very few Pokemon who resist / can take repeated hits from everything in its arsenal whereas the metagame is really tailored to handle Fighting-types.

**blarajan** · Mar 18th, 2012, 11:19:02 PM

I have to agree that Porygon is a monster in this metagame. There are quite a few gems that need to be seen used more often. Drifloon, Shellder, Elekid (agreeing with prem...), SubPass Mienfoo...there are a lot of things that are really fucking good that don't happen to be Gligar / Misdreavus / Murkrow. I've found that there's a lot of room to explore in this metagame, and that's something I really like about it. Plus there are a lot of possibilities with the more standard Pokemon, like SubPass Mienfoo. Zen Headbutt on Scraggy > Crunch needs some more love too, as it really puts the hurt on Mienfoo / Croagunk. And uhhh...pretty much, we don't need to stay standard...there's so much cool shit out there to use!

Also fuck Vader's avatar.

spuds4ever · Mar 19th, 2012, 4:30:58 AM

Adding on to what others have said, there are a lot of pokemon out there that have potential. I've been using magby quite a lot and he actually works really well as there is not a lot that survives two turns with this and if they try to bring in misdreavus, murkrow, or gligar in, they have to gamble to avoid the 2HKO from fire blast at best whereas murkrow, if he survives even one, is promptly met by a substitute if he attempts to sucker punch. He's really useful if you really need progress in a game using an offensive team with no set-up sweepers. Though he's frail, he's a monster if you give him the support.

Also, having looked around at some base stats on the site, I'm surprised that pokemon like buizel don't get more usage. High attack and very good speed, while being frail like magby, give him an eviolite with some special defense investment, bulk up, and aqua jet to top it off... Definetely something I want to try out. I think he'll be something with more utility than just baton pass.

Heysup · Mar 19th, 2012, 4:42:55 PM

My RU team sort of inspired me to look at Choice/LO Regenerator Pokemon, so I've actually built a team around LO Slowpoke and Mienfoo. If I can get another streak of perfect internet I'm going to test it out.

Not to change the topic from <not Gligar/Missy/Krow>, but I did manage to get on for a couple hours the other day, and all I have to say is that not much has changed. Every team has one of Gligar, Missy, or Murkrow. Almost every team has 2 of the 3. Lots of teams have all 3. It's the same metagame as before they were banned, I'm not sure how much I like having them around. I find them very limiting and it's kind of completely obvious that everyone else does too since everyone feels the need to use them.

prem · Mar 19th, 2012, 4:52:36 PM

Honestly buizel's best niche is baton passing. +1 aqua jet just isn't that strong and when you have 19 speed so you don't need aqua jet. Many of it's checks ( snover chinchou staryu) resist aqua jet. Also most choice scarfers resist aqua jet while missy has the bulk to take that anyway. With baton pass he can agility boosts to things like gligar or scraggy, which makes life so much easier.

Also lo Missy is great. Ive always hated Missy everytime I used it because it's just too goddamn weak. It doesn't hit hard enough and with bulk like gligar it doesnt really need eviolite. Honestly since the addition of gligar and co, eviolite just isn't as great because things hit too hard. Lo Missy at +2 gains so many ohkoa that it would otherwise miss. With sr it beats porygon (ya fuck vader and his now horrible avatar)

comatthew6 · Mar 19th, 2012, 5:26:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Heysup

Not to change the topic from <not Gligar/Missy/Krow>, but I did manage to get on for a couple hours the other day, and all I have to say is that not much has changed. Every team has one of Gligar, Missy, or Murkrow. Almost every team has 2 of the 3. Lots of teams have all 3. It's the same metagame as before they were banned, I'm not sure how much I like having them around. I find them very limiting and it's kind of completely obvious that everyone else does too since everyone feels the need to use them.

The reason why I believe that they are being used so often (well, Misdreavus and Gligar anyways) is because, quite simply, they are the best Pokemon for the job that they do. Misdreavus is, without a doubt, the best all-around Ghost-type Pokemon in the metagame, as it has much higher bulk than Gastly and much higher Speical Attack than Duskull or Frillish. Also, with access to Nasty Plot, Thunderbolt, Will-O-Wisp and Substitute (and Shadow Ball), it can pretty much do anything and really only fears Stunky (which it can beat sometimes, which is funny). This makes it so potent.

With Gligar, it's typing and stats are just SO GOOD that people can use them without much worry about team options because it is just so awesome by itself. It has incredible stats across the board and its movepool is so deep (Earthquake, Acrobatics, Aqua Tail, Stone Edge, Night Slash, Roost, Substitute, Toxic, Swords Dance, Agility, Baton Pass) that it can run any set that it wants and it will be viable. It really only loses to Bronzor and other Gligar (sometimes) but it is just an incredible Pokemon because of all of the things it can do and wreck.

Ray Jay · Mar 19th, 2012, 5:30:07 PM

I can attest that Life Orb is the way to go if you're using Nasty Plot on Misdreavus, due to the notable OHKOes on Porygon, Scraggy, and everything in between with some hazards. Also I've found Snover to be a complete boss because of how hard of a time things have switching in to it. For example, on a given team, Bronzor may be the only thing they have that can take two Choice Scarf Blizzards. This means I can repeatedly weaken Bronzor (especially since Bronzor can't OHKO me) and now something like AcroBat has a much easier time sweeping. What's more, Eviolite Snover is actually one of the best lures in the metagame w/ Substitute as nobody expects it. Same goes for Substitute Mienfoo, who can run Payback and HP Ice to KO its common switch-ins.

fatty · Mar 19th, 2012, 7:49:02 PM

my baby houndour is great in the current meta, as always. in the same vein as snover, teams simply don't often carry a good mon to tank fire blasts (none of the the big 3 can) and ones that can are either too slow that a following dark pulse will net the ko (slowpoke, frillish) or don't have to bulk to continually withstand a fb + sucker punch (scarf chinchou, etc.) you can even run a bulkier set to check missy better, as fire blast still hits pretty hard, but lo works wonders when trying to punch massive holes into teams.

Chieliee · Mar 20th, 2012, 2:14:24 AM

yep. agreeing that fatty (or it was someone else, idk) completely raped my team with houndour.

But i'd like to shine a light on omanyte. It's a great mon, that, out of all shell smashers, probably has the easiest time setting up. Just sac something to a scarfed Blizzard, get it in safely on a weakened Bronzor (for some reason they EQ and not toxic). If it has set up, there's not much stuff that beats it. Gligar, Mienfoo, Murkrow are all OHKO'd, and so is Misdreavus with a bit of prior damage. The only thing that really counters it is croagunk, but just run something like diglett or something and that problem is solved.

Also, has anyone tried Vullaby?

Good_Luck! · Mar 20th, 2012, 11:52:51 AM

Quote:

Also, has anyone tried Vullaby?

I have... A lot!

It's been great as a counter to Missy only fearing Thunderbolt and even that can't do much because of her high SpD; with Taunt she can check Bronzor and flinch it to death, but everyone is running HP Ice so she must Roost quite often. I have heard that Vullaby has subpar Stats and Murkrow outclasses her, but as a bulky attacker she can counter Mienfoo and the so common Croagunk; in the last Meta she could counter Scraggy but now it carries Ice Punch. Now that I think of it, she may be outclassed by Houndour as a Special Attacker checking the same threats except for the fighting types.

I agree with everyone saying that Porygon is very good, my team has been raped by it countless times. With Snover I'm not so sure, it's hard to keep rocks off the field because it helps so much the sweep.

I've found Switcheroo Ekans to be a great asset in my team as an annoyer; scarf a Mienfoo, then Paralyze him and you have him neutered. Scarf a Scraggy and you have him powerless and evioliteless. Scarf an Acrobat and you have him stuck in a halved acrobatics (I have done it a few times); Scarf a Bronzor and it's useless... every pokemon that relies on Eviolite for survability is wrecked by Switcheroo and/or Trick; the ability to weak down Fighting types with Intimidate and counter Croagunk firing off an earthquake is also great. Scarf Glare is just great as it can paralyze Gligar so speedy roosts won't be a problem. Sure, it's not THAT powerful threat but it can weaken a lot of pokes just by sitting there so a Sweeper has an easier time.

Aerrow · Mar 20th, 2012, 8:02:59 PM

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this post; you can blame the unexpected LoA I took last week and the fact that deciding on the seventh council member was an extremely difficult task as there were many users who were qualified for the position. However, after several long discussions with the LC moderators, I've decided to name iss as the newest member of the LC council. Like I said, this was an extremely difficult decision and it came down to minute factors, so please don't be upset if you didn't get picked. Additionally the following users will serve as alternates in the case that one of the current council members becomes inactive: prem, blarajan, and Charmander.

Now that the newest council member has been announced, I'd also like to to announce the first set of 'topics' the council will be discussing: the possibly banning of Misdreavus, Murkrow and Gligar, and the possible unbanning of Berry Juice and Meditite. I'll be deciding on and announcing a scheduled discussion date and time sometime in the near future. Feel free to discuss these topics in this thread, but be sure to back up whatever you say with statistics, battle logs, etc! And remember to keep it civil!

Ray Jay · Mar 20th, 2012, 9:49:43 PM

Meditite's discussion page is now open, and there are a few other ones open, including both Murkrow and Berry Juice. For the metagame as a whole, please continue to use this thread as the vehicle for discussion, regardless of whether or not you are on the Council. Your opinions are important in all cases.

Heysup · Mar 25th, 2012, 2:29:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat comatthew6

The reason why I believe that they are being used so often (well, Misdreavus and Gligar anyways) is because, quite simply, they are the best Pokemon for the job that they do. Misdreavus is, without a doubt, the best all-around Ghost-type Pokemon in the metagame, as it has much higher bulk than Gastly and much higher Speical Attack than Duskull or Frillish. Also, with access to Nasty Plot, Thunderbolt, Will-O-Wisp and Substitute (and Shadow Ball), it can pretty much do anything and really only fears Stunky (which it can beat sometimes, which is funny). This makes it so potent.

With Gligar, it's typing and stats are just SO GOOD that people can use them without much worry about team options because it is just so awesome by itself. It has incredible stats across the board and its movepool is so deep (Earthquake, Acrobatics, Aqua Tail, Stone Edge, Night Slash, Roost, Substitute, Toxic, Swords Dance, Agility, Baton Pass) that it can run any set that it wants and it will be viable. It really only loses to Bronzor and other Gligar (sometimes) but it is just an incredible Pokemon because of all of the things it can do and wreck.

I was more hinting at the possible line they may be crossing between "the best" and "broken". More so in the case of Missy / Murkrow.

Aerrow · Mar 26th, 2012, 6:33:32 PM

Since it seems like a lot of the discussion on several of the topics has came to a close (that was fast...), I'll be scheduling the vote for this 'round' on the 31st-1st (this coming weekend). However, before the vote, I'd really like to see some more discussion on the other suspects (Murkrow, Misdreavus, and Gligar); don't let Berry Juice and Meditite hog all of the attention!

Heysup · Mar 27th, 2012, 5:57:29 PM

Alright since I haven't really said much about Gligar and Missy I'll talk about them.

Misdreavus is the classic "best Pokemon of LC" but is it broken? Having amazing all-around stats and a great movepool make it essentially a jack of all trades. Gastly hits harder, no complaints about him. Frillish has better typing and a better movepool (notably Recover and Surf), not many complaints about Frillish. So why is Missy so good? Well, because it hits almost as hard as Gastly with bulkier stats than Frillish. The trouble with Missy has always been that it can fuck your shit up while you most definitely will have trouble doing the same thing back with almost every Pokemon in the tier. Stunky loses to some variants but when you basically only have one option for "countering" a bulky, fast, and hard hitting Pokemon, you know you're in trouble. Of course there are Pokemon that beat Missy but most can't do it reliably. So essentially, there is no one reason why Missy is "too good", there are too many to even deal with in a short-ish post. So I'll move on.

Gligar is a great Pokemon. Versatile, dangerous, bulky, fast, etc. Not broken. Why? Because he is very easy to stop with his one exploitable weakness. If AcroGligar gets in on the wrong Pokemon, you'll lose a Pokemon but the same thing happens with SO many others it's not even worth bringing up. Of course, not any of those Pokemon can do that while also being fast, bulky, able to set up, etc, but that doesn't automatically mean he's broken. It means he's good. Being a dangerous sweeper and a one-time wall breaker makes Gligar a top Pokemon but he's not exactly broken in my opinion, especially in this metagame with Missy and Murkrow to deal with (he has trouble with both of them).

prem · Mar 28th, 2012, 11:42:27 PM

misdreavus and murkrow are not broken. misdreaus might have great stats across the board, but it really doesnt hit that hard, has a lot of good checks, and a lot of things that can switch into it mostly because its low bp moves. murkrow is just a non-issue mostly because of the lack of usage.

gligar on the other hand is a broken piece of shit. its so bulky it doesnt really need eviolite, its still taking hits, and its moves have realy high base power.
nothing can reliably switch into gligar. you have bronzor who can switch into gligar 100% of the time. everything else is just a bad check. the best answer to gligar is a scarf pokemon with a super effective attack outside of gligar. the problem with this is that they cannot switch in. sure they can switch in on eq if they are a murkrow or something, butt overall nothing can take its stab combo that is really good. its also really good at forcing things to swtich out. if you play around with double dance gligar (hella boss) its really easily to see the switch in come in and just agility, now you are untouchable and you are still killing everything. shellder dies to acrobat. misreavus dies to acrobat. snover dies to acrobat, and ive had my gligar survive an ice shard and it dies. the point is that nothing is capable of switching into gligar and that just brings me to my next point
its practically unstoppable. the fact that it causes so many switches means it can almost always set up a move. its only counter is also quite possibly the easiest thing in the world to beat. go to magnemite, beat it and win. baton pass lets it go to scraggy, which literally beats everyone of gligars "counters" besides scarf krow no problem. baton pass is probably the biggest reason its broken, because it makes its counters practically non-sequitur.
gligar makes the game stale. i know this isnt actually a very good reason to ban it. but honestly gligar does that. because of how strong it is and its type coverage, a lot of mons such as larvesta, shroomish, and other things are very bad in this metagame, and there is something around 15 pokemon who are actually viable in this metagame. you can say its all three of the new pokemon, but im putting it on gligar because hes the thing that does the most in the metagame. misdreavus doesnt break anything, while murkrow is killing itself or not killing enough 90% of the time.

sorry i dont follow a linear thought process i just have a lot on my mind and im bad at typing it into proper english normally

Heysup · Mar 29th, 2012, 7:07:47 AM

Gligar can't have double dance and Baton Pass unless you're only using one attack...in fact Gligar's versatility is sort of nullified in the sense that it's almost always using 3 of the same moves regardless of what its EV spread / item / fourth move are, you can deal with it the same way.

Bronzor isn't the only way to deal with Gligar. A fair amount of Pokemon are not OHKOed by Acrobatics and once his flight gem is gone, there's utterly no reason why you can't just switch your bulky Water/etc into him. It's also not like people go out of there way to counter Gligar, because he's not going to sweep their team with just a Swords Dance. You could put Balloon on any Steal-type to counter him (especially with Magnet Rise). For example, Balloon Magnemite can come in, Magnet Rise, and now Gligar is officially useless, and chances are Gligar was your Magnemite switch-in too.

In Little Cup we've always dealt with Gligar the same way: HP Ice. It works way better than you'd think and it has its uses outside of Gligar.

spuds4ever · Mar 29th, 2012, 11:24:58 AM

I agree with some points, prem, but I don't think he's quite as invincible as you make out. While, I agree, he makes the game stale, which is I think the biggest reason he should be banned, I don't think he's broken as a pokemon in that respect.

As Heysup said, there are more ways than bronzor to beat gligar. Scarfed HP Ice/Ice beam are popular and generally quite consistent, but lose to agility, though Ice shard being a near auto-kill on gligar is nice and is useful to stop him running crazy. There are still more ways than just those to beat gligar, though, like air balloon magnemite (trickscarf drifloon anyone?), but people are too lazy to discover them as the previous options work well enough. I think it's still a little too early to make hefty judgements on gligar when there are still sure-fire ways of beating him, even if it does kill imagination a little.

prem · Mar 29th, 2012, 12:58:51 PM

The problem with random scarf mons is that they have to come in which means something probably died before hand with like no recoil to gligar itself. Givin gligar a scarf doesn't solve much either. Also ive used mite it's something like a 3hko on acrobat, and there are a lot of ways beAting nonscarf no evio magnemite. Bp gligar just goes to scraggy and then +3 scraggy wins

Ray Jay · Mar 29th, 2012, 2:31:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat spuds4ever

As Heysup said, there are more ways than bronzor to beat gligar. Scarfed HP Ice/Ice beam are popular and generally quite consistent, but lose to agility, though Ice shard being a near auto-kill on gligar is nice and is useful to stop him running crazy.

100 Atk Naive Snover (standard set since it 2HKOes Mienfoo with Blizzard) only has a 6.25% chance to take out Gligar with Ice Shard, even after Stealth Rock. Shellder can't do it, only does 86.96% max with maximum Attack, something I haven't seen in a long while.

Murkrow is easily outsped, Choice Scarf or not, after an Agility. Even if it opts for Sucker Punch:
252 Atk Murkrow Sucker Punch vs 0 HP/0 Def Gligar: 39.13% - 52.17%
2-3 hits to KO

Point being: Agility Gligar beats the Choice Scarf users, such as Shellder, Snover, Murkrow, and Chinchou, that think they can reliably beat it (even if they run Ice Shard.)

I can use Swords Dance in order to bypass Bronzor. As Bronzor comes in, I go ahead and get a Substitute up. If it's early game, the opponent might even set up Stealth Rock anticipating that I will switch out. I can easily set up a Swords Dance as they break the sub / set up SR and now I have no problem Baton Passing to Scraggy with +2 (and possibly, a Substitute).

Point being: Baton Pass Gligar allows the user's team to capitalize off of the opponent's team having Bronzor.

Bulky Water-types are a great switch-in to Gligar? I beg to differ. Let's look at some calcs of Gligar at +2, even after Flying Gem has been consumed.

Slowpoke:
252 +2 Atk Gligar Acrobatics vs 252 HP/252 Def Eviolite Slowpoke: 57.14% - 67.86% (can only switch in if Swords Dance has not been used)

Frillish:
252 +2 Atk Gligar Acrobatics vs 236 HP/196 Def Eviolite Frillish: 72% - 88%

Staryu, the only one that can Speed tie:
252 +2 Atk Gligar Acrobatics vs 36 HP/0 Def Eviolite Staryu: 110% - 135%
100% chance to OHKO
(and for good measure:)
252 Atk Gligar Acrobatics vs 36 HP/0 Def Eviolite Staryu: 60% - 75%

And although it's not a bulky Water-type, Porygon:
252 +2 Atk Gligar Acrobatics vs 196 HP/236 Def Eviolite Porygon: 64% - 76%
2 hits to KO

I hope you're sensing the pattern here: they're all easily 2HKOed after a Swords Dance. In other words, if Gligar you're relying solely on a bulky Water-type to counter Gligar and it gets up a Swords Dance, even if it's already consumed its Flying Gem, you have lost. Let's not forget Scraggy once again beats every single one of the above Pokemon

Point Being: Swords Dance Gligar can reliably take out bulky Pokemon if it gets even one opportunity in a game to Swords Dance.

We've now estabished that in order to adequately check just offensive variants of Gligar, one must run a Choice Scarf user with a super effective move, Bronzor, and a bulky Water-type / Pokemon with high Defense. That's half of your team, for those of you inept out there.

Mar 3rd, 2012, 2:45:09 PM	#2
Charmander Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 2,705 Great Falls, VA Mentor	How do we get recommendations? Are people supposed to write them formally or just say "I recommend x"? __________________ Last edited by Charmander; Mar 3rd, 2012 at 7:21:20 PM.

Mar 5th, 2012, 11:55:43 AM	#4
*Vader caustic Super Moderator** Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 2,263 avatar by magistrum	preemptively saying that im not recommending anyone __________________

Mar 17th, 2012, 1:28:27 PM	#5
prem failed abortion Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1,221 <@Sarenji> anyway i learned knitting pretty fast <@Sarenji> because im a woman Mentor	hey guys i know you all wanna know who is the next council member, but until then, lets talk pokemon. what have you guys been using and whats cool? and no i dont mean gligar missy scraggy. we all know how the common pokemon work, i mean the pokemon that arent used much. ive been using hella elekid lately and it kicks ass. 20 speed is great and wild charge was a cool boost making it not weak af. ice punch is really great for beating gligar quickpassing is probably my favorite thing to do in this meta right now. mienfoo has so many options with swords dance, substitute, calm mind (+1 +1 +2 missy is great) while gligar is also really cool at passing sd and agilities. they both have such great synergy together also, which helps a lot in making it like a minichain. not many things can handle shit like +3 scraggy or +1 Staryu. murkrow needs more love. i dont care if teambuilding is harder if you use it, its one of the best pokemon in the meta and deserves to be used more than it is now. mixkrow doesnt really need team support you just need to get it in the field and something WILL die. if you are balsy enough to use lo brave bird, literally nothing can live besides bronzor, who is gonna take massive damage from that and heat wave. __________________ +Yamata no Orochi: I don't get pussy

Mar 17th, 2012, 4:47:42 PM	#6
Ray Jay Clearly cannot choose the wine in front of you Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 1,508	I've found Porygon is insanely good in this metagame. Having the ability to check all 3 of the 3 unbanned and plain counter most Murkrow and Misdreavus sets is incredible. If you Trace Prankster, they now have to start sidestepping just so that you don't get a KO. What's more, you can predict around common switch-ins such as Mienfoo by launching a Tri Attack (it hits harder than one might expect). The last slot can either go to Shadow Ball or Ice Beam, I've found if you have Bronzor on your team you can just use Shadow Ball and you've got yourself a mighty fine core. I think the highlight about Porygon is how it is a defensive Pokemon that punches holes in the opponent's team, very similar to Mienfoo; the difference being that there are very few Pokemon who resist / can take repeated hits from everything in its arsenal whereas the metagame is really tailored to handle Fighting-types. __________________ Don't count the days, make the days count. Katakiri: How did you even get into this university?

Mar 18th, 2012, 11:19:02 PM	#7
blarajan no abuse pls Moderator Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 2,795 Mentor	I have to agree that Porygon is a monster in this metagame. There are quite a few gems that need to be seen used more often. Drifloon, Shellder, Elekid (agreeing with prem...), SubPass Mienfoo...there are a lot of things that are really fucking good that don't happen to be Gligar / Misdreavus / Murkrow. I've found that there's a lot of room to explore in this metagame, and that's something I really like about it. Plus there are a lot of possibilities with the more standard Pokemon, like SubPass Mienfoo. Zen Headbutt on Scraggy > Crunch needs some more love too, as it really puts the hurt on Mienfoo / Croagunk. And uhhh...pretty much, we don't need to stay standard...there's so much cool shit out there to use! Also fuck Vader's avatar. __________________ Team Babby: Little Cup in Ubers RMT

Mar 19th, 2012, 4:30:58 AM	#8
spuds4ever Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 665 UK	Adding on to what others have said, there are a lot of pokemon out there that have potential. I've been using magby quite a lot and he actually works really well as there is not a lot that survives two turns with this and if they try to bring in misdreavus, murkrow, or gligar in, they have to gamble to avoid the 2HKO from fire blast at best whereas murkrow, if he survives even one, is promptly met by a substitute if he attempts to sucker punch. He's really useful if you really need progress in a game using an offensive team with no set-up sweepers. Though he's frail, he's a monster if you give him the support. Also, having looked around at some base stats on the site, I'm surprised that pokemon like buizel don't get more usage. High attack and very good speed, while being frail like magby, give him an eviolite with some special defense investment, bulk up, and aqua jet to top it off... Definetely something I want to try out. I think he'll be something with more utility than just baton pass. __________________ A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. ~C.S. Lewis

Mar 19th, 2012, 4:42:55 PM	#9
Heysup GO JETS GO Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 5,090 CanaJew	My RU team sort of inspired me to look at Choice/LO Regenerator Pokemon, so I've actually built a team around LO Slowpoke and Mienfoo. If I can get another streak of perfect internet I'm going to test it out. Not to change the topic from <not Gligar/Missy/Krow>, but I did manage to get on for a couple hours the other day, and all I have to say is that not much has changed. Every team has one of Gligar, Missy, or Murkrow. Almost every team has 2 of the 3. Lots of teams have all 3. It's the same metagame as before they were banned, I'm not sure how much I like having them around. I find them very limiting and it's kind of completely obvious that everyone else does too since everyone feels the need to use them. __________________ f u, v

Mar 19th, 2012, 4:52:36 PM	#10
prem failed abortion Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1,221 <@Sarenji> anyway i learned knitting pretty fast <@Sarenji> because im a woman Mentor	Honestly buizel's best niche is baton passing. +1 aqua jet just isn't that strong and when you have 19 speed so you don't need aqua jet. Many of it's checks ( snover chinchou staryu) resist aqua jet. Also most choice scarfers resist aqua jet while missy has the bulk to take that anyway. With baton pass he can agility boosts to things like gligar or scraggy, which makes life so much easier. Also lo Missy is great. Ive always hated Missy everytime I used it because it's just too goddamn weak. It doesn't hit hard enough and with bulk like gligar it doesnt really need eviolite. Honestly since the addition of gligar and co, eviolite just isn't as great because things hit too hard. Lo Missy at +2 gains so many ohkoa that it would otherwise miss. With sr it beats porygon (ya fuck vader and his now horrible avatar) __________________ +Yamata no Orochi: I don't get pussy

Mar 19th, 2012, 5:30:07 PM	#12
Ray Jay Clearly cannot choose the wine in front of you Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 1,508	I can attest that Life Orb is the way to go if you're using Nasty Plot on Misdreavus, due to the notable OHKOes on Porygon, Scraggy, and everything in between with some hazards. Also I've found Snover to be a complete boss because of how hard of a time things have switching in to it. For example, on a given team, Bronzor may be the only thing they have that can take two Choice Scarf Blizzards. This means I can repeatedly weaken Bronzor (especially since Bronzor can't OHKO me) and now something like AcroBat has a much easier time sweeping. What's more, Eviolite Snover is actually one of the best lures in the metagame w/ Substitute as nobody expects it. Same goes for Substitute Mienfoo, who can run Payback and HP Ice to KO its common switch-ins. __________________ Don't count the days, make the days count. Katakiri: How did you even get into this university?

Mar 19th, 2012, 7:49:02 PM	#13
fatty Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 633 MICHIGAN	my baby houndour is great in the current meta, as always. in the same vein as snover, teams simply don't often carry a good mon to tank fire blasts (none of the the big 3 can) and ones that can are either too slow that a following dark pulse will net the ko (slowpoke, frillish) or don't have to bulk to continually withstand a fb + sucker punch (scarf chinchou, etc.) you can even run a bulkier set to check missy better, as fire blast still hits pretty hard, but lo works wonders when trying to punch massive holes into teams.

Mar 20th, 2012, 2:14:24 AM	#14
Chieliee Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 1,482	yep. agreeing that fatty (or it was someone else, idk) completely raped my team with houndour. But i'd like to shine a light on omanyte. It's a great mon, that, out of all shell smashers, probably has the easiest time setting up. Just sac something to a scarfed Blizzard, get it in safely on a weakened Bronzor (for some reason they EQ and not toxic). If it has set up, there's not much stuff that beats it. Gligar, Mienfoo, Murkrow are all OHKO'd, and so is Misdreavus with a bit of prior damage. The only thing that really counters it is croagunk, but just run something like diglett or something and that problem is solved. Also, has anyone tried Vullaby? __________________ nyuu~ This is the world we live in And these are the hands we're given Use them and lets start trying To make it a place worth living in.

Mar 20th, 2012, 8:02:59 PM	#16
Aerrow Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 1,557 Toronto, Canada	Firstly, I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this post; you can blame the unexpected LoA I took last week and the fact that deciding on the seventh council member was an extremely difficult task as there were many users who were qualified for the position. However, after several long discussions with the LC moderators, I've decided to name iss as the newest member of the LC council. Like I said, this was an extremely difficult decision and it came down to minute factors, so please don't be upset if you didn't get picked. Additionally the following users will serve as alternates in the case that one of the current council members becomes inactive: prem, blarajan, and Charmander. Now that the newest council member has been announced, I'd also like to to announce the first set of 'topics' the council will be discussing: the possibly banning of Misdreavus, Murkrow and Gligar, and the possible unbanning of Berry Juice and Meditite. I'll be deciding on and announcing a scheduled discussion date and time sometime in the near future. Feel free to discuss these topics in this thread, but be sure to back up whatever you say with statistics, battle logs, etc! And remember to keep it civil!

Mar 20th, 2012, 9:49:43 PM	#17
Ray Jay Clearly cannot choose the wine in front of you Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 1,508	Meditite's discussion page is now open, and there are a few other ones open, including both Murkrow and Berry Juice. For the metagame as a whole, please continue to use this thread as the vehicle for discussion, regardless of whether or not you are on the Council. Your opinions are important in all cases. __________________ Don't count the days, make the days count. Katakiri: How did you even get into this university?

Mar 26th, 2012, 6:33:32 PM	#19
Aerrow Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 1,557 Toronto, Canada	Since it seems like a lot of the discussion on several of the topics has came to a close (that was fast...), I'll be scheduling the vote for this 'round' on the 31st-1st (this coming weekend). However, before the vote, I'd really like to see some more discussion on the other suspects (Murkrow, Misdreavus, and Gligar); don't let Berry Juice and Meditite hog all of the attention!

Mar 27th, 2012, 5:57:29 PM	#20
Heysup GO JETS GO Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 5,090 CanaJew	Alright since I haven't really said much about Gligar and Missy I'll talk about them. Misdreavus is the classic "best Pokemon of LC" but is it broken? Having amazing all-around stats and a great movepool make it essentially a jack of all trades. Gastly hits harder, no complaints about him. Frillish has better typing and a better movepool (notably Recover and Surf), not many complaints about Frillish. So why is Missy so good? Well, because it hits almost as hard as Gastly with bulkier stats than Frillish. The trouble with Missy has always been that it can fuck your shit up while you most definitely will have trouble doing the same thing back with almost every Pokemon in the tier. Stunky loses to some variants but when you basically only have one option for "countering" a bulky, fast, and hard hitting Pokemon, you know you're in trouble. Of course there are Pokemon that beat Missy but most can't do it reliably. So essentially, there is no one reason why Missy is "too good", there are too many to even deal with in a short-ish post. So I'll move on. Gligar is a great Pokemon. Versatile, dangerous, bulky, fast, etc. Not broken. Why? Because he is very easy to stop with his one exploitable weakness. If AcroGligar gets in on the wrong Pokemon, you'll lose a Pokemon but the same thing happens with SO many others it's not even worth bringing up. Of course, not any of those Pokemon can do that while also being fast, bulky, able to set up, etc, but that doesn't automatically mean he's broken. It means he's good. Being a dangerous sweeper and a one-time wall breaker makes Gligar a top Pokemon but he's not exactly broken in my opinion, especially in this metagame with Missy and Murkrow to deal with (he has trouble with both of them). __________________ f u, v

Mar 28th, 2012, 11:42:27 PM	#21
prem failed abortion Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1,221 <@Sarenji> anyway i learned knitting pretty fast <@Sarenji> because im a woman Mentor	misdreavus and murkrow are not broken. misdreaus might have great stats across the board, but it really doesnt hit that hard, has a lot of good checks, and a lot of things that can switch into it mostly because its low bp moves. murkrow is just a non-issue mostly because of the lack of usage. gligar on the other hand is a broken piece of shit. its so bulky it doesnt really need eviolite, its still taking hits, and its moves have realy high base power. nothing can reliably switch into gligar. you have bronzor who can switch into gligar 100% of the time. everything else is just a bad check. the best answer to gligar is a scarf pokemon with a super effective attack outside of gligar. the problem with this is that they cannot switch in. sure they can switch in on eq if they are a murkrow or something, butt overall nothing can take its stab combo that is really good. its also really good at forcing things to swtich out. if you play around with double dance gligar (hella boss) its really easily to see the switch in come in and just agility, now you are untouchable and you are still killing everything. shellder dies to acrobat. misreavus dies to acrobat. snover dies to acrobat, and ive had my gligar survive an ice shard and it dies. the point is that nothing is capable of switching into gligar and that just brings me to my next point its practically unstoppable. the fact that it causes so many switches means it can almost always set up a move. its only counter is also quite possibly the easiest thing in the world to beat. go to magnemite, beat it and win. baton pass lets it go to scraggy, which literally beats everyone of gligars "counters" besides scarf krow no problem. baton pass is probably the biggest reason its broken, because it makes its counters practically non-sequitur. gligar makes the game stale. i know this isnt actually a very good reason to ban it. but honestly gligar does that. because of how strong it is and its type coverage, a lot of mons such as larvesta, shroomish, and other things are very bad in this metagame, and there is something around 15 pokemon who are actually viable in this metagame. you can say its all three of the new pokemon, but im putting it on gligar because hes the thing that does the most in the metagame. misdreavus doesnt break anything, while murkrow is killing itself or not killing enough 90% of the time. sorry i dont follow a linear thought process i just have a lot on my mind and im bad at typing it into proper english normally __________________ +Yamata no Orochi: I don't get pussy

Mar 29th, 2012, 7:07:47 AM	#22
Heysup GO JETS GO Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 5,090 CanaJew	Gligar can't have double dance and Baton Pass unless you're only using one attack...in fact Gligar's versatility is sort of nullified in the sense that it's almost always using 3 of the same moves regardless of what its EV spread / item / fourth move are, you can deal with it the same way. Bronzor isn't the only way to deal with Gligar. A fair amount of Pokemon are not OHKOed by Acrobatics and once his flight gem is gone, there's utterly no reason why you can't just switch your bulky Water/etc into him. It's also not like people go out of there way to counter Gligar, because he's not going to sweep their team with just a Swords Dance. You could put Balloon on any Steal-type to counter him (especially with Magnet Rise). For example, Balloon Magnemite can come in, Magnet Rise, and now Gligar is officially useless, and chances are Gligar was your Magnemite switch-in too. In Little Cup we've always dealt with Gligar the same way: HP Ice. It works way better than you'd think and it has its uses outside of Gligar. __________________ f u, v

Mar 29th, 2012, 11:24:58 AM	#23
spuds4ever Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 665 UK	I agree with some points, prem, but I don't think he's quite as invincible as you make out. While, I agree, he makes the game stale, which is I think the biggest reason he should be banned, I don't think he's broken as a pokemon in that respect. As Heysup said, there are more ways than bronzor to beat gligar. Scarfed HP Ice/Ice beam are popular and generally quite consistent, but lose to agility, though Ice shard being a near auto-kill on gligar is nice and is useful to stop him running crazy. There are still more ways than just those to beat gligar, though, like air balloon magnemite (trickscarf drifloon anyone?), but people are too lazy to discover them as the previous options work well enough. I think it's still a little too early to make hefty judgements on gligar when there are still sure-fire ways of beating him, even if it does kill imagination a little. __________________ A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. ~C.S. Lewis

Mar 29th, 2012, 12:58:51 PM	#24
prem failed abortion Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1,221 <@Sarenji> anyway i learned knitting pretty fast <@Sarenji> because im a woman Mentor	The problem with random scarf mons is that they have to come in which means something probably died before hand with like no recoil to gligar itself. Givin gligar a scarf doesn't solve much either. Also ive used mite it's something like a 3hko on acrobat, and there are a lot of ways beAting nonscarf no evio magnemite. Bp gligar just goes to scraggy and then +3 scraggy wins __________________ +Yamata no Orochi: I don't get pussy