Counter that Pokemon - Mk III [Team 2 won!]

[blitzlefan]

Cyredax

[Remedy]

Originally Posted by Fat Cyredax

In fact, raikou will not die to a recoil after 10 turn, it will die to hp/secret sword + bullet punch + 2 lo recoil. And I don't even consider entry hazard.

Which is still better than one single Surf in the face.

[futuresuperstar]

I'm going to vote for Futuresuperstar's Raikou, but Infernape is a great pick, too, and I don't think Team 1 could really go wrong here.

[Cyredax]

Originally Posted by Fat Remedy

Which is still better than one single Surf in the face.

You could switch to rotom-w, who take pitiful damage from surf. And then volt switch, and Infernape come back on the field

[G-Von]

Cyredax

[Remedy]

Switching works for every pick.

[Cyredax]

So what's the real advantage for raikou over infernape, if he had to switch against keldeo ?

[Remedy]

Why would he have to ? I don't see your point.
Raikou just has to sit here and kill everything, and don't bring me the "play around argument", the two players are supposed to be of equal skill I guess, so the "outplays" etc can't be involved.

Nape will be kicked out by Keldeo each time it is possible, and Rotom-W will be killed by Secret Sword (because Nape can't stay on a Secret Sword too, so it's not even a prediction) after one attempt (he takes 40% from SW, VoltSwitch out, and next time he'll be in the 2HKO range).
Thus, Nape will take damages from SR more than Raikou from both SR and LO I bet, because Raikou can't be forced out, while Nape can. This is why your argument is not good at all. Moreover, it relies on U-Turn to kill Celebi because Flamethrower is just weak and you risk TWave, meaning that it will take damages from SR, then U-Turn as the Celebi owners switches away and you will take SR damages again. Infernape, against the appearances, is more exposed to secondary damages than Raikou.

Whatever, it's not like I'm the one who can impact the votes anyhow, and I'm not saying Nape is bad, it would be stupid since I nominated it before :)

[Shurtugal]

this is the voting round, why are we debating anything...?

[Cyredax]

"Raikou kill everything" and "Raikou can't be forced out" is contradictory. If you stay against keldeo, you take 61,13% - 72,11% from hydro pump + lo recoil. How you gonna sweep the entire team with only 3 attacks ?

Yeah, debating now is useless, so I will just vote Cyredax's Infernape

[dragontamer74pe]

Cyaradex's Infernape
It's can do a lot to almost everything and it doesn't matter that it gets hit by rocks. So does raikou but it also gets worn down by life orb too. Also infernape gives us a volt-turn core which everyone has been mad about.

[TyranitarAbuser]

Cyaradex's Infernape

[FallenFoliage]

Originally Posted by Fat ClubbingSealCub

Terrakion @ Rock Gem
252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 Hp
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
- Substitute

One of OU's most powerful mons, SubSD Rock Gem Terrakion. Few things can switch into this beast and not get demolished. Sub eases prediction and prevents Terrakion from being easily revenged by Mach punch or Bullet Punch. Close Combat + Ston Edge give fantastic coverage together. Swords Dance and Rock Gem allow Terrakion to smash its counters such. The oh-so-bulky Slowbro, for example has a 75% chance to be OHKOed after SR at +2. This 'mon is a great first pick - it's fast, powerful and has few counters; factors that immediately force team 2 to pick more defensively.

Being both a frequent Slowbro and Gengar user I usually have this thing pinned to the wall. Max Def Golurk deserves special mention for resistance to both moves and access to a 100 percent accurate Dynamic Punch.

Golurk is the closest counter I can think of. If not, Gengar can always come in and wreak havoc after foddering something useless or weakened and start subbing all over its face until Stone edge misses. Then Giga Drain to be able to set up even more subs, and either KO or force a switch with a sub intact. A complete win-win situation for Gengar.

Edit: I'm late, Cyredax

[futuresuperstar]

For the VoltTurn games, I considered putting Volt Switch on Raikou over Calm Mind. But I figured everyone would prefer the boost to the Volt Switch. Who knows, though? Looks like Infernape is the name of the game, and Team 2 is in a lot of trouble. It will take one of four things to happen for Team 2 to win.

1) Skarmory absorbs a Flamethrower with Sturdy (if rocks aren't up) and kills with flying STAB.
2) 'Nape kills something with Close Combat while at medium health, so that its defenses are lowered and Scizor's Bullet Punch can take the kill.
3) Celebi scores a lucky Thunder Wave on Infernape in a switch.
4) Keldeo's counters are worn down (Rotom-W) so that Keldeo can blast through Infernape comfortably without Team 1 having a good switch-in.

[Novaray]

The Great Mighty Doom

[Melee Mewtwo]

Sorry, but revenge killer arguments are my personal pet peeve.

Revenge killing, for all intents and purposes, are nothing more than a forced switch. So, if you are something like Dragonite who is very much bothered by SR and relies on a boost (DD variants at least) then a revenge killer is a viable check and a genuine concern. However, if you are something like Tornadus-T who does not have a significant weakness to hazards (namely SR) and does not require a boost to pose a significant threat then a revenge killer means squat as it has no problem switching out and coming back in later.

[Alexander.]

The Great Mighty Doom

[ganj4lF]

Due to huge majority, Cyredax's Infernape is the last pokemon of Team 1, and of this project, too. The picking is now over, now it's the time for our final battle! These are the two teams that we built over time:

Team 1 (The Great Mighty Doom):

Team 2 (Melee Mewtwo):

(the OP is updated so feel free to use the importables to try them out, if you'd like to)

So, awaiting for the two captains to schedule a date and time for the match (please post it here in the thread or PM/VM me as soon as you decide), the thread can be used to make your predictions, or your final comments on this process. I'll do a conclusive post later, but I want to hear what went wrong and what was right from you users. I am particularly interested on two themes, bandwagoning (which I perceived greater than the Mk II), and the "last pick dilemma"; are blind picks absolutely necessary or the process worked "somewhat better" than the last edition?

[Melee Mewtwo]

I don't want to give too much away on my game-plan so I'll just talk about the two general topics for now.

I'd like to think I didn't bandwagon my suggestions and that my arguments where logical (perhaps flawed but at least thoughtful) however I'm obviously very biased so I can't say for certainty.

The last pick problem I really think came from T2's screw ups. They have two consecutive picks to make so there shouldn't be a reason that we didn't force T1's hand. Again, I think Scizor was the really big trip up in this department as its poor coverage and reliance on Bullet Punch opened up the room for way too many checks/counters. (don't mean to be harping on your Scizor so much Novaray, I liked a lot of your suggestions except Scizor :P) Sure niche sets can come up but if T2 makes sure to pick a solid sweeper then they have no choice but to choose one of the counters instead of their own niche offensive mon. (the sweeper should be running a speed booster or a Sub set just to make sure it doesn't get trolled by the really fast guys that can drop their speed to wiggle past their checks)

As far as the battle is concerned, I really think later this week is the safest bet for me. TGMD has my schedule so if he can find a time that coincides with his I'll mark it on my schedule and do what I can to be there.

[Bryce]

TGMD and his Team 1 got this :]

Bandwagoning and last pick dilemma certainly were issues,but I think it was a decent project.One more thing is that,Cube/First pick was a liability to Team 1 the entire project.Also,I think the OU viable rule should have been applied as it would be much more useful and more interesting.A large part of the sets submitted were simply unviable in the OU metagame.

Another thing which would have made the project better imo is the fact that Team 1 would actually build a team around kyurem-b rather than making a team of 5 and a half pokemon consisting of counters to team 2.So a rule for something like that would have been helpful.

[TyranitarAbuser]

I think all of us who participated in the selection of team two's fifth mon (Scizor) were really disappointed with the results. I find it weird that a whole bunch of people came up out of no where and voted for Scizor without participating in the submission phase. After that, they just disappeared and couldn't be found on this thread again (possibly after reading our opinion on Scizor. Lol).

I guess to avoid people voting for what the majority (the defination of bandwagoning if I am not wrong), I think that voters can PM/VM their votes to the leader. However, this is a little tedious. :(

[ganj4lF]

Originally Posted by Fat TyranitarAbuser

I think all of us who participated in the selection of team two's fifth mon (Scizor) were really disappointed with the results. I find it weird that a whole bunch of people came up out of no where and voted for Scizor without participating in the submission phase. After that, they just disappeared and couldn't be found on this thread again (possibly after reading our opinion on Scizor. Lol).

Yeah I was referring exactly to this. I had the clear impression that all those guys who voted for Scizor didn't really care about the project and just came to vote for it (someone told them to do so on IRC / PS? that was my first though to be honest). As someone already pointed out, that seemed a sub par choice for Team 2, and it kinda upsets me that was done bandwagoning on a suggestion instead of thinking about it. No offense to Novaray, obviously, but I guess you got my point.

Originally Posted by Fat TyranitarAbuser

I guess to avoid people voting for what the majority (the defination of bandwagoning if I am not wrong), I think that voters can PM/VM their votes to the leader. However, this is a little tedious. :(

This was proposed to me by someone via PM (I don't really remember who, and it seems I can't find out the original message...); to be honest I dismissed it as tedious since I trusted the community to avoid such things. It seems I was too much optimistic, and I (or who will host the next CtP) have to think about a solution or a new rule regarding this.

[dragontamer74pe]

I feel maybe we should have to run a short description on why we picked that poke. I didn't see any reasons why they chose scizor by the voters. Admittedly I haven't done that for all my choices but few have. Also as some people may not be able to make it could we copy and paste the battle so we have an idea of how it goes? The best thing would be writing a warstory on this but Ik you probably don't have the time so could we have a link to the replay or a battle pasted too. Can't wait for the next battle. =D

[blitzlefan]

oh my goodness a warstory (if the battle ends up close/intense) would be REALLY cool! :) also agree w/ dragontamer74pe on that a short reasoning/explanation section to why a pokemon is voted for if they hadn't directly participated in discussion (that isn't just copy paste out of the original description) should be necessary.

[The Great Mighty Doom]

I definitely think the bandwagoning issue needs to be fixed. It's incredibly common for those who want to participate, but aren't sure what to choose, to simply vote for whatever's winning at the time or for the Pokemon proposed by whoever the best battler is, because those Pokemon are the most likely to be the correct pick. Admittedly, there was a vote or two where I was rather busy and I only had a quick skim through the options then chose based on that and on what was winning the vote, a choice I regret quite alot. I'm not the biggest fan of making a description essential, I think that just makes voting seem like more trouble than it's worth to most voters, and would probably just turn people away from the project more than anything. I think making the voting blind would be the best option (either by PMing whoever's running the project, or some other way.) It may be a little tedious, but it wouldn't be too bad, and it completely fixes the bandwagoning problem.

The last pick dilemna is definitely a problem, but I don't think it's as big of a problem as a few people are making it out to be. If there was more foward thinking during the last 2 Pokemon for Team 2 then I think the teams would have been rather even. Even now when you take a close look at matchup, you can see Team 2 has Hydreigon, who outspeeds most of Team 1, simply presses Draco Meteor, then something dies, there's Skarmory, who walls everything except for Infernape and Rotom-W, and can make Team 1's life a misery by laying down hazards and phasing, etc. Admittedly, alot of the Team 2's most important threats are just invitations for Infernape to come in and have a cup of tea, but with enough correct double switching then Team 2 can get the upper hand. Overall, Team 1 has far from a perfect matchup against Team 2, it does have a good one though, but it could easily have had an even one if there was more foward thinking in the last 2 Team 2 choices and the last pick wouldn't have had as much of a huge influence on the team matchup. I think that if the OU viable Pokemon only rule is put into place in the next CtP, it would be enough to ensure the teams have a relatively fair matchup (assuming the people contributing on each side are of somewhat equal skill level.)

As for the battle, I sent Melee Mewtwo a VM about 3 days ago, but he hasn't been online since I sent it, which is fine, as he has mentioned late in the week is best for him. I'll be sure to save the log / replay and post it here after the battle. I'm not sure about warstorying it though, it's alot of effort and I don't think I currently have the time, however if it is a really, really good battle then I may make a dual commentary one with Melee Mewtwo (if he agrees to help ofc.)