Eviolite (Little Cup edition)

[Heysup]

Evolution Stone

In Little Cup, the item Evolution Stone affects every single Pokemon. Only Pokemon that are the lowest evolution AND evolve (among other things) are allowed in Little Cup - a requirement shared by the Evolution Stone.

Evolution Stone: Boosts the Defense and Special Defense of any Little Cup Pokemon by 50%.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's look at some ways to abuse this item. We can essentially narrow this down to two ways:

- Offensively
- Defensively

Defensively, this item will obviously used with Pokemon who can tank hits very well and have some form of recovery.

Hippopotas - Toxic and Slack Off are a match made in heaven. Almost any physical Pokemon that switches in will get stalled out.

Pururiru - With Will-O-Wisp and naturally bulky defenses, Pururiru has a very easy time tanking hits from most Pokemon. Recover coupled with Burn damage and powerful STABs make it quite hard to take out.

Tesshiido - No recovery? Think again! Leech Seed Tesshiido is one of the hardest foes to take down due to it's small base HP and massive defensive stats. It can reach 27 in each of its defensive stats. That's insane, if you as me.

Obviously this list could go on, but I want to keep it short and give you guys something to talk about.

Next up is Offensive users. How do you abuse a defensive item offensively? Easy! You use a stat booster.

Zuruggu - Dragon Dance Zuruggu with some defensive investment becomes incredibly bulky. It has amazing defensive and offensive typing - it has very few common weaknesses.

Gligar - Swords Dance, Rock Polish, and even Baton Pass on Gligar make it incredibly threatening to most teams. With sandstorm and Roost, good luck not giving Gligar a free turn to set up and plow through a team.

Dokkora - Dokkora isn't as threatening as the above two are, however it can take a very impressive amount of physical damage. After a few Bulk Ups, not much can take its Mach Punch.
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Is it broken? I honestly think it may be. Does anyone else notice the pattern of Pokemon it affects? It is basically mimicking the effects of Berry Juice - this is quite concerning to someone who thinks Berry Juice is broken as much as myself. What do you think?
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[More Cowbell]

While it is true that every Pokémon can profit from it, I think it will turn Little Cup into a (semi-)stallfest, and completely take out all the speed and excitement it ever had.

I think this will especially be annoying on defensive Pokémon, who can just tank hits all day, and stall (like the Hippopotas example you stated). I'd say it should be banned, it wouldn't make it all that fun, I guess.

 

[Banryu]

...hm. Well, I didn't used to think it was broken, but when you put it that way... :0
And Lileep isn't even on here. o__O Lord knows Lileep was a nightmare to take down without Evo Stone LAST gen, just imagine what horrors await us with Evo Stone Lileep... X___x

...is it too late to change my vote regarding the ban of Evo Stone? Dx

 

[Heysup]

Well the thing with Evolution Stone is that it is barely even "explored" yet. I mean, Berry Juice was added and every single Pokemon that wasn't using Focus Sash or Life Orb was using it....meaning the effects were very obvious and very fast. Evolution Stone, if broken at all, will be more obvious in a longer amount of time because it has competition still.

I personally didn't vote to Ban Evolution Stone, but I would definitely put money on it being banned next round when we start testing.

Also, if you think tanks are the problem....I don't think you've witnessed stat boosters abusing it.

Dual Screens + Dragon Dance Bagon broke Berry Juice in Gen 4, I'd be surprised if something similar doesn't develop for Evolution Stone....I think I'll make one of these teams now :P.

 

[alamaster]

I've been using 4 evo stone pokes on my team in conjunction with dual screens and it makes it ridiculously simple to set up and sweep. Everything becomes ridiculously bulky such as Misdreavus taking Murkrow sucker punches for like 25% while it sets up Nasty Plots or whatever. If I were more involved with LC I'd vote for it to be banned but I've only played 15 matches or so.

 

[Darkamber8828]

Meh, it's just a defense boost. Who needs defense? THis is Litt-

I've been using 4 evo stone pokes on my team in conjunction with dual screens and it makes it ridiculously simple to set up and sweep. Everything becomes ridiculously bulky such as Misdreavus taking Murkrow sucker punches for like 25% while it sets up Nasty Plots or whatever. so.

:-S

Ok ban it

 

[kokoloko]

Meh, I actually like the Evo Stone LC metagame, it becomes a less hyper-offensive, but still not too stall-oriented. It actually allows bulky mons to be bulky, unlike in Gen IV. Although I do agree that its not defensive mons that could become the problem, as much as set up mons (especially Zuruggu). Still, it would be a lot easier to see how broken Evo Stone actually is if more than the same 8 people actually got on the LC ladder every once in a while.

EDIT: lol, first post here in like four months.

 

[Elevator Music]

I'm pretty certain Evo Stone is actually a worse item than Oran Berry on Zuruggu since it lacks recovery (unless you're using Drain Punch, and even then its probably not that much better).

I wouldn't use Zuruggu as a reason to ban Evolution Stone (I would probably avoid it on any pokemon that lacks recovery before you run some calcs).

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Evlution Stone is good, but not broken like BJ. ure, imakes stat-up sweepers all tha more threatening, but hey, there is a new mon you're supposed to usetosop setup sweepers:Monmn!


Please everybody, get out of the Gen 4 mentality of breaking past a set up sweeper by using a Scarfed Pokemon, and explore alterntive venues.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Didn't I see a thread somewhere that said Munchlax can be EV'd to be as Physically bulky as Skarmory or almost as Specially bulky as Blissey with this item? O.o

 

[Heysup]

In LC Munchlax hits 30 / 21 / 27...which is absurd for Little Cup. However without recovery it's not that crazy. I could understand maybe a Rest + Sleep Talk set.

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Sure, but remember that ResTalk means it becomes setup bait to some mon or the other. It has only one slot after Return and ResTalk, so lets test its options:

EQ- Missy gets in, and NPs happily or even SubSneak sets can set up a Sub.

Pursuit-Horrible moce for a ResTalk set, and gives an opportunity for Tesshido to get in and start spiking away.

Fire Punch-Free opportunity for rock types to get in, RP up.

 

[kokoloko]

Or you could run Whirlwind and prevent any kind of set up.

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Most mons in LC can't really take a hit to shuffle, and those that can have better things to do.

 

[Wafflez]

Well im kinda new to Lc so ignore any retarted comments and stuff.
Well anyway from my experiance I found Evo stone to be much more broken on the offensive pokes then the defensively inclined ones.Its actually a welcome'd edition for the likes of Hippo and such who can keep up with the hyper offensive metagame of LC a bit easier with this new tool.But when some of the really scary sweepers like Zoruguu abuse it...Yah...With Evo stone and some investment they can take hits really well and proceed to set up and then sweep through the opposition.
If Evo stone does get banned (Which it should IMO) it would probably be because of these powerful sweepers trying to abuse it.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Well what if we're talking about little mon sweepers against something as bulky as a fully EV'd skarm/blissey, or better balanced defense than either, that has restalk / STAB return / whirlwind? That actually sounds pretty impressive on paper.

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Problem is, it will get worn down really easily, and Monmen can ENcore it into Sleep Talk and ensure it cannot heal at all, whiel it SubSeeds.

 

[Heysup]

Monmen can barely switch into Return though, it will still do 63.16% - 78.95% with no Attack investment. Additionally, Munchlax would never stay in once Monmen comes in. Just pair it with a U-turner.

And with Restalk Pokemon....you don't get "worn down". That's the whole point. Nothing can come in an whittle away at your HP because you'll heal it right back up.

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Well, if Munchlax is going to switch, SOMETHING is gonna get Leech Seeded even if you failed with Encore, and Evo Stoen Monmen is surprisingly bulky. I'll concede the point however.

 

[kokoloko]

Well, if Munchlax is going to switch, SOMETHING is gonna get Leech Seeded even if you failed with Encore, and Evo Stoen Monmen is surprisingly bulky. I'll concede the point however.

I switch to a grass type, or even better, any U-turner.

 

[Nails]

This shit is so broken, the Munchlax set I've been running has been destroying Little Cup.

Munchlax (M) @ Evolution Stone
Trait: Pickup
EVs: 76 HP / 196 Def / 236 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Stockpile
- Whirlwind
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

With SR, Toxic Spikes, and Hail (only SR and hail are even needed, TS is just a luxury), it literally stalls out 90+% of the metagame. Have some calcs.

Adamant Machop Dynamicpunch - 12-14 damage - 40-46%
Life Orb Misdreavus HP Fighting - 7-8 damage - 23-26%

Those are supereffective attacks. Consider that. They're coming from some of the strongest pokemon in the meta, and they still don't 2hko; missy can be stalled out even by simply resting and hoping stalk picks WW, or even just letting hail/ss kill it. However, that's not the only set I'd like to show off. It's SDS' Zuruguu write up I ripped from his RMT b/c I'm too lazy to write up something, and I couldn't write it better.

Heavy (Zuruggu) (M) @ Evolution Stone
- Dragon Dance
- Ice Punch
- Crunch
- Drain Punch
Ability: Shed Skin
EVs: 36 HP / 156 Atk / 36 Def / 36 SDef / 212 Spd
Nature: Jolly (+Spd, -SAtk)

Now THIS is what I’m talking about. Zuruggu is the Heavy of the team, and after gettin’ revved up for a bit, it’s more than willing to beast all over everything, putting out an absolutely retarded level of punishment after a DD (or two). Evolution Stone and defensive EVs give this 22 HP and 21 Def/SDef, which is more than enough to set up on attackers and sponge super-effective priority. Drain Punch is the main attack, as it lets Zuruggu heal up in the middle of battle (nom nom nom om nom), and makes him basically impossible to kill once he’s set up. Crunch is a secondary STAB, used to hit Ghost-types. Finally, Ice Punch knocks Gligar around, making it mighty hard to check Zuruggu. Fun facts: Dokkora’s Mach Punch and Croagunk’s Vacuum Wave only do like... a little more than half HP damage to this Zuruggu, allowing Zuru to beat them down hard- Dokkora also has a huge delicious HP stat to heal up on, which is nice.

Couldn't have said it better myself. These two sets show that Evo Stone is broken under the Defensive Characteristic (A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame) and the Support Characteristic (A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep). While the definitions may have been made to apply to individual pokemon, I feel that they apply to this situation with an item. So, while I voted against banning Evolution Stone before, that was through theorymon only, and not wanting the metagame to potentially use something incredibly useful. Now that I've playtested with it, it is way too easy to abuse to the point where you can set up multiple boosts and sweep, without a hope of being stopped unless your opponent is using incredibly specialized counters.

Thanks for reading this.

 

[Wafflez]

Yah ive been using the Zoruggu set and i wholeheartedly agree that it is just extreemely broken.Zoruguu itself is a extreemely powerful sweeper capable of 6-0'ing pretty much all teams after it gets a DD up.And with in conjunction with Evolution stone you can pretty much set it up on anything really taking very little dammage in the process.Ive been using a team with 3 Evo stone sweepers and pretty easily topped the PO ladder.Yah i just cant imagine how something like this can be allowed really.Just bann this shit already >_>.
Oh and cant wait to try out the Lax set :3.

 

[Peternummer14]

Don't know if it has been mentioned before but I just have to get this out of my system.

Numel (stick with me, my story gets better) with evo stone, simple, and stockpile.

I have no idea how the LC-metagame works but the walling potential feels rather high (Y)

 

[NeoSeth]

Don't know if it has been mentioned before but I just have to get this out of my system.

Numel (stick with me, my story gets better) with evo stone, simple, and stockpile.

I have no idea how the LC-metagame works but the walling potential feels rather high (Y)

Does it get a decent recovery move? A set of Rest/Sleep Talk/Stockpile/Lava Plume seems like the most viable tactic. But you also need to think about Numel's typing. Fire/Ground resists Fire and Steel and is immune to Electric. It's 4x weak to Water, which is a very common attack type. On the plus side, it's neutral to SR and immune to Sandstorm. It's defenses, however, are lame. 60/40/45 isn't all that great. I mean, I guess Simple MIGHT make it useful, but it still only gets +3 Stockpile. That might not be enough to tank what it needs to.

 

[Peternummer14]

I just assumed it got slack of as it looks like that kind of poke but i just realized it doesn't so that kinda makes it crap again.