Recent content by Copland

The most important benchmarks are 200 (Adamant Gambit), 219 (Jolly Gambit), and 301 (Jolly Tusk). Lesser benchmarks are 177 for 0 Speed Skarm (also outspeeds Corv), 227 for 0 Speed Gliscor, and 250 for Modest Raging Bolt. The speed creep metagame involves running a point or two over these...

While I wouldn't say Roaring Moon is outright broken (I've defended it in the past), I do think there's something to be said about Pokémon that can make unmitigable progress, and how much progress we should allow. I think the main Pokémon who fit this designation are Booster Roaring Moon...

So in Vert's surrender on the idea of a Tera Blast suspect they raise an interesting point. The player base has a sense that there's something worth banning, but there's really not consensus on any single Pokémon. If there's a good number of Pokémon who are right at that broken threshold, but...

Haven't had much time to play mons, but I've been having fun lately building teams that I can only describe as fat and nasty. The only problem with these fat nasties is that they get absolutely run over by Ogerpon-Wellspring. Dealing with Ogerpon typically involves playing at a fast tempo, and...

I'm really pleased to see the community rallying around action on Gouging Fire, but I am a bit disappointed to see Wogerpon scoring so high. Unlike something like Gouging Fire--or even Roaring Moon or Raging Bolt for that matter--it genuinely adds something unique to the tier. It's a breaker...

Yeah, but unlike the 100 yard dash, it doesn't take a lifetime to get better at Pokemon. Study popular builds, review your games, be self-critical. More times than not, you beat yourself--not your opponent.

Calcs exist in a vacuum. I could pull calcs of Life Orb Zoroark-Hisui that make it look like some unwallable breaker. But the game isn't played in the damage calculator. There's a cost to Roaring Moon setting up a Dragon Dance. It likely takes hazard damage, and using DD over attacking leaves it...

Even if Suspects aren't used for policy, I think the thing that people are having problems with is that this tiering decision was two-fold--a removal of Sleep Clause and a ban of Sleep moves--when really they should have been separate steps in a larger process. The correct thing to do here was...

Point being that if you load up a random Singles battle, your opp. might have banned mons/moves. It's arbitrary. When it comes to Sleep Clause, how about the players just agree not to click sleep moves if another Pokemon is already sleeping? Smogon isn't the Pokemon Company, so pure faithfulness...

It's been said before, but with the survey coming up, I just want to reiterate some points from a few pages back regarding sleep. For most of the player base, discussion about sleep moves/sleep clause in Gen 9 OU did not start until Darkrai started running the move. And it's clear to see why...

i really like boots 4-attack Meowscarada with Thunder Punch for this exact reason. Zap loves to switch into Meow, so you can TPunch it on the switch and then Knock its boots next turn without worrying about static

I could build a million Slowking-Galar + Bird + Bulky Ground cores and never get tired of it, seriously. Such a solid yet flexible backbone that lets you run interesting mons in the breaker, speed control, and offensive support slots. I especially like variations with Moltres because it owns...

i'm overall much more optimistic about the state of OU these days. the resurgence of balance especially following Glisc and Sneasler's bans shows that the tier has moved into a healthier state. so many more mons and sets are viable now--zapdos, moltres, torn-t, heatran, meow, garg, ting-lu...

people saying SV OU of all things is turning into a stallfest just really boggles the mind. i don't build stall, don't play stall, but damn i have to respect a well-built stall team for all the threats it has to cover. there's hazards, taunt/encore users, protosynthesis/supreme overlord mons...

don't wanna get in a long convo and eat space for people sharing their survey responses, but to clarify my take on wogerpon: the dragon comment was mostly a reference to defensive teras. tera dragon's popped up as a viable option on defensive mons to cover fire, grass, water, and electric moves...