Metagame BDSP LC (New bans/unbans @ post #33)

FP · Jun 5, 2022

LPL 8 - Tournament Report

Week 1 - Vs Zigzagoon Platoon (HSOWA) - L

:onix:

Overall I think I did well during the tournament, I liked the builds and the tier is really fun to build and play. I wanted to thank my managers and my teammates for the chance to play and for everything. Overall I won by luck, but I believe I gained a lot of experience. I believe I played well until week 7, the rest I made bad plays, which cost me the win.

Viability Ranking Suggestions:

:magby:

UR -> B

Magby proves to be a great threat both bdrum and lo set, his speed and attack power are highly appreciated

UR ->C

Buneary has decent moveset and good speed, in certain situations it can be very valuable, it's a waste it's not there

UR -> C

Same motive as buneary, baltoy learns rocks + spin and has good overall development

C -> B-

Descent speed, descent moveset, I see no reason to be in C

At long last, i would like to say that the tier is a lot of fun, i hope it gains more space in future tournaments! Thank you all! (I wanted to finally ask to update the sample sets).

Éric · Jun 6, 2022

hi ive played bdsp lc in this edition of the bdsp pl, getting 5-0 in regular season and losing in semis, and since weve lost imma drop the teams ive used (click the mons) and ill talk a bit about the games too:
week 1 vs raj.shoot:

i got help from goat Stecolomaxx all this tour, but this one team i just got from one of his lpl games, since it was my first game playing this tier so i didnt wanna build anything lol. it features covet munchlax, which is a move i think is underrated on this mon, letting you steal berry juices and win many 1v1s bc of this.

i noticed in preview that carvanha with rocks up was so good vs rajs team, so i tried to set them up early and that + getting a shadow ball off on gastly on the switch allowed me to take this first game. not much else to comment there other than first time seeing covet lax put in work

week 2 vs askov:

i wanted to use clamperl this week bc its a broken mon, and i figured itd fit in ho the most, so i tried to build that. after many many versions, clamperl started disappearing bc shellder felt more consistent, and steco suggested treecko. i accepted because its my favorite mon and he was using it in lpl too that week, so it felt special. the team overall felt consistent, as long as you get rid of croagunk which admittedly can beat many of the mons, but not all.

i noticed right off the bat that drifloon is a bitch, and that i needed croagunk removed. i also was kinda afraid of spikes difficulting setup. i made a mistake letting diglett die to omanyte instead of saving it to trap croagunk, which was my wincon if i wanted to win with my beloved treecko. still, i got a 50/50 right and was able to win regardless.

week 3 vs laroxyl:

i wanted to play elekid this week, and either steco suggested scarf elekid bc it beats offense that laro had used in the past, like sun. im usually not one to scout, but since the team was already made (by steco, who used it in lpl too and i shamelessly stole it lol) i decided to just use it. all mons are pretty standard, you just gotta be careful around snubbull since its a bitch and your fairy resist is missing play rough.

it seemed like a tough game from the start. laro is a really good opponent, and his team was very scary too. i had to be extremely careful of both meowth and mankey, while keeping snubbull in croagunk range. i managed to get every turn right and mantain momentum all game, which led to my eventual win.

week 4 vs fille:

i wanted to use taillow this week since i was seeing that normals are broken. i tried to build three versions of the team: one with scarf mankey, one with croagunk + diglett and one with carvanha and porygon. the diglett gunker versionwas the one that i felt was the best of all, but it was too similar to all my teams, giving me 4/4 uses of croagunk lol still, it was the one i ended up using, because it just was the best one. taillow + diglett is a deadly combination, letting you trap normal resists after u turn. team feels really consistent overall, since it gives you outs vs most of the dangerous stuff (rocks + offensive pressure vs drifloon, many pivots vs mankey, trapper vs abra, etc). im using double edge curselax instead of facade because i really feel like the immediate damage is worth the burn: usually, if you get burned youre getting to +6 anyway so it doesnt really matter, and being able to ohko stuff at +0 is so good.

i just abused the uturn + diglett combination and the match ended in a munchlax sweep. not much else to say really, fille was a really tough opponent and i was scared going into the match, but my matchup was good and i didnt mess it up so i won.

week 5 vs hsowa:

ever since my laro match, i had been thinking snubbull was really good and i wanted to use it. i got the chance this week, where i built this team thinking that snubbull would hlep the gastbra core breaking while checking stuff like munchlax or mankey. onix as the broken rocker and carv as a secondary floon/gastbra check complete the team.

going into this game, i was so scared: i had no idea what was lickitung gonna do, because it learns a million moves and can use them all (in my mind). i played carefully about how i dealt with drifloon: offensive pressure and rocks, doubling to gastly when i could so itd break. in case anything got out of hand, i always had carvanha which looked amazing with rocks up

semis vs hsowa:

this week i wanted to use koffing, because monday i thought it was good and i hadnt used it. come sunday when i played, i think it kinda sucks lol but whatever. i used porygon to countertrap stuff with koffing for the scarf magnemite sweep. i wanted to use a drifloon set that annoyed munchlax too, bc it seemed kinda hard with this squad.

seeing team preview, i thought trapinch was scary, but lead pory countertrapping could give me a huge advantage. in case hsowa didnt actually lead pinch, i could twave every living thing too. other than that, i thought i had to really preserve onix because it beats every mon but pinch, and it sets rocks for magnemite and floon. this cost me the game, because even tho i played perfectly the early game, i pretty much overestimated how much i needed onix to beat the offensive mons, and underestimated how actually threatening curselax was. i thought floon + koff + machop would beat it, but it just wasnt enough. im kinda sad about this one, it was just one mistake, but a huge one that cost us the semis, after how good i had done. alas, hsowa abused the broken mon and won, so gg

honestly, i dont hate this tier anymore. i didnt like building at all, but playing its cool how you need to pressure stuff so they dont get out of hand. offensive tiers like this are really cool when you actually know them. still, we need to ban a lot of things LOL please let drifloon and munchlax go

s/os Stecolomaxx and DC for their huge help building and testing. i wouldnt have done like this without you guys, ily. also s/os to my captains Staxi ironwater for drafting me because Daruma told them i played this tier, and for never actually reading my chat to see that i hadnt.

HSOWA · Jun 13, 2022

so I've had the honour, (or dishonour depending on your viewpoint), of playing BDSP LC in both LPL and BDSP, so why not post all the teams I used:

LPL Week 1: vs FP

This was the first week of LPL and I wanted to start off strong, so I went with an interesting Omanyte set with Rock Blast, to catch sash Abra. I really like Snubbull in this tier, being the perfect check to Machop who can be scary to switch in to, and it can beat Munch 1v1. Unfortunately the Snubbull ended up getting crit by a Carvanha, but thankfully it evened up the end with a bit of luck on my end.
I ended up reusing this squad for week 4 of LPL too, but I put a sub disable Gastly over Drif: it seemed a neat set that shuts down mons like Machop, Croagunk and Munchlax [tho it can still stall you out :c]. Unfort I fucked up early by letting Munch got knocked, and from there LO Gastly kinda destroyed me.
Also brought the floon version to BDSPL PL week 4. After my Munch died, his floon kinda destroyed me rip

LPL Week 2: vs Toy Time King

This tier has pretty much one water resist in the form of Croagunk, so DD Corphish with Aerial Ace seemed fun to fuck it over. Sadly I didn't even get to send it out, but this match featured one of the first Munch vs Munch wars that would be p common through these tours.

LPL Week 3: vs crashy

I wanted to have some fun this week, so I decided to give Lickitung a go: access to Knock is always nice, and it's a nice bulky mon with an insane movepool. This ended up being another munch war, until he ended up switching out trying to catch the recycle :c

LPL Week 5: vs gali

Triple normal! This looked fun to use, and Fake Out + Grass Knot seemed a nice way to lure Onix. Unfort I ran into both Kabuto and Magnemite, and a crit on Snubbull made things tougher for me.

LPL Week 6: vs GotCookies

I went with Corphish again, since I didn't really get to show it off last time I used it, this time tho I went w/ memento Dig as a way to get it setup easily

LPL Week 7: vs Kodiak_45

We were guaranteed POs at this point so I just used mono normal :D I lost because I didn't use the team mascot Zigzagoon obv

BDSP PL Week 1: vs Askov and LPL Semis: vs FP

I know Askov didn't play LC much, let alone BDSP LC, so I just went a solid spikes offense team, with the first appearance of Carvanha, who I hadn't used in any match beforehand. Started off pretty badly, with me getting owned by a Nosepass (no idea it learned volt switch LOL), but broken Munchlax clutched me the match.
Ended up reusing this for LPL semis, since it was solid asf. Not much to say here, getting a 50/50 right with gunk helped me a lot.

BDSP PL Week 2: vs Fille

As I mentioned before, lol water resists in this tier. Wingull already beats the only real one, and it's a fun mon to use... unless you miss hurricanes. also I'm bad at playing around opposing floon

BDSP PL Week 3: vs Lokifan

Meowth seemed a good choice here for two reasons: it can kill Onix and Anorith lead with Fake Out + Water Pulse, and he's brought screens and rain in the past, so I wanted a good anti-cheese mon. I ended up running into both Kabuto and Magnemite however, ouch. Thankfully a clutch destiny bond on gast, as long with him not being jet on Kabuto, meant Diglett cleaned late on.

BDSP PL Week 5: vs Eric

With me constantly losing to Drifloon, I wanted a solid check, and brought in my boy LICKITUNG again, which had access to knock and ice beam for any potential floon. He brought Covet Munchlax which I didn't expect, and with Munch dead it was p much downhill from there.

BDSP PL Semis: vs Eric

It turns out that we were paired against the same team we played w5 in semis, and as thus I would get the chance to get my immediate revenge on Eric, who was 5-0 currently. We brought in Kodiak_45 to help out in semis, and he built this for me. I hadn't used Trapinch or Mag yet so I went w/ it. The game started terribly with Trapinch (should've brought laser focus :c) and Koffing p much dying for free. However, s/o to the broken mf munchlax to save me once again

BDSP PL Finals: vs Lokifan

Another team built by the goat Kodiak_45. Nothing too special here, just a sturdyjuice mag to cover any potential cheese, and a double edge carv that can hit any potential gunk switch in hard. Game started off well with Carv being able to kill Snubbull, but I fucked up Pickup mechanics oops LOL, should've just went Abra b/c I knew Covet was coming :/. Won off a flinch late on which I felt so bad for ngl

Lalaya · Jun 15, 2022

Hi, seeing how our two big tournaments with the tier have ended, the council decided to send a survey to the partecipants that played this tier and see their opinions on the current metagame, as well as other people that are still interested in this tier!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfAWYLNc-8H5ygDUprxoUacCwyoXSIzEPg62Qc9WxCUeZSZGA/viewform
I'll leave the survey open for a few days, and then see how to proceed, although we can "anticipate" that we're keeping a close look on Munchlax.

Feel free to pitch in, if you have questions to us or in general!

Lalaya · Jun 21, 2022

Hi all, after the survey results we collected and after a council vote, we decided to ban Munchlax from BDSP LC!

First, let's talk about the relevant part of the survey:

Of 9 of our tournament players, 7 expressed themselves for some form of action against Munchlax, with two wanting to ban it straight up, while only 2 were against it and only one being perfectly convinced of finding Munchlax healthy.
This prompted us to open the council vote after we thought of the possible course of action, but any possible other form of action would have gone against the tiering policy framework, since Munchlax is the abuser of the tools it has, and the tools aren't to blame for it (be Recycle, Pickup or Berry Juice).

Metagame enjoyment is... there, with mostly positive results, at least, although most people found it below average. Competitiveness is at least on average, although the results are less promising then I hoped.

Player opinion is that Drifloon could be potentially unhealthy after Munchlax goes away, shifting the power balance to its benefit since Munchlax is its premier counter; obviously we will keep a strict eye on it and on the metagame as it (hopefully) evolves post-Munchlax! Interesting point of the user saying that Drifloon and Munchlax are what makes the tier fun, and I can agree on the part that especially Munchlax requires familiarity of mechanics to use it at its fullest potential - mostly Pickup interactions, and it reflected in some odd moveset choices such as Shadow Ball or Ice Beam in BDSPPL to dent Drifloon and Abra without stealing unwanted items or being suscepted to burn.

That being said, there are a lot of things to say about Munchlax in BDSP LC. Munchlax was a meta-defining Pokémon from the get-go, sporting exceptional bulk, especially on the Special Defense department to check the likes of Abra and Gastly, as well as the perfect typing to check Drifloon, which together compose the big four of the current metagame. Checking the big four is not all that it can do, though, since it can turn into an extremely resilient and vicious setup sweeper thanks to Curse and its form of Recovery in Recycle. Not even FIghting-type STAB moves can oneshot Munchlax after a couple of Curses, while he's free to just recover the damage taken. Munchlax is the sole reason why Encore + Knock Off Abra was developed, since getting its Berry Juice removed means Munchlax can't heal itself anymore, and Encore completely stops Munchlax in making progress and opens you to draw quick advantage from it. The cherry on top, though, is Pickup, since it can steal the opponent's Berry Juice and nullify your opponent's attempt to steal or Knock Off yours away, keeping your recovery tool nice and fresh while keeping collecting Curse boosts or just attacking whoever tried to take your Berry Juice away. All these qualities turned Munchlax in the gargantuan tank and win condition it is now, sporting >80% usage in both LPL and BDSPPL, and forcing most battles to be decided in setup wars with the opposing Munchlax or developing other usually subpar sets specifically with taking it out in mind (such as Laser Focus Superpower Trapinch). Even if you manage to stop Munchlax, unless you won the Munchlax war chances are that you spent too many resources to do it, and one of your opponent's other powerful Pokémon can just abuse the hole you're left with and exploit the situation that Munchlax forced on you. The amount of pressure Munchlax exercises in BDSP LC matches is second to none, there's no drawback into running it and you can't stop it with anything except item removal or trading your own Lax and hoping to win the Pickup duel, because otherwise you'll end up losing or getting in a extremely uncomfortable position where it's very difficult to recover from, and as such we deemed Munchlax to be an too much to handle for the tier.

Below you'll find what each council member thinks about Munchlax (adding all of them ASAP):

Alkione:

Corporal Levi:

Fille:

HSOWA:

Laroxyl:

Lalaya:

Well, I wrote the post so you pretty much know already what I think but yes, Munchlax is an extremely unhealthy presence that you can't escape from any BDSP LC battle, it's just gonna force you to trade one or more Pokémon just to stop him, or try the Munchlax war to end up winning it; it's a one-mon decider and frankly that should speak for itself, and even IF you manage to stop him chances are you wasted too many important Pokémon to survive an Abra/Drifloon/Gastly/Carvanha or basically any other offensive presence's assault, picking you off where you were left and win the battle from there. Your only hope into stopping a Munchlax is to trapkill it, knock its item away (which with the exception of Abra still usually means he can use up YOUR Juice and just ending up repeating the process) or winning the Munchlax war. I have nothing else to say, it's just too much for the tier to get any enjoyment from it, and losing Munchlax wars to luck or random Pickup speed tie is just atrocious, aside from the obvious balancing issue with it.

megatyler30:

Munchlax is extremely broken, between it being suboptimal to not use on ANY team, blanket checking all of the scary special offensive mons like Abra, Gastly, etc, and being scary in its own right with Curse sets. After 1 Curse, Munchlax is almost impossible to 2hko making recycle a very consistent way to keep setting up. Even Cranidos, one of the hardest hitting non-stab fighting attack users cannot 2hko Munchlax at +1. Without moveset changes almost solely to deal with munchlax, the meta turns into munchlax setup wars where a crit is the only way out. Even moves like knock or thief which should shut down Munchlax in theory often fail because of pickup support. In a tier with a lot of immediate offensive threats, encore/taunt/toxic for munchlax can easily be abused as a free switch for the munchlax user or the munchlax user can simply attack to remove the threat before switching. Therefore, Munchlax shut down attempts, even when successful, tends to either be a one time solution or give the opponent momentum. Lastly, I'll point out that Munchlax heavily promotes the use of fighting types in a tier where (aside for priority gunk or scarf sets) they are otherwise pretty suboptimal due to their slower speed, psychic weakness, and low SpD. My last point is that Munchlax is also uncompetitive as it promotes games where what matters more is whose munchlax gets crit first rather than skill.

tagging Marty and Kris to implement, thank you very much!

megatyler30 · Jun 21, 2022

In light of the Munchlax ban, I would like to share my thoughts on the highlights of the winners and losers of the Munchlax ban.

Winners:
Abra :Abra:

- Munchlax was one of the few mons which could take hits from Abra and take it out. Abra is looking very very scary. I think we'll see a lot more of Abra ripping through teams now that switching into it is a lot harder.
Gastly :Gastly:

- The lack of every team having a normal type now will be a big plus for Gastly and Munchlax was an even bigger answer for Gastly than Abra, so Munchlax going is even more beneficial.
Porygon :Porygon:

(and Lickitung?) - These two were hardly ever used due to competing with a slot versus Munchlax in most cases, a comparison they were bound to lose. But now that Munchlax is gone, it's going to be much easier to find a place for them on teams, although certainly they will not ever come close to the level of usage Munchlax enjoyed.

Losers
Machop :Machop:

- Machops viability is, in large part, due to fighting types being an extremely important type to have in order to handle Munchlax. With ghosts becoming more likely and its main target leaving the tier, it's harder than ever to justify giving it a spot on a team.
Snubbull :Snubbull:

- Snubbull was a nice mon to have in Munchlax meta given it switches into Munchlax decently well given intimidate and then can taunt it out. Now not only does it lose this purpose but also we are going to see a lot more of Gastly around making having a fairy type team member harder to justifyt now.

This is by no means meant to be complete, just a few thoughts. Although I do wish to bring up Drifloon which was a purposeful omission. Personally, I'm not sure whether or not it will be stronger or weaker in the post-Munchlax meta. It certainly wasn't a big fan of opposing Munchlax and would typically lose to it, but also, it was a good partner for Munchlax on defensive teams so defense being weaker now will hurt its usefulness. Ultimately, I think that it'll be harder to use it effectively, esp with more Gastly around, but if it gets set up, I expect it will do a lot more damage now that Munchlax isn't around to wall it.

TyCarter · Oct 19, 2022

Per megatyler30's request, with the ongoing BDSP Sendoff Tour that's ongoing. I decided to compile replays for the 1st Round (and hopefully more in later rounds as the tournament progresses) for all the BDSP LC games that were played. It was a fairly popular choice in the first round so there is a decent sample size to work with here. It also makes it easier for people and (hopefully) a rough idea of what people are using in a post-Munchlax meta.

Round 1
Grabby vs Halaman95
TyCarter vs Cbass97
igiveuponaname vs pinorska
Aipm02 vs LoveStallLiveLife
Nhattt vs Elfuseon
Gorex vs Giove97

Round 2
Liquid Ocelot vs Leru

Round 3
Lokifan vs Leru

I'll probably hold off on my own personal thoughts for now although I certainly am interested to hear what the current BDSP LC council's thoughts are based on the early showings.

Edit (10/28/2022): R2 and R3 updated, not nearly as many showings in subsequent rounds but still. May even do this for the other tiers too.

Lalaya · Apr 7, 2023

Hello, Tier Resurrector here /j

First of all, a formal welcome to Kodiak_45, since he's with me on this council now, and a huge thanks to all the old guard for helping us until now!

But as much as I love jokes, this is time to get serious, as we noticed how BDSP LC was left in a state of disarray after the Munchlax ban. While I still agree with my last post on the matter, the metagame was definitely not healthy left in this state, and after discussing what action we should pursue to make this better, we come to a conclusion.

Light Clay and Berry Juice are now banned from BDSP LC, and Munchlax is unbanned!

Before hearing our full thoughts, the premise is simply: taking action on a single Pokémon led us to nowhere, as there isn't a single Pokémon that needs action taken that would instantly fix things; you might think of Drifloon, but that doesn't stop the trainwreck that is a Screens HO in this climate, if anything it can rein in some structures as long as things like Clamperl got contained (which is usually difficult, but not impossible), and we have powerful screeners in the hands of Abra and Staryu, but we'd rather take action on the problem instead of the symptoms, which leads us to...

Light Clay was the first ban we agreed on, as it was the shortest route to clear the immediate problem this tier faces: screen HO; at this point you saw it in various flavors, but Abra and Staryu were always there to guarantee at least one screen, and their job was done: be Magby, Zigzagoon, Clamperl, or lots of others, you're guaranteed to be broken by the line of sweepers ready to enter the fray at any moment. This was even worse considering the help from the other item in question today, Berry Juice, which guaranteed all these powerful sweepers a free turn of setup at literally no cost, as you either oneshot them, Taunt them from boosting up or you were at their mercy. Berry Juice also made counterplay to Drifloon and Munchlax very scarce, as the fastest way to debilitate them was just to have them face their mirror, or sacrifice a Knock Off user to them (which Drifloon usually can dodge with a well timed Substitute, threaten with a Wisp, or outright deal with him if it was Sash Abra). We know that Berry Juice was helpful to some Pokémon in a healthy manner, such as Magnemite and Onix, but the benefits don't outweigh the negatives in helping two Pokémon and a whole playstyle to completely dominate the tier. Of course, we can be wrong as we were wrong with only dealing with Munchlax earlier on, but we'll see. And about Munchlax, since most of its dominance earlier in the metagame came because Berry Juice, Recycle and Pickup was the holy trinity of survivability, we want to see if removing the best tool in its disposal is enough to reign it in while keeping it helpul as one of the best glue the tier has to offer.

Light Clay: After Munchlax, the defensive backbone of BDSP LC was banned, Dual Screens strategies saw an immediate uptick in viability and usage as they could cleave through most teams after removing the opposing sturdy juicer. In order to make BDSP LC a more skills based meta while also allowing Dual Screens as an support option, a Light Clay ban was agreed upon.
Berry Juice: Berry Juice fuels most of the degenerate shenanigans of BDSP LC. Previously Munchlax and currently Drifloon looped this item to outlast opposing Pokemon in grindy games. Berry Juice also allows set-up sweepers to shrug off powerful hits while setting up. While Berry Juice is a near universal item, it clearly widens the viability gap between the top threats and lesser pokemon too much for the tier to be healthy.
Munchlax: Berry Juice was what allowed Munchlax to operate on a much higher level then the rest of the tier, as it could chain it with Recycle and Pickup. With Berry Juice being removed, Munchlax is no longer the degenerate defensive wincon it once was. By allowing Munchlax back into the tier, it will hopefully slow the tier down and help combat cheese strategies.

Tagging Kris and Marty to implement, thank you!

cringing in chat · Sep 6, 2025

Will Abra ever be banned?

Nultiprise · Sep 7, 2025

He will be ban the next time we are in 2023

Metagame BDSP LC (New bans/unbans @ post #33)

FP

Éric

mons is mons

HSOWA

Lalaya

Banned deucer.

Lalaya

Banned deucer.

megatyler30

TyCarter

Tough Scene

Lalaya

Banned deucer.

cringing in chat

Nultiprise