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

ganj4lF

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About the warstory, I would be really happy to produce one, especially with double commentary. I can take care of the formatting and stuff if you guys have problems with it (time, interest, whatever) so you have to just fill the blanks with the commentary and that's it. However, we'll do so only in case of a quality battle; for example, if (say) Team 2 completely stomps Team 1 in both battles there's no point in publishing a warstory afterwards.
 

Reymedy

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Well I also believe that there will be a stomp but who knows.

About the project. It's clear that the last pick is an issue, blind vote, why not. But I also think that (I'll be bitching a little sorry) "you got what you deserve".
And it's easy to see why. There are key moves in pokemon and people tend to forget it.
Key moves ? Yes, moves that make you less prone to be countered. I'm talking about Substitute, ThunderWave, U-Turn/Volt-Switch.. this kind of moves that can turn your "counter" into a tasty meal for your pokemon or your team.

Heatran is countered by something ? Well who can really say that he can counter safely a Heatran behind a Sub ? Who can say that he can counter a Rotom-W with Volt-Switch (well Gastrodon probably, but this is MINOR), who can say that he can come safely on a Celebi with TWave and kill it before it Baton Pass? (Or Slowbro with T-Wave..)

Just from looking some nominations, it's clear to see that they lack some versatility.. like badly.
Who cares if your pokemon walls half the opposing team when it is a set-up bait or another prey for a pokemon able to kill ALL your team on its own.
Who cares if your pokemon sweeps half the opposing team when it can be revenged or set-up bait or whatever.

You get my point I guess. Sets that are not good in the project (not versatile, can't adapt the the situation etc) or narrow minded just make the last pick so powerful. People can only blame themselves for that.
It's really not like I told about the Fire/Bug coverage against team 2. And yes, I'm gonna whine against about Skarmory, but it's just an example. You can blame Scizor, but picking a pokemon with a similar weakness to Fire was not smart either.
And it's not like I nonimated Nape just before (yes different teams etc.. well it's still the same, people could have seen it coming, especially after all my whine about Volcarona, it's just his brother with almost the same coverage that has been picked.. because yes, the coverage is THE SAME that my Volcarona's nomination).


About bandwagoning, that's just something I HATE to the utmost point. But there is sadly nothing I can do. I prefer let it the way it is. Why ? maybe after some fails, people will try to improve vote (and also because I can whine in the end like this and see who is the culprit :>).
And I'm not saying that my votes that were most of the time in minority are superior, I was probably wrong in some cases... but at least not as much as many nominations from my point of view. I also almost never saw someone posting a set and voting for someone's else set. You can't even imagine how funny I find that. Just in case people assume that I'm claiming to be right on every nomination, I did vote for myself once or twice at best.

Also, some people (lmao not me at all apparently, but I'm used to that) are impacting just too much the votes. I'm like convinced that if Mewtwo (no offense, I take an example, it's even something you could be proud of) did not push in favor of Nape in the last nomination that Raikou would have been picked. And I'm like 100% sure.
So before you tell me that you just spoke about relevant etc stuff.. It does not change the fact that if johnytheboss76 (I'm sorry if you really exist) would have said the exact same stuff instead of you.. Nape wouldn't have been picked probably.

To help this issue we can ban Mewtwo from this forum.


(haha just kidding )


We can give more importance to the second pick !
The second pick ? well, the set that was the second one closest to be chosen. This way, people will get rewarded for publishing a decent set, that did not have so much success.
Like in the CCAT thread we could give points to encourage and give a chance to the people that are trying and proposing good ideas. This would increase the visibility of the project and give more chances to the guys who had less "hype". Since we can all say that the second nominations were all decent, I think we should reward the people submitting them.
Moreover, it means if you want to submit that you can win something in building a nomination even if the guy against you got a big crew supporting him. Well how many times I was totally disapointed and thought "Does it even matter, I won't be picked, I'm like wasting my time, nobody cares". Some "nice try" rewards would be beneficial to the project and encourage people as well as increasing the interest for the "nobodys" in the project.


PS : I'm thinking about creating a "RangedPikachu" account for the next CTP project, waiting the approval of the smogon's staff.
Or maybe a "The Big Powerful RangedPikachu", it seems too much, but I'll get all the votes for sure.
 
With this band wagging thing some of us aren't. If I see pick a with say 8 votes, pick b with 9 votes and pick c with 2 votes. Let's say I preferred pick c but I really hated pick b and pick a was good but I thought C was better. I would pick a then as C has a much lower chance of winning while my vote could make an impact in pick a vs pick b. IMO that's just making a use of my vote as otherwise we could end up with pick b which I wouldn't want.
I looked over the previous Ctp battle and realised that deoxys-D was a spike setter with no rocks. I personally think rocks should be chosen early as that'd make sure that we wouldn't be forced to pick skarm for our final pick and we don't give team 1 a chance to destroy all our pokes with just 1 poke. This gives both teams more freedom to fully counter the opposing teams picks and gain an advantage.
Finally I would really like to see more fair criticism of other picks. On the scizor pick we had pokes which could have helped us a lot more than our scizor. The amount of unfair criticism was really bad though. My Kyurem got denied cause a poke with awful synergy counters it? Remedy's gliscor was weak to a skarm and a Gengar which could have been made easier to beat by hydriegon who IMO is team 2's biggest hope. There was also Latios which could ohko every member of team 1. However it's weak to scizor and scizor had amazing synergy with team 1 (it really didn't). It was also weak to tyranitar which summons sand which Kyurem would love? These picks happened in other times too but I feel that was the biggest and I'm kind off disappointed that those may have been the reasons that the come, vote for scizor and go people didn't vote for one of the pokes suggested above.
 
While the bandwagoning seemed to be an issue (I looked back on it, I wasn't here for much of this) you guys need to realize there's a large amount of people on smogon and some are better team builders than others. Some people like throwing in Pokemon just because they're some of the best Pokemon in the OU metagame, not necessarily because they're the right pick. Even though this was mostly minimal, if you look at the two teams it looks like people are just voting for the people who have proposed sets before. Small issue, really could be a coincidence, but I'm just saying I think we should limit the amount of total (both teams) Pokemon you can propose and have chosen to 2 a person. It's just a small suggestion, and could allow for higher participation from other users. As for the random people coming in and voting, why not make a requirement to vote such as proposing a Pokemon or voting in a previous round? They can simply say it's a registration vote in the post, and you could keep a list of "registered" users in the OP. Requirements obviously can be changed, but it's a suggestion that I'm thinking could really help. Just copy and paste the "registered" users from the old marks to the new one, as they shouldn't need to have registration over again. The only problem that I see with this is voting for the first Pokemon, which newcomers would not be able to do. Could be a good or a bad thing. Let's them see how it works, what a good submission for a first pokemon is (in case they want to submit for the next team), etc. However it could make some people not want to join because of the lack of "openness" or not be able to give out a fantastic Pokemon that a team should be built around. Just an idea I had, I'm sure it can be tweaked to something better.
 
I think the best way to solve this issue of bandwagoning is to, like dragontamer suggested, is to include a description of why you voted for the mon. The description cannot come from the nominator's original post and no quotes can be included in the reply. Furthermore, anybody reading the post must be able to understand why you picked that mon from reading your post only.

If voters do not abide by the rules, their vote won't be counted.
 
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.

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.)
At the same time, I don't think a quick sentence summing up why you like Pokemon A over B is too much to ask. (Although, it's not like lesser picks don't have a strong point so giving a reason isn't exactly going to fix much anyways.)

Well, the blind voting wouldn't fix the problem of the badged member vs. the unbadged one or any variant of this. Although, Smogon is already a bit of a popularity contest when it comes to voting things so I suppose we can't ask for too much. In any case, even the "bad votes" don't defeat the purpose of the project; to explore team-building. If anything, the lesser picks helps in this goal as it introduces new difficulties to consider. You have to adapt with "whims" of the voters which may lead you to consider things you wouldn't have before. Sure, it makes the final battle kinda crummy but I don't feel that battle is what the project is all about.

I agree 100% with your viewpoint on the last pick. The teams were more or less even but we tripped up at the most crucial moment (cause it's kinda too late then to adapt). I'm not sure we really need to go into more complex measures to nerf the last pick as I feel it's more or less just a matter of "getting what you deserved" (as Remedy brought up)

I've got no problem doing a warstory if the battle turns out well. I'm sorry for inactivity, just some RL things popped up on a bad week lol.

To help this issue we can ban Mewtwo from this forum.


(haha just kidding )



Like in the CCAT thread we could give points to encourage and give a chance to the people that are trying and proposing good ideas. This would increase the visibility of the project and give more chances to the guys who had less "hype". Since we can all say that the second nominations were all decent, I think we should reward the people submitting them.

PS : I'm thinking about creating a "RangedPikachu" account for the next CTP project, waiting the approval of the smogon's staff.
Or maybe a "The Big Powerful RangedPikachu", it seems too much, but I'll get all the votes for sure.
XD I started laughing before even opening the hide tag. I'm not sure I had quite an influential force behind my viewpoints as I'm pretty much unknown outside CTP thread. At least, it was more than just my name that caused bandwagoning.

I really like this idea as there were quite a few good suggestions that were forgotten. It might also help with the monopolizing of the project by a few members (which seems to happen every time) as it kinda extends the number of guys people think they should bandwagon behind.

(I have no clue what you are talking about with the "RangedPikachu" bit which makes me curious to know. :P)
Edit: Nevermind, it took me a while to see Ranged vs Melee as my name refers to the game Super Smash Bros. Melee and not the combat style of choice for my Mewtwo, lol. As such, you would be better off using something like N64 Pikachu as it was the best character in that SSB which contrasts the mediocre Mewtwo in SSBM. (Don't bother giving yourself a name related to SSB Brawl. It was such a crummy Smash game that you would be insulting yourself, lol.)

Small issue, really could be a coincidence, but I'm just saying I think we should limit the amount of total (both teams) Pokemon you can propose and have chosen to 2 a person. It's just a small suggestion, and could allow for higher participation from other users.

As for the random people coming in and voting, why not make a requirement to vote such as proposing a Pokemon or voting in a previous round?
I'd prefer a more indirect method to solving this issue as a direct ban could get a bit messy when there aren't many people putting up submissions. It'll also push away people from participating in the discussion once they already have their picks in.

You kinda summed up the drawbacks in the rest of your post. I actually liked seeing that random guys would take the time to participate in the vote which made the project seem a lot more significant than if it was just the handful of guys of actually posted in the thread.
 

TGMD

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Hey everyone, it looks like I'm battling Melee Mewtwo today at 12:00pm, GMT + 13:00. My name on PS is Great Mighty Doom, cya then :)
 

ganj4lF

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If I'm not mistaken it should be 12.00AM here, I'll be probably online for that time. Updating the OP / title.
 
What time zone was that but ik I missed it. Would be a lot easier if everyone had the same time but gl 2 u both and can we have another of these soon?
 
That was a close match. Team one still won though. The thing I wasn't too comfortable with was the fact that Celebi had to sponge hits from both Rotom and still have to remain alive in case Lando decided to pull a late game sweep. Heatran was taking a shit ton from Volt Switch
 

blitzlefan

shake it off!
Whoa that was a tight match! Quick question... would Infernape's Mach Punch have KO'd Scizor had it not been a critical hit? Wished I could've seen that Kyurem-B in action, but there's two more matches right? Also agree with TyranitarAbuser -dear god Heatran took a LOT from Volt Switch.

Edit: Damn... after seeing those matches... so tempted... to run... Infernape!!! AGHHH!!! Good pick, Cyredax! I think this shows the importance of getting hazards down early? Even though Skarmory wasn't the BEST pokemon to run, hazards really made all the difference in that match, and just the lack of hazards for Team 1 was huge. Also, why did Team 1 lead pick with Kyurem-B? Without major hazards support, I don't really see the point in such a mon, especially a defensive shuffling set? But all in all, GG both of you and that was VERY fun to watch! When's the next round of CtP? :)
 
I'm glad that Infernape work really well against Team 2.
When I saw the turn 27, I thought "WHY DID YOU SWITCH MAN ? YOU EASILY TAKE BP", but then you you get a lucky crit and won.
GG for the 2 players, it was a close and an eventful battle.
 
Okay, so the battles are in and I, somehow, managed to pull off two wins. I'm glad to see Team 2 won this as it sort of disproves the idea that Team 1's last pick is OP. Doom was having a bad day, though, and the matches were VERY trying on as far as patience was concerned. Really GGs anyways, too bad Team 1 couldn't have you at your best. I'm going to edit this post (maybe) with my analysis of the teams before and after the game along with other assorted info related to the project.

Before that real quick I want to reply to the above posts.
@TTar: Celebi didn't need to stick around for Lando as long as I still had Skarm. The trick was getting some SR damage on Lando so Scizor could sweep.
@blitzle: The crit did matter although it evened out the hax I had with Lando (only 50% chance to OHKO after two turns of SR) and the misplays we both made at the end.


I'm going to try to separate periods the affected my understanding and viewpoint of the two teams. This is mostly for myself but I hope the organization helps the readers understand me better.

Before Ape: The two teams were, more or less, fairly matched. Team 2 did have the advantage of Hydreigon who just had to click Draco Meteor to take a free kill. On the other hand, Scizor wasn't the best pick for the main sweeper and this put an immediately foreseen handicap on the more or less forced Skarmory. All in all though, there wasn't a massive focus on the results provided by a single Pokemon in the early game. I expected the battles to play out where each player would take turns giving some blows in an expected cycling of counters to counter their counters with the only really high points being when Hydreigon came in and Team 2 had to pick who was going to die. This personally seemed like a big advantage to me but this was, of course, before the final pick.

After Ape before battle: Cyredax suggests Infernape and all my dreams of having a typical battle with Hydreigon being my ultimate trump card going straight out the window. Infernape turned the game into a pure all or nothing match. Because of this, the value of each individual team member changed radically.

For Team 2: The best shot at winning the game was by wearing down Infernape via passive damage to a point that it could no longer could no longer counter or even stop a +2 sweep from Scizor. This made Skarmory an invaluable player as SR and/or Spikes were the only way to put Ape in that 50% range. Every turn I had with him was extremely valuable. Sadly, abusing Sturdy was clearly not an option as Mamoswine would become another very dangerous threat as soon as Skarm was out of the picture. Not only would he be able to take a kill every time he came in, he was also hitting hard enough that Scizor didn't have the chance to set up a SD on him if needed. All the same, I was hoping that walling 4/6 of the team would allow me to get SR and one layer of Spikes up (so that two switch-ins would put Ape in kill range) while playing it safe with Skarm. Keldeo also became incredibly important as he was the only thing standing between Infernape and clean sweep. It was going to be tricky playing him, though, as the threat of a Close Combat would make it hard for Keldeo to instantly perform his job. Celebi rose in value as it could deal with the single threat that prevented the success of the former two, Rotom-W. Between Wash and Ape, Team 1 had a difficult Volt-Turn core that was clearly going to require a lot of tricks to break long enough for Skarm to get his hazards up. Scizor was another invaluable member as he seemed to have the strongest chance of sweeping. I was again disappointed to see that he could only SD in front of two members (Rotom and Heracross) while being checked by a healthy Lando and the menacing Infernape. All the same, setting up on Rotom was definitely a redeeming feature as it was one of the two major players for Team 1. Heatran had some minor utility due to his ability to shuffle around a bit with Roar (hopefully getting some SR damage on Lando) and in his ability to prevent a Kyurem-B sweep. Hydreigon fell harshly from grace as the battle was clearly going to be very quick which ruled out my previous intentions to slowly pick apart the team one kill at a time. He became the prime kill fodder for sure.

Team 1: Infernape was just as radical for Team 1 as well. Instead of relying on the support of each member to wear down Team 2 faster than Hydreigon could take his kills, everything turned into god or garbage. Infernape was obviously one of the gods along with Rotom-W for his ability to keep the momentum via Volt-Switch while countering the pesky Keldeo. Everything else became garbage that was readily dispensable. They were all liabilities as Skarm could set up hazards on them while having virtually zero use as they weren't doing much more than what Ape + Wash weren't doing already. None, except a healthy Lando, were any use in preventing a Scizor sweep should Ape fail meaning throwing these guys when needed was a safe play for Team 1. This is basically why Hydreigon became useless, getting a kill wasn't spectacular anymore as there were 3-4 body bags lined up to happily eat a Draco Meteor.

Seeing all this and my tendency to play really poorly as a result of poor habits learned from laddering, I decided to do my homework on the calcs of everything beforehand while taking some time to mentally play out the games during the extra time provided by my lack of internet access. I feel this helped a lot in remedying my poor "skills" as there were a few cases where TGMD wasn't aware of certain important calcs that I had the advantage of knowing. All the same, this didn't prevent me from making some poor plays.

During the battles (I'll speak generally because it's late and I don't remember each match much): Like I said, I did some mental play-throughs and decided Keldeo was the safest lead as it prevented an initial Infernape threat while being fairly threatening himself. I had also decided that luring a U-Turn with Celebi to switch to Hydreigon was a solid way to get at least SR up early game. This was because a healthy Hydreigon couldn't be OHKO'd by U-Turn which forced TGMD to pick on of his garbage 4 since Rotom was DM fodder. I would then proceed to intentionally sack Hydreigon to whatever was chosen (in both cases, Mamoswine) so that Skarmory could be safely brought in to SR. Barring the crit the first game, this worked beautifully and the importance of hazards I had ranted on earlier justified my earlier claims. I feel that the fact that Team 2 could easily get the much needed SR up while Team 1 was forced to rely on the liable Mamoswine made a massive difference in deciding the game outcome. As for the rest of the game, it was mostly a prediction fest between 2-3 possible choices that were all or nothing almost every time. My goal was to drag out the game just long enough for my hazards to do my work so that Scizor could do his. Keldeo showed some surprising extra value as it was a reliable win condition himself due to his ability to clean the opposing team with sufficient passive damage as well as Scizor. Celebii's Baton Pass and ability to counter Rotom-W was very valuable as the later helped drag out the match while the latter could mean anther safe switch-in for Skarmory.


All in all, these were very good games. I feel the last pick isn't nearly as game-breaking as it seems and that it simply requires that extra care is put into Team 2's final two picks. Thanks again TGMD for these great games and your immense patience during the week that I was unavailable.
 

TGMD

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Won vs Melee Mewtwo first game then lost the next two, ggs man.

Overall it was as expected; very, very close games that were both rather enjoyable but also terribly repetitive and luck based, lol :( Almost every turn was a 50/50 call, whenever I had nape out vs Celebi I had to either U-Turn on the Celebi or Close Combat on the incoming Heatran, if I got it wrong then I was either forced out and had to take more hazard damage or I would fall victim to a Thunder Wave from Celebi. Risking the Thunder Wave is huge, it would cost me so much, but him risking the U-Turn on Celebi was huge, without Celebi Rotom causes massive problems and he had to rely on Skarm and Skarm alone for Lando. Whereas Heatran dying to Close Combat doesn't matter that much, as it's not an important mon and U-Turning on Heatran doesn't matter as much because the extra hazard damage isn't as bad as a paralyzed nape. Almost every turn was like this, lol.

The first battle was mostly 50/50s up until Melee Mewtwo forgot about Mach Punch and made a bad play, the game was mine bar a crit and then I completely choked and let Scizor have a sweep chance. I had a chance to crit... I didn't, then I had about 50% chance to survive... but I died, then finally I had a chance to crit... success and I won. As you can see we both made bad plays then it came down to hax, but in the end I think I had a higher chance of winning than Melee due to more crit chances and having a 50% chance to survive. So the match was decided on hax. The other two games I played better, but still not very good, whereas Melee did play very well, and although Melee won more 50/50 prediction situations, he still played better and deserved the win :D

Overall, I really enjoyed this project, and I think it showed that the last pick isn't as huge as it may seem. Huge thanks to Ganj4lf and everyone that participated, it was fun :)

Replays:

Game 1:
http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou8944438

Game 2:
http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou8947678

Game 3:
http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou8951113
(A warstory seems somewhat unlikely, as I'm starting uni soon and the games were mostly 50/50 situations every turn, so the commentary would be super boring. If after seeing the battles Ganj4lf still wants one I'd be willing to do one, but I can only really do the commentary, I just don't have the time atm for all the formatting.)
 

ginganinja

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Well played both of you, they were good battles to watch, and you should both feel proud with how you did, and how you used your teams.

Just in regards to a last pick "fix", an idea was brought up over IRC as to whether (after both teams have been built) a moveset change can be used, which allows Team 2 to check a last pick from Team 1 or something. I still think that aggressive picks from Team 2 should resolve the "last pick" problem, but perhapes the moveset change can also handle it or something, idk.
 

ganj4lF

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is a Team Rater Alumnus
Well, I obviously failed with the timezone conversion, whatever...

Wow, those matches were amazing, well played by both of you! I didn't really expected Team 2 to have a comeback and win this CtP. Melee's post is very enlightening and I think his clear battle plan helped him a ton on getting the residual damage needed to achieve the wins. The matches were very close both times, which is exactly what you'd expect out of a successful CtP, since both teams are supposed to counter each other somewhat, and that's exactly what happened. Many pokes of both teams were basically nullified by the opposing setup, and only four of them got the chance to shine: Rotom and Nape for Team 1, and Celebi + Keldeo for Team 2. Scizor didn't fare that bad as I anticipated, and I'm somewhat glad that it didn't ruined everything. I'd also say that we should start to avoid gimmicky picks like Kyu-B or Meloetta (last CtP), since they tend to get countered pretty well and shut down completely with ease; probably a more "standard" set as first pick can work better, letting gimmicks for when there's less room to counter them.

The matches IMHO suggest that the last pick problem is not that much a problem as long as players are aware of it and plan accordingly to avoid excessive weaknesses. Even Infernape, that could OHKO almost all of Team 2, did not prevent Melee Mewtwo to take the match, in the end. ginga's suggestion can be useful, as well as blind picking tbh, but I think it's not entirely necessary. Ah, whatever, we'll think about that when the next CtP will start. I'm also glad for all the input on fixing the bandwagoning problem; probably a point system or something like that is my favourite idea, so who contributed with more sets / votes / good arguments in the discussion is rewarded with a vote that has a bigger weigth than the one of the new user. This should encourage participation while not cutting out anyone from the project. Again, we'll think about it before starting the Mk IV.

On the warstory, I enjoyed the battles to be honest, so if it's not a problem for TGMD and Melee Mewtwo, a warstory could be a good thing. It surely shows a good match between two skilled players, and is a good way to conclude this CtP (and hopefully draw new users for the next edition of it, that's a non-negligible advantage for sure). I'd like to battle story Match 2, which seemed the most representative of the two teams (obviously we're not going to warstory more of one match, they were quite similar so let's pick one and work on that: Match 1 has an haxy end, and Match 3...well, it's good too, but for some reason I like 2 more. Whatever, this can be changed if you guys have a different opinion). I'd like to get a bit of feedback on the possibility of a warstory, and on which match you'd like to see warsyory'd (if that word exists...). Melee and TGMD already said that's not a problem (if I misinterpreted something, you've RL problems or whatever reason that makes for you difficult to participate for the warstory, just say that and we can avoid doing so). As already said, I'm more than glad to take care of the formatting, so as soon as we decide the battle I'll start and then PM the formatted log to TGMD and Melee; you only have to fill the blanks and send it back to me, I'll check the formatting again and then publish it.

I'd like to thank everyone who partecipated on this project, I'm really glad it turned out a good one even after those moments of low participation.
 
I'm perfectly fine with whichever match you guys prefer. (sorry for suggesting all three, I was thinking they were 12ish turns each, lol.)

I was pretty clueless in the beginning of this project (lol Custap Forry for first member) but now that I look back at it I agree that Cube wasn't the strongest pick. (mind you, these battles became horribly centered around Ape and the few mons that supported/beat him so it's hard to say what was actually useful or not) I think that the ideal first pick mon should be one that places significant pressure on the opponent when attempting to find a counter. You basically get a free pick right so you might as well use it to try to force the other team's picks as best you can. This Pokemon should also not require the need for support. Things that are SR weak or can only clean a weakened team are not the best first picks as you can be sure to see counters right off the bat followed by a series of checks. This makes wall breakers and other assorted heavy hitters solid choices as they are useful regardless of the OP's team. Lastly, the Pokemon should provide support for the rest of the team. If you have massive wall breaking powers, Volt-Turn pivoting or even things like Tailwind, the first pick will always be helpful as it will be supporting the members that don't have as many counters. So, I feel picks like CBScizor, Hydreigon, Terrakion, Breloom, Rotom-W and other such heavily offensive and/or supportive Pokemon are solid suggestions for a first pick.
 

TGMD

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Well, I personally prefer game #1 (not because that was the one I won a_a) It was by far the most exciting imo (may just be due to there not being any repeat plays yet, but still) and the conclusion was rather thrilling, as it didn't end at all like people would expect it to. Thanks a lot for doing the warstory formatting Ganj4lf :D
 

alexwolf

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Wow really nice battles, i am now ashamed of my lack of faith in this project... It seems that the last pick is not as detrimental as i thought, and i am glad to see that the games weren't one sided at all. Good work guys, for all your hard work in this project, the battles, and the comments after! Good work to anyone that participated in this project and i would definitely want to see it another time, even though i wasn't so involved in this one.
 

Electrolyte

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It was a pleasure to be able to watch most of the first two matches while they were being played out; really nice job to both of you ^^

Yeah, the battles were really centered around the last pick, Infernape. I could really tell that Melee was trying hard to keep Nape at bay with smart switching and such, and in the end, it did work out. The matches revolved around Nape, Keldeo, Rotom-W, and Celebi, since Keldeo checked Nape, Rotom-W checked Keldeo, Celebi checked Rotom-W, and Nape checked Celebi. This cycle was very obvious in all three matches, and whoever came out on top in this cycle of 'countering' eventually won.

This makes me feel as if this round was very successful, and I regret the fact that I was unable to contribute much because of other parts of the community that I was investing time in. True, it again centered around the last pick, but (perhaps by chance) we were able to drag some more pokemon into the mix, so that it because a series of check-switch and check-switch. It really was a true 'counter this pokemon match'.

One thing I think Melee did very well was maintain control of hazards, which ultimately let him come out on top in match 3. He was able to exploit the fact that Nape was weak to SR and Spikes and the fact that he had no form of Recovery- letting him sheerly outlast Nape and apply constant pressure with Keldeo until GMD was forced to give Nape up. This is how he was able to turn the match around, imo, and keep Nape at bay.

This fact, as well as evidence from the previous CTP, leads me to think that hazards in general are a major part of today's metagame. Last CTP, Team 2 was really simply overwhelmed when Deoxys set 3 layers of Spikes and SR down on the field. This, combined with the fact that DeoD was in fact quite tough to take down, resulted in the annihilation of team 2 in the first CTP.

This CTP brought different results, but for a similar reason. Despite having a huge disadvantage against GMD, Melee was still able to come out strong by using clever switches and hazards to outlast GMD before Nape could sweep. By indirectly forcing GMD to take damage because he wasn't able to reliably do it in any other way (bar Keldeo), Melee was able to beat Nape, all because of the useful hazards provided by Skarmory.

Nice job, guys.
 
This makes me feel as if this round was very successful, and I regret the fact that I was unable to contribute much because of other parts of the community that I was investing time in. True, it again centered around the last pick, but (perhaps by chance) we were able to drag some more pokemon into the mix, so that it because a series of check-switch and check-switch. It really was a true 'counter this pokemon match'.
It's true that we had the ideal countering cycle going but I think the ideal CTP match would require a constant involvement from more than just 2 members on each team. These matches were horribly nerve racking so I hope that the next battlers have the fortune of playing matches that ask more out of their team than a few star members.

Well, I personally prefer game #1 (not because that was the one I won a_a) It was by far the most exciting imo (may just be due to there not being any repeat plays yet, but still) and the conclusion was rather thrilling, as it didn't end at all like people would expect it to. Thanks a lot for doing the warstory formatting Ganj4lf :D
Whichever works fine for me. The haxy end can be seen as a killjoy to the complex game that preceded it or as a surprising plot twist that gives an epic conclusion to an epic match. (That's really nice of you to volunteer to go through the trouble of formatting the match for us, Gangj4lf. I hope it doesn't take up too much of your time.)
 

Pocket

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HEY HEY HEY don't blame on my cute KyuB! It's far from a gimmick, but Team 1 certainly did not support it well. KyuB is more suited on a balanced team, not on an offensive team with 0 defensive backbone (edit: ok there was Rotom-W) and no Rapid Spinner. That puts too much pressure on KyuB to take hits, which should not be the case.

I agree with Electrolyte about hazards. Team 1 seems like it was made for hazards, yet it was unable to put even SR up. VoltTurn did not quite work out for Doom when switching out costed more for Doom than Melee Mewtwo. I simply think Team 2 was the better crafted team than Team 1. Well-played, both players, though!
 
That's the trouble with the project, everybody has their own team building style and preferences so it is difficult to make full use of the originally intended purpose of each member. So something that can fit on any offensively inclined team type is generally better for the first pick. Mind you, I don't think Kyurem-B was so bad a first pick as much as he became dead weight along with 2/3 of the team once Infernape was added. He had what he needed to be self sufficient and that DTail spam could have helped a lot in wearing down counters for an extended battle. He did actually pose a threat to me when I tried playing as I was afraid to sack Tran and have to face an unphazable Kyurem right after dealing with that annoying monkey.
 

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