i am honestly very happy about winning dpp lc cup. i'm obviously extremely disconnected from competitive pokemon at this point but finally getting a dpp lc tournament win and winning my first individual tournament in
nine years actually feels pretty great, even if it's not the most prestigious thing in the world and it took my fair share of fortune to get there. i likely won't be playing another tournament for a long while so felt a post was in order. nothing i did in my run reinvented the wheel. i stuck with sound concepts the whole way through and just used what i think are the best pokemon and sets every single game, so i don't have any particularly captivating teams or sets to share unfortunately. instead there are some things i think need to be said about the current meta and some particular pokemon and interactions.
Meta Thoughts
Gligar & Defensive Utility
gligar has been consensus top three for roughly 15 years, but honestly i think at the moment its nowhere close. i have had an exceptionally difficult time justifying it's use on teams over my last few tournaments (i played 29 games between lcwc and dpp lc cup and brought gligar a grand total of 2 times (
lcwc w3 vs evakiyama &
dpp lc cup r1 game 2 vs iss)) and i think the reason for that is it's difficulty maintaining a significant and specific defensive niche. in dpp lc everything hits hard, everything is capable of dealing meaningful damage, so to separate yourself you need to either be able to output unspeakable damage (think cranidos, wailmer, explosion users) or be able to provide substantial defensive utility in nearly every battle. munchlax, bronzor, and chinchou clearly have value outside of just what they can switch into, but they're eternal because of the amount of flexibility they give you defensively. gligar finds itself in a very awkward position where, due to its typing, essentially every relevant pokemon aside from itself frequently runs a move capable of killing it in one hit. there simply aren't important pokemon it can even semi-reliably be tasked to switch into outside of opposing gligar and stunky, and when something struggles to find positions to enter the battle i begin to struggle to find teams to put them on. your good traits matter less if you're incapable of being in the battle to use them. this is all without saying how hard gligar gets shut down by bronzor and koffing, which i both believe are incredible right now independent of their ability to invalidate gligar.
obviously it still does amazing things: it's one of the few pokemon with stealth rock access, it hits 19 speed, it can set up effectively, it can pivot effectively. it also does still have some defensive niches: being a true flying type is great into cranidos, it has the natural bulk to stomach neutral physical attacks in a pinch like stunky crunch or munchlax return, it has two immunities. it has great traits, and i am sure i am vastly underusing gligar relative to its actual strength, but my overarching points still remain and i believe gligar is very weak at the moment compared to how we have known it for years.
Gastly & Ghostless Teams
gastly has been facing similar issues to gligar, albeit on a smaller scale. stunky simply existing and being extremely good makes any game more uncomfortable for gastly, and the recent rise of zen headbutt on munchlax has severely lessened it's opportunities to safely enter the battle given munchlax has been its primary assignment for years. due to its speed, three relevant immunities, and most importantly, its access to explosion it's still great, but it's definitely less convenient to use than a year or two ago. i even saw my precious hp ground gastly make an appearance in
lccl finals, so there are ways gastly can attempt to push past these adaptations.
with stunky being fantastic and gastly not having the same ease of use it has been known to, ghostless teams have begun feeling like a good alternative much more often than they used to. obviously forgoing a ghost leaves you with teambuilding holes to fill, but removing the conventional restriction of forcing one of gastly or duskull onto your team allows for considerable flexibility. the primary roadblock you run into without a ghost is how to deal with munchlax, and the best way i've found it is to just have nothing it can come in on. my team in
game one of cup finals proves a good example: five physical attackers, including 9 speed superpower munchlax to consistently win the mirror. the last is koffing, who i believe is a big winner on ghostless structures. it gives you effective machop counterplay in the absense of a ghost, fills the levitate slot, and can will-o-wisp munchlax, all while having explosion access. running not a single thing munchlax conventially likes to switch into leaves your opponent in an awkward position. you can also go in the complete opposite direction and just muscle through it with droves of special attackers. reflect bronzor and staryu can assist by providing ways to stomach munchlax hits. theres plenty of ways to make it work and i've been enjoying dropping ghosts quite a bit.
Wailmer & Scarfers
i think wailmer is the second best pokemon in dpp lc currently. the amount of pressure it exerts between water spout, self-destruct, and it's coverage is simply immense, and between its ability and massive hp pool there are enough situations where it is defensively relevant to make it hard to justify not using it on most teams. through lcwc and dpp lc cup i have used wailmer on 70% of my teams, my second most used pokemon by a huge margin. in those games i used choice scarf, oran berry, mystic water, and custap berry as items, and wacan berry and choice specs are viable also. it has a vast item pool, it has just enough power, speed, and bulk to make use of all it's tools, i use it on nearly every team.
wailmer is probably the best choice scarf user in the tier, but i've noticed the pool of scarfers i'm willing to consider has grown increasingly shallow. aside from a single scarf machop used in round 2, the only choice scarf pokemon i used in dpp lc cup were wailmer, cranidos, and chinchou. i ran four teams where diglett was my form of speed, and another few with no scarfer or diglett, but every other team found a way to slot one of those 3 into the team. i realized i was refusing to utilize the 14 speed scarfer pool because of how omnipresent wailmer and cranidos are, and facing either of them without a way to outspeed or force a tie felt like it was playing with fire. from my usual scarfers wailmer and cranidos feel obvious, but chinchou i was impressed by. the fact it outspeeds both of the others and can one shot them, along with it actually maintaining a lot of defensive utility while holding a scarf has made it a go to for me, particularly against wailmer and cranidos spammers.
Tiering Action
Cranidos
i don't resonate with the outcry around cranidos, though i'm maybe slightly more sympathetic to the cause than i was a few months ago. as mentioned above, cranidos detonating everything makes it difficult to justify running slow scarfers, but i think that restriction in the builder is really the only justifiable criticism of keeping cranidos in the tier.
cranidos is strong as shit and is able to kill basically the whole tier if you just click the right move and hit everything, and this would be a massive issue if it had any way to safely enter the battle and didn't kill itself clicking its strongest move. luckily for us, those restrictions bake in natural counterplay to every team, and knowing the gamestate and building well can allow you position around it and the 50/50s cranidos causes. i believe there are lesser explored options against cranidos, such as trapping it with sucker punch life orb diglett or actually using croagunk now and again. priority is good. i don't think cranidos is too strong honestly, and i also do not find points regarding cranidos inconsistent accuracy compelling. the nuke only hitting 80% of the time is not unique to cranidos and i personally don't find it to be more of an issue than any other pokemon leaning on inaccurate moves. i think it might be due to how i play (throughout both lcwc and my dpp cup run i have used cranidos nine times. in those games, i was able to attack with it 17 total times. i used earthquake 10 times, superpower five times, stone edge twice. i used head smash zero times) but i am almost never in a situation where im hinging a game on cranidos having to connect a string of moves, and i'm on the recieving end of that situation rarely as well. i think there are real consequences to cranidos but i don't view them as significant enough to warrent a ban.
No Guard
for me personally, this is a more desirable angle if we do commit to some sort of tiering action. machop is pretty bullshit. the amount of progress you can be granted by simply clicking dynamic punch is pretty gross, and if we're dismayed about the 50/50s cranidos creates we cannot ignore the ones created by dynamic punch and the remainder of machop's coverage. i don't find scarf machop to be particularly good, and at the lead every team should have a good plan for how to react to machop, but the variance it creates is pretty disgusting in my opinion and for me personally decides games much more frequently than cranidos misses and the like. i personally used lead machop in roughly 40% of my games across lcwc and dpp lc cup, nearly all of them being focus sash, and won over 80% of those games. it's not engaging, it's not rewarding, it's not fun, and it's very strong. that said it's obviously not good to the point of being broken or anything, and there are functional albeit not great leads that get you advantages vs machop leads, but i view it as uncompetitive enough to warrent serious ban discussion.
i want to be specific im talking about no guard here. dynamic punch ban would be fine too, but i'm unconvinced we would even be allowed to do that. a ban of machop itself should probably be off the table, it has traits no other pokemon has and with a no guard or dynamic punch ban would still have a niche and see fringe play.
all in all im proud of my dpp lc cup run. i beat a lot of great players and won without getting an activity win or bye, and im satisfied i was finally able to win something in the one tier i've played in the last 10 years. i think dpp lc is in a good spot and theres much more room to push and innovate despite me not really doing so throughout the tournament. i had many insane ideas and nearly brought some bullshit several times, theres plenty of ideas left to be tried.
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