Iron Hands also gets a point from me for making good use of Electric as a defensive typing (neutralizing the most prominent weakness in Flying while being built as a tank to offset the added Ground weakness) and having a more unique role for that type by being a really strong Tanky Attacker. Compared to Electric's usual schtick trying to be a frail speedster (or at least not that bulky for its stat line), it plays differently from most of that type while calling for different responses than most use against Electrics, which often go with outspeeding "decent" damage or mild-tanking for lacking stand out coverage, both of which Iron Hands has less issue with thanks to not being built for speed and having really useful Physical Coverage like EQ, Ice Punch, or Fighting STAB
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Looking over BDSP rematch teams today and I noticed that the only Leaders who use their Gym TM (or any Gym TM, for that matter) in their rematch movesets are Byron and Roark, who each use their own TM and the other's TM, which I thought was kinda sweet.
Shoutout to Alpha Pokemon, goated mechanic. On paper it seems like the most low-effort crap imaginable, literally just "Pokemon but bigger than usual", but it turns out when you tie that concept to overleveled minibosses with special moves that incentivize backtracking and/or punching above your weight you wind up with an incredibly satisfying set of progress markers to further strengthen and add variety to your team. Alpha variants of powerful three-stagers like Electivire especially have an absolutely unmatched aura
While looking into cards that use RPS, I found the most extreme example in Mr. Mime. The fact that you can softlock someone to death if you're skilled enough at RPS is the funniest thing I've ever seen in the TCG.
I don't think you can softlock since many decks have ways to damage the bench iirc, but it's funny either way
I've been playing XY a lot over the past year, chilling, exploring Kalos, tackling shinies, battling a bunch, especially in the Chateau or in the Vs. Recorder Mock Battle feature. Otherwise doing literally whatever. From going everywhere, one thing I've noticed that unlike other Pokémon regions, Kalos seemingly has areas all around its region rain at random periods of time. It's not like Hoenn where it only rain on specific routes forever or like Unova where it rain on specific routes on specific months. Kalos just has areas all across the map be able to rain at random points of the day.
I prefer how Kalos handles rain over what other Pokémon regions are doing and the rain looks good. I often try to sit in raining areas for a while when I catch it raining somewhere in the game.
I prefer how Kalos handles rain over what other Pokémon regions are doing and the rain looks good. I often try to sit in raining areas for a while when I catch it raining somewhere in the game.
It's only just hitting me now that I'm watching a PLA speedrun even though it's technically been a thing for over 10 years now; but it's neat that the introduction of Fairy means that Palkia and Dialga both have two weaknesses each; rather than Palkia alone being harder to hit for SE damage
Kyurem just got banned in SV OU (& was banned in SWSH OU, looking it up) and honestly good for it.
Always the punching bag of the box legends, we all remember the days of "Black Kyurem is barely OU", and then it finally got the moves it wanted and bam. Throw that husk into ubers with the force of a meteor.
Love that guy
Always the punching bag of the box legends, we all remember the days of "Black Kyurem is barely OU", and then it finally got the moves it wanted and bam. Throw that husk into ubers with the force of a meteor.
Love that guy
At the same time, as weird as this is to suggest, I kind of wish the Kyurem fusions had more moves that base Kyurem lacked (akin to the Deoxys learnsets but dropped ala how Home Transfer works between gens). I actually liked Kyurem and Kyurem-B's ranking in past gens in a way because their kits (on an Uber level) felt incomplete, much like the Mon itself.
Was thinking about it a few days ago but I think it's pretty cool that Clefable has managed to be good in Smogon's competitive OU standard metagame for several generations straight, all the way back from Gen 4 to now in Gen 9, six generations, even if it wasn't always actually OU by usage during that time. It's really neat for Clefable in particular to be as good as it is because in the face of generational power creep and more aggressively min-maxed Pokemon (with their best stats being well above 130) dominating the higher tiers and the official VGC metagames, Clefable is pretty unique in that it's a Gen 1 Pokemon, aka an oldie from the beginning, and like most of them it has an average, jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none stat build, and in Clefable's case not a single stat above 100, with its two highest stat values being at 95. And yet in spite of that, which would normally be a downside for most Gen 1 mons and has led to them being power crept, Clefable on the other hand has endured the test of time because its combination of amazing movepool, amazing abilities, and in later gens being pure Fairy-type mean it offers so much to the table and does the jobs it is capable of doing really well, with its well-rounded, not min-maxed stat build actually ironically working in its favor.
While it's not as prominent in VGC there's still another funny thing to note there and that's the fact that Clefairy has seen a strong amount of niche use in VGC as a Follow Me bot, which is another plus in the line's favor: a pre-evo, one with really bad stats in a vacuum no less, manages to have just the right tools to find a niche even in modern power crept VGC metagames thanks to what it brings to the table.
The Clefairy line is a real winner of the OGs, even if it doesn't look all that impressive in a vacuum, and a prime case where the original design ethos of the Gen 1 mons, which is decent, well rounded stats but not min-maxed, while having an insanely wide movepool with almost every technique imaginable, actually became a strength for Clefable rather than a weakness, thanks to its combination of typing, abilities, and its well-rounded stats allowing it to make effective and useful combinations of tools from its wide movepool that give it a niche. I think that's pretty damn cool.
While it's not as prominent in VGC there's still another funny thing to note there and that's the fact that Clefairy has seen a strong amount of niche use in VGC as a Follow Me bot, which is another plus in the line's favor: a pre-evo, one with really bad stats in a vacuum no less, manages to have just the right tools to find a niche even in modern power crept VGC metagames thanks to what it brings to the table.
The Clefairy line is a real winner of the OGs, even if it doesn't look all that impressive in a vacuum, and a prime case where the original design ethos of the Gen 1 mons, which is decent, well rounded stats but not min-maxed, while having an insanely wide movepool with almost every technique imaginable, actually became a strength for Clefable rather than a weakness, thanks to its combination of typing, abilities, and its well-rounded stats allowing it to make effective and useful combinations of tools from its wide movepool that give it a niche. I think that's pretty damn cool.
I still find funny that this current ongoing regulation is the first time in... ever I think? where people are actually using Clefable over Clefairy in VGC.
W for Clefable which is cuter dont @ me
thinking about how disgustingly good clefable would be in gen 3 ou if it had magic guard back then
IT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING
(bonus lol: liko getting more votes than gojo jjk in literally anything. this is a general anime character popularity poll i think, dunno what magazine)
That sure is an interesting name you gave it...
IT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING
(bonus lol: liko getting more votes than gojo jjk in literally anything. this is a general anime character popularity poll i think, dunno what magazine)
Where did you get the scan? Seems like this was a reader poll where people could submit votes through twitter. Probably a shoujo magazine of some sort?
Shiny Meloetta just randomly being dropped with no rhyme, reason, or warning at all, I can't help but love it.
edit: "we plan to add more Mystery Gifts for completing other game Pokedexes in the future". I see, I see...
edit: "we plan to add more Mystery Gifts for completing other game Pokedexes in the future". I see, I see...
"No reason"? Maybe this was always planned, sure, but it might also be them trying to get SOMETHING in the poke-news that isn't the hack.
I highly doubt this was them rushing something out the door and I think there's 0 reason to seriously entertain the thought. Especially since it was paired with a feature update.
I think they just want Home to have more things to do. The guidebook gives another avenue to interact with the app and they don't do giveaways on the same frequency as Bank necessarily did, Gen 9 in particular has felt pretty limited on "major" releases despite the high number of anime tie ins and competitive give aways. So this offers a tangible reward for completing a recent game's Pokedex and promises of similarly exciting rewards.
& not like there was going to be any other major Home update in the wings otherwise. Z-A's not until some nebulous time next year and if the time gap between non-DLC releases remains true it'll be even further in the year for Home to be relevant again.
Okay probably not literally no reason, but it did just drop out of nowhere