I am currently grinding my way through the LCWC II games collecting data. And after watching a whole bunch of replays from LCWC II and LCPL, in addition to reading some of y’alls well-written posts, laddering myself, and watching some other misc games, I feel well-versed enough to opine on the state of Little Cup’s metagame. This is probably going to be a long post, so grab a sandwich or something.
A lot of this post is going to be common knowledge for experienced LC players, but that is somewhat the point. I want this post to be accessible for people who, like myself, only got into Gen 8 LC relatively recently and have an interest in the metagame’s trends and the general mood of its player-base.
On Vullaby:
Simply put, Vullaby is the SwSh LC equivalent of GSC Snorlax, and this is NOT based on the fact they both have insanely high tournament usage relative to their metagame. It is because, like Snorlax, GSC Vullaby is simultaneously the best offensive and defensive Pokemon in the tier, often using the same set for both roles. And unlike GSC Zapdos, who really only has two sets (RestTalk and Whirlwind variants) Vullaby has a far greater degree of versatility in movesets that allow it to pressure or outright beat its supposed answers, much like GSC Snorlax. And from the defensive perspective, it is pretty much unrivaled. Little Cup is a metagame with Fighting-types that you need to pressure offensively, Arena Trap, Foongus, and Grookey. The best type that reliably answers these threats is Flying (and Arena Trap immune Poisons, aka Koffing, but let’s put a pin in that one) and most of the Flying-types in Little Cup suck giga dong.
The majority of the Flying-types in SwSh are early-game trash birds or Pokemon with otherwise low BSTs (RIP Noibat). Currently, only 4 Flying-types are viable: Vullaby, Natu, Archen, and Wingull. Natu is pretty much just a Screener and is ultra vulnerable to Knock Off, so we can count it out. Archen has a horrible ability, yes, but the bigger problem is its neutral to Fighting while also being neutral to Grass, meaning it can’t reliably check the Grookster. And Wingull, while offensively potent, is also neutral to Grass and has to rely on hitting Hurricane, often multiple times. So that leaves us with Vullaby as the only consistent choice for a Flying-type in a metagame where Flying is a really, REALLY strong typing.
The problem with Vullaby is that the very metagame it is so good at taking advantage of also supports it immensely. The natural answers to Flying are Steel, Electric, and Rock. Most Electric-types have doodoo stats, and all of them take a bunch of Vullaby’s Dark STAB while still being vulnerable to Diglett, so they aren’t consistent. Vullaby potentially has Heat Wave for the Steel-types, and every single Steel-type hates Knock Off, so count them out too. Which leaves the Rock-types, who are weak to the aforementioned Grookey and ubiquitous Fighters, while also being vulnerable to boosted Dark Pulse and disliking Knock Off. Onix’s 17 Speed tier and wonderful selection of abilities make it by far the best choice, but it's still exploitable.
The result is the kind of rock-paper-scissor teams we see dominating in the LCPL. I call them P3FV teams while collecting data from replays since they follow the same structure of defensive Poison, Mienfoo/Timburr, a Flying-type which is usually Vullaby, and a Pokemon whose primary job is to switch into Vullaby at least once (Poison + Fighting + Flying + Fuck Vullaby, P3FV.) These P3FV squads lean on the overall strength of their Fighting+Flying core, which I will touch upon later when I talk about Timburr and Minefoo, to beat a lot of the other weaker Pokemon in the tier. The Poison-types and Vullaby answers respond to the Fighting+Flying core. Hence the rock-paper-scissor: figher-flyer-fly checks, which lose to the fighter. The last two slots on the team are largely comprised of Ferroseed (for Spikes and TWave/Knock support, as well as a Psychic, Rock, Water, and Grass resist), fast special attackers who take advantage of the Pokemon EVd to take on the Fighters and Grookey, the Arena Trap twins, Mudbray (a generally good check to physical mons), a fast Fire-type for teams without Onix or Mareanie, Frillish, Dewpider, and monke with a stick. Other odd mons like Slowpoke pop up here and there, but this is the core metagame. The only teams I mark as being successful enough to note that deviate from P3FV are Natu Screens teams (Tyrunt is a solid anti-meta mon) and fire spam teams with Vulpix, since if your only Fire resist is Onix it can be quickly overwhelmed. Spritzee sometimes takes the role of the Poison-type on some teams, but it seems kinda MU fishy to me.
This ties back to Vullaby, since Vullaby is simultaneously the rock, paper, and scissor on these teams. It’s damage output is solid, and it has so much customization that you can tailor your Vullaby to lure in and take out its counters. Wanna bait Onix? U-turn to Trapinch or a Fighting-type. Worried about Pawniard? Knock Off + Heat Wave. Need a Foongus answer? Overcoat, baby. Wanna break the mental fortitude of your opponent and send them into a tilt that would put carnival rides to shame? Thief + Berry Juice, thank you for the Eviolite. The bird is ubiquitous, and rightfully so, for the same reason why GSC Snorlax is; it is simply the best at what it does , and teams that aren’t running it could be running it, and really should be running it.
On Fighting-types:
Since Gen 4, Fighting has been a dominant type in Little Cup. This is partially due to the quality of Pokemon: Gen 4 Machop has generally good stats and moves, while Croagunk is so far out of your priority league with Fake Out/Sucker/VW that it will remind you of what happened when you confessed your feelings to the popular kid in middle school. But Mienfoo and Timburr are absolutely incredible. They are similar to Vullaby in the fact they are simultaneously great offensive and defensive Pokemon. What makes them good is their combination of survivability and ability to debilitate what should be hard answers. Mienfoo has Regenerator (and Drain Punch if you like clay in your soup) to keep it going, which synergizes ridiculously well with U-turn, its generally good stats, and resistance to Stealth Rock/Knock Off. Timburr has a base HP stat so big that even Porygon gets HP-ness envy, alongside STAB Drain Punch to back it up.
But what really makes both Fighters so good is Knock Off. Mienfoo and Timburr are phenomenal at trading with anything that cannot hit them super-effective. Knocking Off Eviolite means Timburr is dealing more damage with Drain Punch and therefore getting more HP back in your trades, or just shoving kids into the proverbial locker with an elemental punch. Mienfoo clicking Knock Off means you now have to eat its STAB HJK, but it can also pivot with Regenerator to get back HP it lost in its trade. This ability to beat down so many Pokemon is a big reason why a lot of Pokemon are fringe viable at best in LC: they can’t trade with the Fighters since they lack the sustain, the damage output to pressure them, or are weak to Knock Off/Ice Punch despite resisting Drain Punch/HJK. It is also why Pokemon that are faster than them (or can otherwise exploit Knock Off, i.e. Weak Armor Vullaby) with super-effective coverage are competitively relevant, namely Abra, Ponyta-G, Wingull, and Staryu. Or if you are Grookey, just hit them with a stick.
Then there is Scraggy, who really just loves what Grookey is doing to the metagame. Grookey means that Poison-types are in vogue, which means that the Fighting-type resist slot is going to Foongus, Mareanie, and Koffing instead of Spritzee. And with Spritzee being uncommon, Scraggy’s terrifying STAB duo can apply a ton of offensive pressure after Dragon Dance. Scraggy has a few more flaws than the other two Fighters, mostly the fact that it cannot trade with them, but it is still a note-worthy Fighting-type in the meta. Getting Scragg’d is how you are properly inducted into Little Cup, please take your complimentary Berry Juice and have a seat.
On Arena Trap:
I think Arena Trap is always fascinating in 6v6 metas where its allowed, and I am generally curious about the match-up between teams that have Diglett/Trapinch and those which do not. My thought process is having access to Arena Trap while your opponent does not is a significant advantage in terms of available counterplay. Basically, you have access to a game mechanic your opponent does not. It also helps that the trappers fit very nicely into the metagame. Ground is a fantastic typing for a trapper in Little Cup, since you can trap Steel- and Rock-types for Vullaby, and pick off weakened Foongus and Marenie for Fighting-types. Diglett and Trapinch also have excellent speed control. Diglett is the fastest non-Scarfer (running Elekid is the teambuilding equivalent of thinking that that witty pun on your dating app is going to mask the fact that your profile says “I just got out of a bad relationship”); Trapinch interned at Golisopod’s firm and made a good first impression. The trappers’ impact on teambuilding is pretty easy to see. It is no coincidence that the most popular poisons are Koffing, Mareanie, and Foongus. Koffing is a common Poison-type for a number of reasons, but not being trapped is definitely one of them. Foongus and Mareanie have Regenerator, meaning they are less punished by switching around to avoid letting Diglett/Trapinch come in for free, while also have a STAB option to hit them super-effective if they try to hard switch anyways.
Arena Trap has been a somewhat contentious issue in LC for a long time, and honestly I think it's only going to get more contentious because, well, players are getting better. Now that I am rapidly encroaching the dreaded “I have literally being playing competitive Pokemon for longer than you have been alive” age, I am certifiably old and can say that competitive Pokemon players have gotten better at optimizing teambuilding and in-battle execution of strategies compared to “back in my day.” Which means players are better at utilizing Arena Trap. I don’t think it's a particularly hot-take to say that if Arena Trap wasn’t around (or at least, Diglett and Trapinch were not as significant threats as they are at the moment) the number of viable Poison-types (and Steel-types if you stan Cufant) in Little Cup would be greater. Which of course leads to a greater variety of answers to Grookey and the Fighters, and likely a more diverse metagame as a whole. But this is largely my own personal ramblings and projections on the impact of Diglett and Trapinch on the meta.
On Knock Off:
Remember that pin we put in 11 paragraphs ago, about Koffing? Time to yoink that sucker out because we are talking about Knock Off. Koffing ideally would be able to confidently switch into Mienfoo/Timburr throughout a match, as should Mareanie and Foongus, due to typing. But they despise Knock Off, because if you switch into it you are suddenly vulnerable to eating significant chip damage each time you have to switch back in or, in the case of Foongus and especially Mareanie, getting trapped. People love to complain about Knock Off in Gen 8 since we don’t have Z-Crystals and Mega Stones in the upper tiers, but Knock Off’s impact on OU is crumbs compared to the seven-layered cake in LC. Consider the number of Knock Off users you have on a given team, or the variety of Pokemon that run it in LC. It is a stupidly efficient move, and it's largely tied to the two flagship items in Little Cup: Berry Juice and Eviolite.
If you hit a Pokemon with Knock Off and it has Eviolite, you have effectively hit them with a 65~ BP Dark-type move (sometimes with STAB) and applied -1.5 Def/SpD for the rest of the game. If they had Berry Juice that hasn’t gone off, you are hitting them with a 95 BP Dark-type move and reducing their “potential effective HP” by at least 50%. This is absolutely insane, if Knock Off in OU hit Toxapex and then also reduced its Def/SpD by -1.5 for the rest of the game, people would be rejoicing in the streets because fuck Toxapex am I right calling the move absolutely busted and trying to build consistent defensive answers without like Sticky Hold Gastrodon is absurd. And yes, this is a somewhat imperfect comparison because technically you are sacrificing an item slot for Eviolite/Juice that could be idk Boots?? But unless you are a Pokemon with incredible natural defenses anyways (*Vullaby is typing…*) what makes you a consistent defensive answer to things like Mienfoo, Timburr, Abra, Wingull, Grookey, etc., is Eviolite. The nature of LC damage calculations makes Eviolite so crucial when constructing defensive responses to these top metagame threats. Once that is gone, you are suddenly vulnerable to being overwhelmed by things like Grassy Terrain Wood Hammer, LO Dazzling Gleam, Hurricane, Ice Punch, that ONE FUCKING PERSON RUNNING POISON JAB MIENFOO I WILL FIND YOU.
Consider how players complain about Pokemon such as Porygon, Grookey, and Abra. How much more manageable would Download Porygon if be if your Pawniard or Timburr didn’t get Knocked off by a Vullaby or opposing Pawniard? How much easier would it be able to take on Grookey with Eviolite Koffing if it didn’t have to eat a Knock Off from Mienfoo earlier? How much easier would it be to take on Abra with your team’s Eviolites intact? Even more importantly, imagine how many more defensive answers would emerge since they wouldn’t be forced to take awful trades against the Fighters, and they weren’t as vulnerable to Diglett and Trapinch picking them off after their Eviolite is knocked.
You can look at BW LC for an example of a slower LC metagame. With the new mons and mechanics introduced XY-onwards, I think there is tremendous potential for an enjoyable LC meta with the absence of Knock Off. This is what led me to start looking at the “who Knocks Off first” winrate in LCPL (note: my current analysis places the WR much lower, around 60%, in my LCWC II games, but there have been some interactions with things like Arena Trap and specific Pokemon like Koffing I am investigating.) Due to how LC teambuilding works, and how defensive answers in LC rely so heavily on Eviolite, Knock Off is the ultimate value move. And its distribution is insanely good. Knock Off absorbers don’t exist to the same degree they do in the upper tiers since 1) LC damage calcs and 2) many Knock Off users are offensive Pokemon with good coverage Vullaby, Pawniard, Abra, and Timburr anyways, so its inherently risky to come back in on the Knock Off user if you don’t have Regenerator.
On Suspect Testing:
I haven’t been playing Gen 8 LC for super long, so tbh I don’t have much of a horse in this race. It’s more like a pony. A really small, but cute, pony. But I find LC appealing, the current state of the metagame fascinates me, and honestly I have been enjoying going through these replays and playing the format again. But the metagame has problems, or at least a single bird-shaped problem, and that is not a hot-take in the slightest based on the posts in this thread.
First and foremost, I agree with the vast majority of posters before me that Vullaby needs to be retested. This Pokemon is ridiculous; the GSC Snorlax comparison was not me defending its place in SS LC OU; GSC is a fascinating metagame with mechanics that makes playing around an ubiquitous and diverse threat like Snorlax manageable in a different way. Vullaby is far more explosive (well, not in the STAB Self-Destruct sense, but I digress) with its Weak Armor, STAB combination, and access to Nasty Plot with extremely good coverage. There is a clear interest from the community to take another swing at Vullaby, this time with a new set of statistics from recent tours, more metagame development, and perhaps a greater sense of exasperation. To be honest, if Vullaby somehow doesn’t end up banned this time around based on the recent posting content in this thread and what I see on Discord, I would suspect test the suspect testing process itself, and that is my hot-take.
As for Mienfoo and Timburr, I wasn’t really making a statement about their brokenness. Rather, I was using them as a framing device for why I think the Little Cup metagame is what it is, and also to highlight the absurdity of Knock Off in this tier. And Knock Off is truly absurd, I am surprised more people don’t really complain about this move the same way they do Porygon or Grookey. Maybe its because the idea of suspect testing moves makes people uneasy, or they like what Knock Off does for the metagame by speeding up offense. Perhaps the player base has just accepted that Knock Off is part of LC’s core identity and never considered the possibility of a metagame without it. I can’t say I know why, and if this topic has been broached before I would be interested in seeing why the move has stuck around.
My recommendation in regards to Knock Off would be to start playing around with an LC meta without Knock Off. I think Showdown Room Tours or a forum tournament would be awesome, especially the tournament since I would have sweet, sweet replays and usage statistics to collect data from. Then the playerbase can decide if they like the Knock Off-less meta more or less than current LC, and there could be more to the discussion than just theorycraft of what a Knock Off-less Gen 8 meta would even look like.
In regards to Arena Trap, well, I think I need to continue to ponder its implications in Little Cup, and the true extent it affects the metagame. I am going to keep looking at replays to get a better idea of the sheer advantage Arena Trap brings to games. But stats can only say so much; if you are a relatively now LC player reading this 1) hi! And 2) listen to the opinions of the top players in Little Cup in regards to Arena Trap, since it is one of those game mechanics that is best examined at the highest level of play. And watch their replays! It's a great way to improve, trust.
And before we go “wait, Vullaby learns Knock Off, why not just look at Knock Off BEFORE Vullaby?” I would like to express that while Vullaby would definitely miss the move in its offensive movepool, it would also really, really appreciate not having its Eviolite or Berry Juice removed on the Nasty Plot sets. And Vullaby still has access to physical Dark STAB in the form of Lash Out, and yes it does double in power if you proc Weak Armor.
I think that’s it. All-in-all, interesting metagame. I love the growth LC has seen over the years. It warms my heart that has been jaded by years of random fuCKING MIENFOO RUNNING POISON JAB, IT’S GEN FUCKING 5 WHAT ARE YOU EVEN HITTING, HOPPIP?
Thank you for reading.
edit: I removed some statistical stuff regarding Arena Trap after reviewing how I am choosing to quantify its winrate. I also reworded things in regards to my general stance on Arena Trap in Little Cup as a whole after some Discord discussions and examining games/teams.
Grookey is the obvious winner, as Vullaby was its most common and one of its best checks. Every team will have one fewer Grass resist, making it easier for Grookey to revenge kill and to sweep. Its solid coverage movepool gives it options for each of its most common checks as well. It still struggles with 4mss, frailty, and a well-prepared metagame filled with pokemon like Foongus and Ferroseed that Grookey struggles mightily to break through, however.
Mudbray is in my opinion the biggest winner of Vullaby's banning, at least at first. Vullaby was practically the only common Pokemon that resists or is immune to Ground, and with it gone, Mudbray can fire off powerful Earthquakes with near-impunity. It's also much easier to fit on teams now that your Stealth Rock user doesn't also have to resist Flying. In addition to the SR+3 attacks set, both Choice Scarf and RestTalk sets look to be particularly potent as well.
Vullaby was the single biggest thing holding Sticky Web offense in check. With it gone, I expect webs teams to be as big a force in the metagame as ever. A plethora of abusers, such as the aforementioned Mudbray and Life Orb Abra, can tear through unprepared teams with Sticky Web support, although they must be prepared for a resurgent Grookey.
Pumpkaboo is not an obvious winner at first from Vullaby's banning, although Vullaby was its best counter; at first glance, it seems outclassed by LC's other bulky Grass-types, Foongus and Ferroseed. However, Pumpkaboo (particularly Pumpkaboo-XL) seems primed to benefit from the shifting metagame. It's one of the few viable Ground resists, while also packing an immunity to Porygon's Tri Attack and the ability to counter non-Knock Off Grookey. It also has excellent 25/14/16 bulk and a surprisingly good movepool, with access to Will-O-Wisp, reliable recovery, and excellent coverage options such as Fire Blast. 
Ferroseed, no longer held back by a neutrality to Flying, seems poised for a resurgence. It's a much sturdier and reliable switchin to Porygon and Abra than Pawniard, while also hard-checking Grookey at worst. Although it's still liable to be overwhelmed by offensive pressure, its ability to set hazards and spread paralysis is still unmatched and it should be much more common.
Easily the biggest loser from Vullaby's banning, Onix has lost its most significant niche as the Pokemon it was used exclusively to counter is now gone. There's little reason to run Onix now over other Stealth Rock setters like Pawniard, Ferroseed, and especially Mudbray, whose typings aren't massive liabilities like Onix's. Its Dragon Dance set is probably the most viable out there, but it still faces stiff competition from Tyrunt and occupies a small niche at best.
Mareanie's typing becomes a lot more awkward, as it's now a Poison-type neitral to Grass in a meta that will have Grookeys everywhere. It's still a very reliable Fighting-type check, but it's going to struggle to assert a niche over Foongus and Staryu.
Pawniard will still be very common and is still good, but its shortcomings as a catch-all defensive Pokemon were laid bare in the last month or so. It will face a lot of competition from Ferroseed as a Stealth Rock user and Porygon check, and its Ground weakness and vulnerability to Grookey's Drain Punch are going to hinder it moving forward.
so here we go
Scraggy
