Last week of LCPL regular season and wanted to make a post about the meta, starting with some thoughts on mons we've seen go up and down so far through the season.
This mon is lowkey broken, knock + gunk + temper flare is near impossible to switch into, and play rough should be respected as well. We saw a lot of Life Orb use so far and for good reason, doing near 50% to Mudbray on a switch which is ridiculous. Clearly a top 5 mon, I would rank it 4th but wouldn't argue strongly against someone saying it is third.
Vullaby has been consistently disrespected both in conversation (Greedy_eb saying its not even A+), and in game where we see plenty of teams cheat on a fly resist and sometimes get punished for it. I still think Vullaby is insanely good, and to me is clearly the third best mon in the meta. With Glimmet and Tink (and kind of Pawn but its better set is as an SD Sweeper), as the only real fly resists, the Vull counterplay is limited more to getting rocks up early and hoping you can trade down with it. Tera blast ground lets it break by its checks easily, and endure is fantastic for SD Foo, Shellder, and Growlith. It can trade versus just about anything, has plenty of viable tera and moveset options, and I think it is very deserving of A+ and being the 3rd ranked mon, though I won't disrespect Stunky as mentioned above.
Something we've seen more of recently, Torchic is absurd and if Fire Blast never missed this mon would be so broken. Fire is really hard to switch into with this meta, and Tera Blast Ground and Psychic being able to OHKO it's would-be-checks like Mareanie and Glimmet. You are forced to keep neutral targets such as Vullaby or Mudbray at full to be truly safe into Torchic. Sub and Protect to make even revenge killing with Stunky a guessing game. I think this is the scariest "sweeper", and find it more difficult than Shellder to deal with. Deserving of at least an A- ranking, I could even see it as A.
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The two biggest losers of the season so far in my opinion, though probably less so for Growlith. Both have seen incredibly low usage rates so far, Shellder at 11% (14th most used) and Growlith at 6% (tied for 16th most used), a far cry from their peaks. For Shellder, it really seems to be hit or miss. Smarter people than I have argued back and forth on it, and I don't have a strong opinion other than it is extremely cringe for having to guess what tera/set it is if you are caught out of position, however I think Torchic maybe does a better job as a "sweeper", not having to rely on Shell Smash for power/speed and more easily able to break past its checks when using tera.
For Growlith, its positive traits are obvious, but I think being weak to Stealth Rocks and the rise of Maraenie have really just crushed its usage. Mare has seen a lot of development recently, with people using its modest sets with acid spray or ice beam, not to mention Iron Defense still being a good set, Mare's place in the meta really just pushes Growlith down. In addition, I think during team building it also makes you very restricted because of its rocks weakness. You are forced to either run Toedscool, the only viable rapid spinner, or Defog Vullaby, a really shitty move to run when Vull already wants so much. I think this constricts the team structures a lot when you take into account the other mons in the meta you need to account for, and so Growlith teams end up looking all rather the same or really wacky. And not to mention Toedscool, the partner you want to pair with Growlith most of the team, is easily abusable by either CC Mudbray or Vullaby. Dog is definitely still good, and should be respected, but just forces team building into places you might not always want to go imo.
It would feel weird to have both of them in A- but that is probably where I would put them.
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Okay the two top dogs. I think both of these should be banned. I don't like what either of them do for the meta. Starting with Voltorb-H, I want to highlight this part of tko's post from a few months ago.
I completely agree with this, Voltorb at first glace doesn't seem ridiculous, but its ability to simply volt switch out of any checks, giga drain to heal, unparalled speed is so hard to deal with when in combination with tera/tera blast. It is oppressive and games are simply boring and uncompetitive in dealing with it.
I also think Mienfoo falls under this category. I think that the Golden Child of Little Cup, in combination with tera, is too much to handle. Tera doesn't seem to be on the table, and I don't even think I would want it to be, but dealing with what we have I think Foo is so broken. It is the best mon in the tier and should be on near every team for good reason, and that itself isn't neccessarily a problem but I think that it promotes gameplay in such a way that Voltorb does. It uturns out of its checks, stays healthy with regen, always makes progress with knock, and strong fight stab. People know what fo does. The issue is that when foo is able to tera, especially in relation to its Swords Dance set, it limits the potential counterplay too much.
Between Foo and Torb, I think they both limit teambuilding more than anything else and at the same time promote undesireable gameplay. If a team does not have a way to handle Mienfoo and Voltorb, it is a bad team, and this process really cuts off the viable options at hand. This has led to me feeling like games are often played with very similar teams / being forced into similar structures, and at the same not feeling like the gameplay is not rewarding at all. Maybe this is an issue on my end but I feel like just being around the discord, this is not an uncommon sentiment and people have been asking for action on something for months now.
Personally, I would like to pursue a suspect on Mienfoo first, but it appears that Voltorb is the more popular and likely target. I think the biggest roadblock the past few months has been is that there has not been a concensus mon that the community wants to suspect, discussion going from Shellder to Gothita to Voltorb and Mienfoo (Glimmet truthers you are not welcome here). I would really like for some action to be taken and for just anything to be chosen, so that the community can have their say on it in a suspect, and hopefully move on to another option if needed. I really enjoy parts of what tera does for Little Cup, but I have not been satisfied with the current meta and hope that we can have some change to try and fix that.
This mon is lowkey broken, knock + gunk + temper flare is near impossible to switch into, and play rough should be respected as well. We saw a lot of Life Orb use so far and for good reason, doing near 50% to Mudbray on a switch which is ridiculous. Clearly a top 5 mon, I would rank it 4th but wouldn't argue strongly against someone saying it is third.
Vullaby has been consistently disrespected both in conversation (Greedy_eb saying its not even A+), and in game where we see plenty of teams cheat on a fly resist and sometimes get punished for it. I still think Vullaby is insanely good, and to me is clearly the third best mon in the meta. With Glimmet and Tink (and kind of Pawn but its better set is as an SD Sweeper), as the only real fly resists, the Vull counterplay is limited more to getting rocks up early and hoping you can trade down with it. Tera blast ground lets it break by its checks easily, and endure is fantastic for SD Foo, Shellder, and Growlith. It can trade versus just about anything, has plenty of viable tera and moveset options, and I think it is very deserving of A+ and being the 3rd ranked mon, though I won't disrespect Stunky as mentioned above.
Something we've seen more of recently, Torchic is absurd and if Fire Blast never missed this mon would be so broken. Fire is really hard to switch into with this meta, and Tera Blast Ground and Psychic being able to OHKO it's would-be-checks like Mareanie and Glimmet. You are forced to keep neutral targets such as Vullaby or Mudbray at full to be truly safe into Torchic. Sub and Protect to make even revenge killing with Stunky a guessing game. I think this is the scariest "sweeper", and find it more difficult than Shellder to deal with. Deserving of at least an A- ranking, I could even see it as A.
and The two biggest losers of the season so far in my opinion, though probably less so for Growlith. Both have seen incredibly low usage rates so far, Shellder at 11% (14th most used) and Growlith at 6% (tied for 16th most used), a far cry from their peaks. For Shellder, it really seems to be hit or miss. Smarter people than I have argued back and forth on it, and I don't have a strong opinion other than it is extremely cringe for having to guess what tera/set it is if you are caught out of position, however I think Torchic maybe does a better job as a "sweeper", not having to rely on Shell Smash for power/speed and more easily able to break past its checks when using tera.
For Growlith, its positive traits are obvious, but I think being weak to Stealth Rocks and the rise of Maraenie have really just crushed its usage. Mare has seen a lot of development recently, with people using its modest sets with acid spray or ice beam, not to mention Iron Defense still being a good set, Mare's place in the meta really just pushes Growlith down. In addition, I think during team building it also makes you very restricted because of its rocks weakness. You are forced to either run Toedscool, the only viable rapid spinner, or Defog Vullaby, a really shitty move to run when Vull already wants so much. I think this constricts the team structures a lot when you take into account the other mons in the meta you need to account for, and so Growlith teams end up looking all rather the same or really wacky. And not to mention Toedscool, the partner you want to pair with Growlith most of the team, is easily abusable by either CC Mudbray or Vullaby. Dog is definitely still good, and should be respected, but just forces team building into places you might not always want to go imo.
It would feel weird to have both of them in A- but that is probably where I would put them.
and Okay the two top dogs. I think both of these should be banned. I don't like what either of them do for the meta. Starting with Voltorb-H, I want to highlight this part of tko's post from a few months ago.
I completely agree with this, Voltorb at first glace doesn't seem ridiculous, but its ability to simply volt switch out of any checks, giga drain to heal, unparalled speed is so hard to deal with when in combination with tera/tera blast. It is oppressive and games are simply boring and uncompetitive in dealing with it.
I also think Mienfoo falls under this category. I think that the Golden Child of Little Cup, in combination with tera, is too much to handle. Tera doesn't seem to be on the table, and I don't even think I would want it to be, but dealing with what we have I think Foo is so broken. It is the best mon in the tier and should be on near every team for good reason, and that itself isn't neccessarily a problem but I think that it promotes gameplay in such a way that Voltorb does. It uturns out of its checks, stays healthy with regen, always makes progress with knock, and strong fight stab. People know what fo does. The issue is that when foo is able to tera, especially in relation to its Swords Dance set, it limits the potential counterplay too much.
Between Foo and Torb, I think they both limit teambuilding more than anything else and at the same time promote undesireable gameplay. If a team does not have a way to handle Mienfoo and Voltorb, it is a bad team, and this process really cuts off the viable options at hand. This has led to me feeling like games are often played with very similar teams / being forced into similar structures, and at the same not feeling like the gameplay is not rewarding at all. Maybe this is an issue on my end but I feel like just being around the discord, this is not an uncommon sentiment and people have been asking for action on something for months now.
Personally, I would like to pursue a suspect on Mienfoo first, but it appears that Voltorb is the more popular and likely target. I think the biggest roadblock the past few months has been is that there has not been a concensus mon that the community wants to suspect, discussion going from Shellder to Gothita to Voltorb and Mienfoo (Glimmet truthers you are not welcome here). I would really like for some action to be taken and for just anything to be chosen, so that the community can have their say on it in a suspect, and hopefully move on to another option if needed. I really enjoy parts of what tera does for Little Cup, but I have not been satisfied with the current meta and hope that we can have some change to try and fix that.
3 i just dont see it. it never wins by itself, it never exerts too much pressure imo. i didnt give it a 1 bc i think if the ppl want a suspect it should get it, but i personally do not see it at all. 
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