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Round XIX: Coconut vs Banana, Exeggutor vs Tropius!

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I like both but honestly Zapdos is Big Bird from Sesame Street (that thing creeps me out for no apparent reason since I was a kid) and its spiky plumage looks like a lazy pre-schooler artwork the more you think of it.

My vote goes for Raikou because it's a sabertoothed tiger and that purple fluffy thundercloud thing is cute.
 
To answer this, I think I need to go into a bit more detail. 3 factors:

Aesthetics
Let's start with Raikou. As I said, the storm cloud cape and the tiger patterns makes this pokemon easy on the eye, but then it's just given heap loads of unneccessary stuff which make the pokemon look crowded. The tail sorta works; it looks completely ridiculous but it is hard imagining Raikou with any other sort of tail. The godknowswhat facce though is very offputting; you have the white thingy, the butterfly nostril hair and the grey thingy. It's probably the best out of the legendary dog trio though in terms of design.

Zapdos is simple, yes, butI have to say that's heavily missed in Pokemon with the onslaught of Gen 5 clusterfucks. There's nothing wrong with the design, but there's nothing special about it either; you have the simple yellow/black colour scheme, the spike-feathered wings and the generic beak.

Winner: Raikou

Competitive
Yet how good are these legendary beasts on the playing field. Raikou is not a great OU mon, but is a huge threat in underused. It is also immense in randbats if equipped with a Calm Mind, as it has great speed. it can also take hits reasonably well on the special side, but a lot less on the physical.

Zapdos can run a plethora of sets but is always best as a defensive wall, due to its great typing. Not only that, but it can hold its own in OU as well as CAP if paired with Voodoom (but this is rarely the case). Zapdos also boasts a higher special attack than Raikou. Weakness to Stealth Rock is bad, but I'm gonna still give this win to

Winner: Zapdos

Nostalgia
So how nostalgic are these two mons for me? This one is relatively easy; I hadn't really encountered a Zapdos when I was younger, or even a pokemon card of it. However, I do distinctly remember a rather awesome pokemon card of Raikou right here. That was still in the later stages of my pokemon card collecting, but I loved that card to bits. So er

Winner: Raikou

Overall: Raikou!
raikou_by_blazegryph-d50u0z7.jpg
 
I feel that Raikou is the kind of 'mon that brings very tense weather with him wherever he goes. A thick cloud layer, heat and humidity. A faint rumbling from distant thunder, a few drops of rain. Where Raikou walks, it's always at the brink of a thunderstorm. That is, as long as it stays calm and collected. Once something angers Raikou, lightning strikes and the winds start howling. Raikou certainly is a loaded spring, a bomb waiting to go off. It looks like it can wreak havoc any moment it wishes, and you really shouldn't give it a reason to.

But Zapdos, on the other hand, has only one mode: Thunderstorm. Whereas Raikou embodies the silence before the storm, Zapdos is the storm. Clear skies are covered with black clouds from horizon to horizon in mere seconds when Zapdos appears. Thunderbolts fly everywhere, lightning strikes and the wind whips up large waves. You'll rarely ever see Zapdos, only its spiked outline through the clouds whenever an especially powerful thunderbolt illuminates the storm. Yes, you can feel Raikou's precense and (wisely) decide to stay hidden, praying that you don't piss of the majestic tiger, but you can see Zapdos coming from miles away, bringing with it the worst weather you'll ever witness. You can't stop it, you can't change its direction. When Zapdos is out flying, you better secure your belongings and go hide.

And should Zapdos ever meet Raikou... Raikou might roar at Zapdos, being among the extremely few who dare to stand up to it, but Zapdos is clearly the superior electric legendary. It is the embodiment of a thunderstorm, and it behaves every bit like so.
 
Zapdos da gawd.
Zapdos has sharp wings how does it even have that idk
Zapdos is flying type to which is pretty manly
Zapdos is better
 
Votes so far: Zapdos 4
Raikou 4 (inc. mine)

(this is just for ease of my counting when it goes over pages. :))

Also my vote is for Raikou. I have always found zapdos a little bland, whereas raikou has a bad ass thundercloud as a.. uh... scarf! Yeah :P

Also I love how indepth you go eagle! :)
 
definitely and easily zapdos. not only does it not have the stupid looking, pushed-in face of raikou, it's better competitively, AND it's from one of my favourite games, leafgreen.

true, you could get raikou in leafgreen, but ew. squirtle is gross.

i can totally see zapdos spearing people with its wings. terror of the skies, comes down from a lightning bolt, war of the worlds style. its sprite is much more imposing. its french name, electhor, is awesome.

i've also pronounced his name as rai-koo and not rai-ko for most of my life. urgh.

that said, props to raikou for a cooler shiny pallet.
 
celever said:
Kaps, I think I can count lol. I don't know where you got the 9 zangoose votes from. e_e
Click to expand...

Rodan
Gottalovemeloetta
Jean Mi
Kaps (me)
Magcargo 2
Chaoswalker
Spork (admittedly only said 'affection')
M. Rock
Cant Say

not that I care, I just needed to defend my ~honor~ on the internet :)

I don't feel prepared at this time to make a vote on Raikou vs Zapdos yet. They're both so great
 
I don't know how many of you realize this, but this is essentially a popularity battle between two of the greatest forces of the competitive GSC scene. It's no exaggeration to say these these Pokemon helped shaped the way people play and build teams for Gen II battling.
In this format, Attack 1 / Attack 2 / Rest / Sleep Talk @ Leftovers is a very common strategy, because you can deal damage and still act as a tank. They are two of the best RestTalkers because of good bulk and excellent offensive coverage. They are similar in this respect with Thunder and Hidden Power Ice, but Raikou has an extra option in Crunch if you want to run it (remember, Dark moves are special).
My vote, however, goes to Zapdos. Thunder Wave is a luxury that I like to have on my team. Raikou is strong, but in Gold and Silver it doesn't have Thunder Wave. My taste may change as I start to get more into GSC, but for now I like Zapdos better.

When talking about the newer gens, though, there's no contest. I find Zapdos much more useful. I play doubles a lot, and Zapdos can have pretty good coverage without having to lose out on outspeeding certain threats (like how Raikou has to be Rash to have Aura Sphere and Weather Ball). Heat Wave ain't a bad deal, either.
Hell, for a while, Zapdos was one of the most prominent threats in VGC, seen on a good deal of teams.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that his badassery is timeless.
 
Raikou is a badass. He's got badass teeth, badass stripes, badass accessories (dat thundercloud scarf thing), and he runs around johto like a badass which has badass music as soon as you encounter it with all badass flashing visuals.

Zapdos (as mentioned earlier) looks like big bird. He's got that long beak, silly stare, and covered in yellow. And just sits there in his boring old, magnemite and voltorb infested power plant. Boooo
 
Raikou. While I like Zapdos's badassery in the pokemon movie, a lightningbird intrigues me less than an effin' lightningtiger.

Also shame on those who think there's a problem with raikou's face when zapdos looks like a retarded goku with a beak.
 
D: Electric is one of my favourite types... And Raikou and Zapdos both exemplify all the cool ideas within that topic. Lightning Bird and Thunder Cat :D

I love both of their designs and I like the mythology behind them. If I had to pick I would have to go for Zapdos however... Because I remember him so fondly from Gen 1 and I spent AGES trying to catch him :) And it was TOTALLY worth it!
 
Raikou spends his time running the hell away from the trainer.

Pussy.

Zapdos sits the fuck in the middle of a power plant filled with fucking bombs and stares you the hell down as you abuse it's poor AI to try and capture it. Also, Drill Peck must be the most visually awesome contact move in the whole game.

Zapdos.
 
Raikou just looks too ugly. It doesn`t seem fine enough :|

Zapdos is an Electric bird which can summon thunderstorms.
Aint that badass? No?
My vote still goes out to ZAPDOS
 
Close but I think Raikou looks more regal, Zapdos's feathers look too 'electrocuted chicken' to me. I love Raikou's clouds on its back and its tail, the lightning stripes mesh well with the type plus it has saber tooth tiger fangs! (closes to a sabre tooth tiger we're gonna have).
 
I don't believe you guys let Seviper win the previous one... I will be monitoring this thread.
So about this one:
Raikou - An overdesigned clusterfuck uglier than some Gen 3/5 pokemon. Unworthy of being in the same trio with Suicune. Awesome battle music from Crystal & on. Annoying and prdictable competitively, overrated in UU imo.
Zapdos - Well, it is a Gen 1 boring pokemon in a boring factory but it's still better designed than Raikou. And to clear things up, it has a simple design. These happy hippos are simplistic, simplistic =/= simple. And no special battle music. But it still has something about it! I think the eyes and the body pose do it for me. Plus it can be surprising competitively.

And to think that I like Johto more than Kanto...
ZAPDOS!
 
hello friends, me and eagle4 are cohosting this now and we will alternate matchups


round 3 will be: hitmonchan v hitmonlee
 
Yep, Rodan told me he wanted to co-host and since eagle has been shouting suggestions at me all the time on irc I figured he should co-host too.
Anyway, last round was actually eagle's suggestion and Rodan's done this one, so the order is Celever, Eagle4 and Rodan in that order for the rounds.

Anyway, because I have to do all of the hard stuff let's count in the votes...
145.gif
13

243.gif
10

Dammit guys. Start voting for what I vote for! :P (kidding obv)

Anyway, I'm updating the OP now, like Rodan said it's the martial artists now. I also would like to update this with our plans of having every single pokemon paired up for this. Even after that we may have more heats, maybe two at a time, one for the losers and one for the winners. That's why the rounds are so short now. :D

Also, since some pokemon are clearly not bad ass, we are going to just have this as a tournament of pokemon now. You can still talk about how bad ass a pokemon is, just not igglybuff vs cleffa. e_e
 
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