Resource Union Street - Casual Discussion Thread

[TMan87]

Union Street
Trainers gather to exchange pleasantries... And strategies!

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What is this?

This is BBP's dedicated thread for casual discussion of the game. Team-building for facilities, planning Level-Ups, discussing counters to Pokemon, asking if a Pokemon is good or bad, sharing guides for content, exulting in triumph, praising, questioning, complaining, whinging, and whining are all welcome within!​

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What can't I do?

Anything forbidden by Smogon's Global Rules is forbidden here as well.​

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Besides that, we disallow backseating other players. Avoid discussing what a player should do in a current, ongoing match round—allow them to play for themselves. That also includes discussion of past rounds that would have ramifications for future rounds, like pointing out that a Pokemon in reserve no longer has any opposing answers.​

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You also should avoid asking to be backseated by other players. If you want to receive battling critique, please be sure to ask after the round in question is said, done, and reffed.​

(This thread was formerly the "Discuss the current Tournament Thread.")

 

[TMan87]

The Commentator Booth is now open!

 

[F Amadon]

It's open because of this loss here, featuring yours truly!

I do know a couple places I messed up; I was too attached to Libero to switch out on Krilowatt when I maybe should have, and I didn't realize that Libero didn't apply to non-damaging attacks. And then I missed Counter.

 

[Ooraloo]

There's no shame in losing to Dogfish. He's a scary man.

 

[Maxim]

Epicdrill vs. LouisCyphre is ready for comments.

Honestly, despite the unfortunate last round, this was a nail biter all the way through, and I'd recommend studying this match to get a good idea of how the pros play.

Round 1 started the match off with a pretty dicey matchup for epicdrill with a Swampert vs. Gallade, what with Gallade having some powerful grass moves to play with, but epicdrill was able to stall things out. Round 2 sees Tyranitar being brought out with Roar, and Lou makes clever use of the Eject Button to extract Tyranitar from that matchup. Swampert seems to be an underrated Pokemon, I don't see people talk about it much, but it's rather good against anything without a decent Grass type move to throw around. Combine that with the classic Bide/Counter/Mirror Coat pile of sub eaters and it's very strong. Round 3 sees Lou making some good headway and nearly fainting Swampert. Round 4 we see Charizard vs. Dragonite, a round that kind of highlights just how silly Multiscale is. Given the circumstances though, Charizard does pretty okay for itself. Round 5 highlights one of the many weaknesses of Tyranitar, no priority moves, as Swampert is able to get a massive attack in at the last. Rounds 6 and 7 are the turning point of the match, as Mega Metagross sets up the sweep, which is finished off by Rounds 8 and 9.

Overall, it was a pretty neat match, and I'm looking forward to even more hype matches as we continue the tournament.

 

[epicdrill]

I suppose I should give my thoughts on the match.

I think giving Swampert a Rindo Berry instead of a Mystic Water was a pretty big mistake on my part, as it left me unable to effectively use Swampert to its fullest potential against Gallade, leaving me in a worse position than I would have liked. The intent behind the equip was to put Charizard in 3HKO range, but as a lead and as a mon that primarily functions as a pivot, shoring up my worse matchups is more important than further improving my best matchups. Other than that I don't think I made any major errors, although I will be a bit more careful with equipping Iron Ball in the future, since although it served its purpose as an anti-phasing item the speed reduction made planning my later rounds harder.

As for Lou's play, I think he played pretty perfectly in the first half of the match and I don't really see anything I'd change there, but between his play in the later rounds and what he was saying about this match on discord it almost seems like he just tilted starting in round 6ish.

Regarding Swampert being underrated, I would tend to agree with that. 95/7/7 with only one weakness is very good defensively, even when that one weakness is a double weakness, and Bide/Counter/Mirror Coat do a tremendous job at eating subs. Access to phasing, pivoting, and partial trapping further helps its ability to pivot, and going Adamant means you have 9 Atk so it still does damage even if you don't go a damage item. I will say that Mega Blastoise fills its role better, but then you're using a mega slot for it.

 

[TMan87]

Looking at the above match I can see phazing being quite strong in this format.
Any BXPY style match means phazing gives you an edge by restricting an opponent's options and possibly forcing a Pokémon they would have kept benched in favor of the other three, but tournament teams being more carefully calculated means it can also send in a Pokémon your opponent is fine with using, but in a matchup they really don't want to be in.
This can advantage you in a few ways: it means you can weaken a key threat to your other team members, so that they can sweep later in the match. It means you can force a reactive item equip, thus forcing the opponent to opt out of optimal play to avoid scenario 1, sacrificing efficiency to better mitigate the situation. It can also mean, at worst, that you force a chicken dance and shave off some EN off said key threat. It might be weaker than the other two, but it still restrict your opponent's options nonetheless, especially if your playing style favors pressure and/or the opponent would be forced to rely on high EN moves/combo as main damage dealing sources.
Obviously phazing early in the match is preferable to phazing later on that front.

 

[Gemini Taurus]

The tournament match between TheEver and HydrogenHydreigon is now open for commentary!

I loved reffing this match, I think it really emphasized how important matchup control is in this 3v3 format. Both players spent a lot of time on the mid-late game preserving their favoured matchups and it was fun to watch!

I think the only real big blunder this game was an unfortunate incorrect ruling assumption on Hydro's part, both players were extremely strong in their orders. Great job to both of you!

 

[epicdrill]

Matchup control seems extremely strong in this format tbh. You can see in that match that Eve got behind on her matchup control once the midgame started and it ended up costing her a big portion of the advantage that she had built up with the Mega Garchomp/Volkraken matchup early on. It's also notable that both Lou and I dedicated an item slot each to matchup control in our matchup, him in the form of EButton and me in the form of Iron Ball to avoid DNite getting phased.

I'll also say that I wasn't really impressed with what Kitsunoh was able to do in that match, and I don't rate the mon very highly overall. I feel like it mostly just gets outstatted in the current metagame, and while Frisk and Iron Fist help with that to an extent I don't think they do enough to actually make the mon viable.

 

[Mowtom]

Did anybody request some stats?

Mons sent in twice:
Mons sent in once:

Mons sent out twice:
Mons sent out once:
Mons not sent out:

Items equipped 5 times:
Items equipped 2 times:
Items equipped 1 time:
Mons equipped with a Mega Stone:
Mons equipped with a Z-Crystal:

Note that if you do not consider differently typed Gems to be separate items, 4 were equipped in total.

 

[F Amadon]

Apparently refs are the ones supposed to send this message.

Mowtom vs TMan is open to discuss!

 

[TMan87]

This thread has been redesigned as the Casual Discussion Thread!
Feel free to discuss with others here. What about? Potential strategies, Pokémon, items, whatever! Keep it BBP-related, of course, but this is a place of exchange, brainstorming, and compliments.
Of course, it is still the most relevant place to comment the ongoing tournament!

 

[TheEver]

Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that's why I do stats on company time.

ROUND TWO
Mons sent in twice:
Mons sent in once:

Mons sent out twice:
Mons sent out once:
Mons not sent out:

Items equipped five times:
Items equipped four times:
Items equipped twice:
Items equipped once:
Mons equipped with a Mega Stone:

TOTAL (R1+R2)

Send In Stats
Mons sent in three times:
Mons sent in twice:
Mons sent in once:

Mons sent in in both rounds:
Mons sent in in Round One only:
Mons sent in in Round Two only:

Send Out Stats
Mons sent out three times:
Mons sent out twice:
Mons sent out once:
Mons not sent out:

Item Stats
Items equipped ten times:
Items equipped four times:
Items equipped three times:
Items equipped twice:
Items equipped once:

Items equipped in both rounds:
Items equipped in Round One only:
Items equipped in Round Two only:

Do You Need Legendaries or 5*s to Win?
Note: Matches that ended in DQ were not counted. 5*s were only counted if they were sent out and used one of their exclusive perks (Mega Stone or Z-Crystal). Legendary means any mon who's base form cannot currently be purchased with RC (so Silvally is not counted as a legendary).

W-L of legendary users 1-3
W-L of 5* users: 8-3
W-L of 5* users (matches where both battlers used one excluded): 6-1

So, legends (the ones people are sending anyway, there are definitely some scary ones hiding on profiles) not important (only 4 non DQ battles even featured them thus far), but having a 5* is valuable (everyone already knows this).

By Generation
Mons sent in by generation:
Gen 1: 12 unique, 21 total
Gen 2: 6 unique, 7 total
Gen 3: 9 unique, 12 total
Gen 4: 6 unique, 9 total
Gen 5: 10 unique, 10 total
Gen 6: 5 unique, 8 total
Gen 7: 7 unique, 9 total
Gen 8: 5 unique, 6 total
CAP: 17 unique, 28 total

By Type & Stats
Based on a program made by epicdrill. If a mon was used and doesn't appear here, its stats didn't meet the thresholds required.

Type	Physical	Special	Defensive
Normal
Fire
Water
Electric
Grass
Ice
Fighting
Poison
Ground
Flying
Psychic
Bug
Rock
Ghost
Dragon
Dark
Steel
Fairy

 

[LouisCyphre]

Now I feel a little guilty for rotating my teams each match. I wanted to try my hand with different Pokemon in hard battles, but now I realize I could have been pumping representation for my favorites!

Looking at the item breakdown is very interesting; more so than the Pokemon, I think. Round 2 shows an complete and total drop-off in Gem usage. Did we lose confidence in them, or did their situation never arise? Were they only used to push leads that were already solidified, and thus less useful when matched against an opponent with skill closer to yours? Did the players who equipped Gems in round 1 win or lose?

I could go and look, I suppose. But speculating is easier, and is almost more fun!

 

[TMan87]

To note that I believe Fighting Gem was used in round 2 as well.
Based on the number on items it looks like round 1 was more about finding a footing, whereas round 2 solidified a few items of choice instead (note the lack of Power Items for example).
I believe Red Card will cement itself as a R3 pick. Interestingly, Eject Button was used in R1 but not R2.

 

[Maxim]

A wild event has appeared!

I am looking for a partner for this event. A few notes:

• In the Trick-or-Treater slot, I can contribute a Glalie and a Castform (or a Delibird and Unown, if you really want to get spicy), and am willing to consider buying a single Pokemon for the purpose.
• The Non-Trick or Treater slot will be dependent upon which achievements we want to go for. Probably don't want to purchase a second Pokemon unless it falls in line with other purchases I want to make already.
• Not sure which achievements to go for, but I'd like to do about 5 in a single run.
• Note: I will be out of town for October 1 and 2, so the challenge can only really begin October 3 for me.
• I'm not currently interested in doing Hard Mode, but I can probably be easily persuaded to do so if our Normal Mode run goes smoothly.

Let me know in this thread or on Discord if you are interested in partnering up.

 

[TheEver]

Tournament Item Winrates! (Grouped by similarity in function)
Matches ended in DQ excluded.

Item	Wins	Equips	Winrate
Barometer	0	1	0%
Binding Band	0	1	0%
Cleanse Tag	3	4	75%
Eject Button	0	1	0%
Enigma Berry	0	1	0%
Expert Belt	1	4	25%
Flame Orb	1	1	100%
Iron Ball	1	1	100%
Lagging Tail	0	1	0%
Leftovers	1	3	33.3%
Life Orb	5	10	50%
Quick Powder	0	1	0%
RageCandyBar	0	1	0%
Razor Claw	0	1	0%
Red Card	0	1	0%
Ring Target	1	1	100%
Rocky Helmet	0	1	0%
Shell Bell	0	1	0%
Weakness Policy	1	1	100%
Choice Items	1	2	50%
Gems (Truly Outrageous)	3	5	60%
Mega Stones	8	11	72.7%
Rank+Accuracy Boosters	0	4	0%
Type Absorbers	0	1	0%
Type Boosters	2	2	100%
Type Resist Berries	1	1	100%
Z-Crystals	1	1	100%

 

[LouisCyphre]

Having written the achievments for the current event, I know all of the solutions; which is a little unfair.

Instead of either sitting out (and missing rewards) or planning my own run (which would ruin the challenge); I'll just link to my profile and invite the community to allocate the Pokemon therein to a challenge that is targeting specified achievements.

...My only currently legal Trick-or-Treater is Swoobat, but I can pick up something else if needed.

 

[Maxim]

Strategy Guide for The Harvest Usurper's Arrogance 2022 Achievements:

Numbers of other achievements have been bolded if they pair well with the achievement.

Items with an asterisk are ones I would like a better/more consistent strategy on. Please let me know here or on Discord if you have better ideas.

Reference

1. Heal an ally with a damaging attack, or with an ability triggered by that attack.
2. Deal 50 or more damage with one attack.
3. Hit with four super-effective attacks with different types in one round.
4. Redirect four or more attacks in a single round.
5. Raise an ally's stats with Magnetic Flux, Rototiller, or Gear Up.
6. Have +6 in a stat stage.
7. Start and end a round with the same Substitute decoy.
8. Have foes use Struggle four or more times in one round.
9. Drain a total of 50 or more HP with draining attacks.
10. Start and end a round with 1 HP on the same ally Pokemon.
11. Defeat four or more Pokemon with a single attack.
12. Deliver seven or more critical hits in a single round.
13. Survive the Harvest King's wave with all four of your team's Pokemon.
14. Survive the Harvest King's wave with only one (1) of your team's Pokemon.
15. Have five or more abilities on one Pokemon at once.
16. Have four or more types on one Pokemon at once.
17. Use After You and Quash in the same round.
18. Raise stat stages with every action your team takes in a round.
19. Lower stat stages with every action your team takes in a round.
20. Have a core stat rank (Atk, Def, SpA, SpD) of 20 or more.
21. Use two combinations in the same step, twice in your challenge.
22. Have 10 or more total positive stat stages on the same Pokemon at once.
23. Have all seven of a single Pokemon's stat stages be negative.
24. With both of your trick-or-treaters in play, knock out two or more opponents in the same round.
25. Defeat two or more opponents in the first round of a wave.
26. While affected by Trick-or-Treat, use Trick.
27. Defeat the Harvest King within five rounds in wave 5.
28. Defeat the Harvest King in the first round of wave 6.
29. Defeat the Harvest King in the first round of wave 7.
30. Defeat the Harvest King in the first round of wave 8.

1. Bring something with Water Absorb or Volt Absorb, and hit it with a Water/Electric attack. Make sure the target has taken some damage first!
2. *Need to roll either Scraggy or Voodoll in the first two waves, then hit them with powerful 4x moves, possibly a Hyper Beam style combo. May be possible with Power Trick Shuckle (20). Another option would be to use a Simple Swoobat or similar and use a Stored Power strategy.
3. Bring Pokemon with lots of coverage, such as Normal types. Easiest to do on even numbered waves as there are three possible targets. Anti-Ghost and Anti-Fairy/Psychic move recommended.
4. Bring two Pokemon with the move Follow Me (or equivalent). Use Follow Me A1 on one Pokemon and Follow Me A2 on the other. Can use with the same Pokemon I guess but imposes a significant energy tax. Consider bringing Heal Bell and Heal Pulse to mitigate effects. Recommended to pair this with 7.
5. Bring a Pokemon with Magnetic Flux, Rototiller, or Gear Up. Be sure to bring Pokemon with Plus/Minus for Flux or Gear up, or Grass types for Rototiller. Depending on team composition, can pair this with 22.
6. Use Swords Dance or Nasty Plot three times during the battle. Recommended to pair this with 18 and 22. Alternative: Bring a Belly Dance user.
7. Use Substitute (25) on a slow Pokemon at the end of Round 1. Round 2 redirect attacks to other Pokemon. Recommended to pair with 4.
8. Bring fast Pokemon with Imprison, covering as many of the Early Wave target moves as possible. Then use Imprison to bar them from using any of their moves in the first round.
9. Bring lots of draining moves and use them liberally.
10. Requires a dedicated run. Use a weak Pokemon for the Trick-or-Treater slot, and either wait for them to be whittled down close to 1 HP by the enemies, or do it yourself. Ideally, you want to leave your target at 16 hp, then have them use a Substitute 15 HP, bringing them to 1 HP. Then use Follow Me to protect that pokemon. May be paired with 4 and/or 7.
11. During an odd-numbered wave, phaze one of the combatants after weakening them. During an even-numbered wave, weaken all opponents to within the KO range of a single move that targets ALL Pokemon on the field, such as Surf. Note that moves like Rock Slide do not work since they can only target 3 Pokemon. Earthquake is not recommended due to the presence of Levitate Pokemon.
12. You want to bring a team of Pokemon that can automatically crit. The methods include using Super Luck Pokemon (Togekiss, Absol, Unfezant, Honchkrow) with Scope Lens, using Pokemon with Wise Glasses and Frost Breath (Glalie, Froslass, Beartic, Dewgong, Etc.), using Pokemon with Muscle Band and Storm Throw (Pinsir, Throh, Pangoro), using Fling with a guaranteed crit item (Scope Lens), using Focus Energy on a previous round and spamming spread moves, and using a Pokemon that can use Fling+Skill Link+Multihit Move. It is recommended that the run that does this use two Super Luck Pokemon for their non Trick or Treater slot, and two Ice types for their trick or treater slots.
13. Bring a relatively defensive team with lots of healing, and ensure that all Pokemon are kept healthy. Life Dew is particularly useful here.
14. Once you get to the Harvest King, weaken him to the point of being taken out by a Priority move, then take out your own Pokemon. Alternatively, this is likely to be achieved by just trying to beat the Harvest King, especially on later rounds.
15. *Purchase a Basculin and an Oricorio and use them on the same team. Use Role Play targeting Basculin on Oricorio. Dancer is a trait that will not be deleted by Role Play, and all four of Basculin's abilities will transfer to Oricorio. Recommended only on teams not going for the Harvest King. Oricorio has Quash which pairs well with 17.
16. Bring a Pokemon with Forest's Curse, and a Pokemon with Trick-or-Treat. Use them both on a Pokemon that is not itself Grass or Ghost typed. Recommended to pair this with 26. Note that Soak does not work since it replaces types!
17. Bring a Pokemon with Quash, and a Pokemon with After You. Use them on different opponents or on different actions (After You causes the target to move immediately).
18. Spam stat increasing moves with all Pokemon. Recommended at the start of the battle. Can be combined with 5 and 6 depending on team composition. Make sure you don't overflow on a stat!
19. Spam stat lowering moves with all Pokemon. Accuracy reducing moves are recommended.
20. There are only two known ways of achieving this. Slap a Choice Band on an Adamant Darmanitan-G, or slap an Assault Vest on a Pokemon with at least 13 SpD after nature (Shuckle, Regice, or +SpD Florges, Goodra, Probopass).
21. Have two of your Pokemon use a combination in the same action of the same round.
22. Spam lots of stat changes. Recommended to pair this with 5, 6, or 18.
23. Bring Pokemon with a lot of stat lowering moves (Growl, Leer, Confide, Fake Tears, String Shot, Sweet Scent, Sand Attack) and use them on the same allied Pokemon. It is recommended to pair this with another run ending achievement, such as 10.
24. In Wave 1, send out both Trick-or-Treaters and weaken both Pokemon to low hp. Then knock both out in a single round. Can also use the non-Trick-or-Treaters to weaken, then pivot out to the Trick-or-Treaters before knocking Pokemon out.
25. *In Wave 1 or Wave 2, bring down two opponents in the first round, go all in on offense!
26. Bring a non-Ghost type with Trick, then use Trick-or-Treat on them. Use Trick on an opposing Pokemon while holding an item. Recommended to pair this with 16.
27. Defeat the Harvest King. Unless something has gone wrong you should be able to take him down within five rounds. Need lots of offense.
28. Phaze the Harvest King once, then defeat him in the first round. Weaken him severely on Wave 5.
29. Phaze the Harvest King twice, then defeat him in the first round. Weaken him severely on Wave 5.
30. Phaze the Harvest King three times, then defeat him in the first round. Weaken him severely on Wave 5. May Arceus have mercy on your soul.

I hope this helps!

 

[P2X7]

The new event format looks interesting. I have two questions. First, are Items allowed in the upcoming event? Second, which switch rule is in effect for the challengers?

 

[TMan87]

As we discussed with Mow on Discord, mon selection is heavily tied to the achievements the team is gunning for.
As such, the main difficulty this time around will be to coordinate who goes for what.
If teams are already forming, please theorycraft out in the open, preferably using Maxim's bulleted point list.
This ensure other teams get insight on what your plan is and can adjust accordingly.

 

[HydrogenHydreigon]

Hello shadowpea and I were theorycrafting on Discord and we came up with the team of Muk-A/Furret and Clefable/Mawile

Goals they in theory could complete

2. Mawile, with Helping Hand from Furret, deals +50 damage to Scraggy and Voodoll with Play Rough + Giga Impact or Focus Punch, respectively. Recommended the latter if possible because it can be paired with 7.
3. Mawile, Furret and Clefable all have insane coverage so this is very possible
4. Furret and Clefable both have Follow Me. If Furret uses it, this could be paired with 7 and 10.
6. Probably a bad idea, but in theory could work because Clefable gets Belly Drum.
7. Mawile is quite slow, so it could use Substitute A1, while Furret spams Follow Me. Could be paired with one of 2 or 4. Also helps with 10 if circumstances are right.
10. Could be (and probably best) paired with 7. If Mawile is at the right HP when it uses Substitute, it could end up starting with 1 HP the next round. The partner (hopefully still Furret) should Follow Me as necessary depending on when the sub breaks. Can also be paired with 4.
17. Muk-A gets Quash, Clefable gets After You.
19. See 23.
23. This is why he Mawile/Muk-A users should be on different teams; Muk-A gets Venom Drench, Acid Spray, and Screech, while Mawile gets Mud-Slap and Sweet Scent. Should probably be paired with 19.

This group should probably be ran twice, one aiming for some of 13/14/27/28/29/30 and going for the more doable ones among these along the way, the other doing the more out there ones that probably require a dedicated run.

 

[P2X7]

I spoke with Gold about this; we have the team Swoobat/Imagination and Kommo-O/Smeargle.

Challenges 2, 6, 13, 21, 22, 24, 25, and 27 are easily accomplishable and carry little risk of jeopardization via RNG, although—pertinent to my above line of inquiry—Items and switching are required to maximize the team's effect. Moreover, given that we have a Smeargle and a free slot, we can cherry-pick more challenges to complement others' strategies.

 

[epicdrill]

Eve and I are going for challenge 30 with Muk-A/Mawile and Incineroar/Clefairy, we expect it to be difficult enough that we don't want to try specifically for any other challenges but if we get the opportunity to pick up any along the way we'll do that.

 

[TMan87]

Maxim could I ask you to keep track of which pair wants to do what in your challenges post?