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From my point of view, Gastly is a very important reason why the meta is overcentralized. Mienfoo and Vullaby are nearly mandatory on most good teams, in part because they're just that good into everything else too, but also in part because they're the only pivots that can both threaten all common Gastly sets (if tera isn't used) in a 1v1 when they're healthy, and be reliably good into the rest of the meta, unlike both Zorua and Elekid. Voltorb-hisui can also chip Gastly, but only if the Gastly is properly scouted to not be Choice Scarf. Gastly doesn't usually force otherwise bad Pokemon to be used, but it does make it much more difficult to use Pokemon such as Mareanie, Snubbull, Timburr, and Wattrel, limiting what types of teams can be effective into the meta. Other threats such as aforementioned Mienfoo and Vullaby, as well as Growlithe-Hisui and Shellder are also major pieces that limit team diversity, which is why this meta isn't as diverse as prior svlc metas. I support tiering action, even though there isn't a clear target that is near indisputably broken.
most teams boil down to Mienfoo + Vullaby + Vullaby switch in + 2 speed control/breaker slots, plus 1 of either another pivot, endgame wincon such as Shellder, or dedicated Mienfoo switch in. This format can be deviated from, but its difficult to make consistent and rarely has a distinct enough upside to be worth trying to do it. Hyper Offense can also be tried, but its generally inconsistent. There isn't a lot of room for creativity with which Pokemon you will use to glue a team together, especially as you must cover other threats such as Growlithe and Gastly with those slots too.
Enough has been said about Gastly, there seems to be a sufficient sentiment for a suspect in my eyes, but that decision is not up to me. However, I would like to point out that LC Open is starting later this month (according to the tournament schedule), and it would probably be good to get action on it out of the way before that starts.
I support a gastly suspect purely because it means that gimmighoul roaming would be given an opportunity to shine. It has the same speed stat as gastly, slightly better bulk, decent special attack and nasty plot to boost its special attack to high heaven. Does have a piss poor movepool, but I've still had success with it.
it's just bizarre being obbligated to run stunky or pawniard so you dont lose a pokemon everytime LO gastly enters the match, a suspect before open starts would be awesome for the tier and for the tournament
So since gastly is banned, I'd like to talk about another ghost type that can fill its shoes a bit (you may have heard about it from me a bit).
Gimmighoul is a mon that has a lot of impressive traits in the meta and can do similarish things that gastly did. The main thing is that it has the same speed stat as gastly and slightly higher bulk, which means eviolite sets are better on it. Now of course, it does have a basically non existent movepool and much lower offenses, but it can still pull through most of the time.
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Oran Berry
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 76 HP / 236 SpA / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Thief
This is the main moveset that works on gimmighoul for me. Firstly, you nasty plot up in order to raise your offenses and most likely the opponent will be hitting you and unless its super effective, which due to mono ghost typing it should be most of the time, you will survive the hit and get oran berry recovery (wish we had berry juice). Then, you can steal the item of your opponent, which will most likely be eviolite, permanently crippling your opponent while giving yourself a great item. From here, you can fire off powerful attacks that can do a lot of damage. For reference, a +2 shadow ball has a 6.3% chance to ko mienfoo. Not the most powerful, but with chip and a potential tera, it can work.
You can probably also try scarf, specs, LO or eviolite variants if this set doesn't work. I'll drop some sample sets for others to try out (due to the lacklustre movepool, a lot of them are similar)
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 236 SpA / 76 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Night Shade
- Tera Blast
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Choice Specs
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 236 SpA / 76 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Night Shade
- Tera Blast
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Life Orb
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 236 SpA / 76 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Nasty Plot
- Tera Blast
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Eviolite
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 236 SpA / 76 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Nasty Plot
- Tera Blast
So since gastly is banned, I'd like to talk about another ghost type that can fill its shoes a bit (you may have heard about it from me a bit).
Gimmighoul is a mon that has a lot of impressive traits in the meta and can do similarish things that gastly did. The main thing is that it has the same speed stat as gastly and slightly higher bulk, which means eviolite sets are better on it. Now of course, it does have a basically non existent movepool and much lower offenses, but it can still pull through most of the time.
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Oran Berry
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 76 HP / 236 SpA / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Thief
This is the main moveset that works on gimmighoul for me. Firstly, you nasty plot up in order to raise your offenses and most likely the opponent will be hitting you and unless its super effective, which due to mono ghost typing it should be most of the time, you will survive the hit and get oran berry recovery (wish we had berry juice). Then, you can steal the item of your opponent, which will most likely be eviolite, permanently crippling your opponent while giving yourself a great item. From here, you can fire off powerful attacks that can do a lot of damage. For reference, a +2 shadow ball has a 6.3% chance to ko mienfoo. Not the most powerful, but with chip and a potential tera, it can work.
You can probably also try scarf, specs, LO or eviolite variants if this set doesn't work. I'll drop some sample sets for others to try out (due to the lacklustre movepool, a lot of them are similar)
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 236 SpA / 76 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Night Shade
- Tera Blast
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Choice Specs
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 236 SpA / 76 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Night Shade
- Tera Blast
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Life Orb
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 236 SpA / 76 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Nasty Plot
- Tera Blast
Gimmighoul-Roaming @ Eviolite
Ability: Run Away
Level: 5
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 236 SpA / 76 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem
- Nasty Plot
- Tera Blast
See, this is interesting to me. The main use of Gimmighoul I’ve seen is Rattled shenanigans in its chest form, which still doesn’t get it fast enough to outspeed any meta threats in most cases and usually ends up setting up one NP and dying.
With 196 Spe and a positive nature it hits 18 speed, which is faster than max speed Zorua-H at 17 and so could have a niche as a faster ghost.
However, ghost types are…not super important in this meta? While they’re nice to have and have a good STAB attacking type, Gastly was good for other reasons besides its typing. Spin-blocking isn’t as big of a deal and knock off is everywhere, unlike evolved formats. They do, however, block common priority such as Foo Fake Out and Magby Mach Punch, but usually ghost tera on a sweeper like Shellder is used to achieve this.
Ghost STAB is also rather spammable and a max investment neutral nature SpAtk stat of 17 is not bad at all in combination with Shadow Ball.
I see the merits of this mon on paper by itself, but what keeps me from being sold on it is…why would I put this on a team?
LC teams have slot syndrome as it is. If a team needs a Ghost I usually would want to put Zorua-H, who not only is immune to Ghost instead of weak to it but also has an actual ability and a movepool.
I understand you like the mon, and it doesn’t seem instantly unviable, but it’s predicability (it can really only run four moves), mono-typing, weakness to Knock Off and Vullaby, etc hold it back. I’m curious: What does it do on a team? What teams have you built with Gimmighoul-R?
Question, why is Stench not banned in Little Cup? Came across a Stunky that flinched me with knock off, and I thought that would be banned as it is in other metagames.
Question, why is Stench not banned in Little Cup? Came across a Stunky that flinched me with knock off, and I thought that would be banned as it is in other metagames.
I'd assume it's the same reason that (iirc) evasion abilities aren't banned. Flinch-hax isn't a prevalent enough "strategy" in Little Cup for Stench to receive tiering action over other, more high-priority and usage threats (such as the recent Gastly ban).
Question, why is Stench not banned in Little Cup? Came across a Stunky that flinched me with knock off, and I thought that would be banned as it is in other metagames.
Today i wanna talk about a mon i think deserves a chance, and most of you might already know:
Currently, Aipom is on the LC banlist. I do think that should change, not now necessarily, but whenever.
Aipom got banned the moment it dropped with DLC 1. At that time, SCL was right about to start, and the LC council decided that it was best for the sake of the tier and the tournament to not allow it, as it was a mystery if it would be broken or not, and that metagame was only gonna last for the duration of the tournament anyway. I do support that decision, and I understand what happened after and is probably gonna happen after this anyway.
For more context, Aipom has always been a fine Pokémon (A- in DPP, B- in BW and B2 in the unofficial ORAS VR) in the LC metagame, at least up until it got Tail Slap in USM. That allegedly broke it (i never played that metagame), and it got quickbanned and from what i'm told it was the most stupid thing there has ever been.
This is a Pokémon with 19 speed, which makes it the second fastest in the metagame, only behind Voltorb and tied with Diglett-Alola. That, coupled with a multihit stab and a good movepool, makes it very scary at first glance. However, in my opinion, there are many factors that would actually make it a very balanced mon.
For starters, while Fury swipes is an okay move, it is NOT Tail slap. Tail slap absolutely broke this mon, but Fury swipes just never has. Historically, this Pokémon has never been that much of a menace. I know, different metagames and all of that, but really, we have been able to deal with this thing pretty effectively, even without actually wanting to, with the same mons pool basically. Things like being unable to OHKO Mienfoo and Foongus, faster mons (as it is very frail), trapping, Intimidate and priority have always been good enough to keep it in check, and SV LC does not lack in these resources.
Furthermore, we have new, very good stuff that deals with it very effectively. Glimmet, Growlithe-Hisui, Voltorb-Hisui, Tinkatink and Mudbray being as good as it is are very potent forms of counterplay.
I also think this mon would suffer from a 4MSS if it was freed. Obviously Fury Swipes, Fake out and Knock off are a given, but you probably would want all of U-turn, Grass knot, Brick break and Fire punch. Without them, it would always get checked by something on the opposing team. This is not to say you can't alleviate this issue with your teammates, but i do think its something to consider.
It also would have to deal with massive Life orb recoil and Stealth rock weakness which make it much frailer than it actually is, and more easily revenege killed by stuff like Sucker punch, Voltorb and scarfers like Growlithe or Gothita.
It would obviously have its strengths, being the 2nd fastest mon in the tier and having Fake out, U-turn and Knock off give it massive utility, but not to the point where it would shred teams like it allegedly would. It would also have to deal with Fury swipes' terrible accuracy, and the fact that it would get paralyzed on a game to game basis by Voltorb's Static.
Lastly, i wanna address the elephant in the room: Tera Normal Aipom is supposed to have massive damage output. Sure, it probably OHKOes half the tier i dont deny that. But having to waste your tera to normal STAB in each given game to actually break doesn't seem that game breaking to me. Losing the ability to tera defensively is a massive hinderance, and relying on a STAB tera would just make offensive counterplay much more reliable, while admittedly making defensive counterplay pretty limited.
TL;DR Aipom deserves a chance. Not saying now, not saying before, but at some point. I think this mon is unjustly banned from when we actually thought it would get Tail slap, and it has no reason to stay like this. However, I'm not saying "the council is doing a terrible job" or "the tier leaders just dont listen to the playerbase". This tier has been well handed pretty quickly this time around, and I would understand it if there was "no need" of an Aipom suspect test rn. However I, and many others actually, really think it deserves a chance eventually. Also, I'd love it if this sparked some support or even discussion, as I'm actually curious as to whether or not I'm just crazy lol
I would like to comment on vullaby, with gastly output, vullaby NP is becoming a problem, vullaby limits teams and causes big problems, this is nothing new, it was already banned in the last generation for the same reason, vullaby is above the others , we didn't see his full potential due to gastly who was even stronger, vullaby makes me sick, you can simply lose 6-0 if you activate your weak armor at the wrong time, if it was already powerful before imagine now with tera, there is perfect coverage, in addition to the flinch to go with it and beautiful defensive stats, the vullaby is broken, it was restricted to the physical set due to the gastly, but now there is no one to restrict it, and that is a big problem.
I do not think that right now we are in need of an immediate suspect test anything but I do support a suspect test on Gothita.
Banning Shellder basically kills all forms of HO, which in itself isn't really an issue but like... I haven't had any trouble with Shellder/HO over other guys like Gothita which can make teambuilding a massive headache with it just being able to delete checks for some of our best mons like Hisuian Growlithe and Voltorb. I don't really see the problem with Shellder right now when we have excellent options like Stunky, Pawniard, and the uptrending Grookey that all check it really well with priority. Alongside that, Shellder never can really tell if its gonna win or not because you will always have the options to defensive Tera vs it and if you drop Icicle Spear for like Substitute you lose the ability to kill stuff like Mienfoo as long as your opponent preserves their Eviolite on it.
The best checks to Hisuian Voltorb are Foongus and Mienfoo, which Gothita smokes. The best check to Hisuian Growlithe is Mareanie, which Gothita smokes. Isn't exactly rocket science to realize how Gothita could be problematic. When you read through this you could just ask why not just ban those two instead but, I think it's much more easy to handle those type of mons when there isn't some magical pokemon that can delete its checks with no problem. Mienfoo + Gothita + Hisuian Growlithe / Hisuian Voltorb (you can also easily fit both dog and holtorb) is very oppressive and makes both playing around and building around them challenging because you'll have to use your defensive Tera to not get owned by Gothita, but that leaves you vulnerable to the rest of your opponents team most likely as well as the fact that if you defensive Tera, checking these guys becomes even more difficult and its just a lose lose situation for whoever is fighting Gothita.
While on topic and since its been brought up in the thread NP Vullaby is a niche at best set, and should be incredibly easy to tell whether it is or not on team preview. If you think its NP its really not hard to play around unless you built poorly which I don't really think is a fault of Vullaby itself.
I completely agree with my bro hacker gothita is really broken atm, I also didn’t have problems vs shellder, it seems difficult fitting it in a team beucase it needs a lot of support.
Shellder finds problems setting because of its slow speed, because of priorities, Tera water or steel mons and so on.
I found more annoying voltorb-h and growlithe-h than shellder, maybe also these two could be suspected, especially if we ban gothita.
Another aspect im not sure if could be broken or not is the combination of shellder, magby, vulla in screens.
I would probably suspect screens but I’m not sure if they could be broken or not, these two mons magby and shellder look broken when they are together with screens imo.
maybe IM just crazy but if ur gonna claim something as bold as this goth test you probs need replays to back it up. non gaslty meta has been out for two weeks and weve already had voltorb, shellder and gothita ban discourse. i cannot even begin to comprehend why would gothita suddenly be even close to broken when nothing has changed for it to even get that better. it is still a dream matchup for dark types to face. stunky and vullaby are already the two scariest mons to face, and giving them free turns is HORRIBLE. let’s just play the metagame and form opinions through high level building and gameplay instead of theorymonning for a week and feeling overwhelmed by the small pink girl.
this reads way too condescending i think but i dont know how to rephrase it dont take it personally at all
imo Shellder right now is kinda shoehorned into running Substitute Tera Rock due to Stunky/Pawniard and bulky Water types, unless it tries to run Tera Fairy which is okay but can't boost its power. This leaves it vulnerable to other priority users such as Trapinch and Grookey, and it also can't immediately threaten a KO on Mienfoo. Its really good because sub tera rock is insane rn, but its also predictable and easy to tech rn.
Gothita feels fine to me, but it for sure got way better with the Gastly ban. I kinda just load offenses that can kinda power through it and force favorable trades, but the pivot support for it is really reliable right now. Stunky, Vullaby, Growlithe-hisui, and more can all punish a trap, but I will admit that an early game trap is usually more valuable. Defensive tera is annoying vs goth but probably good for the Gothita team, unless they try to trap Mienfoo before the poison type. If goth gets/stays problematic it might also just be a Voltorb and Mienfoo thing as well.
Growlithe-hisui forces fire resists and/or surprise fire resist teras on every team bc tera fire is really good, but its easy enough to limit with rocks and Mienfoo that its just strong and predictable, not broken.
Screens teams are weird, because Shellder is debatably broken in screens, but apart from NP Vullaby which is okay, all the screens abusers are bad and can't dependably pull their own weight, so the oppo can pool most of their resources into beating Shellder and Vullaby, and position safely vs the screen setter.
I have limited experience with the new meta but I am slightly concerned with Voltorb Hisui.
Can we finally stop pretending tera has any place in any metagame that tries to be competitive
Fille already explained it in his post a couple months ago really well, guessing teras is speculative at best and in reality boils down to hoping they are what is reasonably expected instead of a wild option that swings the game and wins on the spot. Games feel like they are won by whomever gets the tera turn right and I hate it so much, why even play the rest of the game.
I'd also say tera doesn't even give more options as it restricts at least as much as it enables, since suddenly a grass type isnt good enough to handle voltorb anymore, or a shellder check might just get tera water liquidationed.
I don't care we're late in the gen, I don't care other tiers have it too. It has sucked since the beginning and it sucks in every other tier as well. Can we please make lc the only current gen that's actually fun to play
Underrated set in current meta in my opinion. Protect not as generally applicable as U-turn, and dropping U-turn hurts, but running this set gives you a better matchup vs lead Mienfoo, so you don't have to sack Vullaby to recoil to go one for one at best. I find it useful on teams where keeping your Mienfoo's Eviolite is a better strategy than to trade Knock Offs on lead with your opponent's Mienfoo, and you don't have something such as Foongus to be a threatening anti lead. Tera isn't important with this interaction, so it can be generally flexible to whatever. The main weakness with this set is that without U-turn, its much more difficult to chip Mudbray and many other Pokemon, so you're generally likely to need removal or great counterplay to the other pivots to make up for that weakness since you won't be racking up as much chip long term. It shouldn't be the standard set, but I think it has a solid niche in this meta.
I present to you guys Mike the Drifloon. I think it’s a very underexplored mon right now, and this is the set I’ve found the most success with. This exact move combination is unresisted on nearly every single team, the most your opponent can usually do is keep their Voltorb/Toedscool/Mudbray at high health. After a Calm mind, it threatens super effective OHKOes on everything but those two grass types, so usually you will want to deal with them (or force them to tera Fire so they die to Tera Blast of your own lol). It also doesn’t love priority like Stunky Sucker Punch, so try to trade with those first. Its EVs allow it to live a Sucker after tera if rocks activated the Oran. Even tho it does have the ability to sweep most teams, it does need support from the likes of Glimmet and Vullaby/Stunky to first knock its checks, force early teras, and probably deal with the (not uncommon) mons that can OHKO it. If you manage to do that, it is very likely that you get to a position where it wins, since Ground-Electric-Psychic coverage is unresisted.
Obviously revealing it probably makes it get worse too since in my experience people just let their dogs die to tera blast but oh lol
(reposting)
Metagame discussion? nah, its time for BRAZIL discussion.
Enough time has passed and now i'd like to share some experiencies of the weird but quite sucessful Brazil run on LCWC, as both captain and player.
A few weeks before LCWC started, i was practicing the tier and learning as much as i could with both wesh papillon and westSasori , it was quite fun and challenging since those 2 are goats, throughout the process i started talking to some friends about trying to join LCWC since Brazil didnt have a team (Only LA), and at first it sounded dumb since we didnt have much mainers of the tier, but thanks to the help i got from joining the LPL team burger king woopers at the time, i met a few people, like starsama who showed me that Brazil could still dream about participating.
At first i went after the most experienced available players, Thiago Nunes, Beraldo, LpZ, westSasori and starsama, 3 overall very experienced and 2 mainers, which sounded good enough to start an initial lineup. After talking to a lot of people and looking for LC players, i gathered those guys and ampha, andre, be7, siras, toinha, sahki, and ninja all on a small discord chat full of dreams (TDNT also joined later on to watch games and give some advices). We talked about the tiers, looked at who could play what and we had our lineup.
IT WAS ABOUT TO START!..... and it was a complete disaster on the first weeks, we had no clue about what we were doing and im not going to lie about that, but after getting a tie and a win, we started to put the pieces together and figured out how things would go from there. After getting rid of someone whose name im not gonna mention, we started taking things serious thanks to sasori putting in a lot of work and dedication on preps, and after winning vs LA we started gaining a lot of confidence and had brazilian army/filipe/mister magnus join us, which gave us a huge boost on preps, confidence and wins. From there things started to go well, we had magnus and sasori working hard on prep and sharing their experience, while also having the talent of beraldo, starsama and nunes carrying us and bringing solid wins vs strong players.
Now the main thing here is, we really cooked on those teams, if you guys watched you replays then you probably saw this squad before , the great HAILDSAND team used on all 3 SV slots at the same week, and also being used on the sasori vs bbb game, and somehow the squad went 3-1. After that we realized that we could bring good wins vs good players if we managed to get a good and crazy prep done, which gave us a lot of confidence and some heat, as we saw on the double shed shell team and the huge game which brought us important wins, and thats the brazil sauce and essence, we cook, we win, we keep on rolling. We need speed control? need something that hits strong? need something unexpected? then why not run hail AND sand at the same time? (credits to sasori for cooking this at 3am like he did with the shed shell team for nunes). Oh starsama needs something that gets rocks up and also resists water? you sure his opp will bring carvanha? ok then, on lileep we trust!!!!. Our opponent likes foongus? then why not a , and from there we went crazy.
EVERYTIME I SEE EUROPE NORTH IM IN SHOCK SUCH TEAM WAS ALLOWED TO EXIST!!! , crazy week, my heart almost stopped on the last game which was thiago nunes on SM but we managed to get past a very solid team, and then our final opponent, US Wentral, the team from the first week... we all know how it ended, and im actually happy that we made it that far since its the first time brazil performs so well on LCWC, it was a strong team and we could have done better, but all of us were giving our best to prep and keep our heads up, unfortunately we didnt manage to break through that one, but it was still a very good and fun run, not bad for a first time managing a "WC Team", i gave my best to be a good captain and i learned a lot from this experiencie while also having a lot of fun with those guys, also looking forward to other LC tours and for sure we will be back stronger than the last time aiming for the top next time time. BRING LCWC BACK!!!!!
I will also like to share some words from vndrevc and from westSasori
Before LCWC happened i was playing for a Brazilian Forum called PokéEVO and i went autofill on LC, but didn't have plans on playing the tier for real, but then I met westSasori and then he low key "adopted" me in the game, taught me a lot of concepts in and outside of game that made me improve a lot quicker than I should, this guy is the GOAT and is so good to have him on the team. So, LCWC was my first team tournament in the forum and it made me really nervous to play the games, specially the ones against BBB and Hacker which are amazing players. But, even though I did terrible on the sheet, the experience of building and making all the prep with the team in my favorite tier was wholesome, something that I really liked it and willing to do it a lot of times again. The playoffs stage was so fun, we faced LA first, which Mister Magnus was playing there and I didn't know about him, I was going to play against Tempo di Anguria but then got sick and had to be subbed, but before it we came up with the hailsand team with Gastly , which was such a funny prep and we spammed the team in the SV slots. After we won against them two things happend, LpZ asked to be subbed on BW and Mister Magnus offered help to us for the next weeks. Then we got to play against North Europe, which was such an awesome week. It was the time when I got sloted in BW and started learning the tier with Mister Magnus support, and even though the first games went pretty terrible for me, it was part of the learning process. Then the time came to play against Fille, which I consider to be the best BW LC player on the site, and the prep worked perfectly and I could won that slot, it was my only win in the tournament but at least i had one kkkkk, then we went 2-0, but it became a 3-3. The last games being Always Edgy v Quinn and Thiago Nunes v LilyAC. Edgy won his game winning those Sucker Punch coinflips and then it all came down to Nunes's game, which even my FATHER asked me to watch. That game was so fire, it almost went down on the Zigzagoon flinch but we managed to turn it back to our side with Zigzagoon clicking Extreme Speed and living an iron head. It was so funny after this game, all of us cheering in the groupchat. The week against wentral I couldn't play properly because of my shitty health but all the preps we made were so fire and almost got us to the finals, but in the tiebreaker kythr's Gastly was on fire and won game one, starsama (the goat) tied the week but then tazz finished it off for wentral and we got eliminated. Even though we didn't won and i couldn't make a decent performance, the tournament was so fire and I hope we have it again this year.
I had to google translate this one since it was on portuguese and its too big to translate it myself lmao
It was an excellent tournament for the Brazilian team, which was clearly not the favorite, we had a lot of problems during the tournament, at the beginning there was no great unity between the team, we created a group on WhatsApp, for team preparations, I passed on all my knowledge to edgy and André, at the beginning of the tournament I wasn't taking it so seriously, due to lack of time, but when I saw that we had a chance of qualifying for the play offs I started dedicating myself 100% to the world cup, creating new teams and ideas , I would say that hailsand was the main idea I had in the tournament, our SV was clearly inferior to the others, however I thought that this could be compensated with a strong team, and in fact it was, we eliminated Latam, and Europe, I gave all my knowledge to create the sv teams, I helped in ss, SM, well, which were the tiers that I had knowledge of, I tried to be as useful as possible within this tournament and pass on my experience in lc to each of the players on the team, our captain Edgy surpassed himself a lot during the tournament, bringing important victories, I wanted to mention be7's important victory against latam, even considering that he has no experience in the tier, this game was relevant, I passed on all the knowledge I could to André and he improved a lot excelled during the tournament and we can see the results today,Starsama was perfect in ss, in principle this is my generation, but I decided to play gen 9 and leave him in 8 due to the confidence in his game, and in fact he surprised a lot!, Thiago Nunes was incredible, we prepared teams together, I remember very well the game against Europe, Nunes' decisive game, I prepared the team for him at 3am, and he used it masterfully, I would also like to mention ampha who had an excellent tournament, winning the decisive game against latam , no words for Beraldo, absurd slot, a great player, the star of the team in low gen, he is a player who exudes great confidence, lpz didn't have a good tournament, but he is a great player, everyone was very important for the team's result , lithium had a good victory too, if I forgot anyone I'm sorry but you know, the unity of the Brazilian team as the tournament went on, made us very strong, the players evolved in level during the event itself, surprising all our expectations and making Brazil's biggest campaign in a LIttle cup world cup. Congratulations again to the captain of the Edgy team and to everyone, my student who has now become a master André. And to Mister Magnus, (br army), for his great help at the end of the tournament, he was fundamental to our result. The last to be eliminated before the final
Posting in these LC Subforums for the first time in a long time to comment on the state of the metagame.
I just got knocked out of the LC Open in which was by far my earliest exit I have had while doing LC Opens and while it was partially indictive of how I played, surrounded by my own mishaps is what I can only describe as the Worst littlecup metagame I have ever played. For context everytime ive taken exit from open, its been to SCL players, however in this metagame losing to someone ive just heard of last week is now in the realm of possibility, and it happened.
I have always been and always will be a firm believer in "play with what your given with" mons is mons and despite any metagames down sides, its you as the player to work around that and identify ways to get ahead and exploit the cracks in the given meta. I was almost going to make a post about LC just before open because I was very worried with how it looks and plays, but I swallowed my pride and just got on with it. Now on to the problems.
It goes without saying that gen 9 in general, no matter what tier you're playing, the power gap has increased Significantly, this also shows in LC. Amidst inherent problems that there are already such as Shadow Tag and Shellder, you have things that can throw off 150 and 120 power stabs with no drawback and 18 speed stab knocks offs with virtually no switchins, it creates such a linear playing experience where 'checks' are non existent and you get a slug fest of braindead games. The likelihood of losing to someone on a lower level to you is a lot higher than any other metagame ive played in the last 7 years.
In comparison to SS LC which a lot of people seemed to have issues with, I actually would rather play SS 10 times out of 10. If you actually try in SS, you as the builder get rewarded heavily if you stray away from the usual big 6 archetypes, which is all anyone ever uses which is why people complain but in SV you ARE NOT GIVEN THAT FLEXIBILITY. If I try to get cheeky in the builder, im punished by the onslaught of threats that the tier has to offer unlike SS.
I'm not going to into too much detail, about what I think would be better for the metagame going forward because to be honest there is just too many issues and solving all of them wont help too much because Gen 9 itself does have some inherent problems, but there needs to be some sort of mini cleanup. For one SHELLDER HAS TO GO. I cannot emphasise enough on one post how broken this thing is. From all the time ive spent playing LC this is the most broken thing to grace the lc metagames, ive kept quiet for long enough about it because I planned on using it myself a lot towards latter end of open, but it seems it took me out before I got the chance. You can run like 10 different viable teras on this thing and I wish I was exaggerating, can win games from turn 1 on its own and just has absolutely no right in this metagame, we dont have the tools to beat it and I cant believe it survived this long without getting the axe. EDIT: I used shellder 3 times in SCL with 3 different sets, old metagame but the problems were still current then, just because I won every game then doesn't mean I feel any differently now. It was a new metagame I was just able to nurture the broken stuff before a lot of others.[Gen 9] LC: KSG vs. CDNThe3rd - Replays - Pokémon Showdown! (pokemonshowdown.com)My first shellder bring of SCL. I had seen its potential at the start of the new metagame, when people were focusing on new toy syndrome, shellder had a really good place in the metagame, as there was blind prep towards it, this game although ultimately coming down to a 50/50 on drain or knock (if he knocks as I dont tera i win) still showcases that all it takes is 1 turn to go your way for shellder to just sweep. [Gen 9] LC: CDNThe3rd vs. Hacker - Replays - Pokémon Showdown! (pokemonshowdown.com) My 2nd time was versus Hacker and while ultimately not the star of the show here, this replay showcases that Shellder isnt a one trick pony, and can deviate against its typical sets, scarf at the time was a cool way to gain some surprise factor and since ice resists are sparce, it breaks teams just easily as its shell smash counterpart. Still viable. [Gen 9] LC: CDNThe3rd vs. ninjadog - Replays - Pokémon Showdown! (pokemonshowdown.com) And this replay, ultimately the main reason why Shellder needs to go, which I brought to the most important game of the tour, showcases that with unconventional teras, you can bypass checks, with shellder and tera hand in hand there is never any safety net vs it. Tera Fight allows you to bypass stunky priority and tera steel users, I also discussed in SCL many many other shellder sets that i wont disclose here but would have had the same outcome, shellder was and is so good that I would feel comfortable telling my opponent I will bring it before a game, and still feel like I can win, prepping for it isnt in our realm of capabilities weather you like it or not, thanks to tera.
Look, say what you want about goth, but in a tier where 2 poisons + fight is almost on every structure, I will leave the rest to your imagination on how that turns out. Stunky is lowkey broken too and I dont know why growlithe was allowed back to use some of the strongest stabs in the game with absolutely no drawback? "But you can run trapinch" - not an answer and even if it was, your nerfing your own team by using it. "It's weak to rocks" Defog and spin exist. Plan well and you have an absurdly powerful threat with little to no tools to use to maneuver around, not to mention tera exists. Edit: [Gen 9] LC: CDNThe3rd vs. tazz - Replays - Pokémon Showdown! (pokemonshowdown.com)Essentially the basis of what I would consider a typical goth game, mirror matchup but with goth instead of diglett. Of course the goth is favoured here after a tera is forced as it has free psychics over half the team and is able to win really comfortably and breeze past my opponent, essentially after a tera is burned, there is nothing to stop goth, "but just dont burn tera then" this excuse is lame as there are just times when its absolutely necessary to tera even if you dont want to, not blaming tera here just some certain users, goth and shellder.
There is an arguement that not much has changed since SCL and while not far from the truth, it was a new metagame and a lot of people focused on archetypes that just never worked (screens) and other small nuisances too that just a lot of people hadn't figured out yet, however the cat is out of the bag now and DLC2 was the nail in the coffin for some change to be had.
There is probably a lot more I want to say but I dont want to make an overly bloated post, so ill keep it sweet for now. Would also like to reinstate the fact that this isn't a cope post. Best of luck to the open opponent I played going forward, you made this old man post for the first time in 7 years
tldr; a good look needs to be had at shellder, growlithe, goth and stunky
I posted here once about how broken shellder is and how it can win games by its own without a lot of support. It can tera water, stellar, rock, fairy, ice, fighting and others. Having to waste your own tera to deal with it is not healthy, since there are no practical answer to every shellder set, mareanie loses to tera rock, mienfoo loses to tera water. The only thing that can deal with it is a healthy tera water/dragon Mudbray, but how much of your gameplan do you have to waste just to don't lose to shellder? It needs to go.
I feel like this makes a LOT of things broken. It traps foongus for voltorb, traps mareanie and glimmet for growlithe, traps mienfoo for pawniard and forces a LOT of weird positioning, just like shellder. The idea of losing your best Pokémon or tera turn 3 is really scary and forces weird leads (like voltorb x foo) that makes you lose an item turn 1. A suspect test would be nice.
I think it is OK for now, I don't think it is a insta win button like shellder and gothita and requires some gameplan. It is checkable with fire resistances like glimmet and mareanie, since head smash is pretty much never clicked because of miss/foo coming in and getting momentum/an item. It is a threat but not a insta win type of threat. In my opinion a suspect is not needed at the moment.
I don't have a solid opinion on it because I run mudbray on every team pretty much, but stunky is not impossible to check, vulla can come in once, mudbray gets rocks on it, and voltorb outspeeds it while getting volt switch chip damage. It is an INSANE progress maker tho, but not broken like shellder and goth in my opinion.
The meta is not as enjoyable as others because we have the Fun Police that pretty much makes a lot of mons unviable, but personally i don't think it should be banned because it is not broken.
, the great HAILDSAND team used on all 3 SV slots at the same week, and also being used on the sasori vs bbb game, and somehow the squad went 3-1. After that we realized that we could bring good wins vs good players if we managed to get a good and crazy prep done, which gave us a lot of confidence and some heat, as we saw on the double shed shell 
team and the huge 
game which brought us important wins, and thats the brazil sauce and essence, we cook, we win, we keep on rolling. We need speed control? need something that hits strong? need something unexpected? then why not run hail AND sand at the same time? (credits to sasori for cooking this at 3am like he did with the shed shell team for nunes). Oh starsama needs something that gets rocks up and also resists water? you sure his opp will bring carvanha? ok then, on lileep 
we trust!!!!. Our opponent likes foongus? then why not a 
(this guy is crazy good at anything he plays)
("bota budew que fica bom")
("cara eu odeio essa tier")
(quanto ta o placar? pt2)
("sasori me engravida")
(quanto ta o placar?)
(this dumbass learned so much so quick, now he is becoming the best new face around, good luck on BW LC Finals my man) 
(STOP CHOKING)
(se quiser sim mano)
I posted here once about how broken shellder is and how it can win games by its own without a lot of support. It can tera water, stellar, rock, fairy, ice, fighting and others. Having to waste your own tera to deal with it is not healthy, since there are no practical answer to every shellder set, mareanie loses to tera rock, mienfoo loses to tera water. The only thing that can deal with it is a healthy tera water/dragon Mudbray, but how much of your gameplan do you have to waste just to don't lose to shellder? It needs to go.
I feel like this makes a LOT of things broken. It traps foongus for voltorb, traps mareanie and glimmet for growlithe, traps mienfoo for pawniard and forces a LOT of weird positioning, just like shellder. The idea of losing your best Pokémon 
that pretty much makes a lot of mons unviable, but personally i don't think it should be banned because it is not broken.