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Old 10-22-2014, 11:05 PM   #3501
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LET'S PLAY TRICK ROOM

Feels slapped together but man oh man Slowking/Shuckle is such a great lead. It catches everyone off guard.

I've also been considering Demontisse because Gengar is probably not a good addition to a Trick Room team.
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Old 10-23-2014, 12:48 AM   #3502
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What are you going to do when your opponents double target the obvious Trick Room user? What are you going to do when they Taunt you? Hariyama wasn't there just for show. Part of what makes Trick Room so solid is that when you Fake Out the other team's Taunter then you only take one hit's worth of damage, which you should usually survive, and get to get your Trick Room up afterwards. When there's no Faking Out taking place, you open yourself up to attack from both sides. Slowking is not going to survive a STAB Crunch and a STAB Grass Knot.

If you don't like Fake Out, other options include Rage Powder (won't help you against spread moves), Wide Guard (will only help you against spread moves), and Follow Me (same as Rage Powder but better; affects Grass types and Safety Goggles wearers in addition to Rage Powder's affected targets). Anything to buy your Slowking time to get Trick Room up.

Trick Room Gengar is perceived by many as sort of a gimmick but it was used at Worlds on a team that made Top 16, so there is that.
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Old 10-23-2014, 01:20 AM   #3503
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Aromatisse is also a very good option, as it's HA ability makes your team immune to Taunt and other "mental" statuses. From my recollection, Reuniclus is also a powerful TR Sweeper, although they might have fallen out of favor for some reason. In a slightly less OU suggestion, I remember finding a mixed attacking Flareon to be a powerful addition, although that might be less favourable now that he actually gets Flare Blitz.[/TR fanboy since Gen IV]
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Old 10-23-2014, 01:45 AM   #3504
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>new ORAS OU ladder
>sees person with Mega Sableye
>FUCKING SHADOW BALL

lol i run calm mind
which is best set
this is oras
not xy

I'm pretty convinced as of now the stupidity of PS has reached DN levels.
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Old 10-25-2014, 01:36 PM   #3505
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Taking on a well organized rain team with an ORAS OU Karen team...and winning. (ORAS OU, 23 turns)

Greed on my opponent's part gives me a win. (ORAS OU, 20 turns)

Conquering the MegaDrill. (ORAS OU, 15 turns)
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Old 10-25-2014, 11:50 PM   #3506
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*Reynardine

I don't remember there being a luchador in Gunnerkrigg Court though.
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Old 10-25-2014, 11:52 PM   #3507
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Anyone else in the Trick-or-Treat Friendly?
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Old 10-26-2014, 10:58 AM   #3508
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>Someone got the references
Well I'll be. I ran out of names after Mightyena, Meloetta, and Gallade though.
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Old 10-26-2014, 11:02 AM   #3509
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Anyone else in the Trick-or-Treat Friendly?
Nope. I got distracted by Paras breeding which interrupted the final stage of my Honedge breeding, and I wanted to finish both of those before hopping over to breeding my super-size Pumpkaboo. So in short, I didn't have a Ghost team in time (and certainly no Gourgeist) and so I didn't even bother to register.

It seems like a cute event though, and if I had had the time and an ounce more motivation to prepare then I'd have loved to have participated. Be sure to let us know how you do!
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Old 10-26-2014, 11:14 AM   #3510
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There was (and still is) a Super Size Pumpkaboo event if you need a Gourgeist! As for how I'm doing, I'm 9/3/0 and yet to complete 18 battles which I'll do at a later time. Running just Worlds!Aegislash and my IV bred Gourgeist and Chandelure right now. The only reason I'm winning with three Pokemon is that even though they know my Pokemon apparently nobody sees the Kasib Berry coming so Chandelure gets 1-2 free KOs
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Old 10-26-2014, 11:19 AM   #3511
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El Matador indeed. (ORAS OU, 13 turns)

Reynardine punches out BIRD!Cthulu. (ORAS OU, 19 turns)

Somehow, Coba and Unburden make a nice team.
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Old 10-26-2014, 11:20 AM   #3512
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I have the Super Size Pumpkaboo already. I just haven't bred it yet, for the reasons explained. And since you have to use it to compete, there you go.

9-3-0 seems pretty good to me. Does Nintendo tend to try to pair players of roughly equal rank? Or is it completely random who you play? If it's the former, then yeah, 9-3-0 seems pretty good. You say "9-3-0" though ... can there even be a tie/no win?
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Old 10-26-2014, 11:23 AM   #3513
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>can there even be a tie?

Ermm...Destiny Bond or LO recoil? I think GF evaluated ties recently so I'm not sure.
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Old 10-26-2014, 12:00 PM   #3514
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>can there even be a tie?

Ermm...Destiny Bond or LO recoil? I think GF evaluated ties recently so I'm not sure.
The reason I asked was because Showdown removed ties from their server several months ago, citing the fact that the games do not award ties and therefore why should a simulator which seeks to reproduce the game's mechanics as faithfully as possible? It would be strange for PS to have done this if, in fact, the games do still award ties in certain situations.

Googling for Life Orb recoil reveals this very thread from July:

Spoiler: show
Guy 1: Don't you think in situations like these, where both teams' final Pokemon die on the same turn (e.g. via recoil, life orb, destiny bond), it should be a tie? Granted, the non-attacking Pokemon is the one that faints first in the Showdown animation, but why should that matter. Each die simultaneously and on the same action.

Guy 2: This rule is taken from cartridge play. It used to be counted as a tie until Leftiez beat Bloo in the ST semis and it was decided that since XY didn't support ties neither should PS.

Guy 3: From http://3ds.pokemon-gl.com/support/2/...e/basic-rules/ :

Spoiler: show
・ If a player’s final Pokémon used Selfdestruct, Explosion, Destiny Bond, or Final Gambit, and both players’ final Pokémon faint as a result, the player who used the move loses that match

・ If a player’s final Pokémon used Double Edge, Volt Tackle, Flare Blitz, Take Down, Submission, Brave Bird, Wood Hammer, Head Smash, Struggle, or Wild Volt, Head Charge, or was holding Life Orb, and both players’ final Pokémon faint as a result, the player who used the move wins that match

・ If both players’ final Pokémon faint due to damage from a status condition or a weather condition, such as Hail or Sandstorm, the player whose Pokémon faints last wins the match. This includes the effects of Perish Song.

・ If a Pokémon’s Ability (such as Rough Skin, Aftermath, Liquid Ooze, or Iron Barbs) or held item (such as Rocky Helmet) results in each player’s final Pokémon fainting, the player whose Pokémon had the Ability or held item wins the match.

PS aims to emulate the game, so the above should all apply.

Guy 1: Do ties not exist anymore?

Guy 2: No.
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Old 10-26-2014, 04:34 PM   #3515
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No there can't, actually. I just derped and forgot this was Pokemon
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Old 10-26-2014, 09:39 PM   #3516
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Altaria

I should not have won this AT ALL
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W(DQ)- 22(3) L(DQ)-14(0)
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SHUCKS I GOTTA FIX THIS SOMETIME
~TL3~

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Credits to Charm for making this!


Come, my birdies!!!! Mwahahahaha!!!!!!


Thanks Pingu for being so nice and making me this~


Credit to TheKnightsFury for the sprite!

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Be Positive Ref~ I <3 you, Lonely Cubone and those who eval'd me~
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Old 10-26-2014, 09:49 PM   #3517
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I dunno! Turns 1 thru 15 make me say you definitely should have. Turns 16 thru 24 make me say, "Bad luck, but good for you that things turned out the way they did in the end. Your luck but his lack of skill that he opted to do what he did that final turn." Turns 25 forward felt like you were back in command of the match again and the one who clearly "deserved" to win.

Spoiler: show
Yeah, it's a miracle you survived that Stone Edge. But he was lucky for waking up the very next turn as well.
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Old 10-26-2014, 09:52 PM   #3518
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The only really significant misplay that I saw was switching Chesnaught out of Gengar personally. No set really has any way of posing a real threat.
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Old 10-26-2014, 10:39 PM   #3519
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Yeah, Daisy, you forgot that Bulletproof blocks both Sludge Bomb and Shadow Ball.
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Old 10-27-2014, 02:55 AM   #3520
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So far I've been languishing in the depth of 1500 and I don't understand why. This is severely pissing me off.

Also I hate Cincinno with a passion and it really needs a nerf. Although it likely won't ever happen due to how Randbats work. It's just an amazing revenge killer and its pretty much impossible to switch into without one of its few counters.

EDIT: No actually I know why. It's matches like this pile of bullshit. My only Pokemon that doesn't take SE damage is Aerodactyl and Nidoqueen, and Aero is the only one who can hit it hard enough, and that dies to a Crit Sucker Punch that wouldn't have killed it before. It's matches like this I've been getting 3 or 4 times out of 5, where my team is just dicked by the opponent and no amount of skill helps. That's just it too: I know my opponent is a massive idiot because he switched out of Trevenant when in no way would Leech Seed have killed his Yvetal. So I lost to an idiot. Yes thank you.
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Old 10-27-2014, 05:56 PM   #3521
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Summary: My scores decayed faster than expected; Cinccino isn't broken; Xerneas is broken.

Checked in on my accounts to see how much they'd decayed since last time I posted about Random Battles. To my surprise, one had already decayed to the 1840s while the other two were in the 1840s. What's especially weird about this is the fact that, when I last touched the accounts, only one was ahead of the others (it was in the 1920s) while the other two were closely grouped together (they were both in the 1900s). So I don't really understand how/why one would be twenty points lower than the rest, but whatever. Putting that mystery aside, it's still surprising to see the accounts lose 60 points in just ... what? Seven days? If even that many? I thought you only lost between 1 and 5 points a day. I'd have to be losing close to 10 points a day for these numbers to make sense. (Last posted on October 21. Today is October 27. So it's been only six days. Mental math checks out perfectly.) Anyway ...

Getting Zuisho back to 1900. (Random Battle, 22 turns)

Normally wouldn't share this but for the fact that I had a Cinccino and I figure I should weigh in on Cinccino's utility in Random Battles given Blaze's earlier rant.

Cinccino is what I'd consider a B-grade Pokémon in Random Battle. She's "above average," but not remarkably so. To be honest I almost want to give her a B-, but I think some would argue for the B+ and so I'll settle on the B just fine. Cinccino is by no means an A-rank Random Battler. She suffers from several major shortcomings.
Predictability: 99.9% of Cinccino will have Choice Band equipped. 95% will have some combination of Bullet Seed, Rock Blast, and either Return or Tail Slap. And for that remaining moveslot, it's almost always going to either be Aqua Tail, Knock Off, or U-Turn. You know that she's dedicated to attacking physically. You know that she lacks priority. You know that she has a terrible time with Steels. (Aqua Tail does not help much against the likes of Steelix or Probopass.) And above all else you know that she's choice locked. This makes her incredibly easy to take advantage of. Locked into Tail Slap? Switch out your Ghost, Rock, or Steel type for free. Locked into Bullet Seed? Switch in your Sap Sipper Pokémon for free. Even if we ignore locking, you can make good calls to pwn opponents one step ahead of time. For example, say you have out Quagsire and they send out Cinccino. If you're willing to take the bet, you can assume Bullet Seed and swap straight out to your Sap Sipper Pokémon. Of course, this can backfire on you too if your opponent is fond of bluffing and/or has figured you out, but the point is that Cinccino's predictability is by far her greatest downfall, one you can exploit -- and should be exploiting -- greatly.

Power: Even with Choice Band, Cinccino's power only approaches unboosted B-rank or A-rank levels in Random Battle. She is by no means Geomancy Xerneas. Consequently, if you can get up a simple Reflect or Bulk Up, often times that can be all it takes to deny her the opportunity to take her trainer to victory.

Fragility: She is incredibly fragile. And since you know for a fact that she lacks priority, you can take advantage of this with Pokémon like Gale Wings Talonflame, Sucker Punch Bisharp, ExtremeSpeed Entei, or -- best of all -- any powerful hitter that is simply faster than she is.

Allowing Setter Uppers to set up: the Choice Band bears repeating here. If Cinccino is locked into Tail Slap or Return, it's a prime opportunity for you to switch out your Intimidate Salamence, Intimidate Gyarados, Shell Smash Barbaracle, Shell Smash Carracosta, Shell Smash Crustle, or anyone else who resists Normal (we're giving the fleshy Intimidators the resist) and sports a move like Dragon Dance or Shell Smash. It's best to save this surprise for as late as possible in most circumstances, so you may have to sacrifice one or two creatures to Cinccino earlier in the match while you whittle away the rest of her teammates who could pose any serious threat to your sweep. Cinccino's Bullet Seeds won't count for much once Carracosta's performed a Shell Smash and has Aqua Jet under his belt. Her Rock Blasts won't even have an opportunity to touch Gyarados -- he'll flat out outspeed and destroy her with Waterfall.

PS's Hard-On for Technician: Last but not least, the fact that the people in charge of Random Battles for PS have seen fit to give Technician Cinccino as much time in the sun as Skill Link Cinccino. The match I just participated in with a Cinccino? Technician. I shouldn't have to explain this one: Technician is all about risk. "High risk, high return." When it works in your favor, it works wonderfully. But more often than not you're going to be hitting things only three times and cursing the fact that PS is all too often blinded by max power statistics.
She's definitely good, don't get me wrong. But she's not broken. Even the truly broken Random Battle threats can be beaten if you're lucky, but Cinccino is one which more than often isn't going to require luck on your part to beat. Like, if you get hosed repeatedly by bad luck -- no Steels, Ghosts, or Rocks, nothing faster, nothing that can take physical hits, nothing that can squeeze out a Reflect in time for the team -- then sure, you might lose to teams with Cinccino on them, I won't deny that. But the same thing goes for losing to teams with better physical sweepers in Random Battle, Pokémon like Dodrio, Swellow, and Raticate. (Honorable mentions to slower Toxic Orb users like Ursaring and Zangoose.)

If I had to list off the Top 3 Broken Pokémon in Random Battle 2014, they'd probably be, in order ...
  1. Xerneas (Power Herb @ Geomancy, Moonblast, Focus Blast, and Thunder)
  2. Sigilyph (Flame Orb @ Stored Power, Cosmic Power, Psycho Shift, and Roost)
  3. I'd have to think about it from here ... there are a lot of creatures who are all equally cheap
Xerneas is the closest thing the format has to an insta-win button. The only way you can fuck this one up is either 1) to bring him out too soon, wasting the Power Herb when they bring out something that absorbs Special attacks with ease and can scare off Fairies; or else, far more rarely, 2) to bring him out too late, when his best application in that specific battle is to wreck your opponent's best counters to superior end-game win conditions down the road. The longer you can afford to wait to bring Xerneas out, the more guaranteed you are to win. Most teams' only prayer against a Xerneas is to "out-Xerneas Xerneas" by being the first one past the stat boost pole. Whether it's Quiver Dancing your Volcarona up twice, Dragon Dancing your Mega Altaria, or Shell Smashing your Crustle, if you can be boosted before Xerneas is boosted, then maybe -- maybe -- you stand a chance.

Sigilyph is legendary and continues to be a mean threat in any Random Battle game between experienced players. Usually the only way for the non-Sigilyph veteran to defeat the Sigilyph veteran is to:
  1. catch him off guard, miraculously, and Trick on a Choice item
  2. catch him off guard, miraculously, and paralyze him before Flame Orb can activate; then parahax + flinch hax him to death before he can shift the status onto you
  3. catch him off guard, miraculously, and badly poison him (Toxic-level, not standard poisoning) before Flame Orb can activate; and then be immune to Poison yourself such that he can't shift his status onto you
  4. similar to the case with Xerneas, to already have your own beatstick fully boosted up such that you can OHKO him before he can even get off a single Cosmic Power
  5. praying for criticals
I would say #5 is by far the most common. Daisy's posted many battles where she got the lucky crit against the boosted Sigilyph user. I've posted many. These are the most common occurrences. Especially against fellow veterans, it's rare that they won't see Trick coming. And putting a different status on Sigilyph is only a temporary solution (and completely pointless in most cases).

There are some other ways I didn't list off (like PP stalling the bastard; I've posted a battle before where I did that), but I think the four above are the most common. Don't pull off a single one of those? Then you've probably lost ... unless you have a Dark type immune to burns on the team. That's the one thing I didn't mention, and probably the biggest reason Xerneas is cheaper than Sigilyph. Any Dark-type Pokémon with an immunity to burns will hard wall the standard Sigilyph set: can't die to burns, can't die to Stored Power either, it can just sit there and laugh at Sigilyph while it fires back with attacks of its own.

As for that third slot in the list of three ... I really don't know who I'd put here. There are a lot of excellent, excellent Pokémon in Random Battle. Dodrio, Swellow, and Raticate I've already mentioned but I also don't feel are so powerful as to necessarily be #3 in the tier. Some other great Pokémon who likewise I'm not sure about putting in the #3 slot include Durant, Tornadus-T, Serperior (conditional), and Mega Altaria. Then the list grows even longer when I consider slightly less good but still really good creatures like Nidoking, Darmanitan, the Shell Smashers, most of the Dragon Dancers, and some of the format's best supporters.

But yeah. Xerneas is easily #1 right now, and is pretty much the only Pokémon I could support a ban of, simply because he can single-handedly transform a game from 5-1 to 0-1 where the first player was more than likely the more skilled (given such a score) and then all of a sudden here comes Xerneas and it's gg. I'm not asking for a ban -- I think part of the fun of Random Battle is getting to play with stupid powerful toys sometimes? :\ -- but I've often wondered about whether they should ban him or not. They temporarily banned Sigilyph, and that one I felt could be played around (see above) even if it was remarkably difficult and/or luck-requiring to do so. But Xerneas is far greater a monster than Sigilyph ever was.

Last edited by Talon87; 10-27-2014 at 06:02 PM.
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Old 10-28-2014, 03:10 PM   #3522
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In VGC 2014 news, I experienced a long fall all the way down to the upper 1100s after my last comments on the format. Someone more cynical might call it karma. But I think it was just a bad combination of factors. With the greatest offender (a lot of "anti-my team teams") having cleared off recently for unknown reasons, I've been able to work my way back up towards the 1500s. We'll see if I can get back there and how long I can stick around once there.

Here's my latest battle. (VGC 2014, 8 turns) At the end of the battle, my score became a 1480 which is where it currently sits.

Spoiler: show
When I began my fall from 1500 to, say, 1300, I noticed that Garchomp was redundant heavy weight with Mamoswine. Like, I'm sure that Gebebo knew what he was doing when he made the team for Worlds. (Obviously. Japanese national champion, Worlds 2014 5th place, etc etc.) But for the PS server in October 2014, the team just wasn't working out too well. And one of the problems was Garchomp. His STAB Earthquake -- his strongest move! -- was weaker than Mamoswine's. But the Choice Band Ryosuke affixed to him to patch up this problem was severely limiting. I noticed that I increasingly favored drafting Mamoswine to slay dragons or to kill Ground-weak things rather than Garchomp. And so I was beginning to think of who to replace Garchomp with.

As I continued to plummet from the 1300s on into the 1200s and eventually -- briefly -- the upper 1100s, I realized that a shift in the meta was exposing my borrowed team to the same problem I combatted when first joining the format -- a crap ton of physical threats. I looked back at my old team and remembered how Rotom-Wash used to be such an amazing shutter-down of physical teams with his dual Reflect and Will-o-Wisp attacks. And so I decided to experimentally replace Garchomp with Rotom-Wash. After all, I reasoned, for any fights where I wouldn't normally be bringing Garchomp anyway (which was most of them), it wouldn't hurt.

Well, Rotom-W proved to be what the doctor ordered, I think. I don't bring him to 100% of battles, but I think I have brought him to like 70% of them so far. And he's really, really good at:
  • doing his job of setting up Reflect and burning physical sweepers who stay in. This makes him a solid answer to enemy Tyranitar, Scrafty, Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Mawile, and Garchomp.
  • taking advantage of rain teams' boost to Water's power with his Hydro Pumps
  • helping to take out enemy Aerodactyl, Talonflame, or Mega Charizard Y with his Thunderbolt
  • applying pressure to enemy Mega Charizard X, Zapdos, or Gothitelle with either attack
He's too weak to win much on his own, but he makes an excellent partner for a variety of opening leads. (The linked match above is actually the first time I ever felt the Rotom-Mamoswine pair would be optimal. Usually it's Aerodactyl-Rotom, Charizard-Rotom, or Hydreigon-Rotom.)

It's gotten to a point now where my team is almost always Aerodactyl, Rotom-Wash, Mega Charizard Y, and Mamoswine. It's very rare for a scenario like the one seen above where I bring neither Charizard nor Hydreigon. But as you can see from the match replay, the quartet I brought worked out pretty well against the four he brought.

It'll be interesting to see whether the format for VGC 2015 ends up being HoennDex, NationalDex, or something else. A lot of players seem to be confident it will be NationalDex, but I think HoennDex proved so popular -- with both casuals and competitives alike -- that the news about XY's server segregation from ORAS could portend a HoennDex format for VGC 2015. Who knows. We'll just have to wait and see.

So this just happened ... (VGC 2014, 0 turns)
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Old 10-28-2014, 03:26 PM   #3523
Heather
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I've had peopke forfeit on team preview without a word, probably for his reasons, as my Karen teams are in no way a threat to anyone to warrant a forfeit before Turn 1.
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Old 10-28-2014, 08:13 PM   #3524
Jerichi
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So remember when Recycle + Leppa were banned on the same set?

Well, someone found a way to get around the Endless Battle clause.

Spoiler: show


Here it is in action.
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Old 10-29-2014, 12:07 AM   #3525
Talon87
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There's this guy with several alts that all go along the formula of "rape so-and-so's mom," so I don't like him. And he runs a cookie cutter VGC rain team. So I don't like him even more. Unfortunately, I have to admit that more often than not, he beats me. He knows what he's doing (even if he isn't good enough to terrorize the top of the ladder) and admittedly rain teams are really solid when done right.

Which is what makes this victory (VGC 2014, 3 turns) all the sweeter. Admittedly, the critical hit from Draco Meteor was incredibly vital. I had to KO that Politoed some way, somehow. From there, his Jenga tower fell apart, and he ragequit only two turns later. I'm actually surprised by how few turns there were, as playing the match it felt like it was standard length (around 5 to 8 turns).

With this win, my Elo has reached 1517, which I believe is a personal record. Puts me at 113th place on the VGC 2014 ladder.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerichi View Post
So remember when Recycle + Leppa were banned on the same set?

Well, someone found a way to get around the Endless Battle clause.

Spoiler: show


Here it is in action.
Too tired to make up my mind on how I feel about this sort of thing, what I think Game Freak ought to do, etc. I don't really want them to touch Leppa Berries, Recycle, Trick, Shadow Tag, Protect, or Entrainment/Skill Swap ... but at the same time it's pretty obvious that this sort of exploit, even if it's something the victim has to get blindsided by for it to be effective, should not be in the game.
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