UPN Monotype Tournament

[Firewater]

like I said, Magic Mirror killed my plans for ruining Xatu, and I figured that Cradily could take a hit. In hindsight, should have used Ferrothorn earlier, but Ludicolo's crit saved me from a rather embarrasing 6-0.

also Breloom could have done some crazy shit... but Stone Edge failed. ;;


edit

Normal, Ground, Dragon, Fighting

people who own these types, show yourselves.

[Talon87]

I dunno that I'd point to that moment as what killed your chances for defeating it. For one thing, you left Whimsicott out for two additional turns and tried to Giga Drain a bird. This allowed him two additional Calm Minds at no penalty. For a second, when you attempted to do Leech Seed and Magic Mirror bounced it back, not only were you immune to your own Leech Seed (being as you were part-Grass yourself) but he even attempted his very own Leech Seed, ignorant of the fact that Grass types are immune to seeding. So that turn was effectively a wash. Sure, you would have liked it if it had stuck to him, but so what? No, I think what really killed you was not switching Whimsicott out immediately on Turn 3 once it became apparent on Turn 2 that he intended to Calm Mind a bunch. Granted, you didn't have much you could have switched out to, but Ferrothorn or Cradily would have been my choices (and indeed, Cradily's what you opted to go with on Turn 6).

Really, though, this was a very bad match-up right from the get-go. Grass has very little access to Ice-type and Rock-type attacks and it has even worse access to Electric-type ones. Since Flying resists your stab and you don't have what he's weak against, he's got his defenses covered there. Then on the flipside, Grass is retardedly vulnerable to Flying-type attacks -- only things you had which weren't were Ferrothorn and Cradily, and even those were going to be taking at least neutral damage -- and not only that but that is Kind's stab. So offensively, he's got you beat too: everything on your team is either taking 1.5x damage or else 3x damage from a move type he's got on most (if not all) of his Pokemon. The odds of a Grass win in such a match-up are ridiculously small. 0-4 would have been nice, but at least it wasn't 0-6. Anything better than 0-3 would have been something to be quite proud of.

[Firewater]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I dunno that I'd point to that moment as what killed your chances for defeating it. For one thing, you left Whimsicott out for two additional turns and tried to Giga Drain a bird. This allowed him two additional Calm Minds at no penalty

I agree- this was the flaw, my thought was that I could have stalled him out, but that was a mistake to a huge degree..

For a second, when you attempted to do Leech Seed and Magic Mirror bounced it back, not only were you immune to your own Leech Seed (being as you were part-Grass yourself) but he even attempted his very own Leech Seed, ignorant of the fact that Grass types are immune to seeding. So that turn was effectively a wash. Sure, you would have liked it if it had stuck to him, but so what

if leech seed had worked, then I could have stalled him out with Leech + Burn, since I had his lefties, I feel that I could have recovered enough to eventually kill him. That is what my plan was

? No, I think what really killed you was not switching Whimsicott out immediately on Turn 3 once it became apparent on Turn 2 that he intended to Calm Mind a bunch. Granted, you didn't have much you could have switched out to, but Ferrothorn or Cradily would have been my choices (and indeed, Cradily's what you opted to go with on Turn 6).

this also was an error, should have gone with thorn, if only for the resistance.

Really, though, this was a very bad match-up right from the get-go. Grass has very little access to Ice-type and Rock-type attacks and it has even worse access to Electric-type ones. Since Flying resists your stab and you don't have what he's weak against, he's got his defenses covered there. Then on the flipside, Grass is retardedly vulnerable to Flying-type attacks -- only things you had which weren't were Ferrothorn and Cradily, and even those were going to be taking at least neutral damage -- and not only that but that is Kind's stab. So offensively, he's got you beat too: everything on your team is either taking 1.5x damage or else 3x damage from a move type he's got on most (if not all) of his Pokemon. The odds of a Grass win in such a match-up are ridiculously small. 0-4 would have been nice, but at least it wasn't 0-6. Anything better than 0-3 would have been something to be quite proud of.

I felt that i had a decent chance, if I hadn't derped on Xatu I mean- once I lost my 2 resists, that's when it was pretty much over. The original plan was to get stealth rocks up, and then just play lots, and lots of chicken with Ludicolo + Ice Beam. Both Breloom and Whimscott both succeeded in what I wanted them to do, the difference was that Whims was stopped by Magic Guard, and Breloom was destroyed by the Stone Edge miss. Out of the 4 100% losses for me (Fire/Bug/Ice/Flying) I felt that this was the best chance I had, other than Ice (granted, that was just fucked all sorts of ways for other reasons), but it was more of poor execution than anything else.

also, I've realized that I don't have some of the best grasses (Celebi, Rotom-Cut are the two that massively stand out) but other than that, I feel that my team was made incorrectly- this tourney doesn't work well with stall, especially with the weaknesses that grass owns, and secondly, the team just doesn't mesh well with that strategy. At worst, it was poor planning/execution that's doomed me to the current record (though out of my wins, Steel was the only one that shouldn't have happened, and on the flipside, I feel that all of my losses that weren't to the 4 types that Grass sucks against, could have been victories...except Psychic I think.)

this is all fun and games though, the next tourney, I will destroy you all, lol.


edit- for those who want to fight, or the 4 types I still need (Fighting, Normal, Dragon, Ground), I'm going to be on PO for another hour or so.

[Kindrindra]

but he even attempted his very own Leech Seed, ignorant of the fact that Grass types are immune to seeding.

Actually, Xatu doesn't learn Leech Seed. That's a weird glitch in the battle logs- when Magic Bounce activates, it states that the MB pokemon used the move, which has the odd affect of having them use two moves in one round. ._.

Anyway, may as well say what my plan was for this battle. The truth is, what happened was kinda a fluke- my plan was for Hangar to rebound the various Sleep Powders and Stealth Rocks I saw coming my way, while Cruise nuked his team offensively. The first round went pretty much exactly as planned, but I thought Magic Bounce blocked Switcheroo. Guess I was wrong. After that... Well, everything went of course and careened into a gold mine. Huh.


So, only got MM and the dreaded Speevee to go. Gulp.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Kindrindra

Actually, Xatu doesn't learn Leech Seed. That's a weird glitch in the battle logs- when Magic Bounce activates, it states that the MB pokemon used the move, which has the odd affect of having them use two moves in one round. ._.

My mistake. (And I was wondering how on Earth a Xatu could know Leech Seed ... )

Stall doesn't tend to pan out with themed teams because stall, in order to work properly, needs the liberty of being able to pick exactly who it wants for its team. Some people tried stall out in the Champion League tournament last year but I don't believe it panned out too well for them either. (Concept did a remarkably good job with his Poison Stall team but the record of course doesn't show that. =\) With a monotype tournament, I imagine it'd be even worse. (Never minding that Concept's Champion League team was also a monotype team. ) The problem monotype stall has is, you can't switch out to your current staller's partner. So for example, in a real stall team, Blissey switches out to Weezing (as an example) once Conkeldurr comes to play. Physically defensive and resisting fighting, he makes a perfect complement for the physically-frail, Fighting-weak nurse egg Pokemon. But you can't have both Weezing and Blissey on the same team in this tournament. It just isn't possible. So you're fucked. Similarly, if I bring out Togekiss against your Ferrothorn, say, and supposing you know I have Flamethrower and you anticipate I am going to use it, and supposing that I do use it instead of calling your prediction and picking a different move instead ... supposing all of this, you'd ordinarily switch Ferrothorn out for something that not only resists Fire but which can hurt Togekiss. Milotic would not be a bad pick. With SpDef investment, Marvel Scale in case Togekiss tries to BRN or PRZ it, and Ice Beam and STAB unresisted Surf or Hydro Pump, Milotic makes for a decent counter to Togekiss. It also fits in wonderfully with a stall team thanks to Recover and generally good defenses. (Particularly with EV investment.) But again: you can't have Milotic and Ferrothorn on the same team. This is the problem for stall in a monotype tournament: too little access to the playtoys it needs to work properly.

[Firewater]

yeah, that's the main problem, also the mass number of weaknesses. I did it because I'm not a fan of super-offense (seriously, even in my few forays into BW OU (granted I'm saying fuck that bcos silly bans at this point, especially since Sand's gonna get neutered even more soon, and SS+ Drizzle wasn't that bad, but that's beside the point) or even Gen 4, my teams were mostly bulky, even if I had hard-hitters such as Sand Rush Excadrill or Scarfed Garchomp (until he got banned, stupid people) I'm the guy who if you had to know that the EV spreads are not "generic Smogon sets" I'm going to err more on defense than speed/attack.

This team it's backfiring on, but not terribly.

[Talon87]

It's been two weeks since the last post. This isn't my tournament to run, I don't even if know if LC is around right now or what, but how about we wrap this up? Show of hands: who would like to see the tournament wrapped up by this Monday?

This is what happens, kids, when you don't set definite deadlines.

[Firewater]

eh...

I have a debate tournament this weekend, I also have 4 people left to fight. and school stuff. If I can't fight you tomorrow or Thursday, I'm not going to have time if we end then. But anything's fine with me.

[phoopes]

Eh...

I already saved over the team. Plus it's not like we're going to get it finished anyway, unless Speevy makes a magical return.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by phoopes

I already saved over the team.

Why the hell didn't you box them and save the file then? This is user error on your part. I don't see why the rest of the tournament should be held up because of this.

But ... the fact that you even did this illustrates, I think, how this has gone on for too long. It's time to wrap things up, one way or the other. Whether that means awarding people ties for incomplete matches, whether that means awarding people half-wins and half-losses instead (same principle, different bearing on how the final numbers tally), whether that means just calling it with the standings as they currently are, I don't know.

Again, not my tournament. This is LC's call. But ... I think it's clear that it's time to put this one out of its misery rather than pretending that maybe someday everyone will finish the matches they still haven't finished. The people who have yet to finish their matches are guilty of any number of excuses which are not likely to magically disappear if we extend this tournament for even a year. (See: procrastination, work/school deadlines, no free time when the other person's only free time is, apathy, anxiety, and a host of others.)

[Tuner89]

For the record, this is the single greatest tournament I've ever seen in my entire life, and I was going to post as such, but I felt out of place since this was one of my first threads I read on UPN, and no one had been posting in it since I got more familiar with the community.

Some one should do this again someday so I can get in on it.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Tuner89

For the record, this is the single greatest tournament I've ever seen in my entire life

I'm sure LC will be delighted to here that. As for me ... *utterly shameless cough*

[Tuner89]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I'm sure LC will be delighted to here that. As for me ... *utterly shameless cough*

your tournament was over long before I came here, it's been on my to-do list to read through for a while now though I have read through the first post before however, as well as some of the organizational stuff, and it was very well put together from what i've seen, nicely done.

When I get around to it, I'll let you know how I liked it, but I've heard nothing but great things!

[Kindrindra]

I need to battle MM and the always-missing Speevee.


Starting to think we should replace Spevee with a random volunteer.

[DaveTheFishGuy]

Yeah Speevy is... unreliable.

[Tuner89]

Originally Posted by Kindrindra

Starting to think we should replace Spevee with a random volunteer.

>Gets wide-eyed

[Talon87]

No word from Speevy in over a week = she's either gone and not coming back for who knows how long or else she's still here but too apathetic to even bother to post in this thread defending her spot in the tournament.

LC, what are you going to do?

1) Let this tournament fester.
2) Put this tournament out of its misery and just crown whoever currently has amassed the most wins and/or the highest W:L ratio the winner.
3) Let somebody take the slowpokes' spots and allow the people who genuinely want to participate in the tournament to finish their remaining battles?

If there are multiple people who, like phoopes, don't even have their teams anymore, then just do #2 and get it over with.

Honestly kinda surprised you haven't replied either. It's been over a week since the question of this tournament's fate was last posed to you.

[Concept]

It's unlikely Elsie still has this thread subscribed, and he doesn't leave the ASB forum much and he's been kinda busy atm anyway - he probably hasn't noticed people've been posting here again. I'll bring it up next time he's on msn.

[Lonely Cubone]

Been nudged this way on MSN. Yeah, I don't see this thread much, I am crazy busy atm.

Would like to see as many matches as possible completed, but doubt there'll be many more. Will set a deadline of next Sunday for any and all remaining matches to be completed. If people have outstanding matches please post below times online, if people aren't going to be online then fine, but try and get any more done and then we'll apply Talon option two.

As for SP-Eevee, I'm frankly tempted to expunge all her results: she only won one fight and as that was against the only person likely to care I can't see it causing much of a problem.

So yeah, that's my bit. Fight eachother by Sunday, if you've deleted your team then I can't do much for you really.

The steam went out of this a bit because it was just a bit too big and relied on too many people. We should definitely carry on the PO though, can we have a general league or something?

[phoopes]

Originally Posted by Lonely Cubone

We should definitely carry on the PO though, can we have a general league or something?

I like this idea... could have a league table, with W/L and stuff. I could organize this, if people are up for it.

[Kindrindra]

MM, please, please come online. ;_;

[DaveTheFishGuy]

MM's currently grounded or some such.

[Kindrindra]

fml

[Yougirasu]

Okay. I may have forgotten about this thread... But after yesterday, I was reminded. So I'll get my Data across (finally) after my course today, read up on FW (I know he wants to battle me, so I may as well plan) and I'll stay online whenever I'm on my laptop for the next few days.
*looks at the list of people I need to fight on the last table*
Well, my Yuki match was missed off, but this is mostly for the Fighting, Fire, Ice, Normal and Water people. Since I expect to fight FW fairly soon and with SPEevee MIA, that's the remaining list... I may have to wing a fair few of those.....
But I like the planning

Why I'm not subscribed to this thread, I don't know...

[lilboocorsola]

Since MM and Speevy are out, I ony have Ethe left to fight. I'll be hanging around on PO for a while, so if Ethe sees this come on down for a challenge. Or anyone else. ^-^