Sunday, August 23, 2015

[Karenite rage intensifies]

Last year a Pachirisu drove its team to the world championship, but we sure as hell didn't get a repeat of that this year. Champion Shoma Honami brought the five most popular Pokémon in the VGC meta, as well as the very popular Cresselia (#11 on Showdown's VGC ladder), so the title was taken by one of the most bog standard, vanilla teams possible.

Worse, looking at the teams of the eight players that made the single elimination round in the Masters division, there was barely any variety whatsoever in teams. These eight teams combined together featured eight Landorus-Ts, six Kangaskhans, six Amoongusses, six Heatrans, five Cresselias and four Thundurus-Is. That's almost three quarters of the entire pool covered by just these six Pokémon. I don't care what anyone says, that is NOT the sign of a healthy metagame, and Smogon's VGC ladder stats corroborate that, proving that their way of doing things, although controversial, is the right thing to do. By the way, of the six Pokémon listed above, only Kangaskhan and Amoonguss were allowed last year, hence why everything felt so samey this year - most of the gamebreakers were legendaries that weren't in the Kalos Dex.

On another subject entirely, word on the street is that the odds of getting Pokémiles out of the Pikachu Cup aren't so good, because it appears non-Smogonites really got into the Pikachu spirit. Even though it rarely gets anything done because Raichu (among others) is just so much better. Apparently Electric moves are also a lot more used than they honestly should, so it seems like the level of play is surprisingly low. I mean, Electric moves in a metagame flooded with Motor Drive / Lightning Rod / Volt Absorb users, and where most of the rest resists them? The hell? First-hand accounts suggest Pikachu itself got more and more rare the higher you got on the ladder, so clearly we know the scrubaroonis are to blame if Pokémiles aren't what we're getting. I'm looking forward to comparing the official stats with Smogon's, because we're going to see some drastic differences.

Speaking of the Pikachu Cup, have a look at this Showdown replay, and be sure to pay special attention to the chat. I'm gonna start a petition to have the opposing player pictured in the dictionary next to the word "scrub".

8 comments:

  1. Wow the guy with Pikachu was the competent player here. If the entire tournament goes like that, I expect a Pikachu user will win and we'll have to listen to the same crap people said about Pachirisu.

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    1. To be fair, you can just never select your Pikachu and it'll still count anyway. That means you're effectively running on five Pokémon, but hey, seems some people are fine with that.

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    2. Pretty much happened with the Goirgeist tournament with many people...

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  2. "cheater" "ahahahahahahahaha" SO, that guy used electric type moves on a lightning rod Raichu, and his own Raichu didn't have a held item? What the hell?

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  3. I told you not to underestimate the primary demographic's love of Pikachu.

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  4. Apparently, two men from Iowa were planning a massacre at the Worlds. Thankfully, the BPD foiled them.

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    1. Correction: they foiled themselves. They thought it'd be the best idea ever to advertise their little stunt on social media.

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