Thursday, September 3, 2015

Pokémon news grab bag

(I was waiting to see Smogon's Pikachu Cup stats before putting this up, but they're just not getting uploaded, so I guess I'll get back to it tomorrow... if we have the stats by then.)

- Smogon has started retconning banlists for previous generations, and the first victim is none other than gen 5 weather teams. The already implemented Drizzle + Swift Swim ban was retooled into a blanket ban for all weather inducing abilities and speed-boosting abilities on the same team. This means Sand Force / Mold Breaker Excadrill is now allowed, but Chlorophyll Venusaur can no longer be used in conjunction with Ninetales. Do I agree with that? Probably not. It IS true that the gen 5 meta has changed a lot since X/Y came out, and Venusaur became an extremely prominent and dangerous threat since then. However, what set Swift Swim apart from Sand Rush and Chlorophyll is that Swift Swimmers also get a power boost on top of their speed boost, whereas the others get nothing of the sort. While this fact may seem irrelevant, since people in favor of this change say it is, it's important to remember that Swift Swim was so good in comparison to the other two that the moment you'd get rid of a Swift Swimmer, another almost just as broken would take its place. No more Kingdra? Say hi to Ludicolo. Ludicolo goes? Replaced by Kabutops. Kabutops gets banned? It's Gorebyss time. And so on. Meanwhile, you can't slap, say, Sandslash on a sand team or Victreebel on a sun team and act like they're suitable replacements for Excadrill and Venusaur. This is why I would've preferred a straight ban on Venusaur instead, but so it goes.

But hey, I get to boast about Venusaur being the best Kanto starter again, so it's all good.

- After Lysandre's Trump Card, yet another card was banned from the TCG - Shiftry. The difference is that this one has been around for years, and it's its synergy with the newly released Forest of Giant Plants stadium card that made it go from a marginal card into an obliterating force capable of picking up turn 1 wins like they're going out of style. You can read the full explanation here. Since cards don't get rotated out of the expanded format (at least not for the time being), it's likely that we may see more and more of these scenarios in the future.

- Remember that catchy reggae song about Slowpoke? Well, they made an English version.

- Don't you dare, bitch. DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE.

...actually, by all means, go ahead and kick the hornet's nest. Get the entire Pokémon fanbase on your case. I'll be standing over here while you add a few zeroes to the amount of people who hate your guts. Hell, I see you already got started while I was typing this blog entry. Yeah, brag about your current job description all you want, but in this day and age where prospective employers check their candidates' online footprint, it's looking like it might be your LAST job description.

14 comments:

  1. She does have a point on the supporting role, but kicking the hornet's nest is not the right thing to do. End of discussion, Gen Zed will get torn apart if she goes and kicks that nest harder than they've already tried.

    Beside, we can now add another transgender who beat Gen Zed to the punch: Casey Mongillo. Wikipedia and IMDB both say she has a pretty extensive career as well, so hooray.

    Speaking of which, I have a shovel to sell, and I hope Hayden Black and Julie Goldstein are looking to purchase one.

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    1. I have looked at her Twitter feed. I don't know anymore.

      Quote: "It should've been obvious Samus was Trans by how sexualized she was in 1986. Cis ppl LOVE sexualizing Trans Women"

      Also seems pleased by the amount of flak that she and Gen Zed have been getting. I know the adage that there's no such thing as bad press, but when people start digging, then you are going to get raked over the coals.

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    2. I don't think she does have a point, actually. Being a supporting character in a popular, long-running series is a MUCH better proposition than being the lead in something that's doomed to either obscurity, or perpetual laughingstock status. Nobody's going to remember this crazy chick in a few years. People still remember Maddie Blaustein. End of story.

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    3. Being the devil's advocate. Regardless, they sank themselves because guess who I previously mentioned is a cast member. Yeah. Yeah, good job Hayden, you done good.

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    4. Also, the way she talks about Maddie Blasustein. She's dead. That's a great way to talk about someone who died.

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    5. I can't believe that I missed that fact. Why not add disrespecting the dead to the list of utter stupidity. Can't hurt her at this stage, unless she comes up with something so utterly insane that she manages to mobilize a series of communities against her. Wouldn't be surprised if she did.

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    6. Hoo boy, it got worse. She's in full smear campaign mode right now. She's actually shitting on Blaustein's grave.

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    7. So, when will the ultimate evils of the Internet, Anonymous and the SJW, officially declare war?...

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    8. Depends on how Anonymous feels about pedophilia. The SJWs have taken to defending a pedo because he identifies as a MtF trans (but let's be honest, I've seen Calvin Klein models more feminine than him). So the day the house of cards finally gets swept away may be coming soon.

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    9. Was this from the podcast interview they did? And who are you talking about?

      I'm feeling this sudden urge to have my hope in humanity drug through the mud right now, and I'm hoping Hayden Black and his crew are willing to help me out.

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    10. Nah, she just went on an egomaniacal rampage on Twitter, with a bit of "transphobia is why Blaustein never got a main role" on the side. Oh, why couldn't she be alive to tear this deranged madwoman apart...

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    11. Ah, gotcha. After my first foray into her Twitter account I've managed to not look at it for a while. Also, just found out that Black is promising eight episodes about 5-7min in length.

      So, we have a 2min promo, and about 40-56min of the actual show. So are the characters incapable of carrying a show for no longer than a few minutes? Secondly, from the interview, it seems like Goldstein isn't much of a VA. So we're going to continue to see her shit on Blaustein, all why wondering why and how she got the lead role.

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  2. Kickass slowpoke song

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  3. I must say, it must take a lot to get on the bad side of a liberal Canadian from the left end of things. I noticed you had mentioned things about SJWs in the past but usually deleted such posts, so I guess now it's too much. Can't say I disagree, won't go into details but it's definitely something I've seen grow over the last couple of years, depending on where one associates. Those into atheism probably have seen it 3-4 years ago, others probably the last 1.5 years. Actually I should shut up, at least until a non-white-cis-male speaks before me. Privilege check is right next to the coat check.

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