Azphiel

Take on my game

take take (500k) if you accept multiple bets

you're blaming RDL for keeping his money but MDMatthew bought a player for 40 credits on round 13 of the auction

What is this ? This thread is being opened to discuss Entei and its dominance in the UnderUsed Tier (UU) since its introduction in October 2023. Characteristics : -Entei has a strong attack stat that makes it ideal as a physical attacker. It's usually used with a Choice Band and has access to a signature move called Sacred Fire : 100 BP, 95% Accuracy, 8 PPs, 50% chance of burning, non-contact move (Fire type; Physical). This move in particular is very spammable, the Entei clicking Sacred Fire will usually get rewarded because a burn is very likely to happen, and is very difficult to punish, especially since it does not make contact. -Entei has a 100 base speed stat which is excellent for UU standards. This allows Entei to outspeed key threats like PorygonZ, Sigilyph, Yanmega, Nidoking, Heracross and so on. It ties with Flygon, which is significant as Flygon is not really safe to switch even on a fire move. Entei also has access to Extreme Speed. -Entei has a great bulk. This makes it very difficult to revengekill effectively. Very few Pokemons can outspeed Entei and threaten to OHKO it. Its typing only makes it weak to Aqua Jet as a priority move. -Entei's main weakness surely is its rock weakness. It limits the amount of opportunities Entei can get in a game. Also, its coverage is quite limited (no good ground/fighting move). It arguably lacks some fire power as most water types could stop it. -Entei can be a great sun abuser. Its fire power is huge with sun boosted attacks; a Choice Banded Entei in sun could arguably run both Sacred Fire and Flare Blitz to secure key 2HKOs on water types Pokemons like Gastrodon or Jellicent (check the calcs below). As of now (March 16th 2024) Entei has a 20.09% usage (5th most used Pokemon) for a 56.40% winrate. Calcs : Choice Band (with Adamant nature since it's the most used. Jolly is fine too.) : Vs Offensive Pokemons : Vs Defensive Pokemons : From opposing Pokemons : Sets on Entei : Entei's overall strong stats could allow it to use various sets effectively. I am sure there are great mixed sets with hpgrass/extrasensory or Calm Mind but I will only list the ones we mainly see from the playerbase : Adamant/Jolly - Choice Band - Sacred Fire; Extreme Speed; Stone Edge; Crunch/Flare Blitz (in sun) Adamant/Jolly - Assault Vest - Sacred Fire; Extreme Speed; Stone Edge; Crunch Notable checks/counters : Many of them are unreliable/don't work if sun is active. However using sun is a considerable amount of support. -Relaxed Poliwrath completely shuts down CB Entei. Offensive Poliwrath could check it. -Gastrodon -Vaporeon -Gigalith (dislikes the burn very much but removes potential sun when coming on the field) -Jellicent (weak to crunch) -Snorlax with Thick Fat (dislikes the burn very much) -Hippowdon (similar to Gigalith but less effective as Flare Blitz could 2HKO, and Sacred Fire hits really hard) -Gligar (dislikes the burn very much and would need to toxic+spam roost to stall out CB Entei) -Dusclops (Pressure is great against Sacred Fire as it only has 8 PPs) -RotomHeat (dislikes stealth rocks, needs to be bold, and weak to Stone Edge) -Quagsire (pretty much only used in stall) -Slowbro (weak to crunch) Note that UU should have some changes next month. We can't know yet for sure but we could assume Empoleon would rise to OU and Salamence, Bronzong and Mandibuzz would go down to UU. Feel free to discuss.

Azphiel UTC+1 Azphiel All 500k

I don't believe that Dugtrio nor Arena Trap are broken. Dugtrio teams that we commonly see are teams that have major flaws which are totally exploitable. The problem lies in the playerbase not adapting their teambuilds to Dugtrio+Magic Bounce and in the difficulties that some players have to properly play against this archetype. I can totally understand why one might think that Arena Trap has an uncompetitive aspect, even though I don't think so. However it seems absurd to me to say that Dugtrio is too strong for the tier. Even though Arena Trap undermines a fundamental aspect of Pokémon that is switching, there are ways to play around it such as hazards or not letting your most important Pokémon getting chip damage to Dugtrio's range. Positioning is key against Dug. Also, the players must give themselves the tools to play around these Dugtrio teams. If you have "0% chance of winning vs Dug+Magic Bounce" from team preview, then your team is the problem, not the Dug+Magic Bounce team. Each team, as solid as they can be, will inevitably be weak to a certain archetype because a perfect team does not exist. Just like HyperOffense teams, rain teams or stall teams, Dugtrio teams are an archetype that are also part of our metagame. As I said earlier, these Dug teams have major flaws. Weezing, Togekiss and Chandelure are usually excellent against these teams. Zapdos puts some great pressure and is an example of a Togekiss counter that doesn't get trapped by Dug. There are Stealth Rock users that are totally viable that beat Serperior and Espeon and that don't get trapped by Dug, the best example for it being Hydreigon (Check @Ziiiiio's detailed post on Tuesday 6 for more examples). I believe Dugtrio limits the Dugtrio player's teambuild as much as the opponent's : this is why the vast majority of players are forced to use a Magic Bounce alongside it. Others will chose to play 2 or even 3 defoggers in their team. I think it's a huge commitment in the teambuilding process in order to make use of a Pokémon that has no defensive utility whatsoever. The fact that Dugtrio only works in very specific teams is partly what makes this Pokémon healthy despite its ability. If any change were to happen, I would prefer Dugtrio's base attack stat to be reverted to 80. However I don't believe that a nerf is truly necessary.

I think the Sharpness nerf to x1.3 was ideal for reasons I have stated back when nerfing the ability was the main topic. I did vote against the reverting of the ability to x1.5. From my point of view this revert is being motivated by the need of getting as close as possible to the original game which is not compatible with the metagame we have in PokeMMO, or atleast not in this case. I agree with most posts above; Sharpness was nerfed to x1.3 for multiple reasons, and these reasons still stand. Reversing this decision feels like taking a step backwards. Why did we even nerf the ability in the first place?

With the agreement of a majority of TC members, Articuno was placed in NU.

please don't be like that

take 1M China wins

I expressed my disagreement with that decision in the TC chat right after the change was announced to us. I believe that the Sharpness nerf to 1.3x damage is a success and the Pokemon still has great potential in OU. I also disagree with the logic behind this decision, it does not make much sense to me. I think a key factor that made the Sharpness nerf a success was that Skarmory became a reasonable switch on Sacred Sword, being able to live 2 hits + rocks which made Gallade much easier to handle for bulky teams in particular. With Sharpness buff to 1.4x, this calc becomes a roll and Skarmory becomes less reliable. And of course, it's not like only Skarmory gets affected. I think that is a very unnecessary change.

IGN : Azphiel

IGN : Azphiel

I'm in favour of quickbanning Medicham and Venomoth and testing Blastoise Medicham doesn't have any reliable switch except a few niche psychic types such as Musharna/Duosion? or perhaps Shedinja, which are all either straight up unviable or extremely weak to pursuiters which are plenty in NU (tricking them could also work). 80 Base speed is a good speedtier in NU, and as it has been mentioned above you can comfortably run an adamant nature as you don't need to tie with Blaziken who just left the tier. Tons of different sets are possible. Slowbro seems to be its best check for sure and lots of bulkyoffensive/balanced teams might be "forced" to use it, but it is no miracle solution. Venomoth seems so obnoxious, I don't think NU would benefit from dropping it, it would be so good with screens potentially sweeping most offense with one quiver dance/ Ninjask can't revenge kill it, it's gone. Also, Venomoth is a sleep powder user which is one of the most disgusting moves in the game (I know it's not a proper argument but I just wanted to hate on sleep powder for a second). Gigalith and AV Magmortar are fine but that's about it. Gigalith, although unlikely, could potentially lose to 3 sleep turns bullshit (or 2 hits/miss rock blast) +gigadrain, and AV Magmortar is rock weak which is fundamentally terrible for an assault vest user. When it was tested 2 months ago I don't think the playerbase used it at the highest of its potential. I'm less sure about Blastoise, it would be interesting to see. NU has things like Mantine, Lanturn and Slowking, but shell smash Blastoise might be amazing to have vs offense, its bulk would make it fairly easy to get a shell smash. Screens support could also be a thing. A lot of bulky offensive teams use Assault Vest Eelektross already, perhaps we might see a lot of physical Blastoise then. It's good that Milotic dropped too, I guess it can help a lot.

I don't believe chlorophyll Venusaur was too much for NU anyways Sun was always a pain to set up, could be removed by Gigalith, and Venusaur could rarely come on the field for free. Also there are plenty of mons that could check it, For example AV Eelektross switches on any moves and threatens KO with sun boosted fthrower, AV Hitmonchan switches on any moves, Golbat switches on both stabs. You could revenge kill it with Blaziken, Houndoom, Ice shard Pilo, Ninjask etc... Venusaur mostly needs to Growth once to threaten serious damage, but I trust you won't let it growth for free I've seen some people using Memento Vulpix and going all in for the Venusaur sweep, it rarely worked. In the end we see 25% Chlorophyll usage on Venusaur, and I suspect that half of the Chlorophyll users didn't even use sun anyway (11% lifeorb usage). It's just not that great

take

Nah sry

500k-1m Africa wins w1, void if tie

Hilarious thread, keep up the good work

Azphiel Ghana (African Nations)

Great service, cheap and quick

Right now it seems that is PZ is alright and the playerbase adapted well enough. Assault vests make it much easier to handle as we now see Spiritomb rising in usage with probably the best winrate it ever had in UU so far. It can switch on any of its attacks and consistently pursuit trap it for a good amount of damage and it feels like that mon with this specific set has been key in making PZ easier to deal with. PZ feels way less centralizing than before as we see that the notorious PZ hard counter Gigalith only had 2% usage this month (I think it had around 10% last year when PZ was around? I might be wrong). I interpret that as a sign that Gigalith isn't needed that much because the new tools UU have are just fine. Moreover, Bronzong is more commonly used with a +spedef nature as a mean to switch on tri attacks and Empoleon is still sitting comfortably around top 5 usage. There is also that specific screen offense that got spammed quite a lot recently that could illustrate how hyper offense can overwhelm PZ teams. I'd also like to note that ditto could help a lot revengekilling setup PZ especially if you're using stall, we didn't have that tool last year either. I'm fine with Porygon Z's suspect test ending this month

If you are creative enough you can use both 110 base power acrobatics and toxic orb on Gliscor !

Having 2 stabs moves that have respectively 135 and 120 Base Power with no drawback/100 accuracy is gamebreaking. Especially since fighting plus psychic cover such a vast part of the metagame, you just need to pair that with a 105 BP Night Slash to be able to threaten 2HKOing nearly anything. Its main weaknesses are its frail physical bulk, its middling speed and its vulnerability to pursuit trapping if locked on a psychic/dark move. I don't believe these weaknesses are easy enough to abuse. While its defense is quite bad it is still able to tank most priority moves with relative ease (it also resists fighting prios). Its speed allows is to comfortably outspeed any defensive mon. Offensive teams would be best to abuse this weakness, yet Gallade could still be scarfed and hit like a truck. At last, pursuit trapping a choice-locked Gallade would often require you to sacrifice a Pokemon to a psychic or dark move, or is heavily prediction reliant if you don't want to sacrifice anything and switch your Weavile or Tyranitar on these moves (Also, so far, less than 40% of the Gallades are choice locked on the ladder). Add to all of that the fact that it's difficult to chip it with Rocky Helmet due to Psycho Cut not being a contact move, and Gallade being potentially scarf/lifeorb/AV/sash/band/lum berry/even scope lens since it can use so many crit moves. This seems very overwhelming to me. Dealing with Gallade with a bulky team would require you to be able to threaten to tank a hit and inflict status on most of your mons, or using super-effective moves such as Acrobatics with Gliscor (and hopefully the Gallade isn't Ice Punch I guess). That's quite restricting. It is much easier to handle it with an offensive team although Gallade can still be a pain to those if it uses a scarf or a sash. I'm looking forward to see how the meta will adapt to that.

So far I've seen most teams using Nidoqueen and it usually always gets 1 to 2 kills per game, consistently. The bulk it has would just allow it to beat one on one most Pokemons and you are obviously scared of switching around a pokemon with such coverage and firepower, it's always a huge risk. Using Nidoqueen is ridiculously rewarding as it is quite easy to put on the field (it resists rocks and is great at checking Rotom and Eelektross which are both top usage) and would pretty much always threaten to KO something in return. Amazing against offensive and stallish teams. I think the best Nidoqueen answer there is is Cryogonal... which is sad. It's only been 5 days and I've already seen several games decided by Nidoqueen vs Nidoqueen speedties which says much about the issue : you want to use Nidoqueen because it's too great not to use and you don't want to switch in front of Nidoqueen because you don't have a switch to it. I am in favor of Nidoqueen being banned from NU.