BurntZebra

Speaking as the resident LC expert on the council, I second the opinion to UNBAN mienfoo as it was unjustly banned before, as there was no majority consensus to ban it. Mienfoo is important glue for LC and has caused people to shift away from playing LC. Usage is an extremely weak argument to ban anything in LC (and tbh is a generally weak argument in other tiers too), as it does not prove something is overcentralizing or unhealthy to the tier. #makeLCgreatagain As for the announced drops, dugtrio and machamp are the more concerning ones, but they are both pokemon that could have a large impact on the meta or seemingly no impact at all. If they are decidedly banworthy down the line, it is more likely they are banworthy due to unhealthiness based on trapping (dugtrio) or overcentralization around either of them, rather than being objectively offensive uber or support uber. Since both of these ubers characteristics require examining the pokemon in the meta for an extended period of time, it does not make sense to preemptively ban them at this time.

playing in 10 vs fab

The problem with this argument is that we have already been banning other LC mons too. Should we artificially change scyther/sneasel etc to be balanced in LC too? I already don't really like the whole thing that is going on in OU to avoid any bans from occurring but that's an argument for another day. Balancing LC is even more difficult because gamefreak doesn't really consider LC very much when adding new mons/adding new evolutions to existing mons. Pretty much all of the LC ubers pool are mons that originally did not evolve, but gamefreak added an evolution later on, so they became legal in LC as a result, even though they were originally added in the game as a non evolving entity and the base stats typically show that (yanma, tangela, sneasel, scyther, misdreavus). Base stats and individual stats matter a lot more in LC than other tiers, as the low level and eviolite bonus, and how the damage calculation works can change damages drastically. 1 extra point in defense can result in damage rolls changing by 4 points of damage, which can be a 20% hp difference. Some mons are sort of exceptions when it comes to base stat totals/balancing, like ponyta and onix. Ponyta typically has one of the highest BSTs in LC metas, but it's rarely seen as a super dominant force, as it is pure fire type, which leaves it weak to stealth rock/other hazards, leaves it prone to being trapped by trapinch/diglett, and generally doesn't resist enough common attacks in LC to be a good defensive switchin to things. Onix, while initially being a mon that doesn't evolve, has maintained balance as 42% of its BST is from defense alone, and has pretty terrible hp/sp def/attack, which limits how useful it actually is at checking defensive threats outside of physical flying/normal moves. As for misdreavus, I think the best option is to just ban it. Prior to nasty plot access, misdreavus was already too good not to use, and the usage showed that. A BST of 435, supported by 3 immunities, 19 speed to outspeed everything besides scarfers and diglett, and a decent amount of support moves in its movepool. The only answers were porygon and munchlax (both of which, could be handled various different misdreavus sets, but these sets were less good vs other threats in the meta, so it was sort of fine from a balance standpoint). Now with nasty plot, misdreavus doesn't have to run sub optimal sets to deal with porygon and munchlax, as it can break past both of them, being able to go +2 sp atk in one turn and threaten them much more quickly than before. I understand the desire to keep misdreavus around to be a fast utility mon that can help deal with fighting types, but from a tiering perspective, misdreavus is not too different from tangela or sneasel. So in my mind, it doesn't make sense to complex ban an element of misdreavus to keep it free in LC, but keep tangela/sneasel in LC ubers. Based off my understanding, the devs want to avoid stuff ending up in level 50 ubers, as those mons are then only usable in doubles and PvE, but with LC ubers, those mons are still usable in level 50s formats. Sneasel, tangela, and scyther have all seen usage in NU. Misdreavus has a smaller niche in NU, as mismagius still exists there, but it can still be used if you are looking for a bulkier version of mismagius while foregoing some speed/leftovers recovery.

won gg

beep bop boop

i won both very skillfully

IGN: BurntZebra Time Zone (GMT format): -5 Tiers: LC, OU, UU, NU

Wobbuffet is something that cannot be easily predicted in terms of what impact it will have on the NU meta. If you asked me when it dropped to UU, what it would be like in UU, I would have guessed it would have 25% usage and find itself on all archetypes of teams, for its ability to trap offensive pokemon and defensive pokemon, but the UU players don't run wobbuffet for whatever reason they have, so now NU is left to deal with it. Toxic users in NU might become more common so that wobb can't trap them very easily, while scarf pokemon that wobbuffet can easily switch into will probably decrease in usage. If wobbuffet has a significantly negative impact on the NU meta with a large enough usage, then I would consider banning it, but as of now, it is impossible to tell what the true impact it will have on the meta.

Just for the sake of having my votes be public, I'll post my votes/thoughts here. OU -> UU drops are fine. Porygon2 is a good tool for balance teams as it is an effective mixed wall and is also able to trap/revenge kill dugtrio so that dugtrio is limited to one kill per game, which is useful if you're running a team that has multiple pokemon that can be trapped by dugtrio (sd heracross/specs typhlosion/magneton etc). Umbreon probably helps out stall teams more than it does offense, but I feel it's largely outclassed by mandibuzz outside of its cleric abilities. Zoroark is a meme, probably not worth running in the current meta. As for the BL -> UU drop discussion goes, there is a general consensus for porygon-z that it is too strong, being able to spam tri attack pretty freely, while also being able to boost its speed or special attack easily, makes it much too powerful for UU. Mamoswine and Haxorus are a little different. I wanted an all or nothing vote for them, meaning I would either want both to drop, or for neither to drop. I think with mamoswine in the tier, we have enough answers to deal with haxorus then. In terms of defensive play, mandibuzz is a near perfect answer to haxorus, being able to live a +2 LO dragon claw from haxorus and ohko back with foul play. Forretress has an acceptable matchup vs haxorus as well, being able to live any +2 attack from haxorus and being able to either do some damage with gyro ball or ohko with counter. Vaporeon works too to an extent, as it lives +2 attacks from haxorus and can do 70-85% with ice beam, which is enough to ko provided that haxorus did not come in for absolutely free+set up for free. Haxorus must also choose between dragon dance or swords dance (or run both with limited attacking options). Running swords dance may be more appealing for breaking stall teams, but it also means that haxorus loses to crobat in a 1v1. Dragon dance is better vs some stuff, but leaves it lacking the power of SD, meaning it will always lose to forretress/some other defensive threats. Now as for offensive counterplay vs haxorus, it is a different situation. An offensive team probably won't be running a max defense impish mandibuzz, so that is off the table as a potential counter, but things don't look too bad for offensive teams either. Offensive teams have more offense and thus haxorus has less potential to set up at all. Offensive teams will also have more priority available to them, including mamoswine ice shard, weavile ice shard, bisharp sucker punch, etc, so even if haxorus is able to set up a DD, there is still easy counterplay to haxorus that doesn't require ridiculous considerations in teambuilding. I think if mamoswine wasn't in the tier, then haxorus requires a bit too specific of pokemon to be reliably answered on offensive teams, as there would only be one ice shard user available for super effective priority. Obviously as I'm writing this post, mamoswine has already been dropped to UU, so I would like to see Haxorus drop as well, but it seems others have a different mindset than myself. Honch still has no place in NU, with an immensely strong stab priority and strong coverage moves.

I'm not really sure if I agree with your arguments here. I agree that if the managers are selected, and 7 of the 8 are top tier players and 1 is terrible, then yeah, that one manager is probably at a disadvantage, but at the same time, not allowing managers to play either decreases the pool of good managers to choose from, or it decreases from the quality of the player pool, both of which we have seen in the past seasons. One potential option if this were an auction format is to have managers price each other and decide if they want to purchase themselves to play, the caveat being that they can play in any tier, not just a manager vs manager tier. This option is typically seen in the lower level smogon leagues that have a smaller playerbase, where if the managers didn't play, there would be a severe skill gap in the player pool. I'm not sure if this is really feasible in a snake format since each manager pick is essentially the same value, unlike the auction where one manager could be valued 5k more than another manager. Ultimately, allowing managers to play allows for the greatest selection of managers to choose from, since you no longer need to decide between getting to play or just managing, especially considering having 8 top players not being able to play can dramatically affect the overall skill level of a certain tier or just general skill level overall. As for the Snake vs auction discussion, I think it's sort of silly to pretend that the unique thing about PSL is the auction. At the end of the day, SPL and Snake Draft are not terribly different outside of having different tiers to play. PSL in PokeMMO is unique because it is one of the only long-term team-based tournaments and is probably the only truly competitive one, seeing as World Cup had a myriad of problems that made it not competitive. The difference between auction and snake is usually the auction allows for a larger variation in the skill levels of players, e.g. buying 2 players for 30k each and then buying 8 players for 2-4k each, while snake *should* have a steady decline in the skill levels of players as rounds progress of the draft. Snake is also typically a tad bit more exclusive, but that really depends on what the rules are that Coolio comes up with. We have also had a snake draft in the past (season 7/8 I believe) for the first 2 rounds, and then had auction for the rest, so there is some precedent for a draft already. I haven't read the OP since reading rules is for chumps.

me vs zenor in 10-15 minutes

me vs oscar in 10 minutes I suppose

lyle reserve

won gg

playing after ghost vs walerito i guess