np: LC - Tomorrow Never Knows

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v

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Hello! Welcome to the first round of Little Cup Suspect voting! As you may know, there have been a number of Pokemon that players have considered “problematic.” Therefore, in this thread, you will be able to nominate Pokemon that you consider Suspects. After one week of nominations has passed, the forum moderators (eric the espeon, Seven Deadly Sins and Vader) will determine what Pokemon are to be considered suspects based upon the soundness of your reasoning in relation the Uber characteristics. The Suspects will then be posted and a discussion will be held. Once this discussion is closed, you will be given one week to pm your paragraphs to Vader (that’s me!). Please nominate all Pokemon you view as potential Suspects. Do not limit yourself to just one or two if you believe that more are worth taking a vote on. To be clear, this vote is not final and will be revisited after Berry Juice is on Shoddy Battle 2.

Nominations end on February 6, 2010.


For reference:

Characteristics of an Uber said:
Offensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.

Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep.
 

macle

sup geodudes
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I would like to nominate Wynaut under the support characteristic. With its ability, it can trap and kill Pokemon or encore their moves; allowing a different pokemon to set up on the. Pokemon like Carvanha can sweep with ease because of Wynaut taking out Croagunk and allowing Carvanha to get a sub up. Any user can use Wynaut effectively. It takes nearly no skill. Also Wynaut can revenge scarfed Pokemon easily. You can't stop it from putting holes in your team which is why I believe it fits the support characteristic. Wynaut can encore Earthquakes which allow Gligar and Missy to come in, use either Rock Polish, Sword Dance, or Sub then sweep with ease. Then if a scarf pokemon comes into to revenge kill gligar or missy, wynaut can just trap and kill them with counter and mirror coat.

Next I would like to nominate Misdreavus under the offensive characteristic. With its bulk, speed, and special attack its the most devastating pokemon in the metagame. After a Nasty Plot it can 2hko every Pokemon on LC which is quite frighting since it can survive attacks from revenge killers with ease because of its bulk. It only has 1 good check which is Stunky, who can be easily killed off by HP Ground (though then you lose to Munchlax) and you kinda fear bringing it in if Missy subs since Missy can switch out to Diglett can destroy your missy counter. Misdreavus is very versatile so you are never sure what set its going to run. With sub it can defeat most of its revenge killers with shadow ball / hp fighting then shadow sneak.

I would like to support Gligar under the Offensive Characteristic. Gligar is versatile. It run a Sd set, Rp set, or a Scarf set. It can easily switch into a majority of Pokemon and get a Sword Dance and Rock Polish up because of its great immunities and resistances. With Gligar's great speed and attack it can easily sweep a team with a sword dance or a rock polish under its belt. With no speed evs, it can reach 30 speed with a rock polish; which equipped with its bulk its nearly impossible to stop. With a sword dance, it reaches 36 attack stat with a boosting nature or 34 without; which is dangerous with its high speed attack. It can also get a sub up to deal with Scarf Revenge killers. With its bulk, it can survive some water priority attacks which makes it a beast.
 
I would like to nominate Misdreavus under the offensive characteristic for being able to sweep a SIGNIFICANT amount of LC after one boost.

Also, I would like to nominate Wynaut under the support characteristic as it allows any pokemon to get an easy setup with Shadow Tag and Encore.

...and maybe more later.
 
I would like to nominate Gligar under the Offensive and Defensive Characteristic.

Offensively, Gligar can easily sweep entire teams with one turn of set-up or no set-up at all. Swords Dance or Rock Polish Gligar is ridiculously dangerous after one turn of set-up. It's also very easy to set up with Gligar. Switch Gligar into any Pokemon that won't be able to OKHO it or deal a significant amount of damage to it and set up from there. Just by carrying an Oran Berry, Gligar will be nearly at full health again after setting up once (assuming your opponent deals more than enough damage for it to activate). Or, you could run a bulky Gligar and use Swords Dance/Rock Polish along with Roost. That way, you get to set up, heal damage taken, sweep until Life Orb brings you in KO range for someone, heal again, and repeat. If you don't have a Pokemon that can revenge-kill this monstrosity (Ice Sharders, faster revenge-killers, etc), then you're literally screwed. It's STAB Earthquake, excellent offensive movepool, Roost, and great offensive (and defensive) stats all contribute to Gligar's sweeping ability. Add to the fact that it is immune to Intimidate via Hyper Cutter, you won't be able to keep switching in your Intimidators to weaken it. It is truly a force to be reckoned with.

Defensively, Gligar is probably the bulkiest physical wall in all of LC. It even has higher HP and Defense and arguably better defensive typing than Hippopotas. Boasting a resistance to the ever-common Fighting-type moves and immunity to Ground-type attacks give Gligar many opportunites to switch in. Access to Roost also aids its defensive ability by easily restoring 50% of its health (also removes a weakness to Ice-type attacks), giving it longer survivability. In fact, it's probably one of the most successful Little Cup Pokemon in the walling position, as that role is really uncommon and difficult to use in the LC metagame. It's also a vital member on stall- and defensive-oriented teams because of its fantastic defenses, typing, and movepool. It could switch into various physical threats, such as Aron, opposing Gligar, Stunky, Diglett, etc. and eliminate them easily with a powerful Earthquake, even without any Attack investment. It also has access to Stealth Rock and Knock Off for added team support.
 
I'd like to nominat Misdreavus under the Offensive and Support Characteristics

On the offensive side, Misdreavus has a one-turn set-up move that boosts its Special Attack to ridiculously high levels in Nasty Plot. This will literally at least 2HKO or OHKO every single pokemon in Little Cup between Shadow Ball and Hidden Power [Fighting]. One of the main problems with Nasty Plot Misdreavus is its weakness to priority and Pursuit. Both of these problems can be easily solved by the move Substitute. It lets Missy escape when being pursuited and have priority attacks do minimal damage. Misdreavus can also reach 19 Speed which allows it to out run most of the pokemon in lc, allowing it to keep a sweep going. Missy does not even have to run NP to sweep effectivley, and in most cases doesn't. The SubSneak set can utalize the sub to stop faster pokemon etc. It also carries STAB priority which is very effective for finishing off weakened pokemon, whether it be from another pokemon or from misdreavus itself.

On the supporting spectrum has many options as well. Like I stated in the above paragraph, a +2 can OHKO almost every pokemon in lc and 2HKO the others. This punches massive holes in the other team, and can possibly neuter pokemon that could otherwise prove problematic to other pokemon on your team sweeping. Missy has one more large thing in its aresenal for supporting its team; Will-o-Wisp. In an offensivley-based metagame, the possibility of having the damaged halved off of a physical sweeper is unnerving to say the least. Missy also boast some of the best defenses in lc giving it a chance to support its team frequently.
 
I would like to nominate both Wynaut and Misdreavus under the support and offensive characteristics respectively.

(note: I dislike spamming calcs in nominations)

I will start will the obvious one: Misdreavus.

Misdreavus, for lack of a better word, is unstoppable. It simply cannot be reliably stopped. The fact that it has one check in the metagame, which is unreliable at best, doesn't help its case either. Additionally, Misdreavus is incredibly bulky with excellent typing. With 3 immunities, great HP and SpD, as well as usable defense, Misdreavus is nearly impossible to take down in one hit. If you fail to take Misdreavus down in one hit, you will almost always lose a Pokemon due to Misdreavus's excellent SpA stat. On top of this, Misdreavus gets perfect coverage in two moves!

In particular, Shadow Sneak is what makes Misdreavus "too good". Being able to stop almost all relevant revenge killers is an unbelievable advantage that few Pokemon have. Bypassing one of the most common moves in the game, Sucker Punch, is also a plus.

While it is not essentially an argument for a "broken set", the fact that Misdreavus is so versatile should definitely be considered. If you think you're switching something that can at least weaken Misdreavus, you could be very wrong depending on its set. For example, sending in Houndour to weaken Misdreavus can simply end in Misdreavus using Substitute on the switch and OHKOing Houndour. Or, you switch in Munchlax only to be nailed by Will-O-Wisp.

This is all backed by a ridiculous 19 Speed stat, which is at worst tying with faster Pokemon in tier.

Misdreavus sweeps with little-to-no effort, almost every battle. That is the definition of the offensive characteristic.

Next, Wynaut.

Wynaut is, by definition, Uber under the support characteristic. In common battle conditions, Wynaut will not only make it utterly impossible for your opponent to stop you from setting up, but it will also be able to stop the opponent from setting up with Encore and Tickle. On top of this, Wynaut will also usually net a kill because of its excellent defenses and CounterCoat. This allows it to support even MORE Pokemon because of how this combo works against revenge killers, particularly Choice Scarf users. Additionally, in Little Cup there are much more scary set up Pokemon who can literally 5/6-0 an opponent if given a chance, such as Dratini, Aron, Polywag, etc.

Wynaut is uber because it not only fits the exact definition of the Uber characteristic, but because it also almost guarantees a KO if played correctly. A Pokemon that always "does it's job" by KOing another Pokemon AND that fits the definition of Uber to the word should definitely at least be given suspect status.

That's really all I need to say about Wynaut. It makes it easy as hell to sweep with another Pokemon in every battle.
 
I'd like to nominate Misdreavus under the Offenisve and Support Characteristic.

Misdreavus is basically "unstoppable", as HYU aptly put it. If Misdreavus gets a Substitute up, which is pretty easy to do considering LC has its fair share of choiced Ground and Fighting type users, you have pretty much lost the game. Either that Misdreavus will carry on to sweep the remainder of your team, or put such large holes in your bulkiest Pokemon that you will now find it hard to take on other sweepers.

Misdreavus is also so unpredictable. When a Misdreavus comes in, you are generally struggling to find out whether it has Will-o-Wisp, in which case your Stunky is pretty much useless, or if it has Nasty Plot, meaning one free set up turn could spell gg, or Shadow Sneak, making your weakened Scarfer no longer an option.

Another thing I feel which is a sure sign of "uberness" is how centralising it is. The biggest jump was made by Stunky, who shot up around 50 odd places into the top ten, and has stayed there for quite a while. Ask anyone why they use Stunky apart from the sole reason of checking ghosts, they'll probably not have an answer. There is always something that outclasses Stunky no matter what it does, apart from being a Missy counter. And not a 100% counter at that either, considering that many Misdreavus now carry Will-o-Wisp.

....That's all I have to say for now I suppose.
 
I'd like to nominate misdreavus under the offensive characteristic

like many other users have written above, misdreavus is nearly unstoppable once it gets a sub up, which is easy for a levitating ghost type since all it needs to do is to switch into a ground / fighting attack, which is rather common, and even better if the attacker is choiced. Once it gets a sub up, things start to get tricky since misdreavus has quite a considerable bulk for an NFE (though it's not an NFE to begin with, same with gligar, which contributes to their power), and even with stunky (and carvanha to some extent), you'll have little to no chance to break the sub before missy nasty plots it's Special Attack to monstrous levels, most probably killing your whole team in one go.
 

franky

aka pimpdaddyfranky, aka frankydelaghetto, aka F, aka ef
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I'll make this brief. Nominating Carvanha under Offensive Characteristics

Lets put aside its terrible defenses and consider its offensive prowess. First and foremost, Carvanha can run three effective sets: Mix, Scarf, and Sub. All three have the right amount of power to plow through teams. I think this is an important point to cross because having three dangerous sets keep the opponent from second-guessing, making it difficult to counter at the start.

name: SubVanha
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Aqua Jet
move 3: Crunch
move 4: Zen Headbutt / Waterfall
item: Life Orb
ability: Rough Skin
nature: Adamant / Jolly
evs: 196 Atk / 36 Def / 36 SpD / 236 Spe


I believe its most dangerous set as of late is the Sub set. Substitute compensate for its poor defenses. I found that it isn't really hard to get behind Substitute since Aqua Jet threatens a number of Pokemon. Behind a Substitute, Carvanha is insanely powerful and is difficult to take down. Most of the "physical walls" in the tier are weak to its dual STABs, making it a difficult task to survive and break its Sub. Any faster Pokemon take huge amounts of damage from Aqua Jet. You add that with Substitute, you better have something that can take Aqua Jet and break its Substitute. While it may seem like Croagunk makes a fantastic check to this set, your wrong. If Croagunk comes in on a misprediction but instead comes in on a Sub, it falls to Zen Headbutt quite easily. Waterfall is a powerful STAB move, capable of OHKOing Defensive Gliscor and Hippopotas. Wynaut is probably a partner to the set as it removes Croagunk.
 

iss

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Nominations

I would like to nominate Misdreavus under the Offensive Characteristic.

The main point in Misdreavus is the rise in Stunky usage. Before SubSneak was invented and it became popular, Stunky usage was basically zero. Munchlax was popular at the time because it could hit hard with Return, Earthquake, and even beat Bronzor with Fire Punch. With the arrival of SubSneak Misdreavus though, it could lose to Misdreavus because HP Fighting 3HKOed and Pursuit only 2HKO, even after a round of Substitute damage and Life Orb damage. With the arrival of Will-O-Wisp Misdreavus, there was no way Munchlax would win unless it carried Shadow Ball, which either allowed Misdreavus to switch out with the lack of Pursuit, or couldn't hit Bronzor with the lack of Fire Punch. Stunky is the only hard counter to Misdreavus, and can still lose in certain situations such as a NP Misdreavus with Thunderbolt (albeit rare) or HP Ground/Destiny Bond Misdreavus. Overall, Misdreavus is a very hard mon to counter.

This may come as a shock, but I am nominating Snover under the Offensive and Support Characteristics.

Snover has an advantage that no other sweeper in LC has: the access to a 120 BP STAB move with no drawback (other than low PP). Snover also has the advantage of being able to inflict 1 HP per turn on the opponent as well as cancelling out the effects of the rare Leftovers. It is very hard to find a safe switch-in for Snover: what used to be hard counters can be defeated by certain sets. In addition, many of the top mons are OHKOd/2HKOd by Snover. Non-Oran Misdreavus are KOed by Blizzard followed by the quintessential Protect and then Ice Shard. Most Gligar are OHKOd by Ice Shard, and obviously can't switch in. It also needs to use Stone Edge to KO Snover, which has 80% accuracy and requires Gligar to sacrifice Aqua Tail or Night Slash, both important moves for Gligar. Munchlax, as I described earlier, needs Fire Punch to OHKO Snover. Two Blizzards followed by Wood Hammer may give up Snover's life, but if Munchlax's best move is Return, it can beat Munchlax. Snover also has a good typing/move to counter threats in LC. For example, it can Ice Shard Dratini/Bagon locked on Outrage. It can Wood Hammer/Energy Ball AgiliChou that lack HP Fire. Snover also can thwart rain teams, which are deadly right now in LC. It can also surprise its usual counters with a SD set or a Scarf set. Something that needs to be looked in to is a Substitute set. As Snover has Ice Shard, it could be very viable. Overall, Snover is an extremly underrated mon in LC.
 
I would like to nominate Misdreavus under the Offensive Characteristic.

Misdreavus is unstoppable behind a Substitute. Period. With 19 Speed and respectable offensive stats, it can attack everything and anything for neutral damage. Three immunities on top of bulky defenses, makes for a good switch in to many pokemon. Little Cup's primary wall, Munchlax, cannot even handle Misdreavus all that well. Pursuit is a 2HKO, but with a sub up, Misdreavus can dispatch of Munchlax with Will-O-Wisp and HP Fighting.

Now there is Stunky, what could be called the only pokemon to survive against Misdreavus. It can switch in and attack with STAB Pursuit or Sucker Punch. But then, it has to watch out for Will-O-Wisp. When it gets burned, Misdreavus can set up all she wants, and proceed to sweep. Stunky was never even used until Misdreavus gained popularity.

So yes, Misdreavus can sweep large portions of teams with little effort. Once a sub is up, nothing can stop it. A Nasty Plot Misdreavus is insanely strong. Will-O-Wisp gets rid of all so-called "counters". Any set you run with it, you can guarantee an easy time.
 

little gk

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Hello! I'm going to nominate Misdreavus under both the offensive and support characteristics.

First of all, MissyD is an absolute monster thanks to its typing and Base Stats. This combination allows Missy to paisley switch into any Normal-, Ground-, or Fighting-type attack and do whatever it want with both 19 Speed and 19 Special Attack. These stats allow Missy to create huge gaps in the opposition without even setting up! When it does decide to set up,you might as well say "gg" right there as Nasty Plot allows her to at least 2HKO everything in the game, including her best checks in Munchlax and Stunky. Even with the danger of Nasty Plot, it isn't her most dangerous set, SubSneak is. This is really the set that pushed her over the edge because of its versatility. With the ability to easily kill off revenge killers, such as Croagunk who relies on Sucker Punch to hit Misdreavus, and sweep with a combination of Hidden Power and Shadow Ball, Misdreavus can even beat Munchlax on on one with this set. In a bit of a conclusion, yes, Misdreavus both allows other Pokemon to sweep thanks to its typing and Base Stats, but it can sweep with little effort.
 

bugmaniacbob

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I really should have put this up earlier, but my bloody computer crashed while I was halfway through and I didn't have the guts to write it again until just now.

So, nominating Gligar under the Offensive Characteristic.

I do not believe I need spend much time explaining Gligar’s selling points, which should be obvious by now – It’s in one of the top Speed tiers, has the best overall Defence stat and passable Special Defence (assuming it is taking weaker attacks such as Vacuum Wave). It also has respectable Attack, two powerful boosting moves, a great STAB move in Earthquake, near-comprehensive coverage in only a few moves, etc, etc. As it stands, however, I cannot honestly claim that Gligar can fulfil the terms of the Defensive or Support Characteristics as they are, even given its power, as its support and wallbreaker roles never seem as immediately threatening as its sweeper incarnations; How, then, these traits translate into the Offensive Characteristic is as follows.

First, we will assume that Gligar can with little trouble set up a single Swords Dance or Rock Polish against an opponent. This is not so difficult to imagine, as it has a good number of resistances and can usually take advantage of one opening or opportunity that befalls it, and though the opponent may indeed call your bluff, this is to be expected of any sweeper, and Gligar is more than bulky enough to usually survive and heal itself with a subsequent Oran Berry boost. It is rare for any sweeper to sweep entire teams in Little Cup on a regular basis, unless that team is particularly weak to that particular Pokemon, due in no small part to the heavy reliance and consequent prevalence of priority, and yet Gligar, more often than not, manages to do so, and indeed priority in the form of Ice Shard or Aqua Jet, or else very fast Choice Scarfers, are usually the only ways of revenge-killing Gligar (disregarding Bronzor for the moment). It has a massive movepool for coverage, encompassing Aqua Tail, Night Slash, Stone Edge etc. for coverage, which pair very nicely with its Earthquake STAB. The Swords Dance Life Orb set can, I believe, OHKO pretty much anything in Little Cup with one of its attacks (maybe not Bronzor, though), and the Rock Polish set outruns nigh on everything. And Gligar can run Roost, Stealth Rock and other moves to help cement itself – it is undoubtedly very easy to fit onto a team, and more often than not improves it considerably more than without. Broken? In my opinion, very possibly, though as this is a nominations thread I should not like to carry forward any further opinions yet, biased or otherwise.

I may update this with other nominations later, most likely Missy.
 
Nominating both Misdreavus and Gligar under the offensive characteristic. Focusing on the "little effort" part of the criteria, what really sets these two pokemon in another tier to other powerhouse pokemon is their bulkiness. Misdreavus has good defences and 3 immunities and Gligar has ridiculous defences and is immune to ground attacks, this coupled with their 19 base speed gives them the edge over their competition. Most well played sweepers in LC will net one kill but there are very few reliable checks to both pokemon in question as their speed virtually requires the use of choice scarfers to deter and their defences mean that you need specific revenge killers that have the power and coverage to actually dent these two guys as well as potentially survive priority attacks in the form of Shadow Sneak and Quick Attack. If you lack one of these pokemon of if said pokemon is not at full health then you will have major problems against both pokemon.

The other with effort pertaining to the "little effort" needed is the fact that these guys literally only need one turn to become extremely threatening. Misdreavus only needs a free turn to Substitute and it can wreck stuff with SubSneak or Nasty Plot. The only guys that can switch in and stop Nasty Plot are Munchlax and Stunky and both take huge damage from HP Fighting, meaning that in common battle conditions, any residual damage will be crippling. In my experience of LC, every one of my teams is weak to one variant of Gligar and you normally need primary/secondary/last resort checks to it. It can run Agility and Swords Dance sets and be the best user in the metagame, and if you don't have HP Ice or a strong STAB attack, there is always the threat of being stallled out with Roost.
 

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The suspects are:
Gligar
Misdreavus

A discussion thread will be opened soon to allow thoughts on the suspects to be posted. Hope to see you there!
 
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