jake
underdog of the year
hello,
i am jake slash zebraiken and i have been playing little cup for a year now. i picked it up because none of the other tiers in spl last year were very appealing to me, and i found out that the metagame is wonderful and the community is even better (mostly). i didn't ask for permission to post this thread so i hope it's okay by you guys, but i figure high-effort dumps won't go to waste.
this is a dump of like fifteen tournament teams that i've made since USM dropped, with a brief discussion of how and why i built them, along with a quick thought on the game it was used in. one of my goals for seasonal was to never reuse the same team. i sort of achieved that goal, not counting my no johns games, though i reused the same structure a couple of times -- namely the torchic-mudbray teams.
again though, these are all tournament teams, which means 0 were made to be good at laddering. there are a few sneaky sets and lures that will not work over a long period of time. feel free to use them for whatever you want, though. nicknames come from the pokemon cards -- shoutouts McMeghan for teaching me The Ways. lastly, free LC in SPL. #notmytournament
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congratulations! you made it to the end. have a meme riolu team, the one i was thinking about using in my last game vs osh. and a basic bitch bd zigzagoon team. i think bd zigzagoon is pretty good right now. and a pretty fun scarf larvesta team that i built after watching star playing against wamr. and... this one. feel free to take that one and use it against me in tournament. please.
also, if you haven't already, watch my series vs dundies in the last LC Open (1 2 3). it's probably the best series of pokemon i've ever had a hand in, and it's worth the watch if you like LC i think.
have a nice day everybody, and tell your mothers and fathers you love them. thanks so much to the LC community for being fun to hang around -- i'm sure i woulda stopped playing shortly after last SPL if not for you nerds. feel free to leave comments or questions about anything. :)
edit: btw bonus points if you can spot the one nickname that isn't from the cards (including their evolutions; ferro's is a fusion of move names bc ferro moves suck)
i am jake slash zebraiken and i have been playing little cup for a year now. i picked it up because none of the other tiers in spl last year were very appealing to me, and i found out that the metagame is wonderful and the community is even better (mostly). i didn't ask for permission to post this thread so i hope it's okay by you guys, but i figure high-effort dumps won't go to waste.
this is a dump of like fifteen tournament teams that i've made since USM dropped, with a brief discussion of how and why i built them, along with a quick thought on the game it was used in. one of my goals for seasonal was to never reuse the same team. i sort of achieved that goal, not counting my no johns games, though i reused the same structure a couple of times -- namely the torchic-mudbray teams.
again though, these are all tournament teams, which means 0 were made to be good at laddering. there are a few sneaky sets and lures that will not work over a long period of time. feel free to use them for whatever you want, though. nicknames come from the pokemon cards -- shoutouts McMeghan for teaching me The Ways. lastly, free LC in SPL. #notmytournament
game one
game two
game three
team link: http://pokepast.es/49c12f17f5241df6
on the team: this team was made because torchic is super fuckin good and aipom is nuts. i just used the same firium torchic spread from the old tko chicpass team, and i reuse it through most of these teams. mudbray is excellent with chic in my opinion, and is my favorite rocker on chic teams. i have rock tomb on this team because someone (sken i think?) was talking about it on discord that day, but rock slide is better on chicpass. i used to have gunk shot on grimer-alola always for some reason, but i don't remember what it was. i end up switching between gunk shot and poison jab a little bit in these teams. bulk up snubbs is a set that kingler12345 inspired me to use a while back, and it resurfaced here because i figured speedpass into snubb would be wild. not as wild as speedpass into aipom, tho.
on the game: t1 earthquake was game-defining. bulk up snubbs was going to do work this game no matter what, but breaking the game open that early worked out well. torchic was also going to clean up after chou was toast.
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/b40b164883e965f4
on the team: it still needs a wingull and torchic check. tirtouga was a shitty last-second addition, and my set is not great. i was inspired to use LO timburr after someone was talking about cbb using band timburr, and i figured LO was gonna be the next hotness. it is pretty OK, and made for a fun fightspam. probably needs to be refined a bit more to be a good team.
on the game: lo timburr almost got three kills. almost.
game three
team link: http://pokepast.es/b40b164883e965f4
on the team: i accidentally used the same team! oops! i was going to use a triple water webs team that i linked in the replay (and ended up using later on, in a different game).
on the game: playing a game where your opponent somewhat knows the team and you don't know theirs sorta sucks. lo pjab on timburr is less useful when he knows it's LO. however, accidentally counterteaming them with your bad tirtouga set makes it easier.
game one
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/7ca54dd6e18e5aa4
on the team: here's the webs! i almost never build or use webs, so this was a wild take from me. i'm also a big corphish fan, especially when torchic exists. i think merritt used a few torchic teams in his series beforehand, so i picked this one. i was also sub/dgleam/sludge/hp fight gastly, so subbing down vs bray wasn't the worst idea, but eh.
on the game: corphish missed every move it used.
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/49c12f17f5241df6
on the team: re-used the pass team from g1 with shrug.
on the game: i wasted away my only ponyta answer on a poor overpredict in the early goings, then got popped by ponyta. not unexpected. had a shot in the lategame with aipom, but blew it and lost the subsequent speed tie.
game one
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/c810184429047087
on the team: i brought double bird offense because fooly brought webs to like every game in the last seasonal. i thought subthief wingull was a pretty rad set, since you can mess with things like chinchou and spritzee pretty easily with it. i also ran evio diglett and scarf mudbray because a first look at the team would make you think bray is the rocker, and things like breaking abra's sash can work wonders for scarf vulla in the back. hp fire snivy also targeted ferroseed and sorta pawniard. losing the speed sucks though.
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/462ac8850f2e1ca7
on the team: welcome to the chic teams. mudbray / torchic / spritzee made for a great backbone, and the rest sort of filled things out. mienfoo is always a glue pokemon, as is grimer-a. omanyte is... just kinda there as a secondary bird check and because i wanted to use it. sd poison jab foo ohkoes bj snubbull after SR.
on the game: ☆zebraiken: chic is the devil
i also built this for fooly if it came to a game 3. please don't use it or reprimand me. i know what it is.
game one
game two
game three
team link: http://pokepast.es/ad46c9389a54f833
on the team: chicpass + krabby. krabby is kool. sheer force liquidation gives it a niche, albeit a small one. i considered using x-scissor over knock off specifically to target the everpresent snivy but i don't quite think it's worth it.
on the game: i think i could have played this a bit better, but i started off on the wrong foot and never really got back on the right one. the winning scenario was to get spritzee enough speed boosts to clean.
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/ee9668d4bfac13c6
on the team: i noticed all of chill's teams struggled with BU rufflet, so that's what i was going for here. i also think BU rufflet is a bit underused in this meta, since it deals with snivy alright and sets up on mudbray and likes the fact that electrics are less useful with dig and bray on almost every team.
on the game: i'm pretty fond of the pursuit play that set up the snivy clean.
game three
team link: http://pokepast.es/51b78bd78922baa2
on the team: i reaaaally wanted to use meteor mash riolu. riolu looks like a super fun pokemon and i'm a big fan of the idea of priority HJK, so sd riolu seemed worth using. everything else is pretty self-explanatory and is standard fightspam.
on the game: chill made a god play with foongus vs diglett that fucked me up a lot, and then i made several mistakes over the course of the next few turns that led to me in a major disadvantage, even with a lucky sleep roll. i had to play for the misplay and conservation of ponyta at the end, but he didn't do that and i lost after the bamboozlement that was the foongus/diglett sequence.
game one
game two
game three
team link: http://pokepast.es/7ca54dd6e18e5aa4
on the team: reused the triple water webs from the set against merritt. i actually thought i hadn't used the team until this point, but alas, writing this up proved me wrong.
on the game: not sure if silentmango outright knew the team (would be my fault for using it again after posting the import against shrug), but he crushed the z-dazzling gleam prediction midgame, which made gastly way easy to play around. i u-turned out of my sub; in retrospect that's obviously the wrong play, but i assumed he was going to sucker and that i'd get chip damage while keeping wingull around. also think setting up rocks was a misplay. that's almost exclusively been my experience, btw -- setting rocks lategame without a specific reason to do so is a horrible play, don't do it.
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/dec21ac407daaf7b
on the team: i actually didn't realize how many fightspams i'd used. actually, mienfoo is the best pokemon in the tier, so it's less surprising now that i think about it.
on the game: complete mirror match first turns were hilarious, but also proved i didn't have the balls to make plays early when maybe i should've. the crit bailed me out from making plays some, and sleeping kabuto proved to be helpful overall. also who thought grimer-a beats mienfoo, huh?
game three
team link: http://pokepast.es/56ba7f77c51c7c79
on the team: torchic spam team number eight hundred. yes, that's a cranidos. it was, to be kind, completely and utterly useless. iron skull is a great nickname though. also, this team has a fuckin horrible torchic set. please ignore it.
on the game: i faced the fabled carvanha team, the one that knocked me out at fifth in my highest-placing seasonal run. a well-played torchic (or useful torchic set) would have won this pretty easily, but i played pretty awful in the early game. for example, i didn't pass enough speed to spritzee to beat even regular pawniard. wow, thoughtful plays, zebraiken. good job. also, just let your most important pokemon sleep. it's ok, knocking off eviolite foongus is worth it. (p.s. it is not)
game one
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/9a364e1687671170
on the team: heysup asked me to play early and i told him i hadn't built much for teams, so we agreed to play later in the week. he asked me again wednesday night and i only had these two teams, both of which i was kinda unsure of, but i was feeling mentally sound so agreed to play two games then. i built this one around double berry juice birds because i love birds and i've never used bj doduo before this series. sub bj defog is a dundies special (well idr if sub was his but i saw him use defog bj first), and i'm a big fan. brick break pawn resurfaces here, as does fire blast slowpoke which is a set i love. you can (maybe should) speed creep with slowpoke because it's important to tag things like foongus and ferro first.
on the game: i played a pretty clean game. regarding the pawn vs gunk turns, i thought about that a good amount and decided that i was just going to be fucked by gunk. my set made pawn less important for this game, since i couldn't knock frillish, and i figured that my best switch-in to gunk was foo, which gets like 2hkoed by poison stab and does shit all back to gunk, so i made a play. vac is only a roll to kill pawn at full, so i made a play again. i'm super happy with how i played as a whole, despite mindlessly sacking snivy lategame.
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/4c8ed17d58568121
on the team: i built it around psychic terrain abra. i remember people talking about psychium-z psychic terrain abra and how cool it is that it gets +1 spa, but like it's trash because it dies as you try to set it up and then you just sacrificed your abra to set up psychic terrain for the 2 pokemon that are good and benefit from the boost (staryu, elekid). other fast frail things are ok too because it negates priority but you get the point. sash psychic terrain means you always have the opportunity to set terrain, and unlike other setup moves you can do it on gunk or timburr because they can't use priority to kill you afterwards. lo staryu is a cool partner and scarf diglett traps other scarfers + other diglett so this at least had a cool offensive core in mind. i'm sure there are more complete builds you can make out of this, but i was pretty satisfied with what i had at that point.
on the game: this one is pretty funny to me because after bringing the "perfect answer to webs" team, i bring the team that gets routinely dicked on by webs immediately afterwards and then play a webs team. i was sure this game was going to be a lost cause unless i got a shellder sweep, which probably wasn't going to happen given the makeup of his team. turns out, i found a good place to do so. i also immediately decided, once we got into the sucker war, that i would attack on the fifth turn, and i did not change my mind. rock blasting wasn't a mistake, too, but it turned out ok in the end.
game one
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/e8ea29eacdcaf11d
on the team: no excuses, but my teams for osh were mostly just halfhearted rehashes of teams i've made before and i sorta paid for them. z-memento cott is cool, even cooler with defog, but gets stomped by pawn popularity and i'm not sure what drove me to use it. i built this around np vulla because i hadn't used it in a while and figured most of osh's teams would have some issues with np vulla, and everything else was kinda slapped on.
on the game: i deservedly lost to the krabber. osh played much better overall, especially as i was mindlessly wasting away my doduo with dumb thoughts of "i have z-mem in the back to heal it up it'll be fine".
Narrator: It was not, in fact, fine.
game two
team link: http://pokepast.es/16f77f6dffe0bec2
on the team: again, i was outbuilt. i love the idea of special carvanha in this meta, but i haven't yet found a good build with it. i thought the silentmango start would be a good way to go, but honestly i've never used wynaut before this game and that was a mistake. the rest of the pokemon here were tossed on because they're good pokemon, not for any particular reason. not great.
on the game: the tie + high roll at the beginning of this game caught me on a back foot that i could never come off of. if i get either the tie or dodge the roll, i can trap mienfoo at some point in the game, which makes it plausible to win with carvanha lategame. it's all fair in pokemon, though. they were fun games!
--
congratulations! you made it to the end. have a meme riolu team, the one i was thinking about using in my last game vs osh. and a basic bitch bd zigzagoon team. i think bd zigzagoon is pretty good right now. and a pretty fun scarf larvesta team that i built after watching star playing against wamr. and... this one. feel free to take that one and use it against me in tournament. please.
also, if you haven't already, watch my series vs dundies in the last LC Open (1 2 3). it's probably the best series of pokemon i've ever had a hand in, and it's worth the watch if you like LC i think.
have a nice day everybody, and tell your mothers and fathers you love them. thanks so much to the LC community for being fun to hang around -- i'm sure i woulda stopped playing shortly after last SPL if not for you nerds. feel free to leave comments or questions about anything. :)
edit: btw bonus points if you can spot the one nickname that isn't from the cards (including their evolutions; ferro's is a fusion of move names bc ferro moves suck)
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