Hanging by a Hitpoint: A Little Cup Warstory

v

protected by a silver spoon
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Saturday, December 20 was the day. There were two feet of snow outside my house and I had just finished a few hours of shoveling. I came inside, prepared myself a mug of Hot Chocolate and grabbed a donut before opening up Shoddybattle. I loaded my team and played a few Little Cup Ladder matches, won a few lost some, using a different team every time. Then, the window opened up to a battle with none other than Head Admin of the LCF and #1 on the LC Ladder, eric the espeon! We had clashed before using these same teams, eric always coming out on top with very few exceptions. I myself was #5 on the Ladder and wanted to climb, and this was the perfect opportunity. Little did I know what was in store for me in this Clash of Titans…

I'll take Vader's word that that was the day having not recorded it myself. There was no snow where I live, if there was I would probably not have been on shoddy its pretty rare around here.. anyways, back to something remotely relevant: I had been laddering for a while and just hit no. 1, when a battle window against Lord Vader popped up. I had played Vader a few times and more often than not beaten him but he always gave me a good match and seemed to be adjusting to my normal strategies. I knew that he would not be a pushover, but was confident that I had a good chance.

Vader’s Team at a Glance:


Eric’s Team at a Glance:



Italic comments are by eric
Other comments are from Vader
Battle Log is in quotation boxes
Rules: Ladder Match, Sleep Clause, Freeze Clause, OHKO Clause, Evasion Clause, Species Clause, Strict Damage Clause, Little Cup Clause
eric the espeon sent out Thunderstorm (lvl 5 Voltorb).
Lord Vader sent out Vader (lvl 5 Gastly ?).
Vader used Hypnosis.
Vader's attack missed!
Thunderstorm used Thunderbolt.
Vader lost 95% of its health.
A Scarf Gastly facing off a LeadOrb is usually a desirable circumstance in my favor, though this time I had decided to Hypnosis rather than go with the ever-so-common Shadow Ball or Sludge Bomb. If I could incapacitate his Voltorb, it would be much lass of a headache later.

I suspected Scarf, having faced Vader several times, but I had also played several other people with a lead Gastly who run TR or Sash sets so I took the least risky option (Protect could give a TR Gast a free turn) and hit it with a Tbolt.

6-6, tie
---

eric the espeon switched in Murkrow (lvl 5 Murkrow ?).
Vader used Hypnosis.
Gastly (17 max speed) beat my Voltorb (20 max speed) so its safe to assume a scarf, now who can take Hypnosis?
Brill, my Murkrow can get a free sub to threaten any Pokemon in the game. And there is nothing he can do about it!


Gah…Murkrow. From both experience and stats, I know it’s a SubKrow, the set that’s currently pushing it to Uber. Hypnosis can’t hit an Insomniac and Gastly only has 1 HP left, so I switch out at risk of Pursuit or Substitute.

---

Lord Vader switched in Squirtleboy12 (lvl 5 Gligar ?).
Murkrow used Substitute.
Murkrow lost 23% of its health.
Murkrow made a substitute!
Hmm…Sadly, Gligar doesn’t really stand a chance against Murkrow, despite being my best switch-in at the moment and Physical Wall. You see, at this stage in the game my other Pokemon may prove to be indispensable, with Priority and their immunities. SubKrow usually runs Dark Pulse, a 2KO on my beloved Gligar. Preparing for the inevitable, I try to break his Sub.

Meh, Gligar will be able to take down the sub, but Krow can take down Gligar.
I consider using two Dark Pulses, but Pluck followed by DP will still KO and leave me with a bit of extra healing thanks to his berry.


---

Murkrow used Pluck.
Murkrow'sOran Berry restored health!
Murkrow restored 23% of its health.
Squirtleboy12 lost 37% of its health.
Murkrow lost 9% of its health.
Squirtleboy12 used Aqua Tail.
The substitute took damage for Murkrow!
Murkrow's substitute faded!
Agh! Pluck restores his health and puts me in KO range for Dark Pulse. He gets recovery and I’m left helpless because of my lack of Priority. X-X Terrible switch-in on my part.

Nothing to say here, plan going well.

---

Murkrow used Dark Pulse.
Squirtleboy12 lost 62% of its health.
Lord Vader's Squirtleboy12 fainted.
Murkrow lost 9% of its health.
Once again, a totally avoidable loss on my part due to some stupid moves. His Krow is still at ~80% and threatens the majority of my team. Knowing this, I bring in another heavy hitter to even it out.

Yea, still going to plan. LO recoil is doing quite a bit but Krow should last a bit longer.

6-5, eric
---

Lord Vader switched in Magmortified (lvl 5 Munchlax ?).
Murkrow used Substitute.
Murkrow lost 23% of its health.
Murkrow made a substitute!
Magmortified used Return.
The substitute took damage for Murkrow!
Murkrow's substitute faded!
Testing the waters here for a possible Curselax or something to hit my switch. Also if its a CBlax I get to know for sure what to bring in. On second thoughts the 23% lost from Sub was probably not worth it.

Return, ordinarily an OHKO, was stopped by Sub. Eric obviously knows my intentions now, and will switch to a suitable counter.

---

eric the espeon switched in Gastly (lvl 5 Gastly ?).
Magmortified used Return.
It doesn't affect Gastly...
Gastly! In all my battles with eric, I still haven’t ascertained the item of his Gastly, though I suspect a Sash. It was a smart switch-in on eric’s part, especially with CBLax being a rather common Pokemon. Not knowing what he plans to do, I take the most prudent course of action.

Yea, its a Sash Gastly, and I feel pretty safe right now. I have Sludge Bomb/Shadow Ball/Explode/Hypnosis, Explode should come close to a 1KO but I remember from past battles that he runs protect so will have to avoid that..
Sludge Bomb will do the most damage if it hits, and I can't risk Explosion at this point.

---

Magmortified used Protect.
Magmortified protected itself!
Gastly used Sludge Bomb.
Magmortified protected itself!
Sash will let me take any attack, and I need to do some damage to assure that Explode will KO. Looking back, Explode would have probably 1KOd it straight off but.. ahh well.

Ah, so his Gastly is also carrying Sludge Bomb to try and maximize his overall damage output. Protecting myself in order to scout his attack is not as a common a move in LC as I personally think it ought to be. Knowing Munchy can take a Sludge Bomb, I decide to hit him with the only move I can.

---

Gastly used Sludge Bomb.
Magmortified lost 39% of its health.
Magmortified used Pursuit.
It's super effective!
Gastly lost 75% of its health.
Magmortified's leftovers restored its health a little!
Magmortified restored 6% of its health.
Oof…not an OHKO. Gastly can still make a desperation move and Hypnosis or Explode, depending on which Eric decided to give it. At this point, I was pretty excited about the possibility of killing Gastly, but didn’t let it get the best of me. I opted to continue my prudent play.

Well.. I had to think about this one for a while.. Explode is too risky, Sludge Bomb will not KO no matter what.. Hypnosis is safe if he protects, and if he attacks I get a decent chance to hit it.. so I take the safer option.

---
Magmortified used Protect.
Magmortified protected itself!
Gastly used Hypnosis.
Magmortified protected itself!
Magmortified's leftovers restored its health a little!
Magmortified restored 6% of its health.
Ah, so he was packing Hypnosis over Explosion! Using my Nostradamus-like prediction skills, I took a risk at Hypnosis missing and hopefully OHKO’ing with Munchy…

Ok. I doubt he will protect again, or switch and its taken enough to assure the KO so lets BOOM this!

---

Gastly used Explosion.
Magmortified lost 73% of its health.
Lord Vader's Magmortified fainted.
eric the espeon's Gastly fainted.
Agh…I didn’t know anyone used both Hypnosis AND Explosion on the same set! I could have made the switch to Gastly, had I seen it coming. Unfortunately, I hadn’t and paid the price. Rest in peace, Mag. You had a good run.

Perfect, Lax is always annoying to this team. Anyways, let’s get the most threatening Pokemon in the game onto the field!

5-4, eric
---

eric the espeon switched in Murkrow (lvl 5 Murkrow ?).
Lord Vader switched in HybridHerpes (lvl 5 Houndour ?).
eric the espeon switched in Squirtle (lvl 5 Squirtle ?).
HybridHerpes used Fire Blast.
It's not very effective...
Squirtle lost 33% of its health.
I brought in Herps the Houndour in the hope of getting something easy to OHKO, such as his SubKrow! Sadly, his Squirtle comes in to ruin the party. Expecting an Aqua Jet, the standard on Squirtle, I make a quick switch to my water immune.

Meh, Krow can't beat that but at least I have a safe enough switch for it. Go Squirtle! Throw a Fake Out!

---

Lord Vader switched in Kannon (lvl 5 Croagunk ?).
Squirtle used Fake Out.
Kannon lost 21% of its health.
No big deal. I’d been expecting an Aqua Jet or Waterfall, but whatever.
---

Kannon used Earthquake.
Squirtle lost 42% of its health.
Squirtle'sOran Berry restored health!
Squirtle restored 42% of its health.
Kannon lost 5% of its health.
Squirtle used Rapid Spin.
Kannon lost 11% of its health.
Down 31%? No Problem! Croagunk can take what most Squirtle dish out with ease. Even though it wasn’t the perfect switch-in I had wanted, it was good enough.

Crap, no safe switch (not that I want to lose), and only Rapid Spin hits that thing.. Well I have a sash Diglett to revenge it so I’ll just sacrifice Squirtle.
---

Kannon used Nasty Plot.
Kannon's special attack was sharply raised.
Squirtle used Rapid Spin.
Kannon lost 11% of its health.
Rapid Spin? Did eric not realize that there were no Entry Hazards down? Maybe Rapid Spin was his only move that could hit Gunk? I decided to take a risk and try it out…

NP's are irrelevant. Let him have a false sense of victory.
---

Kannon used Nasty Plot.
Kannon's special attack was sharply raised.
Squirtle used Rapid Spin.
Kannon lost 11% of its health.
Spot on! Now I can get rid of the pest with Vacuum Wave.

---

Kannon used Vacuum Wave.
A critical hit!
Squirtle lost 67% of its health.
eric the espeon's Squirtle fainted.
Kannon lost 5% of its health.
Not hax, as it OHKO’d either way. A nice bit of set-up for me meant the match was almost assured to be a windfall in favor of everyone’s favorite Sith Lord.

Hmm.. at this stage it looks like he will probably win, but I have a chance.

3-4, Vader
---

eric the espeon switched in Diglett (lvl 5 Diglett ?).
Kannon used Vacuum Wave.
A critical hit!
Diglett lost 100% of its health.
Diglett hung on using its Focus Sash!
Kannon lost 5% of its health.
Diglett used Earthquake.
It's super effective!
Kannon lost 32% of its health.
Lord Vader's Kannon fainted.
Sash does me in here. Even with +4 STAB Crit Vacuum Wave, I couldn’t KO. Sash is a deadly item, indeed. But my Gunk softened up his Diglett for a nice revenge kill by my favorite 20-Speeder…

Perfect work from the nation's favorite revenge trapper.

3-3, tie
---

Lord Vader switched in Elekid (lvl 5 Elekid ?).
Diglett used Sucker Punch.
Elekid lost 53% of its health.
Elekid used Quick Attack.
Diglett lost 6% of its health.
eric the espeon's Diglett fainted.
Elekid lost 5% of its health.
Gah…Elekid loses the Speed tie and takes >50% from it x-x I expect his death next turn, unless…

Meh, nothing else I could do. The Speed tie meant little.

---

eric the espeon switched in Murkrow (lvl 5 Murkrow ?).
Elekid used Thunderpunch.
It's super effective!
Murkrow lost 59% of its health.
eric the espeon's Murkrow fainted.
Elekid lost 5% of its health.
Now here I took advantage of the fact that eric has battled me before and knows what I like to do with Elekid: Quick Attack Krow to death so it can't Sucker Punch me. He probably used Dark Pulse, but was KO’d by TPunch before he could.

Stupid! Why did I do this again.. Every game I try to revenge Elekid with Krow (normally its an assured KO, a large majority of Kid's do not have QA, so can't interupt my Sucker Punch).. But this time I think I have a way around it, maybe I can survive the QA and hit it with Dark Pulse. Unfortunately LV predicts my change in strategy, and in a very risky move outpredicts me and KOs.
Now I'm in trouble..


2-3, Vader
---

eric the espeon switched in Thunderstorm (lvl 5 Voltorb).
Thunderstorm used Protect.
Thunderstorm protected itself!
Elekid used Quick Attack.
Thunderstorm protected itself!
Here eric is using the same tactic that I myself relish using with Munchlax, Protect-scouting. However, because I didn’t want to lose the speed-tie, I elected to just hit him as hard as I could for whatever it was worth.

Well it was more of a delaying the choice to Tbolt or Explode.. I did not know if a resisted Attack could do enough.. but I took the risk and:

---

Elekid used Quick Attack.
Thunderstorm lost 40% of its health.
Elekid lost 5% of its health.
Thunderstorm used Thunderbolt.
It's not very effective...
Elekid lost 32% of its health.
Lord Vader's Elekid fainted.
No surprise here. If I’d gone with Cross Chop I would have been taking the risk of losing the speed tie, not a risk that I enjoy taking. Instead I hit him hard enough that any shot from my remaining Pokemon would take him out quite easily.

Phew, with Kid down I am back in the match. Lets see what he brings in.

2-2, tie
---

Lord Vader switched in Vader (lvl 5 Gastly ?).
Thunderstorm used Protect.
Thunderstorm protected itself!
Vader used Sludge Bomb.
Thunderstorm protected itself!
Sludge Bomb! Going for the maximum damage output against whatever he had left, I felt my victory assured. There was very little that would be able to survive my Gastly’s onslaught, regardless of whether he knew it was coming or not.

Not good, faster than me and could beat my last Pokemon (Dratini) if I brought it in... I will have to sacrifice.
---

Vader used Sludge Bomb.
Thunderstorm lost 60% of its health.
eric the espeon's Thunderstorm fainted.
Everything is progressing nicely, and I expect a wonderful victory from a great battle and prepare to say my gg’s.

1-2, Vader
---

eric the espeon switched in Dratini (lvl 5 Dratini ?).
eric the espeon: hmm
Ok. I run Sash-Agility Mixtini, the only set that gives me a chance. But on some teams I run max attacks, and not much speed which would mean that Agility would be a waste of a turn, so here I pause the battle, open my team and check how much I invested in Speed. It turns out that I have max speed on this team, and max SpA, but only 84 Attack EVs.
Vader used Sludge Bomb.
Dratini lost 100% of its health.
Dratini hung on using its Focus Sash!
Dratini used Agility.
Dratini's speed was sharply raised.
Oh, God no! I had forgotten one of eric’s new favorite items to abuse: Focus Sash! After an Agility, Dratini is sure outspeed Gastly and Houndour with Outrage…I think I just lost the match…

Ok, lets play this! Last chance! Draco Meteor is less accurate, so Outrage it is.

---

Dratini used Outrage.
Dratini went on a rampage!
Vader lost 5% of its health.
Lord Vader's Vader fainted.

Gastly goes down just as I had expected, and I send my last Pokemon to his certain demise…Fairwell, Houndour. I type in the two g’s and prepare to send them.

Cool, maybe I have a chance after all, lets pray that Outrage has enough power to KO...

1-1, tie
---

Lord Vader switched in HybridHerpes (lvl 5 Houndour ?).
Dratini used Outrage.
HybridHerpes lost 95% of its health.
Hello…what’s this?
arrggg so close....

HybridHerpes used Dark Pulse.
Dratini lost 5% of its health.
eric the espeon's Dratini fainted.
Lord Vader wins!
Unbelievable! With 1 HP left, my Houndour survives the Outrage and takes Dratini’s last hitpoint with Dark Pulse! Oh, what a finish. I never did the calcs to see if it was min damage or just lack of EVs on eric’s part, but I had just won, even if just barely, against the top Little Cup player. What a rush!

After all of that.. I lose by one HP.. But it was a good game, well played by both and he deserved the win. GG Lord Vader.
And in case anyone wants to see some %s:
90.48% - 114.29% Damage, 79.49% chance of a 1KO
But still he outplayed me several times, the win was his fair and square.


1-0, Vader

Team Analyses:

Vader’s Team: I was running a semi-Defensive Team, based around using immunities and hard-hitting Pokemon to gain momentum and maintain the upper hand. While usually very effective, this team doesn’t have a solid SubKrow Counter, mainly because one does not exist. This team got me to #1 on the LC Ladder, where I currently reside.


Gastly adds useful Ground, Normal and Fighting immunities as well as extremely hard-hitting offense. Sludge Bomb, considered by some an “unusual choice,” scores more damage than Shadow Ball and is the main attack of Gastly’s set. Shadow Ball hits Psychics and other Ghosts extremely hard. Energy Ball, being a Grass move, is nothing short of stupendous in the Little Cup Metagame ridden with Waters. Hypnosis lets him shut down Pokemon like Diglett and Voltorb that cause my team trouble. Scarf lets him outspeed a lot of Pokes while still maintaining a 20 SAtk score.


Munchlax adds a Ghost immunity as well as a general Special Wall. While you may say that Leftovers over Oran is a stupid decision, I must disagree on this. Although it may overall give Lax less healing, it allows him to use Protect extremely effectively. He can stall out Rain, Sun and Trick Room teams fairly easily as well as hit hard with Return. A great switch-in to Scarf Gastly that wants to Shadow Ball mine.


Elekid is the only Pokemon on my team with no immunities, but easily one of the best. With his 20 Speed, only Scarfers will ever outspeed him. LO lets him easily sweep through unprepared teams, OHKOing major threats like Munchlax. His BoltBeam coverage combined with Cross Chop and Priority make him simply incredible. Static is also a rather nasty parting gift…


Gligar nets the Ground and Electric immunities for the team. This Rock Polish is also devastating to many teams, though the coverage is resisted by any grass type and Mantine. Roost lets him wall pretty effectively and stall out TR.


Houndour has Fire and Psychic immunities and is the least-seen member of the team. Against Abra and Scarfquil he’s the first switch-in, but is otherwise rather neglected. STAB Moves and HP Fighting make him a formidable Pokemon.


Croagunk is the final Pokemon on my team and adds an indispensable Water immunity. The Priority he adds to the team is also almost indispensible. Gunk is one of the main players on my team. He’s #2 in usage for a reason!



Eric’s Team: I made a team to see if I could "break the metagame" by abusing multiple Sashers in this massively offensive metagame, they are great for revenge killing threats that would otherwise sweep. It was very successful against some teams, but failed horribly if I could not keep SR away or against Hail/Sand teams.


Taunt/Protect/Thunderbolt/Explosion@Focus Sash
Outspeeds and Taunts all SR leads (Or setup leads, bar other Voltorb) other than the uncommon SR Diglett and Scarf+SR which is so far unheard of in LC. Effective against Fake Out leads with Protect followed by a STAB Thunderbolt, Sash and impressive speed means that it can take down most Scarf or Sash sweeper leads. Fastest taunter in the metagame, so I had to have it.

Rapid Spin/Fake Out/Aqua Jet/Waterfall@Orab Berry
I needed a Spinner and options are limited in LC... But it’s served me well with Priority and decent defenses.

Sucker Punch/Substitute/Pluck/Dark Pulse@Life Orb
The dreaded SubKrow. Yea this thing is a beast. It was kinda thrown in at the end of the team to fill the last spot with something decent, but with its raw power (and almost the strongest priority moves in LC) it is often a central part of my strategy.

Explosion/Shadow Ball/Sludge Bomb/Hypnosis@Sash
Neutral STAB moves hit hard enough generally, and if they don't then only Explode or Hypno would do normally. Works well, often doing a lot of damage once it gets in, people don't expect Hypnosis then an Explosion and try to first wall it (slept) then revenge it (Blown up).

Earthquake/Rock Slide/Sucker Punch/HP Ice@Focus Sash
Very fast and strong enough to do damage, has priority. Even a trapping ability as a bonus. Works great as a revenge killer.

Agility/Draco Meteor/Outrage/Fire Blast@Focus Sash
A little trick up my sleeve that often gets me out of hard situations. Even with lowish stats having 30 speed after one boost (ties with the fastest scarfers in the game.) and two 120 BP STAB moves, combined with a 120 BP move that hits almost all Dragon resistors Super Effective. Has problems with Priority other than that its great.


Overall Game Analysis:

Vader: I thought that this was a very even match-up, and a good reflection of how Sash is gaining popularity in the Metagame and teams must be prepared for them, be it Stealth Rocks or more Priority than before. The fact that neither side really gained “momentum” throughout it and each Pokemon was fairly swiftly Revenge-Killed with few exceptions was a rather unusual circumstance and kept the game interesting. It also showcased how influential Scarf can be in the Metagame, with my Scarf Gastly certainly making a large difference in the battle, taking out Orb and setting up my (scarfed) Houndour for the final attack. The absence of Weather or Stealth Rocks was also a factor: Had Diglett not had Sash, I would have OHKO’d and won. Had Houndour taken damage, he wouldn’t have killed Tini in the end. The list goes on.

Eric: A great game and a demonstration of how common prediction wars are in LC, particularly the Gastly Vs Munchlax one and a reminder of how important the balance between Sash and SR is becoming. There has been a rise in Hail teams as well as SR leads recently, which make Sash less useful but if you can keep those off the field Sash can be extremely hard to stop.

I made an important mistake midgame bringing Krow into Elekid, then predicting a Quick Attack from it and not using Sucker Punch. If it were not for that I would have been able to bring it in and revenge his Houndour. This shows that due to the back and forth, representing the revenge killer style of most LC matches even a single slip up can cost you the game, but the fact that I came back to almost win shows that will some well placed predictions you can come back from the edge.

Vader's...
Props:
Eric, for a great battle that shows how influential Sash can be
Elekid for really turning the battle
My Gastly and Houndour, eric's Dratini and Diglett for giving me the idea for the name
Eric's excellent play with Gastly v. Munchlax
Eric agreeing to help out with the Warstory
Eric, for an excellent battle!

Slops:
Losing Munchlax to Gastly
Squirtle only having one move to hit Gunk with
Bringing in Oran Gligar v. SubKrow

Eric's...
Props:
Vader for writing most of this, and getting me to write the rest (as well as coming up with the format and extra sections).
Dratini for almost making a great comeback.
Diglett for making a crucial revenge kill against Croagunk, and taking a +4 STAB Critical hit move and weakening Elekid so Voltorb could finish it.
LC for the multitude of prediction wars it generates.
Vader for a very fun game.
Not that much hax (I don't count losing a 80%/20% coin toss as the end as bad hax. He had a good chance.).

Slops:
Me bringing Murkrow into Elekid (again...), then for getting out predicted..
Not being able to hit Croagunk with Squirtle and so letting it set up 2 NPs, now that Pt tutors are up and running on CaP and SU servers I will probably put Zen Headbutt on its moveset.
Other than that, not much. It was a good game.

Note: Murkrow has been banned from Little Cup as of 1/25/09

For more information on Little Cup, visit the Little Cup Forum

For some Little Cup battles on the official Little Cup Ladder, visit DougJustDoug's Create-A-Pokemon Server
 
Man I really need to try little cup. It looks like sooo much fun.

Edit:

I really enjoyed reading this as well. It was very informative while entertaining.
 

Matthew

I love weather; Sun for days
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I enjoyed this quite a bit. Little Cup seems like a great metagame, I should pick it up sometime.
 
I really liked this. It was pretty well-written and an interesting battle, not to mention the fact you don't see LC warstories often at all.
 
I play a Trick Room NU team on PBR, gotta say its fun Squashing random pokes with Chingling, great warstory ^.^.
 
I liked the suspense the battle gave me with the liberal use of Focus Sashes, prediction wars, and the very close end. Maybe I should give LC a shot when I have some free time.
 
This is the third LC warstory I have ever read, and is probably the best of them. I would get back into LC , but I've pretty much given up on Pokemon now.

I liked how you had comments from both sides, I always enjoy these warstories. This warstory further proves my point that a good team should have SR, to stop those Sashes from running rampant!
 
Hey, its a really brilliant Warstory, and quite inspiring. Good work :)

Just on a side note; the score goes from 5-4 to 3-4 at one point and I can't quite work out why, but I've only just woken up so correct me if I'm wrong :D
 
Thorough insights into every move guided me through what was unfamiliar territory. Making this warstory accessible to everyone. Great read LC is mad.
 
The battle itself was 'pretty good' at best, but what really sold it for me was the Team Analysises and the overall breakdown of the game. As a player who knows very little about LC it was very helpful.

Only qualm is that bit with 'ghastly vs munchlax'. From your thought processes, it looked like a switch to your ghastly would've been your best move. You could either of sacrificed it to sleep clause or blocked it explosion. Either way it ended well for you.

good work on a nice and interesting warstory.
 
OK apparently Murkrow is banned now because the last time I played LC it made me want to leave.

So yeah basically this warstory+Murkrow being banned is enough to get me back into LC. ^_^
 
This is a great warstory, and one of the few LC ones at that. I loved reading this, and I might even get back into LC because of this. I loved murkrow though.

on an unrelated side note, you LC people seem to do a lot of arbitrary banning.
 

Erazor

✓ Just Doug It
is a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
As someone who has never played LC, can I ask a question? Is Murkrow the Garchomp of LC?

Great warstory though.
 

v

protected by a silver spoon
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Firstly, thanks for all the comments, guys!

@Train Man: Switching in Gastly was risking it lose that last HP, which I wasn't willing to do. I was still banking on Gastly to kill Voltorb.

@chaos 9: We had a little chat about Krow after a couple of weeks of less-than-organized testing and the ban decision was unanimous. Our pool of players isn't big enough to have fancy suspect tests like here on the main Smogon site. x_x But it was by no means a arbitrary ban. It's been discussed to death since August or so.

@Erazor: Murkrow has been compared to Garchomp, but I'd say Tangela is more akin to the Garchomp of LC. Under the Sun, which can be considered the equivalent of Chomp's SD, it becomes all but unstoppable. Krow with a Sub up can take down 2-3 opposing Pokemon unless it has an over-specific counter ready, and even then it isn't easy to take down. So I'd say it's more akin to Skymin, but in a very offensive Metagame.
 
Good warstory; great format and highly informative even to someone who has played a lot of LC, eric's team was highly unstandard and was well matched with yours.

Murkrow wasn't unstoppable but it definitely was right to ban it, if you look at what is generally accepted as uber, the offensive characteristic, (I know LC<--->OU isn't perfect) Murkrow could sweep the hell out of quite a few teams if your a couple of your walls were remotely weakened, at 70%-80% damage, Murkrow Plucks (180 Base Power with STAB) its Oran Berry, removing its healing and then Dark Pulses/Sucker Punches it, Dark Pulse does ~70% to Gligar and 60% to Bronzor (or can use Heat Wave in its last slot and do even more damage). Sucker Punch (80 Base Power STAB attack from 85 Base Atk , from 2nd highest speed tier AND with priority in a speed centric metagame lol) totally screws anything trying to revenge kill it unless you have great prediction and get something faster (yeah that's Electabuzz, Diglett and Voltorb only) that can Sub or cripple it on the Sucker Punch. It needs to be faster or it gets blasted by Life Orb Dark Pulse off 85 base SpA.

It wasn't unstoppable as you it Bronzor, Gligar, Munchlax and walls of similar ilk could survive an attack and KO back and there was the SR weak and LO recoil as well so if you predicted the switch you had a good chance. But clearly with little residual damage needed to become Murk'd, no turn of set up and ridiculous priority it was too good.
 
Do people commonly use SR in this setting? I have to say the idea of Little Cup interests me, but if Focus Sashes run wild and unbroken like this I would probably not like playing very much at all.

Interesting read, at the least.
 
Nice warstory, I like it when it's from 2 sides. Also the analysis on the end was very interesting and unique, it gave me a nice inside look in LC. Good news that Murkrow is banned now :)
 
Do people commonly use SR in this setting? I have to say the idea of Little Cup interests me, but if Focus Sashes run wild and unbroken like this I would probably not like playing very much at all.

Interesting read, at the least.
I wouldn't say SR is common, certainly not like OU, perhaps on 40-50% of teams but it is learnt by Bronzor and Gligar who along with Munchlax are pretty much the top walls in LC and are virtually guaranteed to set it up. Stuff like Chimchar, Shieldon, Omanyte also set it up

Sash is not really that common tbh, since Life Orb is usually superior on fast and frail pokemon due to often only 5% recoil as well as the power boost. Basically think Lucario with Focus Sash over Life Orb; it sucks. Other pokemon prefer 50% healing from Oran. So it's only on leads/bluff choice item/one turn set up things like diglett or dratini occasionally.

I think Vader's team is more representative than eric's of what to expect, with only the one sash.
 
This was a really enjoyable read for me even though this is only my 2nd or so but this is one of the more enjoyable ones.
 

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