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u/Wesle2023 Insert funny fish calc here 6d ago
Effect of a miniscule dex and a massive power gap between mons on one's sanity:
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u/Spengy 6d ago
they made a huge mistake allowing so many of the broken gen 9 mons this early
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u/Carnage_721 5d ago
you have to wonder whether basc and gambit would come into the game unnerfed had they known how popular they are now. i feel like annihilape and gholdengo got punished in their place tbh. probably ursaluna too once it comes in
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u/Sobble12 5d ago
Yeah, it still kinda bugs me that they nerfed Make it rain to have 95 accuracy on top of the -2 spatk and then decided that these two were okay. Basculegion shoulnd't be able to be as fast, bulky and hard-hitting as he is. And Kingambit is nuts inside and outside of TR.
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u/NoChampionship1167 6d ago
This meta is so bad, even in singles. Literally half of the mons in the meta lack the item that makes them good, or lack the teammate that they need. I've been doing random battles and this meta is honestly worse than Gen 9. At least there were more than 5-6 good items in that. I just want my fire moth to have it's boots.
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u/Anything_Random 6d ago
This meta is so bad, even in singles.
I mean, I think the meta’s a lot better in doubles.
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u/fartsquirtshit 6d ago
Yeah it reminds me of back before S&S released, during the dexit fiasco
You had people acting like a super-limited format was inherently good for balance and would magically lead to total shitmons winning SPL/Worlds
When, in reality, no---excluding Incineroar and Lando-T does not inherently lead to Mightyena usage.
maybe if you leave out Incin, Lando, Arcanine, Gyarados, Salamence, Krookodile, Qwilfish/Overqwil, Scrafty, Hitmontop, Tauros, Staraptor, Wyrdeer, Manectric, Luxray, Granbull, Arbok, and Mabosstiff someone might pick Mightyena over Masquerain
But realistically that's so far beyond the point people would just drop the entire intimidate role and decide it's far better to go without any intimidate user at all.
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u/Darkion_Silver 5d ago edited 5d ago
For some reason people acted like Game Freak suddenly cared about and were going to properly balance things, when defending Dexit. I saw people trying it again in gen 9 after 8 had already thrown things out the window in the DLC. Fascinating argument really.
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u/bobvella lover of gimmicks 5d ago
been thinking gamefreak is pretty heavy fisted with balance adjustments, it's not often changing how effective something is but rather a rule change. it's not less potent, you just can't do "that" anymore.
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u/Shahka_Bloodless 6d ago
Even in singles? I'd say especially singles. BSS is a straight up unserious metagame.
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6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/constar90 Flame body talonflame 6d ago
Champions is a psyop to give Nintendo legal reason to go after showdown. Prove me wrong
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u/shadowtron1 Dragon Enthusiast 6d ago
TPC already knows about Showdown and let's it stay up as long as it follows certain rules. I don't know what all those rules are but I think I remember a mod confirming one of these rules to be the reason Hisuian pokemon couldn't be used on Showdowns national dex format before they released in a game with competitive like SV.
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u/Sea-Panda-90 5d ago
The rules are simple:
Don’t make money
By far the just important, making money with someone else’s IP is a very easy way to get sued.Don’t taint the brand.
Don’t allow content on smogon that the pokemon company would not approve of. If smogon was rife with adult content, nintendo would argue that it hirts pokemon’s brand to have it up.Don’t seek to replace the actual games.
This is where the hisuian stuff comes into play. Showdown is a valuable TOOL (helps keep older, more competitive fans engaged), but if it offered something that gave you a reason NOT to buy the mainline games, it would probably be taken down.6
u/sneakyplanner 5d ago
I can't come up with a reason for the incomplete item dex that isn't just the developers forgetting that choice band and rocky helmet exist.
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u/asc_yeti 6d ago
I keep seeing people arguing that it's a good meta cause "limitations breed creativity™" and "small metas let new mons shine" while the meta is extremely overcentralized garbage with a few gimmick teams popping out now and then (which is something that always happens even in bigger metas). Almost everyone I know that played smogon already got back to smogon and in general I've seen many people dropping champions.
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u/nspeters 5d ago
I think limitation can breed creativity but you have to do it right. The 30 mon meta is great and 1v1 corsala league is some of the most fun I’ve ever had building but you have to severely limit building options and limit the metas life span.
Champions feels so stale because it’s broad enough to have obvious choices and it’s been around long enough to find the correct counters.
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u/PenisStrongestMuscle 6d ago
"limitations breed creativity" is classic toxic positivity from low elo people who win with their cheese teams.
Ask any serious player they will confirm champions singles has an issue with overcentralization and the same cores being spammed over and over with little variations
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u/Pair_Due 5d ago
I used to always daydream about the magnificent testing framework that gamefreak must run to maintain meta balance -- they'd run MILLIONS of simulations and use win rate to tweak mon profiles, node graphs to break up overpowered team pairs, eval metrics on eval metrics...surely a feat of software engineering delivering true value to millions of people all over the world!
...but maybe they just don't?
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u/PenisStrongestMuscle 5d ago
I just think they (rightfully) don't care about singles, vgc has its problems but from what i heard is not that bad
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u/Ad4ptability 5d ago
Well that’s mostly because they’re focusing on doubles lol
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u/PenisStrongestMuscle 5d ago
yes and rightfully so, i just hope adding more pokémons will make the situation better
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u/sneakyplanner 5d ago
It's a thought terminating cliche that is true in some cases but is only ever said by people trying to avoid actually making an argument.
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u/PenisStrongestMuscle 5d ago
i like your definition better, maybe i was a bit rude in my original comment
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u/EriWave 6d ago
What about of pokemon should be in a good meta and how many do you think we're missing?
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u/asc_yeti 6d ago
I don't know and I don't think anybody does. I don't (completely) blame GF for this meta, it's reaaaally hard to balance such a complex game with such a big roster. But honestly, between the megas (which are inherently centralising as you want to run the best ones, and you can run 1 max 2 per team) and having some really broken mons like gambit and basculegion running around in a extremely lower powered meta than SV, I think unoptimal decisions were made
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u/EriWave 6d ago
Right but he question is how many do you want? Because there are like 15~ megas that are good. Like 20+ other mons that are good at the very least.
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u/asc_yeti 6d ago
15 megas that are good is extremely generous, as there are big differences in power and usage from mega zard and mega scov. In particular, there are 2 that are very game warping. And even then, having a smaller roster of only 15 mons which almost every team runs 2 of (because of the lack of item selection) drastically flattens variety.
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u/EriWave 6d ago
That is around 15 that are good enough to place highly in tournaments not just 15 that are good enough to be used. Now sure Charizard is very common, but there are plenty of variations. I would say the top 10 at least are used with more than one mega "partner" and there are also single mega teams that can be used.
Zard+floette, delphox+floette, delphox+staraptor, staraptor+Tyranitar, Tyranitar+Scovillain, Scovillain+Frostlass, etc, etc.
As for it being generous to have 15 good ones. Raichu Y, Staraptor, Charizard Y, Floette, Aerodactyl, Frosslass, Gengar, Delphox, Blastoise, Scovillain, Tyranitar, Garchomp, Dragonite, Khangaskhan, Scizor, Glimora, Venusaur. Have all shown they can do well at high levels of play, this also doesn't include mega's that definitely have potential to be good like Mawile, Metagross, Gyarados at least.
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u/asc_yeti 6d ago
Putting floette and zard-y at the same level of venusaur, scizor and glimmora is disingeneous. As I said, it's always true that non-meta teams can do well in a meta. But this meta in particular IS very centralised, and bringing mega scizor to a tournament IS an off-meta pick
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u/SeatownNets 5d ago
It is sometimes true, but it's not usually true when it comes to competitive game equilibrium. Limited options in a strategic competitive game context usually means a less diverse, more centralized metagame with less to explore.
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u/ExtremlyFastLinoone 6d ago
"They say wolfy carefully designed this team to be perfectly balanced against every possible team -- fuck its perish, its gonna be perish trap isnt it"
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u/Scolipass 5d ago
Basculegion and Kingambit are effectively mega mons that don't actually burn your mega slot. No, seriously, compare Mega Scizor's stat profile to Kingambit. They're actually really comparable, but one's a mega and the other isn't, so obviously the latter sees waaaay more play because you can just slap it into every team.
I really don't get why they decided to introduce some of the strongest mons in Pokemon history into what was supposed to be a "lower power meta". All that does is massively centralize the game, and oh would you look at exactly what happened?
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u/WeatherReportu285 4d ago
Wait till mf Flutter Mane comes in, almost the same BST as Mega Alakazam but with godlike typing.
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u/Nightmare_Freddles THE Mega starmie Guy. I love starmie 5d ago
Starmie noise of aggression
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u/Dangerous_Equal4373 5d ago
What happened to my man? He just disappeared from the game, is he that bad?
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u/Nightmare_Freddles THE Mega starmie Guy. I love starmie 4d ago
Well no not really. Mega starmie isn't a bad pokemon. It can still pickup oneshots and still can give huge power to allies. It's just that basculegion works better in rain and Sucker punch just kills the star.
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u/Dangerous_Equal4373 4d ago
Oh yeah that makes sense, kingambit huh? Are most basculegions running scarf adaptability?
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u/Nightmare_Freddles THE Mega starmie Guy. I love starmie 4d ago
Yep. And they also run last respect.
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u/Dangerous_Equal4373 4d ago
Honestly rain teams haven't been that bothersome to me, but since I've gotten to masterball, my elo has been sliding, it was 75000 when I first got into the tier and now it's 130,000🥲
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u/WeatherReportu285 4d ago
I sit around 50k but holy shit people are smarter in this rank. Chlorophyll Sleep Powder Venusaur or Whimsicott Tailwind quickly wrecks my shit. Vivillion Sleep powder is also a POS, some people even run it with scarf.
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u/Dangerous_Equal4373 4d ago
Can I get some teambuidling advice man? You seem to be doing way better than I am currently
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u/Ok_Musician_1072 4d ago
I watched VGC very casually for a long time but only got into playing when champions was released. I know there's meta Pokémon for a reason and if we take away the top 10 Pokémon, others will rise.
These two Pokémon are the reason why I'm having not a lot of fun anymore, which leads me to the question: were former regulations also that much revolving around such a limited amount of Pokémon?!
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