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Assessment of the boulder cup

Did the tournament in my local area yesterday. DId decently with four wins out of six but not as well as i hoped.

Was a fun event, met people, socialized with friends etc. Had about 40 players there. Unfortunately skarmony was so repressive. One battle i tried switching in magcargo, it ended up against marshtomp. Needless to say i lost that one. All the skarmony "counters" were garbage against the rest of the meta so no one was using them. Someone sat next to me complained they lost to someone who had three skarmonys. With hindsight that's what i should have done instead of having just the one. Whenever i had skarmony vs skarmony mirror matches their skarmonys charge move was always landing before mine.

IMO having more than one copy of a pokemon shouldn't be allowed in these tournaments. I hope that's amended for the next one.

Asked by harrytipper26 years 2 months ago

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The Twilight Cup has a single species clause, though Muk and Alolan Muk will count as separate.

We did the Boulder Cup with 12 people, which was a bit of a poor turnout considering the size of the local community, but we chalked that up to fairly short notice coupled with a bit of uncertainty about the whole thing. Otherwise, it ran pretty smoothly even though I didn't do particularly well.

Skarmory was present, though only about half the number of participants used him. Checking all the lineups, there were no duplicates used.

Had about 40 in ours, it took place in a hotel. A lot of them were hardcore players who play a lot more than i do. Hopefully you get more next time, it was the first one afterall.

The meta was a bit predictable tbh, those players all had skarmony, marshtomp/whiscash (i used smampert) and medicham. I powered up my 95% medicham, there were people there using a 100% or 98% medicham. Hope the meta is a bit more varied next time.

Ours was done in a large pub, the space free of charge assuming everyone bought a drink or something to eat. We definitely have more interested for next time so we'll see what happens. Those that did attend the last one were mostly hardcore players highly active on the local Discord server.

Unfortunately, early signs point to the meta revolving around a few pokemon, the Dark&Poison ones and Toxicroak, but the single species clause should provide some variety.

I'm extremely happy of the single species clause in Twilight cup. I placed 3-2 and 4-1 in two boulder tournaments, only losing to a team with triple skarmory (twice) and a nearly identical double skarmory team as mine (friend who I tested with). The fact that skarmory counters lost hard to everything else made the meta extremely unhealthy and narrow and I think even species clause wouldn't have helped much there.

Playing double skarmory felt cancerous and I hated myself for doing it, glad that boulder cup is over.

Twilight is looking like the meta will shape up better, Toxicroak stands out at the moment but it's very different from Skarmory, its counters aren't complete garbage against everything else and its so glassy that unshielded neutral charge moves can kill it. Will be interesting to see how it develops, but for the moment I'm hopeful that Twilight will actually be fun, unlike Boulder.

Toxicroak is certainly shaping up to be a strong pick, but I like that it's not the level of infallibility of Skarmory, requiring special counters. It's going to be vulnerable to a number of solid Twilight picks, including potentially itself.

It's extremely vulnerable to itself, based on the first matches I've done an unshielded Mud Bomb takes something like 60-70% of its Hp in the mirror.

Toxicroak is not such a big threat. Drifblim resist all it's moves, also dusclops will beat it pretty easily by resisting it's fast move and shear bulk.

I don't like ghosts, they seem like the rock types of this league. They're so vulnerable to dark types and I'd expect a lot of dark types.

Golbat, Crobat and Venomoth are some good options for countering Toxicroak at least and should do alright in a number of other matchups.

Ghost is weak to 2 types, resist 1 type and neutral to 1 type. Hardly the rock type of Boulder cup which was weak to everything. Dark types won't be too dominant imo with azumarill and wigglytuff around. Add in all the poison/bugs options and you get a pretty balanced meta. Dusclops for example can hit everything at least for neutral damage and resist poison and bugs which will have a presence in the league. Add in spammable charge moves and good bulk for good measure.

It looks to me like the dark/poison boys will be the most common dark types and fairy is much less of a threat against them. You have good points, and I'm not saying it's an unbalanced meta. Maybe calling ghost the rock of this cup was a bit too much of an exaggeration, but it does seem like the weakest of the 4 types to me.

I have to admit I've been interested in Dusclops for a while, will definitely check how it does in sims to see whether it's worth investing in for actual tests.

More rules and an already restrictive competition. I think this whole great cup thing wasn't fully thought-out. People would do much better on their own instead of relying on these rules set out by silph.

The only way to get an actual competitive scene is to have someone create a centralized framework for it. This was Niantic's job, but they didn't do it, so Silph stepped up.

Having local tournaments with no ties to a larger system or a coherent ruleset that's the same everywhere would create a situation where we would never get larger regional or worldwide competition organized. Someone has to organize it or it'll just be chaos with each local group having their own ruleset and banlist.

Well now you're stuck with silph's rules, and they don't sound too sweet.
I don't see why you COULDN'T just organize a smaller tournament, why does it have to be tied to some "larger" tournament? There's no proper way to actually run these tournaments right now.
Silph will pander to this crowd for a bit, a few people still be part of it, but mostly people will just make their own rules.
And that's not even assuming Niantic doesn't release their own tournament feature.
But I guess everybody wants to jump aboard this bandwagon.

Why wouldn't people? It's simply much handier to use the silph tool than make pairings and calculate tiebreakers yourself.

You might not be interested in larger tournaments, but some people are. Silph makes running a larger competitive scene possible, where smaller local tournaments would not.

I highly doubt Niantic will release their own tournament feature, but if they do, so what? Then we get an official tournament feature. The point is that there must be one for all the people interested in such things.

I wish it was inherent to the game that pvp has a single species clause, but tournaments like that should be single species because going in with 3 of the same pokemon is lame

Especially when that 3 pokemon team can be unbeatable if the opponent didn't bring specific counters in their 6.

Maybe they should get rid of the stupid "you can only pick 6 pokemon which you must show your opponent" instead.

How would getting rid of that make any sense? Locking your choices for the tournament is a staple in PvP games of this sort, like Pokemon main series, MtG, Hearthstone etc.

Because it doesn't have to be?
Why need to follow?
This rule is so arbitrary and it's mine-boggling how you seem to defend it.

Without this rule luck will be a big factor in who wins. Knowing your opponent's 6 add an important strategy to the battle in choosing your own team.

You have a fairly good idea what the opponent is going to be using anyway. It's an undeeded rule.

It adds a layer of skill to the game in tournaments that otherwise wouldn't be there. You hating on it is what's mind-boggling here.

You guessing what pokemon your opponent will be using is already there. Now you're restricted to just six.

I get wanting to have some boundaries to make it more interesting, but these ones suck.

Restricting to six causes the following:
-Easier to participate for more casual players since they only need to develop six pokemon for a given tournament.
-Testing beforehand to optimize your team of six and predict opposing teams of six as well as different strategies to employ against various opposing teams becomes important. This adds a level of strategy and need for preparation that does not exist without boundaries.

Not restricting at all causes the following:
-Even more massive advantage to players with lots of resources to develop every viable pokemon in the format, whether beforehand or on demand during the tournament.
-Complete wild west when guessing what your opponent might be using, every game. This narrows the meta, direct counters become less playable if they aren't among the top meta picks themselves.
-Less need to prepare for the tournament, as you can adapt your team if you lose to a particular strategy.

You're entitled to your opinion, but to me it seems clear that locking in your team in some way for the tournament creates strategic depth that's impossible to get without such a restriction. There's a reason why most games go for restrictions, they wouldn't do it if it didn't create a better competition. Six is an intuitive number because it has been the default team size in pokemon since the beginning.

Are you serious with this list?

-Easier to participate? Uh no, cause you're now limited to what you can select. So LESS choice.
-You can optimize with more pokemon, not less. That's part of the inherency of the word dude.

-What massive advantage for players? If they're down to six like you want in the first place, they'll just pour all their sources into those six!! Did you even think this through?!
-Yes, exactly. Your opponent could be using any pokemon. and YOU could be using pokemon under 1500 Cp, that so happens to be one of the types.
-Less need to prepare? Keeps you on your toes and let's you use anything you want. If you think you're opponent is going to use the same team again anyway (hence 6 pokemon!!) why not just select from your whole roster.

You did your best, but it's still a crap rule.

Less choice? Are you talking about the team of 6 rule or the restricted types rule?
Team of 6 makes it easier for players with less pokemon developed. Types rule makes it harder.

"You can optimize with more pokemon, not less. That's part of the inherency of the word dude."
I have absolutely no clue what you mean. It's a string of English words but there's no coherent message that makes any sense. You can optimize both with more or less pokemon, although the parameters for optimization may change. Again I have no clue whether you're criticizing the type limitation or the teams of 6 limitation, but the types limitation breeds creativity, as players must adapt to a different meta each month.

"What massive advantage for players?" Casual players might have a few pokemon developed for PvP. Some less casual players could have tens of pokemon with optimal double movesets (I have a few tens for great league, and I've seen people who could barely scrounge together a team of six that gets close to the limit and has double moves).
"they'll just pour all their sources into those six" What kind of an argument is this? Of course they will. So will everyone who seriously intends to compete. But there's a ceiling on how much you can pour resources into six pokemon, and in great league that ceiling is generally pretty low, which makes it more achievable for players who aren't swimming in resources.

"Yes, exactly. Your opponent could be using any pokemon. and YOU could be using pokemon under 1500 Cp, that so happens to be one of the types." If that's your preference, sure. I think supplying some information to both players beforehand makes the guessing game a more meaningful test of skill than trying to predict from a few hundred permutations of different meta viable team comps. With no other information than your opponent's IGN and possibly their face.

"Less need to prepare? Keeps you on your toes and let's you use anything you want." Teams of six don't in any way prevent you from using anything you want. Type restrictions do, but again, we'd just have the exact same meta every month without the type restrictions. Without a team of six, you don't need to decide on what your six will be, so less need to prepare. The preparation for needing to understand the meta, all pokemon viable in it and all possible teams of three is the exact same, whether you're limited to six or not. Changing the type restriction each month means you need to repeat the preparation each month instead of just packing the same strategies every time.

I haven't seen a single solid argument from you which would justify calling it a crap rule. It's literally just your opinion. I did try, but it seems you're so emotionally invested in the idea that the current system is shit that affecting your opinion with rational arguments is impossible.

""You can optimize with more pokemon, not less. That's part of the inherency of the word dude."
I have absolutely no clue what you mean."

It's easy if you try. The more of something you have, the more you can optimize, plan, and respond.

Type restrictions limit you yes. An arbitrary 6 limit is what confuses me. If someone had 7 pokemon they want to consider for the competition, why can't they?

Yes it is my opinion and I've explained my position. You say your last paragraph as though it's some revelation, I hate it because of exactly what it is. You have not shown any extra secret layer of argument that my rational argument is affected.

Sooo basically punish the players that understand the game and actually put in the work and went out and caught the Pokémon best suited for PVP....

To be honest confining the tourneys to the great league is a mistake because people who do not prepare beforehand or do not prepare for the last 8 months will eat shit in hell.

People who don't prepare for the tournament beforehand will lose regardless of the league. Great league is the most accessible because there are few pokemon that need to go to high levels to reach the CP cap, Ultra requires more investment and Masters requires insane amounts of investment by comparison. Players below level 38 practically can't even compete in Masters.

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