Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread

I think snake gives a chance to see how veterans and newcomers alike prep for the tournament with creativity and demonstrate their skills in battle. i wanted to join this tour but i was to late so i hope to see the great veterans and newcomers shine and wish them good luck in the Snake tournament.
 
Solid Snake is the main hero and the primary protagonist of the Metal Gear main series. A former Green Beret and a highly skilled special operations soldier engaged in solo stealth and espionage missions, he is often tasked with destroying models of the bipedal nuclear weapon-armed mecha known as Metal Gear. Controlled by the player, he must act alone, supported via radio by commanding officers and specialists. While his first appearances in the original Metal Gear games were references to Hollywood films, the Metal Gear Solid series has given a consistent design by artist Yoji Shinkawa alongside an established personality. The character has been well received by critics.

During the Metal Gear Solid games, the character has been voiced by Akio Ōtsuka in the Japanese version and by actor and screenwriter David Hayter in the English version.

In the early games, Solid Snake's visual appearances were references to popular actors. He was given his own consistent design in Metal Gear Solid. Such design shows him as a brown-haired adult wearing a dark "sneaking suit" and a bandana. This appearance has remained mostly consistent throughout subsequent installments, with minor changes due to his advancing age. During Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, he disguises himself by wearing a Navy SEAL uniform. He has access to different disguises to make him look like other characters, as well as his younger self. He also establishes Philanthropy, an anti-Metal Gear organization carrying the motto "To let the world be", with his best buddy Otacon.

He possesses an IQ of 180, and is fluent in six languages. Solid Snake has been on the battlefield for most of his life; a hardened veteran, he has his emotions buried very deep inside himself during his missions, every one of which has different motives. He is also immediately shown as a loner, often with no intentions of taking orders from anyone anymore and he shows no sign of longing for the army or the country he was part of. However, along with these traits he has a more human side, being flirtatious, self-sacrificing and with a strong belief that even on a battlefield friendship and love can flourish, and that violence is not glorious. But Snake's perceived stance on violence may be a case of denial, as Snake's enemies and at least one of his allies have claimed that, in truth, he enjoys killing, and label him as more evil than the people he has killed. When he is not on duty, he acts as a musher.

Metal Gear (released in 1987) introduces Solid Snake (ソリッド・スネーク Soriddo Sunēku), a rookie recruit of the elite special forces unit FOXHOUND. Snake is sent by FOXHOUND leader Big Boss into the rogue nation Outer Heaven to rescue missing teammate Gray Foxand discover who or what the "Metal Gear" is, mentioned in Gray Fox's last transmission. As his mission progresses, Snake finds out that he has been set up; Outer Heaven's leader is Big Boss, intending to use the experimental, nuclear-armed TX-55 Metal Gear to establish Outer Heaven as a nuclear power. After destroying the Metal Gear, Snake confronts and defeats Big Boss's phantom.

The sequel Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (initially released only in Japan in 1990) sees Solid Snake called up to infiltrate a heavily fortified enemy base in Zanzibar Land. Zanzibar Land has aggravated an international oil crisis and declared themselves a nuclear power by kidnapping Dr. Kio Marv after the creation of a bio-engineered algae that produces an oil substitute, and the Metal Gear original designer Dr. Pettrovich Madnar. Snake infiltrates the base and discovers that Pettrovich as well as his former comrade Gray Fox has defected to Zanzibar Land, and that Zanzibar Land is led by Big Boss. Snake destroys Metal Gear D, and defeats both Fox and Big Boss.

Metal Gear Solid sees Solid Snake pulled out of retirement by Colonel Roy Campbell in a mission to deal with the "Sons of Big Boss", who, under Liquid Snake's leadership, seized an isolated American nuclear weapons disposal facility on Shadow Moses Island. Snake's mission is to retrieve two hostages (Donald Anderson and Kenneth Baker). Despite both Anderson's and Baker's deaths, Snake infiltrates and learns about Metal Gear REX after meeting up with rookie soldier Meryl Silverburgh and REX's engineer Hal Emmerich, and having confrontations with the Cyborg Ninja. As the games progresses, Snake confronts and defeats each member of the corrupt fraction of FOXHOUND (consisting of Revolver Ocelot, Decoy Octopus, Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf, Vulcan Raven, and the Genome Soldiers), is able to destroy REX, and personally confronts Liquid. During their fight, it is revealed that Solid and Liquid are twin brothers, artificially conceived from Big Boss's genes during the "Les Enfants Terribles" government project designed to create the perfect soldier, in which one brother was genetically modified to be superior over the other. Liquid harbors a strong resentment towards Snake since Solid was given their father's dominant "soldier genes" and Liquid was cast aside. After a grueling series of battles, Liquid dies from the FOXDIE virus that was previously implanted into Snake by Naomi Hunter in order to wipe out FOXHOUND and the Genome soldiers without risking any damage to REX and the Genome soldiers for retrieval. In the end, it is revealed that Liquid got Big Boss's superior "soldier genes" while Solid was actually the inferior one. The game's ending reveals his real name is David (デイビッド Deibiddo?).

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty shows Solid Snake as the playable character during the game's extensive prologue sequence in which he is sent by Otacon's anti-proliferation organization Philanthropy to infiltrate a cargo tanker and photograph Metal Gear RAY. During the operation, however, RAY is hijacked and the tanker destroyed, with Snake apparently dead and framed for the deed. During the game's main portion, Solidus Snake steals Snake's identity, and leads the "Sons of Liberty" (consisting of Revolver Ocelot, Fortune, Fatman, Vamp and Olga Gurlukovich) while Snake himself uses the pseudonym Iroquois Pliskin (イロコィ・プリスキン Irokoi Purisukin) as a non-playable character who assists rookie agent Raiden through the remote offshore Big Shell facility and in taking down Solidus and RAY while also learning about the Patriots.

The Metal Gear Solid prequels alludes to Solid Snake's existence; Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops has him briefly alluded in a prophetic vision as Naked Snake's "son [that] will save the world" (after either Liquid or Solidus as Big Boss's "son [that] will bring the world to ruin"), and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker shows Kazuhira Millermentioning Big Boss's "twin sons" that are two years old at the time.

The PlayStation 3 game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots features an aged incarnation of Solid Snake that is once again the protagonist identified as Old Snake (オールド・スネーク Ōrudo Sunēku) during the game. Thanks to Otacon and Sunny, he wears a sneaking suit outfitted with "Octocamo" technology, which allows him to blend with his environment, as well as a face mask which alters his appearance. Snake is once again enlisted by his old friend Roy Campbell to assassinate Liquid Ocelot, CEO of a giant mother company that's trying to take control of the Patriots' AIs. During his final mission, he also learns from Naomi Hunter that his life has been artificially shortened as part of the cloning process so that his genes can't be used as a weapon in later research. As a result, Snake has the physical appearance of an elderly man, despite being only forty-two years old. Snake and his allies are forced to destroy the Patriots' AI and fight through Ocelot's forces until Snake defeats Liquid's doppelgänger in hand-to-hand combat. Learning that his DNA contains a mutated version of the FOXDIE virus that might trigger an epidemic, Snake tries to commit suicide, however, he is approached by Big Boss telling Snake that he still has a chance to live 'not as a snake but as a man'. After making up with Big Boss and his father's death from a new strain of the FOXDIE virus, David decides to live out the remainder of his life in peace, vowing that he will live long enough to see what the future holds for the new world he has helped create.

Solid Snake is featured/mentioned in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The unlockable bonus mission "Déjà Vu" on the PlayStation platform and later Xbox platform of Ground Zeroes in which Big Boss must re-enact situations from the original Metal Gear Solid game and answer a series of trivia questions after fulfilling them. If all the questions are answered correctly on the Normal difficulty setting, the mission can be replayed with Big Boss's standard character model replaced with Snake's Metal Gear Solid low-polygon model. The Phantom Pain shows that Snake's Metal Gear Solid low-polygon model can be an alternate outfit for Venom Snake after transferring the save data from Ground Zeroes. David is also alluded in association with Eli during conversation between Big Boss and Ocelot.

Solid Snake also serves as the protagonist in Snake's Revenge, a sequel to the original Metal Gear for the NES released for the western market in 1990 and developed without Kojima's involvement. Set three years after the events of the Outer Heaven incident, Snake's Revenge has Snake leading a team of FOX HOUND operatives as they infiltrate an undisclosed enemy base where the Metal Gear weapon is being mass-produced. Snake is addressed by the military rank of Lieutenant and starts the game already equipped with a handgun and a combat knife, in contrast to the first game, where Snake had to procure all of his weapons on-site.

After the success of the original Metal Gear Solid, KCEJ produced a trilogy of Metal Gear spin-offs for portable platforms set in a parallel universe outside the main Kojima-directed series. All three of these portable games were directed by Shinta Nojiri. The first of these is Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (released outside Japan as Metal Gear Solid), in which Solid Snake must infiltrate a rebuilt Outer Heaven (now called Galuade) to defeat a FOXHOUND-like team of rogue agents called Black Chamber and destroy a stolen Metal Gear prototype, Gander. Although the actual in-game artwork of Ghost Babel was done by Ikuya Nakamura, Yoji Shinkawa provided the promotional art like he did with the original Metal Gear Solid. In the second of these titles, Metal Gear Acid, Snake must retrieve "Pythagoras" from the Lobito Physics and Research Laboratory, in order to satisfy hijackers who have kidnapped presidential candidate Viggo Hach. This mission is complicated by La Clown, an expert mimic who impersonates Snake's contact Teliko, and subtle brainwashing that nearly convinces him that he is Hans Davis, a ruthless scientist that worked at the Lobito facility. He overcomes both and contacts the real Teliko, then destroys the latest model of Metal Gear, Metal Gear KODOQUE. Metal Gear Acid 2 features a main character who is not the real version, but a clone created from tissue samples of the man from the original Metal Gear Acid, following the events of the Lobito Island mission; the Solid Snake from the original Acid is implied to be dead in the sequel.

The character appears in his Old Snake form as a playable character in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus, a stand-alone expansion to the Portable Ops focusing on online play. In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the VR Missions DLC add-on for the game's Japanese version includes a new weapon that can be used by Raiden known as the Hebidamashi, a talking wooden sword which speaks with Solid Snake's voice (as portrayed by Akio Ōtsuka); the weapon was never made available for the English version.

Outside video games, Solid Snake appeared in the Metal Gear Solid audio drama that focuses on his missions following the battle from Shadow Moses. He also appears in Alex Garner's comic book adaptations of Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2. Raymond Benson's novelizations of these two games also feature Solid Snake; Benson's adaptation of the character frequently focuses on the comical aspects of his characterization. He also appears in Project Itoh's novelization from Metal Gear Solid 4 where his actions are told from Hal Emmerich's point of view.

Solid Snake has appeared in a number of other games, including other Konami games. Hideo Kojima makes a habit of referencing his previous work. In the Kojima-produced Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django (and Shin Bokura no Taiyō: Gyakushū no Sabata), Snake appears as an unnamed character who sells items to the player. Konami's Evolution Skateboarding features Snake and Raiden as hidden characters, as well as two stages set in the Big Shell (the skateboarding minigame in Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is a demo of Evolution Skateboarding composed exclusively of these elements). Solid Snake also appears in both halves of a crossover between the Metal Gearand Ape Escape franchises: the Ape Escape monkeys appear with Solid Snake in the "Snake vs. Monkey" minigame featured in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. In turn, Snake appears in the corresponding Metal Gear Solid minigame featured in Ape Escape 3, where he is rescued by Pipo Snake (Snake's character design in this minigame is taken directly from Naked Snake's).

He has also appeared in two of cross-company fighting games. In DreamMix TV World Fighters, Solid Snake appears as a playable character alongside other third-party characters such as Bomberman and Convoy (Optimus Prime). Similarly, in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the third installment from the popular fighting game series Super Smash Bros., Solid Snake appeared as a playable fighter alongside Sega character Sonic the Hedgehog and a variety of characters from Nintendo franchises such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong. Brawl Director Masahiro Sakuraihas stated that Snake was included under Kojima's request. In addition, Snake has appeared as a playable character in the Nintendo DS game New International Track & Field alongside some other Konami characters. Also, Old Snake has appeared in the Japanese version of Scribblenauts, having been published by Konami in that region. Customizations in Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet for the PlayStation 3 allow the player character, Sackboy, to take on the appearance of Old Snake. In the web series Death Battle, Snake was pitted against Splinter Cell protagonist Sam Fisher in a fight to the death, in which he won. He was voiced by Christopher Sabat.

Much as Metal Gear began as a pastiche of action movies of the time, Solid Snake began as a pastiche of contemporary action movie heroes. For example, on the cover artwork of the original Metal Gear, he resembles the Michael Biehn incarnation of Kyle Reese in The Terminator (although, Kojima claims to have no involvement in the production of the game's packaging illustration), and the in-game portrait of Snake in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snakeresembles Mel Gibson. Solid Snake was apparently even named after a fictional special forces operative: Snake Plissken, Kurt Russell's character in Escape from New York. However, Kojima revealed in March 2014 that the origins of Snake's name were something else. According to Kojima, he was given the name "Snake" because snakes are a symbol of stealth. Additionally, the "Solid" part of his code-name was given to him to give the opposite impression of a soft image. Kojima has compared the personality of Snake with Arsène Lupin III of Monkey Punch's Lupin III franchise, stating that in "MGS, Snake became this sharp-tongued, Lupin III-like guy who flirted with women and told lots of jokes". In Guns of the Patriots, Snake is modelled after Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in Escape from New York. His real name, David, is a tribute to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey that has a character with the same name. Kojima later described Snake's role in the original Metal Gear as the "player's presence", contrasting the defined personality Solid Snake acquired in Metal Gear Solid.

In addition to expanding Solid Snake's backstory, as the first Metal Gear game to feature voice acting, Metal Gear Solid established his characteristic voice and appearance. Yoji Shinkawa's Solid Snake design, characterized by his navy blue bandanna and "sneaking suit", would serve as the template for all future incarnations of Snake in later Metal Gear games. According to Shinkawa, Snake's physique in Metal Gear Solid was based on that of action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, while his facial appearance in the same game was inspired by actor Christopher Walken. Shinkawa described his rendition of Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid as a "middle ground" between the younger Snake who graced the cover artwork of the first Metal Gear and the middle-aged Snake from the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2. For the initial events from the Big Shell chapter from Metal Gear Solid 2, Snake's visual appearance was sightly modified with his hair being more blonde. Solid Snake became one of the characters easiest to draw by Shinkawa as he notes that his appearance is consistent despite suffering minor changes across the games.

Various scenes from the games relate Snake's ideals with Hideo Kojima's. During Metal Gear Solid 2 Snake encourages Raiden to trust himself in making his own choices with the former representing the veteran developer and the latter the younger staff who are to decide whether a sequel to the series would be made without Kojima. In Metal Gear Solid 4, Snake tries to protect the next generation by stopping Ocelot which represented Kojima working with the staff to avoid bugs from occurring within the game. Kojima introduced the cloning origins of Solid Snake to Metal Gear Solid in order to provide Solid Snake with an adversary who would be his equal, since the story, being a continuation of the original MSX2 games, established Snake as an experienced soldier. Kojima explained that his decision to introduce a new playable character in Solid Snake's place for Sons of Liberty was done in order to develop Snake from another character's perspective, but also to avoid treating Snake as a rookie by having a new character be instructed via Codec instead.

By the time Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots started development, Kojima told Shinkawa about his idea of making Snake look elderly, which surprised the designer. Once Shinkawa showed his artwork of Old Snake to the staff, they were all also surprised by the idea of playing as an old Solid Snake. However, they were satisfied with the end product as the staff began to like the character. In Guns of the Patriots one of Kojima's endings for the game would have had Snake and Otacon turn themselves in for breaking the law, and subsequently they would be convicted and executed. However, comments from Kojima's staff who were disappointed with his death resulted in the character's survival. According to Ryan Payton of Konami at the time, Guns of the Patriots is the final canonical Metal Gear game to feature Solid Snake as the main character. Kojima himself stated that the series will continue. Despite previously stating that he does not want the character to be handled by anyone else, in an interview with French gaming magazine IG he stated that Solid Snake will reappear in a future Metal Gear Solid game.

In the games, Solid Snake has been voiced by Akio Ōtsuka in the Japanese version, and by David Hayter in the English adaptations. Ōtsuka remembers being surprised during his debut as a result of the large amount of dialogue Snake was given. Hayter found his work notable as he was originally a screenwriter and did not expect to become famous for dubbing a character.

Solid Snake's character was very well received by gaming media. Retro Gamer included him in the section "top ten forces of good" in their 2004 list of top 50 retro game heroes. In 2005, Electronic Gaming Monthly listed Solid Snake as number one as the top ten video game characters of all time. Snake appeared in multiple GameFAQs "Character Battle" contests, and was runner-up in three: the "Character Battle V" in 2006, the "Character Battle VII" in 2008, and the "Character Battle IX" in 2013. In an Oricon poll from 2008, he was voted as the most popular video game character in Japan, tying with Nintendo's Pikachu. In a Famitsu poll in 2010, Snake was voted by readers as the most popular video game character. His character was amongst the last 16 contestants on the greatest video game hero on GameSpot contest held in 2009, and lost out to Gordon Freeman on a tiebreaker. In the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition from 2011, Snake was voted as the fourth most popular video game character. In 2011, Empire ranked him as the 19th greatest video game character, adding that "beginning as an action pastiche, he swiftly evolved into his very own character".

Critics have commented on his traits and appearance, often praising Solid Snake for his appealing personality. In 2007, ScrewAttack ranked him as the sixth "coolest" character in video games. 1UP.com listed him second in the list of top video game smokers, while GamesRadar placed him at the top of their 2009 list of manliest men in video game history. Complex ranked him as fourth on the list of top "pervs" in games in 2012 and as the seventh greatest soldier in video games in 2013. Solid Snake's endurance in the face of extreme punishment was even made the focus of a comedy article in the satirical newspaper The Onion. In 2013, Rich Knight and Gus Turner from Complex ranked him as the ninth best video game mascot, adding that he represents "deep, human emotion that other characters fail to match."

Solid Snake's Metal Gear Solid 2 design was at the bottom of the worst game character makeovers list by GamePro, condemning his conversion in hairstyle in comparison to his Metal Gear Solid design, and was also at the top of IGN's list of the worst video game haircuts. Before Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the character was thought to be the game's protagonist because of his physical resemblances with Naked Snake. However, later previews speculated how was it impossible for Solid Snake to be in the game's settings, leading to the conclusion it was a young incarnation of Big Boss. A comparison between Solid Snake's and Big Boss's characters was made by IGN in article "Stars Thunderdome: Snake vs. Big Boss."

The character's appearance in Metal Gear Solid 4 has received mostly positive opinions. Before it was released, various speculations were made regarding Snake's role. As he was the only one who suffered from a drastic change in appearance, IGN commented that the most famous rumor was the one of Snake's body deteriorating across the game. Moreover, since it had been announced it would be his last appearance, IGN and GamesRadar wondered whether the character would die during the game and if Raiden would replace him following his death. GamesRadar commented that Snake was one of the few gaming characters that aged across video games. GamePro also listed Old Snake as one of the biggest surprises from the game, as the character was found interesting in contrast to pessimistic thoughts they had before the game's release. GameDaily listed the "old hero" as one of their list of top video game archetypes, using the old version of Snake as an example of this. PLAY gave praise to his moustache considering how highly detailed it is, and represents the change from Snake's character. On the other hand, 1UP.com placed him third in their 2009 list of most gracelessly aging characters as it gave negative messages about aging. In 2013, Complex included Old Snake among the ten video game characters who look like sex offenders, but La Nueva España included him among the top ten sexiest video game characters of both genders.

GameDaily made Solid Snake top their Smash Bros. characters list, while PLAY listed him as one of the characters they wanted to be playable in Mortal Kombat. The character customization in Soulcalibur IV that allowed to create Snake was listed by UGO as one of the best ones from the series owing to his popularity within gamers.

David Hayter's performance as Solid Snake's English voice actor has received praise to the point of being called one of the best ones in gaming as well as one of the character's most recognizable traits. In 2013, Game Informerranked Hayter's role as Snake as the seventh most memorable character voice in video games for "a portrayal that's considered to be a real classic in the history of video game voice acting", adding that "long-time fans are still reeling from the casting of Kiefer Sutherland as Snake for MGSV."

That's how I feel about Snake, what about y'all?
I agree.
 
With GS coming to the virtual console in 4 days it means we have a few new move legalities. A look at some of the few highlights:

Lovely Kiss Smoochum (Possibly, Lovely Kiss Smoochum is not able to be obtained in GSC without glitching parents but should be able to get past the poke transporter checks because it is in Smoochums movepool, needs a decision to be made on legality) . - Rocks Amaura + Lovely Kiss Smoochum + sweepers looks to be a troubling veils team. If it's any better than the current teams is definitely something to test.

Dynamic Punch Aipom now legal with Skill Links. If for whatever reason anyone has wanted to use this previously illegal combo then you can soon.

Zap Cannon everything - Seriously like everything now from Kanto or Johto now learns this. Z-Cannon abra is probably going to be a fun set, capable of taking out A-Grimer after Dazzling Gleam switch in and rocks. Z-Cannon Slowpoke takes out Vullaby, Staryu and opposing Slowpoke who expect a freeish switch in.

Curse everything - Same deal as Zap Cannon, almost everything learned Curse back then. Chinchou gains a meme set and Ponyta finally has a way to boost a none speed stat but will probably be useless since it requires Run Away.

EDIT: Apparently poke transporter is only getting an update sometime this winter so we have to wait a bit.
 
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Merritt

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Lovely Kiss Smoochum (Possibly, Lovely Kiss Smoochum is not able to be obtained in GSC without glitching parents but should be able to get past the poke transporter checks because it is in Smoochums movepool, needs a decision to be made on legality) . - Rocks Amaura + Lovely Kiss Smoochum + sweepers looks to be a troubling veils team. If it's any better than the current teams is definitely something to test.
Actually, I already asked Marty about this and got some useful information that's pretty indicative that not only should we not allow it due to precedent we have, but also because it likely won't make it past the transfer.

Marty said:
My two cents: LC already doesn't follow the rules for level-up moves on genderless Pokemon, so the question is, are unobtainable egg moves in the same boat? I've never heard of anyone playing Gen 2 LC but I assume it's not currently allowed. Does Gen 4 LC allow Head Smash Nosepass? If no, then both Gen 2 and Gen 7 LC shouldn't allow Lovely Kiss Smoochum.

Edit: Actually, it's highly likely a Lovely Kiss Smoochum won't even pass the PokéTransporter hack checks. The checks are part of the 3DS app and have nothing to do with the game the Pokemon is coming from (hence Pay Day Mewtwo not passing from Red/Blue/Green), so as far as their implementation will know, Smoochum doesn't learn Lovely Kiss at all.
Marty again said:
See also this edit! https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal...eb00d3109727dcfe/data/egg_moves.asm#L828-L833
If you search that file for "!_CRYSTAL" you'll see a whole bunch of egg moves that were "possible" in Gold/Silver but dropped from Crystal because they realized they were actually impossible. Giving Staryu egg moves at all is particularly funny.

Since PokéTransporter mostly used Yellow learnsets for the Gen 1 transfer checks, I'd expect the same for Crystal and Gen 2.[/quote
 

GOAO

Banned deucer.
phase 1 ended, we had some really good games.
Shrug: 3-0
Zoro: 3-0
Sken: 2-1
Heysup: 2-1
ggggd: 2-1
Dundies: 1-2
GOAO: 1-2
Kingler12345: 1-2
tko: 0-3
OP: 0-3

was surprised with both shrug going 3-0 and op going 0-3, shrug cause he lacks recent good tournament performances but his teams and plays are really nice to watch, keep it up "mane" ily :D. op probably wants to go 0-4 so he can start winning games just like in spl, i hope thats the case cause he is good ;_;
 

Camden

Hey, it's me!
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Phase 2 of Snake ended, and here are the records of each LC player:

ZoroDark: 6-0
Heysup: 5-1
Shrug: 4-2
ggggd: 3-3
Sken: 3-3
Dundies: 2-4
GOAO: 2-4
Kingler12345: 2-4
OP: 2-4
blarajan: 1-2
tko: 0-3


ZoroDark is a monster and still hasn't lost, currently only one of two players in all of Snake to be 6-0 (Lacus Clyne being the other). Heysup had a perfect second phase after an already acceptable first phase. While Shrug struggled this phase, his performance in the previous phase is enough to help keep him at a respectable 4-2 record. ggggd and sken are sitting at even records after having a good phase and not-so-good phase. Kingler/GOAO/Dundies remain consistent from the first phase, each of them scoring an additional win to bring themselves to 2-4 records. OP seems to be mimicking his SPL run, starting 0-4 before winning two in a row to leave himself at 2-4. After an unsuccessful 0-3 start in the first phase, tko was benched for blarajan who proceeded to earn himself a win in the second phase.

Good luck to everyone playing in the third phase!
 

twinkay

these bugs love all the sugar in my blood
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well this isn't really snake-related but it is a pretty important topic that I think needs to be addressed in the current metagame, so here goes nothing.

So I was wondered what people thought about Webs; specifically, whether or not the playstyle is overpowering in the metagame. Sticky Web has been a dominant team archetype for a while now, receiving quite good results in competitive play. The problem with webs is that it makes many powerful attackers unable to be revenge killed (it's not impossible, priority still exists and whatnot) which results in a completely tilted game in the Sticky Web user's favor. Sticky Web also has access to Surskit, an extremely consistent setter, and a less consistent but still viable other setter in Spinarak. The combination of consistent setter / extremely good wallbreaker(s) / consistent spinblocker is what makes Webs so potent in my opinion. Although Webs are nothing new to the metagame, they have developed into arguably the best playstyle in the game.

But is it overpowered? I still haven't decided my stance on the topic. Sticky Web as a playstyle is fairly restrictive to teambuiling as it takes a lot of work to have a positive or at least passable match-up against it. On the contrary, it's still a fragile playstyle; simply bringing a hazard remover / adequate checks to LO Abra will allow you to have a positive match-up versus Webs in most cases. I'm oversimplifying this, I realize, but Webs for many just does not seem relatively broken. I'm not a very eloquent user so I don't have a lot more to say on this topic but I can see how either side would reason.

If we do deem that Sticky Web is overpowered, there's two routes I think we could take. The most blatant and realistic route would be too suspect Abra, which is the main reason Sticky Web is such a dominant playstyle. LO Abra completely demolishes defensive cores and offensive cores alike with Sticky Web active making it extremely difficult to face. The best check to it is Sucker Punch, which usually isn't a good sign. The more complex route we could take would be too suspect Sticky Web, which more directly addresses the problem but also results in a move ban which I know aren't usually favored. Either way seems like a reasonable option to to me.

To tie this into Snake Draft, I've so far noticed two uses Sticky Web, and both times the Sticky Web team lost (although in one replay the Web user never managed to get Sticky Web up at all). I find this to be very interesting, considering how Sticky Web has obtained good results in other tournaments.

So without further ado, what are you guys' thoughts on the topic? Is Sticky Web healthy or unhealthy for the current LC metagame?
 
Made an SPL eseque spreadsheet of usage stats for Phase 2 of Snake.



Main things I noticed personally
Fairy types- The 2 viable Fairy types (Snubbull and Spritzee) both had 75% win rates when brought.
Ferro+Spritz core- Was everywhere. Very successful as both Ferroseed and Spritzee had 2 of the highest win rates overall
Bird spam- Was not good. Went 1-3 I believe (don't quote me) But every bird not named Vullaby (Wingull, Taillow, Doduo) all did very little in their games.
BP?- There was NO TORCHIC in this phase whereas we saw some strange mons (mainly from heysup and blara) Such as Stunky, Dewpider, Amaura, Hippopotas, Chespin and Honedge to name a few.
Grimer-A+Snivy- Another very common very solid core used frequently. Very Anti webs obviously
Lack of webs- There was one webs team of the 15 games. Surprising to me at least given how absurd webs are. People obviously prepped though with bird spam and Grimer-a Snivy cores every other game.
Shellder?- Shellder was used only used twice and as an A+ Ranked pokemon this is surprising to me. Granted I don't think shellder is great but there were a lot of these teams that an offensive ShellDig team destroyed
 
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Gummy

...three, smiles go for miles!
Hard 99.9% abra counters that beat it nearly all of the time? I can only think of some sort of mixed stunky.
There's not really such a thing as a 100% counter since Abra is so ridiculously good, but Grimer-A does a pretty good job of it. Even Grimer-A, though, is beaten by stuff like LO HP Ground and Sash Counter. You can also run Fake Out Mienfoo to give you a little more of an edge against sashbra teams, then revenge with something like Scarf Pawniard or basically any scarfmon with knock off.
 
There's not really such a thing as a 100% counter since Abra is so ridiculously good, but Grimer-A does a pretty good job of it. Even Grimer-A, though, is beaten by stuff like LO HP Ground and Sash Counter. You can also run Fake Out Mienfoo to give you a little more of an edge against sashbra teams, then revenge with something like Scarf Pawniard or basically any scarfmon with knock off.
Ty, out of interest on higher ladder which is more used, sash or LO? Where im at, low middle ladder (around 1400), I see mostly sash. Which is super annoying.
 

Jett

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Ty, out of interest on higher ladder which is more used, sash or LO? Where im at, low middle ladder (around 1400), I see mostly sash. Which is super annoying.
Sash tends to be the more common item regardless of the ladder rating. Life orb tends to be run on webs, but this is not a strict rule.

Munchlax can do a decent job at taking a couple hits from abra and able to recycle berry juice stall, which also having access to pursuit. However, it is used far less often than Grimer-A.

Also beat up diglett used to be run in abra weak teams as it could trap and eliminate it if diglett had 3 other healthy friendly allies.
 

Fille

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Hard 99.9% abra counters that beat it nearly all of the time? I can only think of some sort of mixed stunky.
Different sets that could work for you depending on what the team need:


Hellraiser (Ferroseed) (M) @ Berry Juice
Ability: Iron Barbs
Level: 5
EVs: 84 HP / 188 Def / 228 SpD
Careful Nature
- Bullet Seed
- Stealth Rock
- Knock Off
- Thunder Wave

Eviolite got the niche of not being oneshot by Hp Fire, but caught on switch-in it dies to it either way so yk. However, Hp Fire Abra is quite rare, considering Hp Ground for GrimerA or Counter provides so much more value. If you Bullet Seed to kill it, then Counter won't do more than 16ish damage to you max, meaning you Bjuice up.


Plague Mask (Spritzee) (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Aroma Veil
Level: 5
EVs: 212 HP / 196 Def / 12 SpA / 76 SpD / 12 Spe
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Protect
- Wish

High Hp and sp.def, but mostly just sits there tbh. Can be used if you need Abra+Fight check though. Calm Mind uses Abra as set up fodder though, which is nice


067Jox (Grimer-Alola) @ Berry Juice
Ability: Poison Touch
Level: 5
EVs: 36 HP / 196 Atk / 36 SpA / 196 SpD
Brave Nature
- Pursuit
- Poison Jab
- Knock Off
- Fire Blast / Shadow Sneak

Bjuice doesn't die to LO Hp ground on switch in, which is nice ig. Fire Blast goes through Counter, breaking it and Pursuit trapping afterwards (Although 90% of the time you wanna Pursuit ig).


FuckedUpBattery (Chinchou) (F) @ Berry Juice
Ability: Volt Absorb
Level: 5
EVs: 52 Def / 152 SpA / 152 SpD / 140 Spe
Calm Nature
- Volt Switch
- Scald
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Sucker Punch

If you need a Flying Resist+Abra check. Energy Ball does 20hp max on a high roll, so can switch in on anything but say Dazzling Gleam, which leaves it in OHKO range without Bjuice activating. Scald+Sucker kills and catches opp of guard, but is kinda niche ngl.


Obelix (Pumpkaboo-Super) (M) @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 5
EVs: 204 HP / 36 Def / 4 SpA / 236 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Shadow Sneak
- Giga Drain / Bullet Seed
- Synthesis
- Will-O-Wisp

Tanks, breaks Sash or kills etc whatever. Just finding this solid due to lack of Shadow Ball on the common Abra, + Access to Priority. Bullet Seed can be used, but Giga Drain is just 99% of the time a better option. Surprisingly good switch-in though.



Anything with 14 sp.def + Eviolite takes 12 hp more often than not from Sash Psychic, meaning anything with 25 or more hp + 14spdef or more can come in and tank without SR (Or with SR up if more, depends on how much more hp/spdef). All examples listed here got a good way of actually dealing with Abra though besides just Recovering up 3 times before delivering 1 hit and recovering again. Prime examples of bulky mons like that would be BU Rufflet and the niche Lileep. Other options are SturdyJuice mons with Multihit moves like Dwebble and Onix, but Sturdy can be broken by hazards and Rblast is still risky as you need 4 hits from Onix iirc to kill, and potentially as much from Dwebble?.

Want to feature this one too because:


Dweb Johnson (Dwebble) (M) @ Berry Juice
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 5
EVs: 236 Atk / 236 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shell Smash
- X-Scissor / Earthquake
- Aerial Ace / Substitute
- Rock Blast

This little monster actually uses Abra as set up fodder unless Hazards are up, as you get to +2 with full hp after Bjuice is consumed, or +4 if opponent got no priority moves left. Rock Blast needs 2 hits to kill, so it's just about whether you can hit or not :)


Hope this helped somewhat :)​
 
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So I've been thinking... When Abra is gone (assuming it may go soon), the meta is obviously gonna shift drastically. I think that some VERY annoying Pokémon are gonna become very prevalent, and they worry me. Namely, Trubbish and Mareanie. Trubbish is the most annoying berry recycler ever with a ridiculous amount of bulk for what it is and few counters, Abra being its main one. Mareanie is worse. So, let's keep Abra, please, for the sake of our meta.
 
So I've been thinking... When Abra is gone (assuming it may go soon), the meta is obviously gonna shift drastically. I think that some VERY annoying Pokémon are gonna become very prevalent, and they worry me. Namely, Trubbish and Mareanie. Trubbish is the most annoying berry recycler ever with a ridiculous amount of bulk for what it is and few counters, Abra being its main one. Mareanie is worse. So, let's keep Abra, please, for the sake of our meta.
abra isn't getting banned any time soon. while theoretically it pretty much has no true counter, it can't kill everything at once - it has to choose via its item and moveset, plus it's vulnerable to priority, scarfers and dig.
 
So I've been thinking... When Abra is gone (assuming it may go soon), the meta is obviously gonna shift drastically. I think that some VERY annoying Pokémon are gonna become very prevalent, and they worry me. Namely, Trubbish and Mareanie. Trubbish is the most annoying berry recycler ever with a ridiculous amount of bulk for what it is and few counters, Abra being its main one. Mareanie is worse. So, let's keep Abra, please, for the sake of our meta.
This is a weak argument anyway, imo. Keeping broken or unhealthy pokemon in a metagame just to stave off other possibly broken or unhealthy pokemon is counterproductive when the end goal is a balanced and healthy metagame. If Abra was to get suspected, I don't think the reason to not ban it should ever be "it's keeping other mons in check that would otherwise be incredibly hard to stop"
 
abra isn't getting banned any time soon. while theoretically it pretty much has no true counter, it can't kill everything at once - it has to choose via its item and moveset, plus it's vulnerable to priority, scarfers and dig.
lmao took me a while to realise u meant diglett. I got a bit confused there. Yh, I know abra's not gonna get suspected, but I was just theorising what might happen if it did. Imo, the meta would become a lot less fun if mons like mareanie become very good.
This is a weak argument anyway, imo. Keeping broken or unhealthy pokemon in a metagame just to stave off other possibly broken or unhealthy pokemon is counterproductive when the end goal is a balanced and healthy metagame. If Abra was to get suspected, I don't think the reason to not ban it should ever be "it's keeping other mons in check that would otherwise be incredibly hard to stop"
Fair enough, but either way if it does ever get suspected, the meta will shift drastically, and perhaps the mons I suggested might become more and more viable.
This is gonna sound like an even worse argument, but I kinda want Abra to be suspected, just to see the change in the meta. I'll definitely regret it later, though.
 
I'm very impressed by zorodark's performance in this tour. I saw most of his replays i could find and he played well in most of the tour games which is represented by his record. seeing this encouraged me as a player to become better and sharpen up my game. fairy types have always, in my opinion; been good in the metagame especially with fight spam constantly being used in tours and on ladder. however this year i did see some bird spam and its performance could be linked to the fact that most flying types have their checks, which is usually onix plus another pokemon to fall back on. I expected grimer to be good because it pursuit traps some of the best pokemon in the tier ,abra and gastly; and is overall a great knock off spammer.
 
ZoroDark: 9-0
Heysup: 7-3
ggggd: 6-4
Dundies: 5-4
Kingler12345: 5-4
Shrug: 5-5
OP: 4-5
Sken: 4-6
blarajan: 1-5
Arifeen: 0-1
tk"0-3 in the hearts of everyone but himself": 0-2
Bushtush: 0-3
GOAO: 0-4 (stripped of wins due to cheating etc)

(op rules)


so snake's at finals right now, meaning the only records here that are gonna change are that of shrug and sken's. haven't made a metagame post in a long ass while so might as well do one right now.

i didn't really feel very motivated to build fsr, really felt like i was hitting a wall and coming up with suboptimal builds. my game vs zoro was a prime example of this, i guess i'll take this opportunity to make fun of him how did you let it get that close dude LOL. nah but for real, i thought in phase 1 i played pretty well. during my game vs dundies i felt like i was being too conservative while the game was happening but in retrospect i think i gave myself the outs i could and, had a few things gone my way, would've been able to seal it up pretty easily. my game vs op was kind of odd and a few things going my way early just put him out of the game.

phase 2 i think i had a little better grasp on it? i played pretty well vs sken (replay) aside from the FUCKING calc screw up on mienfoo vs snubbull i played pretty nicely and some things just didn't go my way i guess. was really happy with my play otherwise. the game vs heysup was just an absolute disaster, i'm not sure what compelled me to play that way but i could've easily secured it and decided to play like shit instead. the game vs shrug i think i played pretty well and secured a nice advantage which translated into a kind of straightforward win for me (abra is a good pkmn).

now phase 3 i'm really happy with the teams i made. i was kind of struggling with lo staryu mag type things but when i made the team i thought it was really nice and just flowed well. i kind of choked dick in the endgame vs bushtush (replay) but oh well LOL foongus living +2 AA without evio is always fun. the torchic team i used vs ggggd in our game is one of my favorites and ended up having a really good matchup that i managed to secure. one of my favorite games i've played in this tier for sure. the game vs blara spritzee just kind of won and i didn't really play that well but it was sufficient (btw blarajan lost to me at the chantilly pc too this guys BAD). as Chill Shadow would say, i'm positive that i did well this phase.

i don't really feel like doing a team-dump type thing just yet and i don't think i "innovated" anything per se in this tournament so i'll not really be making multiple posts but overall i'm fairly satisfied with the tournament and the way it went. 3 games in 2 weeks i didnt feel was too much while playing but in terms of building kind of wore me out i feel. didn't really feel the drive for it and it kind of showed in my games i'm guessing. the field was pretty strong and i think this tier had a good showing. dunno if i'll get to play it in spl (prob not) but if i do i'll look forward to the challenge (and perhaps losing to tigers in semis again).

i might put something more into this post since i kind of just quickly jotted this down but uh we'll see. kingler out
 
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I want to talk about a little tip that I've been using for awhile that I think should be common knowledge, but doesn't seem to be. It's really easy to figure out the amount of HP opposing mons have and you can use that information to learn more about their set. The most common use for this is against Mienfoos and Vullabys. If a Mienfoo has 23 HP, you can assume it's 13 speed or slower. If it has 21 HP, it's 17 speed or heavily invested into attack. Calcs of that Mienfoo's moves against your mons help further narrow it down to one of those two. With Vullabys, if they have 25 HP, it's full physical or nasty plot. If they have 23, it's mixed or scarf. Other calcs that reveal eviolite vs. non-eviolite damage or weak armor being activated can tell you the full set.

But how can you easily tell what HP the opposing mons have? Basically, once they have taken any sort of damage, it's revealed. A Mienfoo with 23 max HP has different %s that it can be compared to a Mienfoo with 21 max HP. This chart hopefully makes what I'm saying more clear. The only repeated numbers for Mienfoos are 96, 53, 48, and 5. For Vullabys, 96, 92, 48, 44, 40.

To put this into effect, let's say its turn 1 and your Mienfoo hits their Mienfoo with Fake Out and it does 3 damage. If they have 23 max HP, they'll be at 87%. If they have 21, they'll be at 86%. It's only a percent difference, but recognizing this can give you a lot of information. This stuff is really tryhard-y but if you use it alongside doing calcs to determine their defensive EVs and if they have an Eviolite, it can be pretty useful.
 
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dcae

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some meta takes:

defog snivy's lowkey overrated but it's still super useful as a 4th slot to make snivy fuck up webs teams even more when it's gonna die or something. rip fomantis tho

aipom's as good as advertised which makes diglett a 100% necessity on every single team. evio aipom's slept on as well since dig cant revenge that from full with any set and it still hits hard, but not really as insanely hard as LO ofc but ppl should run it more. also, grass knot LO aipom is real and should be run more to beat any form of mudbray.

mudbray's fantastic and was worth the hype, nice check to a ton of top meta stuff, but doesn't discount onix like some ppl are thinking.

dewpider is incredible, very useful mon that does work even without needing to use sticky webs depending on matchup, which means you finally don't need to make sticky web specific teams and you can just add a dewpider and have that as another tool in your arsenal a la stealth rocks.

pawniard is godlike in this meta, important check to aipom and snivy as well as being a good anti-webs mon that can also set stealth rocks, expect to see its usage go up.

timburr loves this meta too, best priority vs aipom, classic set that likes pawns increase in popularity too, looks to me almost as good as foo in terms of overall usefulness atm

diglett is the god of the meta, z-ground should be on pretty much every team and if its not you're doing it wrong. best mon atm. edit: aipom dig interaction has been the main piece of the meta so far so ig you can say the two together are the best mons in the meta.

vullaby is kinda hurt by the rise of aipom bc weak armor isnt as great and some of the mons that used to trigger it as well arent as good so far but i expect it to resurge soon enough once ppl realize that not every new tech is good.

deerling got kind of a lowkey update but headbutt flinch tactics are semi legit. kinda niche but at 18 spe and a resistance to diglett, it has potential that has to be explored. normal x fight coverage is super solid and when you can beat your own checks/counters with flinch theres always something going down.

torchic is kinda cool since it fucks with aipom but the rise of mudbray hurts a lot of fire types that can no longer pop shit with grass coverage since it can actually tank those

foongus is really good bc its the best snivy answer in the meta that can also handle dewpider, timburr to a degree, and takes advantage of the low presence of sleep immune mons

hazard stack is lit atm whether its spikes support for an aipom or tspikes that is abused by stuff like deerling ig but meta has a lot more grounded mons atm

doduo is superb atm esp the scarf set, can use pursuit x stab mind games to fuck up aipoms and also forms a devastating offensive core with aipom itself. it likes the rise of pawn as the main fly resist bc thats not a good doduo check.
 
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I haven't played too many games of the new metagames, but I've made a few observations based on theorymonning + the few games that I have played. A few points:

  • I feel like Spikes with setters such as Dwebble and Ferroseed are less effective, considering they don't have an immediate way to threaten Snivy (the latter has TWave and Knock, but still deals very little actual damage).
  • Snivy getting Defog is a nice buff as people have mentioned; I've seen people mention that it changes the webs MU, though, which I don't really get. Webs has historically been incredibly shaky against a +1 Snivy and the fact that the newest Webs setter around the block crumbles to it a little less hard than Surskit doesn't change that too much. I don't think I'd wanna be defogging against a webs team unless they had a pretty damn solid answer to my snivy set spinarak maybe?).
  • Dewpider is a nice little upgrade obviously and more versatile than Surskit, but I really don't see it as this massive shakeup to the webs teams and feel like it might be getting a little too much credit. It's pretty weak on non-water-bubble attacks and it's slow as shit.
  • Aipom and Diglett are really powerful in the new metagame. guessing we're gonna see lots of ways to get around the pom as well as changeup in aipom sets to prevent diglett revenge killing it. Also other trappers are probably very effective rn too

  • I'm not sure how i feel about this new meta rn, though it does seem more shaky than the SM meta we've had for a while now. Maybe it's because it hasn't settled yet but we'll see how it goes.
 

Star

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OGC & Tour Head
yeah so mainly echoing a couple things

i think dewpider's definitely super overrated. its not that great a mon and webs are kinda shitty in this meta trend.

snivy is really cool mon in this meta cuz defog is real easy to slap on as a 4th move and it does a pretty good job

aipom and diglett are both fantastic and i expect to see a suspect soon for one/both.

one mon that ppl havent mentioned that i think is really great in this meta is ponyta. i think the more widespread use of defog and downward trend in spikes really helps the mon. high horsepower is also a fantastic addition to its physical arsenal. i've been playing w/ it a bit and this is the set i think is by far most effective and really really good in this meta.

Ponyta @ Firium Z
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 5
EVs: 236 Atk / 76 Def / 196 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- High Horsepower
- Flame Charge
- Morning Sun

z-flare blitz is really strong off 18atk which makes for a nice nuke and horsepower gives it really nice coverage. flame charge lets it get around every scarfer (bar diglett) which is also real nice. morning sun gives it some defensive utility, giving it the ability to check snivy for instance since glare isnt used as much any more. i've been using pony with snivy mostly because they form a really nice offensive core and snivy keeps hazards off.
 

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