antemortem
rest after tomorrow
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- Seen Jun 15, 2022
Hey everyone! If you've been playing Pokemon on the internet anytime in the last eight years or so, you might have heard of a neat little ruleset known as Little Cup. It's a game format in which every Pokemon used must be Level 5 Base form with a potential evolution. It's really that easy. It started out as a metagame filled with baby Pokemon, but as time has passed, these pre-evolutions are thought far less of as baby Pokemon and more as threats, depending on which ones you look at. In this article, I plan to quickly break down some of the top threats in the metagame, and in future Featurettes, I will be taking a closer look at each Pokemon in particular and sharing insight on why the Pokemon is great and how you, too, can use it.
In order to paint a more vivid background, let me share some tips on common tricks that you're likely to see incredibly often in Little Cup. As far as items are concerned, there are a token couple that you'll see more often than others: Berry Juice and Eviolite. Because the HP margins in LC are so low, Berry Juice, which recovers 20 HP when a Pokemon is at or below 1/2 their max HP, is an extremely useful tool, especially when used on Pokemon that have Sturdy. This way, if they have a method of setting up entry hazards such as Stealth Rock or boosting moves such as Shell Smash, they have one turn of guaranteed setup opportunity, and Berry Juice assures lost health is replenished. Eviolite multiplies the defenses base level Pokemon (with an evolution - every Pokemon in LC qualifies!) by 1.5, turning some Pokemon into powerful defensive walls. Eviolite can technically be slapped on any Pokemon and be "decent", but it works best on offensive Pokemon with a bit of natural bulk themselves such as Timburr, Porygon, Chinchou, Houndour, and Honedge because stall is very uncommon in LC. There are far too many strong offensive presences in the metagame to justify stall wars, and very few Pokemon are capable of pulling off stall successfully while also holding up to wallbreakers such as Magnemite, Carvanha, and Amaura, not to mention the dozens of setup sweepers.
The Fighting Kings
There's not a huge amount of Fighting-types in LC, but when you consider just how devastating Fighting-type moves and Knock Off (which every FIghting-type above has and uses) are, they become that much more prominent. The bulkier, versatile ones such as Croagunk often lead to teams having to sac an individual mon, or risk a Knock Off landing from any of the pool of threats, to bring in something that actually effectively checks and/or counters them. They aren't even limited to exhibitions of raw power - Pancham is capable of crippling an opponent not only via Knock Off, but Parting Shot, which almost guarantees a partner can come in and wreak havoc. Fighting-types are nothing to sneeze at in this metagame.
The Rulers of the Sea
The Rulers of the Sky
The Mysterious Menaces
In order to paint a more vivid background, let me share some tips on common tricks that you're likely to see incredibly often in Little Cup. As far as items are concerned, there are a token couple that you'll see more often than others: Berry Juice and Eviolite. Because the HP margins in LC are so low, Berry Juice, which recovers 20 HP when a Pokemon is at or below 1/2 their max HP, is an extremely useful tool, especially when used on Pokemon that have Sturdy. This way, if they have a method of setting up entry hazards such as Stealth Rock or boosting moves such as Shell Smash, they have one turn of guaranteed setup opportunity, and Berry Juice assures lost health is replenished. Eviolite multiplies the defenses base level Pokemon (with an evolution - every Pokemon in LC qualifies!) by 1.5, turning some Pokemon into powerful defensive walls. Eviolite can technically be slapped on any Pokemon and be "decent", but it works best on offensive Pokemon with a bit of natural bulk themselves such as Timburr, Porygon, Chinchou, Houndour, and Honedge because stall is very uncommon in LC. There are far too many strong offensive presences in the metagame to justify stall wars, and very few Pokemon are capable of pulling off stall successfully while also holding up to wallbreakers such as Magnemite, Carvanha, and Amaura, not to mention the dozens of setup sweepers.
The Fighting Kings
There's not a huge amount of Fighting-types in LC, but when you consider just how devastating Fighting-type moves and Knock Off (which every FIghting-type above has and uses) are, they become that much more prominent. The bulkier, versatile ones such as Croagunk often lead to teams having to sac an individual mon, or risk a Knock Off landing from any of the pool of threats, to bring in something that actually effectively checks and/or counters them. They aren't even limited to exhibitions of raw power - Pancham is capable of crippling an opponent not only via Knock Off, but Parting Shot, which almost guarantees a partner can come in and wreak havoc. Fighting-types are nothing to sneeze at in this metagame.
The Rulers of the Sea
The Rulers of the Sky
The Mysterious Menaces
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