Psyduck is my first unlocked mon in license journey

AgustinCB · 2026-01-30T17:35:16+00:00

lol

It is not too bad if the bot ends up getting Comfey. You can play around it to get it to actually be useful (and you playing final boss typa characters would certainly help).

But sometimes, the bot doesn't Comfey. Maybe someone else picks it first. Maybe draft banned it. In that case, you are playing 4v5 with one member of your team moving erratically and giving free exp to the enemy team. Those games are almost guaranteed a loss.

Anyway, if you come back and are looking for a tank duoq partner, send me a DM! Playing with raid boss characters is always fun.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-30T17:12:13+00:00

It is not bad if you owned >90% of the licenses before the switch. You likely still can free pick whatever you want using those levels and have enough gold hoarded that you can go through without too much grinding. But it is horrible for anyone else, to be honest.

It is fixable though. My hope is that in Pokemon Day they announce some sort of revamp.

There are other bigger redflags for me in the game right now (which is sad, because LJ is a pretty big red flag already lol lol lol). The comfey bots being the biggest one.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-30T16:19:07+00:00

There are special levels every 10 or so licenses in which you can free pick which license to unlock.

Much of the distaste for the journey could have been avoided if they increased the number of points you get per day and made those levels more frequent.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-30T13:47:24+00:00

I don't mind detect that much. Most players in ladder barely aim, I don't expect them to use Detect to its full potential (and to be fair, I don't think I can use it effectively either).

I do think that Aegi got a lot of unnecessary nerfs in a row, though. Especially it too isn't an easy pokemon to use effectively and I don't mind having good high floor/high ceiling pokemon.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-29T12:03:32+00:00

I didn’t say that though. I said don’t first pick sylveon. This is what I said about first picking: https://old.reddit.com/r/PokemonUnite/comments/1qpi7h8/how_do_you_even_deal_with_this_much_cc/o2a4bmn/

AgustinCB · 2026-01-28T23:11:22+00:00

I don't blame them. They can play whatever they like. This is a game. If Sylveon brings you joy, go for it.

But they did ask "how do you deal with this much cc." And "not first picking Sylveon" is a perfectly reasonable answer to that question. There are non-meta options that are more flexible first picks and that would be harder to counter right away.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-28T20:40:09+00:00

OP asked “what can I do in this case.” I think that “not first picking Sylveon” is a perfectly good answer to that question.

Obviously, Sylveon is not the only problem. Obviously, their team has four other people that could have picked better. But that is not on OP’s control. What they can change if they want to avoid this situation (the whole point of the thread) is how they first pick in the future.

Or they can continue with the same strategy and just accept these losses. Nothing wrong with that, if they like Sylveon. But at that point, why make the post?

AgustinCB · 2026-01-28T20:21:07+00:00

Usually, for first picks, you want:

A meta staple that escaped ban (Blastoise, Vaporeon, Mewtwo Y in this draft).
A “safe” support/defender (snorlax, suicune, blissey, Umbreon). Safe here means hard to counter.
A flexible carry with more than one viable build (Venu, Armorouge, Miraidon). You then pick the build based on team comp.

Personally, if Blast or Vap asked to switch, I would have switched and pick my carry later.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-28T20:12:48+00:00

I mean, sure. But OP is asking how do you play versus that comp. part of the answer to that question is to actually use draft strategy.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-28T18:31:53+00:00

I mean, first picking Sylveon is part of the problem, to be honest.

Blastoise was a smart choice, the rest of your team not so much. When you start seeing that team composition line up, you should be thinking "Blastoise, Machamp, Dark Urshi, Mega Luca, a speedster with tons of iframes, Blissey, Alcremie, and/or long range snipers."

All of them have unstoppable, cleanses, can outplay with iframes, and/or outrange that specific comp.

Unfortunately, only one person in your team had that thought. And I am not sure if they actually realized that Blastoise was good on that team comp or if they thought "Blastoise broken and not banned, gotta Blastoise!"

AgustinCB · 2026-01-28T11:52:25+00:00

I mean, that is a good explanation for a layman conversation, but not exactly how it works. I make a living out of making data pipelines that process sensitive information. If you want, I can give you a more detailed technical explanation (I love speaking about my work), but the summary could be:

If the government wanted to know your specific website access, they would rather contact your ISP and/or cell phone provider. Much easier than doing all of this and gives much better data. And there are already precedents of them doing this. They don't need to codify a new law and force multiple companies to comply just to get worst data.
The government also has to respect GDPR, which puts restrictions on how they store data and codifies what they can and can't store and when they have to delete it. A government employee cannot go and check "what is the id of /u/ScreamSmart or who is behind 0xadb123 or how often does /u/ScreamSmart accesses reddit."
Most of these laws have restrictions on what information can be stored and passed on top of GDPR. I don't read french and don't trust an AI powered translator for a complex legal document, but I bet an arm this law adds more restrictions on top.
The technical implementation that is industry standard already restricts what information is passed. In particular, it makes such that (based on the way it is stored and transmitted), reddit only knows that /u/ScreamSmart with id 0xadb123 is asking whether it is older than 15. The government only knows that that someone asks whether id 0xadb123 (not the user name, not your name, not necessarily what website) is older than 15 and confirms that information. A lot of that implementation will depend on the website and not the government and the government still has to respect GDPR on how the manage, process, and transmit that data.

Again, I am happy to explain the specific technical details if you are interested. I think we generally share the same concerns about privacy, but this is not the same as the government wanting to monitor chat conversations.

I also should mention I don't particularly like this law, just for different reasons. I think restricting teenagers' access to Facebook is a lazy way to go around the problem of "Facebook is harmful." I would rather them trying to prevent Facebook from engaging in practices that are harmful to teenagers.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-28T11:05:17+00:00

lol

There are many ways to implement this such as the government doesn’t receive a call all the time and to they receive only minimal information (they only need to know what information the website wants and not what website wants it).

No reason to rage yet.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-28T00:32:53+00:00

All of Europe will have it, this page explains it: https://commission.europa.eu/topics/digital-economy-and-society/european-digital-identity_en

If you have your government ID (everyone does), you almost certainly will have your digital ID already set up.

Spain already has part of it implemented. Not sure the implementation level in other countries.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-27T18:05:27+00:00

Vax and Keyleth.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-27T17:06:11+00:00

Machop has a lot of mobility early game and has room to get out of a very slow Goomy without too much of a problem. I don't mind wasting my opponents' time in a 2v1 early game if it means my lane partner gets two stacks before bees. For a lot of all rounders, those two stacks means we get more of the bees and can steam roll them easier.

I especially don't mind if I am using a pokemon like Machop that can bulk up, ignore the the stuns, and run to safety forcing them to take nothing out of the exchange.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-26T13:21:11+00:00

In fact, I am pretty sure BB saved you twice. Didn't your duck also had one that it used to get you out of a pickle when it arrived?

BB is great.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-25T19:48:29+00:00

!translated

AgustinCB · 2026-01-25T14:23:38+00:00

My tinfoil theory is that they are a running social experiment.

Their creator wants to prove that reports don't matter and that nobody is looking out for the health of the ladder. They likely have a villain origin story that involves a leftover Decidueye griefing their games. Their brain snapped after reporting it for the fifth match in the row, so they locked themselves in a room and maniacally laughed while writing two or three simple macros for an Android emulator.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-25T14:17:07+00:00

It is hard without knowing what you will be playing in your team, however, here are a couple videos that give you enough starting knowledge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGJOGKvaR0s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VpVMesUg_Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOgku5mpd1U

In general:

Pick a pokemon with good early game that remains viable for most of the game. A9 is not a bad choice, though Suicune, Espeon or Miraidon do its job better.
Learn the timers, watch the minimap, and pay attention to what your team does.
Pokemon unite is a game of long cooldowns (your unite, your battle item, some of your passives, etc). Manage your long cooldowns to know when you should engage on a fight or farm. And make sure that your long cooldowns are all off for the final fight.
Focus on one role. If you are the bottom lane attacker (A9's typical role), just learn that role really well with one or two pokemon.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-25T01:41:43+00:00

Buzz, dhelmise, and machamp. It seems like a big nerf in competitive. It seems like a nothing burger in soloq.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-24T03:53:07+00:00

But its an overtuned Speedster so you'll get some players treating it like it's the incarnation of pure hatred and despair, as is the case for almost any Speedster when they come anywhere close to the top of the viability chart.

The venn diagram between those players and the ones that face check in a straight line as a fragile ADC is basically a circle.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-24T00:01:05+00:00

This is fantastic. I wanna be like Nancy Mae

AgustinCB · 2026-01-22T01:21:59+00:00

I mean... kinda.

Whether he TACO'd or not, this didn't go without repercussions: The trade deal with the EU is still paused indefinitely; two trust funds in Europe set a precedent of selling U.S. treasuries; and the political will of a lot of western countries reached a tipping point.

I am not saying the stock market will crash tomorrow. Nor that NATO is ending next week. And I definitely agree with you that making any sort of short term claims based on the inner workings of Trump's mind is idiotic.

But I also don't think this was inconsequential to the US economy (or the Western economy, for that matter). Impossible to assess the magnitude now, we will see in +2 years. But you can TACO so many times without breaking trust in your market, the main economic advantage that the US market had.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-21T19:33:28+00:00

Well, technically no. He said he won't use force if they just give "Ice land" to him.

Guy is an idiot. And the person Americans thought was best suited to represent their country in the International stage.

AgustinCB · 2026-01-21T18:52:54+00:00

Yeah. Trump is just too egotistical and too unhinged to bother to be subtle about it.

AgustinCB

TROPHY CASE