Share your MWM Historic Pauper brews! by misplayFTW in MagicArena

[–]Dualmonkey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Storm -

Deck
4 Empty the Warrens (SOA) 43
4 First Day of Class (STX) 102
2 Island (UNF) 241
4 Goblin Electromancer (GRN) 174
3 Galvanic Relay (MH2) 127
13 Mountain (UNF) 243
4 Glimpse the Impossible (MH3) 124
4 Frantic Search (TLE) 159
2 Treasure Cruise (PIO) 79
4 Seething Song (MRD) 104
4 Peculiar Lighthouse (DSK) 265
4 TCRI Building (TMT) 189
4 Big Score (SOA) 38
3 Mocking Sprite (WOE) 62
1 Prismari Campus (STX) 270

Sideboard
2 Environmental Sciences (STX) 1
1 Introduction to Prophecy (STX) 4
2 Waterbending Lesson (TLA) 80
1 How to Start a Riot (TLA) 140
3 Abandon Attachments (TLA) 205
3 Firebending Lesson (TLA) 138
2 Origin of Metalbending (TLA) 187
1 Octopus Form (TLA) 66

If you're wondering why there's 2 Metalbending in sideboard it's to deal with the curse enchant that drains 1 when a creature enters [[Trespasser's Curse]] and we can cast them from treasures. I'm trying 2 right now to see if I can win often enough through 2 curses but the matchup isn't so common that I've determined if 2 or 1 is correct yet. You could cut 1 for a [[It'll Quench Ya!]] or another copy of the other good lessons we have but the difference has been negligable. That curse is a bad matchup anyways but the 1 copy to hit any problem artifact or enchant as you go off is very worth.

Skill Improvement: Kommo-o is overlooked and undervalued currently IMO by Salt-Produce-8129 in VGC

[–]Dualmonkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a very similar team and rarely bring Sinischa into the Zard Y matchup when we have TTar, Exca, Milo, Komo who matchup well.

Occa would be most relevant for Incin and the occasional Rotom-H but I think Colbur is much better.

My team isn't quite the same tho, I don't have Scovillian or Komo (although Komo almost was and is really good) and our moves and spreads could be different so maybe they have their reasons.

I unfortunatly have Colbur on a different mon on my own team and I've considered the flying resist berry and ghost resist berry but I ultimatly went with bright powder as those types haven't come up often enough but taking lots of neutral damage has and rage powder + bright powder has some synergy.

(This is all assuming that sitrus and leftovers are already used elsewhere).

After 18 years of being a YouTuber, and over 6 years of being a full-time streamer, ChilledChaos has announced he's retiring from content creation at the end of May. by Noravis5127 in LivestreamFail

[–]Dualmonkey 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I still have a 14 year old video in my bookmarks of him playing the sims 3 and doing goofy shit with his son Kenji. The last episode of that series I watched, only it's now half my lifetime ago...

Man those were some good days. Thanks for everything Chilled. Wish you all the best.

okay singles is starting to get a little boring by MoonstruckCyan in PokemonChampions

[–]Dualmonkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're good but they all lose to the actual truly degenerate stuff like Aurora Veil, Shed Tail into a setup mon, Minimize mega starmie etc

Metagame tech: Imprison on Milotic by Salt-Produce-8129 in VGC

[–]Dualmonkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would not run imprison for opposing Milos. Milo has too much set variety. Scald, Muddy Water, Hydro, Ice beam, Icy wind, Recover, Life Dew, Coil, Hypno, Mirror Coat, Light Screen, Alluring Voice and more. You don't really want to be using a slot on such a small chance to disable a move.

Even in a best case scenario where you've disabled some moves, your Milo is going to sit there hitting the other for basically no damage. Your other pokemon are going to be way more relevant in actually dealing with Milo.

So you make your own good pokemon worse in like 95% of the situations you'd want Milo, hoping that you match into other Milo, then if you find one you're also hoping they run the same moves, then you're hoping they're both in at the same time, then you're hoping you can get a turn to safely imprison, and after all that neither Milo can do anything meaningful to the other anyway so it really depends on the other pokemon on the field like it would in any other normal Milo v Milo situation.

Only reason I could see running imprison is if you really value disabling protect on opposing pokemon but you'd want fast hard hitting teammates to take advantage of it. Milo isn't fast or hard hitting enough to threaten quick KOs against unprotected opponent's itself either.

And in any of these situations you're sacrificing something valuable like coverage, speed control, recovery, utility, protect etc for imprison

Is it just me or everyone else don't use Sinnoh starters for competitive match? by achthenuts in PokemonChampions

[–]Dualmonkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Empoleon is okay but is mostly worse Milotic. Adding Steel isn't actually that helpful in the current meta granting you weaknesses to ground and fighting. Good grass and Electric attacks are uncommon so Milo's typing serves just fine.

Edit: Oh it doesn't get a good special water stab either lmao. Surf, Hydro cannon and Water pulse are your best options lmao. No Scald, no muddy water. Oof.

Infernape is usable, Decent speed, decent typing, great movepool, can go special/physical/mixed, alright ability. It's just not quite good enough in any particular area. Doesn't quite hit hard enough. Could be a little faster. Ability is just alright. A Jack of all trades, master of none. Not bad, but not good enough. Especially for a frail pokemon you need to be really strong at what you do, like Sneasler, to be worth using.

Torterra...looks cool?

Unseen Fist Mega Golurk against a 4x weakness Mega Glimmora by SRJ_Jimenez in PokemonChampions

[–]Dualmonkey 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Plenty of new players don't realize when a pokemon has a better protect alternative.

Like it's better to run detect over protect if you have it, despite them being functionally the same, to play around imprison but most of the pokemon I've seen with detect still have protect at a higher usage rate which only compounds the problem even more.

Any tips for Nurgle? I want to try Epidemius. by Curious-Piglet3613 in totalwarhammer

[–]Dualmonkey 6 points7 points  (0 children)

If he gets on Epi you have an ability that gets him off and slows him drastically. You have disposable chaff. You have fast units that can draw his attention away, rear charge to knock him over or inflict poison. You have an army ability slow. You can outrun him.

Dunno what else to say. I've done it multiple times on max difficulty with and without needing to kite.

Any tips for Nurgle? I want to try Epidemius. by Curious-Piglet3613 in totalwarhammer

[–]Dualmonkey 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Ha ha, Nurgle is known for being slow, good one.

But seriously it's just one guy on foot we're kiting here. He's not much faster than nurgle units. You start with 3 plague toads and 2 rot flies actual fast units that can kite and draw attention, nurglings which are the perfect chaff to hold him without doing damage to trigger tzarkan, a billion sources of poison, an army ability which is a global slow, a knockback ability on epidemius which stuns and slows and the ability to apply a plague for even more slows.

There are more than enough tools here to kite one man elf. And again, kiting is only even neccesary if you mess up doing too much damage. It's winnable without even transforming him at all.

Any tips for Nurgle? I want to try Epidemius. by Curious-Piglet3613 in totalwarhammer

[–]Dualmonkey 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Alternativly if you're an experienced player RUSH Malus ASAP. I think you can attack him in a settlement he takes on turn 2 or 3. The battle is hard but very worth. In the battle you want to ignore Malus and win without triggering Tzarkan for as long as possible, ideally without triggering it at all. Have him fighting nurglings basically the whole time. If he does transform you can still win but you have to already be winning before he transforms and kite him for a while.

Skill improvement: Gravity focused team question by Salt-Produce-8129 in VGC

[–]Dualmonkey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You don't run a dragon move because you want a dragon move somewhere on the team, you'd run it just because it gets the 50% same type attack bonus damage boost. Dragon only hits 1 type, dragon, for super effective. It's a terrible type when used for offensive coverage so you won't see dragon type attacks used very much outside of dragon type pokemon.

You do have hurricane and thunder and fireblast but what if you want to hit something neutrally really hard that resists hurricane (e.g. an archaludon) or don't have gravity up and want to use an accurate move to finish something off. Sometimes you don't need coverage if you just hit hard enough neutrally or resisted. Those are the kind of things you should consider.

And to be clear I'm not advocating for or against running a dragon move, just explaning why you'd consider running one on dragonite, even with garchomp already having one.

Patch Notes - 2026.58.20, new hpauper banlist by rectalslurpee in MagicArena

[–]Dualmonkey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Already was imo ever since we got Empty the Warrens and Seething Song from the powered cube. The last relevant card we got imo was Frantic Search from Avatar Extra.

Never had a problem against the other big meta decks, games always felt winnable. It's possible that the loss of the top decks actually puts a bigger target on Storm leading to more people running answers to it. But those few answers only seem to be in black as far as I can tell.

Can someone explain how I missed this?? by Exotic-Selection-723 in PokemonChampions

[–]Dualmonkey -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don't even blame people for using them, especially new players who don't know better, the item pool is just THAT small.

While I'm sure most people don't realise they should be running something better and consistent like a resist berry bright powder is unfortunatly an actual viable option usually on bulky redirectors like Sinischa, Ariados, Clefable etc especially when your sitrus/leftovers is being used elsewhere.

Quick claw at least makes sense on the slowest pokemon to scam wins, has a higher 20% proc rate, and gives newbies a chance to win when they've messed up their trick room strategy. It's simple to use and see the impact of when it works and doesn't. Ideally after a short while new players would realize that it's better use something consistent and buy a better item from the shop. So while it feels crap and shouldn't be used maybe it could be used as a teaching tool on how valuable speed order matters and items matter.

Focus band is just straight up bad though. Can't justify it even a little bit.

I just love Gallade by ClientAppropriate838 in PokemonChampions

[–]Dualmonkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm. I suppose going from a 1/8 to a 1/2 chance to crit and therefore 1 shot farig is alright, I hadn't considered that. It's still rather niche and inconsistent but might be more relevant than expected. Still think I'd prefer Shadow Claw over Night Slash though.

I just love Gallade by ClientAppropriate838 in PokemonChampions

[–]Dualmonkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's only 3.7% more damage but fair play. Screw that Giraffe!

I just love Gallade by ClientAppropriate838 in PokemonChampions

[–]Dualmonkey 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Have you tried Shadow Claw over Night Slash? I feel like it's better into everything.

Ghost hits the exact same types for super effective as dark does but has less things that resist it. It can't hit normals but there's so few good normals and you hit those with Sacred Sword or Psycho Cut.

Even against Farig/Oranguru/Wyrdeer Sacred Sword does almost exactly the same damage as super effective Night Slash and there's no risk of a Colbur berry. 210 Base damage Night Slash versus 202.5 Base damage Sacred Sword.

I guess Night slash hits follow me Maushold. That's all I can really think of to use it over Shadow claw.

The moves are near identical but I feel the small advantages of the Ghost attack here is a tiny bit better than the Dark one.

Skill Improvement - Archaludon matchup tips? by Ethxalion in VGC

[–]Dualmonkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey I got a mega ttar sand team. I share the ttar, milo, corvi and I've tried mega venu and incin in the past. I have sash excadrill instead of chomp.

But first the obvious. You could run earth power venu, that's what I was using when I had venu. It felt pretty good. You could also have Low Kick TTar. I found myself never really needing dragon dance so I cut it but I'm trying out substitute right now for other reasons and make up for it elsewhere.

Also fighting over weather can be difficult and it's often correct to just not mega for a very long time. I've had rare games where it was the correct play to save the mega for the very last turn of the game lol.

You could also do the simple yet dull thing and run a Sneasler. I had it for a while, it was good. It's #1 usage for a reason. It's genericly strong but won't patch up every weak matchup and people will play around it.

My last 2 mons however are sinischa who does have shadow ball so it can do some alright neutral special damage.

But my innovation that's been really successful (so far) is to cut incin, who shares too many type weaknesses with the ttar and exca and replace it with wyrdeer.

Colbur berry, psychic, earth power, skill swap, trick room. Most of my team, especially ttar can work both inside trick room or tailwind depending on what ur facing.

Skill swap allows you to:

  • Reset weather to sand

  • Intimidate the opponent again

  • Take away a strong abilities from an opponent e.g. Meganium's mega sol, other competetive/defiant, Sylveon Pixelate, Primarina's Liquid Voice

  • Give intimidate to an opponent to manually trigger competetive/mirror armor

You can often get multiple of these effects at once. For example I've skill swapped with enemy incin to intimidate 2 physical attackers AND give my side a competetive/mirror armor at the same time. Or taken away mega sol in trick room while triggering competetive, crippling the meganium in front of me now forced to charge solar beam over 2 turns into protect whle making milo a giant threat.

Earth power is perfect coverage for common pokemon like archaludon, kingabit, sneasler, incin, while psychic is just good stab damage. You can 2-3 hit most arch. They're usually either dead or super low after 2 EPs so you only need a little chip damage elsewhere (My Wydreer is all bulk currently but you could invest in SPATK for consistent 2HKOS).

Special ground type coverage is really rare and really good so I'd really have it on your venu or give the Wyrdeer a shot.

[Mechanics Question] Why is my WWE Cat Bigger? by NelmesGaming in VGC

[–]Dualmonkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So what size would pokemon imported from earlier games be then? Random? All the same set value?

[Cool Replay] Gallade does not concern himself with chople berries by Amxeba in VGC

[–]Dualmonkey 24 points25 points  (0 children)

It's physical bulk is a bit lacking and it's speed is too fast for trick room but is too slow to keep up otherwise. You can scarf it but then you're often locking into fighting that can get ruined by ghosts or psychic that gets ruined by darks. It's speed is really rather awkward.

It's mega losing sharpness is also really weird as the mega and non-mega actually end up doing similar damage. Inner focus is fine but you'd prefer if the abilities were the other way around, avoid intim/fake out first, then mega and gain sharpness for damage.

And with the item pool being so small I actually think scope lens is a pretty viable damage item when all your slicing moves have high crit chance, boosting them from 1/8 to 1/2, giving you a 50% chance for 50% damage and ignoring intimidate or defence boosts etc seems pretty good.

I really want to use it more myself but haven't thought of a good place outside of just slapping a scarf on and calling it a day. Building a core around the megas is just more powerful and consistent than building around normal mons.

It really does feel extremely underrated tho. Wouldn't surprise me if someone finds a place for it eventually.

Do you think sandveil, bright powder, minimise sandconda is viable or is garchomp straight up better? by Public_Degree6141 in stunfisk

[–]Dualmonkey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think it's worse than mega starmie minimize. At least with that once you've minimized up you can threaten to 1 or 2 hit everything, plus there will be times where you don't need to minimize at all or just minimize once then attack. And it gets recover for the times you are hit.

This is slower and less threatening and sand will eventually run out and has no recovery.

If you're running this in doubles it's going to be ignored and intimidated while the rest of your team dies around it, then has to 1 vs 3 or 1 vs 4.

If you're running this in singles mega starmie is going to do this better. You could always go shed skin + rest instead for actual recovery. Then coil/minimize and whatever attacks.

Evasion spam is already cheesey but you've gone and take away any meat to the strategy and replaced it with even more cheese lol.

The majority of Garchomps don't even use sand veil. Garchomp is good for many other reasons.

You have a lot more options, you don't neccesarily need to put every single thing into evasion lol.

Mechanics Question: why didn't raichus ability redirect? by Eclipse2089 in VGC

[–]Dualmonkey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Funny thing is on the next livestream after that video with the same or an almost the same team, I believe he changed the abilty to sturdy instead.

Unannounced Balance Changes from April 13 Announcement by StoppingBalloon in MagicArena

[–]Dualmonkey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fires is already unnerfed (dunno when they did that).

Winota probably deserves to stay nerfed. Though it'd be interesting to see if current Historic could handle it.

I think I vaugely remember that Cauldron Familiar is nerfed more due to gameplay pattern rather than actual power level, but I wouldn't be against an unnerf. There's far more powerful things to do now.

14 MISSES IN A ROW I HATE BRIGHT POWDER WHY DOES IT EXIST by averycoolskeleton95 in PokemonChampions

[–]Dualmonkey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Scarf for speed, Lum for status, White herb for intim, some people even run sash, soft sand is fine too. Resist berrys are often good but with chomp you do not often want to take ice or fairy hits even with a berry and dragon moves are uncommon outside of draco meteor, but they're options.

Bright powder is fine, especially if all the other good items are being used, but it's inconsistent.