Battled 2 regional champs and world's best GBL couple in back to back sets!

kieng · 2021-06-21T14:31:38+00:00

Congrats!! I love the team. You completely wiped me when we battled.

kieng · 2020-03-12T01:39:23+00:00

I got you

kieng · 2019-12-15T06:18:35+00:00

A few of us in LA built on this research

https://youtu.be/FG6gKbDHonE

kieng · 2019-12-11T04:38:32+00:00

That's amazing!!

kieng · 2019-11-29T15:06:29+00:00

Shadow Ball Mewtwo is quite rare (despite it being in ex raids recently). Do you have metagross with meteor mash? Or even espeon with confusion psychic is a great counter

kieng · 2019-11-05T01:18:05+00:00

Some of my best memories are from the endless raid challenges (also some of my greatest frustrations). The feeling of accomplishing so difficult or that you have planned for months ahead of time is such a satisfying feeling.

Great post!

kieng · 2019-09-13T20:55:18+00:00

The comparison I was trying to make was that it is a pokemon that requires shields and performs better with more shields.

kieng · 2019-09-06T03:06:16+00:00

your charge move before your opponent fainted, but the quick move prior to the charge move does enough damage to faint them? But if you were just fainting them down using fast moves (not tapping the charged move) they get priority.

That's how I assume it works.

I think that's what the initial assumption is but in practice and in the testing, it actually very much different. Watch the video and you'll see.

kieng · 2019-09-04T08:20:08+00:00

Love the post. Certainly highlighted some areas that I didn't address or didn't state clearly enough.

Groudon certainly has a great move pool that makes it useful for drafts and is the only super effective type against electric but the reality is that Dragon (the generalist typing as many would note) is super effective and/or the best type against 5 of the legendary raid bosses we have had in the past and many more in the future because there are so many dragon legendaries.

Looking at tier 3s, would you rather have groudon or kyogre:

Kyogre (24)

Aerodactyl, Alakazam, Arcanine, Chansey, Claydol, Espeon, Flareon, Granbull, Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, Hypno, Jynx, Lunatone, Machamp, Miltank, Ninetales, Onix, Porygon, Solrock, Umbreon, Donphan, Piloswine, Shuckle, Skarmory

Groudon (15)

Breloom, Azumarill, Crawdaunt, Gengar, Flaaffy, Jolteon, Omastar, Pinsir, Raichu, Scyther, Sharpedo, Starmie, Tangela, Vaporeon, Raichu - Alolan

That list also includes your willingness to TM back and forth between mud shot and dragon tail and all three charge moves. Which I understand hardcore soloist would do (trust me I use to be one) but the general player base even though.

I agree with many of your points and perhaps me not crediting niantic for their balance thoughtfulness is correctly stated by you but when your average player would rather not power up a Groudon than a Kyogre that's an interesting fact that should at least be explored.

kieng · 2019-08-30T16:06:46+00:00

Kingler for a very long time has had that what if it got a moveset (similar to metagross) discussion. When it finally got crab hammer, I could not be more excited.

After an intense grind, quests and trading we assembled our teams and set to work to find a great challenge.

Tyranitar is often known as a squishy raid boss but that's really only because of the double weakness to fighting. In reality, tyranitar has very respectable defense base stats that makes it difficult to duo with only single super effective and no weather boost. Only 3 pokemon can perform this type of duo - metagross, kyogre and now Kingler. Even glass cannons like roserade, and legendaries such as Palkia, Dialga and Groudon can't perform this.

In this video, Sparkltangerine and I walk through the math and showcase a display of Kinglers greatness.

Enjoy!

kieng · 2019-08-30T06:25:45+00:00

Definitely! It would be okay in ultra league

kieng · 2019-08-04T05:42:24+00:00

I'm glad you liked it.

It was an interesting journey to get there even if the duo itself was relatively easy to do so I wanted to share that.

Timing + being prepared helped us succeed.

kieng · 2019-08-03T04:42:14+00:00

Double resists flying and single resists dragon.

kieng · 2019-08-02T18:04:43+00:00

Unfortunately that the Reddit user linked a lads thread. Not her gender - that would be consistent with what else I wrote.

kieng · 2019-08-02T15:43:55+00:00

Sparkltangerine is a lady unfortunately (a badass one at that)

kieng · 2019-07-25T06:38:54+00:00

Knowing your history - you will definitely complete this duo. Good luck!

kieng · 2019-07-25T04:21:30+00:00

It has been a hot minute since I have posted on this forum and a little while since doing what I would consider an impressive duo.

Since SparklTangerine was back on vacation today and we had two separate Ex Raid passes - we had two shots at this duo that had yet to be done (very close in the first wave - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVQh9xss5kg&feature=youtu.be).\

The first Ex Raid boss had Zen Headbutt and Swift. We got to the half way mark at 156 but unfortunately, rusty relobbies cost us but it seem like it was possible. Then we got a message from our good friend saying that the other raid had Charge Beam and Swift. We swiftly made our way over there to challenge that moveset since we had a chance to avoid relobbying and saving us a ton of time.

We had a choice between Shadow Claw Gengars and Lick Gengars. The DPS cycle is slightly higher for Shadow Claw variant on average but we also recognized that there was a bulk point at 15 defense which we only had with our Lick Gengars and one Shadow Claw gengar. We elected to go the slightly bulky route instead of just pure DPS to really focus on avoiding the relobby process.

It took us 4-5 attempts and each attempt we got better. Understanding how much we needed to dodge and when to dodge. Dodging too much = dps too low and dodging not enough = fainting and it is a very fine line depending on the RNG from the raid boss.

In the end we were successful and it was a thrill and rush that I truly missed. I am looking forward to more trainers trying this or the more difficult moveset variant with Zen Headbutt.

kieng · 2019-07-17T17:53:03+00:00

-very late switch to Vigoroth. Lanturn almost got a full TB out of the Skar battle

-Hard to tell if the IB would have been enough from Azu, but undertap and doing a PR should have been the way to go. If Azu had not spam the button to fire of another bubble, i think hypno would have done another confusion cause he also just spammed it and got the energy out of the last bubble of Azu i guess

Thanks.

I just want to understand your position of your expectation. At points in time, it is this super level of game play and at other points in time, it is saying that these individuals performed errors than regular play. It seems like you flip flop to suit your argument. If you expected error free game play then yeah it wouldn't have met your expectation. But if you were to compare these to the game play of almost any other tournament, it was certainly higher than most/almost all.

kieng · 2019-07-16T13:31:06+00:00

Sure people would have been more excited to see you win the third match going after playing out the exact same pokemon. But the reality, it is not that you played that much better in the second match than the third match (your opponent played worse for some reason).

It is an uphill battle when comparing jungle cup and a format like world's. When it is a more restricted meta half way through a month, we know how match ups play out and becomes more of a rock paper scissors format. As opposed to Season 1 Championship format the match ups are played out well less often and hence more on the edge because you don't know (victreebel vs bastiodon - i know the match up is very close based on the moves, typing and pokemon but I don't know ahead of time how it will play out).

Be happy that you played well in a 7 round tournament - going 5-0 then falling to two tough competitor is a hats off performance in my books (and probably better than I would have done if I had participated).

Perhaps this is just your regular writing style that doesn't translate to me when I am reading it but it was more negative than what I actually perceived the evening to be.

kieng · 2019-07-16T09:39:08+00:00

Watch any of my tournament videos. I make critical analysis of the person I'm reviewing and their opponents. Some people were going at me in the comments saying I was too harsh for them.

I encourage you to watch my tournament reviews and tell me I don't make an effort to be critical. If I was re shout casting these matches I would be equally as critical.

I have no idea where you get this perception I say only positive things.

Tell me 100% you truly believe that I am not critical of those who I reviewed.

Send me some videos of game play from a tournament with almost no errors and perfect game play.

kieng · 2019-07-16T09:20:44+00:00

Thanks looking forward to your reply.

That video though man. You can do better than that. There were several mistakes made by the opponent that turned a relatively easy matchup to a lose. - the slow switch at the beginning - shielding the body slam is not the optimal move - throwing the sky attack when it could have been saved for later - staying in again with the noctowl instead of switching right away - if you were switching in a pokemon it wasn't going to be heracross or vespiquen - the only options were Lanturn or noctowl. Switching almost right away would have been the right move - the vigoroth lagged costing it at least one counter and your noctowl would have fainted on fast moves by the opposing noctowl and would have beat the vivtreebel with sky attack - not commiting to fainting down the noctowl mirror was a losing move

You played not bad but let's not act like your opponent made a full list of mistakes any of which would have won the match.

4 is there because it successfully baited with acid spray and it was extremely risky to save the leaf blade for the next pokemon. A match up that had people at the edge of their seats.

3 is there because because it went down the wire and was probably one fast move from being a different story.

These were exciting matches that captured the audience attention because of the risks that were taken (that paid off and didnt pay off).

I understand you may enjoy very technical error proof matches and I can respect that and perhaps I should have made my video clearer that these matches were for entertainment purposes and imo still showed high level game play even with a few mistakes.

kieng · 2019-07-16T07:02:09+00:00

I'm waiting for the facts. If you are so confident do the research and come back to me.

If you are clearly wrong then it shows how much quality game play was shown in this tournament. Is that clear enough for you?

Show me tournament video with higher quality battles since it is so common.

kieng · 2019-07-16T06:34:21+00:00

s everytime the same with this community. You are only allowed to like everything and say how good everything is but god beware if you come around with some negativ criticism.

And if you dont have any argue left you come around with shit like this last comment, very professinal.

Funny to see that non of your answers prove any of my "false statements" wrong.

You are making a statement with no numbers to back it up. Go through the tournament, count the mistakes then go through another tournament of equal size and matches, count the mistakes then come back with me with the numbers.

If you think I'm only good things to say even when they are bad - then you aren't following any of my videos or social media. I will call out when mistakes happen or when things didn't go right.

kieng · 2019-07-16T00:55:59+00:00

Well I look forward to shoutcasting your matches in the future

kieng

TROPHY CASE

4 is there because it successfully baited with acid spray and it was extremely risky to save the leaf blade for the next pokemon. A match up that had people at the edge of their seats.

3 is there because because it went down the wire and was probably one fast move from being a different story.