Little Cup's Little Losers: Tera is Terrible

In an effort to draw in new interest into a series, you’ll typically see sequels add in new mechanics or twists to appeal to new fans. For Pokemon, this has been happening ever since Generation 6. In said generation, it introduced mega evolution, which allowed previously available pokemon to go super saiyan if they had the correct item. Generation 7 said “alright cool everyone can do that and no you can’t skip the cutscene” with Z moves. You got a one time super move that was super jacked. Generation 8 fundamentally broke the game with Dynamax and it got banned from Smogon, a fansite for competitive Pokemon. This extended from Overused, the first tier of Competitive Play down to Little Cup, an aggressive format where only level 5 baby Pokemon can be brought. Turns out doubling your health and boosting your stats at minimal cost was kind of cracked. Generation 9 brought in… Terastalization, Tera for short. This allows a Pokemon to change its type to anything in the entire game. If somebody asked me “hey how can we fix this mechanic?” I would tell them to scrap it. This has caused way too many Pokemon to get banned and is a very unfun play pattern during games. Its unbalanced and not terribly interesting.

Game design is hard, especially if you’re trying to use a pre existing game with a different ruleset. Fortunately, community leaders help manage prominent rules and strategies if they become toxic to the health of our metagames. One such example is Pokemon, which has often been criticized for being unbalanced in single battles compared to Video Game Championship’s (aka VGC) official format of double battles. Fans of competitive pokemon joined together under the banner of Smogon to make their own rulesets for how to play. To ensure that everyone can play with their favorite Pokemon, different tiers are made with differing levels of power. My personal favorite is Little Cup, which only allows unevolved level 5 Pokemon to be brought.

If you want to know more Generation 8 Little Cup, the link is here:
   • Welcome to Little Cup: Generation 8  

Generation 7:
   • Welcome to Little Cup Generation 7  

Generation 6:
   • Welcome to Little Cup: Generation 6  

Generation 5:
   • Welcome to Little Cup: Generation 5  

Generation 4 is here:
   • Welcome to Little Cup: Generation 4  

MagicGoat Channel:
   / @thelovingmagicgoat  

Background Audio in order:
   • Undertale Yellow OST: 077 - Meltdown  
   • Rougher Upper - DELTATRAVELER OST  
   • Undertale OST: 051 - Another Medium  
   • Ruder Monsters - DELTATRAVELER OST  

Chapters:
0:00 Pokemon vs The Cooler Pokemon
1:29 Bad Mechanic that I greatly dislike
5:26 No problems whatsoever nope nope nope
7:26 TSVU Tera Special Victims Unit

#pokemon #littlecup #pokemonscarlet #pokemonviolet #competitivepokemon #smogon #undertale #deltarune #tobyfox #pokemonscarletandviolet