Qwachansey
Active Member
I would love to see SP decline/die/be buried alive.
The End of SP
- Thread starter darksoulSP
- Start date
ShuckleLVX
Active Member
If by "dead" you mean "other decks are starting to catch up", then yes, SP is dead.
But of course, that also means Apple is dead, because Google is starting to catch up in the Smartphone race.
But of course, that also means Apple is dead, because Google is starting to catch up in the Smartphone race.
LuxChomp is still the best deck in the format. Gyarados is a close second. Vilegar is still horrible. Machamp can't beat vilegar or Gyarados, and therefore becomes a worse and worse deck choice the less the "average" player uses SP. So the less SP gets used, the less you can justify using Machamp, and the easier it is for SP to exist despite it. For reference, at Cities this weekend, me and Martin went roughly 10-1 ( the loss being my Unown Q getting t1d ) vs Machamp using LuxChomp.
The issue isn't " SP being dead " as most of the games top players have been doing extremely well with it still. The issue is a lot of peoples lists have fallen behind and haven't caught up to the other new deck builds yet. Sorry to burst your bubble.
The issue isn't " SP being dead " as most of the games top players have been doing extremely well with it still. The issue is a lot of peoples lists have fallen behind and haven't caught up to the other new deck builds yet. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Vilegar is horrible? Sorry, but no it isn't. People have been saying this for ages, and yet Vilegar was always in the top 4 decks in regards to winning/top cutting in BRs, and seems to be doing that again for Cities. Vilegar is not at all horrible. Is it the BDIF? Of course not. But it's certainly good.
JimboPro
New Member
You have obviously never used a good SP deck... It takes crucial moves at the right time to make it work. I can get crushed by horrible decks running my luxchomp, I make a bad play here or a bad play there... grab a poke turn when I should have grabbed an e-gain, poke turned a pokemon to early, there is skill involved !!!
nnaann
New Member
Vilegar is the most overated deck out there at the moment, it loses to any decent player. Regigigas is one of the top decks at the moment, but it's not exactly up there on tournament wins - it doesn't prove everything.
Yes, it doesn't prove everything, but it proves something. To call Vilegar "terrible" is to choose to ignore that it's done well. Vilegar was overhyped, yes, but it's still a good deck that's picked up quite a few wins. Until it quits winning, I'm going to continue calling it a good deck, since a good deck is one that wins, plain and simple.
Regis_Neo
Moderator
This pretty much. SP decks will not die till the rotation either deletes their sets (HGSS On) or cuts them in half (RR On, assuming they do standard 4 sets cut).
Besides, SP decks are still winning and placing in the top 4 in quite a few Cities last I checked. Gyarados and Gigas I think are more flavor of the month decks, since it got the huge boost from TM Trainer/Supporter love, whereas those cards didn't impact SP decks as much.
nnaann
New Member
The only reason that Vilegar wins is because it beats medicore players. Once you start to hit bigger tournaments with alot more solid players, you're going to run into alot of problems. It's only real success was during Battle Roads which kind of says it all.
It's not completely unaccurate to say that something is good because it wins tournaments, but testing matchups to define a tier list is so much more accurate. Tournament results are swayed by the amount of people playing the deck (reason Regigigas doesn't do so well in that regard), those local metagames which are different to other peoples and just how good the player base is there. I have a big problem putting Vilegar along the same lines as Dialgachomp and Gyarados judging by tournament results when it loses horribly to anything SP.
Elite_4_Allen
New Member
vilegar has won some cities and you can't deny that.
Your argument isn't really looking good when you're trying to say that a deck that is topping at a lot of tournaments is bad, then you're saying that a deck that has won close to no tournaments this year is one of the top decks.
I disagree that the ONLY reason it wins is because it beats mediocre players. I don't care how good of a player you are: If you are trainer locked for an entire game with Gyarados, you're hurting. Yes, there are ways out of trainer locks. Yes, skilled players can make a game of it, but it doesn't mean it isn't difficult.
And note, I never said Vilegar was amazing. I only said it was good. I'd agree it's not BDIF. In fact, of the "big 4" (Luxchomp, Dialgachomp, Gyarados, Vilegar), Vilegar is probably at the bottom. Still, claiming it's a bad deck is simply inaccurate. It's good.
ShadowGuard
<a href="http://pokegym.net/forums/showpost.php?p=
Vilegar is just as good as its techs are. For example, if you don't run either Blaziken or Nidoqueen, it's autoloss against Steelix. If you do, you have a decent matchup. Yes, Vilegar can be outplayed if the opponent is both skilled and lucky. That's why many good players don't choose it as their main deck. But except for Dialgachomp, it has decent matchups all over the field and is highly disruptive.
Deck tiers aren't determined what single players think is good. Last season, I personally found Jumpluff was a horrible deck. It completely relied on luck, if you were trainer locked or didn't manage to get out your stuff T1 the game was probably lost against a good oponent with a decent start. At our Nationals, Jumpluff was played - by good players - almost as often as Luxchomp, but there was a single one in the top cut, while nine SP decks made it. But tournament results say it was tier one, no matter if it's just because of hype or because it's easy to play. And if Vilegar does as well at City Championships as it did this weekend, it will stay tier 1, no matter if some people say it's a bad deck,
Deck tiers aren't determined what single players think is good. Last season, I personally found Jumpluff was a horrible deck. It completely relied on luck, if you were trainer locked or didn't manage to get out your stuff T1 the game was probably lost against a good oponent with a decent start. At our Nationals, Jumpluff was played - by good players - almost as often as Luxchomp, but there was a single one in the top cut, while nine SP decks made it. But tournament results say it was tier one, no matter if it's just because of hype or because it's easy to play. And if Vilegar does as well at City Championships as it did this weekend, it will stay tier 1, no matter if some people say it's a bad deck,
Blaziken 1111
Active Member
I haven't read a lot of this but I just tallied up the cities results and luxchomp has the most wins and top cuts after week 1. Also Dialga also has had a strong presence so far. I wouldn't call sp dead, theres just another deck that can compete with luxchomp.
darksoulSP
New Member
Here in SoCal, which, incredibly biased as I may be, I find to be one of the most difficult metas to overcome, SP is a rare occurrance. Great players in my area have all switched to Gyarados or Machamp.
I eagerly await the arrival of Lost World to truly clean up this SP mess that has been plaguing the format.
I eagerly await the arrival of Lost World to truly clean up this SP mess that has been plaguing the format.
Really, Machamp? Interesting, since in my experience it really isn't too great right now, since as you said SP is less common and Gyarados has the edge over Machamp. Heck, even Vilegar has the edge over Machamp. Machamp just isn't the best play right now.
I also have noticed this in and around San Diego. SP still has a presence, but most players I saw at cities and at leagues are running DonChamp or Gyarados, and even hybrids of the two now. There's still VileGar floating around, and it took second at SD Cities.
I too await the arrival of Lost World, though it would just cause the shift in meta to change from one thing to another probably :nonono:
nnaann
New Member
I don't want a big debate over this, we're both entitled to our opinions :thumb:. Gengar had the same problem a couple of years ago, although it had some tournament success, it was easy to play around and because of that struggled against top players.
My main issue with Vilegar is that from my testing, it ran about 50/50 against Gyarados not running Dialga G Lv X, 20/80 to Dialgachomp, 30/70 to Luxchomp. I just think with Cities and States coming up, it's less of a good choice as it was for BRs. Personally, there's about 10 decks I would rather play at a tournament before Vilegar.