First, the only thing that got deleted was a post that I had made where I felt I was over analyzing things, and it wasn't even actually posted yet. Sorry for being unclear. Second, the big thing I am going to be on about this post is
communication. At this point, I am really weighing what you said carefully, but when we get down to the nitty-gritty, I can explain why what may be "tournament experience" for you may not be the norm.
Hey, no one is wrong here, and there is absolutely no reason to discount my analysis when I've brought Empo to three tournaments and you have not.
Sure there is; read how you wrote your posts. :wink: Seriously though, that is why I opened with what I did; most of your posts have read like you were pulling pretty specific, favorable examples from the air.
I am not a brilliant player. I am not a brilliant writer. I am however an experienced writer; even if I can't write well (and I think I do okay) I can tell when there is something to be desired from writing. Well, most of the time.
Are there times when I make some really stupid posts? Just in this thread alone I managed to make a pretty embarrassing mistake where because I claimed
Stunfisk had 90 HP. :lol: Not one of my finer moments. I was even
wrong there and I can admit that. Everyone may be entitled to an opinion, but not every opinion is factually based. :wink: Point being, your posts have undermined a lot of your arguments.
I'd am more impressed by play-testing five or six dozen games against an established group of skilled players than with winning three tournaments when so far this season, that means three Battle Roads. Are Battle Roads a tournament? Yes they are. Are they a challenge to win? You bet! It is still an accomplishment; congratulations! They are what they are, however; structured differently than many later tournaments, and designed as sort of the first level of competitive, organized play. If I have am incorrect and we've had some other events this season, let me know; I don't want to repeat my earlier mistakes.
So what am I saying, that "Battle Roads" don't count? No, I am saying that
by themselves such wins don't prove you have the best build of the deck. Information such as in your last post, when you bring up that you are using Call For Family mid-game and possibly even late-game, that is much more convincing, whether you won anything with the deck or not. Your latest post is a bit more helpful, as it sort of "connects the dots". I can comprehend better what you've been trying to say.
Stunfisk has shown up in some winning lists; could be flukes, could be people who are ahead of the curve. Not just for
Empoleon, either. To be honest, not in
Empoleon at all; people are so weird at what Pokémon they'll name as part of the "winning" deck and what they won't. So far all the
Empoleon decks I saw in the Battle Roads winners thread have all just said "
Empoleon", and I doubt they were running it on its own. Note: It is quite possible such details are listed farther down in the thread and I just overlooked them.
I at least got side tracked by your versus
Terrakion EX comments because I found them hard to comprehend. You're talking about 2HKOing it, which means hitting for an average of 90 points of damage
twice. That may be exactly how it went down when you faced it in a tournament. It may be how it went down more than once (or all times). Unless every match-up you faced was against
Terrakion EX, it isn't enough data to reliably predict the match-up in the future.
Your "versus
Terrakion EX" examples feel at best like anecdotal wins, and not actually trying to evaluate the match-up. I was so busy trying to point out that a 2HKO against it isn't guaranteed, and that a savvy player will space out Bench drops so that you're not getting 2HKOs even when they
are powering something up with Pump Up Smash I forgot to address
Emolga versus
Stunfisk as relevant to the situation.
In that match-up, a benched
Emolga is a Prize waiting for the right time. It may be a trade in your favor, or it may not, but in the same situation I can toss up a
Stunfisk and now my opponent, even if
Terrakion EX has
Eviolite equipped and no Bench, is stuck taking two turns to go for the 2HKO. Unless they have a
PlusPower, but then we get to the usual "arms race".
You know, which is why responding "
Super Rod and
Tool Scrapper" doesn't constitute a real answer. If this is a more or less pure Quad-
Terrakion EX deck, why don't I get to assume they are using a combo of
Switch,
Max Potion, and
Energy Retrieval? What, you run four
Super Rod and
Tool Scrapper in your
Empoleon deck? If you do, that is unusual enough I think I still get to bring up my counterpoint.
With just one more
Terrakion EX on the Bench,
Empoleon is swinging for 80 per turn, which still means a 3HKO with or without
Eviolite. First turn your main strategy isn't even attacking, and of course maybe
Terrakion EX is getting to go first.
Terrakion EX can safely soak two shots from Attack Command, and even Retaliate (from your plain
Terrakion) to the one Pump Up Smash you can risk. So no Prizes on either side but all four
Max Potion are gone pretty quick.
Is that a cherry-picked match-up? Pretty much. You're giving me one particular scenario to completely determine the match-up; it is akin to me saying
Empoleon clearly must run
Stunfisk and
PlusPower because with both, now versus
Eelektrik decks you donk
Tynamo and versus Dark Trance you donk
Deino. Pretty silly, eh?
Yes, theorymon can be wrong. But when I've taken my list to three tournaments, played all of these matchups we are discussing at BRs.... I'm not sure how "theorymon" that is.
When it relies on things happening "just so", anecdotal matches may still be "Theorymon". How many matches against Quad
Terrakion EX (give or take a counter for Safeguard) did you face? If your victories were numerous and all went down in a similar manner, how much difference will experience in the match-up and deck tweaks make?
Discussing how to play a matchup that i have recently played in an official capacity is not theorymon. Once again, please don't discount my analysis because you believe I am just theorizing. I've played this deck quite a bit, and believe I'm pretty familiar with how most matchups play out.
Then try not to write it out so it sounds like you're just speculating. Say "I just got done running this deck and won three Battle Roads. I faced two
Terrakion EX match-ups each tournament, including facing one player as good as or better than myself twice, and the deck just can't adjust its strategy when facing
Empoleon without hurting all its other match-ups".
Obviously that isn't what happened, but that kind of
phrasing makes it clear you're not just speculating. For all we know, you faced three inexperienced Quad
Terrakion EX players who had bad luck on top of major misplays.
And remember, this thread isn't about Empo's matchups- it's about how Stunfisk would ever help those matchups. How in the world would Stunfisk help against Terrakion EX? If they don't fill their bench, then Stunfisk has nothing to bring up. If they have an eviolite like you suggest, Stunfisk does a whopping 0 damage. If they are a competent player, they are running 4 switch, so rumble isn't the best either.
If you are a competent player, odds are you are just using
Stunfisk as a meat shield if they already have Energy and
Eviolite. You bring up a valid point (which is why this is one of the sections I quoted); I got off focus. Something to remind you is that
we aren't running your deck. Not all
Empoleon builds are the same.
For example, one I ran was
Aerodactyl/
Empoleon/
Stunfisk; it works very different because you want to fill your Bench with as many
Aerodactyl as you can! Yes if the finicky nature of Restored Pokémon forces me to, I'll fill my Bench with a third and fourth
Piplup/
Prinplup/
Empoleon and/or
Stunfisk as necessary, and I might run a
Terrakion or two to help against Weakness match-ups, but Call For Family does more harm than good here.
tl;dr: Your tournament experience came across as idle speculation. It carries weight but just as perhaps I didn't give it enough at first, you need to put it into perspective as well; grinding into Worlds with a perfect record then taking first is not the same as winning three Battle Roads.