GSC Cup VII - Finals [Won by Altina]

Lavos makes Cup Final three consecutive years and wins it twice; and Tony, starting in the last year that Lavos won, makes three finals in a row. Yet, according to you, somehow GSC is a "glorified coinflip" and Jynx of all things needs to be banned??? We get it: we saw you play; you don't understand the tier. Take your stolen victory and leave this tier alone.
Best of 163 me rfn.

D4 once made a comment somewhere that to truly prove the worth of two players at possibly a similar skill level you'd need to do a best of 163 games (first to, 82 wins). Only then can you know for sure who is better. This became a running gag between me anand him.
 
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I wasn't going to do this given that I'm the one that actually lost this final (again), but I feel compelled to write a GSC appreciation post after reading what Altina said. I didn't lose because of the tier or some kind of 'GSC moment' at all and coming just short once again has not changed my overwhelmingly positive view of the tier whatsoever. I would hate for anyone to watch the replays or read Altina's post and close this thread thinking to themselves they're never gonna touch this "fundamentally flawed" tier. I'll go into detail about a couple of the most common misconceptions about the tier, so apologies in advance for the length of this post.

Before I started regularly playing this tier my perception of it was terrible, too. I saw Sleep Talk every other turn, I saw 2 hour long games of two unkillable teams making progress ever so slowly and couldn't imagine ever wanting to seriously play it myself. Then I became teammates with Fear in SPL and he taught me that there is much, much more to it than that. GSC, like most tiers, can easily be a more proactive and offensively inclined metagame as well, so long as you make that decision in the team builder yourself. Everything might have maxed out EVs and seem unkillable, but that's not anything Gen 2 Explosion mechanics or Spikes damage cares about. Take a look at my series against Fear two weeks ago for this tournament, for example. Look at the teams I used. Once you learn to know GSC better you'll find that offense is infinitely more consistent than stall. That Jolteon is supposed to be Thunderbolt, btw. I changed it to Thunder last minute and nearly paid the price.

The frequent use of inaccurate attacks such as Thunder are another entry level obstacle that new players have to get past, and it's something that deterred me at first as well. GSC does not have items like Choice Band or Life Orb (and that's not a bad thing), while items like Magnet only give a 10% boost in power, so in order to attain some real juice you have to use the most powerful attacks available. That doesn't mean every game relies on 'needing' to hit your attacks at all, though. In my semis series against Vileman, I missed all 4 of my Magnet boosted Thunders with Zapdos. Defensively I had a 100% accurate Gengar with Thunderbolt and Explosion, a 100% accurate Snorlax with Double-Edge and Sleep Talk and a 100% accurate Alakazam with Psychic and Fire Punch to back me up against the various threats Zapdos is supposed to deal with, such as Machamp in this particular game. I opt into the lower accuracy to actually have a chance to break through more defensive structures, while respecting the negatives that come with it in the team builder. As a result, I wasn't in trouble that game despite not hitting my attacks. Are there games where a Vaporeon sweeps because it dodged two Thunders? Yes. Are there games Vaporeon doesn't sweep because Zapdos Sleep Talked a Thunder and hit? Yes. It's still Pokemon. Rock Slide flinches in ADV, Iron Head flinches in DPP and Scald burns in BW function similarly, for example, and I still love playing those tiers, too. We all know what game we're signing up to play at the end of the day.

Next, Sleep Talk and it being considered a 'glorified coinflip'. Sleep Talk is uniquely strong in GSC due to its ability to call Rest and actually using the attack instead of it failing like in later generations. Pair this with just one layer of Spikes, no Stealth Rock, next to no power boosting items and maxed out EVs by default and you might want to give up on killing anything before even starting. Sleep Talk working the way it does isn't necessarily a negative, though. It's an integral part of the metagame and in a lot of ways helps balance things, such as Sleep inducing moves like Lovely Kiss and the immense power of special attackers like Zapdos. It makes the tier a lot more proactive in being able to answer threats defensively. It's much more dynamic and if anything makes Sleep Talk less of a dice roll, as Rest is often neutral at worst as a move called by Sleep Talk. Granted, sometimes you want to avoid resetting your Sleep counter as well, which is why we see (especially experienced) players burn turns in certain situations instead. Sleep Talk is not always 'free' and it takes some getting used to when you're new to the metagame, but it's actually a very interesting and iconic part of how the tier functions, in my opinion.

As for the fishing, the luck and the painful anti-Jynx arguments, there's some truth to it, though it's short sighted for the most part. Back in the day every GSC team had Curse Lax (without Sleep Talk), Zapdos as the Electric-type and often stacked Pokemon like Rhydon, Steelix, Machamp, Exeggutor and other such easy targets for special attackers like Jynx. And I do mean like Jynx, not just Jynx. As with any tier, GSC has evolved over time and developed into a faster paced and more varied metagame in terms of offensive pieces you can use, particularly on the special attacking side. If you think you can throw Snorlax into anything that uses special attacks, especially without Rapid Spin (shoutouts to the then non-existent Golem), you're gonna lose. Whether that's Jynx, Zapdos, Gengar, Exeggutor, Vaporeon, Alakazam, Starmie, Jolteon or Espeon, you need a plan beyond Snorlax. That list doesn't even include one of the most consistent Talk-less Snorlax punishers, which is Nidoking. Not every team can afford running Curse Lax anymore, and that's okay. Those that can will have adapted in other ways, such as using Rapid Spin and Rest Talk Raikou. It's almost as if you have to be mindful of things in the team builder like in other metagames. I'm just as shocked as you are...

Jynx specifically puts Curse Lax to sleep and proceeds to spam its very spammable STAB moves, which is true. Jynx has STAB Ice Beam and that can freeze, which is also true. Jynx's counters, however, often get to attack it using Sleep Talk as you have to absorb Lovely Kiss, and are thus immune to freeze during that time. If your counterplay to Jynx is burning Sleep turns and then reapplying Rest after, you're going to have some trouble against crits and Psychic drops, sure. The solution to that is not banning Jynx, though. The solution is respecting it like you would other Pokemon in the tier. Special attackers are taking over in a tier where MAX UND MAX UND MAX UND MAX UND MAX UND MAX Snorlax is on every team, which to me is nothing but a testament to how diverse this metagame can be even with a limited Pokedex. I lost game 1 to Altina because my Cloyster and Golem got crit by the one attack each of them took, because my Snorlax got frozen by Gengar immediately, and because Altina's Snorlax avoided all critical hit and paralysis chances I got even after that. That's rotten luck, but not anything GSC specific. It's just Pokemon, old gens with x2 1/16 crits in particular, and I'm at peace with that. The game isn't perfect and the tier obviously isn't perfect either, but to put getting bailed on a tier and to then suggest a Jynx ban after admitting you don't play or even know this often misunderstood metagame is nonsense. Much like a Zapdos trapped by Mean Look, GSC will never escape misconceptions like these, but I wanted to say what I had to say nonetheless. There's a reason players like Lavos, Fear and now even me have found consistency here. If anyone ever wants to give learning GSC a shot, I'm always a Discord PM away. Perhaps you too could lose a GSC Cup final. :joy:
 

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