Resource "LCing" - A Brief Guide to the Mechanics of Little Cup

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Merritt

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Little Cup can seem difficult to get into at a glance. A tier where Pokemon are Level 5 instead of Level 100 can seem like it would result in needing to relearn everything you've already established about other singles tiers. Fortunately, this isn't the case, and most playing skill and knowledge is fairly transmittable to the Little Cup tier. In this thread I'll go into the stuff that's different - the basic mechanical changes you should be aware of before jumping into Little Cup as a result of the tier being played at Level 5.

This guide is intended to be near universally applicable regardless of the current state of the Little Cup metagame. This means specific Pokemon choices or anything more than the absolute broadest metagame trends Little Cup tends to see will not be discussed in detail. Rather, this is intended to cover the differences between playing a Level 100 tier and a Level 5 tier.

:eevee:
EVing

The primary difference between Level 100 and Level 5 within the teambuilder is a difference in the effectiveness of EVs. At Level 100, adding 4 EVs will always increase a stat by at least one (with rare occasions where 4 EVs can increase a stat by 2 due to a nature boost). If you're familiar with VGC or other Level 50 metagames, you might be aware this changes to require 8 EVs after the initial investment of 4. In Little Cup, the EVs required to increase a stat by one point after the initial investment is 80 EVs.

Initial investment here refers to the number of EVs required to initially increase a stat by one prior to the +80 EV requirement afterwards. This number varies depending on a Pokemon's base stat, but follows a consistent pattern according to the base stat's last digit. A Pokemon with a base stat of 65 will require the same number of EVs to increase that stat by 1, 2, or 3 as a Pokemon with a base stat of 75, 95, or 15.

The Pokemon Showdown teambuilder EV sliders will automatically snap to the next useful value for EVing to make things easier, but a full chart of EV requirements from minimum to maximum investment is below for base stats ending in each digit.

_0: 36 /116 / 196 EVs
_1: 28 / 108 / 188 EVs
_2: 20 / 100 / 180 EVs
_3: 12 / 92 / 172 / 252 EVs
_4: 4 / 84 / 164 / 244 EVs
_5: 76 / 156 / 236 EVs
_6: 68 / 148 / 228 EVs
_7: 60 / 140 / 220 EVs
_8: 52 / 132 / 212 EVs
_9: 44 / 124 / 204 EVs

You definitely don't need to memorize these numbers, though you may find it somewhat helpful to learn the _0 and _5 base stat EV requirements as they are by far the two most common base stat ending digits in LC.

Be aware that not every Pokemon will be capable of utilizing all 508 EVs! Depending on the Pokemon and the stat spread you're using, you may end up with anywhere between 0 and 76 EVs that are incapable of boosting a Pokemon's stats further.

As an additional note, all above numbers assume an IV of 31. If you reduce the IV by 1 then the EV requirement for the initial investment increases by 4. This is mostly relevant for metagames with Hidden Power, as it can easily change EV requirements and even stat benchmarks a Pokemon is able to hit.

:pawniard:
Stat Compression

Stats at Level 5 are compressed compared to Level 100. This means that two Pokemon with different base stats may be able to hit the exact same stat value, though they will have different EV requirements, as outlined in the section above.

At maximum EV investment, Pokemon with base stats between 3-12, 13-22, 23-32, 33-42, 43-52, 53-62, 63-72, 73-82, 83-92, 93-102, and so on will achieve the exact same stat value. You can probably spot the pattern here. Keep in mind this is for maximum EV investment - you may have noticed in the EVing section above that base stats ending in _3 and _4 are capable of increasing their stat value four times rather than the three times every other ending digit is limited to. The base stats with identical stat values change at 0 EV investment.

With no EV investment, Pokemon with base stats between 5-14, 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-74, 75-84, 85-94, 95-104, and so on will have the exact same stat values. You can probably spot the pattern here too.

Generally speaking, this information will be most relevant for the Speed stat. It can be useful for the offensive and defensive stats as well, but most of the time this will let you understand exactly what opposing Pokemon any of yours will likely be able to outspeed and let you act accordingly.

:munchlax:
Items in LC

The hold items in Little Cup are very powerful. While the actual effect may be the same as at Level 100, at Level 5 these effects can have a much stronger relative impact due to lower stats. A few items you're likely to see and should strongly consider using are elaborated on below.

  • Eviolite - In a metagame where every eligible Pokemon is able to evolve, who could have imagined that Eviolite would be commonly used? Eviolite's effect of boosting both defensive stats by 1.5x is simple but very effective, there's not too much to say that's not immediately obvious.
  • Life Orb - Life Orb is primarily being mentioned due to how it interacts with LC's lower potential HP stats. Fractional damage in Pokemon, from sources such as Stealth Rock, recoil, and Life Orb, generally truncates down to the next integer. While for most Pokemon this means that Life Orb will inflict 2 damage per attack, Pokemon with 49 base HP or lower are capable of dropping their maximum HP to 19 (or less), either naturally or through reducing their HP IV, which results in Life Orb only taking 1 HP per attack, roughly 5%. Life Orb users taking advantage of this do suffer from the downside of comparatively low bulk, both due to their low maximum HP and lack of defensive hold items like Eviolite, but seeing 5% Life Orb recoil damage can occasionally throw newcomers to Little Cup.
  • Berry Juice - GENERATIONS 4-8 ONLY! Normally useless at Level 100, Berry Juice provides a raw 20 HP heal when the user's HP drops below 50%. This will usually return a Pokemon to full or near-full HP as long as they survive the hit. As long as the user is able to avoid being KOed from above 50% of their maximum HP, Berry Juice will provide its user with a second chance at life, something near universally useful. Note that Berry Juice is currently unobtainable in Gen 9 LC, with its closest competitor in an Oran Berry being half as strong, which very rarely is capable of restoring a Pokemon to full HP.
  • Choice Scarf - A 1.5x boost to the holder's Speed is hugely powerful in Little Cup due to stat compression. Generally speaking, the highest achievable Speed stat in LC is 20, with rare exceptions when usually banned Pokemon like Scyther and Sneasel are allowed. This means that Pokemon which are able to hit 14 Speed are capable of equipping a Choice Scarf, hitting 21 effective Speed, and outpacing every unboosted Pokemon in the metagame. Since it only requires a base Speed stat of 33 to hit 14 Speed with a boosting nature and maximum EV investment, a large portion of the LC metagame is capable of holding a Choice Scarf and outspeeding everything bar opposing Choice Scarf Pokemon. The downsides of Choice Scarf, besides the usual move lock applied by Choice items, is lacking the longevity provided by items like Eviolite and Berry Juice, while also having to break through those defensive items on opposing Pokemon.

Note that some items that are useful at Level 100 are unviable in Little Cup. This includes Leftovers (which heals only 1 HP per turn on virtually all Pokemon), Assault Vest (which is entirely outclassed by Eviolite), and HP healing berries (all outclassed by Berry Juice in Generations 4-8).


:rolycoly:
Damage Rolls in Little Cup

One thing that may take some getting used to when playing Little Cup is that damage rolls have somewhat more constrained behavior compared to Level 100. While for most calculations there is still an overall swing of ~15-25% damage variance between the highest and lowest damage, similar to Level 100's ~15% random damage variance, the actual spread between each damage roll is significantly reduced.

To provide an example, a normal damage spread at Level 5 for a strong attack may look like this:

(15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 18)

While the actual spread is ~17% (from 18 damage to 15 damage), each hit is much more likely to do the exact same damage as the hit prior, due to there only being 3 possible numbers. In battle, this means that damage is more consistent turn to turn, as if you did 30% the previous turn the same actions have a high chance to result in doing exactly 30% the following turn rather than 27% or 34%.

There are also some calculations where you may see unusual behavior at the very high or very low damage number, while the remaining 14 or 15 damage rolls are identical. This is usually the result of multiple multipliers, like STAB or Super Effective bonuses, though generally these outlier rolls are restricted to a 1/16 chance, the same chance as a critical hit in generations 2-6. Much like a critical hit, these outlier high rolls are unlikely to happen but may necessitate you adjusting your strategy if you're unlucky enough to experience one.

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Hopefully this guide has helped make you more aware of what mechanics you need to be aware of to successfully transition between Level 100 and Level 5! There are likely to be metagame changes to adapt to as well, but the state of the Little Cup metagame evolves over time. Resources such as the Viability Ranking thread and the Metagame Discussion thread can help with forming a better understanding of the current state of LC, but what's been listed out in this thread should be relevant regardless. Please enjoy Little Cup!
 
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