Resource Simple Questions, Simple Answers / Little Cup Information / Forum Rules

Coconut

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LC Leader
What is Little Cup, and what makes it different than the other tiers?

Little Cup is a very unique and interesting tier. Unlike other tiers, which are based around level 100 Pokemon, Little Cup plays with Pokemon that are all level 5. Also, Little Cup further restricts the rules to include only Pokemon that can evolve and are the lowest evolution in their evolution chains. This creates a drastically different metagame in Little Cup than from other tiers, and Little Cup contains a lot of Pokemon that you simply would never see used anywhere else in competitive Pokemon. Because of its uniqueness, Little Cup exists in a state of its own-- it has its very own banlist, which means bans made in other tiers don't affect Little Cup at all (for example, in XY, Pawniard was considered NU, but was also legal in Little Cup). It's a ground for baby Pokemon to grit their teeth and show their evolved counterparts how powerful they can be as well.

What Pokemon are legal in Little Cup?

Pokemon only need to follow two rules in order to be eligible for Little Cup.
  1. All Pokemon need to be level 5.
  2. The Pokemon must be able to evolve, but be in the lowest stage of evolution. For example Pichu is legal, but Pikachu is not.
In addition to that, the following Pokemon, moves, abilities, and items are banned in Little Cup:
Pokemon: Scyther, Sneasel, Tangela, Yanma, Swirlix, Gligar, Murkrow, Meditite, Misdreavus, Drifloon, Porygon, Cutiefly, Gothita, Vulpix, Aipom, Trapinch, all single-staged or evolved Pokemon, and any unevolved multi-stage Pokemon that is unavailable at Level 5.
Moves: Dragon Rage, Sonic Boom, Swagger
Abilities: Moody
Items: Eevium Z

You can find explanations for each of the banned Pokemon here.

Where do I play Little Cup?
You can follow the link here to Pokemon Showdown's Little Cup room!

How do I get involved with Little Cup?

Great place to talk to fellow lovers of Little Cup is on the Little Cup room on Pokemon Showdown! Another place to talk to us is the Little Cup Discord which can be found here!

Finally, one of the best ways to contribute to Little Cup is by posting in the forums! I know that doing so can be intimidating if you aren't that interested in a discussion, or are unsure what to post. Rest assured, Little Cup is a judgment free zone. We recommend and even encourage posting from people of any experience level. Keep in mind that every "good" player started off as a "noob" once. We all get better via practice and via contributing, so please do so to your heart's content. If you have any questions about how to contribute, then please don't hesitate to talk to any of the more experienced members of the Little Cup community.

LC Forum Moderators:

Quote
Coconut
Corporal Levi

The LC Council:

Quote (Co-Leader)
Corporal Levi (Co-Leader)
Coconut
Star
Shrug
fatty
Kingler12345
Ninjadog13
tazz



If you have a question that can be answered in one post, please ask it here.

When posting in the thread, please follow these guidelines:
  1. Make sure that your post is relevant to Sun and Moon Little Cup.
  2. Your answers should contain at least a brief explanation, even if it was the simplest of questions.
  3. Do NOT ask for anything that could be considered illegal. This includes anything related to hacking, Action Replay, ROMs, and 3ds hacking.
  4. Remember that in-game questions should be asked in Orange Islands. This subforum is for competitive discussion only. Asking about specific breeding moves and why a certain illegality exists is okay though.
In addition to the information above, if you want permission to post your own thread please ask either Coconut, Corporal Levi, or Quote and one of us will get back to you as soon as we can.
 
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Has Encore been nerfed? I had a match where my opponent used Encore against my Scraggy after it set up a Dragon Dance, and it said "it doesn't affect Scraggy".
 

Jett

gm gobodachis
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Has Encore been nerfed? I had a match where my opponent used Encore against my Scraggy after it set up a Dragon Dance, and it said "it doesn't affect Scraggy".
Prankster means that status moves don't affect dark types so encore hasn't been nerfed but the ability prankster has
Just played against somebody using Type: Null against me in LC. I thought Type: Null was not lc legal as it's min level is 40 and it is unbreedable? Is this a mistake or am I behind the times??
Yes I think it isn't allowed since it's level 40 plus, it's NFE not LC for /dt so probably a mistake which should be solved soon.
 
Type: Null isn't available at level 5, as the only way you can get it is at level 40, and it cannot breed. So it was not eligible for LC in the first place.
thx, i havent bought sun or moon, so yeah. I played little cup a little last year, but i mostly do doubles, is lc more or less the same?
 

Coconut

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thx, i havent bought sun or moon, so yeah. I played little cup a little last year, but i mostly do doubles, is lc more or less the same?
Because LC carried over their banlist from ORAS, it hasn't changed too much. But there's some new tools and some cool stuff to play around with, you should give it a try!
 
I'm just coming back to playing Pokémon LC now that school is coming to a close. Is there an article/a topic/thread with a banlist with explanations for why the mons are banned like in the previous generation? Cause I have been living under a rock and did not understand the Porygon ban until I saw how broken Z-conversion was, so glad that is gone but still would be nice to have a general point of reference.

I'll make sure to join the Discord when I'm home too
 
I'm just coming back to playing Pokémon LC now that school is coming to a close. Is there an article/a topic/thread with a banlist with explanations for why the mons are banned like in the previous generation? Cause I have been living under a rock and did not understand the Porygon ban until I saw how broken Z-conversion was, so glad that is gone but still would be nice to have a general point of reference.

I'll make sure to join the Discord when I'm home too
I'm working on one right now. It's fully typed up, just got to pass the QC & Grammar people
 

Nineage

Pugnacious.
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I'm just coming back to playing Pokémon LC now that school is coming to a close. Is there an article/a topic/thread with a banlist with explanations for why the mons are banned like in the previous generation? Cause I have been living under a rock and did not understand the Porygon ban until I saw how broken Z-conversion was, so glad that is gone but still would be nice to have a general point of reference.

I'll make sure to join the Discord when I'm home too
This just happened.

I know you posted a bit ago, but if you haven't done it yet, come join the Discord soon!
 
Cosmog is the first in it's evolution line and you get it at level five. Does that mean it's eligible despite technically being a legendary?
 

Gummy

...three, smiles go for miles!
In the C&C forum for LC Analyses, are you allowed to post a quick suggestion? I know it's all very streamlined and there are specific people who are allowed to do QC checks and all, but are you allowed to make a casual comment, such as "mudbray's a good team member for this one because of x, y, and z"? Asking because I know in this forum, in particular, you need permission before making a thread.
 
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In the C&C forum for LC Analyses, are you allowed to post a quick suggestion? I know it's all very streamlined and there are specific people who are allowed to do QC checks and all, but are you allowed to make a casual comment, such as "mudbray's a good team member for this one because of x, y, and z"? Asking because I know in this forum, in particular, you need permission before making a thread.
Ya everyone's allowed to post suggestions but only QC members' checks are required to be implemented.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but how can LC pokemon have perfect EV's? Smogon follows what is legal in games right? So is it possible in game for a level 1 pokemon to reach the max amount of ev's before reaching level 5? Seems like you'd level past that long before you did. The only gen where I can see that is gen 6 due to super training, but what about other gens? Am I just missing something?
 

Coconut

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LC Leader
Correct me if I'm wrong, but how can LC pokemon have perfect EV's? Smogon follows what is legal in games right? So is it possible in game for a level 1 pokemon to reach the max amount of ev's before reaching level 5? Seems like you'd level past that long before you did. The only gen where I can see that is gen 6 due to super training, but what about other gens? Am I just missing something?
A combination of vitamins and wings can easily get you to whatever EV's you need.
 
So that's gen 6 and 5. What about other gens? Vitamins can only get you to 100, and wings didn't exist before gen 5. Also only the health wing is available in SM.
 

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