atleast Mid tier 2 and High Tier 2 respectively when they fought A-G. Sawyer's Base Sceptile would be a Low/Mid Tier 1 at the league. For Bisharp, while it didn't receive a hit before getting OHKed by A-G it likely did accumulate significant fatigue from holding off 3 Pokémon making it more susceptible to damage. A good example of this is Pikachu vs Tyrunt. Pikachu also wasn't hit once during the match but fell in exhaustion afterwards making it clear that even a single hit at that point would have been fatal (far more so than potentially getting hit at the beginning of the battle). Essentially the more tiered a Pokémon gets, the greater the aggregate damage it will receive per hit. No way around the Sceptile example though. Frogadier itself could be considered tier 2 worthy so Greninja (who didn't have to change its general fighting style) should at the very least be mid tier 2 when it evolved making Sawyer's Sceptile also atleast Mid Tier 2 for having Greninja on the ropes regardless of type advantage.
While I understand your point about stamina drain rather clearly, are you sure that Heidayu's Bisharp was just High Tier 2? I mean it was steamrolling 3 Pokemon at once(Pikachu+Frogadier+Sanpei's Greninja) single handedly. While Pikachu at that point was probably nerfed and Sanpei's Greninja was rather average, Frogadier is still a solid Tier 2. So if Bisharp was dominating those three at once, I would rather put Bisharp at low tier 1.
Regarding Sawyer's Base Sceptile, it was dominating Base Greninja pretty decisively, so I think rating it as a High Tier 2 would be correct. Frogadier was a solid Tier 2 so Base Greninja should be up there at that point of time. The dominating was probably because Sawyer figured out Greninja's battling style.
Stamina drain taken into account. But that time it was Water-veil Ash-Greninja, not full-form. In full-form probably Ash-Greninja can KO those Pokemon easily without stamina drain.
Then again if we take into account how strong Greninja got from then till the league in addition to the added boost of the A-G form from mastering it, I guess it wouldn't be unreasonable to assert that A-G could OHK all or most tier 2 Pokémon. The only counter point is that A-G hit Abamasnow multiple times (after Greninja hit it multiple times) before Wulfric used ME. Abamasnow had previously lost to Hawlucha in 3 moves (though the equivalent of 15 neutral moves when taking SE and STAB into account). In post #160 of this thread I explained that Greninja/A-G beat Abamasnow/MA in the equivalent of 8.5 neutral moves though I'm not sure if the "attack flurry" assumption I made is valid. Another possible explanation is that Abamasnow can alter the degree to which it can brace itself for an attack thereby altering the amount of damage it takes per hit. We know that Wulfric was specifically going all-out with Abamasnow due to Clemont's statement though it's unclear if my explanation is actually the case. Do you think either of my 2 explanations make sense or how would you explain the Abamasnow case?
Well regarding the Abomasnow case, I would like to point out that while Ash-Greninja didn't KO it instantly, Abomasnow couldn't land a single hit and was getting pummeled like a ragdoll. If Wulfric didn't use Mega Evolution, then Abomasnow would have been surely KO'd without landing a hit. So Ash-Greninja not KOing it instantly wouldn't have mattered anyway, as Abomasnow would have been KO'd without doing any damage at all.
Helps when you draw an idiot like Cameron for the semifinals.
Being idiot=/=being a bad trainer. Cameron still beat Ash with 5 Pokemon, and that's a feat.
There are people like that for every league. The two other rookies from Pallet who set out at the same time as Ash and Gary quit being trainers - goes to show how difficult it was collect 8 badges for the Indigo Plateau.
Yeah but my point was that the earlier round trainers in the KL weren't jobbers as you make it sound like as they had to pass the tough test of collecting 8 badges.
Like any other gym leader. That standard is logically a range too.
Yeah, so the gym challenges proves your standard, that's the purpose of it.
He waited till he was down to Abomasnow, and after Abomasnow had taken a bunch of hits, to then Mega Evolve. He certainly wasn't going all-out, that much is clear.
Well Wulfric was surprised to see Ash-Greninja's power and then he decided to Mega Evolve Abomasnow in response. This gives us a feeling that Wulfric only uses Mega Abomasnow when his challengers are exceptionally strong.
You can't exactly assume that just because the writers screwed over Tierno by giving him 2 Pokemon that were hard-countered by M-Sceptile, but whatever. Then just say "MCX, A-G, and maybe M-S" will require more than one Pokemon to bring down. Don't try to downplay the HL and other leagues with a dumb blanket statement that they lacked "KL power."
Well the point of the Tierno battle was to demonstrate Mega Sceptile's strength and establish it as a strong opponent for Ash and Ash-Greninja for the semifinals. So why would the writers want to screw Tierno? It's true that Mega Sceptile had a type advantage, but it isn't always easy to defeat opponents with that kind of dominance. Mega Sceptile didn't have a scratch at the end of the battle. So it isn't illogical to assume that Ash-Greninja and Mega Sceptile were capable of sweeping the League until the quarterfinals(as Tierno the quarterfinalist should be logically stronger than the previous round trainers). I don't know why you're trying to lowball here.
My point is that MC-X apart, Ash-Greninja and Mega Sceptile were also in in a different level and the Hoenn League did lack the power displayed by these two.
