u/Pokesabre

Due to a convoluted series of events, I'm soon going to be in possession of 2/3rds of a sword (grip + modern sparring blade) based around a 1912 pattern British cavalry sabre, and am going to be getting in touch with an armourer/smith to have a guard made for it. Given the nature of the grip (and my own personal preferences), it isn't really suited to a simple guard (bar/styrup, etc) and there are a few different options of guard style I'm consisdering

But to get a few more ideas for what I could go with - what are everyone's favourite complex guards they've seen? I'm partial to a mortuary guard and the 1899 British heavy cavalry one, but what other cool ones are out there?

Just been playing champions ranked doubles for a while, and I've been noticing that basically no one on there seems to know how to use M Staraptor effectively, to the point that I actually kinda look forward to seeing it in preview. I'm going to caveat everything that follows with the fact that I'm in ultra ball rank 3 currently, and this is coming from climbing up from pokeball, and I'm running a rain/tailwind/Mega Meganium team

Every Mraptor team I've come up against has been some form of Mraptor setup team, with a bit of a variety of which specific moves and mons are being used, but all with the idea of boosting Mraptor's attack and/or (usually physical) defence. I've seen charm, screech, fake tears, tickle, and even chilling water across empoleon, whimsicott, sableye, and at least one other that slips the mind. Every single one of these teams folded as soon as the Mraptor went down (typically through fake out + wave crash/hurricane/dazzling gleam under TW) because half the team was dedicated to very obviously boosting one mon. Because of the investment required, and the fact that at least one team member is basically useless without Mraptor, I don't think there's a single version of this team that can be made to work reliably. They're just easily countered by even semi-competent team building. This feels like the obvious way to build for Mraptor, but it's a great way of painting a giant glowing target on the lynchpin of your team that says "take me out and everything else folds immediately"

The Mraptor teams that I'm actually kind scared of, but haven't actually come up against yet, are the ones that realise that Mraptor is best as an offensive support mega. BB + CC + protect + TW on a full speed, full hp Mraptor scares me next to any other strong offensive mon (gholdengo, garchomp, basculegion, etc) is a genuinely scary prospect. It provides intimidate, speed control, power and bulk all in one pretty compact and flexible package that I feel could be a dominating force pretty easily