on the merits, cutiefly is extremely broken. the fast special attacking pivot set puts extreme pressure on opposing teams, its 19 speed giving it ample opportunity to fire off moonblasts or uturn to gain momentum while wearing down its few checks. this set can also set webs, nullifying one of its own most important checks (diglett) while removing the possibility of speedchecking medium-speed heavy hitters on the cutie user's team. the most common hazard removers (timburr and vullaby) cannot come in and eat a moonblast, making clearing a multi-stage and (in part because of the pressure exerted by the webs and cutiefly itself) often prohibitively difficult or costly process; bulky dedicated webs sets make removal nigh impossible while retaining much of cutiefly's attacking value. thus far ive neglected the the most immediately apparent example of cutiefly's unplayablity, the qd roost moonblast fourthmove set. it sets up with relative ease on a large portion of the metagame, including on necessary softchecks (mareiene) to the attacking pivots. the forth move either broadens the slate of mons cutie can set up on (substitute, charm) or reduces its need to do so in the first place (bug buzz, psychic). other sets (lo in particular) are usually worse but can be the most problematic for any given team, esp given the often taped-together nature of most cutiefly response plans.





if you dont believe me, look at the last few weeks of spl, or think seriously about your own building and playing. nearly every game had a cutiefly of some sort, determining the set of which occupied a good portion of early game resources in many matches. perhaps more importantly, each team had to pick from the dedicated set of cutiefly checks, a slim set among whom there are few seriously viable mons and fewer easily exploitable by combinations involving cutiefly itself. honedge resists its STABS and coverage, but it doesnt hit hard enough to be viable; munchlax eats moonblasts and shrugs off even boosted psychics, but is a target for knock offs; ponyta can stop a setup, but catch a uturn and it gets picked off for free. basically the two best checks to this are ferro and pawn, with an honorable mention for ponyta and mudbray. this is why every serious spl team in the later weeks included these mons in some combination. that these combinations were an explicit anti-cutie measure is something you'll have to believe, i guess, but i think everyone can see it: cutie is the most dangerous mon in many ladder games, tests etc. confide, recently returned to the lc room, told me after a friendly that he was rusty because he "couldnt build a team without cutiefly"; i responded that his read on the meta was exactly right.