Topic: Competitive Pokemon Discussion Topic

I'm kind of surprised there isn't a general discussion topic for this. I'm aware there are X/Y and OR/AS threads, but competitive battling is broader than that.

So yeah. This is a discussion topic for any competitive Pokemon style under the sun (or another star if you're using Clefable, Beeheeyem, etc.). Smogon, VGC, Pokebattle, singles, doubles, triples, R/B/Y, D/P/Pt, whatever.

Wouldn't a topic like this be better in the online gaming section though?

I'll try to start some kind of subject..

I've been getting into VGC myself and I've came up with this nice surprise doublade set. (of course with some opinions from another member who corrected my EV spread to better suit at level 50.. my original spread was calcing for 100s.)

Doublade @ Eviolite
Ability: No Guard
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 148 Atk / 76 Def / 40 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe

• Gyro Ball
• Rock Slide
• Shadow Sneak
• Wide Guard

Wide guard supports heatran, salamence, landorus, amoongus etc from spread moves like EQ, heat wave, hyper voice, icy wing, list goes on while also protecting doublade itself. The EV spreads are made to guarentee a OHKO on max HP talonflame with rock slide while being 3HKO'd by a max attack talonflame flare blitz. Gyro ball and shadow sneak give him some reliable STABs to work with.

RNMG-WWWW-WWWT-ERKD When you cause a high ranked japanese/korean guy to forfeit you know that pokemon is good.

Cool to see a topic like this. Always welcome competitive pokemon discussion on sites other than Smogon and nuggetbridge.

I'm playing Smogon singles at the moment. Since you have to switch over to ORAS for VGC 2015, and there's no upcoming event close enough to me >.>, I'm just taking a break from the format. I'm sure we'll get a new Pokemkn announced within the next two months and I'll just get back into vgc with that one.
For anyone interested, Smogon now has an early android app. I've bren using it to work on my new teams and for alpha stage it works great!

I need to beat AS so I can start making competitive teams. Could always do it on X but people rarely play X and Y anymore. :/ Regardless, I have a few teams in mind I want to use, so I think I'll start coming up with movesets and all that.

Personally, I haven't really gotten back into competitive play since Aegislash was banned. He was kind of the glue holding the best team I ever made together.

I dunno, Nintendo never should've supported competitive leagues in a game that has literally no proper balancing.
The entire idea of this fierce kind of competition is nonsensical to me, anyway, since Pokémon battles flat-out aren't based on fairness at all, making the "competitive scene" feel very forced.

If anything, Nintendo should simply cut all official tournaments, that would shut up the obnoxious Smogon community (who want to kill you for even having a "banned" Poké in regular online battles), and maybe give GameFreak a bit of time to think about better online features.

For someone who is new to competitive play, can someone give me some easy tips to understand how to build an overall good team? Thanks!

Pretty much every team I made in X/Y had one Pokemon that would end up being banned. One team had Aegislash, another had Mega Mawile. Only one team (I only ended up making 3 teams.... Dragonite took way too long to breed so I got burnt out ) didn't have a Pokemon that was banned to Ubers.

Still don't have ORAS yet, but I will probably get back into competitive Pokemon (on cartridge) when I do. Used Mega Beedrill a few times on Showdown though.

@Kaze_Memaryu The tier list is what balances Pokemon (to an extent). Beyond that it's all based on good team composure, player skill, strategy, and out-predicting your opponent. Even then, there will always be another person out there who has a team that can rip your team to shreds.

To a degree, I support Smogon. They provide one of the cleanest 6v6 singles rulesets. Things that are obviously broken like Mega Kanga are removed and things like the evasion and sleep clause prevent some rather infuriating strategies. Also, as a community it can be really helpful for starting a team.

On the other hand, I hate what Smogon has become this generation. The upper eschelon players have become more pretentious than others, even peer pressuring others into voting their way (someone brought this up with the Aegislash ban, with several high ranked mods saying stuff along the lines of "anyone who knows what they are talking about will vote to ban Aegi). These players also love locking up topics that they consider to have "stupid repetitive arguments" and reserving discussion for their locked Victory Road forum.

Even in regard to bans, Smogon has switched from a model of banning as little as possible outside of pokemon to creating sweeping blanket bans that encompass several strategies, all for the sake of not having a slightly more complex ban. For example, no one will argue that Swagger by itself is uncompetitive. It's just not. It's only uncompetitive with the Prankster ability. Even if Swagger isn't used by itself in higher ranks, it's an important part of a learning process for new players. Banning it doesn't teach anything, else you wouldn't see a spike in the number of people using Confuse Ray. Beyond that, not every strategy has been discovered, and Swagger may be an important part of an undiscovered strategy. All of that could be avoided by banning the combination Swagger+Prankster, like they did with Swift Swim+Drizzle or Refresh+Leppa Berry+Heal Pulse. Baton Pass is an even worse example, where they completely shut down multiple strategies that have existed for generations because one player discovered a really good team with it.

This is not the case.

There is ALOT of things that are just flat out uncompetitive in pokemon, whether gamefreak or smogon is running it or not. I'm infuriated playing battle spot cause litteraly, every single game is nothing but a cheap prankster user with thunder wave, swagger, confuse ray, name it, the hax is always present. Why should someone have to put up with completely RNG bs, and why should a player become top of the ladder solely because of luck? That is gamefreak's problem.. they banned the pokemon they deemed ubers like celebi, giratina, etc etc.. but left the actually even more problematic luck based mechanics and pokemon like togekiss and sableye that requir not skill to use. That is when smogon, a complete metagame equally filled with morons, took over and now whenever a player uses a pokemon they enjoy, smogon players are so dominant, a little kid would get cussed out if they even brought it. The game isn't even kid friendly anymore and that's the sad part I could care less about.. pokemon is becoming the new CoD and not in reptitive releases and content (which is completely false) but with the MLG, hard core aspect.

Smogon is a different metagame.. they're nothing offical in the slightest, we could create another forum and do the exact samething cause all smogon is, is a bunch of guy's making up their own rules that everybody got into like nuzlockes. Likewise, their metagame isn't balanced either.. OU is the only tier smogon balances, and poorly at that. Don't get me wrong.. I'm on the smogon forums myself and I agree with most of their rules and tiers, but leaving pokemon that completely cheat players out of games is completely asinine. Togekiss and jirachi are especially completely cheap pokemon to use. You do realize, it is absolutely possible to win, just by slapping a choice scarf and flinching every single hit? That is the definition of uncompetitive.. smogon fails to do something about that, likewise with banning swagger, when believe or not confuse ray is a much more problematic move. Confuse ray atleast doesn't put the opponent at +2 giving them sweeping potential should they not hit themselves. Then we have pokemon in the lower tiers like suicune that more often than not usually require a crit or water absorb user (that can't do anything anyway). They tier the lower tiers solely off usage statistics.. usage, let's say no one used charizard x, it'd be NU cause of the usage. They do not have a proper balanced metagame either.

Well that's enough of my rank.. I'm very salty after fighting a cheap feather dance+confide murkrow right now.

@iKhan, Here's the best part... aegislash was banned with only a 62% majority. Smogon says you need atleast a 60%. That is ONE VOTE aegislash got banned. Now here's another thing.. the suspect test voting period was ment to last 2 days.. saturday and sunday.. the thread would be closed noon time sunday, anyone can change their vote at any time.. they closed the thread on saturday. They closed it while the votes would still in their favor.

I still use aegislash on the cartirage games, idc.

I don't agree about the batonpass and swagger thing though.. the reason why swagger and baton pass was banned because, like I pointed out in GF's metagames, it just allows players to rise on the ladder solely based on luck reguardless of how terrible they really are. The skill doesn't show. Batonpass was a copy and pasted team that was extremely difficult to break, again, players just laddered up using a copy and paste team that was near flawless.

I know it was banned in the past at some point, but Stealth Rock should've stayed banned.

I swear every other battle I have on Showdown is more both teams trying to set up/remove them then anything else. And the most annoying thing is Stealth Rock forces you to either not using certain Pokemon to avoid the super effective damage, thus sacrificing type coverage, or taking one/two slots solely for spinners/defogers to protect your valuable sweepers that otherwise would be mildly hindered at best or severely crippled at worst.

Or rather then ban, at least have an item that guards against entry hazards upon switch in.

Have you ever tried competitive pokemon?
Game Freak has definitely recently made efforts to balance the pokemon. Their format, however, is Doubles not singles. The only Pokemon that have really felt broken, even in this format, are Mega Khan, and Mega Salamence. All legends are automatically banned except ones that are actually fairly balanced like the genies and Cresselia.
Weather was a dominating force last gen and became very centralizing so now weather will always only last 5 turns, or 6-7 if you have the respective Rock item. There are still pokemon that can come in and set up the weather without using the respective move, however, making the strategy still very viable. Except now there's more breathing room and you don't have to constantly prepare for it.

This gen is the most physical pokemon has ever been. Special was almost always a go to attacking type and so this gen GF slightly nerfed the base power of the stronger special moves, fire blast, etc. The gap in power between the two sides of Attack are closer now.

The fact Mega Evolution even exists kind of shows GF cares about competitive Pokemon. Power creep has been making many viable, even top tier pokemon in previous generations lose relevance and Mega Evolution has given these pokemon a new chance to compete. It's also given pokemon that never had a chance their first shot.

If you need more evidence look at the starter birds and bugs of gens 1 & 2 and look at gen 5 & 6's. The stats for these pokemon were garbage in the first two gens. Leaveny in B/W however not only has better, actually usable stats, but it also has a better movepool than say, Butterfree. Scolipede is amazing, good stats, abilities, and support move pool. Don't even need to explain the comparison between Fearow and Talonflame (gen 6). And Pidgeot and Beedrill even got Mega Evolutions. Look at Mega Beedrill. Game Freak could have done some stupid gimmick but no, they know what it need improvement in to be viable.

Oh and Hidden Abilities. Abilities can make or break a pokemon. Gen 5 Game Freak introduces hidden abilities, allowing pokemon that had max number of abilities (2) to have one more, and for many these really were useful buffs that made them viable. (Politoed, Ninetails).

There absolutely is justification in the idea of competitive Pokemon. Yes luck is a part of the game and yes a miss may even cost you the game some times, but those random factors can be reduced somewhat. It's still very very fun. Even if Game Freak didn't balance the game, that's what the Smogon tiers are for. They very much do help create enjoyable levels of play.

Still not convinced? Junichi Masuda has replied to tweets asking to nerf Mega Khan responding that they may have gone too far with her stats. They take balance into consideration.

I'll agree with you on Smogon smugness. I hate their community, hate it. The majority are a bunch of jacka** that seriously have nothing better to do than be prideful over a children's game. The actuall competitive site's intentions are good though and for the most part do create leveled playing fields. I disagree with plenty of bans (MEGA MAWILE HAD NO RIGHT TO BE BANNED YOU F-uuuugh) but for the most part theyre alright.

Both sides may not make perfectly balanced metagames, but few competitive video games do. Wow, wall of text. Sorry.

@MegaBeedrill The Smogon players who use an elitist attitude like that are the Melee fanboys of Pokemon. They're a loud and obnoxious minority. Majority of competitive Pokemon players aren't like that. As for cheap tactics like that - if they didn't exist Pokemon would honestly get boring. Sure, if something overcentralizes the metagame to where you must have a counter for it (ie Gen 4 Salamence before it's ban, Mega Kanga at the start of Gen 6) then definitely get rid of it. But things like Paraflinch hax don't overcentralize the metagame that much (they are cheap though... admittedly that happens to be my favorite of the cheap tactics). For me it's no different than setting up and sweeping really. I'm sure some people consider that just as cheap.

I do agree that the lower tiers need to be reorganized though. Also hate it when players d/c because you use an Uber or break sleep clause or whatever.

Smogon also has never been consistent with their reasonings for banning things. At the end of Gen 4 they banned Salamence for overcentralizing the metagame, claiming that you were forced to have a counter, yet when people said that Stealth Rock should have been banned for the same reason (and it should have - it severely limited teambuilding, a reason that Smogon also uses frequently for banning things), Smogon got super defensive as if people had just committed sacrilege by suggesting such a thing. Stealth Rock is Smogon's pet move really.

The thing is though, a game with a sizable number of random variables can only get so competitive before it snaps back to pure luck.

You could have the best possible matchup team against your opponent's in a given tier, make all the best plays, and yet still lose through sheer agonizing hax.

@IceClimbers Agreed about the rocks, however something doesn't need to be overcentralizing to be ban worthy. Swagger wasn't overcentralizing.. infact only a couple pokemon used it, or in other words, most prankster users. Thunder wave isn't overcentralizing either, nor is flinching togekiss or jirachi. However it is highly uncompetitive.

Smogon bans things for:

1: Being overcentralizing; forcing players to carry multiple counters or checks for, increases/decreasing the viability of a large ammount of pokemon, or forcing pokemon to run otherwise subpar movesets/items/EV spreads to have some form of advantage. Haze quaqsire was a huge thing solely because of baton pass teams.. baton pass was that big of a problem, haze was runned on standard sets just for it which otherwise the move was pretty useless.

Personally.. I think talonflame falls under this completely ruining everything frail and weak to flying.. keldeo almost fell UU in early x/y because of this thing and venasuar. Volcarona, venomoth, and starapter all lost viability as well. Rotom-W and Rhyperior have risen viability just to counter T-flame. I really find talonflame ban worthy because of it's negative effect and I've been waiting since early x/y for it to happen.

2: Uncompetitive; This is a difficult one to explain.. but uncompetitive means completely out of the player's control. Think OHKO moves, you may not land one but your opponent may scarf a lapras and land sheer cold every single time.. that is sheer luck. Swagger and evasion are in a similar boat.. you either hit youself or you don't, you either land a hit or you don't, no coin flip, it is what it is and you can't control it. Moody was banned for being uncompetitve because even the likes of bidoof, if it got the right stat boost which neither player can control, it could sweep teams. Mega gengar was also uncompetitive because it can just come in, kill your primary defensive pokemon at will whether it's a revenge kill or just switch in on status moves. Gengar forced players to sap mons eventually leading to one sweeper who could shread the team with the trapped pokemon gone.. this was uncompetitive because you could be a 7 year old with a mega gengar and anything with sword's dance and priority, and reach #1 on the ladder. See the issue right there? No skill involved to use these things.

Shadow tag in general is actually broken honestly.. litteraly, gothitelle or whatever the final evolution is call can trick a chansey into scarf, and PP stall with rest+calm mind. Nothing you can do there and it's actually being brought up now on the smogon forums. It's not OP or anything like mega gengar, but I've been in enough games where smogonites where just complete aholes and waited til chansey struggled.

Now this is where I believe the whole paralysis and confuse ray belong and should be banned for.. attract and just secrene grace in general too. Like the OHKO clause, it's solely luck based.. will you land the hit with the OHKO move or won't you? In similarity.. will you get the RNG hax, or will the opponent break through and stop you? This is uncompetitive as it's not in the players control whatsoever.. it's the RNG's decision to screw you out of games, and like @WingedSnagret said, games can go horribly wrong reguardless of how skillful your plays where in comparison to the opponents. You can make every prediction, but one bad damage roll or hax and that's game. Now we can't ban crits, but they DEFINITLY should implement a crit disable mechanic in the game outside shell armor.. an option for games. Unforunately we can't ban every move with a 30% chance or this or that but on gamefreak's end for making RNG such a huge factor in competitive even for smogon to work off of it's obsurd.

3: OP; Think rayquaza.. it's just overpowered. Nuff said. The pokemon has no flawless counters that wall or handle it. Aegislash was actually banned mostly for this reason, the only two pokemon that could reliably murder him is mandibuzz and bisharp.. however aegislashes began running surprise sets. Actually.. the new standard aegislash set was this:

Aegislash @ Life Orb
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature

• Swords Dance
• Head Smash
• Shadow Sneak
• Sacred Sword

Looks weird right? Let me explain why this became the standard set.. people started running bisharps and mandibuzz. There was a bisharp and mandibuzz on almost every team because they could shread aegislash flawlessly. So aegislash adapted for this surprise lure set. Bisharps get outsped by jolly aegislash and bonked with scared sword. Mandibuzz gets bonks hard by head smash, then at this point.. healing wish.

So what's my point? Nothing hard countered aegislash, so you couldn't really prepare for it if you tried because aegislash had tricks up his sleeve as well. Do I think he was ban worthy? Nawh, honestly I find his low base power moves, unreliable king's shield that may allow setup to not be that big of a problem. Switch ins for him are far from few..

Greninja IMO was very ban worthy from the beginning for this reason alone.. yeah it's frail and not the best offenses, but the fact it 2HKO's any switch ins, isn't outspeed by anything without scarf and priority prior to oras (and even beedrill/sceptile are too frail to do anything), gets STAB on everything, and a movepool comparable to arceus. It's just too pressuring and difficult to wall. ORAS was just icing on the cake to finally get rid of him after gunk shot and low kick to bonk even more checks.

Then why WASN'T it banned? Sounded like everyone wanted it gone from OU yet it got through the suspect check for some reason.

I legitimately thought it was gone when I didn't play Showdown for a while and came back, only for it to pop up again.

People didn't find him that devistating at the time. they believed there were bigger problems than ninja back then. He actually did have counters and hard walls though, such chansey, sylveon, florges, etc etc.. now he got gunk shot. RIP all of them. He's a much bigger problem now than before so everybody wants rid of him.

No, I mean he was under subject test post-ORAS, about a month ago actually. And like I said practically everybody was in agreement that the frog held too much killing power, to the point where you had to sacrifice two or more 'mon just to find out what any one individual is packing. And yet it's still around.

Oh yeah, I saw discussion about him being a suspect test after mawile but they never went through with it. They were just being lazy, everybody was complaining how they wouldn't start a suspect test before oras came out.

I wonder if he's banned yet.. they closed the suspect identifaction thread, and deleted the discussion thread. I don't see anything in blind voting though.