Topic: Competitive Pokemon Discussion Topic

Metagross is a pretty big threat but actually nope. Gallade can easily sweep if you let your guard done but nothing really different on paper than you'd expect in practice.

I say the biggest things to prepare for are Mega Metagross and Gallade. Everything else is not over dominating but fair game.

Don't let Mega Slowbro use Calm Mind or you may have a tough time, but I'm pretty sure we all knew that.

Mega Sableye is almost just as bad or even worse.

I've been testing out Mega Gallade lately, and he tends to OHKO most other pokemon with one swords dance, as opposed to the 2-3 needed for a normal Gallade sweep. I haven't gotten much use out of inner focus, but the attack boost seems like enough to justify a so-so ability.

Greninja has officially been banned to Ubers!

Here's to a better meta!

I can see starmie particularly benefitting greatly because of this. Fast special attacker with utility without dark pulse spamming frog in it's way.

Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature

• Hydro Pump
• Psyshock
• Recover
• Rapid Spin

@Retro_on_theGo - Aww...
I used a physical set Greninja. Jolly, 252 Spd and Atk. Water Shuriken sometimes helpfull, swap it to Waterfall from time to time. But it ain't mainstream.

So who do you think will be banned next?

Mega Metagross seems like the most likely canidate.. it's pretty pressuring for HO and stall alike to handle.

Sableye seems like another canidate.. sableye is extremely difficult to take down. If it anti-leads you he can get off a burn, bounce hazards, or just start calm minding with priority recover until he needs to mega for extra bulk/prevent status.

I think it'll be a mega. M-Metagross is too flexible. Power, bulk, speed. Weaknesses don't change unlike Zard-X, but at least M-Metagross didn't have D-Dance and Outrage stab.

I'd have to agree on Mega Metagross. Before ORAS released I honestly thought that Mega Metagross would be banned before Mega Mence.

So you're going to fake the Ice Beam? Brilliant.

@ShadowFox254
As long as you keep missing sleep powders I won't be missing it anyway

So Showdown added Gen 1 Random Battles. Has the Gen 6 battle mechanics though (minus abilities and items). Saw it during class so I played against a friend. First battle and guess what Pokemon I get? Mewtwo.

Well I'm done with ranked battle spot.. as soon as I hit around 1580 I always get paired up with a player at around 1400.. and lose to their stupid strategy which brings me all the way back down to 1520.. The last strategy was all eeveelutions.. and I lost to double team and muddy water spam because I couldn't land a single hit. Then whenever I do fight 1600 players, I either win or completely get haxed out by flinches... litteraly, a blade form aegislash+landorus vs. my volcarona and milotic.. I was going to murder the lando with ice beam, then overheat the aegislash, and while my volcarona survived the rock slide, he flinched both my volcarona AND my milotic.. my last pokemon was a smeargle so might as well forfeit.. I'll send that guy a post card from rank 1523 saying thanks for getting rid of that nice sexy 1586 I had with your flinches.

OH AND HERE'S THE BEST ONE.. I won a game against a player at 1408, while I was 1583.. he disconnected late game.. IT DROPED MY RANK AND COUNTED AS MY LOSS! Back to 1556 for winning.. I'm done.

The ranking system is so borked... -_-

I bet if I made a competitive Smash Bros. thread, it would blow up in flames and spawn countless arguments for no reason. Why? Because the Smash community is like that.

Anyway, competitive Pokèmon is a thing? How? There's only like, 4 moves... Also, are items banned in competitive Pokèmon?

Someone please enlighten me.

Well there's hundreds of moves, you can just use four. Items are absolutely allowed. You would lose a huge part of pokemon if you took them out. More important are the abilities. A lot of Pokemon are made top tier with their abilities, for example Politoed's hidden ability let's it summon raim automatically when it comes out on the field. This gives advantage to water type Pokemon, powering up their attacks, weakening fire, and allowing some Pokemon to take advantage of their abilitily that relies on the rain to be present.

There's a lot that goes into competitive Pokemon. The stats of each one are important and you can increase them with the amount of EV's you give them. IV's affect the stats growth rate, but you can't alter those other than through breeding.

Its a game of prediction. You gotta to get in your opponents mind and out think them. Strategy is also important when building your team. How do the Pokemon all work together? Does your team have a giant weakness? What's the best move you can make next?
Its a really fun game!

No comment on Smash Bros. I'm sure Pokemon had to go through that at one point though. Just give it time.

First off. Yeah, Smash would be pretty bad. Competitive Pokemon is rather organized in the two communities of Smogon/Showdown and the actual VGC. Tho Smogon banning everything in site is rather a roll of the eyes. It's all for a game to played fairly.

Now on to the main point where I have no idea to answer. No items all items are banned. Ha joke. Not all items are banned at least. Some are becuase the game may go forever. Yeah it can happen.
Anyway, have you played against a friend and never knew the reason why you were beaten. He might have took more things in Pokemon to account than you did. There's people out there that choose their favorites but there's people who use specific Pokemon to beat others at this sport.
Such as: Garchomp with high physical power/speed and electric immunity, Alakazam for fast special power/higher speed and potential to get revenge back at the Pokemon that just made your last Pokemon faint, or even a tank such as Venusaur with recovery healing moves to stay in the game moves and moves to put your opponent to sleep or perhaps poison and stall till you opponent faints.
Pokemon's stats, abilities, held items, move-set, role play, nature. They effect the Pokemon's play style a lot.

It's funny. If you ask me, there is a bigger difference in the interests of competitive and casual Pokemon fans than there is in those of competitive and casual Smash fans.

Smash's core formula is what the casual fans enjoy. Many of the competitive elements really don't negatively impact the casual audience.

On the other hand Pokemon features a full RPG. In an ideal world for competitive play, this RPG would be kept as short and concise as possible, and convenience would be prioritized. On the other hand, casual play is a lot more about going through a larger world exploring it all.