[ORAS] An Introduction To Competitive Battling

[Marcusube]

Opening Thoughts

Competitive Pokemon is something that I believe a lot of people conceptualize to be difficult to get into or a lot to take in. In my opinion, Competitive Pokemon is one of the most fun ways to enjoy the game! It will be hard at first but after a while you'll go with the flow. Trust me, getting into Pokemon is way easier than it looks! You just need to be dedicated and accept that sometimes you will lose and that every defeat is just another learning experience

Defining the metagame - 'The term everyone loves to use'

Metagame refers to the trends and patterns that occur in a video game. Taking things more into the perspective of Pokemon, the metagame is what is used to describe the sets, EV spreads, team compositions and strategies commonly used in competitive. Examples of this are "CHALK" which originated in VGC15 where a team composed of Cresselia, Heatran, Amoonguss, Landorus-Therian and Kangaskhan was believed to be the dominating team composition, "BigSix" which originated in VGC16, "ADR Stall", a popular stall team on the OU ladder among others

The concept of centralization in Pokemon

Stall is most commonly used in the OU tier. CHALK is most commonly used on battle spot doubles. What do I mean by these statements? When a Pokemon or team is "centralizing" a metagame, this means that these Pokemon possess key traits (stats, movepool, abilities) that allow them to easily fit on most teams or more specifically, counter/check most threats in the metagame hence making these Pokemon the MAIN threat. Knowing what and what centralizes the metagame gives you a better idea of what to do when building a team. Should I have a check for Landorus-Therian on my team? Should I bring a Pursuit trapper or stallbreaker to deal with the stall teams that plague the metagame? These are questions that you need to be asking yourself when diving into teambuilding and battling

Where do I start!? - The big question mark

You make a team and battle some passerbys, only to realize that their Pokemon happen to clean up your team with ease. The obvious thing to do is post a thread or ask around as to which Pokemon counters the ones you lost to. I'll share an experience. One time I battled a team with a Choice Scarf Darmanitan, Alakazam, Gengar, Greninja, Typhlosion and a 6th mon (don't remember because I always lost to this guy). Now scarf Darmanitan always destroyed my team so I thought that if I brought a water type, Swampert, that I could defeat it and beat the guy's team. To my surprise, his Gengar had Energy Ball and it took out Swampert leaving my team open to get swept. Moral of the story, never teambuild reactively but proactively.

In my opinion, to get into competitive battling, you have to be ready to do some trial and error. Use Pokemon that you know and love and make teams with them. After battling a good amount of times, you will realize the strengths and weaknesses of the Pokemon you cherry picked and teambuild around and from there you can make a good judgement as to what and what works. Take each loss into account and save those battle videos! Watch them over and over until you understand your opponents' plays! A big part of Pokemon is being able to analyze as well as appreciate other people's ideas and use them as inspiration for your own ideas!

Actual Competitive Battling - Where it actually begins

Competitive Pokemon is mostly active on Smogon, Nuggetbridge, Pokemon Forever HYPE HYPE!, Youtube and Twitch. Active meaning that if you want to get into competitive Battle Spot Doubles or maybe even Smogon OU, these websites are great places to find fellow battlers to trade, battle, chat and learn with! To be competitive you have to make a face in the world of competitive and be willing and brave enough to battle other trainers both officially (in leagues, premier challenges etc.) and unofficially (stream tournaments, Pokemon Showdown tournaments etc.). Half the learning takes place in participation so don't think you're going to get good by just reading this post among others!

The Formula of Battling - What Pokemon battling is all about

Your objective in Pokemon is to knock out all the opposing Pokemon, whether they be 1-6, before the opponent knocks out yours. To do this, you have to create a team that is engineered to achieve this task. What I'm getting at here, however, is that there are many ways to achieve this goal. You can either make a team that focuses on offense only (Hyper Offense, Bulky Offensive), a team that focuses on attacking as well as defending and taking hits (Balanced) or a team based around stalling out the opponent with the use of status moves, entry hazards and phazing moves (Stall). To get the result of the formula, you need to choose a battle style which suits you best!

Resources

http://play.pokemonshowdown.com/ - Smogon's Very Own Battle Simulator
http://pyrotoz.com/ - Tommy's Team Builder and Random Pokemon Generator

[croissant]

Hey, great guide Marc. Just wanted to specify: it's ABR Stall, from the player who built it.

[devilmoth]

Thank you so much for posting this!!! I'm trying to put a team together and every day I feel like more and more of a newb cause I'm just not getting it xD

[Black117]

Thing about competitive Pokemon battling is that every had to start at some point. Not all the teams anyone makes will be perfect and usually it takes time to weave out flaws. I remember that one of my first vgc teams kinda resembled what people now think of as "CHALK" (except Amoonguss), and despite having "good stuff" Pokemon, it was somewhat successful for its time. If anyone doesn't already know, that team was just influenced, or rip from Cybertron's 2013 World team with some modifications (just add Mega Kangaskahn )

What I'm trying to say don't feel bad if you have to result to looking online to find teams or certain cores. Just figure out a good team of six Pokemon that don't compound each other with common type weaknesses and see how it fairs either on Pokemon Showdown or Battle Spot.

[Reed]

One of my favorite tips I've received, and I can't quite remember who gave it to me, is the best way to learn how to beat a specific team or style is to play with it. You'll very quickly learn what the weaknesses are, and how to play around it. Keep in mind that if you're low on the ladder on Showdown or Battlespot, you're probably going to run into gimmicky teams made specifically to beat that team. Just remember that they're still low ladder for a reason, because outside of countering the Big Six, or CHALK, or whatever, they can't accomplish much.