Welcome to Rogue's competitive guide to team building! (For VGC15)
Team building is incredibly important, and it's a lot of fun too. But it's also very challenging. You can't just grab 6 strong pokemon in VGC, slap them on a team, throw on some random move sets, and crawl your way up to the top of the ladder. Could you beat some new comers by doing that? Sure. But for this team building guide, I wanna pretend that we're all on our way to a big tournament. Scratch that new account on showdown, or the bottom of the ratings on ranked battle spot: We're going to the big leagues!
A few disclaimers:
1. This is for VGC15, where a lot of legends are legal. So chances are legends are going to be on this team. I know some people frown upon use of legends, but this has been how VGC works for a long time.
2. NO TEAM IS PERFECT I cannot stress this enough. There is no combo of 6 pokemon, of 24 moves, of 6 natures, and however many EV's you can place to counter every single Pokemon in the game. It just won't happen. Your team is gonna be weak to something.
3. A good team does not mean you'll win: You can copy any of Ray Rizzo's/Cybertrons/Sejun Parks teams, but that doesn't mean that you're automatically them. Player skill and knowledge is also a huge factor. But everyone is capable. Practice makes perfect! For all we know, you could be the next champion.
4. The team I make here isn't "perfect" either. Please don't come in here and try to pick apart this team that I'm making off the top of my head. This is here to explain the thought process. Rarely will you ever make a really strong team your first try. You have to play with it, and make changes. Something that looks good on paper doesn't mean it'll be good, you know?
Now that that's out of the way, lets get on with it!
Where do I start?
Let's slow down there champ, you're not even old enough for your first Pokemon. kappa
But no seriously, there's things to prep for before we even start with putting a Pokemon on our team.
These things are-
A damage calculator: http://gamut-was-taken.github.io/
Kinda obvious why this is important, we wanna know how much something hurts us/how much we hurt something.
Knowing whats common: http://3ds.pokemon-gl.com/battle/oras/#double
Also kinda obvious. But this will show you the top Pokemon being used in doubles currently. It'll give you an idea of what to build against. (If no Pokemon is shown, it might be because a new season started. scroll up and choose an earlier season)
Knowing what you're weak to: http://www.marriland.com/tools/team-builder
I know, I know. Obvious. But this is a great team builder that will count all of your weaknesses/resistances! So it's very handy.
Finally, a battle simulator: http://play.pokemonshowdown.com/
With Pokemon Showdown you can build your own team and practice with it/make changes. This is important so you don't waste time breeding for a pokemon you may not even use in the end. You can also get a lot more battles in!
Now that you have all these, let's get started by choosing our core Pokemon.
What do you mean by a "core" Pokemon?
Your "core" Pokemon is what you want to build around. This doesn't have to be your mega, but for the sake of making this simple: Let's make our core Pokemon our Mega. Now, what mega should we use? Some Mega's are only good in singles, and some are only good in doubles. We want a mega that is a threat. We want it to get KO's while being able to live a couple of rounds.
Honestly you could just win by using Mega Kangaskhan
Anyways! There's lot of good megas out there. I use mega Heracross and I love it. He takes a lot of support however and I don't want to go over something like that because I wanna start with something easier.
Why not mega metagross?
![[Image: 376.gif]](http://media.pldh.net/pokemon/gen6/xy-animated/376.gif)
(I can't find a working mega metagross sprite. don't hit me pls)
Mega Metagross is one of those well rounded Mega's. It's strong, fast, has good defenses, a good typing, and has a good move pool.
Let's keep this simple by running a simple set.
Protect, Meteor Mash, Zen Headbutt, and Ice Punch. I'm running these 4 because I already have a general idea of my team, and you'll see why momentarily. 2 STAB moves, ice punch for all the dragons/landorus running around, and protect for being a general good move/good scouting move.
Let's move on to our "glue" to the core.
Alright. But what do you mean by "glue" to the core?
The "glue" to your core is what primarily supports our main Pokemon. We want something that takes away the attention of our core, and helps it do what it does best: Take things out. (In this case, at least.) You have to ask yourself what flaw does your core have? In my opinion, Mega Metagross's flaw is that it usually has to run a speed nature. Meaning you'll be missing a lot of that KO power and thats always annoying. So why don't we run a tailwind user? Something that's bulky too, and doesn't share any weakness that Mega Metagross has. This way we can run a ATK+ nature which I feel is important. Suicune fits perfect for this role.
![[Image: 245.gif]](http://media.pldh.net/pokemon/gen6/xy-animated/245.gif)
Let's run a bulky support Suicune. With Tailwind, Snarl, Icy Wind, and Scald. This works great because we can set up tailwind, lower our opponents special attack with snarl, lower their speed with Icy Wind, while doing moderate damage/being able to burn with Scald. Meaning that this thing will be a heavy annoyance. Meaning your opponent will have a hard time picking what to focus on. This is what you want. If they focus on M-Metagross, you could protect and set up a tailwind/lower their speed/lower their special attack/maybe even burn something. If they focus on Suicune, Mega Metagross is free to KO things. See how well these 2 work together? This is what you're looking for when it comes to finding your "glue" to your core.
Have a back up support for your glue/core.
This is a support for your support. That supports your core. Support. Gotta love it.
On a more serious note, what do we fear? Metagross doesn't appreciate thunder wave. Taunt can also be annoying to Suicune, but not as much thanks to snarl/icy wind. So Thundurus is already annoying, who is very common. Landorus can somewhat be annoying due to intimidate, but not as much thanks to Suicune scalding it. Let's focus on Thundurus, we don't appreciate it's taunt and thunderwave. Whimsicott works perfectly for this support role.
![[Image: 547.gif]](http://media.pldh.net/pokemon/gen6/xy-animated/547.gif)
Whimsicott works well here because it outspeeds Thundurus, can Taunt it before it can taunt/drop a T-Wave, and just be annoying in general.
Let's run a set of... Taunt, Encore, Light Screen, Leech Seed I opted against protect because we won't always need Whimsi, and it's not there to stay forever. It's here to taunt thundurus, encore Pokemon who try to fakeout/protect, light screen to support everyone, and be annoying with leech seed. It's easy to see what it does, it helps support us even farther. Also, these 3 work well together. Steel/Poison move on Whimsi? Switch to Metagross. Grass on Suicune? Switch to whimsi. You get the basic idea. Now we have our core, our glue, and our back up support for these 2. We need some offense now, but the "support" role doesn't end here friends. kappa Time for some offensive support!
Your offensive supporter
What do I mean by offensive supporter? I mean exactly what you think I mean ya filthy animal.
We don't appreciate ground moves here. It hits M-Metagross hard, neutral to Suicune, and even though Whimsi resists it; Whimsi isn't offensive/or very bulky. So we want something that can't get hit by ground moves, but we don't want it to be another bulky support user. Because then we wouldn't have any KO power. But we don't want it to be frail either, because whats the point of something that supports, that gets KO'd right away? Where can we find something with decent bulk, great power, and can't get hit by ground moves? Not to mention we want it to appreciate the support that whimsi/suicune gives. Latios is the obvious answer.
![[Image: 381.gif]](http://media.pldh.net/pokemon/gen6/xy-animated/381.gif)
Latios works well here simply because of it's offensive power, speed, decent bulk, and can't get hit by moves like EQ. It appreciates the tailwind and icy wind combo to allow us to run more bulk/offense instead of speed. Not to mention most of it's common threats are special attacks so light screen/snarl support are also amazing. Another reason why this is so good is because incase you haven't noticed yet: None of our 4 Pokemon share a weakness besides Fire, which we have 2 resistances to. Isn't that beautiful? It makes me cry beautiful tears of power.
Anyways....
Let's roll with a basic moveset of... Draco Meteor, Psyshock, Protect, and Hidden Power Fire. This set is good for the fact that we can use HP fire to hit things like Scizor/Ferro that can be annoying to our team, protect for scouting, draco for making something turn to ash, and Psyshock for the basic STAB/being a good move.
Now we have 2 more slots for our team. We want some power houses that provide offensive pressure. Preferably a physical attacker because we should have another one. I think Bisharp works pretty well here.
All the offensive pressure!
![[Image: 625.gif]](http://media.pldh.net/pokemon/gen6/xy-animated/625.gif)
So, why Bisharp? Besides the fact that it destroys ghosts/fairys/Psychic which somewhat pressure us, it pressures people who run Landorus which can be annoying against us due to it's Powerful EQ. Thanks to defiant, we get a boost to things like intimidate/snarl/scary face/etc.
Let's run another basic set of Knock Off, Sucker Punch, Iron Head, Protect.
Letting us threaten ghost types that hit Latios hard, and Fairys like Sylveon that are just scary in general. Sadly we gain 3 weaknesses to fire and 2 to ground since Bisharp and Metagross are weak to both and Whimsicott is weak to fire. So we have to think really hard about our last choice here, we want something to take out those Fire Types easily and doesn't have a ground weakness. Landorus called, he wants to KO things.
Your final Pokemon.
Landorus-T fits really nice here. We gain a fighting resistance for bisharp, a poison resistance for whimsi, bug resistance for Latios, and a Electric Immunity for Suicune. We do gain 2 weaknesses to ice now, Latios and Landorus; But it's a risk we'll have to take and just make sure we give it perfect coverage. Which is what you want for your final Pokemon, you want it to be able to take out a major weakness. In this case, Fire.
![[Image: 645-therian.gif]](http://media.pldh.net/pokemon/gen6/xy-animated/645-therian.gif)
Let's run a set of Earthquake, Rock Slide, Knock Off, and U turn. Thanks to our great speed control Suicune, we can run a bulky offensive set. Maybe even choice band it for powerful KO's. Rock Slide/EQ take out all fire types that harm us, Knock Off hits hard in general and takes out Ghosts, and anything that threatens Lando can U-Turn out on it.
Being aware of your teams flaws.
Let's look at this team that we made in the time frame of about 30 minutes. It's not flawless; no team is. But I actually like it for the most part.
2 weaknesses to Ground, but 1 resistance and 2 immunities.
3 weaknesses to Fire, but 2 resistances and one check to fire types.
2 weaknesses to Ice, but 3 resistances to it.
1 weakness to Fighting, but 3 resistances to it.
1 weakness to Bug and Ghost, but 1 resistance to each.
1 weakness to Electric and Water, but 2 resistances to each, and an immunity to electric.
1 weakness to dark, but 2 resistances to it.
1 weakness to grass, but 4 resistances to it.
I don't think I need to continue, you get the point. (; The team works together very well, and thats what you want. You don't want to just throw Pokemon on a team and play mindlessly. Focus on your weaknesses and capitalize on them. Is it the best team? Once again, no, But you understand how well this works and I could even see myself using this team.
But you aren't done. We have movesets and pokemon, now for EV's!
Where do I place the EV's?
Read my sisters guide to competitive EV placing!
http://thejustinflynn.tv/forum/Thread-A-...-Potential
Conclusion
Be patient with your team. Play with it, make changes along the way according to the meta, maybe even swap out Pokemon. Try different items, try different natures. There's no rush, this stuff takes time. Be aware of your weaknesses and make sure your move sets compliment what you're weak to. Like for example, Landorus is a small problem. Ice punch M-Metagross or Bisharp help check that. They aren't counters, but you can play around him.
Once again. No. Team. Is. Perfect. don't beat yourself up if you lose a match. It's no big deal, work on what made you lose. Don't get discouraged if you get haxed in a match either, it's part of the game.
In the great wise words of Cybertron: https://twitter.com/CybertronVGC/status/...5775712257
I hope this helped someone, no matter how small it may be. [: Thanks for reading, give me some feedback on it!
Team building is incredibly important, and it's a lot of fun too. But it's also very challenging. You can't just grab 6 strong pokemon in VGC, slap them on a team, throw on some random move sets, and crawl your way up to the top of the ladder. Could you beat some new comers by doing that? Sure. But for this team building guide, I wanna pretend that we're all on our way to a big tournament. Scratch that new account on showdown, or the bottom of the ratings on ranked battle spot: We're going to the big leagues!
A few disclaimers:
1. This is for VGC15, where a lot of legends are legal. So chances are legends are going to be on this team. I know some people frown upon use of legends, but this has been how VGC works for a long time.
2. NO TEAM IS PERFECT I cannot stress this enough. There is no combo of 6 pokemon, of 24 moves, of 6 natures, and however many EV's you can place to counter every single Pokemon in the game. It just won't happen. Your team is gonna be weak to something.
3. A good team does not mean you'll win: You can copy any of Ray Rizzo's/Cybertrons/Sejun Parks teams, but that doesn't mean that you're automatically them. Player skill and knowledge is also a huge factor. But everyone is capable. Practice makes perfect! For all we know, you could be the next champion.
4. The team I make here isn't "perfect" either. Please don't come in here and try to pick apart this team that I'm making off the top of my head. This is here to explain the thought process. Rarely will you ever make a really strong team your first try. You have to play with it, and make changes. Something that looks good on paper doesn't mean it'll be good, you know?
Now that that's out of the way, lets get on with it!
Where do I start?
Let's slow down there champ, you're not even old enough for your first Pokemon. kappa
But no seriously, there's things to prep for before we even start with putting a Pokemon on our team.
These things are-
A damage calculator: http://gamut-was-taken.github.io/
Kinda obvious why this is important, we wanna know how much something hurts us/how much we hurt something.
Knowing whats common: http://3ds.pokemon-gl.com/battle/oras/#double
Also kinda obvious. But this will show you the top Pokemon being used in doubles currently. It'll give you an idea of what to build against. (If no Pokemon is shown, it might be because a new season started. scroll up and choose an earlier season)
Knowing what you're weak to: http://www.marriland.com/tools/team-builder
I know, I know. Obvious. But this is a great team builder that will count all of your weaknesses/resistances! So it's very handy.
Finally, a battle simulator: http://play.pokemonshowdown.com/
With Pokemon Showdown you can build your own team and practice with it/make changes. This is important so you don't waste time breeding for a pokemon you may not even use in the end. You can also get a lot more battles in!
Now that you have all these, let's get started by choosing our core Pokemon.
What do you mean by a "core" Pokemon?
Your "core" Pokemon is what you want to build around. This doesn't have to be your mega, but for the sake of making this simple: Let's make our core Pokemon our Mega. Now, what mega should we use? Some Mega's are only good in singles, and some are only good in doubles. We want a mega that is a threat. We want it to get KO's while being able to live a couple of rounds.
Anyways! There's lot of good megas out there. I use mega Heracross and I love it. He takes a lot of support however and I don't want to go over something like that because I wanna start with something easier.
Why not mega metagross?
(I can't find a working mega metagross sprite. don't hit me pls)
Mega Metagross is one of those well rounded Mega's. It's strong, fast, has good defenses, a good typing, and has a good move pool.
Let's keep this simple by running a simple set.
Protect, Meteor Mash, Zen Headbutt, and Ice Punch. I'm running these 4 because I already have a general idea of my team, and you'll see why momentarily. 2 STAB moves, ice punch for all the dragons/landorus running around, and protect for being a general good move/good scouting move.
Let's move on to our "glue" to the core.
Alright. But what do you mean by "glue" to the core?
The "glue" to your core is what primarily supports our main Pokemon. We want something that takes away the attention of our core, and helps it do what it does best: Take things out. (In this case, at least.) You have to ask yourself what flaw does your core have? In my opinion, Mega Metagross's flaw is that it usually has to run a speed nature. Meaning you'll be missing a lot of that KO power and thats always annoying. So why don't we run a tailwind user? Something that's bulky too, and doesn't share any weakness that Mega Metagross has. This way we can run a ATK+ nature which I feel is important. Suicune fits perfect for this role.
Let's run a bulky support Suicune. With Tailwind, Snarl, Icy Wind, and Scald. This works great because we can set up tailwind, lower our opponents special attack with snarl, lower their speed with Icy Wind, while doing moderate damage/being able to burn with Scald. Meaning that this thing will be a heavy annoyance. Meaning your opponent will have a hard time picking what to focus on. This is what you want. If they focus on M-Metagross, you could protect and set up a tailwind/lower their speed/lower their special attack/maybe even burn something. If they focus on Suicune, Mega Metagross is free to KO things. See how well these 2 work together? This is what you're looking for when it comes to finding your "glue" to your core.
Have a back up support for your glue/core.
This is a support for your support. That supports your core. Support. Gotta love it.
On a more serious note, what do we fear? Metagross doesn't appreciate thunder wave. Taunt can also be annoying to Suicune, but not as much thanks to snarl/icy wind. So Thundurus is already annoying, who is very common. Landorus can somewhat be annoying due to intimidate, but not as much thanks to Suicune scalding it. Let's focus on Thundurus, we don't appreciate it's taunt and thunderwave. Whimsicott works perfectly for this support role.
Whimsicott works well here because it outspeeds Thundurus, can Taunt it before it can taunt/drop a T-Wave, and just be annoying in general.
Let's run a set of... Taunt, Encore, Light Screen, Leech Seed I opted against protect because we won't always need Whimsi, and it's not there to stay forever. It's here to taunt thundurus, encore Pokemon who try to fakeout/protect, light screen to support everyone, and be annoying with leech seed. It's easy to see what it does, it helps support us even farther. Also, these 3 work well together. Steel/Poison move on Whimsi? Switch to Metagross. Grass on Suicune? Switch to whimsi. You get the basic idea. Now we have our core, our glue, and our back up support for these 2. We need some offense now, but the "support" role doesn't end here friends. kappa Time for some offensive support!
Your offensive supporter
What do I mean by offensive supporter? I mean exactly what you think I mean ya filthy animal.
We don't appreciate ground moves here. It hits M-Metagross hard, neutral to Suicune, and even though Whimsi resists it; Whimsi isn't offensive/or very bulky. So we want something that can't get hit by ground moves, but we don't want it to be another bulky support user. Because then we wouldn't have any KO power. But we don't want it to be frail either, because whats the point of something that supports, that gets KO'd right away? Where can we find something with decent bulk, great power, and can't get hit by ground moves? Not to mention we want it to appreciate the support that whimsi/suicune gives. Latios is the obvious answer.
Latios works well here simply because of it's offensive power, speed, decent bulk, and can't get hit by moves like EQ. It appreciates the tailwind and icy wind combo to allow us to run more bulk/offense instead of speed. Not to mention most of it's common threats are special attacks so light screen/snarl support are also amazing. Another reason why this is so good is because incase you haven't noticed yet: None of our 4 Pokemon share a weakness besides Fire, which we have 2 resistances to. Isn't that beautiful? It makes me cry beautiful tears of power.
Anyways....
Let's roll with a basic moveset of... Draco Meteor, Psyshock, Protect, and Hidden Power Fire. This set is good for the fact that we can use HP fire to hit things like Scizor/Ferro that can be annoying to our team, protect for scouting, draco for making something turn to ash, and Psyshock for the basic STAB/being a good move.
Now we have 2 more slots for our team. We want some power houses that provide offensive pressure. Preferably a physical attacker because we should have another one. I think Bisharp works pretty well here.
All the offensive pressure!
So, why Bisharp? Besides the fact that it destroys ghosts/fairys/Psychic which somewhat pressure us, it pressures people who run Landorus which can be annoying against us due to it's Powerful EQ. Thanks to defiant, we get a boost to things like intimidate/snarl/scary face/etc.
Let's run another basic set of Knock Off, Sucker Punch, Iron Head, Protect.
Letting us threaten ghost types that hit Latios hard, and Fairys like Sylveon that are just scary in general. Sadly we gain 3 weaknesses to fire and 2 to ground since Bisharp and Metagross are weak to both and Whimsicott is weak to fire. So we have to think really hard about our last choice here, we want something to take out those Fire Types easily and doesn't have a ground weakness. Landorus called, he wants to KO things.
Your final Pokemon.
Landorus-T fits really nice here. We gain a fighting resistance for bisharp, a poison resistance for whimsi, bug resistance for Latios, and a Electric Immunity for Suicune. We do gain 2 weaknesses to ice now, Latios and Landorus; But it's a risk we'll have to take and just make sure we give it perfect coverage. Which is what you want for your final Pokemon, you want it to be able to take out a major weakness. In this case, Fire.
Let's run a set of Earthquake, Rock Slide, Knock Off, and U turn. Thanks to our great speed control Suicune, we can run a bulky offensive set. Maybe even choice band it for powerful KO's. Rock Slide/EQ take out all fire types that harm us, Knock Off hits hard in general and takes out Ghosts, and anything that threatens Lando can U-Turn out on it.
Being aware of your teams flaws.
Let's look at this team that we made in the time frame of about 30 minutes. It's not flawless; no team is. But I actually like it for the most part.
2 weaknesses to Ground, but 1 resistance and 2 immunities.
3 weaknesses to Fire, but 2 resistances and one check to fire types.
2 weaknesses to Ice, but 3 resistances to it.
1 weakness to Fighting, but 3 resistances to it.
1 weakness to Bug and Ghost, but 1 resistance to each.
1 weakness to Electric and Water, but 2 resistances to each, and an immunity to electric.
1 weakness to dark, but 2 resistances to it.
1 weakness to grass, but 4 resistances to it.
I don't think I need to continue, you get the point. (; The team works together very well, and thats what you want. You don't want to just throw Pokemon on a team and play mindlessly. Focus on your weaknesses and capitalize on them. Is it the best team? Once again, no, But you understand how well this works and I could even see myself using this team.
But you aren't done. We have movesets and pokemon, now for EV's!
Where do I place the EV's?
Read my sisters guide to competitive EV placing!
http://thejustinflynn.tv/forum/Thread-A-...-Potential
Conclusion
Be patient with your team. Play with it, make changes along the way according to the meta, maybe even swap out Pokemon. Try different items, try different natures. There's no rush, this stuff takes time. Be aware of your weaknesses and make sure your move sets compliment what you're weak to. Like for example, Landorus is a small problem. Ice punch M-Metagross or Bisharp help check that. They aren't counters, but you can play around him.
Once again. No. Team. Is. Perfect. don't beat yourself up if you lose a match. It's no big deal, work on what made you lose. Don't get discouraged if you get haxed in a match either, it's part of the game.
In the great wise words of Cybertron: https://twitter.com/CybertronVGC/status/...5775712257
I hope this helped someone, no matter how small it may be. [: Thanks for reading, give me some feedback on it!
50 thousand people used to live here...Now it's a ghost town.
