VGC Tips: Team Preview

[TempleVGC]

Original Blog Post: http://samtemplekurokyunevgc.blogspot.co...eview.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/templevgc

(This was written in the 6th generation so the information is based on those formats, not the 7th generation)

I wanna use this article to talk about Team Preview. Team Preview in VGC is very important as you can prepare a gameplan on how your going to beat your opponent. If you can use this time wisely and effectively, you can mess your opponent up. Let's start and talk about some general things that are important to talk about. The Importance of Team Preview

• VGC: Bring 6 Pokemon to the battle, but choose 4 to actually use in battle
  
• If you lead well into the battle, you already put yourself into a good position that forces your opponent to react to it
  
• This is one part of the battle that you have full control of what your decisions mean, while the same thing goes for your opponent
  
• Keep the amount of time you have remaining in mind and use each second you have to the fullest to make sure you make the best decisions you can
  

Now, I think it'll be smart to go through my process and talk about I handle team preview. Each step is important and the order is very important as well. The process may seem tedious. but you have 90 seconds to do this and some of these steps only last around 5 seconds to do, which is great as you won't have to spend much time on them.

1. Look at my opponent's team and see if they have an item or not
   
2. Try to find out my opponent's strategy they might be going for with their team
   
3. Look for some weaknesses that my opponent's team may have and see if I can exploit them
   
4. Identify and try to find out which of my opponent's Pokemon can be troublesome 
   
5. Find which 4 Pokemon will be the most useful to achieving victory
   
6. Of those 4 Pokemon I've decided to use, find the 2 Pokemon that I'll start the battle with
   
7. Put the other 2 Pokemon in the back
   
8. Double-check to make sure I've chosen the right 4 Pokemon to use
   
9. Remind myself which of my opponent's Pokemon are the most threatening and which of my Pokemon need to be conserved to be used at the right time
   

This takes practice, but you may find a way different from mine that works better for you or may adapt your team preview strategy to what mine is. Either way, getting comfortable with a way to handle team preview is essential to doing well. Predicting what your opponent will bring - While I already touched on this, there is something extra, more general advice I want to give out

• Remember that your opponent will be going through a thought process of there own when in team preview
  
• Your opponent will also be looking for the 4 Pokemon that can best handle what you could use
  
• Pokemon capable of Mega Evolution and Pokemon more invested in bulk can be easier to spot based on how their team is structured, but your opponent may have something different planned to trip you up so be careful
  

Common Lead Pokemon: These are Pokemon that generally like to be lead and the roles they will mostly likely fill

• Prankster: Thundurus-I, Liepard, Whimsicott, Meowstic
  
• Fake Out: Mega Kangaskhan, Smeargle, Scrafty, Meowstic, Liepard
  
• Speed Control: Cresselia, Talonflame, Togekiss, Thundurus-I 
  
• Intimidate: Landorus-T, Scrafty, Gyarados, Arcanine, Salamence
  
• Fast Pokemon that can pick up KOs: Talonflame, Terrakion
  
• Bulky Pokemon that can help set-up
  
• Major threats against your team
  

Some Tips: These are some extra tips that I recommend keeping them in the back of your mind

• When picking your leads you can either
  • Go with the safest option that has pretty decent options against what your opponent has
    
  • Predict their leads and try to aggressively counter them, but this can be risker if it doesn't work
    
• Remember to conserve your more important Pokemon to the match and try to knock out what threatens them
  
• Every Pokemon you choose to use in the battle has a certain role to fill in the battle and don't forget this
  
• Practice: This is the best way to improve and by practicing, you can get a feel for what each Pokemon does and try to counter them, no matter how popular they are
  
• Learn from your mistakes because by learning from them, you can become a better player overall
  
• Lots of matches can be boiled down to the wrong Pokemon being brought, bad matchups, and a bad team preview plan
  
• Always consider the endgame and which Pokemon are going to be the most helpful to winning and don't be afraid to force one of your Pokemon to be KO'd if they did their job
  

Hoped you enjoyed this. This is a hard article to do as team preview experience is something that the best way to learn is through experience, but what I hope this article did accomplish is that you maybe learned some new ways on how to overall improve your team preview game. See you guys next time in another article. Bye!