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[VGC] Synergy: A Better Understanding - Pokeventurer - Jul 14, 2015 Hey guys, another post. This time as the title suggest I would be writing about something called synergies, yes related to Pokémon’s. Iposted the same text on my blog a long time ago, but it didn't got that much attention so now i decided to put it here.i hope it gets more attention and hopefully many people (beginners specifically) learn something from it. Synergies are important terms that must be understood in order to make a good competitive Pokémon team. Synergies are in other words an important part of team building, that aren’t as complicated as EV,s though really. Mostly people who play competitive do know about these synergies, but I as a beginner didn’t and did silly things understanding these, so I decided this time to write them in depth and explain the types of synergies as I go through them. This article would also be more about my personal view of synergies. Let’s get started, hope you enjoy: * sorry because of the composition of images in post all could'nt have been added* Synergy: Synergy is not a term that Pokémon ever mentioned, but soon when the competitive battling scene turned on, unlike a game, people realized that throwing different random Pokémons on the field was a bad idea and not quite creative. This realization that a group of Pokémons or the slots of moves on a Pokémon and in doubles especially a lead of 2 Pokémons can help each other out lead to the term named “synergy”. Synergy in my mind has two sole definitions, one being “an individual Pokémons set working effectively or efficiently is synergy” in this case the word “set” includes all types of components a competitive Pokémon uses like EV’ing, natures, moves, items, base stats etc, this is only applicable to individual synergies that would be further explained along the article. Whereas the second definition would be “2 or a combination of more Pokémons working together or a lead group of two Pokémons working together and efficiently are an example of the term synergy”. Making synergies in a team makes it a much better one. There are different forms or say branches of synergies and can be expressed in different forms though. There are two main components that help make synergies that are Types & Abilities. Types and abilities both altogether directly help in making synergies, say that synergies are more obligated to Effectiveness than anything. Cores: Pokémon cores are not really what they seem. They are usually not a lead combo, but a duo or trio of Pokémons that cover each other very well in terms of being dependant on their types and abilities. Some Pokémons may not be able to withstand an attack and might be knocked out in a single hit, but putting a Pokémon that resists the type of the attack that another one on the team can’t stand may not do that much harm to it. Types are more common to be in a core other than abilities. Other way around it can be said that cores represent or are an example of a synergy. It is not with many cores but some cores do have a purpose to do. Following are further more three types of cores: Duo core: A duo core as the name suggests has two Pokémons that cover up each other’s weaknesses and back them up. These cores are less likely to occur, mostly because they not capable of doing multitasks. Following are some examples of duo cores: Example 1: The following is a core of a slowbro and an amoongus, further in-depth analyses would show how is this is a core. Slowbro + Amoongus *enter images here* Lets have a look at our types, Amoongus is a poison, grass type and is weak to psychic, ice, flying and fire and resists electric, grass, water, ghost, poison , whereas slowbro has a psychic, water type and is weak too electric, grass, ghost and dark and resists water, psychic, ice, fire types. If you look closely these two cover up each others weaknesses very well, another thing that I mentioned was the abilities before this. On an observation we get to know that both these Pokémons get the regenerator ability which would recover their max 1/3 HP each time they switch in and out. These factors make them a sturdy most core. Example 2: The following is another duo core built up of two Pokémons named Heliolisk and Mega Charizard Y. The reasons for this being a core would really be explained: Charizard + Heliolisk *enter images here* Charizard in its mega form of y, retains both its types it is weak to rock, water, electric and resists fire, grass, fighting, bug and has immunity to ground type. Whereas heliolisk with its dry skin ability is weak to ground and fire deals it heavy damage too it gains immunity to water typing. On a closer observation it is found that charizard takes over for heliolisk’s fire and ground weakness, whereas heliolisk covers up the electric and water weakness and turns that in its favor. All these factor make these two a synergetic example. Trio core Tri-cores as also the name suggests are made up of three pokemons, who take up attacks and defend each other’s weaknesses. Tri or trio core are more likely to occur because they do work more flexibly and allow more to play. Some examples for these cores are as under: Example 1: + +                                                                                                 Like the two examples mentioned above for duo cores this one has a sole purpose to be there. This core works like this: “the core centralizes around gothitelle, with rotom-w and scizor helping with the purpose, scizor gets the move u-turn and rotom-w gets the move volt-turn which helps them to slip out of mid battle allowing gothitelle’s access to the field to trap with its shadow tag and set up the perish trap for opponents, while you do have several options like scizor and rotom to negate the effect on yourself by slipping out. In addition to this scizor and rotom-w cover up each other’s weaknesses well.” So now you do know how this works right ? Example 2: + +                                                                                     This is another example for a trio core, its reasoning are as follows: “zapdos, mega mawile and politoed are both a perfect example for covering up each other’s types very well. Apart from that politoed with its drizzle ability sets up the rain-mode or the weather eventually becomes rainy, and zapdos gets the move thunder which has it accuracy boosted up to 100% with a BP of 120 does tremendous amount of damage, rain-mode lessens the power of all fire type moves by 50%, mega – mawile lacks a bit in sp.def and is weak to fire (usually a specially offensive type) this potentially adds to its bulk”. Hope these examples were enough. Quartz core: These cores are a newfound fashion in 2015. These cores are a few to be known but were seen often in nationals this year. Like a duo, trio core these types of core carry distinct 4 members covering more than half of the team. Usually there is a support pokemon for a trio or duo core but for these cores they are picture perfectly synergetic, tere advantage is that due to their flexibility they can be brought in many matchups as you have to choose only four in VGC. I will give two examples of quartz cores I have seen in teams: Rhyperior + Sylveon + Salamence + Cresselia This is a really solid core, it basically helps to cover up types for each other like, salamence can take water attacks for rhyperior, otherway around so can it do It for sylveon by absorbing steel attacks. Cresselia when targeted by dark moves can easily switch out sylveon, rhyperior’s lightningrod ability covers up the electric weakness on salamence and a lot more that this core can do. Aegislash + Tyranitar + Excadrill + Salamence We saw this on many teams this year at nationals and this core is pretty popular too though. Tyranitar and excadrill are basically a great form of lead combo synergy but the role of aegislash is very important I covering the ground weakness, aegislashes usually carries wide guard which protects from any incoming earthquakes. Both for itself and the sand duo, salamence heals in this purpose further, while it has the weaknesses like electric, dragon and even ice covered up by it’s fellows and can it many grass types that threated the sand duo. Lead combo’s Synergies aren’t only found in cores, there are also other types of synergies found in Pokémon leads, which would be one type of it tho, there are even more types of these. A pokemon lead synergy is only viable in double battles, whereas two random Pokémons can’t work well side by side, two Pokémons to make each other work side by side can work much better. There are many found examples of these synergies in Pokémon leads some of the popular ones are Disquake (a Pokémon immune to electric types uses earthquake, alongside a Pokémon immune to ground typing; the partner immune to ground type moves e.g earthquake uses the move discharge. These spread attacks won’t be able to damage allies but damage both the opposing Pokémons, e.g. lets say garchomp + zapdos, can be an example). Some others are below: Example 1:  +   Lets just name this a ‘trick room’ lead. You do see if in double this might be the simplest yet effective lead on the competitive scene. This lead works like this: scrafty on the first turn out uses the move fake out, in order to ensure that only one of its opponents can attack. Scrafty potentially by making this move ensures cresselia to set up the move trick room, accordingly which the speed movement is reversed. After it is reversed scrafty is very slow Pokémons, which would move first, scrafty would launch head on attacks whereas cress can do other stuff like switching out, helping hand or even attack to OHKO opponents. Example 2:   + This would be simply the most common team in recent years of VGC and still does rages on. Its functioning is like the following: politoed has the access to drizzle ability ensuring to make It rain when it comes out of its poke ball in its matches, by doing this so; it doubles ludiculo’s speed. This happens because the ludiculo always possesses the swift swim ability. After this has happened it can launch head on water type attacks whose power would be increases by 50%, thanks to the rain.   You already do know if you are affiliated with VGC stuff, you do know that 100% of the team do carry synergy in this lead form, remember sejun patk’s pachirisu + gyarados, them disquakes, discharge + mega sceptile’s lightning rod and even the popular raichu + azumarill you have faced? Those and many others are examples too, just can’t get them all on the post, but I’m pretty sure you got what this means. Individual synergy (set synergy) You may have seen these type of synergies, but never saw them getting the name of individual synergies, cuz I just only call them that, no one else calls them that. These synergies are the ones that can make a Pokémon work effectively without any support or say its own moves set completes the task you putted on it, either its abilities or items can also make it a better one tho. Some of the following examples will help make a better understanding of these: Example 1: Sableye Yes a sableye can make it possible. Do you remember the times (if any) it annoyed you to death. Well sableye’s synergy’s first part would be its ability “prankster” it allows sableye to elevate all the status moves to priority +1, hence it doesn’t needs that big of a margin for speed, you can invest a lot in its defenses. Second part would be its moves, lets take together swagger with doubles the attack stat of a Pokémon also confusing and the other one foul play which deals damage dependant on the attack stat of the opposing Pokémons, using these two in a step manner gives off an amazing example of synergy. Example 2: Mega-Manectric Mega-manectric forms an amazing example, I’ll straight off explain what I think about it: It works with the simple tactic of being able to fire off a full powered overheat and then later reset its stat drop over which it rely,s on, in addition to this when it switches out its intimidate ability would activate once more, in its non-mega form it does gets the gifted lightning rod ability which makes it absorb electric attacks and give it a one up in its special attack stat making it even more stronger. Example 3: Aegislash You must be familiar with this one, or even if not your about too. Aegislash can work in tons of different ways, not one, not two but three. The first one is the simple term called leftosub , which basically means using the move substitute and then slowly recover by leftovers from the recoil done by substitute, the slow speed compliments it. Other usage would be the weakness policy set with its amazingly high defenses and is low speed that would keep it in the shield form as long as possible, before it attacks which sheer power. Another one would be the lum berry or a mixed attacker not usually seen but works the same way almost. Conclusion: In the end, I would say that you may have heard on online team build guides that synergies are very important while making a successful team, well they don’t explain those in depth tho, that was my inspiration to do this individual post for only that sole purpose, that was to make you understand these. Now after going through all of these examples of synergies I think you can picture in your mind that how can all these be a  big push to help your team be a destructive one, and even more stronger. Well this post took a lot of time to write along, and even in the middle I got off from being interested to make this, but still I did completed it with every point I wanted to put up to you guys. Hope by post helped you in any way though, bye for now! RE: [VGC] Synergy: A Better Understanding - Willem - Jul 14, 2015 Very well written! Great job man! Team synergy is more imortant than people think it is. RE: [VGC] Synergy: A Better Understanding - Justin - Jul 14, 2015 woh epic write up! RE: [VGC] Synergy: A Better Understanding - Podfighterninja123 - Jul 14, 2015 What Justin said but x1000 RE: [VGC] Synergy: A Better Understanding - ChaseInfinity - Jul 14, 2015 Amazing job man, nice write up :D RE: [VGC] Synergy: A Better Understanding - Pokeventurer - Jul 14, 2015 Thanks alot to everyone for the awesome feedback, never though it would be liked this much. i also may put up a post in the near future regarding teambuilding in the future if someone wants RE: [VGC] Synergy: A Better Understanding - Marcusube - Jul 14, 2015 Awesome stuff man! Team synergy is oh so important in competitive play and I believe that this thread explains it thoroughly (yeah it was a long read but it was worth it). Have some rep fam kappaHD