VGC Situations

[AbruptFury]

(Feb 22, 2015, 12:21 PM)naitre Wrote: I think it's also important to consider what is a realistic situation versus what is a hypothetical situation. If you feel that Landorus-T threatens your team, you might say, "Well, I'll just run Milotic with ice beam to take care of it!" Is this really the most realistic choice though? If your opponent is competent, isn't down to the wire, and has the option, they aren't going to leave their Lando in to catch an Ice Beam from a Milotic. Perfect case hypothetical scenarios don't always work out in real play.

Another thing to stress is speed control. It's rocking the meta right now, and you need to make sure your team can work around it. I attribute all the successes of my current team on it being a Trick Room team. VGC players tend to favor speed. My team doesn't look like a classic Trick Room team, and once I get the Trick Room off...it's usually smooth sailing. You can't always stop speed control, but definitely consider it. Watch out for Pokemon like Suicune, Cresselia, Talonflame, and others who are often packing Trick Room, Icy Wind, or Tailwind. Familiarize yourself with the Pokemon commonly used for speed control. Additionally, know which Pokemon usually are a part of a Trick Room team--if you see M-Camerupt or M-Mawile, you might be dealing with a Trick Room user.

That has been my biggest problem with my M-Manectric is trying to take Landorus-T out. I shouldn't have been going for the obvious play with my Milotic. I should've tried to conserve it or focused more on it's partner. Now that I've learned from my mistakes, I don't think it will be giving me too much trouble anymore. :D

Heavy has brought that up to me too before. That speed control is very important this VGC season. Especially since we now have Icy Wind, Tailwind and Electroweb as move tutor moves XD. Not to mention the always problematic Trick Room. I strongly recommend priority and your own means of speed control. It could be in the form of a move or a Pokemon. Again, moves such as Icy Wind, Tailwind, Thunder Wave, and Trick Room are ways to get speed in your favour. Sometimes you can't stop your opponent from setting up. Example, a Hariyama + Cresselia lead for instance. It's very difficult to OHKO Cress and Hariyama is there to Fake Out one of your Pokemon that might double into Cress. Even if you use Gengar, it couldn't OHKO Cress with Shadow Ball and Taunt would be pointless if Cresselia had Mental Herb. Instead, your speed control could be Mega Mawile. It works great under Trick Room, it hits like a truck, and Hariyama and Cresselia are quite threatened by it.