Review of Pokemon Sun and Moon (for Nintendo 3DS)

By Chrispy294

A lot of eyes were on Pokemon this year. After the attention on Pokemon Go and this being both the series’ 20^th anniversary celebration as well as the start to its seventh generation, many were expecting Sun and Moon to be the best entries in the series. Luckily, that’s mostly what we got.

Dawn of a New Day

The first thing experienced players will notice, and part of what makes Sun & Moon so great, is how fresh and new they feel. Gone is the familiar structure of chasing after Gym Badges, instead, being replaced by the similar yet original Island Challenge. Players now traverse the Alola Region’s four islands finding different Trial Captains and completing their Trials, each ending with an entertaining boss fight against a Totem Pokemon. While most of the game is still pretty lenient, players complaining of last generation’s easier difficulty will be glad to know these Totem Pokemon put up more of a challenge. With buffed stats, improved movepools and the ability to call in helpful Ally Pokemon, these battles may give some players trouble. After each of these battles as well as the big battles against each island’s Kahuna, the player receives Z-Crystals instead of badges.

This results in a much more natural progression where players traverse and complete tasks on the islands instead of in isolated buildings scattered around the region. Furthermore, these Z-Crystals are far more practical than Badges, allowing players to give their Pokemon an extra boost in battle. Each Z-Crystal has one of the 18 types assigned to it, and giving it to a Pokemon knowing a move of the same type allows it to use a powered-up supermove. They’re definitely a bit overpowered in the beginning, but become practically essential as the difficulty ramps up near the endgame.

The region itself is gorgeous to look at. Heavily inspired by the United State of Hawaii as well as several other island cultures including Japan, Polynesia, and Australia, the Alola Region features many distinct locations across its four islands. Everything from the environments to the character and Pokemon models look better than ever.

It’s a shame then, that the framerate can’t quite keep up. I wish this was just limited to more intense battles, but any battle featuring more than one Pokemon on one side of the field suffers visually. Even the new Pokemon Refresh feature chugs along if you’re interacting with a large Pokemon. It’s too bad Game Freak couldn’t find a way to improve the visuals like this without performance suffering as a result.

Another big change to the formula is the removal of those annoying Hidden Machines. Instead, players will smash rocks, fly over the region and surf on water using new Ride Pokemon, each given as the player progresses. This is a very welcome change, freeing up your Pokemon’s moveslots for more useful moves.

All of these changes also come with a new story, one that obviously makes a better attempt at entertaining the player than past entries’ poor excuses to catch the Legendary Pokemon. Characters are more fleshed out, the story actually has some twists and turns and it actually ends up resulting in the player feeling like they actually accomplished something. It’s not perfect though. Dialogue can be cringe-worthy, especially for Team Skull although those boneheads aren’t the only offenders. Characters like Hau, while potentially helpful for younger children who may get confused with some of the game’s events, ends up being way too over-the-top with his “Captain Obvious” statements. I promise you, kids playing this game are not so dumb that they need a token character shouting out the meaning of each event as it happens. That being said, even with its flaws, the story for Sun & Moon is leaps and bounds above previous entries. The presentation of important scenes helps as well, giving even the most boring events a more cinematic and engaging feel.

Finally, you can’t talk about new additions to Pokemon without mentioning the new Pokemon themselves. While there are a few stinkers (*cough cough* Bruxish), most of the new Pokemon are delightful, both in looks and in battling capability. Many of them such as Mimikyu and Salazzle come not only with new type combinations, but new moves and abilities as well. It will be very interesting to see how these new monsters shake up the competitive scene. Furthermore, Game Freak also added new Alolan Forms of Generation 1 Pokemon. Some of them, like Raichu and Marowak, are great while others like Raticate and Persian seem more like a downgrade. Luckily, the ones that do work give some of your old favorites new tools to use in battle and are fun to use on your adventure.

Don’t Fix What Ain’t Brokémon

Even with all the big new changes, the core of Pokemon remains mostly the same. Developer Game Freak were smart in approaching this however, choosing not to fix what wasn’t broken but also not to completely ignore it either. The same addictive, rock-paper-scissors style, turn-based battles still play out the same, but the new layout gives players a lot more to look at. Info such as current stat changes, exact effects of moves and their type effectiveness that was once multiple clicks away or not available in-game at all are now all easily accessible in the battle menu. This takes a lot of the guesswork and memorization out and overall leads to a more streamlined experience. If ever someone wanted to dive into Pokemon for the first time, Sun and Moon would be the perfect entry point for them.

Poke Amie is back as well, now called Pokemon Refresh. It serves mostly the same purpose, allowing players to interact and form bonds with their Pokemon, but this time with a few added bonuses. Players can now enter Pokemon Refresh with their favorite buddies immediately after battle, given that they took enough damage or have a status condition. Here, they can clean them off and even cure their status condition without using a healing item. When you step back and look at it, it’s a very small adjustment but one that led to me spending much more time using the feature than I normally would have.

Competitive players will rejoice at the small tweaks they’ve made to training as well. Super Training unfortunately has been replaced by Bouncing Houses that take a finnicky currency system, but Horde Battles have been upgraded with the new SOS system. Basically, a wild Pokemon can call in an ally if they get too hurt. This may seem worse than battling five Pokemon at a time, however Game Freak cleverly upped the number of Effort Values gained in these battles, meaning you’ll earn Effort Values even faster using the usual items and Pokérus.

Hyper Training is also a welcome addition and a dream come true for many players, allowing players to skip Individual Value Breeding in lieu of using bottle caps to increase these values. Changes like these really go a long way in improving the experience for competitive Trainers looking to prep for battle and will hopefully lead to more people getting involved competitively.

A Journey for Old and New

Overall, Game Freak did a phenomenal job innovating on some of the more outdated aspects of the Pokemon franchise while making sure to keep what was already working up to snuff. It’s truly a remarkable experience for all players, giving veterans a breath of fresh air while providing newcomers with an exciting launch point for their Pokemon journey. Pack that in with the most gorgeous Pokemon Region yet as well as a wonderful Hawaii-inspired soundtrack, and you have yourself a winning formula. Even with some story hiccups and the aforementioned visual glitches, I’m hard pressed to give Sun and Moon anything other than a glowing recommendation.

Score: 9.1/10

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A Summary of Trends in the Second Half of Generation 6’s Metagame

By locoghoul

As generation 6 is coming to an end, it is time to quickly give an overview of some of the most important trends in the ORAS metagame. ORAS Mega stones had something for every playstyle: stall got M-Sableye and M-Slowbro, balance got M-Loppuny, M-Latias, M-Gallade and M-Altaria while offense got M-Manectric, M-Metagross, M-Diancie and M-Swampert. In this article we will go through some trends that happened since the introduction of ORAS. The main focus of this article will be on Pokemon Showdown ladder trends, as their impact is larger on the average player than tours and tournaments.

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Decline of hyper offense (HO) and rise of bulky offense (BO)

At the end of XY, the meta was fairly offensive in nature and most teams were HO. With ORAS the style favored VoltTurn cores that helped to gain momentum.

Some common Volt-Turn users

At the end of XY, the meta was fairly offensive in nature and most teams were HO. With ORAS the style favored VoltTurn cores that helped to gain momentum. The addition of M-Beedrill (at early stages at least) and M-Manectric in particular favored the use of popular VoltTurn offense teams since it formed good cores with fast U-Turn users such as scarf Landorus-T or Tornadus-T. These teams often carried a powerful wallbreaker mon that would be brought safely against into the battle. Examples of these kind of teams are the following.

– Arik’s team

 

– njnp’s team

The popularity of these teams made people adapt and gave rise to bulkier teams designed to punish the switches U-Turn and Volt Switch create while not being crippled by it. An example of this was the introduction of tank Chomp. With 108/95/85 bulk, it has more physical bulk than Swampert while having an arguably better typing for a defensive role coupled with a great defensive ability and a higher speed tier. This in particular allowed tank Chomp to outspeed and KO Bisharp, a common threat to offensive teams, as a +2 Sucker Punch does not kill Garchomp. Moreover, immunity to electric attacks and the ability to deal up to 30% damage when opponents make a contact move meant it discouraged mindless U-Turn spam.  Although a fair amount of megas introduced in ORAS were offensive or meant to be used in offensive teams, the meta shaped to deal with most of these teams favoring bulkier teams that could still hard. Most of these mons were not exactly walls, they were considered tanks coupled with a revenge killer and a set up sweeper. Examples of these playstyle are the following teams.

– WECAMEASROMAN’s team

– ABR and blunder’s team

Interestingly enough, this trend made certain mons fade into oblivion while making others pretty good at their given time. For example, M-Altaria was really high in usage and even considered S ranking at one point. As bulkier teams appeared, M-Altaria’s lack of immediate raw power was evident and its usage decreased. At the same time, M-Metagross became the face of BO while also pressuring fat fairies like Clefable and M-Altaria itself and M-Venusaur, all common mons on bulky teams.

Clefable rose to stardom in the XY/ORAS metagame, largely in part due to its new typing.

This advantage ultimately led to its suspect test where it was not banned. M-Metagross usage was later affected by two trends that we will cover next.

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It’s a Trap! Stall Strikes Back

Although stall has always been a viable playstyle, it was fairly difficult to build a successful stall team during the XY metagame due to its offensive nature. Calm Mind Landorus-I, Aegislash, M-Gardevoir, Keldeo and old Baton Pass teams made stall a very difficult playstyle. However, after a number of suspect tests, namely the ban of Landorus-I, the baton pass nerf(s) and the addition of M-Sableye, stall became much more viable. This was also favored by the decrease in HO teams and the overall bulkier meta that had trouble sometimes to break through stall. M-Slowbro seemed like a nice addition as it gave a win condition to stall teams who rely mostly on passive damage from either status or entry hazards. While it was indeed a good member on a number of teams, soon players discovered the wonders of using M-Sableye on stall. Not only contributed as a spinblocker (rare on Gen 6) but it check a lot of physical attackers that could break through classic stall, such as M-Medicham. It also provided a way to control the hazard war, something that is key to beating stall as it is guaranteed that both sides will be switching a lot. Coupled with a defogger like Skarmory, Mandibuzz, or Zapdos, stall had a great chance to keep hazards off its field while keeping them on their opponent’s side.

Another component that has been used to full effect on stall is trapping. The concept of trapping is not new, if you remember the BW2 meta it was mainly dragmag teams where Magnezone would get rid of steels so that dragon spam could win the game. Pursuit trapping is also an old yet effective way to remove certain threats or walls. Examples of this is the classic Charizard-Y/Tyranitar or Keldeo/Tyranitar combo. Choiced (either Band or Scarf depending on the team) Tyranitar removes Lati@s that wall the special attackers mentioned so that they can go through teams very easily as most teams don’t have any other answers to them. During the ORAS generation, Shadow Tag, in particular the use of choiced Gothithelle, was a huge component of the metagame. This is because despite forming a good stall team there were several threats that can break through this teams like Rain Dance Manaphy or Calm Mind Clefable. Gothithelle helped remove this pokemon very effectively, sometimes even being able to trap and remove more than one pokemon per game (Heatran, opposing Chansey, Clefable, M-Venusaur, etc). Although Gothitelle trapping was not exclusive to this playstyle, it certainly took the spotlight in these kind of teams and eventually was the cause for Shadow Tag being banned from OU altogether (RIP Wobbuffet).

Even then, the combination of trapping + stall still proved to be very powerful as other types of trapping also helped to build very effective (and arguably annoying) teams against a large portion of the meta. Examples include Weavile stall featuring CB Weavile pursuit trapping offensive stall breakers like Taunt Tornadus-T, Hoopa-U (big threat to stall), etc. Another interesting use of trapping came with the combination of RU/NU mons Dugtrio and Shedinja, respectively. Commonly referred as the “Wonder Trio” (along M-Sableye), Shedinja uses baton pass on the switch to effectively trap a key opposing pokemon such as Heatran or Tyranitar. Although there was a time in the ladder where everyone was spamming the team, after a while Dugtrio in stall teams faded away until very recently where new teams have been claiming rage quits all over the ladder. The addition of a double defog core in SkarmDos, similar to what we encounter in Monotype Flying teams, provides great support to standard stall teams and allows them to handle all threats after Dugtrio killed the opposing stall breaker (M-Heracross, CB Tyranitar, Kyurem-B), keeping its sash intact for the task. Almost immediately, a new Wonder Trio team would make a reappearance, this time with the help of Eject Button Alomomola. This ensures that Dugtrio safely switches into Pokemon it needs to remove even if his sash is broken. The success of this team (plus the tears of most players in the ladder) has brought us another suspect test on Sablenite. While M-Sableye itself is not “broken” or does not fit the support characteristic of unhealthy according to Smogon’s definition; it is once again the extremely powerful combination of trapping + stall that proofs to be overpowered.

– CleanerThanRotom-W’s team

– Branflakes325’ team

– Tele’s team

– Tio Chico’s team

 

Notice that this archetype has brought plenty of changes around the meta: it has caused 2 suspect tests (original M-Sableye + Shadow Tag, ongoing Sablenite), has moved up Amoongus to OU from UU, has moved up Dugtrio to OU from RU and has indirectly caused the drop of many mons from OU. Now that we are entering a new generation and new toys will be available for both offense and stall, do not forget that stall is a very viable playstyle and you should always account for it when team building.

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Sand Offense

During the later stages of ORAS this style started to grow in popularity since it had good matchups against balance and common offensive teams. Strong wallbreakers take care of balanced teams while Excadrill outspeeds and murders HO teams. Sand offense typically included Tyranitar over Hippowdon as the former not only has a better offensive presence but it can trap specially defensive pokemon such as Lati@s, Tornadus-T (only with scarf) or Chansey. These teams became so popular that it also brought Tangrowth back to OU from the pits of RU. Indeed, Tangrowth works excellent on sand teams and against them. With massive defenses and resistances to Ground and Water, Tangrowth can switch into Azumarill or Breloom with ease preventing them from revenge killing Excadrill in sand with their strong super effective priorities. On the other hand, it has a great movepool with excellent utility moves such as Knock Off, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore and Leech Seed.

Around the same time, Volcanion release on Showdown happened and quickly lead into a lot of experimentation. At first sight, it seemed like Volcanion was a perfect fit for sand teams: it is immune to water attacks, it checks Azumarill nicely with Sludge Wave/Bomb and goes well with Tyranitar. However as the weeks went by, people realized Volcanion was not as great as they would have expected. The fact that it has slowish speed combined with a Stealth Rock weakness did not justify its use over other mons that give him competition over the strong special attacker category such as Keldeo or Latios.

As a consequence of these type of teams being very popular, some trends were observed these past year. First, a considerable increase in the already popular Landorus-T was observed to help check Excadrill better. Second, M-Metagross, M-Manectric and M-Charizard X usage decreased due to being weak to Excadrill. This also marked the end of M-Altaria in OU as the little usage it had disappeared for obvious reasons.

– Clone’s team

–  Ethanlol’s team

– ABR/High Impulse’s Team

– Confide’s Team

Spam of the Bird Spam

Finally, for the last eight months or so a particular team has been spammed in the ladder with surprising success despite some bad matchups in the metagame. Xtra’s bird spam team is a HO team that was originally conceived more than a year ago but was popularized semi recently by Empo who peaked the ladder several times with different alts using the same team. While XY saw its fair share of bird spam teams with the addition of Talonflame and M-Pinsir, the inclusion of different stall breakers makes this team really hard to stop once it gets going. The main concept is to overload its counters with strong attackers to ensure a late game clean by one of its set up sweepers. Once again, this team has been very effective and I’d be surprised if you have not faced it while laddering as it is favored by many players because it typically results in quick games, making laddering and acquiring reqs a faster endeavor. As a result of this, the meta has seen a rise in physically defensive Zapdos to take this team better and also the appearance of Adamant Quick Attack M-Lopunny. Adamant M-Lopunny has a high chance of killing lead Azelf with a combination of Fake Out + Return, something Jolly fails to do. Aditionally, the extra power plus the two priorities (Fake Out and Quick Attack) help a lot against Band Talonflame and other strong priority users.

    – Xtra$hine’s team

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Conclusion

Generation 6 brought a pool of new toys to the metagame including new abilities, Pokemon, mega evolutions, and more. Power creep was an issue, especially with the introduction of mega Pokemon like M-Kangaskhan, M-Mawile, M-Salamence, and M-Lucario. Gamefreak has made clear that they intend to nerf some of these features for the Sun-Moon metagame. The Fairy type transformed the type chart, and overall there was a shift towards a more physically offensive metagame. With just a few days remaining until the release of Sun-Moon, the dawn of a new generation is sure to throw the metagame through a series of big loops.

So you want to be the next PRL Champion…

By ilikepizza42

So you want to be champion? My name is Brent and I am the current dark type gym leader and former champion of Pokemon Reddit League. Today I’m going to give future challengers advice about team building in general and for our league.

Team building is important in all forms of competitive Pokemon so it’s no wonder that your team can make or break your PRL challenge. You’re only allowed one team and often times people will change theirs up several times before getting their first badge. For battling against our league some of the important things I made sure my team had were ‘mons with different sets and unpredictability, ones that could make use of different coverage, and made sure it was balanced in some way.

Using different sets such as defensive/choice scarf Landorus-T is one of the ways that you can succeed. If you don’t get your first badge using defensive Lando, when you rematch your opponent will definitely get thrown off by the switch to scarf Lando. That alone could be a big enough of a surprise and game changer in the rematch to win.

Talonflame is another example of a Pokemon that can run different sets successfully. At the beginning of the XY metagame Talonflame’s most popular set was choice band. It was successful at the time and checked many threats like Mega Pinsir or Volcarona. Now at the end of the ORAS metagame we have many different sets that Talonflame can run effectively: defensive stall breaker with Will-O-Wisp and Bulk Up, Swords Dance cleaner and even the classic choice band set are all still viable.

Coverage is very important in our league. Because each leader uses a different type, you should construct a team with balanced coverage to take on a wide variety of Pokemon. It is recommended that you bring at least one or two Pokemon with a wide variety of options.

During my league challenge I used Gengar because of its threatening position in the metagame and its wide special attacking coverage. 130 special attack with 110 speed and the ability to learn a variety of moves leaves it an underrated threat in PRL. Gengar has powerful STAB moves in Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, and Sludge Wave; in addition, it also has access to many useful coverage moves including Thunderbolt, Dazzling Gleam, Energy Ball, Focus Blast, Dark Pulse, and Psychic. With all of these coverage options in conjunction with stellar special attack and speed, Gengar is capable of sweeping entire teams if it gets an opening. Aside from this, Gengar can also run a viable stallbreaker or annoyer set using Substitute, Will-O-Wisp or Toxic, and Disable. Changing your sets for each gym leader you face is very important and can help you win.

Making a balanced team is also important. Our gym leaders all use at least five Pokemon of our gym type; the remaining selection is a “wild card.” The purpose of these wild cards is so that our challengers cannot just walk in with, say, Mega Gardevoir and sweep straight through my gym. When challenging the league, you must state your team up front; therefore, it is incumbent on you to similarly ensure that your own team does not have any glaring weaknesses. You want to make sure that your team isn’t swept by any one mon. Hyper offensive can be effective in OU, but depending on your match up, it can be unhelpful. For instance, current Champion Eco_politiq used a hyper offensive team during his league challenge, and while it was very effective against some gyms, he really struggled against our Poison gym leader, CleverMiltank, who was able to effectively counter team using stall. The ability to scout your teams means that we will bring a hard counter to your biggest threat and planning around that can help you win. Making sure that your team doesn’t get swept by a Talonflame is just another example of team building to win. Any playstyle can win, just make sure that your team doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses or we will take advantage of that.

Mega Venusaur makes Azumarill sad faced 😦

When you challenge, it may sound fun to bring some of your favorite mons to do a gym leader challenge, but not all are quite up to par for competitive play. As Zdeb93 pointed out in the last entry, some Pokemon are just not useful. Using UU or even RU ‘mons can turn out successful and surprise your opponent enough to give you the edge, but at the end of the day, some are RU for a reason. They may be outclassed or even just not powerful or fast enough to do well. Likewise, bringing only A+/S rank OU Pokemon can also hurt you more than help. They are fantastic and put in great work, but if you pick them just because of their viability ranking, that doesn’t help your team, particularly if you don’t know how to use them. The other disadvantage to this is that these Pokemon are among the most common, and so our experienced leaders will know how to handle most of their sets. Being able to identify one’s role and using different Pokemon effectively can make you a great team builder. That’s something you learn not from reading who the best Pokemon in the meta currently are, but by playing games and getting a feel on what work with who.

Finally, when team building it is important to think of cores. Eco_politiq wrote a detailed blog entry a few weeks ago on this subject- you should check that out for more information, but for now, I’ll outline a couple of basics.

There are many cores that can do work against monotype.One example is Mega Venusaur and Heatran. They resist almost every single one of the other’s weaknesses. Venusaur is an excellent answer to fighting, ground and water types that threaten Heatran, whereas Heatran can check psychic, flying and fire types that Venusaur is afraid of. They are an excellent example of the beginning of a good PRL team with their ability to run offensive, defensive and even choice scarf sets well.

Explore new teams, think of ‘mons that complement each other well and most of all, make sure you prep for each battle. Knowing against what type you’re going against gives you a huge advantage in team building and you should use that. Hope this helped and good luck current and future challengers!

Using Hax Strategically

By zdeb93

Some people believe themselves to be luckier than others, and while there is no quantifiable way of proving that idea, if you believe yourself to be in that category, maybe you’d like to try your luck with a Pokemon that thrives on that very idea. This blog will cover strategies for using hax to your advantage and countering your opponent’s use of hax.

By hax, I mean the luck based elements of Pokemon battles. Examples include Scald burns, critical hits, flinches, etc. Hax-based Pokemon, or Hax abusers, can be very effective in poking holes in a well-built team and even swinging the tide of a match that you find yourself very behind in.

With that in mind let’s take a look at three popular Hax-based strategies, we’ll cover countering these tactics at the end.

Critical Hit Abuse

Usually there is no way to know if a critical hit is coming; however with gen VI (and assuming Gen VII if they stay the same) mechanics a couple of Pokemon are able to guarantee a critical hit with specific sets, items and abilities.

Critical hits are checked on a 0-3 point scale. Where a 0 boosted critical hit chance boosts equals a 6.25% chance of a crit. 1 boost gives 12.5%, 2 boosts is 50% and getting all 3 boosts guarantees a critical hit 100% if the move hits.

Table 1: Critical hit ratio based on number of boosts

0	6.25%
1	12.5%
2	50%
3	100%

You can boost your critical hit chance with moves that boost critical hit chance (Stone Edge, Cross Poison etc.) or holding an item like Scope Lens or Razor Claw. The ability Super Luck also boosts critical hit chance. Those will all give you +1 on the scale. The move Focus Energy will grant you 2 notches on the scale, so a combination of the first list and Focus Energy will guarantee a critical hit.

Moves with a high critical hit ratio are: Aeroblast, Attack Order, Air Cutter, Blaze Kick, Crabhammer, Cross Chop, Cross Poison, Drill Run, Karate Chop, Leaf Blade, Night Slash, Poison Tail, Psycho Cut, Razor Leaf, Razor Wind, Shadow Blast, Shadow Claw, Sky Attack, Slash, Spacial Rend, Stone Edge

+1: High critical hit ratio moves, Scope Lens, Razor Claw, Super Luck

+2: Focus Energy

Two Pokemon that are notorious for this strategy are Kingdra (UU) and non-mega Absol (RU).

What makes Kindgra so fantastic for this “crit abuse” strategy is the ability Sniper. Sniper makes critical hits do 1.5x more damage, on top of the already boosted damage output from the critical hit. Also, critical hits ignore your negative boosted stats and your opponent’s positive boosted stats relative to your attack. That means no lost power to Draco Meteor, and it doesn’t matter how many Calm Minds your opponent has set up if it hits, and it crits, it’s going to hurt.

In reality, any pokemon that can learn Focus Energy can employ this tactic to some degree, but the ability sniper and Kindgra’s fantastic defensive typing (only 2 weaknesses plus one 0.5x resistance and two 0.25x resistances) make it the best user of crit abuse currently. However, Kingdra struggles to sweep due to its mediocre bulk and speed.

Absol is a little more specific to make this strategy work. An Absol needs the ability Super Luck, a crit chance boosting item (like Razor Fang) and to use moves like Night Slash, Psycho Cut and Stone Edge that boost critical hit chance to get it to the +3 status for 100% critical hits. Because its item slot is used up, Mega Absol cannot run the 100% crit set.

Perhaps you have a pokemon that you want to have the Crit Abuse strategy but it doesn’t get access to focus energy or doesn’t have a lot of +1 critical hit chance moves. Enter in Scolipede.

Scolipede who is notorious for passing all kinds of stats to its teammates can pass a focus energy like boost with the help of a Lansat Berry. The set works by protecting and substituting to build up speed boosts, then when its health is below 25%, Lansat Berry activates giving a +2 boost on the Critical Hit scale (same as a focus energy’s effect). If you’re able to predict the move coming in or if your opponent switches and you get a safe switch into your Baton Pass (it will more than likely go first due to speed boosts) everything from Landorus to Bellossom can be scary with a crit boost plus all those speed boosts.

Serene Grace Shenanigans

Serene Grace doubles the chance of a moves secondary effect occurring. The most common use of this ability is for flinching, though stat boosting moves can also be considered under this strategy (Ancient Power and it’s +1 to all stats goes from 10 to 20 percent, for example). The chance to inflict a status (like freeze chance on ice beam) is also doubled with the Serene Grace ability.

An efficient way to abuse Serene Grace chances is to stack these effects to your advantage like paralysis and flinching, or paraflinching as it is commonly known. The practice of paralyzing a pokemon so it has a 25% chance to not move plus diminishing speed so that your move that has a chance to flinch can go first can be devastating to any pokemon regardless of matchup. Just take note that Serene Grace does not actually effect the chance of your opponent being able to move while paralyzed. Iron Head is very common move used in this strategy with a 30% chance to flinch times two with serene grace, makes a 60% flinch chance.

That makes an estimated chance of moving in a paraflinch scenario 30% (75% chance to clear paralysis multiplied by the 40% chance to clear flinch as well). It’s easy to see that when you can limit your opponent to, mathematically speaking, three moves when you get 10 that paraflinching can be a prominent, and annoying, strategy.

It’s important to be aware of pokemon that can have Serene Grace since there seems to be at least one regardless of tier (if playing Smogon/Showdown) or banlist (if at a tournament).

Pokemon with Serene Grace listed by Smogon Tiers (effective 9/2016)

Uber: Shaymin-Sky

OU/BL: Chansey, Jirachi, Togekiss

UU/BL2: Blissey

RU/BL3: Meloetta, Togetic

NU/BL4: none

PU: Dunsparce, Sawsbuck.

Two of my favorite pokemon can utilize this strategy: Togekiss and Jirachi. Here are some sample sets for each!

Jirachi-Stall

Ability: Serene Grace

Moves: Iron Head/Zen Headbutt, Thunder Wave/Body Slam, Wish, Protect

Item: Leftovers

Thunder Wave is used on cartridge, but Body Slam (Gen III move tutor) can be used on Showdown if you wish, with a 60% chance of paralyze plus doing damage as opposed to just paralyzing, though at a 100% rate.

This set gives you a STAB move with a 60% chance flinch chance boosted through Serene Grace and a way to heal while also adding protect for scouting/passive damage purposes. Steel as a type is only resisted by four types making it borderline sweep territory if resistances are removed by other teammates. Jirachi has base 100 stats all around and can be as bulky, fast, or strong as you could want. I recommend doing some calculations on Showdown’s calculator to determine relevant moves that you want Jirachi to be able to survive or opponents you want it to outspeed.

Jirachi-Offense

Ability: Serene Grace

Moves: Iron Head, Zen Headbutt, U-Turn, Healing Wish

Item: Choice Scarf

This Jirachi is more suited to offensive teams and has become a staple in the XY/ORAS metagame. A Choice Scarf allows Jirachi to outspeed most relevant Pokemon and inflict a flinch chance with either Iron Head or Zen Headbutt. However, be mindful of the lower accuracy of Zen Headbutt. U-Turn lets Jirachi pivot out of undesirable situations. Healing Wish can be used late game to give a teammate a second lease. A Jolly or Adamant nature can be run depending on whether the speed or power matters to you; again, I recommend doing calculations. Regardless, the ideal EV spread is 252 Attack/252 Speed/4 Defense or Special Defense

Togekiss

Ability: Serene Grace

Item: Leftovers

Moves: Air Slash, Thunder Wave, Roost, Dazzling Gleam/Coverage Move

This Togekiss set employs the same strategy, paralyze the opponent and flinch opponents to death with a way to heal itself. Air Slash (75 BP, 95% accuracy) is a little worse than Iron Head (80 BP, 100% accuracy) but is still just as effective with Togekiss’ 120 Special Attack stat vs Jirachi’s 100 Attack stat in terms of damage output. The coverage spot is flexible depending on your team’s needs. If resistances worry you, Nasty Plot can turn this Togekiss into a deadly wallbreaker. Toxic can be used if you need to put a bulky type Pokemon on a timer. Heal Bell or Wish provide team support, while Ancient Power takes advantage of Serene Grace if you want to boost all stats can be options too, depending on your needs for team composition. There are also traditional options, like Flamethrower/Fire Blast which benefit from the boosted burn chance. Aura Sphere that helps give coverage against the likes of Tyranitar and Bisharp.

Skilled Linkers

Perhaps one of the most well-known “hax based” strategies features Skill Link in combination with the held item King’s Rock (or another flinch inducing item). Skill Link makes multi-hit moves hit to their full potential (usually 5 times).

Mega Heracross, with its access to Pin Missile and Rock Blast, has risen to become a top threat in the late ORAS metagame. However, due to the need to hold a Heracronite, it is unable to make use of the King’s Rock strategy. Still, the fact that Skill Link lets it fire off extremely powerful attacks that break Focus Sash and Sturdy warrant its mention.

Two main Pokemon are known for the Skill Flinch strategy.Cloyster is the better of the two main users with access to Shell Smash for boosted power, Ice Shard for priority and even Hydro Pump for a mixed attacking variant in conjunction with the multi hit moves Icicle Spear and Rock Blast.

Cinccino in lesser tiers can be used to some success but middling stats (75/60/65 defenses) really limit its use in higher tiers. A 115 speed tier gives it a niche as a late game cleaner when everything is in one hit (or 5 hit KO range). With access to Tail Slap, Rock Blast and Bullet Seed it presents a lot of coverage to fill that role.

The item slot makes the flinch hax strategy work. With five hits per move and a 10% flinch chance given by King’s Rock for moves not normally with a flinch chance it makes a 41% chance that the opponent will not move if your multi strike attack went first. This makes Skill Link pokemon serviceable stallbreakers against walls of any variety, and again in the case of Cinccino and its natural speed, late game cleaners as well.

SwagPlay

While this strategy is banned in Smogon competitions, however it’s worth mentioning that the ultimate example of using Hax to win seems to originate here with SwagPlay.

Swagger to boost your opponents attack by 2, then the opponent flips a coin (50% chance) on whether they hit themselves due to confusion with that boosted attack stat. If they’ve already boosted via Swords Dance for example, that’s a +4 physical hit on themselves. Foul Play attacks your opponent with their attack stat. Which means the more that stat is boosted through Swagger, Swords Dance or others, the more damage that is done.

Common users of this strategy are Klefki (Prankster ability for priority Swaggers and amazing defensive typing and decent 51/91/87 bulk) and Liepard (Prankster ability and STAB Foul Play use). The strategy may be gimmicky but it obviously works to a frustrating effect if Smogon has banned it.

In terms of those pokemon, while Klefki can serve multiple roles and has held it’s OU tiering despite Swagger being a banned move in Smogon, Liepard resides all the way down in NU, meaning SwagPlay was about all it had going for it. If you are playing in a non-Smogon match or event this obviously means nothing to you.

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Countering Hax -Based Strategies

Most of these strategies rely on limiting the opponent’s turns, reducing speed, or turning attacks around on the foe. Because of this, powerful priority Pokemon can be key to wearing down and scoring kills on fully set up Pokemon who dabble in Hax. Sets with double priority, like Fake Out and Bullet Punch for example, can really put a dent into a special defensive Togekiss running paraflinch. Priority is just a generally good thing to have on a team, but if it’s scarce on your team, be very wary if paraflinch comes out against you.

For Pokemon that use the crit abuse strategy the key is to bring out a wall breaker and attempt to hit hard right away assuming you outspeed. Kingdra might only have 2 weaknesses but it is kind of frail, especially if no EVs are invested with 75/95/95 defense. Absol is even frailer with 65/60/60 defenses in non-mega form.

If you can’t outspeed a crit abuser you will need a very defensive pokemon that can probably resist the attack type coming at you. For example, if Critdra brings Draco Meteor, Surf and Ice Beam a specially defensive Ferrothorn can do great work with 116 SpD stat and resistances to all three attack types. However, with Ferrothorn’s 131 defense stat it may be unlikely you will run a Ferrothorn with full special defense by default.

Mega Slowbro also forces Critdra out and can use the opportunity to set up with Calm Mind.

SwagPlay countering is pretty much a combination of the two recipes above. Hit with priority and hit it hard before it gets the chance to swagger you. However if you are a physically attacking Pokemon, you could just simply flip the coin and hope you’re on the right side of it, because after all a Hax-based strategy is always just that, luck.

If an item is crucial to the strategy (King’s Rock, Lansat Berry, Scope Lens etc.) knock off users can help to deal with the Hax based pokemon if it gets rolling and looks to finish you off.

The ability Inner Focus prevents flinches from occurring. Although this ability is generally seen as useless, there are several Pokemon that are forced to run it, like Mega Gallade, and others that have a niche use for it.

Obviously the best strategy is a proactive thought that certain Pokemon are Hax-Based and not let them get “set up” by inflicting paralysis, punishing a Focus Energy user etc. The biggest weakness of hax strategies is that they still rely a great deal on luck and are therefore easy to counter with advance planning.

It might not always feell good or safe but Hax can be a huge part of Pokemon when used right and when used advantageously.

We hope you’ve learned something with our two part series on dealing with Hax as a player and utilizing (or countering) Hax in the actual moment of battle. As much as all players may moan and groan about Hax affecting the outcome of the battle the fact is, Pokemon would not be the way it is without Hax. Luck will almost always play some role in competition and as we’ve stated before Pokemon is no exception.

Quit Complaining About Hax! (A Rant)

 

By zdeb93

 

“Crit Mattered”

“Oh what bulls***!”

“COME ON” “Seriously???”

Any of that look familiar to you? Those are some of the more tame reactions to critical hits (aka “crits”), paralysis (“parahax”), scald or flamethrower burns, and other luck based events in Pokemon that have come to be known as “hax” that unfortunately run rampant among some Pokemon players. The most frequent place you’ll see these rantings is Pokemon Showdown, but other battling communities and even cartridge play is not immune to this childish and unnecessary behavior.

Simply put complaining about hax is an excuse, and if you’ve ever done anything for the purpose of getting better, you will know that making excuses only hurts yourself in your development. Plus, your perception to those who also engage in the community will probably be a bit tarnished.

I’m not saying a loss because of hax isn’t worth bemoaning, but it’s not worth flaming out on the internet or at a tournament over. It happens to the best of us; get over it, and move on to your next battle.

Conversely, a win via hax shouldn’t be celebrated over the top obnoxiously. Oh, your Mega Scizor’s bullet punch landed a crit and KO’d a Talonflame? Cool, you took a risk and were rewarded, but don’t act like you knew that was going to happen when any damage calculation will tell you in your position you were a dead duck.

I’m not saying you have to apologize for hax going your way (I never do and expect the same treatment from my opponents), but you make yourself look like a special kind of idiot when the critical hit lands and a KO that shouldn’t have happened is lauded as amazing skill. 99% of the time it isn’t.

There are a few ways to know a crit will happen, but that’s another article entirely.

Moreover, superior strategy and skills in battle will usually prevail over an inferior opponent, and those superior players often make luck-based plays as non-existent as possible in their strategies to win. This is incentive to get better. Doing things like learning metagame trends and sharpening battle skills will make you a better player, even when Hax goes against you. You also should be more able to handle a Hax filled match the better and more experienced you get.

For Pokemon, or any kind of competitive game to thrive the way it has for so long it must embrace some luck components to its game, no matter how much high level players may hate it. Luck is just as much a part (if not more) of the formula of a Pokemon battle as prep and double switches can be. If there was no luck, there would be no variety, no wild cards, no chaos. All battles would be straightforward and vanilla. It’s like a major league baseball game with no curve balls thrown during the game. Yes, it’s still baseball, but something is so obviously missing and it would make the game very different.

There are very few things in this world that from a competitive nature are completely devoid of luck, and pokemon is not one of them.

To help break up the rant and to give some more viewpoints here are some words from other members of our community on the topic of Hax.

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Current Champion of PRL and Steel-type Gym Leader /u/eco_politiq: “As hard as we try to plan our teams, random chance events do occur and can cost us important matches. There’s no point being upset about it. It’s just what makes this game so fun at times… I love when random stuff happens but players ought to be careful not to conflate skill with chance events.”

In my gym (Psychic) I had the chance to use a Hax-based strategy with a paraflinch Jirachi, the challenger, /u/TheKenpoFreak, was able to beat it after some damage had been done with a M-Medicham High Jump Kick (another chance for Hax) through said paraflinches.

I asked them about their thoughts on that particular aspect of our battle: “When your Jirachi was doing his thing mid game, I won’t lie, I was bummed and frustrated. But I understand it is a tactic and has to be set up, it doesn’t just “happen”… I feel like [going against] paraflinching is fighting a losing battle. Paralyzing first so you have a 25% chance of not being able to move in conjunction with lowering its speed, with using flinching moves after that I feel is really hard to counter. The percentages and probability rates are just not in your favor and at that point luck is taken out of the equation and it’s more like you need a Hail Mary in most cases to put a stop to it.”

Effectively using and countering hax-based pokemon will come in another piece.

Former champion and current Dark-type Gym Leader /u/ILikePizza42: “…this game is all about 10%-30% chances of things happening. It’s frustrating when something very unlikely to happen happens, but the game was meant to be played like that and it makes comeback wins that much more likely and exciting. My opinion is that hax is natural and it will happen, both to you and your opponent.”

Hopefully you can take some pieces of wisdom out of this blog, the big one being hax is just a fact of life for Pokemon players no matter the skill level. While it’s true many high level players will make luck as little a variable in their battles as they can, it’s still a healthy and necessary part of the game that we’ve all come to know and love.

But I Want to Use My Favorite!: A Guide to Using Lower-Tier Pokemon in OU

By Teenelmo26

Growing up loving Pokemon, I have so many favorites (as I’m sure many of us do). In particular I fell in love with Cradily the moment I discovered it in Pokemon Ruby all those years ago. Many of our favorites, like Cradily, just don’t seem to have the power to compete with others in the high tiers, particularly Over Used (OU). They get placed in low tiers to create better balance. Using Cradily as an example, it is currently in Never Used (NU). I’m here to tell you you CAN use your favorites on a higher tier team, and you SHOULD.

 

So you have a favorite Pokemon that’s below the respectful tier you wish to use. Follow these steps to help prepare yourself to use your favorite in the tier of your desire.

 

Step One: Decide which Pokemon you want to use and how to use it!

 

This step seems simple, but it’s best to look past just throwing a Pokemon into a team. You need to understand where your Pokemon fits in the competitive scene, what its battle strategies are, its weaknesses, strengths, etc. Start by using Smogon’s boards, search your Pokemon and look at how it’s used.

 

Using Cradily as our example, most common set on Smogon is a special wall. Now is when your own knowledge can help you make decisions. I know Cradily has high special defense, but its attack and special attack are equal, so which attacks should I run? Looking at Cradily’s Hidden Ability, Storm Drain, which raises its special attack, means I could favor special attack in order to capitalize this ability. Knowing about your favorite Pokemon’s Stats, Abilities, and move sets can help you decide how to run your Pokemon.

 

Step Two: Build your team!

 

So you have your Pokemon, its stat spread (Ev’s and IV’s), ability and move set chosen. Using it in a higher tier is fine so long as it has a team to complement it. Is yo0ur team going to be balanced? Stall? Hyper Offense? Decide this before hand and get ready to build. At this point I do recommend trying to use Pokemon from the desired tier to help with your power in battle.

 

Cradily is a great counter to Water types with it’s ability and typing. Where it is not great is against Steel types. Most Cradily sets run Toxic Stall (Toxic + Recover/leftovers). Steel is immune, which causes them to wall Cradily. So on this team I need something to take out Steel. I personally love going with Magnezone. Traps Steel, and Hidden Power Fire does the rest.

 

Again: Know your Pokemon’s strength’s and weaknesses! Compliment it with your team so that your lower tier Pokemon isn’t out of place!

 

Step Three: Practice, Practice, Practice!

 

Get on Pokemon Showdown. Easily the best place to practice team building and battles. Practice using your favorite, get a feel for it’s strength’s and when to switch. It’s ok to lose a bunch of battles at first, it’s all about getting the feel of things so you can start to WIN! One of the strengths to using a low tier Pokemon is that other teams wont be prepared for it. Use that to your advantage! After a lot of practice you should get a handle for the meta game, and your own teams strategy.

 

Practicing on 3DS is harder. There aren’t tiers set up, so you may end up facing teams of ubers (crazy good legendaries and megas banned in OU), which wont give you a feel for your teams usage. This is why Showdown is preferred overall. Finding groups of Pokemon loving friends, online leagues, etc. will also help with practicing.

 

Additional Help:

Another great way to figure out how your favorite might fit on a team is to try out making a monotype team. Monotype’s are forced to use Pokemon in tiers below OU because they don’t have enough high tier Pokemon of that type, or not enough to fill out a proper team design. On monorock Cradily is used a lot as a Water Counter (obviously), and a Special wall. Learn these things about your Pokemon and practice teams like this. Pokemon Showdown has a monotype tier, with some special bans, so look into it before forming a team.

 

DISCLAIMER:

As a small disclaimer: Not all Pokemon may be suitable for using in the high tiers. If your favorite is an unevolved Pokemon, like Bulbasaur, you wont find any help bringing it to OU. Best to keep this strategy to fully evolved Pokemon, or ones that greatly benefit from Eviolite.

 

There you have it. Figure out which Pokemon you want to make work, and figure out how to get it to flow well on a team. If you have any questions, ask the leaders! We have a lot of experience using low tier Pokemon on our gym teams. Hell, I have two under used Pokemon on my main OU team (Can’t say which, spoilers).

 

Smell ya later! 

Gym Leaders HATE This One Simple Trick to Making Your Core Stronger!

By Eco_politiq

When team building, most good trainers do not simply throw together a team of any six Pokemon. They think about things like typing, offensive coverage, weaknesses and resistances, and the kinds of support members of their team need. One very common strategy many players use is called core building, in which the trainer selects 2-4 Pokemon that work well together and can cover one another’s weaknesses and resistances. Core building is a critical strategy in all of the Pokemon metagames; it is particularly crucial in monotype. Here, we will discuss corebuilding strategies, common cores, and their applications in the monotype metagame. I will provide examples of cores whenever possible- being a steel type fanatic, most of my cores will be demonstrated assuming a steel team build, except when impossible.

Top Three Reasons to Use Cores

1. Ensure that your team has defensive coverage to switch into and absorb dangerous attacks.
2. Ensure that your team has offensive coverage to handle and not be walled by common threats.
3. Reduce the chance that a single Pokemon can sweep or wall your entire team.

Some Key Terms for This Blog

Core- 2 to 4 Pokemon on a team that have good offensive and/or defensive synergy, allowing them to handle a bulk of prominent threats with support from other team members.

Synergy- The ability of any two or more Pokemon to perform distinct, complementary roles and assist each other in accomplishing shared goals on a team.

Diversity– The ability for a team to perform multiple functions as a result of using Pokemon that perform different roles.

Niche- The role a particular Pokemon plays on a team or in the metagame as a whole.

*NOTE: While synergy and diversity are related dynamics of corebuilding, they are NOT the same thing! Having good synergy often relies on diversity; however, a team can be very diverse and lack synergy; likewise, a team (usually if it is monotype) can also be synergistic but lack diversity.

Why Cores?

As I have already said, the three main reasons to use cores are defensive synergy, offensive synergy, and team diversity. Unless you are playing monotype, it is unlikely that you will be using multiple Pokemon of a single type on a team. Most trainers will ordinarily build teams that have complementary offensive/defensive typings anyway because it is common sense. Core building takes this a step further- not only do you want to select Pokemon with complementary types, but you also want to consider the niche that Pokemon fills.

One example of an OU core that makes use of these features well is the prevalent Mega Gallade/Bisharp pairing.

This is a common offensive core that makes use of the typing, coverage, and role synergy of the two Pokemon. Mega Gallade’s sky-high attack stat, good speed, and access to Swords Dance make it an excellent wallbreaker/sweeper, while Bisharp functions effectively as a physically oriented wallbreaker. Gallade can switch into and absorb fighting attacks meant for Bisharp and strike back or force the foe out with a psychic attack; meanwhile, Bisharp effectively absorbs flying and ghost type attacks meant for Gallade and can clear away fairies and other threats that resist Gallade’s coverage. They function well together as a core because of their ability to handle one another’s threats and provide enough damage to challenge Pokemon that one could not easily handle alone.

While cores are an important strategy in standard play, they are essential when playing monotype. The reason for this should be fairly obvious: if you are using a team comprised entirely of one type, then multiple members of your team are likely to share weaknesses. If you run a fairy monoteam and do not use Klefki and/or Azumarill, then every Scizor you come across will mow through your team unopposed. Cores are necessary in monotype because they can provide your team with crucial checks and counters to threats that might otherwise 6-0 your team.

Common Core Configurations

While there are a wide variety of different approaches to core building, there are several standard forms commonly used by players. One of the most common cores seen is the Grass/Fire/Water core.

This is a standard core for many reasons. Gamefreak practically designed grass/fire/water cores themselves when establishing the types for all generational starters. Grass/Fire/Water cores have good offensive and defensive synergy alike: grass types resist water and ground supereffective hits meant for fire and electric attacks aimed at water; fire absorbs the fire, bug, and ice hits aimed at grass and the grass hits aimed at water; and finally, water can absorb fire and ice attacks. Offensive synergy is also generally good with GFW cores: aside from their STAB coverage, Pokemon of these types also frequently have access to a wide variety of coverage moves. Varying levels of support, such as spore and leech seed from grass types and will-o-wisp from fire types, also make these cores function well together.

For this example, I used one of my favorite cores, Ferrothorn/Heatran/Empoleon. Heatran is essential when playing mono steel due to the fact that it absorbs fire hits. Empoleon provides additional neutrality against fire and supereffective Scalds to fight fire types off.

Another commonly seen core configuration is the Dragon/Fairy/Steel core.

This core is not legal in a mono steel format due to Dialga being banned, so for this example I am using the core from my gym/E4 PRL challenge. Steel and fairy types absorb dragon moves; steel has a crucial poison immunity and resistances to steel and ice; dragon is in turn resistant to fire. This core works particularly well due to added aspects of its synergy: Latias also has resistances to grass, electric, and fire attacks that threaten Azumarill and Magnezone and is immune to ground thanks to levitate. Azumarill and Latias both resist fighting type attacks as well, and Azumarill can handle dark type attacks other than pursuit aimed at Latias. Magnezone also has an advantage of being able to trap and remove opposing steel types with the combination of Magnet Pull and HP Fire.

A third commonly seen core is the Fighting/Dark/Psychic core.

The core featured here echoes the aforementioned Mega Gallade-Bisharp core, but here I have adapted it to fit steel monotype. Fighting types clear away dark types that threaten psychic allies; dark types can threaten the ghosts that psychics fear and psychic types that make life difficult for fighting; finally, psychic types serve as a good hold-off to most fairies and can handle fighting types that darks are afraid of. Cobalion/Bisharp/Jirachi form an effective steel FDP core that mitigates the fairy weakness a core of this configuration might ordinarily have. Cobalion also has the added bonus of Justified, meaning it can become all the more threatening if it comes in on a predicted dark type attack meant for Jirachi.

Type-Specific Cores

As mentioned previously, in monotype, one needs to consider that many of the Pokemon on their team will have similar weaknesses. Depending on your type, there are some dual type Pokemon available that make it possible to mitigate some of those weaknesses. For example, when playing grass, Cradily serves as a crucial counter against flying and fire type attacks. Some types have more available than others to mitigate weaknesses, but all types have access to at least one or two counters to common threats.

For example, the steel type is weak to fire, ground, and fighting. A common core that I use in my monoteams is Heatran/Skarmory/Doublade.

Heatran’s ability, Flash Fire, allows it to absorb any and all fire attacks that come its way, making it nigh mandatory on any steel team. An air balloon can also be used to provide temporary immunity to ground type attacks. Skarmory is immune to ground as well and also resists fighting. Rocky helmet punishes physical attackers, especially fighting types, while leftovers makes for longevity. Finally, Doublade (Aegislash’s forgotten younger sibling) provides fighting immunity. Doublade is often overlooked simply because it is not as good or popular as its final form. However, its base 150 defense matches Aegislash’s shield form, and Eviolite turns it into a solid physical tank with decent special defense. Its attack stat and movepool also allow it to do a decent amount of damage when played correctly.

All told, the kind of core you compose depends on the type you are using. Some types- like steel, psychic, and flying- have a wide range of dual typed Pokemon in their pool that allow them to cover crucial weaknesses. Others- like grass, rock, and fairy- have only a few options available to them.

Eco’s Five Steps to Building Effective Monotype Cores (AKA the part you probably just skipped to, or tl;dr)

1. Consider the major defensive weaknesses of your type, and identify Pokemon in your pool that can either neuter or provide an immunity to that type.

2. Identify specific Pokemon that pose a threat to your team. Determine their weaknesses, and find the coverage moves needed to KO them.

3. Find overlaps among the different Pokemon and assign roles. When building a defensive core, pay attention to things like weaknesses, resistances, immunities, and recovery. When building an offensive core, pay attention to things like STAB coverage, movepool, and boosting capabilities. Choose Pokemon who are able to provide something that others need.

4. Keep your core to 2-3 Pokemon. Of course, ideally all of the Pokemon on your team will have good synergy, but your core describes the small pact of Pokemon that help you accomplish a major goal. Maybe it’s walling the opponent or stalling them out–in the GFW core I described for steel, Ferrothorn and Empoleon can hazard stack, while Empoleon uses Roar and Ferrothorn sets up Leech Seeds to stall and phaze out the opponent. Either way, your core should comprise a few Pokemon who accomplish their goals best when they have the support of the others.

5. Finally, design the rest of your team to offer primarily offensive support for your core. Make sure that you have the offensive coverage to defeat threats that your core cannot handle, and also consider adding others to cover your cores shared weaknesses. The Ferrothorn/Heatran/Empoleon core accomplishes a shared goal of stalling and phasing foes, but it is weak to fighting; therefore Skarmory, Scizor, and Doublade are good partners.

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Most importantly, remember: the core is just one feature of your team. Take it from Ben and Jerry’s: cores are great, but they have to blend with the overall flavor of their surroundings.

And with that, this blog entry has come to a close. I hope you’ve learned something today! Go forth and make good cores!

On Draft Leagues

By Locoghoul

With the rising popularity of famous leagues such as the UCL or the GBA, many people have been participating on this new fun format. Although draft league format rules vary depending on which league you are in, the idea is the same: each trainer/coach drafts a pokemon that may only be used by him for the rest of the season. Each coach typically chooses 9-12 pokemon from different tiers trying to come up with the best team available.

Once again, rules regarding the drafting itself may vary between leagues but typically leagues allow only one mega per team and there are certain limits or point system when it comes to tiers. You will most likely be only able to get 3-4 OU pokemon max and the rest will be from lower tiers. This is what catches the attention of most casual players, the ability to use all of these otherwise underused pokemon without having to know much about other metagames, like RU or PU.

This guide will try to help you with guidelines on how to draft a successful team. Notice that I will be breaking down teambuilding depending on your skill level but as a rule of thumb, the more skilled and experienced you are in singles format, the better will be for you to translate that knowledge into the draft format.

1. KNOW YOURSELF

Only you knows how much experience and skill you have. This is important because it can limit or hinder your ability to play certain styles or certain mons. Moreover, despite your skill, you might feel uncomfortable playing certain archetypes. For example, some people love playing stall teams while some others don’t feel comfortable playing hyper offense. Knowing what styles fit you better and what are your preferences would be the first thing to have in mind. Having said that, whoever manages not only to play a variety of styles ranging from stall to hyper offense but also draft a team that allows him to do so, will have a considerable advantage when it comes to weekly teambuilding. Many opponents will evaluate not only the versatility of your team but also yours. If you are known to just use bulky offense, your opponent will have an easier time prepping for that. At the same time, if for any reason you know your opponent has a hard time dealing with stall, you could have the upper hand if you are able to bring a stall team against him. Before moving on to the next tip, let me summarize this one as one of the most important: do not attempt to use something you are not familiar with! This can be applied to the next tip as well so I’ll expand there.

2. KNOW YOUR POKEMON

This sounds obvious but I’ve seen many coaches drafting a role pokemon they have never used before and then complain about their lack of bulk, shallow movepool, speed, etc. While it’s good to try out new things every now and then, make sure the core of your team is something you are comfortable with and at least have some experience. Also, bear in mind that your first round picks pretty much determine -or at least they should- how your team is going to work. There are some mons that are super splashable, which means they can be slapped on any team and will almost always be useful. Examples of this are Clefable, Tornadus-T or M-Altaria. There are other pokemon that are very niche on what they do and may only be good at one thing. For example, Chansey is only good as a mixed wall. Its lack of SpAtk doesn’t allow her to run a Calm Mind set like Blissey could. However, saying it can “only” do that doesn’t mean it’s a bad pokemon. What it does, it does very good. But because it can only be used for that specific role, it won’t be a good fit for all team archetypes so choosing Chansey when you are building a more offensive team will not be a good idea. Knowing what each pokemon does or can do will help you choose the better options down the draft when all the “good” mons are taken. For example, Hypno can be used as a Calm Mind sweeper or a special wall with Wish pass support. However, he is very mediocre at both and is completely outclassed by others. Even though is a low tier pokemon, there are better options to choose from. Meanwhile, there are other lower tier mons that while being niche they might excel at what they do. One example is Aromatisse, she might be outclassed as a fairy cleric/wish passer by Clefable, Sylveon and arguably Florges, but if you are looking for the most reliable Trick Room setter, this is probably your best bet. Notice how despite her having that niche, it can also do the support role fairly well.

3. KNOW YOUR ROLE

Somewhat picking up from the previous tip, when assembling a team a general way to draft is building around your Mega. The first thing you need to ask yourself is what playstyle are you looking to play. If your answer is offense then it makes little sense to go for something like M-Camerupt. If you are more into balance or semi stall, then M-Sceptile doesn’t make a great choice either. There are Megas that could be played in different ways like M-Altaria or M-Venusaur and those will give you more flexibility when drafting the rest of your team. Other pokemon like M-Pinsir or M-Manectric only do one thing so you have to recognize this and build around that. Looking at those two for example, M-Pinsir is a phenomenal sweeper/late game cleaner but it needs support to do that. Your job would be to draft pokemon that help with hazard control and something to soften up his checks (fast electric mons and Skarmory). Giving priority to another sweeper is inefficient because you are wasting your first round picks on redundancy when you already have a great mon with sweeping capabilities and you are still lacking support for your Mega. On the other hand, M-Manectric is a fast mon that gives a lot of momentum but struggles versus fat ground mons and also appreciates hazards. If you stack speedy mons with it you are just making your team getting walled by specially bulky mons like Umbreon or Goodra. This is why we emphasize on the previous tips to know what you are using. For example, M-Medicham is a monster but it will rarely sweep a team. It’s meant to be used as a great wallbreaker, so good pokemon to pair him with are slow VoltTurn users (to bring him in) and late game cleaners that will benefit from him tearing up walls.

4. KNOW YOUR OPPORTUNITY- COST

Like I mentioned earlier, when drafting you will be looking for certain pokemon to fill a potential role in your team. But often times the pokemon you had in mind gets sniped by someone else and now you are wondering what to do since that was “the perfect” fit for your team. Obviously there will be some degree of improvisation as rounds progress but what you should have in mind, if you can, is what are the good value mons on each tier/round. You might know the roles of most pokemon but know comes what the opportunity cost. Let’s say you are looking for a fast electric type. There are a few around but they are usually on the top tiers. Not counting M-Manectric, there is Raikou, Thundurus-I, Thundurus-T, Jolteon and regular Manectric (Zapdos could count but it’s also used as a bulky mon so it has different roles). Manectric will probably be unavailable most of the times due to M-Manectric being chosen most of the times. From the remainder pokemon you could see how you would have to pay a great price to get most of them. However, Jolteon is usually in a tier below or at a much cheaper cost. While it certainly is not as great as the others it has a better speed, a good movepool and a nice ability. Jolteon is an example of good value for –relatively- low price. If you went for M-Medicham, then you probably don’t need another wall breaker, you already got one of the best in the game. Meanwhile other coaches looking for one would be in the same situation described for the fast electric case. Do you want a wall breaker so bad that you want to spend your first round picks on one? Let’s pretend Diggersby and Crawdaunt, both being great wall breakers, are both in OU/Tier 1. Instead of going for one of them you could free up an OU slot/points if you choose a wall breaker from lower tiers. An example of this is CB Tyrantrum, it usually is placed lower than the aforementioned mons and the good thing is that is not just stuck into the wall breaker role, it can perform as a late game cleaner or even as a bulky SR lead.

Having said that, bear in mind that certain pokemon typing/roles are scarce in the game so if you are planning to get one you might have to draft them early. Examples of this are good fairies, good Pursuit users, good spinners and good priority users (very important).  

6. KNOW YOUR CORES

I’ve seen in a lot of videos how they stress out the importance of certain cores. The most popular by far are the Fire/Water/Grass (FWG) and the Dragon/Fairy/Steel (DFS) cores. While this is important in standard 6v6 format, on draft format is more important to build based on my previous points. Why? Because I have seen many players trying to look for a *that* fire pokemon that will complete his FWG core. However, a lot of coaches don’t realize that the original FWG core was meant to be used as a defensive core because it covers a lot of common attack types like ground, fire, water, grass, electric and fairy. So if you just rushed in to get Typhlosion just to complete your FWG core, you just wasted a pick. You have to realize that the members of a defensive core must be somewhat efficient at the defensive role. Something frail like Darmanitan will not be able to switch in into many neutral hits. On the other hand, the DFS core can be used both defensively and offensively and it’s a common component on bulky offense styles.

Other cores are less flexible and require more commitment from the team to successfully pull them off. Sometimes these will rely more in execution to pull them off. Examples are Fighting/Dark/Steel offense (M-Medicham/Weavile/Magnezone or M-Gallade/Bisharp/bulky pivot), Bird spam + grass (Talonflame/M-Pidgeot/Serperior) or Electric/Ice/Grass (Raikou/Weavile/M-Sceptile).

Weather cores are a separate category and in general can be very deadly in draft format if the coach is familiar with the style. In general, weather cores are good versus offense since speed always gives trouble to offense but will need some support to remove its checks. For example rain offense is sometimes better paired with M-Heracross than M-Swampert to absolutely destroy what typically checks rain: bulky waters, bulky grass, specially bulky pokemon (Umbreon, Chansey, Latias) and Tyranitar. A common rain core would include Politoed/M-Hera/Swift Swim abuser (Kingdra or Kabutops). On the other hand sand offense benefits more Tyranitar than Hippowdon because the former is more versatile and checks more pokemon than the latter. A typical sand offense core could be scarf Tyranitar/Excadrill/grass user (Serperior or Breloom if you want offense; Tangrowth or Amoongus if you want support).

 

CONCLUSIONS

I hope this guide gave you some good tips on how to plan for your draft. I said in the beginning that it’s better if your team can be used in a variety of styles but if you are fairly new to the competitive scene it would be best if you plan to build a balanced team first. That way you’ll get to learn the limits and merits of your drafted pokemon each week. After all, if things didn’t go as planned even after free agency trades, there is always next season!

So you want to be a gym leader…

By Locoghoul

Hello, we have all wished we were Gym Leaders at some point, haven’t we? You probably have a favorite type and collect a lot of Pokemon of that type. Well, if you are one of the many trainers interested in creating a team based on your favorite type, then Monotype is a metagame you might want to look into.

Monotype is a format in which all six Pokemon on your team share one type. There are no wildcards allowed, and depending on where you are playing there are additional rules regarding Mega evolution typing. This article will try to cover some basics and give a quick overview of the most used types in Mono. At PRL we host auditions to choose for new Gym Leaders on a seasonal basis. Hopefully you can use this information to build a unique team of your own!

First of all, in order for you to start building your own team, you need to realize that the best types are the ones that have a wider pool of useful pokemon. Typically these types can be successful with different team archetypes and have great defensive and offensive cores. Some types, due to limited pokemon availability or because of poor options, are only capable of playing in a certain style.

I’ll give you a quick overview on the most used types and the archetypes you can use with them. In the coming months, we at PRL will be using this blog as a forum to post guides to each type; for now, a quick gloss will suffice…

Psychic: The best type right now. Can run stall, balanced and offensive spreads pretty well, although a balanced team is probably the best option at the moment. Very well rounded.

Flying: Close second. It also has access to a great diversity of Pokemon due to flying nearly always being paired with another type. It is most effective running balanced and offensive teams.

Water: A favorite of many, water has the largest pool of Pokemon from which to choose. Unsurprisingly, it can run stall, balance and offense (especially rain offense) very well. Lots of options here.

Fighting: Most effectively used as an offensive type. Doesn’t have as much variety as the previous types but has plenty of offensive options to make an effective team.

Dragon: Surprisingly good because of its resistances and great offensive stats. Not a lot of variety, most Pokemon fill a specific role and there is not much to choose from but its typical build works very well as a hyper offensive team.

The above mentioned types are more user friendly when it comes to team building and should be easier to use than others. On the other spectrum the least used types are as follows:

Electric: Electric can run a successful balance team but it struggles versus Dragons and specially bulky mons in general, such as Chansey, Umbreon, Goodra, etc. It lacks a good physical attacker and often times a physical Thundurus-I (or mixed) is needed to make it work.  

Poison: Similar to Electric, Poison can only run balance but Poison has less viable Pokemon to choose from. It really struggles against defensive teams since it lacks good wallbreakers.

Ghost: Ghost is typically used as balance or semi stall. But to be honest, the ubiquity of Knock Off in the meta makes this type really hard to play. It also doesn’t have much variety to choose from and lacks switch-ins to powerful special attackers such as M-Gardevoir or Thundurus-I.

Ice: Poor Ice types have one of the worst defensive typings, with four common weaknesses and only a lone resistance to themselves. The only thing Ice can run is offense because Ice offensively is a good attacking type and has a few mons with nice dual typing like Weavile and Kyurem-B. However, ice types are often glass cannons, meaning they rely heavily on their offensive stats and moves to win. Just remember you must apply constant offensive pressure or you will lose.

Rock: Like Ice, Rock is also better for offense since its typing is easily exploitable. The standard Sticky Web offense is a good team to start with but should still be careful if there is a Scizor or a Keldeo on the opposing team.

Now that we have reviewed a few archetypes, I will guide you through building a team based on what we know so far. For example, monofighting is a good offensive type but it struggles if you were to use a balanced or a stall team using fighting Pokemon. Despite having great Pokemon, it just doesn’t have the right resistances or defensive stats to pull it off. However, it possesses everything you need to build a really good offensive team. Note that you can always build how you want, but this guide will point at you how to maximize the effectiveness of each type. Building a stall fighting team, for example will result on a subpar team.

Second of all, once you decide on a team archetype for your favorite type, you need to choose Pokemon that will fill certain roles in your team. Even though you are using a team with all members sharing one type, you can’t just spam a bunch of your favorite pokemon together. You need to find what your teams need and how to check offensive threats. Continuing with the example above, let’s pretend we are building a hyper offensive fighting (HO) team. Since it is HO, we don’t really need walls but we definitely need one support pokemon that may act as a bulky pivot or rock setter or both. Most, if not all offensive teams really appreciate the presence of Stealth Rock and hazards in general. It helps them getting OHKOs rather than 2HKOs or relying on high roll damage. Only a few viable fighting pokemon learn Stealth Rock; among them we have Terrakion, Cobalion and Infernape. Terrakion is a great pokemon but we don’t really want him to be the stealth rocker (more on this later), so we are left with Cobalion and Infernape. Both have the same speed and both could be decent leads. We will come back to see which one fits better after we go through other roles.

We now need a special attacker, a physical threat and possibly a scarfer. The purpose of having attackers on both sides of the spectrum is to force switches and not to be walled by one pokemon, like Skarmory. Remember we are using HO, so switching is very limited and most of our pokemon don’t have the bulk to take hits repeatedly. So, the way to counter stuff is to play aggressively, control the momentum, sacrifice stuff (sac) and revenge kill. Let’s look at the special attackers fighting has: Keldeo, Infernape (can be mixed), Lucario (can be mixed), Cobalion (can be mixed), Virizion (can be mixed) and Poliwrath. Right from the bat we are going to discard Poliwrath as its stats are just underwhelming. Moreover, it is completely outclassed by Keldeo who does almost everything Poliwrath does but better. Since Fighting have a lot of physical options, it is better to just stick to one or two special attackers at the most since Fighting will typically have better options on the physical side. We will pick Keldeo as our special attacker because it has great coverage with just its STABs, his great speed tier and his ability to muscle through special walls using Secret Sword. Notice that Cobalion and Virizion are not great options because they need to boost to do significant damage. Lucario is a decent option but it lacks good speed to fit in our HO team. A Nasty Plot set could be used but it will have a hard time finding an opportunity to set up with those defenses.

Now on the physical side we want a combination that will break walls aka hit really hard and a cleaner that will finish the job late game. For wallbreakers we could use either a banded pokemon like Heracross or Terrakion or we could use a Mega such as Mega Gallade or Mega Medicham. Both are good megas to use, however we are going to choose Mega Medicham because it fits with our role better, it hits like a nuke, has priority and can help versus fairies in a pinch better (Fake Out + Bullet Punch). If you decide to use Mega Gallade, notice that it is used in a different way, it is meant to use as a set up sweeper instead. So, you will need a wallbreaker to pair with it. Again, both choices are acceptable but we are just going with Mega Medicham for our team. Now that we have locked our Mega and our wallbreaker, let’s think of potential cleaners for our team. Remember we want something fast that will hit hard enough to not fail to KO once the opponent’s pokemon are weakened. Decent options are scarf Keldeo, scarf Terrakion, SD Hawlucha or SD Breloom. Although scarf Keldeo is not a bad option, we are using it in our team to nuke on the special side so a Specs set will work better for our purposes. SD Breloom is a great pokemon, however it is very slow and its priority move, while strong, can be resisted easily by many types we are trying to overcome. Instead, we are going to choose scarf Terrakion because it helps us greatly versus +1 pokemon that sit on the 100 speed tier such as Charizard X, scarf/DD Salamence, scarf Staraptor, scarf Jirachi and anything slower like +1 Dragonite. It also gives us an offensive check to fast Flying pokemon that could potentially sweep our team like M-Pidgeot, scarf Togekiss, scarf Staraptor, Talonflame, Tornadus-T, etc.

So far we have a special attacker (Specs Keldeo), a physical threat (Mega Medicham) and revenge killer/cleaner (scarf Terrakion). What we are looking for now is a set up sweeper in case the opportunity arises. This will be our primary win condition (wincon), scarf Terrakion being our second wincon in case everything is weakened enough. For this set up sweeper we need something that will have good coverage and will have the speed to potentially sweep the opposing team. As options we have SD Lucario, SD Hawlucha, SD Toxicroak, SD Breloom and Nasty Plot/SD Infernape. Infernape doesn’t really work well as set up sweeper because it unfortunately lacks the coverage necessary to sweep consistently. A lot of common pokemon will wall him or resist its priority moves (like Latios or Slowbro). Infernape is better used as a mixed attacker hitting from both ends. SD Lucario could work really well but again it is hard to find a moment to set up with him and not get status or crippled by a hard hitting move. You can consider him but be aware of its limitations. A +2 Close Combat will go through almost anything unresisted though. For this team we will use Hawlucha since its speed tier is greatly appreciated and its STABs also give great coverage. Notice that before activating Unburden its checks must be weakened (like Zapdos), otherwise its sweep will be stopped.

This is where we go back to our stealth rocker. Remember we had the choice of Infernape or Cobalion. If you look at our team the steel typing Cobalion has will come in handy to take unboosted Psychics, Flying type attacks or weak Fairy attacks. A bulky spread with speed investment can guarantee Stealth Rocks will be on the field. Additionally, it has great moves like Volt Switch, Taunt, Thunderwave, Flash Cannon, Iron Head, etc. This pokemon will be our defensive check to a lot of pokemon like Scarf Jirachi, Clefable, Mega Pinsir, Togekiss, etc. Even when it will be go down most of the times, paralyzing Jirachi or Tornadus-T can be huge for this offensive team.

To recap we have so far Lead/support Cobalion, specs Keldeo, scarf Terrakion, SD Hawlucha and Mega Medicham. The last slot can be used to give us better coverage and it is entirely up to you. Think about what could cause problems to Fighting (Psychic, Flying and Fairy) and if your team needs extra help against one of these. One common threat you will encounter is Azumarill. You need to have an answer to this pokemon or you will have a bad time since its strong priority compensates for its speed and its good typing allows it to wall and set up on many of your pokemon. If your sets don’t have something against him I’d recommend using either Sheer Force Poison Jab Conkeldurr (EVed to outspeed Azumarill) or Technician Breloom. Breloom will add some priority and help you versus Azumarill while Conkeldurr will give you a decent answer to slow, bulky fairies like Clefable or Azumarill.

So this is where our little tutorial on how to identify what works for a type and how to build based on it comes to an end. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something from it. Fighting type has plenty of options so this is by no means the only team you could use. Just remember to pair your role pokemon well, since you would still try to ideally open the field for one of your wincons.