Hi guys today I am back with a bit of a different post, to
her than posting more content about my smeargle used spotlight series or the
monthly report/ experience discussion and analyses, this time I bring forth an
article. Even thought this topic of teambuilding especially on paper isn’t ever
given much attention that it does need or deserve, I feel this is the most
common and basic step, the step where your instinct and intelligence comes in
when you want to start building a team, this is the first step to teambuilding.
Teambuilding has been one of my most favorite things to do
in the competitive aspect of pokemon and I have done it loads, I too myself
start and prefer the teambuilding on paper whenever doing it, as it has clearly
made me think more clearly about what I do with my pokemons and then what their
ultimate roles are going to be. Without further ado lets get into the
discussion of this topic and I’ll explain my own specific method of doing it
correctly:
Before starting:
Of course you have to pre-pare something whenever doing
somethings, you do prepare a team in pokemon, however there are some things I
feel like are needed to be done before actually starting to build a team. These
in my view re the following:
Something to write
down onto:
Of course when I say teambuilding on paper you are just not
randomly going to go to pull out a teambuilder and get going with your ideas, I
think more of an accurate and comfortable method is to find sometime that makes
you feel easy to write down on other than scribbling over a tiny surface to
write, I prefer you choose something big. Also to clear up the term in use here,
‘paper’ may not mean a literal paper, you can even use a writing board which
does give you the option of correction too! Also having something bigger of a
paper to write onto is better as it gives everyone of your ideas in front of
your eyes and are easy to access, other than a mistake I did in the past of
doing it on a notebook and then constantly keep flipping between the pages
which sure was annoying, and hence you have been made aware of this, please
don’t.
Prepare a types list:
Types list is a must as it has been considered a very
generally good thing to have in your teams, the ability of your teams to hit
every type of pokemons for super effective damage is going to be the main
purpose of this list. Listing down all the eighteen types, i.e Normal, Fire,
Water, Grass, Electric, Ground, Rock, Steel, Bug, Fairy, Psychic, Ghost, Ice,
Dark, Fighting, Dragon, Poison, Flying, will give you easy access to the facts
that what types can you hit super effective damage for, which becomes favorable
in surprise matchups. There are loads of pokemons and loads of people that try
them therefore having a general type check can be extremely solid for when the
team gets into the competitive battling.
Prepare a metagame
list:
This is perhaps more important than preparing a types list
nd should be your first preference to check when in comparison with whether you
want to check the types list or the metagame list. It is almost seemingly
impossible to make a pokemon team countering all the pokemons in the entire
game. Metagame is called as the collective set of pokemons that are popular,
this does vary from time to time, so collecting this data to get a general idea
of what the format has, and you should be able to counter with your team as a
priority makes you a whole lot more effective when coming to the on paper
teambuilding. In other ways it will kind of be serving as a sort of path or a
map which tells what the team requires next.
Prepare a combination
to counter list:
Like wth every metagame, thre are pokemons used a whole lot
and significantly commonly and stand out amongst the others. If you have been
interested into pokemons’ competitive side, synergy is a term you would be
already introduced to, synergy is basically described as a flexibility between
different pokemons that allow them to work well with each other, this synergy
can be either in the form of a lead matchup or a tye core or a core of pokemons
that benefit from each others’ moves and abilities.
Listing downs some noticeable and popular cores and having answers
to them makes the making of a team much of an easer task, these combinations
generally seem hard to break through so having something to check them is
always a great idea to have.this allows you to made decisions much less
confused and a bit more confident in team preview and when going into the game,
you know how play to effectivel against them, this alsotells you about if your
team is good when matching up against the metagame or not.
Examples of this include the lead matchups of tapu koko +
garchomp, Double Ducks, Torkoal + Lilligant and etc.
More examples as in cores include celesteela + tapu koko +
garchomp and the all popular core of Kartana, Arcanine and Tapu fini.
After started:
So now I think we have a general idea of the things we
should need to get a good teambuild started, after you have listed down
essential, if only in my perspective aspects for the effective teambuilding,
now would be the great time to start it off, however the lists ou prepared
aren’t just there to show off or something, now is the time when you get your
brain starting to work. Following are someof the things in my view that should
be kept in mind when teambuilding:
Keep synergy and
strategy in mind:
Ofcourse this is the principle for good teambuilding that
you should always keep in mind things like strategy as well as synergy, as the
team goes along it should feel like being knitted and bounded closely within
itself with each member.
Synergy is a really important factor in teambuilding, there
are some people out there who decide to have fun and do mono-type teams, some
even find them good, however in more of a competitive team, you would need some
serious synergy. When lets say starting of a teambuild with a proygon 2 you
would have to consider and keep in the back for what covers it up, taunt is a
very much threatening factor in its case, strong fighting moves as well as the
move toxic which inhibits its effective traits is something of a threat to
consider. So you may want to consider a second supportive pokemon with maybe
mental herb if required that gives essential roles of porygon two or maybe the
one with the ability oblivious, others like ghost types can help cover up the
fighting weakness, furthermore your own taunt or misty terrain setters can
block offthe toxics that are incoming.
Keeping strategy in mind is also very important, the term
strategy may not applied to all teams, especially seems a doubtful term to use
with non-themed teams, however let me explain it in both cases. Lets carry on
with another example with porygon 2 where it has the move trick room which
makes slower pokemon go first, then keeping other members that are really fast
is surely not the good deal here, in other cases such as in the case of a team
relying highly on the combination of double ducks, may not want to carry more
weather setters as they may disrupt its offensive presence. To the term
strategy applying to non themed teams, you can take an example of a team that
has a sashed kartana, now keeping as chip damage weather user like ninetales,
will break its sash on the end of the turn it was send out to battle in
therefore it may be the right call to give katana an assault vest and bulk so
it can survive atleast one or two more hits alongside another partner like
ninetalesthat is also very seemingly frail.
Playing in the
comfort zones
If you are a new vgc player this might not be for you,but if
you really do like to analyze your own self and discover the top tier
terminology of this game, you may have heard of something called ‘playstyle’ many
popular players like Sejun Park who has a reputation for using surprise mons,
Baz Anderson who is a known user of strong Set-up Teams, Other people like
Wolfe Glick that use Bulkier and more Defensive teams are well recognized for
their playstyles. Therefore similarly playstyles may generally also fall into
the category of hyper offense, defensive, balanced teams etc or may it be more
uniqe, like finding some success with stranger and least used pokemons or
pokemon movsets, players like Ashton Cox and Jon Hu especially have a big
reputation for applying this theme on their teams, I also feel like going with
this form of ‘surprising and offensive’ playstyle. Also the playstyle can be
hybrid.
Now if you are a newer player to vgc the best advice I can
give you to regarding this is suggest you to test out different teams and then
notice you likes and your dislikes. If you have a good knowledge of what you
generally like, most recommended is that you roll down your teams in the way
you feel the most comfortable and easy with them, this is the sole reason why
there is no such thing as ‘one best team’ learning to play a team is a
different part but takes a bit more time to get used to, sticking to playstyle
provides more time to practice with the team, whereas learning to play takes a
whole lot more time in terms of making adjustments. In my opinion the most
preferable one is to stick with your playstyle if it is not bad against the
state of the format, if it is bad against the format, than learning to play different
styles and team is the better option for you, also this gives you an increase
of knowledge and a more in-depth understanding of the concepts of different
teams.
Don’t doubt your own
decisions:
This is something I really want to say all the time in most
aspects of pokemon, same comes for teambuilding, there might be an instance in
the teambuild where you feel like that non of the metagame can really actually
help you out in making or completing the tam, and ou need a certain niche role
for a pokemon that non of the standards can use. Therefore leading into a
different pokemon that may provides the required role of whether typing,
ability, item choice or moves that you need for you team and works the best in
cases of synergy and strategy feel free to put it on your team, since this
pokemon is tougher to explain with all the thought process you have gone
through for it, you may be asked to replace this pokemon however if it does its
job well don’t replace it.
There are also many times where you really would want to
build around quite some different teams in this format, whether they include a
certain weaker strategy or a pokemon that you see with potential but never has
been used before, in those cases surely go for the chance of teambuilding with
this pokemon and who knows you may end up really liking the team, in many cases
we have seen popular players using somewhat different options and being lead to
great results with their teams, definitely go for what you feel like doing with
the team!
Building up the Team:
1)
Writing
down the base: of course when teambuilding write down the base of your
team, you may have chosen it as a combination of two seemingly desirable
pokemons you may want to test out. This pokemon or combination of them is going
to be the base of them, separately write down what troubles your base of the
team could face and what pokemons are strong against it, after writing it down
underline the pokemons from the metagame list and also the types that the
pokemon can hit for super effective damage. Also the strategies or leads that
it is strong against.
2)
Core/Synergize
the base: moving on the next step to your teambuilding is going to be
centering your base pokemon or pokemons. There are various ways you guys can do
this and this can be done by either building a core of types and core around
this pokemon that can cover up this pokemons’ weaknesses (refer to the notes
you took for what threatens it) try to target down the threats to your pokemon
when trying to think of a core around them, this can also be done by synergy
formation through abilities that benefit the base of the team. If you build
aroud a oncept follow the same, an example would be the building of a trick
room team, where your priority would be to counter things like opposing taunts,
whirlwinds etc.
3)
Metacovers:
after you have successfully synergized or formed a core around the base of
your team, now is the step to very likely choose the next 3 or two mons
(dependant on what number of mons you are left with after the core) this step
can be for various things too, one is for covering the metagame, the one that
your core doesn’t cover or even pokemons to cover up further threats of
pokemons that are in your cores.
Focus the most on covering up the rest of the metagame or the weaknesses.
4)
Adding
Fill Ups: this step is quite tough to be executed on paper, however if you
are thinking about this team thoroughly you can see the overall team about its
common weaknesses, try to think critically on what threatens you team, there
may not be one clear threat but a concept that you face trouble against, for
example if you build a team that is way too fast and doesn’t have sufficient to
trick room teams or opposing tailwind, then you should look through your team
once, again, after all this synergetic buildup you may not want to break the
team apart, what I do in these cases is that I try to look for what pokemon
moves I can use that give me that little bit of boost in the game against the
threats. In other cases you can look for substitution of the pokemons, consider
substitution of complete roles that the pokemon performs and the new one should
add in strong aspects to your team against that threat, try not to break good
synergetic combinations such as replacing garchomp with flygon in the popular
combination of tapu koko + garchomp, which may not generally work.
5)
Variations:
definitely do consider the ratio of special attackers to physical attackers
in your team, you can have 5 pokemons that acquire their physical attack, but
will prove bad against the teams that have intimidate supporters, further on
the other side a team with so many special attackers will be threatened by
snarl users in the format, that is why try to keep a good balance to not lose
offensive momentum (more importantly) in a battle.
After done:
Encourage 252/252/4
spreads:
This is something everyone who has experience playing
pokemon will consider sure it seems promising and somewhat satisfying to have
complex ev spreads for your team, however this may not be the time that you
want to do that, there is more you need to do about the team, that is why
encourage 252/252/4 spreads at first.
The importance of this is that you really don’t know how to
build up complex spreads as you really don’t know how the spreads work out so doing
that is quite a waste of time now. Add a general idea of what your pokemons
want to use for example you are using a physically offensive arcanine. You most
likely want 252 attack and 252 speed stat, with the 4 remainder in its bulk. This
can also be done with other pokemons for example and offensive tapu fini that
holds a choice specs can be also given a 252/252/4 ev spread to start with.
Later in the process of improving the team you can further
modify these sets to what your team needs and to fill in the gaps that this
team may have, most of the times not a big ev spread change is needed, however
small amount of ev adjustments can do really well by giving you just the bit of
factor you always wanted from them.
Always test:
This is sure going to be the next step for teambuilding, and
please as you do this do not start breeding or obtaining the team in game
though, what seems great on paper most likely even will lack in some factors
and also your team is just not fully modified too in terms of its ev spreads.
The proper process would be to test out the team before getting it actually to
adjust the team accordingly, your team may have good synergy but general bad
matchups against some archetypes or may lack dynamism for sure as well, a great
team is the one in which every two pokemons can work well together with each
other, this may look hard to achieve however the step of team improvement can
make it very much possible and you can achieve it sometimes with little less
effort than other times. This process of testing to improve the team provides a
great way for you to actually analyze you team and the way in which it works
against the metagame that you will most likely be facing, fine tuning the team
is quite a good substitute for the word of improvement here.
Note taking while
testing:
This step is something I am greatly n support of, nothing
can be achieved if you really aren’t writing down, in the practice or say test
matches that you play, you may want to consider your teams’ posititve side, for
example realizes how two pokemons are helping you out in a lot of situations or
how good they are when the term dynamism gets applied to them and then surely
your teams lackings, you may include the following to your notes and answer
these questions or statements applied to your team (this I my way to
teambuilding, of course you may differ) under the observations in your test
matches:
·
What do I lose against in common scenarios, or
what teams are strong against me.
·
What moveslots are not being utilized at all or
very little or are of very little and insignificant and hypothetically
important but not actually in the game.
·
Where do the individual pokemons on my team
lack? For example in those facing scenarios in which what attacks take down my
pokemons and make it inefficient against its partners.
·
Is there a common pokemon that I am having
trouble with?
·
Are my lead matchups against certain common core
teams good or effective?
Above questions are something I always am considering when
testing out my teams, and important notes here to; you may not always have to
scrap the team if t is bad against some pokemon, for example in a team of mine
I had matchup troubles from muk’s bulk and offense, however I had an arcanine
on that team, so I added to my playing strategy against that pokemon, whenever
I see a muk in the team preview I will make sure to bring my arcanine which had
will-o-wisp, first thing I would do will be to cut down this pokemons’ attack
by switching in the bulky arcanine immediately and then going for a will-o-wisp
on it the next turn. Similarly I was having huge troubles against the double
ducks leads and my team with the pokemons that I had didn’t had much against it
at all. I had a nihilego with focus sash and a raichu both of which could be
useful against that combination, however raichu lacking the sash could be
extremely unsufficent for my team, what I did was make my raichu bulky with
assault vest to make it survive the golduck’s z-move and then make it target
back before going down immediately, whereas on the side nihilego would also
provide a good measure of offense on the combination, even despite being weak
to that combination, what I generally meant there was that there are multiple
options available to you to improve your team and I believe there is always a
chance to improve a team even though one never will be perfect, but
improvements brought in it can help it o much well than the team’s own previous
self.
Conclusion:
So guys this was it for my first guide in vgc 2017,
hopefully it was helpful, this time I took a bit of a different route with
posting and posted about this topic, which seems silly but I think it is worth
to write down and who knows someone may learn something from it. I hope you
guys liked it, Bye for now!
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