Competitive Play 101: I've played this game before..

Competetive Play 101

In this topic I’ll try to explain the basics of building and using a good competitive team. I’m assuming you already know about IVs, EVs, Natures, and team roles. If not then read the other topics first and come back when you’re done.

Building a good competitive team is a tricky task. You can’t just throw a bunch of good pokes together and call it a team. If you don’t use pokes that cover each other’s weakness and work effectively together, you’ll find yourself on the losing end of an embarrassing sweep all too often.

ALWAYS REMEMBER it is important to use a few pokes you really like in battle. After all, this is only a game and if you don't have fun playing it then what's the point?

Lesson 4: I've Played this Game Before

OK, now all of you who are reading this should have already played a few matches before. The outcome of these matches hardly matter, but the experience does. Having played any game before, including this one, will give you a huge advantage in battle.

Now, how does this relate to building a team? OK the last 8 matches I played had 3 of the same pokemon played: Sword Dance Scizor, Choice scarf Flygon, and Outrage Salamence. Now with common sense I can assume (Or maybe I just know) that those three are the major players in this metagame. With commonsense I'm going to add maybe 1 or 2 pokemon to counter these, especially if they were giving me trouble. I choose Mamoswine and Zapdos as my counters, and in my next 5 matches after this I shut down those guys easy.

While this is a good practice, bring counters to common threats, it also puts you at a disadvantage of not having full choice on your choice of pokemon. Another option is to alternate one of your pokemon's set. If I wanted to use one slot of my Jirachi's movepool to counter Salamence it'd probably look like this:

Before:
Wish
U-Turn
Zen Headbutt
Protect

After:
Ice Punch
U-Turn
Wish
Protect

Now without sarcrificing a pokemon, I shut down my opponents threats.

This may not be a big part of the game, but it indefinetly is an important skill to know [How to shutdown major threats]. It's also important to remember if you choose to bring counters, make sure they're pokemon you're comfortable using and enjoy using.