SRK Competitive Pokemon Battling Thread: Logoghoul and White Shadow Win! Bye Gen 6!

General Discussion
761

there is no generic standard outside of the proven competitive sets, just because battler 1 and battler 2 could have the same pokes on their teams doesn’t mean they will function the same way

also, due to the much higher usage of people on smogon and their battle simulators, some things will be deemed too strong, since we are something like…20 people, we can get away with a “gimmicky” set but on smogon’s simulators, there are probably over 10000 battlers everyday trying out things and they’re trying to make it so you don’t lose at the team preview screen

in gen V, i had the number 1 team for a while with drizzletoed and SS kingdra, i don’t even know who else i had but i basically got drizzle, DD with kingdra, then either used outrage or waterfall and won, no prediction, just ran train, probably had ferrothorn on the team as well but didn’t matter, but drizzle + swift swim was ridiculous

i had a dual weather team that made it to top 20 on showdown that was fun as hell to use, it just got rocked by the top guys and relied way too much on getting volcarona set up (i pulled off soooooo many sweeps on the team), this team was completely unconventional but worked (to a degree), i went on a 50-3 streak at one point and i used choice band breloom (which sucks dick) on the team as my revenge killer

i used anger point subsalac tauros in gen IV, shitty team but fun as hell

it’s definitely not 8 out of 10 battlers who use standards, in gen IV, we had people create anti-lead machamp and tormenttran to be super successful teams and ended up being great pokemon sets, that’s being creative, i’ve used calm mind bronzong to some success, etc.

smogon guys do try to be creative, but ultimately good sets win games and those become standards

762

Why do you keep doing a 2+ Stonge Edge??? If you see blaziken come out, you switch to azumarill, don’t stay in and let him set up. If Blaziken sets up while you have something like Azumarill on your team, then you deserved to get swept. And those calcs show that it is less then of a 50% chance of OHKOing Azumarill with stone edge, and i’m guessing that is without factoring in Stone Edges Acc, meaning it is probably even lower then that, meaning Azumarill is a legit counter to Blaziken…

763

I totally run stone edge/SD blaziken, I use him for revenge sweeping on something he doesn’t need speed boost to kill or switching in on stuff that absolutely can’t hurt him. Totally kill togekiss and gyarados all the time. Azumarill would certainly F me up though.

764

i have togepi in one of my friendfaris.

765

If it switches in on a SD or Protect, it’ll OHKO Blaziken w/ Priority Brave Bird, despite the 50% hit from Stealth Rock. This requires a good read, but what doesn’t? Greninja can Shadow Sneak, dodge the HJK due to immunity, and Blaziken is dead. You’re depending on numbers too much, IMO, when prediction is much more important. If Blaziken guesses wrong, it loses as long as the other player knows what they’re doing.

766

I mean that’s how the whole game works, prediction is key, but numbers are also important. The chance to lose talonflame on switch matters because if talon flame is your only blaziken check, and you get out predicted and lose it it’s game over. That’s why the general rule for “Counter” is “can switch in on any move and kill/force out”, if it’s anything less than that and you guess wrong it’s GG. A good counter won’t have a chance for you to completely lose because of a bad read.

767

Let’s not forget that Stealth Rock ruins a lot of potential counters in and of itself… Fuck those rocks and horse they rode in on…

BUT NO ONE WANTS TO BAN THAT, NOOOO

768

if you guess wrong, blaziken wins, how does this change anything?

you and the blaziken player have equal prediction opportunities, if you send in talonflame with SR up, who says he didn’t choose HJK especially with the possibility of not having a ghost on the team (or having aegislash, who is not switching into blaziken anytime soon)

you can’t just assume blaziken is going to SD every chance he gets, he could throw a curveball and actually attack you on the switch, ruining your prediction, how is this any different than you outpredicting him?

you can’t use prediction in an argument as it changes from player to player, but using numbers can actually show how deadly a threat is and what a failsafe move is

greninja can’t switch in, and i don’t even think it gets a 2HKO with shadow sneak while him being a ghost gets OHKO’d by a flare blitz:
just did the calcs, shadow sneak is a 3HKO while it gets OHKO’d by a flare blitz, using water shuriken is much more beneficial in this scenario than shadow sneak, as it’s a 2HKO no matter what

769

The important part is the skew of risk vs reward, if you outpredict and kill blaziken… so what? the bird is reasonably easy to revenge kill, and couldn’t possibly set up without dying, and it’s not like blaziken requires a bunch of team support to be useful, it’s entirely possible the rest of the team functions completely fine with him dead. He outpredicts and kills your bird, that may have been your only shot at stopping him, he’s now got 2 boosts, so no one is outspeeding, and still does crazy damage, and you may not have hurt him at all which means he can just switch out and come in on a set up again later, and this time you have no priority brave bird to stop the +2 blaziken.

770

If yall are running tournaments, I expect to see at least a few Blazikens, I’m curious to see how strong it will appear to be in the instant replays(if there will be any)

771

I understand why a standard is considered good and why gimmicks tend to fall by the wayside. However, I think you’re projecting a faux- “innovative streak” into the masses because of the occasional semi-competitive experimentation; variants on a theme isn’t a true innovation unless team dynamic follows suit. All I know is that a bulk of the battles I’ve seen on youtube involve- something something Tyranitar, something something Ferrothorn, something something Politoed all using the same sets and strategies… literally by the book. So that’s why I exclaimed that people are bandwagonin’ standard teams, because it’s literally all I see.

Bear in mind, Ninjanuity’s battle vs Shofu literally caused Aegislash’s popularity to skyrocket because of a single match.

And it’s funny you brought up Tormenttran in this thread…

772

Expect it to die. Early and often.

That oversized chicken will kill something and then promptly get killed/switch out next turn, or it will come in, then Azumarill will come in as it Protects/Swords Dances, Belly Drum, and obliterate souls.

No wait, I forgot it has 12 attacks and is always at +2, so it will win for free…*

773

What’s a good set for Klefki? Prankster means that it’s definitely good for setting up entry hazards or inflicting status to cripple opposing Pokemon, but I’m curious what I should do in terms of its EV spread/overall movepool. I was thinking something like:

Item: Red Card

EVs:

252 ATK/252 SP. ATK (depending on what nature I can get for it while breeding it, I’ve got an Adamant one so far)
128 DEF
128 SP.DEF (I got a Klefki with perfect Defense/Special Defense IVs so was thinking of trying to use it as a bit of a tank)

Movelist:

Play Rough/Dazzling Gleam (depending on if I get an Adamant or Modest one)
Spikes
Thunder Wave
Toxic/Torment

Stealth Rock would probably be an obvious choice, but what would I breed it with to get that in the first place?

774

Eh, if Klefki doesn’t really have any attacks like the set you mention, I would do 252 HP 192 Def 60 Sp.Def

Bold Nature

Take dat take dat

775

shadowsneak/sacredsword/kingsshield/sworddance isn’t even aegis’s be all end all set

776

Aegislash can run a pretty legit Autotomize set, since it already gets perfect coverage with Shadow Claw + Sacred Sword. I guess Weakness Policy can be used to raise offenses without having Swords Dance, but you gotta make sure you can survive the super-effective move.

777

It changes things because you’re assuming everything goes perfectly well for Blaziken. If it gets all the right reads and sets up, it’s supposed to win. That’s why I say prediction is more important. Numbers don’t matter if everything doesn’t fall into place. Not everything has to switch into it either… You can switch into something you no longer need, let it die, and get Talonflame/Greninja in safe. At this point vs Talonflame, it has to switch out or die to Brave Bird. Vs Greninja, it can go either way depending on who predicts correctly.

This is just my opinion… You guys may see Blaziken as a near unstoppable force, but I see a bunch of ways to put it in a box.

778

Your plans are still really flawed and don’t tank into account that in blazikens perfect world he’s probably killed 2 or 3 pokemon, in your perfect world you… forced blaziken to switch without taking a hit and maybe even sacrificed a pokemon to do THAT(unlike blaziken there’s a ton of stuff that switches into the bird with it’s sub 100 base attack). You should probably do calcs on what a flare blitz does to a resisted greninja, and probably to the -defense version of greninja since you are running mixed.

779

In Blaziken’s perfect world, I don’t exist :rofl:.

If I force him out, he loses his boosts and I damage something else on the team and gain the opportunity to kill something. It can dodge Talonflame for as long as it wants, but it’ll have to face it eventually. However, let’s say it doesn’t. Talonflame dies while Blaziken lives… You would call this an auto-loss?

780

Blaziken to me is what Scizor is to White Shadow.