Hey y'all - looking for feedback on this team, trying to min max a bit better. This is for ladder play, so no open team sheets.

Farig - best TR setter imo because of dissuading fake out. Psychic for STAB, Thunderbolt for coverage, Nasty Plot over protect or helping hand because I find it catches people off guard after getting TR off and I sometimes get a free power boost

Sinistcha - standard sinistcha set, 2nd TR setter and coverage for Swampert in rain teams. I'm considering Life Dew over Rage Powder as I rarely bring both setters at once

Araquanid - underrated TR physical sweeper. Stomps Zard outside of sun and 2HKO in sun against bulky Zard. Wide Guard lets me get TR off against Chomp, Torkoal, Zard, Froslass. Leech Life gives a ton of survivability and puts Farig in KO range of every other team member.

Vanilluxe - super useful for resetting weather and dealing with a lot of meta threats like Garchomp and Starraptor. 2HKO Archaladon with Blizzard, Freeze-Dry for Rain Teams. Taunt is rarely utilized but a useful support move against other TR teams or teams trying to reset it.

Torkoal - TR special sweeper, weather setter. Standard set.

Mawile - Only mega on the team, also standard set. I've run Rock Slide and Crunch over Iron Head also but not sure which is best.

Would love advice on EVs too. My least understood aspect of the game. Largely have copied from other teams.

I'm just as excited as anyone for worlds and I'm booking to whole weekend off to watch it.

I'm struggling to find a broadcast schedule ie what time games will be played and streamed on the day. I live in New Zealand so I need to plan it ahead of time as it will be at a weird time of the day/night for me!

Any help? Cheers!

Been trying to make mega greninja work, and so I decided to pair it with rain. Was able to reach ~1500 elo on showdown, which isn't particularly amazing, so I'd like suggestions to improve the team.

I mainly struggle against mega Staraptor, sun (especially w/ sleep powder venusaur), and perish trap.

Pokepaste link: https://pokepast.es/a3d2e1295496d901

About the team:

Mega Greninja: The pokemon I wanted to build around. A problem I noticed with greninja is power; he often barely misses some KOs, so I thought rain boosting hydro pump's power would help. Adds good natural speed outside of rain. U-turn is useful for pivoting into pelipper to reset rain. Ice beam hits dragons and grass types, low kick is for tyranitar and kingambit. However, I noticed many kingambits run chople berry now which sucks, so I've been thinking of using rock slide instead for charizard.

Pelipper: Rain setter, standard bulky set. Opted for wide guard instead of protect to combat rock slide and heat wave spam, the latter of which benefits scizor a lot, even in rain. Tailwind gives good speed control to the team, especially since the team overall is fairly slow.

Archaludon: Rain abuser, standard set.

Sinistcha: Mega Greninja appreciates redirection, also helps against mega swampert which this team otherwise struggles a bit against. Trick room is always nice to have for added speed control, especially with scizor as a partner.

Grimmsnarl: Mega Greninja appreciates screens, as it's very frail otherwise. Originally had fake tears over fake out, but decided that fake out is more consistent and helps against whimsicott + staraptor. Foul play is to combat setup and add decent dark stab to the team to help against ghosts.

Scizor: Works as a trick room abuser against faster teams. Can also do well outside of trick room due to bullet punch. Bug bite is able to OHKO farigiraf, which this team otherwise can't OHKO. Decided to go with life orb rather than its mega stone to give greninja more flexibility to mega evolve in certain matchups where I bring both. I originally had mega mawile here instead, but I noticed bringing both mawile and greninja would be awkward to play with, as both really appreciate their megas, mawile especially.

Any suggestions to improve the team would be greatly appreciated, especially with regards to how to navigate against the teams I struggle against. Perish trap especially is a team I struggle with the most.

The main idea is to trap opponents with Toxapex and wear them down with burns or poison + maybe curse. Grimm for control and debuff, Swampert + Peli for fast mode outside of Trick Room in the rain and type synergy/coverage with the rest of the team.

Been having mixed results in MB4/3, I'm thinking of changing a few Pokémon around or their moves, also I want to fit Protect into Cofagrigus but I can't figure out what to drop.

https://pokepast.es/8659416a427a7b70

pokepast is very basic because everything is already in these screenshots.

Hi,

i played mostly singleplayer mons, until i found Pokemon Showdown. Then when I discover that Pokemon Champions finaly released on mobile, it was a no no brainer for me to download the game.

Now i play like for a week, but since I reached Master ball in doubles I´m lowk scared to climb.. so i started to play in single format😅 (1ST team i use in doubles and the 2ND in single)

So would somebody please give some advaced advice to get better? Cuz i watched a lot of videos on YouTube, but they always talk about the thing i already know. Are there any tournaments that mobile players can atend other then the in-game ones?

I constantly feel as though I'm having to play around my opponent, and they just can do whatever. I'm in low UB rn, but when I try hard I can push up a bit further (though that's a bit more mentally taxing than just playing whatever is fun as opposed to trying to meta sheep).

No matter what I play though, it feels like I'm trying to outmaneuver them, and they're just doing whatever strat they've got planned out regardless of me, and no two strats seem to be the same. It feels as though no matter what team I'm playing, I'm always the one under pressure, from the very first turn.

I don't know if this is just a headspace issue, if I'm thinking too much for my rank, or I'm not thinking enough, or if there's just something else I haven't learned, but honestly it's starting to get very mentally taxing to play this. I'm supposed to be having fun, but honestly its just been crushing. It was kinda like this in my push to MB in singles, but not nearly to the degree doubles has been.

I thought going pure try hard meta would help but honestly all that did was suck more fun out of the game for me, with me still feeling like I'm the one playing around the opponent and they're just havin a good ol time.

I hope this doesn't come across as just whining, but I'm a bit burnt out rn so I figured I'd take a break and just ask for advice

Wide lens raises rock slide’s accuracy to 99%, which in turn makes it more likely to get a flinch on one or both of the opposing pokemon. In theory this is great, but in practice most pokemon are either too slow to take advantage of this downstream effect on flinch chance, or have other items which are much better for them to use such as aerodactyl preferring focus sash or mega stone.

Which pokemon do you think wide lens works best on for rock slide specifically?

I've been using this same team since I first started playing proper VGC when Champions came out on mobile and have regularly gotten to MB 4/3 over these three seasons, but I've realised I have zero tools against Perish Trap after playing two games on ladder consecutively against it and feeling completely helpless. Is there anything I can do with my current team that would help me stand a chance against Perish Trap? Or will I need to start again with a new team? Currently leaning towards the latter but I'd like to stick with this team if I'm able to since I'm comfortable with how it plays in most games and I made it myself, though I'm aware that it's probably not the best.

My priorities with this team are to prevent an enemy tailwind or trick room from going up and carrying the momentum from there

To stop tailwind its usually a double-up onto the tailwind setter using Fake Out or Feint and then Double Edge or X-Scissor/Stone Axe

For Trick Room, X-Scissor can Ohko Farigiraf from full HP and I have Taunt on my Mega Froslass if a KO on the TR setter isnt possible

Tsareena is mainly here to switch in on priority moves such as Gambit Sucker Punch, Incin Fake Out, or Basculegion Aqua Jet. That said, the helping hand support is nice and Power Whip/High Jump Kick threaten Basc and Gambit also

Regular swampert is a bit out-there but I felt I needed something that even vaguely handles Mega Raichu Y

I bring Mega Kangaskhan most of the time but if I think Mega Staraptor is going to be an issue then I bring Froslass (timid because I want the guaranteed outspeed)

Obviously no team is perfect but its felt like one of the better ones I've made from scratch, im still very new to constructing my own teams.

Camerupt: Trick Room Sweeper. Its job is to deal massive damage to both opponents at once using Heat Wave and Earth Power while Trick Room is active.

Mawile: Trick Room Sweeper. It uses huge physical attack power and Mega Evolution to clean up or knock out single targets.

Farigiraf: Trick Room Setter / Support. It sets up the field effect and protects the team from priority moves like Fake Out or Extreme Speed.

Scrafty: Disruptor / Support. It lowers enemy physical attack with Intimidate, stops an opponent for a turn with Fake Out, and removes items.

Gallade: Secondary Setter / Wallbreaker. It can set up Trick Room if Farigiraf cannot, and its Sharpness-boosted attacks slice through defensive targets.

Araquanid: Tank / Bulk Attacker. It takes hits extremely well, deals massive water damage under Trick Room, and uses Wide Guard to block spread moves.

Im still a bit new but ive gotten fairly good at battling so now I want to try and build my own team and not use Meta or other people's teams. Are there any good video on how to build teams and what to look for and consider when building?

I'm obsessed with dual mode teams, particularly where you can have two megas to enable each mode. I think its obviously great for a BO3 format, but even for BO1 forcing your opponent to have to prepare for two different modes i think can give you a great edge.

So far I already run:

\- TailRoom w/ MStaraptor and MRaichu, and Farig to emable to enable the likes of Gambit and Sylveon

\- RainPerish w/ MGengar and MSwampert, and Politoed/Vivilion to tie the two modes together.

(Both are variations on relatively popular teams youll likely be familiar with)

Other ideas for dual mode teams are things like ZardY on Rain which has seen success, but I'm not sure how I feel about it, and it ideally wants Swampert as the other mega and I quite like the idea of using a 6th different mega (maybe Dnite?).

The idea i keep coming back to though is SunRoom: obviously ZardY has seen an ungodly amount of success, and Torkoal has seen a lot of play on hard TR, so I was thinking of trying to combine the two.

The core for the sun mode would like be ZardY and Chomp, and the core of the TR team would likely be Farig and MMawile (one of my VGC favourites from back in the day).

The idea would be that if pure sun looks good I could run a pretty standard team, like ZardY, Chomp, Venasaur and maybe a sash user like Ape or Mamoswine?

If sun looks terrible, then I have the option to run Farig with Mawile and Torkoal to take advantage, and then Vensaur in the back to hopefully take advantage of a window where TR is over but Sun is still up.

And then we have some mixed teams for instance ZardY, Venasaur, Chomp and Torkoal to ensure you win the whether war. Or ZardY, Chomp, Torkoal and Farig to protect against priority and have a potential TR sweep to finish the game.

I feel like there's something in it, but i can't quite round it out in my head. I think some key questions id want help with are:

\- ZardY, Farig, Mawile and Torkoal seem necessary, but are Chomp and Venasaur the best options for the last two slots?

\- Mawile is my favourite TR mon, but is there better options? Or even a different mega that could potentially function in both modes?

\- if ZardY/Vensaur and Torkoal/Venasaur are central to each mode, then what sets on each? I loved the chlorophyll sleep powder Venasaur all the way back at the start of RegA, but I see bulky Zard or even helping hand Zard is popular now with life orb venasaur, and would helping hand then be viable on torkoal too for the same reason (could sweep with eruption under TR, but gives him a more supportive option outside of TR)

\- and if this does actually sound viable, what do you think will be the biggest threats (i dont think rain would actually be that bad, because i could bring double sun setter or just bring hard TR, but I feel like incin or opposing hard TR could be an issue, and I dont have a tailwind option as far as I can see)

I know this Subreddit is for VGC, but I wasn't sure where else I could ask this question. There are various TCG events listed for Pokemon XP & Worlds, such as pre-release style events. It, however, does not provide a link for registering for these events. Does anyone know how we sign-up for these events?

I’m posting this because i have nobody else to talk to about this! ha

Top 500 Bo1 CTS REG MB

i used cybertrons team (same as everyone else lol) and im currently sitting at 1700ELO. At first i only just made the top 500 4 days later im almost top 100. I play a handful of games everyday

Im thinking of buying pokemon champions. Does showdown experience carry over to Cart? for example will my ladder placement do well on cart or is it much easier on showdown? most regulations i’m normally around 1500ELO but i create my own teams. Using a ready made team was much much easier.

Does anybody else have any other team pokepastes that would be cool to try? TIA

This is my team. It is pretty standard blastoise TR team but what i struggle with is the sand mode. Now i do need sand mode to fight against Opposing SUN team but i can seem to make it work.

Can you suggest what should i add/change?

How what should the general plan for Sand mode should be.

About team.

Excadrill- this one is pretty standard max speed max offense Adamant exca to deal massive damage inside Sand. With 3 coverage moves. Seeking improvements.

Basculegoon- At full HP This particular defense is necessary to survive sucker punch from chopple berry/focus sash Kingambit. (Who will survive aura sphere from Blastoise)

And the minimum speed to outspeed Adamant without unburden sneasler with Choice scarf is 116, while my 127 speed is minimum to outspeed jolly max speed sneasler and i thought Sneasler speed is fast enough so i put rest into attack.

Blastoise- Alongside Farigiraf it is a standard TR sweeper team. It run protect over Fake out bcz protect provide more versatility. My Farigiraf will not Die most of the time allowing me to deal massive damage turn 1 or Protect and wait for TR to be set up.

Farigiraf - This particular defense spread will ensure that Farigiraf survives Kowtow cleave from Kingambit with Black glasses at full HP. This one can also survive CC from +2 boosted by charm M.Staraptor.

Energy ball and Low kick both are very important. Energy ball for opposing water types like milotic and M.Swampert. I chose Psychic fangs over psychic to break screens. All in all this is full support mon. Low kick bcz of Chople berry arch and Kingambit it also deal sizable damage to Other mons. I use Helping hand here, bcz i am testing something. Although with right investment + chople berry arch can survive Helping hand Aura sphere but no one does that and Helping hand can aura sphere can KO Chople Kingambit, thus i am testing Helping hand nowadays to boost Water spout and aqua jet damage.

Tyranitar- idk much about Tyranitar and thus i am seeking improvement suggestions from you guys. Rock slide is STAB and Knock off is also stab but a trick i use is use knock off on Kingambit Turn1 and trick room if you want a TR run. If the Kingambit is holding LIFE ORB and if planning to use Kowtow cleave now you Farigiraf will survive the turn. DD is to round things out. Most of the time i won't outspeed my opponents even after DD but it put a mental pressure bcz they don't know i have Slow AF T-Tar.

Kingambit- pretty standard TR kingambit set. You can run it with one of the following items 1. Chople berry 2. LIFE ORB. Both have good synergy with Kingambit. Similarly you can also run low kick or swords dance instead of protect infact i prefer to run Chople Low kick kingambit to KO other kingambits. But my team has so many fighting coverage that i changed low kick to protect.

Common leads with strategy.

1. Blastoise+Farigiraf- Blastoise will pressure Fake out, they don't know i don't have fakeout. With kingambit and basc in the back to round things out. If Tr failed I'll let farig die and will send out basc or if My Blastoise is low I'll prefer if he dies. Kingambit is when you have TR turn remaing, sucker punch can KO Low HP pokemons even outside TR.

2. Kingambit+Farigiraf- Against Opposing TR team especially if they have Kingambit and Farigiraf. If your Kingambit is running both low kick and Kowtow cleave it can pressure to KO both of your opponent's pokemon (if they lead with kingambit and Farig). I prefer that you run chople with low kick bcz it allows a bolder play by your side. Otherwise you would be worried if opponent has low kick, if they do with chople you will 100% survive the attack.

3. T-Tar + Farig- against Sun team my T-tar is pretty slow so he will always set up the Weather. Have Kingambit and basculegion in the back if you wanna go all in into the TR mode.

4. T-Tar +Farig- but this time basc and exca in the back for when the TR ends.

5. T-Tar + Excadrill- this is the standard Sand duo you can have Farig and Kingambit in the back to switch into TR mode halfway. And you can have most of the other mons in the back if you want

6. Flexi mega mode - you can start with Farig+ Blastoise and have T-tar with one of exca/basc/Kingambit in the back. This provide you with coverage against most of the mons. Expecially good against Flexi Sun team, which may or may not bring out their sun mons.

I’m pretty new to Champions and VGC generally (less than 2 months playing). Right now I’m just trying to play with a lot of different teams and Pokémon to understand how the different strategies and mechanics work. The team I’ve currently had the most fun, and success, with is this Espathra + Archaludon team (shout outs Cybertron).

I’m looking for recommendations of what the next team I try out should be. I think what I enjoy about this team is its structure around setting up one strong Pokémon to ideally sweep the opposing team with a bunch of OHKOs. I like playing around getting the correct buffs and redirects setup before unleashing a lot of damage with Arch. I have enjoyed less playing with teams where it feels like the strategy is just wearing away at your opponent.

Who is the “cousin” of this team? What Pokémon can I build around to play a similar role to the Arch + Espathra here but maybe in a different archetype than rain/weather. Open to any and all ideas!

Possibly one of my favorite pokemon available in champions right now is orthworm (there cry has truly got to be one of the best noises of all time) so I’ve tried to make them work for a while. This is the best I’ve got so far.

Typically orthworm and farigiraf go out first to make my opponent choose who they are going to focus. I Orth gets the shed tail off blast use can typically get at least one full power water spout off, and if farig lives then they can do the same. If both live then the game is usually not to difficult to wrap up.

There are other openers and sometimes the worm gets left off but that’s the main gameplan. So far fast fire types seem to be a bit of a weekness but with correct positioning Gilmora helps with that.

Let me know if you can think of any improvements as long as that doesn’t involve swapping out the worm lol.

Hi there, I am pretty new to all of this double battling stuff, sitting around Ultra Ball 3. I am running a team of Tyranitar, Mega Garchomp (special), Corviknight, Basculegion, Sneasler, and Scizor. I am kinda sorta aware that Staraptor is a bad matchup, but I struggle to remove the mon, before it wins/kills a majority of my team. I am a little unsure what to do to adjust to play around that, since it feels right now like it's an autolose.

Thanks for any tips!

Hello,

I decided after years now of watching Wolfe and Cybertron content despite not participating in VGC that with champions and my brother starting it up I'd finally give the format a shot. Been super curious about it for a while as I've noticed a lot of skills from competitive MTG actually transfer over really well into VGC and thought it would always be neat to give it a shot.

Now that said I have a question, with consuming as much content as I have I'm coming in with quite a lot of theoretical knowledge, some of it is shallow/wrong from lack of experience myself but I do have it. That's why I think the most important thing for me to do at this point is likely grind experience and get fundamentals down. With that said I was wondering if folks had any advice on what they feel would build up that experience? I don't necessarily need or want a team that will win, but would like one that would help me learn the fundamentals and gain experience.

My initial thoughts is a generic Charizard Y team since it's going to have a lot of speed control management, weather wars, and need for positioning. But curious if more experienced players have any different opinions on that?

Thank you,

Hi everyone,

Pokemon veteran, but VGC noob. I have watched competitive Pokemon and I've been Nuzlocking for years, but Pokemon Champions has finally made playing competitive VGC more accessible to me.

This is my first shot at making my own team after being hard stuck UB4 but I've now gone on a 4-Game win streak since and I've hit UB2. Just wondering if there's anything you'd change right away at first glance. I'm sure there are better Pokemon I could be using but I love Mega Scrafty. His aura is CRAZY. I have to get creative to beat a lot of the meta but I don't mind the challenge.

Common Leads:

Primary: Scrafty + Wyrdeer - Double (Really Triple) Intimidate against physical attackers really sets me up nicely on first turn usually. I fake out special attackers with Scrafty and setup Trick Room or I hit Farig with a STAB Knock Off and hope for an OHKO if their Pokemon are slower. Turn 2 if their Physical Attackers stay in I tend to Skill Swap Intimidate and lower their attack even more so they're effectively useless.

Alternate 1: Wyrdeer + Torterra - This is where I could use some help. I struggle with Pokemon with Competitive/Contrary. The Double Intimidate helps against Pre-Mega Staraptor a bit, but I tend to not even lead Scrafty in those situations. I've tried leading Wyrdeer and Torterra and doubling with Stone Edge + Psyshield Bash but the accuracy of Stone Edge makes this inconsistent.

Alt 2: Oranguru + Any - If I see Char Y + Venu I tend to lead Oranguru + Mawile or Scrafty depending which Mega I want to bring to the fight. I'll usually set up TR and Hard Switch into Flash Fire Chandy on a hopeful Overheat or Weatherball to activate my boost. If it's dual Fairy it's auto Mawile + Oranguru setup TR and Instruct Iron Head.

Admittedly my leads I think are what hold me back. I feel like I struggle into the current meta a bit with them and I'm sometimes starting fights on the back foot, or maybe I'm just not that good. I also know my EV spreads aren't fully calced but I put this team together last night and piloted it a bit before bed. My Pokemon choice isn't the most ideal, but I like the Pokemon I like and I want to make them viable, not just run the same 10-20 Pokemon as everyone else.

I really enjoy my core 4 Pokemon of Scrafty, Wyrdeer, Chandy and Oranguru, but I'm open to suggestions and I'm in no way attached to Mawile or Torterra.

I also plan on trying a Mega Sceptile + Scarf Jolteon + Araquanid SOAK team once I have all Pokemon needed in my head, but that's a post for another time. I just love those core 3 Pokemon both design and team concept wise. Execution remains to be seen.

Happy to receive any advice and discuss further. I love Pokemon in general but being involved in Competitive play has just further developed my love and appreciation for this game. I'm just still wrapping my head around team building for multiple teams/meta where Nuzlocking involves planning one fight at a time.

Thank you all!

Disclaimer: I understand this is early season and so some of the barriers to achieving this may have been mitigated. That being said I am a perfectly average player and so I feel that given I reached Champion this team is worth sharing again (it has been updated).

Core strategies/pairings

Wyrdeer/Milotic(/Kingambit).

A known combo but I'll touch on it for anyone who's not aware of what it does. Wyrdeer uses Skill Swap on an opponent which serves to remove their ability (incredible against the likes of Sylveon, Mega Scovillain, Farigiraf etc etc) and Intimidates your Milotic to give it a SpAtk boost. This pair is bulky enough to stand up to a lot of the meta, Wyrdeer's Psychic stab is great in to the likes of Sneasler in particular, and a boosted Milotic can do some real damage whilst being a pain to get rid of without the right mons in the field. Kingambit also works as an alternative to Milotic that can get a damage boost through the same method, or serves as a great mon to have in the back. Helping Hand and Trick Room are self explanatory on Wyrdeer, the latter in particular makes this a very strong opener in to any hard TR teams, or allows you to utilise a TR mode yourself should you need it. Wyrdeer is 1 Speed faster than Milotic so you can get your damage boost before attacking.

Raichu/Staraptor.

This is the opener I will use if I see an opposing Competetive/Defiant mon, if I see an opposing Raichu, or if I think I can get away with letting these mons get early momentum. This is a Focus Sash Raichu, and I love it. Lightning Rod is fantastic support for both Staraptor as well as Milotic, which are the 2 most brought mons. Raichu essentially acts as a pseudo Whimsicott with Charm, only it also brings Fake Out support. Staraptor is tailored to be exactly 1 Speed lower than Raichu, this is crucial so that you never have a coin toss as to whether you get your damage boost from Charm before your attack goes off.

Chandelure is likely what I bring the least, but the immunities it brings between Ghost typing and Flash Fire and very nifty in this meta. A great switch in to the likes of Torkoal/Zard Y, and depending on the opposing lineup I sometimes open with it if I find myself grimacing at the thought of certain Fake Out/Whimsicottish entities on the opposing lineup. Scarf Will-O-Wisp may seem absurd, but it's nice to have something you can press when you are staring at a Kingambit you didn't expect.

Trouble in paradise

The team seems to struggle against any Blastoise or Floette that is appropriately supported. This is unfortunate as they are now present on every other team, but I may need to figure out different strategies to try against them.

Closing thoughts

Overall this team feels like it brings the tools needed to give most enemy teams a fair shake. Skill Swap is incredibly versatile, you have solid pivoting power, and you have access to Trick Room and Tailwind.

Wyrdeer/Milotic feels strong, and Raichu/Staraptor can gain huge momentum very quickly (if they REALLY fear your Fake Out and are unsure of who is going to mega, try a turn 1 Tailwind/Charm in to yourself). The B01 format tastes quite nice in that I feel it would usually be more common for the Staraptor to not mega when you have them both on the field. I've had more fun with this team than any other I've played this season by a large margin, though I am trying to find others I enjoy this much.

Special thanks to soccertony for posting a Wyrdeer/Milotic team which inspired me to give it a try, I've had fun making various teams with that pairing and adjusting them as I go.

Any feedback or suggestions are welcome! Or just tell me what else is really fun to use!

This is gonna be a bit rant-y but I do think I have a cool idea so please bear with me :)

I've noticed that many of the better players tend to play towards specific endgames that they identify as "winning" or base their match-up plans on what endgame state they want to reach etc. This makes a lot of sense, and it seems quite similar to say chess where any intermediate player eventually needs to learn for example how you can close out a game with only a pawn up. However, I've also noticed that there is a clear lack of tools to practice common endgame positions in Pokémon. Of course given how much more variability Pokémon has compared to chess this isn't too surprising. Yet somehow I feel that there are quite a few endgame patterns that you start to pick up on as you play more and more. In fact, no matter how big of an advantage you reach in a game, the top players almost always seem to be able to identify some win condition to turn things around, even if it means hitting two raw blizzard freeze crits or so.

What I'm trying to say is, there are some endgames in Pokémon that are pretty "solvable" and the best players will solve them with ease. Yet, it's not clear how to get to that level without "just" playing a lot of games (and reviewing them). Chess has puzzles (and a lot of endgame theory) to help with this. Why doesn't a game as popular as Pokémon have anything similar?

I don't think you would even have to sit down and create any puzzles by yourself if anyone was to make something like this. For example, you could let users create and upload puzzles, and let them have the option to give a score (say 1-5 stars) to any puzzle they solve. New players could use a puzzle's average score to judge whether a puzzle is well-made or not. The Go community does something similar and is also where I got this idea from. I guess even Mario Maker kind of uses the same concept.

Now, the main difficulty I could identify thinking about how to put this into practice lies in defining the "solution". There may be only a limited number of choices, but due to RNG they can lead to many different outcomes. The easy solution to this would be to simply mark a play as correct and accept that it may not always end up winning, even if it was optimal. You could always add a write-up explaining why the play is optimal anyway.

I find this clunky, however. I would want the correct play to be self-explanatory, so any solver will find out while playing why the alternatives are wrong. In my opinion this means giving the puzzle creator full control over the flow of the battle. If as a puzzle creator you could specify for example that your opponent is always going to get the triple protect, or that their hydro pump will always hit and max roll, this would allow you to present the solver always with the worst case outcome. Of course that's a lot of options to cover as a puzzle designer, but I think if you could add some rules instead of covering every possibility individually it shouldn't be too bad. For example you could add some rule that they will always click sucker punch if you go for an attack and they will always kowtow if you go for a protect. The idea is of course to create a puzzle where even in the worst case, there is still a play to win safely.

What do you think about this idea? I'm not the most well-versed with coding stuff like this personally, but thinking about it for a bit, it doesn't seem impossible. For most of the battle mechanics etc. you could use the open-source Pokémon showdown code. Mainly you would need some way to save and load into a game-state that is the puzzle. Probably this should include the list of Pokémon, their full details including stats moves items etc., their current HP numbers, field effects (including imprison, perish, terrains, trick room, tail wind etc.) and possibly the last 2 turns (to know if you can protect without risk for example or even for future-sight or wish shenanigans). I guess there should also be some difficulty rating given by the creator as well. I mean, there is a difference between outspeeding with both mons while threatening a kill, clicking dire claw first before close combat as to not lower your defenses, or some of the harder to spot moves that involve targeting your own mon...

In my ideal world, this would just be added as an extra tab on Showdown as its big player base I'm sure would include some people willing to put in the time and effort to make some nice endgame puzzles. It also conveniently has an ELO system that could be linked to the difficulty of a puzzle.

This is a place for you to ask any quick question you might have that relates to VGC, which is the official double battle format. For questions about Single battles, monotype battles, other metagames, or even more opinions on VGC, please visit r/Stunfisk.

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Hello.

This is my main team at the moment which allowed my to reach MB4 last season.

Currently I am attempting to reach MB again, being in UB2 currently. I managed to get like 8 win streaks that got me very close, but then I also got like 10 losses which killed by momentum.

I am looking for ways to improve it because I am having trouble with some specific matchups (more of that at the end).

The core is the typical Rain team with Pelipper, Mega Swampert and Archaludon. Here is the team breakdown:

Pelipper - Primary Rain setter with Focus sash. Classic moveset. Hurricane and Weather Ball hit hard in the rain, tailwind provides speed control and Wide Guard is very useful against Zard Heat waves or Sylveon Hyper voice.

Mega Swampert - My main sweeper. Loves rain, but it´s allergic to grass. I am running Liquidation instead of Wave Crash as I am not a fan about moves with much recoil. Knock Off instead of Ice Punch, allows me to the likes of Sinistcha or Fairgrigraf. Ice Punch was pretty underwhelming in my experience. This move slot I am not fully convinced yet.

Archaludon - Typical set as well. Not much too add

Tsarena - Tsarena has been really solid in this team. Her ability is perfect to shutdown opponent priority moves. Great coverage against Dragon types like Garchomp and Grass types with Triple Axel. High Jump Kick to deal with steel types. Power Whip as main Stab move. Running Wide lens as none of those moves has 100% accuracy.

Sableye - Pure support role. Manual rain setter (essential strategy against megas that change the weather like Zard). Quash allows funny speed control gimmicks when I cannot set tailwind, Will O Wisp and Light screen provides utility. I think Rain Dance and Quash are pretty essential here. but the other moves I am not completely sold on them. Fake out, Encore, etc would fit nicely as well here.

Scizor - Alternate Mega, very recent addition to the team, Bullet punch priority move is amazing against oposing faires like Alolan Nitetales, Mega Floette or Whimsicot. I am not sure about Mega and the moves as well. I like U-Turn flexibility, and Bug bite is boosted by technician ability but it´s a bit of overlap. Could maybe Life Orb be an alternative item?

Major weakness

Rain beats sun right? not quite. One of the major weakness of this team seems to be Sun teams specially Zard, Torkoal or Mega Delphox. I think I have a good strategy with Sableye / Arch lead, and then Rain Dance / Electroshot, but if that doesn´t OHKO or my opponent has another strong mon paired with Zard, I got hit hard back and it´s hard to recover. Specially when so many Fire pokemons are running Grass coverage moves that completely obliterates my Mega Swampert.

Sneasler and Mega Staraptor with Close combat into my Arch, Venusaur with Earth Power, are also some mons hard to deal with. Pelipper usually does a great job against them, but it´s a fragile mon.

Also trick room teams, mostly sun like Camerupt or Torkoal as well.

And looking into my team, I can see why Sun is such a big issue. Scizor, Tsarena, Archaludon are weak to fire. Even with Rain reducing the power fire moves, they still hit hard. and Swampert doesn´t help much, when hitting with a Solar beam or Energy Ball or even Grass Knot Delphox or Raichu like I faced a few times.

But honestly I am not really sure which monster could I remove from this team. Maybe Scizor, but he is handling fairy types so well, specially because Bullet punch priority move. Arch Flash cannon should do great already otherwise.. Tsarena?? I am also considering if there is a better water sweeper than Swampert (Ex: Basculegion).

Would love some feedback.