Articles

Published on June 9th, 2014 | by Werford

41

Three Habits of Ineffective Players

Competitive Pokémon is a game that has been growing rapidly, with Regional and National Championships in North America and Europe having as much as a 300% increase in participation from last year. One of the effects of this growth is a larger field of increasingly competent players, and as such, becoming an effective competitive player is more difficult.

How does a player become more effective? One way to go about it is to think about what ineffective players tend to do, and to do the opposite of those things. It’s true that you may be able to find success even if you do practice the three habits outlined in this article, and indeed, some players have in the past. However, choosing to become more effective by rejecting these habits can only make you a better and more consistent player.

Not Utilizing All of Your Available Options

Many of you may have read Sirlin’s article on what makes a competitive game player a “scrub”, but if you have not, the gist of the article is that ineffective players will put arbitrary limits on what techniques or strategies they will use because they consider those strategies “cheap” or “unfair”. This is especially egregious in Sirlin’s field of expertise, fighting games, given that the format of the games themselves promote competition against others above all else. However, the attitude of these “scrubs” actually seems to be encouraged in the Pokémon games with its message of putting love and trust in your favorites to win. This attitude is further encouraged by a fandom that often has a healthy disdain for “overused” Pokémon like Kangaskhan and Talonflame, due to their perception as overpowered, overly common, or uncreative.

In a casual setting, there is no problem with limiting yourself to your “bros” or to not using Pokémon you feel are overpowered or uninteresting. However, given that you are on this site and reading this article, I’m assuming that you are interested in competitive battling, where your primary goal should be winning. Placing arbitrary limitations, like deciding not to use Kangaskhan because you perceive it to be broken, will not help you achieve your goal of winning. In fact, as Sirlin points out in his article, this arbitrary limit can often be a bad thing. Refusing to use certain Pokémon on principle is a good way to get absolutely trounced by them, especially given that many of the popular targets of scorn in the metagame are some combination of powerful, bulky, and speedy. Practicing with these Pokémon is an excellent way to understand how to defeat them, and an effective player takes advantage of this practice to better understand and even help develop the metagame. You don’t necessarily need to use a team of “The Big Six” in tournaments in order to do well, but understanding what popular threats can do is a big part of what makes a player effective.

Somewhat related to this is the idea, especially pervasive in the Pokémon community, that creativity is the most important part of team building. It may be tempting to build your team in a way that allows you to use a more “creative” Pokémon over a more standard one, and creativity certainly has its place. When all is said and done, though, you do not get CP or tournament wins for style points. To be an effective team builder, each Pokémon choice must be the most effective one for the role you want that Pokémon to fill. Ray’s Wigglytuff is a great example of an effective but creative Pokémon choice, as he felt it fulfilled the role he wanted for that slot in his team more effectively than anything else. While there was novelty value in using Wigglytuff in a competitive setting, especially in the North American metagame at the time, Ray put more weight on Wigglytuff’s effectiveness on his team than on its creativity as a Pokémon choice.

Complaining About Luck

Unlike many other competitive games, Pokémon has a large reliance on luck. Unlike in a fighting game when you are guaranteed to do the same amount of damage each time you execute the same attack, or in an RTS where your units will always cost the same and will always provide the same damage output at the same level of upgrade, your Pokémon’s damage output (or whether or not your Pokémon even gets to act) is determined by the RNG. As a result, there will be times where a seemingly sure victory is taken away by the unlikeliest of outcomes occurring. It’s only natural for a player to pinpoint the RNG as the reason for losing. However, there are three reasons why an effective player does not blame the RNG in their losses.

The first of these reasons is a simple understanding of the game itself. Pokémon, like poker, is first and foremost a game of probability management. Before you even begin battling, you must select a team of Pokémon based in part on what you are likely to see in a tournament setting. You then must select moves for those Pokémon, and part of this process is deciding whether or not a move’s accuracy is worth a drop in power, or vice versa. Then, once you are in battle, you choose your actions based on what you think is best given your position and your opponent’s position at the time. Every single one of these considerations involves some sort of probability management on your part, whether it’s picking a Pokémon that counters a popular threat, choosing to use a move that nets you a KO you’d otherwise miss with a weaker but more accurate move, or fishing for the flinch in the midst of battle because that seems to be your best move. An ineffective player may blame a loss on what they view as a critical Hydro Pump miss, but does not acknowledge things that were in their control that may have also influenced the battle. It’s obviously heartbreaking to miss on a move that would have won you the game (or to be flinched before you can even get the move off), causing you to lose, but your position was not as good as you thought it was if counting on an inaccurate move to hit was your best option. An effective player, in contrast, will choose more consistent options in order to dictate field position, and if their best play is to use an unreliable move, then they will not complain if that move happens to fail or miss. They knew that there was a chance that their move choice would not pan out, but they still made the choice knowing that it was the correct move.

The second reason for not complaining about the RNG is that, like complaining about “overpowered” Pokémon, doing so prevents you from learning and improving as a player. It’s easy to get fixated on the RNG not going your way and claiming that as the reason why you lost. However, doing this prevents you from examining the rest of your game. What if you could have made a different play three turns earlier and improved your position enough that you wouldn’t have to rely on not getting flinched to win? There are many different variables at play in a Pokémon match, and to single out something outside the realm of your control and claim that as your reason for losing means you are ignoring those things that were in your control — things that you can learn from. An effective player will try to learn from their mistakes, rather than blame the RNG for not acting in their favor.

The last reason for why you shouldn’t complain about “hax” is a more human one. Much like refusing to shake an opponent’s hand before a match or saying “gg” before the game is over when it seems like you are about to win, complaining about the rolls the RNG gives you is poor sportsmanship. It is human nature to attribute your successes to your own ability and your opponent’s successes to luck, but by removing the other player’s agency you are invalidating your opponent as a player. Granted, you are playing competitive Pokémon to win rather than make friends, but being a jerk is a good way to deny yourself practice partners or other sources of feedback on your own game. It’s even possible for you to lose a match you’d otherwise have won if your bad manners are deemed by judges to cross the line into harassment. In a community such as this one, I’d recommend being a gracious loser, if only because it means that it will make other people more likely to want to help you out.

Going on Tilt

In the game of poker, there is a concept called “going on tilt”, which means that as you lose, your mental state becomes more frantic and it becomes harder for you to make logical or safe plays. This concept easily transfers over to the game of competitive Pokémon. It’s normal for any player to get upset when they lose, especially if they feel the loss is outside the realm of their control. It’s how you react to this feeling that helps determine whether or not you’re an effective player. An ineffective player will allow their anger to fester in their mind and poison their ability to think critically in their next game, which will in turn lead to a higher probability of losing, sparking an even stronger reaction and making it even harder to think critically. This creates a negative feedback loop that makes it hard for that player to play at the top of their game.

How does an effective player avoid going on tilt? In an online tournament setting, it’s simple enough to just get up and walk away for a cooldown period. Spending a half hour or more doing something else in order to “reset” your frame of mind is effective and easy. However, in a live tournament setting you are not afforded this luxury, and effective players have to come up with other ways to avoid going on tilt. Some players may briefly reflect on what they could have done better in their losses, and then mentally move on to the next match without dwelling on their loss in the previous one. Meditation or some other way of taking yourself out of the tournament briefly may also be helpful. There’s something to be said for just taking a few deep breaths and counting to 10 when you’re angry over a loss.

Conclusion

In order to become an effective competitive Pokémon player, a competitor must avoid placing unnecessary restrictions on themselves, and instead explore all of the options available to them. They must also realize that the RNG may not always work in their favor, but that the ultimate responsibility for their results is with the choices they make at all points of the team building and battling processes. Finally, an effective player keeps their cool, not dwelling on losses and allowing those losses to affect their performance in the rest of the tournament. There are many other factors dictating what makes a player effective or not, and it’s possible to succeed even if a player doesn’t always adhere (or even never adheres) to the three habits listed above. However, making a habit of these three things is relatively easy, and will almost certainly lead to an improvement in play for the player who implements them.


About the Author

A player of the games since the inception of the franchise, Werford only really got into the competitive scene late in the 2012 season. Since then, he's top cut two Regionals and a Premiere Challenge. A player more known for his terrible hockey pun nicknames, will he go on to even greater success in the future?



41 Responses to Three Habits of Ineffective Players

  1. Raghav says:

    Nice article.

  2. PFHedgehog says:

    As a new-ish player, I appreciate this article a lot. Three things to most definitely keep in mind when playing in VGC ’15 for me.

  3. Gilbert says:

    So true.

  4. Tapin says:

    Nice article!  I was just re-reading that Sirlin “scrubs” piece over the weekend.
     
    I think there’s a distinction that may be useful, regarding the first categorization: The person who says “I’m not using Kangaskhan because Parental Bond is BROKEN and CHEAP” is definitely limiting themselves; but on the other hand, the person who says “I want to avoid using Kangaskhan because the strategies for defeating Kangaskhan are now well-known” is making a valid, defensible choice.
     
    After playing poker for over a decade and a bunch of competitive games, I still have problems with going on tilt.  All that the experience has done for me is make me faster to recognize my mental state; at (cash) poker tables, that’s when I’ll get up and go for a walk.  A bit more difficult to do that in a tournament setting 😉

  5. sableyemagma says:

    I can definitely relate to the whole going on tilt. When I lose battles repeatedly in practice I save the videos, wait until the next day and watch them to see where I went wrong. It definitely helps.

  6. R Inanimate says:

    In light of some recent forum topics, this is a pretty decent article.
     
    I feel like there’s a of habit that got left out here though:
     
    Feeling the need to change the team that you are testing way too freely / Changing your team to commit too hard into countering the current team fad of the day on PS!.
     
    I know that there are some people out there that make a habit of trying to alter their team with the sort of mentality that “if they lose with the team, even once, that the team isn’t good enough and needs to be fixed”. This can sometimes lead to them constantly shifting around teams, and never settling on anything. Causing them to feel frustrated that their team “isn’t working” and never understanding why that is. When it is largely due to them never properly testing their team, and making a change that act as a quick fix for a problem they are immediately shown without realizing their rash decision created more flaws than it solved.

  7. mattj says:

    If I could throw one out there it would be that ineffective players dwell on their losses at events. Its related to going on tilt. So many players go around after a loss and retell the story over and over. I’ve watched it drag good players down. Conversely, I’ve watched other players brush off an infuriating loss, not say a word about it, and do well the next round. I’ve been able to make much better decisions in the rounds after terrible losses now that I don’t recount them after the round.

  8. Toasterhider says:

    One option that’s popular, and I know works for me to reduce stress, is listening to music. I know, at least at regionals, you’re going to have some time between rounds to collect yourself. It’s usually enough time to listen to a couple songs. Also, don’t rule out a type of music just because you don’t like it. In interest of full disclosure, 99% of time time, I vehemently despise rap music, I’ll turn the radio channel if it comes on, I’ll rag on my brother when he’s walking around the house rapping, and I usually just don’t like it. But, when I need to get motivated for something, for some reason, rap music does it better than any genre can. Maybe it’s because my debate coach would listen to it before debates and on the way back from tournaments, I don’t know, but don’t rule out a genre of music.

  9. Azazel says:

    I am impressed with how much this article covered, what an excellent analysis. Thanks for the read Werford!

    As of this year, my inauguration into the realm of VGC, I was only financially able to attend one tournament, Apex 2014, because I literally go to college in New Brunswick. After practice on showdown and several weeks of breeding and team changing, I had prepared a very aggressive rain team that centered around a Kangaskhan Liepard lead with ScarfToed and Ludi in the back. Rotom wash for Talonflame, and Scrafty for trick room/intimidate if necessary. As I arrived at the tourney, I was seriously nervous as hell, shaking with both fear and excitement. I was able to befriend some guys new to the game also participating in their first tourney and I eventually calmed down and prepared for my first match with someone named Jio. (Little did I know how experienced he was) after making introductions and preparing for battle, we clashed and I actually won off a power up punch prediction onto a mamoswine switch in. It was double elimination and Jio came over and said good game and I prepared for my next match. To make a long story short, I won my next three matches in a row, of which the only one who’s name I remember was Unknowninator. The match with him was exceptionally stressful and I won because I pulled off a double protect. Feeling confident, I turned on the swagger and probably became a bit too pompous, because I was in winners finals of my pool, and I didn’t even know. My next opponent was Ryuzaki. I had never heard of her and I went into the battle almost fully assured that she had brought a scarf on her gardevoir. After getting absolutely ROFLstomped, my hopes were crushed. My ability to battle was about as potent as a choice specs machamp with guys and dynamic punch. I was experiencing tilt before I even made any moves in my next battle.

    Unfortunately, I was up against Jio again, someone who had risen through losers against five strong opponents and was ready to take me on. Winner would go to top 16. The match was close, but I was too scared to make any bold predictions and it cost me the match. Jio beat me and I threw away my chance to make a top cut. Tilt is a dangerous thing if you aren’t prepared for it, and from personal experience I definitely recommend learning a way to handle it to improve your game. I’ve been working on it ever since and plan to unleash these techniques during the June friendly. Excellent read, plan on applying it to my game.

  10. Boomguy says:

    Can I add something similar to Randy’s advice is the need to be perfect.
     
    A lot of us are aiming to have that “Perfect” team that will never lose.  Even the best of the best lose sometimes.

  11. ZzamanN says:

    I’m so glad i did end up reading this! Its so crucial that you dont do any of these things before and during a tournament. Im not sure many australians have had the much practice with Swiss as most of the time in masters its Single elimination so being on the tilt is very uncommon in australian tournaments as, as soon as they lost a game they’re out so they wont play anymore games. It is very likely the Going on the tilt will be common at Nationals as it has been confirmed to be swiss

  12. TwiddleDee says:

    I agree with a lot of the things said here, but I’ll add my two cents.

    I think, as a player who is still new to the scene, us newbies initially get a start thinking “I wanna use something so weird that everyone will be too confused to beat me!” I had this mindset for my first couple weeks back in August. I wanted, like a lot of new players, to be the guy that popularizes an unpopular Pokemon, but ironically I didn’t realize at the time that that hindered me from becoming “the guy who’s really good.” Being frank, gimmicks either work extremely well or they fall flat, at least in my experience. One thing I noticed a lot is that there are some players (I’m talking more Showdown users than people who frequent NuggetBridge) discourage creativity to the point that new players don’t enjoy their experience. If you’re constantly told “ha! Your gimmicks are stupid, wow you must really suck!” then you’ll get discouraged because your peers, who are supposed to be helping you get better are instead putting you down. I see this on showdown all the time, but rarely here, which is a good thing. I think new players that make their gimmicks, and I’m not exempted from that list, should make them but learn through experience that their gimmicks don’t work, not through harsh, nonconstructive criticism. If you play with it and go “hmm, this isn’t working. Maybe I should try something more standard and work my way around that until I get to something that suits my style more,” (this is what happened to me), that’s much better than feeling “wow, people keep insulting me, I must really suck. I shouldn’t even bother.” (this also happened to me when people would harshly criticize my teams in the least constructive ways possible) I think players would benefit more from that, because when you’re new, that’s the mindset a lot of new people have when they think “what are my best chances of winning?” It’s only when you play more and adapt to your own style and the things you can play with well that you begin to realize what maximizes your chances of winning, in terms of team building.

    Speaking from personal experience, I’ve made a lot of gimmicks myself, and at the start of my venture into VGC’s, these were dead-serious teams I thought I would have the best chances of winning with. I, of course, matured past this stage the more I played and adapted to my own style. Now, if I get an idea for a gimmick, or joke around about a gimmick, I’ll make a team around it for fun and as a joke (example: CandyAndykins and I joked around about using Specs Machamp with No Guard Focus Blast and Fire Blast), so I made a joke team around it on Showdown. Since I already have my Nats team completed, I thought it would be fun to take a break from the redundancy of messing with an actual team so I could make something to use as a joke. And for anyone wondering, Specs Machamp is pretty mediocre, and like all gimmicks, once you expose it’s tricks, it’s dead weight (which is pretty obvious from the concept alone).

    The reason things like Specs Machamp don’t work is because, like most strange choices, they don’t fill a role better than the other Pokemon contending for that role. Ray’s Wigglytuff is a great example of a Pokemon that isn’t common, but fills its necessary role better than the other Pokemon Ray saw contended for that role; often newer players mistake creativity, peculiarity, or gimmicks as individual roles, which they are not.

    I feel I’ve dragged on my points far too long and practically written an article myself… but I want to thank Werford for this informative article. This is the kind of article that is exceptionally beneficial to newer players, but has a little something extra for more seasoned players! And Randy makes a fantastic point, but I won’t branch off again to add to it. Hope to see more articles like this in the future!

  13. Thowra says:

    Really spot on article. I’m sure many people experience the same.
     
    The first point was very true for me when I first started off. When I first entered the competitive scene I made a rule that none of my teams could ever include ‘ugly’ Pokemon (read: Scizor, Machamp, Mawile, Rotom & Conkeldurr amongst many others).
     
    I was still singing the same tune until a few weeks back when I attended Sydney Regionals. I desperately needed something to check Talonflame and Azumarill…there was literally no other Pokemon that could fit the role except for Rotom-W, but I was stubborn and just kept testing different Pokemon. Eventually, the day before the event I realised there was no way I could find a replacement for Rotom, so I reluctantly bred one and took it with me…and it put in so much work on the day that I’ve now realised arbitrary self imposed rules are meaningless. Of course my in-game teams will still never include ugly Pokemon, but competitively…yeah I just use whatever fits the role best.

  14. Chase says:

    Refusing to use certain Pokémon on principle is a good way to get absolutely trounced by them, especially given that many of the popular targets of scorn in the metagame are some combination of powerful, bulky, and speedy.

     
    I don’t see why you should not make your own limitations based on your previous experiences.
    For example I see no point in relying on slow pokémon who are going to pull their inaccurate move after the opponent’s one, and there’s always the risk of getting flinched (or ch’d).
    At Bochum nats I played a team which had a defensive core including Rotom-H and Mega Venusaur and I probably won’t do it again because I ended up missing a lot or relying on more than 1 sleep turn or getting flinched in a game which was still open after like 6-7 selfhits.

  15. chipndip says:

    The main part I can get behind is the first one. I just cringe when people white knight sub-optimal pokemon for the sake of “originality”. You can be original and effective at the same time.

  16. Gonzo says:

    I don’t see why you should not make your own limitations based on your previous experiences.

    That’s OK, but what Werford means is if you dismiss a Pokemon right of the bat and never use it, you’ll probably never learn what are its tough and weak sides, so you won’t learn how to beat it properly. That’s when “ugh, using X is so cheap” triggers in as well. You’ll underestimate your opponent because he’s going the easy way and will put your skill and self-confidence high losing your respect and doubting your opponent’s skills, because “a good player is creative and won’t use most common Pokemon like noobs do”.

    I personally avoid Mega Kang in my teams, but I’ve used it for quite a while and I perfectly know what I struggled against and what could I easily smash. Knowing how to beat Kang by having my Kangaskhan beaten puts me in a better spot when facing one than a person who denied using Kang and only knows how to beat it from their previous experience of dealing with Kang.

  17. Chase says:

    That’s OK, but what Werford means is if you dismiss a Pokemon right of the bat and never use it, you’ll probably never learn what are its tough and weak sides, so you won’t learn how to beat it properly. That’s when “ugh, using X is so cheap” triggers in as well. You’ll underestimate your opponent because he’s going the easy way and will put your skill and self-confidence high losing your respect and doubting your opponent’s skills, because “a good player is creative and won’t use most common Pokemon like noobs do”.

     
    Of course. What I think is wrong is the way it’s stated in the article. Placing arbitrary limitations is a bad thing only when there’s an ethic/aestethic/whatever reason that doesn’t involve pokemon effective qualities behind that. As I said there are various good reason to dismiss a certain Pokémon i.e. is slow with inaccurate moves/not consistent/just not very viable at the moment.

  18. Scott says:

    Given the Pokemon you’re excluding as a result I don’t think the way you’re interpreting the article is wrong, though your logic isn’t wrong either so much as it is misapplied since you seem to be blaming two perfectly viable Pokemon for playstyle errors. You seem to be exhibiting behavior in this article more than anything from the outside.

  19. Chase says:

    my point is there’s nothing bad in making your own limitations if you have good reasons and I’m not ‘blaming’ Venusaur and Rotom or trying to convince you they’re garbage.
    they’re both viable choices but as the op said “luck isn’t always with you” so I just try to avoid them for the aforementioned reasons, if you feel confident about your wow/hydro pumps then go for it.

  20. Scott says:

    my point is there’s nothing bad in making your own limitations if you have good reasons and I’m not ‘blaming’ Venusaur and Rotom or trying to convince you they’re garbage.
    they’re both viable choices but as the op said “luck isn’t always with you” so I just try to avoid them for the aforementioned reasons, if you feel confident about your wow/hydro pumps then go for it.

    Of course. What I think is wrong is the way it’s stated in the article. Placing arbitrary limitations is a bad thing only when there’s an ethic/aestethic/whatever reason that doesn’t involve pokemon effective qualities behind that. As I said there is more than one good reason to dismiss a certain Pokémon i.e. is slow with inaccurate moves/not consistent/just not very viable at the moment.
  21. Chase says:

    Sure looks like that’s what you said, especially since from the article there wasn’t a stance here other than “you should be using the best Pokemon available if you want to win” to contest here. Venusaur and Rotom are both high-end Pokemon in this format that are frequently going to be the beast option for teams, if you aren’t using them on principle, you’re probably not making decisions for the right reasons. There’s a reason Rotom especially works for other people — the fact its attacks can miss is clearly not such a large problem that it isn’t effective enough to use, to the point it’s pretty obviously a top 5 Pokemon in the format.

     
    I don’t think I mentioned Venusaur and Rotom in my second post. They were 3 distinct examples, the first one could have been Rotom, the second one Smeargle and the third one anything that’s good atm but is probably going to be harder to use (Kanga at worlds?).

  22. Scott says:

    Then maybe you should post some concrete examples to go with your ambiguous points or not complain about the semantics of the article. Especially since the only actual examples you have given in this thread are Pokemon that shouldn’t be getting excluded from a competitive player’s teambuilding process without being considered.
     
    I don’t especially get the impression you actually have a point here. If we have to guess what you’re referring to, you probably shouldn’t be posting unless you’re going to add more information.

  23. I think what chase is trying to say is that he built a bad team using good pokemon (like rotom and venusaur). So now he won’t use those pokemon again because his team was bad with them on it. So instead of improving his team or figuring out why his team didn’t work, he will just use a different team or different pokemon.

    This is totally different than habit 1 described in the article though. Because if you use a pokemon once and it doesn’t work out it is because it is bad and doesn’t fit your playstyle. Never attribute player skill to the viability of pokemon.

  24. chipndip says:

    I can understand what Chase is saying. I used to use Mega Kanga quite often when I was playing serious, but it became so meta that everyone was using very strong answers against it. I eventually just dropped Mega Kanga because I’m not the type of player that can do well when he’s playing so into the meta, the basic checks of every other team applies to his team. This isn’t because Kanga is or isn’t viable. It’s because my experience with it, over a period of time while the special ladder was up, was becoming more and more of a struggle, and I’d often have my other team members nab up all the KOs and important hits while my Kanga’s running away from an OHKO Overheat, or an Aegislash, or Rough Skin + Helmet combo, or something like that.

    HOWEVER: The problem is that this notion doesn’t apply to what the article’s talking about, and that’s where the confusion is coming from. The article is discussing when players dodge pokemon for arbitrary and otherwise useless reasons like “looks” and “cheapness”, not play style incompatibility, past experience, or actually not being viable. So if the problem is somewhat like the first paragraph, the article isn’t even against that notion. Sure, it’s not saying “Never use them again“, because that’s silly, but the point is that there should be a good reason to not use that pokemon in that team before shrugging it off.

  25. Chase says:

    I think what chase is trying to say is that he built a bad team using good pokemon (like rotom and venusaur). So now he won’t use those pokemon again because his team was bad with them on it. So instead of improving his team or figuring out why his team didn’t work, he will just use a different team or different pokemon.

    This is totally different than habit 1 described in the article though. Because if you use a pokemon once and it doesn’t work out it is because it is bad and doesn’t fit your playstyle. Never attribute player skill to the viability of pokemon.

    No, is different.

    The team I brought at Bochum nats (the one with Venusaur and Rotom-H you were referring to) was similar to Bicho’s one (eventually pretty much the same team others ended using as I saw in a couple reports here or on eggy emporium) That team was solid, the defensive core featuring those 2 wasn’t ‘bad’ ‘unviable’ or anything, simply the team itself didn’t have enough firepower to assure me a constant offensive presence thus I had to play defensively most of the time. Not the easiest thing to do when you get flinched/critted multiple times or when your Rotom-H often misses. That obviously wasn’t the right playstyle for me and I’m fine with that. In Manchester I brought Charizard/Bisharp/Blastoise/Aerodactyl/Amoonguss/Garchomp, the team I built with Carlo (he made top4 with that) and went 6-2 after losing 1 match for a wrong leading and another one for an Overheat miss. And I’m also fine with that, it happens.
    I won’t talk about my episodes of bad luck in 2012 and in 2013 (mostly my fault here) because it would sound like a bad excuse but yeah, I’m unlucky as a player, so what do I need in order to win?

    – Hit fast before the opponent in order to avoid flinches/critical hits/no priority twaves
    – Limit my <100% accuracy moves

    does Rotom answer to at least one of the question above? no. Venusaur is more viable because at least hits with 100% accuracy if I drop Sleep Powder.
    Again, as I stated I don’t want to convince you that those two are bad pokémon, I just wanted to explain why I tend to exclude certain pokémon during the teambuilding, or at least avoid making them part of my main core (i.e. I may use Rotom-W if I have trouble with Talonflame and a couple of other mons).

  26. I completely understand making a metagame call and saying not using X pokemon because you think it will be countered in the tournament. That has absolutely nothing to do with this article and shouldn’t be mentioned. No where in the article did it say you must use the Pokemon with the highest usage statistics.

    Blaming luck and saying “the team just isn’t my style” is literally the second ineffective habit listed here. You are not going to get better by saying “I lost because my team is weak to haxx.” Your points that other people do a lot better with the same exact teams go to show that your weakness probably isn’t team building, rather you need to work on getting better at battling.

  27. chipndip says:

    No, is different.

    The team I brought at Bochum nats (the one with Venusaur and Rotom-H you were referring to) was similar to Bicho’s one (eventually pretty much the same team others ended using as I saw in a couple reports here or on eggy emporium) That team was solid, the defensive core featuring those 2 wasn’t ‘bad’ ‘unviable’ or anything, simply the team itself didn’t have enough firepower to assure me a constant offensive presence thus I had to play defensively most of the time. Not the easiest thing to do when you get flinched/critted multiple times or when your Rotom-H often misses. That obviously wasn’t the right playstyle for me and I’m fine with that. In Manchester I brought Charizard/Bisharp/Blastoise/Aerodactyl/Amoonguss/Garchomp, the team I built with Carlo (he made top4 with that) and went 6-2 after losing 1 match for a wrong leading and another one for an Overheat miss. And I’m also fine with that, it happens.
    I won’t talk about my episodes of bad luck in 2012 and in 2013 (mostly my fault here) because it would sound like a bad excuse but yeah, I’m unlucky as a player, so what do I need in order to win?

    – Hit fast before the opponent in order to avoid flinches/critical hits/no priority twaves
    – Limit my <100% accuracy moves

    does Rotom answer to at least one of the question above? no. Venusaur is more viable because at least hits with 100% accuracy if I drop Sleep Powder.
    Again, as I stated I don’t want to convince you that those two are bad pokémon, I just wanted to explain why I tend to exclude certain pokémon during the teambuilding, or at least avoid making them part of my main core (i.e. I may use Rotom-W if I have trouble with Talonflame and a couple of other mons).

    TOTALLY understandable, but the article isn’t really addressing a play style issue.

  28. chipndip says:

    Blaming luck and saying “the team just isn’t my style” is literally the second ineffective habit listed here. You are not going to get better by saying “I lost because my team is weak to haxx.” Your points that other people do a lot better with the same exact teams go to show that your weakness probably isn’t team building, rather you need to work on getting better at battling.

    Actually, it’s important to note when your team’s weak to hax. A team that’s too slow with a good deal of < 100% accuracy moves isn’t smart.. Then you’re susceptible to double Rock Slides, Focus Sash Smeargle, untimely crits before you even move, and a bunch of other setups from mid to high-speed pokemon. Not the best position to be in, and it’s worse when you use < 100% accuracy moves. If he feels he shouldn’t be relying on that as much anymore, that’s a much more valid reason than the ones the article was explicitly speaking of. It goes more into “luck control”, and he feels like he wants more control over it.

    Based on what I’m reading anyway.

  29. Fiasco says:

    I lost a singles match today because my venusaur was fully paralyzed 4 out 5 turns. Not saying I lost because of hax but I lost because of hax.

    If I had the option to change play rough on azumarill to a 70 BP fairy move that always hits I’d do it in a heartbeat.

  30. neophenx says:

    Back when I played TCG, I actually watched my opponents as much as the cards to see their expression, noting that moment when I pushed them into “tilt” as the article illustrates. A competitive player should not only  avoid tilting themselves, but learn to see when their opponents go into tilt. Naturally, that can’t really be done in online matches but on-site tournaments are full of these moments.

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