OK, so skylight has asked me to write some articles for the smog. I'm keen, but I'm not sure how much of my article idea has already been done.
1. This is just the intro. Pokemon is a game of checks and counters. We often build and polish our teams by adding checks and counters to major threats. This is something beginners need to learn.
2. Good, solid play therefore keeps that concept in mind. If landorus-T is your only answer to your opponent's zard X, you probably don't want to risk it dying because you've predicted rotom-w to volt switch. I'll have a bit on risk and reward here and what it means for a gamble to be 'worth it'. To me, this is what players need tot understand to become decent intermediate players.
3. The concept of offensive synergy. Let's say you're running mega-gardevoir, and you've noticed that most players counter the set you're running with aegislash. Here's an idea: why don't you run something else that aeigislash counters? Something that will force aegislash to switch in, take a major hit (you may have to run some sort of surprise to make it worthtwhile), so that it can no longer deal with gardevoir? What if you run a trapper that can take a hit and OHKO back? This is not a new concept. Mag drag was a popular strategy since 4th gen, but I do think the overall concept is worth talking about, especially in reference to checks and counters. If the only thing stopping x from sweeping is y, and I can systematically remove y, I can systematically win the game. IMO a lot of middle-of-the-road players plateau because they don't understand this. I will talk about three types of pokemon that can help you achieve this: trappers, lures, and overloaders.
To make things easier to understand, I will try and dig up some replays (probably from spl) and relate them to the concepts. Cheers!
1. This is just the intro. Pokemon is a game of checks and counters. We often build and polish our teams by adding checks and counters to major threats. This is something beginners need to learn.
2. Good, solid play therefore keeps that concept in mind. If landorus-T is your only answer to your opponent's zard X, you probably don't want to risk it dying because you've predicted rotom-w to volt switch. I'll have a bit on risk and reward here and what it means for a gamble to be 'worth it'. To me, this is what players need tot understand to become decent intermediate players.
3. The concept of offensive synergy. Let's say you're running mega-gardevoir, and you've noticed that most players counter the set you're running with aegislash. Here's an idea: why don't you run something else that aeigislash counters? Something that will force aegislash to switch in, take a major hit (you may have to run some sort of surprise to make it worthtwhile), so that it can no longer deal with gardevoir? What if you run a trapper that can take a hit and OHKO back? This is not a new concept. Mag drag was a popular strategy since 4th gen, but I do think the overall concept is worth talking about, especially in reference to checks and counters. If the only thing stopping x from sweeping is y, and I can systematically remove y, I can systematically win the game. IMO a lot of middle-of-the-road players plateau because they don't understand this. I will talk about three types of pokemon that can help you achieve this: trappers, lures, and overloaders.
To make things easier to understand, I will try and dig up some replays (probably from spl) and relate them to the concepts. Cheers!
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