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badass_tiger) wrote2023-03-03 09:51 pm
badass_tiger) wrote2023-03-03 09:51 pm
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F50 4: Learning VGC with the help of others
There's a streamer I watch by the name of Attica. She used to play Unite but is apparently trying to stay away from it because of what it did to her mental health, and now focuses largely on Scarlet/Violet content. In terms of streaming post-game content, she used to just do raids, shiny hunts, etc. but has lately been trying to get into VGC. This is very exciting for me because I have never been new to VGC. I got into competitive Pokemon by getting into Rotation Battles, and by the time I slipped into VGC, I had already built up the basics of teambuilding and battling, and just had to apply it to a different metagame. So I thought it would be fun to find out what it's like for a new person to jump into VGC for the first time.
Now, I'm not a skilled player by any stretch of the imagination. At best, I'm above average, but realistically, I'm firmly average. I'm bolstered largely by experience, if you can call 90% hanging around competitive Pokemon communities and 10% battling 'experience'. Because of this, and because of passing anecdotes I've caught from other people, I'm deeply convinced that VGC is easy. Obviously not in the sense of becoming a professional player, but in the sense that you can learn a lot simply from playing the game, without needing much outside influence or information or requiring any other skills (thinking about real-time games here, for example). I am completely and absolutely positive that any bozo can get into Master Ball tier without even understanding the intricacies of their team or even knowing what an EV is. Once you learn the common match-ups, the positive leads for your team and the like, intuition takes over. You also have the room to lose as much as you like, because getting into Master Ball tier is solely a matter of playing enough games until you get a few winning streaks.
Anyone can get into Master Ball tier ... with just one condition. You need a good team.
In this day and age, getting a good team is extremely simple. All you have to do is go onto Twitter and check out![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
VGCPastes. Or you can go onto YouTube and look up 'VGC series X team'. Better still, go to CybertronVGC's channel and pick up a team from a video with a title like 'This team finished TOP 100 LAST SEASON'.
Unfortunately, this is, for some baffling reason, a common pitfall for beginner VGC players, including Attica. Alright, it's not their fault. It's Pokemon's fault. Unfortunately ... unhappily ... Pokemon has always, to various extents, pushed the narrative that 'Pokemon are pals not pasturage' (sorry, that's the only P-word I can find that means anything like food). This means that the majority of Pokemon players learn that you should always ... ugh ... that you should always ... use ... your favourite Pokemon ... sigh ...
So many new players go into VGC with the idea that they're going to make their favourite Pokemon (whether singular or plural) work no matter what. Some even think that it's cheating to use 'meta' Pokemon - although if they think that, then they don't really want to get into VGC, so their opinion can be safely ignored. This also leads into the closely related pitfall of wanting to make a 'creative' team. 'Creative', of course, is a term that means absolutely nothing in this context, but never mind that. What that means is that new players will very often insist on climbing the ladder for the first time with a team of their own creation (God forbid they try signing up for an official tournament with one, but it's safe to assume that most new players would be turned away by the $70 registration fee).
Well, you know what? Fine. Go ahead and do that. It doesn't hurt anyone. If they truly want to get into VGC, they'll figure it out sooner or later. But there is one side effect I fear, which is that the new player begins to underestimate their own abilities due to being held back by their own - and I'm going to say it - shitty team.
Which brings us back to Attica and her team. I'm going to go through each Pokemon individually because I have been agonising over this for the past two weeks, and I need someone to know. Also, it's a good learning exercise.
The team at a glance:
Hm, you say. Appletun is a strange pick, but nothing there looks too bad or out of the ordinary. What's the problem?
Don't you worry about that. We'll get there.
Great Tusk @ Assault Vest
Ability: Protosynthesis
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 74 Atk / 182 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Headlong Rush
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Ice Spinner
AV Great Tusk, pretty standard. Nothing too strange about the moves either. Pure coverage is a little bit eh but it's fine. Tera Fire is a bit strange because it makes you extremely vulnerable to the Tusk mirror, which isn't going to help your positive matchup into Talonflame, but at least you can't get burned. It somewhat helps against Flutter Mane, but only for one turn. I'm also not sure if getting burned is a big issue for Tusk in the first place because it threatens everything that can burn it. But anyway, then you look at the EVs and the nature, and you see the big glaring issue.
Running so little Attack on offensive Great Tusk is already pretty big throwing. I don't know why this specific spread was chosen. I can only assume that it's just enough to hit something or take a hit from something else. Possibly. Except that a certain spread reaches the same stat points save for Attack which is higher: Brave 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD. Again, I don't know why you'd run the current spread, and the fact that it wastes EVs further leads me to think that it doesn't actually hit anything in particular. Some other mons here lends credence to that theory, which we will get to later. Anyway, I hate running SpD investment on AV because you already get such a boost from AV that further stat points don't do too much for you, also this is Great Tusk, an offensive Pokemon? This set makes me think that the creator (who is not Attica, by the way, we will get to that too) has a slight misunderstanding of the purpose of AV, which is not to make you strictly bulky, but instead to make you bulkier. It's useful on middling offensive Pokemon because it gives you the chance to hang around for a turn longer than you would have otherwise against Special Pokemon to pick up that KO you missed out on the first time. It's not so that you sit on the field forever like defensive Pokemon do.
As stated, max HP and SpD with a Brave nature gives the same stat points with higher Attack, but if I had to fix this, I'd just make it max HP and Atk. You could do some things with split HP and Def investment, but this is the ladder. We don't need to do that. As it is, all this Great Tusk does is hit things for minimal (literally) damage. Also it has Ice Spinner on a team that likes having terrain up.
Indeedee-F @ Psychic Seed
Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 184 Def / 76 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psyshock
- Helping Hand
- Follow Me
- Trick Room
The next member of Attica's team is Indeedee, and the spread is like, okay, I guess? I don't know what the numbers here do either but there's a spread on Pikalytics which is Bold 196 Def / 60 SpD which is fairly similar, so it's not too weird. I mean - obviously it has Psyshock instead of Dazzling Gleam, but that's fine. Not a choice I would have made but not a glaringly bad one.
I do have one issue with this Indeedee which isn't related to its spread. It's a Trick Room Indeedee, which is only available in 5-star raids. It's also shiny and has a 0 Speed IV. I don't know where Attica got this Indeedee, and if it's hacked, then I don't think it's on her. Her audience give her hacked Pokemon all the time. Also who cares about hacking. But yeah, kind of funny that amidst this chaos sits an Indeedee with a (relatively) normal spread but a suspicious origin. Also, either Attica hyper-trained the Indeedee's Attack stat because she forgot that it wants 0 Attack, or the person who hacked it didn't know that Indeedee wants 0 Atk. Hilarious.
(I would just got max HP and Def here, but again, I don't strictly have an issue with this spread.)
Farigiraf @ Throat Spray
Ability: Armor Tail
Level: 50
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psychic
- Hyper Voice
- Trick Room
- Protect
I need to talk about this one before I talk about Armarouge. So yes, it has the same ability as Indeedee, and despite its Throat Spray and Quiet nature, has a defensive spread, so it's basically a second Indeedee. The moveset implies that this is an offensive Farigiraf, but this isn't backed up by its spread. Looking at this spread, you may also understand why I believe the defensive spreads on this team to be completely arbitrary. Farigiraf has an equal Def and SpD stat, so this spread simply invests equally in bulk. Despite the fact that it's an offensive set. I'm not that familiar with using Farigiraf because, you know, it's mid at best, so I don't know what it likes to hit, but I do know that this spread hits nothing. This giraffe hits like a wet paper bag, which is an issue we will explore in the Armarouge discussion.
If it were up to me, I would use max HP and SpA. There is a Nasty Plot set that Cbutty from the Smogon VGC Discord server is using, but I wouldn't give Nasty Plot to a beginner.
Armarouge @ Twisted Spoon
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Heat Wave
- Expanding Force
- Psychic
- Protect
This Pokemon should be the backbone of this team. The Armadeedee archetype is about as basic as you can get in this format. It's extremely easy to pilot and very beginner-friendly. So why in God's name does this thing NOT have Armor Cannon? I can see having Heat Wave and Armor Cannon, sure. But the spread-single combination of choice is the Psychic moves instead. First of all, Heat Wave can miss. Second, you can't avoid hitting Baxcalibur or opposing Flash Fire users if you need to use a Fire-type move. Thirdly, it has lower BP than Armor Cannon, which is further compounded by being a spread-type move.
Next, if you need to have a single-target Psychic-type move, I would recommend Psyshock for hitting specially bulky Pokemon. Actually Psychic is not the worst option here, except that I have a sneaking suspicion that it's Psychic over Psyshock because Indeedee has Psyshock, even though Armarouge's SpA is almost twice as high as Indeedee's. This Armarouge also doesn't have Wide Guard which is like, an okay choice, I guess? It would be appreciated but Protect over Wide Guard is fine.
WHAT'S NOT FINE, AND YES I'M CAPS-LOCKING FOR THIS, IS THE LACK OF TRICK ROOM.
No Trick Room on 0 Speed Armarouge isn't strictly wrong. Or is it? I've always wanted it whenever I tried to play with this team, and I don't think that's just because I expect it to be there. The issue is that there is no guaranteed way to get Trick Room up without sacrificing offense. One lead that Attica likes to go with is Indeedee + Farigiraf because this lead guarantees Trick Room, but afterwards, she's stuck with two defensive Pokemon on the field who can't do anything. (She's also still not well-versed in switching, so sometimes she gets frustrated by the slow pace of a battle after starting with this lead, then switches in something more offensive only for it to get blown up.) This might be less of an issue if Farigiraf had an offensive spread, but it doesn't. This issue could also be compounded by, you guessed it, putting Trick Room on Armarouge.
This is exactly why Trick Room teams almost always have Trick Room on offensive Pokemon, while allowing defensive Pokemon to redirect or block off damage in some way. Mimikyu, Hatterene, and Calyrex-Ice come to mind. Mimikyu is often (not always) a supportive Pokemon, but it has the offensive capabilities to do something. There are a multitude other reasons that Mimikyu is a perfect TR Pokemon, but we're not talking about Mimikyu right now. The point is that Trick Room is, in a way, a fragile archetype. First it needs to set up, and then it has a limited number of turns in which to do damage, so any time lost is sorely felt. That is why it is absolutely crucial that an offensive Pokemon either already be on the field when TR goes up, or the team has a way to bring them in safely. This team does not have any of those things. When I played this team, I never used Farigiraf, except to try it, then despair at it not doing anything.
Ugh. Alright. Got the most of my grievances off my chest. The rest of the set is fine. Let's move on to the last two Pokemon.
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Mirror Armor
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Body Press
- Brave Bird
- Iron Defense
- Roost
Oh God, it gets worse. Let's just start with the worst part: Tera Fighting. Tera Fighting is awful and this team showed me why. Why in the name of God's sweet Earth would you exchange an amazing typing like Flying/Steel into something as Godawful as Fighting? For extra Body Press damage? Forget it! You're not hitting anything when you now have no useful resistances! For instance, Tera Fighting +0 Body Press makes it a guaranteed 2HKO against Tera Normal Dragonite, except that Tera Fighting also makes Tera Normal ESpeed hit for twice as much damage. You're now weak to Flutter Mane while taking no less damage from Iron Hands and taking just as much from Talonflame.
Then the spread is fine until you realise that it's Brave nature. On - on an Iron Press set? With no Attack investment?
Alright, speaking of investment, here's the optimal spread that gives you the same stats but more EVs into Attack: Relaxed 252 HP / 116 Atk / 140 Def. Gives you 5 more points in Attack than before while reaching the same Defense stat. I think I would forego Roost for Protect and invest fully in HP and Def. Frankly, I'm not all too sure what Corviknight offers this team so I don't really know what I would do with it. Possibly a fully offensive set could work too.
God, Tera Fighting ...
Appletun @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Ripen
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Tera Blast
- Apple Acid
- Draco Meteor
- Protect
Don't ask me any questions. I don't have the answers. Funnily enough, this Pokemon is the one that does the most work on the team, but maybe that's because no one knows what it does, so when it appears, the opponents just fall all over themselves trying to figure out what it's going to do. Don't get me wrong, this Pokemon isn't good. Far from it.
It's hard for me to comment on this Pokemon, because I don't understand it myself. This is apparently one of the Pokemon that Attica really wanted to use, so her team creator built this set. As you can see, this Pokemon has the same issue as Farigiraf where it's just equally invested into bulk ... and something else. Did you notice it? Did you think I didn't notice it from Farigiraf? No, there was just so much I wanted to say about Farigiraf and Armarouge that I decided to leave it for later.
Yes, everyone. This spread ... wastes EVs.
At level 50, 128 investment into an unboosted stat has 4 EVs go to waste. So both Appletun and Farigiraf waste 8 EVs each. 8! EVs! An entire stat point! Potentially 2. This is just another reason, to toss onto the pile of all the other reasons, that I believe the team creator does not fully understand EVs. How can a whole 8 EVs go to waste? You already know the answer if you play VGC. It's because when you create a team on Pokemon Showdown, if you don't select one of the cart formats, it will automatically create all Pokemon at level 100. EVs work slightly differently at level 50 than they do at level 100. At level 100, every 4 EVs = 1 stat point. At level 50, it's the first 4 EVs gives 1 stat point, then afterwards it's every 8 EVs = 1 stat point. So the person who created this team threw it into PS and didn't check the EVs, because they forgot, or because they didn't know they had to do that, who knows. So yeah, not only do Farigiraf and Appletun arbitrarily have even bulk, they both waste 8 EVs. This can be fixed by either using a 244 HP / 132 Def / 132 SpD spread, which also gives you an even HP stat for Sitrus, or you can go 252 HP / 124 Def / 4 SpA / 124 SpD. It still wastes 4 EVs but it hits the same stat points and gives you an extra point in SpA. You now know why it's optimal at level 50 to invest in either 3 or 5 stats but not 4.
Okay, so EV spread aside, the idea behind Appletun is ... okay, I'm not gonna say it's good, but it's definitely an idea. Tera Fairy does get rid of your Flutter Mane weakness, but doesn't resist Flutter Mane or any of your previous weaknesses either - actually keeps your Poison weakness but there aren't any prominent Poison-types in the format right now. It also doesn't necessarily hit anything you couldn't hit before, like Steel-types, so it doesn't actually add to your coverage either. But anyway, the lack of offensive investment actually doesn't matter that much here because Appletun has Apple Acid, which lowers SpD, so it can keep snowballing. Unfortunately, its best form of offense is a move that is pretty pathetic if it can't Tera, and a move that lowers its SpA by 2. However, the idea is extremely similar to support Iron Moth. The MothMane core has Moth use Acid Spray to drop SpD by 2 so that Mane can steamroll things even easier than before. So yeah, the reason that Appletun works is because it's an objectively worse variation of a good archetype. In this case, Appletun also suffers from not having a partner to take advantage of its Apple Acid further. Armarouge doesn't need Appletun's help (HH Indeedee does the same thing while having priority) and Farigiraf is both Farigiraf and doesn't have the offensive investment to make use of the SpD drops, especially as it's only a single stage drop. But again, Appletun works because it's a worse version of something good.
So how is Attica doing with this godawful unconventional team? Not great. Last season she played about 40 games (I believe 47) and lost 25 of them. She also picked up next to no streaks, which is why she finished Pokeball 6.
Hello? Do I need to repeat that? She played FORTY BATTLES. AND DIDN'T GET OUT OF POKEBALL TIER.
This morning, she said (in response to a viewer) 'VGC isn't annoying. It's just hard and it makes my head hurt.'
Does she make a lot of basic mistakes? Yes. Does she sometimes blunder her moves for being overwhelmed by her options? Yes, of course. All of these are to be expected of a beginner. I have, for example, mentioned that she often leads with Indeedee and Farigiraf to guarantee TR, and I've explained why that's a bad lead (I do think that she was probably advised to use this lead by her team creator though). She is also very insistent on setting up TR without considering whether or not this is best for her, such as considering whether the opposing Pokemon might be slower than her Pokemon and would thus benefit even more from TR. This is forgivable for a new player because she has yet to learn what Pokemon are good in TR (plus, she is using a hard TR team with a bunch of Pokemon that aren't that slow) - although she does frequently forget this information even once she has learnt it, but again, understandable. I am somewhat more baffled by a particular game she played against a viewer where she lead Indeedee and Armarouge while her opponent lead Meowscarada and something irrelevant. Basically, Attica's Indeedee and her opponent's Meowscarada went back and forth on setting and reversing Trick Room for 3 or 4 turns before Attica finally figured that her opponent would insist on doing this and she allowed them to do it. But kudos to her for persistence because most people give up when TR has been reversed once.
All this to say that I don't think Attica is such a bad player that she could go negative on the cart ladder without ever leaving Pokeball tier. At first, I wasn't sure. I watched Attica's plays to understand what she was doing wrong and how to advise her on her next steps. Of course, I wasn't always paying attention and zoned in and out at times. Hard to stay on 100 over a 3-hour stream or whatever it is. But I often felt lost on how to advise her and felt that she had not done anything particularly wrong. I mean, sometimes I could see that she had blundered, but not always. At last, Attica put up a rental code and I tried the team out for myself.
Okay, so I didn't notice this right away, but let's just get this out of the way: she had the wrong natures because she hadn't minted the Pokemon. Extremely easy mistake to make, but may or may not have contributed to some damage rolls and the like. Secondly, the sets I have presented to you are the current version. She initially had Cud Chew on Farigiraf and Gluttony Aguav Berry on Appletun. The Cud Chew I advised her to change to Sap Sipper because Cud Chew doesn't do anything, Armor Tail doesn't do anything when you have Psychic Terrain, and Sap Sipper can at least block Spore, which is a move that Attica doesn't otherwise have any way of dealing with. Gluttony Aguav ... I mean, it's fine. It works. Ripen Sitrus works too. Strictly gives you more recovery. Great. Now let's get to how this team actually feels to play.
Some of it I've mentioned already. Indeedee and Farigiraf fulfil the exact same role, which means that playing this team feels like playing with 5 mons instead of 6. This is even more true now that Farigiraf has Armor Tail (not, as we've established, that Cud Chew was doing anything either). Every single Pokemon on this team hits for less damage than you expect it to. This includes Armarouge, because it has fucking Heat Wave instead of its actually good Fire-type move. The lack of offense becomes quite glaring when Armarouge goes down or you can't bring Armarouge, because then you have to rely on Appletun. Poor, poor Appletun. Carrying the weight of this team on the back of its baked pie crust. There's also no good defensive Teras except on Armarouge, so if you can't go on the offensive, then you're permanently on the back pedal. See it now? It's an offensive team with defensive EVs!
I asked Attica if she wouldn't like to try a more beginner-friendly team, just to learn the ropes. Keep in mind that I asked her this morning, after she has now gone through about 50 battles with this team. Her answer was a firm no.
I must give credit to Attica here because she has persevered cheerfully (probably why she could bull through those 4 Meowscarada TR turns) and has not been discouraged. If she is having fun, then there's no harm in allowing her to continue. Perhaps I project too much of my personal feelings in my fear that she will think herself a poor player after all these games. But I can't help but agonise when I see her losing with this team when I know that a few changes would rocket her up to Master Ball rank in an instant!
You may ask me why I am writing this blog entry instead of discussing it with Attica. Well, first of all, I've already tried doing that because I posted the optimised EV spreads on her Discord. Secondly, I am not the creator of this team, nor do I have any way of organically reaching out to the creator of this team, by which I mean we are not in any of the same circles, so I would have to actively seek her out in order to speak to her. To go to lengths to contact her feels embarrassing to me because it feels like reaching out to tell her that she's wrong.
The creator of this team is a VGC player by the name of *checks the spelling of her handle* okay her real name is Jess, so I'm just going to call her that. When I started writing this post, it was under the assumption that she was the main creator of this team because she is the person whom Attica credits as the creator of this team, and is also the person Attica referred me to when I suggested making a team for Attica myself (saying that I had to 'go through [Jess]'). However, when I went to Jess's Twitter to confirm her handle, I saw that she had posted about going 6-3 at OCIC. Lads, there is no way that someone who is capable of going 6-3 at an international competition would give a new player a team like this. You cannot play 9 rounds of Swiss and go x-3 without understanding team-building. However, there is one other person whom Attica has mentioned in the context of creating her team, which is a person who goes by the nickname Dondozo. I don't know anything about them. I'm also going to assume that Attica did not create the spreads herself because that seems highly unlikely.
Whoever the main team creator may be ... they perplex me. This team suggests a level of understanding of VGC wherein they are familiar with the archetypes of the meta and are familiar with the basic level of playing required, but do not understand the intricacies of EVs and natures. Such a lack of understanding is completely understandable because natures and EVs are ridiculous and even I have only come to grips with complex EV spreads fairly recently. However, I would not attempt to make complex EV spreads which look like they have a purpose (e.g. equalising bulk) because this falls into the danger of having none, as in this case (all Pokemon have different stats which they make use of, and complex EV spreads should thus reach defensive or offensive benchmarks that are specific to threats that one wishes to match up well against). I also question whether or not the team creator tested this team to any extent on Pokemon Showdown before handing it to Attica, because I perfectly understand that it is very easy to cook up a wonky team with some suboptimal EV spreads in the initial teambuilding phase, but the issues that I have mentioned should quickly become apparent after some playtesting. I myself tested the team for 7 rounds before I was able to comprehend all the issues I have mentioned here.
At its core, I am disheartened that Attica could have been so disappointed by her mentor. I keep telling myself that it's fine because Attica is enjoying herself either way and the goal of games is definitely to have fun, but I feel like I'm unfairly holding out on information that could be useful to Attica. Considering, however, that I have been advised to go through Jess in order to give Attica any assistance, it seems that Attica values her advice above all else, and it is not my place to say anything. I post this purely as a record of my thoughts on this day and as a learning exercise in order to understand teambuilding better.
I was going to workshop the team with the restriction that I can only use the Pokemon and items determined by Attica and her team creator, but I would need to do some research into Appletun and its movepool first, which would require me to stop writing. Strangely enough, when I tested this team, I came across another Appletun team which beat me with stall Appletun. It is very strange to think that the one offensive Pokemon on this defensive team could thrive as a defensive option on an offensive team!
Writing this article has been extremely useful in helping me to analyse and describe teams, so I am satisfied to pen my adieu here.
Now, I'm not a skilled player by any stretch of the imagination. At best, I'm above average, but realistically, I'm firmly average. I'm bolstered largely by experience, if you can call 90% hanging around competitive Pokemon communities and 10% battling 'experience'. Because of this, and because of passing anecdotes I've caught from other people, I'm deeply convinced that VGC is easy. Obviously not in the sense of becoming a professional player, but in the sense that you can learn a lot simply from playing the game, without needing much outside influence or information or requiring any other skills (thinking about real-time games here, for example). I am completely and absolutely positive that any bozo can get into Master Ball tier without even understanding the intricacies of their team or even knowing what an EV is. Once you learn the common match-ups, the positive leads for your team and the like, intuition takes over. You also have the room to lose as much as you like, because getting into Master Ball tier is solely a matter of playing enough games until you get a few winning streaks.
Anyone can get into Master Ball tier ... with just one condition. You need a good team.
In this day and age, getting a good team is extremely simple. All you have to do is go onto Twitter and check out
Unfortunately, this is, for some baffling reason, a common pitfall for beginner VGC players, including Attica. Alright, it's not their fault. It's Pokemon's fault. Unfortunately ... unhappily ... Pokemon has always, to various extents, pushed the narrative that 'Pokemon are pals not pasturage' (sorry, that's the only P-word I can find that means anything like food). This means that the majority of Pokemon players learn that you should always ... ugh ... that you should always ... use ... your favourite Pokemon ... sigh ...
So many new players go into VGC with the idea that they're going to make their favourite Pokemon (whether singular or plural) work no matter what. Some even think that it's cheating to use 'meta' Pokemon - although if they think that, then they don't really want to get into VGC, so their opinion can be safely ignored. This also leads into the closely related pitfall of wanting to make a 'creative' team. 'Creative', of course, is a term that means absolutely nothing in this context, but never mind that. What that means is that new players will very often insist on climbing the ladder for the first time with a team of their own creation (God forbid they try signing up for an official tournament with one, but it's safe to assume that most new players would be turned away by the $70 registration fee).
Well, you know what? Fine. Go ahead and do that. It doesn't hurt anyone. If they truly want to get into VGC, they'll figure it out sooner or later. But there is one side effect I fear, which is that the new player begins to underestimate their own abilities due to being held back by their own - and I'm going to say it - shitty team.
Which brings us back to Attica and her team. I'm going to go through each Pokemon individually because I have been agonising over this for the past two weeks, and I need someone to know. Also, it's a good learning exercise.
The team at a glance:
Hm, you say. Appletun is a strange pick, but nothing there looks too bad or out of the ordinary. What's the problem?
Don't you worry about that. We'll get there.
Great Tusk @ Assault Vest
Ability: Protosynthesis
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 74 Atk / 182 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Headlong Rush
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Ice Spinner
AV Great Tusk, pretty standard. Nothing too strange about the moves either. Pure coverage is a little bit eh but it's fine. Tera Fire is a bit strange because it makes you extremely vulnerable to the Tusk mirror, which isn't going to help your positive matchup into Talonflame, but at least you can't get burned. It somewhat helps against Flutter Mane, but only for one turn. I'm also not sure if getting burned is a big issue for Tusk in the first place because it threatens everything that can burn it. But anyway, then you look at the EVs and the nature, and you see the big glaring issue.
Running so little Attack on offensive Great Tusk is already pretty big throwing. I don't know why this specific spread was chosen. I can only assume that it's just enough to hit something or take a hit from something else. Possibly. Except that a certain spread reaches the same stat points save for Attack which is higher: Brave 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD. Again, I don't know why you'd run the current spread, and the fact that it wastes EVs further leads me to think that it doesn't actually hit anything in particular. Some other mons here lends credence to that theory, which we will get to later. Anyway, I hate running SpD investment on AV because you already get such a boost from AV that further stat points don't do too much for you, also this is Great Tusk, an offensive Pokemon? This set makes me think that the creator (who is not Attica, by the way, we will get to that too) has a slight misunderstanding of the purpose of AV, which is not to make you strictly bulky, but instead to make you bulkier. It's useful on middling offensive Pokemon because it gives you the chance to hang around for a turn longer than you would have otherwise against Special Pokemon to pick up that KO you missed out on the first time. It's not so that you sit on the field forever like defensive Pokemon do.
As stated, max HP and SpD with a Brave nature gives the same stat points with higher Attack, but if I had to fix this, I'd just make it max HP and Atk. You could do some things with split HP and Def investment, but this is the ladder. We don't need to do that. As it is, all this Great Tusk does is hit things for minimal (literally) damage. Also it has Ice Spinner on a team that likes having terrain up.
Indeedee-F @ Psychic Seed
Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 184 Def / 76 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psyshock
- Helping Hand
- Follow Me
- Trick Room
The next member of Attica's team is Indeedee, and the spread is like, okay, I guess? I don't know what the numbers here do either but there's a spread on Pikalytics which is Bold 196 Def / 60 SpD which is fairly similar, so it's not too weird. I mean - obviously it has Psyshock instead of Dazzling Gleam, but that's fine. Not a choice I would have made but not a glaringly bad one.
I do have one issue with this Indeedee which isn't related to its spread. It's a Trick Room Indeedee, which is only available in 5-star raids. It's also shiny and has a 0 Speed IV. I don't know where Attica got this Indeedee, and if it's hacked, then I don't think it's on her. Her audience give her hacked Pokemon all the time. Also who cares about hacking. But yeah, kind of funny that amidst this chaos sits an Indeedee with a (relatively) normal spread but a suspicious origin. Also, either Attica hyper-trained the Indeedee's Attack stat because she forgot that it wants 0 Attack, or the person who hacked it didn't know that Indeedee wants 0 Atk. Hilarious.
(I would just got max HP and Def here, but again, I don't strictly have an issue with this spread.)
Farigiraf @ Throat Spray
Ability: Armor Tail
Level: 50
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psychic
- Hyper Voice
- Trick Room
- Protect
I need to talk about this one before I talk about Armarouge. So yes, it has the same ability as Indeedee, and despite its Throat Spray and Quiet nature, has a defensive spread, so it's basically a second Indeedee. The moveset implies that this is an offensive Farigiraf, but this isn't backed up by its spread. Looking at this spread, you may also understand why I believe the defensive spreads on this team to be completely arbitrary. Farigiraf has an equal Def and SpD stat, so this spread simply invests equally in bulk. Despite the fact that it's an offensive set. I'm not that familiar with using Farigiraf because, you know, it's mid at best, so I don't know what it likes to hit, but I do know that this spread hits nothing. This giraffe hits like a wet paper bag, which is an issue we will explore in the Armarouge discussion.
If it were up to me, I would use max HP and SpA. There is a Nasty Plot set that Cbutty from the Smogon VGC Discord server is using, but I wouldn't give Nasty Plot to a beginner.
Armarouge @ Twisted Spoon
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Heat Wave
- Expanding Force
- Psychic
- Protect
This Pokemon should be the backbone of this team. The Armadeedee archetype is about as basic as you can get in this format. It's extremely easy to pilot and very beginner-friendly. So why in God's name does this thing NOT have Armor Cannon? I can see having Heat Wave and Armor Cannon, sure. But the spread-single combination of choice is the Psychic moves instead. First of all, Heat Wave can miss. Second, you can't avoid hitting Baxcalibur or opposing Flash Fire users if you need to use a Fire-type move. Thirdly, it has lower BP than Armor Cannon, which is further compounded by being a spread-type move.
Next, if you need to have a single-target Psychic-type move, I would recommend Psyshock for hitting specially bulky Pokemon. Actually Psychic is not the worst option here, except that I have a sneaking suspicion that it's Psychic over Psyshock because Indeedee has Psyshock, even though Armarouge's SpA is almost twice as high as Indeedee's. This Armarouge also doesn't have Wide Guard which is like, an okay choice, I guess? It would be appreciated but Protect over Wide Guard is fine.
WHAT'S NOT FINE, AND YES I'M CAPS-LOCKING FOR THIS, IS THE LACK OF TRICK ROOM.
No Trick Room on 0 Speed Armarouge isn't strictly wrong. Or is it? I've always wanted it whenever I tried to play with this team, and I don't think that's just because I expect it to be there. The issue is that there is no guaranteed way to get Trick Room up without sacrificing offense. One lead that Attica likes to go with is Indeedee + Farigiraf because this lead guarantees Trick Room, but afterwards, she's stuck with two defensive Pokemon on the field who can't do anything. (She's also still not well-versed in switching, so sometimes she gets frustrated by the slow pace of a battle after starting with this lead, then switches in something more offensive only for it to get blown up.) This might be less of an issue if Farigiraf had an offensive spread, but it doesn't. This issue could also be compounded by, you guessed it, putting Trick Room on Armarouge.
This is exactly why Trick Room teams almost always have Trick Room on offensive Pokemon, while allowing defensive Pokemon to redirect or block off damage in some way. Mimikyu, Hatterene, and Calyrex-Ice come to mind. Mimikyu is often (not always) a supportive Pokemon, but it has the offensive capabilities to do something. There are a multitude other reasons that Mimikyu is a perfect TR Pokemon, but we're not talking about Mimikyu right now. The point is that Trick Room is, in a way, a fragile archetype. First it needs to set up, and then it has a limited number of turns in which to do damage, so any time lost is sorely felt. That is why it is absolutely crucial that an offensive Pokemon either already be on the field when TR goes up, or the team has a way to bring them in safely. This team does not have any of those things. When I played this team, I never used Farigiraf, except to try it, then despair at it not doing anything.
Ugh. Alright. Got the most of my grievances off my chest. The rest of the set is fine. Let's move on to the last two Pokemon.
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Mirror Armor
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Body Press
- Brave Bird
- Iron Defense
- Roost
Oh God, it gets worse. Let's just start with the worst part: Tera Fighting. Tera Fighting is awful and this team showed me why. Why in the name of God's sweet Earth would you exchange an amazing typing like Flying/Steel into something as Godawful as Fighting? For extra Body Press damage? Forget it! You're not hitting anything when you now have no useful resistances! For instance, Tera Fighting +0 Body Press makes it a guaranteed 2HKO against Tera Normal Dragonite, except that Tera Fighting also makes Tera Normal ESpeed hit for twice as much damage. You're now weak to Flutter Mane while taking no less damage from Iron Hands and taking just as much from Talonflame.
Then the spread is fine until you realise that it's Brave nature. On - on an Iron Press set? With no Attack investment?
Alright, speaking of investment, here's the optimal spread that gives you the same stats but more EVs into Attack: Relaxed 252 HP / 116 Atk / 140 Def. Gives you 5 more points in Attack than before while reaching the same Defense stat. I think I would forego Roost for Protect and invest fully in HP and Def. Frankly, I'm not all too sure what Corviknight offers this team so I don't really know what I would do with it. Possibly a fully offensive set could work too.
God, Tera Fighting ...
Appletun @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Ripen
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Tera Blast
- Apple Acid
- Draco Meteor
- Protect
Don't ask me any questions. I don't have the answers. Funnily enough, this Pokemon is the one that does the most work on the team, but maybe that's because no one knows what it does, so when it appears, the opponents just fall all over themselves trying to figure out what it's going to do. Don't get me wrong, this Pokemon isn't good. Far from it.
It's hard for me to comment on this Pokemon, because I don't understand it myself. This is apparently one of the Pokemon that Attica really wanted to use, so her team creator built this set. As you can see, this Pokemon has the same issue as Farigiraf where it's just equally invested into bulk ... and something else. Did you notice it? Did you think I didn't notice it from Farigiraf? No, there was just so much I wanted to say about Farigiraf and Armarouge that I decided to leave it for later.
Yes, everyone. This spread ... wastes EVs.
At level 50, 128 investment into an unboosted stat has 4 EVs go to waste. So both Appletun and Farigiraf waste 8 EVs each. 8! EVs! An entire stat point! Potentially 2. This is just another reason, to toss onto the pile of all the other reasons, that I believe the team creator does not fully understand EVs. How can a whole 8 EVs go to waste? You already know the answer if you play VGC. It's because when you create a team on Pokemon Showdown, if you don't select one of the cart formats, it will automatically create all Pokemon at level 100. EVs work slightly differently at level 50 than they do at level 100. At level 100, every 4 EVs = 1 stat point. At level 50, it's the first 4 EVs gives 1 stat point, then afterwards it's every 8 EVs = 1 stat point. So the person who created this team threw it into PS and didn't check the EVs, because they forgot, or because they didn't know they had to do that, who knows. So yeah, not only do Farigiraf and Appletun arbitrarily have even bulk, they both waste 8 EVs. This can be fixed by either using a 244 HP / 132 Def / 132 SpD spread, which also gives you an even HP stat for Sitrus, or you can go 252 HP / 124 Def / 4 SpA / 124 SpD. It still wastes 4 EVs but it hits the same stat points and gives you an extra point in SpA. You now know why it's optimal at level 50 to invest in either 3 or 5 stats but not 4.
Okay, so EV spread aside, the idea behind Appletun is ... okay, I'm not gonna say it's good, but it's definitely an idea. Tera Fairy does get rid of your Flutter Mane weakness, but doesn't resist Flutter Mane or any of your previous weaknesses either - actually keeps your Poison weakness but there aren't any prominent Poison-types in the format right now. It also doesn't necessarily hit anything you couldn't hit before, like Steel-types, so it doesn't actually add to your coverage either. But anyway, the lack of offensive investment actually doesn't matter that much here because Appletun has Apple Acid, which lowers SpD, so it can keep snowballing. Unfortunately, its best form of offense is a move that is pretty pathetic if it can't Tera, and a move that lowers its SpA by 2. However, the idea is extremely similar to support Iron Moth. The MothMane core has Moth use Acid Spray to drop SpD by 2 so that Mane can steamroll things even easier than before. So yeah, the reason that Appletun works is because it's an objectively worse variation of a good archetype. In this case, Appletun also suffers from not having a partner to take advantage of its Apple Acid further. Armarouge doesn't need Appletun's help (HH Indeedee does the same thing while having priority) and Farigiraf is both Farigiraf and doesn't have the offensive investment to make use of the SpD drops, especially as it's only a single stage drop. But again, Appletun works because it's a worse version of something good.
So how is Attica doing with this godawful unconventional team? Not great. Last season she played about 40 games (I believe 47) and lost 25 of them. She also picked up next to no streaks, which is why she finished Pokeball 6.
Hello? Do I need to repeat that? She played FORTY BATTLES. AND DIDN'T GET OUT OF POKEBALL TIER.
This morning, she said (in response to a viewer) 'VGC isn't annoying. It's just hard and it makes my head hurt.'
Does she make a lot of basic mistakes? Yes. Does she sometimes blunder her moves for being overwhelmed by her options? Yes, of course. All of these are to be expected of a beginner. I have, for example, mentioned that she often leads with Indeedee and Farigiraf to guarantee TR, and I've explained why that's a bad lead (I do think that she was probably advised to use this lead by her team creator though). She is also very insistent on setting up TR without considering whether or not this is best for her, such as considering whether the opposing Pokemon might be slower than her Pokemon and would thus benefit even more from TR. This is forgivable for a new player because she has yet to learn what Pokemon are good in TR (plus, she is using a hard TR team with a bunch of Pokemon that aren't that slow) - although she does frequently forget this information even once she has learnt it, but again, understandable. I am somewhat more baffled by a particular game she played against a viewer where she lead Indeedee and Armarouge while her opponent lead Meowscarada and something irrelevant. Basically, Attica's Indeedee and her opponent's Meowscarada went back and forth on setting and reversing Trick Room for 3 or 4 turns before Attica finally figured that her opponent would insist on doing this and she allowed them to do it. But kudos to her for persistence because most people give up when TR has been reversed once.
All this to say that I don't think Attica is such a bad player that she could go negative on the cart ladder without ever leaving Pokeball tier. At first, I wasn't sure. I watched Attica's plays to understand what she was doing wrong and how to advise her on her next steps. Of course, I wasn't always paying attention and zoned in and out at times. Hard to stay on 100 over a 3-hour stream or whatever it is. But I often felt lost on how to advise her and felt that she had not done anything particularly wrong. I mean, sometimes I could see that she had blundered, but not always. At last, Attica put up a rental code and I tried the team out for myself.
Okay, so I didn't notice this right away, but let's just get this out of the way: she had the wrong natures because she hadn't minted the Pokemon. Extremely easy mistake to make, but may or may not have contributed to some damage rolls and the like. Secondly, the sets I have presented to you are the current version. She initially had Cud Chew on Farigiraf and Gluttony Aguav Berry on Appletun. The Cud Chew I advised her to change to Sap Sipper because Cud Chew doesn't do anything, Armor Tail doesn't do anything when you have Psychic Terrain, and Sap Sipper can at least block Spore, which is a move that Attica doesn't otherwise have any way of dealing with. Gluttony Aguav ... I mean, it's fine. It works. Ripen Sitrus works too. Strictly gives you more recovery. Great. Now let's get to how this team actually feels to play.
Some of it I've mentioned already. Indeedee and Farigiraf fulfil the exact same role, which means that playing this team feels like playing with 5 mons instead of 6. This is even more true now that Farigiraf has Armor Tail (not, as we've established, that Cud Chew was doing anything either). Every single Pokemon on this team hits for less damage than you expect it to. This includes Armarouge, because it has fucking Heat Wave instead of its actually good Fire-type move. The lack of offense becomes quite glaring when Armarouge goes down or you can't bring Armarouge, because then you have to rely on Appletun. Poor, poor Appletun. Carrying the weight of this team on the back of its baked pie crust. There's also no good defensive Teras except on Armarouge, so if you can't go on the offensive, then you're permanently on the back pedal. See it now? It's an offensive team with defensive EVs!
I asked Attica if she wouldn't like to try a more beginner-friendly team, just to learn the ropes. Keep in mind that I asked her this morning, after she has now gone through about 50 battles with this team. Her answer was a firm no.
I must give credit to Attica here because she has persevered cheerfully (probably why she could bull through those 4 Meowscarada TR turns) and has not been discouraged. If she is having fun, then there's no harm in allowing her to continue. Perhaps I project too much of my personal feelings in my fear that she will think herself a poor player after all these games. But I can't help but agonise when I see her losing with this team when I know that a few changes would rocket her up to Master Ball rank in an instant!
You may ask me why I am writing this blog entry instead of discussing it with Attica. Well, first of all, I've already tried doing that because I posted the optimised EV spreads on her Discord. Secondly, I am not the creator of this team, nor do I have any way of organically reaching out to the creator of this team, by which I mean we are not in any of the same circles, so I would have to actively seek her out in order to speak to her. To go to lengths to contact her feels embarrassing to me because it feels like reaching out to tell her that she's wrong.
The creator of this team is a VGC player by the name of *checks the spelling of her handle* okay her real name is Jess, so I'm just going to call her that. When I started writing this post, it was under the assumption that she was the main creator of this team because she is the person whom Attica credits as the creator of this team, and is also the person Attica referred me to when I suggested making a team for Attica myself (saying that I had to 'go through [Jess]'). However, when I went to Jess's Twitter to confirm her handle, I saw that she had posted about going 6-3 at OCIC. Lads, there is no way that someone who is capable of going 6-3 at an international competition would give a new player a team like this. You cannot play 9 rounds of Swiss and go x-3 without understanding team-building. However, there is one other person whom Attica has mentioned in the context of creating her team, which is a person who goes by the nickname Dondozo. I don't know anything about them. I'm also going to assume that Attica did not create the spreads herself because that seems highly unlikely.
Whoever the main team creator may be ... they perplex me. This team suggests a level of understanding of VGC wherein they are familiar with the archetypes of the meta and are familiar with the basic level of playing required, but do not understand the intricacies of EVs and natures. Such a lack of understanding is completely understandable because natures and EVs are ridiculous and even I have only come to grips with complex EV spreads fairly recently. However, I would not attempt to make complex EV spreads which look like they have a purpose (e.g. equalising bulk) because this falls into the danger of having none, as in this case (all Pokemon have different stats which they make use of, and complex EV spreads should thus reach defensive or offensive benchmarks that are specific to threats that one wishes to match up well against). I also question whether or not the team creator tested this team to any extent on Pokemon Showdown before handing it to Attica, because I perfectly understand that it is very easy to cook up a wonky team with some suboptimal EV spreads in the initial teambuilding phase, but the issues that I have mentioned should quickly become apparent after some playtesting. I myself tested the team for 7 rounds before I was able to comprehend all the issues I have mentioned here.
At its core, I am disheartened that Attica could have been so disappointed by her mentor. I keep telling myself that it's fine because Attica is enjoying herself either way and the goal of games is definitely to have fun, but I feel like I'm unfairly holding out on information that could be useful to Attica. Considering, however, that I have been advised to go through Jess in order to give Attica any assistance, it seems that Attica values her advice above all else, and it is not my place to say anything. I post this purely as a record of my thoughts on this day and as a learning exercise in order to understand teambuilding better.
I was going to workshop the team with the restriction that I can only use the Pokemon and items determined by Attica and her team creator, but I would need to do some research into Appletun and its movepool first, which would require me to stop writing. Strangely enough, when I tested this team, I came across another Appletun team which beat me with stall Appletun. It is very strange to think that the one offensive Pokemon on this defensive team could thrive as a defensive option on an offensive team!
Writing this article has been extremely useful in helping me to analyse and describe teams, so I am satisfied to pen my adieu here.