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[Jukain]

Originally Posted by Fat Ithilanor

Not sure if this is the right place to ask about this, but is there any chance of getting a warstory of this battle?

You should ask Princess Bri/yee about that.

[Kidogo]

OK, this is an idea I've had for a while that I'd love to get going--let me know what everyone thinks about it! It'd also be great if some OU moderators could take a look at this and let me know when they think.

Team analysis

Introduction
Team analysis is a morph between RMT, OU core analysis, Pokémon of the week, and Featured RMT from the Smog. The basic idea is that periodically (around once a week) a new team will be selected as the “featured team”. These teams will be received from submissions made by users, and will be selected based on the following criteria:
· Originality of the team
· “Niche” ideas
· Innovative cores
· Ideal team structures
· Success had using the team
· (Most importantly) potential for learning with the team
The team selected is NOT necessarily the “best” one as defined by success had with the team. Instead the goal is to select a team that we can, through analysis, use to learn something new about the current metagame and the art of teambuilding. Teams that feature an underused Pokémon or core are great, but the Pokémon should be both viable and effective—this is not a project geared towards trying to make Pokémon that are not viable for OU work in OU. In addition, teams that feature a new or underused strategy without using any less-used Pokémon themselves are great choices as well—a good example of this is dual-weather, which can be very interesting to explore the possibilities of (remember however that it must be competitively viable). Additionally, the team should be well-constructed and goal-focused—if nothing else, the team’s structure itself can be analyzed and used to improve our notions of what good teambuilding is. Finally, the team should be original—we don’t want to hear about even perfectly-constructed standard rain offense teams if there’s nothing new about them.

The Process

Submissions
Periodically, I will announce that we are looking for team submissions—anyone who feels they have a team that fits the criteria is welcome to submit them to me. The submission should contain the following information:
· Complete sets of all 6 Pokémon
· A brief summary of each Pokémon—focus on their role, any set oddities, and their function within the team
· A brief summary (1-2 sentences) of the team’s purpose and gameplay
· (Optional) a brief account of your experience playing with the team (this may include peaks, particular threats, common match-ups, etc.)
That’s it—this is not an RMT. The entire thing should be fairly short—your goal is just to give enough information so that we can understand the team as it was intended, not so that we know everything about it—that’s the point of the analysis part. I may edit out parts of the summary if they are too long, but will aim to keep it as close as possible to the original submission. Any teams that are not selected for one week may be used for another, but we want as many team submissions as possible. A sample submission might look like this (this would be a better team if it used something other than deo-d + gar since that’s very standard, but it has a well-constructed core and some underused sets):

...

---

The basic goal of the team is to facilitate a sweep for either salamence or lucario, which form a very effective offensive core. This is done through hazard stacking combined with a U-turn + shadow tag core that is designed to trap common checks to my sweepers.

Deoxys-Defense @ Leftovers
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Magic Coat

Standard deo-d lead—getting hazards down is crucial to the team’s success, and deo-d is unmatched. A fast taunt is also useful since I have no spinner.

Gengar @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Destiny Bond

My spinblocker. Beats most common spinners very well, substitute + dbond allows me to take down most spinner very reliably, with SB for stab and hp fire to beat forretress and damage stuff like ferro.

Scizor @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Quick Attack

Scizor takes advantage of the hazards by retaining momentum and by luring out the pokes that check mence and luke—physical walls such as gliscor and skarmory. These are then U-turned to gothitelle, who traps them. Scizor also offers some welcome priority.

Gothitelle @ Choice Specs
Trait: Shadow Tag
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SAtk / 8 Spd
Modest Nature
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [ice]
- Thunderbolt
- Trick

Gothitelle is perfect for getting rid of the pokes that trouble luke and salamence—primarily physical walls. It can also cripple walls such as ferrothorn with trick while also forming a really nice core with gengar since gothitelle is great at beating the common spinners.

Salamence @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Moxie
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Lonely Nature
- Outrage
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast

Salamence is my only scarfer and the first sweeper. Once hazards are up, all it takes is one kill for this guy to sweep whole teams.

Lucario @ Life Orb
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
IVs: 29 HP
- Agility
- Close Combat
- Ice Punch
- Crunch

The primary sweeper of the team, it excels at beating salamence’s checks—it easily KOs gliscor and takes out scarfers such as terrakion and lati@s. A really underrated but effective set.

Posting
On a regular basis (about weekly) I will post the new team along with the submitter’s summary. I will then pose a series of questions about the team, generally related to the functioning of the team’s core, its weaknesses, and how certain issues could be fixed.

Discussion
Once I post the new team, anyone is free to chime in. While you are encouraged to discuss the issues posted with the team, there are many other types of observations one can make that are ideal. Some examples are “this reminds me of this other core…”, “what if X were to be changed, that might help with Y…”, or “I particularly like facet X of this team because when I played with it, …”. Keep in mind though: this is NOT an RMT. The goal of the team is not to critique the team or even to make it as effective as possible—it is to explore the ideas offered by the unique core/playstyle the team offers. If the person who submitted the team wants to join in the discussion, they are welcome to—however, their job as the creator should mostly be to help to clarify the goal of the team, not to provide reasons why the original team is “better”. They are of course welcome to participate in the discussion in the usual manner as well.

The Goal
In the end, the goal of this project is to learn as much as we can about the metagame and about teambuilding by using an innovative team created by a member of the community as a springboard. Hopefully, this will also be a great opportunity for the newer members of the community to get a better idea of how one goes about the process of teambuilding as well as sharing the great ideas had by certain members. So if you’re proud of an original and effective team you’ve made, go ahead and submit!

[Pocket]

I love the concept, Kidogo! Once a week is too often, imo. I'd prefer to make this a bi-weekly or even a monthly project to give some significant time for the metagame to adjust or shift in trends, etc.

[Kidogo]

Thanks for the support pocket! Yeah, the time-period is definitely not set yet--you're probably right in that something more like bi-weekly (or very possibly monthly) could work out better. We may just play this by ear depending on the feedback for each team.

[X5Dragon]

I wonder if we can make a test/research tier similar to the seasons greetings one, where we could for once and for all see what the meta would look like if none of the previous bans were implemented (No SS + Drizzle ban, Blaziken, Deo-S, Excadrill, Thundurus-I (prankster) and yet all of the DW mons and BW2 forms released.

It would be interesting to say the least...thanks.

*Did not add SV/SC ban because they are now a part of the evasion clause ban which isn't OU specific

[Jukain]

I've been interested in reviving Pokemon Bash sessions for a while now. For those of you who don't remember, what basically happens is that there's a competition where users sign up to advocate for their Pokemon. Basically, it's Pokemon versus Pokemon, and you've got to write a paragraph to prove that your Pokemon is better. These Pokemon are somewhat similar (an example from the first and only one, which I participated in, is Scizor versus Genesect). The host (which would be me) gives the submissions a "grade" on a scale of 1-10. This grade is based on how you use evidence to back up your point and how overall convincing it is. I believe the one the HardCore did got 8 people to join, and it was a fun competition to participate in. He gave me permission to do whatever I wanted with it, so I'd like to bring this back. If it fails, so be it, but it's worth a try.

[The Unlucky one]

The guys at the Little Cup forums have a cool thing called the "Little Cup Player Rankings"

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3475245

It's a pretty cool idea and i wonder if this is a good idea to put this here in the OU forums.

[ThePillsburyDoughBoy]

Here is an idea I had for a bit:

"The Better Battlers Project"

In chess one of the most important things to do to become a better player is to review your own games after you lose. By reviewing your own game you can see if there was a series of plays that opened up a weakness in your position defensively to exploit or an offensive position that left one of your pieces completely shut out from the game.

In Pokemon we are more quick to dismiss our loses and seldom review our matches that we lose. This project aims to fix that. A poster will post a link to a PS! Battle log of a match that they lost. Subsequently, another poster will come in and critique the battle and identify any turns or plays that could have been done differently to give the poster of the battle a better position in the game. Whereas most projects and posts focus on teambuilding exercises (eg. Dark horse, outsiders, defense of the titans) this project aims to develop people's battling skillset.

For the thread I have a few guidelines:
- You must post a critique of another battler if you want to post your own battler
- ideally we are looking for closer matches
- you are being critiqued here, so if you do not take constructive criticism lightly, do not post

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[Pocket]

That is a very cool idea, Doughboy, I approve!

I don't necessarily agree with the first restriction, though. People who are looking for help / advice are most likely not the ones giving out battling critiques. I think anyone can post their log replays. Perhaps list all the logs on your OP as a "Table of Contents," so people can critique whatever battle that they want.

[Joeyboy]

The OU Subforums Mini-Tournament Hall of Fame

The OU Mini-Tournament is a time honored tradition, it pits the powerful members of our humble OU Subforum in tense and exciting battles. In each Tournament the host decides on the "curveball", the proposed gimmick. Whether that gimmick be unbanning an old Pokemon, or banning something from OU, each Tournament has its own unique taste and flavor. Also the winner of the most recent tournament becomes the bearer of the fabled OU Tiara, a magical and beautiful artifact.

Mini-Tournament #1

The rule change for this tournament was the unbanning of Kyurem-B; this tournament was held prior to Kyurem-B's official entry into the OU metagame and was held to see how it would impact it. Just as our community deemed, many of the tournaments participants were completely underwhelmed by the former Ubers power. The first ever OU Mini-Tournament was won by the courageous Princess Bri. The replay of the final of Princess Bri vs. Yee can be seen below, as well as other matches from the tournament.

Kyurem-B Mini-Tour
R3 lokt vs Thunderblunder
Semis Bri vs doughboy
Finals Bri vs yee

After winning Princess Bri was interviewed,

I am really honored to be the first OU Mini-Tour champion, starting off the with a win streak of Mini-tours in the OverUsed Sub-Forum was a pretty cool experience! I really hope for more of these tours so I can hopefully take back my tiara. They are very enjoyable, and I really am a big fan of participating in said events.

Mini-Tournament #2

For the second Mini-Tournament the ubiquitous Drizzle was banned to Ubers. Along with that Pokemon such as Thundurus-I and Manaphy were unbanned. Rain was seen as the most overpowered play style at this time and the members of the OU Subforum wanted to see what it'd be like if Politoed were gone. Many contestants were psyched about not needing a Tornadus-T check, or multiple Water-resistances and enjoyed the less limited team building associated with it. This tournament was won by ThunderBlunder, the log for his finals victory over The Great Mighty Doom, along with other matches can be found below.

No Drizzle Mini-Tour
R1 Temp V1 vs The Unlucky One
R2 Young Wild Free vs King
R3 Valentine vs Asek
R3 Blim vs LilOuOn
Finals ThunderBlunder vs TGMD


After winning ThunderBlunder was interviewed,

I feel like the Mini Tours are a great idea. The small type of tournament is a lot of fun to play in as well as having certain types of battle restrictions lets you imagine whta kind of meta we could be playing in. Some call rain extremely broken so I was very interested to see how a meta without rain was. In my opinion sand was very good as in every single one of my battles I brought the same sand team based around a Sandslash sweep. The tours are very enjoyable as well and go by rather quickly so they are very fun. Definitely one of the most fun things that I've taken part in in a while. I can't wait to see what the Challenge is next!

[Slick Side]

@Kidogo I think personally this is a great idea it can help the newer players learn the skill of team building. Which I would consider one of the more important skills in Competitive Pokemon. Although some would disagree, this is just my opinion. A good player and a good team is a potent combination. The only issue I can see with this idea is some of the more experienced player will see the featured team run rampant and quickly come up with simple counters making the team less successful. With some tuning to this idea I think it can be revolutionary to Smogon and benefit players of all skill levels.

An interesting idea to have similar to this is to have smogon start a youtube channel where it focuses on interactive narrations to help players understand different situations and how to deal with them. It would be easy to implement Kidogo's idea to this. Almost like a PMP except designed around education rather than entertainment. Just a small idea I haven't really put much thought into just a core. Not everyone learns the same way.

[ClubbingSealCub]

I've noticed that other tiers (mainly RU) have something called the "Research Week" or "Research Group".

For those that have never heard of it, the point is to pick a handful (3-4) of 'mons that don't get high usage in OU / are lower tier and then theorymon / experiment with them for a week, maybe 2.

In essence, it's very similar to the Outsiders challenge, except that everyone is (or should) be focusing on these mons, which lets us learn more about them and perhaps find a new gamebreaking set ;0

Thoughts / Comments? I wouldn't mind hosting something like this

Edit: I'll write a skeleton up later tomorrow

Edit2: exams and stuff, gonna have to wait a bit more

[Jukain]

Originally Posted by Fat ClubbingSealCub

I've noticed that other tiers (mainly RU) have something called the "Research Week" or "Research Group".

For those that have never heard of it, the point is to pick a handful (3-4) of 'mons that don't get high usage in OU / are lower tier and then theorymon / experiment with them for a week, maybe 2.

In essence, it's very similar to the Outsiders challenge, except that everyone is (or should) be focusing on these mons, which lets us learn more about them and perhaps find a new gamebreaking set ;0

Thoughts / Comments? I wouldn't mind hosting something like this

iirc we used to have research weeks, now with BW2 it would be cool to start them again. Research weeks are a ton of fun as long as you get activity. A lot of the research weeks will just go inactive in other tiers, and while that shouldn't be much of a problem in the OU forum, you just have to remember to pick interesting Pokemon.

I'm up for hosting / cohosting, research weeks are fun!

[Novaray]

I have started the OU Team Style Tournaments which was approved by Harsha. This project's objective is to host small tournaments similar to the OU Mini-tournaments. However, each tournament will examine a specific team style that is viable in the OU metagame, for example the first one is based around Dragon Spam. Each user must submit a team that fits the style of the specific tournament (ex. Team must include 3 Dragon types) and use that team throughout the course of the tournament. At the end of the tournament, I will share the winning team and the log of the championship battle, after which I will lead discussion regarding how viable the specific team style is currently, how the winning team can be improved, and how the team fits the specific style. The aim of this project is to let users practice their battling skills while also exploring team-building and discovering different types of teams they can use and learn how to use them more effectively. It will also help players try other types of teams that they have never used before and will be a friendly environment to try new things. Some players may only play offensive teams and this will be the first time they get to try stall or use other strategies such as Baton Pass and Trick Room. Participating in a tournament and being able to see other players use a certain strategy is a great "hands-on" form of learning. The discussion at the end will help improve their team and foster new ideas. Over the course of the tournament, participants will be able to create a team, practice using the team, and grasp an even better understanding of how to build the specific style and effectively use it by the end of the tournament. I believe this will help players become better battlers by combining practice with the sharing of ideas and spurring creativity in a structured manner.


Link to the first OU Team Style Tournament

[Kidogo]

OK, I've been in contact with the OU mods and am ready to start the Team Analysis project. I've also contacted a couple people and gotten their permission to use RMTs, so I'd love to just get approvals from the mods so I can get the project up and running!

[Pocket]

As long as you have a solution in amassing teams for your project then you're good to go, Kidogo

[Trinitrotoluene]

With the close of suspect testing, Novaray and I will be hosting the second iteration of Research Week.

[Novaray]

I will be hosting the OU version of The Next Best Thing

[Ninetale3]

Just throwing a project idea out.

After battling with quite a few pokemon without an ou analyses and actually having success with that many people wouldn't take seriously. I started wondering if all these pokemon that shouldn't be ran in ou had any merit to them. Thus this project idea was born.

The idea behind this project is to research into some often shunned mons that are considered outclass or something there of. I believe this would spice ou up a bit as it could potentially find use for these pokemon that have been considered worthless or outclassed pokemon finding there own worth.

As research part goes it can pretty much mean anything as it is about diving down to pokemon without an ou analysis though there would be logic in it. The research can be voluntary as it should really be more of the community finding purpose for these kind of pokemon.

[Pocket]

Hmm your project seems too redundant with Trinitrotoluene's Research Week. I suggest you participate in his project rather than implementing a new one.