Primal Battle [Online Competition]

[Ursarox]

So this starts soon!

Do you guys think it's worth it running both Wide Guard and Protect on Swampert? The alternative to Protect would be Ice Beam, I'm not sure how common Landorus-T and Garchomp will be this time around though. They both do pretty well against Groudon, so I figure they might be.

If you haven't locked you're battle box, I didn't see a single Garchomp, but there were a few Landorus. There were also a lot of fast grass type pokemon so I would go with protect unless you are using mega swampert with kyogre.

I know day 2 has already started, but I just finished my day one matches 13-2, which I am happy with since it is my best day ever at a competition, but I'm a little frustrated because both losses were when my opponent had one pokemon remaining and it was in the red and all of my wins were complete dominations. Cloud nine lickylicky is catching a ton of people by surprise and so is STAB explosion which ko'd both foes most of the time and left one in the red if they were bulky. I didn't see any trick room + gravity teams, but that may have been because I destroyed Groudon before it could get anything set up. There weren't really any common strategies either, so it was different game which was fun. I'm looking forward to the rest of the matches.

 

[Hulavuta]

If you haven't locked you're battle box, I didn't see a single Garchomp, but there were a few Landorus. There were also a lot of fast grass type pokemon so I would go with protect unless you are using mega swampert with kyogre.

I know day 2 has already started, but I just finished my day one matches 13-2, which I am happy with since it is my best day ever at a competition, but I'm a little frustrated because both losses were when my opponent had one pokemon remaining and it was in the red and all of my wins were complete dominations. Cloud nine lickylicky is catching a ton of people by surprise and so is STAB explosion which ko'd both foes most of the time and left one in the red if they were bulky. I didn't see any trick room + gravity teams, but that may have been because I destroyed Groudon before it could get anything set up. There weren't really any common strategies either, so it was different game which was fun. I'm looking forward to the rest of the matches.

Thanks man, but it comes a bit too late. I don't think I'm cut out for these competitions, something always tends to happen unexpectedly during them. In this case, my uncle and granduncle I've never met were visiting! I also never created or tested a team before this, so the rushed team I made I feel just cannot cut it in this metagame. Unfortunately there's no way to change your battle box after it's locked, so yeah.

On the positive side though, Wide Guard Swampert worked wonders, owned Precipice Blades, Origin Pulse, even random Hyper Voices. If only I had spent more time building the actual team beyond that, haha. I'll probably still play a few more just for fun but I won't be able to play all of them.

 

[Prinzar]

How is everyone getting along with this competition?

I've made some ridiculous mistakes, but managed to be 7-2 so far. Didn't manage to play yesterday so I'm trying to catch up.
I used skill swap with a Clefable out, totally forgetting it can use follow me. A levitating Clefable was surprisingly difficult to beat with PDon. (Taunt stopped me being able to use gravity too)

I'm running both primals, Landorus I, Thundurus I, Cresselia, and MKan

 

[fitzy72]

25-5 at the end of day 2 using M Kanga / M Altaria / Scarf Kyogre / LO Ludicolo / Specs Hydreigon / Band Talonflame

Stuff:
Almost no lando-t which is weird with PGdon being a thing.
I've lost to Salamence/Both Primals/Tailwind like 4 times now which is just a terrible matchup for me :/
90% of teams i've seen actually use PGdon which means Mkanga is almost useless for me in this competition.
I saw 3 lapras day 1 which has the most ridiculously good matchup against my team if it runs freeze dry.

 

[Ursarox]

I finished 37-7, (with one disconnect I don't know if it will count, but it definitely wasn't my fault), but my score is around 1840, because in the last few battles I kept on getting matched up against really low ranked players for some reason, so for some battles my rating only went up by one point, but at least it got me a lot of wins. I know said this at the last competition, but I'm super happy because I've never been above 1700 and I once again smashed my previous best finish by 8 wins and 150 rating points . Here's my team with a bit of analysis.

Hide

Like I already mentioned, Lickilicky was the mvp thanks to cloud nine allowing kyogre to give gorudon a surprise as well as dealing massive damage with explosion, thank you to yoshirr for suggesting it.

Kyogre was pretty standard and I lead with it every single battle, because it lured groudon out and it was deadly with support from ludicolo and lickylicky.

Ludicolo was my other lead unless my opponent had Gothielle. With swift swim making it almost always the fastest on the field. It also dealt pretty big damage against everything that resists water allowing kyogre to clean up and the fast fake out also helped kyogre get water spout off turn 1 and it could switch out to lickylicky if groudon entered the field.

Salamence was the mega and it was a pretty standard moveset. I chose it because it resisted primal STAB and it dealt with annoying grass types and could OHKO offensive kyogre and 2HKO offensive groudon.

Groudon was simply on the team to make my opponent bring their groudon checks because I couldn't think of anything better. Salamence was the mega and it did well because it resisted all primal attacks.

Shedninja was good for switching into basically everything and it actually won one 1v2 would have lost.

 

[Prinzar]

Why do they allow obviously hacked Pokemon into online competitions? Too many shiny primals.

My last battle finished with me using POgre and Cresselia against a PDon and MKan.
His desolate land had just fired up so I skill swapped to start primordial sea. I also had trick room up.
Somehow his PDon fired up desolate land again and it went first (possible speed tie with my POgre but no way it could be ahead of Cresselia).
Then his MKan attacked ahead of both my mons too, and I lost.

I don't know what happened or how this is even possible. Sucks to lose in such a confusing way

 

[orangeflood]

Brian, I might have played you, if you played a guy named Flood with H-475-9376-U as an id.

 

[Moody Magikarp]

I may have played a few guys here as well. I know I got out right owned by a Life Orb'ed Ludicolo which creamed my team 4-0 because of a fakeout on my Thundurus. I mean I knew fakeout would be a thing, so it's my fault for not making room for Protect. Not to mention I missed the whole "weather wars" fad last gen, so I didn't know Lu was that dangerous in the rain.

Anyway though, I'm happy with my record so far. It's only my second tour and I'm 5 games over .500 which is meh, but I have over 15 games left if I decide to battle them all. I may just stop if I slip to 3 over as finishing with more wins than losses was my only goal since I couldn't get a Groudon in time.

I finished 3 under in the Pika tour because I thought Stunfisk and STAB earthquake would be a good idea (worst pkmn ever btw...). But enough on that, this is a solid stepping stone for me, and depending on the format, I may play the next tour as well.

Why do they allow obviously hacked Pokemon into online competitions? Too many shiny primals.

Can't explain the loss, but this. I saw an opposing Thundurus use Hidden Power Ice on my team. The big T can't breed, so 9 times out of 10, if they got the recommended Hidden Power type, it's hacked!

 

[Demantoid]

Can't explain the loss, but this. I saw an opposing Thundurus use Hidden Power Ice on my team. The big T can't breed, so 9 times out of 10, if they got the recommended Hidden Power type, it's hacked!

Since Thundurus is a very good pokemon in the online formats a lot of people have soft reset for HP ice ones and cloned to them for trades. (Although some may still be hacks)

 

[Moody Magikarp]

Since Thundurus is a very good pokemon in the online formats a lot of people have soft reset for HP ice ones and cloned to them for trades. (Although some may still be hacks)

I can't even imagine how many times that would take which is why I automatically assume the worst.

 

[cant say]

Can't explain the loss, but this. I saw an opposing Thundurus use Hidden Power Ice on my team. The big T can't breed, so 9 times out of 10, if they got the recommended Hidden Power type, it's hacked!

I can't even imagine how many times that would take which is why I automatically assume the worst.

You've clearly never tried soft resetting yourself (or visited the wifi forum here). Going for a flawless spread (31/even/30/31/31/31) is incredibly hard, but there are people who've done it, I've even got one myself. You can also settle for something like odd/even/even/31/31/31 and just settle for the fact that you get HP Ice which is really easy actually. Just assume that any Thundurus, Raikou or Zapdos you see will have HP Ice since it's basically mandatory so people make the extra effort.

Unless the legendary is also shiny, having the desired Hidden Power type isn't an indicator of being hacked...

 

[JebusChrist]

I've seen a Moon Ball Greninja so there are definitely some hackers in this :/

 

[Moody Magikarp]

You've clearly never tried soft resetting yourself (or visited the wifi forum here). Going for a flawless spread (31/even/30/31/31/31) is incredibly hard, but there are people who've done it, I've even got one myself. You can also settle for something like odd/even/even/31/31/31 and just settle for the fact that you get HP Ice which is really easy actually. Just assume that any Thundurus, Raikou or Zapdos you see will have HP Ice since it's basically mandatory so people make the extra effort.

Unless the legendary is also shiny, having the desired Hidden Power type isn't an indicator of being hacked...

I did for Raikou. After about the 20th time, I just said to hell with it. At least getting HP Ice on something like Manectric just takes some chain breeding. With this, it's just pure luck. Maybe I'm just getting too old...

For Thundurus specifically though, it's barely worth it since he goes down in 1 or 2 super effective hits anyway. I'd rather just use something like Knock Off to nuke their item and leave the Grounds and Dragons to a teammate.

Maybe I'll try again when I start Alpha Sapphire over again, but I doubt it.

 

[Hulavuta]

For the record, I also encountered shiny Kyogre. Really weird how they let so many obviously hacked Pokemon through.

 

[Moody Magikarp]

For the record, I also encountered shiny Kyogre. Really weird how they let so many obviously hacked Pokemon through.

Just played a match against a Shiny Groudon as well that was curiously not holding it's Primal Orb. I assume the guy was training it and just forgot to put it back on for some reason. Or he thought regular Groudon was better than Primal because of the extra weakness, but the ability more than makes up for it.

And I just finished 26-19. Not bad considering I was going against many teams with both Primal's on them compared to just my Kyorge. I had loads of fun as soon as I figured out a clear strategy going in to matches. Looking back, I notice I made a load of mistakes in teambuilding. If I didn't decide to add a certain Dragon type to my line up last minute(hint, hint), it probably would have been much worse. Can't believe I actually considered leaving him out. By far my MVP of this tour.

In the future, I'll probably play a bit more doubles just to get used to the format. It was the earlier matches when I was just playing it as singles Plus where I really got burned.

 

[Ursarox]

Brian, I might have played you, if you played a guy named Flood with H-475-9376-U as an id.

Yes, I did play you and I here's the battle video that got automatically uploaded since we were both high ranked 2SLG-WWWW-WW2R-7FN6.

I may have played a few guys here as well. I know I got out right owned by a Life Orb'ed Ludicolo which creamed my team 4-0 because of a fakeout on my Thundurus. I mean I knew fakeout would be a thing, so it's my fault for not making room for Protect. Not to mention I missed the whole "weather wars" fad last gen, so I didn't know Lu was that dangerous in the rain.

It may have been me, but I didn't save the video if it was. Ludicolo with Kyogre has always been a good combination and it's pretty clear why. With swift swim, fake out and coverage moves for everything resisting water spout/origin pulse, I swept several people with them.

Why do they allow obviously hacked Pokemon into online competitions? Too many shiny primals.

My last battle finished with me using POgre and Cresselia against a PDon and MKan.
His desolate land had just fired up so I skill swapped to start primordial sea. I also had trick room up.
Somehow his PDon fired up desolate land again and it went first (possible speed tie with my POgre but no way it could be ahead of Cresselia).
Then his MKan attacked ahead of both my mons too, and I lost.

I don't know what happened or how this is even possible. Sucks to lose in such a confusing way

I had no idea that hackers found a way to get pokemon that get a messed-up advantage past the hack check (if there even is one any more) which is just sad and completely ruins the fun in battling.

I didn't see any hacked pokemon in my battles, but people using shiny primals may still be disqualified when they tally the ranking and they could change losses to wins if nintendo gets their act together, but that's a big maybe and I also can't believe they were even allowed to enter.

Just played a match against a Shiny Groudon as well that was curiously not holding it's Primal Orb. I assume the guy was training it and just forgot to put it back on for some reason. Or he thought regular Groudon was better than Primal because of the extra weakness, but the ability more than makes up for it.

And I just finished 26-19. Not bad considering I was going against many teams with both Primal's on them compared to just my Kyorge. I had loads of fun as soon as I figured out a clear strategy going in to matches. Looking back, I notice I made a load of mistakes in teambuilding. If I didn't decide to add a certain Dragon type to my line up last minute(hint, hint), it probably would have been much worse. Can't believe I actually considered leaving him out. By far my MVP of this tour.

In the future, I'll probably play a bit more doubles just to get used to the format. It was the earlier matches when I was just playing it as singles Plus where I really got burned.

You know you can practice on pokemon showdown to test and modify your team and get used to the format. I also realized I needed a dragon when I was testing.

And here are a few more videos for those interested.
FSPW-WWWW-WW2R-EYZ3, MAYG-WWWW-WW2R-EJLN, D6YW-WWWW-WW2R-8EGS These 3 show my basic strategy of leading with Ludicolo, then briniging in lickilcky to get rid of groudon, then exploding.
38PG-WWWW-WW2R-EJ5K I got the worst hax in this battle and lost, but I guess that's what makes battling fun.
J9EG-WWWW-WW2R-836S This was a battle I had to timer stall against a shedninja and knew I had a good chance of winning without the timer, but I wanted to be safe and stalled and the timer would have expired the turn after the battle ended so I would have won even if my salamence had fainted. My own shedninja never got me into a stall, but it was still useful for switching into attacks.

 

[orangeflood]

So many of my wins came from me leading with greninja and them leading with PDon. I'd swap in POgre for my other pokemon and have greninja use scald for an easy KO. I stopped winning when that stopped working.

 

[cant say]

I did for Raikou. After about the 20th time, I just said to hell with it. At least getting HP Ice on something like Manectric just takes some chain breeding. With this, it's just pure luck. Maybe I'm just getting too old...

For Thundurus specifically though, it's barely worth it since he goes down in 1 or 2 super effective hits anyway. I'd rather just use something like Knock Off to nuke their item and leave the Grounds and Dragons to a teammate.

Maybe I'll try again when I start Alpha Sapphire over again, but I doubt it.

Wow, 20 whole tries? That's seriously nothing. Maybe it would be worth it if you checked out the Soft Resetting in Gen VI Guide over in OI. I'm also working on a version of it to go on-site so I'm comfortable answering any questions about it if you want to PM me.

As for Thundurus I have to disagree. He barely has a singles analysis without HP Ice and it's used on 82% of them in BSS, as for Doubles, 44% usage is still high enough to make it worth it imo

I've seen a Moon Ball Greninja so there are definitely some hackers in this :/

For the record, I also encountered shiny Kyogre. Really weird how they let so many obviously hacked Pokemon through.

I had no idea that hackers found a way to get pokemon that get a messed-up advantage past the hack check (if there even is one any more) which is just sad and completely ruins the fun in battling.

I didn't see any hacked pokemon in my battles, but people using shiny primals may still be disqualified when they tally the ranking and they could change losses to wins if nintendo gets their act together, but that's a big maybe and I also can't believe they were even allowed to enter.

Pretty sure their hack check is just for legal move and ability combinations. Shininess and Ball type isn't, however those things do not give a competitive edge to the player using them (unless they have something in an Apricorn ball and it's HA, that would throw me off) so it's probably not important to Nintendo. It is a shame though, I've run into my fair share of illegally shiny legendaries (shoutout to the guy using a shiny Zapdos last season in singles that DCed as soon as I took it out, lol).

Just played a match against a Shiny Groudon as well that was curiously not holding it's Primal Orb. I assume the guy was training it and just forgot to put it back on for some reason. Or he thought regular Groudon was better than Primal because of the extra weakness, but the ability more than makes up for it.

Ok sure Primal Groudon is pretty tough but maybe he was using a Choice Band, or a Macho Brace if it was on a Trick Room team. There are a whole bunch of things it could have been doing before claiming the trainer messed up. This is coming from the guy who accidentally entered a Lucky Egg Mewtwo in a previous comp, lol.

 

[Hulavuta]

I did for Raikou. After about the 20th time, I just said to hell with it. At least getting HP Ice on something like Manectric just takes some chain breeding. With this, it's just pure luck. Maybe I'm just getting too old...

For Thundurus specifically though, it's barely worth it since he goes down in 1 or 2 super effective hits anyway. I'd rather just use something like Knock Off to nuke their item and leave the Grounds and Dragons to a teammate.

Maybe I'll try again when I start Alpha Sapphire over again, but I doubt it.

I'm gonna have to agree with cant say here actually, HP Ice is pretty much a must have for Thundurus, the fact that it has gotten to 82% with how hard it is to get just shows how useful it is. Having every Ground-type switch you out is a major momentum advantage for your opponent.

I agree with the resetting thing though, it's just not worth it for me. I just trade with other people who have already SRed.

 

[a0161613]

I did for Raikou. After about the 20th time, I just said to hell with it. At least getting HP Ice on something like Manectric just takes some chain breeding. With this, it's just pure luck. Maybe I'm just getting too old...

For Thundurus specifically though, it's barely worth it since he goes down in 1 or 2 super effective hits anyway. I'd rather just use something like Knock Off to nuke their item and leave the Grounds and Dragons to a teammate.

Maybe I'll try again when I start Alpha Sapphire over again, but I doubt it.

Can't say has already pointed you to the soft reset guide but it's your point about Manectric that caught my eye.

All it takes is a couple of Ditto and knowledge of how breeding works. (Time Machine breeding is awesome.)

 

[Roxachronic]

I like using Sableye with Role Play, nobody expects it,lol.

Altaria has been good for me having Cloud Nine Preevo is nice, hell i think Cloud Nine should be almost a staple against Primal Groudon, is the most consistent way to kill it.

 

[Moody Magikarp]

It may have been me, but I didn't save the video if it was. Ludicolo with Kyogre has always been a good combination and it's pretty clear why. With swift swim, fake out and coverage moves for everything resisting water spout/origin pulse, I swept several people with them...



You know you can practice on pokemon showdown to test and modify your team and get used to the format. I also realized I needed a dragon when I was testing.

I only saw one trainer with a Shedinja, so I'm about 90% sure it was you, lol.


And I tested a bit on showdown, It luckily helped me eliminate a few Pokes that had zero chance taking either of the Primal's STAB moves or supporting the team in anyway. But my main team fell through as soon as I figured out I wouldn't get Omega Ruby in time. I was planning a defensive Groudon to set up stealth Rock to punish switches, and come in to sweep after I eliminated the other teams Kyorge with rock polish. I replaced him with defensive Garchomp who I used like twice all tour.


It was pretty much all Salamence(Mega), Cresselia, Thundy, and the Whale for most matches. I had Altaria too, but for some reason, I forgot to mega evolve a few times when using her since I’m so used to using standard Altaria, and I ate a few Dragon Pluses as a result. So she stayed in the box unless there was something that could OHKO Salamence with an ice type move, or the opposing team was very weak to fairy. Even then, it's lackluster speed kept me from using it more.

I'm sure if I had both I could have inched over the 30 win mark, but I did good enough for a noob to doubles.

So many of my wins came from me leading with greninja and them leading with PDon. I'd swap in POgre for my other pokemon and have greninja use scald for an easy KO. I stopped winning when that stopped working.

Yeah, I pummeled people the first time I played them and often lost on the rematch because everyone knew what my plan was. I started to win again once I started to switch things up a bit. By far my favorite part of the tour though was when I used Thundurus to taunt a Smeargle which I was expecting spore from, and turned out, it was freaking Dark Void! I assume it was scarfed too since it attacked clean after the taunt. I proceeded to OHKO it with a Cresselia Psychic (a crit, but I doubt it would have survived anyway, even with Cress’s weak attacks). Definitively my highlight of the tour since I hate cheap shot artist.

Wow, 20 whole tries? That's seriously nothing. Maybe it would be worth it if you checked out the Soft Resetting in Gen VI Guide over in OI. I'm also working on a version of it to go on-site so I'm comfortable answering any questions about it if you want to PM me.


As for Thundurus I have to disagree. He barely has a singles analysis without HP Ice and it's used on 82% of them in BSS, as for Doubles, 44% usage is still high enough to make it worth it imo.




Ok sure Primal Groudon is pretty tough but maybe he was using a Choice Band, or a Macho Brace if it was on a Trick Room team. There are a whole bunch of things it could have been doing before claiming the trainer messed up. This is coming from the guy who accidentally entered a Lucky Egg Mewtwo in a previous comp, lol.

Thanks for the link. I'll have to use it in the near future. My Thundurus and Cresselia both have neutral natures and it showed during the tour in some matches, so I might as well go for a different HP on T as well. His current one his electric of all types, lol.


And I'll never know if it was a trick room team since I aimed every thing I had at his Dusclops because I was afraid of a burn. That easily could have been the room setter, so good thing I did...


Still think it's 100% better to have PDon though, as without Desolate Land set up, he's essentially a sitting duck.

I'm gonna have to agree with cant say here actually, HP Ice is pretty much a must have for Thundurus, the fact that it has gotten to 82% with how hard it is to get just shows how useful it is. Having every Ground-type switch you out is a major momentum advantage for your opponent.


I agree with the resetting thing though, it's just not worth it for me. I just trade with other people who have already SRed.

Yeah, I actually faced a few more with HP Ice, so it's much more common than I thought. I don't trust trades much though. I'd much rather just do it first hand.

I'll probably just Pokebank the one I have to Y.

Can't say has already pointed you to the soft reset guide but it's your point about Manectric that caught my eye.

All it takes is a couple of Ditto and knowledge of how breeding works. (Time Machine breeding is awesome.)

The hardest part is finding a poke with the 30's in the stats you need and it's even worse when it's Genderless like Magezone and it has to be a Ditto. It's the only thing that's made me consider grabbing a Ditto that is rigged for HP Fire.

I hope like hell Game Freak changes this next gen as it's by far the most tedious aspect of breeding imo.

 

[Hulavuta]

Moody Magikarp most traders on Smogon are reliable, it's easy to see who has a good reputation and there are a few SRers who are very well-known. Hackers are shut down by the staff if they're caught (which is most of the time).

 

[Moody Magikarp]

Moody Magikarp most traders on Smogon are reliable, it's easy to see who has a good reputation and there are a few SRers who are very well-known. Hackers are shut down by the staff if they're caught (which is most of the time).

I'll try that then.

I thought you meant on the standard GTS which of course is a complete no-no.

 

[Kong Harald]

Has anyone had any success with trick room yet? Seems quite hard to use in this meta...