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Bro thinks he cooked.... There's no use of bulking hoopa with max max hp def when u can't ko with ice punch after 1 speed drop on landorus-t.
Uh when I use basic mathematics, rock tomb + ice punch damage according to ur calc is 14.6 + 73.5 (highest rolls) = 88.1%.
Bro thinks he cooked.... There's no use of bulking hoopa with max max hp def when u can't ko with ice punch after 1 speed drop on landorus-t.
Uh when I use basic mathematics, rock tomb + ice punch damage according to ur calc is 14.6 + 73.5 (highest rolls) = 88.1%.
naa this set is cringe! Me and Tgo used to use this when there was no u-turn shit in meta and we wanted to survive choice banded close combat move.
Now about the set ur talking, Not every Landorus-Therian needs U-turn to fight vs
Just to counter 1 mon (where winning chance is like 1-2%), you are just ruining other matchups with no assault vest or any choice item.
Banded/Life Orb/Av any sort of set can clap ur set.
Banded Landorus-T
0 Atk Choice Band Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hoopa-Unbound: 220-259 (60.4 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Choice Band Landorus-Therian U-turn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hoopa-Unbound: 408-484 (112 - 132.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Damage In return by hoopa-u if u are able to outspeed even after 1 speed drop (WHICH ISN'T POSSIBLE)
-1 0 Atk Hoopa-Unbound Rock Tomb vs. 168 HP / 0 Def Landorus-Therian: 48-57 (13.2 - 15.7%) -- possible 7HKO
-1 0 Atk Hoopa-Unbound Ice Punch vs. 168 HP / 0 Def Landorus-Therian: 240-284 (66.4 - 78.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
LO Landorus-T
No Need Of U-Turn when u can just win by clicking bulk up t1 or eq t1
AV Landorus-T
Buldoze + Earthquake and ur dead
Don't even think to disrespect again by saying walls it
my volcarona is 300 speed, urs is 299
if u psychic I calm mind/hydro cannon
wisp loses to specs, all chi yu lose to spa invest scarf
252 Atk Choice Band Protean Meowscarada Giga Impact vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Chi-Yu: 393-463 (156.5 - 184.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO, u could run 252 hp 252 def to win but atp ur just running a bad set (which as we established w crown does not make smth good)
ok I trailblaze t1 with offensive pon and win
u win against urshifu (the dark one at least) but the opportunity cost is not worth running at all but now u lose to ursaluna which u countered earlier as well as losing to ogerpon (which again u countered earlier) and also losing to things like zapdos (which im pretty sure u beat earlier)
I would say the same thing what driplegend said that if u think chi-yu isn't that good/balanced, ask RADU to make 1 ubers chi-yu thread thing if it's possible (completely bad idea though lol). I would say start checking this metagame discussion thread from page 1 and you will see what sort of sets were made and why it got banned? The sets made are still viable and broken or not? https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/inferno-chi-yu-quickbanned.3714580/
Water types not named primarina seem extremely good right now (might be the most overrated pokemon in the tier). and friends are insanely good. Blastoise especially. Run life orb and watch it delete stuff.
I agree with bobobson that is top tier. Insane preview pressure and its choice sets are useable. Not a fan of overly quirky sets though, just play into the pokemons strengths and its solid.
is still stupid, mostly cause its ability is so rng-creating. Way too many dark type pokemon lose if they get a single confusion hit and given its a pecharunt its always getting at least 1 malignant chain off.
One last thing: I am tired of the uncertainty that brings.
Yes this pokemon is beatable. Yes, its defense is terrible.
But when you're staring it down at preview unless you have a few very specific counters it never feels safe to click versus it.
It totally may be a skill issue on my end, but this pokemon is just not fun from a teambuilding and playing perspective.
Its raw versatility means that you can't outbulk it on the physical or special side and all it needs to do to 3-0 so many teams is just randomly slot in a coverage move or trick or something random, etc.
One last thing: I am tired of the uncertainty that brings.
Yes this pokemon is beatable. Yes, its defense is terrible.
But when you're staring it down at preview unless you have a few very specific counters it never feels safe to click versus it.
It totally may be a skill issue on my end, but this pokemon is just not fun from a teambuilding and playing perspective.
Its raw versatility means that you can't outbulk it on the physical or special side and all it needs to do to 3-0 so many teams is just randomly slot in a coverage move or trick or something random, etc.
I was going to write a post about this thing tomorrow, but I'll just make a shorter one to say that I agree. Hoopa-U is way too versatile and it's not healthy when a lot of the argument for keeping this Pokemon comes down to it losing to random Bug-type moves. I really do not want to build in a metagame in which this Pokemon is likely the best Pokemon in the tier, and really would not want to see this thing be around for PL.
I will probably write a more streamlined and expansive version of this later, but we don't need any action on Hoopa-U.
The versatility of a mon always has to be weighed with the opportunity cost of each set and the fact that it cannot be every set at once. People overcomplicate mons with any amount of set diversity, and this is no exception. Looking at its main sets (AV, Specs, Band, Custap, Scarf) all of them lose a good few core matchups while typically gaining less. You can reasonably split your hoopa checks to cover less likely sets, this mon loses all aura on preview immediately. Further, nicher sets (Things like fast taunt sets, mixed LO) are even worse at preserving core matchups. At that point, the ambiguity of its previews is directly a disadvantage for it.
It is obviously the best dark type in the tier and nearing the best psychic, and possibly the highest skill mon in the tier, but it's not broken and doesn't need action imo.
Its basically complex ban territory but quite literally 2 mons get Multiscale (the other being fucking lugia) so I don’t really know why Dragonite is being gatekept like this zero reason
Its basically complex ban territory but quite literally 2 mons get Multiscale (the other being fucking lugia) so I don’t really know why Dragonite is being gatekept like this zero reason
y'all i'm gonna be completely honest the metagame discussion chat in 1v1 has been nothing more than toxicity every single day, i know that saying it won't change anything and i know that someone like drip could say that i should be the change i wish to see, but it's not something i'm highly worried about rn, what i am worried about rn is people just spreading misinformation and getting super salty over different opinions, as much as i hate mini-modding felucia is in loa and lost heros is busy with tlt so: please take it easy in there, for the sake of the community. i'm not saying it as a council member or someone with status i'm genuinely like worried about y'all so please just relax, and discuss.
now as a council member uhhh i guess i do have stuff to say about the recent developments in the metagame and what people are saying in both discord and smogon, so i shall try.
- now people are really throwing around the meaning of a complex ban and stuff and there's a whole thread so i'll just give you the tl;dr of that, banning multiscale is not a complex ban, it is a regular ban with the added effect of unbanning a specific pokemon. that said i will regurgitate what radu said earlier, it is (for the most part) a signature ability. it is exclusive to dragonite and lugia and while lugia is an uber with humongo stats that shouldn't even be considered, dragonite has middling to good stats while having multiscale and a huge movepool that includes encore, roost, dragon dance, etc. point is that this guy is broken af, in part thanks to multiscale, in part thanks to other stuff like its great movepool, now the main reason why this shouldn't be allowed is because this isn't how tiering works, you may think it doesn't matter, but sometimes it do, because this would be like banning libero just because cinderace has it even though raboot is right there and it's terrible, opposite example include how diglett saw use after dugtrio got banned due to arena trap, or bidoof using moody in ubers, and this is sort of why we mainly ban pokemon, not abilities or moves or items, we never banned booster energy even though that's what made scream tail, flutter and gouging really good and also what makes iron valiant unhealthy to some, we never banned dire claw despite complaints due to it being a move stuck on a pokemon that only would use it for losing matchups or for the double poison move, and we never banned multiscale for 5 years and we chose to ban dragonite instead.
tl;dr multiscale is probably not getting banned.
i don't feel like talking about hoopa-u atm maybe i'll do it later. once again i ask that your posts remain in-place and that debates in #meta-discussion remain civil, ty and gn.
imagine being in the 1v1 discord smh! I WILL BE MAKING A BIGGER, MORE EXPANSIVE AND MASSIVE POST "LATER" DETAILING EVERY SINGLE MATCHUP WITH HOOPA-UNBOUND, EVERY SET AND MOVE AND EV SPREAD AS WELL.
- now people are really throwing around the meaning of a complex ban and stuff and there's a whole thread so i'll just give you the tl;dr of that, banning multiscale is not a complex ban, it is a regular ban with the added effect of unbanning a specific pokemon. that said i will regurgitate what radu said earlier, it is (for the most part) a signature ability. it is exclusive to dragonite and lugia and while lugia is an uber with humongo stats that shouldn't even be considered, dragonite has middling to good stats while having multiscale and a huge movepool that includes encore, roost, dragon dance, etc. point is that this guy is broken af, in part thanks to multiscale, in part thanks to other stuff like its great movepool, now the main reason why this shouldn't be allowed is because this isn't how tiering works, you may think it doesn't matter, but sometimes it do, because this would be like banning libero just because cinderace has it even though raboot is right there and it's terrible, opposite example include how diglett saw use after dugtrio got banned due to arena trap, or bidoof using moody in ubers, and this is sort of why we mainly ban pokemon, not abilities or moves or items, we never banned booster energy even though that's what made scream tail, flutter and gouging really good and also what makes iron valiant unhealthy to some, we never banned dire claw despite complaints due to it being a move stuck on a pokemon that only would use it for losing matchups or for the double poison move, and we never banned multiscale for 5 years and we chose to ban dragonite instead.
Unlike your examples Dragonite doesn't have a baby form or any other mon that gets Multiscale that can be used, unlike something with Libero (because at least Raboot was somewhat viable?) so I think Dragonite could be interesting to use with the addition of Encore.
Also Hoopa kinda mid ngl, hard to fit on teams but yes it is annoying so I personally wouldn't care if it got banned
and maybe axe half of the sv council cuz it takes centuries to ban one guy
- now people are really throwing around the meaning of a complex ban and stuff and there's a whole thread so i'll just give you the tl;dr of that, banning multiscale is not a complex ban, it is a regular ban with the added effect of unbanning a specific pokemon. that said i will regurgitate what radu said earlier, it is (for the most part) a signature ability. it is exclusive to dragonite and lugia and while lugia is an uber with humongo stats that shouldn't even be considered, dragonite has middling to good stats while having multiscale and a huge movepool that includes encore, roost, dragon dance, etc. point is that this guy is broken af, in part thanks to multiscale, in part thanks to other stuff like its great movepool, now the main reason why this shouldn't be allowed is because this isn't how tiering works, you may think it doesn't matter, but sometimes it do, because this would be like banning libero just because cinderace has it even though raboot is right there and it's terrible, opposite example include how diglett saw use after dugtrio got banned due to arena trap, or bidoof using moody in ubers, and this is sort of why we mainly ban pokemon, not abilities or moves or items, we never banned booster energy even though that's what made scream tail, flutter and gouging really good and also what makes iron valiant unhealthy to some, we never banned dire claw despite complaints due to it being a move stuck on a pokemon that only would use it for losing matchups or for the double poison move, and we never banned multiscale for 5 years and we chose to ban dragonite instead.
tl;dr multiscale is probably not getting banned.
This post fails to realize why I mentioned the thought of unbanning Multiscale in the first place.
The comparison of libero, moody, or booster energy is a poor argument when other Pokémon get the move. Yes lugia gets Multiscale but realistically w/o it, lugia will still be banned and a suspect is a waste of time.
In this tier, Dragonite is the sworn user of Multiscale. You have also failed the realization of the banning of last respects in ou and especially power construct in ss 1v1. Dire claw is just rng the move but from what I’ve seen, nothing really changes even if it was ban.
Your reasoning for the banning of Dragonite instead did Multiscale is flawed and in this specific case with Dragonite, it doesn’t matter. At most, it’ll matter for different tiers since Dragonite has a different movepool across gens, Even if a sv dnite was busted, a fucking bw dnite wouldn’t in my dyes.
Tbh your post seems to be super flawed with why Dragonite should be banned instead of Multiscale with things that realistically aren’t comparable to Multiscale when in this case, Dragonite is the sole user unlike stuff like booster energy, libero.
Which justifies the banning of only Multiscale even more.
There are two conditions that must be met in order to ban an ability or move instead of the Pokemon using them.
1) The ability / move must be broken on every abuser. These are 6v6 examples but you see this with stuff like Arena Trap, where people were using Diglett once Dugtrio was banned, leading to an Arena Trap ban. A 1v1 example of this condition not being met would be Libero, where Libero Raboot is perfectly fine, but Libero Cinderace is too much. While this condition is technically met due to the lack of weak abusers, in theory there could be reasonable Multiscale Pokemon in the future.
2) There must be multiple abusers that would be legal if the ability / move is banned. This condition is not met since Dragonite would be the only Pokemon unbanned from a Multiscale ban. Lugia would still be way too much for the tier. Some precedent of this (again 6v6 but still) is the Last Respects situation. All of the abusers were broken, but at first there was only one abuser (Houndstone), so the abuser was banned, but when another abuser was introduced (Basculegion), the move was banned instead.
I know people will and have brought up the SS Zygarde ban, it's a weird situation since technically all of the Zygarde forms are under one Pokedex number, so I don't know.
Either way, banning Multiscale over Dragonite, like it or not, is just against tiering policy.
This post fails to realize why I mentioned the thought of unbanning Multiscale in the first place.
The comparison of libero, moody, or booster energy is a poor argument when other Pokémon get the move. Yes lugia gets Multiscale but realistically w/o it, lugia will still be banned and a suspect is a waste of time.
In this tier, Dragonite is the sworn user of Multiscale. You have also failed the realization of the banning of last respects in ou and especially power construct in ss 1v1. Dire claw is just rng the move but from what I’ve seen, nothing really changes even if it was ban.
Your reasoning for the banning of Dragonite instead did Multiscale is flawed and in this specific case with Dragonite, it doesn’t matter. At most, it’ll matter for different tiers since Dragonite has a different movepool across gens, Even if a sv dnite was busted, a fucking bw dnite wouldn’t in my dyes.
Tbh your post seems to be super flawed with why Dragonite should be banned instead of Multiscale with things that realistically aren’t comparable to Multiscale when in this case, Dragonite is the sole user unlike stuff like booster energy, libero.
Which justifies the banning of only Multiscale even more.
Except this is still a fundamental deviation from standard tiering practice.
RTM put it above the best in that we don't tier in order to try to nerf or buff pokemon. That's not our job.
Sure multiscale is only legal on Dragonite, and maybe if we only have Inner Focus Dragonite, it will probably be balanced, but that opens up the question for a lot of other weird bans and weird questions.
Would Regidrago be fine if we only remove Dragon Energy?
Would Archaludon be fine if we only remove Electro Shot?
Would Magearna be fine without Fleur Cannon?
If we start looking at some of our top tier pokemon who *may* be overbearing:
Would Iron Crown be considered less banworthy without Tachyon Cutter?
Would Hoopa-U be easier to deal with if there's no Hyperspace Fury?
The list goes on. Even though these bans aren't technically complex, they all still target a unique element to try and bring the overall abuser in line with the rest of the tier, and while this may sound appealing, this goes against the predominant smogon philosophy that we tier whole elements to the best of our ability.
One last thing: I am tired of the uncertainty that brings.
Yes this pokemon is beatable. Yes, its defense is terrible.
But when you're staring it down at preview unless you have a few very specific counters it never feels safe to click versus it.
It totally may be a skill issue on my end, but this pokemon is just not fun from a teambuilding and playing perspective.
Its raw versatility means that you can't outbulk it on the physical or special side and all it needs to do to 3-0 so many teams is just randomly slot in a coverage move or trick or something random, etc.
I WILL BE MAKING A BIGGER, MORE EXPANSIVE AND MASSIVE POST "LATER" DETAILING EVERY SINGLE MATCHUP WITH HOOPA-UNBOUND, EVERY SET AND MOVE AND EV SPREAD AS WELL.
Keep seeing little things I disagree with whenever ppl dm me/ask for tests/a certain tft player pings me and I realized how little exists talking about the actual game of 1v1. Don't have the time or will for a proper guide but (maybe) enjoy some annotated discord messages.
I've never found it very helpful to analyze picking patterns over a large sum of games/series. Every preview is different and everyone is always capable of making switchups.
If someone has 15 replays where they load 2 standards + a quirky and they always pick a quirky, there will be no replays where the thought process was "im gonna click the quirky bc thats what i always do." Assuming they are trying to win, there something that they are seeing that makes them think its just the best option (the set flipping a matchup, the set being a practical 3-0, their opponent having an unset etc.).
RE: above point. "Assuming they are trying to win" is not a given assumption (it probably is in PL). By nature, the game of 1v1 gets partially spoiled if someone literally rng clicks or just picks stuff they think will look fun to win with. Theres some hedging of that effect by loading better mons/finding midgrounds but bad faith play is capable of beating good faith play.
In general, I dont think lures (like occa metagross type stuff) are a great thing to load for the above reasons. Even if they hit, theres often still some level of uncertainity + more often than not multiple different types of uncertainity. You should be able to feel good about everything you click in 1v1.
The cognitive element of 1v1 being this way is why its always better to have a player that builds for themself than one who doesnt assuming equal levels of play/team quality. Its way easier to figure out the material facts of a preview when you are extremely familiar with your own teams strengths and weaknesseses.
tried to avoid absolute dictums cuz im washed after 1 good tour + every now and then theres a player like tears/giboney who can find consistent success doing things in ways no one else can even think to. Rooting for mega rays.
I've never found it very helpful to analyze picking patterns over a large sum of games/series. Every preview is different and everyone is always capable of making switchups.
I think generally speaking the view of watching whether people consistently pick 2-1s or 1-2s is wrong, because it boils thing down to a much too simplistic level. The reality is that there's a psychological factor I try to target that is "That Pokemon is scary into this preview, so this pick is kinda forced" and the way people react to this sentiment is somewhat consistent. There's a level of back and forth where people predict you will click into that specific Pokemon, and then people predict that you will think that, and it's a layered thought of where do you sit in that pyramid. And this is only on the basis of having the one key Pokemon that is scary, but the logistics apply for other thoughts like "I have two 2-1s but one of them is more reliable than the other" or when 50/50s and sequencing are involved.
In a scenario where a mon is a pseudo 3-0, there's a distinction between those who will click their best odds into it and those who will hope the opponent chokes and click one of the other two, and while it varies from MU to MU, I think certain people will be pretty consistent in their thinking during these scenarios.
When it comes to lures I think they are difficult to justify because you are already so vulnerable to many mons with a standard team, and unless your lure set is able to make a viable team composition (which either ends up giving you hella 1-2 mus or otherwise it's not actually a lure but just a good set) you end up punishing yourself in the hopes that it works, but the thing is: it works if you're smart about it. There's a certain privilege good players have that goes "there is no way he's just 3-0d by primarina"; if you're against someone who will respect this thought and you are able to mask your own sets in a way that cloaks that vulnerability, the lure becomes much stronger. I think in these scenarios people may even be scared to click the mon that looks like a 3-0, afraid of getting lured, which circles back to the fact that lures aren't actually worthwhile if your team looks 3-0d, you should always have a semi potential counter to it: which in turn means that the opponent may recognize the unreliable MU and pick something else entirely. Basically it requires a severe level of thought that nobody ever achieves if not by accident.
If 1v1 was an international esport with severe money on the line I think we would see much more in-depth and ridiculous shit, but the bottleneck of the tournament scene is that people rarely go beyond the "unset -> cover hitlist" ceiling.
Last tangent I wanna touch on that I think influences the 1v1 mindset pretty severely is luck: and I will stand my ground and say luck is a skill. As a person in control of their own teams, I gravitate towards mons that make me have a fallback instead of a liability. As the generic example, if your zardy counter is crustle, you are at the mercy of the air slash flinch, while from my pov even if I get outclicked i have my outs of winning. Given two equal skill players that consistently outclick each other and a long enough amount of games, the crustle zardy interaction will be played so much that even if we pick evenly I will still win 30% of all my losing matches, and come out on top. In the opposing scenario, I wouldn't even wanna pick crustle, cause I don't wanna be right and have to dodge that flinch. I think this has somehow gotten forgotten over the years, because years ago running focus blast on your mons was unheard of, and yet nowadays you stumble into people complaining about luck this and luck that while their gameplan into certain mons is "hit these inaccurate moves all in a row and don't get crit in the process".
When it comes to lures I think they are difficult to justify because you are already so vulnerable to many mons with a standard team, and unless your lure set is able to make a viable team composition (which either ends up giving you hella 1-2 mus or otherwise it's not actually a lure but just a good set) you end up punishing yourself in the hopes that it works, but the thing is: it works if you're smart about it. There's a certain privilege good players have that goes "there is no way he's just 3-0d by primarina"; if you're against someone who will respect this thought and you are able to mask your own sets in a way that cloaks that vulnerability, the lure becomes much stronger. I think in these scenarios people may even be scared to click the mon that looks like a 3-0, afraid of getting lured, which circles back to the fact that lures aren't actually worthwhile if your team looks 3-0d, you should always have a semi potential counter to it: which in turn means that the opponent may recognize the unreliable MU and pick something else entirely. Basically it requires a severe level of thought that nobody ever achieves if not by accident.
If 1v1 was an international esport with severe money on the line I think we would see much more in-depth and ridiculous shit, but the bottleneck of the tournament scene is that people rarely go beyond the "unset -> cover hitlist" ceiling.
I don't disagree with this. I should have been more precise in my wording, since tailoring a preview to force a certain reaction is the core premise of 1v1 prep. I'm strongly in favor of running offsets. One of the most powerful things in 1v1 is when you have a non-standard set that 2-1s but your opponents 1 mon looks inferior to the other choices from their pov. Was more referring to teams that are reliant on your opponent reacting to your preview in one highly specific way and has a highly compromised set that doesn't beat anything / loses matchups it cannot afford to lose. Obviously these teams still have a place, I've loaded them and many ppl better than me have too. It's more that they require a ton of thought and a lot of new players tend to treat them as the default when you are usually pretty content to just modify a val/volcanion/dragon. The cost of running jank is certainty and if the set isn't something you are willing to just put on any team then you need to really make sure you are getting your moneys worth.
Been a while since i've posted, but with LT going on I have come to the realization that people have forgotten how to play LT over the years. I was fortunate to have other people teach me how to ladder, but it seems we're lacking in that these days. So, as someone with some experience with these things, I figured I would share with yall how I personally climb in a LT environment (hint: it's not hard)
General Useful Knowledge
Before getting into the actual process of laddering, I would like to begin with some just general things you need to know in advance. First, LT is actually much easier than normal ladder. This is entirely because during LT games are forced to be public. This removes about 90% of the risk involved in queueing high ladder and ensures that you can be consistent in your snipes. Second, you do not need to be good at 1v1 to climb. The only trait you need is patience. If you're willing to spend time being thorough in your cteams and snipes then you will be successful no matter who you are. Finally, nothing really matters until an hour before deadline. Don't worry if you accidentally throw your account on Sunday. Simply keep queuing because anything is possible in that final hour. I've seen multiple people begin Sunday 500+ elo behind everyone else and finish in the first seed. Obviously this isn't to say that you should recklessly queue because losing doesn't matter, but if you fall a bit don't tilt because it's never over until deadline passes.
Different LT Strategies
There are a few ways to go about playing LT. There are those that try you could consider frontrunners who try and get ahead early and maintain that lead throughout the whole cycle. There are those that just try and keep within striking distance until Sunday. Then they try and push to overtake in the final hours. Then there are those that only try on Sunday and try to ride the Sunday rush to success. From my experience these strategies are mostly about a tradeoff of effort or reliability. Personally speaking, I think that frontrunning is the most reliable way to qualify so I will be focusing on that. This is because if you do it well, you can avoid getting caught up in the Sunday rush. It does require more effort than the other strategies, but as long as you're patient and diligent you should qualify.
From here on out I will be explaining the actual process of laddering.
Beginning Your Account and Low Ladder
It is important to begin your account early if you are going to frontrun in LT. You will need all the time you can get to build a lead, so it's best to start as soon as you can. The first couple hours after a new cycle starts can be a bit hellish similar to suspects, but after that things should quiet down and that's when you should lock in. First thing you're going to do is try and climb to around the top 100 elo of the current active ladder. If everyone online queueing is 1300, you want to be 1300 or higher. If everyone is 1400 then you'll want to be 1400 or higher. This is why i advocate starting as early as possible. As the week progresses this bar will get higher and higher and you need to be at it to consistently snipe anyone. Unfortunately, I don't have a ton I can help you with here. This is the one part of ladder that will require you to actually play semi honest 1v1. What I will say is either queue stuff you're comfy with or make a quick 2 minute team from scratch and edit it as you go. Personally, I think it is best to use matchup fish mons on ladder instead of necessarily picking top tiers. Mons that have served me well in the past are Roaring Moon, Kyurem, Garchomp, Skeledirge, Hoopa-U, Ninetales-Alola (although this one risks being cteamed by random steel move). Of course, keep experimenting with your team(s) as you go. Different mons will excel at different times of the day, and ideally you find mons that 3-0 a substantial number of people on ladder to consistently win. Additionally, try and keep at least two of your accounts close to each other in elo if not all three. Once you hit an elo goal on one account swap to the other and get it up as well. That way you can always get a new elo high, but you can never fall because you have a packup.
Beginning Your Lead
Once you're towards the top of the early leaderboard, what you're going to do is begin cteaming people who are online at the time. Note that this is not sniping. You will still be queueing freely, but you know how often on the 1v1 ladder you will encounter the same 3 people over and over again? Find pokemon that beat these three people and put them on a team together. It does not matter if your team loses to primarina if nobody is running primarina at the time. If there are more than three people you're running into at once either consider taking a break or fall back on comfort teams that got you up in the first place. Doing this should be enough get you to the top of the early leaderboard however. Also, get at least two accounts up here if possible it will make your life much easier. From here the real laddering starts.
Extending Your Lead
Once you're around first on the leaderboard and idk 1500 or so you will begin your sniping campaign. This will take a lot of time as you get higher up, but it is how you position yourself to make Sunday as stress free as possible. First thing you're going to do is you're going to open two PS tabs. One of them you will be signed into your LT account on, and on the other you will remain logged out. This is most easily done through an incognito tab, but there are other ways so whichever one works best for you. On the tab that you're logged into your LT account on, leave all chatrooms. It is important that people aren't aware that you're laddering otherwise they might try and avoid being sniped. Instead, you will remain in your rooms signed out on the other tab which you will also be using for your scouting. Sniping is like trying to jumpscare someone. If they know you're coming then they will prepare themselves to not be scared to it's important that you hide all traces of yourself. What you're going to do next is you're going to open up a new empty team. I see too many people who continue to spam the same teams as they go only to get sniped and cteamed themselves. This empty team will be what you use for all your games from here on out. You will be editing it constantly so don't get too attached to anything. What you're going to do is you're going to watch the three highest people on ladder that are within your sniping sphere. A decent rule of thumb is if you're within 200 elo you can try queueing into someone, but after that it's pointless. So if you're 1500, the lowest id recommend going is 1300, but even then i wouldnt aim for anyone below 1400 personally. While you're scouting keep track of a few things. Are they spamming the same team every game? Are they queueing again immediately after playing? These things are important for making sure you actually successfully snipe them. After scouting the top three highest players on ladder for a bit, make one cteam for each of them that you think could be a consistent target and put them on your empty team. Most people these days don't know how to protect themselves from a snipe so this should be pretty reliable. What I will say is don't worry about how cursed it looks. As long as it beats the people you can queue into reliable then that's all that matters. Prioritize reliability over everything else and don't worry about what 3-0s you if your targets aren't running it. I was queueing triple dark into triple dragon at pretty high elos and people thought I was crazy but it was really just to maximize my odds of winning because everyone lost to them. Everything you queue should be entirely cteams because you'll only be sniping. Also, don't get too attached to them because you'll be editing this often. Then what you're going to do is you're going to wait for one of them to get a bit farther ahead of the others, finish a game, and then you're going to try queueing into them. When queueing on PS, for the first 3-5 seconds it will say "Connecting". You probably won't find a game at this point in time. After that it will say "Searching". This is when your queue range begins to expand outwards. You want to keep this range small so only queue for 5-10 seconds after the "Searching" begins. The longer you queue, the more likely you are to find someone unintended. Instead, keep your queue range small and let their queue range come to you. Keep an eye on ongoing games and keep queueing and cancelling until either they find you or they find someone else. If they find a game stop your queue immediately. No need to take unnecessary risks. Early on this process won't take very long because you'll be relatively close to the people you are trying to snipe, but by Friday and Saturday it can take hours for one snipe if you're playing it safe. By playing it safe however, you should win pretty much every game you come across. After a successful snipe simply repeat the process over and over and over again, taking your slowly higher and higher. Scout again, edit your cteams for the new targets, and cautiously queue until you get another one. Something else to keep an eye on is who is in the 1v1 room at the time. Keep an eye out for other high ranked players who might log on to snipe someone quick and leave. If you catch one of them on the userlist, either stop what you're doing and wait for them to leave, or if you are confident you have a cteam for them try and snipe their snipe for a potential big payout. Another key thing to know is that you cannot play the same person twice in a row. Don't let this be your demise, but you can also use it to your advantage. If you're looking to snipe the same person twice in a row because they're the only person online remotely close to you, make sure you play another game after you snipe them the first time. I'm not exactly sure the specifics of how this rule works, but from my experience I would just queue a randbats game real quick to reset it and wait for them to play a few games. You can also use this to eliminate someone from your potential queue pool. After sniping one person you can be relatively confident you won't play them again right away. This allows you to more safely snipe another person if there are a couple you could queue into. If you miss a snipe remain calm. As long as you're laddering slowly and scouting smartly you should know your opponent's entire team while they know none of yours. This provides you a massive advantage even if your team isn't necessarily super strong. Worst case scenario you lose and just go back to sniping it isn't the end of the world.
Try and continue increasing your lead every day until Sunday. The point of doing this is to try and avoid as much as the Sunday rush as possible so you'll want to be as far ahead as possible. During that time sniping is far more unreliable because there are so many people on also trying to snipe. Last LT I played in I was 100 elo above second place on both of my accounts by Saturday. This allowed me to play like one game on Sunday and I entirely avoided the Sunday rush and instead got to spend it trying to gatekeep on other non LT accounts I happened to be high up on. Alternatively you can try joining the Sunday rush on your second highest account and try to surpass your highest account relatively risk free. Worst case scenario is you lose that account. Only queue into the Sunday rush on your main when you have to, and do your best to instead suppress the others by cteaming and "being inefficient with your timer usage" 5 minutes before deadline. The actual process of sniping itself will be tedious, it will be boring, and there will be times when you don't actually find anyone. This is normal, and as long as you're staying in first then you are fine. Ideally you increase your lead every day, but whatever you do don't throw it all away while already in first. I'll be the first to admit I've spent entire saturdays just waiting for one snipe like a loser while working on homework on the side. It was extremely boring and I questioned if it was worth it, but I got my elo instead of forcing it and choking it all away. As long you maintain your patience you'll be fine.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Ladder Tour isn't hard. It's entirely a test of patience and understanding ladder mechanics. If you are able to get an early lead and then extend it farther and farther through sniping, then you will be able to entirely avoid the Sunday rush which is the biggest gamble of the entire ladder cycle. Ladder calmly, scout patiently, queue diligently and you will be able to consistently win games on high ladder. Your goal is to jump someone and rob them of their elo. They should not know you are coming until it is already too late. Only queue when you are certain that your cteam actually works, and get flexible with your cteams as well. Some really strong cteam mons right now are Hoopa-U and Meowscarada. Random coverage Hoopa is extremely broken on ladder for cteaming I've found myself running absolutely degenerate sets like Scarf with Tbolt, Fire Punch, and Trick to cteam multiple people at once. With Meowscarada a lot of people on ladder lose to Banded Low Kick or Specs sets. When in doubt for what to cteam someone with begin with those two, especially Hoopa he's unironically super broken in a ladder setting (haven't played in a tour so I can't speak for that but I wouldn't be surprised if he's broken there too) and it's a shame council has been silent for months no surveys or anything because he's a problem. Also for the love of god avoid getting lucked as much as possible. I've encountered scenarios where my options were default Raging Bolt or some degenerate Scarf Mixed Goodra-Hisui and I opted for the Goodra-Hisui because it outsped all of their mons and had 100% accurate moves. Always do everything in your power to avoid getting lucked. If you run hurricane then cry about missing or rely on not getting frozen by Kyurem for your cteam to work you deserve to lose.
Anyways that's all for now. I've been kinda disheartened by the quality of ladderers so hopefully people can step it up. People just spam the same few teams, nobody bothers trying to defend themselves from a snipe anymore, and without a deadline fuckup kickstarting the rush and LRXC hyping up it up I think the cycle would have ended unironically 30-40 elo lower. I don't mean for this to be entirely disparaging either. I think a lot of it just comes back to a lack of good ladderers for people to learn from. Yall keep laddering like youre xsc spamming the same few teams for hundreds of games on end im assuming because he's the only person yall know who can top ladder at will. If that works for you great, but personally I think there's a reason you'll also see him tilt hundreds of elo at a time multiple times a week. What I've tried to provide is an alternative that I've modeled after those that taught me how to ladder and has personally brought me consistent success over the years. It takes more effort, but if you stick to the plan it is far more reliable in my opinion because it gives you consistent impossible to lose matchups instead of relying on player skill and matchup luck. Ladder Tour is my favorite tour because it returns to my roots as a ladder kid so hopefully this can help someone out like others have helped me out. If wasn't as thorough as you were hoping or if this was a pain to read, too bad I couldn't care less. But, if you genuinely want clarification on anything feel free to reach out, whether I actually respond is a whole other question.
Let's be real who else is doing this. The story behind this account was simply that I was on vacation and bored waiting hours for the other people I was with to wake up every day so I just made a new account on mobile with no teams in the builder and started climbing because I'm not scrolling tiktok for 3 hours let's be real. It really shows that you don't need any resources or skills to climb as long as you're patient. I had zero teams, was trying to calc and scout on fucking mobile (punishment worthy of hell), and could only really try sniping for a couple of hours a day most until I eventually got home and finished the climb. All I did was cteam and snipe over and over that's all there is to it really.
Been a while since i've posted, but with LT going on I have come to the realization that people have forgotten how to play LT over the years. I was fortunate to have other people teach me how to ladder, but it seems we're lacking in that these days. So, as someone with some experience with these things, I figured I would share with yall how I personally climb in a LT environment (hint: it's not hard)
General Useful Knowledge
Before getting into the actual process of laddering, I would like to begin with some just general things you need to know in advance. First, LT is actually much easier than normal ladder. This is entirely because during LT games are forced to be public. This removes about 90% of the risk involved in queueing high ladder and ensures that you can be consistent in your snipes. Second, you do not need to be good at 1v1 to climb. The only trait you need is patience. If you're willing to spend time being thorough in your cteams and snipes then you will be successful no matter who you are. Finally, nothing really matters until an hour before deadline. Don't worry if you accidentally throw your account on Sunday. Simply keep queuing because anything is possible in that final hour. I've seen multiple people begin Sunday 500+ elo behind everyone else and finish in the first seed. Obviously this isn't to say that you should recklessly queue because losing doesn't matter, but if you fall a bit don't tilt because it's never over until deadline passes.
Different LT Strategies
There are a few ways to go about playing LT. There are those that try you could consider frontrunners who try and get ahead early and maintain that lead throughout the whole cycle. There are those that just try and keep within striking distance until Sunday. Then they try and push to overtake in the final hours. Then there are those that only try on Sunday and try to ride the Sunday rush to success. From my experience these strategies are mostly about a tradeoff of effort or reliability. Personally speaking, I think that frontrunning is the most reliable way to qualify so I will be focusing on that. This is because if you do it well, you can avoid getting caught up in the Sunday rush. It does require more effort than the other strategies, but as long as you're patient and diligent you should qualify.
From here on out I will be explaining the actual process of laddering.
Beginning Your Account and Low Ladder
It is important to begin your account early if you are going to frontrun in LT. You will need all the time you can get to build a lead, so it's best to start as soon as you can. The first couple hours after a new cycle starts can be a bit hellish similar to suspects, but after that things should quiet down and that's when you should lock in. First thing you're going to do is try and climb to around the top 100 elo of the current active ladder. If everyone online queueing is 1300, you want to be 1300 or higher. If everyone is 1400 then you'll want to be 1400 or higher. This is why i advocate starting as early as possible. As the week progresses this bar will get higher and higher and you need to be at it to consistently snipe anyone. Unfortunately, I don't have a ton I can help you with here. This is the one part of ladder that will require you to actually play semi honest 1v1. What I will say is either queue stuff you're comfy with or make a quick 2 minute team from scratch and edit it as you go. Personally, I think it is best to use matchup fish mons on ladder instead of necessarily picking top tiers. Mons that have served me well in the past are Roaring Moon, Kyurem, Garchomp, Skeledirge, Hoopa-U, Ninetales-Alola (although this one risks being cteamed by random steel move). Of course, keep experimenting with your team(s) as you go. Different mons will excel at different times of the day, and ideally you find mons that 3-0 a substantial number of people on ladder to consistently win. Additionally, try and keep at least two of your accounts close to each other in elo if not all three. Once you hit an elo goal on one account swap to the other and get it up as well. That way you can always get a new elo high, but you can never fall because you have a packup.
Beginning Your Lead
Once you're towards the top of the early leaderboard, what you're going to do is begin cteaming people who are online at the time. Note that this is not sniping. You will still be queueing freely, but you know how often on the 1v1 ladder you will encounter the same 3 people over and over again? Find pokemon that beat these three people and put them on a team together. It does not matter if your team loses to primarina if nobody is running primarina at the time. If there are more than three people you're running into at once either consider taking a break or fall back on comfort teams that got you up in the first place. Doing this should be enough get you to the top of the early leaderboard however. Also, get at least two accounts up here if possible it will make your life much easier. From here the real laddering starts.
Extending Your Lead
Once you're around first on the leaderboard and idk 1500 or so you will begin your sniping campaign. This will take a lot of time as you get higher up, but it is how you position yourself to make Sunday as stress free as possible. First thing you're going to do is you're going to open two PS tabs. One of them you will be signed into your LT account on, and on the other you will remain logged out. This is most easily done through an incognito tab, but there are other ways so whichever one works best for you. On the tab that you're logged into your LT account on, leave all chatrooms. It is important that people aren't aware that you're laddering otherwise they might try and avoid being sniped. Instead, you will remain in your rooms signed out on the other tab which you will also be using for your scouting. Sniping is like trying to jumpscare someone. If they know you're coming then they will prepare themselves to not be scared to it's important that you hide all traces of yourself. What you're going to do next is you're going to open up a new empty team. I see too many people who continue to spam the same teams as they go only to get sniped and cteamed themselves. This empty team will be what you use for all your games from here on out. You will be editing it constantly so don't get too attached to anything. What you're going to do is you're going to watch the three highest people on ladder that are within your sniping sphere. A decent rule of thumb is if you're within 200 elo you can try queueing into someone, but after that it's pointless. So if you're 1500, the lowest id recommend going is 1300, but even then i wouldnt aim for anyone below 1400 personally. While you're scouting keep track of a few things. Are they spamming the same team every game? Are they queueing again immediately after playing? These things are important for making sure you actually successfully snipe them. After scouting the top three highest players on ladder for a bit, make one cteam for each of them that you think could be a consistent target and put them on your empty team. Most people these days don't know how to protect themselves from a snipe so this should be pretty reliable. What I will say is don't worry about how cursed it looks. As long as it beats the people you can queue into reliable then that's all that matters. Prioritize reliability over everything else and don't worry about what 3-0s you if your targets aren't running it. I was queueing triple dark into triple dragon at pretty high elos and people thought I was crazy but it was really just to maximize my odds of winning because everyone lost to them. Everything you queue should be entirely cteams because you'll only be sniping. Also, don't get too attached to them because you'll be editing this often. Then what you're going to do is you're going to wait for one of them to get a bit farther ahead of the others, finish a game, and then you're going to try queueing into them. When queueing on PS, for the first 3-5 seconds it will say "Connecting". You probably won't find a game at this point in time. After that it will say "Searching". This is when your queue range begins to expand outwards. You want to keep this range small so only queue for 5-10 seconds after the "Searching" begins. The longer you queue, the more likely you are to find someone unintended. Instead, keep your queue range small and let their queue range come to you. Keep an eye on ongoing games and keep queueing and cancelling until either they find you or they find someone else. If they find a game stop your queue immediately. No need to take unnecessary risks. Early on this process won't take very long because you'll be relatively close to the people you are trying to snipe, but by Friday and Saturday it can take hours for one snipe if you're playing it safe. By playing it safe however, you should win pretty much every game you come across. After a successful snipe simply repeat the process over and over and over again, taking your slowly higher and higher. Scout again, edit your cteams for the new targets, and cautiously queue until you get another one. Something else to keep an eye on is who is in the 1v1 room at the time. Keep an eye out for other high ranked players who might log on to snipe someone quick and leave. If you catch one of them on the userlist, either stop what you're doing and wait for them to leave, or if you are confident you have a cteam for them try and snipe their snipe for a potential big payout. Another key thing to know is that you cannot play the same person twice in a row. Don't let this be your demise, but you can also use it to your advantage. If you're looking to snipe the same person twice in a row because they're the only person online remotely close to you, make sure you play another game after you snipe them the first time. I'm not exactly sure the specifics of how this rule works, but from my experience I would just queue a randbats game real quick to reset it and wait for them to play a few games. You can also use this to eliminate someone from your potential queue pool. After sniping one person you can be relatively confident you won't play them again right away. This allows you to more safely snipe another person if there are a couple you could queue into. If you miss a snipe remain calm. As long as you're laddering slowly and scouting smartly you should know your opponent's entire team while they know none of yours. This provides you a massive advantage even if your team isn't necessarily super strong. Worst case scenario you lose and just go back to sniping it isn't the end of the world.
Try and continue increasing your lead every day until Sunday. The point of doing this is to try and avoid as much as the Sunday rush as possible so you'll want to be as far ahead as possible. During that time sniping is far more unreliable because there are so many people on also trying to snipe. Last LT I played in I was 100 elo above second place on both of my accounts by Saturday. This allowed me to play like one game on Sunday and I entirely avoided the Sunday rush and instead got to spend it trying to gatekeep on other non LT accounts I happened to be high up on. Alternatively you can try joining the Sunday rush on your second highest account and try to surpass your highest account relatively risk free. Worst case scenario is you lose that account. Only queue into the Sunday rush on your main when you have to, and do your best to instead suppress the others by cteaming and "being inefficient with your timer usage" 5 minutes before deadline. The actual process of sniping itself will be tedious, it will be boring, and there will be times when you don't actually find anyone. This is normal, and as long as you're staying in first then you are fine. Ideally you increase your lead every day, but whatever you do don't throw it all away while already in first. I'll be the first to admit I've spent entire saturdays just waiting for one snipe like a loser while working on homework on the side. It was extremely boring and I questioned if it was worth it, but I got my elo instead of forcing it and choking it all away. As long you maintain your patience you'll be fine.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Ladder Tour isn't hard. It's entirely a test of patience and understanding ladder mechanics. If you are able to get an early lead and then extend it farther and farther through sniping, then you will be able to entirely avoid the Sunday rush which is the biggest gamble of the entire ladder cycle. Ladder calmly, scout patiently, queue diligently and you will be able to consistently win games on high ladder. Your goal is to jump someone and rob them of their elo. They should not know you are coming until it is already too late. Only queue when you are certain that your cteam actually works, and get flexible with your cteams as well. Some really strong cteam mons right now are Hoopa-U and Meowscarada. Random coverage Hoopa is extremely broken on ladder for cteaming I've found myself running absolutely degenerate sets like Scarf with Tbolt, Fire Punch, and Trick to cteam multiple people at once. With Meowscarada a lot of people on ladder lose to Banded Low Kick or Specs sets. When in doubt for what to cteam someone with begin with those two, especially Hoopa he's unironically super broken in a ladder setting (haven't played in a tour so I can't speak for that but I wouldn't be surprised if he's broken there too) and it's a shame council has been silent for months no surveys or anything because he's a problem. Also for the love of god avoid getting lucked as much as possible. I've encountered scenarios where my options were default Raging Bolt or some degenerate Scarf Mixed Goodra-Hisui and I opted for the Goodra-Hisui because it outsped all of their mons and had 100% accurate moves. Always do everything in your power to avoid getting lucked. If you run hurricane then cry about missing or rely on not getting frozen by Kyurem for your cteam to work you deserve to lose.
Anyways that's all for now. I've been kinda disheartened by the quality of ladderers so hopefully people can step it up. People just spam the same few teams, nobody bothers trying to defend themselves from a snipe anymore, and without a deadline fuckup kickstarting the rush and LRXC hyping up it up I think the cycle would have ended unironically 30-40 elo lower. I don't mean for this to be entirely disparaging either. I think a lot of it just comes back to a lack of good ladderers for people to learn from. Yall keep laddering like youre xsc spamming the same few teams for hundreds of games on end im assuming because he's the only person yall know who can top ladder at will. If that works for you great, but personally I think there's a reason you'll also see him tilt hundreds of elo at a time multiple times a week. What I've tried to provide is an alternative that I've modeled after those that taught me how to ladder and has personally brought me consistent success over the years. It takes more effort, but if you stick to the plan it is far more reliable in my opinion because it gives you consistent impossible to lose matchups instead of relying on player skill and matchup luck. Ladder Tour is my favorite tour because it returns to my roots as a ladder kid so hopefully this can help someone out like others have helped me out. If wasn't as thorough as you were hoping or if this was a pain to read, too bad I couldn't care less. But, if you genuinely want clarification on anything feel free to reach out, whether I actually respond is a whole other question.
View attachment 761366
Let's be real who else is doing this. The story behind this account was simply that I was on vacation and bored waiting hours for the other people I was with to wake up every day so I just made a new account on mobile with no teams in the builder and started climbing because I'm not scrolling tiktok for 3 hours let's be real. It really shows that you don't need any resources or skills to climb as long as you're patient. I had zero teams, was trying to calc and scout on fucking mobile (punishment worthy of hell), and could only really try sniping for a couple of hours a day most until I eventually got home and finished the climb. All I did was cteam and snipe over and over that's all there is to it really.
For those looking for a TL;DR, don't worry, I got you...
Step 1) Realize LT promotes legal robbery. The 1v1 room will display your games to everyone. This is a tour about the 1v1 room, helping you steal someone's hard-earned elo.
Step 2) Ladder Tour doesn’t reward talent—it rewards availability. If you’ve got a 9–5 or responsibilities, lol good luck. The meta favors the terminally online and the professionally unemployed. The most dangerous LT players aren’t skilled—they’re just chronically free on a Wednesday at 2 PM.
Step 3) Go Full Goblin Mode. Forget sportsmanship. Forget dignity. You are the villain in someone else's anime arc now. You didn’t spend 45 minutes cooking up a triple-Dark cteam in the lab just to lose to “DogFan420” running Specs Primarina. No. You’re here because your crush left you on read, and now you’re out to win. They want a winner? So be that winner.
Hi this post will not be nearly as informative or structured as the one before it (joker doesn’t count) but as someone who has spent their post-PL summer mindlessly laddering I wanted to share my thoughts on LT and ladder in general (mostly LT tho)
the main thing is that clerica is 100% correct in saying that you do not have to be incredible at the game to ladder successfully, yet somehow a significant amount of people seem to be bad at it right now. especially at a higher level it takes time and commitment, and understandably not everyone has that. that said, I don’t think the current state of ladder actually requires all that much commitment if you’re just able to outclick your opponents. once you get to mid-highish ladder (like around 1400-1450 rn), grinding games with the same few teams until you go on a streak towards top of leaderboard + winning some games right before dl is genuinely a fine strategy. sniping and cteaming is probably (definitely) the ideal strategy with a ladder full of active tryhards, but it’s a lot more difficult and time consuming to implement when nobody past 1300 is laddering consistently at your time. even if you do get people to scout and snipe, there’s a decent chance they’re constantly changing teams even though no one around is good/willing enough to cteam them. I don’t disagree with this being the objective strongest and most consistent strategy, but quite frankly, ladder just isn’t active/good/competitive enough right now for me to justify meticulously timing my queues and all that when I can just spam one or two teams that fish good mus from 1200s and get up there eventually anyway. the higher you need to go the more worthwhile it is to be safe and methodical, but considering the cutoff for cycle 2 was barely 1600, it just doesn’t seem necessary to me rn
my evidence that you can just spam games and be better than your opponents? inspired by clerica’s earlier post, I created an account Sunday afternoon, threw together 3 setcomp sets in like 2 minutes, and reached 3rd on leaderboard in less than 140 games (it didnt even take me one full evening). I did this while making exactly one change to my team (and then swapping back and forth a couple of times but it was basically the same team). about 15 minutes before dl I went for rank one and came up just short (and well short of 1vltmy dreams peak) but my point stands that you don’t have to do all the fancy stuff to do well with the current state of ladder
peak elo about 7 min before dl, also the name was so that no one would know it was me + people might think it was clerica (it worked on blanched lol)
the most important thing imo is knowing who you’re playing against and thinking about the preview from their perspective. thinking on ladder is different than thinking in tournaments because you can always make up lost elo, so people will generally be less analytical and careful. on ladder, especially when you first queue into someone, most people will make the first click that comes to mind, often clicking into your 2-1 or whatever is scariest. people hate clicking the same mon twice for some reason and some better players will expect you to switch your click, so never be afraid to click the same mon again if you think that’s the play. even for lt, many players just shut their minds off or at least simplify their thinking on ladder, so you usually don’t have to overthink too hard unless you play a top player. if you’re able to consistently put in the effort to think a level above your opponent (harder than I make it sound), you should eventually be able to string together wins even against “better” opponents. (this whole section sounded kinda patronizing for some reason, idk who needs any of this but it’s here I guess)
to all the actually decent players out there, if you want ladder stuff to be more of an expression of skill, it would be cool if you could try to find the time to participate so that we can actually have more cool competitive stuff instead of “mid player battle simulator feat. better than mid players delemon and blanched”
TL;DR The quality of ladder is really quite bad right now, which is why mid players like myself are able to do well. yeah you could do all that stuff clerica was saying but honestly instead I would recommend getting good (at winning normal games on ladder)
this post could be improved but I spent too long writing it so I’m posting it anyway, future me can deal with the consequences good night
again by saying 
can be a problem. gz for reaching 1500!
and friends are insanely good. Blastoise especially. Run life orb and watch it delete stuff.
this pokemon also fell of hard, 
set:
is top tier. Insane preview pressure and its choice sets are useable. Not a fan of overly quirky sets though, just play into the pokemons strengths and its solid.
is still stupid, mostly cause its ability is so rng-creating. Way too many dark type pokemon lose if they get a single confusion hit and given its a pecharunt its always getting at least 1 malignant chain off.
- now people are really throwing around the meaning of a complex ban and stuff and there's a whole thread so i'll just give you the tl;dr of that, banning multiscale is not a complex ban, it is a regular ban with the added effect of unbanning a specific pokemon. that said i will regurgitate what radu said earlier, it is (for the most part) a signature ability. it is exclusive to dragonite and lugia and while lugia is an uber with humongo stats that shouldn't even be considered, dragonite has middling to good stats while having multiscale and a huge movepool that includes encore, roost, dragon dance, etc. point is that this guy is broken af, in part thanks to multiscale, in part thanks to other stuff like its great movepool, now the main reason why this shouldn't be allowed is because this isn't how tiering works, you may think it doesn't matter, but sometimes it do, because this would be like banning libero just because cinderace has it even though raboot is right there and it's terrible, opposite example include how diglett saw use after dugtrio got banned due to arena trap, or bidoof using moody in ubers, and this is sort of why we mainly ban pokemon, not abilities or moves or items, we never banned booster energy even though that's what made scream tail, flutter and gouging really good and also what makes iron valiant unhealthy to some, we never banned dire claw despite complaints due to it being a move stuck on a pokemon that only would use it for losing matchups or for the double poison move, and we never banned multiscale for 5 years and we chose to ban dragonite instead.
