I feel as if Pokemon in of itself isnt shaped to be a competitive game, but its the community trying to portray it as one. The competitive field feels as if its mandating you to use staple Pokemon on a team in order to play it properly. Dont get me wrong, I had a blast playing on Showdown and its great for making a mock team before going through the hassle of breeding and messing up a Pokemon and wasting all that time on it beforehand. Its just that, it isnt viable as a competitive game IMO. It seems much more luck based than a competitive game should be. Considering that the average moves that most players run either have a 75%-90% chance to hit and missing can decide the battle for you, its pretty silly when people insist that it takes skill. There is some skill involved where it comes to building a team (Ill get to this later) and when it comes to switches and tactics (such as baton passing and stalling), but as Ive done before, you can eliminate this entire tactic by sheer luck (Freezing a +6 Def, +3 Sp.atk/Sp,Def Espeon before it could baton pass to Mega Charizard Y). And in a game where luck is the biggest factor, I fail to see how it can be said that its a competitive game. You just need to use prediction and hope the enemy doesnt see through it or overthinks it as if youre doing advanced calculus when in reality; youre just having an average battle.
On the topic of team building as I addressed that Id get to later, weve all heard this argument before: I cant use the Pokemon I like because they arent good!! That is as well a viable complaint as much as it can come off as whining. On one hand, there are multiple tiers and every single Pokemon belongs in a tier to match it with others to increase its viability, but only in that tier. In defense of that common complaint, theres a problem when you want to use (Yes this is me and my dilemma that I have, no need to try to read into it.) Quagsire, Emolga and Ampharos in the same team. Sure you can do it, but then the viability clause rolls in. are you sure you want to use Emolga on that team? You know it will be a waste of a slot when you could just use Zapdos! But I want to use Emolga though. So you want to lose? Mk. No game that has a competitive field should really be that way.
In like practically every other game thats run at real events such as Evo, MLG, LCS, Internationals, LAN, etc., there are things that all have their own niche and can fit in and prevent someone seeing the same things constantly over and over again, bringing in new ideas and an ever growing community of ideas and strategies. It doesnt make sense that people say Pokemons competitive is legit when its a straight plain of gaming. You can almost expect Rotom-W on every team in OU and attempt to trick a choice item on you and volt switch away or skip the first step altogether and just volt switch away or Gliscor on every team and be a stealth rock setter or Breloom to use Spore then Substitute/Swords dance. And I understand completely that part of the game is running counters to this such as Kyurem-B with Substitute and Mold Breaker Excadrill for Rotom-W, but the problem isnt the countering, its the lack of originality and viability of alternate builds on said Pokemon. There are few Pokemon that have multiple fluctuating builds and gimmicks to use on them compared to other games. Theyre, like I said before, just a flat plain of similar things which in the end, could be seen as the fault of Gamefreak for trying to keep balancing in the game. In the end, the game feels as if they run a major Adapt or lose sort of thing going around which isnt something that a game should have if it wants to be considered competitive. And I know people are going to blame smogon for this, but in reality, youd be stupid for not using Spore on Breloom and not using Gliscor to set up stealth rocks but use it offensively.
On the topic of team building as I addressed that Id get to later, weve all heard this argument before: I cant use the Pokemon I like because they arent good!! That is as well a viable complaint as much as it can come off as whining. On one hand, there are multiple tiers and every single Pokemon belongs in a tier to match it with others to increase its viability, but only in that tier. In defense of that common complaint, theres a problem when you want to use (Yes this is me and my dilemma that I have, no need to try to read into it.) Quagsire, Emolga and Ampharos in the same team. Sure you can do it, but then the viability clause rolls in. are you sure you want to use Emolga on that team? You know it will be a waste of a slot when you could just use Zapdos! But I want to use Emolga though. So you want to lose? Mk. No game that has a competitive field should really be that way.
In like practically every other game thats run at real events such as Evo, MLG, LCS, Internationals, LAN, etc., there are things that all have their own niche and can fit in and prevent someone seeing the same things constantly over and over again, bringing in new ideas and an ever growing community of ideas and strategies. It doesnt make sense that people say Pokemons competitive is legit when its a straight plain of gaming. You can almost expect Rotom-W on every team in OU and attempt to trick a choice item on you and volt switch away or skip the first step altogether and just volt switch away or Gliscor on every team and be a stealth rock setter or Breloom to use Spore then Substitute/Swords dance. And I understand completely that part of the game is running counters to this such as Kyurem-B with Substitute and Mold Breaker Excadrill for Rotom-W, but the problem isnt the countering, its the lack of originality and viability of alternate builds on said Pokemon. There are few Pokemon that have multiple fluctuating builds and gimmicks to use on them compared to other games. Theyre, like I said before, just a flat plain of similar things which in the end, could be seen as the fault of Gamefreak for trying to keep balancing in the game. In the end, the game feels as if they run a major Adapt or lose sort of thing going around which isnt something that a game should have if it wants to be considered competitive. And I know people are going to blame smogon for this, but in reality, youd be stupid for not using Spore on Breloom and not using Gliscor to set up stealth rocks but use it offensively.
