jpw234
Catastrophic Event Specialist
Approved by Subject 18 and Aragorn the King
Hello everybody, and welcome to the Threat Assessment Project. In this thread you can put the teambuilding skills and metagame knowledge you gain from other useful projects in the OU forum to work by analyzing live battle situations, and hear the thought processes of a variety of strong OU players, giving us a chance to improve our battling skills as a community.
What's this about?
In other places around Smogon you can learn a lot of really useful stuff about the OU tier, such as the top threats in the metagame, sets and EV spreads, good cores, and checks or counters for most relevant Pokemon. But all of these discrete pieces of knowledge are useless to you if you can't synthesize and apply them in a battle.
Let's take an example. Is it safe to switch an offensive Mega-Venusaur into a Thundurus-I? Being an intelligent OU player, you probably answered "yes", or perhaps "almost always yes". Thundurus-I's standard set runs Thunder Wave, Thunderbolt, Hidden Power Ice, and Focus Blast, none of which particularly bother Mega-Venusaur. Thundy can run other moves like Knock Off, Superpower or Grass Knot, but none of these moves really hurt you either. The only real threats to Venu from Thundy are the uncommon Nasty Plot/Hidden Power Flying set, or the very rare Psychic.
New question. Is it safe here to switch your offensive Mega-Venusaur into this Thundurus-I?
Many players will answer yes, since they know that Venusaur is a solid Thundurus counter. Unfortunately, those players just had Thundurus Nasty Plot on the switch, kill their Venusaur with Hidden Power Flying, and then proceed to wreck the rest of their team. Situations like this happen a lot and can be incredibly demoralizing, since players feel like their (correct) knowledge of the metagame has let them down, or that they couldn't have predicted such an unusual set.
However, threats like this can be sniffed out by an experienced player. For example, the given opponent's team has Klefki, which almost always has Prankster Thunder Wave, making a TWave Thundurus redundant. His main sweeper appears to be Mega-Altaria, which is completely walled by Venusaur, and his main wallbreaker is Crawdaunt, which is also completely walled by Venusaur - so we should expect that one of his Pokemon would be a lure for such a big threat. Thundurus seems to be a likely candidate, so think twice before you switch! By using our knowledge of metagame threats, what makes a good core, and what counters are important to lure, we can make an informed threat assessment of our opponent's team that will help us throughout the battle.
Project Rules
This project will give you an opportunity to train your threat assessment skills, so that you can make better predictions and plays in your games on the ladder or in tournaments. We'll divide the project up into scenarios, which will proceed through 2 stages:
In stage 1, I'll give you a screenshot of the start battle screen and the pastebin of your team. Your job is to do a pre-battle analysis of the matchup. A couple of things you should consider including:
- What is your opponent's wincon?
- What specific sets/moves would you predict your opponent to be running based on his team composition and the wincon you've identified? Is there any set you particularly need to scout for, or that poses a big threat to your team?
- What is your wincon?
- What is stopping your wincon from sweeping, and what is your plan for removing those threats? (No need to be too specific, just a quick outline of a battle plan)
- What Pokemon will you choose to lead with?
Here's an example of what this might look like:
Your team:
Example response:
My opponent's team appears to be based around DD Mega-Altaria. He's supporting it with a Crawdaunt to break down checks like my Quagsire and Jirachi, and Spikes support from Klefki. Garchomp is probably a bulky SR set to check offensive threats like Talonflame and Lopunny, and I would be expecting Fire Blast to beat Ferrothorn and Scizor for Altaria. Given the team's weakness to Mega Venu and the fact that he already has Prankster TWave, I'd expect some sort of lure Thundurus set with Psychic or HP Flying along with SD Bisharp to pressure Venusaur.
My wincon is Venusaur, which does a bunch of damage to all the members of his team with the right move and has many good switch-in opportunities. I need to scout for potential sets that could wear it down or kill it (i.e. NP Thundy or SD Bisharp) and hopefully keep it away from an annoying Klefki paralysis. If I can wear down Klefki and keep multiple hazards off the field with Tentacruel I should be able to chip his team down fairly well.
I would lead with Latias anticipating a Garchomp lead, since there's no too awful matchup for me there (Altaria I go to Venu and Bisharp is unlikely to have Pursuit given he's not weak to Psychics).
You don't need to go incredibly in depth (although you are certainly welcome to!). 8-10 sentences should suffice, as long as you hit the important points and explain your evaluation of your opponent's team.
After a little bit, we'll proceed to stage 2. At this point, the battle has begun and is starting to kick into full swing. I'll give you a screenshot of a pivotal turn in the battle along with the logs of the turns up to that point. It's your job to make and justify the correct play for the turn. Use the log of the past turns to update your predictions about your opponent's sets, determine your wincon, and finally, pick the play that takes you to victory!
Here's how this might look:
At the end of stage 2, I'll post the pastebin of the enemy's team along with a short explanation, so you can see what you got right and whether your ideas about the opposing team matched up with how it was built.
This was a somewhat contrived example, but hopefully you guys get the gist! Think through the scenarios carefully and give your reasoning - explaining as much as possible allows you to better understand your own thought processes, and gives others some perspective to understand your decisions. Hopefully we'll get a spread of battling experience and styles so we can learn from each other and improve. We won't vote on the best post since I want everybody to feel confident giving this a shot, but particularly impressive or well thought-out posts will be placed by me into an archive to show off to those participating.
With all that said, let's get this show on the road!
----------------
If you are interested in submitting teams for this project, please PM me! Teams with innovative sets or featuring good lures would be great for this, and I will be sure to credit you.
Hello everybody, and welcome to the Threat Assessment Project. In this thread you can put the teambuilding skills and metagame knowledge you gain from other useful projects in the OU forum to work by analyzing live battle situations, and hear the thought processes of a variety of strong OU players, giving us a chance to improve our battling skills as a community.
What's this about?
In other places around Smogon you can learn a lot of really useful stuff about the OU tier, such as the top threats in the metagame, sets and EV spreads, good cores, and checks or counters for most relevant Pokemon. But all of these discrete pieces of knowledge are useless to you if you can't synthesize and apply them in a battle.
Let's take an example. Is it safe to switch an offensive Mega-Venusaur into a Thundurus-I? Being an intelligent OU player, you probably answered "yes", or perhaps "almost always yes". Thundurus-I's standard set runs Thunder Wave, Thunderbolt, Hidden Power Ice, and Focus Blast, none of which particularly bother Mega-Venusaur. Thundy can run other moves like Knock Off, Superpower or Grass Knot, but none of these moves really hurt you either. The only real threats to Venu from Thundy are the uncommon Nasty Plot/Hidden Power Flying set, or the very rare Psychic.
New question. Is it safe here to switch your offensive Mega-Venusaur into this Thundurus-I?
Many players will answer yes, since they know that Venusaur is a solid Thundurus counter. Unfortunately, those players just had Thundurus Nasty Plot on the switch, kill their Venusaur with Hidden Power Flying, and then proceed to wreck the rest of their team. Situations like this happen a lot and can be incredibly demoralizing, since players feel like their (correct) knowledge of the metagame has let them down, or that they couldn't have predicted such an unusual set.
However, threats like this can be sniffed out by an experienced player. For example, the given opponent's team has Klefki, which almost always has Prankster Thunder Wave, making a TWave Thundurus redundant. His main sweeper appears to be Mega-Altaria, which is completely walled by Venusaur, and his main wallbreaker is Crawdaunt, which is also completely walled by Venusaur - so we should expect that one of his Pokemon would be a lure for such a big threat. Thundurus seems to be a likely candidate, so think twice before you switch! By using our knowledge of metagame threats, what makes a good core, and what counters are important to lure, we can make an informed threat assessment of our opponent's team that will help us throughout the battle.
Project Rules
This project will give you an opportunity to train your threat assessment skills, so that you can make better predictions and plays in your games on the ladder or in tournaments. We'll divide the project up into scenarios, which will proceed through 2 stages:
In stage 1, I'll give you a screenshot of the start battle screen and the pastebin of your team. Your job is to do a pre-battle analysis of the matchup. A couple of things you should consider including:
- What is your opponent's wincon?
- What specific sets/moves would you predict your opponent to be running based on his team composition and the wincon you've identified? Is there any set you particularly need to scout for, or that poses a big threat to your team?
- What is your wincon?
- What is stopping your wincon from sweeping, and what is your plan for removing those threats? (No need to be too specific, just a quick outline of a battle plan)
- What Pokemon will you choose to lead with?
Here's an example of what this might look like:
Your team:
Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Recover
Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 236 HP / 252 SpA / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Synthesis
Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 248 HP / 148 Def / 80 SpD / 32 Spe
Bold Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Acid Spray
- Knock Off
Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Slack Off
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Atk / 160 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Iron Head
- Fire Punch
- Toxic
Latias @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 72 HP / 184 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Thunderbolt
- Roost
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Recover
Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 236 HP / 252 SpA / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Synthesis
Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 248 HP / 148 Def / 80 SpD / 32 Spe
Bold Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Acid Spray
- Knock Off
Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Slack Off
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Atk / 160 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Iron Head
- Fire Punch
- Toxic
Latias @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 72 HP / 184 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Thunderbolt
- Roost
Example response:
My opponent's team appears to be based around DD Mega-Altaria. He's supporting it with a Crawdaunt to break down checks like my Quagsire and Jirachi, and Spikes support from Klefki. Garchomp is probably a bulky SR set to check offensive threats like Talonflame and Lopunny, and I would be expecting Fire Blast to beat Ferrothorn and Scizor for Altaria. Given the team's weakness to Mega Venu and the fact that he already has Prankster TWave, I'd expect some sort of lure Thundurus set with Psychic or HP Flying along with SD Bisharp to pressure Venusaur.
My wincon is Venusaur, which does a bunch of damage to all the members of his team with the right move and has many good switch-in opportunities. I need to scout for potential sets that could wear it down or kill it (i.e. NP Thundy or SD Bisharp) and hopefully keep it away from an annoying Klefki paralysis. If I can wear down Klefki and keep multiple hazards off the field with Tentacruel I should be able to chip his team down fairly well.
I would lead with Latias anticipating a Garchomp lead, since there's no too awful matchup for me there (Altaria I go to Venu and Bisharp is unlikely to have Pursuit given he's not weak to Psychics).
You don't need to go incredibly in depth (although you are certainly welcome to!). 8-10 sentences should suffice, as long as you hit the important points and explain your evaluation of your opponent's team.
After a little bit, we'll proceed to stage 2. At this point, the battle has begun and is starting to kick into full swing. I'll give you a screenshot of a pivotal turn in the battle along with the logs of the turns up to that point. It's your job to make and justify the correct play for the turn. Use the log of the past turns to update your predictions about your opponent's sets, determine your wincon, and finally, pick the play that takes you to victory!
Here's how this might look:
We're on turn 13 of the battle, and this is the situation:
Here's the log of what's happened so far: http://pastebin.com/QmJ6q9yn
What's the play?
Example response:
The battle so far has revealed that Klefki is running TWave and Spikes, and Crawdaunt is the typical LO variant (likely with Swords Dance). We've seen Leftovers and Thunderbolt out of this Thundurus, but that doesn't pin down any particular set.
Venusaur is still our critical Pokemon, since it walls his two biggest threats (Altaria and Crawdaunt). It's at 77% right now and already mega evolved, so it switches into most Thundurus sets safely. However, given that we know his team is so weak to Venusaur (supported by the fact that he attempted to para it with Klefki despite risking losing it to HP Fire), it's very possible that Thundurus is some type of lure, possibly with Nasty Plot and HP Flying. Latias is not a safe switchin to that set at its current health and Jirachi/Tentacruel/Quagsire are all taking way too much damage from a +2 TBolt or Focus Blast. Given our weakened and incredibly important Venusaur and that Grass Knot seems unlikely from his team composition (he has Crawdaunt and possibly Toxic Garchomp to break down Grounds, and DD Altaria can muscle through them on its own), Whirlwinding seems to be the best play here, since it racks up hazards damage and will phaze a potential +2 Thundurus.
Here's the log of what's happened so far: http://pastebin.com/QmJ6q9yn
What's the play?
Example response:
The battle so far has revealed that Klefki is running TWave and Spikes, and Crawdaunt is the typical LO variant (likely with Swords Dance). We've seen Leftovers and Thunderbolt out of this Thundurus, but that doesn't pin down any particular set.
Venusaur is still our critical Pokemon, since it walls his two biggest threats (Altaria and Crawdaunt). It's at 77% right now and already mega evolved, so it switches into most Thundurus sets safely. However, given that we know his team is so weak to Venusaur (supported by the fact that he attempted to para it with Klefki despite risking losing it to HP Fire), it's very possible that Thundurus is some type of lure, possibly with Nasty Plot and HP Flying. Latias is not a safe switchin to that set at its current health and Jirachi/Tentacruel/Quagsire are all taking way too much damage from a +2 TBolt or Focus Blast. Given our weakened and incredibly important Venusaur and that Grass Knot seems unlikely from his team composition (he has Crawdaunt and possibly Toxic Garchomp to break down Grounds, and DD Altaria can muscle through them on its own), Whirlwinding seems to be the best play here, since it racks up hazards damage and will phaze a potential +2 Thundurus.
At the end of stage 2, I'll post the pastebin of the enemy's team along with a short explanation, so you can see what you got right and whether your ideas about the opposing team matched up with how it was built.
This was a somewhat contrived example, but hopefully you guys get the gist! Think through the scenarios carefully and give your reasoning - explaining as much as possible allows you to better understand your own thought processes, and gives others some perspective to understand your decisions. Hopefully we'll get a spread of battling experience and styles so we can learn from each other and improve. We won't vote on the best post since I want everybody to feel confident giving this a shot, but particularly impressive or well thought-out posts will be placed by me into an archive to show off to those participating.
With all that said, let's get this show on the road!
----------------
Nothing here yet!
If you are interested in submitting teams for this project, please PM me! Teams with innovative sets or featuring good lures would be great for this, and I will be sure to credit you.
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