Resource A Comprehensive Guide to the 1vNFE1mon Challenge

[LemonLime78]

Felucia edit: I'll do you a favour and retroactively approve this, but please ask for approval next time >:(
Table of Contents
Intro
How to Ladder
Viability Rankings
Set Compendium
Role Compendium
Extra: What Makes a Pokemon Good?

Part 0: Intro

So. Perhaps laddering’s starting to get a bit stale. Perhaps you want a challenge. Perhaps you want a truly mindless laddering experience. Or perhaps you just think it’d be pretty funny to try out. It doesn't really matter why you’re here, just that you’re here. In this guide, I’ll share everything I’ve learned while playing this challenge, from the best ways to ladder to the strongest pokemon to use. Hopefully, this will help make the beginning stages of this challenge far easier than it was for me.

Note: this challenge was created as a combination of two ladder achievement challenges (see here). If you manage to get to 1400, you can claim a ladder achievement for it.

 

[LemonLime78]

Back

Part 1: How to Ladder

First thing to know about this challenge, knowing how to ladder effectively is the single most important part. Even more important than any set or sets you may run is knowing how and when to use it (this will be expanded on in the Role Compendium section).

First off, you’re going to want a few general use pokemon. These will usually (though not always) be bulky pokemon with an immediate offensive presence, that can take on a decent amount of mons you might find. Examples include Qwilfish, Magneton, or Dusclops. Use this pokemon for a few battles to scope out the ladder and get a feeling for the teams that people are using. From there, you have two options: you can keep using that original pokemon, or you can move to a more niche mon. This is a pokemon that requires certain conditions to succeed and has more than a few hard counters, but can excel in the absence of those counters. Examples include duosion and cottonee. From here, continue laddering, changing mons as necessary and ending a run when you feel like it’s right.

So, you've laddered over the course of a few days, a week, a couple weeks even. After all the pain and crits you’ve been through, you've finally reached around 1300 elo. STOP. Leave that account as is for the time being and start laddering on a new one. While this is a slower approach, it also keeps morale up and makes sure you never lose progress. After all, while it is possible that you could win just another four battles and jump up in elo, it's equally if not much more likely that you could tank and lose weeks of progress. It also makes the idea of laddering less scary because it removes said possibility to lose all of your elo. So what now? Ladder on your second account until it surpasses the first in elo. Then, switch back to your first account and ladder above the second. Rinse and repeat. I can’t force you to use this laddering technique but I do highly recommend it for the reasons above.

 

[LemonLime78]

Back

Part 2: Viability Rankings

DISCLAIMER: This is entirely based on my experiences using these pokemon. Many of them will be skewed depending on my sets and my personal experiences with them. I'll try to be as accurate as possible, but I also haven't used most of these pokemon enough to get a true understanding of them. I'll put an asterisk (*) next to the ones I’m pretty sure were skewed based on my building.

Also, a lot of these are ranked not only in a vacuum, but also according to what I've seen on ladder. Take porygon2: on paper it has amazing bulk and reliable recovery, but powerful physical attackers easily beat it, and those are quite common to see on a full team. Pokemon with strong potential for 3-0s or surprise factor will place better than “honest” pokemon with clear counters.

In alphabetical order

S - best of the best, does amazingly across the board


A - performs quite well, has at least a few notable matchups




B - has a noticeable niche and some strong matchups, although larger flaws






C - not good overall, but has some usable qualities

*

*
D - bad, but it has interesting qualities on paper.
*




If you want to appeal any of these rankings or add a new pokemon, by all means just reply to the thread. Just please read the extra section before supplying your ranking and reasoning.

 

[LemonLime78]

Back

Part 3: Set Compendium
WIP, will post once ready

 

[LemonLime78]

Back

Part 4: Role Compendium

Remember those roles I mentioned earlier? As it turns out, those are actually quite noticeable. Here, I'll just explain the roles in further detail as well as give a list of the pokemon that fall into a given role.

Generalists
These are pokemon with strong matchups across the board. They have decent-to-good 3-0 potential or can otherwise sneak in lure matchups. Generalists are the pokemon that you want to start a ladder run using, and also have some qualities from the other two roles.

Gamblers
These pokemon have clearer counters than generalists, but also tend to excel in the absence of said counters. Outside of a couple huge weaknesses, these pokemon have amazing 3-0 potential. Starting a run with one of these is risky, but in a favorable ladder they can accumulate tons of elo. Why do I call them gamblers? Well, they are riskier mons, but mainly it's because if it's a setup mon, it'll give Super Luck to its opponent.

Bursters
These pokemon don't have much in the way of 3-0 potential and have clear cut counters. However, what they lack in those departments, they make up for with surprise factor and dishonesty. Bursters have two main uses: they can be used to jumpstart a ladder run, or they can be used if you need a bit of quick elo after tanking.

Pokemon to the right of | are… not very good at their role. If a pokemon appears multiple times, it's because it has multiple distinct sets with different roles.

Generalists
|

Gamblers
|

Bursters
|

Pokemon that are added to the VR
will also be added here.

 

[LemonLime78]

Back

Extra: What Makes a Pokemon Good?

DISCLAIMER: This is highly theoretical. While I can't yet say for sure what makes pokemon better or worse for this challenge, I can point out patterns seen in both strong and weak pokemon.

For a pokemon to be good, it has to have at least one strong quality. Obviously, the more the better, but if it's strong in at least one category, it probably already has some kind of niche. As for the qualities, there are two main ones: 3-0 potential, or how likely a random opponent is to have a hard counter, and dishonesty, or a pokemon's ability to catch an opponent off-guard with its set. This is why pokemon like munchlax or duosion can excel where porygon2 and duraludon falter; although porygon2 and duraludon have better stats on paper, their counters are both extremely clear cut and common. In comparison, munchlax can beat some physical attackers using curse sets or can mindgame opponents with belly drum, and duosion can swiftly end entire teams in the absence of a dark type. It may seem like mons like munchlax should have similar results to porygon2, but ultimately, it has tools at its disposal that porygon2 doesn't. To be honest, I really couldn't explain precisely what makes a pokemon better or worse, but I can offer possible explanations based on what I’ve seen so far.