Interesting TED talk to inspire creative teambuilding

[Lambo_murphy44]

Hey guys! Didnt know where a good place to have this thread would be so i decided congregation of the masses would be fine.

Recently just watched this TED talk about breaking industry norms and it really made me think about this pokemon wise and breaking out of the box for standards in any metagame. I figured I’d share it to start a sort of discussion and hear what other people think about it.

I personally love being that person to use something not standard, but i want to know what other people think. Use it because its shown to work or are you more of an innovative player?

 

[faint]

Very interesting question and I do believe you are on to something here. The other day a user on this very forum shared a unique Smeargle set. Is Smeargle considered a norm in the OU metagame? Well, personally I do not think so. But let me tell you... using it sparked a level of fun and enjoyment I haven't felt in years, and I think as a society we need to collectively look at ourselves on a deeper level and ask ourselves what it is we really wish to accomplish. I've always considered myself to be a bit of an outlier, someone who isn't afraid to try "unorthodox" sets or enjoy things that society typically looks down upon (Nickelback, Sword Art Online, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya, etc.)

At the end of the day, I think when you apply it to teambuilding, we should just remember these words:

Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites.

- Karen, Indigo Elite Four

 

[Kalalokki]

I mean there's a lot of "unorthodox" mons and sets being used in higher tournament play, the difference is finding the niche that such a mon can provide your team. If you're using it for the sake of using it and it puts a strain on your team as a whole, forcing you to compensate for it, it's not really ideal. When you see the lower ladder filled with Ash's team from [insert literally any region here], you know that they don't give a shit about breaking out of the box or utilizing just one or two out of the ordinary mon. They just go full shitshow and enjoy themselves to that extent, which is fine but it's no next new trend they're coming up with.

 

[Diophantine]

Hey guys! Didnt know where a good place to have this thread would be so i decided congregation of the masses would be fine.

Recently just watched this TED talk about breaking industry norms and it really made me think about this pokemon wise and breaking out of the box for standards in any metagame. I figured I’d share it to start a sort of discussion and hear what other people think about it.

I personally love being that person to use something not standard, but i want to know what other people think. Use it because its shown to work or are you more of an innovative player?

This was a good watch and innovation is a very useful life skill to have to achieve in a world where most think that hard work and networking is the only way to succeed.

When I was in secondary school and sixth form (middle and high school equivalent in Britain) I competed in mathematics competitions like the National Olympiad and team challenges. Maths in the classroom is just "here's how you solve this type of problem, go and solve similar ones over and over again". The competitions, however, required creativity and originality to succeed in. Many people that were very good at maths in the classroom (ie. getting A*s at A Level Further Maths) could not even get invited to the National Olympiad. This is because they were so used to tackling problems in a certain way, and fell flat on their faces when faced with something that required them to think outside of their knowledge bank. It's this laziness and naivety which holds back many people from achieving their true potential as they, like the speaker said, come across a wall.

Training to think outside of the box is definitely possible, and is something I have been working on myself for many years now. From personal experience, I can say that it is working. That being said, however, there is nothing with accepting the popular proposition. Sun Tzu says we should mix normal and abnormal concepts. In a competitive situation, displaying a certain pattern of thinking exposes you to being predictable. Furthermore, the popular decision could be the correct decision - it's all down to the perception of yourself. If someone asks me to derive a polynomial, there's no point in me wasting time trying to think of a fancy way of doing it rather than just by doing the standard way. Yes, Skarmory may not be used that much and may still have some qualities in the metagame, but Celesteela fits better on so many more teams than Skarm.

TL;DR standard methods of things are not always bad. However, if you get lazy or naive and only practice standard methods then you leave yourself open to being "stuck within the box", for lack of better words.

 

[Lambo_murphy44]

I agree with a lot about what has been said. I like this though because I think it promotes some really cool discussion.

My favorite time to see something like this is when there is a newly released (and usually very broken) mon in a tier and people are scrambling to find counters to it. For example the release of naganadel clearly caused a large stir in the OU metagame and although it was fairly quickly banned, if you were playing during the week or two it was legal, it forced you to be creative. People started running whack things like assault vested slowkings, which normally would be considered a bad choice in OU, but when forced with a big problem like that people had to start getting creative.

I think thats why a lot of players have so much fun in unbalanced metas, it usually gives more room for unconventional surprise picks used solely to counter some of the things at the very top of the usage charts.

 

[Siggu]

The hard part of being creative is proving your creative choices work, but being both creative and effective is what separates the greats from the mortals. It applies everywhere.

I think thats why a lot of players have so much fun in unbalanced metas, it usually gives more room for unconventional surprise picks used solely to counter some of the things at the very top of the usage charts.

Every meta is chaotic when it begins. Every meta gets stale with time if there are no significant changes, even the ones that initially force players to use unconventional choices.

It just takes some time to realize which are the best picks... and then you get back to square one.

Say you drop an Uber to OU. At first, things will go into disarray for how much its presence shakes up the meta. Give it a month or two, and then you get... pretty much something like current OU.

I can't think of a single game with characters that are not palette swaps in which everyone's picks do not converge into a select few.

Sounds familiar?

 

[Stallion]

Very interesting question and I do believe you are on to something here. The other day a user on this very forum shared a unique Smeargle set. Is Smeargle considered a norm in the OU metagame? Well, personally I do not think so. But let me tell you... using it sparked a level of fun and enjoyment I haven't felt in years, and I think as a society we need to collectively look at ourselves on a deeper level and ask ourselves what it is we really wish to accomplish. I've always considered myself to be a bit of an outlier, someone who isn't afraid to try "unorthodox" sets or enjoy things that society typically looks down upon (Nickelback, Sword Art Online, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya, etc.)

At the end of the day, I think when you apply it to teambuilding, we should just remember these words:

Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites.

- Karen, Indigo Elite Four

Now I want to know what the Smeargle set is

 

[Soul Fly]

Teambuilding can come from all sorts of creative places. For instance one day I was eating hot rice and like an idiot I eating the rice right from the middle (where it is the hottest) and burning myself. When my mother said I should try eating away the cooler rice from the side and then tackle the rice in the middle an epiphany suddenly hit me. I excused myself and smoked a cigarette while letting my brain do its thing and then it finally occurred to me that brute power wasn't the only way to win, but I could wear down my opponents and pick them off when they are weak. (I was later flattered to find out Sun Tzu had suggested the same thing in The Art of War). Then I came back and added stealth rocks and toxic to my pokemon team of 6 set up sweepers and laddered to 1450 elo effortlessly in OU. I would have never made it in competitive pokemon if all I did was read smogon analyses and checked out the OUVR thread like every other mindless low ladder drone on smogon.

 

[Tera Melos]

I really with the TedTalk Roku Channel wasn't garbage and posted good ones like this and not random ones that are so niche they shouldn't even have been considered.