New to VGC

[paulgold20]

I was wondering if there would be some people interested in teaching me VGC. I am new to the scene but I am not new to pokemon. I know smogon tiers well so that should help. I mostly play OU and UU but now I want to try VGC. If there is anyone who could help me I would appreciate it thanks!

 

[RebornFX]

Hey, I've already written out a rather lengthy response to somebody in the same boat as you are so I'm just going to copy and paste what I said to them if you don't mind :P

Welcome to the wonderful world of VGC. It's very different to singles in many different ways. The main ways I find it different are as follows (this mostly also applies to other doubles formats too, like DOU):

• Protect is a staple. It allows you to improve your board position, abuse obvious double targets, stall turns of tailwind/trick room/weather/terrains/fake out etc.
• Intimidate is incredible, should probably try to include in almost every team.
• Spread moves are a thing.
• Games are much faster, for a fairly obvious reason when you consider 4 Pokemon move per turn as opposed to 2, and only 4 Pokemon are brought by each player.
• Because of the above, particularly defensive/stally playstyles as well as setup are heavily deterred.
• A whole host of moves which are useless in singles are viable and strong in doubles, for example redirection moves like Follow Me and Rage Powder, Fake Out (occasionally used in singles, but much more in doubles), Wide Guard (Protects your team from spread moves for the turn), Quick Guard (Protects your team from priority for the turn), Feint (Breaks the target's Protect for the turn), Trick Room (again occasionally used in singles but much more common and viable in doubles), other speed control options like Icy Wind, Tailwind, Thunder Wave etc.
• EVs tend to be a lot more specific than the common 252, 252 spreads you will see in singles and tend to be tailor made for specific teams, mostly because of how fast paced the metagame is, so living certain attacks is crucial to a win condition. The metagame also often revolves around 10 or so Pokemon that you are very likely to see (in the current format, examples would be the Tapus (except Fini), Oranguru, Celesteela and Alolan Marowak, but there are plenty more), so living certain hits from these and ensuring you KO these with particular attacks is important. That being said, 252,252 spreads often are just the most efficient spreads, especially on focus sash users for example where bulk isn't the number 1 priority.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm certain there are other things that I'm forgetting and you will learn when you start playing.

Here's a bunch of great VGC youtubers
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9OZkS1Mhl5UvKSiPrYqsxg
https://www.youtube.com/user/CybertronProductions
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUV4fC_HlxFe_Fwlybh2XiA
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheKylecol3

Wolfey has been putting out great analyses for the new Pokemon, including sets with calcs explaining what the EVs are there to do (should help with creating spreads on your own) and potential partners (Also the 2016 world champ, but you'd get that from his thumbnails :P).
Cybertron posts great daily battlespot lives with his full thought processes. He also recently created a great teambuilding guide for beginners I would highly recommend checking out, as well some Pokemon analyses and team reports.
Ray Rizzo's the 3 time VGC World Champ and has recently came back from his 'retirement' and started pumping out great content. His most recent guides on Tapu Koko and Kartana are excellent and he basically created the standard AV Kartana set that you will probably run into at some point.
And finally Kyle Cole posts some cool showdown lives as well as Pokemon analyses and has made a 'Good VGC Cores' video which is a great starting place for teambuilding.

So yeah hopefully that helps the transition from singles to VGC. As far as having an idea of what to expect to play (once you get past the low ladder scum on showdown lol), trainertower.com just recently posted an amazing article called 'VGC17 Meta Snapshot' which should give you a rough idea of what is popular, but it definitely isn't exhaustive. Look through the teams that did well in the recent events on the same site to have a good idea of strong team compositions. As for getting experience, I would first recommend using a sample team (there's a thread for that) or using a team from a team report to get used to the format and get comfortable with the common things that you want to make sure you cover with your team before making your own. If you need some help with teambuilding after you have fought some battles and feel ready, you will need to complete the Homework assignment first (or just PM me any questions). Hope I helped!