“When I came to you with those Hydro Steams,
we thought we might start a pivot chain that
would destroy the ranked ladder...
I believe we did."
- Walking Wake, probably
https://pokepast.es/5ed27cc583303092
we thought we might start a pivot chain that
would destroy the ranked ladder...
I believe we did."
- Walking Wake, probably
https://pokepast.es/5ed27cc583303092
Peak from a few days ago.
Currently rated 1951. This screenshot was taken on day of publication... I guess technically this team peaked Rank 9? That feels kind of fraudulent, though, so I didn't include it in the title.
Currently rated 1951. This screenshot was taken on day of publication... I guess technically this team peaked Rank 9? That feels kind of fraudulent, though, so I didn't include it in the title.
Hello, everyone!
I’d like to begin with an introduction. My name is Cape Canaveral, and the Showdown account that I’ve been using most these days is CONNORE INDUSTRIES.
I’ve been playing competitive Pokemon since late Gen 7, but it wasn’t in ladder, it was in Draft Leagues. Those of you from the draft scene may recognize me as zhai. Recently, I decided to grind some ladder and explore this dimension of mons I hadn't really touched till then.
I have a lot to learn, and I’m still quite an inconsistent player (I'm ngl im probably gonna fall to like 1800 after I stop playing this team), but I feel I’m making good progress overall. This is my first RMT. I hope you enjoy, and give it a shot on ladder!
The idea from this team came from a BKC video about passive damage (rocks, sand, toxic, etc.) and how they interact with Pokemon.
I thought, huh. That makes a lot of sense. In my experience, accumulating chip and preventing it from entering for free is normally how players deal with
, one of the strongest breakers in the format, so I decided I’d put the ideas in the video into practice and try to mitigate those weaknesses.When I was new to the ladder scene building my own teams felt unapproachable because it was hard to get anything concrete on the first try. The purpose of this section is to show people like me back then that yeah, teams are really damn hard to get right, but it’s an obstacle that’s pretty common. (At least, I think so. I don’t know what it’s like for players who are even better than I am.)
I started with this six.
The idea…
- Use pivoting and
to get in for free
- Taunt and could be used to keep hazards off
-
and speed boosting 
could revenge stuff like DD , DD 
, 
, and 
.
This was really fun, but definitely not at all objectively good.
was a huge liability.
- Its hazard-related utility was so inconsistent.
- It’s passive into a lot of mons like
.
was too polarizing.
- Against bulky teams, it’d enable perfectly.
- In other matchups it wouldn’t get any value.
- Smart opponents would sometimes avoid proccing the button.
After that, I put on instead, and 
on . This solved the problem of being a liability and barely not being able to check certain threats, like or .
However, this made it hard to position against stall, because you have so few turns to work with. Also, this was awful into offensive teams with
or 
who can sponge a hit and pivot in a faster threat that can outspeed like 
, 
, 
, or 
. These teams were able to force out for almost nothing in exchange, basically wasting my item.
One team in particular stuck out as a TERRIBLE matchup. It’s this damn quadruple choicelocked pivot spam team, Always Exhaust. Click on the icons for the link to that team's RMT.
The vitriol that I felt for this team would not subside. In my dreams it appeared to mock me with its for which I had limited counterplay. Every time I pressed the battle button, I feared the worst.
I peaked higher than it did tho BAHAHAHAHA
Anyway, in all seriousness, I think it's a good team. I got so frustrated playing it I almost gave up on my team entirely. I decided to go read the team report to see if I could tech in something to beat it, and I realized a solution to a lot of my problems had been First Impressioning me right in the face.
I dropped for . had numerous problems on this build.
- It strangely had little to no defensive utility, had to keep it healthy and intact for dragon dancers like or .
- It just grinds momentum to a halt. Say you double it into, which sun teams entice in often. Most likely any attack it uses will thud into a or .
- It wasn’t a very reliable revenge killer due to common tricks like Substitute or Encore.
provides a more consistent revenge kill, improves the offense matchup, and fixes the problem of sinking my momentum.
I decided to drop for 
.
- has no hazard game, but the team has a and a .
- Healing Wish is a very powerful positional tool.
- Able to outspeed and Encore otherwise troublesome pokemon like or .
- Is more threatening than because it’s much faster.
I ended up with this.’s pivoting was nice, but the problem was it wasn’t really doing anything with each U-turn. Also, it doesn’t really benefit from the progress that makes against special walls. I wanted a Protosynthesis mon, so the only choice was 
, which funnily enough deals more consistent damage than .
Finally, certain archetypes that were super passive and packed on Water resists + protect scouting even couldn’t break. I swapped for 
CM. That was it.
For the record, there were even more bounces back and forth between various sets and teams than I depicted here that never really went anywhere. I swapped between and like 4 times, I swapped between 
, , and 
on , I even tried out 
for some reason, which was a very bad idea. To be honest, I wasted a lot of time playing without thinking deliberately about the team. If I could do it again, I'd have worked on multiple teams at once and played less ladder. Anyway, I hope I've shown that building a good team (at least, I think it is) takes a lot of time and thought.
I started with this six.
The idea…
- Use pivoting and
to get in for free- Taunt
and could be used to keep hazards off-
and speed boosting could revenge stuff like DD , DD , , and .This was really fun, but definitely not at all objectively good.
was a huge liability.- Its hazard-related utility was so inconsistent.
- It’s passive into a lot of mons like
. was too polarizing.- Against bulky teams, it’d enable
perfectly.- In other matchups it wouldn’t get any value.
- Smart opponents would sometimes avoid proccing the button.
After that, I put
on instead, and on . This solved the problem of being a liability and barely not being able to check certain threats, like or .However, this made it hard to position against stall, because you have so few turns to work with. Also, this was awful into offensive teams with
or who can sponge a hit and pivot in a faster threat that can outspeed like , , , or . These teams were able to force out for almost nothing in exchange, basically wasting my item.One team in particular stuck out as a TERRIBLE matchup. It’s this damn quadruple choicelocked pivot spam team, Always Exhaust. Click on the icons for the link to that team's RMT.
The vitriol that I felt for this team would not subside. In my dreams it appeared to mock me with its
for which I had limited counterplay. Every time I pressed the battle button, I feared the worst.I peaked higher than it did tho BAHAHAHAHA
Anyway, in all seriousness, I think it's a good team. I got so frustrated playing it I almost gave up on my team entirely. I decided to go read the team report to see if I could tech in something to beat it, and I realized a solution to a lot of my problems had been First Impressioning me right in the face.
I dropped
for . had numerous problems on this build.- It strangely had little to no defensive utility, had to keep it healthy and
intact for dragon dancers like or .- It just grinds momentum to a halt. Say you double it into
, which sun teams entice in often. Most likely any attack it uses will thud into a or .- It wasn’t a very reliable revenge killer due to common tricks like Substitute or Encore.
provides a more consistent revenge kill, improves the offense matchup, and fixes the problem of sinking my momentum.I decided to drop
for .-
has no hazard game, but the team has a and a .- Healing Wish is a very powerful positional tool.
- Able to outspeed and Encore otherwise troublesome pokemon like
or .- Is more threatening than
because it’s much faster. I ended up with this.
’s pivoting was nice, but the problem was it wasn’t really doing anything with each U-turn. Also, it doesn’t really benefit from the progress that makes against special walls. I wanted a Protosynthesis mon, so the only choice was , which funnily enough deals more consistent damage than .Finally, certain archetypes that were super passive and packed on Water resists + protect scouting even
couldn’t break. I swapped for CM. That was it. For the record, there were even more bounces back and forth between various sets and teams than I depicted here that never really went anywhere. I swapped between
and like 4 times, I swapped between , , and on , I even tried out for some reason, which was a very bad idea. To be honest, I wasted a lot of time playing without thinking deliberately about the team. If I could do it again, I'd have worked on multiple teams at once and played less ladder. Anyway, I hope I've shown that building a good team (at least, I think it is) takes a lot of time and thought.I feel there's nothing particularly unique about the actual sets of the Pokemon. Rather, what's interesting is the combination of it all. Thus, these sections talk only superficially about their roles and any unconventional choices I might've made on them. If anything you should probably only read the section on Walking Wake.
 | The Chariot (Ninetales) (F) @ Heat Rock Ability: Drought Tera Type: Flying EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe Timid Nature IVs: 0 Atk - Weather Ball - Healing Wish - Encore - Will-O-Wisp |
is the sun setter for , and can heal up one of your big threats for round two. It can Encore some threats like or . As I said in the teambuilding process section, due to these tools it is much more active than , the more conventional Sun setter. Its role is not terribly complicated. Most of the time it just doubles out.  | Walkenheimer (Walking Wake) @ Choice Specs Ability: Protosynthesis Tera Type: Water EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe Modest Nature - Flip Turn - Draco Meteor - Hydro Steam - Flamethrower / Knock Off |
just OHKOs everything. Note that this is Special Attack booster.(in reference to
)Just so you get a feel for how strong this is;
252+ SpA Choice Specs Protosynthesis Tera Water
Hydro Steam vs. 4 HP / 252+ SpD 
in Sun: 316-374 (48.4 - 57.3%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKOEnough said.
Now, I often see
running Speed Booster. This is very understandable, because it makes it much harder to play against with offense. However, will often be the single strongest hit on any given sun team, and I'd rather exploit that strength as much as I can. Many other sun abusers this gen perform exceptionally well into offensive teams anyway, like and .Flip Turn is a move for certain matchups. Suppose you’re playing against
with a lot of fast attackers; probably clicking a real attack into that won’t be very useful, because it’ll sponge it then pivot into one of those attackers. Not really an ideal situation. Flip Turn allows you to keep the ball in your court.You can run Knock Off over Flamethrower. It's not very useful generally, because it's often faster to just attack, but against
, , or 
it can be nice sometimes. Flamethrower often makes it a lot easier to play into 
.More information about how to play its Tera is in the general use section.
| | Evil Woman (Hatterene) @ Leftovers Ability: Magic Bounce Tera Type: Fire EVs: 252 HP / 140 Def / 116 SpD Calm Nature IVs: 0 Atk - Draining Kiss - Psyshock - Mystical Fire - Calm Mind |
is to bounce hazards. It was picked because it is the only OU-viable magic bouncer this generation. It can also help you check and break passive teams with CM. Mystical Fire is needed because otherwise interactions with 
get very, very awkward. I am actually not sure these stats or this Tera are optimal. I don’t think any changes to would be very impactful, though.  | Caravan (Landorus-Therian) @ Rocky Helmet Ability: Intimidate Tera Type: Water EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe Timid Nature - U-turn - Earth Power - Stealth Rock - Taunt |
is a catch all physical check. It also alleviates some of the weight on by Taunting hazard setters. I was happy with my decision to use this guy over the more standard ground-type on Sun, ; offers many things cannot, like pivoting, squares off better against , and taunt. The set itself is the completely standard fast utility set that I’m sure we’ve all run into a hundred times, so I won’t elaborate further.Edit Dec 26 2024: Ghost Tera might be good in cases where you really want rocks down.
| | Glimpse (Lokix) (F) @ Choice Band Ability: Tinted Lens Tera Type: Bug EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe Adamant Nature - U-turn - First Impression - Leech Life - Knock Off |
is a pivot and was put on this team for its incredible matchups into offensive teams. As I said, I got the idea from the Always Exhaust RMT, and it definitely performs as advertised. I was shocked how effective is even against fatter teams. It’s even quite good into 
with its powerful Leech Life, a huge problem for the team before its inclusion. Who knew? I’m running an identical set to the there. It fits like a glove because it punishes threats to sun like and it appreciates the hazard denial on the team.| | Canio (Raging Bolt) @ Choice Scarf Ability: Protosynthesis Tera Type: Dragon EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe Timid Nature IVs: 20 Atk - Volt Switch - Draco Meteor - Dragon Pulse - Weather Ball |
is a bulky, fast mon that takes advantage of the special nukes that tosses out to pivot very freely and clean games in some situations. Being was so didn't have to revenge kill literally everything faster than Wake. Volt Switch and Draco Meteor are mandatory. However, your last two moves could be any combination of Dragon Pulse, Thunderclap, Weather Ball, and Thunderbolt. I think Dragon Pulse and Weather Ball are the best, but I’m not sure. I'm currently experimenting with Thunderclap and Weather Ball. You don't click them very often. Probably you could also change the Tera type on this to something more defensive, but I like Dragon because it's useful into in some endgames.If you plan to load up the team, I strongly recommend reading the following sections.
Try to keep healthy by using your pivoting to get it in or use doubling. Some combination of the two can also be very effective, i.e. doubling in one of your pivots to force a switch and get in . This is a very important tactic when you’re playing against , to prevent it from getting free weather reversals. This is actually very important, as the presence of on the field can dissuade some offense that would otherwise be very effective against the team. After punches some holes, and get opened up really fast.
I don’t want to discuss anything in absolutes because Pokemon is a situational game but generally you don’t want to pop Tera on or . Normally you don’t use Tera on with the intention to break, as it’s simply not necessary. Water is more of a defensive tera on Walking Wake, and if you play it well you can stop a lot of opposing offense from ever even starting. The three main exceptions to this are if you are playing stall, you are playing a very bulky pivot, or your opponent does some crazy shit like pop a resist Tera, like with , because they're super desperate to get Hazards down. At that point, just take your kill and then play it out. Trading your Tera and a spike for their Tera and a kill is not too bad.
Here are my Tera statistics in case anyone was wondering.
Note: "No Tera" matches generally came from games where the opponent forfeited early after making a big mistake, or if the matchup was just completely uncompetitive for them (e.g. stall).
The team is build to deny hazards with Bounce and Taunt . You might be wondering, what about 
? Against a lead , you can go and Volt Switch into , so the helmet damage just kills it. Smarter Samurott players will use it later when you're not in position to make this kind of play, but generally by then it'll be quite late so the hazards are not so impactful. Something similar can be done with 
and 
on webs teams. Taunt is pretty solid into the more passive rocks setters. Your hazard denial might end up taking a lot of damage trying to stop the hazards (think 
Ruination or just Headlong Rush) so be careful if you need them to check threats like or .
I would say the worst archetypes to let get hazards on you in descending order are as follows. These are generally in order of how long the games will be.
1. Pivot spam
Pivot spam is the hardest to pin down, and it chips a lot of stuff making hazards very dangerous.
2. Hyper offense (webs)
Webs HO makes it very difficult to buy time for, and enables threats that cannot so easily revenge like NP 
.
3. Balance
Balance teams' hazard setters tend to not do very much damage into your hazard denial methods, but if you're the first to blink and too many hazards get down, then you can run out of time quickly. You can also lose against these teams due to late hazards if your offense has gotten low.
4. Stall
5. Hyper offense
Stall and hyper offense do not take very long at all because of and respectively.
Although I consider this team fairly easy to play, you have to be well versed in slowing down during critical moments and taking some calculated risks. Get used to making aggressive midgrounds too after conditioning your opponent.
healthy by using your pivoting to get it in or use doubling. Some combination of the two can also be very effective, i.e. doubling in one of your pivots to force a switch and get in . This is a very important tactic when you’re playing against , to prevent it from getting free weather reversals. This is actually very important, as the presence of on the field can dissuade some offense that would otherwise be very effective against the team. After punches some holes, and get opened up really fast.I don’t want to discuss anything in absolutes because Pokemon is a situational game but generally you don’t want to pop Tera on
or . Normally you don’t use Tera on with the intention to break, as it’s simply not necessary. Water is more of a defensive tera on Walking Wake, and if you play it well you can stop a lot of opposing offense from ever even starting. The three main exceptions to this are if you are playing stall, you are playing a very bulky pivot, or your opponent does some crazy shit like pop a resist Tera, like with , because they're super desperate to get Hazards down. At that point, just take your kill and then play it out. Trading your Tera and a spike for their Tera and a kill is not too bad.Here are my Tera statistics in case anyone was wondering.
Note: "No Tera" matches generally came from games where the opponent forfeited early after making a big mistake, or if the matchup was just completely uncompetitive for them (e.g. stall).
The team is build to deny hazards with Bounce
and Taunt . You might be wondering, what about ? Against a lead , you can go and Volt Switch into , so the helmet damage just kills it. Smarter Samurott players will use it later when you're not in position to make this kind of play, but generally by then it'll be quite late so the hazards are not so impactful. Something similar can be done with and on webs teams. Taunt is pretty solid into the more passive rocks setters. Your hazard denial might end up taking a lot of damage trying to stop the hazards (think Ruination or just Headlong Rush) so be careful if you need them to check threats like or .I would say the worst archetypes to let get hazards on you in descending order are as follows. These are generally in order of how long the games will be.
1. Pivot spam
Pivot spam is the hardest to pin down, and it chips a lot of stuff making hazards very dangerous.
2. Hyper offense (webs)
Webs HO makes it very difficult to buy time for
, and enables threats that cannot so easily revenge like NP .3. Balance
Balance teams' hazard setters tend to not do very much damage into your hazard denial methods, but if you're the first to blink and too many hazards get down, then you can run out of time quickly. You can also lose against these teams due to late hazards if your offense has gotten low.
4. Stall
5. Hyper offense
Stall and hyper offense do not take very long at all because of
and respectively.Although I consider this team fairly easy to play, you have to be well versed in slowing down during critical moments and taking some calculated risks. Get used to making aggressive midgrounds too after conditioning your opponent.
is kind of a shaky matchup. Depending on how fast you can drown through the opposing team, your and can sometimes be worn down and it will clean the game. is also problematic, because your main revenge killer is which is countered hard by Extreme Speed. A lot on your team can handle it alright, but something needs to stay healthy, whether that be or or . is very difficult to deal with. It does a lot of damage into everything on the team. It's generally very limited in what it can do because of how much offensive pressure you’re exerting, but it’s very slippery because you can't catch up to it and it can just U-turn into anything. I'm honestly not sure how I haven't lost to it more. is also very hard to fight, for similar reasons as . Fairy-Ground coverage tears unbelievably fast at this team. The main idea is to blow through the rest of the team as fast as possible, keep your attackers healthy, then use Tera to beat the .252 SpA
Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tera Water : 186-220 (54.8 - 64.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKOThis mon is also the reason why I've been trying Thunderclap on
. Often is running and thus if your opponent tries to use it to clean when it's the last mon left, you can Thunderclap to close it out if is dead or is not in First Impression range.I hate this fuckass Mold Breaker guy.
is so annoying because it completely bypasses both your hazard deniers with Mold Breaker and 315 speed respectively. You have to try and keep momentum against it and prevent it from setting Rocks too early in the game.Sun teams are very dangerous mainly because of opposing
, . It's actually in your best interest to keep sun turned off at all times, because your is very, very good into the field when there's no speed boosters to play against. Be very careful with your Tera in these matchups as you might need it to save yourself from a scare with especially. Be wary of stuff like Tera Fairy when you're playing your ; You don't want to just throw off a Draco and thud into a Fairy Tera, losing one of your most important assets.Here are my worst winrates after the team was mostly finished.
After I finished the team, I fluctuated up and down a bit before climbing from 1722 to 1967 with a 14 game winstreak. The peak prior to that was 1859, rank 69 (sheeeesh). I have nearly every replay that I played, but naturally most of them are not as high elo. If you would still like to see them, just let me know and I'll put them here too.
3-0 WIN Replay against 
Admittedly, I played poorly this game. Turn 1 I thought that my opponent would try to switch to something else or Knock my, because is an otherwise completely free switch, but I suppose I overthought. The purpose of this replay is to showcase how against these Hyper Offense builds, sacking Rocks is fine because only needs to come in once or twice. The only exception would be against , where you need to save more HP on and . You're clearly the one at an advantage in these sorts of matchups, and the opponent needs to make some crazy plays in order to win.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2237455896-2vswbkvno470p6mwtjk1j08xv34i0zypw
1-0 WIN Replay against
A game against a different Webs Hyper Offense team where clutches. This convinced me to try out Weather Ball .
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236676755-tw6lotxraeu6yj3ij4zmzhwsdmo1aompw
3-0 WIN Replay against 
First, I actually want to give a shoutout to my opponent's team. It's really, really cool. This is a pretty good replay that showcases just how rewarding keeping your attackers very healthy and doubling can be. and have great natural bulk that reward play like this a lot when it's possible. It's also a replay where I handled Dragonite well.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236648012-sjxqd41zv268p9y99dbqwuxyildn9aopw
6-0 WIN Replay against 
This isn't particularly illustrative of anything, but I thought it was really funny.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236646514-toog74jgdnw7h57vt8hjk3a14yljlfbpw
6-0 WIN Replay against 
To be honest, probably doubling in right away is a little risky. If Specs gets knocked, the game becomes way harder, but that's only because otherwise it's so damn easy into Stall already. I didn't save a replay where I did the exact same play from turns 1-3 and OHKOed a that Tera Watered.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236645770-juj3gpizeichscjq2l46irlibs9w42mpw
I'm not shy about making mistakes; here are some replays where I threw. I should have lost all of these games.
2-0 WIN Replay against
There is literally no way I should have won this game. Because the opposing team is so fat and getting through it takes so long, not simply popping Tera and killing was a big mistake. Stopping the hazards at one spike and taking probably would've easily won the game, as without Tera and Protect scouting it becomes impossible for these teams to switch into .
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236990647-6bl1u0ybvootkut5ne62dxdm6f56z8jpw
4-0 WIN Replay against 
In this one I sack too much HP on my checks for little to no reason and somehow get bailed because he's using the worst set imaginable against my team.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236757249-8monpb0wctw71oda024u2z1rxxpxbifpw
0-2 LOSS Replay against 
Here's a replay where I lost to pivot spam. It's kind of hilarious that this is how I lost my peak, and it's because I didn't do the thing my whole team was built around (deny hazards). The spirit of Always Exhaust really came back to kick me in the teeth one last time. Anyway, a good showcase of why you cannot let opposing pivot teams get up hazards.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236973896-r7cpcsacy0x91kjqfdh8pi50zaflwwxpw
0-2 LOSS Replay against
CAPE CANAVERAL reportedly caught NOT CALCING meteor damage
My honest reaction to not getting the kill:
Yeah, do not make the same mistake that I did. Dragon Tera is generally something you pop once you're pretty sure it'll win you the game. You wouldn't really even pop it into Ting-Lu because the damage increase is kind of unimpactful.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236977962-a6zwm6m1x2lhvxdua30zr4ph6sfgldvpw
3-0 WIN Replay against
Admittedly, I played poorly this game. Turn 1 I thought that my opponent would try to switch to something else or Knock my
, because is an otherwise completely free switch, but I suppose I overthought. The purpose of this replay is to showcase how against these Hyper Offense builds, sacking Rocks is fine because only needs to come in once or twice. The only exception would be against , where you need to save more HP on and . You're clearly the one at an advantage in these sorts of matchups, and the opponent needs to make some crazy plays in order to win.https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2237455896-2vswbkvno470p6mwtjk1j08xv34i0zypw
1-0 WIN Replay against
A game against a different Webs Hyper Offense team where
clutches. This convinced me to try out Weather Ball .https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236676755-tw6lotxraeu6yj3ij4zmzhwsdmo1aompw
3-0 WIN Replay against
First, I actually want to give a shoutout to my opponent's team. It's really, really cool. This is a pretty good replay that showcases just how rewarding keeping your attackers very healthy and doubling can be.
and have great natural bulk that reward play like this a lot when it's possible. It's also a replay where I handled Dragonite well.https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236648012-sjxqd41zv268p9y99dbqwuxyildn9aopw
6-0 WIN Replay against
This isn't particularly illustrative of anything, but I thought it was really funny.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236646514-toog74jgdnw7h57vt8hjk3a14yljlfbpw
6-0 WIN Replay against
To be honest, probably doubling in
right away is a little risky. If Specs gets knocked, the game becomes way harder, but that's only because otherwise it's so damn easy into Stall already. I didn't save a replay where I did the exact same play from turns 1-3 and OHKOed a that Tera Watered.https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236645770-juj3gpizeichscjq2l46irlibs9w42mpw
I'm not shy about making mistakes; here are some replays where I threw. I should have lost all of these games.
2-0 WIN Replay against
There is literally no way I should have won this game. Because the opposing team is so fat and getting through it takes so long, not simply popping Tera and killing
was a big mistake. Stopping the hazards at one spike and taking probably would've easily won the game, as without Tera and Protect scouting it becomes impossible for these teams to switch into .https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236990647-6bl1u0ybvootkut5ne62dxdm6f56z8jpw
4-0 WIN Replay against
In this one I sack too much HP on my
checks for little to no reason and somehow get bailed because he's using the worst set imaginable against my team.https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236757249-8monpb0wctw71oda024u2z1rxxpxbifpw
0-2 LOSS Replay against
Here's a replay where I lost to pivot spam. It's kind of hilarious that this is how I lost my peak, and it's because I didn't do the thing my whole team was built around (deny hazards). The spirit of Always Exhaust really came back to kick me in the teeth one last time. Anyway, a good showcase of why you cannot let opposing pivot teams get up hazards.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236973896-r7cpcsacy0x91kjqfdh8pi50zaflwwxpw
0-2 LOSS Replay against
CAPE CANAVERAL reportedly caught NOT CALCING meteor damage
My honest reaction to not getting the kill:
Yeah, do not make the same mistake that I did. Dragon Tera is generally something you pop once you're pretty sure it'll win you the game. You wouldn't really even pop it into Ting-Lu because the damage increase is kind of unimpactful.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2236977962-a6zwm6m1x2lhvxdua30zr4ph6sfgldvpw
These are some things I wish I could really impress upon my past self. Hell, I'm still working on these right now. I hope me saying these don't come across as pretentious.
- Being good at Pokemon, and video games in general, is cool, but only if you're good at everything else, too.
- The amount of time you spend thinking about the game should be greater than the amount of time you spend playing, at least if you are seriously trying to rank up or improve.
- Before you click the Battle button, seriously consider if it is a good decision to play the game you are about to play. Take many factors into account like your desire to play, mood, energy, and team.
- Sometimes you need a change in perspective to move forward; this team would never have been complete without Always Exhaust. I would highly recommend exploring as many teams as possible and trying to build around lots of different ideas at once if time allows for it.
- You're more (or perhaps less sometimes) than just your elo number, although it certainly does represent something about you.
Shoutout to Pinkacross on YT for great educational content about teambuilding. I have to attribute some of the Raging Bolt idea to him as well.
I've mentioned Always Exhaust so many times at this point I might as well say thanks to ghostlike. Without being shat on by it this team would not have been possible.
Thank you for reading this RMT. I hope you liked it. Let me know if you have any suggestions to make the team better! I'd also be happy to hear any feedback about my writing. I'm new to the forum, so I don't really know how everything works, but I'll do my best to read and respond to people.
A big thank you to Pickles. You’ll always be my goat.
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