Maybe, but the other, I was playing in the Gen V server that has no Team Preview (PBC I think it is the name), and even though the quality of the players are lower than in the Smogon Server, you could see a difference of pokemon in teams with TP and no TP, even when I played against some High-ranked players there.
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Team Preview
- Thread starter Nix_Hex
- Start date
Maybe, but the other, I was playing in the Gen V server that has no Team Preview (PBC I think it is the name), and even though the quality of the players are lower than in the Smogon Server, you could see a difference of pokemon in teams with TP and no TP, even when I played against some High-ranked players there.
I don't understand your point. Are you saying that without team preview we would not be seeing volt-turn teams everywhere? Do you think that without TP weather teams would be less common? If you really think so, then you're probably kidding yourself.
The only Pokemon that's really nerfed by team preview is Zoroark and even then, when you see it in your opponent's team, you have to guess what Pokemon he's disguised in.
The centralization that characterizes the OU metagame is due to the fact that there are certain strategies that are just more successful than others. If you think that it's caused by team preview, then please prove it without resorting to examples that involve less than average, quality wise, servers.
The only Pokemon that's really nerfed by team preview is Zoroark and even then, when you see it in your opponent's team, you have to guess what Pokemon he's disguised in.
The centralization that characterizes the OU metagame is due to the fact that there are certain strategies that are just more successful than others. If you think that it's caused by team preview, then please prove it without resorting to examples that involve less than average, quality wise, servers.
An interesting point, but there's a leap of logic there I can't swallow. If I have understood correctly, you suggest that while the standard of teams was lower, the diversity was higher and you attribute that to a lack of team preview. Can't there be a link between the standard being lower and the diversity higher? Isn't it more likely that there are so many Volt Turn teams because Volt Turn works?
EDIT: Heh. I left the computer without posting, and came back to see that the guy above me had made the same point more eloquently. =/
EDIT: Heh. I left the computer without posting, and came back to see that the guy above me had made the same point more eloquently. =/
Sorry, but I think you did not interpret my previous post (number 46), correctly. I never said or implied that a given strategy would more or less common with or without TP. What I am saying is that with TP, certain pokemons, mainly unorthodox pokemon that counted with the surprise factor to succeed, are not successful in Gen V, because TP has taken that surprise factor of having a concealed pokemon in your team, therefore players prefer to use pokemon that have three, four viable sets in OU, as the only suprise factor you have now is the sets that your pokemon is using.
That's not true at all. Pokemon like Scizor and Rotom-W have been top 5 in usage for a while with just 1 or 2 viable sets, and that regardless of the fact that team preview makes them even more predictable.
Can you, please, provide some examples of these "unorthdox" Pokemon that used to work without team preview but no longer work in gen V due to the removal of the surprise factor?
Can you, please, provide some examples of these "unorthdox" Pokemon that used to work without team preview but no longer work in gen V due to the removal of the surprise factor?
Unorthodox pokemon can still be successful, since many people aren't sure what sets they run. For example (don't look it up) can you tell me the EVs, and moveset of a standard Crobat in OU? I didn't think so. Even seeing one in team preview, many battlers would have no idea what set it runs, and therefore what counters it. This means they may make a mistake Crobat can capitalize on.
On an unrelated note, I've found that unorthodox sets are even more successful since opponents formulate a game plan the second they see what six pokemon you're carrying. For example, I ran a sun team for a little bit and used a Venusaur who used Seed Bomb instead of Energy Ball. People would often switch their Blissey in immediately as I boosted, not even thinking about the possibility of getting mauled by a physical STAB.
Take Nasty Plot Lucario as another example. When people, especially mediocre battlers, see Lucario in team preview, they automatically assume that it's a SD variant. This means that they're more inclined to keep a physically bulky pokemon like Skarmory alive, and would more readily sacrifice their special wall, let's say Blissey. Because of this, NP Lucario's sweep just got much easier, since your opponent would've made assumptions that weren't true, and thus formulated a faulty game plan.
Straying from standard sets can still lead to success, you just need to go about it in a different way.
I can think of one. Mixed LO Sceptile is much easier to counter if you know it's coming. It depended on you to keep it hidden before its sweep, so your opponent would feel easier about sacrificing their fast choice Scarf users. With team preview, smart opponents will never sacrifice their revenge killers before Sceptile falls. I know I just went on a pro-Team Preview rant, but I still thought that deserved mention.
I don't remember mixed Sceptile being such a threat in gen IV but anyway, let's assume for a second that it was an usable "unorthodox" mon and that now TP removes the surprise factor about its presence on your team. At this point your opponent sees Sceptile and tries to save his, let's say, scarf Terrakion to revenge kill it at the end of the battle sacrificing other Pokemon in the process. Now what if, instead of a standard all out attacker set, you're running a substitute, unbuden or even a scarf set of your own? In this case your opponent will most likely lose despite knowing that you had a Sceptile on your team.
So, in your pretended scenario, your opponent would have had an actual competitive advantage against your "unorthodx" Pokemon only knowing the actual set it was running. Note that the same construction may work the other way around. So your opponent may think that your Sceptile is some sub seed variant or just a scarf revenge killer and not save his scarfer until late game just for it, giving you free kills in the process (for example switching his Heatran on a predicted grass move just to get smashed by earthquake).
What I'm trying to say is that unconventional Pokemon\sets can still work regardless of TP. As I said, in my opinion, team preview brings mind wars to higher levels than ever before.
It wasn't seen much, but it could outspeed basically the entire OU metagame (up to ScarfTar) and OHKO with the appropriate move. It needed a bit of hazard support, but it was a vicious late-game cleaner. But back to the point; I'm not saying that Sceptile's totally unusable thanks to TP, just that it was nerfed. In OU, Sceptile's only has one set that's really viable, and that's the LO sweeper variant. While there are sets that can beat revenge killers, most notably the Substitute variant, Sceptile needs all the coverage he can get to be effective because of his middling attacking stats. So getting rid of a coverage move kills his sweeping potential. In other words, you can use his other sets to catch niche threats like CS Terrakion, or use him to his fullest potential as a sweeper. Either way, his effectiveness is greatly reduced from Gen IV since you can either lure out and dispatch his normal checks at the cost of a great deal of sweeping potential, or get revenge killed (as opposed to before, where you could keep him secret until opposing revenge killers were already defeated).
I totally agree that Team Preview is a great innovation. If you see my previous post, I think that (if anything) it's generally boosted the effectiveness of unorthodox sets such as NP Lucario and most unorthodox pokemon. As you said, it's brought mind wars to the forefront of the game. However, I do think a handful of threats have been nerfed by it, and Sceptile is an example of that.
I think you have the wrong mind set. With team preview, there is no "lead" for the team, but rather, just for this one battle. They haven't switched from their lead to Scizor, but decided that in this battle, Scizor is their lead.
In the end, I think that the like or dislike for TP, depends in each person's characteristics. I believe that people that prefer the suspense, the adrenaline of not having any idea of your opponents team and having to take guesses to win the game, such as a people like myself, will prefer no TP, as TP at least for me, took out pretty much all the suspense and guessing of trying to ginf the following pokemon, which was one of my favourite factors in competitve battling.
I think team preview is only good if you are using the right pokemon. Knowing that someone has a Zoroark is a huge blow to the element of surprise that the oppoenent might of had without team preview. On the other hand, team preview actually gives some purpose to having multiple leads in your team, which is quite changing indeed. All in all, I think that team preview was something that needed to happen, was bound to happen, but releasing Zoroark at the same time as it was a mistake.
But the thing is, with TP you can actually make the mind games easier. For example, you have a team that all takes = hazard damage and also can be poisoned by TS (just an ex). You have roopushin on your team. Your opponent may be weary to send in skarm, for fear of flamethrower, but, say if you look like that, you can be able ward off bliss and have a free turn to NP. Just an example. A poor one, but still an example.
I'm just gonna try and ignore the posts above me and state my thoughts on team preview.
Honestly, Team Preview just creates a set of mindgames by itself, and depending on what team you are using, there are reliable leads vs. different teams as opposed to others. Take for example the Rotom-W in the OP - it's good against all weather leads (assuming its Choiced), forcing you to go to your Rotom-W counter, which will vary per team. Let's say were against a sand team using Gastrodon. If you assume it's choiced, Gastrodon will work perfectly. However, there is always the chance that it's actually an Expert Belt variant that could kill you with HP Grass (you still don't know if it's a Choice Specs variant). You have to choose whether to keep your own Gastrodon in or go to something else - let's say Celebi, which tanks HP Grass nicely. From here, you could just make an infinite amount of scenarios of what would happen with Rotom-W in the lead slot. Now, that's just a purely hypothetical scenario, but again, the opponent will often expect you to lead with the Pokemon that's in the lead slot (unless there is an obvious chance to set up weather, or hazards from something else i.e. Ninetales = sun). The decisions of what Pokemon you lead with basically decides what will happen in the rest of the match - admittedly this is the same as regular leads in DPP, but the ability to see what's on the opponent's team adds another level of thinking into it.
Speaking of which, if you use Team Preview you can have good guess of what sets your opponent is using, weather starters and Pokemon with single sets aside. Again, lets use this example, Rotom-W - he's on a rain team, and you are up against the same sand team with Gastrodon and Celebi. The opponent makes the inference that Rotom-W's position on this team is to remove counters to rain sweepers on his team, in particular Gastrodon, so it's running Hidden Power Grass. Likewise, the Starmie on the same rain team with few Pokemon weak to hazards (or another Rapid Spin user) is most likely to be an offensive variant with Expert Belt or Life Orb, carrying Hydro Pump, BoltBeam coverage, and Recover. You could, again, apply this to almost any Pokemon, though some Pokemon are almost always going to be running one set (i.e. Scizor tends to be Choice Band, Breloom will be running a set with Spore). You also can take one's knowledge of the metagame as a factor as well. A particular set someone has been seeing on the ladder more than any other set can, thus, be thought of as the most popular set at that time, and the one to automatically assume - unless there are other factors that alter this (see, im getting back to what i said at the beginning!).
In short, Team Preview is really the actual start of the battle, since you're making all these decisions which will affect the battle. Consider it the actual first turn!
Honestly, Team Preview just creates a set of mindgames by itself, and depending on what team you are using, there are reliable leads vs. different teams as opposed to others. Take for example the Rotom-W in the OP - it's good against all weather leads (assuming its Choiced), forcing you to go to your Rotom-W counter, which will vary per team. Let's say were against a sand team using Gastrodon. If you assume it's choiced, Gastrodon will work perfectly. However, there is always the chance that it's actually an Expert Belt variant that could kill you with HP Grass (you still don't know if it's a Choice Specs variant). You have to choose whether to keep your own Gastrodon in or go to something else - let's say Celebi, which tanks HP Grass nicely. From here, you could just make an infinite amount of scenarios of what would happen with Rotom-W in the lead slot. Now, that's just a purely hypothetical scenario, but again, the opponent will often expect you to lead with the Pokemon that's in the lead slot (unless there is an obvious chance to set up weather, or hazards from something else i.e. Ninetales = sun). The decisions of what Pokemon you lead with basically decides what will happen in the rest of the match - admittedly this is the same as regular leads in DPP, but the ability to see what's on the opponent's team adds another level of thinking into it.
Speaking of which, if you use Team Preview you can have good guess of what sets your opponent is using, weather starters and Pokemon with single sets aside. Again, lets use this example, Rotom-W - he's on a rain team, and you are up against the same sand team with Gastrodon and Celebi. The opponent makes the inference that Rotom-W's position on this team is to remove counters to rain sweepers on his team, in particular Gastrodon, so it's running Hidden Power Grass. Likewise, the Starmie on the same rain team with few Pokemon weak to hazards (or another Rapid Spin user) is most likely to be an offensive variant with Expert Belt or Life Orb, carrying Hydro Pump, BoltBeam coverage, and Recover. You could, again, apply this to almost any Pokemon, though some Pokemon are almost always going to be running one set (i.e. Scizor tends to be Choice Band, Breloom will be running a set with Spore). You also can take one's knowledge of the metagame as a factor as well. A particular set someone has been seeing on the ladder more than any other set can, thus, be thought of as the most popular set at that time, and the one to automatically assume - unless there are other factors that alter this (see, im getting back to what i said at the beginning!).
In short, Team Preview is really the actual start of the battle, since you're making all these decisions which will affect the battle. Consider it the actual first turn!
You could say the battle starts by selecting one of your teams to compete with. It doesn't necessarily matter whether it's a ladder match/tournament pairing; that's also part of the game.
Team Preview can put certain teams out-of-reach competitively because you have the information that allows you to process how you want to Close Combat with your Banded Terrakion here, and Stone Edge there.
Or, how Lucario just needs "x" out of the way before you can threaten your opponent with a Specs Draco Meteor Latios, instead using Trick + Memento to ensure I can Swords Dance next turn, etc.
Team Preview can put certain teams out-of-reach competitively because you have the information that allows you to process how you want to Close Combat with your Banded Terrakion here, and Stone Edge there.
Or, how Lucario just needs "x" out of the way before you can threaten your opponent with a Specs Draco Meteor Latios, instead using Trick + Memento to ensure I can Swords Dance next turn, etc.
You could say that the battle starts by selecting one of your teams to compete with, but it would be misleading. Unless the player has prior knowledge of his opponent, the team-building process is entirely non-specific and impersonal. When laddering, generally, the first thing that happens is that both players receive an equal round of information and the first decision made will be which Pokémon to lead with.
On the other hand, you may be right that some teams have been "put out-of-reach competitively", but I don't see how this is an argument against Team Preview. Last generation, Stealth Rock's introduction completely changed how we think of team-building and just about every team was suddenly "out-of-reach" and needed to be redesigned to keep up. Things change. In fact, the rush of Dream World abilities probably effected a greater change in what was and what was not viable.
Team Preview is a boon to some strategies, a thorn in the side for others, but it favours neither player.
On the other hand, you may be right that some teams have been "put out-of-reach competitively", but I don't see how this is an argument against Team Preview. Last generation, Stealth Rock's introduction completely changed how we think of team-building and just about every team was suddenly "out-of-reach" and needed to be redesigned to keep up. Things change. In fact, the rush of Dream World abilities probably effected a greater change in what was and what was not viable.
Team Preview is a boon to some strategies, a thorn in the side for others, but it favours neither player.
I agree with Scrawley that Team Preview is a neutral element of a match. I also agree with Jimera0, Poppy, and Tobes, that Team Preview is not inherently better than non-TP, just different. I initially thought that Team Preview was necessary to deal with many OU threats of BW, but seeing how DW is doing fine without this feature, I cannot say this anymore with conviction (Shell Pass / Baton Pass would probably be a bigger bitch if you don't see it coming, though). Tobes explained it very well that they emphasize different battling skills in order to be victorious.
I am in favor of Team Preview, though, because I like the "planning" phase that it offers. For me, it makes the game more enjoyable, since I can actually formulate a plan and try and execute it. Without TP, you achieve this with less certainty.
I also believe that TP affects the team-building process, although I cannot absolutely confirm this. I personally think that my teams have gotten more increasingly goal-oriented and dynamic rather than a "balanced" team that tries to cover as much threats as possible. HO teams probably wouldn't have flourished as much as it have without Team Preview, although it did originate during DPP. The ability to change your lead is the biggest selling point for me, since it makes my team much more fluid, rather than simply slapping the best current OU lead / best anti-lead to start off the match.
I am in favor of Team Preview, though, because I like the "planning" phase that it offers. For me, it makes the game more enjoyable, since I can actually formulate a plan and try and execute it. Without TP, you achieve this with less certainty.
I also believe that TP affects the team-building process, although I cannot absolutely confirm this. I personally think that my teams have gotten more increasingly goal-oriented and dynamic rather than a "balanced" team that tries to cover as much threats as possible. HO teams probably wouldn't have flourished as much as it have without Team Preview, although it did originate during DPP. The ability to change your lead is the biggest selling point for me, since it makes my team much more fluid, rather than simply slapping the best current OU lead / best anti-lead to start off the match.