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The outpredicted team

First of all, I'd be playing a timed battle and make sure my computer's not lagging. I'd make sure not to choose my move until there's only a few seconds left. This gives me however much time there is on the clock to think but if my opponent is getting messages right when I choose the move, they'll be in crisis.

From there, I'd probably use a lot of strong walls (Hippo, Blissey, obviously etc.). I'd be using Knock off, stealth rock, stun spore, yawn, leech seed etc. Things they can't run away from if they hit (i.e. you can't really switch Blissey in safely into all of those. Likewise, a sleep talker isn't going to want to lose their item or getting seeded).
 
In this kind of situation I'd love to take advantage of the likes of Tyraniboah or Breloom. Assuming you know your opponent knows your every move, you can take advantage of this by making a move that you know he'll counter by sending in a pokemon that gives one of your other pokemon a free switch in that'd still be able to do something when he switches. Maybe sacrifice a pokemon to switch in one of these monsters. Once its behind the Sub he'll either need to use U-Turn to break it and simultaneously switch to a pokemon to take the incoming FP, Spore, Leech Seed, Seed Bomb, etc or sacrifice a pokemon just to break its sub.

Getting SR, Spikes, or TS up would also be a huge bonus since obviously your opponent will be trying to switch a lot. Having a good spin-blocker or two would be a big bonus, like a Dusknoir and a ScarfGar. ScarfGar because Starmie will likely think its outspeeding Gengar and finishing it off just to eat a Shadow Ball instead. On that note, unexpected items or support moves will help you score some KO's as well. A Stall Team would hardly be inconvenienced by this as well IMO, since unless their pokemon is a mixed attacker they'll still be forced to switch even if they're switching on the switch. Which means taking SR, Sandstorm, TS, Spikes, etc. All that fun stuff. Revolving door of pokemon only the pokemon coming through one door are getting weaker every time. Its hard to completely prevent these from getting set up, and just because they know when to send their spinner in doesn't mean its going to get in and definitely won't be helping any if they can't deal with the spin-blocker. Thats just another switch they're forced to make.

Dealing with an opponent who knows every move you make isn't that much more difficult than dealing with an opponent who's just good with predicting. No matter how good you are at predicting, sometimes it won't matter what you do. I can't count how many times I'd be against a pokemon and think "Ok, I know exactly what its going to do but it doesn't matter what pokemon I send in to take it I'm screwed because my best counter for it is just going to die on the switch."

I think I'd honestly like to try facing an opponent like this sometime. Minus the hacker part. Could be a fun challenge.
 
Simple.

CB Garchomp @ Outrage. Steels can be 3HKO'd by this thing.

Now to think of a Special attack besides Draco Meteor that has no immunities (losing 2 Sp. Atk is not good in this format).

Normal. - No
Fire - No
Water - No
Grass - 4x resists abound.
Electric - no.
Ice - Maybe Glaceon or Frosslass.
Ground - No.
Poison - no.
Psychic - no.
Fighting - no.
Ghost - no.
Psychic - no.
Steel - maybe, but Magnezone pwns them.
Dragon - duh.
Bug - Yes.
Flying - Maybe.


OH! Yanmega. Not sure if I would prefer Speed Boost or Tinted Lense in this enviroment, being able to hit everything Neutral with your STAB moves sounds pretty nice (IIRC nothing has a 4x resist to both bug and flying). Yes, yes, Blissey OMG WTF? You know how Baton Pass Screws them up? Either Nasty Plot passing Ambipom or Smeargle would be on this team.

In other words, extremely hard hitters whose best STAB moves have no immunities / quad resists. That leaves Dragon and Dark. Dark has a horrible movepool to work off, so that's out of the option. Okay, that leaves Flying, Bug, Ice, Grass, and Steel. Steel gets owned by Magnezone, so no. Ice is much better, but Walrein can have an 8x resist. Bug and Flyign were shown in Yanmega, but Staraptor and Heracross can also lay down the damage, especially MopCross (no reason to use Close Combat if they can always switch to a Ghost without consequence.) Grass really only has Shaymin and Seed Flare to use, all other Grass sweepers relie on Grass Knot, Solarbeam, or Leaf Storm, which are easy to weaken.

Okay, team so far.

CB Chomp - Outrage.
Yanmega - Air Slash / Bug Buzz.
Smearlge - Spore/Nasty Plot/Baton Pass.
Heracross - Megahorn/Stone Edge/Sub/Swords Dance @ Salac.
CSpecs Shaymin - Seed Flare.

Right now, I get owned by Steel types. So last pokemon is going to be Magnezone with HP Fire and Magnet Rise to destroy them (Steelix).

Okay, now tell me a team that could resist that onslaught.
 
I'm quite new to competitive battling, but I would personally just go for a stall team. Even if your attacks were all predicted and resisted by the appropriate poke you would still be wearing them down with Spikes/Stealth Rock/Sandstorm/Toxic. I would also use some sort of Powerful Choice band'er, possibly slaking to clear up the remenants. A CB'ed return from Slaking still hurts even if you do resist it.
 
Hyra said:
Simple.

Okay, now tell me a team that could resist that onslaught..
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Skarmory and Gliscor with Roost.

If your Smeargle uses Spore, they'll know and in all likelihood switch to something that can absorb it, or really screw you if its Vital Spirit Primeape.

If Skarm has lefties its in trouble. You basically NEED Magnezone (or Probopass) to round out your team, and you have to pray Skarm doesn't have Shed Skin or Substitute + Whirlwind, because if it does then Magnezone is screwed.

In the meantime, Skarm can eat Outrage and set up Stealth Rock which will royally screw Yanmega, Skarmory and Gliscor both wall Hera to hell, with Gliscor Aerial Acing it to death and Skarm using Drill Peck or Whirlwind on it.

Your offensive juggernauts are all laughable in the fact of switching between these two pokemon alone.

Since Yanmega might be able to own them (Gliscor at least) with special moves, just round the team out with a special wall. Regice does well here, easily absorbing Yanmegas special moves, and KOing it back with STAB Ice Beam.

Seriously, your team is countered by 3 OU pokemon, and it operates under the condition that people know when you're going to use Hypnosis or Spore. Short of a bad switchin that they'll need later, Skarmory/Gliscor/Regice/Sleep Fodder beats your team unquestionably every time.
 
I'd probably play with a stall team. Most of the time you can predict what they'll do anyway, but that does little to nothing when it comes to how effective they are. May as well forfeit though. No point fighting if your opponent has 100% perfect prediction; they could probably punch a big enough hole in any team after awhile. It's futile.
 
I think an extremely good strategy would to have a U-Turn Ambipom starter (or any Pokemon with U-Turn) and then have Magnezone and Duggy on your team. If they see that you have Magnezone, then they probably won't bring Steel types, AKA the best defensive types in the game, opening up so much more room for you to sweep.

U-Turn Starter
Duggy
Magnezone (HP Ice of course)
Band-Chomp (No more Skarm/Bronz in his way)
Yanmega

Then some other Pokemon... I think that would work pretty well. As just stated, Garchomp gets walled by steels, so if they see you have Magnezone AND Garchomp, they will have to pick their own poison. Either way, the venom is gonna kill 'em.
 
The way I see it, it is all about putting pressure on your opponent.

Think of it this way: Every action in battle has a cost. This cost is measured in the amount of damage dealt, healed, stored via stat-ups, or prevented. You want to maximize the cost of every action your opponent takes.

Calling out your attacks removes two very important elements in your favor: prediction and surprise. Therefore, maximizing the cost of an opponent's action is key.

This means, first and foremost, to lay down Stealth Rock. Then bring a Ghost to block Rapid Spin.

Sandstorm is more often than not a double-edged sword here.

The cost for your opponent to switch to an immunity on your attack is 0. Stealth Rock makes that cost anywhere between 3-50%, usually hitting 12. The weakness of Spikes and Toxic Spikes is that flying types and leviators and immune to them, and thus they still can have a switch-in cost of 0 on Earthquake or whatever other moves they're immune to.

Stealth Rock means that the switching option always has a cost. It may be minimal, such as Claydol, Steelix, or Flygon switching in on Thunderbolt, but its there. SR really hurts the "switch flying types in on Earthquake" option.

The next idea is to use strategies that are predictable, but hard to stop. The first thing that comes to my mind are Bulky Sub-punchers. Tyranitar, Hariyama, Poliwrath, Kangaskhan, Dragonite, Dusknoir, and Breloom are pokemon that even if you know are subbing, you may not be able to break their Subs. Then it doesn't really matter if they know you'll Focus Punch, the worst that could happen is they'll switch in a Ghost. Since you set SR down, the cost of that action is 12% instead of 0.

Knock Off is another effective move for this. Even if they know Knock Off is coming, all that means is they can either try to KO your pokemon, or they have to choose which pokemon will lose their item. Such a large pressure can lead to mistakes.

Sucker Punch is interesting here. On the one hand it seems useless because your opponent can just stat-up in your face. On the other hand, knowing this can net you Leftovers HP, and if your opponent switches it is generally indictative that particular pokemon doesn't have stat-ups.

U-Turn combines some attack power with unpredictability since they won't know who you'll switch to. Unfortunately, a lot of things resist it.

Whirlwind and Roar are effective for the opposite reason as Subpunching: They are entirely random. Your opponent is basically hazarding a guess that you'll WW or Roar in the wrong pokemon. Thus, they'll either attack even if it isn't effective, or they'll switch hoping that a different pokemon gets blown in. Once again SR is crucial here, although Spikes and Toxic Spikes don't hurt any in this case.

So as a summation, a team which employs these tactics is probably going to have the best chance of sucess. I'd go with:

Swampert Surf/Earthquake/Stealth Rock/Ice Beam @ Lefties
Skarmory Drill Peck/Roost/Spikes/Whirlwind @ Shed Skin
Hariyama Substitue/Focus Punch/Knock Off/Whirlwind @ Lefties
Vaporeon Ice Beam/Aqua Ring/Baton Pass/Roar @ Leftovers
Dugtrio Earthquake/Aerial Ace/Stone Edge/Pursuit @ Choice Band
Dusknoir Substitute/Focus Punch/Shadow Sneak/Will-O-Wisp @ Lefties

Rapid Spin blocker, a trapper, a load of bulky pokemon, and lots of Phazers means even with prediction, you have a lot of difficult strategies to beat. Taunt Aerodactyl is probably the worst thing that could happen to this team, but it isn't as if he's going to stay in on Pert or Vaporeon often, or switch into a Substituting Hari or Dusknoir.
 
This kind of game is a basic variant of the 'mind-reader rock paper scissors,' dicussed in game theory. The general approach is to just use luck as much as possible. The obvious choice is OHKO moves, but if those are banned, the best choices seem to be things like sniper kingdra, stuff that hits hard regardless of who it's against if the luck kicks in.
 
By skimming, Hyra's team is raped by Infernape. Who cares if no one can take your team's attack, but the second Infernape comes in, it can OHKO every single thing.

On Deck Knights team, thats the most vulnerable Gyarados team I've seen for quite a while. Gyara on turn 1 is like a guranteed 6-0 sweep already.
 
Aeroblacktyl said:
By skimming, Hyra's team is raped by Infernape. Who cares if no one can take your team's attack, but the second Infernape comes in, it can OHKO every single thing.

On Deck Knights team, thats the most vulnerable Gyarados team I've seen for quite a while. Gyara on turn 1 is like a guranteed 6-0 sweep already.
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Ah, thats a quick fix. I'll just put HP Electric on Vaporeon over Baton Pass, and Wish over Aqua Ring. Much as I love BP'ing Aqua Ring, Gyarados can't do crap to Vaporeon without DD'ing twice. its immune to Waterfall and the max Def versions can easily take its other attacks.

*fix sounds*
 
Deck Knight, well if they have Gyarados, they might also have Electivire. They can send it in on HP Elec, and if it's special Vire, outpredict every one of your switch ins and sweep.

Anyway,

I never said anything about them knowing your team.
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I think this statement is the key here. Since they don't know your team, your opponent will most likely be using a standard team. Now, most standard teams, even stall teams, only have one or two pokemon to counter a common threat. An example is Obi's team where his only counter to Garchomp is Hippo. So, couldn't you just build a team consisting of multiple pokemon that share only one or two common counters? That counter will soon get worn down by repeated hits and will get KOed. Then they have nothing to stop the rest of your sweepers.

An example is say having Mence, DNite, and Garchomp all on the same team. You would focus on hitting Cress and Hippo repeatedly until they get KOed.
 
My basic question here is do they know my team before building theirs?

Assuming they don't, I would just use my regular old stall team in a heartbeat. I don't care if they know what I'm doing. As long as I can set my residual damage up, I should be able to eventually outstall them. There's no need for surprise. There's a *minimal* requirement for prediction, since everything is so bulky, and most pokes used are an absolute counter to <insert poke here>.

I think luck would be more of a hindrance than a help, here, since CHs would ultimately break you. However, removing luck from the game, if the opponent's pokemon aren't able to break your stall, you just have to play as conservative as possible, and you will win.
 
Quiet Lurker said:
Deck Knight, well if they have Gyarados, they might also have Electivire. They can send it in on HP Elec, and if it's special Vire, outpredict every one of your switch ins and sweep.
.
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HP Grass Vire is troublesome, but if it has EQ instead of HP then I just switch in Pert, Stealth Rock, and then neither can switch in with impunity.

Or switch in Hari and Sub in its face, seeing as it hasn't a chance in hell of taking 50% of Hari's HP. Besides, if Vire shows its face without Motor Drive, its Duggy bait.

Dusknoir also walls the hell out of it, and neither would like Will-O-Wisp.
 
If I lose surprise value, I'd have to make up for it with sheer stalling or sheer power. I think option 2 would be best. Nobody can stop the Belly Smeargle Medicham combo of death. Unless I don't make the pass.

I'd just load up on heavy hitters and tanks and go kamikaze.
 
i would get owned for a few turns, get really angry, and close the window. then i would challenge my friend to a fair match over wi-fi/wireless.
 
Ae Sakura said:
Let's look at it this way. Firstly, a Starmie with Surf/Thunderbolt/HP Fire/Ice Beam @ Leftovers.

Let's say you use surf against his houndoom. He, knowing the attack, switches to maybe Suicune to take the attack. You use thunderbolt, he switches to hippowdon. You use ice beam, he switches to suicide. Thunderbolt, hippowdon.

Basically, you force him to keep switching. He can't attack you, and despite the fact that it's not very effective,every bit counts.

Also, from the start of the game, take out hippo, use stealth rock. They can't counter that, and sandstream.
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That's stupid cause suicune will just CM up. Obi isn't saying the person is switch happy, he just says he knows what you will do. Basically if the opponent have any mixed sweepers they can win. Tyranitar with Dark Pulse/Crunch, Ice Beam, Flamethrower, EQ. Can hit every wall hard. Mixmence can just DM/FB/BB whatever it wants to. I don't think there is a way to win against that.
 
I agree with many people here, a stall team would probably be the best bet.

Randomly straying form the original topic, why do you think would be the biggest threats from your opponent? Other than flawless counter switches (blissey skarm ect), sucker punch/ focus punch cacturn would be a nightmare to fight.
 
Well now if you think about it, it all comes down to team advantage. If the opponent knows what you're doing, they're either going to use it defensively or offensively. With that said, if they're just switching around to prevent you from doing shit, then they're playing defensive. If they're using a fast pace team, they can't exactly do that, now can they?
 
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