Fully anticipating being clowned for my take here but here goes: I think there is a risk Sample Teams have lost sight of what they were originally intended to be - an intro to the tier for new players - and have shifted into a different purpose, almost eclipsing the need for players to learn teambuilding at all and removing what used to be a fundamental skillcheck.
I'm a BW main and can only really talk for BW Samples here, but thought it might be worth making a PR thread in case there is are any similar feelings across other gens/tiers and whether we can learn/adapt something or not.
At least in BW OU, the current 17 Sample Teams are incredibly good and cover practically every major team archtype. This might not be the case in other metagames and maybe your samples are outdated and therefore we dont have the same issue. But in BW, the samples are all good and they cover everything you'd ever want to use. 9 sand teams covering various types of Alakazam offense (LO and Sash), Terrakion, Garchomp, SubPass Celebi, VoltTurn, and two of the best sand stalls. 4 rains including classic "big 6 rain", a Mamoswine variation, and two of the more modern double steel approaches. 4 hyperoffenses including traditional Smurf as well the super modern Hail and healing wish + Conkeldurr styles. This is no longer about giving new players an intro to the game, its giving them every single resource they need to enter a tournament and be immediately competitive with no meta familiarity or further work required.
I don't think its surprising that this year's BW Cup has seen a huge number of R1 upsets. New players unfamiliar to the tier have access to almost all the same resources that long-time top players that self-build do, right down to the perfectly optimised EV spreads and techs that they couldn't have discovered on their own. The unfortunate reality of this game is that it has a relatively low skill ceiling, and anyone coming into a game with baseline pokemon knowledge and a top team has potential to cause an upset with a decent matchup or a bit of luck, and in this way I think the ubiquity of incredible teams on the forums erodes one of the game's steepest skillchecks - teambuilding.
There's a fine line to draw between making the game accessible for new players, and giving out so many highly optimised and tournament ready teams that they truly don't need to set foot in the teambuilder at all.
My suggestion:
Sample Teams need to exist but we probably have too many of them. Sometimes when I bring up this topic, it is suggested I simply need to make sure I have good MUs into all the samples, knowing that everyone has access to them - this is not realistic when there are 17 of them and they are all modern and strong. If Sample Teams are truly about giving new players a taste of the tier, then they don't need 3 versions of Alakazam offense. They just need starting points to know what the stronger strategies are, and encouragement to explore other options for themselves. 10 Samples would be plenty, perhaps even too many.
Sample Teams could also probably be less optimised. Maybe 252 / 252 spreads only. Maybe don't specify Hidden Powers (or Tera Type or Z-moves or w/e equivalent in your metagames, I don't know enough to properly comment). Hyper optimised techs that make the entire team click could be switched out for the more generic option and let a player work something out for themselves. Maybe give a couple lines under each one indicating how they could be tweaked and encourage the new player to actually hop into the builder themselves. If a player isn't good enough to recognise that a team needs to EV their Tyranitar to survive a +1 LO Volc Bug Buzz, then allow them to slip up, learn from the mistake, and correct it. If a player hasn't realised that LO Zam can be EVd to take a Tyranitar Pursuit, then we should just let them die to Pursuit until they work that out. 252/252 EV spreads only and encourage them to learn something.
I know this sounds elitist and horrible but since returning to the game in 2021 this has been an annoyance. People are accustomed to handouts and are entitled. When Samples aren't updated for a year our discord is inundated with petulant fucks complaining about the sample teams being outdated. On the other side of the spectrum, we see people get hardstuck as trying to upskill your teambuilding after a year of having perfect teams is demotivating. Big names get knocked out R1 of tours cos everyone has VolcConk HO and its a crit away from beating anything.
The samples no longer serve their initial purpose, discuss.
I'm a BW main and can only really talk for BW Samples here, but thought it might be worth making a PR thread in case there is are any similar feelings across other gens/tiers and whether we can learn/adapt something or not.
At least in BW OU, the current 17 Sample Teams are incredibly good and cover practically every major team archtype. This might not be the case in other metagames and maybe your samples are outdated and therefore we dont have the same issue. But in BW, the samples are all good and they cover everything you'd ever want to use. 9 sand teams covering various types of Alakazam offense (LO and Sash), Terrakion, Garchomp, SubPass Celebi, VoltTurn, and two of the best sand stalls. 4 rains including classic "big 6 rain", a Mamoswine variation, and two of the more modern double steel approaches. 4 hyperoffenses including traditional Smurf as well the super modern Hail and healing wish + Conkeldurr styles. This is no longer about giving new players an intro to the game, its giving them every single resource they need to enter a tournament and be immediately competitive with no meta familiarity or further work required.
I don't think its surprising that this year's BW Cup has seen a huge number of R1 upsets. New players unfamiliar to the tier have access to almost all the same resources that long-time top players that self-build do, right down to the perfectly optimised EV spreads and techs that they couldn't have discovered on their own. The unfortunate reality of this game is that it has a relatively low skill ceiling, and anyone coming into a game with baseline pokemon knowledge and a top team has potential to cause an upset with a decent matchup or a bit of luck, and in this way I think the ubiquity of incredible teams on the forums erodes one of the game's steepest skillchecks - teambuilding.
There's a fine line to draw between making the game accessible for new players, and giving out so many highly optimised and tournament ready teams that they truly don't need to set foot in the teambuilder at all.
My suggestion:
Sample Teams need to exist but we probably have too many of them. Sometimes when I bring up this topic, it is suggested I simply need to make sure I have good MUs into all the samples, knowing that everyone has access to them - this is not realistic when there are 17 of them and they are all modern and strong. If Sample Teams are truly about giving new players a taste of the tier, then they don't need 3 versions of Alakazam offense. They just need starting points to know what the stronger strategies are, and encouragement to explore other options for themselves. 10 Samples would be plenty, perhaps even too many.
Sample Teams could also probably be less optimised. Maybe 252 / 252 spreads only. Maybe don't specify Hidden Powers (or Tera Type or Z-moves or w/e equivalent in your metagames, I don't know enough to properly comment). Hyper optimised techs that make the entire team click could be switched out for the more generic option and let a player work something out for themselves. Maybe give a couple lines under each one indicating how they could be tweaked and encourage the new player to actually hop into the builder themselves. If a player isn't good enough to recognise that a team needs to EV their Tyranitar to survive a +1 LO Volc Bug Buzz, then allow them to slip up, learn from the mistake, and correct it. If a player hasn't realised that LO Zam can be EVd to take a Tyranitar Pursuit, then we should just let them die to Pursuit until they work that out. 252/252 EV spreads only and encourage them to learn something.
I know this sounds elitist and horrible but since returning to the game in 2021 this has been an annoyance. People are accustomed to handouts and are entitled. When Samples aren't updated for a year our discord is inundated with petulant fucks complaining about the sample teams being outdated. On the other side of the spectrum, we see people get hardstuck as trying to upskill your teambuilding after a year of having perfect teams is demotivating. Big names get knocked out R1 of tours cos everyone has VolcConk HO and its a crit away from beating anything.
The samples no longer serve their initial purpose, discuss.
