Introduction to Competitive Pokémon: A New Story
Introduction to Competitive Pokémon: A New Story
Hey there! If you've found this article, congratulations. You won't be unceremoniously thrust into a constantly shifting metagame like I was when I was like you. Hopefully you'll learn a thing or two about the competitive side of Pokémon before you leave this article.
First off, this guide will only cover general Pokémon mechanics, the different battling styles, and posting on the Competitive RMT of the forums, not everything you will eventually need to know.
If you have any other questions that aren't answered in this guide, please ask away and I'll answer you back as fast as I can. I may add a new section if the question gets enough demand, too.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Spoiler:- Part 1 ~ What Is Competitive Pokémon?:
Part 1 - What Is Competitive Pokémon?
I would love to give you some kind of Professor Oak intro to this, but this isn't your little childish adventure anymore. This isn’t some TV show where Pikachu follows you all the time and you wander aimlessly in some stupid forest. This is definitely the more mature side of our favorite game.
Competitive Pokémon utilizes the Pokémon game mechanics (no ****) by using either a wireless communication (like on D/P/Pt) or a computer simulator (Pokemon Online) to battle another actual person. Some of the best servers include Pokémon Online's server (often called Beta) and Smogon's server. There's also The Pokemon Society, which is Serebii's server along with Team Uber, CAL, and Marriland's. Pokémon Online can be downloaded here, for those who don’t already have it.
The goal of competitive play is to win, and to do whatever you have to in order to win. This means completely disregarding favorites and little in-game gimmicks. Competitive is fun and enjoyable, while also being able to retain something of status once you become very good at it. In fact, there is a lot of respect for those who are good at competitive 'mons.
The people on Smogon said it best,Competitive Pokémon emphasizes an understanding of game mechanics, team organization, and battle tactics, rather than cramming four moves of differing types on your Pokémon and picking whichever one is super effective.
Spoiler:- Part 2 ~ Rules to Live By:
Part 4 - Rules to Live By
Now again, you may want to be rushing ahead and using your awesome Darkrai to use Dark Void on everything and your favorite Garchomp to spam Double Team, but there are some rules and regulations to competitive battling that you must learn first.
Tiers
There are 6 main divisions (of Pokémon) to competitive battling, and these are known as Tiers. These are particularly important as you start, and these most be realized. They are as follows:
Ubers
Over Used (OU)
Border Line (BL)
Under Used (UU)
Never Used (NU)
Not Fully Evolved (NFE)
The abbreviations are commonly used instead of the whole word. These are vital because they separate Pokémon into groups in which they strive and have much of the same range of power and usability. As you can tell, Ubers seems to be where the most powerful Pokémon lie, and NU looks to contain some of the weakest Pokémon. I'll explain each with as little effort as possible:
Ubers: This is for Pokémon like Mewtwo who are way powerful and would be used far too much to be in OU or any tier below. The Pokémon who are only allowed in Ubers usually have amazing stats.
OU: These are the standard Pokémon in which other most other tiers are set around. There are Pokémon like Lucario, Tyranitar, and Blissey, to name a few. These are Pokémon that are fairly powerful and get used a lot more than that of the lower tiers.
BL: BL is the banlist for UU, just like Ubers is the banlist for OU. These Pokémon are those that are too powerful for UU but aren't used enough to be called OU. This tier is for Pokémon like Abomasnow and Staraptor.
UU: This tier is for pokemon that, again, aren't used enough to be called OU. These pokemon generally may have stats or movepools thar don't allow them to survive in the upper tiers. Examples here include things like Hitmontop and Swellow.
NU: Most of these pokemon don't have useful stats or movepools at all. Some can be utilized well, like Walrein on hail teams and Ariados in Ubers, most most of these Pokémon are outclassed or just plain terrible. This includes Pokémon like Luvdisc or Golem.
NFE: These are Pokémon who aren’t even evolved yet.
Little Cup: A fun little derivative of battling in which you can only use the lowest evolved form of a pokemon chain. All pokemon are set to level 5, which makes for interesting battles and stratigies. For example, a level 5 Diglett would be allowed, but not a level 5 Tauros because it doesn't have any lower evolution chain. It pretty much goes alongside NFE's list.
Each one of the Tiers has separate metagames and each are different in terms of gameplay and strategy. If you need a really simple list for what Pokémon are in what tiers, go to this link here. But to keep it really simple, I will stick with standard, or the OU metagame, to explain things a bit easier.
Clauses
One thing that does not change between tiers though is this: the clauses. Competitive has some standard rules, also known as clauses. These clauses set rules for certain situations within battles that can or cannot be done. Here is a simple list of the clauses:
Species Clause: You must use six different Pokémon on your team.
Sleep Clause: You can only put to sleep one Pokémon on an opponent's side at any time. For example, if you use Spore to put one Pokémon asleep, you cannot use it again to put another Pokémon asleep until the first one wakes up.
Freeze Clause: Only one Pokémon on each team may be inflicted with the freeze condition at any time. Subsequent uses of a move with a chance to freeze will not freeze.
Evasion Clause: Moves that solely increase evasion are banned. Double Team is an example of a banned move.
OHKO Clause: Specialty OHKO moves are banned. Horn Drill, Fissure, and Sheer Cold are examples moves banned under this rule.
These rules are STANDARD and should be lived by during any battle, bar the Freeze Clause on Wifi, because you can’t control the freezing of Pokémon. These rules also make things fair and easier for people to play.
Spoiler:- Part 3 ~ Battling: It's a Longer Process Than You Think:
Part 3 - Battling: A Longer Process Than You Think
Now that you have some basic knowledge about what competitive battling is, I’m sure you're just ready to get out there and battle. But there are a few things you need to do: learn the game mechanics and learn the rules. This kind of sounds like a drag to learn, but it's imperative to become a good battler.
The Mechanics Behind The Game
Every game has mechanics. This is no exception for Pokémon. Just throwing some Pokémon together and telling them to fight doesn't constitute much. So now you have to understand how battling actually works.
A competitive battle is pretty much the race to make the other team's Pokémon faint and make sure their Pokémon don’t do the same. This can be achieved through inflicting damage to the other Pokémon. But on the flip side, you need to learn how to not take damage from the opponent as well. Both of these things are reflected by Moves and Stats.
Move Mechanics
Move mechanics define how much damage is done. Moves, much like Pokémon themselves, have types. Now, as you probably know already, there are seventeen types. These being: Bug, Dark, Dragon, Electric, Fighting, Fire, Flying, Ghost, Grass, Ground, Ice, Normal, Poison, Psychic, Rock, Steel and Water. Each one has specific things it's "Super-Effective" against and "Not Very Effectieve" against. For example, Ground type moves are super effective against Electric-type Pokémon. I'm sure you already knew this though, if you have ever played Pokémon before.
Being able to hit a wide variety of types super-effectively means that your Pokémon has good type-coverage. Having a wide variety of moves at your disposal that allows you to hit as many types for super-effective or neutral damage really helps make a versatile Pokémon that will do well.
Another move mechanic is the difference between moves being "physical" or "special". Let's take for example the two moves Earthquake and Earth Power. Earthquake is a physical move, while Earth Power is a special move. The diffrence is that Earthquake bases it's power off of the Physical Stat and Earth Power bases it's power off of the Special Stat. Many moves are split this way and can have very profound results on specific Pokémon.
Stat Mechanics
These are mechanics that affect the stats of a Pokémon, which directly effect how strong, bulky, and fast the Pokémon is. There are three main components that effect how stats are defined. These are Natures, Effort Values, and Individual Values.
Natures
Natures are key values that effect Pokémon in a positive and negative way. Natures usually affect two stats. They multiply one stat by 1.1, but multiply another stat by .9. Take, for example, a Modest natured Pokémon. The nature raises the Special Attack stat by 10%, but lowers the Attack stat by 10%. This would really help a Pokémon like Gengar, who has a vey high special attack and not much need for physical attacks.
However, there are natures that do not effect stats in any way. There are 5 of these, them being Hardy, Serious, Bashful, Quirky, and Docile. These natures should never be used in a competitive setting since they provide no beneficial stat boosts to the Pokémon. Other natures that are duds are Lax (+Def, -SpD) and Gentle (+SpD, -Def). You generally never want to up one defensive stat and lower the other. These should also be disregarded for competitive play.
Effort Values
Effort Values (or EVs for short) are values that help raise the stats of a Pokémon. A Pokémon’s Effort values can total up to 510 points, but you can only put 255 points in one stat. Another interesting part of this is that every 4 EVs equals 1 point in that stat. But 255 is not divisible by 4, and so the max you can have in a stat without wasting points is 252. This will leave you with 6 points, which is also not divisible by 4. So you are free to put your leftover 4 points in any other stat. Sound kind of confusing? I’ll break it down again.
~ 510 EVs total, but only 255 max in any given stat.
~ 4 EVs is equivalent to one stat point.
~ 252 EVs is the highest value attainable that doesn’t waste any points.
~ 4 EVs are leftover if you use 252 in two different stats.
Individual Values
Individual Values (or IVs) are values between 0 and 31 that apply to Pokémon whether it has been breed or caught to specify such. It's the difference between the same Pokémon you would find in the wild that has the same nature, but different stats. 0 is the lowest value you can have, meaning it has the lowest stat possible, and 31 is the highest value, meaning it has the highest value. Every 1 IV point is equivalent to a stat point.
Unlike EVs, IVs are permanent and you cannot change them to what you would like. The only way to flourish with great IVs is through breeding in-game (Unless you're using Pokemon Online, where you can opt for perfect IVs). With this being said, when playing on wifi, it is nearly impossible to get good IVs. But that's a whole 'nother discussion for another guide.
Spoiler:- Part 4 ~ The Pokémon Dictionary:
Part 2 - The Pokémon Dictionary
Now, for almost any competitive game, there are abbreviations and snippets of the most commonly used words. As it might be given, there are also these for Pokémon. Watch out though, because there are many, many abbreviations. You won't learn all of these in a day, but over time you'll get to know them.
Spoiler:- The Pokémon Dictionary Index:
Spoiler:- Commonly Used Roles:
Spoiler:- General Movesets:
Commonly Used Roles
All of the definitions of the commonly used roles are listed below, along with an example to gain a better understanding of the definition.
Aromatherapist / Cleric
A Pokémon who uses Aromatherapy or Heal Bell to cure itself and its team of status.
With Blissey’s fantastic Special Defense and HP stats, she has many opportunities to help her team out with Aromatherapy.
Attacking Lead
A Pokémon in the lead position who attacks immediately and generally does not do any setting up whatsoever.
Machamp is the most reliable and terrifying attacking lead in the metagame particularly due to DynamicPunch's confusion.
Glass Cannon
A Pokémon who has high offensive power but is very defensively frail.
Gengar's high base 130 Special Attack, yet pathetic defensive stats, make it a prominent specially-oriented glass cannon.
Mixed Sweeper
A sweeper who uses both physical and special offensive moves to do damage. Mixed sweepers are referred to with the Mix prefix.
Infernape’s ability to use both physical and special attacks (referred to as MixApe) in one set makes it one of the most common and effective mixed sweepers available.
Phazer / Pseudo-hazer / Shuffler
A Pokémon who uses moves that may force the opponent to switch, such as Roar, Whirlwind, Perish Song, and Yawn.
Perish Song Celebi is commonly seen on stall-oriented teams in order to eliminate set-up sweepers that can cause a severe amount of trouble to its team.
Physical Sweeper
A Pokémon who uses physically offensive moves to do damage and bring down an opponent's team. Many carry Attack boosting moves, like Swords Dance or Dragon Dance.
Swords Dance Lucario is a very prominent physical sweeper. Having access to Close Combat, Crunch, Ice Punch, and ExtremeSpeed, it is capable of sweeping an entire unprepared team with ease after one Swords Dance boost.
Pseudo Passer / Dual Screener
A Pokémon who uses moves like Reflect, Light Screen, and Wish with the intent of passing them to another Pokémon.
Bronzong’s great bulkiness, typing, and access to Explosion make it one of the most durable and reliable of dual screeners to choose from.
Spinblocker
A Ghost-type Pokémon who is used to stop the opponent from using Rapid Spin successfully.
Rotom-A is the most common spinblocker, thanks to its excellent typing, movepool, and stats.
Rapid Spinner / Spinner
A Pokémon who uses Rapid Spin to remove entry hazards.
Boasting a high Speed stat and powerful attacks, Starmie is considered as the best offensive Rapid Spinner in the game. No Ghost-type (the only type of Pokémon that ignores Rapid Spin) will enjoy taking a hard-hitting Hydro Pump.
Revenge Killer / Trapper
A Pokémon whose main purpose on a team is to revenge kill or trap certain threats, usually those who your team lacks a solid defense against. Generally characterized by high Speed and frailty.
Mamoswine’s access to Ice Shard allows it to be known as a very effective revenge killer to Flygon.
Special Sweeper
A Pokémon who uses specially offensive moves to do damage and bring down an opponent's team. Many carry Special Attack boosting moves, like Nasty Plot or Calm Mind.
Porygon-Z's access to Nasty Plot and power-increasing abilities give it excellent special sweeping capabilities. Its STAB Tri Attack and other powerful attacks, such as Thunderbolt and Ice Beam, are ridiculously powerful when boosted, ripping entire unprepared teams to shreds.
Stallbreaker
A Pokémon that immediately threatens stall not for breaking down walls, rather for preventing the Pokémon commonly found on those teams from executing their standard strategies and thus hindering or entirely shutting down the team's defensive core.
Gliscor has all of the necessary tools to be an effective stallbreaker, in particular Taunt, Roost, high Speed, select immunities, and an excellent STAB type.
Status Absorber
A Pokémon who can avoid, remove, or use to its advantage one or more status effects, usually by using the RestTalk combination or specific abilities.
Heracross is a very common Pokémon that takes advantage of status, most notably poison or burn. Teams that have problems with sleep leads often carry sleep absorbers with Rest and Sleep Talk.
Suicide Lead
A lead Pokémon, who usually pack low defenses, that tries to set up entry hazards quickly and prevent opponents from doing the same, usually by Taunt, before dying.
With access to Taunt, Stealth Rock, Explosion, and high offensive and Speed stats, Azelf is by far the most commonly used and successful suicide lead.
Supporter
A Pokémon who uses non-offensive moves which benefit the team.
Cresselia has various supportive options in her movepool that can be helpful for her team. Some of these include: Thunder Wave, Toxic, Reflect, Light Screen, and Lunar Dance.
Tank
A Pokémon intended to take either physical or special attacks and hit back, but does not have to do so consistently over the entire course of a match.
Bronzong is a very potent tank. With Gyro Ball, Explosion, and massive defenses, it can hit enemies hard and take many hits effectively over the course of a match.
Wall
A Pokémon intended to take either physical or special attacks extremely effectively and consistently over the course of a battle.
Skarmory's enormous physical Defense makes it one of the most sturdy physical wall in the game. It also has access to Spikes, Roost, and Whirlwind, three moves that Skarmory has many opportunities to use.
Wallbreaker
An offensively oriented Pokémon meant specifically for crushing walls rather than sweeping. This is usually done with extra powerful offensive stats and commonly use both physical and special moves in their moveset.
With Infernape's ideally placed stats and STABs almost specifically designed to tear down many of the most common walls in the game, he makes for an excellent wallbreaker.
Spoiler:- Commonly Used Terms:
General Movesets
BoltBeam
Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. Any meshing of Electric- and Ice-type coverage is generally referred to as pseudo-BoltBeam coverage.
ChestoRest
Using a Chesto Berry and Rest in tandem to wake up instantly after using Rest.
QuakeEdge
Earthquake and Stone Edge. Any meshing of Ground- and Rock-type coverage is generally referred to as pseudo-EdgeQuake coverage.
Paraflinch
Utilizing both paralysis and flinches to keep an enemy Pokémon from being able to attack.
Parafusion
Utilizing both paralysis and confusion to keep an enemy Pokémon from being able to attack.
RestTalk
Rest and Sleep Talk.
SubCM
Substitute and Calm Mind.
SubPunch
Substitute and Focus Punch.
SubRoost
Substitute and Roost.
SubSalac / SubLiechi / SubPetaya
Substitute and either a Salac Berry, Liechi Berry, or Petaya Berry, respectively.
SubSeed
Substitute and Leech Seed.
SubSplit
Substitute and Pain Split.
Spoiler:- Move and Item Abbreviations:
Competitive Abbreviations and Commonly Used Terms
This section is a series of abbreviations and commonly used terms related to the competitive metagames or competitive Pokémon in general. Set or Pokémon related abbreviations are below. All of the definitions of the commonly used terms and abbreviations are listed below, along with an example of how they are used to gain a better understanding of the definition.
Auto-Weather
A Pokémon whose ability creates a weather effect, such as sand, rain, hail, or sun, when they are brought into play.
Tyranitar's ability, Sand Stream, allows it to set up an auto-weather effect in the form of a sandstorm.
BP
Base Power of a move.
Dragonite's Outrage has a BP of 120.
BST
Refers to the total number of a Pokémon's base stats.
Celebi has a BST of 600.
Dual Screens
Refers to Light Screen and Reflect together.
Azelf is very effective at setting up dual screens with its high Speed stat and escape move in Explosion.
Entry Hazards
Any of the attacks which deal damage as a Pokémon switches in - Stealth Rock, Spikes, and Toxic Spikes.
Forretress can set up all three forms of entry hazards.
EVs
Effort Values.
The maximum amount of EVs a Pokémon can have in total is 510.
FP
Full paralysis. While it can refer to several moves, it is often used to refer to being unable to move due to paralysis.
Suicune was able to keep setting up because Jirachi FPed.
Hax
An event which has a low probability of happening which critically affects the outcome of a match. Also referred to as luck in general.
Togekiss' ability, Serene Grace, increases its chance at causing hax to the opponent.
IVs
Individual Values.
The highest number of IVs a Pokémon can have in one stat is 31.
LC
Little Cup, a competitive metagame that only allows the usage of Pokémon that are in their most basic form. More information can be found here.
Dratini is an excellent LC sweeper because of his high Attack stat and access to Dragon Dance.
NFE
Not Fully Evolved, a Pokémon that is not in its final evolution stage.
Chansey is one of the few viable NFE Pokémon that is used in UU.
NVE
Not Very Effective, a move that does lower damage due to a Pokémon's resistances.
Ice Beam is NVE against Vaporeon.
OHKO
Short for "One-Hit Knockout", though it can also refer to moves that KO the opponent in one hit, such as Sheer Cold and Horn Drill.
Magnezone can OHKO Gyarados with Thunderbolt.
Pinch Berry
A stat-boosting Berry that activates when the holder falls below 25% health. Often used in conjunction with Substitute, as Substituting three times activates the Berry if you have an odd HP stat.
The most common Pinch Berries are: Salac (boosts Speed), Petaya (boosts Special Attack), and Liechi (boosts Attack).
Priority
Any attack which will make the user always move first, unless the opposing Pokémon has a higher Speed stat and uses a priority move as well.
Sucker Punch and ExtremeSpeed are two of the strongest priority moves in the game.
Residual Damage
Damage taken by a Pokémon without having been attacked, whether by recoil (Life Orb or otherwise), weather (hail or sandstorm), status effects (poison or burn), and/or entry hazards.
One of Salamence's biggest problems is dealing with the amount of residual damage it is vulnerable to.
Revenge Kill / Revenge KO
KOing an opposing Pokémon immediately after one of your own Pokémon has fainted, therefore avoiding the risk of switching into an attack.
Jolteon revenge killed Gyarados after it KOed Heatran.
SS
Sandstorm, usually induced by Sand Stream.
STAB
Same Type Attack Bonus, which increases the power of a direct attack by 50% if the one of the user's types is the same as the attack's type.
Rotom-A's STAB Thunderbolt and Shadow Ball nearly provide perfect type coverage.
Move and Item Abbreviations
This section is a series of abbreviations for moves and items in competitive Pokémon. Move abbreviations that relate to groups of moves when talked about together are listed in the Competitive Abbreviations section above.
BB
Brick Break or Brave Bird.
BP
Bullet Punch or Baton Pass.
CB / Band
Choice Band.
CC
Close Combat or Cross Chop.
CM
Calm Mind.
DD / D-dance
Dragon Dance.
DM
Draco Meteor.
DP
DynamicPunch or Dragon Pulse.
EQ
Earthquake.
EP
Earth Power.
ES
ExtremeSpeed.
FB
Fire Blast or Focus Blast.
FP
Focus Punch.
HP
Hidden Power.
Lefties
Leftovers.
LO
Life Orb.
NP
Nasty Plot.
Para
Paralysis.
RD
Rain Dance.
RP
Rock Polish.
RS
Rapid Spin.
Scarf
Choice Scarf.
SD
Swords Dance.
SE
Stone Edge.
SP
Sucker Punch or Superpower.
Specs
Choice Specs.
SR
Stealth Rock.
STalk
Sleep Talk.
SToss
Seismic Toss.
Sub
Substitute.
TBolt
Thunderbolt.
TR
Trick Room.
TSpikes / TS
Toxic Spikes.
TWave
Thunder Wave.
WoW / Wisp
Will-O-Wisp.
WW
Whirlwind.
About time I close up this guide. Best of luck to all readers.
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