Playing With Your Favorites

[jesusfreak94]

When I'm playing competitively, I usually try to use whatever will work the best for me. If one of the best choices is a favorite, then heck yeah, I'm using it! But if my favorites won't cut it, then I just won't use it. Since I don't really hate any particular Pokemon (bar maybe a couple), I usually don't have to deal with a Pokemon that I don't like to use. Of course, sometimes I'll use a favorite on a gimmick team just for the heck of it. Back in 4th Gen, I used a team based around Agility Blaziken. Was it a gimmick? Yes. Was it fun? Shoot, yeah. But when things get serious, I'll just go for the smart choice, whether it's my favorite or not.

 

[Grei]

I disagree with the OP.

- From the very start, you are limiting your options. I feel the best thing about the Pokemon games is that there is so much variety. When you say you are only going to use your favorites, you are immediately secluding yourself to a handful of Pokemon and focusing only on those. Though individually, the sets you use for teams can be creative, the general strategies are bland or ineffective as you have to cater to your limitations.​

Not really. There's no rule saying that, by using your favorites, you're somehow limiting yourself. As soon as you use a Pokemon you like, you've just expanded your "limitations." This is only true for really closed-minded individuals, but for people like me who like a lot of Pokemon, it's not a limitation at all.

Also, the same can be said--that one is limiting one's options--for those who only use Pokemon that are considered "good" competitively. By only using "good" Pokemon, they've limited their options to essentially most OU Pokemon (as for you touchy people, I know what OU means) and have cut themselves off from other Pokemon they might want to use, like Samurott or Lilligant.

- Players who use only their favorites generally ignore better options. Even though Heracross is exponentionally better than Pinsir, these players would still use Pinsir, the sole reason being they prefer Pinsir aesthetically. This is like saying you'd rather walk three hours to work/school instead of driving 20 minutes because you like to walk, or declining an upgraded plane ticket because you prefer 3rd class, or declining an inflated basketball at a game because you like the feel of a deflated ball in your hands, or even saying no to free money because you like how much cash you have in your wallet/bank account at the moment. Quite frankly, every reason I've heard defending prioritized players when I've touched upon this subject were only excuses.​

This is true on most parts. That's pretty much the sole reason why using your favorites is a bad idea when battling competitively, unless your favorites all happen to be Pokemon that are good competitively.

- Through forums and live engagement with prioritized players, I have noticed a pattern of difficulty with adaptivity and/or improvement. If you use certain Pokemon exclusively, you will have issues when you run into specific threats or metagame shifts. At the same time, since players are only using their favorites, lack of exploration tends to leave their growth stunted since the players only know how to use specific Pokemon. Usually when I run into someone who plays in a closed circut (only plays with a group of friends), they believe certain Pokemon/sets are an arm and head above everything else. When a suggestion is made contradicting this, nearly none will respond with open minds or logical discussion. Instead, I tend to hear stories about poorly designed teams being crushed by a threat that they have no answer to. Since they don't move outside their comfort zone, their issues are rarely resolved and are usually done so by banning things which have no reason to be banned in a general competitive standpoint.
Some argue competitive battlers go down a similar road by banning things from tiers, such as Garchomp. However, they fail to realize general competitive battlers will use any and every mean to find an answer to a problem and when there is none, that is when a decision is made. Prioritized battlers simply don't want to face the problem because losing with your favorites a horrendous number of times makes the game no longer fun.​

So... where does this leave players who use their favorites, and yet leave themselves room to explore and discover new favorites?

I'm not enjoying how you're generalizing every prioritized player. Quite frankly, any prioritized player should know from the start that they're more than likely disadvantaged competitively, so being all immature about always losing isn't really justified. You seem to be ignoring prioritized players who recognize their handicap and who are willing to find new favorites that will lessen their handicap.

HOWEVER, prioritized battlers are not completely hindered and have many positive attributes that, I feel, make them invaluable to competitive battling. I would like to explain these now so readers don't get the wrong impression, but I currently have a schedule to attend to. If I hold your interest, expect to see my reasoning soon.​

I'll be waiting to read this.

 

[poopoop]

i use my favs too! look at me sig and you'll see sudowoodo which has actually made me get lots of wins for example by taking out a strong speedy pokemon like excadrill,latios,etc or something that has dragon danced a few times and he can counter trick room.
sometimes his team members clean up the opponents team after the rock tree attacks, but it can also be sudowoodo finishing off my opponent

most of the time all he does is KO 1 huge threat poke and damages 1 more but thats all that needs to be done because my team can kill the rest
he fits perfectly with my team he's in. and the coolest thing he has done so far was taking out a T tar,excadrill,and waboffet all in a row

 

[Rhys29]

I have updated OP. I'm glad to see some discussion and I'm surprise this thread has gotten as much traffic as it has.

Of course I play with my favorites! Tyranitar, Garchomp, Thundurus, Excadril, Ferrothorn, Lati@s, and Scizor FTW!!!

This made me lol

Not really. There's no rule saying that, by using your favorites, you're somehow limiting yourself. As soon as you use a Pokemon you like, you've just expanded your "limitations."

An example of this is deciding on playing a tier like OU: you're already limiting yourself from Pokemon that are only available in the Ubers tier. Another way to look at it is if you're choosing a revenge killer for your team. Choosing only Chandelure because it is your favorite revenge killer may not be best for your team. A Pokemon like Scizor or Choice Scarf Hydreigon might be a better choice, so deciding prematurely which Pokemon you're going to use limits your options (this doesn't apply to teams built around one Pokemon of course). I hope this better explains my reasoning.

Also, the same can be said--that one is limiting one's options--for those who only use Pokemon that are considered "good" competitively. By only using "good" Pokemon, they've limited their options to essentially most OU Pokemon (as for you touchy people, I know what OU means) and have cut themselves off from other Pokemon they might want to use, like Samurott or Lilligant.

I agree completely. Players who just c/p from Smogon and call it good are not good comptitive players. Just using the standard Swampert set and calling it good without exploration is just as limiting as only using your favorites. A lot of Pokemon in UU and BL can function quite well in OU to deal with specific threats, so immediately counting out all Pokemon that aren't used all the time in OU is a mistake.

And hopefully I've clarified what I meant by prioritized battlers.​

 

[pikadon92]

Charmander and Chikorita are my favourites. Make that what you will.

To be fair, they are not my only favourites. There are some like mienshao, gengar that works well, but I don't just paste them instantly when making a competitive team.

 

[hallstromjr]

I always thought people using favorites got put to a disadvantage. I've been destroyed by a team that baton passed to Musharna And it used stored power before i realized what was going on. Favorites work, but as said, people who play with favorites have to find a way to get over the "handicap" they have put themselves at. Only very experienced battlers can pull this off. It's Always nice to see a team without Thunderus, Tyranitar, Lati@s, Scizor and the likes.

 

[Casty]

I agree completely, especially with "limiting your options" part. Closing yourself to other Pokemon because they don't fit your tastes is a really, really bad mindset, not only in competitive. You might never come to like certain Pokemon until you use them. Maybe if you used mons outside you favourite list once in a while, you would find some new faves?

Even worse than "playing with favourites" is when you dislike certain Pokemon because some site labelled it one way or another. This goes both ways. The pseudo-competitive folk who won't use anything outside of the OU list, and the anti-competitive (scrub) ones who only stick with UUs or below (out of pity or what?). You have no idea how much those kind of people piss me off.

Truth to be told I used to be like that, but everything changed once I learned how tiers really work. And my favorites are Heatran, Swampert, Flygon and Latios, all of which (besides Latios) were OU in gen 4 were I started so yeah.

 

[PalmerDawn]

I play with the Team I first Catch for the most part. I like alot of Pokemon & have alot of the games so in each game I switch it up.

I think players who play with their favorites are Staying true to what they like I cant blame them. Why Be forced to pick a diffrent Pokemon for better stats?

In my opinion it would be like your parents saying "You can't do math right so I'm going to send you away and pick a kid who Can do math well"

In a way my favorite team is my favorite team because they were with me the longest. I can care less about stats or strengths and weakness.

I personally like competitive battling but I do it for fun. Winning or losing isn't important. Each Pokemon has it's strengthes and weaknesses so I'm content with Battling with a team I'm happy with.

Those who don't mind switching it up Cheers to that !

And for those who play with their favorites Cheers to that!

 

[multi-scale]

If I play enough with a good pokemon I'll begin liking it. I don't like it when a pokemon is just obscenely strong, which is why I don't really like Garchomp. But I don't like playing with my favorites because I want to do the best I can.

 

[poopoop]

in random matchups sometimes you find people with thousands of wins and when you see their team you can tell its well balanced and that they play with their favs. its so fun going against those people

 

[Mr. Reloaded]

In competative battling i use strong pokemon which are my favorites.

 

[Ivanka]

I like having good teams so I wouldn't just have a team of 6 random Pokemon just because I like them. But I do like fitting in at least 1 of my liked Pokemon in a team, unless they're really bad. D:

 

[Ciliano]

I use my favorites as often as possible, even if they are NU. The fun of it is trying to make a team with my favorite Pokemon in it work in the standard environment.

 

[BGP_]

I do tend to play mostly with my favorites, however im not going to try and be overconfident or anything so nobody get butthurt or anything lol, but i do consider my team good even though i always run 2-3 ice types on a team. Ice is my favorite type, and we all know the things associated with the ice type but i still can use it pretty effectively, so for this im going to say that i do indeed use my favorites, like even my current team i love all of the pokes on it

 

[irock245]

Unless they totaly suck ***, i'll try to use them. It gives me a challenge to make a bad pokemon work really well in standerd. I am currently trying to make bedrill of butterfree usable in OU.

 

[bug pro]

Just like hgss elite 4 karen somethin, I use my favs so often that I got a know-how to use them. For me they are like strong pokemon. Even if they aint for others.

 

[Alter ego]

I try to use my favorites, like Yanmega and Dragonite. Dragonite fits well in my teams, but I tend to use Yanmega in battle Subway or something similar. I try to use all my favorites Pokémon, but, if it looks like a disaster, I use Competitive Pokés, who can turn into one of my favs for being good.

 

[Ausgirl]

If they happen to be cute then great, if not then it doesn't matter.

 

[DucksGoMooful]

One of the reasons I like Pokemon so much is how much variety there is. However, everyone using the same Pokemon makes it seem so bland. If I want to use whatever Pokemon I want, then I should be able to without getting ridiculed or whatever. The way the game is designed, it favors certain ones while ignoring others. It's really quite impossible to win with your favorites if they have been created to be bad in competitive play.

 

[Rezzuréct]

Yeah, I like to used my Favs in my team.. Like Latios, Jirachi, Politoed, Thundurus, Excadrill etc. They were destroy anything!