Marbi Z said:
You would think that these tournaments would have mostly smogon competitive teams but that just hasn't been the case in these wifi tournaments. To tell you the truth I'm stunned. But hey! It's great to see more people being creative with there teams! Now if I can only see more of this in Random Match...
jstinftw! said:
I agree with Marbi-Z; the cookie-cutter Smogon/Skarmbliss standard teams were not as rampant throughout the tournament. Sure, I still faced a lot of Zaptop, and even more Intimitops that I would have liked, but I still saw a lot of really cool strategies.
Personally, I thought that the last tournament was a lot more creative. This tournament, the last three or four battles in particular felt like I was fighting the same person. I had to look several times to see that there were, in fact, one or two different pokemon from other battles. Garchomp, Tyranitar, Metagross, and Hitmontop were starting to get especially repetitive. Dang, I wish I'd gotten the chance to face more of the non-standard teams. XD My own fault for not participating in more battles though I suppose.
Overall, I think my Toxic Stall team from last tournament worked out better than the team I'm using now. But I am satisfied with how my individual pokes did. Here's my team for whoever's
bored enough to read about it interested:
Enigma the :561: - Holding the Life Orb, I was amazed at the damage this guy did. Absolutely happy with him, and I'll definitely use him again
Duelhorn the ;472; - I used him in the last tournament too, and he was just as solid now as he was then.
Truffle the :591: - I was mind-blown by how useful he was. I really didn't expect him to turn out as good as he did. I only wish I saw him work under Trick Room more often than I did, as that would have increased Spore's effectiveness.
Berry Pie the ;463; - He was lots of fun to use, but unfortunately people seemed to be correctly predicting him almost every time, so he functioned more to scare away weather teams than he did to screw them over. But still, his unorthodox moveset of Surf, Thunderbolt, Flamethrower and Protect came in very handy more than once. If I decide that I absolutely need Cloud Nine again, I may try to find a way to make Golduck a useful member of the team, just so people won't be as easily able to predict what I'm using it for.
Freya the :560: - I know I was moaning about how crappy she was earlier, but seeing her Taunt Cresselia and Amoonguss into uselessness was pretty heartwarming. And her investment in Sp.Def, which I thought was a mistake at first, did end up paying off in the end too. Again, I should have been using Trick Room better to give her full advantage. Just didn't happen though. The other thing I noticed is that I expected people to target her far more than they did. Her wasted Protects probably cost me battles.
Raem the :593: - "Needs improvement" is something of an understatement. I got screwed over so many times trying to set up Trick Room for such a crappy payoff that I eventually abandoned the attempt in favour of starting out with my Sigilyph/Amoonguss combo. Of all the members on my team, this would be my most likely one to be dropped or be majorly overhauled. Sigilyph/Amoonguss proved to be so much more effective that I'd rather invest in supporting them than in trying to make Trick Room work better. I just didn't see much payoff for Trick Room. Maybe if I watch some vids of people who were successful at exploiting it I'll be converted.
But as things stand, I was disappointed.
So I guess the biggest thing I learned in this tournament is that I'm simply better at using slower teams than I am at trying to keep up with the fast pace that most other players prefer. I don't know why that is so, but there it is.
The second biggest thing I learned is that slapping King's Rock on a Metagross is a surefire way to make put me into a dangerously bad mood.
I'm just happy I trolled that guy's sleep tactic with Freya's Shed Skin. >:-]