u/Disastrous_Debt7644

So I’m new to Champions. I just now got to Ultra Ball after about a day and don’t have Incin, Sneasler, Archaludon, etc. I’m running a Mega Crabominable TR team and I didn’t have Farigiraf, but I do have Wyrdeer. It was supposed to just be a temporary TR setter until I get Farigiraf, by all means the better Normal/Psychic TR setter.

Well, Wyrdeer has actually really proven itself. Of course, it does have Intimidate, to my knowledge the only Trick Room setter with Intimidate. But it actually also deals very nice damage with Body Slam, and if you let it set up Defense boosts with Psyshield Bash it can function as a great physical wall, providing Helping Hand support as well. Wyrdeer’s Intimidate plus fully invested defense on Crabominable means that Crab can take hits it has absolutely no business living on the physical side, and Crab has either STAB or SE coverage for most special attackers (which are generally frailer anyway). It’s able to function decently well in offense, defense, AND support, which makes it almost guaranteed to do something when it’s on the field.

For many use cases, Farigiraf is probably better. But since Wyrdeer provides the bulk via Intimidate to deal with even SE priority on Crabominable, I’m probably going to keep using it.

AI is correct and generally does not make mistakes. Google AI Overview is correct.

TL;DR: Using your favorite in a tier or role it does well in can help make competitive Pokemon more fun and appealing to a larger audience.

This is undoubtedly a controversial take. The competitive Pokemon community is (rightfully) tired of more casual fans making the same three overused jokes and comments every single time competitive is brought up: “breeding for IVs is bad and wrong,” “you’re the people that see Pokemon as tools and not friends,” and the topic of this post, that one Karen quote people spam under any and all unconventional or off-meta strategies that see success. Casual fans are only driven to do this even more by the backlash received from competitive players, as that justifies these jokes. Additionally, almost every Pokemon can put in work in the mainline games because of their generally low difficulty.

Personally, I stand at the intersection of these two groups. When I engage with Pokemon as an immersive world, it’s satisfying and rewarding to have partners that you stick with, no matter how good or bad, and this is directly at odds with the common sentiment among competitive players. But I also enjoy engaging with Pokemon as a strategy game akin to chess where some pieces just have more tools and are (generally) better than others.

I think that it’s important to reconcile these two perspectives in a sense if we want to make the fandom as a whole any less toxic (seriously, I’ve received literal threats of violence over this??, which is insane for a video game made for 10 year olds). The more I thought about my stance on that Karen quote, the more I realized I kind of agreed with it in some respects.

My favorite Pokemon is Reuniclus. This is a fortunate favorite, so to speak, because it has been a consistently fantastic stallbreaker in oldgens and is still fairly viable if niche and off-meta in current OU. To win with my favorite, I built an offense team around Reuniclus. Reuniclus has great defensive synergy with Kingambit as it can handle Great Tusk and Zamazentas that Gambit struggles with, and Gambit resists Dark and Ghost moves that threaten Reuniclus. Reuniclus can also shut down most common Unaware users with Psychic Noise that threaten a SD Sucker Punch sweep with Gambit, and then heal back up with either Regen or Recover. This team was quite successful on ladder and frankly could have climbed much higher if I played better, because in almost all the games lost, it was misplays that held me back (not the team). I did it. I won with my favorite.

Playing with this team gave me the same “oh look at my boy go!!” feeling that playing the mainline games does, and it was obviously still competitive Pokemon. I think this might be the most I’ve enjoyed competitive since I first started dabbling in it. I think that if casual players find that hey, their favorite shitmon Sandslash (randomly generated Pokemon btw) is actually a good hazard remover in ZU, it could serve as an entry point for competitive Pokemon to gain more traction.

There are, of course, some caveats to this. If your favorite is Lumineon or something, you’re probably better off playing a romhack or something like PokeRogue instead of competitive. But for the vast majority of Pokemon, they have some role somewhere, especially if you build a team to support them. LC, DoNU, and NFE count too!

I’m curious what the general consensus on this is from both sides, as I haven’t yet seen this sentiment expressed in either this sub or the general Pokemon sub. Thanks for listening to the yap!

Hello! My favorite Pokemon is Galarian Slowpoke, and I think it could really be a threat in OU if I build a team around it. Galarian Slowking is good in OU, and Slowpoke only has 5 less HP and its defense is drastically higher due to Eviolite. It also still has Regenerator and its Future Sights do a lot of damage despite base 40 special attack because it’s 120 base power. I did some damage calcs (short for calculations if you didn’t know) and it hits many meta thresholds even without being Modest:

252 SpA Slowpoke-Galar Future Sight vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 448-532 (131.3 - 156%) — guaranteed OHKO

Poison is a notoriously bad type and being a pure Psychic type is great for its matchup into things like Great Tusk, Gliscor, and Kingambit. Psychic is a fantastic STAB that hits almost every meta threat at least neutrally, and OU Pokemon are generally not very specially defensive either— the premier special wall in OU, Cloyster, takes super effective damage from both of Galarian Slowpoke’s STAB types, Psychic and Future Sight.

I’m thinking about using it in a sweeping role with Choice Scarf and Eviolite so it can be bulky and fast at the same time, even outspeeding common meta threats like Ninjask and Scarf Dondozo after a Thunder Wave. Regenerator really helps its longevity and it can even run Calm Mind with its scarf set for that extra damage.

Here’s my set so far:

Slowpoke-Galar @ Choice Scarf and Eviolite

Ability: Regenerator

EVs: 4 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe

Jolly Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Future Sight

- Thunder Wave

- Psychic

- Thunder Wave 2

-Calm Mind

What partners should I pair with Glowpoke (slang for Galarian Slowpoke, if you didn’t know) and what roles should they fill?

Thank you!

Sunburn

(this is my first time making a team advice post, mods please feel free to take it down if it doesn't fit with the rules)

Hi! I'm building a bulky balance team designed around using fuckboy Kommo-o to deal heavy damage after a Throat Spray + Clangorous Soul, then cleaning up afterwards. I had quite a bit of success (low ladder; I am somewhat new to actual serious competitive Pokemon, I had used Showdown to make my playthrough teams before lol) with scarfed Stellar Tera Enamorus but then Tera Blast was banned, so I'm trying to rebuild the team a bit. What should my last member be? I want to have a sixth member of the team before I test it out lol

Some other questions/problems I have is that Corv and Dondozo fill extremely similar roles as a Body Press physdef mon weak to Electric, but I find myself using both fairly equally in matches. What should I do with Corv so that it's not so similar? (Incidentally, I also find myself having some trouble with the ghosts in this format.) Should I try Kingambit instead to deal with ghosts and to provide more offensive pressure in lieu of Enamorus?

Generally my game plan when Stellar Tera Blast Enamorus was legal was to lead with either Kommo-o or Enamorus if they had a semi-passive hazard setter to begin a sweep (or at least clean out their team for me to whittle it down later,) then pick off the rest of their team with the bulkier mons, and then clean up late game with Kommo-o or Enamorus. I think I got to about 1300ish elo with this (starting at 1000 ofc) but I'm not sure because I had to get to lower ladder to do a Simple Numel sweep to send to a friend (which took literally forever).

I imagine hazards will become more of an issue if I climb the ladder, so I might need an OSHAmon (like Glimmora maybe? idk) to manage hazards. Defog Corv had served me well so far though. Additionally, Glowking can eat any toxic spikes and it's relatively easy to hard switch it in with its bulk and especially with Regenerator.

I understand that it's probably better to use a premade team at my skill level but I think that with some refining the basic concept of this team can work.

Here's the team so far:

https://pokepast.es/468d01ed09115b77

Personally, I would be a Psychic/Normal type with the abilities Analytic, Unaware, and the hidden ability Trace.

My stats would be:

100 HP

70 ATK

65 DEF

125 SP. ATK

110 SP. DEF

40 SPD