My favorite Pokémon is Swadloon. I got a 50-streak in the Battle Tree with him. It was actually very bulky with Eviolite, and it has good utility like Struggle Bug, String Shot, and Light Screen. Trainers, don't let anything hold you back.
My favorite mon is Plusle, so as soon as Indigo Disk drops I'm going to go shiny hunt one and use it for all the battles. It will be garbage but at least it will be cute
one thing that I think is also important to mention is that due to the nature of the game some pokemon will necessarily overshadow others. Pokemon, in function, are simply 6 stat numbers with a list of abilities and moves associated with them, all of which have simple functions and properties, so there's only so many unique Pokemon you can design without them overlapping and the one that fits the meta best, be it thanks to better stats or more valuable options, outclassing the others. Even if every Pokemon was balanced around competitive play, a meta would still form with better and worse options depending on what traits are most valuable in the meta, and people would complain about their favorite being garbage
Yeah, people miss this a lot. Not every Pokemon can be good. That's just not how the game works. Some Pokemon are stronger than others, and that's just how it is. You can use your favorite Pokemon if you want, but if your goal is to win, then you might have to just suck it up and use something you might not like.
@@ianluk6385 But also by default, you should be able to find at least a few Pokémon you do like. In the current meta, there’s around 15-20 really strong Pokémon in the meta, and 30-40 more great to decent less meta or anti meta Pokémon. Even if you hate every legendary and paradox Pokémon, you should easily be able to assemble a decent teams consisting at least half of moms you like.
@@Endershock1678 exactly. And it's not impossible to make your favorites work. You just have to figure out how to use it in a smart way, even if it is a good Pokemon, but especially if it isn't. As we've seen, even something as seemingly weak as Pachirisu won a world championship. It was played intelligently, and put into a team that it worked well on, while playing into what it could do well. That's how you get your favorites to work
I think there’s another aspect to the saying that you can’t win with your favorites in competitive Pokémon. And that is that those people don’t just wanna use one of their favorites, they want to use ALL of their favorites. As an example, let’s say Timmy’s favorite Pokémon is Xatu, and he really wants to get into competitive Pokémon but he’s told Xatu isn’t a viable option. However he figures out a set that can make Xatu viable, but with a catch, that he has to use other Pokémon like Dondozo, Tatsugiri, Chien-Pao, all those guys, to complement the Xatu. The problem is that Timmy didn’t just want to use his favorite Pokémon Xatu, he also wanted to use his second favorite Pokémon, Donphan. But he can’t do that because then he already has a full team built around helping Xatu win. If he tries to make the team work with both Xatu and Donphan in mind, the whole team structure might fall apart. And if he proceeds with the original team except now with Donphan, then Donphan is just going to be deadweight. And what if Timmy wants to use all 6 of his party slots for his favorite Pokémon? He’s not gonna get very far with it. That is what I think people mean when they say that you can’t use your favorites to win. Cause even in that tournament winning team at the start of the video, sure Jumpluff was in there, but so was Flutter Mane and Great Tusk.
I don’t mean this as a negative comment towards you by the way, just trying to clarify what people might actually mean with the statement, or at least what I mean with the statement.
This is exactly my issue. Its not that i cant build a whole team around one Pokémon, it's that building that team requires a bunch of rediculously good meta picks and at that point am i winning with my favourite or am i running a bunch of really good meta picks with one sub-optimal choice?
@@bye1551 There's 2 issues with trying to make it happen though. 1.) Tier lists matter. Only the stupid and the ignorant think they can disregard them. If your favorite Pokemon is a low tier, or if MULTIPLE of your favorites are low tiers, then you're going to have a horrible time, even if you play optimally. 2.) Team Building is a core part of the Pokemon strategy game. If you were able to just slap together all of the pretty pokemon and expect a victory, then it wouldn't be a strategy game anymore because your choices don't actually matter. The only way I can see that working is if ALL Pokemon had the same abilities, stats, and move pools, so that you could pick your favorites but there was still strategy once the match started. But then that would completely obliterate any sense of uniqueness that the pokemon have. I think the question itself asks for an impossibility. Like "can I win chess using only pawns?" You can either have a good strategy game, or you can have a game that lets you win despite you making the stupidest of decisions, but you can't have both.
I mean, I think part of the issue is that 'winning with your favorites' is that while you can generally find a tier where one of your favorites has a role, it's very unlikely for your favorites to all align with a single tier so you either end up with 'Playing with ONE of your favorites/a team mostly not made of your favorites' or 'Making a bad team'.
@@Thund3rDrag0n12the problem is that people want to be able to play both ways at the same time, which i find understandable: be at least passable in competitive while still paying homage to one or more of their favourite mons. and sometimes, that just straight-up isnt possible, especially if you bring multiple bad mons that dont synergize but just happen to be your favourites of all time. so the trade-off is based on how badly you wanna do well in competitive - do you sacrifice your beedrill for a meta-relevant pokemon that complements everything else to do well, or do you keep both it and kabutops on the same team because you like them that much, but then almost inevitably lose like every battle against good players? not everyone wants to use only one of their favourites and then use a whole bunch of meta-relevant mons just to make a team centered around that one not-so-great mon. and while obviously the alternative isnt gonna do well on ladder, i do understand where theyre coming from.
Knowing that Tinkaton has become one of my favourites in recent generations of Pokemon, I hope someday someone takes it to an official Pokemon tournament and wins with her so she will be known as the Pokemon Queen back in College
I feel like Tinkaton is so many people’s favourites, it’s bound to happen at some point (also heavy cope but then maybe game freak will notice and realise how in need of a buff she is and that such a popular pokemon should be doing better)
Tinkaton is actually decent in VGC with 2 different sets. In reg A it was a fast support with access to the ability mold breaker. This let it outspeed and paralyze Gholdengo, who was otherwise immune to it, or use Fake Out into mons with flinch immunity like Dragonite. Despite its low attack stat, it can be used as a strong attacker in reg D and onwards by using its Own Tempo ability. With an immunity to intimidate and Confusion, you can have a prankster mon like tornadus to use priority Swagger on your own Tinkaton to give it +2 with no draw backs. It even retains fake out so you can get a free tailwind before you start stacking swaggers. I've used this set to great success on mid elo showdown ladder. It's all about game knowledge, and synergizes. Doubles is really cool that way.
The problem most people have when wanting to use their favorites is that they have no clue how to build a team in the first place. Like you said, it’s possible but before you can use your favorites you need to know how to play the game which is gonna take time and effort.
True, although that brings a bit of a paradox. Most people looking to "win with their favorites" land in one of two categories: -Interested in competitive but doesn't enjoy playing with the top dogs, which is unavoidable so they lose interest. -Not interested in competitive, just looking for another way to have fun with the pokemon they like. In this second category you have to learn the game to have fun, but your priority is to have fun, not to learn the game so you just say "fuck it, to much work" and walk away. That's an inherent part of game design, you can't please everyone and is not wrong for the developers to do it; but it still sucks to be that one player in that position.
@@Lira_orpheus That isn’t an inherit game design problem, that’s only natural. Of course you have to get better at the game in order to use less viable options and gain some level of results. It would be like wanting to lift and not learning anything about diet, proper form, or how to adapt whenever you hit plateaus. You have to learn things as you get better, and that’s okay. It’s nothing on you, but if you wanna play better at the game and even get results at a lower level you have to learn how to play the game better. That doesn’t mean using meta teams, but at least learning what they do, how to build to beat other teams, and learning how to play the game at a fundamental level. I did this whenever I was first learning VGC and got Sableye to top 500 in Reg B.
@@RealiztikVGC Ok, I'll explain it better. As a comercial game designer, you want maximize revenue and competitive scenes can be a powerful tool to do it so, you want to make your game appealing for the most people possible, and the same goes for the competitive scene. To get people to go competitive you want to lower the skill floor and skill gap so is easy to get in and newbies don't get discouraged. To retain the dedicated players you want to reward their efforts and experience. You want to reduce randomness to reward knowledge, planning and strategies, which increases the skill gap. You see where I'm going with this? As a game designer you have to make a choice do you focus your efforts on the newcomers or on the dedicated inner circles? How much do you reward experience? The design problem is not "Some people are better than others" The problem is "How much do I allow people to become better than others?"
Yeah but Ogerpon is an actual good Pokémon with good movepool and good stats Some dipshits throw mons like Pikachu onto an OU team and get tilted when they inevitably lose. This is why Smogon created tiers
What if your favourite pokemon is Ledian? Or one of the elemental monkeys? I guess you just pray for the release of death. I feel like the most telling line in the video is 'of course we need our own Urshifu to compete'
@@stalltheworld Unless your favorite is ledian. That thing can't do anything even in ZU. Outside of mons like that (delibird, luvdisk) it does the trick
Another problem comes from people that want to play with a team of their favorites. If all their favorites are bad Pokémon when it comes to the Meta game, they’re shit out of luck lmao
I think what really gets the casual playerbase is that their favorites aren't always able to be used in a simple and risk free way for what you understand it to be, or have an entirely different function than what you want to imagine your favorite Pokémon doing
Definitely, they almost always wanna play their favorites in such a way where they steam roll everything even though their favorite is slow as shit and has a terrible typing
they wanna play online ladder and comp like it is just a normal pokemon run, with enough brute force (and most noteably levels) you can use almost everything to win
Hey! My boy Foo! You should make a playlist of your entire list also once the second DLC arrives I'm expecting a new "Overlooked buffs series" Since it is my favorite series on the channel Hope you do right
One thing a lot of people do that causes them to give up on winning with their favorites is bringing a full team of favorites. Pick one, give it a job to do, and build the rest of the team around it with either Pokemon that'll help your favorite do its job or will be helped by that job. Of course, if enough of your favorites are viable then you can also put together a team with multiple of them, but even then, I highly recommend not filling the entire team with favorites.
You should avoid using your favorites if they aren't good enough or don't match with the team to begin with. You can make it work but it's still suboptimal.
What I think a lot of casual players fail to realize is that competitive players dislike using the same mons over and over again as much as casuals dislike seeing it, but unfortunately Pokemon is ultimately a numbers game. How much damage a Pokemon deals to/takes from opposing top threats, speed tiers, useful moves, etc all need to be taken into account when determining viability and most Pokemon just get straight up outclassed by others
I've always gotten the impression that competitive players honestly don't really care since even in the presence of a mirror match, what matters is how you pilot that team and who pilots it best. Competitive players only really care about the wrong kind of Pokemon being meta, those being Pokemon that diminish the skill by either introducing luck, or are so oppressively dominant that they alone can decide a game, which can paradoxically lead to Games feeling like coin flips because the Victor is decided by who lost their op win condition first, be it through losing a speed tie, an untimely critical hit, or making the wrong throw on a 50/50 circumstance. Conversely, if only six Pokemon were ever viable but those six made for a rich and engaging gameplay experience, then competitive players likely wouldn't care if they only ever saw the same six in gameplay.
I think the biggest 'issue' with using your favorites is that, unless your favorites revolve around those defining the meta, your team comp is still going to look like 90% of other teams. You'll just have a single exception. Case in point, Honkrow is paired with Chien-Pao, Hisuian Arcanine, Rillaboom, Urshifu, and Goldengo. All of which are top picks.
Yep. That's not winning with your favorites, is winning with a normal team ft. your favorite. Still cool, but clearly not what most people have in mind. The whole thing with "winning with your favorites" is that you don't enjoy the meta pokemon.
@@MoxieBoostedeh not really when 5/6 builds are predetermined or will inevitably match someone else For SwSh everyone ran inceneroar, regileki, zacian and calyrex
Honchkrow stacking abilities, items and move effects to get a 70 BP move that always crits Urshifu-single: Look what they need to mimic a fraction of my power.
I remember designing an anti-meta hail team in gen 8, designed purely to knock out all of the most common mons, to be their hardest counters. Team did really well, too, since it seemed a lot of ladder climbers were just using the most popular mons to try for biggest numbers.
@@Thund3rDrag0n12 Yeah that copeing. Love how you guys go out of your way to trash on a positive message and make it about silver. Pretty pathetic dude
I think it's fair to argue that you can't "win with your favorites", but unfair to say you can't "win with your favorite". It sounds like semantics, but as you said, you HAVE to have the right good mons to support your favorite. There's also a lot of good Pokemon out in the world - you can definitely find a competitive team of Pokemon mostly comprised of Pokemon you like if you just give it a genuine shot. Maybe you have to include a Pokemon you don't particularly like or two, but still. I do consider a few mons to be a bit overpowered (especially when you consider box legendaries are banned, it makes Pokemon like Urshifu or Flutter Mane all the more frustrating. Although box legendaries being unbanned would help Flutter Mane...) and because of that I dislike them, but I think some people have to consider that competitive Pokemon just...isn't...for them? It isn't for me. I like to play Showdown, but I don't try to win 100% of my battles. I know I'll be out-classed by people that play well, have good sets, and have good mons. That's just the way of the game. But I can still get enjoyment out of every Urshifu my Reuniclus takes out with expanding force, or people who swap in their Kingambit only to get exploded by Tera Fighting tera blast by the aforementioned Reuniclus. It's about having fun for me, not winning, and I think more people need to realize that if you aren't having fun then you simply shouldn't play competitive Pokemon, or you should look into a different format.
Counter-argument: No matter how good I am at competitive Pokemon, I will never be able to bring my Beedrill to any respectable level in competitive Scarlet and Violet. Its just impossible. ... No, literally. I can't. Beedrill is not in the game.
I think what ends up happening is that new players only want to use their favorites, They're not willing to compensate even a slot for synergy despite their Pokémon functioning well as individual pieces.
This is why using favorites means you build smart around it. When I did Mega Lopunny on a team, you end up finding new favorites to add to your list of favs. That is how Thundurus and Clefable became favorites of mine
I think when it comes to winning with your favorites, everyone has their own definition of what that success looks like. It could be just making it to Masterball like you did with Honchkrow to trying to win Worlds with it. So depending on the goal, it is plausible to highly unlikely.
The thing about the Karen quote is that there is another quote that is more acurrate to meta games Grimesley: instead of complaining of what your adversary has, try to win with the cards you have on your hand.
If your favourite Pokemon is for example something like Weedle you don't even need to play competitively. You might already have a hard enough time just getting through the main game.
Another factor, as others mentioned, is that usually people who quote Karen to justify their anti-competitive sentiment are the type who want to just put their top 6 favs on a single team and expect to go toe to toe with teams having excellent synergy and strategy. They will groan at the thought of having to add a pokemon they're not super into for the sake of team synergy and balance. I honestly think its ultimately people's choice what they put on their teams, you can absolutely just put your 6 favorite pokemon if you want, my problem starts when people complain shit like "I can't play my favorite pokemon" when they expect a team with probably next to no thought put into it going up against a well-prepared team where each pokemon serves a valuable role and helps the rest of the team carry out theirs, or scream "Its all about using the same OP pokemon" in a game with a deep history of pokemon initially seen as useless and outclassed finding a legit niche due to knowledgeable and innovative players making the best of what few unique and valuable assets those pokemon have. Also, speaking from personal experience, as a comp noob, making a competitive team around my favorite, Infernape, made me find newfound appreciation for mons like Hippowdon and Clefable, even if I did the very thing I crticized in this comment- slapping my favs together on a single team, although I did try to think about at least type synergy. Ofc I didn't expect them to beat any of the OU elites, but they did much better than I thought. (The team was a Gen 8 AG team of Infernape, Galvantula, Crobat, Mega Sharpedo, Clefable and Hippowdon. Sorry, just wanted to brag about em while I had the chance)
Very well said To this day I've been trying to make a team around my favorite Gliscor. With the main problem being that Gliscors greatest strength, stalling, doesn't work in doubles no matter how much you try The best results I've gotten was a Tyranitaur sand team utilizing Sand Veil instead, using Gliscor to spread poison jab toxics and clean up using Urshifu and Inciniroar, but even that had incredibly mid results.
It would be super cool to see you build teams around specific pokemon, for example one of my favorites is Azumarill. Would be super interesting to see your thought process. Loved the video!
Sableye is pretty decent honestly. Prankster Will O Wisp, Encore, Disable, and Quash in a meta with like 4-5 physical attackers per team and around 3 choice users per team where the only notable dark type is Chien Pao, and sometimes Kingabit or Chi Yu definitely has a lot of uses.
My favorite pokemon is beedrill. X and Y were the most fun I ever had playing competitive because beedrill has a mega. Not only are Megas probably never coming back, but also beedrill hasn't been in a mainline switch game.
My favorites are unironically Flutter Mane and Chi-Yu... now whether I could win with those is a different thing altogether. I see people playing Doubles (like on your streams), and I just think to myself "man, were I the one playing, I'd probably fumble every play under the sun". Doubles is too gigabrained for me.
Now im not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed but I have fun with doubles.. Now that Ive had a taste of how fun it can be, singles looks birdbrained/monotonous to me even when it's a hard format to play in its own regard
Oh don't get me wrong, Doubles sounds super fun, but like, I already fumble the bag in Singles, imagine the same with twice as many Pokemon on the field, while also taking into account strats that are practically Doubles-exclusive lol. Too much for me.
And the moral of the story is that closed team sheet is best, solely due to the fact that you can run your favorite Pokémon & still get great results with proper team building
Dang this is already probably my favorite video about taking weak pokemon to the top. The editing is so fire and the little ad-lib about Honchkrow's hat-tipping was just hilarious. Wolfe need to take notes xD
Of course you can. I win with my favorite pokemon Flutter Mane, Incineroar, Iron Bundle and Ogerpon all the time No really, I really like them❤ Alongside Braviary, Mimikyu, Garbodor, Vanilluxe and Urshifu
Moxie really has the right idea. Youre not gonna win a super bowl playong football with your boys, but you can have fun abd maybe do well at a local competition if you work hard enough
I really like your videos and I think it's cool how much fun you have with it You're like the opposite of what people say issues with competitive Pokémon are, overly meta focused and too serious.
I really want more people to try this. I’m trying to build a team around Dragapult right now, since it’s my favorite, and I’m loving the challenge right now, especially with the new restricted formats!
I think the important distinction to make is that you can win with your favorite Pokemon, but not with a full team of (presumably unviable) favorites. It’s fine to use interesting Pokemon but there’s a meta for a reason.
I think the point you're missing is you can't build the team you want to play competitive. If 6 of my favourite pokemon are off-meta then usually you can only get away with 1-2 maybe 3 off-meta picks. This is evidenced in your video where you use 5 pokemon that are being used at above 10% usage rate. 3 of those above 20%.
In summary "actually, you only need to pack your team with FIVE of the best Pokemon in the game that are in every other party. You don't have to use all 6 slots to win."
I won a local singles tournament back in Gen 8 with a team made entirely of Ice types. _Ice types._ It’s just knowing a bit of strategy. Nothing beats the feeling of baiting out your opponent’s special sweeper, then one-shotting it with a Sturdy Avalugg that knows Mirror Coat.
I’d rather lose with my favorites than win with a net deck, which is why I mess around on ladder instead of actual comp. I know Beartic isn’t the best Swift Swim abuser, but it is hilarious to make someone rage quit when you sweep them with it. Also love the video syncing on Mirror B’s theme, nice work.
It is also fun slotting on niche Pokémon to your main team because you think it’s the best Pokémon for your team. I’m currently running a Magneton on my hyper offence team.
Hi viewer! Before commenting about the subject of this video, consider the following :) "Winning with your favorites" in the sense of using a full team of them, unless your favorites are good competitively, isnt something that is possible. This is not new information, Marcos 100% is aware of this. This video offers an alternate, realistic way to use your favorite pokemon. Unfortunately, if your favorite is anti meta or just a bad pokemon, getting it to work will require the correct tools to pick up the slack or make up for weaknesses for it function and be successful. Often, these are meta pokemon that a lot of people use. In a competitive environment, there is no shame in using what is good. No competitor worth value would say otherwise. If you have an issue with this, Competitive Pokemon isnt for you. It never will be for you. You should focus on playing Pokemon the way you find most fun, stick to your own lane and not input on something that you hold no stake in. If you find fun in using your favorites despite the meta, more power to you. However, if you do so while complaining bc your opponent used a Landorus-T, literally find anything else more productive to do. As the person who edited this video, this comment section has ended, what was probably the best project ive worked, on an extreme sour note. Hope this helps 😄👍
However your opponent using a landorous is inherently a problem, the game is pay to win. Where do you get landorous in SV? Where do you get Urshifu in SV? Oh yeah that’s right, they expect you to shill out 60 dollars for each game that each Pokémon is locked behind on top of additional subscription fees and dlc payments.
@@murkiri crazy that you can’t put context clues together, in conjunction with your previous paragraph to get to the point I’m trying to make. That being, that the game punishes you for using your favorites, because of its inherit pay to win scheme. If you weren’t so focused on gotcha moments maybe you could’ve understood what I was trying to say.
@@BeezerGutlr oh I knew exactly what you were saying, I just think you're a dumbass that: 1. doesn't know what they're talking about 2. cannot read Not only did you completely not understand what my comment was about, being that I think that people who hold no stake in playing Competitive Pokemon complain too much about it and should stfu instead of whining bc they don't understand how competitive environments function. Pokemon being "pay to win" doesn't bring any new perspective or even has any form of interaction with my point. but on top of that, "Pay to win" in Pokemon is a completely different issue from not being able to use your favorites. idk why you're so worried about me going for "gotcha moments" bc all i am doing is defending a video that I played an active part in making from braindead troglodytes who come into the comments thinking they have something of value to say.
I think the advice I gave someone who was wondering about using off meta Pokemon was "most Pokemon can find some kind of niche. Find it, and find teammates it works well with". This was easy for me cuz i chose to use Mamo in Reg F as a Tail Wind Sweeper and Incin counter. And im planning on using it again in January to cover my Urshifu's weaknesses
The main problem is what your "favorite" is. There are some pokemon so i ferior to others that any battle with them would be infinitly easier without them.
The sad part is that yes, you can win with your favorites… one at a time. The fact it’s basically required to run the meta picks as partners to make just one off-meta pick mon work is depressing still
I was really excited for this video because I was thinking "finally!" And then i remembered my favorite pokemon is Ribombee 😂 Edit: for clarification, I meant that this video is "irrelevant" to me because ribombee is actually already good.
Ah, the pokemon that was in UBERS in singles for awhile(Best sticky web setter which is one of the most powerful hazards, so when hazards are good in singles... good sticky web setters are, too.
I mean ribombee is pretty damn good with excellent speed control in sticky webs and tailwind which is very nice as well as pollen puff healing your ally’s and some other stuff I’m probably not remembering but yeah ribombee is a good creature
A problem I also have with the "favorites" mentality is also how they might not even want to try some of the meta stuff. Sometimes certain mons can actually surprise you in how fun they are. There are many different ways to have a favorite pokemon, be it having a cool ability, a sick or cute design, a battle strategy that resonates with you to your core, or maybe the way it plays into certain metas and mons. My current favorite mon being glimmora is nothing i would have ever concidered if not for the fact of its competetive options. I for some reason really like the way it can set hazards and even run some odd combos with it like red card to force a potential free poison on a core mon the opppponent had no way of seeing coming. Then there is my other favorite being froslass, which is a mon with a history of. being a mon that exists. It has had its nieches. still doesnt mean it isnt fun trying to run even though a destiny bond set is very predictable, its still something you can work with. Plus a hazard setter with rapid spin immunity isnt too bad, but no where near any competetive viability. All in all. Competetive can also help give you new appreciation for some mons you never would have concidering if not for its existence.
Another Honchkrow lover!!! While not my favorite pokemon, I do play it fairly often on ladder. I usually always play pokemon I like, and reach decent enough rank with proper teambuilding.
"You can't win with your favorites" frase is kind of accurate on VGC tournaments But on the ladder isn't true, since there are a lot of Noobs even on the high tiers 😅 Also if your favorite pokemon is i don't know, Basculin or Ludvisc... 😐 And you want to play ONLY with your favorites 🤔🤔 and you refuse to learn about the nature of competitive play 🤨🤨🤨 No wonder you always loose!!! You're running a team with enormous weakness! (mostly sharing typing) With no support moves! And with no EV training! I have a lot of fun building teams on the Battle Facility of the generation! Testing my strategy against a system that essentially makes counters for your team Mega Ampharos, Tsarenaa, Malamar are just a few examples of Pokemon I took to 50 consecutive wins With interesting sets that find a way to differentiate themselves and catch the CPU off guard And if you can score wins against a CPU that TRULY builds teams that counter your strategy... I think you can consider yourself a good player 😎 (Quick example! I built a Plus Ampharos team on triple battles to give him MAX defenses with Magnetic Flux before it goes Mega And the CPU brings a Choice Band - Unaware Quagsire to spam Earthquake Super Luck Absol with Punishment the Dark Type move that gains 20 power for every increased stat stage the target has, up to a maximum of 200 specifically to get rid of Ampharos massive boosts I was able to get around all of them with smart prediction and Wide Guard Machanp 👌 But it just shows how many weak points your team might have And you need to think about them and potential counterplay which is pretty interesting if you ask me ) I'm not nearly done with these games (Gen 6 and 7) I'm still finding interesting sets to try out on unusual mons Now I'm testing a Physical Contest Pikachu set with Icicle crash, Volt Tackle, Quick attack and Protect to have the Volt Beam combo on a Physical attacker 🌩️ 🧊 ✊ [I think I should change Quick Attack for Feint] It is hard but I was able to score 23 victories and the CPU is using Switcheroo to disarm my Pikachu of its precious Ligthball so I incorporated Black Sludge Amoongus to play around with it Is a really neat way to test your skill as a player 💪😎👍 )
@@tayIorswif isn't even solid none of it's stats reach 100 Wich is weird But ironically has every other trade a good Pokémon should have, it has amazing abilities, amazing move pool and a speed stat that can work But with no offensive presence on neither side of the offensive spectrum it is hard to justify it's place on a team Sure you CAN make it work but you have to focus your entire team around it I actually I'm trying to make Basculin work on a VGC team to get every ribbon he can get to transfer it to Gen 9 and hopefully he will be as big or as small as a Basculin can be to get the Mark Yeah I'm one of those guys
I actually did find a creative use for Luvdisc in Gen 7 Doubles. Set up rain and then immediately switched in Shedinja, who receives a Soak from Swift Swim boosted Luvdisc to go from 5 weaknesses to just 2. Then it immediately Safeguards while Shedinja protects, and I'd try to build up from there, with Raichu and Togekiss in the back to draw fire from enemy Electric and Grass moves.
@@DoctorSpacebar so if they KO Ludvisc in one go you're pretty much stuck with a meh team that falls if they have Rocky Helmet, Iron Bars or Rough Skin?... What if you face Chansey or Blissey? Raichu and Togekiss get shut down You can have Hidden Power Ice and Hidden Power Fire on each one But if you face a Pink Blob Shedinja can't use Shadow Sneak and X-scizor deals very little damage to most sets Reggieice also shuts down this a massive special defense and most sets carry thunderbolt And no member of your team is happy of taking Stab Blizzards *I think you can greatly improve the team if you use Ally Switch and Focus Sash on Shedinja and preparing a Sweep with Quiver Dance Volcarona After all on VGC Shedinja has only 2 roles Sweep a team without coverage to deal with him - And protect a Heavy Hitter of your team Ludvisc seems like a decent support Pokémon I think it can learn Wish and Heal Pulse and being the only Swift Swimmer with Heal Pulse has some advantages And Volcarona with Hidden Power Water can actually be a great Rain Sweeper abusing Hurricane, bug Buzz on rain can be pretty massive I suggest a new moveset for Ludvisc It can use Wish, Safe Guard, Aqua Jet and Rain dance
@@marcelosandoval4206 @marcelosandoval4206 Shedinja gets Secret Power, which doesn't make contact. I give it Swords Dance as well, to let it build up power to break through walls, and Sucker Punch for priority that nothing is immune to. Safety Goggles to ignore weather. If Shedinja drops, the rest of the team can play around both Soak and Rain, and the Mega Gallade. Admittedly, though, the team needed some work and was more so for the gimmick. I do like the Ally Switch idea, though- pair it up with a solid setup sweeper, particularly a solid Electric or Grass immune, and it could go to town. Now my favorite team from Gen 7? Skill Swapping Sap Sipper onto a bulky Mega Swampert and teaming it up with Comfey. Triage boosted Giga Drain can power up the Swampert and let it go wild, while Floral Healing can help it stay up.
I feel comfortable knowing the fact that Swampert is one of the best starters in the series and I’m proud that despite power creep, it’s still doing great while doing what it’s been doing since generation 3 which is being a absolute Swiss Army knife!
I was just watching MnJTV's video about what starters out of all of them would do best in each region, and Marshtomp was the only one who was legit the best in the region it's actually from.
This makes me think of the fact that I've been trying to find a peak build for Dachsbun in a competitive format. I love my pastry doge and have been jumping around with several strategies in order to make use of the baby.
I remember back in Reg C, I managed to make Espeon work pretty well for me. It was hilarious sending it into Roaring Moon, clicking Tera Fairy and watching them rage quit lmao
I once made it to rank 49 in regulation c with a mediocre team with Salamence, Wo-Chien, Klefki and Annihilape. I added Salamence because it's my favorite pokemon annd to this day it is still the highest I ever made it on the in game ranked ladder.
This proves you can be creative in competitive formats and use you favorite Pokemon. All you have to do is put it into an existing archetype it can perform and surround it with competitive staples to carry it. Great...
Moxie: “Look at Joe’s jumpluff” 2010 parasect that got 2nd at world: “u think ur nieche” 2023 kommo-o won a regional: “Parasect that was a while ago I survived 2023” 2014 pachirishu: “amateurs”
This is the kind of shit i like to see. VGC tournaments got me back into competitive pokemon but players that make their favorite pokemon work are what i REALLY enjoy.
In any competition with arbitrary rules and especially video games there will be characters or classes that are better than others. Anyone who says that “meta”gaming is lazy or just the easy way to win are 99% of the time just bad players making excuses for not wanting to try if they want to achieve. Seen it for years in many different games.
The point about waiting for the rank reset is soo true. At the start of this season on the second night i played late ate night till like 2 am my time and reached rank 86. I just start playing VGC like 3 4 months ago i am now around rank 8000. so yah really easy to reach rank 100ish early on lol
yes i can. beacuse i was making a team to finish all the pokemon games. the team was Roserade, Scizor, Crobat, Snorlax, Lapras and Magnezone. my favorites
That one guy whose favorite Pokémon is Landorus-T is laughing in the corner.
My favorite Pokémon is Swadloon.
I got a 50-streak in the Battle Tree with him.
It was actually very bulky with Eviolite, and it has good utility like Struggle Bug, String Shot, and Light Screen.
Trainers, don't let anything hold you back.
My favorite mon is Plusle, so as soon as Indigo Disk drops I'm going to go shiny hunt one and use it for all the battles. It will be garbage but at least it will be cute
My favorite is ogerpon so I am very much laughing in the corner
That person who loves Brian hands laughing in the corner
@@bluebaron6811WHAT?
I love that the primary message of this video is "ladder exists, play whatever you want"
Bingo
It still requires gameplay, but yeah, most people don't really reach the point where the poor stats can't be offset by a smart player(usually)
one thing that I think is also important to mention is that due to the nature of the game some pokemon will necessarily overshadow others. Pokemon, in function, are simply 6 stat numbers with a list of abilities and moves associated with them, all of which have simple functions and properties, so there's only so many unique Pokemon you can design without them overlapping and the one that fits the meta best, be it thanks to better stats or more valuable options, outclassing the others. Even if every Pokemon was balanced around competitive play, a meta would still form with better and worse options depending on what traits are most valuable in the meta, and people would complain about their favorite being garbage
Ledian fans found on life support
@jg1404 the iron fist user with 35 base attack. RIP
Yeah, people miss this a lot. Not every Pokemon can be good. That's just not how the game works. Some Pokemon are stronger than others, and that's just how it is. You can use your favorite Pokemon if you want, but if your goal is to win, then you might have to just suck it up and use something you might not like.
@@ianluk6385
But also by default, you should be able to find at least a few Pokémon you do like. In the current meta, there’s around 15-20 really strong Pokémon in the meta, and 30-40 more great to decent less meta or anti meta Pokémon. Even if you hate every legendary and paradox Pokémon, you should easily be able to assemble a decent teams consisting at least half of moms you like.
@@Endershock1678 exactly. And it's not impossible to make your favorites work. You just have to figure out how to use it in a smart way, even if it is a good Pokemon, but especially if it isn't. As we've seen, even something as seemingly weak as Pachirisu won a world championship. It was played intelligently, and put into a team that it worked well on, while playing into what it could do well. That's how you get your favorites to work
I think there’s another aspect to the saying that you can’t win with your favorites in competitive Pokémon. And that is that those people don’t just wanna use one of their favorites, they want to use ALL of their favorites.
As an example, let’s say Timmy’s favorite Pokémon is Xatu, and he really wants to get into competitive Pokémon but he’s told Xatu isn’t a viable option. However he figures out a set that can make Xatu viable, but with a catch, that he has to use other Pokémon like Dondozo, Tatsugiri, Chien-Pao, all those guys, to complement the Xatu. The problem is that Timmy didn’t just want to use his favorite Pokémon Xatu, he also wanted to use his second favorite Pokémon, Donphan. But he can’t do that because then he already has a full team built around helping Xatu win. If he tries to make the team work with both Xatu and Donphan in mind, the whole team structure might fall apart. And if he proceeds with the original team except now with Donphan, then Donphan is just going to be deadweight. And what if Timmy wants to use all 6 of his party slots for his favorite Pokémon? He’s not gonna get very far with it.
That is what I think people mean when they say that you can’t use your favorites to win. Cause even in that tournament winning team at the start of the video, sure Jumpluff was in there, but so was Flutter Mane and Great Tusk.
I don’t mean this as a negative comment towards you by the way, just trying to clarify what people might actually mean with the statement, or at least what I mean with the statement.
Yeah, exactly this. Couldn’t have worded it better
This is exactly my issue. Its not that i cant build a whole team around one Pokémon, it's that building that team requires a bunch of rediculously good meta picks and at that point am i winning with my favourite or am i running a bunch of really good meta picks with one sub-optimal choice?
@@bye1551 There's 2 issues with trying to make it happen though.
1.) Tier lists matter. Only the stupid and the ignorant think they can disregard them. If your favorite Pokemon is a low tier, or if MULTIPLE of your favorites are low tiers, then you're going to have a horrible time, even if you play optimally.
2.) Team Building is a core part of the Pokemon strategy game. If you were able to just slap together all of the pretty pokemon and expect a victory, then it wouldn't be a strategy game anymore because your choices don't actually matter.
The only way I can see that working is if ALL Pokemon had the same abilities, stats, and move pools, so that you could pick your favorites but there was still strategy once the match started. But then that would completely obliterate any sense of uniqueness that the pokemon have.
I think the question itself asks for an impossibility. Like "can I win chess using only pawns?" You can either have a good strategy game, or you can have a game that lets you win despite you making the stupidest of decisions, but you can't have both.
Honestly, there are singles Smogon too. It allows for weaker mons to have their own tier and especially low ladder allows for weird strategies
I mean, I think part of the issue is that 'winning with your favorites' is that while you can generally find a tier where one of your favorites has a role, it's very unlikely for your favorites to all align with a single tier so you either end up with 'Playing with ONE of your favorites/a team mostly not made of your favorites' or 'Making a bad team'.
Then those people fundamentally misunderstand what it means to be competitive
@@Thund3rDrag0n12the problem is that people want to be able to play both ways at the same time, which i find understandable: be at least passable in competitive while still paying homage to one or more of their favourite mons. and sometimes, that just straight-up isnt possible, especially if you bring multiple bad mons that dont synergize but just happen to be your favourites of all time. so the trade-off is based on how badly you wanna do well in competitive - do you sacrifice your beedrill for a meta-relevant pokemon that complements everything else to do well, or do you keep both it and kabutops on the same team because you like them that much, but then almost inevitably lose like every battle against good players? not everyone wants to use only one of their favourites and then use a whole bunch of meta-relevant mons just to make a team centered around that one not-so-great mon. and while obviously the alternative isnt gonna do well on ladder, i do understand where theyre coming from.
Play national dex and use mega beedrill since its one of the best pokemon in the format
@@imp4209no? its really bad in UU and afaik OU is unheard of
No? It's one of the strongest and fastest pokemon in the tier(uu I mean) and is an amazing fast pivot mid game and late game cleaner
Knowing that Tinkaton has become one of my favourites in recent generations of Pokemon, I hope someday someone takes it to an official Pokemon tournament and wins with her so she will be known as the Pokemon Queen back in College
If nothing else it can be top tier in League of Legends.
The legend appears!
Do it yourself maybe
I feel like Tinkaton is so many people’s favourites, it’s bound to happen at some point (also heavy cope but then maybe game freak will notice and realise how in need of a buff she is and that such a popular pokemon should be doing better)
Tinkaton is actually decent in VGC with 2 different sets.
In reg A it was a fast support with access to the ability mold breaker. This let it outspeed and paralyze Gholdengo, who was otherwise immune to it, or use Fake Out into mons with flinch immunity like Dragonite.
Despite its low attack stat, it can be used as a strong attacker in reg D and onwards by using its Own Tempo ability. With an immunity to intimidate and Confusion, you can have a prankster mon like tornadus to use priority Swagger on your own Tinkaton to give it +2 with no draw backs. It even retains fake out so you can get a free tailwind before you start stacking swaggers. I've used this set to great success on mid elo showdown ladder.
It's all about game knowledge, and synergizes. Doubles is really cool that way.
You know what would be a really fun and hilarious buff to give a mon?
Give both versions of Zoroark Fake Out.
Wait... not only would that be a good buff, but it thematically fits the Pokémon.
GameFreak, hire this man/she-man immediately.
Michelin star for the chef
I honestly didn’t know they didn’t learn that, that feels like something they should know
@@bluebaron6811 You could have just said woman you know
@@quijassajiuq900 even easier, the word "person" exists
"Can you win with your favorite pokemon?"
Flutter Mane mains: Yes.
Flutter mains
Flutter manes
jes
The problem most people have when wanting to use their favorites is that they have no clue how to build a team in the first place.
Like you said, it’s possible but before you can use your favorites you need to know how to play the game which is gonna take time and effort.
True, although that brings a bit of a paradox.
Most people looking to "win with their favorites" land in one of two categories:
-Interested in competitive but doesn't enjoy playing with the top dogs, which is unavoidable so they lose interest.
-Not interested in competitive, just looking for another way to have fun with the pokemon they like.
In this second category you have to learn the game to have fun, but your priority is to have fun, not to learn the game so you just say "fuck it, to much work" and walk away.
That's an inherent part of game design, you can't please everyone and is not wrong for the developers to do it; but it still sucks to be that one player in that position.
@@Lira_orpheus That isn’t an inherit game design problem, that’s only natural.
Of course you have to get better at the game in order to use less viable options and gain some level of results. It would be like wanting to lift and not learning anything about diet, proper form, or how to adapt whenever you hit plateaus. You have to learn things as you get better, and that’s okay.
It’s nothing on you, but if you wanna play better at the game and even get results at a lower level you have to learn how to play the game better. That doesn’t mean using meta teams, but at least learning what they do, how to build to beat other teams, and learning how to play the game at a fundamental level. I did this whenever I was first learning VGC and got Sableye to top 500 in Reg B.
@@Lira_orpheus Bro thats how fucking numbers work.
@@RealiztikVGC Ok, I'll explain it better.
As a comercial game designer, you want maximize revenue and competitive scenes can be a powerful tool to do it so, you want to make your game appealing for the most people possible, and the same goes for the competitive scene.
To get people to go competitive you want to lower the skill floor and skill gap so is easy to get in and newbies don't get discouraged.
To retain the dedicated players you want to reward their efforts and experience. You want to reduce randomness to reward knowledge, planning and strategies, which increases the skill gap.
You see where I'm going with this? As a game designer you have to make a choice do you focus your efforts on the newcomers or on the dedicated inner circles? How much do you reward experience?
The design problem is not "Some people are better than others"
The problem is "How much do I allow people to become better than others?"
Feraligatr is one of my favorites and in Gen 5 OU I made a rain team for it and it cleans teams with scary efficiency
I have been playing quite well with my current favourite Pokémon Ogerpon. This really shows how you could win when using your favourites.
Yeah but Ogerpon is an actual good Pokémon with good movepool and good stats
Some dipshits throw mons like Pikachu onto an OU team and get tilted when they inevitably lose. This is why Smogon created tiers
@@telacrap*psst thats the joke lad*
Great video! Now do Flygon?
oh hi Dr. Flygon, wasn't expecting to see you here
I just came from watching your mono normal video lmao
What if your favourite pokemon is Ledian? Or one of the elemental monkeys? I guess you just pray for the release of death.
I feel like the most telling line in the video is 'of course we need our own Urshifu to compete'
Play an actually balanced game at that point.
then you go to the lower tiers on smogon to play and have fun with your favorite there
@@stalltheworld Unless your favorite is ledian. That thing can't do anything even in ZU.
Outside of mons like that (delibird, luvdisk) it does the trick
Another problem comes from people that want to play with a team of their favorites. If all their favorites are bad Pokémon when it comes to the Meta game, they’re shit out of luck lmao
Ledian is cracked as hell in the DS Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games. Comet Punch and Silver Wind are amazeball moves
I think what really gets the casual playerbase is that their favorites aren't always able to be used in a simple and risk free way for what you understand it to be, or have an entirely different function than what you want to imagine your favorite Pokémon doing
Definitely, they almost always wanna play their favorites in such a way where they steam roll everything even though their favorite is slow as shit and has a terrible typing
@@FiniteMan1933like yeah bro, reach master ball top 100 with a glalie before you talk shit about competitive pokemon
they wanna play online ladder and comp like it is just a normal pokemon run, with enough brute force (and most noteably levels) you can use almost everything to win
@@Tobben121Idk what people expect like did you think you could bring your t stack of legends + your favorite Mon and think big numbers = big wins?
I play pokemon casually, I don't know how the base stat totals work and seriously someone please explain it to me
Good thing Maractus has the Maractusite to mega evolve into mega rayquaza. Otherwise it would be hard to use
Average Mix N Mega fan be like:
Ahhh gone are the halcyon days of broken dynamax which gave even crappy mons a fighting chance.
Hey! My boy Foo!
You should make a playlist of your entire list also once the second DLC arrives
I'm expecting a new "Overlooked buffs series"
Since it is my favorite series on the channel
Hope you do right
As someone who has had zero VGC experience can also attest that the ladder before Great ball is kinda silly.
Meanwhile I had all loaner teams prior to it lol
One thing a lot of people do that causes them to give up on winning with their favorites is bringing a full team of favorites. Pick one, give it a job to do, and build the rest of the team around it with either Pokemon that'll help your favorite do its job or will be helped by that job.
Of course, if enough of your favorites are viable then you can also put together a team with multiple of them, but even then, I highly recommend not filling the entire team with favorites.
You should avoid using your favorites if they aren't good enough or don't match with the team to begin with. You can make it work but it's still suboptimal.
@@SergioLopez-yu4cuDon't tell me how to play
@@SergioLopez-yu4cu that defeats the point of making a team work with your favorite instead of giving up on them...
What I think a lot of casual players fail to realize is that competitive players dislike using the same mons over and over again as much as casuals dislike seeing it, but unfortunately Pokemon is ultimately a numbers game. How much damage a Pokemon deals to/takes from opposing top threats, speed tiers, useful moves, etc all need to be taken into account when determining viability and most Pokemon just get straight up outclassed by others
I've always gotten the impression that competitive players honestly don't really care since even in the presence of a mirror match, what matters is how you pilot that team and who pilots it best. Competitive players only really care about the wrong kind of Pokemon being meta, those being Pokemon that diminish the skill by either introducing luck, or are so oppressively dominant that they alone can decide a game, which can paradoxically lead to Games feeling like coin flips because the Victor is decided by who lost their op win condition first, be it through losing a speed tie, an untimely critical hit, or making the wrong throw on a 50/50 circumstance.
Conversely, if only six Pokemon were ever viable but those six made for a rich and engaging gameplay experience, then competitive players likely wouldn't care if they only ever saw the same six in gameplay.
@@Ehibika just ask a vgc player if they've seen enough incin.
@@Xahnelnah, it seems to me that ol' Wolfey and the rest like seeing stinking Incineroar all over the place. They cant stop talking about it.
Competitive players are not there for the fun. They're there for the winking.
Therefore, I despise them
I think the biggest 'issue' with using your favorites is that, unless your favorites revolve around those defining the meta, your team comp is still going to look like 90% of other teams. You'll just have a single exception.
Case in point, Honkrow is paired with Chien-Pao, Hisuian Arcanine, Rillaboom, Urshifu, and Goldengo. All of which are top picks.
Teambuilding is a skill after all. Gotta make sure you have the right tools to get the job done.
Yep. That's not winning with your favorites, is winning with a normal team ft. your favorite. Still cool, but clearly not what most people have in mind.
The whole thing with "winning with your favorites" is that you don't enjoy the meta pokemon.
@@MoxieBoostedeh not really when 5/6 builds are predetermined or will inevitably match someone else
For SwSh everyone ran inceneroar, regileki, zacian and calyrex
@@Lira_orpheus What game realistically lets anyone win with only random pieces chosen at a whim at a high level?
I mean while it can work for honchkrow, spidops is simply impossible to work with or ledian
Honchkrow stacking abilities, items and move effects to get a 70 BP move that always crits
Urshifu-single: Look what they need to mimic a fraction of my power.
Back in ORAS I was never making a team without Staraptor, goodra and mega beedrill
Beedrill got the best mega form honestly, that thing was a monster
@@phyllotaxis And a design too freaking epic for my unworthy mortal eyes to witness
I remember designing an anti-meta hail team in gen 8, designed purely to knock out all of the most common mons, to be their hardest counters. Team did really well, too, since it seemed a lot of ladder climbers were just using the most popular mons to try for biggest numbers.
I always assumed that Karen was referring to the actual game. Like, you could take on the Elite Four with a Sableye and Stantler in tow.
Karen was referring to your rival
@@Thund3rDrag0n12 That too
@@Thund3rDrag0n12 Okay but Silver's team is actually terrible. He was right to say Sneasel sucks, cause Gen 2 Sneasel sucks.
@@Thund3rDrag0n12
Yeah that copeing. Love how you guys go out of your way to trash on a positive message and make it about silver. Pretty pathetic dude
@@devildolphin2102I dont think calling them pathetic will make you any better than them "trashing" Karen's quote
Yes you can, if you happen to like the right Pokémon
Loved the post game commentary. How about a mono-type team to show off Brian Hands 😁
brain hands*
I think it's fair to argue that you can't "win with your favorites", but unfair to say you can't "win with your favorite". It sounds like semantics, but as you said, you HAVE to have the right good mons to support your favorite. There's also a lot of good Pokemon out in the world - you can definitely find a competitive team of Pokemon mostly comprised of Pokemon you like if you just give it a genuine shot. Maybe you have to include a Pokemon you don't particularly like or two, but still. I do consider a few mons to be a bit overpowered (especially when you consider box legendaries are banned, it makes Pokemon like Urshifu or Flutter Mane all the more frustrating. Although box legendaries being unbanned would help Flutter Mane...) and because of that I dislike them, but I think some people have to consider that competitive Pokemon just...isn't...for them? It isn't for me. I like to play Showdown, but I don't try to win 100% of my battles. I know I'll be out-classed by people that play well, have good sets, and have good mons. That's just the way of the game. But I can still get enjoyment out of every Urshifu my Reuniclus takes out with expanding force, or people who swap in their Kingambit only to get exploded by Tera Fighting tera blast by the aforementioned Reuniclus. It's about having fun for me, not winning, and I think more people need to realize that if you aren't having fun then you simply shouldn't play competitive Pokemon, or you should look into a different format.
Counter-argument: No matter how good I am at competitive Pokemon, I will never be able to bring my Beedrill to any respectable level in competitive Scarlet and Violet. Its just impossible.
...
No, literally. I can't. Beedrill is not in the game.
I'd have a similar problem. My favourite Pokémon is Ledian.
My second favourite Pokémon then? Again no, this time it's Delcatty...
@@aasgier9091 Ledian gang rise up! (It isn’t my number one favorite, that would belong to banette, but it’s still pretty high up on the list)
Bless Dexit.
They had us in the first half ngl
Says he likes Hunckrow then proceeds to call it a Redditor
Redditor sympathizer
I think what ends up happening is that new players only want to use their favorites, They're not willing to compensate even a slot for synergy despite their Pokémon functioning well as individual pieces.
This is why using favorites means you build smart around it. When I did Mega Lopunny on a team, you end up finding new favorites to add to your list of favs. That is how Thundurus and Clefable became favorites of mine
No shit! Why would I use pokemon I dislike?
I can't believe Moxieboosted would openly smurf like this.
Content baby!
I think when it comes to winning with your favorites, everyone has their own definition of what that success looks like. It could be just making it to Masterball like you did with Honchkrow to trying to win Worlds with it. So depending on the goal, it is plausible to highly unlikely.
For me, its semi consistent success in the low to mid ranks with a full team of pokemon not built with meta in mind.
The thing about the Karen quote is that there is another quote that is more acurrate to meta games
Grimesley: instead of complaining of what your adversary has, try to win with the cards you have on your hand.
If your favourite Pokemon is for example something like Weedle you don't even need to play competitively. You might already have a hard enough time just getting through the main game.
Bad example because someone already accomplished beating the main game with a weedle.
@CynderSpirit and did he have a hard time? If the answer is yes, you just prove his point, jackass
Another factor, as others mentioned, is that usually people who quote Karen to justify their anti-competitive sentiment are the type who want to just put their top 6 favs on a single team and expect to go toe to toe with teams having excellent synergy and strategy. They will groan at the thought of having to add a pokemon they're not super into for the sake of team synergy and balance.
I honestly think its ultimately people's choice what they put on their teams, you can absolutely just put your 6 favorite pokemon if you want, my problem starts when people complain shit like "I can't play my favorite pokemon" when they expect a team with probably next to no thought put into it going up against a well-prepared team where each pokemon serves a valuable role and helps the rest of the team carry out theirs, or scream "Its all about using the same OP pokemon" in a game with a deep history of pokemon initially seen as useless and outclassed finding a legit niche due to knowledgeable and innovative players making the best of what few unique and valuable assets those pokemon have.
Also, speaking from personal experience, as a comp noob, making a competitive team around my favorite, Infernape, made me find newfound appreciation for mons like Hippowdon and Clefable, even if I did the very thing I crticized in this comment- slapping my favs together on a single team, although I did try to think about at least type synergy. Ofc I didn't expect them to beat any of the OU elites, but they did much better than I thought.
(The team was a Gen 8 AG team of Infernape, Galvantula, Crobat, Mega Sharpedo, Clefable and Hippowdon. Sorry, just wanted to brag about em while I had the chance)
Very well said
To this day I've been trying to make a team around my favorite Gliscor. With the main problem being that Gliscors greatest strength, stalling, doesn't work in doubles no matter how much you try
The best results I've gotten was a Tyranitaur sand team utilizing Sand Veil instead, using Gliscor to spread poison jab toxics and clean up using Urshifu and Inciniroar, but even that had incredibly mid results.
It would be super cool to see you build teams around specific pokemon, for example one of my favorites is Azumarill. Would be super interesting to see your thought process. Loved the video!
Thankfully, Azumarill is actually pretty good. Great typing, great ability, and access to Belly Drum and Priority.
In gen 6 I tried to make a team with a good pokemon from each gen, 1 per gen.
I had Mienshao, Zapdos, Medicham, Rotom Wash, Scizor, and Talonflame
How'd it do?
fun idea
Those are actually pretty good and able to mix well if played properly
"it's the only way to sleep gouldengo"
My god, Toadscruel just click Spore
I dont care how good (or bad) it is in battle. Sableye will always be my number one. Love that little guy 😭❤️
Sableye is pretty decent honestly. Prankster Will O Wisp, Encore, Disable, and Quash in a meta with like 4-5 physical attackers per team and around 3 choice users per team where the only notable dark type is Chien Pao, and sometimes Kingabit or Chi Yu definitely has a lot of uses.
got 4-0 by someone on ladder using twave / will-o-wisp sableye next to tera ghost hex chi yu
sableye will never be bad wtf
Prankster Quash sounds really funny.
Okay I can tell you know nothing if you think Sableye is bad-
Imagine to have grown playing sun and moon and loving incineroar, only to realize some years later hes a beast (my story)
Nobody expects the Serene Grace + Coil + Headbutt + Drill Tail + Roost Dunsparce! (and yes, DUNSPARCE, not Dudunsparce).
I don't want to be a boomer but I'm 99% sure that's the standard set that Showdown gives to Dunsparce
@@marcelosandoval8719 Yep. I know from experience its quite a good setup.
My favorite pokemon is beedrill. X and Y were the most fun I ever had playing competitive because beedrill has a mega. Not only are Megas probably never coming back, but also beedrill hasn't been in a mainline switch game.
I think a lot of kantonian pokemon will return in the next gen or a johto/unova remake
Boy do I have news for you
lets go is mainline
My favorites are unironically Flutter Mane and Chi-Yu... now whether I could win with those is a different thing altogether. I see people playing Doubles (like on your streams), and I just think to myself "man, were I the one playing, I'd probably fumble every play under the sun". Doubles is too gigabrained for me.
Now im not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed but I have fun with doubles.. Now that Ive had a taste of how fun it can be, singles looks birdbrained/monotonous to me even when it's a hard format to play in its own regard
Oh don't get me wrong, Doubles sounds super fun, but like, I already fumble the bag in Singles, imagine the same with twice as many Pokemon on the field, while also taking into account strats that are practically Doubles-exclusive lol. Too much for me.
@@Iris_Descent Understandable, Pokemon's not all about brain wracking battles anyway!
Yeah, that just depends on how dedicated you are to maximizing their strengths. I have a team that took a Vespa queen to master ball teir
Could i maybe have the rental code for your vespiquen team? Im curious 🤔
And the moral of the story is that closed team sheet is best, solely due to the fact that you can run your favorite Pokémon & still get great results with proper team building
Love the commentary, this style makes it easier for me to follow when I wanna learn from gameplay
In theory the answer is yes but in practice it's complicated and extremely difficult
Dang this is already probably my favorite video about taking weak pokemon to the top. The editing is so fire and the little ad-lib about Honchkrow's hat-tipping was just hilarious. Wolfe need to take notes xD
“Can you really win with your favorite Pokémon?”
Me and others with favorite Pokémon that are mythicals: 💀
Of course you can. I win with my favorite pokemon Flutter Mane, Incineroar, Iron Bundle and Ogerpon all the time
No really, I really like them❤ Alongside Braviary, Mimikyu, Garbodor, Vanilluxe and Urshifu
Mimi is soooooo cute, huge fan
My favorite is Galvantula. Can't wait for indigo disk bay-bee!
Ah a fellow Galvantula Chad! Neglect the fairy fly, RETURN TO SPIDER!
I wuv Galvantula so much
@@gioanysgonzalez3396 Frick the Spider and the Fairy Fly, SPEED BOOST CENTIPEDE SUPREMACY!
My favorite 6 Pokémon are Tornadus-I, Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Arcanine-Hisui, Rillaboom, Chien-Pao, Gholdengo
Homie likes the string cheese man, bully him, lol
Moxie really has the right idea.
Youre not gonna win a super bowl playong football with your boys, but you can have fun abd maybe do well at a local competition if you work hard enough
I really like your videos and I think it's cool how much fun you have with it
You're like the opposite of what people say issues with competitive Pokémon are, overly meta focused and too serious.
I really want more people to try this. I’m trying to build a team around Dragapult right now, since it’s my favorite, and I’m loving the challenge right now, especially with the new restricted formats!
Imagine having Unown as your favourite pokemon
Unironically me trying to take a shiny I (my first legit shiny) through the gen 2 league.
I think the important distinction to make is that you can win with your favorite Pokemon, but not with a full team of (presumably unviable) favorites. It’s fine to use interesting Pokemon but there’s a meta for a reason.
My favorite pokémon is bisharp and my favorite evolution line is kingambit's line
I've been eating good
something interesting about pokemon is that everything can be used with effort
not just used, but sometimes be the best choice
I think the point you're missing is you can't build the team you want to play competitive. If 6 of my favourite pokemon are off-meta then usually you can only get away with 1-2 maybe 3 off-meta picks. This is evidenced in your video where you use 5 pokemon that are being used at above 10% usage rate. 3 of those above 20%.
Exactly, everyone just slaps on 5 of the most used Pokémon and adds one they'll barely use and make dumb videos like this
@@kumquat4543he literally got 12+ kills with honch. Stop complaining. If u like off meta go to lower tiers
The rank up montage to Miror B's music was inspired, that track needs to get more use
In summary "actually, you only need to pack your team with FIVE of the best Pokemon in the game that are in every other party. You don't have to use all 6 slots to win."
I won a local singles tournament back in Gen 8 with a team made entirely of Ice types.
_Ice types._
It’s just knowing a bit of strategy. Nothing beats the feeling of baiting out your opponent’s special sweeper, then one-shotting it with a Sturdy Avalugg that knows Mirror Coat.
I’d rather lose with my favorites than win with a net deck, which is why I mess around on ladder instead of actual comp. I know Beartic isn’t the best Swift Swim abuser, but it is hilarious to make someone rage quit when you sweep them with it.
Also love the video syncing on Mirror B’s theme, nice work.
It is also fun slotting on niche Pokémon to your main team because you think it’s the best Pokémon for your team. I’m currently running a Magneton on my hyper offence team.
EXACTLY. That is literally why Pachi won a championship, im tired of people saying he only used it cuz it was his "fav"
Hi viewer! Before commenting about the subject of this video, consider the following :)
"Winning with your favorites" in the sense of using a full team of them, unless your favorites are good competitively, isnt something that is possible. This is not new information, Marcos 100% is aware of this. This video offers an alternate, realistic way to use your favorite pokemon.
Unfortunately, if your favorite is anti meta or just a bad pokemon, getting it to work will require the correct tools to pick up the slack or make up for weaknesses for it function and be successful. Often, these are meta pokemon that a lot of people use. In a competitive environment, there is no shame in using what is good. No competitor worth value would say otherwise.
If you have an issue with this, Competitive Pokemon isnt for you. It never will be for you. You should focus on playing Pokemon the way you find most fun, stick to your own lane and not input on something that you hold no stake in.
If you find fun in using your favorites despite the meta, more power to you. However, if you do so while complaining bc your opponent used a Landorus-T, literally find anything else more productive to do.
As the person who edited this video, this comment section has ended, what was probably the best project ive worked, on an extreme sour note. Hope this helps 😄👍
However your opponent using a landorous is inherently a problem, the game is pay to win. Where do you get landorous in SV? Where do you get Urshifu in SV? Oh yeah that’s right, they expect you to shill out 60 dollars for each game that each Pokémon is locked behind on top of additional subscription fees and dlc payments.
@@BeezerGutlr crazy how what you said has nothing to do with my original comment :)
@@murkiri crazy that you can’t put context clues together, in conjunction with your previous paragraph to get to the point I’m trying to make. That being, that the game punishes you for using your favorites, because of its inherit pay to win scheme. If you weren’t so focused on gotcha moments maybe you could’ve understood what I was trying to say.
@@BeezerGutlr oh I knew exactly what you were saying, I just think you're a dumbass that:
1. doesn't know what they're talking about
2. cannot read
Not only did you completely not understand what my comment was about, being that I think that people who hold no stake in playing Competitive Pokemon complain too much about it and should stfu instead of whining bc they don't understand how competitive environments function. Pokemon being "pay to win" doesn't bring any new perspective or even has any form of interaction with my point.
but on top of that, "Pay to win" in Pokemon is a completely different issue from not being able to use your favorites. idk why you're so worried about me going for "gotcha moments" bc all i am doing is defending a video that I played an active part in making from braindead troglodytes who come into the comments thinking they have something of value to say.
💀 what did I stumble into?
I think the advice I gave someone who was wondering about using off meta Pokemon was "most Pokemon can find some kind of niche. Find it, and find teammates it works well with". This was easy for me cuz i chose to use Mamo in Reg F as a Tail Wind Sweeper and Incin counter. And im planning on using it again in January to cover my Urshifu's weaknesses
The main problem is what your "favorite" is. There are some pokemon so i ferior to others that any battle with them would be infinitly easier without them.
The sad part is that yes, you can win with your favorites… one at a time. The fact it’s basically required to run the meta picks as partners to make just one off-meta pick mon work is depressing still
I was really excited for this video because I was thinking "finally!" And then i remembered my favorite pokemon is Ribombee 😂
Edit: for clarification, I meant that this video is "irrelevant" to me because ribombee is actually already good.
Excellent taste
Im drafting it in a VGC draft league because its one of the fastest non-prankster Tailwinders
Ah, the pokemon that was in UBERS in singles for awhile(Best sticky web setter which is one of the most powerful hazards, so when hazards are good in singles... good sticky web setters are, too.
Rimbombee is still crazy in sv OU though
ribombee is op!
I mean ribombee is pretty damn good with excellent speed control in sticky webs and tailwind which is very nice as well as pollen puff healing your ally’s and some other stuff I’m probably not remembering but yeah ribombee is a good creature
A problem I also have with the "favorites" mentality is also how they might not even want to try some of the meta stuff. Sometimes certain mons can actually surprise you in how fun they are. There are many different ways to have a favorite pokemon, be it having a cool ability, a sick or cute design, a battle strategy that resonates with you to your core, or maybe the way it plays into certain metas and mons.
My current favorite mon being glimmora is nothing i would have ever concidered if not for the fact of its competetive options. I for some reason really like the way it can set hazards and even run some odd combos with it like red card to force a potential free poison on a core mon the opppponent had no way of seeing coming.
Then there is my other favorite being froslass, which is a mon with a history of. being a mon that exists. It has had its nieches. still doesnt mean it isnt fun trying to run even though a destiny bond set is very predictable, its still something you can work with. Plus a hazard setter with rapid spin immunity isnt too bad, but no where near any competetive viability.
All in all. Competetive can also help give you new appreciation for some mons you never would have concidering if not for its existence.
Sigh* My favorite pokemon is Urshifu (Rapid Strike). I sure hope that it’s viable 🥺
*laughs in favorite pokemon being kingambit*
My fav is greninja, sucks battle bond and protean got nerfed :/
Another Honchkrow lover!!! While not my favorite pokemon, I do play it fairly often on ladder. I usually always play pokemon I like, and reach decent enough rank with proper teambuilding.
"You can't win with your favorites" frase is kind of accurate on VGC tournaments
But on the ladder isn't true, since there are a lot of Noobs even on the high tiers 😅
Also if your favorite pokemon is i don't know, Basculin or Ludvisc...
😐
And you want to play ONLY with your favorites
🤔🤔
and you refuse to learn about the nature of competitive play
🤨🤨🤨
No wonder you always loose!!!
You're running a team with enormous weakness! (mostly sharing typing)
With no support moves!
And with no EV training!
I have a lot of fun building teams on the Battle Facility of the generation!
Testing my strategy against a system that essentially makes counters for your team
Mega Ampharos, Tsarenaa, Malamar are just a few examples of Pokemon I took to 50 consecutive wins
With interesting sets that find a way to differentiate themselves and catch the CPU off guard
And if you can score wins against a CPU that TRULY builds teams that counter your strategy...
I think you can consider yourself a good player 😎
(Quick example!
I built a Plus Ampharos team on triple battles to give him MAX defenses with Magnetic Flux before it goes Mega
And the CPU brings a Choice Band - Unaware Quagsire to spam Earthquake
Super Luck Absol with Punishment the Dark Type move that gains 20 power for every increased stat stage the target has, up to a maximum of 200 specifically to get rid of Ampharos massive boosts
I was able to get around all of them with smart prediction
and Wide Guard Machanp 👌
But it just shows how many weak points your team might have
And you need to think about them and potential counterplay which is pretty interesting if you ask me )
I'm not nearly done with these games (Gen 6 and 7)
I'm still finding interesting sets to try out on unusual mons
Now I'm testing a Physical Contest Pikachu set with
Icicle crash, Volt Tackle, Quick attack and Protect to have the Volt Beam combo on a Physical attacker 🌩️ 🧊 ✊
[I think I should change Quick Attack for Feint]
It is hard but I was able to score 23 victories and the CPU is using Switcheroo to disarm my Pikachu of its precious Ligthball
so I incorporated Black Sludge Amoongus to play around with it
Is a really neat way to test your skill as a player 💪😎👍 )
Basculin is a solid mon
@@tayIorswif isn't even solid none of it's stats reach 100
Wich is weird
But ironically has every other trade a good Pokémon should have, it has amazing abilities, amazing move pool and a speed stat that can work
But with no offensive presence on neither side of the offensive spectrum
it is hard to justify it's place on a team
Sure you CAN make it work but you have to focus your entire team around it
I actually I'm trying to make Basculin work on a VGC team to get every ribbon he can get to transfer it to Gen 9
and hopefully he will be as big or as small as a Basculin can be to get the Mark
Yeah I'm one of those guys
I actually did find a creative use for Luvdisc in Gen 7 Doubles. Set up rain and then immediately switched in Shedinja, who receives a Soak from Swift Swim boosted Luvdisc to go from 5 weaknesses to just 2.
Then it immediately Safeguards while Shedinja protects, and I'd try to build up from there, with Raichu and Togekiss in the back to draw fire from enemy Electric and Grass moves.
@@DoctorSpacebar so if they KO Ludvisc in one go you're pretty much stuck with a meh team that falls if they have Rocky Helmet, Iron Bars or Rough Skin?...
What if you face Chansey or Blissey?
Raichu and Togekiss get shut down
You can have Hidden Power Ice and Hidden Power Fire on each one
But if you face a Pink Blob Shedinja can't use Shadow Sneak and X-scizor deals very little damage to most sets
Reggieice also shuts down this
a massive special defense and most sets carry thunderbolt
And no member of your team is happy of taking Stab Blizzards
*I think you can greatly improve the team if you use Ally Switch and Focus Sash on Shedinja and preparing a Sweep with Quiver Dance Volcarona
After all on VGC Shedinja has only 2 roles
Sweep a team without coverage to deal with him
-
And protect a Heavy Hitter of your team
Ludvisc seems like a decent support Pokémon I think it can learn Wish and Heal Pulse and being the only Swift Swimmer with Heal Pulse has some advantages
And Volcarona with Hidden Power Water can actually be a great Rain Sweeper abusing Hurricane, bug Buzz on rain can be pretty massive
I suggest a new moveset for Ludvisc
It can use Wish, Safe Guard, Aqua Jet and Rain dance
@@marcelosandoval4206 @marcelosandoval4206 Shedinja gets Secret Power, which doesn't make contact. I give it Swords Dance as well, to let it build up power to break through walls, and Sucker Punch for priority that nothing is immune to. Safety Goggles to ignore weather.
If Shedinja drops, the rest of the team can play around both Soak and Rain, and the Mega Gallade. Admittedly, though, the team needed some work and was more so for the gimmick. I do like the Ally Switch idea, though- pair it up with a solid setup sweeper, particularly a solid Electric or Grass immune, and it could go to town.
Now my favorite team from Gen 7? Skill Swapping Sap Sipper onto a bulky Mega Swampert and teaming it up with Comfey. Triage boosted Giga Drain can power up the Swampert and let it go wild, while Floral Healing can help it stay up.
Loved watching your climb with this legend, thanks for showing us your journey
I feel comfortable knowing the fact that Swampert is one of the best starters in the series and I’m proud that despite power creep, it’s still doing great while doing what it’s been doing since generation 3 which is being a absolute Swiss Army knife!
I was just watching MnJTV's video about what starters out of all of them would do best in each region, and Marshtomp was the only one who was legit the best in the region it's actually from.
Top choice in song for the montage clip!! Perfection! Those two games are the most underrated games in pokemon history
I play Gen 4 OU just so I can use Infernape in a format where he’s good
Unironically Gen 4 OU is considered one of the best meta's because every playstyle is balanced in some way
My favorite pokemon of all time is Toxicroak, and believe me it can win battles. Can.
My next favorite is Garchomp, for obvious reasons.
You know, I’m not sure if I can win with my favourite. Do you think i could win with landorus therian, rilaboom, flutter mane, and kingambit?
This makes me think of the fact that I've been trying to find a peak build for Dachsbun in a competitive format. I love my pastry doge and have been jumping around with several strategies in order to make use of the baby.
That was really enjoyable as a casual player
I remember back in Reg C, I managed to make Espeon work pretty well for me. It was hilarious sending it into Roaring Moon, clicking Tera Fairy and watching them rage quit lmao
hes da biggest bird
I once made it to rank 49 in regulation c with a mediocre team with Salamence, Wo-Chien, Klefki and Annihilape. I added Salamence because it's my favorite pokemon annd to this day it is still the highest I ever made it on the in game ranked ladder.
My favorites are urshifu, iron hands, landorus, mega rayquaza and zacian, I hope they can work in competitive :3
Comp made Urshifu one of my favourites.
Love this video. Cool concept and I like that you started from the bottom a few days into ladder so it didn't feel like you were "gaming the system"
This proves you can be creative in competitive formats and use you favorite Pokemon. All you have to do is put it into an existing archetype it can perform and surround it with competitive staples to carry it. Great...
My favorite Pokemon is Frosmoth. I do use them when fighting a team that doesn't have good fire or rock coverage
Moxie: “Look at Joe’s jumpluff”
2010 parasect that got 2nd at world: “u think ur nieche”
2023 kommo-o won a regional: “Parasect that was a while ago I survived 2023”
2014 pachirishu: “amateurs”
2012 Executor was runner up.
This is the kind of shit i like to see. VGC tournaments got me back into competitive pokemon but players that make their favorite pokemon work are what i REALLY enjoy.
In any competition with arbitrary rules and especially video games there will be characters or classes that are better than others. Anyone who says that “meta”gaming is lazy or just the easy way to win are 99% of the time just bad players making excuses for not wanting to try if they want to achieve. Seen it for years in many different games.
Sure you can use one of your favourites when you surround it with 5 overtuned power creep mons, but try doing it with 6 of your favourites
Jokes on you they're all my favorite
@@MoxieBoosteddoes nothing for 95% of players and that's why no one really cares about VGC relatively speaking
The point about waiting for the rank reset is soo true. At the start of this season on the second night i played late ate night till like 2 am my time and reached rank 86. I just start playing VGC like 3 4 months ago i am now around rank 8000. so yah really easy to reach rank 100ish early on lol
"Can you actually win with your favorite pokemon?"
Ray Rizzo already did it for me. Hell, it became a mystery gift after.
I'm just here for the comments
As a fellow Honchcrow loyalist, I thank you for showing how goated he is
Imagine getting mad that NBA players aren't using the PIG/HORSE trick shots that you and your friends used in the driveway.
yes i can. beacuse i was making a team to finish all the pokemon games. the team was Roserade, Scizor, Crobat, Snorlax, Lapras and Magnezone. my favorites