u/Steppi3

I'm back from my previous post after getting an 8-game winning streak and breaking into the top 25k.

No real reason for switching teams other than wanting to try out a different mega. The team I used for all 8 games is from JoeUX9's yt video (Broken Mega Tyranitar Team Got me Champion Rank). He has since updated the team to be vastly different and I'll likely update my team to match after I hit a loss.

Anyways, onto things I think can help newer players like me and some concepts I would attribute my success to.

1. Get to know your pokemon.

From the first team that I used on the ladder, all of my (successful) teams have contained Tyranitar. As a result, I have a strong grasp of which hits he can take, how much damage he can deal, when he can switch in safely, and when not to bring him to a battle. I haven't quite memorized speed tiers yet but I have a good feel of when he's going to move without speed control, in tailwind, and in trick room.

2. Take the time to bring the best 4 you can.

I think this is a very difficult skill to learn, especially if you're going into a lot of different matchups all of the time. My usual approach is to identify the core pieces of opponents team, usually their mega pokemon, and then bring pokemon that have answers for that pokemon and then pokemon that compliment those answers.

If I see that my opponent has a charizard team with venusaur, I'm going to need my own weather setter and likely excadrill to outspeed and hit venusaur. If I see the opponent has a rain team with archaludon and incineroar, I'm going to bring my kommo-o to body press both of those threats.

A good practice I've been doing is taking pictures of the team selection and going back to see if I could've chosen a better 4. There are a lot of games I've won where I think the opponent could have brought a different pokemon and made things a lot more difficult for me.

3. Borrow knowledge from others.

After I hit master ball, none of my teams have been built by myself. I learn how to deal with certain pokemon not always through my own experience but by the people that built the teams themselves. If you can watch them play and pilot and make certain decisions, you can see how it deviates from your own thought processes and learn more about which dimensions of the game you might not be thinking of yet.

4. Speed control is the name of the game.

I'm confident that you can get to ultra ball rank if you have a fast tailwind setter and a strong spread move. Understanding the different ways that your team can manipulate speed is crucial to eeking out advantages over your opponent and winning the game. Learn how to stall out trick room or take advantage of it yourself. Even smaller things like icy wind and 1 speed drop can make the difference between a win and a loss.

5. Play to your outs.

If what it takes for you to win is 3 rock slide flinches in a row then go for it. If your only hope to win the game is getting a crit or poison or freeze, lock the attack in. I've lost to double protects and have nothing but respect for my opponent for going for the only move that wins them the game. In the same vein, I've won games off of bright powder procs or opponents missing 85/90% accurate moves. It doesn't always feel the best to win that way but take what you can get. Dire claw and pray, that's what I see all of the best players doing.

I think that's all I've got for now. I'm happy to help anyone else looking to improve, even though I'm not the best player myself 😅. Having a lot of fun with the game and hoping to get some of my friends into it as well.