There's No "I" in Team
Monday, September 12, 2011 at 4:00PM Have you ever been swept by a Reuniclus because five of your Pokémon were weak to Psychic? Have you ever been walled to death by a Blissey because you didn’t carry any physical attacks? Have you ever been eaten alive by a Salamence because you didn’t have anything to take it down? Well I’m here to talk to you about some simple changes that you can make to your team in order to prevent these embarrassing things from happening. Of course you can’t start until you have an open mind; so drop your ego and admit that your team is not perfect, because nobody’s team is.
This article will be the first in a series that will cover various aspects of team building. I hope that by sharing what I know about team building with all of you, everyone’s knowledge (including my own) of how teams can work well as a cohesive unit will improve. Of course I hope to be mildly entertaining as well…but not too much…maybe not at all, who knows?
Why you can’t make a word with six “I”‘s
The first topic I will touch on briefly is why having a bunch of individual powerhouses on your team does NOT mean that you have a good team. I’m not saying that I’ve never seen a team like this win, but more often than not a team with more balance and synergy will win. The most common mistake that a newcomer to competitive battles will make is making a purely offensive team, with Pokémon that carry nothing but attacking moves. For example, let’s say that Ash has a Pikachu, Weavile, Sharpedo,
Sunflora, Electivire, and a Whimsicott, and he is going up against Gary’s Snorlax. Gary’s Snorlax is going up against Ash’s Pikachu and Ash knows that it is going to body slam Pikachu’s head off. Ash feels the poke balls on his belt and realizes that he has nothing to take the body slam. Once Ash’s Pikachu is destroyed by the body slam Ash sends in his Electivire who has Cross chop, which even Ash knows will OHKO Snorlax. But unlike Ash, Gary does not carry a team full of Sweepers and sends in his trusty Cofagrigus who is not affected by Cross Chop and then proceeds to Toxic stall the remaining members of Ash’s team.
Now I know that this first topic is very simple and you are probably all falling asleep at your computer screens ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ …….Well, WAKE UP!! I promise that as I continue to write more articles the topics will become more complex and the information much more insightful.
Any comments, questions, criticism, or advice is always appreciated. So tell me how much you hated my article and how I can improve in the future!
If you have any ideas for future Articles, or need any help with building your team, E-mail me at ccpearson006@gmail.com
-Carl Pearson
Reader Comments (4)
I feel like there should be a bit more to this. Maybe you could fold in some information from one of your planned articles, or tease to what it is you plan to do with your next article? You've got a great hook, and a solid start, but then the article just... ends. Does that make sense? I WANT to read more, but there isn't any, and you've got plenty of time to make a solid first article.
Thanks for the feedback, I also thought this article was a little dry reading back over it. I'll probably add to it but really I don't think there's much more to say about why you shouldn't use 6 sweepers on a team :) Maybe I'll add in what I will write about in the next article.
Hi Carl. Maybe you should go into more detail of why Snorlax and Cofagrigus will just destroy Ash's team, and reinforce why/how the team should have been prepared for this. I like what you have so far, but I agree, it needs just a little more meat.
Woah Caaaaaaaarl, I take a big offense to this article,how dare you put a Sunflora on Ash's team if he is going to lose. We all know that Sunflora is a beast and losing is not possible with one on your team*.
Other than that great first article, despite is being short and a tad bland, but you know what i say "you cant pump out Mona Lisa's all the time!" :P
*(Disclaimer: Sunflora must be in the sun with solar power ability and absolutely minimum speed while under trick room while holding a life orb to be remotely useable.)