Teambuilding 101
by [member]Bippa[/member]
by [member]Bippa[/member]
You might not be a competitive battler, but if there is one thing that you know about Pokémon, it's that you need a team in order to play. This team, which usually consists of six members, is of large importance when it comes to contributing towards success. The team is what does the fighting, and there are so many options when it comes to building the team that it can leave people screaming "Where do I start?". I’ve been battling for a couple years, and I still find this hobby to be overwhelming, because of all the diversity in Pokémon available. Due to the huge importance of the team, I thought that an article that shows how to build that team that is just right for you. This article will cover plenty of topics that are related to building a team and has example teams that have been proven to work well as a starting base for your adventure through competitive VG.
If you’re one of those people out there who has never set their mouse on our Pokémon Online server, I strongly encourage you to read through this article. From both experience and working alongside others, I can tell you that teambuilding is difficult enough to deter many beginners from playing competitively, and it is what makes this hobby so overwhelming for new players. This guide will make the road into competitive Pokémon a much easier road to ride on. With that said, let’s begin.
Theorymon is trying to estimate a Pokémon's effectiveness at a given task without any prior play testing. It is something that most of us will have done at some point in our VG career. It’s the “Hmm... I think this can work” or the “uhh... Let’s try this out” phase. The first bit of teambuilding is almost exclusively based on this principle of Theorymon, because we need to have our full squad of six before we start, so we can’t actually do any playing until we have the starting line up.
There are lots of ways that you can begin the Theorymon phase. I like to start by picking a base, or a focal, Pokémon, and build the team around the focal. Checking out threads like this are how I get started. I look through, and find something that looks interesting, and then work with it. Or if it’s your first team, build around a favourite. I wouldn’t suggest building around your absolute favourite, because if your favourite lacks solid stats, your team will falter, and it can make you discouraged. An example could be a team themed around Gyarados. The rest of the team would include Pokémon that support Gyarados in sweeping, such as Pokémon that take the Electric-type attacks aimed at Gyarados, and a Rapid Spinner to eliminate Stealth Rock
A second way you can begin is with a specific playstyle. For example, you might decide that you want to build a team that makes use of Politoed’s Drizzle ability, which is commonly referred as a Drizzle team, to create an offensive team. Then the rest of the team is focused on creating a powerful team that makes use of STAB Water-type attacks and, possibly, Thunder and Hurricane. For example, the aforementioned offensive rain team might utilize Dragonite’s powerful Hurricane and Starmie’s lethal Hydro Pump. Either way, this beginning gives you a foothold on what the steps lying ahead are, and the end should be closely in sight once you have your first selection of six decided upon.
After the initial team is built, theorymon loses its purpose. This is when the road initially starts to get rough, and the “why doesn’t my team work?” questions come to life. Because of the sheer convenience factor, I highly encourage that you download Pokémon Online and battle on various servers to get a feel for the metagame. As you begin, you will only battle players that have close to the same amount of skill as you, so the beginning is nice and smooth. This is when you analyze your Pokémon. Take a look at how they perform and save a couple of battle logs if you can. Also, take a look at the things that you run into. Ask yourself and others around you questions. Ask questions like “Rotom-W steamrolls through my team. What are some changes that I can make to counter Rotom-W?”. Questions like those will generate responses from those that know the answer. Questions lead to answers, and answers lead to success.
Take a look at how much “screentime” each Pokémon is getting. If you find that a Pokémon tends to not come out into battle much, consider replacing them. You only have six slots, so make sure that you use them wisely. If you find that a Pokémon gets lots of action because it fills so many roles, consider adding something that takes some stress off them. A stressed Pokémon will often faint early, leaving you without a large selection of roles for the rest of the match. Try to ensure that each Pokémon is getting close to even “screentime” as its teammates. There are some exceptions to that rule, mostly involving weather-based teams. For example, you won’t want to send Heatran out against a team that makes use of Drizzle Politoed, and you won’t find yourself using your Ferrothorn against a team that features Drought Ninetales.
Synergy. This seven letter S word is the most important part of teambuilding. The team needs to be able to support each other and to work off of each other. If they can’t, then your team isn’t much of a team, but is rather just a collection of Pokémon that like hurting things. Fortunately, synergy is very basic and easy to understand. When two Pokémon have solid amount of synergy, they are called a core. Synergy can come in both offensive and defensive forms.
Offensive forms of synergy are incredibly basic and they come as first nature. For example, Haxorus has a very powerful attack in Outrage. Outrage is only resisted by Steel-type Pokémon, so when the Steel-type Pokémon are eliminated, Haxorus can sweep with Outrage. To eliminate Steel-type Pokémon, Magnezone makes a great partner for Haxorus because of its almost unique ability, Magnet Pull. By using Magnet Pull, Magnezone traps all Steel-types, unless they hold Shed Shell, and slowly kills them by raising its attack with Charge Beam while protecting itself with Substitute or going straight for the KO with Thunderbolt or Hidden Power Fire. This core is so simple that you can replace Haxorus with another physical attacking Dragon-type Pokémon, and the result will still be the same. This core is called Drag(on)+Mag(nezone). Offensive synergy is just eliminating what stops the focal Pokémon from sweeping.
Defensive synergy is just as simple, if not simpler, as offensive synergy. This type of synergy looks at weaknesses and resistances of the team. For example, Celebi has lots of weaknesses, a grand total of seven. However, Heatran resists all seven of Celebi’s resistances. Unfortunately, Heatran also brings some unwanted weaknesses to the table, although not as much as Celebi. But guess what? Celebi resists all of Heatran’s resistances as well! The duo of Celebi and Heatran, commonly known as CeleTran, is one of the most iconic forms of defensive synergy, because the two have what is called perfect synergy.
Here are some other examples of popular cores:
[animate]227[/animate] + [animate]242[/animate] SkarmBliss
This highly defensive core plays to the strengths of the team, and has existed ever since the second generation. With Blissey’s insane special bulk, only physical attackers can hope to break through her, while she inflicts status conditions, casts Wishes, or does solid offense with Seismic Toss. Remember, only physical attackers can break through Blissey, but I’ve yet to see a physical attacker that is able to take down Skarmory without a critical hit. While it sits there and takes all of those physical attacks, Skarmory is busy setting up Spikes, healing itself with Roost and using Whirlwind to rack up damage from both Skarmory’s Spikes and Blissey’s Stealth Rock. However, because of its low special defence, Skarmory often falls to special attacks. Guess what Pokémon takes special attacks like a champ? Why, its none other than its famous partner Blissey. This core is even more basic than CeleTran, because instead of analyzing weaknesses and resistances, it just says “You suck at defending against these kind of moves, so you can have a partner that takes those type of moves for you”.
[animate]212[/animate] + [animate]479-w[/animate] ScizTom-W
After Drag+Mag, this is the most common offensive core and is commonly called the “VoltTurn” core. Scizor and Rotom-W are both bulky Pokémon that each have a single weakness, being Fire-type and Grass-type moves respectively, which is a type of move that the other member of the cores resists. However, this core is more known for their offensive abilities. The most common use of this core is simply putting choice items on both Scizor and Rotom-W and either Volt Switching or U-Turning until the battle ends. Both of these Pokémon are powerful, and they hit both sides of the defensive spectrum (Scizor does physical damage and Rotom-W does special damage).
[animate]598[/animate] + [animate]593[/animate] FerroCent
When these two Pokémon were first found back at Black and White’s launch in Japan, the core was called the “New Skarmbliss”. In these newer times however, the core operates differently. First of all, the two have phenomenal defensive synergy, together resisting fifteen of the seventeen types! But wait, because there is more. Ferrothorn has access to Spikes and Stealth Rock, although both aren’t usually used at the same time, while Jellicent is a Ghost-type. This means that Ferrothorn can lay entry hazards down, confident that they will stay down for a while, because Jellicent, by virtue of its Ghost typing, blocks Rapid Spin.
[animate]149[/animate] + [animate]385[/animate]
Like CeleTran, this core offers perfect synergy while still having a large pool of resistances upon two members. The biggest lure of this team is the Ground-type immunity that Dragonite has, because it gives it a chance to come in without taking damage. Dragonite can then proceed to use Dragon Dance, giving it lots more power and plenty more speed, while it is nearly guaranteed that it won’t go down in that turn because of Multiscale. Afterwards, Dragonite just rips through the opponent. It is important to note that Jirachi has more uses than just offering easy chances for Dragonite to come in. With Iron Head and Body Slam, Jirachi tends to shut down some Pokémon quite easily. The paralysis from Body Slam, because of Serene Grace, happens 60% of the time, while Iron Head flinches 60% of the time. This means that, providing that the opponent is paralyzed, they only have a 36% chance of attacking. If the opponent manages to break through the lock, Jirachi can heal itself with Wish.
[animate]485[/animate] + [animate]227[/animate] + [animate]423[/animate] Tab's Core
Sometimes, a core involves more than two Pokémon, and this is the perfect example of such a core. The core has such a small pool of weaknesses (six weaknesses for a three Pokémon core is amazing) and they resist every type except for the Fighting-type, most of which Skarmory is able to take down with Brave Bird. Though what makes this core awesome is that it has effective countermeasures to all four weathers. Sun teams are mainly composed of Fire- and Grass-type moves, which means that Heatran is a brick wall against them, because it takes 1/4th of the damage from Grass-type moves, and Flash Fire powers it up when it is hit by a Fire-type attack. While it may struggle with Choice Band variants of Terrakion, Skarmory is a hard stop to any sand team As Landorus is stuck hitting it with Stone Edge, which Skarmory comfortably stalls out with Roost. Finally, Gastrodon's Storm Drain ability absorbs all Water-type moves now, meaning that standard sweepers in a Drizzle team, such as Rotom-W and Starmie, can't hope to get past Gastrodon. In addition, Storm Drain awards the user with a boost to its special attack stat, meaning that Gastrodon hits hard while still staying bulky, and because of its one weakness, the Grass-type attack is very easy to see coming. Heatran and Skarmory also set up entry hazards, which punishes Pokémon that switch out. Due to all the hazards, a Ghost-type often finds itself a spot on this team to block Rapid Spin.
For more information on the numerous amounts of cores, check out this thread.
Playstyle doesn’t often refer to your own style of play. But rather, it means team types. You might remember from the first part of the article that starting from a playstyle gives you a strong foothold at the initial building process. There are lots of playstyles to choose from, although they can be defined into four major categories being: Balance, Offense, Stall and Weather. Weather can then be further broken down into four categories: Rain, Sand, Sun and Hail. This gives a grand total of seven different playstyles to begin with. Below, each playstyle will be gone over, and an example of the playstyle will also be given, with a small analysis on how the team works.
As you could probably guess from the name, this is your typical balanced team. It boasts between two and three sweepers and two to three walls. Any remaining spaces are filled with other roles like a user of Rapid Spin, Aromatherapy, Wish, or other useful moves. The obvious drawback of this style is that it lacks the power that the Offensive playstyle boasts and the longevity that Stall has. So it’s your standard “Jack of all Trades, Master of None” team. Nonetheless, this playstyle creates a very effective team when used in the right hands. In terms of what Pokémon fit on a balance team, the playstyle is very open and allows for pretty much everything to work.
Example Team:
[sprite]598[/sprite] Team Germanyhttp://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thread-team-germany by [member]Spammy[/member].
This is a typical balanced team. Ferrothorn, Milotic and Porygon2 are able to take lots of hits, while Gliscor, Reuniclus, Infernape and Porygon2 are able to inflict heavy damage the opponent either right away, or after a turn of set up. Ferrothorn, Milotic and Gliscor have solid defensive synergy, while Infernape and Reuniclus have solid offensive synergy.
This kind of playstyle tends to be all about breaking apart the opponent’s team using powerful and/or speedy Pokémon. Most teams tend to gravitate towards this playstyle without realizing it, because it’s the easiest playstyle to play. One of the types of this type is Bulky Offense. For more information about this type, Teapot has written a very extensive article about this playstyle and I encourage you to check it out. Common Pokémon on offensive teams include Haxorus, Dragonite, Starmie, Terrakion, and other Pokémon with high attack and speed.
Example Team:
[sprite]251[/sprite]Pixie Dusthttp://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thread-pixie-dust-bw-ou by [member]Teapot[/member]
This team made solid use of the previously underused Celebi by making use of its Nasty Plot set. Nearly every Pokémon on this team makes use of their high offensive power and has a solid amount of coverage. To keep the team sturdy against other offensive teams, Teapot makes use of Jirachi’s high special defence and Rotom-W’s access to Will-O-Wisp, both of which create difficult times for offensive Pokémon.
Rather than defeating the opponent through brute force, Stall teams employ lots of defensive synergy with all three type of entry hazards and usually some form of weather. Because the damage output per turn is low, battles with Stall teams usually last a long time (over seventy-five turns). These types of teams are very difficult to get the hang of, because they don’t do much for damage. A Ghost-type is essential on this type of team, because you don’t want to spend several turns setting up all levels of entry hazards only to have them spun away by Rapid Spin in a single turn. Pokémon with high defensive stats and recovery techniques are crucial to getting this type of team going, as is the aforementioned defensive synergy. Common Pokémon on Stall teams include: Skarmory, Blissey, Jellicent and Ferrothorn.
[sprite]149[/sprite]Equinox by [mod]ShadowLugia[/mod]
This is the definition of a standard stall team. It has two physically defensive walls (Hippowdon and Skarmory), along with Dragonite as a specially defensive wall, with Roserade and Jellicent acting as mixed walls. ShadowLugia also fits all three entry hazards on his team, and has the crucial Ghost-type as well. Heatran is added as a final member to patch up any of the remaining holes.
With the Dream World giving us Drought Ninetales, Sun teams have gone from a novelty to a legitimate threat. Using Chlorophyll to double the speed of its Grass-type attackers, the team gets going fast, with usually a turn of set up. As an added bonus, Grass-type Pokémon get access to a large pool of harmful powder attacks, most notably Sleep Powder, to cripple Pokémon that would otherwise cause the team trouble. This playstyle does have its downsides however. Most of the blame can be put on Ninetales, because it’s just an average Pokémon statistically. Ninetales is frail and has a Rock-type weakness, meaning that Stealth Rock chips away at its health quickly. In addition, Ninetales is weak to the STAB moves of Tyranitar, Politoed and Hippowdon, meaning that it is easily scared out. The other problem is because the team is based so heavily on Chlorophyll’s speed boost, the team struggles if the sun isn’t up. Other than Ninetales, Venusaur and Sawsbuck are very common on sun-based teams, and you can expect the team to carry a bulky Water-type, some Fire-types (Heatran and Infernape being front runners) and a rapid spinner.
Example Team:
[sprite]38[/sprite]Sun on the Beachhttp://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thread-bw-ou-sun-over-the-beach-successful-sun-team by [mod]safariblade[/mod]
This successful sun team has everything a sun team needs. It has a Chlorophyll sweeper, some Pokémon capable of using Fire-type attacks, and a Rapid Spinner to spin away Stealth Rock. The bulkier Ninetales spread keeps the otherwise frail fox alive. While most Sun teams typically have more than one Chlorophyll sweeper, safariblade’s addition of Reuniclus gives the team some breathing room outside of a sunny day.
The other gift that the Dream World gave us is Drizzle Politoed. Politoed went from complete zero-to-hero with this ability, and now comfortably sits in the top five most used Pokémon. This frog has an entire army of Water-, Electric- and Steel-types just waiting for the rain to pour. This is, without a doubt, the strongest playstyle around. It’s so powerful that Politoed isn’t allowed to be on the same team as Pokémon with the Swift Swim ability. With a large group of Water-type Pokémon loving the extra power behind their STAB attacks, Electric-types liking their perfect accuracy Thunder, and Steel-types enjoying the reduction in power of Fire-type attacks, so many different Pokémon can go on a Rain team. Besdies Water-, Electric- and Steel-types (except for Heatran), Pokémon with Hurricane (Tornadus and Dragonite), Grass-type Pokémon (notably Ferrothorn), Toxicroak, the list is quite extensive.
Example Team:
[sprite]186[/sprite]A Taste of the Tropics by [member]Bippa[/member]
This offensive rain team makes use of several heavy hitters that all love the support from Drizzle. Dragonite sticks out well because of access to Hurricane, which hits very hard when backed by STAB. Starmie also hits hard with Life Orb boosted Surf and Thunder. You might also notice the Scizor and Rotom-W core making an appearance here. Scizor loves that Fire-type moves have half their normal power, and Rotom-W adores the boost it gets to its already strong Hydro Pump. The team also features Ferrothorn, a near staple of all Rain-based teams due to its amazing bulk and excellent defensive typing when paired with a Water-type Pokémon.
Sand teams have existed since Gen 3, when the ability Sand Stream came around. Since then, Tyranitar has been a dominate force in the metagame. Generation 4 introduced Hippowdon, and sand teams were given options. They could either go offensive with Tyranitar or defensive with Hippowdon. Black and White changed that a bit, as Tyranitar seems to be the go to for both styles, and Hippowdon remains underused in the OU tier. Black and White also gave us Landorus and Terrakion, two Pokémon that are very powerful under a raging sandstorm. The sandstorm causes damage to all Pokémon who lack a Rock-, Steel- or Ground-type, and the damage is equal to 1/16th of their max HP. Pokémon with Magic Guard and Overcoat are also immune to the sandstorm. Because of this damage, sand-based teams can be a tad restricting, because Leftovers are required on the walls in order for them to avoid losing health each turn. Offensive sand teams will almost always have Tyranitar and one of - if not both - of Terrakion and Landorus. A bulky Water-type also appears on this team, as will a bulky Grass-type, like Virizion or Celebi as they make the battle against Rain-based teams easier. Defensive sand teams will make use of Hippowdon and other members that you would see on a stall team. If you'd like more information on how to build a sand-based team, Teapot has written a very comprehensive article that goes through the ins and outs of a sand-based team.
Example Team:
[sprite]248[/sprite]Operation Desert Stormhttp://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thread-operation-desert-storm-bw-ou by [mod]TDL[/mod]
Operation Desert Storm make excellent use of both Excadrill, a former OU Pokémon that is now banned, and Landorus. Because Rain teams hit most of the important members of a sand team for super effective damage, TDL includes a Calm Mind Virizion, which is a solid check to all rain teams. Heatran is also used to clear through the Pokémon that wall Landorus, being Skarmory and Bronzong. Finally, Reuniclus is a solid end game sweeper, as it is incredibly bulky once set up.
Hail is a rarity in the metagame these days, because it has lots of problems. Most of said problems can be credited to Abomasnow, the only fully evolved Pokémon that can set up a permanent hail storm. First of all, Abomasnow has no way of reliably setting up hail against a leading Tyranitar, because Abomasnow will almost always be outsped. Then there are Heatran, Scizor and Ferrothorn who walk all over Abomasnow, and they are all common to boot. The final nail in the coffin is that while the Ice-type is one of the best offensive types, it is one of, if not the, worst defensively and because Hail offers almost no offensive benefits (only a perfect accuracy Blizzard), Hail teams are often forced to play defensively, which is bad due to the weakness to Rock-type moves that the Ice-type has. In the OU tier, Hail is definitely the hardest playstyle to get the hang of. However, that doesn't mean that Kyurem, who boasts the most powerful Blizzard in the game, can be taken lightly. For defensive teams, Pokémon with Ice Body (Walrein and Glaceon) are common due to the near guaranteed thirty-two turns of stall they can achieve with Substitute, Protect and Toxic.
Example Team:
[sprite]460[/sprite]WHITE AMERICAhttp://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thread-white-america-uu-hail by [member]PDC[/member]
This team is designed for the Underused tier, but it was made before both Abomasnow and Snover got banned. Using Abomasnow’s awesome ability to cause residual damage from both Leech Seed and Hail, PDC creates a very annoying strategy. He also employs the annoying Froslass, who makes use of hail to cause lots of misses because of its Snow Cloak ability. Hitmontop is added as a Rapid Spinner is a solid form of defensive synergy not only because it resists the Rock-type moves that plague Abomasnow and Froslass, but it boasts solid synergy with his bulky water Slowbro. Snorlax makes a great finisher, while it uses Think Fat to take Fire-type and Ice-type moves for the team. Finally, Nidoqueen brings a lot of solid resistances to the table that are needed in OU, and also brings Toxic Spikes, which cause more stalling.
Here is a quick checklist that summarizes everything your team should have for some success. Most points on here are fairly basic, so a quick run through should be all you need.
- Does you team have Stealth Rock? This support move is crucial in limiting the power of Volcarona and Dragonite.
- Does your team have some way to have some way to beat Pokémon that set up by boosting their speed (Quiver Dance Volcarona, Dragon Dance Dragonite, Shell Smash Cloyster)? A bulkier user of Thunder Wave, Toxic or Will-o-Wisp (which doesn't effect Fire-types) will allow you to witness the slow demise of the terror that stands in front of you. Making use of an advanced priority attack (Quick Attack and its variants) will also suffice.
- Does your team not have three or more Pokémon weak to the same type of move? Two weaknesses is considered an acceptable maximum for the number of weaknesses to a type a team is allowed to have. There are some exceptions, like having three Water-type weak Pokémon on a team with Drought Ninetales or having three Fire-type weak Pokémon on a team with Drizzle Politoed. Try to have as few Rock-type weaknesses as you can, because Stealth Rock damage will add up fast, which brings me to the next point.
- If your team has more than one Rock-type weak Pokémon, do you have a Rapid Spinner? Close to 100% of teams have Stealth Rock on one of their Pokémon, and any Pokémon that has a weakness to Stealth Rock will always come into the fight at a disadvantage, due to the HP that Stealth Rock did on their entry.
- Do you have a Steel-type on your team? Dragon-type Pokémon like Haxorus and Dragonite are very common, and you will need their resistance to Dragon to avoid getting swept by Dragon Dance variants.
- Does your team have a goal? This is the most important point. If your team doesn’t have a focus, it isn’t going to work.
If your team goes through the checklist with checkmarks all around, you’re ready to go out there and have some fun.
I really hope that you found this article useful, and that it brought some of you toward this hobby that myself and others love playing. We’re always looking for new guys to show the ropes to, so come on down to PokéBeach’s Pokémon Online server for lots of fun, laughs and good times.
If you found any of the terminology in this article confusing, please look at this dictionary filled with competitive terms written by [mod]TDL.[/mod]
If you need assistance with understanding and downloading Pokémon Online, please look at this guide that should answer all of your questions written by [mod]Chariblaze[/mod] and [smod]King Arceus[/smod].