Melbourne Battle Association: Audition Battle

• Team
• Battle Analysis

G'day everyone. First up for my MBA battle prep and analysis series will be the audition battle that I was required to win in order to make the jump in to the league, as there were more applicants than positions available. This is also sort of a run through for what I intend to do each week, in terms of preparation and post-match analysis posts 

All applicants were required to make a team from a list of 12 provided, with any 6 selectable:

From this I could see that it would be potentially defensive, stally type battle, with whoever could manage their pokemon and sieze winning opportunities better to come out on top.

While there were also a number of offensive pokemon available, I felt like Scizor had an underwhelming matchup against most of the bulky defensive mons, as did Salamence, while Volcarona could be a potential win condition against almost any team provided it could switch in safely to get a Quiver Dance up and Mamoswine could also hit not only the bulky pokemon hard, but also the offensive ones (excluding Scizor).

Hippowdon seemed a no brainer as a hazard setter, Mandibuzz as a hazard clearer, and Miltank seemed useful as a cleric and potential paralysis inflicter. Sableye's ability to status everything in sight was also valuable in my eyes. Lilligant seemed like a much worse Volcarona with Sleep Powder, while Doublade seemed ok but also vulnerable to knock off and WIl-o-Wisp. Golbat seemed vulnerable to Stealth Rocks and could be set up on by everything except Volcarona, while Chesnaught seemed underwhelming given that all the offensive mons could hit it hard, and many of the defensive ones like Mandibuzz, Sableye and Golbat could also beat it one on one.

With that analysed, I set upon building my team.

BZZZZZZ (Volcarona) (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Fiery Dance
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Bone to Pick (Mandibuzz) @ Leftovers
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Defog
- Roost
- Knock Off
- Toxic

Twitch (Sableye) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 100 SpD / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Taunt
- Foul Play

Maami (Mamoswine) (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake

I'm down (Hippowdon) (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 100 SpD
Bold Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
- Toxic
- Slack Off

Milk Tank (Miltank) @ King's Rock
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 156 SpD
Careful Nature
- Heal Bell
- Seismic Toss
- Body Slam
- Milk Drink

 Volcarona's item was something that I vacilated over for quite a while. Although I messed up getting an even HP stat to guarantee sitrus setting up on stealth rocks, the plan was to give me more than one switch in to stealth rocks if necessary. In hindsight, Lum Berry would also have been a good idea. I also thought of running Charti Berry for random Rock Slides, but decided against it since that strategy is weak to critical hits and chip damage. Hidden Power Ice was to OHKO Salamence, since I had no need to run anything else other than Fiery Dance and Giga Drain for coverage, and Giga Drain made Roost a moot point. I chose modest for the damage output, although this would have made it risky had I tried to face a Scarfed Salamence at +1, since I would be slower than a Jolly one, and tie with an Adamant one.

Mandibuzz was designed to be heavily physically bulky given most threats here were physical, to clear hazards, and toxic stall opponents if nothing else presented itself as an option. I always hated facing Mandibuzz when I played singles, so I figured if you can't beat them, join them. I opted for Overcoat to stop sleep powder and sandstorm being an issue

Sableye was so threatening because of Prankster. I ran a little speed in mine to try to speed creep opposing Sableye and taunt them I went for Foul Play because of the amount of Physical attackers in the format, and because Wil-o-Wisp does not decrease its damage output for you, while neutering the Scizor, Mamoswine and Salamence of the world. Recover meant much longeivety and the ability to whittle down neutered opponents.

Mamoswine was made super offensive to help it wall break opposing mons, and so also got a life orb - this helped turn attacks on things like Hippowdon in to guaranteed 2HKO's. Mamo would have no chance of outspeeding even neutral max speed Volcarona and Salamence, so I didn't bother, and I wanted the ability to switch moves rather than be scarfed for speed or banded for even more damage. I decided not to bother running Superpower for opposing Mamoswine, because I figured I had enough other ways to deal with it anyway.

Hippowdon was given a toxic stall and roar shuffling job on top of its hazard setting task. I could have run an offensive move, but its output is terrible for the most part anyway, so I decided not to bother. Rocky Helmet punished attacks from most of the other mons out there, apart from Volcarona, and Ice moves from Mamoswine, and Sandstorm meant more chip damage to help things like Mamoswine and Volcarona pick up KO's

Miltank was the last added, being given the role of a cleric. I gave it Kings Rock, Body Slam and Scrappy to allow it to annoy with para-flinch, potentially, although I did see someone else use rock slide to good effect, so that was also an idea. Milk Drink added to the regenerative capacity, meaning if opposing teams had no cleric and were not in a position to set up, Miltank could join in the slow process of wearing down through toxic or burn damage.

Coming in, I had planned in my head that my keys to winning would be having Sableye around at the right moments to neuter physical attackers and stop support work from opponents, using my physically defensive pokemon to tank physical hits where possible, particularly Hippowdon with its Rocky Helmet and ability to Slack Off damage, collectively getting rid of clerics to win a potential status stall war, and using any opportunity I could to get Volcarona in safely, set up and sweeping, while preventing that from happening to me, so I tried my best to put those plans in to action on the battlefield. I also had to be mindful of keeping the late game situation out of range of a sweep from opposing Scizor, Salamence or Mamoswine by conserving particular pokemon like Sableye and Miltank, and Hippowdon's Rocky Helmet.

Battle Analysis vs Travis

 Replay link

Key turns:

Turn 1: Sableye was able to taunt his Volcarona switch in, giving me room to switch out safely the next turn to get some better board positioning as Mandibuzz could take 4 fiery dances with leftovers, set up status and knock off items.

Turn 3/4: Opponent decided to switch in Scizor to take a potential toxic, then opted to attempt a set up with swords dance. This gave me a great opportunity to get my Volcarona in to the game early, with no hazards set up and my opponent lacking a prankster taunt option. Betting on my opponent not wanting to lose his Scizor early, this meant I had a free turn to Quiver Dance on turn 5.

Turn 7: Having switched in a Thick Fat Miltank to take my Volcarona's hits, my opponent gets lucky with his second Body Slam paralysing my Volcarona, while not activating Flame Body either time. Here I really regret not having a Lum Berry, as I see a potential win condition wasted, just as I had the potential to set up a 6-0 sweep from capitalising on the early opportunity Scizor had provided me with.

Turn 11: Having got lucky with paralysis, I finish off his Miltank, and get rid of his only cleric option. Instead of switching in Salamence to finish off my crippled Volcarona, my opponent switches in Hippowdon. I get lucky again with Paralysis, and OHKO it with a +2 Giga Drain. His Volcarona also gets sacrificed to my Moth in the next turn, meaning my opponent also lost his switch in to Wil-o-Wisp. Finally he switches in Salamence, and is able to finish off my Volcarona with Earthquake, albeit too late, as my Volcarona had already punched a sizeable hole in his team.

Sableye has fun from this point, although I did lose a few items in switching around to get his Mandibuzz out of the way safely - in hindsight some of it, like Hippowdon's Rocky Helmet, was unnecessary to lose and detrimental to my overall game position. Rather than lose Mandibuzz, Travis' switch in to Salamence on turn 22 ended up losing him his Salamence, as he ate a Foul Play to the point where toxic damage KO'd him that turn. With that out of the way I continued to taunt Mandibuzz and watch it suffer.

Turn 27: Scizor was my opponent's last pokemon, but it is quite good at late game comebacks, and with the loss of Hippowdon's Rocky Helmet, I couldn't rule out being swept by it if things went poorly, which they can, because that's how Pokemon works. I knew I would have two chances to burn Scizor with Sableye before potentially being overwhelmed - a ~6% chance to miss twice in previous generations, and a ~2% chance in Gen VI. As +2 252+ Bullet Punch was a 2HKO on my spread, and I needed burn chip and the +2 boost to be able to KO with Foul Play, I knew I could safely click Wil o Wisp twice.  Fortunately I connected on turn 1, when he had boosted with Swords Dance. I opted not to Taunt because of the risk of him not Swords Dancing, and going for damage instead, though in hindsight I probably should have used taunt, as Swords Dance was the only real way to win from there. The burn also allowed me to not be OHKO'd by +2 Bug Bite. Ultimately, Foul Play  on turn 28 was the finishing move for me, as Bug Bite was unable to be a critical hit KO and make me more nervous. Should that have occurred, Miltank was in a pretty good position to Seismic Toss to victory, unless the opposing Scizor ran Roost, since an effectively neutral Scizor could only 2HKO with Superpower, 3HKO with Bug Bite, and 4HKO with Bullet Punch, and could not gain enough turns through further Swords Dance boosting for it to be effective.

5-0 victory

KO's:

Volcarona 3, Sableye 3. 

Coaches MVP: Sableye

Stay tuned for more MBA news after the weekend draft, and congratulations to Mark Lowerson for winning the season one finals earlier this week.

Announcement: Melbourne Battle Association

G'day everyone!

Just thought I would share some news  here, because why not. As many Pokemon trainers do, I like to occasionally dabble in formats that are not VGC Doubles. I recently applied for and was granted a spot as an expansion coach in the second season of the Melbourne Battle Association, a group that runs a version of the Global Battle Association (which those who watch 2015 US Nationals and World Championships Commentator, ShadyPenguinn, may be familiar with) that is local to my hometown, Melbourne (Australian Melbourne, not Florida...).

I have decided to call my team the Glen Waverley Gyarados, because I can sort of spell G and W with pictures of Gyarados:

The only issue with that logo is the lack of Hyper Beams.

Anyway, to finish this short announcement, I will be aiming to post both my preparation notes and battle thoughts after each battle throughout the season, similar to the videos put up by Poketubers, but in word form. If you're interested, tune in to keep up with the news, if not, boo. Hopefully I'm not a complete spud when it comes to singles, as I have played basically none since early 2014, when I rocked a menacing bug monotype team for a short while.

The Art of (Pokemon) War: Attack by Stratagem

Previous: Laying Plans 

G'day, and welcome back to another edition of The Art of (Pokemon) War. While originally aiming to cover each chapter sequentially, I found Chapter II. Waging War largely irrelevant to Pokemon battles, so I decided to jump to analysing some sections of Chapter III. I will skip or amalgamate other chapters if I deem it necessary in the future depending how much content I think I can glean from them. Feel free to read Chapter II in your own time though, you might be able to find insight that I have missed. 

**Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement about a local group competition I will be joining soon. It may be potentially exciting!**

III. Attack by Stratagem

3. ...the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.

There are a few things that can be gleaned from this one. Particularly relating to besieging walled cities, I can think of some in battle advice regarding ignoring bulky pokemon that will take time to KO, but are not doing much for their team either (so, at times Suicune, Cresselia, for example). Many of the rest of the points can be summated as relating to board position, and perhaps as well relating to metagame calls. I'll try to address those.

Regarding board position, preventing the junction of your enemy's forces is a prime example of exerting board control - if you are able to get to a position where you can do a lot of damage, your opponent does not have strong offensive pressure on the field, and lacks the ability to safely switch in a pokemon that would exert pressure on you, you have successfully prevented their forces from combining effectively. Congratulations, take a gold star. Baulking at the enemys plans also fits here, as disprupting your opponent from being able to do what they'd like, through damage output, pressure, or good switching, you can prevent them from overwhelming you while you get in to position to defeat them. By attacking the enemy in the field you are exchanging damage, so in this at least you should still aim to win the damage trade, so as to end up ahead for the later game - if you are already ahead in the game, you can also afford to enter in to a damage trade with less risk, since if the trade is equal, you win by virtue of already being ahead.

4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets, movable shelters, and various implements of war, will take up three whole months; and the piling up of mounds over against the walls will take three months more.

5. The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege.

6. Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.

7. With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph will be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.

Regarding not attacking walled cities - i.e. bulky support pokemon, I feel like we covered that reasonably well in our previous point, but I might reiterate a little here. If you are able to defeat your opponent's offensive weapons, their armies if you like, controlling the countryside around the walled city, you can defeat your enemy far more easily than trying to seige the city itself while the war is still ongoing. Keep in mind the plays that conserve your resources, or position them best to win the game, when considering this match up, and don't be baited in to rash moves that leave you vulnerable to being swiftly defeated, or unable to effectively use your win conditions.

In Pokemon, the only way to actually subdue your opposition without fighting is through Perish Trap, so I feel a looser interpretation of point 6 is justified in order that we can reconcile this point with the game better. If you are able to make decisions, in terms of pokemon brought to tournaments, to battles, and led/put in the back, which allow you to win more matchups more easily; if you are able to read your opponent's decisions well and make the games more decisively in your favour through making good plays accordingly, you may consider yourself a skillful leader in those situations. Keep in mind though that short of being a telepath, the boot will not always be on your foot in this regard, so do not get overconfident, and do not overestimate your own abilities, as many other trainers will be lining up to knock you down a rung or two once you have some big performances on the board.

8. It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.

9. If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him.

10. Hence, though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force.

Except in the case of taking a pokemon lead (4-3, 4-2, 3-2, 3-1, etc), which you can then use to your advantage, I would interpret these to refer to team matchups, rather than literal numbers of opponents. As often discussed, here and elsewhere, bad team matchups can be played around, but generally speaking the dominant team can exert too much pressure and overwhelm a disadvantaged opponent. Getting back to Pokemon leads, this can also lead to one team having an advantage over the other, and being able to use their superior numbers to nerf, grind down, or overwhelm an opponent depending on the natures of the teams and which pokemon are left.

So, it should follow that if the superior force is played well, especially in Best of Three series, the vast majority of the time the team with the superior matchup will win, assuming the trainers are equally matched in every other way.

17. Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: (1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. (2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. (3) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. (4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. (5) He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

18. Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

From point 17, I find 1, 2, and 4 quite relevant, and feel they tie in quite nicely with point 18 as well. Battle experience will let a trainer know when protecting, attacking and switching are the best options, respectively, and how to manage battles where the team matchup is not in their favour, so as to still be able to win the battle. This experience, gained through practice, allows you to be prepared for your battles, and thus have a better chance of winning than those trainers who are less prepared in terms of practice and knowledge, even in an otherwise even battle.

In Pokemon, one can face so many different trainers that it is difficult to know the enemy every time one battles. However, in tournaments, particularly local ones, you may get to know many of your fellow competitors. The better you understand how they think, as well as understanding your own thought processes, the better you will be able to manage your battles with them.

The clearest message about point 18 though is that you must understand yourself, in order to have any chance of winning (a battle, or a tournament for that matter). This doesn't mean you have to meditate under a waterfall for 9 years (though that would be a cool story), it just means you should come in to battle, at least in major tournaments, with a deep knowledge of your team, all its ins and outs, as well as yourself as a trainer - your preferred playstyle, your strengths and weaknesses, battling habits, mental state - all sorts of little things that let you be comfortable and confident as a pokemon trainer. By being able to recognise when you're playing poorly, and having the ability to resolve that autonomously, you will become more resiliant throughout the length of a tournament, or a laddering session. Knowing all the ins and outs of your team, including particular odd matchups and damage calcs as well enables you to make more informed decisions and choices, particularly as you cannot just access a damage calculator when battling in a live tournament, unlike when battling at home.

That's all for this chapter, and again, I hope you found this commentary useful. Feel free to give me feedback in the comment section, on Nugget Bridge, Showdown!, and/or Twitter, and stay tuned for the next chapter.

Next: Tactical Dispositions

On following my own advice

G'day reader(s). I wrote this post a while ago, but felt more like writing to clear my head, rather than necessarily intending to post it. It started as a vent, and then I decided to expand it a bit. Having polished it up a little bit, I think it might be a useful read, so if you get in a negative headspace, remember that others do that too, and if you are aware of it, you can take steps to fix it. Without delaying any further, here's said vent:

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Just going to have a bit of a vent/whinge today. Some nights I just lose entire hours to playing on showdown mindlessly. Especially if I'm feeling frustrated with myself and how I'm playing It can be a bit of a vicious cycle, as I play to try to get a game that I'm happy with, or even sometimes even just to win a game.

Some of it comes down to procrastinating other IRL tasks mostly, but still, it's frustrating to get in that negative battling habit and then keep battling even when I know I'm not playing well.

Then again, I have found myself generally exerting better control in my Battle Spot practice though, generally limiting the number of battles unless I specifically want to emulate a long competition, and writing notes helps keep me focused. That's that's a positive. I still have the odd day where I'm not focused on Battle Spot either - although that comes down to me recognising my mental state I think. It turns out that even when I try specifically to concentrate, being past a certain level of tired muddies my mental processes enough to impact my battle performance beyond what I can overcome in that session. That's something I'll have to work on, and keep in mind for competitions, both online and IRL.

And despite the former complaint, here I am as an article author advocating people schedule their time and plan their playing. I guess it's a case of do as I say, not do as I do sometimes. At least I'm aware of it. The lesson here is probably that even people who appear organised and disciplined have times when they just slack off a bit mentally. So don't beat yourself up too much when you do, but be aware of it, be aware of if you can afford to do that, and fix it if it needs fixing. Awareness of yourself, your mental and physical state, and your decision making is actually pretty important towards being your best you on a given day.

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Well, that's the end of that vent, hope it didn't drag on too much for you. Until next time.

The Art of (Pokemon) War: Laying Plans

Previous: Introduction

This is the first chapter in a planned multi-part series applying the lessons of The Art of War to Pokemon battles. I explain what The Art of War is about, and why I am doing this in an introduction post. Today we will look at points from Chapter One, of which I think there are quite a few useful ones to draw from which may help you become a better Pokemon Trainer.

I. Laying Plans

17. According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one's plans.

The simplest interpretation of this would be regarding within a battle itself. If for whatever reason a game isn't going how you expected it to, for better or for worse, don't be afraid to change up your game plan from what you came up with in team preview in order to close it out with a win. Never be too rigid in how you approach battles, you need some capacity to adapt to win matches where your plan A is not working. In this sense, having a team that has multiple options and methods to win games is useful, as it will allow you to modify your plans more easily and appropriately for battles.

I feel this one can be applied more broadly to team building plans too. If you sense a change in the metagame, or that particular things will be popular, or unpopular at upcoming tournaments, don't be afraid to alter certain things on your team. This includes adjusting your team while laddering. That is of course, if you have a set team already - if you do not, this can likely be applied to the building process as a whole - base your team building on what you find the metagame to be like. This can include choices of Pokemon, Moves, Items, or EV spreads/Natures, as you feel necessary, and can range from small to large changes. 

18. All warfare is based on deception.

19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

18 particularly applies to secret techs in my opinion, such as Hidden Power as coverage, special sets on usually physical pokemon, or single target moves on a pokemon that would usually run spread moves. One could theoretically use this to justify never making a team report, but I think that would be willfully misinterpreting the intention. If you take these three points together, I believe the intended message is that if you have a means to suprisingly survive an attack, or ko a pokemon, utilise that accordingly, and if you can afford in a best of three situation, don't necessarily reveal this information unless you have to. Additionally, you may be able to feign having a particularly threatening move on a pokemon, causing your opponent to make a play expecting that. While obviously one shouldn't be too risky while bluffing, never underestimate its usefulness in battle.

Another aspect to these points is being able to make your playstyle difficult to read. Particularly in Best of Three matches, over the course of the series an opponent might be able to get enough of a sense of your decision making style to make big plays in order to win games 2 and 3 by successfully 'reading' you, rather than having to rely on making higher percentage plays out of caution. This does not mean you have to literally practice your poker face, but it does mean that you should be aware of your own plays, and how your opponent is responding to them, when there is more than one viable play that can be made.

Although there are other methods of gamesmanship one can use to deceive and play mind games with one's opponent, many of them are questionable ethically, especially considering the generally friendly nature of Pokemon competitions - we play for fun, not to win giant, life changing prizes. Doing anything and everything to win does not guarantee that you will win, so why bother making unnecessary enemies along the way?

21. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him.

This can probably be applied to team matchups - just because you may have a disadvantageous matchup, if you play well, and force your opponent in to board positions where he is unable to make use of matchup advantage, you have given yourself a much better chance of winning the match. This may involve careful switching, depending on you and your opponents leads, and the ability for you to execute those switches safely. Being prepared for your opponent, especially if they are secure in their position, means having a game plan other than 'lose' regardless of what your opponent leads with, or has out on the field. By being ready for whatever your opponent brings, you give yourself time to look for a chink in their armour for you to strike decisively at and establish yourself in a dominant position.

23. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them.

The first part of this can particularly be taken to refer to taking advantage of an opponent trying to stall out speed control, like Tailwind or Trick Room - if you know your opponent will double protect, it will be easier to switch your pokemon to improve your board position further by bringing out more offensive fire power. As for the second part, I would suggest finding ways to render one of your opponent's slots useless for at least a turn, so you can focus down the other pokemon. Your opponent's pokemon would be considered separated if your opponent cannot use both slots to effectively bring them closer to winning the battle in a given turn. This could be done overtly, through moves such as encore, taunt, disable, or a bit more subtley by your choices of pokemon or items - such as using Raichu against a Thundurus, or having Safety Goggles to use against an Amoonguss.

24. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

Again, I can only really think of ways to apply this to battles. Attacking an opponent where he is unprepared would likely relate to double targetting slots that you know cannot protect (as they are choice locked, or already protected the turn prior), and possibly in a way so as to assure a super effective hit on whatever your opponent has currently in that slot, or what in the back, depending on what coverage you have. Appearing when you are not expected could likely be used in regards to making reads, and staying in or not protecting with a particular Pokemon if you can correctly identify that your opponent will leave it alone (i.e. attacking it is 'too obvious').

Points 18, 19, 20 can be reiterated here - secret tech moves allow you to attack an unprepared opponent when it is not expected, potentially earning a decisive advantage as a result. This is why exploring options outside of the most common movesets can be important, even if you are using commonly used Pokemon. One only has to look at the variety of sets used by the 2015 World Championships Masters Top 8, even though the Pokemon were all very similar, to see the idea in action.

25. These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.

While I am generally a proponent of sharing information, I can reconcile this. It's good to share all the juicy secrets after the big event, and with team sheets and scouting being a thing, you're never going to keep tech moves completely unknown all the way to the finals, but EV spreads can be kept secret, and knowing the team members and their items and moves won't always give away how a team is played by its pilot - these things can only really be uncovered by battle. Additionally, you may be best off keeping a lid on your own mention of all of these details until after a competition, as the information gap with EV spreads in particular, can be advantegous - I'm looking at fast Aegislash, bulky Charizards and Gardevoirs as examples where knowing the EV spreads before the tournament can make a difference.

26. Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.

I think this really underscores the need to know damage calculations, both offensive and defensive, soundly before entering battle - even relatively obscure ones. But this is more than just damage calculations, to think that would be thinking too small. It also means that you should be prepared for many different opposing team plans, and how to account for them. Obviously you cannot prepare for every single eventuation, but the more match ups that you have considered how to play in your head, even if some are quite obscure, the better prepared you will be for whatever your opponents can throw at you. Additionally, making plans in team preview would fall under the purview of making calculations before the battle is fought, based on the knowledge you have prepared yourself with prior to battling. These are the sort of calculations Sun Tzu was referring to - not just for individual battles, but for the entire war.

Hopefully these interpretations have been somewhat useful for you, and they help you improve your thought processes and general battle performances in the future. Stay tuned for the next edition.

Next: Attack by Stratagem

The Art of (Pokemon) War: Introduction

Many Pokemon VGC blogs are purely about teams, opinions and tournaments. Especially as I do not have a history of good Pokemon tournament performances behind me (due mostly to lack of attendence), I feel like I should make the scope of this blog a bit broader, and delve in to the philosophy behind playing Pokemon competitively, with the hope that it may prove useful to some people to develop their skills as players.

As I'm quite a fan of history, and in particular Asian history, another book that I like (aside from Journey to the West) is Sun Tzu's The Art of War. It was written over 2500 years ago, but is still considered a useful guide on strategy (not just military strategy) even today (Therefore it must be good, right?). Some of you may be familiar with David Sirlin's Play to Win (If not, I highly recommend taking the time to read it), which references this book frequently in applying its ideas to playing games.

However, Sirlin's examples mostly apply to Arcade, or RTS games, as those are ones he is most familiar with. I think this can be improved upon as a resource for Pokemon trainers, and so I plan to at The Art of War in an purely Pokemon context, presenting this as a series taken one chapter at a time. I will select points from each chapter that I think have particular relevance, and make comments as to how I feel they apply to Pokemon battling - both for thinking during battles, and in preparing yourself and your team for battles (whether they be tournaments or just Battle Spot laddering). If I can in the future, I'd like to include top player's thoughts on those points as well, but for now I think I will just include my own, as something of a base to build from.

For reference, the translation of The Art of War that I will be using is the one available digitally in MIT's Archives, which uses the translation by Lionel Giles.*1

Anyway, this post is just introducing the series, I'll try to post each chapter on a reasonably frequent basis just so people aren't left hanging too long, starting with chapter 1 soon. As each gets posted I'll update the bottom of this one with links to each posted chapter.

Chapter List:

Laying Plans

Attack by Strategem

Tactical Dispositions

Energy

Weak Points and Strong

Maneuvering

Variations in Tactics

Army on the March

Terrain

The Nine Situations

The Attack by Fire

The Use of Spies

*1:As an interesting bit of history, Lionel Giles' father helped pioneer the the Wade-Giles Romanisation method of transliterating Chinese words to English. This method has now been replaced by Pinyin in mainland China, but it is the reason why Beijing was known as Peking for most of the 20th Century. But that's enough history babbling from me.

Primal Battle Tournament: Thoughts in the Lead Up

G'day everyone.

With the announcement of the Primal Battle Tournament on the Pokemon Global Link (Full information here), I've got something to play around with that isn't the usual Battle Spot Doubles. If I get a chance to participate in the tournament, I will, but will have to source a Groudon and/or Kyogre for that, because you can't not bring those guys to a tournament when they're the only Cover or Event Legendaries allowed. But at the very least I can comment on what I think will be strong strategies, and what you will need to look out for in building your own team for this tournament.

Although I wasn't able to compete in the Circe of Legends, or Enter the Dragon Competitions, which also included Legendary Pokemon, I was able to compete in the Generation Showdown Competition earlier this year, and made a report on it.

My main experience from the Generation Showdown was that although my team did very well, the Primals, particularly Groudon, did really well under Trick Room. Although there is no Telepathy Dialga for that in this format, Cresselia really is a dominant Trick Room force in VGC, and I would expect it to remain so in this format.

What have I been testing?

Referring back to this thread on Nugget Bridge, I decided to test out a team centered on the Shadow Tag + Weather idea mooted by MGModernGamer, as it seemed strong. In addition to that, I figured Skill Swap Trick Room Cresselia would be handy to have. Given the low opportunity cost of running both Primals due to their power, and the lack of other Legendaries to crowd them out in this format, I also decided to test running both Primals. To finish off, I added Mega Kangaskhan because of its power, bulk, and generally neutral matchup against the Primals, which a lot of other Megas lack, and Thundurus for alternative speed control and something to stop Trick Room, Spore, and Dark Void shenanigans.

If you want something to practice with, the team I built to test things is below (and I can't figure out spoiler tags). Keep in mind that a lot of these EV spreads are either random, or WIP's at the moment, so don't take them as gospel.

Groudon @ Red Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Earth Power
- Solar Beam
- Flamethrower
- Protect

Cresselia @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 132 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Skill Swap
- Moonlight
- Ice Beam

Gothitelle @ Mental Herb
Ability: Shadow Tag
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 184 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Heal Pulse
- Protect
- Trick Room
- Fake Tears

Kyogre @ Blue Orb
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 196 HP / 60 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Protect
- Water Spout
- Ice Beam
- Thunder

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
Level: 50
EVs: 148 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Def / 12 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Power-Up Punch
- Return
- Sucker Punch

Thundurus @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 156 Def / 36 SpA / 76 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature
- Taunt
- Thunder Wave
- Protect
- Thunderbolt

From my testing, and keep in mind this is still early in the testing stage of the format, I found that

• Double Primals is really strong, and gives you more weather control options for your matchup.
• Special Groudon is great - doesn't have to worry about Intimidates, and is highly likely to win the mirror - to survive an Earth Power, opposing Primal Groudon would need to invest too much bulk and likely lose their damage output, which is the key to winning with the Primals.

252+ SpA Primal Groudon Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Primal Groudon: 204-242 (98.5 - 116.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

• Goth Trap is great with weather, although the better choice seems to be Goth+Groudon, most of the time. Fake Tears under Trick room also means that there are vanishingly few pokemon not OHKO'd by the Primals.
• Skill Swap is going to be huge at the higher levels. I feel this battle I had demonstrates its power quite well, but has nothing on this match between Toquill and Footballfreak99.
• I haven't seen much of TR+Gravity strategies on the Showdown! Ladder, but rest assured they will exist, and will make Precipice Blades in particular a worryingly consistent power option.
• Smeargle will likely see a decent amount of popularity, as sleep plus the power of Primals can be bad news, especially with some Transform shenanigans.
• Wide Guard may be useful, but I'm not sure that it can be relied upon, at least for the Groudon matchup, as Groudon has a lot of single target STAB options, both Physical and Special, which match up well against one of the the best Wide Guard users in the VGC 2015 format, Aegislash. That said, Aegislash does match up well against Cresselia, Gothitelle and sometimes Kangaskhan, so it could still be a solid pick if you're looking to stop Trick Room and Skill Swap shenanigans.
• Although the idea of running Cloud Nine Pokemon may be tempting, I think they will be underwhelming in this format thanks to power of Megas and Primals, and the existence of Skill Swap shenanigans plus switching. Golduck doesn't exactly put fear in to much, and is too specific to the Groudon matchup in my opinion.
• CHALK itself, riding high on its domination of the 2015 VGC World Championships, can't work in this format without some modification. Groudon arguably replaces Heatran, and Landorus, while always useful, I feel will be less so in this format - and probably overshadowed by its brother, Thundurus.
• I haven't seen much of Amoonguss, but I'd imagine given the likelyhood of Trick Room being the dominant speed control, and the inability of Primals and Megas to hold Safety Goggles, that it will be a solid pick if it can be protected from fire, as nobody likes to deal with Spore. It will be a lot more reliant on Trick Room than in VGC 2015 though, in my opinion, just because of the added power available in the Primals.
• The speed ties for Trick Room Primal teams will be nuts. I'm as yet unsure how I would approach dealing with the mirror, but perhaps making your IV's non-zero on Quiet/Brave Primals will be a way to work around speed ties, and give you more options in and out of Trick Room.

Here is a list of choice replays (in addition to the two mentioned above) that I can suggest to watch to gain an understanding of the format (to be added to as more good replays are found - in the meantime, you can search replay.pokemonshowdown for Primal Battles if you want to see for yourself):

• vs Ibro (Chiron and I discuss the metagame in this one)
• vs MrABomb Special Groudon beats Physical Groudon
• vs TCG King (With metagame discussion post match)
• vs ModernGamer (With a post match discussion)
• ModernGamer vs lacdaddy (Shows power of Scarf Kyogre and Gengar)

So far, I'd tip the strong threats in the metagame to be (in no particular order):

• Primal Groudon
• Primal Kyogre
• Mega Kangaskhan
• Thundurus
• Cresselia
• Gothitelle
• Smeargle
• Support Gengar (Possibly Mega)
• Amoonguss
• Whimsicott (with Worry Seed)

It is highly possible that we will see a centralised top-level metagame around these Pokemon.

Ones that I'm undecided/ambivalent on whether they will do well, but may still do so would include:

• Ludicolo
• Golduck
• Mega Venusaur
• Landorus
• Aegislash
• Mega Salamence
• Mega Gardevoir
• Ferrothorn
• Gastrodon 

I will try to touch base with an update post closer to the competition start date, and to do an analysis of the metagame upon its completion, but that will be reliant on what I can squeeze out of my spare time, so don't hold me to it. Good luck to everyone competing, and I look forward to seeing more wacky ideas burst forth in time for the Primal Battle competition!