4 ms·

I’m a noob when it comes to Pokémon, I only learned to play with my kids. Seems like Pokémon alway devolves to who has the strongest (most hp, best attacks) cha

I’m a noob when it comes to Pokémon, I only learned to play with my kids. Seems like Pokémon alway devolves to who has the strongest (most hp, best attacks) characters. Sure there are all the special attacks, deck manipulation that can be done but it seems very shallow to me. What am I missing?

teej 4y ago
Just like in real life sports - high school basketball often devolves into who is tallest. That's a little different than professional basketball, where being tall is necessary, but not sufficient to compete. There's lot available on the internet to learn about competitive pokemon. Something like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBw6UXAiq0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBw6UXAiq0A) is a good entrypoint. But even better - go to a competition with your kids! If they're interested, of course.
dragontamer 4y ago
Pachirisu was the star of VGC a few years ago. https://pokevillebloggers.blogspot.com/2014/08/pachirisu-2014-world-champion.html?m=1 https://pokevillebloggers.blogspot.com/2014/08/pachirisu-201... A very weak Pokemon, but had the right moves and right team support. The video game is far more about teamwork and team composition than just throwing the highest stat Pokemon at each other. ----- Stats matter for your sweeper (attack and speed), pivot (attack and defense) and sponge (hp and defense). But there are a whole slew of 'trickster' Pokemon, like Pachirisu, Ninjask, klefki, whimsicott and others who have rare moves and/or abilities that can beat raw stats in the right situation. Some lower stat Pokemon, like Clefable, are used despite better stat Pokemon (ex Blissy for sponge purposes) because of teamwork, movesets, typing, or abilities.
saagarjha 4y ago
When playing against friends–sure, because everyone loves to spam Hyper Beam when they're playing for fun. Competitive Pokémon is entirely different.
orwin 4y ago
Competitive is different. You can play an attrition team, where every opponent switch hurt him, or a clone+relay team (my favorite) where you stack attack buffs then use relay to transfer them to your hard hitter. You can play a mix of those, or just good pokemons with tight strategy (the equivalent of Jund zoo basically if you're a MTG player) Unless you talk about pokemon TCG, and in this case, 8 don't know.

teej 4y ago

Just like in real life sports - high school basketball often devolves into who is tallest. That's a little different than professional basketball, where being tall is necessary, but not sufficient to compete. There's lot available on the internet to learn about competitive pokemon. Something like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBw6UXAiq0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBw6UXAiq0A) is a good entrypoint. But even better - go to a competition with your kids! If they're interested, of course.

dragontamer 4y ago

Pachirisu was the star of VGC a few years ago. https://pokevillebloggers.blogspot.com/2014/08/pachirisu-2014-world-champion.html?m=1 https://pokevillebloggers.blogspot.com/2014/08/pachirisu-201... A very weak Pokemon, but had the right moves and right team support. The video game is far more about teamwork and team composition than just throwing the highest stat Pokemon at each other. ----- Stats matter for your sweeper (attack and speed), pivot (attack and defense) and sponge (hp and defense). But there are a whole slew of 'trickster' Pokemon, like Pachirisu, Ninjask, klefki, whimsicott and others who have rare moves and/or abilities that can beat raw stats in the right situation. Some lower stat Pokemon, like Clefable, are used despite better stat Pokemon (ex Blissy for sponge purposes) because of teamwork, movesets, typing, or abilities.

saagarjha 4y ago

When playing against friends–sure, because everyone loves to spam Hyper Beam when they're playing for fun. Competitive Pokémon is entirely different.

orwin 4y ago

Competitive is different. You can play an attrition team, where every opponent switch hurt him, or a clone+relay team (my favorite) where you stack attack buffs then use relay to transfer them to your hard hitter. You can play a mix of those, or just good pokemons with tight strategy (the equivalent of Jund zoo basically if you're a MTG player) Unless you talk about pokemon TCG, and in this case, 8 don't know.