Momentum Management in VGC

[chuckaboomboom]

Most of the tiers in competitive Pokemon are singles based. Singles is very user friendly. It is a good starting point for new players, and momentum/pressure can be relatively easily managed. However, some players make the bold decision to try out VGC, and find that it is vastly different from singles. Despite only a minor change between the number of Pokemon used singles and doubles, the approaches and methodology very dissimilar. This articles explains the tier of VGC.

Intro Blurb

1. Momentum management (though this is important in singles, it is exponentially more so in doubles)

- Why is it important?
- Applying pressure
- How to manage momentum in battle
- Examples
- Etc.

2. Risk vs. Reward (though this is important in singles, it is exponentially more so in doubles)
a. Always balance the risk with the reward

b. Aggressive vs. passive

3. Consistency
a. Consistency is much more important in doubles than in singles

b. Especially in VGC, the fast-paced metagame means that every move is crucial

4. Doubles-specific moves (relating to momentum)

a. Fake out

i. Momentum

ii. Safety

iii. Pivot

b. Protect- It deserves a whole article to itself (actually, some have been written)

i. Momentum

ii. Safety

iii. Pivot

c. Follow me

i. Momentum

ii. Redirection

d. Quick guard and Wide Guard

i. Momentum (see a trend?)

ii. Protection from priority, such as BB Talon and Fake Out. Protection from spread moves

f. Helping hand

i. A way for support mons to provide offensive pressure

g. Entry Hazards/ Hazard Removal

i. No, do not use these in doubles.

5. Doubles-specific strategies, some prominent examples
a. Khan-Artist

b. Perish Trap

c. Terra-Cota

d. Dis-quake

6. Team preview (relating to momentum, picking leads)

a. More important than in singles

b. May be able to ascertain leads/ team archetypes

c. Aggressive counter-lead vs. passive safe-lead

d. VGC specific: choose four out of six

I would appreciate any advice and comments. Thanks in advance!

 

[chuckaboomboom]

Bump
I edited the article plan.

 

[princessofmusic]

Usually, we have quality control members with metagame knowledge to give their thoughts on article submissions, but there are none for VGC currently. I'll tag Bummer and see what he thinks is appropriate.

 

[Bummer]

Our Doubles QC players, like Stratos and Audiosurfer, are the closest thing to VGC control we have. However, you're not that particularly known in this community, and while we do welcome new writers, tackling such a fundamental and general topic will be difficult. And while Smogon can cover a cariety of topics, Nugget Bridge is the general hotspot for VGC, so if we're gonna create a basic VGC article, it would be of high importance to not screw it up due to relative lack of QC. You have finished your other VGC article so Stratos and Audiosurfer could see if what you've written there shows if you knows the meta well or not. Your skeleton seems to be nice though, but I'd skip part 6 and 7 since the article might become too fat otherwise.

Also, you seem to have posted this topic in the workshop, but I don't see you saying who approved it, seeing as no one did in this thread. Don't rush ahead.

 

[Audiosurfer]

I'm pretty dubious about your qualifications after that last article. Unfortunately I didn't see that you had posted it in Article Workshop until it was already pretty far ahead in the process but there were some issues I had with it, namely that a lot of the strategies you called underrated or innovative were actually really old (something I told you about) and that in the case of some of the more valid ones I still wasn't sure why they were suddenly seeing/going to see usage now when they've been around for so long (rotom-mow comes to mind), and your descriptions didn't do much to clear up these questions. I know when I gave the critique I didn't list the specific strats I had in mind, but the fact that you couldn't tell which ones I was referring to on your own (for instance TerraCott has easily been around for longer than the Smogon Doubles metagame has existed) makes me wonder if you have the necessary experience for an article like this.

 

[chuckaboomboom]

Our Doubles QC players, like Stratos and Audiosurfer, are the closest thing to VGC control we have. However, you're not that particularly known in this community, and while we do welcome new writers, tackling such a fundamental and general topic will be difficult. And while Smogon can cover a cariety of topics, Nugget Bridge is the general hotspot for VGC, so if we're gonna create a basic VGC article, it would be of high importance to not screw it up due to relative lack of QC. You have finished your other VGC article so Stratos and Audiosurfer could see if what you've written there shows if you knows the meta well or not. Your skeleton seems to be nice though, but I'd skip part 6 and 7 since the article might become too fat otherwise.

Also, you seem to have posted this topic in the workshop, but I don't see you saying who approved it, seeing as no one did in this thread. Don't rush ahead.

I did not post this in the workshop. That was a separate article about PGL that got approved by a different editor. This is the thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokemon-global-link-crash-course.3532509/

 

[chuckaboomboom]

I'm pretty dubious about your qualifications after that last article. Unfortunately I didn't see that you had posted it in Article Workshop until it was already pretty far ahead in the process but there were some issues I had with it, namely that a lot of the strategies you called underrated or innovative were actually really old (something I told you about) and that in the case of some of the more valid ones I still wasn't sure why they were suddenly seeing/going to see usage now when they've been around for so long (rotom-mow comes to mind), and your descriptions didn't do much to clear up these questions. I know when I gave the critique I didn't list the specific strats I had in mind, but the fact that you couldn't tell which ones I was referring to on your own (for instance TerraCott has easily been around for longer than the Smogon Doubles metagame has existed) makes me wonder if you have the necessary experience for an article like this.

I put TerraCott under the alumni section. The following is from the article, "The sets in this section are the alumni of innovative/underrated sets. Once upon a time, they were odd ideas and unorthodox strategies..." I sorta felt that made it clear, but I'll change the focus now and write about underrated sets in the current meta."

I got so excited that my article got approved that... well, I shamefully admit that I didn't read your comment. It's common knowledge that TerraCott is an old strategy (if memory serves me right, it was introduced around 2011-2012), but I got so thrilled that I would get to write an article that I just typed up a generic response and rushed to the workshop.

Let me fix my original article (this time with your comments in mind). Then, feel free to decide if I'm qualified for this article.

 

[Audiosurfer]

I put TerraCott under the alumni section. The following is from the article, "The sets in this section are the alumni of innovative/underrated sets. Once upon a time, they were odd ideas and unorthodox strategies..." I sorta felt that made it clear, but I'll change the focus now and write about underrated sets in the current meta."

I got so excited that my article got approved that... well, I shamefully admit that I didn't read your comment. It's common knowledge that TerraCott is an old strategy (if memory serves me right, it was introduced around 2011-2012), but I got so thrilled that I would get to write an article that I just typed up a generic response and rushed to the workshop.

Let me fix my original article (this time with your comments in mind). Then, feel free to decide if I'm qualified for this article.

I'm fine with this if Bummer is.

 

[Bummer]

cool

 

[chuckaboomboom]

Bummer

Article plan ready for QC

 

[Bummer]

In order to cut down on the work burden, I'd advise to only cover the Momentum aspect this time, as otherwise I'd encourage you to get some help from the Doubles/VGC forums to write this. And since this is technically for VGC, I'd advise against that Rocket quote in the title since Doubles is the name of Smogon's own dual battle metagame.

 

[chuckaboomboom]

In order to cut down on the work burden, I'd advise to only cover the Momentum aspect this time, as otherwise I'd encourage you to get some help from the Doubles/VGC forums to write this. And since this is technically for VGC, I'd advise against that Rocket quote in the title since Doubles is the name of Smogon's own dual battle metagame.

Thanks for the feedback!

Do you think it would work if I divided this into three parts and made each part its own article? Then one article could be released per issue, and that would cut down the work burden significantly.
Part 1- Momentum Management (Issue 42)
Part 2- Risk vs. Reward (Issue 43)
Part 3- VGC specific moves / strategy and Team Preview (Issue 44)

 

[Bummer]

VGC specific moves and Momentum Management is, to me, largely the same topic, since Quick Quard/Wide Guard, Follow Me/Rage Powder and Helping Hand all help controlling the flow of battle. Risk vs Reward is an entirely different topic I felt we handled recently, but if you want to cover that later you'll need tomake a separate pitch for it as it's quite the broad subject.

 

[chuckaboomboom]

VGC specific moves and Momentum Management is, to me, largely the same topic, since Quick Quard/Wide Guard, Follow Me/Rage Powder and Helping Hand all help controlling the flow of battle. Risk vs Reward is an entirely different topic I felt we handled recently, but if you want to cover that later you'll need tomake a separate pitch for it as it's quite the broad subject.

K, the article will be on Momentum Management. Can I post it in the workshop?

 

[Bummer]

If Stratos and Arcticblast is fine with that, sure.

 

[chuckaboomboom]

If Stratos and Arcticblast is fine with that, sure.

Should I send a private message to them?

 

[Bummer]

I tagged them to this thread. If no one replies in 24 hours, feel free to post the thread in the workshop.

 

[chuckaboomboom]

The tag was done yesterday at 5:06, so I guess I'm through QC.

Posted in the workshop.