Most players that I've faced don't seem to know how to run it then (2200 Elo). If they are running it on the lead, they *always* throw a brave bird immediately and then switch out, so it's an easy shield for me. When they come back in, they always bait with feather dance (easy no-shield) until they are really low and then throw a brave bird at the last second.
If you want to surprise people with a brave bird, throw it at surprising moments!
If it were you, when would you throw it then? I'm quite new and only just getting into the meat of tactics, so any novel suggestions like this are good.
Mix it up a bit, be chaotic. The moments that I described are the optimal moments to throw a brave bird, but if everybody always does it like that, it's very predictable.
A lot of Pidgeot's strength comes from the potential to bluff, getting shields on feather dance and so on. People aren't doing this enough.
I lead Vigoroth. Vigoroth reaches Rock Slide at the same time as Pidgeot reaches Brave Bird. This is how this matchup *always* plays out for me:
* I build up to a potential Rock Slide, but then bait with Body Slam.
* I win CMP, opponent shields.
* Opponent throws Brave Bird, I shield.
* Opponent switches out.
I now have switch advantage, even shields and energy on my Vigoroth. I'm in a very comfortable position.
What could the opponents do better? Mix it up a little. The way it is now, I can always safely shield and always bait successfully. If the opponent no-shielded my Body Slam and got a shield from me throwing a Feather Dance, I would be in trouble. If they did that 25% of the time or so, then maybe I would stop always shielding, so maybe they could land a Brave Bird, which would be devastating.
Skeledirge or Typhlosion in the back. I’m rushing through games in Ace right now with Toxapex/Shadow Vic/Kartana and well-placed Fire types with moves neutral to Toxapex just shred my team lmao.
Don’t run Kartana kids, you really don’t want something that dies to one Incinerate. (But goddamn does it shred through things if given the chance)
I think that's what they are trying to say: at 2300 Elo, whoever is running the triple confusion team knows what they are doing and are doing it just to troll.
That makes me feel better for being around high 2200's rn. Never hit legend but I'm much better this season. Some of the top players are just getting to Veteran now so being 2400 and above shows you're a really good player
For me it’s vigoroth and it’s always vigoroth in any limited cup it’s allowed into, whole meta shifts to what beats it and what has to avoid it because it’s on almost every team
I build my teams around my favorite pokemon and my favorite pvp pokemon in the game the last 2 seasons has been salazzle. I even run salazzle in open GL.
It just so happens that my salazzle based team handles vig quite well.
Salazzle has hard hitting fast attacks and spammy moves, she has it all.
So jealous, I need to get my hands on one. I love those unique mon that not a lot of people have. I'm using a Turtonator right now and I haven't seen a single other team run it yet.
Vigoroth. It’s just boring. I play to have fun. And of course I’d like to win, but the moments I enjoy the most are often against an unfamiliar Pokémon where I have to think about what it might do.
Admittedly I have an around 1700 ELO and I’m just learning the ins and outs of this aspect of the game, but as I’m trying out different teams and slowly climbing, seeing that dumb monkey just sort of shuts the fun down lol.
Salazzle just smokes vigoroth, it is often over so fast they don't know what happened. Salazzle resists vig's fast attack, it does burn a shield but salazzle comes out of it with almost full health unless the vig user wants to burn shields.
Hows vigoroth boring? This thing at least deals decent damge and dies rather fasty most annoying to me kn summer cup is defintly toxapax. Thing is so tanky, it just wastes everybodys time.
Haven't seen either honestly, but I'm still not rank 20 (will hit 19 and maybe 20 tomorrow). Currently the one that I hate seeing the most is probably any of Victreebel/Venusaur/Ivysaur since I'm running Charga/Dewgong/Feraligatr. I need Charga to kill them or I take a bunch of damage. Vigoroth is another that takes me a lot to kill, almost KOing Charga from full HP and 1 Shield use. Thankfully most haven't been running rock slide.
Shadow typhlosion also caused me an unwanted loss. Shields down that thing is nasty.
I'm probably way too low ranked to see the top stuff tho
I am still only rank 18 as well. I was running salazzle with whiscash and toxapex backline.
Although i ended the night with a different team composition and who knows what i will run tomorrow.
Toxapex, simply because while it has hard answers, every time I run into one I get bad positioning or that answer also needs to hit something else and thus gets overwhelmed.
One thing I've been having fun with is Dunsparce. Does decently into Flyers, sponges Ghosts like Trevenant, and baits in Vigoroth for Poliwrath while being able to smack it with an energy advantage. Especially helps since Poliwrath with good positioning can flip some match-ups being ahead on energy (EX: scaring out Trevenant on lead but having an Icy Wind ready for it later)
not me but quite a few of the people I am playing against probably hate stunfisk currently lol. Have been opening with my plain ol stuffie and not only does he hit most openers hard people don't expenct me to shield him keeping him innfor a rediculously long time. Obviously its not like he is completely broken but some poor unfortunate souls have wiped to him.
Vigoroth and toxapex. Shadow girafagig can be annoying too, but I only encountered it once unfortunately with the pokemon I already listed. Even with almost perfect alignment, I still almost lost that game.
No particular one, but Weather Ball and Body Slam spammers. Because nothing says summer like normal types. Can we just get one single Cup that isn't plagued by cancer picks?
I love to see that! Not the boring usual teams. I wish I could remember my first gbl season gl team. I honestly switched my gl and ul teams up constantly every season until MLC was gone because I was a top MLC player and could easily get legend in my sleep
Interesting. I’ve never had issues with Giraf or Orang. Running Pidgeot, Charj, and Poliwrath.
A double Electric team sometimes catches me off guard, but Poli powers through most of them that Charj can’t.
My problems are usually a Charj with a Skele in the back.
In past cups i have ran teams weak to talonflame, however i was determined not to let talonflame or vig beat my teams and my team comp is built around beating them.
It’s entirely my fault for insisting on Skele, S-Gatr and ‘Zard, which is insanely high risk high reward, but basically it annoys me how Talonflame always takes Charizard 1-1 because Brave Bird seems to charge so quickly and Dragon Claw doesn’t do enough damage to TF. I could just change my team to not rely on Gatr to beat basically anything water but frankly I’m too stubborn
I'm with you. If I see a video or post titled "gain ELO fast!" I skip it immediately. It's not why I play. If I ever manage to improve my skills enough I'd climb either way but I'm not going to play boring top meta just to rank up. (I really miss silph!)
I'm currently playing a team that often doesn't give a fuck about typing and it's just heaps of fun. Struggling with using incinerate but good practice.
Pidgeot with feather dance and brave bird when properly run is a real headache
Most players that I've faced don't seem to know how to run it then (2200 Elo). If they are running it on the lead, they *always* throw a brave bird immediately and then switch out, so it's an easy shield for me. When they come back in, they always bait with feather dance (easy no-shield) until they are really low and then throw a brave bird at the last second. If you want to surprise people with a brave bird, throw it at surprising moments!
I find if I throw brave bird first the opponent shields and if I throw feather dance first they don’t, like clockwork.
If it were you, when would you throw it then? I'm quite new and only just getting into the meat of tactics, so any novel suggestions like this are good.
Mix it up a bit, be chaotic. The moments that I described are the optimal moments to throw a brave bird, but if everybody always does it like that, it's very predictable. A lot of Pidgeot's strength comes from the potential to bluff, getting shields on feather dance and so on. People aren't doing this enough. I lead Vigoroth. Vigoroth reaches Rock Slide at the same time as Pidgeot reaches Brave Bird. This is how this matchup *always* plays out for me: * I build up to a potential Rock Slide, but then bait with Body Slam. * I win CMP, opponent shields. * Opponent throws Brave Bird, I shield. * Opponent switches out. I now have switch advantage, even shields and energy on my Vigoroth. I'm in a very comfortable position. What could the opponents do better? Mix it up a little. The way it is now, I can always safely shield and always bait successfully. If the opponent no-shielded my Body Slam and got a shield from me throwing a Feather Dance, I would be in trouble. If they did that 25% of the time or so, then maybe I would stop always shielding, so maybe they could land a Brave Bird, which would be devastating.
Cool, thank you! I reckon a lot of this takes time and experience to learn what mons have what moves, and move counting to know what to expect.
It is hilarious to throw a brave bird off rip and just delete a Pokémon right away
I nuke soo many mons lol
I’m very guilty of running it
Sounds like someone ran a triple ghost team and lost to them, lmao It's me, I'm someone
I was running double poison, but i have since switched to triple poison. Every team has it's weakness.
But how? Quagsire and Mantine are everywhere
Toxapex handles mantine
Just hit veteran and Toxapex, Vigoroth and S-Gatr are the worst
Haven’t seen much gatr what’s it good against
Helps a lot against ghost comps
Skeledirge or Typhlosion in the back. I’m rushing through games in Ace right now with Toxapex/Shadow Vic/Kartana and well-placed Fire types with moves neutral to Toxapex just shred my team lmao. Don’t run Kartana kids, you really don’t want something that dies to one Incinerate. (But goddamn does it shred through things if given the chance)
I faced a Shadow Giraffe, Oranguru, Bruxish team yesterday in 2300s elo. All on Confusion.
I bet your where confused
I killed an entire similar team with a Greninja
At that elo it has to be a lolz team
2300 is very respectable this early into the season. Source: legends player who is at 2400 so far
Additional citation: legend player at 2200 (T_T)
I think that's what they are trying to say: at 2300 Elo, whoever is running the triple confusion team knows what they are doing and are doing it just to troll.
I don't know, I think it is the team they are using. I think triple confusion can beat lots of teams right now.
That makes me feel better for being around high 2200's rn. Never hit legend but I'm much better this season. Some of the top players are just getting to Veteran now so being 2400 and above shows you're a really good player
I've heard that elo inflation exists, but I cannot understand how legends players could be so low.
2300 is in the leaderboards right now.
God damn, elo inflation is real.
For me it’s vigoroth and it’s always vigoroth in any limited cup it’s allowed into, whole meta shifts to what beats it and what has to avoid it because it’s on almost every team
There are quite a few pokemon that beat vigoroth in this cup. My whole team handles him and i don't care which of my pokemon even faces it.
The reason you’ll be doing well is that your whole team counters vigoroth, the team will be made with vigoroth in mind
I build my teams around my favorite pokemon and my favorite pvp pokemon in the game the last 2 seasons has been salazzle. I even run salazzle in open GL. It just so happens that my salazzle based team handles vig quite well. Salazzle has hard hitting fast attacks and spammy moves, she has it all.
So jealous, I need to get my hands on one. I love those unique mon that not a lot of people have. I'm using a Turtonator right now and I haven't seen a single other team run it yet.
I feel like I’ve been running Salazzle for months now. She’s a beast!
Vigoroth. It’s just boring. I play to have fun. And of course I’d like to win, but the moments I enjoy the most are often against an unfamiliar Pokémon where I have to think about what it might do. Admittedly I have an around 1700 ELO and I’m just learning the ins and outs of this aspect of the game, but as I’m trying out different teams and slowly climbing, seeing that dumb monkey just sort of shuts the fun down lol.
Just throw a poliwrath in your back line and thank me later
I’ll give that a try today, thanks.
Second that. As soon I put poliwrath in the backline to counter vigoroth, I just reached Ace because of it.
Can I ask what moveset you are using?
Counter + Icy wind + scald
Thanks
Salazzle just smokes vigoroth, it is often over so fast they don't know what happened. Salazzle resists vig's fast attack, it does burn a shield but salazzle comes out of it with almost full health unless the vig user wants to burn shields.
Hows vigoroth boring? This thing at least deals decent damge and dies rather fasty most annoying to me kn summer cup is defintly toxapax. Thing is so tanky, it just wastes everybodys time.
I think people are just tired of limited metas with Vig in them
Not sure why you are getting downvoted. You make good points.
Vigoroth for obvious reasons, or Pidgeot since it always puts you in a lose/lose situation, unless you resist the moves
Haven't seen either honestly, but I'm still not rank 20 (will hit 19 and maybe 20 tomorrow). Currently the one that I hate seeing the most is probably any of Victreebel/Venusaur/Ivysaur since I'm running Charga/Dewgong/Feraligatr. I need Charga to kill them or I take a bunch of damage. Vigoroth is another that takes me a lot to kill, almost KOing Charga from full HP and 1 Shield use. Thankfully most haven't been running rock slide. Shadow typhlosion also caused me an unwanted loss. Shields down that thing is nasty. I'm probably way too low ranked to see the top stuff tho
I am still only rank 18 as well. I was running salazzle with whiscash and toxapex backline. Although i ended the night with a different team composition and who knows what i will run tomorrow.
Is s-giraf that bad? Haven’t seen it yet.
Yeah it's pretty annoying, especially if your mon isn't very bulky.
[Sorry.](https://youtu.be/azBfJxbEPVA?si=FTe02VRFdywnnWL4)
No your not.
Toxapex, simply because while it has hard answers, every time I run into one I get bad positioning or that answer also needs to hit something else and thus gets overwhelmed. One thing I've been having fun with is Dunsparce. Does decently into Flyers, sponges Ghosts like Trevenant, and baits in Vigoroth for Poliwrath while being able to smack it with an energy advantage. Especially helps since Poliwrath with good positioning can flip some match-ups being ahead on energy (EX: scaring out Trevenant on lead but having an Icy Wind ready for it later)
In one word: mine 😓
not me but quite a few of the people I am playing against probably hate stunfisk currently lol. Have been opening with my plain ol stuffie and not only does he hit most openers hard people don't expenct me to shield him keeping him innfor a rediculously long time. Obviously its not like he is completely broken but some poor unfortunate souls have wiped to him.
Girafrig is good now?
shadow girafrig is a stud in this cup.
Even norm giraf chunks. Someone used it against me, and I have run it since
Which moves?
Vigoroth and toxapex. Shadow girafagig can be annoying too, but I only encountered it once unfortunately with the pokemon I already listed. Even with almost perfect alignment, I still almost lost that game.
No particular one, but Weather Ball and Body Slam spammers. Because nothing says summer like normal types. Can we just get one single Cup that isn't plagued by cancer picks?
Which mons are you seeing in Summer Cup which spam weather ball? The only one I’ve seen is Abomasnow, and even then I’ve only come across 2 or 3.
Pelipper also does
Yeah I'm sick of these people at 2k elo running the same stale teams. I'm throwing in the giraffe too for maximum rage causing
I’m running my season 1 team; azumarill, typhlosion, galvantula
I love to see that! Not the boring usual teams. I wish I could remember my first gbl season gl team. I honestly switched my gl and ul teams up constantly every season until MLC was gone because I was a top MLC player and could easily get legend in my sleep
talonflame, tox, and quag, all completely neuter my abb incinerate team alone, so when theres more than one it’s wraps for me
Interesting. I’ve never had issues with Giraf or Orang. Running Pidgeot, Charj, and Poliwrath. A double Electric team sometimes catches me off guard, but Poli powers through most of them that Charj can’t. My problems are usually a Charj with a Skele in the back.
Shadow Giraf. I’ve seen some people use normal Giraf, normal Giraf is nowhere near as threatening, despite it not being as glassy.
😬
Toxapex, since it's way bulkier than anything else in this cup.
Toxapex
Lanturn
I hate quag leads 🥲🥲
Something about Talonflame winds me right up
In past cups i have ran teams weak to talonflame, however i was determined not to let talonflame or vig beat my teams and my team comp is built around beating them.
It’s entirely my fault for insisting on Skele, S-Gatr and ‘Zard, which is insanely high risk high reward, but basically it annoys me how Talonflame always takes Charizard 1-1 because Brave Bird seems to charge so quickly and Dragon Claw doesn’t do enough damage to TF. I could just change my team to not rely on Gatr to beat basically anything water but frankly I’m too stubborn
Lanturn can suck it.
Skeledirge just ends me. I also hate Chajabug
definitely charjabug. so many charjabugs.
Toxapex without a doubt imo
Bruh I am using shadow giraffe and oranguru 😊🤣
Jumpluff It core break my whole team and never can tell what it's running
Cradilly core breaks my team, I almost always lose if someone has one (it is somewhat rare)
For me it’s skeliderge and talonflame. Let me run my double grass mons maaaaan :(
I'm with you. If I see a video or post titled "gain ELO fast!" I skip it immediately. It's not why I play. If I ever manage to improve my skills enough I'd climb either way but I'm not going to play boring top meta just to rank up. (I really miss silph!) I'm currently playing a team that often doesn't give a fuck about typing and it's just heaps of fun. Struggling with using incinerate but good practice.