How does one become a competitive player of Pokemons?

Lurk on Smogon RMT and read the analyses, watch some high ELO battles on Showdown! and form a team (either from what you think is right or copy someone else's)

You'll get it wrong a lot but ask questions, talk to people, observe, watch some Pokétubers (I suggest PokeaimMD) and you'll be on your way. Just stay away from stuff like Pokémon Online and Verlisify.

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>asking /vp/ for competitive advice
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>32342827
First decide Smogon (unofficial format but permits 6v6 Singles) or VGC (official format but is Doubles with 6 team 4 into battle).

>>32342827
Here's how it went down for me:

>have some friends who play Pokemon
>have casual battles with them
>one of them beats me routinely with his ingame team
>get motivated to kick the shit out of his team
>begin learning about how to min/max pokemon and what good spreads/movesets are
>kick his ass repeatedly
>continue playing after friends stopped
>contratulation you are competitive player now

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>>32343084
>all those meme arrows
>no memes
>mfw

Find a friend who knows their shit. Just find somebody in person who knows a lot about competitive. Talking to somebody in person is the easiest way to get advice and ask questions about what you need to know and do. And you can practice on them easily.

>>32342827
Visit Smogon, watch high ELO matches on Showdown, copy/paste a Smogon team and play with it until you understand the meta better and can make your own.

>>32342827
It's not too hard. I'm assuming you already know how to pokemon battle from the games, competitive is just a little more thinking then supereffective vs not very effective. To get into it I would suggest
>watch some youtubers
PokeaimMD and ThunderBlunder come to mind, theyve got a whole group of guys they play with who are all pretty decent so you can watch them for some battling tips. Both of the ones I mentioned do a good job talking out their decisions.
>lurk smogon
its the central site of the smogon meta, lurk the sample teams and the viability threads to get an idea of what kinds of pokemon youll be up against and the ones you can use, and what tier you want to play.
>either copy or make a team on showdown and try it out!
the battling system is really easy, only takes a few seconds to put you in a game against someone of similar skill

making a team is very difficult, so dont be upset if everything you make keeps getting obliterated, ive been playing competitively for over a year now and only one of the teams ive made as allowed me to get even close to 1400 on the ladder, im also not the best player but im still learning

just dont give up and keep reading and watching, the best advice i can give you is to know all the pokemon inside and out

good luck!

I learned by watching people play.

it's too late for you

there's too much for you to catch up on, regardless of whether you're a newfag or an oldfag who only recently started caring about competitive

>>32343272
Maybe for VGC, but I don't see why it would be "too late" to get into the Smogon metas or Battlespot.

What I also find useful is playing random battles on Showdown. Gets you familiar with common strategies and sets and doesn't require you to make teams. Unfortunately due to the level scaling you may get the wrong idea about certain Pokemon.

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>>32342827
how to become competetive player:
1. go to smogon
2. registar
3. make a team
4. start battling

here, now you are competetive.
how to become GOOD competetive player, well it has two parts- making a team and actual batting. when making a team the most importatn part is how to start the battle- will you trap the enemy with SR and spider web? will you boost with d-dance/ q-dance/ s-dance and start sweeping, or will you try to play it safe with various screens or taunt? how you open a battle will greatly affect your momentum.
the team should include a mega, a phys wall and a spec wall. you can have your starter a mega, but walls are there to take care of threats and should come with stuff like haze, roar, rapid spin or anything else that counter startegies you hate to deal with.

regarding actual battling, remember you are fighting a person and not a computer program. don't think just because a trick worked once it will work again.

>>32343359
also, introspecting is important. watch your battles for various point:
1. if you had used a different move/switched would you deal with the situation better?
2. could you have predicted enemy choice of action?
3. does your team have any way to counter the various situations you encountered? if no, can you seal those events before things get serious, or alter your team to be able to face such situations in the future?

write everything in a txt file.

>>32343272
It's never too late. Competitive pokemon has the depth of a puddle and the complexity of a crossword puzzle. Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves and probably severely autistic.

>>32342827
I'd say just play Random Battles on Pokémon Showdown and you'll get the gist of what moves and Pokémon are good, for the most part.
It won't teach you about EVs, IVs or Natures, but it will at least give you an understanding of why coverage moves, support moves, setup moves, abilities and items are more important than having a big attack stat which is what single-player Pokémon teaches you.

When you've got that, try making your own teams with Pokémon you suspect may not suck, and play in OU. If you notice you're getting wrecked by the same Pokémon again and again, try using it yourself.

I really don't think many Pokémon YouTubers are helpful for starting off. There's a huge variation in how much they'll actually explain since they need to appeal to both new players and other competitive players. It's better to just play your own games and remember to have Bulbapedia, Serebii and/or Smogon pages for different Pokémon open.

>Look for strategies and sets
>Watch vgc videos
>Build a team with what you've learned
>Go to battlespot
>Lose
>Save videos
>Think how you could counter these teams
>Rinse and repeat

>All this retards telling him to go see high ELO replays

To be good at pokemon you just need 2 things: luck and experience

Literally just fucking play the game, if you know jack shit, play some random battles so you start getting the catch AND THEN you can go and see high level player's tought process

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>>32342862
URUSAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!

>>32343832
Yeah, I don't understand the "You must spend one hundred hours on YouTube before you can even think about playing" thought process
In almost anything, the fastest way to learn is to try it yourself, make mistakes, maybe try to work out what you're doing wrong, and try to improve based on your experiences.

Also, as well as random battles on Showdown, the Pokémon Global Link (the online mode on 3DS) now has a system where you can download a team that somebody else has uploaded, and use that online.
You need to sync your game with your website account to do it, but it's a good way to get used to playing online without having to get into breeding, EVing and Soft Resetting your own team, while still giving you better options than Showdown's Random Battles.

>>32343832
>To be good at pokemon you just need 2 things: luck and experience
And intelligence, my nigga, i have seen experienced grown men falling in stupid traps like kids.
All in all is like the chess.

>>32343908
Theoretically it's a vastly different game to chess
1. Players don't enter the game in the same situation
2. Players don't have a perfect knowledge of the other player's situation, either at the start or at any point during the match. This is both in the sense that they don't know each other's movesets and EV spreads, and also because they don't know what moves the other player is selecting at this very moment.
3. Pokémon does have a vast amount of chance.

The skill in high-level Pokémon (not including team construction) comes down to predicting your opponent's moves, and managing probability. Neither of these are factors in Chess.

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>Start playing by my own with my own invented OP team without looking any youtube tactics
>In 1750 elo in first weekend, currently 29 wins, 5 loses

You are playing against literal kids there, it's easy to outplay them with strange tactics that are good against your every game Garchomp/Landorus/tapus

>>32343937

You cannot get to 1750 with 29 wins.

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>>32343968
Well 1727 to be precises but I rounded it up. And how come? at start I got like 20 per win and later around 10-5 per win, why wouldn't it be possible?

Advice for getting into VGC17, and VGC in general?

Stuff like teambuilding, state of the meta and the understanding of doubles strategies.

>>32343991
Not that guy, it's possible but you would have to get matched up against some pretty highly-ranked opponents throughout. I'm 9W-2L and still only 1580ish because I keep playing against people in the 1400s.

>>32343994
I guess look at what's used, what other people are using etc.
A lot of teams use pairs of Pokémon that have a natural and obvious synergy, such as Pelipper+Golduck (Peliper has Drizzle which sets up Rain, Golduck has Swift Swim which doubles its speed in rain, and relatively powerful STAB Water, which is boosted in rain)
Other 'explicit' synergy like that are things like Torkoal and Oranguru; Oranguru sets up Trick Room while Torkoal protects, then Torkoal uses Eruption and Oranguru uses Instruct to make Torkoal erupt again.
As well as these, there's the synergy of having Pokémon who cover each other's weaknesses very well. There's a lot of cores people talk about like fire/water/grass, dragon/fairy/steel etc. which are meant to give great overall coverage, but it's really down to working out what screws over some of your team, and plugging a counter into your team.
Then there's a lot of Pokémon that just have all-round utility. Tapus and weather setters do a great job of this, since weather and terrain are abusable by a huge number of Pokémon. Speed Control (Tailwind, Trick Room, Electroweb etc.) are very important too.

In terms of the "state of the meta", you can get a good idea just from usage stats. Your team should have a solid answer to everything in the top 15 or so, and at least not suck against anything in the top 30.
http://www.trainertower.com/WCS-battle-spot-usage/

>>32343937
>>32343968
Espurr poster is probably talking Battle Spot, where people start with 1500 (as they should).