Pokémon and being new to the VGC scene

Hello everybody (probably zero people). I decided to make my first real blogpost about Pokémon and VGC, as I got back into Pokémon during the XY VGC14 season, where I played by the OU Smogon rules.

I spent a lot of time practizing and creating teams, but eventually got bored with the way the Smogon rules evolved. A lot of Pokémon were banned simply because OU Singles was a format that struggled with 1v1 matchup power. Greninja, being a Pokémon with crazy diversity, was banned to Ubers along with Mega Lucario. Now, these two Pokémon are barely present in VGC Doubles (and the same was the case in VGC14 Doubles), because beyond Big Momma Khanbabe and the rest of the CHALK (Cresselia, Heatran, Amoonguss/Aegislash, Landorus, Kangaskhan) family, the format is a lot more diverse and thus more balanced. These two Pokémon are virtually unrivaled in OU Singles because they have nothing they cannot threaten with OHKOs or setup-sweeps. So in the end I transitioned to VGC14, but found myself unable to cope with the '14 metagame, which was simply too limited for me.

As the VGC15 season started, I got back into it and started making teams immediately with ORAS released. Again, I found myself getting depressed because all the teams I made sucked. Why did they suck? Well, as I later found out, many of them lacked synergy and power. Others lacked bulk and coverage. No matter what I did, I simply could not create a great team. This was made even worse by the fact that I had a heavy idea about favoritism and what was alright/not alright to use.

I learned the hard way, that this is just not how VGC works. You use the best of the best, or you find yourself in disadvantageous matchups constantly. Now, this doesn't mean that you HAVE to use a CHALK team to be the best, but you can't just go in with a Hitmonlee and expect it to perform as well as Hitmontop. Hitmontop was amazing in the VGC13 metagame, but was harmed quite a bit by the VGC14 metagame. In VGC15 it is still pretty decent, but with all the fairies going around, the matchups have gotten a lot worse. So usually, as seen with CHALK teams, the wide/quick guard roles are usually better used on Pokémon like Aegislash/Conkeldurr/Machamp or Terrakion/Talonflame/Meowstic.

So far I've spent the VGC15 season honing my theorycrafting skills and building advanced spreads and movesets for my teams. I've spent countless hours trying to analyze the metagame and how to exploit the top 12 Pokémon in creative ways, but usualy I always come up short. The biggest issue has been deciding whether to go mainstream with Big Momma (Mega Kangaskhan) and Private Jet (Mega Salamence) or go with my personal favorites of Mega Lopunny, Mega Absol, Mega Scizor and Mega Gardevoir. After a lot of testing, I decided to stick with my favorites, but I also decided not to be unrealistic. Now, Mega Absol is NOT a competitive choice, so I immediately wrote it off. It has been seen in ONE team report on Nuggetbridge.com, where it was used in one game out of 10, which was a loss. The rest of them have seen decent amounts of use on the Battle Spot ladder.

At the moment I am going to be trying my best at building viable teams for Mega Lopunny.

I love this little fighter, and I will be doing everything I can to make her shine in her own way.

This was my first real blogpost of many to come. Thank you for reading, whoever you are, and peace out.

/Blizzia