Emphasizing the 3DS Ladder over Pokemon Showdown - REQUIRED READING

Hulavuta

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Hi, everyone!

The analysis forum is still new but the staff has noticed some worrying trends already, so we felt we should make this announcement. When it comes to analyses, we absolutely want to be writing towards the 3DS ladder, rather than the Pokemon Showdown! ladder. Therefore, we extremely highly recommend that you play on the 3DS often if you want to do an analysis.

Aside from some technical errors (such as some Pokemon being available with certain moves that they can't have on the real ladder due to the pentagon rule) the gameplay mechanics are simulated correctly on PS. However, the metagame is not. Unlike Smogon's tiers, we are not in control of or even the center of the meta. This is very much a Japanese metagame, where the Japanese are the main players and the ones making the innovations and metagame shifts, and we adapt to that. PS Battle Spot does not have nearly the size of the playerbase that the in-game ladder has or the same players, and therefore we do not believe it to be indicative of what happens in the in-game meta, which is our focus.

Finally, like with all analyses forums, don't reserve an analysis if you don't actually play the metagame. This should be common sense but it bears repeating. 3v3 is not just "OU but with only half a team", it is completely different. Viable Pokemon, sets, counters, etc. are all different and require you to actually play to understand. For example, we know you haven't really played when you start mentioning things like Rapid Spin, Spinblocking, or Defog. Another difference is that speed creep is not as big of a deal either, for a lot of Pokemon, it is a better choice to pick the offensive boosting nature rather than the speed boosting one.

It is mandatory that you check out this site: 3ds.pokemon-gl.com/battle/ and check out the usage stats of the Pokemon you want to write about, such as most commonly used moves, ability, nature, teammates, items, counters, etc. This is extremely useful information that gives a very clear picture of what each Pokemon does and is a good way to balance against our own anecdotal evidence, it's in our best interest to use it!
 

cant say

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Continuing with Hulavuta's point about playing on the 3DS ladder, you must be playing the ORAS ladder, not the XY one. Apart from the obvious reasoning that the ORAS league is the current one and features all the new Mega Evolutions, there is another big difference between the metas, which is that Pokemon used in the ORAS league must have the 'blue pentagon' (aka: must have been caught / hatched in a generation VI game) meaning that transferred Pokemon are not allowed, and by extension, Pokemon with transfer-only moves.

This means that when you are writing your analysis, your Pokemon's moveset(s) must be legal in the ORAS metagame. A great example is Suicune, who often uses Sheer Cold in the XY metagame, but is not available in ORAS due to it being an event move from generation IV. Sheer Cold Suicune would probably get its own set if we were catering to the XY metagame. Other examples include Kangaskhan with Seismic Toss and Entei with Extreme Speed.

This also means that every set we make here will be available in both metagames, and not have to worry about having 'ORAS' and 'XY' sets.

maybe one day we'll get access to Mega Glalie with Double-Edge
 

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