Improve your Battling: Replay Critique

Hopefully ya don't mind if I post another one in here already:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oususpecttest-234264816

I though I was doing alright in the beginning there but then it seems something went wrong and I lost.

Charcoal Embers said:

I honestly don't 100% know what went wrong with this battle. I used the exact same team against him when I fought a VERY similar team, and did a whole lot better.

QAYW WWWW WW22 86YT

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I think that having Metagross be your mega would've been better. That probably sounds strange since half of Scraggy's team is Fire type, and that's probably why you chose Swampert to be your mega that match. Swampert threatens his team plenty in non-mega form. But because Mega Swampert needs the rain to function, you made yourself also lead with Sableye. Could've saved it for something else.

Agility Mega Metagross easily threatens most of his team due to the increased bulk, Attack, Speed, and Tough Claws upon mega evolution. You could've actually killed Talonflame on turn 10 if you used Mega Meta, instead of taking like 80% damage plus getting burned. Earthquake takes care of 2 of his Fire types, none of his Fairies wanna take Tough Claws boosted Steel STAB, and at +4 Speed it's outspeeding everything on his team even with Tailwind up.

Also Air Slash is a crappy move on any Charizard set.

Nah said:

Hopefully ya don't mind if I post another one in here already:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oususpecttest-234264816

I though I was doing alright in the beginning there but then it seems something went wrong and I lost.

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First off, I'd like to take a moment to praise your team building this time around. You had awesome defensive coverage and were really playing out of your typical sweet spot, so it was amazing seeing you do this well with the team you chose (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

Choice Scarf Starmie, eh? That's a new one to me. I think that fishing for the Scald burn cost you the match in the end, along with failing to identify your opponent's win condition, which was to take out your Clefable and Ferrothorn. Although, you weren't running Iron Head... I would consider that for next time since Altaria is very much in vogue right now. Maybe in place of Knock Off?

Plays-wise, I would have recommended playing more conservatively in the Rotom/Ferro matchup. I was honestly surprised you had Protect at all because of how little you took advantage of free Leech Seed turns. Were you concealing that for surprise factor?

skyburial said:

First off, I'd like to take a moment to praise your team building this time around. You had awesome defensive coverage and were really playing out of your typical sweet spot, so it was amazing seeing you do this well with the team you chose (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

Choice Scarf Starmie, eh? That's a new one to me. I think that fishing for the Scald burn cost you the match in the end, along with failing to identify your opponent's win condition, which was to take out your Clefable and Ferrothorn. Although, you weren't running Iron Head... I would consider that for next time since Altaria is very much in vogue right now. Maybe in place of Knock Off?

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I, uh....I didn't make that team. Same with the one in the previous replay. Don't be so quick to praise me. It was recommended to me to use those 2 teams in order to (hopefully) improve my skills.

The Starmie's not a Choice Scarf one though. It's a Reflect Type Starmie. Was kinda hoping that the Scald would burn early since that'd cripple the Altaria, but of course hax never goes the way you want it. There was another battle where I had to use Scald like 9 times before the opponent's Pokemon was burned. -_-

And the Ferrothorn originally did have Gyro Ball on it, but I swapped that with Power Whip to slap Waters with since it didn't look to me like the team liked Waters....though you're probably right that Steel STAB would be more helpful.

Plays-wise, I would have recommended playing more conservatively in the Rotom/Ferro matchup. I was honestly surprised you had Protect at all because of how little you took advantage of free Leech Seed turns. Were you concealing that for surprise factor?

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What exactly do you mean by more conservatively? Like more Protect and less Power whip, or......?

Nah said:

What exactly do you mean by more conservatively? Like more Protect and less Power whip, or......?

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In this case, yes. The resource conserved in competitive Pokemon is your team. You were gaining ground quicker than your opponent was in that leech seed gambit, so some more Protects might have saved your Ferro for Altaria and other stuff.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oususpecttest-235698798

um, this is kind of embarrassing :( but i won't be able to sleep at night lol
i kind of wanna know if i really have an answer for charizard at all on that team or if i was just dicking around or if it was a bit inevitable lol

Definitely one of the problems was letting Landorus take that Leaf Storm. It left it weak and unable to set up Stealth Rock again/take on Charizard. Combining that with letting it set up one too many DD on you you had no chance. But you played perfectly imo up to the point!

mystletainn said:

Definitely one of the problems was letting Landorus take that Leaf Storm. It left it weak and unable to set up Stealth Rock again/take on Charizard. Combining that with letting it set up one too many DD on you you had no chance. But you played perfectly imo up to the point!

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yeah!! agreed :( i feel like i don't have a serperior switch-in at all though but i might be wrong lol :x so i don't know what else i could have done in that situation i guess, maybe sack a thing but i don't think that far ahead yet lool (also ty luke :3)

I think that I fought that team once before, though idr if I won or lost lol

Yoshikko said:

yeah!! agreed :( i feel like i don't have a serperior switch-in at all though but i might be wrong lol :x so i don't know what else i could have done in that situation i guess, maybe sack a thing but i don't think that far ahead yet lool (also ty luke :3)

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I agree with Luke, you did perfectly fine until you let Lando take that Leaf Storm and then his Charizard came in. You do have a good Serperior switch-in in Mega Venusaur since it 4x resists Grass and Thick Fat makes Hidden Power Fire weak and can demolish it with Sludge Bomb.

Yoshikko said:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oususpecttest-235698798

um, this is kind of embarrassing :( but i won't be able to sleep at night lol
i kind of wanna know if i really have an answer for charizard at all on that team or if i was just dicking around or if it was a bit inevitable lol

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Yeah a bit of a bad missplay i think cost you that.

Venusaur shits on all serperior sets (even +2 HP Fire does nothing due to thick fat) so im unsure why you let Lando-T take it. That could have indeed saved you the game because Lando is the only thing on your team that walls Zard-X.

Also you could have kept spamming Icy Wind when he was DDing on Keld for the repeated speed drops simply so you could at least revenge kill it and not let it set up.

Also talk about Wobbuffet missplays on your opponents part too. -.-

yeah LOL i remembered i had venusaur on the bike i guess i had a brain derp rofl, thanks everyone and also lol da ikr @ wobbuffet. idk i rewatched it and i could have easily switched venu in :(( ty!!!

Is there something I could have done better? I thought I had the battle in the bag, but the end of it just... fell apart.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-238822783

Charcoal Embers said:

Is there something I could have done better? I thought I had the battle in the bag, but the end of it just... fell apart.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-238822783

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I don't think you made very good use of Whimsicott considering that your opponent was running full sand.

You should have ducked out while you had Trick Room up in turn 2. What was your Jellicent's set?

Also sadly your team wasn't really built to take full sand :( so you did admirably, all things considered.

skyburial said:

I don't think you made very good use of Whimsicott considering that your opponent was running full sand.

You should have ducked out while you had Trick Room up in turn 2. What was your Jellicent's set?

Also sadly your team wasn't really built to take full sand :( so you did admirably, all things considered.

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Jellicent (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Scald
- Hex
- Recover

Charcoal Embers said:

Jellicent (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Scald (Will-o-Wisp)
- Hex (Shadow Ball)
- Recover

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I'd recommend one and only one of the changes in bold. Also, Jellicent and Ampharos are both bulky enough to invest in mixed bulk. Your current set is a little too reliant on RNG luck.

i haven't forgotten about this thread, just very busy irl rn.

Archy said:

Alright, I think that my last PCL match was played poorly. I would like to know what I did wrong. Here's the replay and thanks for your time. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pokecommunity-ou-177398

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i thought you played this pretty fantastically actually, killing the talon (who you might want to pack at least a check for lol) was very clutch. the crit screwed you completely though getting heatran weakened sucked, but what can you do.

Archy said:

Alright, I think that my last PCL match was played poorly. I would like to know what I did wrong. Here's the replay and thanks for your time. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pokecommunity-ou-177398

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archer you are becoming p good with these recent battles imo, although superpower sd mega sciz can completely destroy that team :( i also agree that crit on keldeo sucked lol :(

Yeah....this is another one of those "I thought that I was doing alright and then shit fell apart" battles:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-239569615

It's also 105 turns so don't watch unless you've got time

Nah said:

Yeah....this is another one of those "I thought that I was doing alright and then muk fell apart" battles:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-239569615

It's also 105 turns so don't watch unless you've got time

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I'm glad you posted this.

The biggest thing I noticed watching this battle is how many of the plays were tactical (short-term) plays that were actually poor strategic (long-term) plays. Tactics are very important but have to be grounded in what you want to achieve in a specific match. This is where risk/reward comes into play and is also very important.

My laptop doesn't have much battery left, so for now this will have to be truncated, but the two big problems I noticed almost immediately (well be before your team caved in) were:

1.) You did not keep your team healthy.

2.) You yielded too many free turns. (You were reacting too much and not thinking about how to put pressure on him at all, which stall can do in its own ways.)

The first point is really important. Since stalls cannot provide momentum to their user even when they are controlling the game, you need to be able to take hits. Pokemon at 61% can't take hits as well as Pokemon at 100%. It sounds asinine, but you begin to lose margin of error very quickly when you let your defensive core get weakened. To give just one example, on Turns 46 and 47, you let the Starmie get to 18% and are forced to switching out, when Turn 46 really needed to be a Recover. The next time Heatran came in, it got a free kill on Hippowdon. Stall is not offense where strategic sacrifices are basically a part of the team style. While you will have to do that playing stall, that's the thing: you only want to do it when you have to. Another example was the Mega Sableye/Slowking sequence, where you let it get wasted by a Pokemon you had two other checks for (which should have killed Sableye for the match but your opponent played it terribly late game). Sableye basically ate his team alive too with the exception of Altaria.

The second point popped up as early as Turn 1, with Wish being a superior play to Moonblast. Since his team only has one Clefable counter anyway (Heatran), you had opportunities to be at least a little more aggressive in the numerous moments where you gave it a free switch-in. I don't feel like this was as costly, and it's better to stick with safe plays, but the Leech Seeds on Chesnaught and the Moonblasts on Heatran kept giving free turns, and Heatran was putting some pressure on you. I don't have time to get into this one so sorry, but if you want to go through it yourself and find examples of this point (and the other), it would probably be more helpful than me just going turn-by-turn through it.

ok so I was frustrated I lost this battle..... I think I should have made better switches and put in a cleric on the team but you guys can be the judge of that. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-243506329

TopoftheFlops said:

ok so I was frustrated I lost this battle..... I think I should have made better switches and put in a cleric on the team but you guys can be the judge of that. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-243506329

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Losing Heatran was the big thing to me. It straight up counters half of his team and losing it means you lost a valuable defensive tool, and outside of Heatran you had little to stop his Clefable+Venusaur pair with. I don't really get why you kept it in on his Gliscor when it outspeeds (defensive) Tran, always carries Earthquake, and can comfortably take any attack defensive Heatran can dish out.

Clefable is also not a terribly good answer to Venusaur when it carries STAB Sludge Bomb and outspeeds it and he has a Heatran sitting in the back. He didn't even have to keep Venusaur in since he could've switched Heatran in for basically a free Flash Fire boost. I think that you also should've gone for Scald on turn 14 instead of Thunder Wave. His team isn't terribly concerned about paralysis (Scizor included), and a burn would've been much more crippling to it.

As for team composition, you could probably use some sort of hazard removal, and if you need a cleric Clefable fills that role nicely.


Someone else may come along and have more (and better) advice.