How good is Smogon in re team planning?

[hooville]

I've been using Smogon to build a team, but I think that their "ideal builds" for certain pokemon are too rigid....and maybe that's because I don't have experience with competitive battles, but from what I remember of this game (the last pokemon battle I had was through a link cable...in the red/green/blue era), there's more than one way to skin a cat. I'm curious what opinions everyone here has of Smogon's suggested builds (in general) and if deviations from those are acceptable/passable in battles..

 

[Zeffy]

Smogon's sets is a great baseline for beginners. They show you immediately what works and what doesn't--it's basically a crash course of how a certain Pokemon works. If you're playing on Smogon tiers then it's best to stick with the standard Smogon sets until you get a good feel of the tier your playing on. Once you've determined what 'mons are often used and which movesets they often carry, and as long as you're comfortable with your teambuilding skills, then you can experiment around a bit with stuff that you think might work against them.

If you're playing online cartridge then I'd argue that almost anything can work there. :p

tl;dr keep playing using smogon sets until you know the tier you're playing on before you experiment with your own stuff