4th Gen Pre planned or on the fly?

[kyuubi93]

This idea came in my head watching MysticUmbreon's best team videos on YouTube, so I'd like to ask some questions to my fellow nostalgia trainers who still play through gen 4 for fun.

So,
How do you build your teams? Do you pre plan your team out to plow through the story and E4, or do you wing it?

I've built interesting teams both ways, my "pre planned" team is: (Platinum)
Infernape
Gastrodon/Gyarados
Garchomp
Jolteon
Weavile
Azelf

This is one of my favorite pre planned teams, my most recent play thru I used Gyara instead of Gastrodon to mix it up a bit, it was fun but overall that's my favorite team to use for when I just wanna dominate the game.

Other times I've mixed it up and made my team on the fly, I've made interesting teams. My most recent "on the fly" team that I can remember consisted of: (Platinum)
Luxray
Gliscor
Vaporeon
Houndoom
Girafarig
Weavile

This team I decided to box the starter and wing it, I really like the way the team panned out. It was a lot of fun to use.

So, how do you guys like to build your teams when replaying through these good ol' gen 4 stories?

 

[Saиdmaи]

I go for Pok?mon that I like and randomly encounter during a playthrough. That being said, if I
do have my mind set on a particular Pok?mon for some reason, I'll go out there and catch it.

The difficulty of the games is pretty low which means you can play as you want if you're a bit experienced.
I won't use these competitively post-game either way.

 

[Zeostar]

I only played Platinum once, so I'm pretty sure my team was random.

When I'm replaying a game, I have a general idea of what I'll encounter, so my team does end up planned as I play along.

 

[strangerhypno]

Planned + on the fly. I think about certain mons I want for sure, and then midway through I find other pokemon I want, sometimes replacing the original idea.

I decided a Gastrodon way past the half way point because I thought I'd have a water type by then but didn't. Gen IV has very few water types I like.

 

[bobandbill]

If I'm playing the game for the first time, mostly on the fly. I'll have some ideas on what I want to try, but I'll go with the flow. Mind you with the EXP Share in recent games I've often gone with 12 or even more Pokemon in my party. Heck, ORAS I went extreme (helped the dexnav was so fun) and literally used a box worth of Pokemon! I ended up at the same levels as the E4 when challenging them. Kinda overpowered, really...

If I'm replaying a game I have a team mapped out. Often to do with, say, doing a monotype challenge.

 

[Wapiti]

I'll normally make my team on the fly at the beginning, but will decide on some other Pokémon I want to catch as I progress through the game. My most recent team for Platinum was:
Torterra
Luxray
Floatzel
Houndoom
Togekiss
Gallade

 

[Amy May]

Platinum was my main game out of the 3.. Pearl was for speedrunning and continuous runs in general. In Pearl (HG & AS), most of my teams were completely planned out and sent to Pearl in the beginning.. if not as a bred egg team, then it was a team with pretty much their full wanted move set already on them. My team reason from run to run always varied.. but often done intentionally to make the game a pain in the butt.

 

[Sorviknight]

Hey! I watched his best team videos too, they're quite nice. :D I don't know, I think I'm kind of mixed between planning and improvising. I don't seek balance when planning a team though - mostly because of lazyness I guess - I just select the Pokémon I like and haven't used in a while and... that's pretty much it, really.

A pretty interesting team I remember that was mostly improvised was a Soul Silver team:

Typhlosion
Crobat
Yanmega
Persian
Dewgong
Marowak

I really liked this team, has some underrated Pokémon in it in my opinion.

One thing like to do while building my teams is always using a Pokémon that can learn Surf and another one that can learn Fly. If A single Pokémon can learn that, well, great! But they're rare instances.

 

[Reyzadren]

I always pre-plan the team for any game, but usually there will be some changes mid-game due to false assumptions about distribution, moves etc.

In gen 4, my initial diamond team was so way off the pre-plan, that I had to restart it before the Elite 4 because it was missing too many components (cross-gen evolutions, I'm looking at you), though I use this to form a more "correct" team for the next playthrough.

 

[Lrachelr5]

My teams tend to be a mix of slightly planned like if I know there are specific mons I want to use, and random because I use a random number generator and the numbers I get matched in the Pokedex are the pokemon that I will use. However, if I have used it before or think it won't fit on the team I have (or can't also be used as a pokemon for fly and surf) then I will reroll and keep going until I have a team of six

 

[Goatboy88]

I tend to go into a new playthrough with an idea of what i want to do/a certain type i want to use mostly and then i end up getting into other stuff and just roll with it. So, it starts off planned and then i end up finding something i want to use but didn't plan and by the end of the playthrough it's a mess but it's fun xd

 

[Sydian]

i restarted platinum a while back and picked pokemon just kind of based off what i looked at and got...inspired, i guess?? lmao like just kind of looked at the sinnoh dex and said 'yes. this. i want this.' so my planned team is empoleon, roserade, beautifly (actually wasn't part of the plan but i caught one and liked it and didn't wanna get rid of it so), girafarig, and toxicroak. i've been distracted with other games lately and haven't played in a while rip.