Competitive Battling Volume 6: Prediction

Repost! Originally published Tuesday, September 7th.

Ho boy. This is where it gets a bit complicated. People might tell you that Pokemon is a simple rpg that takes no skill. This is where you get to prove them wrong.

If team building is the filling of pokemon, than prediction is the whipped cream and cherry on top. You can rely on a good team and do sub-par, but you will NEVER be as good as those using an equally good team and outpredicting you. Prediction, at it's core, is actually very simple. Instead of doing what would make since in the situation, you guess what your opponent is thinking and make a choice based on what you think they will do.

Let's say that you switch into your Dragonite (with Dragon Dance, Outrage, Earthquake, and Fire Blast) to absorb a Return thrown at you by a Togakiss. Now your first instinct might be to attack with Outrage, but hold up! You've already seen that your opponent has a Bronzong. Chances are that the opponent will switch to that Bronzong to take the Outrage on. Use Fire Blast instead and the Bronzing will be toast.

So you finished off the Bronzong. There is something you should keep in mind. Your opponent switched to Bronzing most likely because Bronzing was his BEST COUNTER for Dragonite. Now this doesn't mean that this was his only counter, but if you have seen a bit of your opponent's team and only have one or two pokemon unaccounted for, it might be a safe bet to use Outrage, even with the 2-3 turn forced use of the move. What are the chances that he has two reliable Dragonite counters? Not horribly low, but not very high either. It's important to weigh the risk.

Example #2: Scizor vs. Heatran. Scizor switches to Slobro to tank the Flamethrower. Heatran switches Tangrowth to tank the Surf. Slowbro switches to Scizor to tank the Power Whip. Tangrowth switches to Heatran to tank the X-Scissor. Szicor swi- WAIT. If you're the Heatran player than don't just use Flamethrower. What happened last time? If you predict his switch to Slobro and use Earth Power instead then you'll have the upper edge. Then again he might stay in this time. If your the Scizor play, think about this. You switched to Slobro. Your opponent might assume you will do this again and use Earth Power or even Explosion instead. It might be a good idea to instead use Superpower if you have it. Then again the Heatran might be holding a Choice Scarf and be forced to use Flamethrower, or just chose to try and take down Scizor.

There is no way to perfectly predict someone. There will always be luck involved. One of the most important things to keep in mind is the risk reward ratio. Lets say you were the Heatran from the last example. If you use Fire Blast, you don't have much to lose. If he switches, just switch yourself (of course he might predict THAT and use Ice Beam on the incoming Tangrowth.) If he doesn't switch, you've netted a KO. One of the biggest mistakes newer players make is overprediction.

I hate to end on such a negative note. This is where battling get's fun anyways. I hope this will keep you covered until next week, when we will be beginning to close off the series with some advanced tricks and tactics.