Is competitive Pokémon for me?

Hello everyone. I tried finding a more appropriate subforum for this question but I couldn't really think of anything. If this post is not meant here, no worries about removing it.

So basically, I used to play a lot of Pokémon when I was younger, up to gen 4. I have been watching some content on Youtube about competitive Pokémon, and with the new games out, I figured I would give it a try. Played through the game, and quite enjoyed it. I was honestly really looking forward to try my team out in some pvp battles. So when my Pokémon passed level 50, I figured I try some. My enthousiasm was quickly squashed. Whereas I used my regular playthrough team, all I got matched up against was teams that were cracked out of their minds. So many that had both the new legendaries, or teams essentially built around the one legendary they had. I literally did not play anyone who did not play like this, in probably 15 matches. Now I am not making this thread to cry about losing. I really don't mind, as I said I am not very experienced so I was very much expecting to lose a lot. But I literally couldn't even play. Those legendaries are cracked. And my team wasn't some random collection either, I did have a strategy, but I couldn't even begin to execute it since their Pokémon just outstat me.

Now all this ranting aside, basically my question is whether this is normal/expected. Are 99% of people just gonna use the most cracked rental team available? Is this the norm? Because if it is, then the game just isn't for me, I guess. Using teams other people put together/copying whatever is deemed good by others seems extremely boring to me. I'm sorry if this post comes across as very whiny. I'm honestly just very dissapointed, as I was looking forward to getting into competitive to some extent.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading and for any replies!

Edit; these were all doubles that I did.
 
The main deal with any kind of "competitive" scenario is that people play to win.
And in order to maximize chances to win, people will use what is the best.

If a given composition is considered overpowered or very good, you can expect to see a lot of it. It's also why it's called "meta" after all.
That's not just Pokemon, it's really any competitive game.
If you go look at last year VGC (or any year really) for example, you'll quickly notice how large majority of the top 32 teams use the same 20ish pokemon, and most notably a handful have > 70% presence with Incineroar featured in almost every single team.

If your idea of playing a game is to play for fun using your favourites... I'm afraid no kind of competitive scenario will be good for you. You'd be better off looking for friendly games with people you know or custom rulesets.
 
The main deal with any kind of "competitive" scenario is that people play to win.
And in order to maximize chances to win, people will use what is the best.

If a given composition is considered overpowered or very good, you can expect to see a lot of it. It's also why it's called "meta" after all.
That's not just Pokemon, it's really any competitive game.
If you go look at last year VGC (or any year really) for example, you'll quickly notice how large majority of the top 32 teams use the same 20ish pokemon, and most notably a handful have > 70% presence with Incineroar featured in almost every single team.

If your idea of playing a game is to play for fun using your favourites... I'm afraid no kind of competitive scenario will be good for you. You'd be better off looking for friendly games with people you know or custom rulesets.

Alright, guess that is the case for Pokémon. As for your argument that this is just the nature of any competitive game, that is just objectively not true. In literally every other pvp game that I've played, there are plenty of people that choose characters that are considered suboptimal, to outright bad, simply because they enjoy them. There is a spectrum, it's not either purely for fun or gun to your head win every game. I'm not exactly expecting to compete with the top 1%, or even top 50%, so I'm not sure why you're bringing up the top 32 at some pro tournament. You can do that by playing what you enjoy in the vast majority of competitive games, in my experience.
 
Alright, guess that is the case for Pokémon. As for your argument that this is just the nature of any competitive game, that is just objectively not true. In literally every other pvp game that I've played, there are plenty of people that choose characters that are considered suboptimal, to outright bad, simply because they enjoy them. There is a spectrum, it's not either purely for fun or gun to your head win every game. I'm not exactly expecting to compete with the top 1%, or even top 50%, so I'm not sure why you're bringing up the top 32 at some pro tournament. You can do that by playing what you enjoy in the vast majority of competitive games, in my experience.
And I'm not saying you "can't" do that in Pokemon.
Some people do bring suboptimal Pokemon on tournaments because they think they can make them work regardless of being bad. (No, Pachirisu doesn't count, that one was a thought decision).

But no matter what "you" do, most of the others won't. The bigger the playerbase of a given game, the more omogenous the gameplay will become at higher mmrs.
League of Legends has mains of all champions in Challenger, Pokemon sees <1% usage of several mons in tournaments, etc.
But for every "off meta" pick, there'll always be 90% of meta picks. That won't change, no matter what game you play.

Even something like Chess or Poker will constantly have the same kind of openers and strategies, because these are the ones that work.
 
I think there's two ways to look at competitive events. If you're actually wanting to win the entire setup, then yeah you probably need to use optimal strategies. But I often end up looking at the formats as an efficient way to get games in. It cuts out negotiating over how you want to play with each opponent: you've all mutually agreed to a specific ruleset by entering the ladder/tournament/etc.. If you go with the latter philosphy (competitive is a means, not an end), then the question isn't as much "is this team optimal?" as "can I have fun with this team in this format?" And unfortunately that's not a question I can answer for you (heck, I'm currently finding it hard to answer for myself in gen 9).
 
Hello everyone. I tried finding a more appropriate subforum for this question but I couldn't really think of anything. If this post is not meant here, no worries about removing it.

So basically, I used to play a lot of Pokémon when I was younger, up to gen 4. I have been watching some content on Youtube about competitive Pokémon, and with the new games out, I figured I would give it a try. Played through the game, and quite enjoyed it. I was honestly really looking forward to try my team out in some pvp battles. So when my Pokémon passed level 50, I figured I try some. My enthousiasm was quickly squashed. Whereas I used my regular playthrough team, all I got matched up against was teams that were cracked out of their minds. So many that had both the new legendaries, or teams essentially built around the one legendary they had. I literally did not play anyone who did not play like this, in probably 15 matches. Now I am not making this thread to cry about losing. I really don't mind, as I said I am not very experienced so I was very much expecting to lose a lot. But I literally couldn't even play. Those legendaries are cracked. And my team wasn't some random collection either, I did have a strategy, but I couldn't even begin to execute it since their Pokémon just outstat me.

Now all this ranting aside, basically my question is whether this is normal/expected. Are 99% of people just gonna use the most cracked rental team available? Is this the norm? Because if it is, then the game just isn't for me, I guess. Using teams other people put together/copying whatever is deemed good by others seems extremely boring to me. I'm sorry if this post comes across as very whiny. I'm honestly just very dissapointed, as I was looking forward to getting into competitive to some extent.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading and for any replies!

Edit; these were all doubles that I did.
The thing about in-game competitive is that... It's kind of the wild west out there.

Back in Gen 4, most of the teams I saw were pretty much nothing but legendary spam.

Don't get me wrong, you can 100% fold them like an omelet with your in-game team, but first, you gotta work on your stats. Look up EV training.

Don't worry too much about the opps right now, focus on making your team the best it can be and if you truly enjoy the competitive aspect.

When you start making your way to teams using better picks AND training you can decide what format you'll rock with. The options are endless. VGC, BSS, the Smogon tiers on Showdown...

Also, maybe there's a WiFi section in the forums covering in-game competitive play. They'll probably have top-tier advice for you. Don't get discouraged. :blobthumbsup:
 
Hello everyone. I tried finding a more appropriate subforum for this question but I couldn't really think of anything. If this post is not meant here, no worries about removing it.

So basically, I used to play a lot of Pokémon when I was younger, up to gen 4. I have been watching some content on Youtube about competitive Pokémon, and with the new games out, I figured I would give it a try. Played through the game, and quite enjoyed it. I was honestly really looking forward to try my team out in some pvp battles. So when my Pokémon passed level 50, I figured I try some. My enthousiasm was quickly squashed. Whereas I used my regular playthrough team, all I got matched up against was teams that were cracked out of their minds. So many that had both the new legendaries, or teams essentially built around the one legendary they had. I literally did not play anyone who did not play like this, in probably 15 matches. Now I am not making this thread to cry about losing. I really don't mind, as I said I am not very experienced so I was very much expecting to lose a lot. But I literally couldn't even play. Those legendaries are cracked. And my team wasn't some random collection either, I did have a strategy, but I couldn't even begin to execute it since their Pokémon just outstat me.

Now all this ranting aside, basically my question is whether this is normal/expected. Are 99% of people just gonna use the most cracked rental team available? Is this the norm? Because if it is, then the game just isn't for me, I guess. Using teams other people put together/copying whatever is deemed good by others seems extremely boring to me. I'm sorry if this post comes across as very whiny. I'm honestly just very dissapointed, as I was looking forward to getting into competitive to some extent.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading and for any replies!

Edit; these were all doubles that I did.
A few things:

In terms of using your favourite Pokemon, Smogon's tiering system has you covered: as an example, let's say you really like Charizard, but it just doesn't have the tools to compete in OU; you're free to use it in it's native tier, PU, where it's great! If you're a fan of a preevolution like Grookey or Electabuzz, you can use them to great effect in Little Cup (unevolved) and NFE (not fully evolved) respectively.

There's also Borderline (BL) Pokemon that are banned from their native tier, but don't have enough usage in above tiers to rise up. An example of this is Blaziken, which is banned from UU, but doesn't have enough usage to rise to OU, making it UUBL. Though niche, Pokemon like these aren't necessarily unusable in above tiers: though Blaziken struggles with Toxapex and passive damage, it can be scary when paired with a Toxapex counter like Landorus-T and strong hazard control. However, lower tier Pokemon are to be used sparingly, as you need to be able to cover for your lower tier Pokemon's flaws.

Keep in mind that, since it just came out, Scarlet and Violet haven't been tiered yet, so you'll either have to make do with OU and Ubers for now or wait until tiering takes effect.

It should also be noted that Wi-Fi battles and similar metas like Ubers are currently very polarised, as the gap between the best Pokemon (the box legendaries, Paradox Pokemon, select few others) and everything else is massive, making team options very limited. The situation will improve a great deal once SV is updated with Pokemon Home compatibility and the pool of Pokemon able to compete at the level of Koraidon and Miraidon increases.

If you're looking for resources, the Competitive Theory Thread contains some excellent resources on competitive play in general, and Smogon as a whole is bursting to the seams with resources on various formats and general competitive Pokemon theory. If you're struggling to wrap your head around the various subtle mechanics that are essential to playing competitive Pokemon, there are various guides on YouTube covering EVs, IVs, Natures, and whatever else.

Ultimately, I really hope you can find joy in competitive Pokemon the way I and so many of the other folks here have.
 

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