Is conventional competitive wisdom wrong?

[Simba]

So, I've been looking through the World Championships articles on Bulbapedia and noticed something -- pretty much every winner ever had a team solely consisting of Sweepers, usually several Physical and one or two Special.

No trappers.
No clerics.
No walls.
No entry hazards.

No nothing. No strategy at all, apparently. Just hard-hitting Physical Sweepers, and a few Special Sweepers. And heck, most of the championship Pokemon were holding berries.

On Smogon and stuff, I always see balanced teams, lots of tricksy stuff, and Choice items and stuff out the wazoo. The Pokemon that win the World Tournaments seem sub-competitive compared to the craziness of Smogon et. al.

Is it simply that hardcore competitive types don't participate in the official tournaments or what?

 

[AnybodyAgrees]

The VGC is Doubles, whereas Smogon is Singles. VGC is also 4v4 instead of 6v6. OU strategies rarely work in the VGC, and vice versa.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

No doubles is an extremely offensive and fast-paced meta, it is very different than 6v6 Singles. There is very little switching and whatnot and b/c double targeting can bring down even the bulkiest of Pokémon pretty quickly, the best players in VGCs use a;most exclusively offensively powerful Pokémon. It's like comparing apples and oranges.

 

[Simba]

Oh, okay. I didn't know Smogon guys didn't do any doubles whatsoever.

Thanks.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

Oh, okay. I didn't know Smogon guys didn't do any doubles whatsoever.

Thanks.

They do. In fact a lot of their strategies are used in the VGCs. If you look through their Strategy Pokédex for B/W, you'll see that some Pokémon have analyses for VGC 2012 or 2013 or whatever and they'll typically be highly offensive doubles sets or things that spam Spore, etc.

 

[Simba]

Oh, okay. I didn't know Smogon guys didn't do any doubles whatsoever.

Thanks.

They do. In fact a lot of their strategies are used in the VGCs. If you look through their Strategy Pokédex for B/W, you'll see that some Pokémon have analyses for VGC 2012 or 2013 or whatever and they'll typically be highly offensive doubles sets or things that spam Spore, etc.

Spam Spore? But what about the Sleep Clause?

 

[Wispy Willow]

Oh, okay. I didn't know Smogon guys didn't do any doubles whatsoever.

Thanks.

They do. In fact a lot of their strategies are used in the VGCs. If you look through their Strategy Pokédex for B/W, you'll see that some Pokémon have analyses for VGC 2012 or 2013 or whatever and they'll typically be highly offensive doubles sets or things that spam Spore, etc.

Spam Spore? But what about the Sleep Clause?

Well, there is no Sleep clause in VGC battles (as far as I'm aware).

 

[Simba]

Oh, okay. I didn't know Smogon guys didn't do any doubles whatsoever.

Thanks.

They do. In fact a lot of their strategies are used in the VGCs. If you look through their Strategy Pokédex for B/W, you'll see that some Pokémon have analyses for VGC 2012 or 2013 or whatever and they'll typically be highly offensive doubles sets or things that spam Spore, etc.

Spam Spore? But what about the Sleep Clause?

Well, there is no Sleep clause in VGC battles (as far as I'm aware).

Oh yeah, the only restrictions on official tourneys are no Legendaries and no Soul Dew. Surprised there weren't more Uber Excadrills or Blazikens in the B/W VGC tournament, then.

Man, no Sleep Clause. That's scary. With my luck with status Moves, any opponent I might face would just Sleep my entire team, then pick them off one by one, and they'd never wake up.

 

[Wispy Willow]

If you think the opponent will send out, say, a Breloom with Spore just try to take it out quickly: remember, VGC is (mostly) 4v4 Doubles so said Breloom will only be able to put ONE of your 'mons to Sleep while the other can (hopefuly) KO it.

 

[Simba]

I'm more concerned about singles. If I don't have something fast enough, my entire team could get slept. Then again, in random battles and even official battles in Gen VI, Kangaskahnite and Gengarite and Lucarionite aren't banned, even though Smogon has demonstrated that those are game-breakingly powerful, basically-can't-be-defeated-if-you-use-them-right Pokemon. Official tourneys are gonna be rough this gen.

 

[Gomez16]

Does that mean no one does tripple battles?

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

Does that mean no one does tripple battles?

Triples can be done on The Battle Spot of the game's Wi-Fi, but VGC play is 4v4 Doubles and competitive play is 6v6 Singles.