TF2 shifts

With the new “Jungle Inferno” Update rebalancing weapons and adding a handful of new ones, TF2 is making major shifts to become a major game in the competitive sphere again.

As the update progresses, I hope to post more about it but as of now, I got nothing.

Lets talk: Talonflame

Ah Talonflame, the premier OU sweeper. The Fire/Flying thats feared by most. Why? Gale wings. Whats that? Let’s dive in. When looking at the stats of Talonflame its pretty mediocre sans speed. With an 81 attack stats most STAB attacks will hurt any mons that don’t resist it and Fire/Flying is an exelent offensive typing.

now we talk about Gale Wings. woo boy gale wings. In Gen 6, gale wings gave every flying type attack Talonflame has +1 priority, this includes Roost and Tailwind witch in combination with the relitive bulk and good move pool, make them terrifying. The only problem is typing. fire/flying is TERRIBLE for a defensive mon. Half your health is spent on stealth rocks if they’re down and you don’t want any rock near you.

All and all, Talonflame is a terrifying mon and owns the meta of OU.

Top 10 Favorite Mons

now to make a list of my personal favorite Pokemon in numerical order

10. kricitune – DEDLEDLEWOOOOOOOOP

9. scizor – one of my favorite comp pokemon

8. mew – of course, the OG mythical

7. sylveon – my favorite fairy type

6. alteria – my favorite dragon

5. Dialga – My favorite legendary

4. stunfisk – my Actual favorite competitive pokemon

And now, my personal favorite.

3. Eevee – my absolute favorite unevolved pokemon since i actually got into pokemon

2. Empolion – easily my favorite water types and a good starter

1. Primarina – one of my favorite fairy types and my absolute favorite mons

Wobbafet

Ah wobbafet, the mon who single handedly broke the Gen 3 and 4 metagame. How? It’s ability, shadow tag is how. Shadow tag makes it so only Pokemon with the ability shadow tag can switch out. This, combined with the fact that wobbafet can’t actually deal direct damage broke the meta as technically, he has no counter.

Wobbafet’s two main sources of damage are the move counter (reflects back any physical move at double damage) and mirror coat (reflects back any special move at double damage). This combined with destiny bond (a move that feints the attacker if they feint you) made fighting a wobbafet incredibly dangerous.

Meta defining mons

There are a set of mons In the Pokemon meta game that define the meta of OU and Ubers and even create a new tier. If you’re creating a team in these tiers, these mons might be a good start

Snorlax: An extremely decent physical sweeper with good bulk. Thanks to the move curse, (a move witch lowers speed but raises attack and defense) Snorlax can become a terrifing threat with body slam, Rest (witch puts the user to sleep but fully heals you) and earthquake. In Gen 1 it dominated the OU meta game and is still an effective mon in OU.

Landorus-Therian: a terrifing mon in OU with 125 attack, blazing speed, excellent typing and access to swords dance witch doubles attack and earthquake, and Ice punch. Not much can stand in the way of this terrifying mon capable of OHKOing (one hit knock out) most non bulky mons and outspend most mons in the tier

Gardevoir-Mega: Certain mons in Gen 6, have been given a mega evolution. a newer, more powerful, form that lasts for the entire battle. Gardevoir is one of these mons. When it mega evolves, it gains even more special attack and speed than its already impressive stats and gains the ability Pixilate. witch turns normal type attacks into fairy. Gardevoir is already fairy witch makes these normal turned fairy attacks STAB (Same Type Attack Bonus) and gain 1.3x the damage. this combined with the normal type attack Hyper Voice make this mon terrifying to anything that isn’t Fire, steel or poison type (witch all resist fairy) but thanks to Gardevoir’s secondary type, psychic, super effective poison types and hit fire at least neutral with a STAB psychic make it a terrifying mon to face.

Rayquaza-Mega: This mon literally created a new tier: AG (anything goes). With 120 in each defense, blazing speed, the ability to hold an item and mega and balanced attack stats. nothing much needs to be said about this terrifying mon

Competitive Basics

Competitive Pokemon is a foreign and exotic place, filled with new and strange vocabulary. Knowing some of that might help.

Before the battle, you must pick your tier. There are 7 main tiers: PU, NU (near used), RU (Rarely used), UU (under used), OU (over used), and Ubers. Pokemon are assigned to each tier based on how many people use said mon. typically (but not totally), The better mons are higher up in the tiers (further from PU and closer to Ubers) so a mon like Aegislash (a mon in Ubers) is typically better than a mon like Rapidash (a mon in RU)

So you have your team and your ready to battle, once in a gam you must pick your Lead. A lead is the mon you send out first in a battle. They are typically either fast with high attack stats or slower with higher defenses. Leads are sent out so you can set up. Setting up is done by using certain attacks like Stealth Rocks or Spikes to make it harder for the enemy team to maintain an advantage. The faster mons with higher attack stats are given the name of Sweeper. Sweepers are mons that don’t typically need much to be an effective beyond a stat boosting move like Dragon Dance or Swords Dance. The more defensive mons are called Walls or Bulks. Bulks tend to deal damage by chipping away at the opposing mon using attacks like Leech seed or Toxic.

Now you can’t just send out whatever mon you want and win (at least not in the higher tiers). A good idea is to send out a mon to counter what you think the opponent will send out. Reading your opponent is the quintessential basis or Pokemon competitive. For instance, If you see your enemy has a Ferrothorn (a common Lead bulk in OU), you might want to send in your talon flame (a fast sweeper in OU) as it knows fire type attacks witch are extremely effective on Ferrothorn (Ferrothorn is Grass/Steel, 4x weak to fire).

with these terms you should be able to talk and understand competitive players

What is competitive Pokemon?

In case you didn’t know, Pokemon is a turn-based RPG game where your party is the titular creatures, Pokemon. Pokemon have a few things to set them apart from one another: BST (base stat total), EVs (Effort values), IVs (Individual values), Typing and Nature. All 5 of these things make Pokemon what they are, some of these are easy to understand while others aren’t.

BST: the Base stat total of a mon (Pokemon) is devided into 6 stats: HP, Attack, Defense, Special attack, Special defense and speed. The higher the stat, the better. every point gives a specific amount. 1 point in BST is equal to 2.56 points

Typing: Every mon belongs to at least one (some mons have two types) of the 18 types: Normal, Fighting, fire, water, grass, electric, ice, poison, ground, flying, psychic, bug, rock, ghost and dragon in the first games. after the first games, two more types were added: steel and dark. after the fifth games, the fairy type was added.

EVs: Effort Values are earned by defeting other mons in battle. Every mon, when defeated, will assign anywhere between 1 and 4 in any of the main 6 stats. 4 points of EVs give one point in the actual stat. Each Pokemon can have up to 252 EVs in one stat and a maximum of 508

IVs: Individual values are assigned to the mon upon their capture. each IV goes up to 31 in each stat with no maximum total or way to change the IVs easily. Each IV adds about 5 to the score.

Natures: Natures are easily the most daunting thing here. they are assigned to a mon upon encounter and each mon has one nature. A nature gives one stat a 10% increase to one stat but a 10% decrease to one other stat. some natures are nuetral and don’t change any stat

With this brief rundown, you have all you need to create a competitive mon