PPL Australia 2015

[johann82]

And why no ice? :O
<3 Lapras since '99

[Kaka]

Lapras has been a favourite since I picked up red and blue back.... Shit I think I still have my original lapras. She's a sweety.

Baton pass teams? Spikes and trix. I figure someone is gonna have them. Factored them into my equations for the water team I am proposing. Heh heh heh. So many glorious tricks and sneaky things. frank Underwood would be proud.

Like Phil keeps telling me when I badger him, the leader board will open when the offers go out and advice and fine tuning can happen. I'm holding off on EV training until then. I don't want to have to rebreed or find a wiper and waste a bout of pokerus.

[Volucris]

Remember to have faith in your teams guys!

Fine tuning will help but it sounds to me like most people have given quite a lot of thought into how your teams will run. I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that not all of your opponents will be competitive battlers. Maybe just catching and training a weaker, non competitive copy of your mons is a good idea, but as for in depth battle strategies, you're obviously thinking about them already so you're on the right track. You can't plan for everything, especially with a mono type or theme restricting you, all you can do is fine tune your team to be as cohesive as possible.

You will loose to some really good people but you've gotta start with your team and give everyone a purpose. Then I find practice practice practice is just as good for refining a team as advice.

[kirby4life]

I've been prepping my team all year... Gym leader or not, I'm using them at Prime and AUS!! (>^~^)>

[Kaka]

Volc, absolutly true. To me, leaders in the show are not just about a challenge of skill and strength. Sure in the games it's a battle of skill, power and endurance. Leaders to me are defeated when through skill, cunning and understanding of a trainer and his or her Pokemon shines through. That shining bond may well be enough to defeat the bond between the leader and his or her pokemon... It may not. It may be that a leader is shown the true heart of a trainer..... Yeah I'm spouting plot line. But if I get to wear the green scarf this year, I intend to take 2 primary criteria of issuing a badge. I plan to have the strongest team I can on my theme. Covering my ass, dealing with weaknesses, showing mastery of my chosen gimmick like a game leader. If you beat that, you have shown that innate understanding.

For the more casual player. I have two choices, I can play my strategy incorrectly..... I don't like this, or I can show my own heart and hope to see my challengers heart. Win or lose if they show me they love and have trust in their mons, that deserves a badge. If that makes sense?

For me tuning would mean testing switches and strategy... Making sure I'm solid but not unbeatable.

[Volucris]

Yeah, that's what it was like last year. You see trainers who are super keen, clearly love the game and love their team coming up against competitive mons it was unfortunate for me to just swat half their team with a vileplume (happened more often than you'd think...flower be cray). But they gave a good show and I gave a badge all the same. And a lot of players with fun teams (sooo many all eeveelution teams! And a ditto team), as soon as I see that I know they're getting a badge, cause it's clearly a fun team and there's no sense judging a fun team by their ability to beat a competitively designed gym.

It'll take some maneuvering with other gym leaders and whatnot but my forest team (grass team) has two ideas, one for competitive players and another team of different mons for casual players (but more directly related to the theme, and would tie in with my first team in some aspects...it's a complicated plot I've designed for my leader XD).

Having said that I don't want to hog the grass type XD two copies of the same team could also work, one trained properly and one not. The hope is that with a completely non competitively trained team (no ivs or evs, but still have planned sets) that the experience for those more casual players becomes more of an even challenge. Last year I thought I'd dealt with that but no matter how bad the design of the team if it's trained properly it's still too strong of an advantage. This time it should prove a fun, but appropriately strong gym leader style challenge for all players, and that's what I'm aiming for.

Good thing is a fun team is easy to design and build, a competitive team takes practice and testing, so focusing the majority of your planning efforts on that makes sense.
Stoked to see the callbacks and equally stoked if I'm a leader this year to see the designs of leaders and teams people bring. Last year all the different outfits and characters was half the fun XD

[johann82]

Yeh it all boils down to while you want to be a challenge to most trainers, you can't be a push over. But at the same time it defeats the purpose of the PPL if you make a team that is going to roll every trainer that comes against you.
So long as you provide a challenge and push the trainer to the best of their abilities I think you can be proud of your team win or lose. Losing a close game can be more forfiling then an easy victory

[snowyalice]

I have been down the pushover route and I can say its actually fun.

[guthy]

and another thing with mono types - having a mono type team isn't a restriction really if you think about it.
you only have to worry about your type specifically; what are you weak to, what are you strong against, what aren't you strong against and what isn't strong against you.
keeping these things in mind when you flesh out your types will make your team much much stronger.

eg.
moves like wide guard on a flying team to block rock slide and rapid spin to remove stealth rocks.
having a lightning-rod water type on the water team to soak up electric type moves.
having a rock team and knowing you are a slow type so running rock polish or trick room.
running rain dance on a electric team to get thunder up to 100% acc.

mono type teams can be amazing if you put a little thought into them.

cant wait to see the types and teams selected

[Volucris]

I can attest to the above point: throw in a little levitate to dodge ground types, a bug type to counter psychic types (deathapede!) And poison types can actually be very tricky to deal with