After Action Report

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cityscapes

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http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-624853225
What could I have done to avoid losing to Manaphy? It literally 2hkoed every member on my team. Or it it just one of those matchups where stall's answer is clicking the x button?
i think you should have tried to hit landorus with sableye's wisp. this would have made it much easier to play around like it would need to be at +4 to accomplish anything and you could keep clef at high hp (not to mention skarm), meaning that you would have an additional check to manaphy. protect was not the play because even if your opponent had clicked z fly, their landorus would not have posed as much of a threat against your team as it did because of the wasted z move. additionally, manaphy would have been unable to boost its speed with z rain dance leaving it vulnerable to dug.

additionally, i think you made a mistake in preserving sableye. seeing as toxic spikes were up, preventing sableye from burning stuff, there wasn't really much it could do aside from switching into tales to block hypnosis. if you had sacked it then brought in clef with no rain, you could have potentially beat the manaphy by stalling with wish + protect (surf in rain doesn't 2hko through wish + 2 turns of leftovers, you get an opportunity to attack when the rain stops).
 
I've been working on a team, using Mega Lopunny. The team works, sometimes, but I feel like my losses with the team are due to poor decisions on my part and not due to the team members.
Ichigo (Lopunny-Mega) (F) @ Lopunnite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Encore
- Power-Up Punch
- Return
- High Jump Kick

Kishida (Greninja-Ash) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Water Shuriken
- Spikes

Ranko (Magearna) @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shift Gear
- Focus Blast
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam

Hayapi (Tangrowth) (F) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Giga Drain
- Knock Off
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Earthquake

mi-cyan (Latios) @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Defog
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock

N Majinn (Landorus-Therian) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 240 HP / 216 Def / 24 SpD / 28 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn

It's a balance team with two good pivots. I might try out a volt switch user instead of Magerna but so far I like the team. Here it is doing more or less what it's supposed to do. Lop can pressure more defensive team members while Lando can handle most physical attackers. Greninja throws out a lot of pressure as well. But most of my replays with this team lately are losses, but this is the loss that most tilted me, and inspired me to post in this thread asking for help.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7oususpecttest-627799795
In this replay, I feel like I made two critical mistakes that I couldn't come back from (I probably made more than that, but more on that in a second) The first one was, at the very start, when it was Tapu Lele VS Landorus. My thought was to get up SR, because if it was scarf it wouldn't KO me....of course it was Specs and it one shot me. I didn't have any intel on it (and even scarf does 80%, somehow my brain was thinking "It'll use an ice move, because everyone spams ice moves VS lando, I can live and get my rocks up") Sadly I was wrong, it was specs and I paid the price for it. The second mistake was in turn 10, when I used Encore. Then, the next turn, I used Power Up Punch, and got hit by Drill peck....this was VERY risky because if it had been Brave Bird like the standard skarm, my Lopunny would have also taken a huge chunk of damage...but I mostly wanted to just see what his skarmory set was. Basically, how can I get better intel on my opponent's team without taking such huge risks? Leaving Lando in, giant risk for little reward. Using Encore on Heatran, not really high risk, but leaving Lop in vs Skarmory was definitely a risk, but I felt like I had to do it since Lando was gone.

Another problem I had in this particular replay is Mantine. For some reason Mantine is really difficult to kill. After I lost Lop and Magerna, I didn't have any way to take it on....at least I didn't think I did. Once I figured out I couldn't kill mantine, I think I tilted and started making a lot of really stupid plays to annoy it. Right down to spamming dark pulse against it, hoping for double flinch.
 

Leo

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I've been working on a team, using Mega Lopunny. The team works, sometimes, but I feel like my losses with the team are due to poor decisions on my part and not due to the team members.
Ichigo (Lopunny-Mega) (F) @ Lopunnite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Encore
- Power-Up Punch
- Return
- High Jump Kick

Kishida (Greninja-Ash) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Water Shuriken
- Spikes

Ranko (Magearna) @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shift Gear
- Focus Blast
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam

Hayapi (Tangrowth) (F) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Giga Drain
- Knock Off
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Earthquake

mi-cyan (Latios) @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Defog
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock

N Majinn (Landorus-Therian) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 240 HP / 216 Def / 24 SpD / 28 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn

It's a balance team with two good pivots. I might try out a volt switch user instead of Magerna but so far I like the team. Here it is doing more or less what it's supposed to do. Lop can pressure more defensive team members while Lando can handle most physical attackers. Greninja throws out a lot of pressure as well. But most of my replays with this team lately are losses, but this is the loss that most tilted me, and inspired me to post in this thread asking for help.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7oususpecttest-627799795
In this replay, I feel like I made two critical mistakes that I couldn't come back from (I probably made more than that, but more on that in a second) The first one was, at the very start, when it was Tapu Lele VS Landorus. My thought was to get up SR, because if it was scarf it wouldn't KO me....of course it was Specs and it one shot me. I didn't have any intel on it (and even scarf does 80%, somehow my brain was thinking "It'll use an ice move, because everyone spams ice moves VS lando, I can live and get my rocks up") Sadly I was wrong, it was specs and I paid the price for it. The second mistake was in turn 10, when I used Encore. Then, the next turn, I used Power Up Punch, and got hit by Drill peck....this was VERY risky because if it had been Brave Bird like the standard skarm, my Lopunny would have also taken a huge chunk of damage...but I mostly wanted to just see what his skarmory set was. Basically, how can I get better intel on my opponent's team without taking such huge risks? Leaving Lando in, giant risk for little reward. Using Encore on Heatran, not really high risk, but leaving Lop in vs Skarmory was definitely a risk, but I felt like I had to do it since Lando was gone.

Another problem I had in this particular replay is Mantine. For some reason Mantine is really difficult to kill. After I lost Lop and Magerna, I didn't have any way to take it on....at least I didn't think I did. Once I figured out I couldn't kill mantine, I think I tilted and started making a lot of really stupid plays to annoy it. Right down to spamming dark pulse against it, hoping for double flinch.
Hey, nice to see this project getting some activity, let's see if I can help you a bit. First of all, I think some of your problems start from your team choice. Your team looks like a good start considering you aren't too experienced but it seems to have some trouble against Balance and Stall since you lack the initial power to break through walls. For instance, a well played Tangrowth has the potential to wall your entire team. PuP Lop is your best way to annoy walls and it's very unreliable as you saw in your replay. Latios is an awkward choice considering you don't need Defog and your Gren has Spikes, so I would probs replace that. The concept is ok but theres stuff that just feels like it shouldnt be there (ik its hard to explain this lol) like that Latios and Lop+Ash Gren (2 mons that pressure offense but struggle to break defensive cores despite having pup and spikes respectively), which makes fat stuff like mantine rly annoying. After watching your replay and reading what you had to say about it I think you have an idea of what youre doing wrong, which is good. Most of your unnecessary plays that put you in the back had to do with poor teambuilding. For example trying to set up with Magearna early despite your opp having a likely lrod marowak because the rest of your team couldnt break mantine+skarm. However, theres still some plays that didnt make sense at all. The Landorus play turn 1 was weird because you had no reason to let your Lando take damage when you had AV Tang and Magearna in the back, you could just switch out and get rocks later. Staying in with Lopunny and later Latios on mzam when tang just walls, etc. I think you need to think long term more before throwing your mons left and right, I feel like you have the tools to handle some threats but refuse to use them and instead just sack your mons after they fail to break your opponent's team. Preserving your win cons is very important, though in that game you didnt really have anything that put work vs the opponent outside of praying he misplayed vs lop.
Basically just get a better team (from samples/ask someone for one) that can help you get more experience playing and think twice before making any play. Keep track of the mons you need (your wincons) and the mons you need to eliminate from your opponents team to sweep/clean (this looks simple in a vacuum but in a real game scenario its not ususally just killing x mon and winning). Good luck!
 

TPP

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Hi, you're already on the right track on improving by asking here so good job for that :)

So first off, your opponent's team ended up being a bit weird since he didn't have a Z move user nor did he have a scarf user, and looking at his team, anyone would normally expect Lele to be Scarf or even a Z move. For Turn 1, or against Lele in general with your specific team, because you have a Tangrowth, you have the ability to send in Tangrowth to tank a hit and then use that to determine what set he is. So you'd save Lando (which you would want for Marowak) and you'd learn his set. Tangrowth (and Toxapex) are mons that can help you with finding out an opponent's set since they can both usually tank a hit and they have Regenerator to undo the damage. So in situations where you're unsure of their set and you know they can live regardless of the set, then you can send them in (assuming you don't have a better answer/switch in). Lando can fit a similar role for physical attackers to an extent, but for mixed or even special attackers that won't 1HKO it, it's usually safer to scout with Tangrowth instead of risking Lando.

One other thing you might've noticed is that your opponent didn't have a Dark resist on his team, meaning Greninja can spam Dark Pulse without too much worry aside from Mantine. So that earlier turn where you clicked Hydro Pump, you could've either gone for Dark Pulse, or doubled into something else knowing that he wouldn't stay in and that he'd go into Mantine. Speaking of Mantine, technically your only ways of killing it are Magearna's Thunderbolt, Lopunny's Return, and Greninja's Dark Pulse flinching at least once with Stealth Rocks on the field. To help with this, you can run Thunderbolt over Roost on Latios, which not only helps KO Mantine, but it would also help with Skarmory and wearing down Heatran (Thunderbolt will do more against non Specially Defensive Heatran, which you were unfortunate to face since it's the only Heatran set that survives Magearna's Z-Focus Blast) and Magearna.

Personally I wouldn't let this loss stress you out much since your opponent's team was harder for your team to face, with not only SpD Tran but Alola Marowak, thus making it extremely hard for Magearna to sweep, along with Mantine, which your team struggles to take down outside of Magearna. Mega Alakazam outspeeding everything along with Specs Lele (where non specs might be expected) look annoying, but they weren't actually that bad since you can usually send in Tangrowth first (which can get worn down by Specs Psychic, so be careful with that next time) and then Greninja or Magearna depending on the situation.

Hope this helped a bit and if you have any more questions or replays, you are more than free to share them with us.
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
it's been too long

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-687141595

team: http://pokepast.es/c91da4d174a32bc2

ou room tour match. i think that i played all right, but there were definitely some improvements to be made.

my main question is this: how could i have better contained my opponent's scarf kartana over the course of the game? this mon posed a pretty huge threat to my team and i think my failure to get rid of it was the main contributing factor to my loss.

another thing i'm wondering about is how to handle hawlucha with this team. this team pretty much just loses if lucha gets up an sd, so i'm not sure what to change to beat lucha without compromising the integrity of the team too much.

thanks in advance
 
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-682212794
Oldish replay, don’t have the team on this phone sorry. I built the team to be more of a bulky offense build to take on more hits. I’m not sure how I could played the end game better. Losing Tangrowth early felt like a mistake but it lost to every special attacker on my opponent’s team. Also made a mistake by sacking the wrong pokemon towards the end to a kartana, let it get to +2 before switching in my Celesteela.
 
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