Introduction / Foundational Concepts

Does one Pokémon “beat” another? It depends.

On the other hand, situations in battles are also heavily dependent on context, in a way that often has deep consequences at the teambuilding stage. Pokémon are selected on a team for a purpose-- they are chosen because of some desired effect in battle. For example, our team might be weak to Metagross, which is part Steel-type, so we’re going to add Landorus-Therian to counter it. After you come up with a reason for a Pokémon, you might think about some scenarios in battle in which it would be useful. We know that Landorus-Therian can outspeed and deal about 70% of Metagross’ health with an Earthquake, which we might deem acceptable.

It isn’t always that easy, though. Even simple questions about how a Pokémon on a team operates in battle frequently come down to the context of the situation. Does Landorus beat Metagross in all situations? Well, on the surface, Landorus-Therian is a Ground-type Pokémon, and Metagross is a Steel-type Pokémon, so it will probably have a good shot. What if the Metagross has Ice Punch? Then it could knock out our Landorus if it gets a chance to attack. What situations can it attack in? If it’s still on the field after an Earthquake, if it’s in Tailwind or Trick Room.

Those are different contexts than we first thought of when we picked Landorus for its type advantage. We’d have to think about how often those situations could come up, or whether Metagross will run Ice Punch in the first place. 

Furthermore, Double Battles are extremely dynamic. To take our example further, what if Metagross is next to a Pokémon that threatens Landorus and moves first? What if Trick Room is up and Metagross attacks first? What if there’s a Fake Out Pokemon, so Landorus can’t attack Metagross this turn, but next turn it can? These are just a few of the many different contexts Landorus and Metagross could appear together in, and a savvy teambuilder will understand which of them they’re likely to run into in battle-- and, based on the rest of their team, what the potential solutions are. This is inherently linked to the skill called theorymon/theorymonning, which is when you visualize these battling scenario contexts ahead of time. A highly skilled theorymonner could theoretically find success in tournament play with a team built without playing any practice battles. In practice, however, theorymonning and practice battling go hand in hand, as it’s impossible to think ahead and generate every context that a Pokémon might appear in.

Is there any way to beat a Pokémon 100% of the time? How do you even approach countering another Pokémon? We talk about that in this teambuilding article.

Next Steps

How do you get better at theorymon, and at understanding the context of inherently complex double battles? There are two options. The first is to play a lot of VGC games-- over time, you’ll be able to understand how the pieces interact, think about them flexibly, and to understand your opponent’s goals. Then you’ll be able to simulate battles better in your head during teambuilding. The second way is to spend a lot of time thinking about the contextual interactions from the teambuilding stage. As is the case with many abstract concepts in VGC, theorymon skills are like a muscle: the more you do it in practice, the better you’ll get.