The Biggest Lie You Believe About Pokemon

When people bring up Sejun’s Pachirisu as a “people should win with their favorites!” argument, they’re missing the reality that Pachirisu was not chosen by Sejun because it was one of his favorites, it was chosen because there was a very specific role Sejun needed filled on his team and Pachirisu was one of the only Pokemon able to fill it. Pachirisu became one of Sejun’s favorites AFTER the success of that team.

“I don’t want to see another Smeargle ever again.” Wolfe: no, no. He’s got a point.

I think what people actually mean when they say, “Everyone should use their favorites!” is “My favorite Pokémon isn't viable in the meta, so I can't have fun in VGC!”

I like how Wolfey completely ignored the fact that if someone 'just used their favorites' they would likely not get past quarterfinals. No matter how much you love Ariados, no Ariados team is gonna win. Some pokemon are just strictly better than others

wolfey: Pause the video... what do you think happened? me: uhhh... Corsola won the tournament...

This is the best Pokemon video I've seen in a long time

people also forget that "people's favourites" typically have their roles fulfilled significantly better by "meta" pokemon, which would make using their favourites akin to shooting themselves in the foot. there may be pokemon that have potential to revolutionize the meta, and i'm not saying you shouldn't try new things (as a lack of trying to think outside the box with off-meta pokemon causes less change and will eventually bring a game to a slow, dreadful stop), but there aren't a lot of pokemon that can be meta defining, or relevant in general.

I’ll be honest Wolfey, I was one of those people. I’ve always bitched about centralized metas. I didn’t know about the thunderous thing or most of your examples. I think I get it now. It’s not about trying to go around the entirety of the game to find some secret formula for success, it’s adapting to an environment that is constantly growing and changing around you. Thanks man

"Everyone uses the same pokemon" Spinda: all of us are built different mere mortals..

"I miss when Legendaries weren't used" Zapdos in Gen 1, Suicune in Gen 2, Jirachi in Gen 3 and Heatran in Gen 4: Hello

Love that people think Se Jun Park just slapped Pachirisu on his team because he liked it. It served an extremely specific purpose on his team - keeping Electric moves away from Talonflame and Gyarados. Unlike Amoongus, it barely cared about Taunt since it still had Super Fang and Nuzzle. Se Jun wasn't the only person to get good results with it - there was another player called Angel Miranda (sorry if wrong spelling) who ran one with Ion Deluge to ruin Mega Kangaskhan and give his Hydreigon an Electric Hyper Beam to KO Azumarill (source: False Swipe Gaming).

To be honest I feel like the whole draw of Pokémon and an active competitive meta just kinda clash against each other. There are so many Pokémon and many of them are just bad. It’s not like a fighting game where characters can be balanced to be “better” or “worse”, because there’s such a massive roster and not everything can be good. Most of the time casual spectators want to see variety because that’s what Pokémon is about. It doesn’t help that every aspect of the franchise is about friendship and using the Pokémon you like, etc. In conclusion, this is unavoidable tbh.

if they think its stale now, just wait for the 1 billion lions meta

counterpoint: landorus is ugly and everyone who can bear seeing it on their screens is a much stronger man than i am

i respect this video, it manages to both disprove and prove the point. yes, there is a lot of creativity despite the lack of pokemon variety. but also the fact that those few top pokemon perform better with 50 different sets than 80% of pokemon do with ANY set, is a major turn-off for many.

People when competitive players use good pokémon so they can win: 🤯

"This is not what pokemon battles used to be, I mean using legendaries" Meanwhile the games give you the box legendary before the elite 4

I would like to add that in 2012, 1 year after rizzo won with thundurus, he did not use it and beat wolfe who was using support thundurus

"you should battle with you favorite Pokemon!!!" good thing my favorite Pokemon is Landorus-T

I definitely don't think players are uncreative by bringing similar pokemon, but as a view and especially as a less competitive (and skilled lmao) player, it sucks that so many pokemon that I've grown to love over the years feel completely invalid 99% of the time. I'll still try to make them work cause I care less about being highly competitive than just having a good time, but it still sucks that I can't do both. That said I super appreciate Smogon for giving me the chance to try out completely different formats with completely different pokemon. I just wish there were more officially supported formats like that.