Hi guys, girls and everything in-between! As I’m back on track, let’s talk about something you probably didn’t know you needed, or don’t even need for that matter. Today, I’ll be talking about three things at once: Lead, Gameplan and Win Condition. Be warned, this is the longest episode so far. Feel free to stop and get back later if you need it. As this one is extremely long, I have many more chances to tell complete bull 
by moments.
Open your books folks, school is on!
I am not a professional competitive trainer. I do not pretend to hold the holy sacred Truth or to replace experts and experienced players. I simply think I have strong enough bases to share my knowledge with less experienced players. HERE IN PARTICULAR!!
Alright. You are starting your battle after waiting 5 minutes for someone to play Ins.OU with you. Here comes a new challenger! Since both of you are somewhat beginner, you don’t use your own handcrafted teams and you decide to use sample teams from one of our first episodes. Here is the team preview:
(opponent)
(You)
So, what do you do? How will you start the match?
Understanding the matchup
You can somewhat easily understand the matchup if you know what the Pokémon tend to run. By comparing the Pokémon present on the two teams, you can see what Pokémon are roadblocks for your sweeper(s)/cleaner(s) and what Pokémon can beat you.
Back to the example, your opponent’s Mega Typhlosion seems be difficult to stop if you loose your Choice Scarf Keldeo. After all, Eruption or Fire blast OHKOs M. Metagross and Skarmory, while Focus Blast does massive damage to TTar. However, you know the battle simulator has made a mistake! The simulator gave M. Typhlosion 109 speed instead of the 110 of the new version. Since you have Earthquake on M. Metagross, you can lure it and OHKO if your opponent does not know this fact. Plus, TTar can take a Eruption and setup Sandstorm to weaken later Eruptions. Your Latias can also pivot around with M. Typhlosion. Lastly, you have Choice Scarf Keldeo, so you can beat their Landorus-T and Mega Typhlosion one-on-one. Here, the matchup is highly in your favour.
Now, Ferrothorn is tricky for you. Since you don’t have Hammer Arm on M. Metagross nor Flamethrower on Clefable, Keldeo and TTar’s Fire Blast becomes your only methods of dealing with Ferrothorn. Now then, you understand that your opponent is not a lost cause. If they keep the pace slow enough with Ferrothorn and manage its health with the use of Leech Seed and check your Fire move, you can potentially lose. This is a somewhat bad matchup for you, but manageable.
You already know this is Specs Keldeo on the other side and this is troublesome. Now, if you lose your Latias, your matchup drops drastically as it should also be your main switch-in to M. Typhlosion. Rotom-W can also be troublesome as it can handle TTar and Keldeo (because you don’t have Focus Blast) and burn M. Metagross. If M. Metagross gets burned, then you need to use Healing Wish and lose your Latias for it to become useful again, losing your switch-in to Keldeo and M. Typhlosion. Here, Clefable is interesting to absorb burns and can handle Rotom-W relatively well. If you notice it likes to Volt-Switch into M. Typhlosion to grab back momentum on your Clefable, use T-Wave to neutralize Typhlosion.
Your opponent’s Landorus-T can revenge kill M. Metagross with its Choice Scarf, so feel free to send Skarmory and capitalize on a potential Choice-locked Earthquake to setup Spikes, useful against Ferrothorn. Your SpD investment makes you relatively “safe” against Latios.
Now, the situation could be different and not as clear cut, but you get the point. You realistically won’t understand all of this just in the team preview, you can freely evaluate your matchup in more depth during the course of the match, especially after checking the opponent’s sets.
Creating your gameplan
Building your gameplan will differ from what play style you are doing, so I will leave aside the example for a minute and explain how I think you should build your gameplan depending on your play style.
- Offense
To get a sense of your gameplan, you have to compare your two teams. First, look at the opponent’s defensive. How can you apply pressure to the opponent? How can they prevent your sweeper from sweeping? Here, you start making your gameplan. I’ll be elaborating more here than on the others.
Ex: Since my Volcarona runs Hidden Power Ground to check Heatran, I do not pass my opponent’s Mega Altaria. Because I see Heatran too in the preview, I must check if it runs Air Balloon or not. My overall gameplan is to knock out the Altaria, pop Heatran’s potential balloon, get rid of Stealth Rock and to sweep with Volcarona.
Also, you should at least check how the opponent can sweep you back or prevent your sweep.
Ex: Ok, I know how to sweep with Volcarona. But now, I realize Altaria might also be a Dragon Dancer. I must keep this in mind since I cannot stop it after a DDance. Now, I must apply enough pressure to prevent Altaria from Dancing, if it is the right set.
- Stall
Look at what could potentially trouble your core and plan on how to deal with it. If you see something troublesome, you must be very cautious. If this is Mega Mawile, keep hazards off the field so your Moltres / Mega Aggron do not get weakened enough to crumble to a Swords Dance boosted Pure Power attack. Your Mega Sableye and Unaware Clefable are put into heavy pressure then, as they are also free entry point to Mawile. This is only one example of a troublesome matchup.
Long story short, keep everything in check and you shouldn’t have THAT much of a problem.
- Balanced
Here, mix a bit of what you do from the others. Look at both teams and evaluate how you can handle what’s in front of you. Will you play it fast or play it slow? Will you insist on the offense or play defensive? At the same time, check how you can pull off a sweep.
Back to the main example, you have a Bulky-O against a regular offense. Your gameplan is too Deal with Ferrothorn and Rotom-W while preventing its offense from doing too much damage.
Win Condition
Alright, something that is tricky to spot for newer players. It is basically what can allows you to win. It is somewhat similar to the gameplan, except that the gameplan is flexible, while the Win Con is not. It is something important to understand quickly and to be very careful about.
The Win Con can be either a Pokémon or a situation. Taking the Volcarona’s example from earlier, the win con is to setup Volcarona, while the opponent’s win con is to keep hazards up to prevent Volcarona to be too dangerous and retaliate with its own menace.
In the Mega Metagross vs Mega Typhlosion teams case, your Win Con is Latias and Keldeo in some regard and the opponent’s Win Con is to eliminate checks to Ferrothorn.
Picking your lead
The big part. The lead is almost its own metagame and can make or break the match.
Alright, now you have an idea of what the match will look like thanks to the gameplan. Now, you must start well. If you have a dedicated lead, such as Azelf, Suicide Landorus-T or Shuckle, then go for it. Same thing if you have an Anti Lead like Protect / Stealth Rock Mega Diancie or Mega Lopunny. There might be a case when you have your Azelf but you are facing an Mega Diancie on the team preview. It can be wise to not use your lead there, unless you were prepared for it like with Hidden Power Steel. If you don’t have dedicated lead, most of the time, send what seems to be the most troublesome for your opponent to face, what applies the most pressure. However, if you see that the enemy team has enormous difficulty getting up after you send X Pokémon first unless they do something very specific, you can try to use your big brain and go for a prediction and use Y Pokémon that beat X’s check.
Warning, this is gonna be very long but very detailed.
As against M. Typhlosion’s team, setting up Stealth Rock is a good idea, as your TTar can also beat their Defogger, Latios, and trap it with Pursuit. That would give more free space for Keldeo to breathe. At the same time, you know that Metagross must undergo its Mega Evolution as quick as possible so it is not outsped by Mega Typhlosion. So now, compare your options. Skarmory can setup spikes against Landorus-T, who is very often sent first. Speaking of Lando-T, Keldeo can be sent to apply immediate pressure.
Beats / / has a 70% chance to take massive damage and form a 50/50 with
Beats
Beats /
Beats / /
Due to how the opponent loses by sending Latios, sending it wouldn’t seem very plausible. Now, I think your best bet is to send either TTar or Latias first. Latias is too valuable to send this early and Mega Typhlosion and Scarf Lando-T are too much of a problem. If you send it you are safe, as Ferrothorn is the only switch to Draco Meteor and weakening it is a good part of the gameplan.
In this case, I would personally be tempted to send TTar first. If the enemy sends Latios or Ferrothorn, that’s the jackpot. I can do Stealth Rock or Fire Blast respectively and if the enemy sends Mega Typhlosion, I have three choice at this point. Do Stone Edge to cover the Stay In or Stealth Rock or Pursuit to cover the switch. I know I can survive Focus Blast and OHKO, eliminating the biggest trouble for my team. Missing Stone Edge, however, would put me in a very difficult situation if it decide to stay, as do a switch. If they send Keldeo then I’m relatively safe. I only really lose if the opponent send Rotom-W or Landorus-T. If I get burned by Rotom-W, I cannot OHKO Typhlosion and Latios and get important chip damages. Stealth Rock up can be a major advantage as is the immediate K.O. on an unsuspecting Ferrothorn.
Lead Latias is also safe, as I only really worry about Ferrothorn and Landorus-T. Latios Speed tie sucks, but that’s a free TTar who can now Pursuit at will. If either Typhlosion or Rotom-W are sent, then they will have to eat a huge Draco Meteor in the face, forcing them to go on Ferrothorn.
However, if I’m the Typhlosion player, I send it right away. As described earlier, if they send Skarm or Metagross, that’s free Eruption! It they send Clef or Latias, I have Ferrothorn for this. TTar is tricky. It force me into a 50/50 scenario. Do I Focus Blast or switch? If I say on a Pursuit, my Eruption is weaker but I remove its best Latios Switch-In, but I loose Typhlo in case of a Pursuit. I cannot be sure about TTar last move, so I must check it it is Ice Beam or Fire Blast. If I switch, Rotom-W then Will-o-Wisp is my best bet. In case they lead Keldeo, I must run away and send Latios. I’ll see if its Specs or not by judging the damages dealt. If I have deeper knowledge of the Ins. OU or Gen 6, I tends to know most Meta-Leo core are with Choice Scarf Keldeo and sometimes T-Punch Metagross. Landorus-T, however, can make me grab the momentum early with U-Turn and defeat Lead Latias and non-scarf Keldeo. Again, in case of a Keldeo, I go Latios.
TLDR:
Risky yet potentially rewarding lead:
Safe lead:
Now, if you excuse me, I have to go to sleep. No homework today, come back whenever you want to study again. Please don’t tell me I’m a god.