Identifying and Eliminating Threats to Your Team

Introduction

Have you ever built a team that you thought was perfect, only to have it fail horribly in practice and lead you to wonder what you hadn't accounted for? If this has happened to you, think back to that moment and try to remember why you thought that team was perfect and why it actually wasn't. Did it have great type synergy but lack answers to common threats, or did it focus so much on countering prevalent Pokémon that it stacked weaknesses? What about offensive and defensive presence—was your team unable to withstand opposing onslaughts, or did it simply not have enough power to muscle through stall? Or did it balance synergy and presence but just not perform well? In this article, I'll explain why it can be counterproductive to ditch your team in situations like these. Instead, you can build a threatlist and use helpful resources like viability rankings and role compendiums to eliminate those threats by simply adjusting your Pokémon's sets. I'll also explain how you can create threatlists to use while teambuilding, eliminating the need for them later in the process.

Creating a Threatlist

Many people think that the only way to figure out what threatens a team is to test it out in battles, but this is not true. In fact, it's possible to eliminate threats to your team almost completely theoretically. The first step in creating a threatlist for your team is to check its defensive type synergy using a synergy calculator, such as this one by Smogon user Minus, or by hand. For example, if four of your Pokémon are weak to Fighting and only one resists it, Fighting-types will cause your team a lot of trouble, so you should run coverage moves for Fighting-types or replace one of the Pokémon weak to Fighting. If your team has no weaknesses to a single type, check whether it might run into trouble with dual typings or common coverage moves on notable offensive Pokémon; for instance, Pancham, which is quite common in LC, often runs either Gunk Shot or Zen Headbutt to deal with Fairy-types and Poison-types, respectively, so you should take that into account if your only Pancham check is a Fairy- or Poison-type. Note all the weaknesses you find in this step and list common offensive Pokémon of those types.

However, you're not done with type synergy there; you also have to check whether or not your team can hit most types super effectively. Because most synergy calculators do not take into account offensive type synergy, you will have to check it by hand. Start by eliminating types that your offensive Pokémon can cover with their STAB moves, and then check the rest one by one. For example, you might notice that even though none of your Pokémon are weak to Fairy, your team has no coverage moves for Fairy-types, so a bulky one might prove troublesome in battle, especially if a common wall in the tier has a Fairy typing. In this case, instead of listing offensive Pokémon of the types you note as problematic, it's better to list common defensive Pokémon of those types. You might also find it helpful to separate your threatlist into sections for offensive, defensive, and versatile threats. Which type synergy is more important depends on the build and playstyle of your team: defensive type synergy is more important for more defensive teams to allow them to survive many different foes' attacks, while offensive type synergy is more necessary for hyper offense teams due to their often frail nature. Despite this, both types of synergy are still important, so you should check both when creating your threatlist.

One flaw of type synergy in creating threatlists is that it is very general and doesn't take into account the abilities, stats, items, and moves of common Pokémon. For example, many Fighting-types in LC carry Knock Off to cripple switch-ins to their STAB moves, so if all of your answers to Fighting-types are Psychic- or Ghost-type, your offensive and defensive type synergy analyses will show that your team can handle them even though it actually can't. This next step aims to fix that by allowing you to look at individual Pokémon instead of just types. Study the Pokémon in the S through B ranks of your tier's viability rankings, which you can find in its subforum in the Competitive Discussion forum, to check your team's checks and counters synergy. The reason you should stop at the B rank is that typically, Pokémon that are ranked C or lower are too rare or niche in high-level play to matter as threats, but you can also check them if you want to be thorough. For each ranked Pokémon, see how many of your Pokémon can reliably beat it and how many it reliably beats. Note all the threats you find in this step, keeping in mind that even if a Pokémon can't reliably beat any of yours, it could be able to wall all of them, meaning that you should note it too.

Take special note of Pokémon of the types your team is weak to, and revise your threatlist after you're done looking through the viability rankings. In the defensive type synergy example above, for instance, you'll be able to narrow your threatlist to a few especially threatening Fighting-types (Mienfoo, Timburr, Pancham) instead of listing every offensive Fighting-type (Makuhita and Mankey are barely relevant in the LC metagame). Besides being generally helpful in this stage because they can figure out exactly how much damage a threat will deal to your team, damage calculators also allow you to figure out whether or not your counter to a versatile threat checks both offensive and defensive variants by seeing if it can 2HKO the defensive variant and not be 2HKOed by the offensive variant, making it a safe switch-in. An alternative to looking through the viability rankings is SweeperCalc's bReakMyTeam app, which supports Pokémon Showdown! importables and allows you to see what Pokémon can beat or wall your team out of all Pokémon with written analyses for your tier.

Don't forget to account for common cores as well: if your OU team has two Pokémon that are beaten by Rotom-W and two that can beat it but are beaten by Landorus-T, your team is probably going to have problems with a well-played Rotom-W + Landorus-T core, as once Landorus-T eliminates your checks to Rotom-W, the latter will be able to overpower your team. A good place to look for common and effective cores is your tier's Good Cores thread; in particular, closely examine whether or not you can beat common cores created with Pokémon that are already on your threatlist, which are often doubly as threatening as the Pokémon alone because of the synergistic nature of cores. For each core, also take into account the common playstyle it's found in and common moves used by its members. In the above example, you'll have to figure out how your team can recover lost momentum if, for example, Landorus-T pivots into Rotom-W when your check to it is weakened, as the Rotom-W + Landorus-T core is often found on offensive VoltTurn teams.

The final step of creating a threatlist is figuring out whether your team is threatened by entry hazards. For example, Stealth Rock will do a number on your bird spam team if it lacks an entry hazard remover, while Spikes and Toxic Spikes are more threatening to teams that have mostly grounded Pokémon. If many of your Pokémon rely on outspeeding foes to be effective and your team lacks priority moves, Sticky Web could allow opposing hard hitters to dismantle your team. Also take into account the popularity of each entry hazard: Stealth Rock is nearly ubiquitous in every tier, but if your team is for a tier that lacks good Sticky Web setters, the hazard won't be too troublesome. Finally, list common setters of the entry hazards that threaten your team, particularly those that can beat your Rapid Spin or Defog users, as well as the most effective spinblockers and Defiant users in the metagame. Your tier's role compendium, if it has one, will be a big help in doing this, so be sure to make the most of it. By the end of this process, you should have a threatlist composed of Pokémon and cores that can reliably beat your team.

Eliminating Threats

There are many different ways to pare down your threatlist, and one of them is to change the sets of your Pokémon. Typically, replacing the move a Pokémon needs or uses the least with a surprise coverage move can allow that Pokémon to lure in and beat would-be counters, though this doesn't work if said counters are usually revenge killers. (In this situation, after the Pokémon with a surprise move KOes a foe, your opponent will have a free turn to send out the revenge killer, giving you no opportunity to use the move before your Pokémon is KOed, and revenge killers are not usually switched into hits because that runs counter to the point of revenge killing.) Surprise moves are typically used when predicting a counter to switch in to deal heavy damage to it, possibly outspeeding and KOing it the next turn. Obviously, this requires a lot of prediction on your part, so using surprise coverage isn't a wise move if you want to avoid that. Also, once your surprise move or set is revealed, it loses a lot of its effectiveness, as your opponent will know to be prepared for it next time, forcing a will-they-or-won't-they mind game: will your opponent switch to their counter, knowing that you have a coverage move and that you know they know you have it? Additionally, surprise moves aren't a good idea on Pokémon that suffer from four-moveslot syndrome, as they're already hard-pressed to fit everything they need to perform their roles effectively.

Be especially wary when changing coverage moves, as this can alter your threatlist drastically. A prime example of a Pokémon whose coverage move determines which Pokémon wall it is Pancham, whose pivot set in LC typically consists of Parting Shot, a Fighting-type STAB move, Knock Off, and either Gunk Shot or Zen Headbutt. Gunk Shot allows Pancham to deal heavy damage to Fairy-types, most notably Spritzee and Cottonee, while Zen Headbutt lets Pancham hit Croagunk, Foongus, and Skrelp. A good way to determine which coverage move to run is to first change the rest of your team and then figure out what you need from the Pokémon with a variable coverage move. If your LC team already has two Pokémon with Psychic-type coverage but none with Poison-type moves, for example, you should probably use Gunk Shot on your Pancham, as the rest of your team can handle Poison-types for Pancham.

You might also feel that one of your Pokémon is a weak link because it compounds your team's weaknesses and doesn't provide overly necessary support. In these cases, it might be best to remove that Pokémon from your team entirely. To find a replacement, check your tier's role compendium to see which Pokémon can fill the same role as the Pokémon you removed while not having its flaws. However, if your Pokémon's roles overlap, it's better not to pick a replacement that fills the same role as the Pokémon you removed; rather, focus on your threatlist and what you can do to prevent weaknesses from being stacked and threats from going unanswered. If you have two entry hazard setters but only need one, for example, you shouldn't replace one entry hazard setter with another—that's common sense.

Also remember that if a versatile Pokémon isn't working for you, it can just use a different set. A particularly good time to test another set is when your Pokémon's set isn't effective in battle but there aren't any other Pokémon with the valuable ability or typing that Pokémon has. For example, my friend once told me that he wanted to test out a stall team but didn't have any ideas for the last member, so he tried using offensive Talonflame, which had great type synergy with the rest of the team. "I thought it was a brilliant idea," he said. "If you can't wear it down, just break it. But Talonflame ended up being a total momentum sink for my team, and I was only switching it in for its typing." When he switched the set to a bulkier spread with Will-O-Wisp, however, the team worked like a charm, showing the often tremendous difference between the individual sets of versatile Pokémon. If you're not sure whether or not your Pokémon can effectively use multiple sets, check its Smogon analysis. If multiple sets are viable enough in your tier to be listed, think about how each set would fit on your team, paying close attention to the Team Options portion of the set.

Additionally, every Pokémon on your team should fulfill a particular purpose and have been chosen instead of Pokémon with similar roles for its unique type, ability, and moves. When looking to remove Pokémon from your team, you should carefully consider whether or not other Pokémon that can perform the same role would fit better. A somewhat anecdotal example of why this is important is when I'm feeling particularly unmotivated but want to test out a Pokémon. In this situation, I usually just take a team that has been successful in the past and replace a Pokémon with a similar role to the one I want to test, but this is a horrible idea if I want my team to actually go somewhere, as the replacement could give rise to any number of bad things for my team, including stacking weaknesses, exacerbating an already existing presence imbalance, or hindering my team's ability to handle common walls or sweepers.

Finally, be sure to remember that Pokémon don't exist in a vacuum: every Pokémon has weaknesses and counters, but they can all be patched up with the proper team support. Similarly, as long as you make smart decisions in battle, it's fine for much of your team to be threatened by one or two common Pokémon if you have ways to wear them down or handle their hits.

Using Threatlists in Teambuilding

You might be wondering why there's a teambuilding section in an article about threatlisting, as they seem to have no relationship to each other. However, making a threatlist when your team isn't complete is simpler than it seems: just go through the steps of threatlist creation detailed above, but when it comes to eliminating Pokémon that threaten your team, take into account that your team isn't complete by adding Pokémon instead of replacing moves or sets. Using threatlists in the overall teambuilding process is also pretty simple. After every step of your normal teambuilding process, create a threatlist for your team in its current stage and use it to determine which Pokémon you should add next.

For example, say I want to build a team around Pokémon X, which is threatened by A and B. I see while looking through my tier's viability rankings that a certain Pokémon, Y, can beat A, B, and then some, but Y has a few weaknesses and is threatened by a few Pokémon that X can't cover, so I have to add Z to account for those. Keep in mind when adding each Pokémon to take into account each step of the threatlisting process: note its offensive and defensive synergy with the current members of your team, the amount of offensive and defensive presence it carries and if this is more beneficial or detrimental to your team, whether it can beat checks and counters to the rest of your team, whether the rest of your team can beat checks and counters to it, and what roles it can perform and whether these roles are already handled by other Pokémon on your team. This process should snowball until you reach a full team of six Pokémon that should need little to no tinkering to succeed. When this has happened, congratulations—you've just created your first team using threatlists! Remember, however, to always test your team out in low-stress situations such as on the ladder or against friends so that you can see whether or not it actually works.

Conclusion

Once your threatlist is at a minimum, playing a few ladder matches on Pokémon Showdown! is a great way to see if you haven't accounted for a certain threat or if your original threatlist is unreliable. After a few matches, be sure to revise your threatlist and team accordingly. For example, if your team is steamrolled by an unconventional Pokémon or set you didn't examine while creating your threatlist, you should add it to your threatlist and re-eliminate threats before continuing to test your team. An error in threatlist creation is not always the reason your team doesn't work, either: the benefit of practical testing is that it takes into account your opponent, who's thinking and predicting in battle just like you are. If your surprise move didn't work because you overpredicted, sit back and consider if it's really necessary or if you would be better off with your original move or a different Pokémon. The ability of the Pokémon Showdown! teambuilder to create multiple versions of the same team is very helpful in this process, as you can create an experimentally edited version of your team while still preserving the original in case the trial fails. Your team might also perform very well and need no changes; if so, that's great! Either way, I hope that this guide has helped you in threatlisting and teambuilding and that your teams have success in the future.

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