My unpopular opinion...

I probably shouldn't be sharing this online to be honest

[@jensen2171]

This guy has an opinion, GET HIM

[@angelodegiule1753]

An opinion, on the internet?! I got the pitchforks

[@whitecheeze_rf]

@@angelodegiule1753 I'll get my torches

[@AxelFireForged]

ILL GET THE FIREWOOD! We must burn him!!!

[@titankid6254]

I haven’t even watched the entire video and I’m grabbing my torches

[@zettovyker]

I'll get my tera orbs

[@the_one_gio]

One point you forgot to mention is that going on stream reveals a lot about your team (which is massive disadvantage for both players). Back in Sun/Moon people bought digital carts just to avoid being put on stream or going on stream as the bottom player. I think open team sheet is a good change from competition stand point because it evens out the playing field. The whole spirit of competition is that both competitors/teams play on equal footing. And one person having more information over another changes everything.

[@bonuswolfe684]

I thought about this as soon as I finished recording, thanks for bringing it up

[@hoodsee4298]

@@bonuswolfe684 I wanna like the comment but its on the funny number so im typing this to say 👍

[@fotiosvakakis1723]

@@hoodsee4298 moments gone come back and like it safely now king

[@ThatHoodlum19]

That's a good point.

[@ilianplompen9975]

I mostly agree and I see the point of people scouting, but I think like opening up tera types and maybe items is fair and keeping the moves and stats closed might be better. As then you can still take opponents of guard with stats and moves, but you now a sufficient amount in tera types and items to prepare for. Also, based on tera type and item it becomes a bit easier to guess movesets as well, but still leaves room for like one surprise move or so on a mon.

[@burstvgc]

I remember back at Collinsville regionals in 2020, when you brought your Copycat + Max Guard TR team, everyone in the event knew what your team did by the end of round 2. The sentiment that you're the most scouted player in any competition should not be underestimated by people new to the IRL circuit.

[@user-ec3nw6tg4i]

O

[@Spark31Gaming]

I think basically everyone at Dallas Regionals in 2020 when I was there knew Wolfe's team round 3.

[@xbico9118]

In 2017 when I played in senior bracket in Anaheim, I was one of the only people there with a tapu koko / A-raichu core. Already after the second round all the people who had many friends there had spread the word to their group about what my team did and what Z moves I had. I think this change really helps players that don't have large friend groups attending spreading around information. I was 4-1 round 5 and for the last round really nervous to move on, and first thing I hear when I sit down in front of this dude at team preview is "Ohhhh so you're the dude with the Koko/Rai core." :( Lost that one.

[@Ashgrey0]

Bruh that's devastating

[@xbico9118]

@@Ashgrey0 yea :,( but luckily by miracle even with a 4/2 ending record I made top cut at 8th place because my win % (I think it's called) was high enough. It's like a secondary stat that is calculated based on how much you win or lose by, like if you win by a lot and lose really close matches then you'll have a high win %. Based on Pokemon health I think. My 15yo dreams were not shattered 😂

[@Ashgrey0]

@@xbico9118 the good ending 😂

[@Moleoflands]

​@@xbico9118 normally you get the score based how well people you beat did. If you beat the worst players, your score ther is lower

[@xbico9118]

@@Moleoflands ooooh I see, thanks for clarifying! Makes sense cuz the 2 people I lost too also top cut.

[@incrediblefrown1288]

the thing that strikes me about the argument that this hurts rogue teams is that if you *need* the ambush factor to win matches, you were losing that edge halfway through the tournament anyway

[@Veinelso]

That never worked on vgc tournaments tho. Because you have to use the same team on every battle on the tournament

[@pinkywholng6421]

@@Veinelso that’s what they’re talking about

[@Gallarday]

@@Veinelso isn't that their point?

[@Veinelso]

@@Gallarday yeah, no idea why I commented that lmao

[@nintendope8837]

I love how Wolfey somehow manages to explain both sides of every single argument to the point where anyone can understand where he's going from

[@dorkmork7349]

I love how this channel preserves the old style of Wolfe videos also the most based KZbin intro out of anyone

[@FiboSai]

I think that most competitive games that have some sort of hidden information will eventually trend towards open information environments, at least at the very top level. The reason I think this is exactly as Wolfey says, it is just not possible to control the flow of information between competitors. If it is the optimal play to bring binoculars to a tournament to scout potential opponents and then share that information with your friends, people will do it. Open teamsheets is the logical answer to this development.

[@walpurgisnight7]

One of the big reasons I kept being nervous about delving into actual ranked vgc is because I've seen so much about the rule-bending around scouting strategies. I'm obviously not a tournament player, but I may end up attending them at some point so I still had a bad taste in my mouth because of people going to such great lengths to give themselves advantages.

[@kamarrroxs4176]

100%

[@MerryGamer]

You probably shouldn’t compete at the tournament level if you aren’t willing to take every legal advantage available to you.

[@Bugga-Ray-Dudley]

Fr there was these guys who literally made a bot to scout peoples games even when they click no spectators

[@Zwijger]

@@MerryGamer That's his point. You might not believe it, some people have moral boundaries they find hard to cross for the sake of getting an edge on other people. If that boundary doesn't apply to said area anymore, because it's impossible or not allowed, he can actually use every other legal advantage that he doesn't have a moral problem with. Same reason someone might not get into football because you are expected to fake fouls and injuries at high levels, but that they might actually try it if the rules got changed to immediately make that punishable by red card.

[@MerryGamer]

@@Zwijger yeah I agree that the rules should be changed to not allow that kind of behavior. I just think it can be hard to know where to draw the line.

[@pars0g482]

Although it sucks that it happened, HUGE props to you for being a good sport about the ppl with the cameras and binoculars. I have had very few negative interactions since learning competitive pokemon the past couple months and it's because of community figures like you being such a possitive influence

[@zayserbeam9765]

Trainer held item

[@jeebbers5195]

This actually happened to me, the fact that people were sharing my team info, for the first regional I ever went to. It really sucked, and actually caused me to lose out of going to day 2 because two people I played in a row already knew my whole team. I can't travel, so this was the one regional I could have gone to and got screwed over. It really sucks. I am glad about the open format, because it does even the playing field, and stops people from being scummy.

[@HunterSerge]

I knew scouting was a factor, but I had no clue that scouting had gotten to such an absurd level. The one thing I'm bummed out about with open team sheets is that Frisk just becomes useless now, and I was interested in Hisuian Typhlosion getting access to it as a Hidden Ability. Oh well.

[@FreePokemonGiveaway]

As a TCG player coming over to VGC I am very used to open deck list tournaments, from a conceptual perspective at least and that makes a lot of sense to me. Played a lot of theme deck so I understand the concept of having your opponents deck memorized. So to me the open team list is a really logical step to make and I'm glad it's happening at this moment. Will absolutely make figuring out this entire meta easier for a new player like myself.

[@tac5191]

I completely agree with your takes. From my experience, in a vacuum, the absolute best way to play was closed team sheet (especially in gen 8 without hidden power or tera types. The only true gimmicks hard to play around imo were whether or not they could eject button you or random weakness policies). There is something to be said about gaining info and holding other info throughout a match. However, like you said, there is no way to properly ensure that every one starts on an equal information playing field after a couple of rounds. This is a welcome change going forward.

[@sportzfrk99]

I’m glad you went immediately into the technical limitations first. It’s POSSIBLE a way to lock your battle box would be introduced in a future patch or the DLC. The question is then if that does happen, will they go back to the closed team sheets or just locking a battle box and leaving open team sheets.

[@shanedeiley6671]

Agreed. At this point its a 100% reasonable rule as cheating is way less balanced than any alternative. So opinions on whether this is better for balance or sort of moot at this point.

[@Pikaton659]

They could very easily still have the team sheets submitted, but keep that info to just the officials and not share it with all the players. The technical limitation argument is just silly

[@sportzfrk99]

@@Pikaton659 then how do players know when you switch out a move or held item and cheat? It's absolutely necessary without a way to lock a team in. You clearly haven't attended a tournament there aren't enough people to watch every single game going on all the time. The players officiate themselves most of the time.

[@Pikaton659]

@@sportzfrk99 ah, my bad I haven’t been to a Pokémon tournament, no, but I had been to events I had imagined to be similar, so I had just assumed. How would an official confirm the truth if a player were to call their opponent out for cheating though?

[@sportzfrk99]

@@Pikaton659 the victim sees a move or item used not on the sheet, then call over a judge. Judge verifies it on the cheater’s console, goes from there. There’s a screenshot/quick video function on the switch.

[@orsett2189]

Thanks for sharing this! As a year-round casual player, everything you touched on was completely new to me. Having played the games for so long, it's nice to delve into a topic where I have a lot of ignorance. As it turns out, I had a lot of false assumptions about the environment of tournaments - especially with regards to the impact of scouting. Although I don't expect this to impact my personal experience with the series, it still feels good to have my eyes opened a bit as a spectator.

[@ethanmcentyre2294]

As someone who has just built their first team, I have been struggling a lot with knowing what pokemon do when I go against them. I feel like the mind games of knowing "murkrow can use fake out or it will use tailwind" is a lot more interesting than "he could jse literally any move possible" so I think it makes the game a little more interesting

[@Willdroyd]

even weirder having to think about coverage. easy to think about garchomp using earthquake rockslide or dragon claw, but when they bust out an ice punch idk how to know it has that as a move(idk if he actually has it but you get what i mean)

[@awenner]

It certainly doesn't make the game more interesting. It makes it more consistent

[@leonel392]

I mean, imagine that I have a Gholdengo, and you use earthquake thinking that I will probably have something like Choice Band and try to kill me quickly, but then you discover that my Gholdengo had an Air Ballon, outsmarting your opponents with unique stats and a plethora of options, and pivoting them to play into your strategies, in my opinion, is way more fun than using a calculator and playing around what I already know that your team can do, and the fact that there is best of 3 makes scouting the moves and abilities of your opponents a legitimate strategy

[@ethanmcentyre2294]

@Leonel but let's say you bring that to a tournament, game 2 you lose because everyone knows that you have an air baloon. I think there's still room for creativity but less room for pure element of surprise gimmicks like that.

[@awenner]

@@ethanmcentyre2294 air balloon is a bad example seeing as the game already alerts players to its presence. Better item example is scarf or specs or band which can easily win a game if the opponent does not expect them

[@posaune45]

I love the way you speak about these things. It fosters healthy conversation and discussion. I believe that open team sheets will always make the game better, especially in the long run. But I appreciate how you take the time to understand the validity in others views. Thanks you for being awesome!

[@watherinekible]

Omgggg death threats over sun and moon?! This will be my first year actually competing in vgc and I like the open team format. Trying to learn all the necessary info, tricks and meta in addition to the surprise of tera types was making me nervous 😅

[@gonzalotorneralonso417]

Those guys were affected by a rage powder

[@daphenomenalz4100]

@@gonzalotorneralonso417 😂😂

[@HDGaminTutorials]

Well u you should be at a disadvantage there has been a decade of pokemon games you missed out on and that should defintily debilitate you especially in a tournament match.

[@Bladius_]

@@HDGaminTutorials They're at an inherent disadvantage already, that's the point. There's no need to compound that with "ah you haven't practiced for 14 hours a day and didn't know about X?". Weird gatekeeping stance.

[@0videoboy0]

Those guys were Taunted by Wolfey's comment, and went into Outrage

[@MoxieBoosted]

A lot of people think that creativity goes down the drain with open team lists. But what they fail to understand is creativity =/= surprise factor. Pachirisu had no surprise factor, the top 4 golisopod had no surprise factor. Creativity comes from finding niches that win or top cut events, not take a game off of someone unprepared only to lose the set. The benefits of reducing the effects of scouting far outweigh the loss of bo1 surprise strats. The teams that can win bo3 games even without a "gotchya" aren't hurt at all tbh.

[@beauvogames]

12:50 "taking one game to figure out what the opponent's team does puts you at a pretty big disadvantage" was pretty much your strategy and what you were counting on to win in that Pokémon Unite tournament, so this makes a lot of sense. Very rational and excellently explained video. With moves being easier than ever to change on the fly and other stuff too, this makes total sense and you shouldn't receive any flack for being considerate and putting your case forward so methodically.

[@DaniDoyle]

I feel like the biggest downside to items being visible is choice items become a lot worse, as you now know the mon is locked into a specific move. Choice Scarf is hit particularly hard as much of its value is the "surprise I move first" moments. I do like movesets and tera types being shown, however.

[@Hrybread]

Choice items are pretty much always known the second you use a move with that mon, so it's basically just one turn of advantage lost. Which isn't insignificant, but I think choice items will still see their normal use

[@eragon78]

@@Hrybread Yea, people know the damage calcs, so as soon as they see how fast you move in the turn order, and how much damage you do, they know exactly what item you are using if its a choice item.

[@justinmathis8078]

@@eragon78knowing that info before or after turn 1 is a big deal

[@ChrisWCarlson]

Coming from a background in competitive sports and now getting invested in VGC, I appreciate your opinion as it definitely comes from lots of person experience. I can see the benefits as you described, as well as the downsides that some people are concerned for. In my own experience, knowing your opponent's lineup does not mean you know how they trained for the match you are about to play. In sports, if your opponent publishes their starting lineup that looks like something you've seen a hundred times, but those players spent the whole week training a specific planned play to counter your team, you won't ever know that's the case until the match starts. This seems like it fits with your point about the EV training and Natures of each still being hidden and assumptions about the information provided beforehand not always giving away everything. Even with open team sheets, there can still be those exciting moments due to these hidden stats that will keep high-level players on their toes, and give players looking to play in unique ways an option to still surprise opponents.

[@HelloHelloHellobby]

I ALWAYS wondered if people shared info about other peoples teams backstage at a tournament, which I thought felt unfair because not everyone has those friends. This prevents that scenario.

[@heliork]

It is even a moment of group up, sharing and having a strong group feelings. None say no to you if you want to enter in a group, especially if you desire to be a really good player. Neither Japanese people that are normally close and quiet, are proactive on talking and having group moments when it's about competitive. Asking about a team of an opponent from a person that already challenged him, it's a way of making new friends or having just a talk. :D

[@IplayTeemoasaWard]

Playing together/sharing information in general is such a huge boon in pokemon.

[@cambot1922]

I initially kinda didn’t agree with you based on the first two points but I thing they scouting thing is an excellent point. If it’s that common to get info before hand anyway just standardizing the info is a totally reasonable choice. Good video, changed my mind. Looking forward to watching VGC23!

[@Kaisingsens]

It's really interesting to follow the entire discourse. I play comp. Magic the Gathering and we had the same discussions a few years back. Open Decklists as a way to prevent people of secretly modifying their decks inbetween rounds. Nowadays I think most people agree that open lists make for an overall better experience.

[@jimbomctimbo1610]

Huh I've never heard of that. Is that competitive modern or standard?

[@TheMasterBlaze]

As a Yugioh player for as long as I can remember you had to fill out a deck list sheet for tournament. These sheets aren't public info because yugioh has weird info rules, but your deck has to reflect this sheet card for card. If you accidentally write the wrong name you risk player errors, game and match losses, if not the whole tournament.

[@Kaisingsens]

@@jimbomctimbo1610 pretty much every major event, no matter the format( standard,pioneer, modern,legcy,vintage) plays with open decklists. the full 75 cards including sideboard. at first we had the same wave of discussions but now it's just the standard and it overall is better this way imo.

[@Bergioyn]

That's what deck checks and judges are for. Open lists ruin the element of surprise and homogenize formats even further.

[@Terry_T_ODST]

This topic reminds me a lot of the discussions around Smogon policies, and how toxic they can be. Thing is, most of the people being toxic don't even participate actively in what's being changed, they just feel like it goes against their way of playing. I hope we can get an agreement on this topic, but I personally like this change. My only lingering question is if the spectators are gonna have access to the team sheets during the tournament, as it would make it easier to follow/watch

[@irreleverent]

It'd weird watching people play based on way more entirely public (in terms of players) information. So I hope they do.

[@daphenomenalz4100]

I just really hate the good features that Gamefreak keeps removing either cuz they forgett or it was straight up intentional. That's the worst thing about gen change. Also, the thing you said about changing moves, yes open team sheet can prevent it. But people can even change the stats by changing the Pokemon and the opponent won't even know. That's a big flaw. They need to reintroduce the locking system.

[@Jayster2340]

that is good point because then they re ev the pokemon depending on match-up that's bad

[@WishMakers]

New generations always seem to have weird technical changes that takes away options from their players. Baffling to remove something like the battle box lock on purpose, if so. Nice catch on the EV spread potentially changing too - what if they have dupes of everything but their EV build?

[@haydenschaff8179]

Glad you can go out and make this content man. We need people like you to start the honest, neutral conversations on hard topics, otherwise the community cannot improve its condition. This video gave me a new perspective that I was really grateful for. Thank you.

[@troygarcia6674]

I love that you approached this so rationally. And honestly hearing about the lengths and methods of scouting has made me thing more about it. But I still think that completely open sheets remove some of the aspect of the game, for me at least. I don't remember the exact details, but I remember a story of yours where you won a set because you had an unorthodox berry on a mon. You and a friend ran it and it only triggered once in the entire tournament between either of your games. But I live for moments like that. I also think it's not even just the gimmicks, but anything you may take a risk doing, that this could hinder. Knowing an opponent can't protect makes attacking into the slot easier whereas if you don't know, you have to at least respect the possibility.

[@peco595]

Knowing tera types and items would be ideal I think. Removes the unknowable possibilities. Every pokemon has a defined set of moves they could possibly use, but any pokemon can use any item or tera type. Knowing that stuff would weaken the lesser used items even more as well as the choice items, but it does help the game be less luck reliant. Knowing moves and abilities though does make things too predictable.

[@awes5893]

@@peco595 I would argue that items are more influential than abilities since an experienced player can usually tell what ability someone is running just by examining the team. Example: Torkoal will always run Drought, Flamigo will always go for Costar and Rillaboom is guaranteed to have Grassy Surge. If my opponent has a Tyranitar I might think the Garchomp might not be running Rough Skin and use Population Bomb on it. Even knowing all this just through practice, the opponent could use EVs and items to completely change the flow of the game. Is Rillaboom banded? Is it AV? Is Torkoal running charcoal or specs or av? That changes a lot.

[@peco595]

@@awes5893 Knowing anything changes a lot, the point is that moves and abilities are defined per pokemon whereas items and tera are not. You know if something could possibly pull out a psychic move on your fighting type, but you can never reasonably assume something is gonna have a weakness policy, choice scarf, or a specific type of berry beyond what is typically run.

[@awes5893]

@@peco595 Oh no I fully agree. In fact, that's exactly what I said as well - knowing items influences a matchup between experienced players more than knowing abilities and moves. I also agree with it being made more predictable if we know items and moves. And that's kinda why I don't really like the idea. It's an unfortunate thing that circumstances force us to play the information game but if we could have players go into a match selectively blind I'd much prefer them not knowing items than not knowing abilities. It makes it far more interesting and creative in my opinion.

[@Zsy6]

Your perspective is sensible and you did a good job explaining. When a big change like this happens it's easy to have an immediate emotional reaction, as many have. There are obviously arguments that could be made for both sides, but I think you're right that terastalization introduces perhaps a bit too much variance into the game from a competitive perspective, and this change helps to curb some of that so that it's still possible to win consistently.

[@TacetTheTerror]

Team lists definitely helps make it so people cannot get extra intel for an unfair advantage, but my biggest concern is it is going to centralize the meta too much. No longer can someone run some kind of weird pokemon with weird moveset as an anti meta. With team sheets it will be seen from a mile away.

[@Direksone]

Entirely depends how long beforehand you need to submit it. Plenty of tabletop games do this and it you can still get away with surprising it and nowhere nearly as many people actually check things beforehand until they show up for the game.

[@PhaythGaming]

Why is this a bad thing? Seriously, not being a dick.

[@darkestlight660]

There's a whole difference between seeing a team sheet and knowing how to counter it. Wolfe's prep for last year's tourney showed that EXCELLENTLY.

[@Junya01]

U can solve a centralised meta by actually balancing Pokémon to have variety and viability, which seems to be the case. That runs the problem of being too volatile just like a too centralising meta is, but then open team sheets solves that issue. There u go, ur welcome, good night And the ev spread is still ur’s to keep if u want surprise factor

[@Aaronrules380]

anti meta that exists purely by surprising people tends to not do that well anyways. The best anti meta stuff is stuff designed to counter the strengths of the meta, and that doesn't immediately fail just because they know what you're doing.

[@jml6263]

Interesting to hear your perspective on this Wolfey. I definitely find myself kind of leaning towards Alpharad's statement initially, but you brought a lot of good information and nuance to it and your points were well taken. I hope this game's competitive lifespan remains fun and interesting for everyone who participates.

[@seeibe]

What's confusing me is that Wolfey said Alpharad doesn't get how the game works, then just ended up explaining what he likes about the game. Like, we get it, if you specifically like the planning aspect of the game this is a good change, but what about the people who specifically enjoy the aspect of surprising the opponent with something they didn't consider? It seems like Wolfey is saying that if you enjoy playing the game in a certain way (or watching others play it in that way), you don't understand how it works, which is just plain arrogant.

[@gerrynava981]

@@seeibe i dont think you watched the whole video, either thst or you skipped the part about stats being wildly diferent and important and still an element of surprise, another thing wolfey did not mentioned, but also adds to the surprise, is the fact that you still can only bring 4 out of six pokemon into the battle

[@SilverAlex92]

I really like this. At first I hated team preview, but over time I've very much come to love it. Having an equal amount of information for everyone feels fair.

[@chiekohoki]

I probably should have guessed that people would take notes on and share and snipe team information, but I had no idea! Thanks for talking about this, it has definitely made me think about it in a different way.

[@anthonyhotspot7890]

@wolfey this is the reason why you're gaining so many followers in such little time, you're honest and ur content comes from a place with passion; don't loose that spark please 🤙🏼

[@uberculex]

This is what I've always thought. Open sheet makes more sense in tournament since you can't change up your team and there's nothing stopping anyone from texting their friends what they know about your team so having friends is actually OP in Pokemon.

[@Fritz_Haarmann]

The rich get richer; I mean, why can someone who actually goes outside and has friends cheat better than I can. It's just unfair. I'm gonna have to go back to modding my switch😡

[@SharpLCDTV]

@@Fritz_Haarmann idk, it means that there’s less emphasis on making a network, which is g for newcomers, but also can remove some of the ‘spice’ in vgc. It’s more nuanced that ur making it seem

[@Fritz_Haarmann]

@@SharpLCDTV sorry, forgot /r.

[@jbdbibbaerman8071]

Pls nerf friends game freak

[@Fritz_Haarmann]

@@jbdbibbaerman8071 true

[@souptrick]

I think the simple fact of the matter is that there is too many pokemon, moves, abilities, etc. to reasonably account for. Open teamsheets was going to be necessary eventually. I think Tera was a pretty strong catalyst, but I doubt open team sheets are going away even if we lose tera in a later generation

[@introprospector]

Just like cutting national Dex was 'necessary' ?

[@Bladius_]

@@introprospector Cutting nat dex was great, I prefer the smaller metas. They could do a better job of selecting whicch pokemon get in, if they want a better meta, but it was cool to see mons like Togekiss, Braviery, Vanilluxe, Durant, Jellicent and Butterfree topping events early on in SwSh. This time around we have Murkrow, Dragonite and Hydreigon (as examples) who typically can't handle the wider metas.

[@introprospector]

@@yamsSMP national dex has nothing to do with meta. VGC and tournaments can establish whatever rules they want. Nothing stopping them from making a monotype or gen 9 only or a little cup or regional dex meta.

[@itsomni]

I’m hoping to start playing vgc this gen and I’m happy for the change. As a singles player, the vgc sets for some mons are so wildly different that it takes forever to learn what to expect.

[@teton798]

I personally prefer closed team sheets but I think this really helps mitigate scouting which is one of the biggest obstacles for a player without teammates in larger tournaments.

[@freeflyonhigh]

Didn't expect to get my mind changed on this one. I'm very much in the "this will hurt clever strategies" camp, and I don't think I'm getting out of it, but the other points are pretty strong here. I was mostly thinking of this in terms of best of 1s, or even just friendly best of 3s, but the tournament perspective is interesting. Had me on just about every point with the very strong exception of (paraphrasing) "I lost to a strategy I couldn't be expected to predict", really really glad this didn't lead with that.

[@Junior-ov8me]

Having never played the game and only watched, I developed the thought that the purpose of competitive pokemon was to build a team for the current meta but also counter the meta in which you can be rewarded for covering as many viable scenarios as possible. I don't understand the point of 'it prevents you from losing to a weird team' because obviously the guy that beat you went to the extreme length. Now where do you draw the line at unique teams because by the sounds of it everyone's gonna have a pretty similar team and wins will be based upon move selection %

[@StrengthOfADragon13]

I think this change is most beneficial for BO1 formats (notably how the Japan scene has been run). Gimmicks would feel unmanageable without a little more info, especially in the early tournaments. As things get to be more understood having less information revealed will be important. I agree that having open sheets benefits the lower end/newer players because it makes it so they don't have to take the time to look at EVERY mon to have a good idea (a decent example of this is from the Gym battle I had against Wolfe, I had no idea what Quaquaval did, what it's speed was like and what moves it could get. As such I wasn't prepared for it to survive a +1 neutral attack and then KO me with close combat. As such it got a free KO that I could have prevented on field, which absolutely changed the outcome (wolfe outplayed me that match regardless and I'm not complaining, just wanting to give a good example)). One of the things that is interesting about open team sheets that you didn't touch on is that for the viewer having games play out to the end is more satisfying or easier to understand. In a best of 3 relatively few first matches actually ended when all mons where KO'd because people would attempt to conserve information. (A more extreme example is in chess where a game can be forfeit as many as 15 moves from the end and someone unfamiliar with chess will just be scratching their head) Another thing, thank goodness they don't make you reveal all the stats, because actually knowing for sure your EVs and IVs can be very frustrating/difficult when you have stats that aren't used (eg attack stat in the form you aren't using) and when you have not 252/252/4 spreads on a mon being 100% confident your spread is correct can be nerve wracking when you know having it wrong could be an automatic loss. (and wolfe, I ran the calc after, if you had max HP your tatsugiri had an unfavorable roll to survive +1 dragon claw from a max attack adamant Salamence after terra, so the crit didn't matter)

[@rileyrogers8309]

Before watching this, I was pretty mad about open team sheets. After you mentioning scouting though, I can see why it is necessary, it’s just unfortunate that the bad sportsmanship got bad enough that it lead to this necessity. Thank you for explaining I personally feel that while it’s a good change, it will definitely reduce the creativity/uniqueness of teams and once again lead to the same old stale “everybody has similar teams because there’s no point in being things that aren’t Objectively Strongest” situation which I personally dislike. I’ve always gone for more interesting teams that work specifically because they’re weird and unexpected, but now I feel like this is no longer an option.

[@nb_oovanboi7750]

this video was really so enlightening. I never realized the impacts of scouting of and it really is very interesting. I hope this decision turns out good for pokemon VGC and I wish u the best of luck in the coming 2023 season. Looking forward to seeing some unique and cool teams from u as always.

[@Zeldrake]

Fascinating to hear about ""scouting"" groups, I'd never considered it from that angle. Bringing binoculars is a level of dedication that proves what people will go to xD

[@greyscaleadaven]

Tbh about the first part, I would say I'm pretty vocal with my opinions on pokemon. The biggest thing I've learned is it's not that sharing your opinion is bad inherently, but rather you've got to understand that some people at the end of the day won't agree with your take no matter what you say and that's alright. And contrary to what people like to believe, change is pretty hard for most people to even go through, let alone doing it because of a disagreement online. Also, someone agreeing or disagreeing with you doesn't mean you win or lose. That's a big part of it too. I love gen 7 for example, and think it's got great narrative beats, worldbuilding, and the gimmick was best explained out of any of them. Plus Totems walked so Alphas and Titans could run later on in the series. It's got its problems but for me the good outweighs the bad. It's above gens on my personal list that a lot of people in the community really like (Gen 3 and 4, which are both still high but below gens 5 and 9/7 for me personally). I also know for a fact though that Gen 7 was the most divisive gen in terms of opinions. You either love it or hate it. So there's no way I could get actually mad at someone for disliking it because I know how polarized the community is on the issue. Especially when it comes to different sects of the community. Competitive and casual fans, people who like gameplay vs people who like lore (and mixes of all these categories too), all of those things determine your experiences with the games and that's an important distinction to make here too. Honestly, how I approach most issues I have with a creator's opinion is if it gets too overbearing or annoying, I move on quietly. But if it's just a couple things here and there that I disagree with, it's easier to just keep watching and move on. Obviously, it makes me a little peeved when someone tries to start a fight with me about my opinion because it's what I think so of course that would happen. Especially when they start parroting nostalgia andy talking points about how "bad" the entirety of modern pokemon is when at least half of the time it's pretty good. But once I realize the kind of takes they're dishing, it's easier to just ignore them or take them into consideration depending on how respectful and logical they're being. I'm not saying that death threats are something you should just have to face tank though, like obviously it's different for a creator with parasocially obsessed fans. Just thought I'd share my personal experiences having relatively open opinions on the internet too.

[@TheMarthis1]

I started playing showdown this week (I don't own a Nintendo switch) today i started playing in the vgc 2023 series format, just reached 1308 elo points with 77 matches, that said, i agree with your point that this change will also benefit less experienced players. Every time i run into a gimmicky strat, i have to play against it 5/6 times until i get used to what it does and how to counter it. Also, i wanted to thank you, your content (mainly the championship finals day live and the live with jaiden with the toedscool team) helped me get into competitive pokemon, I am having so much fun playing doubles in showdown it has been ages since i was this invested in a game :)

[@tobymacdonald5893]

Imagine sending someone death threats for not liking one generation of pokemon

[@grunkleg.3110]

Just say Gen 6 or 8 are the worst. That's like 300K free Reddit Karma

[@mighark54]

Forreal. Imagine sending people death threats because they disagree with you about a videogame.

[@ReidnReactn]

@@grunkleg.3110 except gen 8 is a good gen

[@HDGaminTutorials]

Are you surprised? This should be common knowledge for anybody dissing a video game at all the diehards will death threat you to there grave

[@tobymacdonald5893]

@@ReidnReactn I miss gen 8 already. Training competitive mons in gen 9 is such a pain

[@plantoth]

I will say you drilled on unorthodox strategies of less common pokemon and that's easy to speak for because they generally only fill one niche like Tinkaton. If someone is using anything that is common in the meta you start to expect certain moves, and creative strategies were able to play on this massively where as now they aren't able to at all.

[@talenwells2067]

Awesome video Wolfey! I learned a lot. Would love a follow up video discussing how open team sheets would or would not have effected famous unorthodox picks from the past (i.e. Sejun Park’s Pachirisu).

[@WishMakers]

Holy shit as soon as I heard the clause of "this information minus stats will be provided to the opponent" my mind immediately began to spin. On one hand, my immediate thought was "this is a disaster" - any surprise factor for team building is gone. Something I really liked about how you fought Aaron in your recent video is how in order to try and potentially cement an early advantage was to create a slightly less orthodox team and get him to think, and I think he did right back with some of his own team composition. If I was playing that match, I'd find that intriguing! In my view, unless someone is using a semi-typical opener, there's realistically no point in thinking about what kind of Tera will drop, just a matter of when. In addition, there's no way that the hype as hell Quaquaval read in the first game would've happened without your knowledge of Tera in that scenario, and that kicked ass! It was fun to watch at bare minimum and I think it would be fun to play too. On the other hand, this has its share of advantages - if someone is trying to get into the game, then thinking about trying to outplay the opponent is overall more important than information gathering as a skill to learn, and this could help emphasize that. (Though that being said, I disagree on the take that new players shouldn't have the "knowledge check". That's part of the reason we even have as many options as we do.) In addition, what everyone else is bringing up in the comments is also true - scouting in VGC is probably the biggest headache the game has, and this effectively forcibly eliminates that, which is a good thing. Personally speaking, I would prefer a strong stance on scouting info from opponents in competitive play over an open team sheet - while I do see some potential benefits in helping new players, the element of information aside from *specifics about EV builds* is entirely gone. Overall I think this will hurt the meta's diversity, though with Tera I don't see the potential of something like CHALK being as easy to reach, it will still make more unexpected strategies be nearly non-existent. (Although revealing Tera types to your opponent is definitely a logical choice... frankly it should've just been on in-game team preview) (EDIT: All this being said, I completely agree with the idea that scouting is not only generally annoying but also not realistically enforceable. I do think that the cost hurts a lot for unorthodox playstyles, and they are just going to get stuffed by this. Whether people are ok with this depends on what teams they prefer to you and whether or not they have that knowledge check. Learning a lot about Pokemon is something that more experienced players do over time. "Am I supposed to cover for these hyper specific sets?" **No.** Part of the reason Trick Room as an example is even in check by faster stuff is because you have potential tech options. Hidden Power might've been too much, I think, and ultimately that's part of why it's gone. Focus Blast on the Lele, however, is something you could've seen coming reasonably and led differently against. If your TR user wasn't Stakataka in that circumstance then what did Focus Blast do to you? Ultimately one of the things about Pokemon is that you are truly never able to cover for absolutely everything. If you gain new information and your plan gets screwed, then you should be at least mentally prepared to play against that in games 2/3. Teams will have bad matchups. I do wonder, however, if people brought these sets to you because you were scouted out. That sounds pretty specific for dealing with Statataka as a TR user, at least the Nihilego. Especially considering the fact that they lost future games makes me think that their team was basically geared for your lead matchup. Seems sus to me.) This seems to be the more prevalent take, so my apologies if it doesn't add much to the discussion, but I do understand more of the reasoning behind this. A nuanced discussion online is near impossible, so we're going to see a lot of binary viewpoints on this, but there's more to it than that. Frankly, I didn't realize the stuff about the Battle Box yet - and I don't think this is a hardware/software limitation. This was just a mistake. EDIT: Chef's got my thoughts spot on.

[@Gailardia]

OTS in the long run is going to limit viable pokemon on a team down to like 1/8 of the competitively viable pokemon, because you can't slot a niche tech then the only way to compete is to use the strongest, and if everyone is using the strongest then this variance that Wolfe so loves is non existent.

[@shubh4633]

There I was, Bored outta my mind, Looking to pass the time ... WHEN A NEW WOLFEY WIDEO COMES OUT ... Thank you Mr. Fish!

[@Kurlija]

I'm not in the competitive scene, so I wasn't aware scouting was such a big problem. Good vid, you've changed my mind about this.

[@HoodlumCallum]

Honestly I was super against open team sheets but after hearing your explanation - I get it. I do think in a perfect world open team sheets wouldn't be required, but overall I agree this is necessary. Thank you for talking about this!

[@AZ3rgling]

Real talk my pastor taught me about how taking offense to things is like building a metaphorical fence between you and someone else you can't have friendships or any healthy relationship. So try not to take offense to differing opinions and be more understanding and thats the way you can learn and grow as a person.

[@trevorgray2287]

Nice video, lots of points I hadn't considered! I think what people are upset about is just that this changes the game. It's not about whether it's a bad or good change, it's simply that the game is different now, so some people feel undercut. They'll get over it, or they won't, but in any case Pokemon marches on. But they seriously don't lock teams? Wtf I wonder if they're considering a format where you *are* allowed to change teams mid tournament, or maybe have multiple teams to choose from.

[@azztomouth6913]

I like open team sheets in general but I think the biggest issue with them is that it makes the online ladder a worse practice environment for in person events since there are still closed team sheets online. This ends up still serving to benefit players with a large network so they can practice in open team sheet environments. Still a net positive for the scene imo but something to consider

[@dangerbongo]

As someone who is not new to competitive battling, but new to VGC (thanks to you), the comment you made about “People who are new to competitive being fodder for these gimmick strategies” basically sums up my experience so far. Against teams running fairly popular picks I’ve had pretty good success. Then I run into some very weird strategy that, as a new player, I’ve never seen before and just get ate up before I realized what was even happening LOL

[@Zidanesco]

Honestly, I don't really play VGC doubles so my experience doesn't apply. But in singles, having acess to all of that information can straight up cripple your team. The element of surprise is very important to my own experience.

[@wildoneshacks08]

I agree with your take,I have not read other comments, but in card games I feel like it’s so much more fun if you’re able to see each others lists. Since then you’re able to think of how your game plan plays against theirs

[@monatae9725]

I really appreciate the time you took to explain this, Wolfey! I knew there was some kerfuffle about the announcement, but didn't have the proper context to understand it. I enjoy how informative your wideos are, whether they're about silly topics or serious ones.

[@Radar_of_the_Stars]

I think Open Teams is really good for Tournaments, but I really love the information game so I'm glad there are formats that are closed teams

[@Scribls]

The one thing I am sad about missing with open team sheets is the ability to legitimately gather information in a match about an unknown opponents team which is a skill in itself. Losing game 1 but getting a ton of information about your opponents team or preserving specific moves/items in a game 1 win was a nice way to extract a bit more value within a match. I do think removing the advantage from scouting discussed in this video is a greater benefit than preserving information collecting in a match 100% but I will miss the mini-game of information management while playing pokemon.

[@ZaqZiemba]

Great point/perspective here! Shame that scouters had to ruin it for everybody else

[@Ddddddddddd381]

As a Pokémon spectator, I think this takes a bit away from the excitement of the surprise factor but I totally recognize that the players are the most important group in this situation

[@Lilybun]

As a spectator the experience is the same as before so it doesnt affect us

[@Wasattsi]

@@Lilybun Literally untrue lol. Unless you're skipping ahead in the video, we're just as surprised as the player. It's fun.

[@Lilybun]

@@Wasattsi the broadcasts have previously showed information thats not been accessible to players

[@DracoSafarius]

@@Lilybun That's not what they mean. They mean that in the past formats each player would not have full knowledge, so you could have an entirely hidden move or item that catches the other guy stupidly off guard when it comes into play. Now everyone will see that ahead of time and random clutch plays won't be near as much a thing because it'll all just be the traditional guess of "I know X is running this, but is he doing this this turn or not?" versus "Okay he's been slamming recovery and protect, I'll wait until a recovery turn and double into hi- oh, he used earthquake."

[@Lilybun]

@@DracoSafarius but those games werent streamed to spectators anyway, by the time you see games on the official streams the competitors will have scouted each other out most of the time

[@andrewkrebs5608]

One thing I think people are getting wrong is that open team sheet doesn't stop creativity. You can absolutely still be creative, but if your strategy lives or dies by if your opponent knows your moves, your strategy is not good. There needs to be inherent consistency and merit to a strategy, no just surprise factor. Ex: me getting top 250 in March IC with Herdier

[@colingaunt3663]

new player here: I will make mistakes with or without all the information beforehand, but having the info helps quite a bit:) I think the discussion around which pieces of info are open would be interesting too. I’ve seen some comments like “open tera but not moves” and vice versa, I think the debate around which pieces are open to opponents beforehand will encourage healthy discussion on what’s best for competitive play. overall though i’m still gonna try and cram a bunch of information and crunch stats only to use a normal attack on a ghost mon and lose

[@heliork]

I am a fan Pokémon since Pokemon Diamond and HeartGold, I played as a casual for literally 12 years until 2019 when I discovered the VGC with a my national Pokémon content creator of KZbin (Cydonia). I instantly fell in love with this type of competitive and it's (without any type of throwback) the most intense for mindset inside and outside the battles. Ultrasun, Sword and now Scarlet. The games made so many steps toward the *complexity* of the competitive. If you remember 2016, it was a period when you just needed to copy paste the best teams, try them, pick the big 6 team and play a tournament without any skills and team building. Literally the cutie painter was mad with his double side sleep move and Xerneas was unstoppable after the set up (instead of now that the "setter" Dondozo requires high strategies and can be easily deleted if you *don't know how to play it*). Even Pokémon Sun and Moon with Z Moves was insane, imagine to have a 99.9℅ sure one shot move without any risk to use it. What changed from 6th generation to now? The game became more *serious* and less casual about competitive because Gamefreak noticed that who keeps playing Pokémon is not the kiddo but the 20s/30s that wants to compete on tournaments or just with friends. Answering to the topic: is right that now lists are open? I say no. And the reason is because it helps too much the new people that won't learn nothing from playing any match. Do you remember, Wolfey, how it feels to write down any information discovered of your opponent team during the battle? It is not an important part of the best of 3? Why then we need best of 3 if we know already the team of the other player? The concept of playing 3 matches is exactly based on balancing the creativity of who loves to build weird pokemons with who instead prefers to be solid and playing what he/she thing that could be better and most coverage. You said the example of Hydragon Steel or Fire tera, in a single match of battlespot can ruin a run sure but on a *best of 3* it won't, because you will know how to counter it on the second match of the 3. Conclusion: it's just another way of Gamefreak to put a *cover cloak* 🙂 to its problems and errors as you evidenced.

[@RowanTS]

Would you be up for collabing with someone and do some exhibition matches with both to show how it might work practically? So do Battle1 with Team1 hidden from your opponent as we’re used to (a BO3 optional for the full experience I guess), then show us Battle2 with a different Team2 you’ve both swapped team sheets for. I think some real world demonstrations would maybe help.

[@andrewbright2946]

I think another good thing is that it nerfs things like incineroar to an extent because pokemon that are that versatile want to run several moves, there are more than 4 viable ones and knowing the enemy moves means you don't have to cover for 8 or however many it is that you're worried about your opponents carrying

[@StrodoTheThird]

I kinda wish abilities and/or items were still hidden to still allow for some weird shenanigans but, after watching Wolfe's opinions and learning about scouting and stuff, I feel much better about open team sheets

[@andrewarmstrong24]

As someone who was very divided on this, it was really helpful to see different perspectives. Come for the bagel stories, stay for the in depth analysis

[@Beaston_125]

I think that the Pokémon and Tera type should be revealed, but I don’t know about move lists. On the other hand, move lists leave your opponent thinking too hard about what move you’re going to use, and, if done right, could give you some serious potential to play some good mind games. I think this is a good thing though. I think that it DOES ruin some gimmicks, but it creates room for new ones. The players who like to play creatively will now have to play even more creatively so their gimmicks still work. Also, Wolfe is right about new players. This game sold 10 million copies in 3 days. Last gen was one of the best selling Pokémon games of all time, just behind red, blue, and green. This one will probably beat gen 8, maybe even gen 1 (even people I know who have NEVER been interested in Pokémon are asking me about it). There’s going to be a lot of new players and I feel that doing Pokémon lists puts them on more equal ground with other more experienced players. Basically, this can make tournaments more skill based than RNG based AND make tournaments more accessible to new players.

[@istokipsy6289]

If there were audience members/other players at a poker tournament taking video behind someone's back or using binoculars to try and relay information to their friends, I'm pretty sure they'd be ejected from the venue. The fact that TPCi doesn't have similar rules for VGC is nutty bonkers. I support the open team lists in order for folks to not have to take each possible tera type into account. Great video. Hopefully TPCi can crack down on the more absurd lengths people are going to scout teams, because this is unacceptable behavior in many other game tournament settings.

[@imjusthere750]

My popular opinion is your content on KZbin has been fantastic!

[@mayauppstad9883]

To me it's not a question of who benefits from the change. It's more about the identity of pokémon as a competitive sport. In the introduction to your first academy episode you mention that you always like to describe it as a combination of chess and poker. Doesn't a change like this take a lot of the poker out of it? You also describe it as a combination between traditional strategy, probability management and information management. This kind of change removes a big part of the information management aspect and simplifies the probability management aspect greatly. I don't mean to be like "um actually you said this once" about it. I'm just bringing this up because I really like the academy videos and really agreed with your categorisation of the sport. Basically my point is that the identity of the sport should be a bigger part of the conversation than who benefits from either format.

[@AWanderingSwordsman]

I feel like theres really only one other possible solution to these problems and I'm curious your take on it. That would be allowing you to change your team between opponents. I know thats a pretty big departure from how pokemon works now, but it definitely would allow good opponents to save surprise teams for later in the tournament and make from some really fun to watch moments. You still wouldn't be able to change mid Bo3, and I think letting people see teras in team preview is still a good idea, but this would defeat scouting while retaining oddball strategies and the general probing information game of a Bo3 trying to figure out moves and items.

[@glumreaper8885]

It's possible in Smogon where each team takes reasonably just a few minutes to assemble. In cartridge this would mean getting multiple copies of the perfect IV spread, TM list, EV trained, etc. It would not be a fun adaptation.

[@vapcr]

There’s a card game that has an interesting Bo3 ruleset. You matchmake with 3 decks, you get a preview of the archetypes your opponent is bringing, and you select one to ban. If you win a round, you can’t use the same deck again but you gain the advantage of learning one of the opponent’s decks. As cool as I think this would be for VGC, I think it would end up being too much for the players who already spend so much time and practice working on just one team.

[@hwaybertdoesgaming482]

I agree with Glum Reaper. In an environment that allows for quick team building, like on Pokemon Showdown, this would be a very fun format, both to play and to watch. Given how long it takes to get teams in game, specifically with Tera Types, hidden abilities and specific optimal IVs, this wouldn't be the best, at least not right now. This change would require players to bring multiple teams to every tournament, which significantly increases the amount of time required to prepare. It's time consuming enough as it is lol.

[@AWanderingSwordsman]

@@hwaybertdoesgaming482 it would take longer, but not necessarily that much longer. The only thing that takes very long at all is tera shards, which still isn't THAT bad. You can get enough for a tera change in like an hour if you just do it solo and set the date forward to reset them after you clear out the type you want. Hidden abilities is a bit more annoying if you didn't happen to dupe a bunch of ability patches. However, you could have a bit of middle ground and allow like 10 pokemon total, and you can swap around their moves and items and which 6 you bring between opponents. Might be more palatable after DLC presumably adds features to make training comp ready pokemon even faster.

[@hwaybertdoesgaming482]

​@@AWanderingSwordsman The in-game team building is only a portion of the time, as building a high level team requires extensive time to refine and of course practice to reach the level at which you can compete with players like Wolfe. Having a limit of how many total pokemon you have would be nice to reduce the strain there.

[@trckstr2888]

As a dungeon master for D&D games I feel like players who are super against open teams sheets are the same people who don’t like sharing their character sheet with their DM, they’re either hiding something because they’re cheating or they’re trying to pull off some off the wall play to surprise someone, which really only works once anyways

[@TheKingOfTheEnd]

Is there a potential workaround to the unlocked battlebox? If you require the submission of a rental team for your competition entry then you are required to utilise that rental code. This "locks" the pokemon that will be used via rental code mechanics rather than direct locking through the battlebox.

[@viseye3587]

that sounds like it fixes it

[@Syfyre]

As someone who was disliking open team sheets, I think my mind was changed. Huh. Tera type def need reveal either way

[@broadwayVGC]

Thanks for sharing your opinion on this! It's informative to hear the perspective of a top player that's been around for awhile. I'm in favor of open team sheets because I think it makes the game more fair. Newer players haven't had time to make the connections established players have. I also think it puts marginalized groups at a disadvantage, because unfortunately it can be harder to make those connections. So I think overall it will be good for growing the scene and leveling the playing field for players who don't have as much information access.

[@BlueSavag3]

I think it is a good thing but it I can also see why people don’t like it. What I think is that they could do something like the first battle you do not have the list. This leaves unusual or gimmicky strategies able to get an advantage if they are truly good and also allows for the more strategic side of being able to plan everything like an open list would give. This would give the best of both worlds and still allow for some very fun and also very strategic gameplay

[@tbone6032]

This change single-handedly made me decide not to do tournaments this year. Was going to sign up for my first time ever, this kills it. My favorite part of Pokémon is making some off meta surprises and with abilities moves and items shown it just isn’t a thing anymore. Killed VGC for me I get the equal playing field argument but the problem is it just makes soooooo many sets totally obsolete and that trade off isn’t worth it for me

[@ganjjabarsmedium2347]

I’m on the side of more creativity. I don’t blame you Wolfe, you wanna win no matter what. But that’s at the cost of more entertaining matches for both players and viewers

[@fayezullah3008]

I agree with open teamsheets from a competitive perspective. However, the thing that I disagree with is, iirc, when they marketed Scatlet and Violet they marketed tera as using the element of surprise which conflicts with open team sheets. Just feels like the different branches of the pokemon company did not talk to each other

[@TheTruthx58]

Don't ever listen to marketing. It's all lies.

[@craigyeah1052]

I have been a long time showdown player and vgc spectator, but I've yet to compete in VGC personally because I'm a lazy teambuilder (my team for this year is almost done though so I plan to participate). My current team is very unique with extremely uncommon pokemon, and it should work fine in this format after some thought. This change is a huge benefit to me as a player, as I have no information network nor much experience in sets of 3 with info gathering. However, since learning of the change it's undoubtedly true that there are lots of fun ideas I've had that I know wouldn't work; The most common being a unique set on a meta pokemon where a more standard set is expected. Between this, and the loss of the information gathering game of a blind set of 3, I do think games will be less interesting to spectate overall.

[@JelloImpact]

I think levelling the playing field so new people not being hindered by having a network is huge

[@wombat4191]

Yeah, it's kinda win-win in this respect. Players that have the means to find out about everything do not have to go through the effort anymore (though I guess scouters will still want to find out HP numbers), and players that do not have the means will now get similar levels of information.

[@M1sterE321]

It seems to be a change that gives new players a disadvantage.

[@wombat4191]

@@M1sterE321 it gives disadvantage to players who don't know how to use the information. As Wolfe explained, many experienced players would scout all this stuff anyway, so it definitely levels the playing field in that respect by giving the information available to all. Whether you have the skill to use that information to your advantage or not is another question.

[@M1sterE321]

@@wombat4191 Yes, and those players who can't use that info are the new players. Experienced players aren't scouting out new player teams lol...

[@ReidnReactn]

@@wombat4191 nah because it shows to much it needs to only show the Tera type so it removes the impossibility to know what it is But showing items and moves almost completely removes strats people may wanna use

[@Lassila96]

I was thinking all the time how this would affect my enjoyment and excitement of the upcoming tournaments but as the video progressed i felt more and more relieved. Even at the end ( 25:49 ) u mentioned that it won’t probably affect much to viewers experience which was a nice to end on. Thanks for giving your thoughts on the subject matter at hand.

[@stllr_]

honestly one of the reasons i never got into vgc was because it was so complicated to walk into a game with a game plan going only off of what was on team preview, and it felt like dogshit to spend all that time waiting just to get killed by a set that did not at all what i was expecting. which is fine if i'm laddering, but with tournament pressure on i know i would never make the correct choice in person. being able to sanity-check with other people beforehand is super useful. i am very interested to see how this is gonna affect the meta tho, and if there's gonna be more multi-win-con teams so that people don't know what they're up against. or bluffing with a 4th move slot instead of using it for fringe coverage. gonna be super interesting to see how the meta equalizes

[@TheRealNenharm]

Your explanation of your unpopular opinion makes a lot of sense, and you're right, it's definitely against the spirit of the game, but this is the only solution to scouting, unless you're China.

[@iurichiba]

I think your perspective makes a whole lot of sense from a high level competitive standpoint. However, I do fear it might become yet another hurdle for people who are curious and would like to start playing pvp. It's already hard enough asking new players to understand their own strategies and synergies, not to mention IVs and EVs... but now they'll also be at an even bigger disadvantage if they don't have enough understanding of how many abilities and moves interact to correctly analyse the opponent's team and make informed decisions. My biggest gripe with this change is just this: it raises an already tall barrier of entry for new players.

[@iurichiba]

TL;DR: it's a fair change, but please keep it in official tournaments only, and not online, so more people feel like they can delve into it and not less. I'm not even sure if that was a planned change for online, btw, or if that's already a tournament-only change... if not, then nevermind lol

[@ciscoortega9789]

Hm? But this change explicitly _lowers_ the barrier to entry for new players because it'll explicitly _tell you_ what the enemy Murkrow could do, instead of you needing to rely on past meta experience and/or studying the most common Murkrow movesets. This facilitates _jumping right in_

[@typemasters2871]

I do think that open team list is important with tera types existing Pokemon battles should be about strategy, not about pulling out a win from nowhere just because you did something that the opponent could not predict

[@widdleysucks6975]

Honestly, open teamsheets makes me MORE excited to play the game. Also it makes me excited for SHARING teams. Now it's way easier to be like "oh that's so cool, I didn't think of that!" and that's my favorite part of battling ❤️

[@Tou-ZVGC]

🤦🏾‍♂️

[@rustynuts3697]

@@Tou-ZVGCwas that really necessary my guy.

[@Tou-ZVGC]

@@rustynuts3697 how is knowing all your opponents moves and he knowing yours more exiting?!!

[@Cliff86]

If Wolfe was playing Pokemon Emerald Battle Dome, he'd be introduced by the announcer as the crowd favorite

[@meddlemeddlesome]

Loving the unscripted BonusWolfe content which is more immediate to the meta without the lagtime of editing

[@jeremygilchrist3268]

As someone over 30 who only started playing competitive in gen 8, I can't agree more with the take - especially about scouting. I don't have friends who play the game, and it doesn't feel like that should hurt my ability to compete on a level playing field.

[@castythesaiyanmage4400]

I definitely think open team sheets help more than they hurt, for sure. Especially for people who are newer to VGC or have an interest in it. That being said, open team sheets would most definitely help MR. WOLFEY GET OUR HERO PALAFIN TO #1 IN THE WORLD, WOOOO LET’S GO BB! WOOO PLEASE GET HIM THERE WOLFEY, I BEG OF THEE!

[@XENON3120]

if they made this change is it as you mention it, to equalize new players to the format, since there is so many pokemon and so many strategies, people would need this to be their full time job to master it and then some since for a new comer to the game it will overwhelm them for sure. Game Freak seem to contineusly expose more and more to the competitive format, starting with no team reveal, to team preview, to shorter time limit, to minimizing stall with less pp on healing moves but I'm not sure how pottent is stall in VGC anyways, I have no experience outside watching you and CybertronVGC. They clearly wanna bring in more and more new comers and make their vgc bigger than ever before. Good video

[@arininquotes8396]

I've never played in a tournament, as my interest in VGC is mostly just watching. In these open team sheet tournaments, when do players get access to their opponents' info? If it's just minutes before, wouldn't that preserve the surprise factor of gimmicky teams while still working around the battle box issue?

[@noah9942.]

nah, you can know way in advance since it's all locked in at the start of the tournament.

[@rufusdrumknottvgc]

tbh when I first saw the announcement I didn't think anyone other than casual players/people who don't play competitive could think that this was anything other than a good thing so your explanation about the opposing opinion was actually really helpful for me lol. But you're absolutely right that there's this notion in Pokemon that unconventional strategies should be rewarded purely because they're different, which imo is connected to the idea you covered in your 'The biggest lie you believe about Pokemon' video (one of my fav vids btw) where there's this concept in a lot of people that you should be inherently rewarded for using your 'favourite' Pokemon over being actually skilful at the game - a narrative which was pushed by the Pokemon games themselves until they realised that was ridiculous and tried to backtrack but way too late for that. Anyway, really interesting video, you're so brave for coming out and saying it (lol). I definitely feel that firmly mid-tier players like myself benefit just as much as top players from this change, even though in slightly different ways. I have a very limited social network myself so I actually had no idea just how bad the scouting situation was in Worlds. That's absolutely ridiculous and I think this is a good change.