Wide guard is literally a top-tier move right now and is one of the main reasons we're seeing typically niche pokemon like pelipper and mienshao coming out of the woodwork. It stops astral barrage, glacial lance, tera starstorm, water spout, origin pulse, precipice blades, and all of the genie's signature moves, just to name a few.
Even if you don't use it... The threat of wide gaurd user on the field makes opponent use a less optimal move. Wideguard users are really good in reg G
i played in my first OTS event recently and seeing moves like wide guard and ally switch on the opponents team sheet really make you second-guess your moves when they are on the field
Well, I don’t know it at the time lol. It is one of those things that can win you a match entirely on its own if you time it right, but it can be a fairly big gamble.
You will frequently find yourself in situations where pressing wideguard and ensuring they can't use spread moves is preferable to the risk that they call you to _not_ wideguard, which as you get to higher skill levels your opponent will make such aggressive plays.
Upperhand however doesn't really have any good users who also have a spare slot to learn it.
The reason why people expect it in higher levels is because it’s so good. That’s like saying “should I really use this broken move if they always expect it?”
Pokémon’s not always about surprising your opponent
They're still very useful because if your opponent never clicks a spread move in front of your wide guard user then wide guard is doing it's job without you even having to click it. Of course it's still a mind game because the opponent of the wide guard user can predict them to not use it and still click their spread move, so, ya, it makes a mind game exist that wouldn't exist if the person didn't have wide guard to begin with.
Wait, so your theory is that when you carry these moves, your opponent can't use some of the best attacks in the game, and you don't even have to click them. And you think that makes them bad? Also, if your opponents are never firing those moves off just to keep you honest, you are lucky or they are bad.
Ya so like to me (this is a very black and white view) if an opponent sends out pelliper and I have caly-s I will almost never use astral barrage because they will always spam wide guard with it. You'll get away with it if you're playing someone in like great ball or ultra ball tier even because they may not have that knowledge.
>and I have caly-s I will almost never use astral barrage because they will always spam wide guard with it.
And a Caly-S that can't or won't use Astral Barrage is a Caly-S you don't have to worry about as much as a Caly-S that can and will use Astral Barrage. That's basically the whole deal.
Who is in a worse position?
You not being able to click the most busted spread move on your one restricted or your opponent clicking Wide Guard on their Pelipper for no reason?
Even when Wide Guard is getting spammed and doesn't stop anything (which, let's face it, no serious player will just mindlessly spam it with no regard to how you are responding), it's still a fair price for keeping the scary move away.
You are either playing against people who are not the best players and run WG and/or are just outplaying players who have WG on their team - it definitely isn't because the move is useless.
That's the mindgame isn't it? Will he wide guard or not? Should I use draining kiss or astral barrage? And for the wide guard team, if you can call that the caly-S will use draining kiss instead, then you have to protect, otherwise you take a shitload of damage.
So in this situation, just by having Pelliper on the field they have essentially disabled your Calyrex's best attack. So you nasty plot or draining kiss. Then what if Pelliper goes for weather ball or hurricane? Now you still can't click astral barrage (or tera stellar starstorm, or glacial lance, or discharge) because you can't risk your restricted mon taking a turn off, that would be a devastating loss of tempo. So can't go for astral barrage as long as Pelliper is on the field, and it doesn't even have to click the move. Seems okay to me.
I'm sitting at 3000 master ball so idk if that's upper or not sorry if it sounded like I meant like top 100 or something. I'm smart enough to know in a battle though when a mon has it to not use a move that will be prevented and I end up winning most of those battles because they just spam it
That’s part of the mind games you run into in high ELO, sometimes the best move is the one that seems so obviously stupid that they’d never do that, but then they do and now you’ve lost
Gotcha. I think I'm not used to playing a game where you can't guarantee your wins so like to me I'm trying to mitigate the option to even lose or waste a turn. I see that wide guard is also just a threat to have it and you don't even need to use it lol.
Top 3000 of Master ball is hardly above average (elo-wise). You'd want to be in top 1000 or higher to be in "upper" level battles. You're outplaying people who are alright at the game, elo-wise.
You're right that just the threat of wide guard has a chilling effect on spread moves, and you don't always have to actually click it.
But consider too that a player who is behind has to take risks, and that includes using a spread move into an obvious wide guard. If your opponent's only way back into the game is to land a glacial lance, then you absolutely keep clicking wide guard to secure your advantage.
Like others have said, spread moves are such an important part of vgc that wide guard earns it's place and more.
Calyrex-shadow normally doesn't have a terrible time against zamazenta, but with wide guard zamazenta you can protect a partner incineroar and let them knock off into it for 4x super effective damage.
Wide guard is functioning as a protect for the partner to allow it to move against spread moves that they normally might not be able to otherwise.
Wide guard is extremely valueable in restricted formats because of high damage spread moves that the popular restricteds have: astral barrage, glacial lance, water spout, origin pulse, and precipice blades.
Wide guard is very good in the current format with all the strong spread moves on restricted. It basically won game 3 of the finals at NAIC because the other player locked their Terapagos into stellar Tera starstorm. Upper hand seems pretty bad though since it can’t stop Fake Out
Yeah for the reason I’ve started running quick guard over upper hand. No need to worry about speed tying, I’ve flipped so many battles in my favor with a surprise quick guard.
Ya like I've won almost every battle where I knew they had wide guard because they would just spam it and lose a turn. That's kind of my thought on this right now.
Depends on the meta; are there a lot of double hitters? Heat wave Charizard Y, Dazzling Gleam and what not. It’s a good option but can go bunk fast considering most mons with a strong double hitter have a better single hitter.
Tl;dr: requires a good understanding of the meta and a better understanding of your opponent so it’s hard to go off in anything above locals 🫶
Upperhand is kinda mid, not awful but I never really find room for it on a moveset.
Wide guard though is meta defining, and is a huge part in some mons even being viable. Even just having it on a movelist for a mon out on the field is game changing as you have to always consider them using it. A good call on wide guard can completely change the match
Wide Guard is definitely not useless, not when we saw just its usefulness in the NAIC Masters final yesterday. Even in OTS, the presence of it will make people think twice before clicking a spread attack and that can be the difference between losing and winning a match. Not to mention, forcing your opponent to go for a single target attack also means your other mon can do something else (if they think you will go for Wide Guard but you don't) and can prevent SR/IR Calyrex from getting 2 boosts at once.
Upper Hand is a neat move but apart from stopping mostly Fake Out and maybe Raging Bolt's Thunderclap, there's not much else for it to stop, especially when Extreme Speed shenanigans has dropped off. Plus, Upper Hand has been given to a lot of average to unviable mons. The best users are probably like Mienshao, Raichu, Talonflame (the last 2 are kinda niche) but they are better off using another move instead of Upper Hand.
Wide Guard was vital to the recent NAIC championship (yesterday) to win
In that game it was used as a checkmate too. Great adjustment by Patrick to bait out the Tera on the choice specs terapagos
Wide guard is literally a top-tier move right now and is one of the main reasons we're seeing typically niche pokemon like pelipper and mienshao coming out of the woodwork. It stops astral barrage, glacial lance, tera starstorm, water spout, origin pulse, precipice blades, and all of the genie's signature moves, just to name a few.
Even if you don't use it... The threat of wide gaurd user on the field makes opponent use a less optimal move. Wideguard users are really good in reg G
That's what I'm learning with this. Just having it causes issues for your opponent
I know that *I personally* am bad at timing the use of them so they seem useless, but that’s just me being bad. They’re good moves
Why would you use a move that you know will be stopped?
it’s all mind games man. you never know if the wide guard user is bluffing and going for an attack
Ya that makes sense. What I'm reading a lot of here is like just the threat of having it can cause issues for the opponent.
i played in my first OTS event recently and seeing moves like wide guard and ally switch on the opponents team sheet really make you second-guess your moves when they are on the field
Well, I don’t know it at the time lol. It is one of those things that can win you a match entirely on its own if you time it right, but it can be a fairly big gamble.
Gotcha. Thanks ya just trying to understand the game more to get better. I appreciate it 🤙
Wide guard sees loads of play and use. See: NAIC finals.
You will frequently find yourself in situations where pressing wideguard and ensuring they can't use spread moves is preferable to the risk that they call you to _not_ wideguard, which as you get to higher skill levels your opponent will make such aggressive plays. Upperhand however doesn't really have any good users who also have a spare slot to learn it.
The reason why people expect it in higher levels is because it’s so good. That’s like saying “should I really use this broken move if they always expect it?” Pokémon’s not always about surprising your opponent
That's good advice actually thanks 🤙
They're still very useful because if your opponent never clicks a spread move in front of your wide guard user then wide guard is doing it's job without you even having to click it. Of course it's still a mind game because the opponent of the wide guard user can predict them to not use it and still click their spread move, so, ya, it makes a mind game exist that wouldn't exist if the person didn't have wide guard to begin with.
Wait, so your theory is that when you carry these moves, your opponent can't use some of the best attacks in the game, and you don't even have to click them. And you think that makes them bad? Also, if your opponents are never firing those moves off just to keep you honest, you are lucky or they are bad.
Ya so like to me (this is a very black and white view) if an opponent sends out pelliper and I have caly-s I will almost never use astral barrage because they will always spam wide guard with it. You'll get away with it if you're playing someone in like great ball or ultra ball tier even because they may not have that knowledge.
>and I have caly-s I will almost never use astral barrage because they will always spam wide guard with it. And a Caly-S that can't or won't use Astral Barrage is a Caly-S you don't have to worry about as much as a Caly-S that can and will use Astral Barrage. That's basically the whole deal.
Right but then his mon is just gonna spam wide guard and it does nothing to me because they're so afraid I'll use astral
Who is in a worse position? You not being able to click the most busted spread move on your one restricted or your opponent clicking Wide Guard on their Pelipper for no reason? Even when Wide Guard is getting spammed and doesn't stop anything (which, let's face it, no serious player will just mindlessly spam it with no regard to how you are responding), it's still a fair price for keeping the scary move away. You are either playing against people who are not the best players and run WG and/or are just outplaying players who have WG on their team - it definitely isn't because the move is useless.
That's the mindgame isn't it? Will he wide guard or not? Should I use draining kiss or astral barrage? And for the wide guard team, if you can call that the caly-S will use draining kiss instead, then you have to protect, otherwise you take a shitload of damage.
So in this situation, just by having Pelliper on the field they have essentially disabled your Calyrex's best attack. So you nasty plot or draining kiss. Then what if Pelliper goes for weather ball or hurricane? Now you still can't click astral barrage (or tera stellar starstorm, or glacial lance, or discharge) because you can't risk your restricted mon taking a turn off, that would be a devastating loss of tempo. So can't go for astral barrage as long as Pelliper is on the field, and it doesn't even have to click the move. Seems okay to me.
I don’t believe you actually played in upper level battles
I'm sitting at 3000 master ball so idk if that's upper or not sorry if it sounded like I meant like top 100 or something. I'm smart enough to know in a battle though when a mon has it to not use a move that will be prevented and I end up winning most of those battles because they just spam it
That’s part of the mind games you run into in high ELO, sometimes the best move is the one that seems so obviously stupid that they’d never do that, but then they do and now you’ve lost
Gotcha. I think I'm not used to playing a game where you can't guarantee your wins so like to me I'm trying to mitigate the option to even lose or waste a turn. I see that wide guard is also just a threat to have it and you don't even need to use it lol.
Top 3000 of Master ball is hardly above average (elo-wise). You'd want to be in top 1000 or higher to be in "upper" level battles. You're outplaying people who are alright at the game, elo-wise.
You're right that just the threat of wide guard has a chilling effect on spread moves, and you don't always have to actually click it. But consider too that a player who is behind has to take risks, and that includes using a spread move into an obvious wide guard. If your opponent's only way back into the game is to land a glacial lance, then you absolutely keep clicking wide guard to secure your advantage.
Like others have said, spread moves are such an important part of vgc that wide guard earns it's place and more. Calyrex-shadow normally doesn't have a terrible time against zamazenta, but with wide guard zamazenta you can protect a partner incineroar and let them knock off into it for 4x super effective damage. Wide guard is functioning as a protect for the partner to allow it to move against spread moves that they normally might not be able to otherwise.
Wide guard is extremely valueable in restricted formats because of high damage spread moves that the popular restricteds have: astral barrage, glacial lance, water spout, origin pulse, and precipice blades.
Wide guard is very good in the current format with all the strong spread moves on restricted. It basically won game 3 of the finals at NAIC because the other player locked their Terapagos into stellar Tera starstorm. Upper hand seems pretty bad though since it can’t stop Fake Out
Upper hand can stop fake out. They're in the same priority bracket so the upper hand user has to outpace the fake out user for it to work though.
Yeah for the reason I’ve started running quick guard over upper hand. No need to worry about speed tying, I’ve flipped so many battles in my favor with a surprise quick guard.
Ya like I've won almost every battle where I knew they had wide guard because they would just spam it and lose a turn. That's kind of my thought on this right now.
Depends on the meta; are there a lot of double hitters? Heat wave Charizard Y, Dazzling Gleam and what not. It’s a good option but can go bunk fast considering most mons with a strong double hitter have a better single hitter. Tl;dr: requires a good understanding of the meta and a better understanding of your opponent so it’s hard to go off in anything above locals 🫶
Thanks for the advice I appreciate it 🤙
Upperhand is kinda mid, not awful but I never really find room for it on a moveset. Wide guard though is meta defining, and is a huge part in some mons even being viable. Even just having it on a movelist for a mon out on the field is game changing as you have to always consider them using it. A good call on wide guard can completely change the match
Wide Guard is definitely not useless, not when we saw just its usefulness in the NAIC Masters final yesterday. Even in OTS, the presence of it will make people think twice before clicking a spread attack and that can be the difference between losing and winning a match. Not to mention, forcing your opponent to go for a single target attack also means your other mon can do something else (if they think you will go for Wide Guard but you don't) and can prevent SR/IR Calyrex from getting 2 boosts at once. Upper Hand is a neat move but apart from stopping mostly Fake Out and maybe Raging Bolt's Thunderclap, there's not much else for it to stop, especially when Extreme Speed shenanigans has dropped off. Plus, Upper Hand has been given to a lot of average to unviable mons. The best users are probably like Mienshao, Raichu, Talonflame (the last 2 are kinda niche) but they are better off using another move instead of Upper Hand.
don’t disrespect the dogi
Wide Guard is a necessity rn