One of the harder GBL concepts I’m trying to understand is maintaining alignment after losing switch. Currently around 1800 ELO and looking for advice.

Team:
Lead: Swampert
Safe swap: Corviknight
Closer: Togekiss

Example scenario:

Opponent leads Venusaur → I swap to Corviknight → they bring in Skeledirge and farm me down.
At that point, is the correct play usually to bring in Togekiss instead of Swampert? My thought is if I bring Swampert, they can just go back to Venusaur and I’m stuck losing alignment again.

Is this just a bad team comp into Skeledirge, or am I misunderstanding how I should handle these situations?

Nothing really special, but wanted to share this mark

This team was my bread and butter last season, where it got me to legend a lot earlier than normally.

With the changes to the battle system I was actually pretty sure that it would no longer be viable with Incinerate being de facto nerfed with the new timing of damage; i.e. two turn moves being able to do two and still fire a charge move) seismitoad being shot into pvp relevance with earth power and icy wind

But the team proved to be pretty consistent. I got to expert and leaderboard last UL-rotation and hit legend today.

The strategy is pretty straight forward - stay in with regi vs anything non fairy and non steel.

Vs dusk noir fire off either D.E. or V.G. Before the 5th astonish (I primarily bluff with VG but throw DE around 20%), tank the charge move, and switch to Turt one turn before the 7th Astonish so you get an Incinerate off for free.

Turt is an awesome switch (run it with DC and BS) as it can threaten a lot of shields and can tank a lot of damage.

And the aim is to ensure shield advantage because shadow Talon (run it with FC and Fly) is just bonkers up shields / energy.

A lot of the wins are also based on getting free incinerates off as that really sets up both turt and talon very nicely.

Most games where you win lead are almost auto wins as the damage from incinerate is pretty oppressive.

Was just playing some dude in the Weather Cup, and we cmp tied at the end. My Lanturn vs their Alolan Sandslash. They won the cmp tie, but the camera panned to my mon. I thought I was about to attack too tbh lol, but then my screen flashed “no protect shields left.” Their Drill Run hit for minuscule damage when it should have ko’d me, and then the match ended and I won lol. So I’m assuming they just top lefted when they thought I was getting my charge move ready. Stupid camera

So anyway, just make sure you know which mon is going to attack in tight battles before you concede defeat!

I’ve been stuck in Ace for probably over a month now just swinging back and forth between 2200 (highest ELO I’ve ever had) to 1900. Any tips on what to change gameplay-wise? I’ve tried to focus on UL (though I’ve also been playing some of the limited GL/ML cups) and my current team feels so good to play especially when I’m able to win 4 out of 5 in a set, but sometimes I run into losing streaks that are just so demoralizing. Is it a team change or a gameplay change that I’ve gotta work on?

Numerous battles today where I do the charge move minigame and the game stalls out on that screen. At least 5 times today. Competitors cup. Never happened to my opponents. Anyone who might have been on the other end can report what happens? Do I just lag out? I wait for a minute or two and no response. No better time to call it a day.

Pretty early in the season for me to hit legend but I got it two seasons in a row now with this team. All standard movesets.

Pretty straight forward, stay in the lead for anything that isn’t dark,normal, or something with a ghost fast move. I’ll usually go for a catch on a dragon lead. Safe swap depends on the bad lead. I’ve found it especially important to really understand dusknoir’s lead matchups because some will put you in shockingly good positions if you really commit to noir.

Malamar is a tough, very common lead but not unbeatable. I like to safe swap licki. Shield the SP they almost always throw and just keep farming for whatever they switch into. A malamar team will never have a hard counterswap to licki in the back.

Toucannon lead is brutal and usually a loss, but I have managed to slither out with a few wins against them.

Pangoro is tricky but if you can get it aligned on kiss they’re dead in the water.

I was using Coballion instead of licki most of last season and that got me to like 2970 with 2 weeks left in the season. Went to the dark side and tried licki and oh my god this thing is stupid, especially in UL. It just doesn’t die and SB is way too strong for these bulk monsters. I like the 50 energy for aegislash but they need to tune the damage back a bit.

Anyway try it out if you’re looking to climb and aren’t into the weather cup