>>44648327>It's pretty easy to predict switches. If you have Zeraora out and your opponent is using Gyarados, you can be certain they'll switch into something resistant to or immune to Electric, like Hippo or Ferro, so you use Grass Knot/Knock Off/Close Combat instead.The most hilarious part of 'competitive' Pokemon is when people pretend prediction is a skill and not just dumb luck
Assuming the two players are on an equal level of understanding of the game, and both know the choices that are available to each other, then you can't predict what they're gonna do.
The Gyarados player obviously knows the Zeraora will kill them with an electric move, so they plan to switch to Hippowdon.
But the Zeraora player knows that they'll switch out of the Gyarados and into the Hippo, so they use Grass Knot instead
But the Gyarados player also knows that the Zeraora player is expecting the switch, so they'd be better of EQing them and taking the Grass Knot
Except the Zeraora player also knows that the Gyarados player must know that he's expecting the switch so he should plan for the Gyarados to stay in
But the Gyarados player must know that the Zeraora player knows that switching out is too obvious so he's planning on staying in, and therefore he SHOULD switch out because his opponent would never expect him to do the thing that is the most obvious
And so on in an endless loop, where neither player can possibly know what the opponent will choose and ultimately settle on just guessing. If you guess right you get to pretend you outsmarted your opponent, and if you guess wrong you pretend your opponent is clearly playing better than you.
