Fairly new to competitive pokemon, just got into SwSh OU in the last few weeks, long-time MtG and former Yugioh player. Is it just me, or is this playerbase really, really soft? As a new player without much knowledge (I cannot, for instance, diagnose likely sets based on team comp or suppose at out-of-the-box sets I haven't seen from limited first-hand experience) I'm able to hit 1750 ELO on Showdown, placing me in the top 200. In Magic, I'm used to players understanding what both players win condition is, in Pokemon it seems like until you get to the very apex, players just click buttons and "predict" (i.e., you're obviously not going to Earthquake my Heatran when I can switch to a Zapdos even though Heatran is the only thing stopping you from cleaning with Triple Axel, that'd be too obvious, so I'm going to outsmart you and stay in so I can get up Rocks). It's like you're playing against bots who know you 'have' to go x against y, and either adhere to the script or try to win imaginary points by outsmarting you with no consideration to the gamestate beyond this turn.

Is this just a bad metagame (haven't touched anything else), is it Showdown, or do Pokemon players just fucking suck?