BBR Weekly Character Discussion #23: Pokémon Trainer

All three are decent standalone characters. Squirtle and Charizard have some awesome matchups, and Ivysaur's weaknesses aren't that bad. They are held back only by how weak they get after being out for so long, as well as the forced switch.

Charizards grab range/ability is ridic. I think PT is a litte underrated, but its kinda hard to main 3 characters and know the matchups with each and every one of them. Thats probably why reflex is the only good PT at the moment. I know at least 2 other PT's that are really good, but we live in FL where snakes and ddd's love to beat PT so they are kept in check.

Those would be Mata and Kith, right? I hear Kith puts the hurt on Snake pretty well =P

PT is a character who looks underrated until you realize people just aren't playing gay enough. None of the three can deal with ledge stalling very well, and that's a problem when your pokemon gets weaker the longer it's out. Playing more defensively against the pokemon you have the most trouble with (usually Squirtle for most people/matchups) can make PT a lot easier to deal with, since when fatigued we lose damage, knockback and hitstun.

That leads to a part of PT's metagame that I feel is somewhat unexplored: how well can PT deal with this? This article might be relevant if anyone wants to give it a read, but it's written for the PT side of things - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=264340. I think he has the potential to rise, but it's not obvious that he should yet.

One thing to note is that an individual pokemon's weakness is not as big a deal as if they were individual characters. If Ivysaur can't reliably land a KO move, which is the case in some matchups if your opponent is playing carefully, then Ivysaur doesn't have to be the one that gets the KO, etc.

T-block said:

Those would be Mata and Kith, right? I hear Kith puts the hurt on Snake pretty well =P

PT is a character who looks underrated until you realize people just aren't playing gay enough. None of the three can deal with ledge stalling very well, and that's a problem when your pokemon gets weaker the longer it's out. Playing more defensively against the pokemon you have the most trouble with (usually Squirtle for most people/matchups) can make PT a lot easier to deal with, since when fatigued we lose damage, knockback and hitstun.

That leads to a part of PT's metagame that I feel is somewhat unexplored: how well can PT deal with this? This article might be relevant if anyone wants to give it a read, but it's written for the PT side of things - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=264340. I think he has the potential to rise, but it's not obvious that he should yet.

One thing to note is that an individual pokemon's weakness is not as big a deal as if they were individual characters. If Ivysaur can't reliably land a KO move, which is the case in some matchups if your opponent is playing carefully, then Ivysaur doesn't have to be the one that gets the KO, etc.

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Actually, yeah. It is kith and mata!!! Goos sheeeee T-block. And that was an interesting read. I already knew it though Mata has by probably the best charizard in the states. Ive played reflex and kiths squirtle and they are better than mata's, but not by much. Reflex is just a super smart player in general though.

While squirtle gives snake a very rough time it is true that you just have to wait squirtle out with nades and mortars and watch for the roll behind. Charizard though gives snake just a hard a time since he has nearly the same grab mechanics as ddd against snake. Shield and you can grab snake out of any attack. Hence why camping charizard is a must if they are apt at using him. Its not unwinnable for PT against snake or MK or marth or wario or falco(a hard MU though for sure against PT). I think the one matchup that is incredibly difficult for PT is DDD tbh. Chaingrabs on Charizard and ivysaur and with a guaranteed kill on charizard with dthrow>dtilt after like 160% combined with easy edge guarding makes it so tough for PT. They really need to start out with squirtle and use squirtle as much as possible in the MU. Same goes for diddy. Diddy wreck charizard and ivy but gets wrecked by squirtle.

I dont think he should move down any spots. Pt still has potential to go up.

Yeah I've heard good things about Mata's Charizard. Kith has the most technical Squirtle out of anyone by far... he can do some pretty **** things with him. And then yeah, Reflex just... does stuff and wins ._.

Squirtle has a chance against Snake, but it's definitely a clear disadvantage still. The punishment each can deal is just so disproportionate with Snake killing literally 100% before Squirtle can. Charizard doesn't do that well against Snake though - getting grabbed really hurts, so Charizard has to play really carefully. Mata will say otherwise, but I feel that ideally Charizard's role is to camp long enough for Squirtle to get refreshed. F-air does stop grenades at a safe distance, which is nice. PT's hardest matchups are probably Marth and MK. Also, Squirtle with bananas is sooooo hot <3

I would agree with marth and mk beign tough for charizard. But i think ddd is his hardest. DDD can bair through rocksmash and firebreath on reflex. Its so dumb lol. Marth is overall HORRIBLE for PT though. Especially since the grab release on squirtle is so ****. And your right about getting grabbed by snake. Its horrible. Charizard can't roll behind snake out of his dthrow. How does this happen? Idk but super easy for snake for read and react to.

Marc said:

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...****!

Camping is so sadly good against PT. Trainers who rely heavily on one pokemon (mostly Squirtle/Zard players), find themselves in a bind when the opponents slows the match down to run the timer and make them useless. Everyone should do this against a PT's first pokemon, as they tend to most often start with their best foot forward.

He has some great tricks though. Squirtle especially can still work while tired, or at least hit opponents far enough away to get free switches often enough. Ivysaur really holds the team back. He's just not very safe on shield, his projectile isn't very good (there are worse though coughluigicough), and he has a bad recovery. Sometimes I feel like Ganondorf recovers better than Ivysaur does. I feel like Charizard is heavily under-appreciated and not utilized to his full potential by a lot of pokemon trainers I see out there. Squirtle is the popular choice, but in my opinion, Charizard can really tow the line if they step up and utilize him correctly.

If you ask me, I think Pokemon trainers might benefit from using the campy style of play that "counters" them more to their advantage. Squirtle has a pretty decent strategy of stall against DDD. If he can get a nice solid lead, he can camp water gun to a ridiculous effect. It's not perfect by any mean but it slows the match way down, pushing it to run more toward time. Ivysaur does better just camping back as it is anyway. Charizards only really use in this strategy I see though is for getting kills, but I think it's an under-explored avenue for PT to go down and would probably help him a great deal in tournament.

As a note...PT can be on the very edge of a moving platform (Whether it is Lylat or SV or Yoshi's or RC) and switch Pokemon. Whichever Pokemon comes out will just fall off the platform with no lag (T-Block, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong with how many stages. I see Kith do it on SV all the time)

Right - it's called Baton Passing, or Zero Switching. You're still punishable, but much less so since you can airdodge immediately, or buffer a jump. It's also possible to stay on the platform and buffer a tilt, although somewhat difficult.

Have you actually seen it work on Yoshi's? As far as I know, it can't be done on the Support Ghost or the tilting platform. Smashville is the most well-known, but there are tons of other opportunities to use it. Basically any time the floor is moving away from you, or any time the floor disappears from under you. Lylat works and is a nice one since the tilt can be predicted from the background. PS1 windmill works (stand on it, switch so that when you come out it has rotated enough for the part you were standing on to no longer be a floor). Pictochat with the Clock, the Carousel, and any time the platforms disappear, Pirate Ship when the ship crashes into the rock, pretty much every platform on RC, Yoshi's Island Melee if your opponent spins the blocks while you switch on them, Luigi's Mansion if your opponent destroys the floor you're standing on, Frigate Orpheon when the platform falls, or on the side platforms, or when the stage flips so that you end up in mid-air, Delfino when the main platform descends and disappears into the Three Pillars, etc. There's quite a few places where it can be done =P

And in case anyone didn't know, Squirtle and Ivysaur get two mid-air jumps after they come out of the switch, while Charizard gets no jumps =(

Yes, I can do it on Yoshi's Island.

Also, Marth is PT's worst matchup, I'm convinced. Second is Meta Knight. Third is Falco.

Dedede doesn't give Pokémon Trainer -that- much trouble. With platforms, I think Ivysaur has up to a 45-55 matchup on something like Battlefield. I was proud of myself when my Ivysaur beat up Seibrik there.

Also, Ivysaur is a girl.

TheReflexWonder said:

Also, Ivysaur is a girl.

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No wonder Ivysaur is bad!

It feels so pointless to even give input with Reflex in here, haha.

I don't know. I've sort of almost had the idea one time or another of supporting single Pokemon hacks in tournament just because of how much Ivysaur and Charizard bring Squirtle down. Alone, I feel like he could be a mid tier character, but PT is pretty useless with the other two and fatigue present.

Charizard is really stupid in Brawl- if it's any consolation, though.

There's not actually any in-game evidence of any Pokemon genders, including Ivysaur. It's one of those "urban myths" that came from who knows where.

Squirtle would be more than a mid tier by himself, but as a team, I think PT is nearly the embodiment of mid tier. He's not really "good", but he's not really "bad" either. I feel as though PT is overall at a disadvantage in a field of high tier characters, but his inherent flexibility means no one really destroys him. This is about reflective of his current position on the tier list; I doubt he's moving very far in any direction.

I'll post a lot more of my impressions when I can. My laptop is broken, so I've been reduced to using slow, crappy computers since Sunday, and the computers at my college won't show SmashBoards, for some reason. : |

The confusion surrounding Ivysaur's gender comes from before the NA release. The Japanese version of the game has Ivysaur's voice as much much higher, and more feminine. This lead Card, the one who wrote a pre-release guide to PT with move summaries etc., to refer to Ivysaur as a girl for most of his guide. Funny thing is, he sometimes reverted to "he" in that same guide.

There are definitely characters that destroy PT - having three matchups to work with is nice, but it happens quite often that none of the three have an advantage against a certain character =(

T-block said:

There are definitely characters that destroy PT - having three matchups to work with is nice, but it happens quite often that none of the three have an advantage against a certain character =(

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This is one of the primary issues with PT. In theory, he should be able to overcome any matchup by using the diversity of the 3 characters. Unfortunately, they all have similar weaknesses and therefor he is much more one dimensional than he was intended to be.

Additionally, Stamina is a huge concern.

PT is a really great conceptual character design that unfortunately doesn't work out in practice. With just a few minor changes, he could have been really good, but as they say, "thems the breaks".

Squirtle is amazing and Charizard is surprisingly good when used effectively. Even Ivysaur has his moments. Overall PT is capable of succeeding but will need a secondary for certain matchups and suffers from the issues described above in addition to a fairly one dimensional character design. It's a bit ironic that the character that should really be hands-down the most diverse in the game is not at all that.

Also, may we have a moment of silence for the extreme sadness that ensues from Squirtle not being able to be played on his own as a single character.

There's just so much wasted potential with PT

Yeah, I was playing doubles today with a couple of friends. One was using Pokemon Trainer. I always team with the worst person to balance out the teams (when I'm playing with not high level players I mean) and when it was reduced to the two vs. one I just planked out the Squirtle and then won. Otherwise, Squirtle is just broken as hell.

Individually, I feel Squirtle is S-Tier if there were no fatigue, but with that in the game, I can't see Pokemon Trainer going up at all.

I wouldn't say S-tier, but high tier would make quite a bit of sense to me. I still find Charizard to be a pretty underrated character, probably because his development gets hidden behind all of the Squirtle hype. It's a pretty fatal error for PT players to spend too much time developing their skills with just one pokemon though. If you're not working on all three, you're going to be cutting your effective down heavily as soon as fatigue sets in, or you lose a stock and are forced to switch.

Nobody who plays PT seriously would only practise one pokemon lol

I think strategies like planking against Squirtle are effective, but it's not the end of Pokemon Trainer if that starts becoming popular. I've recently been messing around with strategies where I actually make a full switch cycle before even getting my first KO. In some matchups, where none of the three get hard-countered, I think that kind of playstyle has potential, after a bit of practice and refinement.

None of the pokemon can really deal with planking though... especially Squirtle.

T-block said:

Nobody who plays PT seriously would only practise one pokemon lol

I think strategies like planking against Squirtle are effective, but it's not the end of Pokemon Trainer if that starts becoming popular. I've recently been messing around with strategies where I actually make a full switch cycle before even getting my first KO. In some matchups, where none of the three get hard-countered, I think that kind of playstyle has potential, after a bit of practice and refinement.

None of the pokemon can really deal with planking though... especially Squirtle.

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I didn't mean to say they just practice one. I guess what I mean to say is they focus mostly on whichever one they like the most or already the best with, even in actual matches. I've never actually met any PT players who didn't have a clear pokemon of focus in their game.

Well... I think most try to be as strong as they can with all three. There's always going to be a "best" pokemon for a given player/matchup/stage, so your strategy should involve maximizing your time and effectiveness with that pokemon. Ideally that pokemon is not just the one you're most comfortable with, but is the one best suited for the matchup. I focus on Charizard for DK, Squirtle for Diddy, etc.

I feel that actively switching your pokemon is underused at the moment. It's a shame that several of the top tiers make frequent switching a bad idea...

Can you detail for me a bit of how the Pokemon Trainer vs. MK match-up goes?

How about vs. Snake? I don't know much about either of those two MUs, outside theory-craft and a couple of vids.

Aposl/TKO from here in MD use PT. From what I've gathered:

vs. MK - Squirtle can move himself nicely around MK's zone. He has high priority aerials that resemble Kirby's b-air, but they're a bit faster maybe because of his mobility. His f-air is kinda strong. Squirtle can up-tilt trap MK at 0% maybe 2 or 3 times kinda like Fox. Probably can SDI but the up-tilts come really fast so it's a bit hard to predict and react to. Uh... and Squirtle can kill MK with his up-smash at around 80%.

Ivysaur and Charizard seem to get wrecked. Moreso Ivysaur because of his recovery. Charizard has a few gimmicks to combat MK, but his size makes it difficult to get around freely.

I've seen people classifying PT's matchups by Squirtle, Charizard, Ivysaur and all the three. Would like to see how the Meta Knight, Snake and Falco matchups go in all these four ways, and what character does better and worse against them.

Omni said:

Aposl/TKO from here in MD use PT. From what I've gathered:

vs. MK - Squirtle can move himself nicely around MK's zone. He has high priority aerials that resemble Kirby's b-air, but they're a bit faster maybe because of his mobility. His f-air is kinda strong. Squirtle can up-tilt trap MK at 0% maybe 2 or 3 times kinda like Fox. Probably can SDI but the up-tilts come really fast so it's a bit hard to predict and react to. Uh... and Squirtle can kill MK with his up-smash at around 80%.

Ivysaur and Charizard seem to get wrecked. Moreso Ivysaur because of his recovery. Charizard has a few gimmicks to combat MK, but his size makes it difficult to get around freely.

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Wow, I didn't even realize Squirtle Usmash was that strong. I think a fresh Squirtle beats MK. He just gets the hits and the kills so much easier. Of course, MK can just plank this awaay.

How does MK deal with Ivysaur's zoning game? Is it better for MK to be aggressive against Ivy and Char?

I am a genius.

I'm on the phone now, but when I finish this call, I'll post links and set everyone straight.

We're probably better off waiting for Reflex for more matchup specific things...

Squirtle's u-smash won't kill at 80%... more like 100%. He handles MK all right - disadvantaged, but not unwinnable. I find MK's dash speed and quick moves let him get in on Ivysaur very easily, and he tends to **** once he gets in. Charizard does better than Ivysaur imo, but doesn't have much in the way of safe answers to MK's air game, with Rock Smash being risky.

Squirtle can do a lot of damage to Snake, but there's just such a huge difference in KO power between the two that it doesn't really matter lol.

I've never considered ICs to be particularly hard. Squirtle has some cool things... hydrograb separates them nicely, and d-air tends to as well. Once they're apart, Nana is very likely to die. Ivysaur beats single climber easily, so I tend to have her out once Nana dies. Charizard kinda loses his grab game, which sucks... I don't really play Charizard against ICs.

Pierce7d said:

Can you detail for me a bit of how the Pokemon Trainer vs. MK match-up goes?

How about vs. Snake? I don't know much about either of those two MUs, outside theory-craft and a couple of vids.

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These posts are worth looking at.

Meta Knight versus Squirtle is probably something like 45-55, Meta Knight's favor (being really generous, since Meta Knight can camp him with tilts and stuff; more like 40-60 if he plays really campy). Squirtle actually does well against him in the air, and you don't outright lose on the ground, but getting outranged by tilts is a pain. You just die really quickly, and Meta Knight can keep himself safe forever, which is dumb.

I don't feel like talking about Ivysaur vs. Meta Knight. Check that other post. If Meta Knight doesn't second-guess himself, Ivysaur gets molested. It's something like a 25-75 matchup, I imagine.

I thought I posted my analysis of Charizard in this matchup somewhere, but, oh, well. Charizard can compete with Meta Knight on the ground thanks to Flamethrower, ranged tilts, and his grab range, and Mach Tornado isn't too much of a threat because of Rock Smash shards and D-Smash punishing its use. The problem in this matchup is when you're in the air, you're not coming down any time soon. Meta Knight juggles you to hell and back. Keep the matchup on the ground and it's doable, but Meta Knight is still rather stupid.

As for Snake...

I'm convinced Pokémon Trainer has a matchup that's close to even here.

Squirtle can camp Snake rather well, sort of like Wario. Water Gun helps with gimping if Snake has to use his Down-B to recover, and Squirtle can do all sorts of nasty stuff to taller characters via shield-stabbing. The fact that Snake does so much damage in a few hits is a pain, but Squirtle has a lot of stuff that works really well here. I think it might be outright even.

This is one matchup where Ivysaur has the potential to shine. If Snake plays particularly campy, he's going to regret it. Razor Leaf doesn't stop on shields, so if Snake has a grenade, it will blow up even if he shields, thus preventing him from loading up the stage with grenade spam. Much like with Squirtle, F-Tilt is your worst enemy, so stay away from it if you can help it. Bullet Seed does nasty things to Snake because of his having a hard time getting back to the ground. It doesn't blow up grenades and you can do it outside of the grenade's range if you're careful. Up-B makes him think twice about his recovery, too. The main problem is Snake's ability to reset the situation and/or get free damage with his DACUS, but if you avoid the F-Tilt and stay safe, it's probably something like 45-55.

People say Charizard gets the **** in this matchup, but outside of Charizard's usual problems, I don't see it being so bad. You can't reliably approach, but Flamethrower and your grab is all you really need, I guess. Snake can't juggle you if you don't let him, and you can gimp him well, so be patient and stay near the edge of the stage. Charizard can't roll behind Snake if he is the victim of a D-Throw, but forward roll accomplishes the same thing, so it's only slightly harder than usual, I'm convinced. Play it safe, don't fall for obvious stuff, and your gimping game probably brings it up to about 40-60. I don't like using Charizard here if I can help it.

TheMike said:

I've seen people classifying PT's matchups by Squirtle, Charizard, Ivysaur and all the three. Would like to see how the Meta Knight, Snake and Falco matchups go in all these four ways, and what character does better and worse against them.

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I can give my numbers off the top of my head (I try to factor in fatigue, how much each Pokémon will be used, etc.)--

Meta Knight: 35-65 (~40-60 Squirtle, 25-75 Ivysaur, ~40-60 Charizard)
Snake: 45-55 (50-50 Squirtle, 45-55 Ivysaur, 40-60 Charizard)
Falco: 40-60 (50-50 Squirtle, 30-70 Ivysaur, 35-65 Charizard)

If you want me to elaborate, just ask.

Hilt said:

From what I've seen and played, the PT vs ICs matchup seems really, really terrible @_@ I definitely think it's worse than DDD, but since we actually have two PT mains in here, what's it actually like?

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It seems daunting at first, but it's really not as bad as it's made out to be.

As Squirtle, keep Water Gun charged. Pivot grabs will get you if you're not careful, but if you can bait it, shoot Water Gun at them, and you can get them pushed off the stage. Blizzard loses to Water Gun as well, so trying to wall Squirtle like that just won't work. Squirtle separates them really well; quick aerials to rack up damage in a hurry, a super-fast D-Throw that hits around you if you manage to grab one, and generally safe tactics puts this fight at about 50-50. Squirtle is among the best around for gimping Nana.

Ivysaur -can- work if you're careful. If the opponent isn't used to the matchup, Ivysaur can be HELL for Ice Climbers. Bullet Seed works especially well because even if you mess up, Nana will often get caught by the initial hit, making a grab pretty worthless in that case, and if Popo is caught in Bullet Seed, Nana doesn't want to miss out on the fun. F-Tilt can shieldstab well, and Razor Leaf beats Neutral-B and Down-B outright. Play it safe and this just becomes a game of who makes a costly mistake first. I'd say 45-55 here, Ice Climbers' favor.

Charizard is doable, but less than desirable. He gets footstool -> Ice Block'd really easily, so a whiffed grab on Charizard's part means a lost stock. Still, Flamethrower keeps them away well, and a grab -> B-Throw can start some pretty nasty stuff with Rock Smash, grabs, and other things. It becomes a great battle of wits; if either party guesses correctly just once, that could decide the stock. Be patient and don't force anything, and it's probably at about 40-60, Ice Climbers' favor...Maybe a little better than that.

TheReflexWonder said:

I am a genius.

I'm on the phone now, but when I finish this call, I'll post links and set everyone straight.

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Did I miss anything?

I'll start my quick analysis on Pokémon Trainer and the metagame, while I'm at it.

Data time - a little late, but late is better than never.

First, I would like to caution that for characters as low as E tier, the sample size of serious players representing them is quite small. Drawing conclusions from this data alone may be dangerous, much more so than with higher tier characters.

As usual, the following graph takes tournament results as compiled by Ankoku (current as of the end of May, 2010), groups the results by character and player name, and shows on the Y-Axis how well the N-th best player (arranged on the X-Axis) of characters A, B, C... has been doing in tournaments over the course of 6 months.



To say that Reflex can give us good insight into Pokemon Trainer would be true, misleading. More direct would be to say that Reflex is, himself, the Pokemon Trainer metagame. He has managed to remain in good standing for quite some time now, yet nobody else has managed to do anything at all with the character. Apart from Reflex, Pokemon Trainer looks much more like F or (shudder) G tier material than E tier.

The questions this raises are obvious: What is Reflex doing that lets him be so awesome? What can other PT mains do that they aren't in order to achieve the same success, or at least success more befitting of an allegedly mid-tier character?

And then there's also a less pleasing question to ask: Do Reflex's opponents have any excuse to be losing to this character?

Squirtle is easily A-Tier material, I'm convinced. Absolutely fantastic aerials, a super-safe F-Tilt, nice frame 1 jab (with a guaranteed grab-release combo), wonderful mobility (to assist with camping and approaching), a useful crouch, and many true combos, most of which are made even better at damage-racking with fatigue in place. Squirtle can do almost anything he pleases, has rather good matchup ratios (outside of that pesky Marth), and can cater to any playstyle (though fatigue really encourages aggressive play). Squirtle is also the closest thing to Melee that the game has. Even if you left fatigue on, if Squirtle were a standalone character, I'd become an unstoppable force in competitive Brawl.

Unfortunately, it's not that easy, heh. Lucky you, huh?

In the future, Squirtle's movement ATs will be worked on, making him almost as frustrating to deal with as Wario when he has the lead as well as allowing new gimps and approaches to become commonplace. Camping strategies will be explored, allowing Squirtle's potential as a campy character to be fulfilled in a big way. Maybe he'll end up being even better than I predicted.

Ivysaur has massive trouble with certain matchups--Pokémon Trainer's worst matchups, which are Marth, Meta Knight, and Falco, really show themselves in the Ivysaur portion of them. She flails about helplessly as she gets tossed around like a ragdoll. If the rapid jabs (or any other ranged and grounded move) were just a little faster and safer, I believe she would be a significantly better character, and those character wouldn't just walk all over her.

That being said, it's not all bad. Ivysaur has interesting properties that help her excel in certain matchups. I believe Ivysaur is a HARD counter for Donkey Kong, and Razor Leaf helps keep Snake and Ice Climbers from doing too well against her. Ivysaur can make an acceptable wall against certain characters through the fear of her great range, decent projectile, and fantastic power (F-Smash kills rather early, as does U-Air, which has great shield pushback. Invincibility frames on the startup of Bullet Seed have yet to be explored completely, and may have potentially great uses against moves that don't last long.

The threat of Ivysaur's multi-hit moves and excellent range help to make the opponent's shield shrink, where Ivysaur can proceed to do serious damage with shield-stabbing and generally useful moves that are otherwise unsafe to use.

As for the future, I predict that Ivysaur's excellent gimping game will be explored further, making her an absolute nightmare to deal with while she's edgeguarding you. Zoning will become close to perfected, and she'll cap out as a decent character in her own right. As for now, E-Tier would be generous, but high F-Tier doesn't seem out of the question.

Why do I always leave Charizard out? I'll get back to it another time.

Just to throw it out there, I've always felt that the overall PT system was superior to a normal character system in the abstract; PT as a whole is definitely better than solo-Ivysaur and solo-Charizard would be and even offers some advantages to solo-Squirtle (though solo-Squirtle would probably be better, it's not all bad). I see people saying they think the system is bad; I really disagree. You have three chances to get a match-up right, and if you truly can play all three characters as well as each other, it can make you really hard to adapt to. After all, individual players do better or worse against particular characters and playstyles, and you can switch around mid-game with three chances to find one they have trouble with. The Pokemon can even cover for each other's weaknesses somewhat, which is mostly shown by Charizard's role as team anchor (stretching stocks that got beaten up on the watch of the other two, killing opponents who took a lot of damage from the others). Objectively, this much more significant as a positive than what you lose in dealing with timer running.

However, I think the real issue with the PT system is that it makes the character very hard to learn. All three of PT's Pokemon play completely differently, and you have to learn to handle them on top of learning the PT framework. I think it's just too much for most real players to handle; if you just can't get a handle on how to play even just one of the Pokemon right, you're doomed to be bad with PT no matter how good you ever get with the other two. I mean, imagine the "high tier trainer" who could switch between stamina-laden Wario, Olimar, and King Dedede. That character would be completely terrifying, but almost no one would actually use him due to the learning curve. I think it's easy to explain why Reflex is such an anomaly in the PT data. PT is really as good as Reflex makes him seem, but there are very few players who are up to the task of using PT due to his ridiculous learning curve that demands such diverse skills. Even if PT were top tier material, I bet he wouldn't be used all that much...

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A fun random fact is that Ivysaur's fsmash hits on frame 1 from charge release. To my knowledge, it's the only smash in the game like that. It's pretty nifty, though I don't know how much actual PT mains milk that.

snake's fsmash also has a 1 frame charge release.

Anyway, I can talk about PT a lot.
My opinions sway from Reflex a bit, but over time, they have, for the most part aligned with my own

The answer is: time.
How over inflated their current tier position, and player's opinions on their match ups are I don't have the capabilities to describe.
Whilst PT has a pretty good match up spread below high tier (several advantages, imo), those are fizzle up when an important notion becomes explicit in a match up:

Can the pokemon kill/outlast you reliably even with fatigue (gimps, avoiding kill moves)?

Most high tiers can outright wall squirtle; on the surface he seems like a super aggressive machine, but he is overly ****ed when it comes to commitment; compare this is Wario, MK or Falco - Squirtle is pathetic in comparison (in just one facet of game play). You know where he's going to land, you know what landing options he has, and you know that he can't do much else.

Ivysaur just fails in toe to toe zoning over all, she can keep characters out, but doesn't get much out of doing so. "Oh no I got back aired into a razor leaf!"!!!!!!!!! That amazing damage (back air is like 2-3%, razor leaf I recall being 6%?).
What she has going for her? Well; if she gets a really relaly really good read her 20ish frame upsmash will kill you.

Charizard has fantastic grab range, but a completely nerfed pivot grab (for whatever reason he's like the only character in the game who I believe has less range on their pivot grab than regular). Rock Smash is pretty much it's own character.
Charizard has one of the fastest and best horizontally ranged up smashes in the game, but unfortunately it is prone to have the 2nd hit just outright whiff.

Love the sig, Reflex.

Reflex makes me feel like I don't belong here =(

Grab release > jab combo is dangerous btw... you can SDI to be able to shield the third hit, and it'll get Squirtle grabbed.

yeah... squirtle's jab has extra hitlag, so it's very easy to SDI.
But to compensate, his down air has cinematic hitlag.
Meaning holy **** I just got randomly gimped off stage by a fresh down air when I was just only trying to glide attack some noob low tier coming towards me.

Ivysaur is the worst character in the game. Probably goes Samus then Ganon then Ivysaur.

Yes I'm serious. PT is top of low tier IMHO.

implying you have to use ivysaur

I'm just saying.

Squirtle gets air release ***** pretty hard (even though he's amazing). For example I've grab released chaingrabbed Squirtles to deathzones more than once.

Same with Ivy. Grab release -> uair = gg Ivy.

you literally never have to play as ivysaur if you don't want to

and since you switch from ivy to charizard the grab release thing doesn't matter when switching out from ivy