Comparing the Pokemon Metagame to Ecological Biology

[Dark]

Comparing the Pokemon Metagame to Ecological Biology

 

At first glance, you'd never think such an essay would be viable. There cannot be a single correlation between a children's game and a scientific topic. But that is an incorrect assumption. After awhile of pondering, I have come to the conclusion that these two topics are intertwined, and knowing information about competitive battling helps you in biology. The inverse of that statement also applies, obviously. While there are similarities between the two, they are not deeply specific. Never will you say that "Crunch doing 50% to Jirachi" is the same as a tiger half-killing a rabbit. The similarities are only between the interactions of animals and Pokemon, and essentially becomes one giant food web. The following paragraph assumes that you know basic knowledge of the current (or past) OU metagame, and you have enough of a brain to use Google to search biological concepts listed.

 

If you've ever played a non-competitive doubles battle, you'll see some basic strategies employed. Maybe using Suicune and Vaporeon. Suicune can use Surf to deal damage, while Vaporeon gets healed with Water Absorb. Or Zapdos and Dugtrio. A Discharge/Earthquake combo will damage both opponents while leaving your Pokemon at full health. These relationships within teams is one concept that can be attributed to biology. Symbiosis is the biological principle that describes close interactions between two organisms. One example of this could be bees and flowers. As you all know, bees pollenate plants, which allow them to bloom. This is beneficial for both the bees and the plants. In battling, this strategy can also be employed. Early-DPPt metagame, you would often see a Gyarados/Electivire combo. When your Gyarados is threatened by an Electric-type attack, you can switch to your Electivire to grab a free Motor Drive boost. Gyarados could also switch into Earthquakes aimed at Electivire and soften physical attacks with Intimidate. These two Pokemon were often used on a team together, as they provided a mutually beneficial relationship. While it doesn't exactly mirror the bee/flower relationship, it shows that these two Pokemon stuck together because of these benefits, which is the same with many organisms.

 

Bees and flowers, as shown in the example before, are part of a biological concept known as co-evolution. This is when two species of animals evolve to attain symbiosis. Bats are mainly nocturnal animals, so flowers may "evolve" over time to shift their pigment. If they have a brighter color and give off a fruity odor, the bats will be more likely to pollenate those flowers, and this will result in a mutually beneficial relationship described in the previous paragraph. While Pokemon cannot "evolve", in the meaning shown (as they can evolve between forms), they can change to suit their partner better. One example of this is Bronzong. While Bronzong makes a very potent wall in the OU metagame, sometimes that may not be enough. If your team is centered around letting a sweeper set up, having a wall won't help. To remedy this, the wall changed its normal moveset to something more geared towards softening hits, namely Reflect and Light Screen. While one species had to "evolve" or change to suit its partner better, it still provides a mutually beneficial relationship. Bronzong can take Earthquakes and Psychics aimed at Infernape, for example, and Infernape can take Fire-type attacks aimed at Bronzong. And on top of that, Bronzong can help Infernape set up via Reflect and Light Screen, rounding off the relationship.

 

Discussed above is the concept of evolution, or the slow changing of a species. While this isn't the best example, Pokemon can also evolve within metagames. When a new game comes out, as shown by Platinum or HGSS, many Pokemon get new moves. In early-DP metagame, Dragonite had a niche over Salamence because only it had access to Outrage, and Salamence had to opt for the weaker Dragon Claw. When Platinum came around, and Outrage was a move tutor move for Salamence, Dragonite was sent back into oblivion as it lost its most important niche. Likewise, if you have two different species of wolves (formed by divergent evolution), they may have different population rates. If one wolf species is green and the other is white, the white one will survive more often in a snowy climate. The green one, on the other hand, will survive better in forest areas. Different climates may refer to different metagames, but the point stands that the green wolf will not survive in the snowy climate.

 

Probably the most confusing correlation is the food web. As you should know by the less-complex food chain, one animal eats another, who in turn is eaten by another predator, and the chain continues. In a food web, more than one animal could be prey for a predator, and one animal could have more than one predator. The OU metagame mirrors this idea wonderfully. Salamence, who is currently the most potent sweeper, can be represented by a tiger. A tiger preys on many things, is fast, and kills quickly. This shows the raw speed and power of Salamence, and the multitide of sets it can use; Dragon Dance, MixMence, et cetera. The tiger is not perfect, however. Should the tiger let its guard down and die in the wilderness (note: this is not the equivilance of fainting in Pokemon), a maggot can easily siphon off its remains. A maggot can be either Weavile or Scizor. Weavile can KO Salamence with Ice Shard, and Scizor can threaten with Choice Banded Bullet Punch, while also resisting Outrage. However, these maggots aren't without faults. Monkeys can easily eat maggots. What beats Weavile and Scizor? For the most part, barring Brick Break and Superpower, Heatran can check both of these threats. If you use monkeys and tigers together, however, that poses some other problems. Heatran and Salamence have weaknesses to Water and Ice, respectively, and Surf/Ice Beam is a common combination on Starmie. With some Defense EVs, it can live a Salamence's Outrage, and won't die to a Heatran's Fire Blast/Flamethrower. It can kill both with the moves listed earlier, meaning it is a huge threat. In a nutshell, the system of "checks and counters" in Pokemon is translated in the wilderness to a large food web.

 

As an addition to the last paragraph, what if Salamence was taken out of OU? This would be the equivilance of killing all the tigers in the jungle. The first thing that would happen is that lions (which could be Dragonite) would rise in usage. Needing some way to counter many of the big OU threats and stall teams, Dragonite would rise up to the challenge, playing as a weaker and slower Salamence. This does not come without reprimands, however. Dragonite may not faint many of the top stall threats, meaning it is more susceptible to dying, despite it's better overall defenses. Another effect from the tiger removal would be that Pokemon like Porygon2 would fall in usage. One niche of Porygon2 is to Trace Intimidate and remove Salamence's Attack boost from Dragon Dance. It can proceed to Ice Beam or Thunderbolt. However, without tigers to kill, this duck of ours would not have much other use in the jungle. It would fall back to UU or NU, where it would counter other threats. As mentioned before, stall would also increase. Defensive animals, like giraffes and elephants (Hippowdon, defensive Jirachi, Celebi) would increase in population, which is the same as rising in usage. Since Dragonite is not as good of a stall-breaker, these Pokemon would have a field day.

 

The different of tiers could represent different enviornments. While OU may be a jungle, where the top threat is the tiger (Salamence), UU and Ubers is quite different. Ubers is more fast-paced, where you have strong threats like Deoxys-A and Mewtwo. UU is slower, where you have less-powerful attackers, and in turn less-powerful walls. These differences become different enviornments, and the top threats are different animals. Maybe Venusaur, the most used Pokemon in UU in May, could become a large whale. It can defend itself well, and many animals don't want to mess around with it. Absol, a prominent UU threat, could be a shark, for example. In Ubers, Blissey may be a high-flying bird, who doesn't take much damage from anything special. Mewtwo could be a bear, who can deal damage to pretty much everything, and doesn't afraid of much.

 

While I did not delve into all possible biological concepts, these few main points illustrate the relation between competitive battling and biology. The relationships are shaky at best, but still provide a decent outlook from one point to another. If you apply biological concepts to competitive battling, you can sense metagame changes easier, and will have a better understanding about what will happen if a Pokemon is removed from a metagame. If you apply metagame changes to biology, you'll understand the interaction between organisms better.

 

There are many logic flaws in this essay, and it would make me a better writer and critical thinker if you pointed them out. This was not revised by anyone other than myself, and it was on-the-fly writing from a concept I thought about just a few days ago.

 

inb4tl;dr

[~/Coolio Prime\~]

When you change something anywhere, things will adapt to a point of ultimate efficiency. Pokemon is indeed a great way to show this off, as are other games like Yugioh and the such, since all the given possibilities either facilitate or hinder the progress of possibilities. Counters are equivalent to viruses, IMO.

 

I don't really want to nitpick this, it was a nice read even though the thoughts of it were going through my head as well.

[Azmodius]

Wow, looks like someone has a little too much free time.

[~/Coolio Prime\~]

I dunno' about you, but I'd personally love some more free time.

[Raylen]

tl; dr. What you're talking to is synergy. It has nothing to deal with this,(and your writing style is pretty bad - you go on tangents and stray off topic and continue on things not worth continuing) for what I've seen.

[Dark]

you go on tangents and stray off topic and continue on things not worth continuing

 

Gah, I've heard this way too often from my English teachers.

 

Although, you need to cut me some slack. It was an idea that spurred into my head around two days ago, and I wrote it within the time constraints of twenty minutes. It wasn't supposed to be an uber-detailed analysis, just a 'lax topic on a pretty interesting idea.

 

And it goes more than synergy, tbqh. The entire system of checks and counters is a direct mirror of what the food chain is. Already, using biological knowledge, I can predict the possible ramifications of banning Salamence to Ubers. So it's not entirely useless, and it's not entirely synergy.

 

Do I have a lot of time on my hands? Twenty minutes to write this and ten minutes to think of this is a lot of time, right? It looks like a lot of writing, but I knew basically everything I wanted to state before I began. So it wasn't too daunting of a task.

[Raylen]

I'm a semi-professional (I must stress the semi part) writer, not a biologist. So I cry at all this 13375p34k and internet talk here and strive for complete sentences with correct grammar.

 

For someone who doesn't understand the metagame / competitive battling, this would be difficult to understand. I know you are smart enough to see why.

[Brushfire]

I'm a semi-professional (I must stress the semi part) writer' date=' not a biologist. So I cry at all this 13375p34k and internet talk here and strive for complete sentences with correct grammar.

 

For someone who doesn't understand the metagame / competitive battling, this would be difficult to understand. I know you are smart enough to see why.

[/quote']

 

Aye, while I am a semi-professional Screenwriter who knows the obvious concepts of both biology and competitive battling, and I loved this. Cry as much as you want; it's not used in this essay and is therefore irrelevant.

 

It's really not that hard to understand. Hell, he even explains what each of them are in the essay, the only things you need to know are that: Uber = overpowered, OU = Overused, UU = Underused and NU = Never used.

[Dark]

I would have liked to go into detail with the different metagames, but that would get too confusing. If I attributed the Ubers metagame to a marine enviornment and an OU metagame to a forest enviorment, what happens when you bring Scizor into Ubers?

 

Surely a bunch of maggots cannot live underwater.

 

There are some logical fallacies, but none big enough that they would destroy the entire ideology of the thread.

[Lonk]

There is a major difference between symbiosis and synergy. Symbiosis is the interaction between two or more organisms, often at least 1 organism benefitting from the relationship. Synergy is the compatability between organisms or strategy. Water Absorb may seem to be a good example of this, but in actuallity this is an example of synergy. All of the examples you have stated above are examples of synergy. Different species do not combat with each other but make sure the other species survives. However, you do have one point set: Evolution among gaming is virtually the same as evolution among organisms. That is an example of corelation between the Pokemon Metagame and the ecosystem.

[-Berserker-]

Can you show me an example of this in Pokemon, Dark?

[~/Coolio Prime\~]

I would have liked to go into detail with the different metagames' date=' but that would get too confusing. If I attributed the Ubers metagame to a marine enviornment and an OU metagame to a forest enviorment, what happens when you bring Scizor into Ubers?

 

Surely a bunch of maggots cannot live underwater.

 

There are some logical fallacies, but none big enough that they would destroy the entire ideology of the thread.

[/quote']

Scizor does well in Ubers. :S

 

Can you show me an example of this in Pokemon' date=' Dark?

[/quote']

Dark touched upon this and I already said this. The amount of usage a Pokemon gets inspires the use of counters to check them. As a pokemon's use goes up and down so does their counter's.

[Dark]

And you can see this in metagame trends. It's one big ball of repeat. Okay, so ScarfTar becomes popular. Scizor, to counter it, raises in usage. So Tyranitar goes down. But when Tyranitar goes down, things like Rotom have a field day since they don't have to worry about STABd Crunch or Pursuit. But when things like Rotom go up, Tyranitar comes back up to counter it. And it's a repeating cycle over and over. Again, think of the usage of any given Pokemon in a metagame the same as the population of a certain species in a given enviornment. If a tiger gets really hungry, it's going to feast on rabbits, for example. But if something has a symbiotical relationship with rabbits, it would attempt to kill the threatening tiger. I took biology two full years ago, so cut me some slack with examples. But it does make sense if you look into it.

 

There is a major difference between symbiosis and synergy. Symbiosis is the interaction between two or more organisms' date=' often at least 1 organism benefitting from the relationship. Synergy is the compatability between organisms or strategy. Water Absorb may seem to be a good example of this, but in actuallity this is an example of synergy. All of the examples you have stated above are examples of synergy. Different species do not combat with each other but make sure the other species survives. However, you do have one point set: Evolution among gaming is virtually the same as evolution among organisms. That is an example of corelation between the Pokemon Metagame and the ecosystem.

[/quote']

 

How can you say that? Excuse me for copying Wikipedia on the "Symbiosis" page, but take clownfish and sea anemones. While I may be rusty at bio, I know that sea anemones provide a home and shelter for clownfish, and clownfish, iirc, kill predators of sea anemones and do some "cleaning". So, in a marine enviornment, you'd see these two animals together. Reverting back the ADV metagame for a second, didn't you always see Blissey and Skarmory together? There were no good mixed wallbreakers, Blissey took the Flamethrowers and TBolts aimed at Skarm, and Skarm took the Earthquakes and Fighting-type attacks aimed at Blissey. While they did have the synergy you talked about, they also have a symbiotic relationship. Using them together provides a benefit for each of them individually. Blissey doesn't have to worry about physical attacks and Skarm doesn't need to worry about special attacks.

 

You say that symbiosis is an interaction between organisms that provides benefit for at least one (but in Pokemon, usually for both). I just showed you that. Blissey and Skarmory interact by taking inverse hits from different defensive spectrums, and it benefits them both.

 

You say that synergy is the compatibility between organisms. Blissey and Skarm were compatible opposite walls in ADV.

 

When you are talking about the Pokemon Metagame, both symbiosis AND synergy apply to most pairs of Pokemon. I understand the fine line between them in biology, but they merge into one when talking about Pokemon. You'd be hard-pressed to find a relationship between two Pokemon that is denoted as synergy only and not both.

[Raylen]

@ Brushfire: I play the Pokemon competitively. I know what Dark is talking about.

 

(1) As an addition to the last paragraph' date=' what if Salamence was taken out of OU? This would be the equivilance of killing all the tigers in the jungle.

 

(2) The first thing that would happen is that lions (which could be Dragonite) would rise in usage. Needing some way to counter many of the big OU threats and stall teams, Dragonite would rise up to the challenge, playing as a weaker and slower Salamence.

 

(3) This does not come without reprimands, however. Dragonite may not faint many of the top stall threats, meaning it is more susceptible to dying, despite it's better overall defenses.

 

(4) Another effect from the tiger removal would be that Pokemon like Porygon2 would fall in usage. One niche of Porygon2 is to Trace Intimidate and remove Salamence's Attack boost from Dragon Dance. It can proceed to Ice Beam or Thunderbolt. However, without tigers to kill, this duck of ours would not have much other use in the jungle. It would fall back to UU or NU,

 

(5) where it would counter other threats. As mentioned before, stall would also increase. Defensive animals, like giraffes and elephants (Hippowdon, defensive Jirachi, Celebi) would increase in population, which is the same as rising in usage.

 

(Conclusion) Since Dragonite is not as good of a stall-breaker, these Pokemon would have a field day.

[/quote']

 

There are 5 points in this paragraph (2) supports (1), (3) is a continuation of (2), (4) is a continuation of (3), and (5) is a continuation of (4). (2) supports (1) perfectly, but it seems that the entire paragraph is a drag on point (2). And (1) is not really a well formed statement. It doesn't assert anything, it doesn't lead me anywhere. I'm not saying any of Dark's points are invalid, I'm just saying they aren't well organized.

[Dark]

Point two is simply saying that Dragonite (or lions) would rise in usage because Salamence (or tigers) are gone.

 

All the points are based upon Point 1, which gives the scenario of killing all the tigers. Basically, and I know it's dragged on, I'm asserting the point that the metagame is more stallish and many Pokemon rise/fall in usage.

 

Compare that to an ecosystem. If you get rid of a huge marine predator, examine how the ecosystem changes. You'd see a lot more "defensive" or non-agressive animals rise in population, and you'd see weaker/slower predator fish rise in population now that they need not compete when outclassed.

[Womi]

Wait, but it still is a video game for children?

[Zimiri of the Muse]

my head now hurts, im gonna go play pokemon

[Yang Xiao-Long]

Don't forget Relicanth.

I was on Bulbapedia, and an article was talking about Relicanth and its similarity to the Coelocanth. When the Coelocanth was first discovered alive off the coast of Africa in 1938, it was found to have bright blue scales. If you've ever seen a shiny Relicanth, you'll notice the striking blue coloration. The regular Relicanth, as we know, is a drab brown, much like the lesser known Coelocanth subspecies Latimeria menadoensis (a specimen is currently held in the Smithsonian).

The Coelocanth has limb-like fins, much like the ones we see on Relicanth.

 

Search hard enough and maybe you'll find a rare treasure.

[Tentacruel]

I lol'd when I saw the title to this thread, but then read it and was shocked to see how true it was.

[Dark]

Wait' date=' but it still is a video game for children?

[/quote']

 

Yes, young pupil. Now go beat up that grasshopper. I mean, that Kricketot.

 

Don't forget Relicanth.

I was on Bulbapedia' date=' and an article was talking about Relicanth and its similarity to the Coelocanth. When the Coelocanth was first discovered alive off the coast of Africa in 1938, it was found to have bright blue scales. If you've ever seen a shiny Relicanth, you'll notice the striking blue coloration. The regular Relicanth, as we know, is a drab brown, much like the lesser known Coelocanth subspecies Latimeria menadoensis (a specimen is currently held in the Smithsonian).

The Coelocanth has limb-like fins, much like the ones we see on Relicanth.

 

Search hard enough and maybe you'll find a rare treasure.

[/quote']

 

This isn't so much of an animal comparison. Because you see striking resemblances between Pokemon and animals. This is more about the ecological interactions and how they relate to the metagame.

 

And yeah, when I was learning about Coelocanth in biology, I always thought of Relicanth. Then again, everything in bio makes me think of Pokemon. Evolution...

 

I lol'd when I saw the title to this thread' date=' but then read it and was shocked to see how true it was.

[/quote']

 

I brushed it off when I first thought of this idea, but then I felt compelled to make some bullshit essay. <3

[六兆年と一夜物語]

Now lets compare Natural Selection (or something like that) and Breeding.

[Dark]

Now lets compare Natural Selection (or something like that) and Breeding.

 

Exchange your "natural" for "artificial", and we have a deal.

 

Because artificial selection is when you breed for certain traits, and most people breed for natures, IVs and Egg Moves. <3

[Womi]

Wait' date=' but it still is a video game for children?

[/quote']

 

Yes, young pupil. Now go beat up that grasshopper. I mean, that Kricketot.

 

You are a good teacher and all, but with all the rubber ducks and whips last night........you destroyed my innocence. ;_;

 

Kricketune rocks. It X-scissored me to death.

[~/Coolio Prime\~]

When I just got back into Pokemon I used Empoleon and Kricketune exclusively. :S

[Dark]

Not full-blown evolution, but natural selection. Some species are more suited for a certain enviornment than others.

 

In the Suspect Ladder, where Salamence is banned, you see Shaymin or Celebi on almost every team. So when you lose a big stall-breaker, defensive Grass-types increase in population.