A Mini-Lesson On: Predicting Your Opponent's Moves

If you're familiar with type matchups, this should be a relatively straightforward process. If not, I'd highly recommend memorizing-- or at least becoming familiar with-- how moves affect each other, and affect Pokémon of certain types.

Pokémon battling is essentially a complicated version of rock-paper-scissors, with far more than three options. However, Pokémon battling isn't just a game of chance: it's something that is far more predictable, because of how types work in the Pokémon universe. Let's use Benvolio (my Greninja) as an example. Benny, as I often call him, is a Water/Dark-type Pokémon. He doesn't have Protean as his Ability (which allows a Pokémon to change type depending on which moves he/she uses), as he was/is my starter for Pokémon Y.

(Via Bulbapedia.net.)

If my opponent sends out a Pokémon like Breloom, which is Grass/Fighting-type, I know that Benvolio could easily be one-hit-KO'd. As such, I'd want to switch into something like my Gardevoir, which has Psychic as one of her moves. However, Benvolio does have Extrasensory, meaning that he may be able to one-hit-KO the Breloom, provided that he has move priority in that turn. Should I take that risk and try to use Extrasensory, knowing that my Pokémon could be very easily knocked out if I don't move first? If it's the first turn of a battle and I still have all three of my Pokémon, I wouldn't want to unless I have nothing else that could easily defeat the Breloom.

So, how do you predict those "surprise moves" that don't fit with a Pokémon's typing? You can't reliably do so. Knowledge of the most common move-sets for a certain commonly-used Pokémon species is always handy...and "surprise moves" aren't always a part of them. I haven't encountered another Gardevoir that commonly uses Thunderbolt, just as I haven't found a Rhyperior that uses Ice Beam-- but, come to think of it, I haven't encountered any Rhyperior beyond Tybalt in the Battle Spot.

What if you aren't sure about a Pokémon's type? Make an educated guess. What does the Pokémon look like? While Carbink doesn't look like a typical Fairy-type, it certainly looks mineral-like. Perhaps you could try to use a Steel-type move against it (which it is super-effectively damaged by due to being a Fairy). Worst come to worst, you'll just not damage the Pokémon very much, or not at all. If the second case happens, at least you know that the Pokémon is immune to that type, which can help you in your future battles.