Princess and the Frog, A Round of Applause! : Teambuild VGC16

Hi guys today is another Teambuild post being put up for you guys, this one is quite interesting and tricky and as maybe some of you may have guessed it started from the move called round, which as tricky as it is also is as fun to use, hopefully you'll like this post and will stick around to give it a read and maybe learn something *maybe....* Let's get started:

needs to be said!

The Team:

Gardevoir-Mega @ Gardevoirite  

Ability: Telepathy  

Level: 50  

EVs: 252 HP / 116 Def / 92 SpA / 12 SpD / 36 Spe  

Modest Nature  

- Hyper Voice  

- Psyshock  

- Round  

- Protect

So first up is the princess of the team, right before thinking of this round idea I was interested in trying out a move with mega gardevoir in that third mystery slot usually occupied by trick room, I looked over a lot of moves like encore, disable, imprison etc… then the first one that shone to me was specifically round. Round is a really strategic move, though with no opponent expecting such a bitter move soon fall prey to it on the very first turn even without making a move, which puts me in an amazing advantage right from the start. Gardevoir is a so so pokemon if I am up to using it specially without trick room but the speed control it gains from it’s round partner and thundurus’ t-wave makes it much much better, the slight bulk factor also comes in handy other than just running a physically glass frail. I looked over a lot of gardevoir spreads to find an all-rounder *no pun intended this time* one, this was something bulky and seemed promising so I decided to keep it on the party. Landorus’ intimidate becomes an essential factor for thingies it survives, other than anything named bisharp makes it to the field. Fun fact: gardevoir was used more with psyshock and round other than spamming hyper voices everywhere. Gardevoir’s moveset looks simple as I explained round but psyshock is questionable. With the investments I run, no m-venu’s or amoonguss’ are getting OHKO’ed by it and AV conk is a popular choice of many, so over the argument of these two, I put psyshock over to get more damage off of conk’s that I face. Psyshock also improves my matchup against other AV users mainly being the duck and the kappa (ludicolo and landorus)

252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 12 SpD Mega Gardevoir: 128-152 (73.1 - 86.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
92+ SpA Mega Gardevoir Psychic vs. 252 HP / 44 SpD Amoonguss: 206-246 (93.2 - 111.3%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
92+ SpA Mega Gardevoir Psychic vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Venusaur: 156-186 (83.4 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Mega Venusaur Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 12 SpD Mega Gardevoir: 114-134 (65.1 - 76.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Mega Venusaur Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 12 SpD Mega Gardevoir: 114-134 (65.1 - 76.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
92+ SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 116-140 (56 - 67.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
survives physical attacks from kang and mence at -1 (i assume)

Greninja @ Focus Sash  

Ability: Protean  

Level: 50  

EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe  

Timid Nature  

- Scald  

- Ice Beam  

- Round  

- Protect

Secondly comes the pokemon that is so average that the anime creators decided to give it Ash’s look, after using this team I realized why the hell weren’t people using this pokemon? I think it is overlooked, it’s stats were amazing specially in junction to support a round user gardevoir. I knew I needed something fast to make the round combination work, I decided onto greninja but thought it would have an average (fast) speed stat, I was amazed to find out it had a base 122 speed stat which made it faster than a mega salamence, soon after that I was tempted to use it, greninja proved to be an excellent and yet tricky pokemon with it’s protean ability making everything STAB. I know that I don’t have the usual life orb and dark pulse eon my greninja, the stuff that dark pulse will provide for me is fulfilled by upcoming members and other than the goal of spreading most damage, it goes a bit supportive and ice beam gets OHKO’es on mons it should even before life orb. Focus sash is an item that saved me way more many times than say that a life orb ever would. It gets OHKO’es on some of the most bulky AV landorus’ with ice beam. Now imagine this, round on double target gives me 60 BP STAB + 120 BP STAB, how insane is that?!?!

252 SpA Greninja Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 80-96 (45.4 - 54.5%) -- 47.3% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Mega Salamence: 228-268 (112.8 - 132.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 80 SpD Assault Vest Landorus-T: 196-232 (100 - 118.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Hydreigon: 144-170 (85.7 - 101.1%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
etc....

Ferrothorn @ Rocky Helmet  

Ability: Iron Barbs  

Level: 50  

EVs: 252 HP / 148 Atk / 108 Def  

Brave Nature  

IVs: 0 Spe  

- Power Whip  

- Gyro Ball  

- Leech Seed  

- Protect

Ferrothorn came in as the third member with a bit of back story and contributing some essential things that this team should have. The idea came from building a core around gardevoir and greninja, as come their terrible defenses it was hard too but looking at the types, ferrothorn seemed a perfect fit to cover them up, also I felt the need to use it here, as I practiced with it for two days in a perish, rain, trap team which overall didn’t turned out well however ferrothorn was the reason that I won many of my matches, I also had some practice to use it effectively as a late-game boss and also well behind TR, which counted up ferrothorn as also my trick room counter. Ferrothorn also became my temporary kangaskhan counter, I never felt the need to be completely reliant on recovery, I EV’d it physically defensive to cover up for gardevoir’s pathetic physical defense. Loved gyro ball the most as it got me the most OHKO’es and what is there to not like about until up are walled up against a heatran/ anything with a fire move? As in for experience whenever I got matched up against kangaskhan while leading the round duo, sometimes without stalling out for double protect I went for slipping in my greninja for ferro which mostly got targeted by fake out and get kang down to already 50% health which puts me in an excellent position right from the start

148+ Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball (119 BP) vs. 252 HP / 124 Def Gardevoir: 194-230 (110.8 - 131.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
148+ Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 224-266 (134.1 - 159.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
-1 252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 108 Def Ferrothorn: 133-156 (73.4 - 86.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
148+ Atk Ferrothorn Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 76 Def Politoed: 188-224 (95.4 - 113.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
148+ Atk Ferrothorn Power Whip vs. 236 HP / 140 Def Milotic: 168-200 (84 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
148+ Atk Ferrothorn Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 100 Def Ludicolo: 96-114 (51.3 - 60.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 108 Def Ferrothorn: 90-106 (49.7 - 58.5%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
148+ Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 84-99 (49.1 - 57.8%) -- 96.5% chance to 2HKO

Entei @ Lum Berry  

Ability: Pressure  

Level: 50  

EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe  

Jolly Nature  

- Sacred Fire  

- Stone Edge  

- Rest  

- Protect

Next up cam Entei, let’s just start of by saying that this pokemon has a terrible movepool. However I am surprised that it fits well in some teams, such as this one. I needed fire type coverage on this team for things like ferrothron and amoongus to ensure my chances against such types. Entei also adds up to whatever the first three do and cover up more types for them, entei can do numerous things and I suffered with this spread, I tried the spread that Ray Rizzo used in his with lefties but soon I found myself loosing because entei was getting OHKO’ed or he didn’t had enough HP to do something on a crucial turn. After giving it a thought I settled onto Lum berry variant with the move rest, with this I can do a lot of thingies, first is that I can use rest to make essential and full fast recoveries, I also didn’t opted only for chesto berry because para-hax can also sometimes render it useless. Another tactic is to swagger into my own entei and give it an early +2 boost. I really didn’t made a new spread however I knew that 252/252/4 spreads were ran often on so I just slap that on it. Lum berry also works like a substitute or a safety goggles against amoongus and balances out such situations (bye bye dark void smeargle J I was glad to make this decision for it’s item I absolutely loved using rest as it caught off guard many opponents and often got me in a much better and promising position.

252 Atk Entei Sacred Fire vs. 252 HP / 212+ Def Amoonguss: 150-176 (67.8 - 79.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Entei Sacred Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Sylveon: 111-132 (54.9 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Entei Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 44 Def Mega Charizard Y: 244-288 (131.8 - 155.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Entei Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Volcarona: 216-256 (112.5 - 133.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Entei Sacred Fire vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Aegislash-Shield: 110-132 (65.8 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Entei Sacred Fire vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 138-164 (109.5 - 130.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

This team was covering majority of the metagame I needed some really specific mons to support the first four even further whence this team got started. The geni-duo was the one thing that shone out to me the most for the following reason: it’s hax factor, landorus’s intimidate, damage, another lead combination, ground immunities, meta-mons cuz everyone hates me for using anti-meta :P

So landorus is not something much to talk about it fit’s in well as my team didn’t had ice weaknesses and it needed some intimidate support, for things like gardevoir and to further buff up ferrothorn and also help’s the purpose of  entei’s bulk. I didn’t choose u-turn as I thought that dark coverage was missing and essential for the team as a second try to hunt down psychic types and aegislash. The most interesting thing to talk about this landorus is it’s spread, as I did mentioned some good and safer benchmarks that it can conquer.

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf  

Ability: Intimidate  

Level: 50  

EVs: 52 HP / 220 Atk / 52 Def / 4 SpD / 180 Spe  

Adamant Nature  

- Rock Slide  

- Superpower  

- Earthquake  

- Knock Off

.Outruns Timid Mega Gengar and Jolly Aerodactyl by 1 point
.Survives Hidden Power Ice from 84 SpA neutral Thundurus 100% of the time
.Survives Jolly Mega Kangaskhan Double-Edge 56.2% of the time
.Survives Modest non-boosted Hydreigon Draco Meteor 100% of the time
.Survives Sucker Punch from +1 Life Orb Adamant Bisharp 87.5% of the time
.Survives Ice Shard from -1 Life Orb Adamant Mamoswine 93.7% of the time
.OHKOs 4 HP / 0 Def Terrakion with spread Earthquake 81.3% of the time

Landorus came after tons of thought process that went into the team. I surely needed intimidate considering the EV spread’s purposes to be fulfilled for ferrothron’s CC terrakion survive, garde’s essential physical goodstuffs survival (kang and mence) and also adding bulk to entei as well. It wasn’t limited to that landorus provided me my ground immunities to make switch in’s better for me. Also a good thing was that this team took ice attacks really well so I could easily afford to have atleast one mon 4x weak to it. When I decided onto the mon I started to think about my spreads, there are currently way bulkier spreads out there for this mon, but this one felt just right  for the things I thought could give this pokemon some serious trouble. Yes! The pure survival of LO bisharp’s sucker punch at +1 and HP ice from some thundurus’. This spread also had the perfect balance of speed and offense which bulkier landorus’ lack nowadays. I was originally using u-turn on this slot here but knock off seemed like a much better move considering psychic types and aegislash. I loved using it!

Thundurus @ Sitrus Berry  

Ability: Prankster  

Level: 50  

EVs: 152 HP / 152 Def / 4 SpA / 164 SpD / 36 Spe  

Bold Nature  

- Thunderbolt  

- Swagger  

- Thunder Wave  

- Taunt

. Get's best of Both defenses.
. Outspeeds Breloom by 2 points and it's speed creepers by one point (thundurus mirrors usually).
. Misses swagger 50% of the time (i am unlucky).
. Survives any attack at full HP and sometimes even combinations of such maneuvers with the help of sitrus berry,

Thundurus came and fitted well with thundurus added more flexibility to this team, this again is Toler Webb’s spread which I think is the best thundurus spread. Thundurus does little but completes the team with forms of speed control, taunt to shut things down and swagger to add more and more ‘hax=luck’ isn’t parafusion the most annoying thing ever? I feel embarrassed to use it sometimes when hax gets very real but it’s a part of the game anyway. The ability to creep breloom by two points also makes it outspeed and taunt back other thundurus’ (bulky one’s). fun facts with the geni duo was it completed more lead combinations and this is m first time using geni’s together in a team, I also don’t know how this lead specifically works but spamming hax all around is my way to go for it :P 

Conclusion:

So guys this was it for this team, hopefully you guys enjoyed as i expected, and picked off the idea as well, Bye for now!