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Saturday 17 September 2016

Didon But Different : VGC 2016 Teambuild

Hi guys today I am back with another team report post, this would surely be a very interesting team and yes this would be one of the times where I would once again have complex spreads after a very long time and I believe I haven’t done this section in this entire season or so this would be interesting, this is a different take on the usual seen dialga + groudon combination that Wolfe made popular, without further ado, I would get into analyzing this team:

Teambuilding Process:
So before this team, I was testing around a mega mewtwo-y team that I had mewtwo with taunt on it, as well as I had a blaziken, didon, latias, thundurus ish team, so I had concepts of what I wanted to do with them, then on a evening I was searching for all pokemons who learned the move safeguard and were faster than smeargle, sceptile came across my mind, however then my eyes settled upon Chandelure (accidently) and then it came together!
Seeing Chandelure with a faster safeguard usage, as well as flash fire ability that it got gave me my direction to where I wanted to take this team to. Flash fire flashed back wolfe glick’s team into my head which I would consider the best dialga groudon team and I really would have loved to work around the lava plume + flash fire combination with my dialga groudon team, since I felt like I didn’t want the trick room mode, I gave dialga an assault vest to hold (decision explained in-depth ahead) then I added gallade in general to handle kang, trick room and crobat as well as a gengar, ludicolo and zapdos patched up all the rest of my needs which I will explain ahead.
The things that I like the most about this team is that each pokemon works as an individual unit and can carry it’s own weight as well as compliment and support it’s partners very well, that is why I think this team works, something important to note is that a lot of the pokemons or say all are very very team specific and will never work on other teams around it, hence you should not try using these ev-spreads and pokemons on other teams as these are niche and team specific.

The Team:


Chandelure @ Air Balloon  
Ability: Flash Fire  
Level: 50  
EVs: 100 HP / 116 Def / 60 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe  
Timid Nature  
IVs: 0 Atk  
- Safeguard  
- Heat Wave  
- Shadow Ball  
- Protect

First up is the chandelure, I choose it for the reasons that I already explained, I made this pokemon as the starting point of my team if not the star or the base of this team, chandelure can provides certain different roles for this team, one it can set-up safeguard to block off any status conditions that I may face, especially as aforementioned, dark void smeargle. Chandelure can also do loads of offense as it has the highest special attack stat after any legendary pokemon, reaching a giant base 145 so it can provide the damage as it is obvious, but when combined with the flash fire activation as well as doubling it’s damage output that good damage output even with a fairly bulky and speedy spread as you may see, it can do gigantic amount of damage to any pokemon which is a big key to taking opponents down as well as directly help in winning battles. apart from the fire type coverage, it’s shadow ball’s ghost type coverage also allows me to hit pokemons like cresselia, bronzong as well as gengar for a lot of damage, which can be key. It’s typing can also provide defensive coverage as it can stay immune to annoying and clever moves in this format like fake out, extreme speed as well as the all annoying kangaskhan can be very much useful in the course of the match.
Now for the spread and the item, this chandelure spread may seem very bulky but it would be a lie to say that it is a total tank, I changed it’s spread and item for good; it became bulky for some specific things, the reason for this is that I like to lead it against that big-team variants, and in those teams pokemons i.e. kangaskahn, xerneas and primal groudon are present, hence I had a direction how to design this spread like; it reflects exactly a strategy to best those matchups. Ghost typings surely helps against kangaskhan however as my chandelure mostly does offense it would have to sit duck or get OHKO’d by it, that is why I made it bulky enough to live a kangaskhan’s sucker punch, next up it does live 252 +2 xerneas’ moonblast, last up it does outspeed sashed smeargle which makes my team generally immune to that dark void, rest went into defense. Now for air balloon, now I would tell that before this I had a focus sash however my answers to groudon switch ins weren’t that much or weren’t that effective, this air balloon makes my chandelure immune to the ground type as well as fire type attacks from groudon and if it carries only the two types of moves, chandelure does get complete immunity and wins 1-v-1 battles against it.



Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb  
Ability: Desolate Land  
Level: 50  
EVs: 156 HP / 52 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  
Jolly Nature  
- Lava Plume  
- Precipice Blades  
- Fire Punch  
- Protect

Upnext I would like to discuss my primal groudon, this is generally not very different of a primal groudon than the others however I would like to discuss a few aspects of it that make it different as well as why I chose a physical primal groudon. So first I will explain the variant of it, I chose a physical groudon other than a special groudon on my team as it was on wolfe’s team where the main inspiration of this team came from is because I felt like needing better answers to xerneas and kyogre as well to groudon. Lava plume is mostly a utility move only and I use it to activate my chandelure, I didn’t felt any need of keeping another move, so lava plume doesn’t bother a physical groudon like this too much, as I didn’t felt the need of the moves substitute or swords dance etc anyways, as well as it could have suited to a weird win condition where I have to burn one of my opponents to win, which never occurred but who knows what comes in the duration of the match.
My EV spread in my view is a lovely one and once again fits this groudon, on this team of mine. The main objective that primal groudon provides for this team of mine is that it is my main xerneas+ groudon core counter hence I needed to ev this pokemon around that, and it was well accomplished with this spread. Firstly for the bulk, the main objective of this groudon spread was to live single target precipice blades from a 252 attack neutral natured groudon, this also was able to increase the bulk in general. The attack investment was still enough to 2hko medium bulk xerneas’ most of the times and guaranteed 3hko’ing of bold bulky xerneas’ which was all I needed for this team of mine, I still decided to keep the 252+ speed to match speed with opposing groudon and win crucial speed ties.


Dialga @ Assault Vest  
Ability: Telepathy  
Level: 50  
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 148 SpA / 4 SpD / 84 Spe  
Modest Nature  
IVs: 0 Atk  
- Ice Beam  
- Dragon Pulse  
- Flash Cannon  
- Thunder

Dialga has to be my favorite variant and this dialga is the only dialga that I liked as it fit exactly what I wanted it to do. The entire season I have used various trick room dialgas with kyogre, but to be very honest I never liked the trick room dialga and I felt like it had short coverage as well as not enough defense against the right pokemons namely kyogre which was still able to handle it to some extent. And then came assault vest, the perfect item to a dialga I would use, so let me tell you how it got here and why is it doing here: I decided that I would not use a trick room didon team, hence I needed an item for dialga to settle upon, after nationals I had seen Aiden’s top cut team in the junior divisions which had an assault vest on it, it seemed like a fun item that would then give my dialga more coverage, hence I put it on, soon upon testing it made all the sense to me and I completely understood how it got far into nationals like that. Assault vest allows dialga to live more attacks from pokemons like kyogre and hence do back more damage and the coverage it provided was never ending fun, assault vest makes it that bulky to live 252 +2 moonblasts from xerneas.
The coverage is really exciting to talk about, firstly the dragon pulse which is an obvious choice to ohko mega rayquazas and salamences with as well as allow it provide suitable STAB coverage, up next has to be flash cannon, flash cannon is not used in every game however it can be crucial against the teams that pair teams of kyogre and rayquaza with fairies that redirect, as well as providing another stab option for damage. Ice beam and thunder are the ones really a lot of readers would want to know about, thunder is inspired from MajorBowman’s worlds team and I felt the sense it made, where you can do more damage to a kyogre and make dialga’s job of being able to handle a kyogre much easier by doing more damage to it, this team could have a potential yveltal weakness so it could also help cover that up. Ice beam is kept there for landorus counter as well as making this pokemon able to hit a few more pokemons for super effective damage. Other defensive benchmarks this pokemon reaches due to this spread are survival of earthquake from CB landorus as well as p-blades from primal groudon, the speed investment allows this pokemon to outspeed 12 speed invested xerneas’ which could potentially come in handy.



Gallade-Mega @ Galladite  
Ability: Justified  
Level: 50  
EVs: 236 HP / 4 Atk / 36 Def / 4 SpD / 228 Spe  
Jolly Nature  
- Close Combat  
- Taunt  
- Wide Guard  
- Zen Headbutt

Gallade seems stupid but for more than one reason is the best option for this pokemon slot on my team, I generally first put it on to challenge trick room teams or modes as with that inner focus + taunt combination, and I know everybody is like why not crobat? I do happen to have a detailed explanation: the matter is that I was recently trying out crobat with things in this format like xerneas’ set up to SD groudon (haze) smeargles (lum berry + taunt) fake out (inner focus) and speed control (tailwind) primal’s hp based moves (super fang) as well as trick room, crobat never ever seems like a bad option to use, however still I found it underwhelming in this specific state of the format and whenever it’s job is done I felt it risky to switch out into a potentially better position, but that risk factor was something I didn’t wanted to rely onto, this wasted me potentially crucial turns, hence crobat wasn’t a good pokemon to roll with on this slot, I searched upon other options and came across sneasel, alakazam, hypno but gallade shone out to me the most, I knew that gallade had some even if little potential as it learned the move wide guard and close combat that are crucial in this format, hence I decided to use mega gallade as my trick room counter instead of crobat.
Now for what it has close combat is obvious for getting rid of those kangaskhans, wide guard is a never ending source of support against moves like precipice blades, water spout, eruption, origin pulse, dazzling gleam, hyper voice etc taunt as I explained above is kept for mainly countering trick room. Last up is a slot that can be questionable, hence I will explain it, I needed protect in the first place however in battles I never to little ended up using it, before I had thought of keeping zen headbutt, hence i put it on and never felt much complain about it. Zen headbutt is important against pokemons like gengar and crobat as well as hitmontop which can trouble my primal groudon and dialga with their attacks and tactics, hence it was very useful against those pokemons.
The decision of keeping zen headbutt on my gallade also altered it’s ev spread by a lot, before this I was running an all out speed and offensive spread, however the ev’s were a lot of the times a complete waste it still does get the ohko’s it needs to get with that 4 attack investment, I put the rest to bulk because as I didn’t had protect, it left my gallade open to attacks, hence I felt like putting in bulk to make it survive attacks before it does it’s job. This ev spread allows mega gallade to live kangaskhan’s double edges and also allows it to outspeed smeargle in it’s base form, which makes it another way to counter smeargle if in any case chandelure hasn’t set up before.



Ludicolo @ Sitrus Berry  
Ability: Rain Dish  
Level: 50  
EVs: 228 HP / 12 Def / 116 SpA / 140 SpD / 12 Spe  
Modest Nature  
- Fake Out  
- Grass Knot  
- Protect  
- Icy Wind

Ludicolo prior to this was a scarfed smeargle which I only brought for using fast fake out to help chandelure cover up and then completely wasted it in every game that I brought it in, hence when I decided to take the team seriously I had a direction to keep a fake out user and I felt like this was the point in the team in which I keep some serious speed control. I had 2 base 90’s which isn’t the best of speed stats and will face a lot of speed mirrors, chandelure isn’t the fastest of pokemons as well, icy wind would be the best speed control form, I could use a ground immunity or resistance as well, answers to primal would be nice too, ludicolo made the most sense. Not having scald is questionable; it is not there because I rather have protect and grass knot nicely handles both the primal so who needs scald anyways.
For the ev spread: I kept the hp stat even as I had the sitrus berry for it’s activation after a super fang, the special defense allows it to live wolfe’s gengar’s sludge bomb as I do bring it against mega gengar + primal teams and find it very effective, the rest went into the special attack, which allows it to 2HKO primal kyogres as well as 3HKO primal groudons. Ludicolo seemed very interesting and fun to use in many times that I brought it in my games.


Zapdos @ Chesto Berry  
Ability: Static  
Level: 50  
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe  
Timid Nature  
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def  
- Thunderbolt  
- Tailwind  
- Rest  
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Zapdos I think really  is the least used pokemon on this team of mine, because of how specific it is I needed zapdos to provide another ground immunity or a ground resistance, I also needed a serious yveltal counter, I had nothing against scarfed smeargle hence came zapdos as the final member, it also provides the base 90’s with the speed control of tailwind which also comes in handy. Countering yveltal explain the maximum speed stat, 4 speed investment allows it to 2HKO standard yvetals and 3HKO primal kyogres, it can also be a second mega salamence counter and landorus t counter too.
The rest of the ev’s were dumped into physical bulk to take onto kang well, and also as most of my pokemons were naturally specially defensive. Rest can be crucial in times apart from going with the chesto berry, rest can be used on the last turn of tailwind which is mostly stalled and rest is very unexpected against pokemons trying to fish for sucker punch knock outs, hence it was very useful too.

Conclusion:
So guys this was it for a team that I made and found really fun, hope you guys enjoyed going through my team and are willing to give it a try, bye for now!


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