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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