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Friday 30 September 2016

Double the X Double the Don: VGC 16 Teambuild

Hi guys today I am back with another interesting teambuild that I did around the xerneas + groudon composition in the recent few weeks or so, I am currently focusing on using popular archetypes I the community and doing my different takes on them. Thanks to an advice from Jamie Boyt the style of this team suited me much better and I loved playing it, without further ado, let’s get into the team:

The Team:

I normally do not merge and discuss mons in my reports, however I did in this one to make a better understanding of how and why they came together:

The XernDon:
Ofcourse the mainstream xerneas groudon core found on the big teams, however this time I wanted it to work a bit different or a bit themed, as I looked upon interesting options, it didn’t took long to flash into my find that xerneas and groudon are both indeed the pokemons that have the ability and potential to wreck through all teams, firstly xerneas’ unforgiving geomancy and then primal groudon’s swords dance + gravity blades’ combination making sure to lock up many games, then I had this direction of making my xerneas and groudon team into a set-up sweep team and really needed to support them well, hence came the somewhat different members.


Xerneas @ Power Herb  
Ability: Fairy Aura  
Level: 50  
Shiny: Yes  
EVs: 116 HP / 4 Def / 132 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  
Timid Nature  
IVs: 0 Atk  
- Dazzling Gleam  
- Moonblast  
- Geomancy  
- Protect

Xerneas is a very very simple spread, this spread was actually taken from Baz anderson’s Worlds report, I chose this one so as I liked his criteria very much of having maximum speed stat on your xerneas to be able to outspeed pokemons like primal groudon and primal kyogre as well as speed tie with fast yveltals before taking strong eruptions, water spouts or the disruptive knock offs respectively, this criteria really seemed convincing for a team where you want to invest in set-up sweeping, the spa investment and bulk was also copied from the same report however I would like to have a bit more bulk to survive such things as sludge bombs + poison chip, combination of strong attacks + priority attacks and other shenanigans. Xerneas was really good in some matches, where with help of it’s partners it was able to sweep through the entire team of the opposition.



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

Upnext is a simple primal groudon, nothing too odd to be discussed however my ev spread; most of the primal groudons in the xerneas + groudon composition teams are 252/252/4 jolly natured however the mirrors always rely on who hits their p-blades as well as who goes first, another deadly situation around this pokemon is the groudon vs groudon late-game with both sitting at full heath, this spread exactly combats that situation, it does help my primal groudon survive a 252 neutral single target p-blades, this investment also give primal groudon a lot of in general bulk which helps against many pokemons, one thing noticeable about this primal groudon is then the lack of attack, as you might have figured what comes as a explanation to that is the swords dance and the mainly wanted set-up theme of my team which recovers all loss on that part. Moving onto the supports…

The Guard Duo:

So aerodactyl + scrafty is something that I like to call as the guard duo, as they both have the guard moves, so for their explanation: I really needed some support pokemons that could contribute to my team, mainly keeping the xern-do alive after they have set up so they get more room to sweep, some first theory I came up with has to be the idea of putting both quick guard to protect annoying prankster encores, taunts as well as bullet punches (potentially) against my pokemons and wide guard mainly to protect the xern-don from the menace of precipice blades as well as protect groudon from kyogre’s spread water attacks. A question or opinion I got was ‘ hey why are you using aero + srafty, it is not good in this metagame’ and the most metagame thing to fit the guard duo would be talonflame + hitmontop combination which I was considering at first, but then I figured it was better to have a more defensive combination so that supports live longer to support, hence came aerodactyl + scrafty; other advantages it gains me over talontop is aerodactyl’s superiority to other flying types i.e thundurus, talonflame, crobat etc and it’s extremely defensive typing against the big variants as well as scrafty providing me with essential dark coverage against threats like bronzing, cresselia as well as mega gengar. Now moving on to the individual analyses:

Aerodactyl @ Lum Berry  
Ability: Unnerve  
Level: 50  
Shiny: Yes  
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe  
Jolly Nature  
- Wide Guard  
- Taunt  
- Tailwind  
- Rock Slide

Aerodactyl is such an amazing pokemon, a lot of first reactions are like ‘it’s pretty meh’ but believe me as I tell you that it actually had been the MVP of many matches with it’s amazing supportive capabilities. Using aerodactyl made me realize why did the lunatone team got that far into nationals as it may look very unserious at first, but it works really well in this format because of the rock + ground immunity, I know you would want to inquire why, so; a rock type pokemon with ground immunity as such an aerodcatyl can win you huge defensive capabilities against the big cores, as it can walls the primal groudons, the kangaskhans as well as the salamences and the advantage an aerodactyle has over them is having a fast taunt which stops the remaining three members from doing their stuff I.e xerneas, smeargle and the last slot usually of that speed control pokemon; aerodactyl is something I lead against the big core and it greatly helps me; I chose lum berry as my item choice to surely counter all types and variants of smeargles, it is so bulky even in this investment that it can live a spread eruption from full health.



Scrafty @ Expert Belt  
Ability: Intimidate  
Level: 50  
Shiny: Yes  
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Atk / 20 Def / 20 SpD / 44 Spe  
Jolly Nature  
- Fake Out  
- Low Kick  
- Knock Off  
- Quick Guard

Scrafty has to be the second MVP somehow, I actually hated even the bare idea of this pokemon in this format however upon using it I fell in absolute love with it, it’s soo useful; so right away, why I have scrafty: I needed a pokemon to help me use quick guard, intimidate support would be nice and fake out would help too, there were two pokemons on the list hitmontop and scrafty, however I feel like that hitmontop often is a bit one dimensional whereas scrafty can provide essential coverage as well as counter those psychic offensive cresselias really really well. I did witness that a lot of teams didn’t had much to counter the fake out + quick guard or really quick guard being supported with a xerneas’ effects of a set-up sweep, scrafty’s speed stat has to be the most special thing about my scrafty; it surprised many and many players where I was able to outspeed there 12 speed invested hitmontops and provide a faster fake out and also that faster quick guard to put a clear stop to those feint + fake out dynamics. Rest I put into attack and bulk. expert belt helps to put up with the lack of attack due to that jolly nature.

The Mega:


Metagross-Mega @ Metagrossite  
Ability: Clear Body  
Level: 50  
Shiny: Yes  
EVs: 164 HP / 124 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 212 Spe  
Adamant Nature  
- Bullet Punch  
- Zen Headbutt  
- Protect  
- Gravity

mega metagross; though highly unlikely for a xerndon mega and as I’d tell came from a discard pile of ideas saved the team in real terms. I actually on paper was planning a mega gardevoir + mega gengar duo in the last two slots, however as soon as I learned that gardevoir does not learn the move gravity, I almost ended scrapping the team in a rish of frustration however felt like I should found a pokemon that fits the role in the last slot well, hence came mega metagross, I especially wanted a faster gravity user hence metagross was ideal, metagross also ended up handling hitmontop, crobat as well as mega gengar which I theorized were big threats to my xerneas + groudon core as individual pokemons. Bullet punch covered up the absence of offensive priority and helped me plenty often on in my games. The spread allows mega metagross excess to general bulk, whereas the attack investment allows it to 3hko bulkiest xerneas’

The Fill ups:


Gastrodon @ Assault Vest  
Ability: Storm Drain  
Level: 50  
Shiny: Yes  
EVs: 196 HP / 172 Def / 108 SpA / 28 SpD / 4 Spe  
Modest Nature  
IVs: 0 Atk  
- Clear Smog  
- Earth Power  
- Ice Beam  
- Icy Wind

Last up the replacement for the original mon which was mega gengar here, upon testing the above five mentioned I figured that special groudon, well played kyogres and mega mawiles could pose a serious threat to my team, hence came the perfect solution to those remedies, an assault vested gastrodon which could dominate these matchups, also with the nice addition of that icy wind provides further ideal speed control for the commonly seen mirror to the xerneas + groudon cores, I also happeneded to have ice beam on the same team and as you may have noticed I refrained from using scald, as it becomes really unlikely and very very conditional to use and I rather rely on my earth powers other than scald to ohko primal groudons, ice beam was essential as it provided my team another way to OHKO the most common hasty natured salamences. Clear smog is another excellent utility move to reset any swords dances and geomancies set up in this format. To build this spread I started from the bottom, I gave it enough bulk to xerneas’ moonblasts; then built it up to live kang attacks and OHKO salamences and then dumped the rest of the evs into the hp stat.

Conclusion:

So guys this was it for my different xerneas + groudon team, there was a lot of work put in to build this team I really hope that you guys really like it and inspired a few ideas from it as well, bye for now!

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