February VGC Report : Part 2

Hi guys today I am back with another monthly report, post, this time bringing you the second part of my first VGC 17 February report in which I focused mainly on the team that I was trying out previously I concluded the report with an upcoming update on this team soon as a big meta change passes by without further spoiling the post’s content lets get into it (ok spoilers! I failed badly on improvement as well as on the concepts of a new team, finally came up with a very good bulky team that will be in the end of this report, however if you want to go through my opinion and experience please read through!):

Updating the Team, Thoughts on pre regional’s meta:

Originally I had planned to do an update on the team as an official event or say a regionals passes by which was on the 18^th of this month, I started working on the update a few days early to get myself a more refined version of this team, the team did got me near 1600s on ps which seems a very good record for me but a few days later with the ever fluctuating metagame gave the team quite a challenge. Last time I concluded with some metagame tactics popping up, now it has become an official thing with the tapu lele/tapu fini + mandibuzz combination also quite some people are making more and more use of snorlax and setup tapu fini but only recently a few teams of belly drum + psych up teams have started popping up, the metagame did change and I had quite a few ideas on where the team lacked, these were the following:

·         Politoed got my attention and I did mention it last time, I needed more synergy around it, most of the matches I won politoed had a huge impact upon and I really liked it however losing it in some games was quite costly for me in a lot of games

·         I also felt my lacking against pokemons like porygon 2 and mandibuzz, overall to say the pokemons that had the ability to use recovery moves were hurling quite some difficulties on my team’s way to success.

·         My team also lacked the late game bulk that it needed, especially getting walled against a bulky set of pokemons gave this team a lot of issues.

·         Mudsdale wasn’t getting much use out of its own tempo ability, I had two slots on the team because of it which never gave me guaranteed success in their use.

·         Tapu fini + mandibuzz, snrolax + psych up users (metagross and mimikyu) and in general setup was giving me a lot of trouble, I had to do clever positioning around it, whenever I didn’t I ended up losing. Mimikyu did its job quite nicely but it’s on field position comfort ability was quite limited and couldn’t be brought on all the situations on the field.

Upon giving a close observation to all the other problems and my general interest in politoed I decided to do a lot of teams in testing, I basically took the core of politoed, torkoal and lilligant a I really liked it, however trying to infuse it with a bulkier core of three in the back was not working at all as one lacked dynamism and the other only could support and wasn’t fitting in well with the team enough. The thought of making a new team originally around the F/W/G core of mine seemed quite tough, so following ere the few decisions I made to adjust the team mentioned above, my main slots to target were of course tapu koko and mimikyu:

·         Tapu koko to be now used as a physical attacker seemed quite interesting tome especially the utility it gave me over the specially defensive combination of mandibuzz + tapu fini also pokemons like porygon 2 were very popular, guardian of alola was a move that I was quite interested in as it could serve a very good counter to a lot of pokemons that were bulky. I had confidence in testing out this specific variant also at this point I could see some possible comeback of physical tapu koko considering the specially defensive metagame.

·         I really wanted to replace the choice of mimikyu with mandibuzz, a pokemon that I was quite tempted to use, seeing a pokemon which I felt had a lot of potential in past vgc formats, but now suing it in this one finally for good cause was quite tempting to me, mandibuzz could carry set of moves like roost, toxic as well as the all important taunt and maybe whirlwind to come over a lot of the problems I would face. Mandibuzz I also chose as I saw it had a more stable on field stance in this metagame over something like mimikyu. Though being less confident in my own stranger decision on this slot I gave them a try before the tournament and surely was looking forward to make some serious update after the regionals.

Upon testing these pokemons it gave me the following points and I was quite happy that I ever tested these ideas out:

·         Physical tapu koko proves more powerful against some matchups however its offense lacked quite much in general when doing its job, also with the addition of tapunium z and physical set it lost all its importance to its original ob which was beating garchomp, something else would be more efficient on the same pokemon.

·         Mandibuzz gave me the best sense of direction it filled the exact roles in the matches that I tested and worked well, however the lack of trick room was bothering. Mandibuzz showed me that toxic + recovery was quite and a whole lot helpful to me, however no trick room and certain lack of goals that it couldn’t fulfil gave me doubt on this pokemon. 

After this I settled on the following:

·         Special tapu koko, with the addition of moves like calm mind would give it a strong matchup against tapu fini + mandibuzz as well as make it beat garchomp, especially in combination of fast substitute will come over a lot of the late-game problems that I will be facing with this team on the same time providing tapu koko with more offensive power that it can use upto a great extent in a match. After testing I realized that the setup wasn’t bulky enough and made tapu koko quite passive and ineffective especially without protect.

·         Replacing mandibuzz was the idea of giving the team a physical attacker with trick room and the combination of recovery move + toxic also with good synergy, slowking seems ideal and accessible in this variant however testing was still to be carried out. Exeggutor was a test pokemon, trevenant seemed to fit the role better but I didn’t test it out at this point, this slot was quite ok-ish and worked in a limited number of matchups I really didn’t like these ideas too much.

After getting into a lot of brainstorming on this team of mine. I felt like it could partially also fit in the duo of pheromosa + oricorio in the last two slots especially as the last moveslot of lilligant were free, an electric type was working out well and I liked to have a fast coverage option, this duo would be ideal. Mudsdale could take up for the lack of physical defense then.

Helping out building a team:

This time around I was quite not doing much so someone needed help on ps on building a team for the upcoming premier challenge on the weekend, I was feeling quite confident to help as the person told that his preference was offense and he didn’t want to use something super and hyper popular. This got my interest, we discussed various options he could start the build around he came around electabuzz and I suggested an electivire, we settled on electivire as it had the strong electric coverage in physical terms against that tapu fini and especially something I looked out for, the tapu fini + mandibuzz lead. It also got fire coverage for kartana which seemed very much important and then it could get alot of options for the last moveslot. Motor drive could prove good against koko’s offense and it seemed frail and bad against the popularly paired garchomp with it.

Talking about needing and countering more, garchomp’s earthquake was quite a clear problem, we came to the conclusion to use an intimidate user to make it survive the attack, salamence seemed ideal as it covered up the ground weakness and also assisted in countering the garchomp offensively, also seemed a promising option against more kartana and a source to deal loads of damage. Needed a switch for salamence, vanilluxe was chosen also for the fast offense and provided more against ground types and garchomp in general. Talking about needing a steel type against the tapu’s I suggested and added a sandslash which could also get help from the hail for a speed boost and that essential ground coverage.

On the thoughts of rounding out the team the person felt a desire to use tapu lele, I felt like the team could lack in general against a kartana, arcanine seemed to work well in that regard and could also fit in well with tapu lele. I tried out thief arcanine with psychic seed which was key in quite some matches inspired from James Baek’s drifblim and from the recent leaked variants (sorry) tapu lele broke those fake out + trick room and trick room leads with its taunt. Arcanine’s supportive variant was useful in hindering alto of teams that relied on moderate offense options and made my hyper offensive team quite bulky from attacks like snarl and will-o-wisp.

Concluding the Regionals:

So I did finally saw the regional results as I missed the stream, and to my absolute surprise Gavin Micheals had again won the regionals with a team very similar to that of his that he won the previous regional with, I felt like the metagame had changed a lot but his full trick room archetype surely was something quite else and quite flexible, making noticeable amendments in the drampa slot for a snorlax and giving mimikyu the destiny bond gave the team an entire new and threatening mode to play into, again winning him the regionals.

As far as the metagame of the regionals goes, I don’t remember seeing some very big and new metagame change, the only and the very big metagame change that I saw was a lot of people trying out Gavin Micheals’ team on the ladder, some even with their own variants. I also faced a number of magnezone as saw it having a comeback into the metagame. I don’t expect this archetype to be a long living trend and have feelings that it will fade out soon.

Taking a new Direction:

On the thoughts of the previous team and my tries to amend it to the best possible set of pokemons against the metagame.  However realizing through a lot of switches between the teams’ pokemons and having a thorough look at the team’s building process and composition,  knew that amending a member two wouldn’t work as the team worked collectively as a unit and the team wasn’t much flexible in terms of taking to new options. Moving a variant from here to there or a member from here to their disturbed the synergetic balance of the team. The first build with the lilligant and torkoal amendments was the best form of the team and it would have to play carefully around the threatening matchups.

That is why after the regionals without knowing the metagame changes a certain though of using a charjabug, xurkitree was on my to-build list and I was trying to figure out how it could work.

With these ideas I came up with the following points that build a more defensive team as I realized using offensive teams from the start of the format, so now I would like to work around more bulky team concepts which in my sense of the archetype would make me play more patiently and will give me a clear sense of when to utilize which pokemon and how to preserve them on my general teams. So following is the thought process of building this team:

·         Choice of charjabug as the starting point of this team of mine. Charjabug was something I had my eyes on for quite some time by now. Charjabug has a few advantages against this metagame. Charjabug had the electric coverage against the pelliper and the gyarados which covered them, a move bug bite in the form of this metagame having loads of berry keepers can be very useful and then the move string shot which could do a lot of things. It can firstly speed up things in a flash. Especially as I had thought out the team to be bulky charjabug could be very much helpful in slowing down oppositions for speeding up my bulkier and expectedly slower team to come.

·         Next thing that I really wanted to use was a mandibuzz + tapu fini has been an old enemy of mine and I would have loved to keep it into effect, however I was curious to build effectively around tapu bulu, it being able to give the earthquake nerf and then the recovery could hypothetically prove much useful for this team of mine and would have really helped me out whenever I needed this pokemon. With strong and helpful moves like wood hammer, super power (specifically for kartana matchups) and then taunt whcihc disrupts loads, tapu bulu could come in handy in loads of situations except when providing bulk. Generally people go for scarf or grassium z on this pokemon however on earlier meta tests I figured that if you use it offensively then it lives attacks just by a little amount even when built bulky and then recoil knocks it right out, so aguav berry seemed to look very promising especially against teams that tend to double target it, especially and most noticeably against combinations like tapu koko + garchomp.

·         Xurkitree came naturally as I really wanted to make use of xurkitree and utilize charjabug’s ability fully. Whenever I want to go bulky Wolfe Glick’s style is something quite amazing to trace, I noticed in his bulky London’s and regionals team that he had one pokemon that could dish out loads of damage even if the team was generally bulky. Xurkitree was this pokemon for my team. I decided to go for assault vest tapu koko but it giving me more common poison type weaknesses made me hesitant to use this pokemon. Having the grassy terrain on the team I wasn’t too much conflicted to use a second ground weakness.

·         On the thought of using a bulky pokemon and the thought of ground z move from garchomp and mudsdale, a ground immunity would be ideal, having tested and used the toxic staller mandibuzz really made me like this pokemon so I used it there, it could set up tailwind when charjabug was not comfortably to be brought in the preview. Rain dance was something I had to compromise the toxic on this pokemon however you will see I used it ahead. Rain dance seemed to heavily favor my first three pokemons and for the back story I was quite interested in using manual weather knowing its pivotal and disruptive importance in this format, which completely turns around matches, especially it would completely take out those lilligant + torkoal leads with the help of its ability.

·         I saw a clear weakness to nihilego, which would explain the choice of assault vest, and further the coverage helped it cover useful number of pokemons, gyarados also provided a third ground immunity/weakness which made it very useful.

·         In the end I rounded out the team with the desperation of going for the idea of a staller. Arcanine seemed a very useful option. It can handle kartana matchups very handily. Fast snarl + intimidate + grassy seed defense + fast toxic + morning sun seemed the best set for a bulky staller idea of an arcanine.

Day 1 Testing and Results:

I felt quite amazed that the first bulky team I built gave me good results and winning with a bulky team especially through wearing off your opponents is very and very much satisfying. Ofcourse team worked but I realized that it was in its beta form. Concepts that worked really well were: tapu bulu’s idea of the aguav berry which came in hand in almost every game I brought it into. xurkitree was working much better as an individual pokemon than I expected. Gyarados came in handy in a number of matchups, arcanine worked very well with its specified variant however the grassy seed never came into much effect. Things like charjabug and mandibuzz worked up to what I expected them to do and each did their job very well. Modifying the ev spreads accordingly and fixing them to specific needs was something I really would have lied to do.

Day 2 Testing and Results:

I finally did end up running important damage calculations as well as making some nice variant switches benefit of team and I was ready th really well. Running the following calculations made me realize the actual hypothesized situations. Biggest threat seemed to be arcanine so I made a switch to roar gyarados with waterium z which would be able to counter trick room better as well as those arcanine mirrors that make winning a lot harder. Arcanine’s item never came into significant use, changing it to a mago berry made it much much and more bulky, this time around I finally used morning sun a lot and felt that it was somewhat important. Xurkitree does ohko muk according to calculations, mandibuzz was very good against the rising trend of belly drum snorlax. The team didn’t had much dynamism but I was quite much determined to test out how bulk works before moving into my second build, most likely trying to pair up xurkitree with peliper which seemed interesting and synergetic however hard to maintain as a bulky team, I didn’t dislike the team however in mid battle if I don’t reserve the correct pokemon I end up losing badly. The team had a lot of fun things and concepts and I was confident to play with them as well as mention those flaws in it to improve it when playing next against it.

-1 252 Atk Gyarados Hydro Vortex (160 BP) vs. 252 HP / 72 Def Arcanine: 198-234 (100.5 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

-1 252+ Atk Arcanine Wild Charge vs. 52 HP / 60 Def Gyarados: 152-180 (85.8 - 101.6%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 180 HP / 4 SpD Gyarados in Psychic Terrain: 165-195 (85.4 - 101%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

-2 252+ Atk Gigalith Continental Crush (180 BP) vs. 180 HP / 220 Def Gyarados: 164-194 (84.9 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Nihilego Power Gem vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arcanine: 164-194 (83.2 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

4 SpA Arcanine Flamethrower vs. 84 HP / 164 SpD Assault Vest Kartana in Rain: 112-136 (77.2 - 93.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Life Orb Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arcanine in Electric Terrain: 148-175 (75.1 - 88.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 132 SpD Arcanine in Psychic Terrain: 169-200 (85.7 - 101.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

-2 252 Atk Garchomp Tectonic Rage (180 BP) vs. 236 HP / 84 Def Arcanine: 168-198 (86.1 - 101.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

252+ SpA Xurkitree Hidden Power Ice vs. 28 HP / 52 SpD Assault Vest Garchomp: 136-160 (72.7 - 85.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Xurkitree in Grassy Terrain: 84-102 (52.8 - 64.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

-1 252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Xurkitree in Grassy Terrain: 56-68 (35.2 - 42.7%) -- 93.5% chance to 3HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

252 Atk Garchomp Tectonic Rage (180 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Eviolite Charjabug: 97-115 (59.1 - 70.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Garchomp Tectonic Rage (180 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Eviolite Charjabug: 106-126 (64.6 - 76.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Golduck Hydro Vortex (185 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Charjabug in Rain: 123-145 (75 - 88.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Pelipper Scald vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Charjabug in Rain: 49-58 (29.8 - 35.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

(does not survive double ducks)

252+ SpA Xurkitree Gigavolt Havoc (185 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Muk-Alola: 213-252 (100.4 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Xurkitree Gigavolt Havoc (185 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Koko in Electric Terrain: 203-239 (139 - 163.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mandibuzz in Electric Terrain: 187-221 (86.1 - 101.8%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

-2 252+ Atk Gigalith Continental Crush (180 BP) vs. 252 HP / 12 Def Mandibuzz: 164-194 (75.5 - 89.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Pheromosa All-Out Pummeling (195 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mandibuzz: 180-213 (82.9 - 98.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Life Orb Pheromosa High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mandibuzz: 156-185 (71.8 - 85.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Day 3 Testing and Results:

At this time I wasn’t much into the flare of using bulky teams, and idk why, but the third day I too kept losing some games, I knew that the team had clear flaws and theyhad to be covered up if I needed a team in the first place:

·         Toxic stalling was fun to use and even more pleasing to win with but wasn’t just efficient, I rather could have won the match without stalling and using recovery moves.

·         A few pokemons worked well but the team wasn’t clearly synergetic enough, the team developed from a thought and onto a team which wasn’t going to be for the best of it. In a lot of situations I had to sacrifice a number of my pokemons to get into a better position.

·         Matchups like supportive arcanine and garchomp proved troublesome and I had to play the team very carefully.

·         A lot of my matchups seemed very much compromising. Especially an example could be taken as gyarados vs arcanine. I had it to survive a -1 wild charge however not from a life orb one, which I did face at a point. Also it couldn’t ohko bulky ones with surety + the largely paired gyarados on opposition further made things very much difficult.

I amended the team to the following:

·         Looked for a pokemon which could counter the list of threats to my xurkitree, charjabug and tapu bulu team, they were arcanine, nihilego, garchomp, and kartana, I looked for a pokemon that could beat tapu koko + garchomp to start with and a ground type was felt much important but gastrodon even didn’t had the answers. Whiscash came to the rescue, apparently I didn’t forgot that it was a pokemon at this time being able to cover a lot of those threats as well as being a pokemon with stats very similar to that of gastrodon I thought it could work, I did test it a bit and it worked well (who knew).

·         Arcanine seemed to work very well but its moveset was kind of very much bad, I often remember thinking things during the matches like I wish I had protect and I wish I had will-o-wisp which with seeing how inefficient toxic stalling was I immediately replaced them, a few tests made it more and even more satisfying to use. Arcanine’s top priority for keeping it in this slot was to have it for kartana.

·         Ground type seemed still a problem still hadn’t figured out a way to counter arcanine mirrors, one thing I loved about my previous team was the tailwind + offense combination. Braviary seemed the best option I did miss foul play for all those times it helped me out, but braviary from a theory seemed fitting, I testing it out in one match where it picked up fast kos and satisfied me enough to take up the version of the team and test it further.  

The team then again became more offensive but better around the core of tapu bulu + xurkitree and charjabug. And to be honest this whole time did not go to a waste, the final and the most sensible and honest conclusion I could come up with from this team would be having to realize that xurkitree and charjabug however worked well, had no place on a team that had to be bulky. So for now I felt I used them enough and needed to put them aside if I really wanted a bulky team. Tapu bulu + arcanine set with the will-o-wisp and protect seemed to work really nicely. I did another random team, where I placed a bunch of random good stuffs together which were also bulky and got amazing ideas like ninetales, muk and garchomp working well together with tapu bulu and gave e the final product of the team that I thought I would never be able to get and the thought that I will never be satisfied atleast with a ‘bulky’ team of my own. I wasn’t feeling bad with using a lot of goodstuffs and having to face a lot of mirrors because I did had a few tricks up my sleeve that could favor me specifically in those matchups:

The Team: (Finally!!!)

Tapu Bulu @ Aguav berry Ability: Grassy Surge Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 36 Atk / 108 Def / 4 Sdef / 108 Spe Jolly Nature  - Wood hammer - Stone Edge - Protect - Disable	Arcanine @ Aguav Berry  Ability: Intimidate  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 100 SDef / 156 Spe  Timid Nature  - Flamethrower - Will-o-Wisp - Snarl - Protect	Muk @ Figy Berry Ability: Gluttony Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def Adamant Nature  - Poison Jab - Knock Off - Curse - Imprison
Mandibuzz @ Leftovers Ability: Overcoat Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef Careful Nature  - Foul Play - Tailwind - Toxic - Roost	Ninetales @ Focus Sash Ability: Snow Warning Level: 50  EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spa / 252 Spe Timid Nature  - Blizzard - Freeze Dry - Aurora Veil - Protect	Garchomp @ Groundinium Z Ability: Rough Skin Level: 50  EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe Jolly Nature  - Swords Dance - Earthquake  - Poison Jab  - Protect

Starting out on tapu bulu with this team once again and something that carries not one but more than one techs. Before getting into them, I would start off by the normal abilities of this pokemon. Tapu fini is countered by my tapu bulu, stone edge is for the fact that when I started placing this team together I placed it with arcanine set, which I felt it had good synergy with, arcqnine seemed weak to things like pelliper and araquanid, that is why stone edge came as the other offensive option. Tapu bulu’s ability grassy surge, allows the grassy terrain to be set, winning the terrain war in my favor when needed as well as would help it to cover up for pokemons that use the move earthquake against this pokemon and the partners in the back, also providing that chip recover can be essential for the thought of a bulky team.

Now for the techs of my tapu bulu, the aguav berry seems amazing for the sake of this pokemon, not as an item for this team but in my opinion  a great in general item, as I have discussed it before I will give the same reasoning as follows that bulu doesn’t survive main threatening attacks with a lot of hp but then gets ko’d by its own wood hammer, aguav berry helps greatly in this situation, somewhat consider its working to that of a physical arcanine as well where its recoil also crocks the berry which helps it live longer for more and more turns. Disable works in 1v1 against pokemons like muk and garchomp where I can disable their poison jabs to get the upper hand in a situation.

Arcanine:

There is not much to talk about an arcanine as it is a very standard pokemon, however few points like its synergy with tapu bulu being awesome should be mentioned here, I choose it as a fast disruptive option to hinder pokemons like lele, which could damage my tapu bulu’s relatively weak special defense a lot, that arcanine of mine also had some good moves like will-o-wisp which helped me win and lock up a few games just on the basis of using will-o-wisp on a few of my opponents’ pokemons. Its viability against kartana will never go down and it was a very fun pokemon to use. When I used an all out bulky set, sitrus was my option but then for the faster option, since it goes pretty low on the hp bar after a strong hit, it can crock the mago berry for recovery.

Fast disruptive pokemon, Importance of mago berry

Muk:

Muk had a number of techs that made it more interesting, for quite some time because of the roles that it fills in this metagame are very strong and important, countering all four tapus very well as well as having only one weakness, and in addition to countering p2 and taking down essential items was all very good! I was really wanting to use this pokemon in a team of mine and I finally got the opportunity to do so and liked it even more, a few things that it carries that are different from a normal muk are interesting and important, first of all, the curse tech allows me to transform this pokemon into a late game wall as well as a strong trick room counter, even lesser seen imprison, which allows mu to counter opposing muk and those snorlax that carry curse on their movesets, all this made muk very fun and strong of a pokemon to use on my team.

Mandibuzz:

Before this I had been trying out a murkrow which helped in late game perish song situations, but more honestly what I liked was its ability to stay on the field for a longer period of time as well as providing the offensive pressure with its foul play. But murkrow’s bulk was very bad even with the eviolite combined, that is why a similar thought of a darker bird came to me, none other than my ld friend, a mandibuzz, I knew I could always play it well and knew that it would favor me a lot in tons of games, this was working very well for me too. Mandibuzz also covered up a hole in the team I had with murkrow, I often had to perish stall out all porygon 2 as well as mandibuzz after fainting their partners, using toxic on them with my mandibuzz while I recover was an effective tactic. Leftovers added to bit of those situations where I had to keep my tapu koko thunderbolt roll up as well as providing me a better matchup against stalling weathers like sand and hail.

Ninetales:

I still noticed a major weakness with Pokémons that carry ground type coverage mainly garchomp, I was interested in trying out the potential of a aurora veil strategy, all these things could be done well by a ninetales I loved playing his pokemon, the somewhat fast options it provides more offense and bulk that helps the team by a lot! Other than that ninetales is quite explainable.

Garchomp:

Electric type immunity is a big thing for this team, even with not a lot being very weak to that type at all, it seemed like a good option to go for, a hard counter against a tapu koko. Like on the last version of my team I had xurkitree as a damage dealer, this team garchomp provides the role, with a lot more helpful moves that help out against this metagame. Also I tried using swords dance garchomp as it was something that a lot of people had been using this month, I had so much fun with it, in some games seeing the opportunity I set up a free swords dance and it swept right through the game without there being any bulky strategies being applied.

Metagame of February:

Snorlax, Belly Drum + Psych Up Teams:

A few people really started to go out with teams that were using the strategies like snorlax hat had belly drum + psych up users that also had priority, the snorlax may would also carry the move rock slide which helps pull out a lot of offense, the psych up partners usually include a mimikyu as well as a metagross that also carry the moves like bullet punch and shadow sneak that can easily go through teams. These teams did got a good finish in the Anaheim regionals.

Swords Dance Garchomp:

Swords dance garchomps started popping up in a lot of teams, instead of people using a third filler move, people kept swords dance that makes its attack stat go way high and loves to use that boost, these sets also largely carry the z-crystal.

Conclusion:

This was it for this month’s report, I really hoped you liked this and learned something new while going through this post! Bye for now.