March VGC Report : Part 1 Triple Ultra Beasts

Hey guys today I am back with an old style of posts that I have been doing for this entire season of VGC, the monthly report I have had it preplanned to make this report into two parts first one comprising of the Melbourne internationals upto data whereas the second one will be about my rest of experience in VGC during this month and probably won’t be much of it as I will be busy in studies, for most of it. Without further ado lets get into this month’s report.

Concluding Major Regionals:

Some right in the start of this month we did had two major and officially live streamed pokemon regionals first one was the Sheffield regionals and the other was the St. Louis regionals streamed on the pokemon livestream, both the regionals had some very interesting teams, mainly they included the metagame parts, there was a significant and interesting rise of pokemons like tapu bulu as well as magnezone in the Sheffield regionals whereas in the st.louis two aerodactyl ls made it into the top cut of the regionals event, a very much interesting tech played by Jon hu was using a pikachu and an electrivire team where he abused his tapu koko’s discharge to boost the stats of either his Pikachu or electrivire which was very much beneficial for them. 

I really didn’t catch up to most of the live stream of the regionals due to it being just too long, but things that I predicted like scope lens kartana as well as the bulky tapu lele made their show in the regionals. So with this then next thing on my mind was to start off this month with a very good and solid team.

Teambuilding For March:

So to start of the month I had several ideas like using a triple ultra beast thing or making a team of pokemons that had nothing to do with the metagame, other things strongly on my mind were the combination of stoutland + gigalith but upon testing it wasn’t much impressive, for a triple ultra beast team I planned out on going for the combination of nihilego, celesteela ad decided to add the strange guzzlord, the combination of nihilego + gigalith was quite nice and did covered the metagame very well, also the synergy of celesteela as I was suggested with nihilego was quite impressive, guzzlord impressed me in some of its games however in others wasn’t efficient enough with the overall team, in the end I was needing a grass type and a porygon 2 counter, trevenant was working a bit but then again failed badly, I wanted to take a new direction.

From thinking what was the interesting idea or the concept I could build around, thinking about it make me look upon the silvally, quite a pokemon to use, I have used it with a choice scarf but this time around really wanted to try it out with a type, fire was an interesting choice however grass type seemed the best in a metagame full of kartana and celesteela where I could wall as well asprovide fire coverage against them, this was a bad idea during testing as silvally wasn’t much bulky of a pokemon at all that I thought of it as. Making an anti afk core I wanted a f/w/g core of my own, lapras with marowak seemed fitting options, then I needed something for the next biggest threatening option in this format ‘p-2’ the answer as easily came to be a specially offensive pheromosa so that it would be independent of the damage output I will do against indimidate users as well be more effective against a garchomp. Rounding out the team with a pheromosa core and a solid lead was going for the choice of bulky tapu lele with a mandibuzz, I seemed quite happy with this build, but there were the clear following flaws in it:

·         NIHILEGO; every member as I choose and as it seems was weak against nihilego, that was the very reason I made some ev spread techs like the marowak with the bulk as well as the assault vest tapu lele but it wasn’t just enough.

·         Marowak had to sacrifice itself in a lot of games because of the reasoning that it would lose a lot of hp while countering a tapu lele or a nihilego and then would be dead weight and an easy target to get ko’d, often leading to free beast boost on the oppositions, which was bad.

·         Lapras was effective only if I could find a room to  make it go for safer offense, I did also ran a surf tech on sivally but they weren’t good on field together.

·         Tailwind overall was a very bad source of speed control on this team.

Following were the solutions I came up with to solve this teams’ issues:

·         Better wall option as against nihilego.

·         Something bulky to take general attacks in the back.

·         More reliable grass type pokemon.

·         Trick room mode to go with marowak and lapras.

Honestly at this point it didn’t took me long enough to make a decision to put celesteela to absorb attacks whereas I would have a kartana as a better grass type, slowking and slowbro were a confusion and slowbro’s stats gave be better reasoning to use it.

The Team:

Kartana @ Scope Lens  Ability: Beast Boost  Level: 50  EVs: 92 HP / 92 Atk / 4 Def / 68 SpD / 252 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Leaf Blade  - Sacred Sword  - Night Slash  - Protect	Marowak-Alola @ Thick Club  Ability: Lightning Rod  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 244 SpD / 4 Spe  Careful Nature  - Flare Blitz  - Bonemerang  - Shadow Bone  - Protect	Celesteela @ Figy Berry  Ability: Beast Boost  Level: 50  EVs: 228 HP / 132 Atk / 140 Def / 4 SpD / 4 Spe  Adamant Nature  - Heavy Slam  - Flamethrower  - Protect  - Bulldoze
Lapras @ Waterium Z  Ability: Water Absorb  Level: 50  Shiny: Yes  EVs: 172 HP / 76 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 20 Spe  Modest Nature  - Hydro Pump  - Freeze-Dry  - Protect  - Ice Shard	Pheromosa @ Life Orb  Ability: Beast Boost  Level: 50  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe  Naughty Nature  - High Jump Kick  - Ice Beam  - Poison Jab  - Protect	Slowbro @ Rindo Berry  Ability: Oblivious  Level: 50  Shiny: Yes  EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD  Relaxed Nature  IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe  - Trick Room  - Surf  - Psyshock  - Rain Dance

Starting off with the lapras, lapras is in game a much and a much better pokemon than I actually thought of it to be, it can also provide multiple roles in battle other than just being there for utility offense. To start off lets take the example of lapras’ ability and the work it can put in this metagame, it forms a really good counter to pokemons like gyarados as well as any gastrodon, especially in combination with the move freeze dry in general forms a great counter to any water type pokemon, furthermore including big threats like araquanid and other forms of rain modes that this format may have, lapras works very well against them, know that when someone looks at lapras as a pokemon they probably think that it isn’t the very idea of a trick room attacker, but similar to in my opinion how a golduck works is that you save it for the one big z-move, other than that its amazing ice coverage especially with the move freeze dry can help it overcome a lot of things in this metagame especially when provided speed control.

Its on field synergy with marowak was also quite amazing, marowak saved it many and many times from a tapu koko’s thunderbolt and made it go for an offensive attack on them, it may be very surprising to hear but this lapras can actually ohko three of the most used pokemons in this format, another point that works in its favor and makes it very good. Lapras’ ev spread is designed for it to live a kartana’s leaf blade, surviving a thunderbolt from a tapu koko seemed a very high investment with the item assault vest which was mainly why I prevented it from being on this team especially in the presence of marowak. Ice shard was also a key moveslot as it allowed me to break any suspect sash on popular pokemons like nihilego, pheromosa as well as a kartana or the lesser used technician variants of persian which seem to be very much threatening otherwise.

Moving on I have the glue of the team, marowak keeps together and binds so many aspects of this team even the theory of a maorwak is purely offensive,, however on this team it acts as more of a pivotal attacker than anything else, it can take and wall so many things in this metagame right now, mainly them being taking attacks fom pheromosa, kartana’s stab attacks, or the redirection from tapu koko is something that made this pokemon quite essential and key to this team, it is a pokemon that can work in both inside and outside of a trick room mode, many times I do bring it as a defensive option to cover up for when things get tough in a match, marowak as of this point in the format often seems quite forgotten as a pick for teams, but using it on this team really made me realize its true worth.

There isn’t much to talk about a marowak, other than its somewhat interesting ev spread, as mentioned before, it is a tech against life orb nihilego as well as tapu lele which are some variants that have been popping up into this metagame lately, giving them a surprise by surviving their powerful attacks that are usually meant to OHKO a marowak, it can then target back with a bonemerang or a shadow bone accordingly to counter those pokemons which made it very good in some matches, now with the team having the trick room mode, marowak could be retreated back into its pokeball at a very low health to be brought out again under the trick room to land a second powerful hit.

Pheromosa was originally supposed to be a special attacker however seeing its general inefficiency against a porygon 2 even as against things like heavily bulky garchomp as well as a tapu koko, quickly making a realization that opted the reliable z-move got wasted as well as clashed with the offensive role of lapras, it was quite clear that the physical life orb variant was much better on this team. And it did prove to be in this team a very good thing.

One thing to note about pheromosa is that it clearly doesn’t now form any sort of amazing synergy with the members of its teams, however it was brought up as a back up strategy or just as a straight up offensive unit from the very start of the game to beat up mainly pokemons like porygon 2 as well as muk which could punch many holes in the strategy of this team, pheromosa wasn’t a big part of this teams’ synergy or strategy but was definitely a very much useful component and did just the correct job that was required of it.

Kartana was the reliable of a grass type attack, it could also provide me options against opposing kartana as well as made it my own curse snorlax counter, adding it up with the scope lens tactic it had a general boost in its value, adding bonus damage was always fun, similar to the high offensive potential of pheromosa, kartana especially when combined with the scope lens was also used as an emergency tactic to beat up pokemons which I had less counters to.

kartana’s ev spread was quite fun, even if its not a bulky variant adding u some defensive evs to make it survive attacks like tapu koko’s thunderbolt as well as garchomp’s z-move makes it worth to use and makes it a bit more reliable in a 1v1 situation for the critical hitting machine that it becomes with its item.  Mostly people do use a move like substitute as well as swords dance however I went for the choice of night slash as I felt like it was quite a good option especially against pokemons like marowak, metagross, oranguru as well as the rising population of drifblim, these were the few pokemons I felt I could have trouble against.

Celesteela, was originally supposed to be my bulky attack absorber as well as a ground immunity as I felt which weak against not having one in a format where big ground moves dominate. Ceesteela was not originally meant as a staller and I knew I could never play it in such a way, celesteela had the ability to wall out certain pokemons’ attacks but the idea for using a sub-seed variant was a terrible one for me, I did try an assault vest celsteela to load it up with coverage, only it was more terrible. Then I came up with probably my personal favorite celesteela moveset of this season, this moveset was designed to combat with the modern metagame, completely setting the bulk scale aside from the tapu koko’s thunderbolt survival, I toned it to taking arcanine’s flare blitz which were quite popular as the season grew out from the metagame and right now, then adding a second tech which was to assure a oho on the bulkier tapu lele which I think was a very much useful metacall especially as of right now and in this metagame. Unfortunately I could only get a max 62.5% chance of actually getting the ohko, the damage it provided relatively onto other pokemons was also quite satisfying, after loading it up with a flamethrower for kartana and mirrors, the last moveslot I gave this pokemon was the move bulldoze which could often on greatly help slow down oppositions, especially in the 50-50 case of pheromosa, kartana as well as a marowak. The berry was there to help with recovery and for celesteela to wall longer, especially in the case of getting hit by a flare blitz, and in the case of a tapu koko, the marowak can slip in the field to save the day.

By the way this also formed by team into Triple Ultra Beast team an archetype that I was waiting very long for to use.

Last and the lovable slowbro covered u many remaining holes in this team of mine. Firstly the reason that I choose slowbro over slowking should be explained, I really was wanting to keep a reliable trick room setter for my team, I knew slowking would be generally good for walling as well as against absorbing tapu koko’s attacks, but then again marowak helps against that in the case of this team much better, whereas slowking would wall some mons, would become very much weak to a wild charge from arcanine, muk’s knock off or a kartana’s leaf blade and could not work as a general trick room setter, with slowbro having the higher defense I chose it over slowking.

Slowbro could support the overall team as well, my main reasoning behind choosing psyshock over psychic is mainly to be somewhat better against things like nihilego, and the tapu koko which a a bit more specially defensive as compared to their physical offense. Ice beam allows it to almost always ko a 4 hp gachomp with such investments, which isn’t a solid role depending that many garchomps do carry on some bulk on them, but made it reasonably good at doing overall offense  makes me much more confident using this pokemon, having the move rain dance further favors the lapras + slowbro combination a lot as well as helps to hinder fire types on a such a team that is weak against them with a lot of its pokemons as well as weather however I did notice something about it that the situation never could’ve occurred in actually matches though and my sun matchup was down to a zero, that is why I decided to settle upon a rindo berry variant and take grass type attacks like leaf storm and critical hit leaf blade from kartana with sirety whi, slowbro also forms a hariyama counter to this team. Slowbro’s stats allowed it to take attacks much better than a slowking, the berry provides general recovery

And the surf tactic that I was trying out with silvally works here somewhat way better, sometimes I set up trick room and the just start spamming lapras + slowbro on the field, surf not being the strongest of move deals little but important damage to opposing pokemons while doing the work of healing damage from larpras which still makes it an effective unit as trick room comes to an end. Especially on a team with mons like a not very offensive kartana, celesteela and lapras, each bit of damage does generally help to bring out those pokemons in a ko range, I have never thought about using a slowbro in any team of mine but now that I have tried it out once I look forward to use it more in general.

Conclusion:

This team overall was very fun to use and I really liked how each part of it came together as a whole team, honestly if asked, if I had to attended the Melbourne Internationals myself no doubt I would have brought this team. Coming over the time of the weekend I really will be focusing more on my studies and wouldn’t be able to write for internats in time, that is why I think that posting this before is probably the better choice, I reached over a personal best rating on ps and it was quite amazing and I really liked this team, it fulfilled my demand of building a triple ub team. Hopefully u liked this post and enjoyed going through it. Bye for now!