Hi guys today I am back with another post this time I will
discuss my experience n the month of April regarding VGC, without further ado
lets get started:
Teambuilding, The
Return of Balele:
As you guys know that I was using a balele team in the last
days of the past month and I actually wanted to leave that team and then build
a new one but I really wasn’t getting in any good mood of building a new one,
that is why I looked back into my old balele team and really wanted to update it,
on random test, I have no idea why I started of with using the full balele core
of tapu lele + drifblim + garchomp, the thing was that I used swords dance
garchomp, that was the point when it shone to me and I was motivated to take
this build seriously.
I started with my original balele sets + this swords dance
garchomp which was a big star in many games I tested it with and started given
the rest of the slots a serious consideration, after some thinking I came up
with using tapu koko as it covered a big set of pokemons. To patch up the team
I settled on with a hariyama, hariyama gave me a huge cover over those trick
room cores of porygon 2, gigalith as well as those snorlax teams. For the last
slot I was getting quite confused and had this urge to merge this team with a
small trick room mode as it gave me loads of trouble while testing, after
considering a lot of options I finally somehow ended up trying out nihilego
with trick room as I was trying to originally try to build a team with
nihilego, it worked really well, after testing I adjusted a few moveslots that
weren’t getting much use, the following is the team:
The Team:
Drifblim @ Psychic Seed
Ability: Unburden
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 132 Def / 100 SpA / 124 SpD / 148 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Tailwind
- Will-O-Wisp
- Embargo
Drifblim is not my style which was something I sure did
learn as you will know more about it, I honestly struggled with it, the favorite
roles it ended up performing in battles for me were switching into a garchomps
techtonic rage as well as provide tailwind for my tapu lele and garchomp, a lot
of people starting strongly considering the threat of drifblim on their
teambuilds and most of the teams I faced had strong counters to it, especially
the niche of a thunder tapu koko got me twice so I built a modified spread to
live that and then further make it be able to live golduck’s z-move so that it
could use to hinder that combination. My drifblim had the ability to outspeed a
usual speed invested tapu fini on it as well as ofcourse outspeed pheromosa
under a tailwind, the special attack investment, I still believe allows it to
2hko tapu lele as well as a drifblim.
As you may remember if read the previous description that
this duo was build to counter mirrors specifically as well, however I realized
that usual drifblims were very much faster than my own, the last moveslot was
thunder wave but the more I used it I realized that it lacked efficiency,
drifblim really didn’t have all that time to use all those attacks, that is why
I really struggled on keeping the last moveslot for this drifblim.
I tried many moves here, for example a few include protect,
substitute, thunder wave (once again), manual weather and destiny bond I didn’t
bother to use because they didn’t have a strong theory with what I wanted this
team to be or how I was using it, finally I decided on embargo, the main theory
of embargo revolves around inhibiting use of items like eviolite, pinch
berries, leftovers or focus sashes as tapu lele gets to spam psychic or
dazzling gleam this was the move that had both some theory as well as worked
well with this team in the actual game, shadow ball and tailwind obviously got
a lot of usage on this team, however will-o-wisp was something I didn’t tend to
rely on and most of the times, unfortunately for me it happened to miss.
Tapu Lele @ Wiki Berry
Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 212 Def / 60 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Dazzling Gleam
- Calm Mind
- Protect
Tapu lele was much better for me in this form especially
because it could be able to do things other than fit on the side of drifblim,
this set allowed it to dodge those threatening double target attacks as well as
allowed it to live strong attacks like kartana’s smart strike, following it up
with a wiki berry could greatly help it, and more than its potential looks on paper,
this concept is something I took from Enosh Sachar’s Invitationals team which
was the first time when we got to see bulky tapu lele, I tested out his team
and particularly loved this variant. Other job of tapu lele was surely to
switch into those hariyama + porygon 2 lead as a strong disruptor for that fake
out and can also act as a late game wall against relatively weaker special
attackers, which is why I chose it over life orb variants as well as psychium z
variants that people have started to use. I tried to keep it minimal in speed
to under speed fini that might be fishing to outspeed those slightly invested
lele for mirrors, especially as nihilego was on the side to provide the speed
control of trick room, I hypothetically had no trouble against tapu lele
mirrors.
There isn’t really for me atleast much to talk about these
two but I realized that this combination wasn’t really as dominant as it
quickly became one of the most popular cores and everyone had some strong
checks and counters to it, this core doesn’t also handle mirrors very well also
I failed to build it in such a way that made it to counter those mirrors, I
didn’t lead it much, however for thepeople who weren’t much prepared couldn’t
stand long against it.
Garchomp @ Groundium Z
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 212 Atk / 4 Def / 52 SpD / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance
- Protect
- Fire Fang
Muk is one of the biggest threat to the above two mentioned,
garchomp is strong in theory against that, also this is a garchomp spread I
really like more garchomps are becoming of adamant nature and slower, that is
why I grabbed the opportunity of beating mirrors and kept mine jolly natured
which allowed me to outspeed a mimikyu. This garchomp has more bulk to survive
a porygon 2’s ice beam with 28 special attack investment at neutral special
attack. Garchomp was pretty much my favorite pokemon of this team just because
of the monster it became after using a swords dance, it won me a 90% lost game
due to it getting the swords dance boost.
Swords dance was really effective, especially I got the
ideal situations to set it up when I am against two pokemons of my opponents
which are walled by garchomp or are weak to it, my opponent makes a decision to
adjust to this which is when I go for the swords dance which turns even their
adjustments into my favor, this was just awesome!, also for a big part people
didn’t expect swords dance maybe as it might also could use moves like rock
slide or substitute. For the last moveslot I went with the decision of using
fire fang as I ended p getting walled by celesteela as well as kartana
especially with that swords dance boost, adjusting to which I lost a lot of
momentum, fire fang was a much better move for this variant whose favorite
trait was to use swords dance.
Tapu Koko @ Fairium Z
Ability: Electric Surge
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Dazzling Gleam
- Light Screen
- Protect
Tapu koko was beginning with a much different concept of a
sashed pokemon with taunt as it seemed to fill many roles like that on paper
atleast. However in the actual game I never got to fully use my focus sash
(intended for pheromosa, garchomp 1v1, kartana etc) it more or less never
really came into practice. That is when I decided to switch to fairium z tapu
koko, this allowed me to not wait for a second turn and take out pokemons like
opposing tapu koko as well as garchomp in one turn instead of two, turning this
team into an offensive one was in my favor as I do like those types of teams.
This is a usual tapu koko until it gets light screen, this
slot was originally taunt to help with ninetales as well as trick room setups,
but then again it was something that wasn’t really fitting with the team, light
screen helped me in more situations, whether it was used to give garchomp more
cover, hariyama a defensive buff or even helping against other more and more
special attackers, setting it up was quite a thing and usually really ended up
being in my favor, I loved to use this move, definitely does sound weird, but
it works when I use it.
Hariyama @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 116 Atk / 168 Def / 220 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Detect
- Poison Jab
Hariyama is used here to mainly help with trick room, also
my increasing desire to have a strong fighting type on every pokemon team to
counter snorlax as well as a porygon 2, hariyama came as a natural very good
trick room counter as it could counter a lot of trick room cores of gigalith as
well as snorlax and the aforementioned porygon 2. Hariyama was something used
and put on this team to specifically counter these few pokemons but did a lot
of additional roles that were very helpful.
Firstly I would like to discuss the importance f fake out
leading it with frailer pokemons like tapu koko or nihilego or even garchomp
allows me to hinder a threat for atleast one turn which can allow me to get a
ko on it the very next turn, fake out also fished for double protect which was
the time I could use to set up a trick room, light screen, calm mind or a
swords dance as I liked, this very essential turn of fake out also allows for
the activation of the flame orb which activates its guts ability giving it a
huge attack stat boost. The last moveslot I have allows it to hit fairies for
more damage as knock off wasn’t getting any use at all and poison jab could be
helpful, I ran detect on which a small note is that some muk have the move
imprison so it could help against that whenever needed.
This ev spread is something that I really like. Previously I
was using a 252/252/4 spread which was extremely bad considering that hariyama
has loads of hp but very less defenses similar to drifblim, so it needed to be
invested elsewhere, this made me to make a good ev spread, this spread allows
it to take a 252+ special attack tapu lele psychic under psychic terrain
through a light screen, secondly it gives it a role to survive a garchomp’s
tectonic rage (which isn’t ideal but surely can be something useful) and the
offensive benchmark of being able to OHKO a 252 hp and 68 defense porygon 2
with its close combat.
Nihilego @ Focus Sash
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Power Gem
- Sludge Bomb
- Trick Room
- Protect
Last but not the least and surely a glue to this team,
nihilego its just so good with the dangerous dynamism of its poison + rock
typing it can really get a lot of the top pokemons in this format, I really
felt like I would miss it not having the move hp-ice but its job was already
filled by pokemons like koko, lele or even my own garchomp. Nihilego allowed me
to make certain flexibility in this team that was very good.
I often did used it against those balele mirror leads which
would set up a tailwind against me, I would take this time to set up a very
much useful trick room, trick room had the theory of ofcourse turning around
opposing trick rooms, as well as to set up hariyama for those teams in which it
was very much useful. It could take out pokemons like gyarados, tapu koko, tapu
lele, dirfblim, ninetales, marowak, torkoal, arcanine, tapu fini, pelliper,
etc.
Nihilego was also seeing some use, other than surprisingly
being a niche role and I overall really liked all the members of in use on this
team. Focus sash really helped it too! It could help it alongside hariyama
where it could use fake out ten nihilego takes a attack and then it goes for a
trick room, it could also help my relatively slower balele team to outspeed
others.
Why I Stopped Using
this Team:
The team was really good but I just really wasn’t very good
with it, following are the reasons I think why:
·
Usually I try out building teams with a pokemon
or combination which I think has strong use in this format or atleast some
viability, but this time I took balele, which I didn’t see as much of a viable
duo, but I just started to build around it, that is why I wasn’t maybe able to understand
it that well.
·
This team was quite standard on a lot of points,
it did had its trick which really shined and worked for me here, but for most
of my team this was something people already knew and had strong counters to
which was troublesome for me.
·
A lot of the times this team relies on usage of
setup strategies, offensive setups are something I used very well, but
especially the ones revolving around drifblim were something I was quite
unfamiliar with and often felt like I didn’t utilize it to its full potential.
With all that playing and testing out this team again and
again I finally decided to now move on and finally start teambuilding with the
pokemon I really wanted to build around for, a NIHILEGO!
Nihilego Team
Building Process:
I have tried out nihilego seriously on one team before where
I really realized that it had also a lot of potential regarding opposing lead
combinations it needed its partners to counter them that combined with the
theory that it was very offensively viable in the current state of the format I
started to build a core around it.
(before going into his build I was quite shattered by how I
thought I couldn’t do much ahead with that previous team even when I thought
that it was solid, however I did know that it wasn’t my style, I watched a few
teambuilding videos and picked up a few notes from here and there, it really
boosted my confidence regarding building a new team)
On the topic of covering weaknesses I read celesteela as
well as thought of incineroar and gastrodon core for my nihilego, this made me
realize that this team was going to be something very similar to was ‘Raikoo’
has been using this entire season (as far as I know) when I was thinking about
these pokemons I was feeling bad about how weird it was but supported by the
fact that it was used before gave me confidence, the core looked very well
balanced. I rounded out the team with garchomp + mandibuzz to finish up my rest
of the counters I needed, the synergy didn’t look terrible but it worked on
paper, it was the time to test: did it work out? No. that was even more and
more frustration for me right there that is why I decided to move onto building
a new team, honestly at this point it gave me some anxiety and then I started
building once with this idea I had.
Utah Regionals:
I really didn’t keep up with the stream considering it was
always very laggy for me, however I did go back and saw some teams from that
regionals and picked up a few notes from here and there in terms of usage.
Following is what I observed:
Double Ducks of
success:
Double ducks maybe didn’t saw a huge amount of usage in them
however we did surely see double ducks go far, main reason to take a team like
that to regionals can simply be explained as it being able to beat the top 3
pokemons of this metagame atleast according to statistics as well as having a
control of weather, checking ninetales’ strategies as well as hitting a lot of
other pokemons for supereffective damage, with the only weaknesses being tapu
fini and gastrodon that can really shut down this combination, they can still
fire off hurricanes and ice beam against the gastrodons as well as use encore
of a tapu fini that attempts to wall them by setting up and make it useless on
the field for some turns.
Physical Ghost
Types rising in usage:
This is something I am sure most people clearly saw that
there was a lot of marowak and mimikyu being used on the teams in that
regionals, main reason that I believe is the usage of drifblim + tapu lele
teams which physical ghost types can handle very well, especially n combination
with trick room. This change of pace in their usage was clearly seen in the
usage statistics update followed by the regionals.
Balele Drops:
Most of the teams, from atleast which were shown on stream
did not feature the drifblim + tapu lele combination which seemed to rule this
metagame and was up ato a point that everyone had a build around that
combination, with that dangerous amount of usage people must have felt like it
being a bad call going into this regionals mainly because everyone would keep
atleast a single clever check of their own to that team composition and that
combination in particular.
An Idea and a Team:
I was really thinking about how can I beat tapu lele +
drifblim to start off this team with, I came to the decision of using the duo
of oranguru + marowak as I once had though of. Oranguru can set up trick room
with a mental herb safely against drifblim + tapu lele whereas once it sets up,
marowak can ohko both f the oppositions providing instruct in one turn only.
Then I added a lurantis to help me switch in as well as counter water types and
gigalith against marowak. Lurantis really did work very well, in some games it
even got up to a + 6 special attack stat and picked up OHKO on a tapu bulu in
one game even due to its boosts. Then I added the duo of drifblim + tapu koko
which helped a lot against a lot of matchups especially rain, pheromosa as well
as tailwind mirrors, I used drifblim with will-o-wisp, acrobatics and sunny day
which helped a lot with its partners and I really liked it for the first time. Tapu
koko was having some bulk with life orb to be able to keep a balance of offense
and defense in balance. Garchomp was added to get ohko on muk, which threatened
my entire team. I put this team to test, the oranguru + lurantis idea worked
well, but not in coordination with marowak, the team had very less bulk to
start off with and muk was a terrible matchup for me once garchomp went down it
wasn’t working well into the dynamism of this team. I had to rebuild it.
Then I started off with the idea of marowak + oranguru and
then started building again, this time I opted for buzzwole to get gigalith as
well as a porygon 2 and also to solidify my trick room mode of the team. I was
theorizing it before for some essential reason that I can’t remember. I added
ninetales to get garchomp and water types, to keep in mind the fact that this
was being build around marowak and then again added garchomp for the last slot
I was having trouble against the lilligant + torkoal and Double ducks so I
added tapu fini.
The Team:
Marowak-Alola @ Thick Club
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Flare Blitz
- Bonemerang
- Shadow Bone
- Protect
Marowak I think is quite an overlooked pokemon, its usage
however rose in the recent regionals, which I think is because of the fact how
good trick room and a physical ghost type is in this format against those
balele teams which is why the reason I started off with it, it is also amazing
against pokemons in general like fire type, salazzle and arcanine, celesteela,
kartana as well as tapu koko and other annoying and strong electric types like
magnezone and togedemaru. Marowak was never disappointing and I brought it as a
backup tactic against a lot of teams in my matchup.
Marowak is quite strong is mostly predictable however for some
points the ev spread and my choice of using bonemerang, bonemerang was chosen
due to the ever growing population of sturdy magnezone, focus sash togedemaru
and tapu koko as well as nihilego, further in addition to tapu bulu users it
can ignore the usual ground move drop, due to marowak being a big part of my
tapu koko, garchomp, arcanine and celesteela core counter I was considering
using earthquake to challenge those defensive switches from my opponents’ side,
however the aforementioned things were more tempting to counter over the risk
of accuracy or even going for the earthquake. The ev spread is my favorite as
it allows marowak to live strong tapu lele attacks as well as power gem from a
sashed nihilego and then ohko’s them back with its moves, the cut in offense
isn’t that big since it already does get a 200+ attack stat after those boosts.
However then I won’t be expecting it to do monstrous amounts to the pokemons
that it doesn’t hit for super effective damage do loads to them.
Oranguru @ Mental Herb
Ability: Telepathy
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psyshock
- Instruct
- Protect
- Trick Room
Oranguru is quite only for the use of only with some
matchups, unlike porygon 2 oranguru has completely different properties. There
really isn’t much to say about this pokemon, lets start off with the ev spread
it allows it to live a garchomp’s tectonic rage, and simply that and the rest
was dumped into special defense, investing into special attack wasn’t that big
of a issue at all. Now lets discuss the different roles I gave to this pokemon
in battles that I brought it in, firstly instruct can help in allowing pokemons
to repeat their attacks on the same turn, which was very useful, especially
with marowak and tapu fini as I could get multiple accuracy drops as well as
set up 2x calm minds in one turn. Oranguru also acted as a defensive pivot to
strong tapu lele or predictable ghost type attacks. I chose psyshock over
psychic to beat those nihilego with much ease if n any case marowak was down or
not present on the field, considering that it is generally a big threat to by
team and can hit loads for quite some damage.
Buzzwole @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 108 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 156 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Hammer Arm
- Poison Jab
- Protect
- Taunt
Buzzwole can do multiple jobs on this team but its most
useful ones are surely lying in being able to do loads of damage to those
normals types which are really tough to beat, like porygon 2, snrolax as well
as sturdy rock and steel types like magnezone and gigalith. Buzzwole overall is
a really strong and bulky pokemon in this metagame and has seen a rise in its
usage. I gave it speed to outsped those tapu lele as well as those tapu fini.
Which are bulky and be able to hit them with a poison jab before they can
attack at all. Buzzwole doesn’t do the job of a lurantis in terms of beating
marowak’s weaknesses In theory but atleast can strongly combat with its trick
room enemies. Hammer arm I chose over superpower to transform buzzwole into a
trick room abuser from a moderately fast pokemon. Overall I really liked
playing buzzwole on this team and was much happy over the last team that I had
put it on because I didn’t had a much solid answer to porygon 2 and snorlax
other than walling them in a game. Protect seems a staple for this pokemon
after which I decided to hand it over the move taunt previously I had the move
ice punch in this slot however it ended up pretty much never working out in any
battle, same was the case for protect but I could see its situation utility
usage which seemed more beneficial than keeping ice punch in general for
garchomp which never worked. I almost never ended up using this slot however I
remember when I used it to stop oppositions from using wide guard once garchomp
used its z-move ad was under setup, which helped me out loads.
Adding on to usage of buzzwole it was an overall really
amazing answer to foul play users as well which could really threaten my
members like marowak as well as my garchomp. You might think that buzzwole has
a monstrous attack stat however something that came in as even more impressive
was its physical defense which takes about 5% or so from a spread earthquake of
garchomp as well as survives arcanine’s flare blitz with ease, I would have
gone for the route of choosing a special defensively bulky set for it to
survive fairy type attacks as well however the physical bulk came much more
handy in matchups to make a specially defensive spread and really who would
have wanted to stay into a fairy type against buzzwole.
Ninetales-Alola @ Focus Sash
Ability: Snow Warning
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blizzard
- Freeze-Dry
- Protect
- Aurora Veil
I thought of looking upon more threats to my marowak a
glaring weakness was garchomp who could still do loads to my oranguru and
marowak even after I added buzzwle, a clear and amazing answer to garchomp is a
ninetales, ninetales has a lot of metagame specificity which came with it being
on this slot, with addition to countering garchomp, it could even take on those
gastrodon, gyarados and other water types, ninetales takes the previous role of
countering water types as well, this made me very confident moving forward with
the team. In addition to that the addition of this pokemon’s move aurora veil
and snow warning also had great importance especially as a lot of people have
started to use kartana with sash and weather does big against its opposition
weathers in terms of disruption. Aurora veil can provide amazing bulk to my own
team which leaves me very happy whenever I get to use this move. I would have
loved to fit in the move icy wind onto this pokemon but overall I felt like
that protect was doing a better job to support itself.
Seeing this slot aurora veil did a bigger job than I really
expected it to, since my oranguru doesn’t really happen to carry a recovery
item nor isn’t as bulky as a reliable porygon 2, I would lead oranguru and
ninetales and then set up a aurora veil to nerf the damage output, I might lose
ninetales in this turn without it taking any damage but only to bring in my
marowak which would get a bulk increase from the setup aurora veil and I would
be able to utilize this trick room duo longer. The somewhat fading but still
effective duo of tapu fini + ninetales was aso becoming really effective and
key to winning the matches in which by opponents could have trouble against the
team
Garchomp @ Groundium Z
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50
EVs: 44 HP / 196 Atk / 4 Def / 52 SpD / 212 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Protect
- Fire Fang
- Swords Dance
When I put on buzzwole onto this team it was my supposed
counter to a muk for then, however as the team also added in a ninetales I felt
like it was time to bring back my old swords dance garchomp to counter that
pokemon, in addition to muk, metagross also was a seeming threat as it could
land super effective hits on buzzwole as well as ninetales + do a huge amount
to my orangurur, garchomp handled both of those factors nicely, that was the
reasoning of this garchomp in use, my overall opinion on this set remains the
same as it was when using it with the balele team, I never however got I a
situation which made me feel like that I could use a tailwind user on this
team, my SD setups weren’t as frequent but did their job finely whenever I used
them.
Tapu Fini @ Aguav Berry
Ability: Misty Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Muddy Water
- Moonblast
- Calm Mind
- Protect
Theoretically on my pokemon-to-counter list I only had
pheromosa left and then I started looking upon what were my answers to those
common leads I already had a lot of the leads covered but what seemed
challenging for me was facing a double ducks lead and well as a torkoal lead,
especially since ninetales is faster than them, they will win the weather wars
against me, I needed a more stable approach to these leads, that is why I
settled on using a tapu fini, which was well supported by its partners in the
back especially by ninetales and marowak
and also added a whole new dimension to this team of mine, by making a tapu
fini mode, it wasn’t much time until I faced a double ducks and a lilligant +
torkoal team and tapu fini seemed to do its job finely there.
I didn’t really want to make a complex ev spread as this one
really gave me no trouble while playing. Aguav berry seemed to fit its job very
nicely on this team of mine. I did also test out leftovers variant but it lost
me some games where aguav berry would have won me, so I switched back to using
aguav berry on my tapu fini and it never turned against me, fu thing I did with
this team was sometimes using my own protect to get the hail chip damage and
consume my pinch berry and allow 50% healing which really seemed to put in
work. Tapu fini seemed a great option to counter those rain and sun leads. The
way I played it on this team was by taking a good window of opportunity to set
up one or two calm minds, b the time my pinch berry will activate and I will
have enough hp to land one or two strong hits. Especially the matchups I used
to counter with tapu fini were rain and sun matchups, which is further
supported by this bulk of special defense.
I also ended up using my tapu fini in the trick room as my
opponents went ahead to switch around to my tapu fini and adjust, this time and
few turns I took to set up calm minds as well as set up a trick room after
which I could beat most of the fast pokemons of this metagame, especially in
combination with instruct from oranguru.
Team Matchups:
Since this became a major team of mine I found ease in
playing it, following are the few matchups I would like to discuss:
Drifblim + Tapu
Lele Teams:
I usually go against these teams by leading with marowak +
oranguru and then taking the game from there, considering that these teams have
little to stop trick room and their main counter happens to be tapu lele’s
taunt with it, taking advantage of the predictable leads I go for this
combination as a lead and then decide to sweep through with marowak, the
pokemons in the back are dependent on what my opponent has in their back on the
team.
Double Ducks Teams:
Double duck teams are usually accompanied by a tapu koko
with them, fr this specific lead I either go for tapu fini + buzzwole or tapu
fini + garchomp dependent upon what my opponent keeps in the rest of their
teams. Setting up calm mind turn one + switching in a ninetales if they lead in
this way so I break pelliper’s sash and threaten both of them with my freeze
dry, you do have to watch out for encore golduck or pelliper switching around
the rain so that you maintain your stance against them.
Tapu koko +
Celesteela + Arcanine + Garchomp Teams:
My main lead against these teams happens to be the duo of
ninetales + oranguru where I can either attack garchomp or set up an aurora
veil to ensure the safe trick room setup from oranguru, depending on what my
opponent brings I usually switch into my marowak as it takes attacks from cele,
koko and arc really well whereas ninetales takes care of garchomp, even if
ninetales goes down on the first turn means I have loads of turns of trick room
left to attack with my marowak and usually a tapu fini in the back.
AFK + Porygon
Cores:
AFK + porygon cores usually come in the form of porygon 2
with gigalith, araquanid or snorlax, these pokemons can be reasonably well
handled by the lead of buzzwole + ninetales, ninetales is kept alongside
buzzwole to counter tha tapu fini offensively, if my opponent brings an
arcanine to the lead it may sound troublesome but I usually ten to switch into
my garchomp or marowak in the back which is dependent on what is my opponents’
team
Conclusion:
with this post concluded with two teams and a small metagame shift view from the Utah regionals, now we look forward to the 3rd International Championships to be held at this weekend, Hope you enjoyed this post, i'll be back with more! Bye for now!
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