November + December VGC 18 Team

Hey guys today I am back and here with a very muc interesting topic, well for me atleast, bringing to you my very first VGC 18 team only one day has passed since VGC 18format becamea thing, most people were kinda familiar with the metagame through BSD however the addition of the three new ubs + the new lycanroc form is here + the tutor moves are going to be very helpful as well, well don’t know about the lycanroc’s significance however the three new ultra beasts do sound very promising, without further baffling about my first thoughts on things here, I better get started with this report:

Teambuilding Process:

A week or so before this VGC 18 thing I was theorizing a lot around my most favorite allowed pokemon in the format, emboar with that I had thoeried putting cresselia + stakataka as the trick room slots and thought that tapu bulu, milotic and a bulky salamence would round out this team of mine very well, however as soon as I tested out the new idea it failed somewhat horribly so I started thinking about some new idea which is when I remembered someone mentioning in the chat that blacephalon with char-y would e awesome, I was like; hey you what! Start of the format, a hyper offensive idea, why not try that out right? And in the next twenty or so minutes I came up with six members, it took bout an hour to decide what variant of each mon with what moves would be he best for this team and there is it the following:

The Team:

Blacephalon @ Choice Scarf  Ability: Beast Boost  Level: 50  EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe  Modest Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Mind Blown  - Shadow Ball  - Trick  - Flamethrower

Blacephalon is a new ultra beast which I’d simply love for the fact that it is a unique design, a firework + headless person pokemon combined with the perfectly jolly and excited cover of a funny clown is super cool atleast in my opinion. The main point of interest in blacephalon rises from its high offensive stats as well as good speed + its signature move mind blown, a base 150 powered all out spread fire type attack that makes blacephalon lose half its hp, blacephalon can only use this move twice, and the second time It’d use it will cause it to faint, but combine that with amazing stats with a scarf means it could sweep out big numbers in one click not to mention the fact I placed charizard y alongside this thing. Its self explanatory now that why I ever decided to start with this pokemon though for the other moves shadow ball as a good stab attack whereas trick can be good in situations as well + flamethrower when you don’t need to hurt your partners for an attack there :p

252+ SpA Blacephalon Mind Blown vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T in Sun: 213-252 (129 - 152.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252+ SpA Blacephalon Mind Blown vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kangaskhan in Sun: 213-252 (100.4 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252+ SpA Blacephalon Mind Blown vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Kangaskhan in Sun: 177-208 (83.4 - 98.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252+ SpA Blacephalon Shadow Ball vs. 220 HP / 92+ SpD Cresselia: 116-138 (52 - 61.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252+ SpA Blacephalon Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Lele: 152-180 (104.1 - 123.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Charizard-Mega-Y @ Charizardite Y  Ability: Drought  Level: 50  EVs: 164 HP / 4 Def / 68 SpA / 20 SpD / 252 Spe  Timid Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Flamethrower  - Solar Beam  - Protect  - Blast Burn

Charizard is a cool pokemon even though I personally like charizard x more than y but in the competitive world you will always have to reside with the best ones don’t you? charizard y further does acts as a buffer for the blacephalon doesn’t leave out the importance that charizard is indeed a very good mon charizard’s power won’t be needing much explanation other than its different spread than from what I am used to seeing in the vgc 15 ones atleast (wow it has been a long time) the speed helps against non-scarfed landorus as well as metagross and many other mons that aren’t very speedy as well as after the kang nerf, I feel like bulk isn’t necessary also did ask for opinion on the spread and got answered that speedy works well so I tried it out and does apparently work. I atleast felt like giving it enough bulk so that it could live its own partner, blacephalon’s 2 mind blowns before being whittled out of the battle, could use up for some situations as well.

252+ SpA Blacephalon Mind Blown vs. 164 HP / 20 SpD Mega Charizard Y in Sun: 76-90 (43.6 - 51.7%) -- 12.9% chance to 2HKO 68 SpA Mega Charizard Y Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Aegislash-Shield in Sun: 168-200 (100.5 - 119.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO 68 SpA Mega Charizard Y Blast Burn vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Kangaskhan in Sun: 198-234 (93.3 - 110.3%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO 68 SpA Mega Charizard Y Overheat vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Landorus-T in Sun: 160-189 (96.9 - 114.5%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO -1 252+ Atk Landorus-T Rock Slide vs. 164 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard Y: 124-148 (71.2 - 85%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Tapu Lele @ Psychium Z  Ability: Psychic Surge  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA  Modest Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Psychic  - Moonblast  - Protect  - Hidden Power [Ground]

Tapu lele was a better placement on the team than I thought basically on one note deciding on my ub mega and tapu on the first three slots was sure to say that I had some cover on the mons’ the addition of tapu lele now did mean that my blacepahlon was immune to the likes of any kangaskhan and honestly what could feel better there though. On for tapu lele itself I never myself saw it as a worthy pokemon however it can be a good offensive pokemon in some situations for itself as well. That is why as tapu lele sometimes did barely miss out on the ohko factor, I gave it a z-crystal to dish out some real damage.

Landorus-Therian @ Assault Vest  Ability: Intimidate  Level: 50  EVs: 20 HP / 228 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Earthquake  - Rock Tomb  - Rock Slide  - Superpower

There was no reason not to pick landorus for this team of mine so here it is, first I was using a 252/252/4 groundium z spread however that didn’t work as I was getting ko’d more than often by surprise hp-ice, before landorus did its job in the game properly so it didn’t take me long to realize that I could use a big of help from an assault vest to keep myself going here, it worked much better than that, landorus forms as very good partner to charizard as well as supports lele and blacephalon and formed really good synergy with them on this team of mine, I am quite satisfied with it. Especially the twist in the addition of the move rock tomb now allows it to ohko charizards as well as provide as a source for speed control. The bulk was just enough and exactly as much as required alongside the offense and the speed that it has.

228 Atk Landorus-T Rock Tomb vs. 164 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard Y: 180-212 (103.4 - 121.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252 SpA Blacephalon Mind Blown vs. 20 HP / 4 SpD Assault Vest Landorus-T in Sun: 127-150 (76 - 89.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers  Ability: Iron Barbs  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD  Brave Nature  IVs: 0 Spe  - Power Whip  - Gyro Ball  - Protect  - Leech Seed

When I put down these four on the paper I had no idea that else needed to be counter so I started to cancel out the pokemons that I thought were in the metagame and then realized I didn’t have hard counters to tapu fini or water types and steel type could be useful so without a doubt ferrothorn was added, further I felt like my counters to kang were incomplete ferrothorn does help with that as well. Ferrothorn’s iron barbs really did help out as well in terms of making disruption.

Noivern @ Focus Sash  Ability: Telepathy  Level: 50  EVs: 244 HP / 12 SpA / 252 Spe  Timid Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Draco Meteor  - Air Slash  - Taunt  - Tailwind

Noivern is a pokemon that is niche however feels like a big perfect fit on the team I was confused on what I wanted on the last slot of this team, firstly I did try out a tyranitar however I felt like it surely didn’t have the factor I was looking for that is why I started looking for the other options and came across noivern, it is the best choice here for the following reasons:

·         It is faster than and Ohko’s both Naganadel as well as Salamence. ·         It is a more reliable source of setting up tailwind for the team ·         Its taunt helps to eliminate protect users + wide guard users for blacephalon. ·         Noivern has telepathy which means it’s a safe side switch into blacephalon’s mind blown.

Noirvern’s air slash was formerly protect however I figured this move will help out as well applying that in a lot of terms I felt like that I didn’t want to go for any moves on noivern and protect wasn’t needed so in that case a 30% flinch chance could help out a lot.

Conclusion:

I really did love to play this team of mine, I did had some major exams that is probably why I didn’t had enough time to make more ones. I do have a lot of new interesting ideas mainly surrounding to try out pokemons like naganadel, stakataka as well as a kommo-o team, probably also will be doing a htr team, when I get the time to, hopefully you liked this post and team, I’ll be back with more! Bye for now!