VGC 20 Vanilluxe Teambuild.

A Journey for a new team:

After having success with my rather goodstuff-ish weezing team, I decided to look towards more anti meta ideas, don below is a picture of a long long list of teams I had tried out while trying to find something new and innovative, I tried to make sandaconda work with its minimize + sand veil capability to cheese opponents to being diverted to look into mr rime at times and particularly enjoying the combination with rotom forms. The  came an idea in my mind, the very first vgc 20 team I was trying to make as we were in the bsd format was to make my new fav intelleon work and eiscue really piqued my interest, so that I went ahead and quickly worked up a team which definitely wasn’t successful at all. It just reminded me of how a old idea like that was significant so far into this build and im really happy wit the team I ended up with.

Vanilluxe @ Focus Sash  Ability: Snow Warning  Level: 50  EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe  Timid Nature  - Blizzard  - Freeze-Dry  - Aurora Veil  - Beat Up	Arctovish @ Life Orb  Ability: Water Absorb  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpA  Quiet Nature  - Blizzard  - Brine  - Fishious Rend  - Protect	Jellicent @ Kasib Berry  Ability: Water Absorb  Level: 50  EVs: 172 HP / 172 Def / 164 SpA  Quiet Nature  IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe  - Water Spout  - Protect  - Trick Room  - Giga Drain
Mudsdale @ Leftovers  Ability: Stamina  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD  Adamant Nature  - High Horsepower  - Iron Head  - Protect  - Rock Slide	Sylveon @ Choice Specs  Ability: Pixilate  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 92 Def / 148 SpA / 4 SpD / 12 Spe  Bold Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Hyper Voice  - Mystical Fire  - Hyper Beam  - Magical Leaf	Gallade (M) @ Sitrus Berry  Ability: Justified  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 204 Atk / 52 Def  Careful Nature  - Drain Punch  - Trick Room  - Night Slash  - Protect

Individual analyses:

First up is the base idea of the team, vanilluxe i have made clear why did I chose this pokemon to start off my search fr a new effective team with, firstly hail causes disruption in weather, making thing like rhyperior and torkoal weaker, whereas disrupting rain as well, vanilluxe has the capability of being able to set up both the screens, in the name of aurora veil, so it gives its allies a massive defense boost, then for its technicalities in this state of the metagame pokemon like whimsicott are very annoying, it has the ability to take it down in one turn with a blizzard taking it down to its sash and then the hail chip damage making it faint, the dragapult togekiss lead is something that is becoming quite popular, which is something I saw on many teams, with a powerful spread attack in blizzard, vanilluxe can really threaten this lead. Then comes the 4x weaknesses of this metagame to freezedry, pokemon like gyarados, gastrodon as well as dracovish are all quite common and big threats of the metagame, dracovish not so much, but gyarados and gastrodon are big obstacles for a team like this that has 2 water types, vanilluxe provides excellent coverage for them with freeze dry. Beat up is obviously a tech move that I kept on this pokemon because of two reasons, obviously mudsdale and gallade both of which could e a great tech for it to utilize with beat up, though not being a central strategy, this combination often got me through more passive defensive combinations with gallade to more offensive and threatening combinations when partnered with mudsdale, at times I would feel like that protect would do vanilluxe good as people sometimes do double target it expecting a focus sash or trying to avoid aurora veils.

I gave it timid nature to make it outspeed any adamant gyarados running around whose max power whips are a big threat to this team.

Arctovish is a simple man, well I guess a man with its head upside down and fins and flippers to swim and such; arctovish was the core idea when i built this team to start off with blizzard spamming, particularly to work against the aforementioned togekiss + dragapult combination. Arctovish in trick room modes could also provide for the most dangerous moves in the game, fishious rend especially to help out with fire types threatening vanilluxe. Arctovish is put here to do damage in trick room and it does that job well. Having the advantage of decent offensive stats and to be used in trick room giving it a speed lowering nature gives it the benefit of using the life orb item to its fullest.

Jellicent, in the first few drafts of the team, jellicent was a ‘just there’ kind of pokemon on the team, however when I brought it to games and just immaturely slapped on water spout, especially upon maxing it in trick room, I truly realized that this mon had quite some potential in the game. Jellicent, though having its common weaknesses in this format is something that can set up trick room very reliably, with its water absorb really helping it out in its bulk against opposing water types. The move strength sap might be more beneficial however I felt like max overgrowth could help out in sticky situations in which gastrodon stalls the field when I have jellicent dynamaxed. A simple statement for jellicent is that do not underestimate the power of max water spout, alongside arctovish whose fishoius red also gets boosted.

The ev spread is here to make it survive a max overgrowth from a jolly gyarados and rest goes into spa.

Mudadale is something I didn’t consider much at all in the initial drafts of the team however when in theory feeling the need of a ground and fairy type to ideally cover some of this cores’ weaknesses, mudsdale seemed really to be the best answer to these threats. Knowing how well mudsdale was able to take advantage of its dynamax and with jellicent only being situationally good in dynamax, I knew mudsdale was the call, this mon also in a non serious way firstly inspired the beat up on my vanilluxe. I tried assault vest variants however in some games mudsdale was being double targeted or overwhelmed by offense with my opponents realizing how big of a threat it actually is, having sitrus berry allows for recovery and protect goes for more mind games.

You might see above that in the last time I made a draft post of this team though in a hurry there was an alcremie on here, well the thing with sylveon  nd alcremie were that both of these mons are very similar stat wise, alcremie provided more of a utility and support side to the team with decorate, sweet veil and helping hand while providing less offense with the same coverage, sylveon is more of a sweeper in this attention and I think it worked better on this team, alcremie for this team became a bit too passive at times, seeing I was already say, setting up scenarios with jellicent, gallade and mudsdale, alcremie added another layer that made the working of the team too intricate. Sylveon made it simpler, its job is to sweep, do loads of damage and it does that the best.

Gallade came as that final piece to this puzzle, I feel like that gallade really does fit well into this team, it has the capability to d many things, get into dyanmax and sweep opposing teams when boosted with justified, be a threat by being a bulkier recovery hp recovery while dealing damage with drain punch, or to set up trick room for its teammates. Gallade covers up the rock weakness of its partners well as well as beats steel types for vanilluxe and sylveon. Overall I am really happy to have put gallade on this team as it feels really complete.

Combinations:

• Blizzard Spam:

Arctovish can be a scary mon in trick room, when both of these are brought in games and vanilluxe goes down, it is time for arctovish to shine where it can also spam 100%accurate STAB blizzards at its opponents which piles up in the team’s favor towards a win.

 

• Arctovish + Jellicent:

When the time requires, jellient can dynamax launching base 15 power max moves at its opponents setting up the rain, further boosting arctovish’s fishious rend and water type attacks, this combination is particularly useful in trick room as the threat of torkoal and rhyperior with their weather disruption is always around.

 + /

• Vanilluxe beat up:

As mentioned above vanilluxe can really help shift the pace of a battle by an early beat up + justified combo either with mudsdale or gallade which puts me at an immediate advantage against unsuspecting teams.

Threats:

• Dynamaxed Gyarados:

Gyarados with its max moves has all the potential to threaten this team, firstly dealing loads of damage, not falling to a single freeze dry alongside hitting many of the team’s members for super effective damage, one of the most clear threats of the team have to be gyarados. Preserve vanilluxe for this.

• Bulky Arcanine:

Though jellicent and arctovish and even mudsdale destroy this combination, when arcanine is ignored for even a turn or so it can really hinder the team, either by going for a snarl or a will-o-wisp, it simple switching in can compromise the physical attack damage output of the team with intimidate. Get rid of it asap.

• Gmax Pikachu:

I hate that team, especially when paired up on leads with a rock slide user or togekiss, gmax Pikachu causes loads of trouble for this team when it causes paralyses, also if partnered particularly with togekiss, these two can take down the both of my trick room setters in a turn.  Just for the general annoying I think it’s a threat. Best way to counter is playing smart with mudsdale.

ConlcusionL
i hope that you really like this team and would give it a try, it surely isn't the best at all, but i think you will find it fun.