VGC 20: Series 5, July Cinderace Team!

After trying the rather fun and whacky team of psyspam slowbro, greedent and wigglytuff, I got fed up losing with consistency soon. Then I tried looking at more meta strategies to build an all rounder solid team that I can potentially ladder with, not just a ladder schenanigans team but a full fledged squad that has a upper hand on the metagame.

The Dragapult:

I once tried Ashtons raichu + pincurchin team with indeedee support in the back, also packing volcarona and rapid strike urshifu, and I have to say I feel in love with his bulky dragapult that carried weakness policy, that really intrigued me and I started to build a team from scratch around bulky dragapult myself.

The following is what I came up with:

Dragapult @ Weakness Policy  Ability: Clear Body  Level: 50  EVs: 132 HP / 92 Atk / 92 Def / 108 SpD / 84 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Phantom Force  - Dragon Darts  - Fly  - Baton Pass	Incineroar @ Safety Goggles  Ability: Intimidate  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD  Careful Nature  - Flare Blitz  - Taunt  - Parting Shot  - Lash Out	Rillaboom-Gmax @ Assault Vest  Ability: Grassy Surge  Level: 50  EVs: 180 HP / 180 Atk / 44 Def / 100 SpD  Brave Nature  IVs: 0 Spe  - Fake Out  - Grassy Glide  - Knock Off  - Superpower
Gothitelle @ Focus sash Ability: Shadow Tag  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD  Sassy Nature  - Fake Out  - Trick Room  - Ally Switch  - Expanding Force	Primarina @ Throat Spray  Ability: Liquid Voice  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD  Modest Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Hyper Voice  - Hydro Cannon  - Moonblast  - Protect	Magnezone @ Expert Belt  Ability: Sturdy  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe  Modest Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Thunderbolt  - Steel Beam  - Protect  - Body Press

There are a few things I absolutely adore about this team, firstly has to be the strength of bulky wp dragapult when it is activated, secondly I have to speak on how I came to realize why incineroar + rillaboom combination is soo popular on a wide array of teams, I fell in love and brought this duo to many games constantly swapping back and forth for disruption and combine that with gothitelle you can shut down many strategies by spamming intimidate and parting shot cycles.

Gothitelle came in after some testing with a tech dusclops carrying shadow sneak and brick break as well as a porygon 2 before that because I felt like I needed a primary mode of speed control, in this case would be trick room, primarina and magnezone also held up well but ended up being in a awkward base 60 speed tier, it made the outcome of many games kind of unpredictable.

The reasons why the team didn’t work:

The thing is I love hyper offense, quick games, less strain on your mind, especially in  bo1 setting, constantly pivoting, though I loved it on the team, didn’t really work throughout th e course of the game especially if your opponent is talented. I would basically slip up on a turn after playingso well which was enough to get my opponents an edge over me to win the game.

For example once I completely had both my opponent’s rillaboom and amoonguss shut down by my goth and incineroar, I was pivoting rilla back and forth until rillaboom was able to do negligible damage and then amoonguss was taunted. I playing stupidly enough ohko’d the opponent’s rillaboom, allowing them to take over my team with their dynamax kritkiss in the back. As I said above I can’t keep up a good defensive game.

Dragapult was fast, gothitelle isn’t the bulkiest trick room setter and max airstream boosts for primarina or magnezone being base 60 and not invested was predictably lackluster, the overall composition and flow of the team really lacked.

What I learned from this team:

·         Incineroar and rillaboom is a powerful duo, its main strength lies in their ability to switch back and forth.

·         Gothitelle is a solid mon, rather underexplored. For a hyper offense player like me, the ability to lock onto targets is just very solid with shadow tag, combine that with fake out and taunt disruption and you have a rather solid mon.

·         I learned to respect magnezone for its potential on being able to fair pretty well against bulky water and flying types of the format, whether it still holds up against tyranitar due to body press… not so sure.

Moving on and discovering my appreciation for Cinderace:

In the random out worldly ideas I was testing I found something on those tests… a pokemon that I think is extremely tough to deal with and can shred through teams.. it was non other than cinderace. And after asking for a random cinderace team and leading cinderace + whimsicott every turn I found the wonders of how good cinderace + tailwind/helping hand support could be.

I won so many games testing a lead with hjk into unsuspecting mons like lapras or porygon z landed me many turn 1 forfeits. Cinderace marked itself as a very versatile and very potent mon of the format right then and there and I wanted to build around it at that moment.

My Teambuilding Method: Pen and paper:

Basically write down the top 30-40 mons, write down speed controls, strategies and leads to counter. Take 2 mons, in this case it would be whimsicott and cinderace and tick out the mons this duo can counter as a lead or as individuals. Cinderace naturally covered many mons and then the psyspam strategies given it has the ability libero allowing it to change itself into a dark type. Whimsicott I gave dazzling gleam to counter the rising popularity if indeedee + urshofu single strike style I’ve lead on field.

Adding to it I felt cinderace really lacked against:

·         Rain matchups, the famous kingdra + politoed lead.

·         Trick room.

At this point I already did happen to have tailwind but adding in a bulkier set of mons in the background and then having a partial trick room mode I felt would really help.

·         From my previous team that I improvised for the isle of armor expansion I felt as if duraludon faired really well against the rain lead and already having tailwind with whimsicott, I was very confident to put it on, I can alternate the lead for duraludon over cinderace for different matchups.

·         Having the knowledge how much gothitelle helped against trapping or nullifying trick room setters, I felt as if it was the best choice to go for as the fourth member of this team.

·         The last two slots ended up being urshifu’s rapid strike style because I needed a hard counter to the very meta porygon 2 and marowak combination found on two teams, combine that with trapping effect of gothitelle, I can guarantee knocking them out very easily. And then came in a max speed focus sash amoonguss to pair with max airstream from my cinderace.

The Team:

Whimsicott @ King's Rock  Ability: Prankster  Shiny: Yes  EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe  Timid Nature  - Tailwind  - Helping Hand  - Fling  - Dazzling Gleam	Cinderace-Gmax @ Life Orb  Ability: Libero  Shiny: Yes  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Pyro Ball  - Bounce  - Sucker Punch  - High Jump Kick	Duraludon @ Weakness Policy  Ability: Stalwart  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 44 SpA / 124 SpD / 68 Spe  Modest Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Draco Meteor  - Thunderbolt  - Dark Pulse - Protect
Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Assault vest Ability: Unseen Fist  Level: 50  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Surging Strikes  - Close Combat  - Ice Punch  - Rock Slide	Gothitelle @ Safety Goggles  Ability: Shadow Tag  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD  Sassy Nature  - Fake Out  - Trick Room  - Taunt  - Psychic	Amoonguss @ Focus Sash  Ability: Regenerator  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe  Timid Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Spore  - Rage Powder  - Protect  - Foul Play

Whimsicott is simple, I can slip through the turn 1 fake out by helping hand + attack from my usual dynamax mon in duraludon or cinderace.  Fling’s rock is a weird but sometime effective combination, one thing I also learned with this team was that flinching is also an overlooked form of disruption in the format, in most games the dynamax option is quite obvious, you can always confidently go forfake out or fling into the alternating slots if needed, since sash is taken up by Amoonguss. On a later version of the team I changed up the item to mental herb and then added charm to fare better against cinderace matchups or null trap opponents in combination with gothitelle.

Cinderace is as is a cinderace is supposed to be, I ran some calcs that convinced me to start building:

252 Atk Life Orb Cinderace High Jump Kick vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Porygon-Z: 354-421 (109.9 - 130.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO -1 252 Atk Life Orb Cinderace High Jump Kick vs. 236 HP / 4 Def Incineroar: 195-229 (48.7 - 57.2%) -- 92.2% chance to 2HKO 252 Atk Life Orb Cinderace High Jump Kick vs. 236 HP / 4 Def Incineroar: 289-343 (72.2 - 85.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252 Atk Life Orb Libero Cinderace Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Dragapult: 182-218 (110.9 - 132.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO -1 252 Atk Life Orb Cinderace High Jump Kick vs. 236 HP / 4 Def Incineroar: 195-229 (97.5 - 114.5%) -- 75% chance to OHKO 252 Atk Life Orb Cinderace Pyro Ball vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Rillaboom: 211-250 (101.9 - 120.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252 Atk Life Orb Cinderace Pyro Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 221-265 (100 - 119.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252 Atk Life Orb Cinderace High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Duraludon: 242-283 (136.7 - 159.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252 Atk Life Orb Cinderace High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Duraludon: 242-283 (68.3 - 79.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Duraludon is a copy paste from my last team, I kept protect here.

Gothitelle now became a safety goggles and taunt carrier this is inspired from incineroar fro the previous team, fake out and psychic were as useful as before.

Urshifu worked in the matchups where it is needed. Assault vest is quite nice, it allow sit to survive a critical dazzling gleam from a togekiss, also I can pack rock slide as a counter to charizard. Ice punch is a good coverage for amoonguss and rillaboom.

Amoonguss, is once again simple however turbo shroom, max speed with focus sash. Rage powder protects against beat up strategies, fast spore can save games, protect for protecting. This team had a lack of fairy counters, specifically azumarill is a new fairy type threat emerging, I can really use sludge bomb’s coverage also going well against rillaboom and whimsicott to quite a degree.

Overall on the team:

Some times I would lose my offense way too early in the game which can lead to an immediate loss, tech moves like dazzling gleam, psychic and sludge bomb can really help against specific mons but if the sweepers I brought it, be it urshifu, cinderace or duraludon, if they fall early, I’m in a tough spot.

The composition was of an in between for hyper offense to bulky disruption, however the team didn’t carry the privilege of intimidate or snarl/will-o-wisp to wittle down opponents, the coverage from amoonguss can really go a long way in such cases.

The venusaur and torkoal matchup was a troublesome or more or less anooying one to deal if, I do have very good safety against sleep powder and spore however if the venusaur decides to gigantamax, they can go for max quakes, max ooze or gmax vine lash all contributing to setups that are dangerous for my side.

Weakness policy duraludon when triggered really can dish out many wins, however when not, its quite lackluster of an option.

Keeping the above points in mind, gaining familiarity with the composition, seeing things didn’t really pan out in longer games. I decided to reach out for help:

Bacon VGC to the rescue:

I was obviously not satisfied with the way my old team ended up panning out, knowing from the showdown vgc chatroom that he himself was using a cinderace team, so I reached out in pm and he was gracious enough to help me. He gave the following pointers:

Ø  The team is weak to primarina, it needs a rillaboom

Ø  I might find it useful to have a earthquake mon to prock my own weakness policy so that I can check trick room leads.

This advice immediately clicked to me as I remembered my previous team, where I developed this bulky wp spread I had rillaboom on the side to activate the weakness policy.

Ø  Next, I asked about dealing with venusaur and mirror matches; he himself was using talonflame and advised me to do so as well. I switched up the whimsicott slot with talonflame.

This ultimately brought out some changes into the gothitelle moveslot as well now that I was having talonflame as an extra cover for amoonguss and gothitelle can trap and taunt amoonguss anyways, I felt like giving it focus sash, removing trick room slot because with trick room checked it wasn’t needed to reverse, added helping hand in place of it since I really enjoyed hh + cinderace.

The Improved team:

Talonflame @ Sharp Beak  Ability: Gale Wings  Level: 50  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe  Naive Nature  - Dual Wingbeat  - Brave Bird  - Tailwind  - Overheat	Cinderace-Gmax @ Life Orb  Ability: Libero  Shiny: Yes  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Pyro Ball  - Giga Impact  - Sucker Punch  - High Jump Kick	Duraludon @ Weakness Policy  Ability: Stalwart  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 44 SpA / 124 SpD / 68 Spe  Modest Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Draco Meteor   - Thunderbolt  - Flash Cannon  - Dark Pulse
Urshifu-Rapid-Strike-Gmax @ Assault Vest  Ability: Unseen Fist  Level: 50  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Surging Strikes  - Close Combat  - Ice Punch  - Rock Slide	Celestia (Gothitelle) @ Focus Sash  Ability: Shadow Tag  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 204 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 44 Spe  Calm Nature  - Fake Out  - Helping Hand  - Taunt  - Psychic	OOga BOOga (Rillaboom-Gmax) @ Miracle Seed  Ability: Grassy Surge  Level: 50  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Adamant Nature  - Fake Out  - Grassy Glide  - Wood Hammer  - Earthquake

252+ Atk Miracle Seed Rillaboom Wood Hammer vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Lapras in Grassy Terrain: 408-482 (99 - 116.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO 252+ Atk Miracle Seed Rillaboom Helping Hand Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Lapras in Grassy Terrain: 578-684 (121.9 - 144.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The Improvements:

Well Bacon’s idea of adding in talonflame and side eq to prock weakness policy was just amazing, talonflame is probably the better mon over whimsicott but I really missed the helping hand slot there, I felt like urshifu, talonflame and then rillaboom combined were a little bit too much physical attackers that incineroar pivots that I found really likeable when trying out myself, could really take advantage of.

I suck at playing talonflame, yes I was using it on thelast team however I ha other options around the centralized weakness policy duraludon lead, I can go for rillaboom there or even chandelure, it wasn’t the only option I had on a few leads, talonflame was weak to fake out, which is increasing in use and then its offense was too low to counter whimsicott mirrors as if they are 252 hp have only a 43% chance to be ohko’d by talonflame’s dual wingbeat from sharp beak.

Urshifu was good but with assault vest I found the damage output a bit lackluster, especially when taking into account the lowered special defense.

FINALLY! :

Whimsicott @ Eject button Ability: Prankster  Shiny: Yes  EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe  Timid Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Tailwind  - Switcheroo - Fake Tears - Dazzling Gleam	Cinderace-Gmax @ Life Orb  Ability: Libero  Shiny: Yes  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Adamant Nature  - Pyro Ball  - Iron Head - Sucker Punch  - High Jump Kick	Duraludon @ Weakness Policy  Ability: Stalwart  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 44 SpA / 124 SpD / 68 Spe  Modest Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Draco Meteor  - Thunderbolt  - Flash Cannon  - Dark Pulse
Primarina @ Assault Vest  Ability: Liquid Voice  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 228 SpA / 4 SpD / 20 Spe  Modest Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Hyper Voice  - Hydro Cannon  - Blizzard - Moonblast	Rillaboom-Gmax @ Coba berry Ability: Grassy Surge  Level: 50  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Fake Out  - Grassy Glide  - Wood Hammer  - Earthquake	Togekiss @ Safety Goggles  Ability: Serene Grace  Level: 50  EVs: 228 HP / 196 Def / 12 SpA / 12 SpD / 60 Spe  Bold Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Air Slash  - Follow Me  - Protect  - Heat Wave

So this was the final rendering of the team after a heartbreak of realizing a refined cinderace team wasn’t working for me, so I gave it yet another try to mix up the elements which I liked keeping the original whimsicott, duraludon and cinderace as the starting core.

Baconvgc’s advice made me realize that rillaboom’s eq + my duraludon was an absolute must and a solid addition to the team, this lead also allows me to inter-pair either whimsicott and duraludon or rillaboom with cinderace adding to the solidity of this team, then the other glaring weakness of incineroar and arcanine’s stat dropping spams. I knew what was needed here:

Primarina, a rather offensive variant, and since I was lucky to have the assault vest slot on the team still open I decided to put it on and it worked absolute wonders when faring against special attackers of the format, this also allowed primarina to have both a single target, spread moves further giving redirection support a challenge, especially as some teams now carry dual redirection.

Individual notes:

Whimsicott’s moveset changed a lot, where tailwind and dazzling gleam are the same, I changed the other two slots to fake tears and then switcheroo with eject button, as now whimsicott obtained eject button not only did it improve turn 1 dynamax matchups, it also allowed whimsicott to swap into a sweeper when it sets up tailwind so that I can utilize these turns fully. Fake tears for mons like primarina and duraludon in the back which works wonders late game.

Cinderace remains the same, except I added on adamant nature instead of jolly, I am not the person who is going to lead cinderace against cinderace and hope for speed ties, this initially would have stopped the eject button + sucker punch strategy from working as cinderace’s faster priority moves before, also allows cinderace to outspeed tons and hit harder than jolly variants which is always a plus point to keep if people invest to survive hits from jolly cinderace.

 I did one final checkup with bacon afterwards expressing my concerns against togekiss and cinderace teams and he advised adding a steel move on cinderace, I do particularly enjoy keeping steel coverage on this slot and needless to say it worked wonders in improving and assuring the togekiss matchup, especially after a few clefairy are also making in the scene on porygon z teams.

Duraludon remains the same, I find myself looking back and realizing how important every piece of coverage becomes in this big metagame, this leads me to sometimes missing protect where I can just preserve it one more turn before it goes down to a threat, but I guess it’s a fair trade considering how much this moveset does.

Rillaboom remains fast and simple, the speed investment with jolly allows it to outspeed max speed togekiss leading an option for me to prock my own duraludon’s weakness policy before it can be taken down by a airstream. This allows my rillaboom to confidently click fake out into mirrors considering how I am max speed. I do once again miss the bulk, but the252 attack investment under grassy terrain allows it to deliver some very devastating blows to primarina, rotom, lapras and others in the format which turn games upside down.

Coba berry is a very valuable item, as I am often lead in rillaboom against togekiss, cinderace or sometimes charizard leads to desperately try to get a weakness policy boost or fake out off, this allows it to survive 1 max airstream, so that it can have more longevity and provide more fake outs and priority grassy glides with terrain disruption,

Primarina was basically explained as is where I started out with why I chose it on the slot, furthermore what I can say is, it can also go better 1v1 against things like torkoal even when in sun, it takes porygon z’s max strikes as a 3hko under its own dynamax and overall can be a beast when used right, not to mention it greatly improves my rain matchup and is somewhat good against marowak trick room compositions as well, not to mention carrying blizzard also helps eliminate rillaboom when my duraludon, togekiss or cinderace aren’t around. I have found some love for the assault vest variant for another bulky water type in this format.

Togekiss was once an amoonguss, a max speed one, however it was changed to this slot for the following:

1.       Rillaboom can bypass amoonguss’ redirection.

2.       Whimsicott can also bypass amoonguss’ redirection when using beat up.

3.       I can’t redirection powder moves of sleep powder and spore away from this slot and have to bank on other mons to avoid their use, all this lead to togekiss.

4.       Not to mention an immunity to max quake and ground moves.

Togekiss just was a better option for all the above mentioned reasons, though this is my first time using the move yawn in this format, I feel like it can change the outcome of many games when used correctly, however carrying 2 terrains that are here to avoid sleep on my own side, I opted for protect to keep longevity. Air slash and heat wave are the coverage options, air slash not only being another option against grass types for primarina, but also has a 60% flinch chance I can always rely on when needed, heat wave is for the glaring ferrothorn weakness is cinderace isn’t sticking around for using its pyro ball. Follow me with safety goggles is the reason it is kept here. I initially wanted to go for bulk, but having 2 attack made me hesitant, however opted for this standard bulky togekiss.

Leads and Combinations:

Rillaboom + Duraludon:

This is a lead that I want to opt for against trick room teams usually having indeedee or togekiss as a source of redirection, it basically seals the deal until they pull something back and forth, once I went for fake out + dark pulse in a bronzing when facing a incineroar + bronzing as I feared I wouldn’t be able to prock my own weakness policy, turns out, he kept a colbur berry, so this actually saved me, but most of the time ou can outright ohko the trick room setter if its hatterene, bronzing or slowbro, porygon has to be played around with a bit, but usually it works best.

This lead is also a great one against you are up against a bulkier or a team that relies on pivoting or even quickly picking up mons, you can reduce opponent’s attack stat, snowball victories with weakness policy proc and rillaboom on the side; it is quite versatile and definitely my favorite to lead with this team.

Rillaboom + Cinderace:

Usually my lead of choice against porygon z teams. Rillaboom’s fakeout covers for any prankster tailwind or redirection, while cinderace can fire off a high jump kick into porygon z for an ohko, if they protect, you can always backtrack as primarina can tank max strikes quite well or simply try to dish out as much damage as possible until they run out of steam.

Cinderace + Whimsicott:

This is a seemingly standard lead however against mirrors I can cancel out their cinderace’s dynamax by switcheroo + sucker punch giving me an instant head start for teams that have more cover against lapras counters I can also make this combination work there. Not to forget whimsicott can also set up tailwind to set the stage for sweepers in the back.

I’d be honest with the prevalence of fake out increasing, I feel like that leading whimsicott can be discouraging especially as mine doesn’t carry protect, however against the right matches it definitely is the MVP.

This would be the end of this report, hope everyone liked this final product of the team and enjoyed going through the process of trail and error that came with its development. In the end a special thanks to BaconVGC for helping me with this build. Bye for now!