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A Change of Tides : VGC16 Teambuild.

Hi guys today I am back with another teambuilding post featuring my latest VGC 16 team which was actually my second VGC 16 team which ended up being very solid and fun to play. You might remember my Blogpost O-i-see which was a team with giratina-Origin form, this is basically a newer version of that team. This post highlights the importance of the point that how VGC teams can be updated other than starting from the scratch after a metagame change. At that point this team was very hyper offensive but now this has become one of really more bulkier teams, the only mons that can’t take the biggest hits on this team are kangaskhan because of the faster variant and Gengar but the sash is there to help with it. Without spoiling it’s composition further let me just start with this team:

Team Updating process:
So this time when looking back at the team the only reason why I bothered was because I didn’t had a cool team for me so i started to look back at some of the teams of my past and decided to give this team a try and well it worked out great at the same time I had a fear in my mind that it mind end up being bad against some matchups because the met isn’t as variable as before when a lot of tests were being ran and secondly new spreads have emerged in this community. I was correct when I got wacked by trick room and double primal right in the face and a lot of other problems as well, then I realized that some changes needed to be made here, following is the first update:
Raichu > Thundurus + Gengar > Staraptor.
I knew that I needed something to OHKO primal kyogre like last time I had my banded staraptor to do the job fine. This time raichu takes over thundurus to redirect electric type attacks from my kyoge nd thundy’s para on my very fast team. Now for the gengar which was really weird, I ended up using mega gengar with sludge bomb and icy wind + disable. The encore + disable combination could be very real on this duo. Btw this doesn’t work at all other than leaving me confused for what I should be leading. Double primal is still a problem:
Amoonguss > ferrothorn.
I don’t know why but what do you do to counter primal in trick room? You spore them J I had clear smog for xern on this guy. It didn’t took me long to realize that ferrothron + kyogre is a good enough paring against double primal. Switched back to that.
Normal Gengar > Mega Gengar.
Before adding mega gengar I had a flash to keep a trick room gengar here, couldn’t see how good it would be before the tests, and it worked really well in the team. Raichu doesn’t fit in the equation.
Rhydon > Raichu.
This was basically very bad joke tbh, which went wrong and turned out to be somehow surprisingly good… (it actually works here)
So after this my teamed had changed quite a lot and a lot during practice in terms of movesets as well as the choice of ev spreads and natures.

The Team:


Giratina-Origin @ Griseous Orb  
Ability: Levitate  
Level: 50  
EVs: 212 HP / 4 Def / 52 SpA / 4 SpD / 236 Spe  
Modest Nature  
- Shadow Ball  
- Dragon Pulse  
- Will-O-Wisp  
- Tailwind

First up is Giratina-Origin. Giratina still works awesome so no need to change that ofcourse. A lot of people were testing this pokemon when the season started with supportive physical variants mine is a supportive special variant in terms of offense now I feel like it’s potential is quite overlooked. The reason why to opt for Giratina origin over regular giratina is because of it’s ability levitate which makes it an exceedingly good option to verse primal groudons by making itself immune to the ground stabs and resist fire move of their choice. The specially offensive variant allows it to hit primal groudon for a lot of damage, similarly special dragon moves are more effective than physical ones in this format. Now the supportive importance it is one of my two main speed control forms tailwind part is handled well by giratina. Giratina + kang is my lead against many teams especially against xerneas + smeargle or say big six teams where I can immediately get a tailwind off and do huge damage to these teams teams. Will-o-wisp wasn’t doing much in the early variants of this team as they were all basically hyper offensive mons with minimal bulk will-o-wisp fills the sort of intimidate slot which I love having especially around with mons like ferrothorn and kyogre and of course that makes giratina 1v1 mean kangaskhans. I switched over to a spread that outspeeds smeargle and dragon pulse over draco meteor as I felt like I was wasting important turns trying to switch out after one draco meteor.

Kangaskhan-Mega @ Kangaskhanite  
Ability: Scrappy  
Level: 50  
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe  
Jolly Nature  
- Fake Out  
- Double-Edge  
- Hammer Arm  
- Sucker Punch

The mega of leads as I call it on my teams. I can say that it is surely present on almost 100% of my leads where I am trying to set a particular set of speed control and then carry the match from there. Fake out support can do stuff and can do a lot of stuff for this team, either I am leading Kangaskhan + speed control setter or Kangaskhan + a slow pokemon i.e Kyogre, Ferro and Rhydon; no matter which one Ii go for fake out turns out to be a supremely good form of disruption and distraction. Apart from that kangaskhan can do a lot of important roles in this format no.1 would be to rid of sash smeargle, whimsicott, even gengar if I play my cards right as well as liepard all which are a big nuisance for every team in this format. The one thing stands out in this normal looking kangaskhan is the choice of the move hammer arm. Ashton Cox gave this idea to others in his Florida regional team, where he had a trick room mode on his team. This significance is that a lot of times my opponents will lead something against which using fake out isn’t a necessity especially when I am gonna set up my trick room from gengar, here I can either not mega evolve kangaskhan and well go for fake out or use hammer arm to 0.5 my team which greatly helps out in trick room turns. That’s it for momma kang.

Kyogre-Primal @ Blue Orb  
Ability: Primordial Sea  
Level: 50  
EVs: 244 HP / 244 Def / 20 SpA  
Bold Nature  
- Water Spout  
- Ice Beam  
- Scald  
- Protect

You just saw a currently inserted ev spread here and I didn’t accidently put this here, so if you don’t know already these type of kyogre spreads actually exist and fits this team really well, let me tell ya’ll how this works so whenever facing a primal groudon, “oh I’ll switch in my kyogre/ I’ll let this mon die so that I can switch in my kyogre” next turn, “ opponents withdraw their pdon, I’m down 3-4/2-4 I can’t reset my weather/ can’t ko pdon, GG” this spread has one purpose, makes kyogre stick around the field longer and get’s actual KO’s without heavy support from all four sides of it’s body. I mean 203 special attack stat isn’t bad at all honestly combined with heavy rain weather. It can get all the respective OHKO’s on such mons like salamence, primal groudon and landorus with it’s moves without heavy investment. I went for modest nature because i also wanted it to work in tailwind environment, and know my numbers for knowing what I outspeed and what I underspeed and then choose appropriate form of speed control for the battle. I feel like trolling you guys… the spread live 3x Groudon spread p-blades from max health.

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers  
Ability: Iron Barbs  
Level: 50  
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Atk / 156 SpD  
Brave Nature  
IVs: 0 Spe  
- Power Whip  
- Gyro Ball  
- Protect  
- Leech Seed

Next up is my own standard Ferrothorn, so what do I want to say about this, simple and effective. My ferrohtorn OHKO’s 4/252/252/ timid xerns after a geomancy set-up. Under heavy rain when no fire attacks can touch it it’s mostly unbeatable to be honest. One of my main pokemons to abuse power in trick room mode. I was very wrong when I predicted I needed more to counter kyogre; ferrothorn does the fine job itself. My ferrothorn is specially defensive for the same reason to basically do better against kyogres. It’s not like I don’t like much about this pokemon but it’s way to awesome even when being predictable also this is the ferrothorn I have user throughout the season and have talked about it’s significance a lot in the past.


Rhydon @ Eviolite  
Ability: Lightning Rod  
Level: 50  
EVs: 244 HP / 132 Atk / 132 Def  
Relaxed Nature  
IVs: 0 Spe  
- Rock Slide  
- Earthquake  
- Drill Run  
- Protect

Rhydon is one of the most surprisingly good pokemons I have ever played. Almost every game on showdown was like OMG rhydon! Or why rhydon/what does rhydon do here? So let’s get to that first. I chose rhydon because I needed a pokemon that was slower and could work in trick room but I still wanted the safety from paralyzes whenever playing the fast tailwind mode and wanted to keep my kyogre safe from attacks i.e lightningrod raichu was my primary, lets be honest only counter to yvetal which is a pokemon that troubles me a lot this metagame, I also needed something to cover that, rhydon is the best option for that. Now also got asked a lot why Rhydon over Rhyperior; Rhyperior needs an item like weakness policy there are two pokemons that can out right OHKO this pokemon ferrothorn and kyogre even before the weakness policy is activated. I never really needed much more power, the means of offense I had I think were quite effective for the metagame atleast also if you look at rhyperior and rhydon’s stats they are pretty similar only rhyperior gets addition of 10 points in spa, spd and spe which you don’t need though, rhydon only has 10 atk stat less than rhyperior which isn’t more valuable than having 1.5 boost in both defensive stats. The bulk that rhydon gains here allows it to live a lot. Rhydon is extremely helpful in alot of matchups and kinda completely walls out many flying types in this format and ofcourse all those electric types. The spread I have here for this mon lets it survive 3x pdon p-blades whne as spread attacks so I am basically guaranteed to kill it in a 1v1 situation. If you haven’t tried out rhydon yet, this is the one pokemon that I will be recommending, this be no crappy tact it’s actually a pokemon with potential in this format; I was impressed by how well it did. One last thing why drill run? To combat aegislashes with wide guard.


Gengar @ Focus Sash  
Ability: Levitate  
Level: 50  
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe  
Modest Nature  
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe  
- Sludge Bomb  
- Trick Room  
- Hidden Power [Fire]  
- Skill Swap


Last up is again a weirdo, gengar is no new face to VGC 16 as we all know but this variant is kinda awkward to be very honest with myself, I’ll explain how does it work for my team and thus I feel like is the best variant for my team. I needed a pokemon to fill in some roles, probably make a side of this team a trick room one which would be even awesome in my own mind I considered it very very idiotic of a thing for gengar to carry trick room but then I was like I recently used surprise fast trick room users like mewtwo with success why not gengar it also got top 4 at Florida regionals this year, I felt like giving it a try and this couldn’t be any better people, trick room gengar is currently one of my favorites. Now to explain the confusing madness HP fire and modest nature is. I calc up a lot of stuff and well guess what my team is really threatened by steel types and I had no fire coverage which is bad for team with kyogre in them, to be honest ferrothorn could kick this team out of any match so I ended up giving my pokemon hidden power-fire, and don’t get me wrong as if this is an exceedingly gimmicky Bo1 type of tactic to beat these mons, gengar can verse things like scizor and ferrothorn well. Now for modest nature, upon inspection you will notice most gengars are running sludge bomb and shadow ball in this state of the format is rarely ever seen, I eneded up giving my pokemon modest nature as with timid nature it was missing a lot of KO’s on these steel types which were my main focus to target, therefore I feel like it makes a lot of sense. 

Conclusion:
hopefully you liked my innovative team and will give it a try, giratina is worth looking into, try it seriously! Bye for now

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