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Facing the Heat Wave : VGC 2016 Teambuild

Hey guys today I am back with another team of mine, this time I’ll be discussing my standard giratina team with a lot of sun related elements which I found very fun and useful in the vgc format, hopefully you will like this team and will enkoy this post, without further ado, let’s get into this post:

The Team:


Giratina @ Leftovers  
Ability: Pressure  
Level: 50  
Shiny: Yes  
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 12 SpA / 100 SpD / 140 Spe  
Timid Nature  
IVs: 0 Atk  
- Dragon Pulse  
- Icy Wind  
- Calm Mind  
- Tailwind

First up the centre of this team as known as standard giratina, I was really always very much surprised by how was it workable which was exactly why I choosed this pokemon as the first member of my team and decided to make it workable, at first it was a very bad choice scarf giratina + infernape combination which as you’d guess was extremely underwhelming even with a strategic play to make, later I turned it into a variant I have heard of in vgc 16 the calm mind giratina, usually these giratinas have substitute but for the strategy I wanted with this pokemon I didn’t had room to keep it. And it also looks like a really weird moveset so let me get into explaining it. The main offensive move of choice here would be the dragon pulse which was before a shadow ball, I changed it up because whenever I brought it against a smeargle and a kangaskhan I felt like I had nothing of much offense there, hence I changed it up to dragon pulse which beats pokemons like salamence and raquaza way better and also I have a couple of fire type mons on this team which can handle all of those steel types whenever they come around to resist the dragon pulse, calm mind is self explanatory for walling and set-up-sweeps whereas I have to explain somewhat weird choice of having both  icy wind as well as tailwind, giratina is a pokemon that I like to bring against the faster big matchups as big 6 or say big c. both these speed control forms are ideal for the team members I had, such as you’d learn my tailwind mawile as well as a fast groudon, icy wind takes down oppositions when they match tailwinds and improve my groudons’ matchup against the primal, whereas tailwind calls for sweeps with both groudon as well as mawile, with the help of leftovers I never felt like needing protect so it was all fine.



Infernape @ Focus Sash  
Ability: Blaze  
Level: 50  
Shiny: Yes  
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe  
Jolly Nature  
- Fake Out  
- Flare Blitz  
- Close Combat  
- Double Kick

Okay I’ll start of by saying that this infernape is extremely weird isn’t it? But I’ll explain why I have it on the team like this, so infernape naturally came with the giratape combo, but later when I changed up my team I realized what was the overall best variant for this pokemon to have, and this is the one, fake out and close combat are pretty much self explanatory, whereas I think double kick is surely explained with a thing to counter those smaergles with which I just loved using and also as a big surprise for my opponents. Flare blitz is the more confusing of all things and needs quiet an explanation, I can start off by saying that it is comparatively really powerful move than overheat because my infernape is way more invested in physical attack than in special attack, secondly you will notice that I have specially offensive fire type coverage with my groudon so I won’t need the overheat third and the main point is that I makes great damage to xerneas, and to sum it all up imagine the power of a blaze activated fire stab with base 120 power in harsh sunlight would be doing a great deal of damage, it freaking once ohko’d a zapdos. Andin some manners I choose it as a smart switch in the pokemon in the back option without the risk of taking heck loads of damage with it.


Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb  
Ability: Desolate Land  
Level: 50  
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe  
Mild Nature  
- Precipice Blades  
- Eruption  
- Earth Power  
- Protect

This groudon is simple to say after Arash Ommati’s mixed groudon won nationals, however I would like to give my personal view on this pokemon, this has to be the best moveset that the format can provide for a primal groudon to have. It has multiple properties as in having the ability to deal heck leads of damage to both xerneas and kyogre as well as pick up those ohko’s with the eruption and also ohko most groudons. Now one thing you might notice about my primal groudon is that instead of it being a hasty or naïve nature I chose to give it a mild nature which raises the special attack and downs the defense, the reason for this was that whenever I was bringing it into a match I would most likely use icy wind on opposing groudons or tailwind up to my mine way faster than them, and with a hasty nature it could miss possible ohkos of primal groudons which was I risk I probably was not willing to take with this team, also with intimidate in the back I had the defense covered up so no probs.


Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite  
Ability: Intimidate  
Level: 50  
EVs: 228 HP / 68 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD / 196 Spe  
Careful Nature  
- Play Rough  
- Sucker Punch  
- Iron Head  
- Protect

For me this mawile is a throwback 2015 reference as I did use a similar set that allowed me to outspeed a mega salamence which is what this does, secondly I have the bulk investment which allows it to live atleast one kyogre’s water spout after it’s sucker punch 100% of the time, also this set really allows it to match against xerneas well, the rest I dumped into defenses. Mawile is simple and most know about it for years but this season I really wanted to include it in my planning as I feel like calling it the most superior mega, as it deals well with kang, salamence, gengar as well as the all pesky mega rayquaza.



Zapdos @ Sitrus Berry  
Ability: Static  
Level: 50  
EVs: 52 HP / 24 Def / 12 SpA / 232 SpD / 188 Spe  
Timid Nature  
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def  
- Thunderbolt  
- Tailwind  
- Roar  
- Hidden Power [Ice]

At this point I felt like having a really solid core and I wanted the last two slots to really focus and cover them up and their weaknesses firstly I needed a ground immunity and possible a way to handle talonflame as well as salamence and landorus, zapdos calls out for it greatly. Now to get into it’s moveset, this is the second pokemon on my team that you notice having tailwind so am I an idiot? Not exactly though, I bring zapdos against the slower big matchups where I can use it’s roar to rid me of those trick room setters, once I do get em off the field, I can freely tailwind to support the usual mawile and groudon in the back so technically it does work, in theory and in game as well. This spread is a lazy one I had a spread before that allowed my zapdos to live up to 3 ice beams from primal kyogre with the help of sitrus better, this time I had to take off of the special defense and invest in speed as much to outspeed a landorus as I felt it greatly threatened the team.



Exeggutor @ Life Orb  
Ability: Chlorophyll  
Level: 50  
Shiny: Yes  
EVs: 20 HP / 252 SpA / 236 Spe  
Modest Nature  
IVs: 0 Atk  
- Grass Knot  
- Psychic  
- Sleep Powder  
- Protect

My team was complex and had loads of counters to mons except a few, and then the meme barraged in, I would explain why I use it. I only had one counter to smeargles and nothing against a scarf smeargle I really needed another pokemon to do leads of damage to the primal as well as atleast resist or be immune to the ground typing and wanted the pokemon to control crobat as well as have some real speed. Exeggutor was the answer to them all, this guy really was the perfect choice and with all its offensive calcs it can lead up to a point to OHKO those primal, sleep powder really helps in this metagame by putting others to sleep, however with a shaky accuracy but a clutch way, have to say that it might or might not be niche it is a pokemon with potential in this format and can make itself shine through.


Conclusion: 
this was it as for my post before worlds and I am glad that I got to post this team up in time, I hope you guys were inspired ad maybe even picked up an Idea or two for your future builds or your current teams, I’ll be back with more, bye for now!

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