Hi guys today I am back with another interesting teambuild
that I did around the xerneas + groudon composition in the recent few weeks or
so, I am currently focusing on using popular archetypes I the community and
doing my different takes on them. Thanks to an advice from Jamie Boyt the style
of this team suited me much better and I loved playing it, without further ado,
let’s get into the team:
The Team:
I normally do not merge and discuss mons in my reports,
however I did in this one to make a better understanding of how and why they
came together:
The XernDon:
Ofcourse the mainstream xerneas groudon core found on the
big teams, however this time I wanted it to work a bit different or a bit themed,
as I looked upon interesting options, it didn’t took long to flash into my find
that xerneas and groudon are both indeed the pokemons that have the ability and
potential to wreck through all teams, firstly xerneas’ unforgiving geomancy and
then primal groudon’s swords dance + gravity blades’ combination making sure to
lock up many games, then I had this direction of making my xerneas and groudon
team into a set-up sweep team and really needed to support them well, hence
came the somewhat different members.
Xerneas @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 116 HP / 4 Def / 132 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Moonblast
- Geomancy
- Protect
Xerneas is a very very simple spread, this spread was
actually taken from Baz anderson’s Worlds report, I chose this one so as I
liked his criteria very much of having maximum speed stat on your xerneas to be
able to outspeed pokemons like primal groudon and primal kyogre as well as
speed tie with fast yveltals before taking strong eruptions, water spouts or
the disruptive knock offs respectively, this criteria really seemed convincing
for a team where you want to invest in set-up sweeping, the spa investment and
bulk was also copied from the same report however I would like to have a bit
more bulk to survive such things as sludge bombs + poison chip, combination of
strong attacks + priority attacks and other shenanigans. Xerneas was really
good in some matches, where with help of it’s partners it was able to sweep
through the entire team of the opposition.
Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
Level: 50
EVs: 156 HP / 52 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Precipice Blades
- Fire Punch
- Swords Dance
- Protect
Upnext is a simple primal groudon, nothing too odd to be
discussed however my ev spread; most of the primal groudons in the xerneas +
groudon composition teams are 252/252/4 jolly natured however the mirrors
always rely on who hits their p-blades as well as who goes first, another
deadly situation around this pokemon is the groudon vs groudon late-game with
both sitting at full heath, this spread exactly combats that situation, it does
help my primal groudon survive a 252 neutral single target p-blades, this
investment also give primal groudon a lot of in general bulk which helps
against many pokemons, one thing noticeable about this primal groudon is then
the lack of attack, as you might have figured what comes as a explanation to
that is the swords dance and the mainly wanted set-up theme of my team which
recovers all loss on that part. Moving onto the supports…
The Guard Duo:
So aerodactyl + scrafty is something that I like to call as
the guard duo, as they both have the guard moves, so for their explanation: I
really needed some support pokemons that could contribute to my team, mainly
keeping the xern-do alive after they have set up so they get more room to
sweep, some first theory I came up with has to be the idea of putting both
quick guard to protect annoying prankster encores, taunts as well as bullet
punches (potentially) against my pokemons and wide guard mainly to protect the
xern-don from the menace of precipice blades as well as protect groudon from
kyogre’s spread water attacks. A question or opinion I got was ‘ hey why are
you using aero + srafty, it is not good in this metagame’ and the most metagame
thing to fit the guard duo would be talonflame + hitmontop combination which I
was considering at first, but then I figured it was better to have a more
defensive combination so that supports live longer to support, hence came
aerodactyl + scrafty; other advantages it gains me over talontop is aerodactyl’s
superiority to other flying types i.e thundurus, talonflame, crobat etc and
it’s extremely defensive typing against the big variants as well as scrafty
providing me with essential dark coverage against threats like bronzing,
cresselia as well as mega gengar. Now moving on to the individual analyses:
Aerodactyl @ Lum Berry
Ability: Unnerve
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Wide Guard
- Taunt
- Tailwind
- Rock Slide
Aerodactyl is such an amazing pokemon, a lot of first
reactions are like ‘it’s pretty meh’ but believe me as I tell you that it
actually had been the MVP of many matches with it’s amazing supportive capabilities.
Using aerodactyl made me realize why did the lunatone team got that far into
nationals as it may look very unserious at first, but it works really well in
this format because of the rock + ground immunity, I know you would want to
inquire why, so; a rock type pokemon with ground immunity as such an aerodcatyl
can win you huge defensive capabilities against the big cores, as it can walls
the primal groudons, the kangaskhans as well as the salamences and the
advantage an aerodactyle has over them is having a fast taunt which stops the
remaining three members from doing their stuff I.e xerneas, smeargle and the
last slot usually of that speed control pokemon; aerodactyl is something I lead
against the big core and it greatly helps me; I chose lum berry as my item
choice to surely counter all types and variants of smeargles, it is so bulky
even in this investment that it can live a spread eruption from full health.
Scrafty @ Expert Belt
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Atk / 20 Def / 20 SpD / 44 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Low Kick
- Knock Off
- Quick Guard
Scrafty has to be the second MVP somehow, I actually hated
even the bare idea of this pokemon in this format however upon using it I fell
in absolute love with it, it’s soo useful; so right away, why I have scrafty: I
needed a pokemon to help me use quick guard, intimidate support would be nice
and fake out would help too, there were two pokemons on the list hitmontop and
scrafty, however I feel like that hitmontop often is a bit one dimensional
whereas scrafty can provide essential coverage as well as counter those psychic
offensive cresselias really really well. I did witness that a lot of teams didn’t
had much to counter the fake out + quick guard or really quick guard being
supported with a xerneas’ effects of a set-up sweep, scrafty’s speed stat has
to be the most special thing about my scrafty; it surprised many and many
players where I was able to outspeed there 12 speed invested hitmontops and
provide a faster fake out and also that faster quick guard to put a clear stop
to those feint + fake out dynamics. Rest I put into attack and bulk. expert belt helps to put up with the lack of attack due to that jolly nature.
The Mega:
Metagross-Mega @ Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 164 HP / 124 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 212 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Zen Headbutt
- Protect
- Gravity
mega metagross; though highly unlikely for a
xerndon mega and as I’d tell came from a discard pile of ideas saved the team
in real terms. I actually on paper was planning a mega gardevoir + mega gengar
duo in the last two slots, however as soon as I learned that gardevoir does not
learn the move gravity, I almost ended scrapping the team in a rish of
frustration however felt like I should found a pokemon that fits the role in
the last slot well, hence came mega metagross, I especially wanted a faster
gravity user hence metagross was ideal, metagross also ended up handling
hitmontop, crobat as well as mega gengar which I theorized were big threats to
my xerneas + groudon core as individual pokemons. Bullet punch covered up the absence
of offensive priority and helped me plenty often on in my games. The spread
allows mega metagross excess to general bulk, whereas the attack investment
allows it to 3hko bulkiest xerneas’
The Fill ups:
Gastrodon @ Assault Vest
Ability: Storm Drain
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 196 HP / 172 Def / 108 SpA / 28 SpD / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Clear Smog
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Icy Wind
Last up the replacement for the original mon which was mega
gengar here, upon testing the above five mentioned I figured that special
groudon, well played kyogres and mega mawiles could pose a serious threat to my
team, hence came the perfect solution to those remedies, an assault vested
gastrodon which could dominate these matchups, also with the nice addition of
that icy wind provides further ideal speed control for the commonly seen mirror
to the xerneas + groudon cores, I also happeneded to have ice beam on the same
team and as you may have noticed I refrained from using scald, as it becomes really
unlikely and very very conditional to use and I rather rely on my earth powers
other than scald to ohko primal groudons, ice beam was essential as it provided
my team another way to OHKO the most common hasty natured salamences. Clear smog
is another excellent utility move to reset any swords dances and geomancies set
up in this format. To build this spread I started from the bottom, I gave it
enough bulk to xerneas’ moonblasts; then built it up to live kang attacks and
OHKO salamences and then dumped the rest of the evs into the hp stat.
Conclusion:
So guys this was it for my different xerneas + groudon team,
there was a lot of work put in to build this team I really hope that you guys
really like it and inspired a few ideas from it as well, bye for now!
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