Hey guys today I am back and will share another month’s VGC
experience of mine, these types of posts have been very good of a diary for me
to keep for everyone’s display to what VGC 17 went like, I believe a lot of
time has been passed in this format, without further ado lets get into this
post:
Teambuilding in May:
The month of may didn’t start very well for me, between the
last few days of the past moth I was trying out Link’s Internationals winning
team with a small modification of using a timid nature lilligant to outspeed
others’ which came handy against people who were also using the same team. Then
as the month started I started to look into new ideas for a new team after
looking through the dex and finding pokemons like vaporeon and scizor, I wasn’t
motivated enough to build around them as a desirable idea of belly drum
hariyama didn’t work extremely well. Then I happened to realize that I still hadn’t
used a metagross into a team of mine and started building around it.
Metagross was
something I planned to use with the idea of a dragon steel and fairy core,
where the core of garchomp + Vikavolt seemed good with it, the idea of using
Tapu Koko seemed way more flexible to use with this pokemon, I took inspiration
from the idea of using a weakness policy metagross with a bulldoze partner,
assault vest garchomp was also a variant I was interested in using and from all
the things it could cover for what metagross was weak to longetivity was
required in theory from this slot, then I added talonflame which surprisingly
had answers to a lot of tricky matchups, trevenant seemed a good call to keep
for the late game of snorlax, porygon 2 and celesteela as well and rounded out
the team with a politoed to evade from arcanine’s intimidate as well as provide
weather support. Following is the detailed analysis of the team:
The Team:
Metagross @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 92 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 156 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Zen Headbutt
- Bullet Punch
- Protect
As you know the team starts out with metagross, more or less
not star of the team, but it can dominate against the correct matchups, when I
generally think about metagross as an overall pokemon I don’t think of it as doing
a whole lot, probably the reason why I never chose to use it on any team
before, however it can beat pokemons like hariyama, mimikyu, nihilego and tapu
lele very easily, a few pokemons of the metagame that a person like me finds
trouble to counter immediately. I didn’t really work much on the spread, nor do
I know much calcs however, it does happen to survive atleast one flare blitz
from an opposing arcanine. The weakness policy boost it gains turns around a
lot of games and is an amazing strategy to go out for from the start of a lot
of games.
The speed stat that I allowed for this metagross spread
allows it to outspeed most tapu lele and normally invested tapu fini that tend
to go for outspeeding an eevee to land a muddy water before they move, this
also allows me to move before eevee if I ever get the opportunity to get to
move before it. I chose to use bullet punch over other moves as priority helped
a lot against tricky pokemons like ninetales and frailer tapu lele under the
terrain of my favor.
Garchomp @ Assault Vest
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 172 Atk / 4 Def / 52 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Bulldoze
- Rock Slide
- Flamethrower
Garchomp was my pokemon of choice when I decided to use the
bulldoze + wp strategy with my team, even though bulldoze does a somewhat
significant amount metagross however it isn’t that damaging to my own strategy,
bulldoze seems to be an interesting move on this garchomp, it also helps me in
other situations where I need to get a pokemon to -1 to set up an easy win con
or whenever i net to set an safety net. Talking about other interesting moves
on my garchomp flamethrower is also quite a noticeable one there, it allows me
to evade any unfortunate freeze situations from porygon 2, also as I believe
gets more damage onto a kartana, more accurate damage, this choice reminds me
of people when people ran more accurate fire type moves in the past season.
Rock slide was something I never thought that I’ll keep however it ended up
being somewhat significantly useful in my matches as the dynamism of rock and
ground moves was working well as somewhat of a pin.
The spread was copied
from a recent team that won regionals, it seemed very much amazing, it once
even survived a tapu koko’s twinkle tackle, really what more could I ask there!
I think it’s a 3hko from most common tapu lele, overall I really liked this
spread on the bulk was just enough, I knew that the assault vest was the
correct option from the start of the teambuilding as what roles I required were
needing more longevity of garchomp on the field.
Tapu Koko @ Fairium Z
Ability: Electric Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Dazzling Gleam
- Thunder
- Protect
Tapu koko and vikavolt’s choice needs to be solved first. I
chose tapu koko as I overall liked it very much, it was fast, basically the
roles required from this mon were that I needed something that could made a
core with garchomp and metagross, vikavolt, was slow which wasn’t my style to
begin with, it didn’t gave me terrain, vikavolt was weak to arcanine and even
garchomp with assault vest was somewhat more threatened by arcanine, tapu koko
got a better situational advantage on that. Tapu koko gave me a solid lead
option with garchomp and all the advantages mentioned above, especially as lilligant
teams are somewhat of a rise in usage, electric terrain could really end up
helping there to avoid sleep powder trouble.
Farium z koko was something that I started using in February
and I never realized that I was this big of a fan of this variant of the
pokemon until I made up this team even. Overall I really like it for the
utility that it provides to you that you can ohko most opposing garchomp,
hariyama as well as tapu koko in one hit, for the tapu koko decision I happened
to give it timid nature to possible outspeed the oppositions whenever it was
needed. Most of this tapu koko is very standard, however the choice of thunder
came after I made politoed a solid part of the team, as it covered up my big
complaint from a tapu koko that it always lacks in doing enough damage output
to oppositions.
Upnext is talonflame, a pokemon I thought was very niche,
however presented to me in its performance as a very solid pokemon that
requires a bit of a different method to lay effectively. I don’t know much of
where this pokemon mostly comes from and never have I ever seen a metagross
core team with a talonflame, mostly I was looking to cover up tricky matchups
as well as something that could allow me to be safe from ground attacks,
talonflame came in as a solid fit, when I talk about tricky matchups I am
mainly thinking at this point about teams reliant on mimikyu for trick room and
my theory was to go for a double taunt strategy, something I used in a previous
team of mine, however I realized its z-move can do really well in trick room as
well, which made me comfortable to drop that idea, other and more real tricky
matchups are drifblim, golduck and lilligant modes, talonflame can really take
over those, playing around double ducks is quite a mind game, however it was ok
for most of the games there.
I never used much other of its moveslots after the z-move or
the brave bird as it mostly went down to their attacks anyways, flare blitz can
be a solid second option for a kartana, protect can help preserve talonflame
when numbers are needed to be up on my side for future switches, tailwind I
never used much at all, however theoretically it can give me a really good
advantage against teams that don’t happen to rely to big types of speed
control. The spread maximizes the attack stat and then gives enough speed to
outspeed a normal kartana from where I invested the rest into bulk for whatever
that was worth.
Trevenant @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Harvest
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 108 Atk / 148 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Wood Hammer
- Phantom Force
- Toxic
- Leech Seed
Trevenant was a choice that I was very proud of that I
actually made this choice, I was looking on that usual, mon to counter list
that I have on my teambuilding list and pokemons like snorlax, p2, pz and
gastrodon, snorlax and porygon 2 were big late game stallers and I doubted my
matchup against celesteela’s stalls, p-z z-moves are threatening for me most of
the times, trevenant in theory and then in practice seems a very great answer
to all of these pokemons and I really am in love with how it plays out against
them, I really loved how I made the transition from m previous mistake to this
mode on my somewhat more balanced team to chose and keep a late game staller of
my own, it could always or if not mostly win in those situations,
The moveset is just my favorite and functions very well for
what my trevenant is usually being used for. Wood hammer is there for a lot of
damage against pokemons like gastrodon and tapu fini which I felt like my
answers were weak to, toxic is strong against p2 and snorlax late games whereas
leech seed further helps against these two and gives me a advantage against celesteela
and I will be the only one who uses that leech seed on the opposition, phantom
force is quite an interesting move choice and came as an edit, I was using
shadow claw which was bad and felt like I needed something with protect on this
mon of mine. Phantom force, if situations applied, gives me one extra turn of
no damage, a leech seed stall, a toxic stall and a chance to harvest for free,
also it provides more damage, all these things when combined make trevenant an
amazing pokemon.
Now time for the ev spread. I was using basic 252/252/4 in
the beginning but soon felt that it was an easy loss against lele and pelliper
this investment allows me to live a psychic from a more offense invested lo
lele or a 44+ invested choice specs tapu lele, also it give me survival from
most pelliper hurricanes. Choice of sitrus berry over pinch berries was proving
to be beneficial in the late game. Overall looking at this pokemon I think it
is definitely my favorite from the six and I really liked how its theory turned
out exactly as supposed to be in battle and how fun was it to play against
pokemons that are usually hard to take down.
Last but surely not the least, politoed came in as somewhat
of a glue to this team of mine. What needed to be an answer to arcanine pivots
as I had first identified in the first test match I played with this team,
politoed’s drizzle ability came in handy for a lot of other aspects of this
team, this gave metagross and trevenant protection from scary fire types as
well as a disruption in the way of ninetales to set up an annoying aurora veil.
Politoed has to be one of those last members of the team that you put on add
way more flexibility to the team than you think. Scald is ofcourse for arcanine
and covers a significant portion of this metagame and ice beam is for garchomp
and the rarer, tapu bulu. Encore is an amazing choice for so many status move
locks like calm mind, fake out, substitute etc, its so useful theoretically
that it doesn’t stand a chance of being a choice discussion perish song,
especially on a more balanced team like this one.
The spread that I have allows it to take max attack, adamant
garchomp’s tectonic rages at full health, the rest was dumped into the special
attack. At first I was using Wolfey’s London spread, but it was very much
inefficient and outdated for the current meta, then I switched to a wacan berry
set which made it was more durable than it usually happens to be on itself,
especially surviving one hit from a wild charge arcanine and a tapu koko attack
provides big utility for this pokemon. Politoed also completes the
fire/water/grass core in addition to the dragon/fairy/steel core that I started
to build the team around with.
Weaknesses of the team:
·
Often having problems with the bulk and switch
in issues with talonflame, tapu koko and even politoed sometimes. Switching in
a talonflame for a eq immunity into a garchomp’s rock slide is a considerable
damage, especially with talonflame where its danger of the gale wings effect
breaking. Often thought I needed another ground immunity sometimes.
·
Speed issue on politoed as its encore is almost
useless due to its lower speed. Also the somewhat passive approach made it
ineffective to launch big attacks at the correct times and it often got knocked
out before moving.
·
Some matchups were still shaky, especially the
ones focused more around talonflame, firstly, the double ducks happened to be
more of a mind game, and the lillykoal teams with tapu lele caused huge trouble
for me, I needed somewhat more reliable answers. Politoed was there to handle
arcanine and my relatively safe lead of koko + toed into afk matcups was
challenged by a snarl using arcanine, followed up with a pinch berry.
·
Early game P2 was terrible especially as I
mainly had late game staller counters to it.
The Update:
Kommo-o @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Overcoat
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast
- Clanging Scales
- Protect
- Flamethrower
Pelipper @ Focus Sash
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Tailwind
- Protect
Updates happen to have somewhat of a fun story behind them,
in ps chat I was randomly putting in lillykoal answers to someone’s discussion
to help them out and pointed out kommo-o and also said it can be good if
efficiently utilized in the format, I knew that speed was a big issue on
politoed, so I decided to add kommo-o and pelliper to solidfy and update my
team.
Pelliper was the first addition, I was testing around the tw
slot as I did have it on talonflame as used knock off, then when I added
kommo-o it became a bit more standard, pelliper was really effective and more
effective than politoed as it could always survive atleast one attack had that
ground immunity I needed to switch into garchomps with as well as had that
combination of attacks that beat the usual garchomp + arcanine duo present on
teams, I was having somewhat trouble against, with all this the addition of
tailwind gives it an amazing upper hand in those situations and is a bit safer
to play with, it can also guarantee a tw setup when facing off big surprise
scarfers against tapu koko. It also had more speed and offense than politoed,
overall was a much better pokemon to use in replacement as well as providing me
with the rain setup which politoed was mainly supporting its other partners
with. I choose to keep ice beam instead of hurricane as it wasn’t much helpful
at all anyways against matchups and ice beam covered garchomp very well.
As I explained above I was having defense issues on the team
I was looking for a pokemon that can soak up a lot of attacks, also early game
pokemons that I had to play passively against wth trevenant alone, like porygon
2 and gigalith I had no other answers to, snorlax with belly drum was a big
issue, in all these circumstances, kommo-o rose to be a very good choice here,
it also gave me a better sun matchup being a dragon type with the overcoat
ability. It gave me resistances to fire, water and grass, and a lot more too
and could be a backup tactic against pokemons like garchomp, arcanine, kartana,
celesteela whereas directly tackles pokemons like porygon 2 as well as
gigalith. Kommo-o’s approach to battle was more offensive which happens to
suite my style. It was also looking really good against what I call the super
squad, pretty much the new big 6 of the metagame, koko, afk with the p2 and
gialith core, it is, take out the tapus and let kommo-o do the work!
Making this update was a kind of a ‘OMG I’m proud of myself’
and it doesn’t happen often, it really made me way more confident about the
team in general without having to risk facing shaky mindgame based matchups,
which I wasn’t confident with at all, the games were also a lot less stress
free after this update and I enjoyed playing with this team more, other than
waiting for a new shift or regionals to pass by for me to build a new team.
Usually when I tend to decide making an update on a team I feel like it’ll just
fall apart, it was quite a seemingly big achievement to update the team with
the personal comfortability of surprise that I like to keep and mainTtaining
its balance.
The Meme Team:
So I settled onto building another team, this one was
something that I had build in the past, but never got to use it much, the idea
started from a meme team but then developed into more of a surprise based,
balanced team, without further discussion, lets get into the team:
Teambuilding Process:
I was looking for a big meme factor and then came to the
mind the idea of using a special gyarados. Supported it alongside scarfed
garchomp and then with an arcaninee, from there came a dhelmise and rounded out
the team with porygonz and then goodra, later I replaced goodra with ninetales
and then porygon z with a tapu lele.
The Team:
Gyarados @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Flamethrower
- Thunderbolt
First of all I’ll start explaining gyarados, what seems like
one of the most stupid looking pokemon options to use competitively, special
gyarados cn do good in the name of surprise, it can fire off attacks like
flamethrower against the all popular kartanas or ice beams against the all
popular garchomps to OHKO them with surprise, furthermore, it can also ohko
scary looking gyarados’ mirrors, more to it is that this variant makes it an
amazing rain counter which is rising in usage much nowadays as well as it can
fool opponents by wasting them turns trying to intimidate or burn gyarados
which is overall ineffective, scald can also score important burns in games.
This is probably the most stupid looking variant to think about, but its
surprise factor becomes much real in battles, I’ve had battles where it has
picked up two and even more knock out’s on my opponents’ team due to the
surprise that it brings. Since this wasn’t a bg or very serious team, the ev
spread for gyarados here and for most pokemons on this team are kept kind of
standard 252/252/4.
Garchomp @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Aerial Ace
- Rock Slide
- Flamethrower
Up next is garchomp, which was chosen over how weak is
gyarados to tapu koko, scarf chomp is also something that can do big with the
surprise factor of the scarf and can pick up big games on the basis of this
item choice singlehandedly just by ohko’ing tapu koko, ofcourse this does miss
out on the groundinium z offensive pressure, but scarf was good enough to
satisfy me, rock slide is good for hax when it is needed, whereas other moves
like aerial ace and flamethrower are interesting, I chose aerial ace to counter
pheromosa and buzzwole whereas flamethrower had the same theory mentioned
above.
Arcanine @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Helping Hand
- Close Combat
- Extreme Speed
I don’t remember much reason for why arcanine us put onto
this slot other than knowing that it turned out somewhat very well, by this
time you would realize that this team isn’t about the standard stuff, which
calls for arcanine’s moveset being weird to support the team and fit into it
the fullest, starting off with its item choice, this was originally a cb
arcanine but after noticing that I lost some matches particularly due to not
being able to switch between moves, I opted instead to go for using a life orb
and then noticed wild charge neverpicked up much usage, that is why I then put
helping hand on that slot to help it increase the damage output of its
partners. Flare blitz is standard whereas extreme speed was helpful and then
close combat gave me a better fighting chance against opposing snorlax and
porygon2. A note here is that I used an adamant arcanine whereas I usually use
a jolly one before, the reason is that most and almost all tapu lele don’t run
max speed nowadays at all.
Dhelmise @ Grassium Z
Ability: Steelworker
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Power Whip
- Phantom Force
- Toxic
- Protect
Dhlemise completes an FWG core onto this team which wasn’t
needed for a big reason, but just in the name of synergy I gave it a try, I
knew I did need some solid answers to trick room and dhelmise would be able to
help me there, the z-move of dhelmise going from power whip was extremely
strong as I once remember it ohko’ing a lo tapu lele from a single counter of
lo damage under a burn which was very much impressive for me, the previous set
had shadow claw and anchor shot, but then I replaced them with phantom force
which helps me to stall turns of trick room and tailwind as well as allows me
to do more damage, toxic was put on this team as I felt like that a lot of
times I would end up in a staller situation where I would have to score
flinches with rock slide or stall with other chip damage, if I am able to toxic
my opponents under that then I can happen to win with the chip damage, anchor
shot in comparison was much useless, dhelmise’ s typing like the previous
team’s trevenant gives me a staller advantage against snorlax celesteela.
Tapu Lele @ Wiki Berry
Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 188 Def / 44 SpA / 4 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Calm Mind
- Protect
As I told tapu lele was once a porygon z with trick room,
the trick room was there is the previous team and the new one had conversion,
the idea was to have something to get as much damage off as possible onto its
opponents, but then porygon z was something I played terribly, I realized in a
lot of matches I was cycling intimidates and setting up an aurora veil, but
really didn’t have anything to take advantage of it, I was having trouble
against porygon and tapu lele, so I added on the team a calm mind tapu lele,
which is my favorite, this lele added a whole new dimension to my team and also
gave me access to terrain control.
Ninetales-Alola @ Focus Sash
Ability: Snow Warning
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blizzard
- Freeze-Dry
- Roar
- Aurora Veil
I put ninetales on the team for the theory that once helped
my pz alot, I have seen quite some z-conversion ice with blizzard pz which I
wanted to use, this didn’t work well, but ninetales I realized was a much solid
member of my team. Most of it is standard apart from the roar, if the intimidate
cycling or tapu lele setup or the dhelmise wasn’t much enough to counter trick
room, roar was there, roar could also help with matchups like eeveemancy teams
and increasing use of snorlax belly drum and psych up mimikyu teams. I hated
the hail procks my opponents’ pinch berry but the time was good when it broke a
potential sash.
Metagame of May:
Ok this section is back now again, lets get into it:
AFKPEG(Arcanine, Kartana, Fini, Porygon2, Electric Pokemon, Gigalith)
(Virginia Regionals)
AFK finally happened to develop into a full archetype this
month, in Virginia regionals we saw a huge inflow of the cores of afkpeg, which
is the big core of arcanine, tapu fini and Kartana paired up with the core of
gigalith and porygon 2 + an electric type pokemon like tapu koko or togedemaru,
funnily enough I was thinking about using the tapu koko, p2 and gigalith with
afk as it combined two solid cores together very well, and then they were
getting a whole lot of use.
Celesteela, Tapu
Koko, Arcanine, Garchomp, Snorlax + Ninetales/Tapu Fini. (Toronto Regionals)
No acronyms yet but, this is the core that seemed to
dominate the Toronto regionals and ended up ultimately winning the whole
tournament even, this would be the new solid core alongside the afkpeg core
that was discussed above there.
Talking other Trends:
Physical Gastrodon:
A team we saw at Toronto regionals featured on stream a
physical gastrodon that used the moves, curse recover, earthquake and
waterfall, even though it may seem niche but thinking more into it, it happens
to have the upper hand in the late game versus snorlax and celesteela on this
team, I feel like this could be quite considerable for the metagame, especially
after that new core has developed into the game.
Nails’ Virginia
Winning Team:
Nails’
Virginia regionals winning team was probably the most interesting one this
season, featuring a bunch of pokemons that are considered quite the ‘B’ or
lower tiers of the metagame like, tapu bulu, and salamence, nails also kept
into his team a snorlax with thick fat and wild charge, overall it was in my
opinion a very interesting team, especially one to have won a big regionals
event and the first team to win regionals in NA with a tapu bulu on it.
Double Ducks in
Action:
Tman finally revealed his double ducks team, which had
consistent runs on the entire season’s international events, this came in with
a rise in the general double ducks usage as well as a team that people would
need to include counters into their teams for.
Conclusion:
So guys this was it for this month’s VGC report, hopefully
you guys really liked going through this post and learned something new from
this post, Bye for now!
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