VGC 19 Ultra Series Report Post Worlds Team.

Pokémon VGC19 Getting back into the Scene:

In the past few months I have been totally off of playing any pokemon showdown at all, given that and a bunch of horrid internet connectivity issues, I realized that I wasn’t going to keep any grasp of this format also with the ultra series being in affect and the standard structure of a team further being formalized to two restricted slots, pinch berry holders, mega pokemon even two on one team as well as a tapu pokemon being the conventional recipe of the format’s success I felt kinda held out of this trend. Now after watching a lot of matches from the pokemon world championships and later discussing on showdown chat rooms, taking quite some time to look into what the metagame was I tried to do teambuilding myself, ofcourse after quite some failed attempts as trying to spice things up as I usually do. Following is the teams I built:

The date is 1^st September, 2019 Ofcourse and I decided to take teambuilding seriously after getting in touch with the most important combinations and trends of the format, the speeds that most pokemon hit was the most important information I acquired from the past few days of playing through the format, I noticed that cycling intimidate and fake out were the winners as well as knowing that this was the format, if any was to be that revolved on board positioning especially with such big power houses and pokemon that can shut them down, one had to make predictions while handling those big restricted slots, using their time carefully and their move slots intelligently if they wanted to win a match, this format as crystal clear it becomes of what the teambuilding process should be after some study, gets as quickly very scary playing into and provides not that much room into playing around and having a bit of fun, or so I thought at first atleast.

On this day I was trying to build around a Psyspam team, I looked at the metagame and after seeing a few trends I realized that “ ground type attacks are going to be very affective in this format given the popularity of incineroar, pdon as well as stakataka in it, also the ground immunities that people are most likely to switch in as their primal groudon counters, so groudon + a gravity user would be a good start.” Combining it with a fast hyper offensive setting on the tea will be somewhat stress free to play around, given that I was studying Gramham Amedee’s revolutionary Mega Medicham buildand how hyper offensive yet successful it was, thinking that mewtwo and tapu lele will be great members of this team, mewtwo can provide damage on physical stat negating the intimidate cycles in this format as well as provide a really strong z move option for me, as a special attack, tapu lele will block out any fake out spam and I also decided to use a fun little trick with tickle+ psystrike to go well together and yes it did work. This was an idea I discussed as I put some pokemon together to form a team and following was the first formation of this, rather so called team:

Mewtwo-Mega-Y @ Mewtwonite Y  Ability: Insomnia  Level: 50  EVs: 68 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 180 Spe  Timid Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Psystrike  - Gravity  - Icy Wind  - Protect  Crobat @ Payapa Berry  Ability: Inner Focus  Level: 50  EVs: 244 HP / 12 SpD / 252 Spe  Timid Nature  - Tailwind  - Taunt  - Super Fang  - Hypnosis  Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf  Ability: Psychic Surge  Level: 50  EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Timid Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Psyshock  - Shadow Ball  - Tickle  - Moonblast  Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb  Ability: Desolate Land  Level: 50  EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe  Hasty Nature  - Precipice Blades  - Stomping Tantrum  - Protect  - Overheat  Virizion @ Fightinium Z  Ability: Justified  Level: 50  EVs: 76 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Sacred Sword  - Leaf Blade  - Protect  - Helping Hand  Mandibuzz (F) @ Psychic Seed  Ability: Overcoat  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD  Bold Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Foul Play  - Snarl  - Tailwind  - Whirlwind

Now you will hear quite a bit about this team as we go down but before that I would much like to discuss my experience in detail with a more or less of a standard team I used. As I discussed this on showdown I got a private message of a person requesting me to help me with their team building. I wasn’t much confident at all about my sills given that I was facing quite a decline in my confidence especially since I just dove back after a few very significant months where the ev spreads had developed to a very complex state but I tried my best.

This team we ended up with me giving my suggestions to this person and modifying the team to this state was the reason that brought me to write this article in the first place.

The start of the team:

This person simply give me five pokemon they had come up with while trying to teambuild, I had no spreads or movesets to work with, these were Primal groudon, Lunala, Incineroar, Amoonguss and Salamence. I looked at this composition, keeping in mind that this was my first time looking at a mainstream looking team’s structure and asked a bit more info, I found that the groudon was special and this was a trick room team. To this I gave the following suggestions: changing the amoonguss slot with smeargle to help deal with lunala’s mirror matches with follow me as well as adding in a tapu lele on the last slot of the team to aid the spore’s success on this team as well as avoid any spam of fake outs, the following was the team I built off of in the complete sets are the following

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite Ability: Intimidate EVs: 52 HP / 68 Atk / 4 Def / 252 SpD / 132 Spe Jolly Nature - Double-Edge - Dragon Claw - Tailwind - Roar	Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb Ability: Desolate Land Level: 50 EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpA Quiet Nature - Precipice Blades - Eruption - Earth Power - Protect	Lunala @ Lunalium Z Ability: Shadow Shield Level: 50 EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA Modest Nature IVs: 0 Atk - Moongeist Beam - Wide Guard - Trick Room - Protect
Incineroar @ Assault Vest Ability: Intimidate Level: 50 EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpA Brave Nature - Fake Out - Flare Blitz - Snarl - U-turn	Smeargle @ Focus Sash Ability: Moody Level: 50 EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe Jolly Nature - Fake Out - Spore - Follow Me - Heal Pulse	Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf Ability: Psychic Surge Level: 50 EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe Timid Nature IVs: 0 Atk - Taunt - Psyshock - Moonblast - Dazzling Gleam

https://pokepast.es/a4d20eb42e7919f3

Playing with this team truly made me realize that my teambuilding skills weren’t entirely trash and building a team that was full of obvious and conventional tactics as well as somewhat unconventional options smeargle and tapu lele as well as the spin on move sets and playing this team, winning while having fun, all this brought me back into this experience and I felt confident again about my knowledge of VGC.

Individual Analyses:

Salamence’s overset was directly taken from the move report of Jamie Boyt’s worlds report it is ev’s to invest usefully in the attack stat as well as is a relatively bulky in the game being able to take tapu lele’s moonblasts. This salamence I feel like is the most optimal atleast in this point of the format, salamence is a pokemon I’d almost always play to go for damage or click the tailwind button so protect to stall and go around your opponents wasn’t a much needed move also it did work in roar for resetting any xerneas lgiven they are not setting up late game as well as other gimmicky set up based teams + the rising popularity of snorlax’s set ups rising in the world’s meta.

Primal groudon could be surprising when you see that it is a mixed set more focused on the special side of the offensive spectrum however, the quiet nature paired up with the trick room firstly allows it to hit harder to opposing groudons with its + special attack nature as most do run timid when specially invested as well as nothing being given up on the attack or defensive side due to the nature allows it to use precipice blades with great value too especially on opposing xerneas or kyogres who decide to set up and/or switch in respectively. This is a simple groudon moveset but affective for what it does, fast (in trick room or late game tailwind) and big damage.

Lunala is also the tricky part on this team given that it uses trick room in the contrast to the usual tailwind max speed runners. The main advantage lunala gains on this team especially in combination with smeargle is to firstly set up trick room and throw the opponents off guard it can also in combination with salamence or incineroar’s intimidate on this team, take those Dark z moves through the shadow shield. Lunala again is a simple pokemon and honestly fake out + trick room is also a good combination in this format.

Last three pokemon are simple and somewhat standard with little tricks to explain. Incineroar s most usually used with a pinch berry or a z move item, this incineroar can take advantage of being a relatively offensive incineroar as well as takes up the bulk from the assault vest, where this team does have smeargle and lunala itself to take care of lunala in the game, incineroar takes great advantage of snarl by punishing kyogre switchins as well as xerneas’ set ups, it doesn’t need that strong dark type move to carry the team, the support of snarl is a much better option in that perspective.

Smeargle is just the bread and butter set apart from the choice of heal pulse, usually in this slot people use things like tailwind, transform, etc all those moves that can help support their team, however this smeargle uses something a little bit unconventional in that regard, this team obviously already holds wide guard within lunala, however transform wasn’t an absolute necessary smeargle is a pokemon that is purely a support that is why I felt like heal pulse would be optimal, in a team that doesn’t have many pinch berry users, and lunala having shadow shield which is usually broken before it is faced with powerful attacks, not to forget the special groudon, heal pulse becomes a great option to utilize that is why smeargle is a great pokemon. The main choice of putting smeargle on this team was the reason to deal with lunala mirror matchups.

Tapu lele on a lunala and groudon team seems like a strange choice given it is chosen over tapu koko and tapu fini which always see more use, given the special groudon and the trick room mode of this team this tapu lele fills up quite some holes in this team. Tapu lele firstly and quite obviously provides a very fast offense option for this team knocking out opposing salamence, non bulky rayquazas as well as mega gengars which can trap me in quite easily. Tapu lele also helps to avoid opposing priority attacks, mainly ones like extreme speed from rayquaza, the revolving door of fake out spam as well as tornadus’s prankster taunt on my lunala, given the priority blocking from lele’s psychic surge my team becomes a bit tougher to stall in trick room with fake outs as well as damaging both lunala and pdon with priority attacks for both which can be very hindering. Lastly the move choice of taunt can help taunt opposing pokemon that are looking to taunt lunala before they get to move and are not named tornadus.

Rebuilding the Psyspam:

Notes on Mewtwo:

As far as the question of building an affective team with mewtwo and tapu lele combination went the idea seemed a little bit off to me. Mewtwo is a great pokemon in regards of the move psystrike I personally wont recommend the use mega stones after having to try one out but I think its real potential lies in the use of a z-move slot, with psystrike in psychic terrain boost it has the potential to fire off big hits tat do damage based on physical stat, that means you can hit specially defensive pokemons like kyogre and xerneas as well as pokemon built to survive special attacks for a whole lot more unexpected damage, that is why I feel like mewtwo could work, however overall this team couldn’t really materialize as a solid one as I felt like in hyper offense playing very specific in moveslots was never really my style in VGC also the ever so popular inciniroar and yveltal alongside the new comers of the format, dark types including umbreon and mandibuzz make extremely powerful attacks into a bunch of nothing, combine that with a tapu lele and groudon on the team, things for the overall composition didn’t look great.

An addition over to it, while I was writing up this article Bas Anderson happened o snag a regional tournament win with his gravity hypnosis team that had the mewtwo and groudon combination, given the priority of sleep and hyper offense as ell as obviously his amazing playing skills, this team had a smooth run through the combination, having faced it on showdown I’ve noticed that a mixed groudon under trick room can completely shit it down as well as some other threats, but guess what if you can build around it well enough it can work.

The Psyspam and Umbreon Epidemic:

While trying to rebuild this team I looked up all of the worlds day 2 teams online and then it came to me how a few psyspam teams especially ones with ultra necrozma were using umbreon as a support. This made so much sense to me when I tried to build, umbreon is a pokemon that is often put off as a niche but it truly does work the best for these psyspam teams especially with groudons. The main offensive threats you will be left facing are going to be the yveltal, z move incineroar as well as the famous lunala especially arrying the z move which can halt your psyspam quick, umbreon in addition to absorbing up those hits takes up for the role of stalling out trick room turns with self recovery as well as providing great utility options and helping hand, a move that is massing up quite some potential importance in this stage of te format to add up more power to the nukes of your team.

Why Ultra Necrozma is better than Mewtwo:

Apart from the aforementioned reason in addition to having one of the strongest z move options when combined through stab and psychic terrain, necrozma has itself the potential to run mixed movesets and does not get blocked out by any opposing inciniroar or dark types either as it can use moves like earth power as well as sunsteel strike or moongeist beam to run through its opponents, something that mewtwo would lack doing affectively, sure mewtwo can run aura sphere, ice beam and thunderbolt as well however ultra necrozma also have the potential to take up hits given its prism armor and natural bulk combined with the pivot of changing type in mid battle as well as boosting its speed.

Psyspam reborn with something unique:

Needless to say that the composition of the worlds runner up team of has the best psyspam necrozma and primal groudon composition and was the most affective teams we saw from the diverse pool of teams at worlds, however I like to thrive off of the surprise factor for my opponents as much as I can, I also had the idea of gravity + groudon and loved the previous + spa natured mixed slow groudon set I was running. When looking through a partial trick room mode couldn’t find anything else than affective psychic types and did not want a third one up on my team that is why I went with. Then came a random idea to mind, using Comfey, at first I thought this was going to be one of those ideas that I do 2 to 3 battles in test with and scrape It off completely but tried to test it and actually won those first 3 battles.

What does Comfey do?

·         Comfey is a pokemon that is something no one ever expects to seeing this format, this cute little fairy flower crown thing just seems like one of those cute fillers or a meme but when you look into it, it could promise some serious potential on your team as well.

·         I firstly tried to test comfey because it learned tick room and wasn’t a psychic type to add up on the same weaknesses, on the positive side could take up dark z moves and foul plays running around the format.

·         Comfey has a rather forgettable ability of triage which basically gives priority to healing moves… giving this comfey not only learns the move floral healing which works similar to heal pulse, affected by terrain ( boosts in grassy terrain) it also learns moves like draining kiss and giga drain which can turn out to be priority attacks on its opponents.

·         Later I found out that comfey also has the capacity to learn helping hand an amazing move as aforementioned and even better for a team that is more focused on providing hyper offense other than pivoting.

·         Comfey can also partner up with lele to completely shut down any clangorous soulblaze strats that someone still runs, comfey can do priority healing for primal groudon’s eruption, can break focus sashes with priority status of attack resists ark moves etc

·         Yes floral healing works through psychic terrain and obviously so does helping hand.

An Initial Sketch of the team:

Necrozma-Dusk-Mane @ Ultranecrozium Z  Ability: Prism Armor  Level: 50  EVs: 100 HP / 4 Def / 212 SpA / 4 SpD / 188 Spe  Timid Nature  - Sunsteel Strike  - Photon Geyser  - Earth Power  - Protect  Tapu Lele @ Choice Specs  Ability: Psychic Surge  Level: 50  EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe  Timid Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Psyshock  - Gravity  - Moonblast  - Energy Ball  Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb  Ability: Desolate Land  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpA  Quiet Nature  IVs: 0 Spe  - Eruption  - Earth Power  - Precipice Blades  - Protect  Smeargle @ Focus Sash  Ability: Moody  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Follow Me  - Fake Out  - Spore  - Wide Guard  Comfey @ Aguav Berry  Ability: Triage  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD  Sassy Nature  IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe  - Trick Room  - Floral Healing  - Giga Drain  - Helping Hand  Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite  Ability: Aerilate  Level: 50  EVs: 196 Atk / 60 SpA / 252 Spe  Hasty Nature  - Double-Edge  - Hyper Voice  - Tailwind  - Protect

This was obvious to me how smeargle and salamence and even comfey were just filler to test out primal groudon and ultra necrozma for myself but then I realized comfey seemed to be more effective than I thought it ever would be so myself, that brought me to giving a serious thought into this team replacing smeargle and salamence with something more appropriate on the team, a normal the to counter lunala??? Kangaskhan maybe… salamence is here to set up crucial tailwinds initially and takes it switch ins and provides intimidates… Kartana or mandibuzz??? How if I try out mega gyarados which will provide me with an answer to lunala and round immunity as well as intimidate but then what would work for the tailwind slot? Is mega gyarados going to work? These were the initial thoughts that ran through my mind. Following is the reconsideration of the team and ev spreads as well:

Refining the EV spreads:

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb  Ability: Desolate Land  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 28 Def / 180 SpA / 44 SpD  Quiet Nature  IVs: 0 Spe  - Eruption  - Earth Power  - Precipice Blades  - Protect ·         116+ Atk Primal Groudon Precipice Blades vs. 252 HP / 28 Def Primal Groudon: 174-206 (84 - 99.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ·         +1 4+ Atk Primal Groudon Precipice Blades vs. 252 HP / 60 Def Primal Groudon: 176-210 (85 - 101.4%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO ·         252 SpA Primal Groudon Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 44 SpD Primal Groudon: 176-210 (85 - 101.4%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO ·         +2 84+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 44 SpD Primal Groudon: 109-129 (52.6 - 62.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ·         180+ SpA Primal Groudon Eruption (150 BP) vs. +2 252 HP / 4 SpD Xerneas in Harsh Sun: 84-100 (36 - 42.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO ·         4 Atk Primal Groudon Precipice Blades vs. 252 HP / 140 Def Xerneas: 76-91 (32.6 - 39%) -- 99.7% chance to 3HKO ·         4 Atk Primal Groudon Helping Hand Precipice Blades vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Xerneas: 132-156 (56.6 - 66.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ·         4 Atk Primal Groudon Helping Hand Precipice Blades vs. 252 HP / 140 Def Xerneas: 115-136 (49.3 - 58.3%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO

Comfey @ Aguav Berry  Ability: Triage  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 132 SpD  Calm Nature  IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe  - Trick Room  - Floral Healing  - Giga Drain  - Helping Hand ·         -1 184+ Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Sunsteel Strike vs. 252 HP / 124 Def Comfey: 132-156 (83.5 - 98.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ·         252+ Atk Primal Groudon Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 124 Def Comfey in Harsh Sun: 129-153 (81.6 - 96.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ·         252+ Atk Primal Groudon Precipice Blades vs. 252 HP / 124 Def Comfey: 102-121 (64.5 - 76.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ·         252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 124 Def Comfey: 127-151 (80.3 - 95.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ·         252+ SpA Primal Kyogre Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 128+ SpD Comfey in Heavy Rain: 153-180 (96.8 - 113.9%) -- 75% chance to OHKO ·         252 SpA Primal Kyogre Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 128+ SpD Comfey in Heavy Rain: 138-163 (87.3 - 103.1%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO ·         +2 252+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Dazzling Gleam vs. 252 HP / 128+ SpD Comfey: 112-133 (70.8 - 84.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ·         0 SpA Comfey Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 80 SpD Gastrodon: 108-128 (49.5 - 58.7%) -- 96.5% chance to 2HKO

Tapu Lele @ Life Orb  Ability: Psychic Surge  Level: 50  EVs: 20 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe  Timid Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Psyshock  - Gravity  - Moonblast  - Protect 212 SpA Life Orb Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 52 HP / 252 SpD Mega Salamence: 174-211 (98.3 - 119.2%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO -1 196 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Tapu Lele: 109-129 (74.6 - 88.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Gyarados @ Gyaradosite  Ability: Intimidate  Level: 50  EVs: 180 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 68 Spe  Adamant Nature  - Crunch  - Earthquake  - Dragon Dance  - Protect 252+ Atk Mega Gyarados Crunch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Shadow Shield Lunala: 188-224 (88.2 - 105.1%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO +1 252+ Atk Mega Gyarados Crunch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Shadow Shield Lunala: 282-332 (132.3 - 155.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO +1 252+ Atk Mold Breaker Mega Gyarados Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 88 Def Primal Groudon: 102-120 (49.2 - 57.9%) -- 95.3% chance to 2HKO -1 252+ Atk Primal Groudon Precipice Blades vs. 180 HP / 4 Def Mega Gyarados: 67-79 (34.7 - 40.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO 252+ SpA Primal Kyogre Thunder vs. 180 HP / 4 SpD Mega Gyarados: 140-166 (72.5 - 86%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252+ SpA Primal Kyogre Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 180 HP / 4 SpD Mega Gyarados in Heavy Rain: 80-95 (41.4 - 49.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO 252 SpA Primal Kyogre Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 180 HP / 4 SpD Mega Gyarados in Heavy Rain: 72-86 (37.3 - 44.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

The Final Product:

The following is probably the most work I’ve put into a team in this format, given the time I had being occupied by studies and/or other significant work, I’m glad I had the opportunity t learn this much about the format to go as far as developing my ev spreads for its specificity and was able to dip my fingers into a much more developed and enriched vgc format that is starting to see the light of versatility in its archetypes especially after worlds:

Necrozma-Dusk-Mane @ Ultranecrozium Z  Ability: Prism Armor  Level: 50  EVs: 100 HP / 4 Def / 212 SpA / 4 SpD / 188 Spe  Timid Nature  - Sunsteel Strike  - Photon Geyser  - Earth Power  - Protect	Tapu Lele @ Life Orb  Ability: Psychic Surge  Level: 50  EVs: 20 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe  Timid Nature  IVs: 0 Atk  - Psyshock  - Gravity  - Moonblast  - Protect	Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb  Ability: Desolate Land  Level: 50  Shiny: Yes  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 28 Def / 180 SpA / 44 SpD  Quiet Nature  IVs: 0 Spe  - Eruption  - Earth Power  - Precipice Blades  - Protect
Comfey @ Aguav Berry  Ability: Triage  Level: 50  Shiny: Yes  EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 132 SpD  Calm Nature  IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe  - Trick Room  - Floral Healing  - Giga Drain  - Helping Hand	Gyarados @ Gyaradosite  Ability: Intimidate  Level: 50  EVs: 180 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 68 Spe  Adamant Nature  - Crunch  - Earthquake  - Dragon Dance  - Protect	Smeargle @ Focus Sash  Ability: Moody  Level: 50  EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe  Jolly Nature  - Spore  - Follow Me  - Fake Out  - Tailwind

Individual Analyses:

Necrozma:

As aforementioned the choice of necrozma over mewtwo was for more flexibility while providing top tier offensive pressure much powered up by tapu lele’s psychic terrain, further combine this with comfey’s helping hand and you will be picking up OHKO’s all day long, necrozma was found on to be most of my leads, given its sheer offensive pressure it can provide against a number of pokemon in this format, I usually go right ahead to ultra burst and start doing damage with a side support of either comfey, smeargle or even directly leading it with tapu lele depending upon my opponents’ team composition, overall necrozma is quite the star of this team’s rather mostly offensive nature, I would have wanted to put on a utility move on necrozma given that I don’t usually opt for the option of protect but honestly in the correct games protect does wonders to provide longevity of this beast’s presence on the field which is often a much required for win con, to do as much damage as possible.

Tapu Lele;

In  format that is running rampant with choice scarf tapu lele the choice of a life orb tapu lele seems quite odd to put on my team however I simply went with this set or two reasons firstly being the hinderace of choice scarf lele’s offense and flexibility issues as well as to defeat bulkier pokemons, most of the pokemon are in a mid/slow tier which tapu lele given the appropriate nature and investment can be built to outspeed, others are much faster in their tiers of speed such as mega salamence, loppuny, gengar, tapu koko and so on, while tap lele is mostly built to outspeed these buggers and get kos on them, the spread that Jamie boyt brought to worlds with his slaamence was quite a counter to it, also given loppuny teams often carry a tailwind option as well as shedinja and tapu koko as well as rayquazas have started to run bulk on their movesets I felt like it was quite a gamble to throw tapu lele out on the field and try to pick up kos at this time in the format, that is why I opted for a relatively fast (built to outspeed primal and landorus t) offensive life orb variant which can give me an edge of offense against Jamie’s mega salamence set which is built to live tapu lele’s moonblast, also this sorta mid tier option gave me the flexibility to switch between psychic and fairy type moves which was also very useful overall as well as making it much more useful under trick room modes given that I do run them.

Primal groudon:

I am glad I was able to optimally fit in gravity on my tapu lele. With that being said I really love the concept of my primal groudon’s ev spread and moveset I think it could be a real winner in this format given the correct speed options ialso really like how I was able to fit in the best ev’s to get the most use out of its purpose, groudon is a good pokemon overall but really shines when gravity is set up and becomes a merciless monster when it is paired up with priority heal pulse and helping hand aid from comfey under trick room that is, groudon can pick up easy ko’s given its dual stab offense of fire and ground type attacks which can pick up a lot of mons as well as deal a great amount of damage of resisted switch ins, that is just how powerful groudon is. I really wanted groudon to for surely outspeed opposing ones and have more definite power than them, that is why no speed evs with a quiet nature was chosen to wreck havoc on opponents under trick room.

Comfey:

Time for the somewhat stupid looking yet kinda innocent and cute flower crown to be discussed. Comfey was a pokemon I just used as a random test but given the niche it provides on its own self as well as how well it fits into a psyspam team given its healing and powerup properties notto mention the amazing pure fairy typing and the defense it will provide to this team, I was quite impressed and when trying to optimize the ev spread I learnedit wasn’t as frail as it looked to be either. Comfey is most oftenly found on the leads of this team paired up with either necrozma, tapu lele or smeargle, each of its partners can either provide a way for it to set up trick room or take aid from comfey’s side to start dealing big damage. Comfey was probably the last pokemon I would look upon and think it had a potential to be worked with but it did work, quite a niche still but for the concept of a team with both psyspam and gravity + groudon shenanigans, comfey was the correct slot to be chosen. These four were the pokemon in rotating order that I brought to most of my games providing an offensive as well as a speed control set up which was often sometimes the surprise factor for opponents, I love these four having a composition that can be worked with and loved played it even more.

Gyarados:

To my surprise gyarados was chosen over slamence on this team, why? Here’s why: salamence and gyarados will most often be found doing the same things on this team, switching into primal’s powerful attacks, providing intimidate support, whereas salamence is the only one that can use tailwind which is something I felt like was much needed in case I didn’t use any trick room or if it was blocked, slamence being played was quite obvious alongside the rising popularity of dragon moves being carried  groudon as well as kyogre nuking it with its ice beam on an obvious switchin, gyarados gae me that bit of an edge upon these switches, bt the main reason I choose it over salamence was its capability to counter psyspam as well as most importantly lunala, gyarados upon mega evolution changes types as well,  making it much more dynamic in use as compared to salamence also with the nature of the team being most reliant on the set up of trick room in the first phase, then dealing as much damage and finally resorting to the end game clean up of whatever is left of the opponent, gyarados was naturally a better fit given that paired with dragon dance it can transition much better in and out of trick room given that last turn that is usually defensively stalled so gyardos an get mostly a free attack and speed boost off. Talking of stat boosts, the speed is ev’d to outspeed lunala at +1 speed.

Smeargle:

I thought I would find myself changing the last two slots to kangaskhana nd salamnece most optimally, however the team didn’t eall for it much promisingly, little did I know smeagle was the ultimate better option, for why smeargle is on this team: to redirect moonraze maelstorm from lunala with follow me and given its ghost immunity… that pretty much. For the othr reasons it is there to provide enough room for its partners to set up, whether it is comfey;s trick room, lele;s gravity or gyarados’s dragon dance, smeargle can always be there to provide the leverage its partners need, like gyrados smeargle isn’t the most used pokemon but provides the time and space for its partners to snag a win with ease when brought to the correct matchups, given the wish of tailwind I was glad I could use it on my smeargle in place of wide guard, which isn’t after all, all that necessary. Similar to gyarados’s dragon dance tailwind similarly can do wonders when used on the last often stalled turn of trick room.

A few changes of choice:

By the time I was playing with this team I replaced using sunsteel strike with trick room on necrozma which was far more optimal also allowing me a potential situation to reset trick room on its last turn. Also replacing protect with overheat on primal groudon was to help against late game situations vs yveltal and celesteela which would stall out a full health groudon easily by witling away the power of eruption, since groudon only does offense it wasn’t as bad of a trade.

Leads:

Comfey + Necrozma:

This is a lead that can do a lot in a came usually partnered up with primal groudon and tapu lele in the back is the most common lead and composition that I’ve brought to my games. You can set up trick room or you can use comfey; support for necrozma to spread its spam of offense, dependant upon the situation tapu lele can switch in on the side to aid with psychic terrain blocking prankster and fake outs, once trick room is set up groudon can come in with comfey’s support to run through teams.

Comfey + Smeargle:

This is a lead that I use when I am not sure that if comfey will be allowed to set u with ease in the games that I play with it. Usual play is to use smeargle as a distraction to let comfey set up trick room, in this composition if smeargle is switched out to groudon mostly, I can bring it in on last turn of trick room to set up an unexpected tailwind which does wonders in the late game especially.

Threats:

The most serious threat I would face in this team is when facing the rayquaza + lunala core with tapu fini and incineroar core, pdon is at constant threat as well as the pivot of rayquaza taking up ground attacks and tapu fini setting terrain so that fake outs are not blocked punches holes in my strategy, the most optimal play I have to make against this team is to set up gravity and/or double target with my attacks to pick up kos which in turn limits the pivots of my opponents.

                Conclusion:

This team is not the best one out there but I am extremely happy to be able to pilot it as well as I did knowing I didn’t keep up with the format much at all, I was able to get to the 1500’s on the showdown ladder which was by best rating so far in this season, this play on pivots inspires me to do a team around mega gengar with a partner that limits the pivotal doors of the format. This was all for now I will hopefully be back for more, hope you enjoyed reading through.