This is a team-dump for the season M-4 in Pokemon Champions, usually this would be a specified Doubles or VGC post, but I did dip into single battles a bit more seriously in this season so there is a serious (as serious or real I could comprehend to get with singles here) so its a general season M-4 post. Without dilly dallying much and getting off track, let's get started with this!
MasterBall Grind:
So my season started quite uninspired. with 1 goal in mind to reach the Masterball tier as fast as I could. I used the same team I ran for the majority of the last season here but with a Tsareena over Farigiraf. Blastoise was becoming a much common threat, pair that with the presence of Sinistcha on both rain teams and Blastoise set up squads, Tsareena holds up much better. The utility of taunt is also generally more widely applicable compared to clicking roar with Farigiraf and sareena can guarantee OHKO and become a secondary Garchomp counter when needed with a Wide Lens boosted Triple Axel.
HTR Weirdos:
I had another Hard trick room team in the works in the meanwhile. I had this idea to use Mega Scrafty with a Life Orb Farigiraf. the entire issue with Hard Trick Room the first time arund was being able to set it up perfectly turn 1 with the combination of Incineroar and Farigiraf and then not having enough offense to carry the game through. This duo, with a Life orb Farigiraf solves the problem really well. I originally had a Torkoal in the back here, but in Champions I hadn't yet found one so I opted for Camerupt over it for the ingame version I played. I was really proud of this team and won alot on Showdown but on the ingame ladder I tend to not take the liberty of risks as I would with playing casually online which lost me some games on what would otherwise be reasonable risks to take. I dropped the team shortly after, but still I was really proud of how things went here.
Sunny Sand
Next was a much more serious team. VigsenGaming brought this idea up as his friends had come up with the squad where they had Delphox over Charizard (as seen on my version) and Talonflame had Acrobatics and Protect over Dual Wingbeat and Quick Guard, 2 changes I made on my version. He was inspired by Michael Derbeste's sand team and later on I saw him feature the rising star of the Sun-Rain Archetype. I employed the same idea. weather ball gives Charizard a mid game option to take out mirrors, Delphox and Incineroar easy-peasy.
Choice Scarf Tyranitar was another favorite of mine, being able to surprise KO Garchomps was a huge plus in addition to outspeeding Charizards. Excadrill and Talonflame was a much more common lead for me than I thought here + I got to use Rotom Wash and Mega Venusaur to good effect as these type of Pokemon are usually where I mess up the game. I didn't get some revolutionary success with this team but it was still really fun to play with. Staraptor Sand Shortly became popular after this so we were onto something useful here.
Falling Off:
This is a point in the season where I had alot of brain fog due to stuff going on in life so I wasn't particularly putting together solid squads. I was still messing around with some anti meta or more creative ideas to try to get a hang on something more useful. I tried building squads but nothing successful came up, it was a long burnout for me.
Raptor-Rain
I also made a Mega Staraptor squad shortly after this one. In my vision the biggest threat to Mega Staraptor was Floette, so I paired it with Rain and an Overqwil, I am really proud of the stat spread I came up with for this Overqwil as it hits useful benchmarks. Being a long term Charizard user, this is the team where I opted for Sableye, playing with a Parting Shot Grimmsnarl vs Charizard + Farigiraf comps can be complicated, clicking priority Rain Dance felt much smoother.
Mega Heracross Revisit
This version is an update of the squad I built last season. I tried to make some key replacements, particularly to handle the fairy weakness of Heracross. The final concept was of a tailroom team, much like I had one for the regulation M-A with Gardevoir. Kangaskhan makes a key return with this moveset and to great success. The only major downside is that this Kangaskhan can get stumped if its fake out fails due to Armor tail or is in front of an Encore, when its allowed to let it rip, it contributes a ton to every battle.
Annihilape + Mega Metagross:
This is a concept I had in the back of my mind, it should work with the coaching + Mega Metagross, given that this physical attacking duo is completely immune to Incineroar and Annihilape with a Focus sash was picking up on standard compositions. A surprising addition to this team was Umbreon as a perfect Anti Trick Room mon and having the ability to spread Yawn and Foul Play for damage, I was quite surprised. Needless to say I didn't find it very cohesive or groundbreaking. Much like the other teams on this list, parts work, but cohesion as a whole is lacking here.
Kommo-o and Friends:
Kommo-o was another mon on my mind, it has an excellent Matchup vs the Charizard Y teams. SunRain was also quite a pain in the behind so I teched it with a Imprison Grimmsnarl, but the idea would falter if they packed Spirit Break, looking back Soundproof would allow me to go through Parting Shot so keeping an option to lock out Spirit Break was perhaps was more useful here. The mega tyranitar spread I have here is also really cool. It hits tons of nice benchmarks and it surprised me with its bulk in many battles.
Malamar + Rain
Mega Malamar was another mon I tried to use alongside rain. it was really useful. Incineroar + Malamar, as long as they don't have Sylveon is a pretty solid lead, but the team was still vulnerable to fairies given Malamar doesn't have a way to beef up its special defense.
Gyarados Setup
Mega Gyarados is another mon I gave some thought to. The resultant team was working well for its intended purpose, but wasn't anything groudnbreaking, I was looking for something that feels really solid to get into the in-game ladder and farm wins till the champions tier. I used Sneasler, Sinistcha and Raichu here much like double fake out and Sinistcha works on the Setup Balance teams. The Charizard Y variants matchup is really nice and the team can absolutely juke arch rain as well. In Bo1 settings they were expecting me to have a mega Raichu so they would easily get caught by lightning rod or Volt Tackle
My Singles Squad:
For context on why am I discussing this here, I wanted to enter the July Challenge and not just for the purpose of being a participant. I didn't find a super doubles squad to farm VP with so I needed to shape up a team.
Last season I just winged it till Masterball tier in Singles and was able to get it relatively easy by some thought I put together for the team, after all you get 1000 VP on rankups and 10,000 VP as a season end reward on Champions tier alone. I had the initial core of Mamoswine, Mimikyu and Metagross, patching it up with a choice scarf Pelipper, White Herb Sturdy Archaludon and lastly a Mega Raichu Y. Archaludon was the least brought option, Pelipper was the second last. I felt really solid with the other four. Mamoswine more or less became a favorite to use. It hits like 90% of the format and was my go to lead option in these games.
Mimikyu is one of the most popular pokemon in the singles format, so I was quite shaky on facing mirrors, I needed to do something different with this one. I changed the spread to a bit more bulky that helps me survive a Mega Metagross Bullet Punch after disguise and Life Orb chip. This also allows me to live a shadow sneak with broken disguise much more comfortably from mirrors ensuring I have a shot when going 1v1.
Mega Metagross, the first go around I only used with Iron Head, but here I found Bullet Punch much more useful, funnily enough soon as I switched over I became aware of the Wish Detect Sylveon set, but it was quite manageable. the real beauty of this move is vs Alolan Ninetales. I discovered many Mega Metagross have an Iron Defense Body Press setup going but I couldn't let go of the Ice + Ground Coverage the last 2 moveslots brought to the table.
With Mega Raichu Y, again have more or less perfect coverage, the move I went to survive with this is a 2x boosted Supreme Overlord Sucker Punch from Kingambit as I wanted to win that 1v1. I have taken out entire rain teams with the correct predictions and taking less than a single tick of damage.
I replaced the last two slots of Pelipper and Archaludon with Slowbro and Volcarona. Slowbro was my answer to Mega Blaziken and Mega Lopunny which would otherwise outspeed my entire squad. Slowbro getting 3 hit KO's on this stat spread by Garchomp's Earthquake assured that I win the 1v1 and have it as a safe switchin to the mon. Volcarona was my answer to pokemon like Metagross and Aegislash, I felt like I needed special damage to hit these steel types especially after Masmoswine, being such a nice lead would be taken out in the late game. Flame body is such a nice added bonus + its ability to setup and sweep with Quiver Dance made it all the more prized for me.
Building for the M-5 season: Mega Blastoise, Bugs and Emboar
Mega Blastoise was on my min, pair it with a Farigiraf and a Vivillon and you can get some really nice combinations going. I had this stupid thing on my mind without much ability to put a solid squad together that I wanted to grind my Bug type achievements and get a badge with a Pokemon that I love and that is underutilized in VGC or overlooked. Partly inspired by the generational run of Thazkid with Watchog top cutting a HUGE tournament, I needed to look into this.
Vivillon was the best Bug that fits on an archetype anywhere, I did have a passing idea of a tailroom team with Mega Blastoise and Kleavor in Regulation M-A so I had 4 members of the squad down. Sinistcha is a huge weakness here so Naturally a fire type would patch up well, though I didn't want to use Torkoal as it clashes with the type of Blastoise's water spout, Emboar is one of my dearly beloved in the game so I put it on the squad, this given the amazing coverage it gets alongside the power boost with reckless and life orb, with Sinistcha on the last slot pairing extremely well with the former squad, I had something solid ready to rip out on the ladder. I played with this team on showdown trying to see if it works and then I kept missing SOOO MANY STONE AXES. to count in 1 battles I missed 6 game winning ones... Garchomp is a relatively known issue here so the probable fix is teching on a Sylveon or a Hydreigon to patch up the squad for the tailroom setup and give Vivillon a focus sash.
Looking Ahead
This definitely wasn't my strongest season, the most I could get away with was picking up a team from Michael Derbeste's channel, the standard Gardevoir squad and try to climb up the ranks. The closest I could get was very close to Masterball 1. It was a good experience regardless to try something more standard and test my own ability to play, but teambuilding wise, something that I enjoy the most, I couldn't come up with something very solid to showcase.
In game I was able to farm upto 140K VP and majorly just bought outfits off of it. At the end of the day I can say I enjoyed it through and through. I didn't include the Gardevoir team here for a reason, it wasn't my own. I would love to be a bit stronger with my teambuilding skills moving ahead.
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