Team Report by RelishVGC/PokeNoCheeseCake
Introduction
Hey, I’m known on Showdown! as PokeNoCheeseCake and PokeCake~ShAI. If you don’t know me I don’t blame you. Until now, I have been a pretty minor part of the Pokemon VGC community, but I have been playing competitive VGC since 2015. I have recently started taking the game much more seriously, and I (for the first time ever) IV bred and EV trained a complete team into my copy of Pokemon Shield. With the team, I entered into the Players Cup III qualifiers. Sadly, I didn’t qualify, but I spent a lot of time working on a team that is surprisingly detailed and intricate. This team report will be fairly unique. While most reports highlight the strengths of a team/run, I will be highlighting the lesser parts of my team. In addition, I will be explaining the process of making my team which was changed as late as two days before the qualifiers. I will talk about strengths of the team as well, but it won’t be the focus of the report. Rather, it will focus on what I did, and could have done to potentially have better results. Without further ado, here’s my team:
How the team was built
It all started when the Players Cup III was announced, and I knew that I wanted to enter into the tournament. It was also right after the Pokemon Company streamed Wolfey Glick’s impressive Players Cup II victory with a Weakness Policy Coalossal. Weakness Policy. An item that scared me so much at the time. With one turn of set up, a Pokemon can be ready to sweep your team in less turns than the amount of fingers on your hand. Stat boosting moves like Nasty Plot, Swords Dance, and Calm Mind were also gaining in popularity. I was sick of it. This boosting, that boosting, why can you just flip a switch and your Pokemon is ready to sweep? In previous years this was gimmicky, but with dynamax, it’s mainstream. I also knew that a lot of Pokemon that use Weakness Policy are next to nothing without it. This is especially true for Coalossal, who (ONLY) has 80 in it’s attacking stats. What I wanted my team to do, was to take away my opponents boosts while being able to preserve my own. A no BS team, as it was.
I originally thought about Crobat, thinking maybe I could run Haze, Taunt, and other support moves that would gear towards this, and with it’s amazing 130 speed, it wouldn’t run into too many faster counters. A couple of problems rose with this idea, primarily being that Haze takes away all stat changes, including your own. So Crobat didn’t work. I kept thinking of ways to get rid of this stupid gimmick that people had. Everything fell short. Until one day, I found a move that changes the entire meta. It’s called Power Swap. According to Bulbepedia: “Power Swap switches the user’s Attack stat stages and Special Attack stat stages with the target’s Attack stat stages and Special Attack stat stages.” Basically, if the opponent decides to Aqua Jet their own Coalossal to get a steam engine and weakness policy boost, power swap swoops it away, giving the +2 attack and special attack boosts to my own Pokemon. Power Swap allows me to not only take away the opponents offensive stat changes, but to also manipulate any other offensive stat changes on the field and to use them to my advantage. The only question now, is which Pokemon should I use that learns power swap?
There are many Pokemon that can learn Power Swap including most of the Tapus, Cresselia, Hatterene, and Porygon2. I considered all of my options, but ultimately decided on one Pokemon rather quickly: Grimmsnarl. Grimmsnarl was nice because it could not only use Power Swap, but could also set up Reflect and Light Screen: two of the best support moves to stall out the heavy hitters of the meta. In addition, the Prankster ability gives it +1 priority for all of these moves which is really nice in most situations. This is the original Grimmsnarl set: (spoiler alert, it doesn’t change much)
Grimmsnarl-Gmax (M) @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Def / 220 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Power Swap
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Spirit Break
The first three moves are self explanatory, and I decided to use Spirit Break as my 4th move for Fairy coverage as well as a way to weaken my opponents even more. With that, the POWAH team was born. I will show you each team that I made with short explanations on why I added each mon, what changed and why.
POWAH (The original team): https://pokepast.es/5be78bd3008db24f
This team looked much different at the start! Almost every Pokemon here is different than in the final version. The main idea was to set up screens in some way, render “BS” incomplete, (this includes setting up Trick Room, Weakness Policy set ups, ext.) and sweep with super powerful pokemon such as Cinderace, Landorus-T, and my own Weakness Policy user: Gmax Lapras.
POWAH 2: https://pokepast.es/1a3e10ea189b4477
There were a few things that I learned while using this team. First of all, you can’t stack screens with Gmax Resonance. This kinda rendered Lapras useless, and outclassed by other Weakness Policy users. In addition, I found that with screens, stalling out trick room was a much better option than preventing it, as I could just use a better option than Indeedee-M. I also really liked the pairing of Grimmsnarl and Regieleki. I decided to go with a Coalossal core, and I believe that I copied Wolfey’s set for that. I added bulkier Pokemon such as Primarina and Ferrothorn to help stall out Trick Room, and added Dragapult to help as a Dynamax sweeper or as a Surf user for Coalossal.
POWAH 3: https://pokepast.es/8263f5d74c245622
I liked POWAH 2 but there were clearly major problems with it. Dragapult wasn’t doing nearly enough outside of Dynamax, and to be honest it wasn’t helping that much even in Dynamax. The team just wasn’t working well together, even though it had a solid Fire-Water-Grass core (Ferrothorn is super underrated btw) and Dragon-Fairy-Steel core. Theoretically, this team was great, but practically, it sucked. POWAH 3 tried to fix these problems, with nice pivoting options, and more fake out, but to no avail.
POWAH 4: https://pokepast.es/33935ba9d5e8a87a
I was starting to give up, but I wanted to give it one more shot. I pressed the reset button. I decided to use a strong mode that was really common/that I really wanted to use. In the back of my head, I was thinking a lot about Stakataka, and I thought it would be really strong on a hybrid trick room team with Torkoal and Venusaur. So I plopped those 3 Pokemon on, gave them sets, (Torkoal and Venusaur are EV’d to Davide Carrer’s PCII finals team) added Dusclops for the Trick room mode, and eventually decided to use Landorus-T in the final spot as it is immune to Ground, (helps the Stakataka and Torkoal) helps out against Fire and Flying types, (helps Venusaur) and is in general very popular among sun teams. CHA CHING! This team felt amazing! But I wanted to make some changes…
POWAH 5: https://pokepast.es/4852cb9630c069c7
This team made 2 critical changes to the previous. The first was replacing Torkoal’s Yawn with Solar Beam. This gave me a strong option against bulky water types that I was struggling against in the Trick Room mode. The second change was more important though. Landorus was shifted to a bulkier assault vest variant. This change was huge. Galarian Moltres was the biggest reason for the change. Landorus could now completely HANDLE Moltres-G. The calcs will be shown soon, but it completely walls even +2 Moltres.
POWAH 6: https://pokepast.es/9349f15c2d426688
POWAH 5 was by far the team that I used the most until this point. Each of the other variations were used for maybe a week max, but POWAH 5 was used for 3 weeks at least. Sadly, I ran into some problems. Firstly, the team was too weak. Each Pokemon could do a moderate amount of damage, but other than Stakataka (WITH a Weakness Policy boost) nothing was really overpowering. If Stakataka gets intimidated or burned, it’s over. Secondly, the team was reliant on two main modes: the fast mode and the Trick Room mode. Grimmsnarl was brought to both, and was brought basically every game. In the years that I have played this game, the teams that I am most comfortable using are ones that have defined modes, but also give me flexibility to use whatever I want in team preview. There are two solutions to this problem. One is to make one clear mode, either a hard trick room team or a hard fast mode team. The other is to try to find more adaptable Pokemon — ones that can work in both modes. POWAH 6 was my attempt to do the second solution. Coalossal can be run in a fast or a slow mode, and the same can be said for Rillaboom.
POWAH 7: https://pokepast.es/72b1058d8ac6ac90
So POWAH 6 didn’t really work. Again, the team didn’t feel like it worked together well. In addition, I really didn’t feel like the Pokemon were adaptive enough to have more options in team preview. So, I tried the other option: a hard Trick Room team. Sadly this team was just a fail. ONTO THE NEXT ONE. (Don’t worry there aren’t too many left 😉)
POWAH 8: https://pokepast.es/c3745c61b793cc59
POWAH 8 was kind of a weird mix up of POWAH 6 and 7. I tried using a team that could use trick room, but also had the option of not using speed control at all, and just using generally bulky mons. This also meant that because the generally bulky mons weren’t very fast, trick room could still be with them. An idea that I liked, but ended up not being perfect, so I kept experimenting.
POWAH 9: https://pokepast.es/f9cc3f8d6449d65e
Some really nice improvements made to POWAH 8. Having a second Trick room user was a big improvement (especially one that can’t get taunted). Also can I just say that Slowking is super underrated? Rotom-Heat is as well. Rillaboom was a solid pick on most of the teams that I used so I decided to go with that as well.
POWAH 10: https://pokepast.es/d4a6df156efb5743
POWAH 9 didn’t feel that amazing either to be honest. Ever since I deviated from POWAH 5, I was not enjoying the team. Then, I battled someone on Showdown!. First I battled him with POWAH 9, then we talked, and I battled him again with POWAH 5. I felt a major difference in how effective the teams were and how comfortable I was using them. POWAH 5 was far superior. So I decided to try to get that team as perfect as possible to take into the Player Cup qualifiers (which was at this point about a week and a half away). My first attempt was adding Pokemon that I liked using from POWAH 9 instead of the sun mode. I also tried using Garchomp instead of Landorus-T. This, sadly, didn’t work as well either.
POWAH 11: https://pokepast.es/23ecdc9cbd26e19e
POWAH 10 sadly didn’t work either. I was starting to get frustrated. I decided to try one last thing: keep the sun mode, but replace Landorus-T with Tapu Fini — a Pokemon that would still be really effective against Moltres, but would also resist the bulky waters that I hated facing.
POWAH FINAL: https://pokepast.es/c89aabad882937b4
The twelfth and final iteration. I realized that I was very comfortable with POWAH 5. I decided to use the exact same concept as that team, with the exact same mons, but make minor changes to make it as perfect to my play style as possible. I first went and simply made a copy of POWAH 5 and put it as my new final team. I then started making small changes that added up big time. The first was that I changed Grimmsnarl’s EVs. I EV’d him to make him much more physically defensive (yes there is a specific calc that I had in mind, which I will get to later).
It was around this time that I found a video on Youtube with Nick Navarre’s (also known as Nails) PCII team that got him into top 6! Why is this so important you might ask? Well 5 out of the 6 Pokemon that he used were EXACTLY THE SAME AS MINE. Albeit, each of the 5 had different moves and different sets but it really helped me gain a new perspective on the team. I won’t talk too much about the team, because you should just watch his team report, but I will talk about the main points that influenced my team. I realized that I could use a 3rd mode, what I like to call “the defensive mode” which is leading Grimmsnarl and Venusaur, Gigantamaxing the Venusaur and bringing Dusclops and Stakataka in the back. I’ll talk about this mode more but it really helped open my team up (spoiler: there’s also a fourth really specific mode that I will talk about later).
One change inspired by his team was giving life orb to Venusaur. If I was going to Gigantamax Venusaur more, then it would be wise to give it an item to make it much more powerful. Another small change inspired by his team that helped me big time was replacing Landorus’ U-Turn with Stone Edge. Nick explains that he didn’t have Rock Slide on his Landorus because the flinch change isn’t as necessary when one of the opponents Pokemon is dynamaxed half of the game, plus it gives a lot of extra power to Landorus who can all of a sudden deal massive damage to anything weak to rock. So why did I replace U-Turn and not Rock Slide? Two reasons: One, more PP for a Max Rockfall. Two, and more importantly, I was never using U-Turn. I just don’t like U-Turn on Landorus-T. It doesn’t feel bulky enough to be the Pokemon that can take hits and get a free switch in for a Pokemon in the back, but it’s also not fast enough to get quick damage onto the opponents Pokemon before switching. The only redeeming factor would be pivoting Intimidate, but that’s not as important to me as Rock Slide, which is still a broken move when the opponent isn’t dynamaxed. The final change that I made was giving Torkoal Burning Jealousy instead of Solar Beam. I realized that Torkoal just wasn’t doing a lot of damage with Solar Beam, even to bulky waters like Tapu Fini. Burning jealousy gave Torkoal an option against Max Airstream, Quake, Knuckle, Steelspike, and Ooze (each of these have at least one really popular Pokemon that uses them) users and gives me a really nice way to burn the opponents (which helps with the defensive strategy if I bring Torkoal in the back).
That is the final team. No further explanations on how the team was built. But now it’s time to really talk about each Pokemon and what it was used for, because trust me, there’s a lot about that too.
Each Pokemon explained
Grimmsnarl @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
Gigantamax: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Spirit Break
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Power Swap
Grimmsnarl is one of the coolest Pokemon that I have ever used. Anyone who has ever used Grimmsnarl knows that it is incredibly diverse in terms of moveset, EVs, and even items. My Grimmsnarl is the backbone of the team. It was brought almost every game. Setting up dual screens is almost essential to this team. Without dual screens, you don’t have the defensive potential to survive what you need to survive. Power Swap was explained in the start of the team report, Like I mentioned, Power Swap can swap Weakness Policy boosts away from any Pokemon that dares to get it activated, and can take away any Nasty Plots, Swords Dances, and any other attack or special attack boosting move. But that’s not all! Any decreased stats on your Pokemon can be used against the opponent! For example, if you get Intimidated by an opposing Landorus-T, you have a free attack decrease that you can use against their own Pokemon! This includes Pokemon with Clear Body like Metagross and Dragapult. There were two problems with Power Swap Grimmsnarl, and both have to do with Prankster. While it is a fantastic ability, priority Power Swap is unable to be used against Pokemon in Psychic Terrain, and Dark types. This affected me the most against Galarian Moltres, a Pokemon that is notorious for getting special attack boosts in a variety of ways.
IMPORTANT CALCS:
252 Atk Metagross Max Steelspike vs. 252 HP / 172 Def Grimmsnarl through Reflect: 169–201 (83.6–99.5%) — guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Grimmsnarl Spirit Break vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Urshifu (Single Strike): 204–240 (116.5–137.1%) — guaranteed OHKO
Stakataka @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 12 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 29 Spe
- Protect
- Rock Slide
- Heavy Slam
- Body Press
Let me talk about the most underrated Pokemon in the game. Stakataka is absolutely insane, and deserves to be more used than Glastrier. Yes this is a hot take, and no, I don’t care. First of all, let’s start off with the fact that Stakataka is one of the slowest Pokemon in the game. This is amazing for it in Trick Room. Stakataka is almost guaranteed to outspeed every other Pokemon on the field. Mine is slightly different. It has 29 IVs in speed for a very specific reason. It is one point above Dusclops, which means that in Trick Room Dusclops just barely outspeeds it. Why is that? For Bulldoze of course, which gives Stakataka the Weakness Policy boost, as well as making it slower than my Dusclops, and most likely the slowest Pokemon on the field. Now let’s continue to talk about why Stakataka is absolutely broken. Stakataka has an absolutely massive 131 Attack stat which at +2 makes it a force to be handled. +2 isn’t enough for you? Just use Max Knuckle to get more attack boosts. But honestly, you don’t usually need more than +2, and Stakataka can sweep teams just with that. Yeah, that’s great and all, but that isn’t Stakataka’s strength. Let me provide you with some examples to how unimaginably bulky Stakataka is. If it gets sand up, as well as a Max Steelspike or two, it becomes one of the bulkiest Pokemon I have ever seen. With Reflect and Light Screen it becomes even more potent. I didn’t EV anything specifically for Stakataka so instead of the important calcs section, I will show you some defensive calcs so you truly understand how stupid Stakataka is. Note that all of these calcs are very likely to happen in any given game, simmilar situations have happened to me, and that all of them are without Reflect or Light Screen.
252 Atk Urshifu Close Combat vs. +2 252 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Stakataka: 108–132 (32.1–39.2%) — 96.3% chance to 3HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Rillaboom-Gmax High Horsepower vs. +2 252 HP / 0 Def Stakataka: 92–112 (54.7–66.6%) — guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Landorus-Therian Max Quake vs. +2 252 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Stakataka: 177–218 (52.6–64.8%) — guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Glastrier Close Combat vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Stakataka: 112–136 (66.6–80.9%) — guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Glastrier Max Quake vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Stakataka: 184–220 (54.7–65.4%) — guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Kartana Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Stakataka: 136–164 (40.4–48.8%) — guaranteed 3HKO
Stakataka isn’t as bulky on the special side, but is still quite bulky:
252 SpA Life Orb Zapdos Max Lightning vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Dynamax Stakataka in Sand: 94–110 (27.9–32.7%) — guaranteed 4HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Fini Scald vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Dynamax Stakataka in Sand: 120–144 (35.7–42.8%) — guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Spectrier Max Quake vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Dynamax Stakataka in Sand: 234–281 (69.6–83.6%) — guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Venusaur-Gmax Max Quake vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Dynamax Stakataka in Sand: 213–255 (63.3–75.8%) — guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Moltres-Galar Max Darkness vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Dynamax Stakataka in Sand: 123–145 (36.6–43.1%) — guaranteed 3HKO
If these calcs don’t show it enough, then try Stakataka out for yourself. You will be surprised. There were times where a 4x super effective move did less than 10 percent. Don’t forget that I set up screens, and Stakataka can easily get to ridiculous defense boosts (+4 or more) because of Max Steelspike and Beast Boost.
Venusaur-Gmax @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
Gigantamax: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sludge Bomb
- Sleep Powder
- Leaf Storm
- Earth Power
Venusaur is an extremely interesting Pokemon on the team. It’s almost like a swiss army knife. It can be used offensively, defensively, and for support. It is important to note that I considered multiple times to use Protect over Sleep Powder. I honestly don’t like Sleep Powder that much. It’s a super high risk/reward move. If you miss, you could lose the game, if you hit and get good sleep turns, it could be an auto win. I didn’t use Sleep Powder unless I had to. If anyone decides to use this team, switching to Protect is not a bad option at all. Earth Power was necessary because Steel types could sometimes give me problems, so having a powerful Max Quake was really nice. Another thing to note is Life Orb. I tried Focus Sash, but the team wasn’t hitting hard enough, so I switched to Life Orb and the team worked much better. There are no important calcs, the EVs were max speed, and (almost) max special attack to have the fastest Pokemon on the field whenever possible, and to have as much power as possible.
Torkoal @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Drought
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 20 Def / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Protect
- Burning Jealousy
- Body Press
- Eruption
Before I used this team, I didn’t understand why people used Torkoal. I thought it was really bad and all it did was set up the sun. I now understand that it is a super clutch Pokemon that survives a lot of hits, and can sometimes pack a serious punch. Max health Eruption in Trick Room can be really dangerous at times. Body Press is such a good utility move and gives it really good coverage. I had Yawn and Solar Beam instead of Burning Jealousy at times, but in the end, Burning Jealousy is amazing for Torkoal for safe consistent damage, and for a potential double burn when the opponent goes for a max move that boosts their stats. The EVs are not anything specific, I used Davide Carrer’s PCII finals team for the EVs, so I honestly don’t know the specific calcs, but what I do know, is that it was extrememly effective for my team. For me, the EVs gave Torkoal a really nice amount of defense, and to me, this is how Torkoal should be used. It doesn’t have natural EVs in Special Attack, which is really weird, right? But it worked, and Torkoal could still hit really hard while taking some serious hits.
Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 188 Def / 68 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Night Shade
- Bulldoze
- Trick Room
- Will-O-Wisp
What. A. Pokemon. There’s a good reason why Dusclops is the most popular Trick Room user in the meta. It’s bulk is unmatched in this meta. Especially in screens. I don’t think I need to explain Dusclops too much. Night Shade for consistent damage (I considered Pain Split, but Night Shade is much more consistent). Bulldoze for Stakataka, and for Regigigas + Weezing if necessary (I’ll talk about that later). Trick Room for… Trick Room. Will-O-Wisp is the most controversial move on this set (I guess) but it was extremely important to neuter physical attackers both inside and outside of Trick Room. EVs are not specific, I just really like knowing that it is equal at both Defense and Special Defense (174 at level 50). It’s role is quite simple. Set up Trick Room, and wreck havoc. If you can burn a physical attacker in Trick Room, do it. Obviously use Bulldoze when Stakataka is out to activate the Weakness Policy, and if you have nothing to do otherwise, you can use Night Shade to chip at the opponent which can go a long way with this team.
Landorus-Therian @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 172 Atk / 84 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Fly
- Stone Edge
Landorus-Therian is such an interesting Pokemon in this meta. It used to be the ruler of VGC, now it’s not as effective. But it’s still a great Pokemon in the right circumstances. It can hit hard with Earthquake and Stone Edge, and Rock Slide is a broken move. When it’s Dynamaxed, it uses its natural Attack stat to deal really good damage (even with only 172 EVs). The biggest thing to talk about with Landorus is Assault Vest. You will see with the calcs, but it HANDLES Galarian Moltres, and Spectrier — two of the most powerful Special Attackers in the game. Alternate moves that you can use on it that I have considered are: U-Turn, Superpower, Knock Off, and Iron Tail. It has max speed for the same reason as Venusaur — to try to be the fastest Pokemon on the field as much as possible. Also because it outspeeds max Speed Galarian Moltres by 1 point. Note: Slightly more Special Defense EVs were added then necessary, in order to have 1 more Special Defense point then Defense (for Porygon-2).
IMPORTANT CALCS:
+2 252 SpA Moltres-Galar Max Darkness vs. 0 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Dynamax Landorus-Therian: 135–159 (41.1–48.4%) — guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252+ SpA Moltres-Galar Max Darkness vs. 0 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Dynamax Landorus-Therian: 148–175 (45.1–53.3%) — 35.2% chance to 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Moltres-Galar Fiery Wrath vs. 0 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Landorus-Therian: 69–82 (42–50%) — 0.4% chance to 2HKO
172 Atk Landorus-Therian Max Rockfall vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Moltres-Galar: 168–198 (50.6–59.6%) — guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage
252 SpA Life Orb Spectrier Max Phantasm vs. 0 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Dynamax Landorus-Therian: 113–134 (34.4–40.8%) — guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Fini Scald vs. 0 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Dynamax Landorus-Therian: 134–158 (40.8–48.1%) — guaranteed 3HKO
Important leads and modes
Grimmsnarl + Dusclops + Torkoal + Stakataka — The Trick Room mode, set up screens get up Trick Room, and sweep with Stakataka.
Grimmsnarl + Venusaur + Torkoal + Landorus-T — The fast mode when Venusaur can be used well with Gigantamax or Sleep Powder cheese. Note: You can also lead Venusaur + Torkoal for a fast sun mode, but it was generally less effective.
Grimmsnarl + Landorus-T + Venusuar + Torkoal — The fast mode when you are going against high powered Special Attackers, you need Intimidate support or if Landorus-T matches up well in Dynamax against the other team.
Grimmsnarl + Venusuar + Dusclops + Torkoal/Stakataka — The “defensive mode”. You start by Gigantamaxing Venusuar, getting Vine Lash off, and then chipping away at the opponent and clearing the way on the rest of the team with a Trick Room mode. Note: you can also use Landorus-T as the final Pokemon but it’s less effective.
Venusaur + Dusclops + two others that are good against the opponents team — This is the weird 4th mode that I alluded to before. It is used against one type of team and one only: Regigigas + Weezing. Assuming the opponent leads Weezing + Regigigas (which was almost every time) here is what you do:
Turn 1: Max Guard Venusuar + Bulldoze Dusclops. (This makes the Venusaur faster than Regigigas, and activates Shuca Berry/breaks Focus Sash if Weezing doesn’t Protect. Usually the opponent will go for Taunt Weezing + Max Hailstorm Regigigas onto Venusuar).
Turn 2: If Weezing Protected, Max Quake it every time. It is most likely not Shuca and could get OHKO’d if it’s not Sash. If it didn’t Protect then it’s a 50/50. Either Quake it or Vine Lash the Regigigas. Night Shade the Weezing with Dusclops. Also worth noting that if they didn’t Taunt you in turn 1, you might wanna Will-O-Wisp the Regigigas this turn.
Turn 3: At this point the opponent is in a bad position. You will survive a Max Hailstrom from Regigigas with Venusaur. I mostly went for another Vine Lash onto Regigigias, with another Night Shade onto Weezing.
This turn set up is the safest way for this team to deal with Regigigas + Weezing in a Bo1 setting. I went against one Regigigas + Weezing team in the qualifiers. I won because of this mode.
Bad matchups explained
This last lead/mode brings me to what I wanted to talk about next: matchups. This was the weakness of the team. It had too many bad matchups, but I found a way to deal with each one. I will show each bad matchup, ranked from 1 to 10: 1 being a little annoying, while 10 is virtually unbeatable if not dealt with properly.
Clefairy — 2 — Just an annoying Pokemon. It’s definitely beatable, but pairing it with a Pokemon like Moltres or Spectrier can become a potential problem for this team. SOLUTION: Just play smart, expect redirection, have smart switches, and use the teams defensive prowess to its full potential.
Amoonguss — 2.5 — Redirection and Spore are annoying against any team, and without Misty Terrain, Safety Goggles, or Lum/Chesto Berry, Spore can make this team lose. SOLUTION: Just play smart, try to KO it before it gets too many Spores off.
Tapu Fini — 4 — Venusuar handles it, but other than that it’s not easy. Torkoal can weaken it slightly, but it doesn’t help a ton. +2 Stakataka can take it out, but Stakataka has to get to that point first. Tapu Fini has super effective moves against 4/6 Pokemon on the team, and has natural bulk to take most hits, and Misty Terrain protects it from any status that could help. SOLUTION: Be patient, chip it down with Night Shade, stop Calm Mind boosts with Power Swap, set it up to be KO’d by a more powerful Pokemon, and in the event that it can be statused, burning it or putting it to sleep are both really effective.
Marowak-Alola — 5 — Can easily sweep the entire team, it’s just really powerful. SOLUTION: Bring Pokemon to get it into the wrong mode (predict whether they will bring their own trick room, and counter whatever they do bring). Take it out before it has the chance to Dynamax or stall the Dynamax with good switches. Be Careful.
Dracovish — 5 — Can also easily sweep the team with Fishous Rend, and Psychic Fangs is super annoying because it breaks screens. SOLUTION: Dynamax at the right time, Dracovish isn’t immune to getting taken out, and can be taken out easily sometimes. Try neutering it with burning it or Power Swapping an attack drop onto it. Use smart switches, and similar to Marowak-A, be careful.
Porygon2–5.5 — An extremely hard Pokemon to take out with this team. Can reverse Trick Room against the slow mode, and set it up against the fast mode. Can deal a lot of damage with a good Download boost, and Recover makes it extremely hard to take out. Can easily beat the whole team (maybe slowly, but it can) and can disturb the goal of the team a lot. SOLUTION: The best way to take it out, it to catch the opponent off guard, get a lot of immediate damage onto it at one time, making it unsafe to use Recover, and giving you the KO. Don’t let it Recover, take advantage of powerful hits that your Pokemon can dish out. Try to burn it, and if you bring Venusaur, get off a Vine Lash, chipping away at it helps a lot.
Metagross — 6 — Can easily sweep your team with a Weakness Policy boost. Has really good Dynamax moves against the team. Really bulky and hard to take out. SOLUTION: Try to set up both screens without getting taken out. Stall out a potential Dynamax, try to Power Swap it to either get the Weakness Policy boost, or to give it an attack drop. Once Dynamax ends, it’s much more manageable.
Urshifu-Single Strike (without Choice Band) — 7 — Urshifu was one of my most hated Pokemon to go against in the qualifiers. Wicked Blow is a crazy move, that always crits, ignoring screens, and stat boosts. Extremely powerful, and isn’t the easiest to take out. SOLUTION: Try to burn it if possible, set up screens if Close Combat is a problem, but also be aggressive with Grimmsnarl. Spirit Break can OHKO it or bring it down to a potential Focus Sash.
Celesteela — 7.5 — Nick Navarre talks about this matchup in his team report. The same goes for my team. It’s extremely annoying, and can easily take out the entire team with enough time. SOLUTION: Chip it down as much as possible, try to burn it and/or get a GMax Vine Lash off at some point in the match. If it has Meteor Beam, Torkoal can’t help because it can take Torkoal out. If it doesn’t have Meteor Beam, Torkoal helps a lot. Take away it’s Special Attack increases with Power Swap (if necessary), try to not let it get these boosts, and try to not let it get Leech Seeds up. In a Bo3 set, knowing whether Celesteela has Meteor Beam or Leech Seed is super important.
Thundurus-I (with Defiant) — 8 — The biggest problem with Thundurus-I is that Landorus usually deals with flying types. Defiant makes that super hard and almost impossible for my team to beat. Thundurus, like a lot of Pokemon before it, can easily sweep my team, and it’s very hard to deal with. SOLUTION: Try to get Landorus in before it comes in (of course if it leads, you can’t do that), or try to set up the Trick Room mode with Stakataka because once Stakataka is set up, Thundurus can’t do much to it. Stall out it’s Dynamax and try to burn it. Play smart.
Regigigas + Weezing — 8.5 — I have explained this matchup a lot already. If you don’t lead the right mode, it can destroy you, but if you play smartly and specifically, you can destroy it. SOLUTION: Use the lead that I showed in the leads section. Other general tips: try to burn Regigigas, try to KO Weezing before Regigigas because Regigigas is near useless without Weezing, and in general, experiment with the team, try to find your own ways to beat it.
Mamoswine — 9 — This odd and somewhat rare Pokemon can destroy this team. It has moves that are super effective against 4/6 Pokemon on the team. It can easily sweep the team. Talonflame paired along with Mamoswine makes it an even harder matchup, which I have actually seen a few times. SOLUTION: Set up screens, try to burn it, stall out Dynamax, make smart switches, and try to get a Vine Lash off if possible. Recommended Lead: Grimmsnarl Venusuar and in turn 1, Reflect and GMax Vine Lash the Mamoswine or Max Guard.
Choice Band Urshifu-Single Strike — 10 — You thought I was done with Urshifu? NOPE. This is the absolute worst possible Pokemon to be brought against my team. Can basically destroy everything, and potentially can OHKO everything. The biggest thing is that Dusclops gets OHKOed by Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow. Wicked Blow still goes through screens. You pretty much lose against it. I have been up 3–1 at some points and Choice Band Urshifu still made the comeback. SOLUTION: Try to use Spirit Break against it before Grimmsnarl gets KOed, try to burn it. Hope and Pray.
The theoretical counter team to POWAH: (that I made for fun) https://pokepast.es/629b3b8283119614
As you can tell, this team was not amazing matchup-wise. This team is super strong and has the capability to sweep any team, but can also be swept by a lot of different Pokemon depending on the circumstances. For the last part of this report, I want to go over other general strengths and weaknesses.
General Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths:
- If you set up Stakataka, it’s almost an auto win.
- Really good Dynamax options.
- Having a fast and a slow mode gives the team general comfort against almost every form of speed control.
- Most of the Pokemon are very good against physical attackers.
- Can be an incredibly offensive team or defensive team when necessary.
Weaknesses:
- A lot of bad matchups. (See above)
- Having only a few modes means you don’t have versatility in team preview.
- Sometimes you want more damage output out of the team.
- The team is very dependent on Grimmsnarl.
- Other screen teams can cause problems.
Conclusions and Takeaways
My final record in the Players Cup III qualifiers was 28–17 with a record of:
Day 1: 10–5
Day 2: 8–7
Day 3: 10–5
My final rating was 1622 and I was 1295th in the world.
I, like everyone else, had some really lucky battles, really unlucky battles, and some really stupid mistakes. I’m extremely happy and proud of my results and what I have been through since 2015 to progress and get better at the game. I have started to take the game much more seriously, and I am on the way to getting to a much better result in the next major Pokemon tournament. This was also the first time I IV bred and EV trained a whole team so I am really proud about that too. I also know that with a few better games (which I can think of at least one that I should’ve won) I would have had a chance to qualify. So I’m not worried. Don’t worry, I’ll be back. I will get better. Regardless, like I said at the start, I love teambuilding. So if you have any ideas for this team, for a new team, or for anything VGC related at all (doesn’t have to be teambuilding) DM me on Pokemon Showdown! I got to show you the process of my team being built, details on each and every Pokemon, each and every mode that I used, and the bad matchups that this team had to face that ultimately was this team’s biggest downfall. I really appreciate you taking out time to read the team report, I hope you learned a little bit, and I hope to be making many more team reports in the future!