#117 Seadra

croissant · Feb 18, 2017, 08:53 PM

Alright so since I assume no one will post a team in the next 1 hour and 12 mins, the voting phase will start now! Please vote for your favourite team between these:

Team 1 (by @Aquarium1)

Team 2 (by @"Elly")

croissant · Feb 20, 2017, 05:45 AM

The winning team is Team 2 by @Elly! Congratulations!

This Week's Pokémon and Format: Nihilego for VGC 2017.

[Image: nihilego.gif]

For this week, you'll have to build a VGC team around Nihilego. It's not used very much, but it's still a very potent threat, so let's see what you guys can come up with!

Rockycombo · Feb 20, 2017, 08:56 AM

Kudos to Elly! Both were solid teams (and nearly identical), but Volcanora adds another flying weakness by doubling up on the bug types, without combating the water like Charizard's drought.

Marcusube · (This post was last modified: Feb 21, 2017, 05:10 AM by Marcusube.)

"Ol No Name" - VGC'17 (credit to @"Squeab" for the name)

Just a quick team I threw together. I liked the idea of using Sand around Nihilego due to it getting a SpDef boost in the sand and this calc impressed me

252+ SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Nihilego in Sand: 138-164 (75 - 89.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

From the start, I intended on using scarf Nihilego as a counter measure again Garchomp who currently tends to run the Choice Scarf very often. Scarf also allows me to outspeed Kartana, Salazzle and Tapu Koko provided they aren't holding a scarf themselves or have been influenced by speed control (Tailwind, Thunder Wave (on me) and so forth)

Due to my Nihilego being at a high base speed, to offset that I chose Gigalith. Gigalith may share weaknesses with Nihilego but I found that being an answer to Trick Room, a Sandstorm setter and a strong physical attacker with a good STAB more than made up for the loss in defensive synergy

Stoutland takes advantage of the Sandstorm and outspeeds most threats. He's my Z user as I found Z-Giga Impact to be a good means of dealing a fast 200 BP damage that can OHKO an unprepared opponent. After You is a tech I use as a last ditch effort to flinch the opponent down with Gigalith's Rock Slide or simply to get an ally to fire off a move to turn the tides of the battle as Stoutland only running Normal moves cannot cover Steel

,

and

Provided that Gigalith does break weather teams with its own ability and matches up well against Sun and Hail, I needed a secondary answer to Rain teams as well as Water

types. Tapu Koko does this job very well. I opt for Focus Sash (and yes, I'm aware that Sandstorm breaks the sash) to give Koko a free turn before fainting and Sky Drop is to disrupt Trick Room set up or interrupt an attack that could be fatal to an ally. Hidden Power Fire over Dazzling Gleam because my team has a huge weakness to Kartana

Tapu Fini gives me a second Terrain option and it hits relatively hard with the Choice Specs. It's a filler that I've found useful in spite of me not having a solid reason to have it here other than it being good stuff

Garchomp is my answer for Muk, opposing Tapu Koko, Marowak, Toxapex, Tapu Lele (provided Poison Jab can OHKO the variant) and Arcanine

I've played around 4-5 test matches with it and I'm around the 1270s - 1300s on the Showdown VGC ladder

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7vgc2017-536588050
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7vgc2017-536586448
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7vgc2017-536584010
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7vgc2017-536582653

Black117 · Feb 24, 2017, 01:21 AM

Get in the Bag

So aside the crappy and cringe title I've just made, this was a team built around offensive Nihilego and having some proper support for it. One of the main issues with Nihilego is its weaknesses to Steel-, Water-, Psychic-, and most notably its quad weakness to Ground-type Pokemon. At first, wanted to make a hyper offensive team centered around Nihilego, though every time I've notice Garchomp (especially scarf sets) can mess up Nihilego. After some thought, might as well go with providing Nihilego a good defensive backbone to find cover whenever its threaten by say Garchomp, Kartana, Tapu Lele, Fini, Celesteela, etc.

Starting with the featured Pokemon, Nihilego is mainly here to threaten opposing Arcanine and Tapus with its main STAB options with HP Ice to cover for slower and weaken Garchomp that won't pull a fast one. For item choice, Focus Sash is opted to allow for Nihilego to live one fatal hit from say a random Ground-type High Horse Power from Snorlax, though at the cost of losing its offensive potential. Despite the lack of power, the team Nihilego is based on can somewhat make up for it as they progressively chip away at the opponent until they are weak enough to where Nihilego can sweep.

Gastrodon is here mainly to counter rain-based teams and redirect any harmful Water-type hits away from Nihilego. Thanks to its typing, Gastrodon is one of the few Pokemon who can handle Fire- and Steel-type Pokemon and can threaten opposing Ground-types with its STAB Scald and Ice Beam. Toxic is listed here to wear down bulky threats such as Milotic, Snorlax, Porygon2, etc to ensure they aren't extremely threatening in the long-run. Even with standard recovery in Recover, can't have enough with the Wiki Berry so Gastrodon can recover about 50% of its HP when at below 25%.

Here's something of a weird set few people might know: Assault Vest Aloe Vera Woofers. See the thing is Woofers love military-style vests since they chew on it all day. Like you know what would be better.... Aloe Vera Woofers in Tuxs....

Jokes aside, Assault Vest Arcanine is surely a strange site, but it was made to somewhat be a balance of a defensive and offensive variants while being a pivot of sorts. With the item, Arcanine gains an increased special defense stats which allow it to tank some strong special hits, even Z-Thunderbolt from Tapu Koko and Psychic-Terrain boosted Psychic from Tapu Lele. Flare Blitz is mainly there for STAB for Steel-, Grass-, Bug, and Ice-types. Wild Charge is for Water-types which can be annoying for this team if Gastrodon isn't present. Bulldoze is my team's sad attempt of speed control, which reduces the speed by one stage. This can be useful for my there Pokemon who lack speed options. Finally Extreme Speed is there for priority, though it can be replace for something like Snarl to reduce the damage of special attackers.

Celesteela is honestly the main anchor of this team as without it, Nihilego loses a vital partner who's not only immune to Ground-types, but can them on 1v1. The moveset is fairly standard with Heavy Slam for general STAB and Flamethrower to pressure opposing Celesteela and Kartana. Leech Seed provides Celesteela recovery and chips away at the opponent's HP gradually to where they have to switch out. Will like to note this is a specially defensive Celesteela, so it can actually raise is SpD and potential handle threats like Tapu Koko with those beast boosts.

This Tapu Bulu set is inspired by this guy I've battled one time on PS, but don't know the exact set or EVs. Mainly the goal of this Tapu Bulu is to pressure opposing Water-types and even those it resist with Bulk Ups setup and chip away opponents with +1 Grassy Terrain-boosted Horn Leech or Superpower. Speaking of Grassy Terrain, Tapu Bulu can mitigate the damage done by Earthquake against three members of my team, even Nihilego. The defense investment allow Tapu Bulu to withstand Poison Jab from Garchomp or Hurricane from Pelipper most of the time without any boosts or items.

Last, but not least, we have our favorite Electric-type Pokemon in Tapu Koko. Though the EV Spread might seem standard, note a couple item choice and move selection in Farium Z and Sky Drop. Farium Z allows Tapu Koko to actually threaten most Garchomp sets with an immediate OHKO and do the same to most other Tapu Koko variants that aren't Sash or invested in SpDef. Lastly Sky Drop allows Tapu Koko to "pick up" a Pokemon and remove them from play for one turn, which can be enough to stop a target or render and Follow Me redirection support useless.

The team itself revolved around attempting to gain good position with Nihilego and one of the Tapus while using the other 4 Pokemon as defensive pivots to withstand hits and gradually wear down the opponent. For the weather matchup, Celesteela/Arcanine can handle Hail, Gastrodon/Tapu Koko deals with Rain, Nihilego/Arcanine/Tapu Koko matches with Sun, and Gastrodon/Arcanine/Celesteela can beat sand teams. For the Trick Room matchup, the team has defensive responses in Arcanine, Celesteela, and Gastrodon to stall out turns while Tapu Koko can temporary postpone it with Sky Drop.

So that's the team. Hope you all enjoy it!

croissant · (This post was last modified: Feb 26, 2017, 07:52 PM by croissant.)

Alright, voting phase has started! Vote for your favourite team among these:

Team 1 (by @Marcusube)

Team 2 (by @Black117)

croissant · (This post was last modified: Feb 27, 2017, 05:44 AM by croissant.)

The winning team is Team 1 by @Marcusube ! Congratulations!

This Week's Pokémon and Format: Gastrodon for OU

[Image: gastrodon.gif]

This week, you'll have to build around Gastrodon in OU. It has seen a lot of usage in VGC, but it can definitely hold its own in this format too. Let's see what you can come up with!

croissant · (This post was last modified: Feb 28, 2017, 07:50 PM by croissant.)

Curse Gastrodon ~~very fat balance i swear~~ Semi-Stall

Cool team I whipped up after seeing someone on the ladder use a team with Sableye and Gastrodon as well. Now this isn't a top tier team or anything, more of a fun alternative to semi-stall, a playstyle where teams can get a bit redundant.

So as I said, I started with Sableye-Mega and Gastrodon because Sableye could use Will-O-Wisp to help Gastrodon's weaker Defense and prevents hazards with Magic Bounce, which is why Sableye is almost mandatory on any form of stall; preventing its teammates from taking chip damage from entry hazards is huge. I added Celesteela next since it covered Gastrodon's weakness to Grass while Gastrodon could deal with some problematic Fire types for Celesteela. Then, I added Heatran to better check Fire types since a lot of them run Grass coverage, such as Giga Drain Volcarona and Solar Beam Charizard-Y, and to set up Stealth Rock. It can also effectively wear down bulkier teams with Taunt + Toxic, which is great. Then, to deal with stallbreakers in general, I added Dugtrio since it can trap a lot of annoying things and help against opposing stall teams by trapping Chansey and Toxapex. Finally, Zapdos was added to check physical attackers better while providing Defog, and it can also use Pressure in conjunction with Roost to PP stall things like Tapu Fini. I originally had Sp Def Gastrodon to deal with special attackers better, but I decided to go with Curse Gastrodon since it can pressure some things like defensive Landorus-T and Tapu Fini and because its an overalll decent wincon. I also had a faster Zapdos to deal with Landorus-T better, but since it wasn't too troublesome against my team in practice, I went with a bulkier spread since it checks a lot more physical attackers which is pretty useful. Hope you guys enjoyed this team even though it's not offense, and East Gastrodon > West Gastrodon.

croissant · Mar 5, 2017, 09:09 AM

alright so at this point there has been very few participation and this week no one, besides myself, even bothered trying so i'm just going to close the thread seeing as no one cares.

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