[VGC18] Outspeeding and OHKOing Landorus And Others? Enter Poliwrath!

[Black Waterfall]

@RetroTyphlosion By the way, that image of Poliwrath throwing an uppercut looks awesome!
 

Quote:Unfortunately M-Metagross is too common for Poliwrath to be consistent. Lives a choice band waterfall to just answer back with a Zen Headbutt to OHKO.

@Hojunhu I am very far from an expert in VGC, but I guess that in that case one just needs to have a counter or check for M-Metagross if one wants to keep Poliwrath, right? After all there is no mon that can single-handedly take out the metagame! Celesteela or Muk-A should be good mons for that role, even with Rain a Bold/Impish Intimidate Arcanine with Will-O-Wisp should be useful.

[RetroTyphlosion]

@Black Waterfall Neither Arcanine or Muk-A are viable for VGC18, and Celesteela doesn't really fit... however, what Celesteela set are you talking about?

[Black Waterfall]

(Apr 4, 2018, 03:35 PM)RetroTyphlosion Wrote: @Black Waterfall Neither Arcanine or Muk-A are viable for VGC18, and Celesteela doesn't really fit... however, what Celesteela set are you talking about?

@RetroTyphlosion I am not really familiar with VGC18 but I have the impression that this defensive Celesteela set has a nice synergy with your Poliwrath set. Well, it looks like it can at least stall M-Metagross relatively well and even in Rain it can fire off some cheap Flamethrowers back: 

• 148 Atk Tough Claws Metagross-Mega Ice Punch vs. 228 HP / 116 Def Celesteela: 95-112 (24.2 - 28.5%) -- possible 8HKO after Leftovers recovery and Leech Seed recovery
  
• 0- SpA Celesteela Flamethrower vs. 184 HP / 0 SpD Metagross-Mega in Rain: 56-68 (16.1 - 19.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leech Seed damage
  

This Celesteela is not afraid of other threats to Poliwrath such as Cresselia and Tapu Bulu either.

I am surprised to hear that Arcanine is not a decent choice for VGC18, maybe it is outclassed by other Intimidate users such as Landorus-T? I think that a Defensive Intimidate Arcanine has a nice niche with Burn Up and Snarl, but I admit that I only use this arcanine in singles.

[RetroTyphlosion]

@Black Waterfall What are the rest of the moves on that Celesteela?

[Black Waterfall]

@RetroTyphlosion This is the complete set: 

Celesteela @ Leftovers
Adamant Nature
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 44 Atk / 116 Def / 116 SpD / 4 Spe
- Heavy Slam
- Leech Seed
- Flamethrower
- Protect

(extracted from this Smogon Strategy Dex entry that I mentioned in my previous post)

[PerchPond]

@Black Waterfall With Celesteela on the team, and Pelipper or Politoad as rain setter, you would end up with a triple Electric weakness in an Electric-type-heavy meta-game

[RetroTyphlosion]

@Black Waterfall What Perch said. Its hard to use any other Pokemon that is weak to Electric on a rain team, especially considering Tapu Koko is on nearly 1 in 3 teams, and Zapdos is on 1 in 5.

Also, 4HKOs don't cut it in VGC's Doubles format. The other Pokemon is attacking too, and we need 2HKOs and OHKOs.

And yes, Arcanine is not viable in VGC18. Burn Up is awful in Doubles, because you lose that Fire STAB in a world of big hitters, especially if you plan to use it in rain. Landorus and soon-to-be Incineroar trump it.

[Black Waterfall]

@PerchPond @RetroTyphlosion Yeah, on second thought that makes a lot of sense! 

Thanks for the clarification guys!