Team Building Process by Cypher
Hey there everyone, this is Cypher. So, I'm going to tell a little story on how this team was created. It was basically created two days before Nationals because for Nationals, I wanted to create a Trick Room Mawile team. But, I couldn't make a good one in time. So, I went with plan B, which was Charizard Y because I think Charizard Y is a cool Pokemon that can annihilate most Pokemon with a FAST Sun-boosted Overheat (which is funny because we didn't use Overheat at the end).
I was inspired to use Charizard-Y because of Sogeking. I really liked Sogeking's Charizard team since it could be played aggressively. I also liked Leeshe's post-2014 team with Charizard / Tyranitar / Salamence / Sylveon / Amoonguss / Aegislash? (I don't remember the exact team). But I liked the way it played anyways, especially because TAILWIND Salamence.
6/30 - So, I built a quick team, which was Charizard / Tyranitar/ Salamence / Thundurus / Aegislash / Sylveon, but I scrapped it because I felt it wouldn't have worked well. Some hours later on the bus trip to Indianapolis, I talked to Jeudy about having no team, and asked him for help on building a team. I shortly came up with the following:
I started with Charizard since that was the Pokemon that I wanted to use for nationals.
I then added Tyranitar because Tyranitar works well with Charizard due to being able to remove Rain off the field, as well as a Scarf set threatens Pokemon that threaten Charizard, such as Terrakion, Thundurus, Salamence, Rotom-H, etc.
Amoonguss was added next because of it brings Kangaskhan-hate in the form of having a Rocky Helmet and redirection.
I needed a way to threaten Landorus-T, so I added Rotom-W.
I added Sylveon afterwards because it is a fairly bulky Pokemon that can chunk opposing Pokemon down with STAB Hyper Voice.
Last, Aegislash was added to bring a Wide Guard user to the team (which is again funny because we used Substitute over Wide Guard instead) , as well as being another Anti-Kangaskhan Pokemon due to its Ghost-typing.
Jeudy suggested Special Landorus-T over Rotom-W since it could do the same job Rotom-W was doing on the team: Threaten opposing Landorus-T, hinder Physical attackers, and be immune to Ground-types. He also suggested the idea of using Charizard as a Pokemon to threaten Bulky Waters rather than have a Pokemon that the whole team is based around. Jeudy liked the idea of using Charizard and Tyranitar, so he approved of the team.
7/1 - We showed the team to Angel and Zach, and they liked the idea of the team. Zach suggested Cresselia over Amoonguss, because Cresselia would help against Rain teams due to Calm Mind, while providing Kangaskhan-hate in the form of Rocky Helmet and Moonlight. Though, we realized that our matchup against Kangaskhan, Volcarona, and Aegislash was horrid.
7/2 - Some hours before registration, Angel, Jeudy, and I were tinkering with team. At the time, I came up of the idea of Jellicent on the team since Jellicent could do the same job as Cresselia, but make the matchup against Kangaskhan and Volcarona more bearable since Jellicent can burn Kangaskhan while potentially activate its Cursed Body against Volcarona.
So, the final team ended up being:
Charizard / Tyranitar / Landorus-T / Sylveon / Aegislash / Jellicent
The fun part about this team was that we went straight into Nationals without testing/practicing with the team.
The Team
Charizard (F) @ Charizardite Y **Utsuho/ Re-Class/ Neptune
Level: 50
Trait: Blaze
EVs: 108 HP / 52 Def / 180 SAtk / 164 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- Solar Beam
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Protect
Jeudy: Jun pitched the idea of Chartar for nationals on our bus ride and I was intrigued since I really haven't thought much about Charizard this whole season. I did not like the idea of Charizard being built around but I did like the idea of Charizard being a Pokemon added to a team that wanted a fire type that also dealt with bulky waters. Charizard performed amazingly at the event. The set is pretty simple and was made so we can deal with a wide variety of things given the tournament had over 400 players. Flamethrower was overall consistent, Solar beam was for the bulky waters and hp ground was for Heatran which came in play allowing me to win a 1v1 vs a Heatran in day 1.
Angel: All season Charizard was a pokemon I never knew if I liked or not. This metagame lacks a good amount of fire types and I was never really sold on any of them but Charizard was one of 2 fire types that could handle bulky waters(other being Ninetales) that I expected to see at nationals. When Jeudy and Jun came to me with the idea of Charizard I was actually pretty satisfied with it because the idea behind Charizard wasn't that it would be a centerpiece of the team but rather a pokemon that would fill holes in the team. I actually didn't bring Charizard often during day 1(brought 2 of 9 rounds) but in day 2 I brought it 5 of the 6 rounds. The moveset was something I enjoyed a lot. Charizard wasn't a "nuke" but rather a consistent attacking fire type that did its job of eliminating problems the team had such as Aegislash, Amoonguss and water types like Milotic and Rotom-W. I never once missed having Heat Wave or Overheat, Flamethrower was exactly what I wanted in a fire move.
Jun: I felt Charizard was underrated going into Nationals because of the constant pressure it could bring with Sun-boosted Fire-type moves. I really wished Charizard had Overheat so it could nuke opposing Pokemon, but I felt the moveset was the right one to bring. Flamethrower goes through Wide Guard and deals more damage than Heat Wave. Solar Beam threatens bulky waters. HP Ground threatens Heatran who thinks it can wall our Charizard. I also wished that we used Fire Blast instead of Flamethrower for more damage, but knowing my luck, it would probably have missed a lot so I'm really content with having Flamethrower instead.
Tyranitar (M) @ Choice Scarf **Yuugi/ Water Oni/ Vert
Level: 50
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 12 HP / 236 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Ice Punch
- Superpower
Jeudy: Tyranitar is my favorite scarf Pokemon in this game. Having a fast STAB rockslide is really great in this game. Tyranitar unlike the other fast STAB rock slider Terrakion can actually take hits. Sand stream was also really good for chip damage which allowed for Pokemon like Jellicent and Aegislash set up for end game. Tyranitar was also a strong performer in this tournament. Ice punch was chosen again for coverage against a wide variety of Pokemon and if my opponent was not running scarfed Lando-T, Tyranitar just won.
Angel: I normally dislike Choice Scarf pokemon but Tyranitar was a pokemon that didn't mind having its move choice limited. Unlike Landorus-T, Tyranitar's Rock Slide's hurt so it could stay in and spam Damaging Rock Slides while potentially getting Flinches. Tyranitar also has great natural bulk so even though it has no defensive investment it was an easy switch in to a lot of attacks, The moveset is pretty simple though we considered using Stone edge over Ice Punch to deal with Thundurus or Charizard/Volcarona + Wide guard but we decided there would be more situations where we would want Ice Punch instead.
Jun: I liked Tyranitar because it's job was simple - change the weather, threaten many Pokemon with its coverage, and chunk a lot of Pokemon with Rock Slide. I really wished we had room for Smack Down because I thought it could be a really cool tech since Smack Down bypasses Wide Guard, and lets Landorus-T hit Flying-types and Levitate Pokemon with Earth Power, e.g. Rotom-W. It's also 100% accurate compared to the 90% accurate Rock Slide, which missed a whole bunch of times for me...
Landorus-T (M) @ Life Orb **Tenshi/ Carrier hime/ Noire
Level: 50
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 244 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Earth Power
- Stone Edge
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect
Jeudy: My one contribution to this team and probably my favorite set on Landorus-T since the regional series ended. Before using this team I was planning on taking a fake Gardevoir Trickroom team with special lando-T. When Jun shown me he wanted to use Chartar I felt he needed an intimidate user that can deal with Landorus-T. I immediately tried to push special Lando-t to compliment the two and it was definitely a great addition. Being able to KO heatran through shuca, , and various other pokemon who didn't feel threatened by Lando-t after intimidate such as Opposing Lando-t , and Mawile. In the actual tournament Lando-T pretty much caught everyone I played off guard allowing me to win many games. It was definitely the mvp of my tournament run.
Angel: God do I love Special Attacking Landorus-T. Special attacking ground moves are so good right now. There are a bunch of teams that have 3 Ground weaknesses and slap on Wide Guard and to "Patch up" that weakness. Well that doesn't work when dealing with this monster! This is something Jeudy had been testing on a few different teams and liked a lot and when he mentioned this set I quickly jumped on board as this is essentially the same Landorus I used at Georgia regionals except changing the forme so we could have Intimidate. Hidden Power Ice let us deal with opposing Landorus and Salamence, while Stone edge was dealt with Charizard and Volcarona which go down in one shot even with the -Atk nature.
Jun: There's pretty much nothing else to say when Jeudy and Angel said it all. Landorus-T did its job of taking down/chunking a lot of Pokemon. I also really wished it could have ran Smack Down, but Stone Edge was needed since it KOes Thundurus. As I stated before though, Smack Down has 100% accuracy compared to Stone Edge's 80% accuracy...
Sylveon (F) @ Pixie Plate **Reisen/ Hoppo/ Blanc
Level: 50
Trait: Pixilate
EVs: 156 HP / 188 Def / 120 SAtk / 44 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Hyper Voice
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Calm Mind
- Protect
Jeudy: Sylveon has always been awkward in team building for me because I never knew when to use it. Angel mentioned how Charizard forced switches when paired with Sylveon allowing me to get free calm minds up. I also believe Fire/Ground/Fairy attacks offered great offensive pressure making Chary . Lando-T, and Sylveon became a really scary core. In tournament play Sylveon was the weakest performing of the 6 but it served it's role in every match I bought it. It's really hard to call it the weakest performing but all 6 Pokemon were amazing this tournament.
Angel: This set was originally going to be an Assault Vest set Simon used at the practice tournament but I never really liked the idea of using a Sylveon without a boosting item. Calm Mind was something Enosh and Harrison brought up a while back(though they used Life Orb) and ended up having success for them at Regionals. Once Sylveon set up a Calm Mind it became something that people were forced to deal with as Calm Mind Boosted Pixie Plate Hyper Voices chunked just about everything along with making Sylveon an even bigger special tank. Sylveon was a great help in a lot of my matches and a surprise Calm Mind stole a bunch of games.
Jun: I really liked Sylveon; like what Angel said, it stole games by setting up a Calm Mind and suddenly becoming even more threatening.
Aegislash (F) @ Leftovers **Momiji/ Midway Hime/ IF
Level: 50
Trait: Stance Change
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Def / 220 SAtk / 4 SDef / 76 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Flash Cannon
- Substitute
- King's Shield
Jeudy: Going into this tournament I absolutely hated playing against Aegislash with my gardevoir team because you can be in a winning position and then they swap in Aegislash and the game becomes unnecessarily close. Aegislash acted as an end game Pokemon on this team instead of the usual wide guarder on most Charizard teams. Though as I said earlier treating this team as a team with Charizard and not a Charizard team allowed this Aegislash to make more sense to me. Aegis was amazing allowing me to steal games I shouldn't have won just due to how strong Sub Lefties is. Against Tom Hull round 1 I was able to king shield 7 times in front of a Kangaskhan and finally attack the turn he chose not to sucker punch and won on timer. 1 vs 1 situations like these happened a few times and just proved to me that Aegislash is definitely cancer for this meta game.
Angel: I think this pokemon is easily my favorite pokemon introduced in gen 6 and probably one of the biggest mistakes gamefreak has ever made. Gifted with the best typing in the game along with its insane stats makes this pokemon very scary to deal with. Sub leftovers sets up win conditions on its own if your opponent has very little or mediocre answers to Aegislash. I had a few people ask me why I wasn't using Wide Guard on Aegislash and my answer to that is simple: I believe by having wide guard I am gimping the true potential Aegislash has. Aegislash is a pokemon that can win games on its own and I would rather focus on that aspect of Aegislash rather than trying to support a Charizard that is essentially on my team to cover a few weaknesses. Aegislash is the true star of the show here and in my opinion the real "Mega" of the team.
Jun: I hate Aegislash. It was really weird for me to use, especially a SubLefties variant since I was used to Aegislash chunking everything with Life Orb boosted attackers, or protecting the team with Wide Guard. Although Substitute was cool, it really did not come in handy for me and having Wide Guard would have made my matchups more bearable. As a result, it was the least performing member on the team for me, and if I were to use it again, I would have probably used Wide Guard with Weakness Policy or maybe take the Life Orb and have Landorus-T use Expert Belt instead.
Jellicent (F) @ Safety Goggles **Yuyuko/ Destroyer Hime/ Compa
Level: 50
Trait: Cursed Body
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 4 SAtk / 76 SDef / 12 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Will-O-Wisp
Jeudy: Jellicent was the last Pokemon to be added on to this team. Before Jelli, Helmet Amoonguss, and Cresselia occupied this spot both to improve our awkward Kanga match up. It wasn't until Angel mentioned Goggles Jellicent something Simon used to go 5-0 at our Bo3 Nats practice tour that we finally had a mon that made us feel comfortable about our Kanga Match up. Double ghost was an amazing check against all forms of Kangaskan used at Nationals. The set is standard but we ended up with ice beam to hit Mence. Goggles was for Amoonguss+Kanga/Mence which I didn't run into too much but when I did it allowed me to take the win. I would change the item if I had a chance too. Jellicent acted as a strong early and end game allowing me to steal wins similar to Aegislash late game. I played 4 Kangaskan, and Metagross in day 1 and Jellicent was key to these wins.
Angel: I think this pokemon is very under appreciated. It was the last member added to the team to better the Kangaskhan and Landorus match-ups(along with more Heatran hate. Can never have enough Heatran hate). Jellicent was a great way of completely shutting down Kangaskhan specially when paired with Aegislash. Goggles was an idea Simon came up with and used in the practice tournament and after facing him in that practice tournament I realized how much trouble it could cause. A lot of teams had 1 answer to bulky water types which ended up being Amoonguss. Goggles shuts down things commonly paired with Amoonguss such as Kangaskhan and Salamence. Jellicent could also beat Amoonguss 1v1 thanks to the combination of Recover + Cursed body since Amoonguss could not freely spore you. Jellicent played a big part of my comeback from 1-2 to 7-2 as I played 5 teams with Kangaskhan in my path to day 2. Though I only used it twice in day 2, I would not have gotten to day 2 without the help of Jellicent.
Jun: Jellicent is a pretty cool Pokemon. It did its job: be annoying, burn stuff, recover, burn more stuff, be even more annoy, disable something with Cursed Body, laugh at Amoonguss, etc. etc. I wished Ice Beam could KO Landorus-T, but it would have taken too much SpA EVs.
Conclusion by SoulSur
In the end I would say the team did pretty well almost going 3/3 for day 2, and getting a strong top 8 finish in such a deep field. The team had many interesting concepts and Pokemon I had always wanted to use such as double ghost, special Lando-T, and Sylveon. Although my performance wasn't what I wanted it felt good to be able to play in a live tournament again. I'm looking forward to playing on the world's stage but this time alongside one of my good friends Angel.
- Shoutouts to Jun for making a really nice concept and eventually a team.
- Shoutouts to Zach Droegkamp for helping us talk about the team a bit on the day before registration
- Again Shoutouts to Angel for an amazing season. You deserve worlds and Day 2
- Shoutouts to Simon Yip for telling me how bad I am and giving us support via text
- See you guys at worlds!
