Introduction:

My name is Michael Klymchuk and I go by SeaWolfMikes online. I am a Canadian VGC player and I’ve been playing VGC since 2022. I’ve been involved with the local and online community for a few years. I’ve mostly had success in online tournaments as I’ve only gone to a few Regionals. The team in this team report is not a necessarily strong build but I think it is interesting and I was able to finish 33rd out of over 400000 players with it in the first Pokemon Champions Global Challenge. I built the team about a week before the Global Challenge and I locked it somewhat impulsively as I felt I had to better team to use for the competition.

Teambuilding Process:

The team did not start with Mega Floette but with a weird rain core. I was interested in an offensive rain core of Focus Sash Pelipper, Mystic Water Swift Swim Basculegion and Choice Scarf Archaludon. I liked the idea of Archaludon spamming fast (even faster than Choice Scarf Basculegion and Mega Aerodactyl) Electro Shots in Rain. Swift Swim Basculegion acts as another fast sweeper and together they form a core that is difficult for most teams without their own weather to deal with. I thought about combining this fast mode with a Trick Room mode. I remebered that some players had success with Mega-Kangaskhan and Farigiraf on Cart Ladder and in large online tournaments so I decided to add them. I added Torkoal as my 6th Pokemon (yes, double weather) as it as a pretty good Trick Room sweeper.

I tested the team on the Pokemon Showdown best of one ladder for some quick games and I found that the fast Rain mode was working well but the Trick Room mode was not working at all. Mega Kangaskhan was too speedy for the Trick Room mode and I found myself having too much difficulty positioning and getting enough value out of Torkoal. I knew there was potential but this six was not it.

When reflecting about the team, I got inspired by an idea from Scarlet and Violet’s Regulation H. Trick Room players ran Clear Amulet Offensive Incineroar with Close Combat with Farigiraf. Unlike Mega-Kangaskhan, Incineroar was slow enough to be a respectably strong Trick Room sweeper itself. As a result, I decided to remove Mega-Kangaskhan and Torkoal with White Herb minimum speed Incineroar. I thought that I could take advantage of a potential meta development being Kingambits speed creeping each other to underspeed and KO them in Trick Room before they got to move. I already knew what the new Mega Evolution should be. At this point in the format, I already had a lot of experience successfully piloting Mega Floette. I figured that a bulkier Floette can work both as a Trick Room sweeper versus faster Pokemon and as a powerful extra attacker with my Rain core, fast enough to benefit from Pelipper’s Tailwind as well. Speaking of Pelipper, Pelipper is also slow enough to work decently well as a Trick Room sweeper in its own right.

The new Trick Room core felt much better in testing and I enjoyed having Mega Floette over Mega Kangaskhan way more in general. I locked the team in for the Global Challenge, intentionally putting Incineroar in the top slot and Farigiraf in the bottom slot so my opponents were less likely to be aware of my Trick Room mode.

Team Details:

PokePaste: https://pokepast.es/d666300c87e85e25

Incineroar:

Incineroar @ White Herb
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 32 HP / 32 Atk / 2 Def
Brave Nature
– Flare Blitz
– Darkest Lariat
– Close Combat
– Fake Out

Incineroar is my main Trick Room sweeper. It does less damage than a typical Trick Room sweeper but since it helps get Trick Room up as well, it is a sweeper that is already in position on the first turn of Trick Room. The item White Herb allows Incineroar to ignore Intimidate, Close Combat dropping its own defenses and the occasional Mirror Armor from Corviknight. This makes it a more conistent sweeper. Flare Blitz from maximum Attack Incineroar nearly KO’s Kingambits (it is important to respect the common Chople Berry Kingambit) & Farigiraf will likely finish Kingambits with Hyper Voice. Helping Hand Flare Blitz can even OHKO less bulky Mega-Floettes. Despite most Incineroars running Throat Chop in this format because of the utility, Darkest Lariat is Incineroar’s strongest Dark Type move. Incineroar needs to do as much damage as possible & Darkest Lariat has its own utility vs Pokemon that boost their defenses. Close Combat is good coverage for opposing Incineroar, Tyranitar and Archaludon in some cases. This Incineorar is still fairly bulky, so it gets to live +1 Kingambit Low Kick.

Farigiraf:

Farigiraf @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Armor Tail
Level: 50
EVs: 32 HP / 1 Def / 31 SpD / 2 Spe
Quiet Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Psychic
– Trick Room
– Helping Hand

Farigiraf is my Trick Room setter, although its damage adds up over time because of its Quiet Nature, slightly boosting its Special Attack. I gave it the Colbur Berry because I did not want my Farigiraf to get OHKO’d by Kingambit. In a position like Incineroar + Farigiraf vs Whiter Herb Sneasler + Kingambit, I have to Fake Out the Sneasler becuase I need my Incineroar alive to take care of Kingambit in Trick Room and Kingambit cannot OHKO either Incineroar or Colbur Berry Farigiraf without a Critical Hit. The Farigiraf is incredibly specially bulky to live Mega Floette Light of Ruin most of the time. Helping Hand can enable any other Pokemon to do significantly more damage in a wide variety of situations. Farigiraf also has interesting synergy with Mega Floette, as Floette is a great Helping Hand abuser and Farigiraf threatens Psychic into Poison Types that Floette do not like.

Basculegion:

Basculegion (M) @ Mystic Water
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
EVs: 21 Atk / 30 Def / 15 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Wave Crash
– Last Respects
– Aqua Jet
– Protect

Basculegion is a broken Pokemon. On this team, Wave Crash is often boosted by both Mystic Water and Rain. Many common Pokemon in the format have no chance of living this move. While Last Respects is weaker without Adaptability, it is still a great move for picking off opposing Basculegions and other Ghost Types or Water resists later in games. Swift Swim was the ability I chose because the speed allows it to outspeed Mega Aerodactyl in Rain, similar to Choice Scarf Archaludon. Additionally, I did not have a Choice Scarf available to put on Basculegion. The super high defense investment enables Basculegion to live Black Glasses Kingambit Sucker Punch or no multiplier Kingambit Kowtow Cleave most of the time. I allocated the rest of its stats to Attack in order to maximize Basculegion’s damage.

Archaludon:

Archaludon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 50
EVs: 2 HP / 32 SpA / 32 Spe
Timid Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Flash Cannon
– Electro Shot
– Aura Sphere

I saw Wolfe Glick upload a video on his YouTube channel with a Rain team that featured Choice Scarf Archaludon. I thought it was funny and interesting so I tried incorporating it into teams I was building that had Rain, including this one. Sturdy enables Archaludon to live any singular attack. Fast Electro Shot is very dangerous if your opponent can’t stop it, especially considering the fact that it can snowball out of control. This is the move I locked 90% of the time. In other cases, Draco Meteor is a good button for quick damage. The most valuable target was OHKO’ing Garchomp. Flash Cannon is nice coverage vs certain Pokemon like Sylveon, Mega Floette and Alolan Ninetales. Aura Sphere was not that helpful in my run, especially when so many Kingambits were running the Chople Berry. In hindsight, maybe something like Snarl, Dragon Pulse or even Steel Beam to OHKO Mega Floette would have been better.

Pelipper:

Pelipper @ Focus Sash
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 2 HP / 32 SpA / 32 Spe
Modest Nature
– Weather Ball
– Hurricane
– Tailwind
– Helping Hand

Pelipper is the only Rain Setter that works for this team. It works decently well in Trick Room, sets up Tailwind and is a decent offensive prescence itself. The first 3 moves are pretty obvious but the 4th move is a bit different. I originally had a problem vs Calm Mind Mega-Floette teams as they could play around a Floette sweep. I have no switch-ins to Floette. To solve it in a CTS Bo1 environment, I gave my Pelipper Helping Hand. Against an Incineroar + Floette Lead, I could lead Pelipper and Basculegion and cancel out Inimidate with Helping Hand, boosting Basculegion and making a move before getting hit by Fake Out. This trick also worked against an Incineroar + Mega Gengar lead. I could also do neat things like KO’ing Sneaslers before they move with Helping Hand + Choice Scarf Archaludon’s Electro Shot.

Mega Floette:

Floette-Mega (F) @ Floettite
Ability: Fairy Aura
Level: 50
EVs: 22 HP / 18 Def / 17 SpA / 9 Spe
Modest Nature
– Moonblast
– Dazzling Gleam
– Light of Ruin
– Protect

Mega-Floette is the most reliable attacker in the format. It has a consistent strong single target option in Moonblast, a consistent spread move in Dazzling Gleam (especially impprtant when I don’t have any other strong spread moves on the team) and a high burst damage option in Light of Ruin (or Helping Hand Moonblast wink wink) that can even OHKO Kingambits. The low speed investment allows it to barely outspeed Adamant Basculegions while still underspeeding a lot of other Pokemon in Trick Room. The bulk enables Floette to live Sneasler’s Dire Claw and Kingambit’s unboosted Iron Head most of the time. A high HP investment means that Floette is also quite specially bulky. The rest of the stats are dumped into Special Attack in order for Floette to do significant damage to any Pokemon that does not resist it.

Team Weaknesses:

The biggest weakness this team has is its inability to consistently win weather wars. One advantage Choice Scarf Adaptability Basculegion has over Mystic Water Swift Swim Basculegion is that it can use Flip Turn to get out of the battle after weather setters switch in or Mega Evolve to enable Pelipper to control the weather after other weather setters. This team has no real tools for positioning weather against other weather setters, which limits game plans and/or forces awkward positions.

The Trick Room mode is far from perfect. If the opponent is able to make good defensive plays, I may not make enough progress in Trick Room. In CTS Bo1, this was not as much of an issue as my opponents lacked information to make the correct plays against me. Against Kingambit, I gambled on people speed creeping their Kingambits in order to underspeed them in Trick Room. This gamble is risky as Chople Berry Kingambits that live opposing Kingambit Low Kicks can be less incentivized to invest in speed. Incineroar does live +1 Low Kick from full HP but it cannot always be in Trick Room at full HP. Some Pokemon like Primarina and Milotic seemed impossible to bring the Trick Room mode against. If they were ran on a team with competing weather, I could quickly find myself in big trouble as neither the Rain mode or the Trick Room mode would work well.

This team has no Fairy Resists. This means Mega Floette, Mega Gardevoir and Sylveon consistently threaten the entire team with strong Fairy type damage. The only way to manage these Pokemon is to aggressively trade against them. It gets even worse if one of these Pokemon has support that enables them to stay alive for longer, such as a Calm Mind Mega Floette core with Incineroar and Sinistcha. The best I can do is to try to surprise them with something like Helping Hand Pelipper + Wave Crash Basculegion (which actually worked in cts).

Result:

As I already mentioned in the introduction, I was able to finish 33rd. This is my first time reaching a rating above 1800 in a Global Challenge. I finished with a record of 26-4. I could have pushed more, but the Montreal Canadiens were playing a playoff game that evening and I did not want to combine the stress of the GC with the stress of watching the hockey game. My team created chaos that I understood how to navigate better than my opponents because I knew what my powerful pieces could do while my opponents didn’t. My opponents struggled to handle the pressure (even if they had a good matchup into my team) and I was able to go on a great run.

Is the team still good? / Conclusion:

I don’t believe this team keeps up with the current meta anymore. I think this team was carried by my opponents not being ready for what it can do. The Trick Room mode is much more consistent when your opponents don’t know how to intelligently play against it. Opponents would be able to exploit Choice Scarf Archaludon’s lack of ability to switch moves. Mega Charizard Y teams are also becoming more popaular, which isn’t necessarily a bad matchup but I feel forced to bring the Trick Room mode which limits my options. In general, the team becomes much more dependent on correctly predicting your opponent’s move when your opponent knows what the team is doing (such as in a Bo3 Open Team Sheet environment). This is a fundamentally inconsistent way to play the game. Maybe there is potential for some of ideas on the team to do well in a Bo3 OTS environment but not the team as a whole. I’ve moved on to other teams now and I’ve found some success with those. If you’re interested in giving the team a try, go ahead although don’t expect the team to feel amazing. This is the first team report I’ve written so I hope this was a worthwhile team report for you to read. Have a nice day!