VGC 2017 RMT - Rare Kitchen ***** (UPDATED 1/18/2017)

Hi everyone!

This is a major evolution of the first VGC team (or competitive doubles team for that matter) that I've ever built. I think I have a pretty effective group that's versatile, fast, and hard-hitting, but I'd really like some feedback on EV spreads, a couple of move choices and metagame threat handling. I imagine there's room for improvement, but I'm just about prepared to make this team on cart and start playing Rating Battles instead of Showdown.

The team is called "Rare Kitchen *****" because it consists of Double Duck, Dog, hot Koko, Knives, and it's all tied together with a Chomp.


The Team:


Pelipper @ Focus Sash
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Hurricane
- Tailwind
- Protect
Your standard Sash/Tailwind rain-setter Pelipper. Pairs nicely with Golduck, and likes not needing to Protect when Garchomp throws Earthquakes out. Nukes Araquanids and Bulus with Hurricane; spreads confuse hax or burns incidentally by abusing its STABs.


Golduck @ Waterium Z
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
EVs: 36 HP / 252 SpA / 220 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Protect
The other duck. Swift Swims its way to the occasional OHKO with Z-Hydro Pump; outspeeds and Ice Beams cocky dragons lategame. Spreads burns with Scald too and usually dents something before going down. Speed EVs allow it to hit 266 in the rain to outspeed max speed Scarf Kartana, which utterly ruined me so many times that I added it to my team.


Garchomp @ Groundium Z
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw / Outrage?
- Poison Jab
- Protect
Groundium Z gives me a one-time Ground nuke to obliterate things, which is extremely useful because my team forces lots of switches. EQ because it's great STAB, Dragon Claw handles other dragons or hits neutral things like Gastrodon for good damage, Poison Jab really likes to destroy Bulus on the switch. I'm considering swapping Dragon Claw for Outrage for the extra damage, since I usually click either EQ or Poison Jab anyway. Thoughts?


Tapu Koko @ Life Orb
Ability: Electric Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Dazzling Gleam / HP Ice?
- Taunt
- Protect
I'm in love with the Koko. Thunderbolt for massive STAB, and Dazzling Gleam dents things pretty well. Taunt shuts down Trick Room, which I'm otherwise kinda crippled by. I'm considering swapping Dazzling Gleam for HP Ice for more dragon-slaying versatility. Dazzing Gleam is nice for the spread damage but it hasn't really been crucial in most games I've played. Thoughts?


Kartana @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Sacred Sword
- Giga Impact
Hello, wincon. This thing has won me so many games that it's quickly become the favorite on my team. Choice Scarf lets it hit an insane 265 speed, which outspeeds all Scarf Garchomp, all Scarf Lele, non-Scarf Koko & Aerodactyl, Swift Swim Golduck w/less than 220 Speed EVs, all Slush Rush Sandslash, +1 Gyarados, other Kartana, all Scarf Krookodile, almost all A-Ninetales (ties Scarf), standard Pelipper under Tailwind, and the list goes on. Surge Surfer Raichu and max speed Poliwrath/Golduck under Swift Swim are the only major meta threats that outspeed Scarftana. The standard "Big 3" attacks of Leaf Blade, Smart Strike, and Sacred Sword handle major threats in the meta and become even more fearsome after a Beast Boost. Giga Impact is there for late-game cleanup - if Kartana comes in and needs to KO something to win, BAM.


Arcanine @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 132 Atk / 164 SpD
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Will-O-Wisp
- Roar
- Protect
This guy is a physical variant of "supportive" Arcanine - with decent bulk and decent offensive presence, he can fill a mixed role depending on the matchup. Flare Blitz obviously nukes things, WoW burns things on a forced switch, and Roar plays mindgames with forced switches and throws a wrench into Trick Room, EeveeBoost and other strategies. Speed EVs allow Arcanine to outspeed Adamant Krookodile, Jolly Gyarados, and Timid Xurkitree. HP EVs take Arcanine's HP stat to a Leftovers number (192). The rest is placed into Attack and happens to cleanly grab 2HKOs on Celesteela and Tapu Bulu. I know it's kind of weird to have an Intimidator on a Double Duck team, but maybe there's another Pokémon that might fit better here? Of all the Pokémon on my team, I'm least attached to this guy. Give me any suggestions for moveset rearrangement or full 'mon replacement in this sixth slot, please!

Conclusion:
So that's the Rare Kitchen ***** VGC team. Please check out the bolded statements in the quotes above, and let me know what suggestions you might have. I get the feeling that I'm close-ish to a final version of this team, but would like to continue plugging away at it until I get it juuuust right.

FWIW I pretty easily laddered to the 1400s on the Showdown VGC ladder with this team; dunno if that's my peak but it seems to have an answer to most situations.

Hi all,

Funny enough, this is actually the first VGC team (or competitive doubles team for that matter) that I've ever built. I think I have a pretty effective group that's versatile, fast, and hard-hitting, but I'd really like some feedback on the choice of Pokemon as well as EV spreads. All of them are 252 spreads, so I imagine there's room for improvement (especially if there are notable threats that I can survive attacks from that I haven't thought of, or if my Atk/SpAtk EVs are excessive in any spots).

The team is called "Rare Kitchen" because it consists of Double Duck, some Crab, Rocky Mountain Oysters (no bull), and one hot Koko. Now that I've ruined your appetite for this post, let's Chomp right into it.


The Team:


Pelipper @ Focus Sash
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Hurricane
- Tailwind
- Protect
Your standard Sash/Tailwind rain-setter Pelipper. Pairs nicely with Golduck, and likes not needing to Protect when Garchomp, Crabominable, or Tauros throw Earthquakes out. Nukes Araquanids and Bulus with Hurricane; spreads confuse hax or burns if it needs to.


Golduck @ Waterium Z
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Protect
The other duck. Swift Swims its way to the occasional OHKO with Z-Hydro Pump; outspeeds and Ice Beams cocky dragons lategame. Spreads burns with Scald too and usually dents something before going down.


Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Poison Jab
- Protect
Running Rocky Helmet now to bluff Scarf, but not really sure if I should continue (it does get some nice chip damage in pairing with Rough Skin though). EQ because it ruins things under Tailwind, Dragon Claw handles other dragons or hits neutral things like Gastrodon for good damage, Poison Jab really likes to destroy Bulus on the switch.


Tapu Koko @ Life Orb
Ability: Electric Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Discharge
- Dazzling Gleam
- Grass Knot
- Protect
I'm in love with the Koko. Discharge spreads Parahax, Dazzling Gleam hits most things pretty well. Grass Knot for Gastrodon instead of the usual HP Ice (because I have plenty o'ice on this team).


Tauros @ Normal Gem
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Giga Impact
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Protect
Junior Z-Mover in training. Intimidate because it's super meta and all the kids have it these days. Max speed + Rock Slide for flinch hax and outspeeding non-Scarf Kartana. Normal Gem Giga Impact hits for 195 base power plus STAB, making it a great surprise kill when Tauros is out of options (does somewhere in the range of 90% to bulky Gastrodon). EQ because why not.


Crabominable @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Hyper Cutter
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Close Combat
- Ice Hammer
- Earthquake
- Protect
My "fuck you, opposing Trick Room" Pokemon. Z-Close Combat OHKOs all variants of Porygon2. Ice Hammer in Trick Room makes me even FASTER and pisses in the face of the dragons sitting behind P2 as I tear through their team with my 43 speed. Hyper Cutter keeps me safe from Intimidate shenanigans. I imagine I could probably rejigger the EVs on this guy a bit; I just threw max Attack for the P2 OHKO (which is a bit excessive) and max HP for the tankiness.


Showdown Replays:



Conclusion:
So yeah, that's my first VGC team. I've had some mild success on the Showdown VGC ladder the last couple days (laddered up to an Elo of 1416 with 61 wins and 33 losses), but please rip me a new one if there's anything obvious I'm missing, or help me out by recommending any better Pokemon for the roles I need, or by suggesting any EV spreads that could be better optimized. ✌
 
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Hey, first off I'm just letting you know that you need to post in the mandatory homework assignment before posting here. Just a quick glace at the team and descriptions kind of shows where abouts your understanding of the format/meta is, not bad but could use some work. I'll keep this as brief as possible.

Your first two Pokemon are pretty much fine, standard tried and tested. That much speed on Golduck is a bit unnecessary since you'll be outspeeding everything you need to be outspeeding in the rain with a lot less investment but that isn't the biggest deal. Rocky Helmet is a waste of an item slot in this meta to be quite frank. With 3 of the 4 Tapus being specially based and pretty much every team packing Intimidate the meta is very much a specially offensive/defensive one, and with some of the most common Physical moves not making contact (Earthquake and Z moves, to my knowledge at least) Rocky Helmet will rarely be worth the item slot. You'd be better off having a Groundium Z and not using it for 4/5 games, as in the one game that you do use it, being able to nail something with a single target ground move beside something like Koko can be a life saver, whereas it is very unlikely that Rocky Helmet will have that kind of an effect on the outcome of a game. Having Discharge as your only electric stab is an issue as you only have one partner to discharge beside. It's also much weaker due to spread reduction and it isn't used for the para chance, it is used to get around marowak switch ins and for the spread damage. Grass knot is't a great choice on Koko since it will never OHKO. You'd be better off running a dedicated Gastro answer, potentially something like Bulu or Kartana. There's also an argument for Modest Koko with just enough speed to outspeed max speed 110s (228 EVs) since the extra damage is nice and the speed is kind of irrelevant a lot of the times. Thunder is definitely an option as well if you're confident that you will bring Pelipper to the majority of your matches. Other strong options are Taunt, HP Ice, Volt Switch and Nature's Madness. Tauros is kind of just bad. It's not as strong as you'd like it, normal is a poor offensive typing and its only redeeming quality is Intimidate, which isn't the rarest quality in the format since you have the choice of 4 very solid Intimidate users in mence, arcanine, krook and gyarados. The same with crabonimable. Outside of TR, this thing is worthless and it isn't all that good against trick room cores anyway. Most trick room Pokemon easily underspeed, like Torkoal, Gigalith and Drampa, while if their team are outsped by Crabonimable in trick room they will just elect to KO Crabonimable before setting up their TR. Basically what I'm saying is you would want something that can function in and out of trick room for this role. Things like Marowak and Mudsdale do this well. On a team like this however, people tend to try to either bring a trick room setter and abuser of their own to be able to reverse the trick room (and use their TR mode against faster teams), and things like Taunt and Roar/Whirlwind to prevent TR setters from setting it up.
 
Hey, first off I'm just letting you know that you need to post in the mandatory homework assignment before posting here. Just a quick glace at the team and descriptions kind of shows where abouts your understanding of the format/meta is, not bad but could use some work. I'll keep this as brief as possible.

Your first two Pokemon are pretty much fine, standard tried and tested. That much speed on Golduck is a bit unnecessary since you'll be outspeeding everything you need to be outspeeding in the rain with a lot less investment but that isn't the biggest deal. Rocky Helmet is a waste of an item slot in this meta to be quite frank. With 3 of the 4 Tapus being specially based and pretty much every team packing Intimidate the meta is very much a specially offensive/defensive one, and with some of the most common Physical moves not making contact (Earthquake and Z moves, to my knowledge at least) Rocky Helmet will rarely be worth the item slot. You'd be better off having a Groundium Z and not using it for 4/5 games, as in the one game that you do use it, being able to nail something with a single target ground move beside something like Koko can be a life saver, whereas it is very unlikely that Rocky Helmet will have that kind of an effect on the outcome of a game. Having Discharge as your only electric stab is an issue as you only have one partner to discharge beside. It's also much weaker due to spread reduction and it isn't used for the para chance, it is used to get around marowak switch ins and for the spread damage. Grass knot is't a great choice on Koko since it will never OHKO. You'd be better off running a dedicated Gastro answer, potentially something like Bulu or Kartana. There's also an argument for Modest Koko with just enough speed to outspeed max speed 110s (228 EVs) since the extra damage is nice and the speed is kind of irrelevant a lot of the times. Thunder is definitely an option as well if you're confident that you will bring Pelipper to the majority of your matches. Other strong options are Taunt, HP Ice, Volt Switch and Nature's Madness. Tauros is kind of just bad. It's not as strong as you'd like it, normal is a poor offensive typing and its only redeeming quality is Intimidate, which isn't the rarest quality in the format since you have the choice of 4 very solid Intimidate users in mence, arcanine, krook and gyarados. The same with crabonimable. Outside of TR, this thing is worthless and it isn't all that good against trick room cores anyway. Most trick room Pokemon easily underspeed, like Torkoal, Gigalith and Drampa, while if their team are outsped by Crabonimable in trick room they will just elect to KO Crabonimable before setting up their TR. Basically what I'm saying is you would want something that can function in and out of trick room for this role. Things like Marowak and Mudsdale do this well. On a team like this however, people tend to try to either bring a trick room setter and abuser of their own to be able to reverse the trick room (and use their TR mode against faster teams), and things like Taunt and Roar/Whirlwind to prevent TR setters from setting it up.
Thanks so much!

I really appreciate the detailed response, and your points definitely make a lot of sense.

Orders of business for me then I suppose:

1) Take a look at that "Homework Assignment" thread.
2) Figure out Speed EVs needed for Golduck to outspeed everything relevant - then dump remainder into HP for bulk?
3) Swap Rocky Helmet for Groundium Z on Garchomp. Point above makes perfect sense.
4) Swap Discharge for Thunderbolt on Tapu Koko. On this team Marowak isn't a big scare so Discharge probably isn't worth it.
5) Swap Grass Knot for one of Taunt/HP Ice/Volt/Switch/Nature's Madness on Tapu Koko. TBD based on team reconfiguration.
6) Replace Tauros
7) Replace Crabominable

Key things I suppose I'll need in my last two slots will be
- A Gastrodon answer
- A Trick Room answer
- An Intimidate

Is Taunt on Tapu Koko sufficient to shut down Trick Room? It definitely cripples Oranguru and halves the usefulness of most P2, but it would require that I have Koko on the field to make the TR blocking Taunt at the right time, which seems overly situational to me (and thus less reliable). I'd like to have a couple of answers to TR and not just the one, but I don't know (given the metagame) if that's the proper killswitch I'm looking for.

I probably want to fill my last two slots with one each of Kartana / Tapu Bulu & Salamence / Arcanine / Krookodile / Gyarados. The former as the anti-Gastrodon, the latter as the Intimidater. Hopefully one of the two is decent enough in Trick Room to not be a total liability should TR somehow get set up.

I like Kartana's speed and versatility; it fits with the hyper-offensiveness of my team.
I like Tapu Bulu's terrain games, and carrying Sub gives it a cushion. Its mediocre speed might make it less than useless in Trick Room too.
I don't really think Salamence would fit - the fire coverage and Draco Meteor might be nice, but it seems duplicitous of Garchomp.
I like Arcanine's speed and general utility; I could go fast or bulky and give it a fair few support options. Rain worries me though.
I don't think Krookodile offers this team much - the Taunt can be covered by Koko, EQ is already carried by Garchomp, and STAB Dark doesn't seem to offer much that's compelling.
I like Gyarados - but I'm already using a Waterium-Z on Golduck, so item clause kind of hoses the prospect of using him. Gotta keep my ducks.

So when it comes down to it, I guess I'm looking at possible additions of Kartana/Arcanine or Tapu Bulu/Arcanine. What major meta considerations should I keep in mind when making the choice? And are there any other good Gastrodon answers that I'm not thinking of? I ignored Freeze-Dry Ninetales because I already have a weather setter.
 
Thanks so much!

I really appreciate the detailed response, and your points definitely make a lot of sense.

Orders of business for me then I suppose:

1) Take a look at that "Homework Assignment" thread.
2) Figure out Speed EVs needed for Golduck to outspeed everything relevant - then dump remainder into HP for bulk?
3) Swap Rocky Helmet for Groundium Z on Garchomp. Point above makes perfect sense.
4) Swap Discharge for Thunderbolt on Tapu Koko. On this team Marowak isn't a big scare so Discharge probably isn't worth it.
5) Swap Grass Knot for one of Taunt/HP Ice/Volt/Switch/Nature's Madness on Tapu Koko. TBD based on team reconfiguration.
6) Replace Tauros
7) Replace Crabominable

Key things I suppose I'll need in my last two slots will be
- A Gastrodon answer
- A Trick Room answer
- An Intimidate

Is Taunt on Tapu Koko sufficient to shut down Trick Room? It definitely cripples Oranguru and halves the usefulness of most P2, but it would require that I have Koko on the field to make the TR blocking Taunt at the right time, which seems overly situational to me (and thus less reliable). I'd like to have a couple of answers to TR and not just the one, but I don't know (given the metagame) if that's the proper killswitch I'm looking for.

I probably want to fill my last two slots with one each of Kartana / Tapu Bulu & Salamence / Arcanine / Krookodile / Gyarados. The former as the anti-Gastrodon, the latter as the Intimidater. Hopefully one of the two is decent enough in Trick Room to not be a total liability should TR somehow get set up.

I like Kartana's speed and versatility; it fits with the hyper-offensiveness of my team.
I like Tapu Bulu's terrain games, and carrying Sub gives it a cushion. Its mediocre speed might make it less than useless in Trick Room too.
I don't really think Salamence would fit - the fire coverage and Draco Meteor might be nice, but it seems duplicitous of Garchomp.
I like Arcanine's speed and general utility; I could go fast or bulky and give it a fair few support options. Rain worries me though.
I don't think Krookodile offers this team much - the Taunt can be covered by Koko, EQ is already carried by Garchomp, and STAB Dark doesn't seem to offer much that's compelling.
I like Gyarados - but I'm already using a Waterium-Z on Golduck, so item clause kind of hoses the prospect of using him. Gotta keep my ducks.

So when it comes down to it, I guess I'm looking at possible additions of Kartana/Arcanine or Tapu Bulu/Arcanine. What major meta considerations should I keep in mind when making the choice? And are there any other good Gastrodon answers that I'm not thinking of? I ignored Freeze-Dry Ninetales because I already have a weather setter.
Just fyi many of those suggestions can be changed depending on how the team functions and what you find you struggle against in testing.
Some things to consider, it's actually quite rare to see Intimidate on Double Duck teams. Just because of the Hyper Aggressive nature of the core you're often better off just firing off a strong rain boosted attack than switching to get off an Intimidate which, considering your mons are often very frail, doesn't tend to make all that much of a difference.

As for team suggestions, I'd recommend taking a look at the common double duck team that people like Tommy Cooleen, Mitchell Davies and David Scott used in the London and San Jose regionals to Top Cut:

Pelipper @ Focus Sash
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Hurricane
- Tailwind
- Protect

Golduck @ Waterium Z
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 140 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 28 SpD / 84 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Protect

Tapu Bulu @ Miracle Seed
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Atk / 108 Def / 4 SpD / 52 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Wood Hammer
- Horn Leech
- Whirlwind
- Protect

Muk-Alola @ Figy Berry
Ability: Gluttony
Level: 50
EVs: 188 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Def / 20 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 13 Spe
- Poison Jab
- Knock Off
- Curse
- Protect

Tapu Koko @ Life Orb
Ability: Electric Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Volt Switch
- Dazzling Gleam
- Protect

Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Ability: Download
EVs: 236 HP / 132 Def / 124 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Recover
- Trick Room


They use their own trick room setter to reverse opposing trick room, Curse Muk to take advantage of opposing trick room (with enough speed to underspeed base 60s like P2 and Oranguru) and Whirlwind Tapu Bulu to ensure it doesn't get set up in the first place. Taunt Tapu Koko is definitely a solid option, but tbh it does really appreciate having all of its slots. Aaron Zheng used a Koko set of Tbolt/HP Ice/Taunt/Protect to place 6th in San Jose, so it definitely has its uses. He has a team report on his youtube channel on his double duck team if you want to check that out.

As for other options for Gastro, you don't necessarily need to OHKO it. Anything that can take Scalds and Ice beams while not really caring too much about Burns has a decent matchup vs Gastro. Tapu Fini is strong against it because it eliminates burn chances and toxic stall. Tapu Lele doesn't care about burns and 2HKOs gastro with ease. There's obviously some limitations due to the team composition on what would fit but there's plenty of options.
 
Hi VGC forum - after doing the homework assignment and having it reviewed (thanks RebornFX) I decided to revisit this team and play around with improving it for a couple weeks. I think I've gotten it to a pretty good place - but I definitely want feedback on "v2" (more like v12... haha).

I updated the OP with the revised team and commentary.

Thanks in advance for checking my thread out. Cheers.
 
Okay, so obviously a big improvement from your original post. As with most rain teams, Gastrodon can be a real pain, comfortably switching in to double duck. You only really have two ways of touching it, Locking Kartana in to Leaf Blade and Z-Earthquake, the former having repercussions for future turns and the latter being able to be scouted for or burned by switching to an immunity. It also somewhat struggles with Ninetales. Obviously against a Ninetales lead your rain will be going up, but even then Ninetales can live anything from Golduck with its sash and bring Pelipper down to its sash with Freeze Dry, making it susceptible to a double target. It also can be brought in relatively comfortably (only fearing the double target or a scald burn) to remove the rain. Arcanine definitely helps with the hail matchup, but definitely not with Gastro. But anyway before suggesting replacements I'll go through the individual sets.

Pelipper set is standard. I really don't think all that speed is necessary on Golduck. There are very few scarftana running around past the 1500s (which is what you should be building teams for honestly), and those which are are almost always Adamant. If you were to invest 124 EVs, you would outspeed all Adamant Scarftana and could invest more in to bulk. While on Tman's team he EVs to live an unboosted Timid Thunderbolt from Koko out of Electric terrain, this is a pretty irrelevant benchmark at this point considering most Koko are boosted in some way, many are Modest and you don't have a different Tapu to change the terrain. I'm not saying this is a good spread, I'm just saying this is what the bulk could potentially be used to survive. A spread of 4 HP / 124 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 124 Spe with a Modest nature could be used to survive 2 Poison Jabs from standard Muk, meaning that in a 1v1 situation you can afford to 3HKO it with Scald as opposed to relying on landing Hydro Pump for the 2HKO (assuming you have already used your z move). There are obviously plenty of spreads that could work and I encourage you to spend some time on the calculator to look for benchmarks that you could hit. Outrage is trash in doubles. You cannot choose your target, being locked in to a move for 2-3 turns is awful and at the end of it you're confused. I can only ever see it being used to power up a Z Dragon Move, but even then it's a wasted moveslot and just bad. People are certainly swapping Dragon Claw out though, Collin Heier used both Poison Jab and Fire Fang while Wolfey went with Fire Fang and Rock Slide. I'm a bit worried about swapping Gleam for HP Ice considering that is another Pokemon which Gastro hard walls, but then again its not like Gleam is doing all that much, though it does bring it in to Z-EQ range. Idk, Cybertron did use this Koko set, but he also had Banded Metagross, Psychium Z Lele and Kartana to all chunk Gastro while you only have a scarftana and Z-EQ. I personally would run a Modest Koko as I really don't think Timid offers that much but that's personal preference. I really dislike scarftana on this team. For something that has so much responsibility making sure the team doesn't fold to gastro, forcing it to lock itself in to a move really doesn't make all that much sense to me. The team has plenty of speed already and I just feel like scarf hurts the team more than it helps. I would heavily recommend changing to something like AV and dropping Giga Impact for Night Slash. This is coming from someone who generally really likes Scarftana, forcing to lock yourself in to Leaf Blade to be able to touch Gastro is bad. And finally, yeah I'm not sure Arcanine is the best fit for this team. It's Flare Blitz's are weakened by rain and I'm not personally a fan of running w-o-w on a team with only no-bulk Koko as a terrain setter since I'm always apprehensive switching it in and clicking w-o-w to remove the ever present Misty terrain, but that's just me. I feel like Flare Blitz variants benefit more from offensive sets such as Life Orb, Firium Z or Choice Band (such as on Sejun's original version of his team). Again, that might just be preference.

Anyway, I would probably recommend swapping Arcanine out for something that can at least touch Gastrodon. The first thing that comes to mind is Life Orb Tapu Lele. It improves your matchup versus hard trick room (Hariyama cannot Fake Out and you can Taunt the P2), 2HKOs Gastro and just generally gives the team some natural raw power. However, that would make the team significantly weaker to Kartana. Muk could be used as something that doesn't really care about Gastro or Kartana (has a rather neutral matchup to both) and rounds out the team rather nicely providing a nice check to the Tapus, Knock Off to make dealing with P2 less of a hassle and quite a few interesting 3rd moveslot options, such as Curse to improve your TR matchup, Imprison to prevent Protects, Taunt to prevent Trick Room and recovery, Shadow Sneak for priority etc.
 

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