I started VGC late last year, about in the middle. I was a competitive single battler at the time. I was interested in double battles and began to lurk around Smogon and Skarmbliss RMTs to learn from the best pokemon battlers older teams. I soon took up double battling over single battling and started to get better. Black and White information was soon released at about the same time I had a decent anti 2010 metagame team. I checked them out and concluded that Trick Room looked like it would be a successful team genre this year. I used some tried and true double battle pokemon like Abomasnow and also implemented some new pokemon features like Eviolite Porygon2 and Conkeldurr. However, the rules were soon announced and I had to restart my teambuilding with Unova pokemon and team-preview in mind. It started off rocky, but I soon got used to the metagame, which as I predicted, was dominated by Trick Room. However, there was a complex amount of steps that got me to the team I have today, ready to be rated and ready for Dallas Regionals.
I first looked for a decent Trick Room user. I tried using Chandelure and Reuniclus, but they both couldn’t carry the burden and couldn’t reliably set up the TR. I soon became torn between Musharna and Cofagrigus, but a little play testing soon showed me Musharna was a much better pokemon to use. It reminded me of Cresselia, being able to set up screens, Trick Room, use Helping Hand, and avoid some multi-target moves (I’ll get to why that is important in a minute). I heard about Mental Herb being able to block the Taunt and Encore, which beat Whimsicott pretty well. After that, I had my lead set up ready.
My team was defined by team-preview, being a random jumble of pokemon that was incredibly unstable. When the inference of no team preview was made by the Skarmbliss server (:P) I decided to stabilize my team. I needed a crushing lead to always use in battle. I remembered that Musharna was similar to Cresselia, and that Bluecookies used Cresselia in the World Championship Finals to success. I started running a similar team, with Golurk-Musharna, but with different metagame came different success rates. In the 2010 metagame, it worked great. In the 2011 metagame, it was dung. I looked for some different multi-target move users and decided to use Samurott. After some testing I found that it was capable of making 4-0 sweeps with ease, with only some pokemon being able to counter it, and those were extremely uncommon and specific.
I had some trouble with Hydreigon outside of Trick Room, and I needed a counter. So I searched for a little, and it didn’t take me long. I found Conkeldurr’s Guts boosted Mach Punch almost always put it at a point of finishing off with almost any other hit. That was all I needed to let it give it a spot on the team.
I also had some trouble with Ghost and Psychic types, so I needed a powerful counter to both, I found that an Encourage, Life Orb, Super-Effective Crunch was capable of doing severe damage to any of these pokemon with Druddigon supplying the force behind it all. It also could do some great damage to Hydreigon inside of Trick Room, but outside it was dead-weight. I made some alterations to the EVs so it could out speed some threats outside of TR also.
Once again, another obstacle rose in my path. Team preview was back on. Trick Room became incredibly easy to predict, and slap a counter lead in to the team. I did the most logical thing I could think of. I countered their counter by not letting them counter my non-counter. Makes sense right? So basically I added a Tailwind user and changed around some speed EVs. And the most obvious Tailwinder to use was Tornadus, so I went with it.
Finally, I just slapped on a good Tailwind and TR supporter with little thought and was content. Scrafty is a bulky Fake Out user, which I use an unorthodox item on that works surprisingly well.
Now, here is an in-depth look at the team:
Musharna (M) @ Mental Herb
Trait: Telepathy
IVs: 6 Spd
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 200 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Trick Room
- Helping Hand
- Psychic
- Imprison
Most of the information about Musharna was shared in the introduction. I’ll run over them again for you guys, just in case you were lazy and didn’t actually read the intro. Musharna is used for Telepathy, typing, and general bulk. I run 6 speed IVs to out speed a minimum speed Amoonguss outside of Trick Room. The EVs aren’t too selective, just max HP, a lot of Special Defense, and a little Defense to tank some hits better. Trick Room is the main style of my team, so that move slot is filled up. Helping Hand is great when using a field-move, as it helps net some neutral typing OHKOs with Samurott’s Surf. Psychic is not hard to figure out. It just hits common pokemon, namely Terrakion, Mienshao and Amoonguss. Imprison is to shut down other Trick Room teams, as I run EVs and IVs on pokemon to make them work in and out of Trick Room decently.
Samurott (M) @ Water Gem
Trait: Torrent
IVs: 31 Spe
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Grass Knot
- Protect
What is there to say? A powerful field-move with STAB and Gem lets me get some early KOs, making the rest of my team have a lot less pressure. The 31 speed IVs make Samurott hit the famed 90 speed stat to work in Trick Room, which I try to run on all my pokemon on teams with Tailwind and Trick Room. The EVs are pretty standard. Ice Beam to cover what Surf doesn’t, and Grass Knot to hit Jellicent.
Conkeldurr (M) @ Flame Orb
Trait: Guts
IVs: 0 Spd
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Protect
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Rock Slide
My counter to Hyreigon and my main sweeper, Conkeldurr is a major asset to this team. I run Guts-Flame Orb as most people use to get the powerful boost. 0 speed IVs because I waste way too much EVs to hit Tailwind speed. Drain Punch is simply to deal damage and bring some back. Mach Punch is for late game, when Trick Room is down. Rock Slide is my spread move, and if I’m lucky can hax someone. Sorry, I said it. I don’t ever rely on Flinch Hax, as I find it unreliable.
Druddigon (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Sheer Force
IVs: 31 Spe
EVs: 84 HP / 252 Atk / 172 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Protect
Max out the Attack stat, get to base 90 speed, and pour the rest into HP. It is really a recurring pattern, isn’t it? Dragon Claw is obviously used for STAB. Rock Slide and Crunch gain a nice pseudo-STAB from Life Orb and Sheer Force, but they lose out on the Flinch and Defense drop, which is uncommon anyway.
Scrafty (M) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Moxie
IVs : 31 Spd
EVs: 164 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Crunch
- Fake Out
- Protect
I run Scrafty when I feel a Fake Out is necessary in that particular battle. It works well when I send it out, having the same style of EVs as all my Tailwind/TrickRoom pokemon have. I run Focus Sash, as I find that when I run it I don’t have to worry about a random Explosion or Critical Hit. It also allows me to survive Acrobats and Hi Jump Kicks. Crunch and Drain Punch for STAB, nothing else to say about that.
Tornadus (M) @ Flight Gem
Trait: Prankster
IVs: 31 Spe
EVs: 52 HP / 204 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Acrobatics
- Tailwind
- Taunt
- Protect
Well, Trick Room can’t work every time? Having a Tailwind user can sometimes cause a certain edge over the other player, as they have to debate whether I am using Trick Room or Tailwind that match. I run max speed to get ahead of all the other Tailwind Tornadus. I run some random HP as it means I can tank some hits better. Acrobatics and Flight Gem works great. Taunt is just in case I run across an Amoonguss or some random set up pokemon,
Well, Rates appreciated. Thanks!
I first looked for a decent Trick Room user. I tried using Chandelure and Reuniclus, but they both couldn’t carry the burden and couldn’t reliably set up the TR. I soon became torn between Musharna and Cofagrigus, but a little play testing soon showed me Musharna was a much better pokemon to use. It reminded me of Cresselia, being able to set up screens, Trick Room, use Helping Hand, and avoid some multi-target moves (I’ll get to why that is important in a minute). I heard about Mental Herb being able to block the Taunt and Encore, which beat Whimsicott pretty well. After that, I had my lead set up ready.
My team was defined by team-preview, being a random jumble of pokemon that was incredibly unstable. When the inference of no team preview was made by the Skarmbliss server (:P) I decided to stabilize my team. I needed a crushing lead to always use in battle. I remembered that Musharna was similar to Cresselia, and that Bluecookies used Cresselia in the World Championship Finals to success. I started running a similar team, with Golurk-Musharna, but with different metagame came different success rates. In the 2010 metagame, it worked great. In the 2011 metagame, it was dung. I looked for some different multi-target move users and decided to use Samurott. After some testing I found that it was capable of making 4-0 sweeps with ease, with only some pokemon being able to counter it, and those were extremely uncommon and specific.
I had some trouble with Hydreigon outside of Trick Room, and I needed a counter. So I searched for a little, and it didn’t take me long. I found Conkeldurr’s Guts boosted Mach Punch almost always put it at a point of finishing off with almost any other hit. That was all I needed to let it give it a spot on the team.
I also had some trouble with Ghost and Psychic types, so I needed a powerful counter to both, I found that an Encourage, Life Orb, Super-Effective Crunch was capable of doing severe damage to any of these pokemon with Druddigon supplying the force behind it all. It also could do some great damage to Hydreigon inside of Trick Room, but outside it was dead-weight. I made some alterations to the EVs so it could out speed some threats outside of TR also.
Once again, another obstacle rose in my path. Team preview was back on. Trick Room became incredibly easy to predict, and slap a counter lead in to the team. I did the most logical thing I could think of. I countered their counter by not letting them counter my non-counter. Makes sense right? So basically I added a Tailwind user and changed around some speed EVs. And the most obvious Tailwinder to use was Tornadus, so I went with it.
Finally, I just slapped on a good Tailwind and TR supporter with little thought and was content. Scrafty is a bulky Fake Out user, which I use an unorthodox item on that works surprisingly well.
Now, here is an in-depth look at the team:
Musharna (M) @ Mental Herb
Trait: Telepathy
IVs: 6 Spd
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 200 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Trick Room
- Helping Hand
- Psychic
- Imprison
Most of the information about Musharna was shared in the introduction. I’ll run over them again for you guys, just in case you were lazy and didn’t actually read the intro. Musharna is used for Telepathy, typing, and general bulk. I run 6 speed IVs to out speed a minimum speed Amoonguss outside of Trick Room. The EVs aren’t too selective, just max HP, a lot of Special Defense, and a little Defense to tank some hits better. Trick Room is the main style of my team, so that move slot is filled up. Helping Hand is great when using a field-move, as it helps net some neutral typing OHKOs with Samurott’s Surf. Psychic is not hard to figure out. It just hits common pokemon, namely Terrakion, Mienshao and Amoonguss. Imprison is to shut down other Trick Room teams, as I run EVs and IVs on pokemon to make them work in and out of Trick Room decently.
Samurott (M) @ Water Gem
Trait: Torrent
IVs: 31 Spe
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Grass Knot
- Protect
What is there to say? A powerful field-move with STAB and Gem lets me get some early KOs, making the rest of my team have a lot less pressure. The 31 speed IVs make Samurott hit the famed 90 speed stat to work in Trick Room, which I try to run on all my pokemon on teams with Tailwind and Trick Room. The EVs are pretty standard. Ice Beam to cover what Surf doesn’t, and Grass Knot to hit Jellicent.
Conkeldurr (M) @ Flame Orb
Trait: Guts
IVs: 0 Spd
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Protect
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Rock Slide
My counter to Hyreigon and my main sweeper, Conkeldurr is a major asset to this team. I run Guts-Flame Orb as most people use to get the powerful boost. 0 speed IVs because I waste way too much EVs to hit Tailwind speed. Drain Punch is simply to deal damage and bring some back. Mach Punch is for late game, when Trick Room is down. Rock Slide is my spread move, and if I’m lucky can hax someone. Sorry, I said it. I don’t ever rely on Flinch Hax, as I find it unreliable.
Druddigon (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Sheer Force
IVs: 31 Spe
EVs: 84 HP / 252 Atk / 172 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Protect
Max out the Attack stat, get to base 90 speed, and pour the rest into HP. It is really a recurring pattern, isn’t it? Dragon Claw is obviously used for STAB. Rock Slide and Crunch gain a nice pseudo-STAB from Life Orb and Sheer Force, but they lose out on the Flinch and Defense drop, which is uncommon anyway.
Scrafty (M) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Moxie
IVs : 31 Spd
EVs: 164 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Crunch
- Fake Out
- Protect
I run Scrafty when I feel a Fake Out is necessary in that particular battle. It works well when I send it out, having the same style of EVs as all my Tailwind/TrickRoom pokemon have. I run Focus Sash, as I find that when I run it I don’t have to worry about a random Explosion or Critical Hit. It also allows me to survive Acrobats and Hi Jump Kicks. Crunch and Drain Punch for STAB, nothing else to say about that.
Tornadus (M) @ Flight Gem
Trait: Prankster
IVs: 31 Spe
EVs: 52 HP / 204 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Acrobatics
- Tailwind
- Taunt
- Protect
Well, Trick Room can’t work every time? Having a Tailwind user can sometimes cause a certain edge over the other player, as they have to debate whether I am using Trick Room or Tailwind that match. I run max speed to get ahead of all the other Tailwind Tornadus. I run some random HP as it means I can tank some hits better. Acrobatics and Flight Gem works great. Taunt is just in case I run across an Amoonguss or some random set up pokemon,
Well, Rates appreciated. Thanks!
