 Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of our Pokemon VGC battle series. We are here, there's the moon series, we kicked off this week with a brand new team and as we said in yesterday's episode. If you haven't checked it out already, go up here, I'll link the last two episodes in the card up there for you so you can go and check them out. But like I said in yesterday's episode, we were really struggling against that Kyogre kind of composition. So we have to look at changing things up because it's every match, it's not just how we're leading into it, it's how we're progressing through those matches and it just seemed too much. So we're going to try something different today and this is always a good thing to do, try different things, see if they work, see if they overcome the little weaknesses that you've got. The changes that we've made, we've got the Abomasno for the Gengar and the Mandibus for the Tabakoko. Now the two things that I wanted to do was keep in mind was, and the back of my mind was one thing was even though we're approaching the Kyogre matchup. I didn't want to lose our matchup against Lunala so we need to keep that in mind as well. Now the Mandibus offers us here, it offers us Tailwind, extra speed control support for the team that we were missing originally there. It's a dark typing as well that gives us a good matchup against Lunala. I can sit this thing in front of Lunala all day long and it can't touch it. We've got Snarl on there, Fileplay on there, Tailwind and Rooster. It's got the psychic seat to benefit from the psychic terrain and then we've also included Abomasno on there. It gives us the hail, also benefits curum. There isn't so much of a need now for the gravity on the Tapu Lele so we can take that off. We've got Himpah, so it's got the Himpah Fire already so we've got Himpah Fire on there to help deal with Kartana a little bit better. So we've got three Pokemon, four Pokemon really in there that can really deal with Kartana pretty well. The Mandibus, the Sogolaya, Tapu Lele and the Arcanine. The Abomasno gives us a really decent matchup against Kyogre. It's a nice switching, gets rid of the rain, prevents those boosts and things like that. So we've got little ways to get around it. We're going to have to put this into practice on. That's the thing we're going into today. We're going to practice it. We're going to try it out. Probably try it today and tomorrow and then we might change things up on Friday to see how things are going. If we're going alright, we might tweak a little bit more. But this is a really good thing about this team this week. It's a lot of fun and it's a good way to portray how we can tweak things to make them better and improve them and shine things up so they're all polished and working perfectly in the end hopefully. So that's where we want to get to by the end of this little stretch of episodes next Friday when we finish up with the team. So as always, the pace for the team is down in the description below as well as the poker pace for this updated version. So go and try this out. And without further ado, get into today's episode. As always, if you enjoy the content, make sure to leave a like, subscribe to the channel and leave your comments in the comment section down below. So here we go. Back into it today. Let's crank the music on and hopefully it's a good one. I've been enjoying it even though things have been a bit tough for the team to kind of get a grasp of things. I've still been enjoying it and the team is a lot of fun to play and it's nice playing like these quirkier teams. Sometimes on the channel, just to see it and look at different options that we've got going forward, let's go with some Elite Four today. But like I say, if you've got any questions, queries or anything, do leave them in the comment section below. I'd love to chat about the team and how we're approaching things. But at the end of the day, it's not massively serious. So don't think like, why are you not playing like a standard team? We should see more standard teams. We'll play standard teams, but at the same time, it's nice to look at the format and see what fun you can have with it as well. I think it's a good example. I think we miss sometimes how much Pokemon is a fun game and that's why we play it. But we're going to get into T3 anyway. Stop my rant because we're going up against Kyogre, Sugalale, Serena, Incineroar, Togacus and Ferothorne. Again, the blanks are coming. But okay, so we're going up against Kyogre, which is great for us going into this first game because it's the one Pokemon that we wanted to test our luck against. So we have got the Obomous Snow. It's going to be very good against that Kyogre, the Serena. The Togacus as well, it's going to be very good against. We have to watch out for those air slashes. There is elements of trick room in the team that can be set up by that Togaleo and there's elements of speed control with the Togacus as well with the Tailwind there. Now, I think Manderbus is also a very good Pokemon for us in this team. I think it will bring the Manderbus here. We need that Tailwind support as well. With the Manderbus, I'm kind of forced. This is maybe a little bit of a drawback to bring this up a little bit. It isn't so really that beneficial in this format. Because I need to get the psychic terrain activated. But it's always nice, I think, if we bring the Obomous Snow as well in the back and maybe our own Togaleo. They can deal with primarily the majority of this team. I don't think we're relying too heavily on Arcanine. It obviously would be very nice for that Ferrothorn, but we do have Super Power, we've got Hidden Power. Fire on our Tapulele as well that can deal with that. So I think all in all, we'll give this a go to start us off and get into this first one. But hopefully I'm getting my message across all right. We played a really standard-ish team last week and you saw Precious Blades doing his thing because we didn't run gravity and it was our own fault because we've got no one else to blame. But the thing is, it was a bit of a grind at times. So it's nice just to take a break away from that. Come back to the fun aspects, the things that we actually fell in love with Pokemon 4 and try some different things and have a little bit of a riot on the channel as well. Because like I was saying in Monday's episode it might be those little sparks here and everywhere that give you the inspiration to go forward and try something out yourself with some of these things. Because they do have a lot of potential and they do feel a niche. And I think MandeBos is something that's very good as well. So we lead out with MandeBos Tapulele. We see my opponent lead off with the Incineroar, the Sogaleo. There's the Intimidate Cycling there. We do threaten the Sogaleo quite heavily here and we are pretty able to just set up our tailwind. But I do worry about the potential trick room here. So I'm just going to go for that file player into the Sogaleo. We have to worry a little bit about the potential. Ooh, did we go for a knock? I feel like a knock off could come from this Incineroar into our Tapulele here, which does worry me slightly. And I want to preserve Tapulele, but we do need to preserve Sogaleo a little bit more than that. So I could just get some damage off onto stuff and I could hit and par. I could hit and par fire the Sogaleo. We're not going to get too much damage off, but we'd rather do this because we do see a fake out, get a hit and par. And are we going to see a trick room? That's the thing. We do do bad damage, we put it in range and now we are able to get our own Sogaleo in onto the field. And then we do lose Tapulele, but at the same time, in hindsight, it would have been better to bring in our own Sogaleo in this spot. But at the same time, we risk getting knocked off from the Incineroar putting us in a really bad place. And then if the tail winded their trick room and went up from the Sogaleo the next turn, we're in a really awkward position. So it was just like weighing up of these things here. So I'm going to go for far play into the Sogaleo now. Or do we go, do we set? No, I'll go for the far play into the Sogaleo. We should get it. I don't know if I want to go into the Incineroar just yet with the super par because I don't think we get it. But we can definitely deny the trick room, for sure. I think I might just knock off into the Hozen Incineroar. And we've got Y God now on Sogaleo. So we're going to see the Incineroar switch out. We're going to see Kyogre come in. So this is really good for us because if this is Skaft Kyogre, we're going to be able to remove that Cho Skaft. And if the Sogaleo does go for a trick room, no, it's just going to go for a Protector. So that's fine. So we do remove the Cho Skaft. There's a far play. It's not a bad time to bring in a bomber snow, to be honest, either. Because we can far play again into the Sogaleo. But I feel like the Sogaleo probably switches out here if I'm completely honest about things. We could set the tailwind up and bring in a bomber snow, which isn't a bad option at all. Because then we get ASP control. And I don't think the Sogaleo position it's in, it stays in now. We are seeing it switch out. And it's in a right in the field now. So the one thing that we want to try and do is get a speed advantage over the opposing Kyogre. And we can maybe pull off a little trick. It's going to sacrifice that Psychic Seed. But it might be worth doing. Maybe. Origin Pulse coming out. It does connect with both targets. It's a little bit unfortunate. We might not be able to pull off our tech. But we do get the tailwind up, which is nice. Now we are forcing the Kyogre out now. Although we're sitting on the field now, we've got nothing to hit that opposing Incineroar with. It might be nice to preserve a bomber snow for later in the game. But at the same time, it could be a good chance. I feel like Manderbus is kind of ruling the roost now. Sorry for the pun, but it kind of is doing a very good job. It just kind of breaking down my opponent's options. We could protect the bomber snow here. I have got bulldoze on it. So that's the option I was talking about. We could bulldoze here and bring in Sugaleroar. Activate our weakness policy and start ripping through my opponent's team. I do feel like it's probably not a bad option to do. We lose our Psychic Seed, but at the same time, we want to try and get Sugaleroar in a position where we can start doing some good damage with it. I don't see a knockoff from the Incineroar coming into that slot. It's going to be into the bomber snow and the Kyogre switch out. But as long as we've got our tail wind up, yeah. And we can potentially get the weakness bulldoze. It's a bit of a weird option, but I mean Serena coming out as well. That's fine. That works perfectly for us here because with the bulldoze, we'll proc our weakness policy. We'll put ourselves in such a strong position going into this next turn where we can Blizzard pick up probably the knockout on the Serena. We can attack into the Sugaleroar, take that out with a knockoff. We've got to worry about the Kyogre coming in though as well. So I might be better off just attacking into the Serena with a Sunseal Strike and then bringing in Mandibas for our bomber snow, keeping that around for later so we can disrupt that rain again when my opponent decides to bring it in. Now I think with the weakness policy boost, as long as this opposing Sugaleroar hasn't got knockoff, which I doubt it has, so we're going to see the Serena switch out and Incineroar come back in. And as long as we've got the psychic terrain up on the field, we're not too worried about these fake outs except for Mandibas that's flying not attached to the ground. Sugaleroar going to protect here. Okay, this is fine. So I feel already like the team has options that are kind of supporting our worst matchups a lot better here. So we do some nice damage to that Incineroar. Now we're in a position to take both things down this next turn. Obviously we have to worry about the fake out coming out from the Incineroar that can hit either target now and it probably does go for that. Now I'm going to just knockoff into the Sugaleroar and I'm going to foul play into that slot as well. Oh, do we super par? Because the Incineroar could potentially just not bother. I'm going to actually super par into the Incineroar here. Yeah, and foul play. There's a fake out. Okay, that's fine. We'll get rid of the Sugaleroar. His foul play will be enough. More than enough. I'm just chipped away by this heal and I think a tailwind runs out now. Yeah, she's an ideal. The Kyogre could potentially come in. I don't mind the actual rain being up at the moment because we can wide guard and tailwind. Get away with it. The problem is if we wide guard, just the risk of a knockoff from that Incineroar and there's a Kyogre go for it. It probably goes for, yeah, I think we wide guard and tailwind here. The other option is we bring in a bonus now but we get rid of our weakness policy boosts which is maybe not ideal. I'm going to wide guard and I'm going to tailwind. This Kyogre goes for Origin Pulse. Water Spout. Ice Beam. Ice Beam. Okay, seeing straight through that my opponent. We actually take it. We do get the tailwind off. Are we going to be able to take a knockoff? Maybe we should be able to take a knockoff. Fleblets in the rain. Well, I don't mind this at all. That's fine. Now we know the Kyogre hasn't got protect so we can hit into that slot pretty freely. And I think it switches out. If I'm like completely honest, I think the Kyogre switches out. So I could just roost here and I'm going to super power into the Incineroar. It's going to be close. It's going to be close. It depends. Yeah, there's a Kyogre switching out. Okay, so we've got this one right. We've got to roost with our mana buzz. Now we should be in a good position to kind of hopefully be able to close this one out. I don't think a faint is going to be enough to take down Sougalaya from this range. So you get a roost. Roost it up! Big bird. Here we go. Getting all that nice health back. Hmm. Kyogre coming back in. Now the Kyogre has not got protect so we could just double into that slot with a Sunsteel Strike and a Foul Play. And I think that's the best way first to do this. Tailwind's still up so we'll still be out at speed. Sougalaya's still plus one so the Sunsteel Strike should be doing enough damage to put it at least in range for a Foul Play. We have removed the scarf already as we see the Serena just go for a help in hand. So this should... Oh, yeah. Come on, come on, come on. Let's see. It should be enough. I'm hoping it's enough. It's not. We're screwed. There we go. Okay, so we tip the Kyogre down and now we've just got the Serenas to deal with. So... Things working out all right in game one, I think. We'll go for Sunsteel Strike and just that Foul Play again. Maybe see a full fit because we just got a bomb in the back. Yeah, there we go. So, good game to my opponent and the team actually doing really well for us today to kick us off so... Things going smoother than I thought they would but very exciting, all the same and very good game to my opponent. I did enjoy that so... That's the main thing. That's the message this two weeks like I've been pushing so... But a bomb has stopped putting a lot of work. It's really good at disrupting the Kyogre and the star of the show there was really the mind of us. It's a bit weird having bulldoze on a bomber snore but the only reason I've got it in there is because of the weakness policy that we've got on Sougalé and it's nice to have like two options there where we couldn't bring the arcanine to that game because we just didn't have the room for it but we were able to have a self-proc'ing option on the team as well with the bomber snore and I don't think we miss that third slot. Like we've got protect there, we've got blizzard, we've got grass knot. So that third slot can really be anything like ice beam, icy wind and the bulldoze makes a lot of sense there for this particular build. So it came in useful and it paid off. So let's see if we can find our next opponent. We've got a musical set as always if it takes a bit too long to find the opponent I'll just cut straight to that. There we go, we've got Tofu as our next opponent. 17-92 rating and playing a team, a spicy team. It is Incinero Volcarona, Amungus, Zernius, Tabukoko and Groudon. So we've got that restricted core of Zernius and Groudon. We've got a supporting cast of Volcarona, Amungus there, both have access to rage powder. Volcarona are going to really benefit from the sun here from that Groudon has access to quiver dance as well. Lots of shenanigans that thing can do so I don't really know what to expect because it has really wide in variety. A big variety of moves it can select from. We've got Tabukoko for the terrain support Incinero as always for that intimidate and fake out support. Now what are we going to do here? Cure him, it's going to be good. It does have to be careful obviously of that Zernius in particular but it can be very, very useful. So I'm going to go Cure him and I think I'm going to go Arcanine. I think I'm going to bring Sugaleo and I think I'm going to bring Tabulili for terrain control. It helps us against Amungus. The other thing is like Mandibos here isn't bad because of the ground immunity that we do. It does offer. The only thing is it's going to struggle against Tabukoko. It's going to struggle against Zernius. It does do a really nice job against Groudon and Amungus but outside of that it's not really offering too much. So there we go. Let's see how we get into this one today guys. It should be a good match and hopefully we don't cock it up too much. I'm sure it'll be fine. Sure it'll be fine. But Tufu is a player that's always very highly ranked on the basketball ladder so it's very nice to be able to feature him on the channel and hopefully it's a good match for you guys as well at home. We are going to see Incineroar and Zernius lead out for my opponent and we are going to lead off Acurum and Arcanine. Now we do see that the Zernius is faster than Acurum so that's good information going forward into the match. One of the things I do feel like will happen here is the Geomancy fake out. So on the basis of that I want to switch in my Tapulele for my Acurum so the fake out is not applied and I want to roll with my Arcanine to get rid of those boosts and I don't think that is a bad idea in the slightest so I am just going to make that play avoid the fake out and go for that roll. The Zernius could just go for Moonblast here but I think it's in a position where it probably feels safe to go for the Geomancy especially with that fake out support so that's what I'm thinking will be the play. But no, my opponent sees straight through that just Moonblast into Tapulele which will be able to take U-turn into Arcanine and Groudon I think going to come in. Groudon. Tapu Koko That's interesting. Let's get the terrain control back so that's a nice option for my opponent. The worst thing here that can happen for us is definitely if the Groudon gets pulled in now for this Zernius but it is the Incineroar it's all better it's all better. So I think here what we'll do is Baldor's bring in Hmm Yeah Do we bring in Sogalo and Baldor's? We could pull a double switch and cure him out onto the field. It's just I'm a bit aware that we need the Intimidate really in the back for when the Groudon comes out so we can cycle it, make the use of it against that. I would expect a Volt switch from the Tapu Koko into the Tapulele slot as well as probably a double up and a fake out as well but you never know. Tapu Koko actually protecting here we're just going to see another U-turn out with the Incineroar and this time into the Cura so no fake out from the Incineroar which is interesting. I want to probably pivot in try and pivot in the Groudon but it's awkward now for the Groudon to come in especially with the the Cura mount on the field so that's the thing that you're going to need to try and get rid of but we've got a nice switching now to the Tapulele or Arcanine now I do worry a little bit about this Koko with the Electrum Z but the Groudon is not coming out right now so do I go? I feel like you'd chase down the Sogolale if you're my opponent so I'm going to bring in Lele for Cura just to weaken that Electrum Z does come out and I'm just going to Sunsteal Strike into the Xerneas because you might leave it unchecked you might think I can get away with it I can survive the Sunsteal Strike and getting any damage onto it is always going to be good but it's likely we're going to be hitting into it to protect here there's the Z move and chasing down the Sogolale but this isn't the worst thing in the world because if it's surprising though Xerneas hasn't protected so we will get a Sunsteal Strike into it and we take that pretty well and a Moon Blast as well no Geomancy which is nice so doubling in on that slot I'm in a perfect position now with Tapu Lele because the Incinero will blatantly come in for that Tapu Koko because it's got to feel threatened it's got to feel threatened from the Tapu Lele taking it down with a side strike and the Incinero I think the Xerneas definitely protects now did we make a hard read and say this that I can go side shock into the Koko or not because we could just Moon Blast and super par into it we could Moon Blast into the Xerneas I'm going to Moon Blast into the Xerneas and I'm going to bring in Arcanine I think or do I knock off into the Koko Sunsteal Strike into the Koko it's just that the Xerneas comes in and the Incinero comes in there it's going to be the Incinero and there's going to be a Protect yes should have super powered we should have doubled that slot Protect on the Xerneas 100% still in the position to get it next turn so it has to switch out and we're going to get a bit of damage on to the Incinero it's just a shame that we didn't super par there we're super powered we're really keeping the pressure on my opponent where we are able to pick up a double kill we do get the critical hit there and it actually is in a position where we can probably snipe it now with super power with that critical hit damage so I think we got Moon Blast into that slot and we got super power into the Incinero yeah the Catapel Koko is going to come back in we're going to see fake out into something well if there's no fake out there's a fake out this time round yeah we'll get the Incinero for sure now ooh ooh it actually survives that's because we're so weak that puts us in a bit of an awkward place but I mean we've got the Arcanine to bring in we've got Curem to bring in as well it's just guessing which slot that we need to get right we can't really bulldoze our own Sougaleo anymore which makes it a little bit difficult and where we're going to see the knockoff we're going to see U-turn for sure and probably a bolt switch for the Koko you'll probably chase down the Lele and bring in Arcanine on the Sougaleo we'll probably lose our berry on the Arcanine but at this point it's about sacrificing making the most out of a bad situation isn't it but we've got to preserve our Lele because it's the way that we beat the majority of this team there's a Thunderbolt, there's no switch there so we're just probably going to see U-turn now and the Zenius come back in it's pretty clever for my opponent but I mean we don't lose our berry on our Arcanine which is good but we might have to sack something I mean we can protect Curem for sure on this turn and just bulldoze I don't know we've got bulldoze either but I think we can take it's just about taking the Thunderbolt with Arcanine because the problem here is if we don't take the Thunderbolt from Tabakoko Arcanine goes down and Geomancy gets set up we're in a world of trouble a world, we need the Thunderbolt to proc our berry and the Zenius not to Geomancy it's got a bolt switch that procs our berry that's pretty good for us but I'm going to say the Geomancy comes out here but it's still not over it's still not over we've still got the Arcanine Incineroar as long as you don't see Geo I mean that's great okay that's absolutely amazing for us now we can double into that Zenius slot well I think what we can do yeah we double into it we have to double into it with an Earth Power a Fleeblitz it's just a good Earth Power Incineroar but it can only fake out one thing and I think you do go for the fake out here nah Tabakoko coming in I mean it's still not bad it's not ideal as a fake out though so we're not going to see yeah that's fine and we should get some good damage onto the Koko now which is always useful as long as we're like around 92 or above we'll be yeah Arcanine is going to be in a position to take now we're in a position to actually get the Incineroar now yeah we actually are so we can get rid of the Incineroar um and I don't think we need the Sogaleo anymore I think we would hmm yeah the Sogaleo doesn't really we don't need do we need what do we want grow out oh that's difficult what do we make our minds up with do we just go for another Flair Blitz into the Koko I'm just going to do that it's just a Thunderbolt should take this like now with the Recall on Arcanine we'll lose that and it gives us the opportunities to bring in Tabilele which gives us this perfect setup now if that Zonius comes in or the Groudon comes in because if the Groudon comes in we've got the Z move if the Zonius comes in we've got the Sci-Shock we get the burn there so we are picking up a little bit of RNG to help us out on the way Arcanine going down this works out perfectly for us so we were better not making that switch there the electric train now disappearing from the field like I say we'll be able to get in Tabilele we can even lock into Dazzling Gleam here because Zonius is so low health yeah it's a Groudon this is fine and we're safe now locking into Sci-Shock as well that's the other thing we've kind of got my opponent pinned like their best hope is to protect Groudon in hope we have a blind a blind Blizzard miss but we'll go for the Sub-Zero Slamma into the Groudon we'll go for that Sci-Shock into the Core-Core I mean do we actually go for the Sci-Shock there might be better Groudon protecting it's pretty obvious that's their best hope really now we should have maybe been a bit smarter with it where we actually don't Z-Move here bank on them protecting and then we've got the Z-Move the next turn where we can take the Zonius like forcing them not to protect because they bring in the Zonius the next turn and they just protect the Zonius hoping that we miss the blind Blizzard on them but I'm kind of hopeful that this will put them the Blizzard will be enough to take it down I don't think it's going to be don't think it's going to be now the other thing we could do here is the Zonius has to protect it has to protect where we bring in Sogaleo hit a Blizzard Sogaleo goes down to the precipice Blitz and then we get Lele back in it could all go Pete Tong though if the Zonius doesn't protect but you think in this situation it has to protect has to so we're going to make that play based on that and hope the Zonius protects if it doesn't then we lose the game we've made a decision we're going to back it up so no protect there we go well played to my opponent because they win now unless precipice Blitz misses my opponent making a nice play there and it's made for a nice game for the episode as well so we can't be too downbeat about it and we got it wrong and you like it happens sometimes doesn't it so I don't think we did too much else wrong in the game getting it down to this point is pretty well against such a good player as well you've got to kind of just accept that I think we could still win this it's just whether or not the guard on's got the Z move no it hasn't got the Z move it's a whether or not we can dodge precipice Blitz and if they don't go Fire Punch which is the small option here so we'll dazzle and the next dazzle should get the ground on so if he goes P Blitz and it misses nah obviously all smart players got for this ever option and there's no chance of winning but very good game to my opponent hopefully you guys have enjoyed it leave your comments in the comment section below would love to hear your thoughts but I think the changes that we made to the team have been good so we're going to keep them and go on to tomorrow's episode and see how we can get on going forward I'm going to end it there guys just to remind you though before we end the episode we are running a flinched competition this month to celebrate the launch of flinchedclothing.com so we are doing a big giveaway the giveaway is open till the 1st of March so it closes on the 1st of March if you want to enter all you need to do is head over to www.flinchclothing.com and you can scroll down the home page find our subscription to our mailing list join the flinch squad just plug in your details there send it over and if your entry is in before the 1st of March your incident to the giveaway and we'll announce the winner for all of these goodies you can see on your screen right now on the 2nd of March so that is the 3 t-shirts the cap and the water canister which is going to be very exciting but that is that guys make sure you do enter if not just go over and check out some of the articles that we've got over there check out the clothing, the merch and all that stuff and let me know what you think and it would be really nice to hear some at the same time for myself hopefully you've enjoyed today's episode guys thank you for tuning in and we'll be back with another one tomorrow so until then take care of yourselves and bye bye