 Hello friends, welcome back to another episode here on the channel. I hope you're all doing great and for anyone new to the channel. As always, my name is Lee, also known as Osiris. And in today's episode, we're going to be continuing on with our VGC Series 8 content. And today, playing another rental team from one of you fine viewers who has submitted their teams. Thank you again to everyone who has submitted a team. And I will be featuring more rental teams as we go through this week as well as some teams that I'm putting together myself that I think are more relevant in the format right now at the minute. But today, as I say, we've got a rental code and it is from Ruben Priestley. So thank you very much, Ruben. It's a pleasure to have you submit in a team and especially a zernious one, something that we don't see played too much at the moment. So here's a rental team for anyone that wants to try this team out for themselves. As always, we'll jump into it. We'll have a couple of games with the team on the ladder and then I'll throw the rental team up at the end. So very excited. We've got the thunderous there, not the assault vest variant that you kind of commonly seen in the format at the minute, but the life of just to get get that a bit more power and a nice option with foul play because Ruben mentioned in his comments that it was good against things like metagross and things like that. And also the dark max move as well. But you can take advantage of that move when you're not dynamaxed. So to really take advantage of anything like boosting and powering up. But the max darkness there is always very useful. The indeed support helps pretty much everything on the team, as we know, brings the psychic terrain and also has that follow me. So it's a really nice option, especially with the safety goggles to pull away any sleep threats. You've got the Zernius there. We know what it does. But funny enough, got a size shock over Moonblast, what you would normally see. So taking advantage of the Geomancy, I like the the size shock on here. I think you've seen it played in previous formats, but it was never the most optimal option. Maybe this is a better way to run Zernius. Now, Ruben did get to rank 13th on the ladder with this team. So it has got a lot of potential. I think it's got all the right elements in it. You've got that sun mode, the fast mode there with the venus. Then you've got a really good trick room switch mode with the stack attack at the top call and that indeed support. So really excited to play this team. Like I say, hopefully you enjoy today's episode. And without further ado, friends, let's get into this first one today. OK, up first today, we have a Zapdos, top call, Galarian Maltres, Mimikyu, Kyogre and Incinero team. And all right. Well, I mean, they've got they've got definitely a trick room mode with the Mimikyu top call and potentially the Kyogre, depending on the speed stat of that Pokemon. But it's one of those where it's middle middling speeds here can take advantage of the tail, the air stream support, I should say, from either Galarian Maltres or the Zapdos or it can take advantage of the trick room through the Mimikyu, Mimikyu there as well to kind of help mitigate trick room either with taunt or just reset in the trick room itself. Can Zernius do a job here? I feel like Zernius can do a really decent job here. You know, it's going to be faster than everything on my opponent's side of the field. We've got the free kind of Geomancy. There's not really too much my opponent can do other than potentially fake up from the Incinero. But I mean, even then, it's not the worst. And what we could potentially do as well as lead Zernius and DD and kind of have something like Stacker in the back to kind of bait maybe a trick room set up from the Mimikyu. If we do see it lead, you know, what's our last Pokemon going to be? I kind of like Venusaur, but especially because the Tocall could maybe see some play here. But Vinu, Vinu does all right. But probably Thunderous is going to be the better option, you know, in general, I think. Just got to be careful around the speed tiering from my opponent. I don't think that the I don't see the Galarian Maltra has come into this one. I could definitely see the Zapdos coming. And that will outspeed Zernius, of course, but we do have the redirection. I'm surprised. I am very surprised to see. I am very surprised to see the Galarian Maltres. Now, what may go for Max Airstream here? And we might see that and a water spout that one problem could be, you know, scoffed Kyoga, which could smack us before we were able to get the Jamancy up. Now, that would be a little bit of an issue. But with the Jamancy up, we've not really got Tocall. Like Tocall here would have been great. Switching Tocall, get the Jamancy. And then we're in we're in the money then. But kind of tempted to keep in DD. Do I attack? Because I could just get some chip onto the thing is the Kyoga is going to be difficult to take down. But I mean, if we get the Jamancy up here, what are they going to do with the Maltres? Maybe nasty plot. We don't want to dazzle just in case there is a. I think we could expand in force just to get damage onto the Kyoga here, because really, if we do see a nasty plot, then at least the next turn, you know, we're still going to take an absolute ton of damage from this water spout here. But I think the next turn, if they do nasty plot, we've got to max and go after the Maltres because those air streams are still going to be doing a ton of damage to us. Let's see what the other does and just getting damage onto the other now. OK, origin pulse. Better than water spout, to be honest. Indeed, he does take it. His earnings takes it pretty well and we do get the tone now, but it's a little bit too late for us. So kind of maybe hoping that we would be a little bit slower than the Maltres, but max speed zones are always the best zones. So that expanding force damage is actually really nice here because now we can just max go Starfall into Maltres. And I think we just sack. I think we just sack indeedy here because then it would open the door for a spring venus or in to put a little bit more pressure onto that that Kyoga. And there's no way we don't take down the Maltres here. I mean, even if it maxes, which I doubt it will. But might do, might do, might do. But we should still be able to take it down with a Starfall. The only issue is we lose the psychic terrain, so I expand and force if we do manage to get one off. I don't see us being able to get an expanded force off here. But I want to try and mitigate the speed control options that my opponent has, you see? So that's the Maltres going here means that they've lost an option of Airstream support for that Kyoga. And we could definitely see something like the Mimikyu come onto the field and try and set up a trick room. The Origin Pulse does avoid the Xernius, which is a huge bonus for us, you know? Like taking less damage is always good, especially with your kind of main Pokemon. Don't even have Venusol. I brought, yeah, forget. I went for the Thunderous in our last slot, which is fine because I mean, we can target down the, we can go double tap into the Mimikyu here because I think, again, it's where the speed control is going to come from. And even if we lose Thunderous here, I think it's kind of worthwhile. And there's that likelihood that the Kyoga may protect to try and get the trick room up just because of the pressure that the Thunderous is putting on. So I think a wild charge, I don't know, I don't know. Actually, I don't think we're going to be able to beat. We really needed to be the other way around, you know? We need the, yeah, we needed the Xernius to be hitting after the Thunderous because I don't think a wild charge is going to be enough to get it. And it looks like the Kyoga's going to actually max here, which is interesting. So maybe looking at this, not in the best light. And I think they do set the trick room. But again, this is, no, we should have went after the Kyoga when we had the opportunity, I think. Yeah, because we're wasting it. We're wasting an attack here into the Mimikyu because there's no way a life orb wild charge is going to be enough. It depends how the Mimikyu is trained in all honesty. It really does. Because Thunderous with a life orb stab wild charge can do a chunk of damage. If we can get rid of it here, that's big, but yeah, not enough, not enough. And the trick room is going to go up and we're going to be knackered because Kyoga is now going to go into the Thunderous and imagine, and then we're going to see the trick room set up. Yeah. I mean, Stacker Tacka to come in. It's a bit clunky how we're doing this, but it's not really the best, you know. Should have went after the Kyoga, just removed that from the field right now. I mean, we're going to be able to the next turn. We might lose Stacker in the process if the trick room does get, yeah, the trick room going up. Okay, let's see. Does Mimikyu go down to whatever Stacker Tacka throws out at us? We could even preserve Stacker for a turn, you know, and like, we could potentially just go Starfall into Kyoga. Protect Stacker, we've got Stacker, we've got Protect on it. I don't know if we have got Protect on it. No, so we're going to have to, we've got no, okay. I mean, we could reverse the trick room, but I don't think we're going to be able to. The only option is to really Jarobo. We're probably going to lose Stacker to Kyoga here because without Rock Slide, right, Rock Slide gets double damage, but I mean, this is a bit more guaranteed where we're not relying on like, law accuracy attacks to pick up the Mimikyu here. The reason I didn't attack into the Kyoga is I really felt like, you know, the Protector would have been the better option or at least the Max Guard, you know, because I think one Starfall here will get the Kyoga. The Rain's not even up now to boost these attacks. Now they're going to get the Max Geyser off, but I don't, it's not going to be enough to get, yeah, they're going into Zern, it's not the play. You need to go off to the Stacker in the trick room. So this is why like a Starfall here should pick up the Kyoga, and then because we've got the trick room up now, it's kind of benefiting us in both aspects of the, like both speed tier dimension, you know, got the Sloth of the Sloth and we've got the Fastest of the Fast. So whatever comes in, we know we're going to be able to hit them for at least decent damage and I don't wearing off just in time as well as our Max turns in. So we've got to protect if we need to in these latter turns of this trick room. Tocall, okay. Now the Sun's going to come up. The problem with not having, I mean, the thing is they're going to click, they're going to click eruption or they're going to click heat wave. So the why God here, this is where like Rock Slide would come in really useful, but we do have the option to go side shock and just why God here, which is nice support because then the next turn we can protect the Zernius. If they go for a single target attack and potentially get a body slam off because all we've got to do is stall out this trick room. It worst comes to worst, but yeah, it's stuck out. I can understand the wide guard. It's really useful and especially situations like this is very situational. Like it's really useful here, but you kind of need, personally, I think, I think you need a rock stab to really take advantage because Tocall is quite a popular Pokemon in this format. And it's hard because you can see where Rumin's coming from, where he's got the trick room option, the why God support, and then he's got body press where you don't have to rely too much on attacks that in general, and then gyro ball, which is just a generally very good option. How do we wide guard again? Because sometimes these Tocalls will only have access to spread attacks, you know? How many turns of trick room have we got left as well too? So we could attack here. I think we'd probably take an attack with, and we could just wide guard again. Because a single target attack like Earth Power, it's not gonna take down Zernius. And I don't even think of Flamethrower Will. Yeah, they got Heat Wave. That's all they've got. So they may have Earth Power potentially, but the wide guard here just locking my opponent out at the moment and the air side shock. Because it's hitting on the defense stat because Tocalls really defensively built. It makes it a bit more difficult. And I think a body press now will be enough to get it so we don't need to lock in with the wide guard. And this should be enough to get it. Yeah, okay, brilliant. Good game to my opponent. It was a bit of a round the houses, you know. I think I made the one mistake I made was the Mimikyu. Just whether if we'd been able to hit it first with the Thunderous and then Nuke it with the Zern. That would have been the better play. Now I think in that situation, what it should have done is I should have targeted the Kyoga with the Max Starfall and switched into Stack Attacker there. And then we would have had a way better way to kind of close that game out, you know. Unfortunately, I didn't do that. But you've got to review matches. It's always useful doing that. But I think overall in the end, the team kind of came through. We've got the Zernius working as well, which is a bonus. So all good, very good game to my opponent. Hopefully you enjoyed that first one. And we'll jump into our second one of today. Okay, up next we've got a Zassian, Charizard, Venusaur, Garchomp, Tocall, and Whimsicott team. We've got the Hotdog team. Hotdog is here. So Sun and Zassian, gonna be very difficult. Obviously, Zernius does not like Zassian one a little bit. It doesn't really like Charizard or Venusaur in the Sun. So it's going to be difficult to utilize the Zernius in this match for sure. You get rid of those three though. You're in a good spot. You're in a good spot. I mean, Trick Room here first isn't too bad. It is a little bit tricky with the Tocall knowing that we've not got a rock stab. Venusaur could be decent, but against the Charizard, not so good. I think our best option here is Thunderous, in all honesty. So Thunderous, does Venusaur have Sleep Powder? Because that could give us some options, I guess, if it does. But then we've got to worry about the, it does have Sleep Powder, yeah. We've got to worry about the maybe safety goggles on the Charizard, but I mean with Thunderous there, we're not in the worst position. We could also go in Didi as well if we worry about Venusaur coming out as a lead. I would imagine we'll probably see something more like Tocall, Charizard as a lead. I'm going to bring Tocall in the back here. I know on Didi would be really useful, but I think I want to bring Xerneas to this anyway. But I think Venus Tocall could be a really good mode for us in this one. I think it's just about removing, like mitigating the Charizard early on, because the Charizard's the biggest threat, like by far. But the thing is with the Charizard, the bonus that we've got to deal with Charizard, you know, the Assault Vest variant of Thunderous sometimes isn't powerful enough to get the Charizard when it maxes. The Life Orb gives you just that little bit of additional power that you kind of need to be able to get it. Problem is here, of course, is you've got the Whimsicott support, which is very difficult because it is going to mean that they're going to outspeed us and be able to kind of nuke at us before we're able to get an attack off. Now, the one option we do have potentially, it's not really ideal by any means, is maxing Venusol, just Sleep Powder, Venusol into the Charizard, switch Thunderous into Tocall. Now that could be an option, and it could give us a bit of room for maybe later on in the game. And I think maybe it's a little bit risky, but I don't want to take an attack from Charizard just yet. If we can do this and then get Thunderous back onto the field to deal with the Charizard, still add some of these Tailwind turns, which you're expecting coming from the Whimsicott now, might be a good way to approach this. The problem is if the Tailwind goes up here, obviously, then the Charizard is going to be able to attack anyway. They're probably going to target the Venusol. So that means that we'll probably lose Venusol. Tocall will be fine, but if we can just put this Charizard to sleep right now, it doesn't matter if we lose the Venusol or not. It means we get the Thunderous back in that it can deal with this Charizard a little bit more freely. Don't worry about the Tailwind being up as well. So we'll see. Is it Tailwind? That's why you kind of need... I mean, we could have went for Trick Room here. Could have went Stacker indeedy. This is what I mean. They're going after the Venusol. So we could have really, in hindsight, maxed Thunderous here, just went after the Zard. But again, if we get the Sleep Powder onto it, it frees us up a bit more, you know, and it makes it difficult for my opponent to take advantage of their Tailwind turns. It gives us a chance to kind of work a little bit more on the Whimsicott. And we could also potentially get Xerneas in, although Xerneas is not the most optimal Pokemon. I think what we've got to try and concentrate down on first is probably getting rid of the Charizard while it's asleep, you know? Max, go max Lightning and Eruption. They're going to be the options, I think that we have to go for. I would say as well, there's an argument for going like Airstream here, because you've got to think there is probably a Venusol on the back. And if there is, and it's got Sleep Powder, it gives us a bit of a headache. So getting that Airstream up now would be a good option, but the Charizard ain't going to be asleep forever. So that's the thing, we've got to take care of it sooner rather than later, because we can't afford to take any more attacks from it in the sun. Now, it will have that guaranteed sleep turn this turn. So we're making the most out of it, like the trade-off of Venusol almost in this situation. So let's see what we can do. I can say we should be able to remove the Zard from the field. Fake tears coming out into, yeah, you don't want to go after the, but you have went after the, oh no, no, you went after the Tocall. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's all right. That's all right. I was like, you haven't, you haven't went after the Thunderous, have you? Cause if you have, then we're like super powered, super power. The Tailwind being up as well is not ideal, but there could be worse, there could be worse situations. We're going to get an eruption off here into the Whimsicott. We want to take it down as well. The beauty about being able to take Whimsicott down, the following turn, which we should be able to do is that then the Tailwind runs out the next turn. It means they haven't got Tailwind anymore, which is ideal. So we can double up into it, you know, eruption, max airstream into that slot, depending on what comes out onto the field, just to make sure that that Tailwind is not an option because then it comes down to Zurnia's coming in in the late game, doesn't it? And if we're faster than everything else, then it makes it a lot more possible. Now with the electric terrain up on the field, this does help us out a bunch. Does the Whimsicott have, oh. The problem is here that they've got the fake tiers and now Torkall is in a lot of trouble, you know? We know that Sasha's in on the Venusole, but it's probably got sleep powder. But it's where do they go? Do we lose Torkall? Or do we get put to sleep with Tornate Thunderous? Now I think I'm going to go eruption here. I'm going to have to just attack because if they put us to sleep, it means we get the eruption off. Yeah, which is great, okay? So you should be able to clear the field now. Now Moonblast is going to do more because we're minus two, but still, oh man, that does way more than what I expected, but we'll be able to get rid of the Whimi and do a good sizeable chunk to this Venusole actually removing as well. So that's, yeah, that's what I mean, that trade off there is definitely worth it because at the end of the day, they've got no speed control now and although Thunderous is asleep, we're still getting some kind of return on our options there, you know, rather than just saying, oh well, we'll protect Torkall because we've already been fake tears. Ah, this is tricky, this is tricky. Although the special defense drops don't matter too much with Torkall. But Torkall's like a big player here, you know? And I think they go after the Thunderous, I don't know. We've got to just max lightning, I think, and hope that we wake up. I think that's the big play because Torkall's the one thing that can really threaten Zassian. And I would say we'd target the Torkall right now if you were Zassian. Yeah, come on Thunderous, wake up. Come on, we need that wake up. Come on, wake up. Yeah, Torkall is so important to us. Now the tailwind does end, but obviously Zassian being like the super most powerful, fastest Pokemon on the field at the moment makes things a bit easier for us. Now, can we take it sacred sword? I believe we can. Our defense hasn't been altered at all. I think we can do this with a wild charge and a burn in jealousy. I'm hoping that, like Torkall, okay. There we go, we'll take it, we'll take it. We beat the Zassian. We didn't have the Zernius, it was sitting waiting in the back. That was all we needed. Tricky game, of course, but I think Torkall had enough health there just to be able to take a sacred sword would have taken a behemoth blade because of that big defense stat that it's got there. Kind of makes it easier. So we've had two great games with the team. Thank you again to Rubin. We'll jump over now just to remind you guys of that rental team for today's team that we played. Okay friends, here is the rental for today's team. Again, thank you to Rubin for providing this rental. And if you guys have any rental teams that you would like to see featured on the channel, do throw them down in the comment section below and I'll make sure to feature them as soon as I am able to. So we've got the Thunderous there, the Zernius, Venusol, Torkall, Stacker, and indeed, all the Pokemon we featured today, they've all done their little part in some way, form or another. The Venusol there putting the Charizard to sleep on that last one kind of being a sacrifice, but it was worth it in the long run because it meant that we were able to kind of open up the game and go from there. But sometimes you've got to just do that. I think it's a good example of showing in games where you're in a sticky spot but you've got still two options and if one option doesn't come off you're still getting a return with the other one and not to play a little bit more preserved where you're protecting something in fear of it getting knocked out or getting put to sleep and not getting a return on the other one. Now you're getting down a 50-50 route there whereas guaranteeing yourself a return no matter what your opponent does is always a good way to look at it. So I guess that was a good turn anyway. Hopefully you've enjoyed today's games. Hopefully you've enjoyed today's team. And again, thank you so much for tuning in, as always, friends. Have a great rest of your day and I'll see you all before I trash this mic anymore. I'll see you all for another episode very soon. So until then, friends, take care of yourselves and bye-bye.