 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, 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 playing today, one of the brand new restricted Pokémon that we got introduced with the Sword and Shield titles. And that's going to be Zassian. So it's kind of a little bit different from your standard Zassian builds that you're seeing in the format at the minute. You know, you've got a lot of Zassian, Lapras combinations going around. But this is taking quite a bit of inspiration from the usage stats in Japan, where you're seeing a bit more usage with Charizard played with Zassian, something that I've been playing around with for quite a while now. And it's nice to be able to finally get it onto the channel to kind of show you guys what Zassian can do in this sort of build. As always, the poker piece for this team will be down in the description below. And if you stick around till the end of the episode, I'll be throwing up a rental card so you can try this team on the doubles ranked ladder yourself. So first up today, we have a little bit of a mirror, but it's not quite a mirror. We've got the Zassian, we've got the lapdog team. So Zassian, Lapras, Incineroar, Amungus, Reggie Alecchi and Landerous Theorian form. So as you can see from this, you can see that my opponent is playing Zassian as well. It's going to come down to probably how we approach this matchup. But I think, you know, we've got a little bit of an edge here. We've got some instant speed control with a talk of Venus or mod. And we could also go Charizard, but it's a little bit risky going with the Charizard, especially with the Reggie Alecchi and the Landerous Theorian that are likely to kind of come out as leads from my opponent. We could see the Lapras here, but I would imagine it's probably more something that my opponent will try and keep in the back. So it might be worth going like screens. Grim Snow, get our screens up. Landerous isn't bad. We need a pivot for sure from Landerous into something in the back. You know, Zassian is not bad. I do want to bring it. Do we bring Tocall here, you know? Because if we got this lead, then we're kind of limited to what we can bring in all honesty. The other option, of course, is going for a Venus or lead with Tocall and then having like Zassian Grim Snow in the back. I think it's not a bad idea in all honesty. We could potentially see Incineroar as well, but I'm kind of more inclined to bring the Venus or because it gives us a clear kind of direction to go. Even if the Landerous comes out, there's Venus or in its max form as long as the Landerous isn't a live form. You should take the max air stream. We should do enough damage to it. It gives us other options against Reggie Alecchi. And it's all about kind of just paving the way with this team so we can get Zassian in the late game, get that attack boost and then kind of clean up from there. So we are going to see Amungus and we are going to see Landerous from my opponent. We do lead off with Tocall and Venus or so. We've got a couple of options, like I say, you know, we can go for the Max and the G-Max Vine Lash here. And it starts stacking the damage up nicely onto the Landerous. Tocall is in a little bit of a precarious position because it is going to be prone to getting Spored, which isn't ideal at all. And we don't really have a switch in to anything in the back at the moment. So it might be worth kind of kind of foregoing. Just go for a heat wave and, you know, that the other option is what we could potentially do is we could protect Tocall and just go sleep out of here. It's risky because there's always the idea that my opponent could be running like something like safety goggles on Landerous or Lum on Landerous. It's always an option. And they've got to be a little bit wary about us going for the sleep out of here as well, because it's such an option. The thing is, for my opponent, if we just led Tocall Charizard, we'd be in such a dominant position like right now, we can just launch off G-Max Wildfire or heat wave, get some damage onto that Landerous and then get the Venusaur in the next turn. That's probably the best way to approach this, but it's difficult when you're looking at a lot of different options that my opponent's got available to them. We are going to get this attack off. We're not going to see the Landerous actually max here, which is interesting because whatever it does now, it's going to go down this turn to the residual damage, which is interesting. So the sword's dance here. Okay, it's a little bit of a waste for my opponent. Like I said, we're probably going to see Tocall get spoiled. Yep, that makes sense. But the Landerous is going to go down. So we're in a phenomenal position because one of the things that you've got to worry about when you're playing, like especially as Sun archetyped is Landerous. Landerous is always going to be something that causes you a lot of issues. Maybe thinking that we weren't going to max there. Maybe thinking that we were going to go for the sleep powder there, taking the opportunity to get a sword's dance off. There's lots of combinations that we could have went for where the sword's dance would have been the better play to go for. Now we are seeing the Zassian hit the field and we can't max Quake into it. We'll do some nice damage to it and just kind of continually hit that heat wave button. I think that's not a bad play. And the Zassian can't really go for the substitute here. It can go for a protect. We are going to take a bunch of damage from Behemoth Blade if they decide to go down that route. But I mean they're going to be very close to getting knocked out if they're able to take this at all. Just about. But with a couple of chips, like in two turns it's gone. It's gone in two turns, the damage that we're doing. So I mean that's the kind of thing that we want to be doing. Clearing the wave for Zassian. I think Venusaur and Charizard between them with the Sun support do it extremely well. Like it's a very hyper offensive team, but it's very oppressive as well in the same respect. Now we do get taken down by Venusaur, by Zassian. But that's fine. That's super fine. Because now we'll take the residual damage. It gives us another turn to wake up potentially with Tokul. Can you wake up? Are we going to wake up? Now the pollen puff on Amungus is nice. I do like that from my opponent. It's a nice option. We do wake up fortunately and get the heat wave we hit. We should take both targets down now. Or at least very close to anyway. So the wake up there is quite nice. Definitely helps us out as we can bring in Zassian now. And it's going to be quite a quick one this one. So we might get a few more games in today than we normally do. But okay well, got the Incin coming in. Makes it kind of difficult because we can't freely just go for the sub here. Because if we go for the sub, then the fake out spore is a bit of a problem. But then again, are you going to fake out Zassian here? Because if you do, you're Amungus. Like I think you've got to fake out the Tokul. You've got to fake out the Tokul. You have to. We can lock in eruption. We'll protect though just to be a little bit safer. You've got to fake out spore the Tokul for sure. 100%. No they don't. Okay well they're just sporing the Tokul. That makes more sense yeah. Okay well this is still all right. Because we've got the Tokul. The Tokul needs to wake up. The residual damage is always going to be helpful. But the Tokul needs to wake up. That's what we're kind of waiting on to get the Amungus. And we can't really go for, yeah we can't substitute. Because they just flare blitz and spore us. And I think Zassian is like super important for us here. So what we'll do is switch in land or a shield. Suck up that flare blitz from the Incineroar. And we'll get sporeed at the same time. And then it's just playing the waiting game. What wakes up first? Because my opponent's not really got any recovery outside of the pollen puff. Yeah they can restore the health of Incineroar. But the thing is if we can get Zassian back onto the field. They can get, oh what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? I haven't even clicked in. Oh my god, oh my god. We're going for the double protect. We might lose this now. We might lose this. I'm not even kidding. Oh god. What are we doing? I'm sitting here. It's because I've got it behind me. It's literally because I got it behind me. You guys are thinking what's he doing? Why is he not clicking in? And I'm thinking I've clicked in. It's alright. It's alright. I switched out Zassian into lander us. And I definitely hadn't done that. Now we're getting nailed. We're getting nailed. This could be over. We get the double protect. They mean we're so lucky there. We are so lucky. We are so lucky as they max guard. And they're going to try and spoil Zassian. They're going to spoil. We need to get rid of the Amungus. You know, that's a big thing for us. Toko wakes up. We get the eruption off. This should take down the Amungus now. So Toko's not wanting to stay asleep, which is always very useful. And now we can just yarn the Incineroar protect Zassian substitute here. I mean, we still wouldn't be in a lute. Like, I think we'd win if we hadn't got the double protect off there. But the thing is, we should have been punished for that. For not really paying attention. But very good game to my opponent. And let's just wake up, okay? It's been a long, long day for myself anyway. I hope you guys had a good day. Whatever you've been up to. But I've had a pretty rough day. So it's kind of nice to sit back sometimes, do a video. Do a new team. And just record some, record some battles. It's always, it's always a chill out. But yeah, I've had a rough, a rough old day. But you get those sometimes, don't you? You've got to just be like, it's fine. It's fine. It's done now. It's behind me to look forward. At least keep looking forward. That's what it's all about. Right. Let's get into our next opponent of the episode. Okay. Up next, we have in Veltal, a Regiolechi, a Rillaboom Incineroar, Landerous Incarnate and Metagross. So we've got the Landerous Incarnate is an interesting one. It's generally starting to really slowly pick up usage. And it's very good. It's got some excellent special attacks. Got Shea Force as well. Obviously it's hidden abilities. So it can hit like a truck. So you've got to be very careful for it. And speed stat of 101 as well makes it very dangerous. You know, I'm pretty sure it's 101, isn't it? It is 101. Let me just double check this. Because otherwise I'm going to be like, what am I talking about? Landerous Incarnate. Yeah, 101. I'm right. I'm right. I'm right. So what are we going to do here? Is that seeing up bad? We've got to be careful about the Regiolechi with its speed control for sure. Screen's going to be useful against majority of things. Could Lee Charizard mean it does well against Veltal? The only problem would be if we see Regiolechi as a lead, obviously that would be a little bit problematic. I think we'll go Grimmsnall. Do we want to go Grimmsnall? Or do we go Charizard? Torcal. Let's go Charizard, Torcal. Let's go Zassian. And let's go Grimmsnall. I think that's the four that we're going to bring. We'll go Charizard this game. We should have went Charizard last game, you know? But the Venusaur did an incredible job anyway. And like just having those calcs, I think, sometimes when like I've obviously gone through my calcs a bunch, especially with the Venusaur. So like having that kind of understanding that you can take the airstream from a Landerous, it gives you a little bit more freedom in those situations. And you saw kind of pay off there, you know? So it wasn't like I was being careless in that first game. I knew that the Landerous, unless it was life-warped, unless it had help and hand support, which it didn't have help and hand support. There's a chance it was life-warped, but it's not the most popular used item on Landerous. So you know, I've got the kind of leeway there to get away with that play and get that residual damage kind of stacking up as soon as possible. Okay, well we're seeing Incinero. We're seeing the bell too. Okay, so I think what we're going to do is we're going to go for a yawn into Eva. Do we yawn? Do we yawn? Do we yawn? Do we yawn it? Because no, I think the Incinero is not going to... I don't think the Incinero is the Incinero going to fake out. The Incinero could fake out here for sure. I'm going to go for the G-Max Wildfire into Eva. So start getting that chip on him. We'll get some ridiculous damage onto it to start with. So we'll be able to at least get some good damage onto it, not proc or weakness policy or anything like that, which would be good. And then if we can get a yawn onto it as well, it also helps us out a bunch because it frees up some room for Charizard the next turn to potentially get like a scorching sands off. The other option is obviously yawning the Incinero slot, expecting like a parting shot from it to come out, which isn't a bad idea because then you catch something that your opponent's bringing onto the field as a kind of soft check or a check to Charizard. And then you've got that room to Max God the next turn or like are they fall asleep or they have to switch out. Again, it really just it's really disruptive. But we'll see my opponent goes for, they may just go for Max Airstream here, which you know, I don't mind. No fake out, which is what we expected. So we should be able to get a yawn off into Yveltal, which is huge for us, which is massive. Max darkness, no Max Airstream, which is interesting. Into Toko, take us down to the sash. And unless we see a Snarl, Snarl could like scupper our plans a little bit. Snarl always misses as well. Snarl can miss, so you never know. Just a parting shot, that's fine. Because that's what like we expect that we can deal with that 100% as we get the yawn off into Yveltal, which is perfect because no matter what terrain you've got out on the field, it doesn't matter because we're going to be able to put you to sleep because you're a flying type, Yveltal. And there's Regi Alecki. Here he comes. Yeah, that's the thing. Like the yawn into the Regi Alecki would have been just as valuable here, you know. Solipah are going to take a little bit of chip. Residual damage, going to chip away at everything. Now we've got the option to Max Guard here and the Yveltal go to sleep or we attack into Regi Alecki. Because the thing is, right, I think what we could do is we can switch into Grim Snarl. I think what we'll do, and we could Max Guard. I think Max Guard ends a sensible play here because we've got the minus one special defense. In most situations, you'd be able to take a magnet boosted Thunderbolt from Regi Alecki here. But the fact is, the minus one special defense makes it a little bit more difficult. It makes it a bit more tricky. So what we can do, Yveltal going to switch out. That's fine. Incineroar lightly to come in, I think. But Tockel's done a good job here. Lander is coming in. Okay, that's fine. I'll keep Tockel around for later so we can kind of get the sun back if we need it. And we'll Max Guard. Where you going, Regi Alecki? Just electric way, but that's fine. You do that all you want, my friend. Now, we've got a couple of options where we can potentially go for... We've got lagging tail, you see? We could lagging tail something right now if we want. Or we could kind of buy that time, just set our screens up, set our lightscreen up. Lightscreen might be a nice option to go for. But you can't underestimate the power or the fact that Lander is incarnate. Could be more of a physical variant as well. And it's probably got a stone edge. So, yeah, lightscreen. Get Tockel in, I think. I think what we'll do is get Tockel in. I know we're going to lose our sun, and we're losing our dynamax. But you've really got to look at the end goal for these sort of matches, I think. You can't be like, I've got a dynamax, I want to keep it on the field, I think. You know, like, do you want to win the game or not? So you've got to look further ahead and say, well, I need Charizard as a resource later. So I'm just going to make this call now. And at the same time, we get to kind of scout what my opponent's trying to do. What attacks they've got. What variant of Landerous this is. Stone edge. Okay, so that makes sense. And it gets a crit as well. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Now, what's going to be more useful to get rid of in this situation? We've got Zassian. Come in. Zassian can deal with Landerous theory, for sure. Now, I think what we could potentially do is lagging tail. Lagging tail, the Alecchi, right? And then we go for Behemoth Blue into Landerous. Because I think they're going to be kind of lulled into the false sense of security where they can electro-web and then go for like an earthquake or an earth power, whatever, into Zassian. But if we lagging tail onto the Alecchi and we go Behemoth Blade, you know, there's also a possibility that Incinero comes onto the field as well. But this is still all right because now Charizard has way easier time, especially against like Regi Alecchi. So if we can get Charizard back onto the field safely enough, we're fine. And there we go. Let's see what this Regi Alecchi's got. What are you going to gift our Grim Snarl? The Focus Sash. Okay, well, that's useless right now. Okay, well, the Volt Switch does a decent amount. What are we going to see come in? Maybe the Landerous again? Right, well, now it's Yveltal. Right, well, Yveltal really doing here. It's not really doing very much. I mean, the Incinero is putting on more pressure onto Zassian for sure. We've got a light screen up. We could get her reflect up as well. This is the last turn of our residual damage there, but it's done a decent enough job so far. Could we bring Charizard in? Could we bring Charizard in? I don't know if we can, right? Because the Oblivion Wing's going to do a decent amount of damage. Might be better just going for a Spirit Break, honestly, into Yveltal. I'm just protecting Zassian. Maybe we might see a fake out Oblivion Wing into Grim Snarl if they... Oh, okay. What's coming back in? Regi Alecchi. Okay, don't mind this too much. And if we get a Spirit Break into the Yveltal, that's super nice. Yeah, the Oblivion Wing, yeah. Yeah, I mean, my opponent's making all the right players. Like, they're totally baiting us into protecting here. You know, it makes it more difficult for us to function. And you would imagine the Incinero is just going to cycle back in after this. We'll get the Oblivion Wing. That's fine. Are they going to protect the Alecchi though? That's the big question, because we could Sacred Sword. I mean, we could Sacred Sword. I think what we'll do is we'll go for the Regi Alecchi there. And then we'll Sacred Sword. Because they're going to switch Yveltal out. They have to switch Yveltal out. Could behemoth blade it, but I'd rather get a bit more damage onto Incinero. If we see it come in, which I'd imagine. Oh, we're not going to see it. We could have behemoth blade it, but we get the knockout anyway. So that's all right. We get the Spirit Break onto the Alecchi. I don't think I'll pick up the knockout, but it puts it down to minus one. So if it does decide to vault switch, it might decide to Alecchi. Oh, it's going for the Thunderbolt into Grimstone, but we do take that like a champ. And now behemoth blade should get, well, we can chip off the Alecchi. The lagging tail trick is such a nice option, especially when you've got like a format full of these Pokemon that are like so fast and really threatening. And we've still got a light screen up. I think we could probably get Charizard in, because what I want to do is I'm going to Spirit Break and I'm going to switch into Charizard. Now they could go for Thunderbolt here, but I honestly think like minus one, Regi Alecchi, we've got a light screen up. Charizard is going to take an attack here coming in. And if not, then Zassian is still in a phenomenal position to come back in plus deal with the Incineroar, not really worry too much about Regi Alecchi. And then the lander is when it comes in, there's not really any speed control to worry about. So I think we'll be able to kind of clean this one up. As a Thunderbolt, we should take this like I say. Oh, just about, just about, just about. There's a light screen wearing off, but that's all right. Now you've got to imagine that my opponent will switch the Incineroar out now. Just to get another like Intimidate cycle. So I don't, I don't know. Well, like the options are, we got Sacred Sword and let me go Heat Wave. The other option is potentially just go on Heat Wave Substitute. Then it stops any potential Intimidate coming back onto us, which could be another option for sure. Now let's see, what do they do? The lagging tails really rendered the Regi Alecchi pretty useless here. And the Sacred, yeah, there we go. Okay, the Behemoth Blade would have been the better choice if you're braver to go after the lander. But the fact is the Heat Wave plus the Sacred Sword should be enough to pick up the knockout. And then you just got the Incineroar to worry about with Charizard and Zassian. And now Heat Wave thankfully does hit. We've not got the Sun to worry about either. In regards to getting knocked out by a solar power, and then just Incineroar to come back in, which we can substitute Scorch and Sands or just Double Protect. And then we can kind of substitute Scorch and Sands and then Sacred Sword. Which it's all good, it's all good. So we should be able to wrap this one up. And Zassian putting in some work here, doing really well. But Charizard as well, I think the nice thing about it in both games, we've seen Charizard do well in this game. And we saw Venus do well in the previous game. And you know, like we did get a bit fortunate in that first one with how we got rid of the landerists. But I mean it wasn't like RNG or anything like that. So you know, to round it all up, I think the team's performing extremely well. And it's definitely one I would say have a go with. You know, if you've tried the Lapras variants out, I would say try the Zard variant as well. The Sun variant, Zassian Sun. It's a lot of fun to play. There's a lot of stuff in the format at the minute that struggle so much against Charizard. And you know, Charizard and Sun is just ridiculously strong. So we'll just scorch and sands. And we'll go for the secret sword. That combination should be enough, even if we do see a berry. Yeah, yeah, scorching sands would be enough. And no berry. Oh, there's the berry. There it is. There's the Shuka. But we've done enough to pick up the knockout there. And they're a very good game to my opponent. So I mean, we get to see a couple of games with the team and have a talk through how it functions and things like that. So hopefully it's been beneficial for you guys. But I think it's hopefully showcased enough to persuade you to have a go with it on the ladder yourself. If you like it, or maybe it inspires some ideas. That's the whole bottom line of it. But like I said, good game to my opponent. And now we'll jump over and get you guys that rental team. So if you do want to play around with it, you can do. Okay, friends. Here is the rental team for today's episode. I hope you enjoy it. And if you do try it out as always, please let me know down in the comment section below what your thoughts are on the team and the concept of Zassian and Charizard and Sun. Just in general, or do you prefer the Zassian with Lapras? You know, the Zassian Lapras team is something I still want to feature on the channel. So if it is something you'd like to see, please let me know down in the comment section below. Kind of trying to get through as many of the restricted Pokémon as you can. But if you want to see it doubles up, I've got a really good Zassian Lapras team we could feature. And I've also got another Kalorex Shadow Rider team that I'd love to feature on the team. It's kind of an adaptation from that first one, but a lot more serious and a lot stronger of a team that we could kind of feature. So do let me know down in the comment section. But whatever, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, friends, have a great rest of your day. And I'll catch you all for another episode very soon. So until then, take care of yourselves and bye-bye.