 Hi everyone and welcome to our first VGC 2020 on Sword and Shield episode of the season. My name is Lee also known as Osiris and it's been a long time coming and I'm pleased to be kicking off this series finally. So we're here we're going to be using a very fun team to kick us off into this new series so it's going to be based around Eskew which is the little penguin Pokemon. We'll get into the team in a moment but we're going to jump on to the ranked battle. And I've had a few games with this team but I've picked this one out as probably one of my favourite ones because it really encapsulates the ability to utilise the trick room here and then the ability on Eskew which has got that ice face ability making it kind of immune to physical hits initially when it is hit. The ice cube on its head kind of protects it from any physical attacks taking no damage then the ice cube breaks on its head after that physical hit and then its stats change it gets a speed boost which is extremely good and useful especially if you're going for a belly drum strategy. So you can see our team here on the left which is indeedy female, the Eskew, the Obama Snow, Rydon, Jellicent and Arcanine. So the Rydon's got a lightning rod as its ability because it does protect us against the electric type users that could really threaten Jellicent. We'll break down the team later in the video and I will be revealing the rental code as well so you can check that out. Now our opponent in this episode is Magic Key and we're going to get straight into this one they're leading out with the Togokiss and Shandler so straight away this stops me in my tracks because the one thing that Eskew doesn't really want to be taking is special type attacks because its ability ice face doesn't protect you against the special side of attackers so things like Heatwave which I'm kind of worried about here from the Shandler make me quite worried straight away I don't really want to be taking too much damage especially if I want to utilise that belly drum later on and especially the Togokiss as well kind of known to be able to Dynamax could throw out a big special type attack which they're known for and that would really put us in a bad position so here I'm just gonna go for an attack into the Shandler I want to make sure that I'm trying to get rid of it because it does threaten our Eskew and our Obama Snow in the back so I want to try and get as much damage on that early on as possible and I'm just gonna keep Eskew around for later and switch in Jellicent here it's suspecting that we all gonna see Heatwave and maybe a Dazzling Green maybe an Air Slash from that Togokiss so we do switch the Eskew out gonna save that for later and by getting this board position out with the Jellicent next to the Indeedy it puts me in a nice position to go for a follow-me trick room the next turn so we're in a nice place to get the trick room set up because we're pressuring this Shandler the psychic seed there on the Indeedy really helping us take that Heatwave a lot better and we do see Yon come out from the Togokiss now this puts Jellicent in a little bit of an awkward position because if we stay in trick room now then we will fall asleep the next turn but you know I figure with how fast my opponent's team is and us being able to utilize something like a bomber snow and Eskew in trick room before that ice face breaks then it will be quite useful here we pressure the Shandler here pretty hard so the chances are it does switch out this is why I kind of change my mind and went for follow me just to protect Jellicent primarily from an air slash from the Togokiss because I do think the Shandler switches out and doesn't really go for that that shadow ball knowing that the follow-me would be into the Indeedy and it's also pressured from a psychic as well and the one thing that I do worry about here is the Togokiss air slash onto the Jellicent kind of denying our trick room which is why I've went for that follow-me more than anything else so we do see the Shandler switch out the Gyarados gonna hit the field now it is gonna get the Intimidate off but onto both our special attackers we're not too worried about that really right now so you can see we are gonna get that follow-me up and just protect ourselves from the Togokiss another thing here would be a Yorn coming out into the Indeedy which we do see that does kind of put me in a bit of a bad position because it's it's obvious that if I want to keep the Indeedy around for later in the battle that I have to switch it out now which gives my opponent the opportunity to really kind of predict there because the Jellicent now was sleep it is gonna take a turn of sleep this next turn we can't wake up so we it's kind of dead in the water but I do want to preserve Indeedy for later now I do have the Sash on Abomasno I do think about bringing an SKU here but the Sash kind of gives me that little bit of security here I guess against against what my opponent can do at least they'll have to double attack into the Abomasno if they want to get rid of it and the likelihood is they might take this opportunity to attack into the Jellicent knowing that it is asleep just to get rid of it off the field because under trick room it does put on a lot of pressure on my opponent especially with the the big water spouts the sap strength and things like that that we're knowing for so I'm gonna switch Indeedy out get rid of that yawn just reset it and then we'll get Abomasno onto the field and if we can successfully get Abomasno on the field here it means we're gonna put you able to put a lot of pressure on to both of these these Pokemon on my opponent's side of the field with these big blizzard type attacks so we do get Abomasno and get that snow warning up and Jellicent does stay asleep and burning that one turn of sleep turn and I think they predict that the Jellicent might switch out here going for the power whip going for a yawn into that slot but not not quite getting that off here the power whip takes us down long enough for the hail to chip us out but this is perfect because Jellicent going down it's kind of dead weight asleep it could take three sleep turns you never know so getting rid of it off the field now so we can utilize our trick room turns is perfect so what we're gonna do is get the SKU in and we can start our little strategy the blizzards are gonna be chunking the Togekiss I'm not really worried about that too much it is gonna be able to take at least one blizzard so we have to worry about a yawn into SKU which is the one thing I do worry about right here I do think about going for an Aurora veil right now but I think because we still got a sash intact we're not in the the worst position so do I attack with SKU or do I go for the belly drum I think because the Gyarados is mainly a physical type attacker I'm not really too worried like the Togekiss can attack us but it's not gonna be KOing us and we can we're like a totally mean to whatever Gyarados does for one turn anywhere with this ice face active so I'll go for the belly drum now and if we can get this set up remember the SKU is still pretty slow compared to the Gyarados and the Togekiss now under the trick room so we should still be moving before it it's just a case of if our ice face gets broken here then our speed will jump and we'll be in a little bit of a tighter position but things are all right we got the Abomaso X to us firing off blizzards is fine we do see the Gyarados it does dynamax here so it's gonna chunk itself up and beef itself out and it's gonna be a bit more difficult to take down but like I say we should be alright as long as we don't see the going and we don't we just see the follow me from the Togekiss maybe just wants to protect the Gyarados a little bit more this next turn as we do get a blizzard off and do some nice damage to that Togekiss meaning that we we will be able to take it down the next turn but we get a freeze on it which is huge for us a big help there and we do get the belly drum off with our little penguin and he is gonna boost that attacks that to the max and we also have the Citrus Berry on there so it does mean we're in a nice position now known that the Gyarados can't do anything to us this turn because of its physical type attacks and our ice face ability that we are going to be able to dynamax the next turn and really start doing some work we do see an S max air stream into the Abomaso now does just take us down to our sash so that's fine and really kind of not doing my opponent any favors with that speed boost there especially because we've got a couple of turns of trick room left now we do see the the chip on both my opponent's Pokemon here from the hill and we're free just to fire off another blizzard here because what we can do is blizzard take the Togekiss down and then attack into the Gyarados with our SQ go for an icicle crash into it and that should be enough to take both Pokemon down here we're not worried about the freeze here and I don't think it really plays too much effect into what my opponent can do unless the Togekiss does have protect by any chance and it's unlikely though Togekiss isn't really normally carry protect here so it's likely more going to go for another follow me which then kind of makes the the freeze even more like null and void in my opinion anyway and the only thing that would make a difference is the protect there which we don't know if it's got or not so we do see a max guard from the Gyarados going to try and stick around at least one more turn now as we do see the Togekiss I don't know what it was going for there maybe a protect you never know but we do get the blizzard off with our bomber so it'll be enough to take the Togekiss down and we're still sitting in trick room still sitting in a nice position here it'll be interesting to see what my opponent brings in next as we do go for that icicle crash but into the max guard Gyarados going to stick around for at least one more turn and my opponent here probably trying to stall out the trick room turns I would think and chandelier could come in for my opponent that's what I kind of expect but we haven't seen that fourth Pokemon yet so we don't know what their last Pokemon is and that could cause us a few problems like chandelier here I'm not too worried about because eskies should still underspeed it in the trick room depending on the build of it of course and we do have liquidation which is nice coverage it'll be able to knock it out and chandelier is pretty low anyway so I'm assuming a blizzard and then maybe the hail chip could be enough to take it down a bomber snows pretty powerful it can throw out some big damage but we do see my opponent is going to bring in the dragapult here so um not really a favorable position for my opponent at all now I could go for the blizzard here and I do think about it but you know what a bomber snow is really on its last legs the trick room's going to end soon and the aurora veils probably the most useful thing for us to take now in front of two potentially physical type attackers in dragapult and Gyarados eskies sitting in such a good position right now so we are going to actually dynamax that eskew and go for that max hail storm or max hail crash or however whatever it is called not too familiar with it honestly if you hadn't noticed already anyway we do max our eskew looks so cool it's such a cool design it's such so wacky I do love it anyway we are going to get this blizzard this aurora veil up which does help bolster our defenses especially when we are dynamaxed as well so the thing that we won't up for eskew take those attacks a bit more when we do get the max hail storm was I right the first time I don't know anyway into the Gyarados max attack easily enough to take it down so Gyarados gone they lose their dynamax pokemon and I think this might be the last turn of trick room maybe maybe I don't know we do take the dragon claw it does break our ice face and boof oh but this is the last turn of trick room so this means we do get a speed boost now dragapult still going to outspeed us unfortunately that's one of the drawbacks that we don't get the jump on dragapult but that's fine like we're not on the worst position at all we got our aurora veil support up there's no way that dragapult is going to take us down now we could make the play of switching a bomb it's not out to bring it back in to get our ice face up again but I don't really see there's any need to to do that and risk that then we're going to go for the max geyser into the chandelier just to make sure that we take it down here we are definitely going to outspeed the chandelier we know from earlier in the game that our indeedy outsped it turn one so we know that our sq is going to outspeed it here we're running max jolly nature so our speed is pretty safe here the dragapult's definitely not taking sq down I wouldn't have thought behind an aurora veil and if obama snow can get an attack off here you know a blizzard probably will take down the dragapult so that's a big thing for us and we do get the max geyser off we actually do outspeed the dragapult which is quite surprising but we do get the chandelier anyway so no protect coming out there and we do set up the rain and that is that so chandelier going down dragapult left what we're going to see the dragapult go for and it goes for another dragon claw and we take that pretty comfortably there so it is life hoped as well and we do actually get the blizzard off with obama snow and it does stick around long enough to pick up the knockout onto dragapult and that is the game for us so both our ice types which are generally quite weak pokemon defensively putting some big work here and I think this really shows off the team and its ability to to kind of sweep through and maneuver around really tight situations and it's done an incredible job okay so now we're going to take a look at the actual team breakdown we'll look at the ev spread and some of the movesets before we give you that rental code so you can try this team out for yourself so we've got sq here and not one for anything flashy I think I just mainly wanted to to max out its longevity that's why I've got 252 in HP you know we're going to be boosting most of the time and maxing out its attack so we're not too worried about that attack investment the speed is quite important there I did want to make sure that when its ice face does break and after we take a physical hit that that 130 base speed that it goes to from its 50 base speed is maxed out so we get the jump on pretty much everything else in the format they're hitting a speed stat of 200 with the jolly nature max evs there like I say we could have maxed out attack but with the support of aurora veil and the max HP you can see from that the match that we kind of had here that it does take a bunch more damage with that aurora veil support and then we'll move on to indeedy so we've got the psychic seed here initially I wanted the focus sash here just to give it a little bit make it a bit more tricky for my opponent to take down especially if they're not doubling into it turn one just to support the eskiu because of the follow me there it's so good the reason I haven't went for toga kiss here is because we're kind of doubling up on weaknesses like we don't really want to be so weak to steal type attacks you know it's attackers because you know you've already got a bomber snow that doesn't like them right here is not super keen and indeedy kind of doesn't have that weakness so for that reason it helps out a lot more and also the psychic terrain is really nice to protect eskiu from things like pranks the t waves and just fake out in general and priority attacks that could be a little bit problematic so that's the main reason indeedy feels like really good support here we went for follow me which is kind of obvious to help us get the belly drum up in situation safeguard there's another one to stop opponents burning us ally switch is another one just to infuriate your opponents if you're in a really tight spot can help especially if you want to set the trick room up set the belly drum up or just get an attack off with one of the more powerhouse pokemon and then psychic which does actually hit pretty hard under the trick room we've went just for max attack because when i'm using the psychic i want to be able to hit as hard as possible and max speed because i don't really need as slow indeedy here i feel like getting the psychic off first getting the safeguard off first is really important here and with the psychic seed kind of boosts to the defenses it really helps out and it means we don't need so much investment to survive a lot of threatening attacks now we'll move on to the jellison you can see we've got a split of 252 hp 140 special attack modest nature and 116 special defense just maxing out that special well not maxing out maxing out the hp giving a bit of special defense support to give it a bit of a better chance against opposing rotums with thunderbolts and grass type attacks that are coming out we've got just a culver berry to protect against dark type attacks because we've got the indeedy support therefore the ghost type threats water spout a shadow ball trick room and sap strength as its moveset and i should change this because it is actually cursed body which is probably the better ability here and then we've got a magic man we've got a bomber snow we've definitely put the focus session this it's got a four times weakness to fire which is pretty common in the vgc format protect a roar of ill leaf storm is its new move that it gets in generation eight and then blizzard so it's got that nice coverage of grass and ice grass types are really good in vgc so this is really nice to have especially if we can get the trick room up against even things like ride on riperia other opposing ground types and there's so many dragons in the format that blizzard spams look really strong the weather control as well as nice to disrupt opposing weathers and aurora veil support is just incredible if you can get it off and then we'll move on to arcanine which is just a kind of standard special arcanine i feel like we've got a few physical attackers in the team so having more special attackers is probably better we're not then crippled by intimidate so this is the reason here went with the lumbary because we've got safeguard on this arcanine it makes it a little bit easier if there's fast sleep fast t wave fast whatever that can be disruptive to arcanine it means that we can heal a status condition and then get that safeguard off protect the next turn willow isp nice support for opposing physical type attackers then snarl to law special attackers and then heatwave just generally which is really nice against durant teams because we've got the follow me from indeedy and then we can heatwave not worry about redirection from the opposing durant team and we can just wipe it out and one heatwave even if it is dynamax so speed there we nearly max it out but given it enough to out speed the majority of things you want to be out speeding so you can function a bit better and it's not really a pokemon that you want to be running in trick room anywhere and then we'll move on to our last pokemon which is going to be ride on you could easy put ryperia here but i really like the the lightning rod and i think if you're going lightning rod with ry ride on or ryperia i think it's it's the better option is ride on with the the bulk that you get with ev allite and then protect brick and swipe was a nice option i thought here could have went fire punch but i think we've got the courage we need elsewhere in the team and being able to law opposing pokemon's attack stat is quite important in this format because there's a lot of physical attackers so that can come in quite clutch sometimes and then just rock slide and high horsepower for the coverage you've got a split of two two eight hp and two twenty defense which gives you a good chance to survive a life old charizard timid solar beam not in the sun though but you can disrupt the sun pretty well with a bomber snow and you're always king with the the rock slide so that's pretty much the spread there just wanted to give it enough bulk to survive those big hits and be able to actually have a bit of offensive pressure itself and it makes for still a nice dynamax pokemon when you've got the trick room up if you want is an option there you know you've got the the dragon type d max move which is nice to allow the opposing's attacks that you've got the the special defense boost with the the ground type and you can change the weather again if you want into sandstone with that rock slide so and that is the team and we'll jump over now and here is the rental code so there you go my friends i hope you enjoyed the battle it was a very fun battle it really kind of encapsulates the team i know there's a few members there that we didn't see um but have a lot of fun with this rental code and we'll be back very soon with another battle i will be streaming with this this team so do make sure you come over to our twitch channel the links down in the description stream Tuesdays Thursdays and we'll be having a bit of fun with this penguin in see how far we can get on the ladder with it but thanks for tuning in do leave your comments down below leave a like on the video if you've enjoyed it make sure you subscribe to the channel because we will have a bunch of vgc content coming out in the coming weeks and just take care of yourselves and i'll see you all for the next one