 Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of our VGC 2019 Battle Series. We are in the Ultra Series, my name is Leigh, also known as Osiris, and we're kicking off again with this team that you can see in front of you right now. The team is always down in the description below, there is a raw paste and a poker paste. If you'd like to try out the details or even try the team out, be my guest, I hope you enjoy it. As I say, this is a bit of an interim period where we're bringing back some competitive action to the channel because we've got our roulette series running. Every day at 7am UK time-growing has been 10 plus 1. If you check that out it is a lot of fun, especially this week's team, I would definitely recommend checking that out but we're concentrating a bit more on some serious competitive action this week and whether we can continue this next week could be another thing. As I say, I started this week just seeing if I could juggle both series at the same time. I've missed competitive action so this is why I brought it back. If I can manage it, of course I will do it and maybe it will be every other week but we'll see how we go from then on. But let me know in the comments section below what your thoughts are on seeing a bit more competitive action rather than just roulette series or are you happy with just the fun that we're doing with the roulette series until the rules are announced. But without further ado guys, the music is on, I'm looking forward to getting into today's episode. Like I said, we had a bit of a hiccup in our last game in yesterday's episode which wasn't so great but I'm still feeling positive about the team. I feel like we're still going to be able to do some good work with it. What are we going to kick off with today? League title defence, always one of my favourites. I know it's one that we use over and over again but it is one of my favourites. Hopefully it doesn't take too long to find our first opponent. What I'm going to do is just cut straight now and then we'll come straight back when we find our first opponent of the episode. And we've got our first opponent of the episode, we've got Fate from Japan. So let's hop straight over into team preview, let's see what we're playing against to kick us off today. Okay, so first opponent today has a team of Kyogre, Dragalge, or however we're going to pronounce that but that's how I'm doing it this time, Krucadile, Yveltal, Metagross and Grinninger. So a mad mix of Pokemon, we've got two water types there, we've got two dark types, poison type, a ground type and the steel psychic type in mega Metagross. So it's a Yveltal-Kyogre combination there, it's a restricted call. We've got speed control is pretty much only on Yveltal which is Tailwind. So we can definitely match Tailwind. What are we going to do? There's no fake out either. I think we'll go Yveltal, Raichu. Do we want to bring Tapufini here? Ulteria could be good though, there's a nice switch in for something like Krucadile. And I think I'll go Nacrosma as well. Yeah, because Ulteria, once it's mega evolve can deal with the Yveltal. We need to watch out for the Metagross but between Yveltal and Ulterna Crosma with the earth power there I'm pretty sure we should be able to handle them well enough. The only thing is we're not bringing Tapufini which I wouldn't mind the Misty Seed for but now we'll be fine. He says we'll be fine, hopefully we'll be fine. I don't know the Misty Seed might have been the one thing that we probably needed to help us a little bit more against that Kyogre but let's see we'll be alright I think we'll be okay. Let's see what my opponent brings. They'll definitely bring Kyogre and Yveltal for sure. Krucadile and Yveltal we've got all the dark types coming out here. Raichu's feeling a bit of pressure right now but it's alright. We're going to get intimidated for sure by the Krucadile. We can fake out Krucadile, go for Tailwind, it's not a bad play really and we can also scout out by doing this if that Krucadile is scoffed or not. There is a little part of me that thinks it's probably scoffed but we'll see. Raichu's got its sash so it's in no trouble of getting like a z move could come out here from the Yveltal. I feel like it's a bit of a waste though going into Raichu right now but we will see. We do fake out we just see a snarl actually so the Krucadile not scoffed and there's speed control either which is quite nice. This kind of opens the door for us straight away. My thinking is we get the Tailwind up we can go for the Volt switch into the opposing Yveltal. The only thing is the Yveltal could be, it could protect but it might be its Yveltal as well. I'm going to go for a snarl and I'm just going to go for that Volt switch into the opposing Yveltal. If we lose Raichu it's a bit unfortunate for sure but thankfully we don't so we get to preserve that for later on. It's definitely, I'd say it's Yveltal's Yveltal. We'll probably see another snarl come out here but I mean Ulteria is going to be Podflying typing now. I haven't got the Fairy typing so it's not resistant to the Dark typing yet. We did get a Snarl off which will help us a little bit I guess depending on what the opposing Yveltal wants to do. It'll be interesting to see what the Krucadile goes for. Okay so we've just seen a Bolivian wing it'll be into our Yveltal which is fine and a knockoff. Huh? I'm not going to do too much. Man look at the damage that does. Okay let's go chase down this Krucadile. Let's go Mega Evolve and Hyper Voice and let's go Forth I'll play into the Krucadile as well just to try and get some damage there. That knockoff did so much damage. That's crazy. I guess we haven't intimidated it but see if my phone keeps the Krucadile in. The Hyper Voice. It'll be interesting to see the damage it does to the opposing Yveltal for sure and we're not going to see any Protector come out. If I'll play it hopefully it puts Krucadile in range which should be in range now of the Hyper Voice. Is that Bandit Krucadile? Could well be. Do some nice damage to the opposing Yveltal pick up the knockoff onto the Krucadile. We're going to see Snarl come out which is fine. If we could just get rid of one more Pokemon then we can perish some and then everything will be fine. Let's see I wonder if Kyogre hits the field now. Likely will. They've banned off both Kyogre but might and here it is. Here's the Kyogre. Okay. Alright regardless here like we can Snarl if you want we can play the Kyogre. Two Snarlings better Snarlings and Hyper Voicing just I want to be able to get some like I need to get the reduction on the Kyogre I think here and the Hyper Voice we'll go for. Maybe a Snarl and a Hyper Voice is enough to get the Yveltal. I'd probably say it's not quite enough right now. I think the Yveltal's probably got enough in the tank especially after the Snarl to take this. And then our Tailwind does pitter out and run out and if we lose Altaria here I don't expect us to lose Yveltal then we should be able to get Raichu back in and get a fake out Tailwind up and that should be enough. Oh we're going to see the Yveltal switch out. Greninja come in. Hyper Voice how much damage are you going to do? So we get a special attack drop on both of these Pokemon coming in and then we'll get this Hyper Voice off. Obviously we're in a Tailwind here. Wow we get the Greninja. Not doing very much the Kyogre and if Altaria can hang on just this one turn I don't think it's going to. Nah. Okay that's fine. We could have went for the Perish song which would have made things a lot easier but unfortunately it's not going to happen. We'll get Raichu back in because then we can Tailwind, we can Snarl and then we'll protect. What am I talking about to protect for? I don't know what. I'm not snarling. I'm Tailwinding. I'm Tailwinding. Do we need to Tailwind though? Probably because I don't know the speed of this Kyogre. We'll fake out the Kyogre. I'm just thinking the Kyogre probably could protect. I'm thinking out loud. I'm thinking my thoughts. It's the first sign of going crazy people. I feel like the Evaltor has to Snarl here as well. Kyogre flinch, Oblivion wing. Is that into our Evaltor? Possibly. There's a decent chunk of damage. It's definitely a Salt Vest. Evaltor, 100%. There's the Tailwind. So, hmm, do we double the Kyogre? Snarl and the Vault Switch. But then we're going to bring in Dustman and the Crosma. Which probably doesn't really want to come in on anything. We could on-call the Evaltor into Oblivion wing. We're probably going to lose both Pokemon doing this though. We might lose both anyway because I don't know if a Vault Switch is going to be enough with a Snarl to get the Kyogre. Very unlikely that it is. But it does mean that we get to preserve Raichu and the Faker for at least another turn. Which isn't the worst thing in the world. Depends what the Kyogre is going to chuck out though. It's going to be an Origin Pulse. It is minus 2 now so it's not going to be hitting as hard. Never goes water spot then. That's the happy days for us. Happy days. Thunder. You've gone for a Thunder with a Raichu on the field. I don't really understand that. I don't understand it at all. Okay, there's the Snarl. That's fine. I don't get it. I don't get it at all. Alright. We have to watch out for this foul play of course from the Evaltor. I think we'll just fake out and we'll Fortonguizer the Kyogre. I'm not going to Ultra-burst just yet. We could potentially lock the Evaltor into Snarl as well. We'll see if this Evaltor goes before anything else because it's got to suck a punch. So we'll get rid of the Kyogre now. I think what we could do is protect an Encore. We can't Encore because then we could Encore into Snarl for sure. That's definitely something we can do. Encore into Snarl. And then we've got the Sunsteel Strike that we can utilize to do some decent damage with. And like double-end to it with... With Fold Switch. Ooh, Sucker Punch. Okay, well we're going to lock into Sucker Punch because... Went for it! Okay, that makes more sense. Can we Nuzzle? Can we just protect? It is locked into it. I mean we could just stall out these Sucker Punches, couldn't we? I mean it could attack Raichu which would be the bad thing here. But it is just targeting and... I think we survive a Sucker Punch from this range to be honest. And I think Evalt Switch and the Sunsteel Strike are going to get it now. So let's just do this. Let's just do it. Yeah, we're not going to... Nah, we're not going to Ultra Burst though. We'll stay in this form. There's a bit more chance of survival if we stay like this. Oh, so close! Raichu nearly stole the shot. And we'll be able to pick up the kill with the Sunsteel Strike and pick up our first victory today. Which is always a good way for us to kick off. I can't believe the damage that Knock-Off did. It must have been bounded. Must have been bounded, Crocodile, on the Altaria. Because it would have been so much quicker if Altaria just stuck around a little bit longer and we could have perished and it would have been... Get him over very quickly, but never mind. It was a very fun battle. Just one for us to kick off with today as well. And we're seeing a bit more of the team as well. Raichu, one of those Pokemon that just keeps coming back, doesn't it? In every VGC format that it's allowed in, it does so much work. I really like Raichu. I think it's such a great Pokemon. It would be nice to see it do well at the World Championship this year. Maybe it will. Maybe there's a certain... Click who did well with it in the last time we had restricted Pokemon. And he might be using it again. Or maybe it's one of you guys out there that is attending Worlds. And you're going to use Raichu because you think it's just a cool Pokemon. It's got so many good support options as well. I feigned Uncle, Nuzzle, Bolt Switch, Fake Out. He used to get Follow Me. I think that's like a Gen 3 thing, isn't it? I'm pretty sure. Or is it even before that? I'm not too sure which generation it is. I'm sure one time or another it got Follow Me though. It's very good. I tell you one Pokemon that gets Follow Me that I wish hadn't moved from. I think it's Generation 3. I think it was a Cheater in Generation 3. Or it might have been Gales of Darkness. But Helping Hand Togokiss. If Togokiss still got Helping Hand, that combination of Follow Me with its flying type, the resistance that it gets there and Helping Hand. All my Christmases would come early, I swear. It's always the Pokemon that I think if you still got Helping Hand, you'd be so good. Every team that I've had with Togokiss and as well would have always been optimized by that Helping Hand. It would have made it so much more viable, useful at least. Anyway, we're searching for our next opponent. It looks like it's going to take another little while. So we'll cut here and we'll come straight back, my friends. And we've got our next opponent of the episode. We've got Z Shadow from Portugal. So we haven't had a Portuguese player for a while. So very nice. And we'll hop straight into Team Preview. Okay, so their team is made up of Zernius, Groudon, Alon and Persian, Aerodactyl, Raichu and Farathorn. So it's the Zernius, Groudon combination. But you can see from the concept of this team, it's got all the support options to help get this Zernius set up and help it steamroll through teams. You've got the Farathorn there. It's going to be a good trick room check, at least if trick room does go up for this team. So it's got some counteract there. You've got the tailwind support from the Aerodactyl, probably Sky Drop there, Wide Guard, Rock Slide, all the shenanigans, then double fake out, two fast fake out users in Raichu and Alon and Persian. And then the Groudon there, that's just always going to be difficult to deal with. We definitely want Dusk Min across my here, especially with that Sunseal Strike. It can do good work against a lot of things. We need to watch out for that Alon and Persian now. For sure, that can cause us a lot of issues. Did we go with... I just want to bring like everything here. Honestly, I feel like lots of options here are going to be good. I'm going to bring Raichu, and I think I'm going to bring Altaria. I'm going to bring... Oh, but we need... I know I don't think I can. I'm going to bring Yvelto, Tepithiny, and... Oh, I don't think... You know what? I didn't lock in. I didn't lock in with Dusk Min across my, and I think we're stuck with Altaria here, which is really frustrating. This is not going as well as I would have liked because if you see Persian... Okay, Persian. Eridactyl. Double Shinies. I would have been worried more about Persian and Xenius here. 100%. Dusk Min across my, not having it here, does make things a little bit more difficult. I'm going to have to switch Raichu out because we'll... I shall actually get broken otherwise. I'll bring Tepithiny in, and I'm just going to protect Yvelto here. Yeah. My opponent might go for a Tailwind. The thing is with Yvelto, in this situation, we're not going to enjoy taking rocksides from Eridactyl, for sure. So we're going to have to try this next turn, get Tailwind and Icy Wind set up so at least we're getting the jump, and then we're able to heal Pulse by Yvelto going forward. There's Mega Eridactyl. We'll definitely, I think, a Fakeout and a Tailwind this turn. There's a Fakeout. Yeah, into the finish. So we could have went. Okay, there's a taunt. Okay. We'll go for Icy Wind, and... do we go for a taunt again? I mean, I'm going to try and Tailwind because if they do, then they do. If they don't, then... everything's alright. Then we get the Tailwind up. We take rocksides, potentially. So Pulse is going to withdraw. We're going to see Xenius come out. It's interesting that we're going to see a pot in shot there. That is interesting. Tailwind. So we'll match the Tailwind, and we'll get an Icy Wind off, which gives us the jump, which isn't ideal for us using Hayes. But... if my opponent goes for... that is frustrating! Because we needed to... Yeah, we needed to hit the Aerodactyl there. We really did. To get the jump on it. I'm going to have to go Icy Wind again, but Xenius down to just neutral. We'll try a Snarl as well. Just to reduce the GM antsy. They might just double attack us, you know. That's the other... That's the other scary thing that we could see here. We do have Hayes on finish, so it's not the worst thing in the world. I'm surprised that we didn't see a pot in shot there. I don't mind it. I kind of prefer that we were not seeing it, but at the same time, let's see, there's a rock slide. That's why... Flip. Yveltal taking so much damage. We do get the Snarl off, which is super, super useful. So we need the Icy Wind now. We need this Icy Wind. Yeah, we hit both. Okay, that's super good for us, because Xenius can boost now, but it's going to be... Sloth and Finny the next turn. We can Hayes. We can Farplay Aerodactyl as well. I'm just going to see Moonblast though. That's the... Oh, Interfinny. That's interesting. Okay, well, I still don't mind that at all, because we can go... I guess my opponent might try on the last turn to tailwind to go for this Icy Wind. I don't know what's better to go for. If we go for... Hmm... Farplay into Aerodactyl and a Heal Pulse. Might be a better option, just to keep Yveltal round for a little bit longer, and then we can potentially go for... Um... Another tailwind later in the match. Yeah, I'm going to go for that. So Farplay the Aerodactyl, which we should outspeed now. This should take it down. Get rid of at least one threat. Okay. We'll get Veltal up to tip-tap shape. Tip-tap shape. Right. Oh, nice and healthy again. We're going to see Moonblast. Is it going to be into Finny? Finny? Oh, we hang on though. Finny! You're a hero. I love you, Tapu Finny. I love you so much. Hanging on. So the snarl really coming in useful here. So, um... Next turn we can... Uh... I mean, it depends what kind of ground on. I'm so tempted. I am so tempted to go for the, um... The old switch into Altaria and scald the ground on with Finny, but it's probably not the best... or the best thing to do right now. Um... We'll go for another icy wind. And we'll go for another snarl. We'll go for a snarl again, I think. Um... Just to reduce the damage. The ability of the Zernius. If it does decide to J-Mancy now, then at least... it's just going back to neutral. Zernius is going to withdraw. Which is fine. Persian is going to hit the field again. So we've got to worry about that Zernius late game. Thunder. You're so mad. Thunder, ground on. In the sun. Ah, man. I've seen every... I've seen everything now. My voice decides not to go. Um, right. We'll get nice icy wind on to both targets. Um... Tailwind does pitter out on both ends of the field. And I mean, it's quite important for us to kind of try and keep... a bit of momentum here and think... could we get Altaria in? Hmm... Probably not right now. Hmm... Do we want to keep Finny around for later? Bring Raichu in? Raichu's probably not... Raichu's good against Zernius as well, though. So... there's a part of me that's... quite happy just to sit here and go for another icy wind. And just go for the foul play this time into the groudon. And get some damage off there. So fake out into... Okay, Evelto. It's fine. We're going to get another icy wind off. We're going to see another Thunder. More Thunder. Yeah. But because of the sun, it's not really hitting the spot that it needs to. And we'll go for another icy wind, because I suspect there's Zernius to come back in now. If we do see a parting shot, potentially, I guess. But we'll go for that foul play into the groudon. So groudon going to withdraw. Zernius coming out. I mean, I don't mind getting just additional damage onto the Zernius as well. It's a foul play. Foul play. That's good damage. That's good damage. Yeah. Ice wind slowing everything down. What's the person going to do? Foul foul now. Yeah, this is Zernius. And I mean, between these two, we should be able to close this up pretty well. We're going to see a foul play. It's going to be into our Evelto. That's fine. Yeah, because we can snarl and heal Pulse. Evelto. Because I don't think the groudon can beat Evelto. Although it is a special groudon, but it feels very close to being in range for a foul play. And I think we're going to be able to wrap this one up. I feel like my opponent's really able to kind of capitalize on any sort of momentum at this point. It's quite difficult for them to build on anything. We could see the J-Manty here. It's definitely something we could see. Yeah. There it is. There it is. Okay. It's going to be plus one though. I mean, that's why it would have been better gone for the icy wind there again. So it's only plus one. If we can get... I mean, one thing we could... I gone for the taunt to shut down that potential hairs there. We'll go for another icy wind and I'm just going to protect Evelto here because if we lose Fenny, it does mean we get Raichu in and we can go for the fake out tailwind and then we can go for fake out Onko or fake out Nuzzle. Obviously one after the other. Not at the same time. Because Raichu can't use two moves at once. If he could, it would be the most badass Pokemon. Persian going to withdraw. We're going to see Groudon now hit the field once again. So any icy wind support here would be obviously really useful just to further along. I'd imagine the Xenius might just attack the Fenny. Just to get rid of it. I was concentrating down on it so hard before so that would make a lot of sense. Yeah, we're going to see the Moonblast. I don't think we take this from this range plus one. Now we go down. But it does give us a free switch in to Raichu of course. So that's what we want. Although... Yeah, I think we got to go Raichu. I kind of want to bring Altaria in but it's not the time. It's not the time of the place, my friends. Let's go fake out into Xenius. It could protect here. Definitely could protect. We'll go for a tailwind. If that Groudon decides to throw out some more Thunders though, Raichu is going to be feeling real good about itself. We're not going to see. Ooh, no protect there. So that's fine. There's a Roption. Roption. Pure special Groudon. There's the tailwind. So we're sitting pretty nice now and we can just snarl. Snarl and do we vault switch or do we go nuzzle? Maybe nuzzle's better. Because if we can fully paralyze it this next turn that would be it really, wouldn't it? We could see the Xenius protecting the Persian come in. It's definitely an option I think. We're not going to see that though. We're just going to see the Xenius. Prune protect. And there's the nuzzle. So Groudon does take a snarl. Yeah. You've got to think as well like a foul play and a hyper voice will be enough to get. It will be enough to get the Xenius. And then we've only got the Persian to deal with after that. So we should be all right regardless of what happens here. I'm just going to check. I'm just going to double check to see what the Xenius's speed was. It was, yeah, only plus one. So we're plus two. So we, we will definitely hyper voice and we will go for a foul play. I'm not really worried about what the Groudon is going to do now. It's shown a part, shown eruption, which isn't going to be doing very much. It's got thunder. Again, accuracy very shaky. It's probably got protectors. It's fourth move. So I can't, I'm not really too concerned about it right now. And then the Persian to come in. I don't think you can really deal with mega ulterior. Groudon going to switch out. Persian coming in going to take and tank hyper voice, which should be enough more than enough to take it out at this point. So we've been able to more than likely pick up a double knockout here. I think the one thing we have to worry about more than anything else is the double protect from Xenius, which my opponent could go for here. It's a good win condition for them if they get it because then it would mean that they could get the fake out of the next turn. Not going to get it though. Oh, the moon lost. It's into Ulteric. Can we take this? Oh, we can't. Oh, my God. Are you kidding? Ulteria, how are you not faster in Tailwind than a plus on Xenius? We're going to see a fake out here. And I think the game could go. It could go. It could backfire completely because we've got to protect. I'm going to take a big fat moon blast. And I don't know if we're going to be able to beat Persian and Xenius. Oh, my gosh. Ulteria, how could you do this to us? This is why we needed Duskman and Nekrosma. We didn't need the Ulteria here. We'll go for the snarl. We're going to take a fat moon blast. It shouldn't take us down, but it's going to be very close and maybe in range for a foul play. I can't believe this. Can't believe you're bringing ground on. You need to take the opportunity to hit us with Persian, I feel right now. But I mean, okay, moon blast. We should take this. No, no, we don't. Plus one. And that was plus one. What? And I can't believe, I can't believe that. I really can't believe it. Honestly, I can't. Ulteria, that is terrible. That's where we need to look back. That's a good situation here. That we need to look back in EV spreads and saying, right, when we're in a tailwind, we need to be faster than X amount, because it's pointless otherwise going down a tailwind route when you can't speed other threats in the format. And that's a good lesson for all of you out there. Right. We're going to knock this one on the head. Thank you so much for tuning in, guys. Hope you've enjoyed today's episode. We'll be back tomorrow and might make some tweaks to the team in between now and then, and then we'll come back and we'll continue it on tomorrow. So thanks for tuning in. Have a great rest of your day, whatever you're up to, and I'll see you all for the next one. Until then, take care and bye-bye.