 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 Series 8 VGC content, playing today a Duskmaid and a Crosma team. Very excited about this. And I have to give a shout out to my good friend, Nigel Wormseye, who has actually passed me his Duskmaid and a Crosma team, which kind of inspired a lot of ideas behind this one. So big shout out to Nigel. This isn't the exact build that he put together. But as I said, inspired a lot of ideas. And there's some tricks to this team that aren't apparent on team preview. We'll get into those as we get into the battles today. But as always, there will be a poker piss down in the description below. And if you stick around till the end of the episode, there will be a rental code for you guys to try this team out for yourself. So without further ado, let's get into the battles and find our first opponent of the episode. The first up today, we've got Marco playing a team of Tyranitar, Zassian, Rillaboom, Articuno, the Kanto form, Urshifu and Incinero. So this is going to be an interesting team. I'm not really sure what to make of the Articuno here, but obviously great to see Gen 1, Pokemon. What are we looking at? Speed control. You've got Airstream on the Articuno. I'm not really 100% sure if it gets Tailwind. So that could be a possibility for sure. Got Timidate. You've got the Urshifu there that can cause N'Crosma a few problems. Tyranitar as well, something we need to be a little bit careful of. Zassian, of course, is going to be the big one of my opponent's team. So we're kind of going to need to utilize Incinero on this match for sure. I think if we can get our trick room up, you know, we're going to be in a really good spot. Thing is though, you can probably see my opponent leading with their Incinero to prevent that. So I think maybe like Indeedy, N'Crosma guarantees our trick room up like 100%. We'll bring Incinero on the back and then maybe Landerous isn't bad. The double Intimidate could be useful against pretty much mostly a physical team outside of the Articuno. We just need to be a bit careful of. But I mean, if we get N'Crosma in a decent position in trick room, we should be all right. Okay. So we'll lock in with these and get going. There's an argument with the Tapu Fini could be useful here. But there's a good chance that the Rillaboom could see some play as well in this match. You know, it's going to be there to, you know, disrupt that psychic terrain. It's going to be something that my opponent can utilize to take away the advantage of us not being able to be faked out. You know, so lots of things to consider. Okay. Well, we're seeing Zassian and Articuno come up for my opponent. Oh, here we've got like the option to just get our trick room up if we want. And it puts us in a pretty awesome position, to be honest, because really, I don't know what my opponent kind of does if we get the trick room up. Unless Articuno gets in prison in trick room. I'm sure the Kanto variant doesn't get trick room though. I think it's only the Galarian variant. And I don't really want to get stung by that, but we'll go for the follow me. The other option is obviously because neither Pokemon really pressure definitely N'Crosma. So we've got the option where we can bring in just bring in Incinero and trick room here. And that's still not a bad play because then we take away the attack boost from the Zassian. We are all going to see the Articuno switch out, obviously in a tough spot as we see the Incinero come in for my opponent. But that's kind of fine. They switch out before us. So we're going to be able to get our Intimidate onto both of their Pokemon and opposed to them just getting it onto one of ours. I don't know what the Zassian is going to do. Maybe substitute here. That could be a nice option for them to kind of get around the trick room. For them at least, you know, for one turn. So we'll see what we'll see what they do. It's just going for behemoth blade. So I'll go for that into the indeed. He wants to remove a redirection, I guess, and all going into N'Crosma. Okay. Well, it still does a decent amount, you know, like just a neutral damage does a decent decent chunk. Um, but we're not too bad a spot because we've got the option to come fake out. We can't fake out. I can parting shot. I think what we'll do is we're parting shot out with Zassian. I want to reset. Um, yeah, what we'll do is we'll get indeedy back onto the field. I want to reset our Intimidate drop from the opposing Incinero. Now the only drawback here would be if they parting shot onto our Incinero and we go before them. Yeah. Well, we're going to see Gautram come out. Okay. Well, this is still all right. I guess the grassy tree ain't going to come up, which you don't mind too much to be honest. Um, yeah, the only issue would be I am kind of hoping that they go for either a flablet or a parting shot into a dustman across my that would be the thing that we want to see. And the grassy terrain recovery would be super useful. There's no way my opponent goes for a flablet into the dustman across my what was the Incinero slot. We do go for the Willowiz Bill, which is very interesting. Okay. Well, it's a good job that we made that switch. Now my opponent doesn't really have any kind of ways to mitigate. I mean, if we had the psychic terrain up, it would be in a much better spot. It's just the fact that we've got really boom now on the field and it can fake out and we can get Willowiz, which isn't ideal. Although are we going to be slow? We're not going to be slower than the Incinero and the trick room. And they're doing a great job at like stalling out our trick room turns in all honesty. What could we do? We have to switch in Incinero here, to be honest. It was just a fake out pressure is just too much for us. We could get an expanding force off, I guess. We could switch. I think we'll switch to liner us here. It gives us a bit of a better opportunity to get the psychic train back onto the field. Ah, this is tricky. This is so tricky. Like, I don't want to lose this match, but we've got to be patient. I think we're going to be in a position to get a trick room up again with knowing with what my opponent's got. Is that thing coming back in? No Willowiz coming out onto the field. Okay. We're going to see how to Kuno, which is kind of fine. They're going to have the pressure. Um, I just hope we don't see a grassy glide. That would be the kind of the drawback to bringing lander us onto the field right now. I think the big thing for us as well is to try and deal with the Incinero. And this is one of the drawbacks. I guess with dustmen across mirrors, you've got to really kind of accept the fact that Incinero and Intimidate are going to be two things that really, really make it difficult to, to utilize. Um, I think we're parting shot here onto this one. And I think we get indeedy back onto the field now. Yeah, because I'd imagine the Incinero comes back onto the field. Yeah. Okay. This is fine. I don't know what the heart of Kuno is going to go for. Maybe it protects here. It's not in the best position against Incinero, but we're getting indeedy back onto the field. The problem is the, the really boom can come back onto the field at any point. And it's the willow isp. The problem, the willow isp, the fake out willow isp is not what we want. That's the board position we kind of have to try and avoid. So we get the parting shot off into the heart of Kuno, which is always useful. Um, and at least we've got the Intimidate, both Intimidate in the back. Um, and like I said at the very start, you know, my opponent's kind of main strategy here is going to be going down a physical route. So if we can preserve those Intimidates the best possible, and it's going to make things a bit easier for us. So if you see the ice beam into the indeedy critical hit, not really what we want to be seeing in the burn, chipping away, but we're in a position now where we can Max Quake, helping hand Max Quake into the Incinero. And just how many turns of trick room? We can't help in hand. We've got one turn of trick room. Do we max here or do we just buy that time a little bit? Cause we could Max Quake. Hmm. And we could Max Quake just redirect. We could go for, since your strike might not be a bad option actually because whatever comes in for the Art of Kuno here. Yeah. I think we go after the Art of Kuno, pull away the Willowisp, pull away the parting shot. Okay. And whatever comes in, if it is going to be the really boom, at least we get the defense boost take us forward into the next turn, which is always useful. Um, and then potentially have, yeah, then we'll get Incinero in and then the fake out support next to the Crossbow for the following turn and the defense boost is super useful, super useful. So like the Art of Kuno, it's a weird Pokemon because it's not something I've really seen too much of and I doubt I'll see too much of going forward, but obviously it's got good, you know, offensive pressure with the ice type attack, but it's speeds not great. Um, we do see a darkest Larrier. Is this going to be enough to take us down from the range that we are with the Cobber Berry? Potentially. Yeah, the burn, the burn, the burn should take us down. I mean, the burn might take us down. I won't complain if we can keep indeedy on the field. I will say that and I kind of prefer the grassy terrain to be on the field than, um, we might just hang on and then we force my opponent. Um, well, I think whatever we do, I think we max guard and we switch in Incinero this next turn. Yeah. Max guard. We switch in Incinero. Yeah. You've got to think as well what Pokemon is my opponent going to max here because it's going to be difficult like the, the standard one to me right now would be the Incinero. It feels like it's probably the best option for my opponent. So that could be potentially something that we do see because I can't really see the real boom going for it. I can't see the Articuno going for it. The grassy glide coming out, no fake out, but I mean, you don't really need the fake out life or boom and there's the Willow Wisp. So I mean, we can got a couple of options here. I mean, we can go fake out into Incinero, Max Quake into that slot. There's always the risk that we see the Articuno come in. Um, there, which would be, which would be super bad, super bad. Um, do we double into it? Cause I don't want to waste the maximum cause this is our last one. So we need to make sure that we're, we're making the most of it. Um, we could get rid of the, the really boom. I think the Incinero is too important for them in all honesty. There's a big part of me that wants to steal spike and go for flablets into the Incinero. Should we make the play? Should we make that play? No, no, no, let's just go for this. Let's just play it a little bit safer. Yeah, they don't switch out. Okay. Okay. We don't overthink it. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's really good. And they don't care about the knockoff. You get rid of our Berry. It's fine at this point. We just want this, this damage onto the Incinero. It's not going to pick. Oh, is it going to pick up the knockup? Probably not. Oh, it does. Okay. All right. Just meant to cross my surprise in us all. So that's really good. And now my opponent, you know, got the special defense boost, which is really useful because Articuno can't really touch us anyway for super effective damage. Rillabooms minus one. We've got landers in the back. They've got Zassian to come in for sure, but Zassian is going to come in the behemoth blade minus one and a neutral. Sorry. It's not doing a great deal. There's no way for us to proc our weakness policy right now, but I don't feel like we're in too much danger because I think if Zassian does come in this next turn, we just switch to landers, but it is going to be the Articuno and we do have the trick room is an option right now that we can go for. And I don't really feel like my opponent's got anything that they can do to prevent the trick room going up. I mean, they do have knockoff, but knockoff plus whatever the Articuno does is just not going to be enough. I don't think so. I think what we'll do is we will play Blitz the Rillaboom. We'll trick room and that should be enough to kind of close the game up unless this Articuno like surprises me. But you know, it's weird like I'm taking my time with this game and it's solid because and this is probably a good thing for especially new players coming in and maybe even more experienced players because when you come up against a Pokemon that you're not really too familiar with and now you can say this 100% about Articuno. It's a Pokemon that you're going to see in the games from Gen 1, but you're never really going to see too much of on the competitive side. You saw very, very well, it was actually pretty decent in Gen 1 singles back in the day back in the very first tournaments. It wasn't a bad option, but since then you've not really seen it at all. I do like it as a Pokemon 100% love it as a Pokemon. I think it's a great Pokemon, but when you don't really know about it and you haven't seen it, it's not something you spend or invest too much time in like looking at and saying, oh, well, what's this do? This has got this option, this option, this option, which for most of the Pokemon, I know they've got this option. They can do this. They can play God. They can fake out. They can intimidate, etc, etc. But with Articuno, it's it's like, okay, I have no idea what it's doing and for those sort of Pokemon, it's scary because they're the Pokemon that can really catch you out. And I I'm going to take an example here. My friend Jim Boy. Oh, come on. Come on. Come on. I'm in the middle of something here in the middle of something, the salt Marco get me the salt boys. Um, all right. Well, good game to Marco. Good friend Jimmy Boy. I'm going to finish this off. He uses really like obscure Pokemon. We had that locked. We had that locked and loaded a long time before this. Um, but yeah, uses obscure Pokemon and you know, I'm not taking away anything from him being an amazing player because he is and he's very innovative and he builds like no one else does. But when he goes into battle, everyone he plays has the same exact feelings playing cautiously. It was us. Oh, are you kidding? Are you kidding? It was us and that's what I mean and you just have to be very, very patient against these Pokemon kind of trying to eke out as much information as you can against them. I can't believe that. I cannot believe that. Okay. Well friends, I'm going to take it as a win and we saw the team do its thing. So we're going to just jump straight into our next one. So we will be right back when we find the next opponent. Firstly, I have to apologize to Marco for accusing him of the salt. So Marco, if you're out there, my friend, good game, sorry for the disconnect. It wasn't intentional. Everything seems to be online. It seems to be something wrong with my switch. So and then secondly, we got our next opponent with a very interesting username. I gotta say I do kind of appreciate it, but they're playing a team of Whimsicott, Manuswine, Incinero, Thundurus, Tapafini, and Calyrex Shadow Rider. Got that favorite combination of myself, you know, the Calyrex Shadow Rider and Thundurus. I think it's an incredible combination of Pokemon. It's one of my favorites, I think in Series 8. I will be revisiting it at some point. I've got an absolute fire team. So if you want to see that, let me down in the comment section below. But what are we going to do against this team? It's a little bit more tricky, of course. You've got the Calyrex Shadow Rider. You've got the Thundurus. It makes it very difficult for us to bring Incinero because if we do, we proc the Defiant. Obviously, we can deal with the Calyrex, but it makes things, it makes things very, very difficult for us to kind of operate. So I think what we're going to do, we're going to play a little game. We're going to play a little game. And this is why we've got Thundurus in this team. So we're going to bring the Cosmo. We're going to bring Thundurus. We're going to bring Incinero. And we are going to bring... Do we want in DD? Do-do you? Or I think we want Tapafini in this one. So we'll bring the Fini. And this is one of the golden moments of the team because you're probably sitting there thinking, he's got Defiant Thundurus. Well, I will tell you again, as much as I love Defiant Thundurus, Thundurus is one of my favorite Pokemon. This is actually a Prankster Thundurus and it's in this team for a specific reason. And I'm pleased. We're going to be able to kind of explore and have a look at it right now because if it works, it's going to be beautiful. And I'm not even kidding. It's going to be absolutely amazing. If we can get this to work, so there's no sense of the Defiant proc-ing right now. So they're just like, ah, they're going to be Defiant. Defiant Thundurus. Here we go. Here we go. So what we're going to do is we are going to go for an Erie Impulse into the Calyrex and we are going to go for a... Just, just, just, just, I just want to just see what Pokemon they've got. There could be a problem for... Not much. I mean the Mama Swine potentially Incinero, potentially. But I think if we get the defense boost right now, we're going to be all right. So let's not time out. Let's go for Erie Impulse into Calyrex and let's go for that Max Stealshpike. And let's see what this Calyrex can do on minus two to our Max Dustman Necrosma. Let's hope it doesn't Max because I think the one thing I don't want to see is the Calyrex Maxing here. I think it would be... It makes it a bit more difficult because it's obviously going to hit a bit more. It's going to hit a bit harder. You're expecting the life orb on it, of course. It's probably the best option to go with it on. I'm hoping we'll see like... Ooh, switcheroo. Don't like that if that's an eject button, which it is. Okay. Well, this just got a lot harder. I hate eject button and it's always that thing I forget about. Eject button. Okay. Well, there's the Astro Barrage. See if that worked. Look at the damage. There's nothing. But our weakness policy procs and we're done. We're done in this one. But we can bring Incineroar in. It's not over yet. It could have been so good. It could have been so good. Could have been so good. Really could have. We've got to be careful now because the thunderous can come onto the field and we don't want to proc a defined boost by snarling here. I think we have to be a little bit smarter with what we're doing. So... We could potentially try... I think I prefer to get rid of the Whimsicott of anything and we could Thunderbolt into the Kalorax Post Rider. We could Erie Impulse again. I don't really feel like we need to though. I think... Because we really want to try and get the Duskman onto the field. I think the Kalorax switches out here. I think the Kalorax switches out and Thunderous comes onto the field. So I think what we're going to do is we're going to go the Crosma and we're going to go parting shot as well into Whimsicott because we don't want to catch the Thunderous. Yeah. Okay. So the Kalorax is switching out. That's a Finny coming in. Okay. The Thunderous might not be coming to this match. We should Thunderbolt it. Imagine if we Thunderbolt it like we originally thought. That was the idea. Just get a Thunderbolt onto the field. Kind of want to keep Thunderous around a little bit later. The fact is though that I don't think the Whimsicott's got taunt so we can probably set up a trick room pretty freely here. See what we see. Tailwind. That's ideal. Okay. That's perfect. The parting shot would have been better into the Finny but you can see the reason and why we didn't want to go that route because losing our Dynamax though is terrible. Now we can bring in Thunderous again. I think that's not a bad play and we can Eurean pulse the Finny. Just really neuter it. Make sure that it's not doing any damage to us. The Whimsicott's pretty weak as it is. You can set a trick room while we're here. Eurean pulse into the Finny and we can just kind of carry on doing that until until Thunderous is no longer needed. But we do pressure the Finny as well. The problem is if the if the the the Thunderous does come in now but I would expect it to have already come in. None in center or would have been you know something that's likely to click snarl it's likely to potting shot. So I don't think they've got it in the back. I'm kind of just surmising here. So we're going to have to try and eke our way through this one helping hand. Well, you can do that but it's not going to be too much help. I don't think I mean you probably chased down the Thunderous here. Max guys are coming out. We're going to be able to really make sure that this type of Finny does nothing in this match. Yeah, it's just going to proc our Citrus Berry Thunderous acting like an absolute champ. Right here. Yeah. And we can start Sunsteel Strike in with no Crosmires. We get a trick room up which we're in a really good position now. I think we've got Sunsteel Strike into the Whimsicott's probably the one to go after. Well, yeah, I think we've got Sunsteel Strike into Whimsicott. We'll go for another. I mean we could Brutal Swing here as well. I think we don't do it this turn. I think we take the Finny down to minus four. Make it very difficult for my opponent to really get any any momentum with this type of Finny here. Are they giving us the weakness? Okay, they're taking the weakness policy. I don't mind. You lose your... I mean Finny's losing its leftover so I don't really mind about that at all. I mean we're just not going to hit it with a Thunderbolt now. It's a whimmy going down. Very hard. Very hard. Okay. This Finny. What's the damage going to be like? Let's see. You're pretty wiffy without a calm mind anyway, right? You've got to love it. You've got to love it. You've got to try this Eerie Impulse Thunderous out. I promise you will not regret it. I've went for Scary Face as well so you can reduce the speed. Should we Brutal Swing? We're going to be slower than the Mammoth Swing. I'm pretty sure the Thunderous will be slower than the Mammoth. The Mammoth will be Jolly, right? The only issue would be here is if we saw an Ice Shard. So this should take the Mammoth Swing down to its sash is what I imagine the item is on it. And then the Brutal Swing. Yeah, the Brutal Swing should proc. It's not going to proc our weakness policy, is it? But it will just knock out the Mammoth. I forget that we've lost our weakness policy, which is a little bit of a shame. But I'm kind of alright. Scary Face, as I say, is there for Regi Alecki and Landerous and things like that. The Landerous is in the team so you can lead Thunderous. Oh, we take that as well. It's in the rain. Come on, guys. This is beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, the Landerous is there to one-shot Charizard and the Sun Team's one-shot Venusol and the Sun Team's it's got life hope. So it will take down Max, Charizard and Minus One. There's lots of options there with it. So and even after that first turn of the eject button, this is this is getting better, I guess. So we have to e-reimpulse and go for the Kalorex, don't we? It's going to hit us pretty hard. It's going to take down the Thunderous. But at this point, we're kind of alright. The Finny Protecting. I don't care about the Finny at this point. We only care about the Kalorex. So let's see what you do. And the Prismama with this kind of backing up. This is this was the whole premise of like my idea about this sort of team. So I don't think the Sun Seal Strike would be enough to take down the Kalorex or am I going to be surprised by Dustman and Crossman? That's the big thing. Nah, Kalorex is just too chunky. But on Minus Two, it's just not going to be doing the damage it needs. Still doing a lot of damage though, isn't it? Still doing a lot of damage. But Thunderous, I mean putting in the work, it does negate one of those attack boosts. But at the same time, we've still got Incin to come in. And then we've got Tapu Finny to end the game if we need to. So we can fake out Tapu Finny, Sun Seal Strike, the Kalorex. And then we're in a great spot. Because another Sun Seal Strike will get the Kalorex for sure. And they could protect. And we are probably going down to, yeah, we've got one turn of Trick Room Kalorex. Have you got Protect? Now I know I run Protect on my Kalorex. I definitely do. But what we're going to do is just fake out the Tapu Finny, go for it. I don't think we're in any position where we need to worry about it too much. No Protect's coming out. So we're going to be able to remove the Kalorex and that pretty much seals the game up right here in there for us. Because once the Kalorex is gone, you can see it's still hitting super hard on the Minus Two. And it's still only Minus One at the minute. But the fact is they've not got Protect. So we can kind of punish that a little bit better in the Trick Room here. Coming in so useful for us. So the rain's stopping and all we need to do is, wow, get a Tapu Finny onto the field and deal with this. This opposing one. Because it's not really going to have any kind of impetus to be able to do any damage to us. And with Incineroar here, it's Minus Four. We'll put it down to Minus Five. Tick it down to Minus Six. And then just start chipping it with our own Tapu Finny. Which is ideal. So it might take a little bit of a time. The other option is we can try and maneuver ourselves into a board position where we can get Incineroar and Akrasma out onto the field. Tapu Finny avoids. That's no good. That's no good. Does this Finny not got Kalmind? It might not. If it hasn't, then the battle's cancelled. So there we go. So a very good game to my opponent. And we do manage to pick up a win against RNG is... But yeah, very good game. And Thunderous there was just incredible. So that is the one thing about the team. I've kind of skimmed over some of the other matchups where you can make use of this and deal with them. There wasn't much need to put a hard specific sun check in the team because between Thunderous and Landerous, you've got a really good option between the two to kind of deal with those. I think the same with the Calyrex Shadow Rider as well. And then obviously Calyrex Ice Rider. Well, and Akrasma kind of deals with that, especially with the double Intimidate that you've got lots of options. I think this really works in complemention to the really nicely. So I would love to know if you do try it out. And with that, we'll jump over and get you guys the rental code. Here it is. Here is the rental code for today's team. I hope you have a lot of fun with it. Like I say, there's some kind of different approaches to using some of these Pokemon. And I think there's some nice synergy between them as well. Obviously the eerie impulse scary face is incredible on pranks with Thunderous. It's not expected. And in team preview, this is what I mean going back to that best of one scenario where it maybe works a little bit better. And they see the Thunderous paired up with the Dustman and Akrasma. It makes sense to have the Defiant there. So they're going to be a little bit dubious about leading with that Intimidate user straight away, which can give you quite a few opportunities here to, you know, disrupt with Thunderous, set your trick room up if you need to. So there's lots of options there. And you can see the utility of it. The Brutal Swing is there to self proc your weakness policy if you don't get a jack button or anything like that, which is always useful. And the rest of the team, like I've explained, the Indeedies there, Heal Pulse helps out the Nekrosma, especially with that trick room. And especially because we don't have Protect, we've opted for the Photon Geyser, which I personally feel gives you an extra dimension with Nekrosma. The Protect is invaluable. I'm not going to deny that, but the fact is if you get the trick room up and you're against something like Charizard, something that, you know, resists the grounding that the Steel moves, at least you've got a way to hit it, especially if your weakness policy is procged and you can do the damage that you need to kind of maybe change the battle in some of the situations. Some of you might prefer the Protect and there's definitely arguments for both there, but it's definitely something I wanted to probably portray a bit more on this team today than the Protect. I think it's a nice option, especially because you kind of take advantage of the psychic terrain as well. Incineroar Landerous make a lot of sense. The Landerous is there obviously for an option to kind of take advantage of the Faker support you've got with the Incineroar, the E.R.I. Impulse support, the Scary Face support. You can get a sword stance up with specific board position and then the Indeedie as well, the redirect. So all in all, team very nice. The Finnees there, it acts a lot like those Dialga teams that you're going to see where you kind of boosting up your defense stats with the Nacrosma. You kind of want Tapu Finnees in there a lot of the time, so you can kind of mind up as well. Get the Sunsteel Strikes off, Max Steel Spikes off. Get those defenses boosted up and then Finnees pretty much unstoppable after you get those defense boosts. So there's lots of options with the team. I'm going to leave it there because I don't want this going on too long. Hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Thank you as always for tuning in friends and we'll be back on Friday with another team to feature in Series 8. So until then friends, take care of yourselves. Have a great rest of your day, whatever time of day it is. And I'll see you all for the next one. So until then, take care. Bye bye.