 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. Today we're going to be continuing on with our VGC Series 9 content. The new rules have just hit us on the 1st of May. So we're continuing on with that today with a bit of a different team from the last one that we played. We featured that Assault Vest Metagross kind of tap with Vinny took the center stage in that episode. But today it reverts on to more of a kind of a sand core and one that I think can do very well in this format. So we're giving Drake Assault with the sand rush ability a little run out. It's obviously got the gigolith there, which can perform in trick room with the weakness policy, the sand to be able to kind of their function well and it's slower than talk all. So it allows it to always get the sander in that first turn to allow Drake Assault the kind of freedom it needs in some situations. So the sporting cast you've got the trick room set there is Porgon 2, the talk call there for the opposing weather. Gigolith doesn't like the rain. It doesn't like water type moves. So just wicking in those and talk all gives you a nice way to deal with those grass threats as well. Then we've got screen support going to be useful for pretty much everything on the team and then landerous theory and with that intimidate support the Assault Vest and just gives us a few other options outside of the other kind of mode of the team. There will be a poker base down below as always and we'll have a couple of games of the team and then we'll throw the rental up at the end of the episode. So I hope you enjoyed today's team. Let me know. Have you tried out Drake Assault with the Sandrush yet? Let me know. I'm very curious to know people's opinion on it because it's not something that's talked about too much in the series. So let me know down below and if you do try the team out, of course, I would love to hear about it. So without further ado friends, let's get into our first game of today. Okay. So first up today, we have an Alolan Marowak Jinx Porgon 2, Tapu Finney, Galarian Articuno and Kartana. So very interesting team. You got a kind of interest in Firewater Grasscore there with the Alolan Marowak, the Tapu Finney and Kartana. Yeah, it's kind of like you've got a trick room mode to the team and you've got kind of a fast mode to the team. Two trick room setters there and the Articuno potentially and the P2, which gives a lot of flexibility. Got to watch out for the Jinx because of lovely kiss and fake out there. They can be pretty problematic in most cases, but I do feel like Gigalith, Dracozalt are pretty good here. The only Pokemon we really need to watch out for would be the Kartana, but we do have stuff like Tocall if the trick room does get set up for us. I feel like we got pretty hyper offensive turn one and maybe a bit slower with like the P2 mode in the back and I just feel like, you know, does Tapu Finney get a bit difficult to deal with? I mean, Gigalith is pretty good still. Now, I think we go Tocall in the back and kind of it can deal with most things and then end game with Gigalith. So we get the trick room up, get Tocall, Gigalith out in the field and there's not really much on my opponent's side of the field. They can deal with it super well. Like Tapu Finney is going to be able to deal with the fire type attacks, no problem, but the Gigalith, if we've got the weakness policy activated, then at least we'll be threatened from that side of things, you know? But I'm hoping that Draco, Draco's alt can do some work in this one. So we're going to see Katana and James come up from my opponent. Okay, it's tricky because you kind of don't want to ignore the Katana, but we don't want to leave the Gigalith on the field either. We could protect Gigalith here. We have got protect. Don't worry, you can see it just there. We could protect Gigalith. That's the thing. Um, and then Max with Draco's alt and just go straight after the Jinx. The only issue, well, it's not really an issue at all because we go for the bald beak. We don't need to worry about, um, we don't need to worry about the lovely kiss then. Yeah, I think we do this. I think we try and get rid of the Jinx as soon as possible. The Katana may Max here. This is the only issue that the Katana Max can go and max air stream and then the Jinx get in the jump. The Jinx won't get the jump on us with one air stream, so we should still be fine. Um, you just want to get rid of the Jinx really and the Sasha's probably there. It's all best probably on the Katana. It's just that we've got to keep an eye on like Katana because it's get the beast boost ability. Um, and if it starts to kind of get that momentum with those, those attack boosts then it's not ideal. We're just going to see a pick up from from the Jinx. Okay, so that's fine. Um, click on that. Dynamics button to one. You take the Jinx down to a sash. That'd be good. If you do, we do. Yeah. So the sound will get rid of it and we'll probably see like leaf blade leaf blade from the Katana potentially. I'd imagine maybe maybe steel spike. I don't know steel. What? Smart strike. That's the one. Yeah. Into Gigalith. Okay. Now ideally that I want to be bringing in like talk all, but if I do that, then I lose the speed jump on the, um, on the Jinx, but we've got the option this next turn where we can potentially get something, especially if the finny comes onto the field, but it's going to be the Marua. Okay. Marua. That's fine. I mean, we've got kind of not so fine because it can, it can max and that would, that would not be so good. Um, let's bring in talk all. Um, like do we go max quick on max one max wormwind? See again, I don't really want to bring in the thing we take a steel. We definitely take. I think we just rock slide because they're going to proc a, yeah, I think we just rock slide and go max wormwind. Would you see attack stat on both? Uh, it means that at least Drake was all will still get the jump on Cartana this turn. Um, the, the, the smart strike won't knock out Gigalith and the rock slide could get some nice damage, especially with the weakness policy propped. Yeah. The Marua going to be the thing that Max is here. So we'll get the wormwind and especially with the minus one attack drop, like, you know, Cartana is definitely not picking up the knockout onto Gigalith. And if we do get our weakness policy propped, a rock slide potentially could get that Marua potentially, potentially we'll see. Uh, there's a smart strike coming in. So it's minus one. Take that pretty well. Get the weakness policy boost. We'll see where the Marua goes. You've got to go. You've got to be going after the Drake is all right, but we should still take that. Yeah. There's a max quick. The Drake is all you're not going to get into Drake is all. Yeah. We take that the minus one helping us out so much there. And if we can get the knockout onto the Marua with the rock slide, then we're sitting in a pretty nice position. There we go. Gigalith doing all the work for us. That's what we want to see. Um, right. Well, then that's one gone and you've got to imagine that our last Pokemon is got to be, it's got to be tapoofinny, but it's poison too. Okay. That kind of works out way better for us then. Um, we get the download boost special attack, not ideal, but not the worst. Uh, have we got enough to take down the Cortana? That's a big thing here. And you kind of hope that like they don't want to set the trick room up. This is the problem. Like we still got one max turn left as well. You know, so that's that's pretty huge for us. But we could potentially I just don't know if we're going to be able to get the Cortana, but I tell you what we could potentially do is could I defend some body we could just now let's just rock slide again and let's go for another max wormwind into the Cortana this time. So going to be very effective, but it means that Cortana is not picking anything up now. Yeah. And if the trick room goes up, I mean, Google is in an amazing spot and then we've got Tocall in the back to come in. So we're not in a bad spot. Like one little bit. P2 is likely to go after the Drake result. Oh, secret soldier to Drake result. Are they doubling up into it? Ice beam into lift. No, no, no way. Not with the signup. You're not getting us there. This should get the Cortana. Yeah. And then we do a nice chunk to the P2 and then we can bald peak the next turn and we'll get the electric train boost as well, which the life orb. It should be enough to get the P2 and we haven't got the issue of hustle anymore, which is super nice because it was always one of the drawbacks right with using triggers or the hustle. You'd always like be sweating at this point. So we'll just body press and we'll go for all people and this combination has just swept us our first game. So doing really well as we see the battle cancel a little bit disappointing. I kind of want to see the both pick up the knockout, but you never get the chance very good game to my opponent. And yeah, the combination really nice. You know, sometimes you build a team with a combination and you never really get to feature it. So I feel I'm like I'm just really happy, happy, happy that we got to feature that in our first one. Anyway, we'll move on to our next battle of the episode. Next up, we got Matteo playing a team of a Reggie Rock, Enta, a Tapu Vinny Poison 2, Brim Snow and a Glareon Moltres. This looks perfect for Drake Assault. This looks so good for Drake Assault. It really does. Yeah, I mean, the only thing that I would worry about a little bit would be the Reggie Rock because the Reggie Rock can start can probably take the majority of attacks that we're going to be able to throw out at it, which is make it a little bit more difficult to deal with for sure and obviously screen support as well makes things difficult. Clear body, we can't really utilize the Intimidate as much as we want to. I think probably trick rooms are best route to go down, especially with the Gigalith. And if we can kind of get our body presses kind of going early on would be really useful. I think P2 and then what's our last Pokemon going to be? Brim Snow going to be worth it here or I don't know. I feel like more of a like an endgame maybe Landriss is better, but then Torcal's just a better option in trick room, especially to sport with Gigalith. You know, especially if the Tap of Finney becomes a little bit more of an issue. Yeah, let's go Torcal. I mean, it's a bit of a stretch. You know, I think like Landriss gives us a little bit of better matchup against the Regirock. But then the Regirock gets like the curses up and stuff like that. We clock a weakness policy. It's a bit more difficult to manage. Whereas with Torcal, at least we've got options where we could potentially catch them with a burning jealousy, get the burn on to them. That residual damage might be kind of clutch and the latter stages of this game. Okay, Enti and Brim Snow. We're going to see the reflect. We're probably going to see a sacred fire on a margin. But where you sacred firing into because like Gigalith doesn't care about that at all and it gives us the perfect opportunity to go for like an eye in defense here and potentially just go into P2 right now and keep Drake is all for an endgame situation. Because P2 coming in. Yeah, it's going to take a bit of damage from a sacred fire, but we should be able to take a multiple of those to allow a trickling getting up and you know the beauty about Gigalith with even if it gets burned like the body press doesn't really rely on that attack stat. So we don't really mind too much about that. Sacred fire coming out connecting with our P2. We soak that up pretty well and do take a burn for our troubles which is not ideal. We do get the eye in defense up. So the only thing that's going to be able to kind of prevent us getting the trick room up now is going to be torn from the Grim Snow but hasn't got torn. Probably not not super likely. Now the question is do we do we protect Gigalith now? What do we go for another we go for another eye in defense because that would then give us real momentum swings if we see something like the P2 come in but I think we're probably better off just kind of not being burnt because then at least we could utilize our max turns, you know. Yeah. Okay, we'll go for the trick room. We'll go for a protect. I don't really want to get burned. I really don't want to get burnt. Hopefully we don't see a taunt. That wouldn't be bad. Fig tears. Okay, fig tears. That's fine. And then another Sacred fire doubling up into the Gigalith there. Yeah, okay. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. It's not so perfect because the fake tears is still going to be a big, big issue for us, of course. Um, and it's not like we've got a way to take down the anti probably doubling up into anti with with the max rockfall. I don't really want to max it though. That's the thing. I don't want to max it too early on. And I don't think a rock slide in a tri-attack is going to be enough to get it where I think probably his body press going to be enough to get it. I doubt it. I think we max. We get rid of the anti. We double up into that slot with a tri-attack as well. Yeah. And I think we get that. I think that should get the anti. Then anything come in and on that slot would be kind of nuked anyway. Okay, so we're gone. Full-fledged Gigalith. The problem is with the the fake tears from the Grimstall it does make it a bit easier for my opponent to bring it up a finny and kind of utilize that. But at the same time, it doesn't mean we have to keep Gigalith out in the field. It's just really good. Disruptively. It makes it difficult to kind of maintain its staying power on the field as long as it is maxed. It's been nice if it picks up the knockout. I don't expect it will not mind the reflect. Oh, it does. It's a bit misjudged then. Okay, tri-attack coming out. What we're going to see into the Grimstall. That's really respectable damage and the paralysis there as well, which may help us a little bit. Okay. I mean, the thing is with the sandstorm up as well, you know, even with the fake tears, even if we see Finny come in, we're still going to be able to take at least one attack as long as the sandstream stays up. Okay, tapping Finny, hitting the field. Going to get that Misty Terrain active. So what we want to do is hmm, how many turns of sand have we got left? Because we need to make sure that when this trip room ends, we've got, okay, two turns. No idea. What we'll do, we've got one turn. I think we've got one turn here. We've got one turn here where we can really get rid of the Finny. And I think do we go after the Grimstall? Just get rid of that liner support, you know. If it's going to fake tears again, that's the issue. And it might be worth just sacrificing everything altogether, but at the same time, I don't think you take us down. I still don't think you take us down unless you go minus four, which would be really bad. Okay, let's go after Grimstall and let's, I think we'll recover with P2 because we just timed out. So that's our mistake, but we should, yeah. I think the saving grace for us here would be the fully paralysis, like fully paralyzed Grimstall. It won't be able to get another fake tears off, but I'm still kind of confident even if they do get a fake tears off, you should be able to take a max guys out. In the sand. No. Really hope that's not us. Everything around me is working. There's a paralysis as well. Maybe that's why. Maybe that's why we've got the connection issue. You can see why you can see why happens. Let's see what happens. I'm really disappointed that this is our side. We get the recover, which is always useful. It means that we're going to be able to get health back. It means we can get the trick room up a bit later on. If we need it or reverse it as well. So guys are coming out. We are minus two. I think another fake tears would have got us. I think another fake tears would have got us and the weather does shift. So it means in our last turn, probably we've got a weakness policy. We get the sand back up and we try and concentrate. Oh, we switch out to talk call to get a sound back up later on to trick room ends. But we'll see. Is it us? It looks like it might be us, you know. Is it us? It is us. That's really frustrating. Friends, all I can say is I'm sorry. Sorry. But we had a good way to win that one. We'll have one more today. So we'll jump straight into it and we'll try and not have any more issues going forward. Okay. So next up we have Chris Sellier in Sinorua, Tapa Fini, Stack Attacker, Reggie, Alecki and Glastria. So an old familiar face that was not seen for a while is Chris Sellier. And obviously provides a lot of support in trick room, allies, switch, help in hand, all sorts of things like that. So you've got the double trick room on this team. Now you've got the support through in Sinorua. Obviously Stack Attacker being the other trick room Pokemon that's going to be able to abuse that. And Glastria is going to love the trick room environment as well. It's pretty much a heavy trick room team. Although you have got a little bit of a middle-end speed to have a Fini, which can perform well in trick room if the conditions are right. And then you've got Reggie Alecki, which just doesn't like trick room at all. Now, before I smash my Merciful Throne again, do I want to go with Dracozolt and this one? I mean, Dracozolt is pretty good against the Alecki, against Fini and do work against Stack Attacker in the right conditions. Doesn't really like intimidate too much. So that makes it a little bit more difficult. Whereas Gigalith could be a great option here. Gigalith could be a real good option, especially with Grim Snarl. I think maybe we go Gigalith Grim Snarl. P2. Did we just go P2? Compering Torko, I don't think. And I don't want to rely too much on my opponent not setting their trick room up. So I think we go Dracozolt for Torko. Yeah, Stax gives us a pretty hard time anyway. Okay, let's go for that. Let's go for that. The only reason Torko would be decent in this matchup would be obviously the Glastria. It gives us a way better option. But I mean, the Gigalith isn't too bad, is it? Isn't too bad. If we can get an Iron Defensor, then we're sitting pretty happy at that point. The most annoying thing about that last match as well is I have like the bot that we've run on Discord. Nothing wrong with it. Still connected, still running. So it's just literally the server, the ladder server. It does that for like occasionally, doesn't it? It does just kick you off, which is really frustrating. Yeah, we're going to see Tappofinny and Cresselia come out from my opponent. Kind of like to get Dracozolt onto the field. Because I don't expect we're going to see the trick room go up at this point. But I mean, you probably don't Moonblast, right? You don't Moonblast. I think we'll bring Dracozolt in. The Moonblast Gigalith then. Kind of sucks. I mean, we could fake out as well. But I don't see the Tappofinny maxing here. The only issue would be, right, if they do trick room, which would make no sense at all. But if they can't prevent the calm mindless turn, which puts us in a great position, and then the following term we could potentially switch back into Gigalith, because it's more likely my opponent setting up the trick room at that point. Yeah, no, no max, yeah. I like switch. Starting with those games already. Okay, well, I don't think we max Dracozolt either. They're going to ally switch again, aren't they? They are going to ally switch again. Because we just bald beak into Tappofinny and it just removes it. I just don't like playing the ally switch games. You know, you know, if you watch a channel many times, I never like playing the ally switch games. And I'm just going to click into the, I'm just going to click into the finny slot. I'm just going to light screen while you've got the opportunity. You may see a trick room get set up here, but I mean, it's fine. Okay, Tappofinny protected. That's all right. We're just going to see the trick room get set up. I would imagine. Now, we either go for a spur of break into Finny and just double into that slot. Or we kind of cover bases and play to the ally switch now. Because like, what's Crest got? What can Crest do? Can he help in hand? Or can ally switch? Or we can get caught out. I mean, I've just said I don't play into the ally switch games and I shouldn't really. But now I feel like if we don't target the Crest. Okay, we'll play it safe. Just in case we'll spur of break into the finny slot. I shouldn't play the ally switch games. This is why I should listen to myself and you should listen to me. Because yeah, this is annoying now. Up in hand. Okay. Right. Well, we blast. It's minus one. Find the light screen. Dragazot is done. We'll get a bald peak off, but don't think it's going to be very relevant. I mean, it doesn't do too bad damage. We need to keep Dragazot. What do we need to keep it for later on this match? I think I'd like to switch in Gigalith now. Because the Finny's after this, after this point. I'm going to switch in P2. I'm going to switch into Gigalith. Why don't we just switch in Gigalith for Dragazot? Because I could do that then. I just worry about a muddy water potentially coming out now. But I don't think we're going to see that. I think you've got, well, potentially. It makes sense because you probably get, helping out muddy water will get Dragazot. And then obviously as well, it covers the potential. Gigalith switching, which makes sense because of how low health the Dragazot is at this point. Okay, well, we get P2 onto the field. Regardless, we've done it now. Ice Beam coming out into P2. And we're going to see, yeah, another Moon Blast. But this time into the gig, as I reckon, yeah. Okay, well, I mean, we take that pretty well. Pretty well. All things considered. I think we double up into the Finny here, potentially. But they're going to protect, right? They're going to protect. So it might even be better just go on for a rock slide. And then try to attack into the quest. Just removing, okay, helping hand muddy water. Well, I kind of take that, to be honest, because they'll just, they're just going to activate our weakness policy then. And then they're going to be in that bad position where they, we will be able to just remove both from the field with a rock slide. This doesn't get that one. Just, I'm just missing. Tell me Finny Finches. Okay. We tend to trick really good left. Maybe one, which is not ideal, because the Finny just protects now. And we kind of want to sign back up. But I mean, we can get a sign back up if we want. Yeah, we'll just cover the Finny with a try attack and we'll go rock slide again. Ooh, they're not protecting that. That's dangerous, dangerous. Unless we proc a 50% berry. Oh, you know, one of the big berries, which we potentially could do. But there's always a chance that they could just um, no, there's no berry there. Huh. Okay. They just lose Finny. The trick room does reset now, which isn't ideal. But I mean, at the same time, we're kind of in a good spot with P2 just to get the trick room back up and get Giggleith kind of rolling. Get Insie coming in and Glastria. Yep. The trick room is a little bit tricky, of course. We kind of want to get... I think you get Grimmsknoll onto the field, maybe max Giggleith and go for Max Rockfall into Glastria. We could protect, get a weakness policy back of it. I don't think so. I think the only issue is doing that. Okay, I think we go Max Rockfall into the instant roll here. Because I think this turn, I think they go fake out into P2 and I think they max, go max quick into Giggleith. I'd rather get rid of the Incineroar though, so I'm not having to always contend with parting shots and stuff like that. And I don't really fancy activating a weakness policy to have to deal with that the next turn. Be kind of nice to get the reflector before you go any further and just dread a steel spike from the Glastria into Grimmsknoll now. Just to boost those defences, that would be ideal. But we probably need the weakness policy activated to get the Incineroar, I think. The minus one. I'm not too sure if we get it. The other option here would have been just protecting. Okay, that's not ideal. That is not ideal at all. Okay, so no fake out. They were kind of happy for us to get and the steel spike, but they're losing our minds. They're losing our minds. We're going to get a weakness policy activated, which just resets our attack. So we'll get the Incineroar. They get the defense boost. We don't just miss the Incineroar. Okay. We may need to max guard this next turn. Reflect. I just don't want to take another parting shot. That's the big problem. And the defense boost, it's the defense boost that's kind of give them the leg up, isn't it? They're just going to parting shot us again. That's the issue, isn't it? And this cluster is just going to get like super out of control and I don't feel like we've got anything to kind of deal with it considering that P2 is probably our only option. It's not the best option, I would say. Right, well, I mean we can fake out Grims Incineroar here and just get rid of it. But then we don't have the reflect. But I do think they actually go after... I do think they go after the Grimstone here. I don't think they go after the Gigalith. If they do, obviously, then we're in a boat of trouble. Field spike? Yeah, they go Grimstone, which we'll lose but it's kind of... It's not too bad because we'll get Griggers all in or we can get P2 in. It's probably better to get P2 onto the field in all honesty because then we can potentially try and get a trick room up and then get an eye on defencing before... Wow, there's like nothing. There's like nothing. Yeah, we need to get Griggers all onto the field now. Get rid of the Incineroar. Because you've got to worry about the Incineroar having something like taunt as well, which would be a bit of a problem. We'll go with old, reliable, dragging claw here. We'll just max guard, I think. The problem is it's going max guard. I think we have to max guard because I don't think you go after Draker's ult. I think, well, Draker's ult will go down anyway to P2 to the residual damage and life ult damage. One HP. Ooh, we don't know. We're going to survive, I think. They do go into the Draker's ult. Okay. And we can maybe still do... I don't know, I don't think we're going to be able to do this. I really don't think so. They've got like plus three attack. They've just managed the Glastria so much better than us. Our side of the field anyway. So P2 in. Let's think. What can we do? I don't think we're going to be able to iron defense. We maybe can. Thing is like P2 will just drop whatever Glastria does. But can we get a trick room up? I don't think so. Because the options are we double protect, right? We try double protect and get that trick room up. But it's not risky doing that. Because I think we're better off. We're literally better off just doubling up into Glastria here. Do we go for an iron defense anyway? We're probably solo health. I don't think it's really going to make too much difference. But I think we just double. And I think we just body press. No, we rock slide, I think. I think single target rock slide. P2 might be able to get it into it. No. We get the paralysis. I mean Giggler's going to be faster than it. So that is just the hacks that we needed. Because now whatever happens we're going to be able to get it. We don't deserve to win this game. But we are going to take it. We are going to take it. Which is really unfortunate. But yeah. So the trick room there wasn't really. Because it's so risky at that point. Like if they attack into P2 that turn. Then the drop with close combat that they potentially have to get. Would mean that Giggler might be able to clinch it with a rock slide. Maybe. Maybe I don't know. But very unlucky for my opponent. And we do manage to clinch a victory to end this episode on. But I hope you've enjoyed today's episode friends. We'll hop over now and get the rental code of this team. And then we'll wrap up the episode. Okay friends. Here is the rental code for today's team. You've got the Gigalith and Porygon too. Grimsnall, Drakerzall, Tockel and the Landry. Apologies for the lack of face cam here. Obviously because we've already filled out all of our rental teams over on our main court. I've had to call in the help of a very good friend of mine. So massive shout out to Bebham. He was actually hosting this rental team for me right now. And for all of you. So if you do have a go with the team. Do give Bebham a big shout out down below in the comment section. And definitely let me know if you try it out. If you have a lot of fun with it. Hope you've enjoyed today's episode. It has been a bit of a fun one. Really enjoyed the Drakerzall. It's definitely something I feel like I'll be continuing to play with. And kind of tweak the team going forward in the format. So do let me know if you're in the same mind as me. Would love to hear so. And I'll just say thank you so much for tuning in. Have a great rest of the day. And I'll catch up with you all for another episode on the channel very soon. Thank you.