 Hello friends, welcome back to another episode here on the channel. If anyone new to the channel, my name is Lee, also known as Osiris. And in today's episode, we're going to be featuring a Ho Ho team as we continue on with our VGC Series 8 content. Ho Ho, one of the Pokemon that we haven't actually featured on the channel yet, which I'm a little bit surprised about, and it's nice to finally be able to kind of feature a team build around Ho Ho, the fire and flying type. It's quite unique to the restricted pool of Pokemon that we've got. And it's kind of one of those restrictors. It kind of stands alone from the other ones where it has the ability if you're able to remove certain threats to it to create like wind conditions just on its own, because a lot of Pokemon do struggle to hit it for super effective damage. It's got a lot of issues, though. Obviously, a big weaknesses to electric to water to big prevalent kind of forces within the format at the minute. So you need to be able to deal with those quite nicely. And I really do feel like Lapras is quite a nice partner for it. Now, a lot of the times you're going to be maxing Lapras, so it means you're not maxing Ho Ho, getting the most kind of optimal play out of it. But at the same time with the screen support, Ho Ho can still perform when it's not maxed. Obviously doesn't have access to that speed control that you do have when you are maxed. But on the other flip side of it, Ho Ho can then come in and act as your max morn and you're not relying too much on the Lapras if you don't need to. But they kind of pair quite nicely together. Obviously got that common rock weakness, but we've got plenty in the team to kind of deal with the rock threats, you know, things like lander just don't want to go up against Lapras and other rock threats that we're going to see Nile Ego or things like that. Obviously we've got good checks for those throughout the team. So I feel like the team's quite nice. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. As always, there will be a poker piece down below in the description if you want to check that out, the details, try it out on showdown and then be my guest. And if you stick around till the end of the episode, as always, we'll be throwing up the rental team after we've had a couple of games and kind of pilot the team and show you how it functions. So like I say, hope you enjoyed today's episode friends. Let's get into it and see who our first match is going to be against today. Okay. Up first today, we have a team of Charizard. Tocall, Kalorex, Ice Rider, Raichu, Wimzikot and Dragapult. So an interesting build. You've got kind of sun and ice here, trick room mod from the Kalorex. You would imagine trick rooms on there. Maybe trick room Wimzikot. You can't ever discount that. It doesn't get access to it. And then good trick room support with the Tocall, but other than that, you've got kind of a really fast mod with the Charizard. Good support from the Raichu, providing kind of support from opposing electric type threats and things like that and Dragapult. An interesting choice as well. I think Hort always got a really good match up here, you know, in general, even if the trick room goes up, we've got an incredibly good match up. We've got to utilize our intimidated support well, but I think, like, do we just lead Urshifu? Oh, because like one of the things we could potentially do here is pressure the Dragapult, which I could imagine may be leading from my opponent's side of the field. The other thing is Raichu as well. Raichu gives us a nice option with fake out support if the Wimzikot does come out, especially against the Charizard. I think what we'll do is we will bring Urshifu and we will bring Landerous. Do we need anything else? No, I think we'll be all right with those. Landerous here going to play a big part, you know, against the Firecore. Anyway, with the Assault Fest, gives us a little bit of support there. They've got a really good check to it in the Colorex Ice Rider and it's not something we can kind of underestimate, but if we can get a Sacred Fire as going, maybe get some burns on the board. It will help us a bunch. So, let's see how we kick off in this first one. These kind of like hybrid fire type teams are always kind of awkward to play against, but we are going to see Colorex and Dragapult. I wonder if there's... I do suspect something like... I like Switch here from the Dragapult. 100%, you know? So, we could just Max and then... Or we could just Sacred Fire into the Colorex, you know? Or we go Max, Airstream, get a Speed Boost, and then we'll probably not outrun the Dragapult, but Max flares not a bad option as well. I could just... I just have this feeling that we're going to see an ally switch, you know? I really do. I'm going to play to it, actually. I am going to play to it, and I'm going to nuzzle into the Colorex slot. Ah, we're not going to do it. Okay, well, let's see. Let's hope that we see an ally switch. I think we will, you know? The other thing is we could potentially see Trick Room, but like going along the lines of getting a Trick Room up in front of a hall, or I think you need to play the ally switch, unless you've got something like Reflect on Dragapult, of course, which I don't know how likely it is, because Will always tends to be the more kind of leaned upon option. There we go. Okay. Here we go. Friends. It's what you get. It's what you get. Well, we get the eerie impulse off. I mean, we timed out with Raichu, so... Regardless, it would have been nice to get the nuzzle off into the Dragapult like we kind of initially said, but this should be enough to get rid of the Colorex here. Oh, it's not. Ha! Oh! So we're helping Hand and Raichu could be an option, and this is always the thing, you know? When you're playing a team, if you're looking at options for just improving the team in general, helping Hand here would be a big thing, because now the trick grooms up. It makes things very difficult for us to kind of go forward. Although, is the Colorex going to be able to pick up the knockout onto Hall? I don't think it will. And are we going to see another ally switch? Potentially, but also potentially not. I need to switch in Landerous here. It's a little bit risky, always in front of a Colorex. But if they go, well, they're going to have to go max ice into Hall, you know? I think that's their best option. Clear Body Protect and Dragapult from the Intimidate. Helping Hand. Okay, Glacial Lance coming out. Glacial Lance. So we will lose Landerous, and we take an absolute chunking from our Hall, which is not ideal, but we will be able to remove it this time from the field. Yeah, just getting back to the point is when you can identify things in matches, and you know, like, it's quite useful when you think, right, okay, Helping Hand here would be the, be the one option there. Just get rid of the Colorex. And there'll be other similar situations where that kind of comes into play as well, you know? And just kind of like realizing that really does help the team out a bunch. Okay, Tocall going to come in. And Urshifu. Well, we got the Sash on Urshifu. We can max Quake into Tocall, because we'll be able to take an attack with Hoho from the Tocall. It's whether or not we want to kind of double up into Tocall this turn, or if you want to go after the Dragapult. Like, the Dragapult to me doesn't really worry me too much, you know? But it's always good to kind of get rid of it if we can. You could always Sucker Punch the Tocall as well. The issue with the Dragapult is I feel like it potentially could switch out. We don't want to time out here, so that's the other thing. What have you got in the back? Like, I don't think you've got anything. I think maybe we could just Wicked Blow into the Dragapult. The Sash allows us to kind of take at least one attack. Yeah. And then depending on what my opponent's last Pokemon is, I'd imagine the Dragapult might be Sashed. Maybe Sashed? Who knows. Hoho might be able to get at least a recover off before the Trick Room ends. Because we'll be able to take an eruption or a heatwave, whatever the Tocall's got now. Wicked Blow, we just need to be able to take down the Dragapult because it's still going to be able to do a decent amount of damage. We do see the Cobber Berry on it there. He's able to take that Wicked Blow. It's just a little bit unfortunate because Dragon Darts could come out here and cause us a few issues. Willow Wisp, okay, still not the worst. And Ritesh, you're going to be our last Pokemon to come in, which isn't great, but it's not the end of the world. We do have Faker at support. We can utilize, I guess. We're going to have to take a turn to recover, I think, with Hoho. And I think it's kind of better, honestly, that my opponent's got. Yeah, because I think what we do here is recover and then fake out into the Tocall. Because I don't think you max the Tocall at this point. I think, well, if you've got in the back something like Charizard, I think that's what you max this next turn. So, get the fake out and then we'll get the recover off, which should give us a little bit of a chance to close this one out. Cause it's going to be difficult. I'm not kidding, no one, this is going to be difficult to close out. We've kind of burnt our max turns and my opponent hasn't burnt theirs, you know? Something like Charizard's in the back, it makes it very difficult to kind of... We could Earthquake, we could Earthquake. How many turns of trickery have we got left? We need to see. Cause we still have. We still do have our air balloon. But it's likely that we're going to lose it here, you know? Where we could just Sacred Fire and then he re-input. We could just Volt Switch, you know, into Tocall. If Raichu can survive this turn, I'm not confident we will. Okay, well, I like Switch. Again, pulling it out. Pulling it out of the bag. Yeah, I think we go down to a heat wave with Raichu. Oh no, Raichu taking it, so... Sacred Fire isn't going to be enough. Yes it is. Volt Switch is going to be enough to get the dragon pull on the health that it's on. I don't think so. Be kind of nice if we... Ah, we do. Okay, so if it is that Charizard coming in next, then we've got a chance because we've got Nuzzle that we can utilise on Raichu. And we still have the option where we could maybe get to proc our weakness policy depending on what comes in. Dimension to turn back to normal Raichu sitting in a decent position. The great friend Charizard. Okay, well, it could be worse. We need to recover here and we need to Nuzzle. Is Eerie Impulse better than Nuzzling though? I think it probably is, you know? I think Eerie Impulse is probably the better option. Putting it down to minus two rather than minus two speed. It could come to backfire because critical hits can become a part of this. But, okay, the Protect here is super fine, super fine. Because it gives it the opportunity for Ho'O to get all the health it needs back. And I think that my opponent needs to really concentrate on getting rid of Raichu before the Ho'O. The burn not going to take us down. I think we've got one more burn in us as well. So they need to take us down here. We brave bird. I don't really want a brave bird, you know? I want to cut her. No, I think we brave bird, I think we brave bird. If we get the Eerie Impulse off, I think we'll be fine. Because we just need to stall the Max turns out really, you know? That's the big thing for my opponent because they've got the Max turns. The nice thing is if they go for the G-Max Wildfire, the residual damage isn't going to be able to really dent Ho'O too much. We put it down to minus two as well. I don't think, have they got the Sun? I don't think they've got the Sun anymore. So I think that helps us out a bunch. They're not going to be able to summon the Sun. Eerie Impulse coming out and making things a heck of a lot easier for us. And then if we've got Room the next turn, we can always, oh, we take that like a champ. That just tickles. And Raichu going to be able to stick around for the next turn as well. So that is ideal. So we're going to be able to get the Nuzzle off, Recover. And then we're sitting in an amazing spot. Two HP, oh no, four. Miscalculated. Okay, we'll get the Recover and we'll go for that Nuzzle. You know what? I think Raichu as a support in pretty much most formats it's allowed to kind of be available in. It's so underrated. It's so underrated as a support Pokemon. I mean, nothing tells a story better than Wolf's 2016 World Championships when, you know, Raichu in those sets and that team was amazing. And we get to see it do a little bit of something in this one, which is always nice to kick us off with the day. Very good game to my part. And we'll jump into our next game of today's episode. Okay, up next today, we've got a Metagross, Whimzacot, Incineroar, Varysian, Kalrax, Ice Rider and Rotom Wash Team. Very interesting team. You've got a nice Firewater Grass core there. An interesting one that you don't generally see. Interchanging with the Grass type. Obviously, we've got the Incineroar, Varysian and Rotom and then see that Whimzacot can kind of come in and cover the Grass slot for the Varysian when it's not so optimal. The thing that I would say here is you've obviously got a beat up combination with the Varysian that we need to be very careful of. Varysian does get access to Stone Edge. So that could be really problematic for us. I think initially we need to lead Raichu and we need to lead Ho'ol because the problem with the Whimzacot coming out here and having kind of a free beat up turn on to the Varysian would shut things down for us super quickly on our Ho'ol. What else do we need? What else do we need? We need probably Landerous. I think we definitely need Oshifu in this match. 100% helps us deal with so much stuff. And maybe Rillaboom, you know. Maybe Rillaboom, maybe Landerous. Is the Intimidate going to be useful? Probably. But I feel like Rillaboom, it's tricky, it's tricky. Rillaboom doesn't have a great matchup against the Metagross, but yeah, I think we'll go Landerous. Yeah, because Oshifu can help deal with the Rotom. And the Rotom isn't as much of a threat with Raichu because the electric type attacks are kind of, it makes it a little more difficult for my opponent just to click that Thunderbolt or Max Lightning button as long as Raichu's kind of on the field. So, let's see. It's going to be tricky. Lots of things to think about keeping in mind when we're playing and not kind of get a little bit complacent because that's always the way. We are going to see Varysian and Rotom come up for my opponent. Now we can stop a nasty plot here. We can just go, I think we probably nuzzle and Max Lightning into the Varysian here. We need to because we can't allow the Varysian to Max and get a Max Rockfall off. And it is four times weak to Flying, so it should go down to the Flying type attack. Unless it's got a sash. Which hopefully it hasn't. It does give the Rotom the opportunity to go for a nasty plot as well. So we need to be a little bit careful there, but we do have Eurea Impulse. We can kind of bounce back on the next turn. Yeah, I think we go nuzzle and we go because we don't want to fake out into that slot in case the Varysian Max is, which it quite possibly could. I think we're going to see that. Let's see. Does this plan work out? Because if we get this turn one right, oh wow, wow. It's Rotom going for the big old Max, which is fine. It's going to Max Vortex into maybe even Raichu, you know, but I would say more likely to go into Hortor, which we should take. The rain's not up. We've got decent special defense and it'll just proc our weakness policy. We'll get the speed boost as well. And then the next turn we've got Eurea Impulse. We can throw out onto the Rotom. The issue would be is if the Whimsical comes in with Tailwind, which could complicate things a little bit, but we'll see how we go. Nuzzle. There we go. Don't have a lumbary. Whatever you do. Geyser. Yep. Big Geyser. Ooh, it's nasty. It's a big old chunk of damage, isn't it? And the rain is going to get itself up onto the field. A weakness policy. So there's no doubt. Even if it's got a Cobra Berry, it's not surviving this. It's no surviving. Life or Brought, which is interesting. Yeah. Now the problem, like I say, is that the Whimsical coming in and throwing up Tailwind, which gives us a few issues, but we do have the option of getting Max Guard and then Eurea Impulse into the Rotom potentially. But does my opponent pick up on that and target the Raichu instead? We'll see. They may not have brought the Whimmy, though. Metagross is what we like to see. What we like to see all day long because we can go Eurea Impulse. I don't know if we... I'd like to get rid of the rain. In all honesty, I would really like to get rid of the rain. But I don't know if I want a Max Flare. Because the Rotom can only Max Geyser. I wonder if an Eurea Impulse and then a Max Quake is a better option. It's just we'll probably end up propping a weakness policy on the Metagross this way. But we are plus two. So I'm just going to go for it. I'm going to go for it. I'm going to get rid of this rain. We're going to Eurea Impulse. We're going to take minimal damage from this Rotom. And we're going to try and nuke this Metagross. We're not going to be picking up the knockout. I very much doubt it. Not on the rain. Very close, though. Very close. Now you have to get rid of the Raichu if you are the Metagross now. But I think you're probably slower than Rotom, potentially. Yeah, with a more offensive Rotom, it makes a lot more sense. Now we should take minimal damage here. Minimal damage. Yeah, that's great. You love to see it, don't you? You do love to see it. All right. Well, taking a bit more chip. Earthquake coming out. We've got the Eberloon, I think, on the old Raichu. Because... Oh, what a cheese item. What a cheese item it is as well. And now we've got the opportunity to Eurea Impulse again. And I think this time we'd probably go for a Max Quake. Do we just allow the rain to stay up? I mean... My opponent got in the back that could potentially come in. Nothing with a ground resist. No. And it's likely that if anything comes in, I think it might be the Incineroar to get an Intimidate onto the hole. Or so if we can catch up with a Max Quake, you know, it helps. Rotom's on minus four now. Doesn't matter if the rain's up. Honestly, it doesn't. And I think the hole is pretty safe this turn. Getting the plus one's quite nice. Come on, Rotom. Tickle us. Tickle us a little more this turn. Come on. Let's see how much damage we've let the rain go. Let you have the rain. So let's see how much you can do. Minus four. Kind of technically minus five. It's a bit more than what I thought, but still in the rain taking it. Taking it like a champ. And we've got the opportunity now to recover off. Go for another Eurea Impulse. The Rotom's locked in now. They've not got any options to switch it out, which is great for us, you know. Not so great for my opponent. The problem is obviously the calorax coming in makes it complicates things for us for sure. And we don't have that super effective damage that we can kind of throw out onto it. And also we have to worry about potentially a trick room, which is never, never ideal. What have we got in the back? Urshavu Landeris. Not ideal if a trick room goes up, and I will like be the first to admit that. We need to burn onto the calorax. And I don't know if a recover is going to be what we kind of need. I mean, let's Eurea Impulse the Rotom again. Do we recover just to take a Glacial Lance, which could be, I think we recover. I think we recover. We try and keep Horto alive. The Glacial Lance shouldn't take Horto down after a recover. And I don't think a Hydro Pump plus a Glacial Lance will be enough. Interesting that the calorax went before the Rotom as well. Oh my God, that does so much damage. Okay, that's a bit of a problem. Chill in near boost. We don't like to see that. And a Dark Pulse. We take this though. Keeps us in the game. Just about, just about. And now we can get Urshavu onto the field, which makes, gives me a little bit more, makes me a bit more relaxed getting something like Urshavu out for sure. Because we can just double up into the calorax. Yeah, because the Rotom at this point is like no threat to us whatsoever. We just Sacred Fire and Wicked Blow. Okay, how dare you Rotom. Spoiler fun like this. The Wicked Blow will take it down and we still got to turn to Wicked Blow the next turn. The problem is though, the scarf on the old calorax is causing us a few issues, isn't it? Yeah, and I don't know if the Sucker Punch is going to be enough to take it down. Now that's a problem because it goes to plus two now. Huh, ally switch. Why have you ruined that fun? You didn't want the Rotom. We don't. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think we're going to be able to do this now. I don't think because Landerous just goes down and Urshifu Sucker Punch will not be enough to get there. I don't think. I don't think it's going to be enough. Yeah, we just go down. Yeah. This is really disappointing. Scarfed. What the hell? What is this? What is this? We lose, we lose, we lose. Ally switch has saved my opponent's bacon there. Yeah. Scarfed Calorax Ice Rider. Well, well, well. Fair play to my opponent. I didn't see it coming. Yeah, and that is it. Saved their bacon. We want to look out for friends. I'm not going to take. Ah, you know what? I think the mistake was not getting the sun up. Well, we couldn't have got the sun up even if we tried because then the Max Geyser was always going to surpass Super Seedus in the end. We needed to nuzzle with Raichu. We needed to nuzzle and not Eerie Impulse. That was the player. And at that point, do you suspect that it's scarfed? Calorax? No, never at all. I want to have a look at the, the, the, the, like the usage of scarf on Calorax Ice Rider. Okay. Scarf is not even on the list of items. So yeah. Anyway, best of one situations. It's always going to catch you out. But that's the ladder for you, isn't it? Anyway, very good game to my opponent. We'll hop over now and get you friends, the rental team. I'm a bit sad that we couldn't finish off with two wins today, but it happened sometimes. Okay, friends. Here is the rental code for today's team. It is the whole team that we've been featuring today and had a lot of fun with. Honestly, I hope if you do try it out, you do enjoy it. I think it's a really good concept between the Lapras and the whole didn't really get a chance to see the Lapras today. Unfortunately, but I think it is kind of matchup specific where you're going to see that combination. I do like the combination in general. I think they compliment each other very well. Obviously they have that conflict between who wants to Max and who doesn't. But I think Ho-O can really perform well where it doesn't have to Max, especially if it's got screen support. You've got the weakness policy there. Lapras helps disrupt a lot of the things that give, you know, Ho-O a lot of issues and kind of vice versa. So they do work well in tangent together. You could even think if you wanted to adapt this team further in your own ways is think about maybe Perish song on Lapras. It's definitely an option there rather than going for the full offensive kind of support like Clare Barron that I've went for here. I just feel like the screen support is really pivotal. But one takeaway from this is obviously that the Raichu and Ho-O combination are just very strong together and they kind of compliment each other. To not end, the air balloon is a bit of a niche item because you can see sashes on Urshifu. I think it's generally better fitted there and the assault vest, which would be another option you'd consider on Raichu is taken on the lander, which again is better on the lander than the Raichu. And personally, going assault vest on Raichu means that you don't have access to Eurea Impulse which we've seen through the games today how pivotal that can be as an option to just shut down end game situations or shut down those big Dynamax Pokemon that your opponent relies on so heavily. Anyway, without going on further anymore I'm going to wrap it up there. Hope you enjoyed today's team. Just a reminder that the poker face is down below in the description. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you as always for tuning in. Take care of yourselves and I'll catch you all for another episode very soon. Until then, as always, take care and bye-bye.