 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 as we always do through the week with our VGC Series 8 content playing today, a team based all around Caller X Shadow Rider. It's something very familiar to us. We featured it in the very first week of the Series 8 kicking in. We're coming back to it now. And this team have featured on stream a couple of times and I've made a few tweaks to it since then. But it is something I've been playing around with probably more than anything else in this format. And it's taken me a while to actually get it up onto an episode today. But we're going to be throwing up a rental code at the end of the episode, as we always do. So stick around for that. And there will be a poker piece down in the description below. But we do have the inclusion of Stack Attacker in this team, which gives us a really nice trick room option, especially if trick room is a way for my opponent to kind of counteract the faster things on our team. And it just helps us a bunch in having that really fast offensive mode and the really slow offensive mode. So if the trick room does go up, we got ways around it because that was one of the things that I found most difficult about the team in general was Thundaris. Opposing Solvus Thundaris was really difficult to deal with. And you know, with something like Stack Attacker, especially with the support from Indeedy, you can get that seamless trick room support up and then start doing a lot of work in disrupting the flow of your opponent's kind of game plan. So there is the team. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. As always, we'll have a couple of games of the team now. We'll talk through it, see how it matches up against some hopefully good archetypes that we come up against today and then we'll end up with that rental team. So without further ado, let's get into the first game of today. Okay, first up today, we have a Lapras Incinero, Reggie Alecki, Zassian, Colossal and Dragonite team. So it looks pretty scary on the face of it, especially when we're in the best of one situation. But we know what kind of combinations are going to come out. You've got the Dragonite with the Colossal combination there to proc the steam engine, get the Colossal kind of boosted up and obviously with probably safety goggles and inner focus. You're not going to be able to really prevent that without redirection of our own. But we do have that in Indeedy. What am I looking at? What am I going to really go with here? Because ideally I want the Indeedy to kind of lead, but I also want something like Thunderous that can take advantage of the Reggie Alecki that's probably going to come out up top to disrupt us speed with Calyrex, you know? I think we've got Indeedy Calyrex and then we'll go Thunderous and we definitely need Incinero on this one, I think just because I don't know, Staka-Taka could be really good in this one as well. I think Staka maybe actually, that's what we're going to do. I think we go, am I going to run out of time? Staka, Calyrex, and we'll go Incinero. Yeah, I think we go for our Trick Room mode here because if you look at the face of it, like my opponent's team, like in a Trick Room, doesn't really face our fair too well against Staka-Taka. Zassian can do good things against it, but we do have the Incinero support to kind of help us in the redirection as well. And then the end game comes down to having something like Calyrex to come in and just clean up at the end. And hopefully by that point, we've got rid of the Regi, like you saw, something to kind of keep in mind for later in this game. Okay, well, we've got Indeedy and a Stax coming out. Now, what does my opponent do? I think you probably get your screens up and get Zassian onto the field. I don't know if you're electro-web. I don't think so. But I think we just follow me and Trick Room. Follow me and Trick Room. Now, Indeedy should be able to take a double up here, depending on what the Regi Alecki does, depending on its item, of course, if it's like Magnet or Lyphob, Thunderbolt, plus a Max QR, the Max guys that will take us down. Now, it'd be nice to have the Indeedy kind of kicking around for the next turn, of course, because like the redirection support is so useful. It just gives Stack Attacker a little bit more room to kind of perform as you kind of want it to. But Lapras Maxon, as we suspect, because it is the old lapdog team, isn't it? Let's see what you go for. Maybe a Bolt Switch. Yeah, and I reckon Zassian's going to come in on that slot. Like 100% Zassian comes in there. No way it doesn't. But if Indeedy goes down here, it's not the end of the world because then we get Incinero onto the field and then we've got a few more options where we can, you know, kind of pressure the Zassian a little bit more. The Regi Alecki is the big problem, though, like it outlined to the very start of this match before we got into it. For the end game situation, for us to kind of kind of come out on top, we kind of need to have Kalorex free of Regi Alecki to kind of come in and just be able to click that Astro Barrage button and just kind of clear the field. Okay, I'm going to see a Max Geyser here. Maybe we take this. Maybe not. Oh well. At least we know three of the four Pokemon as well, my opponent's side, you know, there's the Incinero. We can nuke this next turn and because there's no screens up yet from this Lapras, there's no screens up. We do have Fakeout that we can take advantage of. We do have Pond Shot as well. We don't really have the option to bring in Kalorex just yet, but we can definitely get, if we see a Max Guard, though, that's the problem. Now with the psychic terrain up as well, we can't really utilize our Fakeout support, but we could. I think we go Ponding Shot into the Lapras in all honesty and go Max Rockfall into Incinero. Will it be enough though? Will it be enough to get it? We need to change the weather though. That's the thing. Okay, Zassi ain't going to come in here for sure. That's Regi Alecki. Okay, well, that's not too bad. Okay, that's not too bad. I wonder if they go Max Geyser again. That's the other thing. Like, you've got to wonder what my opponent goes for here. Do they go for the Max Geyser to kind of keep weather control or do they go for the Roarville Max move? Can never remember off the top of my head what it's called, but we know. You know what I mean. So Rockfall, I think my opponent's playing the game where they're just going to try and cycle Intimidates onto us. But the nice thing is, like I say, we get rid of that Regi Alecki, which is maybe not though, because if they go Geyser here, then it gets a little more tricky, doesn't it? Because they're going to be able to stick around a bit longer. Let's see what they got for. I would say they go Geyser, you know? I think that would be my bet. Geyser would be the bet. But we'll see. I see the Incineroar is another big threat that we need to kind of consider taking care of. Sooner rather than later as well, because with Kalorex in the back, it makes things way more difficult. Again, we're seeing a Geyser. Kalorex taking that pretty comfortably. Can we take another one though? I think we can just about take another one and get the Astro Barrage off. It's just whether or not we see the Incineroar switch in, which is kind of the thing like we're getting greedy then. I think we'd lose Kalorex. I think we need to get Incineroar in and I think we need to go Rockfall. It's whether I go Rockfall into Regi or Lekki expecting the Incineroar to come in there, which I kind of do. But at the same time, I would like to get damage onto the Lapras as well, but we might be better. Let's go for the Lapras. Let's go for the Lapras. Kind of tempted to go because I think Incineroar comes back in there, but maybe not as well. Let's see, does the Regi Lekki just protect? Maybe. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it works out better for us because it'll go down to the Sand Ship. This next turn. And I know the guys are going to be going up regardless because they're going to kind of supersede us. But this damage into Lapras right now is really, really useful. Like really useful because it puts it closer to going down to. Yeah, they have to go for the Resonance here as well. That's the other thing. If they want the screen support, they have to go for that Resonance, which is way better for us, you know, because we can go for another potting shot the next turn and we kind of keep the sand on the field, which is ideal. And now the Incineroar will come back in for sure. Incineroar definitely comes back in just because it's got that Intimidate support which helps out a bunch. And how many turns of Trick Room we've got left? How many turns? But you've got to expect the Zassian to be the one Pokemon in the back, which makes me think I need to get Insie off the field now to... Yeah, I've got to get Insie off the field to have like that Calyrex Incineroar kind of combination on the field at the same time. Right, Psychic Terrain still up for two turns. Trick Room, two turns left. All right. Well, I wonder if it's better just to stay in and snarl for a turn here rather than switch out and kind of risk. Oh, we've got one more turn of our Max left as well. I forget about this. Okay. I'm not too worried about the Lapras yet. I think I've got to concentrate a bit more down into Incineroar. Yeah, okay. I didn't think we had one more turn left, but we do. That's ideal. Probably going to see a parting shot from the Incineroar here, I think. We do nothing on minus two. That's the issue. Parting shot coming out, which is expected. We've got to snarl off. And with this last turn, we're going to have to pit. It's difficult to kind of pivot out with Incineroar here because I think the problem is, Zasyan. We need to intimidate the Zasyan. What do we need to intimidate the Zasyan? It kind of is in a position where it needs to potentially protect this next turn almost, you know? Hydro Pump coming out into Incineroar. But we'll take this. I mean, not super well to be honest. Not super well at all. Maybe better just going for the Lapras there, to be honest. Getting rid of it so the Incie is a bit more fresher. Going into this next turn. The Zasyan has to protect. It has to protect. Has to. Has to protect. That's rock slide. It should be enough. I'm hoping that we see a protect on the Zasyan and the Lapras maybe switch out to Incineroar. Just to stall out this last turn in Trick Room. Got to hope that a rock slide's enough to get the Lapras still. Let's see. Yeah, Lapras going out. Incie coming in. And Zasyan protecting. That's what we want to see. Yeah, it's tricky. It is tricky. Yeah, there's a protect. Okay, so we kind of get this turn how we need it to go. Got a bit of rock slide damage onto the Incineroar. Not going to do very much though. But any damage is good damage because now we've got the ability to switch in Incineroar. We probably want to protect Kalorex this turn as well. Yeah, because we're not going to be able to. Still tricky because we kind of need to be able to get Incineroar onto the field. The other option is now we need to. Yeah, we need Incineroar out onto the field. It's just if we see the Zasyan attack. I'd imagine it probably goes after the Stacker and goes Sacred Sword. So we lose Incineroar. This is why maybe getting rid of the Lapras earlier on would have been the better call because then Incineroar probably would have been able to stick around a turn longer than it is now. So the full site there that we would kind of not really utilizing was not ideal. Behemoth Blade. Are we able to take that? I don't know if we'll be able to take this, you know. No. Dang. Okay. Not ideal. Not ideal. Flablets. Okay. Well, we've got a couple of options because we can Trick Room. It's just whether or not a Mud Shot would be enough to get the Zasyan. Because the Sacred Sword is going to get Stacker. You know, a Mud Shot is not going to get Zasyan from this range. Astro Barrage is probably our best and a Trick Room, I think. There's no way Mud Shot gets Zasyan from this range. If we can get this off, if we can, maybe the better thing would have been picking up the knockout onto the Incineroar, maybe going Mud Shot here, you know. Yeah, it's no way. No way. And we'll go down to Flablets Sacred Sword. Close combat even. It's where Shukka Berry would have been a better option as well, maybe than Shukka. You know, a Chopper Berry. Ah, this is a tricky one, tricky one. Yeah, and we've not kind of come out on top of this. I mean, it's been a really difficult match for us. But it's sometimes how it goes, isn't it? You know, hmm. I think our biggest downfall, our biggest downfall in general was not, not getting rid of the Lapras when we had the opportunity to, I think, taking that heavy damage from even like minus, what was it, minus three at the time? Guys that, or Hydro Pump, whatever it was, really kind of put us in a bad position. So that hindsight there really cost us. So thing is losing sometimes is not like the worst thing in the world because it gives you the foresight to see, right? Well, that's the play I mean, that's where we went wrong. Like we need to have a bit more foresight in future because the, the Incineroar on that match was so important to us as well as the Kalorex as well, to be honest, we let that take far too much damage and we couldn't really get that dominant board position in the endgame where we had Incineroar Kalorex out and we needed them both to be pretty healthy, to be able to take at least an attack from the Zassian and be able to, to really pressure it where we couldn't. And then the Zassian kind of comes into its own in that, that mode. And that's why the lapdog team works so well because Lapras does so well at being able to kind of disrupt early on and then we fall a bit short in the end. But like I say, the loss isn't really like something to look on as a bad thing. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. We're getting really lots of information here to improve ourselves as players going forward. And that's, I think one thing to translate across to you guys is that sometimes a loss feels like it's the worst thing in the world, but really it's a tool that you can kind of flip and use to your advantage to better yourself and look at scenarios where I keep doing that. That's why I keep losing that match and things like that. So just a tip for you going forward anywhere. Hopefully it's useful and information. Right. With that, we're not going to tilt. We're not going to get on the down kind of the sad step and we're going to keep moving, be positive and we're going to pick up a win in the next one. Okay. So let's get into our next opponent of the episode. Okay. Up next today, we have a team of Urshifu, Groudon, Meowstik, Venusaur, Lapras and Regi Alecki. Son of the Lapras here, but this time paired up with the Groudon. So you've got kind of a conflict between the water typing and obviously the rain and the sun. They've got that Venusaur, which is difficult to deal with for sure. Okay. The Groudon's not the best matchup for Thunderous, but Thunderous kind of matches up pretty well here other than the Lapras. Again, you could say Stack Attacker has a good matchup, but then against the Groudon it just falls really flat. There is a trick room mode there with the Meowstik. So we need to be very mindful of that. And if we do see the Venusaur lead, there's always the possibility that my opponent has sleep powder there. I think it will go Thunderous and Incineroar. I think we'll go Kalarex in the back and I think Urshifu overall as our last one's probably a better option. We could go on Didi as well as a lead here. Just to kind of get around the sleep powder from the Venusaur, it supports Thunderous a little bit better as well, but it wouldn't mean dropping probably Urshifu here, which could be quite useful in the late game, especially with the kind of priority circle punches against stuff like Reggie Lecky and Venusaur for the Sun is up. So we'll go with this. We'll see what we can do with Thunderous here and hopefully get a win because that's what we need a win in this episode. Even though I talk about the importance of a loss, it's always nice to be able to kind of show the team winning as well, you know. Sometimes it's not always possible in these episodes because obviously you go up against better opponents, better teams, teams that give you a lot of issues, but that's the road, the path. That's the path to success. You need to lose to be able to better yourself to realize where you're falling down, where your mistakes are, and then you can pick yourself up and move forward and progress. So I know it's a bit of a kind of a and the lecture, but it's not really. It's just important information to not get tied up and really bogged down by losing because losing is not unless you're in a tournament. It's not really like a big deal. And even if you're in a tournament, it's still not a big deal. Okay. We've got Meowstik and Groudon out for my opponent. So I wonder if we're going to see a trick room. I imagine we probably do here. Makes me want to kind of switch things up a little bit, but I don't know if I want to. I think could potting shot out into the Groudon, put it down to minus two. It'd be kind of nice to be able to do that in all honesty and just go for an Airstream into Meowstik. Doesn't make much sense. But at the same time, the plus one speed would then allow us to potting shot into the Groudon. The only issue would be here. Meowstik goes for fake out into Incinero and you see your precious blades and that would be not ideal because then Incinero again takes way too much damage. But we need to start trying to chip away at this Meowstik because it is going to be the big thing that kind of threatens us going forward. And I imagine the Meowstik probably wants a trick room here more than anything else. No, it goes fake out into Thunderous. Don't fake out the Dynamics Pokemon. It's not the way to play now. It makes it difficult for my opponent to actually utilize their trick room because the Meowstik prone to going down this next turn. We put the Groudon down minus two. And if it goes for sword stance, which is likely to do here. And we can at least bring Incinero back in the next turn and kind of mitigate that completely. We'll bring Oshifu in. I don't really want to bring Kalorex in just yet. I mean, Kalorex probably would have been the best thing to bring in here because then we can just spam Astral Barrage. But Oshifu going to be able to take a precipice blades a lot better. And I really value Kalorex staying as healthy as possible for the late game. I think we've got Airstream again. Do we now get in Kalorex? Yeah, let's get Kalorex in now. Would it mean more sense? Would have made more sense to get it in that last turn and this is another thing where we're like, I'm really not playing as openly as I probably could be thinking about maybe being a bit more defensive than actually offensive in that situation where to be on the front foot and stay on the front foot, we bring Kalorex in there and then we can really start like we can get rid of the Meowstick and then concentrate down onto the Groudon as well, you know, double into that rather than having to make another switch here. We broke the Sash on the Oshifu for no reason and then we're kind of bringing in Kalorex and just kind of wasting magic room. Huh, an interesting one. No items for the next five turns. No life orb or a salt vest on our on our Kalorex or a thunderous. But the speed boost here onto Kalorex is useful. Rock slide coming out. Okay, so it's a better option. Oshifu would have been better staying in there. The critical hit is not ideal at all, like by any means, you know, minus two. We would have just been tickled, but that is not the case. Quits happen and Lapras coming in. Okay. Well, do we lightning? Do we lightning? I think we go for max lightning for sure. And we'll just go as this magic room. Okay. And I think we go for an astro barrage. Just to get damage onto the Groudon primarily. Okay. Groudon switching out, whatever comes in. Oh, Oshifu. Okay. Lapras going to max. It's max resonance up. Thing is with the Oshifu as well, it hasn't got the ability, it hasn't got its sash anymore, you know, I know we haven't got a life orb, but no items at all. The Lapras are going to take a massive chunk of damage from this as well. I think the thing to kind of keep in mind as well, you know, the Groudon would probably better off trying to keep Kalorex from the late game to deal with the Groudon. Stunnerous isn't going to be the best option to kind of help deal with it, you know. Max resonance coming out fine. They get hefty amount of damage for that. There's, yeah, I think, well, we definitely need to get Kalorex off the field now. We need to deal with the Oshifu. Um, but a super power should get it. And I'm kind of happy if that's what we see. Uh, Incineroar's a decent switch in here. We'll keep the Kalorex to deal with the Groudon, because I think that's more important than anything really at this stage, because Groudon otherwise kind of walls out Incineroar, Oshifu, and obviously Thunderous, but I'd imagine Thunderous to maybe go down here. Just got a grant. Well, like this is why, you know, Incineroar's a good switch in here because a Sucker Punch, not on minus one probably gets Thunderous, but I think minus one Sucker Punch we probably are able to take and then the super power should be enough to kind of get rid of it. Even behind the screens. Yeah, probably. Yeah, it should be all times weak. So no Sucker Punch coming out though. And we are not able to get it. Okay, it does survive. Wow. Wow. I'm surprised about that. I am very surprised about that. Close combat, not ideal in the slightest. It's going to proc out. Oh, no, we don't even have access to a berries here because of the magic room and another resonance which will come down and take care of Thunderous. Oh, okay. Not ideal. I think we've got to keep Kallorax to last. I think we've got to get rid of this Urshavu right now. If we can, I don't know if we're going to be able to. I think Urshavu is kind of safe here to close combat. Probably Wicked blows the best option and then fake out. They're just going to protect that, aren't they? They're just going to protect. It's like, what do we do? Do we go for a parting shot into the Lapras? Probably not. No, they're just fake out. I mean, we're probably going to lose and then Wicked blows not going to be enough to get the Lapras here. We've got Geyser. No resonance again. Got to be into Urshavu. It's going to be enough. No, not quite. Sun fades. Well, comes down to a bit of a speed tie really, doesn't it? Like, our main priority is just getting rid of the opposing Urshavu. Can we Sucker Punch it? Kind of risky. It is risky, like in all honesty. But they Sucker Punch us, I think. You know. Let's flab. Let's just in case we win the speed tie with the Lapras. I don't see that we will, but we get the Sucker Punch. Okay. So we get rid of the Urshavu. You can get rid of the Lapras here. You know, that'd be huge if they attack into Urshavu. I don't think they do though. Now they go into a Incineroar. But this is a what this is all right because now we've got the opportunity to double up into the Groudon. You know, and we've got a life or back. They've got their screens, which makes it a bit more tricky. But how many turns have they got the screens for? They've got two turns left of their screens, I think. Probably just enough to kind of get them through the rest of this game, isn't it? Let's see. Let's see. Full health Groudon is not what we want to see. Roarville wears off the next turn, so we need to. Yeah, we need to double protect here. And then Astro Barrage and a Wicked Blow might be enough to get the Groudon. Maybe. I don't think it will though. I really don't. I think Groudon is just going to be a bit too bulky to take the double up precipice blades. What's the lap is going to do? Body press. Nice. Yeah, it's a nice option for sure. Roarville wears off electric terrain, disappearing. And our items are all back. So yeah, got to just go for it. Wicked Blow and Astro Barrage. And let's just hope it is enough to get the Groudon. Let's just hope it is. If they make a mistake and then protect like Groudon here, I think then then we get it 100% like single target, but they haven't. Oh, Wicked Blow should be more than enough. Okay, without life orb damage, that's more than enough. It's just a little bit unsure, you know? But Wicked Blow should get the Groudon here. Without the Roarville support. Okay, we get a win, which is nice. Okay, it kind of pulls around the episode. So 1-1 rather than two losses because it's always bad. It's never the way I want to kickstart an episode, you know, with a loss. And I could easily scrub that episode and come with something else, but I think there's some valuable points in there for you as viewers, especially some of the newer players coming into the tournament. And even more experienced ones to take a positive outlook on a loss rather than a bad outlook on it, you know? So that's why it's there. But very good game to my opponent and we'll hop across and get you all the rental team for today's team. Okay friends, here is the rental cut for today's team of the Shadow Color X. So I hope you enjoy it if you try it out. It is a lot of fun the team. I think it's got some nice modes too. It got the Trick Room mode. It's got the Fast mode with the Thunderous Color X. And it's just a little extension on that very first team that we use in Series 8 in that very first week to where it is now. Obviously, haven't got the hat to read in there. We've got a bit more stability with the Stack Attacker and still going with the Indeedy, which I believe does provide a really pivotal role in the team when you do need it. Let me know down in the comment section if you do try the team out. I'd love to hear from you and at the end of the day, hope you've enjoyed today's episode. I hope you found some value in some of the things that we've been talking about, especially in regards to losses and what we take from those and things like that just to progress as players because that's what we're always looking to do, you know. And if you have, then, Mission Accomplished. So that is the baseline of it. But I'm going to wrap it up there, friends, because I don't want to drag this on too long. We've had two really good games today, interesting games and valuable games, I think. So that's all you can ask for in some of these episodes. Hope you enjoy the team. Have a great rest of your day. And above all else, take care of yourselves and I'll see you all for another episode very soon. So until then, take care and bye-bye.