 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. Today, we're going to be continuing on with our VGC Series 8 content. We're actually going to be featuring a rental team. This popped up on my timeline over on Twitter yesterday from a Japanese player who'd been using this in the previous format. Obviously, the latter has just updated now. So we've gone into a new phase of Series 8, but this is what they've been using in the previous season and had a lot of success with it. I love the elements from this team, and I thought it would be a really good one for us to kick off with today. Obviously, all their socials, I'll be down in the description if you want to give them a follow going forward. Yeah, we've got the Polytoad, Kingdra, a really good dominant combination here. You kind of tend to see Kingdra and Kayog are more often in this format, but Polytoad provides that rain and the drizzly ability there and nice options with the trapping ability of Gotha Tell that we'd say a bit of a throwback from previous formats that we've had in and later years. And then you've got Mindshire, which is just there to kind of support taunt with the fake out close combat and the U-turn to give a pivot. So while it's a really boom, which helps out, especially with the rain mode benefits from the rain and then Zassian going to be your restricted Pokemon on this team. So we're featuring Zassian today. It's going to be really nice. Obviously, we featured Zamas Enter in a previous episode. So we'll play a couple of games of the team. We'll talk through it. So here's a rental code for the team and that further ado, friends. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. Leave your comments down below. Let me know what your thoughts are on this kind of build. It would be great to hear your opinions and without further ado, we're getting to our first match of the day. Okay. So up first today, we have a team of indeedy female Alolan Maruak, Cinderace, Kingdra, Togokis and Kyogre. So we've got a little bit of a rain off here. We do have ways to kind of help out our rain matchup. Obviously, Rilla Boom will help against things like Kyogre, but my opponents packed out their team with things that really help against the Rilla Boom. Obviously, the Togokis, Cinderace, the Alolan Maruak as well, all do pretty well against Rilla Boom. So we have to kind of be a little bit careful around how we utilize in the team here. I think a good way to potentially go forward is maybe go Kingdra up top. Kingdra is always going to be a good lead here because with the rain in the back potentially for ourselves, it could help us out a bunch, but it's what we bring to kind of... I mean, we can trap. We could trap as well. We could trap. There's not much speed control my opponent's team aside from airstreams. So if we can kind of keep up with the airstreams, that's always very, very useful option. I think Poly Todd in the back and then maybe we go... Do we go Poly Todd? I don't know if I'm going to go to tell actually. I think I might go Poly Todd, Rilla Boom and Zassian. I think that might be the best route for us because although my opponent might set the rain up for us, I think it's better. You know, the fact is that we've got the rain to support a Kingdra straight away. And also if they go Max Wyrmwind into Kingdra with their Kingdra, we've got a really good switch into Zassian. So it's just if we see Kyogre Kingdra from my opponent, it makes things a little bit more difficult for us, but we don't see that. We're going to see the Indidi and the Cinderace here. So this is actually alright. We don't necessarily need to Max here either because we've got the rain up. We could just go for a potential muddy water. Because that then gets around the the redirection. The problem would be is the Indidi going for an expanding force, which wouldn't be ideal. So one of the options we could potentially go for here would be go for that. Oh, we don't have muddy water. Okay. So that was one of the options that they didn't didn't want. Now do we Max and Airstream might be better going for that and getting the speed jump straight away and then getting boom on to the field. How do we just stick with with with polytod here? She said I don't really want to take an expanded force and whatever they are. Yeah, I think especially if it's not G Max Cinderace, it might be a better idea to pull the rain into the back. So at least if we see the Cinderace set the sun up, then we'd be able to we'd be able to kind of overwrite that the next time, but we're not going to be seeing that because the Kyoga makes this way into the field and it's going to eat an Airstream. It makes it very difficult for my opponent now because obviously they do have the redirection, but we do have access to fake out and we put a lot of pressure on to that Kyoga straight off the back with the really boom switching, which is always very nice. And it's all about kind of keeping that pressure on my opponent here because obviously the mirror mirrors are always difficult and you want to try and just take a little step and edge forward in the match as soon as you can and try and keep a hold of that and kind of keep the momentum going. So it's all about the position and of your Pokemon because already we can see potentially next turn, depending on the damage that we do here today indeedy. It could be in range to go down from a grass glide. Definitely not definitely not, but with the redirection we can stop that with, you know, fake out here. The Kyoga is likely to switch out into something like Cinderace maybe the next turn, but it's also a very risky thing to do because if you do that then obviously there's always a chance that we could go for like a Max Wormwind or a Max Geyser here as well. Kind of trying to think what would be the best play. Best play for us would be probably Max Geyser. I think Max Geyser and now let's go for the Max Airstream again into the Kyoga. Let's go grassy glide into the Kyoga as well. Let's try and double up into it. I think might be good. We might just see follow me. Yeah, we do, but the grassy glide plus another Airstream would be useful. Kyoga probably goes for Ice Beam here. Yeah, that definitely puts the Indeedian range now to go down to the Airstream and we've got a good speed advantage now with King Dreena in the rain with plus two. So even if the rain goes away for whatever reason, then at least we've got that as a benefit. And the fact is we've got a grassy terrain up as well. So we kind of win that terrain wall, which is always useful. Blizzard coming out. We do have the double avoid and that's always a bit unfortunate for my opponent, but it's always the risky kind of run with those lot accuracy moves, especially the spread ones where they've got the opportunity to kind of miss both targets instead of hitting. So a little bit unfortunate for my opponent as the Toa Kis comes onto the field. Now, we probably, we're in a little bit of a tricky, tricky position because you've obviously got the redirection again, which is a little tricky. So you kind of want to try and get Zassian onto the field if we can. I think it might be better going for the, do we go for a U-turn? Grassy glide. They have to go for redirection here. It's just whether or not we want to keep Boom on the field. That's the thing. Like, really, Boom is like super important to us. Whereas we could just go for a U-turn maybe into the Kyoga and then if they do redirect, then we get Boom off the field. Yeah, it's just not so safe to switch in Zassian right now because the issue is if Zassian comes onto the field, we potentially take a full power water spot, which is not something that we really want to be doing, you know, do some nice damage to the Toa Kis and we'll get the U-turn off and we'll get Poly Todd back onto the field because really with Poly Todd as well, it kind of gives you an end game situation with the Perish song, where you can whip the opponent down to two Pokemon. Now, regardless if they max later in the game, as long as Poly Todd's got the ability to kind of press that Perish song button with two Pokemon left, which will potentially in the position to do this next turn where we can hurricane into the Kyoga and scald into the Toa Kis. We should be able to pick up the knockout or we could just double tap into the Toa Kis slot because Cinderace is going to come in on that slot and it's not really going to want to take the double up. I mean, in hindsight, we're really better going for the hurricane into the Kyoga just to get damage onto it and then scald into the Toa Kis with Poly Todd, which will be enough to take it out. And like I say, if we see the Cinderace come in there like we're seeing now, we're going to be able to probably pick up the knockout onto it with the scald in the rain. So we're going to see a protect from the Kyoga. Is the Toa Kis going to come? Wait there, sorry. What am I saying? If this picks up the knockout, that's ideal. That's what we want. Yeah. Okay. So that's perfect. And now all we need to do is click the perish song button and play around their Dynamax turns. Now, you've got to imagine that the Kyoga is going to be the Pokemon that Dynamax is. But without the electric terrain up with the Wackenberry on the Poly Todd, there's no way other than a potential flinch that's going to stop the Poly Todd getting the perish up and that kind of locks the game for us. So that's what I'm trying to say to you all. Like you've got the option there of a really nice wind con. We'll go for the hydropump into the Toa Kis. We've got the speed advantage and we'll just click perish just to lock this one up because with the Pokemon that we've got remaining, there's no way that we can't switch around or just stall out between protects with what we've got in the field, which will allow us to get the most out of this opportunity. So there's a hydropump we do hit and the Toa Kis going down and Kyoga are going to be the last Pokemon standing. But again, we still got Rillaboom in the back to come in. So we don't even need to wait these three turns if Kingdra drops here for whatever reason. And we're not seeing my opponent actually click that Dynamics button just yet. We might see the forfeit come out this next turn just with the perish song kind of locking things up for us here. We also have like we could just sit here with Kingdra as well and just chuck attacks out until we're kind of happy for them just to go down and whatever we've got in the back to come in. You know, we don't need to take any risks at all at this point. We've got it locked up. If these two go down here, then you know, it doesn't matter to us because we still got two Pokemon in the back, grassy terrain going away. And we can just chuck out. I think just some Draco meteors now with the fairy redirection off the field. We're pretty safe to just launch that and see if we can pick up a cheeky skull along the way with Polytod because we're just wasting time now unless we see the forfeit, which I think we might do. I know we're not. My opponent's playing it out. So fair enough to them as you get the Draco on to the Kyogre. Doing some fat damage. It does so much damage with the life hold, doesn't it? It's such a great attack. It really is. And we'll see the thunder coming out now, but it is going to just activate that Wackenberry that we do have on the Polytod. Obviously reducing the damage there, which is always very useful, especially in a format where you've got quite a lot of electric type users. And we don't have any redirection like Lightning Rod or anything like that on the team, which could kind of help with that. And we do get the burn as well. So everything that we're asking for in this game is kind of playing out, which is great. So the Kyogre likely to go down this next turn. We'll just help in hand and go for a Draco meteor. And it should be enough to get the win, get the W for us today, so which is always good. And I do love helping hand on Polytod as well. It is such a nice option. Especially, I think that just set in general, just it's got such utility, you know, the helping hand, the perish and the Skald. It gives you so many options with how useful Polytod can be in there. There we go. Fair play to my opponent. You'd see a lot of people kind of forfeit in those situations. And you can see why there's not a lot coming back, but you know, sometimes taking note, playing till the end, it's worth doing. You never know what's going to happen in a battle. But very good game to my opponent. A nice one for us to kick off with today. And we'll jump into our next game of the episode. Up next, we've got Sammy playing a team of Grimsnall, Incinero, Garchomp, Kyogre, Tepacoco and Metagross. Really cool looking team for us to kind of go up against this next game. Love seeing the Garchomp and the Metagross. Real throwbacks to previous formats. And it's quite a nice looking team. You've got the Kyogre, which is going to be the kind of centerpiece of the team with the fake out support from the Incinero. Intimidate there. The screen support from the Grimsnall. Potentially, I'd say maybe some speed control from the Grimsnall. It does get scary face. It does get thunder waves. So their options there, the Tepacoco. Again, going to be something that can threaten us. Obviously with its electric terrain as well. Going to have electro wet. A lot of kind of utility moves to support and be threatening at the same time. So not something to kind of underestimate. Metagross, what are we going to see? Like bulldoze from potentially something like the Garchomp. I guess does Tepacoco get brutal swing? I wouldn't have thought so. But maybe there is the option there. Metagross going to be something that we need to kind of watch out for definitely in this match. So what are we going to do? I mean, we could lead Gotha Tell. It gives us a nice opportunity. Problem is leading Goth is I mean, we could go down a parish trap route here. The thing that I would say is we're probably going to see Tepacoco come out, you know, from my opponent. But we could go Polly Todd, Kingdra, and I think Zassian. We'll go from maybe more of a parish trap kind of. Um, no, we're not even going. What are we leading with Gotha Tell? Gotha Tell Polly, Kingdra and now Rilla Boom Polly. That's what we're leading with. So we're leaving the Gotha Tell on the bench, but I think it makes more sense to bring the Rilla Boom is what I'm meaning really. It'd be nice to get the parish song off first, but we'll see what my opponent goes for. Bringing the Metagross in. We need to get Kingdra on the field as soon as possible. Really, that's the that's the big thing here for us. We do have knockoff with Rilla Boom, but if there is a weakness policy on the Metagross, obviously we will proc that straight away. The big thing for us to do is I think try and get a Skald burn onto the Metagross. That's going to be super useful if we can, if we can kind of get that as soon as possible. Now, it might be a good idea to get Zassian onto the field in all honesty, because if we get the Zassian onto the field, it's likely that the Metagross, if it does attack, it goes for either a Steel Spike or a Max Hailstone. And if we do see a Max, may not Max, but I don't see it going after the Politoad. We are going to see that. It's not going to go for a Max Quake, which is kind of the big option. I mean, they might, they might boost the special defense here just to kind of give them a bit more longevity against the Politoad and potentially when Kingdra hits the field later on. But I think the big thing for us here to do is try and stall out these Dynamics turns with the Metagross because the screens are going to go, ooh, Thunder Wave coming out. That's, that's not so good. That's not so good. So there's the, yeah, that's the speed control and it's going to make utilizing Zassian very difficult, really difficult as we do see the Zassian kind of take that pretty well. But we need a Skald burn. Polly's quite good at that, but we're not going to get at this turn this time around. We're not getting it. We are going to see the Grimstone go for the Thunder Wave again. It kind of ties it up though. It ties it up from using the screen support, which is always useful. And I'm just thinking now, do we switch in Rillaboom now? Or do we just protect? I think we protect with Zassian this turn and then we go for another Skald. We just try and get those burns because that's the big thing. Like if we can prevent the Metagross from boosting up, it is probably going to go from the Max Quake here, which is not ideal because of the special defense boost. Obviously, we kind of want to try and mitigate that, but at the same time, we're not really going to be able to stop it any other way. But we definitely don't want Zassian getting paralyzed. That's the thing. I think, oh my steel spike. Okay, boosting the defenses. I prefer to see that all day long. All day long, honestly. I know I haven't got the rain boost anymore, but if we can get the Skald burn here, this is what we're kind of aiming for. Poly's just good. It's sitting in front of these Pokemon. Don't get it again. So, you know, out of three, you should get it. 30% chance to burn. Not guaranteed, of course, but you should be able to get it. Now, Zassian, do we want you paralyzed? I don't think so. I think we need Zassian kind of fighting fit for later in this game. The other option here is, do we start going after the Grim Snow? I don't think we change our minds right now, but from the get-go, if we start Skalding there, it might have been an option. You know, I'm hoping that we're going to see the Max Quake come out now from the Metagross, and then we'll pull in, pull in Rilla. So, let's see, because we are going to get paralyzed, unfortunately, but it's better Rilla Boom getting paralyzed than Zassian. We're going to see Reflect. Okay. Better than that T-Wave. Could have got a sub up here. Oh, Max Knuckle. Okay, wow. And that's into the Toad. So, they are boosting their attack, and they do get the critical hit. You know, did way more damage than what I thought it was going to do, which is a little bit of a shame. But we just need this burn. We just need the burn. That's all we need. A bit of luck. Third time, we should get it, but we don't get it. Three out of three, we do not get it, which is super frustrating for us in all honesty. We need to try and get the rain back up as well. So, we've got to keep that in mind with Poly Toad. Like, do we get the rain back up as soon as we can? I think the next turn, we could potentially perish. Fake out the Metagross Parish song. It'll be a bad option. Because then it means my opponent has to start switching around at some point. You know, they can't really just leave things on the field. And we're going to be switching these two Pokemon out for sure anyway. Metagross just going for that protect, which is fine. So, I feel like the Metagross against this team is pretty difficult, because it makes it difficult to bring Kingdra when you've got something like... when you've got Grimstone sitting in front of you. But we do get the Parish song off, which is useful. And like I say, we can kind of switch things around going forward. I think we U-turn out onto the Metagross. Just get to... Maybe U-turn out onto the Grimstone as well. Could be an option. We just need to get damage onto the Grimstone in all honesty. And the grassy terrain going to actually kind of disappear soon. So, or is this the right time to switch Poly Toad off the field? Potentially. I mean a grassy glide and a Skald, and a grassy glide and a Skald should get the Grimstone. You know? So, I think we'll go for that this turn. Because it's not likely that Rillaboom goes down to double attacks. Wow. We've said that now. Geez. Okay, well we're paralyzed. It's not so good. And then Ice Punch coming out. Okay. Skald. Do they have Spirit Break then? Because that would be the thing that would worry me. I can't believe we've got like literally no... like literally no... no burns. Four Skalds, no burns. That's bad RNG for you right there. They may not have Spirit Break. They've got Reflect. They've probably got Light Screen. They've got Sucker Punch and they've got T-Wave. The board position that we kind of need to get is Poly Toad. Wow, we need... we need Kingdra next to Rillaboom. That's what we need. Alright, I'm going to pull Insass in there and I'm going to pull in Kingdra here. And then we can get Poly Toad onto the field. Protect Kingdra, get Rillaboom on, and then nuke the Grim Snow. But the thing is like as well you've got to think like we could utilize our Parish Song Turns where my opponent either is forced to switch out on that final turn which doesn't allow them to get the T-Wave or the Stain and we get the Fake Out and a big attack into them. But we're only going to get one opportunity to do that. It's just avoiding the Thunder Waves. It's such an overlooked utility, you know, but it's such a really good utility at the same time. Okay, Papa Coco coming in, which is alright. Alright, our Terrain, but we are pulling the Double Switch. So it's likely we only take maybe an Ice Punch into Zass in here which is actually not too bad and it does give us the opportunity to avoid any Thunder Wave kind of shenanigans as well because I think we pull Zassian out the next turn. Get Poly Tour onto the field, Max Geyser into the Cocoa. Okay, Bullet Punch. I mean we take that pretty comfortably. Metagross has to switch out this next turn as well which is the big thing. So get Poly onto the field and we'll go for a Max Geyser into Cocoa. And we'll see if we can start kind of cutting through my opponent's team now because that's the big thing. I'd imagine Grim Snow to come back onto the field where the Metagross is. We could have potentially stayed in like we are now and went for Behemoth Blade into that Metagross slot because they've got to switch it out. I don't see them sticking in yet. They're not going to stick around with it. It doesn't make sense. Grim Snow is going to come back in, yeah. So it means we're probably going to have to protect one turn if we want to avoid the Thunder Wave. That's really annoying. Grim Snow is just one of those Pokemon and it's like you need like double fake out support to get around it but then it complicates things with needing to rain up and stuff like that. It's tricky. Well, we've got the rain up now. We've got the Max Geyser coming out into the Cocoa. Just take it down, yep. I guess this next turn's where it gets a bit tricky because I mean if they don't have Spirit Break we could just suck up the fact that they're going to take the T-Wave us and just ignore that anyway and just help in hand attack into Grim Snow to remove it from the field and take the T-Wave. It's just risky because, hmm, yeah. I think we need Rillaboom as well. We need Rillaboom so we might be better just doing this because then we got Metagross to come in in the back. Kingdra should still outspeed the majority of stuff. Yeah, let's go Geyser into Grim Snow. It's just whether or not they got... We don't get the help in hand boost. We really needed the help in hand boost there. The paralysis really biting us. She's not good because there's the T-Wave coming out and she's not ideal. Just going to hope that the Geyser is enough to pick up the Grim Snow without the help in hand boost. You've got to hope it is. It's not. It's not. Oh, it's not. It's not. It's not. It's so frustrating. It really is frustrating. Really frustrating. Okay. Let's try and get a Perish song up if we can and let's go for a Max Airstream into Grim Snow at least then as long as the rain's on the field. We'll get the jump on the Kyogre which is always going to be useful. We'll get the jump on the Metagross as well just to ensure that if we just got the help in hand boost this is where the T-Wave paralysis comes in. Super frustrating and it's something that you just don't see many players really taking advantage of. I know there's a lot in the format that you can't Thunder Wave because of obviously resistances, Lightning Road and other things but I mean one of the key things you think about your opponent really utilizing is the fact that they've got the speed advantage most of the time. Max Airstream is one of the most dominant Max moves because of the advantage it gives you over your opponent. So T-Wave being such a free move to just throw out and be so disruptive as we've seen in this match it makes it difficult doesn't it to really kind of get the most out of your team when you've got that kind of thorn stopping you most of the time. So Metagross is going to come in. I think Rillaboom coming in now. Gracie Glide, they've got Zasin to kind of fall back on. Just need to remove the Metagross from the field. That's the big thing for us. So if we can hit a Gracie Glide into the Kyogre pretty much takes it out of the game really you know. Hydro Pump going to be enough to take down the Metagross as well so that's fine. They do have Bullet Punch of course but I don't know if a Bullet Punch is going to be enough to get the Rillaboom from the range that we're in and we also have Fake Out as well so that's something else that we've got. Bullet Punch might be enough you know. Bullet Punch might be enough to get, to get it. We'll go for a Gracie Glide. We could double up into the Metagross and hope that the Kyogre protects because then, no, no, I don't think so. I don't think Bullet Punch is going to get us. I'm going to go on a whim and say Bullet Punch is not going to be enough. Metagross Protecting. Okay, does Kyogre Protect as well just to stall out the Fake Out? No, they don't. Okay, not the best idea because now that just locks it up for us. I think when you've got access to Bullet Punch you've got to go for it there. You've got to go for it there even if the Fake Out comes out because if we don't go for Gracie Glide and Fake Out it means your Kyogre is safe. But if we click the Gracie Glide button you've got to go for the Bullet Punch and hope that it's enough to take us up from this range. Like I say, I think we might have just hung on but who knows, the Metagross might have had enough to do it. We'll go for a knockoff because I think we're fine now with the fact that Kingdra's faster than it. We've got Zassian in the back to come in as well and kind of just finish off things if we need it to and pick up the knockout with the Hydro Pump. So there we go. Kingdra putting in some work in both games today. Not really seeing too much of the Zassian but it's always there to be a Pokemon to come in and help sweep up if we need it to. Very good game to my opponent. We've had two good games and we'll hop over now just to remind you all of that rental code for today's team and again, a big shout out to Apoona Capona. I think that's the username. So we'll be right back with the rental code. Okay friends, here is the rental code for today's team. Like I said, it is going to be a rental from another player that we're using today but it's been a very exciting team to kind of feature him a little bit sad. We didn't get to see the mind shell but we've got to see the rest of the team a lot and obviously the ally switch there we didn't get to use which is always very sad. But if you do try this team out definitely have a lot of fun with it. I think it's a nice concept to take on the ladder and try out. I think it's a really strong build and again, big shout out to Apoona Capona. Apoona Capona. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. Probably not, but anyway, their links, their social handles are down in the description if you want to check them out and have fun with the team. We'll be back later in the week but just to reiterate, if you've got rental teams you'd like to feature, see featured on the channel. Let me know down in the comment section send your rental codes over and I will feature them as we go through the next couple of weeks. We're going to be jumping back on the Twitch and streaming over on YouTube. So keep an eye out for that. We'll be streaming over on Twitch tomorrow night which would be a lot of fun. So come and join us and we'll be streaming later in the week here on YouTube. So keep an eye out for that friends. Have a great rest of your day. What are you up to? And thank you so much for tuning in as always. Hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Until next time, see you later. Bye-bye.