 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, as always, my name is Lee, also known as Osiris, and in today's episode, we're going to be continuing on with our VGC Series 8 content, playing a little bit of a different take on your regular kind of Kyogre build. And not seeing the Tornadis, Tornogre, we're seeing Wim Ogre. So Wim's a cut and Kyogre kind of the predominant kind of lead in this team that was, I'd say, taken a lot of inspiration from a post that I saw on Twitter recently from a Japanese player called Jekyll335. I'll leave all their socials down in the description if you want to drop over and follow them. They posted a clip of their showdown match with the Wim's a cut and the Kyogre, taking advantage of Cotton Sport and Tailwind. So Cotton Sport is a double target attack, drops the speed by two on a pause in Pokemon, so you can really take advantage and win that kind of Tailwind war almost with your against your opponent, which is phenomenal in situations where you're going up against those really fast offensive teams. Just to give you a bit of an edge with Skaft Kyogre, just to make sure that you all get in that double damage every time. Rest of the team is made up with some highly used Pokemon. We've got the Regi Alecki in there. We've got the Magnet on it just to give it that extra boost. We've got Choice Band, Urshifu. So we're really going for a lot of power in this team. And then we've got a little bit of support again with the Indeedee that brings terrain control for us if you want it with the psychic terrain to stop priority attacks. And we also have redirection there with the Follow Me, which helps out pretty much most things on the team. As always, there will be a poker piss down in the description. I'll throw up the rental at the end of the episode. We'll get into the details of the team as we go through a couple of matches. So hopefully you enjoyed today's episode. And without further ado, let's find our first opponent of today. OK, first up today, we've got Luke playing a team of Zassian, Zapdos, Exkudrill, Sanderkonda, Amungus and Rillaboom. So really interesting team here, especially with that kind of sand core that we're seeing there with the Sanderkonda, Potenti G-Max, Sanderkonda with the Exkudrill. It's going to take advantage of that sand stream when it is put up onto the field. Zassian going to be the restrictor of the team. You're kind of looking at predominantly going to be Zapdos, probably the other Max Pokemon or the main Max Pokemon on this team to provide speed control for my opponent. But, you know, the two grass types do make it difficult for Kyogre to perform as well as you kind of would like to see it perform. So depending on what my opponent brings, if they bring both of them, we've got to kind of make sure that we're able to deal with both of them before Kyogre has kind of that free reign to kind of clean up. So maybe Kyogre not the best Pokemon to bring up top. Regi Alecki feels pretty good, although we've got to kind of still be a bit wary just because of the sand core that we can potentially see here. Regi Alecki, do we want to go Regi Alecki? I mean, you know what? I'm going to bring Whimsicott Urshifu. I'm going to bring Kyogre and, and, and, and, and, and Thunderous, I think we'll go with as our last one and lock in before we finish it up. It's very tricky like Thunderous we need here, because I think for the grass threats in particular, like Thunderous does so well against them, you know, so we need that like mitigation. We need that check for them to like free up Kyogre. But it's going to be tricky to get it onto the field. Of course, when you're looking and staring down at potentially something like Exkidro here, the Urshifu not so great in this situation at all, I will say right now, because the Airstream is going to come out and do a bunch of damage to us. So we've got a couple of options. What we could potentially do is taunt the Amugus, we could go that way. Airstream is not going to take us down. And then we would have the opportunity to maybe Airstream the next turn or we go tailwind now and go for a big. I think we tailwind now and go for a big, fat, wicked blow into Zapdos. It's probably going to go into Amugus, but at the same time it's not going to be the worst case scenario, I don't think. Because seeing the Amugus kind of makes me feel like probably Rillaboom's not come to this match, because then you've got Zassian for sure in the back. Yeah, and maybe, maybe Sandicondo, maybe Exkidro, I don't know, maybe Rillaboom. Rillaboom probably makes more sense actually, doesn't it? It really does. Okay, well we're going to see Zapdos max. We kind of expected this to happen. We'll get our tailwind up, which is always going to be useful for setting up that Kyogre to come in in a little while. And we do get the wicked blow, banded into that Zapdos, which is huge for us. Which is huge. So the Amugus, we're going to see the art into Whimmy. Okay. So we can cotton spoil the next turn. Kind of wanted to get damage onto the Amugus, because now Oshifu is probably going to get put to sleep, which is not ideal. Which makes it a little bit more tricky to get something like Kyogre onto the field. But at the same time, not the end of the world, not the end of the world. Because we can go for a cotton spoil now. And I think, can we switch Oshifu out? Probably better than switch Oshifu out, right? And get something like Thunderous on the field. Although I kind of prefer a clean sweep with Thunderous. Get it in like unchecked. I'm going to just wicked blow into Amugus. I'm going to let Oshifu go down. If it goes down, that's fine. I think my opponent has to kind of pick here. Do you go after the Whimsicott? Or do you go after the Oshifu? I mean, you could potentially just airstream Oshifu and then clear smog or something into Whimsicott. But with the switch out now that we're seeing from my opponent Zassian coming in, we're going to be able to put it down to minus two as well, which is phenomenal. And with the Amugus kind of out of the picture that makes things way better for us. If you do lose Oshifu here, that's kind of fine for us, honestly, because we get the free switch into Kyogre. Even if we lose Whimsicott here, it's kind of fine for us because we get the free switch into Kyogre, which is exactly what we want, right? There's a speed boost for Zassian, but it's still minus one, you know? And we still got a tailwind up. And I think the Zapdos is probably in range now for the Kyogre to pick it up with a water spout. And we're probably able to do enough damage to the Zassian in the process where we're going to be able to really dent it. We may need to switch around a few things. I think it's probably good to switch Oshifu out now, in all honesty, into Thundurus because then we've got the check if Amungus comes back onto the field, we'll be able to break a sash, get rid of the Zapdos. It depends if the Zassian stays on the field or not. I would imagine it probably doesn't. And imagine you want to reset the speed drop that you've taken and get Amungus back onto the field. But then if we get Thundurus onto the field, this turn and that does transpire, then we're sitting in a really good spot because like I say, the Amungus's sash will be broken if it's potentially got a sash, but we should do enough damage to it where Koba Berry's not gonna allow it to kind of take a max airstream from us either, especially an airstream with another water spout. So we'll see what my opponent goes for, but getting Thundurus onto the field now is always gonna be a good plan, I think. We'll see. No switch out from that Zassian and we just obliterate the field. Okay. I didn't expect it to take down the Zassian. I thought the Zassian might be able to actually take that, but we just do. Just do, bye-bye Zassian. Okay, well, that makes things whole lot easier for us. And of course at Kyogre, the thing about the scarf is where you gotta remember that we've got so much speed control with it, but it doesn't really necessarily rely on that speed control so much, you know? And it is the really boom and the Amungus in the back. So makes things tricky for us, of course. Of course it does, because we don't wanna get put to sleep by the Amungus. By the Amungus, that's the thing. Grassy Glide just gonna kick Kyogre's butt here. Let's be Max. Let's be Max. Let's be Max. We could waterspot. Like we could waterspot, that's the thing. Like we could potentially bring in Urshifu here. I kind of wanna get rid of the terrain as well. That would be more useful for Kyogre in late game, you know? It's not really the play. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's get rid of the terrain, because then it frees up Kyogre a little bit later on. We may see a fake out as well, and we may see a Thullerisk get knocked out. Oh, put to sleep, I should say, by the Amungus here. But with Urshifu, we're kind of all right. We just need to get a bit of chip damage onto Amungus potentially. If it is sash, I don't know if it will be. But they're definitely gonna spoil Amungus' thunderous here. And rage powdering, that's interesting. Okay, well, that means that makes things so much easier for us. I think you had to go for the spoil, potentially. Grassy Glide will hurt, of course. Yup. But now we can just get rid of the Amungus' next turn. The Grassy Glide's gone. So when Kyogre does come back onto the field, we're gonna be able to just ice beam. The Raila Boom and everything will be fine till when pit us out. But I mean, it's not really a big problem, is it? We'll go for a Wicked Blow, and we'll go for an Airstream. I think the Amungus probably is good. If it's got Cobber Bear, it's probably able to take an Airstream, I think, from this range. Yeah. We need Urshifu to wake up. We do, we really do. Because it's sporing us right now. It's sporing us. Come on Urshifu, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up. Because we're both in water-spot range if we get the Wicked Blow off. Come on Urshifu, come on. I don't like you being asleep. Grassy Glide would be enough to get us. Yup. All right, well, yeah, there's a spoil. I mean, the water-spot will be enough to get the Amungus. But we're gonna spend our last turn maxed. Urshloop. But then, thunderous. I mean, it's gonna be able to deal with Relaboon pretty easily, right? We just need to go for the fly. It's not like they're gonna have protect. I think the biggest worry here would be, the concern would be, obviously, if we do see Amungus pull out a protect here. That wouldn't be ideal. But I don't know how likely it is. Probably gonna happen. Probably gonna happen, isn't it? Right now. Let's see, let's see. Come on, opposing opponent. Let's do this. Well, we've got a guaranteed sleep turn, so we know thunderous is not doing anything this turn. But I think if you're my opponent, you probably wanna get damage. Like, you're gonna go after the Kyogre, I think, with Relaboon, for sure. I think a Grassy Glide here makes a lot of sense. Oh, that's not what we wanted to see. That's not what we wanted to see at all. Because now, yeah, the ice beam then, in this kind of situation, would obviously be the better play. But I still think thunderous is all right. I mean, the damage that we're doing there is like phenomenal, really, isn't it? The Kyogre's pretty burst. Grassy Glide, be able to pick up the knock at, yep. And now we're not maxed, but we can fly. They're gonna get at least one turn of kind of damage onto us, though. So, fly. Fly away, thunderous. If I mean if we wake up here, then it's done. It's done. It's just worrying what the Relaboon has other options for. Could be banded as well, you know? I don't think it is, though. I don't know. The damage on the Earth, you feel, is probably a lot more than what it may have been. And it has only clicked the Grassy Glide, but then when does Relaboon really click anything else, you know? Soon find out, I'm sure. There's the rage powder coming out from Amungus. Now, it'd be interesting to see what this... Ah, we do get the fly. Okay, it'd be interesting to see what the interaction here is, because they've rage-powdered us this turn. But then, the next turn, if they don't rage-powder us and they protect Amungus, it'd be interesting to see. Because now you would think, okay, well, we've targeted the Relaboon, which is now targeting the Amungus because of the rage powder, but then, is that just this turn, or is that interaction locked us into Amungus? Whether Amungus can now protect and the Relaboon can Grassy Glide for free, or do they have to rage-powder again? Be an interesting one to test out, at least, wouldn't it? You know? Because you click in your target, but I don't know if that gets interfered with when rage-powder interacts with these double-target attacks. We'll soon find out now. If it does that, that's a good mechanic to use. No, it doesn't do that. So my opponent had to rage-powder there, and now it's kind of done. But they can just go for the old protect stall, because we have to go fly, don't we? I mean, they've probably not got a way to damage us, so we may just see the forfeit here as well. Let's go iron tail. Let's risk an iron tail. We risk getting put to sleep, but you know, let's see. There we go. So we don't have to play through that. Very good game to my opponent. Nice way for us to kick off with today. It was a little bit all over the shop in some places, but we managed to get the win. Kind of had a clear sight, a line of sight for us to be able to do that, and we got to see the win me in action as well, so that was always good. Like I say, good game to my opponent, and we'll hop into our next episode game of today. So next up today, we have Diego playing a Rillaboom Urshifu Rotom Heat, Porygon 2, Meowstick, and Sylveon. So an interesting team, no restricted on here from Diego though, which is a big kind of red marker, almost to say the least, because the restricted in this format give you such an advantage. Not playing them kind of feels like putting my opponent a little bit of this advantage straight away. They do have the Rillaboom, which is going to cause us all sorts of issues. Of course, I think if we can stop trick room going up here, it's going to make our lives so much easier. We'll go Whimsicott, it's got the taunt there. Thunderous, I think does an incredible job. Kyogre can come in, deal with the Rotom Heat, and then to round things off, probably want Reggie, Reggie Leckie. Does well against the, or maybe Urshifu, maybe Urshifu. Just that Sylvian gives us a lot of issues if we see that late game, whereas DeeDee with the redirection could help a bunch. Yeah, and it helps us out against Meowstick, if it does start to go for Prankster shenanigans, I guess. Or Urshifu, which one? Let's go Urshifu, I think. Really, overall, Urshifu's got Poison Jab, so a band of choice, a choice band, Poison Jab onto the Sylvian. If you can get a bit of chip damage onto it, you should do a decent amount of damage. Can't believe we're not playing a restricted Pokemon, though. That is a big surprise for us, so Digo obviously doing well, getting to master ball without a restricted, so big props there, and let's not get caught out in this one, because I feel like we could quite easily get caught out if we're not careful. So we're gonna see Meowstick and Rillaboom. I don't feel really too pressured right here, that it's gonna be fake out on both Pokemon on the Poison side of the field, but we've got a clear shot at going for an airstream here into the Rillaboom, and I think just going for a taunt into Meowstick. Now the issue here would be, if they fake out into Whimsicott and go for that, go for the Trek Room with Meowstick, now that would put us in a really awkward spot. But, I don't really feel like we've got too many other options right now. There's not really anything in the back that we wanna switch in, like Kyogre doesn't wanna come in. If we can remove the Rillaboom early on, that helps Porygon 2 coming in. So at least we're not gonna see a fake out, we'll be able to get a taunt off into the Meowstick, which is useful. Unless we see the Meowstick go for a fake out, potentially. But the damage onto the Porygon 2 is gonna be really useful. We can taunt that the next turn as well, prevent it from setting up a Trek Room, just really try and lock my opponent down and try and make use of Thunderous while we got it on the field, because I think that's the big thing. Reflect coming out from the Meowstick, definitely gonna help my opponent be able to take some big attacks, for sure as we get the taunt off into the Meowstick. This is where we see a mental herb, isn't it? No mental herb, okay, we get the Airstream, which is useful. And a bit of damage into the P2, but the reflect really helping out there a bunch. And I wanna max, I think max knuckle this next turn into P2 and taunt it. It's probably gonna be a way to kind of play it. If we cannot use our Restricted here as well, I feel like it's probably a little bit more of an even match. Throwback to series seven, I guess, which we'll have in series nine, which is only four, five weeks away. Yep, I don't know what I'm gonna be doing when series nine comes around, because I feel like we kind of covered a lot of stuff in series seven. I don't know if it's really... Content that I'll be redoing. I don't know, we'll have to have a look at what we kind of plan on doing. So we're gonna see the P2 go for the max, which makes a lot of sense, but we still needed to cover the trick room there. If it didn't max and it went for the trick room, we'd be in a lot of trouble. This team doesn't like trick rooms, so we've got to do all the kind of countermeasures that we can along the way to kind of prevent my opponent from getting that trick room set up. So we are gonna get the taunt into it, which is helpful, I guess, in some sort of ways, but the max knuckle gonna start boosting up this thunderous, which is the big thing here. We do have access to steel spikes as well, which we can throw onto the Sylvia in the next turn, max hail storm. Is it gonna be into the wimmy to get rid of it? No, into thunderous, okay. The assault vest should help us out a bunch. Yeah, that's useful. Now, this is where we probably wanna make some decisions. Like, do we go after the Sylvian here and just go steel spike into the Sylvian, try and nuke it? Like, double tap into it? We still got our sash intact with Whimsicott. And then worry about the polygon too a little bit later. We should take an attack from, yeah, I think like a plus one steel spike would get the Sylvian, especially if we kind of pair that up with a moon blast as well. Um, the defense boost might help. Well, it's not really helping anything out, you know? We kind of would preferably have like a special defense boost against what's out on the field, but I'm pretty confident that we'll get the Sylvian. My only worry would be if we see it protect, but we're not gonna see that. So this plus a moon blast, yeah, will be more than enough. As long as you don't see a stray berry pop up and save it's bacon. I think the thing is if we lose Whimsicott, it gets a little bit more scary because, now they're going up to the thunderous, just because we haven't got access to that taunt to prevent the trick room later on in the match, which is not ideal. Okay, well, like I say, when he's still sticking around, thunderous still on the field. But a fake out coming out will not be the best thing. You kind of wanna see Rillaboom come out here because I think if Rillaboom comes out here, it's not the best play for my opponent in all honesty because that grassy terrain is gonna end in a couple of turns. So it's gonna mean to get it back up. My opponent is gonna need to switch out to get it back in again, which is really disrupt up to their momentum, but now they're making a better play with the Meowstick coming out, which makes it more difficult for us, for sure. Is it worth keeping thunderous out now? We could, well, the super power might be useful later on. And getting Kyogre out into the field now isn't a bad play, because then we kind of can maybe force. They're gonna max hail storm. We kind of need to wait a little bit, a little moment. Let's get Urshifu out and let's go for, let's go for that taunt into Meowstick. We might see a fake out and attack into Wimmy here. Could be possible, but I think you're probably more inclined to try and fake out the thunderous because of the boosts that we've got there. And the danger that it's kind of thrown up onto the field for us. Fake out. Oh, they're double tapping into the Wimmy, which is, I don't mind, I really don't mind. So you get rid of the Wimmy here. Yeah, that's fine. And now we get Kyogre onto the field. They're not maxed anymore. They can throw up a light screen, but we can double tap into the Porygon too. They got one more turn of the grassy terrain, I think. I think, I think, I think, I'm not too sure. I really want to lock into Wicked Blow rather than close combat. So grassy terrain. You're going to stick around. Taunt wears off, that's the problem. But not such a problem when we got water spout and Wicked Blow, which should be enough. It should be hopefully is enough, hopefully is enough. That's what we need because we need to remove something from the field now. The Rillaboom's still going to be scary to face because it gets the grassy terrain up when it comes back in. You kind of need it to come onto the field now. Wicked Blow. And water spout. And hopefully it's enough. If we don't see light screen now, then it's definitely enough. But I'd imagine now sticks, we've seen what fake out, reflect. There's blatantly trick room there, I think as well. Potentially, potentially, maybe not though. We'll see. We'll soon find out, but water spout here going to be enough to kind of close this one out. We're having to rely on our restricted Pokemon. So Diego forcing us into using this Kyogre here. There's the light screen. I'm hoping that this is going to be enough between the two water spout. Get the Meowstick, so this Wicked Blow is enough. I'm not sure if it will be, you know. We're banded, we're banded. It has to be enough. Of course it's going to be enough. Of course it's going to be enough. Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. The grassy terrain disappears from the field just in time for that Rillaboom to come back onto the field. Okay, well, let's see. I mean, two banded Wicked Blows are going to be enough, isn't it? 100%. They're going to go after the Kyogre here. And I think that's fine. Because I think we've got too many Pokemon left on the field. I mean, they may go after the Oshifu. I doubt it, though. I think you just go after the Kyogre. No, they don't. Okay, they're going for the Oshifu, wanting to get rid of that. Now that's just, yeah, too much. Because that, plus the Wicked Blow, is going to be enough to clean this one up first. And we do pick up a win, but you've got to take your hat off to Diego and not bring in restrictors and kind of really taking us to the wire in this one. Making it very difficult for us, but we do manage to get a victory in the end. But like I say, big props to Diego and a nice one for us to kind of finish off with today, I guess. So hopefully you have enjoyed it, friends. It's not too often we get to come up against an opponent that's not using restrictors in a restricted format. So in, like I say, big props there and we'll jump over now and get you the rental code for today's team. Okay, friends, here is the rental code for today's team. If you do try it out, like always, I hope you have a lot of fun with it. I think scarf Kyogre is a really interesting kind of take on playing Kyogre in this format. You kind of predominantly see it with Mystic Water or another item, not generally seen with the scarf too much anymore, but I think it's something that's definitely worth looking at. It's one of those items that allows Kyogre to play completely differently to how you would normally play. You're not looking at it as normally something that you're going to max, whereas you've still got the option to, but you're not generally looking at it as a maximum. You're looking at it kind of a month to come in either late game sweep up or early game to kind of cut through things, to kind of pave a way for one of your other Pokemon to kind of do the work after that. So something like thunderous to come in late game after the Kyogre has done its work with the Water Spouts early game, that the Whimsicott with the Cotton Spore is really good tech, I really do like it. I think the fact that it's a double target attack as well, and it's coming off pranks that makes it very valuable. Like I've said, the team struggles a little bit with Trick Room, but you've just got to kind of plan the matches out pretty well and position Pokemon in a way where if you can't deny the Trick Room, at least you've got options to kind of get some return on your attacks. You know, you're getting knockouts where possible with the big hitters that you've got on the team, like Oshope, you've got redirection there to kind of help out with those tricky situations. But overall, I really do enjoy the team. And if you try it out, I hope you do as well. So we'll wrap things up there, friends. Have a great rest of your day whenever you're up to and I'll catch you for another episode very soon. So thanks for tuning in. Take care of yourselves and bye-bye.