 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. In today's episode, as we continue on with our VGC Series 8 content, we're going to be featuring a Zygarde team. As you can see, it is on the screen in front of you right now. As always, there will be a poker face down in the description below. So if you want to check that out, see the details of the team or jump on showdown with it, then be my guest. And if you stick around until the end of the episode, I'll be throwing up a rental code of this team so you can try it out for yourselves on the doubles rank ladder. Hopefully you're looking forward to the episode. And without further ado, friends, let's get into our first game of today. Up first today, we've got a Shadow Rider Calorax and indeedy Thunderous, Incineroar, Reggie Alecky and Urshifu. So a very familiar team to myself. It's something that I've been playing quite a lot. Very strong team indeed and something that we can't really take too lightly. You know, you've got the Thunderous is going to be this main centerpiece really getting those taking advantage of those Max turns with the Max Steel Spike, Max Airstream, things like that. We've got to be careful not to proc the Defiant ability on that to let it get out of control. And then you've got two very good support and Pokemon in the Calorax Shadow Rider and the Urshifu, which are going to be hitting very hard. I think screen support definitely is going to be very useful here. It's probably more useful than the Intimidate from the Incineroar that we've got, I think, Zygods generally quite a good Pokemon. In all honesty, we could as well lead with Thunderous because the area impulse support is going to be quite nice. And the Swagger support could be quite useful as well. Zygod we have to bring. It's going to be a main kind of centerpiece here. And it's then what do we bring as our last Pokemon? You know, the thing is if we can get rid of the Incineroar, my opponent really does struggle to deal with Pherothon. Pherothon can like sap up damage all at once. But Incineroar makes a little more sense because of the dark typing against the Gorse Rider Calorax, which is just a nightmare to face. It's got mudshot, of course, but those big ghost type attacks, the Astro Barrage, if you've got something that can come in, kind of resist those that makes such a difference, you know, really helps out a lot. So I think it's going to be this match kind of stalling out the Dynamax turns with whatever my opponent decides to whatever route they decide to go down. And then from there, I think probably getting Zygod in on the field, get a Swagger Boost, and then trying to just chip away at my opponent's team. Like, you know, the Incineroar can go down at Zygod quite easily. Calorax will if we can get the Swagger Boost. So it's just about kind of trying to control the field as best as possible. We've got Fakeout as a threat here from the Incineroar for sure can be something that can come on to either Thunderous or Grim Snarl. More likely the Grim Snarl to stop the screen support, but we've got two ways to kind of neuter the Calorax and that's what we want to do because it's such a big hard hitter, you know. We need to be able to really mitigate that damage as best we can. And I think between Grim Snarl and Thunderous, you can only fake out one of those Pokemon if you go down that route. But we're going to be able to either get our screens up or we're going to get Niri and Pulse up. So we're going to be in a good spot next turn. It'll be interesting to see what the Calorax goes for here. I don't know, probably that Astro brought. Oh, Max Guard. Hey, there we go. Okay, didn't expect that. Wasting the turn to Dynamax straight away is something I'm super happy to take advantage of here. They know that we're prankster as well because obviously they intimidate and proc the Defiant ability on that Thunderous. As we see a Flair Blitz come out from the Incineroar, we're going straight for a just attack into Thunderous. Once I take it down, obviously, he doesn't want to have to deal with that. And because of the Unnerve ability as one ability on the Calorax, we don't proc our Citrus Berry, which isn't great, but we can go for a Spirit Break. We can go for an Eerie Impulse. We may lose Thunderous here, but it will give us the opportunity. If Thunderous goes down, we get the Eerie Impulse into Calorax. We've got a light screen up. We'll also have a Spirit Break onto the Calorax as well. It means that Zygoth can kind of hit the field, not have to worry at all really about, oh my God, we take it. We take it. Please say it's life orb because that would be insane if we do. It is life orb. That's a life orb, Max Phantasm. That's absolutely nuts. Incineroar, yeah, going to get another Flair Blitz off, but that's fine. Doing some big fat damage there. I'm picking up the burn, which is really, really frustrating for us, you know, really frustrating. But I mean, you have to deal with this. Always a secondary attack. I think now's the time. We'll probably want to preserve Thunderous and try and get a Swagger off into a Zygoth. I think it's probably a good time to do. We've got the Intimidate. There would be a little bit more irritating for us to deal with out on the field at the minute. So unless my opponent decides to switch Incineroar out right now, then we can get Zygoth in good position. You know, the Calorax is so weak. It's minus three. We've got a light screen up. It's not going to be doing really any notable damage to Zygoth here. And if Grimstone goes down, at least it's done its job. It's got screens up, at least the ones that we want. And we're going to be able to get this Swagger boost. Oh, we can't. We can't get the Lumbary. We can't get the Lumbary. We need that. Oh, okay. Okay. This is not good. Okay. I forget. I forget that we've got the Lumbary can't. The thing is that the Calorax has to switch out at some point, which would help us, which would definitely help us in like just getting that Lumbary activated. So we're not confused. That's what we want. That's what we need. We need the Calorax to get off the field, get off the field. Okay. Incineroar going out, which is fine. It means Grimstone gets to stick around a little bit longer. It means we get to throw up a light screen right now, which is exactly what we want. And if the Calorax switches out to Incineroar, which I'm expecting it to do, it means we can get a Max Quake into that slot, get a Lumbary, and we're sitting in a pretty nice position. So we are going to Max. We're going to go for the Quake into the Calorax. We want to just continue trying to boost our defenses if we can. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. So we get the Lumbary. That's ideal. Okay. Now we'll plus two. Incineroar going to come in, take us down to minus one. Plus one. Sorry. Minus one. No, no chance. And then we get the defense boost. Probably lose Grimstone here. I would imagine. Unless the Urshafood decides to go after Zygod. But I mean, if you are in a Max form, you're not really going to be doing too much damage. Right? Okay. Well, we're still in business. We're still in business. The Lumbary. You know, it's like, it's like these, it's like the terrains, you know, where you're like, ah, we'll prankster, we'll prankster swagger the opponent in a psychic terrain. It never quite works out, does it? But yeah, the old one ability is nuts because it's two abilities in one. So you do tend to forget about that. We'll take that all day long. You know, I am, I really don't mind the Urshafood doing that because now we're going to be able to remove this Incineroar from the field. We get the special defense boost as well, which is really invaluable to us. And we're kind of on that momentum switch now. You know, we've still got to be a little bit careful about the, the calyrex shadow rider coming in. But Zygod sitting in a pretty decent spot. The next chunk of damage that we take will mean that we are probably going to get a hundred percent complete form of power construct ability should activate. Okay. There we go. A nerve. So, let's take a look at the state of play, what we're looking at screen wise. We've still got plenty of screen, screen time. Now, do I want to sack that? Well, I mean, I could switch, I could switch in Incineroar here. We'll keep Grim Snow because it's probably a good time, especially if the thunderous isn't about. I don't expect it is. But it's like if we go after the Urshafood here rather than the calyrex, but the calyrex is such a big threat. Like Urshafood we can put down to minus one. It can go for a wicked blow. It's probably better to go after the calyrex here. The calyrex might protect, but I don't think so. I think it goes astral barrage to get rid of the Grim Snow and get a bit more damage onto Zygod. That would be my bet. And although Grim Snow and Thunderous in the back, yeah, you see it is protecting, but this is the thing. If it protects here, it would have been better to go into the Urshafood. Yeah, because then the next term, we've got the fake out. Fake out to break the sash or just knock it out from its sash if it is sashed. But we are going to get a power construct up, which is useful, I guess. But the Urshafood is definitely a problem for us to deal with now. Now we do have fake out where we can utilize onto the Urshafood. But it might be better going for Steel Spike. It's just the thing is with, I think we fake out and what are we looking like? Okay. Is it worth getting a defense boost? Because we can go Steel Spike into Kyrax. Now it will pick up the knockout. It just means Zygod's a little bit a bit harder to take down, especially if they go down. Okay. You know, they should be going to switch out. Which is fine. Regiolaki going to come in. Okay. Now if Regiolaki is sashed, then we break the sash there. So we'll get the fake out. It would have been better to snarl, really expecting maybe that switch out there. Okay. Oh my God. We take that like an absolute champ. Right. Well, the defense boost here is super nice. We've got a complete form. We know that Regiolaki can't really do anything to us. Um, beans Zygod. So we don't really need to worry about that too much. This next turn, I think we just thousand hours flablet into the Urshafood and that should be enough to take the Urshafood down. Well, it will 100% be enough to take the Urshafood down. I don't think we go down to a wicked blow, not with a reflect up. Um, I think the only thing my opponent could do is maybe protect. Oh, wicked blow still feels like it could be quite dicey. You know, we can't protect in front of it. There's no point because obviously the, the ability on Urshafood doesn't allow us to, to protect ourselves as I just hit through it. So I think they have to go after Zygod with a wicked blow and hope that it's enough to take us down. No, not quite. Okay. Well, there we go. Um, you see when, when you're in the yellow against Urshafood and you know, it's got that Crip Wicked Blow. It's like, is it going to, are we going to have enough birds? I got having enough there to do, to deal with that. And hopefully this flablets. Come on and sin. Please be enough. Oh, it's so close. Oh, we get the burn. We get the burn. Okay. I think at this point, if we hadn't got the burn, I think what we'd have to do is switch Zygod out. Uh, sacrum snarl, flablets again into the Urshafood, which is kind of forced to continue to go after the Zygod. Um, and then get Zygod in against Regilecki one on one. So I think the burn makes it easier. Um, but I think we would have been all right because we've got the reflect up. The close combat is not going to be enough to take down in Cinder O and with the reflect support as well, I don't think Thunderbolt close combat would be enough to get in Cinder O if they double tapped into that target. So I think overall would be all right in that situation. But again, the burn definitely helps us out. So very good game to my opponent. We get off to a nice start and we'll jump straight in to our next game, my friends. Okay. A second match today is a team of Regi Steel, Alchemy, Maltres, Galarian form, Porygon 2, Latias and Yveltal. So a very interesting team. The first thing that sticks out to me is the Alchemy. It's going to be going for those decorated boosts onto a number of different targets. Yeah, you could go for the Yveltal, the Latias and the Maltres and even the Porygon 2. You know, so it's going to be tricky. Zygoth doesn't have too bad a time here. Honestly, I think the thing that we need to really mitigate a lot of is getting those decorated boosts, null and void, if we can. Thunderous helps out with that with taunt. There's no fake out on my opponent's team to prevent us getting the taunt off and they either impulse support. It's very specially based this team and then they only like the one that you would say is a bit more of a threat than anything else. It's a Reggie Steel, which could go for those iron defense boosts and that would be a little bit tricky to deal with for sure. Do we lead off the bat with Zygoth though? That's the big question. Probably not. Could go Grimmsnall. I don't, Grimmsnall is not bad. It does give us a bit of more of an offensive pressure against everything. And then I think if we go Tapu Finney, I'm kind of tempted to go Ferrothorn as well because the leech seed support could be really invaluable here. But I think Tapu Finney, if we can get the boosts up and get it next to Zygoth in this game, get some boosts while we're maxed. I think that's going to help us out a bunch. So see how we get on in this next one and hopefully Zygoth can pull through. Zygoth is always one of those Pokemon as well. I'm like very comfortable with them. Unless we have a really bad matchup against something like Ice Rider Kyra X, which I do fear quite a lot because it's just the immediate damage that can pump out with us. Life Orb, Glacial Lances. It's hard to get around, but otherwise it's quite a solid Pokemon that you can bring in. You know, if you've got the screen support and things like that, then you're in a decent spot. We're going to taunt the Alchemy because like I say, I don't want to entertain the decorate boosts or anything like that. And we'll go for a light screen just to give us a little bit of security against potentially a Porygon 2 Maxing here, which we're going to see and throwing out those Max Hail Storms, which I was kind of half expecting. So that's what my opponent is going for. It's a nice strat. You know, you're boosting up a Pokemon that's very, very difficult to take down, has an easy time once it's got those plus attack stats to really start cutting through teams. But being able to kind of shut it down with the pranks to taunt is really invaluable for us. You know, Thunderous definitely going to be the target here, I would imagine. But we're in a position now where we can really neuter the P2 this next turn. We've got the option to go really just stall out these Dynamax turns. You know, e-re-impulse and Spirit Break. Take it down to minus three behind a light screen. It's not going to be doing enough damage at all. The Alchemy is in a position now where my opponent has to switch it out. So we can take a look at what they've got in their team, just to refresh ourselves and see what potentially they could bring in to support the P2 throughout the rest of these Dynamax turns. So my opponent can try and get the momentum kind of swing going their way. We'll see what they've got. What could they bring in here? Potentially that could cause us a few issues. Maybe the Reggie Steel could come in. It would be the one thing that could come in and take a bunch of attacks. And it's probably something that I'm not too worried about. So I don't really need to concern myself with something coming in here. We could just see a Dazzling Gleam, of course, which we're probably going to do. But I mean between that and we'll get the Spirit Break off before the P2 can attack and get out a Citrus Berry as well. So Thunder is going to be able to stick around for another turn in just short. It's worth in this match, which is just invaluable, you know, as you get the Spirit Break. And the Porygon 2 is like completely useless right now, completely useless, going for a max strike. And then the next turn, you know, we've got the option where we could potentially go after we could bring in Zygod, but it's a little bit tricky with the Alchemy. Even though we've got the light screen up. And the other option is we take Grim Snarl out of the picture. We e-reimpulse the Alchemy here. And then we bring in Zygod for the Grim Snarl. Because then we could swagger ourselves and get ourselves set up as they're not Dynamaxed anymore, which is not a bad player because Minus 2 Alchemy with the light screen up, Daslin Gleam we're going to be able to take pretty comfortably. The Porygon 2 down on Minus 3, we've got the light screen up as well. So, you know, my opponent's not really got any sort of impetus to do the damage that they need. Zygod's probably in a good position now to come in and be able to take these attacks pretty comfortably. Obviously, we don't want to see a Max Hailstone from the Porygon 2. The Daslin Gleam, let's see what the damage is like. We take that like a champ, like a champ. Max Strike coming out again, which is probably the better option for the P2 right now to get those speed drops on the Pokemon we've got in the field. So this next turn, I think we've got a couple of options. What we could go for. We could go for a swagger if we want, but we could probably trap. Are they going to set the trick room up? I don't think so. The thing is, like, I could go for the taunt into P2. Stop the trick room and getting set up. But the Max Strikes have not really been super favorable to my opponent to set the trick room up now. So we're probably in a position where we're better off going for the swagger. The taunt is going to wear off on that alchemy soon. If it's not already worn off, have I missed it? Let's just, let's just see. It has. So we need to taunt it because we cannot, we cannot allow it to, um, we can't allow it to start decorating. We cannot. I think if we max steel spike into alchemy and taunt it, I think that's probably the best option for us. Um, because we can just mitigate any sort of decorate abuse right now because he could switch the P2 out. It would make sense because it's such a, it's so weak. It's not doing anything on the field. Okay. Well, they go on the other way. We can't taunt or eerie impulse any Vial to love, but. Yeah, they're pulling the double switch. It's just fine. So I mean, thunderous gets to see another day. We're going to get a steel spike boost. Um, they're potentially trying to catch us out with going for a max quake here. Um, but we've got the other option in steel spike and we've got a nice play where we can bring tapu finny onto the field now and even preserve thunderous for later in this game, which gives us a little bit more additional support against things like the poor we gone to and the, uh, the alchemy. So we'll get the steel spikes up. But really we want to be getting the problem is we want to be getting the max quakes like under our belt, like in all honesty, because um, that's, that's like my opponent's team is pretty much all. All special based, like all of it, all special based, uh, we can eerie impulse the Latias here. Maybe that's not a bad idea. Oh, we could swagger. We could swagger as I got might not be a bad play. So I do worry about the Latias going after us. Um, I'm going to swagger. I'm going to swear. I think we're fine behind the light screen. We've got to take this opportunity. I think swagger, swagger support. There we go. Let's get that plus two. The only issue would be obviously foul play from the, um, from the Veltel now would cause us all sorts of issues. Oh, and ice beam as well. Not so great and a snow. Well, we don't need to worry too much about that, but like I say, a file player could be a bit problematic ice beam. Definitely not something we want to be contending with too much. We need to hope that this plus two steel spike is enough to take the Latias down, which it is, uh, which is good. The problem is now, um, my opponent can bring in alchemy. Um, and yeah, the, the, the dazzling gleam file play combination could be, could be bad for us. Um, but maybe a moon blast from Finney would be enough to get the Veltel. I need to have a look at its, need to have a look at its health. Um, yeah, Finney's going to be the better option. I think here we've got one turn of max left P2 coming in. Okay. So kind of makes me feel like we probably all going to see a file play and I think I've got to be careful with how I, uh, with how I approach this turn. Cause actually file play and ice beam shouldn't take us down unless they get the special attack. Yeah, they do. Hmm. The ice beam is still going to, it's, it's going to hit us so hard, but we've got the option here where we can, we can calm mind moon blast. Moon blast should take down the Veltel. Actually Veltel's so bulky. That's a problem with Grimsnaught. I think we could probably win this with just Tapu Finney. It's just the, uh, the P2. That's a bit of an issue. A bit obnoxious. Like that's the one thing I worry about more than anything else. Let's just stay on the field and go after the P2. Hope the die God can take. Yeah, it's going to take, it's going to take the ice beam. It'll take the ice beam. I'm pretty sure now. So dark pulse. They haven't got file play. Okay. Oh, we take it. Okay. That's good. That's good. That's good. I don't know if this will be enough to get the P2. I'm hoping it is the special defense boost though onto the the Finney. Okay. There we go. Okay. We've got this locked now because now we just take down the Veltel. We don't need to worry about a Veltel getting boosted up too much by the, the decorate. The plus two is definitely going to be a threat to us for sure because they're going to be able to oblivion wing Tapu Finney, which is still going to hit as hard, but we have got plus two special defense and if they go after, if they make that play, if they make the decorate and oblivion wing play into Tapu Finney, then they can't attack Zygod and we can thousand arrows. And we still got Grimstall in the back. So I feel like we'll be all right. So I got doing some work here. Snarl coming out. You can take that. No, we can't take it. We can't take it. Are we going to see a decorate? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not just a Dazzle, but we get that off before they're able to attack. So that's useful. Oh, we need Grimstall. Okay. Grimstall not faster than we could swagger the Veltel. There's always that option. I think probably doubling into Veltel now because once he Veltels off the field like Alchemy can't beat Tapu Finney, just with the bulk that we've got. I would just worry. I'd still worry about oblivion wing. Decorate oblivion wing would be, but the thing is the Veltel is going to oblivion wing before the decorate can happen. So it's not like it's. Yeah, it's not like it's massively of an issue. So it's just whether or not we can take a Dazzling gleam from the Alchemy, which I'm hoping because if we can get the spirit break moon blast off, then we're in a phenomenal position. Moon blast drop. Okay, we get the crit. Okay. Well, that's a bit unfortunate for my opponent. Let's see if the Dazzling gleam doesn't take us down here, then we know the crit didn't matter. The crit mattered 100% because the oblivion wing decorate possibility would have made things way more difficult in the light screen. So the crit's pivotal there for us, which is really unfortunate for my opponent. We can calm mind. I think just once and then we'll start chipping away at the Alchemy. Yeah. Very difficult game, you know, and one where it definitely without that crit could have went could have went the wrong wrong way energy ball as well. Nice coverage there from the Alchemy, but I don't think going to be enough, especially because we got the berry as well and any drops with moon blast going to be enough, but it just shows how kind of the pivot or like type of Finney can be in these matchups, you know, and the more offensive variant I feel, you know, at the very start of the format was like offensive Finney's probably not going to be the most used Finney, but I think as we've got more and deeper into the format offensive Finney is just way way better option because I think there's too many dark type threats in the format and things that don't like water type attacks as well. Whereas if you're going the most supportive route, you just don't have those options and like you see with the Dialga builds with Tapu Finney where you're kind of utilizing the steel spikes and the max quakes to really set Tapu Finney up kind of a pseudo setup. It's exactly like that in the Zygarde team. So anyway, good game to my opponent. Apologies about the crit. It definitely mattered, but we take those when we get them and we'll jump over now and get you guys the rental code for today's team here is the rental code for today's team, the Zygarde team. I hope if you do try it out, you have a lot of fun with the team. Let me know down in the comment section below what your thoughts are on Zygarde on the team in general and how you feel it fits into this format because I think it's a really interesting Pokémon. It is one of those Pokémon that does rely heavily on setting it up, getting those boosts into attack because just doesn't have the damage output, which is one of the drawbacks I think from the other restricteds where they're straight off the bat able to hit very hard. Zygarde needs swagger support. It needs weakness policy support. It needs a boost in those attacks to be really doing the significant damage you needed to otherwise it's a little bit underwhelming at times and that's one of the drawbacks I would find other than that though. And other than the fact that you've got some really tough matchups in this format like the Ice Rider Calyrex, maybe Glastria, some other ice type attackers and things like that. Zygarde performs pretty well. So I hope you have fun with it friends. I'm going to leave it there. I'm not going to go too long into this team. We've got the thunderous there. It's a nice addition we brought over from the other one and I think it performs very well. It's shown today how effective it can be. It's supporting Zygarde which is always very nice and I think that the mix of Pokemon we've got support everything really cohesively. You know you've got nice cores in there to fight what a grass core. You've got the thunderous there for the support, the grim snarl for the support and the Zygarde to send a piece of the team which is always very useful. So have fun with it like I say friends. Have a great weekend. Whatever you are up to we'll be back next week with more content on the channel doing more VG stuff and I've got a few additional videos that I'll be throwing up next week as well in regards to VGC content. So keep an eye out for those. Have a great weekend and I'll see you all for another episode very soon until then take care. Bye bye.