 Hello friends welcome back to another episode here on the channel. I hope you're all doing well. For anyone new to the channel my name is Lee also known as Osiris and in today's episode we're going to take a look at a few series 8 teams that I've been looking at and just have a general chat about the format before it officially begins next week on Monday the 1st of February. So there's a lot of you know I had an operation before Christmas and that's predominantly been the reason why we've not had content regularly consistently on the channel. I was hoping this week would be a little bit different but again I'm still in the the kind of the end part of my recovery I feel. Getting used to being back at work juggling home life it's just really tiring me out and draining me and I've just not had one the motivation to be able to do content and just the energy in general. So I hope you understand it's not that I don't want to do content and it's not because I haven't got ideas for content it's literally adjusting back to just regular life after being in bed for like four weeks especially because of how active I was prior to the operation has just really knocked me for six and it's just taken a little bit longer so I hope you guys can appreciate that that is the the only reason why content's been a little bit slower but like I say I keep saying week on week hopefully next week is the week and I'm really keeping my fingers crossed my energy levels are a little bit better next week and we can get back into a bit more of a consistent schedule with everything. So getting into today's episode I want to talk about series eight like I say the rules are dropping officially on the ladder updating on Monday this coming Monday the 1st of February which is very exciting we do have the legacy VGC server which is an alt shutdown server where you can actually practice these rules at the minute it's amazing that'll be linked down in the description if you want to check that out if you already haven't it's a really good way to just hop in and test some teams out and bounce some ideas around before the format officially begins on Monday and what we're going to do today is just jump over have a look at a few things that I've been playing around with and just talk about the format in general I have thought about doing a tier list of the restricted Pokemon I've seen some very cool ones already that other content creators have done and it has been something that I thought about doing if you'd like to see a tier list video do comment down below let me know if there's enough of you that want to see it I will put that together over the weekend it'll be a very fun video to do so do let me know right getting into it today we're going to hop over into showdown we'll start off I guess with a few games with this team that have been running the calorex ice rider team that have been playing I really wanted to test calorex the ice rider as soon as I saw it as soon as I saw it stats which are just ridiculous I think it's one of the best restrictive pokemon in the format it definitely has a hard time because of all the steel types and fire types that it doesn't really appreciate going up against but I still think it's got a very strong place in the format and solely because of this attack stat this 165 attack stat is just phenomenal and it's defenses which is 100 HP 150 defense and 130 special defense it's nuts 50 base speed is quite nice as well so it can really take advantage of trick room but doesn't depend on it so much that it has to it has to be up for it to function well um I just I'm just toying around with it at the minute I haven't done any fancy EV spreads and I'd say a big big thing for all of you like new players out there don't spend too much time when you're initially testing a pokemon or a team on EV spreads don't get bogged down by them just chuck in 252 252 the EV spread um like fixing polishing up can come at the end you can spend a lot of time on it at the end when you've had a lot of experience playing with that pokemon in particular you'll know exactly what certain calcs that you'd like to survive have a look at the ones that you commonly come up against to take down that pokemon you got a lot more knowledge base after you've tested a lot but if you're bogging yourself down with working on EV spreads before you're even starting a game you're already behind because the the the time that you could have just invested in to see if you wanted to play that pokemon is way more valuable than what it is spending on EVs that are maybe not so relevant that you initially thought were my two cents anyway we'll get into it uh calyrexian as I say nothing fancy a few of the other pokemon that do have specific EV spreads this is because I've used incineroar in multiple teams and I've used tepofini and katana in multiple teams so they have specific EV spreads and they're just stuck in this team anyway you've got then the nice firewater grass core I think that's very solid in this format we'll get into the the details of the team it'll be down in the description there'll be a poker paste but I think we're already five minutes in so let's jump into some battles I can explain the team along the way I've obviously been testing a lot of other stuff as well obviously tonaga one of the big things I do like it but there are some drawbacks to using it and I don't think it's the best restricted pokemon in the format that we've got access to it's definitely not something to snub though the same time right zygarde not something we commonly see in the format very much but and also the other sunset of the drought user nine tails so I'm kind of interested to see what's going on here we've got a chlorophyll vile plume and then double genies but not the landeris and thunderous we've got a till wind and a defiant boy over here so um basically if we get a trick room up this is it if we get a trick room up we're golden we are golden and I mean golden because there's nothing that they've got to really stop calyrex under a trick room so I'm going to go with what we've picked here we need to trick room fake out the tornadoes don't really care what the landeris does it may pivot out I think the one thing that I maybe would have feared here would be maybe vile plume tornadoes because then we can't stop both a taunt or a sleep powder uh onto our a porygon too but this this leads fine for us we can just fake out the tornadoes stop that taunt get a trick room up and we're sitting in a very good spot so there's the u-turn which is even better you know I don't think that my opponent's really got anything to come in that can cause us too many issues it's going to be the nine tails I mean that does make it a little bit more tricky for sure but I think rather than getting uh calyrex on the field straight away we can um I mean what we could potentially do here is eerie impulse go for the flare blitz eerie impulse uh nine tails heatwave it's doing nothing now we can parting shot out onto this and get calyrex onto the field because I'm not really or we could eerie impulse here again in parting shot now onto the tornadoes we may see a taunt this turn from the tornadoes into p2 which would be a little bit problematic but we're not going to see that um but yeah I mean now it's minus four and we're going to get calyrex and still take damage from the heatwave for sure you can't like underestimate that oh willow isp that could have been a bad one but you're never going to willow isp um an incident are you really so we're in a good spot now to uh start doing some stuff we need to remove the nine tails though that's the big thing um let's go try attack into lander us and let's go for a quick I do worry about the tornadoes coming in for the the nine tails but it may be sash as well which could be the other big issue here no sash though we get away with that one the other option there would have been bringing tapu finia I think to support the calyrex and like I say I don't think my pond has got anything to stop this sweep now trick room's ending so we do need to be you know a little bit cautious around that um I think we're pretty safe to just bring an incinero I know they've got the problem is bringing incinero here if they've got protect and they protect the thunderous here and we we activate the define for them to to go to town next turn but they're just maxing yeah there's not there's nothing my opponent can do now so chill in here you can see this is just a good example I guess we're pretty fortunate here to see a good example of like how teams like really fall apart when calyrex is kind of um allowed to to function uh and and the vein that it wants eerie impulse p2 as well we saw how popular that was pre series seven and I think it's transitioned into series eight really nicely I I tested the ice beam shadow ball set and even with a download boost it was it was very underwhelming against a lot of the restricted pokemon you'd want to hit especially with the shadow ball so I feel like the utility of eerie impulse it's just such a way better utility move way better use of it on on p2 especially in this format where you've got a lot of special heavy hitting special attackers so to speak so we've got another thunderous here uh calyrex ghost rider so we go horse versus horse here um redirection which could be a little bit tricky gotta be careful again with incinero um and they've definitely got a trick room mode as well but am I so worried about it I think our tonic can be quite good here we need to be careful around the the calyrex though uh no fake out I think we'll lead regio lecky um tapu finni what do we lead tapu finni whether we lead regio lecky uh p2 tapu finni and calyrex let's go for that yeah we're gonna see the osha food come out here first um now the problem is I think we could probably get a trick room up but I don't know if we'll be able to get it up if they double into p2 which is the big issue here um yeah I think this is a difficult lead for most teams I think to prepare against I am gonna trick room I'm gonna try because I think it means my opponent has to double in to the p2 otherwise they get super punished for not wicked blow and max knuckle I mean the the um the electro web was definitely the bad player there from us I've been really looking at it it was definitely the bad player because we're boosting the defiant there but I'm not too worried about the thunderous right now I think we just need to break a sash on this osha food and make sure that we're kind of taking it down before it is able to do too much damage we're gonna to live another day with with uh with a lecky though because we'll um we'll be able to at least get rid of the osha food now and um we'll be able to get good old glass trail and color x onto the field uh oh the indeedy makes things a little bit more tricky for sure but we can't we can remove it um I think probably just I don't want to I'm gonna nature's madness nature's madness we'll go do I just go glass glacial lance will it be enough though we could just go nature's madness and protect this turn and then glacial lance the next turn we should take it'll definitely take the thunderous down it's just what we see from the thunderous is it going after is it going after the um yeah it's going after the color x yeah that's fine and then we just glacial lance now and we're kind of we're kind of all right to be honest because you can just muddy water glacial lance and this gets around redirection takes everything down and it's done and then we still got a max with one turn a trick room left so we're in a decent spot depends what my opponent's got left it is the ghost rider but they can't max it and like I say we're plus two right now uh light screen max hail storm and there we go that should wrap that one up okay we're 12 minutes in we're not too bad protect coming out that's okay though that's all right isn't it and we still got heal pulse as well I mean support finny's super nice it's not something I really touched on when we were just looking over the team because I think like the calm mindset's not really the most beneficial in this format at all I don't think you've got room to do it especially when you've got a bunch of pokemon like regi alecki rillaboom katana all running around kind of running rampant in this format I think it's very difficult for you to get space for the calm mind to utilize it so that's one of the other things interesting incinero spread and set on this team as well if we have a quick look here I've got the pashio berry so I was initially playing around with a salt vest but with this spread in particular you can take a mystic water boostage in the rain water spurt from a modest kayoga and that just gives you a little bit more freedom and a bit more flexibility against torn aga leads where you can fake out the tornadoes without worrying that you're incinero is going to get taken down or you can go for a snarl a parting shot or whatever in that situation it's quite nice just to have that kind of flexibility I know it's very dedicated to a kayoga but it is testing and it's just an idea to throw out there for for a few of you um to see how well it does I think what we'll do is go for incinero and we'll go for regi alecki um do we want calorex here I mean calorex is good if we can get the trick room up it might be a bit difficult though they've got quite a lot of things to be able to kind of prevent it but we might be able to position like incinero next to p2 and get our trick room up potentially okay and we've got incinero and tornadoes probably double torn here predicting against the poion too I'd imagine uh we probably see protect on tornadoes I'd imagine um I think we've got to fake it out stop it getting the tail wind up um I don't really want our sash broken on regi alecki though yeah and there's no point in switching p2 in right now I don't think um I think actually what we'll do is we'll go for a parting shot into incinero and I'm just gonna do a protect yeah protect regi alecki okay yeah we'll protect where they're gonna go are they gonna go for a parting shot into our regi alecki gone for the taunt okay that makes sense I guess now they've got taunt so we definitely know about that so we can bring um yeah incinero and we'll vault switch out onto the tornadoes because then we've got access to I'm assuming they're gonna bring in they're gonna take incinero out now for kayoga and then we should be able to have that pairing of incinero next to p2 oh they're gone for taunt again they're not going for the tail wind just yet wow we take down that pokemon pretty easily are they gonna go for the taunt here are they gonna go for the parting shot just a snarl which is ideal perfect now whatever they bring in we can definitely guarantee our trick room up and then we can just get Glastra in and start doing some big damage uh okay we'll go for fake out into we can't afford to fake out into urshifu though because we'll get taunted otherwise um we should be able to take a choice band close combat though so let's see oh they go after incinero which is perfect perfect because now this just opens the door for calorex to come in and get the smackdown not worried about the uh the incinero one iota we're gonna go max knuckle we're gonna go try attack and we're gonna go after the urshifu just cover the sash here really that's what the that's all we want to do it might be better off nah the max knuckle's good because we can get the boost and if we do take it down on one shot we get the double boost um don't worry about intimidate too much i just think it may be like you could max quake there try attack that would be enough it would give you a boost special defensive boost so if it is kayaga in the back then at least you've got a bit more kind of special defense going for you but we'll see it is sash we are covering for that so that is helpful uh we are gonna definitely see a parting shot from the incinero here there's no way it attacks wow you're like mine okay you get very lucky my friend with that burn i'm like why are you attacking you're like minus two but that is why you were attacking that is why um okay so we need to max knuckle once again we're not worried about the incinero like we said um and we'll go for a try attack into the cartana we'll see what the cart cart throws out at us it's gonna stop max knuckling itself i think resetting the uh the attack drops from the incinero man the burn the burn is so annoying the burn is so annoying but it happens it happens doesn't it i don't mind from a willow isp when it's dedicated but from a flablets come on give me a break try attack doing nada but we do get the burn there we go that's why there we go try attack coming back for a vengeance um they're going for steel spikes which makes sense we're back to neutral attack and they are going to forfeit so very good game to my opponent um and that is this team like i say it'll be down in the description below what we on 18 minutes we've got a bit of time to play with some other stuff let's have a look what other teams have been playing around with before we end the video today so yeah zazian glastria that's something i've been playing around with as well i love zazian i think it's a really cool pokemon obviously you got your standard august stuff uh which is good i think we could have probably a few games of that today and it's just it's just ridiculously strong um i think uh diva kutesh did a really cool video on this build and went deep dive into it and um this is a slightly different build this isn't his build this is um something that i put together prior to seeing his video but it's very similar we got very similar items on everything uh different spreads though um okay we got nick megrega what's he got the um that thing i can't remember what it's called but it's a very fast fish it loves the rain and it can't be redirected potentially with propeller tail um okay we got a uh a mirror a mirror which is never never the most fun um and zaptos not so good i think a leckie is very good here um maybe a leckie a leckie incineral i think we got car we need we need tailwind we need tailwind for sure so i think we've got a leckie um cart tonelis kaioga okay well this isn't so bad because we can max kartana and just nuke the kaioga right now what have they got to switch in there not a great deal um not a great deal at all i think we bring in tonelis uh or max overgrow there's not really they have to switch the kaioga they're not what they're doing okay it could be scarfed but i mean yeah we're gonna see a grass glide that's fine though we just want to guarantee a tailwind up while we can um right now i think the other option here is tailwind and go for um an airstream into rillaboom because then that frees up uh the idea that you know kaioga can then come in late game or come in now in particular if we can get rid of the rillaboom and it's got to wait oh wow wow that rillaboom takes that like a champ um okay well a leckie's still not bad in this in this spot we need to watch out for i mean we can origin pulse i mean the yeah the problem is okay i think that what we need to do is get rid of the rillaboom um go for a thunder into zaptos get rid of the rillaboom the max airstream another one yeah that's fine take us down to our sash we'll get a bit of damage into this zaptos it's gonna max flare and imagine we'll get the rillaboom gone we need that gone for kaioga to come in and do some work uh we got the oh it's gone airstream huh that's interesting okay here prerogative number two is getting rid of the zaptos now then can we do it that is it what have they got left kaioga huh not really i'm kind of confused confused do we go into the zaptos heavy i think we do i think honestly we just go yeah we just go um heavy into the zaptos the grassy terrain still helps a leaf blade thunder's gonna be enough to get it yeah more than enough and then we just close this one up i always worry there about the max guard and then the kaioga going for a water spot cheeky one but you know when your opponent's back to the wall anything can happen in that that situation um is that it or they've got they've got the barracuda okay we are plus one with and we got tailwind up so we're actually not in a bad spot at all so um barracudas are going to be sashed most likely not i don't think it will be no because you've got to have the sash on tornadoes most of the time i know i haven't in this team i got mental herb uh but that's because i want the sash on regi alecki so there we go oh and we're finishing up on that nice neat there we go one three three seven i don't know what it's like in the grand scheme of things uh on the ladder let's see let's have a look what's the ladder looking like at the minute okay wow people are up to the dizzy heights of 500 already on this ladder so yeah long way to go but um like i say i'm going to be playing next week on the channel um we'll have rental cords ready to go monday we'll be kicking off with a rental cord so it'll be a lot of fun um if this particular pokemon you'd like to see first as well let me know uh i probably will throw out dialga first i think that's probably one of my favorite pokemon that i'd like to kind of feature but there's so many different restricted pokemon restricted bills as well and we'll do a deep dive into some actual cores as well had some really good feedback from my discord server uh through the question out there earlier in the week asking what kind of content they'd like to see in regards to series eight and it's a big popular one was kind of looking at different cores and how to kind of uh approach those different cores that we're seeing that are picking up a lot of popularity in the format at the minute and how to kind of uh wall out certain cores and approach different matchups so that's something we'll look at we'll look at the common teams that are being played at the minute and we'll take and try and dissect them so we'll do that and like i say just um thanks so much for the patience while we've not had content here on the channel it's uh it's not ideal for myself it's very frustrating um and it's not it's not generally me so i would just like to um say thank you for uh all of you for continuing to watch the channel support in it and there will be very a lot of exciting content to come and the other note as well is that we do have the flinch squad circuit it is starting on monday the first of february so a few days time now signups will be open until sunday the 31st of january you can find out all about the circuit in the patreon link below which will tell you all about the circuit coming up this season and how you can sign up and become a member of the circuit and take part in it and compete in that tournament it is going to be probably one of the biggest and first vgc series eight tournaments it's being set up and run we've got our first weekly starting a week today so keep an eye on the discord for that uh that'll be a lot of fun the signup will be going up on monday for that uh i'm very excited about that first one but yeah all the information and if you have any doubt about the the the patreon and the the flinch squad i've got a couple of testimony videos that i'm going to throw up at the end of this one here before we finish up so you can you guys can hear from a couple of our probably longest uh seven members in the uh the flinch squad so i'll leave it with their thanks for tuning in friends enjoy these uh testimonials from uh crim and johnny and big shout out to those guys for actually providing that content for us have a great rest of the day and i'll see you all very soon thanks again friends take care and bye bye hi i'm david you might know me as johnny hax i've been part of the flinch squad from pretty much the beginning i joined because i loved the project and i really wanted to get better at the game not only i improved my team building skills and my in-game plays but i also found people i can genuinely call friends it's thanks to this amazing community and me that i could improve so much especially because the circuit gave me the structure i needed to keep playing and keep practicing hi guys i'm uh joe better known as crim your friendly neighborhood mod for osiris studios um least one of them and uh this is kind of a little testimonial that i'm doing for the flinch squad circuit so um as some of you or many of you know i've been involved in the circuit for uh quite a while now um i actually i hopped in maybe a little later than some of the other guys um sun series uh for anyone who might recognize that um i just wanted to talk to you for a second about some of the things that it's done for me uh since i started um i hopped back into vgc after quite a while off and so um i didn't really know what i was getting back into um i wasn't really familiar with with the scene or with what i was doing and i can't begin to explain how much i've learned from everybody in our circuit from lee himself um and how many great friends i've made um i've got a guy that i build with all the time now um i built with a lot of the other members too um i i've i've gone to a bunch of events with guys from this circuit like in real life events back when we were having those and uh it's it's been a ton of fun i feel like i can call or chat or hit up any of them to talk about any number of things um we all do a whole bunch of different jobs in real life you know um i me personally could probably see i'm a musician but i know we've got weather guys and we've got government employees and accountants and web designers so all walks of life um but we all connect together with uh with this game and we all have a ton of fun playing it um we like to laugh we like to joke and honestly um i don't think that there's a better group out there um in the pokemon community than this one that we have here so uh if you're thinking about joining the flinch squad circuit and you want to just have some fun um playing some pokemon and uh laughing about what we love then stop on by we're all friendly um there's no egos here and uh i think that you'll really find that you enjoy it you'll make some good great great friends and um it'll be a huge benefit to your life in general so uh that's all for me and uh hope to see you guys around