 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 are continuing on with our VGC Series 9 content, featuring a double horse team in Spectria and Glastria. We've got the nice supporting cast of Clefairy going to be one of the best supporting options that we've got access to in Series 9 with that friend guard, redirection, help and hand support, just a really awkward Pokemon to kind of deal with and play around as well. We've got Incineroar, obviously going to be a nice Pokemon for intimidating support, fake out support and really kind of allow the whole team to kind of function and help us pivot out in different board positions. We know what Incineroar does and why it's one of the best Pokemon in the format. We've got Taunt on it as well, which helps us shut down opposing threats and especially trick room, although we do have the Glastria that we've mentioned that does preferably like that trick room environment and then kind of ran enough with a nice Firewater Grass core with the Urshifu Rapid Strike variant in there. We had a request for that, I think last week or the week before, so whoever you are, I'm sorry I don't have your name off the top of my head, but I hope you enjoyed today's episode in particular as the rest of you and then running off with Cortana. And because we've got the Focus Session Urshifu and we've got the Assault Vest on Glastria, we're kind of tied for an item on what we play on the Cortana. Now going back to previous formats that we've had in past generations, going with the Skorplens variant with boosts, critical hit ratios and we've got substitute on their Cortana. So you know, the plan is not to really max it that much and just utilize that substitute to try and create room for us with the rest of the Pokemon that we've got in the field and then pick up, you know, like key critical hits when we can as we can with Cortana and just be disruptive. And one of the biggest threats to the team is going to be something like Tap of Finney, which is prominent in the format of the minute and Cortana can deal with it pretty easily as well as you know, things like a Rillaboom that are going to pop up as well. And particularly if we see Incinero coming in, which can be a little bit difficult for us to deal with, we do have the Oceanfield course with that critical hit ratio, but if we can get Cortana in a nice position behind the sub, it's not immediately threatened by these fire types like it normally would be. So we'll see how the team plays. We'll have a couple of games with that. As always, there is a poker paste down below in the description if you want to try it out on showdown or just take a look at the details, etc. And if you stick around till the end of the episode, we'll throw a rental up with the team. So without further ado, friends, let's get into our first match of today. Okay, up first we have in lowland Marowak, Jinx, Porygon to Tapu Finney, Galarian Art Kuno and Cortana. So quite an interesting team here. You've got fake out support from the Jinx, obviously a sleep threat there as well with the lovely kiss. And the trick room is going to be a big thing for my opponent. I think the main thing for my opponent's team, obviously with the fake out there, helping kind of set up from the Porygon to obviously the competitive as well from the Galarian Art Kuno. It's going to be difficult for us to kind of get spectra going here. But Glastria could do a decent job, of course. I wonder what the best kind of road for us to go down here is. Do we go spectra and kind of try and blow things up initially might not be a bad idea and have the horse in the back. The other option is obviously going with Cortana up top. I think Incineroar is always going to be a nice option just with the fake out support, the intimidate support as well. Got to watch out for that Galarian Art Kuno, but not too bad if we do see it lead against Spectria. I think we'll bring Glastria in the back and maybe Urshifu, maybe not as well. Clefairy could be a nice option. I think the Cortana we'll go with. We've got to be very careful around the Marouac, of course, with Cortana. But I think in the late game, it could probably do a job for us, especially against things like Tepufini and the Jinx that might be a little bit problematic otherwise. So, see how we get on this first one, a different archetype of team that we're going up against, obviously not something that you kind of come across every day, but always nice to see these different variants. Okay, we're seeing Jinx and the Marouac come up from my opponent. Does Jinx get ally switch? Does it? Makes me wonder. We can always fake out the Jinx and just nuke the Marouac. I can always be an option. Probably not a bad one to kind of start us off with at least. Do I max or do I just shadowball it though? Do I pull the trigger? Do I pull the trigger? This early on. Yeah, let's do it. Max Phantasm. Let's go for it. Fake out. They may fake out our Incineroar, but if they do, then they're going to take a big Max Phantasm from us for their troubles. And if they go for the ally switch here, at least we can kind of prevent it. At least from the Jinx's perspective, we know that a lot of Marouac gets it and pretty sure Jinx probably gets it as well. But are we going to see it? Oh, it's a P2 coming in, isn't it? Of course it is. Pulling the trigger baited in. Turn one with these threats. Not ideal. And we still got that ally switch threat going into a. Okay, well, services right teaches us a lesson. We do have taunt on Incineroar though. So we can potentially shut down the P2 in the trick room going into turn two. So it's not the worst scenario as long as we get a fake out onto this Jinx and kind of potentially break a sash that'll be will be fine. Jinx goes for fake out, denying us our fake out, still got that sash attached to it, which isn't ideal. We don't affect the P2. The problem now is of course, um, actually we could max strike, max strike Incineroar, probably not going to be able to outspeed the Jinx. Is a lovely kiss going to hit though. That's the big thing. Let's go for it. Let's go for no, not into it. We don't want to go into the P2 again. We want to go max phantasm into the Jinx. We want to go for a taunt into that P2 and shut it down, prevent that trick from getting set up. We just got to dodge a lovely kiss, which I think we can. I think we can dodge one. I know you can be sashed. It is though. Of course it is. Go on. Dodge, dodge, dodge the kiss. We don't want kissed off you, Jinx. We don't want kissed off you. No way. Let's dodge it. Come on. Okay. Well, that's not so bad. That's not so bad, you know. I can, I can deal with that. I can cope with that. Um, can definitely cope with that. It's better than seeing the Incineroar go to sleep and allowing the Maruac some room to move. Uh, okay, okay, okay, okay. What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? A lovely kiss. We need to get rid of the Jinx, you know. We need to get rid of it. I think we flablet into that slot. Um, let's Max Quake into the P2 because it could switch into the the Maruac. Um, we are going to just stay asleep, aren't we? So we'll flablets. Oh, no switches. No switches coming out. It misses. Okay, so that's good. Shadow Ball. Not ideal. But we take it and we get rid of the the Jinx which is always useful. Now, we need to wake up this next turn because we need to be able to uh to get rid of the Maruac. We need to get rid of the Maruac. Very very quickly. All things will get out of hand and I worry about the Maruac going after the Incineroar this next turn. Because you get rid of the taunt user and then you're kind of free when the taunt wears off to set your trick room up, which is never ideal for us. Uh, okay. Come on, Spectria. You don't like snoozing. Our kiss was not good. Let's wake up and let's just nuke this Maruac. Um, there'll be parting shot out onto it as well. It might be worth going for a parting shot out onto it to be honest because then we could potentially get caught on her in. Set up a substitute and might create a bit of room for us or we get Glastria in uh either or uh it's the spectra going to sleep is not ideal and probably a shadow ball uh probably takes us down. I mean it's gonna be very close, right? From the P2. From that the the the the previous damage. I mean we should be able to take it on Maruac going for the big the big Dynamaxie. They're probably going after Incineroar like I said anyway. Um Max Quake and then going shadow ball into Spectra. So we need to wake up. We need to get the shadow ball off. We need to get the parting shot out and um we need to get Incineroar back on the field I think as well. Spectra wakes up. Come on. There we go. Shadow ball. Boom. That's what we would like to see. That's what we like to see. Come on. We'll get caught on her in now. We lose spectra. That's what we want. We want to lose spectra here. Go down. Go down. We need you to we needed you to go down because we need the Incineroar on the field because I think the taunt may wear off this next turn. Uh it may not as well. Um what do we get on the field? What do we get on the field? Uh do we get the cotton or do we get the glastria? I think what we'll do is we will get caught on her on the field because then we can double up into P2 with a hyper beam and a sacred sword and that should be enough because you've got to think the Mawak is going to go for Max God this next turn. If that taunt wears off, Max fans hasn't coming out. Okay, that's that's fine. We get Incineroar onto the field which is ideal. We get another uh intimidate onto it. We've got then the taunt active and fake out for at least another turn. So that's that's good. We've got the sub as well. So yeah, there is the taunt wearing off which isn't great but another interminator is going to be very useful for us. Um do we taunt or do we fake out here? Now we fake out. We fake out. We fake out. Fake out and we sub because they're going to go Max flare for sure and then we could even go flare but if the sun goes up we could even flare blitz sacred sword the next turn into the P2 because well Mawak's still a bit of an issue. Definitely a big issue. Always going to be a big issue. Mawak's scary Pokemon because Glastria will not be able to outspeed it although with their double intimidate onto it it makes it a bit more manageable for sure but we don't know what year they're withdrawing. They're not baiting. They're going to go after the Incineroar. Oh, they've got Katana coming out. Okay. That was the other option. You know we pot and shot here as well. You know, let's see. See what they do. Substitute. Substitute. Max flare in the Katana. Okay. Well, Incineroar in a decent spot now where I can go for the Katana. Is it sashed? I very much doubt it. Very much doubt it. We could go for another sub again. We would lose. Yeah, we'll go for the Katana and can we just detect? It's a bit risky. They have to double up into us if we go sub again. If not, they just get us. I think we sub again. Yeah, so we got a sub up. So, we either have Katana at the end or they sacred sword. Yeah, we should take this. Procaberry. We'll get rid of the Katana here which is ideal. That makes things a lot easier for us. Um, do they go after the Incineroar here? Potentially. Potentially. I think that makes more sense but if it if they do, that's the thing. We've still got the sub kind of intact. So, it's not the end of the world and they go max quick into Incineroar. Yeah, so they're gonna go after us. Mine is two though. Yeah, it is still enough but we've got Glastria to come in. Uh, with the sun up and a flablet, it's still pretty. Yeah, too. You know, we're not we're not in the best spot by any means because because we we're just not in the best spot at all. I mean, if they flablet us, there's a chance. There is a chance. Actually, what would we do? I think we I think we just we just high horsepower of the Mawak here because I've gotta be confident that we take yeah. Okay, I'm gonna have to be confident that we take a flablet in the sun. Minus two. Minus two. Gotta bear in mind that it is bearing. I don't know. I'm having second thoughts every second here whether we can do this. I do trust in Glastria. I'm just not massively or fair with like Mawak Kalks because I haven't played too many of them in this format. So, against like with these new Pokemon and that's just you know, it's not an excuse. It's just reality like I'm just admitting that I'm I need to do some Mawak Kalks and it for good reason as well. I think it's a good point because Mawak seems to be picking up a lot of popularity recently in the format. I'm just hoping this substitute attracts a bit more attention and my opponent wants to get rid of it now. They don't want to set the trick room up when when Katana's on the field. That's my big big thinking. Poltergeist. They double up. Okay, so we got it. Yeah, the substitute creating that much kind of distraction for my opponent and the fact that Glastria is probably feeling pretty threatened right now with the sun up even though I felt pretty confident with the fact that we probably take it on mines to the intimidate the pot and shot. It was enough. It was enough so we can close combat and we can go for a sacred sword and this substitute is kind of won us the game. So, I'm really pleased to see it doing some work here because it's it's maybe one of those sets where you look at and you think is it worth running but sometimes you know like like we explained at the start of the video if you're short on item choices and you really want that Pokemon in in your party to kind of utilize there's always other options to kind of look at you know you don't have to be kind of stuck with just that one one option as we see the Glastria kind of picking up the wind for us to kick us off today which is excellent. So, nice one for us to kick off with today. Very good game to my opponent. Didn't make it easy for us. Short us the ways with that Marowak as well how deadly it can be even without the trick room support there but we can jump into our next match of the episode. Okay, up next we have a Porygon 2, Reggie, Alecki, a Dragapult, Incineroar, Glastria and Urshifu team. So, pretty solid looking team. Not too heavy on the trick room but you've definitely got a trick room switch in there with the P2, the Glastria. So, it's something that we need to be mindful of throughout this match. Very fast defensive modes outside of that with the Reggie, Alecki, the Dragapult going to make it very difficult for us to to kind of function but this is where Clefairy can kind of come into its own and really cause a lot of issues for my opponent and make it difficult for my opponent to kind of go after things like Spectria if we do decide to go down that route. The other option is obviously Glastria. We could go Clefairy Glastria here. We just need to be careful around the Incineroar that we could potentially see from my opponent. I do feel like Urshifu could potentially be a decent Pokemon for us here. We've just got to manage it pretty well you know. You can't allow the to be in front of the Reggie, Alecki because that will cause us a few issues even though we do have the focus dash there but in the right kind of environment it can do some decent work especially if that is the the single strike Urshifu because we match up against that pretty well. Okay we run out of time let's go Spectria, let's go to Fairy, let's go Urshifu and let's go Incineroar. Is that going to be all right? Yeah it has to be because we're going to run out of time otherwise. It's a pretty solid team. It's going to be difficult for us to kind of approach. We know the threats where they're coming from obviously the Porygon 2. They're going to be the Trick Room threat here. Whether or not my opponent wants to go down that route I don't know. But the Dragapult always going to be an issue for us along with the Reggie Alecki because the Reggie Alecki can obviously support super well with things like Electro Web which we can't get around with the redirection from Club Fairy. Okay now we're going to see P2 and Incineroar pretty passively from my opponent but it matches up pretty well against what we've got. They can go Trick Room, turn one if they want to and they do a fake out so they can get around the Club Fairy redirection this turn. Do they go for that? I mean I could just help and hand Hyperbeamer Hyperbeamer but then we're locked into Trick Room it might not be the best best scenario for us. I could go help and hand Mud Shot. It's probably enough to get the Incineroar. It gives us a special defense boost as well. I think we go for that and try and remove the Incineroar. The biggest problem for us here would be either Shukka Berry or Assault Fest and the special defense boost is obviously going to be really useful for us the rest of this match then we still got Club Fairy to kind of help us out and stall out these Trick Room turns. Especially if we can get the Incineroar here that's the big thing. I'm pretty confident we should be able to the help and hand boost. The other issue would be obviously if the Incineroar decides to go Dynamics and then things would get even trickier for us because we probably lose probably lose Spectre and that and that scenario and that probably loses us the game. Right help and hand coming out bake out yep that's fine you know the Incineroar is not really causing us any threat here and we'll probably save Trick Room from the P2 but we do get the Incineroar which is huge for us. Now it's a bit of a double-edged sword this because we get the Grim near boost which is amazing get rid of the Incineroar big threat to us we get special attack boost obviously we've just mentioned but the problem is if the Trick Room goes up here we do then allow my opponent to get in whatever they want in a Trick Room environment. Ooh, eerie impulse. It could be worse it could be worse. No Trick Room there though that's that's good good start okay or only minus one because of the Grim near boost so it's not the worst we are special defense boost as well as that Grim near boost which definitely helps us out but eerie impulse gonna make it difficult for us to kind of build momentum here with with Spectre like you'd normally be able to do okay Spectre coming in is it worth is it worth just getting damage onto the field now with like a max phantasm into that slot switching Clefairy out to Incineral just to get the Intimidate and then we got the option to potting shot the next turn because it's likely they go after the Clefairy because you kind of want to remove the redirection as soon as possible and the big thing that you would think would come into that slot if they've got it would be um a Steel type attack like Heavy Slam um which Incineral be able to take pretty comfortably the other option is obviously uh the biggest attack that they've probably got access to and that is going to be something like um max hail storm which we don't mind too much but the Intimidate is going to be so pivotal here and we kind of want to try and cycle out these Intimidates in and out in and out in and out and prevent any sort of chilling there boosts max phantasm coming out not going to do a great deal of damage because of that minus one that we're now on but the the fence boost definitely going to help us out especially if a trick room doesn't go up here because then the Glastria becomes a little bit more prone susceptible to a flare blitz the next turn max quake coming out not ideal not ideal in the slightest but better that spectra is not taking damage because the big thing is we can switch spectra out if we want at any point you know we can bring in something like okay the trick room going up like we could bring in Clefairy here for spectra um or we could just max guard which might be a better play what do we do do bring in Clefairy actually I think what we'll try and do is just go up there and we'll bring in Clefairy we'll try and get a max phantasm off and we'll try and cycle at least one more intimidate onto this onto this Glastria we're probably going to see another area impulse come up from the p2 but at this point you know it's more about just lowering that the fence so when urshifu comes in the p2 is going to be easy to pick up and the Glastria is going to be easy to pick up and we've just got to kind of try and utilize Clefairy incineroar to the best of our ability going forward here and hope that this turn I mean we're going to see a max quick I think into the incineroar slot it prevents if you do that you prevent the potting shot you get rid oh max knuckle that works that works I mean this the thing is we're just trying to to stall out these trick room turns while trying to get some sort of benefit out of our max turns as well try attack coming out no e reimpulse which is always useful double an up into the Clefairy slot fine by me okay and another defense drop which is useful okay so spectra is still in a pretty healthy position and we've got the option this next turn to actually just go follow me and willowisp which would completely shut the Glastria down and make it not a threat at all and I think I'm kind of tempted I'm really I am tempted I'm going to do that I'm going to do it I think we need to take the opportunity to do what we can because the burn on to it is just going to make it so much easier to deal with you're going to remember that the p2 is minus two defense now so fish a few comes in and it can get a close combat off into that slot then it's it's kind of game over really for it the same can be said almost with the the Glastria which will be able to probably pick up the knockout onto the Clefairy this turn to see another max quick yeah I mean that's fine and if we see I don't suppose we'll see a try attack here it makes you well the the p2 cannot attack the Spectria so that's something that we you know they can lower attack as much as they want but they can't damage us chilling near boost yeah try attack and then we get willowisp which is ideal okay perfect and then we can bring Incinero back in now and then we probably want to switch Spectria for Urshifu I think I think that probably makes more sense although it's risky because we don't really want to break the Sash unintentionally unintentionally that's the thing but we do have access to this fake out now which is which is huge for us so it does allow us a little bit of room because the p2 can't really attack into the Spectria which makes it a little bit easier to manage you know what I mean because you're not going to try attack into the Urshifu which does almost give us that kind of free switching and how many turns of trick room we got left this is the last turn potentially I think this is the last turn should have checked but I'm pretty pretty sure pretty sure we'll soon find out it'd be nice in between these screens you know when you're on this screen if you could just check the status this trick room still in play is the terrain still in play because it's not like you can affect anything but it'd be nice to look at like field conditions this is something that they could add in something I've always thought about you know once you've locked your moves you can't even go into to look and you know it's it's pretty awkward because you have to wait till the turn then to see what the situation is and that's fine and all but you only have so long per turn to do that get the fake out into the Glastria and then the flinch there and the try attack it's going to be into Incineroa yeah which we actually managed to survive which is perfect okay so we're in a great position now if the trick room does end we're in a fantastic position which it doesn't unfortunately so we can I think just protect here I think we can try we can try and taunt the P2 I think that's not a bad play just protect taunt we could have switched into Spectra here as well which probably would have been not a bad idea because then we get the Intimidate cycle once again we get the fake out once again but I feel like once you know once the trick rooms ended the P2 either has to switch out which a taunt will help forces switch out which will make room for us to deal with this Glastria a little bit easier or the Spectra can come in and just cause havoc because it's such a fast pokemon yeah it's a P2 going out okay ah it's an ocean view okay well could be worse it could be worse we survive with with 3 HP and get the taunt which means it's not too bad it's not too bad it's not too bad okay well I think what we'll do because we can burn the ocean view I think what we'll do is let's just check let's just check this ocean view I know I should know I know I know it is the water fighting type okay well that means Spectra has got a way better match up against it we just go surgeon strikes into the opposing Glastria and we'll go for a we'll go for a potting shot as well try and get one we're not going to get it with with Incinero but then we get the free switch into Spectra which is which is better you know and then we always have the option to go for something like Hyperbeam and cross combat all Hyperbeam surgeon strikes into the opposing ocean view it's not going to be like straightforward locking this up but we should be okay we'll be able to get rid of this Glastria before it becomes a bit of an issue and then my opponent tries to go after our ocean view we at least we get the potting shot and then we've got Intimidate on top of that which will help but I think they'll go after the the Incinero here no okay and they definitely got the sash okay well let's just get a little bit more tricky of course with everything so low all right well because surgeon strikes probably gets Spectria but do you go that way do you go after it this turn because we could potentially Aquajet the opposing ocean view whereas they're going to Aquajet us yeah they're going to Aquajet us and we can't protect which is really annoying um okay let's switch to Incinero and let's go Shadow Ball I don't suspect Shadow Ball but it might be enough you know it will be enough to take it down with sash actually the close combat drop we'll make it we'll make it so that we can get it and then in Aquajet we'll get it the next turn and then just leave Spectria versus P2 which I don't know if there's going to be a way to do it past that point okay there's the Aquajet yep the best case scenario is going to be being able to see no sash here of course there's a sash okay and then we're going to need to win the speed type but maybe not it's a trick we're going to not ideal not ideal not ideal okay and now we've got Urshifu we've got Urshifu left okay this is going to come down to the wire now I would have said like the Aquajet would have done the job there but then reversing the trick and probably means that Urshifu faster than ours which is not ideal I mean we have to go for the Aquajet anyway and we have to go for the Shadow Ball oh do we do we though do we do that do we protect because they're probably going to go after Spectria now but yeah we have to Aquajet we have to we have to and Shadow Ball is probably not the best play I think like Mudshot might be a better better idea potentially we get the Aquajet off yeah and at least you know they if they go after Urshifu are they gonna e-re-impulse here though that's the thing the speed tie try attack they're going after Urshifu so at least we get a free Mudshot off and now they're gonna they're gonna e-re-impulse us to Oblivion we get the Mudshot which is great do we get oh there's Speed Falls which is not ideal okay we have to go we've got no protect they've got no way to damage us though so we can Willa Wisp them we're gonna end up I think yeah we're gonna need a Crit Hyper Beam Crit Hyper Beam to do this yeah we'll probably end up like losing to our own recoil here I think oh there's even a Crit Hyper Beam would be enough I think a Crit Hyper Beam would be enough it would be enough but I don't know if it's gonna be can we we can pray to the we can pray to the Hax gods right now and say come on come on just do do it do one for us right now that would that would be that would be all we want big Spectra just wants this Hyper Beam come on Crit Crit Crit Crit oh that's anything but a Crit terrible and they're just gonna recover off the damage are they yeah they're gonna like I mean they've got no option here so at this point the video drags a little bit so I'm just gonna speed this up as we try and pray to the RNG gods for that Critical Hit Hyper Beam and we'll just see how it unfold so I'm just gonna leave you with some music in theme of our praise to try and get this Critical Hit to close this one out I think we're gracefully just I mean I could stall it out but no none of you none of you want to sit here for two minutes and see this out so I'm gonna just forfeit gracefully and say a very good game to my opponent we're both in an awkward position we're both gonna play it out to the end grit our teeth but I'm gonna say good game and we're gonna wrap up this episode but the team has been you know the team we not got the second win there today but it doesn't always doesn't always happen I feel like the team did really well in that last game so there's probably a couple of places where we maybe could have played it a little bit different but it was against a very difficult team so you know you can't always and we didn't get beat out right either you know came down right down to the wire so very good game to my opponent we'll hop over now and get you all the rental team for today's squad here is today's rental card team and if you try it out as always do let me know down in the comment section but the end of it I hope you enjoy it and have a lot of fun with it if you do try it out I think there's a lot of different ideas in the team and they're quite nice ones that work together and make it quite cohesive both obviously the Spectre and Glastria very very strong options in this format and both can perform very well under the right circumstances the Cortana as you can see there with that odd set of leaf blade sacred sword substitute and detect it is a little bit different with the scope lens there boosting critical hit ratios like I say it's a it's a real draw from influence from previous generations and I still think it does work quite well in this format and certain situations we did see that in one game today where it was was phenomenal so if you do try it out I hope you enjoy it but thank you so much as always for tuning in I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the team hope you've enjoyed today's episode and we'll be back very soon friends with another episode and more VGC series 9 content so until then take care of yourselves and I'll see you all for the next episode until then take care bye bye