 Hello friends, welcome back to another episode here on the channel. I hope you're all doing well. If anyone new to the channel, my name is Lee, also known as Osiris. And today we are finally kicking off with our VGC Series 8 content. The rules are officially updated now. The new Rank Ladder rules start today, the 1st of February, so you can play around with all of these restricted Pokemon. And today we're going to be kicking off with any Veltel team, one of the strongest Pokemon in my opinion that we've got access to in the new format. If you're unfamiliar with the Series 8 rules, there will be a link down in the description below. And I'll just tag a video I did last week just over viewing the rules. So you can get yourselves up to speed with everything that will be coming into the format in the next few weeks and get yourselves used to the new format because it's going to be very different to Series 7. Some similarities, but some very big differences. And those being the restrict, it's like I say we're going to feature you Veltel today. We've got the black glasses variant. It is especially Veltel. I think it's probably the best variant of the Veltel that we can run. And then we've got a nice mix of Raichu. It's got the lightning rod to help support Veltel. In particular against things like Regi Alecki, there could be a little bit problematic and thunderous as well that could pop up and cause us a few issues. And then we've got a sporting cast of Metagross. We've got the weakness policy there. We've actually put brutal swing on the Raichu as well. So we've got a way to sell proc as well as some nice speed control from Raichu, disruption through Faker and a nice pivot there with Vault Switch. Metagross self-explanatory pairs up with the Veltel. Super nice. Gives us nice protection against fairy types with the weakness policy. If you can get in a nice position, it can do some really nice work. Then we've got a Salt Vest Landerous. Got double Intimidate there with the Incineroar and then kind of running off the team with Tapu Funi who provides a fairy type coverage as well for opposing dark types and gives us a little bit of protection from status moves, especially for a more grounded Pokemon like Metagross that would be subjected to burns and things like that. Teams really nice. I really love it. There'll be a poker piece down in the description below. And as always, we will throw the rental code up at the end of the episode. So we'll talk through the team, how it functions and things in a couple of battles like we always do. I hope you enjoy today's episode. Hope you enjoy the team if you try it out. Stick around to the end for that rental team and without further ado, we'll jump into our first one today. Okay. So first up, we have a Zernius team and Colossal. Not the best things that Evelto wants to be seeing, but Zernius, Glade, Colossal, Sneasel, Indidi and Alakazam. So we've got some size spam there. We've got the Zernius as the restricted here. We've got Beatup and Surf as a combination from the Sneasel. It can't be faked out and it's going to surf onto the Colossal or beat up the Glade. Going to be a bit of an issue for our team. Of course, because one of the issues is we are not going to be able to stop that Sneasel doing very much. It's going to be difficult, really. The one thing that we do have against, I guess, this is going to be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough. This is going to be very tough. The Sneasel Colossal gives us all sorts of issues because we can't fake out the Sneasel. We're definitely going to see it come out. I kind of want to lead Landerous because at least we're Assault Vested and we can kind of at least deal with Colossal, Glade in a decent roundabout way. If we can get maybe a Nuzzle onto something, it'd be good. I think I'm going to have to bring Metagross and Yveltal in the back, though. If things go bad early game against these sort of teams as well, if you make like one bad turn against this sort of build because of the heavy setup that they've got, it can be very difficult to kind of come back from. Not the matchup that I wanted to kick us off into Series 8, but you kind of always want those challenges, don't you? You want to always have these challenges. And the thing is with this sort of thing as well, the big thing about facing things that are scary to you is maybe identifying problems in your own team build and thinking, wow, we kind of really lack an element to help us against the Sneasel stuff or the Colossal stuff, or the beat-up stuff, you know? So it's really good at just identifying things like that. And that's what the practice, that's what the beauty is about taking everything you can from these matches. Anyway, we have got Indudu and Zornius out. It's not really a lot we can do to stop the Geomancy. And I think pretty much we probably want to get Metagross onto the field as soon as possible. That would be the big thing. I wouldn't mind trying to get a Nuzzle off into, I think what we'll do is we'll go for a U-turn into Indudu and we'll try and get a Nuzzle off into Zornius. If we can get the Nuzzle off into it, that'd be amazing, but I don't know if we're going to be able to, yeah, because of the redirection there. But the paralysis onto the Indudu is useful. We need to get Metagross onto the field. The problem is now, obviously, they're going to get a free Geomancy. And the sooner we can get rid of the Indudu, the better in all honesty. But, you know, we'll get Metagross in for free here. We will be able to get a Brutal Swing. We will be able to get our weakness policy activated, which is always useful. Now, are they going to Dazzle, Razzle Dazzle, or are they going to Max? And these sort of teams are so awkward as well because like you prepare for the worst case scenario, the Colossal Sneezle, the Sneezle Glade, and then this comes out. So these teams are quite tricky to play against for sure. I think we go Max Steel Spike. Do we go Steel Spike? We have to go Steel Spike. We have to because if they don't redirect or if they're paralyzed, then we kind of just clinch it. We'll definitely be able to guarantee at least a Brutal Swing off. Kind of hoping we see the Zornius almost go for the Max and then into Metagross here because then it means Raichu's Sash is still intact and it leaves us the next turn. A bit of room to maybe nuzzle the Zornius. They've got to be aware of that though. So we may see just a Dazzling Gleam to try and get rid of the Raichu and follow me. I feel like I'm pulling the trigger early but we need the extra bulk in this situation. Like Zornius is not a Pokemon that you can just allow to get set up and be left unpunished. It's just a scary Pokemon. As much as people are saying it's not so much of a threat in this format. It's still a huge threat, you know? Still a huge threat. So yeah, going for the Dazzle once rid of that Raichu. See, it's still doing a chunk. Like that's resisted. Still doing a massive chunk to Metagross. To pity the Brutal Swing there can't deal with the DD. But we do get Metagross powered up which is useful. And we do have Landerous in the back with the Assault Vest. Now the aim of this game is to try and remove the Zornius and then it frees up the Veltal to kind of just win this game out. Also depends on what my opponent brings in to partner the DD. The Zornius after the DD goes down. We do get a Defense Boost which is always useful. But we're in that kind of situation now where there's my opponent Max and go after the Metagross or do they just click the Dazzle again? Ooh. Now these ties are, this pulls our attention each way, you know. They're going to Dazzle and I think they're going to Max Colossal, I would imagine. We have to go after the Call. We have to Nuzzle the Zorn. And going after the Colossal anyway, we're going to get, you know, the worst case scenario here is that they Max and Max Guard and we don't get a special Defense Boost. We take even more damage from the Zornius than we would have with the Defense Boost that we'll get from the Max Quake. But they are gone. Max and something. It looks like it'll be the Colossal. Hi. There's no way it takes a plus two Max Quake though. So as long as it doesn't Max Guard, we're all right. I just fear the Max Guard. Oh, Zorn protects. Huh? Huh. Okay, well, we get to live another day now. We've met across. Didn't have to deal with Max Zornius anymore. Plus two attack, plus one Defense, plus one special Defense. We're sitting in a pretty nice spot. We still got Lando on the back and Yveltal as well. We might not even get to see Yveltal in this one, but you know, Metagross is in this team for this specific reason. Helping us deal with Zornius. It's not something to scoff at at all. It's not something to say. It's a really bad Pokemon in this format. It's definitely not, you know. It's still a very good Pokemon. Okay. I think, yeah, we'll just sac. Sac Raichu. We'll try and get another lint to the Zornius. But I expect Raichu to go down here. We'll see Dazzle and I don't know what the Glade's gonna do, but it's not really in a position to get kind of powered up. I think maybe as well, my opponent would have been probably better going for the Sneezel Colossal setup. I think that's the thing that would have given us a lot of issues. We do get the Nuzzle. Not so useful now, but there's a drain punch coming up. Doing zero damage from the Glade. Unfortunately, not got that beat up to kind of support at this time as we are able to just swat. You know, after playing like 2016 format, 2019 format, it's so satisfying. Oh, that is even more satisfying. Don't know why you'd rage quit. Don't know why. Don't know why. The salt. Get the salt out, boys. Get the salt out. Well, I was about to say it was so satisfying to take down a Zernius like that because it's been so dominant for so long, but that makes it all the better. Good game to my opponent. Good game, sir. And I hope wish you well in the rest of your endeavors. We want to check their team out. Not really. And we'll move on to our next one, friends. Okay, so up next, we have a team with Glaring, slow brawl, Hathorine, indeedy, Tapulele, Glade, and the Shadow Rider Calyrex. So the restricting going to be that Shadow Rider Calyrex, brand new into Sword and Shield, brand new into Series 8, very strong, very fast Pokemon. Going to be difficult to deal with for sure. Have we got any beat up here? I don't know. Does Calyrex get beat up? It would make sense with something like Glade, but Glade also gets something like a wide guard that definitely helps against that sort of thing. Right, I think here, I know exactly what I want to do, but the problem is, I kind of want to go Raichu Metagross here, but the Calyrex gives us all sorts of problems. Yveltal helps us out a bunch here, for sure. Now we can go Yveltal. I think Raichu helps us out as well for the fact that we've got at least Nuzzle to maybe slow down Calyrex. If we want, I think Metagross is going to be very useful in this match and being able to change the terrain is definitely going to be something useful, although we don't have a great matchup against Galarian Slowbro. If we do see that come out from my opponent's end. So we have to just be very careful, I think. Yeah, Calyrex Ghost Rider is insanely strong. I built a team around it. I'll be featuring it later this week. I'm very excited about that Pokemon as well. I think it's got a lot of potential. Its base speed is just ridiculous and its Astro Barrage spread attack is just nuts. Like you can max, do loads of damage, and if you keep it on the field long enough, you can just spam Astro Barrage and then you're going to get those Grimnay boosts over and over and over again, which is just crazy. It's like literally crazy. Okay, so this isn't actually too bad, to be honest. We've got Indeedy out with Galade. See the psychic terrain come up so we can't make use of our fake up, but that's not the worst thing in the world. We know that Raichu's going to be the fastest thing on the field. We do have the option to go for some sort of speed control now and go for an Oblivion Wing, I think, into Galade. Is that the best idea? Galade does have Trick Room as well, so we might be better off just not maxing. Gone for an Oblivion Wing and I think just Vault Switching out as well because it's likely we're going to see Follow Me here. I think Follow Me Trick Room makes a lot of sense. No Follow Me though, which is interesting. Okay, so I think what we'll do first of all, do we get Metagross onto the field or do we get Tapu Finney? It's going to be better. Long one. Probably Finney right now because then we've got a nice switch into Metagross to the next turn. We're going to be able to remove the Galade. We're not seeing a Follow Me, which is very strange and if Velt will be able to outspeed Galade, so I don't know what the Indeedy is going to be doing here, but we will soon find out as we get our Oblivion Wing off. Yeah, so the Avelta I've got, obviously Snarl, Heat Wave and Oblivion Wing are the moves. So it's kind of acting, it can act as an offensive support Pokemon, but it can also, oh, Dazzling Gleam. Not something that Avelta wants to see, but because of the bulk that we got there, it does, it doesn't take too much damage and we do have access to Snarl as well, which is a super nice option. Now the Grim Rider coming out. Can't utilize any Expanded Force. Obviously got that as Warn Ability, which has got a Nerve and it's Grim Neability, but we are going to be able to just Snarl our way through this. Is it time to maybe make a switch? Like, because the one thing I want to do is be able to nuzzle the Shadow Rider, which is, I don't know if it's worth going for Calm Mind here. I mean, Calm Mind's going to be useful in the long run probably. So we'll click in Calm Mind. I've went for a more offensive Finny in this team as well, for the sole fact that we really lack ways to hit other Dark Types and I feel like a support Finny would work really nice. Something with, what am I saying? Something with Heal Pulse would be super nice, but at the same time, I think, I'm worried here about the Hyper Beam. This is what worries me. Oh my God. Okay. Here we are. Evelto getting dropped like that. Well, that's not so good. That is really not so good at all. The Calm Mind is obviously helping save our bacon here. We do have Metagross in the back, but we really need to get a Nuzzle onto this Shadow Rider because that is going to be our only hope. We do have the ability to fake out Indeedy here and we've kind of got a hope that my opponent doesn't go for a follow-me here because of the fake-out pressure and we'll try and get a Nuzzle off into it. We can't Nuzzle because of the bloody terrain. Now we can't, we can't Nuzzle. The only thing we can do is maybe Max. Oh, we're in a real bind. We're in a super bad bind, a bad spot indeed. We need to get rid of the terrain, to be honest. We might have to just Volt Switch out and go Max and go for Max. Vote the Geyser into things aren't looking good because we need to deal with it. Like if we can get rid of Calyrex Shadow Rider, then Metagross has got a free time. Didn't expect the Starfall coming out from Calyrex. It makes it even more of a threat now for bringing those dog types to kind of be the check against it because you can't just, you can't, yeah. Okay, well, please go after Raichu, Max Mindstorm. Okay, if you go after Finny, that's better. We could have Nuzzled. Still, there's so much damage after, after, oh my God, it's nuts. Okay, well, let's see what this does. I'm hoping we don't see. Yeah, it's not, it's a bit unfortunate that because we needed to go for the Nuzzle. I didn't expect the Mindstorm to come out, but, well. Metagross, maybe I only hoped in the late game. Let's see what the Geyser damage does, plus one probably not going to be enough. No one near enough. It's too bulky. We do have the rain supporting us this next turn, I guess, but the psychic terrain is up and they're probably going to be able to nuke us. Our only hope is, I think, get Raichu in for free. Max Guard. Hopefully Raichu doesn't take any, like, we need Raichu to come in, take no damage here. That is the big thing because if Raichu comes in and takes damage, then we're in a bit of a bind going into this next turn. We needed to attack into Tapu Fini here and we need, like, a help in hand. Okay, redirection's fine. Just don't go after the Metagross. Max Fantasme gone after the Raichu. Okay, we need the Nuzzle. We need the Nuzzle, like, 100% into the Shadow Rider. Hoping now, this is a problem. The Astro Barrage is just going to spam us. It's just going to spam us. But then it's down to Metagross to kind of win this game for us. If we can, we're going to see a help in hand Astro Barrage here. That's the problem. And I think it's probably going to be enough to take us down. I'm going to go for a Starfall just because I want the terrain to change. Yeah, help in hand Astro Barrage. We're done. We're done for. We are done. Oh, we survived. Fini survives. Come on, Fini. Okay. You get the grim near boost, but this should knock it out and then we got Metagross left. I don't like the horse already. The horse, the horse with Max Starfall is just nasty. They've obviously sacrificed the Max Quake, which is understandable. Like it's a good option. I think it means it takes away the way for you to deal with things like Incinero, which can be a little bit problematic. But I think with the rise of things like a Veltel in the format, it's probably not a bad idea to to run something like that because it just gives you the access to nuke that nuke like Urshifu like straight up. And we're in a not bad spot now because we'll be able to muddy water take down. The DD and ironhead should be enough to get rid of the hat. And this is going to be such a close game. Actually, no, no way are we going to be able to. We have to muddy water to get damage. We need to take down the indeedy here and then we'll probably see trick room. But with the rain up, we're in a decent spot. So mystic fire is still not going to be that much of an issue. Don't do this to me. Hit the DD. Okay, we hit the right one, which is okay. Kind of want to hit like you never want to see muddy water missing. There's a trick room. Yeah, at least the psychic terrain is not up, which is a plus. I think we'll go for another ironhead and we'll protect finny this turn. I'll probably see another follow me. I don't think the hat can beat Metagross, though. Even in trick room, like it shouldn't be able to. So we should be kind of all right. I think I think, man, the horse is just ridiculous. The horse is like scary. It's a scary Pokemon. The fact that it's so versatile as well with so many different options. It's got like trick room. It's got like, I'm sure it's got on core, obviously willow whisper and things like that. It's just a nasty Pokemon to to be dealing with. And especially when, you know, your main checks, your dog type restricted like Yvelton. We're like, yeah, we're fine against this because it's got nothing that can hit us except maybe hyper beam that could be a little bit of an issue. But we should still take that. And then the max starfall comes out, pops us and drops us and we're not laughing after that. But the team overall, please, it's kind of being able to kind of come out and do some work here because even in this like really difficult scenario where we found ourselves, we've been able to come out and pick up a win, which is good. Obviously the Finneys helped out a bunch with its calm mind boost that we got. So that was that was kind of pivotal there. We survived that, got rid of the horse. And then the rest of the match was kind of easy enough for us to kind of play out. But a very good game to my opponent and really enjoyable. Hope you enjoyed it and we'll jump over and get that rental team for you right now, friends. Right, friends, here is the rental for today's team. I'm a little bit sad that we didn't really get to see too much of Yvelton. Obviously didn't perform much in that first game that we had. And then in the second one, obviously got dropped very early on. Other than that, though, Yvelton very strong Pokemon, you know, we didn't really get to see the utility of Snarl there. There's obviously other options on Yveltal. Obviously Dark Pulse, an option, File, Play, an option. But I do like the coverage that the fire gives us in this one, especially against things like Zassian. They aren't carrying play rough and things like that. It gives you a nice option there. And obviously with the Raichu, it's invaluable to the entire team. The support you can get with Nuzzle is incredible. So it's just generally a very nice build. I feel very comfortable with it. And I hope if you do try it, you have a good time with it on the ladder. If you do as always, let me know down in the comment section below. But we'll wrap things up there, friends. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you as always for tuning in. Hope you've enjoyed today's episode. We'll be back with more Series 8 content very soon and more rental teams for you to have a try with and to lend. Take care of yourselves and bye bye.