Parting From 2017 - A Multiple Tournament, 142 CP, Report
Hey everyone! For those of you who don't know me, which I'm assuming is most of you, my name is George Bissell or GeoLuc as I'm known online. As the title would suggest, today I'll be going over the team that allowed me to gain 142 CP before the new format has begun. I went to four tournaments with this squad and was able to gain CP in all of them. Even with the format coming to a close I thought some people might find this beneficial, to those of you that do not and would much rather be getting ready for 2018 then this probably isn't for you (also those of you offended by parting shot based puns, turn away now). Without further ado, let's get on with it.
Team at a Glance:
Teambuilding Process:
The original idea of the team was to use Persian along side Celesteela in order to make it more difficult to deal significant damage against the ever bulky Celesteela using parting shot. In addition I would use z-parting shot on persian to heal Celesteela when it got low on health. The next logical step to me was to put Marowak on the team seeing as how this both provided lightning rod support as well as a good switch into fire types such as Arcanine. From there I decided to add stockpile-belly drum Snorlax as I thought that being able to both weaken my opponent's attack and raise my Snorlax's defenses on the same turn was pretty clever. In retrospect, although this works in theory, it really doesn't work as well as you might think for reasons that I'll get into later. From there the final two pokemon changed a lot before the final draft that you see above came to be. At first it was Tapu Bulu and Clefairy which quickly changed to Garchomp and Tapu Koko after realizing that both of those mons were very passive on an already passive team. Garchomp stuck around, even being brought to Hartford regionals which I will explain later as to why this was a bad choice, but Koko became the second Tapu to be switched out and was changed into Tapu Fini. Choice specs Fini gave the team the exact boost in offense that it was looking for and in combination with Persian's fake out, proved to be a large threat. After a rather lackluster regionals performance I realized that I change was in order and this change came in the form of Salamence. While Garchomp is a very good pokemon and even fits on the team pretty well despite just sort of being thrown on there seeing if it would work, the team really needs a form of lowering the opponent's attack without parting shot. At the same time I wanted to keep something that could earthquake next to Celesteela. In addition, I also wanted something to utilize a z-move as only having z-parting shot on persian is a bit underwhelming. At first I thought that Krookodile might fit these needs but it's another one of those pokemon that should work on the team in theory but really was just pretty
bad. I tried out Arcanine to see if just using intimidate without the earthquake would work and I also put the z-move onto Fini but this only took a game or two to realize that it wouldn't work. Finally I came to Salamence which fit all the requirements it needed to and more with the ability to boost with dragon dance. With this addition I also realized just how powerful parting shot into intimidate was at crippling my opponent in just one move. After putting Salamence on the team I began to see instantaneous results in both laddering and local tournaments.
A Closer Look:
A Closer Look:
Snorlax @ Figy Berry
Ability: Gluttony
Level: 55
EVs: 68 HP / 52 Atk / 252 Def / 116 SpD / 20 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Belly Drum
- Recycle
- Return
- Stockpile
I'm not going to go to in depth about this as this was by far the weakest member of the team. First of all I have no idea what this spread does because it was given to me by Caleb Ryor (@CableVG) the day of Hartford Regionals. As I said above, this mon in theory works really well especially considering that parting shot plus stockpile makes it so much harder to deal considerable damage to it and coupled with belly drum should make an unstoppable force. Unfortunately it really doesn't and the reason for this is that it's way too passive of a set up to achieve this. This team is passive enough without having another mode that takes two turns to set up and because of this I hardly ever brought it and when I did, it usually either lost or wasn't the reason why I won. I never took it off the team because honestly I was too lazy to test anything else other than different kinds of snorlax in that slot. In short it's just not great.
Salamence @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 20 SpD / 236 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Fly
- Protect
As far as calcs go, I'm actually probably not even going to post any throughout this entire report as most of these spreads (Edit: literally all of them actually lol) are not my own but if you do want to do some it's just the standard physical one on the damage calculator. Mence was a great addition to the team as I said above and I used it a lot to quickly cripple a threat on the field with the combination of intimidate and parting shot. This was helpful for whatever pokemon was next to mence, as well as mence itself mainly because in order to deal hefty damage to mence they would usually have to switch out the pokemon that had just had its attack reduced. This allowed mence a turn to boost itself with dragon dance which in many cases lead to mence just sweeping the whole game. Earthquake next to Celesteela was also a very valuable option despite it not being stab. Overall a very good pokemon and a very good fit for the team.
Celesteela @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 228 HP / 4 Atk / 156 Def / 116 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Heavy Slam
- Flamethrower
- Leech Seed
- Protect
Celesteela, by far the MVP of the team, has funnily enough been on every team that I brought to a tournament this year. This wasn't planned, it just kind of kept happening. Steela pretty much does exactly what you think it would, be bulky and get off leech seed. Anyone at my local events probably hates me due to a lot of games going to time as a result of this annoying combo of steela and persian. With the opposing pokemon being weakened steela can set itself up for an easy, although long, end game. I'd say that steela picked up about half of the knock outs throughout the tournaments which shows just much I relied on it. This might say more about me than the pokemon but regardless it is largely the reason why I won many of my games.
Persian-Alola (F) @ Darkinium Z
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 4 HP / 68 Def / 4 SpA / 204 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
- Parting Shot
- Fake Out
- Foul Play
- Feint
I've already discussed what persian does pretty thoroughly but there's probably two things on this set that you're interested in knowing the purpose of so I might as well explain that. First the z-parting shot. This was initially thrown on because I didn't like the super sitrus or roseli berry set and z-parting shot wasn't something I had tried yet so I thought it might be cool to test. Sure enough it proved to be very good as well as unexpected with my opponents usually thinking it was holding a berry of some sort. The second thing you're probably wondering about is the use of feint. Like most persian sets, the last move slot started off as being taunt. I realized that this wasn't good as I hardly ever used taunt and when I did there was usually either a mental herb or some other taunt counter waiting for it. So this then changed to quash. Quash was flat out horrible, not because quash on persian is bad, but because personally I just stink at using it. From there for a few games on ladder I actually changed out persian for weavile which was very inferior to persian. However what I did take away from these games was that fake out and feint on the same mon was very dangerous. Lots of people would see weavile and just double protect fearing the fake out. Using feint to break said protect and then hitting with an attack that would usually have a large significance to the rest of the game (i.e. KO-ing something right off the bat) was a great way to gain momentum. I decided to transfer this knowledge over to persian where I started seeing similar and overall better results. Another great advantage to feint was keeping it hidden until games two or three and then using it to run away with the game. With these tools persian was the foundation that held the whole team together as well as the pivoting style that the team adopted.
Tapu Fini @ Choice Specs
Ability: Misty Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 164 SpA / 44 SpD / 28 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Muddy Water
- Dazzling Gleam
- Moonblast
- Haze
There really isn't much to say about this mon other than that it was pretty essential to the team to give offensive pressure that this team mostly lacks. As I've now said multiple times, it was a great partner with persian whose fake out/feint plus a powerful muddy water could lead to an early advantage. Haze was put on the set solely for eevee although I soon found that it was also a great solution for other boost pokemon. All around great pokemon.
Marowak-Alola @ Thick Club
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Atk / 4 Def / 68 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Shadow Bone
- Rain Dance
- Protect
I assume that you most likely looked through this and were thinking this was another pretty standard looking set until you saw the third move. Before I really get into it, I'd like to preface this by saying that rain dance is in no way the optimal choice for marowak. Substitute, swords dance, or perish song are much better, however I personally am horrible at knowing the right time to use these moves. If you are planning on trying this team for yourself then by all means change it. One thing you should know about the northeast is that we have a lot of sun users out here. At the MIT MSS I mentioned above, there were three teams in the top eight that had sun, one of which I faced in said top eight. Without rain dance I don't think I could've won this set because while it isn't an autoloss against sun with my team, I pretty much have to play perfectly against someone who is playing sun well in order to win. Rain dance clears this up very well despite being highly unorthodox. On top of being a sun counter it als pairs very well with specs fini as if I knew that marowak was going down to say an opposing gigalith I could rain dance, remove sand, and KO it with muddy water. As I said above, do not use this if you think it's dumb because it really is. Marowak itself was used more as a switch than anything else but it filled that role well.
Conclusion:
As I have already said, this team managed to gain me 142 points over four tournaments which is pretty decent. There are still a lot of holes (strangely snorlax sized holes) in the team that should have been fixed but none the less it got me more points than I thought I'd get for the entire season as a first year master. Especially being in a pretty tough division and getting the privilege to play so many great players, it proves the viability of this team if any of you out there were looking to use it as a way to finish up your season. I had a ton of fun using it and if you made it to the end of the report thanks for reading, have a great rest of your season and I'll see you in VGC 2018!
Ability: Gluttony
Level: 55
EVs: 68 HP / 52 Atk / 252 Def / 116 SpD / 20 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Belly Drum
- Recycle
- Return
- Stockpile
I'm not going to go to in depth about this as this was by far the weakest member of the team. First of all I have no idea what this spread does because it was given to me by Caleb Ryor (@CableVG) the day of Hartford Regionals. As I said above, this mon in theory works really well especially considering that parting shot plus stockpile makes it so much harder to deal considerable damage to it and coupled with belly drum should make an unstoppable force. Unfortunately it really doesn't and the reason for this is that it's way too passive of a set up to achieve this. This team is passive enough without having another mode that takes two turns to set up and because of this I hardly ever brought it and when I did, it usually either lost or wasn't the reason why I won. I never took it off the team because honestly I was too lazy to test anything else other than different kinds of snorlax in that slot. In short it's just not great.
Salamence @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 20 SpD / 236 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Fly
- Protect
As far as calcs go, I'm actually probably not even going to post any throughout this entire report as most of these spreads (Edit: literally all of them actually lol) are not my own but if you do want to do some it's just the standard physical one on the damage calculator. Mence was a great addition to the team as I said above and I used it a lot to quickly cripple a threat on the field with the combination of intimidate and parting shot. This was helpful for whatever pokemon was next to mence, as well as mence itself mainly because in order to deal hefty damage to mence they would usually have to switch out the pokemon that had just had its attack reduced. This allowed mence a turn to boost itself with dragon dance which in many cases lead to mence just sweeping the whole game. Earthquake next to Celesteela was also a very valuable option despite it not being stab. Overall a very good pokemon and a very good fit for the team.
Celesteela @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 228 HP / 4 Atk / 156 Def / 116 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Heavy Slam
- Flamethrower
- Leech Seed
- Protect
Celesteela, by far the MVP of the team, has funnily enough been on every team that I brought to a tournament this year. This wasn't planned, it just kind of kept happening. Steela pretty much does exactly what you think it would, be bulky and get off leech seed. Anyone at my local events probably hates me due to a lot of games going to time as a result of this annoying combo of steela and persian. With the opposing pokemon being weakened steela can set itself up for an easy, although long, end game. I'd say that steela picked up about half of the knock outs throughout the tournaments which shows just much I relied on it. This might say more about me than the pokemon but regardless it is largely the reason why I won many of my games.
Persian-Alola (F) @ Darkinium Z
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 4 HP / 68 Def / 4 SpA / 204 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
- Parting Shot
- Fake Out
- Foul Play
- Feint
I've already discussed what persian does pretty thoroughly but there's probably two things on this set that you're interested in knowing the purpose of so I might as well explain that. First the z-parting shot. This was initially thrown on because I didn't like the super sitrus or roseli berry set and z-parting shot wasn't something I had tried yet so I thought it might be cool to test. Sure enough it proved to be very good as well as unexpected with my opponents usually thinking it was holding a berry of some sort. The second thing you're probably wondering about is the use of feint. Like most persian sets, the last move slot started off as being taunt. I realized that this wasn't good as I hardly ever used taunt and when I did there was usually either a mental herb or some other taunt counter waiting for it. So this then changed to quash. Quash was flat out horrible, not because quash on persian is bad, but because personally I just stink at using it. From there for a few games on ladder I actually changed out persian for weavile which was very inferior to persian. However what I did take away from these games was that fake out and feint on the same mon was very dangerous. Lots of people would see weavile and just double protect fearing the fake out. Using feint to break said protect and then hitting with an attack that would usually have a large significance to the rest of the game (i.e. KO-ing something right off the bat) was a great way to gain momentum. I decided to transfer this knowledge over to persian where I started seeing similar and overall better results. Another great advantage to feint was keeping it hidden until games two or three and then using it to run away with the game. With these tools persian was the foundation that held the whole team together as well as the pivoting style that the team adopted.
Tapu Fini @ Choice Specs
Ability: Misty Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 164 SpA / 44 SpD / 28 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Muddy Water
- Dazzling Gleam
- Moonblast
- Haze
There really isn't much to say about this mon other than that it was pretty essential to the team to give offensive pressure that this team mostly lacks. As I've now said multiple times, it was a great partner with persian whose fake out/feint plus a powerful muddy water could lead to an early advantage. Haze was put on the set solely for eevee although I soon found that it was also a great solution for other boost pokemon. All around great pokemon.
Marowak-Alola @ Thick Club
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Atk / 4 Def / 68 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Shadow Bone
- Rain Dance
- Protect
I assume that you most likely looked through this and were thinking this was another pretty standard looking set until you saw the third move. Before I really get into it, I'd like to preface this by saying that rain dance is in no way the optimal choice for marowak. Substitute, swords dance, or perish song are much better, however I personally am horrible at knowing the right time to use these moves. If you are planning on trying this team for yourself then by all means change it. One thing you should know about the northeast is that we have a lot of sun users out here. At the MIT MSS I mentioned above, there were three teams in the top eight that had sun, one of which I faced in said top eight. Without rain dance I don't think I could've won this set because while it isn't an autoloss against sun with my team, I pretty much have to play perfectly against someone who is playing sun well in order to win. Rain dance clears this up very well despite being highly unorthodox. On top of being a sun counter it als pairs very well with specs fini as if I knew that marowak was going down to say an opposing gigalith I could rain dance, remove sand, and KO it with muddy water. As I said above, do not use this if you think it's dumb because it really is. Marowak itself was used more as a switch than anything else but it filled that role well.
Conclusion:
As I have already said, this team managed to gain me 142 points over four tournaments which is pretty decent. There are still a lot of holes (strangely snorlax sized holes) in the team that should have been fixed but none the less it got me more points than I thought I'd get for the entire season as a first year master. Especially being in a pretty tough division and getting the privilege to play so many great players, it proves the viability of this team if any of you out there were looking to use it as a way to finish up your season. I had a ton of fun using it and if you made it to the end of the report thanks for reading, have a great rest of your season and I'll see you in VGC 2018!
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