Bliss this Miss: Nugget Bridge Major Team Analysis
Hello friends! It’s Huy again and this time I’m bringing you a little analysis of the team I’ve been using since Worlds. I took this team to Regionals and have been using it in Wifi tournaments and, most recently, the Nugget Bridge Major. I’d like to tell you that there’s something completely new for you to look forward to, but I didn’t feel like I was done with my team after Worlds. I felt that I left a lot on the table using a team of only five Pokémon and that if I sat down and looked at it a little bit more closely, I could plug some of the holes that I knew I had. I had been looking at ways to improve the Rhyperior so that it would work a little bit better for me, but after playing a friendly match with Wolfey and his Worlds team, I was quick to realize that my team would benefit greatly from two things: something to reset my weather and something to help me against Wolfetran, which was growing in popularity. I looked up and down and something quickly caught my eye – Blissey. It did everything I wanted to do. It got Skill Swap to reset Hail and remove Levitate from Heatran, it tanked Chandelure and Heatran which would have given me trouble, and it offered me Speed control that I desperately needed. So let’s take a closer look at what I changed on my team.
Blissey (F) @ Chople Berry
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Def / 148 SAtk / 68 SDef
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Mud Bomb
– Skill Swap
– Icy Wind
– Softboiled
This is by far the biggest change to my team. Blissey filled a good number of holes left by the rest of my team and offered me a brand new toy play with. Speed control and Skill Swap were my main reasons to use Blissey. So why not Cresselia? While Cresselia is probably the best Pokémon for Speed control and Skill Swap, it was not the best for my team. Blissey wouldn’t have to worry about Chandelure Shadow Balls, and it gave me something to switch into Dragon Gem Draco Meteors which I did not really have before. While I could use Cresselia to take the Draco Meteor, Blissey gives me the option to recover all of that damage off with Softboiled. Blissey also offers me a lot of fun things to do with Skill Swap that Cresselia wouldn’t let me do. My team doesn’t really benefit from Levitate, but with 3 Blizzard abusers, they’d all love to take a stab at firing off a Serene Grace Blizzard. An added benefit is that two of my Blizzard users have abilities that can be reactivated. Being able to reset Intimidate and Snow Warning and give my partner Serene Grace would really put a kink in my opponent’s plans.
Now all of that may be self-explanatory but I know what you’re looking at so let’s address the elephant in the room: Mud Bomb. Mud Bomb is a 65 base power, 85% accurate Special Ground-type attack with a 30% chance to lower Accuracy. Now how does that fit into my plan? With 148 Special Attack EVs, Mud Bomb will 2HKO Wolfey’s Heatran while taking negligible damage from whatever Heatran decides to throw back at it. With Serene Grace, the chance of an accuracy drop bumps up to 60% giving me another out with an opponent’s miss. The rest of the EV’s were just dumped in for general bulk. Blissey needed max defense and a Chople Berry in order to survive Fighting Gem Close Combats from Hitmontop so I just ran with that and dumped the rest into HP and Special Defense.
Gyarados (F) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 60 HP / 204 Def / 244 SAtk
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Surf
– Fire Blast
– Thunder → Hidden Power [Flying]
– Blizzard
I dropped Thunder on Gyarados because I added Blissey. I didn’t really need to bring Gyarados against Rain teams anymore so Thunder was a lot less useful than it used to be so I opted for Hidden Power Flying to give it another STAB attack to lock into. It deals heavy damage to Ludicolo and Hitmontop and hits most things neutrally for okay damage, but I still mainly used it for Surf to power Gastrodon. Paired with Blissey, it could still Surf without worry and Blissey could give it even more Intimidate support with a Skill Swap.
Abomasnow (M) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 140 HP / 116 Atk / 252 SAtk
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
– Blizzard
– Giga Drain
– Protect
– Ice Shard
Abomasnow is the same Abomasnow that I’ve used since Nationals. Straight ripped from Cassie’s team it does what Abomasnow is supposed to do: set Hail and hit things with STAB attacks. Abomasnow greatly appreciated the prescence of Blissey, though. With Blissey on the field, Abomasnow did not have to worry about switching in and out in order to get Hail back up. All it has to do is sit there and fire off a Blizzard as Blissey Skill Swaps Serene Grace onto it. People end up having to think twice about switching in and out to get their weather back up for fear of the 20% freeze and the ease of Blissey just Swapping Snow Warning again to bring up Hail again.
Rotom (Rotom-F) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 28 HP / 4 Def / 248 SAtk / 4 SDef / 224 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Thunderbolt
– Volt Switch
– Blizzard
– Hidden Power [Fire]
Rotom is still very straightforward. In Hail, it’s a powerhouse that fires off strong STAB Blizzards. It keeps the damage flowing by abusing Volt Switch to set the team up for the most favorable matchups. In a pinch, it doesn’t mind Serene Grace from Blissey either.
Gastrodon-East (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 108 Def / 28 SAtk / 120 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
– Muddy Water
– Earth Power
– Protect
– Recover
Gastrodon is still just defensive Casstrodon. It’s maximized in bulk to take a few hits while it grabs boosts from Gyarados. It forces you to choose between taking out a Pokémon firing off strong Specs boosted attacks or one that’s constantly getting powered up by them. A timely Recover can change the tide of a match. The strong spread moves of the rest of the team force the opponent to play defensively giving Gastrodon a chance to Recover and start wrecking.
Scizor (F) @ Occa Berry
Trait: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
– Protect
– Bug Bite
– Bullet Punch
– Feint → Natural Gift
For a Worlds metagame, Feint is definitely the superior choice. But at a Regional where you can’t assume anything about your opponent, it’s hard to be able to use Feint correctly. I opted for one of the lesser known options. Natural Gift with an Occa Berry grants Scizor a one-time use 60BP Physical Fire attack to surprise enemy Scizor. I did not use it very often but on a team with so many thing scared off by Scizor, picking them off in exchange for your item is a great deal. While I didn’t use it much, the times that I did use it, it was probably the reason I won the match.
How it all comes together
This team had a lot more options for me to play around with than the version that I brought to Worlds. The addition of Blissey opened many windows for me and helped me cover a large chunk of my weaknesses. Blissey’s Skill Swap allowed me to move abilities and make my opponent play differently. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ended up with Storm Drain Blissey grabbing boosts from Surf Gyarados or Abomasnow and Scizor eating Heatran Heat Waves with Flash Fire and shrugging it off. Blissey has held more abilities than I can count. It’s fired off Technician boosted Icy Winds, taken Levitates from Rotom so it can Mud Bomb it to pieces and stolen Storm Drain off opposing Gastrodon so that Gyarados can fire off its Surfs.
But nevertheless these are all just techs for my weaknesses. The heart and soul of the team is still Gyarados/Rotom-F/Gastrodon/Abomasnow. I’ve gotten so comfortable with this team that I feel like I can overcome a lot of things. At its core this is still a 4-Pokémon team built to support each other as best they can. But like all Pokémon teams, nothing is perfect. Blissey is the plug for some of these holes and Scizor is the plug for others. I almost always use 3 of the core 4 and use one of the techs as needed. I may be old fashioned in the way I think about Pokémon teams, but I feel like the way to develop a Pokémon team is to just form a core and then find the best way to plug a hole. I’ve gone through a bunch of revisions to this team and this probably isn’t the end of it. Who knows what we’ll see the next time I decide to break this team out again?
Article image created by ryuzaki and used with permission by Nugget Bridge. See more of ryuzaki’s artwork on deviantART.
About the Author
Huy is a grizzled Pokemon veteran. Having played competitively since RBY, he picked up VGC in 2009 and never looked back. He has played in 3 World Championships (Second only to Ray Rizzo) and has placed in the Top 10 in all 3 while managing to secure Top 8 in 2. He is the only American in the world to have won two Customized Worlds DS'es.
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