Chomping Up Dragonflies: 2012 Autumn Friendly Team Analysis
Many players from around the globe (except the Japanese, unfortunately) participate in the Nintendo Friendlies in pursuit of some glory. Most teams are fairly standard, and to say mine isn’t is a complete lie, but I have tried to add a dash and pinch of originality and creativity to my teams, and often do fairly well with them. If I play my cards right (no, this is not TCG) I can net a victory — or a D/C — with the element of surprise. This was my very first official competition, and I thought there would be no better opportunity than now to use a long time favorite Pokémon, Yanmega. This is what I came up with:
The Team
STAN YEGA (Yanmega) (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Tinted Lens
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 248 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
– Protect
– Air Slash
– Giga Drain
– Bug Buzz
Alright, I suppose the first thing I should elaborate on is my choice of the Dragonfly Pokémon himself. As stated previously, Yanmega is and will always be one of my favorite Pokémon, in the ranks of Raikou, Hydreigon, and Hitmontop, to name a few, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a valid choice to build a team around.
I was searching through some posts in the Competitive section of the Nugget Bridge forums and noticed Lucariojr had posted an evaluation of Yanmega, something he had been using on GBU. Naturally, I was inspired to create the core of my team around Yanmega. Something I am going to reiterate from said evaluation is that Tinted Lens is far better than Speed Boost can ever hope to be because every team constructed with this metagame in mind runs Icy Wind, Thunder Wave, or Trick Room as standard speed control, with Rain Dance and Swift Swim as a back up in many instances. With that in mind, Speed Boost is all but useless. Tinted Lens, on the other hand is not so useless. A Life Orb boosted Air Slash can comfortably 2HKO many Heatran using Tinted Lens, with the added bonus of a 30% flinch rate. That’s big. Yanmega can take out Heatran switching into it, and, with a teammate’s assist, Yanmega can take out Zapdos, and Thundurus as well, two major counters to Yanmega.
Honestly, I ripped this set from Lucariojr’s post, and it served me well. I considered swapping Giga Drain for Hidden Power Ground, but HP Ground really only hits Heatran, who is 2HKO’d by Air Slash anyway unless it’s running a lot of extra bulk. I preferred having the option to obliterate Swampert and Gastrodon, as well as the option for some recovery given Life Orb recoil. Air Slash is a good move to demolish opposing Hitmontop (who I can Fake Out with a faster Fake Put, more on that later) and is one of the better STAB options against neutral targets. Bug Buzz is there because it is obviously Yanmega’s strongest STAB move, and hits the ever present Cresselia, dare I say, “like a truck”. With Tinted Lens, Bug Buzz does a ton of damage to opposing Zapdos, Thundurus, and Psychic / Grass / Dark types.
Yanmega is Bug/Flying, and what are Bug/Flying types weak to? Quite a lot: Ice, Electric, Fire, Flying, and Rock — all prominent move types in the current metagame. However, Yanmega comes with a useful resistance to Fighting and an immunity to the omnipresent Earthquake. That being said, I needed a partner that resisted most of Yanmega’s weaknesses, and could take advantage of his resistances. I soon made my decision to fill out my 2 mon core with Garchomp.
Garchomp (M) @ Dragon Gem
Trait: Rough Skin
EVs: 100 HP / 176 Atk / 234 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
-Dragon Claw
-Earthquake
-Protect
-Fire Fang
Garchomp made for a great partner to Yanmega. First, Yanmega get’s wrecked by Rock Slides, and Garchomp has just the remedy. Garchomp is Dragon/Ground, so not only does he resist Rock Slide, he also can OHKO and 2HKO most Rock Slide abusers and make Yanmega’s day a little easier. Yanmega allows Garchomp to have a field day and Earthquake all the things, while Yanmega helps exterminate pests like Cresselia, who often carry Ice Beam or Icy Wind.
Some of you might take notice at the ‘odd’ move choices, namely Fire Fang. My team was pretty Scizor weak, and Fire Fang gave me a means to obliterate the metal mantis. I can’t tell you how many times in the past I’ve had to deal with a Scizor, while I only have a Garchomp. Bullet Punch would beat me, 2HKOing me beforee my Earthquakes could 3HKO bulkier variants. Fire Fang says “no” to said scenarios. Believe me, I played enough Scizors to not regret my decision. It also gave me a good way to hit things like Abomasnow and Ferrothorn really hard, two things I saw quite frequently.
Another oddity some of you might pick up on is my ability, Rough Skin. I’m NOT running any form of Sand, and honestly, I never do. I feel like Sand Veil is pretty inconsistent, and I tend to feel bad when Garchomp wins by Sand Veil hax. Rough Skin served it’s own purpose, and many a time would something die to Rough Skin damage. Other than consistency, and ethics, I had no reason to run Rough Skin over Sand Veil, really.
Dragon Gem (yet another oddity) is something I slapped on Garchomp quite early on. Garchomp (with my EV spread especially, more on that next paragraph) has trouble OHKOing Dragons that aren’t named Latios. Dragon Gem allows Dragon Claw to OHKO every Dragon in the game, bar the most physically defensive Dragons and Intimidate Salamence running some bulk. I find it funny when people leave Hydreigon out on the field, expecting to survive Dragon Claw only to have their precious Hydreigon OHKO’d by my Shark. It also does about a third to Cresselia, and can finish what Yanmega started against the “Moon Duck” about 60~% of the time.
The EV spread is fairly specific: the Speed EV’s allow me to outspeed +Speed 252 EV Hydreigon by 1 point. The Attack EV’s are arbitrary: I really just picked something that gave me a good amount of Attacking power and saved 100 EV’s for HP so Garchomp can still take some hits.
Pizza (Hitmontop ) (M) @ Eject Button
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 124 HP / 196 Atk / 188 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
-Wide Guard
-Fake Out
-Feint
-Close Combat
Okay. So the first thing I have to say about Hitmontop is actually a complaint. I regret heavily deciding to use Eject Button on Hitmontop; it really didn’t do me any favors. During testing I had been using a Fight Gem, and for whatever reason, the minute before registering my Battle Box, I thought it would be a good idea to use Eject Button! NO. Awful decision. I can’t tell you how many times I targeted something I wanted to take a Close Combat to the face only to get hit first and ejected out. I lost many battles due to this, and that was frustrating.
With that out of the way, I’d like to move on to the EV’s. I pretty much ripped the EV’s off of Chinese Dood’s Hitmontop used at Nationals (Sorry!) because they worked really well for what I wanted. Many people seem to not expect so much Speed Creep, and I ended up outspeeding things not even I expected. I always got the first Fake Out against other Hitmontops. Not much else to say, specific details can be found on his Nationals Report.
I did really love Wide Guard during the tournament. It really helped shut down Rain teams, although I lost to many anyway due to the insane amount of Lightning Rod Manectrics (who knew?). Wide Guard also was really useful in shutting down Excadrill, blocking Excadrill’s Earthquakes and Rock Slides while Garchomp could destroy it with an Earthquake of its own. Of course Wide Guard protected Hitmontop from Garchomp’s Earthquake too.
Fake Out is pretty standard on Hitmontop — I don’t know of a Hitmontop without it. I really don’t see much need to elaborate on Fake Out, but it basically gave me early momentum and allowed me to potentially get a free KO on something early. One big benefit of Fake Out is it makes using his next move so much easier….
Feint. Feint is so strong. Turn 1, if I feel that my opponent has any reason to Protect or double Protect, I can smack them with Feint and proceed to do Turn 1 Damage for free. And once my secret of Feint is out, I can proceed to play mind games on my opponent, especially when Hitmontop switches back in. Late game too, it was essential. I always loved it when the opponent is on a sliver of health and tries to Protect stall me. Nope. Feint stops that plan cold. Feint also offered an emergency priority if I needed it for whatever reason. I used it a lot to finish off Pokémon after they used up their Focus Sash or in order to break intact Sashes. My favorite use, though, was Feinting a Protecting Latios and then KOing it with Dragon Claw.
Close Combat is the standard power house move on any Hitmontop. Akin to Fake Out, I don’t know any Tops not running it.
J. Depp (Chandelure) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 52 HP / 252 SAtk / 204 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
-Overheat
-Shadow Ball
-Heat Wave
-Energy Ball
Scarf Chandelure is so much fun to use. This thing is the best Sun counter to ever exist, and I’m not kidding. Every Sun team I faced fell to this thing. I didn’t lose one match to Sun. I can simply bait the Fire move with Yanmega, switch in to Chandelure to get the boost, and Thunder Wave any Chlorophyll abusers with my Thundurus (more on him next). I can then prepare to sweep the opposition with Sun Boosted, Flash Fire Boosted, STAB Heat Waves. One of those super charged Heat Waves could bring a Ninetails to about a quarter health and decimated anything that didn’t resist it.
Overheat was a good, all purpose Turn 1 hit and run move, OHKOing every Amoonguss in sight. Just a good move all together to slap on a Scarf Chandelure.
Shadow Ball is its other STAB, and together with Overheat/Heat Wave, offers very good coverage. Shadow Ball + Bug Buzz was a guarantee’d KO on Cresselia. I didn’t run any calculations, but I faced no Cress that could live both. Shadow Ball also allowed me to KO (or at least severely damage) opposing Chandelure, Gengar, and Starmie. It also decimated every Alakazam in sight and did between just over a half to a third damage on Cresselia, depending on it’s bulk investments.
Energy Ball rarely got used, and really only got used on Gastrodon and Swampert. Even then I hardly used it because Yanmega’s Giga Drain was more than sufficient and I ended up using Shadow Ball to finish off Rindo variants. I wasn’t really sure of anything else for move 4 however, because for whatever reason I didn’t RNG this Chandelure with a Hidden Power.
SWAGMASTER (Thundurus) (M) @ Charti Berry
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 4 HP / 176 SAtk / 76 SpDef / 252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
-Thunderbolt
-Hidden Power [Ice]
-Substitute
-Thunder Wave
Just an offensive Thundurus, nothing to special here. The EV’s were from 2011 (I don’t remember whose EV’s they were), but I figured they’d work OK. This Thundurus was pretty last minute, I needed some Speed Control, and this was the first thing that came to mind that paired well with Garchomp, and Yanmega.
Thunderbolt is pretty self-evident, no need to really elaborate too much. It really did quite a bit of damage, although because this set is a bit bulkier it didn’t do enough sometimes. It did it’s job however because often times I’d try to be behind a Substitute as much as possible. I remember one battle where I had Thundurus at KO range and Yanmega at mid health vs a Jellicent at 90% health. Thunderbolt did just enough that Water Spout KO’d Thundurus but left Yanmega with a quarter health and was able to Giga Drain Jellicent to oblivion and get all of that health back. If that Scarf Jellicent outsped Thundurus then I would have lost the game for sure, as Water Spout would have cleaned up.
Hidden Power Ice is pretty standard as well. I used Thundurus to beat Garchomp more than I used Garchomp to beat Garchomp. Aside from that, HP Ice also really did a number on Latios, Salamence, and Hydreigon as well. Other than Dragons, the only thing seeing HP Ice damage would have been Zapdos, which I rarely saw. I was debating using HP Flying for a VERY long time because it’s good at hitting all of these Fighting-types *cough hitmontop cough* but I just couldn’t give up the Dragon Coverage and pseudo BoltBeam coverage.
Substitute was really good for avoiding Calm Thundurus’ Thunder Wave, and believe me it happened every other match. If I was able to get Thundurus behind a Sub, I was basically able to take out half of the opponent’s team before going down. I often led with Hitmontop + Thundurus because I could simply Fake Out turn 1 and about 70% of the time I got a free Substitute up. I often found myself using Substitute as a means to stall out Tailwinds and Trick Room too.
Prankster Thunder Wave is something to fear in the current metagame. Speed Control is everything in VGC 2012. It seems like nowadays whoever is faster is going to win, usually. Thunder Wave with a +1 priority has the opportunity to cripple anything not ground. It REALLY helped Yanmega do it’s job, as it basically gave Yanmega Speed Boost + Tinted Lens in one set. It was also nice to Fully Paralyze the opponent, although the more it happened, the more I’d feel bad for my opponent. I tried not to rely on it for FP support, more for Speed Control if I needed it.
Metagross @ Shuca Berry
Trait: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
-Meteor Mash
-Zen Headbutt
-Ice Punch
-Protect
Metagross is easily one of the best Pokémon in VGC 2012, and to some, is the #1 Pokémon in the current metagame. I really wanted something to be able to tank Draco Meteors and other Dragon attacks. Metagross does that just fine, as well as provide a multitude of other nice resistances, such as Psychic, Steel, Rock, Normal, and others.
The first thing you might notice is my use of Shuca Berry. This came in handy quite a bit, allowing Metagross to survive Earthquakes from just about anything. It really gave my opponent a shock when their Garchomp couldn’t KO with Earthquake and then got OHKO’d by my Ice Punch. That’s about it. I didn’t want to use Occa, and I had no use for Lum Berry.
And for the first move, we have Meteor Mash, or as some like to call it “Meteor Miss”. I really do have mixed feelings about Meteor Mash because for it does miss all the time — 85% accuracy tends to feel like 60% accuracy. Still, it was really nice to get the Attack Boost, and really hurt my opponent if I did. For a time I actually tested Iron Head out because it gave me the Flinch chance and had increased accuracy. I still returned to Meteor Mash, however, as I missed the Attack boost most of the time.
Zen Headbutt I find to be pretty standard on the walking super computer. It hit’s anything hard, especially those that resist Meteor Mash. Politoed and Gastrodon take heavy damage from Zen Headbutt, some even being OHKO’d if I have +1 Attack. Zen Headbutt was also often used to take out pesky Hitmontop.
Ice Punch. There were times I wished I had Bullet Punch over Ice Punch, but most of the time I liked having the Ice coverage, especially against Zapdos. As I mentioned earlier, Ice Punch was also an effective weapon against Garchomp, OHKOing assuming it lacks Yache Berry. Ice Punch also happened to be my answer to Dragon-types that I’m sponging Dragon hits from, like Salamence, and also served a valuable weapon against Thundurus.
Threats to the Team
Trick Room gave my team some issues, mainly because I have a fast team. I really relied on Metagross to help my team out because of its low Speed if I couldn’t take out the Trick Room setter turn 1. Otherwise, I was forced to play defensively and stall out Trick Room before going for the kill.
Rain tended to give me quite a few problems as well, despite my measures taken against them. Thunder Wave from my Thundurus was my initial plan for stopping them, but the sheer amount of Lightning Rod support almost shocked me — I’ve never seen so many Raichus and Manectrics. Wide Guard was my only hope after, and with good predicting, the opponent could usually shut me down.
I wouldn’t necessarily consider Goodstuffs a threat — I’m running it myself, after all — but rather, who wins depends highly on who predicts better, who’s team matches up better, and often who get’s more luck.
Swagger tended to give me problems, especially if it’s Cresselia + Metagross and Trick Room. My best option was to eliminate Cresselia as soon as possible. If it was Thundurus, I simply tried my best to play around it with my own Thundurus, Garchomp, Hitmontop, and Metagross.
Conclusion
And that’s all for my team. I’m very pleased with how it turned out. I’m glad to retire my team with a pleasing result, and I hope this team can give you guys some inspiration for Regionals to take a look at some lesser-known Pokémon like Yanmega.
Article image created by feathers for Nugget Bridge. View more of her artwork on her tumblr.
About the Author
Lamitie11 Started playing VGC with the 2011 season, and fell in love. Formerly a singles exclusive, he has made VGC his main tier and will never look back. Although he has never been to an official event yet, he hopes to go soon!
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