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Published on November 19th, 2012 | by Biosci

Uxie was here, Cresselia is a loser: GBU Team Analysis

Hello Nugget Bridge! I’m back again with another team analysis, but since attending actual events is for chumps this is a team that I’ve been using and evolving on Free mode GBU for the past month. I kind of made a goal for myself that I would retire a team from GBU use after a new star is obtained. This time I decided to make a team analysis for the team that earned me ~200 wins, making me go from 3 stars to 4 stars on Free mode (and a few wins on rated). The team went through much evolving over the course of many hours on GBU and bouncing ideas back and forth with Jio. After much practice I think I nailed this team

The Team

Deb (Uxie) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 100 SpD
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
– Psyshock
– Thunder Wave
– Trick Room
– Skill Swap

The star of the team was actually one of the second to last additions to this team. This team was built around bulky Pokémon being able to wreck the other opponent through Speed control and support. At first this role was filled by Togekiss with a moveset of Tailwind/Follow Me/Air Slash/Flamethrower. Togekiss did lots for this team and on occasion I would miss it a lot for it’s coverage, but when it came to speed control Uxie got the job done above and beyond what was needed. However Togekiss also had the role of support with Follow Me to absorb status moves and to lure enemy attacks away from a Togekiss’ partner. I mainly made the switch because Togekiss’s support just wasn’t any good for the slower Pokémon on my team at the time, Conkeldurr, Vaporeon, and Rhyperior. None of them really benefited from Tailwind, and Togekiss couldn’t really use Thunder Wave because I often needed to use it when Rhyperior was on the field or needed to come in with a switch. I decided that I would need a Trick Room user and Uxie has always piqued my interest with it’s base 95 Speed and support movepool equal to Cresselia. I made the EV spread for Uxie and have enjoyed using it a lot since.

Like I said, Uxie’s role for this team was its speed control by abusing Trick Room and Thunder Wave. Having both of these moves may seem redundant, but they each had many times where one move clearly made more sense to use. For example, if I was playing against a hyper offensive I could go for the Trick Room to quickly gain momentum for myself and sweep. Or if I was playing a somewhat slow and bulky team and I just needed to outspeed one or two Pokémon, I would just Thunder Wave. Thunder Wave was also great for when I faced non-TR Cresselia, so that I could beat them to the punch and nail them with paralysis before they could get to the rest of my team. Trick Room also allowed me to reverse enemy Trick Room set up. I actually had quite a few battles where my opponent would set Trick Room turn 1 and I Protected and reversed Trick Room turn 2 to sweep.

Skill Swap was an interesting toy that I’ve never actually fought, but I’ve always adored it’s uses. I loved doing things like giving Levitate to Raikou or Excadrill, or even stealing fun abilities like Storm Drain, Flame Body, Effect Spore, or Sand Veil. Psyshock was just there as a filler move just so I could do damage of some sort.

The EV spread probably isn’t the best it could be since I never got to let Jio do his magic with EV spreads, but the current EV spread lets me survive a Dark Gem Crunch from Tyranitar among other things. Pretty much I’ve got it so no one attack can OHKO it, aside from actual OHKO moves. Leftovers came in handy quite a lot with the recovery.

I don’t really care to argue the whole case of Cresselia being better, I don’t really care. Uxie did the same thing, may not have been better, but he still did the job. That’s all I really care about. Yes, I know EV spreads Cresselia can use to do exactly what Uxie does, and even better (for the record, 4 HP / 236 Def / 92 SpA / 100 SpD / 76 Spe gives Cresselia the same defenses and Speed, but more HP and Special Attack). Uxie had a huge surprise advantage in team preview and in battle. Everyone knows what Cresselia does, but Uxie is a whole other story.

Dexter (Vaporeon) @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 140 HP / 116 Def / 250 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature (+SpA, -Atk)
– Hidden Power [Grass]
– Muddy Water
– Ice Beam
– Protect

This is one of the members of this team that has just stuck like glue. The only changes it underwent was the change from Helping Hand to Hidden Power Grass to help with my Gastrodon issues. If you ever see me use this team at all, I’ll usually bring Vaporeon to every match unless it gets severely bothered by certain collections of Pokémon on the enemy’s team, such as Thundurus + Rotom-W. Vaporeon was really the “catch all” attacker that I needed for the team with it having coverage on tons of Pokémon and being walled very rarely. In fact Vaporeon hardly ever saw a time where it was walled 100%. The only issues with Vaporeon was making sure that it went first so it wrecks the opponent before getting wrecked itself. However, Uxie helped greatly with Speed control through Thunder Wave and Trick Room use. Usually I could start going into either Thunder Wave or Trick Room mode and start sweeping with Vaporeon.

The moveset is a standard attacking set. Muddy Water is Vaporeon’s main STAB and was very useful in 90% of my matches for being able to hit both opponents (the other 10% featured all of the double misses and me dying on the inside). The accuracy of Muddy Water is the only problem I ever really had with Vaporeon, but so long as it hit something progress was made in the match. HP Grass is only for Gastrodon and Swampert. If it weren’t for these things, I would use HP Electric because I sometimes had a tough time against Gyarados. The funny thing is though, HP Grass rarely ever OHKOd Gastrodon because it was either super specially bulky or held Rindo berry. Ice Beam is pretty obvious with what it does. It did what it needed to, and if I could make the smart play with predicting switches I got to nail in coming Dragons or Genies. Protect is there because Vaporeon needs that turn of safety so Uxie can set up for it and prepare for the incoming sweep.

The EV spread that I chose to use is actually the same exact one used in the Smogon VGC 2012 Vaporeon analysis. This spread worked so many wonders. I tanked a good amount of Physical hits and took about half from Dragon Gem Draco Meteors from Latios. I had a key moment against PFruit on GBU where Vaporeon survived his Jolly Terrakion Fighting Gem Close Combat with 1 HP from full health and proceeded to Muddy Water and win it for me. However, I did a damage calc of this later on and found that he actually got the high damage roll and the move only had a 17% chance to OHKO Vaporeon with the current EV spread. Water Absorb over Hydration was something I considered a lot, and as much as being able to self cure myself of status in rain, the recovery and immunity when switching in Vaporeon to Water-type attacks was always great.

The item changed quite a bit on Vaporeon, going from Water Gem to Mystic Water and now to Sitrus Berry. Water Gem wasn’t as useful as it sounds, as it gave me no key KOs that I thought it might’ve and missing one Pokémon with the Gem-powered hit always sucked. This led me to try out Mystic Water for the consistent boost. When I was thinking about items to replace Water Gem, though, Sitrus Berry did come up to help Vaporeon turn incoming 2HKOs into 3HKOs. However at the time, Togekiss was on the team and currently using Sitrus Berry. When Togekiss was tossed out the window, Sitrus Berry was brought up again and given to Vaporeon. It’s currently running well, though I really miss the 2HKO on Scizor that I got with Mystic Water.

Doakes (Conkeldurr) @ Choice Band
Trait: Guts
EVs: 142 HP / 204 Atk / 164 SpD
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
– Drain Punch
– Mach Punch
– Rock Slide
– Ice Punch

Conkeldurr was another one of the Pokémon who stayed on the team throughout the entire testing process. Conkeldurr was a Pokémon that I had an urge to try out. With an Attack stat of 140, access to a STAB priority move, and an awesome ability like Guts, it was hard to resist. Another reason to try it out was its new coverage move it received from Black and White 2: Ice Punch. I didn’t want to have to rely 100% on Vaporeon’s Ice Beam or Raikou’s Hidden Power Ice for coverage on Dragons, so I liked the idea of having the surprise attack on Conkeldurr.

The first thing people usually notice about this Conkeldurr is the Choice Band. I chose Choice Band thinking if I could switch Conkeldurr into a Will-O-Wisp or Thunder Wave, then there wasn’t much stopping me from sweeping with Mach Punch or, if Trick Room was up, Drain Punch. However, in battle I would always forget that I have this option if I see the opponent spamming status moves to wear down my Uxie or Vaporeon. Conkeldurr would usually go through battles being the only un-statused Pokémon just as a measure for how this actually played out. Even though I didn’t abuse this as much as I would’ve liked, Choice Band gave Conkeldurr the power to punch holes in lots of teams.

The moveset is fairly simple to explain, but there were a few options that I debated. Drain Punch was Conkeldurr’s main STAB move and allowed for some quick recovery to help me make come back wins in some games. Mach Punch was needed for priority to hit faster threats like Terrakion, Excadrill, and Kingdra. Mach Punch was especially good against Sand teams that had Excadrill, as with the current EV spread I can OHKO 4 HP Excadrill with Mach Punch. Rock Slide allows Conkeldurr a spread move to hit both opposing Pokémon with a moderately strong Rock Slide and gives me coverage on Bug-types like Volcarona and Yanmega. Ice Punch gives me the surprise attack on Dragon-types that are expecting the Drain Punch or Rock Slide, and usually KOs whatever it hits super effectively. I’ve considered adding moves like Superpower and Payback, which allow Conkeldurr to do a few specific things, such as OHKO 252/4 Metagross and 2HKO Cresselia respectively, but ultimately I think those are inferior options.

The EV spread was initially Ray’s worlds 2011 Conkeldurr spread, but I opted to add more Attack EVs and drop most of the bulk so I could get the OHKO on Excadrill with Mach Punch. I know I could do much better with the bulk of the EV spread, but I just never got around to fixing them. It did what it needed to do, so I never saw a need to fix the EV spread.

Brian (Volcarona) @ Charti Berry
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 46 Def / 212 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature (+SpA, -Atk)
– Quiver Dance
– Heat Wave
– Bug Buzz
– Protect

Volcarona wasn’t the first choice I had in mind for this team. At first I was being completely ridiculous with what Pokémon I wanted to use, so the original member in place of Volcarona was Registeel. Registeel was just horrible, so I tried to opt for a different Steel-type which was Heatran. It worked to some extent, but the weaknesses it gave were just too much to handle with the team at the time. Because of this, I tried Quiver Dance Volcarona. I fell in love with what Volcarona had to offer with its coverage and ability to sweep entire teams once I get one or two Quiver Dances up.

Volcarona was my main threat to handle Steel- and Psychic-types, such as Metagross, Scizor, and Cresselia, which my team had huge issues with at the time Volcarona was added. By having a check to these Pokémon I could really play with more ease knowing I could clean them up late game after wearing them down with other members of my team. The Bug Buzz+Heat Wave coverage is greatly appreciated on this team as no one else on the team has Fire-type coverage or STAB Bug typing. The Rock-type weakness and general low physical bulk was really unfortunate when using Volcarona. Pretty much any physical attack that wasn’t resisted would 2HKO or sometimes OHKO.

The EV spread and item (credit goes to Zach for showing me the set in a team he gave me to use on PO) helped me take Rock Slide from Tyranitar and Terrakion so I could Quiver Dance while my partner finished them off or KO their partner Pokémon if possible. There really isn’t much special about Volcarona. It’s a pretty standard set, but that’s really what I needed for this team.

Batista (Excadrill) @ Chople Berry
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 236 HP / 182 Atk / 76 Def / 16 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
– Drill Run
– Rock Slide
– X-Scissor
– Protect

Excadrill was another member that wasn’t here at first. It first started out as semi-support Latias, but I wanted to opt for some other physical attacker that could help me against Sand teams and Metagross and support Vaporeon by taking Electric-type attacks or Thunder Waves. At first the Pokémon I chose was Rhyperior, which was the Pokémon that helped support the change of Togekiss to Uxie. Rhyperior worked great with it’s offensive and support role with Lightningrod, but it’s god awful typing meant it had to go. I was also still lacking a Steel-type at this point, so Excadrill was the obvious choice here.

I always had Excadrill at the back of my mind to use, and I finally got the chance to use it and put some ideas to work. I quickly had Jio whip me up a good EV spread to survive a Fighting Gem Close Combat from Hitmontop, a non-Choice Specs Modest Zapdos Heat Wave, and an Adamant Garchomp Earthquake and be able to retaliate back to KO or deal serious damage at the least.

One of my first ideas for Excadrill was to give it Mold Breaker to allow me to hit Rotom-W with Drill Run since it was kind of a big threat to this team. However, I often found myself Skill Swapping away Mold Breaker to give Excadrill Levitate, so it was pretty useless to use that ability when I could use something more effective. Another big thing that prompted the switch was a live tourney match I had with Nightblade7000 where I had to switch Mold Breaker to Sand Rush because of legality issues, and Sand Rush actually helped me win the match with ease when my own Trick Room ended and Excadrill could sweep the rest of his Pokémon. I was hooked after this happened, and I haven’t really looked back. Sand Rush is really proving to be the better ability with more and more testing that I do.

The only weird choice I have with the moveset is using Drill Run over Earthquake, but if you look at the rest of my team and think, you’ll quickly understand this choice. I only have one Pokémon that I would be able to use Earthquake with and only two others that could possibly Protect while I Earthquake. Rock Slide and X-Scissor are for coverage. I’ve wanted to try Substitute, but I just don’t have the moveslot to fit it. Protect is just Protect; it helps Excadrill get by certain threats, etc.

Lundy (Raikou) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Thunderbolt
– Volt Switch
– Snarl

As I said in my last team analysis, I just can’t resist using Raikou on my teams. It gave much needed coverage and filled the role as a fast sweeper who could get quick damage early or clean up late game. Raikou really found itself being used less and less on this team, so I’m unsure what to do with it really. I have other Pokémon in mind, but that will be saved for another time.

Raikou doesn’t really do much else from what it did on the team that I posted before. The only new addition to the set was Snarl since I was unsure about using it for the LCQ. Snarl came in handy a few times, but its shaky accuracy could sometimes mess me up late game. Hidden Power Ice hit Dragons like it was supposed to. Thunderbolt was the main STAB move that I would use late game to clean up the leftovers of my opponent. Volt Switch is more for Early/Mid game use to rack up quick damage to ensure certain Pokémon got KOd by the incoming Pokémon I would send in.

I just went for the straight 4/252/252 EV spread since the extra EVs in Speed actually helped me a lot more than when the EVs were in HP. Not auto-losing the Speed tie with Starmie actually proved it’s use in one game, to allow me to win the Speed tie and thus win the game.

Leads

Uxie was pretty much my lead in every game that I played. It was extremely hard for me to use any other lead with this team, because Uxie’s Speed control is needed for nearly every member of the team except Raikou. Uxie was purposefully added as the universal supporter for the team, so of course it works great as a lead with just about everything on the team.

More specific strong combos with Uxie were:

This was and is the strongest lead combo for this team. This lead does especially well against Rain and Trick Room teams, as neither cares about boosted Water-type attacks and Uxie can reverse Trick Room. Against Rain I also usually had the option to either Skill Swap a Swift Swimmer to make Uxie a bigger threat or just Thunder Wave the Swift Swimmer. It wasn’t always a good idea to go for Trick Room due to the prevalence of Quiet Politoed, so it was always just safer to isolate the Swift Swimmer for Speed control. Usually I would Thunder Wave the Swift Swimmer unless I was cautious of things like Sub Kingdra or even the rare Lum Berry Ludicolo.

This lead is one that I would use if the opponent lacked Pokémon that countered Volcarona easily, like Terrakion or Garchomp. The big thing for this lead is for Uxie to isolate the faster threats to Volcarona with Thunder Wave, while Volcarona Protects, attacks, or even sets up a few Quiver Dances.

If the opponent lacked a good Water-type or Fighting-type, this lead would make them suffer. I would usually set Trick Room turn 1 and follow up with a Skill Swap to make Excadrill pretty much untouchable to Garchomp, Rhyperior, and the like. Even if the opponent had Gastrodon, I could Skill Swap away its Storm Drain, making it pretty much useless now that Excadrill is immune to its 2 main STABs.

+ or

My anti-Sand team lead. If they led Tyranitar+Excadrill, this lead made them suffer dearly. Conkeldurr could take out either of these threats easily with a Mach Punch or Drain Punch. Usually, the opponent would either protect with Tyranitar turn 1 or switch out to Salamence, so the usual safe play for this was Drain Punch the Excadrill and Ice Beam the Tyranitar. If there is any team match up that my team is most prepared for, it’s gotta against sand teams. Only times I would actually lose these kinds of matches would be due to either Rock Slide flinches or Sand Veil Garchomp.

or +

Leading with Raikou or even Vaporeon was really beneficial for Volcarona to help cover it against many of its normal threats, such as Garchomp, Terrakion, and Rhyperior. With most of the threats taken care of, Volcarona can either set up, or take out whatever can be taken out.

Team Match-Ups

Rain

Like stated before, Rain is one of those easier threats to deal with thanks to Vaporeon and Uxie. Ludicolo can be a slight problem, but with the right prediction I can Thunder Wave the Ludicolo and kill it with other threats on my team, such as Volcarona, Raikou, and Excadrill. I can usually win games against Rain by doing whatever with Uxie and just spamming Muddy Water, Hidden Power Grass, and Ice Beam with Vaporeon. Thundurus-T was kind of an issue due to this being a BW GBU team and I could never tell if it was Therian forme or not, so the usual safe play for me was to Trick Room, then double target next turn. My usual back ups are Conkeldurr and Raikou or Volcarona.

Sand

One of the easiest match-ups for this team if they lead or brought Tyranitar and Excadrill. Leading with Conkeldurr and Vaporeon is usually my safe bet, and I would more than likely have Volcarona and Raikou in the back. Excadrill was actually rarely used against Sand teams, due to nearly every one of their Pokémon being able to hit it super effectively. Rotom-W and Cresselia are the biggest threats in this match-up. I have nothing to OHKO Rotom-W or Cresselia, but I can damage Rotom-W with a Mach Punch or Drain Punch and finish it off with a Bug Buzz from Volcarona or Thunderbolt from Raikou. Cresselia can only be dealt with by damaging it little by little, but in the meantime it could set up all over me and give me issues.

Goodstuff

A tough match up for sure. My safest bet against typical goodstuffs teams is to lead Vaporeon and Uxie with Volcarona and either Excadrill or Raikou in the back. I can’t really say how I exactly play against these teams because it’s really dependent on what they have and lead with. My team usually fairs well against these teams once I can either cripple the Cresselia with a Thunder Wave or out right kill it. The combo of Rotom-W+Thundurus also gives my team issues, and takes careful plays to get around it so Vaporeon can sweep the rest to the team.

Trick Room

Another easy match up if they lack Amoonguss. I usually lead Uxie and Vaporeon with Conkeldurr and Excadrill in the back, but sometimes their team may pressure me to bring Volcarona to help me kill Reuniclus or Amoonguss. Battles against Trick Room teams can sometimes be long and boring as I reset Trick Room and my opponent tries to set it right back up. This makes for not-so-exciting battles, especially if they have Recover Jellicent or Gastrodon. Usually I can handle their offensive threats while I keep their Trick Room setter occupied with Uxie.

Threat List

rotom-wash
Rotom-W

Has super effective coverage on 3 of my Pokémon and nails 2 others pretty hard. My options for taking it out are limited, but it can still be dealt with fairly simply by Thunder Wave and Hidden Power Grass/Bug Buzz/Thunderbolt.

rotom-mow
Rotom-C

Rotom-C is mainly a threat due to it’s dual STAB coverage on Vaporeon. It forces my options to either being forced to stay in and Protect or to switch out and risk the incoming Pokémon eating either a Leaf Storm or Thunderbolt(Thunder). However, if I have my Volcarona undamaged and on the field, it is much less of a threat since I can OHKO it with Bug Buzz (or Heat Wave if it’s only got 4/0 Defense investment).

Cresselia

The only problem I have with Cresselia is the fact that I have problems getting it knocked out before it sets up too much on my team. Volcarona helps deal with it, but I don’t always have Volcarona around to help.

Togekiss

Opposing Togekiss are super annoying due to not only their own Speed control with Tailwind and Thunder Wave, but also the pseudo-Fake Out that is Air Slash. It’s hard as heck to set up anything with Uxie if facing a Speed-creeeping Togekiss that outspeeds and flinches Uxie’s head off. It’s mostly the hax that makes it hard to deal with, but it also has the annoying tool of Follow Me, though that is easily countered with Ice Beam and spread moves.

There are, of course, other threats, but I feel these are the main ones.

Battle Videos

Some battle videos that I decided to save one day to give you an example of how the team was played.

Battle #1

I just had to save this battle video because of the sweet irony since I used Flatter/Swagger Sableye in my other team analysis

Battle #2

Pffft, Gastrodon

Battle #3

Swagger goes terribly wrong

Conclusion

Well that should be it. Hope you enjoyed the article. I doubt I’m gonna fully retire this team, so I’m gonna keep working on it with the new metagame changes and new ideas that I wanna try. Hopefully this article gave you some ideas on how to use some less common and overlooked Pokémon because honestly it feels much better to fight a team of an original core of Pokémon rather than the latest “Skarmbliss special”. It was really fun to use this team and get to prove to some people that the lesser used Pokémon are still very strong. Until next time, Nugget Bridge!

Article image created by feathers for Nugget Bridge. View more of her artwork on her tumblr or Nugget Bridge forums thread.