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Published on December 3rd, 2012 | by Bopper

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Forming Igneous, Rocks!: Nugget Bridge Major Team Analysis

Hello everybody! I’m Mrbopper, also known as Bop or Blake. As a member of Team Magma, I hope that title made a bit of sense. Recently, I entered the tournament hosted by the Nugget Bridge forums called the Nugget Bridge Major. My playstyle is typically standard mixed with some Magma flair. This time around, I decided to do something different and use a pretty standard team. In addition to that, I decided to use a strategy that I have never used before: Rain. I found that Rain, no matter how bad some people think it may be, was performing much better than I had ever expected in testing. With my team succeeding the way any new team should, I decided to run with the team and improve on it as I battled more and more, ultimately ending with a top 16 placing in the tournament. This was the final product:

The Team

politoed
Bopitoed (Politoed) (M) @ Choice Specs
Drizzle
252 HP / 172 SAtk / 76 SDef / 8 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Hidden Power [Grass]
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Hydro Pump

You can’t have a Rain team without the Rain! I decided to use Politoed for obvious reasons, Drizzle. Drizzle was a very effective way of getting Rain on the field without having to waste a turn of set up by using Rain Dance.

Regarding the EVs, I feel like this Politoed has probably been seen by many people before. This Politoed was EV’d to achieve two main things: survive a Timid Latios’ Dragon Gem Draco Meteor and outspeed 4 Speed Hitmontop, Politoed, Metagross, and any other base 70s.

With all of the bulk needed to survive Latios’ Draco Meteors, Politoed was pretty weak and couldn’t get too many kills even in Rain. While yes, he was out speeding most Hitmontop and Metagross, he couldn’t actually get the KOs even with Hydro Pump in Rain. In order to fix this, I decided that I needed some item to help boost Politoed’s hitting power. I felt like OHKOing Hitmontop and Metagross was pretty important. I did some research and found that Hydro Pump paired with a Water Gem in the Rain would allow me to get to get the KO on both Hitmontop and Metagross, so that was something I needed to have. I also wanted to have Scald for a safe Water-type attack that couldn’t miss, so Scald was the obvious choice for the next attack. Ice Beam was added to Politoed because what is Politoed suppose to do once it survives that Draco Meteor? Hydro pump? No! Ice Beam was great for Dragons who wanted to try to kill me but just couldn’t due to the extra bulk. The only problem I had was Hydreigon who typically runs Modest, but my team didn’t have too many problems handling Hydreigon. Originally, I had Protect instead of Hidden Power Grass, but this is a Rain team and the Pokémon that most people use to counter Rain teams is Gastrodon. I had to have something to counter Gastrodon in some way, hence Hidden Power Grass was added to the move set. I still liked what I had for moves, so I didn’t add Protect. Sure it would have come in handy at times, but I felt like the benefit of having extra attacking moves would outweigh the risk of not having Protect, which it did.

Since I already had 4 attacking moves and I needed a way to kill Hitmontop and Metagross and still do as much damage as possible to everything else with my moves that weren’t named Hydro Pump, I decided that Choice Specs was the way to go. It allowed me to OHKO Hitmontop and Metagross while OHKOing most Gastrodon and have a 50% chance to OHKO Hydreigon. Politoed was the power-hitter on the team.

thundurus-therian
Boperus (Thundurus-T) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Volt Absorb
156 HP / 252 SAtk / 100 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Thunder
– Focus Blast
– Hidden Power [Flying]
– Volt Switch

Thundurus-Therian is something that I really wanted to play around with when I first saw the new forms of the Genie trio. When I was making this team, I needed something that could easily take advantage of the Rain. Thundurus could do this beautifully. With Thundurus-T’s base 145 Special Attack, he is guaranteed to be doing chunks to everything that doesn’t resist the STAB Thunder. Thunder was a no-brainer for him because of the perfect accuracy in Rain. Even when the opponent uses something like Double Team, Thunder will never miss if it is in the Rain, and it was great to abuse that accuracy. Volt Switch was something that I added in order to play the better players that I would be facing. Volt Switch allowed for the opponent to switch and then for me to attack and switch. That let me know what they were switching into so I could react accordingly. In addition, it let me keep offensive momentum compared to hard switching to something in the back. For the next move, I wanted to use Hidden Power Ice, but since I already had two Ice-type attacks, DrFidget convinced me into using Hidden Power Flying for a third STAB attack and coverage against Amoonguss and Hitmontop, who were threats to this team. For the last move, I knew that Tyranitar was a threat and I needed something for it. I had a choice of either Grass Knot or Focus Blast. I felt like I needed to not only get rid of Tyranitar but Ice-types as well. Focus Blast helped me achieve this OHKOing Tyranitar in Rain 100% of the time.

The Speed in the spread allows Thundurus-T to oustpeed Jolly, max speed Crobat when holding a Choice Scarf. The Choice Scarf allowed Thundurus-T to get safe Volt Switches off and also outspeed many Pokémon that it couldn’t before, including Latios, Latias, Tornadus-I, Tornadus-T, and Thundurus-I.

kingdra
Bopdra (Kingdra) (F) @ Life Orb
Swift Swim
4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Protect
– Muddy Water
– Draco Meteor
– Substitute

With the Pokémon that I have on the team so far, I had no way to outspeed and KO Dragons. While Thundurus could outspeed them, he couldn’t KO them. While Politoed could KO them, he couldn’t outspeed them. I needed a mix of both to dominate against Dragons. I opted for Kingdra over Ludicolo for the guaranteed KO against Latios and other Kingdra.

The spread is terribly unoriginal and standard for Kingdra, but it gets the job done. I wasn’t quite sure on what exactly to calc for in terms of taking hits, so I left the spread as is. Whenever I battled with this team, Kingdra survived the hits it needed to 90% of the time, so I would say that the spread was good enough for my liking.

Life Orb granted Kingdra even more power on top of the Rain-boosted Muddy Water and the amazing power of Draco Meteor. Substitute allowed Kingdra to block Thunder Waves or any other status moves that may be thrown at it. The only obstacle is setting up the Substitute. Hitmontop really helped out with that. Kingdra was an amazing sweeper assuming it doesn’t miss, which was something that I had to cope with throughout the entire tournament.

scizor
Boppor (Scizor) (M) @ Flying Gem
Technician
212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
– Protect
– Bullet Punch
– Bug Bite
– Acrobatics

After looking over Thundurus, Politoed, and Kingdra, I noticed that I needed somthing that could wall Cresselia in Rain and kill it. Scizor looked like a great option due to the Rain helping with Scizor’s only weakness, Fire. The reason I needed something to counter Cresselia was Cresselia nearly always has ways to change the Speed of your Pokémon that are currently on the field, which was a major problem for my team mainly because Kingdra relied on Swift Swim to outspeed many of the threats he is suppose to counter. Scizor was also the main way I was able to take out Amoonguss and Hitmontop. They were both very annoying for my team in terms of matchup mainly because they are able to distract attention away from their partners via Rage Powder and Fake Out respectively.

The spread is pretty straight-forward. I wanted Scizor to outspeed Hitmontop so I could have the 50% chance to OHKO it with Flying Gem Acrobatics. Scizor was a great mon that really helped my team because of its priority. It was able to come in and revenge kill anything that Kingdra or Thundurus may have missed a KO on. Not only that, but it also allowed me to take out opposing Cresselias.

cresselia
Bopelia (Cresselia) (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Levitate
252 HP / 164 Def / 92 SAtk
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd) (19 Spd EVs)
– Ice Beam
– Psyshock
– Trick Room
– Safeguard

When I was building this team, I ended up with Scizor, Thundurus, Kingdra, and Politoed. Looking at the team, it was extremely offensive and had no real defensive qualities. In addition, Scizor and Politoed were mostly slow and needed some kind of support. I decided to add a support Cresselia to the team. Cresselia allowed me to control speed completely. It allowed my slow Pokémon to be faster in Trick Room, and for my fast Pokémon to remain fast by using Safeguard to block Thunder Waves.

Cresselia’s EV spread was focused on surviving two specific hits. The defense EVs are there to survive a Bug Gem Bug Bite from Adamant Scizor, and the Sassy nature allows Cresselia to survive either a +0 Bug Gem Bug Buzz from Volcarona or a +1 Bug Buzz from Volcarona. The rest of the EVs that I had left were put into Special Defense. I gave Cresselia a Sassy nature to not only raise my Defense but also to lower my speed. Lowering my Speed was pretty important so I could outspeed Hitmontop in Trick Room. The main reason why I did that was because Hitmontop speed ties with opposing Hitmontop so it is an unreliable way to approach getting rid of opposing Hitmontop. Also, Scizor and Politoed outspeed Hitmontop outside of Trick Room, making them an unfavorable matchup in Trick Room.

Cresselia’s moves are pretty self explanatory. I already mentioned why I have Trick Room and Safeguard in the previous paragraph. I have Ice Beam so I can deal with Dragon-types that may threaten my team. The reason I used Psyshock over Psychic was so I could hit Virizion and Amoonguss harder. Those two Pokémon were big threats to my team mainly because they do very well against Rain teams, so I felt like I needed to counter them the best I could.

hitmontop
Hitmonbop (Hitmontop) @ Fight Gem
Intimidate
252 HP / 172 Atk / 84 Def
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
– Close Combat
– Fake Out
– Sucker Punch
– Feint

The reason I added Hitmontop is pretty much explained throughout the entire article. I needed the Fake Out support to reliably set up very important moves such as Substitute, Trick Room, and Safeguard. Not only does he allow flexibility on the field, he also adds a surprising amount of bulk to the team as a whole with Intimidate.

The spread allows Hitmontop to survive Latio’s Psychics and Psyshocks. Note the Careful nature; it was put there because it saved me more EVs than if I put enough EVs in Special Defense to get me the same stat with an Adamant nature. Hitmontop was surprisingly bulky through many of my matches and was best played to not only take hits for others but to add bulk to the team to shut down late game physical sweepers that threaten my team.

The Moveset on Hitmontop is something that I’m still not 100% sure on. Close Combat and Fake Out were a given, but for the other two slots, I had three different moves that I could have used. Sucker Punch, Helping Hand, and Feint were all moves that I was debating for the last three slots. I was pretty sure I wanted Feint on Top so that he could catch people off guard and I could get a very important KO or to attack through both the opponent’s Pokémon going for protect on the last turn of Trick Room to get a very important KO.

Sucker Punch and Helping Hand were both toss ups. Sucker Punch would let me hit Jellicent and is a stronger priority to hit low HP Pokémon with, while Helping Hand allowed my team to be even more offensive and get a few important KOs that could catch the opponent off guard. I opted for Sucker Punch on the final moveset because I felt like my team was already hyper offensive enough and a stronger priority was something that was too good to pass up. While Hitmontop was one of the last Pokémon I added to the team, he was used nearly every match I had in my battles and was a very important part of the team.

Team Synergies

These were some of my favorite leads/team combinations that I felt worked the best together through my practice and during the major.

politoed + kingdra
Politoed + Kingdra

This was my go-to lead most of the time. This lead really helped to get as much off the field as possible. It worked the best when the opponent was pretty weak to Water and didn’t have a Storm Drain Pokémon to absorb my attacks. It was also a great way to handle leading Dragons such as Latios.

politoed + thundurus-therian
Politoed + Thundurus-T

This lead was probably the most offensive lead with the best coverage that I have on this team. It packs multiple attacks that can pretty much handle anything. With this lead alone, I get Fighting, Electric, Water, Ice, Grass, and Flying coverage. That is enough to handle most leads.

hitmontop + cresselia
Hitmontop + Cresselia

This was the speed controlling lead of my team. Hitmontop allowed Fake Out support so Cresselia was able to either set up a Trick Room or a Safeguard depending on if I had either slow or fast guys in the back. This lead was very bulky with Hitmontop’s Intimidate helping add to Cresselia’s already bulky defenses.

hitmontop + kingdra and politoed
Hitmontop + Kingdra, Politoed

This was a very common lead that I used in order to counter Thundurus or to just get up a Substitute. If I felt the urge to set up a Substitute, I used this lead to get it up. I had to make sure that Politoed was in the back so that I could switch him in turn 2 to get the Rain-boosted Muddy Water or Swift Swim on turn 3.

hitmontop + cresselia scizor politoed
Hitmontop + Cresselia, Scizor, Politoed

This was another combination that I loved to use. It was the Trick Room variant of my team. If I played somebody in a best 2 of 3 set, I used this strategy game 2 most of the time. I took advantage of this team’s ability to run half Trick Room if the opponent had fairly fast guys, meaning that they would have had to have most of their guys faster than base 70 out of Trick Room. That way, Scizor, Politoed, and Hitmontop could outspeed most of their team.

The Team in Action

Here’s a best 2 of 3 set I had against Red Striker in round 3 of the Major. Lucky for me, my team had an amazing team matchup against his. The only thing I was very weak to was Thundurus which I was able to handle game 1. Game 2 was much harder because I was stuck where I had some slower guys against his Thundurus which didn’t really go in my favor. This set of matches is the perfect example of the offensive momentum that this team carries.



Article image created by ryuzaki and used with permission by Nugget Bridge. See more of ryuzaki’s artwork on deviantART.


About the Author

started playing competitive VGC in 2012. He now looks at VGC as not only a competition, but a great way to meet up with friends and meet new people who share the same interests as him. Outside of Pokemon, Mrbopper is studying Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech Univeristy



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