Reports

Published on June 2nd, 2015 | by LightCore

15

Veggie-Cide: 3 Consecutive Premier Challenge Wins

Hello! My name is Nicholas Borghi, but you may know me as LightCore. I’m back today to discuss my recent and highly-anticipated team that managed to win three consecutive Premier Challenges earlier this season.

Ever since the format change, I have not been able to go to a single ORAS event. This was mainly due to life getting in the way. I knew that the Brooklyn PC would be my first event back, and as such I wanted to Top Cut very badly. That was my main goal, but I really wanted to prove myself in this new format. To top it off, Brooklyn New York has a highly competitive scene meaning that the tournament would be a real test of my abilities.

So, here’s my team!

Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 164 HP / 148 Atk / 36 Def / 60 SpD / 100 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Protect
– Dragon Dance
– Return
– Earthquake/Roost

Right from the start I knew I wanted to use Mega Salamence. I actually started drafting this team during PARCC testing because the test was stupid and I was bored.

Return is something many people have questioned me about. I personally believe that Double-Edge is a counter-intuitive move to run on bulkier variants of Mega Salamence or Mega Kangaskhan. It ruins your ability to survive and often makes you KO yourself unnecessarily. Return preserves your health and provides more consistency when battling. I would rather know that I can safely attack and know Salamence will be around next turn.

The other moves were just filler. Earthquake was a move I only used twice all day at Brooklyn, and when I did use it, it failed to OHKO a Blade form Aegislash at -1, which I found pathetic. It also failed to OHKO a Heatran when I was a neutral. Roost was a move I didn’t use much either at the Blue Bell PC; although I did use it once in the finals so I could guarantee a win.

The EV spread was also something a lot of people inquired about. I wanted the power of Adamant, as I would be setting up a Dragon Dance most of the time to help my Speed anyway. I added 100 EVs into Speed so that I could out speed max Speed neutral base 100’s such as Adamant Kangaskhan and Charizard-Y. The HP EVs put me at a number of 16n-1 to reduce burn damage; I figured that Mega-Salamence would be a common target for burns due to the pressure it exerts (not literally, Intimidate is better anyway).

The Defense EVs allowed me to take an Adamant max attack Life Orbed Mamoswine’s Ice Shard, while the Special Defense EVs allow me to take a 132 Sp. Atk Suicune’s Ice Beam. The remaining EVs were simply thrown into Attack to maximize Salamence’s damage output.

Clefairy @ Eviolite
Ability: Friend Guard
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 204 Def / 4 SpA / 60 SpD / 4 Spe
EVs: 236 HP / 212 Def / 4 SpA / 44 SpD / 12 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
– Protect
– Follow Me
– Moonblast
– Thunder Wave

This slot used to be a Clefable, but I replaced it because of Clefairy’s additional bulk, plus it still met my team’s need for redirection. Many people have asked me why I didn’t use Helping Hand over Thunder Wave. It’s because I never found myself using it during testing. Every time I might have used Helping Hand I always thought that I could be doing something better with Clefairy that turn. Up to this point the team also lacked Speed Control, so Thunder Wave seemed like the best option. I barely used Thunder Wave either, but it helped me in more situations than Helping Hand would have.

The spread is simple, it can take a Bisharp’s Iron Head and an Aegislash’s Flash Cannon most of the time. I eventually added 8 extra Speed EVs to avoid speed tying minimum speed Scrafty, which I had seen rising in popularity the week after my Brooklyn PC win.

Heatran @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 4 Def / 60 SpA / 116 SpD / 84 Spe
EVs: 172 HP / 52 Def / 76 SpA / 4 SpD / 204 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
– Protect
– Earth Power
– Heat Wave
– Flash Cannon

This slot used to be an Aegislash, but I was desperate for some fire coverage. Because I still wanted a Steel type, Heatran was the obvious choice. Life Orb Heatran was a good meta call because it’s able to deal significant damage to a large portion of the Metagame. It was also my check to Sylveon, which runs rampant through my team otherwise. I honestly can’t remember for the life (orb) of me what the first EV spread does, so I will only be elaborating on the second one listed.

The second spread allows me to take a -1 Life Orb Terrakion’s Close Combat, which I considered important because Terrakion has a decent match up against my team. The Sp. Atk investment allows me to OHKO 252 HP / 4 Sp. Def Mega Mawile with Heat Wave, and the Speed allows me to out-speed max speed Adamant Bisharp which I had a bit of trouble with during the Brooklyn PC.

Scrafty @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 36 Atk / 164 Def / 4 SpA / 60 SpD
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 164 Def / 4 SpA / 84 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Fake Out
– Snarl
– Drain Punch
– Knock Off

My team’s star of the show. When building, I added it right after adding Aegislash, so I was looking for something that resisted Dark type attacks with access to Fake out and Intimidate. Scrafty met these requirements exactly.

I feel like all my moves were standard, but lets talk about the elephant in the set. Snarl was a move I chose because I wanted more power control. It helped with so many match-ups, and even won me some key end game situations where my opponent just couldn’t damage Scrafty as it chipped away at their health with Drain Punch and Knock Off.

The first spread is what I’ll be talking about, even though they are essentially the same thing. Basically, I wanted as much bulk as possible. The HP and Sp. Def allow me to take a Max Sp. Atk Charizard-Y’s Overheat in the Sun. The HP and Defense allow me to take a Terrakion’s Close Combat even without the Intimidate. The Attack EVs I initially gave it served no real purpose, so I took the majority of them out and added them to HP and Sp.Def just to make it bulkier.

Terrakion @ Focus Sash
Ability: Justified
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Protect
– Double Kick
– Close Combat
– Rock Slide

Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
Level: 50
Evs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Protect
– Rock Slide
– Iron Head
– Earthquake

Very standard Terrakion. I chose Double Kick over other options such as Quick Guard, Taunt or Stone Edge as I found them all underwhelming during testing and never used any of them anyway. Double Kick was chosen because it helped my Bisharp match-up, something I had trouble with seeing as I had double Intimidate. Focus Sash was to help me win Terrakion mirrors.

Eventually however, I swapped Terrakion out for Excadrill. I added it mainly because Sylveon and other Fairies were becoming a pain to face even with Heatran. Said Fairies got extremely annoying to deal with, so I adapted my team as a result. I went Jolly with max Speed so I could out-speed max Speed base 100 Pokemon such as Adamant Mega Kangaskhan and Modest Mega Charizard. By replacing Terrakion, my Charizard matchup also suffered. While I would have loved using Adamant Excadrill, I simply couldn’t because Jolly provided more positive match-ups for my team.

Thundurus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Volt Absorb
Level: 50
EVs: 76 HP / 252 SpA / 180 Spe
EVs: 68 HP / 252 SpA / 188 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
– Thunderbolt
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Grass Knot
– Volt Switch

Continuing the trend, I received some questions about my use of Thundurus-Therian. It was basically my Landorus-Therian check. It was EVd to out speed max speed choice Landorus-T, assuming they’re Adamant. I upped the speed investment for the next weekend to allow me to out speed Mega Sceptile and the like too. The moves are very simple, Grass Knot allowed me to take out Swampert, but apparently it doesn’t get the guaranteed one shot on most Gastrodon. Volt Switch was for momentum and to help me get out of bad situations.

Overall, I really enjoyed this team. It had just the right combination of interesting moves and items that would help me in a best of one situation, paired with the consistency that I believed would help a great deal in best of three matches. The team has some glaring weaknesses, but if played correctly they can be overlooked and dealt with easily. It’s quite a fun team to use, and I suggest you try it out sometime. As it was, I ran into 16 iterations of my team on Showdown! within the first few days after the Brooklyn PC!

Thank Yous:

• Jeremy (Serapis): Thank you for being a great team building partner. You helped with several of the team decisions and are just an awesome friend.
• Luka (Zephyl), Jake (Pokebeys), Mihrab (MegaChar10): Great training partners, and fun to talk to on Skype.
• The Imouto’s (Jon, Simon, Chuppa and Angel): I didn’t have too many Master division friends, and they have just been awesome. Great friends to have at events, and so much fun to listen to when they talk about my weird plays.

A thread will be posted eventually with all my battle videos.

Thanks for reading!

Some quick pictures from the events! My thanks to Jen Bamo for allowing me to use these pictures in the article!

About the Author

LightCore LightCore is a 15 year old Master who is looking to go all the way. I have had a pretty pathetic past but I think that the Masters Division is my time to shine. I constantly try to balance practice with my swimming practice and Boy Scouts. I'm currently going for my Eagle rank and are working on my Eagle Scout Service Project

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