Hold The Mushroom!

[NidoRich]

Hello all, last Saturday I attended the official 2011VGC in Birmingham only to be knocked out in Round 2 by a single mistake. I believe I should ask you all and see what I could have done to improve my team. This team is all caught and bred in game with no RNG'ing involved, but in any case I would appreciate and advice and tips that people would be willing to give me in order for me to improve my game.

Volcarona 'Ifrit' w) Focus Sash
Timid [Flame Body]
EV's: 4 HP / 252 Sp.Atk / 252 Spd
IV's: 30/18/25/27/31/31
Attacks: Bug Buzz / Heat Wave / Rage Powder / Protect

The purpose of Ifrit is to give it's partner a chance to breath and either get a free hit or get a turn to boost. The reason behind using Volc and not my nemesis Amoongus is simply because few would expect a set like this on a Volcarona. It is intended to lead with either Haxorus or Terrakion giving them a turn to swords and increase in power. Though only problem with the set is it's EV's but this is simply because I intended it to be a basic Sp.Atk'er but then changed the strategy slightly so I could fool a few people. Focus Sash is a must to last a turn of 2 attacks.

Terrakion 'Kjata' w) Life Orb
Jolly [Justified]
EV's: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
IV's: 22/21/22/26/5/27
Attacks: Swords Dance / Protect / Rock Slide / Close Combat

Terrakion: The power house of the 5th gen. An already high base attack and speed and with a justified-beat up combo going on it can have a god-tier attack level. The purpose of this team member is to hit fast and hit hard while it is still on the field. With the life orb it can have an even higher attack power, Jolly is a better nature for this set to give it more speed than it's Adamant counterpart.

Jellicent 'Tonberry' w) Ice Gem
Modest [Water Absorb]
EV's: 252 HP / 104 Def / 48 Sp.Atk / 66 Sp.Def / 40 Spd
IV's: 31/16/12/23/30/31
Attacks: Psychic / Scald / Blizzard / Recover

My Jellicent has an unusual EV set that's for sure but I have found that it is pretty useful and works majority of the time. It's main purpose for being in the team is a counter to Mach Punch Conk and the genies, giving Conk's a psychic and giving the genies a gem-boosted Blizzard (risky I know). Scald is there for a STAB and Recover gives reasoning itself.

Haxorus 'Eden' w) Haban Berry
Jolly [Mold Breaker]
EV's: 24 HP / 232 Atk / 252 Spd
IV's: 30/28/12/0/19/31
Attacks: Swords Dance / Dragon Claw / Rock Slide / Earthquake

Haxorus is built to take out other Haxorus, Hydreigon and many others that won't be able to take it out after it has danced. The berry speaks for itself..to outlast a dragon attack (unless it's a crit). And the set is a basic attack set to attack it's foes.

Whimsicott 'Pandemona' w) Occa Berry
Timid [Prankster]
EV's: 248 HP / 12 Sp.Def / 248 Spd
IV's: 15/7/19/31/26/31
Attacks: Tailwind / Beat Up / Light Screen / Energy Ball

The main reason for Whim to be involved is to trick people into believing I will be initiating the TerraWhim beat up combo, then not actually using it. I sometimes involve it to come in after a lead is taken out so that I can gain a Tailwind and possible Screen. It is defensive enough to take hit's and with the berry it can take a fire hit off the bat.

Krookodile 'Fenrir' w) Choice Scarf
Adamant [Intimidate]
EV's: 248 Atk / 8 Def / 252 Spd
IV's: 30/22/24/24/26/31
Attacks: Earthquake / Aerial Ace / Crunch / Dragon Claw

Scarfed Krook? AA? What has he been smoking you may be asking but every attack and item has a reason behind it. Bring the Krook in on an advantage or when an ally faints and it brings it's auto Intimidate into action, the scarf means it will outspeed anything un-scarfed and give it a turn to attack with a weapon of choice. Now AA.....an attack with base damage of 60, as a non-lead it should be looking at a battle-hardened fighting type not a full health meaning it's AA should take out the remaining health without an attack back at it. It's only flaw is it's lack of a Rock Slide to deal with the fliers and such.

Now I welcome any advice and tips that could be given about my team.

 

[Lucien Lachance]

Aside from the fact that you should have RNG abused to get good IV's and such, I'll do my best.

Naturally your going to want to pair Whimsicott up with Terrakion so there's little point to running Swords Dance on Terrakion when you can use it for another move. Quick Attack specifically for clean-up kills.

I would run Ice Beam >> Blizzard on Jellicent has even though Blizzard hits both pokemon, it hits less than Ice beam would and rarely are you in a situation where both pokemon out are weak to the same move. I would also use Shadow Ball >> Psychic has Shadow Ball is more useful against Trick Room teams while Psychic is quite lacking.

I personally would have run Dragon Dance on Haxorus because he's just outsped by so much. Plus you really don't need a set-up user in the VGC's unless it's TerraCott. I would remove Swords Dance with something like protect. Actually, I would just remove Haxorus. His performance is luckluster. Unless scarfed but...

You need to run Taunt on Whimsicott. I don't even think you should run Energy Ball. It's support movepool is just so wide.

You should really run Rock Slide >> Aerial Ace on Krookodile.

Ice also runs through you're team hitting 1/2 of it for SE damage.

Hope I helped.

 

[NidoRich]

Ok I'll respond bit-by-bit.

RNG-The only way I'll have an RNG'd member on my team is if I get someone else to do one for me.

I did have Terrakion with the quick attack but I found that everyone that's any good predicts the TerraCott combo and counters it appropriately.

Yeah I was really racking my brain over IceBeam or Blizzard but chose blizzard solely because it could hit both for some good damage. Luckily I haven't faced a good TR team so the choice of Psychic was to take care of all the fighting-types in the new gen.

I was thinking DD but the option of raising it's attack by 2 stages just lured me in to be fair and with it's jolly nature I just completely forgot about DD on him. However I found him to be quite useful when facing his Dragon counter-part and other various threats.

The reason it has EnergyBall is because of me being to safe in terms of when it may get Taunted himself, leaving it with nothing but a Beat-Up to attack with.

I think I was blinded by all the fighting types and grass types lurking around in the VGC's and made sure he had a counter to them.....I have since realized that it would do better with a Rock Slide in it's arsenal.

As for the Ice Weakness, I would hope my team had enough Rock moves to take out any solid ice types and other moves to take out any other icebeam users. I also found out that I fail against any Amoongus unless I'm lucky, too bad I couldn't get my Sawsbuck ready to counter it.

All in all, yes you did help so I thank you for taking your time to look through my team

 

[Lucien Lachance]

People will gladly RNG your team for you. You would just have to look around and ask those people. I of course had the time 30 minutes before I went to bed the night before to make my team. :D

The one downside to TerraCott. Unless you kept them in the back has a joke to fake people out. I actually ran Amoonguss and Reuniclus in the back to bluff Trick Room. Too late now however.

Question... How is Haxorus useful against Hydreigon? Hydreigon outspeed, unless you run scarf, and OHKO's all varients, unless they run something like 138 SpD EVs, and comes out on top with -2SpA. Please explain.

Whimsicott doesn't need to bother with taunt. You have priority and outspeed the Genies. Taunt them and prevent them from setting up tailwind or rain.

Ice is probably the most common type seen at the VGC's. You can't really come back and win if they have a scarfed Vanilluxe who runs through your team.

 

[Unreality]

People will gladly RNG your team for you. You would just have to look around and ask those people. I of course had the time 30 minutes before I went to bed the night before to make my team. :D

The one downside to TerraCott. Unless you kept them in the back has a joke to fake people out. I actually ran Amoonguss and Reuniclus in the back to bluff Trick Room. Too late now however.

Question... How is Haxorus useful against Hydreigon? Hydreigon outspeed, unless you run scarf, and OHKO's all varients, unless they run something like 138 SpD EVs, and comes out on top with -2SpA. Please explain.

Whimsicott doesn't need to bother with taunt. You have priority and outspeed the Genies. Taunt them and prevent them from setting up tailwind or rain.

Ice is probably the most common type seen at the VGC's. You can't really come back and win if they have a scarfed Vanilluxe who runs through your team.

Just wanna say that this is kinda wrong.

Terracotta needs to be countered by every team, yeah. Beat Up Terrakion is great to fake out; bringing out an Amoonguss against a prepared non-Beat Up Terrakion set can be fatal. Taunt is your choice; He has tailwind to counter tailwind and nobody runs rain. Light Screen is good; I might run Coba Berry because Whimsicott will be hit with a lot of Flying attacks, but it's your choice entirely.

Also, your @Haban and Jolly Haxorus will outspeed all Modest Hydregion and also it will outlive all but the (nonexistent) Haban Hydregion.

Ice is not common. At all. It's super effective against most of the pokemon, sure. But it is not common. Scarf Vanilluxe might come around once in a while, but for the most part, your main source of Ice moves will come from Ice Beam on Jellicent and HP Ice on Thundurus. However, the three other of your pokemon are so good against Ice that it would be a bad idea to change anything against it.

Solid team! I might change Blizzard to Ice Beam on Jellicent but it's entirely your choice.

 

[NidoRich]

@Lucien
I've noticed that some people will gladly do some RNG'ing because for them it would be very simple (I don't do it mainly because I wanted to see how I fared and because my stupid PC won't load it).

What I did was placed them next to one another so people thought I would be running it, worked in my matches, just to bad I didn't have any luck.

A Modest Hyd will be slower than my Jolly Hax so it would be faster than them in that regard (unless scarfed). And a Timid Hyd would not be able to defeat Hax due to the Haban berry and the effects of the Rage Powder, meaning the Hax would be hit with the next turn D-Meteor with a -2 Stage on Sp.Atk.

Yes Whim would outspeed the Genies but if I were to taunt the wrong pokemon out then I would be taunted in succession leaving my Whim with only a beat up, and against a Terrakion would mean big trouble. I can see your point about taking a taunt on Whim though.

I must say that I didn't see a single Ice-type in the Masters at Birmingham, mainly because Mr.Ice Lolly is just too frail (even with superior speed) and Mr.Ice Bear is just not a good selection at all.

@Unreality
I noticed that everyone was packing a counter to TerraCott (or trying to) so I knew instantly that faking them with it would be my best bet, also I hate Amoongus because it murders most of my team :(. As for taunt, I may just get rid of the E-Ball and switch if he gets taunted, I was also mulling over whether to give in the Coba or Occa but decided on Occa because of the amount of Rock Slide'rs in my team.

I had Blizzard in there because it could do great damage against both foes (if it hits) and for the most part it actually succeeded except on one occasion. But I will probably switch Ice Beam in simply because it would guarantee a hit against my chosen foe.

 

[Lucien Lachance]

@Lucien
A Modest Hyd will be slower than my Jolly Hax so it would be faster than them in that regard (unless scarfed). And a Timid Hyd would not be able to defeat Hax due to the Haban berry

Seldom will an experienced VGC player run a non-scarfed modest Hydreigon.

And actually, timid Hydreigon WITHOUT a Life Orb OHKO's Haban berry Haxorus. From a level 50 Hydreigon without Life Orb to a level 50 Haxours with Haban Berry, it does 155 - 183, a guaranteed KO unless they run additional hit points.

So yes, Hydreigon will outspeed and then OHKO you.

 

[NidoRich]

A Modest Hyd will be slower than my Jolly Hax so it would be faster than them in that regard (unless scarfed). And a Timid Hyd would not be able to defeat Hax due to the Haban berry and the effects of the Rage Powder, meaning the Hax would be hit with the next turn D-Meteor with a -2 Stage on Sp.Atk.

Next time don't miss half the explanation please.

 

[Lucien Lachance]

But you're assuming Volcarona will ALWAYS be out with Haxorus.

 

[NidoRich]

No, I'm simply explaining that if it were to happen then Haxorus would simply shrug off the attack.

Anyways I'm not one to start arguments and such so......Cake?

 

[Lucien Lachance]

CAKE!??! Totally bro.
Sorry bout the whole rant deal.

 

[NidoRich]

Yum yum yum :)
Likewise man