VGC VGC 2017 team

[Justin Rinehimer]

Introduction: Ladies and Gents, I'm relatively new to VGC so i just wanted to run my team by you.
Through watching matches and practicing on showdown, I've noticed weather (at least at this point in the Meta) is very important, so I chose Sand as my counter to the other three.


Gigalith @ Rockium Z
Ability: Sand Stream
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 12 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Rock Slide
- Heavy Slam
- Wide Guard
- Protect
Basic: My weather setter. Gigalith is the second slowest of the bunch so its guarunteed to get Sand up against everyone except Torkoal. In that case, I bring Gigalith in the back.
Spreads: 244 HP to maximize longevity and Max Sdef/Sassy nature since its Physical defense is high enough already, although I am considering spreading that around a bit more. Min speed so i have something that can function in Trick Room.
Moves: I believe this could be a relatively standard moveset - Rock Slide for STAB, Heavy Slam to hit Fairies (I can't imagine how much that would hurt), Wide Guard and Protect for obvious reasons.


Tapu Bulu @ Grassium Z
Ability: Grassy Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Leech Seed
- Horn Leech
- Wood Hammer
- Protect
Basic: One of two Tapus on my team, I like how hard this guy hits, Z-Bloom Doom does a stupid ammount of damage.
Spread: Relatively straight forward. Max attack so it hits as hard as possible.
Moves: Leech Seed+Horn Leech+Terrain recovery helps it stay around for an obnoxiously long time, as long as you avoid taking strong Super Effective hits. Wood Hammer is to hit hard, and usually the recoil is recovered rather quickly.
Side note: Grassy Terrain helps weaken Garchomp's EQ significantly, which is a nice side effect.



Tapu Fini @ Waterium Z
Ability: Misty Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 52 HP / 52 Def / 156 SpA / 236 SpD / 12 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Swagger
- Hydro Pump
- Nature's Madness
- Protect
Basic: I know Tapu Fini is an odd choice, but during my practice rounds with this team, since everyone is so physically based, if my opponents started spamming burns, i was basically screwed.
Spreads: I really mixed around the EVs on this Pokemon to try and maximize it's defenses, coupled with my Intimidate user, it can stay around for a while. Plus it can piggy back off of rain teams.
Moves: Hydro Pump for STAB, does even more damage in rain. Nature's Madness to chunk the bulky mons of the meta *cough* Porygon2 *cough*
Swagger to use on my team while Misty Terrain is up, and i like to Swagger my opponents special attackers when its not up.

Arcanine @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 12 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Flamethrower
- Protect
- Snarl
Basic: I originally had Gyarados as my Intimidate user, but I found I was really week to Celesteela. So, in came Arcanine. I used Safety Goggles to prevent Sand damage, and Spore/Sleep Powder when i didnt bring Fini.
Spread: Pretty straight forward, Max speed so it can get a WoW off to cripple Mons like Chomp or Kartana even more.
Moves: Really nothing earth shattering here.



Kartana @ Assault Vest
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 52 Atk / 140 Def / 252 SpD / 52 Spe
Careful Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Sacred Sword
- Smart Strike
- Night Slash
Overview: I originally had Celesteela here, but he wasn't fun to play with. So I chose Kartana instead. And it still keeps its immunity to Sand.
Spread: I chose to use the AV plus max Sdef, unless it runs into a Fire Attack, it more than makes up for its awful Sdef. This piece of paper doesn't need much, if any, attack investment to hit hard. For example, 0 -Atk (0 IVs) Leaf Blade Kartana vs 252 HP/252+ Def Gastrodon is STILL an OHKO.
Moves: Leaf Blade and Smart Strike for STAB, Night Slash and Sacred Sword for coverage.

Stoutland @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Giga Impact
- Protect
- Wild Charge
- Return
Basic: Now I love this guy. I'm using Sand Rush to take advantage of sand, and Base 80 Speed outside sand outspeeds a lot of pokemon I come across with minimal investment.
Spread: Max Attack so it hits like a truck. 244 HP so it can take a couple hits. The left overs went into speed so it can win a couple speed ties here and there outside of sand.
Moves: Return for a strong STAB attack.
Wild Charge is for coverage: (the following calcs are all assuming max HP and max Def)
Vs Celesteela: 50% chance to 2HKO
Vs Tapu Fini: guaranteed 2HKO
Vs Toxapex: guaranteed 2HKO
Vs Golispod: guaranteed 2HKO
Vs Araquanid: guaranteed 2HKO
Giga Impact - the recharge turn admittedly sucks, but this moves straight up nukes a lot of threats, it's bailed me out a couple times.

Wel that's it, in open to changes and tips, obviously. Let me know what you think!! And i appreciate the constructive criticism in advance!!





Happy Connecting. Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy S® 5

 

[Sylveon Tank]

Love the sand team, I'm working on one myself.

I noticed a few things that would work better for me as a player.

You have 3 Z Crystals. I would recommend 1, maybe 2 under certain conditions.

Gigalith: I'd recommend putting much more into Atk, and making the Z Crystal Option Stone Edge. You want your Z Crystal to do some real damage.

A quick example: If Gigalith was burned (-2 Atk) and Intimidated (-1 Atk) you could still have a chance to OHKO a healthy Arcanine, if Arcanine was 252 Atk w/ Brave nature.

-3 252+ Atk Gigalith Continental Crush (180 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Arcanine: 168-198 (85.2 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

That's not something I'd recommend you actually calculate for, but I was just giving an example for what Z Crystals can do for you.

If you want Special Defense on your Gigalith I'd recommend using an Assault Vest and redoing your Calcs. That way you can spread your EVs out on more. Make sure you have the "sand" option checked when you are doing your Calcs because the Sandstorm boosts your SpD and that's what you should calc for.

Z Crystals for the Tapu's: If you're planning on bringing 2 different modes (For Example: Gigalith, Stoutland, Bulu, OR Fini, Arcanine, Kartana) then I could see how that would work. However, in extreme cases where you would want to bring the mons with the Z Crystals together you could run into some instances where you would have rather had an item then a crystal.

As far as Kartana goes, I don't think those EVs are optimal for what you want to actually do with it. Katana wants to get a KO, get a Beast Boost in Atk and Start OHKO Neutral and Resisted Hits. That is optimal Kartana 99.9% of the time. That won't work as well without more Attack.

You're going in the right direction with the Assault Vest Set. We just need to Optimize the EVs. Figure out which Special Attacking Pokemon are threats and EV for that.

As far as the Kartana vs Gastrodon Calc goes, Gastrodon is 4x Weak to grass. So, yes, Kartana's base stat + Stab will KO. Id do some more Calcs against Garchomp, Gyarados, etc.

Stoutland. Stoutland has a great niche spot on this team with Sand Rush. However, I would look at the Speed EVs again. Pheromosa seems a valid threat to Stoutland with access to High Jump Kick and a good Atk stat. I'd recommend outspeeding Pheromosa.

Pheromosa at Max Speed Jolly Nature is at 223 speed. If you give Adamant Stoutland 92 EVs in speed you get to 112. In Sand its doubled, so you hit 224. That lets you always outspeed unboosted Jolly Pheromosa in a Sandstorm.

Another thing I noticed with Stoutland- Giga Impact. Now, if you want a Nuke with Giga Impact, I'd recommend Normalium Z and use it under that circumstance. The recharge turn makes you extremely vulnerable, and the Z Crystal gives you WAY more power.

Also the Life Orb + Wild Charge is going to burn your Stoutland out of HP rather quickly. Stoutland isn't extremely bulky, so I'd be careful with that. The recoil from those two things plus the rest turn from Giga Impact can put you in a sticky spot.

ALL IN ALL:

I'd recommend these changes

Gigalith @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sand Stream
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 204 Atk / 60 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stone Edge
- Rock Slide
- Heavy Slam
- Earthquake

This will allow Gigalith to hit Extremely Hard, and have Special Bulk for Pelipper, or Golduck. You may want to add some extra EVs for Physical Defense and take some from HP if you're worried about Araquanid, Gyarados, Kartana or Garchomp. I'd adjust for what you need on your team. Find the threats.

Tapu Bulu @ Lum Berry/Grassy Seed
Ability: Grassy Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Leech Seed
- Horn Leech
- Wood Hammer
- Protect

I like this Bulu set. I'd recommend changing the item. It doesn't necessarily have to be one of those 2 and you can still Opt for the Z Crystal if your team needs it.

Tapu Fini @ Leftovers
Ability: Misty Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 52 HP / 52 Def / 156 SpA / 236 SpD / 12 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Swagger
- Hydro Pump
- Scald
- Protect

I also really like this Tapu Fini Set, and I believe it could have a niche for your team if you play it right. Swagger under Misty Terrain is a nice niche in itself and could have some usage on your Physical team. I'd change the item to Leftovers most likely. I'd also add Scald for Natures Madness. If you're not in Misty Terrain you would love to Burn a Garchomp. I don't know what your EVs really do, so I can't say much for them. If they were calc'd for the Z crystal then you may have to adjust accordingly if you go with this set.

Arcanine @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 132 SpA / 132 Spe
Bold/Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Flamethrower
- Protect
- Snarl

I also love this set and believe it could have some good usage on your team as well. The first thing I noticed about this one is that you said you wanted to get a Will O Wisp off on Garchomp or Kartana. The thing about that is Kartana and Garchomp both have higher Base Speeds. Garchomp is 102, and Kartana is 109. They are most likely almost always going to be Max Speed and Boosted Nature. So that means you can't outspeed them period. You can Speed tie if The Kartana was a neutral nature but then you're wasting Stats on a Speed Tie which is a gamble. Arcanine is bulky enough to take anything Kartana throws at it and ALWAYS OHKO Kartana even if by the Off Chance it was 252 SpD w/ Careful Nature and Assault Vest. You would still OHKO with 0 SpA.

0 SpA Arcanine Flamethrower vs. 4 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Kartana: 180-216 (133.3 - 160%) -- guaranteed OHKO

So I would figure out what you want to outspeed, adjust with that and Calc the rest of the EVs into your bulk and SpA. The EVs I put in the set above is not what I would recommend. I just split the difference because I didn't want to make the actual set because I don't know the team as well.

Kartana @ Assault Vest
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Sacred Sword
- Smart Strike
- Night Slash

I personally feel like this would work much better, but what you can do to get more useful Special Bulk out of Kartana is calc some resisted Special Attacks (Scald from Pelipper, etc..) and go from there. If you want to do that, I wouldn't take a ton out of Kartana's ATK stat. Kartana's moveset doesn't have any high base power moves. Which means he needs his ATK to still output High damage. So to go more Bulky, I'd recommend finding what certain Mons you need to outspeed and pull from that. Do some Atk calcs as well and figure out if you can pull any out of that, and then work towards the SpD from there.

Stoutland @ Normalium Z
Ability: Sand Rush
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 164 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Giga Impact
- Protect
- Wild Charge
- Return

This is what I would change based on what I said earlier in the post. Normalium Z to max out your Giga Impact, and enough speed to Outspeed Jolly Pheromosa in Sand.

I hope I was able to help! Good luck with the Sand Team.. Like I said, I'm working on my own sand team. I love them, and think they could find a spot at Worlds this year.

EDIT: You will have to find a spot for the Assault Vest, whether you would want Gigalith or Kartana to have it. With Gigalith- In the sand, You would still do really well against Pelipper etc at 60 SpD without Assault Vest, that's how I run mine. you could swap out Earthquake or Heavy Slam for Protect/Wide Guard if you went that route.

 

[Justin Rinehimer]

Sylveon Tank, thanks for your reply!! As you know, teams are always a work in progress, so I like getting feed back and bouncing ideas back and forth. Example: It didn't even register that I had 3 z-crystals on my team...and that's a rather silly oversight on my end.

I really like all your ideas for changes, so I hope you dont take anything personal when I counter some of your points. I'm defintely gonna try some of them out.

Gigalith:
I have been considering spreading EVs jnto attack and defense, having a second opinion just confirms my idea. I was running Stone Edge for a while, but after I used the z-crystal, I found myself missing too many attacks, so I switched to rock slide.

Tapu Bulu
I think I will change the Item on this guy. I dont expect any one is really running a different spread for this guy.

Tapu Fini
I really have him for two reasons, to protect my team from burns. And to hit with a hard hydo pump/hydro vortex when some one brings rain. I really need to run some harder calcs for the EV spread, but so far it survives hits that i see a lot of other Fini's don't. (Something i forgot to mention is i made this team at work amd been playing on showdown, so time to run super in depth calcs were limited lol).

Arcanine
Thanks for letting me know about those speed calcs, I guess i didn't realize that!! I like you spread better!!!

Kartana
I'm gonna try this too, I'll run some calcs against Tapu Lele and Xurkitree and see how many Sdef EVs i need to add to take hits fr them with relative ease.

Stoutland
I'm really happy you didn't rip me about this guy, because I like him a lot, and he seems to be underrated. I have been running into a lot of Pheromosas as of late, so I'm definitely gonna take you spread into account. She is the only Mon thay has given Stoutland trouble. I actually noticed something myself after I posted this. If i get into a one on one situation with a Lighting Rod Marowak, I automatically lose, none of Stoutland's current moves can hit Marowak...and that's REALLY bad, and it happened in 3 out of 5 games...so I'm definitely gonna look into his moves. I'm probably gonna get rid of Wild Charge since I have Arcanine to cover Celesteela and add Crunch.

All in all, I think if I take some of your ideas and add them to mine, it can be a REALLY good team!! Thanks for the reply!! And Merry Christmas if you don't see this before then!!

 

[Sylveon Tank]

Sylveon Tank, thanks for your reply!! As you know, teams are always a work in progress, so I like getting feed back and bouncing ideas back and forth. Example: It didn't even register that I had 3 z-crystals on my team...and that's a rather silly oversight on my end.

I really like all your ideas for changes, so I hope you dont take anything personal when I counter some of your points. I'm defintely gonna try some of them out.

Gigalith:
I have been considering spreading EVs jnto attack and defense, having a second opinion just confirms my idea. I was running Stone Edge for a while, but after I used the z-crystal, I found myself missing too many attacks, so I switched to rock slide.

Tapu Bulu
I think I will change the Item on this guy. I dont expect any one is really running a different spread for this guy.

Tapu Fini
I really have him for two reasons, to protect my team from burns. And to hit with a hard hydo pump/hydro vortex when some one brings rain. I really need to run some harder calcs for the EV spread, but so far it survives hits that i see a lot of other Fini's don't. (Something i forgot to mention is i made this team at work amd been playing on showdown, so time to run super in depth calcs were limited lol).

Arcanine
Thanks for letting me know about those speed calcs, I guess i didn't realize that!! I like you spread better!!!

Kartana
I'm gonna try this too, I'll run some calcs against Tapu Lele and Xurkitree and see how many Sdef EVs i need to add to take hits fr them with relative ease.

Stoutland
I'm really happy you didn't rip me about this guy, because I like him a lot, and he seems to be underrated. I have been running into a lot of Pheromosas as of late, so I'm definitely gonna take you spread into account. She is the only Mon thay has given Stoutland trouble. I actually noticed something myself after I posted this. If i get into a one on one situation with a Lighting Rod Marowak, I automatically lose, none of Stoutland's current moves can hit Marowak...and that's REALLY bad, and it happened in 3 out of 5 games...so I'm definitely gonna look into his moves. I'm probably gonna get rid of Wild Charge since I have Arcanine to cover Celesteela and add Crunch.

All in all, I think if I take some of your ideas and add them to mine, it can be a REALLY good team!! Thanks for the reply!! And Merry Christmas if you don't see this before then!!

No problem at all, and yes Stoutland is very under rated! Sure he doesn't hit super hard but he has a great moveset and ability for a Sand Team. Look into Psychic Fangs and all that good stuff. I think Psychic Fangs is a good choice on this certain team, but just check out his move pool, it's relatively decent!

Merry Christmas!

 

[EonBen]

Hey, just wanted to quickly drop in and say I really like the idea of this team. Something I'd recomend you'd do though is give the stoutland a lot more speed so it can outsleed common scarfers like Tapu Lele. Another thing you could try out on it is After You. After you is a move that lets the targeted pokemon move, well, after you. In other words, in sand stoutland would be one of the fastest things alive, and this way you could let a slower mon like bulu or gigaglith get a move in really fast which might get you some important knockouts. Either way, I'll be testing this team with some adjustments and report back, cheers.

edit: Another thing would be if you're packing Giga Impact mainly for that one time Nuke with Normalium-Z, you might wanna consider Last Resort, both that and Giga Impact have the same BP of 200 when using it for Breakneck Blitz and when you've used all your other moves you'll be able to use it as a no draw back 140 BP move.