Today i was inspired by the Articuno team that won a VGC regional and i decided to create a Glaceon team for VGC Regulation H. This is one of my favorite teams that i've ever made. I feel like it's a pretty solid team lead by a lame player lol. I want to explain the idea of the team and how it works, althought it's pretty evident that is a snow team.
Articuno 2 (Glaceon) @ Choice Specs
Level: 50
Modest Nature
Ability: Snow Cloak
EVs: 76 HP / 52 Def / 128 SpA / 252 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
Alluring Voice
Blizzard
Freeze-Dry
Shadow Ball
As you can see, Glaceon is the star of the team. Under Snow and the Aurora Veil support that Ninetales provides is nearly inmortal thanks to its solid bulk and the Snow Cloak ability that let it dodge some attacks and fish some RNG. It can survive some absurd hits like Adamant Sneasler Close Combat and hit really, really hard if it gets a helping hand from Ninetales Alola, like OHKOing Primarina with Freeze-Dry or Gholdengo with Shadow Ball. Althought i recommend this options only as a last resort, if its possible it's better that you handle the annoying pokemons with its partners because you will have to reposition Glaceon and that can be pretty hard, specially in the late game. Alluring Voice is an option against a setup sweeper or for some specific pokemon like Kommo-o or Hydreigon.
The main role that Glaceon finds there is a sweeper/late-game cleaner. The main strategy around this pokemon and the team is overwhelm the opponent with as many Blizzards as possible, and beat the pokemon that resists Ice with its partners. Its a simple game plan, but also devastating under the right circumstances. Tera Ice Choice Specs Helping Hand boosted Blizzard is no joke and you should be really scared of.
My friend veil (Ninetales-Alola) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Snow Warning
Level: 50
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 228 HP / 36 Def / 20 SpA / 76 SpD / 148 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Helping Hand
Aurora Veil
Encore
Icy Wind
I used a pretty standard set of defensive Ninetales-Alola for this, because the role is a support pokemon for the team that can set Aurora Veil, use Icy Wind for speed control, Encore for disturbing rivals and Helping Hand for making Glaceon an overkill machine that can destroy nearly everything with it's moveset. Nothing too special or extraordinary
Wish eternatus (Dragalge) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Adaptability
Level: 50
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 156 HP / 212 SpA / 140 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Draco Meteor
Sludge Wave
Thunder
Focus Blast
Dragalge seems like a weird choice because it's not the most powerful or the most bulky pokemon of the format, but it has some qualities that i think that are valuable for my team. First, it's Poison/Dragon typing let's it resist many attacks of powerful threats like Rillaboom or Sneasler, and with the AV is enough bulky that is capable of taking very well some supereffective hits like Archaludon's Draco Meteor and Ursaluna-Bloodmoon's Earth Power and hitting hard with moves like Focus Blast or it's own Draco Meteor. Thunder is a very specific move for Electric coverage, but it is a very powerful but unreliable way in other matchups to punish rain teams.
I find valuable it's defensive profile, althought i think that it is the Pokémon that I would be most willing to change from the team, because it's damage output isn't that high without Adaptability, so it's more unflexible when i need to terastalize it, but i'm not changing it for now because i'm not sure of what could fullfil it's role in my ream. I recommend changing Sludge Wave for Sludge Bomb.
Cat killer (Gallade) @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Sharpness
Level: 50
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
Sacred Sword
Psycho Cut
Wide Guard
Trick Room
Gallade is a very threatening pokemon thanks to it's ability Sharpness, and the reason why i'm using it is because it makes much better my matchup against certain cores and teams, specially Psyspam, thanks to it's support capabilities. Sacred Sword and Psycho Cut are no brainers to use it because they are extremely strong, but Wide Guard and Trick Room aren't that obvious why.
Wide Guard let's me block movements that can put the team in danger like Heat Wave from Volcarona or Make it Rain from Gholdengo. You will also notice that i'm not having a speed lowering nature or 0 speed IVs. This is because Gallade isn't intended to be used as part of a hard TR core, but as a deterrent of TR and a way to punish opposing Tailwind, and because the rest of the team isn't the fastest thing in the world it can bait to some teams to play under the menace of TR, and when the opponent thinks that they are safe because Incineroar or Ursaluna-Bloodmoon outspeeds the cat killer, BOOM SACRED SWORD IN YOUR FACE BABYYYY. This is not a situation when i want to use Trick Room every time, but is a situational tool that can be very useful sometimes. If you don't want to use Trick Room in Gallade you can also use the movement Night Slash, which synergizes well with Tera Dark, specially since it forces that many ghost terastatizations.
Tera Dark is specifically for Psyspam archetypes, since they are relying on the Unburden Snealser/Choice Scarf Indeedee, and guess who can oneshot your stupid Dire Claw machine onto the stratosphere with Psycho Cut. This pokemon also puts a lot of pressure onto the Maushold-Archaludon teams, because if you try to terastalize your Maushold and redirect the attacks you will get a Psycho Cut in the face, and if Maushold wants to use Population Bomb on Archaludon it won't matter because no matter the amount of defense boost that you have, you're always getting destroyed by a Sacred Sword.
Overall, Gallade is an offensive pokemon with defensive utility that is meant to help to cleaning up the path for Glaceon for finishing it the team.
Gastritis (Gastrodon-East) (M) @ Wiki Berry
Ability: Storm Drain
Level: 50
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 16 Def / 140 SpA / 100 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Earth Power
Muddy Water
Protect
Recover
Gastrodon is a pokemon that i use as a defensive backbone thanks to Recover and it's ability to tank hits thanks to it's great defensive typing and the ability Storm Drain. Also the combo of Water-Ground helps a lot for dealing with the pokemon that can be very annoying for our team like Tyranitar, Excadrill, Pelipper or Torkoal. The reason why i'm using Gastrodon is because it has a very good matchup against any other climatic team (and also to most pokemon that aren't named Rillaboom): it is inmune to Water moves and Thunder, and it resist Rock type attacks and Fire type attacks.
Earth Power and Muddy Water gives me two consistent STAB moves that make a good combo and Recover is a option for stalling turns, specially if i got a drop in acurracy of Muddy Water. Tera Dragon is a teratype that i use for cancelling the X4 Grass weakness while i'm also mantaining some of the resistances of my original type.
Now i want to talk of my last pokemon
angry bird (Talonflame) @ Charcoal
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
Brave Bird
Tailwind
Flare Blitz
Taunt
Talonflame is a specific answer to a specific problem that my team had. Before of using Talonflame i was using the Wolfey's mascot Incineroar, but i realised that it doesn't help that much to my team: ¿Do i really need another bulky slow support pokemon? Then i realised that i was lacking priority and speed control. I really needed a Fire-type attacker, and also i needed Tailwind and priority. Before selecting the bird i was thinking in other options like Kilowattrel, but it doesn't have priority or fire type attacks, Murkrow that is weak and it barely can use Heat Wave. And then, i realised that there was one pokemon that could handle my needs, and i decided to use Talonflame, because it has everything that i was looking for.
Talonflame is a pokemon that let's me use priority Tailwind for having a more inmediate way of controlling the speed of the battle, and it also gives me a way of outspeeding very fast and threatening pokemon like Sneasler (if isn't in a Psychic Terrain team) or Liligant-Hisui because of the increased priority of Gale Wings. Althought the ability was nerfed i still think that it's a pretty useful ability and it was exactly the thing that my team needed. Also i'm using the Charcoal instead of the Covert Cloak because i couldn't afford giving it to the angry bird when Alolan Ninetales needs it more, and the main reason why i'm using Talonflame in the first place is because of the fast Fire-type physical moves. Priority Brave Bird is useful, yes, but Flare Blitz is arguably the most important movement of the set
Essentially, the reason why i'm using Talonflame is because of the role compression that it has: it gives me priority, speed control and the inmediate firepower (pun intended) that my team needs. There are best Tailwind users, yes, there are better physical fire types, yes, and there are best priority users, yes, but none of them could do the three things together except for Talonflame.
I think that the main problem is that the team has a bad matchup against Psyspam and possibly Dondozo-Tatsugiri teams. Once i played against a psyspam team with Indeedee/Sneasler and absolutely destroyed me, that's why i have Gallade as a check to the strategy. And about Dondozo-Tatsugiri this is pure speculation of my part, but the team doesn't have a very strong answer to Dondozo. I think that Freezee-Dry Glaceon could handle Dondozo under Aurora Veil, but it doesn't look like a very good matchup
The change that i would do to the team if i wanted to changing it is changing Dragalge to Amoonguss/Archaludon. Amoonguss is a better support pokemon for the team since it covers the lack of redirection with Rage Powder, and it can counter opposing TR teams with Spore, also even can cure Glaceon with Pollen Puff. Archaludon is a better offensive choice, and the Steel type gives it a better typing that Poison and also it is more inmediatly and potentially threatening than Dragalge
This team is not something that i want to take seriously, but a funny team that i built for fun. Althought if something can tell me if the team it's actually good or it's just a dogwater gimmicky team. Honestly i like very much teambuilding, but i'm not that good playing VGC, so i don't know if the team is actually good or not
I will put some fun replays of me losing (or winning, mostly losing) on the ladder with this team.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459330019
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459334491?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459336564?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459338872?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459340724?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459346061
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459347407
Also i will put the pokepaste for some who want to try my abomination in the ladder lol
https://pokepast.es/741b9d6f69dea5b4
Articuno 2 (Glaceon) @ Choice Specs
Level: 50
Modest Nature
Ability: Snow Cloak
EVs: 76 HP / 52 Def / 128 SpA / 252 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
Alluring Voice
Blizzard
Freeze-Dry
Shadow Ball
As you can see, Glaceon is the star of the team. Under Snow and the Aurora Veil support that Ninetales provides is nearly inmortal thanks to its solid bulk and the Snow Cloak ability that let it dodge some attacks and fish some RNG. It can survive some absurd hits like Adamant Sneasler Close Combat and hit really, really hard if it gets a helping hand from Ninetales Alola, like OHKOing Primarina with Freeze-Dry or Gholdengo with Shadow Ball. Althought i recommend this options only as a last resort, if its possible it's better that you handle the annoying pokemons with its partners because you will have to reposition Glaceon and that can be pretty hard, specially in the late game. Alluring Voice is an option against a setup sweeper or for some specific pokemon like Kommo-o or Hydreigon.
The main role that Glaceon finds there is a sweeper/late-game cleaner. The main strategy around this pokemon and the team is overwhelm the opponent with as many Blizzards as possible, and beat the pokemon that resists Ice with its partners. Its a simple game plan, but also devastating under the right circumstances. Tera Ice Choice Specs Helping Hand boosted Blizzard is no joke and you should be really scared of.
My friend veil (Ninetales-Alola) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Snow Warning
Level: 50
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 228 HP / 36 Def / 20 SpA / 76 SpD / 148 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Helping Hand
Aurora Veil
Encore
Icy Wind
I used a pretty standard set of defensive Ninetales-Alola for this, because the role is a support pokemon for the team that can set Aurora Veil, use Icy Wind for speed control, Encore for disturbing rivals and Helping Hand for making Glaceon an overkill machine that can destroy nearly everything with it's moveset. Nothing too special or extraordinary
Wish eternatus (Dragalge) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Adaptability
Level: 50
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 156 HP / 212 SpA / 140 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Draco Meteor
Sludge Wave
Thunder
Focus Blast
Dragalge seems like a weird choice because it's not the most powerful or the most bulky pokemon of the format, but it has some qualities that i think that are valuable for my team. First, it's Poison/Dragon typing let's it resist many attacks of powerful threats like Rillaboom or Sneasler, and with the AV is enough bulky that is capable of taking very well some supereffective hits like Archaludon's Draco Meteor and Ursaluna-Bloodmoon's Earth Power and hitting hard with moves like Focus Blast or it's own Draco Meteor. Thunder is a very specific move for Electric coverage, but it is a very powerful but unreliable way in other matchups to punish rain teams.
I find valuable it's defensive profile, althought i think that it is the Pokémon that I would be most willing to change from the team, because it's damage output isn't that high without Adaptability, so it's more unflexible when i need to terastalize it, but i'm not changing it for now because i'm not sure of what could fullfil it's role in my ream. I recommend changing Sludge Wave for Sludge Bomb.
Cat killer (Gallade) @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Sharpness
Level: 50
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
Sacred Sword
Psycho Cut
Wide Guard
Trick Room
Gallade is a very threatening pokemon thanks to it's ability Sharpness, and the reason why i'm using it is because it makes much better my matchup against certain cores and teams, specially Psyspam, thanks to it's support capabilities. Sacred Sword and Psycho Cut are no brainers to use it because they are extremely strong, but Wide Guard and Trick Room aren't that obvious why.
Wide Guard let's me block movements that can put the team in danger like Heat Wave from Volcarona or Make it Rain from Gholdengo. You will also notice that i'm not having a speed lowering nature or 0 speed IVs. This is because Gallade isn't intended to be used as part of a hard TR core, but as a deterrent of TR and a way to punish opposing Tailwind, and because the rest of the team isn't the fastest thing in the world it can bait to some teams to play under the menace of TR, and when the opponent thinks that they are safe because Incineroar or Ursaluna-Bloodmoon outspeeds the cat killer, BOOM SACRED SWORD IN YOUR FACE BABYYYY. This is not a situation when i want to use Trick Room every time, but is a situational tool that can be very useful sometimes. If you don't want to use Trick Room in Gallade you can also use the movement Night Slash, which synergizes well with Tera Dark, specially since it forces that many ghost terastatizations.
Tera Dark is specifically for Psyspam archetypes, since they are relying on the Unburden Snealser/Choice Scarf Indeedee, and guess who can oneshot your stupid Dire Claw machine onto the stratosphere with Psycho Cut. This pokemon also puts a lot of pressure onto the Maushold-Archaludon teams, because if you try to terastalize your Maushold and redirect the attacks you will get a Psycho Cut in the face, and if Maushold wants to use Population Bomb on Archaludon it won't matter because no matter the amount of defense boost that you have, you're always getting destroyed by a Sacred Sword.
Overall, Gallade is an offensive pokemon with defensive utility that is meant to help to cleaning up the path for Glaceon for finishing it the team.
Gastritis (Gastrodon-East) (M) @ Wiki Berry
Ability: Storm Drain
Level: 50
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 16 Def / 140 SpA / 100 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Earth Power
Muddy Water
Protect
Recover
Gastrodon is a pokemon that i use as a defensive backbone thanks to Recover and it's ability to tank hits thanks to it's great defensive typing and the ability Storm Drain. Also the combo of Water-Ground helps a lot for dealing with the pokemon that can be very annoying for our team like Tyranitar, Excadrill, Pelipper or Torkoal. The reason why i'm using Gastrodon is because it has a very good matchup against any other climatic team (and also to most pokemon that aren't named Rillaboom): it is inmune to Water moves and Thunder, and it resist Rock type attacks and Fire type attacks.
Earth Power and Muddy Water gives me two consistent STAB moves that make a good combo and Recover is a option for stalling turns, specially if i got a drop in acurracy of Muddy Water. Tera Dragon is a teratype that i use for cancelling the X4 Grass weakness while i'm also mantaining some of the resistances of my original type.
Now i want to talk of my last pokemon
angry bird (Talonflame) @ Charcoal
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
Brave Bird
Tailwind
Flare Blitz
Taunt
Talonflame is a specific answer to a specific problem that my team had. Before of using Talonflame i was using the Wolfey's mascot Incineroar, but i realised that it doesn't help that much to my team: ¿Do i really need another bulky slow support pokemon? Then i realised that i was lacking priority and speed control. I really needed a Fire-type attacker, and also i needed Tailwind and priority. Before selecting the bird i was thinking in other options like Kilowattrel, but it doesn't have priority or fire type attacks, Murkrow that is weak and it barely can use Heat Wave. And then, i realised that there was one pokemon that could handle my needs, and i decided to use Talonflame, because it has everything that i was looking for.
Talonflame is a pokemon that let's me use priority Tailwind for having a more inmediate way of controlling the speed of the battle, and it also gives me a way of outspeeding very fast and threatening pokemon like Sneasler (if isn't in a Psychic Terrain team) or Liligant-Hisui because of the increased priority of Gale Wings. Althought the ability was nerfed i still think that it's a pretty useful ability and it was exactly the thing that my team needed. Also i'm using the Charcoal instead of the Covert Cloak because i couldn't afford giving it to the angry bird when Alolan Ninetales needs it more, and the main reason why i'm using Talonflame in the first place is because of the fast Fire-type physical moves. Priority Brave Bird is useful, yes, but Flare Blitz is arguably the most important movement of the set
Essentially, the reason why i'm using Talonflame is because of the role compression that it has: it gives me priority, speed control and the inmediate firepower (pun intended) that my team needs. There are best Tailwind users, yes, there are better physical fire types, yes, and there are best priority users, yes, but none of them could do the three things together except for Talonflame.
I think that the main problem is that the team has a bad matchup against Psyspam and possibly Dondozo-Tatsugiri teams. Once i played against a psyspam team with Indeedee/Sneasler and absolutely destroyed me, that's why i have Gallade as a check to the strategy. And about Dondozo-Tatsugiri this is pure speculation of my part, but the team doesn't have a very strong answer to Dondozo. I think that Freezee-Dry Glaceon could handle Dondozo under Aurora Veil, but it doesn't look like a very good matchup
The change that i would do to the team if i wanted to changing it is changing Dragalge to Amoonguss/Archaludon. Amoonguss is a better support pokemon for the team since it covers the lack of redirection with Rage Powder, and it can counter opposing TR teams with Spore, also even can cure Glaceon with Pollen Puff. Archaludon is a better offensive choice, and the Steel type gives it a better typing that Poison and also it is more inmediatly and potentially threatening than Dragalge
This team is not something that i want to take seriously, but a funny team that i built for fun. Althought if something can tell me if the team it's actually good or it's just a dogwater gimmicky team. Honestly i like very much teambuilding, but i'm not that good playing VGC, so i don't know if the team is actually good or not
I will put some fun replays of me losing (or winning, mostly losing) on the ladder with this team.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459330019
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459334491?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459336564?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459338872?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459340724?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459346061
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regh-2459347407
Also i will put the pokepaste for some who want to try my abomination in the ladder lol
https://pokepast.es/741b9d6f69dea5b4