CAP 16 CAP 5 - Playtest

Birkal

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The CAP 5 Malaconda Playtest has officially begun!



jas61292 has been an excellent Topic Leader for CAP 5, and we've finally reached the conclusion of our competitive creation phase. You can read and comment on Malaconda, our newest creation, in the Final Product thread. jas61292 chose DetroitLolcat, our Stats Leader, to take him on in the inaugural playtest battle. jas brought a momentum catching sun team, while Lolcat opted for a bulky sand team. jas61292 brought some interesting sets that certainly caught his opponent off guard, such as Outrage Latios and Glare Malaconda. Ultimately, DetroitLolcat was able to pull off a clean sweep with Scarf Terrakion pummeling his way through jas's team. Congrats to both battlers for putting on a good show.

And now, Malaconda is available for public use on Pokemon Showdown!.

You can go to the team builder and create your team for the playtest (with or without Malaconda). Once you've done that, you can hop on the CAP 5 Malaconda Playtest ladder to try it out! Remember though, we created Malaconda for the metagame a few months ago, so Deoxys-D will be unbanned. Thankfully, Malaconda has STAB Dark-type moves and Rapid Spin to take care of it. If you're left wondering what Malaconda is "supposed to do", I encourage you to read through the Concept Assessment thread to get a general idea. We suggest trying it out on Sun teams to abuse Harvest, but feel free to try out other teams!

The CAP 5 Malaconda Playtest ladder will be open for two weeks; it will be complete on May 10th. At the end of that period, the top player on the ladder will be granted voice status (+) on the simulator, and possibly other benefits (Windsong got a colored custom title for winning last time around). Try your best and see how far you can get! Fight hard until the end. Best of luck to all of you; I hope to see you on the ladder.
 

Nyktos

Custom Loser Title
So far, generic sun with LumRest Malaconda has been doing decently for me, though that might stop when people realize that using status moves on it is a bad idea.
 
So far, I've been playing with a Sun and a Rain team under alt Namington, and have found the following:

-A LumRest set with Sub, Rest, Rapid Spin/Toxic and U-Turn is surprisingly effective. U-Turn on a Taunt, Rest when needed, Sub and RSpin every time else. I'm thinking of trying Power Whip or Wild Charge over U-Turn, though.
-Offensive Heatran with HP Ice/Stealth Rock/Earth Power/Incinerate or similar can destroy Mala, even on a Rain team. Magma Storm can be thrown in for thrills, over Earth Power or Incinerate (SR can be replaced if you have another Rocker, but HP Ice is needed to take out Mal in Rain)
-Red Card Ninetales into a trapper can take out the various rival weather starters and then let Mal reap havoc.
-Non-Lum Mal seems to have a huge weakness to Toxic Spikes, as does the rest of most Sun teams.
-Starf Malaconda has proven effective (and fun!) for me thus far, especially with this set (the 4 Speed EVs is to outspeed other uninvested Mal before a Speed boost). Sucker Punch is interchangable with Glare, though.
-Malaconda synergises well with common Rain types. Resisting most threats to Water (Grass,etc.), having Water resisting many of its weaknesses/things it just can't touch (Fire, the rare offensive Steel) and synergizing well with a Keldeo/Starmie pair on offensive Rain and Tenta on defensive teams. This isn't to say he hasn't fulfilled his concept; no, it is to say he does have a chance if you're running it on Rain.

I'll edit this if I notice anything else. It's still pretty early on, after all, and I want to try out Scizor...
 
Is Deoxys-D allowed because he was still in the meta at the start of creation? Not happy to see him again...

Been running my standard UU team and it's cleaning up, though I don't think the competition has necessarily been the best. Flying types enjoy this meta and it's Malaconda bias, though.
 
SubGlare guys! Its really useful, and with Sitrus Berry/Harvest, it can practically stay on the field forever. However, that 4x Bug Weakness doesnt help, so U-Turners absolutely destroy this grass snake T^T
 

erisia

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Testing out a Rain team with Politoed, Latios, and Gyarados, seeing whether Malaconda will cause it some problems (hopefully it will!)

So far, Sub Pass Jolteon + Swords Dance Scizor has been an incredibly efficient lure for Malaconda (irony!), in fact it's almost too efficient. People will switch Malaconda into Jolteon 99% of the time, and the Substitute won't break when Scizor's hit with Power Whip. Then you can just SD and start murdering their team from behind a Substitute.

Here's a cool log I got: It shows CM Latios having a hard time breaking through Malaconda, and the Jolteon-Scizor core destroying Malaconda.
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/capmalacondaplaytest-16200355

I've also noticed that STAB Poison attacks have become a lot more common all of a sudden. Sludge Bomb Gengar is something I see quite often at the moment, almost all Venusaurs I see use Sludge Bomb, and I've even seen the odd Acid Spray Tentacruel. This is pretty cool: Malaconda has succeeded in making STAB Poison a more common attacking type.
 

ElectivireRocks

Banned deucer.
Frm the other thread-

First thoughts:
-Malaconda works remarkably well in rain teams too. A rapid spinner that resists common rain team weaknesses? Great!
-Tentacruel and Malaconda cover all of each other's weaknesses except flying, which is uncommon.
-Random things are starting to carry HP Bug just to deal with Malaconda. Specs Politoed does about 55-60%.
-Knock Off doesn't work. Harvest will still activate.
-Taunt completely cripples Malaconda. Pairing it with Espeon or Xatu is a good idea.

More thoughts...

-Its special bulk is so insane it can even wall most Heatran variants in the rain, a huge advantage over Ferrothorn for the standard fire/water/grass defensive cores.
-Watch out for anything that can potentially have U-Turn. Jirachi, Landorus, Gliscor and Celebi can lure Malaconda and deal huge damage with U-Turn while gaining momentum in the process.
-Starf Berry looks like a gimmick at first but it can potentially sweep entire teams. Don't let it accumulate boosts (especially evasion) if you see it.
 
I've noticed a few things during the playtest from the battles I've viewed, where Malaconda has a lot of glaring weaknesses (if you pardon the pun). Here they are:

1) Dugtrio is an extremely great counter to Malaconda
It's a fairly simple strategy which I've seen a lot of, and 99% of the time Malaconda gets knocked out. Dugtrio traps Malaconda, and lives with 1HP as it gets hit with a Power Whip, due to Focus Sash. Reversal will straight out knock out Malaconda, but there are 2 ways to prevent this: 1) Sucker Punch. You need that to not be hard countered by Dugtrio, and 2) Dracoyoshi8 is using a Chople Berry Malaconda set, which whilst gimmicky and I'd heavily advise you not to use it, is surprisingly effective.

2) U-Turn is an extremely crippling weakness for Malaconda
Well, you may say that this is fairly obvious, but there's further damage in the fact that this weakness means that sun teams will still struggle against rain teams, as rain teams can keep the momentum. Landorus and Scizor will give Malaconda a problem. Landorus can be neutered a little by using Glare on the switch though.

3) The notion that Malaconda will make sun teams broken is absolutely ridiculous.
To be frank, Malaconda is a little underwhelming. Despite its nice special bulk, Malaconda is OHOed too easily, and so often serves as a death fodder. Malaconda can't really stay in too much, meaning that the Harvest ability will often go to waste.

4) People are over-preparing for Malaconda
HP Bug on Politoed, a plethora of fighting types, and very little special sweepers are very common in this playtest (OK not HP Bug Politoed), when really, there's no need. Malaconda still gets nailed by so many threats that you can afford to run Latios on your team.

5) The best set (so far) is the LumRest set
This set is seen fairly common on Malaconda, but there's a reason why. Malaconda can just Rest to restore all HP, whilst not being inflicted with such stuff as Toxic or Will O Wisp. In comparison, the Sitrus set is rather weak and Malaconda is still supsceptible to Status. Chople berry Malaconda is erm... leave that one to DY8. I haven't seen any other sets yet.

6) Lacklustre STABs means lacklustre Malaconda
Malaconda's STABs are just awful. If anything hit by Malaconda isn't super effective, the damage will be insignificant, and so Malaconda makes a great set-up bait in that sense.
 

ElectivireRocks

Banned deucer.
I found Sitrus Berry+Aromatherapy to work decently well. It sort of works like Chansey/Blissey, except you have different options at your disposal like Rapid Spin, Dragon Tail or U-Turn. I recommend running it over LumRest if you're not using Malaconda in a sun team.
Here's a replay: http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/capmalacondaplaytest-16214595

Another thing to keep in mind is that despite is terrible coverage a STAB Foul Play will leave its mark against the physical sweepers that tend to switch on Malaconda, even if they resist it.

P.S. Is Harvest supposed to activate even if the berry gets removed by Knock Off?
 

ginganinja

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3) ginganinja's suggestion that Malaconda will make sun teams broken is absolutely ridiculous.
Hi don't take stuff I said out of context and then call me out tyvm. When I said I was worried about sun being broken, it was in the context of CAP 5 getting Spikes + Ice Fang which is no longer the case. I did not say it would break sun since the movepool was finalised. Please learn to place things in context thank you.
 

Bull of Heaven

Guest
After all the hype about how important it was, is anyone using Rapid Spin on their Malaconda? I don't think I've seen it yet, and hazards have been quite effective for me against sun teams so far.
 

erisia

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I've been using Rapid Spin on Malaconda, and at the moment, it's the biggest reason why I haven't swapped it over yet. Say what you will about whether it fulfills the concept or not, but it gets a lot of opportunities to spin on its targets (Politoed, Latios, pretty much any Water or Psychic type) even if it doesn't achieve much else in a match. I've been using it on a Sun team with Volcarona and Dragonite, and I'd have to say there's been quite a few matches where I've been able to keep Stealth Rocks off the field and have Volcarona sweep from 100% health in the late game.

Certainly better than Donphan, anyways .-.
 
Here's what I've observed so far:

Malaconda suffers a really bad defensive typing for a defensive pivot, which makes type synergy difficult. It's also really hard to justify using it on a sun team with Venusaur, since they share so many weaknesses.

It pairs well with Gyarados, Tentacruel, Volcorona, Infernape and Chandelure.

The set I was most worried about, Sitrus+Sub+Swagger+Glare+Foul Play, while having counters, is highly disruptive and a great way to spread paralysis, and/or net at least one kill, before being forced out. If you can't force it out, however, your momentum will stop cold and basically instantly loose. I tried you warn you..... ;)

Many psychic types Malaconda likes to jump in on can be great lures with Trick Scarf/Specs and completely neuter Malaconda. Knock Off might not work, but Trick sure does.
 

ElectivireRocks

Banned deucer.
It pairs well with Jellicent too. Like Tentacruel, they cover each other's weaknesses perfectly except for the rare flying-type.
 

Brambane

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Malaconda's U-turn weakness is its Achilles Heel. Unless you can punish the switch in with Glare (which EVERY Malaconda should be running imo), you are put at an extreme disadvantage. If you stay in, you are KOed and if you switch out, the opponent gets to scout your switch. And unlike Celebi, Malaconda doesn't have base 100 stats across the board and an insanely diverse movepool.

As far as the concept goes, yes and no. Malaconda does handle Latios and Latias very well, so knocking two Dragons out of the park could be seen as a success. However, Malaconda is extremely vulnerable to Fighting-types. People say that Fighting isn't a common type, but between Terrakion, Keldeo, Breloom, Lucario, Toxicroak, Conkeldurr and Infernape, you have a pretty damn good chance of running into a Fighting-type. Malaconda is also very effective on rain so I can't say much for Water-types, and Steel-types I think are just impossible to get rid of lol.
 
My observations:
Sun is easily the preferred playstyle, making Malaconda a great Special wall. While it's defensive typing is not great, it's movepool is fantastic, with Rapid Spin, Glare, Substitute, and Toxic. It pairs really well with Tentacruel and other Water types. I have found it to work well with a Physically Defensive Politoed, which removes the Fire Weakness. Overall, Malaconda is a Great Special Wall.
 

Deck Knight

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I've not been impressed by SubGlare Malaconda. Basically all it does from the people I've seen use it is annoy you and delay the inevitable, since you can get around it simply be switching or U-turning back to the Glared Pokemon, or you can Taunt it. Thus far people seem too enamored with using it as an annoyer.

For myself I've been running a set of Glare/U-Turn/Crunch/Rapid Spin @ Sitrus. Malaconda makes a *great* pivot with this set since it can disable foes and keep momentum with U-turn. Crunch allows it to be a consistent threat to anything it can overpowerer with its bulk. Rapid Spin removes hazards so you can keep switching around with U-turn.

In regards to Venusaur, Malaconda has actually been able to take down Sludge Bomb Venusaur because once Venu is paralyzed, it's a lot harder for it to abuse the Growth boosts. With Sitrus Berry Malaconda basically loses a net 6% HP or so from Sludge Bomb, which is quite impressive. You have to watch out for Poison, but it's a testament to how bulky Malaconda is that Sitrus Berry almost completely removes the damage from a STAB SE attack of something with with 100 Base SpA. That particularly one was a bulky Growth Venusaur, the Special attacking ones does something shy of 60%, so Sitrus Berry can keep it from being a 3HKO.

The other thing is while Malaconda is good at removing hazards, it can't gain momentum against most hazard setters. Like I said before, people focus way too much on defense, so even if Malaconda Rapid Spins away my Spikes, it's been more than once I've just set up another layer and phazed it out because it was too busy using Sub and Rest. Here's an example of Malaconda being used in a stalling core: http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/capmalacondaplaytest-16191787

This is the set, incidentally:


Malaconda @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Harvest
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Atk / 176 SDef / 8 Spd
Careful Nature
- Glare
- Crunch
- U-turn
- Rapid Spin

I run Attack EVs so I can net the 2HKO on Latias, which I've seen, but not much of. I really don't think Malaconda should be running 0 Atk EVs on Sitrus sets because the slight reduction in bulk actually puts a lot of attacks safely beyond 50% damage (the range is usually 51-59%) so that Sitrus will reliably activate. For example this set is EV'd so Latios' Specs Draco Meteor always does at least 50%+1 damage, meaning it will always activate Sitrus Berry. I've tweaked the EVs on the physical end to maximize physical resilience and Sitrus' HP gain.
 

ElectivireRocks

Banned deucer.
I think Crunch is outclassed by Foul Play for two reasons:
1. with Foul Play you don't need any attack investiment at all, so you can maximize HP and Sp.Def.
2. Malaconda attracts physical attackers, who tend to have a much higher Attack stat compared to Malaconda's 100. It also bypasses Landorus-T, Gyarados and Salamence's Intimidate, which is nice.
 

alexwolf

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Played 10 games so far, and in the two games that i fought a rain team, Malaconda did great. It is pretty hard to judge Malaconda's potential in a metagame where half of the teams being used are sun teams, as Malaconda is almost useless against sun teams. For this reason, i expect a lot of people saying that Malaconda didn't fulfill its concept, not understanding that Malaconda has a few key roles to play and it also struggles in a sun dominated meta.

Some people are expecting Malaconda to make its presence very felt in the metagame, which is weird seeing how Malaconda is a defensive Pokemon with very specific functions, pretty much like Donphan in sun teams. Even if Malaconda manages to spin SR a couple of times and keep you safe from Water-types and Lat@s, this means it did its job pretty well. It honestly is a better Donphan so far, which is great.

Btw the set i have been using and is quite good is 252 HP / 252 SpD+, Crunch, U-turn, Rapid Spin, Rest @ Lum Berry. Beats spinblockers, keeps momentum, and never dies against the things you need it to wall. In one game my Malaconda was at 25% health, i brought it in against a Jellicent's Scald (did like 3% in sun), and then Conda survived the Ice Beam with 5% health remaining... Fucking beast!

Oh and Dracoyoshi i both agree and disagree with you. Malaconda definitely needs a way to protect from U-turn users, as if it ever faces one 1 on 1, Conda's team is gonna lose a lot of momentum and sun teams can't afford such situations. However, Glare is not the only solution, but definitely one of the best ones. U-turn and Glare are the two best options and should be at every Malaconda set imo, while Sub works too if you are using Sitrus Berry.

While RestLum is awesome, i am very curious to try a set with the passive recovery of Sitrus, to spend even less time recovering and keep the offensive pace easier. I was thinking of a moveset of Crunch / Rapid Spin / U-turn / Aromatherapy, so that Malaconda can still deal with Water-types easily while also supporting the rest of the team with Aromatherapy. Has anyone used this set, and was it good?

And wtf is up with physical Politoed everywhere? Seems as a stupid and overreacting measure to me, especially when physically attacking Politoed is so bad.

EDIT: Oh and Deck Knight's set looks very nice as well!
 
So ive actually been trying to use a more gimmicky offensive set. So ive been running life orb and ive caught many people off guard. Running max attack adamant and ive been able to ohko latias and latios with either sucker punch or pursuit. Also very good jellicent counter since most players wont try to status mala and just switch out, mostly getting ohkoed by pursuit. So then obviously the stab power whip hits everything that dosent resist very hard, even ohkoing 252/252 def politoad. So the last move is the biggest gimmick slot, ive run wild charge which ohkos gyrados even after the intimidate drop. Hasent seen much other use though. Now biggest problem.. scizor. They basically just switch it to an attack they resist and then uturn out either killing mala or getting momentum on the switch. Ive been trying to figure out some counters to this and alright call me crazy, i ran hp fire. mala has bp 40 special attack which is pretty bad but hp fire in the sun, even with malas bad special attack and a negative nature does 62.09 - 74.34% to a scizor on the switch. So with some other damage over the course of the battle mala could actually kill the scizor switch, which makes everyone rage quit hahah so although this offensive mala is pretty unorthodox it can still be used pretty effectively.
 

Deck Knight

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Faced an interesting Substitute / Glare / Synthesis / Power Whip set with a Starf Berry. It managed to get to +6 in everything, but couldn't break through my bulky Volcarona after it got burned by Flame Body. :p

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/capmalacondaplaytest-16235800
Namington should have used Crunch, not Power Whip as the 4th move. The PP and Acuracy gain alone is great, and Crunch can wear opponents down with Def drops There's also no immunities (Sap Sipper) and the only 4x resists are Lucario and Steelix. Steelix could Roar it out, but that set is weak to phazers anyway.
 

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