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VGC 17 Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Ksh13
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I'm really surprised that people haven't really picked up on how good Hariyama is in this meta. Maybe now that it won a regional people will start carrying it to deal with the Porygon2 spam. It can't even be ice beam frozen, which ended up being a pretty big deal as I saw several teams lose to a random freeze.
yeah. with tapu koko everywhere, sleep spam is not very effective in this meta.
I mean you can use other tapus to prevent tapu koko's terrain and not to mention electric terrain only affects grounded mons. Sleep has a place certainly and it's effective against certain team compositions. Teams often run two ground immunities unless they have a tapu bulu in their team. So it certainly can punish slow teams lacking grounded mons or the ability to switch in electric or misty terrain.
It's just personal experience, because I find Koko and Lele on the same team to be quite common, while I have yet to see a single Lele/Bulu team.
Either way, all three can easily mesh great in most teams....which means I have to figure out how to use Fini already lol
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Ah, I guess I'm wrong then, just happened that I never met that combo before :o
I used Lele as a means to take away opposing Kokos Electric terrain. Tbh most people jsut lead with Koko and thought they would win vs my team, cause I mostly lead Garchomp/Butterfree. Whenever that happened I would just Protect with Garchomp and Tailwind then streamroll the game from there. Point im making is that Butterfree can still win games even if it cant put things to sleep. It just being in the team influences your opponents leads and makes the game easier to play.
Goodra is a pretty anti-meta Pokemon at the moment. Pairs really well with Gastrodon as it checks Bulu, Kartana, Celesteela, etc. Plus It also can check all the Tapus with Sludge Bomb and an Assault Vest. Fire Blast hits Celesteela, and you can either run Draco Meteor for power or Dragon pulse for consistency. I run Power Whip in the last slot to lure opposing Gastrodon, but it has a pretty wide movepool to choose from. It just checks so many things right now, and can fit well on either Trick Room teams or Tailwind teams depending on your choice of speed control.
I've been loving hariyama's effective movepool since gen 3, I'm really happy to see a metagame where it's thriving. I did some calcs and it has the coverage to pick up a ton of guaranteed OHKOs depending on what your team needs.
Alakazam is good this gen, in theory. Its kinda like a mini-deoxys-attack, and should work well with Tapu lele. Outspeeds everything in the meta bar koko, and hits ridiculously hard with no recoil psychic terrain l-orb psychic. It's so fast you can go modest and still out speed Garchomp.
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It might be good in singles, but in VGC, it's extremely frail which is a huge problem
I think it's an option worth exploring, but like Maltrab said, it's really frail. Base 95 Special Defense is good until you realize it has base 55 HP. Kind of a letdown :( Then again, other frail mons seem to thrive, like Kartana (from the special side).
Perhaps a Sash + Magic Guard set could work? Magic Guard is available pre-bank by SOS chaining it.
tbh I don't think zam is worth the monslot, especially since you have to stack psychic types with always kind of sucks (steels say hello "hello") It's just not really a threatening glass cannon monster that you'd expect it to be, never even seen one WIN. It hits something super hard (and usually not for the ko) and then it dies, nothing Tapu Lele couldn't really do alone. Abusing terrains offensively with anything other than your Tapu (and like i guess raichu but I still think that's hot garbage) is pretty redundant and hurts your team comp a lot
Damn.
Koko does lack Prankster, which is a big part of what made Thundie such an awesome support. It also lacks a good portion of Thundurus' bulk, so sticking around long enough to put in work will be a problem.
I don't see it being viable, tbh.
I actually disagree somewhat. Yes it lacks prankster, but it still has a very high base speed. Makes it less usable in TR but Tapu Koko's 70/85/75 natural bulk isn't that much different than Thundrus's 79/70/80. It could be useful but would have big problems with Trick Room
When I tested it out in TR it actually worked decently well. You can lead with it, and then either volt switch out, taunt a would be taunt-mon, sky drop a threat, or just switch if you expect a marowak. Sky drop is fun in TR since they will essentially miss two turns of movement, although it really only works with an offensive TR setter like Mimikyu. After that you switch it out and bring it back in when TR runs out, so you still have plenty of speed on the field. I personally had trouble finishing battles in the 5 turns of TR so this came in real handy afterwards.
Hello. First time posting here, first year I am actually giving competitve play a shot.
Is Inciniroar worth trying to run this time around? Like in a trick room based team? Hes my all time favorite Gen 7 Pokemon and would like to try making him work. If so, what would be some good partners to run with it?
Is Inciniroar worth trying to run this time around? Like in a trick room based team? Hes my all time favorite Gen 7 Pokemon and would like to try making him work. If so, what would be some good partners to run with it?
I second this. Once it gets access to Intimidate, it will be really good but until then, it's just a mediocre Fire Type that wishes it was Arcanine or Alolan-Marowak.
Made an account just to post this question and sorry if it is in the wrong place. But, why can't Raichu-Alola have the Lightning Rod ability in VGC 17 doubles? Lightning Rod is available through SOS chaining via Pichu and Pikachu in Sun and Moon. This surely has to be a mistake. Again sorry if in the wrong plave.
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Nah no mistake there. Lightning Rod Pichu is available, but despite the fact that its previous evolutions and regular Raichu have a Hidden Ability, there is no other ability for Alolan Raichu except Surge Surfer.
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