Welcome to the very bad VGC Series Voldy(not Voldemort, I am not the Dark Lord) Builds Teams, where... I build crazy teams that might work and might not.
For the first week, we were all challenged to build a Politoed team, and I experimented with a lot of ideas, but eventually the one that I liked most in terms of the spice and the (somewhat) competitive viability was, well, Whack-A-Turtle, so named because one of its core members was Rain Dish... Shell Smash... Physical Blastoise.
And no, I did not stutter, I read this over many times and I didn't write this during the middle of the night in a caffeine-infused frenzy.
With that said and done, here's the team:
https://pokepast.es/e3f2b1525eb06cf3
Team Report:
Politoed is mostly normal - its job is to set up rain for Blastoise's Rain Dish, as well as provide support for the team in terms of Icy Wind and Helping Hand. Scald is my move of choice because while it isn't a spread move, there's always a chance of burning, which could be the difference between a clutch win and a clean smoke. Protect is there to allow Politoed to either buy time for its team members or for when the opponents want to take out Politoed and reset the weather. The EV spreads might seem weird, but I wanted Politoed to be as bulky as possible in both the physical and special side, so it wouldn't be particularly weak to one type of attack.
Blastoise, is well, Physical Blastoise. Now, before I get slammed with "this guy is insane" and "he's stupid, he knows nothing about the game", I have two things to say. The first is that the above statements are correct, I am probably insane, stupid, and I probably know nothing about VGC. Two, I'll try to explain my reasoning. When I originally wanted to run Blastoise to help with my Metagross team, it was a special attacking Blastoise. Predictably, my opponents always(if they could) went for light screen, or sent in the pokemon that they thought were really bulky on the special side so they could tank out my Dynamax. No one I faced had ever considered physical Blastoise, and as such their tools to face it were tools that they knew could tank special Blastoise. If I ran physical Blastoise, things like Light Screen would be ineffective, making Shell Smash Blastoise much more potent because it could actually use the Shell Smash boost to deal a lot of damage. When considering the things that would stop physical attackers, like Burns and Intimidate, note that A) most teams won't consider planning for physical Blastoise and as such I not only have the element of surprise, but I have also forced them to think of a strategy or improvise a strategy on the spot that will most likely not be as good as their strategy to deal with Special Blastoise, and B) Blastoise absolutely slams most of the Intimidate users, like Incineroar or Landorus-Therian, and even things like Salamence. Also, White Herb prevents Intim leads from stopping Blastoise from reaching its full potential(although it leaves Blastoise weaker on the defensive side). As for EVs, I specifically EVd Blastoise to outspeed Regieleki under Tailwind or at +2, as well as outspeeding Venusaur that is EVd to outspeed Regieleki(under Sun) at +2 or with Tailwind, but 'cept for that it's a regular EV spread(somewhat).
Rillaboom is there to take out opposing Water types, as I have little coverage for them on my team, as well as being a potential max option and a good support option due to moves like Fake Out and Grassy Glide(for chip damage to soften enemy pokemon up). Grassy Glide gives good chip on most enemy pokemon, and it can cleanly OHKO things like 0 Def GMax Lapras if Rillaboom is maxed, preventing Lapras from setting screens up. Wood Hammer is an option if Rillaboom needs to deal more damage, like when facing Tapu Fini EV'd to live Grassy Glide, and Miracle Seed allows Rillaboom to Protect itself and buy time for Blastoise and Naganadel when facing cores like NUT, where Thundurus would usually Max Airstream into Rillaboom.
Naganadel is the second main attacker of this team, and it pairs well with Blastoise-Gmax. Nagandel's main fear is of ground types, something that Blastoise complements well with, and it in turn punishes things like Kingdra, which can take most of Blastoise's attacks with relative impunity. It also provides another method for the team to deal with Grass types, and it's EVd in such a way that it will speed tie with max speed Thundurus-I, while still allowing Beast Boost to boost its Special Attack when it kills an opposing Pokemon, giving it fearsome snowballing potential when its threats are taken out or weakened.
Tornadus gives the team a much-needed additional speed boost, and there are many matchups(for example, against opposing rain teams with Kingdra, or against Offensive Dragapult), where either Naganadel or Blastoise could win with the extra speed that they might not have been able to without it. It also gives another answer to opposing grass-type pokemon, and stops pokemon like Urshifu-S from doing serious damage with Hurricane.
Finally, Entei. Entei was chosen as an option to counter Sun, as well as an attacker that could take out steel types with its fire-type moves while also being able to quickly spread burns(Sacred Fire), decreasing the amount of damage done to Blastoise and Nagandel and allowing them to cause even more damage to the opposing team. It also has the potential to become a threatening Max attacker or sweeper, as it is unaffected by Intimidate.
Thank you for reading this episode of Voldy Builds Teams, and I hope you enjoy trying out this team!
For the first week, we were all challenged to build a Politoed team, and I experimented with a lot of ideas, but eventually the one that I liked most in terms of the spice and the (somewhat) competitive viability was, well, Whack-A-Turtle, so named because one of its core members was Rain Dish... Shell Smash... Physical Blastoise.
And no, I did not stutter, I read this over many times and I didn't write this during the middle of the night in a caffeine-infused frenzy.
With that said and done, here's the team:
https://pokepast.es/e3f2b1525eb06cf3
Team Report:
Politoed is mostly normal - its job is to set up rain for Blastoise's Rain Dish, as well as provide support for the team in terms of Icy Wind and Helping Hand. Scald is my move of choice because while it isn't a spread move, there's always a chance of burning, which could be the difference between a clutch win and a clean smoke. Protect is there to allow Politoed to either buy time for its team members or for when the opponents want to take out Politoed and reset the weather. The EV spreads might seem weird, but I wanted Politoed to be as bulky as possible in both the physical and special side, so it wouldn't be particularly weak to one type of attack.
Blastoise, is well, Physical Blastoise. Now, before I get slammed with "this guy is insane" and "he's stupid, he knows nothing about the game", I have two things to say. The first is that the above statements are correct, I am probably insane, stupid, and I probably know nothing about VGC. Two, I'll try to explain my reasoning. When I originally wanted to run Blastoise to help with my Metagross team, it was a special attacking Blastoise. Predictably, my opponents always(if they could) went for light screen, or sent in the pokemon that they thought were really bulky on the special side so they could tank out my Dynamax. No one I faced had ever considered physical Blastoise, and as such their tools to face it were tools that they knew could tank special Blastoise. If I ran physical Blastoise, things like Light Screen would be ineffective, making Shell Smash Blastoise much more potent because it could actually use the Shell Smash boost to deal a lot of damage. When considering the things that would stop physical attackers, like Burns and Intimidate, note that A) most teams won't consider planning for physical Blastoise and as such I not only have the element of surprise, but I have also forced them to think of a strategy or improvise a strategy on the spot that will most likely not be as good as their strategy to deal with Special Blastoise, and B) Blastoise absolutely slams most of the Intimidate users, like Incineroar or Landorus-Therian, and even things like Salamence. Also, White Herb prevents Intim leads from stopping Blastoise from reaching its full potential(although it leaves Blastoise weaker on the defensive side). As for EVs, I specifically EVd Blastoise to outspeed Regieleki under Tailwind or at +2, as well as outspeeding Venusaur that is EVd to outspeed Regieleki(under Sun) at +2 or with Tailwind, but 'cept for that it's a regular EV spread(somewhat).
Rillaboom is there to take out opposing Water types, as I have little coverage for them on my team, as well as being a potential max option and a good support option due to moves like Fake Out and Grassy Glide(for chip damage to soften enemy pokemon up). Grassy Glide gives good chip on most enemy pokemon, and it can cleanly OHKO things like 0 Def GMax Lapras if Rillaboom is maxed, preventing Lapras from setting screens up. Wood Hammer is an option if Rillaboom needs to deal more damage, like when facing Tapu Fini EV'd to live Grassy Glide, and Miracle Seed allows Rillaboom to Protect itself and buy time for Blastoise and Naganadel when facing cores like NUT, where Thundurus would usually Max Airstream into Rillaboom.
Naganadel is the second main attacker of this team, and it pairs well with Blastoise-Gmax. Nagandel's main fear is of ground types, something that Blastoise complements well with, and it in turn punishes things like Kingdra, which can take most of Blastoise's attacks with relative impunity. It also provides another method for the team to deal with Grass types, and it's EVd in such a way that it will speed tie with max speed Thundurus-I, while still allowing Beast Boost to boost its Special Attack when it kills an opposing Pokemon, giving it fearsome snowballing potential when its threats are taken out or weakened.
Tornadus gives the team a much-needed additional speed boost, and there are many matchups(for example, against opposing rain teams with Kingdra, or against Offensive Dragapult), where either Naganadel or Blastoise could win with the extra speed that they might not have been able to without it. It also gives another answer to opposing grass-type pokemon, and stops pokemon like Urshifu-S from doing serious damage with Hurricane.
Finally, Entei. Entei was chosen as an option to counter Sun, as well as an attacker that could take out steel types with its fire-type moves while also being able to quickly spread burns(Sacred Fire), decreasing the amount of damage done to Blastoise and Nagandel and allowing them to cause even more damage to the opposing team. It also has the potential to become a threatening Max attacker or sweeper, as it is unaffected by Intimidate.
Thank you for reading this episode of Voldy Builds Teams, and I hope you enjoy trying out this team!
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OK so I was looking at polidra's main weakness, and I realised that with s9 removing zacian, bulky fairies were back in business. SO, I needed a fairy check. Obviously, rain benefited steels, so I decided to go with metagross. This bulky behemoth benefits from poli's bulldoze using a WP and clear body and it can take a beating allowing for a bulkier lead. It also does great on its own, and can be brought in the back.
Now, I will admit that Urshifu brings nothing of value to a rain team, but...it's urshifu. A strong balance team killer, which can pose a deadly threat to an offensively oriented rain team Also, it's fairy weakness is coutneracted with the fact that metagross is on the team.
Last but not least, the monke. Monke adds what this team lacks, and that is a solid water checker. I chose rillaboom since it simply has a reliable GMAX if all goes wrong and it can certainly take a beating
so i started with the generic rain duo in kingdra and politoed, both are very self explanatory politoed being the rain setter for the team and kingdra the rain abuser. Politoed helps benefit other parts of the team as well, like rain weakening the damage done by fire type attacks to venusaur. Politoed also has helping hand which helps the more offensive mons on the team to better secure kos. I have perish song on it as well because why not. Politoed is also holding a rindo berry allowing it to live attacks from mainly rillaboom and kartana. Theres nothing really special about kingdra other than it has enough speed to outspeed max speed regieleki in rain, other than that its very standard kingdra.
Next up since we're doing dual weather is the sun part of the team, its pretty standard sun. Torkoal helps us match up against mons like glastier. The torkoal spread is meant to live non life orb Landorus-therian and garchomp max quake, and then burn them the same turn with burning jealousy. Venusaur is pretty standard it has enough speed to outspeed regieleki, This venusaur has weather ball which takes advantage of the weather allowing venusaur in sun to hit steel types like ferrothorn for super effective damage, While in rain it can hit fire types like incineroar. Helping hand boosted max weather ball in rain OHKOS non av incineroar which comes in pretty handy This venusaur also has coba berry allowing it to better live flying attacks from thundurus and zapdos
lastly is urshifu, its a pretty slapable mon, urshifu helps us pick up kos onto mons like lapras and just do stupid chunks of damage to things with wicked blow. This urshifu also has helping hand to better help its partners pick up knock outs
(water) 
