I've completed the story mode with an amazing Pokemon party built around my starter Pokemon, Crikey. The team consists of all new Pokemon from Generation 9 and selectively chosen and built to compliment one another with amazing synergy. The team has a great lead, a bulky wall, fast special and physical attack sweepers / pivots alongside Crikey, the yawn phazer.
Body:
The Defensive Pivot Lead
Slowmo is built to withstand damage in order to slow her competition down, essentially putting them into slow-motion. She is a bit bulky with 92 physical defense and 86 special defense base stats.
By maxing her EVs in HP and allocating the rest to Defense and Special Defense, she can, at a minimum, take a couple hits while setting up Sticky Web and pivoting to a teammate with U-Turn.
In the best case scenario, this would be the chronology of moves:
defend with Silk Trap to slow down the opponent by 1 stage (stage -1 speed active Pokemon)
setup Sticky Web to slow down all opposing Pokemon entering battle by 1 stage (stage -1 speed incoming Pokemon)
defend with Silk Trap to slow down the opponent by another stage (stage -2 speed active Pokemon)
use String Shot to slow down the opponent by two stages (stage -4 speed active Pokemon)
defend with Silk Trap to slow down the opponent by another stage (stage -5 speed active Pokemon)
pivot to teammate with U-Turn including STAB and extra damage from her Silk Scarf
Despite Slowmo having only 35 base speed, she would outspeed nearly every Pokemon in the game by turn six. Due to this, Slowmo will use U-Turn first, allowing a strategic switch to a Pokemon that will take low damage from the incoming attack due to ideal typing.
The other really cool thing about Slowmo is her Insomnia ability, which eliminates the risk of her being put to sleep.
Slowmo as my lead choice was inspired by the Orbeetle led team used by Viz in the following YouTtube video:
The video has special meaning because it got me and my son hooked on competitive Pokemon in Sword & Shield.
The Co-Lead Wall
After Slowmo has severely slowed down the opposing team, the next Pokemon likely to be sent in is Spears. Spears is a Brittany reference because he's Toxic.
Spears is super bulky and likely will outspeed his opponent due to Slowmo's work. Spears' main task is to set up Toxic Spikes x 2. This will cause all Pokemon entering battle to be severely poisoned.
If Spears takes some damage, he can use Protect to stall and regain HP using his Leftovers. He can also get in some damage using STAB attacks with Stomping Tantrum and Poison Jab. Poison Jab also has a 30% chance to poison the opponent.
Normally water moves do massive damage to Ground type Pokemon. However, Spears has the ability Water Absorb. Instead of taking damage, he's actually healed by water attacks.
The Physical Attack Pivot
Once Spears' toxic work is finished, Rev can be sent in. Rev is a fast Dragon type Pokemon with excellent physical attacking stats. Rev can really rev up her engine with 121 base speed to drive circles around her opponent.
Grass attacks are strong against Spears' Ground type, so switching into a Dragon type is ideal because Grass moves are weak to Dragon types. Rev will take little initial damage in such a scenario, then be able to inflict solid physical hits with its STAB moves Dragon Claw (extra power via the Dragon Fang item) and Body Slam. Body Slam has a 30% chance to paralyze, which would slow the opponent Pokemon even further down by an additional 50%.
Rev has been given Iron Head as a coverage move against Ice and Fairy types. Most importantly, she has been given U-Turn to pivot into another attacker if necessary.
The Special Attack Pivot
Windy is the special attacking counterpart to her physical attacking sister, Rev.
Windy has my favorite ability of the whole group called Wind Power. It is a fun "clean energy" ability, where wind (via Tailwind or being hit by a wind move) charges her electric power and the next electric move's power will be doubled.
Wind Power can be strategically activated in one of two ways. The easier of the two is use Tailwind, once Windy has been brought into battle. The second is to anticipate that the opposing Pokemon will strike with a wind move, like Air Cutter or Hurricane, and then hard switch Windy into battle so that Windy gets hit by the wind move.
Once activated, Windy's move Electro Ball will be doubled and even more devastating. The power of Electro Ball is determined by how much faster Windy is than opponent in battle. Due to slowing tactics of Slowmo and the great speed stats of Windy, the power will be extreme. Below is a table showing the calculation of Electro Ball:
It is reasonable to expect for many opponents, Windy will hit with the power exceeding 300 including STAB. If the Electro Ball doesn't knock out the target, then Windy can pivot using Volt Switch on the next move. The Pokemon switching in will can the benefit of Tailwind for at least another turn.
Windy also has Sharp Beak to amplify it's Air Slash attack. Air Slash has a 30% chance to flinch the target.
The Physical Attack Paralyzer
If a physical attacker is needed, the opposing Pokemon needs to be slowed down even further or the team needs to deal with a pesky Ground type, Snuggle can be brought into action.
Snuggle, named after his famous cuddly uncle, has incredible physical attacking stats and access to the most powerful fighting STAB move, Close Combat with 120 power.
However, Snuggle can also do some decent low power STAB damage with Nuzzle, which more importantly will paralyze most opponents and decrease their speed by 50%.
Snuggle has a great coverage Grass Tera Type that enables him, when needed, to terastalize into a Grass type Pokemon. This is vital against Ground type opponents and weakens their ground attacks and strengthens his Seed Bomb from 80 to over 120 with STAB and the Tera Type bonus.
Wolfe does a great breakdown on terastalization in the YouTube video below:
Snuggle also has the ability Volt Absorb, which will heal Snuggle when attacked by electric moves. Similar to Spears, this can be used to the trainer's advantage by switching Snuggle in when an electric move is anticipated from the opposing team.
Wild Charge is also available to Snuggle as a high powered Electric move that is further amplified with the Magnet he holds.
The entire team is built around getting Crikey into battle, so he can seal the deal. With his teammates having used all kinds of tactics to slow down the opposing team, Crikey should be able to outspeed in battle, which is a super scary situation for his targets due to Crikey's bulk and special attack strength.
While Crikey doesn't need to be in the role of phazer, it is still fun to mess with the other team by putting them to sleep before finishing them off with a fatal blow, Mortal Kombat style.
Conclusion:
In summation, this team was highly enjoyable to build and super fun to play with. They were an absolute joy to use in Gym battles and story mode Pokemon tournaments. I found myself talking trash to the NPC trainers, taunting them with the cool strategic tactics that the team allows for.
So what do you think of the team? Are there any improvements you would make? Let me know what you think in the comments. A solid comment to this post, might even be rewarded with a rental code to allow you to try out the team for yourself.
Hey its me Emmett
ReplyDeleteLove you its so fun to read your blogs and love the names you gave your pokemon especially snuggle
Btw love the content
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