Koraidon Team
Intro:
On Pokemon Day 2023 it was announced that the Legendary Pokemon Miraidon & Koraidon will be legal for online battle for the first time in the Paldea Prologue. This will be the first official Online Competition for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet (SV).
Since my son has Pokemon Violet, which is exclusive to Moraidon, and I have Scarlet, which is exclusive to Koraidon, we thought it would be fun for him to create a Miraidon Team and for me to create a Koraidon Team.
In the remaining post, I'll breakdown the Koraidon Team I came up with and showcase how I intend to maximize Koraidon's Orichalcum_Pulse with a team centered around Protosynthesis and Gravity.
Body:
Team Breakdown
The team will consist of Koraidon, Flutter Mane, Roaring Moon, Scream Tail, Espathra and Sandy Shocks, as seen below.
The concept of the team is to make use of the effects of Gravity and Sunny Day. The team was inspired a lot by foofootoo's endorsement of the Sandy Shocks & Espathra pairing:
Other YouTuber's have recommended using team's centered around Sandy Shock's Gravity. A common denominator in all teams is a Pokemon that brings Tailwind. Foofootoo brought Corviknight, while PokeBurm brought Noivern. I'm using Roaring Moon as my Tailwind setter. This should setup nicely for Koraidon to enter and summon Sunny Day, which will activate the Protosynthesis on all Pokemon in the team except for Espathra.
This is a highly offensive and fast team that is looking to finish opponents off quickly.
Sandy Shocks + Roaring Moon
In a vacuum, the leads will be Sandy Shocks and Roaring Moon. Sandy Shocks holds Booster Energy, which will activate Protosynthesis and increase its speed stat from 168 to 252 (i.e. 168 x 1.5). Sandy Shocks will therefore outspeed Roaring Moon and move first by setting Gravity.
Roaring Moon will lead with Tailwind, which will double the speed of our team for 4 turns. Gravity will make it more likely that its move Dragon Rush will land. Dragon Rush is a 100 base power STAB move with only a 75% chance to land. Gravity will increase this move's accuracy to 100%.
If Roaring Moon is hit on turn one with a super effective move, then it's Weakness Policy item will activate. This will do two things:
- It will increase Roaring Moon's attack by 2 stages
- It leave Roaring Moon itemless, thereby doubling the base power of Acrobatics from 55 to 110
Roaring Moon is given Flying as its Tera Type to further enhance Acrobatics as a STAB move should the opportunity present itself. Flying also serves as a defensive terastalization avoiding super effective fairy, dragon and fighting attacks.
Throat Chop is its final STAB move that is chosen over Crunch because it potentially can minimize Sounds moves from opposing Pokemon for two moves. This could prove useful against Hyper Voice Sylveon, Torch Song Skeledirge or any Pokemon running Perish Song.
Koraidon
After setting Gravity with Sandy Shocks, the next ideal move would be to hard switch Koraidon into battle in order for it to summon Sunny Day.
One potential issue with this switch is that Sandy Shocks as a Ground Type is vulnerable to an Ice attack. Koraidon as Dragon Type will also take super effective damage from an Ice attack.
With Sunny Day, Roaring Moon will have its Protosynthesis ability activate increasing its physical attack stat from 191 to 248 (i.e. 191 x 1.3).
Orichalcum Pulse will increase Koraidon's physical attacks by 1.33 times. If Koraidon has the opportunity to OHKO an opponent, it should take advantage. Otherwise, it should use its move U-Turn to attack and switch to another Pokemon. This will allow Koraidon to summon Sunny Day again later in the game, should it be necessary.
Espathra
After Gravity has been set by Sandy Shocks, Espathra looks to take advantage with Hypnosis. Under normal conditions, Hypnosis only has a 60% accuracy. Gravity will increase this move's accuracy to 100%.
Espathra can first use Protect to increase its Speed stat from 172 to 258 with its Speed Boost ability, if necessary to outspeed its opponent. It can then use Hypnosis to put its opponent to sleep before using Lumina Crash to inflict damage and lower the opponent's Special Defense stat. Dazzling Gleam allows a hit to both opponents. Espathra can terastalize to Fairy to enable STAB.
Scream Tail
Just like Espathra can take advantage of Gravity to increase the accuracy of Hypnosis, Scream Tail can do the same with Sing. Under normal conditions, Sing only has a 55% accuracy. Gravity will increase this move's accuracy to 91.67%.
Scream Tail is super bulky and can cause all kinds of havoc with its other status moves. Disable will prevent the opponent from using its last move for the next 4 turns. Encore causes the opponent to repeat its last move for the next three turns. Wish causes 50% of the user's max HP to be restored after the next turn, which makes this bulky Pokemon very difficult for the opponents to defeat. The Tera Type Steel can be an additional defensive strategy to keep Scream Tail around even longer.
Flutter Mane
Flutter Mane can be brought into battle after Koraidon has summoned Sunny Day. Its Protosynthesis ability will be activated increasing its Speed 1.5 times from 205 to 308.
Its an all-out Special Attacker with four damage inducing moves to enable it to carry the Assault Vest item for extra Special Defense. Its two STAB moves are Shadow Ball and Dazzling Gleam. Mystical Fire and Power Gem offer additional coverage with Mystical Fire doing extra damage in the sun while also lowering the opponents Special Attack.
Conclusion:
The team clearly can perform well under the right circumstances. The fun thing about Pokemon is observing all the creativity from the community. There are lots of amazing ideas for teams being shared. Game8 has a page dedicated to Paldea Prologue with some cool team ideas. I've also seen this Reddit thread with some team building ideas. It should be fun to test the team out come Friday.
