Thanks for featuring the team! If you wanted to see more of this team, I used it for multiple videos on my channel. There’s also a guide for every single individual Pokémon.
@@kingyveltal1623 Difficult to say. The ability is a drawback a large majority of the time. Gholdengo being a top meta threat does obviously raise its viability by a ton though
Game 3 was nuts! I love the positivity you radiate in your videos. Something as simple as commending your opponent for something that took you by surprise is miles apart from a lot of people
I love me some Clodsire. Thicc HP stat, lots of hazard moves, complete immunity to one of its weaknesses via Water Absorb + inherent immunity to Electric, Yawn to force a switch or put something to sleep, Recover for some sustain, Haze to prevent setups, I could honestly go on. Plus... it's cute in its own weird derpy way lol
QOTD: I think Brambleghast is really slept on right now. It has decent attack and speed stats of 115 and 90, respectively, and a really cool signature ability in Wind Rider. Stick Brambleghast next to something like a Murkrow for basically an instant setup sweeper, or pair it with a Flower Veil Florges spamming Petal Blizzard and let the bramblin’ begin. Plus it’s a haunted tumbleweed, that’s pretty nifty.
This is a very cool team! Tinkaton, despite its low stat totals, is a really cool pokemon/typing this gen. Glad to see it getting some work on this channel!
People forget tinkaton has inscredible bulk and focus on her attack stat. I mean mold breaker tinkaton can helping hand gholdengo (yeah gholdengo is usually immune to helping hand). Knock off and fake out makes it a really good support mon.
QOTD: Definitely Arboliva. It’s low base speed makes it a great counter into trick room teams and is really slept on. I had it solely on my team just to reverse sweep trick room teams just because it’s so bulky and can dish out some decent damage
That was a wild win against that Grimm team. So crazy how just a single Tera placement can change the outcome of an entire game in this gen. Looking forward to more exciting games in this era. 😄
Jamie is my favorite team builder for sure! He's got a unique take on it. A reminder: He actually picked Toedscruel over Amoongus on this team because you CAN spore Goldhengo. Its ability makes it move last if it uses status moves but with the positive effect that it ignores the opposing pokemon's ability when using one
Poor Quaquaval. I’ve yet to think it through. It’s got lower speed than Meowscarada, but less bulk than Skeledirge. I’m sure Aqua Step for a speed boost and Moxie for an attack boost can pair well, but I just don’t know. Would love to see how Aaron would pilot it.
I agree, though it seems to be overshadowed by Water Tauros, who has a more tempting stat spread (higher speed, attack) and access to a better brick break, close combat, earthquake, and zen hb for coverage. Intimidate is a fan favorite ability with more immediate results, though I say there's more potential for Quaquaval as a revenge killer with Moxie+Aqua Step being practically a 120 dmg (remember STAB) Dragon Dance on a kill.
Thanks so much for your content Aaron! First time VGCer here, Scarlet & Violet are the first games I have played since Ruby way back in the day, and between then and now the only battling I have done is 6v6 singles on Showdown. However I've somehow managed to climb to Master Ball Tier and am currently sitting just outside top 1000 using various mons you have featured! Your videos have made the transition from singles to doubles very easy and enjoyable, keep up the good work!!
So many instances where aqua jet would have been much better on the tauros than wave crash. Sure it one-shot the garg, but it would have made the game 3 situation so much easier to solve.
Espathra feels like it's going to get better and better as people get more used to the pace of the metagame. Psychic type is a bit of a difficult sell with so many strong ghosts in this gen, but once it becomes easier to navigate around them, I think people will see the power of the ostrich.
Opportunist is super interesting as an ability. Even for physical attackers it seems like the main form of boost is Dragon Dance so Espy can still steal a speed boost. I've been keeping an eye on how common Competitive gets too because leading an Intimidater plus Espartha helps punish you less against Competitive
My first and only shiny.. Espathra. And I can tell you, with some luck/good RNG Espathra can 1vs6 in about 2/3 turns IF the opponent doesn't have a Dark type haha I use Hypnosis to let the opponent sleep. (With luck.. using Wide Lens though). Gain a Speed Boost by the Hidden Ability 'Speed Boost'. Then 'Calm Mind' for a Special Attack boost and Special Defense boost. Then gain a Speed Boost again because of Ability. Then most of the time I do 1 more 'Calm Mind' and gaining a Speed Boost and of the turn. And then.... Stored Power. Remember not only 'Stored Power' increases in strength because of stat Boosts. Gaining 20 base power per stat boost. Witch is 3 Speed boosts + 2 Special Attack and 2 Special Defense boosts. Wich make it already a 160 base power move. But you also boosted your Special Attack 2 times. So I don't know the calcs exactly but.. let's say, it destroys every Pokémon who isnt a Dark Type. Plus every turn it gets 20 base points stronger because of the Speed Boost and being faster then everyone 😜 Espathra is broken! 🙌
Most people have overlooked the gen 9 mons in favor of paradox mons, they are really good and unlike alola have a speed stat more than 60. My personal favourite is Pawmot(no revival blessing cheese), Tera electric makes it so that you can spam double shock for a powerful physical electric move, it's such a fun mon with great typing and moves.
Jamie Boyt has recently been on the Mount Rushmore of my favorite VGC content creators alongside Aaron and Wolfey. I feel like Jamie has a slightly different philosophy on team building from most people, and I honestly don’t know if that’s even a good thing or a bad thing but it’s been super interesting. I’d also love to see Aaron make some how to use ___ kind of content to see how different people would use/try different, somewhat niche Pokémon.
Jamie might literally be the goat at exploiting constrained options. I think he does so well in draft leagues because the number of variables decrease so much. Same with 2019. But open metas aren't as exploitable and so niche picks have less utility
Kingambit is definitely the definite sleeper pick in Gen 9. It's an absolute menace to society. Life Orb Dark-Tera Sucker Punch hits like an absolute truck, and can 1-shot frail Pokemon like Kilowattrell. It can also beat Torkoal 1v1 under Trick Room with Dark-Tera Sucker Punch. Nothing is safe while it's on the field.
Love your videos man! Thank you for making videos like this. Im new to the competitive side of Pokémon. As a casual player it helps me a ton. You can learn so much from these videos. This is the first Pokémon I have tryed to get master rank in and i achieved it today!
I think Gallade is slept on right now. Probably because of threats like Annihilape & Gholdengo being so common. But the new ability Sharpness allows Gallade to do insane damage. Basically giving it Choice Band damage on all cutting moves. 140 BP Psycho Cut 180 BP Sacred Sword It also gets great coverage options with Leaf Blade & Aqua Cutter. And tons of great supportive moves. Screens, Trick room, etc. The worst part is Gallade’s middling speed stat. But you have Scarf + Trick as an option or just Focus Sash.
In game 2 you were worried about spore not affecting Gholdengo, but Toedscruel's Mycelium Might ignores Gholdengo's Good as Gold ability and would cause it to fall asleep anyway.
Scovillian-Spicy Extract, if you use on you opponent then use foul play it's essianly plus 4 foul play (as spicy extract raises the opponents attack by two and lowers their defense by two) no including boost to your own pokemon
Dudunsparce is so under looked. Having it with rattled and weakness policy with Grass Tera and pairing it with pin missile jolteon makes it hit so hard
Had to come over and say that this is an amazing team! It went exactly like you mentioned in the vid. Lost the first three games and then won 8 in a row (still ongoing streak). Thanks for sharing (and props to the team builder!) Didn't think I would do so well with a team of mons I have barely used before
I had just watched Jamie’s video on Appletun’s potential earlier today, and had been thinking about it quite a bit. Cool to see his team building being featured on this channel too
Absolutely love seeing tinkaton! I've been using it quite a bit since the beginning of gen9 and I've loved using it, has a lot of potential. Personally I've been using a similar set of assault vest tinkaton :>
QOTD: Scovillain Has Chlorophyll to be speedy in the sun, also it's signature move is very underrated. With the correct setup, Spicy Extract is eesentially Swagger that never misses. Has Overheat and Leaf Storm to do massive damage.
This is basically my in game team but changing tinkaton with kingambit. Plus shinies of skeledirge and kilowattrel 😍 Love your work, Aaron! Keep it up!
Hi Aaron, I watched your content from 2014 to 2017 and it really helped me get better as a player and watching you explain your thought process really helped my decision making when I played VGC in the aforementioned years. One thing I hope you’ve noticed is that Hariyama and Gothitelle are in the Pokédex and I’m really hoping to see in the coming days a modern take on this classic duo. I remember you using this back in 2015 to great success so I’m definitely looking forward to it if you’ve got it in the works.
wotf: BRAMBLEGHAST! I've been having so much fun with it, I got to Master Ball with primarily Talonflame + Brambleghast, and then Toxtricity in the back to fire off boombursts next to it. definitely my favourite new pokemon
Cybertron is the new Sucker God. We already have our Sucker God of 6v6 OU, aka our French boy RedEmption, and now Cybertron did the same thing in VGC. Well done man!
Grafaiai is slept on. Everyone says it's az ppor man's grimmsnarl because it's another parting shot user, but there are more ways to use graiaia than priority parting shot, doodle can be interesting with a correct setup. I mean fast spores from toedscruel, usable slaking. You can even go without prnakster to doodle it from murkrow, and do crazy stuff
37:00: The _mind games._ It would be enough to drive anyone mad. Especially toward the end... ---- Low total turn time, down to just... guessing who does what and hoping something connects... And Skeledurge running Protect 5 turns in a row utterly getting to your opponent, so that he's just making the huge gamble of just "he wants to keep stalling out Sucker Punch, so Grimmsnarl just Spirit Breaks to win", only to get Heat Wave'd at the critical juncture. You'd make an equally good chess player, Aaron, but Pokemon VGC is your home, I suspect.
My answer for underrated 9th generation Pokémon in VGC currently is definitely Farigiraf. It has won me a lot of games, partly just because people often forget about Armour Tail. The number of Fake Outs, Sylveon Quick Attacks, Sucker Punches, and Prankster moves it has blocked was quite surprising to me. I run an Imprison/Trick Room set alongside a Tailwind/Endeavour/Volt Switch Wind Power Kilowattrel as a standard lead, and it does tremendously well at countering most Tailwind and Trick Room teams (unless I get sloppy, which is often).
QOTD: Rabsca and Espathra aren't getting enough love I think. Espathra's signature is a 80BP psychic Acid Spray, and she gets Speed Boost as her HA. Rabsca has 75/85/100 bulk with 115 SpA and 45 speed. It has pretty good bulk and decent offense with really good coverage in power gem, earth power, sludge bomb, energy ball, dazzling gleam, psychic, struggle bug, and bug buzz. But where it finds its niche is that it's the only pokemon that can learn Speed Swap. The tempo of the current meta is pretty fast, and Speed Swap can be devastating for set-up sweepers like Garchomp
the way you take your sweet ass time making your move and then going with what you were thinking of in the beginning of the turn would drive me up the freaking all
Been seeing a lot of Armarouge sets thanks to trick room + psychic (expanding force when paired when indeedee), but I feel like Ceruledge is getting overshadowed. Its base speed may only be 10 points higher, but that allows it to synergize better with non-trick room teams, and a Torkoal lava plume pairing with Ceruledge to activate flash fire could give it a ton of boost to bitter blade, making it hard to deal with if given a bit of bulk investment or assault vest, plus a defensive or fire tera. Not only that, but it has access to quite a lot of coverage with solar blade (checking ground water and rock) and close combat (checking dark and rock), and priority thanks to shadow sneak. It could also go well with prankster Murkow which has been seeing a lot of play, with tailwind making up for its lack of speed investment. It even has impressive support moves, with access to screens, quick guard for priority protection, will o wisp, taunt, and helping hand. I suspect we'll see more Ceruledge in the future, maybe paired with restricted mons (looking at Koraidon and Groudon in particular), and/or Paradox mons (specifically those from Scarlet as they share a common interest in having sun up). It's flexible, so opponents will have a hard time knowing its role pre-battle, giving it an edge above mons that may outclass it in that same role.
Farigiraf has a good stat line and could be build bulky under Trickroom another interesting aspect is its ability Armor Tail which prevents it s partners and itself getting hit by priority moves. Since its typing Normal/Psychic it can't be hit at all by the otherwise effective Ghost type attacks.
Question of the day: well this is my first foray into attempting to play competitive, and I'm pretty new to pokemon in general, so grain of salt lol. I haven't seen Tauros used as often as I think it deserves, breaking screens seems awesome, Intimidate is a great ability. Grafaiai also seems underused, Prankster is also incredible and even if i haven't done a deep dive, it's gotta do things other pranksters can't Editing to add dudunsparce solely because hyper drill seems nuts
Man, game 3 was so tense it almost gave me a nail-biting habit! Love/hate those Sucker Punch mind games, been in a couple myself and they're so nerve wracking LOL. Seriously amazing vid. You've been crushing it with the content lately, hope you see even bigger growth this gen than last gen! Also QOTD: No idea if it's any good but I'd love to try Regenerator Shed Tail Cyclizar or see a team that utilises it, it sounds really fun. Might be better in singles than doubles, I only play VGC though so no idea if singles folks have already tapped into it.
Most underrated new Gen9 mon in my opinion is Arboliva. I don't know if it has enough muscle to hang at the absolute top tier of competitive, but I feel like there is potential for a very annoying, very synergistic Torkoal partner for a Trick Room team. Holding some kind of healing berry, Harvest for ability, I'm thinking Ground possibly as a Tera type, and then access to Leech Seed, Pollen Puff, SolarBeam, Dazzling Gleam, Protect, Reflect, Light Screen, Substitute, Helping Hand, Earth Power, etc. I haven't tested it myself yet but it seems such an interesting support with enough SpAtt to really mess up those Drizzle teams.
I think Arboliva and Pawmot might be slept on. Arboliva can be made super bulky and set up terrain on it's own and is a slow grass type which gets weather ball for slow sun-room type archetypes, or it can function by tera watering on rain teams as well. Pawmot uniquely has Double Shock which with tera Electric can never fully remove the electric typing which means Double Shock is permanently usable without switching out to regain the electric typing, followed up by having access to Mach Punch, Fake out, Ice Punch, Fire Punch as options for coverage or even just simply Thunder Punch for non tera games
QOTD: i think that pawmot may be looked over, it has a solid typing and decent stats with the iron fist ability, with tera types that could change into one of the punching moves plus the punching glove.
My answers to the QOTD: Brambleghast and Dudunsparce. I’ve been trying various teams with either of them on showdown and, in the right situations, they can put in a lot of work.
QOTD: Baxcalibur is really strong with clear amulet and thermal exchange making it basically immune to damage reduction. It has a ridiculously high attack stat decent speed (out speeds Dragapult after 1 ddance) and great bulk. It makes great use of Tera to shed its Ice type and have a monstrously strong Glaive Rush. It also EQ for steels which is nice.
QOTD: this could be my love for ground types talking, but i would love to see clodsire get some use. water absorb + mirror herb seems like a solid counter for dondozo/tatsugiri, plus with 20 speed it could be great under trick room
QOTD: Lokix, I’ve been using him as a strong priority user with Tinted lens and life orb. He can OHKO non bulky Murkrows turn 1 easily and does well into quite a few popular mons like Indeedee and Meowscarada. Plus he’s baddass
Orthworm is absolutely slept on. I'm still attempting to build an Orthworm/Flamigo team but even just a standard Iron Defence/Body Slam build for Orthworm is really good
I honestly think Brambleghast has a really cool gimmick! I think it has a lot of potential, the immunity to wind moves and the buff it gets under Tailwind are pretty neat. Would love to see a team where it's featured :D
Something thats gotten some love in singles that I think is being slept on in doubles is Clodsire. I currently am working on a team that utilizes it in trick room. I like to think of it as a Poison/Ground CurseLax.
QOTD: I think Pawmot is pretty slept on. Can go support or full offense with pretty good speed and attack, and gets access to a lot of good stuff. Fake out, nuzzle, lots of good coverage (punches with iron fist, seed bomb, play rough, etc), and revival blessing which seems pretty underexplored so far as well
Tauros-Blaze all the way! You can run an anger point set with frost breath or meowscarada combo on it. Or an intimidate T-Blaze with great moves like will-o-wisp, bulk up, raging bull, body press, close combat, flare blitz, scary face, etc. Lots of potential and I think with the lack of Incineroar who could be a prime fiery intimidate user like Arcanine, except with more physical bulk and dmg!
Honestly think Toedscruel is a tad bit underslept mon atm. It can try to shut down opposing Gholdengo with Spore thanks to Mycelium Might which is pretty big atm with how common Gholdengo is. It's not really that frail and it also get access to other support moves such as Rage Powder, Trick Room etc and being able to resist EQ and Rock Slide is a boon as well. It might not be a COMPLETELY beastly, but it has the tools to be one supportively.
Hello, I’m from the Church of Kachow (revaroom). Did you know that EQ from big shark boy only does 33% while it hard counters both meowskrada, “salt dude”, baxcalibur/snow mons, and those grass teras that try to avoid a Gus spore. It also gets access to pshot and haze? And walls rocket power Gumby? Sign me up!
another fun video. finally finished my super secret ultra hyper team lol... it's just a TR encore + torment team with parish and curse anihilape, but found a really cool setup. hope to see you on ladder :D
I was gonna say Toedscruel is slept on (heh) because Spore, Rage Powder and Trick Room is just a lot of utility in one mon, yet I see it very rarely. The drawback of Mycellium Might makes it understandable though. The mon I was REALLY expecting to see much more of is Scovillain. It's one of very few great Chlorophyll sweepers, even powered up by STAB on its fire moves, in a meta where rain seems largely not present and snow is at a disadvantage. Plus, sun pairs well with a possible Trick Room mode, making it even better. Despite all this and Scovillain's inherent power, I've barely seen them (or seen them talked about)
Jolly 252 Atk Talonflame Flare Blitz vs. 244 HP / 140 Def Tinkaton: 158-188 (82.7 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. The Talonflame had to be Adamant for a 50% OHKO on the Tinkaton.
QOTD: I think brambleghast is one of the most slept on pokemon. Getting an attack boost when tailwind is active and when hit by moves like hurricane is pretty neat. Only downgrade is the movepool. But you can hit most stuff with power whip, shadow sneak and tera blast fire. Hope to see it getting some attention soon
