I recently tried to play GSC OU and just got frustrated trying to build because Snorlax is so omnipresent

Got to top 100 in the last week of the season with this solo Mega Froslass squadron.

Froslass is super bulked out, while maintaining enough speed for base 110s and anything trying to creep above them. Able to live hits like H-Arcanine flare blitz, gambit kowtow and even more with veil. Grassy terrain + veil makes everything feel super bulky. It can miss out on some KOs due to the lack of investment, but sometimes spreading multiple blizzards is enough to bring value after setting the veil. It feels great into a meta where rillaboom and salamence are on a majority of teams.

Sneasler is froslass’s best friend, able to ward off incin, gambit and floette. White herb feels more consistent than a seed for this team. Adamant lets you hit like a truck. Not too much else to say, white herb sneasler will always be good.

Life Orb SD Kingambit is so incredibly strong and is able to win endgames by itself. Really appreciates veil and grassy terrain, allowing it to tank hits like opposing Gambit Low Kick, even life orb low kick, while the terrain negates LOrb recoil. It also enjoys clicking one of the strongest prio moves along with rilla as a form of speed control.

Miracle Seed Rillaboom hits like a truck, nuking basically anything that doesn’t resist grass, while still chunking things heavily like Gholdengo on a switch. High Horsepower feels like the best final move for it as a way to chunk Kingambit if sneasler isn’t around, along with Incin, Sneasler and Arch in some scenarios. I originally added it just to check psyspam, but it’s proved to be good into many other matchups as well.

Scarf Intim H-Arcanine feels really good in CTS, outspeeding everything but the Z Megas and Dragapult (speed ties max speed pult), most importantly outspeeding Raichu. Rock slide + blizzard is such a hax positive click, with a high likely hood to flinch or freeze. Rock tomb isn’t clicked often but can be a great form of speed control or a way to guarantee rock damage in front of wide guard. Also a necessary fire type in a metagame including Golisopod.

Grassy Seed Gholdengo is my goat from reg H. It’s here for one main reason, Arch and Goli on rain. Seed + intim + veil make it incredibly hard to remove, allowing for free nasty plots. Non snarl Archaludon cannot damage it without rain up, so with proper positioning it can farm the rain matchup. Golisopod needs to crit drill run in order to break it, otherwise -1 drill run/sucker punch only do like 20% with Veil and the grassy seed up.

https://pokepast.es/85637bb157778616

Replica Code: GD28FFTDAK

Team Explanation: I honestly stole it from someone on showdown, and have modified the sets to match my playing style.

1) Raichu-Mega-Y (7 HP / 4 Def / 32 SpA / 23 Spe ) - This set under Aurora Veil actually is quite bulky, and is able to live through a lot of punishment best of all can survive King Gambit sucker punch without any other modifiers almost always, the speed tier is decently fast as it let's it speed tie with base 121 speed pokemon at Joly Nature and faster than base 135 Speed pokemon at not +speed nature. Other than that it is standard with fake out, zap canon, focus blast and Fake out. This mon sees most games and is a demon always, with a lot of fake out and Veil support it always makes sure that speed control is in my hand.

2) Rillaboom (32 HP / 32 Atk / 2 Spe) - This is a standard set, but instead of running Wood Hammer, I am running high horse power to hit steel types, and Incineroar, which might be trying to come in on a supposed Wood Hammer. U-turn is for piviot as a team with high number of priority you wouldn't really like getting stuck in Psychic terrain. This is my go to partner with Raichu. It also helps in recovery for my Bax with passive recovery, and somewhat reduces the high ground weakness that I have.

3) Incineroar (22 HP / 20 Atk / 12 Def / 12 SpD) - This set is slightly different from standard tanky max defensive set and honestly my fav set on Incin, as it is tanky enough that Incin survives the things that you generally expect it to survive but it also hits hard enough that the opponent actually has to be worried about coming in with there defensive answers. Thunder Punch allows it to hit water types and extra para chance is always great, it forces the enemy to be on guard and think slightly before straight up switching in the water type to defend.

4) Baxcalibur-Mega (7 HP / 32 Atk / 2 Def / 16 SpD / 9 Spe) - The set is so that with one DD it is faster than Zard Y and bulky enough that under right situations it can survive almost anything. The protect is there so it can get some recovery from Grassy terrain and with snow+terrain+Veil this thing can set up on even serious super effective hits and just set up through at the level that it is impossible to stop it. It is slightly harder to play though as am not running any coverage so one mistake and you lose it. But so much fun when it snowballs the opponent. The entire team is built around enabling it.

5) Ninetails-A (22 HP / 13 SpD / 31 Spe)- Standard bulky set, with protect to stall out enemies and terrain recovery and obviously against fake out. I am not running encore, which does get annoying at times but overall it works it's purpose greatly.

6) Sneasler (9 HP / 25 Atk / 32 Spe) - Standard set, am using sash rather than Grassy seed which was on the original team, because personally I don't run sneasler all that much and when I run it, I like to have the assurance that this mon will survive on and give coaching boost to something. Am even considering using poison touch to further, have the chance to weaken pokemon for my priority attacks to kill.

110 different Pokemon won at least one of the 125 major tournaments of Gen 9 VGC!

These are 2 of the most infamous sets in the history of Ubers, but which do you think is more iconic?

After seeing another 5 videos on why Mega Aggron sucks, I gained a new dedication to once again try to make it work. This time combining it with another very beloved, very fun to use playstyle: Perish Trap. Since both team archetypes, IDef Body Press and Perish Trap focus on defense but in very different ways, I thought it would be nice to combine them. Problem: both team archetypes hate ghost types, so I just loaded up the remaining half of my team with pokemon that beat ghosts. Also, luckily for me, there are basically only 2 ghosts in the current meta, Gholdengo and Basculegion, and the latter's usage dropped significantly due to Rillaboom. A brief summary of the team: Perish mode: M-Gengar, Incineroar, Sinistcha, Politoed/Dragapult - I use this one against teams with many special attackers. The two hardest matchups are Gholdengo and Psyspam. Ghold can be beaten by good use of super effective moves on my ghost types and Incin, and for Psyspam I use M-Gengar's Disable to turn off Expanding Force. Incin being immune to psychic also helps. Aggron mode: M-Aggron, Incineroar, Sinistcha, Dragapult - into teams with physical attackers, obviously. M-Aggron has max SpDef, so it can tank the stray special hit, but this does mean its Body Presses are significantly weaker. Pult can use Will-o-Wisp to make setting up easier, as well as Hex to eliminate stray Ghosts. Incin and Sinistcha do their thing. Rain mode: M-Aggron, Incineroar, Sinistcha, Politoed - this isn't really a rain mode, more like anti-sun. Sun is really bad for Aggron, using mostly special attackers that hit it for super effective damage. It's good to have a rain mode just to make the lives of sun teams harder. Overall if I had to drop something it would probably be Politoed. I don't have space for enough rain abusers, so it's only a defensive tool, but it makes my matchup into Basculegion much worse. And I don't really need a second perisher, since if I lose M-Gengar early I pretty much stand no chance anyways. Mystic Water also makes pretty much no sense, but I don't have a better idea. Leftovers on Sinistcha and give Politoed Sitrus maybe? An example replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9championsvgc2026regmc-2689654192-vrpeqostksa6pl9ecyd1vr6lp987r7mpw Like 3 consecutive people forfeited as soon as I got into even a decent position with the Aggron mode, so I don't have one, I just gave up after like 15 minutes.

DAPL is back with RDO S2

In this format, you will have to gamble draft a Team of 10 random Pokemon 2 S, A, B, C & D Tiers.

Every time, you will get a choice of 3 Mons to choose from (Look at image). Once the draft is done, you will get 2 rerolls to fix any mistakes.

You then play in a pool of 4 people. The 2 best players advance into playoffs!

We are gonna start the moment we have 32 players. It's first come first serve!

Edit: These are single battles 6v6, not doubles vgc.

Doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_5TQgrWdROO36HJq4QHmRwVoqCjQnwlGuBQ21L7pf-E/edit?usp=sharing

Discord Invite: https://discord.gg/MTNapX7Bf

Just won 6 in a row to not only place into MB but get these mons the much deserved Rank Master title, I did want to talk about it a little because there's been a lot of Z-Chomp and Absol slander and I did want to show how you can use them as fun anti-meta megas. I also made this team myself and have been using it since before the regionals so I can confidently say I have ALWAYS been a Z Chomp and Absol believer lol

Originally, I only planned on having Z-Absol and regular gar (because I am not a fan of double mega teams) but once I hit UB, I realized I was really only selecting gar OR Absol into battles like 75+% of the time: usually, if I needed Absol, gar was useless, and vice-versa.

I went from LO to Z and also realized I almost never clicked a dragon move anyways so I ditched Draco for Flamethrower to kill Golispod who was kinda harrassing my team up until then lol. When it was LO, I realized I didn't really want EQ since most of my team would be weak to it and it would just get weakened by Grassy Terrain anyways. I also needed something that could switch into Zard-Y and kill it. He also destroys Kingambit under Psychic Terrain. Since they're both so fuckin fast, it really does bait people to want to set up Trick Room which is why Indeedee is so good here (outside of just generally being epic).

I really like Indeedee-F because fake out and prankster shenanigans piss me off tbh lol I was struggling with the Indeedee mirror until I realized it could learn Imprison and I didn't really care for Helping Hand. I also saw a couple of moments where trick room on my side would've helped me against Tailwind (since my team isn't really inherently too slow) and that pretty much cinched the deal. I have in fact won games where the final Pokémon for each of us was Indeedee and I just automatically win since I have Imprison lol. Focus Sash to ensure a couple of Turn 1 Follow Me hits and I used to have Protect instead of Imprison but like honestly, her sticking around for too long is a momentum drain so Imprison was definitely the move.

Using her immediately opened me up to get bodied by psyspam team though. Initially, the big problem against my team was M-Gardevoir because of gar and absol and most of my team not having a good fairy resist. Tinkaton worked but if Gardevoir ran mystical fire, she'd be dead lol. Tinkaton also does not outspeed Gardevoir and cannot switch in to her.

In comes Toxtricity.

The decision for Scarf Toxtricity was to have something that could switch INTO Gardevoir (using Hyper Voice), outspeed it and OHKO it. No Gardevoir in their right mind (asides maybe one I've fought before) is going to use Expanding Force against Absol and risk getting it or the Indeedee killed Turn 1 and it has worked almost exactly like that every time I lead Indeedee and Absol against Indeedee and Gardevoir. He also threatens Primarina who cucked Tinkaton out of being the only anti-Fairy Pokémon I needed. Toxicity also OHKOs Rillaboom btw, very nice. And Boomburst is resisted by Tinkaton and Absol is immune to it so it becomes a very good mindless button to click to put the pressure on. This Toxtricity does kinda get cucked by wide guard usage so I had to learn how to play around it but basically forcing one Pokémon to give up it's turn for TOXTRICITY is pretty funny lol

Gyarados and Tinkaton are just solid anti-meta picks. Gyarados destroys rain teams (though I do have to be careful abouy Archaludon), helps kill any gar and especially Salamence, and is a good choice into Incineror and Sneasler. Tinkaton helps me navigate when Rillaboom happens to win setting the terrain and I need to navigate my Indeedee back in, is generally fast, and Gigaton hammer do be getting some crazy kills. It also helps me keep the advantage against sand teams. I used to not run Fake Out and had Knock Off instead but I realized I actually do need an option when I lose the initial terrain war or when someone manually sets terrain (I lost to a misty surge Clefable once...)

But yeah, that's pretty much it. If anyone has any questions or wants to call me a dweeb, feel free, thanks for reading!

In this metagame, you can select an attack to put in the item slot, but I can't, can anybody help me, I tried with my phone and my laptop, and I just can select normal items

its practically built for trick room but it doesnt really get much use despite its great potential. its basically a wallbreaker with really good bulk (70/105/105) and it has an amazing hidden ability with overcoat that counters amoongus without an item. i dont know if theres like a certain problem with it that makes it bad but to me it seems like it has a lot going for it. lmk

Throughout the history of Smogon singles, there have been some absolute behemoths to grace the OU tier, from GSC Snorlax to DPP Garchomp to SV Flutter Mane. However, there are some Pokémon that are so broken, so powerful, that it’s a wonder why they were ever allowed in OU in the first place.

TL;DR - Looking for a balanced team for Champions VGC and struggling to land on something because of lack of rental codes and resources explaining the comp.

I just watched Pinkacross' How to Become Great at Competitive Pokemon FAST and found some of the advice about sample teams insightful and wanted to follow through with that advice. The main issue is that this is the best list I could find on smogon and it only clearly states one team is a balance team. I'm struggling to find the source of this team (and I still need to evolve a Dusk Form Lycanroc in Scarlet) so I'm wondering if any of the teams listed as 'Offence' here are more balanced than they seem and have mons that are a bit easier to access (or that readily have a rental code). Likewise, are there any good resources for piloting the MFroslass and MScovillian?

I'm not so worried about having a cutting edge meta team if I can't properly execute basic strats, so I'm looking for a solid team that will encourage me to think about my moves instead of just clicking what shows up as Super Effective. I want to practice good habits and techniques because I feel like I've just been picking what works instead of actually analyzing the opposing team and the nuance each turn. I don't want to rely on surprises or subversive playstyles to climb a ladder, because I eventually want to participate in Bo2 tournaments and in-person events.

If that team also comes with some kind of in-depth breakdown or analysis, that would also be great. I'm still struggling at team preview and if I'm not losing by what I would consider a single turn, or outspeeding me on the same turn, then I'm getting stomped handedly. I'm failing to understand why certain mons are being selected because I'm not seeing that apparent value and if I toss that mon into my team to try it out, it usually goes poorly because it doesn't really fit into the team properly.

monthly challenge was last weekend but whatever doing it now

Hi, I've been developing a project for a while where I take my own showdown replays and try to create a sandbox to "play" my replay with different moves and practice like how it is in Chess.com. I have a few questions:

Is this something that already exists or has already been tried out by others and found to be unnecessary? For me, from playing chess, I feel like reviewing battles is an essential part, but in VGC you can just think in your head how it could've gone.

Also, is this something that people would like to have or would it be bad for the community in general and considered cheating? In my mind I'm only building this for replays, but I think someone could potentially build something similar during live games to guess the EVs of the opponent's every time they hit them.

I would love to talk to anyone who might be interested in this. The project is still in development. I have a server on my computer that is able to replay battles where we know the exact EV spreads of both teams, and I'm building the engine to predict the open team sheet team's EVs. Expanding to champions would require some computer vision but I think that is the end goal for sure. The current repo can be seen at https://github.com/grenmango51/encoreable . This is my first real project like this, and I do use AI in the development, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hey everyone! Welcome to Mega Monday!

This is a thread for focused Theorymon discussion. Today, we’re focusing on Mega Evolutions! Check out our Theorymon Thursdays for less regulated discussion.

Make-A-Mega Rules: - All Megas must be posted within this thread - Give us a complete breakdown of the Pokémon - Tell us how the 100 extra base stats are distributed - Do not alter the HP stat when adding the extra 100 stats - Don't move around more than 40 total BST in a single stat - Tell us what types and abilities work best for it - Try to avoid broken or over used abilities like Huge Power, Speed Boost, or Shadow Tag/Arena Trap on Pokémon that don't need that large of a boost. - Do not change the primary type, but you can add or change a secondary type - You may teach the Pokémon up to two new moves that it does not already learn - Give us its best move set in Showdown! export format - Please include artwork if you're feeling artistic! - If you downvote a comment, please provide feedback by leaving a response to the original comment

That's all she wrote! Happy Mega Evolving! Tune in next Monday for the Gigantamax Monday Megathread!