Hey guys, I am planning to participate in the Sinnoh Classic tournament of pokemon global link, as I think it is a quite interesting metagame and I wanted a change of scenery since I am not going to Worlds and I wanted to take a rest of VGC.
So the first thing I realised about this metagame is that you must have at least one pokemon to put the climate up, sun, drought or hail (sand hippowdon is very bad).
So the first pokemon I decided to put on my team was ninetales, a very interesting wallbreaker with attacks boosted by the sun, and with a choice specs set overheat could OHKO 60% of the metagame in sun like zapdos and he also OHKOes scizor in the rain with heat wave .
Solar beam is for water type pokemon, specially Politoed and rotom-wash, which are both OHKOed by it.
The hidden power rock is mostly for flying types like aerodactyl/gyarados and for other ninetales, but anyway that isn't very powerful so most of the times I have to rely on gardevoir/chompy to kill the birds.
Naruto (Ninetales) (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drought
Level: 50
EVs: 172 HP / 252 SpA / 84 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 1 Atk / 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Overheat
- Heat Wave
- Solar Beam
- Hidden Power [Rock]
My second pokemon was cresselia
, which at first I thought it would be a bad pokemon because of the abundance of pokemon like scizor and weavile in the metagame, but this pokemon has a fantastic synergy with ninetales, with moves like moonlight that cure 75% of cress' health in sun and ice moves that threatens his worst counter, garchomp.
At first I decided to put a bulky set on it with calm mind psychic, but as the meta was changing I decided to invest more attacks on speed control, like icy wind and trick room.
Toxic is useful in the way that it puts a timer on the tanky pokemon like opposing cress, latias, dusclops or Porygon2.
And moonlight once more demonstrates that cresselia is going to become the best pokemon that can stall in the format.
Lunita (Cresselia) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 92 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Icy Wind
- Moonlight
- Toxic
My next pokemon was a gardevoir
, that at first had the ability trace but then I realised that was horrible as I could copy the drizzle from a politoed.
The reason why gardevoir became a member of the team was the necessity of revenge killing a dragon dance-boosted gyarados and I also needed a dragon killer, because the core zapdos-garchomp was a problem for me, so I decided to put gardevoir.
This pokemon is a fantastic late-game sweeper, and it is also able to outspeed weavile and OHKO it with dazzling gleam. Psychic is a cool option as there are some fighting types on the format and finally, moonblast guarantees a OHKO on garchomp.
As I told you, gardevoir is able to kill most of the flying types of the format, or, at least 2HKO them with thunderbolt, and particulary gyarados dragon dance used to be a problem that gardevoir scarf has solved.
FlequiJohn (Gardevoir) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Telepathy
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 252 SpA / 236 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Moonblast
The next pokemon is not very used to see, but I think that
murkrow, as a prankster, it is one of the best pokemon in the format.
Metagross is a great threat to my team as you will see, a politoed-metagross core could sweep all of my three pokemon.
Murkrow's foul play + a gardevoir dazzling gleam or cresselia icy wind were a KO on metagross, even though it is part of the wow factor.
And if I predicted a politoed switch-in, murkrow could simply put the sun up and stop the rain with sunny day, at that moment I had potencially won the battle.
The final reason why I needed a prankster is that as it always happens, there arelosers other kind of trainers that rely on a smeargle team and a tauros or azumarill, so I had to put the taunt on one of my pokes, and murkrow has priority +1 due to prankster, so the taunt makes it the perfect counter to smeargle teams.
The tailwind is mainly for the speed control, so that ninetales can sweep easily with heat wave.
Rey Mafioso Jr. (Murkrow) @ Eviolite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 220 HP / 36 Def / 252 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tailwind
- Foul Play
- Sunny Day
- Taunt
As I knew I was finishing the team, I realised I needed more offensive power in general, because bulky steel pokemon were a problem and I also needed a counter to ninetales, rhyperior and abomasnow and also to trick room.
Hariyama is a fantastic trick room sweeper, with access to two very useful abilities, thick fat and guts.
An assault vest set made him be much more resistent to opposite gardevoir and cresselia and let him switch-in perfectly safe against a foe's abomasnow blizzard and retaliate with a close combat.
Fake out gave me a momentum to set up taunts, tailwind, sun or worst case to prevent the foes to make me lose it by throwing a swords dance or an icy wind.
Knock off is to deal the most damage possible to cresselia and psychic types under the trick room.
Close combat is hariyama's main attack with stab, it hits very hard to almost every pokemon, and if you want guts to maximize its power, you can try it.
Suddenly I discovered this team was fantastic to keep a pokemon with earthquake on it, so I said, why not? And if I wanted to pick a double knock out, hariyama had the possibility of it.
Bongo Bongo (Hariyama) (M) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Thick Fat
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
- Fake Out
- Knock Off
- Earthquake
- Close Combat
And finally garchomp
, I don't really know if this is the best pokemon, but I chose him due to its synergy with gardevoir and because it helps to stop ninetales as well, but this slot isn't really from garchomp.
Jaws (Desierto) (Garchomp) @ Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Substitute
- Protect
So the first thing I realised about this metagame is that you must have at least one pokemon to put the climate up, sun, drought or hail (sand hippowdon is very bad).
So the first pokemon I decided to put on my team was ninetales, a very interesting wallbreaker with attacks boosted by the sun, and with a choice specs set overheat could OHKO 60% of the metagame in sun like zapdos and he also OHKOes scizor in the rain with heat wave .
Solar beam is for water type pokemon, specially Politoed and rotom-wash, which are both OHKOed by it.
The hidden power rock is mostly for flying types like aerodactyl/gyarados and for other ninetales, but anyway that isn't very powerful so most of the times I have to rely on gardevoir/chompy to kill the birds.
Naruto (Ninetales) (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drought
Level: 50
EVs: 172 HP / 252 SpA / 84 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 1 Atk / 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Overheat
- Heat Wave
- Solar Beam
- Hidden Power [Rock]
My second pokemon was cresselia
At first I decided to put a bulky set on it with calm mind psychic, but as the meta was changing I decided to invest more attacks on speed control, like icy wind and trick room.
Toxic is useful in the way that it puts a timer on the tanky pokemon like opposing cress, latias, dusclops or Porygon2.
And moonlight once more demonstrates that cresselia is going to become the best pokemon that can stall in the format.
Lunita (Cresselia) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 92 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Icy Wind
- Moonlight
- Toxic
My next pokemon was a gardevoir
The reason why gardevoir became a member of the team was the necessity of revenge killing a dragon dance-boosted gyarados and I also needed a dragon killer, because the core zapdos-garchomp was a problem for me, so I decided to put gardevoir.
This pokemon is a fantastic late-game sweeper, and it is also able to outspeed weavile and OHKO it with dazzling gleam. Psychic is a cool option as there are some fighting types on the format and finally, moonblast guarantees a OHKO on garchomp.
As I told you, gardevoir is able to kill most of the flying types of the format, or, at least 2HKO them with thunderbolt, and particulary gyarados dragon dance used to be a problem that gardevoir scarf has solved.
FlequiJohn (Gardevoir) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Telepathy
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 252 SpA / 236 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Moonblast
The next pokemon is not very used to see, but I think that
Metagross is a great threat to my team as you will see, a politoed-metagross core could sweep all of my three pokemon.
Murkrow's foul play + a gardevoir dazzling gleam or cresselia icy wind were a KO on metagross, even though it is part of the wow factor.
And if I predicted a politoed switch-in, murkrow could simply put the sun up and stop the rain with sunny day, at that moment I had potencially won the battle.
The final reason why I needed a prankster is that as it always happens, there are
The tailwind is mainly for the speed control, so that ninetales can sweep easily with heat wave.
Rey Mafioso Jr. (Murkrow) @ Eviolite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 220 HP / 36 Def / 252 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tailwind
- Foul Play
- Sunny Day
- Taunt
Hariyama is a fantastic trick room sweeper, with access to two very useful abilities, thick fat and guts.
An assault vest set made him be much more resistent to opposite gardevoir and cresselia and let him switch-in perfectly safe against a foe's abomasnow blizzard and retaliate with a close combat.
Fake out gave me a momentum to set up taunts, tailwind, sun or worst case to prevent the foes to make me lose it by throwing a swords dance or an icy wind.
Knock off is to deal the most damage possible to cresselia and psychic types under the trick room.
Close combat is hariyama's main attack with stab, it hits very hard to almost every pokemon, and if you want guts to maximize its power, you can try it.
Suddenly I discovered this team was fantastic to keep a pokemon with earthquake on it, so I said, why not? And if I wanted to pick a double knock out, hariyama had the possibility of it.
Bongo Bongo (Hariyama) (M) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Thick Fat
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
- Fake Out
- Knock Off
- Earthquake
- Close Combat
And finally garchomp
Jaws (Desierto) (Garchomp) @ Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Substitute
- Protect
