Paranoia's Japanese Nats Team!
One of the most eye-catching teams from the Japanese Nationals was easily @0p0t0p0t0p0t's Liepard-MegaSalamence team. Check out the original post here: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/hrdrk/
The team was:
As always, here is the weakness chart provided by teammagma.net
The team has a very obvious fairy weakness. Aegislash and it's wide guard really have to carry the team past this. Double dragon means that an ice weakness occurred. Again, Aegislash has to put in work to cover this as well as Entei.
Individual Pokemon:
NOTE - Paranoia did not put his exact EV spreads in his blog post. A common practise in Japan is to use HABCDS to represent Hp(H), Att(A), Def(B) etc A basic 252 spread can be assumed however it is not guaranteed. For this reason I have not included EV spreads but rather the same HABCDS system.
Garchomp @ Yache Berry
Attack and Speed
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Protect
Salamence @ Salamencite
SpAtt and Speed
- Hyper Voice
- Draco Meteor
- Hyper Beam
- Protect
Liepard @ Focus Sash
Defense and Speed
- Fake Out
- Fake Tears
- Thunder Wave
- Encore
Porygon2 @ Eviolite
HP and SpAtt
- Tri Attack
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Protect
Aegislash @ Leftovers
HP and SpAtt
- Shadow Ball
- Substitute
- Wide Guard
- King's Shield
Entei @ Sitrus Berry
HP, Attack and Speed
- Sacred Fire
- Stone Edge
- Snarl
- Protect
It's not often every Pokemon on a team has an outstanding feature!
The use of Garchomp is interesting in itself as it is almost always out classed by LandorusT. Garchomp holds a Yache berry to take ice attacks better. This means Garchomp can put in work against Pokemon like Thundurus and Milotic which the team already struggles with. LandorusT in this team would also mean double intimidate, a setup some players enjoy though, as previously mentioned, would make this team even weaker to Milotic. Mega-Salamence runs a special set consisting of Hyper Voice, Draco Meteor, and Hyper Beam! This set is designed to be paired with Fake Tears Liepard. Clearly the set was made to nuke threats to the rest of the team and pickup surprise OHKOs in a Bo1 situation. Moving onto Salamence's partner in crime, Liepard. The moveset is fairly straight forward. Fast fakeout, Fake Tears for the support, Encore to try and force switches and put pressure on Pokemon to try and attack against the TearBeam/TearVoice(?) threat. Thunderwave in the last slot means Porygon2 and Aegislash can start to outspeed things as well as stop tailwind strategies. Porygon2 is a unique choice in this team and frankly speaking I can't explain well why it was chosen. It is one of few Pokemon that can effectively use Ice Beam. Tri Attack is a very powerful move itself. I imagine this was one of the latter Pokemon on the team and needed to fit some kind of specific role hence the HP Ground. Porygon plays a similar role to the old offensive Cresselias that were more common in 2012-2013. 4 Pokemon down, 2 to go! Aegislash is one of the more normal sets on the team. Wide Guard is essential for the team to stop super-effective moves onto MSala such as Hyper Voice and Icy Wind. Paranoia opted to run a Flash Cannon-less Ageislash, a choice that is starting to become more and more common around the world. Entei runs a very standard moveset of Sacred Fire, Stone Edge, Snarl and Protect. These are the top 4 moves on Entei this season according to the BS stats.
This is a really interesting team and a good example of trying to use a team to suit the tournament style. Bo1 can be devasting however, as this team proves quick, clean KOs and surprises can be used to manage Bo1 with ease.
Congratualtions Paranoia on your result and Worlds invite! I, as well as many others, hope you can make it and show off another great team!
