I normally just kind of give a report of what happened and what I think of the games in the coming week. I want to talk about my first two battles, kind of taking inspiration from my week 3 opponent, Sam.
Week 1 was against Faust/Cossak11, the namesake of my Ferrothorn, which I haven't even brought yet. The preplanning for this week was a weird one since you get an extra week beforehand so everyone can get their Pokemon, which is nice. Unless you're like me and just love to over analyze everything.
As of week 1, The Detroit Lairons had:
Mega Sableye
Clefable
Scizor
Chansey
Stakataka
Dhelmise
Amoonguss
Alomomola
Shuckle
Lapras
Turtonator
Normalium Z
And as such I decided to go with a team of
Mega Charizard X
Tapu Fini
Nidoking
Weavile
Espeon
Electivire
One of the things you may note that I didn't bring is Ferrothorn. While Ferro would've been great to try to out stall his team, I figured M-Sableye completely removes Ferrothorn's ability to stay in.
The first thing that jumped out to me was the lack of speed in the Lairons. At this time(he's improved since then) the fastest two Mons on the team were Alomomola and Scizor at Base Speed 65. Which in turn made me build everyone with HP instead of any speed. And the only way he could get Trick Room up would be with Stakataka. That plus most of the other stall he has likes status moves as setting up. Conveniently, my team is great against status moves. Misty Terrain from Tapu Fini blocks things like Toxic from Alomomola and Chansey or Willowisp from Sableye. And my multiple Pokemon with Taunt.
What I was expecting to see was M-Sableye, Clefable, Stakataka, Shuckle, Chansey, and Almomola. Sableye obviously struggles against Fini but everything else it can body pretty well. Clefable is immune to Dragon Claw from ZardX and can completely remove Hitmontop. Stakataka can sweep if Trick Room gets put up, and can take out ZardX if it gets the ability to. Shuckle is good at bodying things and can push out a lot. Chansey is similar to Shuckle but can also use heal bell to keep everything status free. And Alomomola is one of the better low tier stallers with Regen and Wish Protect.
Because of all of this, I decided to bring Charizard X with Swords Dance, EQ, Flare Blitz, and Roost. I originally had Dragon Dance on it but when I remembered that speed doesn't help in this match up, I switched over. ZardX Flare Blitz +2 would do over 70% to everything except Turtonator and Alomomola, for which it would do about 50%. And with Misty Terrain, I don't worry about Toxic.
Tapu Fini was one of my win conditions. With Taunt, I could prevent most things from setting up, and Nature's Madness ignores any investment or stat boosting that does happen.
Nidoking, Weavile, Electivire all can beat out different parts of the team and have decent bulk or utility.
Espeon was my secret weapon. Thought up by Nick(Clutch), it was a Calm Mind/Stored Power set. Most of his team, except for Sableye, didn't have the damage capability to take Espeon out. And for Sableye, I had Dazzling Gleam and a Colbur Berry on Espeon, which will let Espeon live a Knock Off from M-Sable and take it out.
When the battle finally arrived, he decided to bring Dhelmise, Stakataka, Turtonator, Alomomola, Shuckle, Clefable.
So while I didn't have to deal with Mega Sableye, Dhelmise and Turtonator came which I didn't fully have a plan for, but Nidoking was brought just for that reason.
I believe I took him by surprise a few times with Low Kick on Electivire and Weavile and Poison Jab on Weavile. After Knock Off, Poison Jab took out Clefable which was his switch in for it. After the match he didn't know why I built so much against Staka, which is solely because of Trick Room being almost an instant win for him. The match was a 6-0, with 4 Pokemon getting kills, and Espeon and Nidoking not even seeing play.
After the match, Stakataka and Dhelmise were sent to free agency for Sharpedo and Gliscor. Both of which I'm not looking forward to later this season.
Week 2 was against Michael(Natural) and the Ohio Ninetales. This is probably the team/coach I respect the play of the most. Partially because he won Season 1, partially because after losing to me 6-0 in the first week last season, and then came back to beat me pretty bad in the middle of the season and being the commissioner for the league. Both of us predicted the other would win, so we both know the other can be dangerous on any given week.
Before this week I had gotten rid of Gigalith for Blastoise.
At this time the Ninetales were:
Mega Blastoise
Infernape
Xurkitree
Togekiss
Goodra
Kommo-o
Uxie
Venusaur
Rhyperior
Miltank
Leavanny
Psychium Z
Overall most of his team is threatening. But what I had expected was M-Blastoise, Infernape, Goodra, Uxie, Venusaur, and Rhyperior. I felt like this squad beat most of my team. And in planning, I was winning about 2/5 games, not as many as I would like. And as such my team that I had finalized on bringing was Charizard X, TapuFini, Weavile, Nidoking, Espeon, and Swellow. Swellow wasn't added in until literally the day of the match. Originally, Ferrothorn was in that place. Had I kept Ferrothorn, I believe I would've lost.
CharizardX has issues against Blastoise and Rhyperior but could beat out Infernape and Venusaur, so he was in.
Tapu Fini could body Blastoise and resisted Infernape STABs, but lost hard to both of Venusaurs STABs, worth it for that switch out.
Weavile was fast enough to beat out Infernape except Scarf or Mach Punch. Icicle Crash takes out Goodra and Venusaur, and Knock Off takes out Uxie.
Nidoking takes out Infernape and Rhyperior. and just does a lot of damage in general.
Espeon can bounce things back like rocks from Rhyperior or Uxie and can body Uxie most of the time.
Swellow has the same speed as Weavile and is a hard physical beater to get around Goodra's SpDef wall.
Well he didn't bring what I thought he would. Uxie, Goodra, Rhyperior, and Infernape come. But so does Leavanny and Xurkitree. I was pretty excited not to see Blastoise. But I believe he figured I wouldn't bring Charizard X because of it. I think it was a double choice based on list chicken essentially. Leavanny got sticky webs down which really helped him out until I found a good enough time for me to remove them with Fini. But the best play in the match in my opinion was when I correctly guessed what he wanted to do with his Xurkitree. For those of you that don't know, Z Hypnosis gives a speed boost whether or not the sleep hits. If it does hit, you can usually get Tail Glow up to give you a good sweeping special attacker with two different typed attacks. Conveniently, I have three Mons that I could bring in on this. Unfortunately, one of them is already in and would need to be switched in(Fini). I decide to switch to Espeon because if he didn't use Z-Hypno, and instead attacked, Weavile wouldn't have been able to take a hit very well.
Z-Hypnosis against a Magic Bouncer gives you the Speed Boost but also gives you a 60% chance of falling asleep. This took out another turn besides the hypnosis turn meaning two attacks were gone.
Later in the match Swellow took out Goodra and lost Speed due to Gooey, thus making it slower than Infernape, the last of the Ninetales. At this time, Weavile was at full health, Fini, Charizard, Espeon and Swellow were all about 15%, Nidoking was dead. I had to switch out to something to take the hit. I wanted to keep Weavile in just in case I needed it later. Fini took the hit and brought Swellow back in at speed. Prior to this, Infernape's U-Turns told me it was Banded based on the damage it did.
Overall, I shouldn't have won that match, and I know it'll be a lot harder later this season. But every match against Michael really is harder than it seems to be.
Looking forward to week 3 against Sam, I know I have to out predict again. And I know he's going to try to out predict me. I don't expect it to be as difficult as the game against Michael but I do expect it to be harder than against the Lairons, because my team doesn't counter his completely.
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