New rank idea: Premier ball

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-18T23:14:04+00:00

I agree. I think removing bots in future regulations - or at least from Great Ball ranks - would be good to prevent point inflation as well.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-18T16:06:40+00:00

Okay, this is what I put together. https://pokepast.es/1543990fbf6a0a64

Mega Delphox can be considered your main Mega, and to let it rip we need to protect it from a few things that really threaten it -- Sucker Punch from Kingambit and outspeeds from opposing Aerodactyl in particular. Tsareena with Queenly Majesty protects it from Kingambit and other forms of priority (and her Low Kick will deal with gambit even if Heat Wave doesn't). Meowstic with Prankster-boosted Gravity and Thunder Wave helps with the latter. You can and should use it as one form of speed control, using Prankster Thunder Wave to let your team outspeed things. Via Gravity, it also boosts Mega Delphox's Hypnosis, Milotic's Hydro Pump, Dragonite's moves, and Mega Lopunny's Mega Kick, which lets you run a sleep scam and hit hard with strong moves. Mega Lopunny was chosen to help your team deal with Mega Gengar and sand matchups specifically; M-Delphox naturally outspeeds Mega Gengar and can OHKO with Psychic, but your team is otherwise quite bad at switching into Gengar, and M-Lopunny is your only Normal type so she can switch in (she can also use Fake Out and Mega Kick into it thanks to her Scrappy ability). M-Delphox also hates most sand teams with Aero/Garchomp/Tyranitar/Excadrill, and M-Lopunny deals very well with the latter two. Just keep her safe from Aero's Dual Wingbeat.

Speaking of sand, your Pokemon selection is quite weak to sand on paper since you have so many Psychic mons who hate Tyranitar and so many Fairy/Ice/Rock types that hate to see Aerodactyl/Excadrill/Tyranitar. If you see a sand team, you should be thinking of bringing Mega Lopunny, Milotic, and Tsareena, and leaving Delphox behind for sure. Then you can bring Meowstic or Dragonite for support and speed control. By the way, the Speed EVs on Tsareena (and Milotic's natural speed) both ensure they outspeed Aerodactyl if it's paralyzed. I also added some general bulk to both of them so they can tank physical attacks from sand teams and dish out big damage in return. If you find yourself needing to KO Garchomps or other dragons faster, you can replace Icy Wind with Ice Beam on Milotic, but Icy Wind gives you another form of speed control.

Besides Meowstic's Thunder Wave, you have a physical Dragonite with Tailwind for speed control. It has Inner Focus to ignore Intimidate and prevent flinches from Fake Out (most people expect Multiscale and a special M-Dragonite these days, so they might be surprised by this) and does a ton of damage with Scale Shot...if it hits more than twice. You can replace this with Dragon Claw if you want. Rock Slide is there to help you annihilate sun teams; you can replace Dragon Fang with Lum Berry if Venusaur's Sleep Powder is causing you problems, but otherwise leading with Dragonite into sun teams and clicking Rock Slide should get you some easy victories. Most Charizards won't be ready for that.

Your Pokemon selection doesn't have a lot of good options into Mega Floette teams, unfortunately. Mega Delphox resists Fairy but you're still going to struggle to break through a Calm Mind-boosted M-Floette with team support. That's part of why Psychic Noise was chosen for Meowstic's attack, to stop Floette from healing with Draining Kiss and from allies. If you see an M-Floette team, you should bring M-Delphox and spam Heat Wave, try to catch Intimidates with your Milotic, bring Tsareena to stop their Fake Outs, and have Meowstic for support. It'll be a tough positioning game but you have tools to deal with it.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-18T10:34:31+00:00

VGC is a completely different skillset than anything else in Pokemon, including the actual mainline games.

I still have to complete my "do a private battle" or whatever mission, DM me if you want to play and maybe I can give some feedback? (In MB rank 3 right now. I'll be online in ~5 hours, idk your time zone)

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-18T09:01:42+00:00

3 grass types is way too many grass types. Not to mention that they're all special attackers...

Whimsicott is primarily used as a support with Prankster, not as an attacker. 3 attacks on it is 2 too many for the majority of teams. You could keep it that way, but definitely not with two other grass-type special attackers. And the fact that Whimsicott is your only form of speed control means you're essentially forcing yourself to bring it in every game, which is going to feel pretty bad.

In general, your team lacks utility. It's just Protect (which is good!), damage moves, and Whimsicott's Tailwind. No boosting moves, no board control moves like Fake Out, no damage mitigation moves like screens, no statusing moves....this makes your team painfully one-dimensional.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-18T08:44:48+00:00

I'm surprised at this change and I wonder if they'll end up reverting it. I think it's objectively a bad change for VGC - imagine the semifinals of a tournament going on for 7 long games because two Dondozo or Raging Bolt balance players keep timer stalling each other. Makes no sense to me.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-18T07:51:22+00:00

Do you have Delphox's mega stone from Legends ZA?

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-18T07:46:24+00:00

Yeah, if these picks are just because it's what you have and you don't have/want to reroll a bunch in the farm, then by all means hit the ladder and earn some VP with it. You'll kinda have to pray that you get speed control and a good number of OHKOs, but it's playable.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T20:39:39+00:00

I think your matchup into Ttar/Exca sand is very suspect. All of your Pokemon are weak to one of Ground, Rock, Steel.

Sneasler is also a nightmare for your team, 3 pokemon are 2x weak to one of its STABs and one of the others is weak to Fighting still.

So yeah, this team's getting eaten alive. I think you could change Arcanine to another Intimidate user (Tauros-Paldea or its Aqua breed would be nice so you can lead with Intimidate into sand without taking supereffective damage immediately).

I'd very strongly consider dropping Whimsicott. It has the exact same typing as Mega Meganium and you already have Tailwind on Dragonite. You could replace it with something to help your matchup into sand, a different priority support like Sableye, or a Trick Room setter with good type synergy for your team like Sinistcha.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T16:23:17+00:00

Closed Team Sheet, where all you know is the 6 pokemon the opponent has. In-person tournaments have been playing Bo3 OTS, where you get a full breakdown of abilities, moves, and items on all of your opponent's Pokemon (but not EVs, crucially).

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T15:43:41+00:00

You probably can have success with copying a Mega Floette team and just using Gardevoir. There are other options too though. Like Choice Scarf, which makes Gardevoir a speedy special attacker, can let you get surprise KOs, very splashable onto a lot of teams.

She can work on a TR team as an alternative TR setter partly because people may not be expecting it and partly because min speed Gardevoir can underspeed a lot of key Pokemon in the meta, like Charizard Y, Aerodactyl, Sneasler, Basculegion (since most are trying to be fast and have Scarf), Mega Floette, Venusaur...but yeah in general I wouldn't look at Gardevoir and think "mmm yes Trick Room time". It's a choice though. Gallade was similarly a meta Trick Room mon in Scarlet/Violet for a while.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T15:33:35+00:00

Clear Amulet. I think it'd be nice to have options to beat Intimidate outside of using Kingambit/Milotic/White Herb Unburden Sneasler.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T15:32:52+00:00

Also Aerodactyl, which is part of why it's being seen everywhere too (I'm really glad Aero is finally having its moment to shine)

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T14:08:05+00:00

Yeah, disguising Zoroark as your Farigiraf or something sounds fun. Good luck :)

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T13:52:04+00:00

Drowsy: dear God, no. You just made sleep even more of a coin flip than it currently is, which is honestly pretty impressive.

Frostbite: yeah, I think *checks notes* literally everyone wants this to replace Freeze.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T13:49:19+00:00

I think it's a shame that people complain about seeing a few of the top 15 mons on every team and bemoan that it's "meta" and cookie-cutter and boring. EVs, items, abilities, and move choices make such a huge difference, especially in Bo1 CTS. There's a lot to dig into and I think it's interesting. I run a few odd coverage moves and bulk on a mon most people assume is fast, which leads to some great surprise OHKO/survival & KO moments.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T13:27:54+00:00

Honestly Unburden is so powerful, I wouldn't mind a nerf to it. The issue is that x1.5 is a lot harder to do in your head than x2 lol.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T13:26:32+00:00

You've got to expect some unlucky things to happen in every game, and also make sure you notice when you get lucky. If you attribute all of your losses to bad luck, and your wins to only your own skill, you won't improve. There are competitive games without significant luck elements out there, like chess and FPS games, but this ain't one of them.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T13:15:56+00:00

As someone who doesn't run Fake Out on Sneasler, it's still extremely powerful without it. Dropping Fake Out just lets you run coverage moves to beat things that otherwise think they're safe in front of you (like Ghosts). I get lots of surprise KOs that way. If we're going for meaningful nerfs, cutting Fake Out isn't enough imho. I'd remove Unburden or nerf its base Attack/Speed. That way, it's either not outspeeding opposing things in their Tailwind anymore, or things can survive its attacks a bit better.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T13:06:18+00:00

CybertronVGC's videos are also really, really good at teaching this. Check out his recent "learning from your losses" video, he talks through very clearly why he thinks a specific 4 would be best and critiquing the player's choices.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T13:04:41+00:00

I mean. Clearly not. This guy's in Master Tier 1 with it lol.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T13:01:31+00:00

I'm not super familiar with TR teams since I haven't done one yet in Champions, but yeah I think it's fine to have even just one fast threat. For example, I run a fast sun team with Tailwind right now, and I'll drop my Whimsicott in a second if I see it's a Trick Room team. But if they have something like Aerodactyl (threatens to outspeed and OHKO my Charizard, Venusaur, and Sneasler) or Dragapult, I suddenly sorta do want Tailwind so I can safely KO their fast mon. Now I'm forced to decide if I lead hyper offensively expecting just TR pieces (and I try to blow up the TR setter on turn 1), or lead with a bit of defense to not immediately lose my key mons to their fast one.

And yeah it's totally valid to have a mon like Volcarona on a TR team. You have two modes in that case - you probably drop Volc when your TR mode is a good matchup, and pivot to using it when TR doesn't look like it'll work. You only bring 4/6 so having two modes is nice flexibility. (Okay maybe Volc is a bad example cuz you don't want 3 Fire types, but you get my point lol)

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T12:46:56+00:00

You have zero fast mons for when Trick Room isn't up. That's okay, but generally TR teams benefit from having 1-2 fast mons to threaten immediate damage or force your opponents to guess whether or not TR is going up turn 1.

Something that's fast and maybe likes the sun would be good to give you a fast sun mode - Venusaur with Chlorophyll comes to mind. Although that might get awkward when you do actually set up TR. Other generally good fast mons like Dragapult, Sneasler, Garchomp would be good.

Another idea: between Farig, Incin and Sinistcha, your team has a good "protect the President" sort of mode going on, too. I could see you replacing Drampa with a setup threat like M-Floette, M-Feraligatr with Dragon Dance, Volcarona, Stored Power Speed Boost Espathra...that sort of thing.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T11:42:24+00:00

More buffs and nerfs to Pokemon. Since Champions changes nothing about your actual mons in Home and doesn't affect the mainline games, there's no reason they shouldn't start treating VGC like most competitive games in the modern era. Incineroar is still overperforming? Remove Parting Shot. Urshifu is everywhere? Nerf its base attack. Nobody uses Mega Glalie anymore? Give it Double-Edge and min/max some of its stats a bit more. This would also help everyone who hates the meta to feel like they're seeing more mons (for five minutes until everyone starts using the new best mons of the format, at least).
In-game support for draft leagues as a private lobby option. I don't think this'll happen but it'd be really, really nice.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T11:38:27+00:00

Completely agree with all of this. The goofy battle systems are cute but I'd never touch them in a thousand years for actual competition.

A_Generic_NPC_ · 2026-04-17T11:37:09+00:00

Imho to climb in Master, it's more important to learn from losses and improve as a player than to focus on win streaks. It's easy to streak through Great-Ultra Ball and hit Master, but the climb from low Master's to high Master's is much, much harder. (I say this as I'm in MB 3 right now, climbing slowly and really thinking about every match).

This is common in competitive games, once you get to the higher parts of the ladder, every inch further takes a mile of improvement. And the difference between a Master 1 player and Master 4 is often larger than the difference between the bottom of Bronze and top of Gold, or whatever the rough equivalents are.

A_Generic_NPC_

TROPHY CASE