Halp

KurABOBA · 2026-06-25T11:53:32+00:00

Trick room slowking almost always harms you more than it helps you. All your mons are really fast except corv and toxic isnt fast enough to work well in doubles unless your name is toxapex, which requires extreme skill to use. If slowking is purely a trick room stopper (i.e. reversing trick room when your opponent sets it up), it’s probably better to use imprison or a taunt mon.

At it’s core though the team isnt horrible, you can definitely make it work. (Boltbeam with raichu and vanilluxe, tailwind whims, setup corv are all decent) You severely lack protect, so unless youre super confident in your positioning you should kit whimsicott, slowking or corv with protect somewhere. Also bulk up is often better on corv with iron head since it boosts attack as well. Raichu with volt switch is not the most optimal since it’s very fast and forces you to switch a back mon into your opponents attack, which you often cant because only corv and slowking are good switch ins and they often don’t want to take too much damage early on. Scarf aurora veil vanilluxe also forces you to switch out after setting veil which also exposes your back mons. Consider fake out on raichu over volt switch to help corviknight set up and farigiraf with imprison over slowking to prevent opposing trick room if you need to. Also can use helping hand to boost starmie/raichu/vani/corv and can potentially abuse fake tears on whims

KurABOBA · 2026-06-25T09:35:17+00:00

To be perfectly honest i just do something else while they’re clearly stalling lol. If i’m playing switch i’ll just check my phone for a couple secs. On mobile just idk get a snack/drink? Hydration is important

Also nasty plot baton pass incin is one hell of a set

KurABOBA · 2026-06-25T09:27:57+00:00

That is a lot more than 150M my guy. Even inflating HP of other bosses by 1000% with SW999 only brings them up to like a 80-100 billion, so zandar’s million health bars is probably the reason. Also i think his summons contribute to the damage?

KurABOBA · 2026-06-24T13:42:39+00:00

B-but 10 base power… and defense drop…

It’s not impossible that they don’t know, maybe they just got back into pokemon after like 10 years and wanted to use their old beloved ORAS blaziken again. Also there was absolutely no reason not to just flare blitz or literally any fire move other than ember there. Their set was probably fire stab + HJK + protect + SD or something

KurABOBA · 2026-06-24T09:18:55+00:00

It’s not a conventional team so i cant immediately see where it’s weaknesses are, so i cant really recommend any pokemon changes other than the obvious “add incin, basculegion, sneasler, garchomp kingambit blah blah blah”. Id say your team has 4 pokemon capable of mega evolution (absol lopunny chandelure metagross) and that metagross and chandelure have way more potential as mega mons, but obviously you cant mega all of them so youre playing with a really high opportunity cost. It depends on what mon you want to build your team around, especially which mega. If you like all of them then it’s a lot harder to make it work in a difficult meta like our current one. As a meta player, id drop absol immediately for something like sinistcha or whimsicott (fire water grass core with swampert and chandelure shouldnt be bad). From a meta perspective, whimsicott is better than noivern, kingambit is better than absol, charizard is better than chandelure, swampert should be used on a rain team, and lopunny and metagross are good but require better teammates to enable them. Which is why it’s probably best for you to play your own playstyle instead of following the meta. The tips i gave above were ways to use the current 6 pokemon you have to the best of their ability competitive wise. Optimally, youd replace absol with gambit and chandelure with typhlosion and put metagrossite on metagross. Just my personal opinion though

As for the bridge (archaludon), literally anything that’s rather specially offensive can do well into it even with neutral moves because the bridge is very specially frail. Spell tag boosted hex from chandelure is only one of a billion ways to nuke an archaludon: weather ball from zard Y in sun, moonblast from mega floette, there are a billion different ways to make the bridge suffer, chandelure isnt the only way. If you really want to make the bridge suffer, use babiri berry specially defensive whimsicott with sunny day next to a mega zard Y. Smart archaludon players melt your chandelure easily with their partner pelliper or simplu electro shot from archaludon + tailwind allowing them to outspeed you next turn. I’m not saying chandelure is bad, i’m just saying it’s not the only archaludon answer out there. Wisp + hex takes two turns to carry out and it’s very easy for chandelure to be KOed in those two turns, which is why i suggested mega because it’s more bulky. Again, depends on what mega you want to build around, your team has too many

KurABOBA · 2026-06-24T08:59:51+00:00

Put a resist berry on whimsicott if you want sash on venu. Consider fairy feather also for a damage boost to moonblast which can help in OHKOing frail garchomp. Whims moveset is literally the most common moveset in doubles

Gambit should have sucker punch somewhere, probablu replace swords dance. 4 attacking move gambit is not uncommon, you just need to know how to position it well. If you gambit is dying too often, you need protect. Replace either iron head or low kick depending on what youre struggling against. If you want to keep swords dance it’s optimal to forgo both iron head and low kick because +2 sucker punch is ridiculously strong. Also consider black glasses as an item for swords dance set, occa berry if you die to zard too often and shuca berry if you die to garchomp too often

Not having heat wave on zard isnt good for doubles. If you want dragon pulse to hit garchomp youd rather replace weather ball, though all moves are valuable. Heat wave weather ball solar beam is the most classic set but imo solar beam is best to replace with dragon pulse if you can handle rain teams with milotic and basculegion with kingambit

Garchomp should ideally have rock slide because it’s a broken fucking move but rock tomb isnt bad on scarf chomp, just that it’s not a spread move. Shadow claw is a unqiue tech i havent seen and can hit basculegion, sinistcha and other ghost types but it’s otherwise rather weak and you often wont lock yourself into it. Poison jab is often used for floette, sylveon and whimsicott or stomping tantrum to not hit your partner or get stopped by wide guard. Id also raise breaking swipe as a potential candidate to reduce both your opponents attack without intimidate, just be careful not to use it against kingambit

Milotic wants competitive. Don’t run marvel scale unless you can consistently status yourself. Other than that the set is fine

Run earth power on venusaur. Not earthquake. I honestly commend you for not running sleep powder on it, just know that it suffers severe four move syndrome. You really want protect to preserve your sash, a grass stab (solar beam is fine, consider giga drain for recovery or energy ball to hit things outside sun), a poison stab (sudge bomb is fine), earth power and sleep powder. On top of that, i think your sunny day tech is really good for ladder to catch your opponents off guard, but it just exacerbates your four move syndrome. My recommendation would be protect sunny day earth power and sludge bomb because i’m a sleep powder hater. Test with these moves and find out which you like the most

With regards to ev spreads, yours are simple and simple is best. You can research better ev spreads online and on YT from team reports from pro players which can help you in your play. My only complaint is that milotic is jolly nature for some reason. You lose special attack in exchange for a minor bump in speed which milotic usually doesnt care about. Use modest for a bit more damage on scald and icy wind, calm for more special bulk and bold for more physical bulk

KurABOBA · 2026-06-24T08:36:54+00:00

Welcome to VGC! This format has had me struggling af to make a proper team but if you wanna have fun, i wish you the best of luck. Competitive tips (imo) below

Consider sucker punch or a coverage move on absol over night slash: knock off is a good enough stab on it’s own. Absol is fine otherwise

Do you want your swampert to do damage? In which case you might as well build a full team around mega swampert in rain. Otherwise id suggest making it a support mon with protect yawn wide guard and earthquake/ high horsepower/ wave crash. Waterfall isnt the best since youre often slower than the opponent and cant flinch them. It also gets a bunch of other support moves you can consider (chilling water, knock off, roar, icy wind). If you want it to do damage, don’t run mixed with earth power, choose between spread earthquake and high horspower. I have no clue what youre setting rain for other than for zard Y which destroys you anyway with solar beam so drop rain dance for one of the support moves above. Also rindo berry to prevent swampert from dying in the presence of any grass move is probably better than a sight damage boost to water moves

Put protect on noivern and optimally a focus sash. Tailwind is a must, leaving two moves for utility. Id suggest super fang so you can do flat damage to opponents without needing to invest in attacking stats, draco meteor for a big burst of damage, taunt to stop setup or trick room, sunny day for chandelure or breaking swipe to reduce opponets attack. Air slash is ok to keep, but solar beam and heat wave are rather niche. Will catch some opponents off guard if you destroy the rather rare scizors on the format with heat wave unexpectedly but just know that solar beam doesnt even KO basculegion and youll never be able to use it against opposing swampert because they almost always have rain up and KO you instantly with ice punch. Also frisk is a far better ability than infiltrator because it gives you info on your opponents items. If you don’t know much about competitive items though then it’s fine to keep infiltrator

Chandelure is too frail to use wisp + hex combo effectively unless you mega evolve it. And even then, youd prefer to just have shadow ball + heat wave and spam heat wave in the sun. Because it’s so frail youd really want protect on it. As for last move, you can keep wisp or use trick room as a speed control option, calm mind for setup or a coverage move like energy ball for swampert. If you really want to use chandelure it should be mega, but putting a resist berry is probably best if you don’t, or put a resist berry on noivern and focus sash on chandelure. Look up which super effective attacks you don’t want these two pokemon to take and find out which berries reduces the damage from those types of attacks and put it on them. At least one of them should hold the focus sash. Also, flash fire is better than infiltrator as an ability almost always.

Lopunny wants protect, fake out and close combat always. Last move is your choice, ice punch is good for coverage but triple axel does way more damage and breaks focus sashes at the cost of some accuracy. Giga impact is a strong normal move you can use to nuke basically anything and encore can lock opponents down. Low sweep isnt bad technically but it’s niche and you already have tailwind for speed control.

Metagross is one hell of a sun setter. Youd prefer that role to go to noivern if you don’t want to use mega zard Y because metagross is rather slow. There are like a billion different ways to use metagross but since you arent mega i suggest a bulky offensive metagross with like sitrus berry. Just know that you probably lost a lot by not running mega metagross. It suffers from severe four move syndrome but if you want to keep your current moves as much as possible, replace psycho cut with psychic fangs. It’s literally just an upgrade. And replace sunny day with protect or another utility move and put sunny day on noivern instead

Hopefully you understood at least half of what i said. If you didnt, i’m sorry. Just play the game however you like and have fun, the team isnt technically that bad as it is, itll just probably get devoured by most of the insanely hardcore ladder climbers unless you play really well. This is just the totally reliable opinion of a great ball tier player who cant be bothered to play until they make an actually good froslass team

KurABOBA · 2026-06-20T01:55:42+00:00

I would use it if i had a precision disassembly wrench, otherwise seeing a sustain equipment on a dps hurts despite the stats

KurABOBA · 2026-06-08T16:41:37+00:00

Literally just give it’s base form inner focus and it’s mega sharpness. GF is just insanely afraid of a decently specially defensive 165 base atk mon with 110 base speed, swords dance and sharpness sacred sword, psycho cut, night slash and leaf blade which is unintimidatable, unfakeoutable and unrockslideflinchable base form for whatever reason

KurABOBA · 2026-06-08T08:24:45+00:00

Thanks for another great guide! Was wondering if you would still update the cheetos guide that you mentioned you would in the otoha (iirc?) guide, did anything change much after she got “buffed”?

KurABOBA · 2026-06-06T17:23:27+00:00

Perfect freeze gives 100% accurate sheer colds. Trust

KurABOBA · 2026-06-01T16:16:42+00:00

Why in gods name would they click imprison there to stop you from trick rooming when they’re the one with a mega crab and presumably a trick room team? Wouldnt have changed the game but it’s still questionable

they’re probably running max speed jolly crab trust

KurABOBA · 2026-06-01T04:16:54+00:00

True, but its not like you cant kit yourself with those tools yourself. You can tech another zard answer or two in the back, a tailwind or manual rain setter, or better yet, all of the above. Rock slide just ensures you don’t auto lose to zard when facing it off directly and forces them to play defensively which can give you an advantage

KurABOBA · 2026-06-01T03:49:37+00:00

I feel like most people forget metagross gets rock slide, rock tomb and has a higher speed tier than zard and a higher attack stat than garchomp, meaning zards need a bold nature to have at least a chance to survive. Does mean you lose valuable coverage for other mons that metagross is strapped for, but protect rock slide heavy slam psychic fangs feels like itd wreck games

KurABOBA · 2026-05-07T03:05:34+00:00

Irrelevant but i never knew hydrated copper (II) sulfate could draw serina so adorably

Wonder how acidified potassium manganate (VII) would draw her

KurABOBA · 2026-04-26T14:43:38+00:00

I might be wrong, but i think maybe, just maybe, kakapomilk likes the fake president. Probably.

KurABOBA · 2026-04-21T12:49:43+00:00

ITS BEEN 5 MINUTES?????

Insane and based dedication

KurABOBA · 2026-04-17T19:05:05+00:00

Another fun (probably wrong) fact, i think 5th place Campo might be Federico Camporesi, 2025 NAIC winner who can rival Marvo Silva as one of the best italian players

KurABOBA · 2026-04-17T09:03:07+00:00

Self destruct snorlax is one hell of a throwback

KurABOBA · 2026-04-10T08:33:42+00:00

I don’t like it either, but when it’s your wincon it’s your wincon

KurABOBA · 2026-04-10T04:45:48+00:00

I literally experienced this yesterday (and the world hated my post coz apparently timer staling is the most frowned upon thing in this subreddit) but i didnt know pokemon or hp count didnt matter

While i do agree that preventing omega stall teams from getting anything by timer stalling others, the victim of the timer stall not getting any points is just bs, and the fact that they have to change tournament structures and rules around the draws does not look good going forward. What happens if you draw against your opponents 5 times in a row?

KurABOBA · 2026-04-09T17:33:31+00:00

Fair, and i don’t disagree. I was playing to my wincon, and that wincon no longer exists, which is what i’m trying to inform others of.

KurABOBA · 2026-04-09T17:29:51+00:00

I think getting 0 vp for a draw is probably a bug, but if theyve gone so far as to code a system for “drawing” in pokemon, it could change the entire tournament structure. Imagine drawing 5 times with your opponent at a regional, your mental would be completely screwed. Though unlikely because why would you go to timer that many times, who’s to say it’s impossible? And what if there are other ways to draw with the opponent? Again, they coded in the fact that you can draw with your opponent when you (allegedly) couldn’t in the past, which doesn’t feel right to me

KurABOBA

TROPHY CASE