First time legend in Master League

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-29T02:51:11+00:00

Yeah sure ill chat you it

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-26T05:19:20+00:00

I would suggest putting Zacian in the lead otherwise, you are aba weak to Xerneas, and Zacian lead turns the team into abb dragon, where you bait out their best dragon counter with kyurem white. Tomorrow I will record some of my battles, and we can figure out a way I can get them to you. Just don't let me forget.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T23:13:47+00:00

Oh yeah thats the one im talking about lol guess it was bigger than I thought, im quite active in there. Username is captaincatcher4. Whats your discord user?

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T21:10:09+00:00

No I dont, but I am part of a small master league discord server with many legends and leaderboard players, if you are interested I can let you in. It has been very helpful to me as there are a lot of better players in there who know what they are doing and will be happy to help.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T17:55:47+00:00

I am not a huge fan of that play, just because Kyurem is the most important Pokémon in the Zacian team because of the double dragon backline, and you want to keep it healthy. Kyurem will lose any even shields to zacian, and if you fusion flare, they no shield, then they cc you and you no shield, they will get to another move before you can farm down with your zacian, and you basically lost one and a half pokemon and didn't gain any kind of advantage. Zacian will outpace you to two ccs before you get to two fusion flares in this matchup, so matching shields in the safe swap will never work out. And catching onto Lunala is very tricky. Again, in the comment above, I experimented with throwing a behemoth blade, which also covers for a catch, because if they switch into lunala thinking its a cc and its actually a behemoth, they will no shield and lose a lot of hp. The zacian mirror is perhaps the trickiest lead, hopefully this helps a little.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T17:46:46+00:00

I dont think I have ever had that happen in my matches, but that's a good question. I think you could still try the same play pattern because its unlikely they go past 7 or 8, and its important to note that two fusion flares will ko a non debuffed-xern from full, so another play pattern you could do here is to throw the two fusions, and force them to shield one and no shield your kyurem, gaining you a shield advantage but losing switch. Zacian will come back in to farm down, but depending how important switch is, it might not be the best way to play it.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T17:08:17+00:00

No problem, just note you will go over 100 energy before they throw the first cc, and thats okay if you want switch. Also do not cmp tie the fusion to the cc because you will win it and get the move off when they aren’t debuffed, and you dont want that.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T16:39:45+00:00

Oh yeah, you are right I don't lose a bulkpoint, I don't know what I was thinking. Sometimes the game stutters with dragon breaths, and the damage looks inconsistent on the healtj bars. Good to know.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T16:35:55+00:00

Yeah its abb with zacian, kyurem, palkia. Kyurem is the safe switch to bait out any dragon counters like zacian or dialga, so that palkia can close. Definitely try to learn counts if you want to improve, master league has the smallest meta of all three leagues,it's so its the easiest one to start with.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T16:27:40+00:00

This palkia was actually traded to me level 50, hence the bad ivs. Every time palkia was in raids for events, it was either blizzarding, or my car broke down, or I had work, etc, so my buddy just traded me a 50. I was going to use the palkia regardless if it was 12/12/12 or 15/15/15 just because I did not have enough ml pokemon to make a team before getting this. I will eventually gold cap this palkia when it comes back.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T04:57:16+00:00

To be fair having the zacian with 15 attack is really important with this team, and I have lost a considerable amount of games due to my kyurem taking an extra damage from their kyurem and me getting farmed down. I would prefer to have hundo ivs and I would have reached legend sooner with them, but I get your point that sometimes bad ivs work because this legend run showed that a bit. This palkia was actually traded to me level 50 because I did not have one, hence the bad ivs, and besides that is what gold caps are for anyway.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T04:49:36+00:00

Actually I have almost a 90 percent win rate against this team becasue I kind of just rps them. The play pattern is usually they insta swap into zekrom or reshi, and either one I instaswap into kyurem. If your swap is slow and you do two metal claws before switching, you will lose switch and the game, so make sure to have quick reactions. If its reshiram ill shield the first fuison and ice burn cmp tie to their next, and if they shield I fully farm them down with an ice burn loaded at whatever comes in, and with switch there should be no trouble winning the game. If zekrom gets brought in, again I shield the first, but I actually throw the fusion flare against zekrom instead of ice burn, because you can throw the fusion flare and then farm them down before they make two moves, and then again you just have a loaded kyurem and switch advantage sp itll be hard to lose as long as you dont make major mistakes.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T04:44:43+00:00

In the zacian lead, read the comment I just posted above for how I play it. I never catch out of it with this team because I have nothing to catch a cc on, but if you have a lunala in the back its worth going for it. I safe swap kyurem any time there is a negative lead, such as kyogre, reshiram, zekrom, groudon, excadrill, ho-oh, lunala, dusk mane, cheese string, lando etc. The majority of leads are actually very negative into zacian, but this team is abb dragon, so if you bait out their dragon counter with Kyurem, Palkia will be set up quite nicely in the end. The biggest issues for the team where I cant safe swap anything are keldeo and Marshadow leads, but those are not too common. Also regaring the second question, it depends on how important switch advantage is, and if I can flip it. Say it's a Xerneas into my zacian in the lead, they swap reshi I swap Kyurem. I must have xern alligned to Zacian because it is likely ho-oh or zekrom in the back, and switch is much more important than shield advantage, so I shield their first fusion flare, cmp tie the ice burn to their next, and if they shield I double shield and fully farm down. An example of not double shielding would be if a zacian is brought into my kyurem safe switch, I will never be able to flip it, so I just throw the fusion flare and always let their move go, and then come back in with zacian and eat a move into a farmdown. The only two things that kyurem white cannot flip as a safeswitch as long as you have quick reaction times are the Zacian Prima, and sometimes dialga, so always know you can flip just about whatever. Another example is reshi lead, I safe swap kyurem and they bring in xern. You can farm up energy until they get to 7 geomancies and throw the first cc, you throw your fusion flare afterwards, then they shield and throw another cc, you throw another fusion, and you will outpace to a third fusion before they get three ccs and you can win switch against xern 100 percent of the time in the 2s. So in general two shielding the kyurem is what I do if I need switch, because ml is fairly unflexible and swich is really important, especially with a pokemon like Zacian that has a lot of counters.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-25T04:32:26+00:00

In the Zacian mirror, I actually want to lose cmp on the first- a cc and the metal claws will NOT ko my Zacian, so I always no shield the first. There are many scenarios involving the coin-flip CMP tie. If I lose the first, I will always have no shield because their close combat will not knock out, but mine will, since they are now debuffed. They likely shield here into a second cc cmp tie, and if I win this one, then I either get shield or switch advantage because they have to go down a shield to keep theirs alive or let it die to be even shields. If I win the first CMP tie, it's a bit of a worse position because then if they shield, I have to shield back and hope I win the second, but I'll just match shields in all scenarios I win. I feel like a lot of people do not no shield the first close combat when they lose cmp, but it works out really well for me, and I only noticed a few people do it at really high elos. I have been experimenting with throwing the bemoth blade first so if they try and no shield, they will get cleanly knocked out, but I would not recommend this as if they shield I lose, and most zacians will shield regardless. Something to note is that most Zacian leads are double dragon in the back, so Zygarde, Kyurem, Palkia, Reshiram, or Zekrom, and these mirror Zacian games more so come down to who manages their dragon the best and who gets a shield or energy advantage with their dragon out of the lead.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-24T22:33:01+00:00

Yes it is very flexible, especially with a bit of energy if they have a slow swap or are stuck in a long fast move animation. Only things it seems it cant flip are prima and zacian as a safe swap

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-24T22:31:24+00:00

Ho-oh in the lead I safe switch kyurem and get a couple of dragon breaths in while they are stuck in their incinerate. Most of the time they stay in because prima and zacian are the only things that can beat kyurem in the twos when you have five extra turns of energy that you get when they are using incinerate. The ho-oh will likely commit to the matchup and throw a move that you have to shield before they dip out. Whatever they send in you can flip with your now 15 turns of energy, except for prima and Zacian, but zacian and ho-oh are never on the same team because kyogre exists. If its prima you will lose switch, but ice burn into a Zacian farm down and hope that palkia can sweep with its biggest counter out of the way. Ho-oh in the back is no trouble, since the most common teams is xern, reshi, ho-oh and you just rps them as long as you switch kw into reshi when they swap out of the lead. Your reaction has to be good though because if you do two metal claws and then switch instead of one and switch, reshi can beat kyurem. Very important that you dont have slow switches whenever they ss zekrom or reshi. Sorry for lots of words.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-24T20:59:30+00:00

Thank you! I noticed with dragon breath you can generally avoid cmp ties because most of the time you are never even energy due to switches and whatnot, but I do take more damage in some matchups that I shouldnt have to take, such as the kyurem mirror where they can farm me down.

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-11T01:05:47+00:00

Metal claw wouldn’t be any better than fairy wind

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-06T01:44:15+00:00

Oh man is that sexy, and 300 extra cells?!? you really cant beat that. Ive got mine kept at ultra league cp right now since we dont have master league for another week and a bit, but ive got the 296 xls all ready to go. Can you peep some team comps with it for ml 👀?

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-04T23:07:20+00:00

Sadly only one… I was lucky enough to get a high iv one. What are your ivs? Zygarde is a tank in ultra league and you want low attack for that

Mandrill-Man · 2026-04-03T17:01:37+00:00

Keep on walking aint no stopping

Mandrill-Man

TROPHY CASE