Aaron takes on Showdown – New Beginnings (Week 1)
PokéCommunity user Corviknight takes on Pokémon Showdown with a team picked from the community!
Welcome to Aaron takes on Showdown, the freshly revived PokéCommunity Daily series where I, Aaron, will be taking on Smogon’s toughest (aka the Low Ladder) with a specially crafted team handpicked by none other than yourselves!
This will work on the basis that for one week I will get sets thrown at me and create a team, the following week I will ladder with it and see how I do. Now for this week, I know for a fact that you’ve picked each one of these wonderful sets with the intention of me doing well…right?
WRONG. WHO THOUGHT GIVING ME SPECIAL GOLISOPOD WAS A GOOD IDEA?! I HATE YOU.
Needless to say, I was in for quite the surprise when I received the team, but an even bigger surprise once I started getting this thing rolling out. Let’s see what PokéCommunity decided Low Ladder would be facing over the last week or so.
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GOLISOPOD |
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|---|---|
| Held Item | Choice Scarf |
| Ability | Emergency Exit |
| EVs | 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe |
| Nature | Timid (+Spe, -Atk) |
| Moves |
|
 |
|
Rhyperior |
|
|---|---|
| Held Item | Choice Band |
| Ability | Solid Rock |
| EVs | 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD |
| Nature | Adamant (+Atk, -SAtk) |
| Moves |
|
 |
|
Hydreigon |
|
|---|---|
| Held Item | Berry Juice |
| Ability | Levitate |
| EVs | 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe |
| Nature | Jolly (+Spe, -SAtk) |
| Moves |
|
 |
|
Persian-Alola |
|
|---|---|
| Held Item | Choice Specs |
| Ability | Technician |
| EVs | 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe |
| Nature | Modest (+SAtk, -Atk) |
| Moves |
|
 |
|
Pincurchin |
|
|---|---|
| Held Item | Leftovers |
| Ability | Rain Dish |
| EVs | 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 SpD |
| Nature | Calm (+SpD, -Atk) |
| Moves |
|
 |
|
Dubwool |
|
|---|---|
| Held Item | Leftovers |
| Ability | Fluffy |
| EVs | 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD |
| Nature | Careful (+SpD, -SAtk) |
| Moves |
|
So as you can see, I already have a few duds before I had even started with this team. Special Golisopod is going to do next to nothing and Rhyperior with no coverage is a sitting duck. It’s ok, I have a great utility Pokémon in Pincurchin and good sweeper potential in Dragon Dance Hydreigon!
Or so I thought. In fact a few interesting developments arose whilst playing with this team. Dubwool with Body Press is kind of a nightmare to deal with, managing to combine a high Special Defence stat with Fluffy AND Cotton Guard to create supreme bulk and a very powerful Body Press (which can OHKO Umbreon, just as an FYI). Choice Banded Rock Wrecker from a Rhyperior can apparently annihilate half of the OU metagame in one hit, which made wallbreaking a much less scary threat to tackle for me. Persian-Alola was a really nice pivot for the team, packing a punch with its moves, providing good status drops and was actually a much better Parting Shot abuser than I anticipated.
Hydreigon was a great sweeper, once I got a Dragon Dance set up. It had alright coverage – the only thing lacking was an actual good item, ALTHOUGH Berry Juice did actually save me in one match, but yes this was a fun set to use and play around.
However with the ups come the downs. Pincurchin was supposed to be my catch-all tank and utility Pokémon, however I rarely managed to get Toxic Spikes set up (due to lack of bulk and Poison types that can easily deal with Pincurchin) and this left it to be…a lackluster Pokémon whose one role was to spread status and deal with the occasional Corviknight. Special Golisopod was as bad as I imagined it to be. It got some surprising revenge kills but otherwise it was fundamentally useless, especially as it didn’t have Heavy-Duty Boots OR hazard removal to help it out.
It also turns out that my team was incredibly weak to Volcarona. Once Rhyperior died (and even then it needed to be 100%), if I didn’t have Hydreigon already set up, this thing could survive any hit I threw at it and proceed to set up for free. With Volcarona apparently being flavour of the month, this was an unfortunate matchup I had to face very often!
Overall, despite the above, I actually had a really fun time with this team. It was great to be able to outplay the common threats in the tier and (yes I know it’s Low Ladder before you say anything) we actually managed a pretty good ratio!
Hoping to see you all now join in the fun and give me some crazy stuff to use. Make sure to join the thread to not only see my updates, but to submit those sets. Alternatively, be sure to check out our Discord Server’s #competitive-battling channel to do the same!
View the majority of replays here: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/search/?user=pcrabinov
Rabi’s Records:
This week’s W/L Ratio: 19W/19L (50%)
Total W/L Ratio: 19W/19L (50%)
Team Records:
Golisopod – 6
Rhyperior – 19
Hydreigon – 20
Persian-Alola – 16
Pincurchin – 2
Dubwool – 20
Forfeits – 11
Edited by Aldo, bobandbill, Ranko and Rivvon.
