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Aaron takes on Showdown – Third Time’s the Charm (Week Three)

Welcome to Week 3 of Aaron takes on Showdown, the freshly revived PokéCommunity Daily series where I, Aaron, will be taking on Smogon’s toughest (aka the Low Ladder) along with 6 of my toughest sidekicks yet, chosen by the community!

This will work on the basis that, for one week, I will get sets thrown at me and create a team and 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?

As much as this wasn’t as bad as it has been… ok screw it why did someone give me Acupressure Malamar. WHY.

We got a team of heavy hitters this week, so I was actually pretty excited to see how I would do! Let’s see what powerhouses you gifted me this time around.

Drampa

Drampa

Held Item Leftovers
Ability Berserk
EVs 248 HP / 64 Def / 196 SpD
Nature Calm (+SpD, -Atk)
Moves
  • Substitute
  • Flamethrower
  • Dragon Breath
  • Roost
Malamar

Malamar

Held Item Leftovers
Ability Suction Cups
EVs 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Nature Jolly (+Spe, -SpA)
Moves
  • Rest
  • Block
  • Acupressure
  • Night Slash
Corviknight

Corviknight

Held Item Life Orb
Ability Mirror Armor
EVs 252 HP / 148 Atk / 28 Def / 80 Spe
Nature Careful (+Atk, -SpA)
Moves
  • Roost
  • Bulk Up
  • Power Trip
  • Brave Bird
Mantine

Mantine

Held Item Life Orb
Ability Swift Swim
EVs 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature Timid (+Spe, -Atk)
Moves
  • Rain Dance
  • Hydro Pump
  • Hurricane
  • Ice Beam
Indeedee

Indeedee

Held Item Choice Specs
Ability Psychic Surge
EVs 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Nature Timid (+Spe, -Atk)
Moves
  • Expanding Force
  • Mystical Fire
  • Dazzling Gleam
  • Trick
Diggersby

Diggersby

Held Item Focus Sash
Ability Huge Power
EVs 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Nature Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)
Moves
  • Endeavor
  • Spikes
  • Quick Attack
  • Earthquake

I don’t think there was a set in this team that I didn’t like the look of! There are some very gimmicky sets, but as a whole they all on paper look somewhat viable and should be netting some good killcounts across the board.

I’m going to start with the team’s MVP for me, which was Mantine! With Swift Swim bringing it to a respectable 524 Speed, Rain and STAB boosts for Hurricane and Hydro Pump AND Life Orb to pack that extra punch, this thing was tearing many holes into so many teams. Abusing its special bulk (base 85 HP/140 Special Defence), I found it quite easy to set up a Rain Dance and start going to town on several members of a lot of teams I went against. All in all, an amazing set!

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Next up were the two most arguably gimmicky sets in the team: Malamar with its Acupressure abuse and Drampa abusing its bulk along with Substitute and Roost to try and maintain a healthy balance of Berserk boosts and actually living to use them. I managed to pull off both combos a few times throughout, resulting in some pretty funny kills. I really like the touch on Malamar of having Block in its moveset, being able to capitalise on people not knowing the set and trapping a poor Clefable who was Choice-locked (having to repeat the same move due to holding a Choice Item) was definitely one of the highlights! Otherwise…both sets fell off hard if they weren’t able to set this up and, believe me, it was generally very hard to utilise these two out of VERY specific scenarios. The BEST bit was that, even at +6 Attack, Malamar managed a whopping… ~70% to an Urshifu. Incredible.

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Another lackluster set was our Corviknight set. I liked the idea behind it, turning a tank into an all out bruiser, with Life Orb for damage boosts and Roost to heal off said damage. Unfortuantely, in reality, it was very hard to pull this off without either getting killed during setting up, or getting killed after using one Brave Bird. It DID however help with Clefable a lot, especially as against some Clefable sets Corviknight could OHKO at +1 Attack.

Yeah well MY shiny wings are much better than your shiny wings (spoilers: their Corviknight won).

Side note: apparently Corviknight also is a good counter to… Thunder… Mimikyu? No idea what was going on here, I’m chalking it down to someone being inspired by these articles and trying out a crazy set of their own!

I was truly shocked when Mimikyu used this move on me.

NOW moving on to two more fantastic sets which I LOVED using. Firstly we had another special powerhouse in Indeedee. This thing was an absolute monster with a nice Speed tier, Psychic Terrain AND Choice Specs. There were several leads, OU threats and even tanks which couldn’t stand up to this thing. In particular, my favourite moment was being able to force both Hatterene and Clefable to switch out, because Expanding Force under Psychic Terrain is total carnage. Dazzling Gleam was mandatory coverage and Mystical Fire’s Special Attack drop proved somewhat useful, as well as being able to murder the likes of Ferrothorn, Skarmory and Corviknight too.

I take your lead and set it on fire. GGWP.

Diggersby relied on a small gimmick but WOW it really delivered on that front and so many more. It was able to hold its own against many common leads, either killing them outright (hello Shuca Berry Excadrill), layering Spikes or being able to cheese them out with the Endeavor + Quick Attack combo (hello unaware Urshifus). SO many Pokémon got caught out by this trick that I started to actually feel a little dirty using it. When I initially saw the set I was expecting to never land a successful Endeavor, yet I managed to land said combo 3 times in one battle!

This is 100% my favourite team so far – I had some generally good sets to use and help me out when things got a bit scary, along with some amazing gimmicks which managed to piece together very nicely! I can’t wait to see what dumpster fire I get to play with next week, to make up for this team being so good.

This wraps up Week Three of the Aaron takes on Showdown article series! Make sure to join the thread to not only see my updates, but to submit the craziest abomination you can think of. 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: 15W/16L (48.39%)
Total W/L Ratio: 38W/45L (45.78%)

Team Records:
Drampa – 7
Malamar – 5
Corviknight – 11
Mantine – 21
Indeedee – 21
Diggersby – 23
Forfeits – 9

Edited by Aldo, bobandbill, gimmepie and Zach.