VGC Comedown Machine - Shadowtag Garg BO

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I’m pretty sure I’ve gassed up The Strokes before but god, simply one of my favorite bands. all the albums are soooo good and comedown machine does not discriminate, Welcome To Japan while not the first song in the album I would recommend listening to first, displays the key instruments and style in the album, you get these nice bright short electric guitar sounds, and it gets better from there
today I wanted to go over quite possibly the most disgusting vgc team I have seen yet this gen, you thought salt cure stalling was bad enough in singles… anyways I was able to peak at high 1400s which is pretty good for my first vgc team I suppose.

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Versions of the Team
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:gothitelle: :flutter mane: :dondozo: :tatsugiri: :garganacl: :glimmora:

original version of the team, since the whole idea is stall offense with donzo clean up I thought glims mortal spin spreading poison on both opposing mons would go well with the idea of the team… but it just wasn’t working that well, without sash glims mediocre bulk just wasn’t salvageable and it kept dying wayyy too fast I knew something had to change


:Annihilape: > :glimmora: fixed a lot of my issues and went well with goth, also helped against :kingambit:
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Team Building Process
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:gothitelle:
this team was originally built in doubles, until I realized shadowtag was banned. not my finest moment but nonetheless I carried on, I tested block garg a little bit but it seemed like way too much of a waste of turns block + salt cure just left me open against set up mons. So I transferred the idea to vgc where I could actually use goth lmao. Anyways goths main role was to support the rest of the team with Shadowtag support. trapping pokemon and removing them with ape + fluttermane so mons in the back can clean up. Tldr main role is to support other mons.

:gothitelle: :flutter mane:

you can probably tell this was inspired by wolfes perish trap team. Flutter mane is one of the greatest mons in the tier right now, it’s insane spa and powerful stabs allow it do damage fast, it’s also got a great speed tier.

:gothitelle: :flutter mane: :dondozo: :tatsugiri:

I would argue these two are some of the best “in the back” mons. Their job is clean up after goth + offense :flutter mane: / :annihilape: / :garganacl: removes its checks. while these two are super powerful together tatsu can carry games with garg, soak + salt cure with dozo in the back can stall out checks to the dozo + tatsu core


:gothitelle: :flutter mane: :dondozo: :tatsugiri: :garganacl:

main idea of the team, stalling and breaking with salt cure in such an offensive meta (stuff without healing) really helps ape and donzo also greatly helps against :armarouge: and :torkoal: with wide gaurd

:gothitelle: :flutter mane: :dondozo: :tatsugiri: :garganacl: :Annihilape:

set up sweeper that can hang in the back or be a powerful lead with goth or garg, ape + flutter created ghost spam in a sense so fighting stab is appreciated against powerful darks like :kingambit:

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The Team



Gothitelle

50/50 (Gothitelle) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Shadow Tag
Level: 50
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 132 SpD
Calm Nature
- Fake Out
- Thunder Wave / Psychic
- Heal Pulse
- Protect

pretty normal support set, :gothitelle: main role is purely to help our offensive mons while trapping the opponents with shadowtag. Fake out supports :flutter mane: and :annihilape: in hopefully allowing them to set up / stay alive longer. Thunderwave can be useful for the whole team, while we are pretty speedy it does help against booster speed mons as well as :iron bundle: . Heal pulse mainly helps :annihilape: set up more bulk ups but it can all around he used to support its teammates

tera water is purely defensive and is used to resists :gholdengo: make it rain, evs are used from wolfes set and allows goth to be bulky in both defenses

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Flutter Mane
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One Way Trigger (Flutter Mane) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Protosynthesis
Level: 50
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam / Perish Song
- Shadow Ball
- Moonblast
- Protect

offensive set with powerful dual stabs, gleam hits both opponents for good spread damage. Perish song + shadow tag is an alternative. although I find most of the time flutter mane dies before perish song becomes useful. Since this is mostly always a lead and the lack of hazards in the meta flutter can safely run :focus sash: because of its bad physical defense, giving another shot to fire off its powerful moves.

Tera grass gives you a good defensive also saving you from the redirection of rage powder and spore from :Amoonguss:

Dondozo

Welcome To Japan (Dondozo) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Unaware
Level: 50
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 4 HP / 248 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
- Earthquake
- Order Up
- Wave Crash
- Protect

you won’t be leading dozo, plan to bring in the back with :tatsugiri:, dozo’s job is to clean up with the powerful stat boosts is receives from tatsugiri. Order up boosts your already +2 attack to terrifying heights and is coverage for :dragonite: and other dragons, earthquake pairs well with tatsugiri since it can’t get hit, and wave crash is a powerful stab.

I originally ran tera grass + leftovers to circumvent spore but I was still liable to clear smog from :amoonguss: tera steel got around that and to prevent spore I ran safety goggles.

Tatsugiri

Partners In Crime (Tatsugiri) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Commander
Level: 50
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Soak
- Muddy Water
- Icy Wind / Dragon Pulse

tatsu’s main job is to enable :dondozo:’s sweeps but it can facilitate outside of that role. After dozo faints, tatsu can clean up with its powerful dragon and water stabs. tatsu also provides the soak + salt cure combo for :garganacl: which can stall out some games.

Tera dragon is mainly just to clean the (hopefully 1 mon) after :dondozo: deals with at least 1-2 mons

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Garganacl
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80sComedownMachine (Garganacl) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Purifying Salt
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Salt Cure
- Recover
- Protect
- Wide Guard

the true monster of this team, garg provides extreme utility with its signature move, salt cure. Allowing it to stall out and deal big damage to mons like :talonflame: :iron bundle: and more. Wide guard helps against :armarouge: + :indeedee: and their expanding force combo. Ape pairs extremity well with garg as wide guard helps it set up and salt cure gets some chip

tera fairy removes gargs awful typing and gives it some defensive support to help against mons like :iron bundle:

Annihilape

Slow Animals (Annihilape) @ Lum Berry / Leftovers
Ability: Defiant
Level: 50
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 Atk / 156 SpD / 100 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rage Fist
- Drain Punch
- Bulk Up
- Protect

ape is a set up sweeper that helps against :kingambit: as this team struggled to deal with it. Ape pairs well with :gothitelle: as goth can provide heal pulse support allowing it to set up more bulk ups and become threatening with boosted rage fists. Fairly common set.

Tera grass circumvents the ever popular spore from :amoonguss: and allows you to take hits from :gholdengo: and :flutter mane: better. Evs are meant to outspeed the common :gholdengo: set but I’ve heard some are running max speed now so it might be better to invest more in bulk.

replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2023series2-1825982974-vembvmbvx87qaii82jj70glsi22bkjhpw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2023series2-1826081723-v6mrajg5hov9r0p5s2fgv6zzizhszcfpw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2023series2-1826149477-ro006i61ijbip77kgg41brrkc74gwsmpw

conclusion + paste

tried to go for a different writing style in this rmt to make it more visually appealing to read. But more team related I think this is really fun to play and can give you a few good games on ladder, but when writing this I realized some people who don’t play vgc might be reading this so I wrote a small “guide” on how to pilot this team for those who play other tiers

1st identify the biggest threats on your opponents team, glance at what you have that might pair well together to check the thrwats

2nd almost always bring goth to a game because of its support move pool your opponent will have a hard time checking our offensive mons without being able to switch

3rd never lead dozo + tatsu in the front, save that for the endgame. Sometimes you can outright switch our lead mons into the core of its checks are weakened enough.

4th goes with above but remember that dozo + tatsu are extremely powerful as long as you remove their checks, but don’t feel like you need to bring them for every game

5th think about synergies within the team, you’ll have a better lead if you think about how your two leads support each other and take care of checks for each other rather than thinking about one mon

6th make reads, remember that like every mon in this tier runs protect and if it’s obvious, you’ll be better off double targeting the mon not clicking protect

7nth minor one but don’t be afraid to double protect turn 1 if your afraid of fake out from opposing Pokémon

8th another minor detail but factor in apes defiant ability that turns would be checks like intimidate arcanine into set up fodder with the garnered +2 attack

https://pokepast.es/5c0d7eb316a73ee5

have a nice day :)
 

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awyp

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Hey Fancy1 , I'm locking your RMT for the time being since you're only allowed to post one team every two weeks. This is stated in the forum rules and this rule is here to ensure we don't receive too many RMT from the same person so that raters can help everyone. I'll reopen this thread in 9 days upon request (as your last RMT was 5 days ago). Have a nice day!
 
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