Hi, I am attending the Melbourne Regional (Regulation I) and most of the teams I see in recent tournaments are same-same.

Teams centred around Miriadon / Caly Shadow or Ice are very prevalent and would like to avoid these..

Anyone have a fun team to try out?

First I understand something being Meta implies after a certain amount of time it will become common but…wow. Just out back to masterball after taking break for end of season. In my climb back today, 90% of teams (not exaggerating) from greatball to masterball had chomp, bask, sneasler, aero or wims, and 2 of the mega pairs. I zard Y / Glim pair for at least 1/3 of my games. I never faced a hard trick room team. My Blastoise TR team has a field day. These players skill matched their rank so I’m left with the conclusion that even casual players are just pulling teams off YouTube at this point. Are these meta comps that good or is the community just parroting content creators?

I have my first ever Pokémon Tournament tomorrow. It's just hosted locally by my province for schools, but I'm still so unbelievably stressed. Any tips on how to relax so I don't have a panic attack? Thanks.

So there is double protect when the same mon protects twice in subsequent turns, and there is double protect when both mons protect on the same turn. The double use (hehe see what I did there?) annoys me, I feel there is a better way. How about as a collective, we start referring to the version where both of your mons protect on the same turn as a "field protect"?

I'm around rank 2 Master Ball on the Champions Doubles ranked ladder and this new Vivillon set has been popping up everywhere. They are always scarfed and usually lead along with something like Mega Blastoise and click Sleep Powder and Fake Out. Vivillon with a Choice Scarf is annoying because it's basically a very fast sleep bot. Countering with a grass type pokemon is risky because Vivillon also has Hurricane. The move set appears to be Sleep Powder, Hurricane, Rage Powder, Protect. The ability is always Compound Eyes. How do you guys go about handling this?

Hello! Earlier this week I have started playing pokemon champions, after not having played any pokemon after gen 6. Thus, I do not own any of the game (except scarlet), which I immediatly noticed made teambuilding difficult. (Plus, I do not know much of the new pokemon etc.)

I managed to get up to Ultra Ball 2 with the team I share below, but now I am really struggling. Also, 1-3 pokemon (my megas + 1 more) just don't feel good and I've been switching them around a lot.

When offering tips to help me, please keep in mind that I am free to play and only own scarlet.

https://pokepast.es/a7f4282d8eb9e83d

Hatterene - I love this mon. I randomly pulled her, never having seen it before. But it is the goat and performed by far the best. Only started struggling when Sneasler shows up as a lead. But sometimes it tanks it. My trick room setter and then dazzling gleam. Life Dew is in there because I don't know what 4th move I should use. I had helping hand for torquel eruption, but rarely clicked it.

Incineroar - amazing part of the team, fake out, intimidate. I often lead it with hatterene. But flare blitz as the only attack has caused some troubles. will o wisp is amazing punishing stuff like sneasler fake out my hatterene.

torkoal - simple eruption sun trick room set. Since I don't really know the current gen of competitive, I just used this. I did not look in any forums previously to me asking for advice now, but I think i saw this in one of wolfey's videos or something.

This is kind of the core of my team, but torkoal has been feeling less and less good lately, especially since my trick room has started running out more often in this tier due to people spamming protect etc, and then it becomes useless. Plus, the weather war with pelipper is a struggle for me.

Ampharos is my answer to pelipper + archaledon, as well as charizard Y. I recently added it and it performs ok - but not amazing.

Abomasnow: I had mega frostlass before but that did not fit in my trick room team, so i just went with another ice mon hat I could get. I rarely ever bring it to fights though :/

The last mon i really change a lot, cuz i rarely ever brought it. Started clefable, cofragious, corvaknight, now machamp for charizard... I just can't find a slow mon that would feel good and that would help me. I thought about slowbro / slowking too? Please help.

My biggest dangers: Charizard Y + Garchomp, and Archaledon. & Trick room running out due to protect

I appreciate any help! =) My goal is to reach Masterball rank.

Hey Friends,

I recently cracked the top 500 on showdown with a Sand Team I have been tweaking since halfway through season 1 and wanted to share my team and give a brief team report for anyone who may want to try it or improve on it.

Poke Paste

Team+ Moves

EVs

My starting point for this team was of course TTar+Excadrill. There is nothing too surprising here. Rockslide on 3 mons to help slow the other team down with flinch chance. My one "tech" is ice punch over something like low kick. Ttar is currently trained to survive a stomping tantrum or an EQ from Garchomp, and KO (or get really close depending on the Chomp set) with ice punch. Mega+ ice punch guarantees the OHKO each time. Personally, I found low kick lack luster and ran into more matches where I wanted ice punch over a fighting move.

Excadrill-goes fast and hits hard with stab or gives me flinch chances with a fast rockslide. I experimented with white herb as an item but needed to compensate for its fragility. Especially in the face of things like scarf chomp or sneasler.

Sinestcha- redirection, healing and can pass status with matcha gotcha. I personally did not enjoy having trick room and opted for shadow ball to help deal with opposing ghosts, like basculegion, gengar, or sableye. This shadow ball also helps with some of my more difficult match ups like Archaludon by having a solid stab special move.

Milotic- Bulky attacker, solid into garchomp. Can dissuade opposing intimidate from coming to the battle at all with competitive.

Rotom heat- Originally rotom-w, but I found myself needing a fire move and strong electric attacks as more whimsicott joined the meta, and different steel types posed threats to my rock types. I also needed electric support to deal with rain teams, basculegion and bulky flyers like corviknight. Trained to outspeed scarf basculegion and chunk it with volt switch or thunderbolt. (Used to be secure a KO, but the fish is running a bit bulkier as of late.)

Aerodactyl- Pretty simple set, went with a mega stone to help secure KOs with tough claws and outspeed opposing aero, Aero+rotom are my most common leads, I ended up needing wide guard over protect to help mitigate spread moves from mons like primarina or opposing rockslides. Tailwind for extra speed, and dual wingbeat to get around sneasler.

Most common Lead- Aero+Rotom. Fast volt switch and wide guard support provides flexiblity and a chance to pivot if you don't call the opponents lead correctly. Geneally with this lead you are able to bring Ttar+ a flex mon to meet whatever the opponent might bring (this is most often milotic or excadril)

Weaknesses

Lack of 100% accurate moves. Rockslide, Iron Head, High Horsepower, matcha gatcha, dual wing beat, overheat CAN and WILL miss. Be prepared to have to play around a miss.

M-Venusaur or scovillain teams. M-Venusaur matches up really well into this team, especially if they can KO Aerodactyl. Thick fat+ giga drain can pose a threat if you cannot take it out quickly through dual wingbeat or other big damage. Scovillain is just annoying, easily able to pass around burns can really handicap the team if you're not careful. I typically with sacrifice aero and use them to take the burn and focus down the peppers, to help keep the rest of the team burn free.

Archaludon+Sableye- this team is solid for a reason. The lack of fighting moves means we are reliant on rotom and excadrill to take down the bridge. Best advice is to focus down sableye by leading TTar+sinestcha to try and prevent both sets of screens from going up. If that is successful, focus on weather control and you are generally able to leave the bridge for last with smart play, while you take down the rest of the team.

Whimsicott- priority tailwind+encore can really disrupt this team, and put you on the backfoot if you are unable to get your own tailwind up

I will put trick room up here, as it can be hard to outlast trick room once it is up, but it is possible. M-TTar with knock off is able to secure KOs on most setters, with a double up if they have the colbur berry.

Strengths-

I think sand gives you a lot of solid options into the more common teams running around atm. The team has a positive match up into sun and snow teams. A neutral to difficult match up into TR teams, and a difficult match up into some rain teams if you lose control of the weather I don't think I have run into a team comp that cannot be beaten with better play on my end.

Thanks for reading, hope this helps someone! Next step is making adjustments for the Bo3 ladder.

Enemy Kommo-o clangorous souls twice then my incin throat chops the Kommo-o after the 2nd one.
Next turn Kommo-o uses clanging scales and goes through throat chop.

Does throat chop not work in champs, bug, or is there a mechanic im not aware of?

edit: Kommo-o had quick claw although I don't think that would matter?

Screenshot of the team

Pokepaste link: https://pokepast.es/25e19d1788c2b8a6

Team Idea

I've always had a bit of an obsession with the Snow weather ever since they got rid of Hail in Generation 9, and as such, I'm also obsessed with trying to make good mono-Ice teams in Pokemon (if there's one thing WolfeyVGC taught me it's that even if it's probably not good, trying random bullshit is the most fun way to play).

My first attempt at doing this was for Regulation I of Scarlet and Violet, since Kyurem and Calyrex Ice Rider were both Restricted Pokemon in it. Now I'm trying to do it again in Pokemon Champions!

Let me know what you think, because I really wanna make this one good, and there are honestly a lot of options I still haven't gone through. For example, I've barely gotten to use Weavile or Froslass yet, and I haven't even tried Glalie (not to mention, there are like 8 other Ice-type Pokemon in Champions that I haven't even looked at)!

Team Description

For my team, I basically wanted to do the "industry standard" of 4 attackers, 2 supporters to start. So I'll go through each of those and explain why they're on my team.

Mr. Rime! I added this guy because it is the ONLY Ice-type Pokemon in Champions that has the move Trick Room. It is an absolute must, considering how slow most of the Ice-types in this format are. I gave it a couple attacking moves with STAB because I didn't feel like going mostly status moves without giving it mental herb, and then I just built it bulky so it could stay on the field and be annoying as long as possible. If I DID go full status spam on it, what would you recommend? Thunder Wave? Encore? Taunt? Drop Protect for something else?

Avalugg! This guy is probably one of my favorite Ice-type Pokemon, simply because of how disgusting it can be with Body Press. Also, it's absolutely amazing in Trick Room! I wasn't sure about going Protect instead of Recover, considering it already has Leftovers, but it's a start. Iron Defense is obviously to make its Body Press hit like a truck when it has time to set up, and Ice Spinner is for when it's against a Ghost Type or something. I originally went Own Tempo instead of Ice Body so that it couldn't be Intimidated, and I thought it'd be more consistently useful considering how weather-heavy teams are, but I ended up preferring Ice Body in the end for the healing that it gives when Snow is up. Having 3 Pokemon that can set snow really lets me benefit from it most of the time.

Mega Abomasnow! This guy has been winning me the weather war 80% of the time, unless they've had Rain Dance Sableye to get rid of the Snow every time it goes up. It has Ice Beam instead of Blizzard because if I give Blizzard to all of my special attackers, my team would be countered by literally any Pokemon with Wide Guard. I went Energy Ball instead of Giga Drain because I honestly just want Abomasnow to be dealing tons of damage, rather than trying to be some kind of drain tank. Because at the end of the day, one Fire-type move and it's donezo.

Mega Froslass! I haven't used it much, but the thing is, it's not because I think it's bad. It's just that I haven't had a situation where I've needed it. My thought process was that I should have at least 1 or 2 attackers that can be really speedy in case Trick Room isn't an option, and Mega Froslass was the obvious choice for that. I gave it the best STAB moves I could, and then gave it Protect and Aurora Veil so it could set up defenses for my team right away.

Weavile! I figured that I needed one more fast Ice Type to add along with Mega Froslass, so I think this guy is the best possible choice (although I haven't tried Slush Rush Beartic yet). He's just way too useful to not have on the team; he outspeeds most other Fake Out users, so he can Fake Out their Fake Outs, and still dish out some damage with his STAB Lash Out (in case he gets Intimidated or some other stat drop), break opponent's screens with Brick Break, and then with Chople Berry, his 4x Weakness to Fighting becomes less devastating (Although I am tempted to switch it to Focus Sash considering he still gets popped by Fire Type moves and I unfortunately can't give Mega Abomasnow a Focus Sash...).

Aurorus! Super underrated for this team, especially since I honestly thought it would be useless! Another Snow setter is super good for when Abomasnow gets the Mega Charizard Y + Heat Wave Treatment. I built it super bulky so that it can get up Aurora Veil without getting oneshot first, and I finished it off with a couple STAB moves just like Mr. Rime. I gave it a Babiri Berry so that one Steel Type move from Kingambit or the like won't be the end of it (although I haven't done any actual calculations on that so I could be wrong). Just like Weavile I've also considered the Focus Sash but again, not sure about that one, since Aurorus is pretty bulky and won't need it as much.

Conclusion

That's all I've got for now, I literally just built this yesterday and have only played a few games of Showdown with it. Please help me make this as good as it can get! I don't need it to be meta, I just need it to be optimized, ykwim?

Thanks for reading!

The team everyone has been copying. Seems that even again Cybertron has bade another video about it today. I saw another well known VGC contecr creator make another video also today. We might see even more people running it

I faced it 4 times in my last 8 games.

For me I felt that Venu can be a good opener against it. Something like rotom wash and venu can be a safe opener against it. Garchomp does well against it too.

But the team aa a whole has a backline of S tier and A tier pokemon with Basci/Chokp/King/CharY + Whim/Glimmora. It ia full of high win rate mons.

I love glimmora. One of my Fav. mons ever but i have been trying to avoid playing flavor of the season teams.

I thought of Glimmora + Talon as a twist for this team but Whim can always just protect first turn and you get one shot with power gem. If you protect as Talon first turn to bait their protect but they tailwind, you might get prankster encored cuz they priority outspeed you.

Team Idea/Team Description

Alright, going to try and keep it simple. I think I am following all the rules anyway.

Long story short, wanted to try my hand at making my own version of a Trick Room team. With what I think is basically standard Torkoal and Oranguru. To fill out the slots and add some coverage, I added some mons I don't see often hoping to utilize them to cover a lot of weaknesses.

Milotic - Solid Water Type, Recovery, Ice type coverage, holding Mystic Water (Might swap with Never-Melt...but this is what it is right now.) Only problem is it kind of overlaps with....

Corviknight - Steel coverage, has a lot of sustain, Body Press/Iron Defense combo, sounded fun. Overlaps with Milotic though in terms of being an annoying recovery mon.

As for my Megas:

Drampa - Dragon/Normal is interesting, Strong Special Attacker, has good coverage.

Victreebel - Grass/Poison Type, max Attack, hoping it is strong enough to deal with problematic Fairies and Water types in Trick Room.

The two main problems I have is One: Obviously very trick room coded and easily predictable. Not sure how to play around the easy predicts. I was thinking of adding a super fast mon alongside Oranguru to try to OHKO something before trick room. Not sure what to add and replace - maybe Basc over Milo? Idk if Basc gets any great coverage, though.

Two: If I can't get TR up, this team suffers severely. How can I edit the team to ensure it at least has a fighting chance without TR?

Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/8dc52af549c69545

Two main things I am looking for: Either viable, useful versions of the Pokemon I am currently running, or suggestions that aren't necessarily Meta. I get Meta Pokemon are Meta for a reason, but I am trying to find fun with using less-used mons. I'm already in masterball, and have two different teams to climb with - this team is more for fun and just to use.

I'm not new to competitive pokemon and even placed MB 4 in the last pokemon champions ranked session, but I've always struggled building my own team from scratch. (For MB4 I used CybertronVGC Mega Blastoise TR set, but replaced Basculegion and Kingambit with Bellibolt and Runegrigus.)

Now with my 50 pc slots secured from reaching masterball, I want to try my hand at making a team with my favorite type and favorite mons and am looking for some advice.

The team would preferably include Absol(mega or normal) and Mega Gyarados. Absol is my favorite pokemon, and dark my favorite type, hence Mono-Dark.

I'd also prefer to leave out Incineroar, as it's my least favorite dark type, but since the team roster is limited and I need the team to be competitively viable, I'll deal.

Couple of ideas I've had:

Anger point Krookadile with Earthquake/protect/Rock Slide/Throat chop(for hyper voice spammers). This paired with Super Luck Absol with Scope lens using Shadow Claw for basically guaranteed crit. It's been working, but Krookadile isn't bulky enough to survive more than getting off one or two Earthquakes. Hence my issue with that trick.

I also thought about the Beat up into Justified Absol then going Mega as an option, but not what the rest of the team would look like with that.

Oh, forgot to mention this is for doubles in champions, but I'd be fine with a singles team if that might be better for Mono-Dark.

Last thing, I'm more comfortable with Trickroom/Stall/Tank teams, but am willing to try a speed team to make this work.

Any pointers for team building or full team suggestions welcome! Please, and thank you in advance!