Gyaranetric - a top 16 team: 5th Shade Offline Tournament team

Gyaranetric - 5th Shade Offline Tournament team

(Original: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/haru_shark/20140223/1393162761)

I participated in the 5th Shade Offline Tournament. It was my first time participating in a doubles tournament so I was rather uneasy, but my matches went better than I had expected and I enjoyed them alot. In the end, I advanced from my preliminaries group in 1st position with 8 wins and 2 losses, but dropped in the first round of Top Cut to achieve a final position of top 16.

This team wasn't something I spent a particularly large amount of time pondering, but I'm pretty satisfied that it was able to get me through the preliminaries. So, I'll go ahead and give it an introduction, if only a brief one.

Pokemon	Held Item	Move 1	Move 2	Move 3	Move 4	Ability
Lucario	Lum Berry	Close Combat	Feint	Follow Me	Detect	Inner Focus
Aegislash	Leftovers	Shadow Ball	Flash Cannon	Substitute	King's Shield	Stance Change
Garchomp	Life Orb	Dragon Claw	Earthquake	Rock Slide	Protect	Rough Skin
Manectric	Manectite	Thunderbolt	Overheat	HP Ice	Protect	Lightningrod / Intimidate
Amoonguss	Black Sludge	Giga Drain	Spore	Rage Powder	Protect	Regenerator
Gyarados	Sitrus Berry	Waterfall	Stone Edge	Taunt	Protect	Intimidate

Although I christened this team Gyaranetric in the title, that particular duo wasn't the main core of my team, so to speak; this was more of a goodstuffs-like team that reacted to whatever opponents showed in team preview with the appropriate Pokemon choices. All of my Pokemon complimented each other very well type-wise, so the primary playstyle was using combinations of the resistances, immunities and Intimidate to create advantageous match-ups while wearing the opponent down.

Lucario

EVs: 236 HP / 4 Atk / 108 Def / 156 SDef / 4 Spe (Impish nature)

Lum Berry

Close Combat

Feint

Follow Me

Detect

Lucario ended up being in this slot almost only because of all the Smeargles I faced. It pretty much deals with every single Smeargle variant during the opening of the game. The EV spread was made to survive Garchomp's Earthquake, and the remainder then went into special defense.

I actually have no idea if Follow Me is good for anything and am starting to think it would be better to replace it with the likes of Bullet Punch.

Aegislash

EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef  (0 Spe IV) (Quiet nature)

@Leftovers

Shadow Ball

Flash Cannon

Substitute

King's Shield

With its excellent defenses, Aegislash is able to secure very strong advantages by getting a Substitute up.

There are plenty of times where the opponent will leave Aegislash alone, predicting King's Shield, so I think that at times it is necessary to have the courage to stay in Blade Forme and attack.

Garchomp

EVs:  252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe (Jolly nature)

@Life Orb

Dragon Claw

Earthquake

Rock Slide

Protect

To perform its role of outputting spread damage, Garchomp was in need of firepower so I gave it a Life Orb to hold.

There's nothing much to write about this Pokemon in particular.

Manectric

EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spe (Timid nature)

@Manectite

Thunderbolt

Overheat

HP Ice

Protect

I wanted to use Manectric as the ace up this team's sleeve, so I went with the moves that had high base powers, Thunderbolt and Overheat. It also supports Gyarados well by not mega evolving and redirecting Electric attacks. Also, being able to outspeed even extremely fast opponents like Mega Gengar and Noivern was a particularly attractive quality.

Amoonguss

EVs: 252 HP / 52 Def / 204 SDef (0 Spe IV) (Sassy nature)

@Black Sludge

Giga Drain

Spore

Rage Powder

Protect

The specially defensive benchmark I aimed for was the ability to survive Timid Mega Charizard Y's Heat Wave in the sun. Amoonguss is strong in that it completely handles Rotom-W, which gives the rest of the team problems, and is able to create huge opportunities with Spore. With team members often switching in and out for each other, Regenerator was put to very good use. I venture to say that Amoonguss might well have been my MVP this tournament.

Gyarados

EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 100 Def / 4 SDef / 148 Spe (Adamant nature)

@Sitrus Berry

Waterfall

Stone Edge

Taunt

Protect

This is actually some singles spread so I'm not too familiar with it. I don't know what to say about this other than that Intimidate was really strong. Taunt was useful for dealing with Amoonguss and Prankster shenanigans.

As I mentioned above, I went into this tournament without really putting much effort into building this team, which I kind of regret.

Watching the finals, I found the way the winner was able to handle such an individualistic team particularly eye-catching.

I think that Doubles is a format in which many more Pokemon have opportunities to shine as compared to Singles, so during my next Doubles offline tournament I really want to bring some sort of interesting gimmick to participate with!

Lastly, my thanks go out to the organiser of the Shade Offline Tournament, Viera-san, and all of the other staff and participants for a good experience!