[VG] A Bad Team for Battle Maison

It's been a while. Playing games and writing about games at the same time is hard. I'll have to rethink whether I actually finish this other series as originally intended or just make some kind of summary, whatever, for the rest. Anyhow, time for some Maison now. Since I want to get those battle videos out already, I also need the team analyses to support them.

Today's team will probably be the least interesting, really, because I think it's bad, and undeniably it's old. I've learned a lot about it using it, so maybe that will be helpful to someone else that is fool enough to start out with similar ideas.

Team Building

Let's start with the M factor, you know, Mega Evolutions. Before I started, I didn't know whether opponents would ever use them there (spoiler: they don't at all, not even the bosses, which is rather poor), but it probably makes sense to everyone to simply use one. Records reflect that, Kangaskhan and Scizor in particular seem to be hot in Singles. I, however, went into it completely blind, and blindly I decided I would start things with Mega Gyarados. First, Magikarps would be easy stuff to breed when starting from scratch, and second, Dragons (even when they are no Dragons) always used to be good starting points – before BW, at least. (I say that because I never got all the Subway achievements, particularly not the Singles ones. I'm more the Battle Frontier kind of player, this thing just bored me to death.) Gyarados has one of the more interesting Mega forms on paper, particularly due to that strong natural bulk and lack of a silly double weakness. Maybe it wouldn't be the best, but it would be good to start.

Having decided on that slot, I basically brought back what was known to be good, which is Garchomp behind a Water-type lead. I could get 49 (didn't need 50 back then) somewhat consistently with Starmie, Garchomp and I don't even remember what else the whole Generation IV, so why not, it's fucking Garchomp, man. Now the third and final slot, that took one me a bit to figure out what to put there... The first two basically are terribly weak to our beloved bulky Water mons and they also are both physical, so I'd want a special attacker that can handle them, or at least switch into various threats, and it probably should also be a reliable Fairy killer. With the whole project already having aged quite a bit and my notes being not too detailed, I must apologize for having forgotten all my unused ideas, but in the end I went with Lucario, which did the switching-in part just fine. I also liked its Aura Sphere STAB to give me better outs against Double Team, Bright Powder and all that shit.

The Team

I jokingly named my BW legendary musketeers after the German national motto Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit to make fun of them being a trinity based on French stuff (hey, wrong gen for that, isn't it?), and France has a similar yet different motto in Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. However, didn't ever get to actually bring them together in one team, and on an unrelated note, I've decided to go with nickname themes for every team I use in XY, so I simply brought this theme back. Maybe it already spelled doom just by itself since Germany never really succeeded in „winning against France“, haha, but it's a good theme for this game anyway. Maybe I'll make a French counter-theme later, we'll see. On to the sets then!

Einigkeit (Gyarados)
Item: Gyaradosite	Ability: Intimidate --> Mold Breaker
Nature: Adamant	EVs: 28 HP, 252 Atk, 228 Spe
Moves: Waterfall, Earthquake, Ice Fang, Dragon Dance

Yeah, this must be as basic as it gets. A fun fact about it is that I really hate Ice Fang for use against humans and Stone Edge has done quite some good things for me there, but against the AI, you know, „consistency“ might be better. Low accuracy is pretty much banned from all my teams for this purpose and I'm not going to move away from that stance any time soon. There's only one really bad consequence though, and that has some irony to it: problems against other Gyaradoses of all things. And yes, the rest of the team really doesn't adress that well...

Recht (Garchomp)
Item: Focus Sash	Ability: Rough Skin
Nature: Jolly	EVs: 252 Atk, 4 SpDef, 252 Spe
Moves: Outrage, Earthquake, Poison Jab, Swords Dance

And this is just as boring. The original plan was to get Garchomp in for free, get a guaranteed Swords Dance thanks to the Focus Sash and then kill stuff. Well, that's how it worked back in DP days, but I'm not too fond of it now, as it turned out. There are too many ways for foes to survive things, there are too many faster mons even with a Jolly nature, the Electric mons that I wanted to set up on got a lot more troll potential and Outrage is just a shitty move and you'll see me rant about it a few more times, as I've still given it so many more chances and still didn't get a 3-turn one in like forever.

One interesting thing, however, could be the filler move. I started out with Iron Head because I simply already got that from my breeding parent – wasn't sold on it to begin with and it did nothing good for me when using it, so I deleted it. Again, Electric mons were trollish, with Magnet Rise being one of their favorite moves, so I eventually went for Poison Jab to have something to hit them with lock-free and beat Togekiss at the same time. Ultimately, worst mon of the team for sure, and that's really not a compliment to the team.

Freiheit (Lucario)
Item: Choice Specs	Ability: Inner Focus
Nature: Timid	EVs: 252 SpAtk, 4 SpDef, 252 Spe
Moves: Aura Sphere, Flash Cannon, Shadow Ball, Dragon Pulse

Lucario has a pretty interesting dilemma: Choice Specs vs. Lucarionite. When using STAB moves, Specs Lucario's attacking power can be estimated as something a bit over 300, whereas Mega Lucario would be close to 380, thanks to higher base Special Attack and Adaptability. For non-STAB moves, on the other hand, the Choice Specs clearly outperform the Mega boost, and that's I thing that I do like every now and then. Oh, right, and Mega Lucario wouldn't have to lock itself but you can't even get it when you have already Mega'd Gyarados before.

Anyway, I did use the same set just with the Lucarionite from the story at the beginning because I couldn't afford too many items, and later I just switched because the Mega didn't feel strong enough and the game in itself was too unpredictable for me to justify these mutual exclusion issues. Having two Megas in one team could very well be a valid strategy when you do know what you're doing, but as I was in blind mode, not really suitable.

Some words on the moveset, since Lucario definitely has options... Aura Sphere and Flash Cannon are the obvious STABs, and Flash Cannon really is fine now with the Fairies. Its neutral coverage isn't too shabby, too, and that's basically what you want with Choice Specs anyway. Shadow Ball is probably the better coverage move than Dark Pulse now – one more resistance less (this phrase sounds weird) and when the flinch doesn't help me with Garchomp's Iron Head, chances are Dark Pulse on Lucario will do the same (nothing) for me. Dragon Pulse is probably the most random move here... It's an alternative to the shitty Ice Fangs and Outrages on the other mons, I guess, but to be honest, I would have liked Vacuum Wave for priority – I just didn't care because I had no way to get a parent fast when I just wanted to play for the hell of it.

And How It Went

I got to battle 50 first try I believe, got bullshat out of it because the movesets were basically the in an effective way silliest I've ever seen in Battle-Tower-style thing. So close yet so far away. I used the mock battle feature on that replay a few times, and yes, the match turned into piece of cake knowing those gimmicks. Guess what, next try I got beaten just one match before by one of way too many Veterans in this run, in #49. Tried a few more after that and it got gradually worse, which might have been caused by a combination of me getting more and more frustrated and the team really being outdated or simply: bad.

I looked through the records when I've had enough, and I was kinda relieved that people did things much differently, if you will, haha. (Yeah man, just blame the team, you're a bad player anyways...) Well, I never wanted a record, just the bloody statue, after all... But – adding some drama and a pinch of salt to it – the game was treating me like shit. I was thirsty for revenge. But that shall be a story for another time.

Expect some videos using this team on my to be revived YouTube starting tomorrow (or today, if you count that one too...). Most of them will be entertaining in one way or another and I'll also be doing that for the other formats and with more serious teams. I intend to get all the statues and as I'm writing, I've already gotten my Starf Berry, so it will be good. Take care.