EUIC Champion Team - Breakdown + Analysis

Team Breakdown:

Hey everyone - this past weekend I won the largest official tournament of all time with a very unorthodox team, and I have a lot to say about it.

Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/c1fdce99c5bf48d1

Originally, I began building this team just for fun, to see if I could make Perish Trap work in Regulation G. After trying for about two weeks, I actually gave up - as I feared, it was too difficult. However, during the course of my testing, I had discovered Life Orb Koraidon - and I realized that this completely changed how the Pokemon played, and gave me a ridiculously good matchup spread into the metagame. So, even though this team is thought of as a Perish Trap team, I'm gonna start by talking about my restricted Pokemon.

Koraidon is one of the first restricted Pokemon I became interested in when Regulation G started - however, I quickly gave up on it. The optimized Koraidon teams going into this event used Koraidon to enable other powerful attackers like Chi-yu, Flutter Mane, and Raging Bolt, but Koraidon itself didn't excel at actually doing damage most of the time - it was really good at hitting something for 60-70%, but without the bulk of Zamazenta, Kyogre, or Terapagos, it often struggled to stick around.

In one of my first games I remember collision coursing a Miraidon for like, 60%, and then getting one shot with Electro Drift - and it really bothered me. Miraidon and Koraidon are counterparts, so why is Miraidon a World Champion while Koraidon is the the worst of the usable restricted Pokemon?

I thought about it, and eventually realized that Miraidon needs the Choice Specs to actually be threatening. At the time, the only Koraidon item people used was clear amulet - but while the Choice Specs gives all your moves an enormous 50% damage boost, the clear amulet does nothing unless Incineroar is opposite you, a Pokemon Koraidon beats anyway. So I started thinking about other items.

Some people followed the same reasoning I did in the past, and tried Choice Band Koraidon. However, this cannot work - because the reason that Miraidon is so powerful is not just the power, but the utility it has. What I mean is that Miraidon gets to use Volt Switch, an extremely useful move that lets the user switch but isn't intended to be especially strong, except that with all the modifiers it ends up doing ridiculous damage. Since Choice Items reset when switching, Miraidon is a great user of Specs. Koraidon has U-turn, but it's much weaker than volt switch - so it's not an equivalent. However, Koraidon does have an equivalent, low power move that it can use for both utility AND damage - Flame Charge.

Flame Charge is a weak, 50 base power fire move that gives the user a speed boost. However, if you Terastalize to Fire it becomes a 60 base power move multiplied by 1.5 from the tera, 1.5 from the sun, and 1.33 from Orichalcum Pulse. And that's before the item.

But Choice Band would mean locking yourself into Flame Charge, which doesn't work. So I started thinking about Life Orb, the strongest item I could use while still allowing me to change moves.

And immediately, it felt much better - but I still was falling just short of KOing Miraidon - I was doing like 80-90%. If I could just get a little more power, I could outspeed and one-shot Miraidon (and a bunch of other Pokemon too). And that's when I realized that Koraidon has other Fighting Moves it can choose from.

Collision Course is an incredible move, because it has high base power and no drawback - but Koraidon has two other moves it can use instead: Low Kick or Close Combat. Low Kick was my first thought because it's 120 base power against restricted Pokemon, but eventually I chose Close Combat. Even though it lowers Koraidons defenses, it allows Koraidon to one-shot Incineroar even through Intimidate, and is also more effective against non-restricted threats.

This set was what drew me back into the team after giving up on it - Flare Blitz in the sun with life orb and tera is the final attacking move, and the power is ridiculous. It one hit KOs Grimmsnarl through Reflect, Ice Rider if they tera to Poison, and Iron Hands from full HP.

Every Pokemon on this team has Protect because of the Perish option.

Tera Fire is chosen because it's the best tera both offensively and defensively, I never considered anything else. Koraidon is intended to just one shot 2 Pokemon on the opponents side every battle, allowing your other Pokemon to do the rest. Both Flare Blitz and Close Combat significantly decrease your survivability, especially with Life Orb, so Koraidon needs to be positioned carefully in order to be most threatening. Trained it to be as fast and strong as possible, no point in bulk when you knock yourself out.

Next I added Flutter Mane as an offensive partner. Flutter Mane usage has fallen a lot since the restricted Pokemon were added, but I think it's probably Koraidons best partner, and this set was probably my MVP during the tournament. Normally Flutter Mane is forced to run booster energy in order to outspeed Calyrex-Shadow, but thanks to the sun I could afford to run another item. Focus Sash lets Flutter Mane invest fully in its speed and offense without worrying about its defense, allowing it to be fast, strong, and always take one hit.

Flutter Mane was really strong because it could both support Koraidon with Icy Wind, or work as an offensive Pokemon with dual STAB moves. Many people drop Shadow Ball on Flutter, but I was concerned about the shadow rider matchup and wanted to pressure shadow rider to tera, and punish them for not terastalizing. Also, Dazzling Gleam isn't very strong without a boosting item and Perish Song actually didn't make sense with how I played the team.

Tera Normal is a little weird on Sash Flutter, but ended up being mandatory. Of all the common restricted Pokemon, Shadow Rider is one of the hardest (maybe the single hardest), and having a Pokemon that could become immune to astral barrage while outspeeding shadow rider, slowing it down, and pressuring it to tera was extremely helpful. On this team, no other tera is possible.

Normally the next Pokemon added on these teams is Chi-Yu, but I really don't like Chi-Yu and I wanted to approach the team in a different way. I realized that with Koraidon actually able to pick up KOs, I could rely on a defensive backbone rather than an offensive one. I added Incineroar and Amoonguss together to provide a complete support package.

Amoonguss helps against Zamazenta, Koraidon, Shadow Rider, and if I need it to Miraidon. It's a super versatile support Pokemon that can keep attention away from Koraidon and Flutter, and it's especially good here because Koraidon really bullies grass types and the main safety goggles Pokemon (Incin), who are the natural counters to Amoonguss.

Protect, Rage Powder and Spore are all a given due to the utility they provide. Normally on a team with Perish you'd expect Pollen Puff for the healing, but I chose sludge bomb because I have so many defensive Pokemon on the team, I wanted to make sure each of them could do some damage so that an opponent couldn't just ignore them.

Mental Herb is a really unusual item - the default is Rocky Helmet. But I wanted Mental Herb because 1) Tornadus was really difficult with Rain Dance and Taunt, and 2) random taunt or encore Pokemon in general could be dangerous for the team. Rocky Helmet is most useful against Urshifu, who my team had a good matchup into anyway (the water one, the dark one was bad but less common). Mental Herb was also great in the closed team sheet format of the GC.

Tera Dark might seem overkill with Mental Herb, but the purpose of Tera Dark isn't to stop Prankster Taunt, it's for Expanding Force Shadow Rider teams. Shadow Rider in psychic terrain meant that tera normal flutter wasn't effective, and since these teams could outspeed and KO Koraidon, I was pretty worried about them. With Dark Tera, Amoonguss could handle them.

Amoongus was essential in my Shadow Rider matchup, so I trained it to be very specially bulky, capable of surviving life orb boosted expanding force outside of psychic terrain, and having a chance to survive life orb psychic as well as being able to survive +2 spell tag astral barrage (though in the tournament metagame shadow rider were mostly life orb). I gave it enough HP to survive Annihilape Final Gambit and put the rest in defense. Before the tournament I considered doing even more special bulk but ultimately decided against it, which I think was the right call. Minimum speed in case of Perish Song end games (the slowest Pokemon faints last, so when all Pokemon faint to Perish Song the slowest Pokemon wins).

Incineroar was the other backbone support Pokemon, and very well may have come to every single game I played in EUIC. It took me a LOT of time and testing to figure out the right set here, as there's some very unintuitive choices.

The moves were the first hurdle - I knew I wanted both Fake Out and Parting Shot, but I was stuck after that. I wanted all three of Protect, Flare Blitz, and Knock Off - and for awhile, I felt that I had to drop Protect. But without Protect, I couldn't pull off Perish Trap against Ice Rider where it was essential, which eventually led to me dropping Knock Off. It is hard to overstate how crazy a decision this is. Of all the players in the top 128, only one single other one dropped Knock Off. The reason Knock Off is considered so essential is because not only is it great for utility in removing items, but it also forces Shadow Rider to Terastalize.

However, there were too many spots where it didn't do enough damage - and Flare Blitz in the sun hits HARD, even without offense invested - so I went with Flare Blitz, and I'm happy I did. Being able to threaten a KO on Flutter Mane is great, but also no Shadow Rider use a tera type that resists fire, and that meant Incineroar could actually do 75% with flare blitz in the sun, which is especially useful against life orb variants that lower their own health.

The next strange choice comes from the tera - the default is Ghost, but I went with Bug. This is useful for two matchups: Zamazenta and Groudon. Groudon I was really worried about despite being unpopular, as the matchup is actually just bad, and with Bug tera I could discourage them from clicking Precipice Blades. Zamazenta you might think that ghost tera would be better, but Zamazenta players often have it next to chien-pao, and they can hit you with both throat chop and body press to get super effective damage regardless - except with Bug, that isn't possible. Bug is also useful against ice rider teams, particularly ones with Landorus-i, and against Urshifu-Dark to give a fighting resist without becoming weak to wicked blow. I never Terastalized Incineroar in the tournament but that's mostly because I never played a Zamazenta or Groudon.

Safety Goggles gives me a second powder immunity, something important for not only Amoonguss but also Jumpluff and Venusaur who come with Groudon and make my life harder. With Bug tera and goggles, I could protect the partner and remove the grass type consistently in theory.

I trained Incineroar to survive Glacial Lance + High Horsepower from the standard Ice Rider, and put the rest into special bulk to allow me to survive two choice specs tera stellar tera starstorms. I knew I wanted to invest all my points in bulk, with none in speed or attack, and so I decided to use 29 speed IV Incineroar. This means I wont speed tie other slow Incineroar, but still allows me to outspeed most Calyrex-Ice which I wanted. Speed ties introduce variance, and I'd actually rather always be slower than Incineroar rather than mess around with speed ties. I'll lose the fake out advantage but gain the parting shot advantage, and since my team has protect on every Pokemon, I can neutralize fake out.

With just this four Pokemon core, I found that I was able to beat almost every restricted Pokemon. Life Orb Koraidon with new supporting tools just caught most teams completely unaware, and so even with just four Pokemon I was winning an absurd amount. One major exception though was Ice Rider - historically, the absolute worst matchup between ANY of the top 7 restricted Pokemon is Koraidon vs Ice Rider. So, I decided to add a two Pokemon Perish Core to the team to beat Ice Rider. This means this team isn't actually a full Perish Trap team, but rather a team with a Perish Trap Mode.

Gothitelle and Scream Tail are both the only real options here. The general idea is that Ice Rider teams always lead Ice Rider, and you can just trap and KO them right away. The rest of these teams tend to be really weak to Koraidon, so even if you trade 1 for 1 Koraidon will likely still come out on top.

Gothitelle is useful vs Terapagos, Kyogre, and Miraidon matchups as well, but truthfully it's built specifically to beat Ice Rider. Fake Out and Protect buy time for Perish Song to tick down, Psychic means it can't be ignored, and Taunt is useful to deny trick room, spore, helping hand, follow me, and parting shot. I used Trick Room on my Toronto Gothitelle, but since none of Koraidon, Flutter, or Scream Tail want to be in Trick Room, I realized it didn't help me here.

Leftovers and Water Tera are chosen specifically because of Ice Rider. Normally Gothitelle would prefer Sitrus Berry, but since Ice Rider prevents all berries from being eaten, I went with Leftovers instead.

Gothitelle is trained to survive two Glacial Lances, though I often used water tera against Ice Rider. I put one point into speed because it was super useful when Gothitelle outsped Incineroar, but I wasn't willing to sacrifice many points to do it. I figured that basically all "slow" Incineroar would be 85 speed stat or lower (outspeeds Landorus and Chi-Yu in Tailwind), and the fast ones would be so much higher it wasn't worth chasing. Gothitelle has 4 attack IV because it causes it to take the same damage from Foul Play and Confusion, and changes the Fake Out damage roll on Miraidon and Urshifu.

Lastly, Scream Tail. This is one of the most difficult, finnicky Pokemon I've ever used. When it's good it's REALLY good, but when it's bad it can just lose you the game on the spot because it isn't able to do anything. You need to either have a Pokemon lead or Shadow Tag, otherwise it just feels awful to use. That being said, it's the best Perish Song user and it was good on this team, just be warned if you try and pick it up.

Scream Tails moves are unable to do any damage, with four supporting moves. Protect and Perish Song are needed for the main strategy, Disable is extremely useful against choice locked Pokemon, and Encore can punish setup or lock opponents into suboptimal moves. Scream Tail has really low offensive stats, so Encore and Disable are both more useful than any attacking move, even though using a Pokemon with 0 attacks goes against my principles.

Booster Energy might seem strange with sun, but I often wanted to lead scream tail against ice rider alongside Gothitelle, meaning Sun wasn't already up to start the battle. On this team, the insurance of booster energy was certainly the correct choice.

I couldn't find a good tera for Scream Tail - in the Global Challenge I had Ghost but never clicked it. Eventually I went with Dark off of pure theory, to stop prankster moves, and it ended up allowing me to beat the defending World Champ - good job Scream Tail.

Scream Tail has ridiculously good bulk and speed. I made mine two points faster than Annihilape, opting to drop speed and not outspeed Ogerpon outside of booster energy in favor of more staying power. Scream Tail survives two Glacial Lances as well as life orb shadow rider astral barrage most of the time - and though these specific calcs didn't come up that often, the general bulk was super valuable.

Matchup Spread:

Terapagos: The most illegal matchup I've played in almost a decade. 90-10 in your favor, bring Incin/Scream/Goth/Korai in some order depending on the specific partners.

Miraidon (Arubega, Standard): Very favorable, Incin/Koraidon/Goth/Scream or Koraidon/Amoonguss/Incin/Flutter depending on the specifics.

Ice Rider: Very Favorable. Gothitelle/Scream Tail/Koraidon/Incin unless you're doing a mixup

Zamazenta: Favorable. Koraidon/Flutter/Incin/Amoonguss, Incin/Amoonguss/Koraidon/Flutter, or Scream Tail as a mixup in either mode both work quite well.

Kyogre: Favorable. Depends on the specific build what to bring, typically leave Flutter Behind unless it's a tailwind variant.

Shadow-Rider: Neutral. Flutter/Amoonguss/Incin/Koraidon (order changes depending on the build). Prioritize Normal Tera on Flutter if they don't have Indeedee expanding force, but both Amoonguss and Koraidon are good teras too. You dont need fire tera to KO Shadow Rider, so focus on removing the support and getting a speed drop on it if you can't get rid of it quickly

Koraidon: Unknown - I wasn't able to test vs many of these, though I did beat almost every one I played. I suspect the matchup is positive because you can outspeed and OHKO their Koraidon with a little chip (like icy wind from Flutter Mane even if they fire tera), but truthfully I'm not entirely sure. I almost always went Flutter/Koraidon/Amoonguss/Scream Tail vs these teams.

Groudon: PROBABLY BAD. I never played vs one in the tournament, and the only ones I played in practice were in the GC and they were weird. I think Assault Vest Groudon should be a lot easier, but if they have Clear Amulet and Jumpluff or Flutter I think it might be difficult. I'd bring Incin up front, Koraidon and Flutter, and either scream tail or amoonguss vs these teams. For the AV Variants, I think Incin/Scream/Goth/Korai could work as a perish trap mode.

Closing Thoughts:

This is one of the most broken teams I've used in a long time - it felt like the dream of every teambuilder, where the matchup spread was almost entirely positive. I actually drew a REALLY bad matchup spread at EUIC given how my matchups looked (only 2 Terapagos, no Zamazenta or Kyogre), but I was still able to win despite that. I suspect that going forward, people will realize how strong Life Orb Close Combat Koraidon is, and will likely take the core of the team (Flutter/Koraidon/Incin/Amoonguss) and iterate on that. I added Perish because it was an easy answer to beat Ice Rider, but I'm sure other solutions would work as well. Sometimes my teams are things "only I can use" - I'm here to tell you that with Life Orb Koraidon, that isn't the case. This Pokemon is broken and I suspect it will warp the metagame now that it's been unleashed.

Hope this was informative and interesting! Wanted to go a bit more in depth on this report than usual since I think there's some really interesting stuff to talk about with this team.