Battle Stadium Jewelry Time - A Battle Stadium Singles Regulation C RMT

Pearl · May 3, 2023

◆ INTRODUCTION ◆

This is the part of the post where I'd usually give things some personal flair, brag about the team's accomplishments, and tell my background story regarding Pokemon. Unfortunately, though, it's actually the very last part of the RMT that I'm writing, and I'm really eager to get it out of the way, so I'll give you the summarized version instead. It's a long read already anyway. I'm Pearl, and I used to be a decent player on Smogon until the Fire Nation attacked, which led to me taking a lengthy break for all of Generation 8. I'm back now, and I actually quite like the new Pokemon games, lovely stuff despite all their flaws, and competitive has also been really dope on top of that, except that now I play formats where clicking Fissure is legal (this and VGC), like, god, what am I doing with my life? I used to post a little on the BSS forums during Series 1, but life became busier, and I wasn't able to share my thoughts during Seasons 3 and 4. Basically, I realized that I was still building teams like I was playing 6v6 and it wasn't really working out, which caused me to experiment with a lot of new things during that period. I also fell in love with Slither Wing in the meantime and vowed to take it to a decent placement on the cartridge ladder, barely failing to make it past the 2000 elo barrier back in Season 4. This time around, in the first month of Regulation C, I actually managed to accomplish that goal with a team that, despite its many flaws, I'm actually really happy about, which is the reason why I wrote this post. Also, this RMT is named after an anime song that you can listen to by clicking on the big picture above. I swear I didn't get ChatGPT to write this for me, although I did think about it. Don't worry, the rest of the post will be a lot more serious in tone, I promise.

◆ TEAMBUILDING PROCESS ◆

One of my very first contacts with the Regulation C metagame was through a rental team made by user @suiren_bani on Twitter. Despite its flaws, it was a team that I absolutely loved using before people adapted to it. The defensive reach of Wo-Chien and Toxapex together made it feel like I could finally play Pokemon the way I was used to in BSS, so it makes sense that it would be something I would want to keep for my own team. Its less good aspects also allowed me to make some observations about the metagame that ended up influencing the team I'm showcasing significantly. Namely, the fact that Chien-Pao mirrors felt awful to play (especially with a bulkier EV spread) made me stray away from that Pokemon entirely, which might have been a mistake in a sense, but it is what it is. The team's weakness to Nasty Plot Gholdengo is also what ultimately forced me to look Chi-Yu's way, and in that sense, I am glad it did, considering how much work it ended up putting in for me throughout the season. Speaking of Gholdengo, the Choice Scarf variant felt absolutely awful to use, which unfortunately caused me to dismiss the Pokemon entirely when it probably could have been a good fit on the team. Either way, this is the team that started it all for me in Season 5.

When I started working on my own team, there was a thing I knew I wanted: I wanted to use Slither Wing at all costs, as my commitment to climb all the way to 2000 elo with it was still on the table after last season's failure. With that in mind, there were a bunch of requirements to build a functional team with it. First of all, I wanted a solid Stealth Rock user in order to mitigate Dragonite's strength. Thanks to my prior experience with it, I knew Garchomp was the one for the task. Absolutely incredible Pokemon with a really strong lead matchup spread all around and also a lot of versatility as far as customization goes. Since there's no use fixing what isn't broken, I kept the offensive variant from the rental team mentioned above with some slight alterations. From there, I wanted reliable answers to both Gholdengo and Dragonite, which were annoying for the Slither Wing set that I was thinking about using back then. With that in mind, Chi-Yu and Wo-Chien were added to the team, and since the latter was in, so was Toxapex. Since Iron Moth was both troublesome and not covered in a satisfactory manner by anything on the team so far, I decided to go with a slightly different set from the usual, with Tera Ground and Tera Blast to get a surprise kill on that. I eventually realized this was a very bad idea when an extremely bulky Iron Moth proceeded to survive it and 1v1 Toxapex anyway. Since the team up until this point was relatively slow, a bulky Choice Scarf Flutter Mane was added to patch it up. It was arguably the best Pokemon in the format at the time, and it rounded out the team nicely, so it felt like a no-brainer.

Despite the good results I got with the original variant of Jewelry Time, its flaws eventually started showing on the ladder. Gholdengo was on the rise once again, and it largely nullified Toxapex's presence, which essentially caused the team's Fairy and Ice resist to be nonexistent. On top of that, Flutter Mane was also starting to lose its shine, even against the offensive teams it was supposed to deal with, thanks to the rise in Mimikyu usage. The supposed ace of the team was struggling considerably as well due to its low damage output against Dragonite and, to a lesser degree, defensive Gholdengo. Something that is important to clear up is that this process wasn't instantaneous, with changes to the team happening pretty much on a daily basis based on my analysis of the metagame's evolution. To summarize what happened though, Garchomp's item was changed from Sitrus Berry to Red Card (and Covert Cloak later on) in order to improve the match ups against Chien-Pao and Flutter Mane, Slither Wing's build was changed from Choice Band to Silver Powder (and on the final version, Booster Energy with Tera Rock), our own Flutter Mane became a Choice Specs variant, and Chi-Yu's Tera Type also changed from Grass to Water, with the reason being explained later on. Arguably the most important change, though, was Toxapex's departure from the team, with Cloyster taking its place. While it might not seem intuitive at first, especially considering that it leaves me without a natural Fairy-type resist, Cloyster's offensive presence allows it to enable the rest of the team in a way that Toxapex was failing to do, while keeping many of the other perks this Pokemon had, more concretely the ability to threaten most Chien-Pao variants, both in team preview and in the actual match.

◆ CLOSER LOOK ◆

Ability: Rough Skin
Tera Type:

Garchomp was the team's MVP for most of its existence. Besides that, it was also the MVP of the team I was renting before I made my own. This makes it safe to say that this Pokemon was the most consistent for me overall this season, even if its spot in the limelight was stolen at the very end (and even then, I was still using it somewhat often, so it's not like it suddenly became unusable). If anything, I'd say the way Garchomp interacts with the lead metagame at large is what allowed Cloyster to shine so brightly during the last stretch of the season, so maybe it was just the best Pokemon on the team all along.

This Pokemon's set went through a bunch of small changes during the season, although Garchomp's role within the team was pretty much always the same: to break Focus Sashes (and Multiscale, also Disguise to a smaller degree) at all costs. The other important part of its presence was to force positive trades against opposing leads, and by positive trade, I don't necessarily mean getting kills, but also racking up chip damage on multiple Pokemon, giving me information regarding my opponent's choices and forcing things to use their Tera. The reason why it's used instead of Ting-Lu is because of its speed, which lets it Dragon Tail before Whirlwind goes off in that specific lead matchup. Sometimes all it took was a little bit of chip damage on the opponent's backline or an opposing Gholdengo clicking Tera Flying for Flutter Mane to run away with the game later on. As silly as it sounds, Garchomp was also one of this team's primary means of counterplay to opposing Annihilape, outspeeding it through Taunt (and non Choice Scarf Final Gambit) and chipping Bulk Up variants with Dragon Tail before they were able to snowball out of control.

Tera Fire is used on Garchomp for defensive value against Flutter Mane and Chien Pao. Steel was originally used in order to bluff Iron Head, but gaining weaknesses to Sacred Sword and Mystical Fire made those matchups a lot more volatile than they are with Tera Fire, especially in worst case scenarios. Covert Cloak was the very last change I made to the team, and also the item that got changed the most this season, going from Focus Sash to Sitrus Berry and then Red Card. I think Red Card is still fine in theory, but being able to block flinches from both Chi-Yu and Chien-Pao creates a lot more stability than the couple times I got flinched and pulled something faster with the ability to KO Garchomp with chip damage. It's great against Garganacl as well!

EVs: 15/16 chance of living Choice Band Tera Blast from Tera Flying Dragonite, with some Special Defense for non-Choice Specs Flutter Mane's Shadow Ball, with the rest of the EVs going into Speed (mainly for Chi-Yu and lead Annihilape) and Attack for self-explanatory reasons.

Ability: Skill Link
Tera Type:

Something very funny about this season of BSS is that I actually had a backup plan in case building with Slither Wing turned out to be a disaster. That plan was to build with Cloyster instead, but little did I know back then that my final team would end up having both of them, and that they're actually not all that bad together.

As it was already mentioned earlier, this slot on the team used to belong to Toxapex. Playing with it earlier in the season felt awesome, like I genuinely couldn't lose, so I wanted to use it on my own team as well. The other reason behind this decision was the fact that the list of Pokemon that can switch into Flutter Mane and make it out alive is extremely small, and Slither Wing is a Pokemon that tends to invite it in, so that definitely felt like a checkbox that needed to be ticked (which, in hindsight, isn't necessarily true). However, the later the season went on, the more Toxapex's weaknesses started getting exposed. It was a free switch for many Pokemon that just can't be handled if given free turns (Iron Moth and Gholdengo being the main culprits), which meant that despite keeping it on the team, I was basically never bringing it to matches.

The decision to use Cloyster came from the fact that another one of Toxapex's roles on this team was to keep Chien-Pao in check, and without it on the team, I did not have a single Pokemon that was able to smoothly deal with it, since it often runs Focus Sash, which allows it to live First Impression and finish off Slither Wing in return. Besides that, people were also using sets like Choice Band Tera Electric on Pao, making slower options to deal with it (e.g., Azumarill, Dondozo) a lot less appealing. At this point in time, this team did not have a Focus Sash user, which made Cloyster an even better fit, as that item allows it to turn some of its losing matchups around, making it a great lead into a huge portion of the metagame, some of which Garchomp didn't particularly like dealing with without committing its Tera. Originally, Cloyster's set was a standard Shell Smash one, and while I think that's not necessarily worse than what is being showcased, the truth is that most people's plays were geared towards preventing that move from being clicked at all costs, which led me to the decision of dropping it in favor of Toxic Spikes, a move that enables Wo-Chien and Chi-Yu against offensive teams, which further increases the squad's versatility.

EVs: Maximum offense, no explanation required.

Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type:

Honestly, it needs no introduction to anybody who's ever played a game of Series 2 or Regulation C. Towards the end of Season 5, most people started shifting towards Booster Energy sets with Calm Mind and all sorts of utility options, but since that item was already taken here, we went with a more pragmatic approach that, despite Mimikyu's rise in popularity, can still put a dent in pretty much everything that crosses paths with it.

When this team was first created, Flutter Mane had a very bulky Choice Scarf set that aimed to capitalize on its utility and ability to complement bulkier teams with its immunities and access to options like Perish Song and Power Gem. Once Cloyster found its way onto the team, it no longer felt necessary to have two Pokemon geared towards offensive matchups to such a large extent, so a set with higher firepower was chosen instead. It pairs up very nicely with Garchomp, Slither Wing, and Wo-Chien due to the fact that its dependency on Tera is very low, which makes it easier to gameplan around the Pokemon on the team that appreciate having that option more. There's also the fact that Garchomp and Slither Wing often tend to force opposing Gholdengo to use their Tera defensively against their strong Earthquakes, which allows us to position Flutter Mane to win by clicking Moonblast once their resist to the move is, for all intents and purposes, out of the way.

EVs: The Defense investment allows it to survive Adamant Mimikyu's Life Orb-boosted Shadow Sneak, while the rest of the EVs go into Special Attack and Speed.

Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type:

My beloved. This is the Pokemon that has made me commit to this format for so long. The idea was not just to slap it on an otherwise good team and climb with it, but to build a team where Slither Wing is an active contributor to its results. Despite the fact that it became steadily harder to use towards the end of Season 5 due to a shift in metagame trends that were not particularly kind to it (mostly Mimikyu and physically defensive Gholdengo), I'd say that our goal was successfully accomplished.

This is, in my opinion, the best Slither Wing set in the Regulation C BSS. The only other set that I perceive to be worthwhile would be a Tera Fire set up with Flame Charge, which would require a much different build to support appropriately. When I first built this team, Slither Wing had a Choice Band set dedicated to getting the most value out of its Bug-type moves, but since being locked into First Impression is often a death sentence at the moment, Silver Powder was adopted instead, which made things better, but still not good enough. After a brainstorming session over how to improve the team, I decided to give Booster Energy, Tera Rock and Tera Blast a shot. While Booster Energy is not an intuitive item choice on a Pokemon that wants to switch out to utilize its priority move more than once per match, the reality is that getting power without any negative effects once tends to outweight the averse effects of items that boost its moves permanently (e.g., Life Orb's recoil), since the most common late game First Impression targets can usually be dispatched even without the Protosynthesis boost, and despite the fact that it's not particularly bulky, Slither Wing can still be switched into threats like Focus Sash Chien Pao once without fainting.

Rock-type Tera has respectable defensive value against Fire and Flying-type attacks that would otherwise ruin Slither Wing's day, but the main reason for using it is to have a move that can swiftly OHKO Dragonite after Stealth Rock damage. Besides serving as a lure of sorts, Protosynthesis boosted Close Combat makes it really hard for even the most physically defensive Pokemon in the format to switch into Slither Wing, often forcing opponents to Tera Pokemon such as Garganacl and Wo-Chien in a defensive manner.

EVs: Maximum offense, although 4 HP does let it live Jolly Baxcalibur's Glaive Rush, which used to be useful in Series 2 but probably doesn't matter anymore.

Ability: Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type:

Wo-Chien is one of the last remnants of what was once a somewhat slow paced team. As the squad's MO started changing throughout the season, other faster alternatives were considered in its place. In the end, the conclusion I came to is that nothing quite fits like it does, even on a team like this. Funnily enough, Wo-Chien's set is the only one that remained unchanged throughout the team's lifespan.

Besides serving as a great check to a plethora of physically offensive metagame-relevant threats, Wo-Chien is also this team's primary means of counterplay against slower OHKO move users, namely Ting-Lu, Dondozo, Garganacl, and Kingambit, using Substitute and Leech Seed to come out on top against them. It's also this squad's Grass-type, which I'd say is an important thing to have in matchups against other Leech Seed users. Many Wo-Chien are specialized to win the mirror, while ours isn't, but just its presence is enough to either discourage the opponent from bringing it in team preview or even outplay it in the worst case scenario. Foul Play is the preferred offensive move on this team because of its ability to punish set up attempts by the likes of Mimikyu, Dragonite and Chien Pao, but Giga Drain is also worth considering as a way of improving the matchup against Iron Bundle.

While Fire might seem like an unorthodox Tera Type option on this Pokemon, it accomplishes specific goals that make it worthwhile on this team over the more common Tera Water (or even Tera Poison, since the squad doesn't have any grounded Poison-types to absorb Toxic Spikes). To be more specific, it gives Wo-Chien better matchups against all of Chi-Yu (as well as other Fire-types), Chien-Pao and Mimikyu/Flutter Mane. Gaining a weakness to Earthquake is the only notable disadvantage that I felt over Tera Water on this team.

EVs: Enough Speed for defensive Rotom-Wash and Gholdengo, as well as other Pokemon trying to creep those, with the rest of the EVs going into HP and Defense. It could probably use further optimization, but then again, it hasn't really ever disappointed me either.

Ability: Beads of Ruin
Tera Type:

Chi-Yu makes me feel like an idiot. When Regulation C first started, I'd keep talking about how it was getting overrated and that its lack of speed compared to the rest of the metagame was going to set it back a lot offensively. Basically, I was wrong, and this post is a good way to acknowledge my mistake. Chi-Yu is as insane as you'd expect it to be, but not because it does damage. It does damage with barely any offensive investment while also being able to 1v1 basically every special offensive threat while also being able to beat some physical threats with reads WHILE also being able to clean up weakened teams if it ever gets a boost with Flame Charge. So yeah, it's a pretty obscene Pokemon, to say the least, and the second MVP of season 5 for me alongside Garchomp.

Originally, Chi-Yu had a Grass Tera with Psychic in order to turn its Earthquake weakness around. However, I started using Tera Water and Tera Blast towards the end of the season, as it let me keep coverage against Iron Moth while also covering Ting-Lu, which Psychic would sorely miss out on. In the words of Psynergy, Chi-Yu is a fish, so returning it to the water is the natural course of action. Similarly to Flutter Mane, I don't think this Pokemon needs much introduction, since its contribution to the team basically boils down to hitting things hard and switching into Gholdengo. I tried Iron Moth in this slot instead with an Assault Vest set for a bit for the sake of having Toxic Spikes absorption and a Fairy-type resist without having to commit to Tera-ing my Pokemon, but ultimately it just didn't feel as good as using Chi-Yu, even with the holes that it adds to the team on paper.

EVs: A bunch of things. HP + Defense allow it to get the 15/16 odds against +1 Dragonite's Tera Normal Extreme Speed, while the Special Defense does the same thing against Iron Bundle's Tera Water Hydro Pump (which is an obscene calc honestly). Speed is for Adamant Mimikyu, and the leftovers went into its offense.

◆ POKEMON SELECTION ◆

+

/

+

: Primary lead Garchomp mode, as well as the team's main face-to-face line-up. The coolest part about it is that the back has very low reliance on Tera, which allows Garchomp to freely put it to use in order to turn otherwise negative lead matchups around, making it more reliable against both Chien-Pao and opposing Flutter Mane. Both Cloyster and Moonblast locked Choice Specs Flutter Mane tend to invite opposing Gholdengo in, which can be used by Chi-Yu to freely dish out damage against the opponent. Flutter Mane is usually the better option for raw power, but Mimikyu's presence in the metagame makes it hard to employ that Pokemon consistently against offense.

/

+

: Basic Wo-Chien selection against teams whose primary means of counterplay against it is Gholdengo (and also against teams where Wo-Chien is necessary to keep key threats in check), with the hazard setter being picked based on which type of entry hazards the opposing team struggles against the most. This was the team's primary MO for most of its existence, and it remained a relatively solid way of piloting the team for all of its lifespan. A different third Pokemon can be used in Chi-Yu's place if Gholdengo isn't on the opposing line-up. Slither Wing in particular is awesome in Wo-Chien mirrors due to its ability to force Grass-types to Tera defensively, while also being able to threaten Toxic Spikes setters.

+

/

: Slither Wing face-to-face mode, where Garchomp is used to break Focus Sashes, Dragonite's Multiscale and force things to Tera Flying in order for Slither Wing to be able to eliminate multiple Pokemon through the use of First Impression and Tera Rock + Tera Blast. The last Pokemon is decided based on the opponent's team, with Cloyster being a must against Mimikyu, while Chi-Yu remains important due to its ability to reliably switch into Gholdengo. On the other hand, Flutter Mane is a greedier option for when the opponent's defensive backbone is lacking. Against teams without Dragonite, Garchomp can sometimes be dropped for another Pokemon, but Stealth Rock's value is still extremely high against most teams, especially when the gameplan is Slither Wing centric.

+

/

: Usual brings against really bulky teams, namely constructions that are either full stall or very close to it (e.g., some Wo-Chien + Toxapex teams and also some Garganacl builds). Using Slither Wing early (although it doesn't really have to be the lead in every matchup of sorts) tends to force those kind of teams to use their Tera defensively very early on, which can then be abused by the Pokemon in the back. Ideally, the optimal strategy is to force a kill early with Slither Wing and then proceed to timer stall to force a win through Pokemon advantage, but "good" players piloting these teams will usually be able to identify this, hit Fissure on their very first try, and proceed to run away with the game that way, making these matchups somewhat hard to win.

◆ THREAT LIST ◆

Something important to note here is that, due to the nature of this format, pretty much every common Pokemon can be a threat situationally, especially when taking into account less common sets and Tera options. With that in mind, this section is mainly going to be dedicated to covering the Pokemon that I felt were consistently giving me the most trouble in my ladder games.

: Always hits Fissure on the very first try for some reason. Even though it isn't literally the biggest threat to the team on paper, it's the most likely Pokemon to tilt me off the earth's surface during a ladder session, which means that its impact extends beyond the matches I lose to it. Not having a Flying-type Pokemon to block Fissure is annoying, but it can usually be dealt with through either offensive pressure or Wo-Chien, so it's still playable enough on paper.

: Bulkier sets can threaten the team's physical attackers with Will-O-Wisp, as nothing is able to land a killing blow on Rotom right off the bat. Offensive variants are usually dealt with nicely through a combination of Wo-Chien and Chi-Yu, but wrong predictions against this Pokemon are somewhat tough to come back from between the chance of taking a burn on Wo-Chien and Volt Switch, which allows the opponent to reposition against the Pokemon on our team that actually have a decent matchup against it.

: This team's Azumarill weakness is more of a conscious decision than an oversight. Not a bad Pokemon by any means, but its relevancy tends to fall off considerably the higher you climb on the ladder, so I'd rather take that L than make the team worse against other Pokemon by patching it up. If you do run into Azumarill, the best way to deal with it is by literally hitting it with whatever is out on the field until it faints and hope that it didn't do enough damage to provoke a loss. Wo-Chien and Garchomp being able to flip their Fairy-type weakness around through Tera-ing is also helpful here, as it allows us to rack up enough damage to the point where it's no longer as scary. A potential fix for this would be to use Thunderbolt over Power Gem on Flutter Mane, which admittedly was not as useful as originally expected.

: Can usually be dealt with reliably thanks to Wo-Chien and Garchomp's Tera types, which give them a resist to Fairy-type attacks. The issue is in the fact that doing this sometimes exposes us to other threats that would require defensive Tera usage on our end (e.g., using Tera to beat Flutter Mane with Slither Wing in the back against Dragonite), which makes it important to gameplan carefully around it. Cloyster with its Focus Sash intact and Chi-Yu can also deal with Flutter Mane under specific conditions, although it's hard to consistently create those scenarios.

: Gigantic threat on paper due to its strong Fairy-type STAB, similarly to Azumarill. On top of that, it can also pick off Flutter Mane with Shadow Sneak and stand in the way of Slither Wing's offense with Disguise and a higher base speed. Against the team's slower Pokemon, Curse sets can be extremely annoying to deal with as well. Thankfully, Cloyster is one of the best answers available to this Pokemon, even when Disguise is intact. Besides that, Wo-Chien and Garchomp can use their Fire-type Tera to trade blows with Mimikyu if necessary (although this provokes a situation similar to what was previously mentioned in the Flutter Mane section).

: Jolly Breloom and Adamant 252 Speed Breloom winning the speed tie against Cloyster are both disaster scenarios, as handling a lead Breloom that has its Focus Sash intact and a 2-3 lead on me more often than not means that the game is over on the spot. A potential fix to this would be to use Safety Goggles on Garchomp, which would worsen other matchups in return, including Garganacl. Jolly Cloyster is also a possibility, although it still has to win a speed tie against opposing Jolly Breloom, and its matchup against Pokemon like Iron Bundle and Chien-Pao becomes a lot worse as well.

◆ CLOSING WORDS ◆

It wouldn't be a Pearl RMT if I didn't thank everyone who's read it all the way through, even though I'd like to think that I did a better job summarizing my thoughts this time around. It's safe to say that Gen 9 has completely revived my love for this game, even if I'm putting my passion to a slightly different use this time around. Not that playing Smogon formats is entirely out of question in the future, but cartridge gameplay has given me a slightly more relaxed experience than what I'm usually used to when it comes to competitive Pokemon, and the Smogon community for it, albeit relatively small, has been very welcoming towards me ever since I started getting involved again, so it's safe to say that I plan on sticking with it for the time being, at least until I'm able to accomplish the goals I've set for myself in Gen 9 BSS.

◆ RENTAL CODE / IMPORTABLE ◆

DerpySuX · May 3, 2023

I feel seen by the Dondozo mention

Very nice team, great job! :)

Photon · May 3, 2023

Great read. I'm still trying to figure out teambuilding in Gen 9 so I appreciate you going through some of the decision-making on how to cover specific scenarios, especially as they pertain to when and when not to Tera as that remains one of the more complex things to manage in my experience.

So this might be a dumb idea for handling the Breloom weakness, but what about trying Tera Grass Flutter Mane? I'm not sure how that affects the, "Was this a bad long-term decision?" question for Tera usage but Flutter Mane's Tera type seems to be one of the few variables that could be changed without making major sacrifices elsewhere. Just a thought; being Breloom weak can be a terrible feeling sometimes!

At any rate, hope we continue to see more of you here and on the Discord. Congrats on your placement!

Pearl · Jul 1, 2023

End of Regulation C Update

Rental Code | Importable

- espacio
"誰もが同じ希望の訪れを"

Season 7 MVP. An interesting fact about my experience with Cloyster this time around is that I initially experimented with a more offensive Shell Smash setup out of fear that people would be better prepared to deal with Toxic Spikes shenanigans. Long story short, that turned out not to be the case, and I quickly found myself falling back onto the good ol' reliable Season 5 set up with a slight change: Tera Ghost over Ice. Realistically, it doesn't make much of a difference, as this will almost never be the ideal Pokemon to Tera with in a given game. However, occasionally catching stray Dragonite and Breloom trying to snipe Cloyster with their respective priority moves after the opposing lead failed to do the job and OHKOing them back for a swift 3-1 lead is an extremely satisfying feeling. Tera Normal could realistically be used for a similar purpose in the Mimikyu matchup, but in practice none of the possible Tera option are consequential enough to warrant much thought.

Cloyster was selected in a vast majority of this team's matches, as its set of traits allows it to complement both of the squad's modes excellently. It's a good Pokemon at trading against other offensive threats, and the option to click Toxic Spikes further augments its utility against many teams. It's a Pokemon that operates as well as it does thanks to the pressure it exerts on the opponent. What I mean by that is that oftentimes there were situations where my opponents actually did have reliable switch-ins to Cloyster, but the threat of Shell Smash-boosted attacks (even thought we weren't using it) forced them to stay in in unfavorable match ups, allowing us to secure positive trades against many of the metagame's most prevalent threats, such as Ting-Lu, Chien-Pao and Dragonite.

:dragonite:

- Kokoro no Tsubasa
"そよぐ風に抱かれながら幼い日のように見上げる空"

Dragonite is a massive Tera Hog. The good thing is that this is pretty much the only bad thing I have to say about it from all the times I've used it in SV so far. In this particular case, we were looking for a Pokemon that could discourage the use of Fissure by the likes of Dondozo and Ting-Lu. It's not like having a Ground immunity is a necessity with Wo-Chien on the team, but having one greatly increases our flexibility in some key matchups. Rotom-Wash was considered for this slot as well, but I was coming off a somewhat negative experience with it and this team already features really good physical and special sponges in Wo-Chien and Chi-Yu, so Dragonite and its offensive presence were a no-brainer at the end of the day, with the hardest part by far being deciding which set I was going to be using for this specific application. In that regard, my philosophy was to try to make it the least reliant on Terastalizing that I possibly could, which led me to Choice Band Dragonite. Unlike Heavy-Duty Boots variants, it can be used as a lead without making me feel like my item choice is utterly useless, but it can also be played from the back against most teams, especially if the opponent's Ting-Lu doesn't Tera in order to secure both Stealth Rock and damage onto Cloyster. For this team's offensive mode, the idea was to utilize Iron Treads' toolkit in order to soften up physically defensive Pokemon, which could then be abused by Dragonite's strong attacks in order to clean up the field. Tera Blast and Tera Flying aren't necessary in every single matchup, but they unlock this Pokemon's fullest potential, giving Dragonite a move that can be used safely against Rocky Helmet Pokemon, a safer high damage option than Outrage against teams with Fairy-type Pokemon and the ability to either dispatch or force Tera out of Pokemon such as Annihilape, which would be incredibly threatening otherwise. Also, Extreme Speed is a dope move to have in a Chien-Pao littered metagame.

Basic EV spread, since it's hard to find good defensive benchmarks with Multiscale taken into account and Dragonite is by far the most prominent Pokemon in the format, making it very valuable to have the upper hand against the opponent's. Dragonite was usually employed in two different ways on this team: either as a lead Pokemon when Cloyster wasn't fit for the job or as a late game cleaner like it was previously mentioned. Not the most commonly selected Pokemon, but it was a consistent contributor in a plethora of matchups.

:flutter_mane:

- Jewelry Time
"心近づくたびに高鳴る鼓動、感じてた"

Flutter Mane is the team's unsung hero. Despite being by far the least selected Pokemon of the 6, it's one of the biggest pressure points in team preview that this format has, and arguably the primary reason why all the Mimikyu players were selecting it against me, which allowed Wo-Chien, Chi-Yu and Iron Treads to thrive. In comparison to our Season 5 set, this time we opted for a much bulkier spread, courtesy of Butch Hardnight, and the moves Hyper Voice and Perish Song instead of additional coverage. Hyper Voice's theoretical niche is catching Substitute users such as Iron Bundle off guard, since that can find opportunities to set up against both Cloyster and our Wo-Chien. Perish Song is one of the two main reasons why I'm using this Pokemon instead of Mimikyu (the other being the fact that we would be severely lacking in special offense otherwise). Even though its practical uses aren't frequent, the safety it provides against dedicated cheese setups featuring threats such as Glalie and Espathra is therapeutic to have in a ladder setting, and that fact alone allowed me to keep my sanity intact throughout the whole month. 10/10 would use as a mascot again.

:iron_treads:

- Energy
"光が溢れてゆく身体中が羽のように軽くなって"

I swear this is a common occurence in my teambuilding process, since Iron Treads was one of the original ideas I had for my Season 7 team, but it only found its way onto this team near the very end of the month. Garchomp still felt like an amazing Pokemon to me, but its purpose on this team became a bit unclear with Slither Wing's unfortunate departure, as its primary role was to enable that through the use of Stealth Rock and Dragon Tail. Once Stealth Rock started feeling unnecessary, I opted for a more offensive set up with Swords Dance and Tera Blast, as that allowed it to dedicately beat most opposing Garganacl still. However, since it was originally designed to be a lead for this team, it felt really awkward to try and create a bridge between it and the rest of the team as a back Pokemon. What I mean by this is that it was supposed to be an offensive "ace" in a team that wasn't properly accomodating for it in that role. Replacing it wasn't an intuitive decision by any means, as it was still doing its job in the matchups it was supposed to cover, but aside from those specific scenarios it was very rare for Garchomp to actually come out to matches anymore.

This is where one of my main findings from the last ranked season came into play:

This newly adopted mentality and that one guy that repeatedly stomped me on the ladder with Toxic Spikes + a very similar Great Tusk set gave me the idea to try out Iron Treads as my designated Garganacl answer, and it worked out amazingly since I now had a Pokemon capable of achieving that role while also being able to fit the team's gameplan in a much more organic way than Garchomp did, which increased the team's flexibility considerably. This change also allowed us to fit Wo-Chien back onto the team for one final time in Regulation C. The other thing that is important to note about Iron Treads is that it is a physically offensive Pokemon with the ability to pressure Dondozo, thanks to Tera Water, Substitute and Endeavor, which is a godsend in this metagame.

Even though Iron Treads started falling off towards the very end, the stability it provided against standard teams allowed us to put ourselses in a comfortable position before the last day of the season. It was most commonly selected alongside Cloyster and Dragonite as a face-to-face unit, where it would put its ability to force overwhelmingly favorable trades against physically defensive Pokemon to use in order to set up scenarios where the last Pokemon could reliably clean up whatever was left. Very underrated Pokemon that I'm glad I was able to put to good use.

:wo-chien:

- Madoromi no Rakuen
"翼やすめるように花びらが揺れる微睡みの楽園で"

Despite being literally the same Wo-Chien we used back in Season 5, this is a slot that went through some interesting mutations this month. When I originally revisited this team, Wo-Chien was temporarily replaced with Amoonguss as a means of having an organic resist to Fairy-type moves, thus alleviating our weakness to Flutter Mane and Mimikyu. This worked out nicely at first, since Amoonguss is a very good partner to both Chi-Yu and Dragonite, thanks to Spore, Eject Pack Leaf Storm and Toxic Spikes absorption. However, what happened is that once Iron Treads was introduced to the squad, its defensive mode was lagging behind its offensive options. A realization that crossed my mind when that came to be was that I no longer needed a Fairy resist out of this slot, as Iron Treads now fulfilled that role. This allowed us to go back to Wo-Chien, which turned out to be an amazing call for the last couple days of the season, as defensive Gholdengo was basically the only thing consistently standing in this Pokemon's way once Toxic Spikes were on the field. We tried Tera Blast for a while as well, but Foul Play's consistent damage against physically offensive threats proved to be way too good to ditch on this particular team.

Wo-Chien was the cornerstone of this team's defensive mode, often being selected alongside Cloyster and Chi-Yu. During the final day of the season, this was by far our most common selection of Pokemon in the matchups we came across.

:chi-yu:

- Last Inferno
"此処は彷徨いのParadise"

During the time between this team's inception and the end of Regulation C, the metagame shifted in a way that led people to a very important realization involving Chi-Yu: it truly only needs STAB moves to perform its role, with some Choice Scarf variants running up to 3 Fire-type moves (usually Overheat, Flamethrower and Lava Plume) alongside Dark Pulse, allowing players to finally feel like they're using an in-game Charizard set to trample over their opponents in a competitive setting. Tera Blast is also a nice option to have at times, but that's about the only coverage that gets used on this Pokemon nowadays.

Although the previous point is relevant to explain how our Chi-Yu interacts with the opponent's, the primary reason why our own set changed comes down to the way Flutter Mane trends evolved during this time. Choice Scarf variants are now mostly extinct, while Sash tends to be used as a lead (and if it's not, Flame Charge + special STAB is usually very safe against that, while also being consistent against Choice Specs variants). However, Booster Energy with all sorts of various tricks is now the norm. By adopting Tera Fire and Ruination, Chi-Yu can now deal with that more reliably, especially if Toxic Spikes have been set up beforehand, which is extremely helpful in situations where selecting Iron Treads is not the best idea for whatever reason. On top of its deceivingly high defensive utility in this environment, Tera Fire also increases Chi-Yu's damage considerably, allowing it pull off stunts such as 1v1ing Blissey with a combintion of Toxic Spikes damage, Ruination and Flamethrower, while also making it more consistent at picking off weakened Pokemon such as Ting-Lu.

Chi-Yu was among my most picked Pokemon in Season 7, usually paired up with Wo-Chien and Cloyster as a cushion against strong special attackers, with Gholdengo and opposing Chi-Yu being its primary targets. It also found its way as the third Pokemon in more offensive lineups alongside Dragonite, Iron Treads and sometimes Flutter Mane, although those scenarios became slightly less common as the season went on.

Other Considerations

There are some aspects I would like to highlight regarding the team and my relationship with the game moving forward:

Not going to make a in-depth threat list since many of the Pokemon that were scary to the original version of the team remain more or less the same. Toxic Spikes Iron Moth (especially defensive variants with Whirlwind) are basically an autoloss, especially when paired with Rotom-Wash, as that pretty much covers both modes of the team. Tera Poison Chi-Yu was considered in order to alleviate this weakness, but ultimately Fire proved to be more consistent against basically everything else. This also applies to pretty much every other potential solution I came up with in my head as well.

Basic selections were Cloyster + Iron Treads + Dragonite and Cloyster + Wo-Chien + Chi-Yu. Slight deviations to this were done against specific Pokemon (e.g. lead Annihilape) or when the opponent's team was resilient against both Toxic Spikes and Cloyster's offensive moves. On the last day of the season, the team's "defensive" mode was the more consistently selected of the two.

I'm completely in love with Pokemon as a game again and want to keep doing my best in this format. However, I've also been picking up VGC on the side and plan to keep pursuing that in the future as well. Still not sure how much of my time I'll be committing to each of the formats, but ideally I'll still be able to keep playing BSS to the best of my ability. Despite the fact that the official circuit is played in Doubles, the truth is that I'm a Singles player at heart, and that's what I enjoy playing the most, but VGC has a lot of cool stuff about it that has been slowly drawing me into it as well, namely the community and the possibility to meet other people who are passionate about this hobby in real life. Smogon formats are mostly a no-go at the moment (even though I've been liking WCoP a lot as a spectator, SV OU legitimately looks 100 times more interesting than SS already), although I do have a big post in mind for an old gen tier I'm very passionate about.

Don't really wanna speak in absolutes, but I'm honestly not sure if I'll be making another large scale RMT as this one anytime soon. It's a somewhat large commitment that I honestly felt wasn't particularly worth the effort compared to just writing a short post in the BSS section. I know Smogon isn't really a place where there's much interest for cartridge formats as a whole, but I was still expecting a little more traction out of this one. Feeling entitled to that is a little silly, I know, but it's how I genuinely feel about it.

TheDarknessMadeFlesh · Jul 1, 2023

Pearl said:
End of Regulation C Update

Rental Code | Importable

- espacio
"誰もが同じ希望の訪れを"

Season 7 MVP. An interesting fact about my experience with Cloyster this time around is that I initially experimented with a more offensive Shell Smash setup out of fear that people would be better prepared to deal with Toxic Spikes shenanigans. Long story short, that turned out not to be the case, and I quickly found myself falling back onto the good ol' reliable Season 5 set up with a slight change: Tera Ghost over Ice. Realistically, it doesn't make much of a difference, as this will almost never be the ideal Pokemon to Tera with in a given game. However, occasionally catching stray Dragonite and Breloom trying to snipe Cloyster with their respective priority moves after the opposing lead failed to do the job and OHKOing them back for a swift 3-1 lead is an extremely satisfying feeling. Tera Normal could realistically be used for a similar purpose in the Mimikyu matchup, but in practice none of the possible Tera option are consequential enough to warrant much thought.

Cloyster was selected in a vast majority of this team's matches, as its set of traits allows it to complement both of the squad's modes excellently. It's a good Pokemon at trading against other offensive threats, and the option to click Toxic Spikes further augments its utility against many teams. It's a Pokemon that operates as well as it does thanks to the pressure it exerts on the opponent. What I mean by that is that oftentimes there were situations where my opponents actually did have reliable switch-ins to Cloyster, but the threat of Shell Smash-boosted attacks (even thought we weren't using it) forced them to stay in in unfavorable match ups, allowing us to secure positive trades against many of the metagame's most prevalent threats, such as Ting-Lu, Chien-Pao and Dragonite.

- Kokoro no Tsubasa
"そよぐ風に抱かれながら幼い日のように見上げる空"

Dragonite is a massive Tera Hog. The good thing is that this is pretty much the only bad thing I have to say about it from all the times I've used it in SV so far. In this particular case, we were looking for a Pokemon that could discourage the use of Fissure by the likes of Dondozo and Ting-Lu. It's not like having a Ground immunity is a necessity with Wo-Chien on the team, but having one greatly increases our flexibility in some key matchups. Rotom-Wash was considered for this slot as well, but I was coming off a somewhat negative experience with it and this team already features really good physical and special sponges in Wo-Chien and Chi-Yu, so Dragonite and its offensive presence were a no-brainer at the end of the day, with the hardest part by far being deciding which set I was going to be using for this specific application. In that regard, my philosophy was to try to make it the least reliant on Terastalizing that I possibly could, which led me to Choice Band Dragonite. Unlike Heavy-Duty Boots variants, it can be used as a lead without making me feel like my item choice is utterly useless, but it can also be played from the back against most teams, especially if the opponent's Ting-Lu doesn't Tera in order to secure both Stealth Rock and damage onto Cloyster. For this team's offensive mode, the idea was to utilize Iron Treads' toolkit in order to soften up physically defensive Pokemon, which could then be abused by Dragonite's strong attacks in order to clean up the field. Tera Blast and Tera Flying aren't necessary in every single matchup, but they unlock this Pokemon's fullest potential, giving Dragonite a move that can be used safely against Rocky Helmet Pokemon, a safer high damage option than Outrage against teams with Fairy-type Pokemon and the ability to either dispatch or force Tera out of Pokemon such as Annihilape, which would be incredibly threatening otherwise. Also, Extreme Speed is a dope move to have in a Chien-Pao littered metagame.

Basic EV spread, since it's hard to find good defensive benchmarks with Multiscale taken into account and Dragonite is by far the most prominent Pokemon in the format, making it very valuable to have the upper hand against the opponent's. Dragonite was usually employed in two different ways on this team: either as a lead Pokemon when Cloyster wasn't fit for the job or as a late game cleaner like it was previously mentioned. Not the most commonly selected Pokemon, but it was a consistent contributor in a plethora of matchups.

- Jewelry Time
"心近づくたびに高鳴る鼓動、感じてた"

Flutter Mane is the team's unsung hero. Despite being by far the least selected Pokemon of the 6, it's one of the biggest pressure points in team preview that this format has, and arguably the primary reason why all the Mimikyu players were selecting it against me, which allowed Wo-Chien, Chi-Yu and Iron Treads to thrive. In comparison to our Season 5 set, this time we opted for a much bulkier spread, courtesy of Butch Hardnight, and the moves Hyper Voice and Perish Song instead of additional coverage. Hyper Voice's theoretical niche is catching Substitute users such as Iron Bundle off guard, since that can find opportunities to set up against both Cloyster and our Wo-Chien. Perish Song is one of the two main reasons why I'm using this Pokemon instead of Mimikyu (the other being the fact that we would be severely lacking in special offense otherwise). Even though its practical uses aren't frequent, the safety it provides against dedicated cheese setups featuring threats such as Glalie and Espathra is therapeutic to have in a ladder setting, and that fact alone allowed me to keep my sanity intact throughout the whole month. 10/10 would use as a mascot again.

- Energy
"光が溢れてゆく身体中が羽のように軽くなって"

I swear this is a common occurence in my teambuilding process, since Iron Treads was one of the original ideas I had for my Season 7 team, but it only found its way onto this team near the very end of the month. Garchomp still felt like an amazing Pokemon to me, but its purpose on this team became a bit unclear with Slither Wing's unfortunate departure, as its primary role was to enable that through the use of Stealth Rock and Dragon Tail. Once Stealth Rock started feeling unnecessary, I opted for a more offensive set up with Swords Dance and Tera Blast, as that allowed it to dedicately beat most opposing Garganacl still. However, since it was originally designed to be a lead for this team, it felt really awkward to try and create a bridge between it and the rest of the team as a back Pokemon. What I mean by this is that it was supposed to be an offensive "ace" in a team that wasn't properly accomodating for it in that role. Replacing it wasn't an intuitive decision by any means, as it was still doing its job in the matchups it was supposed to cover, but aside from those specific scenarios it was very rare for Garchomp to actually come out to matches anymore.

This is where one of my main findings from the last ranked season came into play:

This newly adopted mentality and that one guy that repeatedly stomped me on the ladder with Toxic Spikes + a very similar Great Tusk set gave me the idea to try out Iron Treads as my designated Garganacl answer, and it worked out amazingly since I now had a Pokemon capable of achieving that role while also being able to fit the team's gameplan in a much more organic way than Garchomp did, which increased the team's flexibility considerably. This change also allowed us to fit Wo-Chien back onto the team for one final time in Regulation C. The other important thing that is important to note about Iron Treads is that it is a physically offensive Pokemon with the ability to pressure Dondozo, thanks to Tera Water, Substitute and Endeavor, which is a godsend in this metagame.

Even though Iron Treads started falling off towards the very end, the stability it provided against standard teams allowed us to put ourselses in a comfortable position before the last day of the season. It was most commonly selected alongside Cloyster and Dragonite as a face-to-face unit, where it would put its ability to force overwhelmingly favorable trades against physically defensive Pokemon to use in order to set up scenarios where the last Pokemon could reliably clean up whatever was left. Very underrated Pokemon that I'm glad I was able to put to good use.

- Madoromi no Rakuen
"翼やすめるように花びらが揺れる微睡みの楽園で"

Despite being literally the same Wo-Chien we used back in Season 5, this is a slot that went through some interesting mutations this month. When I originally revisited this team, Wo-Chien was temporarily replaced with Amoonguss as a means of having an organic resist to Fairy-type moves, thus alleviating our weakness to Flutter Mane and Mimikyu. This worked out nicely at first, since Amoonguss is a very good partner to both Chi-Yu and Dragonite, thanks to Spore, Eject Pack Leaf Storm and Toxic Spikes absorption. However, what happened is that once Iron Treads was introduced to the squad, its defensive mode was lagging behind its offensive options. A realization that crossed my mind when that came to be was that I no longer needed a Fairy resist out of this slot, as Iron Treads now fulfilled that role. This allowed us to go back to Wo-Chien, which turned out to be an amazing call for the last couple days of the season, as defensive Gholdengo was basically the only thing consistently standing in this Pokemon's way once Toxic Spikes were on the field. We tried Tera Blast for a while as well, but Foul Play's consistent damage against physically offensive threats proved to be way too good to ditch on this particular team.

Wo-Chien was the cornerstone of this team's defensive mode, often being selected alongside Cloyster and Chi-Yu. During the final day of the season, this was by far our most common selection of Pokemon in the matchups we came across.

- Last Inferno
"此処は彷徨いのParadise"

During the time between this team's inception and the end of Regulation C, the metagame shifted in a way that led people to a very important realization involving Chi-Yu: it truly only needs STAB moves to perform its role, with some Choice Scarf variants running up to 3 Fire-type moves (usually Overheat, Flamethrower and Lava Plume) alongside Dark Pulse, allowing players to finally feel like they're using an in-game Charizard set to trample over their opponents in a competitive setting. Tera Blast is also a nice option to have at times, but that's about the only coverage that gets used on this Pokemon nowadays.

Although the previous point is relevant to explain how our Chi-Yu interacts with the opponent's, the primary reason why our own set changed comes down to the way Flutter Mane trends evolved during this time. Choice Scarf variants are now mostly extinct, while Sash tends to be used as a lead (and if it's not, Flame Charge + special STAB is usually very safe against that, while also being consistent against Choice Specs variants). However, Booster Energy with all sorts of various tricks is now the norm. By adopting Tera Fire and Ruination, Chi-Yu can now deal with that more reliably, especially if Toxic Spikes have been set up beforehand, which is extremely helpful in situations where selecting Iron Treads is not the best idea for whatever reason. On top of its deceivingly high defensive utility in this environment, Tera Fire also increases Chi-Yu's damage considerably, allowing it pull off stunts such as 1v1ing Blissey with a combintion of Toxic Spikes damage, Ruination and Flamethrower, while also making it more consistent at picking off weakened Pokemon such as Ting-Lu.

Chi-Yu was among my most picked Pokemon in Season 7, usually paired up with Wo-Chien and Cloyster as a cushion against strong special attackers, with Gholdengo and opposing Chi-Yu being its primary targets. It also found its way as the third Pokemon in more offensive lineups alongside Dragonite, Iron Treads and sometimes Flutter Mane, although those scenarios became slightly less common as the season went on.

Other Considerations

There are some aspects I would like to highlight regarding the team and my relationship with the game moving forward:

Not going to make a in-depth threat list since many of the Pokemon that were scary to the original version of the team remain more or less the same. Toxic Spikes Iron Moth (especially defensive variants with Whirlwind) are basically an autoloss, especially when paired with Rotom-Wash, as that pretty much covers both modes of the team. Tera Poison Chi-Yu was considered in order to alleviate, but ultimately Fire proved to be more consistent against basically everything else. This also applies to pretty much every other potential solution I came up with in my head as well.

Basic selections were Cloyster + Iron Treads + Dragonite and Cloyster + Wo-Chien + Chi-Yu. Slight deviations to this were done against specific Pokemon (e.g. lead Annihilape) or when the opponent's team was resilient against both Toxic Spikes and Cloyster's offensive moves. On the last day of the season, the team's "defensive" mode was the more consistently selected of the two.

I'm completely in love with Pokemon as a game again and want to keep doing my best in this format. However, I've also been picking up VGC on the side and plan to keep pursuing that in the future as well. Still not sure how much of my time I'll be committing to each of the formats, but ideally I'll still be able to keep playing BSS to the best of my ability. Despite the fact that the official circuit is played in Doubles, the truth is that I'm a Singles player at heart, and that's what I enjoy playing the most, but VGC has a lot of cool stuff about it that has been slowly drawing me into it as well, namely the community and the possibility to meet other people who are passionate about this hobby in real life. Smogon formats are mostly a no-go at the moment (even though I've been liking WCoP a lot as a spectator, SV OU legitimately looks 100 times more interesting than SS already), although I do have a big post in mind for an old gen tier I'm very passionate about.

Don't really wanna speak in absolutes, but I'm honestly not sure if I'll be making another large scale RMT as this one anytime soon. It's a somewhat large commitment that I honestly felt wasn't particularly worth the effort compared to just writing a short post in the BSS section. I know Smogon isn't really a place where there's much interest for cartridge formats as a whole, but I was still expecting a little more traction out of this one. Feeling entitled to that is a little silly, I know, but it's how I genuinely feel about it.

As always your time consideration and effort is appreciated. The effort and thought put into this, and past analysis...es continues to be a major facet in my development as a player, so eternal gratitude for that =] woulda have loved to see how terra toxic firebeta would have performed on this last run, but congrats on your run, phenomenal team and best of luck in your future endeavors dude ^_^

Omastar68 · Jul 1, 2023

Would less Atk on Chomp be bad? You say Attack EVs are for self-explanatory reasons, but since two attacks are supportive, and deal lesser damage, I'm not sure it's THAT self-explanatory. I mean it seems fine ofc, and there's nothing else I'd dare pick at.

Battle Stadium Jewelry Time - A Battle Stadium Singles Regulation C RMT

Pearl

this is the peace that you can not buy

DerpySuX

THEY AINT DEAD ENOUGH

Photon

Pearl

this is the peace that you can not buy

TheDarknessMadeFlesh

Omastar68