The dog, the bear and the dragon
Regulation G Ladder [2025 March]
A team report by wagie
Regulation G Ladder [2025 March]
A team report by wagie
==Proof of peak==
== Team importable ==
https://pokepast.es/90237613f0015671
== Introduction ==
Hello again! It hasn't been so long since I posted my last team report, has it? This time I decided to give one of my favourite restricteds, zacian, a try.
This wasn't my first time playing with zacian, I already built a physical spam team with chien-pao and urshifu scarf and was surprised of the capability zacian has to open holes in the opponent's team.
Recently I saw there was an archetype that did decently well on worlds featuring zacian regidrago from the player Grant Weldon. At first I thought it was the kind of cheesy team that people lose to because they don't know how to approach it correctly, but still I wanted to give it a try and see if I could do well with it. So I decided to make my own version of the team, and turns out I ended up building a top #16 team where I barely have to predict because of how unprepared is the meta against these two threats.
So let's go with the team and explain a bit how it works. First things first, let's talk a little bit about the restricted pokemon of this team.
== The team ==
So let's start with the source of pressure of this team, the one that makes your opponent's legs shake in terror when they first see it on team preview, and sends their hands to their heads in astonishment when they realize what they are fighting against. Of course, I am talking about the REAL restricted of this team. Regidrago.
Regidrago is an interesting pokemon. It has monstruous HP, terrible defenses which actually makes it a decently bulky pokemon. 100 special attack and attack (meh) and a mediocre speed tier. With these attributes, you may be thinking what's so interesting about this pokemon to bring it in such a high power-level format.
Then you realize this guy doesn't have a STAB it does have a x2.25 boost on dragon attacks. And after a quick look, you discover it has a signature dragon type move that works like water spout. So it just needs everything that a water spout mon needs. Being the fastest mon on the field, immunity to fake out, and some fancy specs that will make him multiply its damage even further.
I am not a big fan of spamming calculations, but seriously, let's do an exception for this little guy and compare the amounts of damage a so-called restricted would do. Let's pick the strongest spread moves in the format and use them against a tera bug AV incineroar on double target (the tera bug is just for illustrating, we need neutrality to take the hit).
252+ SpA Choice Specs Hadron Engine Tera Fairy Miraidon Dazzling Gleam vs. 252 HP / 60 SpD Assault Vest Tera Bug Incineroar: 78-93 (38.6 - 46%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Mystic Water Kyogre Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 60 SpD Assault Vest Tera Bug Incineroar in Rain: 144-171 (71.2 - 84.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Calyrex-Shadow Astral Barrage vs. 252 HP / 60 SpD Assault Vest Tera Bug Incineroar: 79-95 (39.1 - 47%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragon's Maw Regidrago Dragon Energy (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 60 SpD Assault Vest Tera Bug Incineroar: 135-159 (66.8 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Terapagos Tera Starstorm vs. 252 HP / 60 SpD Assault Vest Incineroar: 75-88 (37.1 - 43.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
So basically, the only pokemon that can deal more damage than Regidrago is Kyogre (as long as it has rain up). This is the second heaviest spread hitter in the format and the other ones are not even close. And it's not even a restricted! So this should give you an idea about why this mon was worth building around.
The main problem about regidrago is... Can you guess it? Yes you can, it's the fairy types! Fairies are completely immune to regidrago's attacks and can retaliate with big damage to lower the power of the next dragon energy, making you rely on draco meteor, which does good damage but then forces you to switch out.
So we need a way to deal with those pesky fairy types, and those pokemon who tera fairy in front of regidrago. I wonder who could help us with that task... Well, who knows? For now let's just build a good regidrago set that allows us to get past every matchup that does not have fairies on it.
Regidrago @ Choice Specs
Ability: Dragon's Maw
Level: 50
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Energy
- Tera Blast
- Sleep Talk
So as I said, this is the set. Completely basic, no need to complicate ourselves. Dragon energy will deal monstrous amounts of damage if you lead this in the early game and your opponent gets the lead wrong. At that point you can insta-win the battle due to how much of an advantadge you will be in. It's also an amazing move to punish passive play like terapagos trying to calm mind. The move at 100% OHKOes a lot of stuff, and your opponent knows it, so he will try to play around it and will be forced to switch out. Use this as an advantadge to make a hard switch into something like ursaluna or zacian and keep aplying pressure.
Draco meteor is a good move that will be helpful in the late game, specially against balance teams. Remember draco meteor does more damage than dragon energy if it's single target. So it's a good option if you predict your oponent to chip you with the likes of sucker punch, thunderclap or priority moves. Most of the times it's a better idea to switch into zacian or something that can take the hit an apply pressure. Having a healthy regidrago for the late game is valuable. You can sometimes tailwind before whimsicott dies and then prepare a sweep with dragon energy.
Tera blast is a move you will not use very often but comes in handy against scream tail + heatran. Letting you scape from magma storm while doing a lot of damage to the past jigglypuff. It also helps against flutter mane. I've never used tera blast outside of tera ghost.
Sleep talk is an unreliable move, but sometimes you unfortunately get spored and need a way out. So if this happens to you, position yourself correctly as if you were awake, because you've got 2/3 chances to hit a good attack and still do good damage with regidrago while being asleep.
Always remember, there's no need to greed regidrago. If regidrago does 99% to a mon and 50% to another and then it dies, it was a good trade! You traded 100% of a mon for 149% of another! Therefore you are in a advantadge. You don't need to be the epic late-game or start-of-the-game sweeper always... Just by doing a good trade you will be in a good spot.
Also, I don't recommend you to bring this pokemon when your opponent has a restricted tera fairy + a naturally fairy type mon (miraidon/caly-s tera fairy + whimsicott or clefairy, for example). In the Cere's team matchup it can help you if you predict your opponent is tired of watching his whimsicott die over and over again, or if you have seen it not tera fairy the miraidon early, but that's just mindgames that happen during the game.
Now let's go with the second restricted, Zacian. This is my favourite restricted and I could write pages and pages about how this mon functions, the upsides and downsides of each substitute/swords dance/terablast set but I am not going to extend myself. What's most important is this mon has a lot going for it (we saw it in the dynamax era being the most dominant restricted to ever exist). It has the best typing in the game, a choice band boost once per game, and an amazing speed tier. It doesn't have that 170 attack anymore, but it has a more favourable meta than before. I said this in my last report but I am going to say it again: This meta is specially-defensive oriented. Teams are EVed defensively to take nuke hits like a miraidon electrodrift, terapagos specs boosted tera startstorm, caly-shadow nasty plot boosted astral barrage, kyogre's origin pulses...
Unfortunately there is a reason why zacian has not won anything yet (and surely it won't) with the physical spam variant. It's very vulnerable to redirection. Not only that, but also it suffers a lot against fire types, particularly incineroar, which intimidates it and makes him lose the intrepid sword boost forever, and ogerpon fire, which redirects attacks and it's not weak to tera ground terablast hits. In the meantime, while zacian is killing the redirector, probably the opposing kyogre is boosting himself, or terapagos is spamming tera starstorms, or calyrex-shadow is preparing its next nuke astral barrage... So basically our friend zacian needs help of a pokemon or two that deal spread damage and are not weak to redirection.
This is why on this team, zacian is not the main source of damage, it's a punisher for the pokemon who decide to tera fairy in order to avoid either regidrago's dragon attacks, or ursaluna's supereffective hits.
But still it's a mon that does his job very well. It forces the tera on caly-ice or else it will be OHKOed by behemoth blade. It deals good pressure on caly-shadow, forces the tera on koraidon. It is faster than zamazenta, completely walls chien-pao, forces the tera dragon thanks to sacred sword's pressure, and then proceeds to play rough to get the knock out. On paper, zacian does not have trouble matching up against opposing restricteds except for groudon and koraidon (we will talk about them later), but the truth is, it needs support to function.
Zacian-Crowned @ Rusted Sword
Ability: Intrepid Sword
Level: 50
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 196 HP / 188 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 116 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Behemoth Blade
- Play Rough
- Sacred Sword
- Protect
Grass tera type is used to take better kyogre's water type attacks and most importantly, to avoid redirection from amoonguss. Normally you don't even have to tera grass, but just by having the option to, you can play mindgames against the amoonguss player. It's also great against situations where you've got pelipper against a caly-ice. You will resist high horsepower and not take damage from glacial lance thanks to the tera grass. In the miraidon matchup, it makes you resist surging strikes from urshifu and the electric moves that miraidon will throw at you (remember you are immune to draco meteor and resist dgleam). Originally I used to have dragon tera to take chi-yu better, but as time went by I realised I did not click it that often and zacian really needs a way to avoid amoonguss spore and redirection.
Behemoth blade is the attack that you will click against almost anything. It leaves calyrex-shadow in range of moonblast from whimsicott, OHKOes calyrex-ice and OHKOes any fairy pokemon as long as you are not intimidate. That's why I've got adamant nature and so many EVs on attack. I want to me sure that I ko any fairy mon, and since this team has no chien-pao, zacian sometimes fails to pick up that knock out if I run it timid and if the tera fairy opposing pokemon is bulky enough. So even though it's not that good of a pokemon against miraidon, I prefer this set over jolly. The EVs are used to outspeed the ogerpon outspeeders, and namely opposing miraidon who opt to go modest.
Play rough is a 135 BP move (STAB included) that sometimes misses. So be careful when spamming it. It picks up the OHKO on iron hands if you have the attack boost and it will always KO miraidon and koraidon as long as they didn't tera. It's also by far the best option to choose against a chi-yu (rather than the tempting sacred sword) because if you are at +1 it will KO unless it's omega bulky, and if the player is not very good he will tera ghost, commiting their tera and losing a mon at the same turn. Whenever zacian is positioned correctly, there's the chance of an opposing mon switching into incineroar. So in those situations you've got to be intelligent and not play mechanical. You will have 3 choices:
-You either use behemoth and go all in for the pokemon to probably die (it's a 150 BP move STAB included), but end up in a bad position if incineroar switches to take the hit.
-You do a neutral play, which is using the 135 BP move, play rough, and probably miss the KO on the opposing pokemon but make incineroar take a good chunk of damage.
-You risk all for the prediction and use sacred sword, leaving the incineroar at 20-25% health if you were at +1 before the turn started, but only doing some minor damage to the opponent if it decides to not switch-out (which is unlikely) because it's a 80BP move (look at that, almost half the damage you would have dealt if you chose behemoth).
Sacred sword as I said, is for the zamazenta matchup and also to have a way to hit fire types without the need of terablast ground, specially incineroar. It's also a reliable source of damage against terapagos.
It's very important to decide the moment when you switch-in zacian. Unlike zamazenta, this pokemon sometimes has to retreat, and once it has done it, it will lose the boost. So be smart, sometimes you've got to lead zacian to make the booster energy go away from flutter, but sometimes you don't have to and you will keep the intrepid sword boost for later in the battle. Don't play mechanically with this team because it's not the way to go. Other times, you may surprise your opponent by giving up the boost on zacian and switching-in ursaluna. Let me give you a pro tip about this team: NO ONE IS GOING TO KNOCK OFF YOUR ZACIAN. And some incineroars will try and will-o-wisp you. So zacian and ursaluna have a lot of good pivoting synergy, specially against miraidon (miraidon's only damaging move to zacian is electric, and ursaluna is immune to it).
Now let's go with the third and last restricted, ursaluna. Originally the team was meant to be a regidrago, zacian + ursaluna farigiraf as a trick room mode. But as I progressed and had more experience with the team, I decided to drop farigiraf, because ursaluna itself was good enough. It has always called my attention how is it possible that this mon did not win worlds last year. Its stats are slightly worse than Iron Hands', but thanks to guts boost and better STAB attacks, it makes up for it.
It's very rare that I don't bring this pokemon to a match because it just stays there and picks up OHKOes like nothing. Also it's immune to electro drift and astral barrage and OHKOes back both restricteds with it's monstrous STAB attacks. It provides the team with a precious immunity to spore and burn and can outspeed many pokemon in tailwind. As I said, it has good defensive synergy with zacian, who kills the fighting types that threaten it and absorbs any potential knock off from an opponent who is trying to remove flame orb before it takes effect.
Thanks to its bulk and to whimsicott's light screen, it can reliably hard switch and get burnt by the flame orb the turn it switches out without the need to protect. It can even take a draco meteor from miraidon if light screen is up, and then earthquake to kill both miraidon and a previously chipped iron hands. It's also a good absorber of annihilape's scarf coaching, which will make it threatening the following turn and give it even more longevity and the chance to pick up KOes with earthquake (façade and headlong rush were already guarantee of OHKO). This mon is truly amazing, even outside of trick room.
Ursaluna @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Façade
- Headlong Rush
- Earthquake
- Protect
Simple as that. You've got to go 252+ to guarantee the OHKO from façade on the balance pokemon like incineroar, rillaboom and amoonguss. Do not be afraid to use earthquake next to whimsicott or pelipper, or even against your partner. Sometimes it's better for this team to make good use of the tailwind turns, and if a pokemon has become dead weight it's not bad to let it go.
Headlong rush is an attack I mostly use when I am not still burnt (it's a rare situation but can happen) against calyrex-shadow or incineroar. Try not to spam it because you may end up dropping your defenses too early and then making a bad trade of damage with this guy.
Façade is the main attack to do damage and you should always click it against everything that is not immune to it or that can switch into something immune to it. It will remove the opposing pokemon unless it has an immense bulk like groudon or iron hands.
Earthquake is an attack you should use a lot. Way more than headlong rush. You need it to output the most damage possible and to keep putting things in range of zacian or regidrago. I don't mind whimsicott taking damage or even dying. Use it!
Tera ghost is used to avoid fake out and to have a better matchup against iron hands. Always take account on the fact that there is foul play farigiraf threatening damage, so be careful with that. You've got 31 IVs on speed, so you will very likely outspeed iron hands outside of trick room. Whenever you are against a calyrex-shadow, do not be afraid of it as long as your light screen is up, and focus on the partner that will try to redirect the hit. Eventually whimsicott will encore it, or will tailwind so that zacian can revenge kill it. But always aim for the supporter, do not let whimsicott's moves be redirected.
Whenever you feel like you are stucked in a game 3 situation where the matchup is even and your opponent is starting to understand how this team works, if you have not used annihilape yet, you can lead annihilape + another mon like zacian, whimsi or regidrago. Then you final gambit choose a mon that is annoying you and hard switch with the other to ursaluna to get burnt and start the sweep. This always catches them off guard and from then they have a hard time coming back.
As I've said, this is not a linear team, so don't try to play it mechanically. You've got to analyse the situation and know when it's best to hard switch into ursaluna and when it's better to keep dealing damage with the other mons. If you get the turn correctly and position a burnt ursaluna in tailwind + light screen, you will win an immense advantage, but you've got to navigate to that position through putting fear in your opponent and threatening strong attacks. Scare them so that they make forced plays and allow you to switch into it.
The main core of the team is zacian, ursaluna, regidrago, whimsicott. The other two pokemon are good supporters that help in certain matchups or certain situacions.
So let's go with the last pokemon of the main core of the team. Whimsicott. The number one zacian partner in my opinion, and the reason why this team holds itself defensively.
This pokemon's utility is immense. I can't express in words how much this mon does for the team. No wonder why it won the world championship, it prevents any type of defensive or setup counterplay and the only way to stop it is through redirection or farigiraf.
It's immune to spore. It can take a sludge bomb from amoonguss thanks to a self-setup light screen, it can encore though rage powder and fake out thanks to the grass type and covert cloak. Priority light screen's value in a meta where you have to stand gigantic special hits is immeasurable. Just by leaving this thing on the field it prevents terapagos from even having the thought about setting up, allowing you to deal damage to the partners and removing them until it's too late for setting up. Same goes of course for calyrex-shadow trying to nasty plot, forcing it to take damage from life orb every time it uses astral barrage or simply not do enough damage thanks to the light screen.
It can tailwind in the last turn before dying enabling for an ursaluna or regidrago sweep. It makes zacian stand every attack from miraidon. The combination of prankster tailwind + tera ghost regidrago is the reason why your opponent can't lead two non-fairy tera or pure fairy type pokemon and be calmed because of the posibility of losing the battle on turn 1.
Moonblast after behemoth blade can pick up knock outs fairly easily. And the grass type means it can take a couple or three earthquakes from ursaluna while sitting there encore-ing things that desperately tried to protect prior to that turn.
Your goal every battle that whimsicott is sent out, is to make sure you make the most out of your support moves. Because the team is so strong offensively, you should be able to overwhelm your opponent as long as they don't set up. So as I said in the ursaluna part, always make sure sure there are no redirectors, so that whimsicott can encore safely any attempt to set up.
Whimsicott @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 4 SpA / 204 SpD / 28 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Light Screen
- Encore
- Tailwind
- Moonblast
This set barely has any SpAtt evs and it's all aimed at defense. I've got 28 EVs in speed to reach the 140 points and outspeed smeargle, while also being faster than those whimsicott who don't run any and being able to encore them after we double tailwind. Water tera is used mainly to stand a glacial lance but also to take a fire hit, specially from chi-yu.
Light screen is probably this team's most important move and you should always use it as long as the opponent doesn't have a physical spammer team. When you lead whimsicott zacian against calyrex-shadow, always remember that you should use first light screen to take the hit, and then tailwind to outspeed it the following turns. Not the other way around.
Encore is such a threatening move that you shouldn't even use it after an opposing mon uses fake out. It's so obvious and it would leave him so unpositioned that you should better use that turn to switch into something threatening or just keep using good support moves like tailwind and light screen.
Use tailwind so that regidrago outspeeds everything and ursaluna outspeeds the important mid speed threats. If you are in the last turn of tailwind and your whimsicott is low on HP, consider switching out and letting something weakened die, but always have the chance of resetting the tailwind after it expires.
Moonblast is a good move that sometimes will allow you to 1v1 miraidon if there are not many turns of terrain left. It's also useful to pick up the KOes that zacian couldn't. Still, don't expect it to do a lot of damage, this whimsicott is a support pokemon, it's not an offensive flutter.
So now that we've gone through the main core of the team, let's go for the glue pokemon. The first one being pelipper.
As I told you early in the report, Zacian struggles a lot against fire type. The sole image in team preview of a zacian + whimsicott is enough for an opponent to start spamming fire types like entei, incineroar, ogerpon-fire, chi-yu... And that's where pelipper comes in. You never lead this pokemon, but you've got it in the back to set up the rain whenever you need it. I can't stress enough how important this guy is in the groudon and koraidon matchup, which otherwise would be almost unwinnable if it wasn't for him.
The STABs of pelipper are amazing. The stats are not, unfortunately. But having access to a 110 BP move that does not miss in rain and a 150 BP move in rain is amazing. And wide guard makes opponent think twice before locking themselves into a spread move ("cough" specs pagos' tera starstorm "cough"). It can OHKO amoonguss and incineroar regardless of the bulk invested on them with the help of a life orb. It has enough bulk to survive a couple of hits and retaliate back. It's an amazing partner of ursaluna because of its immunity to earthquake. And it has great synergy to function with the team because 4 mons threaten raging bolt, his worst enemy.
Pelipper @ Life Orb
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 156 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Weather Ball
- Hurricane
- Wide Guard
- Protect
The dark type tera is for tornadus + ogre. I don't like getting taunted. But it also helps in the psyspam calyrex matchup and against psyspam in general. The EVs allow it to take a +1 wood hammer from ogerpon-fire adamant with 28+ EVs on attack. No ogerpon will go 252+ in this meta, you need it also as a defensive tool.
Weather ball is a great move that will push damage on every single opposing mon, as water STAB is hard to wall properly. In case the weather switches to sun in the case of koraidon and groudon, it's still a 150 BP damage life orb move (no STAB this time, sadly).
Hurricane is an amazing 110 BP move that may even confuse. Confusion is not that strong since 7th gen, but still it can win you a turn, and flying STAB is also great to have.
Wide guard is useful against kyogre, caly-shadow, terapagos, groudon, caly-ice... Almost every good restricted has one of this dumb spread moves that does a million damage. So it's good to have it there.
Protect will gain pelipper turns to function and scout any spread move. While also being threatening or allowing you to reposition yourself. It's not the best move on the set, but sometimes you need it.
Now finally we will go with the last pokemon of the team, annihilape. Originally it was going to be a farigiraf, but since I realised the team was getting too weak to incineroar, I decided to give this guy a try. It has good synergy with the rest of the team, who appreciates the coaching boosts, it's a pokemon that can threaten a lot chien-pao zamazenta in many different ways, and because this team has a lot of dangerous leads, your opponent will be unlikely to bring double priority to make final gambit's power lower.
Now, I recommend you, if who give this team a try, to study how much health does every pokemon have. And I'm not kidding, you would be surprised to check out how many pokemon this thing does OHKO with final gambit because of having a higher HP than them. The fact that I have a fighting type means the matchup against terapagos is much smoother, making my opponent sometimes not even bring pagos to the match and go with the heatran scream tail mode.
As I've said, this is the mon that you would bring to a 2nd or 3rd battle to catch the opponent off guard and final gambit one mon that you think can be annoying while doing a hard switch-in with ursaluna or zacian, using a support move from whimsicott, or just start coaching something. You can also close combat if you get a defiant boost from incineroar's intimidate, by the way.
Annihilape @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Defiant
Level: 50
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Coaching
- Close Combat
- Gunk Shot
- Final Gambit
This is the set. You outspeed every scarf urshifu who dares to go adamant (which are most of them), you've got tera grass not to be redirected although you won't use it that often. It's preferable to keep the tera for later unless you really know you want to eliminate one certain pokemon.
Coaching is a marvelous move that almost won worlds. You use this with the correct timing on zacian, or specially on ursaluna, and your opponent probably doesn't come back from that because of how much longevity and threatening presence you will have. It's specially useful in the zamazenta-pao matchup, where your opponent delusively thinks he can outstat you with his defense boost and body press. Well, what if I've got the defense boost now? And what if I sacred sword you, or play rough you in case you decided to tera dragon?
Speaking of that matchup, close combat is an amazing move against pao and chi-yu. Thanks to your bulk you will be able to take a hit or two and then force the tera ghost on them or straight up leave them on their sash. As I said previously, it can be spammed if your opponent uses incineroar as a lead and it helps in the terapagos matchup.
Gunk shot is a move that I need in case I get a late game of regidrago annihilape. I need a way to punish the tera fairies. I don't use it often, but when I need it, it comes in handy.
Final gambit is the move you will use more often, do not try to use this mon as a pressure dealer because it does not do pressure with close combat. Use this move to reposition yourself, gain a safe switch to ursaluna, zacian or drago, set up moves with whimsicott, and overall add variability and put your opponent into tough spots.
== Conclusion ==
So that's it! I hope you liked this team. This core is really strong and can really win you because of the amounts of damage that these three "restricteds" put out. As you know, I am a retired player and I am not going to compete anymore. But feel free to use this in a regional or anywhere you like. I think this team is trustable and hard to stop!
See you around!
Wagie.
Attachments
Last edited: