Sceptile Series Premier Challenge Teams
Hello and a warm welcome to everyone reading this article. On this page, the members of AusTerrain have posted all of the teams we've used for PCs in the Sceptile Series across different parts of Australia and Singapore. All PCs in Australia use a Best of 3 format, whereas in Singapore they use a Best of 1 format, and as such all of these teams were designed for use within the respective rulesets.
Nihal Noor - @UchihaX96
Sunday, November 8th 2015 - Morwell VIC PC
Top 4 : 4-2 Swiss, 14 CP
This team is focused around Timid Gardevoir and overwhelming opponents with fast Hyper Voice. Landorus and Thundurus are a great supporting cast, and physically defensive Amoonguss really helps Gardevoir get its attacks off. The Thundurus here is Timid with Life Orb and aside from its attacking moves, it has Protect and Swagger. AV Lando and Timid Sub ShucaTran provide some good defensive synergy with Amoonguss. Gardevoir also has Encore in it’s 3rd moveslot, and this allows it to win against Pokémon like Aegislash or Heatran if executed at the right time. The 6th Pokémon slot is really a filler slot, and I considered using Kangaskhan or Scarf Tyranitar, but I had Belly Drum Azumarill here. Though I didn’t use Azumarill even once during the tournament, the team preview pressure it provided was invaluable.
The team can be found in text format here.
Saturday, November 21st 2015 - Werribee VIC PC
Top 4 : 6-0 Swiss, 24 CP
This team falls under the standard “Japan Sand” archetype with Mixed Mence, Life Orb Excadrill and Choice Scarf Tyranitar. An interesting thing to note is that I chose to use “Billaslash”, i.e, Substitute + Wide Guard on Aegislash with Leftovers. I think this helps the team considerably, but you do have to be mindful of damaging or knocking out Kangaskhan since you can’t hit it with Aegislash. Rotom-Wash is the cookie cutter Sitrus Berry variant that speed creeps Bisharp while the Amoonguss is physically defensive. Tyranitar having Assurance was great, as some teams in Swiss were just run over by a combination of Tyranitar + Excadrill. I don’t think this team is that great right now, especially since it struggles against TR CHALK even if it does have an Amoonguss. Thundurus with proper support also shuts down this team save for the Excadrill, but it was a comfort pick for this PC since I didn’t know what else I wanted to run.
I've left the full team in a pastebin.
Sunday, November 22nd 2015 - Morwell VIC PC #2
1st Place : 4-1 Swiss, 30 CP
This team is rather queer at first glance, but it's been getting popular all around the world. I only dropped one set with it the entire day, and it was definitely a great meta call for this PC. I had to play Ty (@Sarkastik) in the finals, and he had nothing to stop Tauros, so it just ran him over. Tauros is god~
One thing to note about this team is that it is very heavily matchup dependent. It can run over a lot of unprepared teams, but some matchups are incredibly tough to beat. Sand is one such matchup, and it was a daring call to use this here in Melbourne in a sand filled meta.
Credit goes to Shun (Follow him on Twitter here - @ShinonVGC or @Jimon_Togekiss - English and Japanese accounts respectively) as the original creator of this team, and any information regarding the team can be found on Shun’s personal blog here.
Zach Droegkamp (Follow him on Twitter here - @Braverius) also did pretty well with this team in a few PCs that he went to, and his blog has more information about some of the move choices and EV spreads used. You can find this information on his blog here.
Saturday, November 28th 2015 - Box Hill VIC PC
Top 16 : 4-2 Swiss, 18 CP
How to not Top Cut an event :
- Miss a Sheer Cold on the deciding turn in Game 3 of Round 6 where the winner makes cut and the loser wallows in his own misery.
Yes that happened and no I don't regret it. It would have been the funniest thing had I actually landed the Sheer Cold with Smeargle.
This is the same team that Jiwa used at the PCs he went to, and a little more information about the team is available below!
Matthew Jiwa - @JiwaVGC
Saturday, November 21st 2015 - Werribee VIC PC
Top 16 : 4-2 Swiss, 18 CP
Saturday, November 28th 2015 - Box Hill VIC PC
Top 8 : 5-1 Swiss, 21 CP
I originally began testing this team after watching Zyihk (@MatthewBockman) play a few games with it on PS!. I won't go into too much depth, as there might still be plans for this team in the future. I felt that this team thrived even more in a best of 3 setting, as unexpected Lum Berries and moves such as Magic Coat could be discovered and worked around. Porygon2 and Landorus-T were the supporting cast, with the former providing an excellent option against the ever prevalent CHALK-T and sand-archetypes, both of which proved to be popular throughout this series of PCs.
The combination of Ice Beam, HP Ground and Toxic were able to deal were able to deal well with common Pokémon such as Amoonguss, Cresselia, Salamence, Heatran, Aegislash. Even Landorus-T requires an uncommon amount of investment to survive an Analytic boosted Ice Beam when carrying Assault Vest.
After playing over cautiously in the first PC and failing to make cut, the team managed to go 10-0 (5-0 in sets) in the swiss rounds of the second PC, throwing the final round to Ty to ensure we would both cut comfortably. Unfortunately the run ended there, as I lost to one of my swiss opponents in Top 8, losing the lead match-up in both games to his combination of LieLoom and scarfed Landorus-T.
As mentioned, I won't be posting the full team, but you can find something much better here instead.
Ty Power - @SarkastikVGC
Saturday, November 21st 2015 - Werribee VIC PC
Top 16 : 4-2 Swiss, 18 CP
Really standard CHALK team that I used as a comfort pick because I hadn't played much in the months leading up to this event. Notable sets include Choice Band Landorus, Sludge Bomb Amoonguss and Kee Berry Cresselia. The team worked well but some bad luck stopped me from progressing further. Not a whole lot else to say <3
The spreads of the team can be found here.
Sunday, November 22nd 2015 - Morwell VIC PC #2
2nd Place : 3-2 Swiss, 20 CP
This team was based on SamVGC's (Follow him on Twitter - @SamVGC) Houston Regionals team which can be found on his blog here. After talking with him about the team a bit, I decided to change Landorus to Scrafty because I thought that doubling up on coverage was a bit unnecessary when the team already has limited damage options. Scrafty provided Fake Out for the Rain+Pert mode, and I decided on Ice Punch as well to help deal with opposing Landorus + Mence more convincingly (as I lacked Hidden Power Ice on Thundurus). I chose this team because of the prevalence of Sand + Mence teams in the previous PC, as well as having used it quite a lot in the past. I also think that any team with weather and a speed boosting ability is strong in the Australian metagame, as you can punish less-experienced players by overwhelming them with speed and damage-boosted attacks. The team worked really well on the day, but Nihal (UchihaX96) was using Smeargle + Tauros in the finals and I didn't get the rolls i needed to win. GGs
My version of this team can be found here.
Saturday, November 28th 2015 - Box Hill VIC PC
Top 4 : 5-1 Swiss, 24 CP
This team is something that I'm still messing around with. I was given the 6 mons by Luke (@Dawg) the night before the event and they worked phenomenally well, giving me convincing wins against every standard archetype that I faced. I'm going to avoid posting a pastebin for this team until I'm done with it, as I'm probably going to use it/variants of it for the foreseeable future.
Dawg is love.
Dawg is life.
To make up for the disappointment, you can find a cute picture of a puppy here.
Layne Hall - @LejnLejn
Saturday, November 28th 2015 - Box Hill VIC PC
1st Place : 5-1 Swiss, 30 CP
This team revolves around sweeping with a garden variety Power-Up Punch Kangaskhan. A physical bulky Amoonguss, max speed Shuca Heatran, and bulky Assault Vest Landorus-T are among the jaded but powerful supporting cast. The Heatran hits a Substitute number, Amoonguss lives Mega-Metagross Zen Headbutt 15/16 times, and Landorus-T outspeeds neutral base 100 Pokémon. I used a fast and Modest bulky Thundurus to assist against max speed Landorus-T with Choice Band or Assault Vest (both which fair well against my own Landorus and Heatran), as well as in Thundurus mirrors. I used Taunt over Swagger to guarantee shutting down Amoonguss for either of my mega Pokémon to set up, or to ensure that Aegislash is put into a bad position. Kangaskhan and friends were the primary cast of the team during swiss and in my first top cut match.
Cresselia and Azumarill are often seen in the last slot of a team like this, but between the two I was not pleased with the matchups I would have against sand, Calm Mind Cresselia or Amoonguss with only the ability to choose one. With that, I chose a Pokémon that could attempt to find the best middleground for these matchups, a Pokémon that hits Tyranitar and Amoonguss for STAB super effective damage and can take on CM Cresselias with its own CM rendition, Slowbro. Before the event, I accepted that Slowbro was going to be the mega Pokémon I would bring to a number of important matchups, primarily several CHALK variants and sand. Thankfully, Slowbro was able to do its job and Calm Mind its way to victory over @Bargens' CHALK-T team in Round 3 of swiss, and was my chosen mega in the final against @RoeyVGC’s sand.
The spreads of the team can be found here.
Mitch Kendrick - @MitchVGC
Sunday, November 29th 2015 - Burwood NSW PC
Top 16 : 4-2 Swiss, 18 CP
This team was largely inspired by Scar's (Follow him on Twitter - @Scar3020) team, and I also used this team to Top Cut the Boston Open I decided to go with more standard moves than some of the crazy things Scar was running. I was strongly considering Knock Off instead of Play Rough on Azumarill, but I am glad I stuck with Play Rough as there were no situations on the day where I would have preferred the former. Landorus is largely useless on this team, it is only for getting surprise KOs on Salamence and other Landorus with HP Ice. I also tested Scarfed Landorus but found it to be equally underused. My favourite Pokémon on this team is easily Infernape as it causes so much havoc at the start of the game, and is capable of knocking itself out with Flare Blitz giving me a free switch into something else.
I was eliminated from Top Cut contention straight away by sleeping in and missing round 1 of the event. In round 2 I happened to play against Jackson, a player who had made top cut at Sydney Regionals this year, who happened to be running a rain team which this team struggles against, leaving me at 0-2. Another Pokémon this team can struggle with is Maranga Berry Milotic, thankfully the two Milotic i ran into on the day were running other items. The Gardevoir and Infernape lead combination did a lot of work in the remaining rounds, allowing me to win out against my remaining opponents. Definitely my favourite combination of the season.
The spreads of this team can be found here.
More information on Scar's original team can be found at his blog here.
There is also another version that has been interpreted in English by Daniel Pol (Follow him at @ChironVGC). This version can be found on Daniel's blog here.
Guan Yang Ze - @levelfiftyone
Saturday, September 12th 2015 - Singapore PC #1
Top 16 : 4-2 Swiss, 18 CP
At this point in time I felt most comfortable with teams involving a simple, one-step setup. I thought the easiest way to go around this was to set up Tailwind and hit as hard as possible, so I set about trying to find a good Tailwind setter. I enjoyed Crobat's Inner Focus, but it fell way too easily to opposing firepower, so I switched over to Eviolite Golbat, which was still fast enough to get stuff done while taking some really big hits. I choked away my first game in the PC by failing to Taunt a Cresselia to stop Trick Room, and I lost my second game when I couldn't stop a Belly Drum Azumarill from jetting through my entire team, but I managed to recover and had some fun wins to end 4-2, netting a little bit of CP.
The EV spreads have been omitted, but the team can be found in text format here.
Saturday, October 17th 2015 - Singapore PC #3
19th Place : 3-3 Swiss, 0 CP
I was struggling to find a team I was comfortable with for this PC when I remembered the SemiRoom team which I almost brought to Nationals, and then deeply regretted not bringing. Unfortunately, my cookies had somehow been cleared, causing me to lose the exact team. Porygon2 was trending about this time, so I decided to give it a try, and piled on some strong attackers for both my fast mode and my Trick Room mode. However, while the team was really solid in practice, I didn't do too well at the PC, eventually bubbling out of any CP by getting somewhat unlucky on stream (Luke said he "would have flipped the table" if he was me).
The spreads for this team, aside from the EVs can be found here.
Saturday, November 28th 2015 - Singapore PC #6
1st Place: 4-1 Swiss, 30 CP
This team, originally conceived as a joke, finally helped me break my streak of choking out of PCs. While I'd like to talk a bit more about my team, I'll leave the finer details to a later date when I release my full team report.
Thanks for reading everyone! If you have any questions about teams or EV spreads, send us some PMs and we'll be happy to answer. We'll be posting more about all of the teams we use this season so keep an eye out either on the blog or our respective twitters to stay up-to-date. Shoutout to all the pear <3
