The Delta Articles
Led By TheQuantumJumper | Edited By Phlygone
Written By ShadowTagPorygon | Shcowle | Clam1000 | Legyro
Intro
- Introduction of the Phlygone Championship Series, 6 Tourneys in 3 months with a full 10 week Draft League completed so far this year
- Phlygone on Twitch has 799 Follows and ~25 Average Viewers
- 200 Weekly Users on the DSN site
- 217 Discord Members
- 20 Issues of the Delta Articles completed
- We have our own podcast? Crazy! Check out http://deltastream.net/chatter to catch the show from yesterday!
To commemorate our run, we put together Issue 10 with a little bit of extra love. Legyro's even back to fill in for NuclearTogekiss!
The Metagame:
Team Archetype: Tricky, Aren’t You?
The first Pokemon you’ll probably want to think about using are the slow but powerful attackers. Pokemon like Escavalier and Mega-Camerupt both are bulky and hit incredibly hard, as well as being quite slow. Your main goal when running a trick room team should be to set up trick room and sweep with these Pokemon (typically in singles you’ll want to clear anything that walls them, or has the chance to KO them after taking a hit or with priority). While some Pokemon such as Conkeldurr can use set up moves to increase their power, doing so is often times not worth it, since time is not on your side. That’s not to say that you need to always have Trick Room up, but you’re most powerful when it is; keep in mind that bulky threats such as the above and more are still strong outside of Trick Room.
Of course, without a Pokemon to set up Trick Room you wouldn’t be running a Trick Room team, now would you? Good Trick Room users aren’t exceptionally common, however there are plenty of Pokemon that get the move and have the bulk to pull it off. Some noteworthy examples include Cresselia, Porygon 2, Chandelure, and Slowking. These “Setters” aim to put down the Trick Room and then take advantage of it (or in singles, sometimes to hand momentum over to another pokemon by use of moves like Explosion and Memento--fast volt-turns can also do the job, as can good switch predictions). While leading with Trick Room can be tempting, it isn’t always the way to go. A smart opponent will be able to guess that you’re running Trick Room while selecting leads, so they will often lead with an anti-Trick Room Pokemon. I’ll go into more detail later, but for know just remember that you might need to wait to set up Trick Room until later into the game, though it should still be a top priority.
Another important part of a Trick Room team is the “fast-mode”. It may seem counter-intuitive to put faster Pokemon on a team that aims to keep up Trick Room, but the sad truth is that keeping it up 100% of the time is just infeasible. A “fast-mode” acts as a safety net, so that you aren’t outsped by literally the entire enemy team. A “fast-mode” doesn’t need to be particularly fast, but should focus on outspeeding a couple threats in the metagame--particularly those that threaten your team. Of course, you don’t necessarily need to run these Pokemon, but having them will often times bail you out when Plan A fails. Pokemon like Hydreigon, Landorus-T, and Chandelure all fill this role fairly well, though many other options exist and will largely depend on your particular team.
Combating Trick Room can be a pain, as normal panic buttons that hit fast and hard end up being the least useful once Trick Room goes up. Luckily, there are a couple ways to avoid a loss when Trick Room is involved. Perhaps the most obvious is to prevent it from going up in the first place. Directly KO’ing a Trick Room setter isn’t always an option, as they typically build rather bulky or run a Focus Sash, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stop them at all. Taunt is quite probably the best way to do this, and will often force a switch netting you some easy momentum. In doubles, Fake Out can be used to ensure the setter’s partner doesn’t have a chance to redirect or prevent the Taunt with moves like Follow Me/Rage Powder, or even their own Fake Out. Even if you can’t stop it from going up, remember that your bulky attackers (assuming you have them) often times are indifferent to the turn order, as they have the bulk to shrug off a hit or two while returning in kind. If you have especially slow Pokemon, you can even turn the Trick Room to your advantage and utilize them as if you had set it up. Stall as a whole also tends to do well against Trick Room. Since Stall typically relies on residual damage, the bulk of Trick Room teams isn’t as important. Even if you don’t have a very stall heavy team, walls can burn turns simply by existing, especially if you’re carrying Protect (this point in particular is relevant to doubles). Lastly, fighting fire with fire is actually viable here, though perhaps not in singles. Trick Room will cancel out itself if it’s used again, so if you have a Pokemon like Cresselia which has a spot open for it, it could be an option. I wouldn’t recommend this approach on a singles team, however in Doubles it can be used to combat speed control (such as Icy Wind) as well so having it isn’t a total dead weight against teams that aren’t Trick Room.
And with that, we’ve reached the conclusion of this edition of The Metagame. Hopefully I’ve shed some light on this tricky team type, both in playing it and in defending against it. Trick Room is great strategy if you’ve been looking for a way to turn bulky bruisers into menacing sweepers, thought it might take some effort to set up. And lastly, next issue we’ll be doing another Threat List-- if there’s a specific ‘mon you want to see covered, be sure to let me know! Until next time, champs to be!
Pokemon Spotlight REMASTERED:
Bugging Out
Bugs of this Week are: Butterfree, Beedrill, Ledian, Ariados, Dustox, Beautifly, Vespiqueen, Wormadam, Scolipede, and Vivillon. To spare you guys from some of the disgusting length, I’ll only give sets to a couple of my favorites and cover a quiver dancer, a Mega-Beedrill, and a Scolipede.
Since we this week is a bit different, some of your favorite listings have been moved around.
545 Base Stats: HP: 60 Atk: 100 Def: 89 Sp. Atk: 55 Sp. Def: 69 Speed: 112 Featured Ability: Speed Boost: Speed increases by 1.5 times at the end of each turn | 015 HP: 65 Atk: 90 Def: 40 Sp. Atk: 45 Sp. Def: 80 Speed: 75 Swarm: Increases the power of Bug-type attacks by 1.5 when at 33% health of less. | 015M HP: 65 Atk: 150 Def: 40 Sp. Atk: 15 Sp. Def: 80 Speed: 145 Adaptability: The Pokemon’s STAB modifier increases to 2 times instead of 1.5 | 666 HP: 80 Atk: 52 Def: 50 Sp. Atk: 90 Sp. Def: 50 Speed: 89 Compound Eyes: Raises the Pokemon’s accuracy by 30% and increases the probability of encountering wild Pokemon holding items |
Clam: There is one hidden requirement, you have to use the Hawaii-specific pattern or you instantly lose.
STP: But Clam you’re from China….
Clam: But Sai, China doesn’t own Hawaii. It owns the US economy
Synopsis:
I personally dislike bugs in real life, but as far as games are concerned, I can work with these. Scolipede, Mega-Beedrill, and Vivillon all sit in nice spots in pretty much every tier. Scolipede sees use in Ubers and OU, Mega-Beedrill works with UU and OU, Vivillon gets use in NU and RU, and normal Beedrill chills in PU. They’re all great bug-types with very different play-styles and usage. Honestly, I’d recommend throwing one of these on a team if you are playing in a tier to use them. However, keep in mind that each of these HAS the potential to be insane, but they are also can be fairly frail and be taken out pretty easily. Stealth Rocks shreds them a little, especially Vivillon, Bug types are weak to a handful of types including Fire, Rock, and Flying with are fairly popular types. Just be smart about playing them and don’t do what I do and be a potato and switch in a Scolipede onto Stealth Rocks, STAB, max Special Attack with 3 times boosted Air Slash. Just don’t do that…
Break Meta Squads:
Does This Bug You?
Let’s get straight into this!
The Squad:
Leavanny @ Life Orb Ability: Overcoat EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe Jolly Nature - Sticky Web - Leaf Blade - Knock Off - X-Scissor Do people run Life Orb offensive Leavanny? No? What the heck? Why not?! Leavanny is really fast and super offensively gifted. Granted it does die easily due to its terrible typing. But I mean these are the great things we here at the Delta Articles write and by that I mean pretty much only me. |
Kricketune @ Focus Sash Ability: Swarm EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe Hasty Nature - X-Scissor - Endeavor - Knock Off - Taunt This is something usually run in doubles with like Hyper Voice or something but here it is in singles if you ever wanted to use Kricketune to its max Quick aside, Kricketune has the best cry in the game and its not even close. |
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-405592331 by Iralious
I’m terrible at explaining these things so you should just watch and see.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-405623857 by Iralious
Actual Fell Stinger Beedrill sweep all thanks to Kricketune with that Strong Sash and Endeavor.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-405634927 by STP
The hax gods were with us and the confusion hax essentially won us the game coupled with a few of the opponent’s terrible misplays notably using sleep talk on Swampert expecting that I’ll sleep powder. I guess he failed to realize sleep clause? Since his Snorlax was already asleep. It was a full on Vivillon sweep, I remember the good old days when those were hella common.
PSL Week 7-8 Breakdown:
For those who do not know me, I used to write the Pokemon Spotlight Article before Clam and STP took over and ruined it (teehee ;P).
ANYWAY, I guess I better get started on the article now… lets hop into it!
Week 7:
Probably the biggest news that happened this week: due to Jamrock being M.I.A., YoungCodex (YC) has replaced him, taking over his team for the rest of the Season. YoungCodex is a Phlygone veteran, having made it all the way to the finals in the last PSL tournament that we had one year ago. We are excited to see how he will fare this year with much tougher competition.
Only one trade occurred this week, between Ryan61839 and ShadowTagPorygon, who traded Porygon2 and Exploud respectively.
During the waiver periods, the following occured:
- TheQuantumJumper dropped Tangela for Regice
- sexyBak dropped Mantine for Xatu
- RyoHamaru dropped Braviary for Cinccino
Week 8:
Many Trades occurred this week in preparation for Top Cut:
Legend: Trader1 <--> Trader2, Trader1’s Poke<-->Trader2’s Poke
- MagicRiceMan <--> YoungCodex, Bouffalant <-->Alakazam
- AlphaSlash <--> TheQuantumJumper, Camerupt <-->Bronzong
- YoungCodex <--> NuclearTogekiss, Conkeldurr <--> Lucario
- YoungCodex <--> sexyBak, Registeel <--> Durant
- Ryan61839 <--> sexyBak, Togekiss <--> Slurpuff
- Ryan61839 <--> ShadowTagPorygon, Scrafty <--> Toxicroak
- Coffeegrigis <--> ShadowTagPorygon, Shuckle <--> Regirock
- Coffeegrigis <--> TheAnimalBeast, Chesnaught & Honchcrow <--> Galvantula
- Clam10000 <--> ShadowTagPorygon, Uxie <--> Avalugg
- Iralious <--> HappyTheExceed, Tauros <--> Rhydon
- Coffeegrigis dropped Hitmonchan for Tangela
- Coffeegrigis picked Hitmonchan back up due to an open slot in his roster (via trade)
- Coffeegrigis dropped Magmortar for Vileplume
- TheAnimalBeast dropped Liepard due to having too many Pokemon (via trade)
- HappyTheExceed dropped Shelgon for Fraxure
- NuclearTogekiss dropped Stunfisk for Moltres
- Clam10000 dropped Cryogonal for Musharna
Whew! Finally done with all of that. Of course NT leaves me with the hardest weeks. Some friend he is, am I right fellas? Now, on to the Match Highlights.
Matches:
Ok so here are the highlight matches from weeks 7 & 8:
Week 7: YoungCodex vs Coffeegrigis Game 1: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-401862663
Even with all the hazards stacked up on his side of the field, YC puts up a brilliant fight against Coffee, only losing by a small margin.
Week 7: NuclearTogekiss vs MarcosGamez Game 1: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-400292863
NT manages to score a nice 6-0 hard fought victory against a worthy opponent.
Week 8: XYZard vs Alex55137 Game 1: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-404362459
Zard has been on a major roll over the past 7 weeks, dominating his foes wherever he went. That is until Alex showed up with his rain team and gave Zard a run for his money. This match was very well played by both players.
Alright, thats it for this weeks episode of Pokemon Spot-.... I mean, PSL Breakdown. With that being said, Good luck on your matches! Legyro out.
Battle Arcade
Last Issue: LC Dream Team
# of Battle Arcade Winners: 2
Usernames of the Winners: Quote, ShadowTagPorygon
Last Issue’s Feature:
Username: ShadowTagPorygon
Tier: OU
Replays: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-399234245
The Winner's Team:
Ferroseed @ Eviolite
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Curse
- Gyro Ball
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
Meditite @ Life Orb
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Ice Punch
- Zen Headbutt
- Drain Punch
- Bullet Punch
Hippopotas @ Eviolite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Slack Off
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Protect
Vullaby (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Foul Play
- Roost
- Defog
- Tailwind
Yanma @ Expert Belt
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Air Slash
- Giga Drain
- Ancient Power
- Protect
Pawniard @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
- Pursuit
Really well balanced team typing wise, but using a lot of mons that are what I call niche mons. The team didn’t really have a ton of firepower to come out and straight up win against Sai’s well built LC team.
Quality and Strength of Match:
STP actually played flawlessly, and won despite hax against him. This match was extremely impressive from an analysis perspective. Having the awareness that Raichu was Choiced and bringing in Yanma really impressed me. He then catches Talonflame on the switch with Ancient Power, getting a nice 1 for 1 there. From there on, he was able to just use hazards to his advantage to land crucial KOs with Pawniard and Ferroseed.
Conclusion:
We've seen it all folks. You can bring whatever you want to OU on Showdown and win. No challenge is too insane.
This Issue: Arcade Fire
A lot of our readers missed the first couple of issues of the Battle Arcade. Some readers may have missed out on a Battle Arcade or two, or thought of a cool new strategy. So for this issue, we are allowing you to use *any* of the past Battle Arcades rule sets: may the best replay win!
You have to follow the following Battle Arcade Specific Rules explicitly. Any violation will not merit a feature.
- Tier: You have to play a ranked game in the tier specified by the Battle Arcade.
- Bans: Any Bans Specified in that Battle Arcade. No replays previously submitted are eligible to win for this Battle Arcade.
- #Winning: You have to win!
- Submissions: There is a maximum of 3 submissions per person, BUT ONE SUBMISSION PER BATTLE ARCADE FORMAT. If you want to get your three submissions in for the week, you are going to try 3 different Battle Arcade rulesets!
- OU Stinks - Use PU mons and win a game in OU
- OU Stinks (FU Edition) - Use FU mons and win a game in OU
- NFE Dream Team - Win a game in OU with Not Fully Evolved Pokemon
- LC Dream Team - Win a game in OU with mons in LC and LC Ubers
- Mono-Monotype - Win a game in OU with using 6 mons with one typing, of the same type
- Breakfast of Champions - Win a game in OU with a team that a Champion had
- Delibird Delivery Service - Win a game in OU with a mono-ice team with Delibird
- Diplomatic Victory - Win a game using only non-attacking moves
- Going Solo - Win a game with only one Pokemon.
- Professional Spammer - Win a game in AG with only 6 of the same Pokemon with only one move
- Genwunners - Win a game in OU with only Gen 1 mons and Gen 1 moves
- As Seen on TV - Win a game in any tier with mons Ash uses in the Anime
- Kryptonite - Win a game in any tier with mons that have x4 weaknesses
- K. - Win a game in OU with mons that start with the letter K.
- Brave Little Toaster - Win a game in OU with mons that are inanimate objects.
- Scrambled Eggs - Win a game using Pokémon from the Water 1, Dragon and Bug Egg Types that have don’t have those types in their regular typing.
- Spooky Cup - Win a game in OU with mons that are legal in October 2015’s Spooky Cup
Banned Arcades:
- Forecast - Use a weather team. It’s just too easy. Don’t do this one.
Reminders:
Remember, abide by these rules closely. Remember the rubric also applies this week:
- Adherence to rules: How closely they followed the Battle Arcade rules.
- The quality of the users team: How well constructed your team is.
- The quality of the opponent's team: How well constructed their team is.
- The strength of play from both players: How well both players played. You get rewarded by going against good opponents who you outplayed.
If you are unsure on a Battle Arcade rule, reference the article that it was in, or PM me on Discord for more information.
Remember to post your teams and replays here: TBA
Remember, the better the match, the better chance that you can get featured!
The PokeNav:
And They Don't Stop Coming
First, the designs of the leaders of team Valor, Mystic and Instinct have been revealed to us!
And second, gameplay footage and a trailer reveals Darkrai to be coming soon in an update to Pokken Tournament!
(Also, people have found evidence in the game’s move files as of Ver. 1.3, showing along with Darkrai data some moves with numbers and names corresponding to Scizor and Empoleon. Check that out.)
Right, now that’s out of the way;
The Pokemon!
Here is Bewear (JP: Kiteruguma), the Fighting/Normal Strong Arm Pokemon!
Here too is Mimikyu (JP: Mimikkyu aha) the Ghost/Fairy Disguise Pokemon!
Looking around on the Internet a little will reveal a good deal of adorable fanart about this little guy’s tendency to hide itself under that Pikachu disguise. Its ability Disguise also centres around this detail: Disguise allows Mimikyu to take one hit without taking any damage (similar to a Substitute) before its Disguise is busted in a cute little animation where the Pikachu head falls backwards before Mimikyu can be damaged. Whether or not the disguise can be replaced remains to be seen.
Moving on to the entirely new Pokemon: here’s the newest Bug type, the Bug/Water Turn Tail Pokemon Wimpod!
Next up is the Posy Picker Pokemon Comfey, a Fairy type with the ability Triage!
And now, the Ground-type Draft Horse Pokemon, Mudsdale!
Well.
Um.
Wow.
Apparently Mudsdale is also capable of dragging loads of 10 tons for three days and three nights straight. God knows how the people of Alola, who live on islands maybe a kilometre across managed to figure that out, but there it is.
Base 180 Attack, calling it now.
Also noticeable is its abilities Own Tempo (meh ok) and Stamina, which raises its Attack by one stage each time it is hit with an attack. Any attack. Considering the undoubtably base 180 attack of this eight foot two thousand pound monster (four times the weight of a certain fully metal psychic sun god), you’ll probably want an OHKO if you want to survive a hit from this monster.
And finally, a beast even more terrifying than even Mudsdale. That’s right. Weighing in at 7 pounds, standing tall at, like, a foot; Bounsweet.
Anyway, Bounsweet the Grass-type Fruit Pokemon has the abilities Leaf Guard and Oblivious, which aren't that useful to be honest. Bounsweet apparently smells delicious, its scent calming humans. This has some negative effects too, as apparently this leads wild Pokemon to chase it often- which it can only run away from by bouncing away, which of course never leads onlookers to think anything is wrong even as it flees for its life. Goodness, that’s quite depressing.
Hyper Training allows trainers to use collectibles called Bottle Caps (*Fallout joke*) to increase a Pokemon’s IV’s upon reaching level 100. Many players think that this is ruining a crucial element of competitive Pokemon, but others see it as a way to finally be allowed to use the Pokemon they journeyed with in-game as competitive mon. Of course, Egg moves still exist, but I’m personally grateful to those at Gamefreak for this move.
Also no more legendary reset hunting for IVs
And that’s the last of ‘em, folks. Run along now- actually, wait.
If you haven’t yet seen the Japanese leak trailer yet, unless you would rather wait for the official reveal then I would much recommend watching it here. I won’t go over it for you- it’s exciting to see, and there’s just news after news even if you aren’t fluent in Japanese. Bye now! Cya next issue!
Preview:
Volume 3
See you next time ;)