He Who Greets With Fire
Indianapolis Top 32 Team Report
Rental: B01RLH
Paste: https://pokepast.es/c04676d837d3916a
I didn’t have a Groudon until Friday of the event, actually.
I had caught the one from gen 9 with 0 speed for later usage, thinking I had a groudon from gen 8 to use already. I realized shortly after trying to make my team on cart, that I in fact did not have another Groudon. The solution to this, of course, was to complete Gen 5’s Black 2, unlock the Poke Transfer lab, to grab my Groudon from Gen 4 (after beating red with it in the part for the Legend ribbon), to transfer up through Bank and Home until Gen 9.
It was incredibly important to the plot, I promise.
I made this team nearly in its entirety almost as soon as Regulation G was officially announced. It did go through a couple of mild changes over time, some of which I’ll mention as I go. I really like gouging fire as a support piece, and have essentially been coasting with mild success through the previous regulation with it, waiting for box legends to come out so he can have a sun setter that isn’t Torkoal.
Gouging Fire is the only past paradox Pokemon that gets a fire stab boost from sun. To me, this has huge potential that hasn’t been respected properly, and I wanted to give it a good shot.
I know Koraidon is a more consistent Pokemon than Groudon. My main gripe with Koraidon is being forced to tera more often than other legends because of flutter concerns. This turned out to be kinda of unwarranted, because Flutter dropped off somewhat, and because in a majority of situations, your box legend is the best tera option regardless. But even with that, I still felt that Miraidon would be a massive meta threat, despite people sleeping on it initially, just based on how strong it is in singles, and knew I wanted a ground type. I was worried about Calyrex forms, but figured I could work those out.
The reason I’m choosing to publicize the team, even if I might keep using it, is because I actually just qualified for worlds this past weekend, as of May 12, 2024! 511/500 Championship Points, got my last bit at 2 locals after Indianapolis. This is my first Worlds qualification, so I’m hoping I can make the trip happen. I also want to publicize it because people have been sleeping on Groudon so far, and I knew it had high potential in this format.
I don’t perfectly remember my matches at Indianapolis. I take fairly light notes. I’ll outline how matches went as I remember them, for storytelling purposes.
The Team
The premise of the team is a mix of protospam, and immediate offensive choices, with a boosting option if circumstances allow. I’m gonna go top-down in the rough order of how I added Pokemon to the team, and explain spreads as I go. I intend to go over other move options as well.
Gouging Fire
Ntwadumela
Gouging Fire @ Covert Cloak Ability: Protosynthesis Level: 50 Tera Type: Fairy EVs: 172 HP / 52 Atk / 44 Def / 12 SpD / 228 Spe Jolly Nature - Flare Blitz - Snarl - Breaking Swipe - HowlGod this mon is so cool. I wish it got wisp. Would’ve fixed a few issues the team has.
EVs for this get a bit tricky sometimes, and compromises have to be made for edge cases.
52 Atk Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 212 HP / 132 Def Flutter Mane in Sun: 157-186 (100 - 118.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
220 SpA Choice Specs Tera-Fairy Flutter Mane Moonblast vs. 172 HP / 12 SpD Gouging Fire: 170-202 (84.1 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Tera-Water Urshifu-Rapid Strike Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 172 HP / 44 Def Gouging Fire in Rain on a critical hit: 180-216 (89.1 - 106.9%) -- approx. 25% chance to OHKO
156+ Atk Tera-Water Urshifu-Rapid Strike Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 172 HP / 44 Def Gouging Fire in Rain on a critical hit: 168-198 (83.1 - 98%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Those are the basic calcs I went off of for this spread. I tend to just calc for high damage options and do headcalcs from there for other mons, it usually works out ok for me. I simply don’t have time in life to calc out every single interaction a mon will have.
This gouging spread always outspeeds scarf modest chi-yu in sun, which by extension means it outspeeds Calyrex Shadow Rider (CSR) and scarf adamant urshifu. With sun, you no longer exclusively need the booster energy. Booster is still an option on gouging, to cover for weather wars. But covert cloak utility makes this mon much more flexible, and makes it a better support piece overall.
Flare Blitz because gouging is heavy, but he’s not heavy enough to properly damage box legends with heat crash. In reg F he could get away with crash for a while, because while there were a few mons that take reduced crash damage, it wasn’t as many as there are now. Yes, flare blitz has recoil, but it also does big damage to basically everything in sun.
Fast Snarl has very high value in this meta. Even non-stab with a low special attack, you’re able to use it to keep boosting special attackers down, namely CSR and terapagos. It also helps vs miraidon a respectable amount.
Breaking swipe is basically just STAB spread. It does meaningful chip to most things, moreso at +1. Every attack based legend is using clear amulet, so the secondary effect mostly helps with support pieces like rilla and incin. If gouging got wisp, this move would go 100%. I know burning bulwark is an option, but that move depends heavily on your opponent messing up, or forcing an endgame where they have to attack into you, and I'd rather the extra attack/possible utility with swipe over bulwark.
Howling your groudon leads to some dumb damage. Have had a few very interesting moments in my games where howl + precipice blades clears the board.
The main reason for gouging is that I like gouging, simply put. It’s honestly not the most amazing pokemon, it’s kind of a jack of all trades. Out of this whole team, this is probably the one to replace if you want to modify it. Either a fire type special attacker, or something with wisp, or both perhaps. This is the toolkit slot, you can find a different tool, I just like this one.
Groudon
Atlas the Living Legend
Atlas (Groudon) @ Clear Amulet Ability: Drought Level: 50 Tera Type: Fire EVs: 204 HP / 92 Atk / 4 Def / 148 SpD / 60 Spe Adamant Nature - Precipice Blades - Heat Crash - Thunder Punch - ProtectI gave the explanation for why I used groudon before already. Yes, blades inaccuracy sucks, but i’d rather risk an 85% blades miss than a 50% speed tie on a more popular legend.
252+ Atk Calyrex-Ice Rider Glacial Lance vs. 204 HP / 4 Def Groudon: 152-180 (75.6 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Calyrex-Shadow Rider Astral Barrage vs. 204 HP / 148 SpD Groudon: 84-100 (41.7 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Tera-Ghost Calyrex-Shadow Rider Helping Hand Astral Barrage vs. 204 HP / 148 SpD Groudon: 170-202 (84.5 - 100.4%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Calyrex-Shadow Rider Helping Hand Astral Barrage vs. 204 HP / 148 SpD Groudon: 165-196 (82 - 97.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Urshifu-Rapid Strike Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 204 HP / 4 Def Groudon in Sun on a critical hit: 72-90 (35.8 - 44.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
These were the main calcs I operated off of. There are a few more, and it’s definitely not perfect, but the spread did what I expected it to.
Precipice blades, heat crash, and protect don’t really need explanation. 92 attack EVs hits 200 exactly, which I liked. 60 in speed puts you at 118, which always outspeeds modest pelipper, which is where thunder punch comes in as a tech move. I’ve caught a very solid amount of pelippers on switch-ins at this point, and I do think the move is a valid option. It also provides accurate coverage into urshifu-rapid, and gives an option to hit tornadus if they set rain. I’ve also won a couple of games off of the 10% paralysis chance at indi and locals. The punch slot used to be rock slide, but then you end up in an awkward spot where your only option vs wide guard users is to click heat crash, which may just not do any relevant damage sometimes. I know Jawnzu used helping hand as his final move, which allows you to bypass fake out and click button with flutter mane. Definitely a more generalist option. I’ve valued and used thunder punch enough to say it’s good though. We also saw it on stream at Stockholm, though I don’t remember if it was clicked in that match.
Rillaboom
GortromGlide
Rillaboom @ Assault Vest Ability: Grassy Surge Level: 50 Tera Type: Fire EVs: 252 HP / 116 Atk / 4 Def / 76 SpD / 60 Spe Adamant Nature - Wood Hammer - Grassy Glide - Fake Out - U-turnThe nickname was a result of discord screwery. Shoutout Blake and Lorenzo. Christ is it funny in person though.
What does this rillaboom spread do is a great goddamn question. I've been running this or close to this for like months. Idk what it lives and idk what it doesn't. It’s functionally pure vibes. It's a rillaboom, we all know what rillaboom does. It smacks things with a hammer and gets tempo occasionally with u-turn.
I used rilla here as a partial patchup for the kyogre matchup, to gain terrain over opponents, provide a bit of longevity, and for fake out. Presumably the same reason most other people use rilla right now. It also adds a grass portion to my coverage. Granted bolt covers similar issues, but being able to reliably hit opposing ground types is nice.
The rillaboom could possibly be an incineroar. More direct sun benefit, knock off to help gouging, wisp to handle matchup issues (getting to those.) This would probably trivialize most zamazenta and calyrex-ice teams, and make the miraidon and kyogre matchups way worse. Mileage may vary.
Like I said, I have no clue what this spread does anymore. I know 116 adamant basically always ohkos flutter (thank you brady), otherwise just use whatever spread you like. I like 60 speed personally because if I see intimidate go off first, I know it's jolly incin, and it covers for random ladder techs like max speed jolly base 50 mons. I used to run 115 speed, but it felt a bit gratuitous. Now that Rajan won with a max speed timid bloodmoon, it's looking kind of reasonable again, to be honest.
I considered high horsepower or stomping tantrum, but didn't feel the need to double dip on ground coverage, and tempo is more important in this meta than coverage on your support tools.
Urshifu
Urshifu is traded, and Spanish, she can't be nicknamed :( lo siento
Urshifu (F) @ Focus Sash Ability: Unseen Fist Level: 50 Tera Type: Dark EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe Jolly Nature - Wicked Blow - Sucker Punch - Close Combat - DetectSash urshifu doesn't need much explaining. Helps with both CIR and CSR, and forces damage on pagos and everything else with a fake out partner.
252 Atk Tera-Dark Urshifu-Single Strike Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Calyrex-Ice Rider on a critical hit: 184-220 (88.8 - 106.2%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Tera-Dark Urshifu-Single Strike Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Calyrex-Ice Rider on a critical hit: 204-240 (98.5 - 115.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
Adamant has MUCH better rolls on CIR than jolly does, obviously. The reason I run jolly is because sash urshifu is such an amazing endgame piece, and being faster than opponents removes the need for sucker punch mindgames. I also typically have enough bulk or priority to deal with it anyway.
If the matchup called for it, urshifu also helps vs bulky zamazenta teams with screens for forcing damage, and most zamazenta seem to be in the 150s speed-wise, making this a good way to force about 40-50% off the raid boss health bar.
I'm personally a major believer in urshifu-single strike. I've gotten way more points with this than rapid. This being a sun team notwithstanding, dark is just a much less conditional damage type than water, and water has other options elsewhere. It'll always depend on the team you have, but I know what my preference has been.
Flutter Mane
Nyx
Flutter Mane @ Choice Specs Ability: Protosynthesis Level: 50 Shiny: Yes Tera Type: Fairy EVs: 100 HP / 92 Def / 140 SpA / 4 SpD / 172 Spe Timid Nature IVs: 8 Atk - Dazzling Gleam - Moonblast - Shadow Ball - Icy WindQuick note on the spread, on my current version of the team, including what's listed here, the flutter is 1 point less special attack and 1 point more in speed than it was at indianapolis. This allows her to outspeed niche stuff like timid venusaur in sun, essentially max speed positive nature base 80s, while keeping the same rolls on attacks in every case i saw that i found relevant. Niche, but close enough to relevant that I cared to change it.
Flutter spreads, like rilla, are taste dependent. 100/92 always lives jolly pao spinner. The rest is a preferred split between special attack and speed.
Specs Flutter in sun does tons of damage at a very high rate of speed. Icy wind gives some speed control.
I was considering max speed bulky, but the damage felt off. Was considering sash, but urshifu wanted it more. I don't need to be the 300th person to tell people how flutter mane works.
Flutter definitely has a niche as a support tool, but to me it feels better as a damage option. With the free speed boost from sun, it's hard to stop. It's like a snappier xernedon. Who needs geomancy when you can just click Tera moonblast in sun?
I was almost a complete fool and wanted to drop flutter from this team. Don't be past me. Fairy/ground coverage is uncheckable. If you have the opportunity to safely lead flutter + groudon, it's basically always free damage.
Raging Bolt
Zeus
Raging Bolt @ Safety Goggles Ability: Protosynthesis Level: 50 Tera Type: Water EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 108 SpA / 44 SpD / 4 Spe Modest Nature IVs: 20 Atk - Thunderbolt - Draco Meteor - Thunderclap - ProtectYou know, what's funny about this is, I actually had the wrong Nature at Indianapolis. The one I had there was a neutral nature, which did actually matter a couple of times. I put the correct stats on rk9, it's just that my correct stats were wrong. Funny how that works. I didn't even realize this was the case until a few days after I got home and was looking at my team on cartridge. It just did about as much damage as I expected anyway, so I never noticed.
252+ Atk Calyrex-Ice Rider Glacial Lance vs. 252 HP / 100 Def Raging Bolt: 194-230 (83.6 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Calyrex-Shadow Rider Astral Barrage vs. 252 HP / 44 SpD Raging Bolt: 96-114 (41.3 - 49.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 100 Def Raging Bolt: 198-234 (85.3 - 100.8%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
Raging Bolt really is just one of the strongest non-legendary pokemon ever made. Benefitting from sun is just icing on the cake for it. How many teams did we see with bolt without sun, or any way to boost it?
It acts as a solid check to kyogre, can switch on on electric attacks reliably (up to a point, miraidon is ridiculous), and does a lot of solid neutral damage.
Tera water + goggles is meant to act as a good way to deal with caly-ice + amoonguss teams, and it does so very well, actually. Having a switch in for spore and being able to safely thunderclap is huge. Thank you to Jeudy for the idea.
The main issue I had with bolt was actually Draco misses. At the locals that got me worlds, I tried weather ball. It works, it's stronger than Thunderbolt, and it provided some basic super effective coverage. But it forces you to rely on other teammates to handle dragons, and opposing raging bolt. Pulse is an option, but vs neutral you're always clicking tbolt over pulse. Pulse is also MUCH weaker than Draco. But Draco can miss. The obvious answer to this would be to drop goggles for AV and run weather ball + pulse, but this leaves you without a proper amoonguss check with this exact 6. The team worked, and I actually beat a majority of the CIR teams I faced at indianapolis, even without a true ice resist. Definitely warrants further testing to find a better fix.
Despite all of that, bolt comes to almost every match. It just does so much damage and applies so much pressure in every basically every matchup in this format.
Calcs are as above, but with 108 special attack EVs, even if you get dropped to -1 by a parting shot, you actually still get a special attack proto boost if you reset the sun, even with the high defense investment. What happened once at indi was I got a defense boost instead. I dont remember how relevant it was, but it was funny nonetheless.
Restricted matchups by difficulty
The tierlist is a rough summary of how this exact team matches up to those above. Mons at the end are as stated, just things I haven't played. I'm gonna go into specifics on the main relevant ones based on how they've gone for me, and outline why for each case. Bear in mind, some of these matchups change heavily with different tools.
Miraidon
The electric type box legends struggling vs a ground type shouldn't be much of a surprise. If it's specs, it's forced to choose who it can't hit, flutter or groudon. Your opponent is basically always in at least 50/50 position on lead resulting from this, and they don't even have good options if they do choose to attack one or the other.
Zacian
Not all too common, but relevant enough to mention. It has to tera to not drop in 1-2 hits. If it teras, it loses the premier steel/fairy defensive typing. It can be scary at +2 or +3, but they have to get there. Partners can pose a problem, but it's mostly pelipper really, and that tracks for most matchups groudon struggles with. Wild how one funny bird gets so much usage, to deal with legends that don't even see that much usage with groudon and koraidon.
Terapagos
The turtle doesn't like playing vs fast offense. It takes a turn or two to set up, and calm mind sets don't do much without that setup. The specs set can, but gouging always outspeeds and can Snarl to hinder its setup while breaking Tera shell for the partner to swing. This doesn't negate the fact that terapagos warrants a response though. You can't just ignore it, or it will run through you. Clearing sun and terrain when it teras can make things tricky as well for proto mons, but I'd say it's overall groudon favored, whether it's specs or setup.
Calyrex-Shadow
CSR really does not like this gouging fire set. Which is by design, mind you. Snarl is a nuisance for it, and it can't be faked out because of the covert cloak. I really only played ghost Tera CSR at indi, which also meant it had a rough time vs urshifu-s if I could make the endgames happen. Where this becomes borderline is when CSR has weather control. Rain makes all my mons faster than it in sun now slower in Rain. Clefairy can also make it complicated due to Follow Me and Friend Guard. If it's purely CSR balance with double fake out, urshifu, etc, the only wincon they really have is missing all of your moves.
Koraidon
Koraidon does not like flutter mane. Koraidon also basically always has Tera fire. Tera fire koraidon does not like precipice blades. This matchup is the premier example of why flutter + groudon is so good. It doesn't matter if they Tera if they still retain another weakness. Where this gets tricky is the partners. Koraidon usually has some protospam as well, which means it comes down to sets and speed tiers more often than not. You both NEED sun, but who benefits from it more? This can lead to a fun back and forth of trying to dodge super effective hits or ohkos while trying to outpace each other's damage. Most of my koraidon games on ladder and locals have come down to one mon left at low hp.
Groudon
Similar vibes to koraidon, actually, but with more funny buttons being clicked. Also depends on who can force a Tera from the other more easily, though I haven't played the mirror enough to judge more fully
Calyrex-Ice
CIR is tricky (heh.) The two real contributing factors are 1. Their Tera, and 2. If they have Rain or not. Rain can make it so they can outbulk your damage, and specifically grass Tera is hard for this team to hit reliably while in trick room. Both of these together were a contributing factor in my last round at indi, skill differences notwithstanding. It comes down to partners and leads typically, and the onus is on the groudon player still. I'm frankly tired of playing vs it. It's not fully linear, but it is boring. It's just a DPS check. Can I do enough damage within 3 turns to handle CIR before it sweeps my team? Sometimes, yeah! Other times, no.
Kyogre
The weather wars. The real trouble with this matchup is the tornadus. Tornadus forcing weather control makes it somewhat of an arms race vs kyogre. Most kyogres are faster than most groudons, so they'll almost always lead torn + ogre to maintain early control. Kyogre also has the advantage of being super effective into groudon even with its common coverage choice of ice beam, making it hard for groudon to function. This is definitely a matchup where you depend on your partners for damage. The thing is, kyogre also happens to do disgusting amounts of damage. It's a balancing act of trying to keep weather control with only one weather setter, while also trying not to lose a DPS race. Fun. But difficult. Priority denial on kyogres side can make it even harder, but this team has mons to handle that, and it can come down to predicting those mons to come in and sniping them off on a switch to gain momentum back.
Zamazenta
This matchup blows. I say this having mainly played vs the iron defense set though. Keanu's hyper offense zamazenta team actually looks like it really does not want to play vs a sun team. But considering I haven't played vs it yet, let's go with the problematic one. My team does not boost fast enough with howl to offset the bulk and damage of iron defense zamazenta. Add to this the fact that most of the iron defense zamazenta teams I've played have been screens + supports, this team can fall behind on damage fast. The only way I came close to beating bulky zamazenta teams was essentially perfect play. Calling them every single turn, and even then getting net lucky. One local win I had vs zam was getting game 3 with gradual chip damage, and winning off of a flare blitz burn from gouging onto zamazenta. And he STILL had outs. This matchup and CIR are the 2 main reasons I want to add a relatively reliable way to burn opponents to this team going forward.
Strengths
It’s fast sun offense with a setup component. It directly enables multiple strong pokemon, while having support tools to weaken or hamper opponents and force damage. The mons used have good synergy with each other, and cover each other's weaknesses well. It flows nicely in most matchups, works well in the meta, and most importantly, it's a lot of fun! This is easily one of the best teams I've ever made, results notwithstanding. Landing a +1 precipice blades on both opponent pokemon is just about the funniest thing currently in the game.
Basically any duo of pokemon on this team applies immediate offensive pressure that warrants a response. I rarely found myself playing reactively when playing properly. If you make calls right, catching switches as they happen can quickly dismantle the opponent’s team.
Weaknesses
Accuracy. Easy choice. Missing moves sucks. We're all used to it at this point, winning or losing off of a big miss. Surprisingly enough, Draco was more of an issue than blades was all weekend. Big ticket moves are always going to be a tradeoff. Draco chunks, but Draco is 90% accurate, and 90=50 in pokemon.
Only one form of speed control. I personally don't play with tailwind or trick room very often. My playstyle tends to be more immediate and threatening. My fix to this is typically a mix of priority and bulk to not worry about speed tiers as much, but it is a weakness nonetheless. Proto speed boosts also act as a form of partial speed control, but is dependent on weather control, making it less reliable.
Being an offensive team, it struggles vs slow, defensive teams. See the zamazenta matchup outline for more on that.
Last is a generalized ice weakness only resolved by using Tera, which makes the CIR matchup and chien pao in general a bigger threat.
There may be other strengths and weaknesses I'm not remembering or don't yet know. These are the main ones I've encountered so far.
Round by Round Replay
The details may not be perfect. My notes are essentially their lead, back mons, who teras, and important details. I also sometimes track good or bad luck. I'm recounting it based on what I remember otherwise. I dont remember my leads for the most part, because I don't track them. I'll mention what I know as available.
R1: Alante Bennett
We spoke a good bit during our match. Alante is a new player. He ran a rather cool quark drive team with dragon cheer iron juggulis and scope lens miraidon, and AV iron boulder. He also had a life orb, Tera flying, dual wingbeat scizor, which was legitimately an issue for me to deal with in this matchup. I wanted both rilla and flutter for this match, neither of whom wants to take a stab hit from life orb scizor.
Game 1, scizor + miraidon with jugg + torn in back, I won by using flutter properly.
Game 2, jugg + scizor lead with torn + miraidon back. I misused and mispositioned my flutter mane, and ended up in an endgame position where I had flutter in a 2v2 next to groudon, and it of course was an ohko with life orb bullet punch. Lost after that.
I had gouging in games 1 and 2, and dropped it for bolt in game 3, because he kept going for Tera flying on scizor and also brought jugg and torn in both games 1 and 2.
Game 3, he adjusted in an unexpected way, and left scizor behind. Lead jugg + miraidon and had boulder and (I forgot to write the last mon but I think it was) tornadus in the back. I led bolt + groudon, called him to target groudon, switched to rilla to catch his draco, and Draco meteor into miraidon.
I missed Draco.
Next turn however, he misclicks when he backs out of move selection, cancels his Tera electric, and because his miraidon didn't have protect, I ohko with fake out + Draco, even after a -1 from jugg snarl. Game saved. He ended up going Tera fighting Boulder and flutter just swept. Good start.
R2: Jorge Rodrigo Showing Prieto
This guy had a very bulky trick room balance team. CIR with porygon2 and registeel, and incin/rilla/dark ursh. I will say, I got net lucky throughout day one of the tournament, and this round was where it started. Minor note, my opponent didn't Tera once for the entire round.
Game 1, he leads p2 rilla with CIR registeel back. I believe I had rilla ursh with groudon bolt back. I won endgame by getting the ohko roll with jolly Tera dark Wicked Blow on CIR, and cleaned up registeel after.
Game 2, he lead incin CIR with ursh + registeel back. He wisp burned groudon with incin, and did too much damage even with unboosted registeel to my urshifu for me to keep up. Lost this game.
Game 3, he leads rilla + incin with regi + CIR back. My main adjustment was using flutter, trying to play the special attacker angle for registeel, since it was the issue in game 2. We played some back and forth, and he ended up in a spot where he had to switch rilla into a Thunderbolt to preserve CIR, and rilla got paralyzed on the switch, then got full para'd on a fake out attempt. That basically sealed the game. I want to say I was in a good position regardless, but I don't remember perfectly to be honest.
R3: Ethan Mattos
This guy had the world's bulkiest zamazenta team. I can spare most of the details of game 1, he completely smoked me. Grimmsnarl, zamazenta, and cresselia were all he needed. I learned after we were done, he had ting lu in the back as the 4th mon both games.
Game 2, I realize this matchup sucks. I adjust my lead and go rilla ursh, he still led zam grimm. I call zam to switch out turn 1 to cress to save hp, and Tera dark Wicked the slot while i fake out grimm, calling it to try and spirit break ursh after rocky helmet cress broke sash. It works, I catch cress on the switch, do 90%. Finish off cress turn 2 and chip Grimm. I played basically the first 4 or 5 turns of the battle perfectly, I'd say, and then I goofed. Didn't track my close combat stat drops, and he ends up ohkoing urshifu with spirit break at -2 defense. He tera ghosted to dodge fake out, but i fake out + cc into zamazenta. I lose from there because Grimm Thunder wave slows my team down enough for zamazenta to outspeed and ko the remainder. 0-2 loss this round. 2-1 start.
Matchup felt horrible so I didn't think about it too much after that and moved on.
R4: Bart Christian
Now this round…my opponent no showed. Free win after 10 minutes, we take those ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ looking at his team, I'd say I had a pretty decent matchup. He was running hard TR CIR + torkoal. He didn't drop either, he just no showed this one round. Had a decent finish, even. I would likely have played for a bolt or groudon angle, it was tera fire CIR. If I force Tera with urshifu, Tera fire groudon + bolt would likely do fine. No way to know for sure now though.
R5: Charlie Calvin
Special offense terapagos team with rilla/incin/wellspring fwg. His pagos lived close combat from neutral urshifu from full hp after he tera'd, was the main note.
Game 1, he leads chi yu + flutter, incin terapagos back. I led flutter groudon. My flutter was faster and he had scarf chi yu, so I icy wind and protect. He missed his first icy wind on flutter, and I believe i missed his? But his miss mattered more, because with the chip, I believe flutter would've dropped to heat wave. I got off a second icy wind and got the double KO with precipice blades, Tera fire on groudon to live in case of a miss. I cleaned up endgame with urshifu.
Game 2, rilla chi yu with pagos flutter back. Iirc I led the same way. Board ended up as his flutter + pagos vs my urshifu and someone else, and he missed ANOTHER icy wind, on my urshifu. He said his pagos would have outsped -1 jolly urshifu, and considering he was like +1spatk, I want to say I'd have lost this game otherwise.
R6: Bobby Rochelle
Now, I didn't know Bobby at this time, but I knew of him. All I remembered was I heard his name somewhere on stream, and I knew he was a good player. He seemed surprised when I told him as much. Very sunny person, glad to have met him. Hope to play him again in the future, we had a very fun, rather tense set.
Game 1, lead CSR rilla, incin clefairy back. I led gouging groudon. I was surprised to see rilla when he had a rain dance tornadus, and it made all the difference. He went on the offensive rather quickly once he got his positioning, and went for Tera ghost helping hand Astral into my mons, both of whom lived on like 1%, and I got the KO on CSR iirc. Won game 1 after cleanup.
Game 2, torn incin lead, clef CSR back. I got a Thunderbolt para on clefairy, and proceeded to get multiple full paras on it, I think like 2 or 3 full paras in 4 or 5 turns, but I never abused it. Lost this game when I had multiple opportunities to just attack into CSR and just didn't. Played way too safe.
Game 3, same mons for him. There is exactly one turn sequence I remembered from this, because it was very tense. I have bolt + urshifu down to sash in front of CSR + tornadus in rain. I know he's going to protect + bleakwind to finish urshifu off. So I protect ursh. I know I don't want to KO torn, but I have to get damage too. I don't know the range at all, I just assume he's bulky enough to live a thunderclap. I go for it, and torn lives at about 10%. I don't know his spread, but if it wasn't 252hp/4spdef evs, it might have mattered that my bolt was the wrong Nature, because this gives me an extra out.
We both know the situation. If I double prio and he attacks, he loses. I know torn isn't staying in. What I call is for him to go clef on the torn slot, and click nasty plot to cover for double prio. So I just raw attack. And I lose, because so does he. Well played by Bobby. He was banking on living double prio with friend guard and his active Tera ghost. If I did double prio and he either lived or nasty plotted, I still lost, because groudon in the back was functionally useless as long as he still has CSR in this position. I don't remember how much he was at, but it actually may have been a small range for him to live on a double low roll with friend guard. Fun set. 4-2 at this point.
I want to take this time to say, my goal this season was primarily to day 2 another regional. My first ever was hartford in 2023, and I was elated back then. I wanted to do it again rather desperately. Qualifying for worlds was honestly secondary to this.
I proceeded to 2-0 the next 3 rounds and lock in my day 2. Was there luck? Yes. Did I play well regardless? I think I did. I'd like to think I earned the day 2, regardless of RNG based factors. But it definitely helped.
R7: Daniel Raygoza
More CSR balance.
Game 1, he leads rilla incin, amoonguss CSR back. He also has a rain dance torn, and didn't bring it in game 1. I'd say it's the raging bolt effect more than anything. Regardless, I won game 1.
Game 2, CSR incin lead, torn amoon back. He actually did end up with torn and CSR next to each other. But I got a tbolt para on CSR. For anyone counting, this is my third today. It made up speed differences and locked the game up.
R8: Daniel Yu
CIR pelipper stuff. It's the raging bolt show. I didn't write much out for this set, but I remember one detail.
Game 1, he leads urshifu-rapid and CIR, pelipper incin back. I didn't write much out for this game, but I won.
Game 2, lead incin CIR, peli ursh back. Details I forgot aside, I actually almost threw. I call him to attack with pelipper into groudon. I should have clicked thunderpunch + thunderclap, because it was sash. I punch and tbolt instead. Groudon comes in clutch however, and gets a thunderPUNCH paralysis this time, making bolt now outspeed pelipper for the KO out of trick room, saving groudon for an extra turn. I won from there.
R9: Diego Agguirre
CSR WITHOUT rain. Feeling good.
Game 1, incin amoonguss lead, rilla CSR back. He went for Tera dark amoonguss within the first 2 turns, trying to live fire moves. I just clicked blades, because it's obviously the only acceptable way to play my win and in, and went for damage with bolt, who I switched in turn 1 to catch spore if I recall correctly. I won game 1. One to go.
Game 2, raging bolt incin lead, CSR rilla back. Calm mind Tera fairy raging bolt. I wrote basically nothing for this round but my bare notes. Bolt went for Tera fairy, but I believe I had flutter and groudon this time. The offense was just too much too fast, and I won game 2. 7-2, made day 2 :)
Day 2 is obviously a different type of competition. Ideally, on day 1 you also approach it this way, but you know for a fact on day 2 that everyone knows what they're doing. I knew I had the chance to go top 8, but I also knew I was rather lucky the day before, and luck is a pendulum. It does eventually swing back.
R10: William Brown
Another new player to start me off. Granted, I'm relatively new too, I just started last season, but I'd like to say I've competed quite a lot at this point. Regardless though, he made day 2 at his first ever regional. Big congrats to him, despite the rough finish.
Game 1, CIR amoonguss lead, incin pelipper back. I got another 10% paralysis, now at 5 total for the tournament, but on his amoonguss, calling a pelipper switch in, or outright aiming at it, not sure. But ALSO in this game, I missed a Draco on his jolly max speed incin switching in, and I got crit ohkoed by Glacial Lance on groudon. Lost game 1.
Game 2, he leads CIR incin, peli amoon back. I clean up my play and win game 2. He went for Tera water CIR both games.
Game 3, ursh-r CIR lead, incin peli back, and he went for Tera ghost urshifu instead. Scarf coaching is spooky, but I won the game. Good start.
R11: Artan Abdi
Arty had a very impressive run. We actually introduced ourselves and spoke for a while outside of the main hall while we waited for them to let us inside for day 2. We chatted matchups and stuff for a while, people we wanna play or dodge, etc. He's a good guy. It figures that we'd end up playing in swiss after talking about stuff like that though.
If I won one more round, with his resistance he might've gotten top 8. I also, however, got fairly unlucky in this match. Let's see how.
Artan was running a decorate smeargle CIR team. This team is horrifying. I knew if I ever let smeargle play the game, I'd just lose. Every single game, turn 1, I'd just immediately go for the KO on smeargle. This let him get a free switch with trick room up, but it was also literally my best way to not just lose either.
Artan had a safe enough play to go for the same gameplan every game, and force me to react, which I think I did my best to do. Things just didn't quite work out.
Game 1, smeargle CIR, banded dark ursh + ursaluna bloodmoon back. I managed to play toward bolt like I'm meant to in this matchup. I also unfortunately played toward an inaccurate move endgame. Last turn of the game, I have my low hp groudon and raging bolt in front of his full hp ursa-BM. If I land precipice blades and Draco meteor, I win. I land the blades…and miss the Draco. I am now at 3 Draco misses this tournament, I believe, all of which mattered. Those tbolt paras are looking like a waste right about now. So I lose game 1 off that, both drop to hyper voice.
Game 2, same mons for him. I switch my rilla ursh lead for gouging groudon. He went for a protect + spore, I just ko'd smeargle, calling no fake out. Won on tempo rather quickly.
Game 3, I went back to rilla ursh. But I over-read this time, even though he went for the same exact plays as in game 1. On top of this, part of how I lost game 3 was actually on rolls. In game 1, groudon lived the double up from CIR Glacial Lance after Tera fire, and urshifu-dark banded close combat, with about 22hp. This time, the rolls didn't work out. The double up ko'd instead, and I lost with just bolt in the back vs a boosted CIR. Artan played well, but the rough luck does hurt. A taste of my own medicine. This essentially knocked me out of a possible top 8 unless my opponents all won some rounds. Even then I'd have to win the next 3.
One little note to finish the round, Arty told me somewhere in the middle of things that I had the best groudon in the world, the way it landed basically every single precipice blades. Hell yeah, I do. Good job Atlas. Such a good boy.
R12: Dylan Salvanera
Dylan is a good player. We've seen him quite a lot. I'm going to spare some external details on this match.
This set went quite fast. Put simply, this was a horrible matchup for him.
Game 1, he actually outplayed me early. He led CSR urshi-r, incin amoonguss back. I didn't respect Tera water urshifu in sun enough and it cost me my groudon turn 1, off of Surging + neutral Astral Barrage. This was fixable though, and I did come back. Won game 1.
Game 2, he led rilla incin, CSR amoonguss back. I lead groudon + flutter, trying to check the prior lead. I Tera fire turn 1 in case he doesn't fake out and just go for an attack with groudon, and switch flutter for gouging, because it just seems free here. He fake outs groudon and goes for wood hammer on the flutter slot, doing nothing to gouging. He then seemed to call me to go for fire attacks into the rillaboom slot, goes for Tera fire, and I click howl + blades and ohko both. Won game 2. 9-3 now.
R13: Arthur Collier
This guy had the most unique team I played in the main event by far. Bro had an AV kyurem-white snow team with indeedee, water ursh, bloodmoon, and coil milotic. Man, this must've come to him in a dream, because he showed up to indianapolis to be someone's nightmare, I swear to god.
It was mine, by the way. I won the round, but my god, was it a nightmare. The only thing that DIDN'T happen was a freeze, somehow.
Game 1, kyurem-w urshi-r lead, indeedee alolatales back. Roughly the 4 I expected. I led groudon + flutter, and called him to go for groudon over flutter. I hard switch rilla for groudon as he swaps kyurem for ninetales-alola, and ohko ursh after he teras with a moonblast from non-tera specs Flutter. Good start.
He goes kyurem, and goes for terrain control with an indeedee switch on the tails. I went for a moonblast on the kyurem with Tera fairy, and the mf lived on 1%. Assault Vest kyurem, who would've thought.
Details get hazy for me here. I ended up with weather control. He clicks blizzard, in sun, with his ninetales, and double connects, doing a bit over half to groudon, and I wanna say nothing to urshifu on a protect. Flutter dropped somewhere along the way.
I switch ursh to rilla, knowing I'll live a blizzard even from about 60% hp based on the damage to my non-tera’d groudon from before. He proceeds to click blizzard in sun again, land both again (50% accuracy btw), crit my AV rillaboom, and ohko it. To say I was annoyed is an understatement. In a way, I found it hilarious how hard luck had swung the other way for me today.
It's now 1v1, sash urshifu dark vs what seems to be a max speed, max special attack ninetails with moonblast in sun. I take a moonblast, and go for close combat, and bring them down to about 10% while I'm brought to sash. I feel like his out was to sucker stall while trying to play for Grassy terrain recovery, because I had just set it up for him to maintain my ability to use priority. There was probably a range pretty close by where he lived sucker, and he could've played for that out. I don't bother calling it, I just attack with sucker punch, and it works. I learned my lesson, Bobby. Won game 1 by a hair and a prayer.
Game 2 was cleaner, kind of. He went for a trick room gameplan instead, leaving ninetails behind and bringing bloodmoon. He played it well too.
It is at this time, I learned a rather fun calc. I thought I lost until it happened.
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera-Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. 252 HP / 76 SpD Assault Vest Rillaboom: 190-224 (91.7 - 108.2%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
Rillaboom lived a Tera normal bloodmoon on like 4hp, took a KO on I believe indeedee in return, and dropped to recoil. Was able to stall out trick room and win the match from there.
R14: Junxi Zhu
Junxi is a very good player. And this very good player beat me rather quickly.
Game 1, he lead torn CIR. And I lost. That's about it. He went for Tera grass CIR, clicked rain dance on my groudon bolt lead, his torn took only about 70% from a Thunderbolt, and I lost. He just rapidly swept me from there.
Game 2 wasn't much better. I put up a bit more of a fight, I got to see the last 2 mons this time, bolt amoonguss, but I still got smoked.
Did not have max spdef max hp tornadus on my bingo card. Guess I should have. Not for nothing, he also crit ohkoed my groudon turn 1 game 1, which didn't really help.
10-4 finish at indianapolis. Honestly, better than I expected. I'm still very satisfied with my first top 32 finish at a major event. I know for some, a finish like this is a disappointment, but for me, it feels like a huge accomplishment. Groudon put in work, the team pulled its weight nicely. There were two groudon in day 2, and I was the second one. But there was only one gouging fire player in day 2, and that was me.
Other options for Groudon teammates
I'm partially adding this section for personal use, but there are a lot of other ideas I had to run on this team, and I figured it's worth throwing some of them down here in case anyone feels like doing some further work on this, finding another way to make it run.
Incineroar:
Wisp as an option, a different physical fire type support pokemon, slower, more direct utility. This mon is definitely worth running with groudon. The gouging is very fun, but ends up struggling if you don't pull matchups it likes. I played so many teams with a random rain setter at indianapolis, I didn't end up bringing gouging nearly as much as I might have otherwise. Incin might have come in some of those scenarios, to do a similar thing without a conditional speed tier.
Chi Yu:
sun boosted calc fish. Easy choice for another special attacker to throw on.
Armarouge:
Bit more niche, but I'm surprised it's so underexplored. Wide guard, fire immunity, stab fire moves in sun, it seems like a fairly premier support option in this meta. Has unique typing when paired with wide guard that allows it to resist a solid chunk of the current meta. I'll likely test it later on.
Walking Wake:
This is like the exact scenario wake wanted to be in. It would drastically improve the kyogre matchup just because if it's typing, and gives your sun team weather boosted water STAB. Definitely a more valid option now than before. It also gets snarl, and may do more relevant damage with it than gouging does.
Whimsicott:
Speed control, being able to encore lock negative matchups, and solid typing. It's also done well in prior restricted metas. Downside is frailty and low stats, but it's not meant to be your primary damage dealer, it's meant to enable them.
Bronzong:
Gravblades is a reasonably real strategy to mitigate accuracy issues. I'm personally not a big bronzong believer, but I can see it having its own niche in this meta, enabling lower accuracy/higher power builds. Would likely be one of the better partners on a trick room groudon team.
Venusaur, Lilligant, Jumpluff:
They fill a similar niche so they share a section. Chlorophyll supports. Not the strongest pokemon, but they all have their own support options, alongside sleep powder and grass STAB.
Scream Tail:
Actually fills a spot in between gouging and whimsicott, in a weird way. Howl and encore are both solid support tools, and scream tail gets both, with protosynthesis to maintain speed.
Sandy Shocks:
Fast proto gravity setter, and gives disquake coverage, as well as earth power for guaranteed ground stab rather than just precipice blades. Niche, but usable.
I do have some other ideas, but these seemed like the ones that made the most sense to include or actually use. There's other obvious options like fire ogerpon, amoonguss, etc. It's a bit backwards to list incineroar and not them, but I don't need to list every relevant meta piece, people can throw those on without me saying it's a good idea.
This was fun to write. I haven't done a larger scale writing project in a long time. I hope it was a decent read, if you made it this far.
The team is very fun to play. I think it's rather well constructed too. I think the zamazenta meta we're headed toward warrants some changes, but I also still think the current iteration of the team is completely fine. If you give it a shot, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do :)
I'd like to thank all the friends who contributed to this team, namely Lorenzo, Alfonse, Yan Chak, Blake, and Lauri for helping with teambuilding ideas, nicknames, and generally just being an awesome support squad. I appreciate you guys. Glad to have met all of you.
I'd also like to thank everyone in The Hive, and everyone in the tristate local scene. I really do believe VGC is meant to be done with friends. Friends are legitimately the best resource you can have in this game. Anyone can make a team, but it takes a few different people to see how to run it from different angles.
I can be reached on Twitter @MatinVGC, or on discord at dragonboy2100 if you have any questions in relation to this.
Wish me luck at worlds!
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