Hi, My name is Elijah Gardner - I go by DragonairJordan23, thank you for reading this team building guide.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working on sun teams, specifically trying to make Walking Wake work on a balance team this format because of it’s ability to remove Incineroar, a key piece for opposing balance. I think I’ve cracked the code to create a team that not only benefits from sun but doesn’t need sun to function and enjoys the partner pokemon you want to use anyways!

Top Teams I Wanted To Counter

Ogerpon + Fluttermane

These Two top usage mon have amazing offensive coverage when put together, and there are very few mons who are able to take their attacks reliably with Ogerpon’s high crit chance and Fluttermane’s massive special attack stat and Fairy STAB.

When looking for partners for wake I needed a Fire-Type that resisted Fluttermane (not Incineroar) to enable it. Stephan Mott (PengyVGC) has been running a Walking Wake sun team for a while that I really enjoyed testing, but it didn’t fit my playstyle of bulkier balance/offense with defensive synergies I could leverage along with tera. I decided that Torkoal + Venusaur could resist combinations of attacks from this pairing and trade damage very well into them with the ability to mitigate damage from Ogerpon-Wellspring in the sun.

Trick Room Compositions (+Psyspam)

Trick Room or Trick Room hybrid teams that support strong spread attackers have been the norm, with even more balanced comps including a Ursaluna Bloodmoon/Farigiraf mode with Follow Me and Fake Out options available.

Torkoal is able to underspeed and abuse opposing Trick Room to dish out huge damage while supporting it’s partners by reducing the opposing Ogerpon-Wellspring’s damage output. Paired with Grimmsnarl you’re able to take less damage, usually eat a double up and activate Sitrus Berry to become around 70% HP and get a powerful Eruption off.

Gouging Fire

Walking Wake does well into Gouging Fire compositions but it’s awkward to position Wake + Torkoal + Venusaur on the field at the same time, I needed a pivot to slow down the game. I added Incineroar and then realized how detrimental that was to the Kingambit matchup. Burning Jealousy on Torkoal allows me to use Incineroar to get free burns on Gouging Fire’s partners along with preventing Ogerpon from terastilizing against my heavily specially offensive team (in fear of being burnt by Burning Jealousy).

Tailwind Compositions << Click for Replay

Urshifu Single Strike (Dark Ursh) being able to hit my team hard uncontested sucks, even with two dark types, I knew I needed more than just Walking Wake outspeeding it for my non-sun mode, either Raging Bolt or Walking Wake needed to have a Fairy tera. I’ve been using tera Electric on my Raging Bolt because of the high damage output but against this matchup Raging Bolt was too good not to use to my advantage. Raging Bolt makes use of Electrowebs and Thunderclap to control the battle.

I built the team and it’s partners keeping in mind hard countering Urshifu and Ogerpon, mons with a high/guaranteed crit rate that have prevented screens from seeing success. Grimmsnarl is able to reduce incoming damage, pivot out on Fluttermane into Venusaur putting choice specs sets in a bad position, and counter Urshifu dark in a vacuum with reflect and Intimidate support. Also 2hkoing most Raging Bolt with Spirit Break while lowering their special attack. Tera Ghost on these both is to counter d-nite pao, strong fighting attacks and fakeout, and to have a tera that is neutral to Fairy to counter late game Dazzling gleam spam, hitting Flutter on it’s weaker defense.

Venusaur is criminally underused in this format due to the lack of reliable sun setters. What started off as a gimmick ended up being very consistent, reminiscent of policy Venusaur from dmax formats of sword and shield. WIth sun up you’re able to tera fire and tank Ogerpon’s ivy cudgel, ohkoing it back with sludge bomb and giga drain (for sustain). Sleep powder is to counter AV raging bolt and other passive/awkward situations against Gouging fire if you aren’t able to Tera.

Torkoal supports Venu, Wake, Bolt, and Incin’s damage output while being able to burn tera-ogerpon and Gouging fire’s partners who boost their stats.

Covert Cloak Walking wake is the ultimate Incineroar Counter, Able to pin a slot consistently, letting you ignore fakeout, Bleakwind speed drops, icy wind and Snarl. Flipturn activates policy & resets draco drop.

These sets are both bulky and are matchup mons. They have been EV’d to take out super effective targets consistently and 2HKO and be 2-3HKO’d by most everything else. Add screens support on and these mons get out of hand quickly

Raging Bolt allows the team some speed control and a reliable Amoongus check always OHKOing non-tera among with Weather ball.

Team Accomplishments:

1st Place - Wide League Pkmn Day
1st Place - HoennSkyCup Pkmn Day
6th Place - Sheep Cup
4th Place - Thursday Throwdown
6th Place - Nexus Tour

Want to use Sun? Check out these versions!

TEAM #1

Team Paste: https://pokepast.es/4b3d77fcfca4c732

Rental Code: P2C0D6

TEAM #2

Suboptimal version, more Hyper Offensive Bolt, defensive wake.
https://pokepast.es/e9096c1605301e65

Leads:
Grimm + Venu (Most flexible)
Grimm + Torkoal (Fire Offence)
Venu + Torkoal (Pressure Ogerpon and fluttermane  immediately)
Venu + Incin (Damage Reduction/Sleep into AV Bolt)
Wake + Torkoal (Trying to Remove incin ASAP)

No Rental Available

Reach Out if you’re stuck with the team or lines, I’ll probably have a video out on how to use the team soon.

Testing Notes

• You can tera fire flip turn venu and then switch in torkoal to get speed advantage and +2 Special Attack.

• Very strong into meta comps and stomps off-meta stuff with screens.  

• Try Tera Water Wake if you find you don’t need steel  against flutter depending on your playstyle, keep in mind the raging bolt matchup gets worse

• Don’t be afraid to lead Grimm + Torkoal if you expect something like ogerpon + Chienpao, that’s a free eruption

• The team is kinda weak to snarl AV bolt if you don’t burst it down with grimm/incin or put it to sleep with venu. Cloak wake helps a lot with positioning and threatening them to tera.

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