Much Better than a Helping Hand: A 15th Place World Championships Team Analysis

tl;dr Team got swag.

Hi, my name is Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou) and I recently came 15th at the 2014 Pokémon World Championships with a 4-2 record in Swiss. I don’t have a great deal more to say on me, other than I’m better looking than Sam Bentham (SuperIntegration) and turned out to be a better hope than Steve Edgson (SirSmoke) for a top place finish at Worlds. Bantz.

The team itself was started around 6-7 months ago when I was sitting around on Pokémon Showdown thinking about some random new team to build, and I thought that Mega Manectric and Gyarados would be fun to use. Without really thinking about it, I added Florges and Ferrothorn which were two things I had been looking into after I noticed the potential in the ability Flower Veil, and finished off with two random Pokémon so I could get to playing. The first four Pokémon very quickly established themselves as the main core and never really changed other than for a couple of moves and the EV spreads. The last couple of slots however, weren’t so consistent, changing through about 15 Pokémon until it finally ended up with Garchomp and Moltres (to be referred to as MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN throughout the remainder of the report).

The Team at a Glance

So you may have seen other teams of this build doing well, both at Nationals and in Worlds, and I wanted to clear something up for the purposes of this article. Small foxes invade your homes, scare your children, and don’t give you the helping hand that you need to win games, despite what they say. Do not trust them. They will betray you.

On a more serious note, I’m sure more than a few are wondering why I chose Florges rather than another Fairy type such as Sylveon or Gardevoir. On the surface the answer is actually quite simple: Flower Veil. This ability (for people who aren’t aware) protects Grass type allies from ALL opponents’ stat drops, as well as all non-volatile status (Burn/Freeze/Poison/Paralysis/Sleep). Of course, there’s always a more subtle reason behind why it stays on the team, and again it’s quite a simple concept that I’ll summarise below:

Passive Support vs Active Support

Obvious when you say it, but we all want as much passive support as we can within every team we make. I’m referring to things like Barry’s (BazAnderson) Lightning Rod Raichu keeping his Azumarill safe from electric attacks, or even simply Politoed setting up Drizzle for a rain team. These things all contribute to your overall “board control” without impeding your team’s ability to be active within a situation, whether that be attacking, supporting in some other way, or even just protecting.

In the case of Florges, it allowed me to play Ferrothorn without worrying about random Intimidate neutering my attacks or a Burn ruining my day. A rather forced example to illustrate this would be if I had Florges and Ferrothorn out vs something that was threatened by the Ferrothorn, but also threatens Florges. Now, if I didn’t have Florges in this situation, a natural and reasonable response to this position would be simply to switch in an Intimidate so that whatever was threatened by Ferrothorn is now safe, and it’s free to attack the Florges slot. This is where the passive board control comes into play. A Sylveon in this position would have to use Helping Hand to offset the Intimidate, and would likely faint, while the Ferrothorn hits its mark for a 1-for-1 trade. Gardevoir similarly would have to attack, or do some other form of support to be able to either survive the attack, or even just Protect. The problem with not being offensive and going for the 1-1 trade is that you’re in a very similar situation to before, but your opponent has necessarily gained momentum in the switch. Ouch.

With Florges however, you’re free to attack with Ferrothorn without fearing the Attack drop (or burn if you want to expand the example), and you can be completely active with the Florges, either attacking the switch-in for the potential of a 2-1 trade in your favour, or even just Protect for the 1-0 advantage. As I said, the example is a relatively forced one, and people are a lot less likely to switch in an Intimidate user when Florges and Ferrothorn are together, but in a lot of ways, this illustrates the incredible board control you have as it takes a normally fantastic Intimidate switch-in and wastes it. Subsequently it takes another 2 turns before your opponent can switch in the Intimidate with the same Pokémon that can, in some ways, net you the momentum from your opponent’s Intimidate switch-in.

I will say however that there is always a use for active support moves like Helping Hand that work in so many other scenarios other than just the Ferrothorn — such as in Steve’s (SirSmoke) version of the team being able to OHKO Rotom-H through Intimidate with Mega Gyarados, whereas I have to rely on chip damage first. Yes Steve, I admitted it, Sylveon is viable, don’t get used to it!

Team Analysis

Manectric (M) @ Manectite
Ability: Lightningrod
Level: 50
IVs: 31/x/30/31/31/31
EVs: 20 HP / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD / 236 Spe
Timid Nature
- Volt Switch
- Overheat
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect

• Aegislash Shadow Ball is a 3HKO most of the time with Light Screen.
• Small chance to OHKO 4 HP Garchomp with Hidden Power.
• Outspeeds Garchomp before mega evolving.

Something that I’ve always felt when building for this generation is that there is far too much reliance on the mega of the team, rather than the collective strength of the team as a whole. A perfect example of this is teams with Mega Kangaskhan — the teams are built to support the Kangaskhan in ripping through the other team, whether that’s drawing attacks away, or by nuking the things it can’t hit. Mega Manectric is completely the opposite in that regard, in that usually it’s there to do enough chip damage to any particular Pokémon so that the rest of the team is able to deal with it. Given that it has Lightning Rod as a non-mega ability, then Intimidate as the mega ability, and with fantastic coverage hitting most of the game for super effective damage, it’s really easy to see why this Pokémon is always relevant in whatever game you take it to.

With a team that is made up of four Pokémon with quad weaknesses to four different types, being able to abuse the defensive synergy of the team was paramount to it’s success. Ladies and Gentlemen: Volt Switch. Very much reduced in popularity this generation with Landorus-Therian (U-Turn) not being legal in this format, the combination of Intimidate and Volt Switch is still just as powerful as ever. With average bulk and only one weakness, it’s actually a lot easier to switch in and out of attacks while sponging some damage than you might initially think — especially with Light Screen support. Considering the overabundance of these 4x weaknesses, the team actually had an incredible amount of defensive synergy, in that there were usually two resistances to these types scattered across the team. Volt Switch meant that I had access to not only the Pokémon that I had in reserve, but also the Pokémon that was currently on the field, so I had complete access to all my defensive plays as long as Manectric was on the field.

The offensive potential that I mentioned above is something that I’d like to explain more on Manectric. It can either OHKO or come very close to it on almost every top tier threat in the metagame including, but not limited to: Garchomp, Lucario, Amoonguss, Salamence, Gyarados, Ferrothorn, Charizard-Y, Mega Mawile, Zapdos, Aegislash, Hydreigon, Talonflame, Politoed, Azumarill, Blastoise, Aerodactyl, Rotom-Mow, and of course Rotom-Fan. The likelihood is that if the Pokémon isn’t on the list above, it’s probably been Intimidated by now.

Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate –> Mold Breaker
EVs: 148 HP / 116 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 236 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Taunt
- Protect

• Mega Gyarados waterfall OHKO on 252 HP Rotom-H most of the time.
• Outspeeds most Rotom forms.
• As much bulk as possible to increase survivability.

Like Non-Mega Manectric with Lightning rod support, the thing I liked the most about using this as a secondary Mega was that it has a utility and niche in both forms, pairing with Mega Manectric for a double intimidate core, or being protected by the Lightning Rod as you push through your opponents’ team with an impressive base 155 base Attack. This set originally had no Protect in favour of Dragon Dance, however I considered that Trick Room might be something that was used at Worlds and decided for Protect instead to be able to burn more turns. Something also to touch on is the utility of being able to change type freely: this effectively gives you a Charti and Wacan Berry at the exchange of a couple more single weaknesses and some extra bulk and power. This adds an extra dimension onto the teams defensive and even offensive synergy, removing a quad weakness and some shared weaknesses.

Originally however, this was just a normal Non-Mega Gyarados with no Taunt in favour of Dragon Dance and a Wacan Berry. As the team and metagame developed, SirSmoke and myself noticed a quite crippling weakness to Rotom-H that wasn’t really taken care of by Gyarados alone since, without the Dragon Dance, it couldn’t OHKO and would end up simply burnt and ignored. I have to admit that I was initially very skeptical of SirSmoke’s suggestion of going Mega Gyarados as I liked the use of Stone Edge and felt the team would become “clunky” with a double mega build. Oh how wrong I was — Rotom-H was soon a threat no more without perfect team support. Unfortunately, long gone are the days that you could simply Mega Evolve on turn 1 and OHKO it, but even now the threat is very real and with Ferrothorn that you don’t mind Earthquaking into, it very much restricts your opponents’ use of Rotom.

Florges (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 244 HP / 164 Def / 52 SpA / 44 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature
- Moonblast
- Psychic
- Light Screen
- Protect

• Survives Double-Edge from 252+ Attack Mega Kangaskhan before Intimidate even without Sitrus Berry.
• Most Mega Venusaur Sludge Bombs are a 3HKO including Sitrus Berry.
• Small chance to OHKO 4 HP Salamence with Moonblast.
• Beats Sylveon 1-on-1.

The MVP and in fact the glue of the team. Florges was the Pokémon that I took to nearly every game in both practise and in Worlds. When you look at its base stats, it’s quite easy to say that it’s really just reliant on its incredible Special Defence stat, and doesn’t do much else. In reality, it’s so, so, so much more than that. Not only does its ability, Flower Veil, protect Ferrothorn from all non-volatile status conditions as described above, it also has a surprising amount of stopping power with it’s not unimpressive base 112 Special Attack. This combined with the ability to not be OHKOed by even the strongest attacks in the game gives you an incredibly reliable defensive pivot, as well as still providing a good offence with both Fairy and Psychic coverage. Its incredible bulk also allowed me to very easily abuse the Volt Switch on Manectric to switch around more easily, knowing that I could almost always switch into the Florges and not be in a bad position.

With most of this season being dominated by Physical attackers, most people now seem to underestimate the importance of keeping Special Attackers at bay. Quite clearly these were still a threat even by US Nationals with the dominance of Rain teams, or even the popularity of Hydreigon showing its three heads late in the metagame. Having a good way to stop these threats in their tracks combined with a potential double Intimidate core was really important in keeping games open. Most of the Pokémon in the team, while not overtly frail, are susceptible to big attacks, so even if they could OHKO back, it wasn’t much use.

Having two attacking moves on a mostly support oriented Pokémon might seem like a strange move initially, and to be honest, you’d be completely right. What’s the point of having a move that’s not going to KO anything, right? When you look at the team as a whole, you’ll notice that there aren’t many ways to simply just nuke something and remove it as a threat. Given the great neutral coverage given by these two moves, it allowed Florges to do enough damage to just about everything to put the opposing target in KO range of another attack in the team which put a great deal of pressure on the opponent — helping control the momentum more subtly rather than just being ahead in Pokémon.

Ferrothorn (M) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Iron Barbs
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/0
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Atk / 108 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball
- Leech Seed
- Protect

• Power Whip always does more than 75% to Azumarill.
• Gyro Ball will always OHKO 252 HP and 0 Speed invested Mega Kangaskhan after Rocky Helmet and Iron Barbs damage.
• Gyro Ball is always a 2HKO on 4 HP and 252 Speed Mega Kangaskhan.
• Power-Up Punch from 2+ 252+ Mega Kangaskhan is a 2HKO including one Critical Hit.
• Fire Blast from 204 SpA Tyranitar has an 18% chance of a OHKO without Light Screen.
• Fire Blast from 252 SpA Salamence is a 2HKO after Light Screen.
• Overheat from -2 252 SpA Rotom-H has a 6.3% chance of a OHKO without Light Screen.
• Brave Bird from 252+ Atk Life Orb Talonflame before Intimidate is a 3HKO.
• Flare Blitz from 252+ Atk Life Orb Talonflame in Rain before Intimidate is a 2HKO 93.7% of the time.

So as you can see, this is one of the Pokémon on the team that I put some real thought on calculations behind. The set originally started as Ray’s Regionals-winning Ferrothorn spread because I knew it worked and wanted to get some games in. After a while though, I began finding myself playing Ferrothorn as less of an offensive Pokémon necessarily, and more of a win condition that attacks things. A fine line, but quite important as any good win condition needs not only the bulk to stay until the end of a battle, but to still perform well enough so that it’s not actually needed. This Ferrothorn did exactly that. With enough bulk to at least barely survive a lot of the main attacks that are used to KO Ferrothorn it could safely stay on the field in the face of these attacks, and be able to still offer a presence on the field. In the usual situations where the opponent would predict the Protect or for me to switch out, I would get damage for free while actually still being perfectly safe.

Ferrothorn is the second part of the team’s really defensive core with Ferrothorn being the more “Physical Wall” compared to Florges being the “Special Wall.” Not a concept that you see applied much in doubles compared to singles, but you’ll notice that both of these have a great deal of investment in both defences — so while not being true Physical and Special walls in terms of their bulk, the typing lends itself very well in both cases. Having the ability to ‘wall’ like this leads to singles-esqe strategies during a game, in that, if I can take care of all the things that really hurt either Ferrothorn or Florges, I can sit there and eventually win. Now, you might just call this sensible play, and if you look at every Pokémon in the metagame you’ll be able to find win conditions for all of them, sure. However, when you look at Ferrothorn, and even Florges, you’ll see that the list is much more extensive than your average Pokémon — even to the point of being able to win 1-on-1 against a Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Mawile without Fire Fang. With so many ways to get to your win condition, it’s not only more simple to form them, but also makes them more flexible in a best of three situation.

Garchomp @ Lum Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 12 HP / 204 Atk / 4 Def / 36 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Protect

I think everyone knows what this set does by now!

With Garchomp comes the first Pokémon in the last two slots of the team that was solidified as a final member for the team. This completes the fantasy (Fairy/Dragon/Steel) core giving the team some good well-rounded defensive and offensive synergy. Otherwise, as we all know, Garchomp pairs well with Gyarados, and arbitrary Fire/Flying types such as MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN. As a side note, YAY LUM BERRY!!!!

Moltres @ Charti Berry
Ability: Pressure
IVs: 31/30/31/30/30/31
EVs: 76 HP / 4 Def / 184 SpA / 244 Spe
Modest Nature
- Heat Wave
- Air Slash
- Substitute
- Protect

• Thunderbolt from 252 SpA Rotom-H is a 2HKO 75% of the time without Light Screen.
• Return from 252+ Atk Mega Kangaskhan before Intimidate is a 2HKO.
• Rock Slide from 252 Atk Garchomp before Intimidate is a 2HKO without Charti Berry.
• Air Slash + Dragon Claw/Psychic/Hidden Power [Ice] nets a KO on most Amoonguss.
• Outspeeds SirSmoke’s 28 Spd IV Moltres by one speed point.

The last, and possibly best (read: coolest) addition to the team started about a month before European Nationals, when I was visiting the ever wonderful (read: wonderful) Steve in London for the weekend. Naturally we ended up in a pub for some food and overly priced coke (seriously £3.50~ for a pint, what the heck!?), and while I was eating my veggie burger, and Steve was emptying himself in the loo, it occurred to me that the last Pokémon in the team needed to be a Fire/Flying type. On initial inspection, there was either Charizard-Y or Talonflame, but a team with three mega Pokémon isn’t an option, and Talonflame makes the team too weak to Intimidate. That’s when it hit me — or Steve hit me, I’m not sure — MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN would be perfect for the slot: a Fire/Flying type that wasn’t weak to Intimidate!

MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN actually turns out to be a little bit of a niche member in my version of the team, as it doesn’t have the offensive presence that its counterpart Charizard has to simply tear through teams or the priority that Talonflame can bring to the table. Instead, MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN is a bit more of a “slow burner” (if you’ll excuse the awful pun) that’s able to sit with Garchomp or Gyarados dishing out a huge amount of spread damage and keep pressure on the opponent. So, what’s more dangerous than a huge amount of spread damage? A huge amount of spread damage when one of the members is sitting behind a Substitute. Not only do you have to work your way into a good position, but you have to do it while breaking a Substitute before you do so. Even then, the Charti Berry with MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN’s impressive natural bulk cut off the main source of KOs: Rock Slide.

Expanding on the utility of Substitute for the purposes of offensive pressure and not losing momentum when you make a KO, it’s a very good defensive play against things like Amoonguss which cannot stop the set up in any way. So as we’ve established, there are important threats that you can simply Sub in front of, and when you’re putting on pressure, it’s easy to get a Sub up on a predicted Protect. All standard utility. The biggest place it really comes into its own is against Trick Room teams featuring Fake Out. Usually paired with Mega Gyarados, this gives teams a choice: Set up Trick Room, and I get a Substitute for free to maintain offensive pressure, or the Trick Room doesn’t go up and Moltres takes a little chip damage while I run through the team from there. Almost exclusively people chose to get the Trick Room up, so my standard response was actually to switch out the Gyarados into Ferrothorn and Substitute… and it usually worked! With Fake Out, one of my favourite ways — and sometimes the best way — around it is to say to the opponent: here are two things you don’t want to happen, take your pick.

Now that you’ve gotten this far into the article, and seem to be interested in my ramblings, I wanted to touch on the subject of hax with regards to Air Slash on MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN. Obviously it’s a reliable STAB Flying move — something that most Flying types would give their lower beak for — so it’s perfectly viable as a slot, but there’s a bit more to it than that. Much like Swagger on Sableye which is very well summarised in SuperIntegration’s article, Air Slash wins you games that you have no business winning. Not the best on its own as it only gives a 28.5% chance of a flinch including the miss chance, but you’ll notice that the team also has a fast Rock Slide, and a not slow Waterfall from two Pokémon that its paired with a lot — each giving their own chance to flinch your opponent. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t play for it unless I need it, but it’s these things that can turn a loss into a win and sometimes you need that consistent chance to put the RNG in your favour to get through bad matchups.

Threats

With the amount of work that SirSmoke and I put into the team, I’d like to think there aren’t too many bad matchups anymore, but here are a few of the things that can give the team some trouble:

+++/

Unfortunately this is almost exactly what I played against in round 2 of Worlds against Bopper… and lost 2-0 in possibly the most one sided sets in all of Worlds. I need Intimidate to deal with the Mega Tyranitar, but I can’t have that with the Mega Gyarados needed for the Rotom-H — and then there’s a Grass type pressuring it. Florges will faint to sustained Rock Slides, and Ludicolo and Amoonguss aren’t easy to take down. Salamence + Rock Slide keeps the Florges and Garchomp under control and it’s just kinda ew.

Something that I usually managed to deal with quite well, but a well played Aegislash setting up a Sub at the right time with good team support was a bit of a problem. Special shout out to Wide Guard Aegislash, who, in one fell swoop, neuters almost any attack that I use to KO it. How’s that Sub looking now MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN?

Like Aegislash, usually managable but when well played could really mess the team up.

A double Intimidate core, a slow Fairy, Ferrothorn no longer resisting Dark, and when paired with Amoonguss… ew.

Conclusion

All in all, I completely love this team, and am very glad that I decided to use it for 2/3 Nationals and then again for Worlds. It functions as a proper team, rather than 6 Pokémon that are good, and works well together. It seems it’s already had a bit of a splash with 4 MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN being used at Worlds this year, but I really do encourage people to take away the ideas and concepts that I’ve given and use them when you’re team building — to do a bit of thinking and find something that may not be standard, but works better as a team.

Other than that, go and try it out and never forget the power of MEGA ULTRA CHICKEN (and Florges, mostly Florges)!

Shout Outs

• First off to SirSmoke for spending months talking about the same team over and over again — I wouldn’t have gotten where I have with the team without your input. Also, bantz!
• SuperIntegration for consistently beating me in practise, and making me remember that people actually know how to play the game.
• Kay (I’m not sure she has an account on here) for lending me the Manectric that I used all season… it’s mine now :3
• Ben7000 for the consistent enthusiasm every time I come up with a really bad idea, and sometimes making the bad ones good!
• To the non-descript NPA manager that loves my report and wants to pay a lot of money for me to lose regularly!
• And last but not least to the rest of you out there for making the community so enjoyable to be a part of. I’ll be honest, I don’t really care that much about the winning; I come to events to have fun and just happen to be good (read: wonderful) at the game too!

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