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    UPPL Update: Techception (Week 9)


    It is time to face an opponent as cold as the winter’s wind.
    Last week, your Nimbasa City Emolgas had a tough battle against the Lavender Town Genger. Trainer Thatch, host of the P.U.C.L. Podcast, was their coach and he was going to bring all the spooky things out from the Radio Tower for this battle. That includes over eleven years of Pokemon battling. Will your Emolgas overcome this huge force of power and experience?
    Pre-Battle Prep


    Lets be honest here. Thatch is an experience battler who knows his way around the battle like the back of his hand. The origin story for the P.U.C.L. Podcast is that Thatch just wanted to battle around with his high school friends in his basement. From there, Thatch decided to battle with people online and he hasn’t stopped battling. Either it is in Little Cup or Overused. Thatch is now in a draft format and has proven that he can adapt to this battling style.
    What does that mean for us?
    We are not only going up against Thatch and his Pokemon. We are going against over eleven years of battling experience. Thatch has almost seen it all and that means he can prep for almost all. If we wanted to win this battle then we needed to look over his team and prep hard ourselves. Even if that means bringing along some new tricks to surprise Thatch. That being said, we had to make a free agency move.
    Free Agency Move: Registeel Welcome Registeel! He isn’t fast nor strong. What he does have is solid defenses on both the physical and special side. He also has plenty of resistances that comes with being a Steel type.
    What did we lost? Everything…Not really. We just had to trade out Alolan Muk in order to have Registeel on the team.
    What did Registeel provide? A solid defense and substitute for Gliscor.
    A few weeks ago, Thatch was on the UPPL Battle Spot Podcast. During that podcast, Thatch made the acute observation that our roost had a serious Ice weakness. That hurt to hear but we knew that was true. Since the draft was completed, we knew that our team didn’t like the cold. So far, nobody could really exploit that weakness to the point of defeating us. So, it wasn’t really a big problem.
    The problem was that Thatch could exploit this with his two Ice Pokemon on his rooster: Kyurem-Black and Alolan Ninetales.
    Both of these Pokemon could easily hit about half of our team for Super Effective damage. They can also remove Gliscor off the field in a matter of seconds thanks to his four times weakness. We needed a replacement for Gliscor who could also take Ice attack for days. That answer was Registeel.
    The Steel typing on Registeel means he can take all Ice attacks with no problem. If needed, Registeel can attack with Iron Head to do nice size damage or use a Toxic-stall strategy. A non stab Super Effective hit? Registeel doesn’t really care too much. Either way, Registeel was a solid defense against these cold Pokemon.
    Now, lets get back to Thatch’s threats and what we can do about each one of them.
    Kyurem-Black: Kyurem-Black is Thatch’s big clean up attacker. He can also hit really hard. He may not have a Physical Ice attack but he can hit our team pretty hard with Blizzard. Especially if Hail Warning is up thanks to Alolan Ninetales.
    Kyurem-B also sports a powerful Fusion Bolt that can take out Volcanion in no time. Usually, we can switch into Zeraora and not take any damage thanks to Zeraora’s Volt Absorb. The problem is that Kyurem-B has Terravolt which cuts though any ability. So the option to swap into an Electric attack with Zeraora to avoid damage was off the table. Also, if Kyurem-B wanted to take on Zeraora then he has the means to do so with Earth Power.
    Our Solution: The obvious solution will be Kartana who can just hit Kyurem-B with Smart Strike. The problem was that Thatch would be crazy to have Kyurem-B to stay in to take the hit. Thatch will most likely swap out into a Pokemon who can safely take a Smart Strike. Now, we can force Thatch into a corner to keep Kyurem-B in so Kartana could land a Smart Strike. Though, that is something that could happen in the late game.
    The most reasonable solution is to have Zeraora go in and use Close Combat on a weaken Kyurem-B. If Kyurem-B is at 80% then Zeraora can use Close Combat to wipe Kyurem-B out of the battle. We will need to depend on chip damage from Stealth Rock to help with this.
    If worst comes to worst, we can have Noivern come in and revenge kill with Draco Meteor. That will surely get rid of Kyurem-B or anything that decides to swap in who isn’t called A Ninetales.
    Speaking of…
    Alolan Ninetales: Is another of Thatch’s heavy Ice attackers. Normally, Thatch uses this Pokemon to set up Aurora Veil to give his team some huge boost to his defenses. That can be pretty scary as it means Thatch’s Pokemon will take less damage form our attacks. Though, there is one variant that will be even worst for our team.
    Scarf Alolan Ninetales.
    A Ninetales has some pretty great speed. Give it a Choice Scarf and she can pretty much out speed any of my Pokemon to hit them with a powerful Blizzard attack.
    How fast is a Scarf Alolan Ninetales?
    Alolan Ninetales can speed tie with our Choice Scarf Kartana.
    That means if we wanted to use our Scarf Kartana against Alolan Ninetales then it was going to be a coin flip on who will get knocked out. If we were lucky then Smart Strike will take out Alolan Ninetales and that will end Thatch’s Alolan Ninetales sweep. If we lose the coin flip then there goes our number one speedster.
    Our Solution: We just need to take the hit and slowly wear down Alolan Ninetales. We have a few options in that.
    The first option is using Registeel. He resists all of Alolan Ninetales attacks. Registeel can use Iron Head to hit Alolan Ninetales for four times weakness. If we do not think that Alolan Ninetales will stay then we can use Toxic to poison it or something else. If Alolan Ninetales gets hit with Toxic then it means we can at least expect an end to Alolan Ninetales attacks. If something else gets hit with Toxic then at least we got Toxic damage on that Pokemon.
    Florges was our second answer to Alolan Ninetales. Our Florges has plenty of Special Defense to wall Alolan Ninetales. If it is Choice Scarf then Alolan Ninetales will be stuck.
    If we bring Florges then that means we can also do some Wish passing. Especially if we are facing Alolan Ninetales. Thatch may be tempted to switch out Alolan Ninetales when Florges is out. That means we can use Wish to heal one of our damaged Pokemon. We are hoping to take full advantage of that.
    Arcanine: What is a good Pokemon to counter our Zeraora and Volcanion? Something that has Electric attacks and a powerful STAB attack.
    And that is Arcanine!
    Arcanine has access to Wild Charge which will hit our Vocanion really hard. We can obviously go into Zeraora which can use Volt Absorb to negate the attack. The problem is that Arcanine can switch it up with Flare Blitz to do heavy damage to Zeraora.
    It isn’t fun either way. Especially because now we have Registeel who doesn’t want to take a strong Flare Blitz attack.
    Overall, this Arcanine is going to be a problem for us.
    Our Solution: Put a Choice Scarf on Volcanion!
    Volcanion is out sped by Arcanine by some points. Though, Volcanion has a pretty awesome Water attack in the form of Steam Eruption. The problem is that Arcanine can hit Volcanion hard with Wild Charge before we can fire off Steam Eruption.
    So what can we do? Make Volcanion faster then Arcanine with a Choice Scarf!
    That means Volcanion can hit Arcanine before it can hit it! Assuming that Steam Eruption doesn’t miss. Though, we can’t let that stop us from trying to take out Arcanine. This idea would also surprise Thatch because I doubt he would expect Volcanion to be faster.
    We may be locked into Steam Eruption but we expect Arcanine to come in if Volcanion is on the field.
    What is another issue for our team? Metagross.
    Metagross: I wanted Metagross on our roster. He is a solid attacker with some nice defenses. Metagross is also a Steel type Pokemon with a well rounded movepool. He would have been perfect for this team!

    The problem is that Thatch got him and now I am battling against this Pokemon.
    And what I said above is why Metagross is such a good call against some of our Pokemon.
    Metagross can use Earthquake to take out Zeraora and Volcanion. Meteor Mash is a strong and solid attack to hit any Pokemon on our team. He has plenty of bulk that will help Metagross stay on the battlefield for a long time. He may lack a solid recovery attack but that doesn’t matter when Metagross can take hits for days.
    Our Solution: Did I mention Choice Scarf Volcanion?
    We are going to be leaning hard on Choice Scarf Volcanion! He lacks speed to be faster then Metagross normally but we can fix that with a Choice Scarf! Though, that means we will need to make sure that Volcanion comes in as a revenge attacker. If we do this then it could put Thatch into a false sense of security. After all, he knows that Metagross is faster then Volcanion and will want to click on Earthquake. Though, he may not know that we put Choice Scarf in an attempt to out speed Metagross to give the big metal spider a taste of a Flamethrower.
    A Flamethower is something that Metagross doesn’t want to take. It will remove this threat like butter on a frying pan.
    Gyarados: Gyarados is a scary Pokemon. Guess why! Because it can also hit Zeraora and Volcanion with a hard Earthquake.
    Gyarados is a strong Physical attacker. It can use Dragon Dance to boost that attack even more while making Gyarados even faster.
    That is pretty bad. Especially if Thatch puts his favorite Z-Crystal on it, Flyium Z. A Supersonic Skystrike from Gyarados will knock out almost anything without solid Physical Defense out of the water.
    Our Solution: Zeraora will need to be brought in to take down this Pokemon. Even with a Dragon Dance, Zeraora can still out speed Gyarados. Though, we will need to be careful as it will take some damage if Thatch can predict when Zeraora comes in. Especially after Gyarados uses Supersonic Skystrike.
    Gligar: We expect Gligar to be Thatch’s physical wall. Think of Gligar as a baby Gliscor once you give it a Evolite. It will get a boost in both Physical and Special Defense. That means he can take hits on both sides as long as they are not Super Effective. A good switch in for Volcanion, Kartana and Zeraora. Pretty much anybody.
    Our Solution: We are going have to lean on Volcanion and Zeraora.
    Volcanion has that nice Steam Eruption attack that can clean Gligar out of existence.
    Zeraora can use Hidden Power Ice to hit Gligar hard. It won’t be a one hit KO but Gligar will not like it. We won’t like it either because Gligar will be using Earthquake but it won’t hurt as bad. Either way, we have options.
    We thought about this really hard and figured that the Pokemon above will be Thatch’s team. That said, we picked Pokemon that will give us the best chance of pulling a win. We practice hard and came up with a plan to take on Thatch. Our techs were in our bag and that could be the key to our victory. Though, we still have to battle and that is the real test. How did we fair? Get ready to see!
    The Battle

    Click on the image to watch the battle!

    We enter this battle with the Pokemon that we felt confident in and started the same way. We made quite the unusual choice by starting with Kartana. We figured that Thatch would start with either Kyurem-Black or Alolan Ninetales. If he did then we had the best solution to both of them.
    Unfortunate for us, Thatch decided to start the match with Arcanine. Maybe he foresaw that we would start with Kartana or perhaps he guess we would start with Registeel. Especially because we made the free agency move for Registeel to be used as another option for Gliscor. Either way, we were already on a bad foot.
    Our best solution to this was swap into Florges who could take the non-STAB attacks best while laying down some Toxic. That worked as Thatch swap into Metagross. That was the most logical call in that situation.
    During this part of the match was when things started to go wary. We decided to go into Registeel to take some hits. The problem was that Thatch decided to have Metagross use Earthquake. Personally, I thought Registeel would take these attacks just fine. I was wrong because Registeel was taking half damage and it wasn’t going to take another one kindly.
    The problem was that I didn’t know who to switch into. I did have Noivern but I was afraid that Thatch would switch up the attacks by using Meteor Mash. If he done that upon the switch into Noivern then we would lose an important counter.
    So we stayed in with Registeel and lost our number one defense against Thatch’s icy barrage.
    We were a little rattled but still confident in our win. We send out our answer to Metagross: Scarfed Volcanion.
    It all played out perfectly in our head. Volcanion will use Flamethrower. The Choice Scarf will allow Volcanion to move before Metagross and knockout the metal spider.
    Everything went just as we planned except for one thing. Thatch had equipped his Metagross with an Occa Berry.
    What does Occa Berry does? It lessens the damage done to a Pokemon from Super Effective Fire attacks.
    That berry was the reason why Metagross didn’t drop. It left Thatch’s Metagross with half of it’s HP. Plenty of HP to keep Metagross up to use Earthquake to take down Volcanion.
    We struggled to take down Metagross as we send out Kartana and hoped Knock Off will take down Metagross.
    It didn’t. We lost another important counter.
    Eventually Noivern had to come in to use Flamethrower to finish off Metagross. We may have knocked out a threat but that threat took out three of our most needed Pokemon.
    We tried to pick up the pieces from there. We still had Florges who could take on Alolan Ninetales. Though, that may have been Thatch’s next target to take down.
    Thatch’s Gyarados was able to Dragon Dance and use Supersonic Skystrike to hit our Florges where it hurt the most. Florges’s Defense.
    On the bright side, Florges was able to land Toxic on Gyarados. While Gyarados was setting up, it was slowly losing HP. By the time Florges had went down, Gyarados was knockout as well because of Toxic damage.
    Our Noivern came in to take the next knockout. We had to take some damage but Noivern came in and used Draco Meteor to take down Thatch’s Gligar. The problem was that Life Orb took the reminder of Noivern’s HP.
    From there, all we had was Zeraora who was taken down by Arcanine.
    What could have been different?
    Perhaps we should have swap into Noivern sooner. We could have risked having Noivern go down to a Meteor Mash. Though, Thatch may have been focus on taking out Registeel with an Earthquake. We could have taken advantage of that by swapping Noivern into the active and avoid an Earthquake. That way Noivern would have come in safely and use Flamethrower in an attempt to do some damage to Metagross. If we had done that then it would have revealed that Thatch had equipped an Occa Berry to Metagross. From there, we could have gotten the chance to fire off a full power Flamethrower from Volcanion later in the match. It would have saved three of our Pokemon.
    At least we reach our goal. Three knockouts. That is all we wanted.
    The match was tough as we expected it to be. We thought we had the perfect techs against Thatch’s team. The problem was that Thatch had prepare techs against our team. We were out tech.
    In the end, sometimes things don’t go as you plan and just end in a snap.
    Coming Soon


    Your Nimbasa City Emolgas are continuing their tour of tough opponents! This week, we are facing Paul from Pokemon Rollout and his Chan Medichan! Another experienced competitor who knows his way around the battlefield.
    Paul aka Professor Snag has been battling for a long time as well. He has been under the P.U.C.L. flagship for years and it shows. Paul can duke it out against many experience players and you bet he has picked up a trick or two from Thatch. That isn’t to say that Paul doesn’t have his own tricks as well.
    The Chan Medicham have some pretty tough Pokemon on their rooster as well. One of them is the toughest of them all, Celesteela. A Pokemon that we wanted at the start of the draft. The only reason why Celesteela isn’t on the team is because Snag had snagged it from us! Either way, Paul has some threats like Tapu Koko, Porygon2, and Mega Latios. All of these Pokemon are good at what they do. Either they attack hard or wall hard. We will need to make sure to bring our best game if we want to take down this big threats.
    We are entering the end game of the draft league. We may have lost our last match but that doesn’t mean we are not going to keep trying our best. Especially for that win. After all…Not dead yet.
    Record: 7-2-0
    Signing off!
    The post UPPL Update: Techception (Week 9) appeared first on Pokémon Crossroads.


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  2. #2
    Cheers and good times! Neo Emolga's Avatar
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    Hey, that 7-2-0 record is still really darn good! You'll get 'em next time!

  3. #3
    The applause, applause, applause~ MC Elesa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neo Emolga View Post
    Hey, that 7-2-0 record is still really darn good! You'll get 'em next time!
    That is the plan. I feel good about tonight's match.

    Also, I am still upset about that Occa Berry. Damn...Occa Berry!
    Currently Playing: "CHRISTMAS!!!!"

    By Neo Emolga

  4. #4
    HIS TUFFNESS AD's Avatar
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    Alolan Muk gone? My heart is broken
    Still your record is mint, i know you can get the trophy win


    ·»Your focus determines your reality«·

  5. #5
    Cheers and good times! Neo Emolga's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by N7 View Post
    Alolan Muk gone? My heart is broken
    Still your record is mint, i know you can get the trophy win
    He has Emolga as his mascot. THERE IS NO LOSING. There is only enjoying very slightly less victory.

  6. #6
    P i k a c h u Chakramaster's Avatar
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    Well it’s looking good so far with that record. Like Neo said. The mascot for the team is an Emolga. So they’ve got a good advantage!

    The time is upon us...


    . Pika Pair with the yellow bundle of fluff Chibi Altaria..


  7. #7
    The applause, applause, applause~ MC Elesa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by N7 View Post
    Alolan Muk gone? My heart is broken
    Still your record is mint, i know you can get the trophy win
    I know! I was pretty excited for Alolan Muk but we needed a nice Gliscor replacement.

    But yep. It looks like we got a playoff position as long as keep up our good battling.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neo Emolga View Post
    He has Emolga as his mascot. THERE IS NO LOSING. There is only enjoying very slightly less victory.
    Did I tell you that I got an Emolga plush for this tournament? He is our good luck charm.

    https://twitter.com/PKMNCrossroads/s...13740959563779

    Quote Originally Posted by Chakramaster View Post
    Well it’s looking good so far with that record. Like Neo said. The mascot for the team is an Emolga. So they’ve got a good advantage!
    Yep! We still got this!
    Currently Playing: "CHRISTMAS!!!!"

    By Neo Emolga

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  9. #8
    Cheers and good times! Neo Emolga's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MC Elesa View Post
    Did I tell you that I got an Emolga plush for this tournament? He is our good luck charm.

    https://twitter.com/PKMNCrossroads/s...13740959563779
    I have that exact same dude! He keeps me company at work while he relaxes on my work desk. It helps as I slug through all those sedating biocompatibility risk assessments and test article reports. XD

  10. #9
    The applause, applause, applause~ MC Elesa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neo Emolga View Post
    I have that exact same dude! He keeps me company at work while he relaxes on my work desk. It helps as I slug through all those sedating biocompatibility risk assessments and test article reports. XD
    That sounds like a lot of complicated for me to understand but gives me an inside in the real life dealings of Neo. Thanks.

    This guy sits next to my gang of Pikachu who watch me as I write articles or do things on my laptop. I think they accepted him as one of them.
    Currently Playing: "CHRISTMAS!!!!"

    By Neo Emolga

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