We are down but not out.
It is time for a UPPL update! This past week, your Nimbasa City Emolgas had to face the Chan Medichan! The Chan Medichan are coach by Professor Snag AKA Paul from the P.U.C.L. Podcast and Pokemon Rollout! This man from the land of Chandi knows his way around the battle arena. Snag won’t be playing games with us as he plans to snag a higher placing on the ranks.
Pre-Battle Prep
Paul and the Chan Medichan are wanting a win against us. That would mean they get to climb higher in their placing for the overall tournament. He has been with the P.U.C.L. Podcast for a long time. That means that he has plenty of battle experience and knows how to use his Pokemon. That is obvious with his positive record and it can get better.
Meanwhile, I am getting over a defeat with Thatch. We may be holding on to third place but a lost against Paul means we can go down in the rankings and give Thatch a chance to take third place. Now, I am quite proud of my third place and do not want to lose it. That is why I plan to go all out to ensure we take this match. Especially against somebody who has battle alongside with Thatch. Maybe it is pride. Maybe it is silly. Either way, we know that we are not dead yet.
Now lets look at Snag and the Pokemon he has snagged for himself.
Celesteela: The first Pokemon that worries us from Snag’s roster is Celesteela. This Pokemon is known for having amazing defense on both Physical and Special. There is also plenty of HP to boot. Celesteela has a great typing with Steel/Flying. That means Ground attacks like Earthquake do not touch it. Meanwhile, Poison attack can’t be used against it. Especially Toxic which can be used to chip away at Celesteela’s HP. Overall, we can expect to see Celesteela a lot if we bring out Gliscor. Especially if Snag wants to throw Leech Seed to gain HP.
Normally, what is said above would make me worry. Though, what really makes me worry is the attacks that Celesteela can learn. That is because Celesteela can learn Flamethrower and Earthquake that will hurt our roster’s big three.
Flamethrower can be brought to knockout our Kartana if we are foolish enough to leave Kartana in the active against Celesteela. Though, this would be a problem if we are at the endgame and force to pit Kartana against Celesteela.
Earthquake will hurt our Volcanion and Zeraora. These two Pokemon do not appreciate Earthquake and if they do not take out Celesteela then they could see themselves getting knockout. That would be bad and possible. Especially if Celesteela has plenty of HP to spare.
Would Snag bring both Earthquake and Flamethrower to our match? Maybe not. Could he? Sure.
Snag would be losing out on having one of Celesteela’s more common moves such as Heavy Slam or Protect. Though, the ability to hit our counters would put the battle in Snag’s flavor.
Our Solution: Well, our solution also happen to be Volcanion and Zeraora. They will not like taking an Earthquake but if they can get in Celesteela’s striking range for a knockout then we will take it. Both of these Pokemon can pack strong STAB attacks that will bring down the giant ship.
Now, we can’t just go into this match with just one counter. We will need a second one. That will be Scrafty.
Scrafty has been pretty solid this season. He is maybe one of the first ones knockout but not without taking a few hits first. That also means Scrafty has been dishing out hits. In particular, one of those hits happen to be Knock Off.
What we want to do with Scrafty against Celesteela is to use Knock Off. This will get rid of Leftovers. Once we do that then Celesteela would lose their main source of HP recovery. That will force Snag to depend on Leech Seed even more. If so then he will be stuck deciding if he want to spend the turn trying to set up HP recovery or attacking for damage. Either way, we will get a hit in on Celesteela. Hopefully a Super Effective one.
Also, Scrafty going against Celesteela won’t be bad. After all, Scrafty can take Earthquake and Flamethrower from Celesteela better then Volcanion and Zeraora.
Porygon2: Next, we have to worry about Porygon2 and his massive defense thanks to Evolite. Some Pokemon were meant to be treated as a final evolution. Porygon2 is a fine example as his defenses were really good as a final evolution. Thanks to Evolite and PorygonZ, he has been granted even more defensive prowess.
What does that mean for Snag? That means he has another Pokemon to switch into to take hits. Porygon2 doesn’t have any huge attacks but it does have Recover. That means if we ever get Porygon2 under half HP then Snag can have it use Recover. The cycle starts all over again. It kind of puts a dent in our plan of putting huge dents into Snag’s team.
We also have to worry about Porygon2’s Trace.
What does this mean for us? It means that Paul can use our own abilities against us! In particular: Zeraora’s Volt Absorb, Volcanion’s Water Absorb and Gliscor’s Poison Heal.
If Paul wanted to swap in on Zeraora when we use a Thunderbolt or Volcanion’s Steam Eruption then he can put Porygon2 into the active. That will then change Porygon2’s ability to one of the Absorb abilities and grant Porygon2 one of our type immunity abilities. We really love those type immunity abilities and I am sure Snag will like to snag one too. We will have to be really careful when we use Zeraora and Volcanion while Porygon2 is around.
As for Poison Heal, that is situational but can be bad. If we decide to put Toxic on Porygon2 then this will give Paul a chance to heal his Porygon. How? By putting Porygon2 into the active when Gliscor is in our active. It would be perfect for Paul and Porygon2 because he could be trying to predict when we use Toxic. Porygon2 would be perfect because he is already Poison and it could net Porygon2 two turns of heal.
If we want a worst case scenario involving Porygon2 then lets talk about Kartana’s Beast Boost. If Snag can find a way to snag himself Beast Boost by taking a knockout on Kartana then that will result in Porygon2 gaining a boost to his defenses. That would be pretty bad.
It is a bit unlikely but Paul has done similar things before and he may try it again.
Our Solution: My first solution is to send out Scrafty against Porygon2. We will want to first get rid of Evolite on Porygon2 by using Knock Off. That will make Porygon2 a bit more manageable in terms of knocking it out. From there, we can use Drain Punch to heal and do Super Effective damage to Porygon2. We can also attempt to use Dragon Dance to prepare Scrafty for a future attack. If Paul wants to throw Toxic on Scrafty then we can hopefully depend on Shed Skin to remove that status from Scrafty.
We will also want to give Fightinium Z to Zeraora. If we can land an All Out Plummeting on Porygon2 then that will do heavy damage to the duck. We are hoping to do this as Snag switches Porygon2 into Zeraora in hoping to use Trace to gain Volt Absorb while negating our Thunderbolt. Hopefully an All Out Plummeting based on Focus Blast will do the job.
If we want All Out Plummeting from Zeraora to take out Porygon2 then we need one of two things to happen. Either use Knock Off to get rid of Porygon2’s Evolite or have Porygon2’s HP be at around 75% HP. One of those things could happen.
Worst comes to worse, we can always use Kartana’s Sacred Sword to chip away at Porygon2’s HP.
Mega Latios: What is bad? A fast Pokemon with plenty of attack power. That is Mega Latios on this team.
What is even worst? Mega Latios becoming faster and stronger.
This is where Dragon Dance comes into play. That is because Paul loves to use Dragon Dance on Mega Latios to boost Attack and Speed.
That is bad because one Dragon Dance can make Mega Latios faster then any of our Pokemon. It also puts us in a bad position where Mega Latios can hit our Pokemon to knockout them out or do heavy damage on them. Mostly thanks to attacks like Earthquake and Outrage who wouldn’t mind a boost in Attack power.
Did we mention that Mega Latios has strong Special Attack? Well, he does and that means we can expect some powerful Psychic and Ice Beam to hit our Pokemon. Both of which will not be good for our Pokemon.
Our Solution: The problem is that Paul will most likely have Mega Latios use Dragon Dance to out speed our Pokemon. Our solution is to put a Choice Scarf on Noivern. Why?
A Mega Latios with one Dragon Dance is faster then a normal Noivern. Don’t forget. Noivern is the fastest Pokemon on our roster.
Though, if we equip a Choice Scarf on Noivern then we have something faster then a single Dragon Dance Mega Latios. If we are still faster then Mega Latios then that mean we can surprise Paul with a faster Noivern who is able to land a Draco Meteor. That will surely knockout Mega Latios and remove the problem.
That will mean we need to swap in Noivern as soon as we see Mega Latios. Most likely, Snag will swap in his Latios on a Pokemon that will allow him to get up at least one Dragon Dance. If he sets up a second Dragon Dance then it is all over for us. If we can swap in Noivern while Latios use Dragon Dance then we can surprise Snag with a Choice Scarf Noivern’s Draco Meteor.
Though, we need a back up plan when this goes wrong.
If, by some chance, Noivern gets knockout in the process then we we will have to depend on Choice Scarf Kartana to take down Mega Latios. Granted, one Dragon Dance Mega Latios is faster then a Scarf Kartana. We are hoping that if Noivern goes down that it is because Mega Latios didn’t get a Dragon Dance up. That means we have one chance to get a hit on Mega Latios with Kartana’s Night Slash. This will most likely end with Kartana being knockout.
That is why we have another backup with Scrafty to use Knock Off to finish the job. It will be risky but that would be the best way to take down Mega Latios if our Noivern plan doesn’t work.
Hopefully we will won’t have to resort to this.
Tapu Koko: Tapu Koko is Paul’s heavy attacker. It can set up Electric Terrain which will boost Tapu Koko’s Electric attacks. Tapu Koko can use Hidden Power Ice to threaten Gliscor if needed. If Tapu Koko needs to get out fast then there is always Volt Switch.
Tapu Koko is a pretty solid attacker. We can expect him to punch holes in our team if we are not careful. If not, then we can expect Tapu Koko to come in to take Draco Meteor from Noivern. That will force us to switch Pokemon because of Noivern’s Choice Scarf. Also, Snag will use Dazzling Gleam in an attempt to knockout Noivern. Or…
Paul will predict us to swap into Volcanion to take half damage from Dazzling Gleam and decide to use Thunderbolt. That would be bad but it can happen.
Our Solution: The obvious solution is to have Kartana go in and use Smart Strike to one hit KO Tapu Koko. Granted, Snag will never let us do that unless Tapu Koko is force into a corner.
Another option is that we can use Gliscor to sponge a hit and then use Earthquake to take out Tapu Koko. That would be nice but it is another situation that Snag would try to avoid. Unless, he is almost certain he could take a knockout with Hidden Power Ice from Tapu Koko.
Our best solution? Have Zeraora stay in the Electric Terrain to shoot boosted Thunderbolt attacks at Tapu Koko. This will do heavy damage against Tapu Koko. Meanwhile, Tapu Koko can’t do any heavy damage on Zeraora thanks to Volt Absorb. We will just have to pull out Zeraora if things gets grim for him. After all, we need Zeraora to knockout Celesteela.
Jellicent: Jellicent can hurt us in a few ways. The first way is as a wall where it can sponge up attacks. The second way depends on Jellicent’s ability.
Jellicent is known as a strong wall. It can take plenty attacks and then dish out different attacks. It can use Toxic as a way to chip away at walls. Shadow Ball to do even more damage. We could see Hex as a way to combo with Toxic. If things look bad for Jellicent then it can use Recover to heal damage.
We will also need to be careful of Jellicent’s ability. That is because it could have Water Absorb or Cursed Body.
Water Absorb means that we could see Jellicent swap into Volcanion in hopes to take Steam Eruption. That would be a wasted turn and we would not like that.
If Jellicent has Cursed Body then that would be bad. Cursed Body could kick in when we are trying to knock it out. If it does then we lose access to our strong attack and could force a swap the following turn. That would be especially bad if it is against our Choice Scarf Pokemon such as Kartana.
Our Solution: The first thing that comes to mind is letting Jellicent come in on Volcanion. That way we can throw a Toxic at Jellicent and ruin it’s recovery options.
The second thing that comes to mind is hit it with a Super Effective attack. The best option would be Zeraora who wouldn’t mind having Thunderbolt disabled by Cursed Body.
If we need another option against Jellicent then we can always depend on Scrafty to come in and use Knock Off. That will hit Jellicent pretty hard. Also, if Scrafty does get hit with Toxic then it won’t be the end of the world. We will just need to wait for Shed Skin to kick in to remove the Toxic status.
Nidoqueen: We are looking a bulky Pokemon when facing Nidoqueen. This Pokemon also has plenty of attack power to scare away our Pokemon. I am mostly thinking about Volcanion who can hit Nidoqueen for Super Effective damage. The problem is that Volcanion is slower then Nidoqueen which means we are looking at an Earth Power. That isn’t good.
What isn’t good is that Zeraora’s Thunderbolt is render useless because of Nidoqueen’s ground typing. That would be another Pokemon that Paul could switch into if he wanted to take Zeraora’s Thunderbolt.
Our Solution: Gliscor could use Earthquake in an attempt to do heavy damage on it. Though, we are looking at the possibility of an Ice Beam to hit him.
If we can catch Nidoqueen on the switch then Volcanion can use Steam Eruption to knock Nidoqueen out.
Scrafty is another good Pokemon to face down Nidoqueen. We can Dragon Dance to boost our Attack and Speed. Once we do, Scrafty can come in and hit hard with Ice Punch. It isn’t a bad idea but not one that I will like to do.
We got our moves. Things look positive. We are ready to enter the ring. Two teams go in but only one will leave with the win. All we know is that we are…Not dead yet.
The Battle
Click on the image to watch the battle!
Get ready to see a long match! Especially because Snag took us through all twelve rounds! It was a match for the record books as you can see starting from round one!
We started off our match with Gliscor in the lead. Snag decided that Tapu Koko was going to be his starting boxer. We knew that even if Tapu Koko carried Hidden Power Ice that Gliscor could at least take one. That would be enough time to set up Stealth Rock and Toxic Orb. The plan from there was swap into another fighter and start trading blows.
Well, Snag had other plans and decided to go into Latios. We decided in response to go into our Choice Scarf Noivern. That way, while Latios used Dragon Dance, we could get a safe switch-in. We were wrong!
Apparently Snag was thinking about hitting Gliscor with a hard Ice Beam. I thought Snag was going to use Dragon Dance in an attempt to muscle though Gliscor. Though, I should have knew that Latios had Ice Beam. That meant it was going to be an instant knockout on Gliscor. Now, imagine Ice Beam hitting Noivern. If you thought it was going to result in an instant knockout then you were correct!
We are not in one of our worst case scenarios. Our main counter to Mega Latios was knockout and we have to depend on the Plan B that was Choice Scarf Kartana and bulky Scrafty.
We went into Choice Scarf Kartana with the plan to use Night Slash. We were guarantee to get one hit off on Mega Latios if Snag decided to stay in. He did and decided to use Dragon Dance while we got a solid hit on Mega Latios with Night Slash. At this rate, we were looking at having Kartana to go down with an Ice Beam.
Instead, Snag decided to use Earthquake instead of Ice Beam. Well, Earthquake didn’t knockout Kartana which allow us to strike the finishing blow on Mega Latios.
I can only guess that Snag was predicting me to go into Volcanion in an attempt to phase Mega Latios with Roar. After all, Volcanion did carry Roar in case somebody tries to set up in front of me. Though, his prediction was incorrect as we were ready to have Kartana go down at this point of the battle.
After this, we started to have a slug fest. Attacks were being traded between Snag and me. We kept swapping out our Pokemon to counter the other. You may have noticed that we kept swapping Scrafty into the battle. That is because we knew that Scrafty was a pretty bulky Pokemon that could take a hit or two. We were also hoping to use Knock Off to get rid of Celesteela’s Leftovers or Porygon2’s Evolite. To be honest, I just wanted to Knock Off items from Snag’s Pokemon. We were successful in removing Celesteela’s Leftovers.
One of the coolest moments during the battle was Zeraora who kept coming in on Snag’s Pokemon. Every time we saw Tapu Koko, we swap into Zeraora who could take anything this Pokemon sends out. We were hoping to catch an Electric attack but we never did. Once Zeraora was out, we made sure to use Hidden Power Ice. Why? Because earlier in the match we had Porygon2 come in and take Stealth Rock damage. It also used Trace to take our Volt Absorb ability. When it did that, Porygon2 gained HP when we try to swap out on Celesteela with Volt Switch.
From there, we made sure to make some key switches with our Pokemon. Slowly chipping away damage on Snag’s Pokemon.
Though, if you want to see an awesome move with Zeraora then look at Turn 28 where we used All Out Plummeting on Porygon2.
During that turn, Celesteela was out while Zeraora was in the active. I had used Volt Switch with the intention to either attack Celesteela or give Porygon2 some HP. During that point in the battle, I was fine with Porygon2 gaining a little bit of HP. Though, Snag had his Celesteela use Protect to negate the damage from Volt Switch. During that next turn, I predicted that Snag was going to swap his Porygon2 to avoid taking damage from Volt Switch. The following turn, I decided that now was the best time to use our Fighting Z Move, All Out Plummeting.
I knew that we were not going to knockout Porygon2 but I wanted to do some heavy damage to the duck. That way Porygon2 would feel pressured and be forced to attack or use Recover. Either way, I wanted to get some big damage on Porygon2.
From there, we kept on throwing blows. Some interesting moments came between Gliscor and Jellicent. We were able to put Toxic on Jellicent but Snag was able to land Ice Beam on Gliscor. It didn’t knockout Gliscor but I decided that the best course of action was to keep on using Roost. That way we would be getting rid of Gliscor’s Flying typing. Overall, it would lessen the damage we took from Ice Beam. All the while, Jellicent would be taking Toxic damage each turn.
Though, things started to shift around Turn 42. That was when this match started to hit the climax. Gliscor and Nidequeen were pitted against each other. By now, it was obvious that Snag had given Nideoqueen a Choice Scarf. That means it was faster and land the first hit on Gliscor. Most likely it would be Ice Beam.
And it was! Gliscor was our next Pokemon to go down. We then follow that with Scrafty. I was hoping we would at least take one Ice Beam and then retaliate with Ice Punch. Though, our little scrappy boxer had already took too many hits from earlier in the match.
Things were looking grim for us as we only had three Pokemon left. Kartana who had already took some damage. Volcanion who was less the half HP left and Toxic. Lastly, Zeraora half of his HP left.
Meanwhile, Snag had five Pokemon left: Tapu Koko, Jellicent, Nidoqueen, Porygon2, and Celesteela. The only one in good condition was Jellicent.
At this point we were stuck in a corner and the count could be coming any moment. We figured the best thing we could do was put all our money on Zeraora.
So we did. We put Zeraora into the active with the intention to use Hidden Power Ice. That would give us the best chance to take out Nidoqueen. It may not knockout Nideoqueen but we were going to take the chance. And that chance was enough to make Snag go into Celesteela.
We had a decision to make. Do we use Thunderbolt to strike down Celesteela? Or do we use Focus Blast anticipating Porygon2? Perhaps we use Hidden Power Ice thinking that Nidoqueen could return.
In the end, we decided to use Hidden Power Ice. That way we could get damage no matter who was in the active.
Snag decided to go into Porygon2 in hopes to gain HP with Volt Absorb and Thunderbolt. Zeraora hit it with Hidden Power Ice upon the switch-in. Another Hidden Power Ice was enough to take it out.
Nidoqueen came in next and took Stealth Rock damage. We knew that the damage that Nidoqueen took coming in had put it into guarantee knockout range of Hidden Power Ice now. Nidoqueen may be Choice Scarf but that was no match for Zeraora’s natural speed. Another knockout.
Jellicent was out now. There was no more Porygon2 or Nidoqueen to keep us from freely firing off Thunderbolt. So we fire off a Thunderbolt with the intention to knockout Jellicent. Turns out that Jellicent has some Special Defense bulk to survive one Thunderbolt. Jellicent decided to attack with Shadow Ball.
That scared me because I thought Zeraora would go down. If so then this match could result in a defeat for us. Though, Zeraora hung in there and fired off another Thunderbolt. Jellicent was down.
All that was left was Tapu Koko and Celesteela. A few more Thunderbolt from Zeraora took these two Pokemon down.
At the end of the match, Zeraora stood in the ring with plenty of knockouts under his belt. We came back from the brink of a lost and knocked out five Pokemon. It felt amazing and that was all thanks to our champion, Zeraora.
As we said before, not dead yet.
Coming Soon
Your Nimbasa City Emolgas are now in the final round of the main tournament! With some big news!
Your hometown team has made the playoffs!
Because of our record, we have enough points where we stay in a playoff spot no matter the result of this week’s match. That is amazing for somebody who knows a lot of TCG and little about competitive video game Pokemon!
That said, your Nimbasa City Emolgas got a match to play this week against the Nap Town Ninjask. This team is led by Jolly from the Blastburn Podcast and the commissioner for the United Pokemon Podcast League. They are also a close friend of the team.
We are anticipating that this will be our toughest match yet. I am not saying this because of Jolly’s Pokemon. This is because Jolly knows our roster inside and out. From the beginning, Jolly has helped us get where we are today with giving us draft advice and some basic battle advice. He is familiar with what each of our Pokemon can do and what kind of battler I am. He has surely been making note of our progress.
Jolly also has plenty of strong Pokemon to boot. From the Mew who can do anything to Rotom-Wash who can take any hit. Let not forget that Jolly has Scolipede and Araquanid who has helped him gain plenty of wins. Also, Jolly is part of Blastburn Radio and is known as the creative member of the trio. This makes Jolly pretty unpredictable when it comes to his team. If he brings a serious or fun team, this will be a tough match for us no matter what.
We started this league as the new trainer from a small town with a few Pokemon. From there we have battled a lot of tough trainers. Along the way we met a helpful and cool person. Now we are entering the Champion Chamber and facing our friend who happen to the champion. We may not be in the championship round but Jolly is our champion. Now we need to defeat him.
Kick logic out and do the impossible. Row! row! Fight the power!
Record: 8-2-0
Signing off!
