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Hey everyone! This is the breakdown of the team I used to finish 3rd at the North American International Championships, the final Regulation M-A tournament and the final tournament before the World Championships. I built this team alongside my friends Yuki and Dillon.
The first thing to understand about this team is the context. The Indianapolis Regional Championships finished 10 days before I had to leave for NAIC, and I knew that I could not run my Steelix team again. In other words, I had to go from nothing to a functioning team in just 10 days.
I began by thinking about what I expected to face, and two team compositions in particular stood out to me: Sun and Setup. Specifically, Incineroar + Sinistcha + Setup Pokemon. I was thinking about a starting point that could do well against both, and that's when I began thinking about Toxapex.
Toxapex is not a Pokemon historically considered very strong in VGC - however, a number of my friends used it towards the very end of Reg I and performed very well, so I knew it was a Pokemon that could work in the right circumstances. I was drawn to it here because, on paper, it matches up well against both of the team compositions I wanted help with. If you use Toxic on a setup Pokemon, no matter if it's Floette or Delphox or Kommo-o or Gyarados or Ceruledge, it will eventually die. For team styles that are all in on one setup threat, this seemed very appealing.
For Sun based teams, Toxapex naturally resists both Fire and Fairy moves, the two most dangerous types in the format. It's able to use Infestation to trap threats like Charizard and Floette on the field and mess with positioning in general. Infestation damage adds up very quickly, doing more damage than Toxic in the first two turns and tying it on the third. Initially I had Recover over Wide Guard, but Yuki eventually convinced me that Wide Guard would be stronger, and he was right. Wide Guard helps against the many powerful spread moves, most notably Rock Slide as this team also has Charizard. Baneful Bunker is basically just super Protect too.
Toxapex has surprisingly good recovery between Leftovers and Regenerator. It's extraordinarily bulky - it has the 9th highest defense stat AND the 5th highest special defense stat in the format. Even super-effective moves will barely do over half its health most of the time. Toxapex on paper looks like a stall Pokemon, but its damage threat is very real - I played it primarily like a damage dealer and only in end-games used it in a slower way. It's trained to match up favorably against Jolly Garchomp with the remaining points put into Special Defense.
The next Pokemon added was Incineroar. Because Toxapex can trap foes on the field, lowering their stats is a really useful way of making them feel bad. Incineroar is also exceptional at slowing the pace of the game down, which is very helpful with all the passive damage the team has access to. Incineroar is also a useful Pokemon for Toxapex to switch in to when you need to activate Regenerator.
Incineroar also pairs well with Charizard, as in Sun Flare Blitz can KO Kingambit in just one hit. Incineroar's typing ended up being very impactful against Psychic types, most notably Delphox and Farigiraf, who threaten both Toxapex and Charizard. I wanted my Incineroar to outspeed other Incineroar, as you can use the combination of Infestation and Throat Chop against Incineroar to trap them on the field, preventing both switching and parting shot, disrupting the setup core of Incineroar and Sinistcha significantly. It's trained to be physically bulky afterwards, surviving Adamant Sneasler Close Combat if they are uninvested, Adamant max attack Basculegion Wave Crash after an Intimidate, and having a good chance of taking three hits from Jolly Garchomp Earthquake after Intimidate and Sitrus Berry.
Incineroar tended to come to most matchups, and so I decided to use the Sitrus Berry rather than a type resist berry. Most of the hits Incineroar is worried about in this format are Physical, and so given I survived most of them anyway the extra health seemed nice. The main Special Attacks Incineroar is worried about are Fairy moves, and this team has many strong answers to Fairy type Pokemon.
The third Pokemon added to the team was Choice Scarf Garchomp. However, as the team evolved, Garchomp was eventually seen as redundant and dropped. The next member of the team added then was Charizard.
I really, really did not want to use Charizard - this isn't for a strategic reason, I just don't think Charizard is very cool. I tried many other Mega evolutions including Manectric, Froslass, Scovillain, Floette, and Delphox, but nothing worked. Yuki convinced me that it had to be Charizard (and this is where we switched to Wide Guard > Recover on Toxapex). He was right.
The main weakness of Toxapex is when it gets left all alone at the end of a battle. The best way to prevent this from happening is to have Pokemon that output tons of damage. Charizard is, in many ways, the best Mega at doing this. While there are plenty of Pokemon in the format that resist Fire moves, Heat Wave does non-negligible chip, chip that is especially important when considering Toxapex's flat percentage damage. Hitting Steel and Poison types for good damage is also very important as these types are immune to Toxic, which is Toxapex's best weapon. Charizard also provides an additional bulky Fairy resistance, giving the team a strong backbone against Floette and Sylveon right from the start. Charizard providing weather control is a big deal too - not only is this a valuable tool against other weather teams but the Sun reduces the damage from Basculegion, protecting my Incineroar and severely slowing Basculegion in the early game.
We debated Modest vs Timid Charizard a lot - Yuki initially pushed for Timid while I was more confident about Modest. In the end, we settled on Timid - this is partially because Hisuian Arcanine was challenging for the team, but it ended up mattering a lot more against Modest Charizard and Floette as well as Adamant Garchomp. Outspeeding Focus Sash Vivillon is a nice bonus. Technically Charizard could be one point slower and still achieve this, but we went with the additional point to outspeed anybody else who had the same idea. The bulk is to survive Jolly Garchomp Rock Slide, with the rest put into special attack. Yuki was interested in an even bulkier Charizard but as Charizard's primary purpose on this team is to do damage I pushed for more special attack, and we agreed in the end this was the right choice.
The fifth Pokemon added to the team was Esapthra. The idea was to use Skill swap to beat Rain based teams and Lumina Crash + Speed Boost to beat Perish Trap. Espathra was dropped the day that I left for NAIC as we realized we could not actually beat Perish Trap with it - but before then, we added the 4th Pokemon of the final team and the 6th Pokemon at the time, Sneasler.
Sneasler was initially added due to its positive matchup against Kingambit. While the team had tools into Kingambit already, Swords Dance was on the rise and we wanted a Pokemon that could reliably answer it even after it got boosted. While Sneasler does overlap on the Poison typing, this is a double edged sword as it adds an additional ground and psychic weakness but gives another tool for Fairy type Pokemon.
Sneasler was also added due to Glimmora, who was giving the core Pokemon trouble. With Unburden and Close Combat Sneasler is able to outspeed and damage Glimmora even if Tailwind is active. Having two Fake Out users on the team could be useful in the early game to reposition to threaten more offense as well as in the late game, where Fake Out could buy turns while Toxic and Infestation slowed down foes. Sneasler is also the only Rock Resistance on the team, useful against teams with Lycnaroc, Hisuian Arcanine, Kleavor, and Glimmora.
Sneasler is trained to survive Jolly Garchomp Earthquake - it's a similar idea to my Indianapolis Sneasler, but with more HP instead of Physical defense. This is because this team has Intimidate, making it more efficient for Sneasler to focus on its HP. It survives Modest Moonblast from Mega Floette from the last nature bump (25+). It's one point faster than my Indianapolis Sneasler who was one point faster than Adamant max speed Sneasler.
At this point the team was "done" - but I realized that in the spots where I had been bringing Garchomp, I was now bringing Sneasler. I began thinking about a Pokemon that could replace Garchomp, and decided to try Hydreigon.
Hydreigon is a Pokemon that is not doing especially well in the current format largely because of its horrible matchup against Fairy type Pokemon. This team is designed in part to shut down Fairy type Pokemon though, and Hydreigon is much more useful against Mega Delphox, Swords Dance Kingambit, Rain teams in general, opposing non-scarf Garchomp, Mega Froslass, and most importantly Basculeigon. Prior to Hydreigon, the plan to beat Basculegion was to Toxic it and eventually beat it in the end game which was unreliable. Levitate is also a nice ability on this team as there are three Pokemon weak to Ground.
Choice Scarf Hydreigon outspeeds every Pokemon in the format without a speed boost of their own. It's an additional damage dealer, and in my experience with this team a lot more reliable than Garchomp due to it not needing to worry about Intimidate or Burn and having access to a stronger move in Draco Meteor. Hydreigon was added two days before I left, so I wasn't able to test it extensively, but at NAIC it was one of my MVPs.
Dark Pulse is your most reliable move and especially strong when you get rid of Fairy types (this is another place where Infestation is valuable, as you can prevent fairies from switching out). Draco Meteor is necessary due to its high base power, and although it's inaccurate you often have more reliable moves you can use. I only clicked Draco Meteor a few times throughout my run. Earth Power is the best coverage move as it hits both Glimmora and Kingambit as well as Sneasler, Archaludon and Hisuian Arcanine. It's often a good enough move to lock into in an end game - IE against Mega Gengar and Incineroar. The final move was up for debate - a fire move could pair well with Charizard and U-turn gives some utility as well. In the end we went with Snarl, which was originally chosen to slow down Mega Delphox + Maushold. Snarl ended up being my most used move this weekend - the spread damage it does adds up quickly, it gets around redirection, and it lowers the special attack of anything it hits. Snarl allows Hydreigon to heavily punish Fairy types who switch in, as after a drop or two they can't easily damage Toxapex or Charizard.
We considered running some bulk on Hydreigon - Dillon especially ran the numbers - but in the end we decided the speed and power were more important. You need 31 speed to outspeed Mega Aerodactyl and at that point you may as well be max speed, and you want to do as much damage as possible with Hydreigon - it matters especially vs Basculegion and Mega Froslass who you don't KO from full HP with Dark Pulse all of the time even with max special attack.
These 5 Pokemon + Espathra were thought to be the final version 2 days before leaving for NAIC. However, with one day left we tested the Perish Trap matchup and realized that we could not consistently win. We knew we could drop Espathra, but we weren't sure what to replace it with. I identified some things we wanted in this slot - a Physical Attacker with high damage output that can threaten Garchomp, Glimmora, Mega Gengar, and Whimsicott. Priority would be nice to have, and if it can hold the Focus Sash item that's great. It should also be able to fight against Kommo-o when paired with Mega Gengar specifically. With this many conditions, it seemed impossible - but then I considered Mamoswine.
Full disclosure - Mamoswine did not come to many of my matches. However, that's in part because I played 0 Mega Gengar and instead fought almost exclusively standard teams. Yuki fought 4 or 5 Mega Gengar and brought Mamoswine against all of them. It's a Pokemon intended to help against specific matchups rather than be a general use tool.
Against slower teams (such as Perish Trap), Mamoswine and Charizard work together to output tons of damage with their spread moves. Mamoswine's Ice Shard is also a strong tool against Garchomp, one of the biggest threats to Toxapex. Icicle Crash is its strongest ice move, and seemed worth it here though two of the three times I tried to click it I flinched.
Mamoswine has the Oblivious ability, making it immune to Intimidate. This makes the team extremely strong against Incineroar overall as Toxapex loves to see it, my Incineroar was always faster, Charizard and Hydreigon don't care about Intimidate and aren't threatened by it, Sneasler has White Herb and hits it for super effective, and Mamoswine is immune to Intimidate and hits it for Super Effective damage.
We decided to go with Adamant Mamoswine over Jolly as the main matchup Mamoswine had to help with was against Perish Trap, and there the speed doesn't make a difference. With the Focus Sash there wasn't much point in investing in bulk.
I only played two games with Mamoswine before leaving for the tournament, a two game set against the Perish Trap team we'd been unable to beat with Espathra. I won the set and Mamoswine did well, and so I decided to lock it in. In hindsight I think it was the correct choice.
Overall the experience with this team was night and day compared to my Steelix run. There, I felt like I was at a disadvantage in every match. Here, I felt advantaged in nearly every set I played. I'm very proud of my finish and of going undefeated on the first day in back to back events, as well as making it all the way to the semi-finals with a team I built on a tight turnaround. I hope you enjoy the team if you try it for yourselves!