Battle Stadium Singles blog #22 — @ir_poke Tapu Lele + Calyrex-S (Season 22; Series 10)
I went into a bit of a ruleset-induced funk this season, so this one is not going to have as much meat on the bones as usual. Indeed, this entry is not at all what I initally set out to do, but because the closest thing to an interesting concoction to present I could come up with this month ended up being too situational and, thus, underwhelming, I decided instead to quickly breeze through the distilled essence of one of the more painless teams to pilot I have come across in a fair bit — ir_poke's support Tapu Lele build.
What drew me to this team was the fact that this one's a bit of a throwback as far as I am concerned. For one, forcing momentum by more or less suiciding in Tapu Lele is something that, in my hands, goes back years. But, more importantly for me, covering other players' works I found fun and inspiring is how I got started with this blog in the first place. And this qualifies as both:
Now, rather than indulging my nigh-metabolic compulsion to produce obscurantist tracts, I will instead limit myself to merely posting my most immediate impressions based on the 20-30 games with the team I did to cap off the season.
Most Porygon2 aren't this invested, but here it is anyway: +1 252 SpA Choice Specs Calyrex-Shadow Expanding Force (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2 in Psychic Terrain: 178-210 (92.7 - 109.3%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO.
Hard click it into the Tyranitar switch, then either go Landorus to U-Turn back in, or finish it off with -2 Leaf Storm.
For the record, it was Taunt + Screens Tapu Koko into Kyurem-B.
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu-Single-Strike Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 108 Def Moltres-Galar: 150-177 (76.1 - 89.8%).
Got a game with the great and powerful Kiby on the 30th.
Started out the final day and final ladder session of the season with a decent enough rating, but ended up donating points to finish only barely above 1800.
Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/96a3f7674a22247a
Rental: 0000 0000 HN4J PF
1) Team overview & usage notes
The two key things to understand about the team, as I see it, are terrain management to prevent Calyrex-S/Volcarona being hit by Sucker Punch (Urshifu-SS, Cinderace) while simultaneously empowering Expanding Force, notable for effortlessly ripping through teams whose only Calyrex-S check is Porygon2.
In the blog entry linked above, the author is also gracious enough to provide insight into the team preview screen game in the form of the very basic usage-based draft-advice for the major restricted-based archetypes, paraphrased below:
vs. Zacian + Porygon2
= Tapu Lele-Landorus-Calyrex-S
vs. Zacian + Mandibuzz= Tapu Lele-Landorus-Volcarona
vs. Eternatus= Tapu Lele-Landorus-Calyrex-S
vs. Calyrex-S= Moltres-Rillaboom-Volcarona
vs. Kyogre= Rillaboom-Tapu Lele-Volcarona
vs. Xerneas= Tapu Lele-Volcarona-Calyrex-S
vs. Yveltal= Landorus-Tapu Lele-Volcarona
The only change I made to the author's original composition is to go Relaxed on Landorus for the slow U-Turn mirror, but that never made a difference one way or the other in my games.
Anyway, teams like this tend to live and die by the lead game. And although Landorus can bail out some bad reads in that respect, it is best used to refresh Psychic Terrain and Choice Specs/Band, lest being put too far behind to recover. Not a playstyle for all tastes, but there you go.
2) In conclusion
Full disclosure, my abortive Galvantula-cheese from above did actually get beyond a written outline for an entry here, but I just could not get the results I wanted, with games feeling especially bad with even +1 Eternatus always at the mercy of damage rolls against defensively uninvested Zacian — essentially defeating the whole purpose of the Sticky Webs set-up.
The format feeling so oppressive, chiefly due to Zacian and Calyrex-S, does not particularly help with motivation, let alone creativity, either. After all, it's not like every single restricted-based archetype not built around either Zacian, Calyrex-S, Kyogre, or Eternatus is heavily pushed into Ditto, for example.
But, hey, only a month more of this to go through before Series 11 hits — whatever that will end up looking like. On the other hand, as unfortunate as this series has been, it is not nearly as soul-crushing as Series 8 ended up being, so I can't exactly say I look forward to going back to what will probably be another Dynamax ruleset when the time comes.
In any case, with this year's Spooky Cup being confirmed as a doubles format, it's just me and the singles ladder for the next month, with the next entry coming towards the end of the month, barring the Series 11 announcement being something that demands editorializing again, that is.
- Tox
SW-0021-9848-8999
