Dat Lapras II: Taking Down The Fort and Port with Hornets - Part One
Taking Down the Fort and Port with Hornets
Some Thoughts on This Team in Hindsight
In case you were wondering, I've actually had this written for quite some time--basically a year. I wanted this to be my first post here since it's basically my favorite team.I think probably one reason that this team did really well for me was because it helped me subconsciously master something that had been ailing me for quite some time at that point: I couldn't play very well with the 45 second timer at all. The fast mode this team had, combined with some of the metagame calls I made, factored into the success into both regionals.
Why is this team on my blog and not Nugget Bridge? Since I was playing in the NPA, I wanted what I used to be partially under-wraps since counter-teaming is very much a thing in a format where you can specifically counter-team someone. I put off actually posting this team for that reason, then the format actually started making rule-changes and that quickly made this team obsolete. I also noticed that Brine was chosen in some ignorance. Finally, I wanted to try and use Lapras for a bit in 2015, but noticed it was much harder to use in this format than the previous one.
Different Format, Less Niche
I'm going to be honest: I think the real reason I wanted to use Lapras so much was because I liked it. It had an old-school sort of feel to it, and part of me wanted to find that hipster pokemon that might set me apart and make other players respect me more. Whether that motive is 100% pure or not shouldn't matter too much, since I think that its natural to want to find your place in a community. Despite that, after finally getting some success with it, I learned to love it. Lapras soon beat Shuckle as my favorite Pokemon, and I noticed something about the Pokemon I choose to be my favorites: 1) they do/did something for me competitively as a player, which gave me fond memories of them, and 2) they're both stupidly, almost-naively happy. The second reason feels super subconscious to me as a person because I always admire seeing a peaceful sort of contentment and happiness in my friends and in myself..
Back on subject, though: I think Lapras had it's heyday last format because Rotom-Heat was really strong toward the end of the season and it made to be a good Rotom-Wash substitute on a team that couldn't have another Rotom-forme on it. 2015 wasn't kind to Lapras at all though. Move tutors came and made Low Kick Kangaskhan a possibility (Lapras is fat, so Low Kick is 120 Base Power...twice!). Then we have Superpower on the Landorus-Therians, and Intimidate means you can't just two-shot them with Ice Shard unless they try Rock Sliding for the Weakness Policy Boosts. Then there are these other pseudo-legends that entered the format: Terrakion has two STABs to swat Lapras with, and Thundurus can still be super annoying, if not at least play around what the Weakness Policy set did. Then more arguably better bulky Water types entered the fold and offered more niche uses and started to push Lapras usage to near-extinction.
Is there hope for Lapras in this future format? Maybe. It got second in a Regional toward the beginning of 2015 for Kelly Mercier-White (KellsterCartier) in the UK. It would have to be somewhat bulkier than the set I provide here, but it could still be effective. I retired Lapras after wanting to change my team-building style and try and grow a bit from using the boat on everything, although lately I've noticed myself using nothing but standard Kangaskhan teams. While that certainly isn't a bad thing by any means, I almost wonder if its the most effective approach and might try other options (like Lapras) again to try and grow some more.
Dat Lapras II
Pat Ball here with an old team report with the team that earned me 272 championship points last season, or approximately 60% of what I ended up with out of 518 total for the 2015 season to get 14th in the United States and make Day One of the Pokemon World Championships. As a disclaimer: some of the spreads at the end were probably a bit weird—and it might just be an odd habit I have to tweak things to the point where I don’t remember what my thought process was behind certain spreads, or I didn’t do enough thinking and or asking around of what spreads should be.
Before we get into that, let me fill in the blanks from my last team report:
- Immediately following the two Premier Challenge wins – I decide to experiment with different spreads, moves, and even Pokemon to make things just right. Brine Weakness Policy Lapras was born from such early experimentation, and Flareon won a premier challenge, despite being mostly useless
- Nationals (2014) – went 5-4 but had fun. Tried bringing Mental Herb Amoonguss to deal with taunt and benched it from the team afterward. Notable losses in order were: Sun, Fake Out + Assurance Bisharp, Devon Ingram AKA dingram sanding down my Kangaskhan with Tyranitar, and Nathan Powell AKA illuminatimon out-surprise-factoring me our match; but I won’t John much.
- Worlds LCQ (2014) – had more fun but lost round one. Tried running a cutesy Occa Berry Head Smash Aegislash that did absolutely nothing for me. Among other friendship IRL things, I spent time mostly cheering on Pachi, Ashton, and Aussie Laprases + Rotom-Fan.
- NPA (2014) – I tried out for manager, but despite my enthusiasm missed the cut. Made it as a surprise pick for the newly-founded Viridian Forest Hornets under manager Alan Suterlin (dubulous) and I was quite inspired, having not made NPA last season and and not doing much besides winning a few Premier Challenges. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what ol’ Dubs saw in me—maybe my energy in manager tryouts or saying "hi" at Worlds or at the Penn State Winter 2013 X/Y Grassroots tournament, but I’m nothing but happy I got my name on our roster as well as the chance to pick the minds of some strong players.
- Kickoff Premier Challenges – I tweaked some of the moves that I thought would come post-worlds. Mostly Gothitelle/Rain related, which I decided Lapras and Aegislash were crucial for. Added Gardevoir for a stronger Fighting counter for Kangaskhan/Lapras and Garchomp to add an immunity to Electric moves and more Rock Slide Resistance and came up with a core of Double-gar + ’Tom-heat to have a fast mode for Regionals.
Here’s what the finished product looked like:
The Team
Ability: Water Absorb
Level: 50
EVs: 140 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 100 SpD / 4 Spe
Sassy Nature
IVs: 3 Spe
- Freeze-Dry
- Brine
- Ice Shard
- Protect
My pride and joy and the star of the team. The team was named after my teammates from NPA each week, but out of sheer laziness I decided to stick with the crew from the first week I played. I chose Ben Hickey AKA DarkPenguin67 (shortened to DP67) to represent Lapras for several reasons: 1) he’s my numbers-brother; 2) being a penguin makes him a natural kinsman because Lapras is probably found in the same type of environment.
I got into Weakness Policy Lapras originally to try and give me something else that wasn’t choiced while simultaneously readying myself for anyone who happened to know what Lapras could do from attending or hearing about the other tournament success I had with it or reading Wolfe’s blog. Running Weakness Policy instead of Assault Vest allowed me to perhaps catch people off guard not expecting the protect, and the extra offense provided for extra knock outs. Indeed, this counterplay would come in handy, but it wouldn’t be until much later that people started to understand what it did (and it still surprised Enosh at Philly!)
Now allow me to describe my thought process on my somewhat interesting move choice—particularly Brine since it’s almost never used. I initially decided on Brine over Hydro Pump for several reasons: accuracy, and my mistaken belief that Brine worked like a pseudo-Torrent and doubled the power when Lapras was under 50% and not the opposing pokemon. I made out calculations of the relative average power of the two moves (which is base power (or theoretical average in Brine’s case) times accuracy). The calculations came out something like this:
- Hydro Pump: 110 x .8 = 88
- Brine: (130+65)/2 x 1 = 97.5
It seemed like a really good idea at the time, and I wouldn't even figure it out until later when an opponent on Pokemon Showdown caught me and I read about it more closely. It also had a moment where it just missed a knock out on a non-bulky, Scarfed Rotom-heat and I wondered why it hadn't quite knocked it out.
Oops.
I think the greater lesson for me in going to these tournaments was that having the really high accuracy move was better in the end, especially on a set that boosted the attack power anyway. Knowing what I know now, I might've gone with Hydro Pump over Brine, but I've heard horror stories about Hydro Pump misses costing some players Top Cuts.
Freeze Dry is standard for Lapras since it is Lapras’s main niche. It allows Lapras to beat things like the ever-present based false-profit-of-the-late-2014-metagame Ludicolo and forever-popular Garchomp, while also dealing with Gyarados and other Ice-weak things. It also gives Drizzle/Rain Dance teams a harder time based on its typing + Water Absorb. Now, I know what some of you are thinking: “Aren’t you completely contradicting what you said in your last team report, Pat?” A combination of Jon Hu’s Nationals run, Randy Kwa’s advice in a chat at Nationals in 2014, and good friend Adib Alam’s persistant pestering, I reluctantly converted to the Water Absorb hype train. I must begrudgingly note that the very first battle of the first premier challenge I went to where I made this change, my Lapras was critically hit with something, but it didn’t matter anyways.
Ice Shard is there for the 2HKO/+2 OHKO on Garchomp mostly, but it can also help me snipe to finish things too bulky to shrug off a +2 Freeze Dry like Zapdos. I’ll end this section with a few calcs.
Defensively:
- 252+ SpA Life Orb Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 140 HP / 100+ SpD Lapras: 182-218 (81.6 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
- 252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Giga Drain vs. 140 HP / 100+ SpD Lapras: 125-148 (56 - 66.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
- 252 Atk Mega Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. 140 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 186-218 (83.4 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage
- 252+ Atk Mega Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. 140 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 204-240 (91.4 - 107.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
- 252 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Rock Slide vs. 140 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 135-161 (60.5 - 72.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
- 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Double-Edge vs. 140 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 198-234 (88.7 - 104.9%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
- 252+ SpA Choice Specs Hydreigon Draco Meteor vs. 140 HP / 100+ SpD Lapras: 153-180 (68.6 - 80.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Offensively:
- +2 252 SpA Lapras Freeze-Dry vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos: 198-234 (100.5 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
- +2 252 SpA Lapras Freeze-Dry vs. 164 HP / 4 SpD Assault Vest Ludicolo: 240-288 (136.3 - 163.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
- 4 Atk Lapras Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Garchomp: 88-108 (48 - 59%) -- 93.8% chance to 2HKO
Ability: Scrappy
Happiness: 0
EVs: 212 HP / 52 Atk / 60 Def / 4 SpD / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Frustration
- Power-Up Punch
- Sucker Punch
- Protect
Given that there were five other teammates on my NPA team (it was 5 during the 2014 NPA) and I didn’t want to name anyone after myself, I gave the name of my mega slot to the manager of our team, Alan Suterlin, AKA dubulous or “dubs” on IRC for short. I suppose it must be irony that he is a zero-Happiness Frustration Kangaskhan since he was mostly happy with the way our season went, but I suppose the Frustration can come from the fact that we lost round one in the playoffs despite being the highest seed.
I shouldn’t have to explain what Kangaskhan is designed to do since you probably all well know by now, but in case you don’t, allow me to explain: she’s a momentum machine with excellent coverage and priority—simply… a mother (hits-like-a-)trucker. While her effectiveness certainly dropped to the almighty Mega Mawile Worlds and afterward, I took it as a challenge to make her relevant again. The EVs (courtesy of Trey Craft AKA DaWoblefet) take opposing Kangaskhan Hammer Arms and Specs Hydreigon Draco Meteors 15/16 times while being a few points higher over Smeargle.
Crow (Rotom-Heat) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 124 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 124 Spe
Timid Nature
- Discharge
- Overheat
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Ice]
This little guy didn’t change much besides his name. Crow-tom the Rotom was chosen for one big reason: to beat Talonflame-cheese. (You know? Because Crow is a bird?? Huh?? Huh??). In addition to giving the bird the bird, it’s able to handle many standard staples in VGC 2014—or at least give them a harder time. Megas like Charizard-Y and Mawile hate the little oven unless they happen to be running weird coverage moves like Ancient Power/Dragon Pulse and Rock Slide (Sucker Punch, too, I guess, but that isn’t necessarily too weird of a coverage option and doesn't get the knock out either).
Three of the moves are self-explanatory: Volt Switch for the ol’ hit-and-run, which was somewhat increasingly important given the rise of Gothitelle. Overheat to melt some steel types and give me something of a nuke to fast frail-stuffs almost like a Salamence with better typing but less Intimidate. Hidden Power Ice was to largely dent Garchomp and other Ice-weak flying types. Now, I must admit: Discharge is not for every team. It took a decent bit of effort in me to justify running it since I see it almost as a novice strategy. The way I see it: it’s spread damage with a strong chance to paralyze things, and it works with my Fast core with the others having Protect (and Wide Guard on Aegislash) to neutralize the negative effects (also—my slower members don’t mind being even slower); it was also my team's main answer to Amoonguss+Azumarill leads which Demhaha brought against me in NPA practice.
I’ve always liked Scarftom especially for the 2014 American Regionals Metagame, and originally I did it to outspeed Greninja so I could Volt Switch before it Hydro Pumped me since my team has no redirection. It's just slightly faster than that is the somewhat common Aerodactyl who also threatened Rotom (along with Mega Gengar and Manectric). Also, it can help against Garchomp since Rock Slide Flinches are less of a factor and Rotom can’t be paralyzed either, and its speed can at least give me more of a buffer against Kangaskhan teams with the surprise speed and 2HKO with Overheat (or chip/fish for paralysis with Discharge). Extra bulk was given to survive and switch more into Talonflame, Charizard-Y, and Mawile.
Ability: Sand Veil
Level: 50
EVs: 188 HP / 68 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 244 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Protect
Garchomp. Reliable. Safe. Consistent. Good. Much like Kamaal.
The moveset is about as vanilla as a Garchomp can get—and the reason behind that is,… well, I managed to lose to a Charizard-Y and Heat Rock Moltres while running Substitute over Rock Slide on Garchomp, so I didn’t feel like taking many cute chances with it. Completely opposite to my standard-as-vanilla Garchomp moveset are the Effort Values, and while I’d love to give some specific calcs for what it survives, I never actually intended it to survive anything specific. It was a general build that I actually thought was a Jolly 252 spread but ended up being slightly different. In case you were wondering:
- The HP is the biggest 16n-1 number possible for Garchomp
- The speed to out-speed Kangaskhan while under-speeding other Jolly Garchomp
So yea. A general bulky build of Garchomp. It does allow me to take Adamant Double Edge Kangaskhan a bit better than the other one, which given my lack of Intimidate/hard Kangaskhan counters is quite important. I don’t think underspeeding is particularly bad either since this info could potentially let me know about other Garchomp spreads (whether its actually not Jolly 252, which surprisingly wasn’t guaranteed in this late metagame.
Ability: Telepathy
Level: 50
EVs: 196 HP / 52 Def / 60 SpA / 120 SpD / 80 Spe
Modest Nature
- Dazzling Gleam
- Moonblast
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Fire]
If you’ve never met demhaha in real life (or read his posts/seen our picture) let me tell you: he’s got long hair, and he knows it—a bit like Gardevoir’s. He was the first to take a set from me in the private scramble dubs set up for the Hornets with Belly Drum Azumarill, so I figured giving him the fairy type on my team just made sense. My Gardevoir is the only gender-controllable pokemon that doesn’t match the original gender of the person it represents and for two reasons. One, it’s pretty feminine-looking. Two, allow me to describe just why with a story:
When I didn’t know much about the user known as “demhaha” I decided to do a little research. I saw the name in IRC as “Rory Evan” and thanks to “The Gilmore Girls” assumed Rory was a girl. I only realized after I befriended him on Facebook and saw the full name “Rory Evan Kilange” and the About section under relationships that it finally occurred to me: Rory is in fact a male.
Yeah, first Brine and now Rory. I'm a hot mess!
Demhaha was put on the team to hard-counter most Fighting types that would give Kangaskhan and Aegislash a hard time in addition to giving Fairy coverage to help against Hydreigon matchups. The EV spread (shamelessly stolen from fellow Lapras enthusiast Nidorich’s report) allows Gardevoir to take a banded Talonflame Brave Bird and surprise knock out Ferrothorn as well as do damage to steel-types.
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 44 Atk / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe, 31 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Sacred Sword
- King's Shield
- Wide Guard
DaFlo the Ghost bro. Didn’t have much of a reason for it, but if I had to make one, it might be the struggles of the (night) shadiness that comes from being counterteamed because he streamed (and GHOSTing being another shady issue?? You chegger? :p). Several oddities you might notice are 1) having 44 Atk which was the byproduct of EVing on the bus and trying to be cute thinking I might mess with a calc and 2) it’s holding a Colbur Berry, which helps me balance the lack of Dark resistance I have with this team so I won’t be rofl-stomped by Specs Hydreigon Dark Pulse; it also helps my team against Tyranitar, Bisharp, Hydreigon, and Mawile a bit better and makes Sacred Sword able to touch Tyranitar and Bisharp before I'm completely wiped out. Wide Guard took a slightly different role this time around—as it allowed Aegislash to protect itself, if the need ever arose, from a friendly Earthquake or Discharge one turn.
How to use the team
Fast Mode – Double-gar-tom (Garchomp/Rotom/Gardevoir + Kangaskhan)The lead was whatever made sense against the opponent with the third of the trio + Kangaskhan waiting in the wings. This was my most offensive and spread-move-spam approach, and this was heavily based on gaining early momentum via knock outs or Discharge Paralysis.
Defensive-Pivot Mode – 2-non-Kangaskhan leads with the 2nd back used as a switch for a specific matchup such as Rotom-heat for Talonflame, Aegislash for Staraptor and some Fighting types, and Rotom/Garchomp/Lapras for Greninja-based offenses.
A little less offense-oriented and a little more momentum control-oriented then the other mode if I needed to preserve something on my team or watch something carefully on my opponent’s team. I also used this if I needed to cover well against several hard lead matchups for my team at once and could maybe manage a switch if I didn’t guess my opponent’s lead correctly. Aegislash and Lapras had nice natural bulk to be able to cover any resisted hits well enough and attempt to wall-and-conquer certain things on my opponent’s team. Lapras can cover well against any Greninjas that might be bold against a Garchomp/Rotom-Heat lead, and Aegislash can come in to take a Rock Slide and stop it cold (while also walling things like Garchomp, Aerodactyl, and Mamoswine).
Gothitelle (/Mawile) mode – Aegislash and usually Rotom-heat + whatever helped in the back
These matchups are always tricky for me given that Mawile is usually a strong answer to my Kangaskhan and they're designed to set-up and clean-up, handle Kangaskhan, and fast modes—both of which I use to win on this team. The idea is that I’m going to accomplish the following: pressure both pokemon, stop Trick Room Gothitelle with Aegislash and Rotom-Heat with an Overheat + Shadow Ball combination to take it out, or Volt-Switch out with Rotom-Heat to something else and have the ability to switch to either of my Pokemon on at least turn one (or two if need be). The latter option rarely happens, but I wanted to have it none-the-less if for some reason I didn’t want to lead with Aegislash and have a way to switch.
Rain – Lapras somewhere; Kangaskhan and others depending on the match-up
Lapras gives most rain teams problems. Now the placement as a lead or pivot depends on how it seems to be best used in the match-up, but given its natural bulk, I tend to use it as a pivot to take Hydro Pump spam.
Team pros and cons:
- Five ways to deal with opposing Garchomp without having to worry about the mirror matchup (Lapras is a hard-counter, Gardevoir is a soft-counter, Rotom out-speeds and 2HKOs, Aegislash has Wide Guard, and Kangaskhan can at least do solid damage against it)
- Fast mode not affected by Thunder Wave
- Pretty idiot-proof. Lowish level of understanding is needed to operate team (when in doubt—leap Garchomp and rotom and press the Disquake buttons lol)
- Nice mix of bulk and speedy offense
Cons:
- No Intimidate
- Problems with a well played Weakness Policy Aegislash (especially one with Wide Guard)
- Very Fast-mode and little speed control (like much of 2014). The only option is “Discharge and pray”
- Dark-weak. Hydreigon can be taken down with Gardevoir, but if anyone plays multiple-Dark-offense then you’re in for a hard battle…
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