I will make a Pokemon of you 2.0 [Welcome to the Sun/Moon Meta: Video Warriors]

King of Posters
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So, some of you probably remember that I have become a sad old man who spends hours playing competitive Pokemon on the internet. My poison is Pokemon Showdown, which I tried to get some SBer’s into, only to be met with utter indifference and minor disgust.

On the other hand, people did seem to enjoy the perverse vanity of the I Will Make a Pokemon of You thread in which I peer deep into your soul and pull your true poke-tulpa screaming from the your secret anime womb.

So, I’m bringing it back on SB 2.0.

I’ll be reposting my old rundowns, starting with updates on some of my early builds which were–frankly–not very good. I was still learning the game, so I seriously misunderstood some basic elements.

If anybody else is interested on a pokecaricature, be sure to raise your hand. I’m just about done with my backlog, and I’d like some more options when it comes to team building.

Phase II of this whole shebang will be forming official SB teams, battling them, and linking to replays of the battles. That’s right: you will get to see how well you fair against a shiny charizard. Do you have what it takes to stall a tanky tyranitar? There is only one way to find out.

Those who are about to faint, I salute you.

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Before I start posting builds, I thought it might be helpful to get some esoterica out of the way: some terms I might use that are not self-explanatory.

  • OU/UU Formats – Basically, Pokemon Showdown makes Pokemon fun by creating formats–think of them like Heavy Weight and Feather Weight divisions in boxing. If every pokemon can fight every pokemon, then most of the pokemon in existence aren’t really worth playing. The most popular format is OU (Over-Used), which only excludes the highest stat tier (or most exploitable) pokemon–stuff that’s just ridiculous. UU (Under-Used) excludes some of the more powerful non-insane pokemon to give some of the fun middle-tier pokemon a chance to shine. There are tons of formats, but these are the two most popular, so I try to orient my caricature choices around these rule sets.

  • Mega-Evolution – In the 6th pokemon generation, they’ve introduced Mega-Evolutions. Some pokemon can hold a specific stone, and the first time they act in battle they can choose to Mega-Evolve for the duration of the battle. This ups their stats to Legendary levels, may change their type, and locks them into a certain ability. You can only have one Mega per team.

  • STAB (Same Type Advantage Bonus) – A standard modifier that every pokemon has. If an attack is the same Type (Fire, Bug, Psychic, etc.) as the pokemon using it, the attack gets a x1.5 bonus. This is a huge part of the game. If you’re attacking an opponent that is type-weak to your attack, you already get a x2 bonus against them. So, if you’re attacking with a STAB move AND type advantage, you’re doing 2 1/2 times the base damage. That’s quite significant!

  • Special Attack/Special Defense – In Pokemon there are Physical attacks and Special attacks. Physical attacks use regular Attack and Defense stats and Special attacks calculate Special stats. It adds another dimension to the already convoluted RPS meta of the game.

  • Priority – Obviously, pokemon is turn-based, and who goes first is determined by Speed vs. Speed. However, some moves have the priority bonuses that mean they go first, unless they’re against a priority bonus move wielded by a pokemon with greater speed. Some moves have +2 priority so almost always go first. There are a few ways a non-attack move can have +6 (maximum) priority and thus always go first.

  • Sweeper – In competitive Pokemon, a pokemon powerful enough to potentially kill half a team or a full team without dying is considered a “sweeper.” A true sweep is taking down a whole team with one pokemon, but the game is sort of designed against that overall. A sweeper is typically saved until the end of the battle, when the opponent’s team has been weakened overall or reduced in number. Lots of sweepers have pokemon that can block their sweep, so you want to try to get rid of those to set up the sweep.

  • Wall/Tank – Pokemon that can take a lot of hits. The best tanks only lose a sliver of damage where others would be 2KO’ed. Due to stat constraints, some pokemon specialize as Physical Walls or Special Walls, and even a good wall usually has some kind of type weakness. So it’s pretty difficult to be completely impenetrable.

  • Wall Breaker – Pokemon that specialize in taking down walls. These could be similar to a sweeper (very Physically or Specially damaging) or they could have lots of status-effect wear-down moves that number the days of a wall.

Okay, that’s probably enough vocab. On to the main event!

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@Ronnoc, you are–of course–still a Mega-Beedrill. Ain’t nothing gonna change that about you. But, after gaining some experience with the game, I wanted to do a re-do of your build and write-up, because–frankly–I way underestimated you the first time around.

I knew that you were interested in rule sets and so I thought you might like a build based around a sort of crazy gambit. But in retrospect, that gambit wouldn’t have really worked and was completely unnecessary, because Mega-Beedrill is the most canon of glass canons.

SBPKMN - Ronnoc.png638×502 106 KB

Your secret sauce is your ability Adaptability, which kicks in once you go Mega. Adaptability doubles the attack power of any attack of that matches your type (Bug/Poison). Combine that with your top tier attack power and among the highest speed in the game (after Mega), and we’re talking about an OHKO machine that can only be stopped by a priority move or a Physical Wall with type advantage.

While Bug/Flying is not the greatest defensive typing for the OU metagame (with weakness to common types like Fire and Flying), it does make you a huge problem for Fairy and Dark types, which are arguably more problematic (Fairies being one of the most defensive types in the game this generation). Psychics are interesting, because you’re strong against each other, which makes it a joust.

We’ll invest liberally in your Attack and Speed, but hold a bit back to give you enough HP to take a hit or two. We might change our minds later, and reduce Attack and HP a bit to fully max out your speed, but the way I see it, you will never be faster than an Alakazam, so you just have to be faster than everything else in your tier.

Ronnoc (Beedrill-Mega) (F) @ Beedrillite  
Ability: Sniper  
EVs: 120 HP / 192 Atk / 196 Spe  
Adamant Nature  
- Protect  
- Poison Jab  
- Fury Cutter  
- Roost

Protect ensures that you go Mega in your first move with no chance of taking damage, Poison Jab is your nasty Poison STAB move, and Roost allows you to come back from taking a hit. I’m going a little off book with Fury Cutter as your Bug STAB move. It starts out weaker than other options at 40BP. However, with each use it’s power doubles. The second time you use it, it’s as strong as any other Bug attack I could give you. The third time you use it, its BP has reached 160, making it one of the most powerful moves in the game. The real catch is that it must be used consecutively without missing (and it has a 5% chance to miss). So: a bit of a gamble, but I think it could be cool. Swap for X-Scissor if it turns out to be more trouble than it’s worth.

So there you go: Ronnoc, you are a sentient sniper bullet. Some type issues keep you from being an unstoppable sweeper, but if the rest of your team takes out your threats, I see you quite happily bathing in the blood of your enemies, staring through the souls of onlookers with red, pupil-less eyes.

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This is cool

Do the stones get used up during a mega evolution? Or is the downside just that they take up the item slot and force certain moves at the beginning?

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Yeah, the downside is taking up an item-slot and entering a battle without those stat boosts. The item slot is pretty useful–hell, if you don’t have a healing move, it can be your only source of healing.

Entering without stat boosts isn’t that big a deal, since a lot of pre-Megas have decent stats anyway, and you can just make Protect your first move (always goes first, blocks any attack or status effect) to ensure the transformation.

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This is an updated take on The King:

The King, you are basically the most Select Buttony Select Buttoner. You’re interested in photography, film, shmups, and you’re even teaching English in Japan. I’m actually somewhat concerned that you were sent to infiltrate us, but your hypno-schema hasn’t been triggered yet, so whatever.

You are are Nidoking, the most Pokemon-y Pokemon.

Overall, your stat spread is fairly even. You have fairly high base attack, but you’re on the high end of mediocre everywhere else, making you something of a plucky all-rounder. While you’ll do fine in the UU format, it will take some doing to fit you into an OU team. Luckily, your Ground/Poison typing shows some major potential. It gives you strong STAB advantage over Fairy and Fighting types, two very prevalent threats in the OU meta-game. You also have an immunity to electric attacks, with your only real liability being your weakness to Water–pobody’s nerfect.

Your two entry hazard options, Toxic Spikes and Stealth Rock make it tempting to make you a hazard-laying starter. But really that’s a tankier ‘mon’s game. You prefer the more hands-on approach–it’s always worked okay, so why struggle to be something you’re not?

Your broad move pool makes you an excellent choice as an all-out attacker, so we’ll give you two powerful STAB moves (Earthquake and Poison Jab), add Fire Punch to surprise Steel and Grass types, and finish off with Ice Punch to take out any Flying types you can’t reach with Earthquake and threaten Dragons.

The King (Nidoking) @ Assault Vest  
Ability: Poison Point  
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def / 4 SpD  
Adamant Nature  
- Earthquake  
- Poison Jab  
- Fire Punch  
- Ice Punch

And–while it might not be obvious to everyone at first glance–you’re fairly fashion-conscious. You wear an Assault Vest, an item which boost your Special Defense by x1.5, provided that you only use attack moves. With full investment in Attack and Defense, you’re now on the low end of tanky with a moveset that can fill any type holes on the team.

Ultimately, The King, you might have started life feeling pretty average, but by focusing on the the things that came naturally and fostering an omnivorous attitude towards self-cultivation, you’ve become a versatile jack of all smashing, ready to switch in as needed.

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i still want one

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Wait, were you on the list? I don’t think I included you, because you never specifically said you wanted in. Hmmmmm, you might be a fun one.

Also: I neurotically felt like I failed to really capture Gary Oldman Dwarfism and Tulpa in the last thread, so if you guys want a do-over or an alt, now is your chance.

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@drobe, with your unhealthy interest in historical half swording, I was tempted to make you a sword Pokemon. But that would be kind of like naming Garfield “Lasagna.”

Instead, your apparent computer-literacy and the fact that you talked about Mech Warrior one time I’m pretty sure makes you a Magnezone.

And as a Magnezone, you do two things: chew bubble gum and kill Ferrothorns. And actually, you can’t chew bubble gum, because you have no mouth. So I guess you only do that one thing. Oh: you’d also like to scream, but…see above.

You see, your native ability Magnet Pull makes it impossible for other steel-type pokemon to leave a battle with you, which is pretty neat, considering how you have exactly one fire move which can 2-hit KO any pokemon that are double-weak to fire, such as Scizor and Ferrothorn, both of which are extremely common in OU. But you know what? We’re also going to equip you with Choice Specs, which multiplies your special attack by 1.5 but only allows you to use the first move you select until you switch out. Fortunately, one move is all you need. You use Hidden Power Fire on types weak to fire, Volt Switch to both damage and immediately escape anyone intimidating, and Thunder or Flash Cannon on any types that might effect.

All in all, you can be a bit stubborn and set in your ways, but you know what works and you know what you’re good at.

You’re also resistant to 11 different attack types and immune to 1, so a lot of abuse slides right off your back. Unfortunately, you’re double-weak to Ground type attacks, and probably only bulky enough to survive one Earthquake, if that. Now, like a real Earthquake, this is something we could prepare for. You could switch your Choice Specs for a helpful Air Balloon which would free you up to use Magnet Rise and become immune to the Ground attacks you so fear.

But you’ve never really been the play-it-safe conservative time. High risk, high reward. No whammies, no whammies, no whammies–STOP!

As long as you’re clever and read your opponent like a book, you’ll be a major threat and a hell of precision killer.

drobe (Magnezone) @ Choice Specs  
Ability: Magnet Pull  
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe  
Modest Nature  
- Volt Switch  
- Thunder  
- Hidden Power [Fire]  
- Flash Cannon

For stats, we’ll double down on your strong Special Attack to ensure those free OHKO’s and super-damaging escapes. We’ll also max out your HP giving you the bulk to take the first hit, due to your low speed.

But for god sakes, watch out for Heatrans. They’re faster than you, and they breathe fire.

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@u_u your scholarship in China stuff makes you an Infernape, the only Pokemon that is an explicit reference to Journey to the West, which also is a monkey, so probably pretty scholarly as pokemon go.

You also seem like kind of a pyro.

SBPKMN - evnvnv.png643×502 107 KB

As a Fire/Fighting type pokemon, you don’t really have the best elemental coverage, nor does your move pool pack many surprises for your opponents.

Sure, you could learn Hidden Power Electric and surprise a Water type on switch-in before fizzling or Stone Edge and possibly suprise-OHKO another fire pokemon. But then you wouldn’t have time to focus on what comes naturally: fire and fighting, baby.

Close Combat is a doozy of a STAB, even if it does lower your Defense stats (until you switch out). And we’ll fully invest in your physical Attack to get the most out of that. For extra spice, we’ll give you the ability Iron Fist, which boosts punch moves and Life Orb, which boosts all attacks (but saps 10% of your HP with every attack). This makes your Fire Punch a potent threat to Steel and Grass types and sweetens Mach Punch, your priority move. We’ll make you fast as hell to get the most out of your STABs. When everything gets too hectic and you find your energy low (and when opponents take advantage of your mediocre defense and HP), find a moment to Slack Off and heal up.

evnvnv (alt) (Infernape) @ Life Orb  
Ability: Iron Fist  
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe  
Jolly Nature  
- Fire Punch  
- Close Combat  
- Mach Punch  
- Slack Off

Ultimately, you’re really the type to just get in there and do what you said you would do. Slacking Off every once in a while gives you some bounce back, but if you stay in the fray too long, you’re just putting your neck out further and further. Seize the moment and then cycle out, maybe letting someone else on the team cast Wish and heal you on re-entry for another round.

Again, you’re really just supposed to fight Grass, Steel, Dark, Ice, Bug and Normal pokemon. If they try to rope you into some other match up, just remember: that’s not your job. You’ll do your best, and anything else is Not Your Problem.

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If you would like to give it another shot, that is fine. It was fairly accurate for issues I was facing at the time.

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I want to make a Mummy Team where the primary purpose is to spread Mummy and aggravate my opponent. Any suggestions on a build for Cofagrius and ways to keep him alive and maybe win?

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Quick question: are you thinking of an all Cofragius team in unrelgulated battles? Or just a team with one Cofragius (legal in tournaments).

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It’s a fun idea, but it has some holes. The biggest one is that Mummy relies on the opponent attacking, and it relies on them attacking you with physical moves.

Since Mummy is sort of an infamous move there’s not much of an element of surprise. Also, most competitive pokemon tournaments/formats use the Species Clause, which doesn’t allow you to use more than one of the same pokemon. I’m not sure if that’s the case in online competitive battles, so maybe you were thinking of an all Cofragius team. That would work okay to annoy an opponent, as they’ll likely have some physical attacking pokemon that they’ll have to use at some point, assuming your Cofragiuses are tank enough not to be swept by any Dark opponents (I’ll make a separate post about that after this one). Also, Fighting and Normal type moves don’t hit Ghosts (unless the attacker has the ability Scrappy), so they won’t be getting mummified, either.

If the idea is to build a team around one Confragius with Mummy and to bring him out when another pokemon is about to be physically attacked, I suggest the following parameters:

  1. Make it a Trick Room team – Trick Room teams are as if not more annoying than Mummy, and work well with the slow Cofragius.

  2. Use a Zoroark: – Zoroark is a Dark pokemon with the ability Illusion, which makes it appear to be another pokemon on your team until it’s physically hit. You can outfit a Zoroark with Dark killing moves, make it appear to be your Confragius, and the rest is history. If it’s a Trick Room team, Zoroark’s natural speed is sort of a downer. If you don’t got Trick Room, it will often go first.

  3. Lure Physical Attacks – This is a higher level strategy that would only really work on experienced players (who might cut through the rest of this strategy like butter, honestly). Basically, if you’re building around Mummy, you want to control whether your opponent is physically attacking. You can do this by manipulating their predictions. So, you can put out a notable Special Wall or just something physically weak. For the former, I’d probably go with Blissey who is totally viable but has shit defense. Tentacruel might be less of an obvious lure. Maybe set up Sword Dance with a glass canon like Mega-Beedrill. Your opponent MUST react to that by trying to kill it was fast as possible. Beedrill would also ensure that they wouldn’t use a Dark type, since that would be instant death, and you can use it as a Dark type assassin. Though Beedrill is as specially weak as it is physically, so maybe there’s a better choice with similar qualities. Just spitballing here.

Anyway, having said all that, I think this is the build for you:

Hatshepsut (Cofagrigus) @ Leftovers  
Ability: Mummy  
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD  
Calm Nature
- Nasty Plot  
- Shadow Ball  
- Hidden Power [Fighting]  
- Trick Room

Cofragius is actually naturally pretty bulky. Once you fully invest in HP and Special Defense it’s pretty much a wall. Since we’re not investing in Special Attack, give it Nasty Plot to make it dangerous (you can also manipulate switch-ins this way). Shadow Ball is the STAB move, and Hidden Power Fighting allows you to hit Normal types (immune to Ghost) and punish Dark types that you haven’t killed with another 'mon. With Trick Room up, you’ll be way faster than most Dark types, so if you you’ve used Nasty Plot, you could probably kill a non-bulky Dark before it kills you.

I recommend using this Zoroark build:

Hatshepsut (Zoroark) @ Leftovers   
Ability: Illusion  
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA  
Modest Nature  
- Shadow Ball  
- Focus Blast  
- Dark Pulse
- Hidden Power [Fighting]

Specially offensive and bulky. Shadow Ball and Hidden Power Fighting mimic the Cofagrius. Focus Blast will be OHKO to non-Tank Darks (though remember the 70% accuracy), and Dark Pulse is the Dark STAB

Conclusion: Is this strategy worth it? Well…not really. Sure, losing a pokemon’s ability is annoying, but it’s not the end of the world for a decent player. Your opponent will probably have overall strong pokemon, and you’ll have made so many concessions to make Confragius work that you’re sacrificing the overall viability of your team to slightly inconvenience and annoy your opponent. I mean, I say all of this without having fully built the team or tested it. So for all I know it works like magic. But–y’know. In general, you want a tricky or “anti-meta” (hate that term) gambit to be something unexpected that is likely to trap your opponent in a result that they can’t avoid. You want the reasonable move to be the wrong thing to do and for it to be “too late” by the time they notice what’s happening.

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Now, if the overall idea is to annoy your opponent through ability manipulation, Mummy is just one of your options. You could actually build a whole team around this concept, though I’m not sure it would ultimately be that good an idea to use variations of the same gambit multiple times in one team. I’d have to put some time into working it out.

Anyway, whereas Mummy is passive, you could be more proactive with moves like

Gastro Acid: Nullifies the target’s Ability until the end of the Battle.

  • Some awesome pokemon have this ability, including Mew, Serperior, Diggersby, Amoonguss, and Galvantula. Mew and Serperior could be your sweepers, so you might not want to use the slot for them. But Amoonguss and Galvantual are already used as status effect slot, so it makes sense for them. Diggersby is a good wall breaker, since it has the ability Huge Power, which doubles its attack. So maybe throw Gastro Acid on as a surprise. Amoonguss is a major Wall, and your using a turn (thus, potentially taking damage) to use Gastro Acid, so you need to be able to take that hit.

Entrainment: Copies the User’s Ability to the target.

  • This is basically only viable with Durant, who has the ability Truant (moves every other turn). There’s been at least one dude floating around Smogon who pairs Entrainment Durant with a Trap Dugtrio (Trap ability doesn’t let the opponent leave battle), but I managed to get out of it without too much issue, even with the element of surprise. Could also work on a Lopunny or Aruduino with the Klutz (can’t use your item) ability, but those guys have better things to do.

Skill Swap: User and target swap Abilities.

  • Can’t really be used by any viable pokemon with shit abilities. Probably a better use is as friendly fire in doubles matches: Pair a super-strong Physical pokemon with a pokemon that has the ability Huge Power (doubles attack), and you have just made an unstoppable killing machine. Mega-Diancie and Azumarill might be a good combo, since you’d then be giving Azumarill Magic Bounce (bounces status effects and hazards back at the other team). Diggersby could substitute if you didn’t want to double up on Fairies.

Simple Beam: Changes the User’s Ability to Simple. Simple doubles any stat raise or drop.

  • I spent some time trying make this viable for single battles by giving enemies Simple and having the rest of the team loaded up on stat drop abilities. It’s totally predictable who will have stat raise abilities, so there’s not much risk. But the issue is that stat changes are reset when the pokemon leaves the field. So it’s just no that threatening and would rely a lot on speed advantage. Not really worth it.

Worry Seed: Changes the Users Ability to Insomnia. Insomnia gives the pokemon sleep resistance.

  • This would be good against something you think might use Rest to heal, like a Snorlax and only has consequences if you use Spore or Hypnosis on your team.

So there you have it: multiple ways to mess with your enemy’s precious abilities. Again: I don’t think losing an ability is that big a deal, and good matches move fast enough that you don’t really have time for the sort of build up you’d need to really mind fuck someone. But there are definitely options. I think the most promising is Gastro Acid with Skill Swap in doubles being something I might try in the VGC2016 format. The problem there is that some crazy legendaries are allowed, so clever gambits have to be built around not letting your opponent move at all.

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Awesome! Thanks for all the info!

I was mainly interested in making a Mummy team just to harass my friend who relies on abilities on his Megas. My other friend and I fell over laughing when we imagined a scenario where the Mummy ability just keeps bouncing back and forth forever, ruining his entire gameplan.

Realistically, I’d only use one Mummy so I could have a chance to win, but an ENTIRE TEAM OF MUMMIES is really really appealing too…

I’ll definitely raise a Zoroark though. That’s some sound advice I never considered. What natures would you recommend for both?

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And, just for funzies, here’s how I would do a full party of Cofragiuseses:

Suicide Lead (Cofagrigus) @ Sitrus Berry  
Ability: Mummy  
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD  
Calm Nature  
IVs: 0 Spe  
- Toxic Spikes  
- Toxic  
- Will-O-Wisp  
- Trick Room  

Physical Zoroark (Zoroark) @ Assault Vest  
Ability: Illusion  
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def  
Adamant Nature  
- U-turn  
- Low Kick  
- Knock Off  
- Low Sweep  

Special Zoroark (Zoroark) @ Assault Vest  
Ability: Illusion  
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA  
Modest Nature  
- Shadow Ball  
- Focus Blast  
- Dark Pulse  
- Hidden Power [Fighting]  

Status Effects (Cofagrigus) @ Leftovers  
Ability: Mummy  
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA  
Modest Nature  
IVs: 0 Spe  
- Hex  
- Will-O-Wisp  
- Toxic  
- Trick Room  

Bulky Attacker (Cofagrigus) @ Leftovers  
Ability: Mummy  
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD  
Calm Nature  
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpA / 30 SpD / 2 Spe  
- Nasty Plot  
- Shadow Ball  
- Hidden Power [Fighting]  
- Trick Room  

Bulky Attacker (Cofagrigus) @ Leftovers  
Ability: Mummy  
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 248 SpD  
Calm Nature  
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpA / 30 SpD / 2 Spe  
- Nasty Plot  
- Shadow Ball  
- Hidden Power [Fighting]  
- Trick Room

Put some spikes down and get your Trick Room up with your suicide lead. When you think your opponent is about to use a Dark assassin, release your Physical Zoroark. Use U-Turn to switch to your Special Zoroark. The Bug move U-Turn will be super-effective and let your opponent know that that one was a Zoroark. But, they might not be expecting a second Zoroark. Clean up with that one. Eventually, you should lay some ground work statusing with your Hex Cofragius. Hex does double damage against statused pokemon, and overall it’s good to weaken the opponent’s team with HP leaching moves. You then have two bulky attacker Cofragiuses.

The real issue with this team is that it’s only usable in no-rules matches, so your opponent will probably have legendaries or their own crazy gambits.

But it could be good fun, all the same.

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i could be wrong but i remember you said you had one for me, but i haven’t seen it yet?

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Yeeeep! I built some versions of you right as the forum was switching (and the holidays were happening, and I was moving to Thailand), so that will appear after all these reposts (in the order of the request). all monsters will be after you, and then I think I have one more of the original explicit requests. Then I’ll do sleepysmiles and probably the bonus write-up I did for Tim.

Tim’s immediately came to me as soon as I considered the idea of poke-caricatures. Any guesses as to what pokemon he obviously is?

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No problem–it was fun!

I really love those kinds of ideas. The stuff that the community calls “anti-meta” (such a stupid term) and I call “gambits” are probably my favorite aspect of the competitive pokemon-ing. I definitely prefer my time outside of battle to the actual battles themselves, and I’ve been really proud the handful of times that I’ve come up with a really effective gambit that nobody else is using. It’s pretty rare to have a trick build that is completely original. Most of the time, you come up with an idea, and it’s already one of the standard ways of playing that 'mon. I have a variation on Gorblax’s build that works very effectively, because it is a strong strategy that pretty much nobody sees coming. But, like everything in pokemon, it has some weaknesses that require the rest of the team to complement.

Ah, gotcha. Just be sure to practice with your other friend for maximum effect, since these are kind of tricky usages.

Special Zoroark should be Modest, and Bulky Cofragius should be Calm. I actually forgot to set some of the natures in the code above, so I’ll fix that.

Don’t forget to give them the same name!

Edit: you also might want to try your team on Showdown before putting all the effort into raising.

Definitely let me know what you come up with and what you’re tinkering with. I probably would have built and tested an example single-Cofragius team, but I knew I’d be spending two hours writing the other posts–it was an interesting topic, so I couldn’t help myself.