Jamesspeed1's Life Orb Palkia YouTube Team (Episodes 15-20)

Introduction

Hey everyone James Baek (Jamesspeed1) here and I thought I would write about my teams that I use for YouTube on here like I said I would a while ago but didn't really have the time to so here we go. Also my Apex experience Blog post will be uploaded soon so look forward to that :] 

Life Orb Palkia was actually an idea Tommy Cooleen (@Tmanvgc) was telling me was so good for a long time but I didn't really consider it just because relying on an 80% inaccurate move to sweep is very risky. Recently my friends from Asia told me that they fell in love with Life Orb Palkia because of its ability to handle many of the individual members of Big 6 in 1 shot (assuming you hit). I decided to finally man up and not worry about accuracy to test the idea behing what is Life Orb Palkia.

Teambuilding Process

I started off with Palkia and Kyogre which are the essential members to this core as you want rain in order to hit Primal Groudon with Hydro Pump and the rain boost is necessary in order to knock out many Pokemon with Hydro Pump such as Xerneas and Mega Kangaskhan. For the Mega Pokemon, there wasn't a Mega that I felt this team absolutely needed, my friends were testing a lot of different megas like Mega Manectric (who i was really considering), Mega Sceptile, Mega Kangaskhan and even Mega Swampert. I decided to go with Mega Gengar due to the fact that it really helps in the weather war being able to trap Primal Groudon which is really important. I'm really experinced with Mega Gengar and Shadow Tag so I felt it was my best choice.

The next thing I really needed was a way to hit Primal Kyogre because this team really does struggle hitting Primal Kyogre and the only way I counter Primal Kyogre with this team is resisting water attacks with Palkia and hitting Kyogre back with a Spacial Rend which is usually a 3-hit knock out. I was thinking about Raichu but I wanted reliable speed control so I decided to pick Thundurus with physical attacks and it gave me another way to hit Ferrothorn and Kangaskhan with some large damage. I decided to add Landorus-T on the team because it helped with Intimidate, Double Genies are always good, gave me a way to hit Ferrothorn and helped against Groudon (you can never have too many Primal Groudon checks).

Finally the last slot was an interesting slot. I wanted something to help against the Xerneas matchup because Xerneas could sweep my team with a Geomancy boost. I was originally thinking about Ferrothorn since it helped against Xerneas and Kyogre and it benefited from my Kyogre's Primordial Sea but in the end I chose Bronzong because of the ability to set up Trick Room which I thought could be cool since it gave me more options, plays and win conditions especially against opposing Trick Room teams.

The Team

Palkia @ Life Orb  

Ability: Pressure  

EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe  

Timid Nature  

IVs: 0 Atk  

- Spacial Rend  

- Hydro Pump  

- Flamethrower  

- Protect  

The Pokemon that the team revolves around and was the MVP of the team while playing with it. When most player see Palkia, they usually think Trick Room since most Palkia are built slow with Trick Room but this team revolved around Palkia as a Life Orb sweeper. Hydro Pump in the rain was absolutely devastating and picked up knock outs left and right. This thing is a monster and impressed me a lot. However there were some moments when I missed a Hydro Pump that cost me games but that's what happens when you are relying on such a powerful trump card. Spacial Rend was nice and Flamethrower helped against Ferrothorn so they couldn't stop my Hydro Pump sweep. The reason I had Pressure over Telepathy is because I couldn't get my hands on a Telepathy Palkia on my team which limited the plays I could make with my Landorus.

Kyogre @ Blue Orb  

Ability: Drizzle  --> Primordial Sea

EVs: 252 HP / 228 Def / 28 SpA  

Quiet Nature  

IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe  

- Water Spout  

- Origin Pulse  

- Ice Beam  

- Protect  

My bulky Trick Room Kyogre set that I had used early in the season on my Kyogre Ho-Oh team and my early Cresselia Dual Prima team. I think Kyogre already does so much damage that you end up wasting so many evs in special attack so I invested the evs into physical defense to help against the matchup against Primal Groudon and allowed me to switch in Kyogre with more confidence. I have a Quiet Kyogre to have the most stat points I could get. Standard Kyogre with 2 water type attacks and I love sweeping with Water Spout under Trick Room.

Gengar @ Gengarite  

Ability: Levitate  --> Shadow Tag

EVs: 140 HP / 172 SpA / 196 Spe  

Timid Nature  

IVs: 0 Atk  

- Sludge Bomb  

- Icy Wind  

- Will-O-Wisp  

- Protect  

Mega Gengar is my personal favorite Mega Evolution because of my experience with it at Worlds 2015 when I brought it to the 2015 Pokemon World Championship and it was so good. It is a major disrupt to the opponent switching and limited the plays they made which i love about this Pokemon (also its burst mode in Pokken Tournament is broken). The evs seem strange and they should be since I grabbed a random Gengar from my Battle Box. It outspeeds Greninja which I thought was a fair speed stat to be reached since anything over Mega Salamence isn't that common in VGC 2016. The rest was dumped into special attack and hit points. Sludge Bomb is mandatory to hit Xerneas, Icy Wind I thought would be nice so I didn't have to play speed tie games with Palkia and slow down Mega Salamence and Mega Rayquaza for Palkia's sweep. Will-o-Wisp was a neat tech I put to slow down fast heavy hitters like Kangaskhan because Palkia and Kyogre don't like taking physical hits and it made the team bulkier overall.

Thundurus (M) @ Expert Belt  

Ability: Prankster  

EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe  

Jolly Nature  

- Wild Charge  

- Superpower  

- Thunder Wave  

- Protect

Physical Thundurus is one of my favorite Thundurus because of its hidden potential and the way it can easily catch an opponent off guard. The normal item which I liked using Life Orb was already taken by Palkia and Thundurus needs a boosting item to have a chance to knock out Mega Kangaskhan and Kyogre so i gave it an Expert Belt. The damage output was very noticeable between Life Orb and Expert Belt but just being able to get the large amounts of damage I needed on certain Pokemon. Thunder Wave was great to help Palkia and Kyogre outspeed and start sweeping teams.

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- U-turn
- Superpower

Choice Band is my 3rd favorite Landorus of all time and my 2nd favorite Landorus this season. I think Life Orb is just an item all my Pokemon love and I love Life Orb Landorus but couldn't have it so I opted for Choice Band to gain some nice damage output. The reason why this Landorus is Adamant and not Jolly which is used to outspeed Primals is not because I have Trick Room but because I didn't want to mess up my Jolly Landorus which I was using for tournaments at the time and I didn't really miss the difference between Adamant and Jolly with this team. Earthquake and Rock Slide are standard moves while U-turn helped to gain momentum especially revolving Intimidate, switching in my Kyogre when Bronzong is setting up Trick Room or weather control overall. I might've had Explosion over Superpower if I had Telepathy Palkia but I didn't mind having Superpower since Kangaskhan can be an annoyance to this team especially if it get a Power-Up Punch boost.

Bronzong @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 244 HP / 12 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Gyro Ball
- Rest
- Skill Swap  

Bronzong has become one of my favorite Pokemon recently during this time because it was doing really well during this time. A Trick Room setter that does fantastic against Xerneas which is really nicely. The ev spread create an odd hit point stat in order to have 51% after a Super Fang and was built special defensively in order to take hits from Xerneas and Kyogre. Gyro Ball, Skill Swap and Trick Room are common standard moves on Bronzong but Rest was the interesting part about this set. Normally Gravity is used on the last slot but I didn't need Gravity since I don't have Groudon on this team but I guess it could've guaranteed me hitting Hydro Pump, Spacial Rend and Origin Pulse, Protect could've been nice but since I had Lum Berry on Bronzong to help against Smeargle, I decided to put Rest to get some recovery allowing me to possibly set up 2 Trick Rooms in one game.

Common Leads

Against Big 6: 

                             
Gengar + Palkia with (Kyogre and Bronzong)

Gengar + Bronzong with (Kyogre and Palkia)

Gengar + Landorus with (Kyogre and Bronzong)


Against Dual Primal:


Gengar + Palkia with (Kyogre and Bronzong/Landorus)

Thundurus + Palkia with (Kyogre and Bronzong/Landorus)


Against Kyogre Rayquaza:


Gengar + Palkia with (Kyogre and Bronzong/Landorus)

Thundurus + Palkia with (Kyogre and Bronzong/Landorus/Gengar)

Thundurus + Gengar with (Kyogre and Palkia)


Against Kyogre Yveltal:

Thundurus + Palkia with (Kyogre and Landorus)

Thundurus + Gengar with (Kyogre and Palkia)

Gengar + Palkia with (Kyogre and Thundurus)


Against Groudon Yveltal:


Gengar + Palkia with (Kyogre and Thundurus)

Thundurus + Palkia with (Kyogre and Landorus)

How this team plays

The team revolves around getting Palkia into the best position possible with speed control involving Gengar and Thundurus and weather control using Kyogre. The team plays with disrupting the opponent with Thunder Wave, Icy Wind, Will-o-Wisp and gaining momentum with U-turn and being able to get fast knock outs. Preserving Palkia is a priority especially with how many Pokemon are just knocked out by Palkia so reducing the damage and having defensive switch ins with Landorus is great. Also trapping Groudons with the rain up is great to do early game in order to keep rain around for the rest of the game.

Videos: