Welcome back to our Ladder Legends series!

It’s been a while since we last posted one of these so, as a recap, this is a series of articles where we scout teams used by players who place high on the Pokémon Showdown Ladder; we’ll offer a brief breakdown of the team, show a few replays of the team in action and provide a recreation of the team for you to try yourself!

The recreations will stay as faithful to the original users build in terms of abilities and movesets, with the EVs being generic. These teams will serve as an excellent starting point for you to build on and tweak to match your own preferences.

At the time of writing, Smogon are hosting their VGC Ladder Tournament which has given us a plethora of high performing teams to bring to you.

SeaWolfMike took his team, a balance team filled to the brim with meta threats, to fourth on the VGC Ladder in the first cycle of the tournament! This is definitely a team you’ll want to start with to acclimatise yourself to Regulation F; you will face all six of these Pokémon regularly (potentially this exact team too!) so gaining a good understanding of their strengths and weaknesses early will be invaluable for team building deeper into the meta.

Incineroar @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 228 HP / 20 Atk / 20 Def / 156 SpD / 84 Spe
Careful Nature
– Taunt
– Knock Off
– Fake Out
– Parting Shot

Since gaining access to its Hidden Ability, Intimidate, Incineroar has been the undisputed king of competitive play. Its typing, stat distribution and move pool allow Incineroar to be flexible enough to fit on just about any team in the game. SWM has opted for a full support oriented Incineroar for this team, sticking with the ever present Fake Out, Parting Shot and Knock Off whilst swapping the more offensive move, Flare Blitz, to include a reliable way to prevent Trick Room and turn off Redirection support with the move Taunt. Sitrus Berry increases its longevity and directly throws off any damage calcs specifically designed to 2HKO Incineroar, with the Tera Type of Ghost allowing it to avoid opposing Fake Out or super effective Fighting type attacks.

I’ve taken the standard EV spread for a Sitrus Berry Incineroar and tweaked it slightly to account for the move choice here. As Flare Blitz is not required, I’ve removed some EVs from Attack and built this spread to survive a Sandsear Storm from opposing Landorus as a benchmark.

The Speed EVs will need to be tweaked to meet your own preferences. As a reference point, these EVs allow Incineroar to outspeed Pokémon with a base 80 Speed (252 EVs without a speed boosting nature) or a max speed base 70 Pokémon.

Rillaboom (F) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Grassy Surge
Level: 50
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Atk / 4 Def / 124 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
– U-turn
– Fake Out
– Grassy Glide
– Wood Hammer

Where you find an Incineroar, you’ll often find a Rillaboom, backing it up against those pesky water types! Incineroar/Rillaboom is a classic core to a team, being able to synergise by recycling Fake Outs, Intimidates and keeping Terrain Advantage turn after turn. Rillaboom packs a punch as well, being able to fire off Terrain boosted Wood Hammers and Grassy Glides to obliterate opponents.

Flutter Mane remains one of, if not the, most oppressive special attackers in Regulation F thanks to its absurd Special Attack and Speed stats. Its excellent dual STABs, of Ghost and Fairy, give it the ability to pressure nearly every archetype. This is a Pokémon that can shred through entire teams on its own; SWM leans into Flutter Mane’s raw offensive output by slapping on a pair of Choice Specs and giving it the Fairy Tera type. Moonblast and Dazzling Gleam, with the tera boost, provide ridiculous levels of damage to anything which doesn’t resist the Fairy typing. Shadow Ball provides a powerful secondary STAB whilst Power Gem offers some nice coverage against opposing fire types.

The EV spread provided is the standard Choice Specs spread as seen on the Nerd of Now damage calc but this can be altered to meet your own specific requirements for the team.

When Regulation F was announced as returning, the vast majority of posts I saw were trainers warning others not to complain about having to face Raging Bolt Balance all throughout this regulation. This Pokémon is obscene. Excellent typing, vast movepool, incredible bulk & Special Attack with a speed tier which lets it sit comfortably on teams with any form of speed control. SWM’s Raging Bolt holds the Grassy Seed, increasing its Defence stat in Grassy Terrain and makes use of the set up move Calm Mind, which boosts its already high Special stats to absurd levels.

Along with Calm Mind, and the mandatory Protect, Raging Bolt is given dual STAB coverage with Dragon Pulse & Thunderclap; Thunderclap acting as an Electric type version of Sucker Punch, attacking with priority if the target is attacking and failing if they aren’t.

The Tera Type for Raging Bolt is often a toss up between Steel and Fairy. SWM opts for Fairy here to completely remove Raging Bolt’s weaknesses to Dragon and Ground type attacks.

The synergy between the previous three Pokémon & Raging Bolt is clear: Start off with Rillaboom + Raging Bolt, increase Bolt’s defence with the Grassy Seed, Fake Out the threat and Calm Mind to boost Bolt’s Special Stats. From here, simply chip away at your opponents team with a near indestructible behemoth. Incineroar and Rillaboom can rotate with each other, dropping opponents Physical Attack and resetting Fake Out pressure whilst maintaining Terrain Advantage. And should Raging Bolt not be enough? Flutter Mane arrives on the scene to wipe through an already weakened opponent.

As strong as this core is, four Pokémon don’t make a team…

Ogerpon has three different formes based on the mask it is holding. Wellspring transforms Ogerpon into a Water/Grass type, Cornerstone makes Ogerpon a Rock/Grass type whilst Hearthflame makes it a Fire/Grass type. Though players tend to avoid duplicating types, Ogerpon-Hearthflame provides a much needed Fairy Type resistance, without needing to terastallize. The redirection offerered through the move Follow Me synergises with Raging Bolt, aiding it to set up Calm Mind boosts freely.

Ogerpon-H packs a punch as well, with a high attack stat (which can be boosted by one stage should it wish to Terastallize) firing off Fire type Ivy Cudgels (which have a boosted chance to land a Critical Hit) and Grassy Glide which can be turned into a priority attack should Rillaboom’s Grassy Terrain be in effect.

Definitely about to show my age but “back in my day” Landorus Therian was on almost every VGC team going. It warms the heart to see Landorus looking so threatening in the VGC scene again, albeit in its Incarnate forme.

Unlike its other forme, Landorus-I focuses on ripping through teams with it’s Special Attack stat, combined with the Life Orb held item and Sheer Force ability; though others may consider Flutter Mane or Raging Bolt to be the strongest Special Attacker in the format, I personally reserve this title for Landorus.

Earth Power & Sludge Bomb provide excellent coverage, allowing Landorus to take care of Opposing Rillaboom/Incineroar cores by itself. SWM added Substitute to this Landorus over an additional attacking move which, among other uses, allows Landorus to avoid potential Spores from Amoongus – A Pokémon commonly seen alongside Rillaboom & Incineroar. Steel is SWM’s tera type of choice, though I personally still prefer Tera Poison on Landorus to give Sludge Bomb an additional boost.

The only weakness I could observe from this team was the lack of speed control, but this is extremely nit picky. With dual Fake Out, Intimidate & Redirection options opponents will find it hard to land attacks on their preferred targets consistently, regardless of having a speed advantage.

You can use the team yourself by following this link to access the paste!

Contact us on X, Facebook or via email at Newsdesk@GoldenrodPress.com if you’d like your team to be featured in a future article!