Optimize Your VGC Team: Baltimore Meta Strategy & Tips
Summary
In the Pokémon Champions | VGC Battles & Tournaments server, members are actively discussing team optimization for the Baltimore meta. This thread explores strategies for countering Trick Room teams, adjusting Corviknight and Indeedee sets, and maximizing the utility of Sneasler. It is a vital resource for players looking to improve their competitive performance and navigate the complexities of current ranked play.
This team is fun, except for the facts
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Power trip Corv extremely hard to get online
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Trickroom completely eats this team
Ive been thinking of maybe making changes to corviknight and Indeedee?
Anything else to tweak here? Team feels really wobbly in ranked where random mons with the most randomest sets appear
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Also i feel like coaching sneasler is also a niche use case
Switched around Protect for fake out pressure
Im also open to new TTar teams if changing this around is impossible
I mean this team works into the current meta as it's very good into almost everything and it kinda makes sense that it wouldn't work as well in ranked where people we play against are not that great and don't know what they are doing
Yeah so no one feels threatened by sneasler and switch, they'd rather take the Hit and ohko it (which makes coaching kind of impossible)
Its a very niche use case
This team is very interesting but I'd say hard to pilot in the current meta
Im just thinking maybe indeedee needs to be tweaked to proper shut down TR teams and give sneasler a different set?
Corv powertrip feels gimmicky but i am using it decently not that bad
Yeah true but i love ttar what can a man do
That sounds plausible
Yeahh
I think that you should leave coaching on sneas it's very good
Even if you only get one off
Tho you can switch mystical trick for trickroom and change the item on indeedee if you want to deny trick room
Power trip isnt that hard what mus are you bringing it to
Fairs
I just dont find the matchups where i can use it without sacking sneas
People just dont respect it
Yea that's true
Probably have to
Mus?
It is the only option I relatively see to not change the mons and still make it good yk
I dont think corv is THAT hard to pilot cause in game's where he walls its easy to stack buffs, but still i wonder if its worth ig
Yeah i get u
I mean it can solo win game if the opponent doesn't have a way to get rid of it
Which i find happens alot of teams
So corv is great
Yea so just leave it like that
Match ups.
Oh
Got it ty
Match ups is literally any physical mons ngl
After one bulkup it takes the game over after a spatker is gone
If there are any issues just tag me here and I will help as soon as I get time
I mean when do you bring it
Walls chomps, walls your sneaslers, walls your golisopods
I dont understand sorry pardon
Kike
Like
What teams u bring it into
Cus "a team with a physical attacker" isnt really a good idea
It needs to be a better idea when thinkimg about corv
Imo
Oh no i mean like teams that depend on physical sweepers multiple
I dont see one phys attacker and throw corv on
I don't really know what kind of team to generalize that i bring it to
whats the indeedee set to counter TR again?
Mystical fire trickroom protect expanding force
And the item
Rocky helmet
So indeedee female?
If you don't care about clicking expanding force yes
Do you think it plays well with this team
Sometimes spamming Expanding force is good
But TR also hard walls the team
Ngl should i just get another ttar team
Modifying joe's team is not working that much
Joes team is very specific
So yea
Yeah its not cutting it post master ball rank for me
Is there a place i can get replica teams off of
Only if Joe shared this team himself otherwise no
If you are talking about other ttar teams there should be many of them
Yeah these ones
Where do people pull replica teams from anyways
I mean most time they see it in a youtube video and just copy it
I see
Switching to this team
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Thoughts on these ev spread
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Arce's Baltimore team help
I don't think you need that much SpA investment on Gholdengo imo
Really?
With lorb dont you wanna land huge Make it rains
Yea it's better to make it a bit more bulky
So it can get nasty plot off
And ko everyone
So how much evs into spatk and how much into def and spdef
I'd say 9 in SpA 14SpD and rest defense
Woah only 9 evs in spatk
Realllyyyy
You won't need much if you get Nasty plot
Got it
So i have to rely on nasty plot before popping off attacks right
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good right?
If you dont mind can u drop me probable good evs for all the mons 
Go actually 19Hp\9SpA\22SpD
Okay w
And rest go in Def
If it isnt a bother that is
Yea its slower Ghold but it can kill
Lemme see
Milotic @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Competitive
Level: 50
EVs: 22 HP / 26 Def / 7 SpA / 11 SpD
Calm Nature
- Coil
- Hypnosis
- Ice Beam
- Muddy Water
Raichu @ Raichunite Y
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 6 HP / 32 SpA / 28 Spe
Timid Nature
- Zap Cannon
- Protect
- Fake Out
- Focus Blast
Ceruledge @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 26 HP / 3 Atk / 16 Def / 21 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Bitter Blade
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Sneak
Staraptor @ Staraptite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 16 HP / 13 Atk / 5 SpD / 32 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Tailwind
- Protect
- Close Combat
Gholdengo @ Life Orb
Ability: Good as Gold
Level: 50
EVs: 19 HP / 16 Def / 9 SpA / 22 SpD
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Nasty Plot
- Make It Rain
- Protect
Rillaboom @ Miracle Seed
Ability: Grassy Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 17 HP / 11 Atk / 15 Def / 23 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Wood Hammer
- Fake Out
- High Horsepower
- Grassy Glide
I think this is good
Tho it may not be the most optimized
Eh you take what you can get right
Who knows how arce actually built the team
This is good
The only way is for him to release it
Tysm
Fr
Of course
Feels so weird to play with a team that doesnt outspeed everything outright
Yea it do be like that
Gonna have to relearn what mon tanks what, what outspeeds what
Yea there are few sites where it's easy to do so
Im playing on mobile so i cant really calc while playing
Yea that's cheating
That's why you should do calcs and evs before
Yea sorry
Ill just improve through trial and error🗣️
Ladder is just a mess dont know what's even being played half the time
That's the best way
Yessir
Yea it's shit
Utterly
But it's fine
Yeah im struggling to set up swords dance because idk what i tank and what i dont
Hmmmm
Yo
Should i try to go with
More generic ev spreads to handle normal ranked ladder
Cause lorezo's actual spread is for meta tourney mons and ranked is cooked rn
What is your rank?
It depends
Tourney spreads usually are fine for ladder but you can adjust them because people will know them as long as you are aware of what the original spreads do and the differences
Mb 3
Yeah but he spec'd it to like make gholdengo survive exactly one sucker or Shadow ball
And very minute stuff i dont know the full length of
Ahh I see
Wait which team u using
The raichu y team?
The mega staraptor and mega yaichu team
Im doing so bad with ittt
Can you show me your current EVs
Is it this?
Sureee
Nope
Okay tag me when you send
Here u go
Okay nice
My only problems are
Manuevering ceruledge and Gholdengo
Because they're so slow
And i cant have tailwind up in games i cant afford to use mega Staraptor
I used a team like this in s5
And a fair amount of games you can totally bring both raichu and raptor
Ive never played bulky mons like this before so its kinda making me go on a 500 game casual battle lose streak
And mega raichu in that case (rarely would you mega raptor if you bring both)
Really?
Yeah
Yep you can totally bring both against faster teams where intimidate and tailwind is valuable
I usually bring raptor if they have threats that outspeed raichu y easily but mega raichu is otherwise better into the team
You can also bring raichu for lightning rod if raptor otherwise farms, into mirror matches that’s my usual strategy
Got it
As for the EVs
Got it noted
I just straight poached lorenzo's evs
Except a i tinkered with ceruledge a bit
What did you change with ceruledge?
I was going to say you can probably drop a little attack into speed to hit 113
Then when you have tailwind you will be faster than z megas
More into attack and hp more or less
Fair
So like 8 points into speed you think?
Yep
You can try that
Okay noted W
Do you have any notes for how you position ceruledge and dengo
My thing is i cant just switch them in sometimes because the chip they take still ends up wiping them from the board
Dengo is more flexible atleast it tanks alot of spatk
Ceruledge just feels underwhelming
You can also experiment with gholdengo EVs moving some from sp attack back into HP, for example I usually prefer 7 in sp attack but 17 is fine because people are calving for 7 modest ghold atm :9 that can help. Again I think that speed is important to hit to outspeed z megas after a zap cannon/tailwind so id go no slower than 113 on ghold
I haven’t personally used ceruledge much but I have used ghold raichu staraptor together
I see i see
You usually want to lead with them and pair it with fake out support
And you almost never want to swap them in unless it’s a non threatening board
Yeah then you dont have tailwind up for it either so thats a conundrum
Ceru moves so slow and Shadow sneak doesnt make up for it at all
Even SD'd shadow sneak is mid
You have raichu y for example. Raichu and ghold is a great lead because you threaten fake out nasty plot into zap cannon plus attack
Zap cannon is a mini tailwind
It’s the speed control the team uses more than tailwind
Yup i have been using that
Ceruledge feels the only mon that annoys me
Isnt as bulkily threatening as dengo and its moves
Isnt fast enough
Im kinda clueless on him
Also been looking at wolfe's team he used a while back
Thinking about keeping yaichu, star, whims, ceru, and maybe replace garchomp metagross farig for somethingggg else idk if it would work
I just think having whimsi setting just free tailwinds is so stressfree
It’s the speed control the team uses more than tailwind
Your ghold evs I think let you live a shadow ball from M gengar. Ghold will usually be able to take a hit and retaliate back
Sorry my messages sent late cos my net went out for a bit
The teams strength is its flexible in synergistic leads. You have raichu ghold, ceruledge rillaboom, Milotic raptor and mix and match
With ceruledge you are relying on the grassy seed defense and bitter blade recovery to just out trade after a swords dance
It’s balance
Also without ceruledge the zard matchup is a bit rough and zard is still used
My understanding is that you just choose which setup option to go for on team preview, so you have a bit of flexibility between ghold and ceruledge even tho they are both ghost types.
No prob
Yeahh i guess so
Maybe i have to keep playing around to understand it
Honestly if this team is really giving you trouble you have so many other raichu y comps to try
There’s so many good ones
So if u don’t fw ceruledge you can try others
I just really wanted to use ceru and staraptor
Never used them before
I think its just a matter of understanding my matchups and mons
Oh then in that case this is prob the best team that has them both, and it’s just a case of learning matchups
Yes exactly
Yeahhh
If you can, record your games
Then watch them back and see if you could have done something different
Illl try if i can
Yup
Got it thanks
It rlly helps, or to just think abt it after
No worries gl bro
Yeah thats why im spamming casual battles to learn
I think ill get the hang of it by today
That’s fair, I do honestly think that ranked is gonna be much more valuable
For practice
Im not even doing good in casuals
Even tho yeah ur risking ur rank on a team ur not confident in yet
Yeah that's my main problem
Bro ts is probably harder than MB1 - Champs fights
At least u can read what they are doing
Like
Casual battles arent casual
Ive faced 8 rain golisopod teams
What did you bring to those games?
Raichu
Dengo
Milotic because it walls
Had ceru in the back
Because in the case rain wasnt up or golisopod came in early
Which happened a lot its a 50/50 between peli 1st play or goli first play for those games
Rilla was just golisopod peli food to bring and raptor wasnt really threatening anything on rain teams
Yeah valid to bring those if they don’t have swampert as secondary mega
Yeah no swampert
I think it’s a positive matchup for ur team
If swamp was there probably locking in rilla
Yh otherwise u don’t want it
Yeah raichu dengo lead helps
Yeah
U can also bring raptor for intimidate and tailwind
In place offf milo you think?
Actually ceru
Nvm not milo
Probably ceruledge because I think +2 ghold plus zap plus Milotic walling it with coil and intimidate is enough into goli
Yup
Yeah bro honestly
I just need to get to know my matchups
Def play ranked because in the long term it will help
Yeah
I wouldn’t touch casuals
But I see the reason to
Im gonna try from tonight
I understand enough but im still losing like crazy but
I feel like ill do ranked tonight
Yeah ranked best way for it because half the teams on casuals are just random experiments too
Yeah
Yeah nah sometimes a team is just not for ur playstyle if u have extensively played with it and it still doesn’t feel right
Like I couldn’t pilot big six past mb2 in M-B
I switched to raichu staraptor and reached champion tier
Ive been just playing Joe's sand team nonstop
So i have a hard time learning mid tier bulky mons and other forms of Speed control
Nice
I understand
What made you switch from that team?
Just to try those mons?
Kind of mostly boredom
Yep that’s valid
I got to master 3 in 2 days
And wanted to try staraptor and ceruledge
Yaichu looked fun too
If you only care about rank etc it’s super boring but sticking to one team you are comfortable with is the way
But it can get boring
Yeahhhh
Especially rn that the meta shifts so often
I could use ttar but
Idk
I want to use different mons
Not tryna grind ranked into oblivion but just tryna get good
Have fun
Ill need to learn more about the meta and playing different mons before thinking about grinding
Good idea
Totally valid to do
Id say experimenting with a few diff archetypes and variations of those is good and rn season is gonna end in a few days anyway
Also keeping an eye on popular teams really helps for ladder so much
Yeahh
Would gambit slot into this team
I just can't use ceru unless i call my opening 2 correct with Ceru opening
Hes the only weak spot for me
Tbh if you add kingambit your zard matchup suddenly becomes pretty bad I would add harc instead over ceruledge if you want to swap it and this is another partner that helps Milotic jnto rillaboom. I would run sash set
Got it
I just havent run into zard
And i feel like im carrying a sandbagging ceruledge
+2 shadow sneak doesnt even kill
Lorb Dengo
i just wanna build a new team
This doesnt suit my playstyle
Have been doing nothing but lose
I cant pilot the team at all
I cant use bulky slow teams for the life of me
That's sounds rough
I say that and randomly i just won 4 games back into mb3
Well that's something as well
I honestly dont know what or whos wrong anymore
I think you should give it time
Basic question thats randomly plagued me today
How long did you use the team for?
I think it is definitely a me problem 1 day ish
1 day?
Yeah
Bro that's nowhere enough time
Give it a bit more time
And the team that you are using it probably a tournament one?
True but i made so many mistakes too like reflecting back on it on team preview i didnt take the right combinations and stuff
Yeah arce lorenzo's baltimore team
Yea that team is made for open team sheet yk
Never happened before
But with this team you have basically no wide coverage so idk whether if i see the kill on something, I press for the KILL.
Or Predict a switchout (this is annoying because some people just dont care and some do dawg)
Yeah tbh u kinda need to get ur reads right w this team there’s like almost no spread damage
Yeah i said that before and someone did say the team would be fine yada yada so maybe i thought i need to refine the ev spreads for ladder or change a mon idk
Same issue w the raichu staraptor mb team
There's 0 almost spread damage
Exactly, so im so scared of focus sashes
U gotta assume the common mons are holding sash
I can predict a few but
Its super annoying with this team to get open Kos
Esp since nothing is threatening an outspeed on opponents other than staraptor or raichu (without tailwind)
I feel like the team has good speed control but it’s not as free as press priority tailwind with whims
Thats why i was kind of thinking of working with whim
And unless i get the opening 1000% correct
Games without staraptor tailwinds are 
Fair enough tbh if it’s really not working out or fun to use
Idk what whims does anymore in this format it kinda got cooked by psy spam
After tailwind it can’t do anything anymore encore isn’t as oppressive and now people want the role compression of tailwind plus high offense with stuff like mence raptor dnite etc
Its fun
I love the mechanics of it
I just dont think i can always call the correct play to pick up kos
Esp Not if im slower than offensive threats
Tailwind, encore, die
I think the problem with carrying this team out is, enemies are always spec'd to max attack and spatk to fish for ohkos
And since this team was built for OTS some stuff just dont survive or match up
Idk what to do tbh
Like what?
We running it back to big six
Im sorry i dont exactlyyy remember but i remember dying to a sucker lorenzo said you could live
