Pokémon Scarlet & Violet - Introducing the Toxicroak Team! - Apr 14 24 A

It’s been four months since the last time I debuted a team, which might be too long, so here is the seventh team! This is a single battle team (as I alternate between single and double battle teams), and it has no particular theme, at least not one that’s intentional.

This was a team in the making since the middle of last generation, which was intended to be the 10th team for Pokémon Sword and Shield. I thought that the releases of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus, would allow more Pokémon into Sword and Shield, which is why this team was built around Pokémon available in Sword and Shield but not BDSP, and vice versa. The slot currently containing Reginaldus (Regidrago) was originally going to have Kleavor, but I felt that the team would’ve had too much of a Rock weakness.

You might notice some traits of this being a previous generation team, one designed to fight Restricted Pokémon. There are no Generation IX Pokémon in this team, it has very few moves introduced in Generation IX, and as I show more about this team, the strategic style is a bit different than other teams of this generation.

There was originally going to be Slurpuff on this team where you currently see Illumise. Well, I kind of lost track of which Pokémon are or aren’t available in this game, and I thought Swirlix and Slurpuff are available for some reason. Instead, in his place is the very same Illumise I trained for the “Kitakami Prologue” event, a free agent placed into a team and the second one after Magcargo on the Wugtrio Team. Slurpuff is near guaranteed to turn up in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, but what ISN’T guaranteed is if that means Slurpuff will be usable in Scarley and Violet, so I think this team will stay as it is. (This would’ve been my second attempt with Slurpuff on a team, after a Choice Scarf Slurpuff in Pokémon Sun and Moon that didn’t quite work out that well.)

These are the explanations behind each nickname:

TOXICROAK - Freddo - named after the Australian chocolate candies shaped like frogs

DODRIO - Tress - from “tres,” Spanish for “three” in reference to Dodrio’s three heads

LANTURN - Luz - Spanish for “light”

ILLUMISE - Sheena - from “sheen,” to refer to Illumise’s tail glow

CHIMECHO - Harmon - from “harmony,” as wind chimes are known for

REGIDRAGO - Reginaldus - from “regi-,” the prefix for this Legendary group, and a Latin-sounding name to evoke an earlier historical period as dragons are associated with

I might still put Slurpuff on a different team in the future, especially if there WILL be an update allowing for the use of Pokémon from Legends: Z-A in head-to-head battling. As of right now though, I have no idea, and so Slurpuff will continue to live in Pokémon HOME for the time being as a free agent there.

Type: Double Battle
Opponent: マルス (Malus)
Battle Court: Cabo Poco
Music: AI Professor
My Pokémon: Luz (Lanturn), Tress (Dodrio), Reginaldus (Regidrago)
Opponent’s Pokémon: Iron Crown, ウガツホムラ (Gouging Fire), Iron Boulder

My opponent’s team is made up of a pair of Legendary trios among Paradox Pokémon: the top half consists of ancient versions of the Johto beasts—Walking Wake, Raging Bolt, and Gouging Fire; and the bottom half consists of future versions of the Swords of Justice—Iron Leaves, Iron Crown, and Iron Boulder. A pretty imposing lineup, that it is.

What IS odd, however, is the fact that my opponent’s game is in Japanese, and their profile picture shows they’re playing the Violet version, and yet, it’s the future Pokémon who have English names, meaning they were lent from someone else’s game. Then again, maybe they don’t have the Treasure of Area Zero DLC, and they got ahold of Iron Crown and Iron Boulder some other way while they might have picked up Iron Leaves through those Tera Raid Battle events.

I like to introduce a team with an opponent trigger-happy with throwing Legendary Pokémon at anyone they face, which is why, despite this being part of the testing session for this team, I picked this one to introduce this team with. (Notice that my trainer, Carmen, is still dressed in the March 2024 outfit. That’s because this battle was actually fought in March, though the session was still ongoing, just spread out over many days of testing.) They kind of play like those opponents I would face in Pokémon Battle Revolution, bringing out Legendary Pokémon with not much strategy and little thought into if a move makes sense on a Pokémon, most notably Gouging Fire, who loves Earthquake more than I would've expected.

You’ll also get to see what I mean when I say that this team has some high-risk, high-reward strategies. Just as you might have seen in the sneak peek video that Harmon (Chimecho) can become unstoppable if the opponent gives me the turns I need, Tress (Dodrio) has an opposite strategy, but one equally unstoppable under the right conditions.

Malus is a genus of plants. The most famous of them is the apple (Malus domestica).