PFA Free Agency No. 2: Additions and Drops

PFA Free Agency

Before I go on and discuss what were the made changes made to the team, here's a quick guidelines of the Free Agency so people can understand.  Again this

1. Free Agency begins after the end of the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th week with a live session where all the coaches (including myself) chose new additions to the team or announce trades. 
2. As soon as all the coaches are accounted with their matches completed, Free Agency will commence.
3. Unlike most Leagues where anyone can get chose by themselves to add/drop a Pokemon while following their respective rules, Free Agency for the PFA is almost like a regulated draft session held every 2 week where teams with the worse differential and record go first and the best teams chose last. There's no snake-style order for this, just worst to best teams first. 
4. During all sessions of FA (Free Agency), every team is allowed the chance to add/drop one Pokemon per tier in each session. Each FA session will go through OU, UU, RU and finally NU/PU with coaches of each team deciding whether or not they want to change something. 
5. Mega Evolutions can now be dropped from the team and not mandatory. 
6. (New) Now the league players can drop any Pokemon regardless of any restrictions as long as its a drop and add only. 
7. List of all Free Agent Pokemon courtesy of myself.

Los Angeles Nidoking Team Additions and Drops

With the first 4 weeks of the PFA at hand, the LA Nidokings are now 4-0 and the league best differential only rivaled by the Indianapolis Jolts coached by Mudkiplegend. While we did have a couple of harder matches these past 2 weeks than maybe the other two, the Nidokings are still coming in hot with a a great lineup of Pokemon featuring the one-two punch of Manaphy and Mega Manetric. With Week 4 FA at hand now, I at first wanted to remain with the same squad, however after considering my teams weaknesses and the lineups of opposing players, I knew it was time to make yet another drastic change. Some of the Pokemon like Mega Manetric and Manaphy were safe from any changes, however looking at the fact people will start counter teaming me later on in the league, it was best to review some of my members. Forunately even with the lowest pick of the FA, I think we were able to get a couple of picks that suits the team better in the long run... so these Pokemon might stay with me, or get dropped in the coming week. Without further ado, here's some new faces for the LA Nidokings. 

    New Teammates / Roster Changes

UU: New: Nidoqueen / Drop: Roserade

Funny enough I wasn't suppose to get this Pokemon since a coach ahead named GingerxPug want to drop his Porygon2 for Nidoqueen, however he took too long to arrive and I suddenly find myself with a viable replacement for Roserade in this gen 1 mon. Now for those who don't know, Nidoqueen has a rather balanced out stats compared to most other Pokemon however what makes it more viable competitively is its sheer force.....get it? Alright I'll cut the crap so Nidoqueen has access to a wide movepool and coverage options that its ability Sheer Force boost. Basically what Sheer Force does is it increases the power of all attacks with secondary effects by 1.3x but those effects won't ever occur. Given that a chance of a Sludge Wave poisoning a target is 10% while a Sheer Force boosted Sludge Wave is only stronger, well I guess someone can tell what I'll rely on most often. Funny part is Nidoqueen is not just limited to boosting its STAB options Earth Power/Sludge Wave, rather it has access to most elemental attacks with secondary effects like Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Focus Blast, Shadow Ball, Water Pulse, etc. 

The main reason why I chose to drop Roserade for something like Nidoqueen was coverage. I wanted another Pokemon in which my opponents cannot tell what's its going to do since Nidoqueen can fulfill many roles for a team like being Stealth Rocks user (or Toxic Spikes), mixed wall breaker, a Scarfer, or even a all-out offensive with Life Orb. Nidoqueen isn't limited to being a special attack as it has a wide array of physical attacks like Earthquake, Superpower, Poison Jab, Rock Slide, Beat Up, Pursuit, Outrage, Iron Tail, the elemental punches, and much more. Another point Nidoqueen was picked on our side was the fact its able to counteract most Grass-type and Electric-type Pokemon which threaten Manaphy and possibly Mega Manetric to an extent. Honestly we can go all day about Nidoqueen, though I feel as though it might be a permanent member of the team, but we'll see.

RU: New - Virizion / Drop: Aromatisse

Alright with the OU/UU FA going rather quickly, I was worried that the RU pick for the LA Nidokings would get sniped, but there were three choices in mind: Trevenant, Tangrowth, and Virizion. I wanted to get Trevenant since it would give me a good coverage options and makeup for my team's lack of a Ghost-type spinblocker, however Mudkip was able to grab this pick before I could. For a minute I debated whether or not I should grab either Tangrowth/Virizion since both makeup for my lost of Roserade and were relatively bulky. The deciding factor for this choice was speed and with a base 108 speed tier, Virizion was chosen. Now with Virizion I gain a tremendous amount of SpDef and Speed for the team and a reliable answer to some Ground-type Pokemon aside from Manaphy. Virizion might have a rather low base movepool compared to the other Swords of Justice members, however it does have reliable recovery in Giga Drain and Synthesis with the potential to boost either attack with Sword Dance or both special stats with Calm Mind to be a special sweeper. Another point why I picked this Grass/Fighting type was due to its ability Justified as I have something to scare away Dark-type Pokemon while getting attack raises to boosts its physical movepool. To top it off, Virizion can either be run physical, special, or even both with its base 90 Atk/SpAtk so my opponents will have to risk some Pokemon to figure what set I'm running. Lastly Virizion can serve as a great SpDef pivot given its massive base 129 SpDef stat so chances are it will drop to a physical hit more often than not. 

NU/PU: New - Articuno / Drop: Gurdurr

For my last FA pick, I debated whether or not Gurdurr should be dropped for either another Grass-type like Gogoat or even Gourgeist to have access to all the forms differences with a spinblocker at hand. Then I noticed the Articuno wasn't picked up at all and I decided to look at the movepool and stat allocation for review. It later became clear to me that Articuno was probably the better pickup of the draft IMO though I won't say much about it...aside the fact its x4 weak to rocks. Well alright I'll go on as to why I chose Articuno. Basically I wanted another offensive threat who can act as somewhat of a pivot for Manaphy when it comes to facing off against Grass-types and Dragon-type Pokemon. In fact, most of the teams I noticed overlooked this bird due to its stealth rocks weakness, however it does have two great offensive STABs in Ice/Flying, access to notable coverage like Freeze Dry, Extrasensory, Ancient Power, Hurricane, U-turn, etc and  an impressive bulk of 95 HP / 100 Def / 125 SpD so it can be a decent wall at best. Of course Articuno is only a "check" to Ground-types given the fact most of them carry Rock-type coverage like Stone Edge, Rock Slide, or will just use Stealth Rocks to deter me from using this bird, however I feel as though it won't be the case in the the matches I foresee in the future. 

Final Thoughts

So that's all the new additions of the team. Well I'll be working on two teams reports and a Pokemon analysis so hopefully those should be up by the end of next week along with coverage of the PFA.