I Built a Terrible Mega Dragonite Team

Mega Dragonite could be one of the strongest new Mega Evolutions. It's tied for the single most stat points of anything in the format with Mega Terranitar and Mega Garchomp. It has a good ability in multiscale, which makes it even bulkier. It's now a special attacker rather than a physical one, which means it doesn't have to worry about abilities like Intimidate slowing it down. And it's got a really wide and useful movepool. Most people seem to think that Mega Dragonite is at least good and maybe great. But most of the way that players are currently using Mega Dragonite is on rain teams. Dragonite is a flying type, and the strongest flying type move that it

gets access to is Hurricane, which is inaccurate unless it's used in rain. So many players are pairing Mega Dragonite with Pokemon like Pelipper and Basculegion. But I'm wondering if that's the only way that you can use Mega Dragonite. See, one thing that I noticed about Mega Dragonite is that its Dragon and Flying moves, neither of them hit Steel-type Pokemon. Which is a pain, except that Dragonite also gets Fire moves, like Flamethrower and Heat Wave. I wanted to know if it was possible to use Mega Dragonite outside of range so you could

hit the Steel-type Pokemon for super effective damage with your Fire moves. Dragonite can also heal itself with Roost, allowing you to potentially get multiple uses out of your multi-scale ability over the course of the battle. This is a starting idea, but the thing is that with only Dragon Pulse and Heat Wave for damage, Dragonite just isn't going to be doing that much damage in the first place because these moves just aren't that strong. So I was thinking about ways that I could raise Dragonite's damage output, and I thought about the move Baton Pass.

Baton Pass switches the user to another Pokemon in your party, but they pass along any stat boosts that they've accrued. When I was looking through the list of Baton Pass users, one Pokemon in particular stood out to me, and that's Ispothra. Its Speed Boost ability gives it a Speed Boost at the end of every single turn, and it can also use Calm Mind to boost its Special Attack and Special Defense, which it can then pass to Dragonite. It's a bit of a gimmicky strategy and buy a time while it uses Calm Mind, I added Incineroar. Incineroar is a very good support Pokemon when you want to buy time.

Speaking of Incineroar, I realized that opposing Incineroar is actually pretty problematic. Since they can use Parting Shot, they can actually my own Incineroar plus my Ispothora can't really damage them at all, and Dragonite can't get rid of them quickly. So next I add one of the single best anti-Incineroar Pokemon in the game, Milotic. Not only is Milotic a water type, and not only is it extremely bulky allowing it to sit in the field for like forever, but it also has the competitive ability which gives it two special attack boosts whenever any of its stats are dropped. If Incineroar switches in against Milotic, its Intimidate ability will activate Milotic's

Competitive ability, effectively doubling Milotic's special attack. Milotic can also support the team with Icy Wind to slow down foes. Looking at the team, it looks pretty decent, although certain Steel-type Pokemon like King Gambit

look very, very difficult, and so I decided to add the most popular popular fighting type Pokemon in the game, Sneaselur. I don't really like Sneaselur very much to be honest, but it's a very fast fighting type that also gets fake out, which is great for support. So I figured it was at least worth considering here. Lastly, I realized that Mega Dragonite is not very good into Sand.

The Sandstorm will break Dragonite's multiscale, Dragonite is weak to Rock, Ferentor is so bulky could take advantage of Calm Mind and Speed Boost. There was one in particular that stood out to me, and that is Venusaur Mega. Venusaur is mostly used as a Focus Sash Pokemon right now and paired with Charizard Y, but Mega Venusaur is a Pokemon that I actually won a Regional with way back in 2015? 2014? It's already super bulky. And if you start passing it, calm mind, it's going to be almost impossible to remove.

This strategy is a little bit different than the ones that I normally build. This one definitely has more of a focus on defense rather than balance or offense, like I prefer, but I'm curious to test it out to see how good Dragonite feels when it doesn't have access to the rain.

I'm actually not going to get the team in game I feel bad sharing a team where I'm not as confident in on this channel like because yeah maybe people just take it and and run with it. King Gambit that is not a super good matchup um I will post it on patreon regardless because I post all my teams there and I'll still post the extra battles with this team regardless, but yeah, we will have to see. So I don't think this is a good matchup. Honestly, it's not so bad, right?

I need to watch out for that Dragapult. That looks pretty scary. They don't have any Intimidate, so my Milotic is only So-So. I would like to lead it Instant, but they could be leading with King Gambit.

Let's try Sneaseler up front, or because they have sun. But yeah, I think it's probably, I actually think it might be Milotic here because it's, it actually, like Scald is really good with, like Scald just applies good pressure and then Icy Wind actually is pretty nice here as well. So let's give this a shot. Oh, we got this music. Let's go. Sneasel or Dragapult. Okay. Interesting. So a bit of an awkward lead for me, I think. I'm going to protect both my Pokemon here, I think. I'm gonna protect both my Pokemon here, I think. Yeah, I'm not sure I'll be in a position where I'm able to go for, what am I trying to say? A Calm Mind here, but I think getting the speed boost is pretty good here, especially because the Spathra

can KO their Sneaselur in one hit, potentially. There's Fake Out. The question is, does the Sneaselur focus Ash, right? We go for Psychic Fangs actually, was not expecting that. Super not expecting that. So it looks like my Sneaselurr's probably just dead. I'm gonna Lumina Crash their Sneaselurr, and I'm gonna Direclaw here,

because I think it's somewhat obvious now that I switch out. And if I can get the status condition here, that'd really swing things. Here's Lumina Crash. Okay, if they don't have mind taking a Psychic Fangs here, like trading Sneaselur for Sneaselur. It is just Psychic Fangs, I guess I could have switched.

Yeah, my Sneaselur hasn't felt as good as I would have liked it to, in all honesty. So let's see here. I'm now plus 2 speed, I don't want to call Mind Up, but that's kind of okay. I go into my Lotic here. I can start going for Scald slash Icy Winds. Gambit, okay. I think that's all right, all things considered. I think I should probably just rip the Baton Pass now and Scald here.

I don't have the Special Events boost, which is kind of suspect, but like, yeah, if I get the Baronic and Gambit, it would be a big deal. Okay, here's Baton Pass. So now, okay, now we have partial set up off. We didn't get the Calm Mind up, but we do get Dragonite in with two speed boosts. I think that's part of the nice thing about a spot throw

is you don't need necessarily to go for... Okay, it's mixed actually. Gonna break multi-scale here. No drop, okay, that's good. If we get the burn here, we're in really good shape. It's good damage. Oh, that's so good. Skald is such a broken move.

Skald is such a broken move. Let's do the go for Swords Dance. Okay, Kowtow. Into my Milotic, yeah, but thanks to the burn, it's really not doing much. We have some leftovers.

Yeah, okay, this is now looking very, very good. Cause I can mega evolve, get my speed up, And I'm just gonna Scald here again, I think. Is there like, am I missing something? Is there like Sash on this? Where's the Sash on this team? Could be on Dragapult, I guess. With the speed boost, by the way, it's actually totally possible that, stay in, okay.

It's totally possible for me to set up late game for like an Asphalthra, Lumina Crash. Dragonite Mega Evolves. I go for Dragon Pulse. Do they have Focus Sash? I kind of saw it coming, didn't I? Okay, I'm now back into being in trouble. It's not over, but it's starting to look a little bit... Let's see the Draco Meteor. Oh no. Oh my god, I think I'm gonna lose that. Yeah, Dragonite because I lost the multi-skill on the switch and I could have gone for a Roost this turn. I just thought it was like somewhat overkill.

Yeah, I just didn't cover for Sash, Dragapult, unfortunately. Okay, 65 down to 33. Interesting. And another Kowtow Cleave comes out. My Melodic actually is taking damage here, unfortunately. So I guess it's special Dragapult, but it's a lot to be mixed because it's the Focus Sash. We're getting lower. It's not over because I still have Sash on a

Spathra here. I always should protect a Spathra, for sure. The question is, do I attack with Milotic or do I just click Recover, maybe? I think Recover is certainly not bad here. I'm not really This covers as well for like a switch a little bit, it like punishes it slightly.

Here's Garchomp actually, okay. Interesting.

My Milotic is in really good shape here, the problem is...

Okay, Sucker Punch comes out, it fails.

Okay, I have kind of a crazy idea. I kind of want to go for Lumina Crash into Garchomp. I kind of want to go for Icy Wind. I'm going to do it. I'm going to potentially activate plus two on this King Gambit because it's burned, so it's basically goes back to neutral and I think they might go for Sucker Punch this turn anyway.

We'll have to see. This is a bit of, this is probably the crucial turn now that Dragonite is gone. Yeah, Milotic's looking really good here. That first burn ends up just being so important. I think if I hadn't got that first burn, I would've been in really, really major trouble. Okay, here's Sucker Punch. Okay, Ispathra takes a ton of damage here.

Goes down to 37 HP. Here's Lumina Crash. It's gonna drop Garchomp down to 60%. uh 60% drop special defense into by two like we're stomping into my little guy actually survived the turn with um with a spothrow or yeah with the spot for here i do and it's both how much does the pseudokin gambit folks it didn't do enough i made a mistake it didn't do enough it didn't do enough oh no okay hold on

oh no i got the guard chomp but I could have just scalded I guess. Oh god, okay. Okay, I think I can still win this. The question is just how? Okay, we don't know the last move on Dragapult. We don't know if it's protect. We've seen Psychic Fang, Shadow Ball, and Draco Meteor. Okay, I protect, protect, let's say the Sgent Dance. It's the worst case scenario. The next turn I would Lumenic Crash into Dragapult and I would recover. Yeah, fine. Oh, but what do they go for Phantom Force? We've seen Shadow Ball. Surely they don't have Phantom Force as well. They didn't protect. Your Sucker Punch, okay. Shadow Ball, okay. Into Milotic.

My God, this is gonna be down to the wire. Okay, 4% left of King Gambit. I think my best move here is to go for Illumina Crash into Dragapult. This forces them to have to Sucker Punch me, right? And then I can Scald into Dragapult, actually.

This is better, because I can't miss. Yeah, they Sucker Punch into a Spaw Throw. The question now is, Milotic is one of the single bulkiest Pokemon in the game right now. Does it survive a Draco Meteor?

Oh, just, they go for Shadow Ball.

Okay.

And surely I survived Shadow Ball. Yeah, not even close. I guess they were banking on Icy Wind missing, but because of the burn, I can actually just rely on that to take out the King Gambit. So Dragapult's gonna go down here, and my Lodi versus King Gambit, the final battle here, it's gonna come down to the burn,

which finishes off King Gambit. So yeah, this is definitely a weird game. They had some really unorthodox sets, but you can see the value of those strange sets, And I think that if I hadn't gotten the burn, I might've been in some big trouble. Okay, we got to win, we got to win. Yeah, and the spot throw was honestly pretty good here, even though like the full setup strategy didn't work,

I think it was still worth using. So this is a sand team, but it also has a tricker mode. Huh, I don't really have that many great options against tricker or against sand. pretty scary. They also have Orthor, who is pretty scary. So I wonder if this is a Venusaur game. It's probably a Venusaur game, to be honest. Yeah, I think that means

this is pretty good into a lot of their Pokemon. I would really like to get a Calm Mind up. And then the last Pokemon, yeah, I'm gonna do my Lotic Forth here. I feel like Sneaselur, everybody's ready for Sneaselur, I don't think Dragonite is bad here, but like Venusaur, with Mega Venusaur actually getting thick fat, it's actually not so bad into Crabominable Mega.

Assuming they go with a Trick Room route. I don't know how easy it's going to be to get my Baton Pass off here. Okay, Sinister Plus, um, Glamora is kind of spooky. I'm going to go for Calm Mind, and I'm going to fake this because I have Mega Venusaur in the back, so if Toxic Spikes go up, it's not such a big deal. They need to watch out for my Illumina Crash, though. I expect them to go for Trick Room on this turn, to be honest. Crabominable, Glamora, T-Tar Exca. Okay, so here's Fake Out.

Toxic Debris, okay, not great. I could've gone for, like... Okay, that's very, very good. That's very, very, very good. Okay, I think let's not be greedy. I think one Combine is probably enough here. Although, I mean, I could go for a second one, right? But I think they could go for Tricker, yeah, they could just go for Tricker as well. Okay, the other option here is I could actually

go into Venusaur on this turn if I wanted. Hang on, let me think about this, I could switch to Venu and Lumina Crash on this turn. This is a bit risky. I don't think it's on Mega Glamora. There's too many other good Megas on this team. I just had to speak. I just had to speak.

Okay.

Let's see. I don't think Incineroar survives this. I'll tell you that much. Okay, Ragepower. Yeah, they're not even going for Trick Room here. I guess I'm just gonna lose my, what's it called here? Okay, plus one limited crash. It's not gonna do that much damage, unfortunately. I could have

Baton Passed here. I just, I wanted to get a second boost up, to be honest. Do I have to go for a Power Gem? I don't think there's any world in which Instants are ro- Oh, okay, that's pretty good! Okay, now that they've mega evolved, I feel like I don't need to save Incineroar. It's like not as important that I save Incineroar because of the fact that, what am I saying? I feel like it's not as important that I save Incineroar because I don't have to worry about his Claw of Evil as much.

I have Lumina Crash available on this turn. I could Lumina Crash either slot. I don't hate Calm Mind Mega Sludgebong here I think. They switched! Into T-tar, okay. This is a good turn for me I think, because they're minus two on the Sinistra. So all of a sudden I have Mega Venusaur in play. I've already Mega Evolved early, which is good. I got rid of the Toxic Sp spikes. Let's see what they go for here. I go for another

Combine so I'm now plus two plus two plus two I think with speed as well about to be plus three. I go for Sludge Bomb here. I take out this Nishioji which means no more Trick Room threat on this team. So what else do they have? Exeggeral, Orthworm, or Crabominable? All of which are a little bit awkward here for them. I have Venusaur in play. I'm now plus three on the Venusaur. Is that gonna be faster than Excadrill and Sand?

I super doubt it. Plus three versus Excadrill and Sand. Plus another one, okay. I'm actually gonna protect both here, which seems a little strange, I know. The stall's a turn of sand, but more importantly, it allows my Venusaur next turn to outspeed their Excadrill and their Tyranitar. Next turn, I'm gonna switch Venusaur into Incineroar, and I'm gonna go for a Baton Pass on that turn. So I'll get the Intimidate on both Pokemon,

unless they're White Herb, I guess. And then I'll get plus four speed Mega Venusaur with plus two They're doing Mega Drill. That's probably against the rules. You're not supposed to name your Pokemon after other Pokemon. I guess Drill isn't a Pokemon. Okay, this is a bit of a sore spot for me because back in my second ever regional in Philadelphia in 2012, somebody named their, they had Exadrill T-tar and they named their Exadrill Tar

and they named their T-tar Drill. And one of them had the balloon, and I Earth-powered into the balloon one because they had done this sneaky thing with their nicknames. Okay, I'm doing it now. I'm gonna go for it. I'm plus four speed in Asbothra, but I'm gonna go for it here.

If I can get Venusaur in safely, I can use Giga Drain to heal a ton of health back, which would be really clutch, I Intimidate both these Pokemon. They don't protect. Would've been good if they had. Here's Baton Pass, nice clean animation there. I could go Milotic here, but I mean, the whole point is to get the setup into one of the Mega Evolutions, right?

They go for High Horsepower into Venu. Does a lot. And they Rock Slide, but they miss one of my Pokemon. Venu, okay, that's way better for me. Okay, now we just need to start gigadraining stuff. Right, just need to get some gigadrains off. I think I'm really strong now.

I'm like, I'm super, super, super strong. I go into my Lotic now, I think, because my Lotic's water typing hits all three of these Pokemon for super effective. The question is, who should I Scald? I'm gonna Giga Drain the T-tar in case it's Scarf. Like, it is possible, right? I'm gonna Scald the Excadrill. The Scald is better versus Excadrill as well. No Protect from T-tar.

No Protect from T-tar. No Protect from T-tar. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Okay, that's fine. I really just need the health back. It's my number one goal right now. We're gonna go for Giga Drain. This is boosted Giga Drain. It's not gonna be that much,

because they have the Sand up. Without the Sand, it would've been a KO. We get a lot of health back from that. We go for Scald. I'm gonna Giga Drain again. or my own Milotic. I feel like the safest play is to Gigadrain here and Scald here. It seems like a reasonable play at the very least. If I get crit, then I can lose.

But the thing is, as long as I'm Scalding the Excadrill, like I still have Milotic, which is pretty difficult for this team to handle. And if I get a KO on this turn, then the sand will end and that will put me really far ahead. I'm really excited to use that Pokemon. I go back to decent health. And we'll have to see what Exeggutor does. They basically, I think they need to crit me

on this turn to win. Oh, but they went to my load again. That's, well, they got the crit, but that's not what I meant. You need to crit Venusaur, I'm pretty sure. Okay, tell me honestly,

have you ever seen Mega Venusaur at speed Exeggutor in the sand. No, no burn. Oh, the sand ended. That's actually bad timing. I guess if they crit me again, they could win, right? Here's T-tar again. I mean, surely plus two Giga Drain KOs. Surely, this thing probably, I think this is Scarf T-tar, right? I don't think it's bulky.

Let's Giga Drain into T-tar and let's go for a recover. drain. If it doesn't survive, I think they're just hosed. Whoa. Okay. Hang on. They're- they could win this still. Because my- my Spawther can never damage their Tyranitar. Okay, but my- oh, it's not Scarf. Hello. I guess I could have gone for like Icy Wind. Oh, let's go for Rock Slide. That's not gonna do enough damage, and they miss my Lotic. Okay. I don't think a crit will get it here. Yeah, yeah, good effort, but I think in the end, my Venusaur is just too unbreakable. Yeah, it took a little bit of setup,

but like once Venusaur gets going, the fact that it's able to do this much damage and is able to heal back so much, like I didn't even need to click synthesis. I'm almost wondering if maybe I should have just run a different move here instead of synthesis. Yeah, okay, that's the end of the Excadrill. And I think that's just gonna do it, to be honest, yeah.

You know, it's funny, I know Assault Vest isn't in the game, but seeing that Tyranitar survived close to Giga Drain and seeing that it hasn't used Protect, I'm like, yeah, maybe it's Assault Vest, Tyranitar, that would make sense. Oh, found the item, Pastureberry, okay.

All right. Okay, and then that's a second win, so that's pretty good. What I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna queue up and I'm gonna play until I get a game with, where I can at least bring Mega Dragonite, because I feel like we didn't get the full setup on Mega Dragonite and I wanna see if I can give it a shot. So, yeah, it might be a bit of a break until the next one,

but I do want us to have one game here, where we try and feature, if possible, I'm gonna try and get the full setup onto Mega Dragonite. I'm also just gonna bring it regardless of if it's a good or bad matchup. So yeah, we might have a jump cut here. Maybe we won't. Okay, Rain Team with a Tricker mode and potential Blastoise Mega. Do I even bring Sneaselur?

Sneaselur's, wait, Sneaselur's not even good here. and then pass to Dragonite. I think that if I can get a boost on Dragonite, I only need one of each. Like I don't need two speed boosts, I don't need two special attack boosts. I think one of each is enough here. I don't think this is a bad matchup at all. My Dragonite will outspeed everything at plus one. I gotta watch out for like Tailwind plus Water Spout stuff,

but other than that, Last Voice plus Pelipper. I mean, it's a strong lead, so they could do it. Okay, Aegislash, Sinister is not what I expected. Uh, I don't know what to make of that, to be honest. I have to go for Calm Mind here, right? It's gonna be really bad. I'm gonna Party Shot the Aegislash. I know we have Dark moves available,

but I think the more important thing here is to keep a Espothra alive. In a perfect world, they just ignore the Esphothra for a turn, or they play defensive, right? Okay, protect from Sinistra, I mean, that's not a bad thing for me, by any means. Let's see if they go for Kingshield with Aegislash. Okay, they don't go for Kingshield. I'm gonna Calm Mind here. Get my special defense up.

Ideally, this is just an Aegislash that doesn't have Shadow Sneak. I'll get them to minus one and minus one. Sorry, minus two and minus one because I have Intimidate as well. I'll go into my Lotic here. Let's see if they're physical or special. I think we'd rather see special here because yeah, special, we should take less damage from.

Shadow Ball, they are special. Hey, how much does this do? Minus one versus plus one, that's a lot of damage. That might be in shadow sneak range minus two shadow sneak not not like life or anything i'm gonna baton pass here and i'm gonna switch back to instant because i think the most important thing here is that i get my setup off what's going on my mouse

it only glitches when i try to move it which is kind of important okay they didn't go for they didn't go for it okay whatever uh whatever. Okay, a Baton Pass here. So it's plus one, plus one, plus one to my Dragonite. Dragonite is now in. With all these boosts. A Machigotcha, I would prefer not to be burned.

Being burned here would kinda suck. What's the odds of burn? 100%, three damage to Dragonite? Just knock at the burn. Okay, great. Great, great, great, great, great.

Cool.

Okay, and they don't get the special defense drop. So, Dragonite is just plus 1, plus 1, plus 1. Let's go for Terra Heatwave here and Throat Chop. I could Roost if I'm predicting something here, but I guess this is Pelipper coming in? Incin, okay, that's not good. That was a good switch, I could've roosted, my bad. We know three of their four mons now though,

which is like not great for them. I wonder who's faster between our two Incins. Heatwave, okay, plus one Heatwave. Think Sinistra and a Citrus Barrel will survive a throat chop after the intimidate. Oh, okay, they don't. Interesting.

So they might not even be like Trick Room Sinistra then. That's pretty good for me. Heal a little bit, but that's certainly not enough. There's no way they'll have throat chop. No, no, no, no, no, no, definitely not. There's no way, unless they're Culberberry, which I...

Uh-huh!

Okay. Okay, at least I didn't know which two animations. Okay, Throat Chop knocks out Sinister. That's really good. That means their Trick Room option is now removed. Holy. Which is excellent. What's their last Pokemon? Blastoise?

Could be Blastoise, Barchomp.

Okay.

So I think I'm just gonna go for Protect here. And I think I'll switch back to Milotic. I'm not really that worried about this. The thing is, if they switch Incineroar out again, then they're really gonna have to contend with the fact that Milotic has competitive, because they do not have good ways through Milotic quickly here.

I think I'm definitely in the lead. I have my boosted Dragonite. Even if they Parting Shot me, it's not the end of the world. Let's go for Protect. You're a fake out into my Lodic, okay. And they Swords Dance, oh, interesting. Okay, that's a good move.

That's a really good move, okay. I am faster though, still. This is the truth. I think this is fine though. Dragon Pulse plus Skull just gets some damage and instant. Okay, they don't protect.

Dragon Pulse comes out. It could be Sash. Okay, no, they're not Sash. I keep forgetting that I have to cover for random Focus Sash Pokemon. Okay, Gardevoir goes down, and now I think it's gonna be nearly impossible to get through Dragonite.

Skull actually does a lot of damage to Nintendo Hero. This is probably where the citrus is, right? Yeah, there we go, okay. I just realized that Sinisha would've been leftovers then. that. Parting shot into...

So they parting shot me which gives me plus three special attack.

Okay, well, okay. Well, that was interesting. Here's my honest opinion. I don't think this team is very good Like I was able to get a couple wins, but I I don't I don't think that this team is very good So if you really want to try it out just on patreon I'll also post a couple extra videos on patreon as well a couple extra battles with this team on patreon But I think it's like a fun concept. I do not think this is how you're supposed to use Mega Dragonite. I honestly don't even think the issue was the Dragonite. I think the issue was the Espatha Baton Pass stuff. I don't think that it really works in this format.

I think that like, I think the pace is too slow. So I'm glad I tried it. I feel like I learned a lot. I feel like I've, I learned a lot about, I feel like I've, I learned a lot about, I did not fail to build a team.