Hello! Kasper Kallio here! I am a Finnish VGC player known for mind-blowing techs and creative teambuilding. If you have been living under a rock, I just Top 16’d the largest tournament to date, 2024 EUIC, with none other than Iron Ball Chi-Yu! 🔥🐟🌑
Want to know how I did it? This is my story.
Table of Contents
Teambuilding process
Let’s jump to the very beginning – I know all of you are curious and mind-boggled how on earth I landed on an idea such as Iron Ball Chi-Yu.
During Regulation Set E, I was preparing for a local MSS in November where I was going to bring your standard Choice Specs Chi-Yu. So I had a Chi-Yu to catch. As one does with Special Attackers, you soft-reset until you land on that 0 or 1 Attack IV range. With a Master Ball in my hand, I got to work. After a painful amount of attempts (I believe the exact number was 84, but my brain was fried at that point to keep an even track, so I’m not entirely sure about that number), I finally find myself landing onto a 1 Attack IV Chi-Yu. I was ecstatic. I had done it! Yet…with closer inspection of the IVs of my Chi-Yu I noticed something slightly… peculiar. Chi-Yu’s Speed was pretty good. Which got me thinking, could I run this Chi-Yu under Trick Room as well as Tailwind?
I ended up borrowing another Chi-Yu for my MSS and kept that Trick Room idea on the backburner. I got 2nd at that MSS and Regulation Set E was wrapping up shortly. It was time to look for new ideas for Regulation Set F.
Jumping forward into this February. I decided to revisit my idea of a slower Chi-Yu with more bulk by utilizing items such as Sitrus Berry or a Focus Sash. Those tests performed fairly poorly and I decided that there was no merit to this crazy idea of mine… until. I decided to see if, by dropping the power that Life Orb, Focus Sash or Sitrus Berry would provide, I could have a bigger impact by cutting my pretty good Speed by half with Iron Ball. To my suprise, it did!
Now, Chi-Yu having solid access to Trick Room options as well as the capability to effectively work in Tailwind against medium-Speed Pokémon was all set to conquer the world! (Insert evil unhinged laughter)
How did my EUIC team come about then? It was an evolved version of my early Regulation Set F team. My first version of Iron Ball Chi-Yu that I used to crush my locals included Chi-Yu, Farigiraf, Clefairy, Chien-Pao, Rapid Strike Style Urshifu, and Hearthflame Mask Ogerpon.
This team was clever in many ways.
- First, I had a superb fast mode due to Chien-Pao running Icy Wind and Ogerpon and Urshifu being both very oppressive on their damage output in their own right – under Swords of Ruin even more so.
- Then, my Trick Room mode in this team was very clever. I could auto-win games if they weren’t able to remove Clefairy during Turn 1. On Turn 1 I would Follow Me, Protect or Life Dew on Clefairy + then Nasty Plot with the Farigiraf. Turn 2 I would always click Follow Me on Clefairy to guarantee it going down. This leaves me room for Chi-Yu to come in and I end Turn 2 by clicking Trick Room on Farigiraf. Now I have a guaranteed win condition about virtually anything: Chi-Yu can Ruination or Heat Wave the initial target(s) with the Normal-type Terastallized Farigarf using Hyper Voice to demolish everything and anything in its wake!
And it worked! I gained one PC win, finished 2nd in a MSS and gained 5 CP from a Global Challenge.
But soon after, in March, the team began to fall off in my testing. The rise of spread moves and manual Taunt neutered the effectiveness of Clefairy, which really took apart my initial strategy. I was forced to adapt.
After replacing the fast mode (Chien-Pao + Rapid Strike Style Urshifu + Hearthflame Mask Ogerpon) with Flutter Mane + Lilligant + Torkoal I began to see more success vs the meta. Unfortunately it still didn’t hold up as consistently vs the wide variety of teams that I was hoping for. Saddened by the reality of the current state of the meta, I made the decision to give my Chi-Yu a well-deserved break and pivot to an entirely new direction with my team of choice for EUIC.
I stopped playing for a while. I decided to relax and wind down and let the ideas come to me. I hopped on to the builder 2 weeks before EUIC as I was under time pressure to figure out a team as I hadn’t come up with any new teams or consistent ideas during my downtime. Once I began building again, I began to feel a slight pull towards an archetype that all of my teambuilding processes ended up at – “HOW ON EARTH DO I BEAT ARCHALUDON RAIN?!?”
Archaludon Rain teams are extremely oppressive. And after playing it once and alternating between Electro Shot and Body Press, seeing my Special Attack and Defense go up thanks to Stamina boosts, I kept laughing uncontrollably when I could see my opponent struggling as much as I have all this time.
Quickly, I put the team’s main core together: Archaludon, Pelipper and Rapid Strike Style Urshifu. First interaction ended up being Archaludon, Pelipper, Urshifu, Sableye, Amoonguss, and Incarnate Forme Landorus (with Covert Cloak Weather Ball to beat opposing Landorus).
Soon seeing it wasn’t working well enough due to Sableye being too passive, I got to more baking. I baked and I baked, my dough was running out and I had to take another break. Then, like a Thunder from the sky, it hit me! I will add a Psychic spam mode (Psyspam) into the team with Female Indeedee and Hatterene. Removing Sableye and Amoonguss from the team made the team perform much better.
Though… it wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t content. Something wasn’t right, something was missing. Thinking about how the dual-Speed team played, I got the biggest devious smile on my face and my heart filled with joy. “Chi-Yu, my beloved, can I really bring you to EUIC and shock the world?” And so, that’s what I did. Crash or burn, I will bring Iron Ball Chi-Yu to EUIC.
It was Wednesday when I had this 6 in my roster, less than 2 days left now before EUIC Round 1 started. I began a fast-paced testing process which proved the team to be effective. I began to hone my Dondozo + Ting-Lu matchup (DozoTing) and Raging Bolt matchups, as those matchups I deemed the trickiest during my prep. Those came in handy as I faced 1 DozoTing which I won, and 5 Raging Bolt teams with 2-3 scores versus them. I would have enjoyed more time practicing vs Raging Bolt teams, but I’m quite content how I did vs them.
One day before EUIC I made the call to make a crucial Tera Type change with Urshifu changing from Water to Steel Tera Type. This highly improved my Flutter Mane, Rillaboom and Raging Bolt matchups with Urshifu, as it allowed it to remain safely on the field while being a high-tier threat. That seemingly small change made my team 5 times better. Being able to keep Urshifu on the field vs Flutter Mane or Rillaboom was crucial.
The Team
This is the team I ran. It was an Archaludon Rain team with a Psyspam mode as well as Iron Ball Chi-Yu as a backdoor option to beat opposing Trick Room teams as well as to enable a guaranteed win condition under Trick Room next to Hatterene.
Get the team’s open team sheet here!
Chi-Yu @ Iron Ball
Ability: Beads of Ruin
Tera Type: Ghost
– Dark Pulse
– Heat Wave
– Nasty Plot
– Snarl
Archaludon @ Assault Vest
Ability: Stamina
Tera Type: Fairy
– Flash Cannon
– Dragon Pulse
– Electro Shot
– Body Press
Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Unseen Fist
Tera Type: Steel
– Surging Strikes
– Close Combat
– Aqua Jet
– U-turn
Pelipper @ Focus Sash
Ability: Drizzle
Tera Type: Ghost
– Hurricane
– Tailwind
– Wide Guard
– Weather Ball
Hatterene @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Psychic
– Expanding Force
– Dazzling Gleam
– Calm Mind
– Trick Room
Indeedee-F @ Psychic Seed
Ability: Psychic Surge
Tera Type: Grass
– Dazzling Gleam
– Follow Me
– Helping Hand
– Trick Room
How to use the team
The team is essentially a standard Archaludon Rain team that’s been… well, modified.
Key player and the MVP of the team is Pelipper. Pelipper enables the team to function perfectly. Drizzle bringing Rain immediately allows me to lean on the provided weather immediately. My most common lead pairs were Pelipper + Urshifu or Archaludon depending on the matchup. Around 75% of all my games I only brought Pelipper, Urshifu, Archaludon and Indeedee. The Indeedee + Hatterene pairing provides me with an extremely powerful Trick Room core. It helps to beat Amoonguss as well as Calm Mind Raging Bolt, since Raging Bolt can’t touch Hatterene under Psychic Terrain. “But what’s Chi-Yu doing there?” I hear you asking.
Chi-Yu is a powerful backdoor option that serves to function as follows:
- To counter opposing Trick Room with Snarls.
- Providing an immense damage increase next to Hatterene and sweep opposing enemies in combination, breaking Focus Sashes along the way.
I remember Chi-Yu being brought only during my Rounds 2 & 14, where my opponents didn’t have any good calls to beat my Hatterene + Indeedee core, which enables Chi-Yu to come out of hiding due to it being slowed down by Iron Ball. From all the sets Chi-Yu was brought in, it secured me the wins in both sets. So Iron Ball Chi-Yu reigned supreme with a whopping 100% win rate.
On a side note I might have brought it versus my Round 4 opponent, but I’m not entirely sure about that. Have to interview him about that I guess. Regardless, I won that set too.
Strategy
I mainly had two forms of strategies going into my matches: aim for a Rain sweep or a Psyspam Trick Room sweep.
Of these two, Rain is much easier to pull off as Pelipper sets up Rain immediately via Drizzle and has access to great support moves such as Tailwind and Wide Guard as well as blasting powerful attacks with Weather Ball and Hurricane. The Ghost Tera Type and Focus Sash secures Pelipper to have at least some impact in every game through its moveset. Via Drizzle, Archaludon turns to an immediate high-tier threat that, if left unchecked, will sweep entire teams. Electro Shotting to boost my Special Attack while setting up Tailwind was the way I won most of my games. After I outsped my opponents, there was almost nothing they could do.
When it comes to Trick Room the goal was to play in to that mode when my opponent couldn’t punish it. If you look at my Round 14 opponent’s team, he had no way to prevent me to set up Trick Room turn 1 with Hatterene + clicking Follow Me with Indeedee. On Game 1 turn 1, Indeedee receiving Taunt from Landorus and getting hit by Flash Cannon by Heatran I had already secured that game’s win provided I didn’t misplay. Turn 2 all I had to do was Psychic Tera Type-boosted Expanding Force with Hatterene and bringing out Chi-Yu. The damage was too much for my opponent, his team couldn’t withstand it, and the game was over after a few turns of attempting to Protect-stall.
Tactics
My main special tactics under Rain was to lead Urshifu + Archaludon and clicking U-turn + Electro Shot on Turn 1. By U-turning into Pelipper I could dual target a singular slot dishing serious damage with two attacks say vs Wellspring Mask Ogerpon for instance. After that, I set up Tailwind to secure an overtly oppressive position, keeping Indeedee in the back in case things get hairy; I can bring it in to keep Archaludon safe.
Under Trick Room one of my favorite tactics was to click Calm Mind when I didn’t have Psychic Terrain, for when Raging Bolt attempted to Thunderclap me. Also on my Round 13 game vs another Finn, Teemu Mankinen, I did one of my best and favorite plays all tournament. I was face to face in a 2 vs 2 situation looking at max HP Amoonguss + max HP Choice Specs Galarian Moltres, who is already locked on to Fiery Wrath the turn before. I had 52% Grass-Tera Type Indeedee + full HP Hatterene under Trick Room. Assuming he would Pollen Puff the Moltres in the hopes of me going for Helping Hand + Dazzling Gleam, I decided to do a complete counter for that play. He still had few turns of Light Screen left, so directly attacking wouldn’t do anything but give Moltres a Berserker boost and almost getting back to full health due to Pollen Puff. In fact, I used Dazzling Gleam with Indeedee to give me some chip on the Moltres + clicked Calm Mind on Hatterene. Sure enough I Calm Mind, Amoonguss Pollen Puffs a full HP Moltres, Dazzling Gleam comes out of Indeedee doing slight chip damage and Moltres uses Fiery Wrath with both Indeedee and Hatterene still living the attack. After that, the game was sealed: the combination of Helping Hand + Dazzling Gleam picked up Moltres and then on the following turn an Expanding Force took out the Amoonguss, sealing me the game.
Tournament run
Shortly about my tournament run. The six Pokémon were locked in my head only days before EUIC. The day before I made a great call changing the Water Tera Type of Urshifu into Steel. Arriving to London late at night, finishing the team in-game and submitting it to RK9 Labs… it wasn’t until 1 am that I was able to go to bed.
Upon waking up in the morning I had a realization. When I woke up I told my buddy Teemu Mankinen, who I was traveling with: “Dude, I just realized I don’t have any Protects in my team.” But the truth is real Iron Ballers don’t Protect!
Day 1
With not much sleep and a throbbing headache that lasted the whole day, I was all set to conquer the world by storm! 😄 With the power of protein bars, trail mix and plenty (and I mean PLENTY) of water, I finished Day 1 with a 7-2 standing, getting me into Day 2. I was ecstatic! I was feeling real good starting the following day with more sleep and even more confidence in myself and my team.
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | Win |  Thomas Leigh-Dobbie (Tom) |     |  |
| R2 | Win |  Mark Proupes (Mark) |      | |
| R3 | Win | Rhys Davies (Bardock) |      | |
| R4 | Win | Fabian Slany (Fabi) |   | |
| R5 | Loss |  Àlex Gómez (PokeAlex) |  | |
| R6 | Win | Héctor Sánchez (Layla) |    | |
| R7 | Loss |  Francesco Iozzia (Young Nova) |  | |
| R8 | Win | Roberto Retico (Madison) |    | |
| R9 | Win |  Oliver Achermann (Giottas) |  | |
Day 2 Swiss rounds
On Day 2 I only lost my first round vs… well, you would have guessed it by now, yet another Raging Bolt team. After that, I won all of my remaining rounds leaving me with a 12-3 finish. I finished in the Top 16 at 15th out of close to a 1000 players. Shame that I wasn’t put on stream during this run, but Iron Ball Chi-Yu sure won some hearts, and some money!
Conclusion
I do feel like when it came to Regulation Set F, this team was the perfect and ultimate call to make for EUIC, having no heavily disfavored matchups while also retaining a highly positive matchup vs most teams as you could see from my 12-3 standing. Only Raging Bolt teams took sets from me and, with more preparation time, I would surely win 1 or 2 more of them.
When it comes to the upcoming Regulation Set G I’m looking to pivot away from Rain. The new meta will be faster and stronger thanks to Restricteds being allowed now, and Rain looks to be somewhat weaker than it ever was before.
I have my own eyes set on my 2022 EUIC Snow and Sun archetypes. White Kyurem seems to have an interesting spot in the Regulation Set G meta, playing well into Sun and Rain. Snow also provides a Defense boost for it, and also a potential Aurora Veil or screens can enable Kyurem to be a high-tier threat.
So you might now be wondering – is this it? What’s next for Kasper? Well, you can bet on the fact that I’ll be bringing my brightest creations for the world to see at Worlds this August in Honolulu. In the meanwhile I’m looking to possibly attend the remaining tournaments between now and NAIC. I’m planning on starting content creation on Patreon to share my knowledge with those who want to become the world’s best players in VGC. Right now, I have begun coaching some devoted players that resonate with my playstyle and philosophy on how I approach VGC.
Thank you for reading my EUIC 2024 team report on how I Top 16’d EUIC 2024 with Iron Ball Chi-Yu! (Pretty rad, right?)
If you’re interested to keep on following my journey shocking the VGC world to its core, make sure to follow my journey on X at @KasperVGC.
That’s all for now! Iron Baller – out! 🌑
…
…
…
…
…
🎶 (insert ominous music) 🎶
Iron Ball Chi-Yu will return…
