Having Troubles Against Ursaluna? This Might Do The Trick!
With the Pokémon VGC Regulation Set D now ongoing and ideas beginning to surface, we are starting to see several Pokémons coming into the spotlight. One of them is the teddy bear from ancient history: Ursaluna.
I myself have faced teams with Ursaluna a few times and oh boy, is it the strongest teddy bear. So, I tried to figure out a way to deal with it, and my niche answer is...
Drifblim!
Let me tell you more about it👇️
(Please note that I am not a professional Pokémon VGC player nor a ranked connoisseur, so consider taking my words with a grain of salt.)
I can see why there aren't that many players that use Drifblim as a part of their team during the previous tournaments of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Despite having the highest base HP of all Flying-type Pokémon (150), it has a relatively low Defense (44) and Sp. Defense (54) to be considered bulky enough. But, its stats were not the first thing that caught my eye.
As I was looking for a counter to Ursaluna, I initially thought of a good defensive typing against its most common attacks like Facade, Earthquake/Headlong Rush, and Hammer Arm/Close Combat. After a bit of searching, a type combo came to mind: Ghost/Flying. So far, only 3 Pokémons have this type combo: Drifloon, Drifblim, and Oricorio-Sensu Style. I love Drifblim and when I took a closer look at it, Drifblim also has the unique ability called Flare Boost, which increases the power of its Special moves by 50% while the Pokémon is burned.
You see, a big part of what makes Ursaluna so strong is Guts, an ability which boosts its Attack by 50% if it's asleep, burned, paralyzed, or poisoned. The easiest and most common way of achieving said boost is via the held item Flame Orb, which burns the holder at the end of every turn.
So now, here comes the tricky part...
Ursaluna holds its Flame Orb dearly, but it's not that simple to remove it. However, we do have a little trick up our sleeves (quite literally). Yep, you guessed it:
Trick!
Drifblim has access to the move Trick, which swaps its held item with the target. With Flame Orb being a crucial part of Guts Ursaluna, swapping it with another item can be quite disruptive. But... a new question arises:
If Ursaluna was already burned when we took its Flame Orb, then Trick wouldn't change anything, right?
That is 100% true, and that is exactly why we're going to give Drifblim a Rawst Berry as its held item! Rawst Berry has a simple effect: If the holder is burned, Rawst berry will be consumed to cure the burn. So, not only we remove the Flame Orb from Ursaluna, we also cure its burn (essentially removing its +50% Attack bonus), AND we can benefit from the Flame Orb burn that activates Flare Boost to power up Drifblim's Special moves!
Great! We're done with the tricky part, right?
Well, yes, but not really.
While Drifblim has a good defensive matchup against Ursaluna, it lacks an offensive horsepower. Drifblim might be immune to Ursaluna's common attack options, but Ursaluna is also immune to Drifblim's both Shadow Ball and Thunderbolt because of its Normal/Ground type. So... now what?
Now is when we start to pay attention to Ursaluna's most common pairing: Cresselia, a bulky Psychic-type Pokémon also starting to come into the spotlight more often. Although the most common set is to set up Trick Room and supporting its partner Pokémon with Helping Hand and Lunar Blessing, we can also expect it to have some coverage moves like Ice Beam or Moonblast. Ice Beam can be a threat to Drifblim, but with some EV investments here and there, Cresselia's damage output should be relatively negligible. Some things to look out for is Ursaluna's coverage move like Crunch or Shadow Claw, but again, nothing a good ol' EV investment wouldn't fix (at least to avoid One-Hit Knockouts).
So there you go! That's my take on how to face Ursaluna in the current format. Obviously, this strategy is very niche and has a small margin of error to make it really work. But if it does work, I think it would be so fun to play and extremely satisfying!
So, what do you guys think about this strategy? Do you think Drifblim deserves more spotlight?