In a generation full of stand out Pokemon for the Go Battle League, Donphan is one of my favorite designs in the Johto region, but can it compete in the Ultra Premier Cup? Today we'll be going through a team that is trying to help this spicy elephant shine. We'll cover the move set to run on Donphan, as it actually has quite a deep move pool. We'll also go through potential match ups to look out for and work around when running the team, and everything else I learned while testing the team out. Make sure to follow us on Twitch where you can see the team in action, or subscribe to our YouTube channel where we'll also be releasing a video with some gameplay.
The team we ended up landing on was Gengar on the lead and Lapras on the safe switch. Gengar is a fantastic lead with Shadow Claw and Shadow Punch putting a lot of shield pressure on the opponent if they want to win switch advantage. In most neutral match ups you either get a shield and win switch advantage, or they sacrifice shield advantage. We also have Shadow Ball to sweep late game once shields are down and will near one-shot most things that take neutral damage from it. Lapras is a bulking Pokemon and has a good amount of safe options. Ice Shard applies decent fast move pressure, while surf is pretty spammy, and Skull Bash hits for hard neutral damage and can boost our defense. Donphan has a surprising range of moves with Charm, Counter, and Mud-Slap being its best fast moves. Although Charm is a devastating fast move, it doesn't get stab damage so we're leaning towards Counter or Mud-Slap. Both of these moves offer the same coverage against steel types but we're leaning towards Counter, as it gains more energy per second than Mud-Slap. For charge moves, we have Heavy Slam to help cover Charmers, and Earthquake as our heavy hitter. In my testing, I discovered the leads this team struggles against. Those being, Gallade, Poliwrath, and Swampert. Confusion from Gallade shreds Gangar, but we're forced to stay in as both Pokemon in the back get torn apart by Leaf Blade. Mud-Slap from both Poliwrath and Swampert give Gengar a hard time, and both of these mons have good coverage to our backline. Additionally, teams running a Grass and Water in the back so look out for teams running Tangrowth and Swampert. During our testing, we managed some 3-2 sets with the team but most of the games were close, and we had to play very carefully. I do think that Donphan has decent enough bulk and good enough coverage to be playable. However, I think some spammier charge moves could do a lot to help it be more competitive. Moves like Rockslide come to mind as efficient coverage moves, or maybe gaining Earth Power could help it punish steals a little better. Overall, Donphan was pretty fun to roll out in the Ultra Premier Cup and performed well enough to get us some wins. If you want to see the team in full action then go follow us Twitch for our live stream, or you can subscribe to our YouTube channel for more content feature this spicy elephant. Let us know what spice you're running this season by joining the conversation in our Discord, and follow us on Instagram for updates and some bonus content. Thanks so much for reading and for joining the Fellowship.
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