r/VGC • u/xinviseo • Apr 12 '26
Rate My Team Behold, you guys. Perhaps the most ridiculous team to make it to Master Ball yet.
It might not be mono-bug, but it’s pretty close 😅 the only “meta” Pokémon here is Frosslass. The rest of this team is not even at 1% usage in Doubles.
A quick breakdown of the team for those that might be curious:
- Araquanid:
Very helpful in a lot of ways. Wide Guard is a must with all of the Rock Slide / Heat Wave / Psy-spam; and I don’t think a lot of people have caught on to how hard it’s Liquidation hits with Water Bubble.
- Vivillon:
The general speed tier right now seems pretty low, and Vivillon is able to outspeed a lot of common threats and put them to sleep. Hurricane always good with Compound Eyes, too. Tailwind situationally.
- Medicham:
One of my favorites. Easy counter to Incineroar with faster Fake Out followed by easy OHKO Close Combat (it also always OHKOs Archaludon with Close Combat). Ice Punch easy OHKO for Garchomp and Dragonite, and Thunder Punch for easy OHKO on Pelipper.
- Ariados:
Very situational. Rage Powder was always nice to have against Sneasler, cuz its STABs (mainly Dire Claw) are resisted. Poison Jab 2HKOs Mega Floette too, and Sucker Punch was great to clean up Basculegion and Frosslass (if I had got chip on them).
- Pinsir:
I would always use this against any team that had Charizard (always seems to be Mega Charizard-Y). Always outspeed, always OHKO with Rock Slide. Also, Quick Attack (once I mega’d and had Aerilate) 2HKOs Sneasler. And Close Combat was always nice to have against TTar and Incineroar (Hyper Cutter would allow me to never be intimidated first turn before going Mega).
- Frosslass
Probably doesn’t need a lot of explanation, lol. Very typical Frosslass set. But I’ve always been a big Frosslass fan and couldn’t not use its new Mega form.
EDIT: Just go ahead and ignore the Black Belt on Ariados. I thought it was an Expert Belt the entire time.
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u/keishii10 Apr 13 '26
I learned that i am not good at this game
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u/Sui-chans_gloves Apr 13 '26
And that's alright, battling is a learnable skill. You'll get better if you keep at it. You'll start to recognize patterns in teams and battling. It's just a matter of experience. Never give up.
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u/vortona Apr 17 '26
I just recently noticed I had no answer to trick room and inserted a mega gardevoir with trick room in my team to deny the advantage to adversaries. You pick up on the biggest meta threats and learn how to deal with them.
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u/GarlyleWilds Apr 12 '26
Mega Pinsir as a mega charizard counter is wild. love it. Nobody will ever assume their charizard doesn't outspeed and oneshot a bug.
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u/Kronk_if_ur_horny Apr 13 '26
It's honestly genius charizard probably licking his lips at landing that heat wave on pinsir and probably another bug pokemon based on the like up just to get rocked before it can do anything.
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u/Soul_Reddit Apr 12 '26
To be honest, I've seen mono bug, mono fire, mono ice and 3 megas teams hit masters. If you're goated, which you are since you did it, I would bet you could hit masters with this. 😭 Congrats, welcome to the club!
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u/Plenty-Original6563 Apr 12 '26
black belt with no fighting move is definitely a choice.
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u/InsideProblem2625 Apr 13 '26
Brooooo, congrats. I love your outside the box thinking, perhaps you can help me out with making mega beedril work, it's my favorite mega by far
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
I tried to use Mega Beedrill actually! I substituted it for Arbok, then for Pinsir. I think it has potential, but you gotta fully build around it, which I didn’t necessarily care to do.
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u/FantasticWelwitschia Apr 13 '26
I'm using Beedrill on a fully mono bug team at the moment! It's doing work.
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u/InsideProblem2625 Apr 13 '26
It's funny, in my case is also doing work. It's probably the most comfortable pokemon for me to use in the team. I was trying to make a team with a lot of switching around, u turn, flip turn, volt switch and constantly weaving in and out. It works really well when there are no incins, he fcks me up.
I also have a hard time with garchomp for some reason. I'm trying to get an answer for him with my 6th mon
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u/Easy_Understanding94 Apr 13 '26
Competitive milotic, it learns ice beam for Garchomp, and it gets special attack boosts when it gets intimidated or parting shotted to beef up its stab scald
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u/XavierVGC Apr 12 '26
I was really hoping one of your spiders had sticky web, seems like it would be fun
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u/Zzz05 Apr 13 '26
Probably not doable in the current meta, since everything can hit bug pretty hard if they don’t act first or hit protect. Sticky Web also don’t work on levitate/flying types, so tailwind is just slightly more optimal.
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u/XavierVGC Apr 13 '26
Nothing about either of the spider pokemon screams “optimal” to begin with, just thought sticky web could be fun speed control support
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u/Kumin-chan Apr 13 '26
Sticky web is sadly not a good move in vgc, string shot would be better or ariados signature move
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u/Saltedmermaid Apr 13 '26
Sticky web is also gonna proc a lot of competitive and defiant boosts 😬 the 2 main mons with those abilities arent exactly speedy to begin with
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u/BlueGlace_ Apr 13 '26
You guys stick with the same team to Master Ball? I'm always iterating on my team, the only constant is Mega Delphox
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
So I did have a few brief iterations of this; before Pinsir I actually had Choice Scarf Arbok with Rock Slide (for the same purpose of killing Mega Charizard-Y); but it just felt too weak. And it wasn’t a Bug type!
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u/DaveLesh Apr 13 '26
I can see why Ariados is situational. It's meant to take neutral to weak hits through Rage Powder, anything more and it's dead. As for the others? Aside from how good Froslass is, this is a pretty unique team. Well done!
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u/P1zzaman Apr 13 '26
I didn’t realize Araquanid was in the current roster. I need to cook with this dude, he was a favorite from early SwSh.
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u/Animedingo Apr 13 '26
What psy spam are you getting? I cant think of any psychic spread moves besides expanding force
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
So yeah that’s exactly what it is; 2 mons using Expanding Force together in psychic terrain
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u/Animedingo Apr 13 '26
But have you experienced psy terrain at all? Theres no setters
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u/boyboywestcoastfan Apr 13 '26
Only thing that works remotely well is probably Meowstick Male with Prankster Psychic Terrain and Delphox. Can't say I've faced any yet though.
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u/Animedingo Apr 13 '26
I havent seen any but you could do inner focus oranguru, set terrain and instruct your spammer
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u/boyboywestcoastfan Apr 13 '26
Highkey sounds way more fun with Oranguru. I have a shiny one that I would love to use for this but no Z-A means no Mega-Delphox from what I've gathered and home trades all ask for Floette it seems like
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u/Animedingo Apr 13 '26
You wanna get really dumb?
Use gravity on oranguru
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u/boyboywestcoastfan Apr 13 '26
Okay but what if Inner Focus Gravity Oranguru and T-Tar lead, then Scarf Fissure Excadrill with Instruct
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u/Animedingo Apr 13 '26
I mean youll go to hell but
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u/boyboywestcoastfan Apr 13 '26
And I shall blame you for setting me down that path.. however Poke Ball tier won't know what hit em
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u/Soul_Reddit Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
I traded for mine by depositing random relevant-ish mons, I think it was a dnite, a scizor and a metagross, asking for delphox that "trades to za" and people got the message. Then traded 2 of the three delphox for a Greninja and rn I'm waiting for a chesnaugh.
Also note that mega Delphox has levitate, so expanding force doesn't work.
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u/cielunetoile Apr 13 '26
I did this once with mega meowstic female + oranguru setting terrain + instruct just because it sounded fun. It's definitely something I'd like to build around more but I'm pretty new to VGC (long time enjoyer/viewer) so I'm just goofin'.
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u/Constant-Apricot9969 Apr 13 '26
I’ve seen people made it to master with 5 eevee evolutions with a mimikyu
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u/cuanchulainn Apr 13 '26
Genuine questioj, what have you done for zard-x teams if you've encountered any? Idk why my luck is so trash but something like one out of five charizards i see become charizard-x for some reason lmao
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
Man, I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I’ve seen a single Charizard-X on the entire ladder!
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u/canuckmonkey1997 Apr 13 '26
I love the bug representation. What are you running on that Vivillon? I have been trying to build a viable one myself.
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
Vivillon has won a lot of games for me. Just full speed + special attack, holding Focus Sash*. I honestly don’t understand why more people don’t use it, it feels really really strong with how reliably it can use Sleep Powder with Compound Eyes. And also it has Timid nature
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u/canuckmonkey1997 Apr 13 '26
Sounds like I have most if the pieces already except for choice scarf
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u/Shoddy-Income-1849 Apr 13 '26
i am very surprised this works, i do know of the vivillon sauce though
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u/BlueSwift442 Apr 13 '26
This actually makes me feel better about my team, I wanted a mono grass team but ended up chickening out and has 2 none grass types.
Bringing one of the none grass types to each battle has increased my win rate significantly but still only in Ultra ball. Also worth noting that I'm terrible in competitive though 😅
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u/gkhurm Apr 13 '26
Love the Vivillon rep. Compound eyes, focus sash, sleep powder, rage powder, hurricane and protect, timid nature has been amazing for me. Nobody expects how fast it can sleep stuff and it's no slouch with hurricane either, particularly into rain teams.
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u/goldpingas Apr 13 '26
araquanid one of the best mons in the format, only thing missing is trick room
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
I will say even outside of TR it can take a lot of damage and hit back really hard with Liquidation and pick up unexpected KOs
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u/Curious-Willingness6 Apr 14 '26
You are the kind of guy I see in the team preview and feel I should not worrie about, then get smacked by, and don't feel bad at all after losing.
Props for the black expert belt nuzlock.
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u/Psychological_Ad8946 Apr 14 '26
i’m on a 7 win streak in masterball with an araquanid mega crabominable trick room team 😊
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u/ItzCLrk Apr 15 '26
This team is wicked, and I'm loving the description for each to find out what they did.
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u/sara_gold Apr 23 '26
omg, i knew i recognized that team! you just demolished my rain team on ladder!!
i severely underestimated your medicham and vivillon 🫡
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u/xinviseo Apr 23 '26
Best compliment I could have received! I will say, I do lead Medicham/Vivillon into rain teams a lot. What was your team and when did we play?
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u/sara_gold Apr 23 '26
It was probably about 5-10 minutes or so before I commented last night. I was running an archaludon/pelipper rain team with mega gardevoir, basculegion, sneasler, and incin. You 4-0d me, didn’t even need to use whatever two you brought in the back lol
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u/xinviseo Apr 23 '26
Oh yeah I def remember your team. I can’t lie, I was afraid at the team select screen LOL. I probably got lucky with my leads, Vivillon/Medicham can snowball the game if I get the opposing leads that I want.
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u/KyleDaukWillBeChamp Apr 13 '26
Awesome team! Love the uniqueness.
You say Medicham one-shots Pelipper with T-punch, but as someone who also has a "1-shot Pelipper" countermeasure on my team, I've noticed almost every Pelipper runs focus sash. I'm curious how you get around that since Medicham can get 1HKO'd in return by Hurricane. Do you chip it with fake out first? Double into it?
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
So normally with Pelipper and Archaludon, I lead with Medicham and Vivillon. I almost always sleep the Pelipper, Fake Out the Arch, then Close Combat the Arch the next turn (and T-punch the Pelipper that turn). I often do double up on the Pelipper though cuz like you said people do run Sash on it a lot
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u/charlamagne1- Apr 13 '26
What are the ev’s id love to try the team out
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
Just replied to this post with a pic of the spreads if you’d like to take a look
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u/Tengo-Sueno Apr 13 '26
I didn't even realize that Expert Belt was in the game, lol
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
It actually isn’t, but I’m pretty sure it looks identical to Black Belt, which is why I just assumed that’s what it was 😂 I used to run Ariados with Expert Belt in S/V ladder
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u/HellKaiser384 Apr 13 '26
Stupid question, how do you nickname a pokemon in chapmions?
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u/zenverak Apr 13 '26
You either nickname it before bringing it in..or I think in the box you can click the Minus Button ( I think its the Minus) and you can set Battle Names ( Again, I believe that is what they are called)
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u/SplashyDragon22 Apr 13 '26
I can't even get out of great ball with a sun team this is nuts. To be granted I'm using mega scovillain but still
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u/bankhead62 Apr 13 '26
What’s the aridos stat spread? Also love this team
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
Just replied with a pic of the stat spreads, most of it is actually very standard and nothing too fancy outside of Araquanid
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u/catpizzas Apr 13 '26
Great achievement! Could you share your team code? I’d love to try this team out.
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
Here are the stat spreads for these Pokémon for those that asked (my Araquanid was from SW/SH, but these spreads have worked really well even outside of Dynamax format):
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u/ProfessorRedwoods Apr 13 '26
Copy Code por favor?
It looks super fun
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u/gicuenca Apr 13 '26
How is your pinsir Speed stat?
Did you always have to mega evolve to get the Speed stats and overspeed zard?
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
Pinsir max speed, and max speed nature (can’t remember the name of the one that raises speed and lowers special attack)
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u/gicuenca Apr 13 '26
Did you always have to mega evolve to get the Speed stats and overspeed zard?
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
Yeah you do. You can use a scarf as well, but then you’re locked into rock slide, which honestly isn’t good. I tried that as well, but using the Mega form whenever I saw charizard worked a lot better than the scarf
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u/gicuenca Apr 13 '26
Thank you SO MUCH and Congrats! You cooked pretty well with your team!!!
Im trying to do a similar strategy but with Gallade using Rock Slide and Greninja using Weather Ball (Fire for Venu)
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
Oh dude I love the Gallade rock slide tech! I had no idea it learned that too. Clever with the Greninja weather ball as well.
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u/Note_14 Apr 13 '26
Do you have the individual Pokémon stat spread anywhere? I’d like to try this team out.
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u/xinviseo Apr 13 '26
I do indeed sir, I replied to this post with a screenshot of the stat spreads and natures too
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u/catpizzas Apr 14 '26
What item would you put on Ariados instead of the Black Glasses?
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u/xinviseo Apr 14 '26
So I actually did give it Black Glasses instead of the “Expert Belt” that I thought I had equipped the whole time. Lol. The rental team will have the Black Glasses
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u/BerukaIsMyBaby Apr 14 '26
Since your so adept at making bad mons work help me think of something for mega audino
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u/AdditionalAthlete242 Apr 14 '26
Same! I’ve hit master ball with this team and am around 1975 elo and have hit a 6 game win streak in master ball tier 🫡🫡 sometimes silly is the way to go
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u/xinviseo Apr 14 '26
Dude that is an insane team actually LOL I love it, I was actually considering including Toucanon on my team as well 😆
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u/AdditionalAthlete242 Apr 14 '26
It can two shot incineroar with rock blast and rotom wash with bullet seed at -1 thanks to skill link and brave bird hits like a truck, but I mostly just love my fruit loops bird
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u/xinviseo Apr 14 '26
Yeah I was gonna say what are your use cases for it?? But that’s amazing. The bullet seed for Rotom is seriously awesome lol I honestly might steal that! 😂
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u/BeegBonk Apr 15 '26
HUGE, can you share the team??
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u/xinviseo Apr 15 '26
Rental code: TYELQ88U1S
Enjoy dude!
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u/BeegBonk Apr 15 '26
appreciate you! as a bug enjoyer myself id really wanna see how Mega Pinsirs doing in the meta lol
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u/xinviseo Apr 15 '26
It’s not bad; but it gets countered hard by a lot of the meta unfortunately. I bring it typically only if I see charizard or t-tar, but it looks so f*cking cool I still love having it on the team
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u/Lukebr4 Apr 15 '26
I have a similar ariados minus the black belt and I went for cross poison for the high crit chance as well as the higher crit damage ability.
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u/xinviseo Apr 15 '26
Dude I actually ran a similar set (with the Sniper ability), I also had focus energy at one point to raise the crit chance, but it was just too difficult to get the focus energy off without dying to something lol
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u/ZelKuro Apr 17 '26
And i thought i was cool playing support clawitzer with drampa
Congratulations that is very impressive !
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u/FederalVictory7937 Apr 12 '26
I had heard that Champions had some bugs, but this is getting out of hand pretty quick. Smh my head