SSNL is over for me and thats my farewell to competitive gen8bh. I built plenty of teams and wanted to share them. Most of them are ladder centric as i mostly tested my teams there and could def use few changes for them to be better in a bo1 setting
Round 1:-
g1: career g1 (pokepast.es)
was vs career and that immediately meant i had to build new teams. He had been spamming the city's zap canon xern set so i decided to revolve the team around av zyg-c + charcoal deso ho-oh, which was a set inspired by quojova's tinted charcoal ho-oh set. Career also had very less SR usage so i was p confident with this starting core.I found sd zama-c to be the perfect breaking partner for the team and it generally looked solid vs the traditional builds career brought. Fc don was there to trap gigas if career messed up. (originally had worry seed but core is better on ladder as u barely see ph zac).
For the game itself , my mu was pretty bad. Not only did career brought a quojova team which had a SR setter but zekrom + worry seed regen lun meant xern and ho-oh did 0. Career gave me an out after misplaying vs the zama but etern getting 0 fp's ensured my defeat.
g2: null fever (pokepast.es)
saw this type null set on ladder and immediately fell in love with it , partially cuz most of my teams had either ogre , scales zama or ho-oh as the spd wall and this set usually covered every special breaker. Offensive don is always a good breaker to have and the rest is pretty standard.
Once again i loaded up into a bad mu but this specific fault which is no dragon type in the team is extremely exploitable so i can hardly complain. Apart from the Ho-oh set career used or any other offensive ho-oh for the matter , barraskewda is another mon that p much 6-0s. Gira-O > Lunala is the most obvious change to fix this flaw but it makes u extremely weak to glance SD mons. Regenvest etern > type null is something that im using currently and has served me well for the time being.
Round 2:-
g1 and g2: ladder #8 (pokepast.es)
was against an unknown player so figured that any ladder team would work. This team has been pretty consistent for me and even tho the current trend of sd glance mons rolls over this , i still think it should do fine on ladder. Another thing to note is that the 4 attack TC zama set absolutely butchers this team so fc > unaware don might just be better if u plan on using this.
Round 3:-
g1: shing g1 (pokepast.es)
i had no idea what to expect vs shing so i just took a page from Mamp's double fairy structure and came up with this. Espeed pixi xern + ferro seemed to me one of the safest option which covered most unorthodox sets. Did not want to lose to random ho-oh again so had to make sure gira-O was the fc user.
Was happy with the mu i got and Gira-O looked super solid vs shing's team as it covered both physical breakers and i was gradually able to break their team.
g2: triage yvel #1 (pokepast.es)
was spamming this team a lot on ladder during the time and figured it would be a good bring. The main focus is on Triage Yveltal which imo has great potential to sweep teams middle or late in the game. I always am unsure of the 4th move on its set tho as magma / cage / taunt all make sense but i went with imprison to annoy ladder in case i won the speed tie. Mg ho-oh +knock gigas is extremely consistent at making progress and the rest of defensive core is fairly standard. Once again the current trend isnt super suitable to this team so i would recommend making major changes if u wanna use this.
Round 4:-
g1: drago g1 (pokepast.es)
Drago was known to be an extremely crafty builder so i wanted something solid. This used to be a ladder build but i changed plenty of stuff to make it more consistent for tournament settings- Espeed Xern for whack breakers + Zyg-c as the pivot. That ndm probably still shouldnt exist and u would be better off with a different bounce mon (and better moves) .
Ended up facing pikachu + nuzzle spam. Could've played a few turns better but para on NDM when i tried to recover fucked me up a lot , allowing pikachu to sweep. Overall , shouldve managed the whole gameplan better as the mu wasn't even bad
g2: triage yvel #2 (pokepast.es)
Knew that triage yvel would be a good pick vs drago. Ended up with substitute as the 4th move as it gave it better chances to sweep vs av regen users specifically zyg-c , ogre and melmetal. It did end up weakening up vs evio chansey mu but zekrom as the improof eased the worry. SD nuzzle gigas as the final breaker and lunala to improof finished up the team.
Felt pretty good during the preview . An early misplay from drago allowed melm to beat the xern but i soon realised that defog lun as the removal meant pivot gigas + etern couldeasily take advantage. I lost a bit of 50/50s which allowed drago to gain further momentum but sub yveltal saved the day as drago had no counters to it cuz melm's av got knocked early.
g3: I brought the null fever and got owned at preview when i saw a barraskewda. Drago heavily misplayed this game as a few aggressive predicts with barra could've likely won him the game quickly. A pblades miss vs the zacian did brew some scare but parahax sealed the game for me.
Round 5 :-
g1: lax try #1 (pokepast.es)
vs will i experimented with non regigigas structures and lax seemed like a perfect candidate. With scales ogre and trick mbounce etern , the team does lean on the whacker side but it has been prettY consistent for me. Shed shell on zama is for ladder cheese so helmet / lefties are perfectly valid substitutes.
I drew a 100-0 mu cuz will used gambit HO and espeed xern p much murdered his team but the great brain of mine assumed will's no retreat tina had baton pass and i threw the mon which guaranteed the win. Extremely stupid game from me but atleast the team is still good.
g2: toxic claws (pokepast.es)
Dragon Maw Etern + Zacian seemed like a really strong core to me esp when paired with pivot gigas. Fc palk was there for random skewda or wicked blow gigas and prank solg + ho-oh covered most xern sets. NP etern sets still are a major threat to this team and needs to be played vs extremely carefully (would also recommed +spe nature on etern).
Was up against pikachu HO and went for the speed tie early and luckily won it , sealing the game.
g3: cune imposter (pokepast.es)
One of the more consistent ladder builds of mine i built this during ompl when experimenting with prank suicune. The team is extremely basic barring the cune. Once again shed shell is for ladder and the item could be replaced.
I loaded up a good mu and got lucky early with the number of hits vs will's scale shot ph don leading to will forfeiting early.
Round 7:-
g1: cune revamp (pokepast.es)
vs guzzler i wanted a defensive core that did not lose to sd 3 attacks gigas and cune +fc zama looked solid vs most of his scouts , covering the fish as well. I deviated from using Ho-oh or regen ogre as heatran looked super solid vs the usual pixi plate xern sets i had seen them using and also allowed me to use NP xern. SFLO etern is a super underrated set imo and works extremely well with pivot gigas thus completing the offensive core. Overall extremely happy with how the team turned out and this has served me well on ladder as well.
Once again i was content with the preview and etern soon proved out to be a major threat to guzzler's team. After that , i was extremely ahead in the game. My clicking tendencies did show up and allowed my oppo to crawl back somewhat into the game but it was over after palk got para'd.
g2: This was an extremely rushed team around the same offensive core i brought vs career round 1 but with better (allegedly!!) defensive core. Even tho it shouldve won if the v-create hit the don , it was without a doubt a pretty bad team which just got themu right so i'll save everone the trouble and not post it.
g3: Used Toxic Claws and Guzzler didnt have the best answers to Zacian. He also misplayed vs the etern and at that point i was very ahead in the game. Couldve played the end game a bit cleaner but some subpar sequence got me the W.
Round 8:-
g1: Before they are hanged (pokepast.es)
Jqlove was a fellow ladder player and the one thing i knew about them was they loved to use SD gigas with wicked blow which immediately made me use FC zyg. Nuzzle SD gigas looked great vs all their ladder teams and i took a page of tea guzzler's book and ended up using palk. Yveltal ended up being the hazard control and Vcreate as its last move was something i ended up with after seeing sevag use it the week prior. One thing i noticed about this team was how weak it was to glance users and was absolutely paranoid about nihil passing jqlove some SD glance set but thankfully that didnt happen. U probably gotta change either the zyg or ferro to make up for this if u wanna use the team.
g2 : used the same team as r2 and realized how reliant it is on xern to break. While i do think i made it worse for me by allowing yveltal to get para'd early , my irl conditions were extremely dire so i was just glad i didnt had to play a game 3.
Round 9:-
g1: rebellion v1 (pokepast.es)
On sevag's scout i saw a lot of SD gigas and i knew i had to use qt's fc celesteela to counter this. Bounce tina was there to deny progress from pivot gigas if i faced one + better mu against the fish. Prankster Ho-oh was there to beat etern or rayquaza. The offensive core of this team is extremely whack but the idea was to create chances with xern and etern into gigas endgame. Explosion on xern cuz ph xern is a menace even with topsy ho-oh and i couldnt find the right mon to replace etern since we were playing early in the week. I know this team has a terrible palk mu but i was willing to bet sevag wouldnt bring it (atleast g1). I dont recommend this team at all , it needs a ton of testing and work to be usable.
As far as the game goes , sevag brought more or less the team that was expected. I did have offensive deso ho-oh in my mind while building esp after there was a lot of hype around it but thought topsy prank ho-oh was enough of check. My biggest misplay was definitely the etern vs imposter turn, i was greedy and thought sevag would go for a spike but i got owned and ended up with a 12% etern. The explosion turn was w/e , i do believe i had chances if the imposter went down but it is what it is.
g2: used the cune revamp and loaded with an amazing mu. Magic Bounce Etern did prove to be a threat but once it went down it was my game to lose and a very rushed endgame from me almost gave me the L but parahax didnt come through this time and cune was able to glare the fish.
g3: ph don try #1 (pokepast.es)
Went back to my trusty zacian for a g3 build and paired it up with a ph don set i saw sevag use a previous week. Once again went with heatran to deny any pixie plate xern set progress and finished with a prank fini set stresh used in ompl with topsy over haze.
My mu vs simple ep etern was horrid but sevag's mu vs zacian wasnt great either. I got outplayed completely in those don vs imposter tran turn and again vs the etern with heatran. My last straw was zacian sweeping but i didnt get the roll vs gigas and it ended there.Was a fun game tho.Overall , i think etern mu could def be improved by replacing tran but its a decent team regardless.
Because it's so fat, you can opt to run Entrainment so you can trap and eliminate PHealers, including Blades Gigas.
Diamond Storm hits Desolate Land Ho-Oh, however misses out on misc targets + your own Ho-Oh can't emergency Improof anymore.
No Ghost-type on the team, so you can swap this with Giratina if you're overly concerned about trapping.
Imp can use the 2 Sap mons as relatively safe recovery (more Ho-Oh than Xern), so counterplay mostly comes down to creating a situation where it is forced to lose it's Eviolite in order to sap Zama-C.
See the above trapping issue
Prank Giratina can starve Glance of PP, so will usually require poisoning before attempting to force Ho-Oh through.
