I'm back! I've been meaning to make another one of these for a long time, but... im not gonna lie, i just forgot lol. But recently, i made this team and i really like it. This was never even supposed to work and it somehow turned into one of my favorite teams, so i'm very excited to share it. I was looking through my recent teams and i noticed a few trends in my teambuilding, so i made a team to beat the mons and team styles i generally use so i can get a better idea of how my teams work, and, in theory at least, this might be the most solid team ive built in a long time, so let's get right into it!
Teambuilding Process
this team started with landorus. specifically, psychic landorus. Ive been leaning very heavily into semiroom teams recently, so i wanted to use a pokemon that could threaten my common semiroom mons. Landorus is that pokemon. It has earth power for diancie and volcanion, sludge bomb for rillaboom, and psychic threatens amoonguss and buzzwole with massive damage (yes, i genuinely considered this team's buzzwole matchup lol). Landorus is an extremely powerful pokemon that can do good damage to most pokemon in the format. Obviously, the team can't just be a landorus, and it does have a fair bit of problems. Its defensively checked by celesteela, assault vest kyurem-black, and rillaboom, and cresselia, all of which i use frequently, so i needed a pokemon to cover those weaknesses.
Enter incineroar. Incineroar's fire and dark type coverage lets it threaten most of the pokemon i just listed with huge damage and can intimidate/parting shot kyurem-black. Incineroar also acts as a defensive switchin to ice and grass moves and fake out is appreciated by a lot of teams. Incineroar is also really good into snarl-wisp mew teams which is another pokemon i use a lot. Though, we still have some problems. We have a growing weakness to bulky water types like calm mind tapu fini and pokemon who don't care about intimidate like urshifu and opposing landorus. Psyspam could also end up being a problem depending on the rest of our team, as we don't have a psychic resist yet
Cresselia completely walls landorus and can beat urshifu 1 on 1 with calm mind + moonlight. Icy wind acts as speed control that makes cresselia that much harder to switch into, and stored power can be boosted to ludicrous levels by calm mind. I decided on the item grassy seed to make cresselia bulkier and boost the power of stored power even further, which synergizes well with out next pokemon: rillaboom. Rillaboom is another fake out user that can check water types like urshifu and fini as well as landorus. It also provides terrain control for the psyspam matchup and passive recovery for all of our grounded mons (which so far is just incineroar and rillaboom). The core of incineroar rillaboom and cresselia is also really good for stalling out trick room turns as well, which helps in the semiroom matchup. This core, while better, still isnt perfect. Icy wind isn't a good primary form of speed control, tailwind or trick room would still be nice here. Coaching for cresselia to boost stored power even further would also be nice
Now we have a full team! I actually didnt know urshifu got coaching before making this team. None of the other coaching users were working so i tried coaching urshifu. It's not a bad set and is still an option for this team, but i never found myself needing to click it, so i opted for aqua jet which proved to be a much more useful move in testing. For tailwind, I decided on magnet zapdos as i was worried about this team's celesteela matchup. Magnet allows zapdos to get some pretty impressive thunderbolt calcs (2hkoing +1 calm mind fini, ohkoing volcanion, 2hkoing max hp celesteela) though being forced to run hurricane as a flying stab isnt ideal as 70% accuracy is pretty inconsistent. I chose whirlwind over roost as a 4th move for an extra layer of defense vs trick room teams. In theory, this team has basically everything. It has several potent cores and pairings (urshifu + incin + rilla, lando + urshifu) a strong wincon (cresselia) speed control (zapdos, cresselia) and playable matchups into most team styles. Now that we understand why everything is here, let's talk about the actual sets
The Six
Landorus (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Sludge Bomb
- Psychic
- Protect
Landorus is the starting point for this team. Life orb + sheer force lets it hit insanely hard and the combination of psychic, sludge bomb, and earth power lets it 2hko nearly every pokemon in the tier. Psychic was chosen as the 4th move mostly due to amoonguss being such a huge threat. This team doesn't have any goggles users so giving amoonguss as few free turns as possible is imperative. Landorus and Urshifu are both here to break down the opposing team until you can get cresselia activated and set up, but landorus can also be used alongside cresselia, as cresselia cannot hit the steel types landorus makes short work of.
Incineroar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 224 HP / 68 Atk / 176 SpD / 40 Spe
Careful Nature
- Fake Out
- Flare Blitz
- Knock Off
- Parting Shot
Incineroar is mainly here for its utility, but its fire type coverage and ability to do decent damage with flare blitz has been very helpful in a lot of games. This incineroar is evd to outspeed landorus in tailwind, live volcanion steam eruption from full, and ohko dragapult with knock off. This spread doesnt ohko amoonguss and celesteela unfortunately, but i felt like the speed was more important and flare blitz still does enough damage to those mons that they have to respect it most of the time. Incineroar's typing is useful offensively and defensively, allowing it to switch in and either flare blitz/knock something for decent damage or just fake out and debuff with parting shot depending on the current board state.
Cresselia (F) @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 140 Def / 92 SpA / 24 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power
- Icy Wind
- Moonlight
Cresselia is the main wincon of this team. This cresselia spread lets it ohko naganadel with stored power after one calm mind + grassy seed and outspeed zeraora in tailwind. The leftover evs i just dumped into defense bc youre only getting a finite amount of defense boosts with this team now that i've dropped coaching. Cresselia's main role is a calm mind sweeper but also works as a secondary form of speed control and general switch in to a lot of attacks because of it's great bulk and defensive typing. This cresselia can also 1v1 most of the tier so you can play to force those outcomes as well. Cresselia is generally something i bring out mid to late game to get set up and clean to avoid it getting hit with toxic/taking damage unnecessarily early on, but i've also lead it quite a few times in testing with varying amounts of success. If you do lead it, try avoiding activating your seed until you need to, as you only get the defense boost once and lose it if you switch. One thing that does annoy me sometimes with this cresselia is its lack of protect, but i don't think it can afford to drop anything.
Rillaboom @ Assault Vest
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 112 Atk / 112 SpD / 36 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fake Out
- Grassy Glide
- Wood Hammer
- U-turn
Rillaboom is here because of it's good role compression as a fake out user, strong grass type attacker, and terrain setter. It can check fini and urshifu and can also come in on landorus and threaten damage with grassy glide which puts it in aqua jet range for urshifu. This rillaboom set lives a charcoal eruption from heatran and outspeeds zeraora in tailwind. The remaining evs are just dumped into atk with an adamant nature. This is basically just the standard dex spread but i moved the 36 evs in defense that were there to live genesect u turn to speed as i felt it was more important. Rillaboom is an invaluable member of this team, it just does so much compressed into one pokemon and is super easy to just slap onto teams. I considered amoonguss here, but i really wanted terrain control and amoonguss' damage output was just not cutting it. Plus priority grassy glide is nice for landorus, which amoonguss can't really do anything to without trick room being up.
Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Life Orb
Ability: Unseen Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Surging Strikes
- Aqua Jet
- Protect
Ushi! Ushi was originally here for coaching but even without it it's still really good here because of its synergy with landorus. It also completes a fire water grass core which is nice. Aqua jet was chosen as a 4th move mostly bc of lando but priority aqua jet + grassy glide is really nice late game in general. Ushi ignoring intimidate with surging strikes is also super nice and helps in the incineroar matchup (which, to be clear, was never bad to begin with really. we have a lando lol) Urshifu, along with landorus, is really just here to break teams and clean late game, though i would say urshifu is even better than lando late game because priority aqua jet is just really good.
Zapdos @ Magnet
Ability: Static
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Hurricane
- Tailwind
- Whirlwind
I used to think zapdos was awful but after using it myself, it has much more merit than i originally gave it credit for. Like i mentioned, thunderbolt does pretty impressive damage with magnet, letting it check fini, volcanion, and celesteela much more effectively and do more damage to neutral targets which is nice. Though being forced to rely on hurricane as a flying stab really sucks. I chose whirlwind as a 4th move because i wanted a way to deal with setup mons i didnt already have covered and having another way to deal with trick room is nice. Whirlwind is also really nice on ladder. Toxic and roost would also work, but i've definitely clicked whirlwind the most out of all of it's options. Zapdos is actually a pretty solid tailwind setter, my only gripe is hurricane sucks, please give it a better flying stab
Conclusion
Overall, this is a very solid team. In theory it has a way to deal with most mons, common cores and team styles and in practice its still great. Cress is a really fun mon, but even without it this team still has a ton of good elements and strong mons. I would absolutely recommend giving this team a try, it's relatively easy to pilot and a ton of fun. My main gripes with this team are the lack of protects (we only have 2 here) but i feel like that's relatively easy to play around with every mon that isn't cresselia, as it really doesnt like having to switch, especially if its seed has been activated. I could also see cresselia feeling kinda clunky to use on a team like this but i haven't had any problems with it in the games ive played with it. I can't really think of anything else that's really wrong with this team, it has solid matchups into basically everything i can think of at the moment other than genesect and priority blocking, but we have a decent amount of counterplay to both of those and genesect in particular hasn't even seen much use recently from what i can tell.
Replays
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1518231580-6rjh0ohulb20ul8vse54grq6rvosvagpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1520826163-erv79kdkrhqet9es6rdr4c0xf2e2l9rpw
(I swear i thought i saved more replays with this team lol)
Importable: https://pokepast.es/90fc09ef04a918ed
Teambuilding Process
this team started with landorus. specifically, psychic landorus. Ive been leaning very heavily into semiroom teams recently, so i wanted to use a pokemon that could threaten my common semiroom mons. Landorus is that pokemon. It has earth power for diancie and volcanion, sludge bomb for rillaboom, and psychic threatens amoonguss and buzzwole with massive damage (yes, i genuinely considered this team's buzzwole matchup lol). Landorus is an extremely powerful pokemon that can do good damage to most pokemon in the format. Obviously, the team can't just be a landorus, and it does have a fair bit of problems. Its defensively checked by celesteela, assault vest kyurem-black, and rillaboom, and cresselia, all of which i use frequently, so i needed a pokemon to cover those weaknesses.
Enter incineroar. Incineroar's fire and dark type coverage lets it threaten most of the pokemon i just listed with huge damage and can intimidate/parting shot kyurem-black. Incineroar also acts as a defensive switchin to ice and grass moves and fake out is appreciated by a lot of teams. Incineroar is also really good into snarl-wisp mew teams which is another pokemon i use a lot. Though, we still have some problems. We have a growing weakness to bulky water types like calm mind tapu fini and pokemon who don't care about intimidate like urshifu and opposing landorus. Psyspam could also end up being a problem depending on the rest of our team, as we don't have a psychic resist yet
Cresselia completely walls landorus and can beat urshifu 1 on 1 with calm mind + moonlight. Icy wind acts as speed control that makes cresselia that much harder to switch into, and stored power can be boosted to ludicrous levels by calm mind. I decided on the item grassy seed to make cresselia bulkier and boost the power of stored power even further, which synergizes well with out next pokemon: rillaboom. Rillaboom is another fake out user that can check water types like urshifu and fini as well as landorus. It also provides terrain control for the psyspam matchup and passive recovery for all of our grounded mons (which so far is just incineroar and rillaboom). The core of incineroar rillaboom and cresselia is also really good for stalling out trick room turns as well, which helps in the semiroom matchup. This core, while better, still isnt perfect. Icy wind isn't a good primary form of speed control, tailwind or trick room would still be nice here. Coaching for cresselia to boost stored power even further would also be nice
Now we have a full team! I actually didnt know urshifu got coaching before making this team. None of the other coaching users were working so i tried coaching urshifu. It's not a bad set and is still an option for this team, but i never found myself needing to click it, so i opted for aqua jet which proved to be a much more useful move in testing. For tailwind, I decided on magnet zapdos as i was worried about this team's celesteela matchup. Magnet allows zapdos to get some pretty impressive thunderbolt calcs (2hkoing +1 calm mind fini, ohkoing volcanion, 2hkoing max hp celesteela) though being forced to run hurricane as a flying stab isnt ideal as 70% accuracy is pretty inconsistent. I chose whirlwind over roost as a 4th move for an extra layer of defense vs trick room teams. In theory, this team has basically everything. It has several potent cores and pairings (urshifu + incin + rilla, lando + urshifu) a strong wincon (cresselia) speed control (zapdos, cresselia) and playable matchups into most team styles. Now that we understand why everything is here, let's talk about the actual sets
The Six
Landorus (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Sludge Bomb
- Psychic
- Protect
Landorus is the starting point for this team. Life orb + sheer force lets it hit insanely hard and the combination of psychic, sludge bomb, and earth power lets it 2hko nearly every pokemon in the tier. Psychic was chosen as the 4th move mostly due to amoonguss being such a huge threat. This team doesn't have any goggles users so giving amoonguss as few free turns as possible is imperative. Landorus and Urshifu are both here to break down the opposing team until you can get cresselia activated and set up, but landorus can also be used alongside cresselia, as cresselia cannot hit the steel types landorus makes short work of.
Incineroar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 224 HP / 68 Atk / 176 SpD / 40 Spe
Careful Nature
- Fake Out
- Flare Blitz
- Knock Off
- Parting Shot
Incineroar is mainly here for its utility, but its fire type coverage and ability to do decent damage with flare blitz has been very helpful in a lot of games. This incineroar is evd to outspeed landorus in tailwind, live volcanion steam eruption from full, and ohko dragapult with knock off. This spread doesnt ohko amoonguss and celesteela unfortunately, but i felt like the speed was more important and flare blitz still does enough damage to those mons that they have to respect it most of the time. Incineroar's typing is useful offensively and defensively, allowing it to switch in and either flare blitz/knock something for decent damage or just fake out and debuff with parting shot depending on the current board state.
Cresselia (F) @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 140 Def / 92 SpA / 24 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power
- Icy Wind
- Moonlight
Cresselia is the main wincon of this team. This cresselia spread lets it ohko naganadel with stored power after one calm mind + grassy seed and outspeed zeraora in tailwind. The leftover evs i just dumped into defense bc youre only getting a finite amount of defense boosts with this team now that i've dropped coaching. Cresselia's main role is a calm mind sweeper but also works as a secondary form of speed control and general switch in to a lot of attacks because of it's great bulk and defensive typing. This cresselia can also 1v1 most of the tier so you can play to force those outcomes as well. Cresselia is generally something i bring out mid to late game to get set up and clean to avoid it getting hit with toxic/taking damage unnecessarily early on, but i've also lead it quite a few times in testing with varying amounts of success. If you do lead it, try avoiding activating your seed until you need to, as you only get the defense boost once and lose it if you switch. One thing that does annoy me sometimes with this cresselia is its lack of protect, but i don't think it can afford to drop anything.
Rillaboom @ Assault Vest
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 112 Atk / 112 SpD / 36 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fake Out
- Grassy Glide
- Wood Hammer
- U-turn
Rillaboom is here because of it's good role compression as a fake out user, strong grass type attacker, and terrain setter. It can check fini and urshifu and can also come in on landorus and threaten damage with grassy glide which puts it in aqua jet range for urshifu. This rillaboom set lives a charcoal eruption from heatran and outspeeds zeraora in tailwind. The remaining evs are just dumped into atk with an adamant nature. This is basically just the standard dex spread but i moved the 36 evs in defense that were there to live genesect u turn to speed as i felt it was more important. Rillaboom is an invaluable member of this team, it just does so much compressed into one pokemon and is super easy to just slap onto teams. I considered amoonguss here, but i really wanted terrain control and amoonguss' damage output was just not cutting it. Plus priority grassy glide is nice for landorus, which amoonguss can't really do anything to without trick room being up.
Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Life Orb
Ability: Unseen Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Surging Strikes
- Aqua Jet
- Protect
Ushi! Ushi was originally here for coaching but even without it it's still really good here because of its synergy with landorus. It also completes a fire water grass core which is nice. Aqua jet was chosen as a 4th move mostly bc of lando but priority aqua jet + grassy glide is really nice late game in general. Ushi ignoring intimidate with surging strikes is also super nice and helps in the incineroar matchup (which, to be clear, was never bad to begin with really. we have a lando lol) Urshifu, along with landorus, is really just here to break teams and clean late game, though i would say urshifu is even better than lando late game because priority aqua jet is just really good.
Zapdos @ Magnet
Ability: Static
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Hurricane
- Tailwind
- Whirlwind
I used to think zapdos was awful but after using it myself, it has much more merit than i originally gave it credit for. Like i mentioned, thunderbolt does pretty impressive damage with magnet, letting it check fini, volcanion, and celesteela much more effectively and do more damage to neutral targets which is nice. Though being forced to rely on hurricane as a flying stab really sucks. I chose whirlwind as a 4th move because i wanted a way to deal with setup mons i didnt already have covered and having another way to deal with trick room is nice. Whirlwind is also really nice on ladder. Toxic and roost would also work, but i've definitely clicked whirlwind the most out of all of it's options. Zapdos is actually a pretty solid tailwind setter, my only gripe is hurricane sucks, please give it a better flying stab
Conclusion
Overall, this is a very solid team. In theory it has a way to deal with most mons, common cores and team styles and in practice its still great. Cress is a really fun mon, but even without it this team still has a ton of good elements and strong mons. I would absolutely recommend giving this team a try, it's relatively easy to pilot and a ton of fun. My main gripes with this team are the lack of protects (we only have 2 here) but i feel like that's relatively easy to play around with every mon that isn't cresselia, as it really doesnt like having to switch, especially if its seed has been activated. I could also see cresselia feeling kinda clunky to use on a team like this but i haven't had any problems with it in the games ive played with it. I can't really think of anything else that's really wrong with this team, it has solid matchups into basically everything i can think of at the moment other than genesect and priority blocking, but we have a decent amount of counterplay to both of those and genesect in particular hasn't even seen much use recently from what i can tell.
Replays
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1518231580-6rjh0ohulb20ul8vse54grq6rvosvagpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1520826163-erv79kdkrhqet9es6rdr4c0xf2e2l9rpw
(I swear i thought i saved more replays with this team lol)
Importable: https://pokepast.es/90fc09ef04a918ed
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and preventing it from toxicing