Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
MPL V has come to an end, congratulations Goldenrod Gengars!
This thread is here for MPL participants to share teams and sets that they'd like to share for any of the formats in the tour. Feel free to post unused ideas, more standard builds, crazy innovations, etc..
Looking forward to see all the great ideas everyone came up with.
Unfortunately my teams got lost just a few days ago so don't have as many as I wanted but here's some stuff.
Reuniclus @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 192 Def / 64 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Signal Beam
- Recover
- Acid Armor
Brought this vs wincon but didn't click a move. Pretty much solos dark (msab especially) and opposing psychic. Nice vs grass and does decently vs ground and normal. Don't think the overall team was very good but I'm pretty big on this set
Aerodactyl-Mega @ Aerodactylite
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
Celesteela @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 32 Def / 224 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Leech Seed
- Heavy Slam
- Protect
- Flamethrower
My favorite team rn, probably all gen. Probably got some ev spreads wrong considering I remade this rq but double taunt + double set up is fantastic vs the bulky offense stuff going around. Used variants of this twice personally, and as a team like 7-8 times at least throughout the tour. Also eased through mlt w it for the most part. Worst mu's probably rain but I think you have a decent chance vs anything.
Might not be new but I just really like this set. Pretty Self-explanatory whims set really, knock off mainly for muk so you can click moonblast freely later vs dark, tailwind + moonblast cleans up dragon quite well,
Charizard-Mega-Y @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Focus Blast
- Solar Beam
- Tailwind
Dragonite @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Outrage
- Extreme Speed
- Fire Punch
- Dragon Dance
At the time I felt like HO Flying would do well vs Bitana because you could just set Stealth Rock against opposing offense considering Aerodactyl's a pretty fast lead and try to plow through with your offensive Pokemon. The Thundurus-T set was an easy out against Water, and pretty much won against any variant. Agility plowed through rain and balance, while Nasty Plot was an auto win against stall if my opponent happened to bring it since Z-Grass Knot hit Lanturn after a boost and after that it's pretty straightforward. I thought Bitana would try to catch me off guard with stall since he was typically an offense type of guy, but he didn't happen to bring Water of any variant and I ended up misplaying Thundurus-T in the actual game by popping the Z-Move when it wasn't necessary. Dragonite also has a Z-Move alongside Thundurus-T because I think Dragonite really appreciates the Z-Outrage to bust through bulkier stuff and you would use which Z-Move depending what matchup you were against, even if double Z-Move usually wasn't optimal.
Dragonite @ Choice Band
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Outrage
- Extreme Speed
- Fire Punch
- Defog
A Dragon I brought week 6 where my team kind of spammed the type. I felt like including Dragalge since it gave me a shot against Fairy with Toxic Spikes softening up the matchup, while it also helps against Water a ton because its able to absorb opposing Toxic Spikes. Thunderbolt into Draco Meteor beats Toxapex, and nothing really likes switching in on Draco Meteor + Thunderbolt when you're Water. The speed EVs creep Celesteela and base 60s like Swampert and Clefable. The rest of the team was kind of odd, since I didn't have a Choice Scarf Lati@s. Choice Band Defog Dragonite and Choice Scarf Stealth Rock Garchomp kind of "made up" for it, but its still pretty poor role compression lol since I wanted to fit Mega Altaria for the Dragon mirror and Dark. Substitute Kyurem-Black makes it harder to revenge kill in matchups such as Water, Flying, and Poison and Hasty gives you an easier time against Greninja.
Kingdra @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Substitute
- Outrage
I thought ArkenCiel would bring something like Dark / Fairy / Steel / Dragon so I thought rain Water with Kingdra to soften up the Dragon matchup could be a good pick, though Fairy was still potentially hard because Tapu Bulu is big danger as per usual so I had HP Poison Keldeo to try and catch it off guard, as well as Wacan Berry Toxapex to beat Tapu Koko if it tried to switch in on Sludge Bomb. Even though we were against the Chaitanyas I didn't think they would bring Grass because everything I've used up to that point has a good / decent chance of beating it and I've shown to repeat types. Dragon Dance Kingdra lures out stuff like Alolan Muk and Mantine which it could set up on and punch holes for Pokemon like Mega Swampert and Keldeo to try to break through, I still think it's a pretty cool set because of the surprise factor. Credit goes to Leru for Choice Specs Greninja which was a fairly new set at the time of my game while its been popularized a bit during MLT because of Sabella's team.
hello! so building this mpl ended up being quite fun and i had multiple ideas throughout the course of the season that i have decided to share in this thread today. note: everything in this post is all oras
Landorus @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Earth Power
- Focus Blast
- Rock Slide
- Stealth Rock
Tornadus-Therian @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 28 SpA / 24 SpD / 208 Spe
Timid Nature
- Heat Wave
- Hurricane
- Knock Off
- U-turn
to start us off, this is the flying team that has made its appearance in mpl a decent number of times, including what i used for 2/5 of the oras games i played this tour (sets were different for each of its uses, but these are the sets felt fit best for the team). the team came together after talking with Ridley about how good mega aero was on flying (also made some aero spread but i decided not to share that today since it got outsped by weavile after mega so this current spread shall do) so we decided to make our own iterations of the team so yea heres mine lol!
credits for this team: Ridley for our conversation about how broken oras flying is and the og m aero spread that lived everything ;w; Jase The World for coming up to me one day and to try sub np thundurus instead of 3 atk taunt, which is something i ended up liking more so props Catalystic for being an absolute pain in the ass about the tornt spread but i got convinced at the end of the day so thanks lol
Landorus @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Earth Power
- Focus Blast
- Rock Slide
- Stealth Rock
Tornadus-Therian @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 28 SpA / 24 SpD / 208 Spe
Timid Nature
- Heat Wave
- Hurricane
- Knock Off
- U-turn
inspired from v1, v2 came into the mix after realizing deoxys-speed usage might increase due to the flying usage at the time. yanmega not only does well vs psychic, but it can be great vs dragon, dark, gliscor-less ground, and perhaps can do its fair share of work vs ss water. pursuit aero (suggested by Sae) this time for tini so yanmega has an easier time, and the lando set is especially mandatory on this team so you can keep rocks up vs flyings defoggers (zapdos / skarm) which is necessary due to the lack of thundurus and lack of taunt on aero, as seen here: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen6monotype-962336453
what i believe to be one of the better rain water variants. dual eject is cool due to medi being big danger so u kinda just wreak havoc with kingdra in that mu for a good duration of the game. polis filler move is kinda preference each having their own reasoning behind them, being protect for medi, rest for longevity, and perish song for stuff like vincune. keldeo set also varies on how much you hate dark lol.
inspired from Sabella's water team (played here https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6monotype-450698, for those wondering ), i decided to make my own version of it. so yea at the time i kinda disliked sharpedo, i disliked the water ground options such as reg pert due to it seeming like it never keeps rocks up vs anything, and gastro for feeling like it being too passive, so i decided to finesse sabs rd 3 atk pert idea and make my own team. fastest mon keldeo was always sketchy to me, so starmie was the next best thing. scaldless keldeo might look stupid but its actually sick, trust!! (you know, assuming you hit everything). game it was used in: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen6monotype-962285987
credit to Sabella for making the inspiration behind this
this thing does wonders in the water mu, and can do wonders in the flying mu too if paired with a tornt and landoi switch in (spdef gastro or spdefeq tect toxic roost/sub glis)
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 48 Def / 4 SpA / 204 SpD
Calm Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Thunderbolt
- U-turn
- Toxic
the inspiration from the team used here: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen6monotype-969550909 (though no tbolt on jirachi cause that + deo is just overkill lol). basically, dark usage was increasing so gard was the clear answer. reg gard can also annoy flying in the sense that u just switch into tornt, trace regen, and either wilo something or wish something. tbolt over ihead on jirachi for the sake of keeping rocks up vs flying which also appreciates the wish passes it gets from gard.
i saw this set in bw ou and it seemed cool though it doesnt get to chip stuff down w sand so that's a negative for sure. however, i got super pissed off one day about one of us losing to cacturne dark cause our keldeo was choiced so the next week i just slapped this on a team so yea here we are today kek.
I will put all my teams in a paste because there is a lot of stuff. https://pokepast.es/7e855d7c2a9c8513
Edit: I didn't explain some sets because they are super obvious in my opinion but you can ask.
cant be leaking all my cool stuff cuz hows a crusty to win next year :cwl:. I will leak a few nuggets that I think are great though.
Oras
Cobalion @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Volt Switch
- Stone Edge
- Iron Head
- Thunder Wave
Wanted to use fighting in oras but couldnt justify it much with how good torn t is especially on flying. This was about the best way i could think of to lure it.
BW
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 108 Def / 148 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Thunder
- Energy Ball
So I felt like steel has been a a fantastic type in bw for a while with only one large problem standing its way which has been water. While most offensive variants of water will still win unless you are packing a large amount of anti water threats this is a great tech vs fat teams and bulky offense water teams around. also nice vs ground and fishing for thunder paras.
Finally publically claiming this one. Pretty simple, flyings mu vs dragon completely 180s when using this guy. Tailwind + scarf ice beam is insanely hard for even good dragon teams to counter. It also is great vs water teams without empo as they usually lack sturdy flying resists.
SM
Empoleon @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 144 Def / 112 SpD
Impish Nature
- Scald
- Toxic
- Protect
- Knock Off
So not quite a new set but something I dont believe has seen any usage in monotype. Great on water teams for hitting draco locked latios, great vs normal is you are not packing keldeo. Also nice vs psychic as they dont have sturdy switch bar celebi which can be stalled out.
All in all these are all some pretty nice sets that i think alot of you have seen me use already but figured id share. Enjoy
Here's some of the more interesting / successful stuff we brought to ORAS throughout the season. I'll add more explanation on certain things later on. If you have questions regarding any sets or spreads, feel free to ask.
Excadrill @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Iron Head
- Shadow Claw
Sometime last year I started to notice that with Hoopa-U gone, X-Scissor Excadrill just wasn't putting in as much work versus Psychic anymore since both Jirachi and Mega-Medicham can take advantage of it. Despite the slight drop in power, Shadow Claw Excadrill still 2HKOs pretty much anything on Psychic as long as sand is up. Source of inspiration: Ridley vs. Arifeen (MPL1)
Garchomp @ Garchompite
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Fire Blast
- Stealth Rock
Having Stealth Rock on Garchomp over Hippowdon allows you to more easily keep up pressure versus Flying teams because it beats both defoggers.
Earlier this MPL, Sae really wanted to build around Zygarde, and I was all for it. Zygarde can put in work versus a lot of the match-ups Ground usually struggles against like Water, Fighting, and certain Psychic variants. We opted for an Adamant Life Orb DD set to take full advantage of its priority for late-game sweeping.
The Garde spread allows you to live a Jolly Mega-Sharpedo Crunch after rocks while still outpacing fully invested base 70s upon mega-evolving. The remaining EVs were invested in SpDef to take hits from Tornadus-T.
For this build, I really wanted to pair NP BoltBeam Deo-S together with WishTect Mega-Garde since they had decent synergy and were very threatening to different things we were expecting (Dark & Flying).
One of the more fun teams I used, sadly it got hard mu-ed. I basically told Vodoom that I was going to ignore the steel mu but alas. I figured that Reuni had a good mu against flying and generally has a great mu against fat teams so I started there. Scarf Meta is for Mimikyu and in tests I found it really nice as a surprise factor. Originally I had block mega bro + boltbeam lati but I thought that was a bit overkill so I replaced it with celebi and mega lati, which are really nice. even tho the team looks wack without victini the only bad mu is steel imo (also ghost but who uses tht shit)
Tapu Koko @ Electrium Z
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Taunt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Grass Knot
Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 240 HP / 148 Def / 104 SpD / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Knock Off
Mimikyu @ Life Orb
Ability: Disguise
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shadow Sneak
- Shadow Claw
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
Azumarill @ Assault Vest
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 160 HP / 252 Atk / 96 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet
- Play Rough
- Liquidation
Another team I made with Vodoom. Koko with z-elec is really strong and we both really liked it in tests as its pretty unexpected and hits like a truck. Nature power diancie was mainly for celes (tbolt). Big root bulu is a vod special, its not for anything in particular but u get so much hp back i really liked it in tests. the clef evs are to wall LO kyurem so u never get 2hkoed by any of its moves (unless it runs iron head). bcuz no klefki we decided to make azu AV to have something that can switch into some special moves. although vod did say that i should change liquidation to waterfall "so i can flinch celes down" lmao i swear he has 2 brain cells.
Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 32 Def / 120 SpD / 112 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Roost
- Taunt
Nidoking @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Flamethrower
Garchomp @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
Steelix-Mega @ Steelixite
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Heavy Slam
- Curse
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 80 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Iron Head
- Defog
- Roost
- Whirlwind
Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 152 SpD / 108 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Volt Switch
- Defog
- Roost
- Hidden Power [Ice]
Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
I didn't really know what to expect from Raichy so I went with flying which is always a solid pick. yeah hurricane in sun seems like a shit idea but i did a lot of tests with the team and found it to be fine since its a pivot and isnt really dependent on hurricane. the zard set is kinda weird, i knew i wanted toxic>solarbeam bcuz i felt that zap + thundurus was enough for water but i didnt mean for it to be max HP, just clicked on the suggested set and later found the extra bulk to be super useful not for anything in particular but just in general. zapdos is hp ice to help with flying and lando and skarm complete the team.
Gardevoir-Mega @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 48 Def / 208 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Energy Ball
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind
Glad I got to team with the Tapus. I actually had a lot of fun building in ORAS again because I actually had dedicated people I could get feedback from and test with extensively, which I felt I never really had during MPL III or IV (which I feel is partly the reason for my poor performance those two tours). Honestly, as soon as I knew I didn't have to face Wanka, and had his, Cell's, and Catalystic's support, I knew the ORAS results would turn out better.
Even though I was called the MU Fisherman (ty Ridley), honestly I just wanted to use other stuff cause I hate repeating and wanted to prove I could use different types. I did end up repeating a few times, but I wanted to have at least something interesting to the table each game. Meta is definitely warped around very specific builds such as Medi psychic and Torn-T builds, but I can definitely say the meta trends have shifted from where it was last year. I do think banning M-Medi would help ORAS be a better meta, but hey, it made my life easier when fishing for MU.
I wasn't really sure what to bring. Only time I played Izaya was during the first Mono Seasonals in ORAS, and I kind of just MU'd him twice. We were predicting Izaya to go with something safe like Psychic or Water. I was originally thinking Bug with Mega Heracross (which actually would have been a good call vs Izaya since he brought Normal), but I didn't like the skeleton Wanka showed me (it's pretty much the same 6 mons you see in all of the other ORAS bug replays). Scizor lacking U-turn felt weird to me, since I like to play by momentum (which is why most of my builds were geared toward offense). I ended up defaulting to one of my more comfortable picks in Fairy as I like Whimsicott builds which do really well vs Water. We modified my team to make it better vs Psychic. Kind of a bad call this week given how the MU and game turned out, and my confidence was kind of low especially cause of my previous seasons.
Wanka swears by this set vs Psychic. Most people have been running Babiri Toge, which I think is generally more favored in the meta. However, NP +Twave Kiss can mess up a lot of the bulky mons on Psychic. It just needs a partner who can break Jirachi.
Azumarill @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 212 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Play Rough
- Aqua Jet
- Knock Off
I figured this would be a better solution than to use BellyJet. Psychic has the Lati twins as a check to Aqua Jet, and regardless, I did not think I would find many opportunities to get a BD and just straight sweep. I think CB does better overall vs Psychic and Water as you can hit everything harder immediately which Togekiss appreciates. Togekiss having Twave also mitigates the need to always be clicking Aqua Jet.
I really liked using SubCoil Zygarde in XY, so I was trying to figure out a way to make it work on either Dragon or Ground. There was also a Thorn build that Anttya used vs me in MPL 3 that was kind of cool that used Protect+Dragon Tail and Toxic Spikes support from Nido. Cell being a Ground master helped me build a team with it. It sadly just ended up being a DD Lum Zygarde, because we couldn't find a way to make the more interesting sets work. I do think Coil or Glare shuffler sets have merit, but I didn't have enough time to explore it, and regardless I play better with a more aggressive team.
Landorus @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Earth Power
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Rock Slide
This is just your anti-flying Landorus-I. I really love HP Ice to beat Gliscors or other Landorus if you can afford to run it. However, most of the time you'll be running Gravity (or I guess now Sub and/or Knock Off cause of trends).
Cell thinks CB Mamo is amazing, but I really wanted to try out Metronome Mamo. Between this and Lando-I, the Flying MU should be completely fine. I also think this is a more reliable way of beating Skarm, as you're not forced to rely on SR being on the field or having to guarantee the flinch. Metronome I believe works even if you miss, so you just need to force out Zapdos into Skarm for that initial hit, and then you can steam roll through Skarm. The ability to switch up moves is also nice as a bait.
This week I was actually trying so hard to build a Dragon team...except like it's impossible to build a good Dragon team that is reliable enough from the current trends. During the first two weeks, MAero Flying was taking over, and so one of Dragon's good MU's was now a really bad one. SS Water already gave Dragon trouble too, but even non-rain water builds were starting to adapt and were able to beat Dragon. Psychic and Steel also have very favorable MUs against Dragon, and even types like Bug were strong vs it. I was originally trying to get a Metronome Hydreigon set to work... but yeah that fell through. What I ended up doing was a day before the game, I scrapped my thoughts on using Dragon and built around something that I thought would be more fun: Hawlucha. It seemed to be fitting, because I figured Fighting or Psychic would be one of Sabella's favored types vs me as both do well vs my main type of Water.
Aerodactyl-Mega @ Aerodactylite
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 96 HP / 176 Atk / 76 SpD / 160 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stone Edge
- Ice Fang
- Pursuit
- Roost
This is kind of a weird set. I know Ridley and Attribute were optimizing their own Aerodactyl sets. I know they preferred Taunt for the Flying mirror, but I wasn't as worried about that. I opted for Pursuit as I wanted ways to deal with Psychic mons like Victini better, and it's just more reliable for getting chip damage for Hawlucha later on. Here is what the EV spread does:
Lives a Draco from LO Latios assuming no SR is up
Lives a Draco from Scarf Latios, even if SR is up
81% chance to OHKO Latios on the switch
Enough speed for Torn-T
In general, it has a little bit more attack than the other MAero spreads I saw. This was probably the most customized EV spread I did this entire tour.
This is just your basic Hawlucha. I just think Hawlucha was such a great win condition against the majority of types, and it isn't super prevalent, so I thought it would be fun to use on a Flying team.
We noticed immediately how weak to Water this team was. We mostly gave up on that specific MU, but we did want to have an answer to possible Water mons on other types such as Psychic. When I was testing with Cell, I noticed that Dragonite needed to be the main breaker vs types such as Psychic. To do so, we figured that more bulk would be necessary to help setup a 2nd DD. We gave Dragonite enough speed to outpace those creeping around 239-241 range which includes Breloom, Bisharp, Zapdos, and Magnezone. The Ev's not put into Spe went into HP. We were also thinking of possibly using a SubDD set, but I think the coverage was more important.
Honestly, I knew immediately Ridley would use one of four types: Water, Flying, Psychic, Steel as I got to team with him during MWC and knew some of his tendencies. However, I knew Ridley would know my tendencies as well, so I wanted to use something different. He seems to not trust certain niche types (except for that one time he used grass in MWC), so I figured he would just try to straight outplay me with one of those four but teching it to cover my preferred types. I legit thought Elec was the play here, and I'm glad I have managers who were fine with me bringing it even though we were down 3-4 and needed a win to tie the week. Electric is a sleeper pick, but honestly, it has some really good top tier MUs. It does well vs all 4 types and does well vs other types such as Fighting. It just suffers from some of mid and low tier types imo. Even Ground seems possible if it's not a Gravity team considering you have Rotom, Zapdos, and another Balloon mon most likely. Also ty again Cell for how much help you did to help finalize the team sets.
We wanted to make sure we really covered our bases on the types that Elec needs to beat in Water and Flying. This set makes sure to beat the Water/Ground and Flying/Ground mons that would otherwise wall the team. Having Electric/Grass/Ice coverage all on one mon I think is super necessary. Twave was the filler choice as it helped shut down Scarf mons that would otherwise outspeed us.
Everyone was sleeping on SubCM Raikou with Shadow Ball. Like I get that it's not the most reliable thing in the world (Shadow Ball being the coverage move is pretty weak), but it handles Psychic teams fairly well if they're not Melo builds which Cell was not expecting when we were building. Vinkou probably could be used here as a Pressure stall tactic with Zapdos, but I didn't think we'd need to go that far. I tried finding a better HP spread to tank Mew Knock Off, but I couldn't find one that I was satisfied with, so we just stuck with max max. This sets up fairly safely on Psychic as you can threaten Slowbro, setup a Sub on Jirachi as a U-turn or Iron Head cannot break Sub by themselves, a Latios that is -2, or even a Victini that already used V-Create as you can Sub until they run out of PP / threaten a KO since they have lower SpD.
This was my Steel answer, and more specifically, it was my (Scarf) Excadrill answer. This also gives me another Ferro check besides Mega Manectric which opens up Zapdos to use Toxic instead of Heat Wave.
Ah yes, the week the solidified me as the MU Fisherman. Tbh this week I just used Dark cause Wanka was pestering me to bring Cacturne all season, and now seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. The only interesting thing about the team besides the Cacturne was that I was using SR+DD Mega Ttar because I didn't really like the bulky Mega Ttar sets. It just lost me so much momentum in tests, and I'd rather just break teams with DD TTar.
Cell already posted about this team in his post, so don't think I need to retype. Cell convinced me to use CB Mamo this time around, but honestly it was a mixed bag as it was both really good, but also a liability in this match. Since I was Adamant, I didn't outspeed the Exca even with no Sand, so there was a 50/50 play to be made at the end. Also, since they had Sub Lando-I, Sub Mega Chomp, and Protect Seismitoad; Mamoswine wouldn't have been cleaning up their team. It did help wallbreak with EQ, but I felt that I definitely could have done more with it if I was either Jolly or non-banded.
Attribute already talked about the Yanmega team in his post as well. Thanks for building that team man. I will say that the Pursuit change was my idea, because having Taunt really didn't seem as useful vs Victini and a few other things. While Taunt technically is better for the Flying mirror, Pursuit was the only way I could have made that win as Oberyn had MU with that Thundurus.
I just straight up was predicting Steel, Psychic, or Flying in roughly that order. Those seemed like it'd be comfort picks for the Gengars and Feitan, and I figured they'd just bring something solid and expect to outplay me that way. I know they'd prefer to use bulky steel and not HO steel if they went that route. This led me to debating between using Ground or using Dark again, but I ended up not liking Ground as much. Sabella was showing me some cool Ground teams for both ORAS and BW, and they both looked like stuff I'd want to try out. However, I just didn't feel as confident about them after some testing, so I went back to Dark for ORAS.
Hydreigon @ Expert Belt
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power
Cell and I knew right away that we were going to be bringing Steel breaker Hydreigon. I was debating between Roost and Taunt instead of Substitute, but I noticed during tests that Substitute would be able to take advantage of bulky steel because we had a U-turn Mandibuzz. This would just give me a free pivot and safely get up a Sub.
SubRoost also I think has some merit as it provides Dark a Water check since this version had no Cacturne.
Not going to post what I used for my SM or BW games in bo3. The former because I couldn't build anything, and the latter I didn't really get to showcase anything worthwhile. But thank you to all the Tapus helpers who helped me out with these two metagames. I definitely wouldn't have performed as well in Bo3 without the support.
This team features 2 goat pokemon which I think should be used way more often. The first is tentacruel: this pokemon is awesome vs fairy especially. Basically, just set up tspikes and u can limit most fairy teams a lot. The real gem is in its ability liquid ooze though. This lets you come in on bulu and make it lose hp, guaranteeing it to be in range of swampert or kingdra. This gives you a real chance to win vs fairy.
248+ Atk Tapu Bulu Horn Leech vs. 252 HP / 112 Def Tentacruel in Grassy Terrain: 246-289 (67.5 - 79.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery. Loses 40-47% of its health, then u can kill with sludge or set up tspikes on the switch
The other pokemon I wanted to mention is crawdaunt. He is a strong boi.
252 Atk Adaptability Crawdaunt Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Raichu-Alola in Rain: 214-254 (81.9 - 97.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Adaptability Crawdaunt Hydro Vortex (180 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Wash in Rain: 263-310 (86.5 - 101.9%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after Leftovers recovery
Gives u a fighting chance vs electric while being strong in general.
This team also features 2 goat pokemon. Number 1: Exploud!! Specs exploud can help a lot vs dark and steel teams. You will notice I have taunt on it, and believe it or not it actually does come in handy, mainly vs muk after it has knocked you (you click taunt on their recycle). It's also good vs knock gliscor, u can taunt the celesteela or whatever coming in. The second pokemon is firium diggersby. It has no quick attack and mainly works as a lure for celesteela which is rly annoying otherwise.
Gardevoir-Mega @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 248 HP / 152 Def / 108 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Wish
- Protect
- Will-O-Wisp
This gardevoir set is cool in oras, the bulk lets you live unexpectedly vs stuff like sharpedo, and it can act as an annoying wish passer/wisper who hits surprisingly hard. It's good vs opposing psychic since u wall medicham and burn jirachi, victini isnt a problem with rocks chip.