As with everything Mateeus,
click on the sprites to get the importable :D:D:D:D
This team is probably the one I put most hours working on throughout the weeks of the competition, being used three times through all of MPL (
week 2,
week 4 (
Maple from Darkrais) and
week 6, each time with a different variant). My initial thoughts on building revolved around the idea of adapting Normal's consistency to give it a slight edge against popular types in the metagame like Flying, Grass, Psychic, Dark, Steel, and even Water, so we agreed on bringing it against teams known to bring them the most (Gengars and Treeckos). Standard Mega Lopunny teams tend to drop either Diggersby or Porygon-Z on their last slot, and that choice usually directs the matchups the final team will struggle against or not, therefore I aimed to make a team with both to net the most amount of positive matchups. I chose Z-Conversion as the Porygon-Z set because of how it can threaten Steel / Flying / Psychic, leaving Diggersby with a LO + SD set for wallbreaking against Dark / Electric / Water (was Band w2, changed later on).
I didn't want to lose Ditto given how useful it is, so Mega Pidgeot was added over Staraptor due to its role compression of being a fogger, a fast mon and a (sort of) defensive pivot with the maximum HP / some bulk EV's (can't get 2HKOed from full from unboosted Keldeo/can't get OHKOed by Specs Keldeo and Scarf Latias after rocks/lives a hit from Scarf Tini and Scarf Kyurem-Black/etc. Speed investment is for max 110s). Chansey is generic Chansey, but I added Magic Coat on P2 to avoid the now popular Taunt users on Flying (and Celesteela's Leech Seed / Toxic), making the matchup much easier overall.
That set was inspired on Decem's Magic Coat Toxapex in Gen 8 which I liked a lot concept-wise. After Decem's Week 6 game, we decided to give Porygon-Z some bulk investment for it to always set up on Scarf Latias 1v1.
A team I've been using for quite a long time (which I got inspiration from a MPL replay dump, I think it was MPL 3), I brought the idea of Decem using it (ghost main ;w;) against Chaitanya in
his week 2 bo3 SM game to him and it did quite well in the tests against types we were expecting. Unfortunately Chait ended up bringing Dark, probably the team's toughest matchup, so it ended up taking the loss. Nevertheless, I think Shedinja Ghost is the best way to do something with the type in SM because it can help walling types like Electric, Dragon, and Normal, in addition to Ghost's main matchup (Psychic). HP Steel on Blacephalon is a nice Mega Diancie lure vs Fairy, effectively maximizing Shedinja's effectiveness in that matchup as well. Decidium Z after a SD boost is really nice to remove stuff like Celesteela, Mega Venusaur, Ferrothorn and sometimes Toxapex.
I used this team in two occasions (
week 3 and
week 7), ending up as the loser in both scenarios. The idea of using a rain Water team with Mega Sharpedo came from my personal disliking of Mega Swampert offensively, so I thought that a mega with a better cleaning potential against most types could fit in just as well. Water came into mind for us as a type I could use because my replays didn't show any of it - I don't really use Water a lot. Since Mega Sharpedo is primarily a late-game sweeper rather than a wallbreaker, I immediately splashed the wallbreaking duo of Specs Pelipper + CM Taunt Waterium Z Keldeo into the team because of how menacing they are against bulkier builds. Without Mega Swampert, Seismitoad filled the role of a Swift Swim abuser / rocks setter for the team; it also helped against Fairy a lot with the addition of Sludge Wave. Scarf Greninja was added for a fast mon + something that could threaten Dragon and clean Flying once Celesteela was down, and Toxapex tied up the team to shut down set-up sweepers, blanket check threats and... do Toxapex things. Even though I didn't have success with the team live, I did pretty well with it on test games; I think it has potential.
DrReuniclus used this for
his week 6 match against Prosaic, where he ended up winning. We aimed to use a middleground preparation method, as we couldn't afford to drop points at that instance; after scouting, a more offensive Psychic team fit right in, being good against most of Prosaic's stalwart types and his MPL tendencies. The Nasty Plot Deoxys-Speed set was my starting building point, given we were worried about Water and Flying. Electric was noted as well, so Psycho Boost was favored over the typical Energy Ball on the last slot. Instead of making Metagross our Stealth Rocker, we decided to go with a full-on all-out attacking set to further threaten Fairy, Poison and opposing Psychic teams by running both Zen Headbutt and Pursuit; we were expecting those types as well, and Celebi's last moveslot is expendable for that role anyway. Latias was added as our speed control and Healing Wish user, freeing the Victini set to be more offensively oriented. I made some tests with the standard Mega Gallade and an unchoiced Victini variant, but it didn't go well against some types we were expecting; Decem then suggested the Sub + SD Stone Edge Mega Gallade set to mainly bop Balanced Dark while still pulling weight versus Steel and Normal, and we found out Band Victini synergized better with such a set. Overall a team I had a lot of fun crafting and testing later on.
This was
Empo's team against Azelea in week 7. Basically, because Bucks had spammed tons of Dragon the weeks before and we had brought types that do well versus it previously, we then immediately slashed Dragon off of the preparation shelf. Empo told us he was comfortable with balanced Flying for the week, and I wanted to focus on a team that could beat the remaining expected types; this team was made as a result. Because one of Mega Aerodactyl's selling point is the Dragon matchup and I wasn't expecting it, I thought of using Mega Charizard Y to strengthen other matchups instead. The Celesteela was more standard-ish as, again, Dragon wasn't expected; the spread was geared towards living Tapu Koko's hits against Fairy. Gliscor worked as the rocker, Tornadus-Therian as the defogger and the Dragonium Z Dragonite served the team well as both a wallbreaker and a late-game sweeper against Electric, Psychic and Water. Lastly, Thundurus-Therian was added as the scarfer because the team was lacking on speed control; Flash Cannon was opted for to lure Mega Diancie and make the potential Fairy matchup much easier.
