National Dex Natdex with The Jester

[Nish the Great]

Ok, so I decided to make a team around scarf Blacephalon, which is honestly really fun to play and I’ve been doing ok, so here goes:

Blacephalon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Psyshock

Scarf Blacephalon is the star of this team, and it’s an absolute monster against offense. Most offensive teams only have 1 resist or fat wall that stops Blacephalon from spamming one of its stabs and once that one Pokémon is too weak to switch in, it can snowball really fast with multiple special attack boosts. The coverage here is HP ground for Heatran and Psyshock for spdef Pex, but most of the time you want to spam your stabs and just chip the wall into KO range. Blacephalon does need a lot of team support due to its inability to switch in, stealth rock weakness, and helplessness against many bulky cores.

Hydreigon @ Groundium Z
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Nasty Plot
- Roost
- Dark Pulse

Hydreigion is my first partner for Blacephalon, and it works well with it since it can break down defensive cores with boosted Z-Moves, and bait in Heatran and Pex, which both stand in Blacephalon’s way. Roost is important for longevity in extended battles with defensive mons, where you might have to boost several times. Dark pulse is extremely spammable, especially at +2. Though timid does mean a loss of power compared to modest, you want timid to outspeed adamant/modest base 100s.

Scizor-Mega @ Scizorite
Ability: Light Metal
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Roost
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Defog

I needed a U-turner that could bring in Blacephalon safely, a defogger to get rid of stealth rocks, and some kind of defensive backbone for my team, and M-Scizor provided all 3. The move set is Roost for recovery, U-turn to bring frailer mons in for free, Bullet punch to revenge kill any weakened threat, and Defog to get rid of pesky hazards. I’ve invested in defence to beat a lot of threats such as M-Lop and Ddance Ghostium-Z Pult.

Greninja-Ash (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Surf
- Dark Pulse
- Water Shuriken
- Spikes

Ash-Greninja works great with Blacephalon, as they can both keep offensive pressure, so that if one goes down, it will leave a gap in the opponents defenses that the other one can exploit. I chose surf because hydro pump‘s accuracy has just been too unreliable for me, and even if I can’t get the KO, Blacephalon can finish it off and sweep. Blacephalon also really appreciates spikes to wear down bulkier mons as they switch in and to put frailer mons in KO range so that Blacephalon can get the special attack boost and end the game.

Zapdos-Galar @ Choice Band
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thunderous Kick
- Brave Bird
- Stomping Tantrum
- U-turn

This team has had a ton of trouble with fat cores with blissey/chansey, which can easily swallow a +2 Z-move from Hydreigion. Zapdos-G can destroy them with a banded thunderous kick, which not too many Pokémon want to switch into because of the defence drops. Brave bird is incredibly spammable, and stomping tantrum destroys Heatran, Pex, and the rare Aegislash. U- turn can keep momentum and bring in the frailer mons on the switch. Defiant also lets it destroy lando-t, which is often used by offensive teams (especially low ladder) to cover all physical threats.

Cinderace @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Libero
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pyro Ball
- Sucker Punch
- High Jump Kick
- U-turn

Finally, we have Cinderace, a mon that can wallbreak with stab Pyro Balls and High Jump Kicks, beat faster mons with effectively base 105 power priority, and keep momentum when walled by something like Toxapex. This mon can often force risky plays because of its hard to switch into attacks, amazing power with libero, and powerful priority to deter revenge killers. Once again, I’m using U-turn to bring in other mons safely, and to make sure I don’t lose momentum against defensive cores. Heavy-Duty boots are a must so that I don’t have to immediately send in Scizor after the opponent sets rocks, which has cost me in the past.

Edits, Part 1:

So I have read your replies and I have made more changes to the team (still not final yet)

Here is the new team:

Blacephalon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower
- Trick

I switched to timid, added fire blast and trick over the 2 useless coverage moves, which really lets me beat defensive teams that used to hard wall me.

Hydreigon @ Groundium Z
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Nasty Plot
- Roost
- Dark Pulse

I chose not to remove Hydreigion since I got rid of the other dark type in greninja, so no changes here

Scizor-Mega @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 172 SpD
Impish Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Roost
- Defog

I messed around with EVs to guarantee beating ddance pult, then dumped the rest in spdef so it can actually act as a defensive mon.

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Atk / 164 SpD / 20 Spe
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Facade

I originally added lando-t here, but it just died so early in the game. I’ve added gliscor instead, for good longevity and a great stall matchup.

Rillaboom @ Life Orb
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Grassy Glide
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Swords Dance

Rillaboom has been great for my team since I used to almost autolose to rain. I had choice band but too many choice users make it really hard to play.

Zapdos @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Static
EVs: 248 HP / 72 Def / 184 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Defog
- Roost

Zapdos is now my primary defogger, and it really helps to have another defogger since many rockers give Scizor trouble, especially Heatran. EVs are to OHKO lando-t, but I will probably change that.

Note: Spectrier is ABSOLUTELY NOT a replacement for Blacephalon, despite what it seems like at first glance. Spectrier has no special coverage and lacks trick/switcheroo.

 

[Steorra]

hey interesting team just a few suggestions.

For starters, I think blacephalon shouldn't really be used in natdex currently as the meta really goes against it but this team was made around blace so I'll try my best with it. As for the blace set, I think it should be timid as you can outspeed the rather rare but still possible 317 scarfers and 328 scarfers, most notably tapu lele. As your scarf you would want your damage output to be significant so I recommend fire blast over flamethrower. Additionally to help with blissey/chansey i would recommend trick to cripple them as i dont see psyshock being worth it. It does the same damage as shadow ball to phys def pex and not really worthy damage to spdef pex. You would much rather bring in hydreigon for eg to threaten pex. Also tricking the bliss/chansey can help hydreigon a lot in the long run. I am i bit iffy on hp ground as i think you could potentially have flamethrower but i think that requires more testing to be sure.

Next is a little edit to the sciz to be sd over defog as I fine it pairs well with blace, and you would want it to be more of a breaker with sd. I also changed the evs a bit to 56 impish, this lets you still take on pult with rather ease and the rest in spdef as its useful there.

After looking over the team, i wanted to add a rocker as it can be beneficial to sweeping with blace. I went with lando as it also helped you with cinderace and garchomp mus. Lefties gives it longevity in some form of recovery, and uturn for momentum. I also chosed to replace cinderace for this as you needed a rocker and a ground type on the team, and having double fire wasnt really best.

Next was rillaboom as it also paired well with blace and gave to the voltturn core, altho the grassy terrain hurts lando, i think it still does enough
to what it needs damage on. I chose this over gren as unlike gren, it was a breaker to break special walls. Gren + blace didnt pair well imo and this wrks a bit better.

Finally i decided to replace zapdos-g with a regular zapdos as this gave you an electric type to achieve voltturn. It also gave a defogger, and while zapdos-g was a cool option, reg zap fits better imo giving you an electric type with volt switch.

Overall These are my suggestions and I think they need heavy testing to truly see them fit for using. Blacephalon is rather tricky to use in this meta and would require testing with multiple vrs of the team b4 you can settle with something, but i think the suggestions i gave can help with handling the meta for blace a little better.

The team:

 

[Nowno]

Hey Nish ! I think your build has potential, but need big change right now, as i'm already noticing huge problem.
-Your Blacephalon is not Timid, which means it will get outspeeded by base 95 speed and higher and that the goal of a scarf is to outspeed everything
-You have 2 darkness types and because they have too many bad weaknesses, they can't really be used together.
-You have 3 choice user and it can really limits your play
-The spread on Scizor is horrible.

Blacephalon
I gave him a Timid nature for reason I already explained, I replaced flamethrower by fire blast; it doesn't do enough damage without a specs, and I replaced psyshock by trick, Psyshock doesn't do enough damage, and you can still make special wall scared of switching in, and it can be useful to clean after every faster mon are KO.

Hydreigon > Mega Mawile
Hydreigon didn't go well in this team for reason explained earlier, + you needed Draco Meteor on it to really wallbreak with nasty plot, and you already had a strong dark pulse.
Mega Mawile is a better wallbreaker here, even if it means losing mega Scizor, it ensures you a good matchup against stall or bulkier team. Having a physical monster could really help, because you already had two special monster. Fairy coverage was really adapted, the only Pokemon that take well Hpump, Dark pulse and shadow ball never likes a Play rough, except for Ferro, but he gets destroyed by Cinderace.
Mega Mawile also create a great wincon thanks to it's Sword Dance + a priority, whereas Hydreigon wasn't because he had no way to ensure outspeeding other mon.

Mega Scizor > Landorus-T
Because you have to drop Scizor here, Lando is the best choice, it can also defog and pivot, but it can give a big ground type attack in your team, a Z with rockium Z, and his 2 weaknesses doesn't really make the team weaker. Even if you lose Bullet punch, it isn't too bad, you have three excellent priority in the team.

Ash-Greninja
I changed nothing here, I think you put surf over Hpump for it's accuracy, so I'm not gonna touch anything.

GZapdos>Slowking
I struggled for this one; I KNEW Zapdos shouldn't be in this team : the team needed a reliable ice resist, Stomping tantrum was already pretty bad, now that I replaced Scizor by Lando it was even more useless, you already had a big fighting type move with cinderace, and it was a third choice. I knew that I needed an : Ice resistance, big psychic atk to hit Mega Venusaur and Toxapex and a special wall. I was initially going for Slowbro, but I noticed Slowking is the same, but it's more of a special wall than a physical wall.
I don't run scald here because Future sight was needed for Venu and Toxa and because ice beam was necessary to kill the double weaknesses that could really make for a big problem, especially if your Gre is dead.

Cinderace
I used Gunk shot over sucker punch, because we already had a better Sucker punch in the team, and that a way of hitting the Tapu was really appreciated.

The team: