ORAS UU Not so tricky

[heindall]

Hello, I am heindall, a new player in the UU scene, with my only past experience in competitive Pokemon being PO (BW OU) a couple of years ago.

Ive been playing with this team for a couple of weeks now and got some decent results: average 1500 elo and consistent good placements at touneys from the uu lobby.

So here is the team:

Whimsicott @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Encore
- Trick Room
- Moonblast
- U-turn

Well, when I was researching on how a Trick Room team is played I notice it would be something pretty offensive like "set up and start sweeping", so started searching for a pivot. I also thought I would need something to tank Knock offs, since Trick Room is usually on Ghost and Psychic Pokemon.

At some point I came across this. Whimsicott provides the main trick room support, being able to set it up on multiple occasions (basically any resistent hit that can be encored and followed up by Trick Room) as well as take those Knock Offs.

The EV spread gives it good bulk. The speed is set so it can go slower than bulky pokemons under trick room and pivot with U-Turn.

Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball

Honestly I dont have much reason to use Reuniclus other than it looks like a very solid sweeper under Trick Room. And also has reasonable bulk to set it up somewhat easily.

Magic Guard is very useful against teams that rely heavily on entry hazards, specially since I dont want a spinner/defogger. I could be wrong about this, but I feel like setting Trick Room alredy takes a lot momentum(turns), so I wouldnt have time to do both at a match.

Camerupt-Mega @ Cameruptite
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 SpA / 1 Spe
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Ancient Power
- Hidden Power [Grass]

The Camerupt pick was actually awkward. I was testing some sweepers and I was very happy at how well this guy handles Zapdos (my other uu team struggles against zapdos, so thats why it caught my attention). But of course that's not the reason why I kept using it, its raw power and coverage are amazing, thanks to sheer force, and so far I havent found a stronger special stallbreaker.

Fire Blast and Earth Power are the basic stab moves. Ancient Power hits Gyarados and some Dragon-Types. Hidden Power Grass is for Swampert, and the rare Gastrodon

Eelektross @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Flamethrower
- Giga Drain
- Superpower

This guy's job is to cover Camerupt's weaknesses: Mamoswine; Water-types; some other rock/ground types.

Not having any weakness actually makes this my primary switch to sponge hits outside of trickroom. Unfortunately it ends up just dying due to not having the best bulk. But it is a solid switch against ground attacks that Whimsicott cant take (from Steelix, Mamo, Swampert, Aggron) as well as flying attacks.

Escavalier @ Choice Band
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Megahorn
- Iron Head
- Knock Off
- Drill Run

It didnt took long for me notice one of trick room weakness: Stall. Wish + Protect is a huge problem that this poor Escavalier has to handle. Megahorn covers Cresselia and Umbreon, as Iron Head covers Florges. Knock off works great on Gligar and Drill Run has good coverage against Cobalion and Beedrill.

Choice Band is prefered because Escavalier spams too many attacks to afford a Life Orb. Not to mention that Life Orb doesnt provide quite the same power, which is very needed.

Swampert @ Life Orb
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Waterfall
- Ice Punch
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock

I still needed some hazard support, and adding escavalier made the team even more weak to fire. Swampert covers that fire weakness, gives a more solid way to kill Gligar through ice punch, as well as other dragons. Plus, those grass types that threat this pokemon are well handled by Escavalier and Camerupt, and even (sometimes) Eelektross.

The offesive build was chosen to match the playstyle of the team, and also as a second physical attacker alongside Escavalier.

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As far as weaknesses goes, I guess most of them are generally standard Trick Room stuff:

-Punishing enemy switches with something other than stealth rock.
-Priority moves. Although, since my entire team has max hp that isnt quite an issue.

More importantly, wish+protect really gives this team trouble. Escavalier isnt enough sometimes as it usually requires a hard read to stallbreak.

At somepoint I made a variation of this team with Curselax (with slowking instead of reuniclus, snorlax instead of swampert and stealth rocks on camerupt), as a bad attempt to punish those wish+protect and have a reliable winning condition other than "a late game trick room sweep with a pokemon that my oponent cant counter". It didnt quite worked as the team clearly lost horsepower as an offensive team.

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I guess that's it. I hope this post is inside the rules.

Any comment or advice is highly appreciated, thanks!

 

[all falls down]

Hey heindall, cool team! Trick room is always a fun archetype even though it's rather difficult to use in any tier (and even especially so in UU). Unfortunately, this team has a lot of glaring issues like being weak to Dragons, being inconsistent outside of Trick Room, and lacking some defensive synergy and thus being really weak to powerhouses that destroy slower teams, like Crawdaunt, Mamoswine, Krookodile, Hydreigon, etc. With this being said, I'm going to try to suggest things to benefit the team:

• 
  ->
  
  The Whimsicott set is interesting, but I think that another Pokemon can do that set better while compressing roles. Whimsicott isn't the best user of Trick Room since it's rather fast and frail even with investment. Since Whimsicott is usually used to moving first, using Trick Room becomes pretty difficult since it has to move last, and in addition under Trick Room because of its high speed it still outspeeds a bunch of Pokemon even without any EVs. It also seems like it would function pretty poorly outside of Trick Room; Whimsicott likes its speed, so having 0 speed means that you're not able to check a bunch of huge threats to your team like Hydreigon and Salamence (both are usually huge threats to Trick Room teams, you don't really have anything for them!), meaning that your set has vastly reduced effectiveness. Another Trick Room setter that also compresses roles by having Stealth Rock, being a Dragon resist and Hydreigon hard check and also not being useless outside of using Trick Room is OTR Diancie. Diancie's a really neat Pokemon for Trick Room teams because of its typing that lets it check Hydreigon, and it has a good speed and nice STABs that let it work pretty well under Trick Room; it's not a sitting duck like 0 SpA Whimsicott. (Adding Stealth Rock on this frees up your Swampert slot -- I'll address that later!)
• 
  ->
  
  Adding Diancie doesn't help with your Mamoswine weakness, so let's address that next. You say that Eelektross is your Mamoswine check, but it really struggles to do that because Icicle Crash does a huge amount (252 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eelektross: 218-257 (58.2 - 68.7%) and Eelektross is very easily weakened. In addition, Eelektross isn't really viable in UU since it has garbage bulk, is very slow and nearly every other Electric is preferred over it. Trick Room teams often have the Problem of being too slow; you're not always able to set up Trick Room in every match-up, and having 6 insanely slow Pokemon that can only function in Trick Room makes your team extremely dependent on setting up Trick Room to function properly. Having 1 Pokemon with good speed outside of Trick Room is pretty much essential, as it adds a lot of consistency to the team. Because of this, I suggest adding SD Shuca Cobalion over Eelektross gives you a nice late game win condition along with being a speedy attacker that can check Mamoswine, Hydreigon, Krookodile, Crawdaunt, and a bunch more Pokemon that spell the end for slower teams such as this one. It helps you check (can even switch in once) Mamoswine and Crawdaunt in particular, as those two are really annoying for this team to face.
• 
  Pursuit over Drill Run is more appreciated on this team I think, especially with the addition of Cobalion. It lets you trap annoying Psychic-type Pokemon that prevent Cobalion and Reuniclus from sweeping. In addition, it's a neat way to get rid of Beedrill right off the bat as that Pokemon is also quite annoying to this team. Diancie and Reuniclus already do a good enough job dealing with the Pokemon that Drill Run hits.
  
• 
  ->
  
  Since Diancie adds another Fire resist and Stealth Rock, Swampert doesn't fit on this team anymore. The addition of the above Pokemon also makes you quite a bit more weaker to Suicune, since Eelektross and Whimsicott seemed to be your ways of dealing with it (even though they didn't do that good of a job with it anyways). Because of both of these reasons, I suggest using LO Tangrowth over Swampert. Tangrowth is a really neat addition since it gives you a great water resist and pivot that performs well under Trick Room. In addition, Sleep Powder has great utility that lets you cripple something to set up Trick Room with one of your other Pokemon. It also gives you an actual Ground resist, which won't be as handy because the set I'm going to suggest isn't the bulkiest, but it's still good in some situations, like checking Krookodile and Mega Swampert.

I know these are a lot of changes but I really think they're the best for the team! Best of luck, I hope the team works for you as I know Trick Room is difficult.

sets

Diancie @ Life Orb
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 Hp / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Moonblast
- Diamond Storm

Tangrowth @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Focus Blast
- Knock Off
- Sleep Powder

Cobalion @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge

Pursuit > Drill Run on Escavalier

 

[heindall]

Thank you! I will certainly try out the changes

The only point where I really disagree is the weakness to Krookodile. Krookodile usually means a free trick room + u turn, whitch gives me a lot a momentum.

I dont think I expressed myself well about what Eelektross does on my team. It certainly cant switch on an Icicle Crash, but in that scenario Swampert becomes a good switch. And in case I have a mamo switched on my Camerupt after trick room is gone, Earthquake is usually the move chosen. Overall isnt that bad because Eelektross beats it on 1 on 1 (252+ SpA Life Orb Eelektross Giga Drain vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mamoswine: 304-359 (84.2 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO). But what I forgot to metion is that Eelektross is quite a solid sweeper as well, so it doesnt only sponge hits, otherwise I would run something like AV or leftovers.

But I do agree on 6 slow pokemon part and the Dragon weakness (I actually used to run Dragon Pulse on Eelektross over Super Power at a point).

As I said, Ill make the adjusments and probably update this later

 

[Christo]

Hey heindall, cool looking Trick Room team you have here. I like your use of Whimsicott as a Trick Room setter, since getting a slow U Turn off after using Trick Room is very cool. At first glance, the team looks pretty solid, but I have a few suggestions that I believe will make the team better.

My first suggestion would be to use Hoopa > Reuniclus. Trick Room Hoopa pretty much outclasses Reuniclus as a Trick Room setter. Both pokemon have the exact same coverage, but Hoopa has access to STAB Shadow Ball. Reuniclus does have a better physical defense, but Hoopa can more easily setup Trick Room on pretty much any neutral special hit, so the loss of physical defense isn't too worrisome. Magic Guard is obviously a much better ability, but having 25 higher Base Special Attack is definitely worth the trade. Just as a handy tip from my experience, start killing things with Trick Room after Stealth Rocks are on the field. I have noticed when using Hoopa that is scores most of its 1HKOs after Stealth Rock damage.

Hoopa @ Life Orb
Ability: Magician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Shadow Ball
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast

I find the LO Swampert to be pretty awkward on your team and I think a third Trick Room setter would be very beneficial. Because of that, I suggest Stealth Rock > HP Grass on Camerupt and Slowking > Swampert. The use of HP Grass is not too useful since Earth Power does a ton to Swampert(Shouldn't stay in on Swampert 1v1 anyway). Slowking keeps that key fire resistance that Swampert had, while having access to Trick Room as well as Nasty Plot to break through fatter builds, since you lack any form of setup. Colbur Berry is probably the best option so CB Krookodile isn't as much as an issue.

Slowking @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Nasty Plot
- Scald
- Psyshock

Other than that, I think the team looks really solid, good luck!

 

[heindall]

Once I try all falls down's changes Ill definitely look up to yours, thanks!

 

[heindall]

Unfortunately all falls down's changes arent working very well. Maybe Im not playing correctly, but overall I feel like I have less switches against fire and ground.

Also Calm Mind Suicune walls me completely. All it takes is one Calm Mind, Leaf Storm can't 2hko outside of trick room because of sp drop + rest from Suicune and Sleep Powder doesnt quite work because of Sleep Talk.

Blastoise also becomes a huge threat that I cant beat on one-on-one outside of Trick Room (Ice Beam is ohko on Tangrowth, Scald may burn Escavalier).

Diance and Cobalion worked well. Especially Cobalion, so I could see the good side of having a more balanced team.

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Christo changes feel better, probably because I didnt have to change the playstyle too much. I havent played a lot yet but the Ghost type is quite helpful in certain situations...as for Slowking instead of Swampert, feels overall better except that I have only one physical sweeper