Two Birds
by Drifting and Laroxyl
Table of Contents:
1. Intro
2. Ladder Peak
3. Teambuilding Process
4. The Team
5. Replays
6. Threats
7. Importable
Hello RMT Forum. This is my first time posting here and I hope you enjoy this team as much as I have enjoyed using it. I have been building in LC for a while, often working on the bench during team tours to provide fresh teams for my teammates. So when I was approached by top LC player Laroxyl to build together, I was eager to create something both innovative and potent in the current Little Cup meta.
This is one of the main teams that we ended up crafting, and it's the one that I've personally had the most success with in tournaments like LCLT and the LC Fall Seasonal, as well as of course topping ladder. I hope if you try it yourself you find similar success.
2. Ladder Peak
3. Teambuilding Process
Archen was the main thing we wanted to build around, as we both believed it had untapped potential in the meta as an anti-lead, forcing out Mienfoo, Dwebble and Diglett, as well as possessing potent offensive power in general.
Every LC Team needs at least one Fighting type, and while Mienfoo is a more traditional choice, we decided that Timburr was a better fit due to its priority Mach Punch, ability to beat Mienfoo 1v1, Guts ability to beat Larvesta and Mareanie, and ability to serve as a win-con with Bulk Up.
Next, we knew the team needed hazards. In LC, the choices are basically between Pawniard and Ferroseed. There are some other more niche options like Drilbur, Mudbray, and Onix, but with Steel being so valuable to switch into things like Porygon, we knew we wanted a Steel type. We opted for Pawniard here, as Ferroseed may have been too passive for our offensive core, as well as to improve our Natu matchup.
Usually in LC most teams are built around the Fighting-Steel-Poison core, but for this team we decided to substitute the Poison type with a Morelull. The purpose of the Poison type is pretty much to switch into the Fighting type, as well as things like Grookey. Thanks to Morelull's Fairy typing and ability Effect Spore, it manages to serve the same role, but also has the benefit of role compression as a Water resist and Carvanha counter.
Natu was our next choice for simple reasons. It is currently the second best Pokemon in Little Cup in my opinion, with 60% usage in this year's LCPL. It is an excellent glue mon that makes basically every team better, Magic Bounce helps with our slight hazards problem, as well as taking care of Grookey, Ferroseed and Foongus, which benefit greatly from Morelull's presence. It's essentially the perfect glue.
Finally, we knew our team had massive problems with Magby. We decided to add one of its few hard counters, Scarf Frillish, to help with that. On top of this, it also adds speed control, powerful Water Spouts, and a Fire resistance. Against some matchups, like Sun teams, Frillish is very important, and it also stops us from losing to Abra. Finally, the surprise factor it holds cannot be underestimated.
4. The Team
Archen @ Berry Juice
Ability: Defeatist
Level: 5
EVs: 180 Atk / 4 SpA / 76 SpD / 196 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dual Wingbeat
- Rock Blast
- Substitute
Our first mon, Archen is running a standard berry juice EV spread, but with some non-traditional moves. Whereas a traditional Archen runs Head Smash, we wanted to use Rock Blast for some key reasons. In Little Cup, due to the way damage calculations work at such a small scale, multi-hit moves are disproportionately powerful. It also completely shuts down Dwebble, the most common lead on Hyper Offense, by exploiting Weak Armour or completely bypassing Sturdy. It also of course does no recoil damage and has a higher accuracy, giving better consistency. We also opt to use Dual Wingbeat over the more common Acrobatics for consistency, as DWB is always available, and also breaks focus sashes. Earthquake provides coverage and perfect accuracy to pick off weakened foes, and Substitute allows us to read switches to gain huge offensive pressure, as well as punish Carvanha leads for clicking Protect.
The EV spread speaks for itself, with max Attack and Speed. The rest is dumped into Sp.Def to give opposing Porygon an undesirable Attack boost from Download. Archen is typically the mon that is lead with, as it beats almost every common lead. The fact that Scarf Archen is also very common means that enemies always have to assume you'll be outspeeding them, which can very easily be exploited. Berry Juice also provides the benefit of making Archen care much less about hazards.
Timburr @ Eviolite
Ability: Guts
Level: 5
EVs: 196 Atk / 156 Def / 156 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- Mach Punch
- Bulk Up
This is the standard Timburr set. Whenever you're building Timburr, there are basically only two choices you have to make: Your ability, and your fourth move.
In this instance, we went with Guts over Iron Fist, as compromising some power to be able to muscle through mons like Larvesta, Mareanie and Foongus was more valuable in our eyes. Iron Fist Mach Punch has some benefits, such as making Porygon and Carvanha irrelevant, but the fact that we had Pawniard for the former and Morelull for the latter made it seem less necessary.
As for our fourth move, we went for Bulk Up. We considered Thunder Punch for Mareanie and Defog for hazard alleviation, but went with Bulk Up as it is the absolute best move for applying pressure. You would be shocked at the things that Bulk Up Guts Drain Punch can out-sustain and overwhelm.
Pawniard @ Berry Juice
Ability: Defiant
Level: 5
EVs: 156 Atk / 36 Def / 196 SpD / 116 Spe
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
- Stealth Rock
This is the basic set that is used on 99% of Pawniard, but there's a good reason for that; it's incredible at what it does.
Knocking off everything, setting up rocks, providing priority, and eating hits from powerhouses like Porygon is incredible. This mon is everywhere for a reason. The maximum Sp.Def investment and Berry Juice allows it to come in for free on Natu Heat Wave and Koffing Fire Blast. Its valuable and rare Dark typing also lets it shut down most Psychic and Ghost types, notably including Abra, though you have to be very careful of its Fighting coverage. This description is pretty brief, but everything that can be said about this Pawniard set has been said already. It is fundamental to the success of this team.
Morelull @ Eviolite
Ability: Effect Spore
Level: 5
EVs: 196 HP / 236 Def / 76 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Moonblast
- Synthesis
Every team needs a Mienfoo switch-in in LC. Usually your options for this are Koffing, Mareanie, Foongus, Larvesta and Morelull. We knew instantly that Foongus and Larvesta were not options. Larvesta has a crippling rocks weakness and often requires a whole team's worth of support, and Foongus is more often than not a liability with Natu and Ferroseed everywhere to gain momentum on it. Mareanie was also undesirable due to it's Arena Trap weakness, so that left us with two choices, Koffing and Morelull. Koffing is one of the most common Pokemon in LC, and most teams use it, but we went with the niche Morelull for a few reasons:
For one, It has more reliable recovery than Koffing, and the ability to put things to sleep. Effect Spore is also interesting as it actively deters the use of Fake Out, Knock Off and U-Turn from Mienfoo, rather than just tanking the attacks like Koffing does. Finally, and perhaps most importantly is its role compression as a Water resist and Carvanha counter as well as being a Fighting check.
Other than that though, this is just the standard Morelull set. Morelull is not a versatile Pokemon, but it does what it needs to do perfectly.
Natu @ Eviolite
Ability: Magic Bounce
Level: 5
EVs: 36 HP / 236 Def / 36 SpA / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Heat Wave
- Roost
- Thunder Wave
Natu is an excellent mon in Little Cup. Magic Bounce is a fantastic ability for shutting down hazard-setters and status users like Defensive Porygon, and it's Psychic/Fire coverage is almost impossible to switch into, as well as having a great typing and access to reliable healing.
This is the standard bulky attacker EV spread. We experimented with a somewhat common alternative that gives 12 Defense and 13 Sp.Def, to prevent Porygon from getting a Special Attack boost with Download, but between Pawniard, Frillish and Timburr, we decided after testing that Porygon wasn't an issue, and we would rather just have the Defense for things like eating Knock Offs and Grookey Acrobatics.
We opted for Thunder Wave over U-Turn as an anti-Tyrunt measure. Tyrunt is the most prevalent set-up sweeper in LC with Dragon Dance, and Natu is one of its main targets to set up on. The issue is, that if we hit it with Psychic, it sets up, and then kills us next turn, Guts Timburr Mach Punch then leaves Tyrunt at 1 HP after the Psychic damage, meaning we would have to sack Timburr as well to Psychic Fangs to finally kill it with Pawniard Sucker Punch (if we win the sucker mind-game that is).
To deal with this, we run Thunder Wave, so we can simply T-Wave Tyrunt as it sets up, and then go into Pawniard to outspeed and kill with Iron Head. Other than that there's not much to say about Natu, it's just an incredible mon.
Frillish @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Cursed Body
Level: 5
EVs: 76 HP / 236 SpA / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Water Spout
- Hydro Pump
- Shadow Ball
- Ice Beam
Finally we have Scarf Frillish, a somewhat gimmicky but very fun Pokemon to use. The main reason we decided to use it was because it's one of the two Belly Drum Magby hard-counters in the tier, along with Scarf Golett as they can out-speed and not fear Mach Punch. While I am a Scarf Golett enthusiast, Frillish does it's job better on this team. It also hard-counters Abra, another mon that gives us a lot of trouble otherwise.
The speed investment allows Frillish to hit 21 speed, which outpaces the entire unboosted metagame. Frillish Water Spout is one of the hardest hitting attacks in the tier when at full HP, and helps us greatly against Fire types and Sun teams which we otherwise don't have resistances for. Shadow Ball provides consistent STAB damage against Water resists and low HP Pokemon, and Ice Beam hits Grass types and Tyrunt. Like most scarfed Pokemon, Frillish is great not only for breaking holes early, but also cleaning up late. Ultimately, it provides the speed control this team very much needed. On top of this of course is the added benefit of most Frillish being defensive tanks, which can lead unsuspecting players to let their guard down and accidentally sack important Pokemon.
5. Replays
Tournament Replays:
LC Fall Seasonal vs FP (Carvesta Bulky Offense)
LCLT vs Tao (Standard Bulky Offense + Trapper Mag)
LPL vs CMDoge (Screens HO) (I lost this one, but it came down to RNG and I misplayed Natu, so I'm still including it)
Ladder Replays:
vs aleaniled (Abra/Pory Offense)
vs Jeanusaur (Drilbur Offense)
vs Calcias (Canadian Spikes)
Friendly:
vs Laroxyl (Larvesta Bulky Offense) (Included to show that the team can still beat people who know it perfectly)
6. Threats
I've identified two mons that give this team some trouble
- Most Grookey are easy to deal with, but Grassy Seed Grookey has the capacity to tear through the team with a Swords Dance and Acrobatics, it basically just comes down to a Natu speed tie sometimes. This type of Grookey is quite uncommon though, and on HO teams where it does appear it is very telegraphed. It is annoying but possible to play around as shown in the replay against Calcias.
- Drilbur is a pretty uncommon Stealth Rock setter, but it can be annoying. Usually rocks aren't actually too much of an issue for this team, as Natu stops most setters dead in their tracks other than Pawniard, and Pawniard basically can't set up on anything except our own Pawniard. Drilbur's Mold Breaker however means that it ignores Magic Bounce. The fact that Archen has Berry Juice makes rocks not so bad, but it's still not super great to deal with. It can be played around though, Frillish helps greatly.
- Scarf Mag is just really annoying. Timburr and max Sp.Def Pawniard help but this thing is just a pain sometimes. Nobody really uses it apart from one CMDoge team though.7. Importable
https://pokepast.es/4b75428876e33453
Please enjoy and thank you for reading.
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