Just going to go through a handful of my ladder games from earlier today with the team to try and provide some examples of how the team works and why it is as effective as it is in this fairly volatile metagame. Oh yea and if you watch the replays, ignore the dumb HOMEROW meme we are spamming, it is just an inside joke I have with my friends. fuck user
dk btw.
1.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-660932801 - While my opponent was not too high up, he had a common wall, in Chansey, and a common utility Pokemon, in Mew, which I want to focus in on. Notice how the Landorus-T using Explosion prevented any chance the Mew had at making progress via using Defog, a status move, Knock Off, etc. and it gave a free turn to Naganadel to come in and do what it does -- sweep opposing teams. Sure, it did not quite kill all six there, but it was able to RK the Mew and then set up in the face of Chansey only to essentially 1v1 it and get another kill as multiple priority users were needed to take care of it. Finally, an unboosted Dragonite's Earthquake triggered Magearna's Weakness Policy later on and gave that a cool opportunity to net a couple kills to finish off the game.
2.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-660935182 - Pretty straightforward here -- you get some early game momentum with Stealth Rocks and Explosion when you do not see a clear path to lead with Ninetales to set up Veil and then that Explosion turn hopefully gives you the switch-in you previously lacked to set it up and then once you get it up, you get your win condition in and sweep. That's the ideal gameplan when the match-up is right for one of your Pokemon specifically and I did not really have to work for it much here at all as Zygarde absolutely destroyed my opponent's team.
3.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-660936412 - This game was nothing special and there was a fair amount of RNG involved, but I figured showing a game against another cheese archetype like Trick Room could be helpful, so here we go. Thankfully, Zygarde does well against this team, so if you get an opening, you can run away with it, but you must be very careful playing around various threats that TR covers that you lack long-term counterplay to, even with Aurora Veil being up more often than not.
4.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-660941054 - Well, I wanted to include a Magearna sweep or two because I felt the Weakness Policy idea under Aurora Veil was actually neat as fuck, so here one is. This game was not ideal as he got pretty lucky early on and arguably could have done more with his Mega Pinsir, but the game sort of fell into Magearna's lap later on and I ran away with it from there.
5.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-660943052 - Figured I would also add a game against a fairly 'standard' balance team that looked like something you could have realistically encountered before all of the changes the new game brought and this match is that. Zygarde does insanely well against these type of teams assuming they lack something like Clefable and I do not think Clefable will be terribly common for the coming weeks, so that is good as there is an out for teams that have defensive presences to help keep Magearna and Naganandel in check from the start. Basically, Zygarde broke the game open and the rest was pretty straightforward for Magearna and even Ditto cleaning it up.
6.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-660985654 - This is a game that I played pretty sloppy overall, but managed to control through having the tools to break through his team and simply last a bit longer, just to show that Aurora Veil here is not some all-or-nothing style that is always put on a timer. I wish I had a few more games like this, but small sample size and still not all the way on the top of the ladder, but regardless I think that with Ditto, a lot of possibilities are opened up for HO teams like this one and it shows quite a bit here/in general.
7.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-331741 - Finally, one last Zygarde sweep for the road against a friend of mine. His team was quite good, too, but a lot of people either overlook or simply do not prepare for Zygarde when it comes to its presence on Aurora Veil as it is quite different from the normal sets and is incredibly hard to stop from setting up and then sweeping.