~yaaawwwnnnn... can we just... get on... with it?~
With my absolute love and passion for water, it's no wonder that I gravitated towards the chance to create a monotype water team. And with my hyper-offense, Draco-Meteor spam days behind me, I have always gravitated towards a more balanced or fully stall team. To start, since this is Smogon, I won't be explaining anything that would otherwise be obvious or already known. For example, I won't be saying "Knock off is such a good move because it removes items", or "Recover is there to get my health back" I feel like way too many RMTs state the obvious and it becomes a chore to read. I'll try to keep this RMT as succinct as possible. So, without *stalling* the RMT further....
༄ The Overall Strategy ༄
This team is overall pretty straight-forward initially. Toxic Spikes/Toxic spreads poison and is a huge hinderance to any team. Only a fraction of teams, especially in monotype, cover status-healing moves. Whenever poison cannot be spread, fishing for scald burns is the next option. Sometimes, it's also better to try to scald for crippling physical attackers, but it's mostly MU dependent. Most of the damage dealt by this team is from forcing switches, which I then switch into a check/counter to, resulting in chip-damage. While that's the main goal of this team, certain pokemon such as Slowking and Tapu Fini can set up and sweep, turning the tides against the opponent..!! Since Toxapex was "a given" for this team, and was THE mon built around, what better way to start with none other than..
༄ The Team In-Depth༄
༄ Her Majesty (Toxapex) (F) @ Rocky Helmet ༄
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Recover
- Toxic Spikes
- Haze / Poison Jab
Toxapex, the queen of this team, brings her best physically defensive A-Game to the team. She's basically the team's "lol, are you tickling me?" to physical attackers. Combined with her best friend, Slowking, this duo can constantly just soak up attacks with regenerator+switching spam. Since this team doesn't have any hazards, TS is the next best thing, and is actually vastly superior to just Toxic in my experience, due to the ability to spread poison even when she isn't on the field, and forcing opponents to be more weary in whom they switch, or risk getting their HDB knocked off in particular. Due to her natural special defense bulk, she can also stay in on special attackers, cripple them with a knock off, or TS. Then, she can switch out, and she doesn't even need to worry about recovering. Switching, while boring, is actually quite an effective strategy with this team. I've won plenty of games simply because it is optimal to just Regenerator stall. Boring? Sure, maybe. But a win is a win. While I do get valid use from haze on this set, sometimes I contemplate switching Haze over to Poison Jab for grass attackers, but I keep it nonetheless since Quag sometimes might just be a bit too frail to deal with some pokemon, even with unaware.
༄ Queen's Guard (Slowking) @ Leftovers ༄
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Future Sight
- Scald
- Calm Mind
- Slack Off
Slowking's strategy is essentially nearly the same as Toxapex's: wall, this time special attackers!! While she can fish for scald burns to help toxapex or otherwise be a nuisance to the opponent, CM is also a near necessity on this team, as certain threats such as Freeze-Dry Kyurem and other special-attackers can easily sweep this team if I don't get the right boosts in time. However, setting up CM's is relatively late-game stuff, and she will mostly just be setting up Future Sight attacks or Scaling respectively. Future Sight is her bread-and-butter, and in monotype against Poison-type teams, it oftentimes baits out Skuntank, which combos extraordinarily well with Quag and its Earthquake. That's the thing about this team. It's mostly reliant on stall but once the right opening happens, whether it is turn 2 or 200, this team will find someway to break apart the offensive core of the enemy and fire back hard in its own way. Kyurem FD gets walled with CM + Slack Off, but it is a bit tricky to play around.
༄ Spill the Tea..? (Tapu Fini) @ Leftovers ༄
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 156 HP / 100 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draining Kiss
- Scald
- Calm Mind
- Taunt
Tapu-Fini's misty surge helps protect this team from any status inflictions, but it also provides excellent counter-offense pressure to this team in the form of setting up Calm Minds, just like with Slowking. Notice how I kept bringing up Kyurem and its Freeze-Dry? Yeah, that thing is seriously a threat. The EV Spread on this Fini allows herself to maximize her special defense while also allowing herself just enough Special Attack to recover just enough from Draining Kiss to heal herself back. Again, the stategy against Kyurem is tank the first FD from Kyurem, set up CM to barely just survive another FD, and fire back with DK + CM spam. This is how this team can turn the tides on would-be threats, and just like with Slowking, I've swept entire teams with Tapu as well, given the right opportunity. Lastly, taunt is just a given, but it is noticeable for how it still prevents status even after misty terrain.
༄ Yawwwwnnnn (Quagsire) @ Heavy-Duty Boots ༄
Ability: Unaware
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 184 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Earthquake
- Scald
- Haze
- Recover
This is simply just your typical Unaware Quag set while also providing the much needed electric immunity. With HDB, it's able to come into whatever is on the field without needing to worry about hazards right away. Unfortunately, while Toxapex is the queen of physical defensive and Slowking is amazing against specially defensive attacks, since offensive pokemon may be both physical or special, this set is not "amazing" in either direction. It's just "good enough" in both. Needless to say, Quag does its job excellently regardless, despite being one of the more frailer pokemon on this team. Its haze allows a fresh start for either Toxapex, Slowking, or any other pokemon, and it can fire back with possible scald-burns or hit back with an Earthquake against Electric type teams or Poison teams with the help of Future Sight as well.
༄ nobody uses me): (Mantine) @ Heavy-Duty Boots ༄
Ability: Water Absorb
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald / Air Slash
- Toxic / Haze
- Defog
- Roost
Mantine, while providing both Defog utility and an amazing ground immunity for Lanturn, also provides amazing bulk in its own right. Combined with the tried and true Scald/Toxic combo, Mantine can easily come in on mostly anything as well, and hinder the opponent from there. The EV spread pretty much ensures that, just like with Quag, it's going to be sponging mostly whatever it gets hit with. Since its SpD stat is already so high, we could actually go ahead here and bulk up its defense to make sure it's going to last a very long time. I've also thought having Air Slash, again for grass coverage, but I've quite frankly never needed to ever even so much as consider it in reality. Haze is also a possibility in case Quag is too frail or too weak, but again, these are just possibilities, and I stick with Scald/Toxic, since so far it's worked far too well to warrant much of a real change.
༄ nobody uses me 2 (Lanturn) @ Leftovers / Chesto Berry ༄
Ability: Volt Absorb
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 128 HP / 192 Def / 188 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Volt Switch
- Protect / Rest
- Heal Bell
Lastly, Lanturn provides another much-needed electric immunity, as well as the very crucial Heal Bell coverage for status inflictions just in case Tapu-Fini couldn't keep it away. Unfortunately, just like with Quag, this pokemon kind of needs to be able to take every side of attack "just good enough", instead of "amazingly", so the EV spread is much more spread out to accommodate that. And worst of all, since Lanturn doesn't have a reliable recovery move just like with Tapu-Fini, it's forced to essentially run Leftovers + Protect. While it's useful for stalling out chip damage from burn/poison and healing leftovers, sometimes I also think about if Resto + Chesto would be better for a better recovery. While I lose the protect benefits, Lanturn gets a better chance of survival long-term without solely relying on Volt Absorb for the bulk of its HP regeneration.
༄Closing Thoughts༄
While this team has some bad MUs and really struggles against some, such as Electric, Grass, and some pokemon such as FD Kyurem and Volcarona with its monstrous coverage moves with Giga Drain (beats my Quag + other water types), Bug Buzz (beats my Slowking), and Psychic (beats Toxapex). Overall this team seems to be very adept overall. I just breached 1500 with this team after 20 something or so matches, but I'm sure it will be higher with more battles. Some bad MUs such as Electric need to be played very well. Here's some links to replays showcasing me playing around those weaknesses, here:
Electric MU
Kyurem Freeze-Dry MU
Volcarona MU (just slightly outdated, using Psyshock over current Future Sight)
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Fini is for sure really strong and powerful, but on a stall team we prefer coverage. Lapras helps a lot with Freeze-Dry users such as Alolatales and especially Kyurem. It also has a really cool trapper set in Whirlpool + Perish Song. U posted a replay where Fini helped winning against Kyurem, but that's more just cause of low ladder and bad teams as Dragon always runs Dragalge which completely checks and counters Fini, while Ice has mons like Arcto that are a real threat. Azumarill is also a valid option which also has Sad Sipper, but then u would be weaker to Kyurem and i will make anothercouple of changes to improve the Ice matchup.
This isn't a change at all but keep Poison Jab here as u really need it for threats such as Tapu Bulu, while Haze is for sure more than fine but later we will make a change that makes it less needed + Quag has Unaware and we can run it on Mantine. I would really suggest Baneful Banker over Toxic Spikes altho both are fine, but Baneful Banker can eventually help against Arctozolt that otherwise kinda 6-0es Stall Water.
I really suggest u the AV set, i think it is the best one in Water Stall now. It runs Psyshock + Scald/Flamethrower + FS + Dtail. I think Flamethrower can be good for annoying Grass and Steel types. AV Slowking also is just always really safe to pivot into basically any 1x Attacker to use Future Sight and slowly make progress. Dtail can be useful in some situations, and if u are using Tspikes it can also help you spread Poisons.
Make him surely max def. His stats are really mediocre so we want to maximize one and we surely don't need special defenders while physical setup sweepers such as Dragapult can be really strong, while for special setup sweepers we have Mantine + Dtail Slowking.
Just make it max SpDef as it is a Special Defender and can wall many hits from mons like Blacephalon and Spectrier. Spectrier is also the reason we probably want Water Veil, as we already have a Water Absorb user and Water moves won't do much to us anyways, while WoW + Hex can be annoying and break us. Definetely go for Scald + Haze here.
Same as for Quagsire, we want to maximize a stat and it will be SpDef as usual Electric attacks will almost always be Special, while for Physical attacks from mons like Zerarora u have Quagsire. I don't love Rest + Chesto altho it can be fine and i would use for the more standard Protect + Lefties set.