SS OU Choice Band Melmetal + U-turn spam Bonanza (warning, its bad, please help)

[1LDK]

Idea for the team:

So this is the first time ive played at all since 2020 and first team in 2 years, so i was out due to my mental state being insanely low that i could barely survive (ill be real, its still bad, but i at least can make sometime to comeback) and when I checked Smogon forums i saw Melmetal being suspect tested, and that made my brain said "hey, depression hits hard, but Choice band Melmetal hits harder" and so I decided to make a team based around him (turns out, it was bad)

Lets see the team

Melmetal @ Choice Band
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 32 HP / 252 Atk / 224 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Double Iron Bash
- Earthquake
- Superpower
- Ice Punch

So this is the main mon, as you can see, it hits, its pain, and it breaks stuff, i went with the standard smogon set, so it does the usual smogon things, i decided to go with Ice punch instead of Thunder Punch because im not going with Koko, i also feel confident on breaking pex one way or another, and I already resist dragon so i can either kill the dragon that though could kill me with EQ, or shit on the bird that its trying to remove SR, one thing that i notice its that its a Knock Off Magnet, so be carefull because [checks notes]* everything has Knock Off in this metagame

Tapu Fini @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 44 SpD / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Moonblast
- Trick
- Taunt

Tapu Fini is here to fill the water type roll, I decided to go with the Smogon set and this thing really puts in the work, it helps my team with status, its surprising how hard i can laugh at stall all day with this set and burns make sure i can soft everything up for a nice cleaning sesion, it does have a bit of a problem with Dragapult as his Draco Meteor becomes a hugs shower with misty terrain, so thats something to keep an eye for

Zapdos @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Static
EVs: 248 HP / 220 Def / 40 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Heat Wave
- Roost
- Defog

Zapdos is my phisical tank, I chose him for volt switch specifically to keep the ball rolling, and i can also use Volt switch in situations where i dont wanna U turn heat wave because that ferro aint gonna counter himself, also it lets me sit on Rillaboom all day, with that in mind, ice types are a big problem, and it seems that Weaville is in literally everywhere, so Heat wave helps a lot in that regard, with enough roost spam, and defog, i can keep a surprising amount of things at beateable level

Dragapult @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hex
- Draco Meteor
- U-turn
- Will-O-Wisp

I went with dragapult as a dragon type to fill out the dragon/Fairy/Steel Core, Draco Meteor is a great "oh shit please get off me" tool, unless theres Misty terrain, so at least Hex helps out with that, I went with WoW for the burn spam but I can see people opting for Toxic or Thunder wave to have some variety against specific mons like Heatran, pex or whatever, and as always, U-turn because I love spamming passive/agressive moves that make me feel smart

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 104 Def / 156 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Knock Off

Okay so fun fact: on the first try out of the team, i forgot to put a special tank, and almost got swept by a Tapu Koko, because he now runs Fairy moves, who knew? well, me didnt, luckily for me, the guy chocked and i won anyways, but thats the story of why im going with specially defensive lando T, i saw a guy putting this spread specifically for the situation i was in, so now i can put all my eggs in one basket who is quad weak to ice but has intimidate so at least Weavile is getting spooked, also Its my only mon with Knock Off so he can help on the break things effort


Volcarona @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Bug Buzz
- Fire Blast
- Psychic
- Quiver Dance

Okay so, last mon is Volcarona, Why? because i realized i needed a special cleaner who could take at least an ice move and be usefull as an "Oh shit" last resort effort, he basically either sweeps at the start or at the end after Melmetal died and killed something on his way out, and Melmetal ALWAYS, takes something out, I went with timid because Excadrill outspeed me otherwise, i learned the hard way. Although the team is quite bad, i think Volc is the weakest link, and that is saying something, and no, Heatran is not a real mon, please get out of my head

Putting the team in practice:

I of course tried 10 matches with this team against 10 different low ladder opponents and test the waters, and the results are quite clear:
For starters lets take a look at my Volcanion and Blacephalon answers:


Now that we talked about my answers to those mons, special mention goes to Heatran and Autotomize Celesteela, the former who in theory is piss easy to counter, but in reality can scare my fini with any steel move, he can eat my burn fishing attemps all day and even tho he goes down with lando, its hard getting through him in the first place. While the lader gave me a fucking Jumpscare

Conclussion:

I fucking suck at this game, i dont belive the idea its bad per se, but its more than clear than im not a good player at all, it does not help that i have a good amount of rust, but i was always bad, still, had some fun with clicking DIB on that ice type that though that lando t was food, and had even more fun shitting on Slowbros with CS trick from Fini


https://pokepast.es/7668d911cf8ef23e
here is the paste, i hope you all have at least some fun with this team, thanks to whoever is reading all of this and I hope you have a nice week
PD: Poke paste does not have a HDB sprite and not seeing the item despite being there scares me a little, but thats just me

 

[3d]

hi very cool team, the overall structure is great and it works very well synergetically both defensively and offensively. the only real problem i see with this team is it does not do a good job of supporting volcarona. this volcarona set in particular has one major wall, being heatran, so generally when building around this you wanna pair it with something that weakens heatran, which is why volcarona + tapu lele is so common. however tapu lele doesn't really fit on this team, and the way to force damage on heatran with this team is very simple.

simply changing dragapult to a choice specs set will do wonders for this team. actually being able to do ~38% with shadow ball vs full spdef heatran is great damage compared to the minimal damage hex was doing and since a lot of ghost resistless teams rely on heatran to sponge dragapult hits, it becomes very useful late game for volcarona. it keeps the benefit that dragapult had earlier as it can still uturn but i believe this team will function a lot better with a specs set.

id also recommend going with a full spdef landot spread (248 hp / 252+ spdef / 8 speed) just because we don't really have a ghost resist ourselves here so having landot + fini being able to take one shadow ball each makes that much of a difference compared to only having one switchin. i don't see anything relevant the physical investment does either so i'd really recommend this.

dragapult set

Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower
- U-turn

 

[1LDK]

hi very cool team, the overall structure is great and it works very well synergetically both defensively and offensively. the only real problem i see with this team is it does not do a good job of supporting volcarona. this volcarona set in particular has one major wall, being heatran, so generally when building around this you wanna pair it with something that weakens heatran, which is why volcarona + tapu lele is so common. however tapu lele doesn't really fit on this team, and the way to force damage on heatran with this team is very simple.

simply changing dragapult to a choice specs set will do wonders for this team. actually being able to do ~38% with shadow ball vs full spdef heatran is great damage compared to the minimal damage hex was doing and since a lot of ghost resistless teams rely on heatran to sponge dragapult hits, it becomes very useful late game for volcarona. it keeps the benefit that dragapult had earlier as it can still uturn but i believe this team will function a lot better with a specs set.

id also recommend going with a full spdef landot spread (248 hp / 252+ spdef / 8 speed) just because we don't really have a ghost resist ourselves here so having landot + fini being able to take one shadow ball each makes that much of a difference compared to only having one switchin. i don't see anything relevant the physical investment does either so i'd really recommend this.

dragapult set

Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower
- U-turn

So I´ve been playing a bit with this new team and god its so good, ill never go to high ladder but thats because im bad, but the team, chef kiss, CSpecs Shadow ball drops anything that its not a dark type or bulky as fuck and the team really does great, thank you for helping me out man, have a nice day

 

[Zatqer]

Nice team, looks pretty good. I agree with 3d’s changes, though i would also suggest running Whirpool Tapu Fini than scarf fini. Scarf Fini hits 429 speed, which can only really outspeed Zeraora and Dragapult, the former which you cannot kill yet lose to, the latter which you live a hit from anyways.

Set

Tapu Fini @ Leftovers
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Whirlpool
- Moonblast
- Nature's Madness
- Taunt

This helps trap stall mons such as Slowbro, Ferrothorn, Heatran and weaken or kill them, opening up holes in the opponents team to help out your own Pult, Volc and Melm sweep or kill. If you trick your scarf to a Slowbro, it’ll just spam teleport always, yet this set can taunt the teleport and slackoff and trap with whirlpool, same goes for other teleport mons. These stall pokemon usually stay in on Fini, because they arent threatened by it, which is perfect to trap and kill them. The extra bulk also helps with dealing with Pult.