This is my first RMT, and my most successful team so far, also there's a chance I further ladder with this team and my peak might change but my main aim was to break top 50 on ladder and break the 1900 elo mark for the first time :) which i was able to accomplish, shoutout to Felcis for helping me make the RMT and proofreading.
https://pokepast.es/ffa4c3295b114a79
Table of contents:
I began building this team around midway through last week. My main aim with building this team was to build around future sight and Kingambit with low kick, making it very hard for opponents to switch in mons. Now the first plan was to choose the mon to use future sight with, and the best mon in the gen at it's job is very easily Slowking.
Slowking is the best current mon for future sight imo due to the presence of the move chilly reception which provides very good synergy with future sight itself.
At this point I had already decided that low kick was a move I needed, I felt banded gambit provided a lot of value with how easily it broke teams without even needing to lose a mon.
Cinderace is almost a one stop solution of dealing with hazards and it also provides a lot of support and progress with moves like u-turn and will-o-wisp.
Skeledirge in general is very bulky and the sub set provides key to winning many games
Great tusk
Scarf hydreigon was my final mon i added as it provides a decent speed tier and catches a lot of leads off guard.
The mons themselves:
https://pokepast.es/ffa4c3295b114a79
Sharzul (Slowking) @
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Future Sight
- Chilly Reception
- Surf
- YawnThe king, a mon like Slowking is perfect for the first stage of exploring FS offense with a great base stats for it's role. The moves Future sight and chilly reception are self explanatory, Future sight is a base 120 power move that hits after two turns, on the first turn after using it chilly reception is the ideal play and you can pivot to your or and deal huge damage to opposing switch ins. With lefties and great bulk, I decided to drop slack off and instead opt for yawn which can shut down many sweepers like CM
, DD
, QD
, etc. The move yawn also provides insane synergy with chilly reception since you force a swithc in after yawning many times and can freely use chilly reception to deal with whatever mon they switch to. You can bring this mon on many strong special attacking mons to use your FS + chilly reception combo like 
, , 
, , 
(although you might risk getting toxed but it usually doesnt cause a lot of trouble since slowking does not want to spend a lot of time on the field anyways).
Choice of tera type is water since you get rid of the more important ghost and dark weaknesses, this also powers up surf for some useful late game calcs. Tera typing slowking should be very rare and only when it's the only game-winning play. Through my 40 games I only tera'd once/twice on a great tusk to not take super effective knock off damage.
EVs are pretty self explanatory, feel free to experiment with more offensive variants although i have not tried them myself.
Shinoda (Kingambit) @
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 52 HP / 252 Atk / 204 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Low Kick
- Kowtow Cleave
- Sucker Punch
- Iron HeadThe sword, Kingambit has already become one of the most dominant mons in the meta at the moment, at first I thought of going with the SD set but on experimenting with the choice band set, the raw power that provided was unmatched, helping you get a guaranteed kill almost always, with future sight up, banded gambit can break through mons like 
, 
, , 
, and almost every physical wall in the gen. Low kick is mainly for any dark type switch in on future sight mainly and . Kowtow cleave and sucker punch are pretty obvious choices and kowtow cleave can break through most walls like , , , etc. and is your primary offensive move. Sucker punch with band obviously isn't the easiest to run but due to rarity of choice band unsuspecting mons like , 
, 
, can easily be ko-ed by sucker punch especially since your opponent might decide to attack expecting less damage from non-banded gambit. Iron head provides good coverage and stab with band and hits faires like 
and 
. The way you want to play with this mon is to make bold predicts when you can and punish opponents trying to switch in their mons that resist future sight like , , , etc. Kingambit tends to flourish late game but with band you also have the freedom of pushing for early game breaks.
Choice of tera type is flying since it provides a natural way to resist the major weaknesses kingambit has, you can also run dark for overkill and I think that's equally viable but I prefer flying.
EVs are max attack and 204 speed evs (187 speed stat) and rest in hp, but other variants such as 200 speed gambit to outspeed other can be run although you would have to run jolly instead of adamant. You can also drop down to 177 or whatever your preference is for bulk.
Neymaaaar (Cinderace) (M) @
Ability: Blaze
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 16 Def / 12 SpD / 232 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pyro Ball
- U-turn
- Will-O-Wisp
- Court ChangeThe winger, Cinderace is a mon that provides a lot of flexibility and support to this team filling in some key roles. This set is pretty much copied from from the AV pex balance team. Ace acts as our main hazard control and wisper, it is a mon with a great speed stat and u-turn that allows pivots to our or many times in a game. Pyro ball is a very useful move and is also powered up by blaze, Cinderace is not very bulky but with investment in bulk it can reach blaze range very often. I usually like to run atleast one mon with will-o-wisp and it's prolly one of the strongest and most crippling status conditions in the game, with a fast wisp you can cripple mons like , , ,, etc. Will-o-wisp paired up with a mon like skeledirge can wall almost any physical sweeper in the game. Court change is a move that needs no explanation, simply very useful. This mon can often be used as the lead based on the opposing team and can be run against leads since the is almost forced to u-turn and you get a slower u-turn which proceeds to be useful. Another mons you can lead against is with the opportunity of wisping it. Cinderace will very often take big damage in exchange for wisping a key threat, for example wisping a , , , is worth taking big damage, but say wisping a mon like ting-lu when you very easily have better swaps like great tusk is not worth taking eq damage.
Choice of tera type is fire since a defensive tera isn't of much value on cinderace, you will also not have many games where you need to tera cinderace, but tera fire is useful for more power on pyro balls. Which can sometimes help clean up late game.
EVs are invested mainly into bulk and speed, it just outspeeds while bulk lets it stay/reach blaze range easily.
Roberto (Skeledirge) @
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 44 Def / 188 SpD / 28 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Torch Song
- Shadow Ball
- Slack OffThe wall (kinda), Skeledirge is by far one of my favourite mons to use, because of how many threats it can simply neutralize with it's ability and typing and with sub it can also prove to be a very potent offensive threat. The substitute set can prevent dirge from getting poisoned by , salt cured by 
, spored by :amoongus:, and very often can be used to deal decent damage with the good coverage fire + ghost provides. Torch song is a staple skeledirge move, and shadow ball provides good coverage. Slack off is also key due to how many mons fail to do over 50% damage to it. It's defensive bulk and typing helps it wall many offensive threats such as , , , 
, , 
and almost every physical threat when wisped. It can also switch in to mons like , preferrable when you predict it not to u-turn out, for a free substitute.
Choice of tera type is fairy since it's very easily one of the best defensive teras due to the lack of offensive poison/steel types. Skeledirge is one of the more tera dependant mons in our team, and you are very often forced to tera fairy against the likes of banded
, or a at +2. Many times you can also tera for offensive purposes, like on a mon like for eq, non-AV variants. Tera water is a decent alternative and you can try it out as well.
EVs are mainly invested into bulk and some into speed to outspeed creeping, 248 HP lets it get 5 substitutes instead of 4 (thanks Shiox ), and rest is in bulk. Spdef investment let's it sub up on many meta mons mainly and
Boracho (Great Tusk) @
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Def / 4 SpD / 136 Spe
Impish Nature
- Bulk Up
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Rapid SpinThe good old great tusk, this is a mon that needs no real introduction, you might've noticed that this team has no hazard setter, so if you wish you could run stealth rock instead of bulk up but with cinderace, not having a hazard setter doesn't hurt a lot and the value bulk up provides is really useful. The choice of moves are the standard sets, if you end up facing a mon like , you can use it as bulk up fodder unless it iron defenses, you should immediately swap out and not lose pp. This set in a way is a free switch in for a mon like , but knock off on hydreigon provides a lot of value. loses a 1v1 unless it is the encore set, so it's safer to knock on a dragonite to scout for encore. Otherwise the set is pretty standard and not very tough to understand.
Choice of tera type is fire for will-o-wisp immunity and you can also use as bulk-up fodder with rapid spin on choice scarf variants. It's probably the best tera type for bulk up variants and can be very useful.
EVs are slightly modified from the original bulk up set to give it enough speed evs to outspeed non-scarf at +1, and the rest is invested in bulk.
Cerberus (Hydreigon) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- U-turn
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power The surprise, this was the mon I added to the team after a modification whereas originally the team had 
and proto-speed bulk up but this posed issues since I couldn't freely use great tusk as I didn't want to waste my booster energy. Hydreigon not only provides good speed it also hits very hard. It is also a good anti-meta mon due to the wide usage of the sub np set. Many opposing mons don't expect scarf and you can many times catch 
leads off guard, It also outspeeds at +1 ensuring you don't get swept. It can also deal with sash leads with u-turn, The moveset I've gone for provides insane coverage, and can deal with most switch-ins with ease. Draco is an obvious pick, Fire blast hits and very strongly. Earth power provides reliability and can hit mons like , , 
super effectively. This isn't a very predict reliant mon but predicting certain swaps can give you a huge lead.
Choice of tera type is steel and it helps you deal with it's dragon and fairy weakness against mons like, and , tera poison is also a good pick.
EVs are given according to the standard scarf set and that has provided quite helpful and reliable.
Threats and methods to deal with them:
This is a troublesome mon, and without a grass type on our team many times you are forced to give up a spore. A
will almost always run a rock/ground move for coverage and hence hits every mon on our team super-effectively. Since is also often used as a lead mon on 
sets, leading with and either wisping (in case your opponent is not using a hazard heavy team) and giving up spore on ace can provide useful, you can also u-turn into the mon you want to give up spore on and make sash on useless. In case is not the lead mon, playing with future sight and getting predicts right can restrict easily. can be used to take on a 1v1 but if you are 100% sure the is not going to use rock tomb/bulldoze avoid switching into it.
The only set that actually is very threatening to our team is the banded set. can be used to restrict it from playing freely and almost always force it to switch out since it very rarely runs tera fairy or steel on band. If a situation is dire you can use Gambit to switch in and OHKO with sucker punch in case the opponent assumes it is non-band but that is a rare case. In most situations you will be forced to tera fairy on but you can also use this to set up on banded glaive rush .
Check out the replay I have attached.
does have decent coverage but you can scout for tera with , if it doesn't decide to tera you can almost always freely switch in everytime sandy shocks comes to the field, but since tera fairy is very common on offensive sets, you can swap to since a is more like to volt switch or tera blast fairy or ice on . Defensive sets will not provide much of a threat since we have .
There aren't any particular mons you struggle against but if there are some I'm missing out on they can usually be dealt by tera'ing with skeledirge. You can always ask me how to deal with particular mons in replies or pms!
Proof of peak:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850684728-8m5870iu7a6dxdmmxnqcfjrnyo7glxzpw this is my win before hitting peak
Some replays:
vs HO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1849728219-r9ab1mekwcnii528m50d0yer3of3bimpw vs lead HO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850007515-d99diyathaz0poeerkqlhql8rn8ieu7pw vs
+ 
HO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850458334-mtxtxltc3quwhxquhm69wixhugnv4mipw vs Sun (this is a fairly easy matchup without sandyshocks and I kinda threw)
vs Balance/BO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1849726888-znxjrur72g49i4revvocdel0awq4vbupw vs
+ 
BO (bulk up tusk saves the day)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1849734830-pbith43dzclsjyjoypmuv8xyt1vb02tpw vs bulk up (this is against a very common balance team structure)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850016407-sxlgn004qvauo1ak6i6kn7qkyol14t1pw vs banded and specs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850581023-2t74xjsnwhfa9efqt04t9qhl0ia0imjpw vs tera fairy
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850684728-8m5870iu7a6dxdmmxnqcfjrnyo7glxzpw vs + (the match I broke 1900 with)
vs Stall/semi-stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850445110-qmm7t3n70lrufxigj1radl44lcopgiupw vs Ultimate stall (main aim is to break with kingambit late game, don't use kingambit the way I used it in this game lmao)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850472149-kb9cfmjrej88c4rpqntayjeomk78wpxpw vs + semistall
https://pokepast.es/ffa4c3295b114a79
Table of contents:
- Teambuilding Process
- The mons themselves (and the pokepaste)
- Threats and methods to deal with them
- Proof of peak
- Some replays
I began building this team around midway through last week. My main aim with building this team was to build around future sight and Kingambit with low kick, making it very hard for opponents to switch in mons. Now the first plan was to choose the mon to use future sight with, and the best mon in the gen at it's job is very easily Slowking.
Slowking is the best current mon for future sight imo due to the presence of the move chilly reception which provides very good synergy with future sight itself.
At this point I had already decided that low kick was a move I needed, I felt banded gambit provided a lot of value with how easily it broke teams without even needing to lose a mon.
Cinderace is almost a one stop solution of dealing with hazards and it also provides a lot of support and progress with moves like u-turn and will-o-wisp.
Skeledirge in general is very bulky and the sub set provides key to winning many games
Great tusk
Scarf hydreigon was my final mon i added as it provides a decent speed tier and catches a lot of leads off guard.
The mons themselves:
https://pokepast.es/ffa4c3295b114a79
Sharzul (Slowking) @
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Future Sight
- Chilly Reception
- Surf
- Yawn
or and deal huge damage to opposing switch ins. With lefties and great bulk, I decided to drop slack off and instead opt for yawn which can shut down many sweepers like CM, DD, QD, etc. The move yawn also provides insane synergy with chilly reception since you force a swithc in after yawning many times and can freely use chilly reception to deal with whatever mon they switch to. You can bring this mon on many strong special attacking mons to use your FS + chilly reception combo like , , , , (although you might risk getting toxed but it usually doesnt cause a lot of trouble since slowking does not want to spend a lot of time on the field anyways).Choice of tera type is water since you get rid of the more important ghost and dark weaknesses, this also powers up surf for some useful late game calcs. Tera typing slowking should be very rare and only when it's the only game-winning play. Through my 40 games I only tera'd once/twice on a great tusk to not take super effective knock off damage.
EVs are pretty self explanatory, feel free to experiment with more offensive variants although i have not tried them myself.
Shinoda (Kingambit) @
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 52 HP / 252 Atk / 204 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Low Kick
- Kowtow Cleave
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
provided was unmatched, helping you get a guaranteed kill almost always, with future sight up, banded gambit can break through mons like , , , , and almost every physical wall in the gen. Low kick is mainly for any dark type switch in on future sight mainly and . Kowtow cleave and sucker punch are pretty obvious choices and kowtow cleave can break through most walls like , , , etc. and is your primary offensive move. Sucker punch with band obviously isn't the easiest to run but due to rarity of choice band unsuspecting mons like , , , can easily be ko-ed by sucker punch especially since your opponent might decide to attack expecting less damage from non-banded gambit. Iron head provides good coverage and stab with band and hits faires like and . The way you want to play with this mon is to make bold predicts when you can and punish opponents trying to switch in their mons that resist future sight like , , , etc. Kingambit tends to flourish late game but with band you also have the freedom of pushing for early game breaks.Choice of tera type is flying since it provides a natural way to resist the major weaknesses kingambit has, you can also run dark for overkill and I think that's equally viable but I prefer flying.
EVs are max attack and 204 speed evs (187 speed stat) and rest in hp, but other variants such as 200 speed gambit to outspeed other
can be run although you would have to run jolly instead of adamant. You can also drop down to 177 or whatever your preference is for bulk.Neymaaaar (Cinderace) (M) @
Ability: Blaze
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 16 Def / 12 SpD / 232 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pyro Ball
- U-turn
- Will-O-Wisp
- Court Change
or many times in a game. Pyro ball is a very useful move and is also powered up by blaze, Cinderace is not very bulky but with investment in bulk it can reach blaze range very often. I usually like to run atleast one mon with will-o-wisp and it's prolly one of the strongest and most crippling status conditions in the game, with a fast wisp you can cripple mons like , , ,, etc. Will-o-wisp paired up with a mon like skeledirge can wall almost any physical sweeper in the game. Court change is a move that needs no explanation, simply very useful. This mon can often be used as the lead based on the opposing team and can be run against leads since the is almost forced to u-turn and you get a slower u-turn which proceeds to be useful. Another mons you can lead against is with the opportunity of wisping it. Cinderace will very often take big damage in exchange for wisping a key threat, for example wisping a , , , is worth taking big damage, but say wisping a mon like ting-lu when you very easily have better swaps like great tusk is not worth taking eq damage.Choice of tera type is fire since a defensive tera isn't of much value on cinderace, you will also not have many games where you need to tera cinderace, but tera fire is useful for more power on pyro balls. Which can sometimes help clean up late game.
EVs are invested mainly into bulk and speed, it just outspeeds
while bulk lets it stay/reach blaze range easily. Roberto (Skeledirge) @
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 44 Def / 188 SpD / 28 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Torch Song
- Shadow Ball
- Slack Off
, salt cured by , spored by :amoongus:, and very often can be used to deal decent damage with the good coverage fire + ghost provides. Torch song is a staple skeledirge move, and shadow ball provides good coverage. Slack off is also key due to how many mons fail to do over 50% damage to it. It's defensive bulk and typing helps it wall many offensive threats such as , , , , , and almost every physical threat when wisped. It can also switch in to mons like , preferrable when you predict it not to u-turn out, for a free substitute.Choice of tera type is fairy since it's very easily one of the best defensive teras due to the lack of offensive poison/steel types. Skeledirge is one of the more tera dependant mons in our team, and you are very often forced to tera fairy against the likes of banded
, or a at +2. Many times you can also tera for offensive purposes, like on a mon like for eq, non-AV variants. Tera water is a decent alternative and you can try it out as well.EVs are mainly invested into bulk and some into speed to outspeed creeping
, 248 HP lets it get 5 substitutes instead of 4 (thanks Shiox ), and rest is in bulk. Spdef investment let's it sub up on many meta mons mainly and Boracho (Great Tusk) @
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Def / 4 SpD / 136 Spe
Impish Nature
- Bulk Up
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin
, you can use it as bulk up fodder unless it iron defenses, you should immediately swap out and not lose pp. This set in a way is a free switch in for a mon like , but knock off on hydreigon provides a lot of value. loses a 1v1 unless it is the encore set, so it's safer to knock on a dragonite to scout for encore. Otherwise the set is pretty standard and not very tough to understand.Choice of tera type is fire for will-o-wisp immunity and you can also use
as bulk-up fodder with rapid spin on choice scarf variants. It's probably the best tera type for bulk up variants and can be very useful.EVs are slightly modified from the original bulk up set to give it enough speed evs to outspeed non-scarf
at +1, and the rest is invested in bulk.Cerberus (Hydreigon) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- U-turn
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
and proto-speed bulk up but this posed issues since I couldn't freely use great tusk as I didn't want to waste my booster energy. Hydreigon not only provides good speed it also hits very hard. It is also a good anti-meta mon due to the wide usage of the sub np set. Many opposing mons don't expect scarf and you can many times catch leads off guard, It also outspeeds at +1 ensuring you don't get swept. It can also deal with sash leads with u-turn, The moveset I've gone for provides insane coverage, and can deal with most switch-ins with ease. Draco is an obvious pick, Fire blast hits and very strongly. Earth power provides reliability and can hit mons like , , super effectively. This isn't a very predict reliant mon but predicting certain swaps can give you a huge lead.Choice of tera type is steel and it helps you deal with it's dragon and fairy weakness against mons like
, and , tera poison is also a good pick. EVs are given according to the standard scarf set and that has provided quite helpful and reliable.
Threats and methods to deal with them:
This is a troublesome mon, and without a grass type on our team many times you are forced to give up a spore. A
will almost always run a rock/ground move for coverage and hence hits every mon on our team super-effectively. Since is also often used as a lead mon on sets, leading with and either wisping (in case your opponent is not using a hazard heavy team) and giving up spore on ace can provide useful, you can also u-turn into the mon you want to give up spore on and make sash on useless. In case is not the lead mon, playing with future sight and getting predicts right can restrict easily. can be used to take on a 1v1 but if you are 100% sure the is not going to use rock tomb/bulldoze avoid switching into it.The only set that actually is very threatening to our team is the banded set.
can be used to restrict it from playing freely and almost always force it to switch out since it very rarely runs tera fairy or steel on band. If a situation is dire you can use Gambit to switch in and OHKO with sucker punch in case the opponent assumes it is non-band but that is a rare case. In most situations you will be forced to tera fairy on but you can also use this to set up on banded glaive rush .Check out the replay I have attached.
does have decent coverage but you can scout for tera with , if it doesn't decide to tera you can almost always freely switch in everytime sandy shocks comes to the field, but since tera fairy is very common on offensive sets, you can swap to since a is more like to volt switch or tera blast fairy or ice on . Defensive sets will not provide much of a threat since we have .There aren't any particular mons you struggle against but if there are some I'm missing out on they can usually be dealt by tera'ing with skeledirge. You can always ask me how to deal with particular mons in replies or pms!
Proof of peak:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850684728-8m5870iu7a6dxdmmxnqcfjrnyo7glxzpw this is my win before hitting peak
Some replays:
vs HO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1849728219-r9ab1mekwcnii528m50d0yer3of3bimpw vs lead
HOhttps://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850007515-d99diyathaz0poeerkqlhql8rn8ieu7pw vs
+ HOhttps://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850458334-mtxtxltc3quwhxquhm69wixhugnv4mipw vs Sun (this is a fairly easy matchup without sandyshocks and I kinda threw)
vs Balance/BO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1849726888-znxjrur72g49i4revvocdel0awq4vbupw vs
+ BO (bulk up tusk saves the day)https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1849734830-pbith43dzclsjyjoypmuv8xyt1vb02tpw vs bulk up
(this is against a very common balance team structure)https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850016407-sxlgn004qvauo1ak6i6kn7qkyol14t1pw vs banded
and specs https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850581023-2t74xjsnwhfa9efqt04t9qhl0ia0imjpw vs tera fairy
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850684728-8m5870iu7a6dxdmmxnqcfjrnyo7glxzpw vs
+ (the match I broke 1900 with)vs Stall/semi-stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850445110-qmm7t3n70lrufxigj1radl44lcopgiupw vs Ultimate stall (main aim is to break with kingambit late game, don't use kingambit the way I used it in this game lmao)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1850472149-kb9cfmjrej88c4rpqntayjeomk78wpxpw vs
+ semistall
