Other Metagames Gen 7 AG RMT by Kaushik

[Kaushik]

A Balanced AG Team with Stallers and Hyper Offensive Pokemon
​

Hiya, AG peeps! Here's my newest RMT for my favorite Tier, Anything Goes. Unlike Gen 6, Gen 7 AG is somehow more difficult to teambuild, but after trial and error, which included a ghastly Hypno Gengar Team, I decided to build a new team from scratch. I have decided to build a team around Clefable. Thanks to Synoptic, I got well-adjusted set for Clefable. To better demonstrate, I will be doing the teambuilding process.

First, here's Clefable, the big bad boss Fairy, and the star of Gen 6 OU;

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 224 HP / 80 Def / 204 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Heal Bell
- Protect
- Moonblast

The EVs can look tricky but it works well, walling ExtremeKiller Arceus and Geomancy Xerneas after their respective boosts. Here are the damage calculation

• 252 Atk Life Orb Arceus Extreme Speed vs. 224 HP / 80 Def Clefable: 187-222 (48.3 - 57.3%) -- 45.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
• 184+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 224 HP / 204+ SpD Clefable: 175-207 (45.2 - 53.4%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

As you can see, Clefable can stall both threats with a combination of Wish and Protect. Then I thought, how will I really stall them without status? Then I came up with an answer. Ho-Oh.


Ho-Oh is usually known for its 50% chance to burn opposing Pokemon with the omnipresent Sacred Fire.

Ho-Oh @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 196 Atk / 52 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird
- Recover
- Thunder Wave

The set above is the set I came up with initially. However, thanks to a little help from my friend Synoptic, he recommended that I replace T-Wave with Toxic for stalling purposes.
This below is my final and current Ho-Oh set for this team:

Ho-Oh @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 196 Atk / 52 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird
- Recover
- Toxic

When I tested the former and latter set, I realized the one with Toxic functions effectively well, poisoning a lot of Special Arceus formes and Xerneas, and then switching to Clefable to stall them if they try to set up on it. And nothing needs to be said on the fact Ho-Oh can inflict burns via Sacred Fire on Physical Attackers that dare switch in. Another important note is that it helps check Steel-Arceus for Clefable. Leftovers is used for passive recovery, which makes its longevity a better bet than Life Orb.

Ho-Oh's biggest weakness, which is well documented, is the fact that Stealth Rock strips 50% of it's HP every time it switches in, and thus we need a Defogger.

I thought about the best Defogger suited to this task, and Giratina came to my mind at first, but I feared Gengar being a threat and the fact it could force mind games. I then decided Fairy Arceus would do the job the best, because of its amazing movepool and the ability to have instant recovery and sits on a higher speed than the majorities of the AG metagame. Fairy Arceus is an effective lead, so I have decided to give it a bulk spread that can take hits from Primal-Groudon and Mega Rayquaza.

Arceus-Fairy @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Recover
- Toxic
- Defog

This spread is pretty straight forwarded. Massive physical bulk is used to tank attacks. I usually lead Arceus-Fairy against P-Don, which I immediately throw Toxic at, and then Defogging the Hazards. It works with great synergy with Ho-Oh, due to the fact it can switch against Arceus-Steel and then threaten with a Sacred Fire or even Toxic if they are switching. This set, ultimately, is EV'd to nearly always survive a Dragon Danced and Life Orb boosted Dragon Ascent coming from an Adamant Mega Rayquaza after 1 of Stealth Rock damage and then OHKO it back with a super-effective Judgment. I rarely have Stealth Rock around in case that happens because of its own ability to stall and Defog well, and having Ho-Oh to threaten upcoming Pokemon with status moves.

+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Fairy: 343-406 (77.2 - 91.4%) -- 25% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

At that point I believed that I am handling some of the major threats in AG with just those 3 Pokemon. I decided to get a sweeper of my own. Guess what Pokemon it is.

Oh look it's a bird! No, it's a plane! No, it's Superman? Wait, is that actually a snake that could fly? Oh, my lord, it's our savior, Rayquaza!

Rayquaza @ Life Orb
Ability: Air Lock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Ascent
- Earthquake
- Extreme Speed

Do I need to elaborate on this set? This set along with the MixQuaza set is the reason why it's ranked on the top of the viability ranking. Once it sets up a Dragon Dance, very few will stop its onslaughts. We would need to address those threats, though. The biggest check to this set is Skarmory and Celesteela, which is easily done in by Ho-Oh's powerful Sacred Fire. Another concern is Rock-Arceus, which could burn it with Wil-O-Wisp but I have Clefable and Fairy Arceus to remedy the situation, and a boosted Earthquake will destroy lightly-invested Rock-Arceus. Finally, Fairy Arceus, Ray's biggest check, is easily stalled and statused by the combination of Clefable and Ho-Oh. Other soft checks such as Giratina and Zygarde can be taken care of by, again, Clefable and Fairy-Arceus. The goal is to use Rayquaza appropriately, either by outrightly using Dragon Ascent, do a Dragon Dance for a possible sweep. Extreme Speed is to take out faster threats like Deoxys-A and other weakned Pokemon

My main sweeper has been established, and I had to consider the remaining 2 Pokemon, and I noticed I was missing a Stealth Rock user. I immediately chose Primal-Groudon, because it has good type synergy with Mega Rayquaza and acts as a backup check to Xerneas and Steel-Arceus. It could also take down Rock Arceus, which is a check to my unboosted Mega Rayquaza, and could absorb T-Wave and burn, which is greatly appreciated.

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
- Precipice Blades
- Rock Slide

The EVs are easy to understand. Since Ground moves are its sole weakness, Rayquaza and Ho-Oh could switch into a predicted Earthquake or Judgment from Ground-Arceus. The special bulk is needed to be a good phaser against Xerneas and predicted switch-ins. Stealth Rock is used when you have defogged the hazards set up against you using Fairy-Arceus. Rock Slide is used to surprise Ho-Oh switch-ins, which KOs after Stealth Rock.

0 Atk Groudon Rock Slide vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 340-400 (81.9 - 96.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Finally, I figured I need another Arceus in order to bluff types and to pressurize my opponent. Ghost-Arceus came to my mind, mainly because the negative side effect of Dragon Ascents from Rayquaza leaves it prone to revenge killing via priority moves, which is oftentimes Extreme Speed from opposing Rayquaza or Arceus. Thus, the need of a Ghost-Arceus arises.

Arceus-Ghost @ Ghostium Z
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Force
- Brick Break
- Extreme Speed

I have decided to get another physical sweeper since Z-Shadow Ball isn't good when compared to Z-Shadow Force. When I predict an incoming Extreme Speed, I switch to Ghost-Arceus, and attempt a sweep. Often times the opponent will switch to an appropriate check, which is usually led to its doom when I active Z- Shadow Force that has been boosted by a Sword Dance. To illustrate the kind of damage it could cause here's the following calculation:

+2 252 Atk Arceus-Ghost Never-Ending Nightmare (190 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde: 369-435 (87.8 - 103.5%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

Although not exactly a clean OHKO, it speaks to Arceus's ability to break through neutral bulky Arceus Formes that don't resist Ghost moves. Zygarde itself can be checked by Fairy-Arceus and Clefable. They also handle bulky Dark-Types such as Yveltal and Dark-Arceus.


Note: The biggest threat for this team is Mega-Gengar, which could be avoided if you know exactly how to handle it. Ho-Oh could tank most of the attack and threaten with Brave Bird or Sacred Fire. Primal Groudon could KO it with Precipice Blades. Mega Rayquaza at full HP could tank the attacks and EQ it or threaten a Dragon Dance sweep should Gengar switch out.

Here are some notable replays using the team, and I think you will find the battles highly entertaining:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-543533381 -
Kaushik ☼ ☽ vs. PurpleGatorade (I won against a Mega Gengar Team)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-543450491 -
Durza Plays AG vs. Kaushik ☼ ☽

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-543071412 -
Reffrey2 vs. Kaushik

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-542991697 -
Kaushik vs. dontstealmypenguin (Close match, enjoyable battle as well!)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-542975582 -
rhinoflipper vs. Kaushik (Outstalled some stallers)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-542925677 -
Kaushik vs. Megazard

Below is my full importable team. Feel free to test it out :)

Importable

Rayquaza @ Life Orb
Ability: Air Lock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Ascent
- Earthquake
- Extreme Speed

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
- Precipice Blades
- Rock Slide

Arceus-Fairy @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Recover
- Toxic
- Defog

Ho-Oh @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 196 Atk / 52 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird
- Recover
- Toxic

Arceus-Ghost @ Ghostium Z
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Force
- Brick Break
- Extreme Speed

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 224 HP / 80 Def / 204 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Heal Bell
- Protect
- Moonblast

I want to thank everyone who has played AG against me, both past and present. I am glad I have come to play in a great tier filled with interesting people :D . Special thanks to Synoptic for making battling in AG fun <3.

 

[MZ]

Hey man, this is a decent team and grats on your success with it. However it does have some significant flaws that I'd like to address, most of which honestly come from your own replays where you can see the team needing to hax its way through multiple game-ending threats (seriously people never watch replays but there's some good stuff here as they can really show off the big weaknesses). Most notably, you're relying on Arceus-Fairy to blanket check a ton of super scary physical attackers like Megaray, Ho-Oh, SD Groundceus, and boosting Pdon sets which can all break through eventually. The replays also showed off issues with support arceus formes with toxic, z-Hypno+CM lunala is a problem if they don't set up turn 1, Mega Gengar traps two key members of the team, and any Steelceus set that can annoy Ho-Oh, namely Swords Dance since I don't think anybody runs Toxic, a massive threat. Actually SD can set up for free on 2 members and sort of just wins if SR are up. Basically my point with all of this is that 2 fire 2 fairy really isn't an efficient team setup at all. There's no Steel anywhere which isn't unviable but really odd, and the team goes out of its way to carry 3 Geoxern checks. I think the best thing to do here is just mess around with how the defensive core is formulated, and below is just the idea I had about how to go about that.

For the long intro, the main thing I have to change is Sub Toxic Celesteela > Ho-oh. Ho-oh's main roles here are to spread status, check CM Arc formes a bit for Clefable, and do a bit of wallbreaking, and Celesteela covers the first and is really nice at chipping away at opponent's teams. The set synergizes nicely with Wishtect Clefable, and it's a good check to some Pdon sets, Ray sets, Groundceus, and CM Arceus formes. While it's not perfect vs anything, it takes a lot of responsibility off of Fairyceus for tanking everything. Speaking of Fairyceus, the type is sort of arbitrary here. Fairy typing doesnt really do anything positive and it opens yourself up to being trapped, so Arceus Dragon > Arceus Fairy helps not being trapped quite so hard while still checking Megaray in basically the same capacity (fairyceus isn't switching into LO ascent anyway so the extra mixed weakness isn't huge). The team isn't going to be Fairy weak when you're Toxicking the switchin and have Celesteela and Pdon and Clefable. It's still going to take some clever switching around some things like mixray, but that's just the struggles of running balance right now. Hope this helped!

Celesteela @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Leech Seed
- Heavy Slam
- Substitute
- Toxic

the dragceus set is the exact same as fairyceus but different plate

 

[Kaushik]

Megazard Thanks for the quick overview and feedback. I can see why Dragon Arceus could be a better alternative, but I dislike missing out on the burns if I take out Ho-Oh. I am still worried about Mega Gengar though, and P-Don seems to perform more poorly than Ho-Oh against it. Due to the lack of a fire coverage move, would Lava Plume or Fire Punch be better over Rock Slide on Groudon if I were to add Celesteela to my team? Would Mega Gengar be a better teammate than Rayquaza, and I'll replace Ghost-Arceus with either Ground or Extreme Killer Arceus? Any extra input from you guys would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MZ]

Not sure what missing out on the burns means, but if you build with Clefable then Mega Gengar is just going to be an issue on some level. I really don't think there's much you can do about making the team less Gengar weak other than opting for something other than Ghostceus, and I think the double strong wincon is really key for actually having some offensive presence here (you can see a lot of games come down to a big sweeper, not stalling them out). SD Groundceus is an interesting idea over Ghostceus, but Gengar's still going to be able to trap Clefable and nothing's going to change that. The sweeper reason is also why I don't think your own Gengar is really going to help here, Ray is stronger and critical for keeping Pdon in check to some degree. I thing Lava Plume actually might be better over Roar rather than Rock Slide, you have no need to phaze GeoXern so having something to hit Ferrothorn (which does become unfortunately annoying with these changes) is probably more useful than a bit of phazing.

 

[LordofTurnips]

By missing out on the burn, I think that he meant the one from sacred fire. Although lava plume on the Groudon does help to cover that. Also, I think that the important thing is that celesteela is a better physical wall than ho-oh so doesn't need the burn as much.

 

[Reffrey]

Hey Kaushik, nice rmt. :] I was off of pokemon showdown for about a week but now I'm back. This team is definitely solid and it gave me a lot of tough matches on the ladder. I don't really have any suggestions other than maybe not running spdf pdon. I think that u definitely have the right moveset for pdon since although you don't have a fire move, rock slide is pretty useful and plus you already have a fire move on ho-oh, but without running any attack evs your pdon doesn't hit very hard, and also gets outspeeded by other pdons and primal kyogres. This really isn't much of a problem though because the rest of your team handles pdon and pogre decently. I'm just not a fan of spdf pdon but it is definitely okay to use on this team. If you want to though you can try these evs: 252 hp / 88 atk / 168 spe (adamant nature), which will allow your pdon to outspeed most other primals while at the same time still being bulky and hitting harder. You can also try 252 hp / 220 atk / 36 spdf (adamant), which maintains more of your special bulk and sacrifices speed to hit like a truck while still giving you a lot of overall tankiness.

I also like megazards suggestion, although I'm not sure if celesteela over ho-oh is as good as it sounds. Your team is definitely gengar weak, but you still have ways of taking gengar out such as setting up a dragon dance with mega ray, and also both ho-oh and spdf pdon take care of mega gengar decently. Swapping fairyceus with dragonceus (or even iceceus for the memes) is definitely something you should try. You could also try swapping sd ghostceus with sd z-move groundceus or maybe sd steelceus (regular old ekiller arceus-normal is also an option) to make the team less gengar weak. If you take ghostceus off the team then you could swap mega ray with mega gengar so that you still have a ghost type on the team, but that might not be such a good option since mega ray is hands down the most viable pokemon in the meta and maybe not worth replacing.

Anyway, nice rmt, and I'll cya on showdown friend. :]