I wanted to make a team that valued Cresselia’s strength as a Calm Mind sweeper with its massive bulk and I found that the best way to make it a reliable strategy was pairing it with some suicide options. Energy Ball is chosen over Moonblast to drop Swampert before it can get a Toxic on me, EVs to still be faster than Adamant Crawdaunt as Energy Ball will plow it down anyway.
Scarf Final Gambit Staraptor can pretty much remove any one Pokémon from the game, I opted for Intimidate over Reckless for when that does not happen as it can facilitate giving a turn to Zydog to get a DD up and win. Return over Double-Edge to revenge kill something without losing important HP for Final Gambit. No Flying STAB because honestly, it’s either Brave Bird or nothing.
Still, despite being fast this Staraptor set doesn’t particularly hit hard because of its lack of Attack investment and low power STABs. For this very reason there’s another fast and hard hitting option in Sharpedo-Mega who has Speed Boost prior to mega evolving.
Sharpedo can often be good in endgames but the fact it has only space for its STABs leaves it walled at times, which is why I opted for Destiny Bond to remove another Pokémon from the game and get closer to a win with my setup mons.
Tinkaton is amazing here due to its ability to get up rocks and give me an easier time vs bulky setup from Suicune (EV’d to be faster than it), Reuniclus and other threats alike. Pickpocket + Balloon allows me to steal an opposing mon’s item, this can be surprisingly useful as Mienshao and especially Flygon’s U-turn usually end up being clicked and giving me a free new item.
Zygarde-10% is really hard to setup even with the tools this team has, but when you get it going there’s no way to stop it. Dragonium Z Outrage hits the few things that can take Thousand Arrows extremely hard and Iron Tail rounds up the coverage by smashing Ninetales-Alola. Faster than Mienshao with some bulk investment to hopefully live some moves.
My last mon is Thundurus, I know this set sucks, it’s a necessary evil because hazard removal is needed and Prankster T-Wave is too good to pass up on. So I’m left with Ice + Electric, which hits like a wet noodle with my EV allocation but this team requires something to stop Scarf Mienshao and other fast threats whose items cannot always be stolen. Defensive investment required to live Triple Axel from Mienshao.
