Introduction
Hello, it's been like 6 years since my last RMT and I don't recommend anyone to go and read it because it was really bad LOL, I could barely even speak english back then. In any case, I'm here to showcase what is probably one of my weirdest creations, that by NO means should work but also fsr have barely seen losing games: Sigigastro. The team was made about 4-5 months ago, during UUSD, and I was just trying to make a scaldspam I was happy with but was never able to get together 6 mons I liked. All of the versions i kept coming up with had major issues, eventually I gave up on bringing that idea to the tour since I didn't even like Glowbro too much as a mon in the meta, but on a sleepless night I remember logging on PS and putting together this team, quite literally slapping random mons after the initial core and just logging out to go to sleep. The base idea was pretty straight forward: you pair Raikou and Glowbro in order to eventually get a burn on Hippo/Tangrowth (back then EQ was still used), and at that point they're both just stonewalled by Glowbro and it should go in. Some issues I was facing while trying to build a serious team were how hard it was to make the Hydreigon MU playable, How oppressive Keldeo would've been since Tangrowth is so easy to overwhelm and other options we have now were not feeling as good as they do nowdays, How oppressive Hippowdon was if I wasn't able to get a burn or overwhelm it before it could seriously damage the core, and other stuff like that. Ironically enough, Sigilyph and Gastrodon, two mons that while we have seen used like one time each before, fit perfectly and solved all the issues the core was facing, but.. I didn't realize it either at first. I just woke up, found myself with those 6 that looked like a joke in my builder, put 252 252 on both and the dumbest Sigilyph moveset I could think of, and then started to randomly use it as a meme in testgames.. but it wasn't losing a single one. I kept labelling it as a meme because.. it looked dumb, the sets were made really quickly to just try and scratch it after but also I didn't want people to think it was anything serious and risk to sabotage them in a tour just because it looked fun, in the end I didn't even have a ghost resist so. Eventually it did get tour play and I don't think I've seen it losing a single game there, It became a meme in the UU community, and has even got a more serious, updated version made by umbry that turns it into something not only super frustrating to play, but also in all honesty a really good team. Alongside the two versions of this team that started as a meme but eventually made it, I also wanna take the opportunity and Hall of Fames some of my favourite teams I built throughout the gen and loved playing with as a way to say farewell to a tier I spent way too much time onto, and while I really don't like how it looks nowdays or never really liked it too much throughout the gen, I had fun at times and I don't wanna just remember the bad parts of it. Also shamelessly stealing Pak 's formatting both because I really love his RMTs and encourage everyone to read them, but also because i find myself a lot comfortable with it.
In-depth look
Original:
Raikou @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Optimised:
Raikou @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 48 HP / 104 Def / 104 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Overview - Raikou is somewhat of a weird pokémon in SS UU, it's peak was definitely during G-molt's best times, but to me the pivot set has always been a good and underrated alternative to Thundurus-T when it wasn't feeling good in the meta, and also has a much better HO matchup. Honestly a strong clean upper since both the grasses and the groundtypes we have are fairly simple to put in range, but it's defensive utility is not that wide, it's not reliable and always had a big problem named Zarude, especially considering that Aura Sphere isn't the main option people go for, but rather Calm mind even on pivot. Subcm has always been a pretty good option in amoonguss-polluted metas but has never got too much usage due to how bad the boots Zarude matchup is. Even now where we are in another SubCM Raikou friendly meta, I can't say i've seen a single other one outside of this team.
Interactions - On this team Raikou serves as a way to burn groundtypes such as Hippowdon, Swampert and the more offensive ones, but also helps checking Scizor, is a crucial piece of the HO mu, works as speedcontrol and in the first version of it also served as a Zarude lure to make the matchup more playable. Nowdays in a metagame where Amoonguss is much more present, SubCM is a solid way to abuse it, burning some PPs from the ground types is also really nice for Glowbro, and you can technically still overwhelm boots Zarude although sequences are a lot harder but thankfully that set has also seen less use overall. Finding situations to get a free sub off is much easier with mons like Togekiss being present as well, and sand being somewhat uncommon helps this set to truly shine. It has felt like a solid wincondition again and I would like to see more people experiement with it in general as I think it's a really cool mon to use. The spread helps setupping against both regular but also Seed Bomb amoonguss.
Slowbro-Galar @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Def / 20 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Overview - Glowbro has definitely been one of best and most influential mons in UU throughout the generation, being arguably broken in DLC 1 and stood close to the top even in DLC 2. Nowdays it's still a fine mon, sometimes owning from preview and other times having troubles making progress even with good RNG on it's moves which has always been one of the big factors for it's dominance. The main problems it's facing atm are definitely the increase in usage of moves such as Stun Spore or Thunder Wave which can very much stop the mon from doing what it's best at, and while you can tech for the first one with Goggles, you end up missing the berry a LOT. We have also seen a lot more Teleport+Ground core with the comeback of Teleport Chansey and Also more Slowking usage. Overall Glowbro still feels fine but I don't think it's nearly as good as it was during it's peak.
Interactions - The team revolves around supporting and trying to get Glowbro to win the game, but Glowbro itself can also help a lot since the Colbur berry is crucial against Zarude and Hydreigon, which are very annoying for other members such as Raikou, Gastrodon and Sigilyph, and you kind of need to setup a situation where your opponent is forced into a not-so-good trade fairly often, but thankfully it isn't too hard. Shuca would also be very good here for similar reasons, I think both of them have their merits but i prefer Colbur overall, especially considering Glowbro is the knock absorber of the team anyways in most cases. Speed is just Hatterene creep iirc, don't really much else to say since the mon is pretty straight forward.
Tangrowth @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 172 SpD / 28 Spe
Bold Nature
Overview - Tangrowth has been a pretty weird mon in the tier, has seen good and bad times but if there is one thing that has been true throughout the gen is that it's always been better than amoonguss only when the meta was at it's worst, and it's easy to see why. Realistically most of the times you find yourself using Tangrowth is due to the need of compression on top of being the best option against ground type, and while I think this stood true at the time, there was also the fact that Amoonguss and Scizor were seeing less usage than ever, which ironically meant that Tangrowth was a huge threat to people that forgot an abuser. Nowdays Tangrowth feels much worse, it's pretty lackluster and easy to overwhelm but still sees an oki amount of usage due to ground types coming back and the need to answer Primarina.
Interactions - Even if I was to try and rebuild the team nowdays I still wouldn't consider changing tang as it's a key part of it and basically the best enabler the core could get: best ground answer between the grasses, also able to knock opposing tang which is important for Raikou, and other stuff that I'm gonna explain in a second. Oki so this Tangrowth set is rather uncommon, Leaf Storm is usually a worse option than Power Whip as it's a lot worse against Primarina, but Leaf Storm here is important as people sometimes used Hippowdon as Tangrowth answer, and don't ask me why but it happened frequently, Power Whip doesn't 2hko even after knocking leftovers which meant that unless you got a Sludge Bomb poison it was an ok answer, and usually getting the Leaf Storm off meant that Hippowdon was gonna be in Scald range from Raikou. As for the spread, Power Whip runs -Speed but since Knock Off damage doesn't really matter I went for -Atk and decided to give it a little speed for one simple reason that I'll put in the spoiler:
Original:
Cobalion @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
Optimised:
Cobalion @ Leftovers
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
Overview - Cobalion has been one of the best UU mons for months now. Being able to check mons such as Nihilego and Scizor while it's also one of the best setters in the tier makes it the most splashable mon and it kind of feels forced into these builds with more uncommon mons, since compressing all of those abilities in one slot is quite impressive. I don't personally love it though mainly due to how easy it is to overwhelm or to restrain it from doing something meaningful, I'd say for that fact combined with meta adaptments we have seen breaker sets used less and less in favour of more supportive roles, with also things like Leftovers rather than Helmet to try and increase it's survivability.
Interactions - Here Cobalion plays a couple of crucial parts: The most important one it's definitely being THE Zarude matchup, as the only common set that can effectively deal with Cobalion is a lot simplier for the team to handle, but also was initially important against Nihilego since Sigilyph was walled and Gastrodon can't afford to risk GK or poisons. Also sinergizes quite well with both Tangrowth and Raikou, as they have some shared answers they can trade upon for the others to get a chance at doing solid damage.
Original:
Sigilyph @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Optimised:
Sigilyph @ Flame Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
Overview - Sigilyph is viable in the sense that it's worse than Salamence for all intents and purposes.. unless you specifically need your Salamence to also counter Hippowdon or to be a Shroom abuser. I believe Askov came up with it during or prior to UUSD and has seen a couple of uses before this team but not a lot of success. Other more traditional options such as LO 3a roost or CM sets have been tried but all of those felt outclassed by mons like Azelf or Necrozma in most situations, with CM Shift+Air Slash for Zarude being the only one with a unique niche but it wasn't exactly good and so people have stop trying it out. To put it simple, Sigilyph is one of those mons that fits 1/100 times, but in this team in particular it fits flawlessly.
Interactions - As I said in the introduction, when I first filled the sets for the team I didn't spend more than 20 seconds thinking about it, and I was surprised by how good IcyHot felt ngl. Sure, you're walled by Primarina, Wash-tom, and are a Sigilyph that can't really touch Nihilego, but well.. too bad nobody was sending them on Sigi. Ice beam caught so many Hydreigons trying to switch in thinking it's walled, and the team very much appreciated it, and since really offensive Scizors are nowhere to be seen in the tier, even at 0/0 you're capable of revenging it as a last resource, since the team isn't generically weak to it. In the more updated version, the mon has seen a massive change. With the rise of Amoonguss back into the meta, activating flame orb prior to it coming in and so becoming an abuser is very important, and on top of everything the burn is still very annoying to the more common Hydreigon sets that usually run choice items. The Flame Orb isn't only important for Amoonguss scenarios though: You have a couple of target who can be very annoying for the starting core that you can get a burn off, such as Swampert or Tangrowth, which is very useful incase your scalds aren't very hot on the day, and also you can just create more setupping windows for them against physical mons. This set is a bit of a double-edged sword though, you do end up missing the Ice coverage a lot, and while the team can still deal with most of the Darks, being pretty much walled by them while not having a solid NP Hydreigon answer can bite pretty hard.
Gastrodon @ Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
Overview - Gastrodon in UU has had a pretty poor past this gen, for one and one reason only: Zarude. You're entirely walled by it and there is not a lot you can do unless you drop one of the key pieces of your moveset. It does have a couple of cool features, such as Storm Drain in a tier where every single additional water resist is important since both Primarina and Keldeo are usually hard to handle, being able to completely counter Rotom-Wash is amazing considering it's one of the most annoying mons in the tier, and also clear smog has made it viable a couple of times in prior metas. It also faces strong competition by mons like Seismitoad or Swampert, who both have less-niche features than Gastrodon and are often the better choice for that reason. Overall it's in the same boat as Sigilyph if not worse: Strong, but often outclassed and super rarely fits, as the team needs to handle Zarude exceptionally well.
Interactions - Q: Does the team handle Zarude exceptionally well? A:
. But it still fits really well since Gastrodon offers everything I was looking for in a single mon though, Keldeo Matchup was pretty shaky up to this point as I pretty much would've had to guess moves once Tangrowth was getting chipped but Storm Drain makes it a lot easier to handle, it's a ground type which I did not have yet and that's really big for these balances which are more often than not owned by Thundurus-T, It helps in checking Primarina and beats a couple of it's set, allowed me to run the Sigilyph set walled by Rotom-wash since it just counters it, Is the only ground type alongside Seismitoad which can't be burned and so is capable of answering Glowbro which was also becoming threatening to the team and, most importantly, counters Scarf Hydreigon. So yeah, Gastrodon really was the best fit there, it just either happened to check the few mons I was finding really annoying or helped solidifying the matchup against some others. I didn't really need the pdef for anything other than being able to maybe munch an extra sword from Keldeo, but max spdef being able to just munch hits from Hydreigon, and also taking on Specs' Dark Pulse sold it for me.Threat List
Replays
UU Swiss Round 4 - Sage vs EIV0R
UU Swiss Round 5 - Lily vs Ara
Pia Tour - umbry vs Sage
I don't think any other got saved
Import
https://pokepast.es/795397932d280223 - First, initial "meme" version.
https://pokepast.es/5c60e2519a6d9279 - Optimised, serious version by umbry . (good team)
My gen8uu Hall Of Fame
As mentioned in the introduction, I wanna go through some of my favourite teams I made in these 3 years of gen8uu, I'll go in chronological order starting from when I had just came back to the game to now!
ETA - July 2020. UUWC Had just started and Pools were ongoing when Highways and HS came up with Mimikyu Volturn, an archetype where Mimikyu served as somewhat of a one-time omnianswer to any threat that was going out of control thanks to Disguise, and back then Mimikyu was still somewhat of a threat in the meta. I wasn't taking part in the tour as I had just came back to the game the month before and Europe didn't take me on the roster, but I remember building this team and playing a ton on ladder/friendlies and I was barely losing any game. This team was the first one I came up with that I felt like didn't have a single lost preview, I always found myself capable of beating everything I was facing along the way. Nowdays, I'm ngl idk if I would be able to play it anymore LOL. It looks super weird and I don't remember any of the sequences I was using to beat mons such as Jirachi or Lycanroc-D, I'm probably as lost as everyone else is. Still, I had a lot of fun playing with it back then and have good memories of it, which is why I'm putting it here.
ETA - August 2020. Let me spoiler it to you: Jirachi didn't last for long. Snake 4 was about to start and I was helping HS in the Leviathans chat, at around the same time people started to realize just how powerful Lycanroc was in the post Rachi meta, It truly felt like it was the Mienshao of DLC1. Lycanroc got soon suspected and I think I was one of the little people that actually didn't vote ban on it, both because I personally didn't feel like it was broken and people just "refused to adapt", but also because I felt like the post Lycanroc meta was just gonna be a Zarude+Slowbro fiesta everywhere (and I was right). That Cobalion set is so criminal looking at it LOL, but I REALLY felt like I needed twave off on Noivern, this team didn't get any tour play either but I think I used it for a couple of suspect tests and such. Overall a really fun one, rip Lycan tho.
ETA - December 2020. What better way for my favourite mon in the tier to get banned if not for me to be the final blow. UUSD 1 had just started and I was getting my first season as full time starter. It didn't go well.. I started off 0-3 infact. Nerves were absolutely murdering me during games and I was sabotaging myself HARD in the builder with sets such as NP Flash cannon flame thrower Hydreigon??? Anyways, after I inevitably flopped badly and Bouff deservedly threw me to the bench I started to try and learn how to build good teams, and eventually decided to try a Latias set that Punny had used in gen7uu with good results: Flame Orb Latias. It didn't trend for long, but considering it literally beat every single little answer Latias had left at the time this truly was the final blow for her to be suspected and eventually banned. This team didn't get to debut in a tour game but also started a quick archetype that polluted the metagame for those 2 months in Zera-Lati Off, which I used a couple of times to eventually bounce back later in the tour. Also the Latias set got the name of Lysstias even tho I literally stole it so that was funny.
ETA - August 2021. Huge timeskip! This is UUWC 2 and.. I wasn't even playing SS in it, I was on ORAS duty :rolling_eyes:. In any case, umbry had just picked up building the tier and had just came up with the set that will define the next few months of SS UU: Spdef Spikes Roserade. A stupid rose taking on the broken sword, yeah. We were building together at the time and we ended up building very similar teams, but eventually decided to use hers during the pools as it felt just a bit better. The team is really simple: It's just Thundurus Spikes, which was by far the best archetype at the moment since Thundurus with just 1 spike down was the most threatening mon in the tier, capable of dealing with pretty much anything, but it also had some other cool things that will see even more usage in the future months such as bulky Krookodile. I think both versions were really good and had their merits, the Kommo-O set in mines felt really good and eventually got more usage later on in the tour/in the upcoming SCL, this team didn't get tour play either but I was really proud of it.
ETA - January 2022. UU Masters is ongoing and I have to play Meru. Was trying to build something cool to use and eventually had a thought that changed UU forever.. isn't physical Aegislash good again? Why's nobody using it? So yeah, I just slapped a CB Aegislash, with meme ass Head Smash that I eventually replaced because it was really bad but the idea of OHKOing Mandibuzz was really funny, and just went in with it. After trying it and realizing that I was infact right about Physical Aegislash, more people picked up on it and an old set in SD KS that hadn't seen usage in months eventually became the most dominant and metadefining set with people like umbry and KM popularizing it. As for Band.. it was fine, just worse than SD KS but I had my fun with it. Also this team was the first one to have the optimized:tm: Meteor Beam Nihilego 4mss that eventually took off, and it went really hard in the game as well!
ETA - April 2022. We have just got April Shifts and meta is changing completely, and this team is honestly very interesting for a few reasons: This is both the birth of Crobat as a Hippowdon abuser, and the birth of pivot Raikou as a need to find a stable answer to Moltres-Galar who had just got a lot better. This is probably both one of the teams that defines me more as a player and also one of the best teams I built throughout the gen, but unfortunately I lost with it thinking Scizor was fsr faster than my Skarmory, but thankfully Passion avenged it the following week (I love Passion). I remember this team having some crazy theoryline behind it but ngl I forgot it, also I Love Specs Nihilego omg.
ETA - May 2022. It's May, and both UULT Qualifiers and more importantly the latest stages of UU Open are going on. During the latest weeks of UUPL Highways had came up with the Swampert-Amoonguss-Celesteela-Hydreigon structure and I honestly just took that and made it beyond broken. I qualified rly easily for UULT with it and many people used it to get there as well. Eventually it also got used in UU Open Semifinals where umbry won with it against bulufan, and also I made Omicorio win a game in UUFPL or smth, which is a pretty big achievement I would say. Jokes aside, this team was really good and most likely the best team I built all gen.
ETA - June 2022. UULT Playoffs are going on and I'm trying to build some fun teams to use against Lily when I came up with it. This is the prototype of Flying Spam that solified both Togekiss and Crobat at top tier picks in the meta at the time, Togekiss especially was starting to rise already but people were locked on the idea of using Flamethrower on it for Scizor/Excadrill when Heal Bell just swept teams left and right and Thunder Wave also also a really good option. This team wasn't the most straight forward to pilot I'd say, the Cobalion MU is pretty much keeping swampert healthy and being able to get a good trade against it, and also it's pretty hard to get all the value off the Jirachi set. I've seen a couple of people recreating it but no one got it completely accurate, also after the game against Lily, I also used it in UU invitational against pdt and Passion used it in UUSD against Chaos.
ETA - June 2022. Wouldn't be a Reina (or umbry) teamdump without a Skarmdhelm team. Around the same time as the previous team I was also taking part in UUSD, and I used this team in Week 1 of that tour. This team does have issues, but no matchup truly felt lost on preview, which at the time and even now is kinda crazy. Some like Azelf or Crobat were really hard to play but you had a couple of lines in order to out them, and testing with this team, optimizing it, and learning how to play the archetype and all the matchups in just one week was one of my favourite experiences this gen. Oh and yeah if it wasn't obvious, this team was made together with umbry , there aren't many good skarmdhelms around that didn't have her touch tbh.
ETA - October 2022. Last couple of weeks of SCL regular season and.. I'm beyond burned out and taking some time off before playoffs. I was also trying to build so I could do it myself for playoffs as umbry was gonna be busy and other stuff, eventually i cameup with this super fun team that sadly never made it to a game. Introducing miluni! I don't know how good this team truly is but if there is anything I know is that piloting it is super fun, it has a ton of options to make progress with and it's full of fun ideas like the Milotic+Sight core or Wish Mence into AV Azumarill, that is a surprisingly really good recipient. This team is also the only one in this list that is still usable nowdays, as it's built for current meta, I recommend maybe trying it for fun but I don't know if it's really any reliable.Conclusion
Overall, I had a great time with SS UU, and I felt like I wanted to properly say farwell to it before adventuring in the new generation. As much as I dislike the current state it's into, it definitely had its highlight in the 3 years it existed as CG, and I would prefer remembering those rather than the ungodly mess I felt like it was into most of the time. In a way I think it "wasn't meant to be", I remember looking at the mons pool years ago and thinking about how anti synergic it was, how we lacked options or how everything felt "too unique" , and those are thoughts I still carry to this day, and none of the solutions we could come up with really could've solved this problem. It's a fun tier to play casually because there are so many cool things you can come up with or do, but it's so frustrating to play "seriously" with how dicey it gets. It definitely got to my mind a LOT of times, I have memories of myself raiding council chat during UUPL because 30% of the games I was seeing were ending on stuff like How Many Outrage Turns Did Zydog Get (I'm very sorry again Lily Indigo Plateau Adaam and all the others I went over the line at times and was definitely not fun to deal with), or my infinite and endless rants about state of the tier and how we should prioritize competitiveness over keeping all the unhealthy garbage we have (hey I still support this idea, but maybe it's for the better that I'm alone @ this), but even then I still had great time, and it was mostly thanks to all the amazing people we have in our rly nice community. I would feel like a dummy if I didn't properly thank you umbry for all you've done for me in the last few years, if I'm half viable as a player nowdays it's 99% thanks to you and all the support and advices you gave me, but also even outside the game, we spent countless hours together both talking and calling, you're my favourite person on the site and ily tons<3. I'm not gonna tag everyone especially because I realized just how bad I am at this, but a big thanks to everyone in golducks, worrywhirl, terrors, s&v gang(!), ff22 (dead i miss you hs), uu council, as well as all my other friends I sadly don't share groups with, you are all amazing and make my days way better than they would otherwise be, it's also thanks to you all that I still have some passion for this game considering how BAD it gets at times. Also big thanks to everyone reading this, I appreciate it a lot.
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