Resource Team Bazaar
- Thread starter Aether
- Start date
Hello UU, i've been considering making a post like this for a while but laziness has gotten in the way...
With UULT being finished and my UUBD season pretty much finished too, i thought it'd be interesting to drop some of my reasonings (if there are ones for said teams) and my overall thoughts on the meta throughout UULT:
Laddering phase:
On cycles 1 and 2 i tried to cheese my way through with mostly rain and HO trying to get my games done quickly but it didn't work quite well due to me particularly not being a proficient user of said styles and once you got on the higher part of the ladder people would either be solid into it or at least know how to play against.
On cycle 3 i decided to just give up on that idea and build something i'd feel more comfortable using and that would be do better vs the teams trending in the higher part of the ladder. I tried a couple of different ideas, ending up trying sand builds just because of how sand rush excadrill is a big problem into most offensive builds and stuff like rotom wasn't that used at the time. After trying different stuffs on the ''glue'' slots, i came up with this final version that would prove to be consistent enough to get me a spot in poffs:
(i know people want to know sets/spreads so i left the importable available if you click on the image, i did try out different combinations and made some changes to use it later again so the actual paste might not totally reflect on the meta it was first used in, the most important change from the original one being the roar tech on cobalion to avoid getting cheesed badly by the stored power crown sets running around on ladder)
Playoffs:
Until playoffs my picks have been mostly pokemon that were already in the meta (aside from okidogi, which got a huge boon in popularity after me and udongirl using it a fair amount during laddering phase), it was the ''challenging'' part of the tour just because of how wide was the pool of stuff you could face in this environment, however, coming into playoffs i knew that while there certainly were creative players around, i could get away with using more off pick pokemon choices because players in tour tend to either reuse stuff and mostly sticking to proven meta picks, and that's where the ''unorthodox'' teams started being cooked...
VS Mimilucha:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-774067?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-774069?p2)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-774068?p2)
(again, i did try to revamp those teams eventually so there might be some set tweaks from the original one)
Even though it lost g1, it was probably the first instance in recent sv uu where milotic was used in a tour, at the time being used as a check to battle bond gren check, stored power crown sets and belly drum azu, although certainly counterproductive with sand, but i really believed sand was strong just because exca on sand gave me an out for dangerous fast pokes while the idea behind scarf tyranitar was moreso that zapdos/tornadus would mindlessly click volt/u-turn vs tyranitar, which i could use as an opportunity to snipe them for excadrill/hydrapple.
The one pokemon that got notorious in this set was regice though, which i still think could be used although the meta where it was used first was more friendly for it for sure. Being a decent hydrapple + gren check while having a strong STAB that at the time there were not much good resists being used for it while getting passive healing through ice body was something that caught my eye when i needed to fix those weaknesses on the team i had.
VS ihbst:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-776109)
also used by mncmt in uu open in the following replays:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-776177
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-776775)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-776116?p2)
For this week, we were at that point of the meta where ursaluna and crown started skyrocketting as threats in the teambuilder, so i decided i wanted to have decent measures vs them at least in one game. People were also not using spikes as much so i wanted to give it a try to see if i could make something work.
Even if my hazard users choice for rocks and spikes on this team ended up being weird on this composition, i think this combination worked better here just because of how limited empoleon is limited on moveslots and i feel like it doesn't wanna use rocks at all. While obviously you're not beating flame orb ursa with baloon pecha, it still provided a short term scout into it while possibly getting a foul play damage weakening it a fair amount to limit it to fewer opportunities later in the game. Regarding Empoleon's set + spread, i pretty much compressed it all there to check hydrapple, since you outspeed any non timid hydrapple and can either haze np variants or roost off leaf storms damage/threaten with ice beam.
The second team honestly didn't have a deeper thought on it other than just trying to abuse bulky setuppers, which seemed to be something most teams were having trouble dealing with. Originally i had enamorus-therian over zapdos but after Attribute trying this team out with zapdos to be a bit better into torn-T in the long term i liked the idea and made it zapdos too. Dragon Fang Hydrapple with this ev spread was specifically to drop most av torns with a +2 draco from full while surviving a bleakwind/hurricane from 0 spa zapdos, it felt kind of needed since i had no rocks user on this team so sticking up damage on torn was pretty hard in the long run aside from maybe dogi getting a poison on it. Vincune also felt pretty underrated and i liked it as an option here to abuse hydrapple teams running around at the time, and i still think suicunes in general could be explored in the actual meta although Scarf Hoopas popularity nowadays surely don't help much sub sets...
VS Sabella:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-778576?p2)
An adaptation made by Meru would also be used later in UUBD/Slam TB:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-781679?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-783048?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-783143)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-778580?p2)
Despite popular belief being fat teams were pretty much out of the game with ursaluna being so popular, i tried to make a fatter team work (already started working on stall too...) and i wanted spikes just because with so many threats running around i wanted to at worse limit stuff i couldn't check properly, and the big breakers atm couldn't afford boots so spikes was guaranteed damage as long as i could get them up/keep them up. Some of the odds pick in the team felt needed just because your regular balance pokes admiteddly couldn't deal with the actual meta so stuff like sinistcha (for ursaluna + best spinblocker available to pair with gastro) + reuni (dogi check while still being able to threaten a wincon later on, which was optimized in merus version by just making good use of reunis support moves to potentialize its teammates more) + gastro (one of the most solid volt blockers into anything that is not grass knot thund, also helped checking gren) + skeledirge which at the time wasn't really looked at too much just because of how prevalent ursa was.
Admiteddly the Glaceon isn't really a good pokemon. Shocking i know. However the idea i had when trying to make use of it here was similar to Regice idea but with a more offensive approach since ice resists (actually freeze dry resists) were rare and slowking giving it a defense boost + accurate blizzards looked like a good idea for a breaker that also had reasonable bulk to get a sub on few passive pokes. Of course most remember how this game went though and Ursaluna took the show instead...
VS azick:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-779156?p2)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-779159)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-779165?p2)
Also used in UUBD a few other times and in Slam Playoffs by mncmt:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-780245?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-778289
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-779171
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-783796)
Since we decided to play pretty much when round went up i just picked three teams i already had built that i thought would be fine overall, obviously the first one was probably the worst one i've brought so far, specs ribombee isn't amazing and the supporting cast was just not helping it either.
Now going to the devil team, i was trying to come up with stall for a time by now since i think people just forgot its existence and claimed it to be bad throughout a good part of sv, and while i can agree with it not being amazing i do think it was still usable enough but needed to be optimized. Admiteddly i was having a hard time making one that i liked (obviously flame orb ursaluna was the biggest road blocker for it while stuff rising in popularity like okidogi certainly didn't help it either). I was looking through some games and i just remembered of Tree69420 stall ihbst used vs me in UULT and i remember facing it on ladder in some other occasions and always thought it had a good base so i decided to work on that making my tweaks to my liking. I tried a lot of dogshit pokes just to combat Ursaluna but i ended up on Avalugg which ended up being the better overall option. It's not the 100% hard counter to Ursaluna but it gives stall pretty good tools to work with, being able to use Rapid Spin, has reliable recovery, funnily counters non meteor mash metagross and mamoswine which are usually two pretty hard pokes for stall while still being a decent Ursaluna switch, specially with Tera Ghost.
The last team was just me not having anything solid i liked left so i just decided to fall back on something i felt was solid even know Azick was my UUBD teammate and he had this team, which ended up on an almost mirror match where i got a lucky timely crit that decided the game. The team is pretty standard looking now aside from the obvious sinistcha pick for Ursaluna but at the time scizor wasn't the most common pick around but it had some nice utility by checking any non tera fire serperior via u-turn + hyperspace fury scarf hoopa, being able to pivot into mamoswine and being a possible wincon itself in the back
VS 691:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-781161)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-781166?p2)
This was a week where i tried to make a couple of stuff work but me not having as much time this week + not really being inspired nor really feeling too much like playing (thanks frankjosh for actually telling me to not total meme shit LOL) so i just decided to reuse some stuff i already had and work on them.
First team is pretty much the same one i used vs sabella with pecharunt over reuniclus, which was mostly to be a bit more solid into strong physical attackers that could overwhelm skele/reuni. Foul play tinka was mostly used as a tool to do more damage on excas/scizors/metagross coming on it.
VS Separation:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-782918?p2)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-782921)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-782925)
also used by peum in uusd:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-783177)
Ironically the last two weeks were the ones i was more short on time and had to just reuse more ideas. It was fun how me and Mossy came up with the same Gligar idea when our teams were facing in UUBD LOL, and i'm glad people are starting to recognize it more as a niche but totally usable option on some teams.
As you can notice, all of the teams had the same gligar scizor dogi core which i found was good to cover a fair amount of threats in the meta at least in the short term. To no ones surprise Tentacruel team was a flop because well..... it had a Tentacruel. The main idea was compressing a faster gren check while mainly being able to use spin so i could free up a third slot on excadrill, which was something i wanted to use (sand rush specifically) since it gave me an out to Offenses/HOs given how my teams were fairly slow in general. Three attack Exca was used here as a way to try to take advantage of builds that were overreliant on zapdos to check it since most wouldn't assume rock move on it after iron head is revealed, paired with cb ttar so soften common checks for them.
The second team was mostly me trying to branch out a bit from some of the staples i was using and getting some usage on pokes that i haven't really used yet (belli serp latios), belli being a cope check to gren on this team while still keeping its ability to punish torns, serp being a soft exca check + can act as a wincon depending on the game state
The last one was just pretty much trying to use good pokes in exchange of having a somewhat more poor defensive cohesion, hoopa and gren comboing on defensive stuff so one can finally break out etc etc, nothing too fancy at this point
Post UULT + not used ideas/teams:
We have seen more people trying to push the meta's limit working on making use of more niche pokes that matchups well into meta trending cores which is always a nice thing to see to break the supposed ''staleness'' that many people claim to exist in UU for a good while (see the optimization of Milotic builds, Gligar, Fezandipiti, etc...). While in more top heavy metas the aforementioned problem can be true, i do think that in metas like this one we're having now (post luna ban) we can definitely afford to go a bit out of our way to experiment with new things. Obviously in this proccess there'll be trial and error like with most things in life, but that's the proccess to refine ideas that could pay off later on so even if some of your ideas don't work out it doesn't necessarely mean that other ''wack'' ideas also won't work out, as long as you do have a reason to go for them.
At this point in the post i'm prob too tired to go over all the not used ideas/teams but i'll make a quick list of stuff that i feel could be worked on by someone with more inspiration/just couldn't put enough time nor thoughts on them to make it work:
- rain
- av hoodra
- sun
- articuno
- sub dd loaded dice lapras
- paraspam
- gyarados
- hw spam into threat
- vd h-lilligant
- darkspam
- cm stored power latios
- cosmic power deoxys
- tr
- dd mence
- conkeldurr (both bu lefts and flame orb)
- maushold/cinccino HO
- jugulis/leaves
- pressure (or just vincune alone) + revival blessing and/or lunar dance
- pawmot
- inteleon
- sd scope lens ogerpon
- bunch of shit mons that were more specific to some metas (regular rotom, oventom, misdreavus, lanturn, drifblim)
- subqd frosmoth
- kleavor
- setup mew sets
- necrozma
With UULT being finished and my UUBD season pretty much finished too, i thought it'd be interesting to drop some of my reasonings (if there are ones for said teams) and my overall thoughts on the meta throughout UULT:
Laddering phase:
On cycles 1 and 2 i tried to cheese my way through with mostly rain and HO trying to get my games done quickly but it didn't work quite well due to me particularly not being a proficient user of said styles and once you got on the higher part of the ladder people would either be solid into it or at least know how to play against.
On cycle 3 i decided to just give up on that idea and build something i'd feel more comfortable using and that would be do better vs the teams trending in the higher part of the ladder. I tried a couple of different ideas, ending up trying sand builds just because of how sand rush excadrill is a big problem into most offensive builds and stuff like rotom wasn't that used at the time. After trying different stuffs on the ''glue'' slots, i came up with this final version that would prove to be consistent enough to get me a spot in poffs:
(i know people want to know sets/spreads so i left the importable available if you click on the image, i did try out different combinations and made some changes to use it later again so the actual paste might not totally reflect on the meta it was first used in, the most important change from the original one being the roar tech on cobalion to avoid getting cheesed badly by the stored power crown sets running around on ladder)
Playoffs:
Until playoffs my picks have been mostly pokemon that were already in the meta (aside from okidogi, which got a huge boon in popularity after me and udongirl using it a fair amount during laddering phase), it was the ''challenging'' part of the tour just because of how wide was the pool of stuff you could face in this environment, however, coming into playoffs i knew that while there certainly were creative players around, i could get away with using more off pick pokemon choices because players in tour tend to either reuse stuff and mostly sticking to proven meta picks, and that's where the ''unorthodox'' teams started being cooked...
VS Mimilucha:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-774067?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-774069?p2)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-774068?p2)
(again, i did try to revamp those teams eventually so there might be some set tweaks from the original one)
Even though it lost g1, it was probably the first instance in recent sv uu where milotic was used in a tour, at the time being used as a check to battle bond gren check, stored power crown sets and belly drum azu, although certainly counterproductive with sand, but i really believed sand was strong just because exca on sand gave me an out for dangerous fast pokes while the idea behind scarf tyranitar was moreso that zapdos/tornadus would mindlessly click volt/u-turn vs tyranitar, which i could use as an opportunity to snipe them for excadrill/hydrapple.
The one pokemon that got notorious in this set was regice though, which i still think could be used although the meta where it was used first was more friendly for it for sure. Being a decent hydrapple + gren check while having a strong STAB that at the time there were not much good resists being used for it while getting passive healing through ice body was something that caught my eye when i needed to fix those weaknesses on the team i had.
VS ihbst:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-776109)
also used by mncmt in uu open in the following replays:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-776177
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-776775)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-776116?p2)
For this week, we were at that point of the meta where ursaluna and crown started skyrocketting as threats in the teambuilder, so i decided i wanted to have decent measures vs them at least in one game. People were also not using spikes as much so i wanted to give it a try to see if i could make something work.
Even if my hazard users choice for rocks and spikes on this team ended up being weird on this composition, i think this combination worked better here just because of how limited empoleon is limited on moveslots and i feel like it doesn't wanna use rocks at all. While obviously you're not beating flame orb ursa with baloon pecha, it still provided a short term scout into it while possibly getting a foul play damage weakening it a fair amount to limit it to fewer opportunities later in the game. Regarding Empoleon's set + spread, i pretty much compressed it all there to check hydrapple, since you outspeed any non timid hydrapple and can either haze np variants or roost off leaf storms damage/threaten with ice beam.
The second team honestly didn't have a deeper thought on it other than just trying to abuse bulky setuppers, which seemed to be something most teams were having trouble dealing with. Originally i had enamorus-therian over zapdos but after Attribute trying this team out with zapdos to be a bit better into torn-T in the long term i liked the idea and made it zapdos too. Dragon Fang Hydrapple with this ev spread was specifically to drop most av torns with a +2 draco from full while surviving a bleakwind/hurricane from 0 spa zapdos, it felt kind of needed since i had no rocks user on this team so sticking up damage on torn was pretty hard in the long run aside from maybe dogi getting a poison on it. Vincune also felt pretty underrated and i liked it as an option here to abuse hydrapple teams running around at the time, and i still think suicunes in general could be explored in the actual meta although Scarf Hoopas popularity nowadays surely don't help much sub sets...
VS Sabella:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-778576?p2)
An adaptation made by Meru would also be used later in UUBD/Slam TB:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-781679?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-783048?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-783143)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-778580?p2)
Despite popular belief being fat teams were pretty much out of the game with ursaluna being so popular, i tried to make a fatter team work (already started working on stall too...) and i wanted spikes just because with so many threats running around i wanted to at worse limit stuff i couldn't check properly, and the big breakers atm couldn't afford boots so spikes was guaranteed damage as long as i could get them up/keep them up. Some of the odds pick in the team felt needed just because your regular balance pokes admiteddly couldn't deal with the actual meta so stuff like sinistcha (for ursaluna + best spinblocker available to pair with gastro) + reuni (dogi check while still being able to threaten a wincon later on, which was optimized in merus version by just making good use of reunis support moves to potentialize its teammates more) + gastro (one of the most solid volt blockers into anything that is not grass knot thund, also helped checking gren) + skeledirge which at the time wasn't really looked at too much just because of how prevalent ursa was.
Admiteddly the Glaceon isn't really a good pokemon. Shocking i know. However the idea i had when trying to make use of it here was similar to Regice idea but with a more offensive approach since ice resists (actually freeze dry resists) were rare and slowking giving it a defense boost + accurate blizzards looked like a good idea for a breaker that also had reasonable bulk to get a sub on few passive pokes. Of course most remember how this game went though and Ursaluna took the show instead...
VS azick:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-779156?p2)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-779159)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-779165?p2)
Also used in UUBD a few other times and in Slam Playoffs by mncmt:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-780245?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-778289
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-779171
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-783796)
Since we decided to play pretty much when round went up i just picked three teams i already had built that i thought would be fine overall, obviously the first one was probably the worst one i've brought so far, specs ribombee isn't amazing and the supporting cast was just not helping it either.
Now going to the devil team, i was trying to come up with stall for a time by now since i think people just forgot its existence and claimed it to be bad throughout a good part of sv, and while i can agree with it not being amazing i do think it was still usable enough but needed to be optimized. Admiteddly i was having a hard time making one that i liked (obviously flame orb ursaluna was the biggest road blocker for it while stuff rising in popularity like okidogi certainly didn't help it either). I was looking through some games and i just remembered of Tree69420 stall ihbst used vs me in UULT and i remember facing it on ladder in some other occasions and always thought it had a good base so i decided to work on that making my tweaks to my liking. I tried a lot of dogshit pokes just to combat Ursaluna but i ended up on Avalugg which ended up being the better overall option. It's not the 100% hard counter to Ursaluna but it gives stall pretty good tools to work with, being able to use Rapid Spin, has reliable recovery, funnily counters non meteor mash metagross and mamoswine which are usually two pretty hard pokes for stall while still being a decent Ursaluna switch, specially with Tera Ghost.
The last team was just me not having anything solid i liked left so i just decided to fall back on something i felt was solid even know Azick was my UUBD teammate and he had this team, which ended up on an almost mirror match where i got a lucky timely crit that decided the game. The team is pretty standard looking now aside from the obvious sinistcha pick for Ursaluna but at the time scizor wasn't the most common pick around but it had some nice utility by checking any non tera fire serperior via u-turn + hyperspace fury scarf hoopa, being able to pivot into mamoswine and being a possible wincon itself in the back
VS 691:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-781161)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-781166?p2)
This was a week where i tried to make a couple of stuff work but me not having as much time this week + not really being inspired nor really feeling too much like playing (thanks frankjosh for actually telling me to not total meme shit LOL) so i just decided to reuse some stuff i already had and work on them.
First team is pretty much the same one i used vs sabella with pecharunt over reuniclus, which was mostly to be a bit more solid into strong physical attackers that could overwhelm skele/reuni. Foul play tinka was mostly used as a tool to do more damage on excas/scizors/metagross coming on it.
VS Separation:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-782918?p2)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-782921)
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-782925)
also used by peum in uusd:
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-783177)
Ironically the last two weeks were the ones i was more short on time and had to just reuse more ideas. It was fun how me and Mossy came up with the same Gligar idea when our teams were facing in UUBD LOL, and i'm glad people are starting to recognize it more as a niche but totally usable option on some teams.
As you can notice, all of the teams had the same gligar scizor dogi core which i found was good to cover a fair amount of threats in the meta at least in the short term. To no ones surprise Tentacruel team was a flop because well..... it had a Tentacruel. The main idea was compressing a faster gren check while mainly being able to use spin so i could free up a third slot on excadrill, which was something i wanted to use (sand rush specifically) since it gave me an out to Offenses/HOs given how my teams were fairly slow in general. Three attack Exca was used here as a way to try to take advantage of builds that were overreliant on zapdos to check it since most wouldn't assume rock move on it after iron head is revealed, paired with cb ttar so soften common checks for them.
The second team was mostly me trying to branch out a bit from some of the staples i was using and getting some usage on pokes that i haven't really used yet (belli serp latios), belli being a cope check to gren on this team while still keeping its ability to punish torns, serp being a soft exca check + can act as a wincon depending on the game state
The last one was just pretty much trying to use good pokes in exchange of having a somewhat more poor defensive cohesion, hoopa and gren comboing on defensive stuff so one can finally break out etc etc, nothing too fancy at this point
Post UULT + not used ideas/teams:
We have seen more people trying to push the meta's limit working on making use of more niche pokes that matchups well into meta trending cores which is always a nice thing to see to break the supposed ''staleness'' that many people claim to exist in UU for a good while (see the optimization of Milotic builds, Gligar, Fezandipiti, etc...). While in more top heavy metas the aforementioned problem can be true, i do think that in metas like this one we're having now (post luna ban) we can definitely afford to go a bit out of our way to experiment with new things. Obviously in this proccess there'll be trial and error like with most things in life, but that's the proccess to refine ideas that could pay off later on so even if some of your ideas don't work out it doesn't necessarely mean that other ''wack'' ideas also won't work out, as long as you do have a reason to go for them.
At this point in the post i'm prob too tired to go over all the not used ideas/teams but i'll make a quick list of stuff that i feel could be worked on by someone with more inspiration/just couldn't put enough time nor thoughts on them to make it work:
- rain
- av hoodra
- sun
- articuno
- sub dd loaded dice lapras
- paraspam
- gyarados
- hw spam into threat
- vd h-lilligant
- darkspam
- cm stored power latios
- cosmic power deoxys
- tr
- dd mence
- conkeldurr (both bu lefts and flame orb)
- maushold/cinccino HO
- jugulis/leaves
- pressure (or just vincune alone) + revival blessing and/or lunar dance
- pawmot
- inteleon
- sd scope lens ogerpon
- bunch of shit mons that were more specific to some metas (regular rotom, oventom, misdreavus, lanturn, drifblim)
- subqd frosmoth
- kleavor
- setup mew sets
- necrozma
Hello good people of UnderUsed.
A couple of months ago, I was forced at gunpoint to learn this tier for wcop. I had no prior experience with gen 9 uu, but thankfully had some wonderfull helpers to guide me. I managed to bring in a win for my team in a tough group and fell in love with the tier along the way. I haven't stopped playing it since. Today, I wanted to share this fun team with Frosmoth and offensive zapdos.
(Import in sprites)
I wanted to try frosmoth in uu. I thought it could pull off some sweeps against teams with torn/apple/slowking in the backbone. Its ability to keep gren in check was also a bonus. I paired it with slowking at first. I will credit this game from week 6 of spl, where crying used Frosmoth + snow in OU. The snow gives Frosmoth a defense boost, which makes it harder to stop it from sweeping. There is also some nice defensive synergy between these two. Moth can help Slowking with gren and comfey, two of the few special attackers it struggles with.
Next, I added Ogerpon-C. Between Frosmoth and oger, you can wear down any steel-type. Ogerpon also does decently into bulkier teams, which frosmoth struggles with. Cobalion was next for its synergy with slowking. It gives the team an answer to lokix and opposing ogerpon-c, while also having rocks.
I wanted spikes as well. They would help wear down tinkaton and cobalion for ogerpon-c and Frosmoth. Sandy Shocks was the natural fit. It gave the team a switch-in to zapdos, while getting up spikes. I later decided on booster energy, because the team lacks speed-control. This is one of the biggest flaws with the team. You need to preserve the booster energy in certain match-ups.
For the last slot, I wanted something to deal with drill, dogi and serp. I landed on zap. I decided to make it offensive, because it's scary with spikes and still filled the niche I needed it to fill. It ended up being the mvp for most of my games.
I want to share some replays as well:
I exclusively played this team from 1400 to this peak. That doesn't mean its a great team by any means. It is meant to be fun in the first place. It struggles quite a bit with serp for example. It is good enough to win most games, however. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did if you decide to try it out.
A couple of months ago, I was forced at gunpoint to learn this tier for wcop. I had no prior experience with gen 9 uu, but thankfully had some wonderfull helpers to guide me. I managed to bring in a win for my team in a tough group and fell in love with the tier along the way. I haven't stopped playing it since. Today, I wanted to share this fun team with Frosmoth and offensive zapdos.
I wanted to try frosmoth in uu. I thought it could pull off some sweeps against teams with torn/apple/slowking in the backbone. Its ability to keep gren in check was also a bonus. I paired it with slowking at first. I will credit this game from week 6 of spl, where crying used Frosmoth + snow in OU. The snow gives Frosmoth a defense boost, which makes it harder to stop it from sweeping. There is also some nice defensive synergy between these two. Moth can help Slowking with gren and comfey, two of the few special attackers it struggles with.
Next, I added Ogerpon-C. Between Frosmoth and oger, you can wear down any steel-type. Ogerpon also does decently into bulkier teams, which frosmoth struggles with. Cobalion was next for its synergy with slowking. It gives the team an answer to lokix and opposing ogerpon-c, while also having rocks.
I wanted spikes as well. They would help wear down tinkaton and cobalion for ogerpon-c and Frosmoth. Sandy Shocks was the natural fit. It gave the team a switch-in to zapdos, while getting up spikes. I later decided on booster energy, because the team lacks speed-control. This is one of the biggest flaws with the team. You need to preserve the booster energy in certain match-ups.
For the last slot, I wanted something to deal with drill, dogi and serp. I landed on zap. I decided to make it offensive, because it's scary with spikes and still filled the niche I needed it to fill. It ended up being the mvp for most of my games.
I want to share some replays as well:
- https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2184100084-tjlcqvammvzg66i39uk2ya1az3uihmgpw?p2
- High ladder game where my opponent has: Band Scizor, Scarf Arcanine-H and a Cobalion. Frosmoth still shows value by stopping a comfey sweep at the end.
- https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2184119199-qk6tf6v5lzafhrbr57tb15esezgv5bapw?p2
- The game that brought my account to 1600. Frosmoth sets up on turn 4 and solos their team after a slight misplay by them turn 6.
- https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2184107639-vpwfw5ql1i7p2ppl0gmotve7l0vp2rcpw?p2
- Against a banded scizor, which doesn't allow me to sweep with Frosmoth. I still choose to tera Frosmoth to weaken skele, so my offensive zap could win later. Frosmoth ends up killing shocks and azu (I assume they tried to belly drum, which I couldn't let them do. Thats why i stayed in and attacked in the first place.)
- https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2184557751-rgikp1ki4756kkyzdan0718y640y7lwpw?p2
- Against rain. Moth has a great match-up and kills 5.
- https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2184572217-d4gci7grmy1omk84vkhttag77jcjiz7pw
- Another great match-up for the moth. It gets all 6 here.
- https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2184575981-4i2jaata0cx8csdu0ugu5cwqqcx53hfpw
- A final moth sweep. It doesn't have the greatest match-up here because of lo lokix, but it still managed to sweep.
I exclusively played this team from 1400 to this peak. That doesn't mean its a great team by any means. It is meant to be fun in the first place. It struggles quite a bit with serp for example. It is good enough to win most games, however. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did if you decide to try it out.
FERALIGATR SCREENS HO - Peak 1505
Hey guys. I would like to showcase a team a screens hyper offence team built around my favourite water starter of all time - Feraligatr. I really wanted to use Feraligatr in UU and I always believed it had some sort of potential even though its not always the best. So I decided to build a team around him and got to top 500 surprisingly on my test account.
https://pokepast.es/cd77a2f5d03e2ca5 - The team
The team consists of the following
Excadrill - Its the suicuide lead of the team to set up rocks with stealth rock, remove hazards with rapid spin and boosting speed and reduce opponents speed with rock tomb and earthquake is for a strong stab. Tera Ghost is to block rapid spins from opposing Excadrill or Donphan. Mold Breaker is there to hit rotom wash through levitate and even rocking up in the face of magic bouncers and focus sash makes it the lead with jolly to be as fast as possible.
Grimmsnarl - Its there to set up screens with taunt reflect light screen and spirit break. Spirit Break does damage and with prankster taunt and screens its able to safely set up but its unable to taunt dark types as they are immune to prankster. Speed is to outpseed base 70s with 84 hp evs. The attack investment is to ohko Latios after rocks and having a chance to kill Quaqaval after rocks too. The rest are split with max HP and defence and spdef investment to take hits better. Light clay helps it.
Feraligatr - The mon who i wanted to showcase. Its a dragon dance set with Liquidation, Ice Punch and Tera Blast Electric. Liquidation is stab boosted by sheer force with no life orb recoil and does significant damage. Ice Punch is for Grasses and Dragons. In the last option, I had multiple to choose from like Crunch along with Tera Dark, Psychic Fangs, Earthquake (where EQ and PF are for Pex), Tera Normal Body slam for a strong neutral normal move and even trailblaze to hit opposing waters. But since Tera Blast electric hit waters harder and giving Feraligatr a resistance to Scizors Bullet Punch, I felt Tera Blast electric was the option. It already resisted Bullet Punch in its base typing anyway. In turn, Tera Blas electric gives it thunder wave immunity which is always nice. It functioned more as a mid game breaker/sweeper punching big holes for the rest and sometime swept depending on the match up. However, sheer force with life orb neutrality and not being weak to rocks is always nice. I went for Jolly so that I could out speed scarf Latios at +2 as with adamant it doesn't happen. Life orb has great synergy with sheer force.
Scizor - Scizor on HO does typical scizor things and is like a King on HO. I went for SD life orb 3 attacks with knock, bullet punch and close combat. Its my breaker come sweeper and it does well against so may fat cores. The ev spread is to outspeed base 55s like Crawdaunt and what not and the rest in bulk and the evs are spread so as to not take too much life orb recoil. Tera Dark is for a strong knock off which hits skelidirge hard. I also tried quick attack but I need knock due to skeli. Adamant and I felt 390 attack is a good benchmark and technician makes Scizor king. Bullet punch is dangerous at +2
Latios - My main special attacker with a double dance set. The set is calm mind, agility, stored power and aura sphere. Simple set to be a late game or mid game demon with tera steel to avoid toxic since it has levitate The ev spread is timid with 216 Spa which ensures you can kill offensive excadrill with aura sphere at +1. Speed is to outspeed unburden consumed Hawlucha at +2 after agility. The rest is in HP to take hits better. Weakness policy is there to get more boosts behind screens.
Revaroom - A strong late game cleaner when its checks are weakned. I went for shift gear + 3 attacks life orb. I used to run lum berry before and even sometimes iron head. But I later came to the conlusion to run Gunk Shot, Temper Flare and High Horsepower. High Horsepower is good for Peachrunt, Temper Flare for Scizor and other steels and now Skarm. Gunk Shot for a strong stab when neutral although it can miss. Adamant is for max attack and max speed. I have Tera steel for a good typing but it lookes like tera is not so relevant on Revaroom honestly.
Here are some replays
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2226185197-kanw7sm4hdmeh3bqi86scguurt97ne7pw - Proof of peak with Latios coming to the fore at the end.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2225862846-3yrb9dcjw0tebgi8gz0adjmxc4zpqszpw - Revaroom sweeping in the end vs top opponent and breaking skarm
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2225797144-7bxx3tx3hzfhsq0ajnqbd5qa0l8nmgspw?p2 - Revaroom poisoning albeit a bit lucky with the poison from Gunk but it happens.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2225781855-skxosts0hlxt4uy6ntmip4a2d3688bspw?p2 Revaroom is tricked a choice specs but still sweeps even after missing 2 gunks.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2214833851-ztu2n41l3zsc9e35h4sb958a1mdxfocpw?p2 - Feraligatr finishes the game after scizor goes in hard
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2214488015-22d3qsf7wrvqrl72k69ejmu4wduyfb6pw - Feraligatr sweep vs 1500 opponent
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2214484347-g91ps50ryzylj0xi46xtyt0a4dfpwq3pw?p2 - Feraliagtr forces a tera on skarm which later allows Latios to sweep
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2214479029-mx90g85bew9405w93pzidrlh6bs4f22pw?p2 - Feraligatr puts in work here and even takes less than 25 behind a relfect from Okidogi
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217003603-yj9hwnypdkzj7c4a4n5yx57hjjk3bv8pw - Feraligatr takes out slowking and slowkings twave went in vain as Feraligatr terad out and swept the game.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217002831-eknb25vq398yfwv6quojxojgrfebl3ppw?p2 - Grimmsnarl wins the game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2216998650-d0w8w2akbjzanhy7skwew7m3bpzhlxcpw - Scizor is nuts
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217014798-el5riz0ost41u4lezkpljiqgmll62e8pw - Latios beating psychic terrain HO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217010108-rxjevrnthw8f8uioldrci6d7ljr5i1gpw - Mandibuzz is a pain but we got through via Latios
I think this team is fun to use and although not perfect as screens is a little more predictable this team can be a little easier to use from what I understand. Watch out for Lowkix and make good predictions too.
Hey guys. I would like to showcase a team a screens hyper offence team built around my favourite water starter of all time - Feraligatr. I really wanted to use Feraligatr in UU and I always believed it had some sort of potential even though its not always the best. So I decided to build a team around him and got to top 500 surprisingly on my test account.
https://pokepast.es/cd77a2f5d03e2ca5 - The team
The team consists of the following
Excadrill - Its the suicuide lead of the team to set up rocks with stealth rock, remove hazards with rapid spin and boosting speed and reduce opponents speed with rock tomb and earthquake is for a strong stab. Tera Ghost is to block rapid spins from opposing Excadrill or Donphan. Mold Breaker is there to hit rotom wash through levitate and even rocking up in the face of magic bouncers and focus sash makes it the lead with jolly to be as fast as possible.
Grimmsnarl - Its there to set up screens with taunt reflect light screen and spirit break. Spirit Break does damage and with prankster taunt and screens its able to safely set up but its unable to taunt dark types as they are immune to prankster. Speed is to outpseed base 70s with 84 hp evs. The attack investment is to ohko Latios after rocks and having a chance to kill Quaqaval after rocks too. The rest are split with max HP and defence and spdef investment to take hits better. Light clay helps it.
Feraligatr - The mon who i wanted to showcase. Its a dragon dance set with Liquidation, Ice Punch and Tera Blast Electric. Liquidation is stab boosted by sheer force with no life orb recoil and does significant damage. Ice Punch is for Grasses and Dragons. In the last option, I had multiple to choose from like Crunch along with Tera Dark, Psychic Fangs, Earthquake (where EQ and PF are for Pex), Tera Normal Body slam for a strong neutral normal move and even trailblaze to hit opposing waters. But since Tera Blast electric hit waters harder and giving Feraligatr a resistance to Scizors Bullet Punch, I felt Tera Blast electric was the option. It already resisted Bullet Punch in its base typing anyway. In turn, Tera Blas electric gives it thunder wave immunity which is always nice. It functioned more as a mid game breaker/sweeper punching big holes for the rest and sometime swept depending on the match up. However, sheer force with life orb neutrality and not being weak to rocks is always nice. I went for Jolly so that I could out speed scarf Latios at +2 as with adamant it doesn't happen. Life orb has great synergy with sheer force.
Scizor - Scizor on HO does typical scizor things and is like a King on HO. I went for SD life orb 3 attacks with knock, bullet punch and close combat. Its my breaker come sweeper and it does well against so may fat cores. The ev spread is to outspeed base 55s like Crawdaunt and what not and the rest in bulk and the evs are spread so as to not take too much life orb recoil. Tera Dark is for a strong knock off which hits skelidirge hard. I also tried quick attack but I need knock due to skeli. Adamant and I felt 390 attack is a good benchmark and technician makes Scizor king. Bullet punch is dangerous at +2
Latios - My main special attacker with a double dance set. The set is calm mind, agility, stored power and aura sphere. Simple set to be a late game or mid game demon with tera steel to avoid toxic since it has levitate The ev spread is timid with 216 Spa which ensures you can kill offensive excadrill with aura sphere at +1. Speed is to outspeed unburden consumed Hawlucha at +2 after agility. The rest is in HP to take hits better. Weakness policy is there to get more boosts behind screens.
Revaroom - A strong late game cleaner when its checks are weakned. I went for shift gear + 3 attacks life orb. I used to run lum berry before and even sometimes iron head. But I later came to the conlusion to run Gunk Shot, Temper Flare and High Horsepower. High Horsepower is good for Peachrunt, Temper Flare for Scizor and other steels and now Skarm. Gunk Shot for a strong stab when neutral although it can miss. Adamant is for max attack and max speed. I have Tera steel for a good typing but it lookes like tera is not so relevant on Revaroom honestly.
Here are some replays
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2226185197-kanw7sm4hdmeh3bqi86scguurt97ne7pw - Proof of peak with Latios coming to the fore at the end.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2225862846-3yrb9dcjw0tebgi8gz0adjmxc4zpqszpw - Revaroom sweeping in the end vs top opponent and breaking skarm
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2225797144-7bxx3tx3hzfhsq0ajnqbd5qa0l8nmgspw?p2 - Revaroom poisoning albeit a bit lucky with the poison from Gunk but it happens.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2225781855-skxosts0hlxt4uy6ntmip4a2d3688bspw?p2 Revaroom is tricked a choice specs but still sweeps even after missing 2 gunks.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2214833851-ztu2n41l3zsc9e35h4sb958a1mdxfocpw?p2 - Feraligatr finishes the game after scizor goes in hard
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2214488015-22d3qsf7wrvqrl72k69ejmu4wduyfb6pw - Feraligatr sweep vs 1500 opponent
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2214484347-g91ps50ryzylj0xi46xtyt0a4dfpwq3pw?p2 - Feraliagtr forces a tera on skarm which later allows Latios to sweep
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2214479029-mx90g85bew9405w93pzidrlh6bs4f22pw?p2 - Feraligatr puts in work here and even takes less than 25 behind a relfect from Okidogi
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217003603-yj9hwnypdkzj7c4a4n5yx57hjjk3bv8pw - Feraligatr takes out slowking and slowkings twave went in vain as Feraligatr terad out and swept the game.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217002831-eknb25vq398yfwv6quojxojgrfebl3ppw?p2 - Grimmsnarl wins the game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2216998650-d0w8w2akbjzanhy7skwew7m3bpzhlxcpw - Scizor is nuts
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217014798-el5riz0ost41u4lezkpljiqgmll62e8pw - Latios beating psychic terrain HO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217010108-rxjevrnthw8f8uioldrci6d7ljr5i1gpw - Mandibuzz is a pain but we got through via Latios
I think this team is fun to use and although not perfect as screens is a little more predictable this team can be a little easier to use from what I understand. Watch out for Lowkix and make good predictions too.
Attachments
Hello UU, since we're in the middle of the Weavile suspect test, I wanted to share a team I've built after the recent drops and that naturally fairs well against the weasel, using a surprisingly handful tech: Deffensive Quaquaval. This team did surprisingly well on the ladder and got me my highest elo yet (1691).
I'll first write about the process of building the team, and then proceed to explain how it works in battle and show replays. Heres the paste:
https://pokepast.es/fa518244447d0527
1 - The Teambuilding
The original goal of the team was building around spikes Skarmory, since it was a nice new addition to the meta and it showed a lot of pottential, considering the removal situation and the fact that Skarm easily 1v1s Exca. Furthermore, the main merit of using Skarm doesn't even revolve around the offensive pressure of spikes, since it's also naturally an excellent check to many of the tiers main physical attackers, such as the aforementioned Exca, Lokix, Scizor, and more, and its raw bulk allows it to do well even against strong neutral hits such as Dogi's cc and Mamo's Icicle Crash. On the contrary, it has the great downside of being sometimes too much of a momentum sink and usually being overwhelmed throughout battles by the plethora of threats it's tasked with checking.
In that regard, my main concern was around the physical mons it couldn't check or that, if Skarm ever gets overwhelmed, would run over most teams. On that note, things like Weavile, Cornerpon and Quaval looked particularlly threatening, so my first intuition was to add on a Lokix to the team; it's not that deep, it just does lokix things, capitalizes hugely on the hazard pressure with knock + pivoting and revenge kills everything not running protect. On second thought tho, I also wanted a second physically oriented wall that helped to relieve pressure on Skarm while checking H-Arc, that otherwise looked pretty threatening, and that's where the Quaval idea started. And that's how it became the MVP of the team.
At first, deffensive quaval looked awful. I tried developing other versions of the team and completely discarded this one, since the mere idea of it sounds abysmal. But as the alternatives started showing flaws, I was convinced to give it an opportunity and... it worked. It's a nice mid-term between offensive and defensive qualities, it checks a lot of dangerous stuff like the standart Gren set, H-Arc, Weavile, Heatran, Mamo and Scizor decently well, allowing for Skarmory to preserve its health if the match-up requires it, while providing rapid spin support, reliable recovery and actually packing quite a punch lategame with the aqua step + moxie snowball potential. U-turn on the last slot also helps massively to turn it from a sitting (dancing) duck into a momentum generator in unfavorable matchups.
The rest of the team was quite simple: since the structure allowed for it, I wanted to go the bulky balance route, capitalizing on hazard damage + lokix to make progress and playing the long game. Torn-T felt like a no brainer there, giving me nice speed control, a 2nd knock off user, extra pivot and a nice blanket check for a lot of the tier. Also, it's crucial in checking Keldeo and Lati, since my dedicated special wall, Clod, is weak to both. Speaking about Clod, it provides SR and, despite being a bit of a momentum sink in many games, it patches up and otherwise damming weakness to bulky setup sweepers like Dogi, Sinistcha and Pecharunt, while also being a ground type in a team plagued with electric-weak mons. Finally, Latios on the last slot helps with the electric weakness while also being a really strong breaker, that helps in forcing faster progress or cleaning up weakened opponents. I run Psyshock over Flip Turn since 1) if you ever get Lati in, you'd much rather get off a big hit and then hard switch into one of your fat mons that pivot out, you don't have much offensive pressure anyways and 2) it makes the stall MU much more playable when you can pressure Blissey like that.
2- How it works in battle
Rather than extensively explaining how to pilot this team, I'd like to give some tips about its functioning and common scenarios that it faces:
- The Hazard War: As expected of a bulky hazard build, you'll have to hold your own playing long games. Stacking hazards of your own tends to be quite easy, since Skarmory gets a lot of switch-in opportunities during most games and even pivots like Lokix like taking some turns to knock off your helmet before starting to pressure you with U-Turn. Also, having a Clodsire and none of the mons being particularly forced to switch by the most common volt-turn cores means that you can more often that not avoid the vortex and buy yourself some turns to slow the pace. Also, there are many match-ups where Clodsire won't be necessary for the deffensive structure, so even if it struggles to switch in in fast paced games it's pretty ok with sacrificing itself early game just to get up rocks, depending on the opponent. Just keep in mind that having it around is vital against foes like Thundy, Serp or the aforementioned setup sweepers. Also, it's pretty easy to wear down and outlast the tier's two main spinners, Excadrill and Donphan, since they lack recovery and don't make much offensive progress.
On the contrary, this team actually hates opposing hazards. Spikes are ok for the most part, since they only hit Quaval and Clod if it ever gets knocked, but be mindful that rocks chip can stack up quickly and you'd rather try to spin them before Torn and Skarm get too low- on that note, running boots on Quaval is a possible improvement, even if i prefer lefties for winning the Heatran 1v1 and accumulating passive healing-. The issue comes when the opponent has a dedicated spinblocker, since quaval is absolutely helpless against the lights of Pecha, Sinistcha or really any bulky tera ghost. In those matchups it's where U-Turn becomes the most vital, since Quaval tends to get switch-in opportunities against the common heatran/weavile/skarm featured in opposing hazard stack teams, and can pivot out on the spinblocker to get Lati in. From then, you'll have to try and win quicker that your usual gameplan, using specs Latios to offensively pressure your opponent exploiting the easy entry point it gets against the aforementioned blockers.
- Terastalizing: This team doesn't have any mon that loves clicking tera, so there will be games where you don't even use it at all, but there are some noteworthy scenarios i wanted to mention. First, Skarm + Lati + Tera Dark Clod is basically autowin against Psyterrain, so in those matchups you'll probably want to save tera for Clod. Alternatively, Quaval has enough speed IVs to outpace Lati and Cornerpon at +1, which can save your ass against many Ogerpons that manage to break through Skarm if paired with tera grass. It seems a bit prediction reliant, but usually the Ogerpon user would rather take the tera and the damage than risking no tera + getting swept by offensive quaval. Also helps a lot against volt switch pressure if you happen to lose Clod. Finally, the most usual Tera user is Lokix cause, again, it does Lokix things.
- Scary MUs: Even if this team is deffensively solid and thus easy to pilot, it has some shaky matchups that require careful play. I mentioned before the situation against opposing hazard stack, so I won't repeat myself. Stall is also extremely tough, since the team has no way to stop defog or excessively pressure Mandi. Thankfully, stall is pretty uncommon and if you're careful enough with Latios you have potential to break the stall core long term. Finally, there are some mons that can be tough to deal with: specs Latios with rocks up can strongly pressure torn, so you may end up using skarmory as a latios check temporarily, scouting for Gren is also pretty useful since Grass Knot/Extrasensory can KO Quaval and mess your game plan (but also mean gren lacks either protect or ice beam, so Lokix and Torn will answer it), and finally the Hoopa match-up is generally pretty rough (but i feel like this applies to every team not packing Tinka tbh).
3- Some Replays
Clod Popping Off: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217093519
Quaval Cleaning HO: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2216635765?p2
Against Psyterrain: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2218616403-2up8cuk8rh7l85985vrv7a34nt2mh14pw
Elo peak: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2218968576-4cbwug6ft0zrh2i19x1hpyozxu4cnq0pw?p2
I don't really know how much this team will keep up after the more than likely weavile ban, but I had some fun using it and I feel like it's a solid and easy to pilot option in the current meta.
I'll first write about the process of building the team, and then proceed to explain how it works in battle and show replays. Heres the paste:
https://pokepast.es/fa518244447d0527
1 - The Teambuilding
The original goal of the team was building around spikes Skarmory, since it was a nice new addition to the meta and it showed a lot of pottential, considering the removal situation and the fact that Skarm easily 1v1s Exca. Furthermore, the main merit of using Skarm doesn't even revolve around the offensive pressure of spikes, since it's also naturally an excellent check to many of the tiers main physical attackers, such as the aforementioned Exca, Lokix, Scizor, and more, and its raw bulk allows it to do well even against strong neutral hits such as Dogi's cc and Mamo's Icicle Crash. On the contrary, it has the great downside of being sometimes too much of a momentum sink and usually being overwhelmed throughout battles by the plethora of threats it's tasked with checking.
In that regard, my main concern was around the physical mons it couldn't check or that, if Skarm ever gets overwhelmed, would run over most teams. On that note, things like Weavile, Cornerpon and Quaval looked particularlly threatening, so my first intuition was to add on a Lokix to the team; it's not that deep, it just does lokix things, capitalizes hugely on the hazard pressure with knock + pivoting and revenge kills everything not running protect. On second thought tho, I also wanted a second physically oriented wall that helped to relieve pressure on Skarm while checking H-Arc, that otherwise looked pretty threatening, and that's where the Quaval idea started. And that's how it became the MVP of the team.
At first, deffensive quaval looked awful. I tried developing other versions of the team and completely discarded this one, since the mere idea of it sounds abysmal. But as the alternatives started showing flaws, I was convinced to give it an opportunity and... it worked. It's a nice mid-term between offensive and defensive qualities, it checks a lot of dangerous stuff like the standart Gren set, H-Arc, Weavile, Heatran, Mamo and Scizor decently well, allowing for Skarmory to preserve its health if the match-up requires it, while providing rapid spin support, reliable recovery and actually packing quite a punch lategame with the aqua step + moxie snowball potential. U-turn on the last slot also helps massively to turn it from a sitting (dancing) duck into a momentum generator in unfavorable matchups.
The rest of the team was quite simple: since the structure allowed for it, I wanted to go the bulky balance route, capitalizing on hazard damage + lokix to make progress and playing the long game. Torn-T felt like a no brainer there, giving me nice speed control, a 2nd knock off user, extra pivot and a nice blanket check for a lot of the tier. Also, it's crucial in checking Keldeo and Lati, since my dedicated special wall, Clod, is weak to both. Speaking about Clod, it provides SR and, despite being a bit of a momentum sink in many games, it patches up and otherwise damming weakness to bulky setup sweepers like Dogi, Sinistcha and Pecharunt, while also being a ground type in a team plagued with electric-weak mons. Finally, Latios on the last slot helps with the electric weakness while also being a really strong breaker, that helps in forcing faster progress or cleaning up weakened opponents. I run Psyshock over Flip Turn since 1) if you ever get Lati in, you'd much rather get off a big hit and then hard switch into one of your fat mons that pivot out, you don't have much offensive pressure anyways and 2) it makes the stall MU much more playable when you can pressure Blissey like that.
2- How it works in battle
Rather than extensively explaining how to pilot this team, I'd like to give some tips about its functioning and common scenarios that it faces:
- The Hazard War: As expected of a bulky hazard build, you'll have to hold your own playing long games. Stacking hazards of your own tends to be quite easy, since Skarmory gets a lot of switch-in opportunities during most games and even pivots like Lokix like taking some turns to knock off your helmet before starting to pressure you with U-Turn. Also, having a Clodsire and none of the mons being particularly forced to switch by the most common volt-turn cores means that you can more often that not avoid the vortex and buy yourself some turns to slow the pace. Also, there are many match-ups where Clodsire won't be necessary for the deffensive structure, so even if it struggles to switch in in fast paced games it's pretty ok with sacrificing itself early game just to get up rocks, depending on the opponent. Just keep in mind that having it around is vital against foes like Thundy, Serp or the aforementioned setup sweepers. Also, it's pretty easy to wear down and outlast the tier's two main spinners, Excadrill and Donphan, since they lack recovery and don't make much offensive progress.
On the contrary, this team actually hates opposing hazards. Spikes are ok for the most part, since they only hit Quaval and Clod if it ever gets knocked, but be mindful that rocks chip can stack up quickly and you'd rather try to spin them before Torn and Skarm get too low- on that note, running boots on Quaval is a possible improvement, even if i prefer lefties for winning the Heatran 1v1 and accumulating passive healing-. The issue comes when the opponent has a dedicated spinblocker, since quaval is absolutely helpless against the lights of Pecha, Sinistcha or really any bulky tera ghost. In those matchups it's where U-Turn becomes the most vital, since Quaval tends to get switch-in opportunities against the common heatran/weavile/skarm featured in opposing hazard stack teams, and can pivot out on the spinblocker to get Lati in. From then, you'll have to try and win quicker that your usual gameplan, using specs Latios to offensively pressure your opponent exploiting the easy entry point it gets against the aforementioned blockers.
- Terastalizing: This team doesn't have any mon that loves clicking tera, so there will be games where you don't even use it at all, but there are some noteworthy scenarios i wanted to mention. First, Skarm + Lati + Tera Dark Clod is basically autowin against Psyterrain, so in those matchups you'll probably want to save tera for Clod. Alternatively, Quaval has enough speed IVs to outpace Lati and Cornerpon at +1, which can save your ass against many Ogerpons that manage to break through Skarm if paired with tera grass. It seems a bit prediction reliant, but usually the Ogerpon user would rather take the tera and the damage than risking no tera + getting swept by offensive quaval. Also helps a lot against volt switch pressure if you happen to lose Clod. Finally, the most usual Tera user is Lokix cause, again, it does Lokix things.
- Scary MUs: Even if this team is deffensively solid and thus easy to pilot, it has some shaky matchups that require careful play. I mentioned before the situation against opposing hazard stack, so I won't repeat myself. Stall is also extremely tough, since the team has no way to stop defog or excessively pressure Mandi. Thankfully, stall is pretty uncommon and if you're careful enough with Latios you have potential to break the stall core long term. Finally, there are some mons that can be tough to deal with: specs Latios with rocks up can strongly pressure torn, so you may end up using skarmory as a latios check temporarily, scouting for Gren is also pretty useful since Grass Knot/Extrasensory can KO Quaval and mess your game plan (but also mean gren lacks either protect or ice beam, so Lokix and Torn will answer it), and finally the Hoopa match-up is generally pretty rough (but i feel like this applies to every team not packing Tinka tbh).
3- Some Replays
Clod Popping Off: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2217093519
Quaval Cleaning HO: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2216635765?p2
Against Psyterrain: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2218616403-2up8cuk8rh7l85985vrv7a34nt2mh14pw
Elo peak: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2218968576-4cbwug6ft0zrh2i19x1hpyozxu4cnq0pw?p2
I don't really know how much this team will keep up after the more than likely weavile ban, but I had some fun using it and I feel like it's a solid and easy to pilot option in the current meta.
TEAM 1
https://pokepast.es/baa7f6ae2a34a3a0
This team is a funny team that (gets 6-0ed by taunt torn-t) applies a lot of pressure and is a team I have been rocking to decent success on ladder, this team utilizes hazards mew, and a bunch of mons who can generally get h lilli to setup freely late game, stuff like exca vs revavroom, ogerpon-c on manaphy, dogi being weakened by lokix for a h lilligant sweep... etc etc
I have liked using manaphy for a while but this recent surge of manaphy usage has also given me the motivation to make more HO teams to spam ladder with.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2229591879-wexl7iazmnnktkgg7aw5z2j4n1zsjkmpw came in on a keldeo surf to get a free victory dance and sweep late game once i pull out tera ghost
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2229358168-hula1pgunns42z6yt2fal3co1t0iq49pw got a free setup turn on magnezone (imagine it was tbolt instead to) and just won from there as it boosted past other mons and clicked buttons
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2228950968-q7gesx20eep1fawuvjjwvpwyuy803ywpw?p2 this is me using tera ghost to setup on slither wing and boost past everything, with a +2 boost i outran everything and just clicked buttons and with tera spent on countering revavroom i had a clear way to victory
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2234128304-a64m6hs0px9gvkteoexu6y9u3gg69pppw?p2 chunks lokix with SD, and have h lilligant come in for the clean sweep
TEAM 2
https://pokepast.es/2f3ffd6fceaefd4f
This team uses hazard stack to get hoopa u in late game and slam buttons, this basically tries to use spikes to overload dark checks which is smth one tried to do pre shifts when weavile isnt being spammed and hoopa u is forgotten about
Skarm + Gastro also form a nice core, skarm really hates mons that like to take advantage of it like rotom-w, pecharunt, dirge, thundy-t, etc which gastro can help against. With sticky hold + boots it allows me to pivot gastro in and be abel to threaten them with earth power or sludge bomb and with it also setting rocks up it means you rack up a ton of chip dmg
Taunt torn-t gives this team a great HO MU by screwing with mons like screens serp, lead mew, CM comfey, smash poltea, stopping revavrom from getting a shift gear off, etc. It also gives a good MU into fat such as into clodsire, mandibuzz, dirge, pex rotom-w and stopping it from getting a pain split, or slowking getting a t wave off. I think taunt torn t is really underated
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2230344530-gkssbg9edkrcvp98kgavlertzal5oampw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2230337585-up3j0dmcf9gvutt4gewwwlem5975f5wpw 2 replays vs the same perosn but its all i have rn
TEAM 3
https://pokepast.es/31eaebf3ab88f41e
i got reqs with this... this team utilizes spikes + weavile to get progress early game, with double switches into weavile to predict slowking, torn-t, serp, hydrapple, etc are nice it allows you to spam knock and force progress
Rotom-w is a big pain for weavile so you often have to double switch around and esp with drill you can go back and forth and accumulate rocks dmg, it requires some good play but getting drill in to get rocks / spin or 50/50 eq it is smth u like to be in a situation. Dirge is 100% the biggest threat to this team esp tera dirge, but if you can get dogi in and force a tera poison then it will be much easier in the future or not really give dirge opporutnities to come in on skarm such as by doubling to weavile, drill, or torn-t to go knock it off. Torn-t is slower than serp which allows you to u-turn into smth else.... this i feel is better because you are able to get a slow u-turn on sub serp, leech seed serp loses, and this allows you to also invest in more bulk vs a mon you dont really need to outspeed
Vs lead mew you can prob go torn-t and limit it to rocks + spikes which you can spin away later (esp since the team isnt as worried about spikes), or try with weavile (depends on the MU)
SD ghost weavile clutches a lot of MU's up, esp vs ones like scarf dogi, vacuum wave keld, allows you to beat other low kick weavile, etc. Dogi gets a lot of wins by just being such a good mon, esp since weavile knocks a lot of helmets off it means that dogi ability to force progress is much easier
TEAM 4
https://pokepast.es/db514ca79869c63a
While my building for a while has been the same (since ive been toying with weavile, use hoopa pls). This team does a lot to... more so this team likes to take advantage of SD drill to cleave through bulkier MU's that weavile may not like. with mons like phys def heatran, dogi, rotom-w, pickpocket tink being lured in it allows exca to come in and click buttons
T wave slowking is an excellent partner for rhyperior as common pokemon up to 200 speed are usually the ones who are most common to take a t wave, smth like hydrapple, dirge, skarmory, dogi, tink, and more are quite common and this allows it to click buttons into them. I chose rocks rhyperior on this team as it allows me to keep my drill in better health and also leave my slowking less likely to eat a knock off which can allow it to stay healthy throughout a game.
The other members are fairly standard but skarmory is also here to set spikes up, smth like weavile really appreciates spike support and esp scarf dogi when many of its checks are opposing dogi, pex, and to rack up more chip when you use knock off on mons who may have wanted to take a cc instead.
Scarf dogi is the speed control of choice as it pairs up well with weavile or rhyperior who can double in and take advantage of mons like torn-t, pecharunt, opposing dogi, pex, and dirge which this team can heavily take advantage off and esp with SD Drill more likely to be in good healht it allows a sweep to be made late game
https://pokepast.es/baa7f6ae2a34a3a0
This team is a funny team that (gets 6-0ed by taunt torn-t) applies a lot of pressure and is a team I have been rocking to decent success on ladder, this team utilizes hazards mew, and a bunch of mons who can generally get h lilli to setup freely late game, stuff like exca vs revavroom, ogerpon-c on manaphy, dogi being weakened by lokix for a h lilligant sweep... etc etc
I have liked using manaphy for a while but this recent surge of manaphy usage has also given me the motivation to make more HO teams to spam ladder with.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2229591879-wexl7iazmnnktkgg7aw5z2j4n1zsjkmpw came in on a keldeo surf to get a free victory dance and sweep late game once i pull out tera ghost
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2229358168-hula1pgunns42z6yt2fal3co1t0iq49pw got a free setup turn on magnezone (imagine it was tbolt instead to) and just won from there as it boosted past other mons and clicked buttons
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2228950968-q7gesx20eep1fawuvjjwvpwyuy803ywpw?p2 this is me using tera ghost to setup on slither wing and boost past everything, with a +2 boost i outran everything and just clicked buttons and with tera spent on countering revavroom i had a clear way to victory
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2234128304-a64m6hs0px9gvkteoexu6y9u3gg69pppw?p2 chunks lokix with SD, and have h lilligant come in for the clean sweep
TEAM 2
https://pokepast.es/2f3ffd6fceaefd4f
This team uses hazard stack to get hoopa u in late game and slam buttons, this basically tries to use spikes to overload dark checks which is smth one tried to do pre shifts when weavile isnt being spammed and hoopa u is forgotten about
Skarm + Gastro also form a nice core, skarm really hates mons that like to take advantage of it like rotom-w, pecharunt, dirge, thundy-t, etc which gastro can help against. With sticky hold + boots it allows me to pivot gastro in and be abel to threaten them with earth power or sludge bomb and with it also setting rocks up it means you rack up a ton of chip dmg
Taunt torn-t gives this team a great HO MU by screwing with mons like screens serp, lead mew, CM comfey, smash poltea, stopping revavrom from getting a shift gear off, etc. It also gives a good MU into fat such as into clodsire, mandibuzz, dirge, pex rotom-w and stopping it from getting a pain split, or slowking getting a t wave off. I think taunt torn t is really underated
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2230344530-gkssbg9edkrcvp98kgavlertzal5oampw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2230337585-up3j0dmcf9gvutt4gewwwlem5975f5wpw 2 replays vs the same perosn but its all i have rn
TEAM 3
https://pokepast.es/31eaebf3ab88f41e
i got reqs with this... this team utilizes spikes + weavile to get progress early game, with double switches into weavile to predict slowking, torn-t, serp, hydrapple, etc are nice it allows you to spam knock and force progress
Rotom-w is a big pain for weavile so you often have to double switch around and esp with drill you can go back and forth and accumulate rocks dmg, it requires some good play but getting drill in to get rocks / spin or 50/50 eq it is smth u like to be in a situation. Dirge is 100% the biggest threat to this team esp tera dirge, but if you can get dogi in and force a tera poison then it will be much easier in the future or not really give dirge opporutnities to come in on skarm such as by doubling to weavile, drill, or torn-t to go knock it off. Torn-t is slower than serp which allows you to u-turn into smth else.... this i feel is better because you are able to get a slow u-turn on sub serp, leech seed serp loses, and this allows you to also invest in more bulk vs a mon you dont really need to outspeed
Vs lead mew you can prob go torn-t and limit it to rocks + spikes which you can spin away later (esp since the team isnt as worried about spikes), or try with weavile (depends on the MU)
SD ghost weavile clutches a lot of MU's up, esp vs ones like scarf dogi, vacuum wave keld, allows you to beat other low kick weavile, etc. Dogi gets a lot of wins by just being such a good mon, esp since weavile knocks a lot of helmets off it means that dogi ability to force progress is much easier
TEAM 4
https://pokepast.es/db514ca79869c63a
While my building for a while has been the same (since ive been toying with weavile, use hoopa pls). This team does a lot to... more so this team likes to take advantage of SD drill to cleave through bulkier MU's that weavile may not like. with mons like phys def heatran, dogi, rotom-w, pickpocket tink being lured in it allows exca to come in and click buttons
T wave slowking is an excellent partner for rhyperior as common pokemon up to 200 speed are usually the ones who are most common to take a t wave, smth like hydrapple, dirge, skarmory, dogi, tink, and more are quite common and this allows it to click buttons into them. I chose rocks rhyperior on this team as it allows me to keep my drill in better health and also leave my slowking less likely to eat a knock off which can allow it to stay healthy throughout a game.
The other members are fairly standard but skarmory is also here to set spikes up, smth like weavile really appreciates spike support and esp scarf dogi when many of its checks are opposing dogi, pex, and to rack up more chip when you use knock off on mons who may have wanted to take a cc instead.
Scarf dogi is the speed control of choice as it pairs up well with weavile or rhyperior who can double in and take advantage of mons like torn-t, pecharunt, opposing dogi, pex, and dirge which this team can heavily take advantage off and esp with SD Drill more likely to be in good healht it allows a sweep to be made late game
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This is a semi-stall team that I built early following the drops of Blissey, Skarmory, Clodsire, Weavile, and Heatran. Skarmory felt like a really good defensive piece that held off a bunch of physical threats, especially with Iron Defense and Body Press. Calm Mind Blissey is used to give the team a wincon and to let it deal with Ghost-type Calm Minders like Sinistcha. Clodsire sets Rocks and deals with most setup sweepers; I have considered Water Absorb to let it better deal with Water-types. Taunt Tornadus-T additionally denies setup from attackers while also denying status and giving me a way to play against other defensive teams. Substitute Lokix was chosen becaus it exploits Protect and forced switches; Goro Yagami also pointed out that it was useful against Strength Sap Sinistcha. Slowking is the last because I realized that I was really weak to Water-types, especially Keldeo, without Water Absorb Clodsire. Three attacks let Slowking remain flexible into a ton of the metagame. Two Knock Off users let me push the entry hazard damage into a bunch of opposing teams.
Other notes are that it's really soft into Hoopa-U and probably would have been decent into Okidogi (though I didn't really see much Dogi when I laddered in the week after shifts).
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Hey uu. I got eliminated from lcq yesterday, so I figured I would share some of the teams I've been using lately. We just had tier shift a couple of hours ago, but I do not believe they will affect the viability of these teams too much. Alongside bringing me to r4 of lcq, these are also the teams I've been laddering with lately. All teams (including bonus teams) are tested above 1500 elo. I reached this peak with TEAM 1 earlier today, for reference:
TEAM 1:
(click Sprites for pastes)
Specs protean greninja has always been a scary breaker. Lately, we've been seeing less slowking as well. This made me decide to build a gren voltturn. Coba and torn form your voltturn core and work with latios to provide some semblance of a defensive backbone for the team. Zarude provides additional breaking power, a stronger match-up into sand, and a check for polteageist. Scizor has lowkey been a mvp for me. The team really appreciates its strong priority, and it has cleaned plenty of games for me. Latios, as mentioned, patches up some defensive holes and adds even more breaking power to an already stacked team. The team has no removal, so it is very important to keep up momentum with this team. Try to position breakers to make progress early.
Only replay i have with the team: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2272077678-dlcmyp8ksb6acjsd39xyonoipvqt659pw
Webs mu for lcq. I lost this game, but I believe I had a good chance without the spdef drop from shadow ball into not getting the roll to kill polteageist.
TEAM 2:
The kettle has been several uu players sleep paralysis demon lately, and I don't blame them. I decided to make a screens team with it, because it let me abuse the less common set (spatt invested with tera blast). This lets it get past wannabe counters like zarude and ttar. I went with stored power and weak armor to top it off. You can definitely play around with the fourth move and the ability and get similar results, though. I went with stored power weak armor because I thought it would be funny, tbh. Serp is there to provide screens. Para support is a nice bonus. Exca was the lead of choice. The goal is to get rocks and not get hazards back if possible. A deoxys could fill the same role if you want to try that out. Battle bond gren is a somewhat forgotten threat nowadays, but still potent as ever. It eases the hyper-offense matchup a bit. I picked meta for its defensive typing. I was somewhat surprised by the amount of games I was able to sweep with meta on the ladder if I am honest. The speed is for weavile, but you could easily hit 202 for +1 ada quaq if you want. Quaq is another massive threat that could sweep any game.
One replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2268285276-ih13iwe6dxj41ls36otz4x8wv0u9kjipw
vs pengui in lcq. polteageist put in work and I won a tight endgame.
TEAM 3:
Team is meant to break with sd zarude. I gave it some para-support from slowking and serp to help it. Torn and Slowking make a voltturn core to get zarude in. Tink provides rocks and helps with lokix and other dark type threats. Thund serves as the second breaker. I made serp this set so it could clean certain games, it definitely has the potential to do so occasionally. av torn with no removal is far from ideal, so try to keep rocks off if you can.
TEAM 4:
This team started with me wanting to make a skarm team. I decided to put it on sand, since it has decent chemistry with spdef tar and exca could abuse its spikes. This is where I decided to get a little crazy and add sylveon. I wanted wish support, and sylveon actually helped the defensive synergy quite a bit as well. I decided to go itemless on skarm. The idea was to be more solid vs sd lokix, which is much more of a threat than it should be vs this team otherwise. There have also been two great players spamming houndstone on high ladder recently, so it's very nice there as well. Manaphy was added as a breaker. It is a massive threat in the meta atm, and it abuses the wishes nicely as well. Torn rounded the team out well. Taunt helps the HO mu further, and can be nice against fat as well.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2265220627-hzyo7paounx773cdotpnxknbqia2z7dpw
lcq vs takingnoteskinda. Somewhat lucky to get a bleakwind dodge in two attempts with manaphy early. Exca opens up their team with tera blast and I preserve the right pieces defensively to win the game from there.
TEAM 5:
I saw some people playing around with grassy terrain ho in uuwcop and wanted to give it a try as well. Lucha is one of the main reasons to use grassy terrain rn. It gives you a much more playable mu into sand, which most ho struggles with. Terrain also weakens drills eq in general obviously, so grassy terrain lets you abuse ho threats, while maintaining a decent sand mu. Seed roost quaq is a set I stole from an uuwcop replay. It makes dealing with the bird even more difficult than it already is. Terrain also makes it a bit easier for the teapot to set up, which is enough of a nightmare as is. Tran provides rocks, a lokix switch-in and a bit of a direct threat in its own right. I chose to round the team out with sd lo lokix. Sd lokix is a massive threat in the tier. Grassy lets it run lo, without killing itself too quickly. This makes it even stronger, and gives it boosted first impressions to revenge kill threats with. Lokix serves as both a breaker and a potential revenge killer.
BONUS TEAMS:
To close this post out, I'll share a couple more teams. Not going to write descriptions for these, but if you have questions, feel free to DM me. These teams have felt a bit less consistent for me, but are still more than good. I've won games on high ladder and/or during lcq with these teams as well.
Thank you for reading my post. If any of you want someone to chat with about sv uu, my discord/smogon dms are always open.
TEAM 1:
Specs protean greninja has always been a scary breaker. Lately, we've been seeing less slowking as well. This made me decide to build a gren voltturn. Coba and torn form your voltturn core and work with latios to provide some semblance of a defensive backbone for the team. Zarude provides additional breaking power, a stronger match-up into sand, and a check for polteageist. Scizor has lowkey been a mvp for me. The team really appreciates its strong priority, and it has cleaned plenty of games for me. Latios, as mentioned, patches up some defensive holes and adds even more breaking power to an already stacked team. The team has no removal, so it is very important to keep up momentum with this team. Try to position breakers to make progress early.
Only replay i have with the team: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2272077678-dlcmyp8ksb6acjsd39xyonoipvqt659pw
Webs mu for lcq. I lost this game, but I believe I had a good chance without the spdef drop from shadow ball into not getting the roll to kill polteageist.
TEAM 2:
The kettle has been several uu players sleep paralysis demon lately, and I don't blame them. I decided to make a screens team with it, because it let me abuse the less common set (spatt invested with tera blast). This lets it get past wannabe counters like zarude and ttar. I went with stored power and weak armor to top it off. You can definitely play around with the fourth move and the ability and get similar results, though. I went with stored power weak armor because I thought it would be funny, tbh. Serp is there to provide screens. Para support is a nice bonus. Exca was the lead of choice. The goal is to get rocks and not get hazards back if possible. A deoxys could fill the same role if you want to try that out. Battle bond gren is a somewhat forgotten threat nowadays, but still potent as ever. It eases the hyper-offense matchup a bit. I picked meta for its defensive typing. I was somewhat surprised by the amount of games I was able to sweep with meta on the ladder if I am honest. The speed is for weavile, but you could easily hit 202 for +1 ada quaq if you want. Quaq is another massive threat that could sweep any game.
One replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2268285276-ih13iwe6dxj41ls36otz4x8wv0u9kjipw
vs pengui in lcq. polteageist put in work and I won a tight endgame.
TEAM 3:
Team is meant to break with sd zarude. I gave it some para-support from slowking and serp to help it. Torn and Slowking make a voltturn core to get zarude in. Tink provides rocks and helps with lokix and other dark type threats. Thund serves as the second breaker. I made serp this set so it could clean certain games, it definitely has the potential to do so occasionally. av torn with no removal is far from ideal, so try to keep rocks off if you can.
TEAM 4:
This team started with me wanting to make a skarm team. I decided to put it on sand, since it has decent chemistry with spdef tar and exca could abuse its spikes. This is where I decided to get a little crazy and add sylveon. I wanted wish support, and sylveon actually helped the defensive synergy quite a bit as well. I decided to go itemless on skarm. The idea was to be more solid vs sd lokix, which is much more of a threat than it should be vs this team otherwise. There have also been two great players spamming houndstone on high ladder recently, so it's very nice there as well. Manaphy was added as a breaker. It is a massive threat in the meta atm, and it abuses the wishes nicely as well. Torn rounded the team out well. Taunt helps the HO mu further, and can be nice against fat as well.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2265220627-hzyo7paounx773cdotpnxknbqia2z7dpw
lcq vs takingnoteskinda. Somewhat lucky to get a bleakwind dodge in two attempts with manaphy early. Exca opens up their team with tera blast and I preserve the right pieces defensively to win the game from there.
TEAM 5:
I saw some people playing around with grassy terrain ho in uuwcop and wanted to give it a try as well. Lucha is one of the main reasons to use grassy terrain rn. It gives you a much more playable mu into sand, which most ho struggles with. Terrain also weakens drills eq in general obviously, so grassy terrain lets you abuse ho threats, while maintaining a decent sand mu. Seed roost quaq is a set I stole from an uuwcop replay. It makes dealing with the bird even more difficult than it already is. Terrain also makes it a bit easier for the teapot to set up, which is enough of a nightmare as is. Tran provides rocks, a lokix switch-in and a bit of a direct threat in its own right. I chose to round the team out with sd lo lokix. Sd lokix is a massive threat in the tier. Grassy lets it run lo, without killing itself too quickly. This makes it even stronger, and gives it boosted first impressions to revenge kill threats with. Lokix serves as both a breaker and a potential revenge killer.
BONUS TEAMS:
To close this post out, I'll share a couple more teams. Not going to write descriptions for these, but if you have questions, feel free to DM me. These teams have felt a bit less consistent for me, but are still more than good. I've won games on high ladder and/or during lcq with these teams as well.
Thank you for reading my post. If any of you want someone to chat with about sv uu, my discord/smogon dms are always open.
Attachments
https://pokepast.es/5c417ae7216e4ca4
zapdos-g is the main breaker of the team and often times is a very good cleaner. The goal of it over smth like scarf gard, keldeo, teal pon, zarude is that it just is taking advantage of flying resists not being that common, or the ones that are very dont like taking hits like close combat (rotom-w, tinkaton, heatran). Tera flying is smth u can use late game to really chunk out damage esp vs smth like slowking, coba, and pick off targets from much higher health like manaphy, poltea, scizor, cobalion, etc.
Torn-t is the #2 bird of the team, while zapdos-g bullies offense quite well torn-t bullies more defensive squads who rely on slowking, their own av torn, bellibolt, sp. def skarm, etc. Often times NP Torn-t is a really good bully of slowking who can love to switch into it and threaten t wave or chilly out, but with taunt + NP you can just setup and claim a kill or two (my game vs dunoks was pretty nice at showing that) . Taunt is also great at shutting down stuff like smash poltea, SD quaq + tera, Shift gear revavroom, tail glow manaphy, and hazard leads like mew or screens serp.
Zarude is the third member of the team, with its good bulk and wayt to switch into stuff like rotom-w, slowking, toxapex, clodsire it compliments the team well in just gving a way to deal with such mons. SD + Knock poses a lot of threat potential as it also allows late game to be much easier to deal with (knock onto a phys def heatran may allow ur zapdos-g brave bird to just go ham onto the opponent), while swords dance can easily pose a big threat especially if pokemon like cobalion, skarmory, tinkaton have been worn down by bird spam.
I chose heatran as the next member of the team, heatran poses as a big asset thanks to its ability to deal with mons like sciz, lokix, weavile, ogerpon and more... I chose this variant of heatran because magma storm is something that i feel is quite inconsistent and lava plume in this meta is quite valuable especially against foes like quaquaval, mandibuzz, sp. def tyranitar, and forces quite good progress with burn. It is also something you can catch your opponent off guard with if they expect you to be magma storm
Slowking is the 5th member of choice as it synergizes quite well with the team, not only is paralysis quite nice in allowing the team more opportunity at punching holes thanks to it blocking recovery or crucial turns but it can also slow stuff like torn-t to be outran by zarude or stop stuff like shell smash polteageist, shift gear revavroom, and aqua step quaq which can really get out of control
SD exca is quite an interesting member, i do want rocks off with this team as rocks pose a big annoyance esp with recoil into the mix or the potential of torn-t eating a knock off esp from something like zarude, ogerpon, chesnaught, and more. An offensive exca late game is quite the terror when everything has been worn down into range where they can no longer take hits like they used to, so the goal of exca is to be able to come in when everything has been beaten up by the many mons who can cripple and dish out a crap ton of dmg and use it to its advantage especially with iron head and paralysis chance to just break through something it should have no chance of doing like a phys def hydrapple, skarmory, mandibuzz, chesnaught, and more
https://pokepast.es/93c21f8230b7cb3d fuck it, i have tested this team quite enough over the few days
This team is built around this mon or at least supporting it. A very interesting partner I found to it is taunt volcanion. But the focus right now is on deo-s. Deo-s is a mon who just can mow down offense and with these 4 moves you can easily just find opportunities to hit everything. T bolt snipes mandi, phys def slowking, sp. def skarmory, torn-t, etc. With life orb you can really punch holes especially after something like tinkaton or scizor has been dealt with which is not very hard. Stat spread outspeeds exca at +1, hits as hard as possible with its special moves, with rest in attack investment to hurt steels with superpower.
This is a pretty underated mon, this takes advantage of mons like skarmory, bulky heatran, hydrapple and in general fat teams like slowking who you completely wall. With tera fairy + water absorb you also can deal with quaquaval who has been a pain in the ass in the last few weeks while putting a ton of pressure on the newly trending sand teams who really dont want to switch around it especially if its a dirge variant as keldeo does not want to eat sand + burns.
the next member in line. This is quite an interesting pick and if works quite well. With this team we have a team that is kinda food into stuff like rotom-w, thundy-t, and because its LO deo-s we need a backup plan so zarude is a HO bully especially against mew leads which this takes good advantage of. Zarude also helps us deal with status from foes like toxapex, bulky ttar, and slowking who volcanion does not want to hard switch into (cuz t wave). Knock off also provides plenty of support esp against stuff like av torn-t, mandi's boots, sciz boots, and tinkaton's leftovers who you do want to remove from to allow deo-s to go ham late game.
Tornadus-therian does provide quite a big of support, with its help this team is able to take on stuff like hydrapple, BB gren,and with it commonly luring in rotom, sp. def skarm, tink, pex, fez.. you can take advantage of it by bringing in the main breakers of the team. It is a very good glue pokemon on the team as it is able to take hits, remove items which can assist the other members, and pivot out to them as commonly tornadus-therian's counters are food for the other members. It also compliments volcanion well as vs keldeo you can take on secret swords quite well while volcanion can take on the water moves and you can force these situations where you often times can come out with an advantage
The rocker of the team, the spread is to give it more sp. def bulk especially against stuff like latios, poltea, comfey, and living special hits in general more easily. The exca is the rocker of choice compared to heatran, coba, or others is the fact that exca fits quite well and while anti lokix counterplay can always be nice with coba i already have skarmory, torn-t, and volcanion to deal with it. Exca also helps take off pressure from deo-s as stealth rocks now cut less into its health and make it so you can fire off more attacks and more psycho boosts to chunk your opponent.
This sp. def skarm spread allows us to take on the most common variant of av torn-t, and setup spikes which is a great boon for the rest of the breakers which allows them to take less turns positioning themselves into place. With spikes up you can easily wear tink down blazing fast and put exca into superpower range which would otherwise force you out. Skarmory also helps against the common u-turn that woul threaten deo-s and would achieve a good job at chipping down lokix with helmet and shooting out spikes to chip attackers like keldeo, conk, CB sciz, cornerstone, etc
https://pokepast.es/53cca146ce4a6ede
zapdos-g is the main breaker of the team and often times is a very good cleaner. The goal of it over smth like scarf gard, keldeo, teal pon, zarude is that it just is taking advantage of flying resists not being that common, or the ones that are very dont like taking hits like close combat (rotom-w, tinkaton, heatran). Tera flying is smth u can use late game to really chunk out damage esp vs smth like slowking, coba, and pick off targets from much higher health like manaphy, poltea, scizor, cobalion, etc. Torn-t is the #2 bird of the team, while zapdos-g bullies offense quite well torn-t bullies more defensive squads who rely on slowking, their own av torn, bellibolt, sp. def skarm, etc. Often times NP Torn-t is a really good bully of slowking who can love to switch into it and threaten t wave or chilly out, but with taunt + NP you can just setup and claim a kill or two (my game vs dunoks was pretty nice at showing that) . Taunt is also great at shutting down stuff like smash poltea, SD quaq + tera, Shift gear revavroom, tail glow manaphy, and hazard leads like mew or screens serp. Zarude is the third member of the team, with its good bulk and wayt to switch into stuff like rotom-w, slowking, toxapex, clodsire it compliments the team well in just gving a way to deal with such mons. SD + Knock poses a lot of threat potential as it also allows late game to be much easier to deal with (knock onto a phys def heatran may allow ur zapdos-g brave bird to just go ham onto the opponent), while swords dance can easily pose a big threat especially if pokemon like cobalion, skarmory, tinkaton have been worn down by bird spam. I chose heatran as the next member of the team, heatran poses as a big asset thanks to its ability to deal with mons like sciz, lokix, weavile, ogerpon and more... I chose this variant of heatran because magma storm is something that i feel is quite inconsistent and lava plume in this meta is quite valuable especially against foes like quaquaval, mandibuzz, sp. def tyranitar, and forces quite good progress with burn. It is also something you can catch your opponent off guard with if they expect you to be magma storm Slowking is the 5th member of choice as it synergizes quite well with the team, not only is paralysis quite nice in allowing the team more opportunity at punching holes thanks to it blocking recovery or crucial turns but it can also slow stuff like torn-t to be outran by zarude or stop stuff like shell smash polteageist, shift gear revavroom, and aqua step quaq which can really get out of control SD exca is quite an interesting member, i do want rocks off with this team as rocks pose a big annoyance esp with recoil into the mix or the potential of torn-t eating a knock off esp from something like zarude, ogerpon, chesnaught, and more. An offensive exca late game is quite the terror when everything has been worn down into range where they can no longer take hits like they used to, so the goal of exca is to be able to come in when everything has been beaten up by the many mons who can cripple and dish out a crap ton of dmg and use it to its advantage especially with iron head and paralysis chance to just break through something it should have no chance of doing like a phys def hydrapple, skarmory, mandibuzz, chesnaught, and morehttps://pokepast.es/93c21f8230b7cb3d fuck it, i have tested this team quite enough over the few days
This team is built around this mon or at least supporting it. A very interesting partner I found to it is taunt volcanion. But the focus right now is on deo-s. Deo-s is a mon who just can mow down offense and with these 4 moves you can easily just find opportunities to hit everything. T bolt snipes mandi, phys def slowking, sp. def skarmory, torn-t, etc. With life orb you can really punch holes especially after something like tinkaton or scizor has been dealt with which is not very hard. Stat spread outspeeds exca at +1, hits as hard as possible with its special moves, with rest in attack investment to hurt steels with superpower.
This is a pretty underated mon, this takes advantage of mons like skarmory, bulky heatran, hydrapple and in general fat teams like slowking who you completely wall. With tera fairy + water absorb you also can deal with quaquaval who has been a pain in the ass in the last few weeks while putting a ton of pressure on the newly trending sand teams who really dont want to switch around it especially if its a dirge variant as keldeo does not want to eat sand + burns.
the next member in line. This is quite an interesting pick and if works quite well. With this team we have a team that is kinda food into stuff like rotom-w, thundy-t, and because its LO deo-s we need a backup plan so zarude is a HO bully especially against mew leads which this takes good advantage of. Zarude also helps us deal with status from foes like toxapex, bulky ttar, and slowking who volcanion does not want to hard switch into (cuz t wave). Knock off also provides plenty of support esp against stuff like av torn-t, mandi's boots, sciz boots, and tinkaton's leftovers who you do want to remove from to allow deo-s to go ham late game.
Tornadus-therian does provide quite a big of support, with its help this team is able to take on stuff like hydrapple, BB gren,and with it commonly luring in rotom, sp. def skarm, tink, pex, fez.. you can take advantage of it by bringing in the main breakers of the team. It is a very good glue pokemon on the team as it is able to take hits, remove items which can assist the other members, and pivot out to them as commonly tornadus-therian's counters are food for the other members. It also compliments volcanion well as vs keldeo you can take on secret swords quite well while volcanion can take on the water moves and you can force these situations where you often times can come out with an advantage
The rocker of the team, the spread is to give it more sp. def bulk especially against stuff like latios, poltea, comfey, and living special hits in general more easily. The exca is the rocker of choice compared to heatran, coba, or others is the fact that exca fits quite well and while anti lokix counterplay can always be nice with coba i already have skarmory, torn-t, and volcanion to deal with it. Exca also helps take off pressure from deo-s as stealth rocks now cut less into its health and make it so you can fire off more attacks and more psycho boosts to chunk your opponent.
This sp. def skarm spread allows us to take on the most common variant of av torn-t, and setup spikes which is a great boon for the rest of the breakers which allows them to take less turns positioning themselves into place. With spikes up you can easily wear tink down blazing fast and put exca into superpower range which would otherwise force you out. Skarmory also helps against the common u-turn that woul threaten deo-s and would achieve a good job at chipping down lokix with helmet and shooting out spikes to chip attackers like keldeo, conk, CB sciz, cornerstone, etc
https://pokepast.es/53cca146ce4a6ede
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