Team Study [Week 5: Silvershadow234]

RARELYUSED TEAM STUDY
Credits for Melee Mewtwo and Dice for thread components and idea

Welcome to Team Study. The goal of this project is to help unite the community while improving the overall quality of the player-base by studying the art of teambuilding at the highest level.

  • What is this for?
This project is made in response to an assortment of issues plaguing the community (stolen from Melee mewtwo). There is a division between the young general RarelyUsed community and the experienced veterans that have supported and explored the tier more than any other. The lack of communication and interaction between the two result in the knowledge remaining with the knowledgeable and the newcomers left to grope in the dark. Hopefully, igniting intelligent discussion between the two sides through the complexities of advanced teambuilding will help to bring the community together and advance it towards one that is active and enjoyable.

  • How does it work?
Each week (more or less) there will be a high-level team that will be displayed for the community as a whole to discuss. The aim of this discussion will be to analyze the team by identifying roles and explaining their purpose, investigating specific movesets and Pokemon choices, strong points of the team, flaws it may have and even questions concerning unusual or confusing aspects. Essentially, the team will serve as a model to learn from and an example to refer to. Once the discussion is over, the teambuilder will post explaining his decisions and answering any questions or false ideas concerning them.

  • What do I get out of it?
The most polite and intelligent poster that shows an interest and enthusiasm will be rewarded at the end of each week. "Winning" multiple times will lead to greater advantages. Winner will be choose by team creator and myself. Some rewards may be:

Winning two/three weeks will get you voice on #Rarelyused IRC (Even if you don't have any status yet I strongly encourage you guys to come check it out.)​
Good posting can result in nominations for a Ladybug or Community Contributor badge depending on your work in the RU subforum.​
A good look at current tournament teams and trends.​
Insight on how teams are built and more knowledge of the RU Metagame.​
There may be another prize or so, but it's still not worked out yet. Don't let this discourage you, however.​
A good, intelligent thread!​
 
First week team is provided by Molk
Thanks you!

Week 1: Molk


Rhydon @ Eviolite
Trait: Rock Head
EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 84 SDef / 84 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Megahorn


Absol @ Dread Plate
Trait: Super Luck
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Superpower
- Night Slash
- Pursuit


Sigilyph @ Life Orb
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Heat Wave
- Roost

Qwilfish @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Spd
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Waterfall
- Taunt
- Thunder Wave


Entei @ Choice Band
Trait: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- ExtremeSpeed
- Stone Edge
- Sleep Talk


Rotom-Mow @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 12 HP / 252 SAtk / 244 Spd
Timid Nature
- Volt Switch
- Leaf Storm
- Thunderbolt
- Trick



Week 2: SilentVerse


Week 3: EonX-


  • What do think was the main/inspiring idea/goal Molk had when building this team?
  • Is there a discernible core that he tried to build around?
  • What are the strong points of the team?
  • What are the weak spots?
  • How could his use of certain EV/moveset twists help his team vs specific threats or archetypes?
  • How does he use underrated threats to his advantage?
  • Just about anything else you might want to comment on or ask about.
 
Last edited:
This team screams putting heavy pressure on the opponent's team through the use of entry hazards and hard hitters.

Molk has utilized the tried and true FWG core that has been very consistently good in RU while also forcing a lot of switches through the fear of CB Entei smacking you in the face, crippling paralysis from Qwilfish, and Rotom-M's ability to revenge and pivot around with Volt Switch. Molk also uses an EV spread that at first seems funny to many new players on Rotom-M, but what they need to know is that it outspeeds everything it needs to with the given speed EVs while also being a slower volt switcher than opposing max speed Rotom-Ms. This allows you to have the upper hand and gain a lot of momentum for your team when they Volt Switch out faster and have to send out a mon to take your Volt Switch.

Sigilyph plays an extremely important role in being a fantastic stallbreaker through its excellent ability in Magic Guard alongside Calm Mind to boost its offense and Roost to boost survivability. It is obviously very important to have a reliable answer to stall in a Nidoqueen-less meta and Sigi fills the role very well.

Rhydon provides an excellent check to Volt Switchers such as Manectric and can take neutral physical attacks with ease, allowing it to set up Stealth Rock and can also hit extremely hard with its moves of choice. Rock Blast is a huge help against Sub users, EQ is a ridiculously strong STAB, and Megahorn hits anything the other two moves don't.

Absol seems to be playing the role of a late-game cleaner and psychic check in this team and for good reason. With the strongest priority in the game, further boosted by Dread Plate while keeping survivability, Absol is a force to be reckoned with. Pursuit takes things like Slowking and weakened Spiritomb so that Sigilyph has no problem running over the other team while Night Slash is a strong, reliable STAB. Superpower provides the only coverage that Absol needs and rounds out the moveset quite well.

Opposing Rhydon can give this team some trouble because Absol and Entei both struggle against it and absorbs Volt Switches from Rotom-M, although i does have to watch out for Leaf Storm. Ironically enough, it also struggles against opposing Qwilfish which can cripple a lot of things with T-wave while hitting Rhydon with STAB 4x SE Waterfall. Intimidate really fucks over Entei and Absol, but can be played around using Rotom-M to efficiently Volt Switch around.

Overall however, this team is a really solid team this meta and can play around a lot of mons that might give it trouble and Hazards Offense is one of my own personal favorite playstyles so props to Molk for the quality team.
 
Cool stuff, thanks for starting this up HNC :)

Anywho, this team looks moderately straightforward, with the team largely centered around facilitating a late-game sweep with Sigilyph through the use of hazards and high offensive output 'mons. This team showcases a lot of prevalent "tropes" of the RU metagame, including the ever-popular FWG core, a bulky Spike-stacking core, a sleep absorber for minimizing the risk associated with taking on the various sleep inducers of the tier, and a Pursuit user for minimizing drag against various special walls, most significantly Slowking. This team retains a moderately strong match-up against most playstyles, being capable of combatting opposing offense through the use of strong priority from both Entei and Absol supported by the ability to set up hazards v.many common offensive 'mons in the short-term with Qwilfish and Rhydon (neither are particularly long-lasting, but games realistically shouldn't be dragged out too long with a team like this anyway), while bulkier, stall-oriented teams innately have trouble facing things like Rotom-C w/Spikes support and Sigilyph. While Molk chooses to forgo the use of a spinner on this team, the use of Pokemon like Sigilyph and Rotom-C that don't suffer much from entry hazards really helps mitigate this.

Of course, that isn't to say it isn't without its faults. I'd actually say this team is a bit Slowking-weak, as while Absol can really apply pressure to it with Pursuit (89.05 - 105.34% to the standard defensive set), its natural frailty and complete inability to handle burns makes it incapable of switching directly into Slowking without taking a significant risk on its part. This allows Slowking to pretty comfortably switch in on half Molk's team (Entei, Qwilfish, and Sigilyph) and proceed to fire off either Scalds or TWaves (whichever is more pertinent) to hinder his Pokemon. As his team revolves around an FWG core, CB Druddigon is a natural problem, as it can take a hit from any given 'mon and easily nab a KO or two before going down, perhaps even grabbing some clutch Rough Skin damage in the process. However, early-game Spikes definitely minimizes the harm Druddigon can inflict through this process. Non-Choiced Rotom-C, specifically EBelt variants and support variants packing Will-O-Wisp, look to be somewhat annoying, as they can pretty effectively pressure Molk's defensive backbone and his primary switch-ins (Entei and Rotom-C) are hazard-weak and unable to inflict significant damage to it, respectively. Support variants can even play around Absol's Sucker Punch with Will-O-Wisp, which is pretty annoying too. Of course all threats that can be played around to an extent, but threats nonetheless.

All in all, a very well-built team, and a good representation of RU atm.

edit: forgot to mention that it is worth noting the team's bona fide response to Smeargle in Volt Switching from Rotom-C to Entei, thereby restricting the Smeargle user to 1 layer, if that. This is important not just for this team in particular, that would probably struggle if put that far behind in the "hazards war", but for almost any offensively inclined team, as the pressure of early-game SR+Spikes from an opposing offensive team can often be enough to push a win for the opponent. Similarly, Qwilfish's Taunt, coupled by Intimidate, allows it to restrict Crustle leads from setting up hazards, allowing it a free turn to get up a quick spike.
 

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
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Hmm, this is obviously a very solid team in the current meta. The team "goal" as one might say, is to use hazards from Rhydon and especially Qwilfish to wear down the opposing team and punish switching. Absol provides pursuit trapping for Sigilyph, but isn't necessarily just for trapping Slowking, as it can sometimes be used by Sigilyph to set up on. The Pursuit trapping is necessary for Calm Mind Uxie and Mesprit who otherwise are very threatening to this team (especially Mesprit).

There are quite a few overlapping cores that this team focuses on. The FWG core is the obvious base, and is probably the defining theme of RU atm. This specific core is really good at revenge killing threats through Entei's priority and Rotom-C's awesome speed, while Qwilfish supports the rest of the core (and the team). As I have already touched on, Sigilyph and Absol form a psuedo core that allows Sigilyph to set up and sweep late game. Beyond that, Qwilfish, Rhydon, and Sigilyph have great synergy, as Sigilyph can switch into the grass/ground/psychic moves aimed at the other mons, and begin to set up.

One of the greatest things about this team, however, is that the super threatening Walrein can't start his sub-tect cycle on any of Molk's mons. Qwilfish has taunt, Rhydon has Rock Blast, Sigilyph's psychic always breaks the sub, Entei always breaks the sub, Rotom is obvious, and Absol has super power (night slash breaks the sub anyways). More offensive versions of Hail teams may give this team slightly more trouble, however, as scarf Rotom-F outspeeds everything, and Scarf/Specs Glaceon are threatening to different mons. This is mitigated by the presence of Absol and Entei, users of extremely strong priority moves which greatly reduce Rotom-F's threat level if Stealth rock is used early game. Having plenty of responses to hail teams is one of the defining characteristics of a #1 team in this meta, as 1850+ teams are dominated by hail.

Another strong point of this team is that it puts a lot of pressure on opposing teams, as the only member that lacks significant offensive pressure (Qwilfish) has taunt to stop set up from the other team and thunderwave to punish those who do try to set up. I would say that Qwilfish is the key member of this team, as it checks/counters so many huge threats (Entei, Emboar, Durant, Escavalier etc.), as well as laying down the spikes which allow Rotom-C, Entei, and Absol to clean up late game. If Qwilfish manages to paralyze a lot of opposing mons, Rhydon becomes a huge threat to the opposing team, as it has huge power and good coverage with just three moves.

I will say that the biggest weakness I see is the lack of a mon that can take strong special hits, as such, HP grass, life orb Moltres (and certain other special attackers) can kill something every time it gets in safely. This is once again mitigated by the presence of Absol, Entei, and Rotom-C, as all of them can revenge kill Moltres (Absol has to be wary of roost or Substitute though). Rhydon, an underrated threat in RU, can also indirectly check Moltres, and certain other threats through use of stealth rocks. Still an extremely solid team, that obviously deserved to peak in that number one spot.

Edit: because Molk wanted more activity.

I think that one improvement that could be made to Entei's set is the replacement of choice band with a flame plate in case Entei is the last mon left, or it wakes up while using sleep talk. I also find that bluffing a choice item is more valuable often times than actually having a choice item, as it causes opponents to mispredict, and gives you a more flexible mon in general. This is obviously an opinion though as missing out an a banded E-speed could also cost Molk a match too.

One huge threat to this team right now is shell smash Omastar as after it gets to +2, not even an Absol sucker punch and a banded Entei extreme speed can KO after rocks damage. This can be avoided if Qwilfish burns the white herb first, but you are still sacrificing 3 mons to stop it, as Rotom-C doesn't outspeed +2 Omastar. Obviously every threat can't be covered however as this is BW, so Molk will have to play carefully around Oma (another reason I think flame plate>band on Entei is a good idea).
 

EonX

Battle Soul
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This is a very solid team (no big shock since it comes from Molk) It covers the vast majority of RU and has many different win conditions. The reason I like this team so much is that it's very flexible in how it goes about setting up a win condition. Sure, it has the FWG core with Entei, Qwilfish, and Rotom-C, but pretty much everything but Qwilfish can end up going on a game-ending sweep if certain conditions are met.

Sigilyph is the obvious one. With hazards down weakening its checks and counters, it can waltz in late on a random Ground move aimed at Entei, set up a CM, and go to town. However, there are 4 other scenarios. Scarf Rotom-C is one of the most feared late-game cleaners in the tier with Thunderbolt and Entei and Sigilyph can easily plow the road and clear out any Grass- or Ground-type (or any Electric-immune Pokemon) to clear the way for Rotom-C. If Qwilfish manages to paralyze the majority of the opposing team, Rhydon's power and coverage suddenly lets it maul the opposing team as EdgeQuake+Megahorn is insanely difficult to wall. Finally, Absol and Entei both have very powerful priority moves. If resists to Sucker Punch and ExtremeSpeed are removed, then both can go on a sweep with said moves.

Then there's the different leads. Rhydon is the obvious SR lead as it quickly threatens common Uxie and Steelix leads offensively which may make them think twice about staying in to setup SR. Rotom-C is a great scout lead that Molk can use whenever he's unsure of the lead his opponent may use. It gives him early offensive momentum and puts immediate pressure on his opponent. As previously mentioned, it's also great to use in tandem with Entei to basically stop any Smeargle lead cold. Finally, there's Qwilfish. If the opponent decides to use a Crustle lead or the odd Omastar hazard lead, Molk can utilize Qwilfish's Taunt to stop them and quickly gain an advantage in the "hazard war" with an early game Spike.

In short, the intertwining cores, multiple win conditions, and overall versatility all contribute to this team peaking #1 and is a great example of advanced teambuilding techniques that more experienced players such as Molk learn through their battle experience.
 
This team focuses on getting hazards up, and forcing as many switches as possible to rack up the damage. The first, and the main win condition, is a Calm Mind Sigilyph sweep. There are also other possible win conditions with Rotom-C's Thunderbolt, Entei once Rock and Fire types are gone, and Absol can sweep with Sucker Punch late game.

The main core of this team is the FWG core of Entei, Rotom-C, and Qwilfish. This core is fantastic at bringing in Pokemon for Qwilfish to set-up spikes on so the sweep can come faster. Rotom-C let's any member of the team come in when it forces a switch which is greatly appreciated with the 2 hazard setters, 2 wall breakers in Entei and Absol, and a set-up sweeper and to an extent wall breaker in Sigilyph. The next core is the hazard stacking core of Qwilfish and Rhydon. They both cover each other's weaknesses well, with grass, ghost, and psychic being the only troublesome types, as they hit (Most of the time) from the special side which is the side the core is weaker on. The final core is a trapper sweeper core of Absol, Sigilyph, and Entei. Absol's main purpose on this team is to trap Slowking and other Psychic types, so Sigilyph and possibly Entei can get an easy late game sweep. For late game cleaning, anything but Qwilfish works well. Rhydon can sweep if Qwilfish gets enough paralyses spread, Entei can finish off the team with Extremespeed or Flare Blitz, Absol can clean with Sucker Punch with Steels gone, Rotom-C can finish off a team with a strong and fast Thunderbolt, and Sigilyph can finish teams off with its good coverage, speed, and Calm Mind. Qwiflish is the onl thing lacking offensive pressure, but it makes up for that with Thunder Wave, Spikes, and the ability to hurt stall and keep away hazards with Taunt. It is also the defensive glue of this team.

This team is also fantastic in the beginning, with its many versatile leads. Rotom-C can be used to scout from turn 1, and gives you the momentum early if you are unsure of the other teams strategy, or if it is an obvious Smeargle or possibly an Amoonguss lead (Seen it a few times actually, early Spore I guess :/). Rhydon beats many of the tiers defensive hazard leads, and is very solid at getting rocks up while keeping pressure. It can also put Scarfswitch leads in a bind thanks to its Ground typing, although their Grass coverage move can be threatening. Qwilfish is another option against slow hazard leads, like Druddigon or hazard Omastar. Both of these leads can get hazards up early, which is very important to this team.

The strongest point of this team is most certainly its versatility. It has multiple win conditions, multiple leads, multiple cores, offensive pressure, and solid hazard. It really is the definition of RU with its Pursuit trapper, FWG core, Spike stacker, and Sleep protection is Sleep Talk, but it also has a nice change-up to it in using an underrated sweeper in Calm Mind Sigilyph.

The lack of a spinner can be troublesome since it really limits Entei's switch-ins, but this is mended by Taunt on Qwilfish. Offensive Gallade can be a tad trouble some if it runs Lum Berry since it can set up on Qwilfish and Rotom-C after Leaf Storm, and nothing can switch in safely thanks to its coverage moves. It's revenged pretty easily though, so its not a large threat. Shell Smash Timid Omastar can be annoying with a white herb, once Qwilfish is in KO range of HP Grass. Galvantula and Manectric look trouble some as well with their coverage and speed, however they are worn down by hazards quickly. If the team is played well, then it shouldn't have trouble beating most threats since it is very solid synergy-wise. Hail with Rotom-F or Glaceon can be troublesome since Qwilfish and Entei have no reliable recovery, and Rotom-F has Electric STAB for Qwilfish and Entei is weak to rocks. One thing about this team that I really like, however, is the pressure it keeps makes it difficult for Walrein to set up a Sub. Even Qwilfish has Taunt to stop his shenanigans.

Sleep Talk on Entei allows him to beat the many Sleep inducers in the RU metagame. Rotom-C has some EV's in bulk to give him some more longevity. Superpower helps Absol bust through Rock types for Entei. Thunderbolt over a coverage moves in Rotom-C gives him another win condition as well as a spammable move with no drawbacks. The only underrated threat on this team is Sigilyph. With a Calm Mind or 2 under its belt, it can bust through many of its normal checks, as only Slowking with Thunder Wave can prove to be extremely troublesome to it. Trick Room can be annoying as well, but you can spam Roost until the turns are up, then go back to spamming Psychic. CM Sigi also is this teams main stall breaker. It is a very effective late game sweeper, since most of its checks are frail offensive mons that get worn down by hazards easily. He also matches up well against Hail, although he can't set-up against the Blizzard Spammers, he threatens them with Heat Wave, hits Escavalier with Heat Wave, can not be worn down by Walrein, and doesn't take residual damage from Hail. The only common Hailmon he has trouble with is Slowking, but I've already touched that subject.

That's all I have to say, this team is very solid and is very effective in the current metagame. My only question is are the HP EV's on Rotom-C letting you live through anything in-particular, or are they just there since that's all the speed you need?
 

Molk

Godlike Usmash
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Hmmmmm, i guess because i was the one who made the team and there hasn't been any activity in the past few days or so might as well comment on some of the things that have already been said :).

As a bunch of people mentioned before, this team is centered around reliably setting up hazards, forcing switches to force my opponents to take hazards damage, trapping Sigilyph's checks and counters with Absol, and eventually cleaning up late game with either it or another teammate. A FWG core was added pretty early on because its a pretty easy kind of core to fall back on, and provides you with protection against the vast majority of the tier (Entei+Rotom-C is phenomenal at revenge killing dangerous Pokemon not named omastar before they can get too scary). Absol+Sigilyph is really good at breaking down common stall cores, and of course Calm Mind+Roost Sigilyph was chosen to give the best kind of matchup against these cores as possible. Rhydon is a pretty important team member imo because of its immunity to Volt Switch, great physical bulk, access to Stealth Rock, rock resist, and huge amount of power, although there are some alternatives to Rhydon that i might try in the future that could play a very similar role, such as Golurk. Rhydon gives me a secondary check to Flare Blitz mons like Entei too, taking some pressure off of Qwilfish.

As for strange moves/ev spreads people might be wondering about, there are some specific purposes to the spreads that i'll explain here.

Outside of being the spread onsite, the current Rhydon spread lets me outspeed and Megahorn Tangrowth and get a guarenteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock+1 layer of spikes (lets me tie with anything else that aims for this benchmark too), lets me avoid a 2HKO from Life Orb Rotom's Shadow Ball after Stealth Rock, and lets me hit as hard as possible: abusing those excellent STABs really well.

I decided to use a Dread Plate on Absol instead of a Life Orb to increase its longevity a bit, i mean i know that Absol isn't going to be living too long to begin with, but its always nice not to take that recoil when not needed, especially when Dread Plate provides a similar power boost to 3/4 of your moves regardless. Superpower is usually strong enough to get the job done even without Life Orb, so thats not a huge detriment either.

My Qwilfish's EV spread is specifically tailored to Outspeed +0 Omastar and +0 Crawdaunt so i can either Taunt or Thunder Wave them before they can set up, this is especially important for omastar, because as atomicllamas mentioned its a pretty big threat to my team. This Qwilfish spread lets me outspeed and Taunt pretty much every other Qwilfish people will be using too, unless they specifically Speed creep me or are trying to Taunt like Smeargle.

Rotom's EV spread is probably the oddest one to a lot of you, because it just seems like i'm cutting out of speed and adding bulk for the sake of bulk, but those evs have a very specific purpose: reverse Speed creeping other Scarf Rotom-C's. This might seem really odd at first, but it lets me get the switch advantage in Rotom-C vs Rotom-C mirror matches by Volt Switching last, and i don't miss out on anything else except like Scarf Rotom-F and +2 Gorebyss (who uses this lol), so there's no huge drawback to making that effort imo.

As for threats to this team: Omastar is probably by far the biggest one. It can get a smash off on Entei and sweep me if i'm not careful while Absol's Sucker Punch won't be able to reliably revenge. If Omastar isn't running Hydro Pump Qwilfish can take a +2 hit from omastar from full health and paralyze it, but if Qwilfish takes any prior damage i essentially lose right there :s. I have to play really carefully to make sure Omastar doesn't get that first Smash off. Thankfully, it isn't too hard to prevent, as Entei is the only Pokemon it gets that free boost on.

As Wiitle mentioned, opposing Rhydon can definitely be really hard for this team to handle. Its power and coverage means pretty much every mon is significantly threatened by Rhydon, and it can easily come in on Entei, Volt Switch locked Rotom-C, and even Absol to an extent. Of course Rhydon isn't as scary as Omastar because it doesn't usually boost and goes down to repeated hits, but its still a threat nonetheless.

As Col49 mentioned, Slowking can be annoying at times even though i have an Absol to Pursuit trap it. That combination of Power, bulk, and coverage is annoying for pretty much any team to handle, and against specs Slowking especially i have to predict really well to make sure it doesn't dent me. It's not as a big of a threat as stuff like Omastar and Rhydon because of the aforementioned Pursuit and because i have multiple ways to wear it down/OHKO it though. Rhydon's Megahorn sends most Slowking running for the hills, and so does Rotom-C's Leaf Storm as well as Absol's Night Slash/Pursuit. Sigilyph can even set up on defensive Slowking varients lacking Thunder Wave if needed (well it can set up on it even if it has Thunder Wave but the lack of speed is really crippling once slowking is down ;-;).

Lastly, I think i'll try out the Flame Plate Entei suggestion Atomicllamas gave in the future, i lose out on some of ExtremeSpeed's power, but its not like i don't have other ways to revenge kill (Absol, Rotom-C, etc) Switching moves seems pretty nice in some circumstances, and there have definitely been times where i wished i wasn't banded. Thanks!

I'll post again if there's any more activity/questions :)
 
Great job guys, is hard to choose a winner with these post, so probably every week we'll have differents winners. The winner of this week with the most solid post overall is: Lunatic Lies

Congrats Lunatic Lies and keep posting guys ~

So, next week, team by SilentVerse :)

Week 2: SilentVerse



Snover @ Focus Sash
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 Spd
Modest Nature
- Blizzard
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- GrassWhistle


Glaceon @ Choice Specs
Trait: Ice Body
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Blizzard
- Shadow Ball
- Baton Pass
- Hidden Power [Ground]


Spiritomb @ BlackGlasses
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Pursuit
- Shadow Sneak
- Sucker Punch
- Return


Kabutops @ Leftovers
Trait: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
- Stone Edge
- Aqua Jet


Rotom-Frost @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Volt Switch
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Trick


Ferroseed @ Eviolite
Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Thunder Wave
- Gyro Ball

  • What do think was the main/inspiring idea/goal SilentVerse had when building this team?
  • Is there a discernible core that he tried to build around?
  • What are the strong points of the team?
  • What are the weak spots?
  • How could his use of certain EV/moveset twists help his team vs specific threats or archetypes?
  • How does he use underrated threats to his advantage?
  • Just about anything else you might want to comment on or ask about.
Thanks you a lot sv ^_^
 

Molk

Godlike Usmash
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
Looking at this team. The first thing you notice is that its a hail team, utilizing snover to set up the only permanent weather in RU early on in the match, hoping to get an early. advantage and buff some teammates in the process. The main objective of this hail balance team seems to be to use the combination of Choice Specs Glaceon and Choice Scarf Rotom-F to repeatedly batter the opposing team into oblivion, eventually leaving one to clean up later on it in the match when things like Entei, Escavalier, Slowking, Lanturn etc have been sufficiently worn down/eliminated. The rest of the teamslots are used to cover any potential problems Snover+the hail abusers might potentially have. Covering the basic Fire, Fighting, Rock, and Steel-type weaknesses Rotom-F and Glaceon have while also providing Pursuit, Rapid Spin, and Entry hazards respectively.

Grasswhistle Snover is an interesting Choice over Ice Shard, and i could see it being quite effective in some circumstances. While Grasswhistle has a very low accuracy to work with, it can be pretty annoying when it hits, at least temporarily eliminating one Pokemon from the match and leaving Snover alive. Of course, because of the aforementioned Accuracy, this can be sort of inconsistent, but useful nonetheless.

Looking at the support Pokemon, Spiritomb is Silentverse's only check to Fighting-type Pokemon, thankfully, Spiritomb can check things like Hitmonlee and Gallade very effectively, so this shouldn't be a problem most of the time (although hail wears Spiritomb down a little bit so it can't do this forever). Spiritomb also plays another important role on this team: using Pursuit to eliminate Slowking from the match to make Specs Glaceon's job a bit easier. Slowking can be quite annoying to an unprepared Hail team that relies on Ice-type moves to do major damage, so a way to eliminate it is a good idea: even if you have a Rotom-F with STAB Thunderbolt to work with. Silentverse uses Return on his Spiritomb instead of something like Will-O-Wisp or Foul Play etc in this particular case, and for good reason: its often Spiritomb's best way to damage things that Resist Ghost- and Dark-type moves and its also Spiritomb's most effective way of damaging some of the Fighting-types that Silentverse relies on Spiritomb to check.

Kabutops is Silentverse's best Switch in to Fire-type moves like Emboar and Entei's Flare Blitz when needed, providing a very important 4x resistance to the move and retaliating with either Aqua Jet or Stone Edge depending on how fast the Pokemon is. Silentverse decides to opt out on both Swords Dance and Waterfall on his Kabutops for Stealth Rock: a very important move and one he'd have a hard time fitting in otherwise (ferroseed has 4mss ;-;). These aren't even the most important roles Kabutops plays though, as the real reason Silentverse is running Kabutops on this team is because of its access to Rapid Spin: which is very important given both of his hail abusers are weak to Stealth Rock and at least one of them lacks any kind of recovery such as Ice Body. Silentverse's hail team has a much easier time switching around through Volt Switch etc without Stealth Rock on the field, and Kabutops makes sure it stays that way.

Ferroseed might seem a little odd on a hail team at first because of its inability to heal off hail damage and its shared Fire- and Fighting-type weaknesses with the Ice-types often found on Hail teams, but it plays an important role on Silentverse's team as his primary check to Rock- and to some extent Steel-type Pokemon: checking things like Kabutops and Aggron with ease with its Eviolite bolstered physical defense. Outside of checking Rock-type Pokemon, Ferroseed spreads Paralysis for Silentverse's team: which makes Specs Glaceon that much more threatening later on in the game, sets up Spikes to help Rotom-F and Glaceon achieve important KOs when needed, and racks up residual damage with Iron Barbs, all of which are very useful for silentverse's hail team.

Imo the hail abusers themselves are somewhat straightforward, but that might be just me. Choice Specs Glaceon is obviously the wallbreaker of the two. Battering potential walls and Ice-type resists with its STAB, Choice Specs boosted Blizzard and even being able to wear down Slowking with well placed Shadow Balls. When played well, Choice Specs Glaceon can definitely leave enough of an impact on the opposing team for Rotom-F to just come in and clean up whats left, as pretty much anything that could've checked Rotom-F now is either down from repeated Blizzards or in KO range for one of Rotom-F's coverage moves. Glaceon even forms a pseudo Volturn core with Rotom-F, potentially being able to use Baton Pass to scout for switches and get out of bad situations such as against a Slowking where Rotom-F or another teammate would be able to handle the situation better. Outside of being the late game cleaner, Rotom-F also plays the role of a revenge killer, using its Good STABs and Choice Scarf boosted Speed to pick off Pokemon such as Durant and Sceptile before they can sweep Silentverse's team.

As for threats to this team, the first one that comes to mind is Escavalier. Escavalier is completely immune to hail damage unlike other non Ice-type Pokemon, and gets a free switch in on many moves, such as pretty much anything Spiritomb carries, Ferroseed's Gyro Ball or Spikes, or Rotom-F's Blizzard. From there Escavalier can simply get what pretty much equates to a Free KO with a powerful Choice Band Megahorn. Of course, Escavalier has no recovery, so repeated hits from Kabutops, Rotom-F, and Glaceon will wear it down over time, but if Escavalier gets in safely, its going to cause quite a problem for Silentverse's team, and will usually nab at least one if not 2 KOs a match.
 

EonX

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This is a really solid Hail team put together by SilentVerse. While it does focus on offense with the core of Glaceon and Rotom-F, it does have a very solid supporting core of Ferroseed, Spiritomb, and Kabutops.

The first thing that jumps out to me is Grasswhistle on Snover. This is a very odd move and something not many people will see coming. However, if you're able to put something like Uxie or Slowking to sleep early, it can really help out. HP Fire is another. It may not be totally uncommon like Grasswhistle is, but many Snovers carry HP Rock to deal with Fire-types. With HP Fire, Snover can make for a fine Escavalier / Durant lure as both are very serious threats to many Hail teams. Choice Specs Glaceon is fairly standard, but it's standard for a reason; it's pretty much the best pure wallbreaker a Hail team can use. I said it was fairly standard because there's one key thing SV changed on it; the nature. With a Timid nature, Glaceon outspeeds neutral nature Absol who would otherwise be a very serious threat to his team with its coverage and Sucker Punch. Glaceon has the natural bulk to handle a Sucker Punch if need be, but many times, the Absol user will expect to outspeed Glaceon as most Specs sets run Modest and Scarf Glaceon isn't all that common. Spiritomb is the team's main answer to Psychic- and Fighting-types. With Pursuit, Spiritomb can easily trap the likes of Uxie, Mesprit, and Slowking although Specs variants of Slowking can make for a dangerous cat-and-mouse game as Surf can 2HKO Spiritomb, thus meaning that Spiritomb is incapable of directly switching into it. Spiritomb also serves as a fantastic Gallade check and a great check to Fighting-types in general.

Now, for the back half of the team. Kabutops is the 4th member of the team. It supplys Stealth Rock and Rapid Spin support, both of which help Glaceon and Rotom-F get more KOs. Aqua Jet gives SilentVerse a way to revenge kill weakened threats should Rotom-F be out or if Aqua Jet is just a more effective way to revenge kill something (such as against Entei or Emboar) With Stone Edge, Kabutops can level Cryogonal while also taking out most Fire-types should they not be in Aqua Jet KO range. The use of Battle Armor looks strange, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. SV needs Kabutops to get SR down and stay around to spin away hazards, thus making Weak Armor more of a detriment as he doesn't need Kabutops to sweep. Swift Swim is entirely innefective as SV wants to be playing under Hail conditions, and without Swords Dance or Waterfall, Kabutops isn't really able to punish opposing Rain teams (which are uncommon to start with) Battle Armor may not get a ton of use, but it does prevent random crits from ruining SV's day. Next up is Rotom-F. The fridge is a staple on most Hail Offense/Balance teams due to its great STAB coverage, solid Speed, and great Special Attack. SV uses a typical Choice Scarf set and thanks to the presence of Choice Specs Glaceon, most Blizzard resists are either going to be weakened or outright KOed by the time SilentVerse attempts to clean up with Rotom-F. Outside of cleaning up late-game, Rotom-F is used to take out any faster threats that SV may not want to risk switching into otherwise (such as off of a sacrifice) Trick allows SV to cripple walls should the extra Speed be unnecessary and it makes Glaceon's wallbreaking duties easier to pull off. Lastly, there's Ferroseed. This seems like an odd choice on a Hail team since it compounds Fire- and Fighting-type weaknesses, but Ferroseed is able to check dangerous Rock-, and Steel-types such as Aggron, Klinklang, and Escavalier (careful of Megahorn!) with relative ease. Thanks to Spikes, Glaceon becomes an even more frightening wallbreaker than it already is while Rotom-F will find it much easier to revenge kill stuff and clean up late-game with the Spikes support Ferroseed provides. With Thunder Wave support, Glaceon becomes a true terror as it can not only deal incredible amounts of damage, but it can also outspeed opponents as well. Ferroseed is a perfect paralysis spreader for this team as it draws in Fire-types such as Emboar, Moltres, and Entei like no other.

Looking at potential problems for this team, the biggest one I see isn't an offensive threat, but in fact, a defensive threat. Specially Defensive Gallade seems like it's an absolute pain to face. Spiritomb can't safely counter this set as Will-O-Wisp will seriously cripple it and make it incapable of beating Gallade as the Gallade user could use SV's own Hail against him in a Wish+Protect stalling scenario. The fact that Specially Defensive Gallade has reliable recovery also means that SV can't simply rely on repeated switch-ins to take their toll on Gallade, something that he can try to do with Escavalier to an extent. Although Specially Defensive Gallade has just one attacking move, that's all it needs to do serious damage to SV's team as not even Glaceon will come close to an OHKO while Drain Punch levels pretty much everything not named Spiritomb. The best ways SilentVerse has of beating it come with Rotom-F's Trick and Ferroseed's Thunder Wave. If Rotom-F uses Trick while Spiritomb is still around, then Gallade is a bit easier to play around (though SilentVerse will likely lose Rotom-F in the process or just encounter Gallade scouting with Protect) while Thunder Wave can trigger a timely full paralysis that could let SV break past Gallade. Looking at switch-in opportunities Specially Defensive Gallade has against this team, there are quite a few. Kabutops and Ferroseed have no way of directly threatening this Gallade due to its lack of Speed investment and heavy HP investment while Gallade isn't 2HKOed by Rotom-F's Thunderbolt. If Glaceon gets stuck on HP Ground, then Gallade can very easily switch into it as well.
 

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
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The very first thing you notice when looking at SilentVerses team is that it is hail. Then you notice SilentVerse is a hypocrite for using a play style he thinks is broken, I guess not all of us have standards. :p Poliwrath is ugly.

The main "goal" of this team is to control the weather, keep hazards off his side of the field, and spam blizzard to destroy the opposing team, with Glaceon using slower but extremely powerful Blizzards to put holes in the other team, and Rotom-F using faster blizzards to clean up. Some of the burden of cleaning up, and blasting holes in the opposing team is taken care of by a support network to lay hazards, spin block these hazards, and spread paralysis. The paralysis spreading is especially useful to Glaceon who sitting at base 65 speed is far from fast.

As stated previously, his Snover set is really interesting, grasswhistle allows Snover to essentially get a kill 55% of the time (dem BW sleep mechanics), or more if they try to set up rocks in front of him or set up at all. HP fire is also an interesting choice for Snover allowing it to dent the steel types that would usually give his Blizzspam team some trouble.

On to his non-hail mons, Kabutops is obviously a huge necessity for this team being the only fire resist on the team, using stealth rocks (the most important hazard) and spinning away hazards, although I don't think this set can spin well against opposing ghosts. Leftovers and Battle Armor are may seem like weird choices on Kabutops (on non-hail I like Lum/Weak Armor), but they are obviously a necessity in hail, as a well timed crit on Kabutops could allow an opposing Entei/Emboar sweep. Aqua Jet is a nice little bonus on Kabutops, allowing it to pick of weakened threats, such as something that survived a Glaceon blizzard, or something that just took a volt switch from Rotom-F.

The next support mon on his team is Ferroseed, which at first glance seems like a horrible choice for this team as it compounds the fire weakness (4x!!!) and the fighting weakness that exists on every hail team, as well as lacking recovery in hail. But then you realize that Ferroseed resists both rock and steel, as well as having access to Spikes, which this team enjoys, thunderwave, which Glaceon enjoys, and Leech Seed which gives Ferroseed recovery in hail and wears down the opposition really quickly, as they no longer have leftovers recovery.

This leads us to the final support mon, Spiritomb, which really actually supports Kabutops and Ferroseed more than the rest of the team. Spiritomb is the ever important spin blocker on a hazard stacking team, it also has an immunity to the fighting types which every mon on his team is weak to.

One large threat I see to this team is flame plate Entei with HP grass, but choice band and sleep talk seem to be all the rage today so you are probably fine on that front. Another threat I see as pointed out above is bulky Gallade, but I don't mean specially defensive, I mean bulky swords dance Gallade, which can set up on a lot of your team, and only kind of struggles with Spiritomb. One change I might suggest to fix this weakness is utilizing foul play on Spiritomb over return which will punish swords dancers like Gallade, Kabutops, and even Feraligatr which can threaten your team. With foul play you could even invest more in defense if you want (and use leftovers), which will help Spiritomb deal with opposing fighting types that can be a huge threat to your team. Escavalier (as pointed out by Molk) could also be a huge threat to your team, you could consider changing trick on Rotom-F to hidden power fire, which could help your team against steel types in general, as Rotom-F doesn't usually end up tricking its scarf (at least in my experience).

Other threats to this team include mixed Absol (but that happens to all hail offense teams) and Modest Scarf Manectric with flamethrower>overheat, but only I use that so you are probably fine.

Overall this is an extremely solid hail offense team that can really wear down the opponent and clean up with quite a few options.
 
Yeah i agree with all of your guys, i have tested this team recently and Specs Glaceon + Scarf Rotom-F is a great offensive hail core with a utility/hazard/bulky core with Kabutops/Ferroseed and Spiritomb to trap some Slowking and keep hazards on the field. The problems that i had when i played with this team were: Hail Stall (mostly Stallrein), Sub toxic moltres and Sleeptalk Escavalier.

Winner of this week is EonX

Tomorrow i'll add the new week 3, good job guys.
 
Double post to post here the week 3 team, by EonX. Thanks you ~

Week 3: EonX-




Emboar (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Flare Blitz
- Superpower
- Wild Charge
- Sleep Talk


Druddigon (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Rough Skin
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Earthquake
- Glare
- Dragon Tail


Sceptile (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Overgrow
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
IVs: 29 HP / 3 Atk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Giga Drain
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Rock]


Slowking (F) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 212 HP / 252 SAtk / 44 Spd
IVs: 0 Atk
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Surf
- Psyshock
- Fire Blast
- Trick


Steelix (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Def / 160 SDef
IVs: 0 Spd
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Gyro Ball
- Roar

Qwilfish (M) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 244 Def / 16 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Spikes
- Pain Split
- Waterfall
- Taunt

  • What do think was the main/inspiring idea/goal EonX had when building this team?
  • Is there a discernible core that he tried to build around?
  • What are the strong points of the team?
  • What are the weak spots?
  • How could his use of certain EV/moveset twists help his team vs specific threats or archetypes?
  • How does he use underrated threats to his advantage?
  • Just about anything else you might want to comment on or ask about.
 

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
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Hmmmm, I guess I'll take the first crack at this one.

To me, this team screams bulky offense, as everything on the team is designed to be able to take a hit (except Sceptile). The defensive backbone for this team is Steelix, Qwilfish, and Druddigon. Steelix and Qwilfish are here to provide hazard support for this team as well as check/counter pretty much every physical attacker in the tier, although it should be noted that Gallade could give this core some trouble. Because Steelix provides the rocks, Druddigon is able to run a less standard, but still extremely effective specially defensive para-phazing role. Glare also frees up a move slot for Qwilfish to use pain split, increasing the defensive core's longevity without sacrificing the speed control this team needs, as Emboar isn't the fastest scarfer out there. This defensive core not only supports the team by laying hazards and paralyzing opposing mons, but it also contributes to wearing down the opponents team (dragon tail and roar help), allowing for late game cleaning by either Sceptile or Emboar.

The offensive core on this team consists of Emboar, Sceptile, and Slowking, which, holding to the traditional RU team style is also a FWG core. The wall-breaker of this core is Slowking, who can really put the hurt on the opposing team with Specs boosted attacks. Slowking also effectively doubles as a mixed attacker with Psyshock to hit the special walls that might stand in Sceptile's way, and with Surf and Fire Blast which can neuter physical walls that might stand in Emboar's way. Trick is an excellent choice against stall, allowing Slowking to hit everything in the tier neutrally except for opposing Slowkings. Emboar and Sceptile are both able to function as a revenge killers, thanks to the scarf and a naturally high speed stat respectively, but if the rest of the team succeeds in wearing down the team, they can both function as late game cleaners as well. Emboar is also important to this team, because it is able to absorb sleep for the team.

One of the most interesting things about this team, in my opinion, is that it uses two extremely common RU mons in an uncommon way to make this team work. Slowking is often seen as a defensive pivot, able to switch into the opponents moves, status/scald something, and switch out to regain its health. However, offensive Slowking is also extremely effective in the current meta, and is a far better fit on this team than the pivot would be. Druddigon is often seen as a bulky physical attacker, providing it's team with rocks, but EonX- chose to take advantage of Druddigon's great defensive typing, making it an good special wall that can phaze, and still hit back hard.

Another thing that struck me as a little odd about this team, is the EV spread on Steelix, which has more specially defensive EVs than usual. Smogon tells me this allows EonX-'s Steelix to take unboosted special attackers such as life orb Rotom better. :p This seems reasonable as the EVs were originally meant to ensure that only a 3HKO would occur from scarf Primeape and choice band Archeops (is that even a thing?).

The biggest threat to this team, as far as I can tell, is Swords Dance Gallade, which can get around both of EonX-'s physical walls with ease, but Gallade can easily be revenge killed by Emboar, and has trouble setting up in front of anything except Qwilfish and possible Sceptile. If EonX- plays carefully the opposing Gallade will be limited to one kill.

To summarize, this is an extremely solid bulky offensive team with a defensive core designed to wear down the opposing team, and an offensive FWG core designed to punch holes in the opponents team, and clean up late game.
 

Molk

Godlike Usmash
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At first glace, this looks like a very solid bulky offense team made by EonX-, and i know from experience that this specific team format works out pretty well (i asked EonX- for a varient of this team quite a while ago and its honestly never let me down, not exactly like this team but its similar enough bar one Pokemon and a few sets).

As previously mentioned, EonX- uses a classic FWG core of Choice Specs Slowking, Life Orb Sceptile, and Choice Scarf Emboar to pressure his opponents, and all 3 pokemon cover each other and break through their checks and counters rather efficiently. Specs Slowking is a really underrated wallbreaker, and between Surf, Fire Blast, and Psyshock, nothing except other Slowking can really efficently wall Slowking, and if Slowking doesn't need the extra power at any time during the match, it can use Trick to allow it to switch moves and cripple a physical attacker/physical defensive mon in the process by locking it into an undesirable move. Slowking's ability to break through various defensive Pokemon such as Amoonguss, Poliwrath, Roselia, and Qwilfish helps both Sceptile and Emboar immensely, and makes Slowking a key member to the team. Life Orb Sceptile is a really good special attacker on almost any team, and this one is no exception. Once Slowking and Emboar have worn down potential checks to Sceptile, it can just switch in and go to town with its Sub set, especially because of its great Speed stat, which means it can even revenge kill earlier on in the game. Sceptile is able to threaten opposing Slowking if it gets in safely too (fire blast hurts ;-;), helping its offensive partners Slowking and Emboar along in the process. Lastly, Emboar serves as another revenge killer/cleaner along with Sceptile and helps cover a few of the things that threaten both Slowking and Sceptile, such as Escavalier, who can switch in on Sceptile and Slowking not locked into Fire Blast and OHKO both with Megahorn. Meanwhile, Emboar 4x resists that Megahorn, and can easily force Escavalier out with a Flare Blitz, Emboar sceptile out against Pokemon such as Roselia and Amoonguss as well, breaking through them so that Sceptile can sweep later on, in return, Sceptile threatens bulky Water-types that might annoy Emboar. Emboar also has Sleep Talk so it can serve as the team's primary Sleep absorber, and i'd say its a pretty good pick given how it matches up well vs most of the sleep inducing Pokemon.

EonX-'s Druddigon set is kind of odd to me, but i think it works pretty well on his team looking at his teammates. Druddigon can use its good bulk and resistances to easily spread paralysis and/or set up a Substitute during parts of the match, crippling and wearing down the opponent over time with a combination of hazards, rough skin, phazing, and paralysis. Some of EonX-'s teammates especially appreciate the paralysis support, most notably Slowking, who can cause that much more trouble when everything is paralyzed and nothing can outspeed him.

Defensively, Steelix, Slowking, Qwilfish, and Druddigon make a very solid defensive core that can cover the vast majority of the metagame. Steelix is EonX-'s primary physical wall: and for good reason, its physical bulk is absolutely massive, and only supported by its slew of resistances to types such as Bug, Normal, Flying, Electric, and Dragon-type moves. Steelix can check the likes of Cinccino, Escavalier, Aggron, Kabutops lacking Waterfall, Klinklang, Swellow, and Fire Blast less Absol with ease. Steelix is EonX's first switchin to Druddigon as well, given it doesn't really take much from that Outrage, but Druddigon's coverage moves can pose a problem depending on the set. Outside of walling physical attackers, Steelix supports the team with Stealth Rock and Roar, setting up the deadly hazard nearly 100% of the time and stopping deadly set up sweepers/racking up hazards damage, respectively. Slowking may be offensive on this particular team, but its natural bulk, resistances, and access to Regenerator still mean that Slowking can function effectively as a defensive pivot, especially when paired with Steelix, as they cover their flaws quite well overall. Slowking can serve as a nice check to common Fire-, Ice- and Fighting-type Pokemon such as Entei, Glaceon to an extent, Emboar, and Hitmonlee, and can pose a huge threat after getting in because of its Choice Specs boosted attacks, even if something brings Slowking into 2HKO range, it can simply switch out to regenerate some of its health back, scouting the opponent and leaving Slowking to live for another day. Qwilfish serves as EonX-'s Spikes setter, Toxic Spikes Absorber, and handily checks many common pokemon thanks to Intimidate and its typing, such as Durant, Entei, and Escavalier. Of course EonX- already has checks to some of these Pokemon, but Qwilfish's physical bulk along with Intimidate means it often takes less damage than its other checks, possibly making Qwilfish his initial switchin into many common threats. Outside of Pokemon Qwilfish directly counters, it provides great support in the form of Intimidate, softening physical hits so its teammates can take on a threat more easily, and in Taunt, which stops opponents from trying to set up on or trying to cripple Qwilfish as long as they're slower than the puffer.

As for Pokemon EonX- might struggle with, Smeargle stands out to me as a Pokemon that could be quite annoying. I know he has a sleep absorber and everything, but Smeargle is still guarenteed at least one layer of hazards even if Emboar is switched in/led with. Outside of his Sleep Absorber, Smeargle can outspeed and threaten to Spore most of his team, and can set up hazards on slower threats pretty handily. EonX- doesn't even have a spinner to remove the potential hazards, making them that much more dangerous. Luckily, all i think EonX- would need to do to fix this problem is edit one of his EV spreads. I'd suggest changing Qwilfish's ev spread to a spread of 252 HP / 80 Defense / 176 Speed with a jolly nature. This lets Qwilfish outspeed and Taunt Smeargle and anything slower, ensuring that Smeargle can't just start setting up hazards first turn. This cuts into Qwilfish's physical bulk a little bit, but from my experience Qwilfish should still be bulky enough to check most of the Pokemon its built to help out against.

All in all, really cool bulky offense team :).
 

EonX

Battle Soul
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Considering it's been a couple of days and it is my team that we're studying, (and one that I've used for about a year no less lol) I guess I'll go over some things.

As pointed out already, this is a bulky offense team designed to outlast opposing sweepers and create a situation where Emboar or Sceptile can clean up late-game. The fact that I have 2 Pokemon hitting from opposite ends of the spectrum that can potentially clean up a match also makes it difficult for my opponents to figure out what the best play is if they're forced to sacrifice something. Specs Slowking has always been underrated and it was actually the one I started the team around alongside Steelix as I wanted a defensive core that had offensive firepower within it. Since I built this team around the time Druddigon was rising, I wanted to use it in a different way, much like I did with Slowking and its Specs set. Thus, the phazing core of Steelix and Druddigon got created. From there, I added Sceptile, but had trouble finding a Fire-type that could help me take advantage of Slowking's ability to cut through Water-types. Now, considering this was about a year ago (think about 10 months to be exact) Choice Scarf Emboar was more of a novelty rather than a big "threat". I've always been up for using new things, so I just slapped it on there. As Molk elluded to, there is a different variant of this team I used during the Nidoqueen meta, and it actually featured something else over Qwilfish. However, after Nidoqueen left for UU, I finally went ahead and used Qwilfish. Now to break down each Pokemon, bit by bit.

As I already elluded to, I put Emboar on this team back before it was the major CS threat it is today. That said, I noticed that it paired very well with Slowking and Sceptile. It could handle Bug-types quite admirably and destroyed Absol, something that was otherwise racing through pretty much everything I had if it predicted right. Sleep Talk gave the team a sleep absorber and gives Emboar defensive utility despite being an offensive Pokemon. With Slowking and Sceptile laying the hurt on opposing Fire- and Water-types, Emboar can find it quite easy to clean up late-game.

Druddigon came along after I placed Steelix on the team. With Steelix taking most physical attackers and being able to phaze them out, I put Druddigon in to be able to handle many special attackers and phaze them out. Glare was a hug selling point as it made sure I could paralyze everything in the tier, regardless of type or ability (outside of random Limber Hitmonlee) Perhaps the coolest part of Druddigon is the inability for the opponent to fully predict the set. Even after I use Substitute, the opponent can't be sure if it's offensive or defensive and many take the gamble of it being offensive due to the threat of the power Mixed Druddigon and Leftovers Druddigon have if they decide to use Substitute.

Next comes Sceptile, the cleaner from the special side. Life Orb Sceptile is amazing and thanks to Slowking's ability to lure in and lay waste to bulky Grass-types, Sceptile's ability to clean becomes that much bigger. Sceptile also handles bulky Water-types much more easily than Emboar and Slowking can despite both of them having ways around them. However, Sceptile serves another purpose that isn't too clear at first; lead against Smeargle. Because of its Speed, Sceptile can easily block Spore with Sub and proceed to 2HKO Smeargle; thus forcing Smeargle to take a chance and Whirlwind (which could drag out Emboar) or only have the ability to get SR up.

Number four is the star. Slowking is great as a wallbreaker. It has sufficient power, great coverage, utility in Trick, and solid bulk to be a pivot (albeit more of an offensive one) With Psyshock and Trick, absolutely no wall is safe from Specs Slowking as it's effectively a "mixed" wallbreaker with the ability to cripple opposing defensive Slowking. With Steelix around, arguably the best fallback option in RU for Specs Slowking, it's easy to come in, fire off a powerful move, and switch back out if need be and Regenerator really helps Slowking outlast most walls, even if I don't always predict the right switch-in. I personally have always liked the Specs set more than the Defensive set and that was part of the reason I decided to build around it.

Steelix is up next and is the defensive answer to so many things. Virtually every time Slowking is forced out, Steelix can come in. As Molk already pointed out, Steelix and Slowking have superb defensive synergy together. Another thing about Steelix is its EV spread, something that atomicllamas already brought up. While it does help against LO Rotom, there's a very significant threat that I also use the EV spread for; Galvantula. Although it's easy to wear down and has few switch-in opportunities, the fact of the matter is I have no safe switch-in into Galvantula without this EV spread on Steelix. Thunder's 30% paralysis rate makes going to Emboar a very risky proposition while Bug Buzz hits pretty much everything else rather hard. Of course, this spread works better anyway since most Archeops run Earth Power as it is and Qwilfish is a better answer to Primeape.

Speaking of Qwilfish, it's up last. Qwilfish brings crucial Spikes support as well as the ability to absorb Toxic Spikes which everything on this team bar Steelix hates. Sceptile and Druddigon can't use Sub effectively when poisoned, Slowking has a harder time pivoting otherwise, and Emboar won't hang around long enough with Flare Blitz recoil added on top of that. Taunt is also big and ensures that no member of my defensive core is really setup bait (Steelix and Druddigon can phaze out boosters) That said, I will try out the EV spread Molk mentioned to better handle Smeargle leads as my current way of handling them is far from reliable. The drop in bulk might hurt a bit, but considering Qwilfish is more of a sponge rather than a wall, I think it should work well enough.

As for the Gallade issue, atomicllamas summed it up pretty well. Although it can easily break through Steelix and Qwilfish with its STAB options while laying the hurt on Druddigon, I'll usually pivot around until I can get a scenario where Slowking comes in on it. From there, it's an easy switch-in opportunity (sort of) for Emboar as Gallade is forced to use Night Slash, Leaf Blade, or Shadow Sneak or risk being destroyed by Slowking. Emboar resists the former two and has the bulk to handle Shadow Sneak to go for the Flare Blitz KO.
 
Winner of this week is atomicllamas by EonX, thanks to atomicllamas, Molk and EonX as well by thei perception of their own team and by the team as well!

So now team of the next week, by Molk! Thanks again.


Week 4: Molk


Snover @ Focus Sash
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Rash Nature
- Blizzard
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Ice Shard


Torterra @ Leftovers
Trait: Overgrow
EVs: 252 HP / 32 Def / 224 SDef
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Wood Hammer
- Earthquake
- Leech Seed


Qwilfish @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Spd
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Waterfall
- Taunt
- Toxic Spikes


Walrein @ Leftovers
Trait: Ice Body
EVs: 232 HP / 252 SDef / 24 Spd
Calm Nature
- Substitute
- Protect
- Ice Beam
- Roar

Spiritomb @ Leftovers
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Def
Calm Nature
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Foul Play


Cryogonal @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 168 Def / 92 SDef
Calm Nature
- Blizzard
- Rapid Spin
- Haze
- Recover

  • What do think was the main/inspiring idea/goal Molk had when building this team?
  • Is there a discernible core that he tried to build around?
  • What are the strong points of the team?
  • What are the weak spots?
  • How could his use of certain EV/moveset twists help his team vs specific threats or archetypes?
  • How does he use underrated threats to his advantage?
  • Just about anything else you might want to comment on or ask about.
 
Well obviously this is a hail team, as snover shouldnt be used outside of hail. Seeing that he uses Wallrein and he has no real attackers, this is a Hail Stall team.
Snover is there for he hail, and outside of that he is probably used as the lead.
Torterra is the Stealth Rocks Setter and the Tank of the team, stalling other mons out with Leech Seed and EQ/Wood Hammer. And Torterra is so damn awesome, most teams can't handle it's appearance
Quillfish is the (T)Spikes setter of the team, as 2 layers of Toxic Spikes are a must for Stallrein to be effective. Outside of that, it prevents other pokemon to setup on Quillfish and to prevent status. Waterfall is used so this little puffy ball doesnt become Taunt Bait and Waterfall actually deals some decent damage against Fire- and Rock types that can threaten this team. Quillfish can also be used as Physical wall thanks to its ability Intimidate.
Wallrein is just a normal Stalling set, however running Ice Beam over Blizzard. I dont really know why he does this. Roar is to phaze out setup sweepers that try to take advantage of Walrein's protects and use a timed Swords Dance/Bulk Up/Calm Mind/Nasty Plot. Subsitute and Protect are there for the stall.
Moving on, Spiritomb serves as Spinblocker and Specially Defensive wall, running WoW to soften up Physical Sweepers. Rest for the recovery, Foul Play to hit Physical sweepers back with their own attack stat with a 90 BP STAB.
Lastly, Crygonal serves as the spinner, as this team is vulnerable to entry hazards, mainly Tspikes and SR

This team is very bulky, as a Stall team should be, with nicedefensive synergy, as the only typing that is not resisted is Flying.

As for counters to this team, anything with Physical attack, and an Ice- and Thunder Attack can pose a threat to this team. The first thing that comes to my mind is Hitmonchan with Iron Fist, Thunder- and Ice punch and Close Combat, as it is powerful and has a surprising high special defense for a Physical Attacker so it can take Crygonals Blizzard pretty nice. It needs to watch out for Tomb's Burn however, as well for Quillfish that can shut Hitmonchan down with his ability Intimidate.

Torterra is quite the unusual choice on a Hail Team, as it's extremely vulnerable to any Ice-type attack, but it is a good counter to Magneton, which can hit Molk's whole team for SE damage with Flash Cannon and T-Bolt/Volt Switch.

Well, thats all that I can see in this team. Plz don't hate me for my incomplete post ;-;
 

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
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I won one, cool :).

Hmm, one look at Molk's team and the purpose of this team becomes really clear, to stall out the opposing team with t-spikes and hail damage using Walrein's amazing hail stalling prowess.

The first and arguably most important pokemon on any hail stall team is Snover, because without Snover, it is just lame, regular stall. One thing I really like about Molk's Snover is that it has full investment in speed, ignoring the terrible smogon set that recommends full investment in HP on a sash mon -_-, he also chose to lower SpD with a rash nature to allow Snover to take priority attacks better (mostly just aqua jet). Molk's Snover also utilizes HP fire, which allows it to do heavy damage to Escavalier and Durant, which is nice because those two mons seem sort of troubling to his team at first glance.

The next member of Molk's team that is essential to it's hail-stalling purposes is Qwilfish, who provides T-Spikes and Spikes, allowing passive damage to whittle away the opposing teams' HP. Qwilfish also carries taunt, which is essential in stopping stuff like Clefable and Alomomola to continually wish passing to its team, although Clefable can be a problem for this team. Physically defensive Qwilfish is also essential to stopping the many Phyisically offensive fire types in the tier such as Entei and Emboar, it also is a really good check to Durant and Escavalier from a defensive perspective. The final thing that makes Qwilfish so beneficial for this team is it's secondary poison typing, allowing for the absorption of opposing t-spikes (which could neuter Walrein) upon switch in.

Now whats the point of Qwilfish if your hazards keep getting spun away? :p Spiritomb is an extremely important member of every hail stall team, as it prevents the many spinners of RU from spinning just by switching in. Molk's set is pretty interesting though, and deviates from the norm a little bit to suit the needs of his team. SpD Spiritomb is a really good check to Cryogonal, as Cryogonal's Ice STAB of choice won't be doing much, and toxic can just be rested off by Spiritomb. Will-o-wisp is a necessity on Spiritomb, as it helps it defeat Sandslash and Hitmonchan 1v1, while foul play can really damage Kabutops, this Spiritomb does struggle to get around SD Kabutops, however, so Molk will have to play carefully around it. Rest-Talk is an important aspect of this Spiritomb, as it allows it longevity in the hail, while also providing Molk with extra stally turns if it comes to a pp war. Will-o-wisp is a risk though on a sleep talking mon, as it may allow opposing set up (esp. behind a sub). Foul Play is a move that should be used on defensive Spiritomb a lot more than it is, so I am glad Molk is putting that to use.

On to Cryogonal, who obviously the spinner for this team, as everyone can clearly see, performing this role even better in the hail as Blizzard hits extremely hard even without investment. The less obvious, yet equally important role that Cryogonal performs on this team is checking set up mons with Magic Gaurd, as without Cryogonal, CM Sigi, CM Clefable, and even CP Sigi could set up and walk all over this whole team. Haze allows Cryogonal to stop those shenanigans, while Blizzard hits Sigilyph for a lot of damage limiting its opportunities to set up later in the game.

Walrein, without a doubt is the crown jewel of this team, with t-spikes up, if Walrein manages to set up a sub it is over for the opponent unless they are carrying one of a few mons to prevent this. Molk decided to forgo mixed defensive investment and invest fully in special bulk, allowing Walrein to set up on a ton of stuff like Moltres, Sceptile, and Slowking. The other EVs are for specific reasons, the 232 HP EVs reach an Ice body number, letting Walrein stall without losing any HP by alternating Sub and Protect. The 24 speed EVs, give it a little bit of speed creep, especially since most Walrein only run 20 speed EVs. He also opted for Ice Beam>Blizzard for pp reasons, allowing Walrein to pp stall for even longer, I don't think Ice Beam is the optimal move however, and I will explain that at the end.

The hidden gem of this team, however, is Torterra, who does a few very important things for this team, it is actually a really cool choice for this slot. Firstly, and most obviously it provides stealth rocks, which are p much a necessity on any team unless you are running full baton pass or some random all choice team. But the thing that I really like about this specially defensive Torterra, is that it completely fucks over specially defensive rest talk Magneton, the best Walrein counter in the entire tier. It also has a small chance of 2HKOing Clefable with wood hammer, the mon that I see as the biggest problem to this team (I'm assuming this was the reason it was chosen over seed bomb). Leech seed is also kind of a cool move on Torterra, as it wears down the opponents team even more in conjunction with hazards and hail, while also giving Torterra passive recovery in hail.

I do have at least one suggestion (I'll edit in more if I think of any). I think that Walrein's attacking move should be either Surf or Super Fang instead of ice beam. They each have the same pp as ice beam iirc, but they are each way more useful against threats to this team. Surf and Super Fang hit all of the steel types in the tier harder than Ice Beam (surf is probably only better for Durant, but also lets you finish mons off), and Super Fang specifically can put Clefable in a tougher position than your team could right now.

In summary, this is a hail stall team, based on wearing down the opponents team with hazards (especially t-spikes), weather, and turn wasting. It successfully integrates an underrated NU mon onto the team that takes care of one of this teams biggest threats, while maintaining most of the elements of stall. A pretty cool team imo :).

Edit: Even though I (and some of the users below) have pointed out how much Clefable annoys this team, it is beaten in the end if it is the last mon (Haze Cryo for calm mind or Spiritomb for standard support or offensive), as it can be pp stalled. Roar on Walrein helps facilitate this, as well as all of the hazards.
 
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EonX

Battle Soul
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When I look at this team, it just screams Hail Stall. It has solid defensive synergy, a strong defensive backbone, and the ability to status every Pokemon in the tier and slowly wear them down.

Snover is obvious for any Hail Stall team. It brings the Hail that is necessary to be able to use the playstyle in the first place. Rash nature seems sort of odd to me since Snover doesn't resist any priority moves (save for Aqua Jet) and doesn't have many notable physical resistances, but it really doesn't matter anyway since Snover's defenses are pathetic anyway. HP Fire is the kicker move here to catch Durant and Escavalier for heavy damage. Torterra is a really cool addition on this team since it just shits on SpDef Magneton and can take out any Magneton for that matter as long as it doesn't switch into HP Fire. It also puts a stop to Rotom-C's Volt Switch shenanigans without being destroyed by Leaf Storm (Specs set is another story, but even then...) Terra provides the all-important Stealth Rock as well as a solid Aggron switch-in, which would otherwise basically get a free KO whenever it gets in safely against this team. Qwilfish forms a very good defensive hazard setting core with Torterra as the two can check many top threats with each other. Qwilfish has access to Taunt to discourage setup while Torterra has a good STAB combination and respectable Attack stat to fend off most setup sweepers, so they aren't sitting ducks either. Another major thing about Qwilfish is the EV spread; with this, it gets in front of Timid Omastar to Taunt it before it can setup with Shell Smash, thus lessening the pressure on Cryogonal to deal with it. The inability to run Pain Split hurts a bit, but Torterra's Leech Seed can help Qwilfish out a little.

On to the back half. Walrein is the star of pretty much any Hail Stall team, and this one is no different. Molk has chosen to take the specially defensive route to have an easier setup against the likes of Sceptile and Moltres (the latter of which can be a pretty major issue for this team, but more on that later) Once Walrein gets up a Sub, it will typically take out 2 Pokemon at the minimum unless the opponent has one of the very few counters to it (SpDef Magneton, Clefable, and maybe Cryogonal) Ice Beam is an odd choice for the attacking move, but it gives more PP than Blizzard and also gives Walrein an attacking option no matter the weather condition (if Hail gets removed over the course of the match) The Speed EVs do much more than speed creep other Walreins; it also creeps past non-Rock Polish Golurk as well as any Lanturn that doesn't invest in Speed (read: pretty much every one of them) This is significant since Molk's Walrein lacks investment in physical bulk and it prevents Lanturn from fishing for a Scald burn before Walrein gets a Sub up. Spiritomb is up next and is p. much the catch-all answer to Fighting- and Psychic-types for this team. Were it not for Spiritomb, Gallade would run straight through this team with its coverage and power as it easily swats Qwilfish aside with its Psychic STAB. Tomb also prevents the entry hazards Molk's defensive core lays from getting spun away. Molk opted for the RestTalk recovery method instead of Pain Split. This is feasible as Tomb is Molk's only way of getting a status condition onto Steel- and Poison-types as well as random levitators and Flying-types while Foul Play punishes Kabutops if it tries to setup to get past Spiritomb. Cryogonal is the final member of the team and it ensures that even if an opposing special sweeper sets up, there's a way to stop it. As Qwilfish already handles most physical sweepers through the use of Taunt, Cryo can handle many special sweepers thanks to Haze. Of course, Rapid Spin ensures that Molk's team won't have to deal with entry hazards and that there's a way around Toxic Spikes, even if Qwilfish is already knocked out.

As for issues I see for this team, Moltres is a pretty big one imo. While Walrein can use it as setup bait, there isn't a single thing on this team capable of switching directly into Moltres's STAB combination. It's also the only common Flying-type that is immune to WoW and it has Roost for recovery on top of that! Since Walrein can stall it out thanks to the specially defensive investment, the damage Moltres does should be limited on most occasions, but there's no denying the threat level of it since it outspeeds everything and can tank p. much any hit if Molk has yet to get SR up in the match. The Moltres issue could be resolved to an extent by using Regirock over Torterra as Molk can keep a specially defensive tank/wall with SR and pick up a major check to Moltres, lessening the pressure on Walrein to deal with it, but this would, in turn, open Molk up to Aggron quite a bit. Due to the fact that Aggron has no reliable recovery, is vulnerable to Spikes, and can be hit by WoW, it may be a little easier to handle, though Walrein can't setup on it like it can Moltres.

Overall, this is a very solid Hail Stall team that utilizes a strong hazard setting core, an underrated NU Pokemon that easily handles the best counter to Stallrein, and a solid spinblocker/WoW user to ensure that almost everything can be hit with a status to set the stage for Walrein.
 

dcae

plaza athénée
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K so this team is at a glance instantly recognizable as a Hail Stall team. It incorporates the standard elements one sees on these types of teams: Snover, Toxic Spikes support, spinner, and a SubTect mon. The goal is to bring down an opponent slowly through Toxic Stalling and residual damage.

Now the Snover set used here is the optimal one for Hail teams, generally leading off and making up for its bad bulk by using Sash to notch hits on annoyances to Hail, especially on mons that do not have recovery. As Snover is so important due to bringing Hail itself, this is a given. I do wonder why the Rash nature is used over Mild, considering that Snover can actually take mons like pivot Slowking due to its typing and the fact that pivot Slowking is weak and doesn't run much coverage. This is keeping in mind that almost all priority destroys Snover. I also note the nice usage of Hidden Power Fire, which is really unsurpassed as a Hidden Power due to the ease it takes out certain Hail threats, especially Escavalier. The choice of Giga Drain over Wood Hammer is most certainly due to this being a stall team, and thus Snover is better off being kept than getting killed quickly and being caught off guard by a manual weather move. Now, every Hail Stall team needs Toxic Spikes support, and Molk's setter of choice is Qwilfish, a very useful mon on Hail teams due to a few aspects. Qwilfish has access to both Spikes and Toxic Spikes, which gives it multiple options, and has Taunt, which is immensely useful against set-up sweepers that try to pull moves on this team or defensive mons trying to heal, while stopping hazards to keep the mons in good shape. The speed creep aids this so it can shut down set-up sweepers before they can move. The main draw of Qwilfish over other mons with Toxic Spikes or Spikes, however, is its typing, which lets it shut down most physical Fighting types with the combination of Intimidate + Poison typing, and it can wall one of Hail's biggest threats, Escavalier.

Torterra is the other side of the hazards core, and this mon is very unique. Hail is rarely seen with this mon, and this is really the tech mon Molk has here. People tend to underestimate what Torterra's bulk and what it is capable of, and this Specially Defensive set puts everything Torterra has to good use. Due to its special typing, Torterra is able to completely shut down Specially Defensive Magneton, the true counter to the infamous Stallrein, so thus Torterra eliminates a huge counter for its teammate. As it is thoroughly unexpected, this works even better in play due to being immensely underrated. Torterra does not just set up vital Stealth Rocks and shut down the aforementioned Magneton set, but it also does well against Rotom-C, which would otherwise be able to Volt Switch all over this team. Although it can't do much back, the defensive investment permits it to take the common Scarf Leaf Storm well. Leech Seed is the final move option, and it does good work on a Hail Stall team, adding residual damage to the opposing mon and providing valuable healing for Molk's own mons, such as Qwilfish. Torterra forms a strong synergetical core with Qwilfish, as well as in their roles, majorly due to the fact both carry the vital hazards and each take on several of the major threats to this team.

Considering we have so many hazards at this point, and that this is stall, a spinblocker is a must. The spinblocker of choice here is arguably the best for stall teams: Spiritomb. Spiritomb boasts multiple advantages over other bulky ghosts, and several of these are, but not limited to, having access to Foul Play and having no weaknesses. For this team, Spiritomb walls most Fighting types who can pass Qwilfish, due to them struggling to have a move that hits Spiritomb for much damage. The biggest of these Fighting types is Gallade, which can wreak major havoc on this team otherwise. Tomb uses the excellent Foul Play to dole out the hurt on physical attackers and Psychic mons, while employing RestTalk to be able to be a defensive behemoth consistently through the game. The EV set chosen here is a Specially Defensive set, which deals with problems on that side of the spectrum better, especially Moltres. Due to this choice Will-o-Wisp is very vital to minimize the physical damage, because Molk's defensive backbone is more focused onto the Special side of the spectrum (eg Torterra, Spiritomb, Walrein, and Cryogonal being specially based.) Obviously the main goal of Spiritomb, however, is still to spinblock, and it can do this handily, defeating most spinners easily.

With these hazard weak mons, and to keep Walrein as effective as it is, the team uses Cryogonal as spinner. Bulky Cryogonal is a good spinner for Hail Stall mostly because it is the bulkiest of the main spinners, and it helps out a lot on the special side. The main move to see on this relatively standard set is the Haze. Haze is absolutely huge for this team to deal with set-up mons that are getting out of hand, especially something like CM Sigi. The set is quite standard, considering the lack of other options, although Blizzard over Ice Beam shows that Molk wants this to hit with some degree of power, therefore risking the lower PP, even on a stall team.

The star of the show is Walrein, more appropriately called Stallrein. This mon has been the bane of many a team's existence, and is now arguably the most broken mon in RU. We can see here Molk decided to go with the Special EV spread to set up on stuff like Moltres. Now, the moveset choices here for Walrein are quite a lot, but Molk chose Roar and Ice Beam, and I will cover why in a second. The Speed on the EV spread is interesting, because everyone knows speed creeping is a necessity. The current spread outspeeds the base 67 mark and mons that speed creep that, eg bulky Golurk. This lets it set up the SubTect cycle on mons such as Lanturn. Now, Walrein uses Roar and Ice Beam here, each for a specific reason. A lot of mons like to set up on Walrein in hopes of breaking through it, but Roar puts an end to any such plans, and racks up more entry hazard damage. The major annoyance would've been Klinklang, which could otherwise Sub and start setting up all over Walrein. Now, considering the tremendous amount of Toxic Spikes support here, Walrein can afford to skip out on Toxic itself, which makes Roar the more desirable option. For the main attacking move, Molk made the choice to use Ice Beam, mostly due to more PP and general reliability.

A couple of cores can be seen here, mainly Qwilfish + Torterra as a hazards laying core and Qwilfish + Torterra + Spiritomb as the true defensive backbone of this team. Cryogonal + Qwilfish function as the catch alls for the set-up sweepers on the special and physical side of the spectrum respectively. This all demonstrates further the solidity of the defensive cores of this team.

Now, as for weaknesses, since this is such a well built stall team, there aren't that many, but considering this is Gen V and one cannot cover everything with 6 mons, there are guaranteed to be some. First of all, the biggest threat I see to this team is Clefable. The scariest variant for this team imo is the CM variant, which can pose problems due to it being able to shrug off residual damage. A simple attacking moveset of Thunderbolt + Ice Beam allows it to massacre your main core, barring Cryogonal. Atm the best answer is Haze/Taunt/Roar, but none of this actually KOs Clefable, making me wonder how the team defeats it. Also, other threats include powerful physical mons, eg Druddigon. Choice Band Druddi can deal massive damage if it comes in on Torterra/Qwilfish, mostly because the team is so special defensively oriented, and this thus makes physical powerhouses problematic to deal with if you can't stall them out or get WoW on them.

This is quite an interesting Hail Stall team overall due to the tech Torterra usage, which does a splendid job of supporting its teammates and maintaining the stally pressure. The cores are strong and the hazards support is excellent, and Walrein is king. The goal of this team is attained effectively through the combination of all these elements, thus making this a nice Hail Stall team.
 

Molk

Godlike Usmash
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Hmmmmm, because its been a few days since anyone else has posted, i guess i might as well give a few comments on my team =).

As mentioned by everyone who posted before, this is a hail stall team built to try and set hazards, check as many threats as possible, wear down opponents between toxic spikes and hail, and eventually set up a win condition with the infamous Stallrein. i built this team quite a while ago while testing Torterra, and i've gotta say Torterra functioned pretty well on this team despite lacking full synthesis recovery, and i personally think it was the best option i could've chosen for the teamslot overall. Be sure to give it a try!

Of course, snover is pretty much essential to any hail team, setting up the weather that provides the residual damage and Ice Body recovery to make hail stall possible. Of course, Snover doesn't really offer any defensive synergy, but that isn't a huge problem between the other members of the hail team, especially Walrein, who can take many hits with ease while steadily recovering with Ice Body. Focus Sash Snover is imo the best Snover set atm, and i probably wouldn't use anything different. Although Wood Hammer over Giga Drain is certainly an option to hit Slowking and Cryogonal harder, and Toxic+Protect over Hp Fire and Ice Shard can help rack up a little more residual damage and possibly poison Pokemon that are immune to Toxic Spikes damage.

Qwilfish is easily one of the best support Pokemon on hail stall teams, and tbh, i really couldn't see myself using anything other than qwilfish on hail stall: it has great utility between setting up both forms of spikes and helping against common hail threats like Entei and Escavalier, although the lack of Leftovers recovery caused by the hail makes it slightly more shaky. Going back to entry hazards, Spikes and Toxic Spikes are pretty integeral to this team, helping me rack up residual damage between Poison damage and Walrein's Roar (Toxic Spikes helps make set up sweepers like Lilligant a lot less threatening too), which forces the opponent to repeatedly take hazards damage whenever i get an opportunity to use a move other than Substitute or Protect without losing the Substitute i currently have. Another important thing Qwilfish does for this team is Absorb opposing Toxic Spikes, making me less reliant on Cryogonal to spin them away and reducing the chance of Walrein's attempt at stalling being stopped by being forced into Toxic Spikes. Lastly, Taunt is a really cool utility move to have on any defensive team, and Qwilfish is probably the best user of it in the entire tier, using its decent speed to stop Pokemon from setting hazards, setting up boosts, or inflicting status problems on my Pokemon. The given EV spread on Qwilfish gives it just enough Speed to Outpace and Taunt Crawdaunt and Omastar before they can set up Dragon Dance and Shell Smash, respectively.

As i mentioned earlier, Torterra is the hidden gem of this team,is honestly a pretty highly underrated Pokemon from my experience, and really helps hold the team together as glue, setting Stealth Rock, absorbing Head Smashes from Aggron, checking Kabutops, and using its Volt Switch immunity and special bulk to defend against Electric-types such as Rotom-C and Especially Magneton. Torterra is no sitting duck when it comes to offense either, having a great base 109 Attack stat, good STABs and Grass and Ground, and high BP moves to work with, ensuring it can do serious damage to the opponent if needed (one cool thing to do is go out with a bang when torterra isn't needed anymore by using Overgrow Wood Hammer). While Tort can't use Synthesis effectively in the hail because of the 25% nerf, it can still use Leech Seed for some method of recovery while also adding onto the Toxic/hail damage, which is always welcome.

Spiritomb is a very important member of this for quite a few reasons (really important for any stall team really lol). Firstly and by far most importantly, Spiritomb provides my hail stall with pretty much the best check to Gallade available, who can be pretty problematic otherwise between its power and coverage (especially because Walrein is weak to Close Combat ;-;). Outside of checking Gallade, Spiritomb helps out with other Fighting-types such as Hitmonlee, Psychic-types such as Uxie, Mesprit, and Sigilyph, Normal-types such as Tauros and Zangoose, and even spinblocks hazards for my team, matching up well vs Cryogonal because of the special bulk investment and pressure to stall out Ice Beam. Foul Play is a very good move on Spiritomb, and i'd heavily advise everyone to try it out on tomb, defensive or otherwise. Its really nice for denting potential switch ins with their own Attack stat (a lot of the Pokemon that commonly switch into Spiritomb have naturally high attack stats) and ensures that physical set up mons struggle to set up on the ghostly rock, as that increases the Foul Play damage further, possibly putting the Pokemon in KO range or just outright killing them.

Any stall team needs a spinner to keep hazards from piling on, and this team is no exception, especially when many team members lack recovery and the team's win condition (Walrein) is weak to Stealth Rock. Therefore, Cryogonal was a natural fit to get rid of all of those pesky hazards while retaining some defensive utility with its reliable recovery and good Special bulk. Cryogonal matches up pretty well against many of the spinblockers in the tier such as Rotom and Misdreavus (not Spiritomb though ;-;). Ensuring it can get the spin off the vast majority of the time. Outside of Rapid Spin, Cryogonal provides a secondary check to various special attackers because of its good special bulk, and can use Haze to stop Pokemon such as Quiver Dance Lilligant from setting up and running through my team. Sadly, i will admit Cryogonal is a little flawed because of its terrible physical bulk, but its usually not a huge problem, especially when Cryogonal's teammates can handle most of the physical attackers rather effectively.

Last, but definitely not least, Walrein is (as mentioned multiple times before) the incredibly annoying win condition of this team, and its not hard to see why, especially if you've played against the infamous staller before. Walrein's massive bulk makes it incredibly easy for it to set up a Substitute, after which the walrus becomes nearly unbreakable by simply using Substitute and Protect as Ice Body steadily recovers its health. All the while Hail and Toxic Spikes are slowking chipping away at the opponent's health. From my experience, Walrein can stall out entire teams when given the chance, even with just one layer of Toxic Spikes up. Even when Walrein isn't stalling out entire teams, it still serves an important role on this team as an all purpose tank, taking pretty much any non super effective hit easily, steadily recovering health with Ice Body, and retaliating with Ice Beam and/or phazing out opponents that might attempt to set up. Ice Beam is used over Blizzard here for PP purposes, as despite Blizzard's increase in accuracy, it only has half the PP of Ice Beam, meaning it gets worn out quickly, possibly when Walrein might want to attack, which can be incredibly infuriating.

As for potential threats to this team, one Pokemon that hasn't been mentioned yet that can be quite annoying is Galvantula. Torterra, my primary Electric-type check, has a weakness to Bug Buzz, meaning that Galvantula can potentially 2HKO it or at least do serious damage to it, Qwilfish and Walrein are weak to Thunder, Cryogonal is 2HKO'd by Thunder after Stealth Rock, and Spiritomb suffers the same fate after Stealth Rock and hail damage, making the spider very threatening. Of course its not impossible to play around Galvantula though: especially with Toxic Spikes up. Galvy takes a lot from all the combined residual damage of Stealth Rock, hail, Life Orb, and possibly Toxic Spikes, ensuring that it won't last too long, and limiting the amount of damage it can do in the long run.
 
Winner of this week is @Dcae

Week 5: Silvershadow234

Thanks Silver tho! =)


Smeargle @ Focus Sash
Trait: Own Tempo
EVs: 252 Spd / 4 HP / 252 Atk
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Spore
- Explosion


Druddigon @ Choice Band
Trait: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Outrage
- Fire Punch
- Earthquake
- Sucker Punch


Slowking @ Leftovers
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Surf
- Psyshock
- Fire Blast

Magneton @ Eviolite
Trait: Magnet Pull
EVs: 252 SAtk / 220 Spd / 36 HP
Modest Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Flash Cannon
- Volt Switch

Lilligant (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Own Tempo
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Substitute


Emboar @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Superpower
- Wild Charge
- Sleep Talk

  • What do think was the main/inspiring idea/goal Silvershadow234 had when building this team?
  • Is there a discernible core that he tried to build around?
  • What are the strong points of the team?
  • What are the weak spots?
  • How could his use of certain EV/moveset twists help his team vs specific threats or archetypes?
  • How does he use underrated threats to his advantage?
  • Just about anything else you might want to comment on or ask about.
 
Well, the first thing that caught my eye was that Druddigon runs no speed IV's which suggested me that he was running a TR team. looking further, I saw that I was right as that Slowking runs TR. however, aside from the aforementioned pokes, and maybe Magneton, his other pokes dont see any usage in having TR up, because they are either dead (Smeargle) or fast (Lilligant and Emboar).

As for the core, the main one I see is Druddigon/Slowking/Magneton, since they cover each other's weaknesses quite well, exept for Ground-Moves. Also, this team forms an FWG core with Slowking/Lilligant/Emboar.

as for the team, I actually dont see why SS chose Smeargle for hazard setters, as where he doesnt have a spinblocker. I might see this wrong, and maybe he is able to keep them on the field due to offensive pressure, but I dont know.
Druddigon's main role is to sweep while TR is up, however he functions well as a wallbreaker outside of TR too, due to it's impressive attack and the fact that he has CB tells me that Druddigon is a real beast on this team.
Slowking's role is the same as Druddigon; sweep under TR, however not having Specs due to TR. They cover up very nicely, hitting from both the special and physical sides together.
Magneton's purpose is to kill any steels that might pose any trouble to Druddigon, Slowking and Lilligant. Besides that he has some nice utility in having Tbolt, Flash cannon and most important;y, Volt Switch. Volt Switch is really useful on this team to get Lilligant and Emboar in safely, as they are very frail and dont like to take any hits.
Moving on, Lilligant is there for conering Watertypes that might give this team some trouble and for Late-Game cleaning.
Emboar is the scarfer that can take out pokemon that are faster than Lilligant and can pose troubles to this team, such as Galvantula. Even though these pokes can also be handled by drudd's Sucker punch, given that most of them are very frail.

The biggest problem to this team as far as I can see is Shell Smash Omastar with HP Grass, as it can outspeed lilli after it grabs a boost and maybe outspeed Emboar but I dont know that for sure. Even thou all pokemon on this team have coverage for this pokemon, it is a big problem once it manages to set up once.

Meh, that's all I have to say
 

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