Triple Fighting (MediCross)

cim

happiness is such hard work
is a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus


Team Triple Fighting (MediCross)

So this was my first "real" UU team. I'd built one before this one, but it was mainly to get a feel for a metagame and wasn't nearly as purpose driven as this team. Essentially, Seven Deadly Sins (my alternate account) and I got bored one night and I ran some calcs on Choice Band Medicham. I noticed that it had the neat ability to clean up almost every wall that gave Heracross any trouble sweeping. From there, we assembled the rest of the team into a heavy / bulky offense team that essentially aims from turn 1 to enable a Heracross sweep. This was just as Cofagrigius and Gligar started to inflate in usage, so this team exploited the metagame's most prominent responses to Heracross in order to enable an easy sweep late game.

It's not a flawless team by any means - the lack of a Ground type is a major problem, and it has a few holes that smart players can easily exploit. Yet it was good enough to get me just barely into the top 10 of the ladder, and is surprisingly easy to play with.

Also, keep in mind this was made right before / as Mew dropped, so there's that. Fuck Mew.

The Lineup

Crobat
  • Item: Leftovers
  • Ability: Inner Focus
  • EVs / Nature: 176 HP / 192 Atk / 4 SDef / 136 Spd; Jolly

    • Brave Bird
    • Taunt
    • Roost
    • Super Fang
(3:49:18 PM) cim: man you know what i totally forgot about until just now
(3:49:31 PM) cim: super fang crobat
(3:49:35 PM) SevenDeadlySins: lmao
(3:49:45 PM) SevenDeadlySins: taunt / fang / bb / roost?
(3:49:50 PM) cim: yup
(3:50:00 PM) SevenDeadlySins: the set scientifically guaranteed to fuck stall in any and all orifices
  • Role and Purpose
To put it bluntly, Crobat checks too many Pokemon to NOT be used. With Heracross being my only Choice Scarfer, and generally a Pokemon I'm trying to sweep with rather than going for every revenge kill, I needed something that could revenge a lot of threats, give me insurance against a plethora of Fighting types (except Medicham, but who's crazy enough to use that?), and still provide some offensive bite. Well, here he is. The metagame has adapted to him a little bit, so he's not the potent Pokemon he once was, but he is still to important for a heavy offensive team not to have one.

Super Fang is used in the last slot because I'm really frustrated with Crobat's inability to do anything to Pokemon that resist, or don't mind, his STAB Flying. Super Fang takes switching in safely off the table, especially in the early game. Every Ghost in the tier is either bothered by Taunt (Cofag, Froslass) or can't take a Brave Bird (Chandelure), and the look on the opponent's face when their Zapdos or Rhyperior takes 50% damage is simply priceless. Zapdos and Raikou are both big reasons I use Super Fang, actually - since they are both massive threats to this team I need to be able to continuously do damage to them as they switch in if I want to prevent them from just spamming Choice locked Volt Switch.
  • Possible Changes
The biggest change to consider is U-turn over Super Fang. Seven Deadly Sins really prefers it, and to be honest I haven't tried it much, since I find Super Fang so useful in the early game. It does make the lead situation versus Azelf much easier, though, so it might find its way onto Crobat one of these times. I might be crazy enough to drop Taunt, lol.

I've also considered more Speed, but I can't find any decent magic numbers.


Snorlax
  • Item: Choice Band
  • Ability: Thick Fat
  • EVs / Nature: 252 Atk / 252 SDef / 4 Spd; Adamant

    • Return
    • Pursuit
    • Earthquake
    • Crunch
(4:02:32 PM) cim: why not CB snorlax for chandelure
(4:02:35 PM) cim: pursuit that shit

  • Role and Purpose
Hey, guess what, Snorlax is without a doubt the best special tank in UU, offensively or defensively. For this team, I've chosen the former for one specific reason: Pursuit. I'm sure I'm not the first person to come up with the battle plan "Pursuit Snorlax + Fighting types = PROFIT!!!". Being able to come in on most Chandelure and immediately dispatch it, no matter what is invaluable for this team. When I first started using this team, CB Snorlax was not the standard, so this had a touch of surprise value. Some people would even Toxic it, lol.

Snorlax is a really vital piece of the puzzle, moreso than Crobat or Slowbro, just because of how stupidly dangerous so many Special attackers are in this meta right now. It's the best answer I've got to Zapdos and Raikou. Due to the low number of Steels and Rocks, once I use Pursuit his Normal STAB is often quite safe to spam. 4 Speed beats other Slowbro and Snorlax, which is actually pretty important. I might add a few more for creep.

  • Possible Changes
Not much to fuss with here. I started with the 80 / 176 spread, but there's really no reason to add more HP. Earthquake is a move I almost never use, so I've considered using Selfdestruct in that slot, but I don't think it would see much use.


Slowbro
  • Item: Choice Specs
  • Ability: Regenerator
  • EVs / Nature: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 Spd; Modest

    • Scald
    • Psyshock
    • Grass Knot
    • Fire Blast
(3:45:16 PM) SevenDeadlySins: hey you know what punches all the face
(3:45:18 PM) SevenDeadlySins: and still takes hits
(3:45:22 PM) SevenDeadlySins: specs slowbro
(3:45:28 PM) cim: oh shit
(3:45:33 PM) cim: and it's regenerator
(3:45:34 PM) SevenDeadlySins: yes
(3:45:38 PM) cim: so it's automatically fantastic
(3:45:44 PM) SevenDeadlySins: specs slowbro is a goddamn champion

  • Role / Purpose
Slowbro is the team's primary physical tank, but the standard set is far too slow and boring for such a hair-trigger offensive team. Really, with Regenerator, who needs instant recovery when you could just hit stuff super hard? Slowbro was more surprising than Snorlax when I started using this team and has only gotten more surprise KOs and wasted Toxics since then. An important check to many Fire types (I say check because the lack of defense investment makes it a more risky play), Slowbro is quite the Pokemon. Scald doesn't miss on any KOs that I've noticed and if I pull off a burn, I can usually go straight to Medicham without much consequence. Psyshock actually 2HKOs Snorlax - not something I HAVE to do, but it's nice that this team's only special-only attacker doesn't give a shit at all about him. Grass Knot is occasionally useful, since I often bring Slowbro in on opposing Waters, since it's generally less risky to bring in than Snorlax. Fire Blast is for Shaymin, Bronzong, and Empoleon.
  • Possible Changes
The main changes would be Surf -> Scald and Trick -> Fire Blast. Grass Knot is too useful to give up. Trick just isn't that great on Slowbro - it's already switching in and out a lot, and losing Choice Specs just makes it a badly EVd tank.

Cobalion
  • Item: Expert Belt
  • Ability: Justified
  • EVs / Nature: 76 Atk / 200 SAtk / 232 Spd; Naive

    • Close Combat
    • Stealth Rock
    • Hidden Power Ice
    • Volt Switch
(3:37:03 PM) SevenDeadlySins: we need a facepunching rocker
(3:38:32 PM) SevenDeadlySins: only problem is idk if triple fighting is a good id....
(3:38:39 PM) SevenDeadlySins: pffthahahaha i cant say that with a straight face

  • Role / Purpose
Yup, it's the Stealth Rock user. I lead about 2/3rds of the time with Cobalion; otherwise it's Crobat or Medicham. While Cobalion provides a nice check to Dark types like Weavile and Umbreon, its main role is to set up Rocks and lure out Gligar with Hidden Power Ice. Volt Switch does a healthy amount of damage to Slowbro and is a safe way to bring in Medicham on a predicted double switch. That's about all Cobalion does. He's the member of the team that is usually most expendable, so I play it quite recklessly in order to get Rocks up. I'm more conservative with its well being if they have a Spinner, but I'll still lay early Rocks. You'll see why in a minute.
  • Possible Changes
Honestly I'm open to changing the entire Pokemon, as Cobalion isn't the team's strongest or most vital link. Triple Fighting is really nice for scouting purposes and having a different full health Fighting type for each phase of the game is quite helpful, but I could give that up if I found a better Stealth Rocker. If Metagross drops down I would certainly give him some consideration, since he is a lot less terrible against Mew in general and can hit a lot harder.

Life Orb is probably worth a shot, but I like Cobalion to stick around a bit longer than that, even if that means Close Combat doesn't hit very hard. The attack moves all have specific purposes and aren't general purpose.
Medicham
  • Item: Choice Band
  • Ability: Pure Power
  • EVs / Nature: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd; Adamant

    • Hi Jump Kick
    • Psycho Cut
    • Ice Punch
    • Trick
(2:55:28 PM) cim: you know what i'm crazy enough to do
(2:55:33 PM) cim: use medicham in uu
(2:55:39 PM) cim: think of everything that beats heracross right now
(2:56:25 PM) cim: crobat, gligar, cofagrigius, maybe slowbro if you're lucky
(2:56:44 PM) cim: and think of every one of those taking a psycho cut / ice punch / maybe thunderpunch
(2:57:02 PM) cim: Cofag is 2HKOed by CB Psycho Cut
(2:59:39 PM) cim: the beauty of it is
(2:59:47 PM) cim: psycho cut is incredibly safe in UU
(3:00:14 PM) cim: there's bronzong, houndoom, and honchkrow
(3:00:24 PM) SevenDeadlySins: yeah and fucking none of those want to eat a hjk
(3:00:32 PM) SevenDeadlySins: so they wouldnt switch into cham in a million years
  • Role / Purpose
You couldn't ask for a better wallbreaker for Heracross. Hi Jump Kick is stupid powerful, OHKOing even max / max Bronzong and 2HKOing Victini. Psycho Cut is what makes Medicham really wreck, though. It is a physical, non-contact Psychic move. This means it does not trigger Mummy on Cofagrigius as it 2HKOs. It obviously OHKOs all of the more frail Ghosts, and while it doesn't 2HKO Dusclops, if I'm facing one it means I'm pretty confident the opponent is an idiot anyway. STAB Psychic is remarkably safe in UU, especially when you consider what Pokemon can actually tank it, and how unlikely they are going to want to take a mispredicted Fighting attack. Well, except Sabeleye. Fuck him. Ice Punch gets Gligar / Xatu / Zapdos out of the way. Trick is handy, since Medicham's job is often limited to taking out a single Pokemon and against some teams it isn't particularly effective, so being able to at least cripple something in the worst case is rather nice.

You may notice this team has no Spinblocker - that's because this team intentionally exploits the amount of momentum Rapid Spin kills to set up a "checkmate" scenario with Medicham. More or less every spinner in UU shits its pants when Medicham comes in, and Rapid Spin is one of the easiest ways to do just that.

Fun fact: When laddering with Medicham, between SDS and I, we were responsible for 15% of Medicham's use in the month of October.

  • Possible Changes
ThunderPunch does 2HKO Slowbro, but with Regenerator and the fact that every other Pokemon on this team can at least do something to it, it's not vital. Jolly lets it get the jump on HP Fighting Chandelure as well as neutral Kingdra and Nidoking, but I really need the power.
Heracross
  • Item: Choice Scarf
  • Ability: Moxie
  • EVs / Nature: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd; Jolly

    • Close Combat
    • Megahorn
    • Stone Edge
    • Sleep Talk
(3:01:05 PM) SevenDeadlySins: after you do like 60% to their fighting check
(3:01:09 PM) SevenDeadlySins: double switch
(3:01:22 PM) SevenDeadlySins: because they'll probably bring in a dark-type
(3:01:24 PM) SevenDeadlySins: or their zong
(3:01:25 PM) cim: bring in your second medicham
(3:01:32 PM) SevenDeadlySins: is that the one named heracross
(3:01:36 PM) cim: yes
(3:01:48 PM) SevenDeadlySins: oh this sounds brutal

  • Role / Purpose
Come on, you know what Heracross does, it sweeps teams. Choice Scarf and max possible Speed lets it outrun everything important, and it can wreck face with any of its moves. I play more conservatively with Scarf Heracross than many do, tending to save it for the late game if I can. Sleep Talk somewhat contradicts this philosophy, but it's saved my ass at times when I was facing a tough matchup, couldn't afford to lose any Pokemon, but needed to absorb a Sleep. Earthquake is almost worthless when so much of my team can handle the Nidos and Qwilfish - by the time Hera comes in they are either dead or in KO range.
  • Possible Changes
The obvious change is from Moxie to Guts. This solves my big Sabeleye problem and lets Heracross really take advantage of Sleep Talk. In fact, I think I'm going to change that now, but I'll leave Moxie up for at least a little while to show how the team was as I battled with it.

Pursuit over Sleep Talk is a potential option that lets me handle Mew slightly better than Megahorn does, preventing it from simply switching out and killing something every time it comes in.

I've vaguely considered Reckless Mienshao here as well.



Conclusion
This was a really fun team I quite enjoyed battling with! I managed to peak at somewhere around the #10 mark with this team, which is a new high for me. It's really quite simple to play with most of the time - lead with Cobalion or Crobat, switch between the tanks until the opportunity arises, bring in Medicham, hit shit, switch between the tanks some more, bring in Heracross, end the game. It does a great job of demonstrating how powerful Fighting type moves stacked together can be, as well as the synergy of Snorlax Pursuit.

Biggest Holes

  • Raikou and Zapdos both are big problems for a team without a Ground type. Choice Volt Switch is 100% safe and WILL wear down Snorlax pretty quickly, so I make an effort to get my hazards down early and simply not allow them free switches.
  • Sabeleye shuts down at least 5/6 of this team cold with priority Will-o-wisp, and it's not like Slowbro loves it either. This is the primary reason I'm probably going to use Guts Heracross.
  • Mew is an asshole. Fuck Mew, man. Defensive Mew is a lot like Sabeleye, while offensive Mew is just hard to stop, but at least there's Heracross.
Importable
Crobat @ Leftovers
Trait: Inner Focus
EVs: 176 HP / 192 Atk / 4 SDef / 136 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Taunt
- Roost
- Super Fang

Snorlax @ Choice Band
Trait: Thick Fat
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 172 SDef / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Pursuit
- Earthquake
- Crunch

Slowbro @ Choice Specs
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 Spd
Modest Nature
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Fire Blast
- Grass Knot

Cobalion @ Expert Belt
Trait: Justified
EVs: 76 Atk / 200 SAtk / 232 Spd
Naive Nature
- Close Combat
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Stealth Rock

Medicham @ Choice Band
Trait: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Hi Jump Kick
- Psycho Cut
- ThunderPunch
- Ice Punch

Heracross @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Moxie
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Megahorn
- Stone Edge
- Sleep Talk

 
Try camerupt over cobalion to counter raikou, offensive zapdos, sableye, and stallbreaker mew. Also helps against chandelure if necessary. After that you could consider weavile over snorlax because it gives you an alternative cleaner and you don't need the special walling as much.
 
To me this looks like a defensive team with offensive items, which isn't bad but it means you get worn down really easily, especially with no spiinner. To help deal with Sabeleye and Zapdos/Raikou:

I suggest Choice Band on Jolly Heracross with Guts, with Pursuit over Sleep Talk and Restalk Snorlax. You can still trap Chandelure if you play it right and Zapdos will be somewhat manageable. This also helps with Venomoth and gives you something to absorb status. Body Slam can also be used if you want to try and paralyze Mew or something.

These changes might ruin the purpose of allowing Heracross to clean up, but its a suggestion.
 

cim

happiness is such hard work
is a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Try camerupt over cobalion to counter raikou, offensive zapdos, sableye, and stallbreaker mew. Also helps against chandelure if necessary. After that you could consider weavile over snorlax because it gives you an alternative cleaner and you don't need the special walling as much.
The first suggestion actually isn't bad at all, I'll give that a shot. Snorlax is an MVP on this team, way too valuable to give up, but Camerupt could really pull some weight.

These changes might ruin the purpose of allowing Heracross to clean up, but its a suggestion.
That is literally what the entire team is built around. Choice Band Medicham basically is Choice Band Heracross but trades coverage on Psychics for Ghosts and Gligar.

Yes, it has a lot of normally defensive Pokemon, but the team doesn't even play remotely defensively. Resttalk Snorlax would be much worse off for this team, losing a lot of momentum and with only one hazard type it doesn't exactly rack up damage.
 

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
Interesting team. c:

Before I talk about your team specifically please let me talk about your style in general.

Clearly you are using a triple fighting team to attack with but I wonder if you have noticed some pitfalls of this style. Fighting types in general really lack useful resistances for UU. Apart from Rock (really only notable for a SR resist), Bug (not notable at all since Yanmega will clearly kill you and Heracross will beat your Heracross if you try to switch into it) and Dark (rare apart from Zoroark and Krookodile both of which can use coverage moves) Fighting types have no resistances.

Your team of course doesn't use pure Fighting types but the extra resistances you get are really only notable on Cobalion because of his Steel typing, beyond that I feel you will find it extremely hard to switch into your Fighting type to attack. Just glancing at the UU tier list I can see you only switching into maybe Umbreon with Heracross and maybe a Scrafty. To give you more opportunities to attack I would strongly suggest putting U-Turn somewhere on Crobat so you can get more free switches. Another idea would be to change Heracross to Guts which again gives you more switch in opportunities and importantly lets you not care too much about Scald. I know you have already thought about both these changes so honestly just go for them.

Also in general Fighting types are quite slow, Cobalion being the exception, so a moderately fast Scarfer will always cause problems.

Your team is specifically somewhat weak to Flygon which can do massive damage to your team when its weakened especially as you say you play Cobalion recklessly so your Dragon resist might be weakened or killed before he can stop Flygon. To fix this I suggest you to change Slowbro to a defensive tank. You might not want to make this change because your team is so good at attacking as it is and you think Slowbro will slow your team down. I doubt this will happen since whenever Slowbro comes in he will rarely need to waste time healing he can simply begin to spam paralysis and use attacking moves like Scald and Psyshock. Defensive Slowbro is a better response to Flygon since he can pretty easily survive any hit from an offensive Slowbro still while possibly 2HKOing offensive versions if you're hurt a tad. Also defensive Slowbro can survive a single hit from Sharpedo which you seem moderately weak to and retaliate with Thunderwave. Defensive Slowbro is in general a much better response to common faster-than-Heracross-Scarfers like Darmanitan, Victini, and Mienshao.

For a technical thing, you may want to change your Snorlax spread to 252 Att / 252 SpD, I know you said you did but it doesn't say so on the importable.

This is all I can think of for now.
 

alexwolf

lurks in the shadows
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
Absolutely fucking beautiful team! This team actually makes me want to play UU so congrats guys!

Even though i don't have a lot of experience with UU i have to admit that hilarious's suggestions make a lot of sense. U-turn on Crobat seems much better to safely bring in your fighting types and a defensive Slowbro can shield your team better against some threats without giving up momentum as Slowbro doesn't need to spend time recovering anyway. Just be sure to use Psyhsock and enough SpA EVs to OHKO Roserade so it doesn't switch in for free against Slowbro.
 
Absolutely fucking beautiful team! This team actually makes me want to play UU so congrats guys!

Even though i don't have a lot of experience with UU i have to admit that hilarious's suggestions make a lot of sense. U-turn on Crobat seems much better to safely bring in your fighting types and a defensive Slowbro can shield your team better against some threats without giving up momentum as Slowbro doesn't need to spend time recovering anyway. Just be sure to use Psyhsock and enough SpA EVs to OHKO Roserade so it doesn't switch in for free against Slowbro.
cim seems to like the idea of hitting an incoming Bronzong or Rhyperior or (especially Zapdos) with Super Fang to weaken it for later on. I think it is a very good thing to do actually, the only problem would be not having U-turn for reliable switch-ins. As I already mentioned in the Viability Ranking Thread, U-Turn would be too important (for me) to replace. If you insist on using Super Fang, then I guess it would be actually a lot better to use it over Taunt, because stall teams also don't like to have their members lose half HP on turn 1.

As for "enough SpA EVs to OHKO Roserade" ...
0 SpAtk Choice Specs Slowbro Psyshock vs 255 HP/0 Def Roserade: 128,7% - 151,85%
derp

I'm really eager on trying this team out, triple Fighting is something you don't really expect and Medicham's wallbreaking capabilities sound way too tempting to not at least give it a try.
 

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
I believe alexwolf was recommending cim to use enough spa to ohko roserade assuming slowbro was a defensive variant but you're still almost right, it requires only 12 spa evs to get the ohko after sr on 252/0 rosy which is almost a negligible amount of evs. i dont know why the onsite analysis says you need 16 i am fairly sure you only need 12 evs to have a guaranteed ohko after sr (before sr would cost too many evs).

And to add to my earlier post I again strongly suggest you to use defensive Slowbro for two more reasons - so RD SD Kabutops won't completely destroy you if it sets up on Crobat and because honestly having so many choicers on a team just seems too reckless.
 
I believe alexwolf was recommending cim to use enough spa to ohko roserade assuming slowbro was a defensive variant but you're still almost right, it requires only 12 spa evs to get the ohko after sr on 252/0 rosy which is almost a negligible amount of evs. i dont know why the onsite analysis says you need 16 i am fairly sure you only need 12 evs to have a guaranteed ohko after sr (before sr would cost too many evs).

And to add to my earlier post I again strongly suggest you to use defensive Slowbro for two more reasons - so RD SD Kabutops won't completely destroy you if it sets up on Crobat and because honestly having so many choicers on a team just seems too reckless.
oh, in that case I totally misunderstood that sentence :D
 

cim

happiness is such hard work
is a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
hilarious, you have a vaild point about flygon. if i see one, i immediately play much more conservatively with cobalion until i know if it's scarf or band. if it's band, cobalion is actually a pretty hard counter with HP ice as long as it didn't use earthquake.

as for how i bring in medicham and heracross, i basically play with the first two thirds of the team most of the time until an opportunity arises or something dies. that's a large part of why that part of the team consists of such defensive Pokemon - it's a bulky offense core that does most of my dirty work for me. i agree that u-turn would make things way easier in some respects, but i Really Really like Super Fang!

one way i bring in medicham is a smart double switch. one battle i brought in snorlax against a team with bronzong. could see it coming from a mile away, brought in medicham, OHKOed with HJK. would have swept his whole team if my computer didn't use Overheat :/

something i might consider on slowbro is just giving it more defense EVs to give it specific survivability, but i don't really want to give up its attacking power if I don't have to. by the way, fun fact, both specs psychic and psyshock will OHKO roserade, but psyshock is almost always better for hitting snorlax hard as balls - generally if they have a gligar or rhyperior i would rather surf or GK

camerupt has been pretty neat in testing so far but it makes me even *more* flygon weak - on the bright side will-o-wisp is the best thing ever, so yeah. not sure what i'll do here. i wish medicham could be lucario. that would be neato. i also really wish metagross would be legal, i think he would really round out this team moreso than cobalion. wouldn't HeraMediGross be the best name, lol
 

alexwolf

lurks in the shadows
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
Yeah i mean what hilarious said. cim if you make Slowbro physically defensive and replace Cobalion with Camerupt isn't the Flygon problem solved while also gaining the ability to beat stallbreaker Mew and Sableye?
 
i really want to steal this team, give it a try on the ladder, and lose a lot of time because i haven't played uu in ages.

no but seriously even without any experience in uu i can tell that this team is amazing. While perhaps not the best team out there, it looks like it's sooo much fun to play. Giant props to you
 

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