Hey guys, time for tl;dr posts, but since the competition is over it's time to go ham with RMTs. I finished with 55 wins-21 losses with a rating of ~1876. Two of those losses were legitimate bullshit d/cs on my end because my ISP sucks and I hope AT&T burns in Arceus' Judgement, conveniently against lower rated opponents. Either way, I got my rants about hax and shit internet out of the way so no more complaining on my end! Here's my team, I accounted for the exact IVs of my team for relevant stats.
Cenarius (Xerneas) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Fairy Aura
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Timid Nature
IVs: 26 Def / 27 SDef
- Moonblast
- Thunderbolt
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
I tried Geomancy out on PS and it sucked for me. It's difficult to set up against good opponents, priority is everywhere, and it's really not worth relying on Focus Miss to hit things that resist Fairy (or just have Aegislash shit on you). I found that Specs worked for me infinitely better because I could still hit like a truck with fewer repercussions and still nab KOs. The main issue I had with Xerneas is that it loses to Jolly Kanga and a whole host of other faster threats due to its middling speed. In the end, Specs Xerneas did good work and is better than Geomancy imo.
Mewtwo @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Spd / 4 SAtk
Timid Nature
IVs: 29 HP / 8 Atk / 28 SAtk
- Psystrike
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Light Screen
Carries harder than the special set ever could. I kept talking about how awesome this set was in the thread and it did not disappoint at all. It's hilarious how most people's first reaction to this is to Sucker Punch on their Mawile or Kanga only to realize with horror that I've burned their heaviest sweeper. WoW is also fantastic for killing defensive threats that never die, most notably against a Mega Aggron. I can't tell you how many awful plays my opponents tried against this thing, but suffice to say that it's one of those surprise factors that isn't a shitty gimmick and will nab you wins. Even without investment or a boosting item, Psystrike does a ton of damage so I was able to finish off a few opponents without having to waste 5 turns waiting for burn damage.
Standard ubers Stalltwo runs Taunt but I elected to run Light Screen instead so I don't lose to special-based Pokemon and support the team by crippling enemies on both sides of the spectrum. Light Screen saved my ass on two particular occasions, the first was stalling a Mega Ampharos to death (my luck is so terrible that I'm shocked that Thunderbolt did not paralyze me during the ordeal) and the second was an enemy that got Geomancy off on Xerneas for his/her last Pokemon which allowed my Aegislash to finish it off. Overall, while there were situations I wished I had Taunt, I was very happy with my decision to run Light Screen.
P.S. The one weakness this set has is against boosting Pokemon, including scary debacles vs Malamar and SD Mawile, but I was able to triumph in these situations. The one time I lost a stall was against a bulky Megazard X. fml :(
P.S.S. Big shoutout to my friend
dr00 for soft resetting this for me at the last moment and getting lucky with those IVs. n_n
Banga (Kangaskhan) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Return
- Earthquake
- Sucker Punch
Overall MVP. I think I didn't play this in 4 out of 76 matches, maybe 5 at most. Not much to say other than this steamrolls teams and it centralizes the tier. Several games this was able to sweep by itself. This set was standard for Kanga at higher ratings because you will rarely have opportunities to PuP and EQ helps you avoid the stupid Rocky Helmet Ferrothorn bullshit and kill Aegislash. Without Crunch, this is walled by Gengar if it has a way to damage you without attacking moves, Gourgeist/Trevenant, and one humiliating loss against a Shedinja.
I chose to run Adamant for power because Adamant scores many KOs that Jolly does not. The bulky EVs came with the territory because it wasn't worth running much Speed since nearly everything around Kanga's speed tier runs +Speed natures and I could also survive a lot of things that running no HP doesn't guarantee (to lazy to list examples but bear with me!). On the flipside, Adamant Kanga loses to Jolly Kanga one on one so I had to play against it cautiously and made sure to pack Aegislash.
Muffin (Rotom-Heat) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SAtk / 224 Spd / 32 HP
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Overheat
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Ice]
I brought this mainly to kill shit like Ferrothorn, Talonflame and Scizor as well as something that can eat WoWs. I chose Scarf because this has shit speed with Modest and Scarf gives it a ton of revenging power. This and Charizard are about the extent of viable special Fire-types in the tier and I already expected to use Kanga a lot so I didn't run double Megas. I made the odd choice of Shadow Ball over Volt Switch which is my biggest regret of the entire team; I ran Shadow Ball originally in case I ever found myself backed up against Mewtwo. I ran 224 Speed to outrun base 130s (Mewtwo and Aero) with Scarf and put some EVs in HP because holy shit this thing is fragile. But yeah, my biggest mistake on this team was running Shadow Ball instead of Volt Switch.
(On a side note, yes that is a completely flawless 31/0/30/31/31/31 HP Ice Rotom, I was so lucky to get that after 5 eggs of breeding a random Ditto and Rotom I got off Pokecheck lol. That 0 Atk actually came in handy on numerous occasions taking little damage from Foul Play and mitigating Swagger confusion damage.)
Cho Ren Sha (Talonflame) @ Sharp Beak
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Will-O-Wisp
- Roost
I used this piece of shit twice and it only actually appeared once. I don't really want to spend a lot of time talking about this, all this is good for is to spam Brave Bird. I think maybe the reason I didn't run this too much is because in most situations I preferred to send in Rotom. In the end I wish I run Megazard X over this.
Protato (Aegislash) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SAtk
Brave Nature
IVs: 26 Spd
- Iron Head
- King's Shield
- Shadow Ball
- Sacred Sword
I wanted to run 0 Speed on this so I could guarantee at least a fighting chance against every other Aegislash, but I couldn't be assed to spend all day breeding a 31/31/31/31/31/0 one (and my friends only had Quiet! ugh). In every Aegi vs Aegi situation I found myself in, the enemy was faster than me so at least that worked out. I chose Brave instead of Quiet because I hate Xerneas and even though Iron Head doesn't OHKO with +Atk, it does enough so that I can finish it off with any priority. The others are just coverage moves, Shadow Ball was especially helpful in winning against enemy Aegislash and chipping away at Ferrothorn and Sacred Sword OHKOs Kanga with Weakness Policy boost. I really wish I could have run Shadow Sneak, but overall I needed power and used every move on this set about equally and it did great without it.
Like Stalltwo, people played like shit against it though sometimes I was fucked. I lost twice because CB Bisharp and LO Talonflame OHKO shield form even with 252 HP. I used this in two ways: playing like a regular Aegislash does and being a kamikaze. A good example of this is Kanga using EQ to activate Weakness Policy and me using Sacred Sword for the KO or Mewtwo using Flamethrower/Fire Blast and suffering an OHKO from Shadow Ball, and then dying to revenge on the next turn due to no Shadow Sneak. For some reason, WoW Talonflame is nowhere near as common as I believed it to be and I spammed King's Shield on it and a few other threats on the way out to set up opportune switch-ins on my other mons with the enemy at -2 Atk.
Weaknesses:
I mostly lost to random things that were completely unexpected, like Endeavor Crawdaunt, CB Bisharp, Rocky Helmet WoW Talonflame, and Shedinja. But the reason why it's not shameful to lose to those things is because this metagame is so overcentralized that gimmicks that are specialized to beat those overcentralizing things thrive. Metagames evolve by people being creative and adapting to those threats. Additionally, kamikazes work better in 3v3 than 6v6 or even VGCs where trading hard has a much more dramatic effect.
I did however have a couple of things that consistently beat me that isn't going to be QQing about hax:
Mega Charizard X – Completely went under the radar and shits all over this team. Mewtwo can't cripple it, Rotom hits for shit on it, Aegislash can't switch in, and +1 Flare Blitz OHKOs Xerneas and Kanga. I won versus bad players who switched it in at an inopportune time, but if it switches in on Rotom or Mewtwo (if bulky), it's pretty much gg for me.
Ferrothorn – Doesn't beat me by itself, and I won versus quite a few Ferrothorn users or I wouldn't have a positive win ratio. However, it causes me to play erratically. The only thing on my team that can reliably score an OHKO is Rotom's Overheat (Talonflame is unreliable because Rocky Helmet + Iron Barbs + recoil are not fun) and obviously they are going to back Ferrothorn up the ass with stuff that resists Fire. I actually did bring Kanga quite often and I can predict the Ferrothorn switch-in against bad players and win one on one. Versus a smart player, it's a guessing game but the frustrating thing is that it's not going to go away after 2 or even 3 turns. Ferrothorn was overall annoying to play against, somehow more than Klefki.
Skarmory – much more problematic than Ferrothorn in my opinion and ALWAYS carried Rocky Helmet. Like Ferrothorn, this didn't win games on its own but was the basis for powerful defensive cores, like Skarm + Kanga, Skarm + Xern, etc. Again, I overly relied on Rotom to beat this and I won most of the time but it was a pain in the ass and caused me to play erratically by walling several of my Pokemon.
Will post more metagame analysis later since this post is long enough. Rankings are posted Thursday.
