Now that the thread title has your attention, I wanted to share the team I have been using to ladder for the last few months. The team has done quite a bit, never peaking the old ladder, but hitting #5 and then in the suspect ladder hitting #1 and getting me reqs in 2 days and exactly 80 games
So let's talk about the team. Initially I wanted to build a team with the most momentum possible, and pack as much pressure as possible into each invididual pokemon. I had played with n00b's rmt team, veni vidi vici, but it had several problems with momentum, hp fire geoxern, full stall, and antileads. While deoxys-A is probably the highest power lead for offense, I wanted the most reliable lead because HO really struggles if it doesnt have hazards up, and doesnt appreciate having hazards set against it, which lead to the first member:
Numba1 (Deoxys-Speed) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Knock Off
- Taunt
The fastest pokemon in the game, capable of outspeeding the entire tier, including scarfers, bar scarf darkrai/skymin. This is the most reliable way to have stealth rocks set, or taunt other SR users to keep your side clean. Stealth rock, possibly the best move in the game, was the obvious first slot, and taunt was the obvious second move to keep your side clear and not be setup bait. Twave had originally been spikes, but having a clean way to deal with ogre and having something to cripple switchins was far more valuable than spikes ever was. Outspeeding even timid scarfogre and paralyzing it before dying (or setting rocks and dying, if ogre was lead) is incredibly valuable. The last move had originally been Psycho boost, but I wanted a way to win deoxys lead wars, something to hit sash leads with (darkrai, mostly) before dying and something that I can use on switch ins to cripple them before dying (if twave isn't a good way to do so, like krom). Overall I believe that this is the hands down best HO lead that pokemon has ever seen.
Now that I had my lead, and I had my thought process for the general HO team I wanted to build, I needed threats. The three I chose that had the highest chance to sweep and were the hardest to switch into were:
OOH KILLEM (Arceus) @ Life Orb
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- Shadow Claw
- Earthquake
This arceus used to be an adamant lum set ev'd to outspeed max speed genesect (banded) and rayQ, but I was tired of having to mind game mgar to win, and though its not very common, lo guaruntees ohko on blaze with eq. Speaking of EQ, the reason that I use EQ over a fire move is that it hits more, eq still hits the same stuff, though you can risk dying to superpower scizor, but that lets xern sweep for free and that's fine. Shadow claw is to hit ghosts, obvious coverage is obvious, and shadow force is a no because it gives free turns and they can switch what takes the hit and abuse the lo dmg and free switches (especially lando-T). This can set up on other LO ekillers, unboosted scarf ekiller or silk scarf ekiller below ~65/70%, and opposing jolly lo ekillers if unboosted and are 88% or below. It is an insane threat that is very hard to revenge kill, and can often just sweep teams if the other team is weakened from switching into the other threats on this team like blaze and rayQ, which do huge chunks of damage to ekillers checks.
Deerp (Xerneas) @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 192 HP / 252 SpA / 64 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire]
The next mon in my trinity of sweepers. The evs are pretty standard fare, bulky and the evs hit a nice speed tier to outspeed anything unboosted. The evs allow you to take a significant portion of hits and set up geomancy. You can even take 252hp/252+def groudons eq AND mega scizor bullet punch without dying with these evs (mscizor will do ~50-55% with standard ubers sets) if you know theres no more priority on their team. The coverage moves are fairly straightforward, hp fire for scizor/ferro, and psyshock for blobs/poisonceus/mega gengar/ho oh (after rocks, obviously, but if theres no rocks and ho oh is healthy you likely shouldn't be using geo yet). It is the most reliable sweeping set which is why I use it. Xerneas can capitalize on a lot of the things that might stop or sacrifice themselves to stop blaze/ekiller and sweep from there, and is basically the number 1 sweeper of this format, so it's an obvious inclusion.
Smokin' Hot (Blaziken) @ Blazikenite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Flare Blitz
- Low Kick
- Knock Off
Mega blaziken is my third sweeper, and the best sweeper to not need a choice item or set up. Mega evolved, it has a higher attack stat than rayquaza, allowing it to punch huge holes in opposing teams with low kick, an insane (usually 120bp) stab in ubers. Flare blitz is his other 120bp stab (180 with stab, basically a vcreate coming off of rayquaza but without the stat drops) that does huge amounts of damage to supportceus, xerneas, and anything that resists low kick that isn't water, dragon, or fire type. Speed boost allows it to beat out kyogre and weakened zekrom and can absolutely tear apart teams with no switch ins. Knock off is to hit ho oh rayQ and gira who otherwise take pitiful damage from his dual stabs, and it cripples things he cant kill to allow a teammate to sweep (most notably eliminating gliscors worth if you can knock off its toxic orb on the switch in). The fire typing is amazing offensively since you can't be burned, and fighting stops you taking too much damage from sr. Mega blaze provides far more pressure and momentum than Mega gengar ever will, and is almost never dead in a matchup, unlike megar, who sometimes just becomes dbond fodder or less.
With my core threats chosen, I needed a solid wallbreaker and decent answer to ho-oh/scarfers. Ygod was selected, as the mixed set provided offensive power while giving me a way to punch through defensive cores and weaken offensive threats.
STILL BACON (Yveltal) @ Life Orb
Ability: Dark Aura
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Oblivion Wing
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
Pretty standard fare, taunt to stop defensive mons from doing any recovery/status/phasing and to aid xerneas in sweeping (taunting something and sacrificing itself, vs the likes of groudon to let xern just come in and sweep is a fairly common play). Owing as a sweet stab with built in recovery, and sucker punch for priority and the ability to weaken scarfers to let the rest of the team sweep more effectively (especially krom, who likes to come in if something dies to ygod, you just sucker punch sac and send in rayQ or ekiller to clean it up and threaten whatever switches in, or if it volt switches, even better). This thing is what dismantles stall teams and makes sure that the team can continue to apply pressure and force switches.
So at this point some of you may notice I have zero ways of stopping things like xerneas and very few ways to check ekiller and co. For the most part I keep hazards, prevent xerneas from doing much, and stop krom/ogre from running me over by just never allowing people safe/free switchins. This team runs almost entirely on pressure, and almost never switches, momentum being the name of the game. Nothing comes in free and nothing kills without taking prior damage or allowing a teammate to come in that can safely set up and crush face. All of the offensive threats have coverage designed to hit literally anything, even if not lethally. So I wanted 1 last mon as a final cleanup mon, a secondary wallbreaker that just hits really hard, and an emergency button in the case of opposing set up sweepers managing to get going. I give you this team's piece de resistance: FOCUS SASH RAYQUAZA!
Forecast is... (Rayquaza) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Air Lock
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- V-create
- Outrage
Aside from a killer nickname, this set looks offhand to be the shittiest thing you have ever seen in your life. When I first started running this people were in disbelief. "How the fuck do you keep focus sash intact?! Why is your xerneas emergency stop a mother fucking dragon?! Are you actually braindead?!" The answer is no, no I'm not. This thing can sd on any ogre thats not locked on ice beam, can take on some supportceus(and most cm arceus formes) with v-create's huge damage and espeed cleanup, and almost always is an insane xerneas bait. Rayquaza comes in, picks off/finishes something with v-create or espeed (without taking damage, or it's pointless) and then nails the xerneas with v-create. If it's a scarf, LO, or geoxern, odds are it is dead right now to extremespeed. if not, and its a clericxern, it sure as hell doesnt want to eat another vcreate and will be forced to kill rayquaza. Now you have a sub-50% xerneas that you can literally pick a threat and kill it with. Ekiller can set up here, blaze kos with flare blitz, ygod can sacrifice taunt it to let xerneas sweep. The opportunities provided by this jank-ass set are amazing. Even just espeeding something 1 more time before dying at 1hp is incredibly helpful to allow something to come in and finish it off or set up. As to the question of a sash mon on a team with ZERO defog and rapid spin, the answer is you fend off hazard presence by pressure. 90% of stall teams will never ever get a chance to sr without sacrificing something, or having rocks on their supportceus, which in turn opens upportunities for other pokemon, as with recover+defog+rocks, they likely just have judgment and ekiller can just go ham.
That right there is the team. The team as a whole functions largely off of absusing the free switch the suicide lead will give you, and just applying pressure straight from the get-go. The moment that deoS dies, you send in the pokemon that provides the most immediate advantage and is the hardest to switch into for the enemy team. This team for the most part almost never switches, pokemon will just do as much damage as is feasible before dying. Against some teams you will have to just make double switches and risk the momentum, but if you nail the double, odds are the momentum you gain from it is more than worth it. Sometimes you have to just keep ygod alive and pressure until ygod breaks down their team for you. Sometimes you just yolo blaziken to just take the free switch from its death. and sometimes you swords dance on their 60% scarf kyogre and use that 1hp rayquaza to clean house as they shake their head. Literally everything on this team bar the suicide lead can clean up a game. You pressure, you play your threats in the right order based on their team, and you clean house with the appropriate mon. It doesnt matter if you win 5-0, or are down 1-5 and that 1 is your +2 60% hp ekiller. Play your cards right and this team will reward you greatly.
Lastly, this is my first RMT, let me know what you think! This team during the suspect ladder had people cussing that they ran into me, shoutout to Chram, alphabeta, and the rest who had to play me repeatedly as I got the last 300 or so coil.
Shoutouts: none really, you all suck. jk, shoutout to n00b for teaching me what ho shouldn't look like and you have a real shoutout in this ygod's name. Shoutout to Mega gengar, pls don't get banned, this is ubers, buddy. You're not even good enough for my team.
I'm feelin lazy right now, but i'll write a threatlist and odd matchups later (like mkang teams and webs, blaze is an allstar who basically wins those matchups but they have odd play/lead patterns I'll go over in the threatlist/matchup stuff)
Importable here!
So let's talk about the team. Initially I wanted to build a team with the most momentum possible, and pack as much pressure as possible into each invididual pokemon. I had played with n00b's rmt team, veni vidi vici, but it had several problems with momentum, hp fire geoxern, full stall, and antileads. While deoxys-A is probably the highest power lead for offense, I wanted the most reliable lead because HO really struggles if it doesnt have hazards up, and doesnt appreciate having hazards set against it, which lead to the first member:
Numba1 (Deoxys-Speed) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Knock Off
- Taunt
The fastest pokemon in the game, capable of outspeeding the entire tier, including scarfers, bar scarf darkrai/skymin. This is the most reliable way to have stealth rocks set, or taunt other SR users to keep your side clean. Stealth rock, possibly the best move in the game, was the obvious first slot, and taunt was the obvious second move to keep your side clear and not be setup bait. Twave had originally been spikes, but having a clean way to deal with ogre and having something to cripple switchins was far more valuable than spikes ever was. Outspeeding even timid scarfogre and paralyzing it before dying (or setting rocks and dying, if ogre was lead) is incredibly valuable. The last move had originally been Psycho boost, but I wanted a way to win deoxys lead wars, something to hit sash leads with (darkrai, mostly) before dying and something that I can use on switch ins to cripple them before dying (if twave isn't a good way to do so, like krom). Overall I believe that this is the hands down best HO lead that pokemon has ever seen.
Now that I had my lead, and I had my thought process for the general HO team I wanted to build, I needed threats. The three I chose that had the highest chance to sweep and were the hardest to switch into were:
OOH KILLEM (Arceus) @ Life Orb
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- Shadow Claw
- Earthquake
This arceus used to be an adamant lum set ev'd to outspeed max speed genesect (banded) and rayQ, but I was tired of having to mind game mgar to win, and though its not very common, lo guaruntees ohko on blaze with eq. Speaking of EQ, the reason that I use EQ over a fire move is that it hits more, eq still hits the same stuff, though you can risk dying to superpower scizor, but that lets xern sweep for free and that's fine. Shadow claw is to hit ghosts, obvious coverage is obvious, and shadow force is a no because it gives free turns and they can switch what takes the hit and abuse the lo dmg and free switches (especially lando-T). This can set up on other LO ekillers, unboosted scarf ekiller or silk scarf ekiller below ~65/70%, and opposing jolly lo ekillers if unboosted and are 88% or below. It is an insane threat that is very hard to revenge kill, and can often just sweep teams if the other team is weakened from switching into the other threats on this team like blaze and rayQ, which do huge chunks of damage to ekillers checks.
Deerp (Xerneas) @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 192 HP / 252 SpA / 64 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire]
The next mon in my trinity of sweepers. The evs are pretty standard fare, bulky and the evs hit a nice speed tier to outspeed anything unboosted. The evs allow you to take a significant portion of hits and set up geomancy. You can even take 252hp/252+def groudons eq AND mega scizor bullet punch without dying with these evs (mscizor will do ~50-55% with standard ubers sets) if you know theres no more priority on their team. The coverage moves are fairly straightforward, hp fire for scizor/ferro, and psyshock for blobs/poisonceus/mega gengar/ho oh (after rocks, obviously, but if theres no rocks and ho oh is healthy you likely shouldn't be using geo yet). It is the most reliable sweeping set which is why I use it. Xerneas can capitalize on a lot of the things that might stop or sacrifice themselves to stop blaze/ekiller and sweep from there, and is basically the number 1 sweeper of this format, so it's an obvious inclusion.
Smokin' Hot (Blaziken) @ Blazikenite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Flare Blitz
- Low Kick
- Knock Off
Mega blaziken is my third sweeper, and the best sweeper to not need a choice item or set up. Mega evolved, it has a higher attack stat than rayquaza, allowing it to punch huge holes in opposing teams with low kick, an insane (usually 120bp) stab in ubers. Flare blitz is his other 120bp stab (180 with stab, basically a vcreate coming off of rayquaza but without the stat drops) that does huge amounts of damage to supportceus, xerneas, and anything that resists low kick that isn't water, dragon, or fire type. Speed boost allows it to beat out kyogre and weakened zekrom and can absolutely tear apart teams with no switch ins. Knock off is to hit ho oh rayQ and gira who otherwise take pitiful damage from his dual stabs, and it cripples things he cant kill to allow a teammate to sweep (most notably eliminating gliscors worth if you can knock off its toxic orb on the switch in). The fire typing is amazing offensively since you can't be burned, and fighting stops you taking too much damage from sr. Mega blaze provides far more pressure and momentum than Mega gengar ever will, and is almost never dead in a matchup, unlike megar, who sometimes just becomes dbond fodder or less.
With my core threats chosen, I needed a solid wallbreaker and decent answer to ho-oh/scarfers. Ygod was selected, as the mixed set provided offensive power while giving me a way to punch through defensive cores and weaken offensive threats.
STILL BACON (Yveltal) @ Life Orb
Ability: Dark Aura
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Oblivion Wing
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
Pretty standard fare, taunt to stop defensive mons from doing any recovery/status/phasing and to aid xerneas in sweeping (taunting something and sacrificing itself, vs the likes of groudon to let xern just come in and sweep is a fairly common play). Owing as a sweet stab with built in recovery, and sucker punch for priority and the ability to weaken scarfers to let the rest of the team sweep more effectively (especially krom, who likes to come in if something dies to ygod, you just sucker punch sac and send in rayQ or ekiller to clean it up and threaten whatever switches in, or if it volt switches, even better). This thing is what dismantles stall teams and makes sure that the team can continue to apply pressure and force switches.
So at this point some of you may notice I have zero ways of stopping things like xerneas and very few ways to check ekiller and co. For the most part I keep hazards, prevent xerneas from doing much, and stop krom/ogre from running me over by just never allowing people safe/free switchins. This team runs almost entirely on pressure, and almost never switches, momentum being the name of the game. Nothing comes in free and nothing kills without taking prior damage or allowing a teammate to come in that can safely set up and crush face. All of the offensive threats have coverage designed to hit literally anything, even if not lethally. So I wanted 1 last mon as a final cleanup mon, a secondary wallbreaker that just hits really hard, and an emergency button in the case of opposing set up sweepers managing to get going. I give you this team's piece de resistance: FOCUS SASH RAYQUAZA!
Forecast is... (Rayquaza) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Air Lock
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- V-create
- Outrage
Aside from a killer nickname, this set looks offhand to be the shittiest thing you have ever seen in your life. When I first started running this people were in disbelief. "How the fuck do you keep focus sash intact?! Why is your xerneas emergency stop a mother fucking dragon?! Are you actually braindead?!" The answer is no, no I'm not. This thing can sd on any ogre thats not locked on ice beam, can take on some supportceus(and most cm arceus formes) with v-create's huge damage and espeed cleanup, and almost always is an insane xerneas bait. Rayquaza comes in, picks off/finishes something with v-create or espeed (without taking damage, or it's pointless) and then nails the xerneas with v-create. If it's a scarf, LO, or geoxern, odds are it is dead right now to extremespeed. if not, and its a clericxern, it sure as hell doesnt want to eat another vcreate and will be forced to kill rayquaza. Now you have a sub-50% xerneas that you can literally pick a threat and kill it with. Ekiller can set up here, blaze kos with flare blitz, ygod can sacrifice taunt it to let xerneas sweep. The opportunities provided by this jank-ass set are amazing. Even just espeeding something 1 more time before dying at 1hp is incredibly helpful to allow something to come in and finish it off or set up. As to the question of a sash mon on a team with ZERO defog and rapid spin, the answer is you fend off hazard presence by pressure. 90% of stall teams will never ever get a chance to sr without sacrificing something, or having rocks on their supportceus, which in turn opens upportunities for other pokemon, as with recover+defog+rocks, they likely just have judgment and ekiller can just go ham.
That right there is the team. The team as a whole functions largely off of absusing the free switch the suicide lead will give you, and just applying pressure straight from the get-go. The moment that deoS dies, you send in the pokemon that provides the most immediate advantage and is the hardest to switch into for the enemy team. This team for the most part almost never switches, pokemon will just do as much damage as is feasible before dying. Against some teams you will have to just make double switches and risk the momentum, but if you nail the double, odds are the momentum you gain from it is more than worth it. Sometimes you have to just keep ygod alive and pressure until ygod breaks down their team for you. Sometimes you just yolo blaziken to just take the free switch from its death. and sometimes you swords dance on their 60% scarf kyogre and use that 1hp rayquaza to clean house as they shake their head. Literally everything on this team bar the suicide lead can clean up a game. You pressure, you play your threats in the right order based on their team, and you clean house with the appropriate mon. It doesnt matter if you win 5-0, or are down 1-5 and that 1 is your +2 60% hp ekiller. Play your cards right and this team will reward you greatly.
Lastly, this is my first RMT, let me know what you think! This team during the suspect ladder had people cussing that they ran into me, shoutout to Chram, alphabeta, and the rest who had to play me repeatedly as I got the last 300 or so coil.
Shoutouts: none really, you all suck. jk, shoutout to n00b for teaching me what ho shouldn't look like and you have a real shoutout in this ygod's name. Shoutout to Mega gengar, pls don't get banned, this is ubers, buddy. You're not even good enough for my team.
I'm feelin lazy right now, but i'll write a threatlist and odd matchups later (like mkang teams and webs, blaze is an allstar who basically wins those matchups but they have odd play/lead patterns I'll go over in the threatlist/matchup stuff)
Importable here!
OOH KILLEM (Arceus) @ Life Orb
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- Shadow Claw
- Earthquake
Deerp (Xerneas) @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 192 HP / 252 SpA / 64 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire]
Smokin' Hot (Blaziken) @ Blazikenite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Flare Blitz
- Low Kick
- Knock Off
Numba1 (Deoxys-Speed) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Knock Off
- Taunt
STILL BACON (Yveltal) @ Life Orb
Ability: Dark Aura
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Oblivion Wing
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
Forecast is... (Rayquaza) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Air Lock
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- V-create
- Outrage
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- Shadow Claw
- Earthquake
Deerp (Xerneas) @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 192 HP / 252 SpA / 64 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire]
Smokin' Hot (Blaziken) @ Blazikenite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Flare Blitz
- Low Kick
- Knock Off
Numba1 (Deoxys-Speed) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Knock Off
- Taunt
STILL BACON (Yveltal) @ Life Orb
Ability: Dark Aura
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Oblivion Wing
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
Forecast is... (Rayquaza) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Air Lock
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- V-create
- Outrage
Last edited:
