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I really like Thugly Duckling's team. Tailwind support to check Geomancy Xerneas is genius. I think that you should have U-Turn on Tornadus. I'll explain more later on. And, I agree with Hack's suggestion of changing sableye to gengar strongly. Sableye is an defensive pokemon on a HO team which stops your momentum. It also gives opportunity for strong special attackers to switch in and kill 1-2 mons on Sableye. If I was you, I would resubmit/edit the team with Gengar before the deadline. Also, the other thing that I thought was cool about this Tailwind strategy: it's very hard to stop the tailwind. The only possible thing to stop it in Ubers is a taunt from speed-tying Thundurus. You can't defog Tailwind away. You can suicide Tailwind, or Tailwind then pivot with U-Turn into your team which has a good variety of resistances. These 3 turns can easily cement your victory, and your opponent literally cannot stop it from happening. What a great idea.
Originally, Sableye's purpose was to offer the team an Espeed sponge and also a Mewtwo check, while not being complete food for Xerneas in virtue of its priority Taunt. It sorta fit onto the team, but most definitely Gengar fits better because 1) he OHKOs Xerneas and frens, 2) he gives the team a Fairy resist, 3) he trades off with CM Arceus, and 4) he traps and KOs Gliscor/Lando-T for Groundceus. I think at first Sableye was only justifiable because of how big of a threat Ekiller and Mewtwo is, but I realized it is a Hyper Offense team and initially not everything can be checked by type advantage; but everything can be checked via offensive pressure, which Gengar does. I am actually becoming very intrigued by U-Turn because then it would give my team another incredible offensive strat: TrapTurn. However, I also feel that it will not always be advantageous because I already have 3 great stallbreakers in Xern, Ogre, and Grasseus, and so I don't necessarily need another way to beat stall/balance. To combat the idea of bringing in sweepers with U-Turn after Tailwind is put up, I would like to point out that Tornadus dies the same turn Tailwind is put up 99% of the time. I just prefer the general utility of doing considerable damage to Palkia without 70% accuracy shenanigans, screwing Arc-Water, and KOing Groudon 68.8% of the time.
haxiom
[18:55] haxiom: for teambuilding comp do you want me to link most recent team w/ groundceus; it's legal
[18:57] haxiom: i'll assume so
Yes, I was trying to say I got 2 teams out of the first, 1 tr with darkceus, and the one I posted last. Yes, I do want the second team I posted linked :]
Some of you might recognize this build since I used it against PROBLEMS in the most recent BOTW. It's the same as the old one except with Hippowdon and Charizard instead of Gliscor and Mewtwo. Hippowdon fulfills similar functions as Gliscor while also providing an extra check to EKiller since it can phaze. It can't really check Ho-Oh outside of SR + Phazing, but I think I have Ho-Oh handled well with everything else + Sub Arceus to scout Banded sets. Charizard-X fixes the Electric Arceus weakness while retaining the ability to destroy Ferrothorn like Mewtwo-X and giving me another win condition. It also helps soften up stuff like Heatran and bulky Ground-types for Steelceus and Zekrom cleans. This version is weaker to Kangaskhan so feel free to use Wisp on Tina-O if you think you need it.
alright so i was away for the past week and didn't have time to look into the more underrated arceus formes; i'll just be posting a rather formulaic groundceus team i made a while ago for the sake of submitting an entry. this team was inspired in part by dice's 3rd team here and also hack's 2nd one here.
onto the choice of arceus forme and team — groundceus is often overlooked when teambuilding, due to 2 main reasons imo, 1) other arceus formes 'fit' better and 2) 2 other great ground types are available for use in groudon and lando-t, which then ties in with 1). what differentiates groundceus is a great speed tier and recover (or refresh, or ice beam), which aids it in sweeping. ground is a great offensive type in ubers, obtaining great neutral coverage and hitting stuff like eleceus and steels super effectively. defensively, it doesnt boast much but does have immunity to para and helps against zekrom.
after deciding to build around groundceus, klefki was added to complete the ground+fairy core, switch into xern+yvel, and give spikes support. klefki is by far the best user of spikes with respect to keeping offensive momentum while providing a useful defensive typing. palkia was used to check ogre, and dialga for rocks and to check palkia. sets wise, palkia uses haban berry to make things easier vs opposing palkia, which this team might have problems facing otherwise. dialga is lo as offensive dialga pressures stuff hard and fits with the motif of this team better. scarf yveltal gives me a ground immunity, means to revenge groundceus (without resorting to gengar) and kill ghosts, and most importanty checks mewtwo. lastly gengar forces 1-for-1s and eases things up vs stall and various arceus. evs are standard on all, feel free to customize.
this team is weak to blaziken and mmx. using phydef yveltal remedies this somewhat but is bad for team synergy. i'm unsure how this actually matches up vs the teams i mentioned that inspired this build (based on the aforementioned weaknesses alone it is inferior probably), but i posted this mainly to alert people of an unnoticed yet very viable and powerful pokemon in groundceus (by far the best of the formes available to use this round imo), which i believe will also see good use come oras.
Yveltal @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Foul Play
- U-turn
- Oblivion Wing
malefic huge weakness to ekiller. You pretty much have to mega evolve your Gengar to trade but for a balance/bulky offense you will have to do better. Aside from that it's pretty cool but since it's such a common mon threatening it it's just meh.
Steeljackal<3 far too flimsy when it comes to handling Xerneas. At least Ho-oh's evs could be optimized but I'm not sure if that helps that much. Honestly Poisonceus is better on that build... Maybe try to fit sdef ogre somewhere?
alright so i was away for the past week and didn't have time to look into the more underrated arceus formes; i'll just be posting a rather formulaic groundceus team i made a while ago for the sake of submitting an entry. this team was inspired in part by dice's 3rd team here and also hack's 2nd one here.
onto the choice of arceus forme and team — groundceus is often overlooked when teambuilding, due to 2 main reasons imo, 1) other arceus formes 'fit' better and 2) 2 other great ground types are available for use in groudon and lando-t, which then ties in with 1). what differentiates groundceus is a great speed tier and recover (or refresh, or ice beam), which aids it in sweeping. ground is a great offensive type in ubers, obtaining great neutral coverage and hitting stuff like eleceus and steels super effectively. defensively, it doesnt boast much but does have immunity to para and helps against zekrom.
after deciding to build around groundceus, klefki was added to complete the ground+fairy core, switch into xern+yvel, and give spikes support. klefki is by far the best user of spikes with respect to keeping offensive momentum while providing a useful defensive typing. palkia was used to check ogre, and dialga for rocks and to check palkia. sets wise, palkia uses haban berry to make things easier vs opposing palkia, which this team might have problems facing otherwise. dialga is lo as offensive dialga pressures stuff hard and fits with the motif of this team better. scarf yveltal gives me a ground immunity, means to revenge groundceus (without resorting to gengar) and kill ghosts, and most importanty checks mewtwo. lastly gengar forces 1-for-1s and eases things up vs stall and various arceus. evs are standard on all, feel free to customize.
this team is weak to blaziken and mmx. using phydef yveltal remedies this somewhat but is bad for team synergy. i'm unsure how this actually matches up vs the teams i mentioned that inspired this build (based on the aforementioned weaknesses alone it is inferior probably), but i posted this mainly to alert people of an unnoticed yet very viable and powerful pokemon in groundceus (by far the best of the formes available to use this round imo), which i believe will also see good use come oras.
Yveltal @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Foul Play
- U-turn
- Oblivion Wing
If mega gar is you only check to ekillet than you might as well use protect over will-o as it can come it and check ekiller from out of nowhere. You would have a good chance to force a 1-1 with a small chance for arceus to get past u which in that case would be brutal
Edgar - Props for using Iceceus lol. One issue I do have is Stalltwo weakness since you only really have Scarf Xerneas to beat it. Aside from that it looks cool.
Sweep - I'm not actually a huge fan of Groundceus on Sticky Web because I personally think it is too easy for stuff like Giratina-O to Defog on. Still a good team though, I like it.
Hack - Obviously a solid team, I just don't think Poisonceus is really that underrated (which you seem to agree with me on)
Mr.378 - I really like the concept behind this team, just wish you were less Yveltal weak because it smashes this team pretty hard. You could attempt to run Terrakion over Groudon but that makes you weaker to Electric mons. Not really sure how to handle the Yveltal issue tbh
Worthlessnoob - Solid effort. I don't like having both Scizor and Ferrothorn, its quite redundant and having only Landorus-T to deal with Ho-Oh is pretty sketchy. Thanks for attempting an Arceus-Psychic, I still haven't figured out a team with that thing yet.
Thugly Duckling - This team is cool. Only having one Tailwind user seems kind of iffy since Torn's lack of bulk means you'll usually only have one chance each battle to go ham, if it doesn't work out you'll be kind of hosed. Kangaskhan also looks super annoying to face. That being said the concept is definitely interesting and SpecsOgre backed by Tailwind is super scary, overall I like this team.
Eaarth - You have a Serious nature on your Scizor. :P Also good effort, however this team is quite weak to Ho-Oh - I don't think Groudon alone is enough when it gets free switches on like half the team.
Anttyaz - Banded Scizor as a lone Xerneas switch-in is kind of sketchy since it has several set up opportunities on this team. Zekrom is kind of a huge jerk since your only Bolt Strike resist is easily worn down. Your team doesn't seem to really support Dragonceus too well (need harder Fairy checks). Good effort nonetheless.
WreckDra - Still weak to Ghostceus, just SD versions ;p. Light Screen on Jirachi is a cute idea. I am pretty concerned about how well you deal with offensive Palkia as it seems like it just kills something each time it comes in.
malefic - It's pretty okay but EKiller/Blaze weakness is significant.
Steeljackal - Idk about this one, it has a fair few weaknesses (Lustrous Orb Palkia owns since Arceus is slower and Tenta doesn't have rain to help tank Rends, MMY with Fire Blast shreks, lack of Dragon resist means Zekrom can punch through this team fairly easily with Outrage once Gliscor is weakened, Goth dumpsters your Poison-types which leaves you open to Fairies once Rocks go up, Yveltal destroys it once SR goes up, Specs Kyogre destroys everything with SR up, no Flying resists is problematic). I think it relies too much on Tentacruel having to keep SR spun away + the fact Abomasnow is garbage.
I'm going to vote for Thugly Duckling's team as it has a very creative concept that is executed pretty nicely.
