XY RU discriminate against all alomomola (peaked #1)

[Sweep]

Good evening. I feel like doing a RMT to showcase a couple of sets that I find very effective in this metagame. With the number of slow, bulky Pokemon that rely on Status moves such as Thunder Wave and Spore, I really like Substitute in this metagame. However, SubCM users have a difficult time breaking dangerous Dark-type Pokemon such as Drapion and Spiritomb, and Dark-types are everywhere right now. Instead, I wanted to use more immediately threatening Pokemon that still possess enough bulk to keep their Substitute in the face of weak attacks from the likes of Amoonguss, Alomomola, and Cresselia. The first set is SubPass Lopunny, which is not exactly rare but still presents a lot of problems for the opponent. The second set is Sub Swords Dance Cobalion with Fist Plate, which is really, really good with the proper team support and can perform well vs. any team archetype.

I managed to peak #1 using this team for what it's worth (not very much). I also have used a stall team and a very nice balance team made by atomicllamas recently, but this is the team I've spammed for the past week or so. I'm very much open to suggestions on how to improve the team!


Team at a glance:

In detail:

Lopunny @ Lopunnite
Ability: Limber
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Return
- Substitute
- High Jump Kick
- Baton Pass

Mega Lopunny is absolutely ridiculous in this metagame has possesses the ability to get around all of its checks and counters by simply tinkering its moveset. Physically defensive Gligar? Ice Punch makes quick work of that. Hyper Offensive pressure with scarfers and frail Pokemon? Fake Out can wear them down easily. However, the set I've found most consistent vs. opposing Stall while still maintaining a very solid match-up vs. Offense and Balance is the SubPass set. Alomomola, obvious status moves, and predicted switches grant Lopunny an easy time setting up a Substitute and passing to the appropriate team member (or staying in and wreaking havoc in need be). Return and High Jump Kick provide good coverage, although Lopunny cannot break the likes of Gligar and Golbat by itself. I run Jolly to beat opposing Adamant Bunny and sometimes beat Jolly bunny; I'd use an Adamant nature on an All-Out Attacker set but feel it's unnecessary here. In addition to its many positive attributes, it functions as one of the team's Doublade checks and can team up with SD Drapion and Cobalion to wear down each other's checks, potentially facilitating a sweep for one.

Drapion @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sniper
EVs: 216 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 36 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Aqua Tail
- Knock Off

Swords Dance Drapion is pretty common, though this one uses Earthquake over Poison Jab because this team is not at all concerned about Fairies or grass-types and some physical walls (like opposing bulky Drapion and Cobalion) despise taking a boosted EQ. I considered running Life Orb or Blackglasses on this, but Infiltrator Spiritomb is very unpleasant and I wanted something that could take a burn even after Lopunny set up a Substitute, so Lum Berry it is. I don't feel the need to run max Speed on this team, so I EV'd this to live two Acrobatics from Fletchinder after rocks. It also lives an Earthquake from Dugtrio from any set other than Choice Band, though Life Orb only needs SR to kill most of the time. Knock Off is a great move if the opponent's main check to this is Gligar or another Eviolite user, and robbing Alomomola / Aromatisse / etc of their Leftovers can help the rest of the team as well. Fun Pokemon.

Cobalion @ Fist Plate
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Iron Head
- Substitute
- Swords Dance

This is probably my favorite set in RU at the moment. Fist Plate Cobalion hits really, really hard without taking Life Orb recoil, which is helpful since Substitute and Life Orb are generally not a good combination. After two uses of Swords Dance (not hard to obtain vs bulky teams), even standard Alomomola will be OHKOed after Stealth Rock. Substitute ensures this can set up on Amoonguss lacking HP Fire and blocks Thunder Wave users like Registeel. Even if your opponent has a good check, like Spiritomb, it is very easy to hax it out with a +2 Iron Head in a pinch, though try to kill Tomb with Bunny or Dragalge first. The EV spread is standard to allow Cobalion to hit hard and fast.

Golbat @ Eviolite
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 248 HP / 12 Def / 248 SpD
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Toxic
- Defog

The EV spread on this Golbat might look weird, but it offers role compression in allowing Golbat to check Scarf Moltres and Mega Lopunny, in addition to Pokemon less threatening to the team. Even after SR damage, neither Scarftres nor Lopunny can 2HKO this spread. Toxic is mandatory to discourage set-up and prevents Gligar from using Defog for free, while Gligar carries Defog itself in case I run into a Spikes-stacking HO team with Omastar or Accelgor. Toxic also hits annoying SubCM users like Meloetta and Cresselia. Brave Bird gives Golbat a means of doing chip damage to offensive threats. I've considered dropping Defog for U-Turn but most of my mons really dislike Spikes. Golbat's a solid Pokemon in this metagame and glues this team together.

Bronzong @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Toxic
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake

Bronzong is my main Special wall and serves as my check to Meloetta, Scarf Magneton, Slurpuff, Dragalge, Rhyperior, Mega Abomasnow, and others. Bronzong is my SR setter and can deal decent damage to most fast Pokemon with Gyro Ball. Earthquake is needed to hit Scarf Magneton, which is fairly aggravating to this team, while dealing damage to Dragalge that try to wear Bronzong down with repeated attacks. The EV spread is standard, and although I've considered running Protect over Toxic for extra recovery and a way to give the finger to Mega Lopunny, I find poisoning overeager Gligar too important to pass up. Without reliable recovery, Bronzong will not hang around for an entire match so I don't play it too aggressively.

Dragalge @ Leftovers
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 72 HP / 252 SpA / 184 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: null Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Sludge Wave
- Hydro Pump
- Toxic Spikes

The final Pokemon on my team and the third Pokemon that I sometimes pass Substitutes to, Dragalge is my token Water resist and Special nuke. I use Leftovers on Dragalge for survivability and the ability to set Toxic Spikes. Opposing Dragale, Drapion, Amoonguss, and Defog / Rapid Spin users make TSpikes unreliable early on in the match, but if I can manage to remove the enemy's answer to them, TSpikes are as deadly as ever. Toxic Spikes also improve the team's matchup vs. offense in general. The EV spread is to creep Alomomola and (hopefully) other Dragalge while hitting as hard as possible without the benefit of Choice Specs. This set is utterly walled by Steel-types, but this team destroys those so I'm not concerned about that.

Threatlist:

Dugtrio, especially Band variants: three of my Pokemon are weak to Earthquake. I have two excellent answers to Ground types but fuck Arena Trap.

Mega Lopunny-most teams hate this and mine is no exception, though I have ways of beating all of its sets.

Moltres-this is where not running Jolly Drapion hurts. Scarf is checked by Golbat but is very threatening once Golbat is out of commission. LO needs to hit Dragalge twice to beat it 1-1 and is outrun by my Lopunny, but I don't have a switchin to that. Keeping SR up is pivotal to limit the amount of damage this does.

Importable:

http://pastebin.com/tZz0Q41K

Don't have the energy to do another shout-out, but I like both the RU and LC communities after spending some time in them. I definitely prefer both tiers to ORAS Ubers right now :/

 

[Lemonade]

(sun) really cool team, but u shud use scope lense drapion with night slash so you can do more damage haha

4 real though, I'm wondering does Hydro on Dragalge do anything in particular? It's power is nice but I feel like using Scald and fishing for burns against Steels would be more useful. And Hydro doesn't OHKO standard tank Rhyperior anyway, Scald OHKOes Duggy (not that it would ever be switching in O.O). Also Black Sludge over Lefties maybe? Very nitpicky and Trick is super uncommon anyway, though you do have two other Poison-types (obv after Golbat loses Eviolite).

 

[col49]

yo

i do really like this squad, synergizes nicely and at least somewhat deviates from the type: standard builds that are being thrown about nowadays. as is, i can only really throw about nitpicks, as i feel that, with the possible exception of cobalion (whose role could be potentially taken on by an alternative physically-inclined booster w/out significant defensive or offensive repercussions), not much on this team can afford to be slotted out entirely. first and fore-most, i do agree with lemonade regarding those slight dragalgae alterations; particularly with the subpass support offered by lopunny granting dragalgae the leniency to stay in on bulky water- and steel-types for a period of time, i would consider the ability to induce some forme of immediate chip damage to be highly useful, allowing (for instance) opportunities for golbat to actively combat bronzong and similar sr 'mons 1v1, generally putting consistent damage on alomomola without forcing it to come in on tspikes, and so forth. black sludge > leftovers seems heavily situational, given how rarely i could see dragalgae switching into trick users (sans rotom-c), but given the build of your team, the associative risk does seem fairly low. furthermore, a spread of 248 hp / 80 def / 180 spdef @ careful nature yields 6 more points of spdef on golbat than your current spread and nature, so i would adjust that accordingly.

as you touch upon yourself, albeit briefly, dugtrio, particularly cb variants, are largely disruptive to your current build. i would go on to add that in conjunction with a resilient calm mind user, such as cresselia or reuniclus, your team does seem to fold with proper play. while, as i mentioned, i don't find whole-mon changes to be very conducive to this team, a slight variation on cobalion could very well function as an adequate bait here. i would consider the use of shuca berry > fist plate; while i do see the value of this item here, i think that the interactions this set has with toxic spikes support is enough to minimize the loss in power here. a -1, sub-less cobalion becomes an easy target for most dugtrio, and even at -1, an uninvested shuca cobalion takes ~66-78% from cb eq, effectively luring it even after a certain degree of prior damage and thereby allowing drapion to function as a psychic-type check without fear of simply being picked off after the opponent makes a tactical sac. if you wanted to insure that such a cobalion would assuredly survive eq after 1 substitute, it would be an option to run a spread of 48 hp / 200 atk / 8 def / 252 spe, but that may well be extraneous.

thanks for sharing the team, really cool stuff here