CAP Metagame Free Teams
 

thanks birkal for writing up the op

Hello and welcome! One of the issues that we've seen with getting people involved in the CAP metagame is the lack of a starting point. How do I get started in the CAP metagame? It can be very intimidating to create your first CAP team without any idea how the metagame functions. This thread aims to provide some good "starting" teams for you guys to play around with and enjoy! He is what you can expect in this thread:

• Free teams donated by some of the best CAP battlers. These teams are completely free to use and were either created with the purpose of this thread or they were retired from use by their creators.
  
  
• Continually updated teams by their creators. Please note that these teams are not perfect. The team builders might be continually updating these teams by adding tweaks and different party members.
  
  
• Discussion on your experiences with these teams. What did you like about the team you used? What was challenging? What changes did YOU make? Feel free to discuss teambuilding for the CAP metagame in this thread. Please note that this thread is not for discussing what is wrong with these teams. Simply provide modifications that you've made to improve them!
  
  
• New users donating new teams. Right now, there are only four teams listed here. In time, if you build a team that you've tested extensively and would like to donate it to this thread, PM it to one of the three leaders of this topic. If we like it, we'll definitely add it to this post.

Remember, this thread is simply meant to be a starting point. Once you've played around with these teams, feel free to make tweaks to them. Perhaps you might even go out on a limb and make an entirely new team. These teams are just the beginning of your journey in the CAP metagame. Also, please note that you can either discuss these teams in this thread or in our CAP metagame discussion channel on synIRC: #capmeta. Please enjoy!



This team focuses on using bulky Pokemon that can dish out attacks while taking a few hits on their own. It also abuses residual damage from Sandstorm and Stealth Rock. Tyranitar utilizes its excellent base 134 attack in conjunction with Choice Band to dish out some serious damage. Krilowatt is a great Pokemon in general, and is extremely threatening to rain teams. The Necturna set is also quite powerful and has brilliant synergy with the rest of team. Only having Pain Split for recovery is annoying sometimes, though. Landorus and Reuniclus are great set-up sweepers that can usually clean up late-game. The Bronzong set is a bit strange, but it's good at setting up Stealth Rock and checking various threats to the team. The team is a bit slow, but the lack of Speed is compensated with good bulk and powerful attackers.




Rain Offense is one of the most threatening playstyles in the CAP metagame due to the increased variety of Pokemon who excel in it. Cyclohm, for example, has great STABs in the form of Thunder + Draco Meteor, while also exhibiting a strong, Rain-boosted Hydro Pump. It also has some excellent bulk and Slack Off to recover damage that it's taking from Life Orb's recoil. Politoed with a Choice Scarf makes an excellent revenge killer and is necessary for winning the weather war. Colossoil and Toxicroak both act as the physical offense for the team: the former has STAB Pursuit and Earthquake while the latter can abuse rain. Ferrothorn is great for spreading paralysis and setting up hazards. Finally, Tomohawk is often considered to be the most threatening Pokemon in rain thanks to its STAB Hurricane and priority Roost + Substitute. Enjoy!




While sometimes seen as underwhelming in standard play, Hail teams have a pair of new toys to play with in CAP that can make it quite the threat: Syclant and Krilowatt. With hail making its best STAB never miss, Syclant can use its signature Mountaineer, eliminating a crippling weakness of Hail teams. It can outspeed much of the metagame, and, with Choice Specs attached, its Blizzard hits ridiculously hard. Krilowatt, along with Reuniclus provide the team with some much needed type variety while still retaining Hail immunities. Krilowatt also helps threaten with great coverage and recoil-less power from Life Orb, while Reuniclus has great bulk and the ability to set up on many Pokemon. Abomasnow has Grass moves and Fighting coverage that allow it to come out on top against the other common weather starters. Mamoswine provides the majority of the physical offense and makes a great revenge killer thanks to Ice Shard. And finally, Heatran provides crucial resistances and key support moves in Stealth Rock and Roar which help chip away at opponents to let its teammates break right through.




This team was made around the core of Voodoom and Zapdos. Together, they can break through pretty much every wall. Zapdos is also a very solid check to Tomohawk, which is nice. Forretress sets up Spikes and Stealth Rock for the team and Volt Switches out to the strong attackers. I choose it over Fidgit for the better physical bulk and synergy with the team. Salamence and Syclant are two other great wallbreakers. Arghonaut checks a few threatening Pokemon for this team, such as set-up sweepers, Syclant, and Stratagem. This team is pretty much impossible to wall, especially if some hazards are set-up. It struggles with faster Pokemon, but many of them can be handled by the more bulkier Pokemon on the team such as Zapdos and Arghonaut.

This is amazing, thank you so much for this! I'm loving the hail team.

Weren't the old caps banned from 5th gen?

Nope! There has been discussion of banning 4th gen CAPs from 5th gen once Pokemon Showdown! has past generation support. But at the moment, all 13 CAPs are allowed in the CAP metagame.

Ive had quite a bit of sucess on the cap ladder with a hail team that is similar, but imo better than the one posted.

On abomasnow i have hp fire and eq, hp fire is arguable over fpunch but id say eq is very important for mollux.

Specs syclant doesn't seem as able to sweep to me, because while ice is a great offensive typing that is easily spammable the bug and ground coverage (focus blast for the rare balloon tran or tail glow although imo it's too frail for that) matter too much

The kril and reuniclus sets are great, I'm using exactly the same.

Mamo is good but doesn't really fit on to the team. One of the main reasons hail isn't popular is that ppl make the mistake of spamming ice types, which just doesn't work.
Why mamo is redundant:
Abomasnow already has ice shard
Dragons, especially things like dd mence, are very uncommon on Cap ladder
Already 2 other pokes with ice STAB
Mamo is just too slow for cap, at 80 base speed adamant it just fails to outspeed necturna, tomohawk, +speed mollux, and colossoil. Not all of these are that important because it has ice shard, but ice shard isn't are very spammable attack.
DOWN WITH CB MAMO
*ahem anyways*
I'd also say that heatran isn't that great on this hail team, even though traditionally hail simply loves that flash fire because:
the one fire cap is pyroak, who can be annoying but isn't gonna sweep anything.
heatran is not enough to deal with that fighting weakness, bulk up revenankh/maybe arghonaut can sweep pretty much the whole team (and just kill hetran before it roars)
reuniclus is useful but if it is gonna be threatening it can't be coming in constantly and it prefers to switch in on tomo or mollux than something like cb terrakion or rev.

apart from the minor alterations of life orb syclant and eq and hp fire on aboma (maybe with expert belt) the 2 pokes I changed when I use hail are:
Revenankh and tomohawk over heatran and mamoswine
Rev is great at switching in to special threats, so with tomo and reuniclus covering the physical side together the team can switch something in to pretty much all caps

Bulk up revenankh (air lock is useful but optional, imo it's better on ladder because status is very rare) can sweep easily once tomo is removed

Tomohawk provides SR like heatran, but also rapid spin support (having mountaineer does not equal the whole team doesn't care about hazards) and it beats rev and other physical threats
Heatran provides the steel type resists to ghost, steel, and dragon which are useful, whenever I see a kitsunoh I know I'm in trouble.
Sorry to criticize but i tried to put improvements for everything i said

-RAIN BALANCED-

Rain is one of the most popular play styles, and with good reason-it is powerful and easy to get used to. Politoed summons rain, and most CAP teams lack a blissey or latias to sponge powerful hits. Gastrodon and Tomohawk together wall most CAPmons, and can hit hard in return. Metagross stops certain fast pokemon and dragons, as well as providing stealth rocks support. Krilowatt has great speed, bulk, and a fantastic movepool. Its lack of power is more than made up for by rain boosted surfs and super effective coverage on most pokemon, which often let it wreck teams. Auramoth is as close as this team comes to having a star, and can sweep unprepared teams with illusion and quiver dance. This team struggles with hp grass electric users, but in general is very solid and safe to use.