Amoonguss
Our favorite mushroom is making a return! With Black 2 and White 2 only days away, the metagame is sure to change a bunch! One of the big changes include the introduction of Keldeo, the fourth musketeer. Along with keldeo, many other pokemon have improved with new DW abilities and new move tutor moves... Amoonguss is one of them. Everyone who has played DW OU knows that Amoonguss is a great check to Keldeo and Breloom, two huge threats in the meta. Now that Regenerator is released for regular OU, Amoonguss will surely rise up from the bottom of the tiers. Amoonguss has many things going for it. Great Bulk, great movepool, Great ability, Great Typing, and the ability to check the top threats in the meta makes it a very desirable pokemon when team building. Lets have a closer look at Amoonguss, shall we?
Amoonguss's first trait that stands out is its typing. The primary typing is grass. Grass has always been mediocre in terms of defense and offense. Over the generations, grass types have had tons of weaknesses, as well as pokemons with resistances to them. However, grass typing is probably the most anti-metagame defensive typing right now. It is a very great typing to have in this weather metagame. It might have nasty 5 weaknesses (fire, ice and flying being the most common as well as a weakness to the common u-turn), but grass gets one of the nicest resistances ever. It resists water (which is great in a metagame that is dominated by scalds and rain, not to mention the upcoming spamming of keldeo hydro pumps), ground (Earthquake is one of the most common coverage moves, and is EVERYHWERE), electricity (great under rain thanks to thunder), and grass itself. These resistances easily overshadow its many weaknesses, and allow it to thrive in this metagame filled with water attacks and volt switches everywhere. Its secondary typing makes it even better. Poison typing brings two more weaknesses to the table (psychic and ground, but ground is neutered by the grass typing) but also brings resistances to bug, fighting and grass itself. (and also poison, but meh). These two combined gives it a very great defensive typing resisting great offensive types (water, electric, fighting, grass) and being neutral to other important ones (ground, bug).
Typing alone isn't the only thing that makes Amoonguss great. With the addition of BW2, Amoonguss finally gained... Regenerator. This is a huge "FU" to Tangrowth who has been taking its spot for all this time. Regenerator is great for defensive pokemon as they can now serve as defensive pivots to deter certain attacks. It also gives Amoonguss semi-reliable recovery. (synthesis sucks in this meta) With the combination of leftovers, regenerator, and clever switching, one will be able to get Amoonguss back to full health in no time. The best thing about regenrator is that it pairs up with other pokemon very nicely. One great partner is Slowbro, which when combined with Amoonguss becomes an impossible duo to break through. This combination of a regenerator duo will be a big FU to volt-turn cores. They also cover each other's weaknesses very well, as well as covering threats on different ends of the attacking spectrum.
The movepool also makes Amoonguss a great pokemon. Amoonguss has the best support move in the game, spore. Amoonguss is one of the few pokemon that has access to spore, and is the most defensive of the group. This makes amoonguss very scary as it has the ability to get rid of a counter or a major threat for almost the whole game (with the sleep mechanics). Spore is great and all, but Amoonguss also has access to other status moves like stun spore, which allow it to hinder many threats coming in after a spored pokemon. It also has access to clear smog, which allows it haze even when taunted, as well as a great STAB move in giga drain. These are just some of the reasons why Amoonguss is great.
The Stats and The Movepool
Stats
HP: 114
Attack: 85
Defense: 70
Sp.Atk: 85
Sp.Def: 80
Speed: 30
Level-Up Movepool
TMs
Egg Moves
Move Tutor
Example Sets:
Amoonguss (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Def / 216 SDef (I found that 252 Hp / 4 Def / 252 SDef is better)
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Clear Smog / Stun Spore
- Hidden Power [Ice]
This is probably the set that almost everyone will use. And probably the best one in the new meta. One of the biggest things that will run acorss players' minds when they first decide to utilize amoonguss is, "Should it take physical hits, or Special hits?" And this is perfectly understandable because Amoonguss is one of those lucky pokes with balanced defense stats. The best way to look at the dilemma is to look at its resistances. It x2 resists water and electric and fighting, while x4 resisting grass. With the plethora of special water attacks and electric attacks in this rain-dominated metagame, it is clear that one should go for a more special defensive spread. This is bolstered by the fact that its greatest partner, slowbro, is a great physical wall. With its Great special bulk and acceptable physical bulk, this amoonguss can put a stop to many metagame threats including but not limited to keldeo and voltturn.
Lets first talk about its ability to check Keldeo first. Keldeo will undoubtedly make a huge impact on the BW2 metagame. With its powerful STAB rain boosted hydro pumps and the ability to demolish special walls with secret sword, there is no reason anyone shouldn't be scared. Although the top sets are still unknown, it will definitely be running hydro pump and secret sword, and a hp of some sort (most likely ghost for those pesky jellicent.) Now, great defensive pokes like jellicent and latias (even tentacruel) will be beat with some luck and some calm minds under keldeo's belt, but not this guy, with access to spore and stun spore and clear smog and other things.. here are some calculations.
( i used the max sp. defensive version that i listed on the bottom with slowbro As I feel that this will be more popular as most teams will appreciate the extra sp.defense )
As you can see, Amoonguss can switch into ANY SINGLE MOVE MADE BY KELDEO. if it is specs under rain, it is never KO'ed (VERY SLIM CHANCE to be 2HKOED with rocks) and will be able to spore it and switch and automatically gain 33 percent of its health back. If its a calm mind variant, you can switch in on the calm mind and spore it as it attacks you. (this is troublesome with lum berry variants, but they are significantly weaker and you should run toxic spikes if this worries you ;) )
Amoonguss is probably one of the greatest checks to Keldeo.
Another big recent threat that it checks is breloom.
Breloom is a recent addition to the metagame with a new tool in technician. With mach punch, spore and bullet seed (also SD) it can sweep very easily. Amoonguss is a very good counter to breloom also with its great typing. I used
252 HP / 40 Def / 216 SDef for amoonguss and Adamant 252/252 breloom
As you can see, amoonguss can switch into any move and haze/2hko with clear smog.
Quote:
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0 SpA Clear Smog vs 4/0 Breloom = 54.96% - 64.89%
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Another threat that Amoonguss checks pretty well is voltturn. Now i believe that tangrowth was hyped to be a great voltturn counter, so im going to directly compare these two. (with rotom-w and scizor). Calculations: (umm... ill show both physically and specially defensive sets
As you can see, the specially defensive amoongus takes the u-turn as good as tangrowth, while the physically defensive Amoonguss flat out own tangrowth in terms of being able to counter volt-turn.
Thundurus. He has been banished to Ubers, but there are talks about him being retested. So i added some calcs for both the therian form and the normal form.
Normal form:
Therian form:
LOL guess what guys. a +2 LO Therian Thundurus (the one with 145 sp.attack) can NEVER OHKO amoonguss.
Now Landorus:
Normal Form Earthquakes: (assuming choice scarf)
Therian Form Earthquakes: (assuming choice scarf)
Specially Inclined Sheer Force Landorus (trust me, it will be popular)
Even the specially defensive mushroom is never OHKOed by a single attack. wow
The other genie was very sad :(
so here it is.
LO hurricane from normal form: 252 SpAtk Life Orb Tornadus Hurricane vs 252 HP/252 SpDef Amoonguss (+SpDef) : 95.83% - 112.5%
75% chance to OHKO
LO hurricane from therian form:252 SpAtk Life Orb Tornadus Hurricane vs 252 HP/252 SpDef Amoonguss (+SpDef) : 88.19% - 103.47%
25% chance to OHKO
This just got a lot more serious. A chance to live a LO hurricane?
Great Combination
Slowbro (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Psychic
- Flamethrower / Thunderwave
- Slack Off
Amoonguss (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Clear Smog / Stunspore
- Hidden Power [Ice]
This is probably the best 2-poke defense core that is. I remember when i popularized in my warstory last year when i used it with tangrowth, Slowbro, and Heatran, but this is way better.
First of all, they have amazing type synergy. They are great at blocking each others weaknesses (like electric and grass by ammonguss, ice and fire by slowbro, etc) and they are able to block attacks from different ends of the attacking spectrum because slowbro is a great physical wall while amoonguss cockblocks all special attacks. Furthermore, they do not lose offensive presence, as they hit from 100 sp. attack and 85 sp. attack respectively with moves like scald, psychic, flamethrower, giga drain, and ice beam/hp ice. They can also parashuffle extremely well (as they force a lot of switches) and they can check many common threats with the help of clear smog and spore from ammonguss. For the purpose of this regenerator core, max defenses on contrasting sides of the defense spectrum is optimal to block hits, and this core is just amazing. Pokemon like heatran make this core even more amazing, also forming a FWG core.