Other Metagames Holy Trinity (AG, peaked 1579)

[Hourai]

HOLY TRINITY

Teambuilding Process

I wanted to make a team with three Arceus, because it's an extremely versatile and great Pokemon in AG. Water Arceus was chosen for much-needed support, Ghost Arceus for special sweeping abilities, and Normal Arceus for the ludicrously powerful Extreme Killer sets.

Groudon was added in, because of its sheer offensive power, with the ability to run two boosting moves, with some pretty great STAB coverage as well. It can also take physical hits pretty well, if its high base Defense is any indication.

Mega Rayquaza was added because of its sheer power, and the ability to run any item while still being able to Mega Evolve. It's pretty much unrivaled, despite the rather redundant STAB.

Genesect was a a last-minute addition to help the team deal with annoying Darkrais and deal heavy damage to Xerneas. The ability to use a move that enables switching on a Scarf set is a godsend.

Hello, this is LordBraixen with my first ever RMT. It managed to get me to above 1500 elo within less than 8 hours of its first use on my alt, I HATI THE SECOND, with well over 30 victories and about 9 losses, though about 3 of them were due to needing to needing to get off the computer. It's a relatively offense-based Arceus team, with five sweepers.
THE TRINITY
These are the three Arceuses that contribute to the set theme, and will not be always be Arceuses. I will take other moveset suggestions for them, though, as well as other Arceus options.

YHVH (Arceus) @

Ability: Multitype
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Extreme Speed
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Claw
This is basically just your regular EKiller Arceus. After one Swords Dance, it can OHKO and 2HKO most things with relative ease, and can end games if it ever reaches +6. Shadow Claw lets it completely murder Ghost types with ease. Even after just one SD, it can still hit most things relatively hard. Honestly, an Arceus team isn't an Arceus team without an EKiller.

Xolotl (Arceus-Ghost) @

Ability: Multitype
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Calm Mind
- Focus Blast
- Recover

The team's Calm Mind sweeper, with Focus Blast to hit Dark and Normal types. The maxed out Special Defense allows it to survive hits from things like Mega Gengar and other Ghostceuses, as well as abuse Calm Mind better. It's also Imposter-proof, if that matters (which it probably doesn't because this is AG and not BH). Recover gives it, obviously, reliable recovery in the downtime it isn't spamming Judgement or Focus Blast.

Neptune (Arceus-Water) @ Splash Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 104 HP / 200 Def / 80 SpD / 124 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Defog
- Judgment
- Recover
- Will-O-Wisp

Just your stereotypical support Waterceus with a relatively bizarre EV spread to try to give it the most balanced mix of mixed bulk and HP I could, with some Speed allocated so it doesn't have to worry about support Pdon outspeeding it as a result of Speed creep.
LESSER BEINGS
The three non-Arceus Pokemon on the team, and are the ones I'd be fine with replacements for. The one that would probably most need to be replaced with something different is Clefable, as its only real purpose on the team is checking setup sweepers with Unaware and Pokemon that rely on statusing, like Darkrai or Swagplay Keys with Magic Coat.

Megatron (Genesect) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Download
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- Iron Head
- Extreme Speed
- Bug Buzz

Physical Scarf sweeper with Bug Buzz only really being there to deal with Sub Darkrai. Otherwise, its main purpose is just to deal with GeoXern and Psychic/Dark types then switch out with U-Turn. This was originally a Shift Gear set, but Darkrai can outspeed and sleep Scarfless Genesect. 4 Special Attack EVs were put in just for Bug Buzz to deal a little more damage, it won't do much to anything that isn't SE.

Shenron (Rayquaza-Mega) @

Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Ascent
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Extreme Speed

I opted into having Rayquaza as my Mega because it is an absolute monster, especially after DDance. After one Dance, it outspeeds basically everything not named Deoxys and can OHKO anything that doesn't resist or is immune to Dragon with Outrage, and Outrage one more time if it didn't have its Lum Berry used up before then. Pretty much the only thing it has a hard time hitting is Klefki, due to it resisting two of its attacks and being completely immune to the other. It can also maybe double as a Revenge Killer thanks to ESpeed.

Behemoth (Groudon-Primal) @

Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Precipice Blades
- Fire Punch
- Rock Polish

Double Dancer set capable of OHKOing most things once its Attack is boosted, and outspeeding literally everything once its Speed is boosted. Fire Punch enables it to OHKO things like Ferrothorn, and 2HKO Multiscale Lugia (though it can OHKO if allowed to get up to +6). Earthquake gives it powerful, reliable, and spammable STAB. The only things keeping this from being a terrifying monster capable of dealing with anything and everything is the fact Mega Rayquaza turns it into setup bait, as well as a bit of a weakness to prioriy.

THREATS

Darkrai- This is probably the big one. The only real answer to this is Genesect, as it's the only thing capable of outspeeding a 252+ one on the team.
Entry hazards- With no way to clear hazards if Water Arceus goes down, they'll slowly, but surely, begin taking their toll on the team.
Other Arceus- The sheer amount of havoc several of the viable Arceus sets can reak on this team is scary. If this EKiller Arceus and another one are out at the same time, you'll need to rely on speed ties, which have rarely ever gone in my favor.
Mega Rayquaza- The only real answer to this is its own Mega Rayquaza, which really isn't a good thing. This is why I'm planning on switching out Ghostceus for Fairyceus.
Status- The team has no way to deal with Toxic spammers, though Pdon can mess with Thunder Wave and Will-O-Wisp abusers, as it's immune to both.
Overview
This team is all around pretty solid with plenty of coverage for almost any common AG Mon, except status users and entry hazards. Under the right circumstances, it's downright terrifying.

Importable

YHVH (Arceus) @ Life Orb
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Extreme Speed
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Claw

Xolotl (Arceus-Ghost) @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Calm Mind
- Focus Blast
- Recover

Neptune (Arceus-Water) @ Splash Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 104 HP / 200 Def / 80 SpD / 124 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Defog
- Judgment
- Recover
- Will-O-Wisp

Megatron (Genesect) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Download
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- Iron Head
- Extreme Speed
- Bug Buzz

Shenron (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Ascent
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Extreme Speed

Behemoth (Groudon-Primal) @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
- Rock Polish

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Hi! This is a decent team you have there, but there is a lot of ways you could make it better. Without further adieu-
Shadow Force> Zen Headbut. The only fighting type in AG is MMX, and it's hit far harder by this move. This also allows Arceus to beat ghost Arceus, deal heavy damage to Giratina, and have a move to hit non-grounded steels like Skarmory. Alternatively, run stone edge- Yveltal is among the best ekiller counters out there, but +2 LO stone edge has a 20% chance to Ko factoring in misses and can knock it out with some chip.

Recover>will o wisp. I'm not sure why you'd want to give up recovery, as it turns Arceus from a Diancie counter to a 1 time switchin, allows it to be worn down easily, and stops it from doing its job. The only physical dark type in ag is Yveltal, and that beats you regardless.

Poison Arceus>Steel Arceus. As much as I dislike how much people like Joshz hype this, they have a point- it's the best xern counter atm, and your team loses to a +2 xern. The set would be jolly, max speed max attack, with poison jab, extreme speed, swords dance, and earthquake. You could ditch one of those for recover, but honestly I wouldn't bother.
If, for whatever reason, you do decide to not ditch steel Arceus, remove protect. It's a terrible move to run on anything bar wish-tect. For a replacement, try one of magic coat, calm mind, or earth power.

On clefable, remove magic coat. Clefable already beats rai, and it needs every move it can get. Moonlight has far too few PP, so I would suggest running wish+protect. This gives you an extra turn of leftovers recovery, and unaware means they can't use that turn to set up. It also lets you scout the opponent's moveset. Similarly, remove calm mind. You probably won't ever get a chance to set it up, and when you do it won't mean anything. Clefable is forced out far too easily. Instead, run something like heal bell.

On MRay, please remove outrage for earthquake or v-create. Flying and dragon have almost literally the same coverage- the only Pokemon you'll ever hit with it are Giratina and Rock Arceus, the latter of which is also hit with Earthquake. It also allows Xerneas to revenge you while you can't switch out for no cost. V-Create, however, deals easily with Klefki, has the same BP, and defeats former walls such as steel Arceus and Skarmory with ease, while eq does a similar job without the drops, admittedly without the absurd power or hitting Bronzong or Skarmory.

Finally, for primal groudon swap out hone claws for swords dance, and possibly precipice blades for earthquake. +2 earthquake hits harder than a +1 precipice, and +2 fire pipunch hits far harder than at +1. As for stealth rock, may I suggest changing it out for a speed control move such as rock polish/twave, or for dragon claw? The former let's you sweep teams, notably oustpeeding Darkrai and ohkoing, and the latter let's you support your team, outspeed your foe, and cripple setup. Dragon Claw is a worse option, but doesn't leave you as MRay setup bait.

There are a few other changes you could make, but this was in my opinion what fit your team the best. GL on laddering higher, and I hope this helped.

 

[MZ]

Hey man, I actually think this team slots together pretty nicely but there's a lot of improvements that can be made. Every single mon has either a poor set, outclassed EV spread, or bother. However, before I begin, I do have to disagree with some of what Quantum Tesseract is saying. While some of the more basic things like don't use outrage on rayquaza are correct, Shadow Force is not a great option to fit on Ekiller here and there's no reason to run poison arceus on this team. It makes sense if you purely think "oh it's better versus geoxern" but that's not what steelceus's role on the team here is and the team in no way "just loses to a +2 xerneas". For one thing, it has both clefable and Pdon.

Anyway, it would take way too long for me to separately rate every single problematic set and spread here so I'm going to briefly go over all of the changes that are generally good before looking if anything needs to be replaced. Stone Edge is a better use of the Zen Headbutt slot, the only relevant fighting type is neutral to psychic (mega mewtwo x) and you could really use some more yveltal coverage since both of the main arceus formes don't appreciate it. Life Orb isn't an unviable item, but on this team you're better off with Lum Berry to check Darkrai and Klefki a bit better. Ghost Arceus should be running a spread of 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe in order to outspeed/speed tie as much as possible while staying bulky to boost on some offensive threats. There just isn't an real reason to be running maximum Special Attack and Special Defense. Recover is also a better use of its last moveslot like Tesseract said, otherwise you're just going to fail at boosting on some things. However, I am going to recommend some changes to the standard calm mind set below. The Arceus Steel moveset is just random and loses out to a ton of really relevant things while squandering its bulk, but since I'm going to recommend replacing it anyway you might as well try checking out the smogon analysis for the mon. Utility just isn't an option though as it has generally poor defensive typing which leaves you way weaker to things like Pdon. Tesseract went over clefable a bit, you should be running maximum HP instead of defense since it's better to increase bulk with HP than both defenses unless your mon has far higher natural defenses than HP (think chansey or hariyama) and the more optimal moveset is wish/protect/moonblast/toxic which should help to chip away at bulky arceus variants. V-Create is going to be important on rayquaza for actually threatening steel types like tesseract said. Finally, the primal groudon is all over the place. Hone Claws is never viable when Swords Dance exists but I wouldn't go for both rocks and boosting on one set. A simple support variant should be all that's needed here, with the set below.

Groudon @ Red Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 200 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Lava Plume
- Roar

Now once the general set issues are fixed the team actually becomes pretty solid, most of the slots go well together it just falls down in the sets. However, Arceus Steel isn't really doing much here. It's sort of only there to check a couple of things like mega diancie and extends the primal issues just a little too far. A very easy fix to this is simply changing to a utility Arceus Water set, which now does better versus Ho-Oh and still can come in on diancie. The Xerneas matchup gets slightly worse but there's already support Pdon and max spdef clefable to handle that. However, you really need both judgment and ice beam here to handle ray and pretty much anything else at the same time but also could really use some removal for spikes. To that end, changing Arceus Ghost to a defog variant becomes kind of important.

Arceus-Water @ Splash Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 Spe
Bold Nature
- Recover
- Toxic
- Ice Beam
- Judgment

Arceus-Ghost @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Defog
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover

Anyway, I hope all of these changes helped!

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Hey man, I actually think this team slots together pretty nicely but there's a lot of improvements that can be made. Every single mon has either a poor set, outclassed EV spread, or bother. However, before I begin, I do have to disagree with some of what Quantum Tesseract is saying. While some of the more basic things like don't use outrage on rayquaza are correct, Shadow Force is not a great option to fit on Ekiller here and there's no reason to run poison arceus on this team. It makes sense if you purely think "oh it's better versus geoxern" but that's not what steelceus's role on the team here is and the team in no way "just loses to a +2 xerneas". For one thing, it has both clefable and Pdon.

Yeah, poisonceus wasn't the best change. As the team stood, however, it did lose-
+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Focus Blast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Primal Groudon: 316-372 (92.3 - 108.7%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (SR taken before primal reversion)
252+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 4 HP / 252+ SpD Unaware Clefable: 177-208 (53.3 - 62.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (especially since it did nothing backand ew moonlight)
+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Focus Blast vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Arceus-Steel: 404-476 (105.7 - 124.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO. This seemed like the obvious way to fix that, although I can see how it might not be the best option.

However, I am going to recommend some changes to the standard calm mind set below. The Arceus Steel moveset is just random and loses out to a ton of really relevant things while squandering its bulk, but since I'm going to recommend replacing it anyway you might as well try checking out the smogon analysis for the mon. Utility just isn't an option though as it has generally poor defensive typing which leaves you way weaker to things like Pdon. Tesseract went over clefable a bit, you should be running maximum HP instead of defense since it's better to increase bulk with HP than both defenses unless your mon has far higher natural defenses than HP (think chansey or hariyama) and the more optimal moveset is wish/protect/moonblast/toxic which should help to chip away at bulky arceus variants. V-Create is going to be important on rayquaza for actually threatening steel types like tesseract said. Finally, the primal groudon is all over the place. Hone Claws is never viable when Swords Dance exists but I wouldn't go for both rocks and boosting on one set. A simple support variant should be all that's needed here, with the set below.

Groudon @ Red Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 200 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Lava Plume
- Roar

Completely agree on Clefable and Steelceus.
On groudon, though, I'm not so sure. It definitally fixes the xerneas problem, or at least helps, but this has a much worse matchup vs supportceus, stall, and just bulkmons in general, which lordbraixen's team struggles with in general. Also, rocks aren't really required support for his team. I can see it, but I'm not sure it's the optimal choice.

Now once the general set issues are fixed the team actually becomes pretty solid, most of the slots go well together it just falls down in the sets. However, Arceus Steel isn't really doing much here. It's sort of only there to check a couple of things like mega diancie and extends the primal issues just a little too far. A very easy fix to this is simply changing to a utility Arceus Water set, which now does better versus Ho-Oh and still can come in on diancie. The Xerneas matchup gets slightly worse but there's already support Pdon and max spdef clefable to handle that. However, you really need both judgment and ice beam here to handle ray and pretty much anything else at the same time but also could really use some removal for spikes. To that end, changing Arceus Ghost to a defog variant becomes kind of important.

Arceus-Water @ Splash Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 Spe
Bold Nature
- Recover
- Toxic
- Ice Beam
- Judgment

Arceus-Ghost @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Defog
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover

Anyway, I hope all of these changes helped!

Seems pretty optimal, although in my experience roar is rather crucial on Water Arceus.

Also LordBraixen you do know you can change your thread title in thread tools, right?

 

[Hourai]

Bump. I did a few changes to the team, and switched out Poison Arceus for a way to actually deal with hazards.

 

[bp scrub]

The team still has a huge problem with Geo Xern
+2 252+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Arceus: 316-373 (82.7 - 97.6%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 104 HP / 88 SpD Arceus: 361-426 (88.6 - 104.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Primal Groudon: 316-372 (92.6 - 109%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Genesect: 237-279 (83.7 - 98.5%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (focus blast is obviously an OHKO)

Changes:
I'd change the EVs on Groudon to the one in the Uber analysis

• 104 HP

• 252 Atk

• 96 SpD

• 56 Spe

Groudon doesn't outspeed too much at +0, and at +2, it doesn't need max speed to outspeed things

Stone Edge/Dragon Claw > Fire Punch - Stone Edge hits the flying types that are immune to Ground and Dragon Claw hits the Latis + Ray. With Fire Punch + PBlades, Rayquaza completely walls it, giving it a free setup opportunity
252+ Atk Primal Groudon Fire Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Rayquaza: 86-102 (24.6 - 29.2%) -- 99.5% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock