Impending Doom (semi-stall)

[Count Riario]

Hey everyone, I’m Count Riario and this is my first RMT team! I have been playing RU for a few weeks now and got to learn it due to the tutoring program, and I’ve fallen in love with the semistall of the tier!


Teambuilding process:​

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The first ‘mons on every semistall team are very standard – and incredibly good. The RegiMola core is infamous for a reason: Together, they wall an enormous amount of threats in the RU tier. There are but a few that can break through this tier “easily”. And hey, they are just the first two.

The next thing every one of my semistall teams has is a fairy type with heal bell/aromatherapy: This is to check both fighting types and get rid of status effects. The choice between granbull and aromatisse isn’t as easy, but I personally prefer aroma for a few reasons: First, I like the wish support. It is way worse of a wisher than Mola is, but it can still be extremely helpful. Second: I don’t like to miss play rough. Moonblast is strong, has a chance of spatk drops and never misses, it’s very spammable. Last but not least: Aroma is bulkier than Granbull all around, and cannot be taunted.

Then, I decided I wanted to add a defogger. Hazards really hurt this kind of playstyle, so I wanted at least the option to defog them away, with a fast mon in flygon. It’s also my electric immunity (very helpful for alo) and a very hard and yet fast hitter with (jolly) band.

Next I decided to add virizion. With Dugtrio being banned (God bless), this opened up the room for virizion to shine even more in this meta. With its fast speed, its good bulk and great STABs to break through regimola cores, this Pokémon fits on nearly every team.

Last but not least, I decided to add houndoom. I haven’t used houndoom much in this tier before, but I noticed that besides diancie, nothing really enjoys switching in on this, especially with a Life Orb. I also really wanted the pursuit in order to trap hoopa, which hits my team incredibly hard, and with the spread I have, pursuit has a 75% chance to knock it out from full even if it stays in.

After trying out a lot of battles, I noticed that virizion was still a huge problem to this team, and that aromatisse just didnt fulfill its role as a fighting-type check as well. For this reason I decided to drop aromatisse and add the other fairy-type heal beller: Granbull.

The Team​

Alomomola @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 112 HP / 136 Def / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Scald
- Knock Off
​

The first member on the team is Alomomola. This mon is just extremely good in this meta, being able to support the rest of the team with wishes, being able to burn stuff with scald and just stall out every water or fire type in the tier. This spread runs 8 speed in order to outspeed 44 speed jellicent (the standard set) which lets me wish before I get taunted and heal something up, the rest is really the basic standard set which does just work wonders.

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Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 24 SpA / 230 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Seismic Toss
- Thunderbolt
- Toxic​

The next mon is Mola’s perfect partner in crime: Spedef registeel. This takes on nearly every special attacker in the tier and gets up rocks very easily. At first, this registeel had protect over thunderbolt, but I noticed that I was very weak to sub bulk up Braviary, so I decided to dump protect for thunderbolt and give regi 24 spa evs in order to always break the sub and stop that annoying monster. It also has Toxic in order to wear walls like slowking or alomomola down, and seismic toss for general fixed damage.

​

Granbull @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 68 Atk / 188 Def
Adamant Nature
- Heal Bell
- Earthquake
- Play Rough
- Fire Punch​

This monster is my fighting type check, so virizion, medicham, hitmonlee, sawk, et cetera. Ofcourse, these do carry some sort of coverage for Granbull (banded sawk likes to carry poison jab), but that means they have to predict twice: Predict my switch in and predict whether I will make the registeel switch after. Also since Granbull is so fat, it tanks one pretty easily (-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Sawk Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 188 Def Granbull: 190-224 (49.4 - 58.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery) It’s here only to check those, use heal bell to get rid of toxics and burns (especially on alo) and still hit pretty hard. Its fire punch is there for escavalier, which my team really dislikes if its rest/sleep talk, and eq is there to hit a potential magneton on the switch, or even hit magneton hard. Play rough OHKOs virizion and fire punch OHKOs banded escavalier after rocks and has a good chance to kill other forms of escavaliers as well.

Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Defog
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- U-turn​

Next up is the defogger and electric/ground immunity: Flygon. It’s a very basic set, but it works well. It is jolly in order to outspeed a really great deal of mons in the tier, and/or to speed tier with other scarfed flygons. U-turn is there for momentum, and EQ is there for hard-hitting stab (including doing a huge chunk to registeel, which is hard to beat up to this point). Outrage is great for late-game sweeping, which I do a lot with this mon.

​

Virizion @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Zen Headbutt
- Leaf Blade
- Close Combat​

Then the monster comes in. Virizion is the main wall-breaker/sweeper of the team, as it doesn’t care much about a regi-mola core and can set-up and sweep due to its great speed and STABs in the tier. It’s spread is basic, but the movepool was the hard part. Zen headbutt or Stone Edge? Honestly I’m still not 100% sure, as with stone edge, defensive venu walls, and without it, sigilyph and xatu wall. The opponent doesn’t know which one I am running ofcourse, and if you do use the team, feel free to switch it up. I did choose for zen headbutt, because I feel like defensive venusaur is a huge threat to this team, and zen headbutt is a great way to deal with that. After you manage to set up an SD, it has a great chance of OHKO’ing defensive venu with rocks up (+2 252 Atk Life Orb Virizion Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 216+ Def Venusaur: 296-351 (81.3 - 96.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock), and even if you don’t, you easily tank a sludge bomb. This is also one of the reasons this mon has a life orb instead of the common lum berry: I felt like with the heal bell from granbull, I didn’t need the lum as much, and with Life Orb it takes on venu better as well as 2hko alomomola (252 Atk Life Orb Virizion Leaf Blade vs. 120 HP / 136+ Def Alomomola: 281-330 (56 - 65.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery). It just hits a lot harder because the 90 base attack stat is somewhat underwhelming.

Houndoom @ Life Orb
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Fire Blast
- Dark Pulse
- Pursuit​

The last monster is one I’ve slowly fallen in love with: Houndoom. Now it seems like a decently gimmicky set due to nasty plot pursuit and timid + 4 attack evs, but let me explain here. Firs the pursuit: Hoopa poses a big threat to my team. Sure, I do have knock off on alo for it, but I definitely don’t like switching into it, and it might trick me a choice scarf or something like that. Registeel also walls a lot, but focus blast does 2hko. So I started thinking about running a pursuit trapper. I considered sneasel for a while (ice STAB is always amazing, as well as priority), but I figured my team would be too physically offensive. So I opted to go with houndoom. Now as for the spread: with a hasty nature and 4 attack ev’s, this allows me always knock out hoopa with pursuit even if it stays in. I also switch into anything that’s not focus miss and pursuit to kill it. This monster is also a late game sweeper. If the opponent does not have a diancie left, or a fast threat to kill me with, it cleans up a lot of the times. Also, if you win a potential speed tie with SD drapion, you have a good chance of knocking it out:
252 SpA Life Orb Houndoom Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Drapion: 265-312 (94.3 - 111%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

Threats​

1. (defensive) Venusaur: Defensive venusaur is a pretty annoying mon to deal with for this team, because if it has leech seed, it can stall out registeel, giga drain threatens alo, sludge threatens both aroma and virizion, and houndoom nor flygon want to switch in to take damage, especially with rocks up. Yes, houndoom can kill and virizion and flygon dish out a big attack, but the switch-ins are small and pretty important.


2. Mega Camerupt: Mega Camerupt is basically a threat to every (semi-stally) team, because it is a wallbreaker. I do have flygon, which takes most attacks (no hp ice), and threatens it out with earthquake, as well as alomomola, which takes fire type attacks easily and threatens it with scald (2hko usually), as well as a flash fire mon in houndoom, but even still it’s hard to play around. The only thing that can OHKO it is flygon with EQ, but locking yourself into Earthquake is often not optimal.

​

importable

Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 24 SpA / 230 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Seismic Toss
- Thunderbolt
- Toxic

Alomomola @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 112 HP / 136 Def / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Scald
- Knock Off

Houndoom @ Life Orb
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Fire Blast
- Dark Pulse
- Pursuit
- Sucker Punch

Granbull @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 68 Atk / 188 Def
Adamant Nature
- Heal Bell
- Earthquake
- Play Rough
- Fire Punch

Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Defog
- U-turn
- Outrage

Virizion @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance
- Zen Headbutt
​

Huge shoutouts to Def. Not John Cena for helping to build, ly bro <3

Also shoutouts to my tutor TraceofLife for looking over the team for me and making some changes :]

EDIT: I changed Aromatisse for Granbull (because testing showed it worked better) and made flygon scarfed :]

 

[Count Riario]

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Ping_Pong_Along]

This looks like a pretty solid team. I'm sure there are some outlying threats to the team that I'm not thinking of, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. As such, all I have are tweaks.

I'm a bit curious as to why your Mola is invested so much in HP. Sure the wishes are bigger, but losing the SpD investment makes it more difficult to pivot in and get those wishes off. I don't see the point in putting 8 into speed either. It's not like it cares about outspeeding Jellicent since it isn't running Toxic.

I'd consider going Twave on Granbull over Earthquake. It loses you coverage against Fire types, but your team's already decently equipped to deal with those. I always invest 20 in Atk to ensure an OHKO against Virizion after SR damage. If you do drop Earthquake though, Mega Camerupt can switch in easier and you wouldn't get to hit Emboar as hard.

I've found Nasty Plot Houndoom to be really underrated. That thing can be really scary after a boost for defensive teams. Cool compression with Pursuit.

I'm not quite convinced as far as Life Orb goes for Virizion. The power is nice, but it's a lot easier to complete your sweep when you're relatively safe from status.

I'd probably go back to defensive Flygon since it would improve your chances against Mega Camerupt and make hazard stack less of a danger. The spread I use is 252 HP / 148 SpD / 108 Speed with a Careful nature. This lets you outspeed Magneton. Full HP and full Speed should also work well, but I haven't tried it.

Again, this looks like a cool team that should do really well.

 

[Count Riario]

Hey, thanks for the reply :]

As for Molas HP: It is indeed to get off the biggest wishes to get everything as healthy as possible, I honestly haven't tried any mola with less than max HP, but I will definitely look into it. As for the 8 speed EV's, even though i can't toxic jelli, it's really nice to be able to get a wish off and pass it into whatever I want to get back up to full in order to beat it (either houndoom or virizion).

I have also considered t wave on granbull, but I found it to be counteractive, as it made it so that i couldnt toxic or burn those mons, therefore not being able to stall it out (like if the opponent switches into alo on the t-wave), and as you said, earthquake helps me out with some weaknesses. As for the attack EV's on it, thats pretty interesting, will try it out a bit.

The Life Orb on virizion is usually needed to get 2hko the likes of defensive venu (big threat) and alomomola, I feel that with heal bell, it just works the best, but yo ucan definitely switch it up for lum if you feel like that fits better.

I do actually have quite some trouble with switching into mega camerupt, as my best switch in is usually HP-iced on the switch, but the choice scarf flygon is actually detrimental to the team, for killing scarfed mons or jolteon for example.

That's just my thoughts on it though, or at least what worked so far for me. I'd love to hear your thoughts :]

 

[col49]

what up

i like this a bunch; it utilizes a few options i consider generally mediocre (i.e. lo viriz) that are made effective in the context of the team at hand. it's just shy of bog standard, but there's enough minor variance to keep folks guessin. tre finchinator, its a good look. i would, however, note a boosted vulnerability to boosting psychics that might result from a less dedicated pursuit user here, particularly in the case of colbur meloetta and sigilyph, stuff that's outpaced or otherwise in sufficiently responded to by your defensive base. now, the most immediate fix would be scarf drap > doom and cb gon (a swap of rolls that keeps that same breaker / revenger mindset while buffing that particular mu and yielding tspikes absorption) w/tox > knock on mola, and I would bear that in mind for reference. however, that does fall even further into prototypical ladder balance and i think abandons some of the teams base here, so allow me to steer off that for a minute.

gonna echo the previously mentioned sentiments on mola spread; you will observe a mild drop in returns from wish, but as a whole you net far more bulk on ur mon, which will be preferred unless you've taken to letting your other dudes get to ~20 before determining them to be worth wishing up. another minor tweak would be to utilize unnerve > flash fire on doomer. it cannot be understated how much value doomed bets in being able to circumvent colbur berry in this meta, what with how critical it is for slowking / jellicent to buff themselves against pursuit users. it also finds some small utility in improving its ability to rk meloettta as well. i would also lean just a bit more towards sucker punch on it here. now this one boils down to subjectivity a bit more than the rest, but i feel as though sigilyph is more pressing an issue for this team than hoopa is; far more free turns are yielded readily to the former than the latter, and without consistent hazard control i can't in good faith expect houndoom to consistently pressure it via pursuit. give both their fair shake, but i do feel sucker will prove more consistent for you.

a final, minor touch i would consider here is a slight offensive investment on granbull, mostly as a means of keeping escavalier more fully suppressed and keeping sigilyph from netting free turns as readily. my thoughts were on 248 hp / 64 atk / 196 def @ adamant, which would ensure the ohko on esca after sr and virizion / offensive gonner from full, in addition to pushing a 2hko on sigilyph (mostly as a means to force a roost) and swing occasionally iffy fighter match-ups such as gurdurr into your favor. keeps more pressure on camel too, which needs to predict v.momogon but is always theoretically a nuisance. in my experiences, the drop in bulk is something dismissable when you're playing with wish support, but feel free to try it for yourself!

hope i could be of some help, gl bud

 

[Count Riario]

Hey man, thanks for the feedback!

First of all, I actually really like the idea of Unnerve on houndoom for colbur berries, I hadn't thought of that yet and it could really come in handy. I rarely use flash fire anyway. Second, I do agree that sucker is nice for the team, as it lacks priority, so i decided to make houndoom Hasty nature with Sucker Punch > Nasty Plot, And as for the granbull: I do like the idea of making it able to 100% OHKO both Virizion and escavalier, I am however a bit iffy about the ammount of bulk I would have to trade for it.

As for alomomola's spread, as both you and Ping Pong Along have mentioned, I'm not entirely sure what spread to run then, do you have a suggestion for me?

I'm gonna try out these sets (the 68 attack adamant granbull as well) and get back at you!