Skull 'n' Crossbones: Sticky Web Hyperoffense (Peaked #3)

[aravar27]

This team originated when I sat down to build a VGC team. I realized that I had no idea how to build one, but I still had the motivation to use an odd Pokemon; Marowak.

Now, Marowak has middling speed, and I figured the best way to mitigate that was to use Stick Web. My favorite Sticky Web user in this tier is Leavanny, so I added it to the team.

Given that 1/3 of my team now relies on entry hazards, I needed a way to discourage Defogs. Braviary fit this niche, with its Defiant ability.

I then realized that I was incredibly weak to Ice; I also lacked a faster wallbreaker than Marowak. I added a Pokemon near and dear to my heart: Mega Glalie.

My fifth choice has to be a "fast mode", and I had already has great success with Medicham in this role.

Finally, realizing that I had 5 physical attackers, I went with Eelektross because it adds no weaknesses and has great all-around coverage.

This team peaked me at #3 on the RU suspect ladder, proof: http://imgur.com/XeGbHvb

Marowak @ Thick Club
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off

Marowak is there to break walls; with Sticky Webs up, it just barely misses out on outspeeding 252+ base 80 Speed Pokemon, but hits all the rest for huge damage. Earthquake was chosen over Bonemarang because of 100% accuracy, with Double-Edge being good coverage with Rock Head. Knock Off destroys the Ghost types like Cofagrigus and Jellicent, and the Psychic type Lake Guardians. While it can't pick up OHKOs usually, after one SD and/or prior damage, they're easy pickings. Swords Dance is for predicting the Protect/switch on the likes of Alomomola and Aromatisse, or on a Pokemon like Uxie that can't really touch you.

Leavanny @ Focus Sash
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sticky Web
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off
- Fell Stinger

One of the few useful Pokemon that get Sticky Web, Leavanny is a suicide lead that matches up well with most of the Stealth Rockers in the tier; Sticky Web is going to be clicked 90% of the time since it's pretty vital to the team. Knock Off is always a great utility, while Leaf Blade is decent-powered STAB that can OHKO the likes of Seismotoad and Omastar who may try to get up hazards. Fell Stinger is sort of up for grabs, but Bug STAB isn't the most important thing so I feel comfortable using it to cheese people once in a while.

Braviary @ Choice Band
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Return
- Superpower
- U-turn

Choice Banded Braviary hits like a truck. It also acts as a Defog repellant, as a +2 Banded Braviary basically OHKOs anything not named Mega Steelix. Brave Bird and Return are standard STAB, with Superpower to cover Steel types and U-turn for momentum, though with this kind of team momentum isn't nearly as important as just annihilating with coverage. It's also got a decent matchup against the two relevant Spinners in the tier.

Glalie-Mega @ Glalitite
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Return
- Ice Shard
- Freeze-Dry
- Spikes

With his base 100 speed tier, he outspeeds just about everything when Sticky Web is up, allowing it to OHKO many fast, frail threats that would otherwise be an issue. Return is STAB, Ice Shard is much needed priority, especially for Flygon, while Freeze Dry makes sure that he's not dead weight against bulky Water types (as well as picking up the OHKO on Seismotoad and 2HKO on Gastrodon). Spikes support is good for when Glalie isn't very necessary, allowing my other Pokemon like Medicham to pick up KOs that they might not have gotten before hazard damage.

Medicham @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- High Jump Kick
- Zen Headbutt
- Thunder Punch
- Bullet Punch

High Jump Kick is extremely spammable, with opposing Ghost types having trouble standing up to the rest of this team; after a few walls have been broken, Medicham has the opportunity to go in and destroy things. I've come back from games that were 3-1 thanks to just clicking HJK a few times. Medicham does struggle with bulky Psychic types (like the Lake Guardians) as well as Fairy types (read: Aromatisse) but luckily the sheer damage output from Marowak and Braviary makes it hard for those things to stay in and do much of anything. As for other moves, Zen Headbutt is obligatory STAB while Thunder Punch is great for bulky Waters that may want to switch in, while Bullet Punch is last-resort priority.

Eelektross @ Assault Vest
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
- Volt Switch
- Flamethrower
- Acid Spray
- Giga Drain


The final Pokemon, meant to be there so I don't get 6-0'd by Mega Banette clicking Will-o-Wisp. AV Eelektross provides a slow Volt Switch that allows me to safely bring in my threatening Pokemon, with Grass coverage being important for the Gastrodons and Rhyperiors running around. Acid Spray lets me 1v1 other Eelektross as well as Aromatisse and other bulky special attackers that can't really hurt me; Acid Spray + Volt Switch gives you momentum, punishes a switch, and does a hefty amount of damage if the opponent dares to stay in.


Weaknesses:

- A well-played Fletchinder can do a lot of damage to this team, but that's always going to be the case when running offense.

- Hazard Stacking offense can be extremely threatening. This team has no form of hazard control, so it's a difficult matchup when you come across a Qwilfish that starts stacking.

- Weather teams and other methods of doubling speed: This team relies very heavily on Speed control. Sticky Web can only do much, and with Swift Swim/Sand Rush/Chlorophyll, opponents have a good chance of 6-0ing. Unburden Hitmonlee can also be an issue if you don't have Pokemon that can take one hit.


Thanks for reading!​

 

[col49]

yo

this is a pretty dang cool team you have here, so kudos to that; the implications of marowak are pretty just, which is impressive in and off itself, and i too have been giving a lot of consideration to m-glalie webs of late. that said, i feel there are a few sub-optimal choices made here, which i might derive from somewhat odd ladder biases.

at this stage of ru, i might consider leavanny to be wholly inferior to smeargle as a sticky webs setter, largely on the merit that smeargle has access to far more in terms of disruptive options, making it that much more likely to pick up webs v.offense (the key match-up for webs, obviously). something that also plays a critical role here is that smeargle has the ability to set up sr as well, and while i don't love compressing both hazards onto smeargle, i feel it is important that your other teamslots are used it alternative fashions, as i will explain later. this change will also allow smeargle to suppress spike setters a fair deal better (against all but faster qwilfish, which i also hope to address), which should help with that issue quite a bit.

in terms of your offensive pokemon, i feel as though the choices of braviary and medicham are perhaps not the most ideal for this particular team, and while i can understand the ideas behind each (and i will express my views on those in turn), i feel as though their roles can be altered in such a way that better improves the team's overall performance. as i see it, webs teams need a method of both retaining a decent amount of "speed" to the team, without relying implicitly on webs support, as well as some manner of deterring or otherwise pressuring hazard removal in some way, shape or forme, something that i see expressed nicely in your choices here. that said, and i do mean to accuse you of anything here b.c this is a practice that his been around some time, i feel this particular direction is fundamentally flawed; for instance, while it is true that defiant makes for a manner to punish defog on a direct level, it does not do that much for webs teams, as the defensive teams this set best punishes are not overly aggravated by the presence of webs, and offense teams that do want webs off the field will simply trade their defogger and rk with the next 'mon, a sequence that will occur either which way in an offense v.offense exchange. it is for that reason that i do not consider braviary to be an overly useful facet of webs teams, but rather spike-stack, where it is the defensive teams that desperately want hazard removal, and will get punished heavily by a +2, cb braviary (and while this team does retain spikes, i don't consider it to be pivotal to the overarching success of it).

what i might consider in lieu of these two pokemon would be cb durant and subcm meloetta. what i suggest here, i believe to share similar functions to the choices made originally, but i feel contribute more to the overall flexibility of the team. durant functions similarly to braviary in its ability to both pressure conventional physical walls and keep significant hazard removal sources honest, but unlike braviary, its speed tier provides it a lot more value in games that you can't necessarily get up webs, and its ability to potentially bait problem pokemon such as fletchinder and qwilfish provide it neat additional value. it also has some moderate "defensive" implications, preventing something like an opposing glalie from coming in and nabbing a ko off one of your slower 'mons. subcm meloetta actually fits the function of "defog deterrent" nicely here, given that the most prominent defog user for offense, specially-based flygon, is more-or-less set-up fodder to this pokemon, and its additional ability to set up on bulky waters holds a lot of value for this team as well, given how problematic a pokemon like alomomola can be if it gets its scald burns at inconvenient times.

lastly, in terms of more minor points, i would strongly suggest the use of earthquake over freeze dry on glalie (with the obvious alteration of a jolly nature over naive). my gripe with freeze dry here is that it is simply too weak to be breaking the pokemon you would want it to be breaking, significantly alomomola and jellicent, and the quad weaks you reference are being hit neutrally by return regardless, making them rather poor options. this does restrict its breaking power somewhat, but the ability to push through steels and keep fire-types such as delphox and houndoom honest is rather valuable here. notwithstanding, by laying up spikes on the predicted alomomola / jellicent switch, then pivoting out w/eelektross, you set them up to be handily 2hkoed by cb durant the next time 'round, which is almost as good imo. as for eelektross, the way i see it, the use of hp ice > acid spray and dropping its speed ivs to 30 is just as good for this team. the idea behind this change is that, while beating other eelektross 1v1 is cool, you don't really need that as an option when you can simply underspeed, ensuring one of your nukes switches in for free and punishes that opposing eelektross all the same. regarding hp ice, i just consider the value of being able to threaten flygon to be of the utmost importance, particularly given the hazard-heavy focus of this team.

i hope that my suggestions were of some help to you, best of luck in the future

sets

Smeargle @ Focus Sash
Ability: Own Tempo
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sticky Web
- Stealth Rock
- Dark Void
- Taunt

Durant @ Choice Band
Ability: Hustle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- X-Scissor
- Iron Head
- Superpower
- Thunder Fang

Meloetta @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Psychic
- Focus Blast