Hey all, I'm just gonna post a quick little RMT here of a team that ßasedVictory helped me make. Nothing terribly impactful but I won't ever use it again and I think more people should post their teams but how could I say that if I don't post some myself? This is going to be a pretty short read because I'm too lazy to go into incredible detail right now, but this was a really fun team during the time I used it and was my primary smogon frontier team. My record wasn't great but this team had some good wins against then-dangerous challengers, though I stopped using it towards the end. Anyway at the time this team was made, the metagame was all sand-exca + genies + azu + mega mawile so this team pretty much was made to counter those strategies while still being a solid team and beating other shit. This team pretty much loses 6-0 to bisharp and stall breaker megas not named heracross so I pretty much wouldn't use it at all in this metagame, but it was built at a time when you were using either gardevoir or mawile. I think this team is a nice showcase of the dragon-fairy-steel archetype that was so powerful in the mawile metagame while also showing an unconventional way to beat the metagame's top threats while still being a decently strong team.
nice little anecdote, I think i might have faced like 2 bisharps total with this team and both guys sacked bisharp to take a latios draco meteor so I guess good players other than CBB pretty much just didn't use bisharp over the summer. I'm not really sure why since it was a pretty good pick for the excadrill metagame but oh well.
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 32 Atk / 228 Def
Impish Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
bulky SR lead and a good switchin to mega mawile so that I can force her out once and get free u-turn momentum. the theme of the team is volt-turn to grab momentum and get kills, so obviously I need u-turn mons. landorus-therian was a solid pick because it learns u-turn, beats mega mawile, beats excadrill which was on >50% of teams, and of course gets stealth rock. I don't think there are any other stealth rockers that can do all this while still boasting high overall stats and being strong against the meta's top physical attackers. this mon sees a ton of use right now and it's for good reason.
the ev's and 30 speed iv allow me to get off the last u-turn in lead landT fights, and defense is maximized so I can avoid the 2hko from intimidated mawile play rough and get a free earthquake or u-turn depending on what button I feel like clicking.
Scizor (M) @ Scizorite
Ability: Light Metal
EVs: 248 HP / 44 Atk / 116 Def / 100 SpD
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Roost
- Bullet Punch
- Swords Dance
member #2 of the voltturn core, scizor mega is a great switch for the then-omnipresent assault vest azumarill, which really can't do anything to him. you just switch in and grab free momentum, it's that easy. azumarill is a pretty big liability for my opponents to carry because he gives scizor free momentum and u-turn damage in the early game and wonderful setup fodder for swords dances in the late game. I survive 2 waterfalls and aqua jet with these EVs so it's pretty much just a matter of clicking swords dance, roost, or u-turn and it's always very obvious which is the best move. balloon non-SD exca also fails to 2hko this so if the opponent isn't careful I can just get off an SD and sweep straight up, or get off very powerful u-turns on the counter and switch advantage and then just sweep later. knock off is cool too but roost and bp are mandatory, and swords dance and u-turn are both great on this team for giving me another win condition and of course maintaining momentum. in this metagame, a lot of people had fire fang on mawile as their only fire move, so grabbing sweeps with scizor was often just a matter of weakening mawile into +2 bullet punch ko range and then going to latios to force out azumarill, sacking latios, and then grabbing a sweep. disgustingly easy. people are running stronger mons now and scizor isn't so great anymore but overall a great pick for this team and especially notable for turning enemy azumarills into a huge liability for my opponent.
Magnezone @ Air Balloon
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 56 HP / 252 SpA / 200 Spe
Modest Nature
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Flash Cannon
- Magnet Rise
member #3 of the volt-turn core, magnezone is obviously amazing on a team with 2 other u-turners, grabbing free kills on ferrothorn to help scizor sweep, and in the case of this innovative set courtesy of King , excadrill as well, so long as you get in magnezone safely (i.e. sack something or slow u-turn out, or make a ballsy double switch if you feel like it but no need to risk losing the balloon tbh). in a sandexca-dominated metagame trapping and killing the exca is wonderful because then latios, kyurem-black, and clefable all become incredibly threatening to my opponent. the premise is simple: magnet rise while they iron head or rapid spin, pray to the pokegods that you don't get flinched, and then kill their excadrill that looks awfully foolish using rock slide to do 10% until it dies. volt switch over thunderbolt because it's a free momentum button and most people think you have thunderbolt anyway, so the threat of having it is generally just as good. that's about all magnezone is good for, though on teams that have mawile but no excadrill you can just get in magnezone and take damage or lose zone in exchange for putting mawile into +2 bullet punch kill range and just sweep with scizor. I will admit that if my opponent is italian I change this set to scarf magnezone in order to more easily deal with pinsir because the italians all pretty much just spam pinsir teams. this is one of those sets that you can kind of go based on feel and in a metagame with less excadrill, the balloon is probably less good. in that case, I would also consider throwing reflect over magnet rise to have a last-ditch answer to bisharp.
Kyurem-Black @ Assault Vest
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 248 HP / 44 Def / 200 SpD / 16 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Fusion Bolt
- Outrage
the immortal. this spread avoids the 2hko from life orb thundurus focus blast, survives LO thundurus focus blast + LO landorus focus blast, and has a very high chance of surviving LO latios draco meteor after stealth rock. I think it takes less than 10% from greninja hydro pump but maybe that's roll-dependent. AV kyurem is my one-stop check to the special attackers of the tier. it's pretty easy to use u-turn with landorus-t, catch incoming thundurus, and go into kyurem. Then my opponent has to decide whether he wants to lose his thundurus or try to switch into this thing's attacks with another pokemon. usually they just sack thundurus because offensive and sub kyurem sets are incredibly hard to switch into, so that's often just a dead thundurus or landorus. killing thundo early is nice because then scizor can sweep with just one swords dance as opposed to needing several (or he needs several to sweep but can set them up and roost against all the pokemon that don't die after 1 SD e.g. excadrill). how I play kyurem pretty much depends on my opponent's team. if I see lots of special threats I try to get him in before SR as many times as possible against these special threats so that my opponent either sacks them (usually what happens) or is forced to try to switch around them. in the case of the latter I have magnezone for the ferrothorns and scizors that are pretty much the only things trying to switch into kyurem, so it's pretty easy to force my opponent to sack their special threats to kill kyurem. unfortunately he is SR weak so I have to play a little bit aggressively with latios to get defogs if I want to make this guy last a long time, but once I kill or severely weaken my opponent's special threats I can just sacrifice him.
if my opponent is known for trying to bring stall I sometimes change this set to LO roost kyurem, but usually I am too lazy. AV kyurem with his absurd coverage and power, even uninvested, is such a nice check to offense because his moves still ko offensive mons while avoiding their 2hkos and 3hkos.
Latios (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Earthquake
- Defog
- Roost
latios is cool because I have a magnezone on the team so I often can just click draco meteor as I so please and kill things. additionally, this was a meta where peoples' main latios checks were tyranitar and azumarill, so having a latios on the team to force my opponent to bring these mons out and let one of my setup sweepers get that crucial turn needed to sweep is awesome. defog is really only necessary for kyu-b to do his thing and after that I don't really use it. roost is cool for living though I guess a third attack could also be cool. I mean I have a magnezone so really I rarely click things other than draco meteor. earthquake is cool because once I reveal the roost heatran comes in with impunity, and one earthquake means that my sweepers can sweep with no issues. if I think my opponent won't bring a heatran, I change earthquake to psyshock or thunderbolt but again usually I'm too lazy to do all that research for meaningless frontier matches so EQ is my go-to for that surprise factor with roost. not much else to say, it's a latios on a team with magnezone. Seems like the obvious choice to most people, myself included. I guess I also have a nice little 2 dragons + magnezone core too which is nice. case actually told me to make this a latias to deal with genies better so that is a possible option but case is also a fucking pussy so take everything he says with a grain of salt. more power = more better
Clefable (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 232 Def / 24 Spe
Bold Nature
- Stored Power / Flamethrower
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Calm Mind
clefable is probably the main sweeper of the team. after you trap and kill excadrill and lure/kill mawile, most teams at the time don't have anything for this. it's easy to grab calm minds against the many physical attackers in the tier, and many special attackers aren't safe either. I change up the number of speed EVs that I have depending on whether I feel like being bulky or outrunning mawile. outrunning mawile is not really worth it imo because it's simpler to just catch it on the switch with flamethrower the first time and then deal with it via my dragons or scizor or someone else. it's really easy to weaken mawile with this team since it's a volt-turn team. the bulk is appreciated overall. I don't remember what these speed EVs beat, you'd have to ask case. but yeah I think this team was from around the beginning of the clefable craze that we see these days and nobody really used medicham since mawile was so popular, so sweeping was easy after excadrill died. clefable is another pokemon that sort of turns AV azumarill into a liability for my opponent which is great. she makes a wonderful status absorber as well. Stored power vs flamethrower is basically a question of has my opponent ever used a stall team, ever? if yes, get stored power. this team can wear down mawile and excadrill organically so catching them on the switch with flamethrower is not super necessary. against unknown opponents I use stored power, but against people who have openly bashed stall in public before or are known for using standard teams I just go ahead and run flamethrower to catch them on switches.
threats
bisharp and stallbreaker mew legitimately just 6-0 this team, and taunt gliscor isn't hugely fun either, though not nearly as big of a problem as bisharp and mew. I never faced them in frontier though, or if I did they were in the hands of bad opponents so I still won. well no actually there was one guy who sacked his mew in the early game by switching it into scizor and then lucked me hard later on, so technically he won but the mew had nothing to do with it. in a pinch, I think kyurem survives iron head and if the opponent is bad you can just get them to sack their useful pokemon. that's pretty much the way I deal with these things. Again, this was a meta where those things weren't really seen since everyone was using excasandgenieazumawilefiller
closing words
not much to say, it was just a nice simple anti-metagame team. don't let my shit frontier record fool you, this team worked well against the opponents that I needed it to.
replays / examples of fights against standard teams to show just how good the matchup is against them:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-17148 - vs yan sogeking
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-16992 - vs steven snype
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/frost-ou-874510 - vs lord asterat
tbh actually I don't remember what alts I used since I mostly made a new alt for each game parodying my opponents' names but if you dig around you can find some more replays.
that's all buds. thanks for reading
nice little anecdote, I think i might have faced like 2 bisharps total with this team and both guys sacked bisharp to take a latios draco meteor so I guess good players other than CBB pretty much just didn't use bisharp over the summer. I'm not really sure why since it was a pretty good pick for the excadrill metagame but oh well.
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 32 Atk / 228 Def
Impish Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
bulky SR lead and a good switchin to mega mawile so that I can force her out once and get free u-turn momentum. the theme of the team is volt-turn to grab momentum and get kills, so obviously I need u-turn mons. landorus-therian was a solid pick because it learns u-turn, beats mega mawile, beats excadrill which was on >50% of teams, and of course gets stealth rock. I don't think there are any other stealth rockers that can do all this while still boasting high overall stats and being strong against the meta's top physical attackers. this mon sees a ton of use right now and it's for good reason.
the ev's and 30 speed iv allow me to get off the last u-turn in lead landT fights, and defense is maximized so I can avoid the 2hko from intimidated mawile play rough and get a free earthquake or u-turn depending on what button I feel like clicking.
Scizor (M) @ Scizorite
Ability: Light Metal
EVs: 248 HP / 44 Atk / 116 Def / 100 SpD
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Roost
- Bullet Punch
- Swords Dance
member #2 of the voltturn core, scizor mega is a great switch for the then-omnipresent assault vest azumarill, which really can't do anything to him. you just switch in and grab free momentum, it's that easy. azumarill is a pretty big liability for my opponents to carry because he gives scizor free momentum and u-turn damage in the early game and wonderful setup fodder for swords dances in the late game. I survive 2 waterfalls and aqua jet with these EVs so it's pretty much just a matter of clicking swords dance, roost, or u-turn and it's always very obvious which is the best move. balloon non-SD exca also fails to 2hko this so if the opponent isn't careful I can just get off an SD and sweep straight up, or get off very powerful u-turns on the counter and switch advantage and then just sweep later. knock off is cool too but roost and bp are mandatory, and swords dance and u-turn are both great on this team for giving me another win condition and of course maintaining momentum. in this metagame, a lot of people had fire fang on mawile as their only fire move, so grabbing sweeps with scizor was often just a matter of weakening mawile into +2 bullet punch ko range and then going to latios to force out azumarill, sacking latios, and then grabbing a sweep. disgustingly easy. people are running stronger mons now and scizor isn't so great anymore but overall a great pick for this team and especially notable for turning enemy azumarills into a huge liability for my opponent.
Magnezone @ Air Balloon
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 56 HP / 252 SpA / 200 Spe
Modest Nature
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Flash Cannon
- Magnet Rise
member #3 of the volt-turn core, magnezone is obviously amazing on a team with 2 other u-turners, grabbing free kills on ferrothorn to help scizor sweep, and in the case of this innovative set courtesy of King , excadrill as well, so long as you get in magnezone safely (i.e. sack something or slow u-turn out, or make a ballsy double switch if you feel like it but no need to risk losing the balloon tbh). in a sandexca-dominated metagame trapping and killing the exca is wonderful because then latios, kyurem-black, and clefable all become incredibly threatening to my opponent. the premise is simple: magnet rise while they iron head or rapid spin, pray to the pokegods that you don't get flinched, and then kill their excadrill that looks awfully foolish using rock slide to do 10% until it dies. volt switch over thunderbolt because it's a free momentum button and most people think you have thunderbolt anyway, so the threat of having it is generally just as good. that's about all magnezone is good for, though on teams that have mawile but no excadrill you can just get in magnezone and take damage or lose zone in exchange for putting mawile into +2 bullet punch kill range and just sweep with scizor. I will admit that if my opponent is italian I change this set to scarf magnezone in order to more easily deal with pinsir because the italians all pretty much just spam pinsir teams. this is one of those sets that you can kind of go based on feel and in a metagame with less excadrill, the balloon is probably less good. in that case, I would also consider throwing reflect over magnet rise to have a last-ditch answer to bisharp.
Kyurem-Black @ Assault Vest
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 248 HP / 44 Def / 200 SpD / 16 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Fusion Bolt
- Outrage
the immortal. this spread avoids the 2hko from life orb thundurus focus blast, survives LO thundurus focus blast + LO landorus focus blast, and has a very high chance of surviving LO latios draco meteor after stealth rock. I think it takes less than 10% from greninja hydro pump but maybe that's roll-dependent. AV kyurem is my one-stop check to the special attackers of the tier. it's pretty easy to use u-turn with landorus-t, catch incoming thundurus, and go into kyurem. Then my opponent has to decide whether he wants to lose his thundurus or try to switch into this thing's attacks with another pokemon. usually they just sack thundurus because offensive and sub kyurem sets are incredibly hard to switch into, so that's often just a dead thundurus or landorus. killing thundo early is nice because then scizor can sweep with just one swords dance as opposed to needing several (or he needs several to sweep but can set them up and roost against all the pokemon that don't die after 1 SD e.g. excadrill). how I play kyurem pretty much depends on my opponent's team. if I see lots of special threats I try to get him in before SR as many times as possible against these special threats so that my opponent either sacks them (usually what happens) or is forced to try to switch around them. in the case of the latter I have magnezone for the ferrothorns and scizors that are pretty much the only things trying to switch into kyurem, so it's pretty easy to force my opponent to sack their special threats to kill kyurem. unfortunately he is SR weak so I have to play a little bit aggressively with latios to get defogs if I want to make this guy last a long time, but once I kill or severely weaken my opponent's special threats I can just sacrifice him.
if my opponent is known for trying to bring stall I sometimes change this set to LO roost kyurem, but usually I am too lazy. AV kyurem with his absurd coverage and power, even uninvested, is such a nice check to offense because his moves still ko offensive mons while avoiding their 2hkos and 3hkos.
Latios (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Earthquake
- Defog
- Roost
latios is cool because I have a magnezone on the team so I often can just click draco meteor as I so please and kill things. additionally, this was a meta where peoples' main latios checks were tyranitar and azumarill, so having a latios on the team to force my opponent to bring these mons out and let one of my setup sweepers get that crucial turn needed to sweep is awesome. defog is really only necessary for kyu-b to do his thing and after that I don't really use it. roost is cool for living though I guess a third attack could also be cool. I mean I have a magnezone so really I rarely click things other than draco meteor. earthquake is cool because once I reveal the roost heatran comes in with impunity, and one earthquake means that my sweepers can sweep with no issues. if I think my opponent won't bring a heatran, I change earthquake to psyshock or thunderbolt but again usually I'm too lazy to do all that research for meaningless frontier matches so EQ is my go-to for that surprise factor with roost. not much else to say, it's a latios on a team with magnezone. Seems like the obvious choice to most people, myself included. I guess I also have a nice little 2 dragons + magnezone core too which is nice. case actually told me to make this a latias to deal with genies better so that is a possible option but case is also a fucking pussy so take everything he says with a grain of salt. more power = more better
Clefable (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 232 Def / 24 Spe
Bold Nature
- Stored Power / Flamethrower
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Calm Mind
clefable is probably the main sweeper of the team. after you trap and kill excadrill and lure/kill mawile, most teams at the time don't have anything for this. it's easy to grab calm minds against the many physical attackers in the tier, and many special attackers aren't safe either. I change up the number of speed EVs that I have depending on whether I feel like being bulky or outrunning mawile. outrunning mawile is not really worth it imo because it's simpler to just catch it on the switch with flamethrower the first time and then deal with it via my dragons or scizor or someone else. it's really easy to weaken mawile with this team since it's a volt-turn team. the bulk is appreciated overall. I don't remember what these speed EVs beat, you'd have to ask case. but yeah I think this team was from around the beginning of the clefable craze that we see these days and nobody really used medicham since mawile was so popular, so sweeping was easy after excadrill died. clefable is another pokemon that sort of turns AV azumarill into a liability for my opponent which is great. she makes a wonderful status absorber as well. Stored power vs flamethrower is basically a question of has my opponent ever used a stall team, ever? if yes, get stored power. this team can wear down mawile and excadrill organically so catching them on the switch with flamethrower is not super necessary. against unknown opponents I use stored power, but against people who have openly bashed stall in public before or are known for using standard teams I just go ahead and run flamethrower to catch them on switches.
threats
bisharp and stallbreaker mew legitimately just 6-0 this team, and taunt gliscor isn't hugely fun either, though not nearly as big of a problem as bisharp and mew. I never faced them in frontier though, or if I did they were in the hands of bad opponents so I still won. well no actually there was one guy who sacked his mew in the early game by switching it into scizor and then lucked me hard later on, so technically he won but the mew had nothing to do with it. in a pinch, I think kyurem survives iron head and if the opponent is bad you can just get them to sack their useful pokemon. that's pretty much the way I deal with these things. Again, this was a meta where those things weren't really seen since everyone was using excasandgenieazumawilefiller
closing words
not much to say, it was just a nice simple anti-metagame team. don't let my shit frontier record fool you, this team worked well against the opponents that I needed it to.
replays / examples of fights against standard teams to show just how good the matchup is against them:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-17148 - vs yan sogeking
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-16992 - vs steven snype
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/frost-ou-874510 - vs lord asterat
tbh actually I don't remember what alts I used since I mostly made a new alt for each game parodying my opponents' names but if you dig around you can find some more replays.
that's all buds. thanks for reading
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