Project SV ZU Teambuilding Competition

[diegoyuhhi]

approved by Tuthur, Corthius, Jett, and wooper, OP stolen from the SV PU Teambuilding Competition.

amazing art by sinnabyss ​

Welcome to the SV ZU Teambuilding Competition thread! Each week I will post a new Pokemon, core, set or team archetype, and it's up to you to make the best possible team out of it! Every time you post a new team, you will have to provide an explanation of the building process, strength and weaknesses, and the importable of the team itself. The winner of each week will get their team featured in the Hall of Fame!

Some rules:

1) Don't copy somebody else's team. Pretty straightforward here, we want this competition to be as diverse as possible, and copying a team someone else posted will result in a DQ for that week's round. Taking inspiration is absolutely fine, but I don't wanna see copies of teams.

2) Don't vote for yourself.

3) Don't ask for votes, neither for you or your friends. Let's keep the competition fair and clean.

4) To vote, please post with the three teams that you think should win. For example, if I thought that Team 735, Team 90 and Team 129 were the best, I would post this:

Team 735, Team 90, Team 129

If less then 5 Teams are submitted, you may only vote for 2 teams.
If less than 3 Teams are submitted, you may only vote for 1 team.

Here's an example on how you should post your team:

Description

describe building process, strength and weaknesses, threats etc.

HALL OF FAME

===== October Shifts =====

Week 1: Stonjourner
Scarf Stonj BO by sinnabyss

Week 2: NFEs
DD Haka + CM Giraf Balance by sinnabyss
Mono NFE Fat by love chants
Grimer + Offensive Clops Stall by Joethezombie
Mono Dragon NFE HO by 5Dots

Week 3: Type spam
Type Circle by Joethezombie
Poison Spam (SD Seviper + Weep) by TomatoZause

Week 4: Mid/Low VL
Specs Drakloak Balance by Ruby4

===== November Shifts =====

Week 5: Swalot
CM Chimecho + NP Owl BO by love chants

Week 6: FWG core
Cac + Specs Glace Balance by love chants
SS Magcargo + Bulky Leaf BO by BloodAce

Week 7: Ditto
Triple Choice + DD Flapple BO by 5Dots

Week 8: Rotom-Fan
NP Fantom + Specs Glace Voltturn by sinnabyss

===== December Shifts =====

Week 9: Klawf
AS Klawf Webs by BloodAce

Week 10: Arbok
AV Ludi + Coil Arbok Balance by 5Dots

===== DLC 2 =====

Week 11: DLC NFEs + Tera Stellar
Tera Stellar Ditto + SD Busken Balance by AstilCodex

Week 12: Rock+Ground+Dark January drops
Nacl + Sableye Balance by wooper

===== January Shifts =====

Week 13: Tauros-Paldea
Liechi Pauros + Houndoom Offense by PlayaBeavs

Week 14: Ghost types
TSpikes Haunter + NP Missy Balance by sinnabyss

Week 15: Fire types
Busken + Houndoom BO by Joethezombie

HALL OF FAME pt.2

===== February Shifts =====

Week 16: Shaymin
SD Shaymin + CM Tomb Balance by BloodAce

Week 17: Water types
SD Sneasel + Physical Swanna Offense by wooper

Week 18: Sneasel
Raichu-Alola + QD Bello Balance by wooper
Pyroar + AV Eel Balance by sinnabyss

===== March Shifts =====

Week 19: Flying types
Honchkrow + Band Medi BO by Lizardu''

Week 20: Sneasel-Hisui
Heasel + Dipplin Hazard Stack by Creeperman129

Week 21: Mid/Low VL
CB Banette + NP Duck BO by viet noa

Week 22: Dipplin
QD Venomoth + Scarf Deedee BO by viet noa

===== April Shifts =====

Week 23: Grass types
SD Shaymin + Specs Magmortar Balance by Gymlead11b

Week 24: World Cup
Virginia and its Tanks by E4 Bruno Mars

 

[diegoyuhhi]

And so, what better mon to start this project with than the pillar (pun intended) of SV ZU so far: Stonjourner.

Build a team featuring Stonjourner and post it in this thread with a brief description.
Deadline to submit teams is Friday 6th at 10pm GMT+2.
Have fun!

 

[5Dots]

Life Orb Ston Offense

Decided to build around Rock Polish Stonjourner. Base 125 attack with excellent coverage moves means it's quite dangerous should it get a boost. Hattena was my hazard deterrent and was EV'ed for SpD to be a better stop-gap to Psychics. Gave it Light Screen to be even more annoying. Pawn was useful in case Dartrix or Vullaby attempted to spin my hazards away, and packed Stealth Rock instead of Night Slash for an offensive hazard setter. Picked Scarf Frogadier for Speed control should Webs not be in play and for general Speed control, with Switcheroo to frustrate walls like Vespiquen and Mareanie. Squawkabilly was to break things early-game and form a U-turn core with Frogadier. Could definitely be optimized but it was fun to play around with.

 

[Joethezombie]

-----

Hazard Stack

Building Process: I personally really like ston for its physical defensive merits, as I find it pairs quite well with dusclops, and I decided that a hazard stacking team really felt like the perfect fit for those two. I had a spin blocker, and a rocker, and I added frogadier as a spiker as it has positive matchups into most hazard leads. With a spinblocker, I needed a defog deterrent, and Pawniard was the obvious choice for it, relying on either a speed drop from the common webs right now or a defog to get the +2 attack as opposed to swords dance, and stone edge for huge damage on dartrix with tera flying to combat ground and fighting weaknesses. Instead of a spinner myself, as I find all of the rapid spin options to be quite unpleasant, and I didn't want defog to remove my hazards, I instead went with hatenna for magic bounce to absorb status as well as bounce away rocks and other hazards. Finally, i went with my favorite mon in the format, persian, to have a pivoter as well as fake out and knock off, which are all extremally useful, especially on such a naturally fast mon.

Possible Changes:
Ampharos is a pretty big problem for the team so perhaps either earthquake on stonjorner or swap persian for something that counters it
Persian is probably the only mon that is easily replaced, and there is likely a better choice than it for the role
Ston may want to be more offensive as rocks dont go up in plenty of games, so maybe lean more into its offensive value
Not sure the Hatenna set is most optimal with its last two moves, could be probably be improved
Persian can run a variety of moves or items in its bite slot, so there may be a slightly more optimal set
possibly uturn over smthn on frogadier, not sure

PS: if you have some good tips to improve this team, please ping me on discord

 

[sinnabyss]

Physical Offense Balance

Scarf stonjourner is a neat speed control option that can nail surprise kills on mons like squawk and grumpig. No non-scarfer outruns it barring timid eiscue. Vullaby can help relieve hazard pressure and bring in Squawk who helps break. Fraxure is a dangerous lategame sweeper that benefits from squawk and stonj weakening walls. Ampharos and camerupt round out the team with some defensive backbone. This team struggles a bit with eiscue and glace but they can be worked around.

Replays:
Nothing yet

 

[diegoyuhhi]

Also how the heck do you embed a paste in the sprites

like this

 

[Kiwi]

Scarf Stonj Volturn

Building process:
When building this team, I wanted to work around Stonjourner as a powerful attacker, that KOs remaining mons after a team is chipped. The chipping is done through a hazard stack, created by a Glimmet lead. Typically, you will be able to at least 1 hazard, prioritising stealth rock in the beginning of the game, since Vespiquen has spikes. Furthermore, Vespiquen, Squawk and Lumineon act as pivots, allowing the team to pivot into stronger mons that can defeat threats. Glaceon, Squawk and Glimmet are capable of defeating a variety of mons during the early stage of the battle, as supported by the hazard stack. Finally, lets talk about Ston; Ston is scarfed to outspeed every mon's natural speed stat. After a large amount of damage is done, Ston can be safely switched in via u-turn and can wreak terror on the opposing team. And if you need to switch out to change your Stonjourner's move, it can be pivoted back in by the u-turn mons.

Strengths and Weaknesses:
Strengths: A strength of this team is that leading with Glimmet allows you to naturally pivot around, while setting toxic spikes. For example, in the case of a ground type special threat, you can swap into Squawkabilly. In the case of a water type special threat, you can swap into Lumineon. If you're up against a physical opponent, you'll be just fine. Take Wugtrio as an example... you're guaranteed to set up 2 toxic spikes, which may prompt your opponent to switch out. Power gem and Sludge bomb do great damage, especially creating the strength of quickly defeating bug leads. Furthermore, Glaceon, Squawkabilly and Stonjourner pack quite the punch, defeating most pokemon quickly.

Weaknesses: If you see a Vullaby on the opposing team, you'll want to take it out. Play safely with Glimmet, perhaps switching out, or switching it in when you can guarantee a physical attack. You also need to rely on Squawkabilly to defeat hazard removal mons. Brave Bird will take care of Toedscool, and taunt can prevent Vullaby from clearing your setup. You also need to watch out for tropius, and retain your Glaceon if you see it. Tropius' substitute, dragon dance will pose an issue if you don't clear it quickly. Even if you get leech seeded, avoid switching out, since it gives Tropius enough time to set up.

Replay... also this team got me to 1270 on ladder and I suck at mons so hey

 

[Ruby4]

CB Stonjourner Bulky Offense

I wanted to build around CB Stonjourner because I saw not that many people playing it, and it has a remarkable attack stat of 125. Then, I thought that if CB Stonjourner clicks buttons -> big number -> brain happy, so my goal was to bring it often enough to break walls. I needed some pivot to bring Stonjourner more often as I didn't want it to take too much damage. Frogadier is a really good mon for that, as it can lay spikes and bait out special walls that Stonjourner could easily break. While I was at it, might as well use another mon that could pivot and bring some defensive utility. That's when I decided to use Vullaby. It does everything I want it to do, can't really explain more than that ;-;. Now, this team was really weak to any strong special attacker, so I opted for Sliggoo-H. This thing could tank almost anything without a problem, as long as it didn't lose it's eviolite. This need lacked stealth rocks. Thus, after some testing, I chose Camerupt. It could lay rocks and give some momentum with yawn (also hits quite hard). For that last slot, I didn't know what mon to use. Time to slam Banette ! It wasn't a bad idea, as it allowed me to prevent rapid spin, and could clean after Stonjourner clicked his buttons.

Although I really liked building this team, It is far from perfect. It's annoying to go against Lumineon and won't enjoy knock off to name a few. However, I still wanted to post this team as I had lots of fun while building it. If you have any advice for this team, you can dm me on discord

 

[BaitWiz]

Band Stonjourner Webs

I haven't really built with Banded Stonjourner or Webs before, so I thought now was a perfect opportunity to try both out, as I think the combination could be quite solid.

- The starting pieces to this team. Spidops is pretty definitively the best webs setter with decent bulk and Attack alongside a surprisingly solid movepool, while Banded Stonjourner is one of the most difficult threats to switch into in the metagame. Rock Blast on Stonjourner helps with opposing Substitute Sweepers and works well as an anti-lead versus opposing Webs.

- Offensive Stealth Rocker. I didn't want to limit my Stonjourner's offensive pressure with Stealth Rock, so I opted for a fast, offensive Camerupt to provide the pebbles. I think defensive Camerupt tends to have a nasty tendency to be very passive and get easily chased out by Water-types, so imo this offensive set is a better look on the camel overall, making Water-types more hesitant to switch into Camerupt's moves. Camerupt also acts as a volt absorber versus the likes of Dedenne and Ampharos, something that tends to be difficult to fit into teams these days.

- At this point I have two Water weak mons and a Spidops which isn't exactly thrilled about taking special attacks, so some sort of Water resist of my own was borderline mandatory at this point; I opted for the Water immune Lumineon as it can provide excellent offensive pressure of its own with Hydro Pump while absorbing Flip Turn from the likes of Prinplup; it can also punish setup sweepers with its fairly fast Encore and generate momentum for its team with U-Turn.

- Now that I've reached the fifth member of my team, I realized that I had very few ways to pressure opposing Heavy-Duty Boots spam and could end up really struggling versus threats like Vigoroth and Dunsparce; as such, I opted for a Swords Dance Banette, complete with Tera Fighting Tera Blast to obliterate these two threats while dealing significant damage with the excellent neutral coverage that Tera Fighting grants Banette.

- For my final member of the team, I wanted something to better handle a lot of common Special Attackers and Ampharos fit the bill well with its ability to act as a bulky pivot for its teammates. It can also phase Bulk Up sweepers like Vigoroth and Calm Mind/Nasty Plot sweepers without Substitute with Dragon Tail; you can opt for Roar instead if you want to make sure you can phase opposing mons behind Substitutes, though that does mean you're bringing less chip damage to the table. I opted for a more defensive set here, but I think an offensive set could do quite well as well, if not better.

Strengths: I think this team does an excellent job of abusing teams without removal - Camerupt, Stonjourner, and Banette are all incredibly difficult mons to switch into under webs and are supported well by Lumineon and Ampharos, who can facilitate fairly safe entry for them through pivot moves. It also punishes most removers fairly well - Banette is the only Pokemon that Vullaby can realistically switch into safely while Dartrix isn't a much better story. Spinners are pretty bad in ZU, with Toedscool and Carkol being the only mons worth considering most of the time - neither exactly have stellar defensive profiles and have to make a lot of calls correct just to pull off a single spin, let alone multiple since Spidops can get two opportunities to setup hazards with solid play.

Weaknesses: Zero ground immune Pokemon make opposing Ground moves like Stonjourner's Earthquake, Grumpig's Earth Power, and opposing Camerupt's Earth Power quite problematic to deal with, especially when accentuated by their other attacks. This team also relies heavily on Webs being up to get its offense going; the team's fastest Pokemon is Lumineon, which has decent speed but nowhere near fast enough to handle threats without Webs being on the field.

Potential changes: Some mons with additional speed over Banette or Ampharos could be solid, though you'd have to ensure that matchups against fat Eviolite walls or opposing special attackers, respectively, don't get out of hand. Other more straightforward move changes you can make include Roar over Dragon Tail on Ampharos, Tera Blast with a Tera Type over Rock Blast on Stonjourner, and Shadow Sneak/Sucker Punch over Shadow Claw on Banette.

Overall thoughts: While this team ends up on the slow side of things, I think it's a very solid v1 and could be quite excellent with just a handful of changes. If you end up trying out this team, I hope you enjoy using it!

sorry for no replays lol

 

[diegoyuhhi]

Time's up, and it's now time to vote!

Team 1: LO Stonj Webs by 5Dots

Team 2: Bulky Stonj Hazard Stack by Joethezombie

Team 3: Scarf Stonj BO by sinnabyss

Team 4: Scarf Stonj Voltturn by Kiwi

Team 5: Band Stonj Fat by Ruby4

Team 6: Band Stonj Webs by BaitWiz

Vote for your three favourite teams!
Deadline to vote is Sunday 8th at 10pm GMT+2.

 

[Joethezombie]

1. Baitwiz
2. Sinnabyss
3. Kiwi

 

[love chants]

1. 5dots
2. Ruby4
3. Bait

 

[BaitWiz]

Team 1, Team 4, Team 5

 

[sinnabyss]

1. Ruby4
2. Joethezombie
3.Kiwi

 

[Dr.Unfuntimez]

1: team 3 (sinnbyss)
2: team 5 (ruby 4)
3: team 2 (JoetheZombie)

 

[fish anemometer]

3,5,6

 

[Corthius]

6
4
3

 

[Kiwi]

Teams 2, 3 and 5

 

[Medeia]

1. 5
2. 6
3. 3

 

[plznostep]

6,4,3

 

[LOrd Fernado]

team 3, team 1, team 6

 

[Drud]

4
3
5

 

[diegoyuhhi]

Congratulations to sinnabyss for winning the first week of the SV ZU Teambuilding competition, with a total of 9 votes! Grats also to Ruby4 for second place with 8 votes total.
Next week will be up tomorrow!

 

[diegoyuhhi]

ZU (like lower tiers in general) is often stereotyped as “bad FE mons + good NFE mons”, and thus Eviolite has always been an integral part of the metagames we’ve had through the years. Even now, with the tier struggling with hazard control options, Eviolite is still very important for the functioning of many common mons.
Build a team featuring at least 3 Eviolite mons, and post it in this thread with a short description.
Deadline is Friday 13th at 10pm GMT+2.
Have fun!

 

[diegoyuhhi]

After a bit of discussing with the community, I realised that the restriction for this week wasn’t really a restriction, due to there being many good Eviolite mons, and so I will change it from at least 3 Eviolite mons to at least 4 NFE mons with at least 3 Eviolites, hoping to get more creative teams!