Ubers CCAT 3 - Skies are Clear

[lousy918]

mainly, our biggest problem right now is Blaziken. Blaziken can force Dialga to switch or meet it with a HJK, and simply play mind games with Deoxys-S, possibly limiting it to no hazards, since it outspeeds at +2. if it SD on turn one we lose, but if we taunt while he protects, then he attacks next turn while we taunt we don't get hazards, and if we hazard and he SDs we lose again. terrakion using x-scissor can be set up on too, but that's rare.
therefore we are left with this options:

• EKiller
• Rayquaza with Extremespeed
• Gira-O
• Giratina (momentum guys, plus we can pick Gira-O)
• EDIT: Physically Defensive Ho-Oh with SR off the field

 

[jackm]

I think we probably need to add a spinblocker at some point; we currently lack the raw offensive pressure to hold off a spin and we have a suicide lead, so... it seems logical. We probably also want another member of an offensive core (a wallbreaker sort o' thing) and a win condition. Now, obviously we don't have 3 slots to make those separate but Spinblocker and win condition can be compressed into Arceus-Ghost (or even CM Giratina-O, which would push up our innovation if we can make an argument for it but would probably end up being inferior to Arceus-Ghost) I think that currently we should be focusing on a powerful offensive Wallbreaker, along the lines of CB Zekrom or something like that. Once we have that, we'll be able to pick our final member (which will, I'd like to note, probably be an Arceus form) to check what we don't already and to provide a win condition.

 

[Bryce]

Arceus Ghost is mandatory right now for a good spin blocker and a win condition.Giratina-O is a shitty mon to act as a game closing sweeper

For the wall breaker slot,Rayquaza is also needed imo.Otherwise Excadrill and Kabutops can easily destroy this team.

 

[lousy918]

that works too I guess, if you don't mind losing 2 or 3 pokes to LO blaziken and 6-0 by leftovers

 

[MMII]

Okay, I'm going to pick on you (jackm) here not because I'm trying to single you out or anything but because you post sums up multiple false ideas that I hope to disprove. I'm even going to use a really annoying formatting just to make the ideas I'm trying to pass clearer and so I can attack one misconception at a time. (no offense to you or anybody, I'd just like this project to succeed even if it's just to serve as an example to learn from)

Once we paralyze Arceus-Ghost, a powerful physical wallbreaker (which we can and should add) that can take a hit will suffice as a method of getting around it.

Okay, there are two things wrong with this. The first problem is that the suggested answer to a top threat and one that has already many easy opportunities to come in and threaten our team is essentially a 2 for 1 trade. We aren't going to get any better than this as even something as physical powerful as a CB Zekrom could fail to OHKO. You even admit the possibility yourself.

and Terrakion can subsequently finish them off if necessary.

Things get even worse when we consider that we are going to have to respond with a choice locked attack meaning that it'll be all to easy for another setup sweeper or wall breaker to come in and pick up where the Ghostceus fell. Again, this is not a good situation to lock ourselves into when Ghostceus is such a common and generally intimidating threat. If it was for something obscure and fairly niche it wouldn't be such a big deal but this is a S rank Pokemon that is known for its ability to pester even prepared offensive teams.

The second problem in that first quote is what you stick in parentheses. Adding a physical wall breaker is a very bad idea when we already decided that we would build around a Latios. The reason why is that there isn't going to be any overlap between the two which means that any serious stall team is not going to have any problem walling Latios with something like Jirachi and then using a Landorus-T to make sure CB Zekrom is never doing anything either. (by the way, these are two solid picks for a rain stall team) Again, this is why an offensive team focuses on a overlap strategy in their core. For example, a Spdef Kyogre may be able to stop a Darkrai from sweeping the team but it is going to be far to weak afterwards to prevent that CM Steelceus from successfully stall breaking. (I think this was an SPL match) We need to focus on executing a similar plan using Latios. (Again, defensive Dialga has no punch so it isn't going to help us break any defensive cores either.)

If we don't use it then we're going to have serious problems with Genesect unless we run another counter

This is exactly what I was talking about when I warned about freaking out over a single threat in my earlier post. Ghostceus was understandable then as it was a legitimate threat but something like Genesect (considering the team we had ATM of course) is the perfect example of a minor, almost non-existent, issue that an overreaction has lead to a poor decision. Genesect did not, in any way, pose a significant threat to our team. Deoxys-S could outrun it and pretty much OHKO it with Fire Punch while Terrakion could do the exact same thing with Close Combat. The only thing any sane Genesect would try to threaten is Latios and, even then, it can't switch in directly because of how fragile it is which means it'll have to rely on a revenge kill or smart double switch to begin to be annoying. Not just that, but it is also going to have to do something about the Scarf Terrakion that could easily switch into any of its attacks with the exception of Iron Head. (which isn't always present) It doesn't stop there, we already knew that there was a strong chance we would have added a spin blocker like Ghostceus to our team who would have given us even more options when it came to dealing with Genesect.

it provides a bit of backbone to our otherwise frail team.

Offensive teams are by their very nature frail. The only exception to this is Bulky Offense but we had already decided against that in the very early stages of this project. That isn't to say Offense doesn't appreciate having something bulky and/or good resists, but this doesn't excuse something like Dialga that offers no offensive Synergy or even any sort of strong general offensive presence.

Choosing any of the other checks to CM Arceus-Ghost would have been detrimental to our team in some way or another

Darkrai is not only a solid check but it also had strong Offensive synergy with Latios as well as with a possible Ghostceus pick later on. It would have admittedly made our team a bit more Genesect vulnerable but as I already mentioned this wasn't anything to be remotely worried about.

I view having a shaky check as just another detriment; the key thing to remember is, we can still repair a shaky check or augment its viability.

This would have been a fine bonus to a Dialga pick if Dialga had brought anything to the team in the first place. This is pretty much the only thing that is attractive about Dialga which is quite disappointing.

I hope I didn't come off as offensive in this post as my goal was to inform not to talk shit or belittle any of you. (Which is why I'm going to ignore this new-found Blaziken phobia in the hopes that some of you catch your own errors or until I'm in a better mood to nicely address it.)

 

[Bryce]

Blaziken?lol.Seriously,losing 2 or 3 pokes?6-0ed by lefties?Blaziken will have an extremely hard time setting up a SD against this offensive team with it's frail defenses and even if it manages,it'll get picked off by Rayquaza's Espeed if we pick it. Blaziken is hardly an issue if you play wisely.Just Sac Dialga if needed or do a ballsy predict. That's how offense is played.

@MM:I would 100% agree if Darkrai was neutral to Genesect. Constantly forcing to switch out multiple pokes and at the same time,switching to disable utilizing Genesect's choicelocked move would make it too much of a pain :/

 

[MMII]

There's also a SubNP set that is pretty good a trolling Genesect switch-ins. In any case, the other team is switching around just as much as us and seeing as Sect can't come in on Latios and could probably barely come in a 2 times on Darkrai it really wouldn't be a problem to have some slight U-Turn damage racked up on Ghostceus/Terrakion. (heck even Ray resists U-Turn) Speaking of Ray, having a Genesect that is working hard and wearing itself down means that once it popped that SD it would be pretty much GG.

 

[Bryce]

You have a point there.However,the opposition will have the switch advantage when they switch via U-turn so it's still an issue. I guess SD Ray would have worked nicely with Gene switching around coz of Darkrai and Latios.

 

[jackm]

While I acknowledge that my logic on Dialga was flawed, I'd like to disabuse you of one idea in particular, that I think pervades this thread as of now: Darkrai is NOT nearly as reliable of a check to Arceus-Ghost as you (in general, nothing personal) are making it out to be. Even if you ignore the potential Focus Blast coming in (which KO's after Stealth Rock+1 layer of Spikes) you MUST have Dark Void ready to take on Arceus-Ghost. Assuming that your opponent didn't use Focus Blast on the switch, one of four scenarios occur:

1. Sleep Clause is in effect. Arceus-Ghost used Judgment on the switch; followup with Focus Blast is a guaranteed KO if it hits. Darkrai can't get close to KOing with an unboosted Dark Pulse. A-G wins.
2. Sleep Clause is in effect. Arceus-Ghost used Calm Mind on the switch; Focus Blast is a guaranteed KO if it hits. Darkrai's Dark Pulse can't even 2HKO. A-G wins.
3. Sleep Clause is in effect. Arceus-Ghost used Recover on the switch. This one could go either way, depending on how much HP Darkrai and Arceus-Ghost have.
4. Sleep Clause is NOT in effect. Arceus-Ghost uses something, Darkrai Dark Voids Arceus. Darkrai wins unless there's a very low sleep count.

For the purpose of who wins, I'm going to ignore hax/untimely misses. Arceus-Ghost wins the Focus Blast one, Arceus-Ghost wins #1, Arceus-Ghost wins #2, Arceus-Ghost or Darkrai win #3, Darkrai wins #4. With the exception of 3 (which is a tossup) the win hinges on Sleep Clause; if it's in effect, Arceus wins. If it's not, Darkrai wins. By extension, Darkrai needs to be able to put Arceus-Ghost to sleep to check it. Now, via prediction Arceus-Ghost can switch to another member of its team to take the sleep (presumably its Darkrai check, something like SDef Kyogre) and Sleep Clause is in effect, which means that Arceus can take Darkrai on without fear of Darkrai beating it. I'm not saying that Darkrai can't act as a check to Arceus-Ghost, I just want everyone to understand that it's not that great of a check. If we use Darkrai as a check for Arceus-Ghost, then we are led into a bit of a predicament; until we figure out what type our opponent's Arceus is, we can't make use of one of Darkrai's greatest weapons because it could open us up to a sweep. I know that Dialga doesn't provide much for the team apart from sponging hits and paralyzing stuff, but using Darkrai (along with no other sponge) to take on Arceus-Ghost would force it into the dilemma I described above, which would take away one of its main proactive weapons.

 

[MMII]

It depends on the set, for reference:

252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Ghost: 299-354 (67.34 - 79.72%) -- 25% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Spikes

252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Ghost: 198-237 (44.59 - 53.37%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Spikes

252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Ghost: 299-354 (78.47 - 92.91%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock and Spikes

252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. +1 0 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Ghost: 198-237 (51.96 - 62.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Spikes

(Didn't mean to have Spikes in but too lazy to edit out and it is a possible scenario)

Offensive CM Ghostceus needs to have a CM up or it's running a strong chance of getting KO'd. Defensive is kinda in a similar boat although 1/4 with SR + Spikes isn't much to get excited over. However, this is all assuming the LO Darkrai set. The SubNP one can screw around with Substitute to force more predictions. If it uses Focus Blast it is bound to get Focus Miss whereas if it spams the safer Judgment it risks a NP or straight up DPulse. If it switches Rai gets a free Sub. This puts the pressure on Ghostceus to make all the right predicts which is pretty risky. Worst case scenario, Darkrai falls and something picks it off which would be a one for one trade. It may not be perfect but it's still more reliable than Dialga and fits it much better with the rest of the team.

 

[blitzlefan]

I know it's probably not my place to voice these thoughts, but I think it's probably necessary that I do so. Keep in mind that the things I say are not directed at any specific individuals, more just the general attitude/atmosphere of the CCAT that's been created. Furthermore, I know that I am probably guilty of some wrongdoing as well, but I would like things to change from this point. So... no insulting me after this post is made, okay? Thank you.

First, guys, let's stop second-guessing ourselves and feeling the need to criticize members of the team after they've been voted in. The time to voice your arguments is before the vote occurs, not after. If strong, comprehensive arguments are made, then votes will be cast in a way that you approve of. If they aren't made, then what's done is done, and you should just move on, and adapt your future submissions to match the current team. I believe that we are intelligent battlers and we should be able to vote for what we believe will work the best, factoring in the arguments that are made in this thread. We vote for the newest team member, and whatever's chosen is chosen. What's the point of voting as a community if individual members that disagree are just going to criticize what's been chosen and call for a revote? The revote for Arceus-Dragon was approved because Arceus-Dragon was basically unviable for a weatherless team, which was agreed on by most, if not all. This redo was an exception to the rule, not the rule itself; I'd really like to erase the mentality of "what I voted/submitted was superior, but wasn't chosen, therefore, we should have a redo". Let's just move on and help make this CCAT the first (to my knowledge) Ubers CCAT to succeed.

Second, I would really like to see the rudeness in this thread, as well as the noncontributing arguments sink to a minimum (again, I am very guilty of this too). This is because the CCAT has condescended into a lot of arguments with some teambuilding instead of all teambuilding like it should be. This pushes away potential posters/contributors, and does not help the CCAT at all. Let's try to keep things civil, no foul language, no personal attacks. If you have a disagreement with somebody else, please create a comprehensive argument with a neutral tone backed with calculations/statistics and good reasoning.

Thanks for reading this (hopefully this doesn't get deleted???) and let's push through this CCAT and make it succeed! We're really close everybody!


To the dilemma at hand, I think a strong wallbreaker could solve a good portion of our problems. I think a Choice Specs Palkia could work? It can abuse weather while adding an incredible amount of offensive pressure. CS Palkia + CM Arceus-Ghost are what I have in mind for our remaining members. Arceus-Ghost's merits we've already discussed, and a Choice Specs Draco Meteor / Rain-boosted Hydro Pump from Palkia is incredibly strong, and can help beat CM Arceus forms. The combination of the two can deal with weather abusers (with the exception of Kingdra I think, which Dialga can deal with). Correct me if I'm wrong though. Thoughts?

 

[lousy918]

Blaziken?lol.Seriously,losing 2 or 3 pokes?6-0ed by lefties?Blaziken will have an extremely hard time setting up a SD against this offensive team with it's frail defenses and even if it manages,it'll get picked off by Rayquaza's Espeed if we pick it. Blaziken is hardly an issue if you play wisely.Just Sac Dialga if needed or do a ballsy predict. That's how offense is played.

@MM:I would 100% agree if Darkrai was neutral to Genesect. Constantly forcing to switch out multiple pokes and at the same time,switching to disable utilizing Genesect's choicelocked move would make it too much of a pain :/

252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza ExtremeSpeed vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Blaziken: 186-220 (61.58 - 72.84%)

deoxys-s does not OHKO with fire punch
terrakion does not OHKO with x-scissor
ghostceus sweeps without dialga

 

[Haruno]

252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza ExtremeSpeed vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Blaziken: 186-220 (61.58 - 72.84%)

deoxys-s does not OHKO with fire punch
terrakion does not OHKO with x-scissor
ghostceus sweeps without dialga

Ghostceus still takes a good 3-4 pokes down with dialga. Terrible way to "stop" it

 

[jackm]

Well, it's what got voted in so we're going to have to work with it.

 

[Bryce]

252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza ExtremeSpeed vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Blaziken: 186-220 (61.58 - 72.84%)

deoxys-s does not OHKO with fire punch
terrakion does not OHKO with x-scissor
ghostceus sweeps without dialga

Why would you Fire Punch when you can taunt?By the way,Fire Punch in sun+Espeed+SR/LO is a sure KO.

Why would you X-scissor with Blaziken on the opposing team when you can do about the same amount of damage with Stone Edge?Scarf Terrak outspeeds +2 Adamant Blaziken btw.

EDIT:Just saying,after scenario 1,Blaziken loses to Latios and Rayquaza easily.

In the Darkrai vs Dialga argument,I'd like to see someone come up with a 'reliable' method to check Arceus-Ghost.Mewtwo and Scarf Zekrom are the best ones I can think of and even they need a good amount of prior damage.SpDef Chansey is the only completely reliable A-G check,not to mention it'll lose to SubCM and SD and not applicable for this team.No matter what we choose,Arceus-Ghost will always do major damage to our team.So I don't think there is any point saying Darkrai/Dialga checks Arceus-Ghost better.Even if you can force it out by threatening it with Dvoid/Twave,it can just come in again when our methods of dealing with it is weakened/disabled.So it's all about using the checks intelligently in a battle rather than the checks themselves when it comes to Ghostceus.

For the last 2 slots,one of them needs to be Rayquaza/Giratina-O for Excadrill/Kabutops.

 

[lousy918]

ok I already mentioned this but prediction basically goes both ways:
scenario 1:
- he protects
- you taunt
- you taunt
- he attacks
- he attacks
- you die

scenario 2 and so on
- you don't taunt
- he sd

also he doesn't need the sun, where is sr coming from
I did mention the difference between lefties and lo
so basically if sr is up we lose
EDIT: But this honestly doesn't matter already k. we're going to run either ghostceus or gira-o, one counters and the other puts blaziken in espeed ko range after flare blitz recoil
edit2: grasseus can check excadrill and kabutops too, but unreliable :p
edit3: at +2 they have no more shared counters.
edit4: also we cannot beat air balloon excadrill with gira-o unless we use the unreliable WoW, otherwise we can only phaze. however without eq we cannot beat subsd versions
edit5: my point is that either he sets up or we don't

 

[MMII]

Quick question, why are we locked into specific sets? I'm not talking about Dialga vs Darkrai or Latios vs Dragonceus but I just mean why can't we go back and change movesets/ev spreads later on in the project? In actual team building this happens all the time as you may notice a threat that you didn't prepare for or you thought of a new team mate that changes the role required of another or opens up more options. I'm not just talking about Dialga, even Deo-S, Terrakion or Latios may benefit from minor set tweaks.


Wobbufett is looking like a cheap cop-out to all of these weather sweepers. We can just stay in and attack them with whatever they come in on and then revenge with counter/coat. Bulky Ghostceus can also tank an unboosted attack but that isn't very ideal. In any case, Rayquaza is still a good choice here.

If we are going to pick a spin-blocker I'm still Ghostceus > Tina-O. Then again, maybe a special attacking Tina set of some sorts over the physical one can help us weaken the checks/counters for another sweeper. Not sure who we would be sweeping with, though, as everybody on our team so far is either too slow to do it or they are slinging out DMs to wallbreak. (maybe this is where a Latios set tweak could help?)


Just spitballin'

 

[blitzlefan]

Quick question, why are we locked into specific sets? I'm not talking about Dialga vs Darkrai or Latios vs Dragonceus but I just mean why can't we go back and change movesets/ev spreads later on in the project? In actual team building this happens all the time as you may notice a threat that you didn't prepare for or you thought of a new team mate that changes the role required of another or opens up more options. I'm not just talking about Dialga, even Deo-S, Terrakion or Latios may benefit from minor set tweaks.

I think we can do this? Like when Darkrai was submitted we didn't have a set yet so I think it's okay. Flexibility is key for this so if you have suggestions it'd probably be okay to voice them, like slight EV tweaks or moveset tweaks would probably be fine. We should probably ask jackm first though. Also, my Dialga set I'm fine with changing; what do you have in mind?

Edit: oops... missed that somehow. sorry

 

[jackm]

Well, I'm fine with ev and moveset tweaks. When I denoted Darkrai as "Darkrai" on the ballot, I was actually referring to Bri's submission. It was the standard sweeper Darkrai set, so I didn't bother to specify its set. With all the others, I felt that I needed to specify what the set was because it couldn't be deduced from looking at the species alone. Sorry for any confusion that caused.

 

[akuto]

are we suggesting darkrai again? ugh! darkrai shares common weaknesses that other members on the team have like, blaziken. Blaziken seems to be the biggest problem we've been having so far for blaziken outspeeds darkrai with speed boost, OHKO's him, and poses a threat to the rest of the team being faster and very strong. Which is why i propose this-

ARCEUS-WATER- Nickname-(Fuck Blazekin)

@leftovers- nature:modest

eve's: 252HP/188Def/68Specatt

~Calm Mind
~Judgment
~Icebeam
~Recover

My reasoning for this is that this set of A-W can take any hit from blazekin, "hi-jump-kick 66.2% - 77.9% 294 - 346" to the arceus in which arceus can turn around and OHKO it with a judgment.This whole set is not just a blazekin counter. Blitz as you said before "been reading for like 15 mins due to my absence XD", "we do not have a HARD check to groundon" well now we do. Arceus-w none boosted judgment V.S standard support groudon 48% - 56.9% 194 - 230 guaranteed 2HKO after SR. slandered wall Lugia V.S +1 boosted icebeam from arceus-water 71.3% - 84.7% 288 - 342 guaranteed OHKO after SR. I don't need to run damage calcs for kubotops in the rain so hes OHKO'ed and Arceus-W can take any hit. Shaymin-sky seed flare V.S my Arceus-w set 82.4% - 97.3% 366 - 432 Guaranteed OHKO after SR but boosted is another story in which arceus can turn around and take shaymin out with an icebeam.

 

[blitzlefan]

hmmmm... Arceus-Water actually seems like a pretty cool way around some of our problems, and is innovative I think? I could be on board with this, but I'll need to think about what threatens our team / what this covers a little bit more.The EV spread / nature I'm a little bit unsure of (I'm still a little curious about the spread in general) and I have an aversion to slow Arceus forms, but I think Arceus-Water could function as an excellent win condition (I remember seeing it once in a warstory or something). Nice! Will comment more / edit this after more thought.

 

[jackm]

To my knowledge, the EV spread is intended to guarantee the KO on Support Groudon after SR; however, if I'm not mistaken you need more investment. When calculating, you failed to account for the extra turn of Leftovers healing that Groudon gets; assuming you're switching into it (and it gets a free switchin) the turn that's expended switching into it allows Leftovers to bring it back to 100%. If I'm correct in my interpretation of the EV spread, you need 208 SAtk Evs to 2HKO Groudon, which unfortunately compromises your bulk. Regardless, countering hit from Blaziken would be tough to argue with this, as with a Life Orb +2 Blaziken runs a large chance of KOing Arceus-Water with HJK.

 

[lousy918]

also idk, seems like we're gonna run a spinblocker. gira(-o) beats blaziken and ghostceus prevents us from using waterceus.

 

[jackm]

In what world does Giratina-O beat Ghostceus? Clearly I'm missing something... also, Giratina-O (as has been discussed) doesn't provide much offensive synergy with any of our team members, and this is something we have to take into consideration.

 

[blitzlefan]

also idk, seems like we're gonna run a spinblocker. gira(-o) beats blaziken and ghostceus prevents us from using waterceus.

@jackm, I think these were two separate clauses; (Giratina-O beats Blaziken), and (Arceus-Ghost prevents us from using Arceus-Water).