Other XY OU Team's Staples post#61

[Reymedy]

Hello everybody.

Given how this part of the forum is crowded with threads about single pokemons (that I dont find that interesting), I decided to start a discussion on what is, in my opinion, the heart of any metagame : the XY OU team's staples.

XY TEAM'S STAPLES WE'VE FOUND SO FAR :

- A Mega
- A Ghost type
- A Water type
- A Steel type
- Stealth Rock
- Hazard Control (Rapid Spin/Defog/FastTaunter)
- A Ground immunity
- An Electric immunity*


Staples on the line :

- Fire
- Knock Off
- Dragons
- An Electric immunity


So first, a little introduction to this obscure notion for many players.

By "team staples", I mean that the successful teams in any given generation, share a couple of things in common. I also like to call it "teambuilding" shortcuts, because when you're building, you always try to respect a couple of rules, like if they were Bible stuff.

For instance, I think that a lot of players would agree that in the past generation, many, if not almost all the classic teams share in common :
- A Water type
- A Dragon
(= two waters resistances at least in general, but sometimes you see teams getting rid of a Dragon for another Water resistance, you never get rid of the Water pokemon)
- A Steel
- Stealth Rock
- A Scarfer (or Chlorophyll/Sand Rush/Alakazam etc.. : a revenge killer)
- A Ground immunity (Flying/Levitate)
- An Electric immunity (Ground/VoltAbsorb)
- A Fighting resistance (which often goes with the Ground immunity, but given how this GEN has seen the rise of Fighting pokemons, I think this point is important enough to be stressed)

These are basically the rules, that almost any builder follows when building for the 5th GEN, consciously or not. Obviously, it DOES NOT MEAN that you can't build a successful team without some of these staples. This is the metagame, you can follow it, or try to be a bit more original and bypass some of these "teambuilding shortcuts". It doesn't change how present, and powerful, these staples are for the 5th GEN.
A quick note : I tried to make no difference between defensive/balanced/offensive. Basically, no matter where you team stands on this spectrum, it probably respects a good portion of these guidelines. If I wanted to be more specific, I could have added that offensive teams have always at least one Fighting pokemon, and that stall teams probably allways have Jellicent. Keep in mind that we're not trying to find how to build GEN6 offensive teams, but to find general staples.



So the point of this thread is : Finding the XY OU team staples.

I listed the 5th GEN ones so we could start from (A) to get to (B) (= GEN6 staples) so here is what you should focus your posts on :

=> Which 5th GEN staples have lost their suitability ?
=> What are the NEW GEN STAPLES ?



I might start this discussion by explaining my personnal position of this matter :

=> Which 5th GEN staples have lost their suitability ?

- Dragons. Fairies are not that present in my opinion (sorry

), however Dragons are still really getting rare. Maybe the fact that Megas are replacing them at the top of the Power scale ? Well anyway, they are probably hands down, the biggest losers of today's GEN.

- Yea, this one was easy. The other one on the line is probably the Fighting resistance.
I mean, many teams will respect this point anyway, but probably not because the Fighting pokemons are as strong as they were during the last GEN. No, the Fairies (

) and the new Ghost pokemons (

), are probably the ones to blame here.

- The last GEN5 staple I wanted to talk about aswell is "The Scarfer".
This isn't that much of a staple at the moment. Beside

(granted, this one is everywhere), you don't see any classic Scarfer. However, a lot of good priority users have arisen (many of them are the Megas, Suckers Punch users,

,

..). On top of that, in my opinion, Revenge killer are the last part of the puzzle that is a Metagame :
As soon the most OP sweepers will appear, you'll see some Scarfers stand out of the crowd to become an answer. So I'd say that in the future, I'm pretty sure that revenge killers will still be a staple. We just don't know who has to be revenge killed yet.

=> What are the NEW GEN STAPLES ?

This is the tough part. I won't take any risk and start with :

- The Megas. Yea, obviously, Megas (

) have quickly established themselves as a staple. It was pretty predictable, and at the moment, there is NO REASON to not use a Mega.

- Increased Hazard control. Almost every single team has Defog or Rapid Spin. The only ones that don't are HO with

lead or something of this sort (read : a fast taunter to prevent their use for the short game duration expected). The presence of an excellent Rapid Spinner in Excadrill, and the buff of Defog made this staple easy to predict.

A lot of the past GEN staples are still really present, such as the ever-present Water pokemon, the Electric immunity pokemon, the Steel pokemon, Stealth Rock etc..

Which all these informations, it's pretty easy to see why

is so good for instance.
By itself, it already gathers :

- The Steel type
- The Electric immunity (Ground type)
- Hazard control (Rapid Spin)
- Stealth Rock
- AND POSSIBLY, the Scarfer staple (by that I mean : Sand Rush -DONT PLAY SCARF EXCA PLZ GUYS-)

Pretty insane ? He can be compared to GEN5 Chomper

, able to gather so many good things in one single pokemon = you're gonna see this guy a lot.

Hide

NOW OUTDATED

Another example ?

- Steel Type
- Ghost Type

Basically, he can enjoy the best defensive AND the best offensive typing. That plus its ability to go mixed turn

into the best ambassador of the Ghosts in OU.
And thats all ? Yea, that's all. However, its ability + King Shield + its potential stats = there could not have been a better user of this combination. On top of that, Ghost are important, but also RARE.

Thanks to that thread, hopefully, you'll be able to build, faster, better, and most of all : to understand why your team works, or why it does not (and how to fix it).
Note : - You DON'T NEED to talk about GEN5, you can also simply list what you think are the GEN6 stamples.
- Please, make substantial posts. I really would be sad to see 1-line posts in a discussion like this. I'm not asking you to write big walls of text (my own part about my opinion isn't really long), but make sure you BACK UP EVERY SINGLE ARGUEMENT.

So yea, your turn.

 

[November Blue]

I think that a Ghost-type will become a solid team staple this gen. With so many powerful pokes at the top of the food chain right now, and the increased number of Normal-type moves, Ghost's immunities are more useful than ever.

They're also outstanding as an offensive type. Aegislash's Shadow Ball is one of the best special attacks right now, and the neutral coverage is incredible.

 

[NotSoClutch]

To me, it seems like every team has a ghost, so I try to carry at least one resistance to ghost or at least something that can handle most common ghost types on each one of my teams. I wouldnt necessarily call this a staple, but with mandibuzz rising in usage and both physically and specially defensive ttar becoming so widespread in use, it does seem to be a relatively common practice. In that same line of thinking, ghost types seem to be a staple at this point in time. Gourgeist and trevenant are very interesting pokemon to say the least and aegislash is a great wall breaker and tank this gen. These three pokemon add to the already imprssive lineup of ghosts from the past generation to create what I would consider the most dominant type this Gen. Ghost only has one resist and one immunity this generation and a lot of my opponents seem to be taking advantage of this.

 

[eesang]

With Talonflame's hype from the beginning, it seems every single team is running a check with Flying+Fire resistances or a Steel type with a Fire neutrality.

Rotom-W is on so many teams. Tyranitar is also a common appearance.

Rock typing alone makes a good Talonflame check, except there were only 2 in OU last gen: Terrakion and Tyranitar. And even then, 252+ Atk Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 171-202 (52.7 - 62.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Does anyone think the popularity of Talonflame is going to go down or is going to remain a solid Scarfer replacement for awhile?

 

[Hidious]

I think dark will be a very common damage type this generation. It offers super effective coverage against the omni-present aegislash, and is now neutral to steel making it much more spammable than earlier generations. The problem is that there aren't really that many good dark pokemon in ou. I think instead of seeing pokemon like houndoom rise up to check things like aegislash, we'll see pokemon start to carry more dark attacks as coverage options

 

[lopsided]

Something interesting I didn't expect coming into this gen but noticed more and more over my time laddering is the rise of the Dark STAB which I feel is the result of several factors
1) Perhaps most importantly of all, the Steel nerf means that Dark is only resisted by itself, Fighting and Fairy. As stated in the OP, Fighting's presence in OU has certainly fallen from grace and Fairies are far and few between. In essence this early meta has provided Dark with a pseudo Pre-VI Dragon STAB where it has very few resists (it isn't uncommon to face teams with no answers to this at all even)
2) Most Dark types have made it through the gen transition with direct or indirect buffs. Mandibuzz is perhaps the most prolific of these, gaing immunity to spore, buffed up knock off and is not only one of the best but also one of the few natural users of Defog. Other mons such as Crawdaunt, Sharpedo and Weavile all gained egg moves to better give them the competitive edge whilst some benefit from the contextual factors behind the new meta (e.g. predicted defog defiant boosting Bisharp on the switch in)
Hell, I'm running Knock Off on many bulky attackers now just because it's that good without STAB.
I appologise if that wasn't the best worded, I'm primarily one to stalk the forums and play but I just wanted to share my thoughts

 

[Ryuuki]

I have too agree with the lack of Choice Scarfers in this gen is something I didn't expected to see this early in the meta. I haven's seen many Scarfed pkmns when I've played. But right now I go with never leave home without a revenge killer or thunder wave on something bulky (Deoxys-D). A revenge killer (Taloonflame anyone?) is something that you need right now as you never know what will sweep you or when it will sweep you.

Like persons above said, Ghost-types are on like every team and it's very hard to not take account for the ghost types when you build a team. Ghost is a really good typing this gen and I don't epexct it to change anytime soon.

Personally I also carries something to kill Fairies, as bulky fairy types is also pritty common. They are not like Ghost-types but I still take them into account when building a team as they have some nice resistances.

Rotom-W is something I also take into account when building a team. It feels like it's on every team and it always manage to create havoc for my team.

eesang I think that Talonflame will stay around the same, it's a good revenge killer and Scarfer and it checks plenty of things right now. (like Terrakion)
Hidious I don't think that dark types will raise this gen, they are often too frail to get there job done in checking ghosts and they often carry a fighting move. Tyranitar is the exception but he too dies to the fighting attack. Knock Off is generaly a great move that any bulky/tanky mon can use if it have a spare moveslot.

 

[Fafnir]

I'd go as far to say that Ghost is going to end up replacing Dragon on your original list.

With Talonflame's hype from the beginning, it seems every single team is running a check with Flying+Fire resistances or a Steel type with a Fire neutrality.

Rotom-W is on so many teams. Tyranitar is also a common appearance.

Rock typing alone makes a good Talonflame check, except there were only 2 in OU last gen: Terrakion and Tyranitar. And even then, 252+ Atk Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 171-202 (52.7 - 62.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Does anyone think the popularity of Talonflame is going to go down or is going to remain a solid Scarfer replacement for awhile?

I think Talonflame's popularity will start to wane once everything starts to settle. Rocks absolutely murder the poor bird, and unlike Volcarona, it just doesn't feel like it has the effect to make it worth putting in the effort to safely get in. That's not to say it won't stay in OU, but I think there will be a point where we see it slapped on to almost everything.

 

[ShadowMarioGalaxy64]

Important note when I refer to team building on my end: assume Pokebank.

Ghost-Types have been important since Gen 1--granted, the only Ghost back then was Gengar, but they always played an important role in the metagame. They were immune to wrap and Hyper Beam in Gen 1, Gen 2 introduced Rapid Spin, which Ghosts became legendary for Spin-Blocking, Gen 3 brought along Dusclops, the first truly defensive Ghost-Type we've seen, and gave Gengar Levitate so it could not only Spin Block, but also have an immunity to Spikes, Gen 4 brought along Mismagius, Dusknoir, and Giratina, as well as fixing Shadow Ball, and Gen 5 introduced Jellicent, regarded the best Defensive Ghost in that meta. Gen 6 brought along Aegislash, one of the biggest threats to be born. I merely wanted to show that Ghost-Types always held a role in every meta--this one being no exception. Ghost-Types gained with the Steel-Nerf, with Shadow Ball now only having a single resist and a single immunity, which a coverage move (Focus Blast) can fix this issue. We also received Mega Banette, giving the much hated doll some life. Is a Ghost-Type important in this meta? I wouldn't say it's entirely necessary, but with Pokemon like Aegislash hanging around and Gengar still being the little troll it's known for, they definitely make good teammates.

While I wouldn't say a Water-Resist is as important (at least not until somebody makes DrizzleSwim important), a Water-Type has value, especially in the top of Pokebank. Rotom-W is a Pokemon that requires no introduction; you've seen it all around by now. It's the best Pokemon used to check Talonflame and still maintains its abilities to check previous threats. Only thing is, Excadrill can Revenge Kill the washing machine thanks to Mold Breaker. Speaking of which...

If there was a Pokemon that gained from losing its Ubers Status, it would be all of them. ...what? They're ALL good, but no other has seen the light as much as Excadrill. You brought it up. It has so many great merits. In a team I'm trying to make for actual use, Excadrill spins, sets Stealth Rock up, attacks...it's a work of art, really.

Resisting Ghost, Dark, and Ground (or immunities to them--either works) are rather important. Dark-Flying types actually come to my mind when I think of these attributes, particularly Honchkrow. The catch is that its defenses are...NOT good. A Pokemon that combines the Ghost-Dark Resist and Ground Immunity, but also carrying other valuable traits, is the often-shunned Hydreigon. Okay, so Fairy-Types exist to ruin everything it can do and its speed is just below what it should be. You might be forgetting about its good traits. Being a Dragon-Type is good besides the Fairy weakness, but being a Dark-Type is big. One could also argue that Choice Scarf Hydreigon is a good idea thanks to its access to many attacking options like Draco Meteor, Flamethrower, Flash Cannon (how?), Focus Blast, Superpower, and even U-Turn. A core I've used once consisted of Gengar, Excadrill, and Hydreigon; defensively, they covered each other quite well.

I'll just get out how important Stealth Rock is...so many threats are weak to Stealth Rock and those that aren't...every little bit helps. Stealth Rock is still difficult to keep up now thanks to Defog, though even Defog won't cut it on some teams. Rapid Spin is still just as important as before, and the threat of either (or both if you're crazy) might prompt you to pack a Ghost-Type and something to deal with Flying-Types (I'm looking at you, Aegislash).

Packing an Anti-Meta Pokemon has been done before. Previously, Mamoswine was considered the epitome of Anti-Meta, capable of OHKOing Dragonite through Multiscale, carrying Priority, access to Stealth Rock, and if you wanted to screw around, Endeavor with Priority and Focus Sash. The meta still hasn't settled entirely, so saying what is and what isn't meta is too hard to way; we'll know in a few months.

That's all with what's on my mind right now. If I think of something else, I'll likely post again with the threats.

 

[Jaroda]

Two mandatory staples if you ask me are that 1. You need some form of priority on your team, be it prankster or priority attacks, if you don't have a means of ignoring speed tiers you can too often find yourself swept. Doesn't matter how fast that scarf user is, you can revenge with a priority attack if they didn't choose one themselves. And 2. you need a means of absorbing or healing status moves, particularly with Rotom-W throwing out Wows and Thunder Waves left and right. Be it Guts, Rest, Substitute, Lum berry, Aromatherapy, Poison Heal, or just Fire, Electric and Ground types you will have a hard time getting your team off the ground if Sableye just burns them all first.

 

[Rein-San]

Definitively Priority, This is everywhere in the current meta.

Azumarril's Aqua Jet, Talonflame's Brave Bird, Bullet Punches, Mach Punches, Pranksters, etc etc.

The main cause for me it is that this Gen Speed isn't really that important, as the majority of threats are rely on bulk these days, often using Priority to make up for it. So it isn't that unbelieveable that Scarfers are being less used.

For me this is a good thing, it allows more Bulky Pokemon to shine instead of trying to speed crawl everything out there, of course, Speed IS still important as hell.

And 2. you need a means of absorbing or healing status moves, particularly with Rotom-W throwing out Wows and Thunder Waves left and right. Be it Guts, Rest, Substitute, Lum berry, Aromatherapy, Poison Heal, or just Fire, Electric and Ground types you will have a hard time getting your team off the ground if Sableye just burns them all first.

I agree on this one, but I think the most importatn Status you have to watch out these days is (Besides Sleep) Burn.

With the nerf of Special Attacks in general most people rely on Physical attackers to deal damage/wallbreak/sweep, and burn pretty much shuts them all off, doesn't help that most Megas (Most likely the primary offensive means on a team) Are physical (M-Lucario, M-Mawile, M-Pinsir, M-CharizardX(Of course this one is immune), etc etc) Also Physical walls are more important than ever due to this as well, YOU NEED a means to stop Physical attackers this Gen.

My two cents here.

 

[MoosyDoosy]

For defensive teams, Mandibuzz will definitely become a staple, especially with all the powerful physical attackers out there (Megas, etc). It's Foul Play does a shit ton of damage, and now that Steel has lost its resist against Dark, Mandibuzz becomes a decent counter for Excadrill and other physical Steel types. It also gives hazard control, another bonus for it, as well as reliable recovery which is amazing. It's also amazingly bulky, being able to shrug off some super effective hits and then retaliating with a Foul Play. It also gets Toxic, and can Toxic Stall out many pokes. Overall, a poisoning, bulky, yet being able to attack, badass bird swooping down to put physical attackers into their place.

 

[Haze Milotic]

Aegislash is probably the Pokemon that I've seen on every team. And on every team that doesn't have Aegislash, you have some counter to it. He is definitely a new staple in the pre-Pokebank metagame, although I don't know if that will change or not once Pokebank is released...

Another Pokemon that I've seen on a lot of teams is Rotom-Wash. The only problem he has is Grass types (which honestly, aren't used that much) and Mold Breaker Excadrill.

For defensive teams, Mandibuzz will definitely become a staple, especially with all the powerful physical attackers out there (Megas, etc). It's Foul Play does a shit ton of damage, and now that Steel has lost its resist against Dark, Mandibuzz becomes a decent counter for Excadrill and other physical Steel types.

^This. I run a Mandibuzz and in a metagame that has a lot of boosting going on, it hits very hard with Foul Play.

 

[sidakarya]

Ghost definitely seems to take Dragon's place in this metagame. While there aren't as many ghosts as dragons in Gen 5 (Ghost is a very rare type), there are still several to choose from: for offensive teams are Gengar or Aegislash, and for defensive teams Jellicent, Trevenant, and Gourgeist. Almost every team I see or make has a ghost-type.

Dark-types have been indirectly buffed in several ways (the Ghost-resistance being chief, but others like the Knock Off buff) and they're very good now. Tyranitar is the most common of these: thanks to the sand nerf, it's easier to place on a team, that would otherwise hate the passive damage of Sandstream. Nowadays I think better of Hydreigon because of the importance of Dark in the metagame. The massive weakness to fairies sucks, but the Dark-type is the main reason, it has a chance of at least not dropping to UU.

Almost every team has a mega. (Actually I should say, every team has Kangaskhan and Lucario, but they're absurd even for megas.) Still, new powerhouses like Charizard, Pinsir, and Mawile are seen even with the presence of those two and probably will become more common should at least one of them disappear. For Scizor, Garchomp, Tyranitar, and Garados, megas grant new niches to add to their old sets, and M-Venusaur is quite common in more defensive teams.

Priority is ever-present. Some examples being: Bullet Punch (Scizor, Lucario), Mach Punch (Breloom, Conkeldurr), Sucker Punch (Kangaskhan, Mawile, many others), Aqua Jet (Azumarill), Gale Wings (Talonflame), Pranksters (Klefki, Thundurus). This emphasis on priority naturally leads to less speed and more bulk. You notice, that many of these listed are slow and bulky, but fast glass-cannons do not take priority very well, either from direct attacks or from Prankster T-waves (fucking Thundurus), and they're often forced to themselves carry a priority-move (Lucario, Absol and suchlike). Physical bulk is the most important thing because of the special-nerf and the physical nature of most priority-attacks.

Stealth Rock is still common, but because of the ease of clearing them off, suicide-leads are becoming obsolete. Rather, we seem to be turning to bulky setters, that can come in multiple times in a match. Many to choose from, like Tyranitar, Landorus-T, and Excadrill (also a rapid-spinner).

Another thing, I forgot to mention are status absorbers. With Will-o'-wisp, Thunderwaves, and Scald being everywhere, you need some form of protection against status, especially burn and paralysis. Whether Fire-types, Electric-types, Ground-types, Poison Heal, Natural Cure, Guts, Heal Bell etc, you need some form of at least one. (I love Rotom-H for absorbing burn and paralysis at once, by the way.)

 

[MagicMissingno]

With Excadrill running around throwing EQ all over the place and everyone trying to hit the dumb sword I'd say a ground resist/immunity is probably important, especially one that it not ability dependent.

 

[Ajwf]

With the running of assault vests, weakness policy and some of the old staple items of last gen, along with it's boost, knock off has become a monstrous staple. It harms any pokemon not a mega with this and can drastically limit the ability of any specs/band/scarf/WP/AV user. Pokemon like Heatran who rely on lefties for recovery, or skarm who wants a helmet to damage kan to death hate to lose this item as it almost immobilizes their purpose.

 

[Young Gun]

The amount of Rotom-W's I've seen is borderline ridiculous, but I can't blame anyone for using him. It's so good this generation and I don't see any reason for it's usage to drop. The amount of mons that it checks/counters is huge. Along with that, it is really easy to fit onto almost any team with its ground immunity, T-Wave immunity (Are electric types immune to all forms of paralysis now?? e.g. Body Slam??) and access to WoW/T-Wave.

Along with Rotom-W, priority is also everywhere. With many more mons getting it/gaining OU viabiliy (Khan/Bisharp), it's running rampant. Plus, Talonflame is seemingly on every team. Priority has always been invaluable, but I never believed it to be on so many pokemon per team.

Another thing is Dark moves, especially Knock Off. Dark moves in general are very good this gen, but Knock Off is in its own tier. The utility it has is simply amazing. Knocking Off an item off an opposing mon can completely change the course of the battle. Sucker Punch is also something that I've seen more.

 

[Jaroda]

True, but Knock Off does activate Weakness Policy if they are weak to Dark moves, so be sure to think twice before using it on a Drifblim for example. Depending how popular the move becomes, and it should it's amazing, I wouldn't be surprised to see more Justified pokemon, Unburden pokemon and Weakness Policy on Ghost and Psychic types.

 

[Bedschibaer]

The OP is really well written and everything, but using minisprites for mons instead of typing out their names is extremely obnoxious. Generally it kinda hurts to look at the overdone formatting, just a little nitpick.

Generally i would say something to handle Mega-Kangaskhan is one of the most important things to have at the moment. Either Gengar/Trevenant and pray that your opponent only carries Sucker Punch to hit it, or RockyBarbs Ferrothorn to wear it down and try to play around it. I don't want to start the thing about MKang, since there is enough discussion about that going on already, but the amount of physical bulk needed has drastically increased, not only, but mostly because of MKang.

 

[Tesung]

Deo sharp (deoxys d/s + bisharp) is the new deogar lol. This is not just cuz of sinclairs team, which is everywhere, I use it and have seen it it used on many different teams, and it is basically the standard for 6th gen ho. Otherwise, many teams have that nice genesect rotom combo, which is basically scizor + rotom of last gen except rotom is better this gen and genesect gets better indicative than scizor. Also thundurus is a staple higher on the ladder, there is so little reason not to use. And of course mega kanga, whenis that thing gonna leave?

 

[Ryolain]

Status absorber/healer has been the #1 that screws me over when I leave it off my team. With the WoW buff and Rotom-W being one of the most useful Pokes around, it's absurdly common to get burned.

Priority is also required, while we did get some really fast new things like Talonflame and Greninja it's more about counteracting everyone else's priority. You have to be able to beat outrun stuff like Lucario, Aegislash, MKang and Azumarill and if you don't have any priority, you're severely limiting your chances to do so.

 

[DaiGuren]

The OP is really well written and everything, but using minisprites for mons instead of typing out their names is extremely obnoxious. Generally it kinda hurts to look at the overdone formatting, just a little nitpick.

I think it's okay and imo is a nice change to the otherwise common formatting.

On topic, maybe it's just me, but I've never seen a team that doesn't have a u-turn/volt switch mon. Because of how cutthroat offensive the meta is atm, momentum is a very crucial thing to obtain when the match is offense vs. offense.

 

[Mavile]

Sticky web is significantly responsible for the decrease in revenge killers (particularly choice scarf ones) in this generation. Even with Defog & Rapid Spin, players are most likely favoring priority over speed as a precaution to this new hazard.

 

[Seiterman]

Sticky web is significantly responsible for the decrease in revenge killers (particularly choice scarf ones) in this generation. Even with Defog & Rapid Spin, players are most likely favoring priority over speed as a precaution to this new hazard.

While I think the sorts of revenge killers have changed, I don't think they've lost viability as a whole. Sticky Web is an iffy hazard because it's main abusers can't afford to switch in often should it be spun away/defogged. Most Smeargle and Galvantula I see are played as suicide leads, so if I decide I want it gone, it's basically gone. Furthermore it's pretty easy to build teams that don't particularly care about Sticky Web, whether it be through use of slow, bulky mons, mons with priority, fast fliers/levitate mons or some combination thereof. Against the majority of teams utilizing the new hazard I feel like I'm facing an opponent with one less Pokemon.

Of course, this is simply personal experience coming from someone who favors slower playstyles.

At the moment I think it's safe to say that an answer is needed for Sticky Web but I don't know how I'd define that as a staple of teambuilding.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

Ignoring all the gimmick teams I've seen (seriously, mono psychic?), the only "staples" I've really noticed are the mega, ground immunity, and the spinner/defogger. A priority user is pretty common too, but I'm not sure its a "staple". I haven't noticed ghost types any more than other types, and in general, the only one I've seen with major usage is the ever present Aegislash, and that I contribute more to its steel typing. This isn't news, but steel types are everywhere.