Hogg
grubbing in the ashes
You're gonna need a bigger boat...
Hazard stacking with Mega-Pedo
This was a team originally put together for the UU Dark Horse Project. For those unfamiliar, participants are given a month to ladder with teams using members that are under 4% usage. The idea is to encourage experiment and discussion with pokemon used less frequently in any given tier.
This was the first time that the ORAS megas were allowed, and I had been wanting to build a Mega-Sharpedo team for a while. With Sharpedo on the DH list, I knew that this was my chance. I built up a hazard-stacking core designed to combat the dangerous megas in the tier, fiddled with the team a bit, and jumped in with both feet. I was a little worried how hazard-stacking would do without Sableye, but I decided it was worth a shot.
The end result was an incredibly fun team, and one that did consistently well on the ladder. In the week and a half I laddered with the team, I made it from the bottom of the ladder up to the top 10, peaking at #4 with an ELO of 1661.
THE TEAM
Sharpedo @ Sharpedonite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
Can't have a Mega-Pedo team without Mega-Pedo! After a couple of weeks of playing with the shark, I can safely say that Mega-Sharpedo has a serious presence in UU. It can 2HKO a huge portion of the tier, and with smart playing is nearly impossible to revenge kill. While the power drop on Waterfall compared to LO Sharpedo is disappointing, being able to spam the most powerful Crunch in UU is fantastic. More importantly, the defensive boost that the shark gets on evolving means it is no longer vulnerable to priority. Entei's CB Extremespeed, for example, only deals 62-73%, meaning Sharp can take two rounds of rocks damage and still not worry about being RK'd by Entei.
Of course, Sharpedo isn't the easiest thing to play in the world. It is easy to wear down, and with no way to boost its attack, there are a lot of threats it 2HKOs at best. It relies on Adamant for power, which means that it loses out to most common scarfers, like Hydreigon or Jirachi or Mienshao, unless you can arrange two boosts. Evolving it too early only to be forced out means you give up your Speed advantage. On the other hand, keeping it on deck for so long that you never use it means you might as well have an empty spot on your team.
So, the rest of the team is set up to make sure Sharpedo can succeed, as much as possible. More on that later.
Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Roar
I needed a Stealth Rocker, I needed a defensive backbone for my team, and I needed to make sure I didn't get swept by CroCune. Swampert fit the bill perfectly. Fully defensive, it can take hits all day while setting rocks or Roaring away set-up sweepers who think they can get cute. EQ is his primary attack, with Scald for the burn chance mostly.
EVs are fairly straightforward - max defense, with some Speed creep to outspeed Empoleon and smack it with EQ before it can Defog. That's the main reason for running Impish here, despite it lowering my damage with Scald - I really can't afford to lose out against Empoleon.
Froslass (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Icy Wind
- Destiny Bond
(Word of advice: if using Google Image Search on Froslass at work, SafeSearch ON.)
Froslass is the primary hazard setter for the team and my most common lead. She sets spikes, prevents opposing hazards or defogs with Taunt, slows down Scarfed leads or faster Taunters with Icy Wind, and forces switches or takes out threats with DBond. Fairly simple. I went with Icy Wind over Shadow Ball or IB to better deal with leads like Scarfshao or Azelf. Usually the threat of DBond is enough that once they're slowed down, you can get a free switch and pull off a turn of Spikes.
EVs are pretty straightforward - I'm not hurting anybody too bad with Icy Wind regardless of investment, so EVs go into HP instead of SpA to keep Froslass going longer.
Playing Froslass is always interesting and depends a lot on the Team Preview. If the opponent is relying on a rapid spinner to get rid of hazards, you can usually play her pretty aggressively, as long as you don't need her to check something down the road. Slow defoggers like Empoleon or Gligar are also usually not too hard to play around, although you might want to preserve yourself for later. Fast defoggers, in particular Crobat, mean you've got to play around them a bit, usually dropping one layer to lure Bat out and switching to something that can burn him or hit him hard.
Huuuugggs!
Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 192 HP / 64 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
TReuni is my other major offensive threat besides Shark. The combination of impressive bulk, surprising power and the ability to absolutely shit all over offensive teams makes this a hugely important team member. To put things in perspective, LO Reuniclus hits as hard as Modest Megazam (slightly harder, actually). This thing is also hardy enough to survive hits such as Fake Out + Return from M-Lopunny or Knock Off from M-Gallade, OHKOing in return (Gallade requires some prior damage, but Shadow Ball always OHKOs if rocks and one layer of Spikes are down). In addition, this can chase out threats like Tentacruel and Crobat, who will rarely risk spinning or defogging since it might mean getting OHKO'd by Psyshock for their troubles.
I'll be interested to see if TReuni stays quite as good with Lop and Gallade gone, since having the ability to use Trick Room to screw them over was a big part of his appeal, but it's still so fantastic against offense in general that I intend to keep it. Even if I don't use TR to sweep, it's great support for Machamp, Spiritomb and Swampert.
Machamp @ Assault Vest
Ability: Guts
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Heavy Slam
- Bullet Punch
Guts Machamp, because No Guard is for chumps. Alongside Reuniclus, this is my other major status absorber, and is my main answer to strong Special Attackers not named Alakazam. Heavy Slam and Bullet Punch may seem a bit redundant, but I found I wasn't using Ice Punch or Stone Edge except when I wanted to hit Crobat on the switch... and even then, catching them with Knock Off and getting the truck out of there was usually the better option. Heavy Slam instead gave me a rock solid answer to Florges, OHKOing offensive versions and dealing as much as 96% to defensive versions. Bullet Punch was there for much needed priority and chip damage when TR wasn't up.
Anyhow, other than Guts and Heavy Slam, this is pretty standard. EVs give him enough to outspeed Vaporeon and Umbreon, two annoyances that Machamp loves dealing with. Machamp's job is to switch into Scalds like there's no tomorrow, put a damper on Hydreigon, and just generally knock the opposing team around a bit to keep them on the defensive. Close Combat just makes Machamp so much more of a threat than Dynamicpunch, and it's still pretty amazing how often people assume Machamp will be No Guard and try to Wisp him.
There's a lot of synergy here with Reuniclus as well - while Machamp is a bit fast for a dedicated TR sweeper, he's still slow enough to work, and he can switch into Dark attacks aimed at Reuniclus and hit back hard as all hell.
Spiritomb @ Dread Plate
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Pursuit
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
Spiritomb was one of the later additions to the team, but it has become such an important member. Basically, I needed something that could spinblock, didn't immediately die when it switched into Mega-Blast's Dark Pulse, and could give me an additional check to Mega-Gallade. (Sharpedo can check Gallade, but it can force me to evolve earlier than I would otherwise want to.) Spiritomb could do all of these things, and with an offensive set, could also handily respond to other big threats. In particular, Sucker Punch and Pursuit manage to take out a lot of fast offensive threats before they can touch me. Sucker Punch and Pursuit both OHKO fully healthy Mega-Bee, so I can usually guarantee the Bee's destruction right from the get-go. It also OHKOs Darm after rocks damage, does 80-95% to Scarfrachi, and even takes a solid 40% off of Mienshao. This also gives me a fantastic answer to Alakazams of all stripes.
Anyhow, the moves are fairly straightforward. Sucker Punch is for priority, and is great with Infiltrator. Pursuit is also really important, as not only does it allow me to trap threats like Beedrill or Starmie, it also lets me weaken spinners as they switch out, so that when they switch back in they are in KO range from Sharpedo. WoW and Taunt are necessary to beat Forry one on one without getting Spikes set up all over me, and can pressure set-up 'mons like Suicune, who think they can CM up and Rest off Wisp damage - my usual tactic against Suicune is to burn it, Taunt it and switch off to Machamp. WoW is also how this thing beats SubCoil Zygarde, who is otherwise a major pain in the ass. Infiltrator Wisp is just hugely important.
Max Attack and Dread Plate are necessary to guarantee the OHKO on Beedrill. I could use Life Orb, but the extra damage still doesn't quite net me the OHKO on Scarfrachi, and the LO damage hurts Spiritomb's bulk too much. 44 Speed EVs put it just ahead of uninvested Rhyperior to catch with a burn. I used to have 84, which meant I also beat Granbull and Mega-Ampharos, but it wasn't actually particularly useful, so I moved the EVs into HP for improved bulk.
Closing Thoughts
So, I really enjoyed this team. It has some obvious problems - three Fairy weaknesses with no resists, for example - but by playing aggressively most of these were not insurmountable. (On the other hand, Granbull and Mega-Audino just demolish this team. Like, don't even try.) While it was originally intended to showcase some dark horses, it has instead demonstrated to me that hazard offense is still totally feasible after Sableye's departure, even if it is less reliable. It has also shown the strength of partial TR teams against offense, and the general power of Mega-Sharpedo.
I'm curious to see how the team will fare now that Gallade and Lopunny are banished to the bowels of BL. Part of its strength is that it actually did consistently well against Lop and Gallade teams, who tended to rely on those threats to carry their offense, and who consistently lost to Sharpedo once they had taken some prior damage. The banning of those two fighting threats means I also expect an upsurge in Machamp and Mienshao usage, and while neither of those are huge problems for the team, they require some careful playing around - Machamp is bulky enough to only take ~60% from Pedo's Waterfall, meaning hazards alone won't net me the OHKO, while Mienshao is often scarfed and requires two Speed Boosts to bypass.
In particular I was impressed with Spiritomb and Reuniclus, both of whom proved to be very viable in UU right now. Spiritomb is another whose usage might decline now that he doesn't need to check Gallade, but on the other hand the departure of Lop means his insanely good typing gets a little bit better.
I will probably tinker with this team to adapt it to the new metagame, and I'd love some thoughts on how to do so.
Thanks for reading, all!
Replays
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-192423573
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-192148849
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-192168316
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-192175102
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-192999356
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-192989215
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-192962661
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-192796610
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-193639094
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-193620288
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-193625131
Sharpedo @ Sharpedonite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
Machamp @ Assault Vest
Ability: Guts
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Heavy Slam
- Bullet Punch
Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 192 HP / 64 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
Froslass (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Icy Wind
- Destiny Bond
Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Roar
Spiritomb @ Dread Plate
Ability: Infiltrator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Pursuit
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
Machamp @ Assault Vest
Ability: Guts
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Heavy Slam
- Bullet Punch
Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 192 HP / 64 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
Froslass (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Icy Wind
- Destiny Bond
Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Roar
Spiritomb @ Dread Plate
Ability: Infiltrator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Pursuit
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt