Beauty And The Beast: A Battle Spot Special Season 1 Team Report

Hello Smogoners! You may remember that Battle Spot Special Season 1 article I wrote last season, the one about Lunala's domination. As it turns out, I actually won that metagame's ladder, with a win-loss of 50-4!

I've personally always loved Battle Spot Special, since it's pretty much an excuse to have that "new game smell" every season to me, having to prepare for new threats in a new metagame. Now, to be clear, this wasn't the most active ladder. Since it was focused on using Ubers and it was during the first season, I imagine a lot of people were more focused on in-game content or Battle Spot Singles or VGC, so this is a bit of a "big fish in a small pond" situation. Still, I want to talk about the team and my mindset, in hopes that it might help people plan out stuff for these short, amorphous metagames in the future!

How the team started

I'm not going to lie, I didn't have much direction before I started laddering on-cart. I simply used this team against LegoFigure11 while I was trying to figure out what I really wanted to test. Notice Hydreigon and Greninja: I was very paranoid about Lunala, which I figured would be the best Pokémon in this metagame. Each Pokémon here besides Lunala has some sort of secret weapon against it. Solgaleo was EVed to survive one Moongeist Beam and KO with Flame Charge, then Crunch, Hydreigon had U-turn to break Shadow Shield, Ash-Greninja had Spikes to break Lunala later on, Tapu Bulu was specially defensive with Payback, and Zygarde-C had Crunch.

Fact is, though, this team was too directionless to work, but it did give me an important idea. I realized that this team stacked way too many weaknesses to Ice, which made me extremely weak to Weavile (which Solgaleo also could take a lot of damage from). I was thinking about replacing Solgaleo with Magearna, and after seeing its movepool and looking for anti-Lunala Pokémon, I came up with the core that gave me a lot of success!

How did I build the winning team?

Step 1:

I just started with Lunala and Zygarde-C , since I figured those were going to be the most dangerous Ubers allowed.

Step 2:

After seeing Smogon user LegoFigure11's success with using Mandibuzz to stop multiple big threats (mainly Lunala, Solgaleo, and Zygarde), I decided that I should totally give it a try!

Step 3:

Looking at step 2, I realized that I was, once again, super weak to Weavile! I figured that Solgaleo, while bulky enough to take it on while healthy, just wasn't going to be a good fit. That's how I decided on Magearna: it's a Steel-type that resists Dark, so it would be a fine Weavile check. As a bonus, it had a much better chance of defeating Tapu Koko than Celesteela, which I considered first! This also made me more comfortable in using Tapu Bulu again, since I felt Grassy Terrain was awesome with Lunala and Zygarde-C, plus it helped out against Garchomp, which Magearna really wouldn't like to face!

Final Step:

Incineroar?! This was the strangest addition to my team, but I added it because I had decided at this point that Magearna was going to use Trick Room, and I wanted something besides Tapu Bulu to take advantage of it. I wanted two things in a Trick Room attacker at the time: a way to check Weavile (since Magearna was my only check), and something that could defeat common Ubers. Incineroar ended up fitting the bill, since most Lunala couldn't 2HKO it, and it dealt pretty well with Solaleo when Trick Room was up. Little did I know that two Pokémon that I added for specific niches would end up becoming my stars!

Bonus Step

Near the end of my ladder run, I actually replaced Tapu Bulu and Mandibuzz because of metagame changes, with the biggest one being the rise of Alolan Ninetales. Using Celesteela and a Snorlax was an attempt at solving that problem. I didn't get to use this team much, though, since it was so close to the end of the season!

The MVPs

Lunala

Lunala: Ability: Shadow Shield; EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe; Timid Nature; - Calm Mind; - Roost; - Moongeist Beam; - Moonblast

For those of you who didn't read my previous article, Lunala was the queen of this metagame. Honestly, it was pretty hard to justify a team without Lunala, since the lack of items made it almost impossible to OHKO despite its two 4x weaknesses!

Lunala was the first Pokémon I chose for this team, since it was clearly the dominant Pokémon of this metagame with almost no drawback to using it. It helped that pretty much every common offensive check to it couldn't deal with Moonblast very well, which is why I went with this moveset. There were a few times where I wish I had Ice Beam, however, since Garchomp and Zygarde were common and could deal some serious damage with Crunch.

However, it's hard to deny that Lunala worked best early in the metagame's life. As the metagame developed, I saw a shift towards bulkier Lunala checks on higher-rated teams such as Alolan Muk. While I could whittle away at these a bit with Moonblast, I actually did end up benching Lunala more than I expected, just to deal with its checks better!

Magearna

Magearna: Ability: Soul-Heart; 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD; IVs: 0 Spe; Quiet Nature; - Trick Room; - Fleur Cannon; - Shadow Ball; - Flash Cannon / Dazzling Gleam

What started out as an interesting "what if" ended up becoming one of the stars of the show! I originally added Magearna because I wanted a Steel-type to cover for Zygarde-C, but I also didn't want it to be weak to Dark- or Ghost-type attacks, so that ruled Solgaleo out (yes, I was really that worried about Weavile). I was initially going to use Celesteela, but I was worried that its lack of offensive presence and weakness to Tapu Koko would stunt my team. Even when I decided on Magearna, I didn't settle on Trick Room until I did damage calculations for a Shift Gear set and didn't like the loss of bulk.

Using Trick Room also made Fleur Cannon easier to justify, which was important because it allowed Magearna to OHKO Garchomp. As you can expect, Shadow Ball was there just because it 2HKOed Lunala! Initially, I had Dazzling Gleam, since it was great for late-game against weakened Garchomp and still OHKOed Ash-Greninja. However, when Alolan Ninetales usage skyrocketed, I was forced to use Flash Cannon just to have a fighting chance against it! I briefly considered Thunderbolt as well, since many teams tried to stall Trick Room out with Celesteela, but I decided against it, since that was all it seemed good for.

As the metagame developed, I still used Magearna in almost every single match. Setting up Trick Room messed up the flow of a lot of teams, since even the slowest "Ubers" besides Magearna were pretty fast. However, I didn't always use it with Incineroar and Tapu Bulu, the Trick Room sweepers. There were a lot of times where Magearna could sweep on its own after Trick Room thanks to Soul-Heart boosts!

Incineroar

Incineroar: Ability: Blaze; EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD; IVs: 0 Spe; Brave Nature; - Flare Blitz; - Darkest Lariat; - Cross Chop; - Outrage / Earthquake / Brick Break / Will-O-Wisp

Incineroar started off as a gimmicky idea at first, the idea being, "hey its a Trick Room Pokémon that beats Solgaleo AND Lunala!" Little did I know, it would end up being one of the team's big stars, and being the "beast" to Magearna's "beauty"!

Near the beginning of the metagame, beating both Solgaleo and Lunala with one Pokémon slot was one hell of a bargain. Because using these Ubers was a novelty, a lot of the players I faced would send out both + some sort of non-Uber. Usually, I'd sack Magearna and take down their non-Uber, and then Incineroar would come in and clean up! Note, however, that Incineroar doesn't actually OHKO Solgaleo and Lunala, because of their bulk and the latter's Shadow Shield. Because of this, there were some instances where Incineroar would take down one and leave the other severely weakened, which was usually good enough for this team to be honest.

Notice that messy last move slot: this is probably the thing I changed the most! I started out with Outrage (and ended with it too) just to take out weakened Garchomp and Zygarde, since those two ended up being big problems for this team. Earthquake hit Alolan Muk a bit harder than Flare Blitz before Blaze, but most importantly, preserved Incineroar's health, which was important because it was shockingly bulky! Brick Break was a response to the flood of Alolan Ninetales later on, and it was nice for picking off weakened Dark-types when I was worried Cross Chop could miss. Finally, Will-O-Wisp was good for crippling Garchomp and Zygarde switch-ins, and it also helped a bit against Alolan Muk. The accuracy annoyed me, however.

As the metagame progressed, Solgaleo usage started dropping, so I was worried that Incineroar would fall into disuse. Instead, however, I saw that a lot of teams simply replaced it with Magearna or Celesteela, so Incineroar was still able to deal plenty of damage! The only particular sore spot I had with Incineroar near the end was that Zygarde seemed to become a bigger threat, which was something that Incineroar and Magearna together didn't do a good job of defeating.

Zygarde-C

First Set

Zygarde-C: Ability: Power Construct; EVs: 156 Atk / 116 SpD / 236 Spe; Adamant Nature; - Dragon Dance; - Thousand Arrows; - Crunch; - Outrage

Second Set

Zygarde-C: Ability: Power Construct; EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD; Careful Nature; - Coil; - Rest; - Sleep Talk; - Thousand Arrows

I expected Zygarde-C to be the co-star with Lunala when I first made this team. While that sadly didn't end up being the case, it was still a damn good Pokémon in the end, thanks to its fantastic bulk.

At first, I figured Zygarde-C's crazy bulk was going to make it the ultimate Dragon Dancer for my team. I set up the EVs so it'd almost always survive +1 Lunala's Moonblast before it changed formes, with just enough Speed to outspeed Ash-Greninja after a Dragon Dance. Don't get me wrong: Zygarde was a good sweeper, and in general, opposing Dragon Dance Zygarde were quite threatening to this team. However, I didn't bring out Zygarde nearly as much as expected. I think part of it was because almost every team I faced had either Garchomp or Alolan Ninetales, which usually led me towards choosing other Pokémon. The other reason was that despite its bulk, the fast-paced nature of 3v3 meant that this Zygarde usually didn't work great till near the end of the game to sweep.

That being said, Zygarde had one big use that I didn't realize until the metagame developed some more: it was quite possibly the best Alolan Muk check in the game! This was super important, because as it turned out, Alolan Muk was probably Lunala's #1 problem! The Dragon Dance set did a fine enough job of checking Alolan Muk, but near the end of the metagame, I transitioned to using a specially defensive Coil set. This was partly because I was sick of being scared of those Minimize Alolan Muk, and also because I once almost lost to a Toxic Alolan Muk! While it wasn't as good of a late-game sweeper as the Dragon Dance set was, I ended up using Zygarde for more specialized situations anyways, so I didn't really mind it.

The Pokémon I used a lot but ultimately scrapped

These are Pokémon who I used for the majority of my run, but near the end, I scrapped due to certain metagame developments.

Tapu Bulu

First Set

Tapu Bulu: Ability: Grassy Surge; EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe; Adamant Nature; - Horn Leech; - Payback; - Wood Hammer; - Superpower

Second Set

Tapu Bulu: Ability: Grassy Terrain; EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD; Adamant Nature; - Substitute; - Disable / Payback; - Horn Leech; - Leech Seed

I slotted in Tapu Bulu for a specific purpose: to help with my crushing weakness to Earthquake. It actually did fairly well at this role, especially since a lot of Garchomp weren't bothering to run Poison Jab, instead running Crunch to hit Lunala harder. Tapu Bulu also did fairly well against most Zygarde, since most of the ones I faced were thankfully Dragon Dancers, and not the Coil set!

I originally just used a simple offensive set with Payback to hit Lunala hard, but I came across a problem: Lunala usually 2HKOed Tapu Bulu with Moongeist Beam! Somtimes, Tapu Bulu would win out because of Horn Leech recovery, but it was so close to being a 3HKO that I was pretty annoyed. That's why I ended up reconstructing Tapu Bulu to be more specially defensive (I still had to stick with Adamant, though, since I didn't have a Careful Tapu Bulu). To make up for the power loss, I used more of a Leech Seed-based set. Disable was pretty cool at times for blocking Poison-type attacks from the likes of Alolan Muk, but Payback still sometimes won out because it did nice damage to Lunala.

Tapu Bulu wasn't bad; in fact, it was a pretty good Pokémon! However, the rise of Alolan Ninetales forced me to cut Tapu Bulu eventually, since it provided zero help against Garchomp with that thing around!

Mandibuzz

Mandibuzz: Ability: Overcoat; EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 244 SpD; Calm Nature; - Roost; - Toxic; - Taunt / Foul Play; - Snarl

Mandibuzz was something LegoFigure11 tested out against me, and I decided to adopt it for quite some time. Mandibuzz was a fairly unique Lunala check, since it was the only one outside of Blissey to have reliable recovery, and unlike Blissey, it could also take on Solgaleo fairly well!

Snarl may seem like a very odd choice in a singles metagame, but it was key for ensuring that Lunala couldn't win by using boosted Moonblast. While I used to use Foul Play to take care of Solgaleo, when I noticed a drop in Solgaleo usage with higher-rated players, I started using Taunt to deal with Celesteela more comfortably, since that thing's stalling prowess was a much bigger problem for Trick Room than Solgaleo!

However, in the end, despite being an impressive Lunala and Solgaleo check on paper, I didn't use Mandibuzz all that much after the beginning of the stages of the metagame. Part of it was because I ended up using Incineroar much more, but the other reason was the rise of my arch nemesis: Alolan Ninetales. With Alolan Ninetales usage swelling, Mandibuzz very rarely got picked, so I elected to give it the boot for something that could deal with Alolan Ninetales more reasonably.

The late additions

These are the Pokémon I added very late in the metagame as replacements for Tapu Bulu and Mandibuzz. On paper, they probably would have performed better, but since I added them so late into the season, I didn't really get enough testing time to make the final judgment on that!

Celesteela

Celesteela: Ability: Beast Boost; EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD; Careful Nature; - Leech Seed; - Protect; - Heavy Slam; - Brutal Swing

When I was on my quest to replace Tapu Bulu for a Pokémon that could handle Alolan Ninetales, I still felt like I needed a reasonable answer to Garchomp, so Celesteela was the perfect replacement in that case! However, this did come at a cost: Celesteela has a lot of issues with Zygarde compared to Tapu Bulu, but thankfully I didn't see too many of those near the end.

I went specially defensive specifically to avoid a 2HKO from +1 Lunala, and to better handle Alolan Ninetales. This led to me testing out a weird fourth move: Brutal Swing. With this, if I could snare Lunala into a Leech Seed cycle, Brutal Swing had just enough power to threaten it once Shadow Shield was broken. I never got to test this too in-depth, though, so who knows if this would have worked as well as I imagined it would!

Snorlax

Snorlax: Ability: Thick Fat; EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def / 4 SpD; Brave Nature; IVs: 0 Spe; - Curse; - Return; - Crunch; - Earthquake / Brick Break

I was looking for a Lunala check that could defeat Alolan Ninetales, and Snorlax was a good fit due to Thick Fat and fitting Trick Room teams pretty well. I was thinking about using Pursuit at first to trap Lunala, but I ended up never trying it because I felt like hitting Magearna hard was more important, and I was worried about the rare Will-O-Wisp Lunala defeating Snorlax. I decided not to go with much of a slow setup, I just maximized the Defense stat because of Snorlax's gigantic HP stat, and because it let Snorlax take on threats such as Garchomp more reasonably. Finally, I originally had Brick Break on Snorlax because of how paranoid I was about Alolan Ninetales, but in the end I only got to use it in one match.

Memorable foes and metagame developments

One of the oddest developments for this metagame was how it was dramatically affected by a tournament, named Battle of Alola. Battle of Alola was much like this metagame, but with one big twist: only one Uber was allowed per team!

Because of this, a lot of teams during the second month of Battle Spot Special were using this ladder to practice. You'd think that limiting yourself to one Uber would put yourself at a severe disadvantage, but in a funny twist, this accelerated the development of this metagame, giving rise to several prominent threats that I ended up having trouble with! Let's take a look at them.

Alolan Ninetales

Alolan Ninetales rose in usage because it was a great asset against teams with Lunala. Hail would break Shadow Shield, making it much easier to revenge kill, while your own Aurora Veil would make your own Lunala difficult to beat! As it turns out, this thing became my arch nemesis. Out of my four losses, this thing played a big part in all of them!

When Alolan Ninetales first started making rounds, I didn't have anything that could OHKO it besides Incineroar, which would be easy to set up on with other Pokémon once Aurora Veil was up. This is the Pokémon that really forced me to adapt to the metagame, since I had to start using Flash Cannon on Magearna, and it's why I eventully booted Tapu Bulu and Mandibuzz out; they weren't a big help against this monster! To make things even worse, though, some people actually used Sheer Cold Alolan Ninetales, which caused several close calls, since I never had anything that could switch into that!

Alolan Muk

I had a feeling Alolan Muk would be a great Lunala check, but I didn't predict it was going to be arguably the best one! Alolan Muk could get tricky. While it wasn't impossible for my team to handle, since I had Zygarde and Incineroar to take it on, Minimize was a scary parlor trick that almost cost me a few games! Also, a lot of high-rated teams with Alolan Muk were piling on Zygarde checks, so using Zygarde to punt Alolan Muk off the field ended up being more difficult than expected, especially since when I was using Dragon Dance Zygarde, it'd often get whittled down!

Garchomp

This was probably the biggest embarrassment of my team;despite it being common, my team wasn't very fond of Garchomp! Garchomp was able to slam four of my big stars, Lunala, Magearna, Incineroar, and Zygarde-C, very hard with its STAB and coverage moves. To make things worse, I actually lost a match once to a Poison Jab Garchomp, so even Tapu Bulu didn't feel entirely safe! Fact is, my team had a big problem with Dark + Ground coverage, a problem I wasn't able to entirely fix until near the end of the season with Celesteela. Whenever Garchomp came out, I was put into a rather dangerous guessing game.

Gyarados

While it was not very common, around the time people were practicing for Battle of Alola, I noticed that Dragon Dance Gyarados was surprisingly problematic for this team. With Crunch, Ice Fang, and Waterfall, it was able to hit most of my team for super effective damage, and due to Intimidate and its good Special Defense, I had a hard time taking it down before it hit me hard. I pretty much relied on Tapu Bulu surviving one Ice Fang to take it down, putting even more pressure on it than usual. Even worse, I saw a few with Taunt, which would stop my Trick Room set up or cripple Mandibuzz! Even with the adjustments I made to my team, I never fully solved my problem with Gyarados.

Zygarde-C

In an ironic twist, when I modified my team to handle Alolan Ninetales better, I ended up making myself much weaker to Zygarde-C! In the past, I relied on Mandibuzz to take it down via Taunt or Foul Play, so when I replaced it, Zygarde became much more of a dangerous guessing game. I mostly relied on setting up Trick Room so Magearna could deal massive damage with Fleur Cannon, otherwise I risked getting swept by Dragon Dance if it had Crunch. Coil was thankfully less of an issue thanks to Calm Mind Lunala.

Conclusion

In the end, while I did win that season of Battle Spot Special, I was by no means using a flawless team. If more time were given for the season, or if the ladder were more active, I don't think surpassing me would have been an insurmountable task! That being said, this was still a fun new way to look at the early stages of competitive Pokémon Sun and Moon.

If there's anything I'd like for people to take away from my victory two months ago, it's that just because you don't think you're a "Pokémon bigshot" doesn't mean you shouldn't try to get high on the ladder. The in-game Battle Spot ladders are very much a learning experience. Sure, you'll probably stumble at first, but you'll keep learning from your mistakes as you tweak your team to become better and get used to predicting.

Battle Spot Special in particular is a unique case. Even the most experienced Pokémon players will have to adapt to a new metagame under these circumstances, so everyone starts out at a more even playing field than usual. Who knows: with enough practice, maybe OU can win the next Battle Spot Special!

Official art by Ken Sugimori | HTML by anto | Script by Quite Quiet and Toast++.

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Lunala	Magearna	Incineroar	Zygarde-C