-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Metagame SV Doubles UU - Updated Sample Teams!
- Thread starter Actuarily
- Start date
I think the duu sign up have started
Yes, signups for the duu Swiss kickoff are up, you can register in this thread:
SV DUU Swiss Kickoff
SPECIFIC RULES
- This is a standard SV Doubles UU tournament
- This tournament will feature 4 rounds of Swiss-style matchups, with every player going 2-2 or better making the top cut.
- The top cut will be single elimination.
- Players will be eliminated once they either don’t make the top cut or lose in the top cut. No players will be eliminated in the Swiss portion.
- The winner will qualify for the DUU Invitationals.
- Rounds will be Best of Three. You may switch teams in between...
In other news, as part of the April tiershifts, Basculegion-F rose from DUU. This will hopefully excite those that weren’t happy with the result from the quickban vote.
We’ll also likely be looking to update the sample teams here before the Swiss kickoff starts, so if you have any teams you’d like to be considered feel free to post them!
Samples needed, huh? I got you covered
Here's a fairly standard sun balance team that has done wonders for me when trying to go back to my fundamentals:
https://pokepast.es/32862c4fc7bc1c05
Here's a quick little breakdown of the team
Venusaur was the catalyst for creating this team. Sleep powder chlorophyll has been a staple in doubles, but i don't think i've ever seen a Venusaur in DUU. Leaf Storm is gives great burst damage, Acid Spray turns partner's moves into intercontinental ballistic threats and Wheather Ball gives solid coverage. Every move is augmented by Life Orb, giving a decent boost to it's attacks. Tera ghost makes this annoying frog immune to Fake out, boosting its longevity. Thanks to Chlorophyll it's the fastest mon on the team.
Ninetales is the only Drought mon in the tier, making it the premier sun setter. This is very much a support mon, focusing on will-o-wisp and roar to keep physical attackers in check and disrupting setup. Heat wave is the most splashable move on this mon, though i think there is room for experimentation (Overheat Eject pack would be an alternative). Heat Rock prolongs sun for 8 turns, giving you more bang for your buck if there's no wheather on the opposing side. Tera Water is the most standard defensive Tera there is, but it needs it to set up sun later, if necessary.
Iron Moth has always been kind of finnicky to use, but i think i nailed it with this one. Fiery Dance and Heat Wave take great advantage of Sun while Dazzling Gleam gives vital Dragon and Fighting answers. This team struggles with removing the former, so i decided to go with this to have some more answers into the matchup. Booster energy gives a speed boost, making it the second fastest mon here.
You want more sleep? Well Milotic got you covered there with the classic Coil Hypnosis strat. Scald is more of a utility move here; And Life Dew allows the team to heal up if necessary. Tera Dragon is a solid defensive type here. There really isn't much to say with this mon.
Choice Scarf Hydreigon is great at spreading damage, especially if paired with Venusaur. Heat Wave takes advantage of sun, U-Turn lets it pivot out if necessary and Draco Meteor and Dark Pulse are the best Stab Moves it gets. Not much to say here, again.
Ogerpon is the best mon in the tier, and that isn't up for debate. This is the standard moveset I generally use, allowing to OHKO Moltres-G and pretty much every single fire type in DUU.
Enjoy :)
Here's a fairly standard sun balance team that has done wonders for me when trying to go back to my fundamentals:
https://pokepast.es/32862c4fc7bc1c05
Here's a quick little breakdown of the team
Venusaur was the catalyst for creating this team. Sleep powder chlorophyll has been a staple in doubles, but i don't think i've ever seen a Venusaur in DUU. Leaf Storm is gives great burst damage, Acid Spray turns partner's moves into intercontinental ballistic threats and Wheather Ball gives solid coverage. Every move is augmented by Life Orb, giving a decent boost to it's attacks. Tera ghost makes this annoying frog immune to Fake out, boosting its longevity. Thanks to Chlorophyll it's the fastest mon on the team.
Ninetales is the only Drought mon in the tier, making it the premier sun setter. This is very much a support mon, focusing on will-o-wisp and roar to keep physical attackers in check and disrupting setup. Heat wave is the most splashable move on this mon, though i think there is room for experimentation (Overheat Eject pack would be an alternative). Heat Rock prolongs sun for 8 turns, giving you more bang for your buck if there's no wheather on the opposing side. Tera Water is the most standard defensive Tera there is, but it needs it to set up sun later, if necessary.
Iron Moth has always been kind of finnicky to use, but i think i nailed it with this one. Fiery Dance and Heat Wave take great advantage of Sun while Dazzling Gleam gives vital Dragon and Fighting answers. This team struggles with removing the former, so i decided to go with this to have some more answers into the matchup. Booster energy gives a speed boost, making it the second fastest mon here.
You want more sleep? Well Milotic got you covered there with the classic Coil Hypnosis strat. Scald is more of a utility move here; And Life Dew allows the team to heal up if necessary. Tera Dragon is a solid defensive type here. There really isn't much to say with this mon.
Choice Scarf Hydreigon is great at spreading damage, especially if paired with Venusaur. Heat Wave takes advantage of sun, U-Turn lets it pivot out if necessary and Draco Meteor and Dark Pulse are the best Stab Moves it gets. Not much to say here, again.
Ogerpon is the best mon in the tier, and that isn't up for debate. This is the standard moveset I generally use, allowing to OHKO Moltres-G and pretty much every single fire type in DUU.
Enjoy :)
We've updated the sample teams! Thank you to everyone who submitted a team, we received so many submissions that we unfortunately couldn't use them all.
Round 1 of the duu kickoff is live! We're accepting subs until Thursday, so if you missed signups you can still join!
Round 1 of the duu kickoff is live! We're accepting subs until Thursday, so if you missed signups you can still join!
With Derby coming to its conclusion and DUU Kickoff nearing top cut, I just wanted to do a quick post-legion metagame post with some VR noms that I think are relevant as the metagame has started to settle.
We are still seeing the rise of dark types, like Moltres Galar, brute bonnet, and scrafty acting as glue for a lot of structures and I do not expect that to change. I think the tier is in a really great place right now (and very fun to build/play), and I do not think any tiering action is needed.
2 -> 1 Heatran has shown itself throughout derby to be a premier choice as the steel slot on many teams. A lot of games lately have seemed to come down to heatran Teras, where things like tera grass blast tran help to patch rain matchups and alleviate spore pressure. Iron Defense body press sets as a wincon have become increasingly annoying (sometimes unkillable) and common.
3 -> 2 Nido-Rus made very good use of this mon in derby. Prankster twave and a strong electric type helps to bully the weather comps, as well as synergy with things like enamorus on more gimmicky teams. Speed tier is extremely helpful with flash cannon to trade with cornerstone.
4 -> 2 Hys is going to love me for this one but I think primarina is insanely good right now. The rise of heatran as well as dark types have really made prim a staple on many teams. Fits nicely on sand, as well as balance comps.Now for some hot takes.
-> 3. I think sand is in a really great place right now, rain (especially psyrain) has become less common and less threatening in the builder, which helps sand feel less of a matchup fish. With Hound taking legion's place as the tiers best last respects clicker (at least this one is balanced) and excadrill forming a rusher core, sand has all the tools it needs to thrive. Pair this with a fairy like enamorus or primarina and the games kinda play themselves. Not threatening enough to be higher than tier 3, but I think this archetype is very good right now and can still be optimized.
4 -> 2 part 2 of the speed controlling electrics. I think this might be a response to the ever-rising gmolt usage, but I think eleki is in a better place than ever. It can run screens, 3 attacks pivot, or even weather (might be fake).
while I do not think these should change tiers, I just wanted to mention that I think psyspam has insanely fell off. Metagross, Heatran, Bonnet, and Moltres G have continued to rise in usage, and expanding force has felt less and less threatening in the builder. I could see this structure falling to tier 4 if DOU usage rates don't move things like heatran or GMolt out of the tier (which I don't expect they will)Derby III Usage Stats
Code:
+ ---- + ------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
+ ---- + ------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |
+ ---- + ------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1 | Brute Bonnet | 17 | 47.22% | 58.82% |
| 2 | Mew | 15 | 41.67% | 46.67% |
| 3 | Sneasler | 14 | 38.89% | 42.86% |
| 4 | Ogerpon-Cornerstone | 14 | 38.89% | 42.86% |
| 5 | Heatran | 13 | 36.11% | 38.46% |
| 6 | Metagross | 13 | 36.11% | 53.85% |
| 7 | Moltres-Galar | 11 | 30.56% | 45.45% |
| 8 | Basculegion-F | 9 | 25.00% | 55.56% |
| 9 | Porygon2 | 7 | 19.44% | 57.14% |
| 10 | Primarina | 7 | 19.44% | 42.86% |
| 11 | Kingdra | 5 | 13.89% | 60.00% |
| 12 | Politoed | 5 | 13.89% | 60.00% |
| 13 | Thundurus | 5 | 13.89% | 60.00% |
| 14 | Iron Bundle | 5 | 13.89% | 60.00% |
| 15 | Iron Jugulis | 5 | 13.89% | 60.00% |
| 16 | Scrafty | 5 | 13.89% | 40.00% |
| 17 | Dragapult | 5 | 13.89% | 20.00% |
| 18 | Entei | 5 | 13.89% | 40.00% |
| 19 | Goodra-Hisui | 3 | 8.33% | 66.67% |
| 20 | Enamorus | 3 | 8.33% | 33.33% |
| 21 | Indeedee | 3 | 8.33% | 33.33% |
| 22 | Necrozma | 3 | 8.33% | 33.33% |
| 23 | Baxcalibur | 3 | 8.33% | 66.67% |
| 24 | Tinkaton | 3 | 8.33% | 66.67% |
| 25 | Hippowdon | 2 | 5.56% | 100.00% |
| 26 | Houndstone | 2 | 5.56% | 100.00% |
| 27 | Spectrier | 2 | 5.56% | 100.00% |
| 28 | Thwackey | 2 | 5.56% | 0.00% |
| 29 | Azumarill | 2 | 5.56% | 0.00% |
| 30 | Sandy Shocks | 2 | 5.56% | 50.00% |
| 31 | Volcarona | 2 | 5.56% | 100.00% |
| 32 | Great Tusk | 2 | 5.56% | 50.00% |
| 33 | Chesnaught | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 34 | Zapdos-Galar | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 35 | Araquanid | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 36 | Kommo-o | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 37 | Iron Moth | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 38 | Keldeo-Resolute | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 39 | Arcanine-Hisui | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 40 | Comfey | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 41 | Snorlax | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 42 | Deoxys-Speed | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 43 | Garganacl | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 44 | Gallade | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 45 | Enamorus-Therian | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 46 | Kleavor | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 47 | Deoxys | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 48 | Suicune | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 49 | Tornadus-Therian | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 50 | Abomasnow | 1 | 2.78% | 0.00% |
| 51 | Excadrill | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 52 | Clefairy | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 53 | Hydreigon | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
| 54 | Sylveon | 1 | 2.78% | 100.00% |
Last edited:
Got knocked out of swiss by big HYS himself a bit earlier than I would've liked. With the big stupid fish gone and having watched/helped some derby metagame developments from the sides I decided to jump back into this tier and try building some fun stuff. Tier is very fun, sort of reminds me of bulk-maxed DPP era (minus evil yellow magic) and most of the time the game is pretty well under your own control as long as your moves land and a certain pokemon doesn't pull a funny.
There's a lot going on here so I'll try to keep things brief with each mon and will be skipping a bunch
T1
I genuinely can't think of a reason not to run this pokemon on a team in this format unless you already have another fighting type in mind or really really really need to drop it for your psyspam matchup to improve. By far the best fake out user, top tier fast breaker, one of the few pokemon that can comfortably slot a pivot move, one of the best ways to berid of the main redirectors while being able to fake them out, and above all can ALWAYS bail you out of a game with a little bit of luck. Between unburden and poison touch, Av sash cloak and seed sets, incredible stats that can be eved for bulky utility or offense and a littany of strong side options like coaching, toxic spikes, taunt and the occasional throat chop/acro sneasler is simultaneously one of the most flexible AND most consistent pokemon in the metagame and it is a real problem to scout sets for thanks to dire claw/poison touch. Underestimate this pokemon's utility and you can rapidly lose control of a game by getting out positioned or disrupted, underestimate the damage of base attack 130 (!) Close combatand you will find yourself losing multiple pokemon to it. The real decrease in psyspam usage and intimidate users of late has massively benefitted this pokemon, and with its role as a premier threat and support in this metagame I feel very comfortable calling it the best pokemon in the metagame as it's much harder to find a reason NOT to run it than to slap it as a 6th on a lot of teams
T1
Iron Defense heatran continues to rise as a general physical check in the tier, becoming a major threat off heatran's ebautiful base typing and affinity for terastallization. Heatran's rock type neutrality and flying resistance are a godsend for its defensive profile while variety in fast life orb, Wisp and Av sets flesh out heatran's offensive profile. It's easily the premier fire type of the metagame and extremely competent at also being any team's bulky steel type. Without Volcanion around to threaten its base typing and give it competition as a fire type heatran really stands mostly unopposed as a fire type aside from more speciallized threats like moth/volc and more specialized support pieces in harc/magmar.
T2
Putting this guy in tier 2 might seem like blasphemy but Considering my feelings about sneasler (a direct check especially with poison touch), a high amount of stealth rocks usage from pokemon like mew and deoxys-speed, and its competition in brute bonnet I can't say that cornerstone is a pokemon I can just slap on any team like the other tier 1s. Brute bonnet especially really competes with this guy in my builder and I can never justify running both thanks to the shared fighting weakness to sneasler, and I definitely don't use cornerstone more than bonnet (about the same really). Especially with my recent kick of trying out other follow me users in clef, magmar and electabuzz which all provide useful resistances and unique utility moves I can't call cornerstone an automatic slot onto my teams. Still an incredible button clicker with ridiculous options, but sometimes I want my redirector to be able to click spore/pollen puff or be immune to wisp instead of crippled by it. The main fire type in the tier being neutral to rock also doesn't help this guy's case much, and other annoyances like metagross and iron crown haven't gone anywhere.
T2
With Volcanion gone this pokemon is incredibly difficult to deal with defensively, and it's by far the fastest speed control in the tier. Basculegion being gone on top of volcanion also means its competition as a water type has really dried up in general. Freeze dry + hydro pump is able to almost single-handedly shut down rain teams and the big tailwind guy in jugulis is never happy to see a booster bundle on the opposing team. Booster bundle has so much more speed than every other pokemon that I often find myself going unpunished for putting a good amount of bulky onto bundle enabling it to live hits most wouldn't expect and become that much more annoying in the process. I often find myself slapping this pokemon onto teams when I want a good water type and its outstanding coverage an outility with an unrivaled speed tier mean it's almost always playing its own game, not the opponent's.
T2
With Heatran being so ubiquitous, psyspam being on the downswing and Volcanion removed from the format great tusk is more relevant than ever I feel. Av tusk feels as unkillable as iron hands in Dou to me, able to click ridiculously effective coverage and STAB moves with impunity while laughing at everything in the tier as they try to Ko it. Extremely good tera user and extremely effective rapid spin use gives this pokemon a lot of utility and agency in battles, letting it act as a great coaching win condition or supportive threat. Bulk up/booster sets are also a little interesting but AV is the name of the game and i often find myself coming back to tusk to fill holes in my teams as a bulky AV stat attacker.
Not a hot take but I wanted to echo the musings of everyone who says sand is tier 3. Excadrill and houndstone are really really hard to stop in a tier lacking good prankster tailwind/moon and a few dedicated users have really proven how potent sand is as an archetype recently.
UR -> T3
I think this pokemon has gone massively underlooked in the metagame, (especially without volcanion around) being extremely positive into bonnet with taunt/vital spirit and eating wisps for an plethora of physical threats in a tier where intimidate is usually a secondary choice to dealing with such threats. Clear smog, taunt, helping hand, wisp, knock off, acid spray and roar: Magmar has a ridiculously deep and useful support movepool with two great abilities to fit onto so many different teams and be a great disruptor as well as a great support. As long as your team has good ways to deal with cornerstone magmar can be a fantastic supportive piece and I hope more people try it out
T3
Like magmar I think this guy is a bit underexplored, although I'm a bit less passionate about this one. Side healing is really good and being able to bypass redirection with it is especially nice compared to mew, while still having access to speed control and taunt/encore disruption.
T4
One of the most overrated pokemon in the metagame imo. Can't reliably put out good damage thanks to the nature of its ability, a terrible matchup into what I believe is the best pokemon in the metagame and often gets shafted by taunt/encore disruption that is aimed at the much better Mews of the metagame. Into snarl users especially Porygon has a really awful time, not being able to break through early and becoming a sitting duck. The ever-present brute bonnet is also just so so terrible for porygon, having no tools to play against it since it can't itemize for the matchup and really never wants to be forced to run tera grass. It's still a reasonable choice as a solo setter but even then I feel it's largely outclassed by necrozma, which has much better offensive moves to click and actually has an item slot with great bulk in its own right (especially with its ability)
T3
With so much fast stuff flying around, being able to set trick room and actually do something with it is a really great quality to have right now. Necrozma is probably the best available pokemon at this imo (if you like armarouge or hoopa I won't judge), with a great attacking stat and photon geyser being a strong STAB option. Earth power and heat wave access to hit steels really sells the pokemon for me, with meteor beam able to whack jugulis and moltres to really be able to hurt most of the relevant metagame. I have a team below with cloak necrozma which really puts the hurt on sneasler in particular and avoids snarl spam, but mental herb is equally suitable for really ensuring a critical trick room goes up. In general in this tier I feel like trick room can really seal games with the limited positional tools available if you can exploit it correctly and Necrozma is so good at capitalizing on that concept with its offensive tools. More people should try this guy if you need a solo setter on your team.
T4
I explain this one later but cobalion has a lot of really good support tools (rocks, taunt, volt switch and twave) with great stats and strong damage output. Irontran has really highlighted to me how strong an optional ironpress wincon can be in this tier and cobalion is able to maximize that concept and provide value with its other moves. Being able to outspeed mew to taunt it is incredibly valuable and grabbing momentum with volt switch or applying rocks pressure is always nice in a tier with limited options for those tools.
T3
Every time I test against this guy it looks like it's fine and then it sits on the field for 30 turns and wins after boosting once and I want to die. (help)
yell at me in discord if you want my opinions on other guys
Teamdump:
Normally I would order this by week but I can't remember the order/am feeling too lazy/reused some of these so I'll just go in order of how much I like each team.
PROTECT THE GOODRA
- 
- 
- - -
Sometime last year while gyro ball stakataka was terrorizing Natdex I had the idea to run curse Hoodra in DOU to gyroball max to similar effect. Goodra's fantastic typing and stats enable it to set up really effectively, and curse works double time on boosting the damage gyro ball does thanks to the speed lowering. I found that after 2 or 3 boosts gyro ball generally wipes most pokemon in existence, so if you can support goodra for that long it can easily take over the game. It turns out that without lando-i doing 90% of its HP in one hit goodra is ridiculously hard to stop when supported correctly, even with all of DUU's encore and wisp and taunt spam for such strategies. Sap Sipper and a natural steel typing help greatly vs clear smog and spore, and magmar puts in great work stopping wisp from being able to connect without becoming much more passive in the process like cornerstone or bonnet would, carrying taunt and clear smog to help against opposing setup/disruption even more. Comfey's floral healing piles on more support, and access to trick room and giga drain for sap sipper shenanigans helps a ton as well. Zarude makes for a solid scarf user with strong hits and fast threatening petal blizzard access next to goodra and necrozma acts as another trick room setter that does solid damage and can help deal with sneasler, who is fairly annoying in some matchups. The more I've tested this team the more I've found that a lot of players just aren't ready to deal with most of the pokemon on this team, mostly consisting of IMO underused but very strong pokemon. This team influenced a lot of my unusual VR takes and I highly recommend trying it out it's got a pretty solid matchup spread into almost everything.
Protect the Volcarona
- 
- - - - 
Another protect the carry comp featuring an underused wincon, this team made a small splash when fespy and opelucid had it brought to derby.
This one took about 2 weeks to really flesh out but it really came together as something solid, with bundle and tusk covering volcarona's bad matchups super well by taking on rain and rock types very effectively. Hydreigon ended up being the tailwind setter of choice on this team because we really needed a Psychic resist and another water resist on the team to not get run over by rain/psyspam and it managed to fit the role pretty well with just enough stat and a great resistance profile, and cornerstone was just so easy to slot on after that was figured out to flesh out the offensive profile a bit. Volcarona itself is a really really good win con with great coverage off giga drain, especially with Tera dragon and dragon types in general not being that popular in this tier (aside from bax who doesn't resist heat wave) and the healing especially makes it difficult to KO. Bug buzz isn't bad in this tier either but we decided hitting all the waters and tera waters and having more sustain was better for this type of structure.
Woch-Sylveon
- - 
- - 
-
A classic team structure that I slapped Magmar onto! I think Magmar is really really good and it plays nicely as the fire type on this team, able to spread burn in two different ways for Sylveon. Scarf palafin get a lot of room to maneuver on a team that can slow the game down so much with AV wo chien magmar and porygon2, notably being really important for beating down heatran and forcing it to tera even if it's set up an iron defense. Sylveon itself is really solid I feel now that so much of the previous snarl/eerie impulse usage has gone down in the tier, and the synergy it has with magmar, who can really help deal with steel types and sneasler, I feel has been a bit overlooked.
Fullroom
- 
- 
- 
- - 
A sort of fishy fullroom structure that leads Electabuzz to try to set early (few common leads can break the big buzz in time). This team in particular has min speed electabuzz so you can set trick room with gallade lead and then volt switch into conk and gallade will move second to coach it on the bring-in. Electabuzz in general helps with bonnet counterplay and the double fighting core breaks down dark types and stray pory2s. Enamorus necrozma and conkeldurr do absurd amounts of damage compared to the metagame with really solid coverage and a coached conk in particular is ridiculously hard to take down. Really strong team if you can find it a neutral or positive matchup that rarely struggles with keeping trick room up thanks to how consistent gallade/necrozma can be at setting (might fold to specs moltres though)
Psyspam
- - - 
- -
A psyspam team with some unconventional tricks up its sleeve. Iron crown is really really really good compared to the power level of this tier, held back by the fact that the indeedee it's stuck with can't click follow me (or anything half as useful). This team aims to be more nuanced in its gameplan than a lot of psyspam teams by having toxic spikes on sneasler and a bulky back core in arcanine hisui and puff bonnet to play around that and apply pressure with the booster guys late while giving good space to get into position with in general. Bundle works wonders on this team into rain and motres/jugulis harc is pretty good at dealing with molt/jugs as well with flat damage and a nice flying resist (you can run stone edge or head smash to really push that interaction in your favor if you want).
Jank Rain
- 
- 
- 
- 
/
-
Loaded this team into Hys today and lost, Kingdra kinda sucks lol. In all seriousness band metagross and thund-t are serious threats on rain teams with huge damage ceilings and I wanted to exploit that a bit. Earthquake on metagross is super clickable with double flyings here and caught a lot of my test gamers off guard, the dark/flying slot is a bit maleable, I ended up bringing moltres to the game because Hys loves sneasler and I wanted to load a cloak guy for that. Cobalion is here because it has access to a very fast taunt, able to shut down mew/moltres before they tailwind as well as blocking bonnet. It also provides the team with a very sturdy rock switch in as well as a solid physdef pivot outside metagross that can wincon with ridiculous STAB body press damage. I want to explore cobalion a lot more in the future I think its ability to totally shut down a lot of midrange stuff and outboost all the phys setup targets targets while outspeeding them has a lot of potential on teams that can deal with heatran, and being able to sit on mew/cornerstone is always going to be excellent
------------------------------------------------------
Overall I have to say I quite enjoy this format as it stands. The metagame has a unique mix of tools unlike any other I've played and the defining threats of the format like bax metagross tusk and crown are all pretty fun to play against with solid avenues for counterplay. The only real painpoints in the metagame I have are sneasler RNG and getting flinched out by more offense goltres sets can be really frustrating but that is the game we play. The dynamics between the really fast speed control guys (deo s, eleki, bundle, jugulis) are also pretty cool to see play out, it feels like every team has a good fast control option if it wants it while slower options like mew and moltres or tr in p2/necrozma are able to kick it just as fine. A great bulky offense metagame that I will gladly interact with in DPL unless basc gets freed again in which case I will proceed to crash out in the thread again. 8.5/10
There's a lot going on here so I'll try to keep things brief with each mon and will be skipping a bunch
T1I genuinely can't think of a reason not to run this pokemon on a team in this format unless you already have another fighting type in mind or really really really need to drop it for your psyspam matchup to improve. By far the best fake out user, top tier fast breaker, one of the few pokemon that can comfortably slot a pivot move, one of the best ways to berid of the main redirectors while being able to fake them out, and above all can ALWAYS bail you out of a game with a little bit of luck. Between unburden and poison touch, Av sash cloak and seed sets, incredible stats that can be eved for bulky utility or offense and a littany of strong side options like coaching, toxic spikes, taunt and the occasional throat chop/acro sneasler is simultaneously one of the most flexible AND most consistent pokemon in the metagame and it is a real problem to scout sets for thanks to dire claw/poison touch. Underestimate this pokemon's utility and you can rapidly lose control of a game by getting out positioned or disrupted, underestimate the damage of base attack 130 (!) Close combatand you will find yourself losing multiple pokemon to it. The real decrease in psyspam usage and intimidate users of late has massively benefitted this pokemon, and with its role as a premier threat and support in this metagame I feel very comfortable calling it the best pokemon in the metagame as it's much harder to find a reason NOT to run it than to slap it as a 6th on a lot of teams
T1Iron Defense heatran continues to rise as a general physical check in the tier, becoming a major threat off heatran's ebautiful base typing and affinity for terastallization. Heatran's rock type neutrality and flying resistance are a godsend for its defensive profile while variety in fast life orb, Wisp and Av sets flesh out heatran's offensive profile. It's easily the premier fire type of the metagame and extremely competent at also being any team's bulky steel type. Without Volcanion around to threaten its base typing and give it competition as a fire type heatran really stands mostly unopposed as a fire type aside from more speciallized threats like moth/volc and more specialized support pieces in harc/magmar.
T2Putting this guy in tier 2 might seem like blasphemy but Considering my feelings about sneasler (a direct check especially with poison touch), a high amount of stealth rocks usage from pokemon like mew and deoxys-speed, and its competition in brute bonnet I can't say that cornerstone is a pokemon I can just slap on any team like the other tier 1s. Brute bonnet especially really competes with this guy in my builder and I can never justify running both thanks to the shared fighting weakness to sneasler, and I definitely don't use cornerstone more than bonnet (about the same really). Especially with my recent kick of trying out other follow me users in clef, magmar and electabuzz which all provide useful resistances and unique utility moves I can't call cornerstone an automatic slot onto my teams. Still an incredible button clicker with ridiculous options, but sometimes I want my redirector to be able to click spore/pollen puff or be immune to wisp instead of crippled by it. The main fire type in the tier being neutral to rock also doesn't help this guy's case much, and other annoyances like metagross and iron crown haven't gone anywhere.
T2With Volcanion gone this pokemon is incredibly difficult to deal with defensively, and it's by far the fastest speed control in the tier. Basculegion being gone on top of volcanion also means its competition as a water type has really dried up in general. Freeze dry + hydro pump is able to almost single-handedly shut down rain teams and the big tailwind guy in jugulis is never happy to see a booster bundle on the opposing team. Booster bundle has so much more speed than every other pokemon that I often find myself going unpunished for putting a good amount of bulky onto bundle enabling it to live hits most wouldn't expect and become that much more annoying in the process. I often find myself slapping this pokemon onto teams when I want a good water type and its outstanding coverage an outility with an unrivaled speed tier mean it's almost always playing its own game, not the opponent's.
Iron Bundle @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 144 HP / 252 SpA / 64 SpD / 48 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Freeze-Dry
- Icy Wind
- Protect
Please don't tag me saying "gets owned by timid regieleki" please please please
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 144 HP / 252 SpA / 64 SpD / 48 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Freeze-Dry
- Icy Wind
- Protect
Please don't tag me saying "gets owned by timid regieleki" please please please
T2With Heatran being so ubiquitous, psyspam being on the downswing and Volcanion removed from the format great tusk is more relevant than ever I feel. Av tusk feels as unkillable as iron hands in Dou to me, able to click ridiculously effective coverage and STAB moves with impunity while laughing at everything in the tier as they try to Ko it. Extremely good tera user and extremely effective rapid spin use gives this pokemon a lot of utility and agency in battles, letting it act as a great coaching win condition or supportive threat. Bulk up/booster sets are also a little interesting but AV is the name of the game and i often find myself coming back to tusk to fill holes in my teams as a bulky AV stat attacker.
Not a hot take but I wanted to echo the musings of everyone who says sand is tier 3. Excadrill and houndstone are really really hard to stop in a tier lacking good prankster tailwind/moon and a few dedicated users have really proven how potent sand is as an archetype recently.
UR -> T3I think this pokemon has gone massively underlooked in the metagame, (especially without volcanion around) being extremely positive into bonnet with taunt/vital spirit and eating wisps for an plethora of physical threats in a tier where intimidate is usually a secondary choice to dealing with such threats. Clear smog, taunt, helping hand, wisp, knock off, acid spray and roar: Magmar has a ridiculously deep and useful support movepool with two great abilities to fit onto so many different teams and be a great disruptor as well as a great support. As long as your team has good ways to deal with cornerstone magmar can be a fantastic supportive piece and I hope more people try it out
T3Like magmar I think this guy is a bit underexplored, although I'm a bit less passionate about this one. Side healing is really good and being able to bypass redirection with it is especially nice compared to mew, while still having access to speed control and taunt/encore disruption.
T4One of the most overrated pokemon in the metagame imo. Can't reliably put out good damage thanks to the nature of its ability, a terrible matchup into what I believe is the best pokemon in the metagame and often gets shafted by taunt/encore disruption that is aimed at the much better Mews of the metagame. Into snarl users especially Porygon has a really awful time, not being able to break through early and becoming a sitting duck. The ever-present brute bonnet is also just so so terrible for porygon, having no tools to play against it since it can't itemize for the matchup and really never wants to be forced to run tera grass. It's still a reasonable choice as a solo setter but even then I feel it's largely outclassed by necrozma, which has much better offensive moves to click and actually has an item slot with great bulk in its own right (especially with its ability)
T3With so much fast stuff flying around, being able to set trick room and actually do something with it is a really great quality to have right now. Necrozma is probably the best available pokemon at this imo (if you like armarouge or hoopa I won't judge), with a great attacking stat and photon geyser being a strong STAB option. Earth power and heat wave access to hit steels really sells the pokemon for me, with meteor beam able to whack jugulis and moltres to really be able to hurt most of the relevant metagame. I have a team below with cloak necrozma which really puts the hurt on sneasler in particular and avoids snarl spam, but mental herb is equally suitable for really ensuring a critical trick room goes up. In general in this tier I feel like trick room can really seal games with the limited positional tools available if you can exploit it correctly and Necrozma is so good at capitalizing on that concept with its offensive tools. More people should try this guy if you need a solo setter on your team.
T4I explain this one later but cobalion has a lot of really good support tools (rocks, taunt, volt switch and twave) with great stats and strong damage output. Irontran has really highlighted to me how strong an optional ironpress wincon can be in this tier and cobalion is able to maximize that concept and provide value with its other moves. Being able to outspeed mew to taunt it is incredibly valuable and grabbing momentum with volt switch or applying rocks pressure is always nice in a tier with limited options for those tools.
T3Every time I test against this guy it looks like it's fine and then it sits on the field for 30 turns and wins after boosting once and I want to die. (help)
yell at me in discord if you want my opinions on other guys
Teamdump:
Normally I would order this by week but I can't remember the order/am feeling too lazy/reused some of these so I'll just go in order of how much I like each team.
PROTECT THE GOODRA
- - - - - Sometime last year while gyro ball stakataka was terrorizing Natdex I had the idea to run curse Hoodra in DOU to gyroball max to similar effect. Goodra's fantastic typing and stats enable it to set up really effectively, and curse works double time on boosting the damage gyro ball does thanks to the speed lowering. I found that after 2 or 3 boosts gyro ball generally wipes most pokemon in existence, so if you can support goodra for that long it can easily take over the game. It turns out that without lando-i doing 90% of its HP in one hit goodra is ridiculously hard to stop when supported correctly, even with all of DUU's encore and wisp and taunt spam for such strategies. Sap Sipper and a natural steel typing help greatly vs clear smog and spore, and magmar puts in great work stopping wisp from being able to connect without becoming much more passive in the process like cornerstone or bonnet would, carrying taunt and clear smog to help against opposing setup/disruption even more. Comfey's floral healing piles on more support, and access to trick room and giga drain for sap sipper shenanigans helps a ton as well. Zarude makes for a solid scarf user with strong hits and fast threatening petal blizzard access next to goodra and necrozma acts as another trick room setter that does solid damage and can help deal with sneasler, who is fairly annoying in some matchups. The more I've tested this team the more I've found that a lot of players just aren't ready to deal with most of the pokemon on this team, mostly consisting of IMO underused but very strong pokemon. This team influenced a lot of my unusual VR takes and I highly recommend trying it out it's got a pretty solid matchup spread into almost everything.
Protect the Volcarona
- - - - - Another protect the carry comp featuring an underused wincon, this team made a small splash when fespy and opelucid had it brought to derby.
This one took about 2 weeks to really flesh out but it really came together as something solid, with bundle and tusk covering volcarona's bad matchups super well by taking on rain and rock types very effectively. Hydreigon ended up being the tailwind setter of choice on this team because we really needed a Psychic resist and another water resist on the team to not get run over by rain/psyspam and it managed to fit the role pretty well with just enough stat and a great resistance profile, and cornerstone was just so easy to slot on after that was figured out to flesh out the offensive profile a bit. Volcarona itself is a really really good win con with great coverage off giga drain, especially with Tera dragon and dragon types in general not being that popular in this tier (aside from bax who doesn't resist heat wave) and the healing especially makes it difficult to KO. Bug buzz isn't bad in this tier either but we decided hitting all the waters and tera waters and having more sustain was better for this type of structure.
Woch-Sylveon
- - - - - A classic team structure that I slapped Magmar onto! I think Magmar is really really good and it plays nicely as the fire type on this team, able to spread burn in two different ways for Sylveon. Scarf palafin get a lot of room to maneuver on a team that can slow the game down so much with AV wo chien magmar and porygon2, notably being really important for beating down heatran and forcing it to tera even if it's set up an iron defense. Sylveon itself is really solid I feel now that so much of the previous snarl/eerie impulse usage has gone down in the tier, and the synergy it has with magmar, who can really help deal with steel types and sneasler, I feel has been a bit overlooked.
Fullroom
- - - - - A sort of fishy fullroom structure that leads Electabuzz to try to set early (few common leads can break the big buzz in time). This team in particular has min speed electabuzz so you can set trick room with gallade lead and then volt switch into conk and gallade will move second to coach it on the bring-in. Electabuzz in general helps with bonnet counterplay and the double fighting core breaks down dark types and stray pory2s. Enamorus necrozma and conkeldurr do absurd amounts of damage compared to the metagame with really solid coverage and a coached conk in particular is ridiculously hard to take down. Really strong team if you can find it a neutral or positive matchup that rarely struggles with keeping trick room up thanks to how consistent gallade/necrozma can be at setting (might fold to specs moltres though)
Psyspam
- - - - - A psyspam team with some unconventional tricks up its sleeve. Iron crown is really really really good compared to the power level of this tier, held back by the fact that the indeedee it's stuck with can't click follow me (or anything half as useful). This team aims to be more nuanced in its gameplan than a lot of psyspam teams by having toxic spikes on sneasler and a bulky back core in arcanine hisui and puff bonnet to play around that and apply pressure with the booster guys late while giving good space to get into position with in general. Bundle works wonders on this team into rain and motres/jugulis harc is pretty good at dealing with molt/jugs as well with flat damage and a nice flying resist (you can run stone edge or head smash to really push that interaction in your favor if you want).
Jank Rain
- - - - / - Loaded this team into Hys today and lost, Kingdra kinda sucks lol. In all seriousness band metagross and thund-t are serious threats on rain teams with huge damage ceilings and I wanted to exploit that a bit. Earthquake on metagross is super clickable with double flyings here and caught a lot of my test gamers off guard, the dark/flying slot is a bit maleable, I ended up bringing moltres to the game because Hys loves sneasler and I wanted to load a cloak guy for that. Cobalion is here because it has access to a very fast taunt, able to shut down mew/moltres before they tailwind as well as blocking bonnet. It also provides the team with a very sturdy rock switch in as well as a solid physdef pivot outside metagross that can wincon with ridiculous STAB body press damage. I want to explore cobalion a lot more in the future I think its ability to totally shut down a lot of midrange stuff and outboost all the phys setup targets targets while outspeeding them has a lot of potential on teams that can deal with heatran, and being able to sit on mew/cornerstone is always going to be excellent
------------------------------------------------------
Overall I have to say I quite enjoy this format as it stands. The metagame has a unique mix of tools unlike any other I've played and the defining threats of the format like bax metagross tusk and crown are all pretty fun to play against with solid avenues for counterplay. The only real painpoints in the metagame I have are sneasler RNG and getting flinched out by more offense goltres sets can be really frustrating but that is the game we play. The dynamics between the really fast speed control guys (deo s, eleki, bundle, jugulis) are also pretty cool to see play out, it feels like every team has a good fast control option if it wants it while slower options like mew and moltres or tr in p2/necrozma are able to kick it just as fine. A great bulky offense metagame that I will gladly interact with in DPL unless basc gets freed again in which case I will proceed to crash out in the thread again. 8.5/10
Last edited:
Well said, I would add that spore is also a plague (almost more so than ou because amonguss can be prankster taunted) but aside from that there’s so much room for creative (sometimes gimmicky) teams like yours and alcachofa’s. I even saw a throatspray snarl raikou.Got knocked out of swiss by big HYS himself a bit earlier than I would've liked. With the big stupid fish gone and having watched/helped some derby metagame developments from the sides I decided to jump back into this tier and try building some fun stuff. Tier is very fun, sort of reminds me of bulk-maxed DPP era (minus evil yellow magic) and most of the time the game is pretty well under your own control as long as your moves land and a certain pokemon doesn't pull a funny.
View attachment 743471
There's a lot going on here so I'll try to keep things brief with each mon and will be skipping a bunch
I genuinely can't think of a reason not to run this pokemon on a team in this format unless you already have another fighting type in mind or really really really need to drop it for your psyspam matchup to improve. By far the best fake out user, top tier fast breaker, one of the few pokemon that can comfortably slot a pivot move, one of the best ways to berid of the main redirectors while being able to fake them out, and above all can ALWAYS bail you out of a game with a little bit of luck. Between unburden and poison touch, Av sash cloak and seed sets, incredible stats that can be eved for bulky utility or offense and a littany of strong side options like coaching, toxic spikes, taunt and the occasional throat chop/acro sneasler is simultaneously one of the most flexible AND most consistent pokemon in the metagame and it is a real problem to scout sets for thanks to dire claw/poison touch. Underestimate this pokemon's utility and you can rapidly lose control of a game by getting out positioned or disrupted, underestimate the damage of base attack 130 (!) Close combatand you will find yourself losing multiple pokemon to it. The real decrease in psyspam usage and intimidate users of late has massively benefitted this pokemon, and with its role as a premier threat and support in this metagame I feel very comfortable calling it the best pokemon in the metagame as it's much harder to find a reason NOT to run it than to slap it as a 6th on a lot of teams
Iron Defense heatran continues to rise as a general physical check in the tier, becoming a major threat off heatran's ebautiful base typing and affinity for terastallization. Heatran's rock type neutrality and flying resistance are a godsend for its defensive profile while variety in fast life orb, Wisp and Av sets flesh out heatran's offensive profile. It's easily the premier fire type of the metagame and extremely competent at also being any team's bulky steel type. Without Volcanion around to threaten its base typing and give it competition as a fire type heatran really stands mostly unopposed as a fire type aside from more speciallized threats like moth/volc and more specialized support pieces in harc/magmar.
Putting this guy in tier 2 might seem like blasphemy but Considering my feelings about sneasler (a direct check especially with poison touch), a high amount of stealth rocks usage from pokemon like mew and deoxys-speed, and its competition in brute bonnet I can't say that cornerstone is a pokemon I can just slap on any team like the other tier 1s. Brute bonnet especially really competes with this guy in my builder and I can never justify running both thanks to the shared fighting weakness to sneasler, and I definitely don't use cornerstone more than bonnet (about the same really). Especially with my recent kick of trying out other follow me users in clef, magmar and electabuzz which all provide useful resistances and unique utility moves I can't call cornerstone an automatic slot onto my teams. Still an incredible button clicker with ridiculous options, but sometimes I want my redirector to be able to click spore/pollen puff or be immune to wisp instead of crippled by it. The main fire type in the tier being neutral to rock also doesn't help this guy's case much, and other annoyances like metagross and iron crown haven't gone anywhere.
With Volcanion gone this pokemon is incredibly difficult to deal with defensively, and it's by far the fastest speed control in the tier. Basculegion being gone on top of volcanion also means its competition as a water type has really dried up in general. Freeze dry + hydro pump is able to almost single-handedly shut down rain teams and the big tailwind guy in jugulis is never happy to see a booster bundle on the opposing team. Booster bundle has so much more speed than every other pokemon that I often find myself going unpunished for putting a good amount of bulky onto bundle enabling it to live hits most wouldn't expect and become that much more annoying in the process. I often find myself slapping this pokemon onto teams when I want a good water type and its outstanding coverage an outility with an unrivaled speed tier mean it's almost always playing its own game, not the opponent's.
Iron Bundle @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 144 HP / 252 SpA / 64 SpD / 48 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Freeze-Dry
- Icy Wind
- Protect
Please don't tag me saying "gets owned by timid regieleki" please please please
With Heatran being so ubiquitous, psyspam being on the downswing and Volcanion removed from the format great tusk is more relevant than ever I feel. Av tusk feels as unkillable as iron hands in Dou to me, able to click ridiculously effective coverage and STAB moves with impunity while laughing at everything in the tier as they try to Ko it. Extremely good tera user and extremely effective rapid spin use gives this pokemon a lot of utility and agency in battles, letting it act as a great coaching win condition or supportive threat. Bulk up/booster sets are also a little interesting but AV is the name of the game and i often find myself coming back to tusk to fill holes in my teams as a bulky AV stat attacker.
Not a hot take but I wanted to echo the musings of everyone who says sand is tier 3. Excadrill and houndstone are really really hard to stop in a tier lacking good prankster tailwind/moon and a few dedicated users have really proven how potent sand is as an archetype recently.
I think this pokemon has gone massively underlooked in the metagame, (especially without volcanion around) being extremely positive into bonnet with taunt/vital spirit and eating wisps for an plethora of physical threats in a tier where intimidate is usually a secondary choice to dealing with such threats. Clear smog, taunt, helping hand, wisp, knock off, acid spray and roar: Magmar has a ridiculously deep and useful support movepool with two great abilities to fit onto so many different teams and be a great disruptor as well as a great support. As long as your team has good ways to deal with cornerstone magmar can be a fantastic supportive piece and I hope more people try it out
Like magmar I think this guy is a bit underexplored, although I'm a bit less passionate about this one. Side healing is really good and being able to bypass redirection with it is especially nice compared to mew, while still having access to speed control and taunt/encore disruption.
One of the most overrated pokemon in the metagame imo. Can't reliably put out good damage thanks to the nature of its ability, a terrible matchup into what I believe is the best pokemon in the metagame and often gets shafted by taunt/encore disruption that is aimed at the much better Mews of the metagame. Into snarl users especially Porygon has a really awful time, not being able to break through early and becoming a sitting duck. The ever-present brute bonnet is also just so so terrible for porygon, having no tools to play against it since it can't itemize for the matchup and really never wants to be forced to run tera grass. It's still a reasonable choice as a solo setter but even then I feel it's largely outclassed by necrozma, which has much better offensive moves to click and actually has an item slot with great bulk in its own right (especially with its ability)
With so much fast stuff flying around, being able to set trick room and actually do something with it is a really great quality to have right now. Necrozma is probably the best available pokemon at this imo (if you like armarouge or hoopa I won't judge), with a great attacking stat and photon geyser being a strong STAB option. Earth power and heat wave access to hit steels really sells the pokemon for me, with meteor beam able to whack jugulis and moltres to really be able to hurt most of the relevant metagame. I have a team below with cloak necrozma which really puts the hurt on sneasler in particular and avoids snarl spam, but mental herb is equally suitable for really ensuring a critical trick room goes up. In general in this tier I feel like trick room can really seal games with the limited positional tools available if you can exploit it correctly and Necrozma is so good at capitalizing on that concept with its offensive tools. More people should try this guy if you need a solo setter on your team.
I explain this one later but cobalion has a lot of really good support tools (rocks, taunt, volt switch and twave) with great stats and strong damage output. Irontran has really highlighted to me how strong an optional ironpress wincon can be in this tier and cobalion is able to maximize that concept and provide value with its other moves. Being able to outspeed mew to taunt it is incredibly valuable and grabbing momentum with volt switch or applying rocks pressure is always nice in a tier with limited options for those tools.
Every time I test against this guy it looks like it's fine and then it sits on the field for 30 turns and wins after boosting once and I want to die. (help)
yell at me in discord if you want my opinions on other guys
Teamdump:
Normally I would order this by week but I can't remember the order/am feeling too lazy/reused some of these so I'll just go in order of how much I like each team.
PROTECT THE GOODRA
Sometime last year while gyro ball stakataka was terrorizing Natdex I had the idea to run curse Hoodra in DOU to gyroball max to similar effect. Goodra's fantastic typing and stats enable it to set up really effectively, and curse works double time on boosting the damage gyro ball does thanks to the speed lowering. I found that after 2 or 3 boosts gyro ball generally wipes most pokemon in existence, so if you can support goodra for that long it can easily take over the game. It turns out that without lando-i doing 90% of its HP in one hit goodra is ridiculously hard to stop when supported correctly, even with all of DUU's encore and wisp and taunt spam for such strategies. Sap Sipper and a natural steel typing help greatly vs clear smog and spore, and magmar puts in great work stopping wisp from being able to connect without becoming much more passive in the process like cornerstone or bonnet would, carrying taunt and clear smog to help against opposing setup/disruption even more. Comfey's floral healing piles on more support, and access to trick room and giga drain for sap sipper shenanigans helps a ton as well. Zarude makes for a solid scarf user with strong hits and fast threatening petal blizzard access next to goodra and necrozma acts as another trick room setter that does solid damage and can help deal with sneasler, who is fairly annoying in some matchups. The more I've tested this team the more I've found that a lot of players just aren't ready to deal with most of the pokemon on this team, mostly consisting of IMO underused but very strong pokemon. This team influenced a lot of my unusual VR takes and I highly recommend trying it out it's got a pretty solid matchup spread into almost everything.
Protect the Volcarona
Another protect the carry comp featuring an underused wincon, this team made a small splash when fespy and opelucid had it brought to derby.
This one took about 2 weeks to really flesh out but it really came together as something solid, with bundle and tusk covering volcarona's bad matchups super well by taking on rain and rock types very effectively. Hydreigon ended up being the tailwind setter of choice on this team because we really needed a Psychic resist and another water resist on the team to not get run over by rain/psyspam and it managed to fit the role pretty well with just enough stat and a great resistance profile, and cornerstone was just so easy to slot on after that was figured out to flesh out the offensive profile a bit. Volcarona itself is a really really good win con with great coverage off giga drain, especially with Tera dragon and dragon types in general not being that popular in this tier (aside from bax who doesn't resist heat wave) and the healing especially makes it difficult to KO. Bug buzz isn't bad in this tier either but we decided hitting all the waters and tera waters and having more sustain was better for this type of structure.
Woch-Sylveon
A classic team structure that I slapped Magmar onto! I think Magmar is really really good and it plays nicely as the fire type on this team, able to spread burn in two different ways for Sylveon. Scarf palafin get a lot of room to maneuver on a team that can slow the game down so much with AV wo chien magmar and porygon2, notably being really important for beating down heatran and forcing it to tera even if it's set up an iron defense. Sylveon itself is really solid I feel now that so much of the previous snarl/eerie impulse usage has gone down in the tier, and the synergy it has with magmar, who can really help deal with steel types and sneasler, I feel has been a bit overlooked.
Fullroom
A sort of fishy fullroom structure that leads Electabuzz to try to set early (few common leads can break the big buzz in time). This team in particular has min speed electabuzz so you can set trick room with gallade lead and then volt switch into conk and gallade will move second to coach it on the bring-in. Electabuzz in general helps with bonnet counterplay and the double fighting core breaks down dark types and stray pory2s. Enamorus necrozma and conkeldurr do absurd amounts of damage compared to the metagame with really solid coverage and a coached conk in particular is ridiculously hard to take down. Really strong team if you can find it a neutral or positive matchup that rarely struggles with keeping trick room up thanks to how consistent gallade/necrozma can be at setting (might fold to specs moltres though)
Psyspam
A psyspam team with some unconventional tricks up its sleeve. Iron crown is really really really good compared to the power level of this tier, held back by the fact that the indeedee it's stuck with can't click follow me (or anything half as useful). This team aims to be more nuanced in its gameplan than a lot of psyspam teams by having toxic spikes on sneasler and a bulky back core in arcanine hisui and puff bonnet to play around that and apply pressure with the booster guys late while giving good space to get into position with in general. Bundle works wonders on this team into rain and motres/jugulis harc is pretty good at dealing with molt/jugs as well with flat damage and a nice flying resist (you can run stone edge or head smash to really push that interaction in your favor if you want).
Jank Rain
Loaded this team into Hys today and lost, Kingdra kinda sucks lol. In all seriousness band metagross and thund-t are serious threats on rain teams with huge damage ceilings and I wanted to exploit that a bit. Earthquake on metagross is super clickable with double flyings here and caught a lot of my test gamers off guard, the dark/flying slot is a bit maleable, I ended up bringing moltres to the game because Hys loves sneasler and I wanted to load a cloak guy for that. Cobalion is here because it has access to a very fast taunt, able to shut down mew/moltres before they tailwind as well as blocking bonnet. It also provides the team with a very sturdy rock switch in as well as a solid physdef pivot outside metagross that can wincon with ridiculous STAB body press damage. I want to explore cobalion a lot more in the future I think its ability to totally shut down a lot of midrange stuff and outboost all the phys setup targets targets while outspeeding them has a lot of potential on teams that can deal with heatran, and being able to sit on mew/cornerstone is always going to be excellent
------------------------------------------------------
Overall I have to say I quite enjoy this format as it stands. The metagame has a unique mix of tools unlike any other I've played and the defining threats of the format like bax metagross tusk and crown are all pretty fun to play against with solid avenues for counterplay. The only real painpoints in the metagame I have are sneasler RNG and getting flinched out by more offense goltres sets can be really frustrating but that is the game we play. The dynamics between the really fast speed control guys (deo s, eleki, bundle, jugulis) are also pretty cool to see play out, it feels like every team has a good fast control option if it wants it while slower options like mew and moltres or tr in p2/necrozma are able to kick it just as fine. A great bulky offense metagame that I will gladly interact with in DPL unless basc gets freed again in which case I will proceed to crash out in the thread again. 8.5/10
Watching a replay of yours inspired me to try a similar hoodra team, which I’m quite enjoying, the only issue is that against a slow of trick room team, gyro ball does abysmal damage
Last edited: