Longest post I've ever made incoming, dear God just let me get some sleep already.
I'm just gonna throw this guy out there because we haven't gotten a lot of talk about him aside from a quick mention in Dudeman130498's post and maybe somewhere else that I feel like I might have forgotten:
Serge Ibaka (Camerupt) (M) @ Cameruptite
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk/ 0 Spe(HP Ice IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def / 1 Spe)
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Flash Cannon
- Ancient Power / Rock Slide / Hidden Power Ice / Explosion
I've been playing around with some Trick Room teams lately and the playstyle feels pretty anti-meta right now with all of the new speed we've got running around in the tier thanks to the new megas and BL drops. Trick Room teams have grown some new legs and with Mega-Rupt coming in who has what feels to me like better coverage and more power than Mega-Amphy, with Mega-Rupt doing some serious damage when paired with Dudeman's Mixed TR Diancie. If Mega-Rupt manages to get 3 turns of Trick Room you're blowing holes apart in your opponents team unless they out predict you seriously hard, which when they have the pokes to even try they'll go for it 9/10 times which makes it fairly easy to predict from my experience. Sheer Force+Fire Blast, Earth Power, and Flash Cannon is pretty killer coverage, and once your opponent has been worn out by whatever else you've got on your TR team he can clean up whats left fairly easily, even without Trick Room sometimes. A lot of the time sending out TR Mega-Rupt early has been a great way to lay down some serious hurt on bulkier teams to make other TR sweeper's jobs easier later in the game.
The thing is that Mega-Rupt's biggest problem tends to be his fourth moveslot, Mega-Rupt doesn't have a great specially attacking movepool(what Mega-Rupt would do to have nido-esque coverage), and there's not much else you can put there aside from Ancient Power to get any extra coverage. Honestly the only two pokes that I've used Ancient Power on where it would do more damage than a neutral Fire Blast are Volcarona and Rotom-Heat, the former of which is really cool to hit while the latter can't really do anything to you besides stare aggressively, and even a mixed offensive set running Rock Slide similar to Dudeman's mixed TR Diancie has the same limitations. I'm pretty heated that Hidden Power Fairy isn't even a thing, because it would allow Mega-Rupt to OHKO Hydreigon who otherwise is a seriously annoying check to TR Mega-Rupt since he can be a little hard to wear down enough to KO with Flash Cannon as standard Hydrei sets take 45 - 53.3% and can then beat the piss out of Mega-Rupt with Draco Meteor. HP Ice is the best move to run from my experience so you can do 60 - 70% to Specially Defensive Gligar and guarantee a 2HKO on Hydreigon, so that's a good option. Some people have suggested Will-o-Wisp and Yawn to me, but I can't stand either of those options since I feel they're too passive to put on TR teams that rely on more active offensive presence.
I've also used a set where I've switched the 252 in HP to Attack, added back the 31 Attack IV's, and run Explosion to help clear the way for other TR sweepers that I'd recommend if that's more your thing, and it can be very useful if its the last turn of Trick Room and you need to make room for a TR setter, but personally the set just doesn't feel right to me. Honestly I'm open to suggestions for the fourth moveslot here, because I think this guy does some serious work on TR teams atm and is just a little short of fantastic because of this.
Anyway, I just wanna start some conversation on this guy because I think he's a pretty damn good mega who deserves more love than he's gotten in this thread.
