SM OU Help a newbie, ur everyday OU team TR Magearna + Alolan Marowak

[chiara_t]

Magearna @ Fairium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Focus Blast
- Volt Switch
- Fleur Cannon
The core of the team. Does magearna things, except I choose volt switch over TBolt, so i can use slow-switch when the situation calls for it.

Landorus-Therian @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- U-turn
Physical tank, earthquakes stuffs, also slow U-turn.

Greninja @ Choice Specs
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Water Shuriken
- Ice Beam
ninja is ninja.

Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 248 HP / 104 Def / 156 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Synthesis
- Hidden Power [Fire]
helps check ground types, strong mon overall

Marowak-Alola @ Thick Club
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 188 HP / 252 Atk / 68 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Shadow Bone
- Flare Blitz
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge
the 2nd core of the team, 68 speed EV to outspeed celesteela outside of TR. Rock Head + Flare Blitz over lightning rod + fire punch because I prefer the raw power with how short lived TR is. Still debating if Bonemerang > Stone Edge.

Latios @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Defog
- Recover
Defogger, does latios stuffs

Overall my explanations are quite short, because I feel they just do the things they usually do and nothing unusual.

Some mons I have trouble with:

Alakazam-Mega: I don't really have any switch-in, and nothing faster than it outside of TR! Choice scarf latios perhaps?

Zygarde: Also nothing to deal with it outside of Landorus-T's HP Ice and Venusaur, but they both are heavily dented upon switch-in. Can just mindlessly spam thousand arrow and heavily dent most of my team.

thoughts? any alternative sets/ mons I should change? I think I missed some weaknesses I encountered along the way, feel free to flame me as much as you can.

 

[Twilight]

Hey pretty interesting team, I haven't seen trick room Mag in a while. I feel like Trick Room can be both good and a hinderence to your team if not used correctly as you have Pokemon not typically run on trick room sets due to them having a lot of speed. Because you haven't been specific in your descriptions it's hard to tell how you use these Pokemon.

• I feel this Mag set is outdated unless used on a trick room team but if you keep using it as you wanted the core around it then I suggest not bringing it in until late game to set up trick room and sweep. If you use it early or in the mid-game most of your team won't benefit from it other than Alowak. Also volt switch is pretty much useless on trick room Mag as the only point you use it is to sweep late game after setting up. So change it back to thunderbolt.

• I would use Bonemerang over stone edge to deal with , heatran and toxapex better.

• Next I would use this ev spread for venusaur. 248 hp/ 88 Def / 156 spd / 16 spe. Again venusaur shouldn't be reliant on trick room, so the speed let's it outspeed mawile. A trick room would be more beneficial to opposing mawile anyways.

• I would suggest spikes > ice beam on gren to help magearna sweep. And Ice Beam isn't that useful as specs hydro deals with zygarde and lando.

• I would use protect > U turn on landlord to better handle zygarde and get those leftover recovery. And make the spread 248 hp / 240 Def / 20 spe. To outspeed 16 speed landorus.

You can run scarf latios to outspeed and revenge kill most of the metagame, Zard x and volcarona at +1 but you then lose a zard y answer because it can't come in twice without recovery. Personally i feel your team would be better with the standard shift gear magearna set and standard wallbreaker Alowak but if this core works then that's fine.

I want to point out you are really weak to Tapu Lele and M pinsir because you have no switch ins. So if pinsir sets up it will sweep and Lele will break your team in general as magearna isn't meant to come in early and set up to sweep because it could hurt your team for the rest of the turns it's up if you are forced out. Celesteela would be a nice option to stop both and has synergy with venusaur but that's up to you.

 

[chiara_t]

Hey pretty interesting team, I haven't seen trick room Mag in a while. I feel like Trick Room can be both good and a hinderence to your team if not used correctly as you have Pokemon not typically run on trick room sets due to them having a lot of speed. Because you haven't been specific in your descriptions it's hard to tell how you use these Pokemon.

• I feel this Mag set is outdated unless used on a trick room team but if you keep using it as you wanted the core around it then I suggest not bringing it in until late game to set up trick room and sweep. If you use it early or in the mid-game most of your team won't benefit from it other than Alowak. Also volt switch is pretty much useless on trick room Mag as the only point you use it is to sweep late game after setting up. So change it back to thunderbolt.

• I would use Bonemerang over stone edge to deal with , heatran and toxapex better.

• Next I would use this ev spread for venusaur. 248 hp/ 88 Def / 156 spd / 16 spe. Again venusaur shouldn't be reliant on trick room, so the speed let's it outspeed mawile. A trick room would be more beneficial to opposing mawile anyways.

• I would suggest spikes > ice beam on gren to help magearna sweep. And Ice Beam isn't that useful as specs hydro deals with zygarde and lando.

• I would use protect > U turn on landlord to better handle zygarde and get those leftover recovery. And make the spread 248 hp / 240 Def / 20 spe. To outspeed 16 speed landorus.

You can run scarf latios to outspeed and revenge kill most of the metagame, Zard x and volcarona at +1 but you then lose a zard y answer because it can't come in twice without recovery. Personally i feel your team would be better with the standard shift gear magearna set and standard wallbreaker Alowak but if this core works then that's fine.

I want to point out you are really weak to Tapu Lele and M pinsir because you have no switch ins. So if pinsir sets up it will sweep and Lele will break your team in general as magearna isn't meant to come in early and set up to sweep because it could hurt your team for the rest of the turns it's up if you are forced out. Celesteela would be a nice option to stop both and has synergy with venusaur but that's up to you.

Thanks for the reply. I was actually a bit bored when making this thread which resulted in my short explanations lol.

The idea to make a TR team came to me after encountering lots of fast sweepers/breakers this gen like Tapu Koko, Greninja-Ash, Scarf Keld, and with priorities not as prevalent as before (RIP Talonflame, less Dragonite cause fairies everywhere, bisharp less prevalent than before, also weavile), so I felt TR can be strong. But I don't want it to be full TR team because I feel full TR team might be a bit hard to execute, that's why I also have fast mons.

• I used Volt Switch because TBolt felt really weak without boost, and felt like I needed slow volt switch, but TBolt might be better afterall.
• I had bonemerang at some point, but felt like I need rock coverage vs, uh I forgot already, probably volcarona or pelipper, and to hit ground immune enemies. But as I used stone edge, I started missing Bonemerang actually.
• I actually had U-turn at some point because I also had skarmory as spiker at some point, later changed it to Ice Beam. You're right though, Ice Beam isn't actually that useful.

As for how I use the mons:

• Magearna and marowak are pretty clear
• Greninja as a fast special wallbreaker outside of TR, also the Dark coverage is really useful I feel, vs like Latios switch ins and other psychics like mew.
• Venusaur to make the team more balanced because it tanks a lot of stuff with Thick fat making it only have 2 real weaknesses. Also handles ground types like lando, and Tapu koko too.
• As I mentioned before I had skarmory at some point with some other mon in place of Lando-T. but felt the team was a bit too defensive for my liking at that point, so decided on Latios as an offensive defogger. Also I was missing on strong Psychic attack to deal with Toxapex, because magearna's TBolt is just too weak without a boost. Draco meteor also provides strong neutral coverage that I can just click most of the time when in doubt.

as for the tapu lele weakness, I actually have been able to sometimes with Tapu Lele, mainly with TR marowak, but it's definitely hard to play around.
as for Pinsir, TR also deals with it but yeah it's also hard to play around it.

for the Celesteela suggestion, I actually hate that mon lol. Which one should I replace with it though? Probably Latios or Landorus-T, with bonemerang on marowak? But I feel that's actually too much pressure on marowak with how frail he is.

 

[Twilight]

Thanks for the reply. I was actually a bit bored when making this thread which resulted in my short explanations lol.

The idea to make a TR team came to me after encountering lots of fast sweepers/breakers this gen like Tapu Koko, Greninja-Ash, Scarf Keld, and with priorities not as prevalent as before (RIP Talonflame, less Dragonite cause fairies everywhere, bisharp less prevalent than before, also weavile), so I felt TR can be strong. But I don't want it to be full TR team because I feel full TR team might be a bit hard to execute, that's why I also have fast mons.

• I used Volt Switch because TBolt felt really weak without boost, and felt like I needed slow volt switch, but TBolt might be better afterall.
• I had bonemerang at some point, but felt like I need rock coverage vs, uh I forgot already, probably volcarona or pelipper, and to hit ground immune enemies. But as I used stone edge, I started missing Bonemerang actually.
• I actually had U-turn at some point because I also had skarmory as spiker at some point, later changed it to Ice Beam. You're right though, Ice Beam isn't actually that useful.

As for how I use the mons:

• Magearna and marowak are pretty clear
• Greninja as a fast special wallbreaker outside of TR, also the Dark coverage is really useful I feel, vs like Latios switch ins and other psychics like mew.
• Venusaur to make the team more balanced because it tanks a lot of stuff with Thick fat making it only have 2 real weaknesses. Also handles ground types like lando, and Tapu koko too.
• As I mentioned before I had skarmory at some point with some other mon in place of Lando-T. but felt the team was a bit too defensive for my liking at that point, so decided on Latios as an offensive defogger. Also I was missing on strong Psychic attack to deal with Toxapex, because magearna's TBolt is just too weak without a boost. Draco meteor also provides strong neutral coverage that I can just click most of the time when in doubt.

as for the tapu lele weakness, I actually have been able to sometimes with Tapu Lele, mainly with TR marowak, but it's definitely hard to play around.
as for Pinsir, TR also deals with it but yeah it's also hard to play around it.

for the Celesteela suggestion, I actually hate that mon lol. Which one should I replace with it though? Probably Latios or Landorus-T, with bonemerang on marowak? But I feel that's actually too much pressure on marowak with how frail he is.

Yes thunderbolt is weak without boost but it's not meant to go with it straight off the bat. It should come in late game where opponent is weakened by hazards etc. Twinkle tackle should pretty much be used straight away to get the boost.

As for celesteela you can't really swap out anything without changing most of your team. As you really need latios for Defog and scarf if you run it to revenge kill zard x, alakazam and volcarona. And lando is only zygarde yards and Zard X switch in.

You could try the mixed mantine set with Defog over ash greninja for a better matchup against rain, greninja. Then run scarf lele which revenge kills pinsir as it can't use quick attack.

As I've said you are pretty limited with what you can use.

 

[Magii]

Also, just a quick note on a trick room team, you want to have more than 1 setter. This really isn't a comprehensive rate, but I can do that later.