Teambuilding:
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Metagross-Mega @ Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Iron Head
- Zen Headbutt
-
Ice Punch Stomping Tantrum
With incredible bulk, huge attack, great speed, and a good ability before as well as after mega evolving, Mega Metagross is a monster. Its bulk allows it to live non-STAB super effective moves easily, sometimes it can even survive STAB super effective moves. If you get hit super effectively by Mega Metagross, you are gone. Period. With the Psychic and Steel, Mega Metagross is both good at offense and defense. The ability to check Psychic and Fairy is also great too.
Iron Head instead of Meteor Mash because it has higher accuracy. This is extremely important, you don't want to spam a move with 90% accuracy in Battle Tree unless you are an NPC in Battle Tree. A miss can change the game drastically in your opponent's favor so Iron Head is a good choice since it has 30% flinch, boosted by Tough Claws, and hit nearly as hard as Meteor Mash without missing.
Zen Headbutt because it is STAB and it gets rid of Poison type pokemons that are threats to Koko. However, since it only has 90 accuracy, I avoid using it as much as possible.
Ice Punch is an amazing coverage move because it OHKO menacing threats such as Landorus, Salamence, Charchomp, Dragonite. Overall, it is mostly to kill Dragons, Flying, and Ground.
Stomping Tantrum over Ice Punch so that it doesn't automatically lose to Heatran and opposing Mega Gross. Plus, Ash-Gren and Lando have Ice type attacks already.
However, Mega Metagross gets walled completely by Steel type and bulky Water type (even though I have Zen Headbutt for Water pokes), so I decided to build the rest to counter these types.
Therefore, I opted to go for Tapu Koko again as it is a reliable lead to get rid of Water type and Dragon type pokemons.
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Tapu Koko @ Electrium Z
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Thunderbolt
- Dazzling Gleam
- Grass Knot
Even though its SpA stat is not impressive, thanks to its ability to bring electric surge, its electric attacks gain 50% power and hits pretty hard. With the powerful Z move plus Terrain, Tapu Koko 90% of the time OHKO everything that doesn't resist it. So, I almost always have a free kill every first turn.
Thunderbolt and Dazzling Gleam are quite standard and there is nothing much to talk about really.
Grass Knot instead of
HP Ice because it hits those heavy Ground pokemons harder. And especially, it hits x4 effectively to the threat Rhyperior since Eearthquake OHKOs me and it has Lightning Rod to deny Thunderbolt/Gigavolt Havic.
So, the common thing between Mega Metagross and Tapu Koko is that they both are weak to Ground and Steel type pokemons. Therefore, the third pokemon will be chosen to defeat Ground and Steel pokemons, which is none other than Mr. Lando - I.
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Landorus @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Protect
- Earth Power
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power [Ice]
Yep, you heard it right. It's Landorus Incarnate form instead of Therian. Here's why. As great as Therian's Atk stat and its ability Intimidate is, my pokemon will be affected by the its spammed STAB move Earthquake. As a result, I went for Incarnate form instead as its STAB move Earth Power hits harder for it is a single targeted move and it doesn't hit its teammate. Second of all, Landorus and Tapu Koko will be my lead, so I don't want to get Intimidated by my opponents if I'm using Therian. With Life Orb Sheer Force, Incarnate hits harder than Therian for sure.
Earth Power: The favorite STAB move that I spam most of the time. With Life Orb, Sheer Force it hits much harder than Koko's terrain boosted Thunderbolt. This stab move checks Steel type easily.
Sludge Bomb: Thanks to Life Orb and Sheer Force, Sludge Bomb is basically a STAB move now so it most of the time can easily OHKO grass type that Koko's Thunderbolt has a hard time dealing with and. Sludge Bomb can be use to kill Fairies too.
HP Ice: Again, the same reason as Ice Punch, it is to deal with threats like opposing Landorus, Garchomp, Ssalamence, etc.
It seems like the core Mega Metagross - Tapu Koko - Landorus I is pretty solid. Now I need to find the final member that can support my team even further. For example: Taking Ice moves to protect Landorus, getting rid of Ground type that kills Koko and Metagross and destroy trick room setters that are usually Ghost or Psychic type. Hmmm, I wonder what can it be...Greninja.
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Greninja @ Focus Sash
Ability: Protean
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe / 4 HP
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Scald
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
The reason I used Protean Greninja instead of Ash-Greninja is because...I don't have one LOL. If I had had one, I would've used it, but oh well.
Greninja-Ash @ Focus Sash
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Protect
- Scald
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
Scald and
Dark Pulse are its main STAB.
Ice Beam because it is too good of an attacking move, duh. Couldn't think of a better attacking move for it.
So here is the full team with the lead in the order that I lead with:
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Strategy:
Contrary to the trend of using Trick Room team in this thread, I want my team to beat everything down with sheer power alone. Most of the time, these pokemons have the potential to OHKO 1 or even 2 pokemons on first turn. So, the strategy is to use Pokemon with high speed and high Atk/SpA to OHKO pokemons that are a threat to my team and leave pokemons that cannot deal much damage to my pokemon alone. With the Z move Gigavolt Havic from Tapu Koko, most pokemons will drop immediately turn 1 if they don't resist it; even if bulky pokemons survives, their attacks are not putting my pokemons in danger anyway since they have no attacking investment. So thanks to Koko, the match up is usually 4 vs 3 after turn 1, or even 4 vs 2 if Landorus can OHKO the other pokemon, which happens quite a lot actually considering Life Orb Sheer Force Earth Power hits like a truck. The mission of Metagross and Greninja in the back is to take out pokemons that the duo Lando-Koko cannot get rid of or just simply take a hit for them.
I know that the strategy sounds simple but it works effectively. The strategy is basically making your team outnumber your opponent's so that you can have the advantage and the important thing is to gang up on the one threat to the team if necessary. The idea of using Koko turn 1 to use Z move to OHKO pokemons is from me getting set up by bulky Pokemons to activate Trick Room and stuff. As a result, I want to lead with something incredibly fast and can hit hard, which is Koko and Z move to OHKO setup users or threats. With said pokemons out of the way turn 1, what my teammates have to do is to simply deal damage to pressure my opponen
The duo Lando-Koko works extremely well together as a lead as they cover each other's weakness:
- Tapu Koko is weak to Ground type? Landorus is immune to it and fires off an attack to that Ground-type Pokemon while Koko protects and finish it turn 2, or Koko can simply Grass Knot/Dazzling Gleam it and let Landorus finish it off if it's a slower pokemon.
- Tapu Koko's main STAB Thunderbolt/Gigavolt Havic cannot hit Grass effectively? Landorus's Sludge Bomb can usually OHKO that grass pokemon.
- Tapu Koko's is weak to Steel type? Landorus OHKOs it.
- Tapu Koko is weak to Poison type? Landorus crushes it.
- Landorus is weak to Water type? Koko OHKOs it.
- Landorus cannot hit Flying type super well? Koko OHKOs it.
The problem is Landorus is weak to Ice type so the priority is to kill that Ice type immediately before anything; if there are two Ice types or there are a threat bigger than that Ice type pokemon, I will switch out Landorus into Metagross to take the Ice move attack or simply just protect with it. Since Ice pokemons are usually bulky, I'm not confident that Landorus can OHKO them so if there are two threats on the field, switch out Landorus or protect with it depending on the situation.
I never switched Greninja in as it is super fragile and it has a Focus Sash and I don't wanna break it. Greninja is like a bonus to the core Mega Metagross - Tapu Koko - Landorus, so I only switch it in when a pokemon faints.
Weakness of the team and threats:
Since the team is hyper offense, their investments are all in speed and power. Consequently, they are quiet fragile as there is no investment in bulk; however, their natural stat is not to be taken lightly as they can take hits too, especially the monster Metagross.
Long story short, the weakness of my team is facing faster pokemons that can hit hard first and Trick Room teams.
Here is the biggest threat to the team:
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Ah yes, the pokemon that I hate facing the most as it is the biggest threat to my team. First and foremost, Mega Alakazam is ridiculous OP with 150 Speed and 175 SpA and Trace ability and Blue seems to always want to mess me up by bringing it. If it is Mega Alakazam, my pokemons are gonna drop. As it mega evolves, Trace ability usually traces my Sheer Force thus makes Psychic even more powerful that can OHKO my Landorus or Tapu Koko every single time. With that being said, when it mega evolves, 1 of my pokemon will die; what even worse is that if Koko dies, Landorus cannot revenge kill it every time with Earth Power. here is the cal to it:
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Alakazam-Mega: 220-259 (87.6 - 103.1%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
Yep, with only 25% chance of killing it, Mega Alakazam will likely take out another pokemon of mine next turn. However, if it attacks and kills Landorus, my Koko can revenge with Gigavolt Havic, but losing Landorus is a huge loss to my team. Predicting the attack and protect with either Landorus or Koko doesn't work either as it is too risky. If my prediction fails, I sure will lose.
Normal Alakazam, on the other hand, wouldn't be so bad...if it doesn't have the stupid Focus Sash. Having the ability to survive an attack from Koko and fire back with Psychic and the attack from Alakazam's partner means my opponent has a free attack against me and that is not good at all.
Switching when there is Alakazam on the field is not always a good idea either because they have a free attack as well.
Other threats are: Ferrthorn, Crobat, Salazzle, Choice Scarf Garchomp, Mega Sceptile, Blissey, Cresselia,... and a lot more and I'm not gonna explain all of them again as I don't want to spam another wall of text.