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Lower Tiers GSC NU Secret Santa 2025
- Thread starter JensenDale
- Start date
Estarossa requested a Return Octillery Spikes Rhyhorn team, so I decided to put it to the test and build something to use in real time for a high stakes tour. I ended making this and using it vs snaga in NUCL this week because I thought it was a very good team. Unfortunately it barely lost but I also got a bit unlucky and didn't play super optimally at the start. S/o to MrSoup for helping me with the base structure and allowing it to turn into this.
https://pokepast.es/7e773b4944ba3d81
I think the concept here is good, as the great Soup told me the only good reason to use Return Octillery is if you don't have a Chinchou switch-in. It has the added bonus of hitting grasses too without relying on using Ice Beam so you can still opp waters like Dewgong. I decided a Double Thief structures was probably somewhat OP with Roar Rhyhorn if used properly. Also everyone knows Estarossa loves Delibird, and it's Christmas time, so it felt natural. Hope you enjoy it.
NUCL replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2nu-895198
https://pokepast.es/7e773b4944ba3d81
I think the concept here is good, as the great Soup told me the only good reason to use Return Octillery is if you don't have a Chinchou switch-in. It has the added bonus of hitting grasses too without relying on using Ice Beam so you can still opp waters like Dewgong. I decided a Double Thief structures was probably somewhat OP with Roar Rhyhorn if used properly. Also everyone knows Estarossa loves Delibird, and it's Christmas time, so it felt natural. Hope you enjoy it.
NUCL replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2nu-895198
MrSoup requested a Spikes Tangela team, something I admit to having tried before but not being super fond of because i find tangela gets crazy passive super quick after throwing off a thief and a sleep. The team i've ended up making is really not my typical style given all of that but it has some aspects of me still in it ig.
In an attempt to do something with this I've paired it with kingler who should appreciate the core of handling both ice beam / hp elec waters, and appreciates the thief onto xatu to let it break a bit better. this core lets you run that scary as fuck breaker in mag while covering those ground / fire etc weaknesses. obligatory weezing to help make progress and check primeape etc. ninetales last is even less like me being honest but i liked that it could cover weezing / xatu / ape etc in a single slot here to provide some more defensive value and hopefully make some offensive progress with sunny day + spikes + thief present and the offensive synergy with mag and kingler.
At this point i changed tangela over to reflect from sleep powder because sleep is bound to just land on an opposing dash/ninetales or whatever anyway and not really help u much and that lets me not have to run momentum drain reflect ninetales and use tangela to potentially make angling around a stantler easier at times etc with reflect, but u can defo just run sleep tangela too still if u want.
https://pokepast.es/477ce8ec0d5e0ae0
Feliz Navidad
In an attempt to do something with this I've paired it with kingler who should appreciate the core of handling both ice beam / hp elec waters, and appreciates the thief onto xatu to let it break a bit better. this core lets you run that scary as fuck breaker in mag while covering those ground / fire etc weaknesses. obligatory weezing to help make progress and check primeape etc. ninetales last is even less like me being honest but i liked that it could cover weezing / xatu / ape etc in a single slot here to provide some more defensive value and hopefully make some offensive progress with sunny day + spikes + thief present and the offensive synergy with mag and kingler.
At this point i changed tangela over to reflect from sleep powder because sleep is bound to just land on an opposing dash/ninetales or whatever anyway and not really help u much and that lets me not have to run momentum drain reflect ninetales and use tangela to potentially make angling around a stantler easier at times etc with reflect, but u can defo just run sleep tangela too still if u want.
https://pokepast.es/477ce8ec0d5e0ae0
Feliz Navidad
Zpice ordered a Magnemite + Dewgong team. Very doable ask with a lot of room for adjustments. Admittedly I had 6 mag + gong teams in my builder, but I wanted to make something very cohesive and tight with synergy.
Magnemite + Dewgong gives some interesting dynamics Both are weak to fire types and fighting types. They are also slow and fearful of giving free turns to Stantler. Conversely, they both hard check Xatu. I wanted to really abuse that. What if I added 4 mons with terrible Xatu matchups?
Spikes were an obvious addition. I think there's a few routes you could take here spikesless (fire/pory + ape + grav + gloom comes to mind), but I think it always ends up weak to stantler or weezing. I wanted to give something solid though, so I went with spikes.
Weezing was also an obvious choice for the fighting check. Rapidash was another strong mon into Xatu, Exeggcute has bad synergy with Dewgong, and Gloom is funky to use on spikes. Weezing also just makes any team better, so I felt solid on this core 4 (Weez, Gong, Pine, Mag).
At this point, the team required a Dewgong/Chinchou answer. The choices were Primeape, Hitmonlee, Wigglytuff, Hitmontop, or Stantler. I didn't want to go with Tuff because it's actually pretty strong into Xatu. I also cut Hitmontop because it generally felt too passive here, but I can totally see it working. Primeape, Hitmonlee, and Stantler were all tempting choices (as they all lose to Xatu), but I ultimately decided to go with a fighting type. The main reason why is that Magnemite is a pseudo normal check, and so I wanted to add more pseudo normal checks instead of adding a direct counter (such as rhyhorn or pupitar). A full counter would feel pretty redundant with Magnemite IMO, having two normal resists. They also require more extensive support against water types that the team did not have room for. So I went into looking for the 6th mon having Lee/Ape as the 5th.
If I could a) shore up my normal MU a little more, b), get another Stantler check, and c) improve my odds against rock types, I felt Hitmonlee was the better choice. This is mostly because of the cushioning Lee provides against Octillery and opposing Magenemite, which were shaping up to be a big issue for the team. I couldn't quite figure out the puzzle until I considered that Dewgong needn't be the 'water' of the team. If I used Rest Kingler as the 'water,' I would improve my matchups against stantler, all fires, and all rock types. I could then make Dewgong Encore, which would give the extra comfort I was looking for against the Curse normals. This felt like the perfect 'click.' I was able to cover the deficiencies of Hitmonlee with extra support against Curse normals, stantler, and rocks (which Ape would be better at), while also adding another Octillery-weak Pokemon (even more justification for Lee).
The last consideration was picking the Weezing set. The team is extremely weak to primeape, so I wanted some sort of rest set over Boom. It also sort of lost to Curse Hitmontop at the moment, so I felt I needed to run Curse Weezing to match. But considering that the team is on the weaker side into Weezing itself, I was looking to optimize the Weezing set to hit all three of these issues. I landed on SB/Rest/ST/Psybeam, which gave longevity against fighting types, beat Curse Hitmontop, and could trade pretty easily (or force a Boom) from opposing Weezing. Not having standard Fire/Electric/Water coverage also turned out to be really manageable. Lee covers all the waters you can't Thunder, Magnemite totally destroys Gloom, Lee also covers opposing Magnemites switching in on your Weezing, and you have TWO! water types to make up for not having HP Water. I would say the Weezing set and the coverage on Lee are the most changeable here, but this is what I settled on.
Merry Christmas!
Magnemite + Dewgong gives some interesting dynamics Both are weak to fire types and fighting types. They are also slow and fearful of giving free turns to Stantler. Conversely, they both hard check Xatu. I wanted to really abuse that. What if I added 4 mons with terrible Xatu matchups?
Spikes were an obvious addition. I think there's a few routes you could take here spikesless (fire/pory + ape + grav + gloom comes to mind), but I think it always ends up weak to stantler or weezing. I wanted to give something solid though, so I went with spikes.
Weezing was also an obvious choice for the fighting check. Rapidash was another strong mon into Xatu, Exeggcute has bad synergy with Dewgong, and Gloom is funky to use on spikes. Weezing also just makes any team better, so I felt solid on this core 4 (Weez, Gong, Pine, Mag).
At this point, the team required a Dewgong/Chinchou answer. The choices were Primeape, Hitmonlee, Wigglytuff, Hitmontop, or Stantler. I didn't want to go with Tuff because it's actually pretty strong into Xatu. I also cut Hitmontop because it generally felt too passive here, but I can totally see it working. Primeape, Hitmonlee, and Stantler were all tempting choices (as they all lose to Xatu), but I ultimately decided to go with a fighting type. The main reason why is that Magnemite is a pseudo normal check, and so I wanted to add more pseudo normal checks instead of adding a direct counter (such as rhyhorn or pupitar). A full counter would feel pretty redundant with Magnemite IMO, having two normal resists. They also require more extensive support against water types that the team did not have room for. So I went into looking for the 6th mon having Lee/Ape as the 5th.
If I could a) shore up my normal MU a little more, b), get another Stantler check, and c) improve my odds against rock types, I felt Hitmonlee was the better choice. This is mostly because of the cushioning Lee provides against Octillery and opposing Magenemite, which were shaping up to be a big issue for the team. I couldn't quite figure out the puzzle until I considered that Dewgong needn't be the 'water' of the team. If I used Rest Kingler as the 'water,' I would improve my matchups against stantler, all fires, and all rock types. I could then make Dewgong Encore, which would give the extra comfort I was looking for against the Curse normals. This felt like the perfect 'click.' I was able to cover the deficiencies of Hitmonlee with extra support against Curse normals, stantler, and rocks (which Ape would be better at), while also adding another Octillery-weak Pokemon (even more justification for Lee).
The last consideration was picking the Weezing set. The team is extremely weak to primeape, so I wanted some sort of rest set over Boom. It also sort of lost to Curse Hitmontop at the moment, so I felt I needed to run Curse Weezing to match. But considering that the team is on the weaker side into Weezing itself, I was looking to optimize the Weezing set to hit all three of these issues. I landed on SB/Rest/ST/Psybeam, which gave longevity against fighting types, beat Curse Hitmontop, and could trade pretty easily (or force a Boom) from opposing Weezing. Not having standard Fire/Electric/Water coverage also turned out to be really manageable. Lee covers all the waters you can't Thunder, Magnemite totally destroys Gloom, Lee also covers opposing Magnemites switching in on your Weezing, and you have TWO! water types to make up for not having HP Water. I would say the Weezing set and the coverage on Lee are the most changeable here, but this is what I settled on.
Merry Christmas!