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Lower Tiers GSC NU Secret Santa 2025 [Livetour won by BigFatMantis with team by PHB11677]
- 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!
GSC NU Santa for giove97
https://pokepast.es/25b5666da5311e2f
I got requested to build a team with Azumarill, underrated mon in the tier with like 3 interesting sets. I decided to go for solidity over a HO or cheese with the standard set to try to boost 2 of the most powerful mons of the tier, but specially stantler.
Thats all, any question lmk and Happy New Year
https://pokepast.es/25b5666da5311e2f
I got requested to build a team with Azumarill, underrated mon in the tier with like 3 interesting sets. I decided to go for solidity over a HO or cheese with the standard set to try to boost 2 of the most powerful mons of the tier, but specially stantler.
I decided to swap the roles between 
and 
, giving the support/defensive one checking team threats with the infinite TW+Recover PPs, spreading yellow magic to force free turns and Rests to recover momentum, aka a punching bag untill gets haxed. Then, the curse sweeper with LS support, pretty simple on paper. Due bulk its pretty hard 3hko 
(almost impossible w/o spikes), so can have multiple chance to put a screen against specials mon like 
, 
, 
or fire types, allowing or 
enter the field more comfortably and in a more threatening way.
About set, I just felt like boltbeam is too passive in this team, so mixed looked interesting for the rol mentioned above, chipping with Ice Beam to grounds who tend to absorb TW and DEdge to force Rest more easy or even luck opponent after TW.
Kinda complicated to me pick the right moves in, it needs to live enough to check the fight type mainly, so probably the moveset needs to be adapted after some testing: HP Grass/Water to avoid grounds to wall it / Same with FireBlast and Magnemite / PaintSplit to extend its life / Psybeam, Curse, Haze for certain situations or specific mons. I could also see boomlesss here... but its a big move to close lategames.
and , giving the support/defensive one checking team threats with the infinite TW+Recover PPs, spreading yellow magic to force free turns and Rests to recover momentum, aka a punching bag untill gets haxed. Then, the curse sweeper with LS support, pretty simple on paper. Due bulk its pretty hard 3hko (almost impossible w/o spikes), so can have multiple chance to put a screen against specials mon like , , or fire types, allowing or enter the field more comfortably and in a more threatening way.About
set, I just felt like boltbeam is too passive in this team, so mixed looked interesting for the rol mentioned above, chipping with Ice Beam to grounds who tend to absorb TW and DEdge to force Rest more easy or even luck opponent after TW. Kinda complicated to me pick the right moves in
, it needs to live enough to check the fight type mainly, so probably the moveset needs to be adapted after some testing: HP Grass/Water to avoid grounds to wall it / Same with FireBlast and Magnemite / PaintSplit to extend its life / Psybeam, Curse, Haze for certain situations or specific mons. I could also see boomlesss here... but its a big move to close lategames.Thats all, any question lmk and Happy New Year
Happy new year! Probably a bit belated for a secret santa on my part, oh well!
Took a while to write this, i've been stubbornly trying to locate people to test this with but to no success, so unfortunately I cannot attest to these teams working in practice.
I got requested by JensenDale, they requested "Stall, bonus points if it has a Flying-type pokémon in it"!
With literally nothing else as part of this request, I considered the flying-type addition near obligatory here; I do confess I felt a bit pressured as I never built Stall before on this tier or likely any other, period, and Flying-type adds some frustrating weaknesses for Stall. In this tier, this translates to a weakness to the omnipresent Elec/Ice/Rock coverage moves used by so many crucial mons.
I do confess I have always been a bit icky with playing stall for the "typical" reasons a newer player would have, but knew to respect it as an archetype and, after developing not one, but TWO teams for the archetype, I can admit it seems like a really interesting way to approach this amazing tier; I had a blast theorizing and building these and again only lament only being able to potentially attest to them in theory and not practice.
Also, before I arrive at them, huge thanks for Zpice for giving me teambuilding tips on DM's, and these two posts that helped me get a proper footing on the archetype. Ah, and Hitomontop is replaceable by Hitmonchan on either team, if needed for the Delibird matchup.
Team #1 - Pidgeot + Omanyte Screens Stall
Team #2 - Mantine + Pineco Spikes Stall
Took a while to write this, i've been stubbornly trying to locate people to test this with but to no success, so unfortunately I cannot attest to these teams working in practice.
I got requested by JensenDale, they requested "Stall, bonus points if it has a Flying-type pokémon in it"!
With literally nothing else as part of this request, I considered the flying-type addition near obligatory here; I do confess I felt a bit pressured as I never built Stall before on this tier or likely any other, period, and Flying-type adds some frustrating weaknesses for Stall. In this tier, this translates to a weakness to the omnipresent Elec/Ice/Rock coverage moves used by so many crucial mons.
I do confess I have always been a bit icky with playing stall for the "typical" reasons a newer player would have, but knew to respect it as an archetype and, after developing not one, but TWO teams for the archetype, I can admit it seems like a really interesting way to approach this amazing tier; I had a blast theorizing and building these and again only lament only being able to potentially attest to them in theory and not practice.
Also, before I arrive at them, huge thanks for Zpice for giving me teambuilding tips on DM's, and these two posts that helped me get a proper footing on the archetype. Ah, and Hitomontop is replaceable by Hitmonchan on either team, if needed for the Delibird matchup.
Team #1 - Pidgeot + Omanyte Screens Stall
Standard Shuckle and Top sets for their usual roles in Stall, althought a side of me really wanted to fit Curse on Top. I have always been a Pidgeot advocate and this team gave me another venue to test it; I was going to run Curse/Dedge/Ref/Rest, but the defensive boost from Curse felt redundant alongside Reflect's - at worse, risking a stat overflow, this set is still tempting but I consider it unnecessary; I also contemplated Curse/Dedge/RestTalk to capitalize on it's superior speed and defenses over Deer, but that felt like grasping straws, made Noctowl appear like a better option, and had the same type-related issues I mentioned above.
Instead, Zpice helped me settle on Dedge/Ref/RestTalk which allowed the team to more easily keep screens up; more importantly, he suggested Omanyte as a partner - this team originally ran Dewgong instead - it synergizes well with the big bird by carrying Haze - relieving the bird and Tales from having to run phazing moves, and specially with Reflect up, it can much better handle certain monoattack Cursers and physical Weezing sets. LS on Bayleef gives the team dual screens, and Tales runs Sunny Day as a way to both work better as a possible wincon, and can be used alongside LS as a way to stamp out Water move firepower, specially helpful for Oma and it's low special bulk, who would struggle to handle Water hits due to its neutrality to the type, it's also the team's designated Water + Ice coverage counter, of which I think usually only Dewgong runs that - and even without either LS or Sun, Gong only has a pathetic 2.9% chance of 2HKOing Oma with Surf.
This team may have slight issues with RestTalk Ape as Pidge cannot outspeed it when setting Reflect, and Oma cannot handle either of it's moves, an alternative option here would be running Gloom and accepting a lack of LS on this team, but this puts larger pressure on Tales as a special tank and makes the team fare way worse vs. Xatu, Dug and Rocks. I just now realized Oma may also make Tales slightly redundant as Oma can easily stonewall most Fire-types in the tier, which could free up the team to run another mon entirely. Regardless, I personally believe this team to be quite respectable and, hopefully, very functional.
Instead, Zpice helped me settle on Dedge/Ref/RestTalk which allowed the team to more easily keep screens up; more importantly, he suggested Omanyte as a partner - this team originally ran Dewgong instead - it synergizes well with the big bird by carrying Haze - relieving the bird and Tales from having to run phazing moves, and specially with Reflect up, it can much better handle certain monoattack Cursers and physical Weezing sets. LS on Bayleef gives the team dual screens, and Tales runs Sunny Day as a way to both work better as a possible wincon, and can be used alongside LS as a way to stamp out Water move firepower, specially helpful for Oma and it's low special bulk, who would struggle to handle Water hits due to its neutrality to the type, it's also the team's designated Water + Ice coverage counter, of which I think usually only Dewgong runs that - and even without either LS or Sun, Gong only has a pathetic 2.9% chance of 2HKOing Oma with Surf.
This team may have slight issues with RestTalk Ape as Pidge cannot outspeed it when setting Reflect, and Oma cannot handle either of it's moves, an alternative option here would be running Gloom and accepting a lack of LS on this team, but this puts larger pressure on Tales as a special tank and makes the team fare way worse vs. Xatu, Dug and Rocks. I just now realized Oma may also make Tales slightly redundant as Oma can easily stonewall most Fire-types in the tier, which could free up the team to run another mon entirely. Regardless, I personally believe this team to be quite respectable and, hopefully, very functional.
Team #2 - Mantine + Pineco Spikes Stall
As in the previous team, Shuckle and Top are running quite standard sets here. I for one very much appreciate Pineco still being able to find a place on Stall despite it's tricky longevity, Rest should be a plausible choice for sustainability and can surely be used in place of Tect. HP Water as informed by Zpice to me is a preferable move for it over other HP's to let Pineco not lose too many precious stat DV's while still carrying useful coverage to try and hurt a predicted Graveler switchin.
Mantine originally felt like an intelligent pick for Stall due to it's colossal special bulk, decent speed tier, likely decent offensive power with Surf, and Haze; indeed, it's likely Stall's, no, this entire tier's bestest answer to GrowthPass as it totally shuts down Flareon - however, it has serious issues to actually serve it's role as a bulky Water-type, while being neutral to Ice coverage is OK, being double weak to Electric coverage is not so much; in practice, this means it struggles with both Oct and Chinchou, embarassingly taking a guaranteed 2HKO from the former, and a nearly 50% chance of being OHKO'd by the latter. This means Tine puts much more of a load on the Grass-type's shoulders in the role of handling opposing Waters not named Dewgong. This team originally had Gloom, but I swapped it for Bayleef again, running Gloom's original SD set, last minute as I also noticed Mantine has a horrible Xatu MU, demanding the bird also be handled by the rest of the team.
I genuinely feel like I couldn't do much else with Tine on the team - this is likely the best it can perform with it's unfortunate typing; hopefully this team should at least have a strong MU vs. BP archetypes and a decent MU vs Spikeless, Normal/Curse spam and Waterless archetypes.
Mantine originally felt like an intelligent pick for Stall due to it's colossal special bulk, decent speed tier, likely decent offensive power with Surf, and Haze; indeed, it's likely Stall's, no, this entire tier's bestest answer to GrowthPass as it totally shuts down Flareon - however, it has serious issues to actually serve it's role as a bulky Water-type, while being neutral to Ice coverage is OK, being double weak to Electric coverage is not so much; in practice, this means it struggles with both Oct and Chinchou, embarassingly taking a guaranteed 2HKO from the former, and a nearly 50% chance of being OHKO'd by the latter. This means Tine puts much more of a load on the Grass-type's shoulders in the role of handling opposing Waters not named Dewgong. This team originally had Gloom, but I swapped it for Bayleef again, running Gloom's original SD set, last minute as I also noticed Mantine has a horrible Xatu MU, demanding the bird also be handled by the rest of the team.
I genuinely feel like I couldn't do much else with Tine on the team - this is likely the best it can perform with it's unfortunate typing; hopefully this team should at least have a strong MU vs. BP archetypes and a decent MU vs Spikeless, Normal/Curse spam and Waterless archetypes.
Keeping this shorter since I’m boarding a flight soon, but I will be back to this.
I was tasked for making a team for Real FV13 . He’s a builder I highly respect, and always finds creative ways to build teams in this tier, so needless to say I felt a lot of pressure.
The task was to build a Dugtrio team. Dugtrio teams to me are always difficult to build, and before the final version I even tried to make a Dugtrio stall team, which went as well as one would expect.
Here is the final version I have: https://pokepast.es/cdc1148e2373e9e2
I’m gonna make this all cleaner after my flight but didn’t want to leave Real FV waiting, so I’ll keep this brief.
Light screen holds the team together, it has weaknesses to SDT an octillery, and chinch putting out some pressure both offensively and defensively works well with the rest of the squad. It lets both ape and weez to switch into way more than they should, and helps for forcing seiches to give Dugtrio a good position.
Happy New year, and Feliz Navidad
I was tasked for making a team for Real FV13 . He’s a builder I highly respect, and always finds creative ways to build teams in this tier, so needless to say I felt a lot of pressure.
The task was to build a Dugtrio team. Dugtrio teams to me are always difficult to build, and before the final version I even tried to make a Dugtrio stall team, which went as well as one would expect.
Here is the final version I have: https://pokepast.es/cdc1148e2373e9e2
I’m gonna make this all cleaner after my flight but didn’t want to leave Real FV waiting, so I’ll keep this brief.
Light screen holds the team together, it has weaknesses to SDT an octillery, and chinch putting out some pressure both offensively and defensively works well with the rest of the squad. It lets both ape and weez to switch into way more than they should, and helps for forcing seiches to give Dugtrio a good position.
Happy New year, and Feliz Navidad
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I had a huge responsibility placed on me this holiday season. I was tasked by THE BigFatMantis to use Stantler and Delibird to make a complement to THE GSC NU Christmas Team. While I still have much to improve upon in regards to teambuilding, thanks to help from JensenDale, BeeOrSomething, LHF, and especially Shengineer, I think I've created something to be proud of. Without further ado, I present:
THE UNMATCHED POWER OF CHRISTMAS SUN!
I do think that the team is weak to opposing fires, but as Bee told me, that's pretty difficult to avoid when making a sun team. I was pretty busy during the holiday season (spending time with family, watching sports), so I apologize for taking till the final moment to gift this team, but I hope BFM (and everyone else who'd like to use it) finds success, hype moments, and most importantly, lots of fun when using it. Happy Holidays, and I hope everyone has a great 2026!
THE UNMATCHED POWER OF CHRISTMAS SUN!
I started building by just copying the Delibird and Stantler sets from the original Christmas Team, then scouring the VR for mons that could be given fun nicknames. This led me to add Bayleef and Magmar, despite them not being very good. After reading Magmar's (most likely outdated) strategy dex entry, and seeing Sunny Day in its reccomended set, I decided to go in that direction. My final two additions were Ninetales (since it's the sun lead I'm most familiar with), and Flareon, to make a team that was just chock-full of mons that could take advantage of the sun. This original version of the team can be found below, although I don't think it's of the best quality, for reasons I'll get into.
Immediately after making this team I though it was trying to do too much. It has sun, spikes, reflect, and bp, with really only ninetales and bayleef (kinda) as recievers. It also uses a couple mons that aren't very consistent, and I'd like to give a present that can at least do decent in games. This led me to reach out to others to help refine the team. Jensen informed me that Bayleef was really found on stall teams, as a wall with sd and toxic, so this led me to replace it with Gloom (which is the better sd grass type imo, and could still rock the same nickname). I found a team by leoperi that had razor leaf gloom, and though "this seems like it'd be good tech to deal with grounds, I'll include that" (thanks Leo). I then reached out to Shen on advice on how to refine the team further. He was a huge help, first by confirming that the bp angle was too much, and by letting me know that I didn't really need 3 (or even 2) fire types for a sun team, and reccomended Xatu and Sudowoodo instead. And after a final bit of sanity checking from Bee and LHF, the team was done!
Immediately after making this team I though it was trying to do too much. It has sun, spikes, reflect, and bp, with really only ninetales and bayleef (kinda) as recievers. It also uses a couple mons that aren't very consistent, and I'd like to give a present that can at least do decent in games. This led me to reach out to others to help refine the team. Jensen informed me that Bayleef was really found on stall teams, as a wall with sd and toxic, so this led me to replace it with Gloom (which is the better sd grass type imo, and could still rock the same nickname). I found a team by leoperi that had razor leaf gloom, and though "this seems like it'd be good tech to deal with grounds, I'll include that" (thanks Leo). I then reached out to Shen on advice on how to refine the team further. He was a huge help, first by confirming that the bp angle was too much, and by letting me know that I didn't really need 3 (or even 2) fire types for a sun team, and reccomended Xatu and Sudowoodo instead. And after a final bit of sanity checking from Bee and LHF, the team was done!
I do think that the team is weak to opposing fires, but as Bee told me, that's pretty difficult to avoid when making a sun team. I was pretty busy during the holiday season (spending time with family, watching sports), so I apologize for taking till the final moment to gift this team, but I hope BFM (and everyone else who'd like to use it) finds success, hype moments, and most importantly, lots of fun when using it. Happy Holidays, and I hope everyone has a great 2026!
leoperi asked for an team build around corsola
https://pokepast.es/1252361e3c91ebf9
I have built this team, I will add details later as I am in kind of busy schdule these days and didnt wanted to let his request be further delayed.
https://pokepast.es/1252361e3c91ebf9
I have built this team, I will add details later as I am in kind of busy schdule these days and didnt wanted to let his request be further delayed.
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Hello everyone, I hope your holidays were good, and I have 2 announcements.
1. It seems that the best time for everyone is around Saturday Jan 10th, at around 7pm GMT - 6. Depending on how many show up, I'm down to do either a small tournament or a mini round robin where the top 2 face off. Either one I am more than happy to attend to.
2. If you did not receive a Secret Santa please DM me, I will also be checking and attending to this, so I can build you a team. I don't want anyone to go without a team here and I will be more than happy to build one.
Thank you for participating!
1. It seems that the best time for everyone is around Saturday Jan 10th, at around 7pm GMT - 6. Depending on how many show up, I'm down to do either a small tournament or a mini round robin where the top 2 face off. Either one I am more than happy to attend to.
2. If you did not receive a Secret Santa please DM me, I will also be checking and attending to this, so I can build you a team. I don't want anyone to go without a team here and I will be more than happy to build one.
Thank you for participating!
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I dearly, sincerely hope i'm not being annoying; the Saturday is jan 10th, jan 11th is sunday, which of the two did you mean?
It is the 10th, my bad on that, I use the numpad and there was a typo
I don't like leaving people behind, and July had reached out wanting a team. I was more than happy to accomodate and wanted to use a mon I don't build with a lot. This was Hitmonlee
I think Hitmonlee can really succeed with support. MrSoup has had a lot of success with the Hitmonlee + Xatu Combo, as well as the Pupitar + Dnair combo, and I wanted to mimic that a bit but more potent on the SpA side. So I made this.
https://pokepast.es/9d500af00b074abe
Idea is for Pidgeot to get a lot of entries because it's Pidgeot, and for Lee and Chou to gain from that. Pain Split allows for Weezing to survive more and gain from the spikes that pineco provides, alongside Xatu. I will admit, even though this team has gone thru minimal testing it passes my eye test, and I am happy July reached out to me.
EDIT: I do think Curse and HP Rock are interchangeable on this team, however I think Curse gives a better matchup into the Curse Normals we all Love and Hate, so I decided to go with that. It also is good at making its mark into curse + utility Stant sets we see from time to time (sometimes from yours truly)
I think Hitmonlee can really succeed with support. MrSoup has had a lot of success with the Hitmonlee + Xatu Combo, as well as the Pupitar + Dnair combo, and I wanted to mimic that a bit but more potent on the SpA side. So I made this.
https://pokepast.es/9d500af00b074abe
Idea is for Pidgeot to get a lot of entries because it's Pidgeot, and for Lee and Chou to gain from that. Pain Split allows for Weezing to survive more and gain from the spikes that pineco provides, alongside Xatu. I will admit, even though this team has gone thru minimal testing it passes my eye test, and I am happy July reached out to me.
EDIT: I do think Curse and HP Rock are interchangeable on this team, however I think Curse gives a better matchup into the Curse Normals we all Love and Hate, so I decided to go with that. It also is good at making its mark into curse + utility Stant sets we see from time to time (sometimes from yours truly)
GSC NU Secret Santa Fight Night Live...
BigFatMantis vs MrSoup
JensenDale vs PHB11677
Lyra vs Bye 1
Leeto64 vs Bye 2
BigFatMantis vs MrSoup
JensenDale vs PHB11677
Lyra vs Bye 1
Leeto64 vs Bye 2
Won R1 after getting pretty lucky, gg
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2nu-898701
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2nu-898701
Won R1 after getting pretty lucky, gg
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2nu-898702
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2nu-898702
Won w/ counter team
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2nu-898711
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2nu-898711
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Happy (belated) holidays! Here is the team you requested Shengineer. You requested for a team built around a hyper offense built around the joyful Delibird.
Delibird HO-HO-HO
https://pokepast.es/6886015575445f38
Delibird allows for you to gain early momentum against Water-type leads early through its utility that it provides. The rest of the team is built around overloading on the physical end through Curse and Explosion users, with Kingler serving as a cleaner. Your main worry against this team should be mixed attacking threats like Hidden Power Water Graveler or Rapidash. Otherwise, I think the team serves relatively well at what Delibird does on Hyper Offense.
My apologies to July for not sending this team to you sooner. This team was sent to me by Giove97. You requested for a Hitmonlee balance team. While I can't directly comment on the team itself, there are some interesting concepts varying from Houndour being used to Pursuit trap Gastly (notable team threat) and Dunsparce as a win condition. Hope you enjoy both this team, and the team that JensenDale sent too!
Delibird HO-HO-HO
https://pokepast.es/6886015575445f38
Delibird allows for you to gain early momentum against Water-type leads early through its utility that it provides. The rest of the team is built around overloading on the physical end through Curse and Explosion users, with Kingler serving as a cleaner. Your main worry against this team should be mixed attacking threats like Hidden Power Water Graveler or Rapidash. Otherwise, I think the team serves relatively well at what Delibird does on Hyper Offense.
My apologies to July for not sending this team to you sooner. This team was sent to me by Giove97. You requested for a Hitmonlee balance team. While I can't directly comment on the team itself, there are some interesting concepts varying from Houndour being used to Pursuit trap Gastly (notable team threat) and Dunsparce as a win condition. Hope you enjoy both this team, and the team that JensenDale sent too!
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2nu-898715 Christmas team reigns supreme on Christmas
Congratulations to BigFatMantis for winning the GSC NU Secret Santa Tournament, and PHB11677 for building the team!