click for the paste
it's been a while since last time hasn't it, my teams only really end up being good when i find something fresh, this alongside kinda being locked to playing HO exclusively and the tier becoming more stale means i hit kind of a writer's block (after delaying this rmt for three fucking months and having two different people speculate on me having adhd because of it this statement got funnier), but i'm back, and this time i may have made my best team so far and it carried me through 3 of the ladder achievements, notably getting me not only to top 1 but also straight up to the 1700s far higher than my past record of 1586, and it also won in a really good game in SCL finals!
the GXE was gotten later on after it had decayed
THE TEAM
Ninetales-Alola @ Icy Rock
Ability: Snow Warning
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Blizzard
- Moonblast
- Aurora Veil
Since Light Clay is banned in RU Icy Rock is ran, while encore is a noteworthy option for the bisharp matchup, full SPA Nasty Plot is ran, as it can easily start threatening steelless teams or just clean late-game, as it's damage at +2 is pretty good and will threaten things like Slowbro that the opponent would have expected to not have problems into it (example replay where the opponent lets blissey go early, not expecting ninetales to sweep) funnily enough, the best replay to showcase it might be the one from SCL where hjkhj opted for Encore over Nasty Plot, which would have allowed to threaten slowbro as well as the whole team without needing to pp stall the slack offs as soon as blissey went down. Blizzard is my preffered option over freeze dry because of the sheer damage difference; 40 extra BP is a lot and all our waters cower away at the sight of a moonblast either way, other than that it's often lead with as it can set the early Snow for Sandslash-A all while threatening to place the Aurora Veil
Cetitan @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Slush Rush
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Belly Drum
- Earthquake
- Icicle Crash/Ice Spinner
- Ice Shard
The big scary wincon, +6 tera ground earthquake kinda kills everything, notably Slowbro, while some stray tera steel mienshao may kill you once snow is off and slush rush gets disabled, most of the time, a cetitan setup is a win, Icicle Crash is chosen for it's non-contact nature, while EQ and shard are already non-contact, talonflame is awkward as with ice spinner you gotta choose between 75% chance to kill with shard or 30% burn with Ice Spinner, crash also has the ability to sometimes just luck your way through stall, mew kinda forces quag to be at 50% toxic'd so 1 flinch on it from cetitan is a death sentence. Ice spinner is still a solid option and the elo record was gotten with it, overall not a lot to say because it's very straightforward, you kinda setup on every phys mon, on basically everything with veil. it's also worth noting that it's kind of a tera hog, really liking it both to set up on a lot of targets and to threaten OHKOs on Slowbro and Tera'd Chesnaught, so you should keep Tera for it most of the time, unless you see a win with something else from tera, whether it be a tera fairy mew sweep or a tera ghost to block a spin and keep a nasty amount of hazards on, it can also be useful even when the opponent doesn't have a wall forcing your tera simply for the unboosted damage, with it's good atk and high speed, Cetitan can sometimes Revenge Kill problem mons and Clean a weakened team without needing to find a setup opportunity.
Sandslash-Alola @ Eject Button
Ability: Slush Rush
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spikes/Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
- Triple Axel
- Rapid Spin
This is kind of a unique choice but it makes sense, it serves a similar purpose to Iron Treads in this team, it's fast, it does surprising damage and most importantly, it crams every utility under the sun into one mon and contrarly to common role compression traps, it's very consistent at it. Triple Axel threatens every ghost type bar basculegion, making it very hard to spinblock, which is especially nice as the team is very weak to hazards. It also threatens Hazard Removal Such as Noivern and Cyclizar, with Talonflame only being threatened if you get lucky with avoiding Flame Body, but the rest of the team will make Talonflame a non issue, while a single stab may seem a bit passive, you easily punish Steel and Water Types that may wall you by simply putting up hazards, every mon you threaten out or being passive or about to attack you is an opportunity to place one more layer, stacking hazards is very powerful for HO, you can heavily cripple some of the more hazard weak Defensive mons like Umbreon and Muk Alola and generally put a lot of mons in convenient ranges. Eject button is great at giving early momentum and can be used to not waste Aurora Veil turns or to send in something safely on a strong attack. while it rarely, if ever teras, Tera Ghost allows it to block Rapid Spin. Knock off is a great option, opting to punish opposing passivity by removing items instead of stacking hazards and notably threatening Basculegion, which one you choose goes to personal preference
Mew @ Sitrus Berry / Lum Berry
Ability: Synchronize
Tera Type: Fairy / Poison
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Draining Kiss
- Psychic Noise
- Earth Power
this is the most customisable slot of the team and you can put other options here that will be mentioned later but right now let’s focus on mew, with it’s great natural bulk it’s a fantastic abuser of the few Aurora Veil turns, 100 is a pretty good speed for RU standards and it can most of the time trade with something else if not sweep outright, it’s especially problematic for bulkier teams, if you let it setup for too long you now have a tera’d mew at +2 with a Draining Kiss that hits as hard as it’s Earth Power that will sponge hits and solo every special wall, often the best they can do is trade their umbreon, taking heavy damage on it, maybe even spending Tera and getting Toxic’d by Synchronize, against stall in particular it’s great, Blissey fears it as it quicky becomes a health dispenser for a +6 draining kiss all while being unable to block psychic noise without Tera making it even weaker to draining kiss, Amuk should get baited and weakened by Armarouge, the only thing stopping it is quagsire, which thanks to unaware can take 45 % from a psychic noise and use the opportunity to Toxic you and itself, since you also block it’s recover you can easily pile damage on it, switch and sweep later with mew, one thing it has over the other candidates for the slot is it’s bulk, against complicated foes like Magnezone the ability to shrug some hits is much appreciated and it’s Stallbreaking capabilities are uncommon and crucial in flipping over a usually poor matchup, you could also run a Lum Berry or Tera poison if you want to really beat stall, they're fine options but not the most useful into other mons
Armarouge @ Power Herb
Ability: Weak Armor
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Meteor Beam
- Armor Cannon
- Psyshock
- Energy Ball
shout out to Bice who told me to make a team with Meteor Beam Armarouge like 6 months ago, it's at it's most effective currently since Goodra-Hisui usage seems to slow down, it has a better matchup into Alolan Muk, Umbreon, Cyclizar as well as beating some common answers and opposing fire types, Noivern, Armarouge, Entei and Talonflame, our team having a lot of ice types makes a better matchup into Fire and Steel types really important, against stall in particular, it's good at either forcing a lot of damage on Muk-A and/or forcing Tera Dark on Blissey, other than that there's not much to say, Armarouge is a monster at progres making that also punishes every physical move in the game all while having defensive value and forcing progress on it's checks, which makes it often really good to send early, even maybe as a lead if you feel like your opponent will lead with Magnezone for example, which is very tricky to deal with for the team if you have the wrong mon out
Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 248 HP / 120 Def / 140 Spe
Bold Nature (or 248 HP / 44 Def / 216 Spe Timid)
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rest
- Roar
- Scald
- Calm Mind
i tinkered a lot with the last slot, one problem i had is that while snow gives plenty enough physical bulk to our 3 ice types but on the special side, the bulk is still shaky, furthermore, without Encore on Ninetales, Setup mons could quickly become overwhelming, this is where this Suicune set comes in, straight up stolen from hjkhj, it will setup forever on passive teams with Rest, further enhanced by Tera Ghost walling Chansey and Roar which great on this team for a lot of reasons, with our army of special attackers, a calm mind mon could setup on you and very quickly become impossible to deal with, you can just Roar them out, some strong physical attacker like krookodile menacing you? click Scald or Roar them away (i don't recommend trying agianst bisharp though lest you get throat chopped) and a final combination i really like with Roar is Sandslash's Hazard Stacking, against teams weaker to hazards you can spread damage on the opponent's whole team by just clicking Roar a bunch, with tera Ghost also working to block Rapid Spin, the spread is pretty standard, it’s enough speed to outspeed things like Magnezone and Bisharp and then as much physical bulk as possible. Another good spread, courtesy of LBN is 216speed Timid, to outspeed base 80 mons and armarouge, at the cost of a lot of physical bulk
Addendum:
i talked about more options for slot 4 so here they are
Crawdaunt @ Focus Sash
Ability: Adaptability
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet
- Crabhammer
- Swords Dance
good old sash craw, great anti lead against all the problem mons, Magnezone, Gengar, Kleavor, HO leads all get threatened heavily by an adaptability stab knock off and aqua jet to the face, it's hard walled by chesnaught but forcing it in is a blessing for the team and if it did that it did it's job, also great at revenge killing thanks to the sash and it's scary offensive power as well as priority, all around great pick who's biggest flaw is that it makes the stall matchup much more complicated
Gengar @ Focus Sash
Ability: Cursed Body
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Wave
- Destiny Bond
coming straight from HJKHJ and used in his SCL replay, this set aims to do similar stuff to the crawdaunt, but doubling as out of snow speed control, while i'd say it doesn't help much against stall, that's visibly a skill issue on my part seeing how it won in that one game i keep bringing up, destiny bond is a funny tool for trading and will help massively meteor beam armarouge notably by taking an amuk for example or a goodra-h
Tornadus @ Wide Lens /Heavy Duty Boots
Ability: Prankster
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 8 HP / 248 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Bleakwind Storm
- Focus Blast
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot
similarly to gengar it fits the speed control role, also doubling as a ground immune and importantly having a fantastic stall matchup, it does ridiculous damage and after a sub and a tera ghost on blissey you kind of just win, which is great, now the downsides, it can't aim for shit, you will miss, you will cry and it will make you lose some games and also it doesn't help much agianst AV zone or Kleavor whereas the sash mons and mew can kinda blanket answer everything once, it's a solid choice but it might be risky into already complicated matchups
The Stall Matchup:
it's kind of the only matchup that you really play with a specific line and i wanted to write it on here since i've had people asking me questions about it before, with the base version of the team the idea is simple, cetitan is generally useless, forget him, suicune can be nice and could wil but will probably not be what does, the real deal is your 3 speatkers, and their synergy
Armarouge
Meteor beam armarouge is a fantastic firestarter and can easily rack up trouble when you get it on a physical wall, as to how you use it, pretty simple, you click meteor beam, from there 2 pathes:
>Muk Alola is sent → click armor cannon → muk is almost dead and you live knock since you’re itemless, now, mew is a menace and you can continue clicking armor cannon for a bit
>Blissey is sent → click psyshock →
IF they tera dark→ it no longer works as a Ninetales check which now kinda has free roam and mew can also heal off it extremely easily now
Else → What? Kill the blissey, chip the amuk, now Ninetales A wins, Mew wins idk just do whatever atp
use your tools wisely, remember quag still often doubles as a mew panic answer and everything should be good
Final Thoughts
it’s about time isn’t it, three fucking months for a poorly written hard to digest slab of text is unheard of, everything’s been kind of bullshit lately and I haven’t had the motivation to do anything, I still don’t but I wanted to get this out because what I hope I made clear is that while this is my team, it took a good half dozen people to get where it’s at, from FlamPoke’s original snow which set the base with mbeam arma and plot tales, to the help I got from Akotelette in the prototypes, to all the variants and alternate sets by hjkhj, Heatranator and LBN, and probably others I’m forgetting, if this is you please remind me, overall, I hope you liked it, I’ve been meaning to share that one for a long time now and if you've been one of the few people waiting for it, congrats, the wait is over