I got some more heat to showcase today, you're gonna love it.
Mono-Fighting Anti-Fairy Meme Team
Background
I was scouting for my opponent for the Monotype Ladder Tournament and saw that in the last few games, he had played primarily Mono-Fairy and Water. Looking through my existing teams, I realized how weak I was in general to Fairy, and since most of the teams that I ran throughout this tournament lost this matchup, I was slightly scared. So I decided that I would create a team that could put Fairy in the dirt. While going over the threats that Fairy brought to the table, I noted that Azumarill, Screens Klefki, and Tapu Bulu were the ones that usually gave me trouble. I was doing this late at night, and somehow my sleep deprived brain decided that a Toxicroak Fighting would have the tools to beat every single one of these threats. Toxicroak, with its immunity to Water moves as well as access to Gunk Shot, Brick Break being able to break screens, and Cobalion to hard wall Tapu Bulu all seemed like good ideas at the time. So this team came into fruition. Unfortunately, I lost due to my opponent bringing Poison rather than anything he had brought previously, which caught me off guard, but I still came out of it all with this fun, weird team.
Mono-Fighting Anti-Fairy Meme Team
Background
I was scouting for my opponent for the Monotype Ladder Tournament and saw that in the last few games, he had played primarily Mono-Fairy and Water. Looking through my existing teams, I realized how weak I was in general to Fairy, and since most of the teams that I ran throughout this tournament lost this matchup, I was slightly scared. So I decided that I would create a team that could put Fairy in the dirt. While going over the threats that Fairy brought to the table, I noted that Azumarill, Screens Klefki, and Tapu Bulu were the ones that usually gave me trouble. I was doing this late at night, and somehow my sleep deprived brain decided that a Toxicroak Fighting would have the tools to beat every single one of these threats. Toxicroak, with its immunity to Water moves as well as access to Gunk Shot, Brick Break being able to break screens, and Cobalion to hard wall Tapu Bulu all seemed like good ideas at the time. So this team came into fruition. Unfortunately, I lost due to my opponent bringing Poison rather than anything he had brought previously, which caught me off guard, but I still came out of it all with this fun, weird team.
Cobalion @ Steelium Z
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
Gallade-Mega @ Galladite
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brick Break
- Zen Headbutt
- Shadow Sneak
- Swords Dance
Keldeo @ Leftovers
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Secret Sword
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Poison]
Terrakion @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
Kommo-o @ Life Orb
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Close Combat
- Poison Jab
- Dragon Claw
Toxicroak @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Gunk Shot
- Sucker Punch
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
Gallade-Mega @ Galladite
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brick Break
- Zen Headbutt
- Shadow Sneak
- Swords Dance
Keldeo @ Leftovers
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Secret Sword
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Poison]
Terrakion @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
Kommo-o @ Life Orb
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Close Combat
- Poison Jab
- Dragon Claw
Toxicroak @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Gunk Shot
- Sucker Punch
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
The Team
Cobalion @ Steelium Z
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
The usual Cobalion set is just a lefties lead with hazard control and a couple extra moves. Well, this is literally the same set with a minor tweak in that it has a Steelium Z. I figured that if this team was meant to counter Fairy, a Z-Iron Head would be a great way to kill a couple things. This set OHKO's Tapu Bulu and does a massive chunk through screens, and it can also live a +6 Adamant Aqua Jet from Azumarill while dealing over 50% with its Z-Move. With full attack EVs, Cobalion would be able to hit harder and potentially OHKO more things, but after running some calcs, I found out that without any bulk Cobalion could get OHKO'd by Magnet Tapu Koko T-Bolt as well as Azumarill. I didn't want to sacrifice either bulk or speed because I needed this thing to perform its function in matchups other than Fairy, so I went with the above set.
Gallade-Mega @ Galladite
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brick Break
- Zen Headbutt
- Shadow Sneak
- Swords Dance
Next up is my Brick Breaker, Mega Gallade. Gallade is almost a must pick for Mono-Fighting thanks to its amazing stats, typing, and attacking moves. Everything about this set is standard except for Brick Break, which is my direct answer to Klefki setting up screens. Otherwise, Shadow Sneak can take down a lot of Psychic types and Zen Headbutt is a stab move that unlike Brick Break is not completely useless outside of breaking screens.
Keldeo @ Leftovers
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Secret Sword
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Poison]
For this slot, I knew from the start that I wasn't going to run scarf (that was going to be Toxicroak so it could do a lot more in the Mono-Fairy MU), and I didn't want to go specs because it could then get hard walled by Tapu Bulu. I ended up deciding on this Substitute three attack set to lure Tapu Bulu and get a free OHKO with HP Poison while also being problematic with a sub up against other matchups. Leftovers gives Keldeo some recovery that lets it stay around a bit longer than it otherwise could using Substitute, and Hydro Pump and Secret Sword give it some decent power so that it can threaten things in other MUs.
Terrakion @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
This set is completely standard, but it was too good to pass it up. Close Combat and Stone Edge can immediately threaten a lot of things with the sheer power of Terrakion, and Earthquake gives it coverage against Tapu Koko while also outspeeding it. Finally, Iron Head gave me a way to catch Tapu Bulu on the switch when I threaten Tapu Koko out while also dealing decent damage to every other standard Fairy Type. There is very little to say about this choice other than that it's really solid.
Kommo-o @ Life Orb
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Close Combat
- Poison Jab
- Dragon Claw
Remember the Z-move on Cobalion? Yeah, that means that Kommo-o can't run Kommonium Z anymore (technically I can have two Z-move users, but that would be a waste of an item slot). Furthermore, Kommo-o has a quadruple weakness to Fairy, and its Z-move is useless in that matchup. However, it has an otherwise amazing typing that is compounded on by its great offensive movepool, and I didn't want to give that up. That's why this set exists. Given a single turn to set up, Kommo-o can sweep through a good chunk of many teams before finally being put down. With Life Orb boosted damage on top of the DDance boost, Close Combat might as well OHKO anything that doesn't resist and Dragon Claw can annihilate Dragons and things that resist Close Combat. Poison Jab is obviously there to kill some Fairies as well as for additional coverage in case the two stab moves don't do the job. Although it can't set up against most things in Fairy, it can take advantage of its resistance to Tapu Bulu's powerful stab to set up and start taking things out.
Toxicroak @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Gunk Shot
- Sucker Punch
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
Toxicroak is the hardest Azumarill counter in the game. It heals off of Aqua Jet and can outspeed to OHKO it while also being strong enough that most other things on Fairy don't want to switch into it. By giving this Choice Scarf, Toxicroak can outspeed Tapu Koko and Scarfed Bulu, Diancie, and Mimikyu to hit them with a Gunk Shot. Sucker Punch gives me a way to deal damage to Psychic types, especially Scarf Latios, and Drain Punch gives Toxicroak a decent stab move that can touch Steel types. Finally, Ice Punch kills a lot of threats on Mono-Flying while Toxicroak outspeeds most things on it.
I hope you enjoyed this team, and feel free to use it. As weird and off the wall as some of these sets are, this team actually doesn't perform terribly in the current metagame. Mono-Electric gets bodied by Terrakion and co., Mono-Flying isn't an insta-loss, and Mono-Psychic has to be worried about Gallade. I'll leave a few replays below that show how decent this team is (my elo should also show in the replays). Thanks for reading and any and all feedback is welcome.
