ULTRA SUNDAY RUSH FINALE!
Wow, I haven’t done an RMT in over a decade… that’s a long time! I did do a special team report for Battle Spot Special 1 this gen however, which I won. Still, it feels sureal to be making on of these again, but something special has happened to justify it!
So as some of you know, since generation 5, Gamefreak has been hosting their very own ladder tournaments, sometimes based around standard VGC rulesets, and other times, with stranger rulesets. These strange tournaments in particular have been a lot of fun, and have each brought a nice, unique flavor to compliment Battle Spot Singles, Doubles, and VGC! To give some examples of how wacky some of these could get, some particularly fun ones this generation brought: Ultra Spooky Cup (only Pokemon Gamefreak considered spooky were allowed), Let's Go cup (only Eevee and Pikachu allowed!), Level 1 only Pokemon (actually this season's current special!), Metronome cup, and Simple Symphony (only single typed Pokemon allowed)
While these tournaments going to continue for Sword and Shield, everything good must come to an end eventually. With the sun setting on Generation 7, Gamefreak decided to have one last hurrah for their weird tournaments, Generation 7, and even Uber Pokemon in general: The Ultra Final Online Competition!
The Rules Of Ultra Final Online Competiton
Before I get to the team, you should probably know the rules for this final fiesta!
Before I get to the team, you should probably know the rules for this final fiesta!
-This was a singles 3v3 format. So in other words, you bring 6 Pokemon in team preview, but can only choose 3 to actually battle!
-Unlike most formats of this style… Every single Pokemon was allowed! Take that dexit!
-Even more unusual, this format had no clauses whatsoever. No species clause, item clause, sleep clause, anything!
So in case you couldn't tell… Gamefreak decided to celebrate Gen 7 by giving us their own take on Anything Goes! That's a good way to say goodbye to all our favorite, delciciously broken Ubers!
This tournament ended up being a perfect ball of sentiment to me because of that. With Dexit looming from generation 8, I soon won't be able to use my favorite Uber strong buddies for a very long time. As some of you may know, I actually have my competitive roots in gen 4 Ubers, so I've been familiar with a lot of these Pokemon for a long time! This was also the final official generation 7 online tournament, the last in a series of odd and fun tournaments that took up a lot of my time. And finally, on a more personal note, this year marked my 10th anniversary in joining Smogon, so I felt like I owed to myself to compete in a tournament that felt like a fun, twisted combination of Ubers, Anything Goes, and Battle Spot Singles: all things that mean a lot to me!
I'm sure glad I did this tournament, because well… here's my results for it!
I WON, YAHOOOOO!
I WON, YAHOOOOO!
Now, this isn't nearly as important as say, VGC or anything, but winning in not only the last battle spot tournament of gen 7, but also one about Ubers AND Battle Spot Singles made my heart soar with happiness! To me, this feels like a fitting end to the generation for myself, and made this RMT and team report a sure thing!
Team Building Process
So with this tournament being so important to me, you’d think I’d spend all the time in the world to teambuild, right? About that… something even more important than Pokemon got in the way: Calculus! Specfically, I had a badly timed Calc II Exam to deal with. I did… ok on it (got a B+, I prefer to do better than that!), but that took up a lot of time I would have spent teambuilding. Because of that, I only had a rough idea of what I wanted to use from some early planning. I didn’t even get to playtest it on the Pokemon Showdown ladder! Let’s go over what my early plan was!
On the day the tournament is announced, I start with Dusk Mane Necrozma with Ultra Necrozium Z. I can’t resist the allure of role compression Dusk Mane Necrozma offers, so I feel like I need to use it no matter what! Seriously, a Pokemon that checks Xerneas, and then can become a freaking sweeper that completely changes typing and outspeeds both Arceus and Marshadow?! Amazing stuff!
Dude I gotta have Mega Rayquaza! Yes I realize from previous experience that Mega Rayquaza isn’t as busted in 3v3 singles as it is in 6v6… but that titanic power is too tempting. Plus, Dusk Mane Necrozma helps with Fairy Arceus and Scarf Xerneas, while Mega Rayquaza can switch into most Primal Groudon, so they got decent synergy!
I realize this feels pretty early to start adding “glue” Pokemon, but I'm very scared of Focus Sash spam, particularly from Marshadow and Mega Rayquaza, and I don’t like relying on Mega Rayquaza as a Primal Kyogre check. The latter in particular can be a real pain, so I decide right then and there that Primal Groudon would make a good Stealth Rock setter.
Dusk Mane Necrozma and Primal Groudon are pretty strong, but slow unless certain conditions are met. That gives me the idea to use Sticky Web Smeargle to fix that up. It’d mean I wouldn’t be as pressured to Ultra Burst, and I could maybe run more bulk on Primal Groudon.
I don’t like this team’s chances vs Yveltal in the slightest. I consider either Xerneas or Fairy Arceus for this slot… and I decided on Fairy Arceus in the end because I like how it outspeeds Mega Rayquaza, I have NEVER liked Geomancy in 3v3 (too easy to gimp imo), and I didn’t think Choice Scarf Xerneas was a good fit for this team.
I’m looking for filler… and I guess Sash Marshadow works ok? Could help vs set up sweepers if SR isn’t set up, maybe I could use Endeavor to surprise Primal Groudons and Arceus???
So I had a team in mind early… but I didn’t test it at all, and was nervous about just going with that once the competition actually started!
Fast forward 1 day before the competition ends, on a Saturday: I ask for feedback on this team from people who have laddered on cart, and marilli points out that he thinks the team is gonna fail for 2 key reasons: there's so much Mega Rayquaza and Yveltal spam that webs might not be as effective as I hope, and the format has such a bulky offense focus that Marshadow hasn’t really done that well. So, I decide to replace Smeargle with Yveltal, since that provides back up vs weaker Mega Rayquaza, makes Dusk Mane Necrozma much easier to deal with (Marshadow doesn’t do too hot against it), and plus, Foul Play + Toxic + Roost sounds sorta killer to me.
Well crap, Marshadow was damn near filler from the start, I need one last filler slot… with Marshadow on the mind, I decide to put in a Chople Berry Normal Arceus. Not only is that a set up sweeper that Marshadow can’t steal stuff from, it also gives this team a dedicated bulky priority sweeper. Plus, two Arceus in team preview could induce some good paranoia for mind games!
I arrange the team a bit to maybe make some people think that I’m always gonna choose both Arceus in team preview, when that rarely ever happens in reality. I’m not sure if this had an effect, but I was hoping this would attract more Normal Arceus checks, which were usually mons I do pretty well against.
8 Pokemon?! Ok, Wobbuffet and Palkia were never considered for the team, but they're here in spirit, represented by gen 4 sprites! Wobbuffet is here because the dude is the closest thing to a spirit animal I have. Wobbuffet is what basically got me known in the Gen 4 Ubers community over a 10 years ago, and while time hasn't been particulary kind for it, I'm always gonna have a soft spot for it! Palkia is here in spirit because I've been using a Palkia stylus I got for preordering Pokemon Pearl for over a decade. Seriously, look at this worn down thing, this tournament is likely its final trial! In general, Wobbuffet and Palkia are also here in spirit because they go back to my roots in gen 4 Ubers!
By the way, here's the Palkia stylus I've been using for a decade, it served its purpose well in Ultra Final Online Competiton!
And that’s how the team was built! It was extremely rushed, and pretty much only came together at the end thanks to people on the Smogon battle spot discord (in particular, marilli , cant say , and greilmercenary9 , thanks a lot you 3!).
Now, just like my last RMT from over a decade ago, I decided each Pokemon was going to be represented by some sort of video game character I liked (for those of you who are curious, my last RMT was Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney themed). One issue: I had two game series on the mind a LOT lately: Mario, because as you all know I’m a huge Mario junkie, and have been planning some new Mario Maker 2 stages for a while. The 2nd is Touhou, because I’ve been on a Touhou music binge while thinking about Pokemon teams lately, and I like arcadey shootemups like that!
I’m a person whose all about overkill, so screw it, each Pokemon will be represented by both a Mario character, and a Touhou Character! This team may be called Ultra Sunday Rush Finale, but an alternate name could be "Super Mario: Mystery of the Eastern Wonderland"!
The Team In-Depth
Yveltal
Yveltal @ Aguav Berry
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 Spe
Impish Nature
- Foul Play
- Sucker Punch
- Toxic
- Roost
It’s funny that Yveltal was added a day before the competition ended… because in the end, it was the star of the show! This Yveltal isn’t all that radical or anything: It’s just a particularly physically bulky Yveltal that could check major threats better than it normally could. However, according to usage stats, it seems like most Yveltal had +Speed natures, with Impish actually having below 10% usage.
Yveltal
Yveltal @ Aguav Berry
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 Spe
Impish Nature
- Foul Play
- Sucker Punch
- Toxic
- Roost
Thanks to Foul Play and its bulk, this thing owned Dusk Mane Necrozma and Ultra Necrozma that lacked Solgalium Z and Stone Edge respectively, OHKOed Mega Rayquaza after it used Dragon Ascent, and dealt massive damage to Primal Groudon! Despite this Yveltal being defensive on paper, the massive attack stats of the format on even special attackers like Primal Kyogre, meant that this Yveltal still felt like it had an offensive kick to it.
I don’t think I need to explain what Roost is for, but Toxic may seem slightly strange to people that assume 3v3 means automatic offense fest, despite it being a pretty standard move on Yveltal in this metagame. Toxic was extremely important for Fairy Arceus switch-ins, and it was good at softening up Xerneas for Primal Groudon’s Earthquake as well. I often led with Yveltal as well, predicting Primal Groudon leads, so a common response was to actually switch in Yveltal themselves, attempting to absorb a Foul Play and Taunt me. I often nailed these switch-ins with Toxic, important because this Yveltal gets owned by faster ones with Taunt otherwise! It also came in handy against a Curse Ho-Oh who burned me, since Yveltal has big issues with that!
Sucker Punch may seem a bit odd on such a defensive Pokemon, but it was key for picking off weakened threats. Thanks to Dark Aura, it wasn’t really weak either, still dealing plenty of damage to the likes of Ultra Necrozma, Mega Rayquaza (yes I know Extreme Speed, more on that later!), and fast Primal Kyogre. Plus, considering how many kills Sucker Punch got, I think many people weren't expecting such a bulky Yveltal to be carrying it.
Augauv Berry is where this Yveltal seemed to break from trends a lot more. I was pretty conflicted on whether I would use the more standard Rocky Helmet to help against Normal Arceus and Sash Mega Rayquaza, or get some extra recovery in the form of a super sitrus berry. I watched cant say stream a bit, and that solidified my choice to go for Augauv Berry. I’m glad I did, because I won many matches due to the surprise recovery! In particular, I had a habit of baiting Mega Rayquaza Extreme Speed as an opportunity to switch Yveltal in and get some health back. Usually, it’d survive another Dragon Ascent, and win the game!
To be clear, while Yveltal was bulky, it did have a hard time with Z-moves (in particular, Normalium Z Arceus), and Stone Edge + Substitute Ultra Necrozma was EXTREMELY dangerous to this team due to the reliance on Yveltal to fight that. Still, I was super impressed with Yveltal, and would go as far as to say it was the best Pokemon on my team!
So Yveltal was the best and the star of this team… duh, that means Yveltal is Mario! They’re both red, and hey, Mario can fly sometimes too! Touhou's main character, Reimu, is also red, and revels in extermining yokai. I guess Pokemon are often mythical Japanese monsters. This Yveltal is slow too, just like Reimu is when incidents aren't going on. Also like Reimu and Mario, this Yveltal did PLENTY of exterminating!
Dusk Mane Necrozma / Ultra Necrozma
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane @ Ultranecrozium Z
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Sunsteel Strike
- Earthquake
- Photon Geyser
Because of Xerneas, Sunsteel Strike was a very important attack! I also needed it for Fairy Arceus, whom I could actually KO after a Swords Dance boost while in Ultra forme. Photon Geyser was just to appealing too ignore here, since Light That Burns The Sky is stupidly powerful. While there were plenty of matches I didn’t use Light That Burns The Sky, it was extremely useful for breaking Arceus that weren’t Steel-type, and blasting Primal Kyogres without a boost.
Earthquake was chosen as my final coverage move mostly because I liked slamming Primal Groudon with it. In practice though, it had another use: hitting Steel Arceus hard. To be clear, this team wasn’t that well prepared for Steel Arceus outside of Primal Groudon, and Ultra Necrozma isn’t what I’d call a check due to Will-O-Wisp. Still, +2 Earthquake was a godsend against Steel Arceus, since they didn’t really stop that kind of sweep! Funnily enough, I considered using Knock Off for mirror matches since marilli brought it up, but I’m glad I stuck with Earthquake in the end, because Steel Arceus would have been even more problematic otherwise!
One thing I gotta mention here, is that I won several games based off of forme change mind games when things got tough. So for example, sometimes I'd set up an extra Swords Dance because the foe would predict be becoming Ultra Necrozma when I didn't. Other times, I'd Ultra Burst way earlier than it seem like I should (such as vs Fairy Arceus) to get off that sweet Z-move earlier.
Dusk Mane Necrozma used its forme change to be a versatile force on my team. When I think of versatility in the Mario franchise, I think of Wario: dude has a crazy amount of transformations in the Wario Land games, and Wario Ware may be the most “lol random” Mario franchise out there! And hey, Ultra Necrozma is shiny and yellow, that reminds me of Wario's lust for gold! As for Touhou characters… I think Yukari is a good fit. Necrozma is an Ultra Beast, heavily associated with wormholes, which are sorta like those portals Yukari loves to use. Plus, Dusk Mane Necrozma's use for me heavily involved forme change mind games, and that's the kind of tricky BS I'm sure Yukari would be fond of!
Primal Groudon
Groudon @ Red Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Fire Punch
- Earthquake
- Rock Tomb
Anyone who's played 3v3 metagames without item clause can tell you just how terrifying Focus Sash spam is when unprepared for, so Stealth Rock was essential for this team! There's actually quite a few viable choices for Stealth Rock here, with Deoxys-A, Necrozma formes, Arceus formes, etc. If you've seen this team so far, you'll notice that I have no good switch-ins to Primal Kyogre or worse yet, the rare but deadly Choice Scarf Kyogre, so Primal Groudon was the natural choice for a Stealth Rock setter here!
I went with Earthquake over Precipice Blades despite the Attack investment, because I wasn't in the mood to dance with lady luck once again in a tournament. Rock Tomb is one of the secret best moves here )and also the only move on the entire team that can miss normally lol): the speed control was very useful for punishing Yveltal switch-ins that lacked Scarf, deals a lot of damage to Rayquaza before it Mega Evolves, and is my only way of blasting Ho-Oh. I can't tell you how many times Primal Groudon hitting something fast on the switch with Rock Tomb clinched me the game!
Fire Punch rounds out the set here, giving me a move to hit Yveltal hard, and something to hit floaty Steel-types like Celesteela (who I actually ended up never seeing anyways lol). Normally, Overheat would be better for Yveltal, but I didn't want more than one move with a chance to miss. Now, Primal Groudon isn't something I liked to keep on Yveltal often, since Foul Play and Dark Pulse are pretty easy 2HKOs on this offensive variant. However, I noticed a lot of Yveltal seemed to only invest in HP for their bulk, opting for Speed + Taunt to mess with other Yveltals. These Yveltals still tended to switch into my Primal Groudon, which was awesome for me, because after Stealth Rock damage + Rock Tomb, these Yveltal were usually right in the KO range of Fire Punch! Since so many teams relied on Yveltal to blanket check stuff (including me if I'm being honest lol), this would often cause them to fall apart, usually letting stuff like Ultra Necrozma or my own Yveltal clean up!
So you may notice that this Primal Groudon has max Speed, which is unusual. Believe it or not… this was a mistake on my part! I actually meant to use 70 HP / 252 Atk / 188 Spe instead. This allows Primal Groudon to outspeed base 130s after a Rock Tomb hit. Since exact EV training is a pain in Ultra Sun, I figured "I'll buy 7 HP Ups, THEN train Primal Groudon in Speed along with the rest of the mons!". However, I was doofus and in a rush since the tournament ladder was closing in 8 hours at that point… and I forgot to use the HP Ups!
Turns out though, this may have been a very good mistake in the end. I won a lot of matches based off this Primal Groudon outspeeding other Primals and blasting them with Earthquake, so it's possible the unintentional speed creeping was a saving grace here! Plus, this actually outspeeds Jolly Dusk Mane Necrozma by 1 point, which may explain why a couple of those tried to pick me off without Ultra Bursting, only to get crushed by Earthquake! However, I had to play this Primal Groudon carefully, because it was quite a bit less bulky than you'd expect, with it getting 3HKOed by Primal Kyogre Ice Beams and taking quite a bit from resisted Judgements being issues in particular.
In the end though, this mistake seemed to help more than it hindered, and I ended up using Primal Groudon a LOT this competition. Even outside of Stealth Rocking, that extra speed shocked a lot of slower teams! I should also note, that the absurd defensive capabilites Primal Groudon's typing and ability provided, also made it freaking melt any Battle Spot Singles teams I saw like a stick of butter! The lack of bulk investment barely even mattered there, pretty much nothing was KOing it, while those 180 base attack assaults were stuff not even bulky Pokemon like Landorus-T could handle well!
Primal Groudon was a straight foward Pokemon that solved a lot of issues, he’s big, spikey, and uses Fire… yep, that sounds like Bowser! Granted, unlike Bowser, I’m pretty sure Primal Groudon doesn’t have PTSD over lava! As for the Touhou, Utsuho Reiuji is a pretty good fit, don't you think? She's basically a nuclear crow of the sun, and Primal Groudon is all about abusing a dangerous form of the sun! She also had ambitons for taking over Gensokyo, so I guess Utsuho Reiuji wanted to be just like Primal Groudon in Ubers!
Fairy Arceus
Arceus-Fairy @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 8 Def / 32 SpA / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Calm Mind
- Toxic
- Recover
The bright pink Pokegod ended up being a very useful asset to this team. With Mega Rayquaza and Yveltal being everywhere, Fairy Arceus was a great glue check against these two, while providing some useful utility on its own! I opted to use a Timid Fairy Arceus with enough to outspeed Jolly Mega Rayquaza, enough Special Attack to OHKO it after Stealth Rock damage, and the rest in HP and Defense for general bulk. Fact is, while this is meant to check Mega Rayquaza, Dragon Ascent is still an easy 2HKO! Mega Rayquaza actually has a tough time setting up a speed boost vs this team thankfully, but I still had to play carefully here, since its not like Fairy Arceus was a hard check to Mega Rayquaza!
Calm Mind with Judgement did give Fairy Arceus some sweeping potential. It wasn’t an immediate, crazy powerful sweeper like Ultra Necrozma and Mega Rayquaza were for this team, but it still did its fair share of damage, since the bulk + Recover let it set up a lot.
Toxic may seem really odd on a bulky Calm Minder, but it ended up being a life saver on this team! The thing this helped with the most is Calm Mind Arceus mirror matches (except for Steel obviously!). Of course, I was still risking getting bonked by critical Judgements (in fact, I did lose one match because of that!), but I considered it better to at least put a time limit on the Calm Mind war! Plus, it still helped vs Primal Groudon as well, since when they switched into Toxic, I could Recover stall ones that lacked Swords Dance! Of coures, this did make this Fairy Arceus extremely vulnerable to Steel-types. This ended up exacerbating my Steel Arceus weakness, but I think it was worth it in the end.
Fairy Arceus did require more “maintenance” than some of the other Pokemon though. It was massive Dusk Mane Necrozma bait, and it was useless vs Steel Arceus and most other Steel-types. So in that sense, on the Mario-side of things, this is why its represented by Princess Peach. Sure, both Peach and Fairy Arceus risked being kidnapped a lot, but they’re also secretly pretty strong and had ways to mess with their captors! On the Touhou side of things... you may think it's strange I didn't use an actual Fairy for Fairy Arceus. That's because Fairies in Touhou are frankly, really stupid and childish, which is a great way to lose your Fairy Arceus, especially this riskier one! Instead, I opted to represent Fairy Arceus with Shinmyoumaru Sukuna. She's an Inchling, a tiny humanoid creature, and I certainly felt like Fairy Arceus shrunk to that size when facing off dangerous Steel-types like Dusk Mane Necrozma and Steel Arceus! However, Shinmyoumaru Sukuna damn near caused an upheavel in Gensokyo when mainpulated by Seija Kijin to cause a rebellion with the Miracle Mallet... Sorta like how I made Fairy Arceus rebell against a bunch of bulky Pokemon with the miracle of Toxic! Oh lord, I hope I'm not like Seija Kijin though...
Mega Rayquaza
Rayquaza @ Life Orb
Ability: Air Lock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Ascent
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
Mega Rayquaza was an absolute power house, with Life Orb Dragon Ascent 2HKOing damn near everything in the game! I just... couldn't resist wielding such power, that's not something I can do everyday in serious battles! I opted for Dragon Dance as my set up move, because outspeeding Fairy Arceus and Ultra Necrozma was very important for sweeping, and I didn’t want to deal with any surprise Choice Scarf Pokemon such as Xerneas or Zekrom either.
Earthquake was my coverage move of choice to slam Primal Groudon a bit harder than Dragon Ascent without the fear of defense drops, and to hit Dusk Mane Necrozma hard in case it didn’t Ultra Burst. In the end, it also helped against Steel Arceus too. I considered a Fire-type attack because I was paranoid about Celesteela, but thankfully, I never saw them! As for Extreme Speed, while it doesn’t really help Mega Rayquaza sweep healthy teams all that much, it was great for picking off weakened foes.
So with everything going for it, you’d think I’d pick Mega Rayquaza almost every time, right? Well.. not quite. See, for all of Mega Rayquaza’s power, I underestimated just how hard this metagame was gonna go towards bulky offense, specfically with status moves that aren’t good news for Mega Rayquaza. For example, plenty of Primal Groudon were running Thunder Wave, and most teams had a Fairy Arceus waiting in the corner too. When I did pick Mega Rayquaza, it still did pretty well, but many times, I couldn’t justify choosing it for a match up because the opposing team was simply too well prepared for it, odd as that sounds!
Oh, I also need to note that quite a few people just used Battle Spot Singles teams in the competition, probably for fun or to get their shiny Tapu Koko. Mega Rayquaza freaking THRASHED those teams into oblivion, usually because their frailer stuff just could not take the Dragon Ascent onslaught! Against those teams, Mega Rayquaza was extremely useful for getting rid of a lot of risk from well played, but less serious teams.
After the competition, I wondered if Focus Sash Mega Rayquaza would have been a better fit, as a response to more hyper offensive teams. However, our very own Jibaku wasn’t a big fan of it either… so I wonder if this team would have been better off with either a bulkier Mega Rayquaza like marilli used, since he seemed to have a lot of success with it... or… I dare say, actually replaced Mega Rayquaza with something else, like another Arceus, or something to help out with that awful Steel Arceus weakness I had.
To be clear though, it’s not like Mega Rayquaza was bad. Far from it, Mega Rayquaza was still a huge threat whenever I brought it, and it still got me some pretty important wins, it was just overshadowed by most of the other team. Overshadowed… yep, the Mario character Mega Rayquaza is has to be Luigi, they’re both green and hey, Rayquaza shares a Flying-typing with Yveltal, who represents Mario! Speaking of sidekicks, Marsia is a good fit for Mega Rayquaza on the Touhou side as well. Mega Rayquaza and Marsia are both pretty straight forward folks who flaunt their power to kick a lot of butt, though can be a bit tricky to use too. In fact, I'm usually horrible at using Marisa in most Touhou games... However, I should note that like Mega Rayquaza, both Luigi and Marisa are not only very powerful, they also have a couple of games in their respective series they break about as hard as Mega Rayquaza apparently broke Ubers, such as Super Mario 64 DS for Luigi, or Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith for Marisa's B weapon!
Normal Arceus
Arceus @ Chople Berry
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Shadow Claw
So after these 5 mons were set in stone, I needed one last slot. This was a tough one, I wasn’t sure what I wanted… so I just settled on Normal Arceus, because that seems strong right? Sure, I had two priority users already, but not a sweeper that focused on it! I figured that bulky sweeping Normal Arceus would round the team out nicely as a different kind of sweeper. I also didn’t like the idea of a Sash Marshadow stopping my sweep if I didn’t set up Stealth Rock, so with Chople Berry in… feet I guess, Normal Arceus was going to be my ticket to sweeping without Stealth Rock on the field! Earthquake would help out against Primal Groudon, and while Shadow Claw isn't particularly strong, I wanted as much power against Marshadow and Lunala as possible.
Sadly, this is actually the one Pokemon I totally regret using, it was a big misread of the metagame on my part! Remember how I mentioned earlier how I underestimated how much this metagame was going to focus on bulky offense? Yeah, that was bad news for this Normal Arceus, because it didn’t do much outside of late game sweeping. That isn’t terrible on its own, but the Necrozma duo and Mega Rayquaza were able to do other stuff earlier in the game too. There actually was TWO games where Chopple Berry saved my butt, which was pretty cool! But otherwise, this was the Pokemon I brought the least, and I think my team would have been better off with something else in this slot, like maybe Ho-Oh for Steel Arceus, a Steel Arceus of my own, or Ground Arceus, etc.
So since this is a Pokemon I regretted… hmm… I got it! You know which character many in the Mario fanbase wish didn’t exist? Waluigi! Waluigi has a lot of good memes though so he's got his place, but this team is a mainline Mario game, not some sports spinoff, so get lost Waluigi! Also, I felt sorta like an idiot for using this Arceus… remember how I mentioned that fairies in Touhou are dumber than a bag of rocks? That brings up our favorite Touhou idiot, Cirno the Ice fairy! Arceus seemed really strong on paper, but like Cirno, it didn't really do that much beyond be an annoyance.
Oh yeah, since I regretted using Normal Arceus, and both Waluigi and Cirnon amazingly have offical "bad" art... I needed to add to the collection. I present to everyone, my first contribution towards the artist badge: I call it "Regretceus"! Artists have to have a deep meaning behind their works, right? Well here's mine: This Arceus ate a ton of Chople Berries while investing in HP EVs. However, this Arceus ingested far too many calories, and becoame morbidly obese, and also made a questionable hairstyle choice on top of it. So this Arceus is very sad, regreting the life choices its made up to this point. Thank you everyone, I will accept payment in the form of mint copies of All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros!
Threat List
Yeah I realize rating a team for a format that doesn’t even officially exist anymore seems like overkill, but I love hypotheticals, and this also serves as a team report thread too! I’m going to go over a bunch of threats, covering the top 30 first, and then threats I was worried about or unexpected stuff I encountered. Note that being in the top 30 doesn't automatically mean the mon was good!
Top 30 Used Threats
Other Threats
This tournament was a blast, a mixture of old and new that formed a nostalgia fueled good-bye to Pokemon I've loved for a long time, some for over a decade! And that's why Wobbuffet is riding Yveltal here. With dexit looming over us with Sword and Shield, I'm really going to miss my Uber pals. But, everything must come to an end, and while Wobbuffet is making it to Sword and Shield, I like to imagine my old blue buddy is giving some teary farewells to the old Uber crew!
By the way, while I may have won this tournament... my team was by no means perfect! Sure, this metagame may be over... but this is more than just a team report! I would love for actual feedback on the team, such as moveset changes, and ESPECIALLY replacements for Normal Arceus. Sure, it may not technically be useful... but I love hypothehicals like this! Like for example, what if Sword and Shield get updated versions that bring my beloved Ubers back? Or, what if aliens invade and force me to play against them?! Ok but seriously, you can post your congratulations or whatever, but I'd appreciate feedback too!
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