Gen 3 Jump - A Step Forward

[Heika]

Jump

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Preface
So, I've been around for something like 3 years in the ADV community, but I never stood out in those three years, and saw players start the tier after me and break through. I may not seem like it, but I'm a really competitive person, and I really hate losing ( a bit to much to the point that I rather not risk losing at all), so I finally decided to do something about this lack of improvement. What I did was simply flush my builder, started studying some players builds, only play my own builds and actually play with said teams.
The team I'm about to show you might not be the best team, but it's a team I like playing with a lot and had like decents run on the ladder with random alts I kept losing the pwd . But even tho it might not be incredible, I want it to serve me as a reminder of how I decided to improve.

Building Process


So the team is based around Jirachi, I was thinking about cool stuff to do with it and remembered about fear rachi (the one named this way on pp, not the physdef variant of astarachi). For the lazy ones, you could say it's an offensive wish rachi with elemental coverage. And I deviated from that idea thinking that physically offensive with wish got some potential. Sacrifying SE coverage for a perfect neutral one and slam paralysis.


Thinking about what would pair well with that set, I had two ideas. The first one was simply the mag support, since, even with good neutral coverage, steel types are still annoying, I didn't want to let free spikes "because I could bruteforce skarm/forry somehow". There is obviously an alternative to that, being the skarm beat down stuff, but I also wanted to trap other steels, and, I didn't know yet at that point, but mag will be a key player to what will become the overall team strategy.


The second one was some physical salamence. While it doesn't operate the same way as a meta mence core, the type synergy still exist, and mence appreciate a lot jirachi's wish support. And that makes for a somewhat solid physical back bone. Moreover Mence pairs well with mag too in our quest to get rid of things like skarm.


Next came Gyarados, once again something that really appreciates mag's job, but also something that strengthen the physical backbone rounding off a cool double intimidate core, and allowing me to deal way better with non cb eq gross notably. And Gyara Mence isn't only a cool core due to double intimidate, but because they are really potent at opening the way for each other.


With these four mons, I was thinking of three major issues, first being status, second being Heavy special hitters, last being zapdos (yeah this thing is an issue on it's own to me). So I decided my fifth slot would be an aroma bliss of some sort. (And it allows me to run the best gyara set o/)


I rounded of the team with a celebi, I don't like having bliss as my sole Special Check, for some reason, like zap dug, gar into other special attackers, etc. But also because I feel like having two special check allows me to use bliss more like a pivot, being able to afford lower health amounts on it. I also like celebi here simply because it helps with rock spam a bit.

All these explications are not complete, but I'd rather get into the actual team presentation. so here it comes.

In Depht

F.Pritchard (Salamence) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Brick Break

Amongst the 6 Pokemon, Salamence seemed the most appropriate to be the lead, I could potentially have lead jirachi, like Fear did on the TSS team where he uses the set that inspired me, but salamence is able to put way more pressure from the get go. So, while Jirachi allows more flexibility in bad lead match up, Salamence allows to be in the driver's sit more often and is thus more pro active, which is important because considering the lineup it felt easy to fall in the trap of passivity. CB Mence got the great benefit to also get skarm, in early in a lot of games, to mag it, instead of doing it later with more information on the team revealed.
The set in itself isn't anything special, I wanted to do a bulkier variant but couldn't decide on anything.

A.Jensen (Jirachi) @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 220 HP / 252 Atk / 36 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Body Slam
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Shadow Ball
- Wish

Here comes the protagonist. While I didn't had much expectation at first (especially considering ttar isn't dropping to it), this set succeeded to do it's job, mostly thanks to the support the team provides but still. As I said earlier, the idea was a somewhat offensived gear Jirachi, with physical moves and Wish. The main perk over the special variant is definitely body slam, so it was a no brainer, and then to get the best coverage possible, I went for fight/ghost coverage and while Jirachi doesn't hit that hard,having unresisted coverage and the ability to spread paralysis almost always came in clutch in games.
Basically, the original point over a standard wish rachi is that it's less of a sitting duck, so I just went max Atk Adamant to maximize the damage output. It may seem trivial, but the more damage your wish passer does the more it's able to wish pass consistently, in my experience at least. The Speed is basically for ttar, and the remaining went in HPs.

M.Reed (Blissey) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Seismic Toss
- Ice Beam
- Soft-Boiled
- Aromatherapy

As I said earlier, one of the main reason I wanted bliss was to status heal stuff, indeed just with the two previous mons we don't appreciate burn, and being allowed to stay in with Jirachi to shadow ball gengar felt priceless, not to mention that every other possible source of status are annoying to jirachi anyway. The set in itself is totally common. I considered going ice/Fire but I didn't felt the need for it in the end so I kept the classical Stoss Ice.

D.Sarif (Magneton) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magnet Pull
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 144 HP / 112 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Protect
- Toxic
- Hidden Power [Fire]

The point of Magneton in the team is obviously to deal with spiker, but even more than removing Skarmory the spiker, in this team, I want to remove skarm the Wall/Phazer. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that if skarm is able to spike on my weak tbolt, I can live with it. So I went with that linear spread, Ev'd to live jolly skarm, with the timid spead that I really love here since it allows me to sacrifice mag and still land like a toxic against more stuff. The biggest downside is the forry mu, the spinning top takes an unimpressive 85% at best (which is still cool but you have to remember to chip it before going mag). I hesitated a lot between substitute and protect, and while I think I like sub more, protect felt more consistent, scouting CBers or just racking an extra toxic turn against faster threat.

F.Malik (Gyarados) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 216 HP / 16 Atk / 88 SpD / 188 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Earthquake
- Rest

Next is Gyarados. I gotta admit that Rest might not be the best set here, but I like Rest way to much and with aroma Bliss it felt too good to pass on. You'll see with the celebi set, but Rest is also quite good here because the team appreciate it taking on bulky waters. I also wanted this gyara to be somewhat bulky so Rest felt natural even tho there is already some wish pass to keep it alive. The set in itself is nothing special for a Rest gyara, living off mie and outspeeding 244. And I know, Rest doesn't help against Zapdos.

E.Cassan (Celebi) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 80 SpD / 180 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Baton Pass
- Ancient Power
- Recover

Finally, Celebi, rounds of the team. When I decided on it, I didn't knew it would end up being a SD pass set. As I said, I wanted Celebi to complement the team's defensive backbone, and Bulky SD pass just felt (and testing seems to prove it) like the best way to juice Celebi's utility out as much as possible. Since Celebi's here to complement Bliss, I wanted it to dmg birds and gengar, since they are special attackers that can remove bliss for themselves or others, so I opted for rock coverage, leaving celebi unable to damage swampert tho. Why Ancient Power over something like HP rock? Well it's true that 8pp can make some bird match up a bit tough, but the team is rather offensively geared so I went for the boosting odds, to potentially accelerate the team. One thing to note is that being able to kill moltres is excellent here because it's like the most common thing that denies a pass to Jirachi, even though there is always gyara/mence in those situations.

Threatlist

I may miss things, but the biggest road block I've encountered so far is Roar Swampert, the team doesn't break well through it without set up, so you need to succesfully toxic it, or bruteforce it with mence/bliss.

Opposing Gyarados are also really dangerous, you can intimidate spam them in some ways but if for any reason you're not able to do so, they can plow through the team since everything that can live a +1 gyara doesn't really hurt it back.

After posting this thread, I got feedback about two potential threats, so I'll address them: Sub Jirachi and Tyranitar, and they both have something in common, being that even with every mon being healthy, they'll take at least one mon from the team with them. And if it was only that, but if the opponent saw enough of the team, they'll just keep their mon, and you'll have sacrificed a mon just to delay a sweep a little more. Moreover, in both case the sacrifice that is most likely to work is gyara, which means that an agility meta follow up will be really deadly.

There are obviously other threats, but I tend to minimize them until I've run into them in game so I'll update this eventually (maybe).

Final Word

This team might not be the best but I find it really fun, and I found out that Jirachi is a surprisingly good SD receiver, or decent at least. To some people it might seem a bit too slow paced for an offense, or a bit too frail for a balance idk, but it's the sweet spot I like to toy with for now, if it's bad I'll eventually shy away from that style.
Here is the paste : https://pokepast.es/82fcae465becc82f

cringe shout out for such an rmt

Lastly, I gotta thank a few people for always motivating me:
DoNotStealMyName and Maxwellime, the guys that kinda became irl friends now, if you see mistakes in this while reading, blame those guys <3

The Side PLs Europe guys : always cool to hang around during those pl, I hope one day you won't have to carry my substitute ass anymore
The French ADVers : after the first "OFCS classic" there have been a wave of interest in adv in the french community, and this guys keeps me motivated ngl.
OF: merci d'avoir essayé de m'aider a me prendre en main, même si on parle plus
And thanks to the people of the adv community that are great people to me but don't fall into the previous categories :p

PS: Apologies to anyone cringing due to this RMT