Paste: https://pokepast.es/6ef2a95e879afa0b
Motivation
I've always been a big fan of volt/turn teams and I tend to make one every gen. I'm not very high rating at all but this team is really fun and works well on low ladder. This type of team lives and dies by outplaying your opponent, so if you are able to predict their switches, you will have a good time.
Team Build
Basically, this team was built around darmanitan and toxtricity, two of the most heavy hitting mons in the game right now, to trap the opponent in a vortex of volt/turns, or get free KOs, by making good predictions. Darmanitan has fantastic coverage and can 2HKO most mons with the right move. At first, I was using adamant banded darmanitan, which scores a lot more OHKOs, but I found it to be better to have fast darmanitan because it can then outspeed and kill a lot of offensive threats, such as dragapult, while still doing a lot to defensive mons with the right coverage move.
Toxtricity complements darmanitan in coverage, hitting physically defensive and/or water type mons than come in on darmanitan. In turn, darmanitan can kill a lot of the ground/steel types that come in on toxtricity. Toxtricity has a decent amount of counters and conditional checks such as ferrothorn/dragapult/excadrill, so often times you want to volt switch, or boomburst/manually switch if you think they will bring a ground type. I initially had timid specs toxtricity, but I changed it to bulky toxtricity to take a hit and then slow volt out if need be. As an example, if you switch toxtricity into heavy duty boots gyarados as it DDs, 0hp toxtricity can die to even +1 jolly waterfall, whereas 252hp toxtricity lives +1 adamant waterfall. If gyarados has life orb though, you die regardless of hp investment so yeah your only plan then is to sac something, then try to revenge.
The first thing I wanted after those two mons was hazards/hazard removal, since switching is a core mechanic of competitive pokemon, and volt turn teams switch more often and force switches more often than most teams. I originally had scarfed excadrill with rapid spin + rocks, as an attempt at role compression, but I found it to be too easily punished by mons such as corviknight, and an overall momentum loser. I therefore decided to go for cinderace, who even without libero is still very hard hitting, and is the only mon with court change. That move achieves extremely high efficiency, allowing you to set up and remove hazards at once, as well as steal and reset screens, which I've encountered quite a lot with dragapult/grimmsnarl. I've had opponents forfeit after I stole rocks + sticky web + screens, though in most cases cinderace just acts as a deterrent for opponents to set those up, allowing you to play the game with both sides hazard free.
The other essential mon that I knew to use next was ditto. With dynamax being this gen's new mechanic, set up sweepers are extremely dangerous. Without ditto this team would be extremely vulnerable to them, since this team has plenty of choiced mons, so if you get a KO with moves like earthquake/boomburst/overdrive, that can give opportunity for opponents with set up sweepers that are immune to those moves a free turn to set up. Ditto means that your opponent cannot set up too liberally or face being counter swept. I've played many games where I've had to sac mons to gyarados to outwait dynamax, so that I could send in ditto and reverse sweep. Note that since ditto has lower hp than most mons, you can sometimes fail to KO and get KOed back, so make sure to do your calcs, and keep in mind that the opponent can dynamax defensively, and that if you dynamax ditto you lose the scarf's speed boost so you may lose the speed tie. Another thing that I see many people get wrong when using ditto is that ditto can't copy ditto. Honestly, I've found that learning the possible interactions between dynamax, ditto, and choice scarf is the most important thing to keep in mind when playing this team.
For the last two mons on this team I've tried many options have I still honestly don't know whats best. An earlier version when dynamax still let you keep substitute had a sub bulk up corviknight, which singlehandedly won a lot games by abusing defensive/choice locked mons. Now that you can't keep substitute upon dynamaxing, you risk being counterswept by ditto. Another version which I ran when dracovish was on every team I faced had seismotoad for water immunity and rocks. During that time I saw a lot of rotom-washes as a dracovish countermeasure, and seismotoad was a very good switch in to that as well. Another mon I experimented with was obstagoon, because it learned parting shot, which I think is a really dank way to volt/turn. However it didn't really offer any defensive type synergy, which this team needed. I ended up using Golisopod beccause of its ability, emergency exit giving a free switch in, and for the useful water and ground resistances. At first I was using assault vest on it to switch in more, but I found that I was mostly switching it into physical attackers such as dracovish/darmanitan/excadrill. Because it has so much priority in first impression/sucker punch/aqua jet, running choice band can really put a dent in mons before switching out. If you can believe it, first impression OHKOs darmanitan without dynamax, and does around 50-60% to dynamax darmanitan, and jolly darmanitan can only do 50-60% back with 140bp max flare in the sun.
252+ Atk Choice Band Golisopod First Impression vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Darmanitan-Galar: 378-445 (107.6 - 126.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Darmanitan-Galar Max Flare vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Golisopod in Sun: 181-214 (51.1 - 60.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
For the last mon, I thought why the hell use my brain when I can just use the #1 usage mon, dragapult? It has good defensive typing, hits hard, is unpredictable, and can use dynamax well. To be honest this is the slot that I think could be anything, this team has no good switchins to dragapult, and relys on using ditto/golisopod to revenge it, meaning that you have to play a mind game of do you think your opponent will switch dragapult out, so you can double and get momentum, but if they stay in then you're losing another mon.
Final Thoughts
The biggest thing that I've had to figure out playing this team - and this applies to playing any team this generation - is to figure out dynamax timing. Since this team has 5 choiced mons and no setup sweepers besides ditto copying the opponent's, dynamax is mostly used as a tool to not get revenge killed, by bulking up/switching moves. Note that by dynamaxing you lose the effect of your choice item, and while this may look bad for this team, being able to be choiced for a move, then switch to a high powered coverage move is still really really powerful. Darmanitan and dragapult especially have really good coverage and can blow back opponents who do not expect the move switch, though I suspect as you go up higher in the ladder opponents are better at scouting for that. Basically, a lot of the time if you dynamax early you can either KO or weaken the opponent's defensive core enough to where one or more of your mons will always get a kill. In that case then I would say dynamaxing early is worth it to break through their team to get offensive momentum. Otherwise, I usually tend to try to save dynamax as long as possible, and pivot around, instead of wasting dynamax early. I've found that often whoever dynamaxes later in the game gets better use out of it because the opponent has less ways to check the dynamax mon. It's especially good to save dynamax for ditto as a threat to the opponent so that they don't try to set up. It's sad that max guard is nowhere near as good as max offensive moves, since you can't use it twice in a row without it having a failure chance like protect, so defensive dynamaxing can't really be used to stall out an offensive dynamax. Either way, dynamax is so powerful and flexible that using it better than your opponent is probably the biggest factor in winning.
Anyways, thanks for looking at my team, I know 5 choiced is kind of troll but it really does work somehow, but I'm open to change and if you have ideas to make it better then please feel free to share.
Motivation
I've always been a big fan of volt/turn teams and I tend to make one every gen. I'm not very high rating at all but this team is really fun and works well on low ladder. This type of team lives and dies by outplaying your opponent, so if you are able to predict their switches, you will have a good time.
Team Build
Code:
Darmanitan-Galar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Gorilla Tactics
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Flare Blitz
- Icicle Crash
- U-turn
Code:
Toxtricity @ Choice Specs
Ability: Punk Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst
- Overdrive
- Sludge Wave
- Volt Switch
Code:
Cinderace @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- High Jump Kick
- Pyro Ball
- Court Change
- U-turn
Code:
Ditto @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Transform
Code:
Golisopod @ Choice Band
Ability: Emergency Exit
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- First Impression
- Sucker Punch
- Close Combat
- Liquidation252+ Atk Choice Band Golisopod First Impression vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Darmanitan-Galar: 378-445 (107.6 - 126.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Darmanitan-Galar Max Flare vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Golisopod in Sun: 181-214 (51.1 - 60.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Code:
Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Shadow Ball
- Fire Blast
- ThunderboltFinal Thoughts
The biggest thing that I've had to figure out playing this team - and this applies to playing any team this generation - is to figure out dynamax timing. Since this team has 5 choiced mons and no setup sweepers besides ditto copying the opponent's, dynamax is mostly used as a tool to not get revenge killed, by bulking up/switching moves. Note that by dynamaxing you lose the effect of your choice item, and while this may look bad for this team, being able to be choiced for a move, then switch to a high powered coverage move is still really really powerful. Darmanitan and dragapult especially have really good coverage and can blow back opponents who do not expect the move switch, though I suspect as you go up higher in the ladder opponents are better at scouting for that. Basically, a lot of the time if you dynamax early you can either KO or weaken the opponent's defensive core enough to where one or more of your mons will always get a kill. In that case then I would say dynamaxing early is worth it to break through their team to get offensive momentum. Otherwise, I usually tend to try to save dynamax as long as possible, and pivot around, instead of wasting dynamax early. I've found that often whoever dynamaxes later in the game gets better use out of it because the opponent has less ways to check the dynamax mon. It's especially good to save dynamax for ditto as a threat to the opponent so that they don't try to set up. It's sad that max guard is nowhere near as good as max offensive moves, since you can't use it twice in a row without it having a failure chance like protect, so defensive dynamaxing can't really be used to stall out an offensive dynamax. Either way, dynamax is so powerful and flexible that using it better than your opponent is probably the biggest factor in winning.
Anyways, thanks for looking at my team, I know 5 choiced is kind of troll but it really does work somehow, but I'm open to change and if you have ideas to make it better then please feel free to share.
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