OU ADV OU Creative Sets, Synergistic Cores, and Concepts

[vapicuno]

There are lots of serious threads around here. Sometimes, however, a neat idea you have might be too goofy, untested, or not prevalent enough for the metagame discussion thread, but you think you've found something cool that you want to share. That's what this thread is for!

Inspired by previous threads discussing underrated sets and little synergies, the ADV moderation team has put together this thread for discussing anything creative or insightful under the sun in OU. Discuss creative sets, synergistic cores, or even novel metagame concepts. To be clear, this isn't meant to be a thread of solely BLs or OUs; anything that is sensible is welcome. A perfect example of such an idea is the following exposition from BKC

"One of my favorite intricacies of Pokemon is seeing combinations that deal with the metagame in unconventional yet effective ways. They don't have the renown of SkarmBliss, but they are the real deal. One of the more well-known examples is the pairing of Heracross or Celebi with Dugtrio in ADV; Hera/Cele will force the opposing Dugtrio to lock into Aerial Ace or HP Bug, which allows one's own Dug to remove it from the game - this makes for a great pairing with powerful Pokemon that commonly struggle with getting trapped, such as DD Tyranitar and CM Jirachi."

The only guideline is that posts should elaborate on the usefulness of these novel or synergistic concepts. Give us a sales pitch on why or how we should use your idea!

Note: This is strictly for OU. Discussion for other metagames should be held in their respective metagame discussion threads.

I'll start the ball rolling to give you a few examples of such sets, cores, and concepts.
--------------------------

Example set:

TSS Breaker Nidoking
Nidoking (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Poison Point
EVs: 244 Atk / 76 SpA / 188 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Focus Punch
- Sludge Bomb

I started trying this out a couple of months ago and was reasonably pleased with its performance when I got to #2 on ladder with it. The idea is that Nidoking is Toxic-immune, so it can switch into Skarmory and fire off Focus Punch, kind of like Hclat's Aggron idea, but on a mixed mon here. If Skarmory decides to stay in and Drill Peck, Fire Blast away. The combination of Fire+Grass+Fighting coverage in conjunction with Spikes is really good at breaking TSS cores, enabling physically offensive stuff like Aerodactyl. Sludge Bomb helps Nidoking act as a HP Grass Zapdos check, so you can afford to divide matchups against HP Ice Zapdos and other special mons, say, with Swampert and Jirachi. The 30% chance of poison is really potent too. Another cool aspect of Nidoking is that it is immune to both Toxic and Thunder Wave, so it doesn't have to fear switching into Zapdos the first time round, and it can fish for Poison on Blissey more easily. The biggest issue with Nidoking is that it is a complete flop against Milotic, and teams I've built with it have felt a bit on the losing side of that matchup.

Example core:

HP Ghost DD Gyarados + DD Salamence
Astamatitos introduced HP Ghost + Dragon Dance Gyarados, which I really like for its ability to hit Gengar and Starmie, but Gyarados suffers from the perennial problem of being walled by something regardless of its Hidden Power coverage. That's where Dragon Dance Salamence comes in. Complementing Gyarados with Salamence is a known idea that bolsters a team's physical defenses and allows one to break for the other, but HP Ghost provides two advantages to the conventional HP Flying/Rock Gyarados. First, very few teams use both Starmie and Aerodactyl, but both are frequently used as cleaners, so Gyarados and Salamence divide and conquer these different matchups. Second, Magneton offense teams (which this core is usually seen on) tend to be really weak to Gengar, so running both HP Ghost Gyarados and SpDef DD Salamence allows either member of this core sweep in its presence.

Example concept:

T1 Hidden Power Fighting Zapdos vs Tyranitar without Dugtrio revenge kill.
An idea I've been exploring recently is using a max Attack (non-CB) Zapdos lead to smack Tyranitar from lead and sacrifice itself to physical Tyranitar's Rock Slide. It might seem stupid to lose a superb Pokemon T1, but on some teams, physical Tyranitar is a key check (and sometimes the only check) to certain threats - CM Rachi, DD Gyarados, DD Salamence, and Celebi. Bringing Tyranitar to 40% is frequently enough to count it out as a check. I don't really want to use the more gimmicky Choice Band Zapdos because I'm left with a worse Pokemon if I don't face Rock Slide Tyranitar as a lead; mixed Zapdos is pretty good of a standalone Pokemon anyway. When you use this, make sure that you have a secondary Skarmory answer since you're potentially losing Zapdos T1.

Feel free to discuss and share your ideas!

 

[dk]

Here's a core idea I've been making team drafts with:

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Molt + Bulky Dry-Pass Celebi + Spikes

Sample Sets

Moltres @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Will-O-Wisp
- Roar

Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 36 Def / 40 SpA / 152 SpD / 32 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Recover
- Leech Seed
- Baton Pass

Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Drill Peck
- Toxic
- Roar

Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Counter
- Rapid Spin

Cloyster @ Leftovers
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs: 64 HP / 248 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Explosion
- Spikes

Moltres spikes isn't anything new or profound or particularly complicated; Moltres' spike-immune defensive answers often don't have their own form of recovery (Zapdos forgoes rest often; even with wish, Mence can still be crippled with burn for the rest of the game; rest is far from mandatory on Gyara; then things like Aero/Flygon/etc never run rest and wouldn't be particularly great users of it either) and has access to roar, meaning juicy Moltres openings with spikes up and progress making go hand-in-hand nicely. Getting spikes up is self-explanatory: run a spiker---but getting Molt in on targets it meaningfully threatens safely is a little less so. While Molt's spike immunity goes a long way in helping its longevity, it's vulnerable to sand---meaning hits landed in sand will stick, not toxic immune, and lacks recovery more often than not, meaning it's prone to being worn down, thus shutting down its ability to put its coverage and strong offensive utility to good use over time.

That's where Celebi comes in---helping Molt get on the field. Because PhysDef/SpDef Celebi snatches up momentum nicely thanks to its great natural bulk and access to leech seed, it forces switches very consistently---and maaaaaaany of the common responses to Celebi (defensive Celebi especially) are absolute Moltres fodder, meaning a simple BP out from Celebi as they switch in leads to a clean in for Moltres:

• Metagross is threatened by an ohko from Molt and needs rock slide or toxic to put Molt out of commission, meaning even if the Metagross user wants to hard-read Moltres using roar, odds are they can't meaningfully punish it without booming;
• Jirachi is threatened quite heavily, although things like SpDef Astarachi can threaten to trade a toxic---still a great straight-up 1v1 for the Molt user;
• Skarmory obviously gets roasted, but it's worth noting that Celebi BPing Moltres in as the Skarm attempts to pivot into Celebi is especially helpful as it bypasses the risk of Molt eating a toxic or drill peck;
• fire stab obviously melts any CM/CM pass or SD pass Celebis looking to switch into your own and mount offense (HP rock is scary though);
• Forretresses becomes a completely safe switch to pivot Celebi once its set is revealed, and Moltres threatens to ohko Forry about eighty times over;
• Heracross threatens Celebis that drop Psychic, which Molt scares;
• Toxic Magneton is valid manner of forcing out Celebi, which, again, is Molt food, although it takes some balls on the end of the Molt user to click anything other than their fire stab; and
• Steelix looking to force out Celebi with toxic barely needs any chip to get ohko'd by Molt.

There are some other potential cases, but that should convey the value BP Celebi stands to bring to Molt structures well enough. I didn't mention it, but an auxiliary benefit to bulky HP grass or psychic / recover / leech Seed / baton pass Celebi here is leech helping Molt shrug off stuff like Metagross mashes a little bit easier---it's pretty minor all things considered, though, and is never going to be as nice as proper wish support.

The two also have pretty solid basic defensive synergy, with Moltres being a conditionally decent switchin to much of the list above and Celebi's ability to sit on Suicune, Starmie, Zapdos, Milo, and Jolteon plus its ability to pivot into Blissey meaning there's quite a lot of depth to the pair, although that's pretty standard for parts of FWG cores.

The tricky thing about this core is that it commands a decent amount of support, at least imo. Obviously you want spikes support---and imo defensive Celebi desperately wants spin support---so your remaining slots are somewhat constrained. If you run HP grass over psychic on Celebi, you also probably want pursuit Tyranitar to shut out Gengar (although honestly this is a pretty nice luxury for Molt, as axing the opposition's revenge killing options against Molt is great).

kind of like Hclat's Aggron idea

Maybe I didn't dig hard enough, but I wasn't able to find a post about this. Could you elaborate further on specifics? Sounds fun

 

[MadFattieChef]

P E L I P P E R

I decided to play around with Pelipper for fun in ADV OU. At first glance when looking at Pelipper's stats it seems like it would be a bad mon but I really wanted to make a Pursuit team so I included it in the team just as a meme. After a while of playing around with Pelipper I begun to find that this pokemon isn't a meme, rather it actually being a genuine threat to some teams. This thread is going to talk about my experiences using it and how you can use its unique traits to your advantage

Pelipper's unique typing of Water/Flying is only shared amongst two other fully evolved Pokemon in Gyarados and Mantine and its defensive typing allows for Pelipper to be a real pain to one of the best mons in the game, Metagross with the only way for a Metagross to beat Pelipper is to either have coverage for it or to explode. It also has a decent special attack stat of 85 and solid coverage in Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, a choice of Hidden Power and Pursuit.

Pelipper, unlike the more commonly known Pursuit users in Tyranitar, Houndoom and Metagross is not hit super effectively by Earthquake and spikes is what makes it special. With pursuit it is one of the only real mons that can guarantee damage on Claydol and not feel threatened by anything other than an explosion. Claydol also drops to Hydro Pump effectively making Pelipper more or less a hard counter to it, which is amazing considering how it can be sometimes difficult to KO it due to Claydol having 2 good immunities alongside being immune to sand and spikes

Pelipper has also got some good physical defence. With some investment you can have your Pelipper survive +1 rock slides from Salamence and Metagross, banded Dugtrio cant KO it either with 1 hit, it can take up to 3 Breloom Focus Punches after Leftovers recovery, it can pivot into standard defensive variations of Swampert

These are the 3 Pelipper sets I made. To get the best results out of Pelipper I'd recommend using Surf/Hydro Pump, Ice Beam and Pursuit as your first 3 moves as Pelipper doesnt have a lot to use offensively. The last move can be anything you want. I personally really like Protect to absorb explosions and scout Choice Band moves. Agility is fun though I'd recommend making your Pelipper at least 198 speed for that so that it outspeeds Aero/Jolteon @+2. Hidden Power Grass is good too for hitting water types super effectively though don't expect Pelipper to be doing any form of meaningful damage vs Suicune or Milotic

If you love using Spikes but hate facing Claydols: consider testing out Pelipper in one of your teams. It's good fun and can be a really solid team player dealing pursuit damage to everyone that isn't a recover user. It really helps set up the end game for set up mons.

Even if the damage you're dealing is considered low, e.g. 19% to bulky Swampert: that damage is still a lot better than the 16-19% you'll be doing to Blissey with Hydro Pump

 

[Siglut]

Pursuit pelipper is a neat idea to force damage on claydol - I had the same idea with sceptile in the past but never was able to make it convincingly work. That has the advantage of also being able to pursuit starmie and being considerably stronger, but it has a much harder time coming in than pelipper would.
In terms of beating metagross it seems like this could pair nicely with magneton. Pelipper is nowhere near bulky enough to reliably come in on cb gross or any metagross with rock slide, but mag fixes the cb gross issue because any move that hits pelipper doesn't do much to mag.

 

[Shamankingaursu]

Ok, so to start I was playing around with the idea of using download on Porgyon 2. Wanted to do a Gimmicky, Mixed Porgyon 2 Hp Fighting, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, and Tri Attack. Thought getting each stat to 260 then download would give me 390 in the whatever lower defense then I could fire pretty powerful attacks. Of course, I forgot download does not exist in Gen 3. However, this did give me the idea to try to use an Offensive Porgyon 2 on the Special Side. I always like running Raikou and Celebi together, so I am somewhat used to Porgyon 2. But I hated it for not being a super offensive mon on its own. Great support to let you run certain mons free of the dangerous Dugtrio, Gyrados, and Salamance but other than that I never felt a need to use it. So I slapped it on a team and climbed from 1,300 to 1,500 in around 2 ish hours? Pretty good if do say so myself. Offensive Porygon 2, (I wish I had a cool epic name to call it but I don't.) Is a think a nice offensive piece on a team that needs a bit of backbone especially in relation to Gyrados, Dugtrio, and Salamance. While I'm don't believe it is better or easy to splash as a say a normal Porgyon 2 set, I think it can be pretty useful and I hope that can break down why it may be something you should give a go.

First, what does Porgyon 2 normally bring to the table. Well, other than being a great Gyrados, Salamance, and Dugtrio check, it is pretty tanky. The usual set of Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Recover then Thunderwave or Toxic can threaten bascailly any pokemon that is not faster or Blissy. But offensively it can be a lame duck. Yes, it hits certain targets and takes them down but those are only a few. 252 Hp, 200D with Bold Nature, and 56SPD do make you super hard to take down though. The Ability to Trace can also let you stuff certain mons or gain nice nifty abilities. Gaining Levitate, Volt Absorb, or Water Absorb can be a nice way to put a halt to a dangerous mon like Flygon, Jolteon, or Vaporeon. So on teams that need a Dug Counter Porgyon 2 fits like a glove. It has always been a nice mon to have. But that when it parried with very dangerous mon that likes having Dugtrio gone. Porgyon 2 is never breaking any holes for its own team.

But the big question is that does Offensive Porgyon 2 still take hits well? Well, I run max Hp on it as well giving it a pretty high Hp Total. It Defense and Special Defense even without investment are not bad at all. It not gonna be taking as many hits and it can be chipped down into something like Dug, +1 Gyrados, or Meance so you do have to be a bit more careful. That being said in the former's case running a flyer that can take advantage of a DD Salamance or like Sub Flygon can take advantage of that situation. Still, it is pretty bulky. As a consequence of this Porgyon, 2 is pretty slow. You might wanna increase its speed to certain benchmarks, I had mine at 157 Speed but maybe 160? Probably run a bit less bulk and just to make sure you outrun standard 159 (Like 4 Speed Ttar's and the like)

Thunderbolt and Ice beam are the two standard moves that you probably always want to run. You wanna still hit Gyrados, Dugtrio, and Gyrados, that is half the reason you running this guy. It is always nice and pumping Porgyon 2 to Max Special Attack with Modest gets you a pretty meaty 339 Special Attack. So not only do those guys no longer have any chance of surviving the hits without taking massive irrecoverable damage, you smack other pokemon that could take these hits better. Standard Skarmory for example takes 52 to 62 percent from Thunderbolt. While Protect can allow them to take three hits potentially, that is if you low roll. If you roll on the higher end, the Skarmory is going down in 2 hits and needs to switch.

Of course, Porygon 2 is not an Electric but even if you expand the list, it is not a massive list can learn Boltbeam and then also run Hp Grass along with actually being good at doing it. In Ou only Starmie, Ttar, Blissy (and a special shout out to Regice and Dragonite) will probably ever even consider running something like this. Starmie would never run Hpgrass since it smacks with Hydro, Ttar not gonna run all three of these moves (I don't think Ice beam, Thunderbolt, Hp Grass then a fourth move either Fireblast of Brick break. exists I could be wrong but maybe it worth giving a go). Blissy is not running all three of those moves since it will only then have a recovery move. Offensive Blissy is not gonna exist, I hope not since that blob is already a big pain. Regice wants Hp Fire for Fortress and Dragonite is awesome and def is maybe can be nice but your probably not running Dragonite if you can run Mixmeance or Flygon. Not a bad mon but certainly not commonplace. Especially on an offensive team where you can run Salamance in its place. (I don't think we're gonna see Dragonite and Salamance on the same team any time soon)

Back on track for the third standard move, Running Recover on top allows you to heal yourself if you come into an advantageous situation. (Like on a Vaperon using Hydro or a Jolteon using Tb where you can Trace their ability then heal up). Though do have to be careful in both of these situations for Toxic or Thunderwave. Having the ability to exert offensive pressure while being able to restore health is pretty nice to have. Of course, a lot of pokemon have these traits. But it's a valuable trait and Porgyon 2 has the ability to come in and get even more health before it heals, letting it squeeze into surviving an attack where it can heal that 50 percent without dropping.

For the fourth move, you do have some flexibility in this slot while I didn't run these I did consider, Hp Fire, Psychic, Agility, Thunderwave, Hp Grass, and on the very very gimmick side, Conversation. From my little experience, I will personally say Hp grass is the best option. You could drop Recover, but then I think your making yourself have less of a reason to run Porgyon 2. Being able to recover and be offensive is pretty nice. But I might try it later tonight. Though for the Conversation, you would drop Recover, though I'll go more into that later.

Hp Fire, for Steels, is nice since Ice Beam and Thunderbolt may struggle to tear through steels which are gonna be a common switch into your Porgyon 2. Also, Dinks Fortress is always sick. But Thunderbolt dinks most steels just fine so only for Fortress, I'd say if that is what your teams struggle with. Though maybe just wanna build a team that does not get stopped by a Fortress. It seems like it gets a bit more common on the ladder each day. (still semi-rare but I do see it on occasion)

Psychic with the Investment has a good chance with sand to kill Offensive Gengar unlike TBolt and Ice Beam. And Gengar ain't koing back unless it decides to explode. Defensive Gengar does get 2 shots as well unlike Tbolt or Ice Beam meaning you can 1vs1 or force it to switch. The only reason I didn't consider this more is the cause of the team I ran, I felt that I could handle Gengar pretty well unlike Swampert. But this might be cool. Maybe if you drop Recover too for Four offensive moves but that might be a bit much.

Agility if you wanna run less bulk and have that speed. Does trade coverage for the ability to hit faster moving targets without taking damage. If your gonna do this you of course wanna go to 168 Speed Investment to outrun the whole metagame (Bar a stupid Ninjask). However, you lose a lot of bulk. So maybe you wanna run less. If your gonna try this I'd say the lowest speed you wanna do it with is 108 Speed. That way with the agility you outspeed Starmie. You also still get 148 Hp which means you def much easier to kill but you're still not super frail. You can give up the idea of outrunning Aero and Jolteon. Afterall, Aero not coming in willy nilly on your max Special Attack TB or Ice Beam. Jolteon is also while dangerous, is not gonna be hitting you back super hard. Only Thunderwave is scary. However, this set does lose a lot of coverage and becomes just a worse agility Zapdos. Agility Porgyon does have a few things over Agility Zapdos like that it is a bit tanker has recovered but it exchanges that for being able to be dinged by Earthquake, the lack of stab on ThunderBolt and more importantly the ability to Baton Pass to team mates the boost. So def worse but maybe can be fun to try out.

Then there is Thunderwave Since you are pretty slow and have the ability to use recover, Thunderwave could be nice to bring mons into the slow pace you wanna play at. Thunderwave also lets you hide the fact that you are offensive. You can Thunderwave a threat instead of Tbolt or Ice beam. Thunderwave can also be a great support for the rest of the team slowing down key threats. The one issue I do have with this is if you are running Thunderwave to support your team it is just better to run a tanker Porgyon 2.

Hp Grass, I choose since I wanted to smack Swampert. Standard Defensive Swampert takes a good 75-90ish percent from a Hp Grass. Meanwhile, Ice Beam barely hits 25 to 30 percent. Porgyon 2 is naturally faster than Swampert and blanks most normal sets. Espcially if it's running Refresh for a toxic Porgyon 2. Hp Grass turns the tables, smacks Swampert, and forces a swap since you can follow up with Ice Beam for a kill without risking a mon that can soak Hp Grass. Most mons that do soak Hp Grass will not be happy to take an Ice Beam (Like Celebi, Charizard, or Moltres). Of course, Swampert runs protect to scout for such things, so it may not be as impactful. But it still does force a swap which you can use to swap to one of your own mons on the predict.

Conversation is the last and was more something I thought of while writing this, the idea would be to conversation to gain stab on a move. Like a very Pseudo Greninja in Gen 6+. Of course, it is random. Your other three moves need to be Offensive, you can't run recover. You already risking (I could be wrong on this) a 1/4 chance of just gaining a normal stab. Ok, so what is nice about Conversation. Well, once you change your type. This can be a good and a bad thing. Turning into Electric for example now makes you fear Earthquakes. But if you grabbed a Levitate off a Flygon or Weezing then perform Conversation, you have no weakness now. So that is pretty cool. Having a 50 percent boost to a move can also allow you to muscle through things you could not before. For example, a Stab Hp Grass from Porgyon 2 is now cleaving Swampert. That being said, you gotta drop recover, prep a turn then they can switch out. Then you have to conversation again if you want a different stab. That is way too much setup to try to get stab. If Conversation lets you pick which move you got stab on then this would be awesome! But as it is, this could be fun to try out on a very gimmick team that supports the hell out of Porgyon 2.

So in conclusion, I don't know if this is actually that good. Maybe someone already thought of this and found some big holes. But I think this is something everyone should at least give a shot. Even if it's a bit gimmicky. For an offensive team, this could be a nice lynchpin defensively that your team needs when it running at the speed of sound trying to cleave through dangerous mons like Swmapert, Starmie, Gyrados, Salamance, and much more. I'll put down the set I used and the team I ran with. If anyone wants to give it a try they can. It def not a perfect team but it worked for me so maybe it will work for someone else. And maybe someone else will give Porgyon 2 a spin and see if it can work for them.

https://pokepast.es/a9e0810615fbc2d9

 

[airports]

Heracross @ Salac Berry
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Megahorn
- Rock Slide

sub, salac heracross with hp ghost over sd to help against gengar. the standard sd set doesnt have too hard a time in beating gengar, but hera is damaged by the fight to the point where it can subsequently struggle to threaten gengar's teammates. hp ghost allows hera to beat a chipped defensive gengar without having to sub repeatedly, instead, subbing once, as gengar switches in (or not at all, ko'ing gengar with hp ghost immediately). furthermore, hp ghost hera can ohko offensive gengar and beat full health defensive gengar as it switches in, given hera uses sub on that turn. losing sd leaves hera without the same ability to completely reverse the tide of a game, in addition to sometimes hurting it versus intimidate pokemon, but otherwise hera remains plently threatening

 

[Jhonx~]

Jhonx Dump - 05 September 2021. ~Part 1~

Gengar @

Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Destiny Bond

This is classic offensive Gengar, Destiny Bond is not something new but I want to include it here because I think this set dropped a lot of usage and works perfect in actual metagame, being able to fool opponents making them believe they can kill it safe, Destiny Bond Gengar have only 1 job, remove a threat or just open holes then take something down with itself, its perfect to kill Tyranitar and CM users like Suicune and stuff, worth being tried.

Metagross @

Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 64 HP / 252 Atk / 192 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Explosion
- Reflect
- Light Screen

I dont think this is a really good set, its very cheesy, when I had in mind this I wanted to create a Screens Offense, this worked good for that purpose since it calls a lot Swampert into game and other stuff, set screens and boom to take a kill is always good, also that enables to create offensive holes so another sweeper can come in, setup safe in screens or setup substitute and start boosting.

Dragonite @

Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 180 SpD / 72 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Hyper Beam
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Flying]

This set is something really old, like NetBattle times lmao..Dragonite is a bulky mon with strong offensive capabilities, I like Hyper Beam with Silk Scarf because Dragonite invite into field Swampert and Suicune, you can hit them with Hidden Power Fly at +1 and get these 2 into Hyper Beam range after hit HP Fly, Dragonite sometimes can survive Ice Beam thats why I like it, if you want a more offensive Pokemon that does the same and have higher speed use Salamence with the same set, If you want to try this Dragonite use it into a team that can remove Skarmory, mainly mixed spam or Magneton offense.

Milotic @

Ability: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Recover
- Ice Beam / Toxic
- Protect

This is another set that is already discovered, I use this sometimes in offense and I enjoy it because Milotic is very fat, lot of offenses rely on Explosion to take down this, Milotic can wall DD users very easy and KO them back, can 1v1 Metagross easily, etc, Protect here is the choice I liked for Milotic because with it Milotic can scout Choice Band users and can block Explosion making it harder to kill, if your team dont need Ice Beam Milotic it can run Toxic so you can stall with Protect.

Aerodactyl @

Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Whirlwind / Rain Dance

This Aerodactyl set is something I liked to spam in offensive teams when Baton Pass was more powerful and more spammed, Aerodactyl always run 4ATK so vs BP teams they keep boosting and dont expect whirlwind, breaking their chain and recovering momentum to break these teams, Rain Dance in other hand was meant to be used with offensive waters like Starmie or Suicune to boost their Hydro Pumps, also that help to reset weather helping a lot in some scenarios.

Zapdos @

Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Metal Sound
- Thunder Wave

Zapdos offensive with Metal Sound, the philosophy I had when decided to try this was find a way to make Zapdos stronger and keep force switches, Zapdos sometimes is walled by soft special defensive walls like Tyranitar, Snorlax, etc, when you are well positioned and a switch is notorious you click Metal Sound and take a kill or force your opp switch again so they dont die at -2, you can run Magnet for major Thunderbolt damage but Leftovers helps this set to have more longevity in game, Spikes can help Metal Sound 2HKO Blissey if you use Magnet, and without Magnet it can get the KO agaisnt Tyranitar and other threats.

will drop a team dump rly soon, thnx for read hope you enjoyed this.

 

[airports]

Magneton @ Choice Band
Ability: Magnet Pull
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ground]

a magneton that beats other magneton, ohko'ing them, whilst still trapping skarm. versus skarmory, swap in your magneton in place of metagross without fear of an incoming opposing magneton.

Magneton @ Salac Berry
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Fire]

a mag that beats most other mag, has hp fire and isnt choice locked. after hp ground, hp fire mag is the next top dog of mag mirrors, and amongst hp fire mag, speed is the deciding factor. sub is chosen as the means of activating salac berry to exploit other salac magneton that rely on endure to proc theirs

Magneton @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Magnet Pull
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Hidden Power [Fire]

a magneton able to switch into forretress' earthquake and win the resulting 1v1. ev to survive eq

 

[DancingAlong]

Bulky Fire Types

Fire: Weak to Rock, Ground, Water | Resistant to Fire, Bug, Steel, Grass, Ice

Abusers of (stab fire + toxic combo), (type resistences + sectorialized coverage in current meta), (10% chance of burning).
Complimental to teams looking for a secondary bold tank, without being weak to dragon dancers, or curselax/suicune.


Entei @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 224 Def / 36 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Toxic
- Protect
- Sunny Day / Hidden Power [Electric/Grass] / Roar / x



Arcanine @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 192 HP / 252 Def / 64 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Flamethrower
- Toxic
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Crunch / Protect / Sunny Day / Roar / x


Good teammates: Bulky waters, Celebi, Flygon, Snorlax, Offmie, Claydol, Salamance, Gyarados.


Used stats:
entei, hp 115 | def 85 | spa 90 | spd 75 | spe 100 (actual spe 245) || total ef-base stats: 465
arcanine, hp 90 | def 80 | spa 100 | spd 80 | spe 95 (actual spe 226) || total ef-base stats: 445

___

Brief analysis.
Entei and Arcanine fit the same niche in relation to non sunny day compositions. They are bulky fire types that can withstand strong physical attacks. These guys are efficient in dealing with the steel types and in spreading intoxication.
They are both grounded and both suffer sand. They usually force your opponents to switch in their non-weak-to fire special walls or their water types. They love every kind of support you might give them: spinning, wishing, cleric'ing. They can function as weather resetter because sunny day boosts their longevity by a good margin whilst boosting their power too: water attacks fired to them become much weaker.
Entei has pressure, which means it can possibly stall foes out of hydropump pps with a little help from his team, or being very pp consuming to deal with for the foes, during the late game (for this reason I consider protect on it almost as mandatory as flamethrower-toxic).
Arcanine has intimidate, which is an incredibly useful ability that, aside the overall utility it provides, helps arcanine check even better physical attackers that either straight up die to its flamethrower (breloom, hera) or can't take many flamethrowers nor can't enjoy getting burnt. Arcanine is benefitted more than entei by the removal of spikes.

Entei is bulkier, faster. Arcanine hits a little harder and has more utility (thanks to intimidate).

There is room for optimization in both the spreads.


_____

Scizor @ Leftovers
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 228 HP / 252 Atk / 20 Def / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Steel Wing
- Quick Attack
- Counter/Baton Pass/Protect/SD/Toxic/x
(you could opt not to use quick attack)

- Silver Wind - Hidden Power [Rock] - Quick Attack - Steel Wing/Baton Pass/Protect/SD/x (I wouldn't recommend this set bc silver wind is 8 PP, but it's the best way to let him attack zap/mence/moltres/gyara/zard)

I'm loving this scizor set. I think this set makes scizor more than viable outside of baton pass chains teams. It is hard to fit in teams, because it hates bold waters, skarmory, bliss and all the fire attacks goin around to counterpart the steel types.
It has a splendid typing (sand immune), more than decent def stats, a huge attack stat (+ swarm ability) and a good base speed tier compared to other bulky attackers.
It's hard for foes to switch in repeatedly into stab hp bug or stab steel, it's a good quick attack user in a recover-rest-softboiled-leech seed infested metagame.
Best accompany it electric types and good fire res / special sponges for all the attacks he gets. It doesn't need a spinner (exp. with the protect set) but it loves a spiker.
It's imho the best bulky attacker vs celebi (252+Atk stab HP bug has a 43.8% to OHKO from full a 252HP/252+Def celebi without sand. | 252 SpA celebi doesn't ko it with hp fire) and vs the super spammed claydol. It's a steel type neutral to ground and fight + 4x res vs grass (the most used hidden power nowadays on the special side of things).

The following sub-archetypes are the best in which this version of scizor would fit in.

Durable balance team w/mag
Durable off team w/cloyster or skarm + double elec
ToxicSpikes supermen team
teams super weak to the combo celebi + claydol/starmie

 

[Colteor]

Solid Rock (Regirock) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Clear Body
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Superpower
- Explosion
- Counter
I didn't come up with Regirock lead but it is quite effective. Use this bad boy as a lead on your offense teams to hit the ground running. With counter you eat a CB mash from Meta and KO it back. Superpower will Ohko even a max hp Tar that thinks it can live eq. Zapdos obviously runs in fear so you can either rock slide to scout their resist, switch, or boom to chunk something (be wary of sub zap that tries to catch your overprediction). Skarm will get a spike but it isn't too hard to fit anti Skarm measures like Mag with this set. Against waters either boom instantly or go to something like an electric or leech Celebi (which pairs quite well with this) to deal with them. I've been using this set on a couple different types of physical offense lately and it's served me really well so I felt like sharing it. Really good at securing early momentum for certain teams.

 

[DancingAlong]

Solid Rock (Regirock) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Clear Body
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Superpower
- Explosion
- Counter
I didn't come up with Regirock lead but it is quite effective. Use this bad boy as a lead on your offense teams to hit the ground running. With counter you eat a CB mash from Meta and KO it back. Superpower will Ohko even a max hp Tar that thinks it can live eq. Zapdos obviously runs in fear so you can either rock slide to scout their resist, switch, or boom to chunk something (be wary of sub zap that tries to catch your overprediction). Skarm will get a spike but it isn't too hard to fit anti Skarm measures like Mag with this set. Against waters either boom instantly or go to something like an electric or leech Celebi (which pairs quite well with this) to deal with them. I've been using this set on a couple different types of physical offense lately and it's served me really well so I felt like sharing it. Really good at securing early momentum for certain teams.

there is an old set (goin around 12 years ago ca) that I prefer over that one. The set I'm referring to is: -Rock Slide -Superpower -Explosion -Curse; @ Leftovers.
With one single curse you get much more attack than adamant with ease.
Counter is cool, but curse lets regirock invested in spdef (its weakest defence) while compromising basically nothing in exchange (with the added benefits of potentially sweeping in the late game with 2 curse boosts and of using more than one superpower subsequently).

 

[Yak Attack]

DualBoom PursuitDoom​

I tested out a similar version of this core with PursuitTar and wasn't happy when Gar still survived my Pursuits, so I figured Doom would be a better pick. This is a simple concept: Break huge holes in the opposing team with the two most notable exploders in the meta, without getting screwed over by Gengar.

Core

Snorlax @ Choice Band
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 236 Def / 20 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Self-Destruct
- Return
- Earthquake
- Focus Punch

Metagross @ Choice Band
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Explosion
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide

Houndoom @ Salac Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 68 SpD / 188 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 Def
- Pursuit
- Fire Blast
- Crunch
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Okay so 101 speed on Lax is to outpeed all other Lax. They typically don't go higher than 100. Snorlax has Normal/Ground/Fighting coverage because you'll be getting rid of Gar anyway, so it's great once Gar is gone. Metagross is a typical set. Houndoom is usually really difficult to use because the opposing team is usually prepared for all of Counter/Endure/Hidden Power Grass/Will-O-Wisp, so I figured I'd pick a "safe" set. HP Ice is because, since the opposing team likely knows what strategy you'd like to use (Counter shenanigans, EndureSalac, or a stray HP Grass), you can pick out Salamence, usually after a Salac boost (but you're EVed to outspeed most 270 speed creeps, too). Crunch is for modest damage on non-special walls that resist Fire Blast.

I'd say try to lure the Gar in with the boomers. Once it looks like it's a good time for a Gengar switchin, hard switch to Doom. The benefits are outstanding. You won't have to worry about all the set up walls (Celebi, Jirachi, Suicune) or Skarm in ADV anymore if you play them right. My sample team involving this core leads with Skarm, has a Mence in the back, and carries Mag so Mence has an easier time. You can carry Dug if you prefer to eliminate Jirachi over Skarm (but I'd also like to point out that a particular variant of Mag I carry with Metal Sound and EndureSalac has the ability to 1v1 CM Rachi). The set is pretty obvious (it is what it sounds like) so no need to post another set.

 

[MadFattieChef]

Jolteon @ Leftovers
80 HP / 252 SpDef / 176+ Speed
- Thunderbolt
- Baton Pass
- Wish
- Substitute

Specially defensive Jolteon is a pokemon I used to run on ladder a lot to provide both heals and substitutes to my other mons while providing an electric immunity. This was really good vs standard Zapdos leads. From 252 spA Timid, HP grass would deal 24.7% max roll which means you have a guaranteed way of keeping your substitute up.
--------------------
This idea in theory I guess also tells you what kind of Zapdos they could be from the get-go
--------------------
The speed hits 374 which is to outspeed and baton pass away from Dugtrio. It doesn't even need spA investment to do considerably good damage to neutral targets.

Wish substitute offered many things together. With Jolteon being outsped by almost nothing, it gave it a way to scout moves and PP stall to an extent with minimal risk.

I cant remember what teams I used this in but a teammate I liked using with it was Modest Zapdos with 274 speed. It was a fun special defender. It switched in well vs Gengar and decently vs Starmie and would hurt back with Tbolt. I believe that Tbolt does not OHKO offensive Starmie however so there is that

This pokemon is weak to roar users

Have fun trying it out
Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/889934b7f430a6f3

 

[MadFattieChef]

Four words to describe both Typhlosion and Electrode: H E A T

Typhlosion's read might be interesting to some of you while Electrode's is just use Thunderbolt and Boom

Gengar's Will-O-Wisps used to annoy me a lot so one day I said "I'm sick of these free burns" and looked for a fun solution. Charizard may be better overall but wouldn't it also be nice to be able to beat that idiot instead of relying on boltbeam switchins? Here comes Typhlosion the legend

バクフーン C R I T (Typhlosion) @ Leftovers
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest/Timid Nature
- Fire Blast
- Roar
- Hidden Power Grass / Ice
- Focus Punch / Thunder Punch

Fire Blast / Flamethrower. I like Fire Blast more on this mon as it hits most things like a truck. I'd recommend +SpA -Def nature for Hidden Power Grass + Focus Punch. I'd recommend Timid for Hidden Power Ice + Thunder Punch.

Ice + Thunder Punch Timid to beat (or at least speed tie) Salamence/Flygon and crush them. Thunder Punch is to chip bulky waters / chunk Starmie while not reserving Fire Blast PP. I have tried Fire Blast + Flamethrower. That was great, too. I would recommend bolt-beam coverage

If you're going for Grass + Focus Punch I recommend +SpA nature. You can drop some speed to attack / SpDef at your own comfort. It's to beat slower mons like Swampert and possibly crush Tyranitar with Focus Punch. Don't run any less than 274 speed if you're leading with it to beat Smeargle
(random I know but why would you want to lose to that lol)

Roar is there to deal with weird things. This thing not being weak to boltbeam means it can safely Roar out a Jirachi or anything else really doing weird things and potentially still keep up the momentum
- I say potentially because you could Roar in a Dugtrio lmfao
But if you're running Typhlosion you're fully aware that you are running H E A T and that you shouldn't care about Dugtrio because you can use
PORYGON2 AS ITS TEAMMATE
I never did but it's an idea

Electrode

マルマイン B O O M (Electrode) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 80 Atk / 252 SpA / 176 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Explosion
- Substitute / ???
- Thunder Wave / ???

This ball is a demon. Explosion is just so broken that you can even make this guy work. It's limited but if you need a fast boomer to chunk down that CM Suicune into range of a next attack: This guy's your, well
ball

This guy outspeeds Aero and is electric type. It gives Electrode opportunities in either revenge killing it or at least threaten it out so that you can regain offensive momentum

Substitute is hilarious vs Roar Skarmory because you just get a free sub. Simple as that. It also can gain opportunities vs mons that are either scared of getting boomed on or getting chunked by Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt is your main attack because yeah (its special is 259 it's not very exciting) but it is fast and will still damage the frailer guys

B O O M

The most important move. Let's you regain control of the game which can matter especially since boom is an effective 500 BP move that cancels out the opponent's move if they were to move after it. Electrode is very fast. Not much can outspeed it. It won't be killing walls from full but it would definitely chunk them into range for your next teammate to capitalize on

Last move can be literally whatever you want. I've tried Hidden Power Ice / Grass. They're okay. I've tried Sub Toxic also just because I saw Raikou players do it before. That was nice for pressuring Blissey and getting it into range for boom. So yeah that's really funny vs Roar-SkarmBliss. Thunder Wave is great actually for crippling Jolteon before it could cripple you. Thunder Wave was the move I preferred most because lol 3 full paras in a row moment

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|
|
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Typhlosion is good but risky. Matches better VS boltbeam coverage at cost of dying to Dug and being ground weak. If you don't like Roar then you can use Substitute instead to help get you in range of Blaze if in sand or capitalize on switches while making Focus Punch a safer move to click. I still prefer Roar because it provided great utility in being an emergency phazer sometimes vs Calm Mind users primarily. If you knew when to click it then it was often rewarding. It being hurt by spikes is both a blessing and a curse for it because of Blaze. If you can manipulate your HP through the use of switching into weak attacks and taking spikes then your Fire Blasts are gonna start doing some real damage

Electrode is not very good but electric STAB and faster than Aero gives it some niche. Boom is still a very strong move that offers great utility. Soundproof is funny vs Roar. Honestly the only two moves this pokemon cares about are Thunderbolt and Explosion so use whatever moves you want. Screens, Weather, Taunt, THIEF, Mirror Coat, Heck run Screech and Hidden Power Bug if you really want to that badly. As long as you keep Thunderbolt and Explosion

You can try pinch berry. I prefer leftovers just because Sand exists and I like to have more control over when I can boom rather than being forced to use it eventually. Use Magnet, Silk Scarf, No Item if Thief. Idk I'm no expert on balls.

Names were inspired by Japanese Nintendo Cup's love for Electrode. It's just their names in a language that may or may not be Japanese (I can't remember)

 

[Ajjc]

Was thinking about good mons to pair with moltres + spikes and had the idea that maybe jumpluff could actually work kind of well alongside him so just built a joke team for shits n gigs and went a solid like 18-3 on ladder this morning. Its not the most groundbreaking team in the world but it’s actually really fun to play with and I think with some modifications could be a legitimately consistent team. Here’s what I got:
Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Toxic
- Roar
- Drill Peck

Jumpluff @ Leftovers
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 Def
- Leech Seed
- Substitute
- Sleep Powder
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Moltres @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 56 HP / 236 SpA / 216 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Substitute
- Toxic

Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Taunt
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Flying]

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 232 Def / 24 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Protect

Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 208 HP / 36 SpA / 200 SpD / 64 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leech Seed
- Baton Pass
- Calm Mind
- Psychic

I feel like I’m pretty happy with every mon on the team except for gyarados seems to always do basically nothing. I don’t really want to use TTar even though sand *seems* synergistic with this type of pressure, for a couple reasons. Primary reason is the biggest players on this team benefit from not having to deal with sand, and can still be effective. On top of that, sand itself is pretty likely coming from your opponent anyway so I like that it can adapt either way.

Spikes are extremely important for this build to succeed, so lead skarm being able to get em up T1 most of the time naturally makes sense. We don’t have a spin blocker either so this kind of makes mag problematic and worth scouting for (esp since the rest of the team shits on it). I feel like there’s probably a better option than drill peck in the 4th slot but I also hate getting smoked by random focus punch stuff so open to suggestions there.. otherwise, it’s skarm, what do you want?

Pert and celebi are your physical and special walls, respectively and are naturally extremely important to keep alive but it’s not incredibly difficult to with the leech seeds flying around like they will be. Calm mind passing with celebi is fun with this too because you can viably pass to just about anything else (except gyarados) and get the jump on any switch in. I thought about recover but this team realllly doesn’t want to be wasting turns but I have been slightly adjusting celebi.

jumpluff has been hilariously good with this build, having sleep with that fast of a mon that also forces switches with leech seed can really wreak havoc mid and late game. It’s so funny to grab a sub on the switch to like metagross or something and then leech seed and sub while they slowly die. Really mid game you can use this to get chip damage off and force your opponent into bad situations so you can continue facilitating offense.

Basically the point of this team is to apply consistent pressure on the other team and whittle away their defenses to the point where moltres (and theoretically gyarados) can clean up. Spikes aren’t too threatening here since they only hit 2/6 mons but you do want to try to limit to just one layer. Which isn’t hard with this team because most spikers are extremely weak to like everything on this team so you can usually grab some momentum at least on the spike.

definitely open to any suggestions anyone might have, but it’s been pretty fuckin fun laddering with.

 

[L3W]

Hi, I'm Lew. I'm especially adept at spending too much time on the ladder and lurking on discord. I've been playing adv and competitive mons for a little over a year now. I've had an absolute blast getting to know the tier and the community alike, and I look forward to learning more about mons and meeting more people. I wanted to share some sets I've used that I think are unique. Thanks for reading my first post!

Good Mon Section
Here are sets for common OU pokemon that I've used to success, but I've rarely or never seen others use.

Tyranitar @ Salac Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Brick Break
- Fire Blast
- Crunch
- Endure

No one I've shown this to likes this set, but I swear it's good. Oftentimes mixtar finds itself relegated to death fodder after getting one big hit off in the early game. This set alleviates that problem to some degree at the expense of coverage. The three attacking moves are able to do at least 35%ish to the entire tier, meaning tar is pretty much guaranteed to get decent damage off before going down. The set plays like a normal mixtar early game, except that it has to switch out of swampert, whose presence can be spun to your advantage with the rest of your team. Being less good against birds like mence and zapdos isn't much of a problem when you have the salac to get an extra hit off on them. There are a ton of situations in practice where tar's one extra hit is useful. One example is this tar's matchup versus starmie - a lot of offensive mons like cm rachi and ddmence have no problem getting past starmie once set up, but lose to it 1v1. This tar is able to force starmie out while keeping momentum for your hyper offense team.

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 84 Atk / 240 SpA / 184 Spe
Mild Nature
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Psychic
- Thunder
- Ice Punch

Maybe sub-dynamicpunch rachi is better than this guy, I don't know. But I figured since tar and salamence can run mixed sets, rachi can too. This set is for spikes teams where the immediate offense and forced switches are appreciated and where rachi's coverage is actually capable of threatening blissey, swampert and metagross. Thunder lets this jirachi obliterate milotic, which is a rare trait for mixed attackers. One of my favorite qualities of this set is you can mask a CM set pretty easily by your coverage moves and team structure and then nail a tyranitar that comes in to check you. If you're feeling adventurous, throw on a scope lens.

Moltres @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 28 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Toxic/Will-O-Wisp
- Rest

Tired of having no moltres and charizard switchins? Look no further than this resilient bird. I didn't come up with this, and I'm not the first to use it,
but I love it - nothing else can stone-wall both metagross and charizard. It does alright versus some mixed attackers too, and it can even stall out standard blissey. Be careful around CM rachi/cele since this moltres is much weaker than the standard one. Other than that, as long as my team is bulky enough to loop around a few times, and I have ways of getting past recovering waters, I don't quite miss the power. You can easily run less speed and more spdef or physdef if you please. Rest-talk is probably good, too.

Houndoom @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 24 SpD / 232 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Flamethrower/Fire Blast
- Pursuit
- Overheat/Crunch/Beat Up/Will-O-Wisp
- Hidden Power [Fighting]

This one is self-explanatory. If your team can't afford to let tar dance twice, this somewhat solves the problem. Swampert isn't that important to hit anyway; if your opponent is using swampert to wall your houndoom, you probably welcome that chip so you can beat it down with something else and sweep later. EVs/nature can be whatever.

Smeargle @ Salac Berry
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Endeavor
- Spore
- Spikes
- Substitute

Boom gle is pretty underwhelming, and endeavor turns this guy into a neat little breaker.

Bad Mon Section
Everybody loves to use garbage mons. Nothing in this game is more satisfying than getting these abominations to work on high ladder. It's the reason half of us play. I'm not going to claim I've had success with all these sets, but I've certainly had fun.

Rhydon @ Leftovers
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 56 HP / 252 Atk / 24 Def / 176 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Megahorn
- Substitute/Swords Dance

There is exactly one way to use Rhydon, and it's on paraspam. I'm only posting this for the EVs - the given spread outspeeds BKC tar while surviving +1 earthquakes from salamence and friends. If you're using this with bulky starmie it's probably not that important for you to outspeed skarm anyway, and the extra security against ddtar and mence is invaluable.

Armaldo @ Leftovers
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide/Hidden Power [Bug]
- Knock Off
- Rest

Probably not bringing anything new to the table here, but whatever, I like this mon. Armaldo is unique in that it isn't weak to any of fire, grass, ice, electric, psychic, or dragon moves. Since guys like gengar and rachi rely on low-base-power coverage moves to do their breaking, armaldo with some coverage moves of its own can be a decently strong part of your specially defensive core instead of just a knock-off machine. It still matches up well into all snorlax even though it doesn't always beat it thanks to dropping Harden.

Alakazam @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Psychic
- Fire Punch
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Encore

Missing out on ice punch can bite versus mence, flygon, and zapdos, but the rewards can be huge. Blissey doesn't have to fear calm mind rachi/suicune as much with this guy in the back. With its speed tier it can be a hilarious stop to DDtar as well. These are the most concrete uses I can think of, but I'm sure it can be useful in a bunch of mid-to-late game scenarios. Once I stayed in on a snorlax as it used focus punch, and then locked it into FP the turn after and continued smacking the opposing team. Great times.

Glalie @ Choice Band
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Explosion
- Spikes
- Sleep Talk

Inspired by UD's boom / dedge / stalk lead lax. I figured you're not really clicking anything besides boom and spikes anyway, so why not throw a choice band on it. Elevating boom from 40% to 60% on something like tar or metagross can really help, and if you accidentally land it on a gengar, that's what either houndoom or camerupt are for. For what it's worth, I've never actually clicked sleep talk with this. Use with BP zapdos.

Omastar @ Salac Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 32 HP / 252 SpD / 224 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rain Dance
- Hydro Pump
- Spikes
- Endure

Here in the next installment of my quest to find every possible use of endure + salac berry is the helix himself. Along with skarmory, omastar is the only sand-immune spiker with a decent speed tier. Unlike skarmory, omastar can dish out serious damage, which makes it a better candidate for an endure/salac spiker suicide lead. The given EV spread allows omastar to outspeed +SpA mixtar at +0 and always survive hp grass from +Spe mixtar, meaning you always at least get a hydro pump off on it, and usually get that plus a spike. This is huge for your rain team since you can trap tar with dug after. Of course the speed also means you outrun base 100s at +1. I've found it's best to use rain dance t1 vs skarm/forre leads because you either severely dent the opponent's spiker, or you draw out their blissey/passive water type which you can then spike on. (I know celebi exists, but give me a break, I'm using omastar). I usually don't stay in on zapdos, since with the help of endure, I can try to position myself later to get more than just one turn out of omastar. Shoutout to Mead for beating me like 5x in a row on ladder when I was first testing this out.

Charizard @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Fire Blast
- Sunny Day
- Dragon Dance

If you can somehow click all four of these moves in a single game and sweep, you're a beast.

 

[Rockin' Page]

Hey all, I've been playing ADV for a bit and I always go back to the same team, a similar variant of this one! I hope you can learn something from this post, mainly that Agility to Marowak is a lot more effective than a lot of people may think. You just need the right support. Make sure to scout for Roar. You can use Ninjask or Scizor instead of Zapdos if you want, but a lot of people will already know your plan if you start with either of those two.

ZapWak

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 104 Def1 / 252 SpA / 152 Spe2
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Agility3
- Baton Pass4
1) 252 Atk Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 104 Def Zapdos: 256-302 (79.7 - 94%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery. Most of the time, Zapdos is okay. Not sure why the calc says it's a 2HKO at 94% in Sand.
2) Outspeeds Smeargle, which is a relevant mon, although no more BP chains.
3 & 4) AgiliPass to Marowak. You'll need Magneton (and most likely, an exploder like Metagross or Snorlax to take care of the bulky walls).

Magneton @ Magnet
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]1
- Metal Sound2
- Thunder Wave
1) Makes it not dead weight against Swampert, which is a common switchin.
2) Makes it not dead weight against CMers. Celebi has to BP the stat drop, which can break the situation wide open in your favor.

Marowak @ Thick Club
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 Atk / 36 SpD / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bonemerang1
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Bug]2
1) Serves well vs. Substitute. Especially on Electrics/Steels like Raikou and Jirachi that you can then OHKO either outright or under the right circumstances.
2) OHKOs most Celebi. Also helpful vs. Claydol. Double-Edge just doesn't cut it most of the time.

 

[Yak Attack]

Posting a few sets.

So this set catches everyone off guard.

Oddball Gyara

Gyarados @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 72 Def / 252 SpA / 184 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Fire Blast
- Ice Beam
- Thunder

T1 usually click Pump so that it baits in like a Steelix or something that's planning on phasing it out with Roar. Then you can Fire Blast the Skarm switchin or something. Anyway, I know Gyarados is used in the completely opposite manner, if you want to use the standard set with a bit of surprise factor, try something like

Pump Standard Gyara

Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 48 Atk / 252 SpA / 208 Spe
Rash Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Hydro Pump

I know it's a lot weaker physically, but a lot of stuff walls Gyara, anyway, and if you T1 Pump, it can usually take a switchin by surprise.

So Kabutops is relatively unexplored territory, but it gets some good coverage, Swords Dance, and is immune to Sandstorm. On top of that, it can outspeed the entire metagame after a Salac (if you want it to).

KabuDra Core

Kingdra @ Lum Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 3 Atk / 30 SpA
- Rain Dance
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 224 HP / 252 Def / 32 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Rain Dance
- Thunder
- Baton Pass
- Hidden Power [Grass]

Kabutops @ Salac Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 40 Def / 216 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Rock Slide
- Brick Break
- Hidden Power [Bug]

The goal here is to find plenty of opportunities to get Kabu in. You can either BP to it, or hard switch after a Rain Dance with Kingdra, predicting Blissey. Just watch out for Skarm, that's why you might want to bring (Thunder) Mag. Or you could pack CB Boom Meta/Lax. Take your pick. I also like running Heracross on Rain (it's in my signature). Helps vs. Fire Blast, giving it more room to setup, and removes it's Salac nemesis, Sandstorm.

The goal of this set is to boom on threats like Cune and T2 finish them off with Dug. This is a known strategy, but what makes this set more effective is the Choice Band. Not much else to say except Focus Punch can really catch people off guard.

CB GarDug

Gengar @ Choice Band
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 184 Def / 72 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Bomb
- Focus Punch
- Explosion

Dugtrio @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 252 Atk / 32 SpD / 224 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Sludge Bomb
- Rock Slide

So this is a bit of a stretch, but it can totally outplay the opponent when played right. Slow pivots are good for a reason; Macho Brace makes Scizor the ultimate slow pivot, even after an Agility. It can soak up 2 turns worth of attacks, and then BP on to Wak. After that, make sure Wak can tank a hit or force a switch, and BELLY DRUM!! for the win. Make sure to use Mag like Rockin' Page suggested in the post before.

MachoZorWak

Scizor @ Macho Brace
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def / 30 SpD / 1 Spe
- Agility
- Baton Pass
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Steel Wing

Marowak @ Thick Club
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 Atk / 36 SpD / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Belly Drum
- Bonemerang
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Bug]

 

[dk]

Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Soft-Boiled
- Calm Mind

&


Dugtrio @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 8 HP / 248 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Aerial Ace
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Rock Slide / Beat Up

&

Spikes //

CM Blissey is a giant pain in the ass against a surprising amount of modern teams and a nice supplement to a teams offensive potential when supported well. CM Blissey puts pressure on more passive ways of taking advantage of standard Blisseys (ie Skarm spiking on it, bulky Celebi coming in to leech it and pivot out, or bulky Starmie coming in on it to spin), leaving outright physical power as the most straightforward counterplay. However, because boltbeam coverage smacks the vast majority of spike-immune mons quite hard, almost all of the obvious physically threatening mons that can afford to eat some weak ice beams/tbolts are trappable by Dug and hit by spikes. Tar, Metagross, Heracross, Medicham, contextually Breloom, and other random stuff like Blaziken all have alright points of entry on CM Bliss but hate Dug, which pretty much just leaves Snorlax as the only competent, semi-Dug resistant immediate answer---which can obviously be played around via spikes + Dugging it in a more calculated fashion + deliberately chipping it + carrying solid defensive counterplay to it.

Fat mons with reliable recovery and enough bulk to stomach boosted boltbeam that have toxic still necessitate removal (like toxic on opposing Bliss) for this Blissey to have an easy time, as do faster mons with boom (Claydol can't get dugged and floats over spikes). It can also just get eaten up by fast paced offense, so I tend to view CM Bliss as a nice luxury if the team naturally ends up accommodating it as opposed to your starting point when building. Having Zapdos or something else to buffer against roar Suicune if you don't have sand on your own build is one accommodation I think is pretty necessary, for example.

===


Cloyster @ Leftovers
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs: 72 HP / 244 SpD / 192 Spe
Timid Nature
- Surf
- Ice Beam / Rapid Spin
- Explosion
- Spikes

&


Metagross @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 168 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Agility / Rock Slide
- Explosion

Recover Starmie is commonly thrown out into Metagross to shield the rest of its team from a strong explosion/general Metagross fuckery, thus preventing Metagross from forcing damage on Skarm, the dedicated rock resist slot, or Zapdos etc, or lining up an agility endgame. Bulky Mie pilots are also usually fine throwing it out into Cloyster since Cloyster has to resort to booming on it to 'get around it' (in which case you don't get spikes because Mie is faster) or attempting a spinblock with precarious Gengar sequences.

The main idea here is that both phys Gross and Cloyster are reliable fat Mie magnets and both love having it gone for different-ish reasons---with Gross being free to pressure more primary defensive slots on the opponent's team (or clean with agility) with Mie being boom traded in the 1v1 against Cloyster, and Cloyster having a spinner that matches up well vs it gone if Metagross explodes on Mie.

There's also some minor things like Cloyster using Metagross pivots like non-Mie bulky waters as points of entry for spike-laying, and Cloyster potentially chipping Zapdos, Skarm, etc for Metagross. Gross also has a fair number of checks that take spikes damage as well.

Again, I think this is more of a nice synergy to implement in the middle of teambuilding and not much of a strong starting point to actually build around specifically.

Agility in the sample set is more or less a placeholder; same idea applies to phys gross in general.

 

[Soiramio3000]

FAKE WOBBUFFET:

take swampert spent all IVs to the deffences and teach it the moves counter,mirror coat and endeavor.
for the fourth slot put whatever you feel like.
focus punch can work.

 

[Smurf.]

FAKE WOBBUFFET:

take swampert spent all IVs to the deffences and teach it the moves counter,mirror coat and endeavor.
for the fourth slot put whatever you feel like.
focus punch can work.

gonna be pretty sad when your mirror coat doesnt activate on hp grass bud - enjoy!

 

[airports]

icy wind cloy + fast pursuit ttar

typically, cloy struggles setting spikes vs. starmie. being the slower of the two pokemon, cloy's boom is always liable to be proceeded and undercut by starmie's spin, meaning, as far as spikes are concerned, if cloy were to boom, starmie would only be removed at the momement it becomes surplus to requirements, that is, as hazards are cleared on its side of the field and the opponent's means of setting any more is removed. after initially spiking as starmie switches in, the potential for cloyster to be ev'd to survive tbolt and go for an immediate boom incentives starmie to spin instead of attack, creating an opportunity for cloyster to securely use icy wind and slow starmie down. the idea, then, is that the potential for cloyster to spike dissuades starmie from switching out or going for an attack other than tbolt, for fear of a faster cloyster bearing down on it with a spike up, and, thus, the stage is set for ttar ev'd to outrun starmie at -1 to switch in and place starmie in a pursuit dilemma largely independent of its (ttar's) health.

 

[Soiramio3000]

one creative set that I found is the "anti-yolo skarmory"
it's simple:
just give to your magneton 232 defence EVs,with that way you can guarantee that it will survive yolo-skarmory's hidden power ground.

 

[Dizno]

icy wind cloy + fast pursuit ttar

typically, cloy struggles setting spikes vs. starmie. being the slower of the two pokemon, cloy's boom is always liable to be proceeded and undercut by starmie's spin, meaning, as far as spikes are concerned, if cloy were to boom, starmie would only be removed at the momement it becomes surplus to requirements, that is, as hazards are cleared on its side of the field and the opponent's means of setting any more is removed. after initially spiking as starmie switches in, the potential for cloyster to be ev'd to survive tbolt and go for an immediate boom incentives starmie to spin instead of attack, creating an opportunity for cloyster to securely use icy wind and slow starmie down. the idea, then, is that the potential for cloyster to spike dissuades starmie from switching out or going for an attack other than tbolt, for fear of a faster cloyster bearing down on it with a spike up, and, thus, the stage is set for ttar ev'd to outrun starmie at -1 to switch in and place starmie in a pursuit dilemma largely independent of its (ttar's) health.

The tldr version:
Icy wind slows starmie down after it spins and allows you to bring in a ttar ev'd to outspeed - 1 starmie and click crunch/pursuit

 

[airports]

lead (mix)mence + jolteon:
https://pokepast.es/845e8a351797c7e3
https://pokepast.es/3ef38e901ec60c59

typically jolt spikes teams lack a natural lead. they are all in on establishing spikes and therefore want to get ahead of metagross, which makes what would otherwise might be thier most natural lead, ttar, a shaky choice. leveraging the threat of a cb mence primed to fire off a strong hit, lead mence, on the other hand, threatens every common lead. as a result, mence typically affects a switch into passive pokemon or otherwise constrains the enemy pokemon's choice of attack turn 1, facilitating an immediate switch to jolteon, which in turn leads to fast development and spikes. // past the opening, mixmence's ability to ko metagross from high health benefits it over alternative mixed walls like zapdos or starmie. the frailty of jolt spikes teams and their need for fast development obliges one to pay over the odds per spike and frequently leaves skarmory weak enough that it is at risk of being ko'd by an attack of meta's other than explosion, being therefore unable to reliably absorb meta's boom and placing swampert in the line of fire lacking a means to revenge ko metagross. having mixmence to scare out metagross allows skarmory to be sacked to it regardless