Two free competitive ladder teams both peaking #1 FA 2024 + ADV metagame and ladder thoughts.
Hi everyone,
As some of you know, I'm one of the more active ladder players in the last year (dare I say the most active?). Played >10k ladder matches this year across lots of alts, topped 10+ times in 2024 with a few different teams. I already showed the team I 1957'd with in a previous post, and I'm gonna share two more teams that I've topped ladder with this fall and explain why they work (still can't beat my old score though...). I'm sharing in hopes someone will like my builds. It would be fulfilling for at least one of my builds to cement itself as a part of the metagame during this time period, but of course thats dependent on whether or not they catch wind with people. That would be cooler to me than beating my old elo score, and I'm starting to get tired of the ladder recently, so just gonna stop for a while and "dump" my thoughts.
PRE REQUISITES TO READING THIS POST: essential material by BKC and McMeghan, do not read until watching if you are a noob:
Offense vs defense by BKC
TSS Explained by BKC
Consistency/Flexibility by McMeghan (MOST IMPORTANT)
McMeghan explaining why wish is good.
-----Terms I will use and what they mean-----
Consistency: A consistent pokemon is one that performs its role game to game. It works more often than not.
Flexibility: A flexible pokemon is a pokemon that will give you good options to win the game in a wide variety of matchups.
***VERY IMPORTANT IDEA TO UNDERSTAND***: Generally speaking, consistency corresponds to defense and flexibility corresponds to offense, but not always. Of course, you could have a defensive pokemon that is flexible, and an offensive pokemon that is consistent. But on the more extreme ends, HO pokemon are flexible but not consistent, because HO cheese can win any MU. Hardcore stally pokemon are consistent but less flexible.
Type 1 Spikes abuser: This means an offensive pokemon that has "direct" synergy with spikes, meaning it can
kill hoverers with direct damage. Examples: Zapdos. Gengar. Jolteon. Starmie. Aerodactyl.
Type 2 Spikes abuser: By this I mean a pokemon that
lures in hoverers for chip, but often can't pressure them directly. Examples: MixMence, Zard, Pursuit tyranitar. Mixed attackers, generally. Fighters dont count because the chip is often insignificant, but they can count if you want.
-----TEAM #1: "SAND SPAM" TSS https://pokepast.es/cbcf3a2b5161ded0-----
My favorite team I have built out of all of them.
The first team I'm sharing is a team I just recently #1'd with (see attached, not that high at all but whatever...) in a mini ladder run the last couple days. I spent a lot of time the last few weeks theorizing it and I think it will suit some peoples styles. Hoping some of the more experienced players will think its cool. Here is the six and then I'll explain what the motivating idea is. It goes:
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TLDR: Suittar, Peck Skarm, Ref Pert, Tox SPdef Jira, CB Aero and Ice/Tox/Roar zap. (grass zap or BS jira is fine too, or roar pert.)
It's called sand spam because theres 5 sand immunes, and it features jirachi over blissey in the usual special slot on a TSS build. I got the idea for this build by combining skarpherim's recent insane 2000 elo run, and an old build by hclat.
Essential concept to understand when playing on the ladder: You are going to fight 6 random pokemon from the list of OU's and UU's. It will make completely nonsensical 6's and throw them at you. How can you prepare for a random 6? By using sand and spikes and some defense. Put passive damage on your side, and you reduce the class of pokemon your team needs to be good at dealing with by quite a bit. See any of the videos above.
Idea behind this 6 in particular: Step 1 is to subscribe to the idea of sand/spikes on the ladder (easy). Skarmory is established as the best spiker and provides great defensive utility, whereas forre is a more rigid style (but, valid. I do agree with ABR that the usual forre structures are kinda not optimal though. But ofc forre is good overall.). So, tyranitar+skarm. If you want defensive consistency you'll pick pert as your rock resist, otherwise it's a superman or milo dol build. My opinion is that tar/skarm/pert is the more flexible of those builds.
Now for the controversy. We pick jirachi over blissey.
Jirachi is better vs cheese and weird HO builds in my opinion, especially if going spinless. Blissey is blissey, it's great. However, it is weak to sand, and has an abusable weakness on the physical side, and good lord, fighting types are all over the ladder. You should use wish bliss if going that route but it becomes cope vs suicune and you get a slot problem imo. Jirachi is better in the face of those teams (I sometimes call them "goofy offense"), because you get to spam wish more and get a second rock res bonus to support pert/skarm. So:
in a spinless build, jirachi is more flexible than blissey, especially when prepping for a random 6 on the ladder. In my opinion. If you want to use blissey and put spinner, that's obviously good and fine and will get 2000 elo like skarpherim did. I want to do this version because my opinion is its slightly more flexible this way, and I can fit more offense now.
So, the core idea is just the classic TSS style but with jirachi over blissey, and pursuit tyranitar. Next question: gengar or no gengar?
I can finally say, after months of thinking, what the deal with gengar is. First, gengar is awesome, and super flexible. Spinblock and spread burn vs stally builds. However, gengar loses consistency points because of wisp. If I'm going to use a build with some longevity to it, I want to have pokemon that can apply some direct pressure. Gengar struggles to apply direct pressure in a lot of matchups, the main threat is wisp. Also, gar is not consistent at all vs claydol. A common thing we hear everyone say is "gengar is amazing and also shit at the same time". It means that gengar is flexible but not really consistent. I can say for sure now after spamming the fuck out of gengar this year, that gengar is not really consistent at spinblocking, especially vs claydol. It is much better to play a longer game with peck skarm and be patient. That will give more consistent results. So, no gengar imo. **caveat that gengar is necessary on builds with no longevity, such as the next build I'll show**. In summary, gengar is not consistent in the "flexibility" or "offense" role on this team. However...
Aerodactyl synergizes beautifully with suittar+skarm+pert+jirachi. Patches up mixmence/charizard weakness. Spams CB slide, which makes aero instantly good vs claydol teams, and we dont have gengar (claydol cannot reliably check rock attack and also spin forever vs peck skarm). Dol gets bullied so badly by suittar skarm and aero all together. Also, there is the usual aero philosophy on the ladder to consider. Aerodactyl is flexible because it's faster than everything and basically offensively checks anything. Not always the best solution to the problem but it will always give you routes to win any game. That is amazing on the ladder, because again, you will need to fight completely random 6's.
Zapdos is an obvious last then: we are 5 sand immunes, so we are shit vs water types. Celebi is not an option, and zapdos gives the team a true special attacking type 1 abuser that we are kinda missing (aero is type 1 but lures different things). Helps vs skarm too. So yeah that's the idea behind the team. It is excellent vs goofy ladder offenses, and pretty good vs spinner builds like dol and forre too. Has some bad MU that I'll say below but overall, it's very flexible and pretty consistent.
Here is another important (obvious) idea that motivates some of the sets for the team. If you are using sand and spikes, your pokemon need to be good at pressuring those which are immune to sand and spikes. Ref pert helps to pressure skarm. Peck skarm is good vs forre and dol. Suittar is awesome vs starmie and dol so it helps with spikes. Kills gengar for jirachi. Snipes fire birds out of the sky. The synergy between type 2 ttar and the defense on this team is beautiful. It pairs so nicely with spdef jira and aero. and they are all immune to sand. FP is a cool tech I use to kill blisseys. I've gone back and forth between ice/grass zap on this build, because imo it can manage the ref pert mirror, but either is fine tbh. It doesnt extremely struggle vs flygon/cele/mence if going grass, and doesnt struggle too bad vs ref pert if youre ice. Starmie+ref pert is a bad MU though.
-----Other Notes for the team members-----
Tyranitar: Can go brick, but it's worse vs bliss compard to FP imo. However, going without brick makes the team kinda bad vs mid game lax. But: FP gives you a nice tool vs last mon curse lax. Also, just as a note, there are nice opening lines with FP. Also, just cause I can't stress it enough, suittar is so nice the way it helps vs spinners. Click crunch on starmie/dol. The team really wants a type 2 abuser too because of the above^ principle (imo, any spikes team has one, ideally. usually mixmence, but if you try to fit mixmence here it becomes insane cope vs suicune...).
Swampert: We have a bunch of sand immunes, so spamming pro/tox makes sense. Imo, ref last is best. But roar is valid, and farms jaskers and offense builds even harder. But I really don't like not being able to sit on skarm. It's very important, and even going 1 slot worse vs skarm can surprisingly make a huge difference. Surf Protox refresh is best here imo. Also it's nice to tox a bliss/cele switch, and yeah again, spamming toxic in this hardcore of a sand immune build just makes sense.
Skarmory: Nothing to say, standard DP skarm. Honestly, idk if I'm ever going peckless ever again. It's better than toxic.
Jirachi: SO GOOD!!!!! GET FARMED!!!!!! IDK WHY WE ARENT USING THIS MORE!!!!!! JUST PUT IT WITH SUITTAR AND AERO!!!!! The way that jirachi farms offensive teams is so nice, it does it in a way that blissey can't replicate. Yes, you have a status weakness. So be careful with it. But you have so many pivot options as long as youre being careful youre gonna be fine. BS is valid over tox, especially with dug everywhere. But again, we are 5 sand immunes, 3 with protect. We want as much toxic as possible. And of course, we get all the amazing (flexible!) wish end game lines to win games.
Aerodactyl: Nothing to say, when there is an aero there is a way and that makes aero fundamentally great on the ladder. Again, ties up suittar+skarm+pert+jirachi so beautifully. Honestly, idk if you can make 4 defensive pokemon that fit better with aero. There's so much synergy there. Aero helps further vs offense by the aero principle and helps defensively vs mixed attackers. And is good vs claydol. Just so good. Underrated imo, doesn't deserve to be in B tier. People say when you prep for aero its not that scary but i disagree about that.
Zapdos: Nothing to say really, just zapdos, ice/tox/roar gives more flexibility compared to grass, but it's preference. Awesome form of direct pressure, best special type 1'er in the tier.
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Okay, to summarize:
(1) Strong defensive TSS core, featuring 3 sand immunes walls and a type 2 abuser in suittar for hovering threats like gar and fire birds and spinners. Strong in the face of sand/spike weak offensive teams.
(2) Gatekeeping speed with fast CB aero, who is also patching up mixed attacker weaknesses. If a defensive hole is opened by your opponent, start playing aggressively with aero, and you can find a route to win.
(3) Excellent forms of direct pressure when necessary, from the tiers two strongest type 1 abusers (zapdos and aero).
(4) Consistent and flexible, because the team is generally defensively consistent, and has flexible offensive threats like aero and zapdos. Can go very defensive at times, and very aggressive at times.
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You pretty much always have the upper hand in terms of passive damage vs spinless teams, and have strong means of pressuring spinning teams and defensively flimsy teams when needed. Very flexible. Even have wish to work with. Absolutely awesome. Okay, next build:
-----TEAM #2: "JOLT-MENCE V2" https://pokepast.es/553997a8910d4390-----
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I maxed out at like 1909 with this team back in June (not gonna reveal the alt for that one...). An experienced player told me that I was the first to make this six and I couldn't find it in any dumps, but if this six isn't original that's fine, just gonna showcase it anyways. But if it is my six I want credit for it! I'll try to be more brief with this one.
This team
sacrifices some consistency in an effort to be extremely flexible.
The idea is to use metagross in the rock resist slot and play aggro, since metagross gives better options than swampert vs stally builds. Imo, once you start sacking defensive consistency on tar/skarm, you need to put gengar. But once you go gengar + tar +skarm + metagross, you need some speed control since youre defensively frail, so you just need to make it a jolt/aero build. The resulting aero builds are fruhdazi spikes, or el classico (okay fine thats swampert but it's a similar idea because theres less defense), or my old aero build. I chose to make this joltspikes because I like the defensive utility that jolteon gives, and jolteon is still quite flexible tbh. Yeah it's really not what you want vs dol or milo teams, it does kinda suck overall but it is flexible, you have to give jolteon that.
Mence last is because the team wants a type 2 abuser and it has great synergy with metagross. Also, you're fine vs cune between gar and jolteon, especially if running like dbond or boom on gar (I use boom in the above paste). Type 2 mence with jolteon is nice because theres a few things jolteon can't really ohko and it needs more help compared to zapdos. Mence is perfect for that. Also, mence makes up for the lack of longevity vs TSS builds.
Between agiligross,jolteon, and mixmence, you're going to have amazing options for pressuring any team. Forre builds get farmed, fighters get farmed, offense in general is still a decent MU because you have agiligross.
Overall, I would maybe describe this team as some kind of "pivot offense" because I notice that it features all the offensive pokemon that have some reliable defensive utility being gar,jolt,meta+mence. You sort of have a lot of "relative longevity" when compared to other offenses, if that makes sense. Obviously jolteon is super inconsistent, that's the worst thing about this team, jolteon sucks. But this is definitely the most flexible team I have built. I truly never ever feel like I have bad MU's with it. It can win any game, promise you that. But you'll drop games for no reason as a trade off sometimes lmao. That is the nature of balancing defensive consistency and offensive flexibility.
----Set notes----
Tyranitar: BKC is best here because it abuses blissey the best, and blissey is ruining the team since we don't have any longevity. BKC tar is best at abusing the blissey lines brought by type 1 abusers like gar,zap,jolt on offensive teams bc you get to click FP off 400 attack. You can go DD if you hate the milo dol MU, because again, claydol teams are fundamentally bad vs rock spam in my opinion. Gar + DD tar farms claydol teams imo, so you can be DD if you want but get ready to cope vs blissey. You do have meta but you dont really want to send meta into bliss frequently.
Skarm: Nothing to say, just skarmory, idk if I want to use toxic peck is just too damn good.
Meta: I take back all that I used to say about agilislide. Boom is best for flexibility. Slide is awesome but man the general utility of boom is too good to pass up if the goal is flexibility, and again, that is this teams goal.
Mence: Need grass. Rash> Naive imo.
Jolt: Need grass again, no longevity. Tbh I used ice for a while but it's super cope vs pert if you lose mence.
Gar: Actually, dbond is pretty damn good here, I think dbond is underrated. Last should definitely be boom or dbond on this team in my opinion. You have 2 physical abusers, taunt is sort of counter productive sometimes.
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Final thoughts about this build:
(1) Insanely easy to play without being full blown cheese (tbh some say jolt is cheese I dont really agree but whatever... this is a more cohesive build than all the other ladder BS I promise you that...). The team is sort of designed so that if you make the obvious play it is usually the best play. Such is the nature of offense I guess. But the difference here is that imo you usually have more options that typical HO type builds. What I mean is that the intuitive plays, even made defensively, on this build work well by design. It's not always a consistent way to win, again by design, but you have lots of flexibility MU-wise when playing this team, and it is easy to play.
(2) Probably the best "spam queue" team I've made. Quick, easy games, don't need to put on L deathnote theme to summon all brain cells to win a game (lmao). I mean, that is the nature of the ladder and those are the styles that allow you to climb without pulling your hair out. I think I made a nice team for that.
(3) Obviously it's just like a kert jolt spikes style build with mence over starmie but I kinda created this from a different perspective. Kerts team is type 1 spamming and baiting blissey and such and has CB meta so its less defensively consistent, but this team recovers 1 level of consistency I'd say. It's designed with the idea of having pivots in mind (again, longevity relative to other offensive teams).
-----Closing Thoughts about the state of the ADV ladder------
I'm gonna just write for a second about my opinion, again as someone who has played the ladder probably more than anyone else in 2024, about the cheese on the ladder, and what I view as competitive and what I don't. So I guess this section of my post is relevant to the thread and metagame discussion. I'm not trying to open a huge discussion about what to ban and what not to ban, but I'm just sharing my opinion. I think some of the experienced vets probably value my opinion after getting to know me and play me a bunch (get farmed, eZ). Some people maybe think I'm shit but whatever, I think the opinions of players who play shit loads of games are valuable.
(1) Ninjask. Not gonna say too much. It's not competitive, a joke that it is around. The ladder is a shitstorm. Now, yeah, jask isn't that good but it's just not competitive... ladder would be so much more fun without it :/ huge L that we didnt ban speedpass.
Allows shitty players to cheese wins.
(2) Spore. lame. Not competitive.
Allows shitty players to cheese wins. again, idk if its broken, but I think the ladder is the perfect example of a setting where we should be investigating whats competitive and whats not, and I just dont think sleep is competitive.
(3 very controversial). This is gonna be cringe to some people following ABR's viability post after his JI win, and yeah I know I just said I used a kinda dug weak team but... I do think dugtrio makes the tier worse. My mind has changed about this in the last few months.
The aftermath of ABR's post is hell. Dug lead, dug on every team, etc.... and what I would say after using a dug weak team is that imo dugtrio also
Allows shitty players to cheese wins. But I don't think dug is like strictly uncompetitive and it does make for some cool builds, and again it's not broken really. But, I do think it enables unhealthy play. Like, if you misplay with a dug weak team vs a 12 year old, you can lose because they loaded a mon with very limited counterplay vs what its designed to beat, and I just think it enables cheese off of that. Maybe it sounds like I'm just mad when dug my team but... idk, the way that 1400 players can just fish vs me I think isn't fair.
I think of it like this: the strategies people use on the ladder to cheese wins should always be questioned. What strategies on the ladder get spammed? Ninjask, sleep, and dugtrio. Extremely high concentration of those on ladder and they all come equipped with cheese. So yeah I think the ladder would be more fun without those.
But whatever I'm not really trying to like rant or have a discussion about those just putting my opinion in writing somewhere! If those things stick around forever I'll still be here I just think they make the game less fun.
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If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading. I want to share my builds with people even though it somehow feels bad to not gatekeep them anymore LOL they are mine! But I do hope people like them and that this contributes somewhat to ADV. Also, if I raged at you, apologies. People know me as a huge huge rager I am very sorry it's not personal. See you all around.
--Padeli.
