I think i might be the only person to at some point have been above 1500 elo with a corvless team
During the couple of months leading to homecoming I decided that i should quit trying to pivot into my breakers and instead break with the entire team. In other words: run hyper offense
My first forray into ho was a team that would end up being this:
https://pokepast.es/3d3dfdfcf0e0c970
Ill start the full team dissection by order of whod you see first when you faced it
Tthhee ppaarrttyy (Iron Treads) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Refrigerate
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
Let's get this party started right
Let's get drunk and freaky fly
You with me so it's all right
We gonna stay up the whole night
Let's get this party started right
Let's get drunk and freaky fly
At first i wanted this to be a hazard stack heavy team, so i wanted a dual hazard lead. However, I also did not want to trade hazards at all because I was using a Non Mg LO fire type, so this lead me through a lot of shitmons that could set hazards, have taunt to stop other hazards, defog and setup, and could in some way scare at least one of the two good spinners in the tier. After going through mons such as toedscruel and primeape, i settled with Fridge Future Donphan. It only has rocks, but Fridge spin means it can almost always guarantee that it will die without hazards on its side, unlike prankster taunt which couldn't stop Ting-Lu, it can scare opposing non EE future donphans between EQ and Sash, and knock gives it a lot of value bc its knock. In practice, you could often get a lot of value from it bc people often assume it was something I wanted to preserve, so theyd lead Inteleon, uturn thinking i would switch out, and then end up with me getting rocks up, chunking one of their attackers and knocking their corv.
Fire (Iron Moth) @ Life Orb
Ability: Hadron Engine
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Dazzling Gleam
- Acid Spray
- Discharge
It sets the world on fire (fire)
It sets the world on fire (fire)
Feeling the fever taking over
Hadron Engine Future Volcarona was the fucking reaper pre-home, and the reason I wanted to build hazard stack in the first place. Between all its coverage moves and the raw power of them it had very little stops. Common av regen mons Garchomp and paldean megamence were both weak to dazz, most other fire resists disliked discharge, and other common specially defensive mons not taking Fire Blast very well. You almost never have the need to click the fourth slot so you have some freedom on what can it be. I personally like Acid Spray Bc its great vs mono attacking cm Big Jigglypuff even after it has ammased multiple boosts, and bc Acid Spray + Dazzling Gleam has a 34% ish chance of Koing Av Chomp whereas Two dazzling gleams do not, although Energy ball is also a good choice for beating sand stream garg, although i have a lot of mons to pressure it.
Stop (Garchomp) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Mold Breaker
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 152 HP / 132 Atk / 224 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Liquidation
- Fire Fang
Baby, but all the nights and days we spent together
(Together)
It's so easy to forget how to surrender
But nothing's ever stopped
Moldy Chomp is a hard to stop breaker that has no true counters, only soft checks. Once it gets a Swords Dance It can 1v1 any defensive pokemon barring Iron Press Corv. However, getting that first Sd can be somewhat tough between not being immediately threatening to many defensive staples pre home and using its defensive prowess to setup can be tricky because it has less investment than your average chomp and it doesn't have regen. But moldy is too consistent to pass up. Break any corb with enough determination and boosts, beat unaware, generally be a bitch, its too good. It used to be tablets Chomp, which is almost like if sd chomp had its own Reflect up. You could set up with little fear and stayed in with the same confidence against random attackers. However, between immunity/Fluffy corb and big Jigglypuff it sometimes could not break and the team could struggle, so i chose to have a more consistent matchup vs the defensive core than the offensive. It serves as a fine fire switchin regardless and can pivot into choice locked Ground Magneton as well. I like liquidation over stone edge bc it does more to ground types and it still hits the common stone edge targets hard, and its evd to be faster than jolly ceruledge, guarantee the 2hko at +2 on corv with Ffang, and the rest is dumped in Hp.
DVNO (Slither Wing) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 212 HP / 88 Atk / 208 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Close Combat
- Earthquake
- First Impression
It's always the same
Always ashamed storytelling
When I can come in
To a hopeless troglodyte
Initially, this was regen band as to break and have some defensive utility, but as time went on i realized i needed a more definitive way to beat faster stuff and non tinted first impression wasnt cutting it, so i ended up coming up with this. I already posted about it before, but switches into other Future volcaronas, grounds, dark types and can threaten them fine with CC. Enough attack to guarantee an ohko on jolteon, which might as well since its only a bit bulkier than barraskewda, who was actually somewhat relevant, faster than scarf Armarouge, although you can't ohko it even with max attack eq, and the rest in hp. It has first impression becaude it crucially was my one switchin vs meow, and if it gets knocked it cant check jack because it takes a bit under 50 from almost everything it checks.
Randy (Roaring Moon) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- U-turn
When you know you've arrived
And it's time, don't shoot low
Aim at high
Randy is a cleaner. Its fast, it has uturn, its strong, and I like it the most over other pokemon with those qualities because its not weak to rocks and has some defensive utility. It can switch into some special attacks in a pinch and notably is one of the few ways this team has of losing less to kilowattel. It might not be the best fit for this team, maybe a steel type like wbb gambler might be better, but at the end of the day i stuck with it.
Phantom Pt. II (Skeledirge) (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Desolate Land
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 28 Def / 212 SpA / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Torch Song
- Shadow Ball
- Slack Off
listen to Phantom part I and II they're really good
As a team with a suicide hazard lead, this team doesn't want their hazards to be spun. And since the entire team is either weak to fairy or weak to psychic, it lost to clicker big Jiggs pretty hard. Dirge solves both these problems to some extent. It can check and spinblock quaq and it can take a pixi boomburst and setup. Substitute can make it a very annoying breaker if the opponent wasnt running Paldean Megamence, as it is the only pokemon that can break its sub without fearing any of its attacks too much. It even kinda helps against talonflame! However, you can tell it isnt running max defense, notably struggling to keep up if the quav is mglo Brave Bird, and if you dont invest in special attack youll also miss it, somewhat struggling to make defensive big jiggs care about its shadow balls, on top of that, it does absolutely nothing to Paldean Mence, so it cant get anywhere with it on the screen. It has an odd hp value to make four subs from full, enough speed to outrun uninvested corv, and enough defense evs to guarantee salt cure wont break sub.
Your general plan is to lead Tthhee Ppaarrttyy, spin if theyre faster than you, rocks if theyre not, try to die with rocks up and with none on your side. Once it dies, go to Stop or Fire and try to get breaking Asap, choose what to sack wisely, what to risk, what youll need, etc.
Some replays of the team in action:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1865396986
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1853231513
This team was fun and all, but it did have some terrible matchups
This team gets mauled by the fast birds. Not even wild charge from DVNO at max attack could guarantee an OHKO on Talonflame, and everything else did not enjoy switching in nor could they outspeed it. Chomp could somewhat 1v1 either, but they could choose to pivot out, and talonflame could burn you to just win, and you still took like 50% from bbird and a bit over 40% from anything wattrel could throw at you. Dirge could help vs Talon but it didnt take bbirds very well, and shadow ball did not 2hko if you weren't max Spa instead of max defense, and max defense didn't take it that much better
The second this clicked any dragon move that wasnt Dtail and you were with a foot in a grave. Be it a dragon attack, which you had no switchin for and KOd DVNO with any chip, meaning you couldnt scare it away easily anymore, or DDance, meaning it probably was some weird bulky set that DVNO's somewhat weak Close Combat could not force out. It could be pretty scary to think that you could lose from something like that, but you had no choice really.
As previously stated, this team is Pre-HOME, so some of the tech is now obsolete, but its still a fine study on some general strategies as well as the meta back then, and some of its concepts are still relevant, specifically that moldy ground types are pretty good. Ive had my fun with this team
is quite good for this, goodrah has, in my opinion, better utility and typing. though it always depends on what your team needs. meloetta has more speed, special attack, and a pivot move, but goodrah has more physical defense and special defense. goodrah struggles against ursaluna 
and other physical fighting types, but it can run more defense, ice beam, or surf to try mediate that. i don't think theres a special hit that goodrah cannot take, i highly reccomend using it
I need your help! 