SM OU Almost - Trick Room (Part 2!) ft. Banded Stakataka (Peaked 1944)

sweet music to my ears



Introduction
Hello smogon, I'm back again with another iteration of trick room. For those of you who missed my last RMT, I've always been an avid trick room player, as I love how it plays. This team in particular, I've been trying to make work since early in usum. Recently, I'd noticed an influx of offense on the ladder, and destroying offense it stakataka's specialty, so I knew it was time to revisit the team once again. As for the name, I feel like basically every game I lose I was on the verge of victory, but some hax, a bad roll, or a layer of spikes I let my opponent set cost me in the end. That being said, this team, like most other TR teams, is matchup fishing at worst and still has the ability to win against almost any teams.

178017

At the time that was ~25th on the ladder.


I knew I wanted to build trick room from the start. With naganadel offense reigning over the tier in the early days of USUM, it would be free elo.

I was shocked to see that banded stakataka was on the sets viability rankings for some reason, and I was curious to see what it could do, having never seen one on the ladder before. It seemed like it would perform well on trick room, given stakataka's abysmal speed.

The second rock type of the team, rampardos may appear as an odd choice; however he coupled perfectly with stak. Ramp was my multi-tool for removing lando with ice beam, steels with fire punch, heatran and pex with EQ, and other fat waters like fini with rock slide.

At that time, the only real viable trick room setters were, in my opinion, magearna and stakataka. Seeing as stak was already used in the team, magearna naturally came next.

The team was 100% ground-week bar uxie, the suicide lead, so cress was the only real option for a main setter.

The team desperately needed priority to stop enemy sweepers, and the mega slot was open, so mawile appeared to be the choice.

The original iteration of the team was incredibly weak to ash greninja, which was everywhere back in the day. Ramp didn't do as well as I would have hoped, as people expect an earthquake or fire punch, not to mention that ferrothorn can straight-up kill you with power whip (the evs let him live a power whip from full, but that didn't help too much really). Rampardos did, however, do an excellent job luring lando, but i realized that banded stakataka destroys landorus anyway. I retired the team for awhile, several months in fact. However as mentioned before, I picked trick room because it could perform well in the offense-heavy meta and it did net me my highest peak of the time: 1750.


At this point I'd just moved to PC and I was looking for some solid teams to get started with. I didn't, however, have any trick room teams. Upon revisiting past dumps, I remembered this team and decided to remake a better version of it. I decided to strip all of the non-core members of the team, leaving just stak, magearna, and the 2 setters, hoping to find more adequate support.

On the new version, I knew I needed a way to check ash-gren, so I added bulu, who could also deal with steels at +2 for stak. I was running the toilet on basically all of my TR teams at the time for free heatran kills, so he got slapped on over uxie without much thought. Medicham was more of an experiment than anything, and to that extent, a failed one. Medicham's power was nice, but she relied heavily on anticipation to get kills fast and conserve trick room turns. On top of that medicham's high speed meant that it was getting undersped by most of its targets. The team performed well overall, but it was nothing special, and I soon got bored of using it.

Skip ahead to sometime in the last couple months, and I decided that it was once again time to try to make a succesful banded stakataka team. I returned the team to its original components once again.

Azumarill was the weapon of choice this time around as the ash-gren check, and also to deal with volcarona and blacephalon with aqua jet. Azumarill is practically a magnet for ferrothorn (kartana too), who will promptly die to a banded superpower on the switch.

Mawile made a reappearance on the final version. Knock off gave me a way to smash through basically any mon that is problematic to stak at +2, and the added priority in sucker punch only made mawile a better option. Intimidate as well gave me a way to deal with ttar and such, although the lack of fire fang means no checking kartana. As I laddered, the spreads and sets evolved to deal with problems I faced. Bronzong's defense was raised, magearna's defense was raised and z crystal changed, and cresselia's sp.def raised.


In-Depth


Stakataka @ Choice Band
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Stone Edge
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Superpower
An absolute beast, being able to 2hko even kartana and defensive lando. Even if your opponent has something like rotom to stop gyro ball, chances are slim that they also have something that can stop stone edge bar steel types. Beast boost is not as useful as it may seem, except for the purpose of cleaning or negating landorus' intimidate. Most opponents know not to bring in vital defensive mons like pex when you're at +1. As for coverage moves, earthquake catches pex and magearna off guard and cleans vs. grounded teams. Superpower if occasionally used to lure in ferrothorn, but is probaly the least used overall.

Bronzong @ Mental Herb
Ability: Heatproof
EVs: 252 HP / 112 Atk / 108 Def / 36 SpD
Brave Nature
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Explosion
Bronzong's main niche over uxie is to eliminate heatran off the bat, because there is nothing like a turn 1 win. Heatproof allows you to set vs. other things was well, such as zard-y, volc, and non-band victini. While bronzong has already fulfilled his main purpose after setting rocks and trick room, do not sac him immediately. Any extra TR sets you can squeeze out of him are invaluable, and he walls off lele and some others nicely. The defense has been raised since the last RMT, so I'll explain why, exactly. This team can afford to have a less reliable kill on heatran, since if it lives at low health it is beast boost fodder anyway, as oppose to being able to completely eat torkoal's eruptions. The actual defense allows you to live through medicham's hjk, which is extremely useful, and offensive landorus' EQ. Now that I've been running around with these teams for awhile, some people are catching on the the fact that I'm bluffing levitate.

Magearna @ Fairium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Def / 164 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Fleur Cannon
- Thunderbolt
- Focus Blast
I'm going to be kinda sad when/if magearna gets the boot from ou. Magearna is a fantastic OTR user due to its bulk and offensive power, and its typing complements cresselia's very well defensively. Any z move can be used here really, but i feel fairium is simply the best. Electrium is often baited out and fightinium isn't too useful with mawile and azumarill dealing with steels already. Focus blast does a nice amount to ferro or heatran by itself anyway. The evs let mag live an EQ from offensive lando after rocks, which is especially useful for a highly grounded team.

Cresselia @ Mental Herb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 92 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Ice Beam
- Moonlight
- Trick Room
- Lunar Dance
I had to include cress, of course. The bulk, lunar dance, and typing are too good not to have. Lunar dance is especially usefulover healing wish to restore stak's gyro balls and stone edges, of which there are only 8 of each. EV's let it live a-gren's dark pulse from full with rocks, but nothing special aside from that.

Azumarill @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Superpower
- Liquidation
- Play Rough
- Aqua Jet
I never really like the sitrus belly drum TR set anyway; band azumarill's instant power is so much more useful. The main use of azumarill is not its power though, but its typing. Putting a stop to gren is incredibly useful, and aqua jet can stop weakened or fire sweepers. Superpower in itself is enough to warrant azumarill's use, though, with how common ferro and kart are. Unless your opponent has a better defensive option like pex, they will almost always throw their ferrothorn out for azumarill to ohko, and then the path is clear for stakataka to finish the team off.

Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
- Knock Off
Mawile was chsen for it's ability to break multiple problematic mons, ranging from celesteela to rotom to toxapex. Mawile is the lead vs. band tar and hoopa-u as well. Sucker punch is very good for stopping sweepers, but due to its semi-risky nature, aqua jet is preferred in most situations. Also, don't forget how fat mawile is with full hp investment. If your opponent is trying to force you out with gliscor, you can just tank an eq and kill with play rough.

Final Thoughts and Playstyle
As for how the team should be played, I feel that most people who play TR are shortsighted and lose as a result of it. Your goal is to win, not kill what is in front of you. To win, you only need to eliminate the fatter half of your opponent's team and then finish off the last 3 in one run, which happens relatively often actually. Killing whatever your opponent has out is often disasterous, as it often allows them to bring in that sweeper and run your team over. Switching out on the last turn of TR is a very good play as well, as you conserve the momentum needed to set up trick room again. If you play TR like a hammer, your opponent will almost always outlast you; if you surgically remove defensive mons off careful anticipation, the scapel, you will win.
Unlike my last team, which i laddered with for weeks, I shot from 1800 to 1940 over the course of about an hour and a half. On that note, I still have fun playing my previous team, and this one got boring about as fast. This variant is a bit more polarizing, and it can get frustrating after a few hard matchups in a row.

Image result for pokemon spike move
Hazards are a huge pain in the ass, namely spikes. The team has no way to remove them, and the momentum dephacit on non-TR turns allows for easy opportunities to set them.
Gonna be a bitch if you don't get the +2 knock off on it. Especially bad when paired with something that eats stone edge like ferro
Basically walls the whole team. You could try hp fire>focus blast on magearna if you hit him a lot.
No electric resist makes special electric attackers difficult.

Stakataka @ Choice Band
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Stone Edge
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Superpower

Magearna @ Fairium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Def / 164 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Fleur Cannon
- Thunderbolt
- Focus Blast

Cresselia @ Mental Herb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 92 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Ice Beam
- Moonlight
- Trick Room
- Lunar Dance

Azumarill @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Superpower
- Liquidation
- Play Rough
- Aqua Jet

Bronzong @ Mental Herb
Ability: Heatproof
EVs: 252 HP / 112 Atk / 108 Def / 36 SpD
Brave Nature
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Explosion

Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
- Knock Off



Out​
 
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Not sure it's a great idea to have a choice banded mon in a trick room team let alone two as it kills precious turns. Magearna is already really powerful without a Z move and I feel Stakataka could make better use of it.
 
Replays are up now, sorry that there are so few for the time being.

Not sure it's a great idea to have a choice banded mon in a trick room team let alone two as it kills precious turns. Magearna is already really powerful without a Z move and I feel Stakataka could make better use of it.
So, generally the idea is just not to use the choice banded mons if they are walled by something thats on the opponent's team. That means vs something like pex that stops both choiced users, the best play is to lead mawile and try to get up SD. An exception would be sending out stak to bait in ferro or pex with EQ or superpower, respectively. That being said, the choice items do limit flexibility.

Running rockium would help vs rotom and pex, but leaves him without the ko's on other things like av magearna, who walls off mawile and magearna. But the z move isn't doing much on magearna anyway, so you could try swapping it for expert belt, life orb, white herb, etc and putting the z on stak or making azumarill z BD.
 
Great team! I peaked at 1799 with this team. However, I think that Azumarill could be replaced by crawdaunt. This team has a lot of fairies, so Azumarill causes some type redundancy. Crawdaunt also hits harder, because of adaptability and an attack stat that is over 2 times higher than Azumarill's. It helps the Celesteela matchup by dealing massive with knock off (78.5-92.6%) and crabhammer (81.5-95.7%). I peaked at around 1500 with the Azumarill variant, but at 1799 with the Crawdaunt variation.
 

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Hey cool team. Trick definitely strong this gen.

Marowak-A or Mega Camerupt helps address alot of the weaknesses you listed, though I don't know exactly what you'd cut.

Alternatively, you can run something like taunt/sub blacephelon to beat stall and have an emergency fast-ish Pokemon. Just considerations... Current setup had clearly worked quite well.
 
Great team! I peaked at 1799 with this team. However, I think that Azumarill could be replaced by crawdaunt. This team has a lot of fairies, so Azumarill causes some type redundancy. Crawdaunt also hits harder, because of adaptability and an attack stat that is over 2 times higher than Azumarill's. It helps the Celesteela matchup by dealing massive with knock off (78.5-92.6%) and crabhammer (81.5-95.7%). I peaked at around 1500 with the Azumarill variant, but at 1799 with the Crawdaunt variation.
Good to see that you had some success with the team! I prefer azumarill because crawdaunt can't really check ash greninja as well (takes ~60 from unevolved pump). Crawdaunt does hit a bit harder, but there are so many more factors in play than just attack stat to consider. I also find knock off to be a much less spammable move and therefore worse to be choice locked into because, well, it's resisted by fairies. And play rough is resisted by steels but azumarill can kill off steels on the switch with liquidation/superpower, whereas stuff like fini or bulu straight up walls crawdaunt. Because fairy is such an spammable type and the team deals with steels well enough, I haven't found running 3 fairies to be redundant, especially when magearna brings a special attacker into the mix.

Hey cool team. Trick definitely strong this gen.

Marowak-A or Mega Camerupt helps address alot of the weaknesses you listed, though I don't know exactly what you'd cut.

Alternatively, you can run something like taunt/sub blacephelon to beat stall and have an emergency fast-ish Pokemon. Just considerations... Current setup had clearly worked quite well.
Trick room is definitely the strongest it has ever been in this gen, and definately looking to be good next as well, as bronzong, dusclops, and mimikyu are confirmed to have survived dexxit. I am hesitant to put a fire mon on the team because then ash-gren can stop 2 of my sweepers in their tracks with shuriken whiich burns TR turns and wears down azumarill fast, but I can see lightning rod marowak working okay over mawile. Camerupt makes the team too weak to chansey and venusaur imo, and the loss of breaking power that setup mons provide won't be appreciated by the team either. I definitely wouldn't want to run a fast mon for the purpose of beating other fast mons, priority and cresselia's fatness can both solve that. This team does struggle with stall, but I don't see any way to fix that MU without compromising the team too much.
 
Hey man love the team, I nicknamed Staka “Disrespect” because he just doesn’t not care about resist. The mon that has been giving me the most trouble is Ferrothorn. Very surprised not to see him in your thratlist. The team has basically no way to immediately threaten him. Is the play just to go Mawile and SD? I know sometimes you can catch him with staka’s superpower but that isn’t consistent especially when they have protect.

That being said, I can’t offer an alternative because everything on the team has a role and does it well.
 
Hey man love the team, I nicknamed Staka “Disrespect” because he just doesn’t not care about resist. The mon that has been giving me the most trouble is Ferrothorn. Very surprised not to see him in your thratlist. The team has basically no way to immediately threaten him. Is the play just to go Mawile and SD? I know sometimes you can catch him with staka’s superpower but that isn’t consistent especially when they have protect.

That being said, I can’t offer an alternative because everything on the team has a role and does it well.
Yeah the play would be to sd with mawile and get rid of it with a +2 knock off. As for protect, you’d ideally want to hit ferrothorn with a superpower on the turn that it switches into azumarill/stakataka, which leaves them no chance to scout for superpower.
 
In order for you to run Crawdaunt over Azumarill, why don't you just make Magearna more bulky on the special side?

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-939449868
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https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-920610582

I've also played this team a few times and I know I've mentioned it before but I'd like to mention it one last time. In ladder, you're gonna run into the same players multiple times and the damage output from your banded Mons is a dead giveaway as to what item they're holding.

You're gonna have a lot of trouble with the top half of the ladder do to the amount of skill up there and their abilities to double switch and burn Trick Room turns. I feel if you wanna consistently make it to the top, you're gonna have to switch a few mons or remove the Bands and add better items. Just a suggestion though
 
In order for you to run Crawdaunt over Azumarill, why don't you just make Magearna more bulky on the special side?
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Magearna: 165-195 (45.3 - 53.5%) -- 90.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

I've also played this team a few times and I know I've mentioned it before but I'd like to mention it one last time. In ladder, you're gonna run into the same players multiple times and the damage output from your banded Mons is a dead giveaway as to what item they're holding.

You're gonna have a lot of trouble with the top half of the ladder do to the amount of skill up there and their abilities to double switch and burn Trick Room turns. I feel if you wanna consistently make it to the top, you're gonna have to switch a few mons or remove the Bands and add better items. Just a suggestion though
So it has been awhile since ive used this team for more than like 1 game because it is inconsistant, as you could probably see from me messing around with the dusclops garbage. I don't think that revealing band to my opponent is too crippling to the team, the aim isn't so much to catch them off guard as to overpower their counters by 2hko'ing them or forcing them to guess which STAB I'll go for. When you run double bands, you just kind of have to bank on the fact that your opponent will probably not have a counter to every choice-locked move that you have, as your team did. As I said in the RMT, this team creates very good and very bad matchups. You can change some of the team members (i.e. azu -> craw) to fix up those weak matchups, but I feel that it would weaken the team's performance as a whole.
 

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