Other Metagames Anything Goes BIRD (1909, 90% GXE, #9)

[Adeleine]

Wow, I'm doing this again. Anyways, I conjured up a team on the principles of BIRD (powerful Flying-type attacks) and slipped into the 17501900s, 17571909 to be exact. I'm going to really try to ladder high, I want to make sure my team is good for the job. Hence I'm making this check-up RMT.

BIRDish (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Band
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Ascent
- Extreme Speed
- V-create
- Waterfall

Band Ray is love, Band Ray is life. Band Dragon Ascent coming off 180 Attack will have your Giratina and Bulky Yveltal switchins running back to the Daycare. Band Espeed is ever so useful for picking off that 60% Darkrai or 25% Geoxern when Arceus is dead or in reserve. Earthquake doesn't make it on here because V-Create is just so ludicrously powerful, and Waterfall handles Pdon that don't switch in + Mdiancie. If Pdon is switching in, just Dragon Ascent until your mouse is broken. Yes, click so hard that your mouse breaks after 8 clicks. The most "unusual" part of this set is the Jolly nature, which is absolutely awesome for shredding other Mray and support Arcs, as well as Timid Mdiancie. I used to be a big Adamant advocate, but I haven't felt the power loss really hurt me, and the Speed advantages are splendid.

BIRD (Ho-Oh) @ Choice Band
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 196 Atk / 52 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird
- Earthquake
- Sleep Talk

Ever since chloe showed me the light of Ho-oh it has been one of my favorite AG pokes. A unique (as far as viable AG mons go) typing and stat spread let it do so many things, including pulverizing things with more Band Flying-type attacks. This guy also provides drawback-free fire power (pun intended) and an additional way of dealing with Darkrai. You can never have enough Darkrai answers. Ever. Impossible. EQ's basically filler but hits pdon without recoil and bops mdiancies on the switch i guess. edit: lol i actually did this mdiancie bop and it felt so good

Xerneas @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 32 Def / 252 SpA / 224 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Sleep Talk
Remember when I said that you can never have enough Darkrai answers? Yeah. You can't, and here's another. Scarf Xern obviously has its darkrai/giratina (both) matchup and ability to outspeed most Mray and things like that, but one other reason I really have been liking this guy is his prediction-aiding. What does this mean? I'll give an example of a battle I had. If I bring this guy onto a Ygod Foul Play (~18%), and the other team is currently Ygod/Giratina/Arceus/Arceus, I know they'll have a Xern answer in their Arceuses to counteract the stacked Fairy weakness on Ygod and Giratina. This probably means Arc-Poison or Arc-Steel. I switch into Pdon, and voila, its Arc Poison. Matchup get.

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Fire Punch
- Stone Edge
- Precipice Blades

Here's a Pdon set I have been having much fun with. 252 Speed and 252 Attack Adamant means you'll outspeed (or at the very worst, speed tie) basically any Pdon/Pogre and smash it with Pblades. Bulk investment? Meh, +2 Xern Moonblast doesn't OHKO anyway and what else do I really need from this guy in regards to bulk? Stone Edge pwns Rayquaza thinking they can switch in. I originally had Twave in slot one, but wasn't getting much mileage from it so I switched to Stealth Rock, which will greatly annoy ygod/mray/ho oh and be the final nail on the coffin of other near-fainted pokes. It has rocks even though putting hazards on a mon you don't lead is somewhat unusual, I concede. Yes, i know Fire Punch doesn't have great coverage benefits, and I have two other strong fire attacks, but having a 100% accurate powerful STAB is just so cool.

Arceus @ Lum Berry
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge (or Toxic?)
Well with Scarfxern and Ho-oh the STalker I probably have enough Darkrai answers... oh wait I don't. Fuck Darkrai. This is standard Jolly Ekiller (speed is key!), except for its different purpose. This guy isn't really here to Swords Dance sweep, more to hang out threateningly and serve utility purposes against Rai, Klef, and weakened mons that can be picked off with Espeed (including weakened Adamant SD Arc Normal). I'm honestly considering replacing Stone Edge since it doesn't do much without a boost to Ygod and Toxic can punish Giratina (well at least make it rest sooner)/Yveltal.

Arceus-Ghost @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 236 HP / 252 Def / 20 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Defog

I've rather often used Physical Defense Arceus Ground with this moveset and similar EV spread, but I switched to Ghost on this team for a few reasons. Hitting Pdon super effectively with Judgment is nice, but being literally unable to touch Ho-Oh isn't, and I have enough Ground/Water moves on this team. A pinch of speed creep and Judgment helps against other Ghost Arceus, because Ghost Arceus can prove pretty obnoxious. Defog is obligatory on one poke since I have Ho-Oh (and Mray), lots of physical bulk and will o wisp can even foil boosting physical sweepers if you don't miss, recover makes you very hard to kill.


So that's the team! Any comments and advice is greatly appreciated.

Also here's one of the few decent replays with this team I managed to not forget about, which was in the final round of an AG room tour (where I won 2/2 games): http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/anythinggoes-450104179

 

[QT]

Hi Tiksi, that team looks pretty heat. Let's see if I can help, though.

Wow, I'm doing this again. Anyways, I conjured up a team on the principles of BIRD (powerful Flying-type attacks) and slipped into the 17501800s, 17571845 to be exact. I'm going to really try to ladder high, I want to make sure my team is good for the job. Hence I'm making this check-up RMT.

BIRDish (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Band
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Ascent
- Extreme Speed
- V-create
- Waterfall

Band Ray is love, Band Ray is life. Band Dragon Ascent coming off 180 Attack will have your Giratinas and Bulky Yveltals running back to the Daycare. Band Espeed is ever so useful for picking off that 60% Darkrai or 25% Geoxern when Arceus is dead or in reserve. Earthquake doesn't make it on here because V-Create is just so ludicrously powerful and Waterfall handles Pdon that don't switch in and Mdiancie. If Pdon is switching in, just Dragon Ascent until your mouse is broken. Yes, click so hard that your mouse breaks after 8 clicks. The most "unusual" part of this set is the Jolly nature, which is absolutely awesome for shredding other Mray and support Arcs, as well as Timid Mdiancie. I used to be a big Adamant advocate, but I haven't felt the power loss really hurt me, and the Speed advantages are splendid.

BIRD (Ho-Oh) @ Choice Band
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 196 Atk / 52 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird
- Earthquake
- Sleep Talk

Ever since chloe showed me the light of Ho-oh its been one of my favorite AG pokes. A unique (as far as viable AG mons go) typing and stat spread let it do so many things, including pulverizing things with more Band Flying-type attacks. This guy also provides drawback-free fire power (pun intended) and an additional way of dealing with Darkrai. You can never have enough Darkrai answers. Ever. Impossible. EQ's basically filler but hits pdon without recoil and bops mdiancies on the switch i guess.

Xerneas @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 32 Def / 252 SpA / 224 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Sleep Talk
Remember when I said that you can never have enough Darkrai answers? Yeah. You can't, and here's another. Scarf Xern obviously has its darkrai/giratina (both) matchup and ability to outspeed most Mray and things like that, but one other reason I really have been liking this guy is his prediction-aiding. What does this mean? I'll give an example of a battle I had. If I bring this guy onto a Ygod Foul Play (~18%), and the other team is currently Ygod/Giratina/Arceus/Arceus, I know they'll have a Xern answer in their Arceuses to counteract the stacked Fairy weakness on Ygod and Giratina. This probably means Arc-Poison or Arc-Steel. I switch into Pdon, and voila, its Arc Poison. Matchup get.

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Fire Punch
- Stone Edge
- Precipice Blades

Here's a Pdon set I have been having much fun with. 252 Speed and 252 Attack Adamant means you'll outspeed (or at the very worst, speed tie) basically any Pdon/Pogre and smash it with Pblades. Bulk investment? Meh, +2 Xern Moonblast doesn't OHKO anyway and what else do I really need from this guy in regards to bulk. Stone Edge pwns Rayquaza thinking they can switch in. I originally had Twave in slot one, but wasn't getting much mileage from it so I switched to Stealth Rock, which will greatly annoy ygod/mray/ho oh and be the final nail on the coffin of other near-fainted poeks, even though putting hazards on a mon you don't lead is somewhat unusual I concede. Yes, i know Fire Punch doesn't have great coverage benefits, and I have two other strong fire attacks, but having a 100% accurate powerful STAB is just so cool.

Arceus @ Lum Berry
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge (or Toxic?)
Well with Scarfxern and Ho-oh the STalker I probably have enough Darkrai answers... oh wait I don't. Fuck Darkrai. This is standard Jolly Ekiller (speed is key!), except for its different purpose. This guy isn't really here to Swords Dance sweep, more to hang out threateningly and serve utility purposes against Rai, Klef, and weakened mons that can be picked off with Espeed (including weakened Adamant SD Arc Normal). I'm honestly considering replacing Stone Edge since it doesn't do much without a boost to Ygod and Toxic can punish Giratina/Yveltal.

Arceus-Ghost @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 236 HP / 252 Def / 20 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Defog

I've rather often used Physical Defense Arceus Ground with this moveset and similar EV spread, but I switched to Ghost on this team for a few reasons. Hitting Pdon super effectively with Judgment is nice, but being literally unable to touch Ho-Oh isn't, and I have enough Ground/Water moves on this team. A pinch of speed creep and Judgment helps against other Ghost Arceus, because Ghost Arceus can prove pretty obnoxious. Defog is obligatory on one poke since I have Ho-Oh (and Mray), lots of physical bulk and will o wisp can even foil boosting physical sweepers if you don't miss, recover makes you very hard to kill.


So that's the team! Any comments and advice is greatly appreciated.

Also here's one of the few decent replays with this team I managed to not forget about, which was in the final round of an AG room tour (where I won 2/2 games): http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/anythinggoes-450104179

First of, minor changes. I'd advise running geomancy on scarfxern, as it can't be called by sleep talk and it might be useful if you get hit by knock off- either way, there isn't a real drawback. You might also consider dazzling gleam, but the PP will rarely be relevant and the damage vs switches is noticable.
Secondly, although less of a pure improvement, I would solidly advise running adamant. It gives you a chance to OHKO Arceus with Dragon Ascent (56% is decent), 2HKO Giratina, a chance to OHKO Clefable and an OHKO on standard Xerneas. Ordinarily you could chip them to do the same job, but your rocks setter is offensive PDon.
Additionally, you might try running magic coat, which lets you take on darkrai even better while bouncing back wisps/toxic from Tina/ghostceus/lugia and turns any of those that lack dragon tail into a liability

As far as major changes go, your team looks very weak to bulky yveltal; the only mon that comes in is Xerneas, which despises losing its choice scarf, and it forces out half your team-especially since it's hard to Telly yveltal sets apart from team preview. As such, I'd suggest changing to dragon, which still functions as a defogger while answering MRay, HoOh, and POgre better. The fairy weakness sucks, but you have two fairy resists and 2 revenge killers, so it should be manageable.

 

[Adeleine]

Quantum Tesseract Geomancy doesn't seem like it can hurt, so I don't see why not to add it.
I like the idea of dragarc, it's not like spooky arc can take Moonblasts anyways and you're right about the knockoff Ygod weakness
I'm pretty inclined to keep jolly because of how much it helps against other ray (especially ray v ray lead matchups) and mdiancie as well. I guess I'll see what others say and how things go on that one

Thanks for the rate!

 

[MZ]

Almost didn't rate this because no importable, but this is cool so I'll do it anyway. I think the biggest issues are the twin problems of Xerneas and Yveltal here. Both offensive and defensive Yveltal sets are pretty annoying and take on a good majority of the team, and a carefully played Geoxern, while checked by a majority of the team, can just win if it sets up on a Sleep Talk or potentially even Ghostceus/the mon I'm suggesting you replace it with (part of the reason why I don't really agree with Dragceus here). Also Arcspam isn't fun

For starters, I think you could benefit from a set of 152 HP / 236 Atk / 44 SpD / 76 Spe on Primal Groudon. I'm just not convinced that max speed does much here, so, in the not so unthinkable situation that rocks are up or Ho-Oh is slightly weakened, Pdon can now take a +2 Focus Blast. It'll also allow you to pivot into Primal Kyogre better, which is another annoying thing as long as they're decent enough to outspeed 12 Speed Ho-Oh. As for the main change, I think Dragonceus leaves you too much more open to fairies and overall a fully defensive defogger really doesn't go along with the offensive nature of the team. Instead, I think you're best off working with a Defog Rock Arceus. The team naturally has as good of Pdon checks built into offense like this that you could ask for, it goes better with your own bulkier Pdon, and while you do become weaker to Ground Arceus, CM sets are always countered by Ho-Oh and SD sets are checked a bit and at least you have the opportunity to tie and burn. I just think the team very naturally already fits Rockceus in, and after I played a few test games the team felt pretty solid. Oh, and it also helps with no-Dclaw offensive Don a bit. One other thing I'd take under consideration is changing Ray to an SD or DD set, I don't think it's necessary to function well but I never really felt like 2 CB Flying-types was really that important.

Finally, I would definitely leave Stone Edge, Toxic is pretty poor compared to actually KOing the massive threat in Yveltal. Anyway, I hope these changes helped and good luck with your team!

Rockceus Set

Arceus-Rock @ Stone Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Defog
- Recover
- Judgment

 

[Pigeons]

Hey Tiksi, this team is really solid as a lot of people have said but I see some room for improvement.

Firstly, there are a couple elephants in the room I'll go over: firstly, and in my opinion most importantly, you have a lot of issues with setup sweepers. Three choiced Pokemon can work, but you leave yourself really open to setup should you be forced to lock into an unfavourable move (Sleep Talk, Waterfall or even ESpeed). Given that this team is fairly offensive, such losses in momentum can be devastating. The second issue is, as Megazard mentioned, a weakness to defensive Yveltal, while Giratina seems annoying as well. I'll try and remedy both of these issues with this rate.

As I mentioned, I think a lot of the issues that this team has is due to the dual choice core. In the interest of retaining momentum on this team, I think running Mixed Life Orb Rayquaza over Choice Band would be a very beneficial change. Mixed Rayquaza allows you to switch moves at will while still retaining massive wallbreaking potential. This prevents you from losing momentum, and also helps greatly against defensive Yveltal and Giratina. Mixed lets you continue using a speed boosting nature as well, though with the set I'd recommend you'll no longer be able to hit Diancie super effectively.

As another note, it may be worth considering Lum or Life Orb Ho-Oh over Band as well. Though this change feels less needed than the other, it still may be worth trying to prevent opposing sweepers from taking advantage of your wallbreakers. Both sets still offer some ability to check Darkrai while Lum also gives you extra insurance against Klefki. While these sets aren't as powerful as band, Life Orb still hits plenty hard, and Lum with Substitute is also incredibly threatening to more defensive teams. I'd give this a shot, but Band Ho-Oh will likely continue to work fine.

As Megazard suggested, I definitely think you should run a bulkier spread on PDon as backup in case an opposing Xerneas gets out of hand. The speed is nice, but you also want to stick around for a while, especially if the opponent has a Primal Kyogre (which seems like it could be tough to face). The spread Megazard suggested looks good so I'd suggest you just go with that.

The last thing I'd like to address the last slot. Ghostceus just feels very out of place on such an offensive team, though Defog and a backup EKiller check are needed. I don't agree with the change Megazard suggested as this leaves you incredibly weak to offensive PDon (especially Rock Polish) and EKiller. Both of these threats can be pressured by your team, but having little or no way to check them if they do set up seems like a bad plan. You could try Giratina-O over Ghostceus in that slot, which helps out your PDon weakness a bit while still checking EKiller. Giratina-O has a bit more offensive presence and is tougher to setup on, but keep in mind this means your only EKiller check will have no recovery, so it's up to you whether or not that's worth the risk (you can still rely on pressuring EKiller so it can't setup and use Giratina-O in an emergency only). Also I don't use Giratina-O much so if you have a better set to use than the one below then please do so.

That's about all I have, I hope this rate helped, feel free to try out these suggestions, you can pick and choose the ones that you think best suit your playstyle if you'd like. Again, really nice team, good luck laddering with it further!

Sets

Rayquaza-Mega @ Life Orb
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Dragon Ascent
- Extreme Speed
- Draco Meteor
- V-create

Ho-Oh @ Lum Berry / Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 196 Atk / 52 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird
- Recover / Earthquake
- Substitute / Sleep Talk

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 152 HP / 236 Atk / 44 SpD / 76 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Fire Punch
- Stealth Rock

Giratina-Origin @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 Atk / 248 Def / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shadow Force
- Dragon Tail
- Thunder Wave
- Defog