SM OU Bullet in a Gun

[Egor]

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Introduction
Mega Scizor always was a pretty interesting Pokémon for me: it packs nice defensive utility in being a bulky Steel-type and a Kartana check as well as being a bulky win condition and revenge killer. However, I haven't really built around Mega Scizor until recently. Also this summer I started to build together with my friends more frequently. So, once me and KaiSceptile thought: why not to build around Mega Scizor? You can see the result here, in our first RMT we made together. The name of the song and the title of RMT, "Bullet in a Gun", refer to the move Scizor is infamous for, Bullet Punch. Ok, let's go straight into the team!

Teambuilding Process

As was stated in the Introduction, Mega Scizor is the starting point of our team and aslo our main win condition. Nothing really to tell more, moving on.

Since Mega Scizor pretty much requires Spikes support, we put Spikes + 3 attacks Protean Greninja which also can threaten some of Mega Scizor's answers like Toxapex and Heatran.

Mega Scizor and Greninjа are really annoyed by the likes of Rotom-W and Tapu Fini so we were looking for а Pokémon that could smash them and came up with an interesting solution in Grassium Z Heatran, since we agreed to run an Expert Belt on Greninja. This Heatran acts as a nice lure to Rotom-W and Tapu Fini as well as sets up Stealth Rock and threatens other stuff like Celesteela.

In order to remove our weakness to Ash Greninja we decided to add Tapu Bulu in the team which seemed like a natural fit here. Aside from completely shutting down Ash-Greninja, Tapu Bulu gives our team a Ground resist and eases our Tapu Koko matchup as well as just acts as a special sponge.

At the end, we just threw Landorus-T and Rotom-W here in order to fulfill remaining roles such as additional Ground checks, Flying resist, Heatran check, speed control, and hazard control. Landorus-T and Rotom-W also create a VoltTurn core together and can help us keep the momentum going.

In-Depth Look
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Ability: Light Metal
EVs: 248 HP / 16 Def / 244 SpD
Nature: Impish
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off
- Roost

This is just your regular Swords Dance Mega Scizor. Bullet Punch and Roost are pretty much mandatory on every Mega Scizor, in my opinion. Swords Dance enables Mega Scizor to pose a real offensive threat for the opposition, while Knock Off is the preferred option for the last slot for me due to its general utility and ability to cripple Mega Scizor's checks like Toxapex and Celesteela. The Impish nature coupled with 16 EVs in Defense are to survive two Choice Band Kartana's Sacred Swords after Stealth Rock, and the leftover EVs are dumped into HP and Special Defense in order to keep threats like Mega Alakazam and Tapu Lele in check easier.

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Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Extrasensory
- Spikes

The coolest thing in Protean Greninja is that you can customize absolutely every moveslot as your team needs. Hydro Pump lets Greninja threaten the likes of Heatran, Gliscor, and Volcarona is also its strongest move on the set. Hidden Power Fire prevents Ferrothorn from trading hazards with Greninja. Extrasensory lures Toxapex, severely weakening it for Mega Scizor. Spikes is also purposed to weaken Mega Scizor's answers and generally the opposition, making them fall prey to a boosted Bullet Punch or Knock Off.

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Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Modest
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Solar Beam
- Stealth Rock

Solar Beam is necessary for using Bloom Doom which is the focal point of our Heatran. It targets Pokemon like Rotom-W and Tapu Fini which are kind of difficult to quickly break past them for Mega Scizor and Greninja. Magma Storm not only boasts generally good damage output but also can potentially trap Bloom Doom's targets and thus guarantee that the Z-Move won't be wasted on a wrong target. Earth Power is mandatory on offensive Heatran sets due to how important it is to cover the opposing Heatran and Toxapex. Stealth Rock is necessary on every team, and Heatran makes for a good setter of this hazard. Grassium Z helps Heatran keep Stealth Rock up even more, since Tapu Fini and Rotom-W, two of Bloom Doom's main targets, often carry Defog and otherwise can force Heatran out and clean the field from the hazards.

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Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Nature: Careful
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Superpower
- Stone Edge

Horn Leech and Superpower are necessary on every Tapu Bulu and give it nice coverage. Stone Edge isn't what you typically see on specially defensive Tapu Bulu but it is more like necessity on this team rather than our desire: it helps us in difficult matchups vs the likes of Volcarona, Zapdos, and Mega Charizard Y by potentially surprising and beating or severely weakening them. Swords Dance gives Tapu Bulu more offensive presence and allows it to pose a threat to defensive backbones. While I personally used to speed creep specially defensive Tapu Bulu a bit, I think we cannot afford to do that here because we don't have either Protect or Synthesis which usually can somewhat compensate the loss of bulk.

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Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 232 Atk / 68 Def / 208 Spe
Nature: Naive
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- Hidden Power [Ice]

This is absolutely standard Choice Scarf Landorus-T. There isn't really much to explain: Earthquake and U-turn are obvious, Stone Edge hits stuff like Tornadus-T and Zapdos, and Hidden Power Ice lets Landorus-T check opposing Landorus-T and Garchomp decently well. The EV spread outpaces boosted Kommo-o and survives a +2 Hawlucha's Acrobatics after Stealth Rock. Naive nature doesn't reduce Hidden Power Ice's damage output, unlike Jolly nature.

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Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 Spe
Nature: Bold
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Thunder Wave
- Defog

Lastly, we have a standard Rotom-W here. Hydro Pump and Volt Switch don't need an explanation I think. Thunder Wave helps our somewhat slow team against faster builds as well as cripples dangerous stuf like Mega Charizard X and Volcarona. Defog is a form of hazard control on our team and is pretty good on Rotom-W because it usually can Defog against some of the metagame's best hazard setters like Heatran, Landorus-T, and Mega Tyranitar.

Threatlist
: Hidden Power Ground sets just destroy the team at +1. The best way to win in Volcarona matchup is to keep Stealth Rock up and aggressively punishing any attempt to bring it on the field, mainly by double switching. It is good if the Volcarona user is careless enough to let it set up on Tapu Bulu too.
: we don't have really much ways to deal with this bird. The best we can do is to keep Stealth Rock up, knock its Leftovers out and try to catch it on Stone Edge from Landorus-T or Tapu Bulu.
: the lack of a real stallbreaker makes stall teams insanely difficult to beat with this team. Mega Sableye stalls are even harder than Mega Aggron ones because they can easily prevent hazards from us.
: its coverage beats literally any Pokémon in the team. Keeping Stealth Rock on the opponent's side and aggressively playing with Greninja and Landorus-T are the keys to win in this matchup. Also Tapu Bulu's Stone Edge can potentially catch it by surprise.
: Normalium Z Excardill is a rare set but very threatening to the team nonetheless, since it is able to bypass Rotom-W which is our main countermeasure to sand teams.

Conclusion
Overall, I think we got a pretty interesting team here. It contains a decent chunk of both offensive and defensive potentials and some nice lures. I personally like such type of teams. We appreciate any kind of feedback from you guys; have a good day!

shoutouts

the first shoutout obviously goes to KaiSceptile as to the co-author of this team, nice guy

curiosity just wanna tag you here
Diophantine you were a nice captain to viridian city venusaurs, thx
Kekbreon bro :3
Mister Tim ready to wcopp?
MultX dpp goat bro
spatulakun bro
talkingtree I like to work w/ you at dou analyses & fb spotlights, thx
Waveshaper adv goat
Zeon228 ну хоть ник сменил на шд))0)

 

[bigtalk]

Hey there Egor, this is a really cool looking squad :) Reminds me of this other RMT that used Psychium Z Greninja to lure Toxapex. As far as feedback however, I think if Mega Scizor is your team's wincon, then you should include some good switch-ins to its counters like Heatran, Toxapex, Zapdos, & other Fire-types.

• It seems like Rotom is your best switch-in to Heatran, which isn't really ideal as it lacks recovery / is vulnerable to status, meaning it can easily worn down. Plus, it doesn't even do that much back to spdef Heatran [0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 180+ SpD Heatran: 182-216 (47.1 - 55.9%) -- 19.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery].
• I don't think your team deals with Toxapex well. It walls Mega Scizor, Heatran, and Rotom, and can burn Lando/Tapu Bulu with Scald if they try to switch in. That's why you have Extrasensory Greninja to lure it obviously, but pex being pex, it'll only take like 50% and the pex user can just switch out the next turn.
• As you acknowledged yourself, Zapdos is a problem for your team.

I think the following changes can help with these issues:

• 
  Landorus-T ->
  
  Gliscor: Unlike Lando, Gliscor can switch into Heatran/Toxapex/Zapdos comfortably, being able to sponge status from them and Roost off their attacks.
• 
  Rotom-W ->
  
  Tapu Fini: Tapu Fini's status immunity means that it pivots better into Heatran and Toxapex than Rotom-W. Although (like I said) Gliscor handles these Pokemon, it's nice to have a secondary pivot in case Gliscor goes down (eg. Z Heatran), or if you want to remove rocks/tspikes, or if Toxic Orb hasn't activated yet and you don't want to risk a potential burn from Scald/Lava Plume. Fini is also great at handling other Fire-types like Volcarona and Mega Charizard X that may carry coverage for Heatran.
• 
  Make Heatran spdef: It really needs to be spdef here, as you don't have another Specs Lele switch-in, such as AV Magearna or Celesteela, nor Wish support, so Heatran can easily get worn down in this matchup. Being spdef also lets it live 1 Focus Blast from Charizard Y so you're able to get a Toxic off.
• 
  Tapu Bulu ->
  
  Tangrowth: There is a lot of defensive overlap between Bulu and Fini and they override each others' terrains, which obviously isn't ideal, so another grass has to go in this slot. Tangrowth works best here, it can weaken Heatran a lot for Scizor with Earthquake, and adds regen which gives your team more staying power and lets you scout choiced mons like Lele before you risk your Heatran/Scizor.
• 
  Greninja ->
  
  Ash-Greninja: Obviously the team needs some speed control since it's a bit slow, and Scizor/Gliscor love Spikes support, so Greninja still fits well in the last slot. However, I would recommend making it Specs instead of Protean, just because it has more breaking power (it adds something besides Mega Scizor to the team that can deal with psychics like Mega Latias/Mew/Reuniclus), and additional priority is nice to have in case things like Volcarona, Charizard X, Hawlucha, etc. get out of hand once Fini is weakened. We don't really need to lure Toxapex anymore since we now have Gliscor and Fini to deal with it (Mega Scizor actually functions as the "lure" now with Knock Off, which will allow Ash-Greninja to fish for more Dark Pulse flinches down the road).

Here's the team after these changes: https://pokepast.es/edd3f71bd5dfaf7d I realize it's basically not your team anymore, but oh well :P If you decide to use it, enjoy.

edit BTW, if you liked this build, I made a very similar squad with Celesteela a while back that you may find interesting: https://pokepast.es/92b8d188ffa0b6d5