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Gen 5 BW RU Discussion Hub
- Thread starter GoldCat
- Start date
Sharing the BW teams I used for RUGL in case anyone is looking for some teams to use. Also just wanted to make it clear I am the certified BW enjoyer who actually wants to talk about it.
Week 1 Replay:
This is a pretty standard team that FastCarVroom!!! gave to me and I mildly edited. I wanted to use Golurk because Golurk makes me happy and thought that week 1 vs an opponent without much scouting information would be a good time to bring some frail offense. This was my one loss due to an early misplay and a bad matchup vs wisp Mowtom, but the team is standard and solid. You could improve the Mowtom matchup by using special Sceptile or just playing better.
Week 2 Replay:
The first of many winning teams with Durant, Druddigon, Aerodactyl and Qwilfish. This is one I love because specs Tangrowth+spikes gives you all the serotonin required to live. If you are new to BW and want top build something solid, you can probably just toss Steelix, Qwilfish, Druddigon, Aerodactyl, Durant and a filler mon in the builder. This team is my recommendation to anyone who is looking to get into the tier.
Week 3 Replay:
Yet not another team with Qwilfish, Druddigon and Durant. This team is fun because Sigilyph is fun. It's a reliable and standard team with some heavy hitters but also a solid defensive backbone against both physical and special attackers. If you have no idea what to use in BW, just throw Steelix, a poison type with spikes, Slowking and some offensive mons on a team. The replay shows a Steelix with toxic, but I changed it to a steel move for the paste because that's almost always better. You need it for Aerodactyl.
Week 4 Replay:
This was the first team we built for this tour. Don't use Medicham. Just don't. It's not worth it. The most common scarf mon in the tier misses its moves 20% of the time and it's still more reliable than Medicham. This was another hazard stack team and I decided to use tspikes Garbodor with seed bomb because my opponent had used a lot of Seismitoad and no poison types. I like seed bomb Garbodor as an answer to Omastar and Seismitoad that also hits Slowking pretty hard while being 100% accurate. Tspikes ended up being a savior in the game.
Week 5 Replay:
Talking about Seismitoad the previous week made me want to use it, and I had a dream about Seismitoad and Emboar winning so I paired it with Emboar and it won. This week's Qwilfish had taunt instead of thunder wave because I didn't want to lose to Clefable and wanted to keep other hazard setters from getting them up. Also if you hadn't noticed by now, Druddigon isn't really worth mentioning because it's just so good that it makes sense on most teams. Mixed Drud wins you games and bulky Drud is always fun.
Week 6 Replay:
The last team I built for RUGL. Drapion was the last mon except for Lanturn that I wanted to build with and Magneton looked good into the opponent's scout. Drapion is kind of awkward, but it has its moments. Taunt is useful for shutting down Qwilfish and keeping Clefable from recovering, as well as generally preventing mons like Steelix and Seismitoad from setting up hazards on you.
Week 7 Replay:
:
Another Vroom team, I chose this one because Moltres looked good into their scout and I was in the middle of some miserable stuff IRL and needed Tangrowth to give me the serotonin to go on. I like scarf Kabutops a lot. It's not one of the tier's typical scarfers and it struggles with not having any of the typical utility moves like volt switch, baton pass or trick. But it allows you to use Moltres without having to dedicate another team slot for speed control because your scarfer is your spinner and also beats rain thanks to swift swim. Moltres and Tangrowth can tear through the opponent in the early game and that sets up the chance for Kabutops to clean up. The Slowking is holding a Tanga berry because beating Durant is fun.
Semi-finals Replay:
One last Qwil+Steelix+Drud team, and this time it got me punished hard. LBN whooped me with Specs Mowtom and I had no way to p[unish it. The team is just too slow. It's still solid, just open to being exploited. If I were to fix it, I would go with a bulkier Druddigon with Stealth Rock, perhaps replacing qwilfish with Amoonguss or Roselia and also using psyshock or ice beam on Slowking instead of whatever future sight shenanigans I was going for.
Week 1 Replay:
This is a pretty standard team that FastCarVroom!!! gave to me and I mildly edited. I wanted to use Golurk because Golurk makes me happy and thought that week 1 vs an opponent without much scouting information would be a good time to bring some frail offense. This was my one loss due to an early misplay and a bad matchup vs wisp Mowtom, but the team is standard and solid. You could improve the Mowtom matchup by using special Sceptile or just playing better.
Week 2 Replay:
The first of many winning teams with Durant, Druddigon, Aerodactyl and Qwilfish. This is one I love because specs Tangrowth+spikes gives you all the serotonin required to live. If you are new to BW and want top build something solid, you can probably just toss Steelix, Qwilfish, Druddigon, Aerodactyl, Durant and a filler mon in the builder. This team is my recommendation to anyone who is looking to get into the tier.
Week 3 Replay:
Yet not another team with Qwilfish, Druddigon and Durant. This team is fun because Sigilyph is fun. It's a reliable and standard team with some heavy hitters but also a solid defensive backbone against both physical and special attackers. If you have no idea what to use in BW, just throw Steelix, a poison type with spikes, Slowking and some offensive mons on a team. The replay shows a Steelix with toxic, but I changed it to a steel move for the paste because that's almost always better. You need it for Aerodactyl.Week 4 Replay:
This was the first team we built for this tour. Don't use Medicham. Just don't. It's not worth it. The most common scarf mon in the tier misses its moves 20% of the time and it's still more reliable than Medicham. This was another hazard stack team and I decided to use tspikes Garbodor with seed bomb because my opponent had used a lot of Seismitoad and no poison types. I like seed bomb Garbodor as an answer to Omastar and Seismitoad that also hits Slowking pretty hard while being 100% accurate. Tspikes ended up being a savior in the game.
Week 5 Replay:
Talking about Seismitoad the previous week made me want to use it, and I had a dream about Seismitoad and Emboar winning so I paired it with Emboar and it won. This week's Qwilfish had taunt instead of thunder wave because I didn't want to lose to Clefable and wanted to keep other hazard setters from getting them up. Also if you hadn't noticed by now, Druddigon isn't really worth mentioning because it's just so good that it makes sense on most teams. Mixed Drud wins you games and bulky Drud is always fun.
Week 6 Replay:
The last team I built for RUGL. Drapion was the last mon except for Lanturn that I wanted to build with and Magneton looked good into the opponent's scout. Drapion is kind of awkward, but it has its moments. Taunt is useful for shutting down Qwilfish and keeping Clefable from recovering, as well as generally preventing mons like Steelix and Seismitoad from setting up hazards on you.
Week 7 Replay:
:
Another Vroom team, I chose this one because Moltres looked good into their scout and I was in the middle of some miserable stuff IRL and needed Tangrowth to give me the serotonin to go on. I like scarf Kabutops a lot. It's not one of the tier's typical scarfers and it struggles with not having any of the typical utility moves like volt switch, baton pass or trick. But it allows you to use Moltres without having to dedicate another team slot for speed control because your scarfer is your spinner and also beats rain thanks to swift swim. Moltres and Tangrowth can tear through the opponent in the early game and that sets up the chance for Kabutops to clean up. The Slowking is holding a Tanga berry because beating Durant is fun.
Semi-finals Replay:
One last Qwil+Steelix+Drud team, and this time it got me punished hard. LBN whooped me with Specs Mowtom and I had no way to p[unish it. The team is just too slow. It's still solid, just open to being exploited. If I were to fix it, I would go with a bulkier Druddigon with Stealth Rock, perhaps replacing qwilfish with Amoonguss or Roselia and also using psyshock or ice beam on Slowking instead of whatever future sight shenanigans I was going for.
approved by the swedish golden cat
Greetings.
As RUPL is around the corner, we thought it was a good (and necessary) time to (finally) update the Viability Rankings, since they haven't been updated in ages.
You can find the template I made right here to do this: https://tiermaker.com/create/bw-ru-viability-rankings-303005-2
Obviously don't hesitate to give reasonings as to why X Pokémon should be in Y rank.
Edit: not sure anyone noticed but if you want you can add D rank and "unranked" rows, if you can't please tell me so I can fix this.
Tagging some BWers if anyone wants to add their contribution:
If I forgot anyone wallahi I'm sorry feel free to do it anyway
Thanks
Greetings.
As RUPL is around the corner, we thought it was a good (and necessary) time to (finally) update the Viability Rankings, since they haven't been updated in ages.
You can find the template I made right here to do this: https://tiermaker.com/create/bw-ru-viability-rankings-303005-2
Obviously don't hesitate to give reasonings as to why X Pokémon should be in Y rank.
Edit: not sure anyone noticed but if you want you can add D rank and "unranked" rows, if you can't please tell me so I can fix this.
Tagging some BWers if anyone wants to add their contribution:
Thanks
Last edited:
C rank Swellow isn't crazy??
incredibly well informed vr :)
Uhh made a teir list here: Only thing I was really considering after relooking at it was whether I considered Moltres S or at the top of A+. I go back and forth on the mon quite often but I think its bs potential barely eeks it in S despite its high variance and teams being better optimized to beat it.
approved by the swedish golden cat
Greetings.
As RUPL is around the corner, we thought it was a good (and necessary) time to (finally) update the Viability Rankings, since they haven't been updated in ages.
You can find the template I made right here to do this: https://tiermaker.com/create/bw-ru-viability-rankings-303005-2
Obviously don't hesitate to give reasonings as to why X Pokémon should be in Y rank.
Tagging some BWers if anyone wants to add their contribution:
If I forgot anyone wallahi I'm sorry feel free to do it anyway
Thanks
S, A, and B ranks are in order, but this is all pretty vague -- hmu with any questions
I mostly agree with Finchinator's VR (I'm too lazy to make my own). There are a few changes I would make though:
I think Kabutops is a solid Pokémon overall, but it’s quite easy to wall in this tier. Most teams run a bulky Water (Slowking, Qwilfish) and/or a bulky Grass (Amoonguss, Tangrowth), and the fact that many of these have Regenerator means they can repeatedly switch into Kabutops without being overly pressured. Although I do agree it’s the second best spinner in the tier, and I also think it’s an excellent Choice Scarf user, I would probably place it in A or A-.
I think that, without a doubt, Cryogonal is the best spinner in the tier. Its Speed tier is amazing, its special bulk is solid, and its Special Attack is more than good enough for it to be a real nuisance to most teams (Toxic + Recover is also incredibly annoying for bulky Waters). With this amount of utility, I would rank it solidly in S-.
On a completely different note, and given that this is a discussion hub, I think something we BW RU mainers should seriously look into is Damp Rock. Rain in BW RU feels absurd: extremely restrictive in the builder and often way too easy to set up. The tier really suffers from Water spam plus the Ludicolo / Omastar combination, and I think banning Damp Rock could make this playstyle much healthier and more demanding to use.
That would be all from me.
Don’t ask me about B rank and below.
Cheers
I think Kabutops is a solid Pokémon overall, but it’s quite easy to wall in this tier. Most teams run a bulky Water (Slowking, Qwilfish) and/or a bulky Grass (Amoonguss, Tangrowth), and the fact that many of these have Regenerator means they can repeatedly switch into Kabutops without being overly pressured. Although I do agree it’s the second best spinner in the tier, and I also think it’s an excellent Choice Scarf user, I would probably place it in A or A-. I think that, without a doubt, Cryogonal is the best spinner in the tier. Its Speed tier is amazing, its special bulk is solid, and its Special Attack is more than good enough for it to be a real nuisance to most teams (Toxic + Recover is also incredibly annoying for bulky Waters). With this amount of utility, I would rank it solidly in S-. On a completely different note, and given that this is a discussion hub, I think something we BW RU mainers should seriously look into is Damp Rock. Rain in BW RU feels absurd: extremely restrictive in the builder and often way too easy to set up. The tier really suffers from Water spam plus the Ludicolo / Omastar combination, and I think banning Damp Rock could make this playstyle much healthier and more demanding to use.That would be all from me.
Don’t ask me about B rank and below.
Cheers
Haven't played BW as much during the past couple of years, so take this with a grain of salt. It's primarily based on my experiences playing from 2020-2023. I also don't have any opinions on anything below B. Perhaps some mons that I cut out here could be included in B but I don't really care that much about them. I think this more or less captures the state of the meta, with the aforementioned caveat.
Attachments
Mons are ordered within tiers until C+
A couple notes:
I think rain often gets underrated because it's a cheesy strategy. But it wins. A lot. I decided to rank the rain package as a collective, which might be underrating Omastar but I don't really think it's all that good outside of rain.
I think I'm in the minority here, but I think Skuntank is the better poison/dark. It's better at pursuit trapping, is able to break Steelix better and has priority. That's better than Drapion whose upside is scarf sets and swords dance that still gets walled by Steelix and doesn't quite do enough damage.
they are underrated
Sad, people haven't caught on that Torterra is broken, despite it walling my opponents' entire teams again and again.
VinTei just doesn't win games. T-Spikes aren't what they used to be, with most (rightfully) packs a grounded Poison (10/9 times it's Qwilfish).
It's fast, strong, and has priority. The Steelix weakness isn't much of an issue when you can U-turn into Magneton/Tangrowth/etc.Anyways, here are the VR updates!
S- to S A+ to S- A to A+ A to A+ A- to A A- to A
B+ to A-
B+ to A-
B+ to A- B to B+ B- to B+
B- to B
B- to B
B- to B
C+ to B
C to B
C to B
C+ to B-
C+ to B-
C+ to B-
C+ to B-
C+ to B-
C+ to B- C+ to B-
C to B-
C to B-
C to B-
C to B-
C- to B-
C- to B-
C to C+
C to C+
C to C+ C to C+
C to C+
C to C+
C to C+
C- to C+
C- to C+
C- to C+
C- to C+
C- to C+
C- to C
D to C+ S- to A+
A to A- A to A- A to A-
A- to B+
B+ to B
B+ to B
B+ to B
B to B-
B to B-
B to B-
B to B-
B to B-
B to C+
B- to C+ B- to C+
Had a lot of fun in RUGL going 6-3 which considering you could count on one hand the amount of times I touched the tier beforehand I'm pretty happy with. Ty to oyster and fvkumean for drafting/helping me and mclovin, metallica and lighthouse for helping. I'll be posting the teams that I made (so not week 3 or semis teams since they were passed to me) and discussing some noms I would like to make to the VR even though it got recently updated.
Week 1 vs Don Bork (L)
Wanted to load something a bit more standard week one and I decided to go a spike stacking structure. Pretty standard core/mons with serp acting as a end game cleaner and water check. Dragon gem drud helps break through cores since it chunks a lot of things heavily aside from steelix, which is hurt hard by flamethrower and so it can pretty easily punish careless switching. Was able to make good early game progress but unfortunately I had passho berry instead of yache berry which made cryo+slowking go a bit crazy and so took an L.
Week 2 vs Wesleyy (W)
Going into the game I knew that Wesleyy would prob cheese pretty hard into me looking at scout and since I saw the fucking riolu liepard team, I needed to make myself as anti cheese proof as possible. So I went with a CB entei team that I felt could trade effectively against offense while having a spikestack core for any random defensive team. SD kabu was used here to help break open holes in teams while still acting as solid hazard control, with everything else going standard. Rest of the team I think is standard af and was infact cheesed but double prio+good trades allowed me to win.
Week 4 vs KeshBa54 (W)
For keshba we didn't have much to go off since they only played one game, though looking at that one game I thought that clefable looked pretty good since they had used a spikestack structure beforehand. We went through a few builds before settling on this one. Clefable+tort+lanturn is able to cover a large chunk of the meta defensively, though it does struggle with fighting types but those are dealable with a few teammates. The clefable set is a pretty standard one thats annoying to switch into for a large chunk of the meta, and I decided on tect over heal bell on lanturn due to having two status immune pokes. Scarf primeape gives the team some much needed speed with punishment helping against CM slowking that could def be annoying if setup. Sigi gives a much needed fighting type answer for the team and gives another strong breaking option. Finally, CB hustle durant literally demolishes anything that doesn't have a quad resist to its move/immunity so it rounded out the team as the steel. In the game while I did face spikestack I was able to break through with CB durant+some luck and clinch out the win.
Week 5 vs Incognition (W)
Even before the week was up I knew that I wanted to use cryo, and after checking scout, I was for sure going to use it. I went with offensive toxic cryo, which I liked for its ability to pressure the steels and poisons that would usually take toxic aside from a few niche cases, of which it can then cripple those waters for teammates. Cryo+slowking+steelix is a solid defensive core, and cm slowking adores when the waters that would usually check it are crippled. I then added scarf manec for some much needed speed and then SD sceptile to give a breaker and speed, with eq punishing steelix and such. Finally, I added on spdef tomb to help against special breakers and fighting types since I kinda sucked against them a bit, with wisp crippling certain foes and sneak giving me some more speed control. Game goes pretty well with tomb taking out sceptile and then crippling steelix, allowing sceptile to get an SD off and trade very effectively into the team basically ensuring the win (cryo didn't even come out which was sad).
Week 6 vs Mielke (W)
Looking at the scout I noticed a high amount of mesprit usage, but since they also had decently high dark usage, I couldn't use a ghost/dark to punish that. So I decided to instead go with occa berry escav to potentially punish that. I paired it with spdef mola, which I found nice to help check moltres in a pinch while still retaining the ability to take on physical attackers. Mowtom+kabu gave me speed and hazard control, though looking back I should have dropped SD on kabu probably for waterfall. Piloswine gave me a secondary prio move and rocks+elec check, and rounded it out with moltres as a great breaker. Game happened and spdef mola put in work to help take on haunter+mixed emboar even if I did get a bit lucky to do so.
Week 7 vs GoldCat (W)
Gk I knew was going to load some bullshit so I decided to load a solid team that had good speed control and breakers. I decided on lurk+mag since I hadn't loaded mag this tour and scarf mag is very good at cleaning endgames. Phys defense slowking is honestly underappreciated on defensive sets as it can face tank a lot of bullshit. Eject button allows it to get in the other breakers on the team effectively, which is very nice. Sceptile gives great speed control and is pretty effective at breaking down teams over the course of the game particularly with mag trapping the steels. Mandibuzz gives a crucial ground immunity and with spdef taunt+brave bird could stop setup sweepers while doing okay damage. It could also pivot into the other breakers on the team if needed. Finally, druddigon gave some good prio and more breaking alongside its useful resistances which I heavily enjoyed. I faced a TR team with an eel set that kinda punked me but luckily phys defense slowking+sceptile+drud was able to deal enough damage to win.
Finals vs Mielke (W)
I was up against mielke again, so I decided to load a gallade team, because 1. I hadn't used it and 2. from looking at the scouts they were decently gallade week. I didn't want to go sub bu or anything like that, since gk had beaten them the week before with that set. So I decided to go a 3A variant, and eventually settled on SD. I messed around with a bulkier team before adapting a HO team to fit gallade onto. Lead qwilfish is great at guarenteeing some amount of progress, though it typically gets up a layer or two+twaves something before going down. Sash omastar is another mon that can emergency check basically anything while being an incredibly dangerous sweeper, picking up a lot of KO's with its unresisted coverage. Rindo golurk can softcheck something like sceptile easily while getting up rocks and being a great trader. Hone claws bug gem durant can act both as speed control and as a breaker, with bug gem at +1 nuking a lot of neutral walls and such. Finally, cm serp was a mon which I felt is really underrated, and with spikes support is especially good at cleaning. Hp ice I chose to snipe drud and grasses effectively since spikes+rocks meant the steels and fires would be easily chipped and thus a lot more dealable. Just to note, this team doesn't have prio so it prob eats shit into rain but I didn't realise that until 3 hours before game LOL. Game happens and they prepped hard for gallade, but I was able to make some smart plays and careful positioning to make sure I won the game.
And now for my noms.
C+ -> B
This is a big rise but I really, really think that its a very underexplored mon. Grass type special breakers are great in the tier due to their ability to pressure a lot of common structures if they have the right HP type. They then fall into two categories, slow bulky breakers (tangrowth, eggy etc) and fast frail breakers (sceptile, ludicolo etc). However, there is a distinct lack of special sweepers, and thats where serp comes in. While something like sceptile is good and all, it can be stopped due to the fact that its most powerful move lowers its special attack and it can't boost further. Unless you want to count OTR eggy and ludicolo as boosting sweepers (idt i really do), your only other option is lilligant, which is fine and all, but isn't the bulkiest and pretty easily outsped at neutral. Thats where serp comes in, while it isn't exactly strong, it has a great speed tier to outpace the likes of durant, sd sceptile/modest sceptile, cryo, manec etc, making it annoying to revenge kill without certain pokes that are faster (but usually they cannot OHKO it such as aero and non acro sceptile) or are scarfers and thus give a teammate the opportunity to setup. CM with a certain HP can be a great cleaner when paired with spikes of which aren't too hard to fit onto teams considering already good pokemon are packing them, and it can utilise options like sub, taunt, glare, synth etc to further screw with counterplay. Hp ice, rock and fire all work well if paired with the correct partners and it can really make serp an annoying shitter to take on. I could see SD working since you have stuff like aqua tail, natural gift and such but thats something I haven't tried.
B -> B-
ngl, i just struggle to use this a lot, despite the fact combining your steel and spiker should be great. Being a steel that is neutral to bug in durant tier doesn't feel especially great since they can potentially 3HKO or 2HKO you depending on the set, with only mag having the same thing but it makes up for it more then enough offensively and can even trap durant with scarf sets. You also have to contend with the fact that the multitude of amazing grasses in the tier meaning that your recovery methods are going to be unreliable even if t-wave can pressure a large amount of them. You will get up a few layers which are great, but cryo can threaten you out with hp fire if needed and kabu can use superpower to apply heavy pressure. Idk, this just feels like a mon which you use once in a while and not really at the consistent level of B tier.
B -> B+
It just dropped but I feel that was undeserved. While it does compete a good amount with uxie, its higher special attack and access to ice beam means that it can play a lot more offensively then uxie, giving it a distinct niche in the tier. Offensive sets can pressure teams immensly well through the threat of psychic+ice beam+coverage, whether that be hp fire or tbolt. This can allow them to either set up rocks easily or pivot to teammates that can abuse the few checks it has. It is outclassed by uxie in a defensive pivot aspect and in cm sub, but what mesprit provides I feel gives it such a distinct niche that makes it a semi splashable mon and thus should be risen.
some other noms i don't have energy to explain too much.
C+ -> C Idk, just use rotom base cause its not going to be easily revenge killed even if haunter has higher speed and special attack.
B- -> B If you don't wanna use a rotom form or a steel as your scarfer, this feels like one of the better ones particularly cause its flexible in its last moveslot between punishment, eq, encore, ice punch, endeavor.
B -> B+ For once gk was right, certain teams hate this mf but its a bit weird to fit on teams since it can be countered by either flyings or opposing grasses depending on coverage but can be supported fine enough.
Week 1 vs Don Bork (L)
Wanted to load something a bit more standard week one and I decided to go a spike stacking structure. Pretty standard core/mons with serp acting as a end game cleaner and water check. Dragon gem drud helps break through cores since it chunks a lot of things heavily aside from steelix, which is hurt hard by flamethrower and so it can pretty easily punish careless switching. Was able to make good early game progress but unfortunately I had passho berry instead of yache berry which made cryo+slowking go a bit crazy and so took an L.
Week 2 vs Wesleyy (W)
Going into the game I knew that Wesleyy would prob cheese pretty hard into me looking at scout and since I saw the fucking riolu liepard team, I needed to make myself as anti cheese proof as possible. So I went with a CB entei team that I felt could trade effectively against offense while having a spikestack core for any random defensive team. SD kabu was used here to help break open holes in teams while still acting as solid hazard control, with everything else going standard. Rest of the team I think is standard af and was infact cheesed but double prio+good trades allowed me to win.
Week 4 vs KeshBa54 (W)
For keshba we didn't have much to go off since they only played one game, though looking at that one game I thought that clefable looked pretty good since they had used a spikestack structure beforehand. We went through a few builds before settling on this one. Clefable+tort+lanturn is able to cover a large chunk of the meta defensively, though it does struggle with fighting types but those are dealable with a few teammates. The clefable set is a pretty standard one thats annoying to switch into for a large chunk of the meta, and I decided on tect over heal bell on lanturn due to having two status immune pokes. Scarf primeape gives the team some much needed speed with punishment helping against CM slowking that could def be annoying if setup. Sigi gives a much needed fighting type answer for the team and gives another strong breaking option. Finally, CB hustle durant literally demolishes anything that doesn't have a quad resist to its move/immunity so it rounded out the team as the steel. In the game while I did face spikestack I was able to break through with CB durant+some luck and clinch out the win.
Week 5 vs Incognition (W)
Even before the week was up I knew that I wanted to use cryo, and after checking scout, I was for sure going to use it. I went with offensive toxic cryo, which I liked for its ability to pressure the steels and poisons that would usually take toxic aside from a few niche cases, of which it can then cripple those waters for teammates. Cryo+slowking+steelix is a solid defensive core, and cm slowking adores when the waters that would usually check it are crippled. I then added scarf manec for some much needed speed and then SD sceptile to give a breaker and speed, with eq punishing steelix and such. Finally, I added on spdef tomb to help against special breakers and fighting types since I kinda sucked against them a bit, with wisp crippling certain foes and sneak giving me some more speed control. Game goes pretty well with tomb taking out sceptile and then crippling steelix, allowing sceptile to get an SD off and trade very effectively into the team basically ensuring the win (cryo didn't even come out which was sad).
Week 6 vs Mielke (W)
Looking at the scout I noticed a high amount of mesprit usage, but since they also had decently high dark usage, I couldn't use a ghost/dark to punish that. So I decided to instead go with occa berry escav to potentially punish that. I paired it with spdef mola, which I found nice to help check moltres in a pinch while still retaining the ability to take on physical attackers. Mowtom+kabu gave me speed and hazard control, though looking back I should have dropped SD on kabu probably for waterfall. Piloswine gave me a secondary prio move and rocks+elec check, and rounded it out with moltres as a great breaker. Game happened and spdef mola put in work to help take on haunter+mixed emboar even if I did get a bit lucky to do so.
Week 7 vs GoldCat (W)
Gk I knew was going to load some bullshit so I decided to load a solid team that had good speed control and breakers. I decided on lurk+mag since I hadn't loaded mag this tour and scarf mag is very good at cleaning endgames. Phys defense slowking is honestly underappreciated on defensive sets as it can face tank a lot of bullshit. Eject button allows it to get in the other breakers on the team effectively, which is very nice. Sceptile gives great speed control and is pretty effective at breaking down teams over the course of the game particularly with mag trapping the steels. Mandibuzz gives a crucial ground immunity and with spdef taunt+brave bird could stop setup sweepers while doing okay damage. It could also pivot into the other breakers on the team if needed. Finally, druddigon gave some good prio and more breaking alongside its useful resistances which I heavily enjoyed. I faced a TR team with an eel set that kinda punked me but luckily phys defense slowking+sceptile+drud was able to deal enough damage to win.
Finals vs Mielke (W)
I was up against mielke again, so I decided to load a gallade team, because 1. I hadn't used it and 2. from looking at the scouts they were decently gallade week. I didn't want to go sub bu or anything like that, since gk had beaten them the week before with that set. So I decided to go a 3A variant, and eventually settled on SD. I messed around with a bulkier team before adapting a HO team to fit gallade onto. Lead qwilfish is great at guarenteeing some amount of progress, though it typically gets up a layer or two+twaves something before going down. Sash omastar is another mon that can emergency check basically anything while being an incredibly dangerous sweeper, picking up a lot of KO's with its unresisted coverage. Rindo golurk can softcheck something like sceptile easily while getting up rocks and being a great trader. Hone claws bug gem durant can act both as speed control and as a breaker, with bug gem at +1 nuking a lot of neutral walls and such. Finally, cm serp was a mon which I felt is really underrated, and with spikes support is especially good at cleaning. Hp ice I chose to snipe drud and grasses effectively since spikes+rocks meant the steels and fires would be easily chipped and thus a lot more dealable. Just to note, this team doesn't have prio so it prob eats shit into rain but I didn't realise that until 3 hours before game LOL. Game happens and they prepped hard for gallade, but I was able to make some smart plays and careful positioning to make sure I won the game.
And now for my noms.
C+ -> BThis is a big rise but I really, really think that its a very underexplored mon. Grass type special breakers are great in the tier due to their ability to pressure a lot of common structures if they have the right HP type. They then fall into two categories, slow bulky breakers (tangrowth, eggy etc) and fast frail breakers (sceptile, ludicolo etc). However, there is a distinct lack of special sweepers, and thats where serp comes in. While something like sceptile is good and all, it can be stopped due to the fact that its most powerful move lowers its special attack and it can't boost further. Unless you want to count OTR eggy and ludicolo as boosting sweepers (idt i really do), your only other option is lilligant, which is fine and all, but isn't the bulkiest and pretty easily outsped at neutral. Thats where serp comes in, while it isn't exactly strong, it has a great speed tier to outpace the likes of durant, sd sceptile/modest sceptile, cryo, manec etc, making it annoying to revenge kill without certain pokes that are faster (but usually they cannot OHKO it such as aero and non acro sceptile) or are scarfers and thus give a teammate the opportunity to setup. CM with a certain HP can be a great cleaner when paired with spikes of which aren't too hard to fit onto teams considering already good pokemon are packing them, and it can utilise options like sub, taunt, glare, synth etc to further screw with counterplay. Hp ice, rock and fire all work well if paired with the correct partners and it can really make serp an annoying shitter to take on. I could see SD working since you have stuff like aqua tail, natural gift and such but thats something I haven't tried.
B -> B-ngl, i just struggle to use this a lot, despite the fact combining your steel and spiker should be great. Being a steel that is neutral to bug in durant tier doesn't feel especially great since they can potentially 3HKO or 2HKO you depending on the set, with only mag having the same thing but it makes up for it more then enough offensively and can even trap durant with scarf sets. You also have to contend with the fact that the multitude of amazing grasses in the tier meaning that your recovery methods are going to be unreliable even if t-wave can pressure a large amount of them. You will get up a few layers which are great, but cryo can threaten you out with hp fire if needed and kabu can use superpower to apply heavy pressure. Idk, this just feels like a mon which you use once in a while and not really at the consistent level of B tier.
B -> B+It just dropped but I feel that was undeserved. While it does compete a good amount with uxie, its higher special attack and access to ice beam means that it can play a lot more offensively then uxie, giving it a distinct niche in the tier. Offensive sets can pressure teams immensly well through the threat of psychic+ice beam+coverage, whether that be hp fire or tbolt. This can allow them to either set up rocks easily or pivot to teammates that can abuse the few checks it has. It is outclassed by uxie in a defensive pivot aspect and in cm sub, but what mesprit provides I feel gives it such a distinct niche that makes it a semi splashable mon and thus should be risen.
some other noms i don't have energy to explain too much.
C+ -> C Idk, just use rotom base cause its not going to be easily revenge killed even if haunter has higher speed and special attack. B- -> B If you don't wanna use a rotom form or a steel as your scarfer, this feels like one of the better ones particularly cause its flexible in its last moveslot between punishment, eq, encore, ice punch, endeavor. B -> B+ For once gk was right, certain teams hate this mf but its a bit weird to fit on teams since it can be countered by either flyings or opposing grasses depending on coverage but can be supported fine enough.when suspect or ban damp rock