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:Cycle 1:
-Discarded Offense-
For this core we'll be diving into the vastly disregarded Voodoom. Granted this CAP has earned this lack of support, it's not as if it's without reason, but there's no reason he should remained totally shut out.
For this cycle let's bring the wallflower out on the dance floor <3 | Voodoom | MegaPinsir |
This team just to help let pinsir and voodoom late game sweep, nothing more. This specific landorus-t set is supposed to wear down unsuspecting walls with toxic over u-turn. Chansey pairs amazingly with defensive landorus-t, along with having healing wish as a back-up in case voodoom or pinsir or just anything is needed to win the game. Magnazone is to just get rid of skarmory from the start so that pinsir can fly by when sweeping, pretty simple stuff. I wanted to put some spotlight when building around voodoom and make it a z move set up sweeper. Tomohawks role is simple and standard, its a secondary hazard remover and can check some harsh set up sweepers for the team. Best of luck!
Arghonaut @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Earthquake
- Spikes
- Recover
Tangrowth @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Knock Off
- Giga Drain
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice]
To be honest, I decided to avoid Magnezone as a teammate mostly because I felt that it was too obvious, so I went for what I hope is a more original approach. Excadrill provides a lot to the team, being my Stealth Rock setter, Rapid Spinner and best M-Crucibelle check. Zapdos gives me a invaluable answer to M-Pinsir, Hawlucha, Tomohawk and Landorus-T, while also serving as my second hazard removal. Arghonaut takes care of Volkraken and Greninja. Finally, Tangrowth is my Zygarde counter, which could otherwise demolish this team, and can also check most Koko and Lele pretty well. PS: VOODOOM STILL SUCKS
Honestly, this is the first decent CAP team ive built myself, and I'm proud of it. Made a lot of friends on the way too. Here's the team: https://pokepast.es/a30a2af2ba029b96
I usually build teams defensively, mainly looking for type synergy rather than looking at the meta. This time I tried to do both. For a defensive pokemon I started with celesteela which has grown to become my favourites for what it does. Looking on what its good against I went with arghonaut next for a pure spdef wall and an unaware user - with spikes as an added bonus. After looking at my team so far , the electric weakness started glaring at me and usually by this point in a team I usually have a mon with sr. So I added pyroak[thanks for the idea epic!!]. It also forms an amazing core with steela and argho. For the last mon I wanted a mon with u turn/volt switch , good offensive presence and mainly hazard removal - so lando is what I went with. The landorus set looks whack at first glances but it does amazingly well. To tell the truth - I love how many successful bluffs ive carried out with it. After showing z-fly and earthquake your opp usually thinks you are double dance or other offensive set - and bam defog gets those crucial hazards out. By the way I guess you already see me having only 1 hazard remover when I have a m-pinsir. That's because I very rarely keep bringing it in and out for offensive presence. My playstyle is to widdle down the opp with my defensive core or put them in such a position where I can click buttons and win with my offensive core. Otherwise at team preview I lead pinsir if I feel that firing off some hits would break or damage the opponents team to the point which put help my other mons can break through. Not much to say about voodoom - its a cool mon at what it does but cant start firing at the team like mpinsir right from the start, it usually functions well on this team as a late cleaner. By the way - the celesteela spread is such that it completely counters tapu lele no matter what set it is. Overall I had lots of fun building this and hope you enjoy!
I was really struggling to build with this core using a standard Voodoom set partly because that mon is no good but partly because it doesnt gel well with mega pinsir too much. That being said i tried to create a set which allowed it to pick off M Pinsirs defensive checks (read: Skarm, Ferro, Steela, Zapdos and to some extent Pex).
With this idea i came up with this god awful set:
Voodoom @ Leftovers
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 Spe
Bold Nature
- Wrap
- Perish Song
- Protect
- Magic Coat / Memento / Idk man anything you wanna put here maybe an ice move to help with Zyg?
This spread allows it outspeed max speed base neutral nature base 95s(ZYGARDE), whilst avoiding 3hkos from Ferro's Gyro Ball and Celesteela's Heavy Slam).
This set pretty much only works if your opponent doesn't know but thats more likely than regular voodoom working so i gave it a shot.
With all that out the way heres the team:
Voodoom @ Leftovers
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 Spe
Bold Nature
- Wrap
- Perish Song
- Protect
- Magic Coat / Memento / Idk man anything you wanna put here maybe an ice move to help with Zyg?
Pinsir-Mega @ Pinsirite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Return
- Quick Attack
- Close Combat / Earthquake
- Swords Dance
(EQ Or CC depending on if ur scared of Cyc or not, CC helps if steela is still around but EQ can also help vs mage)
Greninja-Ash (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Water Shuriken
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
Landorus-Therian @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- U-turn
Magearna @ Assault Vest
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Fleur Cannon
- Iron Head
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Volt Switch
A little on the teambuilding:
One of the main weaknesses of this core is its glaring Flying Resistance which coupled with the resurgence of Tornadus-T, made it slightly difficult to build around hence the Zapdos - filling out 2 resists i find very important when building in ground and flying.
After shoring up the most obvious defensive weakness of the core, i added Ash-Greninja as it couples well with the Voodoom set as it also likes the aforementioned mons being removed, allowing it to come in and break much more easily.
Needed rocks so threw in Lando.(sorta only semi joking, considered pyroak / ferro but none did as well as lando in testing as the team needed a sturdy zygarde check)
And then we round it out with a secondary Flying resist and our Lele check in Vest Mage. Obviously this mons super solid and it fits well as it comes in on a lot of the things that can force Voodoom out (read:FAIRIES). Also helps our MU vs Koko which is pretty important.
Some issues: evidently there are some issues which i could not iron out with the bit of testing that i did. The team is very weak to FAIRY SPAM this is because our only fairy resist is Magearna which whilst pretty sturdy, has no recovery and if the opposing team has something like Koko + Lele your probably going to find it gets worn down a lot and youll often have to outplay making this not a very auto-pilot team in my opinion. One way to fix this is to scarf the landorus in order to improve your Koko MU but then that weakens our Zygarde checks which is something else this team can struggle versus, particularly sub/dd variants.
Thats the team, i find this a lot more fun to use than a standard Voodoom set and about the same in terms of success.
Something to consider: Switching SD on pinsir for rocks, allowing Lando to carry defog and Zapdos to carry heatwave. I ended up going with SD for no real reason :shrug:
The team is centered around Voodude and Pinsirbro breaking eachothers checks, including but not limited to Zapdos, Rotom, Celesteela, and opposing Pisnirs for pinsir. Electrium-Z, which in opinion is Vood's best set, allows it to break the famous CelePex core, lets it 1v1 Tomohawk, and lets it OHKO Pinsir-mega and Zard-Y.
After that came zone to ensure that Skarmory could be trapped, which neither really wants to switch into. It also deals with Scizor, who could revenge kill them if they're weakened.
Argho+Pyroak create a FWG core, and hazard stack for both of the sweepers. Pyroak also checks elecs if you get scared, and more specifically Koko,
Gliscor was added for defog, and to provide a nice ground immunity for the team. It also absorbs status for the rest of the team, who don't want to eat toxics/burns. It also outspeeds Heatran, and OHKOS with earthquake.
The team struggles vs Hyper Offence, but Voodoom's speed tier helps, as well as Pinsir's quick attack, so I decided to focus on more of a bulky approach to the team
Sorry for quick write up, deadline is too close ;[
Gaia (Heatran) (F) @ Groundium Z
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Toxic
- Taunt
From left to right:
Skarmory is a pretty generic physical wall. It gets Spikes down so that it can help out Mega Pinsir and Voodoom break through the enemy. Also, Skarmory with significant health is able to phaze out Cawmodore using Whirlwind. Brave Bird is preferred over Counter to prevent Skarmory from being entirely passive. Also, Shed Shell is run to punish Magnezone by switching out to Voodoom and getting a SpA boost.
Tapu Bulu is our switchin for Tapu Koko and also makes it so that we're less of bulky-Water bait (aka Gastrodon). It's also this team's preferred option for switching in on special moves that aren't Ice, Fire, Flying, or Steel, all of which Heatran is better suited to. Grassy Surge also helps out Heatran by granting it passive recovery.
Mega Pinsir is pretty cool. It hits Pyroak pretty hard. It also hits Heatran pretty hard. Plus priority is always nice. Earthquake is chosen over Close Combat because this is CAP and we have things like: Kitsunoh, Cyclohm, Plasmanta, Fidgit, Krilowatt, and Mollux.
Voodoom is running Hidden Power Ice instead of Nasty Plot to be more effective in taking out Landorus-Therian and Zygarde. It makes up for this by nabbing the aforementioned SpA boost on the switch out of Skarmory.
Latios is our designated hazard removal and a generally good Special Attacker with reliable recovery, allowing it to switch in more reliably than Heatran can. It can take out Tomohawk more reliably than any other member of this team.
Heatran is our stallbreaker, helping to take out pests like Clefable, Chansey, and Toxapex. It is because the last of these three is so horribly annoying that Groundium Z is run.
Submissions for Cycle 1 are officially closed!
Would like to thank those who participated and made this a successful start to the project. Let's continue that trend and boost further involvement for future rounds<3
Everyone feel free to vote, regardless of if you participated in submissions.
You may vote twice[You may not vote for yourself as a competitor].
With the case of a tie coming up here, I took to PS and took to a coinflip to decide the "sole" winner and who'd be enterting the HoF for Cycle 1. The Results & Winner of Cycle 1:
EpicUmbreon29
Tagging cbrevan to lock & merge this into the Index Thread; Cycle 2 will be up shortly.
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