SV OU Choice Band Tusk + Stored Power Hatterene Balance

[Juanp0093]

Hi everyone, first time posting here. I have been working on a balance team for a few weeks, and after several iterations, I decided to post it here, as I would like to hear any suggestions or details I may be missing out. Originally, the gist of the team was to keep hazards off the field while pivoting into mons that can slowly force progress into the enemy team. I've since modified it a bit, but the concept remains somewhat the same.


Firstly, we have Slowking-G as a special damage sponge. Between Regenerator, Chilly Reception, and Slack Off, his primary function is to soak up special hits and pivot, while setting up Future Sight when possible. It's not exactly a wall, as it is still threatened by Gholdengo and Dragapult, but more often than not it's able to absorb lots of damage while creating openings for teammates to come in. Nothing out of the ordinary, it's what you would expect from it at first glance.


Originally a Corviknight with Iron Defense/Body Press to check Gambit, I decided to change it to a Mandibuzz, as I was fairly weak to fire with Corviknight (previous versions of the team were even weaker to Ceruledge). With Buzz as a physically defensive mon, you can check Ceruledge, Ogerpon-Wellspring, and Kingambit to an extent, while already being immune to ground and providing Knock Off support. I used to have Iron Defense instead of Defog, but I changed it due to...


This. I first had Cinderace here, to Court Change hazards off the field and pivot into other mons. However, I did not find much success with it as I found most of the time it proved very frail and not threatening enough. I decided to switch Hatterene in, in a way that could maintain hazards away while offering a somewhat mixed defensive mon that could work as a secondary win condition. Calm Mind + Stored Power (or Psyshock) can get out of control real quick if left unchecked. Also, this is when I added Defog on Mandibuzz, for good measure against hazards.


Starting with our offensive core we have Choice Band Great Tusk. I used to have a more utility-focused set with Leftovers and Rapid Spin, but after all the trouble we've already taken to avoid hazards, I decided to switch to a fully offensive CB set. Needless to say, works wonders with Slowking-G and Future Sight, as if a Dark-type ever dares to come in to take FS, you can always have Tusk in for a free Close Combat. Knock Off and Ice Spinner are there to predict incoming Gholdengo and Tornadus/Thundurus/Zapdos respectively. Pretty straightforward.


By this point, we seriously needed some speed control and a dedicated special attacker. Dragpult fulfills this role just fine, with a standard Choice Specs set. Shadow Ball is very spammable, and barring the occasional miss, Draco Meteor is sure to force some progress. U-turn allows you to pivot to safety from an incoming Kingambit and Ting Lu. Last slot is for coverage, Surf or Flamethrower, whichever you like better.


Finally, we have Gambit. Not much we can say about this mon at this point of the meta. It comes in, it does Gambit things. This is a bulky variation with some HP investment and Leftovers, so you can afford to switch into Shadow Ball to threaten Gholdengo and Pult. Low Kick is to be able to hit Great Tusk and opposing Kingambit, and Tera Flying is a personal preference. Tera Fighting also works fine in my experience.

So this is the team. I'm very well aware it's far from perfect, which is why I would gladly take any advice you guys may have. Maybe there's a common threat I haven't noticed, or some ways I could improve on it. Off the top of my head, I would like to add Stealth Rock but I don't want to sacrifice CB Tusk just for it. With enough prediction and Hatterene, you can manage to get hazards on the opposing side to take care of that. Here is the pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/e72831c385e404ff

Also, If I broke any rules or missed some forum etiquette, please let me know. As I mention, it's my first time posting here. Cheers.

 

[1LDK]

Hey, wellcome to smogon and congrats on your first RMT
You have an interesting team you have built, but I noticed that you're incredibly weak to ogerpon-wellspring, one sd / encore and most of your team gets washed, but there are ways to work around it, and I'm gonna do my best to help you out

On if you think about it, close combat and headlong rush, when it comes to targets, hit mostly the same, so I recommend going with Stone Edge over close combat to nail zapdos and moltres without caring about contact, if you're not afraid of contact effects and just wanna YOLO, go with Head Smash, which will basically nuke everything. Another thing is tera poison which will deal better with ogerpon but also to rillaboom and valiant and enamorus, who both destroy the team with proper prediction

On consider toxic over knock off, you wall tusk and will answer to some physical threats, so fucking with them with toxic and putting them on a timer can be cool for your offensive line up

On I would say go with iron head over low kick, if you go with the mandibuzz tip, you will now put tusk in trouble and the longer he stays, the more he will suffer, iron head also helps with the valiant / enam and fairy terass

and finally on try thunder wave over slack off, so you can potentially get slower targets for tusk to run over

and that's it, solid team overall, and I hope you have lots of success in your career

 

[YNM]

Nice RMT! On top of what 1LDK said, I wanna make some other observations:

• - This set is completely fine, but I honestly prefer the ones running Chilly Reception + 3 attacks rather than Slack Off, since Glowking is a pretty durable mon on the Special side and has access to Regenerator for passive recovery while switching in and out of the field. Besides Future Sight and Sludge Bomb, I'd run either Surf or Flamethrower for coverage. The former is a solid move that can hit Heatran and Iron Moth supereffectively, it can deal some massive damage to Tusk if your opponent hard-switches aggressively to threaten you with a Ground attack, and it also gets a valuable STAB with your defensive Tera Water. The latter, on the other hand, is used mainly to threaten Gholdengo and Kingambit switches, which is also very useful.
• - I'd also get rid of Knock Off, which becomes a bit less important as a utility move if you're not running any type of Hazards, and I'd instead replace it with Toxic (to threaten setup sweepers more consistenly) or U-turn (for momentum). On top of that, I'd run Tera Poison or Fairy over Tera Fire, as it provides you the ability to still resist Fairy attacks without becoming vulnerable to Ogerpon-Wellspring.
• - Your set is not bad, but I find CM+3 attacks to be way better in terms of overall consistency during games. Replace Stored Power with Psyshock, since it's much more effective with just a single CM, and it works against Stall and other Fat teams extremely well thanks to its potential to threaten your opponent Special Walls (Blissey, Clodsire, opposing Slowking-G) and other CM Set Up mons. Stored Power is much less consistent, and it requires at least 3-4 CM to overwhelm your opponent Special Walls, which is a pretty long frame of time that allows your foe to switch-in freely and click Haze/threaten you to switch out. Finally, replace Nuzzle with Mystical Fire, as it offers you an important answer to threaten and potentially get rid of Gholdengo and Kingambit.
• - I would rather run Tera Dragon over Tera Steel, because as 1LDK mentioned you are pretty vulnerable to Waterpon, which can potentially sweep your team once your opponent gets rid of your Dragapult. Tera Poison can be a valid defensive option, but your weakness against Fairy-types is somewhat mitigated by the presence of Slowking-G and Hatterene in your team, in particular to check Iron Valiant (which is the biggest Fairy threat in the meta). Tera Dragon, on the other hand, is a very popular option lately specifically because it functions as a counter-measure for Ogerpon, Rillaboom, Manaphy, Landos going for Grass Knot and even Ceruledge with Sash+Bitter Blade (which you mentioned being a problem). Once again, you could swap Head Smash over CC to potentially KO valuable foes such as Zapdos, Tornadus-T and opposing Mandibuzz, but Close Combat is still an overall very good STAB option that can threaten Ogerpon, Heatran (that might go for Tera Grass) and Ting-Lu more effectively, and it can also be spammed more freely with a Choice Band on. For these reasons, I think you can decide what option fits your team best.
• - Completely fine, but please run Tera Ghost over Tera Fairy; you don't need to use defensive Teras on Pult and Tera Ghost Shadow Ball hits incredibly hard, giving you the chance to sweep your opponent team in the late-game.
• - Again, completely fine. I disagree with 1LDK here, since your team can still potentially be threatened by Gambit, and having a further answer to it is incredibly helpful in this meta. It's better to play around Fairies with your Glowking's Chilly reception than becoming Gambit's food. Alternatively, you could run Tera Fairy plus Tera Blast instead of Low Kick, which could still allow you to threaten both Gambit and Fairy-types.

Here's a link to the team with all of my suggested changes: https://pokepast.es/32f0b2c7d9383926
I hope you have fun on the ladder!

 

[Juanp0093]

Thank you so much for your comments. This is exactly the type of advice I needed, about fine tuning sets and tera types. It all makes sense once I read your comments, it just hadn't occurred to me. See you on the ladder!