Other Metagames Cool For The Summer (USM BH)

[Magii]

I gave her credit in Credits but MamOwOswine did this beautiful banner, shoutouts to her.
Contents:
1. Intro/Namesake
2. Process
3. A look at the individual players
4. Resources
5. Conclusion
6. Credits​

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my second Balanced Hackmons RMT, just before OMPL! It also coincides with my first day of summer vacation. For this team, I wanted a relatively easy to ladder, easy to learn balance team centered around Mega Diancie and Perish Trapping Slowbro. Beginners can use it to learn the meta. Of course, since it is so close to summer (like I planned), I had to name it Cool For The Summer (after seeing MikeDawg's name change, of course). I may or may not, but it's nice to put things out there! Without further ado, here is Cool For The Summer!

​

Teambuilding Process

Diancie-Mega serves as my -ate speeder for this team, and a very good one. Diancie is one of the best checks to fast pokemon such as the Mewtwos (after proper prediction) and functions well as a mixed revenge killer, which function well in the current meta. With pixie plate, the base power of its new STABs are boosted, but at the cost of giving up goggles.

Slowbro came on to this team when I remembered that Soundproof blocks Boomburst. Slowbro is a great imposterproof for Diancie, due to the latter's lack of pivoting and special coverage. It also can take down some of the bulkier threats by perish trapping them. Perish Song Slowbro is a great role compressor for this team, and lets me check things like Mega Audino (without bringing in Gengar)

Gengar earned its spot on my team (and as the final offensive pokemon) with the imposterproof setup set that Highlighter used in his team, rout. Pursuit is run over Substitute to kill Shed after proper prediction. This set checks imposter by using Spooky Plate Judgement, and Mega Audino with Sludge Bomb.

Some may recognize this as the defensive core from my (much worse) RMT, Creatures of The Night. Mega Audino remains Magic Bounce, but runs a set more tailored to shutting down offensive spore users if Gyarados is dead, and crippling specific threats, like non pads Shed. Gyarados has the exact same set as last time, but has a sassy nature, because we have Slowbro.

Eviolite Chansey remains the perfect check to so many threats in this meta. To define it's potential, I turn again to Rout.

Imposter Chansey is what defines the entire meta. (...) Overusage or overreliance on Chansey will only result in the premature loss of one of your best tools.

The Final Team ended up being slightly different, but used the same six pokemon.

A Look Into the Individual Players:​

Ashley Benson (Diancie-Mega) @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Fake Out
- Extreme Speed
- Boomburst
- V-create

Diancie is one of the top -ate abusers in the meta, by using its 160/160 attack stats to do fantastic damage on both sides. V-Create is this team's anti steel mechanism, by using a powerful one or two time nuke to destroy non flash fire steels, like RegenVest Solgaleo. I ended up forgoing goggles in favor of as pixie plate. I didn't find any crucial calcs that advocate for this, but I believe that extra damage is worth it when I have two spore absorbers.


Improofed by- Slowbro-Mega (perish trapping + walling, the most it does it around 24% with ESpeed. The opponent needs to not see it coming, however, which can be difficult to do on high ladder.)

Bill Clinton (Slowbro-Mega) @ Darkinium Z
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Anchor Shot
- Perish Song
- Heal Order
- Parting Shot

Slowbro's ability to be a perish trapper is highly unexploited in many teams, as others opt for choices such as Zygod. Slowbro remains a great -ate check, and doesn't have to sacrifice any moveslots devoted for perish trapping. I also use this to phaze annoying magic bouncers such as imposters of my Audino, but at the cost of the final turn of slow pivoting against the same threats. Darkinium allows my offensive pokemon to heal, without sacrificing a moveslot, and slow pivot into threats it couldn't normally come in on. Slowbro is one of the top performers on any of my perish-trapping teams, and I hope to see it used more often in the future.

Improofed by: Gengar and itself.

Ped O' Reily (Gengar-Mega) @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Pursuit
- Shell Smash
- Judgment
- Sludge Wave/Secret Sword

Imposterproof setup is invaluable in this metagame, and Gengar is a great way to take advantage of it. Mold Breaker pursuit insures that Shedinja will die, but look out for -ate variants. Judgement acts as the "imposterproof", leaving the imposter no way to effectively damage it. Sludge Wave allows for a Mega Audino Check, but Secret Sword allows for perfect neutral coverage (albeit a very weak one).

Improofed by: Gyarados (not the best option) and itself.

Demi Lovato (Audino-Mega) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Baneful Bunker/Heal Bell
- Defog
- Shore Up
- Knock Off/Anchor Shot/Spirit Shackle

Mega Audino remains a potent magic bouncer since my last RMT, as it rather good at keeping its ability, only sacrificing it to skill swap users. The moveset attempts to check Shedinja without protective pads and disable bulky ghosts. Defog + Magic Bounce works well by ensuring that hazards will rarely be detrimental, but this set has quite a case of 4MSS.

Improofed by: Slowbro (perish traps it, but you need to predict around baneful bunker.) GENGAR- Bops this easily, just make sure to not stay in for a Knock Off, otherwise you loose your improof.

Furious Feesh (Gyarados-Mega) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Shore Up/Roost
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Spectral Thief

This Gyarados is invaluable when playing against HO teams, and bops setup sweepers. I chose to totally obliterate possible momentum that the other players can gain back (as Gyarados is not immune to spectral thief itself), and thus opted for U-Turn. Many of my pokemon function well without stat boosts, and therefore I am more afraid of "counter-thieving" than loosing momentum myself. Shore Up is run on this set, even though I have also run roost to beat trapping. Goggles make Gyarados a great check to PH Spore users, and its typing helps bolster it further by blocking prankster haze/heart swap.

Improofed by: Diancie and Slowbro, to an extent.

Take a Chans (Chansey) @ Eviolite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
- Milk Drink
- Spikes
- Fake Out
- Metal Burst

The final pokemon on my team is pretty much omnipresent, so I won't go into too much detail. Chansey is great at scouting sets and creates an infinite PP source, played effectively. However, as Highlighter also said, this isn't so much an offensive breaker, but a device to disable certain threats.

Resources:​

Importable

Bill Clinton (Slowbro-Mega) @ Darkinium Z
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Anchor Shot
- Perish Song
- Heal Order
- Parting Shot

Ashley Benson (Diancie-Mega) @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Fake Out
- Extreme Speed
- Boomburst
- V-create

Ped O' Reily (Gengar-Mega) @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Pursuit
- Shell Smash
- Judgment
- Sludge Wave

Demi Lovato (Audino-Mega) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Baneful Bunker
- Defog
- Shore Up
- Knock Off

Furious Feesh (Gyarados-Mega) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Shore Up
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Spectral Thief

Take a Chans (Chansey) @ Eviolite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
- Milk Drink
- Spikes
- Fake Out
- Metal Burst

Peak

So this team peaked at around 1520, but due to bad plays and worse wifi, I now have about 1300 ELO on the alt MagiCFTS. I will get back to laddering eventually, but this team was quite good at its peak.

Replays

Lol no, I forgot to save them all

Conclusion:​

Thanks to everyone who read this, BH is one of my favorite tiers, and it is so nice to actually contribute a decent team to the world once in a blue moon. I hope you all are Cool For The Summer (I'm not, its 101 here and July hasn't started yet). Have a great day!

Happy Laddering,
Magi.​

Credits:

Credits

Thanks to Demi Lovato and Escoffier for name inspiration
Thanks to MamOwOswine for their beautiful banner, this was one of their last pieces before her commisions started. Their work is amazing, as always.
Thanks to GL Volkner and Quantum Tesseract for last minute team revisions
Thanks to highlighter and morogrim for inspiration for the RMT format.
Special thanks to Willdbeast for the great memes
Also special thanks to any mod who can edit in a proper link for Cool For The Summer

 

[willdbeast]

Okay the first and foremost thing I see is that the team is incredibly weak to Regigigas, with the only thing resembling a switchin being Mega Slowbro which really isn't reliable with that set (although it can work once), all they need to do is knock off on the switch and then wait for another chance when they can spore it and 2hko at +1, the main problem is slowbro can't do anything except Perish Song which gives Regigigas so man chances to get off damage and kill before the turns run out (since it takes even longer once you factor in sleep). This is especially a problem since Regigigas sets up on all of your other pokemon and can switch into Gyara and Aud with very little risk (unless gyara has spectraled some attack boosts).

You're also weak to PH Xerneas which isn't quite as bad as gigas but not great. This can be fixed to some degree (although it isn't the best answer) by giving Audino Spectral Thief which stops Xern from just setting up. I'd probably suggest it in the first move slot but there are options, the last slot can be played around with too, I'm not sure why Spirit Shackle is slashed there, it doesn't do that much, but knock off and anchor shot are good options (anchor shot can trap imposter which spririt shackle cannot).

I'm not sure what the best option is here, but replacing Mega Slowbro with Flash Fire Ferrothorn would be a very quick fix that keeps your improof and is a very good PH gigas answer, it does however leave you weak to -ate mega ray but with imposter and diancie this should be more manageable, as opposed to regigigas which straight up won with nothing you could do. It is also a check for PH Xerneas and some offensive Pogre Something like this:

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Anchor Shot
- Entrainment
- Stealth Rock / Topsy-Turvy (I'd recommend Topsy to check gigas better)
- Shore Up

I'm not sure what the best course to mitigate the Ray weakness is, maybe replacing Audino with regenvest dialga would work, but then we're stacking serious fighting weaknesses, Celesteela over Ferrothorn is another option which is better against ray and worse against regigigas and pogre. Something like FF Celesteela and replacing Audino with Magic Bounce Zygarde which is a reasonable Regigigas check with celesteela for a backup and can also check Normalise Gengar like Audino does, but this in turn adds more fairy weaknesses which you might be okay with you you could switch Gyara to Pogre if it's too much. It's just a case of tweaking something and then trying to patch the new weaknesses the change makes.

There are probably sets you could change your slowbro to that would help somewhat with Regigigas, but if you're keeping Soundproof (which you are mainly using it for) then it isn't going to be a good regigigas answer.

There are some other small issues with the team (weak to kartana, what sort of thing) but they aren't as crucial as checking regigigas properly etc. It's good to see your improofing is solid (except for Gyara) and you've clearly been reading up on things like the RMT you mentioned which is by a really good player who almost everyone can learn something from - it's nice to know that you're serious about improving and it's really encouraging when rating etc.

As an aside give Chansey full special attack EVs because it makes a difference if you transform into something and use doom desire then switch, also I like to have 55 happiness for things using frustration (not 0 so return still does a bit). I also like soft boiled for chansey but I have no justification for that. Also run full special attack on everything unless there is a specific reason not to because of power split or something.

You might have seen it since you're familiar with Rout, but check out aki0s' RMT, Sunday. He's another good player who you can learn from his teambuilding and what threats he talks about covering in the descriptions.

 

[Lectrys]

I don't know why your Mega Gengar is Modest instead of Timid. Does Modest really get that many more KOs? All I see right now is losing all the speed ties with Mega Mewtwo X and your Mega Gyarados having a harder time Imposter-proofing.

 

[Magii]

Edit- LOL why did I not s/o Silver Lucario 42, he’s the CSM of BH. So sorry!

My response

Okay the first and foremost thing I see is that the team is incredibly weak to Regigigas, with the only thing resembling a switchin being Mega Slowbro which really isn't reliable with that set (although it can work once), all they need to do is knock off on the switch and then wait for another chance when they can spore it and 2hko at +1, the main problem is slowbro can't do anything except Perish Song which gives Regigigas so man chances to get off damage and kill before the turns run out (since it takes even longer once you factor in sleep). This is especially a problem since Regigigas sets up on all of your other pokemon and can switch into Gyara and Aud with very little risk (unless gyara has spectraled some attack boosts).

Hey Willd! It’s been forever since I said I’d address your comments, but I have time now. Thanks for commenting again, I really enjoy learning from you!

Regigas is quite possibly this team’s biggest weakness, as you said. My MGar set can’t check it, Audino/Gyarados needs to predict the switch to knock off Toxic Orb (and Audino can’t protect) However, Audino is an extremely soft check, and Regiga’s usage isn’t as common as I would think (Insert data from TI later). If I can predict the switch, and bounce the spore (or knock off first) I should be able to safely send in Diancie.

However, this obviously relies on my op being worse than I am, or making a misplay. I will make a version with your changes (but in interest of not reworking the whole thing, only the importable will change).

You're also weak to PH Xerneas which isn't quite as bad as gigas but not great. This can be fixed to some degree (although it isn't the best answer) by giving Audino Spectral Thief which stops Xern from just setting up. I'd probably suggest it in the first move slot but there are options, the last slot can be played around with too, I'm not sure why Spirit Shackle is slashed there, it doesn't do that much, but knock off and anchor shot are good options (anchor shot can trap imposter which spririt shackle cannot).

As I mentioned in my first RMT, this Audino has horrible 4MSS. I slashed it 2nd. Thank you for pointing this out, my team is super weak to PH in general.

I'm not sure what the best option is here, but replacing Mega Slowbro with Flash Fire Ferrothorn would be a very quick fix that keeps your improof and is a very good PH gigas answer, it does however leave you weak to -ate mega ray but with imposter and diancie this should be more manageable, as opposed to regigigas which straight up won with nothing you could do. It is also a check for PH Xerneas and some offensive Pogre Something like this:

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Anchor Shot
- Entrainment
- Stealth Rock / Topsy-Turvy (I'd recommend Topsy to check gigas better)
- Shore Up

I'm not sure what the best course to mitigate the Ray weakness is, maybe replacing Audino with regenvest dialga would work, but then we're stacking serious fighting weaknesses, Celesteela over Ferrothorn is another option which is better against ray and worse against regigigas and pogre. Something like FF Celesteela and replacing Audino with Magic Bounce Zygarde which is a reasonable Regigigas check with celesteela for a backup and can also check Normalise Gengar like Audino does, but this in turn adds more fairy weaknesses which you might be okay with you you could switch Gyara to Pogre if it's too much. It's just a case of tweaking something and then trying to patch the new weaknesses the change makes.

There are probably sets you could change your slowbro to that would help somewhat with Regigigas, but if you're keeping Soundproof (which you are mainly using it for) then it isn't going to be a good regigigas answer.

Not much to say but thanks, will keep in mind when I revise to hopefully get this in a sample.

There are some other small issues with the team (weak to kartana, what sort of thing) but they aren't as crucial as checking regigigas properly etc. It's good to see your improofing is solid (except for Gyara) and you've clearly been reading up on things like the RMT you mentioned which is by a really good player who almost everyone can learn something from - it's nice to know that you're serious about improving and it's really encouraging when rating etc.

Thanks! The only reasons I use Gyarados are: to absorb MMY’s Psycho Boost on a switch and get a free knock off on any pokemon, use of spectral thief outside of absorbing stat boosts, and immunity to prankster. Otherwise, POgre is a choice I haven’t looked into much. I’ll give it some thought (I’ll probably change it, though.)

As an aside give Chansey full special attack EVs because it makes a difference if you transform into something and use doom desire then switch, also I like to have 55 happiness for things using frustration (not 0 so return still does a bit). I also like soft boiled for chansey but I have no justification for that. Also run full special attack on everything unless there is a specific reason not to because of power split or something.

Another huge oversight, thanks for pointing this out!

You might have seen it since you're familiar with Rout, but check out aki0s' RMT, Sunday. He's another good player who you can learn from his teambuilding and what threats he talks about covering in the descriptions.

Sunday was beautiful, and I forgot to mention it as an inspiration, LOL.

Thanks so much for always being a positive influence on the BH community; your insights are invaluable!