SS OU double twave bulky offense ft. steel beam magnezone, hit top 300 (peaked 1770)

[steki desu]

Hey all, I've had some recent success with this team so I thought I'd share it. Feedback would be great.

Team Building Process

This is a great offensive core that I enjoyed using on some past teams. Rillaboom w/ U-turn synergizes well with Dragapult, as Specs Dragapult often beats the standard checks to it (two hit kills Togekiss after some chip, Corviknight/Skarm/Tang get merked by flamethrower, Mandibuzz after some chip gets 2HKOd by draco, etc).

Since I am using two choiced mons that like to pivot constantly, wish teleport support would be ideal. So, I'm using clefable, who also serves as a check vs Urshifu, Dragapult, Zeraora and a bunch of other stuff. It's hard to kill and heals stuff up and yeah we all know what Clefable does.

For my defensive backbone, I thought to use defensive Slowbro and spdef Tyranitar.

Slowbro can handle most physical attackers, especially Excadrill. It can switch in, teleport, and bring in one in one of my wallbreakers for free. In addition, it's annoying for the opponent to switch into with the combination of Scald/Twave, which prevents it from serving as setup fodder for mons like Volcarona.

My team still needed a rocker and a way to beat special attackers (especially Volcarona), so I chose to use Tyranitar, which also supports the team with status and sandstorm chip.

Finally, Wish-passing + U-turn/Teleport support from Clefable, Slowbro, Rillaboom and Dragapult helps yet another wallbreaker, and I chose to use Specs Magnezone with steel beam. This pokemon is insane with wish passing, as it can fire off multiple Specs analytic boosted steel beams and devastate teams. This pokemon also has decent defensive utility, checking pokemon such as banded rillaboom.


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Team:

Rillaboom @ Choice Band
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Wood Hammer
- U-turn
- Grassy Glide
- Knock Off

I'm using the choice band set. Nothing much to say here, double stab/knock kills most things and U-turn gains momentum on the things it can't such as bulky birds. I'm using band instead of the SD set here because I'd prefer to start wall breaking immediately after a pivot, rather than waste a turn on SDing. Additionally, the U-turn helps maintain the momentum, which is a big point of the team.

Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Hex
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- U-turn

Specs set. I'm running Hex as I have two status abusers. Flamethrower is needed to beat normally problematic pokemon like Ferrothorn, Corviknight, Skarmory and Tangrowth, and U-turn is to preserve momentum from other teammates. Modest is needed for the extra boost in power, as without it, it fails two-hit kill common defensive pokemon.

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Teleport
- Wish
- Moonblast
- Protect

You know what this does.

Slowbro @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Thunder Wave
- Slack Off
- Teleport

Toxapex is bulkier as a water-type physical wall, but this mon is preferred on this team for its statusing and teleport support. This mon also benefits from Excadrill's insane usage, as Excadrill can't even dent it and always lets Slowbro tp to another wallbreaker for free. T-wave cripples common switchins like Dragapult, Primarina, Mandibuzz, etc and Scald burns the rest. One could use future sight to help chip pokemon and also help ease the matchup vs Amoonguss, but I prefer the status support for late-game dragapult sweep.

Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Rock Blast
- Fire Blast
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock

Tyranitar completes my defense backbone by taking care of special attackers. As mentioned, this mon primarily serves as a stopper to Volcarona, but I still enjoy its use in other matchups. It walls nearly every special attacker to oblivion outside of a boosted Alakazam, which it can beat anyway by dodging focus blast. The fire blast tech is to surprise switch-ins like scizor, skarmory, ferrothorn and rocky helmet tangrowth. Finally, T-wave is needed to annoy all the other switch-ins. It may seem strange to also be running T-wave on this mon, but in practice it helps a TON as it beats all of the common switch-ins like rillaboom, urshifu, and scizor. Usually in play, ttar ends up paralyzing 2+ mons, which helps a late-game Dragapult sweep as it essentially turns hex into a ghost-type draco meteor.

Magnezone @ Choice Specs
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon
- Steel Beam

Finally, the GOAT. In nearly every game I've played, this mon puts in a ton of work.

Against most teams, steel beam makes magnezone go from "hard to switch into" to "impossible to switch into". Steel beam has a >50% chance to OHKO Zeraora and Amoonguss, and can even kill max SpDef Excadrill if it's chipped enough. Magnezone often ends up being the MVP of the match, as it chips everything for a shitload in the early game and kills a bunch of stuff as no one expects steel beam to kill their switch-in. If played properly, this Magnezone can often fire out 3-4 steel beams a match with wish support.

As for the other moves, double stab for obvious reasons (tbolt is notable as it prevents opposing magnezone from switching in), and volt switch helps for pivoting. On this team, volt switch is rarely used as it is almost always preferable to just kill something, so I can see if someone wanted to use body press instead.

Notable calcs:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Magnezone Steel Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zeraora: 294-346 (92.7 - 109.1%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Magnezone Steel Beam vs. 248 HP / 92 SpD Amoonguss: 406-478 (94.1 - 110.9%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Magnezone Steel Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 333-393 (79.2 - 93.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Magnezone Steel Beam vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Excadrill: 252-297 (69.8 - 82.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

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Threats

Tyranitar is realistically the only thing stopping this beast (as Dragapult draco doesn't ohko after the quiver), which means this pokemon autowins if Ttar is chipped enough. Unboosted bug buzz does 36-43 and +1 Bug Buzz does 50-60, so Tyranitar really needs to be healthy at all costs and can't always just freely switch in.

Assault vest or high spdef variants of these pokemon annoy my team. With enough spdef, they can survive Magnezone's steel beam and Dragapult's attacks and switch out to freely gain health back thanks to regenerator. I typically deal with these mons by statusing them or denting them with Rillaboom Knock Off so that Dragapult can eventually kill them, but its still a difficult time. One may use future sight on slowbro instead of T-wave to help deal with amoonguss, but I believe T-wave helps in every other matchup a lot more.

My team lacks a proper counter to Rillaboom, and relies on switching around Dragapult/Magnezone/Slowbro to check it which isn't exactly ideal especially if hazards are up. SD variants of this mon especially can devastate my team in the lategame. Thankfully, none of my pokemon let in Rillaboom that easily (especially thanks to double T-wave). Most of the time, this mon ends up getting paralyzed and I find myself able to revenge kill it easily with most of my pokemon.

Teams that revolve around hazards in general (especially tspikes) fuck my team up hard. I have no taunters, heavy duty boots users, heal bell users, or defoggers and almost every pokemon on my team is grounded. I have to rely on wishpassing to deal with the residual chip and overwhelming the opponent before succumbing to the passive damage in order to win.


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Thanks for reading. Any suggestions at all would be helpful.

 

[SLDR]

Nice team, although I have a couple boots to suggest you. Rillaboom + Magnezone + Dragapult is a fine core, but I would tweak a few things, and by that I mean giving some boots and a change of moves. Your team has 5 mon with a momentum move. With this kind of strategy, hazard control is very key because you force switches but you also switch a lot. This is why my suggestion is giving HDB to both Slowbro and Dragapult. These two and Clefable tend to see a lot of action thus it's helpful to have such item to get onto the field safely. Plus, Grassy Terrain can offset sand damage on Slowbro and HDB ensures that Dragapult stays healthy in case it has to withstand the insanity that is +2 Grassy Glide from Rillaboom.

Another thing that you mentioned was a better move on Slowbro to scare those Grass types. The easiest way to achieve this is through Fire coverage directly on Slowbro. It would arguably be less consistent overall, but luring is an amazing strategy and with Zone to "trap" the metal birds, you actually remove quite a lot of obstacles for Rillaboom, which may become the best win condition. On that note, I understand Analytic since the real bait for Corv and Skarm is Fire Blast on Tyranitar, but Magnet Pull is better to permanently remove those and ease Rillaboom a lot. Also, I would definitely include Adamant SD Scizor in the threatlist because if you let it boost on Clefable it's a wrap. BP demolishes 2/3 of the team and Knock Off kills the rest. You can bait it ofc but be extremely cautious

 

[steki desu]

Nice team, although I have a couple boots to suggest you. Rillaboom + Magnezone + Dragapult is a fine core, but I would tweak a few things, and by that I mean giving some boots and a change of moves. Your team has 5 mon with a momentum move. With this kind of strategy, hazard control is very key because you force switches but you also switch a lot. This is why my suggestion is giving HDB to both Slowbro and Dragapult. These two and Clefable tend to see a lot of action thus it's helpful to have such item to get onto the field safely. Plus, Grassy Terrain can offset sand damage on Slowbro and HDB ensures that Dragapult stays healthy in case it has to withstand the insanity that is +2 Grassy Glide from Rillaboom.

Another thing that you mentioned was a better move on Slowbro to scare those Grass types. The easiest way to achieve this is through Fire coverage directly on Slowbro. It would arguably be less consistent overall, but luring is an amazing strategy and with Zone to "trap" the metal birds, you actually remove quite a lot of obstacles for Rillaboom, which may become the best win condition. On that note, I understand Analytic since the real bait for Corv and Skarm is Fire Blast on Tyranitar, but Magnet Pull is better to permanently remove those and ease Rillaboom a lot. Also, I would definitely include Adamant SD Scizor in the threatlist because if you let it boost on Clefable it's a wrap. BP demolishes 2/3 of the team and Knock Off kills the rest. You can bait it ofc but be extremely cautious

These are good suggestions (especially HDP on Slowbro), though I am unsure on HDB on Dragapult as it is often my lategame wincon for a specs hex sweep. I usually mitigate hazard chip on Dragapult by wishpassing, but I do understand your point.

I don't agree with magnet pull on Magnezone as the extra boost in power is really helpful for nuking problematic mons like Tang and Amoonguss with steel beam. If I were to put fire blast on Slowbro, though, I would definitely consider it. But tbh, that would lose the heat factor of OHKOing shit like Zeraora and Amoonguss with my zone which is one of my favorite parts about my team lol.

Thanks for the suggestions though, especially HDP and Fire Blast on Slowbro. Also, you're completely right about scizor - I forgot about that mon. That thing demolishes me. Usually, I end up paralyzing it and beating it with zone, but a well played scizor would definitely destroy me lol