OU DPP OU Teambuilding Competition

[Ara ara]

Untitled 6310 (pokepast.es)

I first wanted to build something using wide lens Jynx but gave up on it as I didn't find a way to make it work and ended up building a steel-less take on generic hail stall after all.

Walrein was the first mon I decided to use since it's super dumb once it works. I decided to use surf over blizzard since I didn't want to give heatran any free switch ins as the team struggles enough against it as it is. Roar helps against DD Gyarados lacking Taunt and allows to for more hazard damage and poison spread via T-Spikes which I was sure to add on the team. Toxic Spikes support is also why I omitted running Toxic on Walrein.

There's no point in running Walrein outside of Hail, thus the addition of Abomasnow was a given. High Spdef to better switch into the plethora of water types which is is known to capitalize on. Leech Seed is obnoxious since grass types don't want to come in to absorb the seed in fear of Aboma's Ice Stab. Protect to Scout and rack up Hail + Seeds damage as well as heal of leeds and lefties.

Tentacruel is a proven partner for Abomasnow as it switches in on fighting and fire type moves directed at the tree and provides support with Rapid Spin, which the ice type duo loves due to them both being weak to rocks, as well as setting Toxic Spikes which add more passive damage to the table and enable the Walrein to stall effectively. It also absorbs toxic spikes itself, which is nice. Blizzard appreciates the accuracy gained due to hail and allows Tentacruel to threaten serious damage to Breloom and also dents the occasional roserade trying to come in to absorb toxic spikes.

This little demon provides the obligatory stealth rocks to the team and knocks off opposing items, thus preventing leftovers from counteracting the hail chip all the while not caring about weather and hazards itself.

Gliscor leads this team to the battlefield, stifling slower lead's attempts at setting up hazards or spread status with taunt or u-turning back into the team to wait for a better matchup or break opposing stall later in the game. Its great typing also provides an appreciated immunity to both ground and electric type moves, which incidentally are the weaknesses of the team's spinner as well as pretty common offensive moves as well.

This underrated fellow closes things out with being the spinblocker, preventing opposing attempts at removing the valuable toxic spikes or rocks from their side of the battlefield. It's also the much needed true counter to Machamp which would otherwise be ready for rapture due to the team's triple fighting weakness and the fact that Gliscor is sadly KOed by Ice Punch while not being able to threaten all too much back at the Champ. On top of that it provides WoW Support for Jirachi and stuff flying/levitating above Tspikes as well as the valuable Pursuit to pick off Starmies that is previously spinblocked and Gengar which could otherwise mess up the team really bad. Pressure is nice as well as it allows to drain PP much faster, thus reducing the threat of Pokémon that rely on moves with already low starting PP as well as giving it a real shot at stalling out Jirachi's Iron Head PP with Rest and the Immunity to Body slam.

The most glaing weakness I stumbled upon is Taunt-DD-Gyarados, since it's immune to tspikes and prevents phazing, especially if fielding stone edge. You're also in for a world of hurt if you accidentally Will-o-Wisp a Heatran on the switch, as Tentacruel has no reliable recovery.

 

[Jeong]

TSpikes + Weavile boom.

He knew it was difficult to find a good balance with an ice-type mon like a hail team but he did not imagine that much difficulty. They are usually similar teams and it is difficult to be original.
Well, I had a clear idea of using TSpikes since I have never tried such a combination before and less with Weavile. Basically the strategy is to press with SR + TSpikes with Weavile's offense and the TR zong + CB ttar combo for example. Zone is vital there always has to be one behind those pesky Skarm / Scizor. Scarf allows me to be able to catch things like Lucario and be able to finish him off + Pursuit Weavile vs Starm / Gengar.

 

[Christos]

Mamoswine's Musth :
Substitute Mamoswine + Magnezone Physical Offense

This is yet another take on the ever popular physical offensive archetype, which features Substitute Mamoswine + Magnezone. I feel that Sub Mamoswine has a niche in these offenses as it's quite nice versus Rotom-A (most defensive variants can't touch it behind a Sub and Scarf variants can be setup fodder for Mamo), it threatens the OHKO on Dragonite & Flygon (ScarfGon's Thunder Punch, in particular, is a free turn for Mamo) and it can be quite a pain for the more defensively oriented teams (101 HP Subs + Knock Off + Earthquake exert lots of pressure). Magnezone helps us remove Skarmory, Bronzong and Jirachi, which lets us take the most out of this Mamoswine set and also facilitates our Dragon Dancers. Last but not least, I opted for this particular Gyarados set because of its nice synergy with Mamoswine and its utility versus other physical setup sweepers.

Shout-outs to Kristyl and mael for the inspiration, as they have previously wrecked me with this Mamoswine set.

 

[oiponabys]

Since there wasn't a lot of teams this week, I figured I could share a team style that I love but isn't popular nor explored, yet whenever I ask dominant players they seem to have split opinions on it. I'm talking about gravity teams, featuring the awesome Mamoswine.

This post will not just be a team share but also a summary of what's been explored on the playstyle and what could be looked at to improve it.

Hey, but I don't know what the move Gravity is !

Gravity is a move that, similarly to trick room, changes the field for 5 turns (including the turn the move is used). During 5 turns, any ground immunity (due to flying type, levitate, or magnet rise) is canceled and the accuracy of moves is increased by 3/5. There are few moves that cannot be used during gravity, but they aren't very good anyway.

This means a couple of things:
- Once gravity is up there are no earthquake/earth power resists aside from grass types
- Spikes and toxic spikes affects everyone: Gengar and crobat will absorb toxic spikes, while Latias and zapdos will get damaged/poisoned upon entry.
- Any move above 60% accuracy will always hit under gravity. This can be abused with moves like Thunder or focus blast for example.

What were the previous attempts/articles featuring gravity ?

https://www.pokebip.com/fora/viewtopic.php?t=14175 ( if you can read french )
Unfortunately not a very good team and 2 banned pokes but we can see ground spam and interesting features such as U-turn Gravity Jirachi as to prevent Heatran from posing problem.




https://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/gravity_guide
Fairly thorough guide on DPP Gravity, unfortunately outdated and puts options that don't seem too good in practice (defensive gravity, Dusknoir).
The article mentions a couple of keys mons and the 2 keys to make gravity successful: Ground spam and Sleep moves.
Alsongside various test, one could figure out a list of good gravity members:

• Gravity users to consider, From good to junk :

/ / / other mons

• Gravity abusers:

/ / Other Earthquake-Sleep Users




Found on aim's paste, don't know who the original builder was. It uses the best gravity setters and abusers together and it's pretty close to the "ideal" offensive gravity team one would build today.



A team experiement of a different type of gravity offense using Hypnosis Gengar + Physically based mixGon. While the team isn't so great, it won me some games during winter seasonal. I assume a more balanced approach would be more fitting, something like the following :

This would take an approach similar to an SM Gravity ladder team that was used few years ago.

The team​

Hey, I Skipped the 2 previous sections : Gravity's keys to victory are ground spam and sleep moves (which become 92+ accuracy moves under gravity). Here we'll use the 3 best abusers in mamo+Flygon+Shaymin, combined with 3 setters that combine typing, bulk and smooth transition to the abusers.

​

Small description of the team/move choices

Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- U-turn
- Thunder Punch
​

Flygon is the late game cleaner and a good gravity abuser. Because I didnt have a proper lead, it is kind of tossed up there. U-turn ensures the early game is fine as long as Flygon is not facing lead machamp. Not much else to say, Gravity means I will prefer an adamant nature, and I'm not too weak to opposing flygons/DDtar so its ok.

Bronzong @ Custap Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Gravity​

One pokémon that might surprise some because metagross isn't taking the spot. The reason why I chose bronzong over metagross is because just like on rain teams, Bronzong allows a swing in momentum with its typing and levitate that Metagross can't. Metagross also has an opportunity cost when using support moves, something that doesn't bother Bronzong as much. I gave him physdef as it ended up as a convenient ddtar/metagross check for the team, while jirachi was better at absorbing dracos.

Shaymin @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 Def
- Seed Flare
- Earth Power
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Grass Whistle ​

Ground resist, suicune answer and sleep abuser, shaymin is the n°1 Gravity abuser of this team.The gameplan is to send shaymin as the first sweeper and not mamoswine, even tho it's very tempting. Because of sleep and bulk, shaymin forces more damage on the opposing team than mamoswine early on, while minimising the odds of being forced out and losing momentum before gravity ends.

Starmie @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 136 HP / 156 SpA / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Gravity
- Rapid Spin​

Infernape answer and speed control, Starmie is tasked with the difficult job of spinning against rotoms and scarfed tyranitars. Hazard stack is a massive pain to gravity teams, because you usually give several turns to skarmory when you set up gravity. This spread ensures a 2HKO on restalk rotom after rocks, so you can double hydro, spin with the small hp investment, then set gravity to allow another entry for shaymin or a first entry for mamoswine.
Another spread is 100/192/216+, which guarantees an ohko on 0/0 gyara. (Don't use Thunder on Starmie because you won't be under gravity when you will actually need it, so you would have to close your eyes everytime you have to check gyarados)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH (Mamoswine) @ Life Orb
Ability: Oblivious
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
IVs: 29 HP
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Stone Edge
- Blizzard ​

Mamoswine is what everyone thinks of when they think of gravity. While choice band would be awesome, I think life orb is the move here. Combined with Blizzard, it allows us to dispose of gravity ennemy n°1 and 2: Celebi and Hippowdon.


252 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 220+ Def Celebi: 78-93 (19.3 - 23%) -- 8.6% chance to 4HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Life Orb Mamoswine Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Celebi: 254-300 (62.8 - 74.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and Leftovers recovery
With rocks and sand on the field, a combination of Eq + Blizzard has a high chance of 2OHKOing celebi as it switches in.

As for Hippowdon:
4 SpA Life Orb Mamoswine Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Hippowdon: 332-392 (79 - 93.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Life Orb Mamoswine Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 222-264 (52.8 - 62.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

Blizzard also takes care of Breloom and once gravity is gone, physdef Skarmory and reflect latias.
Mamoswine is easily forced out by Jirachi (among others) which means you have to sleep what bothers it with Shaymin first.

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Def / 184 SpD / 32 Spe
Careful Nature
- Fire Punch
- Iron Head
- U-turn
- Gravity
​

This is the draco switch in. While Jirachi learns gravity and a plethora of moves, it is not a great abuser of it, so we use its unique trait of being a Gravity setter with u-turn. This is especially useful against comps featuring Heatran + Choiced latias as you can u-turn to mamoswine juste after the draco. Overall just a great glue for the team.
The defense investment survives +1 DDtar after rocks.

 

[Cubic Skunk]

https://pokepast.es/68b76329d333d586

I built this team 3 months ago iirc. I wanted to build around Abomasnow since it's my favorite pokemon, and I chose the SD Set to help mitigate the issue of aboma's somewhat wanting attack stat. The rest of the moves on abomasnow are fairly self explanatory; Ice shard is a good stab priority move, and with swords dance boost it destroys flygon, gliscor and dragonite. It also in general is good for picking off weakened targets. Wood hammer is a strong stab move, and earthquake lets it nail heatran while also allowing it to threaten things like infernape, lucario and jirachi once they get paralyzed. Since it has sd to boost its attack, abomasnow can run leftovers as its item to slowly heal back health and heal off wood hammer recoil. The EV's in speed let it outrun spedef heatran and obliterate it with earthquake without paralysis support. I maxed out its attack evs and then dumped the rest of the evs into hp.

Jirachi is the bread and butter of para spam builds, and this one is no exception. It's obnoxious combo of serene grace and iron head and body slam makes it both a great user and abuser of paralysis. It also provides stealth rock support for the team, and it can pass wishes to teammates to heal them up. This jirachi was originally more speedy and had fire punch over wish, but when I was building the team, pideous pointed out that the team was very weak to dd tar. He and Hellpowna helped me do some revising with the team, and they suggested changing it to a physically defensive set to make it better vs ddtar, and adding wish to it help heal teammates up if starmie goes down and can't remove hazards. Wish support is also just really helpful in general.

Speaking of which...

Starmie compresses a ton of roles and provides a lot of support the team really likes. It provides rapin spin support to clear away stealth rock and spikes (the former of which is especially annoying for aboma and gyarados), it provides a fighting and fire resist, and it provides another mon to spread para. It also loves abomasnow being able to switch into scarf rotom and soak up it's thunderbolt.

Magnezone provides para support, but it also provides a way to forcefully destroy steel types like scizor, skarm and forry that abomasnow hates fighting, and it also can pick off a weakened bronzong in a pinch. It also can surprise things that would otherwise outspeed it and either thunderbolt or explode on them.

I added CB tyranitar since i wanted another strong para abuser. CB tar is a nasty para abuser and it also can pursuit trap rotom trying to spin block starmie. Gengar is another story though, since it has focus blast, making ttar not a reliable answer to it. However, if gar is paralyzed, ttar can deal with it without a problem, and scarf zone is great at surprising and either paralyzing or ko'ing gar itself.

Hellpowna had the genius idea of adding crogyara to the team. The team is very weak to breloom (as are a lot of my teams, even those with several things that threaten it), so a sleep absorber is a god send for the team. it also provides a good mixgon answer and and fire and fighting resist. It's a really neat choice, and one that's been really helpful.

As for the team's strengths, its very good against suicune teams and teams with a lot of water types. Abomasnow dominates water types (bar stone edge gyarados), and is one of the few things that can claim to turn swampert into set up fodder. It also completely counters suicune and is great into starmie and non-sd empoleon. It also does very good vs dragon types with the combo of abomasnow, cb tar and crogyara.

The team is very weak to breloom as I mentioned before, and dd tar can be really annoying. I have to be really carefully when playing around them.

Special thanks to Pideous and hellpowna for helping me refine the team :D

 

[Kristyl]

I got a but busy with the holidays, sorry for being late with this.

- Team 1 by Ara ara

- Team 2 by Kiry4n

- Team 3 by Christos

- Team 4 by oiponabys

- Team 5 by Cubic Skunk

Voting is now open and will close next Mondy around 6pm GMT-5. Good luck everyone!

 

[Jirachee]

Team 2 (team 1 was a close runner-up for me)

 

[John Madden]

Team 2 for me

 

[mael]

team 3

 

[Pideous]

team 4

 

[Student of Sinnoh]

team 4

 

[snøfall]

3

 

[Cubic Skunk]

Team 4

 

[Jeong]

Team 3.

 

[afterburn]

Team 2. I’m a big fan of the Queen on offense.

 

[Rubyblood]

Team 3

 

[TheLonelyNIhilego]

Team 3

 

[KiruxOnTheFlux]

Team 4

 

[Ara ara]

Is this paused for the duration of SPL?

Also voting for Team 3 if it's still possible.

 

[crayon pop]

team number 5 by cubic skunk

 

[Heika]

5 too

 

[Jeong]

Is this still alive?

 

[TheLonelyNIhilego]

can this thread be revived pls

 

[Pakawaka]

team 5

 

[Cubic Skunk]

With permission from Kristyl and 16bit , I'm taking over hosting duties and starting up the teambuilding competition :D

To start off I'm gonna choose a classic mon in the tier that, although it spent a couple years not doing so hot, it's now made a comeback and is going strong. Everybody's favorite fire monkey, and my personal favorite pokemon in the tier, Infernape!



To make things easier for the first time doing this in a while, I'm not gonna restrict the sets. You can use whatever set you want, from the classic mixed set to the lesser seen but still terrifying CB set. Submissions are open now and will close on March 21, 2023 at 11:59 PM EST, and from there we'll move onto voting, which will close on March 28 at 11:59 PM EST.

I'm so happy to have been able to bring this back, and I can't wait to see some cool submissions :D Happy building!