VGC Gmax-Lapras Bulky Offense

[ChiefWek]

Quick context for this RMT, I am relatively new to VGC, thought I'd get into it and try playing it during quarantine after talking to a couple of friends. Used to play USUM UU a lot and dabbled in the other singles tiers (primarily OU and LC). Preferred play-style is Bulky Offense, which does not seem as "well-defined" in VGC as it is in singles. First time RMT.

So the idea for this team was to build around G-max Lapras because I thought the G-max move was super cool and I'm a fan of the pokemon. Peaked around 1550 on the ladder. I try to play this team relatively aggressively, usually trying to decide games by the time my aurora veil wears off.

Lapras-Gmax @ Light Clay
Ability: Shell Armor
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Freeze-Dry
- Hydro Pump
- Perish Song
- Thunderbolt

Free-dry, hydro pump, and thunderbolt are relatively self-explanatory (stab plus electricity coverage). I thought perish song would be a cool tech tho, especially if I can knock out two of their pokemon while I still have three or four, and the put a timer on them. It's definitely caught a lot of people off guard and won me a few games, especially because the majority of my other pokemon can take some hits and last it out.

Conkeldurr @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Mach Punch
- Drain Punch
- Protect
- Rock Slide

Next pokemon is conkeldurr. I choose guts flame orb to hit a bit harder. This was added on a newer version of the team, when I felt like i had some trouble with some bulky threats, especially tyranitarr. Drain and mach self-explanatory, protect if i think they can attack me and sometimes to wait for lapras to g-max. Rockslide helps with the flying types, and breaking any potential sashes, as well as a flinch chance. Max hp max attack to just be bulky and hit hard.

Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance
- Rock Slide
- High Horsepower

Next pokemon was excadrill. This started out as Lucario, but I felt like excadrill had a better second typing while keeping the steel (and conkeldurr was added to the team so fighting was made redundant). Very standard set from what i can see, helps against the overwhelming presence of fairy types I see. Sash can help eat a hit, and I commonly like to lead with this and lapras because I feel like it counters/checks many things people like to lead off into lapras (rock types, electric types).

Mimikyu @ Choice Band
Ability: Disguise
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Trick
- Taunt
- Play Rough
- Shadow Claw

Mimikyu went through a few iterations, but started out more bulky, but I eventually figured through playing that the speed would be nice, and I felt like it would be more useful, especially disguise already eats a hit. Current iteration has it running band with trick to help counter trick room, and in other matches if I bring this, I keep the band often to hit hard. This is the main trick room answer on the team, it isn't the best, but it feels playable to me.

Duraludon @ Lum Berry
Ability: Light Metal
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flash Cannon
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Protect

Duraludon replaced toxtricity on an earlier version of the team for me, I wanted a nice special attacker with a bit of speed, and I felt like duraludon had nice coverage and a decent speed stat. Dark pulse helps against ghost types which the team felt weak against before, and dual stab helps. Lum berry helps against sleep spam, and I used to just insta-lose to that (mainly venusaur with drought). Protect as this often seems to be the target of many attacks trying to one shot it.

Gyarados @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 140 HP / 196 Atk / 172 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Bounce
- Power Whip
- Stone Edge

Last pokemon is AV gyrados. I fee like the last two moves (power whip and stone edge) catch many people off guard and helps me get rid of things like charizard and gastrodon. It brings intimidate which helps against some physical attackers, and obviously has AV. I don't bring this as often, but when I do, it feels really useful and one of my favorite pokemon on the team.

Weaknesses:
Trick Room: My main (and kind of only) answer to trick room is mimikyu with band trick taunt, and it puts in work sometimes, but not always. I used to have toxtricity for another taunt which made facing trick room really easy, but I replaced that for duraladon.
Longer Games: I feel like this team excels at shorter games, but when I get into some longer games, especially stuff like parting shot spam and heal spam, I feel like I just bleed out and can't break through as often. Often requires finding an opportunity for excadrill to SD up to win. I mentioned up in the beginning that usually the game is decided before/when veil drops.
Heal Spam/Ally Switch: Mentioned a bit in the last bullet, but I feel like this does not go well for me when I run into some of these teams, and I feel like I just can't break through some pokemon, and sometimes it just feels like if I lose a 50/50 with ally swap, the games over early. This very well could just be my inexperience with VGC as a prior singles player.
Sun: This team often has trouble dealing with sun teams, especially ones with sleep powder spam. The first turn often feels really bad, as charizard almost one shots lapras, or venusaur puts something to sleep.
Sableye: I added this as an edit, I forgot to mention that I usually don't know how to play against sableye and it usually messes me up with too wide of an array of supportive moves (trick eject button is a common problem), and I can't kill it fast enough for it not to be a severe annoyance most times.

Direction of team: I welcome any feedback/constructive criticism about this team, whether it's big or small.

Thank you for reading and potentially responding to this post, I appreciate any suggestions! Have a nice day!

 

[RebornFX]

Really cool team, and considering you're new to VGC this is a really solid start. Any suggestions I would make aren't necessarily improvements and would need to be tested and tweaked, but I'll just point out a few things that I noticed.

Personally, I would focus on making a trick room mode centred around G-Max Lapras, Conkeldurr and a trick room setter. G-Max Lapras, Conkeldurr and Dusclops are already the core in both of Fevzi's popular Lapras teams (which I imagine you have seen since you are using the same Lapras spread from his team that had Alcremie.) It's a really nice core which is super solid in a variety of matchups, though from my experience it can kind of struggle against hard trick room teams as their sweepers will all underspeed Conkeldurr and Lapras. I'd then use the remaining team members to have an anti-trick room mode and to patch up weaknesses.

If you're going this route, my first suggestion would be Dusclops>Mimikyu. With its natural bulk and with pain split, Dusclops makes better use of Lapras' screens, and Haze can remove opposing stat boosts and remove stat drops, specifically Intimidates on Conkeldurr. I also think Life Orb Iron Fist>Flame Orb Guts Conkeldurr makes a lot more sense in this kind of core. This gives Conkeldurr access to Iron Fist boosted Thunder Punch, which is super valuable for the core to deal with bulky waters, namely Milotic and Primarina, the former of which can set up Coils and spam Hypnosis, and the latter can spam Moonblast while Lapras can't really touch them while it is dynamaxed. I think Guts would probably be better when Conkeldurr is dynamaxing more frequently, as it doesn't lose the Guts boost after dynamaxing while you would lose Iron Fist, as well as being a status absorber and being less afraid of Will-o-Wisp. In this case however, the benefit of not having to waste a turn of trick room or switch your Conkeldurr in to get your damage boost definitely outweighs any benefit that Guts has. Detect>Protect is probably also ideal on the off chance someone Imprisons your Protect. I also think having Perish Song without Protect on Lapras is a mistake. Protect makes Perish Song a much more consistent win condition, to the point that I would argue that if you're winning through Perish Song without the use of Protect, you likely would have won the game regardless.

I know it kind of looks like I'm trying to turn your team in to Fevzi's team, but really for this sort of bulky trick room mode I think these choices he made are ideal. With the remaining members, I would be tempted to go with an anti-trick room mode for going against hard trick room teams. An idea for this could be the Weakness Policy Duraludon set that Sejun Park used. The idea is that your partner goes first and uses Earthquake (bypassing redirection, as it's a spread move) and at +2 Duraludon can bypass any redirection with Stalwart and a Max Darkness always OHKOs Dusclops after EQ chip. If you went this route, you would probably want to swap Stone Edge for Earthquake on Gyarados (which I would probably do anyway, as there isn't a whole lot that Stone Edge hits that EQ doesn't, Max Quake boosts are nice while Sand does nothing for this team and it helps to hit Coalossal without worrying about Steam Engine/Sun), and going with Modest Duraludon and Jolly Gyarados with at least enough speed to outspeed Duraludon. I would also drop Rock Slide for Earthquake on Excadrill, both to proc Duraludon's Weakness Policy and as a way to get around redirection and to clean late game. I would to go with Protect>Swords Dance, as it synergises better with Perish Song, Swords Dance is rarely a safe option as you don't have any form of redirection and really I just think it makes more sense.

So if you wanted to go this route, these are the spreads I would recommend:

Importable

Lapras-Gmax @ Light Clay
Ability: Shell Armor
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Freeze-Dry
- Hydro Pump
- Perish Song
- Protect

Conkeldurr @ Life Orb
Ability: Iron Fist
Level: 50
EVs: 228 HP / 252 Atk / 28 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Mach Punch
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Detect

Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 220 HP / 132 Def / 156 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 6 Spe
- Night Shade
- Trick Room
- Haze
- Pain Split

Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
- High Horsepower
- Protect

Duraludon @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Stalwart
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flash Cannon
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Protect

Gyarados @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 140 HP / 116 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Waterfall
- Bounce
- Power Whip
- Earthquake

Lapras and Conkeldurr sets are carbon copies of Fevzi's. Conk hits a Life Orb number (10n-1) meaning it minimises Life Orb recoil (takes 20 damage per attack rather than 21). Dusclops is basically the same, only the HP number minimises Burn/Sand/Hail damage (it's a 16n-1 number), plus technically having lower max HP means Pain Split does more damage, not that it matters. This set lives a jolly life orb Max Phantasm from Dragapult (as does Fevzi's). Max speed on Gyarados makes sense considering you need 188 EVs in order to outspeed your Duraludon, you might as well outspeed timid Togekiss. Having said that, I'm not so sure how necessary max speed is on Duraludon, so feel free to mess with the spreads on both.

With these changes however, you become quite susceptible to sleep, so you may want to consider sticking a Lum Berry on something, probably Gyarados. Something to consider is the team doesn't have a means of preventing Prankster Copycat Trick room, though this is quite gimmicky and not very common. Just if you are facing a Liepard + Trick room setter that might Dynamax you kind of just need to concede to the fact that trick room is going up.

If you don't choose to make any of these changes and want to stick more closely to your current team, then here are some more minor suggestions I can make.

Thunder>Thunderbolt on Lapras. Considering the fact that the vast majority of the time you will be bringing Lapras you intend to dynamax it, the additional 10 BP that Max Lightning gets seems very worth it. Coupled with the fact that after a Max Geyser they are 100% accurate, it has 20 more BP and a higher paralysis chance, for how infrequently you will be clicking this move without dynamaxing I think it's a no brainer.

Run 212 HP EVs on Conkeldurr. This makes your HP stat a 16n-1 number, meaning you take 12 damage per turn from burn rather than 13.

Protect>Rock Slide on Excadrill. I just think this will be useful in more situations than Rock Slide would be. Protects you from Fake Out picking you off after your down to your sash, allows your partner to take out priority mons, helps you position etc.

Change the Mimikyu set. Life Orb would make a lot more sense if it isn't being used by another member. Taunting a trick room setter is obviously much safer than tricking them a choice item, as they still are able to switch out and still have trick room up. I would consider replacing Trick and Shadow Claw with Shadow Sneak and Phantom Force. Phantom Force makes playing around Protect easier, and can help stall Dynamax and Perish Song turns, though it also stalls your own turns of screens so there's that to consider.

Stalwart on Duraludon. I assume this was just a mistake.

Earthquake>Stone Edge on Gyarados. For the reasons I stated earlier.

Hope my ramblings at least somewhat help you out. If you want me to clarify anything please let me know. Otherwise yeah I'd love some updates on how this team evolves

 

[FighterVGC]

The two changes I would make to the team are Mimikyu and Duraludon. On Mimikyu I don't like the idea of running Taunt + Choice Band as that will just lock you into Taunting, at least with something like if you were running Choice Scarf then Taunt would get a benefit of coming out faster vs Pokemon that are faster support mons than Mimikyu, but with Choice Band, you are just locked in without a benefit unless you Trick first which is just a free turn for the opponent to use a status move.

Mimikyu @ Lum Berry
Ability: Disguise
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Trick Room
- Phantom Force
- Shadow Sneak
- Play Rough

Instead this is closer to the set that I would recommend as you can use Trick Room again as a way to reverse the opponent's Trick Room. Personally I don't like Lum Berry on Duraludon and so this allows you to still have a way to protect against Status moves. Lastly, because you now have your own Trick Room mode you can have Mimikyu paired with Conkeldurr and use that as an option vs non-Trick Room teams or teams that might be weak to Trick Room.

The other Pokemon Duraludon I would give it a Life Orb as a way to deal more Damage since it is such a good special attacker. I would, more importantly, replace Light Metal for its Hidden Ability Stalwart as it ignores redirection which gives you a way to ignore Follow Me and Ally Switch.

The only other thing would be that if Gyarados isn't being brought often then maybe replace it for a different Pokemon. My personal preference would be Tyranitar as it gives you something to better deal with Sun and also Dark types are immune to Prankster which will give you something against Sableye. Rock Slide provides more spread moves to better deal with Ally Switch. If you wanted to you could take Mold Breaker on Excadrill and replace it with Sand Rush for a Faster mode. Double Rock Slide also means that you might get lucky and flinch possible Trick Room setters.

 

[ChiefWek]

The two changes I would make to the team are Mimikyu and Duraludon. On Mimikyu I don't like the idea of running Taunt + Choice Band as that will just lock you into Taunting, at least with something like if you were running Choice Scarf then Taunt would get a benefit of coming out faster vs Pokemon that are faster support mons than Mimikyu, but with Choice Band, you are just locked in without a benefit unless you Trick first which is just a free turn for the opponent to use a status move.

Mimikyu @ Lum Berry
Ability: Disguise
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Trick Room
- Phantom Force
- Shadow Sneak
- Play Rough

Instead this is closer to the set that I would recommend as you can use Trick Room again as a way to reverse the opponent's Trick Room. Personally I don't like Lum Berry on Duraludon and so this allows you to still have a way to protect against Status moves. Lastly, because you now have your own Trick Room mode you can have Mimikyu paired with Conkeldurr and use that as an option vs non-Trick Room teams or teams that might be weak to Trick Room.

The other Pokemon Duraludon I would give it a Life Orb as a way to deal more Damage since it is such a good special attacker. I would, more importantly, replace Light Metal for its Hidden Ability Stalwart as it ignores redirection which gives you a way to ignore Follow Me and Ally Switch.

The only other thing would be that if Gyarados isn't being brought often then maybe replace it for a different Pokemon. My personal preference would be Tyranitar as it gives you something to better deal with Sun and also Dark types are immune to Prankster which will give you something against Sableye. Rock Slide provides more spread moves to better deal with Ally Switch. If you wanted to you could take Mold Breaker on Excadrill and replace it with Sand Rush for a Faster mode. Double Rock Slide also means that you might get lucky and flinch possible Trick Room setters.

Thank you for the detailed response!

1. I was actually experimenting more with this team and I made Mimikyu life orb with the same iv's with taunt, play rough, shadow claw, trick room, and I replaced Duraludon with a trick choice scarf Chandelure from some speed control and possible revenge killing. I will definitely try out your set, as that makes a lot of sense I think, and the extra priority move can help.

2. As mentioned above, I replaced Duraludon with scarf trick Chandelure. I felt like Duraludon had more damage, but would often get one-shot and I was weak to speed control over things like Dragapult. Do you think the Chandelure change makes the team better?

3. I was thinking about the team earlier today and thought replacing Gyarados would be the best thing actually haha. And I think the Tyranitar idea makes a lot of sense for the reasons you listed. I'll definitely try it out. I'm currently envisioning a weakness policy set, though I think a max hp max attack assault vest set could also add a bit more defense to my team. I think I'll try both out, along with sand rush Excadrill.

 

[ChiefWek]

Really cool team, and considering you're new to VGC this is a really solid start. Any suggestions I would make aren't necessarily improvements and would need to be tested and tweaked, but I'll just point out a few things that I noticed.

Personally, I would focus on making a trick room mode centred around G-Max Lapras, Conkeldurr and a trick room setter. G-Max Lapras, Conkeldurr and Dusclops are already the core in both of Fevzi's popular Lapras teams (which I imagine you have seen since you are using the same Lapras spread from his team that had Alcremie.) It's a really nice core which is super solid in a variety of matchups, though from my experience it can kind of struggle against hard trick room teams as their sweepers will all underspeed Conkeldurr and Lapras. I'd then use the remaining team members to have an anti-trick room mode and to patch up weaknesses.

If you're going this route, my first suggestion would be Dusclops>Mimikyu. With its natural bulk and with pain split, Dusclops makes better use of Lapras' screens, and Haze can remove opposing stat boosts and remove stat drops, specifically Intimidates on Conkeldurr. I also think Life Orb Iron Fist>Flame Orb Guts Conkeldurr makes a lot more sense in this kind of core. This gives Conkeldurr access to Iron Fist boosted Thunder Punch, which is super valuable for the core to deal with bulky waters, namely Milotic and Primarina, the former of which can set up Coils and spam Hypnosis, and the latter can spam Moonblast while Lapras can't really touch them while it is dynamaxed. I think Guts would probably be better when Conkeldurr is dynamaxing more frequently, as it doesn't lose the Guts boost after dynamaxing while you would lose Iron Fist, as well as being a status absorber and being less afraid of Will-o-Wisp. In this case however, the benefit of not having to waste a turn of trick room or switch your Conkeldurr in to get your damage boost definitely outweighs any benefit that Guts has. Detect>Protect is probably also ideal on the off chance someone Imprisons your Protect. I also think having Perish Song without Protect on Lapras is a mistake. Protect makes Perish Song a much more consistent win condition, to the point that I would argue that if you're winning through Perish Song without the use of Protect, you likely would have won the game regardless.

I know it kind of looks like I'm trying to turn your team in to Fevzi's team, but really for this sort of bulky trick room mode I think these choices he made are ideal. With the remaining members, I would be tempted to go with an anti-trick room mode for going against hard trick room teams. An idea for this could be the Weakness Policy Duraludon set that Sejun Park used. The idea is that your partner goes first and uses Earthquake (bypassing redirection, as it's a spread move) and at +2 Duraludon can bypass any redirection with Stalwart and a Max Darkness always OHKOs Dusclops after EQ chip. If you went this route, you would probably want to swap Stone Edge for Earthquake on Gyarados (which I would probably do anyway, as there isn't a whole lot that Stone Edge hits that EQ doesn't, Max Quake boosts are nice while Sand does nothing for this team and it helps to hit Coalossal without worrying about Steam Engine/Sun), and going with Modest Duraludon and Jolly Gyarados with at least enough speed to outspeed Duraludon. I would also drop Rock Slide for Earthquake on Excadrill, both to proc Duraludon's Weakness Policy and as a way to get around redirection and to clean late game. I would to go with Protect>Swords Dance, as it synergises better with Perish Song, Swords Dance is rarely a safe option as you don't have any form of redirection and really I just think it makes more sense.

So if you wanted to go this route, these are the spreads I would recommend:

Importable

Lapras-Gmax @ Light Clay
Ability: Shell Armor
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Freeze-Dry
- Hydro Pump
- Perish Song
- Protect

Conkeldurr @ Life Orb
Ability: Iron Fist
Level: 50
EVs: 228 HP / 252 Atk / 28 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Mach Punch
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Detect

Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 220 HP / 132 Def / 156 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 6 Spe
- Night Shade
- Trick Room
- Haze
- Pain Split

Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
- High Horsepower
- Protect

Duraludon @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Stalwart
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flash Cannon
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Protect

Gyarados @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 140 HP / 116 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Waterfall
- Bounce
- Power Whip
- Earthquake

Lapras and Conkeldurr sets are carbon copies of Fevzi's. Conk hits a Life Orb number (10n-1) meaning it minimises Life Orb recoil (takes 20 damage per attack rather than 21). Dusclops is basically the same, only the HP number minimises Burn/Sand/Hail damage (it's a 16n-1 number), plus technically having lower max HP means Pain Split does more damage, not that it matters. This set lives a jolly life orb Max Phantasm from Dragapult (as does Fevzi's). Max speed on Gyarados makes sense considering you need 188 EVs in order to outspeed your Duraludon, you might as well outspeed timid Togekiss. Having said that, I'm not so sure how necessary max speed is on Duraludon, so feel free to mess with the spreads on both.

With these changes however, you become quite susceptible to sleep, so you may want to consider sticking a Lum Berry on something, probably Gyarados. Something to consider is the team doesn't have a means of preventing Prankster Copycat Trick room, though this is quite gimmicky and not very common. Just if you are facing a Liepard + Trick room setter that might Dynamax you kind of just need to concede to the fact that trick room is going up.

If you don't choose to make any of these changes and want to stick more closely to your current team, then here are some more minor suggestions I can make.

Thunder>Thunderbolt on Lapras. Considering the fact that the vast majority of the time you will be bringing Lapras you intend to dynamax it, the additional 10 BP that Max Lightning gets seems very worth it. Coupled with the fact that after a Max Geyser they are 100% accurate, it has 20 more BP and a higher paralysis chance, for how infrequently you will be clicking this move without dynamaxing I think it's a no brainer.

Run 212 HP EVs on Conkeldurr. This makes your HP stat a 16n-1 number, meaning you take 12 damage per turn from burn rather than 13.

Protect>Rock Slide on Excadrill. I just think this will be useful in more situations than Rock Slide would be. Protects you from Fake Out picking you off after your down to your sash, allows your partner to take out priority mons, helps you position etc.

Change the Mimikyu set. Life Orb would make a lot more sense if it isn't being used by another member. Taunting a trick room setter is obviously much safer than tricking them a choice item, as they still are able to switch out and still have trick room up. I would consider replacing Trick and Shadow Claw with Shadow Sneak and Phantom Force. Phantom Force makes playing around Protect easier, and can help stall Dynamax and Perish Song turns, though it also stalls your own turns of screens so there's that to consider.

Stalwart on Duraludon. I assume this was just a mistake.

Earthquake>Stone Edge on Gyarados. For the reasons I stated earlier.

Hope my ramblings at least somewhat help you out. If you want me to clarify anything please let me know. Otherwise yeah I'd love some updates on how this team evolves

Wow that's a lot of comments, thank you so much for all the advice! I'll definitely be trying them out.

1. I think the Conkeldurr change really makes sense because I have been struggling a lot when I see those bulky water types, especially Primarina. And the Lapras perish song point is interesting, because I usually feel like I don't need protect when I click perish song to stall it out, but also, those games probably are already won like you said and perish song is redundant. The Duraludon set looks fire, and I'm really excited to use it. And I just didn't realize what stalwart was when I was building the team. One weakness that I'm not sure I mentioned was that this team felt extremely Lapras- centric, and the Duraludon makes another really solid dynamax target with really solid support with double earthquake. Lastly, I thought about thunder at team building and wasn't sure how often I'd be setting up the rain for it, but after playing it a lot, it usually is set up by the time my dynamax wears off so I think thunder makes much more sense like you said.

2. I already actually changed Mimikyu to life orb and I like it better, and another person recommended lum with phantom force (as Duraludon won't be running lum). I definitely will try both out and see what works.

3. Another change that person recommended was iron fist Conkeldurr and running thunder punch, which makes a lot of sense to me as I've been struggling with some bulky water types. If that set ends up working better, I think I will keep 252 Hp then as I don't need the burn number.

4. I really like the rock slide on Excadrill for the double flinch chances, but I will definitely try out putting protect over it (or potentially replacing swords dance with protect too).