Other Metagames Hooked on a Feeling [STABmons]

[Betathunder]

Hey guys, betathunder here with my first solo rmt. With stabmons coming to a close in terms of having a ladder, I felt that I should share this team that I've been using a lot as of recent, and it has proven to be very successful, as I have now climbed over 120 points to number 4 on the ladder. Anyways, enjoy!


Teambuilding process:

Starting off, I wanted to use specs keldeo in conjunction with banded tyranitar. Specs keldeo hits like a truck and has very few switch-ins, and I realized that the main counters were generally special bulky psychic typed pokemon such as slowking, latias, and celebi, as well as pokemon such as chansey and porygon-2. Furthermore, shedinja was also rising in popularity as a keldeo switch-in, so I noticed that banded ttar could help trap and eliminate these mons, allowing keldeo to sweep easier.

Next, I noticed that I was quite weak to fairies, particularly sylveon, as well as keldeo, and serperior. I had been using mega venusaur a lot as of recent, and its typing fit the bill to counter all of these threats.

Looking at the team, I wanted a check to fakespeed, as mega lopunny could easily tear through this team. Klefki helped alleviate this weakness, as well as be another fairy check, as well as help control speed through prankster thunder waves.

After klefki, I wanted to add a faster mon, noting that besides keldeo, the team was fairly slow. Starmie seemed like a good fit, with psychic stab being able to pressure opposing mvenu's, as well as outspeeding serperior and providing spin support.

Lastly, I realized that I didn't have a ground resist, so I would need a flying pokemon/one with levitate. At first I considered scarf landorus, as it better checked mega lopunny and gave me some speed, but I ultimately settled with defensive, as I provided another check to fakespeed, as well as stealth rocks.




In Depth

Keldeo @ Choice Specs
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Steam Eruption
- Secret Sword
- Water Spout
- Vacuum Wave

The star of the team, Keldeo's main goal is to nuke the opponent's team, whether it be through sweeping late game, or weakening the opponent for its teammates. EV's are used to maximize power and speed, and timid helps you outspeed stuff like Mega-Pidgeot pre mega, and max speed jolly chomp. Water Spout is a free kill switch, with steam eruption being a more powerful scald. Secret sword is a nice stab that hits spdef walls like chansey, and Vacuum Wave is nice priority for picking off faster mons.

Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Pursuit
- Knock Off
- Diamond Storm


The second heavy hitter, Ttar's main function is to help trap bulkier psychics that might stand in the way of keldeo, as well as generally just tear holes. Adamant max attack allows for maximum hitting, and max speed outspeeds defenisve lando-t. Diamond Storm is a strong, accurate STAB along with Knock Off, which also removes items. Sucker punch is a nice priority, which this teams lacks, and pursuit is for trapping. Sand Stream helps ttar switch into special attackers like mega pidgeot better, and can help deter shedinja from switching in. Parting Shot can be run over sucker punch for momentum, but I prefer sucker as it gives the team needed priority.

Venusaur-Mega @ Venusaurite
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 248 HP / 96 Def / 20 SpA / 144 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Synthesis
- Hidden Power [Fire]


Mega Venu is one of the walls on this team, helping tank moves from sylveon, keldeo, and serperior, among other mons. EVs are the standard defensive spread, which helps tank moves from specs keldeo and other heavy hitters better. HP fire hits scizor and ferrothorn, whereas giga drain is a nice stab to regain health, and sludge bomb has the chance to poison. Synthesis is for recovery.

Klefki @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Spikes
- Thunder Wave
- Moonlight

Klefki is the second fairy check, and one of two fakespeed checks. Max HP and Max Defense is for better walling fakespeeders. Moonblast is a nice stab and helps deal with sableye, Moonlight is for prankster recovery, and Spikes helps weaken mons for keldeo and ttar.

Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Steam Eruption
- Psystrike
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Beam

Starmie is the second fast special attacker, outspeeding nonscarf keldo, terrakion, and serperior. Steam eruption and psystrike and both strong stabs, with ice beam for coverage against dragons and grass types. Rapid spin helps remove hazards, which whittle down the team and lower Water Spout's base power. Analytic can be used, but I prefer Natural Cure for tanking wisps/sings.

Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 244 Def / 8 SpD / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Roost

The final mon, Lando-T serves as the ground immunity and fakespeed deterrent. Rocky Helmet helps with chip, as its flying type allows Lando to get Roost for recovery. Earthquake is a reliable stab, and U-Turn is for momentum into the hard hitters. Rocks are for chip damage to help keldeo and ttar. Standard Defensive EV spread for tanking.



Threatlist:

scarf +

If your own Lando-T gets weakened/knock out, Precipice Blades wrecks through this team. Pursuit trapping it with TTar along with keeping Lando healthy is important.

Although it can be trapped with ttar, nothing on this team appreciates being put to sleep, and Ttar can't continuously switch in. Getting up rocks and weakening it to the point where Vacuum Wave kills is important.

Although it can be knocked out with keldeo, nothing appreciates taking burns.

Depending on the set, I have no reliable resists aside from Starmie, which isn't the bulkiest mon. Getting up rocks is important.



Conclusion: All in all, this team is fairly successful when played correctly, but if one or two essential mons get weakened, things can go south fairly quickly.


shoutouts:

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Importable

Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Steam Eruption
- Psystrike
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Beam

Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Pursuit
- Knock Off
- Diamond Storm

Keldeo @ Choice Specs
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Steam Eruption
- Secret Sword
- Water Spout
- Vacuum Wave


Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 244 Def / 8 SpD / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Roost

Klefki @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Spikes
- Thunder Wave
- Moonlight

Venusaur-Mega @ Venusaurite
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 248 HP / 96 Def / 20 SpA / 144 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Synthesis
- Hidden Power [Fire]

 

[Josh]

Specs keldeo hits like a truck and has very few switch-ins, and I realized that the main counters were generally special bulky psychic typed pokemon such as slowking, latias, and celebi, as well as pokemon such as chansey and porygon-2.

I agree, chansey and p2 are the best counters to a fighting type hitting on the physical side

Try putting lunar dance over psystrike/ice beam to give your specs keld and band tar more wallbreaking opps

Edit at below: do not do those things. U turn is good for pivoting your wallbreakers in, and klefki is a good aero check lol. He didn't even suggest spreads or sets for his changes.

 

[Sylveon.]

Hi man, pretty cool team just a couple of changes ::

First one is that STABmons is a mostly priority infused meta so ttar doesn't need to run as much speed as sylveon is already handled by venusaur and it can use its natural bulk as believe me it actually helps a lot for a pursuit trapper specially.

Next up, klefki is kind of meh check to fake speeders as most of them don't mind paralysis(except lopunny but in STABmons every psychic getting healing wish even it doesn't care that much) and it can't touch guts users anyways. Also you have lando and in most cases it handles most of the stuff pretty well itself. So, to make this team a little more offensive I suggest running some fake speeder of your own to revenge kill stuff or running something like scarf heatran which resists common espeeds and revenges everything upto aerodactyle so that you don't have to rely on lando to wall it. It also allows you to revenge stuff like mega pidgeot in a pinch.

And last but not the least I think u-turn is not that necessary for a team like this on lando, so something like a special lando with oblivion wing and hp fire would work pretty well, as it pressurizes common setters like ferro and never allows scizor to set up. Also oblivion wing doesn't force it to use roost as much. I personally have had great success using it, and though it sounds absurd it actually works or anyways if you keep physical set I recommend having a flying move on lando though even on a defensive set.

Well that's all, I didn't want to chage your mons much so it was kind of a iffy rate. So , best of luck :)

Edit :: Great song choice man, love this one(had to post this)

 

[Crestfall]

1st shoutout feelsgoodmang. Well I guess now I have to post.

Anyways from my limited STABmons experience it looks like a solid team, but the big issue I'm noticing here is that you have 2 weather dependent healing moves on a team with a Tar. Seems a bit iffy. Same with sand + water spout. Even after 2 rounds of sand damage it will still be strong but it might not be able to break the same stuff at 100% vs 88%. Dunno, just something to consider.

Other than that the only things coming to mind are fast psychics. I'm pretty sure sub-CM Alakazam (mega or not) clean 6-0s you with minimal work done beforehand. Though luckily not too many substitute opportunities (sucker punch on Tar or when he's in versus Venu/Keld and you swap) which means keys can always emergency check it and twave. Other than that I suppose once tar is taken out (or even trapped!!!) CM mega-lati puts in a LOT of work vs this team. I doubt either of these is something that is prepared for or common but yeah.

Cool team beta!

 

[EV]

Yo.

This is a solid team. It has a good mix of offensive and defensive threats that cover most of the metagame. There are a few changes I would make, however, as I see some potential to keep up your offensive pressure without sacrificing too much of your cohesion.

1/ Mega Venusaur

Giga Drain -> Seed Flare
Sludge Bomb -> Spore

Your best answer for Mega Slowbro is Mega Tyranitar. Luckily Banded Knock Off gets the 2HKO (252+ Atk Choice Band Mega Tyranitar Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Slowbro: 198-234 (50.2 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage) but a Scald burn or lack of Ttar later in the match can ruin your chances to stop Mega Slowbro from setting up and sweeping. While Mega Venu is weak to Psystrike/Stored Power, it can Spore Slowbro first and whittle it down with Seed Flare. Most Slowbros are max Defense but about a quarter run +SDef. Even then you can 2HKO without any -2 drops. Sludge Bomb is helpful for Serperior but HP Fire still KOs before it can KO you back, unless Dragon Pulse.

​

2/ Tyranitar

Sucker Punch -> Parting Shot

I love momentum on Choiced sets, plus I don't think you have enough currently. Right now Landorus-T is your only momentum generator with U-turn. Parting Shot is a nice alternative when Pursuiting the target won't result in a KO. Take for instance a healthy Slowbro switching out to Ferrothorn. Rather than take the chunk with Pursuit (which is nice don't get me wrong) or hitting the incoming Ferrothorn with Knock Off you can just PS out into your Keldeo. The two already have amazing synergy with each other already, so I'd capitalize on that more. You lose strong priority, but ...

​

3/ Starmie -> Sylveon

Sylveon @ Leftovers / Pixie Plate
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpA
Brave Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Boomburst
- Extreme Speed
- Milk Drink / Fake Out​

LO Starmie is a nice offensive spinner but I really don't like it. You have a fast Water already, and by adding Sylveon you still keep coverage on Dragons and Fighting-types. Plus with the priority it has access to Sylveon bypasses its poor Speed. Keldeo + Sylveon is another awesome core as well, as Keldeo can remove both Ferrothorn and Heatran, which hamper Sylveon (via some pivoting of course). Mono Fairy is boring I know but it's so effective and there's really no reason to run it unless you're going with Earth/Flame Plate Judgment, and with Rapid Spin, you don't really have the room.

Basically, adding Sylveon over Starmie gives you the Extreme Speeder that you lack while maintaining Rapid Spin. It's also a solid answer to Sableye.
​

So there you have it! LMK what you think.

 

[Crestfall]

I don't know how to feel about losing Giga Drain and relying entirely on synthesis for recovery on a Sand team, but the Sylveon suggestion from EG definitely helps patch up a lot of weaknesses (both ones I listed and didn't notice) while giving you offensive priority yourself, something that was lacking or risky (CB locked sucker = bad if opp is capable).

I also agree on the Sucker -> Parting change since you'd be adding the fakespeed Sylv.