Gonna post a team I've been using that seems ok, altho it might struggle vs some HO builds especially if it has a bad defensive MU vs the unburden mon or pex gets worn down and cant haze it. Some weather builds too.
The idea here was building around fat ScarfChomp inheriting from Glowbro to act as speed control vs offense, while being able to trick it's scarf away to cripple fatter teams and Drum up in order to provide pressure. Regen lets you keep drumming, while 0 atk invest is offset by boosting to max instead of just to +2. Then there's koko as Koko and Zera are just insanely good as baseline speed control. Av Molt + Glowking!Tran work well as a core as Molt answers most SFLO inheritors quite well while Tran answers all the Fairies that pressure Molt, while being able to Trick Scarf away in order to break vs fatter teams. CelePex rounds out the other defensive holes of this team.
Thoughts on the meta (these are my thoughts and don't necessarily represent the opinions of the council as a whole and are likely influenced by the types of teams I've been trying to make work):
- I agree with aleph that Chans + Cress probably need to go. Their bodies are just too good and inheriting from Clef/Swoobat (Unaware) or Xatu (Bounce) gives them ridiculous utility moves and insane defensive presence. On the topic of Bounce/Unaware or Xatu/Clef/Swoobat as donors - I definitely think these are balanced, if very strong and toptier, but it's the absurd statlines of Cress/Chansey that push them towards the edge. If your opponent is forced to run Mew/Steela as Xatu inheritors you can actually meaningfully dent them with +2 Stone Edge or something, as opposed to doing like 60% to Cress, getting hazed and roosted on.
- Zera/Koko are insanely hard to deal with unless you laugh at them with Unaware Cress, but at least they can get rocks up in that case. I have physdef Steela on this team and it took 70 from Tauros!Zera Flamethrower, so I'd say you're only really safe vs all the standard sets with electric immune pex, but then you run into Psyfangs overage from Mawile and get nuked. Grounds also only work if they're neutral to Ice so Swampert and Miltank!Hippo/Rune.
- Unburden is a big pain. I generally prefer using priority for speed control, but i wanted to experiment with running Scarfers since I liked the idea of Scarf Regen Chomp with Trick (Regen Scarf+Trick in general really) and I ran into the same scenario multiple times already, of being up 5-3 or something with the game looking like it's over and I'm gonna close it out with a Koko/Pult/Zeraora but then my opp procs unburden and I can't deal with it properly. If nothing else, this is a clear sign that the way I've been building my defensive cores is not "it", but it definitely feels like Unburden asks you to jump through too many hoops in teambuilding to really be safe against it.
- Weather is similarly a big pain, as it also tends to bypass Scarfers as speed control and can overwhelm the absurd bulk of Cress/Chans by stacking multipliers, while also doing well vs teams that try to cover a wide variety of threats and thus fold to typespam - but gets shut down by stuff like Jelli!Gengar (if rain) or various FF steels if sun.
- Victini as a donor is also kinda insane, CB Vic!Darm just nukes anything apart from quad resists or FF. And it's not like Victini doesnt have tools to play around those, you can Uturn spam or Trick the switchin if you are getting blanked. I've also seen and used Victini!Zera/Koko as well as Victini!Blace, the latter having the advantage of mixed sets due to good mixed offenses.
The idea here was building around fat ScarfChomp inheriting from Glowbro to act as speed control vs offense, while being able to trick it's scarf away to cripple fatter teams and Drum up in order to provide pressure. Regen lets you keep drumming, while 0 atk invest is offset by boosting to max instead of just to +2. Then there's koko as Koko and Zera are just insanely good as baseline speed control. Av Molt + Glowking!Tran work well as a core as Molt answers most SFLO inheritors quite well while Tran answers all the Fairies that pressure Molt, while being able to Trick Scarf away in order to break vs fatter teams. CelePex rounds out the other defensive holes of this team.
Thoughts on the meta (these are my thoughts and don't necessarily represent the opinions of the council as a whole and are likely influenced by the types of teams I've been trying to make work):
- I agree with aleph that Chans + Cress probably need to go. Their bodies are just too good and inheriting from Clef/Swoobat (Unaware) or Xatu (Bounce) gives them ridiculous utility moves and insane defensive presence. On the topic of Bounce/Unaware or Xatu/Clef/Swoobat as donors - I definitely think these are balanced, if very strong and toptier, but it's the absurd statlines of Cress/Chansey that push them towards the edge. If your opponent is forced to run Mew/Steela as Xatu inheritors you can actually meaningfully dent them with +2 Stone Edge or something, as opposed to doing like 60% to Cress, getting hazed and roosted on.
- Zera/Koko are insanely hard to deal with unless you laugh at them with Unaware Cress, but at least they can get rocks up in that case. I have physdef Steela on this team and it took 70 from Tauros!Zera Flamethrower, so I'd say you're only really safe vs all the standard sets with electric immune pex, but then you run into Psyfangs overage from Mawile and get nuked. Grounds also only work if they're neutral to Ice so Swampert and Miltank!Hippo/Rune.
- Unburden is a big pain. I generally prefer using priority for speed control, but i wanted to experiment with running Scarfers since I liked the idea of Scarf Regen Chomp with Trick (Regen Scarf+Trick in general really) and I ran into the same scenario multiple times already, of being up 5-3 or something with the game looking like it's over and I'm gonna close it out with a Koko/Pult/Zeraora but then my opp procs unburden and I can't deal with it properly. If nothing else, this is a clear sign that the way I've been building my defensive cores is not "it", but it definitely feels like Unburden asks you to jump through too many hoops in teambuilding to really be safe against it.
- Weather is similarly a big pain, as it also tends to bypass Scarfers as speed control and can overwhelm the absurd bulk of Cress/Chans by stacking multipliers, while also doing well vs teams that try to cover a wide variety of threats and thus fold to typespam - but gets shut down by stuff like Jelli!Gengar (if rain) or various FF steels if sun.
- Victini as a donor is also kinda insane, CB Vic!Darm just nukes anything apart from quad resists or FF. And it's not like Victini doesnt have tools to play around those, you can Uturn spam or Trick the switchin if you are getting blanked. I've also seen and used Victini!Zera/Koko as well as Victini!Blace, the latter having the advantage of mixed sets due to good mixed offenses.
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