SM Ubers jeff

obii · May 29, 2019

Art by Vincent Van teal6

With USM Ubers coming to an end, I want to share one of my most successful teams which has been pretty dominant for over a year now. SM Ubers was one of my favorite tiers to play and build in since I felt there was a good balance of creativity in building and being consistent. With the introduction of Marshadow and Dusk-Mane, I found it difficult to avoid using the best mons in the tier all the time on a consistent basis. While some people had success (notably byron and pearl this UPL), I was more comfortable sticking with the tried and true formula and putting my own spin on things via sets and other intricacies. During last UPL, Arceus-Fairy was at its peak usage and I figured Naganadel could be an interesting counterpick for this trend. Naturally outspeeding arc forms, access to nasty plot, and an absurd nuke in z-draco meant it couldn't be bad. Talking with the other durians, Exiline and Cynara insisted naga sucks and exiline showed me a TERRIBLE team with it. I still thought it had potential and figured it's best used on HO since its offensive capabilities would shine there the most. I believe this is the first time when Naga was used on an HO like this and if it wasn't, it's at least the first time it was spammed and gained popularity. Naga was finally seen as an actual threat in the tier as opposed to being laughed off. I have to shout out Jase The World who I essentially co-built the team with and he also made his own take on it which I'll discuss. Also thanking Cynara who helped me a lot with EVs, moves, and learning the tier in general.

Team Building Process

I started with naga and knew the direction I wanted to take the team in was HO. I had to pick some lead and had already added pdon since, to me, pdon is a must on every offensive team. Some balances / bulky offenses can make do without it but the ability to cancel out ogre for even a little bit is necessary in addition to preventing scarfxern from going crazy. For the lead, I picked cloyster since naga appreciates having spikes down which turns those +2 z draco rolls into guaranteed kos. With shell smash, cloy becomes an offensive presence that can do decent damage to mons like pdon, gira, arc forms, etc. Spin was also super nice to have for opposing leads such as deo and smeargle. After picking cloy, I knew pdon would be my rocker since its better than say, arceus or duskmane, at keeping rocks up for offense.

With the supporting core set, I thought of what mons would most appreciate naga's offensive presence. Mence and xern came to mind immediately. Mence itself isn't a bad breaker and appreciates naga forcing out and possibly koing arc fairies or other arc forms which are the primary mence checks on most teams. Xern is probably the most interesting choice here since geo fell out of favor ever since duskmane became a thing. Spdef duskmane is probably the best xern counter ever and with the decline of xern usage, the spdef set itself was also less common with a lot of teams opting for offensive options. Naga and xern work so well together since duskmane is almost always the only mon that can chew a hit from +2 naga. With +2 z sometimes able to outright ko non bulky sets and +2 fireblast doing about 70, it puts duskmane in range of +2 xern.

This is where things got awkward for me since I was always used to running pdon + duskmane + arc on every offense team and I had to either drop one of them or drop my mega slot. I still wanted another tool vs bulky teams, didn't wanna sacrifice offensive synergy for the sake of checking everything, and didn't wanna lose to marshadow. Sub chople ekiller came to mind as something that fulfills all these roles. Sub set up mons are generally good at pressuring bulky teams and ekiller gives me a form of priority in case something gets out of hand.

After using it for a while, I realized cloy lead sucks and we lose to offensive duskmane at lead. Like it either tr's or autotomizes and the game just ends. To avoid this, I swapped to gren lead which is more consistent at getting spikes up and fast taunt helps prevent defog and set up.

An In-depth Look

Greninja @ Focus Sash
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Taunt
- Spikes
- Dark Pulse

This set looks really weird and counterproductive but the goal is really just to get spikes up and either prevent opposing hazards, set up, or removal. I find tspikes, especially on HO, pretty underwhelming so I didn't see the need to use protean gren. Battle bond is because I find the type change pretty bad. Turning into a ground type vs opposing cloyster as they icicle spear is a bad position and keeping the resistance to various attacks like sunsteel is nice. Also, if gren manages to grab a ko and transform, you have a stronger and faster dark pulse which can crit or flinch things. Sub is here to force a 50/50 against lead smeargle. Against gren, smeargle will usually try to nuzzle on taunt or even magic coat it. Or sometimes, they won't even lead smeargle depending on the set. I haven't really found a better move to use and sub has been super helpful against opposing ho leads and also just having a strong dude firing off dark pulses behind a sub. Sub relies a lot on the surprise factor so I'd probably change it now and use something like toxic.

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 212 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Facade
- Earthquake

The mence set is standard as far as an offensive dd mence goes. I got earthquake over roost or anything else to limit duskmane's turns. It's really hard to find mons that actually wall mence outside of the rogue bronzong or celesteela. Ada mence is absurdly strong and needs very little chip to ko support arc forms at +1. In addition to its offensive role, mence is the primary tool against opposing pdon. With intimidate before mega evolving, mence can usually prevent a physical pdon from getting out of hand. If it catches a toxic, then mence now has a powered up facade destroying basically everything. In general, mence is used more as a breaker than a cleaner but obviously the role isn't locked since it depends on the specific game.

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 168 Atk / 144 SpD / 196 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock

I prefer'd sd pdon over something like tomb + overheat since I wanted to actually do damage to waterceus. Even though, tomb overheat messes with almost everything else, sd 2a pretty much forces a ko at +2. Trading an sd for like a toxic from arc and then catching mence or gira with edge opens the game up a lot. The speed evs outspeed most pdon and the spdef helps take hits from scarf xern and mixogre. Sd also helps get rocks up vs stall and other bulky teams. Trading a toxic with gira and being at +2 usually forces them to dtail or rest which gives you free turns to make progress.

Arceus @ Chople Berry
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 224 HP / 252 Atk / 32 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Shadow Claw
- Substitute

I don't remember everything about the ev's but I'm pretty sure this is the standard set for sub ekiller. The bulk helps it set up on things like celes, zygarde, ferro, etc. Sub sd is ridiculously good vs every kind of team. Bulky teams struggle to deal with it outside of whirlwind, trading their own mons, or just preventing set up which is hard to do so ekiller will almost always nab a ko. Against more offensive teams, arcs usually able to tank a hit from anything, sd up, and fire off a powerful espeed. Sub without lefties kinda sucks but chople is necessary to avoid losing to marshadow which is really dangerous for this team (and offense in general) otherwise.

Xerneas @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 172 Def / 252 SpA / 84 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
- Thunder

Standard ev's which maximize bulk + power. Focus + thunder gives xern the best neutral coverage and while the inaccuracies of the moves aren't desirable, the damage output if they hit is very very good. Xern's primary role is to clean up end games after its checks have been weakened. All of mence, naga, and ekiller do a good job at chipping duskmane. If it's ultra or no bulk duskmane, minimal chip is needed. If the steel happens to be ferro or klefki, xern can probably just outright win if pdon is chipped enough (although pdons tend to be sdef with non duskmane steels). It also serves a very important defensive function in that its able to check marsh and opposing mence. In addition to all of this, xern has a lot of easy set up targets such as supportceus.

jeff (Naganadel) @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Sludge Wave
- Fire Blast
- Nasty Plot

Naga is a really interesting mon in ubers because it has several characteristics that make it anti meta. With its speed and decent bulk, it can set up on arc forms or just force a ko. Naga is able to take a judgement from every arc type except ground and take ice beams pretty well. At +2, naga can force either a ko or big damage on something. It's ability beast boost means it can snowball very quickly. In fact, a lot of teams need to be careful with sacking mons to naga since it boosts speed after getting a ko. A +2 spatk +1 speed naga is really hard to deal with and can possibly win the game if not ko multiple mons. Another crucial thing about its bulk is that it can eat life orb spectral from marsh at full.

Alternative Versions

After rozes, star, and others spammed this team. I saw similar ho variants pop up and I'd like to discuss those briefly. Jase The World uses offensive WP duskmane over ekiller on his which increases the breaking potential but is a lot weaker to marsh. WP lion is incredible vs offensive teams and can also clean up end games vs bulkier teams but I personally don't think the marsh weakness trade off is worth it. It's definitely still a viable take as pdon, xern, mence (if non ice), and naga can all deal with it to some extent. Duskmane itself can actually eat spectral anyway.

I've seen other versions where the mega is dropped and both arceus and duskmane are used. I think this is a pretty good take on naga ho since the arc form can be something besides ekiller and duskmane can be ultra which functions similarly to mence as a fast dragon that appreciates arc fairy weakened or gone.

Using deo-s over gren is something I disagree with since it makes the team very susceptible to webs but its not a bad option as it frees up pdons moveslot. I think gren or deo are the only viable leads on naga ho though. Another lead I'd consider based on win percentage is:

These are the best takes on Naga HO since they maximize naga's offensive capabilities and work with it to demolish all kinds of teams.

Replays

Importable

Greninja @ Focus Sash
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Taunt
- Spikes
- Dark Pulse

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 212 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Facade
- Earthquake

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 168 Atk / 144 SpD / 196 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock

Arceus @ Chople Berry
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 224 HP / 252 Atk / 32 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Shadow Claw
- Substitute

Xerneas @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 172 Def / 252 SpA / 84 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
- Thunder

Naganadel @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Sludge Wave
- Fire Blast
- Nasty Plot

Conclusion

I've really been enjoying SM Ubers and USM Ubers and hope gen 8 is even better. Thanks to the durians for being a fantastic team and helping maintain the dynasty. I can easily say this UPL was one of my favorite tours ever and hope that we can continue the tradition of winning again next year. And hopefully, the community gives Ubers a second chance at official tours.

SM Ubers jeff

obii