Hello and welcome to my first ever RMT, my team is a weird semi stall, defensive balance hybrid with the main goal being to defensively cover everything while not easing up on offensive pressure. I have used this team for months on end, it has peaked at 1700 elo and has won me several roomtours in the nd chatroom. It is incredibly consistent and powerful imo, let's dive into why I think this is the case.
The Team
Shadow slayer (Aegislash) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Iron Head
- Substitute
- Shadow Claw
Insanely cringe nickname I know, but it’s at the very least accurate, aegislash really pulls its weight and holds this team together, with its main niche on the team being to slice through fat by punishing their passivity with it’s good bulk, defensive typing and substitute. Your main goal is to get this thing in on mons like bulky waters such as pex, corv and non whirlwind skarm, non knock ferro (though this is usually unseen), amoonguss and blissey. Simply set up sub as you outspeed all of them and simply set up in their face as they are completely unable to break your sub.
Some calcs to demonstrate how unbreakable this sub is:
0- Atk Toxapex Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 172 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 66-78 (21.7 - 25.6%) -- 18.8% chance to break sub
0 SpA Toxapex Scald vs. 172 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 40-48 (13.1 - 15.7%)
0 SpA Slowbro Scald vs. 172 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 66-78 (21.7 - 25.6%) -- 12.5% chance to break sub
0 Atk Corviknight Brave Bird vs. 172 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 42-51 (13.8 - 16.7%)
0 SpA Amoonguss Hidden Power Fire vs. 172 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 56-68 (18.4 - 22.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This niche is particularly useful against corv + pex as the team has limited ways to break through them without aegi, however aegi can punish both for using a passive option such as defog or a healing move, essentially gaining free momentum for the team. As with a sub and sd setup and it’s dual stab coverage only being resisted by gren and mgyra, very little wants to take aegi’s hits, especially due to the fact that their defensive walls are for the most part useless and sub also blocks intimidate from the likes of lando.
Aegi’s defensive utility extends far further helping the team out in otherwise very rough mu’s such as you vs mons like eq less komm, lele (especially choice locked), jirachi, most variants of latias and even mmedi, purely by switching into them and scaring them out. It is your main back up plan vs many threats to your defense.
Aegis leftovers over it’s more standard sub z set allow for a) it to heavily reduce any and all chip dealt to it allowing for it to have much greater longevity, especially notable due to it’s immunities to sand and toxic, as well as shrugging off stealth rocks chip within 1 turn b) let it shrug off self induced damage from substitute c) allows for it to actually heal itself if there is no offensive pressure or it is brought in safely from blissey tp, and d) lets the z slot be used by another member in this case being kommo-o.
Iron head allows for potentially broken flinch chance, giving you an out vs anything with a setup move such as trick room, but it’s main niche is its ability to beat cm fairies very easily in a 1v1 unless they have specific coverage for aegi, which it still does well against due to living most hits as long as it is in shield form meaning you can force a favorable trade at worse. Shadow claw is your general spamable stab, however it’s higher crit chance is insanely useful for breaking up stalemates vs things such as haze spamming toxapex and iron def corv/skarmory, as well as being able to break through unaware waters such as quagsire.
This set has one major flaw and that is gliscor, as it shuts you down completely and heals off your hits passively without fear of death, unless you score a +2 crit shadowclaw on it from behind a sub which should not be relied on unless you need to make a desperation play, (raw switching into defensive lando is similar, however lando doesn’t have recovery making your hits stick far more). However skarm completely annihilates glisc as glisc can’t touch skarm outside of knocking it’s helm, allowing for skarm to freely spike preserving some momentum.
*It should be noted that due to its ghost typing aegi is immune to all forms of trapping Except for then pursuit. Allowing for you to escape magnezones magnet pull, as well as nicher trapping strategies such as block.
Ronaldo soccer (Quagsire) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Scald
- Toxic
- Recover
This one is pretty simple, quagsire is your main hard counter to the likes of many setup mons, with it’s amazing standard set, it unterrally demolishes zardx, dnite, scizor, and garchomp, even living mgarchomp adamant eq as long as it’s holding leftovers and sandstorm isn't up. It also serves as an additional defensive backbone to skarmory, helping check mons like mlop and absorbing general physical chips. However it does have crucial defensive utility outside of that by virtue of its ground typing, giving the team a pretty strong answer to magnezone, mega manectric zecora and pressure koko to not click volt switch acting as the team's sole volt blocker. Quag is also an alternative check to heatran, which is good to preserve komm’s health in mu’s where quag is otherwise useless. Toxic + scald is also an incredible weapon for this team, as it allows for quag to almost always be instantly threatening. It is incredibly good at crippling mlati and slow twins, and also significantly punishing the non steel defogers for defogging as it has a great mu vs all of them. It’s good bulk lets it even get stuff like a suicide toxic off if the team is weakened, giving it some flexibility in how you can play it.
Thumb tac birb (Skarmory) (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 Spe
Impish Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Roost
- Body Press
- Iron Defense
This skarm is notable for a few reasons, you actually outspeed all mmaw making you significantly better at checking them due to iron defense, you outspeed all modest magnezone allowing you to two hit ko them with body press on the switch or even ohko if you set up iron defense as they switch in. Iron defence acts like a wincon in it of itself, as if your opponent lacks any special breakers, the skarm can become unwallable, freely setting up spikes as well as pressuring with +6 body presses. Skarms spikes in general allow for great hstack synergy wearing down offensive check and pressuring defoggers, which this team is great at taking advantage of due to aegi + quag, and has double utility as this team has no defogger of its own, forcing the opponent to defog for you. However it should be noted that due to skarms lack of initial bulk, it might struggle to take physical moves on the switch, especially fighting type moves like mlop cc, which only needs the slightest chip to break through it. Special mention goes to kart’s sacred sword which ignores iron def’s defense boost.
Bliss the rapper (Blissey) (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 29 Spe
- Thunder Wave
- Teleport
- Soft-Boiled
- Seismic Toss
Blissey’s role should be pretty obvious, it’s your primary special tank, however, it also doubles as a tremendous offensive weapon thanks to the combo of teleport, letting your breakers in for essentially free and thunderwave, heavily crippling offensive pokes so that they are below aegis or komm’s speed tier, making them very easy to take advantage of. Thunder waves can also be great vs bulky waters and corv, giving aegi and even easier time breaking through them due to full paralysis. Natural cure also makes blissey a great switch into said bulky waters as it does not fear their status whatsoever, only really fearing pex knock off which it doesn’t mind all that much in most mu’s. Seismic toss is also great pressure in general for mons that don’t have recovery, allowing for bliss to easily beat mons like non roost volc, several fini sets, non fightinium greninja, but the chip it provides in addition to the massive hazard spam can make it quite difficult to switch into in it’s own right.
Smth gona Di-ancie (Diancie-Mega) @ Diancite
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Moonblast
- Diamond Storm
- Earth Power
- Mystical Fire
While this might look like an all out offensive member of the team, and it is, diancie has some invaluable defensive utility that it adds to the team. For one it’s fairy typing lets it act as your only stop to dragon boosting moves like garchomps scale shot and kommo-o’s z move which is incredible in certain mu’s as well as letting it serve as a semi decent desperation answer vs mmaw due to its resistance to sucker punch and even it’s base form outrunning most variants. It’s magic bounce is the team's only source of direct hazard control, and while it is by no means a replacement to defog, it does help a lot vs webs setters, particularly shuckle as ribombee can skill swap away magic bounce, it also gives mdia risky entry against many hazard setters punishing with a hard read, for example switching in on garchomp sr or toxapex tspikes. It’s speed tier is also your main speed control. In a perfect speed tier where you are able to avenge sd kartana who is otherwise a huge threat to the team, garchomp and the rare albeit deadly to this team keldeo. Media's main claim to fame is of course is nigh unavailable 4a offense with amazing dual stab and fire and ground coverage to deal with any pesky steel switchins. This is especially deadly with the hazards this team lays, as well as the threat of aegislash to deal with the really bulky switchins by doubling when you think they are going to switch in. And even if you fail to take immediate ko’s your defensive backbone is solid enough that you can just come back and try again later.
Kommo-o @ Kommonium Z
Ability: Bulletproof
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Clanging Scales
- Close Combat
- Poison Jab
Kommo-o serves four main roles on this team 1) stealth rocks 2) heatran switchin 3) backup blanket check to just about everything that it isn’t directly weak to and 4) an immense offensive threat capable of winning games on the spot if the conditions are set up right. Komm synergises particularly well with this build due to the amount of chips the team deals (ex. chipping fini down into pjab range to leave no komm wall), letting it sweep with far more ease. It’s great rain and gengar mu’s, which the team otherwise significantly struggles with. Blissey and Aegi help greatly in both pesky fairies general fat that komm sometimes struggles with, even if they faint in stopping komm’s checks, they should be crippled enough where komm can clean up. It is also a rly cool check to sub serp due to its signature move being sound based and ignoring serps sub (this also works with any non fairy sub user but serp is the most notable as it is rly good vs the team otherwise). It’s pretty much your standard glue mon with offensive flair and cleaning potential. Finally if you don’t want to risk skarm in rila zone mu’s komm servers as a great alternate switchin to rila due to speed tying and resisting almost all of it’s movies.
Threat List:
@
Probably the single biggest threat to this team, traxel is absurdly difficult to switch into in general but for this team it's just a nightmare as we are fast skarm, you fortunately have several punishments in the form of helm skarm and aegis ice resistance, but if either gets knocked you might just be done for. You have the tools to outplay this as well in your double knock absorber mini core of mdia and komm, but if either gets traxel’d, you get the idea. Pursuit is also very deadly vs subless aegi and bliss and ice shard limits sweeping potential from komm, you need to play well against this thing, it’s a really hard mu but not impossible
Rain in general
Rain is super hard to deal with as it very easily can overwhelm this team, while zap and green are pretty hard walled by blissey, mana + mpert and really dangerous, try to punish peli and ferro with aegi to gain as much momentum as possible, and try to chip pert as fast as possible, as it easily two hits skarm(without iron def setup) and quag in rain if adamant and with the slightest chip if jolly. Komm is your saving grace as if you can set it up right, rain has quite literally no answer unless you run into zob’s weird clef rain, in which case he either loses clef to aegi or you lose to clef.
@
(this applies to toxic spikes in general, but pex is the main viable setter of the move)
Tspikes are a complete nuisance to this team as it has no way to remove them whatsoever, and can only block them with the risky play of directly switching in mdia. The spikes severely cripple quagsire and komm, reducing their defensive utility significantly as they are put on timers. Your counterplay is to hope you can pressure pex enough not to go for them, take only regular poison instead of badly poison by switching in before both layers are up, and pressure with enough hazard of your own to force pex to defog them away while pivoting between your immunities.
I hope you enjoy using this team, and if you have any further questions or suggestions please feel free to ask away.
Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/4e0a74a3a8951d50
inspiration for quagsire name
The Team
Shadow slayer (Aegislash) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Iron Head
- Substitute
- Shadow Claw
Insanely cringe nickname I know, but it’s at the very least accurate, aegislash really pulls its weight and holds this team together, with its main niche on the team being to slice through fat by punishing their passivity with it’s good bulk, defensive typing and substitute. Your main goal is to get this thing in on mons like bulky waters such as pex, corv and non whirlwind skarm, non knock ferro (though this is usually unseen), amoonguss and blissey. Simply set up sub as you outspeed all of them and simply set up in their face as they are completely unable to break your sub.
Some calcs to demonstrate how unbreakable this sub is:
0- Atk Toxapex Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 172 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 66-78 (21.7 - 25.6%) -- 18.8% chance to break sub
0 SpA Toxapex Scald vs. 172 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 40-48 (13.1 - 15.7%)
0 SpA Slowbro Scald vs. 172 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 66-78 (21.7 - 25.6%) -- 12.5% chance to break sub
0 Atk Corviknight Brave Bird vs. 172 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 42-51 (13.8 - 16.7%)
0 SpA Amoonguss Hidden Power Fire vs. 172 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 56-68 (18.4 - 22.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This niche is particularly useful against corv + pex as the team has limited ways to break through them without aegi, however aegi can punish both for using a passive option such as defog or a healing move, essentially gaining free momentum for the team. As with a sub and sd setup and it’s dual stab coverage only being resisted by gren and mgyra, very little wants to take aegi’s hits, especially due to the fact that their defensive walls are for the most part useless and sub also blocks intimidate from the likes of lando.
Aegi’s defensive utility extends far further helping the team out in otherwise very rough mu’s such as you vs mons like eq less komm, lele (especially choice locked), jirachi, most variants of latias and even mmedi, purely by switching into them and scaring them out. It is your main back up plan vs many threats to your defense.
Aegis leftovers over it’s more standard sub z set allow for a) it to heavily reduce any and all chip dealt to it allowing for it to have much greater longevity, especially notable due to it’s immunities to sand and toxic, as well as shrugging off stealth rocks chip within 1 turn b) let it shrug off self induced damage from substitute c) allows for it to actually heal itself if there is no offensive pressure or it is brought in safely from blissey tp, and d) lets the z slot be used by another member in this case being kommo-o.
Iron head allows for potentially broken flinch chance, giving you an out vs anything with a setup move such as trick room, but it’s main niche is its ability to beat cm fairies very easily in a 1v1 unless they have specific coverage for aegi, which it still does well against due to living most hits as long as it is in shield form meaning you can force a favorable trade at worse. Shadow claw is your general spamable stab, however it’s higher crit chance is insanely useful for breaking up stalemates vs things such as haze spamming toxapex and iron def corv/skarmory, as well as being able to break through unaware waters such as quagsire.
This set has one major flaw and that is gliscor, as it shuts you down completely and heals off your hits passively without fear of death, unless you score a +2 crit shadowclaw on it from behind a sub which should not be relied on unless you need to make a desperation play, (raw switching into defensive lando is similar, however lando doesn’t have recovery making your hits stick far more). However skarm completely annihilates glisc as glisc can’t touch skarm outside of knocking it’s helm, allowing for skarm to freely spike preserving some momentum.
*It should be noted that due to its ghost typing aegi is immune to all forms of trapping Except for then pursuit. Allowing for you to escape magnezones magnet pull, as well as nicher trapping strategies such as block.
Ronaldo soccer (Quagsire) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Scald
- Toxic
- Recover
This one is pretty simple, quagsire is your main hard counter to the likes of many setup mons, with it’s amazing standard set, it unterrally demolishes zardx, dnite, scizor, and garchomp, even living mgarchomp adamant eq as long as it’s holding leftovers and sandstorm isn't up. It also serves as an additional defensive backbone to skarmory, helping check mons like mlop and absorbing general physical chips. However it does have crucial defensive utility outside of that by virtue of its ground typing, giving the team a pretty strong answer to magnezone, mega manectric zecora and pressure koko to not click volt switch acting as the team's sole volt blocker. Quag is also an alternative check to heatran, which is good to preserve komm’s health in mu’s where quag is otherwise useless. Toxic + scald is also an incredible weapon for this team, as it allows for quag to almost always be instantly threatening. It is incredibly good at crippling mlati and slow twins, and also significantly punishing the non steel defogers for defogging as it has a great mu vs all of them. It’s good bulk lets it even get stuff like a suicide toxic off if the team is weakened, giving it some flexibility in how you can play it.
Thumb tac birb (Skarmory) (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 Spe
Impish Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Roost
- Body Press
- Iron Defense
This skarm is notable for a few reasons, you actually outspeed all mmaw making you significantly better at checking them due to iron defense, you outspeed all modest magnezone allowing you to two hit ko them with body press on the switch or even ohko if you set up iron defense as they switch in. Iron defence acts like a wincon in it of itself, as if your opponent lacks any special breakers, the skarm can become unwallable, freely setting up spikes as well as pressuring with +6 body presses. Skarms spikes in general allow for great hstack synergy wearing down offensive check and pressuring defoggers, which this team is great at taking advantage of due to aegi + quag, and has double utility as this team has no defogger of its own, forcing the opponent to defog for you. However it should be noted that due to skarms lack of initial bulk, it might struggle to take physical moves on the switch, especially fighting type moves like mlop cc, which only needs the slightest chip to break through it. Special mention goes to kart’s sacred sword which ignores iron def’s defense boost.
Bliss the rapper (Blissey) (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 29 Spe
- Thunder Wave
- Teleport
- Soft-Boiled
- Seismic Toss
Blissey’s role should be pretty obvious, it’s your primary special tank, however, it also doubles as a tremendous offensive weapon thanks to the combo of teleport, letting your breakers in for essentially free and thunderwave, heavily crippling offensive pokes so that they are below aegis or komm’s speed tier, making them very easy to take advantage of. Thunder waves can also be great vs bulky waters and corv, giving aegi and even easier time breaking through them due to full paralysis. Natural cure also makes blissey a great switch into said bulky waters as it does not fear their status whatsoever, only really fearing pex knock off which it doesn’t mind all that much in most mu’s. Seismic toss is also great pressure in general for mons that don’t have recovery, allowing for bliss to easily beat mons like non roost volc, several fini sets, non fightinium greninja, but the chip it provides in addition to the massive hazard spam can make it quite difficult to switch into in it’s own right.
Smth gona Di-ancie (Diancie-Mega) @ Diancite
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Moonblast
- Diamond Storm
- Earth Power
- Mystical Fire
While this might look like an all out offensive member of the team, and it is, diancie has some invaluable defensive utility that it adds to the team. For one it’s fairy typing lets it act as your only stop to dragon boosting moves like garchomps scale shot and kommo-o’s z move which is incredible in certain mu’s as well as letting it serve as a semi decent desperation answer vs mmaw due to its resistance to sucker punch and even it’s base form outrunning most variants. It’s magic bounce is the team's only source of direct hazard control, and while it is by no means a replacement to defog, it does help a lot vs webs setters, particularly shuckle as ribombee can skill swap away magic bounce, it also gives mdia risky entry against many hazard setters punishing with a hard read, for example switching in on garchomp sr or toxapex tspikes. It’s speed tier is also your main speed control. In a perfect speed tier where you are able to avenge sd kartana who is otherwise a huge threat to the team, garchomp and the rare albeit deadly to this team keldeo. Media's main claim to fame is of course is nigh unavailable 4a offense with amazing dual stab and fire and ground coverage to deal with any pesky steel switchins. This is especially deadly with the hazards this team lays, as well as the threat of aegislash to deal with the really bulky switchins by doubling when you think they are going to switch in. And even if you fail to take immediate ko’s your defensive backbone is solid enough that you can just come back and try again later.
Kommo-o @ Kommonium Z
Ability: Bulletproof
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Clanging Scales
- Close Combat
- Poison Jab
Kommo-o serves four main roles on this team 1) stealth rocks 2) heatran switchin 3) backup blanket check to just about everything that it isn’t directly weak to and 4) an immense offensive threat capable of winning games on the spot if the conditions are set up right. Komm synergises particularly well with this build due to the amount of chips the team deals (ex. chipping fini down into pjab range to leave no komm wall), letting it sweep with far more ease. It’s great rain and gengar mu’s, which the team otherwise significantly struggles with. Blissey and Aegi help greatly in both pesky fairies general fat that komm sometimes struggles with, even if they faint in stopping komm’s checks, they should be crippled enough where komm can clean up. It is also a rly cool check to sub serp due to its signature move being sound based and ignoring serps sub (this also works with any non fairy sub user but serp is the most notable as it is rly good vs the team otherwise). It’s pretty much your standard glue mon with offensive flair and cleaning potential. Finally if you don’t want to risk skarm in rila zone mu’s komm servers as a great alternate switchin to rila due to speed tying and resisting almost all of it’s movies.
Threat List:
Probably the single biggest threat to this team, traxel is absurdly difficult to switch into in general but for this team it's just a nightmare as we are fast skarm, you fortunately have several punishments in the form of helm skarm and aegis ice resistance, but if either gets knocked you might just be done for. You have the tools to outplay this as well in your double knock absorber mini core of mdia and komm, but if either gets traxel’d, you get the idea. Pursuit is also very deadly vs subless aegi and bliss and ice shard limits sweeping potential from komm, you need to play well against this thing, it’s a really hard mu but not impossible
Rain is super hard to deal with as it very easily can overwhelm this team, while zap and green are pretty hard walled by blissey, mana + mpert and really dangerous, try to punish peli and ferro with aegi to gain as much momentum as possible, and try to chip pert as fast as possible, as it easily two hits skarm(without iron def setup) and quag in rain if adamant and with the slightest chip if jolly. Komm is your saving grace as if you can set it up right, rain has quite literally no answer unless you run into zob’s weird clef rain, in which case he either loses clef to aegi or you lose to clef.
(this applies to toxic spikes in general, but pex is the main viable setter of the move)
Tspikes are a complete nuisance to this team as it has no way to remove them whatsoever, and can only block them with the risky play of directly switching in mdia. The spikes severely cripple quagsire and komm, reducing their defensive utility significantly as they are put on timers. Your counterplay is to hope you can pressure pex enough not to go for them, take only regular poison instead of badly poison by switching in before both layers are up, and pressure with enough hazard of your own to force pex to defog them away while pivoting between your immunities.
I hope you enjoy using this team, and if you have any further questions or suggestions please feel free to ask away.
Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/4e0a74a3a8951d50
inspiration for quagsire name
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