Gen 7 [LGPE OU] That One Venusaur Team I Made

[Eve]

That One Venusaur Team I Made
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Mega Venusaur has been quite overlooked over the past few years, often being called the "stall Mega" of LGPE. However, it doesn't take a genius to realise that it actually hits pretty hard, and that its ability to sponge hits from like 5 million different high profile Pokemon while wearing entire teams down is pretty useful for more offensive styles. Because of this, I (not a genius in the slightest) decided to throw together a more offensive team around it, and it actually ended up working which is cool! Aliss used this team to great effect in the recent Summer Seasonal, and it's done well in other places too. There's a few reasons I'm proud of this team:

• It's helped get Venusaur recognised as a legitimate top threat​
• It makes viable use of the awful Pokemon known as Snorlax​
• It's the debut of Reflect Starmie​
• It doesn't have cringe bird Zapdos​

So how did I come up with the team? To be honest I built it in like 10 minutes, but here's roughly how it went down.

Teambuilding Process

This team came from a desire to try and build something less defensive and awful around Mega Venusaur, so that's what I started with.
Eve building an offense team? You can bet it includes Starmie! Starmie provides a cleaner to make use of Mega Venusaur chipping entire teams on its own, Reflect support to help Mega Venusaur do that, and a Melmetal check in one slot, and also alleviates pressure from the likes of Gengar and Alolan Dugtrio by revenge killing them pretty well.
This team didn't require a heavily defensive Ground-type thanks to Mega Venusaur covering a lot of the same stuff the Ground normally would, and I wanted to gain back pressure sacrificed by using a slower Mega, so Alolan Dugtrio was a no-brainer.
Snorlax isn't weak to Earthquake and can keep up offensive momentum with Self-Destruct or Body Slam paralysis, so I picked it over Alolan Muk for this team as it felt a bit vulnerable to special spam (Alakazam + Cloyster/Gengar sorts of things). It also has a cool synergy with Starmie, as the starfish can bait Mega Alakazam to use Shadow Ball and let Snorlax pivot in safely.

We are playing LGPE OU so I added Mew and Melmetal. In seriousness, Mew provides the reliable Rocks setter this team would otherwise lack and can also keep up momentum, while Melmetal is an unparalleled tank as always and checks everything.

And here's the team!

Venusaur-Mega @ Venusaurite
Level: 50
Timid / Modest / Whatever Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Mega Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Leech Seed
- Sleep Powder / Reflect

The star of the team. Mega Venusaur is both very strong and very hard to take down- if you don't have a Pokemon with STAB Fire or Psychic moves, good luck breaking through it without pretty much losing afterwards. Even Melmetal gets worn down and drained of health over the course of the battle, setting the scene quite nicely for Alolan Dugtrio. Sleep Powder is obviously very powerful but Reflect is pretty good too, allowing Venusaur to happily sit in front of Melmetals and acting as a generally strong setter of the screen, freeing up Starmie to do something else. Earthquake is also maybe worth considering for pressuring the likes of Gengar, Alolan Muk, and Mega Beedrill better. A Timid nature lets you outspeed standard Adamant Mega Gyarados which is cool, but if you don't expect to face that you can switch to Modest, Calm, Bold, a neutral nature for improved EQ damage, whatever you want. Venu's stats are big enough that it'll work anyway.


Starmie
Level: 50
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Psychic
- Reflect / Thunder Wave / Thunder
- Recover

The star of the team. Starmie is a strong cleaner against weakened teams and a soft-check to a myriad of things thanks to its typing, Speed, and recovery, most importantly Melmetal and Ground-types but also Cloyster and Gengar. Reflect is generally recommended in order to better handle physical threats, namely Melmetal and Mega Gyarados that aim to switch in, but if you have Reflect Venusaur or just want to play more aggressively then Thunder Wave and Thunder are both solid options to spread paralysis.


Dugtrio-Alola
Level: 50
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Sucker Punch
- Toxic / Substitute

The rockstar of the team. Alolan Dugtrio is yet another cleaner, forming a nice offensive core with Starmie. It also provides the mandatory Thunderbolt immunity that is made a bit less mandatory by Mega Venusaur's presence but oh well, outspeeding Zapdos is cool for really pushing your advantage. It also helps a bit with Mega Alakazam thanks to Sucker Punch. Not too much to say about it other than that!


Snorlax
Level: 50
Careful / Jolly Nature
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Self-Destruct
- Toxic

The st- nvm. Snorlax is here to do Snorlax things, namely taking hits and dealing its own mediocre ones back while spreading annoying status. It should usually help in holding off special threats and claim a KO in the process, or at least provide vital momentum and make a large dent with Self-Destruct. A Jolly nature is worth considering purely to outspeed Melmetal because yeah, it's Melmetal, and it can actually flinch you down to make matters worse.


Mew

Level: 50
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Stealth Rock
- Roost
- U-turn / Will-O-Wisp

The rocker. It's very easy to set up Stealth Rock with Mew, which means your offense should be benefitting from hazard damage from the get-go. It also acts as a generally solid pivot for the rest of the game and can threaten opposing Mega Venusaur, which is, funnily enough, something the team can struggle with otherwise. Sacrificing the momentum of U-turn for Will-O-Wisp in order to better check the likes of Mega Gyarados, Melmetal, Mega Aerodactyl, and Alolan Muk may be worth it, as the team has quite a bulky backbone and doesn't necessarily require safe pivots via U-turn. Really, just try whatever you want, it's Mew.


Melmetal
Level: 50
Adamant Nature
- Double Iron Bash
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- Thunder Wave / Toxic

It's Melmetal! Melmetal does Melmetal things, like taking hits and threatening everything. It's another layer of insurance versus some of the most threatening Mega Evolutions too which is great, but really I added it because it's just such a powerful Pokemon that there's no reason not to. Thunder Wave is generally preferred on this team as Zapdos really isn't a problem, but Toxic still has some merit for helping to handle certain Mew variants that could be annoying (cough cough Bulk Up).

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Threat List (click the Pokemon to read their analyses and see what they do!)
Even with solid defenses against its teammates, Sucker Punch to pick it off, and Snorlax + Melmetal to take its hits decently, Mega Alakazam is still a big threat and can revenge kill Mega Venusaur better than anything else.
Alolan Muk clicks buttons real hard and we don't really have much to stop it. Handle with care.
Stealth Rock Mew isn't an issue, but Bulk Up or Psychic + Wisp Mew have potential to be quite annoying.
Mega Charizard X thankfully doesn't see too much usage at the moment, but can definitely cause issues when it does show up. At least it's vulnerable to revenge killing.

This isn't a milestone post or anything so no giant shoutouts paragraph but uhh hi ur cool. probably. ok bye

Team Import

also check out this RMT Collette wrote in the LGPE OU thread if you want more teams​