Pokémon Magearna

[nameless90]

This thing can even run Trick Room against offence for two reasons:
(1) In HO teams, the pokemons run max Atk or SpA + max Spe EVs, and Trick Room makes useless the latter EVs. This means you can use 252 EVs onto HP stat and run a Modest nature;
(2) It is a Trick Room setter not weak to Dark (mainly Knock Off), which is easily spammable as an utility move.

Magearna @ Life Orb
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fleur Cannon
- Trick Room
- Volt Switch
- Flash Cannon

EVs emphasizes Magearna's bulk while keeping a good SpA stat. Trick Room is mandatory because it works like an "Agility", but neuters opposite Scarfers and pokemons' EV'd into Spe. Volt Switch is for momentum: a slow U-Turn outside the TR, or a fast one inside the TR. Uninvested 65 Spe still outspeed some walls in order to have a "fast" U-Turn in front of them.

Thoughts?

 

[Ema Skye]

If you're running Trick Room, why not go Quiet Nature (+SpA, -Spe) and minimum Speed IVs?

 

[nameless90]

If you're running Trick Room, why not go Quiet Nature (+SpA, -Spe) and minimum Speed IVs?

Because you are already quite slow towards HO teams (or even balanced teams), so a Quiet nature is redundant. With 65 base Spe you are already fast enough to outspeed many walls and use "a fast" Volt Switch towards them.
If you are against TR teams, don't use TR.

 

[Lolrider]

Shift Gear and Gyro Ball in one set is quite a questionable choice so nope. Apart from this, Gyro ball requires really slow speed to be useful, the only things that actually use it succesfully are ferrothorn and bronzong (and I guess gyroball aegislash aegislash, but this is specifically vs boosted xerneas) which have much lower speed and dont mind minimizing it. While magearna can live without speed investment, it still likes outspeeding slower defensive pokemon.

About physical based sets, there is simply so much speaking for using magearna's sp.atk to its fullest extent that physical attacks are quite useless, not even taking into account ts basically non-existant physical movepool. You can argue that it can boost with shift gear, but fleur cannon will still vastly outdamage even +1 iron head against most targets and there's still soul heart

HAHA, I'm sorry, you're completely correct. I don't know why for some reason I substituted Gyro Ball's interactions with Shift Gear for Heavy Slam's interactions with Shift Gear. Definitely, making yourself faster while running a move that needs you to be as slow as possible to do maximum damage is questionable at best.

But, as for the mixed set itself, my idea, which I think has been echoed earlier in the thread, is that running physical attacks allows you to stay in after using Fleur Cannon. Which, when combined with Soul Heart, means that you could, potentially, use multiple, full-strength Fleur Cannon's in a single sweep without having to switch out or otherwise remove negative boosts.

This is a non-issue if you run Z-Shift Gear, but I guess I'm looking for alternatives.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Because you are already quite slow towards HO teams (or even balanced teams), so a Quiet nature is redundant. With 65 base Spe you are already fast enough to outspeed many walls and use "a fast" Volt Switch towards them.
If you are against TR teams, don't use TR.

So basically you're using Trick Room without fully committing to it? That's actually pretty brilliant, making use of Magearna's slow-but-not-molasses speed to let you decide whether or not you would benefit from using Trick Room during the battle itself instead of in the teambuilder.

 

[Admiraal Aardappel]

On the topic of TR and mixed sets (as well as Gyro Ball), and I know this sounds crazy, but has anyone done the calcs on a potential power item/trick room/gyro ball set similar to that old Bronzong set? I imagine the speed is too high but I just couldn't help thinking about it.

 

[smellslikememe]

Magearna @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fleur Cannon
- Aura Sphere/Flash Cannon
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind
This set takes advantage of Magearna's great defenses and typing as well as its respectable uninvested Special Attack stat. While it might not be the most effective set, it can set up on many different Pokemon as well as force switches simply due to its typing and fear of the raw power of Fleur Cannon. Due to the investment in physical bulk, it can take most neutral physical attacks without too many issues. It goes particularly well against Pokemon like Kartana, Celesteela, and the dreaded Toxapex itself. Or at least in my experience :]
EDIT:
You can also move 44 Def to Spe to outpace uninvested base 70's or 124 to outspeed uninvested base 80's. Overall, I'd say with most Magearna sets, it's solid OU due to typing, bulk, and power. Lack of recovery aside from Leftovers really hurts it, but access to coverage options like Tbolt and Aura Sphere and a Speed boosting move in Shift Gear somewhat compensate for its low Speed and subpar typing offensively.

 

[Jojobobo]

I think for Trick Room sets (possibly even Shift Gear), people should really consider using Air Balloon. It means you have just one weakness to worry about in order to find a set up opportunity, making it extremely easy with Trick Room to set multiple times given your solid defences and defensive typing - even without recovery. It really screws with your opponent, as they may keep Lando in reserve to deal with it, only to find when you send it out they now have to use crap coverage and then take a Fleur Cannon to the face on turn 2. Though you do lack a little fire power, but it's not like a 252+ 130 base mon is really bad to begin with either.

 

[Aurinko]

I ran the Uber's set with quite a bit of success in OU recently:

Magearna @ Fairium-Z
EVs: 252 HP/140 Def/116 SpDef
Calm Nature
- Fleur Cannon
- Flash Cannon
- Heart Swap
- Pain Split

The Split lets you survive Banded Tyranitar's Earthquake after SR (which I'm weak to) and OHKO back with Twinkle Tackle - and lets you fully wall Psychic Spam and Hoopa-U while things like Tapu Fini get Heart Swapped your SpAtk Drop - which nets you the kill in 1on1 - and Porygon-Z is set up fodder.
You're living forever with Pain Split and the bulk.

 

[mido_128]

Soft resetted for an essentially perfect modest nature magearna but it's so hard to settle on an ev spread for this girl. What seems to be the consensus on this?
I was leaning towards just going max spatk and speed with shift gear though.

 

[Martin]

Yeah people who are using TR Magearna should definitely run Modest+31 IVs>Quiet+0 IVs. The general idea with a good TR attacker is that it shouldn't be entirely dependent on Trick Room, as they should be faster than some stuff they threaten outside of Trick Room anyway due to the move being an anti-offense tool moreso than a general use tool so as to improve the matchup vs. defensive teams which you shouldn't need TR up to take on; a pretty good example of this was OTR Hoopa in ORAS UU, which typically ran max Spe modest for this exact reason.

Magearna has a pretty big advantage over other OTR Pokemon like Reuniclus and Slowking in that it is "fast" in the respect that it outpaces a number of walls without a boost. If anything, I'd probably bump the investment up from what nameless90 has listed so that Magearna can outpace uninvested 70s outside of Trick Room, allowing you to nail Mantine and Skarmory with Thunderbolt before they can use Spikes/Roost or Scald, respectively.

 

[Wishy Nova]

Shadow Ball doesn't really hit anything relevant, does it? I'd just swap it for Volt Switch s that Magearna can function as a pivot.

Tapu Lele is relevant.

 

[Subject 18]

Flash Cannon hits Tapu Lele harder. Shadow Ball hits Alola-Marowak but I dont think its worth running.

 

[JacobShamon]

I think instead of shadow ball put ice beam then you can counter ground types witch are at a type advantage when versing

 

[Shurtugal]

Gonna quote myself from metagame discussion since I wanted to bring up these points here, too:

I have had a lot of fun using AV Magearna and U-Turn Landorus-T. Between Landorus's intimidate and insane physical bulk and Magearna's huge bulk from assault vest and access to volt switch, they form a powerful slow voltturn core that is able to bring in powerful threats that would otherwise have a harder time switching in, such as Mega Alakazam or Specs Lele.

However, this core can be implemented on stall with good wish passers in Alomomola, which is a solid choice the meta as it can wall most Metagross, physical genesect, Kingdra, and Greninja while some of the common switches to Alomomola in Bulu or Lele are walled by Magearna (Lele) or Landorus (Bulu) that easily eat up attacks and absorb that fat wish right up.

Has anyone else tried this voltturn core?

(Side note: hp fire magearna lures a lot of things for lele like gene ferro sciz, altho one should be weary of Heatran)

 

[JSND]

Gonna quote myself from metagame discussion since I wanted to bring up these points here, too:

I run 3 mon(Bulu Gear Lando) you mentioned but with Incarnate

The squad is actually the reason why i consider Magearna to be the best pokemon in the meta right now

 

[RainbowDemon]

So it's like a bulkier Diancie with better defensive typing and a sweeping move. Count me in, I'll enjoy it before it gets banned.

 

[themadkingatmey]

Magearna is pretty crazy, from what I can tell. Those well-balanced stats, the solid movepool, the good ability, it just looks like a really tough pokemon to deal with. It can do trick room, it can boost its speed, it can run bulky sets, specs, scarf, just all kinds of stuff. From what I can gather, a bulky AV vest, a shift gear set with Fairium-Z, or a choice specs set could be the best options. But even an air balloon set can work well too, for its set up... sets.

Z-moves negates the secondary effects of moves, right? If so, you can shift gear, then Fairium-Z the fleur cannon, and nuke whatever's in front of you, get the +1 bonus, then use fleur cannon again, then go back to neutral thanks to the Soul-Heart ability, or you can just use your other moves and hit hard at +1. That seems like a really hard set to handle once it is properly set.

It only wishes it had something to deal with fire types beyond just a hidden power move. Still, it wouldn't surprise me if Magearna eventually was banned to Ubers because of the combination of factors that make it a really versatile and balanced pokemon.

 

[guustavooo]

Gonna quote myself from metagame discussion since I wanted to bring up these points here, too:

Care to share the sets for both AV Magearna and Landorous-T? I wanna try this core.

 

[legend slayer]

Wait,

Doesn't Shift Gear raises ATK while we're all using Special Attacks? Something I'm missing?

yeah they are use this set guysMagearna-Original @ Fairium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Iron Head
- Fleur Cannon
- Explosion
- Shift Gear
can always end with the big bang if things get ugly

 

[Agent Gibbs]

No, don't run a physical Shift Gear set. It's just bad. If you're running Shift Gear Magearna, you should treat it like a pseudo-Agility and use a special set. Not only is Magearna's SpA much higher than its Atk, but it also has much better special coverage and can achieve even greater special power when Soul Heart gets going. The above set just gets shut down by most Steels, whereas a special set can muscle past many of them with Aura Sphere/Focus Blast or Thunderbolt.

 

[legend slayer]

No, don't run a physical Shift Gear set. It's just bad. If you're running Shift Gear Magearna, you should treat it like a pseudo-Agility and use a special set. Not only is Magearna's SpA much higher than its Atk, but it also has much better special coverage and can achieve even greater special power when Soul Heart gets going. The above set just gets shut down by most Steels, whereas a special set can muscle past many of them with Aura Sphere/Focus Blast or Thunderbolt.

yeah but after 1 boost attack is close to spa and a mixed attacker set with her has the potential to go far in the current metagame.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

yeah but after 1 boost attack is close to spa and a mixed attacker set with her has the potential to go far in the current metagame.

It really doesn't. The biggest problem with your set is that you have a Timid nature, no Atk investment, and no item to boost her physical moves. Even at +1, she's hitting with all the terrifying force of a Choice Band Staryu, and you still can't hit Steels. Genesect pulls off that kind of set so much better, and even he usually doesn't go mixed with Shift Gear/Rock Polish sets because focusing on either the physical or special side is more effective than trying to split between the two. Shift Gear Magearna's talents stem from her large SpA stat, good coverage, and Soul Heart. Stick to that and leave the physical sets to Genesect.

 

[Justin Rickerman]

It really doesn't. The biggest problem with your set is that you have a Timid nature, no Atk investment, and no item to boost her physical moves. Even at +1, she's hitting with all the terrifying force of a Choice Band Staryu, and you still can't hit Steels. Genesect pulls off that kind of set so much better, and even he usually doesn't go mixed with Shift Gear/Rock Polish sets because focusing on either the physical or special side is more effective than trying to split between the two. Shift Gear Magearna's talents stem from her large SpA stat, good coverage, and Soul Heart. Stick to that and leave the physical sets to Genesect.

I can attest to that. I have found that the most success I have had with her is either going the TR route or the Fairinium Z route with flour cannon. They both wall break and do thier jobs efficiently. The mixed route just leaves you with a "fast" sup par mixed attacker with no item boost unless you go life orb. She has to go timid in order to reach the critical speed tiers and modest is really need on this type to ensure kos.

 

[Yohng]

Magearna @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fleur Cannon
- Aura Sphere/Flash Cannon
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind
This set takes advantage of Magearna's great defenses and typing as well as its respectable uninvested Special Attack stat. While it might not be the most effective set, it can set up on many different Pokemon as well as force switches simply due to its typing and fear of the raw power of Fleur Cannon. Due to the investment in physical bulk, it can take most neutral physical attacks without too many issues. It goes particularly well against Pokemon like Kartana, Celesteela, and the dreaded Toxapex itself. Or at least in my experience :]
EDIT:
You can also move 44 Def to Spe to outpace uninvested base 70's or 124 to outspeed uninvested base 80's. Overall, I'd say with most Magearna sets, it's solid OU due to typing, bulk, and power. Lack of recovery aside from Leftovers really hurts it, but access to coverage options like Tbolt and Aura Sphere and a Speed boosting move in Shift Gear somewhat compensate for its low Speed and subpar typing offensively.

Hey guys, coming back to Pokemon with SuMo after leaving when Pokemon left the normal DS after BW. Just had a quick clarifying question that I think I already know the answer to: I've seen some people specify 0 Atk IV's and such. Is there any reason for this outside of simply minimizing potential Swagger damage and such? (someone swaggers me, I do less damage to myself since my base attack is lower, etc.)

To contribute a bit to the overall discussion, I definitely am leaning towards a Modest nature myself as well for some aforementioned reasons where it allows you to pack a punch while still having the flexibility of using TR or not. Considering that I'll be playing on WiFi often as well, having more flexibility in terms of being able to switch back and forth between TR or Shift Gear where all I'll have to do is redo my EV's sounds pretty appealing to me too.