SM OU Man on the Moon -- Trick Room ft. Torkoal (Peaked 1922)

[Prisoner952]

(apologies for my taste in music)

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Introduction
Hello Smogon, welcome to my first RMT! But before we get into the team, a little about me. I've been playing showdown for about 5 years now, and really only being competitive about it for the last year or two. Frankly, I find playing meta teams to be a bit monotonous (after all, no new mons have been added for over 2 years), and while using less viable teams puts me at somewhat of a disadvantage, it makes playing, winning, even losing so much more enjoyable. But to that extent, I have never felt like I was playing at a disadvantage while using this team.
Trick room, as an archetype, generates relatively polarizing matchups. Offensive teams just crumple under trick room, and cresselia's bulk alone stops nearly all sweepers in their tracks. On the flip side, certain defensive mons and defensive cores are very hard for the team to wear down if your opponent doesn't make stupid gambles. Additionally, trick room's passiveness on off turns allows certain sweepers to become a problem, which isn't made any better by residual sun and grassy terrain. But in the end, every team has good and bad matchups, and, like with any team, every game with trick room is winnable.

Teambuilding Process

Eruption heatran was the focus of the team, being able to crush so many teams outright without needing to waste precious trick room turns setting up like marowak. With zygarde recently dispensed of, I knew it was time to try out this new toy.

Bronzong was my lead of choice to bait opposing heatran, who would prove problematic.

Cresselia is simply the best of trick room setters for her ability to reliably setup, heal abusers, and curb enemy setup sweepers.

I was hesitant to put magearna on the team, as having too many special attackers weakens the team to mons like chansey and toxapex, particularly the latter. To compensate for that, I opted for z-thunderbolt over z-fleur cannon.

I went to fulfill the mega slot next, and I saw little point to running heatran and camerupt, so mawile was the mega of choice.

Kommo-o was the last, and most disappointing member of the team. While he looked good on paper, being able to halt blacephalon and particularly ash-greninja with his typing and having absurd power in the form of belly drum, he never really worked out that well. He wasn't threatening to force out switches, which meant that he was often flat-out killed when he setup belly drum.

Bulu was much more useful than kommo-o as an ash-gren check. He could break through basically everything that heatran could not, and mawile's fire fang baited out steels very nicely for him. Grassy terrain even allowed me to run nature power on heatran.

By this point, I had used the team a fair amount, and I came to find heatran's power a bit underwhelming on the whole. I opted to switch to torkoal for more rawly powerful eruptions and better coverage options.

Several small changes were made after that point, including changes to bulu, bronzong, and cresselia's spread. I kept shifting around torkoal's coverage moves, but never really settled on one being the best set. Also shiny bulu got released.

Proof of Peak

Unfortunately didn't take a screenchot of the ladder so I don't know exactly what place I was in :(

In-Depth

Bronzong @ Mental Herb
Ability: Heatproof
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Atk / 48 Def / 36 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Stealth Rock
Your lead in almost every situation, exceptions are hoopa-u, tyranitar, medicham, and blacephalon. The main purpose here though, and the reason I chose him over Uxie, is for the sake of baiting, becuase there's nothing in the world like a turn 1 win. Well not actually, you'll want to set trick room before hitting earthquake making it a turn 2 win, but I digress. Heatproof lets you take attacks from heatran, victini, zardy, etc. and setup of them. Your primary objective is to set rocks, but if your opponent has, say, tapu fini in and spams defog, switch out asap and bring bronzong in again later. Same goes for if you know your opponent will hit stealth rock or taunt, no need to explode and waste a perfectly good bronzong (or a weakened bronzong for that matter, because fodder is extremely useful on TR). The given ev's let you eat an excadrill EQ (vs excadrill set TR and then double EQ to kill and set SR on whoever he sends in next) or a a-gren (unevolved) dark pulse. Again, while explosion damage is nice, its not bronzong's main purpose, so blowing up at -1 v. defensive lando is perfectly fine.

Cresselia @ Tanga Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 176 Def / 84 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psyshock / Ice Beam
- Moonlight
- Trick Room
- Lunar Dance
Bit of a strange set here, but I can explain. After a disappointing loss in the ou spring seasonal, I decided that my team needed work in terms of the volcarona matchup. While I had tried to prepare already (my heatran in that game was armed with rock slide for that reason, after all), it wasn't really enough. I realized that I was teching (if anyone's familiar with hearthstone terms) the wrong mon. With this set, cresselia can take a +1 savage spin-out from volc after rocks with the trade-off loss of mental herb. For ladder purposes, volcarona is not exactly common, so a standard set would probably be better. The attacking move is a fairly negligible choice imo, but I prefer psyshock to ease, however slightly, the toxapex and venusaur matchup

Magearna @ Electrium Z / Fightinium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Fleur Cannon
- Thunderbolt
- Focus Blast
Magearna mostly functions as a cleaner. Early game, I won't really be using it much in favor of my stronger abusers. Magearna excels at picking up the peices due to soul-heart and she can set trick room for any of the other abusers given the circumstances. Steel-Fairy typing allows magearna to setup on mons that would obliderate cresselia like hoopa and a-gren (if its already choice locked, not yet evolved, or if sun's up). The z crystal here is probably debatable as I find myself in the same scenario of using one and needing the other when I play. Electrium eases the unfavored celepex matchup, while fightinium catches ferrothorn an heatran off-guard. Ultimately, the choice depends on the meta and what coverage the rest of the team runs.

Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Fire Fang / Thunder Punch / Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
Oftentimes, with 2 choice-locked abusers your opponent will have a mon that blocks bulu, and another that blocks torkoal. It's up to mawile to open up the team. Maile's swords dances are the only real solution there. At +2 basically everything drops to a play rough / coverage move. Aside from that, Mawile can stop some sweepers with sucker punch (and if they carry roost, don't be afraid to play rough on the first turn in) and clean up late game under the right circumstances. With 248 hp and intimidate, mawile is surprisingly fat, and she makes use of it by stopping things like kartana and terrakion that could be problematic for cresselia to deal with.

Tapu Bulu @ Choice Band
Ability: Grassy Surge
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 156 Atk / 104 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stone Edge
- Horn Leech
- Wood Hammer
- Superpower
Bulu ohkoes a lot, and he 2hko's a lot. To that extent, I don't see a reason to have him deal more damage if he still 2hko's, especially while he desperately needs bulk to check the likes of koko and a-gren. Thus the given spread allows him to ohko helmet torn-t after rocks and allocates the rest to bulk. Spread aside, bulu plays as vital a role to the team as torkoal. When your opponent has a toxapex, chansey, or something else that makes torkoal sad, bulu is your go-to. Smart predictions are vital to his success, as he excellently lures in his own checks like zapdos and kartana. Rinse and repeat that until the team can be swept by wood hammer/horn leech, but of course, it's never that simple is it. If your opponent brought cele, skarm, etc. it gets a bit messy and its probably better to use another abuser to open up the opposing team first.

/

Torkoal

Torkoal @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Eruption
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power / superpower / solar beam
- Superpower / solar beam / rapid spin / hidden power [electric]

Heatran

Heatran @ Choice Specs
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Eruption
- Magma Storm / Fire Blast / Flash Cannon
- Earth Power
- Nature Power / Hidden Power [Grass]

By far the most adaptable and debatable slot, so let me elaborate. True for either mon: this is your main sweeper. Many ateam will have absolutely no stop to specs'd eruption. Rotom crumples to double eruptions, fini will be 2hko'd by torkoal if no rocks are up on your side, and heatran has a slight chance to 2hko without rocks (guaranteed with rocks). Even chansey takes ~40-45% from a full health eruption. Either option has excellent baiting options in the form of solar beam, HP grass, or nature power (often you'll have to do a manuver like this for nature power to secure a kill). Earth power allows either mon to kill heatran on the switchin, whose flash fire can be problematic.
Now, for the differences between the two. In a vacuum, torkoal's eruption is more powerful. After rocks, heatran's eruption is more powerful. Heatran is weaker to spikes, while torkoal is susceptible to tspikes. Heatran fares better against weather abusers in general, but cannot bait ttar as well w/o superpower. Torkoal gets better coverage/tech moves and drought can be a blessing or a curse, namely letting zardx smash your team. In the end, the specifics depend on the meta and personal preference.

Threatlist

Heracross is very annoying to deal with. Obliterates the team flat-out with spikes or chip on the steels and otherwise wears down the team very quickly.

Either your opponent does something stupid or you'll have to pp stall its synthesis.

One beats torkoal, the other beats bulu. Your best shot is probably to try to wear down steela so bulu can sweep. Catching them off guard with electrium magearna works as well.

Underspeeds most of the team, liquidates basically all of the abusers and jabs bulu.

Closing
Playing this team has been an interesting experience; it either brings out the best or worse in a person. So many people on the ladder were amazed that torkoal was capable of dealing so much damage. Many times people are just having a shit day and playing against trick room reminds them that pokemon is a fun game. On the other hand, there are people who take insult to even having come close to losing to such a team. People like that lash out as soon as something slightly lucky happens not in their favor or when they lose hide the replay out of embarrassment. It seems that nobody who plays this game knows the first rule of preventing tilt: realizing when rng is the reason you are losing.
Anyway, Its been a lot of fun playing this team and hopefully I inspired some of you to try less orthodox teams. If you've got any questions about the team or just want to talk feel free to hmu.

Out

import

Torkoal @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Eruption
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Superpower

Bronzong @ Mental Herb
Ability: Heatproof
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Atk / 48 Def / 36 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Stealth Rock

Cresselia @ Tanga Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 176 Def / 84 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psyshock
- Moonlight
- Trick Room
- Lunar Dance

Magearna @ Electrium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Fleur Cannon
- Thunderbolt
- Focus Blast

Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Fire Fang
- Sucker Punch

Tapu Bulu @ Choice Band
Ability: Grassy Surge
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 156 Atk / 104 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stone Edge
- Horn Leech
- Wood Hammer
- Superpower

Replays

Heatran

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-900492228

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-900498325

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-900502089

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-900511328

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-900513614

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-900518060

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-900523459

Torkoal

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-900807525

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-901356258

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-901795040

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-902415091

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-902477699

 

[VannAccessible]

Trick Room is my jam, playstyle-wise, so I’ll throw in my thoughts.

I really like the idea of Specs Torkoal, not just for the power and weather control it provides, and augmenting Cresselia’s Moonlight fatness, but also because Sun really reduces the potency of Ash-Greninja’s Water Shuriken, which is offense’s best answer to TR, and really helps take a lot of pressure off Tapu Bulu in that regard.

Speaking of Bulu, I’ve always been torn on it with TR teams. On the one hand, it hits like a truck, helps Magenera get a TR up on Landorus in emergencies, is one of TR’s two offensive mons able to repeatedly counter Ash-Gren (Azurmarril being the other) and gives your grounded mons some passive recovery. On the other hand, it worsens the TR’s bad match up against Substitute users, adds to TR’s tendencies to be weak to Fire, and there’s so many 4x Grass resists running that around it can be hard to use effectively, especially against competent double switches. I’m curious, have you considered Swords Dance Bulu instead? That’d let you free up your move choices, and might make the Celepex match up easier.

I’ve tinkered with Heatproof Bronz as a way to dick over Magma Storm Heatran (which kills Magenera and traps Cress, which can be less than ideal if you don’t want to Lunar Dance yet). I like it.

All in all, nice team!

 

[Prisoner952]

Trick Room is my jam, playstyle-wise, so I’ll throw in my thoughts.

I really like the idea of Specs Torkoal, not just for the power and weather control it provides, and augmenting Cresselia’s Moonlight fatness, but also because Sun really reduces the potency of Ash-Greninja’s Water Shuriken, which is offense’s best answer to TR, and really helps take a lot of pressure off Tapu Bulu in that regard.

Speaking of Bulu, I’ve always been torn on it with TR teams. On the one hand, it hits like a truck, helps Magenera get a TR up on Landorus in emergencies, is one of TR’s two offensive mons able to repeatedly counter Ash-Gren (Azurmarril being the other) and gives your grounded mons some passive recovery. On the other hand, it worsens the TR’s bad match up against Substitute users, adds to TR’s tendencies to be weak to Fire, and there’s so many 4x Grass resists running that around it can be hard to use effectively, especially against competent double switches. I’m curious, have you considered Swords Dance Bulu instead? That’d let you free up your move choices, and might make the Celepex match up easier.

I’ve tinkered with Heatproof Bronz as a way to dick over Magma Storm Heatran (which kills Magenera and traps Cress, which can be less than ideal if you don’t want to Lunar Dance yet). I like it.

All in all, nice team!

Good idea, I never really gave SD bulu a shot. It could help with steela a lot and also make it more difficult for Volcarona to set up. On the other hand, staying in a turn on toxapex to set up SD is risky with scald and magearna does not appreciate losing a z crystal. I could try out expert belt on magearna though which is debatably better than a z crystal in the first place. On the whole, the benefits outweigh the downsides though so I’ll try it out.

 

[ElStefano]

Hi, I also like this team a lot! I never knew Torcoal can be this powerful, and the synergy between some members of this team is really nice (Torcoal's Sun boosting Cresselia's Moonlight-healing, Bulu's Terrain healing Torcoal to improve Eruption's power after a rocks switchin and so forth...)

In some way, it feels like the counterpart to my Trickrain team :D So just a weird thought out of the blue: Have you thought about adding a Chlorophyl-Sweeper that uses the sun turns when Trickroom isn't up? Something like Venusaur with Earthquake to kill opposing Heatran? Growth Venusaur also helps with the stall matchup, which isn't too good for a Trickroom team actually. Might be a bad idea though :D

I actually don't like Magearna too much on this team. It stacks ground and fire weaknesses, is walled by similar mons as Torcoal (Chansey and Pex, although Electrium-Z is a nice tech to make a virtue of necessity), it feels like it is the only mon with no specific task other than to set the Trickroom vs Dark Type attackers. However, you alrdy have two Fairies to force out Dark types and get up Trickroom later on.

A mon I found decent succes with on TR-teams is Victini, i could imagine that it works even better in the sun and with a Z-crystal, adding another really strong fire type nuke to easily overwhelm the opposing resists, and powerful attacker on the physical side. It also deals with Heatran for Torcoal, especially in Terrain. On the downside, it adds another Psychic type (which you also have plenty now). I would use a set like this

Hide

Victini @ Firium-Z
Ability: Victory Star
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
- Trick Room
- V-create
- Bolt Strike
- Power-Up Punch

I can't say if this really improves the team, but I feel like it's worth playtesting it =)

VannAccessible, you forgot about Crawdaunt, which is also a consistent Greninja check on TR (and a cool mon), and maybe Araquanid ;)

Btw: Why do you run psyshock on Cress?

 

[Prisoner952]

Hi, I also like this team a lot! I never knew Torcoal can be this powerful, and the synergy between some members of this team is really nice (Torcoal's Sun boosting Cresselia's Moonlight-healing, Bulu's Terrain healing Torcoal to improve Eruption's power after a rocks switchin and so forth...)

In some way, it feels like the counterpart to my Trickrain team :D So just a weird thought out of the blue: Have you thought about adding a Chlorophyl-Sweeper that uses the sun turns when Trickroom isn't up? Something like Venusaur with Earthquake to kill opposing Heatran? Growth Venusaur also helps with the stall matchup, which isn't too good for a Trickroom team actually. Might be a bad idea though :D

I actually don't like Magearna too much on this team. It stacks ground and fire weaknesses, is walled by similar mons as Torcoal (Chansey and Pex, although Electrium-Z is a nice tech to make a virtue of necessity), it feels like it is the only mon with no specific task other than to set the Trickroom vs Dark Type attackers. However, you alrdy have to Fairies to force out Dark types and get up Trickroom later on.

A mon I found decent succes with on TR-teams is Victini, i could imagine that it works even better in the sun and with a Z-crystal, adding another really strong fire type nuke to easily overwhelm the opposing resists, and powerful attacker on the physical side. It also deals with Heatran for Torcoal, especially in Terrain. On the downside, it adds another Psychic type (which you also have plenty now). I would use a set like this

Hide

Victini @ Firium-Z
Ability: Victory Star
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
- Trick Room
- V-create
- Bolt Strike
- Power-Up Punch

I can't say if this really improves the team, but I feel like it's worth playtesting it =)

VannAccessible, you totally forgot about Crawdaunt, which is also a consistent Greninja check on TR (and a cool mon), and maybe Araquanid ;)

I never even considered using a sun abuser when i was building the team, but I think with a bit of restructuring it could work out. I'll be sure to experiment with that.

I've always been opposed to using cresselia and victini together because of the stacking of psychic weaknesses, but offensively it does make perfect sense here and I already have bulu and mawile for darks. The only worry for me would be hoopa, which isn't very common anyway and is pretty easy to remove anyway.

Btw: Why do you run psyshock on Cress?

Oh yeah forgot to mention that, ill update. Psyshock is to burn through venusaur's synthesis' and possibly to 1v1 non-toxic pex. Ice beam didn't seem as useful to me, as the only things that it really helps with is garchomp, who will usually expect an ice beam and run for the hills anyway, and torn-t, who gets picked off by a wood hammer in 9/10 games anyway. Others like zapdos or latias are less common/its better just to setup and switch out to someone else anyway

 

[VannAccessible]

VannAccessible, you totally forgot about Crawdaunt, which is also a consistent Greninja check on TR (and a cool mon), and maybe Araquanid ;)

Actually, I did remember those two! Both are awesome offensive mons, but they both have issues switching in to Gren.

Crawdaunt has the Gren STAB resists, true enough, but its defenses are so flimsy, it can’t tank Specs hits more than once, making repeated switch ins a non-option. Plus, Crawdaunt often runs Life Orb, so it needs its health to deal out the damage, in that instance.

Araquanid has some super nice special bulk, sure enough, but there’s that Stealth Rock weakness to contend with. And many TR teams can’t afford the momentum sink that is Defog or Rapid Spin, unless they’re like your Rain team, and aren’t full TR, in which case you can run Tornadus for hazard control. ;)

 

[lonely blue heart]

Pretty cool team! Its so good to see that trick room is still a threat

 

[mikekap]

This team and the Araquanid Trickrain, are among the best Trick Room teams I've ever used. Torkoal is literally a beast, its damage is unreal! I have a thing for teams using Cresselia. Don't get me started on the trollish Heatproof Bronzong, and how many Heatrans it has killed!! I'm actually trying now Expert Belt Magearna and Swords Dance Rockium Tapu Bulu, as suggested above, to see if the team is better this way. I'll try Victini, too, and I'm really curious if you decide to add Venu as chlorophyl sweeper. Anyways congrats for the immense creativity!