SM OU Offensive mega scizor (as used by aim on road to top 10)

[unami]

Brief introduction about the team

I find sd mega scizor to be solid on the ladder. I've tried curse out to some extent (which is what ppl prefer nowadays) and I believe sd gives the most consistent results laddering wise. Originally, I posted this team in the sm ou bazaar hopefully for ppl to try it but after I managed to get top 5 with it with a nice winstreak, I decided to rmt it. Mind I'm not the best player out there and I tend to make a lot of mistakes when I play but this team has been able to piggyback me to rank #4.

the peak of the team

As used by aim on road to top 10 (it's really awesome he gave it a shot)

Teambuilding process

I'll start with the 4 mon offensive core to keep things as simple as it can be. I wanted to run sd mega scizor and I chose icium kyurem-b as the main partner to it coz it can break past every ou counter known to scizor such as toxapex, heatran, mega venu, zapdos and celesteela. Because kyuremb lacks hp fire, it gets walled by opposing mega scizor. This is where I added magnezone. Aside from trapping opposing mega scizor which can be curse which my own mega scizor will lose to, it will also trap celesteela, making kyurem-b's job easier (so maybe it can save the subzero slammer for something else). Following this, it traps ferrothorn, mega mawile and scarf kartana locked into the wrong move. Also, it can weaken av magearna to put it in range of tapu lele and +2 scizor bp. Mega mawile removal is also important for this team because it can punish my defensive core heavily. Tapu lele is chosen because it abuses removal of steel types like ferro and steela and also appreciates kyurem-b running over heatran and is extremely potent when said steel types are removed. I have a few versions of the team with different tapu lele sets, 1 being scarf the other being cm twisted spoon with focus blast to break stall in conjunction with kyurem-b but I decided the scarf version is better which I will explain following this. Scarf lele is very solid with support to remove heatran, steela and ferro as it can very often clean up games if scizor fails to do so or wallbreak even together with kyurem-b.

My other versions of the team had scarf garchomp/landot with rocks and defog over hippo and stuff like tangrowth over mantine. However, the team didn't perform as consistently then because I was facing problems like having trouble defogging for my kyurem-b, at risk of getting swept by hawlucha (which ppl were spamming on ladder) easily and heatran was another big nuisance. Following this, I switched to 2 mons not very commonly used in ou in hippowdon and mantine and this version proved to be the best for me. Aside from defogging, heatran and hawlucha problems which were now fixed since mantine is able to easily defog on ashgren and defensive landot as well as heatran unless my opponent decides to be cheeky and taunt me. I know mantine does not defog on ferro but with magnezone support, ferro can be removed and then mantine can defog later. Mantine also has benefits of hard walling rain teams (which ppl spam on ladder) without manaphy if played decently once ferro is trapped and removed, sitting there to toxic stall everything. It also deals with mega alakazam provided it isn't in psychic terrain. Hawlucha is also countered with a healthy hippo whirlwinding it out. I also cannot stress enough how much of a pain in the ass static zapdos is. Using stuff like scarf landot and garchomp put me at risk of getting hp iced on and potential uturns can be punished with static. Worst still, switchins like kyurem-b can also be punished by discharge para. Any would be checks like clef can also lose to it because of that. By using hippo, I get to wall zapdos and rock on it as well as whirlwind it out. Lastly, I did mention that zone can eliminate mega mawile which is amazing for me since mawile punishes teams for using passive mons like hippo and mantine. Alas, breaking stall with this version is a lot trickier since only kyurem-b is my only stallbreaker and I ended up playing a pp stall war with another guy coz I refused to forfeit and won after over 300 turns.

Movesets of my mons

I think I've covered most of what I needed to say in the above posts so anything that isn't standard I won't go into too much detail.

Kyurem-Black @ Icium Z
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Freeze Shock
- Fusion Bolt
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power

Freeze shock/ice beam are stabs and the time to tell ur opponent to choose a mon to die if they dont have solid ice resists. Fusion bolt is for toxapex, av magearna and celesteela. Earth power is for heatran.

Magnezone @ Assault Vest
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 112 HP / 252 SpA / 144 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Flash Cannon

144 speed should be enough to outrun common scizor spreads now. Rest into hp and fitted with an assault vest to make it as bulky as possible to make dealing with tapu lele slightly easier since I lack good switchins to it on this team. Modest nature preferred to give more firepower to trap the stuff it's supposed to trap.

Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Focus Blast

Standard lele scarf set. Ppl sometimes run psyshock over focus blast but I think focus blast is better because in the case ur opponent has something like mega scizor and ashgren for example.... click focus blast pray you don't miss problem solved no prediction needed.

Scizor-Mega @ Scizorite
Ability: Light Metal
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Atk / 16 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off
- Roost

The unset which rarely anyone runs nowadays. Here's some calcs why I like it. I find it way harder to get things in range of +1 bp if running max def + curse so I prefer sd. 16 speed to outrun max speed adamant alolan marowak in case anyone runs that.

calcs

+2 252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Koko: 274-324 (97.5 - 115.3%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Medicham-Mega: 273-322 (104.5 - 123.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Lopunny-Mega: 253-298 (93.3 - 109.9%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 165-195 (57.8 - 68.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Magearna: 211-250 (58.1 - 68.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 112 Def / 144 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Whirlwind

Whirlwind preferred over toxic to boot out hawlucha so lele can revenge and setup zygarde with substitute. Also checks the most common koko set very well which is shuca alongside magnezone.

Mantine @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Def / 220 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Scald
- Defog
- Toxic

Toxic preferred over haze to 5-0 rain teams after trapping ferrothorn. Also used to poison z celebrate victini, bulu switchins etc.

The weakness to opposing tapu lele and medicham + how to deal with it

Usually I lead with my own scarf lele and trade moonblast and I move first because I am scarf. Following that, make an aggressive double into magnezone if they have a steela/ferro and it usually always works, trapping and removing their steel type for the remainder of the game making it that much easier. Also, magnezone is av so it can take anything that isn't all out pummeling but I prefer not to rely too much on that.

As medicham claims a kill on lead preview, lead with tapu lele. Even without an rmt it should be quite easy to guess that my tapu lele is scarf from team preview. If i see my opponent has no other solid switchin that can take psychic/moonblast other than ferrothorn or celesteela, usually i will make an aggressive double immediately into magnezone to remove their steel type for the rest of the game and make it way easier to clean up with lele. Aim to slowly get chip on it even if it means sacking a mon provided that mon isnt necessary to win the game so it can be more easily revenged later. lets say hippowdown is out vs medicham and my opponent has a defensive landot which i can check with scizor and mantine, i will eq the medicham even if it means i have to take a hjk and sack hippo (which def takes 1 from full). Getting eq + sand chip on it means I can bp it with scizor also if it really comes to mantine vs medicham it will be range of scald. Then, also consider if the opponent will double to medicham. for example, ashgren is very commonly paired with mega medicham. say i have hippo out vs something like ashgren. its quite unlikely that my opponent will go for hydro pump considering i run mantine coz if they do they lose all momentum. so its either they spike or double to medicham or dark pulse (which isnt a 2hko on hippo after lefties). so in situations like these u can predict either a dark pulse/spike or double to medicham and act accordingly by say eqing with hippo.

Notable replays

With av, zone can trap double dance magearna - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-828851245
Me playing like shit and almost throwing coz I didn't expect kyurem to be z move and still winning coz team piggybacked me - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-829599512

Special mentions

Um not quite sure how to do this but hi to Jordy and Djokra, for cheering me on if they read, especially to Jordy coz I told him I didn't want to rmt this till later but couldn't resist xd

 

[Gross Sweep]

Hi - I'm locking your RMT for the time being since you're only allowed to post one team every two weeks. This is stated in the forum rules. I'll reopen this thread on Nov 7th upon request.

Edit: Reopened