SM OU My first OU team! (Balance) (Is peaked at 16th on ladder, still there, can go further) (1967 ELO)

Dollainthewoods

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner’s for Beginners
Before I say anything I'd like to say this team is made by me, I didn't steal it and I have no clue how I got it to work so well but here it is. This is my first serious OU team I have made, while it is pretty standard I was expecting it to get me only 1.6k, but it ended up doing way better. I think with a few adjustments my team can make it to top 50, since I'm already so close, but without further ado here is my team:
Keldeo @ Waterium Z
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Hydro Pump
- Icy Wind
- Secret Sword
The first mon on my team is keldeo, and it's pretty necessary for the team. In ou, Keldeo is probably the most slept on attacker in the metagame, It is a hard counter to the most common OU mons like heatran and Lando-T, being able to tank an eq from scarf lando and kill both with any of it's moves. This also soft checks mons like ferrothorn, zapdos and zard y. With ferro, not taking any barb damage with secret sword is great, and it lures in both zapdos and zard y, and ohko's both with Waterium Hydro pump. With Calm Mind, this mon is very hard to stop, but there are some threats like tangrowth, Bulu, Koko, Scarf Lele, and Hawlucha.

Toxapex @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Haze
- Recover
- Toxic Spikes
The next Mon on my team is toxapex, this is used more for stall and utility. Toxapex is a huge threat in the ou metagame right now with this set being, in my opinion it's best. Toxic spikes allows mons like Koko, Fini, Bulu, and gren on a timer, this keeps wearing down these mons so they eventually die. Regenerator is a great ability to have on toxapex, allowing it to recover every time it switches out so it can always reliably come back in. The spdef on this set allows pex to beat/check: Non Offensive zapdos, Torn-t, Greninja, and gastrodon. This mon is beaten down by common mons such as Tapu Koko, Tapu Lele, Lando-t(But we'll talk about this later), and set up Bulu.

Sky GOD (Tornadus-Therian) @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Defog
- Hurricane
- Focus Blast
- U-turn
Now here comes the weird set. Torn-t with orb is a very questionable choice, but I believe it is best suited for my team. This mon beats huge leads that normally beat my team, but OHKO's in retaliation, for example, kyurem-b almost one v one's my entire team, so my opponents always lead with it, but Focus Blast with orb give torn-t a chance to OHKO it right off the bat. This also goes for Heatran with focus blast being able to OHKO offensive heatran. Hurricane does 50% to sp def toxapex and Blast also OHKO's most forms of t tar, Hurricane also OHKO's Bulu. Defog is also a great move for this team allowing any hazards to begone. A major threat is obviously Koko and celesteela.

Heatran (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 148 SpA / 108 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Earth Power
- Magma Storm
- Taunt

Member number 4 of this team is bulky offensive tran. The EV's on this mon allow it to tank earth power from other trans and retaliate with earth power on it's own. It's able to trap and end threats like wish chansey, pex, and celesteela. This also counters most forms of tornt, Zapdos, Mawile, non Band Bulu, Choice Lele, Koko, Ferro, and Scizor. Taunt also blocks defog, rocks, and other utility moves the other mons want to use. This does get countered by Lando-T, garchomp, and gren however but this isn't a big deal as magma storm does a chunk of damage to all of them and can easily switch out after.

Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 180 HP / 164 Atk / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
- Fire Fang
The second to last mon is Mawile. Mawile is a total powerhouse, being able to almost Ohko everything that doesn't resist it. With it's massive attack only mons like heatran and defensive zapdos beat it. The major disadvantage of this mon is its speed which is obviously horrendous, but sucker punch makes up for that. The main reason why I run fire fang over knock off or thunder punch is that play rough does just as much as thunder punch, and I can bait ferrothorn and scizor in. This soft checks lele, celesteela, mega medicham, and tornt.

Tapu Bulu @ Leftovers
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Atk / 156 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Superpower
- Protect
Finally the mon that brings it all together, bulu. This mons bulk and terrain allows it to beat all of the tapus, which my team usually has problems with and lando t. Terrain allows 3 of my weak to ground mons to easily tank eq's, except for tran, and retaliate in their own ways. Protect is a great move, allowing for not only scout, but removing major threats like flyinium lando and gyarados to be essentially useless in the end. This mon is countered by tran, zapdos, and scarf lele,but these mons are all easily handled by other teammates.

Overall I like this team and it's synergy, even though it is really meta. I stopped playing games when I hit top 92 so I know I can do better, but I think your input would be great. Thank you for reading, all criticism/tips will be accepted.
The Team: https://pokepast.es/d9d619f5c4c2edf2
Replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-833263833
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-833108076
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-833101203
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-833249425
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-833290415
P.S. I was in a hurry writing this so sorry if the analysis was shitty
Edit: I just 77th on ladder and am at 1889 elo
 
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Yay, maybe i am a bit late, but i would like to give you some advice here, first of all i would like to say that the team is very cool and its been fun to test it and try to improve it a bit.

Rate:
I think that some of the sets could be better, for example Keldeo, i think that Taunt is more useful than Icy Wind for it. Toxapex is a cool water resist and it offers t spikes support, but maybe being that weak to lele/koko tangrowth was a better option. The Tornadus set is fun, but it is very situational, and it is not what the team needs, because is your only grass check and is too much offensive to accomplish this, and with LO U-turn you are wasting the regenerator. The Heatran set you choosed maybe isn't the best to do what you say, a more defensive set should work better against tapu koko, tapu lele, zapdos... I like a lot mega mawile in this team, cause it helps with mega alakazam, and tbh i don't think tapu bulu does something here, the team is very slow, so you need more speed control, and you already have 2 wallbreakers.

Threats:
Zygarde: Mainly the Z Iron Tail set threatens you a lot because you are using tapu bulu as the only answer.
Mega Mawile: There is no a clear switch in and your heatran is too much slow to pressure it.
Kartana: Tornadus is your only check and it is very easy to chip with rocks + LO (that makes you waste the regenerator but gives you extra power to threaten the opposite team).
Mega Medicham: You don't havy anything to switch against medi, or to pivot before letting a revenge killer in.
Tapu Lele: Mainly if it's the CM Z Fighting set, which you can't revenge kill and threatens a lot your steel types, and the scarf set can be very dangerous in the late game thanks to the lack of speed control.
Mega Latios: Mawile is your only check and it is quite easy to chip thanks to EQ, and without mawi/tran your team is very weak to psychic/ice moves.
Tapu Koko: It cleans your team once bulu is lowered a bit.

Suggestions:
Keldeo: Changing Icy Wind into Taunt would be the best, once you have tornadus for grass types and it can be really useful against chansey or toxapex.
Heatran: I would change the set, Toxic is very useful against volcarona and zapdos, and you need speed at least for other spdef trans without speed because you are running earth power, also for assault vest ttar or slow cb ttar and for mega mawile, which almost always has bulk and doesn't run 252 spe but you can't take the risk being weak to it.
Mawile: I recommend you to try All out attacker mawile here, because you already have 2 wallbreakers (bulu and keldeo), it helps a lot with other mawiles and against scizor, i added enough speed to outpass standard mega mawile which means a lot since you don't have many answers, and to outspeed non fast mega scizor to avoid being chipped with u turn or getting rocks removed with defog.
Tornadus: You are depending a lot on tornadus to check almost every physical sweeper, for example kartana, mega pinsir or mega medicham, so you are going to need a bulkier spread/set for this. I made a spread that makes it always survive a mega medicham ice punch if you are full, and minimizes a lot the chance of being 2hkoed by smart strike kartana. You could use less speed (just to reach 361 and outspeed magnezone scarf) and add the rest to HP but i dont think it is necessary.
Tapu Bulu: I kept bulu as your water resist and a sd wallbreaker, the only thing i did was changing the spread to add him bulk because i removed toxapex to solve the speed control problem.
>>
: To finish the team i added the glue, Scarf Landorus-T in this case, it helps tornadus to check some physical threats, it helps adding speed control to revenge kill some threats and almost any team needs a ground type.

Import:

https://pokepast.es/700f573b37ae092b

Hope you like my suggestions.
 
The team has a nice defensive core, however many of the sets leave it susceptible to common threats in the meta. A general problem your team has is speed, you have no speed control, which leaves you very weak to hyper offenses. Sash explosion lando forces you to either defog rocks, resulting in a dead torn, or keeping torn alive with rocks up, severely limiting its bulk, making it much harder to counter pinsir etc.

Threatlist:

Zygarde - I don't think this was emphasised properly in Sinkyr's post. The main threat is not steelium zygarde, but the much more common glare coil zygarde that has infected the ladder. This set beats bulu, as the zygarde can coil up and spam sub while you provide grassy terrain. The best way you can minimize this is by utilising bulk up bulu with 56+ atk, this allows horn leech to break sub on 188(or 180 I can't remember) hp zygarde.

Toxapex - Frankly I'm unsure how the heck you beat this mon. Apart from heatran (and I guess SD maw to an extent), not a single other mon actually beats toxapex 1v1, or abuses it. Mons like tapu lele, and special hoopa are able to abuse pex to land a strong hit to your opponents team, as these mons have few reliable switch ins. The problem I see here is since you are utilizing keldeo, you must also have a way to abuse keldeo's most common counter, toxapex. The toxapex problem can be remedied by using sub+cm keld. Yes, this may weaken your team even further to the MLatis, but overall a much better addition to your team. Once black sludge is knocked off, i.e. by your torn, sub cm keld can 1v1 pex and beat it. This is not the greatest way to soften your pex weakness, but it is all I can think of for now without drastically changing your team. The problem I find with taunt keld, is that it is easily abusable by them going into their counter on the taunt, e.g. koko, and these mind games can be avoided by running sub with a little support.

Tapu lele - Specs/Fightinium lele can shred through your team with ease. Specs psyshock is incredibly difficult to switch into, as you cannot even play around with a dark type. Heatran is 3hkod by specs psyshock, while you cannot ko it back. Fightinium is honestly not as scary, as bulu can switch in to soft counter fightinium a few times, as horn leech can recover a lot of the dmg taken.

Calcs: 252 SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 140-165 (36.2 - 42.7%) -- 95.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Mega Latios/Latias - As Sinkyr mentioned above, however its usage has considerably decreased as of late.

Heatran - Keldeo is not a very sturdy counter to heatran, especially considering how a lot of your team is walled by heatran, so your keldeo is forced to take multiple hits. At the very least, change fire fang on Mawile to knock off, or make it AoA.

Kartana - Torn needs that bulk lol, make it 252 hp rocky helmet at least. Regular kart can chip you very easily, and band just sends you to the shadow realm.
252 Atk Choice Band Kartana Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tornadus-Therian: 245-289 (81.9 - 96.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Choice Band Kartana Smart Strike vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tornadus-Therian: 265-313 (88.6 - 104.6%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Kartana Leaf Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tornadus-Therian in Grassy Terrain: 255-301 (85.2 - 100.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

Kyurem-Black - another lol, especially if its life orb. To be fair, you can't counter everything and I don't think theres much that can be changed to improve that mu.

Pinsir-Mega - I'd rather not repeat myself, so here's a calc.
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Quick Attack vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tornadus-Therian: 216-255 (72.2 - 85.2%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

Hawlucha - Hawlucha gets a free sd on bulu and can wreak havoc on your team. Your main counterplay to this is preserving intimidate on maw or sacking pex to haze away the boost so torn can kill, which is very suboptimal.

Removing the pex for a lando allows you to fare much better against faster and more offensive teams, but gives you a disadvantage against fattier teams, and leaves you more susceptible to the MU moth(Volcarona), Zard Y and opposing Kelds, as well as rain. I've written a bunch, and I'm sorry I haven't been able to offer much in terms of solutions, but I hope you keep these in mind and take the few changes I have suggested under heavy consideration.
 

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