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NDMPL I has come to an end with the Ever Grande Eons taking the win with a very dominant performance in the finals!
This thread can be used for any participant who wants to share any of their successful teams, standards builds, and new tech that they cooked up during the tour. I am excited to see some cool teams and innovative sets.
P.S Do not post teams here unless you were directly involved with NDMPL as a Player, Manager, or Helper.
I just noticed this thread exists and that nobody has posted anything yet, so I'll start us off with some of my favorite sets I've used playing Monothreat in the tournament.
Eject Pack Staraptor provides a nice way for you to keep momentum without surrendering to a Lopunny-Mega trying to get up a Substitute or Power-up Punch as you try to Roost or U-turn, for example. You don't risk sending out a weak Brave Bird into Porygon2 or an opposing Staraptor either, as you safely Close Combat and Eject Pack out to a Pokemon of your choosing. It felt like exactly the right midground to go with for me.
The slapper. Whenever I play Ice-type Monothreat, whether that's National Dex or regular SS, I always want Froslass on my team to be able to beat Body Press. This time I went with Sing and Wake-Up Slap partnered with a Blunder Policy, meaning Froslass benefits whether you hit or miss. I was hoping to slap the shit out of a Weavile or Sandslash-Alola, but couldn't connect with Sing. The combination of still being able to Sing and to slap stuff ensured Froslass was always a threat, though. Destiny Bond rounds out the set to hopefully two-for-one using that huge speed stat after the Blunder Policy activates. Shoutouts Mana for the inspiration.
So this is not anything too crazy, but it showcases one of my favorite things to do in Monothreat in general. Endure + Custap Berry or Endure + Salac Berry can give you an out in countless situations, including those you never accounted for to begin with. You're always at the mercy of your opponent's creativity in this format and sometimes they have some sort of sweeper you hadn't accounted for. This can be your out against Pokemon like Autotomize Celesteela and Aggron-Mega under Trick Room, for example.
I always love using Drapion in Dark-type Monothreat, because it has countless options to do crazy stuff. In National Dex, Sableye-Mega is legal, so I wanted to make sure I was able to beat reliably across my team. I decided to go with a Poison Fang + Iron Defense Drapion set, as Poison Fang is actually able to badly poison Sableye-Mega, as well as other Dark-types that try to Taunt my Drapion. After an Iron Defense it really only gets revenged by Greninja or Hydreigon, too.
I loved building this Grass-type team and I'm so glad I stumbled upon Lilligant as I was going through my options. Lilligant isn't the most obvious choice, because of the omnipresent Venusaur-Mega (supposedly) shutting it down. Lilligant gets access to excellent attacking moves in Pollen Puff and Hidden Power Fire to go with Quiver Dance, while also being able to tech for Venusaur-Mega. The Shattered Psyche on this set is actually Dream Eater, which is entirely useless outside of the Z-Move, but it's all Lilligant learns. It sends Venusaur-Mega packing, though, and that's good enough for me.
If at first you don't succeed... So, Tapu Bulu actually learns Smart Strike, which in combination with Steelium-Z takes out pretty much all Fairy-types at +2, but opposing Tapu Bulu and Weezing-Galar in particular. High Horsepower nabs Klefki, assuming they don't Magnet Rise, and Tapu Koko, while Horn Leech should cover the rest. I also used an Assault Vest Hidden Power Steel Weezing-Galar this game, but that didn't end up coming into play, unfortunately.
One of the main things I wanted for my Electric-type team was status control, because Electric Terrain from Tapu Koko blocks Rest in order to weaponize Toxic greatly in particular. I went on the lookout for Pokemon that either had a Flying-type or Levitate to ensure they could use Rest freely in Electric Terrain and I stumbled upon The God Eel. Coil, Return, Rest and Sleep Talk seemed near unbeatable to me, as its pure Electric-type in combination with Levitate shrugs off any coverage moves I might run into. Knock Off and Dragon Tail are options for its attacking move as well, but hitting Tapu Koko for good damage seemed really important to me. Normalium-Z can be used to attack through Encore, too.
Thank you for drafting me and for posting useful resources in my channel every week, Maple. You're one of the best managers I've ever had in a team tournament without a doubt, especially considering the depth of our team given how much of your budget I took up with my pricetag. Monothreat has been my favorite tier this year, so I was delighted to get another chance to build and play. After this experience I'll probably try out other National Dex formats in the future, too. The extra options between the Pokedex, Z-Moves and Megas were very fun to mess around with. You trying to post some of your stuff as well, Fylkir Pudin?
I can't take credit for the pz set here that ended up sweeping (thanks to a couple of lucky sleep turns) as I've seen it a bunch in gen 7 threat games but I was kind of disappointed that I didnt get to show off psych up p2
Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 212 Def / 44 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tri Attack
- Psych Up
- Toxic
- Recover
Basically switches into shit like bewear and dubwool easily as it traces fluffy and can boost along side them, also nice for opposing pzs and ditto if they stay in to let me get the psych up off, it's just a really fun move that I wanted to get working somehow
Unsung hero this game for sure, seeing as I had no fighting resist this was sort of the lop check on the team, I had it more offensive with chople originally but splash suggested changing it to helmet which worked wonders because of double kick lop, it had a little bit of speed and taunt for shit like p2 and other bewears.
Ice threat was fun to prep for, god crabominable is for sure the greatest pokemon to ever exist and it was fun to be able to use it in a non meme team.
Crabominable @ Babiri Berry
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Brick Break
- Bulk Up
- Close Combat
Really strong, breaks veil, and is kinda bulky, what more could you want? babiri was really nice to just live hits from alolaslash and kill it with drain. I probably didn't need cc but extra power is good sometimes
Cloyster @ Steelium Z
Ability: Skill Link
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Rock Blast
- Steel Roller
- Shell Smash
- Hidden Power [Fire]
This definitely should have been chople berry but I couldn't resist bringing z steel roller that shit is funny, idr calcs but it does like 90 to max phys def avalugg
Iron defense avalugg was incredible too, had babiri + mirror coat for shit like flash cannon kyurem.
ok so my logic here is that no one ever checks if its magnet pull or not right so you can come in on shit like weakness policy corv (I was like 80% sure that was coming), psych up on it and then just kill it with discharge and maybe get some other shit. Honestly I really like sturdy boots in threat cause its just a nice blanket check to stuff
I thought zone would be more common that it is, basically this can come in on it, flame charge to get the speed boost and just be faster than any scarf or whatever zone that he could be, it ended up burning corv which meant zone couldnt win at the end which was sad but it's fine
Psychic has a huge amount of just really good bulky calm mind users so I brought 2, reuni which is the best mon in every game until it gets crit (spoilers) and mega latias which is just really nice and should have won the game for me if I wasn't dumb
Latias-Mega (F) @ Latiasite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stored Power
- Calm Mind
- Agility
- Recover
ok so this always should have been refresh I was fucking webs, agility is for sure useless. Still kind of mad at myself for bringing it because if i was refresh I literally just won the game.
Reuniclus @ Kasib Berry
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Signal Beam
- Calm Mind
- Acid Armor
- Recover
This also kind of won if I didn't get shadow claw crit but its shadow claw so I can't complain too much, signal beam not being in gen 8 is pretty sad but luckily I could bring it here
I found elec threat really difficult to prep for I had no idea what mons he'd bring, honestly I forgot that eelektross was even a pokemon when prepping
Raichu-Alola @ Normalium Z
Ability: Surge Surfer
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stored Power
- Psyshock
- Celebrate
- Encore
I posted some real shitty meme team early in the week as a bit of a joke (my team didn't like brightpowder sandveil stunfisk fsr) but derp said something along the lines of my team just fucking loses to celebrate alolachu which sounded fire as fuck so I stole it. Encore is kinda the only reason that I didn't lose to the eel at preview and psyshock was for when I didn't have any boosts and it's also stronger vs stunfisk (which I didn't click vs it don't ask questions)
Tapu Koko @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Calm Mind
- Taunt
- Roost
This had potential to not like win the game on the spot but break it open if I taunted fisk turn 14 I think, at +1 I took like 50% from an earth power so I didnt want to risk that but in hindsight it was probably the better play than switching, rock tomb would have been a bit of a problem though but I liked this set, definitely should have kept vikavolt alive cause that at least dealt damage to eel but it is what it is
was a fun tour though threat is good fun to prep for, ngl though the two week gap between week 5 and finals wasn't ideal I think half our team thought we got knocked out
