SV OU Newer to OU, play alot of ranbats since gen 6. Looking to change it up 1550 elo top (Edited for 3 line length)

Hi! This is an edit for my OU team post. More or less made to attempt to try to get back into OU, any advice helps, from move changes, item changes, Pokémon to change, or scrap all together. I'm just trying to get used to team building again. built somewhat around taking out cresselia counters allowing it to setup calm mind and sweep.



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Zapdos - A good damage and pivot which can threaten Gholdengo and gambit with heat wave and bulky enough to suitably use roost and high enough speed to out speed Gholdengo and great tusk. found to be a decent damage mon with enough defense to survive and roost on mons that are burned or paralyzed. volt switch is just a good pivot tool unfortunately affected by the many ground types in the tier. Terra steel to allow it to terra on threats like galarian slowking and wall it somewhat.

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Great Tusk - a good all around defense tank with rapid spin for stealth rock, spikes, etc. replaced CC with stone edge to hit defensive treats like moltres, I opted for this to be the only spinner just because most other mons are either resistant to rocks, have boots, or have levitate for spikes. between scarfed meowscarada, heatwave Zapdos, and Moltres, Gholdengo has a hard time switching or staying in, so it isnt the most important thing to have defog or rapid spin. Rapid spin can also be used as a decent speed increaser to allow for headlong rush to kill or maim other mons

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Moltres - Good all rounder half defense half special threat that can status any physical walls with will-o-wisp and flame body. good pivot in uturn and recovery in roost. Max SpA for decent damage on non resists and devastating damage on super effective hits. U-turn to pivot out of mons that will swap to keep momentum up. Tera water for fire weaknesses and neutral damage attacks from mons like great tusk stone edge or Sisui Samarot razor shell. seems to be just a mon that has many opportunities to wall, damage, or gain momentum in the battle.

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Walking wake - Good utility mon that can sub on toxics and setup moves. between decent defensive profile, mediocre/mediocre-low bulk, and leftovers, can swap I'm somewhat efficiently to medium power neutral attacks, and same high power resists. takes less that 25% from Garganacle salt cure so can sub directly in its face or on swap in and harass with hydrosteam or roar. found to be a half decent lead with sub and road against many mid ladder set up mons. and a good recipient of u-turn or volt switch from friendly mons.

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Meowscarada - good utility and pivot with scarf to out speed many swift swimmers, shell smashers, and dragapult, knock out one shots dragapult unless bulky screen setter. also I've found, or at least thought I've found it to be a good lead vs alolan ninetails with knockoff. Almost every, if not every time, ninetails will screen turn 1 vs you, so you can heavily neuter screens. Scarf set is also a less common option over band and setup meowscarada, so it can catch some players off guard on some of their faster and scarfed mons.

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Cresselia - Being the only setup sweeper on the team Cresselia is just a good good mid/late game setup sweeper, if tera poison with 1 calm mind set on King gambit switch on, can outpace king gambit with moon blast, or at least leave it low enough to be revenge killed by most the team. The team is somewhat built around allowing it to setup and sweep. Tera Poison, leftovers, and moonlight on the mon to allow it to use decent defensive typing with levitate and toxic immunity to allow it to sweep without worry of major chip.
 
Hey I think it's really cool you're getting into OU! I think there's a few loose ends we can change to make your team even better though.
Here are the changes I'd suggest:

Major Changes:

Moltres :moltres: -> Heatran :heatran:



:sv/heatran:
Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 212 SpD / 40 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Protect

Moltres doesn't feel like it's doing a whole lot for your team, It's a strong fire type, but there are a bunch that help your team better.
Here's Heatran, EV's can be tweeked, but Heatran helps your team a ton. Being a spdef wall helps your team a lot against Specs Pult as well as Iron Moth, who otherwise have a very easy time against this team. It additionally helps with adding hazards to your team with rocks. Not only that but it synergises very well with both Cresselia and Zapdos, since you have to Ground immunes to cover for Heatran's 4x Ground weakness.

Meowscarada :meowscarada: -> Iron Valiant :iron_valiant:

:sv/iron_valiant:

Iron Valiant @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Moonblast
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Trick

Scarf Meow is neat in that it is super duper fast, however what it has in speed it typically lacks in power. The heavy rise of Zapdos usage makes things especially difficult for it, getting static'd is essentially a death sentence for it. Now here's another mon that's quite fast, however it's much more powerful as well as having coverage that is much better. Iron Valiant almost exclusively runs Booster Energy right now, but Scarf is still a great set, the bluff factor is also incredible, because since scarf is so rare, most people will asume they outspeed.

Moonblast hits pretty much everything, hence the choice of Tera Fairy, with enough chip a Tera Fairy Valiant can easily sweep in the endgame. CC hits steel types, while knock hits gholdengo as well as it being a great progress maker. Trick is a great option especially against stall teams, pretty much killing a mon by locking it into a move.

Minor Changes:

:sv/great-tusk:
Great Tusk @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Headlong Rush
- Ice Spinner
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin

Your current Great Tusk set could have some improvement, first of all Stone Edge pretty much exclusively hits Moltres, which is becoming exceedingly more rare (for similar reasons to why I suggest removing it), something like Knock Off can be hugely more useful, for hitting Air Balloon Gholdengo super effectively as well as simply using item removal well.
With how much your team is stacked to not care that much about hazards, Great Tusk will have a lot of problems with stuff like Toxic Spikes and heavy hazard stack teams, it's why I suggest running Heavy-Duty-Boots on it instead. You'll find that the damage you save from not worrying about hazards tends to usually outweigh the damage you heal with lefties. Tera Dragon helps for the numerous rain teams running around, as well as for specifically dealing with Waterpon.

And finally I'm suggesting switching to a full speed set, Bulky Tusk doesn't fair that well in this current meta, not being able to outspeed Gholdengo frankly sucks with almost all of them running Air Balloon, making you dead weight as it hits you with a 130bp steel move. Keeping Attack is important as well to deal significant damage to Gliscor with Ice Spinner.

:sv/walking-wake:
Walking Wake @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Draco Meteor
- Flip Turn
- Flamethrower

Your wake set is a bit all over the place, Roar is an interesting option, however phasing moves are typically not very well suited for fast frail pokemon, since roar has negative priority you're always moving last, and Walking Wake isn't necessarely a mon made for tanking hits. I've opted to switch to a full on breaker with Choice Specs. Wake does a great job at making progress, all while being able to Flip Turn if you're very uncertain or if you get a horrible matchup.


:sv/zapdos:
Zapdos @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Static
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Volt Switch
- Hurricane
- Thunder Wave

I just switched everything to Defense, speed isn't that useful in this current metagame, and Zapdos would typically like to move after mons like Gholdengo. Full bulk is pretty much needed for the ogerpon matchup, this is just enough bulk to tank a +2 Ivy Cudgel, while otherwise you're most likely getting OHKO'd. Thunder Wave over Heat Wave typically tends to be more useful, not only for the afforementioned Ogerpon, but anything being paralyzed is great for your entire team.

Anyways, sorry if that's a lot of changes, tried keeping a lot of stuff the same, but otherwise this now looks like a really great team! Let me know if you struggle with certain mons or would rather keep different mons:

Full team: https://pokepast.es/7d59bb5e04b07968
 
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