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DraconicLepus - 5
itsjustdrew - 1
With this, DraconicLepus wins this week with her SubToxic set! Congratulations!
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And this week's pick is the poisonous jellyfish Tentacruel. The meta has made it fall into some variations of sets but still pretty similar ones. We believe that it has interesting options awaiting to be discovered. However, the following sets are blacklisted:
Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe (or a bit faster depending on the team)
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Haze / Toxic Spikes / Sludge Bomb / Sludge Wave / Knock Off / Toxic
- Toxic Spikes/ Sludge Bomb / Sludge Wave / Knock Off/ Toxic
This Tentacruel serves to be a fast, powerful threat that can keep T-spikes up against most teams. Hydro Pump and Sludge Wave dual STABs with max special attack lets it KO many hazard removers or opposing setters like Altaria-Mega, Tsareena, Rotom Brothers, Nidoking, Mamoswine, Moltres, and many others while outspeeding everything up to Moltres. Expert Belt is the main item since it gives Tentacruel the slight boost it needs to KO mons weak to it's stabs. However, Waterium-Z can be used to always KO bulkier grounds like Hippowdon and Gligar that can live a Hydro Pump by the skin of their teeth, as well as threaten Scizor better than Expert Belt does. Poisonium gets another honorable mention here for being able to OHKO Primarina, letting Tentacruel effectively check it, as well as OHKO Altaria-Mega. It also lets Tentacruel better threaten dragons like Latias, Hydreigon, Kommo-o and unevolved Altaria without having to use ice beam. Ice Beam can be used to threaten the various dragons with the expert belt. If this doesn't appeal to you, or your team needs it, you can use rapid spin. As you can threaten many opposing hazard setters quite effectively among your dual stabs, and can force many switches to get off free spins as well. The last move is toxic spikes, as this Tentacruel variant becomes quite the effective toxic spikes setter with it's ability to apply offensive pressure to many opposing hazard setters and defoggers.
Acid Spray is a fun little move that takes full advantage of Tenta's hazard game by forcing checks to either switch out and let a teammate get poisoned or Defog/attack and eat an effective +2 Scald. The given EVs creep positive Base 80s (namely Mamo and Chandy), but they're not the point and you can run however much Speed you want.
With Hydreigon and Kommo-o being common as ever (moreso the former), this set lures those two mons and deletes them with Twinkle Tackle - especially the latter since it often uses Tenta as setup fodder. EV spreads are made to outspeed Nidoking but you could make it so that you outspeed non Scarf Hydreigon by sacrificing its defensive bulk
Congrats, Steel With It, you won the week! Thanks again for participating, folks!
Steel With It - 6
Xiri - 3
Smallsmallrose - 2
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Let's go with something different this time. Something...less used.
Now, Tornadus is one mon that's definitely proud of its versatility. It's so versatile that finding "standard" sets is pretty hard for it. That's why I feel like finding creative sets for it is something that we can definitely excel at doing if we try. Its movepool is excellent, its stats support its movepool well, and its niche in the tier is interesting, to say the least.
Tornadus is already pretty rare but when one is seen, it's usually the "standard" mixed or all special sets. This is an all physical set to exploit its underused ability defiant, which gives a nice attack boost after an intimidate or defog. Thus, it performs best on webs/hazard stacking where the opponent is more inclined to defog. No item is to avoid the risk of a berry coming up short and always have the boost to acrobatics.
