After playing almost exclusively Natdex and Monotype formats for the past few months, I'm coming back to try my hand at building in OU again. My playstyle preference has always been offensive teams with bulky offense and volt-turn styles being my favorites. This time I wanted to challenge myself to build out of my comfort zone and make something primarily defensive. Trying to climb ladder with a self-made stall team is incredibly slow and I've fallen up and down all over low ladder wile making adjustments to the team. Which is why I'm here! Now that I have a feel for this team and how it plays, I feel that it is really close to being very strong but it has a few key weaknesses I need help addressing and surely some teambuilding oversights I need pointed out. Thank you for checking out my team!
In order of teambuilding logic:
Ogerpon (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spikes
- Synthesis
- Ivy Cudgel
- Knock Off
This is the feature set and center point of the team's inspiration. Max HP provides ogerpon with enough bulk to come in repeatedly with heavy duty boots setting spikes and shrugging off weaker attacks with synthesis. Knock off is the main way ogerpon makes progress. Ivy cudgel targets water and ground types. Ogerpon provides (some) defog deterrence with defiant which can help it to clean lategame with the speed-boosting tera grass ivy cudgel. This set offers excellent role compression and surprising longevity, although it is weak to status moves and hates losing its boots which are weaknesses other team members will have to address.
Iron Treads @ Leftovers
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin
SpD iron treads provides the essential stealth rocks and doubles down on knock off, helping make further progress. I briefly used ice spinner for gliscor and garchomp, but found that this bulky spread makes it so it fails to pickup KOs when I was relying on it to so I prefer knock off for consistency. Earthquake is essential for the raging bolt and heatran matchups. Rapid spin is non-negotiable in my opinion. Tera ghost turns the fighting weakness to an immunity and blocks opposing rapid spinners. Treads has an excellent defensive typing but lacks its own recovery and is encumbered by being both a hazard setter and remover, making secondary hazard removal a wishlist item.
Corviknight @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Brave Bird
- Defog
- Roost
- U-turn
Corviknight was a clear choice due to how well it defensively synergizes with both existing mons. Corviknight absorbs knock off, is immune to ground type moves, checks zamazenta/great tusk, provides slow pivoting, and secondary hazard removal. The team really needed a high defense mon and contact punisher. Tera dragon to help mostly against ogerpon-w. Pressure helps drain PP against opposing stall. The big fear now is the team is too passive, so it needs waysto force switches into the hazards and knock offs. The remaining team members need to provide ways to win the game as well as patch up the glaring fire weakness all these mons share.
At this point, I had decided instead of going completely for full out stall strats, I wanted to lean into some defensive setup sets:
Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 52 Def / 208 SpD
Careful Nature
- Iron Defense
- Body Press
- Salt Cure
- Recover
The SpD fire resist the team so desperately needed, as well as a win-con. On previous iterations of the team, garganacl used to set stealth rocks, but with iron treads on rocks now, garg is free to act as a wincon and general nuisance. Tera fairy turns fighting to a resist and helps against dragapult, raging bolt, etc. Garg matches up well into opposing stall and can cleanup house once hazards have sufficiently weakened the regenerator cores. Dondozo cannot comfortably hang out against salt cure if its coming in partially weakened. Ogerpon checks dozo for garg as well which is a nice bit of synergy. Garg also gives the team an all-purpose status absorber which is excellent and makes it even harder to shut down lategame.
Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Moonlight
- Knock Off
Clefable is a staple member of the team making progress throughout the match with knock off. The key here is that CM clef forces switches into mons the opponent would have been guarding from knock off treads and ogerpon making them lose their item too. CM + Moonblast gives the team another wincon as well for lategame. Tera water is helpful against the somewhat worrysome fire matchup, steel types, and the rain matchup. Magic guard also allows clef to absorb burns and poisons for the tean while garg and treads handle paralysis. This team is now incredibly resistant to status and comfortable against opposing hazard stack.
Skeledirge @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
- Torch Song
- Hex
- Will-O-Wisp
- Slack Off
These last 2 team slots are where I have the most uncertainty of all. The team needs a ghost type, and it definitely needs a cinderace answer. So skeledirge seemed to fill the slot nicely, as well as providing unaware to the team which is really clutch in some matchups. Torch song can get out of control against bulky builds after a hazards have done their thing and will-o-wisp + hex shuts down many threats. Tera grass helps in the ogerpon-w matchup.
Issue: skeledirge is not the greatest spinblocker as it gets blown up by headlong rush and EQ. This isnt that big of a deal on a team like this though since hazards are very resettable due to the team's bulk. I have experimented with pecharunt, gholdengo, and even sableye all to decent success on previous builds. One of my favorite past versions of this team is actually the sableye variant! But I have also gone with no ghost type at all and the team still felt strong, so I'm somewhat at a loss for what to conclude.
Alomomola is probably the #1 alternative I like to use over skeledirge, with a simple wish passing set. Toxic spikes are an option that i tried with Toxapex as well, but it felt a bit too passive to me. I have also tried dondozo who was quite successful as well.
I'd love to hear recommendations! I am willing to make large changes to the team and could use some new perspective from builders who are more familiar with building stall and balance.
Thanks!
-5penny
0 Atk Corviknight Brave Bird vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon: 266-314 (73.2 - 86.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 8 Atk Ogerpon Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 114-135 (28.5 - 33.8%) -- 0.6% chance to 3HKO
8 Atk Ogerpon Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 168-198 (33.3 - 39.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Raging Bolt Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Ogerpon: 252-297 (69.4 - 81.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
8 Atk Ogerpon Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Great Tusk: 204-240 (54.9 - 64.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Great Tusk Ice Spinner vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon: 204-240 (56.1 - 66.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 8 Atk Ogerpon Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 114-135 (28.5 - 33.8%) -- 0.6% chance to 3HKO
8 Atk Ogerpon Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 168-198 (33.3 - 39.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Raging Bolt Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Ogerpon: 252-297 (69.4 - 81.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
8 Atk Ogerpon Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Great Tusk: 204-240 (54.9 - 64.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Great Tusk Ice Spinner vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon: 204-240 (56.1 - 66.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
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