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Like the previous SPL and for other tiers, there are set dump threads where players can post creative ideas used or thought of during SPL. Figured allowing people to discuss their teams and their games as well was a good idea, thus making this thread set dump + team dump + game discussion. I know some people have already posted in the Creative and Underrated Sets thread, but this will be a resource of only sets used during SPL, thus more often you'll find reliable sets here, and this will be easier to find later on.
Feel free to post here sets you came up with during SPL, teams you used that you feel like sharing discussing, or discussion on games you played or saw. I'll make a post myself soon.
i stole teams from other people 45 minutes before my game every single week and somehow ended 5-2 (in oras)
hear hear
cool sets though:
expert belt hoopa (as posted in the creative sets thread, not sure how long this will be useful for though)
hp ice + heat wave torn-t is a great mon to use against those who love the ground + ferro combo (or gknot alternatively if they prefer hippo > lando / chomp). saved me against geemick for sure...
cbtar is a monstrosity, and absolute homewrecker if given the chance. the majority of balances lose straight up to it and hard stalls have no way of dealing w/ it as everything gets 2hko'd w/ rocks up by something. (i used this set in spl6 finals)
yache sd chomp (think bw set) is actually very deadly and is a cool lure for faster elecs. i tried to make this set work throughout spl but sadly i never got a team i liked with it. lando-t also falls under this umbrella of electric lures that are stronger ground types and can sd. i think they're both very dangerous although chomp is a bit more unexpected due to the abundance of rocky helmets we see....
the tangrowth + mlatias + heatran + scarflando-t core is an incredible template for balance and the last 2 slots of this core can be switched up repeatedly. you can use strong fight type (not keldeo imo, never liked it here) + strong dark attacker like the original or opt for a different style. kyurem-black works fine here!
dual electrics is a very strong strategy which aims to overwhelm the opponent, again something that i could not get a solid build for. i know a lot of people hate manectric but god if you don't have a clear vswitch sponge then it will be causing some sort of havoc. so many offense teams or lighter balance teams who rely on torn-t as their special sponge or lando-t as some sort of electric resist (lol) get squashed. manectric also does fantastic against offense teams due to its speed and decent enough coverage. thundurus fits into this core very well, typically sporting a lure set (gknot, etc). thanks go to cicada for this one.
i will post my thoughts on the actual games / entire spl course at a later time (if ever).
i stole teams from other people 45 minutes before my game every single week and somehow ended 5-2 (in oras)
hear hear
cool sets though:
expert belt hoopa (as posted in the creative sets thread, not sure how long this will be useful for though)
hp ice + heat wave torn-t is a great mon to use against those who love the ground + ferro combo (or gknot alternatively if they prefer hippo > lando / chomp). saved me against geemick for sure...
cbtar is a monstrosity, and absolute homewrecker if given the chance. the majority of balances lose straight up to it and hard stalls have no way of dealing w/ it as everything gets 2hko'd w/ rocks up by something. (i used this set in spl6 finals)
yache sd chomp (think bw set) is actually very deadly and is a cool lure for faster elecs. i tried to make this set work throughout spl but sadly i never got a team i liked with it. lando-t also falls under this umbrella of electric lures that are stronger ground types and can sd. i think they're both very dangerous although chomp is a bit more unexpected due to the abundance of rocky helmets we see....
im not the most forums heavy person in terms of contributing but this spl was pretty cool and it was enjoyable for me to play in my main tier so i have a good amount of stuff to post pertaining to the meta etc. i'll start this post with some of the sets i've used this season and my mentality behind them why i used them for the specific opponent and that sort of thing.
i'll start at week 2 since my week 1 team vs tesung was some super shit ho and im not proud of that team or that game so let me move on to the team i used vs ben gay
the team as a whole isn't like super interesting or anything and none of the sets are that innovative, since its just triple assault vest with fat zard and fat ttar + exca for some offensive pressure and spin. i think during my game with ben gay he said this was a bkc team and i know that xray also made something very similar if not the same to this in the past and used a different version in one of his games vs destiny device with i believe skarmory and serperior over torn and tangrowth. regardless this was a pretty fun team to use since triple regen is pretty hard to break and fat zard actually wasn't seeing too much usage at the time. i didn't want to go with something offensive after the ho i used last week so i went with this bulky build and i was pretty happy with how it turned out. slowbro is fantastic, mega or not, in the current meta and its just so easy to sweep with calm mind vs most teams unless your playing like hoopa ho. i actually really hate using tangrowth but it fit on the team as a good water resist and makes it so that i dont have to let slowbro switch into keldeo scalds that would hurt its chances of sweeping lategame if it got burnt. the team is fun and cosine xray and i have been using it to some success in tour so far, only real nuisances with it are probably that its not as bulky as it looks on paper if that makes sense. things like megazam are incredible annoying and the team in general is really slow minus torn which is stupid weak, since i run a 248 hp 8 spa 252 speed set. other than that its a fun team and not too hard to play.
week 3 vs abr i used a blast from the past sort of team that was initially created by gr8astard in 2014 and its a team i used to get reqs around the aegislash period. even tho the team is about 2 years old it isn't really a dated team for the meta and i saw that with the drop of pinsir in the meta it could really do a lot of work since it's pretty unexpected and also because the usage of fast electrics such as thundurus/megamane/raikou had gone down along with the fact that most skarms these days are spdef to check latis.
abr has an interesting way of looking at teambuilding, i dont mean that in a bad way i just mean that he has a habit of disregarding pokemon that he doesn't see often (bisharp counter = heatran) so i assumed that pinsir + zone would be a good choice vs him since he also likes to use skarmory as his premier steal type of taking on latis / excas etc and honestly pinsir doesnt really have that many other great checks to it. the og 2014 team had spexkeld / scarfzone / scarflando/ rocks clef but i had to change it up for this meta since scarfzone sucks and so i had scarfkeld/spexzone/fat lando / boltbeam clef. boltbeam clef wasn't something brand new at the time but it also wasn't used that much since twave moonblast was still the more common set. i figured with mag trapping it would be a perfect set to use since its only real check is like ferrothorn, and the ability for a team like this that was so annoyed by wisp talonflame, to have a good way to lure in and deal with it, would be good. scarf keldeo sucks a lot but yeah i needed it for speed control. other than that i don't actually consider this team that good anymore and its 6-0ed clean by zardy + ttar unless u evolve pinsir like turn 1 and if they lead zard just click x.
weeks 4/5/6 i used bulky offense / zard y + weavile offense / stall, none of these teams really had things on them that were worth fleshing out and id rather tdk/cbb talk about that terrible stall in their own posts.
week 7 i used my old favorite team from last ost that i spammed like 7 or 8 times with the core of sableye + talonflame. its not really a core i just call the team sableye talon.
i honestly don't consider this team to be that good, i just wanted to bring it up because people had really started to ignore sableye in their builds. from what i've seen a lot of people think it's great or terrible and i see a lot of teams that just cant seem to dent it or have like one pokemon with the job which is usually something like specskeld which cant actuall switch in. sableye is pretty great and in the matchup vs boudouche where he used ho it worked out great, another example is ender vs cosine, where sableye followed by defensive core just sort of destroyed cosines ho.
week 8 i used a tyrantrum so ill be ignoring that and week 9 i used voltturn to mega medicham / spexkeldeo which is about as skill-less as it gets. that teams an old abr one so shouts out to him since its fun. while it wasn't some innovative team, there were some really cool sets on it that helped a ton in most matches for surprise.
Medicham (M) @ Medichamite
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- High Jump Kick
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
boltbeam medicham, sorta like boltbeam clef has the ability to lure in checks like slowbro and that works out really nicely in conjunction with keldeo since you can lure in starmie/slowbro and get rid of them / dent very heavily in slowbro's case. i dont like +atk natures but medicham needs it in this case b/c this spread is able to 2hko the standard 252/172/84+ clef set easily with hjk.
this set was really cool since while u do forgo pain split recovery which does suck, you have the ability to lure in mons, latis specifically in this case, with thunderwave for medicham to easily just break teams. wisp was used to neturalize any physical attackers such as mmeta and that sort of thing but overall it worked out well.
in semis i used standard keld/lati/tar ho and got smashed by abrs weavile chansey 6-0ed by mscizor bullshit so ill move on from that to week 11 where i prepped with the mentality of not using keldeo/landorus/latios because up until semis i had used something like 5 keldeos, 5 latioses, and 6 landorus-ts so i didn't want what happened in semis to happen in finals and for me to get smashed by the matchup. i had a team ready for reiku which was an sd life orb chomp / sd weavile team that actually would have worked pretty well i think but a few days before abr hit me up and told me to try out his old sand team since it doesn't have most of the pokemon i usually use. i felt comfortable with the team and was successful with it in finals so thx abr u rock.
this set was sick but its not my idea, its abr the ou prodigy's. toxic was used for mega slowbro since mslowbro is the type of mon you might bring to spl finals since its one of those hard to prep for ridiculously easy to sweep type things. toxic also lures in hippowdon so its nice to wear it down so it cant easily switch into the excadrill i was packing in the back. unfortunately this was useless in battle and ice punch was definitely better but its still a good set. abr actually used it in one of his ost games vs seeme with a different team based around lopp + gastrodon but idt he had the opportunity to use it.
im gonna post this for jam since theres no way he'll post on here himself. cofag is pretty cool since people mainly only think the opponent is going to use a defensive wisp / tspikes sort of set, but this is actually pretty cool since cofag has a nice spa stat and the fact that it can burn most of the things that tank shadow ball like ttar means its annoying for balance and offense to deal with. only annoyance with this set is that it actually isnt that bulky cuz its hp sucks so bad so its hard to switch into stuff as soft as clefables moonblast. cool set regardless tho and is an interesting switch up from the defensive cofag, but leave it to the mencemeat to introduce greatness to us peasants
ou metagame wise, no one seems to prep for thundurus anymore which i guess i can understand since it isn't /that/ good but nasty plot 3 atk is actually a menace to a lot of teams and teams such as that pinsir team i posted above just get murdered by it. cb tar is really cool as well since dark spam in general is so tough to take on and it gets a lot of free switchins and smacks the venu/tran/water balance so hard, and as pdc said, life orb tornadus would be broken if hurricane didn't miss. boldclef also beats everything
now overall spl wise it was a pretty enjoyable experience and i was happy with the level of play in general from this years player pool as opposed to last year. there were some close matches such as abr vs geemick, and some fun ones i had that came down to the wire, specifically me vs masterclass, and the finals games vs reiku. stats wise, abr had the best season and is definitely one of the top 2 or 3 builders, but i'm hesitant to call anyone the best oras ou by level of play yet. i think that there are a lot of good, consistent players, but i think it'll be a while before we see anyone sort of overshadow the rest, and i know some others hold this opinion with me. teamwise i was a big fan of some of the stuff abr was using and also really liked a lot of tdks teams as well, specifically his week 8 and 9 team abusing hoopa. i also really liked steve angello's offense that made use of 4 atk non ice shard weavile to beat balance. i was displeased with cbbs performance this season, but was also happy to see reiku and steve do well since they were ranked low and ended up doing well, especially you reik. theender also did great and abr but yeah u can see the stats yourself.
wrote enough to make finchinator cringe, fun season might post more if anything comes to mind
Obv a pretty shit spl for me (esp in oras) so the only set I'll drop is from the only good team i built, and thats Specs Kyurem B. Obviously Kyurem would be better cuz of its stats but the surprise factor is worth it. With max spatk ice beam you 2hko pretty much any clef, and with draco, focus blast, and hp fire, basically only jirachi can switch in. Its kind of like specs lati but it doesn't get trapped, and you got surprise factor + now you actually check bulky scout waters. Shouts Ben Gay, he used draco LO kyuBe which gave me the idea
This team is really cool and is kinda my go-to whenever somebody wants to test or i just feel like dicking around. The spreads and sets aren't optimized because i don't do nearly enough testing to know what is and isn't optimal but i made sure to make the torn taunt after the travesty that was my game v fren_n ben_n. . It's a really simple offensive team with enough defensive power to pivot off of most things. Weak as shit to darks but all my teams seem to be. Roseli berry fucking sucks though, the idea was cool enough but life orb or lum is just better. like the team can take nearly any mu and come out with a win just because of how powerful all the pokemon are, sd chomp is one of the scariest mons in the tier because of how big it gets and how fast it does it, great coverage and bulk and speed and utility, it just has it all. Dragon Rush 2hkos bulky land-t and is just otherwise cool. The idea behind roseli was extra security v fairies but in hindsight i dont think i needed it at all, it was a dumb idea really. Serp's set could maybe use some work but sand balance and mega latias balance kept getting used and serp rolls over it with minimal effort, just don't catch a twave and you can't possibly lose for the most part. Just uhh don't play a guy with a weavile and you should be fine.
This one is probably not very good for most situations because you lose to most stall but it wasn't made for that mu. The heart of the team, the rp gross, was an idea Get this Money gave me when i was trying to fill out the sets for an earlier draft of this team and it works wonders with mag, trapping ferro helps out the entire team and lets me push through a lot of stuff on raw power alone. Keld is hp grass to hit gastro and because other hidden powers or icy wind aren't really necessary. Serp is sort of my favorite pokemon to use and i always wanted to try subseed alongside some form of trapping. Hp fireless serp struggles because it can no longer power through ferrothorn or other threats but if you can trap ferro or lure/weaken their other steel with lati you're golden. You can cheese an entire team to death with minimal effort. It's amazing, i love it. Toxic tech for slowbro and hippo chip, eq on gross because elecs are a big deal. Your steels aren't defensive steels and you have no pursuit so lots of stuff fucks you if you're not the one pushing the momentum. it's ton because i lose to torn. i think that about covers everything, i just thought it was an interesting take on the "hit move and win" teamstyle.
i don't really remember what else i've used other than that it was probably bad, oh wait
I have no idea if this team is any good but it felt very strong in the one game i used it, i've since changed the rotom to wisp over twave. There's enough speed and instead of making me even weaker to sciz i'd rather just let the heracross take a hit and kill something back. I guess that's why people run bulkier spreads.
As for cool but probably bad sets i came up with during the tour i always liked the idea on teams where klefki is your sole steel to use metal sound flash cannon to ease the mu vs cmers but it always seemed too memey to work.
I didn't play much but I will give you some cool sets I tried building with for the season for my teammates. I'm never a fan of standard sets and I try to be creative as possible. I believe these sets have some potential if built around correctly, so please try them out. So without further adu:
I had this set thought up for a while. When people try checking this beast, it is usually consists of things like AV Torn-t, chople berry mons like TTar and Magnezone, sash mons, and scarfers. With the right predictions, you can remove these items using Magic Room for 5 turns so they don't threaten you anymore and you can gain a couple extra kills or hit torn-t even harder. Considering that you are mega, you can still mega-evolve while using Magic Room, so I thought this move was perfect for Mega Zam. This is the true Alakazamrock.
Always a big fan of lures. Daftmau5 used this set vs Ender and it managed to get shown off in the game which was cool. The idea is to get this to remove mainly fat chomp and landos with Natural Gift Ice, a move that is physical but isn't a contact move so you are not hurt by rough skin / rocky helmet. This Heracross helps teammates like Mega Lopunny, Talonflame, Excadrill, and other mons that like those ground types gone so they can proceed as threats vs your opponent. Speed just outspeeds based 80s like Hoopa mainly, you can run more speed or go max if you want, I just never found the need for it. The extra evs were thrown into bulk to take sucker punches better from bisharp. If possible, you can even pair this w/ Mega Ttar to bluff that heracross is a mega when it really isn't just to mindfuck your opponent. ;]
Zygarde @ Life Orb
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 8 HP / 252 Atk / 248 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Extreme Speed
- Stone Edge
I found this set a while ago I thought was interesting. Standard Zygarde hitting LO number with stone edge over outrage. I quite enjoyed this set so shit like Togekiss don't become shitstains while you're trying to sweep, even though it's rarely seen. This underrated mon can be a threat if you get some skarmory lures and also something for clef. This thing is unbelievably strong, and it's always fun leading with this vs a gardevior and watching them die turn 1.
I really feel like BoltBeam sweepers are extremely good in ORAS. This set originally belonged to another player named DennisEG however I updated it some more cuz I wanted to abuse the new static ability on Zapdos, it can't get defog with that ability to I figured this set would be kind of fun to use. Speed outspeeds based 80s again, leftovers or life orb is mainly for preference, leftovers makes u a bird check, LO helps you OHKO more things like Thundurus. If you go Life Orb, the LO number i believe is 32 HP evs, and you can use the extra evs in speed or whatever you want.
I probably thought up more sets but these are what I remember for the time being. Enjoy.
I'm going to go through some of the unorthodox teams/mons I used and the reasons behind those decisions. Most, if not all, of the unusual sets I reference can be found in the above link with full EVs/moves and also explanations.
This is my week 1 team vs PDC, and it actually ended up being one of my favorite and most consistent ones from the tour. I really wanted to use Gastro because a lot of teams were unprepared for it, such as the Keld/Lati/Lando/steel offenses and Slowbro/Gliscor/Heatran balances. Additionally, Gastrodon compresses roles in a very unique way as it counters Heatran, Kyurem, Alakazam, and more simultaneously. Its usefulness is shown in its very high win % of 71 this SPL. The team has a pretty standard balance core of Mie/Ferro/Talon/Hippo, but it also has a few cool sets in Bold Starmie and Impish Talon. I used Bold Mie as a counter mon to the common Tyranitar balances, as Bold easily lives a scarf Pursuit. Impish Talon has the niche of nearly perfectly walling Weavile/Bisharp/Gardevoir, which is very cool considering I have the Gastro and Aero to help vs Alakazam and Zard-Y. Speaking of Aero, I find it to be a very nice Pursuit trapper, non-Pursuit weak Zard check, and Torn-T counter, especially alongside Hippowdon. Overall I just really enjoy this team, as it counters a lot of the typical balance breakers in creative ways while also providing win conditions in Gastro and Talon.
I used this team week 5 vs CrashinBoomBang, and it features one of my favorite defensive backbones as PDC mentioned. Something I actually reused a few times after this game was the Defog Mega Latias set. I don't really see this set used often, but it is extremely nice being able to defog and not be as easily Pursuit trapped as regular Latis. Rocky Helmet Tangrowth is something I also built with again, either through my own teams or for TheEnder. It simultaneously walls Bisharp, Excadrill, Lopunny, Landorus, and many more mons with crazy enough physical bulk to tank +2 MSciz U-turns, with the added benefit of being able to run Sleep Powder. I really love how Tangrowth compresses roles uniquely and opens up a lot of room for the rest of the team. It unsurprisingly (in my eyes) won 9/12 games. Terrakion and Hoopa were the offensive mons on this build, and they each can be very potent if used correctly. As seen in my gave vs CBB, many balances simply have 0 switchins to this mon (I used SD HP Ice, but CB also works really well). Terrakion had a nice 65% winrate wiht a substantial 14 games played. Speaking of crazy winrates, resident broken mon Hoopa had a winrate of 68% with a whopping 28 uses! Seriously, the Specs set I used here is such a menace to so many teams, as it walls some special attackers and really just applies so much pressure on the opposing team with no cost. There's a reason it has such a crazy good winrate.
The infamous Weavile stall. Originally this was just a risky CT pick to what I expected Tesung to bring in week 7, and it did work, but the team ended up being so much more consistent than I imagined. I and a few others have already achieved voting reqs and have also won many games in OST with this. So the main deviation from other stalls here is obviously the Weavile, which checks a plethora of mons that stall usually struggles with. Especially with a Choice Band, Weavile has amazing breaking/trapping power and surprising longevity with Heal Bell support. Normal threats to stall like Gardevoir, Hoopa, Tornadus, and SD Lando/Chomp are much more easily handled with CB Weav. Additionally, the speed control to revenge pokemon like Serperior and Thundurus is just really awesome on an otherwise passive team. The only other unorthodox set here is Curse Quagsire, as it serves as a backup Clefable counter while also outright sweeping some offenses after the Lati or whatever gets trapped.
Here is my week 8 team vs mencemeat, featuring Jellicent. I noticed Jam brought like 6 spinners in his last 6 games so I was willing to risk something very unusual in Jellicent (s/o dekzeh for actually gettin me to use this). Even if spinners are not faced, this mon still beats KeldTar cores very well, and in general has very few switchins due to scald + taunt + ability to beat other waters. This team follows a very similar formula to my week 1 team, but once Jellicent was used as the primary water, the rest of the team was made accordingly. As far as creative sets go, Colbur Jellicent was used here to be better vs Pursuiters, and Explosion Ferrothorn to get Zard-Y into Pursuit range. I won't go into too much detail about the other pokemon because this team really ended up as (not original intent) the week 1 team with Water Absorb Gastro > Jelli, spinner Mie > Exca, and anti-Sab filler poke Talon > Clef. There were also some minor set tweaks.
This was week 9 vs reiku, and the team used is probably one of the weirder ones I've built and probably won't work at all once sets are known. This team has BU pass mew, Facade/Eq/Fblast/Roost Altaria, Lum Weavile, and Acro Torn-T. I really just wanted a more offensive team this week, and the most creative thing I came up with was this. BU passing has the advantages of being harder to revenge kill and also ease of passing, while Mew itself has the benefit of few overbearing weaknesses and Taunt to stop Whirlwind. Altaria stops Dtail, and overall is very hard to revenge with the aforementioned set. Helmet Lando + Scarf Drill is kind of standard (except I use hpfire on Lando for Sciz), while Lum Weav can receive vs a Slowbro and Acro Torn-T is there for obvious reasons. I sadly did not get to use BU this game but in tests it was actually super useful. As a special treat here is the paste for this magnificent team: http://pastebin.com/3nzjFhtU
Lastly we have the Semifinals team vs blunder: the Chansey bulky offense. I know it looks gimmicky, but Chansey is actually a super useful pokemon on non-stall teams. It checks Manaphy, Nidoking, Kyurem, Alakazam, and Zard-Y without being Pursuit weak! I really just wanted to use it because of the aforementioned balance breakers that it walls, but also because I thought it would be a nice pivot with Wish alongside Diancie + Lando. The defensive backbone of Chans/Lando/Moong/Mie actually works quite well, but the team has obvious weaknesses vs Bisharp and Weavile. The good thing, however, is that this team is likely to have a very good matchup vs KeldTar teams as well as most other slower teams due to the longevity and power. Even vs some offenses Chansey + Lando + Keld-switchin can be very hard to kill, with Weav and Diancie applying pressure.
I am not the dude who likes writing much, but here are some cool sets I used in this SPL.
Excadrill @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Magnet Rise
The set worked vs Ben, because he loves RH Chomp, so I was like why not giving it a shot, because I am able to grab momentum and do a lot of damage. It basically shits on every scarf Lando-t as well. But in general its there to lure Chomps and Hippos for the other team members.
I used this set vs Gingy during the regular season, but I choked that battle on dicks and lost my Thundy like turn 4, so yeah didn't do anything, but it would have done a lot of work.
Four attack Weavile is really cool, because I expected Stathakis to bring some balance vs me, that can't really do anything vs the combination of Lowkick + PJab. Can't deny that it only worked, because my team in general was really fast and I didn't need Ice Shard.
I was building other stuff which I weren't able to show in SPL. Crawdaunt is sick! (Porygon2 Offense, Mega Ampha-Pass, SD Endure Chomp, Mega Pinsir, Conkeldurr and my favorite squad of all, my Curse Lax + Zone team, which I am using in Stours.) Like FV and Zam I used Signal Beam as well in first versions, but on Raikou and Latis, but that wasn't worth it except on Raik sometimes. Sorry fam I am to lazy to write now, but I will probably update this post sometimes later.
Didn't get too much game time this SPL but I can attest to the value of Phys Def talon which ABR has mentioned above. Used it in week 2 vs Jam and like he said, it compresses the extremely valuable role of beating the physical darks (outside of mega gyara which you can actually sort of wisp + bulk up vs 1v1) as well as walling Zard y, Garde and Serp. Bulk Up also lets it 1v1 Zard x which is pretty insane.
Some ideas that i came up with that i didn't get to show off:
29 HP IVs on SubSeed Serperior maximises gainz (aka leftovers recovery): You only lose something like 2% HP per turn vs something like Spdf Tran instead of 4% which adds up in the long run.
DD 3 Atks Mega Altaria + HW Rachi: +1 Return/Fire Blast/EQ is incredibly hard to wall outside of Venu/Amoong and because of HW Rachi in the back, you can play extremely aggressively and start softening up your opponents team before bringing Alt back to full with HW. Common ways of checking it like Twave Thund/Klefki lose to HW and something like Helmet Lan-t loses in the long run. If you want to go balls deep, run Double Edge.
Fairy Lock Klefki + LO Starmie: Klefki can get a layer of spikes and lock in something like Heatran or a bulky ground (Chomp, Hippo, Lan-t) while it sacrifices itself. You then bring in Starmie and pick the appropriate coverage move which opens up for a sweep with something like Serperior, Zard X or Bisharp (shoutout Zamrock for the Bisharp EVs which tanks an EQ from Hippo). You can easily run something like Keld or LO Tornt over Starmie but spin support is groovy if you run something like Zard while also keeping your own spikes up unlike Defog. Klefki can also bait in and lock random stuff like Magnezone which gives Zard X 2 free DDs. I'll try and find a replay of this in action when I'm not feeling lazy.
In a metagame where psychic and ghost types prevail, pursuit utility can be of great importance. It is important to note that the remaining 4 EV's can be used in either defense or special defense, depending on which side Tyranitar needs to cover most predominantly.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers / Occa Berry / Chesto Berry
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 168 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Spikes / Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed / Curse / Swords Dance
- Gyro Ball / Knock Off / Iron Head / Bulldoze
- Power Whip / Thunder Wave / Substitute / Rest
This set pretty much speaks for itself. Once again the diversity and unpredictability is what makes this Pokemon so unique. Depending on the variant, Ferrothorn can take on any major threat in the OU metagame, and given the right support is an unstoppable weapon against any team.
Alomomola @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Aqua Ring
- Scald
No words for this. Anyone should have tried this out at least once in their Pokemon carrier. I will just leave you with a few calcs:
252 SpA Mega Manectric Thunderbolt vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Alomomola: 378-446 (70.7 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+2 252 Atk Mega Heracross Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 450-530 (84.2 - 99.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+6 0 SpA Alomomola Scald vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 109-129 (15.4 - 18.3%) -- possible 6HKO
In a metagame where psychic and ghost types prevail, pursuit utility can be of great importance. It is important to note that the remaining 4 EV's can be used in either defense or special defense, depending on which side Tyranitar needs to cover most predominantly.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers / Occa Berry / Chesto Berry
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 168 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Spikes / Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed / Curse / Swords Dance
- Gyro Ball / Knock Off / Iron Head / Bulldoze
- Power Whip / Thunder Wave / Substitute / Rest
This set pretty much speaks for itself. Once again the diversity and unpredictability is what makes this Pokemon so unique. Depending on the variant, Ferrothorn can take on any major threat in the OU metagame, and given the right support is an unstoppable weapon against any team.
Alomomola @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Aqua Ring
- Scald
No words for this. Anyone should have tried this out at least once in their Pokemon carrier. I will just leave you with a few calcs:
252 SpA Mega Manectric Thunderbolt vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Alomomola: 378-446 (70.7 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+2 252 Atk Mega Heracross Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 450-530 (84.2 - 99.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+6 0 SpA Alomomola Scald vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 109-129 (15.4 - 18.3%) -- possible 6HKO
The danklord of innovation is back at it again. This set is so powerful, it can only be fully utilized by ou jesi like the shepherd himself. Even the great pokeaimmd hasn't been able to tame this latios so he can #dropadraco. Just ask zamrock: those extra 8 evs are mighty powerful.
Tyranitar @ Chople Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 4 Atk / 80 Def / 176 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
A truly ingenious and novel set, chople ttar has wonderful role compression by providing rocks and can actually check mons like alakazam and torn-t (simply wonderful, is it not?).
I'm honestly really surprised everyone slept on this set this spl. Truly a must for every team. If you ever realize that you don't have a mega on the team you're building, this is the one you want, and I guarantee you won't regret it.
Sorry, i'm not good at shitposting x_x. ctc trained me to write that passage.
Since I want you guys to get some actual content, I guess i'll just paste my post in the ORAS creative and underrated sets thread. I can't really think of anything else I could add to this other than a bunch of theorymonning I did/have been doing.
Hey guys, i'm gonna post some sets that were used by the wolfpack this spl, as well as one set I was considering using (and would have gotten splendid matchup) but I ended up not bringing.
Boy and the Beast (Alakazam-Mega) @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Focus Blast - Signal Beam
- Dazzling Gleam
Really the only cool thing about this zam set is that it can lure a variety of dark types with its triple "for dark types" coverage. Signal Beam is great in this metagame to hit hoopa, which otherwise might have been able to get free kills on the team where this was used (the chances of abr bringing hoopa as well were also decently high). Dazzling Gleam bops MSab, meaning it isn't safe from zam either. Both coverage moves also hit dark types like weavile, although focus blast is still necessary to hit steels and non-chople healthy ttar. Without shadow ball you miss out on hitting ghosts hard and mega gardevoir, but otherwise you don't miss it much.
Paradigm (Garchomp) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Def / 96 Spe OR 248 HP / 148 Def / 112 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Dragon Tail - Substitute
Substitute is a pretty simple addition, but it may not make a ton of sense until I explain it. Basically I didn't see the team needed toxic or fire blast a ton, and I noticed substitute had some useful qualities. I have previously experimented with this set a while ago, but i think this team applies it kinda nicely. Sub can block status and moves like leech seed, meaning it can set-up a sub freely on a mon like breloom and then get up rocks without getting slept, giving you the opportunity to break its potential sash. It also means you can set up super freely on amoonguss, and start shuffling the opponents team around while getting free rocks. You can also deny leech seed to ferro and shuffle / weaken it, which can be situationally nice. It obviously blocks random toxics and wisps (like from rotom-w), so if sab is already mega'd it can ease your job of shuffling a stall team in attempt to lay up hazards or something of the sorts. If you outrun stallbreaker mew, it gives you a shitton of freedom against that too. The second spread ensures starmie's scald won't break the sub at the cost for speed, giving you a lot more freedom against that as well if you sub on a switch. This set also gives garchomp the ability to set up rocks against mega diancie unless they outplay you hard. If you lead chomp as they lead diancie, they won't expect sub and will most likely go for the protect to ensure they outrun and don't get ohko'd by eq. If you sub on this tect, it means you can freely force out the diancie / kill it and get up rocks without getting forced out, unless the diancie player outplays the hell out of you.
Replay of pdc using my team with both these sets (neither sets were fully used although i think tankchomp could've done some shuffling if pdc played it a bit better) http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-113332
This is triple-stab mgyara, which was innovated by Cicada. When you're not mega evolved you have stab on bounce, which you can use to bop keldeo and grasses. Then when you mega, you get a powerful stab crunch with a lot of good neutral coverage. It also has use pre-mega, since it can ohko latios after a dd (
+1 252 Atk Gyarados Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 306-362 (102.3 - 121%) -- guaranteed OHKO). Bounce is also still usable post-mega. In general it just gives mgyara some more flexibility with its attacks.
komm süsser tod (Magnezone) @ Chople Berry
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Modest Nature
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Fire] - Mirror Coat
- Thunder Wave
Remember when I used chople t-wave mag vs leftiez and it ended up being instrumental in grabbing the win for me? Well this time its back with even more innovation. Chople mag is really solid to check zam, gard, and non-heat wave torns, but mirror coat just kicks up the power of this set. I think its pretty self explanatory what the use of it is, basically allowing you to net ko's in situations where maybe the best you could do is twave the mon or damage it a bit. You lose out on flash cannon unfortunately, but i think mirror coat is pretty sick in place of it. Imagine MVenu hp firing as you mirror coat... oml fire. Shoutouts to Cicada again for the set. He used it on the same team as the mgyara set.
A nice keldeo set cicada used vs xray, the idea behind roseli berry is that you can surprise mega diancie and knock it out of this world. It also provides a safety cushion vs stuff like M-Garde (as in the replay, although keld should have pumped to put more pressure on it), clefable, and fairies in general. Taunt is a nice 4th move that allows you to really pressure defensive mons like clefable, as they generally like to softboiled or twave after you pump/scald on the switch. I slashed mystic water here as well because that's what I've been using on some recent teams where I wanted taunt keldeo, and I didn't think roseli was necessary. The extra boost can occasionally (if you land a high roll) allow you to bluff a specs set or just deal more damage in general, which can be really nice.
Shoutouts Stathakis for winning with this on a pretty cool team he built. I actually have used this myself in last years ost a few times and can attest to its effectiveness. Cofag has splendid natural physical bulk, access to tspikes, and is a natural spinblocker. Wisp is always nice and hex is great with the double status moves. Psplit offers some semi-reliable recovery, but resto chesto is usable if you're ok with a one-time sure shot recovery that also removes status, with the downside of no leftovers and only a single use. I'm not sure what the exact ev spread does so hopefully louki can let us know what its for.
Gardevoir @ Life Orb
Ability: Trace
EVs: 8 HP / 16 Def / 232 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Healing Wish / Destiny Bond / Taunt / Encore / Will-O-Wisp / Future Sight / Memento / Calm Mind / Insert Useful Filler Here
So I didn't actually use this set, but i was heavily considering it for ary, and it would have worked out great. I've used it before (if you followed my teambuilding thread while it was alive (yes it will eventually come back hopefully)) you know i've used this before, with great success. Gardevoir is surprisingly strong with the LO boost, and has pleasently surprised me many times in testing. Its basically like mega gard, except stronger (unless ur comparing to modest mgarde, and its fairy stab is weaker, check out the calcs), has trace, and allows a bit more freedom in teambuilding due to not taking a mega slot, for the cost of bulk, speed, and situationally less power. Trace is really nice, allowing you to revenge excadrill in sand or swift swim sweepers (which woulda bopped ary), and also grab some other fun stuff. I've traced sheer force, magic bounce, and other cool stuff before. Gard has a TON of useful moves for the 4th slot, and even has coverage options if you need that. I've personally found Healing Wish to be particularly nice, but you can use whatever fits your team.
Replay of me testing the team (this is kinda just a funny one lol, i unfortunately don't have other replays but DAMM THIS SET IS GOOD TRUST ME): http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-343113612
232 SpA Mega Gardevoir Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 176 SpD Mega Scizor: 130-154 (37.9 - 44.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
232 SpA Life Orb Gardevoir Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 176 SpD Mega Scizor: 138-162 (40.2 - 47.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
