hey. this was my first wcop / major tournament in general & despite my poor results, i still felt sharing some of my ideas would be dope, even if some weren't used in my matches.
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starmie @ life orb | analytic
timid nature | 252 spatk / 4 spdef / 252 speed
hydro pump | psychic / psyshock | ice beam | hp fire / thunderbolt
basically 4 attacks lo mie. my thought process was that this mon is incredibly annoying to switch into with its pretty solid coverage that can be taken multiple routes, but is often danced around by those slower sand balances until its in range of something faster (whatever the situation may be). typically, starmie lacks the last attack to really put dents into the opponent to help aid in a sweeper cleaning up or just helping your end-game goal. analytic is a blessing this mon has, sniping stuff like standard mixdef clefable with a 2hko, just proving to be a nuisance to not only bulkier teams, but trouble more offensive teams as well. hydro is a mandatory slot. psychic being capable of 2hkoing standard rotom-w is beautiful, but psyshock can be used for higher damage output on stuff like av torn-t (mie's main switchin aside from like chansey). ice beam i'm also keeping as a mandatory slot as nailing stuff like latis is incredibly useful, you also aren't forced to risk hydro's unreliable accuracy against some mons. last slot is sorta team dependent, i do enjoy hp fire for catching unsuspecting ferrothorn as well as bulky m-scizor which is extremely common right now. if the team has consistent & reliable ways of managing hp fire targets, tbolt can be used for better damage output on stuff like azumarill, slowbro, & manaphy, but again, its team dependent. this set is obviously used as a breaker on teams that benefit from what it provides as well as builds that don't necessarily require hazard removal. other options include specs trick which is a bw thing, you can try it if you'd like but i think the ability to switch up moves is nice.
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crawdaunt @ choice band | adaptability
jolly / adamant nature | 252 atk / 4 def / 252 speed
knock off | crunch | crabhammer | aqua jet
choice banded crawdaunt is a fucking
savage. i originally used it in oupl against improbable (replay shown), & aside from some stuff that i'll get into later, i mainly used it as opposed to its most common set (sd lorb) cause it doesn't get worn down as quickly by recoil + hazards etc. i cannot stress how strong this thing is immediately; i used it alongside bulky sd uturn m-scizor to not only allow for some free switches on stuff like heatran, landorus-t, etc but also have fantastic synergy with each other offensively with the omnipresent keldeo easily getting put in range of +2 bp, as an example. firing off attacks are pretty risk-free due to the extremely limited amount of switchins this thing already has, with banded crunch dismantling its only real "defensive counter" in m-venusaur & just dealing harder damage to megas as opposed to knock off in some situations. this set is a
little bit more prediction reliant than its counterpart as its not capable of switching up moves, but as i said, firing off any attack is pretty much risk-free. i had to slash jolly first cause people are pussies & rotom-w exists, but adamant can be used on teams that can afford it cause the difference in roles against stuff like keldeo, amoonguss, tangrowth is noticeable. fun shit, use it.
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garchomp @ salac berry | rough skin
jolly nature | 252 atk / 4 def / 252 speed
swords dance | endure | dragon claw | earthquake
this is a set featured in my recent
rmt, also used it in my first game against mencemeat. its a pretty cool set & i decided to use it b.c most of his recent builds get pressured by sd chomp, whether that is as an early game breaker or just cleaning up a match, thus this set alongside some support had a very good matchup (this was definitely the case even with skarmory as i had multiple lures for it, he just did an excellent job with subcm raikou). again, i'm a fan of pretty much every offensive garchomp set, be it lo draco (chainchomp), abr's set somewhere above, sd stabs fire fang, etc as it pressures so many teams, even those lando-t / clef type builds get annoyed due to its strong attacks with the right spread. if you wanna know more about the set, feel free to read the section on it in my rmt.
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clefable @ leftovers | magic guard
bold / calm nature | 252 hp / 252 def / 4 spdef OR 252 hp / 172 def / 84 spdef
calm mind | thunderbolt / thunder wave | ice beam / moonblast | softboiled
i'll be covering two clefable sets cause there's no real point in doing it in two sections: cm boltbeam clefable as well as cm bold clefable. starting with the former, i've really grown to love this set b.c it beats through a large majority of its regular checks that can take advantage of it; stuff like spdef skarmory, talonflame, amoonguss, gliscor, heatran, lando-t variants, etc just get lured in by one of its coverage moves, enabling either itself to win, or a teammate such as sd garchomp (an idea i used vs mencemeat), which is incredible. i know i'm not the first person to use it but i just think its a really dope set that can be a good fit on a lot of teams. as for cm bold natured clefable, it is a set that i've built a lot of teams with & it is just very effective. its capable of taking on trends like non-zen headbutt m-medicham (avoids 2hko from hjk), adamant m-heracross' rock blast, & just matches up against a ton of physical threats much more efficiently. the lost spdef investment obviously has to be made up for with other members now managing what its not capable of, meaning it fits on a handful of teams, but is proficient at what it does nonetheless. keep in mind that cm bold can be used with either standard twave, boltbeam, or anything else your team may require.
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mega latias @ latiasite | levitate
timid nature | 240 hp / 16 spdef / 252 speed
calm mind | reflect type | stored power | roost
just prefacing this by saying my good friend on ps / smogon paper dreams introduced & inspired me to use this set as well as that this set is optimal alongside tspikes (i'll get into this later). mega latias is a mon that does get taken advantage of relatively easily by common stuff in the tier; clefable, band ttar, m-scizor, ferrothorn, you get the drift. these days, i'd only ever use a reflect type variant cause less stuff exploits it, but this set takes that to a different level. once you're capable of getting up 1-2 layers of tspikes depending on the matchup & what the situation is, you simply find an opportunity to reflect type stuff like clefable, darks (weavile, ttar), etc & really just use them as setup fodder (scouting coverage moves will obviously be beneficial so you're win con isn't cut short) to win. it's a really underrated set that i wanted to use in wcop but never got a chance to. f.y.i the only tspikers i'd use with this are cofagrigus & tentacruel to an extent.
a few other latias sets i've experimented with include hp fire to avoid being spikes fodder for ferrothorn, as well as setup fodder for scizor & bisharp (can be used alongside something such as lo alakazam). cm surf is something i haven't used much, but have seen it been used to success.
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i might post the teams i finalized for each of my games this wcop, but for now this is all i'm posting. there were other stuff like life orb landorus-t that i used & caught my opponent off-guard with a smart early game play on my part, shuca empoleon that i experimented with, subcm m-gardevoir which is gaining some popularity, cm toxic suicune which was one of my ideas for a volcanion / slowbro weak build, & a few others i'll reveal at a later date :p
i just wanna say that despite my poor results, i thank everyone on team canada for putting their trust in me with battling / builds, this was an extremely enjoyable experience for me & it was unfortunately cut short after some of my teammates did incredibly to almost clutch playoffs. thanks for picking me up & noticing something in me, i'm looking forward to destroying next year n_n
shoutouts east for portraying consistency, you guys deserved it.
