INTRODUCTION
Somewhere after the bans of cinderace and magearna, an idea for a team dropped into my head. What if I took several defensive pokemon with pressure and put them together in a pressure core that can stall out pp of the opposing team, and then capitalise on opposing mons losing pp for important moves which made them able to answer my mons to take full control of the game. I didn't build such a team at that time because I didn't really play a lot then and didn't have the time to, but I have lately been seeing such teams pop up in some OU tournaments and decided to give it a go.
This RMT is not meant to be about a finished team with all of its edges ironed out, but will focus more on two things: the general proof of concept for stall teams based around pressure cores, and an exercise in writing RMT's that might serve to highlight all of the steps that go into writing a detailed RMT, that maybe some newer members can use to see which information is good to provide to raters so they can give informed advice on how to improve the team.
GENERAL IDEA
Even though I kinda said it already, the general idea of this team is to make a stall team that focuses on wearing down the opponent, but while more conventional stall teams tend to wear down the opposing mons' health, the aim here is to wear down their pp until they are unable to offensively pressure my team and then slowly take them down. Stating what playstyle of the team is more to give a general idea of the way the team is supposed to be played to the raters, so they have a general idea of what to suggest.
BUILDING PROCESS
Even though people usually write these one by one, I'll list the first three together as I decided to use them at the same time. Corviknight, zapdos, and kyurem are the pressure users with the best defensive potential in the tier, and the core of the team.
Next I wanted to increase the other team members longevity by healing their status effects, while also warding off a very common threat to stall teams that is heatran. For these things I added dragonite.
Next I wanted to add a sturdy special wall that can dissuade special attackers and setup sweepers, as well as a rocks setter, so I went for blissey.
At this point I realised that I wanted an electric immunity to protect corviknight. However I also realised that no speed control+two dragons in the team makes my team quite dragapult weak. I also wanted to add a knock off user to the team to help with wearing down opponents with rocks. zeraora fills all of those roles.
SETS
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 4 Atk / 168 Def / 88 SpD
Careful Nature
- Roost
- Substitute
- Bulk Up
- Brave Bird
In the beginning I wasn't sure whether to make zapdos or corviknight my defogger, but since I wanted to really use pressure to its fullest, that meant using substitutes and roost, and I felt that with that zapdos had more room to defog. So corviknight got the bulk up set because it helps him stop a lot of dangerous physical sweepers in their tracks. Simply put, corvi has absolutely amazed me with its performance. It can wall more than half the physical metagame by itself, and even helps with checking some special attackers(most notably specs lele). For the EV spread I went for a defog spread slapped onto a bulk up set, as I already had other specially defensive pokemon and wanted to make corvi better able to take on physical attackers. If the opponent cannot stop it before it sets up, it can even exert offensive pressure.
Zapdos @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Roost
- Discharge
- Defog
My other pressure bird, zapdos fulfills the important role of defogger on the team, as a lot of my other teammembers are quite rocks weak. Even though corviknight takes less damage from rocks naturally, I decided to make zapdos the defogger as it can fit substitute+defog on its set much easier than corvi, and bulk up serves me really well on him. Discharge helps with spreading paralysis, which can make some faster much offensive threats easier to handle. The spread is physically defensive, because as noted before I have other physical walls, and with the sheer amount of things corvi is supposed to counter leading to the possibility of it getting overwhelmed, I wanted to have zapdos as a back up physical wall to help with some things they can both wall.
Kyurem @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Roost
- Freeze-Dry
- Ice Beam
The member of the team that completes my pressure core. While other members of the team use pressure more defensively, kyurem is the best equipped to offensively use its talents, namely against other slower teams. Freeze dry allows it to get passed a lot of bulky waters running around, like the slowtwins, pex, and occasionally tapu fini. While zapdos and corviknight are mostly used early in the game, kyurem often comes in later to exploit opponents running out of steam and finish them off, even though it can certainly pressure stall against slower teams by itself.
Dragonite @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Heal Bell
Slower teams tend to struggle with heatran a lot, especially the magma storm+taunt set, and ESPECIALLY my corviknight set. For this reason I wanted dragonite on this team, as it easily wards off heatran. Another great thing about dragonite is its ability to use heal bell to support my other team members, making wearing them down much harder. I went with stormzone's set as, while by no means the only good defensive dragonite set, it fit the needs of my team perfectly. Other notes about dragonite: multiscale abuse allows it to take hits no other members of my team can take which is useful in a pinch,it's also a great answer to grass bro attackers(kartana and rillaboom) if you don't want to risk wearing down corviknight, and its fighting resistance makes it complement blissey as a special wall very well, ice beam allows it to threaten lando and breaker variants of torn-t which can give blissey some problems with focus blast. Overall while not a monster by itself, it supports the team very well.
Blissey (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Soft-Boiled
- Seismic Toss
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
I really like using blissey on stall teams, as it is a really great blanket check to a lot of different special attackers which doesn't need a lot of guesswork to make work. Since I still didn't have rocks on this team, setting them is blissey's job, and it can get a lot of openings since it forces a lot of special attackers to switch out. Toxic is vital on this set, as it is my best bet against set up volcarona variants, as well as contributing to the general wear down plan. Corvi plus blissey absolutely dunks on choice lele since between them they can easily take any of its attacks and force it to lock itself.
Zeraora @ Leftovers
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Plasma Fists
- Close Combat
- Volt Switch
This might be weird seeing on a stall team, but as already mentioned, zeraora fills several very important niches on this team. The first is an electric immunity which supports corviknight greatly. It's outspeeding dragapult is also a great thing, as I run both kyurem and dragonite which are in danger of it, and choiced fire blast sets threaten corviknight a bit too much for my tastes too. It can also use knock off, which is really important to remove heavy duty boots to make wearing opposing teams down possible. Another important thing is that it is one of the better tools my teams has for taking momentum, between being able to interrupt volt switches with volt absorb, and having volt switch itself. Volt absorb also lets it have some longevity, which is really nice.
THREATS
While I haven't been playing with this team a lot and havent seen that much that is very threatening, some things to keep in mind are:
Knock off - the move is very annoying as a lot of my mons are rocks weak and dont like taking chip damage as they want to be walling as much as possible
- While usually corvi can take care of it, if corvi is too chipped, this thing can sweep the team with little set up, so keep corvi healthy against him and rely more on dragonite and zapdos to wall things like kartana/rilla...
- Added this on suggestion, as I don't really have an amazing switch in to banded triple axel, corvi can check it and zera can revenge kill it, but it's still a bit annoying
- This team relies on corvi a lot and this thing messes it up, while dragonite and zera can take care of it, it makes me play much more carefully than I want to, especially if combined with chomp
- setup variants with magic guard might be annoying, all other sets are completely fine
Most of these things are conditionally dangerous and not straight up 6-0 material, but can be very threatening depending on what is chipped on my team
REPLAY
I'm bad at remembering to save replays, and as a consequence have only one replay which wasn't that good since I got a little bit lucky with hax, but I do think this replay showcases some of the strengths of the team, such as being able to withstand powerful breakers like lele, and a setup sweeper such as hawlucha:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1304735042
this one shows why it's good to have redundant checks to things and how to play around magnezone:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1305409281-ne037psv5gu6q98rfj2antz54w78trlpw
FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS
While I'm currently happy with the lineup I have and probably won't be changing any pokemon slots for now there are some considerations I would like some opinions on:
EV spreads for some mons; specifically kyurem(help me pls I have no idea whats good here),zapdos(mostly if there are any good speed investments that are not too large), and corvi(maybe slightly more spdef to take special hits a bit better?).
close combat vs play rough on zearora: not sure which is better as close combat is more powerful in general, while play rough is nice against chomp.
boots vs lefties on zera: I have a lot of boots already, and the way the games have been going, zera can usually get the same amount of HP back from lefties as it would save from HDB but I'm still not sure what to give it.
special vs physical kyurem: I saw both being played, and for now I went for special as it can threaten waters more easily, but would love to hear your opinions on it.
FINAL WORDS
While I haven't tried out this team that much (I think I have like a 6-1 score in 1300-1400 range for now, and I don't really feel like I peaked yet), and wouldn't really write an RMT this soon, the feel of the team and results really felt good to me, so here I am. This is also my first RMT, as I have mostly been replying to other people's RMT's until now. Thanks for your patience reading this, and as always any suggestions are welcome!
Somewhere after the bans of cinderace and magearna, an idea for a team dropped into my head. What if I took several defensive pokemon with pressure and put them together in a pressure core that can stall out pp of the opposing team, and then capitalise on opposing mons losing pp for important moves which made them able to answer my mons to take full control of the game. I didn't build such a team at that time because I didn't really play a lot then and didn't have the time to, but I have lately been seeing such teams pop up in some OU tournaments and decided to give it a go.
This RMT is not meant to be about a finished team with all of its edges ironed out, but will focus more on two things: the general proof of concept for stall teams based around pressure cores, and an exercise in writing RMT's that might serve to highlight all of the steps that go into writing a detailed RMT, that maybe some newer members can use to see which information is good to provide to raters so they can give informed advice on how to improve the team.
GENERAL IDEA
Even though I kinda said it already, the general idea of this team is to make a stall team that focuses on wearing down the opponent, but while more conventional stall teams tend to wear down the opposing mons' health, the aim here is to wear down their pp until they are unable to offensively pressure my team and then slowly take them down. Stating what playstyle of the team is more to give a general idea of the way the team is supposed to be played to the raters, so they have a general idea of what to suggest.
BUILDING PROCESS
Even though people usually write these one by one, I'll list the first three together as I decided to use them at the same time. Corviknight, zapdos, and kyurem are the pressure users with the best defensive potential in the tier, and the core of the team.
Next I wanted to increase the other team members longevity by healing their status effects, while also warding off a very common threat to stall teams that is heatran. For these things I added dragonite.
Next I wanted to add a sturdy special wall that can dissuade special attackers and setup sweepers, as well as a rocks setter, so I went for blissey.
At this point I realised that I wanted an electric immunity to protect corviknight. However I also realised that no speed control+two dragons in the team makes my team quite dragapult weak. I also wanted to add a knock off user to the team to help with wearing down opponents with rocks. zeraora fills all of those roles.
SETS
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 4 Atk / 168 Def / 88 SpD
Careful Nature
- Roost
- Substitute
- Bulk Up
- Brave Bird
In the beginning I wasn't sure whether to make zapdos or corviknight my defogger, but since I wanted to really use pressure to its fullest, that meant using substitutes and roost, and I felt that with that zapdos had more room to defog. So corviknight got the bulk up set because it helps him stop a lot of dangerous physical sweepers in their tracks. Simply put, corvi has absolutely amazed me with its performance. It can wall more than half the physical metagame by itself, and even helps with checking some special attackers(most notably specs lele). For the EV spread I went for a defog spread slapped onto a bulk up set, as I already had other specially defensive pokemon and wanted to make corvi better able to take on physical attackers. If the opponent cannot stop it before it sets up, it can even exert offensive pressure.
Zapdos @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Roost
- Discharge
- Defog
My other pressure bird, zapdos fulfills the important role of defogger on the team, as a lot of my other teammembers are quite rocks weak. Even though corviknight takes less damage from rocks naturally, I decided to make zapdos the defogger as it can fit substitute+defog on its set much easier than corvi, and bulk up serves me really well on him. Discharge helps with spreading paralysis, which can make some faster much offensive threats easier to handle. The spread is physically defensive, because as noted before I have other physical walls, and with the sheer amount of things corvi is supposed to counter leading to the possibility of it getting overwhelmed, I wanted to have zapdos as a back up physical wall to help with some things they can both wall.
Kyurem @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Roost
- Freeze-Dry
- Ice Beam
The member of the team that completes my pressure core. While other members of the team use pressure more defensively, kyurem is the best equipped to offensively use its talents, namely against other slower teams. Freeze dry allows it to get passed a lot of bulky waters running around, like the slowtwins, pex, and occasionally tapu fini. While zapdos and corviknight are mostly used early in the game, kyurem often comes in later to exploit opponents running out of steam and finish them off, even though it can certainly pressure stall against slower teams by itself.
Dragonite @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Heal Bell
Slower teams tend to struggle with heatran a lot, especially the magma storm+taunt set, and ESPECIALLY my corviknight set. For this reason I wanted dragonite on this team, as it easily wards off heatran. Another great thing about dragonite is its ability to use heal bell to support my other team members, making wearing them down much harder. I went with stormzone's set as, while by no means the only good defensive dragonite set, it fit the needs of my team perfectly. Other notes about dragonite: multiscale abuse allows it to take hits no other members of my team can take which is useful in a pinch,it's also a great answer to grass bro attackers(kartana and rillaboom) if you don't want to risk wearing down corviknight, and its fighting resistance makes it complement blissey as a special wall very well, ice beam allows it to threaten lando and breaker variants of torn-t which can give blissey some problems with focus blast. Overall while not a monster by itself, it supports the team very well.
Blissey (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Soft-Boiled
- Seismic Toss
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
I really like using blissey on stall teams, as it is a really great blanket check to a lot of different special attackers which doesn't need a lot of guesswork to make work. Since I still didn't have rocks on this team, setting them is blissey's job, and it can get a lot of openings since it forces a lot of special attackers to switch out. Toxic is vital on this set, as it is my best bet against set up volcarona variants, as well as contributing to the general wear down plan. Corvi plus blissey absolutely dunks on choice lele since between them they can easily take any of its attacks and force it to lock itself.
Zeraora @ Leftovers
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Plasma Fists
- Close Combat
- Volt Switch
This might be weird seeing on a stall team, but as already mentioned, zeraora fills several very important niches on this team. The first is an electric immunity which supports corviknight greatly. It's outspeeding dragapult is also a great thing, as I run both kyurem and dragonite which are in danger of it, and choiced fire blast sets threaten corviknight a bit too much for my tastes too. It can also use knock off, which is really important to remove heavy duty boots to make wearing opposing teams down possible. Another important thing is that it is one of the better tools my teams has for taking momentum, between being able to interrupt volt switches with volt absorb, and having volt switch itself. Volt absorb also lets it have some longevity, which is really nice.
THREATS
While I haven't been playing with this team a lot and havent seen that much that is very threatening, some things to keep in mind are:
Knock off - the move is very annoying as a lot of my mons are rocks weak and dont like taking chip damage as they want to be walling as much as possible
- While usually corvi can take care of it, if corvi is too chipped, this thing can sweep the team with little set up, so keep corvi healthy against him and rely more on dragonite and zapdos to wall things like kartana/rilla... - Added this on suggestion, as I don't really have an amazing switch in to banded triple axel, corvi can check it and zera can revenge kill it, but it's still a bit annoying - This team relies on corvi a lot and this thing messes it up, while dragonite and zera can take care of it, it makes me play much more carefully than I want to, especially if combined with chomp - setup variants with magic guard might be annoying, all other sets are completely fineMost of these things are conditionally dangerous and not straight up 6-0 material, but can be very threatening depending on what is chipped on my team
REPLAY
I'm bad at remembering to save replays, and as a consequence have only one replay which wasn't that good since I got a little bit lucky with hax, but I do think this replay showcases some of the strengths of the team, such as being able to withstand powerful breakers like lele, and a setup sweeper such as hawlucha:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1304735042
this one shows why it's good to have redundant checks to things and how to play around magnezone:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1305409281-ne037psv5gu6q98rfj2antz54w78trlpw
FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS
While I'm currently happy with the lineup I have and probably won't be changing any pokemon slots for now there are some considerations I would like some opinions on:
EV spreads for some mons; specifically kyurem(help me pls I have no idea whats good here),zapdos(mostly if there are any good speed investments that are not too large), and corvi(maybe slightly more spdef to take special hits a bit better?).
close combat vs play rough on zearora: not sure which is better as close combat is more powerful in general, while play rough is nice against chomp.
boots vs lefties on zera: I have a lot of boots already, and the way the games have been going, zera can usually get the same amount of HP back from lefties as it would save from HDB but I'm still not sure what to give it.
special vs physical kyurem: I saw both being played, and for now I went for special as it can threaten waters more easily, but would love to hear your opinions on it.
FINAL WORDS
While I haven't tried out this team that much (I think I have like a 6-1 score in 1300-1400 range for now, and I don't really feel like I peaked yet), and wouldn't really write an RMT this soon, the feel of the team and results really felt good to me, so here I am. This is also my first RMT, as I have mostly been replying to other people's RMT's until now. Thanks for your patience reading this, and as always any suggestions are welcome!
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You're very weak to weavile, with toxapex now corviknight will not be overwhelmed by it, yeah you should take care of weavile with future sight support, but you can go corv that turn, and you have kyurem and zeraora to pressure the slow family.
