Paste
Introduction
I've been somewhat of a more casual enjoyer of Showdown across the past few gens but recently it's become somwhat of my special interest. I've always made whatever questionable teams catch my fancy, and this is the first time I've actually felt so enamoured with a team that I want to actually delve deeper and push it a bit further.This team started as an exercise to build a well rounded balanced team around Primarina - my wife's favourite starter in the OU tier. I will admit I'm far from the best pilot, and due to my inexperience I'm sure there's plenty of simple/small things I've overlooked. The team feels really good to play, but I'm not experienced enough a player to tell you whether the team's actually good or not. It has a whole bunch of answers to pretty much everything in the metagame on the scale of good to decent, and a few solid avenues to run away with the game - see Prim, Garg and the occasional Gambit.
There's a few things that stick out to me - the double priority, the lack of immediately threatening mons beside Kyurem, low hazard presence, weak hazard removal and the questionable Ground-type matchup. Another, potentially skill issue based problem I'm running into is that my answers, whilst good and solid for the first and second time, get worn down quite quickly afterwards and opens up holes as a result. I've tried a couple of different team options as well, which are covered in the considerations section below. Thanks for reading through all this~
The Team
Primarina (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 80 HP / 252 SpA / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Surf
- Moonblast
- Substitute
The initial buildaround for the team - I've played around with a couple different options - boots, AV, etc. but I think to me this set feels the best fitting. Tera Steel fits best in my experience, letting me freely setup on Glowking, Moth and Gholden, as well as anyone else threating toxic to shut down the setup. The downside to that one is of course opening up a glaring weakness to Kyurem's Earth Power and random EQs from Lando, Gliscor, Tusk and the like - although the alternate Tera Poison has similar issues. I've also considered Tera Water, but not followed through in respect for toxic. In retrospect, as I write - perhaps Tera Water is the go because I'm on sub on this set. I really like sub - and it allows for a really controlled way of hitting the torrent threshold too. It puts in good work almost every game, but my main thought with it is whether I should commit to the more offensive set - Prim is just so good at checking so much of the tier that sometimes I'm not as willing to bring this slightly squishier set in. The second thought on this mon is making space for a Psychic Noise - it's a nice option that can really help consolidate the sweep against the fatter special walls, and also lets me break water absorb Clod solo.
Kingambit (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Kowtow Cleave
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch
Gambit puts in fantastic work as a very threatening mon that functions as the team's primary ghost resist and answer to slighty-out-of-control setup sweepers. I have been quite happy with the tera on this one too, as the team doesn't actually have a ground immunity, although Rilla does a good job in shoring up the team's weakness to ground moves. It's indeed a very basic and normal set. My only real thought or concern on this mon is whether the mild speed investment to outrun Blissey is all that valuable - I think the extra bulk is often quite valuable.
Rillaboom (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Grassy Surge
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Grassy Glide
- Wood Hammer
Rillaboom is really important for the team for allowing some sort of counterplay against the ground type - specifically EQ and keeping my guys healthy with its terrain. It's another source of priority, as well as providing great utility as a knocker and pivot with U-turn. When I first built the team, the nature was Adamant but perhaps as a result of my potentially questionable playstyle I've really valued the +Spe nature instead. The power on the mon is really important, but I do notice that it being choiced feels really punishing, in which at times it has so many use cases and/or options with all the utility built in but Band doesn't allow me to leverage all of them adequately. That and the times I'm often forced to Grassy and subsequently forced out because I'm choiced.
Kyurem @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Freeze-Dry
- Draco Meteor
- Earth Power
Kyurem represents a very powerful immediate presence as a special breaker - answering a lot of potential checks and threats to the team such as Gliscor. We're on boots because the team realistically isn't the most capable in terms of keeping hazards off, especially with Treads running double duty as a very important Special check to a whole bunch of threats in the tier. Ideally I'd want to run this Kyurem in a manner with a bit more of a offensive presence - but it's already a bit tough to bring him in. Additionally, there's already a couple other mons who really appreciate being able to Tera, so Kyurem's tendency and preference to Tera Ground is often foregone in favour of it's teammates.
Iron Treads @ Assault Vest
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 80 HP / 176 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Volt Switch
Treads is one of the later additions in a later revision of the team. Initially, I was struggling a lot with some of the more powerful special threats in the tier - Raging Bolt, Iron Crown and Darkrai. AV treads presented itself as the perfect solution to my troubles, although after a bit of more testing it does feel a little strained, and very slightly conflicting with the terrain from Rilla. (This is where I'm told to simply just use High Horsepower instead, which is actually a good point and I'm not sure how I overlooked that? Silly girl) I find myself bringing it in very often, and because it isn't a perfect answer it often gets chipped quite heavily and leads to situations where they then run with the game - especially if there's the pressing issue of hazards to remove given it's also the team's spinner. I'm fairly happy with the set - it lives pretty much everything I need it to and sits at a very happy speed tier, but I'm like 90% sure it should be High Horsepower over EQ and Volt isn't as valuable as I like when the opponent often brings in Lando or Tusk to answer the Treads - especially because there's no Ice Spinner on this one.
Garganacl (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Recover
- Salt Cure
- Earthquake
Garg is another revisionist addition to the team. I'd replaced my physdef Tusk and needed a new physical wall. Garg, despite being very Tera hungry (Tera Fairy has been working excellently to shore up the team's defensive shortcomings), performs excellently in its task and also occasionally doubles very reliably as a secondary win condition once it's threats have been dealt with. I don't have too many thoughts about it or its set, beyond the token stealth rock slotted into its moveset. Curse could be very valuable here for endgames, but I'm not sure I want to give up the access to rocks, despite how late in the midgame I even get to click rocks with this guy.
Considerations
Initially slotted on the team was a physdef Helmet Tusk and the usual Boots Specially Defensive Glowking. With this setup, I found myself constantly overwhelmed by some of the faster and stronger special presences, and it was nigh impossible to find openings to either click rocks on Tusk or spin hazards. It also was constantly chipped down quite quickly, as just Rilla's terrain support wasn't quite enough. Glowking was quite alright at its job, but the way I shuffled things around didn't quite work out for him.
I also experimented with both of these options seperately- a physdef Moltres also filled gaps in the defensive profile quite well, and its access to burn, whirlwind and U-turn made it a very compelling option. The Gliscor I tried was specially defensive with Toxic, Protect, Spikes and EQ. It checked a lot of the problems I was having and ate knocks very happily. Ultimately, despite both mons also providing the very valuable and sorely needed ground immunity, the problem with both was not being able to find a mon for hazard removal that fit the team.
I haven't actually tested with this mon as I'm not exactly sure how to shuffle the team to make space for it, but it seems like a potentially quite interesting solution to some of my problems. It's a ground immunity, hazard removal, and has access to a slow u-turn to make space and pivot. Please help me here with this one :3
Yea that's all thanksies for reading through my first RMT and I hope I provided enough of an insight into my silly little brain.
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