Project PU Battle of the Week [Week 9: big tony 2014 vs sufys]

won the series ggs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-1984128769 (won)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-1984133035 (lost)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-1984138838 (won)

i'll give my thoughts on meta pre-slate since as we can see the drops were pretty absurd lmfao. arboliva is stupidly good rn and other drops make articuno and cryogonal (2 realest special walls before drops) pretty hard to run atm.

:leavanny::passimian::rotom::tauros::charizard::hattrem:
first team i mainly wanted to try webs since leavanny dropped and is a pretty cool new option since it's stabs are stong and knock is always helpful. it also matches up well into hattrem, the one magic bounce mon we received as well. CB passimian is there to just nuke and tera fire + blast is good for soaking up wisp and nuking houndstone because of fluffy. i toyed around with other tera's like fairy or dark but sableye falling off a ton let me make different choices. scarf rotom helps with the teams speed and can be a last minute sack to make sure webs keep up. regular tauros still farms and puts in even more work under webs since you're fine against most scarfers besides flyings. zard takes advantage of the physical walls that want to come in on tauros/pass like weezing or houndstone and tera grass helps with waters like clawitzer. i flip flopped before with tera ground to soak volts since theres few grounds left here but ultimately decided against it to have better claw mu. hatt is just filling the OU HO role that hatterene usually does here in pivoting around with mbounce and being a nuisance with eject button.

:orthworm::whiscash::spiritomb::braviary::morpeko::indeedee:
probably the team i like the least from this week. as you can see in g2 just got bodied by arbo + friends lmao. i still like tomb a lot but it's not great as a spdef pivot (i kinda did this twice this week and paid for it LOL) but it's still a really solid option since fighting immunity is huge rn. tera ghost idpress worm is rly strong and can usually steamroll late games but insanely hates opposing ghosts like hound. whishcash is the only ground besides golem and it did it's role by sitting around and keeping rocks while scouting choice mons. indeedee is pretty much filler here i just wanted a better option to take advantage of poisons like weezing which is rly annoying for this team. i really hate boots on it since the speedtier is insanely awkward, even tho it gets good utility options like encore. i think it has solid potential as a revengekiller in a fighting heavy meta but dark types being common is super bad for it.

:arboliva::passimian::spiritomb::samurott::raichu-alola::weezing:
the paste is called arbo isogang bc it really just comes in and gets kills for free a lot of the time. scarf pass and raichu facilitate it really well and slow samu also is able to get it in a couple of times usually. i like tera ghost a lot since u get great immunities and resistances and arbo's bulk is insane with a better defensive typing. dgleam could be leaf storm instead if u want to nuke even more. no grounds make spamming volt turn super easy and electric + arbo is insanely oppressive to fight. overall abuses 2 of the broken drops we got arbo and passimian.

:arboliva::passimian::magneton:
i think these 3 are easily the best drops we got and i hope to see these banned with the slate soon. i'd prefer to see these 3 qb'd before the rest of the mons on slate are looked at since just having these 3 in the current tier is already a lot to handle and clouds the rest of the mons in comparison in my opinion.

just wanted to say thanks to everyone that voted me and it's been really awesome getting more into the community since qualling for PULT pretty randomly lmao. the community has been really welcoming and i hope i get to meet more people since this tier/people here are awesome :D. again thanks for reading and voting for me and i plan to stick around the tier so hopefully i get to know more of u guys!!
 
First I want to say ggs to DripLegend, all 3 games were pretty good imo and there wasn't any insane bad luck on either side so it was an enjoyable series. Also thanks to everyone who voted, I'm also pretty new to the smogon in general so this was a cool experience, and I hope to do more things like it! Now on to the games:

Game 1(Loss): :bombirdier::clawitzer::raichu::morpeko::basculin::vivillon:
I really like this team overall, obviously the idea is to be a hyper-offensive VoltTurn style team.
:clawitzer::basculin:
The stars of the show in testing were definitely Clawitzer and Basculin. They both do insane damage if you can get them in safely, and Basc outspeeds most common scarfers.
:Raichu:
Raichu is there for paraspam + volt absorbing and it actually was one of my favorite mons on the team. I settled on tera flying as an alternative to Tera Water + Surf since I'm not running Surf. Focus Blast coverage is for things like Magneton and Probopass. This was definitely inspired by Uberskitty, but I replaced Wish with Nuzzle because I wanted a way to punish switches and Wish felt too slow.
:Vivillon:
Vivillon originally had U-turn but I usually didn't switch out once it came in so I ended up using the normal degen set. Not much to it, I think Vivi is good when it gets the chance to click buttons, and honestly this might not be the best framework for it. I do think it has answers inside the tier though.
:Bombirdier:
I think this mon is very good, I basically use it as a suicide lead (sometimes) dropping Roost for Brave Bird. It also works well as a Knock spreader and is a way to dissuade people from clicking ground type moves freely.
:Morpeko:
One of the best mons in the tier imo, with sandslash gone it's by far the best spinner, and it also lost one of its best answers. Not to mention it pressures teams that want to keep hazards up very heavily, and it fits nicely into turn-based teams with parting shot.
So with all that being said about the team how did it play out? I started with Birdier expecting Leavanny and the first couple turns went smoothly. But I made a mistake going straight to peko as it invited tauros in way earlier than I wanted. I knew that claw could live a body slam from Tauros and kill it in return but I had to find a way to either get webs off the field or find that interaction. I had to sack Birdier as a punishment for my mistake, and then I went to claw hoping drip would just click b-slam thinking it would take me out. Every tick of Life Orb damage made it more likely that Claw would get ohko'd so I had to be careful, and honestly I set myself up decently sacking Vivillon and getting Peko in on something other than Tauros. But I misplayed pretty badly and it cost me the game. If I had Aura Wheeled the Passimian I would have been in a great spot, being able to outspeed scarf rotom and kill it, or spin on anything else and having Basc to clean up. Unfortunately I rushed and clicked Rapid Spin and that put me in a tough spot. After getting Tricked I still could have maybe won with Basc if I had sacked Raichu and gotten a spin off on the Pass, but I missed that line. After Peko went down it would have taken some really good luck to win it, and I got overwhelmed by Tauros + Charizard in the back.
Game 2(win): :muk::orthworm::arboliva::houndstone::morpeko::indeedee:
This was the team I had the most time to test and tweak, and it showed as I played much more solidly in this game with a few silly mistakes in the later game, but luckily I didn't get punished super hard for them.
:Muk::Orthworm:
So as you can tell from the name, I went into builder with these two as my basis for the team. I think they complement eachother sharing no weaknesses and even resisting all of eachothers weaknesses except for fire which lacks representation in this tier. Orth is very defensive, there to spread hazards and punish peko for trying to spin on it. Earthquake could definitely be replaced with Iron head or Heavy slam, but I didn't do enough testing to decide which I liked more. Muk is just super nice for this tier, fits the role of being a blanket spdef wall that can actually do something back. I chose Toxic over Poison coverage because I found that I rarely used it, and knock + drain punch usually did the job. Toxic on the other hand makes it easier to bring muk in for a turn and get actual progress instead of hitting something with a weak Knock/Poison Jab.
:Arboliva:
Clearly the MVP and one of the top 2 mons in the tier imo. It just has very few answers when running Specs, and the thing that makes it so good is you don't even become a frail mon if you decide to forego investing in spdef. This thing manages to be one of the scariest threats on offense and on defense at the same time.
:Houndstone:
I really appreciate hound as a way of dealing with Passimian/Medicham/Peko. I needed a consistent spin blocker and hound just seemed to be the best fit, I run body press to again punish Peko, and Will-o as a way of crippling anything that might try to switch in and do immediate damage like Bombirdier. Shadow Sneak over Sleep Talk catches a lot of frail ghosts like Rotom and Haunter off guard once they've seen the Rest. Yeah just a soild mon and a good addition to my defensive core.
:Morpeko::Indeedee:
I already talked about Morpeko before, but yeah again, it's just the best way to keep hazards off your field and is a solid mon. Indeedee is a cool addition to the tier, I already liked Indeedee-F, but it definitely has lost potency with all of the new drops these past 2 months. Indeedee on the other hand has the slight power and speed boost it needs to get the job done. While I do think Specs is better overall, I wanted to use it on one of my teams and this seemed like the best fit. I really liked the Scarf set during the game this week and overall it has proved to be a solid option. being able to essentially run 5 moves with tera blast being normal/fairy depending on the matchup is also really nice.
This game was just the Arboliva show, Drip and I got into a cycle of I bring Arbo in on Whiscash and something loses 80%~ of its health to a Leaf Storm. I didn't utilize Orthworm as well as I could have not realizing that Whiscash was Physical, and probably could have setup some hazards earlier in the game to speed it up. Muk probably could have won the game if I had chosen to tera against Spirtomb but I decided to play a little more safe since I knew I had Peko in the back. Yeah not much else to say, I think this team is really solid.
Game 3(loss): :ursaring::magneton::sneasel::tauros-paldea-combat::swanna::houndstone:
This was definitely my favorite team, but also the one I had the least time to test out. I think if I had a little more time to tweek things it could have been a lot better, but Drip also just played really well showcasing why Arboliva is just absurd to deal with even better than I did in Game 2.
:Ursaring:
I wanted to use Eviolite Ursaring to showcase how insanely bulky it is and honestly I think I did that. I don't think Bulk Up is really worth running on Ursa in this tier, as just being able to chip away with Body Slam is more than enough. Play Rough makes it possible to hit Spiritomb/Sableye. You could argue Crunch to hit the other Ghosts super effectively but honestly all of the frailer ones like Rotom/Haunter are taking a ton from Play Rough and not doing much back, and you arent doing anything to Houndstone anyway. I think Ursa has a place in the meta being a solid check to Charizard, Vivillon, Magneton(banned), etc.
:Sneasel:
Love this silly little guy, it definitely struggles with 4mss wanting to fit Knock/Icicle Crash/Ice Shard/Low Kick as well as Swords Dance. I think there's an argument for Choice Band but taking 25% from Rocks hurts pretty bad. I do think regular Sneasel is a lot more threatening than Hisuian at the moment and I will stand by that.
:Magneton:
I won't say much since it just got banned, but yeah just a really solid mon obviously. It forces a lot of progress every time it comes in and had very few switch ins outside of iteself and Arboliva.
:Swanna:
I only ran Swanna because running three teams with Morpeko seemed like overkill, I do think Swanna is still decent in this meta though. It really struggles against a lot of the spdef walls but physical Swanna is a real threat having one of the strongest Brave Birds in the tier.
:Houndstone:
Already talked about it but, this was a more passive set dropping Body Press for Sleep Talk, the idea was to run double rest walls with Ursa and Hound and honestly it kind of worked. I just got overwhelmed by Arboliva in the end.
:Tauros-Paldea-Combat:
I think this mon is really good having like 3 or 4 viable sets. Scarf is definitely one of them checking a lot of common scarfers while being able to soak hits from them thanks to Intimidate. It's also just very threatening in general and I think it should see more usage in the coming weeks.
I thought I had this game in the bag right up until my Tauros got ohko'd by Giga Drain. It was looking pretty solid early on and Ursaring + Sneasel were having a great showing as well as Swanna. I think I would have had to play really carefully to get Arboliva in a position where I could kill it though, and honestly it was an oversight on my part not bringing something that could deal with it somehow. Overall I was pretty happy with this team, but I think it lacks pressure in terms of coverage and also not having any way to threaten hazards.

tl;dr: I had fun and probably wrote more than I needed to here, but I enjoy building in this tier a lot and with the exception of a few things I think there's a good mix of Pokemon that exert pressure on both offense and defense. My takes are Sneasel > Sneasel-h, Arbo is the best mon in the tier now that Magneton is banned, DripLegend is a very good player, and eviolite Ursaring deserves to get used more. Thanks if you actually read all this, and if you didn't that's okay too.
 
THANK YOU BOTH FOR AN AMAZING SERIES PLS ENTER YOUR VOTES FOR NEXT WEEK!!

Mine are:
sleid
Morge
Akir

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i figure i would follow in my fellow battlers footsteps with a small post about the teams i used. shoutout to the wonderful PU community members who voted for me to play this week.

ORAS
:arbok::zebstrika::stoutland::pelipper::monferno::floatzel: game replay
i don't remember where i got this team from, but i wanted to run some offense because balance or stall can be a bit boring to watch and this team looked really fun. i love pelipper as a defensive pivot to enable the offense.

SWSH
:jellicent::trevenant::silvally:(ghost):palossand::rotom::sableye:game replay
this team came from my good friend Shaneghoul. wanted something fun to play and ghost-types are my favorite so it was wraps.

SV
:passimian::whiscash::avalugg-hisui::eelektross::charizard::haunter:game replay
not gonna lie, i stole this team from someone in the pu server because it looked neat, but i just tweaked a few things about it. shoutout to whoever posted this. offense is really solid right now and the most enjoyable playstyle for me at the moment

thank you to ishtar for hosting and glhf to the future battlers.
 
GGs sleid!

Thought I'd post my teams/thoughts too!

ORAS:
:marowak::kadabra::ninetales::swanna::roselia::pawniard:
Built this team, alongside some other teams, on Discord when the ORAS VR changes were being posted, but hadn't gotten the chance to use it until now. I was specifically focusing on the mons that were being hyped up with some glue stuff at the back. Not much to say about Roselia and Pawniard, since they were just the gooey glue mons I added at the end. Kadabra could have been Scarf, or simply Mr. Mime, but I wanted to try out Magic Guard Counter. Before finding out last second the combo is illegal this gen. This Swanna set was recommended to me, with it being both one of said hyped up mons and simply fitting well. However, Ninetales and especially Maworak were the stars of the team, getting a lot of praise, so naturally instead of testing them out normally I had to make overcomplicated sets! Made a post with the mixed Marowak set here, but sadly Pelipper is one of the checks Blizzard doesn't cover. Bulky double dance Ninetales did almost get a chance to shine in the match, had I known Monferno was Scarf and couldn't just Mach Punch me ;-;

SWSH:
:shuckle::jolteon::duosion::altaria::gourgeist::silvally-steel:
More thoughts on this team were put into what I wanted to showcase than to actually making it good, specifically Duosion and Altaria being stuffed in (being against mono-Ghost didn't help Duosion's case either but it's good I swear!). With the popularity of Gourgeist-XL and Small, I decided to try out Large as a midpoint of sorts, maintaining most of the power/bulk of XL while reaching the 220 Speed benchmark. What the team was truly meant to be around was Shuckle+Jolteon, a remake of a strat I made with Magcargo+Leafeon in SV. In theory, Shuckle moves last and uses Shell Smash and activates the Eject Pack (not Eject Button, mistake on my end), bringing in Jolteon to outspeed the foe and use Copycat to use Shell Smash. Tho Copycat coming into play with Hex at that one point was a funny unintended bonus. And can't forget Stored Power and Electro Ball to further benefit from the boosts! Yes, I know, I'm a genius. And then Silvally-Steel was squeezed into the last slot in attempt to fill the various holes my team had.

btw crit at the end might've mattered, but Rotom prob just finished me off either way.
252 Atk Silvally-Ghost Multi-Attack vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Jolteon: 237-280 (87.4 - 103.3%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

SV:
:golem-alola::skuntank::electrode::weezing::graveler::wigglytuff:
Admittedly a speed build, I like how it came out tho. Alolan Golem, and later added on Alolan Graveler, gave the team a way to hit Ghost mons (not named Palossand) through Galvanize. I slightly expanded my move limits to allow Wigglytuff, who can also hit those Ghost mons while also physical walls. Skuntank is just great on any team, no explanation really needed there. Electrode simply helps make up for the team's low af Speed. Weezing was just kinda slapped on cuz it's good, tho I notably couldn't decide which ability to use with N-Gas bypassing Damp mons and Levitate making up for the team's Ground weakness. That being said, Weezing is prob the most replicable mon on the team, second being Alolan Graveler if you don't want mutliple Galvanize users. The main alternative options would be Carbink for another special attacker or Glimmet for Toxic Debris stuff.

edit: also zoowi hates botw don't vote for
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