SV UU scarf magnezone + cm sylveon balance

[Liz Angeles]

Introduction
I noticed that there weren't very many rmts for sv uu and this made me sad so I decided to share probably my favourite team I've made this gen. It peaked around 1690 on ladder and was the main team I used to qualify for uult. The inspiration of this team was essentially that the team I was using before this kept losing to cm sylveon and florges on preview. EIther of these pokemon combined with magnezone are incredibly strong in the current meta. I decided to use syvleon over florges largely because of my friend Sylvi. The rest of the team was set up to try to get the best out of sylveon and take advantage of tinkatons absence.

The team

Sylveon @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Wish
- Protect
- Calm Mind

Sylveon was the driving force behind the team and the primary win condition. The only steel type that can stand up to this mon long term is tinkaton which of course gets trapped, allowing sylveon to wreak havoc on the opponent. The main advantage of sylveon over florges is its extra power and physical bulk makes it far harder for pokemon such as scizor and talonflame to take it on, although the lower pp of hyper voice is a major drawback as well as it's lower special bulk making it harder to check pokemon such as specs greninja, specially offensive salamence, and various iron jugulis sets. Overall I still prefer sylveon to florges but their roles are somewhat interchangeable. I can't overstate how difficult this mon is to deal with at the moment, only the strongest phsical attackers can force it out unless they're hitting it super effectively and steel and poison moves just aren't very prevalent right now. Tera steel is mainly used for the flying and steel resistances, allowing it to pick off weakened scizor and set up easier vs talonflame in some match ups. It can also come in useful vs hawlucha or specs hurricanes.


Decidueye @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Long Reach
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Defog
- Roost
- Leaf Blade

Decidueye is one of the most important pokemon in making this team work. I think this is easily the best defogger in the tier right now in terms of keeping hazards off due to being able to switch in on and threaten the ground types in this tier with the exception of donphan, and while it's not necessarily intuitive it massively benefits from magnezones support. Tinkaton is one of the few rockers that can keep rocks up vs decidueye, so when it's removed it becomes very easy at times to control the hazard match up. Hazards are vital for a lot of offense teams to make progress vs this structure and decidueyes ability to keep hazards off can make it borderline unbreakable. Another advantage of this is it allows salamence to switch in on pokemon that would normally threaten it with knock off becuase losing boots isn't so detrimental if your opponent can't keep rocks off. It's potentially worth experimenting with a special grass move over leaf blade on decidueye but I felt leaf blade was often more useful in my games. Tera poison helps vs gengar which is a threat to this team.


Scizor @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Close Combat
- Trailblaze

Scizor's inclusion on this team comes down to it's great synergy with sylveon and decidueye, while it also provides a secondary win condition which can be just as devastating as sylveon. Not only does scizor greatly appreciate sylveons wish support, it really enjoys sylveons ability to break through bulky physical walls such as hippowdon and slowbro, and both mons can break through talonflame to enable the other to sweep. In general I preferred to use scizor early-midgame to enable an easier sweep with sylveon, in paricular because sylveon's wish can sometimes allow you to have, essentially, two or more scizors, but there were also several games where I used sylveon and decidueye to force a lategame scizor sweep. Scizor really appreciates decidueyes knock off support, potentially removing pokemon such as talonflame before scizor even has to tera. Bullet punch also provides important utility in helping to revenge kill threatening pokemon. Tera fire allows it to avoid burns from talonflame and survive flamethrower from salamence.


Hippowdon @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sand Stream
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Slack Off

I originally had gastrodon in this slot but the team was too weak to banded tyranitar, maushold, and pawmot. Hippowdon also helps vs lucario and hawlucha which are really threatening for this team, and having a way to punish u-turns from slither wing and lokix was greatly appreciated. I don't have too much to say on hippowdon, it gets up rocks and walls some of the biggest threats to this team. Stone edge is very important to keep up hazards vs talonflame for this team. Tera dragon allows this team to have some counterplay vs rain sweepers such as floatzel and barraskewda.


Salamence @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Hurricane
- Flamethrower
- Roost

Originally I had hydro pump on salamence because flamethrower isn't overly necessary with magnezone support, but scizor was annoying at times for this team and having 3 inaccurate moves on ladder is a recipe for disaster. Salamence provides a lot of offensive and defensive utility to this team, notably checking scizor, armarouge, slither wing, hawlucha, and both tauros forms. The ability of decidueye to keep hazards off also often allowed salamence to switch in on wo chien and threaten it massively. Salamence is just incredibly difficult to switch into and consistently forces opponents on the backfoot, gjving its teammates oppurtunities to come in and shine. Tera steel allows it to live hawlucha acrobatics and ko it back.


Magnezone @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magnet Pull
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Tera Blast
- Flash Cannon

Magnezone was another of the centrepieces on this team. In spite of having very few targets magnezone is an incredible enabler in this tier while also just generally being a good pokemon. Scarf magnezone is an unusual pick and not something I've really seen anyone else use, but the speed is important for this team as the fastest pokemon otherwise is salamence. I don't have too much to say on magnezone, its synergy with decidueye and sylveon really drove the success of this team, but I expanded a lot on that above. There are match ups where magnezone struggles because it doesn't have targets to trap, but tera grass tera blast at least provies a way to nuke ground types which salamence and scizor can benefit from. Volt switch from scarfs speed tier can also be quite strong, particularly given that people rarely expect scarf, allowing you to get solid chip on mons like gengar without losing your magnezone.

Threat List
Gyarados is a major threat to this team that's very difficult to play around. Generally you have to chip it with salamence, hippowdon or sylveon, and revenge with one of the others. After gyarados teras scizor's bullet punch is also a revenge killing option.

Rain can be very difficult to deal with when using this team, your counterplay is very limited.

Lucario is a massive threat to this team, it's important to keep hippowdon healthy when you face it. Scizor can revenge kill it after it takes some chip, sometimes even without lucario using tera, and syvleon matches up reasonably well vs non meteor mash variants.

This team doesn't switch in very well on gengar, in practice gengar finds it hard to come in and isn't too bad to play around.

Replays
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-691585

Conclusion
Overall this team is kind of a departure stylistically from my other teams this gen but it's one I really enjoyed building and playing with. This team has so many great synergies and while it's not perfect there are very few match ups I feel I can't outplay with it. I've really had a love/hate relationship with this tier at times because I find it really difficult to build teams with any sort of consistency, but this team kind of reminded me that there's always room for creativity and it's better to adapt to what you're seeing than get upset because something isn't working.

Import Not the spreads I actually used

Hide

Sylveon @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Wish
- Protect
- Calm Mind

Decidueye @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Long Reach
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Defog
- Roost
- Leaf Blade

Scizor @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Close Combat
- Trailblaze

i hate cb tar (Hippowdon) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sand Stream
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Slack Off

Salamence @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Hurricane
- Flamethrower
- Roost

Magnezone @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magnet Pull
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Tera Blast
- Flash Cannon