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I think the teams might be even better this week guys, some really cool builds & I think everyone was on point (and all relatively different ideas too, insofar as building around eject button can be, which is neat).
Found it quite difficult to pick one to vote for, and I tested out most of the teams. I think this week I will cast in for Team 7, by Alexdevi. I found it very smooth to pilot, and although the idea of Banded Bulu + Z Garchomp + offensive Psychic is not novel, eject button + Zone is a really nice spin in keeping with the theme of the week.
Quick shout outs to Clementine for the Facade Altaria (awesome set), and Proftreez for somehow using Cresselia (once again lmao ) - cool offensive team (though I found it difficult to pilot in some MU's, as offence sometimes can be).
Also also, eject button Ferrothorn/TornT + Pursuit Tyranitar is really sweet, Maktyum.
Before voting I want to make an honorable mention to the Ausma team Lele's Handy Dandy Pocket Pex BO, it's a lot of fun to use 2 of the best trappers in the meta very safely.
I had a hard time choosing between the first 4 teams, but my vote goes to Team 1 by Vittorioso, I've always wanted to use a trapper that supports scizor, golem has a good synergy of types with scizor unlike magnezone with which it shares weaknesses, without forgetting that It hits on the physical side, finishing off the more popular Steel-types more easily.
And with that, Team 9 by Proftreez wins the Week 2 of the SM Teambuilding Competition. It will be added to the Hall of Fame.
Let's move to week 3 now!
According to the survey, this week's new theme is:
A tie! As usual, democracy is useless. So, to cut the tie, I will ask the opinion of the most relevant competitive pokemon player: Guts from Berserk!
And so it's decided! The week's new theme is:
Week 3 : Slowbro / Slowbro-Mega
/
Overall, Slowbro is simply a fantastic defensive tool in the metagame. Outside of its obvious role as a big physical sponge with a convenient dual-type for the like of Medicham-Mega or Charizard-Mega-X, Slowbro is also very unpredictable thanks to its huge movepool and the many possible items you can slot on it (Z-moves with Future Sight or Zap Cannon, Eject Button, Berries with Colbur for Dark or Rindo for Grass, ...). On that note, Slowbronite, although it seems like a weaker option on Slowbro (and, therefore a waste of an item), is also interesting as it gives to Slowbro much more defense and a powerful special attack stats of 130.
For this week, the goal is to build a team with Slowbro or Slowbro-Mega.
Round shall end on Friday 24 march at 11: 59 PM GMT-5. Have Fun!
Analytic Magnezone + Psychium Z Slowbro + Lopunny-Mega Balance
Hi everyone, KaiserKaiba here again to post some garbage. For this week, I wanted to toy with a pretty funny set of Magnezone: Analytic. While it seems like a complete waste of the said pokemon, Analytic Magnezone does have some cool applications in this metagame (moreover, it's not my original idea, I stole it from that old spl replay).
With a modest nature, the ability Analytic and Hidden Power [Ice], Magnezone is able to lure and beat the most relevant grounds of SM OU such as Gliscor, Garchomp and Landorus-Therian. Moreover, Toxic will cover the rest of this list (Gastrodon, Hippodown, ...). Iapapa Berry looks weird, but, here, with Substitute + Toxic, it allows Magnezone to actually pressure many walls such as Chansey (while, as long you don't reveal any item, you can fake a possible Z-Electric/Z-Steel). Finally, Discharge is preferred to cripple natural check to Magnezone such as Latias-Mega.
With Future Sight and Psychium Z, Slowbro can randomly pull out a 190 BP psychic move and lure the very common Toxapex. Moreover, due to the presence of the funny Analytic Magnezone, I didn't feel the need to put Ice Beam or Counter on this Slowbro. Instead, I keep the obvious Slack Off and Scald. Finally, Thunder Wave is convenient to punish CM users such as Clefable or Reuniclus and also ease the 1v1 against set-up behemoths such as Charizard-Mega-X.
The final piece of the basic core of this team. Lopunny-Mega greatly appreciate the ability of Magnezone and Slowbro to remove annoying checks such as Gliscor, Landorus-Therian or Toxapex. Even once you burn the Psychium Z of Slowbro, Future Sight is still a fantastic offensive tool that form a powerful tandem alongside Lopunny-Mega. For the set, High Jump Kick, Frustration and Fake out are all obvious options; however, Power-Up Punch allows Lopunny-Mega to pressure more easily soft-checks such as Tornadus-Therian, Clefable, Latias-Mega, Skarmory or Scizor-Mega.
The immortal bat will support the squad with its usual assets such as its ability to check Toxapex or Heatran, U-turn to ease the pivoting and Defog to constantly remove hazards on the field (especially Toxic Spikes and Spikes). Nothing much to say on that slot.
Heatran is mainly here to patch up a bit our awful MUs against the like of Tapu Lele, Magearna, Volcarona, Scizor-Mega and Bulky CM Users such as Clefable, Latias-Mega or Reuniclus (especially Latias-Mega if it's a variant with Refresh or Substitute). While I do agree that Heatran actually fail to achieve the job I mentionned just above, I value a lot its ability to force respect in early game and being somewhat annoying with the combination of Magma Storm, Toxic, Taunt and Stealth Rock to force bad sequence against defoggers such as Rotom-Wash, Tapu Fini, Tornadus-Therian or Latias-Mega. Finally, Heatran appreciate as well Magnezone's ability to lure Gliscor.
Another pokemon with a set I really dislike a lot; unfortunatly, I can't think of a better last here. The first original pick was Amoonguss. However, with Heatran and Slowbro as our sole psychic-resist, I can't afford at all the funny mushroom and, instead, slot Tangrowth. With Assault Vest and its solid HP stat, Tangrowth is able to soft-check usual threats such as Alakazam-Mega, Ash-Greninja, Tapu Koko, Swampert-Mega or Kartana. For the moveset, Leaf Storm improve our MU against Manaphy, Knock Off removes Rocky Helmet from the like of Skarmory or Tornadus-Therian and Rock Slide can catch Volcarona or Charizard-Mega-Y (and, at worst, put them in the range of Fake Out).
Hope you will like the team. See you soon. S/O to Proftreez and RufflesPro for the help.
Building a team based on slowbro is difficult, originally I wanted to use its mega evolution but I didn't get good results, so I bring this arena team inspired by this The Charlotte Family, so most of the credit goes to him, I just modified it to better distribute the roles.
Slowbro with future sigth is one of the main reasons to take it over toxapex, future Sight is very spammable and pressures the opponent to do one of two things: go into something that can shrug off a Psychic-type attack or take considerable damage (120 BP is no joke). The rest of the team takes advantage of this fact as I'll go into later.
Mega Lopunny is one of the best megas of the level. Its stellar speed and attack stat, as well as its incredible double STAB and priority combo make it an excellent revenge killer and a threat to most offensive teams. One of the reasons I put it on this team is that it takes advantage of the fact that Future Sight draws in Dark- and Steel-types that Mega Lopunny can break through with High Jump Kick.
BandTar is a great wallbreaker as well as the team's sand setter. It completes the FDP (Fighting / Dark / Psychic) core with Lopunny and Slowbro. It too takes advantage of Future Sight as it also lures in Psychic-types which Tyranitar traps and easily dispatches of. Fire Punch softens up Steel-types such as Magearna, Celesteela, Skarmory and Mega Mawile which Mega Lopunny would otherwise struggle to take out.
Excadrill fits well here as a ground type, it gives me electrical immunity and a speed control under sand, it has life sphere to compensate for the lack of Z crystal, since it does not have fast spin I use avalanche to hit zapdos.
Ferrothorn is here for his excellent understanding of roles, granting me trap rocks and giving us a check against greninja ash and psychic spam, forming a nice defensive synergy with slowbro.
Tornadus for the third time is my defog and kartana control, with his ability he forms a regeneration core with slowbro, helping to eliminate the plant types that bother slowbro.
I didn't spend as much time as i would have liked on this week so the team feels a bit rushed but it seems fine. I originally was going with something a bit more offensive but i didn't like it very much and there are already 2 psychium-z slowbro teams posted for this week. This is definitely more my kind of team though lol.
SD gliscor is definitely the best wincon in the tier but I've gone with a careful nature w/o speed investment. This leaves EVs to let Gliscor survive Play Rough into Sucker Punch from Mega Mawile if toxic orb has been activated while the spdef with a careful nature lets it live an ice beam from full from a non invested magearna and mega-slowbro and lives a specs psychic from timid tapu lele along with a lot of other stuff it has no right living.
Building around mega-slowbro was tougher than expected tbh. It shouldn't be mega'd unless absolutely necessary as regenerator is much better as an ability. Thunder wave is there to cripple setup sweepers that cant immediately threaten slowbro and help it 1v1 pokemon like charizard x and mega-latios.
Tornadus gave us a grass switch in and pairs very nicely with slowbro and gliscor. It gives us a little bit of speed control so we don't just lose to SD kartana. I love taunt on tornadus because of how annoying it is into fatter teams while having value into offensive teams to stop hazards or setup sweepers. EVs live a ice punch from full from mega-medicham while still outspeeding scarf magnezone.
The special sponge herself. It glues the team together as it provides a great answer to the tiers many special threats such as mage-alakazam or ash-greninja. This is the teams rocks setter and I run thunder wave to cripple things like alakazam and bulky setup sweepers like reuniclus or clefable.
Magnezone provides a much needed way to trap and remove things like celesteela and mega-scizor which can be very annoying for this team. Choice scarf could be a good option over sub z-move for some more speed and a safer SD kartana answer since it can't miss but I like the nuke of electrium-z to give the team some more immediate power that it seems to be lacking.
This pokemon gives us some much needed counterplay vs rain and manaphy specifically and provides spikes to wear down the opposing team. It also gives us a more reliable psychic switch in to help against tapu lele, with protect to try keep it healthier throughout the game.
I did not have much time this week to build so I went for the nice Charizard+Slowbro pair which is fun and great in game. : Future sight Slowbro is just a great tool at pressuring the opposition while retaining defensive utility to switch into fighting types like Lopunny or Medicham. Future Sight's main target here is Toxapex but it can overwhelm any defensive pivot for the rest of the team to shine. Counter is a really funny move in conjunction with future sight. In fact, people tend to pivot on Slowbro with u-turn to avoid the damages of f-sight only to see their mons lose health for nothing. It is also a nice emergency button vs scarf kartana (if you are really in a bad position), Weavile, or Gliscor.
: Charizard Y is a good partner for Slowbro synergizing well with it. While Slowbro pressures Toxapex, Charizard will in return punish all those switches to steel types or grass types, opening Slowbro even more. Nothing much to say, Charizard Y is just a murderous wall breaker that can win on the spot and is especially good vs those fini+ferro/rachi teams.
+: Spedef Heatran is a classic for sun teams acting as stealth rocks setter, benefiting from the sun with reduced damages from water-type attacks and boosted magma storms and is our psychic+fairy switch-in. Hydreigon is a great partner for heatran and a good choice in sun teams (where I think it shines the most) being an ash-greninja+heatran switch-in that can defog and heal itself with roost. Draco meteor to actually do some damage vs greninja while earth power targets heatran and is good enough vs other steels like magearna.
+: Scarf Landorus is our speed control, secondary defog user, and is a nice addition with intimidate and U-turn allowing to get Weavile or Charizard on the field. Finally, Weavile is the mandatory Knock Off user and trapper vs Latias and Chansey mainly, unlocking Charizard for the rest of the game.
https://pokepast.es/99f6cf33b629f812
Built this around Mega-Diancie + KyuB with Chansey n Slowbro as the defensive core,Double Z might be wack but Kartana was the only mon I thought of that could be the removal for this team.Rounded this team off with Lando as the ground resist + rocker.
Your msciz mu is p sucky
Intro:
Welp this is hella late and I have been extremely busy, so this post won't be as in depth as the previous ones. Slowbro is one of my favorite mons to tinker with in the builder given its versatility in sets and usage, and I believe it to be one of the best pivots in the current metagame. Despite the recent popularity of Z-psychium sets utilizing future sight à la SS, I believe mega slowbro to be a heavily underrated mon, taking advantage of the immense buff in defense and substantial increase in spa. However, mega slowbro is not generally used for a reason, copounding the suceptibility of base-slowbro to special attackers and coverage/4mss, alongside the reduced longevity with the loss of regenerator upon megaing and the required use of a mega slot, I decided to pair it with a set I believe to be extremely potent in the current metagame, bulky as all fuck kyurem-b. With its defensive typing and great bulk (125/100/90 for those unaware), kyurem-b can check the majority of grasses, waters, electrics and special attacker that look to take advantage of mega slowbros comparatively middling special bulk and exploitable coverage. From there, I meshed together a pretty basic bulky offense quartet of tornadus-t, the defogger of the team and in my opinion a near necessity when using mega slowbro; magearna, resident psychic check and dark resist (allowing us to wall a-greninja alongside kyurem-b); band kartana, an additional ground check and source of offensive pressure; and gliscor, our rocker and heatran answer. The team is by no means consistent (or well, even good), but I was fucking busy, so what can you really do? Anyway, moving on to the team:
PAPER TRAIL Mega Slowbro + Bulky Electrium Z Kyurem-B Bulky Offense: (Click images for paste!)
The Team:
The star of the week, mega slowbro is in my opinion a highly underrated defensive mega in the current metagame, offering a reprieve against the likes of mega swampert, mega charizard x, gliscor (the broken fuck) and mega mawile base-slowbro may otherwise struggle with. Retaining its pre-mega, slowbro is an excellent pivot in the early game as a stop against most physical attackers thanks to regenerator; disrupting the opposition with status from scald and thunder wave. Note that aggresively using slowbro early game to trade paralysis is a valid startegy thanks to regenerator, and is a saving grace in some poor matchups. Flamethrower was chosen over future sight or ice beam as I valued the chip on ferrothorn and ability to severely weaken mega scizor over the other utility options. The spread allows you to take a +1 mega alakazam shadow ball (and by extension a mega charizard y solar beam from full, 2hko standard ferrothorn pre-mega after rocks, outspeed max speed neutral base-50s once paralyzed, and hit a jump point in defense.
My specially defensive pivot and "mandatory" defensive steel, av magearna provides the team crucial resistances against dark, psychic, ice and flying while exerting offensive pressure of its own. It is in my humble opinion that pivot variants of magearnas utilizing assault vest as their item necessitate special attack investment to truly be effective, as it allows them to take the most advantage of their trading capabilities and prevent the likes of careful gliscor and ferrothorn from taking back momentum. Hp fire was chosen over focus blast as I valued pressuring mega scizor more then punishing a potential heatran switch in, and flash cannon was chosen over the more common fleur cannon in order to pressure calm mind clefable and more reliably deal with tapu lele. The evs allow you to take two +2 mega scizor bullet punches at full and hit a jump point in special attack, with the rest allocated into special defense. I chose not to reduce speed on this magearna in order to take the most advantage of flash cannon hitting clefable and mega mawile.
A set I like to refer to as "overweight" kyub, kyurem-b provides a blanket check into a majority of special attackers in the tier, trading with most of them; while being a potent breaker in its own right. In tandem with magearna, kyurem-b forms an anti a-greninja core akin to the tornadus-t + rotom-w cores utilized to answer keldeo in oras (a building approach I have become more and more fond of). At a glance the set I am using may seem very odd, but there is a method to the madness and the move choices and Z selection fit a set of criteria I wanted kyurem-b to accomplish. Electrium-Z allows me to ohko toxapex, manaphy and volcarona, a trio of extremely annoying mons for the team. Additionally, electrium baits in chipped magearnas and mega scizors, koing both around the half hp range. Dragon claw may seem like a wasted slot at first, but it allows you to pressure mega latias without icium-Z, while denting the likes of rotom-w, volcarona after burning Z, gastrodon and chansey. The evs allow you to eat a +1 fire blast from volcarona after rocks while outspeeding adamant variants of hoopa-u and hitting a jump point in attack. An adamant nature was chosen to preserve bulk and speed as I did not value the slight power increase of ice beam such natures would allot.
Defensive:
252 SpA Charizard-Mega-Y Focus Blast vs. 16 HP / 180 SpD Kyurem-Black: 276-326 (69.8 - 82.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Alakazam-Mega Focus Blast vs. 16 HP / 180 SpD Kyurem-Black: 296-350 (74.9 - 88.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 16 HP / 180 SpD Kyurem-Black: 151-178 (38.2 - 45%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+1 252 SpA Volcarona Fire Blast vs. 16 HP / 180 SpD Kyurem-Black: 250-295 (63.2 - 74.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
The defogger of the team and part two of my regen core, tornadus-t provides crucial speed control and acts as my primary "answer" to kartana. Tornadus-t compliments slowbro (and by extension gliscor) in outlasting defensive pieces thanks to the self-sufficiency provided by their passive recovery while punishing pivot attempts from the likes of landorus-t with rocky helmet. Toxic tornadus-t may seem like an odd selection, but it allows me to put mega latias, opposing tornadus-t, and other problematic mons on a timer, opening oles for the rest of the team to take advantage of, while shutting down mons that might otherwise 6-0 the squad. Heat wave was chosen over a utility move such as upturn or knock off in order to chunk ferrothorn, skarmory and mega scizor for the rest of the squad to abuse, notably making it more self sufficient as a fogger into ferrothorn. The evs allow me to take a mega medicham ice punch from full while maximizing hp investment (making it easier to play around fini, which I found to be a nuisance); while outspeeding scarf tyranitar, and by extension azelf, because I am paranoid.
My primary source of offensive pressure, kartana is an excellent wallbreaker that capitalizes on the numerous free switchins alotted by gliscor and magearna to wreck havoc with band boosted attacks, while offensively checking the likes of garchomp, mega medicham and mega swampert thanks to its speed tier and/or defensive typing and natural bulk. While scarf may seem more appealing on this structure, I found the breaking potential of band kartana to mesh better with the current six, opening up kyurem-b and magearna by dismantaling their shared checks. Evs and set are standard; it's a kartana on steriods; not much else to say.
My rocker, ground type and primary heatran answer, gliscor compresses a variety of roles thanks to it's combination of excellent defensive typing, great utility, and amazing ability in poison heal doubling as leftovers on crack and status immunity following activation. I think its far to say we all know what gliscor does at this point, it lives forever and eats everything, while being the biggest bastard the metagame has to offer. U-turn was selected over toxic in order to transform bulky grounds and grasses that may use gliscor as points of entry to set up entry hazards and the like, into offensive momentum for band kartana and kyurem-b to take advantage of. The evs are standard fare for gliscor, outspeeding modest heatran while maximizing special bulk alongside an optimal poison heal number (248 hp on gliscor often has better roles then 244 hp, so always double check the calc if your an ev fiend like I am).
Closing:
Not my best work, but hopefully the ideas presented within the structure are worthwhile to the inquisitive onlooker. It has its funny moments, but its not a team I would load in any serious setting. That's about it.
P.S.: Don't airstrike my house KaiserKaiba ok I know it's late, ok love you byeeeeeeeeeeee
SLOWBRO IS A PAIN TO BUILD AROUND
Click here no arnaque no noob
Hello! I wanted to try the challenge building around Slowbro without building your regular Slowbro + fat Psychic + steel + Gliscor stuff, but unfortunately this team structure is way too strong to not share it So here we are, sharing another team with Sd Gliscor as a win condition.
Slowbro is a really cool mon in SM, but I already spammed the Future Sight set, and I wanted to explore another Z move. Z Zap Cannon looks really appealing, especially when Skype kills a Gren on the switch Z Zap Cannon is a good option to catch threats that would otherwise pressure Slowbro like Gren or Zard on the switch. It can even help, to some extend, removing Celesteela, opening a path for our team.
I find myself playing Kommo-O a lot recently, and it's even better with Slowbro. Those two guys complete each other really well defensively, and they can both be played to make progress. SpeDef Kommo-O gives me a Heatran, ZardY and Ashgren check on the same slot.
Our psychic, Kazam's speed tier allows him to not be played full speed, only enough to outspeed Lopunny. The remaining EVs are invested in HP, to help Zam checking special threats more effectively. HP Ice is used to pressure the likes of Gliscor, Lando and even Chomp (especially for Gliscor ngl).
SD Gliscor is the best win condition in the game without a doubt. We are playing Kommo-O and Kazam, so we can make Careful Gliscor work here. It's so stupid, you can take an Ice beam from Latias and even an HP Ice from Kazam from full. If you have strong answers to Heatran in your team, you should always run Careful Gliscor.
Classic Mag, having a steel is needed to check Psyspam and CM users with Heart Swap. It can even give some momentum thanks to Volt Switch.
To finish our team, I needed a defog, and also a Kartana check. Tornadus came naturally. His moveset is easily changeable, you can go for taunt to break through passive teams, or Heat Wave for Scizor.