Specs Lele + Scarf Kartana Bulky Offense

[Ehmcee]

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Intro:

Wanted to build a fun offense team based around Tapu Lele and Magnezone, since Lele's checks tend to very commonly be steel types that are vulnerable to Magnet Pull.
Kartana also greatly appreciates the trapping, and acts as this team's cleaner.

Building Process:



Tapu Lele @ Choice Specs
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Psyshock
- Moonblast

Immediately wanted to start with Tapu Lele, Specs Lele has an incredibly low amount of checks, and none of them do it very reliably.
A modest nature is chosen here to harass Scizor as much as possible, as well as guaranteeing a 2hko with Focus Blast:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Scizor: 179-211 (52.1 - 61.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Psyshock is to deal with specially defensive pokemon such as AV Galarian Slowking and Blissey, while Moonblast aims to hid dark types more reliably than Focus Blast, as well as OHKOing basically every Dragon.



Magnezone @ Chople Berry
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 252 Def / 116 SpA / 140 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Iron Defense
- Body Press
- Thunderbolt
- Steel Beam

Decided to run Magnezone due to it's favorable interaction with a few of Ferrothorn's checks, as well as denying hazard removal from the most common defogger: Corviknight. I ultimately decided to run chople berry over air balloon to ensure the ferrothorn matchup, winning with ID Press against most sets.
Steel Beam is actually chosen over substitute here, since I haven't personally gotten much use out of it, and Steel Beam is able to make Zone kill itself and bring one of the two main threats in for free, which is useful especially against MU's where Zone has no main target.



Kartana @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off
- Smart Strike
- Sacred Sword

Scarf Kartana is acts as the team's speed control option, scarf allows it to outspeed pult, arctozolt under hail, scarf Tapu Lele, Zeraora, Weavile and a few more.
Kartana greatly appreciates Magnezone support, since it is often able to clean through teams once their steel is gone.
The moves on it are fairly straightforward, running Kartana's basic scarf set.



Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 248 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Toxic

Landorus is the team's rocker, as well as doubling as a really good lead in most matchups.
It doubles as both an electric immunity and a flying immunity, it acts as a decent switchin to opposing landorus-t's.
The small amount of speed is to outspeed 0 speed lando's and toxic them, giving an easier time for lele and kartana to break it.



Toxapex @ Shed Shell
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Toxic
- Recover
- Haze

Up to now, this team is very offensive, and lacks a bunch in the defensive department, who else but the bulky boi himself!
Toxapex allows to deal with all of: Urshifu-R, Dragapult, Blacephalon and most rain staples.
Opted for shed shell since it's able to be a semi-reliable answer to Heatran, with proper prediction.
Toxic felt like a good option over scald, since steel types are very discouraged of switching in due to Magnezone existing.



Scizor @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Impish Nature
- U-turn
- Roost
- Bullet Punch
- Defog

As my final pick, decided to run with Scizor, since the team is very weak to both Tapu Lele and Kyurem.
I opted for the physically defensive set, since it doubles as a fairly good rillaboom switchin, which can then pivot into Tapu Lele to go for the kill.
I also opted for Defog over the more popular Swords Dance, since the team had a fairly bad matchup against a few sticky web teams, as well as not liking hazard stack in general.

Importable:
https://pokepast.es/1c7c9419df53b1d1

Threatlist:



The sun matchup is fairly horrible, since the team lacks any real venusaur switchins, as well as it outspeeding everything on the team.


Volcarona is definitely an issue if landorus is weakened enough, although EQ into scarf Kart knock should be able to kill it

There might be more, but none that I've encounterd have severely been a problem.


Thank you for reading this, and I'm open to criticism/improvements!

 

[Nama Jeff]

Heya, I’ve the use of Magnezone to trap Lele and Kartanas checks and been using those three as a core a lot after using this team a bit, and the team itself is overall pretty solid.

there are some areas of weakness that I’ve noticed, specifically around the other 3 mons, as well as found ways that have been able to deal with it for me.

1. Scizor:
I don’t personally like defog scizor but understand the need for a defogger, as well as it dealing favourably against Kyurem and enemy Lele’s, but I feel the usage of Tornadus works better in regards to defog and utility role, as while it doesn’t check the two Pokémon mentioned, it is a more consistent, offensive defogger with utility support and most importantly a ground immunity, which the team definitely needs more ground switch in’s since the only reliable one is lando. Ofc this opens up something like kyurem to sweep the team with freeze dry but that’s why I opted to swap lando for Tyranitar.

2. Landorus-T:
Tyranitar, whilst overall less viable as a defensive rock setter due to things like it’s u-turn weakness, is able to fit more role compression, and is a psychic immunity for Lele and slow twins, as well as completely walling most special Pokémon, taking only 27% from kyurem and heatrans earth powers for example. Furthermore it helps mitigate the sun weakness due to weather change, making venusaurs weather ball useless, and even successfully walling out unboosted Venusaur to some extent, and otherwise slowing it down for Lele to revenge kill. Also helps against other weathers like hail and rain, allowing for kart to finish actozolt or Skewda. It does go against me talking about the ground weakness by replacing a ground immune Pokémon with a ground weak one, but I opted to instead run a physically defensive Buzzwole over toxapex.

3. Toxapex
Now it doesn’t have to be Buzzwole, anything that can physically wall, deal with ground types and rillaboom would work, I just like Buzzwole so I use Buzzwole, and honestly Toxapex is fine I just didn’t want a tri ground weakness.

Tornadus, Tyranitar and Buzzwole sets I use: https://pokepast.es/4ccd97c99474fab4

ofc this isn’t the only way to improve the team, you can easily stay with the current mons and fix some issues outside of the sun weakness (which you would need to change mons for). Overall I love the offensive core and the team concept as a whole. Teams fun and the core has gotten me like 200 elo when using it so it clearly works.