DISTROBRO
Banned deucer.
Starting to have a few off-meta/gimmicky teams and I thought it could be fun to share one every two weeks.
All of them were tried with relative success on the Mono ladder and should be usable competitively; note that some choices might remain questionable
The main goal of these teams was to be unexpected and enjoyable to play. Even if those aren't your things, keep an open mind!
Unless mentioned otherwise, they will thrive more in lower ladder ranks than in a top 50 or MPL environnement, so it's fit for most players' level.
For simplicity's sake, I consider these teams usable once they can safely beat someone with a "high" Elo, whether on the ladder or in OTs.
Spicy Meme I : Rain Flying
Introduction
As briefly mentioned above, the main objectives when building this team were as follow:
Being straight-forward - Not a lot of tricky Stall mons or complicated strategy and synergies here, that's not what we're going for.
Being highly offensive - Some Mono users are quite successful running teams filled with Choice items. This one here follows that idea.
Abusing weather - While the infamous Weather War was not fun for everybody and resulted in a bunch of nerfs, I still think strong weather-boosted stab buttons are the most satisfying to press, a fact that seems to remain understated in the current meta (when it's not simply your aunt's Rain Water of course).
Being fun to play - Sometimes, playing the ladder gets frustrating and you just want to have some fun dropping a meta list for a meme one. Embrace it.
Being unexpected - In a relatively rigid meta filled with staple threats and sets, it's nice to bring something surprising, as it tends to throw your opponent off their game. This specific tactical tool sometimes seems underused on showdown.
Being competitive - This list went through a arduous process of trial and error and should satisfyingly hold its own on the ladder.
Being memorable - The team already looks interesting visually in the team preview, and its gimmicks will make for some quirky matches. Surely your opponent will appreciate facing something a bit different.
Teambuilding Process
As both a total meme of a pokémon and a potential Rain abuser, Rotom-Fan was a natural pick.
We want to abuse rain as much as possible. A super fast Hurricane came to mind.
Here is our obvious main Rain setter and abuser.
Here is a bulky pivot with one of its main weaknesses (fire) covered by the rain.
Can't have Rain Flying without Mantine.
Who's got time to worry about double electric weakness? Gyarados says he can abuse Rain with his friends.
The Team
Rotom-Fan @ Choice Specs / Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Discharge / Thunderbolt / Trick
- Volt Switch / Trick / Rain Dance
- Air Slash
The figurehead of this meme team is considered a joke by many.
Here we use this effect to our advantage by doing the unthinkable: sweeping.
100% accuracy stab Thunder, with its 30% paralysis chance, will be troublesome to deal with, especially if your opponent takes their time to figure out the Specs.
Just spam its remaining strong stab moves when you can't get Rain support. Electric/Flying has a great coverage and it's the first noticeable trait when Rotom-Fan gets to work.
Rotom also offers our team a neutral Electric resistance that will come in handy with our basically Water/Flying meme list.
Bulky Specs can also be considered but Timid gave the best results since we're running the hax-y stab Air Slash.
Depending on your opponent's list, Rotom can be used as a scout lead that will Volt Switch once Pelipper can safely come in.
If keeping Pelipper alive is an issue, Rotom can drop its Specs for a more defensive item and run Rain Dance.
Noivern @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Hurricane
- Dragon Pulse / Draco Meteor
- Heat Wave / Boomburst
Noivern brings its Speed stat to the team as well as a neutral resistance to Electric.
For the reasons listed further above, we slapped Specs on it to abuse 100% Accuracy stab Hurricane and rain literal nukes on your opponent (pun intended).
As for its extra coverage, Specs Psychic is a guaranteed 2HKO on Toxapex (about 5% more damage than our Rain-boosted Hurricane) and Heat Wave takes care of Steel types that resist both of Noivern's stabs, or that didn't get swept by Thunder and Hydro Pump (Specs Heat Wave is 45.2 - 53.7% damage on Sassy Celesteela).
Despite being pretty much necessary, keep in mind that Heat Wave has negative synergy with Rain.
The set being super spammy, Dragon Pulse is preferred over Meteor since it already hits hard, but it can be switched if you want more nukes.
Pelipper @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Hydro Pump / Weather Ball
- Ice Beam
- Scald / U-Turn
We go with Pelipper as our main and only rain setter.
Most Pelippers are Scarf but Specs is both underrated and relatively unexpected, turning it into another of our Wallbreakers.
However, you'll want to be careful with its switches, as keeping your Rain up is obviously highly important for our memes to do their magic.
Just like Rotom-Fan, Pelipper's stab coverage is excellent, and it gives the team a strong Ice Beam for perfect coverage when they're played together.
Weather Ball can be consider as its main Water stab, but since this is a Specs set you'll want something that can still hit your opponent hard under Sandstorm and Hail.
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Defog (/ Bulk Up / Iron Defense)
- Drill Peck (/ Brave Bird)
- Iron Head (/ U-Turn / Body Press)
- Roost
Here, Corviknight is simply our defogger and the bulky physical pivot to our Choice sweeps.
A Steel mon fits nicely on our team for obvious wet reasons and a neutral resistance to Rock, but he won't be the star of the show.
However, we do enjoy the excellent coverage and annoying staying power of a strong stab Drill Peck spam over its riskier cousin Brave Bird.
A more Defensive EV spread can be considered, but we favored an agressive set that fits the team's spirit. Iron Head is favored to give the team a Steel stab, but be aware that it makes Corvi easier to set-up on.
The main idea behind this set was to be off-meta for the surprise factor but also to be more fun; this reconciles the apparent meta-ness of a Corvi pick with the strong meme factor of our team.
Most opponents have dealt time and time again with the same few OP sets. This approach might catch them off-guard.
Mantine @ Choice Specs / Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Scald / Defog
- Ice Beam
- Hydro Pump / Surf / Scald
Unsurprisingly, Mantine is here to abuse Rain, especially via its infamous Swift Swim ability.
A Specs set follows the philosophy of the whole list, but if you really hate Rocks and want an additional high speed Defogger, you can also run LO.
Mantine is our favorite switch-in after we set up Rain and can finish whatever sweep Pelipper has started.
Gyarados @ Choice Band /Scarf
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 248 Atk / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bounce
- Power Whip
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
Gyara is our third Water/Flying mon and our main physical Wallbreaker.
We go with Band instead of Scarf for the unexpected meme flavor, and for the absurd amount of power it immediately gives Gyara once it switches in, especially to its Rain-boosted stab Waterfall.
This means that on its first turn out, Gyara will ideally get to KO something that wasn't expecting a Band (like Tapu Fini). Once your opponent can't outspeed it, it's pretty much game.
Stab Bounce is also good to spam with this build and can lead to some ridiculous sweeps.
A much more meta DDance set can be considered, but without Damp Rock you won't want to waste your turns of Rain.
Power Whip and Earthquake are added to give the team extra coverage.
A fun alternative to Noivern:
Dragonite @ Choice Specs
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Hurricane
- Thunder
- Focus Blast / Dragon stab / Fire Blast
Dragonite can be used over Noivern but slows the team down and is very dependent on Rain support.
Still, it's much bulkier, has better coverage, and offers a very seductive Rain-boosted toolkit: Surf, Thunder, and Hurricane.
Conclusion
The team's goal is to drop well-placed short bursts of extremely high damage, ideally maximizing the number of OHKOs.
Since we went all-in with the memes and its 3 Flying/Water mons for maximum Rain/stab synergy, the team also gets bullied by most Electric teams; but depending on the meta those aren't too common, and you can still throw ridiculous Hydro Pumps and Waterfalls at them. Depending on the team, Dragon can also be an issue.
As of the original version of this post, Flying and Steel are dominating the meta, and our meme team can hit them both rather hard. Only Steel has a resistance to our stab Flying moves, but is neutral to our stab Water moves.
Corvi can run its meta sets for more hax and wins.
The weakness of having multiple Choice item is fairly balanced by having such reliable stab coverage and power. You'll usually spam the same moves.
A Rain Electric version of the team could probably work quite well but I haven't figured a good one out for gen8 yet.
Apart from its "joke" status, the main trouble the team will have is keeping its Rain up long enough for the burst damage to land effectively. However, it should still be able to conduct a late-game sweep without Rain support.
Also, in a situation where you're losing a Weather war, Sun support trumps our Water stabs and reduces Hurricane and Thunder's accuracy to 50%.
Obviously, boarding Landorus-T might work pretty well on this list for its Electric immunity; I just thought that with Water always around the corner (arguably more so than Electric), Ground created a negative synergy with our own Rain. To a lesser, more subjective extent, I also just didn't feel comfortable boarding a straight-up staple threat in most metas on a fun meme list. Thundurus-T would also offers an Electric immunity to the team but likewise Rotom makes the team more fun and we want to stack our water stabs. So if you feel like running an even more competitive version, the two djinns are probably where you want to start.
All of them were tried with relative success on the Mono ladder and should be usable competitively; note that some choices might remain questionable
The main goal of these teams was to be unexpected and enjoyable to play. Even if those aren't your things, keep an open mind!
Unless mentioned otherwise, they will thrive more in lower ladder ranks than in a top 50 or MPL environnement, so it's fit for most players' level.
For simplicity's sake, I consider these teams usable once they can safely beat someone with a "high" Elo, whether on the ladder or in OTs.
Spicy Meme I : Rain Flying
Introduction
As briefly mentioned above, the main objectives when building this team were as follow:
Being straight-forward - Not a lot of tricky Stall mons or complicated strategy and synergies here, that's not what we're going for.
Being highly offensive - Some Mono users are quite successful running teams filled with Choice items. This one here follows that idea.
Abusing weather - While the infamous Weather War was not fun for everybody and resulted in a bunch of nerfs, I still think strong weather-boosted stab buttons are the most satisfying to press, a fact that seems to remain understated in the current meta (when it's not simply your aunt's Rain Water of course).
Being fun to play - Sometimes, playing the ladder gets frustrating and you just want to have some fun dropping a meta list for a meme one. Embrace it.
Being unexpected - In a relatively rigid meta filled with staple threats and sets, it's nice to bring something surprising, as it tends to throw your opponent off their game. This specific tactical tool sometimes seems underused on showdown.
Being competitive - This list went through a arduous process of trial and error and should satisfyingly hold its own on the ladder.
Being memorable - The team already looks interesting visually in the team preview, and its gimmicks will make for some quirky matches. Surely your opponent will appreciate facing something a bit different.
Teambuilding Process
As both a total meme of a pokémon and a potential Rain abuser, Rotom-Fan was a natural pick.
We want to abuse rain as much as possible. A super fast Hurricane came to mind.
Here is our obvious main Rain setter and abuser.
Here is a bulky pivot with one of its main weaknesses (fire) covered by the rain.
Can't have Rain Flying without Mantine.
Who's got time to worry about double electric weakness? Gyarados says he can abuse Rain with his friends.
The Team
Rotom-Fan @ Choice Specs / Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Discharge / Thunderbolt / Trick
- Volt Switch / Trick / Rain Dance
- Air Slash
The figurehead of this meme team is considered a joke by many.
Here we use this effect to our advantage by doing the unthinkable: sweeping.
100% accuracy stab Thunder, with its 30% paralysis chance, will be troublesome to deal with, especially if your opponent takes their time to figure out the Specs.
Just spam its remaining strong stab moves when you can't get Rain support. Electric/Flying has a great coverage and it's the first noticeable trait when Rotom-Fan gets to work.
Rotom also offers our team a neutral Electric resistance that will come in handy with our basically Water/Flying meme list.
Bulky Specs can also be considered but Timid gave the best results since we're running the hax-y stab Air Slash.
Depending on your opponent's list, Rotom can be used as a scout lead that will Volt Switch once Pelipper can safely come in.
If keeping Pelipper alive is an issue, Rotom can drop its Specs for a more defensive item and run Rain Dance.
Noivern @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Hurricane
- Dragon Pulse / Draco Meteor
- Heat Wave / Boomburst
Noivern brings its Speed stat to the team as well as a neutral resistance to Electric.
For the reasons listed further above, we slapped Specs on it to abuse 100% Accuracy stab Hurricane and rain literal nukes on your opponent (pun intended).
As for its extra coverage, Specs Psychic is a guaranteed 2HKO on Toxapex (about 5% more damage than our Rain-boosted Hurricane) and Heat Wave takes care of Steel types that resist both of Noivern's stabs, or that didn't get swept by Thunder and Hydro Pump (Specs Heat Wave is 45.2 - 53.7% damage on Sassy Celesteela).
Despite being pretty much necessary, keep in mind that Heat Wave has negative synergy with Rain.
The set being super spammy, Dragon Pulse is preferred over Meteor since it already hits hard, but it can be switched if you want more nukes.
Pelipper @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Hydro Pump / Weather Ball
- Ice Beam
- Scald / U-Turn
We go with Pelipper as our main and only rain setter.
Most Pelippers are Scarf but Specs is both underrated and relatively unexpected, turning it into another of our Wallbreakers.
However, you'll want to be careful with its switches, as keeping your Rain up is obviously highly important for our memes to do their magic.
Just like Rotom-Fan, Pelipper's stab coverage is excellent, and it gives the team a strong Ice Beam for perfect coverage when they're played together.
Weather Ball can be consider as its main Water stab, but since this is a Specs set you'll want something that can still hit your opponent hard under Sandstorm and Hail.
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Defog (/ Bulk Up / Iron Defense)
- Drill Peck (/ Brave Bird)
- Iron Head (/ U-Turn / Body Press)
- Roost
Here, Corviknight is simply our defogger and the bulky physical pivot to our Choice sweeps.
A Steel mon fits nicely on our team for obvious wet reasons and a neutral resistance to Rock, but he won't be the star of the show.
However, we do enjoy the excellent coverage and annoying staying power of a strong stab Drill Peck spam over its riskier cousin Brave Bird.
A more Defensive EV spread can be considered, but we favored an agressive set that fits the team's spirit. Iron Head is favored to give the team a Steel stab, but be aware that it makes Corvi easier to set-up on.
The main idea behind this set was to be off-meta for the surprise factor but also to be more fun; this reconciles the apparent meta-ness of a Corvi pick with the strong meme factor of our team.
Most opponents have dealt time and time again with the same few OP sets. This approach might catch them off-guard.
Mantine @ Choice Specs / Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Scald / Defog
- Ice Beam
- Hydro Pump / Surf / Scald
Unsurprisingly, Mantine is here to abuse Rain, especially via its infamous Swift Swim ability.
A Specs set follows the philosophy of the whole list, but if you really hate Rocks and want an additional high speed Defogger, you can also run LO.
Mantine is our favorite switch-in after we set up Rain and can finish whatever sweep Pelipper has started.
Gyarados @ Choice Band /Scarf
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 248 Atk / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bounce
- Power Whip
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
Gyara is our third Water/Flying mon and our main physical Wallbreaker.
We go with Band instead of Scarf for the unexpected meme flavor, and for the absurd amount of power it immediately gives Gyara once it switches in, especially to its Rain-boosted stab Waterfall.
This means that on its first turn out, Gyara will ideally get to KO something that wasn't expecting a Band (like Tapu Fini). Once your opponent can't outspeed it, it's pretty much game.
Stab Bounce is also good to spam with this build and can lead to some ridiculous sweeps.
A much more meta DDance set can be considered, but without Damp Rock you won't want to waste your turns of Rain.
Power Whip and Earthquake are added to give the team extra coverage.
A fun alternative to Noivern:
Dragonite @ Choice Specs
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Hurricane
- Thunder
- Focus Blast / Dragon stab / Fire Blast
Dragonite can be used over Noivern but slows the team down and is very dependent on Rain support.
Still, it's much bulkier, has better coverage, and offers a very seductive Rain-boosted toolkit: Surf, Thunder, and Hurricane.
Conclusion
The team's goal is to drop well-placed short bursts of extremely high damage, ideally maximizing the number of OHKOs.
Since we went all-in with the memes and its 3 Flying/Water mons for maximum Rain/stab synergy, the team also gets bullied by most Electric teams; but depending on the meta those aren't too common, and you can still throw ridiculous Hydro Pumps and Waterfalls at them. Depending on the team, Dragon can also be an issue.
As of the original version of this post, Flying and Steel are dominating the meta, and our meme team can hit them both rather hard. Only Steel has a resistance to our stab Flying moves, but is neutral to our stab Water moves.
Corvi can run its meta sets for more hax and wins.
The weakness of having multiple Choice item is fairly balanced by having such reliable stab coverage and power. You'll usually spam the same moves.
A Rain Electric version of the team could probably work quite well but I haven't figured a good one out for gen8 yet.
Apart from its "joke" status, the main trouble the team will have is keeping its Rain up long enough for the burst damage to land effectively. However, it should still be able to conduct a late-game sweep without Rain support.
Also, in a situation where you're losing a Weather war, Sun support trumps our Water stabs and reduces Hurricane and Thunder's accuracy to 50%.
Obviously, boarding Landorus-T might work pretty well on this list for its Electric immunity; I just thought that with Water always around the corner (arguably more so than Electric), Ground created a negative synergy with our own Rain. To a lesser, more subjective extent, I also just didn't feel comfortable boarding a straight-up staple threat in most metas on a fun meme list. Thundurus-T would also offers an Electric immunity to the team but likewise Rotom makes the team more fun and we want to stack our water stabs. So if you feel like running an even more competitive version, the two djinns are probably where you want to start.
Rotom-Fan @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Discharge
- Volt Switch
- Air Slash
Noivern @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Hurricane
- Dragon Pulse
- Heat Wave
Pelipper @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Scald
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Defog
- Drill Peck
- Iron Head
- Roost
Mantine @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Hydro Pump
Gyarados @ Choice Band
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 248 Atk / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bounce
- Power Whip
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Discharge
- Volt Switch
- Air Slash
Noivern @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Hurricane
- Dragon Pulse
- Heat Wave
Pelipper @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Scald
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Defog
- Drill Peck
- Iron Head
- Roost
Mantine @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Hydro Pump
Gyarados @ Choice Band
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 248 Atk / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bounce
- Power Whip
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
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