Project SS OU Teambuilding Competition - Not hosted anymore

[SLDR]

Week 56 is over! Let's check the results:

Votes

A>C>B>D
B > A > D
A>B>C>D
B>A>C>D
B>A>C>D
A>C>D>B

As you can see, we have Team A and Team B on top, which means I have to break the tie once again.
As much as it hurts my soul due to Team B having Crawdaunt, I'm going to vote for Team A because it features a comprehensively more solid Rain structure.
Which means that the winner of this round is:

Team A by Tio Chico!

Congratulations!

Week 57: Nihilego



Nihilego just climbed two entire subranks in the most recent OU VR update, in response to a very noticeable rise of its Meteor Beam set becoming more and more used on offensive teams for its ability to pressure Steel and Ground types as well as its scary sweeping potential.
Many players use Nihilego alongside other Meteor Beam users such as Celesteela and/or Necrozma, or as a staple member of Magnezone Offenses, so I wanted to take advantage of Nihilego's rise and relevance to have you guys show me what else you got for this alien jellyfish.

You have 5 days to post your teams
Deadline is Friday, the 18th of February ​

 

[hozuuu]

Nihilego BO
Wait, it's all BOs?
...
Always has been.

The team:

​

• Nihilego - Sweeper. Toxic Spikes + Venoshock is a cool combo. Special sponge.​
• Magnezone - Removes steels for Nihilego and Hydreigon. Physical sponge.​
• Hydreigon - Breaker. Ghost resist. Ground immunity. Loves Nihilego spreading poison. Flash Cannon hits non-poisonable Clef.​
• Landorus - Ground and Electric immunity. Physical wall. Stealth Rock user. Defensive pivot. Can Knock Off opposing Boots for Nihilego.​
• Tapu Fini - Provides lots of good resistances to Water, Ice, Fighting. Speed control. Can cripple opposing walls with Trick.​
• Corviknight - Defensive pivot. Ground immunity. Defogger (although, no one except Fini is affected by Toxic Spikes, and only half the team is affected by Spikes, so Iron Defense can be run in its place if hazards are manageable.)​

 

[Tio Chico]

Triple Meteor Beam Spam ft anti-Lando core
​

About

Landorus-Therian lead with Imprison to stop the opponent's rocks, 3 users of Meteor Beam that help each other overload steel-types. Kartana and Zapdos-Galarian take advantage of Landorus-Therian's near-ubiquity, Adamant Zapdos-Galarian with Mega Kick has a huge chance to 1HKO its Kantonian counterpart after Defiant, +2 252+ Choice Band Atk Zapdos-Galar Mega Kick vs. 248 HP / 220 Def Zapdos: 378-445 (98.6 - 116.1%), making Kartana's day happier.

This is hyper offense without much detail, but here are additional comments;
Don't start with Landorus-Therian against Urshifu/Weavile and don't explode if the opponent has Regieleki.
Timid Necrozma to be faster than Scarf Kartana after Autotomize. *Also, needs be 4 Def to avoid Knock Off + Ice Shard kill from itemless/HDB Jolly Weavile. Knock Off 66.2 - 78.2% + Ice Shard 18.2 - 21.7% = 99,9% both max rolls o.o
Modest Celesteela for power.
Try to preserve Nihilego for the late game sweep.
Despite the natural inconsistency of HO, the team tends to get better results as you move up the ladder and face more Landorus-Therian.
Consider sacrifices if it means consistent progress against any steel-types.
Accept your fate if Meteor Beam misses twice in a row.
Your opponent doesn't know that Zapdos-Galarian is Adamant, bluff like it's Jolly.

Edit/Replays added

Terrible matchup x Rain
Dawn Weavile ft Adamant Zapdos-G for the win
Dawn Weavile² + Necrozma full sweep, several virtually invincible matchups can be reversed with correct sacrifice + following placement.

 

[Lunar_Stellar]

Nihilego Rain
Team
I saw the 4x weakness to Ground and the 2x Weakness to Water and realized how much Nihilego would like a rain team. This is for the most part standard Rain, but I opt for Nihilego as it's the main focus. Zapdos is a very important piece as it gives opposing rain teams a rough time with Thunder, also scary Grass types with Hurricane and Ground switch ins with Rain Weather Ball. Kingdra OHKO's a lot of threats in and out of rain, examples being Kartana, Zeraora, Regieleki, and Rillaboom, Ferrothorn being able to stall out Grassy Terrain as well, Power Whip being buffed. Pre buffs, Kingdra also outspeeds every mon in the game while in rain, meaning that it's safe when trying to kill threats to the team.

 

[One Last Kiss]

HO Nihilego + Slowbro Electric Seeds


Well... I suppose that everyone has already tried a HO team, because this one is not very different really, only in this case we will use a peculiar slowbro in our team, we have a shuckle that plants webs and rocks in the field, encore to lock rivals in one move and final gambit to get out of the field in a way that we do not give momentum to our rival, obviously our lead can change depending on the rival's team, but this is our most common lead.

A nidoking and tapu koko with taunt in their move sets to prevent the opponent from removing rocks, webs or screens placed by our koko with HO set, our tapu koko and his field are also very important in this team since our slowbro that is replacing a hawlucha with electric seeds, needs the field to activate them and increase its defense and be able to wall mons like weavile.

252 Atk Weavile Knock Off vs. +1 252 HP / 148+ Def Slowbro: 102-120 (25.8 - 30.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Even if it boosts in one turn, we've already hit it 2 times before with our flametower
+2 252 Atk Weavile Knock Off vs. +1 252 HP / 148+ Def Slowbro: 198-234 (50.2 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I added the corvi thinking of kartana, and the truth is that it is a pretty aggressive mon with the set it has, + the webs could be a real headache if used at the right time.

Finally we have the nihilego with a fairly common HO set, which can also be a problem if boosted or used at the right time, although it tends to be walled by ferrothorn and landorus-t spd on a clean turn

Here I leave 2 repetitions of an example of use of the team, one of them vs a hail team

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1513043217
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1513030293-gas17yu05fbzldgnfeukq0j10ql2yyqpw

 

[Colin]

Nihilego Dragon Spam HO

​

Here's how it works (quick breakdown)

This team works to overwhelm either fairies or steels, depending on whether you want your dragons to clean or your nihilego to clean. Air balloon offensive heatran sets rocks for the team, but also pressures pokemon such as tapu fini or garchomp which are capable of stopping some of your sweepers. Tapu fini's trick can be important in certain matchups such as against G-king or toxapex when dragons are impractical.

Teambuilding process

I started with the tried and true nihilego-celesteela core, which provided outstanding cleaning potential, but needed wallbreakers capable of busting past their checks such as toxapex and landorus. Because of this and the need for stealth rock support, offensive air balloon heatran was a free addition. My next addition was garchomp; when I was building I defaulted to leftovers, but later I chose yache berry which was primarily to help the hail matchup. Aqua tail was used because getting landorus out of the way was critical to nihilego's success. At this point, I was concerned about speed control, which is why I opted for scarf tapu fini. It also gave me trick support as well as a dragon, ghost, and weavile check. When trying to figure out for my last slot, I was concerned about the rain matchup as well as expanding on my dragon offense. This made dragonite the clear choice, and it also provides more pressure on fairies, making it a good thing if garchomp traded.

 

[SLDR]

Week 57 Submission phase is over!



Let's go through the teams
​

Team A

Nihilego BO
Wait, it's all BOs?
...
Always has been.

The team:

​

• Nihilego - Sweeper. Toxic Spikes + Venoshock is a cool combo. Special sponge.​
• Magnezone - Removes steels for Nihilego and Hydreigon. Physical sponge.​
• Hydreigon - Breaker. Ghost resist. Ground immunity. Loves Nihilego spreading poison. Flash Cannon hits non-poisonable Clef.​
• Landorus - Ground and Electric immunity. Physical wall. Stealth Rock user. Defensive pivot. Can Knock Off opposing Boots for Nihilego.​
• Tapu Fini - Provides lots of good resistances to Water, Ice, Fighting. Speed control. Can cripple opposing walls with Trick.​
• Corviknight - Defensive pivot. Ground immunity. Defogger (although, no one except Fini is affected by Toxic Spikes, and only half the team is affected by Spikes, so Iron Defense can be run in its place if hazards are manageable.)​

Team B

Triple Meteor Beam Spam ft anti-Lando core
​

About

Landorus-Therian lead with Imprison to stop the opponent's rocks, 3 users of Meteor Beam that help each other overload steel-types. Kartana and Zapdos-Galarian take advantage of Landorus-Therian's near-ubiquity, Adamant Zapdos-Galarian with Mega Kick has a huge chance to 1HKO its Kantonian counterpart after Defiant, +2 252+ Choice Band Atk Zapdos-Galar Mega Kick vs. 248 HP / 220 Def Zapdos: 378-445 (98.6 - 116.1%), making Kartana's day happier.

This is hyper offense without much detail, but here are additional comments;
Don't start with Landorus-Therian against Urshifu/Weavile and don't explode if the opponent has Regieleki.
Timid Necrozma to be faster than Scarf Kartana after Autotomize. *Also, needs be 4 Def to avoid Knock Off + Ice Shard kill from itemless/HDB Jolly Weavile. Knock Off 66.2 - 78.2% + Ice Shard 18.2 - 21.7% = 99,9% both max rolls o.o
Modest Celesteela for power.
Try to preserve Nihilego for the late game sweep.
Despite the natural inconsistency of HO, the team tends to get better results as you move up the ladder and face more Landorus-Therian.
Consider sacrifices if it means consistent progress against any steel-types.
Accept your fate if Meteor Beam misses twice in a row.
Your opponent doesn't know that Zapdos-Galarian is Adamant, bluff like it's Jolly.

Edit/Replays added

Terrible matchup x Rain
Dawn Weavile ft Adamant Zapdos-G for the win
Dawn Weavile² + Necrozma full sweep, several virtually invincible matchups can be reversed with correct sacrifice + following placement.

Team C

Nihilego Rain
Team
I saw the 4x weakness to Ground and the 2x Weakness to Water and realized how much Nihilego would like a rain team. This is for the most part standard Rain, but I opt for Nihilego as it's the main focus. Zapdos is a very important piece as it gives opposing rain teams a rough time with Thunder, also scary Grass types with Hurricane and Ground switch ins with Rain Weather Ball. Kingdra OHKO's a lot of threats in and out of rain, examples being Kartana, Zeraora, Regieleki, and Rillaboom, Ferrothorn being able to stall out Grassy Terrain as well, Power Whip being buffed. Pre buffs, Kingdra also outspeeds every mon in the game while in rain, meaning that it's safe when trying to kill threats to the team.

Team D

HO Nihilego + Slowbro Electric Seeds


Well... I suppose that everyone has already tried a HO team, because this one is not very different really, only in this case we will use a peculiar slowbro in our team, we have a shuckle that plants webs and rocks in the field, encore to lock rivals in one move and final gambit to get out of the field in a way that we do not give momentum to our rival, obviously our lead can change depending on the rival's team, but this is our most common lead.

A nidoking and tapu koko with taunt in their move sets to prevent the opponent from removing rocks, webs or screens placed by our koko with HO set, our tapu koko and his field are also very important in this team since our slowbro that is replacing a hawlucha with electric seeds, needs the field to activate them and increase its defense and be able to wall mons like weavile.

252 Atk Weavile Knock Off vs. +1 252 HP / 148+ Def Slowbro: 102-120 (25.8 - 30.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Even if it boosts in one turn, we've already hit it 2 times before with our flametower
+2 252 Atk Weavile Knock Off vs. +1 252 HP / 148+ Def Slowbro: 198-234 (50.2 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I added the corvi thinking of kartana, and the truth is that it is a pretty aggressive mon with the set it has, + the webs could be a real headache if used at the right time.

Finally we have the nihilego with a fairly common HO set, which can also be a problem if boosted or used at the right time, although it tends to be walled by ferrothorn and landorus-t spd on a clean turn

Here I leave 2 repetitions of an example of use of the team, one of them vs a hail team

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1513043217
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1513030293-gas17yu05fbzldgnfeukq0j10ql2yyqpw

Team E

Nihilego Dragon Spam HO

​

Here's how it works (quick breakdown)

This team works to overwhelm either fairies or steels, depending on whether you want your dragons to clean or your nihilego to clean. Air balloon offensive heatran sets rocks for the team, but also pressures pokemon such as tapu fini or garchomp which are capable of stopping some of your sweepers. Tapu fini's trick can be important in certain matchups such as against G-king or toxapex when dragons are impractical.

Teambuilding process

I started with the tried and true nihilego-celesteela core, which provided outstanding cleaning potential, but needed wallbreakers capable of busting past their checks such as toxapex and landorus. Because of this and the need for stealth rock support, offensive air balloon heatran was a free addition. My next addition was garchomp; when I was building I defaulted to leftovers, but later I chose yache berry which was primarily to help the hail matchup. Aqua tail was used because getting landorus out of the way was critical to nihilego's success. At this point, I was concerned about speed control, which is why I opted for scarf tapu fini. It also gave me trick support as well as a dragon, ghost, and weavile check. When trying to figure out for my last slot, I was concerned about the rain matchup as well as expanding on my dragon offense. This made dragonite the clear choice, and it also provides more pressure on fairies, making it a good thing if garchomp traded.

The voting system used is the Ranked Pairs format. To vote you have to order your options like this: C>B>A>D, like this A>B=C>D, or like this D>C, assuming there are 4 team options (A, B, C, and D). If you choose not to vote for all teams, the last team(s) will be assumed to be last and valued equally if more than one got left out.

You have 3 days to vote!
Deadline is Tuesday, the 22nd of February!
Reminder: you can't include your own team in the string of votes
​

 

[658Greninja]

A>C>B>E>D

 

[AM]

B>E>A>C>D

 

[Seucra Lockhart]

E>B>C>D>A

 

[Red Raven]

E>all. Can I vote like this?

 

[toaster04]

C>B=E>A>D

 

[hozuuu]

E > C > D > B

 

[Colin]

A=B>C>D

 

[Tio Chico]

E > D > A = C

 

[SLDR]

Week 56 is over! Let's check the results:

Votes

A>C>B>E>D
B>E>A>C>D
E>B>C>D>A
E
C>B=E>A>D
E > C > D > B
A=B>C>D
E > D > A = C

Red Raven you can absolutely vote like that, E>all is the same as E and is coded as E>A=B=C=D

No tie this time around! We have a clear winner:

Team E by BeardedDrakon

Congratulations!

Week 58: Buzzwole



From one UltraBeast to another and going alongside the Lure That Threat project, Buzzwole is the featured Pokémon of this round. Insane physical bulk, sneakily efficient defensive typing, great Attack and coverage and access to reliable recovery in Roost have given the Gymshark mosquito a unique niche in OU as probably the premier blanket check of physical attackers. Such threatlist features top tier threats in Weavile, Kartana, offensive Landorus-T, Garchomp, Urshifu-R and Melmetal among many other, with only a handful of physical threats being capable of breaking through Buzzwole. Unlike many other physical walls, though, Buzzwole is capable of dishing out a respectable offensive output thanks to its powerful STAB Close Combat and colourful supereffective coverage options between Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Earthquake and STAB Leech Life.
With its main set of Roost + 3 Attack, Buzzwole is enjoying a healthy amount of usage in the SS OU metagame as it fits a suprisingly vast Balance and Bulky Offense teams with its valuable defensive and offensive presence.
This time I want to see what you can do with this buff mosquito: show me your best team!

You have 5 days to post your teams
Deadline is Sunday, the 27th of February ​

 

[hozuuu]

i was genuinely confused seeing this, i was just looking at lure that threat lmao

Toxic
go ahead, click the title. it's not a rickroll i swear

​

Process

• I started with the standard Buzzwole set.​
• Buzzwole is the premier physical blanket of OU, so who else to add than the premier special blanket of OU? Slowking-Galar.​
• I added Pult next. FSight + Close Combat removes Pult's checks like opposing Darks and even opposing Pult, so it was a great addition.​
• We were missing utility, and Lando compresses a lot of nice roles like hazards, immunities, and pivoting.​
• It's not a question of "Why Ferro?" - It's a question of "Why not Ferro?" And I didn't see why not, so here we are.​
• Last but not the least, the tier's premier Dark, Weavile. Every team needs this little guy, it's so good.​

 

[toshimelonhead]

Beauty and the Beast (Boost) - Description to come later

 

[agslash23]

Band Buzzwole Offense

Today I was remembering how Choice Band Urshifu-S abused Future Sight with perfect coverage between Fighting, Dark, Psychic. Then, I realized that Bug + Fighting also has perfect coverage with Future Sight and that's when I wanted to build a Choice Band Buzzwole team that abuses Future Sight to ruin bulky archetypes.



Team Members -

- People do forget that Buzzwole's Attack is equal to its colossal Physical Defense, hence it is a monstrous wall-breaker with Band. It has near-perfect coverage with 4 attacks, just needs to predict correctly, which is why it is paired with the below.

- Future Sight helps Buzzwole ease prediction and overcome checks like Toxapex, Clefable. While Buzzwole is often paired with Slowkings, I wanted the Buzzwole to avoid switching in as much since it lacks recovery, and Slowbro helps cover most of the things standard Buzzwole checks. Colbur is to bait Weavile, who will not at all suspect this since I have Buzzwole.

- Another Future Sight abuser, and also benefits a lot from Buzzwole wall-breaking early in the game (vs stuff like Fini, Corviknight, Clefable) to sweep late game. It's also the Shadow Ball switch in of the team

- Speed Control option and Cleaner who again likes Buzzwole denting Corviknight, Zapdos early. I always like a Scarfer on offensive builds to snipe offense-killers like Zeraora and other Scarfers like Lele, Fini, Blace.

- Secondary Breaker, Ground, Hazard Setter, Heatran Check. Roseli helps it beat Koko, who otherwise is difficult for this team. Once more, it likes Buzzwole weakening Corviknight, Slowbro for it.

- Steel and Bird to check Lele and Kartana (SpDef set is to check Pult), Hazard Remover, and a pivot for all offensive Pokemon​

 

[SLDR]

Hello there!
I'm sorry for the sudden stop, I've been extremely busy irl lately and I'm not really having much time and energy to regularly keep up with any of the projects I host.

I'll get to this project as soon as possible but I'm only going to get busier, so anyone interested in helping me with this is highly encouraged to send me a PM either here or on Discord.

 

[ironwater]

Hey there, this project will stop being hosting for the rest of gen 8. Thanks to all the people who gave some of their time to host it and thanks to all of those who were contributing to this project by regularly submitting and/or voting.

Here are the weekly projects that will remain open in the forum, feel free to participate in them and to contact me (doom_desire#0622 on discord) if you want to help hosting one of these:

Victim of the Week: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ndra-victim-of-the-week.3665831/#post-8498207
Next Best Thing: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ou-next-best-thing-cycle-68-nihilego-submission.3659339/
Lure that Threat: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-ou-lure-that-threat-round-14-buzzwole-submissions.3686387/