ORAS OU starboy

[p2]

hi, i'm feeling kinda burnt out with ou right now, mostly because oras is coming to an end and there's not much to do, lack of motivation to play in tours so that's out of the window really, also a lack of motivation to build so yea. i wanted to post one of my favourite teams that i made very recently, well i built the first version of it and my pocl teammate Mael gave me a bunch of ideas that helped change up the build drastically.

~building process

i built this team for week 3 of pocl, where i had to play my friend analytic, because i knew him i had a general idea of what his general building is like and what some of his habits are. similar to a lot of people, he always seemed to have exploitable weaknesses to bulky waters, which i took advantage of by using suicune, i also really wanted to use the subcm set vinc2612 used in wcop, since it sets up on a lot of the meta and is a really big pain to face really since it has the ability to stall out would-be answers such as serperior and ferrothorn, while also having a nice shield from status, making mons like clefable and heatran much less annoying to deal with.

mega lopunny compliments suicune nicely, this suicune struggles a lot with dark types since things like bisharp and weavile threaten to remove suicunes lefties, making it much less effective in the long run, also lop in general is really potent against offense, which i was kinda aiming to build against. not much to say about this mon, super splashable and a huge threat to a bunch of teams.

specs hydra is a big threat, teams don't really have any decent special dark resists since hoopa was banned, so it crushes a lot of builds with ease since it gets plenty of opportunities to come in and it just takes a massive chunk off everything, as well as flash cannon putting stuff like clefable into lop range, while giving hell to anything else slower, love this mon and its sheer nuking power.

scarf lando-t. what else. lando is one of the most splashable solid ground immunities in the tier, aka it doesn't get bent over by scarf driller nor does it just fold to rock coverage which nearly every ground type runs. also the best scarfer in the tier and fills that important role for the team actually being able to deal with fast shit that lop can't.

clef brings rocks to the table and pivots into everything. provides an additional check to electric types, check to opposing lop, mega medi, mega sab, and helps get up rocks v stall, which can accelerate the process of wearing stall down and open a hole for suicune or hydra more easily. on top of setting rocks for the team, it could function as a cm sweeper, being able to put a lot of pressure on teams especially with suicune and lop wearing down fat grasses and annoying steels.

i thought av gross was a nice addition to the team, it has access to pursuit which helped set it apart from spdef rachi, letting it trap things like latis while also being able to trap other threats like mega zam.

as i mentioned, mael suggested changed i could make, those being weavile > lopunny, mega latias > hydreigon, and jirachi > metagross. the sets i went with were sd weavile, defog mega latias and subtoxic rachi. sd weavile puts an extreme amount of pressure on a lot of teams because it's so easy to get its typical checks into +2 icicle crash or knock off range and it kinda just goes ham, though it does have a very difficult time setting up, but its far from impossible. i think the latias set is pretty junk but it does what it does so no complaints here, subtoxic rachi is pretty solid too, very independent and cripples a load of stuff. another change i made was knock off > cm on clef, this made it easier to wear down heatran which my matchup is pretty bad against since i dont want to get suicune statused and mega lati isn't an optimal heatran answer, even with surf. this also removes rocky helmets from skarmory, making it much less annoying to deal with for rachi.

~the team

suicune @

| pressure
timid | 252 hp / 40 spd / 216 spe
ivs: 0 atk
• substitute
• calm mind
• scald
• protect
​

suicune is the center point of the team and what i wanted to build around for the reason mentioned above, it's a very potent and slept on threat that always manages to put in a ton of work in many matchups. the set is the same one vinc2612 posted in the post wcop set discussion thread, i'm using a slightly altered ev spread which allows suicune to outrun max speed base 80s instead of pointless special attack investment. the set is very self explanatory, substitute allows suicune to set up on weaker mons or ones that can't touch it such as clefable and heatran, while shielding it against toxic, thunder wave, leech seed, and crits. calm mind lets cune boost up, keeping up with stuff like clef, while putting additional pressure onto things like non psyshock latis since they struggle to break a boosted cune. +1 cune also avoids amoonguss breaking the sub and allows it to pp stall it much more easily since it can't be stopped with spore. scald does scald things and cripples a ton of stuff, especially things like ferro and amoonguss which just have their longevity cut when burned. protect is great, burning additional pp, netting extra lefties recovery and scouting choice users.

weavile @

| pressure
jolly | 252 atk / 4 spd / 252 spe
ivs: 29 hp
• icicle crash
• ice shard
• knock off
• swords dance

​

i love sd weavile, very unprepared for and is capable of turning games with extreme ease because your opp slipped up and gave you that 1 free turn which lets you obliterate everything on his side of the field. weavile's always been great at what it does and i personally think sd is the most unexplored set because once you look past the difficulty setting up, which is vastly overrated, it's a monster. +2 weav just snacks on a bunch of things including your typical balance and offense staples in like ttar, rotom-w, tran, and friends. i've been advocating this set for the longest time but it never catches on. it's pretty ridiculous and just smashes bog standard teams so effectively. do i even need to explain the moveset on this one?

latias @

| levitate
timid | 252 hp / 4 spd / 252 spe
ivs: 0 atk
• defog
• roost
• psyshock
• surf
​

i think this latias set is utter junk but it works so i can't really complain. latias takes up the mega slot on this team for a more effective keldeo and zard y check than regular latias is. much less exploitable weakness to pursuit and knock off let it shine. i don't think mega latias is an amazing mon but it does what it's supposed to do and there's not much you can change on this build without reworking the build entirely, or at least that's what i think of it. defog is a cool tech on latias bc it eases pressure from hazard stackers on the team, giving cune and weavile the freedom they need to do their stuff. psyshock + surf seems like an odd combo but this build mandates some form of being able to hit heatran since it's a pain in the ass to deal with, but knocking lefties with clef + general overloading it works fine, surf latias just makes this easier to achieve. psyshock hits things like keld and loomer while hitting the occasional oddball cm raikou or w/e. dragon stab is something i still gotta experiment with because it slightly alleviates the zard x weakness bc zard x kinda snacks this set as it is. despite me thinking this set is pretty junk, it's not the most horrible thing in the world and its definitely worth it considering i had a free mega slot up for grabs. some other cool ideas like reflect type would definitely be a possibility in order to make mega meta somewhat less of a headache.

landorus-t @

| intimidate
jolly | 252 atk / 4 spd / 252 spe
• earthquake
• stone edge
• u-turn
• explosion
​

idk if many players noticed but during and after wcop, i use scarf lando an insane amount. it just brings so many good qualities in 1 mon that make it hard to not use, being able to check a huge variety of threats, especially a bunch of generally annoying mons like mega lop, zard x, mega zam etc. one of the key qualities that make lando-t so good is the fact that it's a ground immunity that doesn't just fold to rock coverage, making it a good switchin for exca and friends too. moveset is standard, eq is strong, sedge hits birds, uturn bc lando is a momentum machine and explosion bc it's also strong and one of my favourite 4th slots on lando because it puts a massive chunk into a load of shit and gengar is kinda bad rn so don't really need knock and i don't consider opposing 4x ice weak's to be too problematic so i don't really need hp ice either. explosions gucci for blocking hazard removal too which i'm a big fan of.

clefable @

| magic guard
calm | 252 hp / 172 def / 84 spd
ivs: 0 atk
• stealth rock
• moonblast
• soft-boiled
• knock off

​

clefable is a great rocks setter, being one of the most reliable setters against mega sableye, since it walls it completely. clef also works nicely on this team as an additional check to electrics, mega lop, latios, and mega diancie making for a nice glue too, holding the team from being ravaged by these threats. i used to use calm mind but knock off eventually proved to be more useful in that it can remove items from a bunch of mons, especially things like skarmory and heatran. heatran in particular is an important knock off target since heatran is pretty threatening to the team as i can't afford to hard switch cune into it at the risk of a burn or toxic, and using surf mega latias as an answer is just lol.

jirachi @

| serene grace
careful | 252 hp / 80 spd / 176 spe
• substitute
• toxic
• fire punch
• iron head
​

jirachi is a nice choice on this team too, it serves as an additional check for things like latios and mega diancie, while being the main answer for things like mega gardevoir and mega scizor, which obviously seems like a shaky deal, especially for the latter. i wanted to use subtoxic as it could help out suicune as it baited things like tangrowth, while spreading poison around easily, especially to things like lando-t and garchomp, as well as annoying fire types like zard x and talonflame. the ev spread gives jirachi 404 hp, meaning that subs will have 101 hp, meaning chansey can't ohko subs with seismic toss, while the speed investment allows jirachi to outspeed everything up to timid heatran, while the remaining evs are placed into spdef to handle things like mega gard as effectively as possible. subtoxic + iron head are all very self explanatory while fire punch hits steel types like skarmory, ferro, and mega sciz, with a nifty 20% chance to burn, which makes stacking damage on top of flinches very easy. this set in particular really appreciates knock off clef removing trans lefties, since a lot of teams rely on just heatran to cover jirachi.

~threatlist

mega metagross and mega scizor are annoying as hell. nothing reliably keeps gross in check on this team and my scizor answer is a fire punch jirachi, so obviously it's extremely shaky, but suicune can scald burn them so i guess it's fine!

mega zard x is a massive threat too. outspeeds everything at +1 and only needs a little prior damage to pick off lando. doesn't help that a lot of the team is setup bait for it.

forgot to mention this but my matchup against bp is really shit and comes down to winning the lead 50/50 with weavile against scolipede. tho i made this team before bp became a thing again so its not very good against bp at all.

rock types are also a pretty big deal, cb users like terrakion and tyranitar kind of give this team hell because my one rock resist hates both of their secondary stabs and all it takes is one correct prediction for them to go ham.

sand is pretty difficult to deal with. comes down to being able to play aggressively around driller bc it's the main threatening mon on sand. clef also baits it in and gets rid of its life orb, which helps cushion hits for lati.

heatran is also annoying since i don't have any actual switchins, but i've already mentioned that knock off clef + overloading it with everything else on the team can put it out pretty quickly.

manaphy deserves a mention too, team can't really switch into it well, but i've got 3 mons above 100 speed, knock off clef, and toxic rachi, so wearing mana down is far from difficult.

~replays

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-186876 - this was the game the team was intended for and it worked perfectly, being able to apply pressure to one of suicunes few counters in gastrodon which allowed it to become a massive threat, it eventually crit clef, which didn't matter too much in the long run as cune was more than capable of pp stalling it + had the sub to keep it safe from crits.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-186920 - suicune had a very strong matchup this game, punishing googly's non psyshock latias and winning the game.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-189325
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-190219 - couple of random st replays, nothing too special about them

thought i had more, but these should give the gist of what suicune is capable of.

~shoutouts

gimme likes :d

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+theres a lot more but holy moly ive tagged enough as it is. ive actually forgotten a lot of people but theres so many people that have made being on this site an enjoyable experience, but you all know who you are <3

~importable

female mons for baton pass lol!

Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 40 SpD / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Scald
- Protect

Weavile (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 29 HP
- Icicle Crash
- Knock Off
- Ice Shard
- Swords Dance

Latias-Mega @ Latiasite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Defog
- Roost
- Psyshock
- Surf

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- U-turn
- Explosion

Clefable (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 21 Spe
- Knock Off
- Moonblast
- Stealth Rock
- Soft-Boiled

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 80 SpD / 176 Spe
Careful Nature
- Substitute
- Toxic
- Fire Punch
- Iron Head