SM UU thank u, next

[avarice]

thank u, next
Nihilego is one of my favorite pokemon, and last time I tried building with it (with mega doom) nihi ultimately limited the potential the team could have. (s/o to Viv for the quality rate ^^). This time around, I decided to build around a core that I submitted for Break This Team— protect Nihilego and Colbur celebi. I originally liked the thought of making nihi Z to surprise opponents, since celebi is assumed to have the Z typically, but soon into testing I didn’t like the lack of power outside of Z and I thought black sludge with protect would be good. Thank u, next was chosen because it’s a fucking BOP and this team has been through many changes featuring different cores and ideas, but went back to the beginning. Also I’m writing this RMT on my phone bc 8 hour road trip so sorry if quality isn’t that great lmao.

Team building process

These two at first glance seem, quite frankly, bad to build around. Scarf Krook, Z lati, shark, are all threats to the core, however the fast dark types are all handled by Colbur celebi pretty nicely. Celebi can also defeat bulky grounds for Nihilego easily, though I wouldn’t drop grass knot on nihi because of that. The big flaw with these two together as-is was how neither of them could hit scizor very hard. But that’s what teammates are for, right?

Cobalion has stuck around with most variants of the team, typically rocky helmet. It could seriously dent scizor, and was a solid bullet punch resist. Cobalion’s great ability justified discourages Krookodile from just spamming knock off, and being locked into EQ is nice for celebi. And of course, Cobalion meant I had the “required steel” for the team.

Frequently when I’m building, I end up having a bad matchup against primarina. Grass coverage may be more frequent but I think the water absorb gives a solid reason to use them. It can also synergize well with protect Nihilego because of it. Cobalion and celebi are grass resists while Nihilego has a nice sDef stat, and thus can take most grass coverage.

Hydreigon is soooo good and can run a variety of sets. Hydrei on this team serves as a hardback hitter with LO, while being consistent hazard removal. I’ve tried out scarf, but the power and more consistent removal has been cool. I’ve thought about making it an odd Z set, and make Cobalion back to rocky helmet and improve the scizor matchup but I’m unsure on how to execute this well.

3 attack Mega Altaria is one of my favorite sets for it, as it’s a nice answer for :clanger: (Kommo-o). While I’m running a roost hydreigon set, it being worn down is always a risk, and it’s nice to have an additional krook/shark answer should I want to save celebi’s berry or Cobalion is worn down. Altaria once mega evolved provided me a fairy type to counter Dangerous dragons in general. All in all, the set is nice for everything besides rotom-h (which is stopped by seismitoad consistent with how little hp grass is ran) and Moltres (shut down by Nihilego and this Cobalion).

The team/set analysis
​

@

Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 80 HP / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Grass Knot
- Thunderbolt
- Sludge Wave

As mentioned in the teambuilding process, hydreigon is not scarfed, meaning I have no formal speed control (though this hasn’t been an issue). Thus, I determined that a cleaning spread would be a convenient option. Nihilego hasn’t really gotten any clean ups by the virtue of the speed beast boost since the 1300s, but I still consider it a good pick for the team as it is.

@

Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic
- Giga Drain
- Nasty Plot

Celebi is an absolute menace against fatter squads, and still is without the ground coverage or z. Giga drain gives it staying power, psychic is the standard strong STAB, and dazzling gleam is to take advantage of taking a dark pulse from hydreigon (scarfed) better. I haven’t experimented with other items on celebi due to the interest in using the Colbur Berry set, but something different may synergize with nihilego better, idk. I believe hidden power fighting over dazzling gleam on celebi could be viable, but again I haven’t tested this.​

@

Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge

Cobalion isn’t hard to fit on teams, tbh I’m surprised it isn’t A+, and it has been a consistent member as mentioned earlier. It helps remove the need for z on nihilego, as well as the lack of earth power on celebi. Swords dance is an essential move on Cobalion to take advantage of its typing and break shit. Stone edge I put on a version of the team that had nihilego a z user and thus had less longevity, and couldn’t check Moltres as well.​

@

Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Stealth Rock

Seismitoad is forgotten a lot but the water immunity is very threatening when paired with protect nihilego. Not beating suicune when you’re immune to water is depressing but celebi has that covered. The other members at this point handle typical grass coverage well, so the x4 weakness wasn’t going to be an issue.​

@

Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Draco Meteor
- Roost
- Defog

Hydreigon is incredibly versatile, and with how flexible it ends up on a lot of my teams. I haven’t tried out using Z crystals on hydreigon for this team, but the basic life orb has been good for the power. Clearing hazards is manadatory for any successful team (albeit not so much on teams where they can pressure the enemy into doing it for them).

@

Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 68 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpA / 124 SpD / 16 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Fire Blast
- Earthquake
- Roost
- Body Slam

The EV’s here are wacky but they hit nice benchmarks. S/o to Twilight for the spread, used their RMT. The HP and Def investment is for surviving a Bullet Punch from a CB Scizor after SR. The Atk investment reaches 3 important benchmarks— one being to guarantee the OHKO with Body Slam on Latias after SR. The second was to guarantee 2OHKO Specs Primarina with Body Slam (Assuming you get the para on switch-in) and the third to 2OHKO Tentacruel with Earthquake (based on the Smogon ev set not the one on the calculator). The 4 SpA investment with a Relaxed nature means you guarantee 2OHKO Z-move Celebi. The SpD investment means you can eat a Sludge Wave from non Life Orb / Expert Belt Nihilego after rocks as well as always survive a Corkscrew Crash from Hydreigon from full.

Importable

https://pokepast.es/86725b3d4324592c

Threats

- Mamoswine is always a pain with its Ground/Ice STABs, and is usually handled through baiting the ice shard with celebi, and then going into Cobalion. Haven’t outright lost any game because of Mamoswine, but it’s annoying.

- Latias’ bolt beam set has been tramatic, since I let malt and seis get low and got wrecked. I think the matchup against standard latias is fine, so idk.

- Opposing Altaria can be scary, but nihilego can handle refresh malt, coba malt in general, and celebi can eat a hit and hit it with dazzle. I have yet to deal with a malt that can get two dances up, but the thought of it is scary.

Replays

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-832090115 (versus semi stall from the Teambuilding Lab)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-832136130 (against offense, pretty standard one outside of the special shark)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-832219718 Synergy

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy the team! I think it’s a lot more solid compared to my first RMT :P I’ll probably increase the description lengths when I get rest, and improve the general a e s t h e t i c.

 

[vivalospride]

Hola señor, thanks for the little mention in the intro it made me smile LOL. Anyways I too love Nihilego but have had difficulties building with it recently as Rotom-H offers more in terms of role compression. Nihi isn't bad rn but I do empathize when you say this was hard to build. A few things I see right off the bat is how much you're relying on malt for the Lati matchup. You don't have a steel aside from Coba (which is no lati check), and this makes the matchup really tough considering malt doesn't resist Psychic, won't always be healthy, and won't even always be megad so sometimes you'll have to sack something just to get it in. Another thing is the blatant lack of speed control on the team. There's no priority and the fastest mon can't even outspeed Lati. This is a neat team tho and I don't think it's anywhere near unsalvageable so let's see what can be done.

- So the first thing I wanted to do was fit Scarf Krook somewhere for Pursuit support and because if I move rocks to Nihi, it'd give me a free slot basically because it'd give me the freedom to just straight up remove Seismitoad. I went Krook > Hydreigon because of the aforementioned reasons and it just does so much while giving the speed control you were previously lacking. Set is standard.

SET

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Earthquake

- I went with Moltres > Cobalion to basically replace it as a more reliable Scizor check while also taking pressure off of malt and Celebi as a fighting check. Moltres also helps break down steels for Celebi while giving a ground immunity which the team was lacking after removing Hydreigon. I didn't wanna give this z move because I wanted the z move on Celebi so I went with Charcoal to help break steels and chip Empo more for Celebi to clean.

SET

Moltres @ Charcoal
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast
- Roost
- Defog

- In the free slot you get from removing Seis, I went with CB Scizor. I did this to offensively pressure rock types for Moltres and to give a steel on a team that definitely needs one. Scizor isn't the most reliable cm lati check in the world but it's more than enough in unison with malt and krook. A pivot was also cool to have and more speed control is always cool considering krook is one of the slower scarfers. Set is standard CB.

SET

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 164 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- U-turn
- Pursuit

Smaller changes:
- I moved the z move onto Celebi (Psychium Z). Simply because this is like the best set right now and with chip on steels Psychium Z can nuke pretty much anything that isn't a dark type or lati while solidifying the stall matchup as well.
- I changed the malt set a bit, I love this Twilight set but since we have a Moltres now I went with a defog set to form a good defog core between the two. Max hp 4 def is to live CB BP from Scizor 100% of the time, enough speed for adamant Bisharp, and I just dumped the rest in SpD since something like Hp Fire Lati could snowball p easily.
- I moved rocks to Nihilego for role compression based reasons, just made everything easier but I understand why you went with Protect and I think it was a rlly good idea.

Importable

Nihilego @ Black Sludge
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 80 HP / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Grass Knot
- Thunderbolt
- Sludge Wave

Celebi @ Psychium Z
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic
- Giga Drain
- Nasty Plot

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Earthquake

Altaria-Mega @ Altarianite
Ability: Pixilate
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 72 SpD / 180 Spe
Careful Nature
- Frustration
- Fire Blast
- Roost
- Defog

Moltres @ Charcoal
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast
- Roost
- Defog

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 164 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- U-turn
- Pursuit

That's it, I think this is a super fun team tho as p much the entire thing is capable of chipping steels to support Celebi for a clean up. Lmk how it goes and lmk if you have any questions. Again thanks for the lil mention at the beginning haha, always fun to rate your teams nwn.

 

[Twilight]

So here is the RMT like promised so again for the long delay Scizorphobic. I really love the team, especially one using a Malt. I do really love Nihilego but as we discussed I am planning on swapping out as I found on this squad it was hard not to slap on Rotom-H over it or alongside it, without ultimately making a version vivalospride basically nailed. I plan to keep your Celebi set the same in order to compensate for this but I will suggest an alternative set that could be run too.

Major Changes:

- So Rotom-H was my first major change which allows you to handle Mamoswine as well as any Malt variant you previously had issues with. You keep the Moltres check as well as it being able to help your Scizor match-up. Originally this was the Defogger but I decided to go with Pain Split for longevity against the above threats as another member dealt with hazards. It also lures in Latias for you to get the Toxic off and put it on a timer while easily handling any boltbeam sets.

- So just like vivalospride I felt Scarf Krook was pretty easy to slap onto the team as a way to remove Latias for your Celebi to break or sweep. It gives you much needed speed control which the team previously lacked. I personally opted for Crunch as the Latias match-up is still shaky for the overall finalised team and garuanteed OHKO's Latias after SR.

- The final big change I made was adding Tentacruel. Tentacruel I felt was pretty good here as you now need an answer to threats like NP Lucario, Cobalion, Suicune, and Primarina which you mentioned you tend to be too weak too. It also provides a secondary answer to Scizor. I opted for Sludge Bomb in the last slot to actually be able to punish Primarina for example. As mentioned before this Pokemon freed up the slot for Rotom-H to run Pain Split.

Small Changes:

- I shifted stealth rocks onto Cobalion as no other member is effective enough at using it. You also don't need Stone Edge with how much longevity Rotom-H has.

- You really needed a wincon and while I personally really love three Atk Malt, DD Malt seemed most appropiate here. I wanted to keep some bulk however in order to continue to switch into Krookodile, Maero etc. The evs let you outpace base 115's at +1 and the HP + Def investment always lets you live 2 SE from Maero. I opted for Refresh as you a lot weaker to Rotom-H.

Colbur Celebi + Z-Coba

https://pokepast.es/61395323ae52aca6

Optional Changes:

- I feel the Colbur berry set is effective but I feel it's effectiveness can be slightly overshadowed with both Cobalion and Malt being on the squad. You could opt to run a Groundium-Z set which helps alleviate the Steel types for a Malt sweep. Psychium-Z is also an option as it also nukes most steel types also.

- If you shift the Z move to Celebi then you can opt to run Rocky Helmet to chip away at Scizor or Shuca Berry which could come in handy vs Krookodile, Malt, Maero etc.

Z-Celebi + Shuca Coba

https://pokepast.es/1a6da2adf687e319

Lemme know what you think and props on the team in the first place it was really solid and fun to play around with. Glad you enjoy using that set I whipped up before also. Hope these changes are useful, so again for the long delay ^_^

 

[avarice]

Hola señor, thanks for the little mention in the intro it made me smile LOL. Anyways I too love Nihilego but have had difficulties building with it recently as Rotom-H offers more in terms of role compression. Nihi isn't bad rn but I do empathize when you say this was hard to build. A few things I see right off the bat is how much you're relying on malt for the Lati matchup. You don't have a steel aside from Coba (which is no lati check), and this makes the matchup really tough considering malt doesn't resist Psychic, won't always be healthy, and won't even always be megad so sometimes you'll have to sack something just to get it in. Another thing is the blatant lack of speed control on the team. There's no priority and the fastest mon can't even outspeed Lati. This is a neat team tho and I don't think it's anywhere near unsalvageable so let's see what can be done.

- So the first thing I wanted to do was fit Scarf Krook somewhere for Pursuit support and because if I move rocks to Nihi, it'd give me a free slot basically because it'd give me the freedom to just straight up remove Seismitoad. I went Krook > Hydreigon because of the aforementioned reasons and it just does so much while giving the speed control you were previously lacking. Set is standard.

SET

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Earthquake

- I went with Moltres > Cobalion to basically replace it as a more reliable Scizor check while also taking pressure off of malt and Celebi as a fighting check. Moltres also helps break down steels for Celebi while giving a ground immunity which the team was lacking after removing Hydreigon. I didn't wanna give this z move because I wanted the z move on Celebi so I went with Charcoal to help break steels and chip Empo more for Celebi to clean.

SET

Moltres @ Charcoal
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast
- Roost
- Defog

- In the free slot you get from removing Seis, I went with CB Scizor. I did this to offensively pressure rock types for Moltres and to give a steel on a team that definitely needs one. Scizor isn't the most reliable cm lati check in the world but it's more than enough in unison with malt and krook. A pivot was also cool to have and more speed control is always cool considering krook is one of the slower scarfers. Set is standard CB.

SET

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 164 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- U-turn
- Pursuit

Smaller changes:
- I moved the z move onto Celebi (Psychium Z). Simply because this is like the best set right now and with chip on steels Psychium Z can nuke pretty much anything that isn't a dark type or lati while solidifying the stall matchup as well.
- I changed the malt set a bit, I love this Twilight set but since we have a Moltres now I went with a defog set to form a good defog core between the two. Max hp 4 def is to live CB BP from Scizor 100% of the time, enough speed for adamant Bisharp, and I just dumped the rest in SpD since something like Hp Fire Lati could snowball p easily.
- I moved rocks to Nihilego for role compression based reasons, just made everything easier but I understand why you went with Protect and I think it was a rlly good idea.

Importable

Nihilego @ Black Sludge
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 80 HP / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Grass Knot
- Thunderbolt
- Sludge Wave

Celebi @ Psychium Z
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic
- Giga Drain
- Nasty Plot

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Earthquake

Altaria-Mega @ Altarianite
Ability: Pixilate
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 72 SpD / 180 Spe
Careful Nature
- Frustration
- Fire Blast
- Roost
- Defog

Moltres @ Charcoal
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast
- Roost
- Defog

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 164 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- U-turn
- Pursuit

That's it, I think this is a super fun team tho as p much the entire thing is capable of chipping steels to support Celebi for a clean up. Lmk how it goes and lmk if you have any questions. Again thanks for the lil mention at the beginning haha, always fun to rate your teams nwn.

So here is the RMT like promised so again for the long delay Scizorphobic. I really love the team, especially one using a Malt. I do really love Nihilego but as we discussed I am planning on swapping out as I found on this squad it was hard not to slap on Rotom-H over it or alongside it, without ultimately making a version vivalospride basically nailed. I plan to keep your Celebi set the same in order to compensate for this but I will suggest an alternative set that could be run too.

Major Changes:

- So Rotom-H was my first major change which allows you to handle Mamoswine as well as any Malt variant you previously had issues with. You keep the Moltres check as well as it being able to help your Scizor match-up. Originally this was the Defogger but I decided to go with Pain Split for longevity against the above threats as another member dealt with hazards. It also lures in Latias for you to get the Toxic off and put it on a timer while easily handling any boltbeam sets.

- So just like vivalospride I felt Scarf Krook was pretty easy to slap onto the team as a way to remove Latias for your Celebi to break or sweep. It gives you much needed speed control which the team previously lacked. I personally opted for Crunch as the Latias match-up is still shaky for the overall finalised team and garuanteed OHKO's Latias after SR.

- The final big change I made was adding Tentacruel. Tentacruel I felt was pretty good here as you now need an answer to threats like NP Lucario, Cobalion, Suicune, and Primarina which you mentioned you tend to be too weak too. It also provides a secondary answer to Scizor. I opted for Sludge Bomb in the last slot to actually be able to punish Primarina for example. As mentioned before this Pokemon freed up the slot for Rotom-H to run Pain Split.

Small Changes:

- I shifted stealth rocks onto Cobalion as no other member is effective enough at using it. You also don't need Stone Edge with how much longevity Rotom-H has.

- You really needed a wincon and while I personally really love three Atk Malt, DD Malt seemed most appropiate here. I wanted to keep some bulk however in order to continue to switch into Krookodile, Maero etc. The evs let you outpace base 115's at +1 and the HP + Def investment always lets you live 2 SE from Maero. I opted for Refresh as you a lot weaker to Rotom-H.

Colbur Celebi + Z-Coba

https://pokepast.es/61395323ae52aca6

Optional Changes:

- I feel the Colbur berry set is effective but I feel it's effectiveness can be slightly overshadowed with both Cobalion and Malt being on the squad. You could opt to run a Groundium-Z set which helps alleviate the Steel types for a Malt sweep. Psychium-Z is also an option as it also nukes most steel types also.

- If you shift the Z move to Celebi then you can opt to run Rocky Helmet to chip away at Scizor or Shuca Berry which could come in handy vs Krookodile, Malt, Maero etc.

Z-Celebi + Shuca Coba

https://pokepast.es/1a6da2adf687e319

Lemme know what you think and props on the team in the first place it was really solid and fun to play around with. Glad you enjoy using that set I whipped up before also. Hope these changes are useful, so again for the long delay ^_^

Thank you both sm ^ ^, all the variants have been really fun to play with.