The Birds and the Beast
Proof of ladder scoreIntroduction:
Hello all, my name is KingDangerousJ, known on Showdown as “Bird Keeper James,” a.k.a. that dude who uses 5 flying types and a necrozma for no reason. Today, I’m giving you my signature team, 5 flying types and a necrozma for no reason :DThe team started out as a bit of a joke. In the middle of testing another team, my arceus-water got crit by a precipice blades from Pdon and I lost as a result, so I said “fuck it” and quickly made a team with 6 flying mons, including a staraptor and a celesteela with wacan to check xerneas, and see how high on the ladder I could get. However, I quickly realized that A) staraptor sucks, B) celesteela is not the best check even with wacan berry, and C) lugia and ho-oh don’t really fit the hyper offense style of the team, so a solid xern check is needed. So I modified the team to retain 5 flying types and slapped on a necrozma for offensive presence and emergency xerneas/fairy checking, then tweaked some sets, and here we are!
My goal was to get to at least 1700 with the team just to be funny. And, while I don’t consider it a “peak” since I’m still using it and it’s by no means a serious squad, I have reached 1713 at the time of writing. Keep in mind that, while it is fun and can sometimes work well, it’s extremely one-dimensional even for HO, and obviously having 5 mons with a common type lends itself to plenty of weaknesses. But I enjoyed it very much and now you can too. So without further ado, the team!
Gonna skip over team building process because it’s honestly very straightforward and most of it was covered in the intro.
The Team
Lead Bird
lead bird (Aerodactyl) @ Focus Sash Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Defog
- Rock Tomb
Role: Get hazards up and attempt to prevent stealth rock at all costs.
Description: Aerodactyl is my lead bird of choice, picked for its high speed and access to stealth rock, taunt, and defog. Rock tomb was chosen over stone edge because aero has pretty pitiful attack anyway so extra damage is essentially moot, and the lowered speed is nice for rayquaza to come in after and faster threats early on. Fairly simple and straightforward.
Edit: defog was added to this set after recommendations
Snake Bird:
snake bird (Rayquaza) @ Life Orb
Ability: Air Lock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent
- V-create
- Extreme Speed
Role: Early game breaker, espeed for priority.
Description: Rayquaza does what any rayquaza does: attack shit. And it’s very good at doing so. Normally I send it out immediately after aero, especially if the opponent has been slowed with a rock tomb. I opted for a 4 attack life orb set with draco meteor because I feel this maximizes power and coverage without locking myself into a move, which is critical considering I have very little in the way of walls. Draco meteor hits zygarde and giratina for a lot of damage if not a ko, V-create hits a few levitating steels that are otherwise troublesome, and espeed is obviously for insurance against fast threats. Banded can also work, so feel free to try that if it fancies you!
Dragon Bird:
dragon bird (Salamence) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 212 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake/Facade
- Roost
Role: Groudon soft-check, status absorber with façade, potential late game cleaner
Description: Standard mence: check to groudons not packing hp ice, defensive pivot with intimidate, and is generally a solid late game cleaner with the infamous ray-mence combo. The particular set I opt for sometimes changes if I know my opponents team ahead of time, such as in room tours. When they have sturdy steels like necrozma or magearna, I opt for eq; when they have status spam or ho-oh, I opt for more defensive with façade. For ladder, I typically run eq double edge. Either is good.
God Bird
God bird (Arceus-Flying) @ Sky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Recover
- Refresh
- Calm Mind
Role: Status absorber, stall annoyer, special tank
Description: What flying type squad would be complete without the god of flying, arceus! But yeah, in all seriousness flyceus is actually a solid mon, with refresh and cm allowing it annoy fat teams that rely on toxic to beat it, such as ho-oh, lugia, and chancy/blissey without confide. It’s also my primary yveltal answer, as CM lets me soften the blow from offensive sets and refresh lets me beat defensive. Magearna is quite annoying, so I sometimes have run fire blast over refresh on occasion (serves as a good necrozma lure too), but I generally find refresh to be the best course of action. Max speed and special attack are chosen in lieu of bulk in order to increase the chance of it beating blissey at +6. This mon is honestly quite underrated and I sincerely hope it gets recognition from other players.
Devil Bird
devil bird (Yveltal) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Oblivion Wing
- U-turn
- Foul Play
Role: Revenge killer and late game cleaner
Description: A tried-and-true set, yveltal is a highly useful lynchpin mon for speed control and momentum. The set is relatively standard; modest with max speed lets it outpace anything up to and including pheromosa and some variants of +2 groudon and necrozma, while still having some extra oomph that timid simply doesn’t afford. 4 defense evs let it take slightly less damage from priority like shadow sneak, and u-turn’s damage usually doesn’t play a role. Time-tested and effective, not much more to say about this majestic bird.
"Necrozma you're not a bird lol"
not a bird :( (Necrozma-Dusk-Mane) @ Solganium Z
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rock Polish
- Swords Dance
- Sunsteel Strike
- Earthquake
Role: Xern check and breaker
Description: As mentioned, the team’s other members leave it highly susceptible to xerneas, and having ho-oh or lugia on a hyper offense build clashes synergistically. As such, I opted to use the one non-bird on the team, hence the name. Necrozma is a great asset, checking fairy types, some support arcs lacking wisp, and being a strong cleaner or breaker in its own right. Moves are standard and self-evident, the evs are to outpace timid scarfed yveltal and some other scarfers. Again, simple but effective.
Playstyle matchups:
Hyper offense: Pretty good, aero is a solid lead vs deoxys speed and excadrill leads, only really fearing cloyster. The team is almost entirely unaffected by webs and spikes, save necro. And while rocks hurt a lot in theory, in practice it’s not that bad. Aero is a suicide lead so it pretty much never switches, rayquaza doesn’t live too much to begin with so extra health doesn’t hurt it too badly, mence and arceus have reliable recovery and yveltal has pseudo recovery in oblivion wing, and necrozma is typically kept in reserve until it’s ready to set up. So it’s pretty solid overall.
Balance: Depends on what they have. Zygarde is annoying if rayquaza dies, but refresh arceus can make it setup fodder if it lacks dragon tail. Having façade mence also helps with status spamming balances, which can fold pretty easily if they don’t have a dedicated check and a setup opportunity is provided.
Stall: More difficult, but again not impossible. Aero is unfortunately pretty useless since they tend to have dedicated hazard control or magic bounce sab. Rayquaza can punch holes if their support arc is slower or has been rock-tombed. Refresh arc annoys a lot if they lack a confide blob or magearna, and necrozma can usually secure a kill with a boosted z move. Just keep an eye on pp and play aggressively and you can usually prevail.
Threatlist
Mixed Pdon: Hp ice pdon is troublesome as it can go right passed mence and rayquaza, however these sets typically fall to cm arc. Double dance with stone edge is also potentially problematic, but pretty much all members can limit it to one set up, and scarfed yveltal and mence can keep it at bay most times.
Sableye-M: Unlike Diancie, completely shuts down aero. Usually I lead with Arc or Mence to counter it and it’s manageable, but being 6-5 at the opener is annoying.
Magearna: Shuts down yveltal and refresh arc completely, mence can hit it hard with quake but obviously can’t switch in, necrozma is prone to volt switches. Try to double around it and get back momentum so you can ultimately break it down.
Ekiller: Not the worst, but if mence and yveltal are weakened it can be problematic. Thankfully they typically opt for bulky instead of fully offensive.
Replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ubers-738309308 vs ditto offense and proof of peak
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ubers-737263775 vs diancie webs offense
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ubers-735671469 Close game vs offense that I admittedly choked by going hard mence, but still demonstrates how the team works
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ubers-735844096 vs ho-oh balance using a fire-blast flyceus set
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ubers-735674063 vs an odd but effective stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ubers-735309650 why every arceus ground needs ice beam ;D
Conclusion:
Yeah guys, that’s pretty much it. I know it’s not much of a team but I’m proud of what I did with it and how it works. Thanks for reading, thanks for rating, feel free to use the team and let me know how you do!
Last edited:
