ORAS OU The Bullies (AM's M-Salamence Team)

[AM]

The Bullies

Introduction

So with the popularity of ORAS OU hitting and the imminent metagame shift in OU officially starting around next month, I decided to get some rates on one of the more consistent teams I've been testing with others. It's nothing too crazy but it's definitely one of the few teams that I've enjoyed using and building that revolved around a new addition to ORAS. The team is built around M-Salamence as the win condition with everything else designed to support that and or eliminate key threats to it. It's sort of gimmicky considering half the team are trappers but the purpose is to mitigate the choices that a player has against this team and to put enough pressure for M-Salamence to finish the game. As time goes on I'll update with changes I found useful and solid replays I'm able to acquire. So I guess on with the show.​

Team​

​

Salamence (M) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
Happiness: 0
EVs: 248 HP / 208 Def / 16 SpD / 36 Spe
248 HP / 128 Atk / 44 Def / 48 SpD / 40 Spe
Careful Nature
Adamant Nature
- Frustration
- Roost
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance
​

The main player pretty much. Pretty standard set as far as the moveset goes. Sub for preventing status effects from status users, boosting behind the sub, and with the nature and special defense investment it's a free sub against Defensive Rotom-Wash. Speed threshold is to outrun everything below Jolly Mamo after the mega evolution before the boost. After that it's just maximization on bulk for more sweeping potential and to compliment M-Salamence's fantastic base defense stats. Unless it's a strong super effective hit such as a x4 Ice attack or something like LO Latios, chances are M-Salamence won't be going down easily.

Magnezone @ Choice Specs
Ability: Magnet Pull
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 32 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Volt Switch

The first of the trapper core Magnezone. Designed to handle Ferrothorn, Skarmory (those who aren't wise enough to not run Shed Shell of course), bulky Water types, secondary answer to some of the Fairy types, and basically the usual. There's nothing really special about this honestly. Specs because I want to wallbreak and net more kos efficiently which would be impossible in some cases with Scarf. Solid defensive utility due to typing so helps with pivoting in and out with things like Rotom-W into other trappers or teammates. Speed is for Adamant Crawdaunt and below.

Dugtrio (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Sucker Punch
- Memento

Second trapper. At first I thought about running Sash SR to add onto more pressure but after some thought I realized I just want to get rid of stuff as easily as possible and considering Dugtrio's mediocre Attack stat I went for Choice Band instead. EQ to break Heatran and since it can be annoying for my team if it's running stuff like Taunt and Roar, Klefki as well since Dugtrio for the most part puts a complete stop to it. Stone Edge for stuff like Zapdos and Thundurus, Sucker Punch for some priority against things like Jirachi and LO Latios, Memento for secondary support in helping M-Salamence to sweep. It usually just serves these purposes on the team but it's pretty important because in most cases if Dugtrio is out it puts more pressure on the team to handle things like Heatran and gives the opponent no opportunity cost of using Volt Switch on things like choice set Magnezones so maintaining Dugtrio is crucial towards the final goal. I thought about Lando-T but seemed like it was adding on weaknesses to threats I really don't want to be weak to such as Bisharp and Weavile.

Gothitelle (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 204 Def / 56 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Taunt
- Rest
- Calm Mind

Clefable (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Fire Blast
- Soft-Boiled
- Stealth Rock​

Goth completes the trapper core to break down stuff like Chansey, Clefable, more passive defensive cores in general and a secondary answer to stuff like Ferrothorn as well. Went with Taunt/Rest/CM set to make this possible as basically it's a much more efficient set in handling passive builds with the longevity of Rest and Calm Mind and to hinder recovery and support moves with Taunt. Speed threshold is for Skarmory and below as a lot of concrete defensive cores fall below that speed tier in terms of spreads and base stats. Pivoting with Rotom-W or Magnezone is the easiest way for Gothitelle to get in or a simple double switch. In most cases leading with Gothitelle works as well as it traps and handles a lot of leads pretty well.

Went ahead and tested Clefable as the replacement and honestly it's for the better. Kept the Dugtrio set because trapping Pokemon that relied solely on just attacks has proven beneficial and also because Clefable already has rocks.

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 132 Def / 128 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

Pivot, helps with birdspam a bit, provides momentum into either M-Salamenece, trappers, or Ditto for whatever purpose is necessary at the time, passes status around, and so forth. Speed gets the jump on Adamant Bisharp as pretty much nothing wants to actually be switching into it on a consistent basis. Most times I just lead with this if the trappers aren't necessarily the best of leads or if it's painfully obvious Talonflame or something Rotom-W naturally checks is coming in. Basically it's the glue that keeps the cores together for the most part.

Ditto @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Transform
​

Ace in the hole, answer to other set up sweepers, used as a lead to copy other hazard setting leads and so on. Ditto is perhaps the second most important member on the team imo. It provides an answer to the loss of momentum when one of the trappers need to switch out due to matchup issues when they take out a threat. As such this should be used to (1) Take advantage of a sweepers set up (2) Use the knowledge provided by Imposter to scout and check moves (3) Use as a buffer for certain switch ins or an option to take advantage of ones hazard user. IVs are set so that the Hidden Power is HP Ice for threats such as Landorus-I.

Conclusion

That's really it. All I know is that I would like to perfect certain EV spreads on things like Rotom-W to make the team better. Not exactly sure about entire replacements considering the nature of the team and how drastic such a change would be to its efficiency for better or worse. As long as they're solid opinions and critiques I'm all ears though.

Threat List

Weavile

Nothing too serious but still deserves a mention since it can be somewhat annoying to handle if the player is actually good at utilizing it. You beat Poison Jab sets though so if you come across that you're all set.

M-Sceptile

Sort of annoying. Can be beat with Ditto, boosted Gothitelle, and boosted M-Salamence but after that the other 3 can be hindered by its presence.

Latios

Same deal as M-Sceptile, just annoying but nothing too serious. Life Orb variants are generally the ones that will give you the most trouble but after a boost by M-Salamence Latios becomes for the most part irrelevant.

Greninja

Annoying due to the vast amount of coverage options it has. Prior boosting by M-Salamence and Gothitelle or using Ditto is key to handling this easily.

Importable

Salamence (M) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
Happiness: 0
EVs: 248 HP / 208 Def / 16 SpD / 36 Spe
Careful Nature
- Frustration
- Roost
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance

Magnezone @ Choice Specs
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 32 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Volt Switch

Dugtrio (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Sucker Punch
- Memento

Gothitelle @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 248 HP / 204 Def / 56 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Taunt
- Rest
- Calm Mind

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 132 Def / 128 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

Ditto @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Transform

Thanks for reading

- AM​

[/hide]

 

[Disciple_1]

It's a nice team but a wall like aggron mega will completely stop mega-mence. Instead of trio you could run landorus with earth power to take care of these physical walls.

 

[Trinitrotoluene]

this is my first rate in over 3 months. good rater alert!

lol, you would post a team like this. re: above comment, mega aggron isn't common enough in oras ou to really dedicate resources to defeating it. besides, if am does end up encountering a mega aggron, rotom-w + magnezone semi-reliably murk it.

anyways, this looks like a solid team, AM. you've got quite the way of supporting megamence, but i'm honestly surprised that not having a reliable source of sneaky pebbles doesn't strike you as troublesome. tbh, i don't really see gothitelle as being too good for your team since megamence and the other trappers beat most of what gothitelle would cover. while i don't like suggesting large replacements, i think that using stealth rock clefable over gothitelle would do your team quite some good. this gives you a reliable answer to the mons on your threatlist (just pray that none of them get a crit) as well as a reliable source of sneaky pebbles (don't call ditto reliable, k?), which will help further the megamence sweep. clefable also helps assure that rotom-w and ditto don't get overwhelmed.

i admit this change might cause opposing clefable and chansey to be a bit more troublesome, so changing your megamence's ev spread to 248 hp / 128 atk / 44 def / 48 spd / 40 spe and nature to adamant should help with this. this ev spread change lets you hit the same special defense benchmarks your old spread established (0 spa rotom-w not being able to break megamence's sub w/ volt switch) while giving megamence the ability to score the guaranteed 2hko against 252 / 252+ clefable and 4 / 252+ chansey while unboosted (the latter after 1 round of sr damages), reducing your dependency on specs magnezone to break the former and gothitelle (which my clefable suggestion removes) the latter. the extra 4 speed evs also give megamence the ability to creep max speed timid / jolly mega jukain sceptile after one dragon dance since your old ev spread's speed only speed tied w/ them.

tl;dr:

• 
  =>
  
• 
  • 248 hp / 208 def / 16 spd / 36 spe + careful => 248 hp / 128 atk / 44 def / 48 spd / 40 spe + adamant

moveset:

clefable @ leftovers | magic guard
calm | 252 hp / 160 def / 96 spd
ivs: 0 atk
• stealth rock
• moonblast
• fire blast
• soft boiled

hope this helps. have a nice day n_n

 

[horyzhnz]

hey there, this is my first time attempting a rate so ya might not be too good. really solid looking team AM, but as you say, the team seems rather weak to bisharp depending on what set it runs (low kick adamant means it might ohko zone), since your only real switch-in is megamence itself, but only if it has already mega evolved. i know rotom-w's a decent switch-in, but it doesn't exactly want to switch in and lose 50% + lefties.

as tnt said, gothitelle doesn't seem to do much; in fact, i'd say that it basically gives bisharp a free sd / knock off on something. however, i think the use of clefable doesn't alleviate the bisharp weakness since iron head bops it, although the sneaky pebbles thing is kinda nice. i'm going to suggest using scizor over gothitelle although it might make things like keldeo and some strong special attackers more troublesome, as it provides a nice check to bisharp and megagarde, forms a neat voltturn core with rotom-w that you can use to get duggy / mence / something in safely, and provides defog support so megamence doesn't have to worry about hazards, and makes sure the team doesn't get worn down in general. optionally, i'm going to suggest trying stealth rock over sucker punch on dugtrio and possibly focus sash over choice band. stealth rock because stealth rock, and sucker punch doesn't seem too useful outside of hitting latios (i guess you could play around it by switching to scizor to lure the hp fire, then switch into ditto and revenge kill with scarf). although losing cb sucks because less power and such, it gives your team a better time against latios and bisharp.

tldr

>

Scizor @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Roost
- Defog
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn

I would consider putting superpower over uturn to smack bisharp and prevent sd sets from getting free setup

optional

Dugtrio (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Arena Trap
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock
- Memento

hope i helped, if even a little bit. n.n