(click sprites for paste)
Introduction
This is my first ever rmt, I hope you enjoy. I've been on the sylveon hype train for quite some time, whether in 4v4 doubles uu, duu, vgc or 2v2, I have been loving using it, and so I decided to take a crack at it in dou, firstly cause its certified epik, secondly cause after the flutter retest failed the tier has gone to a place where fairy stab feels amazing, between roaring moon, chien pao, iron hands, and pretty much anything that isn't gholdengo or glimmora can get cleared by powerful enough fairy stab. I didn't have much expectations going into using this but it ended up working amazing.
The Team
Trans Rights (Sylveon) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 48 HP / 20 Def / 252 SpA / 188 Spe
Modest Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Tera Blast
- Hyper Beam
- Quick Attack
As mentioned in the intro, fairy stab is stupendous into the current state of dou. I mean just taking a look at the vr hyper voice OHKOs or 2HKOs almost everything in the top few tiers, and with tera fairy it can absolutely tear through many teams, especially common screens builds, or snow / tailwind teams. This is furthered by sylveon's strong natural bulk allowing for it to take quite a few common attacks, especially ones on the special side. Whilst 90% of the time you are just going to be spamming hyper voice, tera blast gives you a neat single target damage option in the case you might need it (eg stray wide guard, something crucial just out of range of voice), hyper beam does absolutely absurd burst damage (252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Sylveon Hyper Beam vs. 100 HP / 0 SpD Gholdengo: 311-366 (91.4 - 107.6%) -- 50% chance to OHKO among MANY other things) and quick attack can pick off low health foes.
Now obviously sylveon comes with its fair share of issues, most notably gholdengo and other fairy resists, tho they can crumble to a well timed hyper beam its better to save the momentum and use other team members to handle them. Further, sylveon's speed is quite middling, often leaving it to getting either outpaced and easily muscled through by speedy offense teams or caught by slower mons under trick room, hence i decided to run heavy speed investment to hit the 203 speed tier (outspeeds chien pao under tailwind) and then add both tailwind and trick room to build a tailroom team, allowing for sylveon to almost always have the speed advantage in any match up allowing for it to spam hyper voice to its heart's content.
Farigiraf @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Armor Tail
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 156 HP / 136 Def / 80 SpA / 136 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Helping Hand
- Psychic
- Hyper Voice
- Trick Room
A fairly standard farigiraf spread here, nothing special or overly unique, just meant to get up trick room and block priority with armor tail, but both of these are absolutely crucial in supporting sylveon. As aforementioned sylveon loves the speed contrl that trick room provides, allowing it to have the advantage in the face of fast offensive builds that would otherwise overwhelm it, whilst providing a back up in the face of opposing trick room.Choice specs also makes sylveon vulnerable to fake out, which makes armor tail vital to staving off the litany of fake outs from incineroar and iron hands and allowing them to become easy victims of sylveon. Finally helping hand is central to the strategy of the team, bolstering the output of all the members but mostly sylveon, allowing for it to reach many crucial kos (252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Sylveon Helping Hand Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 68 SpD Incineroar: 392-462 (99.4 - 117.2%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO and 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Helping Hand Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Ogerpon-Wellspring: 300-354 (99.6 - 117.6%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO most notably).
Landorus (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 120 HP / 136 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Sludge Bomb
- Sandsear Storm
- Protect
Landorus was the next mon I added, as the obvious perfect offensive partner for sylveon, as it can hit gholdengo, glimmora, ogerpon-hearthflame and others that resist hyper voice, whilst in turn sylveon can severely threaten chien-pao, tornadus and others that check landorus. Further from this, landorus is just an incredible offensive mon in itself and fits very well into the tailroom structure I was going for, just a solid mon and set that you can't really go wrong with. (It also LOVES helping hand).
Roaring Moon @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 36 HP / 220 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Breaking Swipe
- Acrobatics
- Tailwind
- Protect
The tailwind setter of the team, for this roll it was between tornadus and roaring moon, but due to first the teams lack of physical attackers so far and second cause I wanted some damage mitigation, as my mons are pretty vulnerable on the physical side, especially sylveon. It ended up working a treat, very consistently setting tw and supporting the rest of the team whilst dealing solid damage, most notably threatening the ogerpon's and amoonguss quite well, this was my first time using roaring moon in any real sense and it was very impressive.
Incineroar @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 64 Atk / 96 Def / 96 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Flare Blitz
- Knock Off
- U-turn
Next is incineroar, which I chose for three reasons: 1: intimidate is stupid strong, and patches up sylveon's weaker defense further. 2: the team had issues with setting speed control as reliably as I wished, and fake out alleviated most of those issues. 3: I wanted further back up against gholdengo and steel types, which incin's stabs covered very nicely, whilst also notably giving the team something to hit bronzong that isn't tera fairy helping hand hyper beam (can ohko tho fwiw). In short, it was a perfect fit for rounding out the main core of the team, I settled on assault vest to further sure up the gholdengo match up whilst better handling snow teams and allowing for me to drop some bulk investment to go adamant which in tandem with helping hand and speed control made it quite offensively threatening.
Ogerpon-Wellspring (F) @ Wellspring Mask
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 84 HP / 172 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Ivy Cudgel
- Horn Leech
- Follow Me
- Spiky Shield
The first 5 mons of the team I settled upon quite quickly, and they worked almost perfectly, felt really amazing and went on a 10-0 winning streak at one point iirc, but I wasn't sure of. I tried out meteor beam glimmora which fit quite well, but I felt I was barely using it at all (mostly cause the rest of the team was carrying), and I was struggling with a couple problematic foes, notably throat chop chien pao and amoonguss, both of which were fixed very well by ogerpon-w's follow me. I fitted it in and once again it slotted perfectly, it just did woger things, nothing much to add here other then helping hand tera water ivy cudgel was also very nice, and it also gave further reassurance in the face of opposing landorus-i's. Honestly, a lot of mons could have fit in this slot but this is just what i decided on
Threats
- whilst I do have some tools for these, with sufficient redirection support, threatening partners or well timed teras, they can easily take over the game and require very careful play when versing, especially bronzong and by extension other more niche choices like corviknight which wall lando (in contrast w/ ghold).
- hard trick room as a whole is a difficult match up to navigate, whilst you have quite a few tools in lead sylveon + landorus usually being able to prevent trick room, and av incin taking a lot of attacks, if they get trick room up and position ursaluna or torkoal well then its very difficult to stop a sweep from there, thus in the face of these teams very proactive play and careful positioning of lando, sylveon and incin is vital.
+ 
- together, or even independently, these foes are incredibly difficult to prevent from trading favourably, gouging in particular can pretty run away with the game if they remove or chip lando, whilst certain pao sets (like the previously mentioned throat chop) can be problematic.There's prolly quite a few others, but I either forgot or never faced them in my run.
Conclusion
Anyways, so that's the team, before i get onto replays/peak I just want to touch on one of the reasons I started using sylveon in the first place, and the namesake of this rmt, that being its representation within the community as a symbol of trans rights. Transphobia is unfortunately a massive issue within our society, and although I myself am not trans, some of my closest friends are, and they are just as great and valuable of a person as you can be. So, shoutout to all the trans people out there, keep on fighting the fight, and I'm sorry the world has to be this shit.
This is my peak on dou ladder (previous was #5), I hope to climb up higher (maybe 1st) in the future but am rather burnt out and uninspired rn, but I hope this is the first of many cool mons i get to take to high ladder.
Proof of peak:
View attachment 788889
Replays:
Sylveon vs crown psyspam
vs Bagel (dont ask what happened in the rematch)
vs Registeel
(I forgot to save like 30 others including rematches vs hugo and bagel ;-;)