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Introduction
Welcome to my first gen 8 RMT. Since before Pokemon Sword and Shield's release, I found myself disillusioned with the cuts made to the National Pokedex. Mega-Metagross has been my favorite Pokemon since its inception back in ORAS, and I was very sad to hear that megas would not be returning to the gen 8 metagame. As a result, when gen 8 launched on showdown I gravitated towards an alternate meta in National Dex OU. I was thrilled to play in a meta where Mega-Metagross was not only legal but thriving, and I set to work building my team centered around it. What I didn't immediately realize was just how difficult it is to make a single, consistent team in this expansive metagame; the sheer number of theoretical threats that one must account for with only 6 Pokemon is alarming.
The Squad
Hailey (Mamoswine) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 236 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Icicle Crash
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
Mamoswine is a heavily slept on offensive threat in this meta, and also one of my favorite Pokemon. Adamant life orb earthquakes and icicle crashes are extremely strong moves with great coverage, allowing it to tear through common defensive cores (heatran, toxapex, tangrowth, garchomp corviknight, for example), that would prevent my sweepers from winning. Rocks are mandatory, and ice shard is amazing for picking off fast but frail threats such as dragapult, thundurus, and mega-alakazam. 236 speed evs let mamo hit 255 speed, which beats max speed modest heatran, and speed-crept calm tapu fini to match.
Chloe (Togekiss) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 248 HP / 24 SpA / 236 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Air Slash
- Wish
- Heal Bell
Togekiss is one of the best answers to stall and balance, period. Nasty plot + serene grace air slash, as well as reliable recovery and status removal means that defensive teams will have nightmares trying to beat this. Vs stall, more or less the only thing that can stand up to togekiss is spdef/calm mind unaware clefable, or the rare melmetal stall. That being said, it is also quite useful outside of fighting fat pink blobs, as its bulk and typing all it to handily take dark pulses from ash-greninja, which is otherwise a big threat, as well as being a natural ground immunity for the team. There's no real need to predict which move gren will lock itself into, as you can always switch to alomomola first to scout, stay in on hydros and switch on pulses, and regen off the damage (or wish pass back and forth). Though roost is technically more reliable for keeping togekiss itself alive, especially with no hazard removal, double wish is overall more useful for supporting the rest of the team and consistently keeping metagross and others healthy. Heal bell is also great team support for removing para/burn from the three sweepers, as well as enabling alomomola to trade toxic with other bulky waters, and heal later. The special attack evs ensure that an air slash will always break mega-gyarados substitute, which would otherwise be a huge problem. The speed evs let it hit the same benchmark as mamoswine, and as such a timid nature is unnecessary (Note: 248 Hp/116 spatk/144+ timid hits the same HP and speed stats, but only hits 305 special attack, whereas the current set hits 310, and is therefore more efficient).
Casper (Dragapult) (M) @ Ghostium Z
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Darts
- Phantom Force
- Sucker Punch
Z-move dragon dance dragapult is an enormous threat to so many teams right now, and can easily sweep through teams weakened by its allies. The first three moves are rather self-explanatory, sucker punch is preferred to substitute on the last slot to pick off scarf or speed boosted blacephelon, mega-alakazam, or scarf or speed boosted opposing dragapult. Also, sub is less necessary to avoid status alongside togekiss' heal bell. In addition to setting up and sweeping, unboosted dragapult is also useful as a revenge killer to a plethora of threats, including ash-greninja, scarf dracovish, garchomp, mega-charizards, etc. Dragapult and volcarona, for example, can be sacrificed earlier in the game to enable the other to sweep later; if the opponent has a bulky tyranitar, then weakening it with dragon darts before going down may be worthwhile if it puts it in range of +1 bug buzz after rocks; Phys def tangrowth/ferrothorn/corviknight may not die in one hit to +1 ghostium z, and can annoy dragapult with status, leech seed, etc, but nearly knocking them out is often enough for metagross to plow through later on. In this way, it has great synergy with volc and gross, and the general goal of the team is to support these three with wishes so they can stay alive to eliminate each other's counters, and one can end up sweeping.
Marlin (Alomomola) (M) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 40 HP / 216 Def / 252 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Wish
- Protect
- Toxic
Alomomola is a fantastic "glue" mon in this meta, completing my double wish core with togekiss, and checking lots of threats that would be very difficult to switch into otherwise. Galarian-darmanitan, dracovish, mega-swampert, mega-metagross, and more are all walled and worn down by rocky helmet and scalds, while mola is able to heal off easily with wish/protect and regenerator. It also has enough spdef bulk to take dark pulses from ash-gren before generally switching out to togekiss, tho it is not a consistent answer to dark stab, as it can be worn down. Toxic is also very useful for trading with opposing bulky waters, such as gastrodon (thereby helping volc down the line), as togekiss can heal it later. If the opponent has multiple powerful physical attackers that alomomola can individually check (rain + mega swampert + dracovish, for example), then it is important to play proactively, as it may be unable to reliably check both. Nonetheless, it is a fantastic pokemon, and provides amazing support for the team.
Jasmine (Volcarona) (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Fiery Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Roost
Volcarona is one of the most threatening Pokemon in the tier, and is often able to sweep through at least 4 of the 6 pokemon on an opponent's team, just at preview. It is therefore important to decide if volcarona will be winning with a sweep, or used earlier to support its teammates by checking/removing a few annoying pokemon. If the opponent's team is very volc weak, with an additional toxapex+garchomp, for example, then dragapult might be better used to remove/weaken them earlier rather than sweeping itself (they also become the main targets for mamoswine). On the other hand, if the opponent's team is not very weak to volc (say, dragapult+gastrodon+heatran), and it seems unlikely that volc can sweep, but they also have a threatening scizor/kartana/mega-metagross, then volc should be used as a bulky check to the latter pokemon. Max HP, heavy duty boots, and wish support allow it to come in multiple times per match, and its flame body ability will certainly make the opponent think twice before clicking stab moves with abandon. Decide what role it will serve early on, and adjust your gameplan accordingly.
Sovereign (Metagross-Mega) @ Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Hone Claws
- Meteor Mash
- Thunder Punch
- Bullet Punch
The king. It probably doesn't need an explanation, so how about a fun fact instead? Fun fact: Mega-Metagross has more natural bulk than skarmory in all HP, def, and spdef! Hone-claws gross is an incredibly powerful wallbreaker that can plow through a variety of teams with ease, with only two main coverage moves. Thunder punch is necessary for slowbro, corviknight, skarmory, celesteela, and other bulky waters, and meteor mash is for everything else. Some common answers are bulky ground types such as hippowdon, landorus-t, and rare bulky threats like melmetal which can survive its hits with ease and do massive damage back with banded EQ. However, if you eliminate or weaken its main checks, there is often not much one can do to mitigate a +1 mega-metagross mid-rampage. Bullet punch in the back is a personal favorite, as it allows gross to bypass many weakened revenge killers, like shadow ball alakazam, scarf landorus, dragapult, g-darm, etc, and is in my opinion more useful than, say, ice punch, because the team lacks a scarfer but does have many ways to wear down bulky ground types.
Threatlist:
Specifically the substitute variant. Normally alomomola can handle mega gyara handily, but it cant touch it behind a sub. Togekiss and mola can wish pass to each other and pivot around its stab moves, kiss can break its subs with air slash and mola can annoy it with helmet, but ultimately it can still sweep if played intelligently (it also resists all three of my priority moves).
Nothing switches in safely, you basically have to double around it every time to dragapult (megagross can do a lot with tpunch and outspeed, but cant kill from full and will obviously die in return). Powerful special attackers in general can be a problem.
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With terrain up, zam obliterates every mon in this team except metagross, which dies to shadow ball. It outspeeds everything, including dragapult, but more importantly cannot be revenge killed by sucker punch/bp/ice shard. Very dangerous.
Quite manageable before evolving, but specs ash gren can be an issue if dragapult is eliminated, as nothing outspeeds and specs pulse does way to much to mola for it to safely pivot around. Play proactively.
Resist stab from mamoswine, togekiss, volcarona, and metagross; volt switches out on alomomola. Volcarona can set up on some non-toxic sets, but +2 overheats can hit too hard to roost off, even at +1. Dragapult must be kept healthy.
Teambuilding Process
Version 1:
My first build - shoutouts aim for showcasing the team in a fire live (which is of course, just a little taste of what you'll see over at his channel). Mantine was an amazing answer to volc, mega-blastoise, and gren, but after blastoise was banned it wasn't pulling its weight as much. I also had no switchin to powerful physical attackers, and relied on taunt/z-electric koko to handle stall, which was good, but not great. Needed to make some changes.
Version 2:
AV tang reliably beats ash gren, is a ground resist and additional electric resist, and in general is great glue, paired with banded crawdaunt who does amazing vs stall. However, I was now incredibly weak to fire types, and crawdaunt was not effective at all vs offense.
Version 3:
Switched tang for alo for a better answer to physical attackers, fire types, and also wish support, at the downside of being slightly more weak to dark. Removed koko entirely, sorry to see you go buddy, swapped for togekiss, and since I no longer needed a stallbreaker, swapped crawdaunt for hydreigon for dragon type, another ground immunity, another fire/water/electric resist. Felt very confident with this new direction (also decided around this point that mamo/volc/gross were my core 3 and to build around them and not replace them); however, volcarona is now a huge problem.
Version 4:
As it stands, went back to my OG dragapult. Drag>hydreigon bc the extra speed and typing allows it to beat volc, as opposed to lose to it, while keeping all the benefits and resists of the dragon type. Priority is also nice that drei didnt have, team is explained in detail above. The one weakness gained is one less answer to dark types, but overall its a much better fit.
My first build - shoutouts aim for showcasing the team in a fire live (which is of course, just a little taste of what you'll see over at his channel). Mantine was an amazing answer to volc, mega-blastoise, and gren, but after blastoise was banned it wasn't pulling its weight as much. I also had no switchin to powerful physical attackers, and relied on taunt/z-electric koko to handle stall, which was good, but not great. Needed to make some changes.
Version 2:
AV tang reliably beats ash gren, is a ground resist and additional electric resist, and in general is great glue, paired with banded crawdaunt who does amazing vs stall. However, I was now incredibly weak to fire types, and crawdaunt was not effective at all vs offense.
Version 3:
Switched tang for alo for a better answer to physical attackers, fire types, and also wish support, at the downside of being slightly more weak to dark. Removed koko entirely, sorry to see you go buddy, swapped for togekiss, and since I no longer needed a stallbreaker, swapped crawdaunt for hydreigon for dragon type, another ground immunity, another fire/water/electric resist. Felt very confident with this new direction (also decided around this point that mamo/volc/gross were my core 3 and to build around them and not replace them); however, volcarona is now a huge problem.
Version 4:
As it stands, went back to my OG dragapult. Drag>hydreigon bc the extra speed and typing allows it to beat volc, as opposed to lose to it, while keeping all the benefits and resists of the dragon type. Priority is also nice that drei didnt have, team is explained in detail above. The one weakness gained is one less answer to dark types, but overall its a much better fit.
Try it yourself!
https://pokepast.es/3bb8498d9acfd59c
https://pokepast.es/33240acfe917d367 alt version with roost>wish togekiss, testing atm
https://pokepast.es/33240acfe917d367 alt version with roost>wish togekiss, testing atm
Cool Replays
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldex-1120714973
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldex-1117230200
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldex-1122009448
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldex-1116327278 funnie togekiss
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldex-1117840749 I play horribly and metagross still wins, very epic
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldex-1122005505 trying roost>wish on togekiss, good overall team showcase
Proof of Peak
Thanks for reading! Enjoy the team, leave a comment, and wear face masks in public! Peace!
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