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So this week there happened to be a 3-way tie, between jcbc, neomon, and Rhydonphilip. Therefore, for this week, my personal vote goes towards neomon, making him the winner of week 4 of the team building competition! Round 5: Houndoom
I chose Houndoom after it was recommended to me in the NU discord, as it helped me realize that Houndoom is kind of fun right now with certain sets, so I really hope people get creative with this one. Deadline is Friday, 6/29/18
Have fun !
This team is called "It's coming home" because if you squint Houndoom, Passiman and Torterra looks like 3 lions that belong upon God's own football shirt.
Houndoom is a fun mon to use imo due to a good speed tier, ability to boost Sp Atk in Nasty Plot and good coverage. Having Grassium-Z also lets it not be walled by stuff that usually do! Z moves are cool. Not a lot of stuff like to switch into it but current meta trends mean almost everyone is either using scarf Passiman or Sand making it kinda easy to revenge kill so I wanted a team with good defensive support to counter act that.
I'll get to that defensive stuff in a bit but first I wanna talk about Choice Specs Rotom. I love the pairing of Specs Rotom and Houndoom as they both wear down the same defensive checks (Hariyama, Incineroar, Guzzlord etc.) and both hit hard whilst having an okay defensive synergy. What made me choose Rotom over Vanilluxe for example was the fact that Rotom hits and pivots out allowing you to keep on the offensive pressure. E.g. 252 SpA Choice Specs Rotom Volt Switch vs. 252 HP / 132+ SpD Incineroar: 120-142 (30.4 - 36%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock. With rocks up, this guy is taking over half of it's common switch in, Incineroar, whilst keeping momentum to you. Pretty cool considering it's one of the few switch ins to Houndoom.
Choice Scarf Passiman is one of the standard scarfers for a reason, it's very good at what it does. It gives speed control, a volt turn core and has good offensive/defensive synergy with Houndoom and Rotom. Not much more really needs to be said about it.
Now, Silvally-Steel starts my defensive backbone offering a plethora amount of resistances, even more momentum and giving the team that much needed hazard control. This is essential considering Houndoom is weak to rocks and volt-turning prefers a hazard free environment.
Torterra is added to give Rocks and also contribute to the solid defensive core. It has reliable recovery, helps vs sand is one of my favourite hazard setter right now.
Finally, I used brokenSlowbro. The core of Slowbro, Torterra and Silvally Steel is very difficult to break, gives you hazards, hazard control, momentum and a regenerator mon to pivot in and out! I'm a big fan of it. Also this team has ended up with FWG and PDF cores which is aesthetically pleasing for me idk.
Anyway this was a quick write up, I've been kinda busy lately. Appreciate all feedback and I'll put an importable below! Cheers.
Kane (Houndoom) @ Grassium Z
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Fire Blast
- Dark Pulse
- Solar Beam
Houndoom~ bloom doom doom has very few switch ins, the only truly safe ones being Hariyama, Incineroar, and Guzzlord. All three of which the other Pokemon team Pokemon on the team provide support for.
Hariyama~ Protox Yama is a rather reliable switch in to Incineroar and is able to sponge a hit or two from special Guzzlord, while still being a somewhat reliable switch in to Vanilluxe. Also helps with opposing doom which can be a pain in the ass for doom.
Blastoise~ Consistently beats most of the tiers rockers and doom really appreciates that, provides a needed switch in to AV bro, and helps take some pressure off of Yama vs Incineroar.
Vileplume~ Okay, hear me out here before you begin to think it's a trash plume set. Plume with this spread is able to switch in safely to specs Diancie's HP fire if healthy, switch into LO Whimsicotts psychic, has a much better match up vs CM Comfey running HP fire, and all the while still wall the fighting types that it would normally wall. Leech seed is also really helps the longevity of Yama, as a lot of what tries to deal with Plume, Yama can come in on. Had a ton of synergy with the rest of the team, supporting palo and yama's weaknesses, it's own weaknesses supported by doom and yama.
Heliolisk~ Team was a bit weak to Sigilyph, and needed a scarfer, Heliolisk fit the bill. Also provides some defensive synergy with it's typing.
Palossand~ Answer to Medicham, rocker with decent MU's vs other rockers, and helps with sand, which the team would otherwise be exceedingly weak to.
EDIT, Plume cannot have leech seed with effect spore, and I don't wanna go back and fix everything, so just change that to sleep powder and forget what I said about seed
Before the round ends as a late submission, I'm posting for Chokepic!
Basically, while this team is not built around Houndoom, the main idea is to break walls down with Sceptile and Medicham, to allow one of them to clean the game, or Houndoom, thanks to it's high special attack and high speeds with Choice Scarf.
Congratulations to Slide for winning week 5 of the team building competition!
I'd like to mention that we're going to be taking a break this week, as there's a lot that's going to be changing with the tier, shifts coming up, Gigalith might get banned, etc. so I'd like to see the tier settle before doing this again. See you again in 1-2 weeks!
After a much longer break than I anticipated, I finally feel that the new meta has settled enough to start up a new week! I wanted to start off again with Decidueye because it seems to be the best out of the bunch, and it also has a bunch of difference sets that are usable, which means there will be a lot of variety in teams. (Deadline is 7 / 27 / 18)
Have fun !
Aerodactyl @ Life Orb
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pursuit
- Stone Edge
- Roost
- Earthquake
Passimian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Receiver
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Earthquake
Pretty simple team build around cm Slowbro, steelvally provides defog support and an ice resist that can deal with Diancie. Decidueye provides a solid trapper. Miltank provides rocks and a way to deal with oposing Decidueyes and Dhelmise. Aerodactyl gives a secondary Fire check and a nice trapper for ghost types. Passimian provides a solid way of speed control while also checking stuff like Incineroar.
The main idea around the team is to lure Incineroar with Low Kick Sneasel and Shuca Berry Diancie and pressure with Decidueye + Spikes. Accelgor and Sneasel function as wallbreakers or cleaners and Decidueye can either be a wallbreaker or a late game sweeper, whereas Diancie, Hariyama, and Blastoise provide a backbone while still being able to apply a bit of pressure.
I have at this point given the team to 9 different people and am still using this because it's that consistent in what you want from it.
Most defining features include: U-turnSD decidueye, Faster Rhydon and U-turn Silvally-Steel. Thanks to U-turn on decidueye you can easily pivot around any Incineroar/Guzzlord/Drampa/Braviary and go into Rhydon or Passimian(not for braviary obviously) allowing any possible issue of its checks to be circumvented and possibly even get set up opportunity or continue on the momentum. Everything else on the team provides additional wincons with a regen mon, pursuit trapper to remove opposing ghost/psychic types, provide priority with Choice Band Ice Shard and lastly glue with silvally-steel. U-turn was picked on Silvally-Steel because pivoting to trap Xatu as well as not risk losing to Scarf or Offensive Braviary and lastly it also chipped damage vs Slowbro putting it more easily in range for literally anything else on my team.
Basic team that build around deci. Stellvally+vapo with rhydon as the defensive core. With comfey and deci to break. The EV's on deci allowed you yo live 1 Brave Bird from bat.
I wanted to try Defog Decidueye so I went with Grassium-Z special, similar to how Rotom-Mow worked. U-turn so you gain momentum on the inevitable Incin / Braviary switch. Went with Scarf Passimian next to keep the momentum going and getting a soft Incin check, which is why I have some HP investment, also to underspeed other Passimians. May even go with Adamant so you still underspeed Passimians and get more power. Offensive SR Diancie next because I'm in love with that set, checks Incin as well and hits hard from the get-go. Agility Roost Vika gives me a grass resist, hits pretty hard as well, more or less nulifies Scarf Passimian and usually cleans in the late game. Incin is my ice resist, another incin check and helps with the momentum. Last is Sash Jynx to still keep offensive pressure while preventing Slowbro / Vaporeon from spamming Scald. No psychic move because I like hitting Slowbros more.
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