Unofficial Metagames Volc and Friends: A 1v1 Team

[superstrike66]

Volc & Friends

Click Sprites for Pokepast​

Volcanion is one of my favorite pokemon. However, I have never really built a team around it, much less a 1v1 team. Since I normally use the same 4 mons, as most of the 1v1 community knows, I decided to spice things up and use Volc on a team.

Teambuilding Process

The star of the show. Good stats, a situational but useful ability, and a fantastic STAB combo make for a pretty good mon. I chose to run Grass-Z Solar beam, since with its Water and Fire attacks, Volcanion has near perfect coverage. More importantly, Bloom Doom hits Water types like Gayrados and Mega SLowbro that could take its STABs and coverage moves. However, Volc finds itself walled by most dragons, electrics and stall mons.

Haxorus is the second member of the team, and IMO, the most underrated pokemon in 1v1. I added Hax on this team, as it pairs nicely with Volc, KOing most dragons, electrics, and faster mons that would normally beat Volc, like Lopuny. Additionally, Hax appreciates Volc's ability to beat Mega Bro and Gyrados.

The last mon I put on the team is Tapu Fini. Fini's main job on this team is to break sleep and stall, which the other 2 struggle with. While it may seem redundant to have 2 waters on this team, I feel that Fini with it's Tapuinium set is the best and most consistent stalbreaker in 1v1.

The Team

Volcanion

Volcanion @ Grassium Z
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Solar Beam
- Steam Eruption
- Overheat
- Substitute​

The most unique set of the team. Max SPA plus a Modest nature gives Volc as much firepower (or would that be waterpower?) as possible, allowing it to KO bulkier threats like Mega Slowbro. 248 HP EVs allow for 4 substitutes to be created, as well as improving Volc's overall bulk. 8 Speed EVs are used to outspeed base 70s without any speed investment. Steam Eruption and Overheat are Volc's most powerful STAB moves, hitting most of the metagame for at least neutral damage. Solar Beam and Grassium-Z evaporates the many Water types in the tier, which would otherwise wall this set. Finally, Sub is used to block status moves and eat Mirror Coat/ Metal Burst from mons like Aggron and Saybleye. You guys are probably burned out from me talking about Volc, so let's move on to the next mon on the team.

Haxorus

Haxorus @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Mold Breaker
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Superpower
- Iron Tail​

Haxorus has a standard scarf set, with Max attack and speed to be as fast and hit as hard as possible. Hax has an Adamant nature, since the boost in power allows it to pick up some KOs that it wouldn't if it was jolly. Even without a Jolly nature, Hax is able to outspeed most of the non-boosted metagame thanks to scarf. Outrage is its most powerful STAB attack, and hits many threats that don't resist it for massive damage. Earthquake and Superpower are coverage, hitting Steels, and in the case of superpower, Normal and Dark Types like Lopuny and Greninja. Iron Tail is for Fairy types, scoring crucial KOs against mons like Lele and Gardevoir that the more accurate Poison Jab would fail to beat. Because of this, Hax can make a decent lure against the aforementioned Fairies.

Tapu Fini

Tapu Fini @ Tapunium Z
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 124 HP / 64 Def / 196 SpA / 124 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nature's Madness
- Taunt
- Moonblast
- Brine​

My own take on the classic Tapuinium stallbreaker set. 124 HP, 64 Def, and 124 SpD Evs allow Fini to live a Play Rough from Mawile and T-bolt/ Fleur Cannon from Magearna have a less than 50% chance to 2HKO. the 196 EVs in SPA doesn't hit anything in particular, but it boosts Fini's meager SpA, Paticuraily useful verses mons that it would like to use Brine against, like Heatran. Speaking of Brine, it may seem like a bad move with only 65 BP, but it pairs nicely with Nature's Madness/ Gaurdian of Alola as it doubles in power if the opponent is under half health. Guardian of Alola/ Nature's madness and Taunt are used to break Stall, with Taunt preventing stall mons from boosting their stats or healing themselves, and Nature's madness/ GoA is used to heavily chip a mon, so that Fini's regular attacks can finish off the opponent. Finally, Moonblast is Fini's most powerful Fairy STAB, which hits mons like Greninja and Dragon types for massive damage.

Threatlist​

: I Have no answer for either type of Mew. Either it blows my team back with genesis supernova, or it stalls out my team with its kew set. My only chance of beating this thing is to Crit Outrage with Haxorus

: Unlike Mew, I only have trouble with bulky Lele, since they can live any hit that I throw at it, and blow my team back with Shattered Psyche or Moonblast. Non-bulky variants are not a problem, since they drop to Hax's Iron Tail

: Like Mew, I have no way to beat Venu. It tanks every hit I throw at it, and stalls me out with Leech Seed, Protect, and/or Synthesis.

Replays

VS

VS

VS

VS


Conclusion
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Overall, I'm satisfied with the performance of this team. For a gimmicky set, Bloom Doom Volc was able to put in a ton of work, and its teammates also help support its weaknesses to Dragon types and Stall mons.

Thanks for reading!​

 

[Chickenpie2]

hey superstrike! super nice team you got there, I really like the volcanion ;) underrated mon for sure. i have just some suggestions for you, to better deal with some of the threats you mentioned.
- change Tapu Fini to Incineroar.
The reason for this is that Tapu Fini doesn't really add much to the team. You said that it beats Mega Mawile and Magearna, but these are already dealt with by Volcanion. Additionally, your team is weak to Pokemon like Mew, Choice Specs Genesect, and Deoxys-S. Incineroar is a great check to these Pokemon, and its also a good stallbreaker with Darkest Lariat ignoring opposing stat changes.

example set

suplex (Incineroar) @ Incinium Z
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 148 Atk / 8 Def / 104 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Darkest Lariat
- Taunt
- Bulk Up

i just realised this leaves you quite weak to Mega Gyarados, so the following should ease that matchup as well.
- change up the Volcanion set.
One viable option is to run Will-O-Wisp over Substitute, which can greatly enhance your chances of beating Sturdy Pokemon like Donphan and Aron. While Steam Eruption has a good chance to burn, Will-O-Wisp almost guarantees it, which lets you live a hit and then blow them up the next turn. Meanwhile, you don't really need Substitute for Sableye because Incineroar deals with that, and Will-O-Wisp helps with the Aggron matchup. Also you'd want to run enough speed so that you can burn them before they let off an Attack, so the new set would be something like this:

example set

Volcanion @ Grassium Z
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 80 HP / 252 SpA / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Solar Beam
- Steam Eruption
- Overheat
- Will-O-Wisp

unfortunately this still leaves you quite weak to Crustle, but Tapu Fini is not a 100% answer either. You can still fish for Steam Eruption burns though ;)

 

[edudittA]

Hi! It' so good to see a 1v1 team up for an RMT, and I will try my best to make it better. Firstly, it's a great team, and with slight modifications here and there, I can see it go very far. Before I start, I would like to prefix it by saying that I will be using August 1760 usage stats to judge what threats your team is weak to. See, I am new to RMTing, so I'll just jump straight into it:

Weakness that I can spot

Threatlist

Zeraora
Mega Slowbro
Mew
Meloetta
Genesect
Deoxys-Speed

Based off of this, I would suggest switching Grassium Z Volcanion to Swords Dance Incineroar. This improves your Tapu Lele matchup, while also bettering your Whimsicott matchup. Why I say that it betters your Tapu Lele matchup is that it helps in covering for the Z-Reflect with Swords Dance.

Incineroar

Incineroar @ Incinium Z
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 8 Atk / 56 SpD / 192 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Swords Dance
- Darkest Lariat
- Flare Blitz

This might not be your usual Incineroar, but I included Taunt to help your Mega Venusaur matchup. I removed Fake Out, since you already beat Dragonite, Magnezone, and other things Fake Out was initially supposed to help out against. I made it such that it has about 75% chance of offensively beating the most commonly used Magearna set, and about 18.75% chance of losing after Flare Blitz recoil, which was the best optimisation I could come up with. Grassium Z Volcanion does help with Primarina and Mega Swampert, which loses to Tapu Fini, and Tapu Fini which I will address at a later point in this post. Also, Incineroar also beats Mega Slowbro which was the reason you chose to use Grassium Z Volcanion.

Also, I saw Tapu Fini having some problems with EVs, so I decided to help it myself.

Updated EVs

Tapu Fini @ Tapunium Z
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 192 Def / 8 SpD / 56 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nature's Madness
- Taunt
- Moonblast
- Brine

Outspeeds max Speed Donphan and tanks most Tapu Fini hits.

<-- Click on the sprites anywhere to get pokepaste link of updated team



Have fun laddering!