Monotype Weavile Dark - Peaked #2 on ladder

Scarfire · Jan 5, 2021

I decided to return to monotype this week to see the state of the metagame and just get a look of what's changed and what's good now. After looking through the types I decided I wanted to try out Dark for my climb, and this here is what I came up with.

Proof of peak:

Screen Shot 2021-01-05 at 3.53.11 PM.png

Lets get right to the first member shall we;

Red Queen (Weavile) (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Triple Axel
- Ice Shard
- Knock Off
- Low Kick

After taking a look at commonly spammed types on ladder, I noticed there was a solid amount of dragon, flying, ground and grass amongst them, so I decided to put Weavile on this team as a good way to threaten those types. It outspeeds almost all of Ground save for Excadrill who I have other counterplay for on the team later, and even scarfers like Lando-T, or things like SD Scale Shot Chomp are easily shut down thanks to Ice Shard. Pokemon like sub nidoking dont get much leverage either. Vs Grass it is a matter of forcing damage on Ferrothorn, and then Weavile can Axel down the rest of the team with relative ease (Will provide replays for that). Flying is a bit harder since things like scarf Galar Zapdos and Celesteela can be annoying for weavile, but the rest of the team has ways to patch those holes. Low Kick is just there to get easy damage on steels.

Blue Rose (Hydreigon) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower

This one is more a matter of showing rather than telling, which you will be able to in replays provided at the bottom. With enough damage on Fini, Hydreigon can destroy water, it has an easy time abusing steel and can do further damage to flying, grass, and ground, securing those matchups as guaranteed wins alongside Weavile. Subbing and nasty plotting on pokemon like Toxapex, Gastrodon, Aegislash, Ferrothorn, Heatran, and Mantine is very easy to abuse all these types. Not great in every matchup, but phenomenal in a few.

Exceed (Tyranitar) @ Chople Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Def / 196 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Thunder Wave
- Fire Blast

A basic spdef ttar. I opt'd for chople because I was facing a lot of scarf galar-zapdos flying and fighting teams on my way up. This set lives scarf terrak close combat from full and twaves it, same deal in the gzap-flying matchup. Vs most other types he's there to soft absorb moon blasts from stuff like Fini/Whimsicott/Alola-Ninetales and just firing off status, fire blasts, edges, or just setting rocks. Sand also helps chip certain mons into range for our scarf Zarude or ice shard Weavile.

Overture (Urshifu) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Unseen Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Wicked Blow
- Close Combat
- Sucker Punch
- Poison Jab

Another breaker that goes hand in hand with Weavile. Urshifu, simply put, is outstanding. Its never useless in any matchup, and always has pressure to put up. Its stabs are near unresisted, banded jab decimates fairies, and sucker punch is a handy tool to pick off threatening mons like Alolan Raichu and Regieleki. Basically every type is free Wicked Blow spam honestly, its just a good mon to lead with and do heavy damage as soon as you can, so Weavile and Hydreigon can finish off most types afterwards.

Calibur (Zarude) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Power Whip
- Darkest Lariat
- Close Combat
- U-turn

While banded sucker punch and ice shard is some heavy damage for speed control, you can never go wrong with a scarfer to clean up. This guy will be your main way to kill lots of relevant fairy threats, like Lele, Fini, and Koko. It also helps a lot in general with the 2 Urshifu's as they can really go ham on mono dark. Uturn Pivoting and amazing Grass Dark Fighting coverage is really nice on a pokemon with a speed tier as solid as Zarudes. It can also survive a lot more hits than you might think, so dont be scared to play aggressive w/it.

Gerbera (Mandibuzz) (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Foul Play
- Roost
- Defog
- Brave Bird

Much need physdef wall and defogger. I tried a bunch of variants; uturn, toxic, taunt etc, but in the end Brave Bird is the one I needed. Too many pokemon try to take advantage of it, like bulk up Urshifu's, Buzzwole/heracross on bug, and even random Conkeldurr fightings caused some problems on my way up. Brave Bird really made life SO much easier, and I highly recommend you dont switch this back to u-turn or something. It makes so many unnecessarily tough situations so much more manageable. You just need to figure out how to play more aggressively since you no longer have the slow pivot.

Threatlist:

:Tapu Koko:

These three require a lot of effort and outplaying to kill. Saving Hydrei to kill Eleki after tanking a hit and then using the 2 priority mons to damage Koko and Zera into Zarude Power Whip range is the usual method I take.

:Bewear:

These two can be scary if you play Hydrei and Urshifu wrong lol, but they are mostly on meme normal.

:Cloyster:

Behind veil if this thing gets a smash off its basically GG. Ninetales itself is also really tough.

:Tapu Fini:

CM Drain Kiss is really hard to beat, as you can imagine.

A lot of games I didnt save, I'll update these as I continue to try and climb.

Importable:
https://pokepast.es/c5ef4bafc19c0e8a

SpookyZ · Jan 6, 2021

first omg big fan but you lose to mono fighting

StegosarausRex · Jan 6, 2021

Fairy kingdom attacks and wins

Lol half the images don't even load on my screen don't know about yall

Scarfire · Jan 7, 2021

StegosarausRex said:
Fairy kingdom attacks and wins

Lol half the images don't even load on my screen don't know about yall

Yeah its been doing that, they were working fine at first, ill try to fix them in the morning i suppose

Shirkan1499 · Jul 11, 2021

Ah, old good times xd

Nevermind, your team is really good and I´ll give it a try. However, "it´s a shame" that urshifu is banned. What mon would you recommend instead of that beast?

Scarfire · Jul 11, 2021

Shirkan1499 said:
Ah, old good times xd

Nevermind, your team is really good and I´ll give it a try. However, "it´s a shame" that urshifu is banned. What mon would you recommend instead of that beast?

Idk I dont play this tier anymore. Check out metagame discussion/VR/sample teams pages, might give u an idea of what dark uses now. Or just stalk MPL replays.

sawamura · Aug 3, 2021

Gratz wp

Monotype Weavile Dark - Peaked #2 on ladder

Scarfire

SpookyZ

StegosarausRex

Scarfire

Shirkan1499

Scarfire

sawamura

Banned deucer.