SV OU Zamazenta Balance

[StarryNight2255]

https://pokepast.es/897a061a90a1d457

This is a standard zamazenta balance team based around chipping down the opponent and taking easy KOs for zamazenta to clean in the endgame. With this team I managed to get to the upper 1500s but noticed I started hitting a plateau.

The first pokemon I picked is

Great Tusk @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Headlong Rush
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Spinner
- Stealth Rock

It's a standard offensive utility set with rocks and rapid spin. I chose rocky helmet specifically to punish alomomola and landorus pivoting freely and guarantee a kill against sash sweepers such as ceruledge. I rarely use tera on tusk but ghost allows me to preserve rocks against opposing spinners.

The second pokemon I picked is

Zamazenta @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Dauntless Shield
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Heavy Slam

It's also a standard offensive set however I chose boots over ironpress to avoid setup and deal immediate damage. I chose heavy slam over ice fang to better deal with opposing fairies. Tera dark strengthens my matchup into opposing bulky ghost types such as gholdengho and pecharunt and allows me to 1v1 psychic types such as deoxys-speed and glowking.

My third pokemon is

Zapdos @ Choice Specs
Ability: Static
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Heat Wave
- Hurricane
- Thunderbolt

I chose a 4 attacks specs zapdos for wallbreaking and pivoting. Zapdos specifically allows me to get paras against pivots or rapid spins and provides a strong ground immunity. Heat wave with tera fire is a guaranteed ohko on defensive gholdengo sets.

My fourth pokemon is

Gholdengo @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Make It Rain
- Trick
- Nasty Plot

I chose scarf to help with speed control and and tera steel to obliterate mons with make it rain. Trick and nasty plot allows me to set up freely on kingambit as well as functioning as a slower and stronger wallbreaker in the late game.

My fifth pokemon is

Alomomola @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 8 HP / 248 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Body Slam
- Mirror Coat
- Flip Turn
- Liquidation

With the bulky nature of my team I chose an assault vest set to better handle special attackers with body slam to fish for paras and mirror coat to frequently ohko or weaken opposing special attackers my team doesn't want to take repeatedly such as specs kyurem's freeze dry. I chose tera fairy as a standard defensive typing to assist with matchups and pivot on dragons such as dragapult.

My final slot is between

and

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Taunt
- Will o Wisp

Heatran assists with the stall matchup and works much more offensively than slowking allowing me to get consistent chip. Will o Wisp helps me cripple physical attackers setting up zamazenta for the end game. Tera grass is chosen to resist ground types.

Slowking-Galar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Future Sight
- Sludge Bomb
- Chilly Reception
- Flamethrower

Glowking works as a pivot and anti-weather mon as well as a future sight support to pick up KOs. It notably is good into special or mixed iron valiant threatening kos with sludge bomb; however, it frequently feels too passive although in many games I noticed it clutching in zamazenta-less endgames.

 

[OatIsHere]

Team seems quite solid, did quite decently & I went with the galarian slowking instead of heatran to form a double regenerator core & provide as a nice toxic spike absorber and a good check to fairy types & kyurem. There were some issues that I have noticed with your team though:
- Your team has no ghost resist, your AV alomomola is not the best at handling special ghost types like gholdengo & dragapult given your mixed defense ev spread & even worse against physical ghosts like ceruledge. This obviously makes your MU against them really hard.
- Your team has no priority, this makes revenge killing way harder as sweepers that can tera and outspeed your fast pokemon like zama & scarf ghold can be super difficult
- Your team has no knock off user which is needed for practically every team for the item removal to disrupt bulky teams. This will make breaking through defensive teams a lot harder as you cannot remove HDB & future sight + zamazenta might not be enough for some teams
- I had issues with ground types such as great tusk on occasion as well as some physical threats that could overwhelm great-tusk & zamazenta. Not the biggest issue but it is quite difficult on occasion

For my first change I would simpily run :gholdengo: -> :kingambit:
:sv/kingambit:
Kingambit @ Leftovers
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Kowtow Cleave
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

- This just solves a lot of your issues, with giving you a ghost resist, giving you some really strong priority, giving you a strong sweeper & win con late game. I like tera fire for the wisp immunity since you have no wisp absorber due to me not deciding to run heatran.

The next change is a bit of an unusual one but it has worked out quite nicely for me when testing its replacing :zapdos: -> :tornadus-therian:

:sv/tornadus-therian:
Tornadus-Therian (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Bleakwind Storm
- Heat Wave

- This is an unorthadox set but I found it to be really solid, this is a really solid knocker able to pressure absorbers like gliscor, corviknight & clefable so you can knock the important targets like ting-lu & garganacl. Gives you a solid fast pivot and a generally fast pokemon also. I went with tera flying for the extra damage for bleakwind however a defensive tera like steel or water is by no means not solid as well.

Set Changes:
:zamazenta: - Just made this guy tera fire, gives you a wisp immunity as well as a fairy/fire resistance which is helpful. I found tera dark to not be very impressive when using but if you have differing opinions then by no means don't change it
:slowking-galar: - I went with a physically defensive slowking with flamethrower -> psychic noise. Phys def glowking gives you a really solid check to pokemon like physically attacking grass types & ground types like great tusk that you can deal massive damage to with psychic nosie as you always live a headlong rush. This also gives you a solid answer to garganacl which was also a nuisance.
:alomomola: I replaced liquidation -> scald. Realistically there is no possibility of you clicking liquidation as if you want to hit a pokemon with a water move you always want to pivot out and gain momentum with flip turn. Scald allows you to pressure physical pokemon with the possibility of a scald burn & also rack up passive damage overtime against bulky pokemon as well.

https://pokepast.es/e4b68c119dcc0ebd
you can try this out (or don't that works too) these changes & if you find smth difficult then bring it up.

 

[StarryNight2255]

Team seems quite solid, did quite decently & I went with the galarian slowking instead of heatran to form a double regenerator core & provide as a nice toxic spike absorber and a good check to fairy types & kyurem. There were some issues that I have noticed with your team though:
- Your team has no ghost resist, your AV alomomola is not the best at handling special ghost types like gholdengo & dragapult given your mixed defense ev spread & even worse against physical ghosts like ceruledge. This obviously makes your MU against them really hard.
- Your team has no priority, this makes revenge killing way harder as sweepers that can tera and outspeed your fast pokemon like zama & scarf ghold can be super difficult
- Your team has no knock off user which is needed for practically every team for the item removal to disrupt bulky teams. This will make breaking through defensive teams a lot harder as you cannot remove HDB & future sight + zamazenta might not be enough for some teams
- I had issues with ground types such as great tusk on occasion as well as some physical threats that could overwhelm great-tusk & zamazenta. Not the biggest issue but it is quite difficult on occasion

For my first change I would simpily run :gholdengo: -> :kingambit:
:sv/kingambit:
Kingambit @ Leftovers
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Kowtow Cleave
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

- This just solves a lot of your issues, with giving you a ghost resist, giving you some really strong priority, giving you a strong sweeper & win con late game. I like tera fire for the wisp immunity since you have no wisp absorber due to me not deciding to run heatran.

The next change is a bit of an unusual one but it has worked out quite nicely for me when testing its replacing :zapdos: -> :tornadus-therian:

:sv/tornadus-therian:
Tornadus-Therian (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Bleakwind Storm
- Heat Wave

- This is an unorthadox set but I found it to be really solid, this is a really solid knocker able to pressure absorbers like gliscor, corviknight & clefable so you can knock the important targets like ting-lu & garganacl. Gives you a solid fast pivot and a generally fast pokemon also. I went with tera flying for the extra damage for bleakwind however a defensive tera like steel or water is by no means not solid as well.

Set Changes:
:zamazenta: - Just made this guy tera fire, gives you a wisp immunity as well as a fairy/fire resistance which is helpful. I found tera dark to not be very impressive when using but if you have differing opinions then by no means don't change it
:slowking-galar: - I went with a physically defensive slowking with flamethrower -> psychic noise. Phys def glowking gives you a really solid check to pokemon like physically attacking grass types & ground types like great tusk that you can deal massive damage to with psychic nosie as you always live a headlong rush. This also gives you a solid answer to garganacl which was also a nuisance.
:alomomola: I replaced liquidation -> scald. Realistically there is no possibility of you clicking liquidation as if you want to hit a pokemon with a water move you always want to pivot out and gain momentum with flip turn. Scald allows you to pressure physical pokemon with the possibility of a scald burn & also rack up passive damage overtime against bulky pokemon as well.

https://pokepast.es/e4b68c119dcc0ebd
you can try this out (or don't that works too) these changes & if you find smth difficult then bring it up.

Click to collapse...

I tried this team out and it worked extremely well but I was wondering what your thoughts are on keeping zapdos and gholdengo and maybe swapping out alomomola for a ttar or ogerpon for stronger knock offs? If that seems feasible running an iron-press set on zamazenta also seems extremely strong to me.

 

[OatIsHere]

I tried this team out and it worked extremely well but I was wondering what your thoughts are on keeping zapdos and gholdengo and maybe swapping out alomomola for a ttar or ogerpon for stronger knock offs? If that seems feasible running an iron-press set on zamazenta also seems extremely strong to me.

Click to collapse...

could be decent but ttar's gholdengo weakness + making your team no longer have a water resist is quite troubling. Running a tealpon or waterpon instead would give you strong knocks & a good water resist but this won't give you any semblence of a ghost resist that Av alo had. Additionally both don't have priority to revenge kill